I like Scotland Yard. I like letters from White chapel and I like Fury of Dracula. I also now like spectre ops. 
Spectre ops sees one character (the op) trying to infiltrate a high tech complex and counting coup in five different zones then egressing like a panda. The op is invisible to the four defending players (whom I can only assume have restricted zoolander style vision) and must use their special abilities to hunt down and eliminate the intruder.  

  
The op (there’s a choice of four different flavorsof agent. All with different mad skillz) moves secretly on gridded paper on a map of 200+ locations. The controlling player has to indicate if the op moves into the vision of the defenders who can only see in straight lines in the same way as bomber man’s bombs explode. 
The defenders are a rum bunch all with interesting abilities. The wolfman dude can move half distance and “sniff” showing up the infiltrator if they’re within five spaces, the gun character is handy with a sniper rifle. The power dude can operate the team vehicle remotely. The team have for access to a zippy car that can zoom them across the map and also has a useful scanner which shows if the operative is north, south, east or west of the car. 

  
When the defenders do corner the operative they can take pot shots at them and try and knock their four life points down to zero. The operative can call on a number of one off cards like smoke grenades and so on to assist them in their rapid stage left exit 

This is a lot of fun with lots of guessing and hunches, sneaky movement and subterfuge. It’s a lot more forgiving than some of its ilk. I had a lot of fun with this game 

It scales nicely with more players. With a full five one of the hunters is secretly a traitor. As you can imagine this is music to my ears and sadly when I played I was neither op nor traitor but I’m going to play again. Oh yes. 
Spectre ops is quick. More so if the op is crap (ha ha). It’s straight forward to learn. It’s actually a lot of fun being a hunter as well as the hunted. It’s pretty cheap. It’s got nice paintable models. Nice artwork and a good theme. I like it. More of this sort of thing. Let’s have a game at Knavecon
Huzzah!
Vic 

  
The problem with Blood Rage is the models. They’re just too Damn good not to paint and if you’ve neither the inclination or the skillz to paint them it will kill you every time you take out the game. I luckily didn’t suffer from that “bare guilt” as it wasn’t my copy and it was also very nicely painted
Bloodrage is a bit like Kemet or indeed the platinum horde it’s all about the kill burn pillage! The end is nigh so time to go out with a bang or indeed multiple concussive bangs and smoother yourself in as much glory as you can

  
Only one problem, there’s a number of other teams trying to do it better than you in a sort of Valhallal xfactor. 
Blood Rage sees you all starting with a troop of basic dudes and a captain as well as a supporting ship. The boys have got base stats and through pillaging and the use of some cards you can up one or more of the three stars. Rage (how many action points you start with), axes (how glorious your victories become and how much glory each is worth) and helmets, how many of your dudes can show their bearded face on the map at one time. A pop cap if you will

  
Rage is effectively gold and in each of the three rounds you start with a certain amount. You can use rage to buy in troops, pay for certain cards to execute or March your boys around in a menacing way
Axes are glory or score. Doing stuff like winning battles, completing quests and being in the wrong place when ragnaroh hits will earn you glory. Most glory wins game. Ugh. Hulk smash

  
The map is tight, with only a half dozen locations each with room for a limited amount (3-5) of troops to stand. The center of the map is limitless and is very much the equivalent of a chipper after chucking out time. There’s going to be a fight there pretty much guaranteed and it’s going to be epic. On top of that the map is shrinking….. ragnarok (a type of attic insulation) is falling from the sky and each round (three in total) another region is going to be off limits and everyone left there will be rubbed out (in a bad way)
The one thing I didn’t mention was the card drafting. There are a number of Gods all up in your fighting business and they assist through different cards. At the start each player gets a stack of cards drawn from the current age and picks one and passes it left. Repeat this until you have a full hand. (it’s what we call drafting). These cards give you pluses in fights, missions which when completed can be cashed in for score and a few other nasties, instants and permanent effects. Its hard to know how balanced they are, likewise the monsters but time will tell. Some like the fire giant are murderers.  Battles are fast and brutal. But don’t worry dying is no bad thing as long as it’s honorable and more importantly scoreable

  
It’s fast. You can be done and dusted in an hour which is excellent for this type of game. There’s a definite urge to play again and you will need to to learn its nuisances. 
All in all thumbs up. Fun game. Good strategic elements. Gorgeous models (painting assumed). Good design. Like it. Like it a lot
Huzzah!
Vic 

Hardcore Skull and Roses

O.K. here’s the plan. I spoke before about a custom game for Knavecon 7.  If you remember the last one we did Love Letter but with pictures of various gamers as the cards.  I have another plan (never a good thing). Hardcore Skull and Roses….

Skull or Skull and Roses is an easy to learn, poker ish, psychological game.  It’s also very simple to create.  Here’s what I need you to do

Submit a picture you would as your Skull, i.e. the card that screws people over when you turn it over

MrSaturday will work his photoshop magic upon it and upon arriving at the con you will receive your own custom pack of four beer mats with your skull card lovingly stuck to the back of one of them.

You will then join with the others whom have done the same and at a set time we will play hardcore Skull and Roses.

Hardcore you say? Why yes insofar as you will be gambling your set of four cards.  The last remaining players in the event will get to keep not only their set of four cards but the pick of five other sets they have defeated thus getting them an exclusive and unique Skull deck.

There will be a nominal fee of €5 to cover entry to the competition, production of your card set, photoshopping, administration and various outstanding debts to bookies and mobsters.

So… who’s game?

  
Series 6 of Game of Thrones is coming in April. Entirely unrelated we played Game of Thrones for the first time in well over a year. Maybe two. 
This is a game that’s been around for a while. In a lot of ways it’s a sacred cow of games. The IBM, the Volvo. Solid. Well formed and we found to our surprise a bit more boring than I remembered

  
Game of thrones is an area control map conquest game based on the world and map of Westeros. You control one of the six families from GOTs and compete to be the first to control eight castles or part there of by turn 10. 
Each turn firstly sees a series of event cards happening which will elevate and possibly kick off a dangerous wildling attack. 

  
Then it’s planning, where you put action tokens secretly on your troops. These actions can be move/attack (obvious), support another armies attack or Defence, defend, raid (screw up someone else’s support or raid) or consolidate power (gain political power tokens). 
All tokens are revealed and one by one they’re resolved by each player. It’s sort of like winding up the board and having it slowly unwind. This is where all the stabby stabby happens. 

Political power tokens are a useful currency for bidding for control of the iron throne (adjudicates on draws), the valerian sword (turn order and +1 attack value) and the Raven (allows a change or orders and dictates how many special actions a family can take)

  
It’s a nice game, the theme is… Fine. None of the participants actually feel like the books or the series. It could as easily be Elsa from Frozen as much as John Snow in a battle. There’s no variety outside of their starting positions. The problem I have with this game is not that it’s a bad game (it’s a good game) it’s that more refined versions of this style of game have come out since it’s release. Forbidden Stars is a much better beast. If you combined the rules of forbidden with this setting you’d have an amazing game. As it stands it’s a fine and venerable old warhorse that’s being superseded by newer sharper kids. That said I have a soft spot for it so it’s not going to disappear from my collection anytime soon
Huzzah!
Vic 

  
Drakon is a good solid name. You don’t need s surname if your first name is drakon. Unless of course everyone else in the class is called drakon but let’s be honest. It’s unlikely

Drakon is a light competitive dungeon …. Race. It’s not a bash as such. It does have a sort of exploration thing going on but it’s more a race to get to seven coins before anyone else. Actually that’s exactly what it is a Dungeon Race

  
Each player starts in the center tile with multiple exits and when it’s your turn you place a floor tile somewhere it can fit on the expanding map then you have to move, that’s your lot. Each room has a symbol which does something. Teleport (guess what that does), lose a coin, gain a coin, move the dragon, take an extra move and so on. Each of the characters has a one shot special ability. Well ability. They’re not particularly special
The trick is to setup a chain of moves that will see you grabbing coins like Mario whilst denying them from your opponents by clever placing of the floor tiles or directing of the coin robbing pikey dragon.  

  
It’s a lot lighter than you would think from similar beasts. Is it a lot of fun? Well it’s not unpleasant to play. It might stray occasionally into “good Craic” but that’s as high as the tide mark will show. I’d definitely play it again, its undoubtedly going to be a big hit with kids, after one game I can take it or leave it. 
Huzzah!
Vic

I remember a long time back playing Call of Cthulhu RPG and winding up in a cavernous underground chamber in Egypt with a crazy priest and some sort of relic of power and an invocation starting. My first action on seeing was to lace up my 1920’s Nikes because I KNEW the whole place was going to come tumbling down once we had dealt with Scarab Boy. That’s Betrayal at the house of the hill. Something nasty IS going to happen in the woodshed and chances are you’ll be on the pointy, fiery or toothed end of it. In the event of an emergency, you need to make the following steps. Really BiG ones, out the front door.

Betrayal has been around for a while, it looks like any other dungeon bash with modular rooms that trigger events when you walk into them. It doesn’t contain monsters and the only models on the map are your random characters, one of which unbeknownst will be the bad guy/gal by the time things kick off. You enter the titular house on the hill like a regular swell through the front door and walking through doors which lead to random room tiles being placed. You’ll come across various random encounters most of which are not life threatening (that comes later). Your character starts with five stats health, movement, other ones, all shown on the very worst character sheet I’ve ever seen. A lipstick on the back of a cigarette box would have been a better prop and you’ll curse it every game (but never do anything about it).

So there you and your Scooby Doo style buddies are, wandering around the mansion’s three levels all waiting for the growing omens to click up and BAM! the event kicks off. A quick read of the extensive events list sees one player become the Mr/Ms Baddie and the others scurrying like bugs from an overturned rock.

Say one thing for this game you’ll never play the same game twice. There’s hundreds of possible combos of events that can kick off. One of the players is revealed to be a vampire/zombie/robot/wizard/chimney sweep, the building is flying up into the air/collapsing/on fire/ sinking and you need to do something or other then get the hell out. Meanwhile the bad guy is trying to complete their mission before you can do yours so it’s a race and it’s a lot of fun. It’s a lot of lite fun that will last you an hour or so.

It’s one to break out when you’ve more than a half hour and crave something semi heavy to quieten your gaming monkey before wrapping up the games night.

Well worth having in your gaming collection. Chances are someone in your gaming orbit already has it and you may not have gotten around to playing it yet.

well worth a look

Huzzah!

Vic

  
You can say one thing for the Victorians they knew all about finish. None of your sitting on an orange box rubbish. it’s overstuffed leather armchairs or this contraption is not going anywhere. Mission Red Planet. There’s a lovely quality feel to this production which is very much par for the course with Fantasy Flight. It’s got a nice cartoony pith helmets, pointy villains, mustached scientist vibe to it. 
The game itself is not a million miles from alien frontiers. It sees you and up to five gaming chums trying to get as many of your boys onto the ten or so locations of Mars. There’s elements from Age of Empires 3, citadels, Puerto Rico, aliens frontiers, libertaria and to a lesser extent survive on display here. 

  
In the center we have a map of Mars and its territories (all named after parts of the front bum apparently) Next to it we have the potato like moon Phobos and the void were unlucky astronauts wind up. At the bottom we have the eight or so ships of varying passenger capacity (2-5) all itching to launch and wisk your lads to the red planet. 
Each turn you pick one of your operative cards numbered 1-9 each with a special ability each (depending on the situation) ranging from “alright” to “handy as a small pot”. Once everyone has secretly selected their cards the numbers are counted down from nine to one by the first player. When a number matching your card is called you carry out your action (very libertaria). These actions could be Stick some of your boys on a ship and if it’s full launch it (very Puerto Rico), move some of your lads around on Mars (very eight minute empire), recover your cards (very twilight struggle) sabotage a ship (very beastie boys). Once a card is used it can’t be used in the following turns until you’ve used a particular card to recover them so hand management is key. 

  
Mars winds up getting very occupied and careful moves and a little luck will see you outwit your opponents and claim ownership of the resources there If you have a majority of lads in situ during a scoring round. This is very like age of empires 3. A few other card events and secret missions rounds out a nicely formed game. 

  
It’s a fast game. There’s only nine turns and some of these including scoring. An hour will see you all done. It’s quick it’s fun it’s medium lightness. Would I rush out and buy it? No I’d probably Saunter or maybe even mosey out and get it, but since my gaming group already has a copy It’s not an essential for me. 
Nice game, nice theme, will play again

Huzzah!
Vic 

  
Letters from White Chapel is a deduction game in a similar style to Scotland Yard and Fury of Dracula. I would place it inbetween these two games in terms of complexity and enjoyment. 

The game sees one player taking the role of Jack the Ripper and trying to bump off five women (as you do). The other players play the part of the police officers trying to capture jack before he completes his grisly quest

  
The game is from Fantasy Flight so production values are top notch. The game sees a map of oldie London with 100+ numbered locations, one of which jack secretly picks as his hide out and must escape back to after each murder. Adjacent to these are a larger number of black squares on which the police move. So at any time a police man is pretty much adjacent to one or more numbered locations in which jack could be lurking. 
Lurking (as you probably know) is a lot of fun. Jack doesn’t appear on the board, his location is marked on a sheet behind his cardboard blind and its up to the coppers to search nearby locations to find where he is now or (and this is important) find locations he’s previously moved through. Clever rozzers will deduce from jack’s pattern of movements where he’s headed to and try and block him (he has a limited amount of turns to make it home) or go out on a limb and pick a spot and arrest him there. If he’s caught it’s a win for the police team if he commits all five murders it’s a win for jack and much blame passing for the cops. 
Jack is aided by some extra abilities like being able to hire a handsom cab a few times and being able to nip through back allies once or twice. The ability to do these diminishes as the game progresses so murders become more difficult to carry out as the police put two and two together as to what and where you’re up to. 
The mechanics are solid. This is a good game with a lot of fun to be had in leading the police a merry dance or catching Jack early. Now the bad points. 
I’ve played this game a number of times. The problem is, more so than Dracula, it’s really a two player game. Now you can have five police on the team but really it’s one collective brain hunting jack and I found it’s quite possible for one or two players to take the lead in the investigation and the others to drift out a bit, especially mid to late game. Don’t let that put you off, you need to concentrate on this game or you won’t get the full experience. Being Jack is stupendous, the whole cat and mouse experience is sublime. This is a very simple game to teach and get new non gamers involved with. 
I’m going to have it at Knavecon again and it’s always proved popular. I love deduction games like this. I highly recommend it unless you already own fury of Dracula in which case you’re good. Anyhow try it and see what you think 
Huzzah
Vic