Clock Forward Thur – Being a Drax Report

“Did you know I’ve lost weight since I started gaming with you guys”

I very much doubt that and how we’re all not washing ourselves with rags on the end of sticks is beyond me.

Two cakes AND donuts from Dungeons and Donuts which as you know are the best Donuts in Ireland. Yes they are.

Good start

Krystian from boardgamerguys was in Limerick this week so he swung by to join us for gaming. He brought along a few games for us to try. You might remember he and his wife were running the Dobble demos at Knavecon 3

First up was Fauna which I had heard of before but never tried. It had the essential trinity of ingredients

Polish
Kids game
Can be played by adults

Well in truth I’m not sure if it’s a Polish game as such but this version was in Polish and I’m sure kids would love it.

It’s a sort of Top Trumps/Trivial Pursuit map based game. Unusual I hear you say.

Players start with six betting cubes which they use throughout the game. A game last up to a certain score (in this case 80 with six player) and a number of rounds are played until someone crosses that finish line. In this case by Krystian, but we claim foul as the game was in Polish, Krystian is Polish and several other reasons I’m sure we can come up with.

Each round an animal is shown with it’s vital statistics hidden, say a White Rhino and players take it in turns to place betting cubes on

the map where they think the animal lives
The weight of the animal on a scale
The height/length of the animal on a scale
the length of it’s tail on a scale

Sounds like a kids game but it’s not bad at all. during a round you can bet on one of the four above or pass, once everyone is passed the actual details are revealed and scored accordingly. You get points for being bang on and half points for being close. If you get it bang on or close you get your betting cubes back for the next round otherwise you start the next round at a disadvantage.

It’s quite a tactical game with a lot of cock blockery, quite fast and a surprising amount of fun. There’s a great reply value as there are hundreds of double sided animal cards and we only went through a half dozen in our game.

I could see myself playing this again, possibly in polish.

Next up was a revisit to Infiltration with the correct set of rules for the alarms learned.

I like this game. The whole get in, steal as much as you can and get out makes for a great tense game. The game designers only missed two things in this game

We’re way too greedy to leave before we’ve filled our boots
We’re way to spiteful to allow another player win

NEAR the end and it was not that close, rather than let me win, one of the players decided he’s end the game for EVERYONE including himself so no-one won.

I have to applaud that sort of play

Another Polish game which I’ve quite forgotten the name of Forjaf or something like that. Again the magic trio ingredients we’re in place. I’m really liking the whole Polish vibe. They really know their games

This is a simple bluffing game with a clever swap feature. It’s sort of unusual as well as the idea is to knock one player out, that’s it, no winning for anyone, just one person losing. I like that too. As you know it’s not about the winning its’ about the others losing

We rounded off with a bit of Coup then time to talk rubbish, finish our coffees and go home

More of that soon and more of MrSaturday’s 40th

Huzzah!
Vic

April 4, 2014 0

MrSaturday Turns 40 – a Drax report in a number of parts

If you’re going to do a review on Twilight Struggle then you have to use a picture from Doctor Strangelove, it’s a rule. I checked.

A glorious weekend of gaming stretched out before us in a very nice location in Connemara, no 3G, no Laptops, just good buddies, a stack of food, (None of it good for you) and a horse load of games…..

MrSaturday successfully beat Jesus by 7 and we celebrated in true gaming style. I’m going to split this big event up into a few smaller snippets and look at the games I got to play.

First up was Twilight Struggle

Let’s cut to the chase, I want a copy of this, it’s awesome, there’s a good reason it’s number one on the boardgamegeek list of games, I have it set-up on VASSAL, anyone who wants a game let me know. So without any prejudice let’s begin

TS is a two player only game where players take on the roles or either America or the USSR and duke it out in the cold war from the late 40s to the fall of communism. The game is essentially map based where players use influence to turn countries around to their ideology. Each turn of which there are ten consists of drawing a set of eightish cards from a communal stack and picking one event to kick off that turn. The other player doing likewise. Then the rest of the cards are used either for their resource value or card event. All of the events are actual historical events, like the Berlin wall coming down, the bay of pigs and so on and all have effects on influence around the world or just screw with the other players plans.

The cards available to draw from get added to at certain turns along the way so middle era and late era card stacks get added as the game progresses. Resource are a number on the top let hand corner either Red (USSR), White (USA) or two colour (either) and these can be spent to up your influence levels in different countries, usually ones that border your other countries. Up your influence enough and you’ll be in charge of that country. Coup actions, realignment and just increasing influence will change both your influence and the influence of the enemy in a specific country so it’s a juggle to protect your interests and screw up the opponents with limited resources.

If you’re Russia as I was, you generally burn Red or Red and White resources but it’s possible to use White only resources belonging to the Americans but you also have to kick off the event which is in favour of the Americans as well. I found myself trying to pick the lesser of two evils several times when I wound up with a number of American cards.

As the game starts the only areas open for business are Europe and Asia but as the game progresses through the three eras, South America, Africa and The Middle East open up and cause more headaches. The game is very much a zero sum game with one score track that runs from +20 USSR to +20 USA. As you score which itself is an event card you play, you advance the track in either direction. Get to +20 for either and it’s game over. A few other late game events can cause the game to end as well. I found myself scratching my head (it may have been the company I was keeping) to figure the best way to manage things, do I dig my heels in in one place and give the opponent a free ride in another region? Go for this event and screw him up here but leave myself open to a coup?

While this goes on a few other slider mechanics are being affected, a big one being the conflict track. Not necessarily a bad thing as it scores you points if you’re ahead but it also ups the defcon level and it’s game over man if you reach the highest one. The space race is also another recipient of influence and getting ahead at this allows you to see what you’re opponent is going to do in advance. So all in all a plate juggling affair with limited resources.

I have to say I really liked it, it’s surprisingly fast for such an epic period. It says 3 hours on the box but I reckon we got through it quicker than that on our first game, but we did have an advisor whom unlike us knew the rules and had managed the world a few times. The game definitely needs a few play throughs so you understand what can happen. Even thought it’s pretty much the same thing each game, events can change or not happen and it should stay pretty fresh. The artwork, components and cards are of high quality and although it’s not a FF game it does have a great solid feel to it. It is a longish game but it’s well worth the investment in time. I found myself waking up the next day with the game going around my head and thinking about new angles I could have come at. All in all a cracker

More to come, what this space

Huzzah!

Vic

April 1, 2014 4

Omega Thur – Being a Drax Report

Omega Protocol is a futuristic version of Descent with some nice mechanics and big guns. What’s not to like?

Level 7 Omega Protocol to give it it’s full name is a fairly simple game that plays in a similar fashion to Heroquest/Space Crusade/Descent. You have an ‘overlord’ how controls the bad guys and a team of marines in a variety of flavours played by everyone else who must complete missions in a hostile environment full of clones and aliens. All pretty normal in a days gaming. What makes it a little different is as each marine takes an action they generate adrenaline points which at the end of the turn are handed over to the overlord to carry out their action. So the more you do in the marine turn, the more action points are available to the overlord to mess up your day.

The marines start with a number of different types available to them, soldier, recon, heavy weapons guy and so on. They also get to kit out their guys with a variety of equipment, weapons and armour before the mission starts. Then it’s off to zombie land and fighting their way to the objective which has thoughtfully been put in the furthest room by the overlord and in the case of this mission back again to a lift again conveniently at the other end of the map.

Movement, opening doors, interaction and shooting takes adrenaline points which are finite depending on whom you choose. The heavy weapons guy plods along armed to the teeth whilst the recon dude can run and jump like a happy elf. The overlord does their best to throw speedbumps in the shape of clones and aliens at the marines to slowdown and hopefully kill them along with some other unusual stuff like dropping a ceiling on them action points depending.

All in all it’s good fun, the adrenaline points handover is novel and we encountered a few room types we’d never seen before in this type of game (the noisy rave room was good). We of COURSE got a few rules wrong and it was a bit easier on the marines than it should have been. We also in tune with the group left one of our men behind who much to our surprise also survived. “No man left behind” is more of a Guideline than a code. We also threw in a few clichés like “Game over man” but since we had messed up the rules a little it was more of a stroll then a hard struggle.

Would I buy it? No. If I didn’t have descent I might but since I have I won’t. Just like Descent is a re imaging of Heroquest this is very much a re imaging of Space Crusade. The models are nice, not out of this world but nice. We didn’t get to see some of the nastier aliens but got a good ghost story about them. I’d definitely be on for playing it again. Shooting aliens is always fun, no-one lost an eye, then is was time for MrSaturday’s 40th

Huzzah!

Vic

March 31, 2014 0

Knavecon 3.5 ?

It’s my good buddy MrSaturday’s 40th at the weekend, so a bunch of us are celebrating in true Knavecon style with a weekend of gaming in a secret location somewhere near Loch Corrib. This grown up affair will feature, games, coffee and discussions on the next Knavecon…. nah I’m only kidding it’s an excuse to game, eat junk and get riotous…. this could be my last post 🙂

Dave was one of the oldhammer crew that ran the Fimir/Halfling game at Knavecon 3. If you saw it you couldn’t help but be blown away by his painting skill. If you haven’t checked out his blog then now’s a good time, I highly recommend it, he’s a funny dude and has a great turn of phrase.

http://mrsaturdaysmumblings.blogspot.ie/

Happy 40th Dude!

Huzzah!
Vic

March 26, 2014 1

Best coffee ever?

It’s quite possible I’ve discovered the best cup of coffee ever. Not the coffee but the brewing method. Taste test this thur!

March 25, 2014 0

Wet Thur – Being a Drax Report

“You’re over thinking it….”

Quote of the night last Thur.

I said it before and I’ll say it again, quite recently, a Study in Emerald is a great game…. A Study in Emerald is a great game.

But before all that there was a warm up…

“It’s a kids game and it’s Polish, but it can be played by adults…”

“Shut up and take my money already”

Kosmiczna Misja (Am I pronouncing that right?) is a kids game where you build bases on planets and score points for complete ones. It is deceptively simple, a child could play it (ho ho) and for €5 it’s a steal. Four of us sat down and played it so if we had only played one game we had gotten value for money for it already. We played three games. It’s SO simple. The game consists of 30+ tiles shuffled face down, with three drawn and visible at all times. Each tile consists of a quarter of a planet with varying amounts of half bases, full bases or aliens on them. When it’s your turn you roll a dice and depending on how many bases already built on your partially completed planet you draw a card and place it to hopefully complete and score a full 4 section planet. The aliens are there to add +1 to your dice roll and the half bases make it awkward to complete a planet as you have to have a matching other half base against it. That’s it.

All in all it’s like a cut down version of carrcasonne. It’s fast, it’s simple and there’s just the right amount of cock blockery to make it fun. This is a super kids game and a perfectly acceptable adults game. Since it’s so quick there’s a real go again vibe to it

We’re fortunate in our group insofar as we have a good* group of people who actively seek out new games and bring them along for the group to try and that not everyone likes the same type of game. Kosmiczna Misja is something we would never come across in the normal run of things and it would have been a pity to have missed out on such a simple game. If our Polish connect is back home anytime soon I’d say he’ll return with his bag stuffed with copies of this.

It was meat and potato times now with everyone suitably warmed up so we partook of the main course. Once again a Study in Emerald.

I’ve spoke about aSiE before, it’s a great concept based on a great story, developed by a great designer so it should be well… great. It is. This was played at Knavecon but it didn’t go down a storm, It takes a bit of getting into. There’s a number of elements in the game and we discovered a few more of on Thur as we played. The whole use of agents and some deeper and more devious strategies.

I really love this game, it’s got everything, it’s semi-map based, it’s got worker placement, it’s got card drafting, it’s got alliances, teams, double crossing, bluffing, a magnificent setting and superb re-playability. It’s like someone tried their best to get all that’s good in gaming and pack it into a game and what’s more they did it very well indeed. Nothing is superfluous, there are no simple routes to winning and it changes every time we play. A real desert island game.

When we played on Thur we realised a few things we hadn’t before. How to use agents properly, how to appear to be of one faction, how to steal victory. Having played it there was a real urge to play again but time prevented us. I wouldn’t be at all shocked if this appears next Thur and next weekend at a gaming buddies 40th

Get your hands on this game, you won’t be disappointed. oh yes, I actually won it as well so win win.

Huzzah!

Vic

March 24, 2014 0

Infiltration Thur – Being a Drax Report

I’ve never tried Marmite, I’ve no idea what it’s like, I’ve seen it, I imagine it’s a bit like Bovril. I do like Infiltration from Fantasy Flight, I’m sure there’s people that hate it, but that doesn’t matter, what’s important is we played it last Thur and it was bloody good, no if buts or maybes.

Infiltration (which is surprisingly cheap on amazon at the moment) is a non co-op game where operatives are trying to outdo each other by downloading as much as they can from a corporation they’ve broken into and get out of the building before the security mercs arrive.

Mercs is a great word, it makes everything way more cool. Too many romantic comedies could have been saved with the introduction of Mercs to the ‘story’.

Having carefully read the rules* we set to play and carefully interpreted the rules as best we could. NOW we only really got one thing wrong as tradition demands and that was the count down. It ran a little bit lower than twice as fast as it should BUT it still didn’t ruin the game. It just made it a bit shorter.

Each player starts with a hacker and four random pieces of gear at the entrance to the research facility. The facility itself is made up of a first and second floor, each of which consists of 8 face down room cards. The rooms contain traps in the form of NPCs, obstacles to overcome in the shape of Hi Tech Locks and lab workers and treasure as downloadable victory points and extra gear. The first person to reach a room gets the pick of the treasure but must also overcome whatever the room contains. The rooms each game are random so you’ll rarely face the same challenge twice.

Being a Fantasy Flight Game it’s a given at this stage that the quality is high, the artwork excellent and the whole thing reeks of quality.

I like the premise of the game, working against a clock is always a great mechanic and adds to the tension of the game, do I get out now and risk losing on points? or stay a little longer and risk losing everything when the mercs arrive? It’s also a fast game, the turn whips around pretty quick and whole thing rattles along at a nice pace.

The game is set in the Android universe, one of FFs IPs and it’s nice familiar setting. Android itself was a bit of a mixed bag. The Bladerunner esq setting was great but the game itself just never really worked and I did really want to like that game. I’m happy to report that infiltration works very well indeed and we nearly played it a second time straight away but restrained ourselves to play something else.

Next up was Colossal Arena which cost me a whole €5 at Knavecon and was worth some of that. Reiner Knizia is a great fella and all that but his games do tend to be a bit… well dry. CA is no exception. I understand it’s a rewrite of a horse racing game that’s been tacked onto a monster arena betting game… typical.

We dragged our way through it regretting not playing infiltration a second time. I’m not saying it’s a terrible game, I’m just not saying it’s a great game and with all the other good stuff available to us why waste time on this. I’m sure it will see the light of day again sometime but we’ll see. I’m hard pressed to think of a Reiner Knizia game I really like, this one didn’t change that. with that done it was time for a final chat and home, lucky in my case I didn’t have far to go!

More of that next thur

Huzzah!

Vic

March 17, 2014 2

One Year!

According to wordpress my blog has been running for one year now, YAH!

Should anyone be willing to pay me enough I will stop writing, until then, Huzzah!

Victor

March 13, 2014 1

The Thur after the Knavecon Before – Being a Drax Report

There was still a bit of a buzz from Knavecon 3 in the air as we sat down to game some more, like sharks that can’t stop swimming or they’ll DIE, we’re like gamers who can’t stop gaming our we’ll DIE probably of boredom. Once you’ve warmed you brain up with gaming it’s hard to step away from it. It’s like a mental workout you get addicted to without the sweat or foot rot. But I digress.

I’ve never understood Mexican Standoffs in movies, I get the idea fine, just the way they play out , two parties are aiming guns at each other and it’s gets all tense. Why doesn’t one person just pull the trigger before more people are added into the equation? It’s like an overlord gloating when they have the hero trapped, just kill him, be done with it. So with that in mind we sat down to play a game I’ve wanted to play for a while Ca$h and Gun$

Cash and Guns (because I refuse to keeping type $) is a simple push your luck and bluff game. It’s a bit like Letter of Marque but obviously better.

You start the game with a hand of 8 cards that consist of 2 bangs, 1 bang bang bang and 5 click cards. Each round Random money cards are drawn out to form the pot and players secretly pick one of their bullet cards from their hand and at an agreed 1,2,3 GO! all simultaneously point their gun at another player. The players now confronted get a chance to chicken out (taking a shame token for their trouble) and those left resolve their bang, bang bang bangs and clicks acquiring wounds if they’re unlucky. Those left unwounded share the pot. Rinse and repeat for 8 rounds and you’re done.

Click cards do nothing, they’re just there to bluff with, bang does a wound and bang bang bang cards do a wound but go off before regular bang cards and stop the regular bang cards from happening. Use them wisely. Three wounds and you’re out of the running. Most money at the end wins.

So it’s a bluffing game and it’s good fun. There’s a couple of advanced rules ALL of which should be added, particularly the hidden cop in the ranks which adds a werewolf type slant to this simple and fun filler game.

Now I didn’t Have a copy of the game and it’s impossible to get so it was carefully (not) crafted with playing cards, sticky labels and a selection of kids toys as guns. Didn’t ruin it but when it comes back in print I’ll definitely get a copy of it. It’s fun, it’s simple and nothing beats a stand off and having someone back down when all you had was a click in your gun

After Knavecon, we’d all loaded up on games from a variety of sources and decided to have a lash of something else short, POO!

Poo is a gentlemanly game of monkeys throwing their faeces at each other in the hope of being the least splattered. Nice. It reminds me of Lunch Money but a lot less sinister looking. You get a hand of cards and chuck attacks and counters at each other. It’s fine, it’s relatively fast and we’ll probably never play it again. We might I don’t know. It’s a silly game, but it’s meant to be obviously and it’s hardly diplomacy but it’s a filler and that’s fine.

The real meat of the night was Imperial 2030. This is still a cracker of a game. We must have played it a dozen times now but it’s still fresh and it’s still really satisfying.

Despite repeating the mantra of “you don’t own the country you just invest in it” people still thought they owned the country and well they lost.

EVERY time and I do mean every time we play this game we find a rule we’ve played incorrectly. EVERY time. This session was no exception. It’s funny how despite playing a game slightly off it’s still a great game. Maybe that’s the mark of a good game. Bit hard to test though.

This time around when we played the game had a lot more conflict going on. Countries rose and fell. Ones that were doing badly at the start under let’s be honest, poor management, shot ahead later on. Just like every time we play it the game ends abruptly, but not it has to be said in a bad way.

There was anger, there was tears, there was backstabbery but that’s only to be expected. At the end one of the players, not me, won, it was close, it was bloody close, I should have won it had another round gone on. But I didn’t and I have to live with losing the game, for the rest of my life. I don’t really want to talk about it, it’s only been days since it’s happened and the pain is close. we WILL play this game again and vengeance will be well, anyone’s, there’s no shortage of vengeances waiting for an airing at my table

Right then, get back to what you were doing, reading rules maybe

Huzzah!

Vic

March 12, 2014 0

So that was Knavecon 3 eh?

Knavecon 3 was a big success! If you didn’t make it to this one, you missed out! but don’t worry like we said before Knavecon is here to stay and there’s going to be one every six months. We’ll be announcing details for the next one soon enough.

The first official Knavecon had 20+ people, the next 50+ and we’re delighted to tell you that the last one had 100+ attendees! By my careful maths and graphing I believe Knavecon 4 will have no less than……… 2.4 million attendees.

It was a great day of gaming, myself and Dec despite a busy BUSY time got several games in and got to meet a host of new and cool people from around the country. The venue was good, the games were good, the people were out of this world but of course we’re going to do our best to improve it for the next one. I reckon another fifty Knavecons and we’ll have the formula just right 🙂

I left around 3am after doing a podcast with the lads from Wee Gamers but a dozen plus hardened gamers were still going strong after I left. I understand it finished around 4am. So that’s a solid 18 hours of gaming!

The Podcast is right here BTW. Some people reckon it’s like listening to Morgan Freeman and Clint Eastwood talking to Ian Paisley if all three of them we’re on helium and not doing this podcast.

There’s a raft of people to thank for the event,

The Traders as ever who hauled a lot of gear from far and near to the event. A special thanks must go to those who organised competitions and gave out prizes. The Wee gamers for their invaluable help. The OldHammer boys who going by the success of their first game are going to be regular crowd pullers. Those who lifted, carried, assisted, advised, supported and helped out in so many ways.

Most importantly our thanks to the attendees. Now this is something that blows me away. There were over one hundred attendees on the day, a lot of whom I’d never met before, all of whom I handed over games to and ALL of whom went out of their way to ensure they we’re returned in perfect condition. I didn’t lose a single game, counter, token or card on the day…. as far as I know.

From start to finish last Saturday all I heard was laughter (and some evil cackles), everyone I’m fairly sure had a good time, they took part in the spirit of the con and they got stuck in and revelled in what they enjoy. Better still players both old and new started proper gaming for the first time and we’re hooked.

I’ve chatted with the other organisers and we agreed, it was a lot of effort to create Knavecon but it’s what we love and for us it didn’t seem like work and it certainly wasn’t a chore

Knavecon 4 is coming, it’s going to be bigger, it’s going to be better and we want you there

Huzzah!

Victor