Tonight we plan to be playing Spartacus (not in person obviously)
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/128671/spartacus-a-game-of-blood-treachery
Boris has had a lash of this already to learn and rules and prelimary reports are “it’s good”
Thur Night Gaming – Being a Drax Report – Wounded Knee Special
It was a dark and stormy night and a few brave souls ventured out amid the flying debris to lock in battle. We started with a ‘quick’ game of Dominion while we waited for everyone to arrive but this quickly degenerated into a ‘long’ game of Dominion and onto (for me anyway) a ‘terrible’ game of dominion. I’ve since considered burning spy, thief and militia as the time sink cards they really are. Boris won it with Brian close behind and me nowhere to be seen
Next up with the real meat and potatoes. I’ve had a hankering to play CONAN the strategy boardgame for a long time
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/27848/age-of-conan-the-strategy-board-game
BY pure concidence the same bunch of players were assembled last night that attempted the game last time. Now, Conan is a complex game, once you get into the swing of it it’s fine but it’s standard Fantasy Flight, lots of tokens, lovely artwork and a solid game. I’d be lying to say interest was low after the last attempt but we set to and with the conan soundtrack in the background we all attempted to wear the jewelled crown of aquelonia upon a troubled brow. If you haven’t seen the game it’s a bit different, it’s a bit like warrior knights with a few twists. Conan features but he’s a force of nature that you nudge in a certain direction rather than directly control. As the game continued it become more and more competitive and as we got to the half way mark it was looking like everyone was onboard for the long haul and due to the complex rules it WAS a long enough haul.
I don’t recommend attempting this game without someone to guide you and looking up half a dozen tutorials on youtube. It’s a hard game to get to grips with. Even with a good lash of it last time we struggled with some parts of it using the age old technique of we’ll figure that bit out later.
All in all this is an excellent game. There’s a good bit to it and a lot of ways to win. I’m eager to have another lash of it having figured out all the rules. Once you get into the swing of it, it can tip along at a nice pace. Nice level of player interaction and back stabbery.
The proof of the pudding is in the eating and everyone stayed the course so we didn’t finish until 2am and the winner was a little in question, I reckon it was Borys, he reckonded it was me but no-one had a bad time…. Except maybe Brian On…..
There are three areas you can score points for Mastery of Treasure, Women and Monsters….
In the third age you can attempt to steal a march and end the game by getting Conan to your home kingdom and crowning him king of your realm. It’s risky enough. Basically you declare which area you claim mastery of and show your points tokens you’ve gained through the game, if you’re highest in that area you win. So effectively Brian invited Conan to his kingdom and claimed to have the highest rating in Women in the whole world. 12 in this case, way higher than Bory’s 3 and Brian F’s 2 but…. Not as high as absolutle Babes from Aquelonia whom I had tokens for to a total of 15….
Conan was displeased, he beheaded Brian, marched off and his kingdom failed. Not a happy bunny J
Great game, I recommend it, let’s play this again since we can now
More of that next Thursday
Huzzah!
THUR night – pope Fran special
So anyhow. It was looking like a small group but within a short while we had a solid five and talk turned to galaxy trucker which is due out on the iPad soon. Having both it and the big expansion we quickly decided to give the cardboard version a lash
It has been a long time since it saw light and it took a wee while to re familiarize myself and the group with the rules. I’d forgotten how funny they were. In short you need lots if everything and every component is important
Galaxy trucker is a game about frantically constructing a spaceship from a dwindling set of parts before the other guys do and having hammered it together after a fashion (and of course cursing yourself and others for not attaching some useful systems) piloting it into the unknown and hopefully arriving in one largish piece before the others do.
Some skills lend themselves to this game very well. Those in the architectural or kitchen design area have an unfair advantage. So too those with knowledge of electrical systems. In short not me.
It’s important to realize and I can’t stress this enough. PLAYING is the reward. All those who take part are the real winners and the score may say different we were all winners that night… Just some more than others
The game rattled on to a fine old hour with some stupendous losses of ships and some radical designs all held together with one or two lynchpins.
Great game. Great gaming and let’s forget about silly old scores. I think everyone will agree we all won that night
Huzzah!
Thur Night Gaming – A New Hope
Thur Night and it was time finally for an epic battle of X-wing
We got to play a big game of x-wing last night here’s the rundown
The Bad
Takes a bit of setup, partly we were learning the game and partly there’s a lot of pieces and of course we were playing a large game 175pts, so lots of models, add-ons etc. The game NEEDS a good storage system, if you look on boardgamegeek you’ll see a lot about storage solutions. End of the day it’s a fantasy flight game so if you like your tokens you won’t be disappointed. Also it’s quite easy to mix up pieces and cards if you’re sharing sets. Myself and Kieran’s sets are not so much married to each other as a bit engaged. Again I don’t see this as a big problem as chances are you’ll be using your own models in the future, or one set, as it was a bit battle and we wanted the maximum amount of models on the table it was quite the orgy of cards and tokens. The game was long. Again we we’re learning it and it was a big battle. Took a good 3.5 – 4hrs to finish but we DID finish it and it was excellent all the way through, especially towards the end
The Good
It’s a great little game. It’s snappy, there’s a nice bit of strategy to it, guesswork, luck, planning, all that sort of good stuff. It’s simple, the manoeuvre dials are clever and on top of that the models are GOREGOUS. Have a look at the big photo. The millennium falcon is a work of art as is slave-1. In fact all the models look really well and they’re pre-painted. Very important. You don’t need to get the expansions for it, you could quite happily play with the base game (or two). I really really like it. The models all act the way you would expect. The tie fighters are agile but fragile, the falcon is a tough cookie, the y-wing can take and give a pounding. The tie interceptor is nice and fast. The a-wing didn’t make it but lurked in the background.
The game is balanced, the point system is simple and concise.
The game itself
The Imperials took a mix of middle of the road and elite pilots (vader) while the rebels went mostly elite (han solo, Chewbacca) and a few extra weapons The imperial went straight in (well a bit to the right) and let rip with everything on a lone x-wing taking it out first turn for very little return fire. Swung around and lined up with the converging rebels and it was wild west stuff. The Y-Wing dishing out a lot of hurt while the falcon hung back and took pot shots. The imperials concentrated on the fighters and started to take them out whilst the rebels concentrated on slave-1 (a slippery beast). Y-Wing was destroyed followed by a tie fighter and it was looking very good indeed for the imperials UNTIL the falcon slipped up behind it and let rip with everything doing some serious damage to it. The show on the other foot slave-1 slinked off hoping to avoid further damage persuaded by an x-wing. Vader took out another x-wing and 4 Tie fighters harassed the falcon. The last part of the game saw slave one avoid damage and the falcon eventually cornered and taken to pieces.
GREAT GAME
I would recommend it. I would also recommend a smaller game and I think next time we’ll go with one of the scenarios from the manual.
Thanks to all those how took part and I reckon next week it will be to normal programming!
Huzzah
Hive Thur
Good Nights gaming.
Thanks to Borys’ trip to Poland we spent the first half all sitting around playing Hive and smoking Red Marlborough like test chimps (dramatisation, no smoking took place)
After several games of Hive (the beetles are key), we moved onto Imperial 2030
Now AS YOU KNOW the thur group are a gentle bunch of souls, never ones to insult another player or urge them to play faster so it was quite a revelation to have a Tuesday night (lets use the euphemism ‘Barbarian’) in our midst, Straight in no kissin? He didn’t even take his pants off before he was hammering everyone left right and centre. First Turn Import, second turn Production, Third turn F****KKKKK YOUUUUUUU. It was a very aggressive game with Europe and asia exploding into wars whilst North America quietly built up it’s factories and taxed. Half way through a steady cycle of swapping ownership (you don’t own the country you just invest in it) took place and it was like pass the parcel for the rest of the game. Game ended a bit early with Yank winning with his high ownership in China (managed by either Borys or Yank either turn).
Next week, having finally gotten (hopefully) all the x-wing models from wayland (NEVER EVER buy from wayland, the order went in before xmas and is only arriving next week)(they were the only one showing stock btw before xmas for x-wing), we’ll hopefully be having a big team battle of x-wing. Plan is to have two teams on the night rebel v imperial and two capital ships going at it against each other with swarms of fighters
Both teams will go off before the battle and using the same points design up their squadrons then launch against each other from their capital ship and try and both defend theirs and take out the enemy’s capital ship. Could be epic!
Between us we now have
8 – tie fighters
4 – xwings
1 – ywing
1 – tie advanced
1- awing
1 – tie interceptor
Brian/Kieran will be in gamersworld at the weekend so we might pick up a couple more before next thur
So roll on next Thursday
Huzzah!
We Played Lords of Waterdeep last night.
Quite a surprise, thought it would be only so so and had only a brief time to read up the rules.
It’s very nice indeed. Everyone who played it wanted to play it again and quickly.
The version I have came as a swap and has some very nice meeples to replace the boring cubes
It’s a bit like Caylus, a wee bit like Ank Morpork and a tiny bit like ticket to ride. Theme works well and is believable, and the game is close (accept for me who did terrible from start to finish) on scoring. Plays pretty quick (I reckon 2 hours when we learn it properly) and the rules are straightforward and unambiguous. Oh and there’s cockblockery a plenty in there too
Eager to play this again
Huzzah!
Massacre Thursday
We Played Lords of Waterdeep last night.
Quite a surprise, thought it would be only so so and had only a brief time to read up the rules.
It’s very nice indeed. Everyone who played it wanted to play it again and quickly.
The version I have came as a swap and has some very nice meeples to replace the boring cubes
It’s a bit like Caylus, a wee bit like Ank Morpork and a tiny bit like ticket to ride. Theme works well and is believable, and the game is close (accept for me who did terrible from start to finish) on scoring. Plays pretty quick (I reckon 2 hours when we learn it properly) and the rules are straightforward and unambiguous. Oh and there’s cockblockery a plenty in there too
Eager to play this again
Huzzah!
Victor Gannon Games 