Winning Legend Thur – Being a Drax Report

It’s a rare thing for me to win a game let alone ALL the games in a night. Some people may claim a mistake in the rules but we all played by it and haters have got to hate 🙂 But I digress

First up was

Sultan

I swapped, well let’s be honest I pawned off a game of mine (silk road) for this and letter of Marque. Never trust a gamer. Doubly so if you think you’re getting two for one. Sultan is a simple bidding game where you attempt to score points for bidding with a limited set of ‘coins’ for various valued gems. get sets of them and they become worth more. it’s a plain and simple filler game. it’s quick and if you can be bothered card counting you have an advantage. BORING. it may never see the table again. oh If I’m swapping it to you, it’s a GREAT game, well worth swapping something for 🙂

http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/31612/sultan

Next up was

Lords of Waterdeep.

http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/110327/lords-of-waterdeep

Lords of Waterdeep is a VERY good game. Having played it a half dozen times I’m eager to play it again. For some reason the gods (one of the one that probably likes me) gave me good luck in this one and I was able to sneak ahead and stay there pretty much to the end. Usually I lose this game so I think I took the group by surprise by sneaking ahead and they probably thought it was a fluke. it wasn’t 🙂

Great game, I’ve spoken about it a before

https://mrtimewalk.wordpress.com/2013/04/26/bcon-lite-thur/

Get this game it’s a winner.

Finally we decided to have a crack at

http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/25554/notre-dame

I had read the rules carefully for this so we had no idea how to play it and having handed the rules over to Drax and put on more coffee we shakily made our way into the game. Notre Dame is a worker placement game in the classic euro sense. You attempt to gain as much influence as possible (score) through a variety of methods. Placing workers in your boroughs and hiring professionals to assist you (sets of which change round by round). The big negative is rats (the plague) which you have to control before they overun and reduce your influence. It’s a lovely little game

Card Counting – YES

Worker Placement – YES

Rats – YES

All those who took part (and lost to me) were eager for more of the same (apart from the losing to me bit), never a bad sign

so I reckon next thur we’ll be visiting notre dame. Practically no quasimodo jokes were harmed in the playing of the game

Huzzah

Vic

July 5, 2013 0

Sudden Death Thur – Being a Drax Report

2-4 Players can often be just like the pirate code a Guideline rather than a rule. We proved that to be the case with Bloodbowl Team Manager – Sudden Death Last night.

But before that could happen we had to have a few warm ups whilst the players assembled

First up was ZOMBIE DICE with the expansion

http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgameexpansion/110279/zombie-dice-2-double-feature

I ordered this for my son who’s a fan of the game and it’s GREAT fun. adds a surprising amount to a simple game. The expansion itself is three dice

The Hunk – Features double shotguns and double brains

The Hottie – Runs away a lot but still packs a punch

Santa – Gifts for all the zombies in the audience

Each of these ‘characters’ can rescue each other should they be brained and the game becomes a little (not much) tactical. If you have the original, you need this expansion

I ordered it via Parcel Motel (more on that in another post) and it cost €6 including postage. So great value

Next up was….

Letter of Marque.

Since trading for this at the last Knavecon, I’ve wanted to like it. it’s got ships. so I should like it. After several games last night I DO like it. It’s a good little filler and after a few games we started to learn the subtleties of it. It’s simple it’s fun it’s a good filler. no more no less

ax2

NOW twas time for the meat in the sandwich.

Sudden Death.

I’ve been warming to Bloodbowl Team Manager and this expansion adds more of the same to it. That’s not a bad thing. There’s three new teams Vampires, Undead and Dark Elves. The first two were trotted out last night and both proved great fun.

Undead are all about regeneration (if you can roll the dice)

and Vampires are all about gaining blood points for attacks which increase they’re star power (no connection with super mario)

We played it six player, bypassing all safety protocols and it proved to be very nice indeed despite a longer game. We played three rather than four rounds and it rounded out the evening nicely (before more zombie dice)

The Expansion doesn’t add a whole lot of new rules, the rule book for it is a four pager.

It does add extra match ups, extra events and a few more powers for the existing races.

I would have liked to have seen more but it’s a fine expansion and there were no complaints from the group. The game is straining for a few more expansions and I can’t see Fantasy Flight leaving us too long before there’s another.

All in all a good fun game as good as the original.

Evening rounded out with some more zombie dice and the threat of Tichu but we were all a bit sensible and left it with dice

More of that next Thur

Thanks for those who prebooked for Knavecon

Huzzah!

Vic

June 28, 2013 0

a bit of THIS thur night – Being a Drax Report

Have I read the rules? Of COURSE I’ve read the rules. I don’t REMEMBER any of the rules but I’ve read them. a common enough theme for a gaming night. I was shocked at how much I forgot about Bloodbowl Team Manager, but help was on hand

It was summer, we had a smallish group and young Borys had brought Augustus

http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/137297/augustus

“It’s up for a speil award”

“it’s a bit like bingo”

“how long does it take?”

“30 mins”

“bang it out so”

Augustus plays a bit like Stone Age if you can remember that. Each person gets a set of three which have a number of icons on them. One person draws random icons cards from the bag and everyone tries to match them up. If they fill their card they shout out “AVA CEASER!” and collect a reward either in score or extra ability or a bit of feck up your neighbours plans. Now this is the way it’s supposed to work however the group being the mature people they are couldn’t help but shout out BINGO! when they completed a card or “BINGO MAXIMUS!”. Once you complete a card you get another one from a communal picking track in the centre and you rinse and repeat. First one to seven stops the game and you count up your score. There’s shades of Stone Age, little bit of Settlers and it’s grand and dandy. There’s a little bit more choice wise to increase your score and decisions to be made. NOT a huge amount of cock blockery which is a pity. I’m not a fan of solitaire type games.

Not a fantastic game, not a bad game. A very good kids game I reckon. I’d play it again definitely but I wouldn’t rush out to buy it. We couldn’t see it winning awards but what do we know

Next up was…

http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/90137/blood-bowl-team-manager-the-card-game

Blood bowl Team Manager. Now I must admit I didn’t remember a whole lot of rules for this game. I THOUGHT it would come back to me but it didn’t so I punched the game and JUST as we were assembling the dials fortune shined on us. A passing gamer and his son who knew the game inside and out from many rainy days play dropped by to say hi and coached us in this nice little game.

Bloodbowl Team Manager is a clever little game in the style of Iliad. You have a limited amount of player cards and you try and score as highly as possible in a match to carry off the prize. It’s a funny one insofar as it’s difficult to explain but once you’ve played a game it sinks in and you can play away without issue after that.

We’re BIG fans of Bloodbowl (we’ve a new big league of the computer version just kicking off) and this captures the spirit of the game nicely without becoming bogged down in the long game. It’s fairly short (If I can stop talking long enough to take my turn), it feels like bloodbowl, the production quality of the game is excellent and it’s very much a direct in your face game…… and for some reason I still can’t warm fully to it. I don’t know what it is but I should love this game and yet it falls short for some reason. Not sure why. I think it’s a blip I need to play it more and I’ll tell you what, I REALLY want to get my hands on the expansion.

I recommend this game. It’s pretty cheap for a boardgame, it’s got quite a bit of variety and it’s clever. nicely different to other games. I have a hankering to play it again so I reckon we’ll be seeing a lot more of this and the expansion soon

More of this sort of thing

Huzzah!

Vic

June 21, 2013 2

a bit of THIS thur night

Have been thinking about a second tag line for Knavecon and I kinda like “Meet as strangers, leave as enemies” but I digress

It’s thur night so it’s gaming and thanks to a very nice fathers days present of Bloodbowl Team Manager we may well have ‘a bit a that’ tonight.

http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/90137/blood-bowl-team-manager-the-card-game

Now I must admit that I owned a copy of this before but due to my voracious game swapping addiction it got swapped out for something else (possibly some magic beans) and never got past a game or two. I was nonplussed about it which was a pity because I LOVE Bloodbowl proper (waits for comment about how I should learn to play it properly so) and it’s Fantasy Flight.

I really don’t think I gave this game a proper chance and coupled with the fact that there’s an expansion out now I think it would be churlish of me not to welcome it back into my heart.

So lets gird our loins and Play Ball !

Vic

June 20, 2013 5

“It’s more than a game. It’s an institution.” – Thomas Hughes

June 19, 2013 0

Skull & Roses – Live at Conclave

http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/92415/skull-roses

Go get a stack of beermats… got them? OK now split them into sets of four and put an X on every fourth one. Well done, you now own a copy of Skull and roses, possibly the easiest game on earth to play (this side of Knifey spooney) but no less good for that.

Skull and roses is the essence of poker.. with beermats. It’s a bluffing game and it never fails to entertain, usually with boisterous shouts. Conclave was no different. so when we got a game running a small crowd started to gather to shout encouragement and laugh at those who lost a round.

I love Skull and Roses and I love introducing people to it. People pick it up after a round or two, it’s quick, it portable.

Each round you place down (secretly) either a skull or a rose (in your case a beermat with an X or not) and you then bid for how many roses you can turn over (starting with your own) without encountering a skull. encounter a skull in your turning and you lose the round and a card. rinse and repeat until someone has completed they’re bid (challenge) twice or everyone but you has lost their cards

Clean and Simple and a great filler especially with a good sized group.

Huzzah!

Vic

June 17, 2013 0

Conclave

I was very kindly invited to demo some boardgames at Conclave and promote Knavecon in September thanks to Gary of the Gathering in Limerick.

Conclave is the Gatherings annual games convention and it features a fine selection of gaming systems (Warhammer, Battletech, dreadball and a variety of other tabletop games). I hadn’t been in a few years and I have to say the con has gone from strength to strength. there were well over 200 attendees and a fine selection of support from game shops and companies. Conclave has grown year on year and is now very well respected as one of the best games cons in the country. The choice of Thomand Park as the venue was inspired

I got to meet, game and chat with a fine selection of gamers. A big shout out to those who dropped by to say hello and join me a few games. Skull and Roses was a huge hit 🙂

June 16, 2013 1

Conclave Eve Thur – Being a Drax Report

Had a small group on Thur so we played those games you never get a chance to play normally. In this case we got to play

QUARRIORS!

http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/91536/quarriors

For some reason ‘got to catch them all’ keeps coming to my head when I see the adverts for this game but it couldn’t be further from the reality. Quarriors is a fair bit like Dominion with Dice

Possibly a bit unfair but there you go. I LIKE dice games. I like liar’s dice, I really like roll through the ages and I WANT to like Quarriors but it’s doing a damn fine job of evading my love. Granted we had too few to really give it a lash but it doesn’t seem to scale that well. I reckon it’s a full cast or no game.

Just like Dominion you start with two ‘hands’ of dice, this time in a bag, representing money. you draw six dice roll them and depending on what turns up you pay ‘qudditiy’ (gold) to power them or use your GOLD to buy creatures and enhancements. it then becomes a bit like Magic the Gathering where you attack your opponent and they defend possibly sacrificing their creatures.

Creatures surviving a round score glory (points) and the first to a set point target wins. it’s all harmless fun and the skill is in picking a winning strategy whilst defending against your opponent. NOW here’s the thing, I reckon we must be missing something because it’s all a bit weak. you build the biggest creatures you can afford and attack your enemy. Rinse and repeat. Fastest to get to the highest score wins. There was a distinct lack of strategy in this game so I’m going to hold off my opinion (It sucks) for now. As I said I like dice games (this one sucks) and want to like this so watch this space.

next up was ASCENDING EMPIRES

http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/37919/ascending-empires

Now THIS is more like it. I must admit I had no idea about it outside of the fact that it was a 4x game and it had spaceships in. As the saying goes, you had me at spaceships.

Ascending Empires is a very different game. You move around the map land troops, conquer planets, fight battles, carve out an empire. All standard stuff but movement of the ships is achieved by flicking your little round ships. If they collide with an enemy both ships die, if you outnumber your opponents ships within a certain range you destroy him.

Ships can be converted to troops to land on a planet, to build structures and to summon more troops. Structures can be used to score end game points or allow research of better stuff.

I LOVE this game. its simple, the flicking mechanic works perfectly. The board could be better. The joins between sections are a bit iffy in places and can affect your flick but it didn’t when we played it.

I’m going to bring this to Conclave (and possibly everywhere I go) and show it off. It’s a cracker and I’m surprised it didn’t make a bigger splash when it was released.

It’s no longer in print but there’s a few copies out there so you’ll get it secondhand easily enough.

So after Conclave tomorrow it’s back to thur and more Huzzahs

Huzzah!

Vic

June 14, 2013 0

Knavecon Facebook Page Launched

Thanks to Dave for the FANTASTIC art work for Knavecon. Starting to look good now. The Facebook Page is go!

https://www.facebook.com/knavecon

Knavecon Facebook Page Launched

June 13, 2013 0

Conclave 2013

I’ll be making an appearance at Conclave 2013 in Thomand Park this year (15th June). Looks like it’s going to be a good one. I’ll be there from 2pm onwards on Saturday running a number of board and card games. If anyone’s about give me a shout

Vic

June 10, 2013 0