Thanks as ever to the cool cat that is MrSaturday for his excellent graphic work once again. Look at that, LOOK AT IT, that’s Art that is.
Fat Stacks
There are some games you look at and you
know you’re going to like them before you read the rules. This wasn’t one of them. I read the rules and watched a couple of videos and I was sold. The fact that it was dirt cheap as well went a big way to me buying the game. I’m glad I did, it’s a fine game. I can cut this short by saying after one game I went out and ordered the expansion for it to make it a five player. Sons of Anarchy is a lot of fun.
Gale Force 9 have developed some really fun, nicely themed games. Spartacus, Homeland, The jury’s still out on Firefly. Sons of Anarchy is another that ticks all the boxes and has theme in spades. The game is based on the TV series and sees you and up to three chums taking charge of a biker club and hustling to make as much money as possible. The one with the most money after six rounds wins and gets to do their victory dance and spray beer around the kitchen.
Each player starts with a number of prospects and full members (minor and major meeples), some cash, some guns, some bags of contraband, a number of order tokens, some heat and a couple of unique abilities. The map is made up of a partially revealed 3×3 grid of themed locations randomly picked from a stack of twenty or so along with the all important emergency room and hospital locations.
The first player (patch holder) burns an order token and can move dudes to a location, use the action of the location if no-one else is there, recurit more dudes, promote prospects to full members and more importantly throw down, initating combat. You get a limited amount of action tokens (more if you have more members) and it’s pretty much worker placement until two people occupy the same place and someone loses an eye.
When combat happens it’s all about numbers and guns, lovely lovely guns. You roll a dice, add one for each propsect in there, add two for each full member and three for each gun you secretly bid, winner stays put, losers retreat to their clubhouse with their tail between their legs. Bringing guns to a fistfight has conquences, opponents recieve hit points and have to stick some of their guys in the emergency room and it’d 50/50 they’ll ever come back out.
At the end of the round players get to secretly stick up to a certain amount of contraband into the black market and depending on how flooded the market is, receive some all important cash for their efforts.
Firing guns, selling contraband and certain actions at locations draws head from the authorities and this spotlight reduces your ability to sell contraband, if it gets too much one of your members has to take the fall and remove themselves from the club to general supply (I’ll never forget old whatshisname)
Add in some global events, rules and one off locations in the form of anarchy cards and you’ve got a lot of variety and replay value
There are a lot of strategic and tactical options here and a surpring amount of posturing, cock blockery, backstabbing and alliance. I stick alliance at the end because I didn’t see any of that but that says more about the group I game with than the game.
Each of the groups has a unique ability, more fighty, can exchange certain items for guns and so on, none of them overly powerful and all of them thematic.
Production wise the counters are nicely done, the artwork is taken from the show, the only complaint would be the meeples which are workman like, (they look a bit like jelly babies on motorbikes), they’re fine and functional but it’s crying out for a deluxe set of painted minatures.
All in all, I liked it, as one player pointed out it would have been nice to have more options to screw over other players and I agree but its find. It’s early days and we need to learn this game properly.
I want to play again and well done Gale force 9 another hit
Huzzah!
Vic
The peasants are revolting (again)
There was a real oriental theme at Thur night games, one group was having another go at Yedo and my table has a lash of shogun. This is a game I’ve had for some time and haven’t played in a while.
Shogun is like Wallenstein with a different map and theme. The first thing that strikes you about the game is it uses the same slot machine of death Tower as Wallenstein and Amerigo, the second is You really need to bag this game up there’s a lot pieces and they get mixed up way too easy.
Shogun is a map conquest game where you play the role (possibly theatrically) of a Japanese Daimyo who wants to be Shogun and rule all of Japan. You do this by scoring the most points by having troops in the most territories and owning the most fortresses, temples and theatres in each of the six regions. I say own because you can build them yourself but it’s so much sweeter to waltz in and take someone else’s after they’ve gone to the effort and cost of building them
Combat is the real sizzle of this game. The battle (murder) tower is like an old Victorian slot machine it. It contains a couple of baffles that retard cubes when you throw in your pieces and it’s a lottery to see what pops out the end. When the game starts a number of armies from all participants and some from the neutral bastard farmers get poured in and seed the tower. Fall outs are put back in supply and away we go.
When a battle happens it’s simplicity itself. You move your little cube armies into a territory and if it contains enemies you just pick up all of them up and drop them into the tower. Whatever comes out in the combative colours you compare and the most cubes win. The difference between the two is what goes back on the board. Oh and the bastard green farmers throw their weight behind the defender.
The battles are fast and furious. Your dudes can be whittled down very quickly both by defending and attacking.
Turns see you pick a number of actions in regions you control and a little like forbidden stars you have to program them in advance. It’s more than possible to have an event set to kick off in a region and have someone else come in and take that region nullifying the event.
There’s a simple economic model, gold and rice both of which are gained by confiscating them from the peasants to get increasingly cheesed off with you and ferment revolt. After spring, summer and autumn turns winter kicks in and you score your regions and buildings but more importantly you have to feed your ungrateful peasants whom you ripped off for the last three turns. Chances are they’ll be unhappy and depending on how many go without rice you’ll find yourself fighting a number of potentially dangerous uprisings. The peasants keep grudges for years and never forgive for stealing from them (hey the gold was only resting in my account).
This is a great little game. If you’ve come from conquest games with one for one battles the random tower can be a system shock. Personally I like it. It’s simple and final.
The one criticism I could level at the game is how little the board changes. Where you start is pretty much where you stop with some changes. It’s maybe more realistic than big sweeping battles and the game does only last two years.
Shogun has got a little depth and although there’s really only six turns and a max of 12 attacks from start to finish, you have a lot of tough decisions to make when you plan a turn.
I haven’t played Amerigo yet but the revisit to the battle tower has whet my appetite to play more of this sort of thing. Fun game well worth your time and I’ll be running it the next Knavecon for sure
Huzzah!
Vic
Knavecon 7
We have less than three months to the next Knavecon. I can feel the excitement building. We’re going to have a lot of fun I guarantee it
For all the new people and I’ve been delighted to hear from so many new people over the last few months asking about the event and gaming in the region you’re probably wondering what Knavecon is all about….
Knavecon is Like a big games night in your house with hundreds of games to choose from and hundreds of people to play with. It’s relaxed it’s laid back and everyone there is there to game and have a great time.
Everytime we run the event we have a bigger and bigger game library and all the latest games will be there to play and more importantly we know all the rules (ok the other knaves know the rules I have a general idea)
There free coffee all day, game shops, donuts, and the best second hand game sales in the country. We run some events and competitions during the day. Group participation games, a kids corner for the younger gamers and the grand raffle and games auction.
New to gaming? Perfect, we will educate you Want to get a regular gaming group going? This is the place to do it. Got some game that you never get to play normally? This is the spot to bring it out, you’re among friends. Want to try before you buy a game? Chances are we have it, played it and have an opinion on it.
Knavecon kicks off at 10am (join us for breakfast beforehand) and runs for a solid 18+ hours. Yes it’s a one day event but oh what a day!
30th April, tell your friends, tell everyone, your going gaming with the Knaves and things will never be the same again!
Huzzah!
Vic
The quest for fire
I see Hanabi every so often. A lot of times on for sale posts. It’s a bit like Tom Cruise a lot smaller in person. Hanabi is a coop game so feel free to glaze over and drop out. The theme (which is not rich) is preparing fireworks for an event. Maybe Knavecon 7. It translates to trying to assemble between all the players the best hand of consecutive cards in four suits from one to five but here’s the sizzle you don’t get to see your own hand it’s always turned away from you, which does take a bit of getting used to
You get to see everyone else’s hands but you obviously can’t tell them what they have. What they do have are cards numbers one to five of four different suits/colours. During your turn you can burn a time token (there’s about twenty of these) and reveal a clue to any other player. So I could tell another player “you’ve got three ones in your hand” or “those two cards are green” (you can point at the actual cards)
During your turn you can discard to gain another time token or you can play a card. Here you need to be careful as you need to build a sequence of cards so a one needs to be laid first by someone then a two in the same color (or a one in a different color to start another stack) get it wrong and you flip a fuse token. Flip four and its game over count your score. The game also ends when you’ve run out of cards to play.
Once it’s over you count up the highest values of cards laid out and everyone pats the player to the left and congratulates themselves….
The game falls down on a number of points. It’s coop. Once it’s over it’s a group win. There’s no sense of achievement. It’s far to easy to give out more clues to other players about cards to play (you can’t help it). It’s not particularly exciting and it’s taxing. You can’t play it without concentrating fully. That said it’s a little different and fun but the coop with little payoff sucks. A traitor mechanic or a team v team would be far superior but as it stands I’m only so so about it. As ever try it at Knavecon and make up your own mind. Until then
Huzzah!
Vic
Big Kids 1
My four year loves board games (it’s was destined) So does my eight year old. I could yammer on why that’s a positive but let’s cut to the chase here’s the three step plan
Step 1. Get your kids/nieces/nephews interested in board games
Step 2. Advise their parents or yourself on what games they should buy
Step 3. These kids grow up and discover beer and sex and Boom! you inherent some sweet free games
So where to start? Well the beginning is a fine place and simple is good.
We’re surrounded by board games. Walk into a toy shop and chances are there’s a whole aisle full of board games for children. Granted the majority of them are not games as such, they’re time wasting preprogrammed exercises with limited skill and I guarantee you limited interest for kids. Kids are not dumb, they know a good game from a bad one. In this series I’m going to see if I can find a few decent games in the indifferent aisles of your local toy shop…..
First up I’m going to look at Loopin Chewie.
For a number of reasons not least my kids got it at Christmas and I’ve had time to play it a good bit (thanks Santa)
Loopin Chewie is a cash in on the older game loopin Louie. The first thing that strikes you is Disney has taken its cut by reducing the players from four down to three which is a pity. It would be a much better game with four so if you are not hell bent on a Star Wars theme I recommend going back to the original Louise the review covers both. It’s also cheaper.
Having a couple of young children, nieces and nephews I’ve played any number of these type of mass market games. This is one of the better ones. A spinning arm in the center holds the millennium falcon which is out to get you.
Each player starts with three storm trooper coins lined up on a little sloping slot and smack bang in the line of the circling millennium falcon. Your mission with the aid of a little attached paddle is to swat the falcon up and away from your troopers and hopefully have it come down and take out your opponents ones (I don’t know maybe you’re hoping to get promoted) When you tap the falcon away because of the way it’s hinged and balanced it may spin off, it may loop and come back for you or hopefully it may rise and land amongst an opponent’s guys costing them a life. The game continues until all but one player has lives left.
Okay okay this is a simple game. I’ve pretty much just explained it in one sentence but beneath it’s simplicity is a game that stands at the top of its class. This is a fun little game. Games are short, typically five minutes but there’s a real go again feel once it’s over. All in all depending on your group you’ll get a good half hours play out of this before everyone has had enough but you’ll be back another day.
Compared to a lot of the stuff on games shelves this is not bad, the reduction to three players is a pity. It would be a much better game with four
Worth the money? That’s debatable. Certainly not full price while Star Wars fever is still raging. I picked this up as a half price deal and I’m happy with my purchase. Want to get your kids into board games? This is not a bad start or stop along the way
Huzzah!
Vic
Supplies!
Perhaps it’s just the people I game with but if there’s an opportunity to descend into schoolboy humor we will. Repeatedly. Yedo was a target rich environment for just this, you’ll know why when we play it at the next Knavecon. Not since Serenissima have we sank so deep in the double entendres
Yedo is a similar beast to lords of water deep with a few subtle differences. The game sees you in ancient China trying to complete a variety of missions and score more prestige points than your opponents.
There are two phases to each of the eleven turns. The first is a bidding phase where you try and score various resources like weapons, geshias (highly flammable), extra rooms for your house, extra agents , missions, bonus and intrigue cards. There’s plenty of opportunities to force bids up and generally be a complete dick/front bum
The second phase sees you placing agents on the board in six different patrolled sectors to gather pretty much the same resources as you tried for in the bidding phase.
Missions require you to have agents in the right sector of the city and whatever resources are needed be it different weapons, money, blessings,geshias and so on. Missions come in four difficulties from handy green ones that give very little prestige to humdingers of black missions that require a shit ton of resources but reap big rewards.
Intrigue cards allow you to mess up your opponents plans in a limited way. Bonus cards give you bonuses for completing certain missions types, or having this that or the other at the end of the game.
There’s nothing particularly magical or unexpected in the game but it’s a good solid fun game. It’s a good length (see, schoolboy humor), the artwork is good, the theme is lovely, it’s competitive and close run. Is it better than Lords of Waterdeep? I’m not going to go there it’s apples and oranges.
I’m eager to play this again. There’s a good bit to it. As I said it’s going to be at the next Knavecon and I predict it will be a big hit
More of this sort of thing I say
Huzzah!
Vic
Fear of Kemet ment
They bite, they fight, they bite and fight and fight, bite bite bite, fight fight fight the itchy and scratchy show! Kemet’s a bit like that without the biting.
This has been on my to play list for a long time and after a false start the week before where we got one rule wrong, (albeit a critical rule) we got to finally play it for reals last thur. I knew before the game hit the table I would like it and I most certainly do.
Kemet sees you and up to four gaming chums beating the pudding out of each other repeatedly in an ancient Egyptian setting. You start with a city, three pyramids each showing your level in blue, red and white, five prayer points, a divine intervention card, ten troops, a half pack of cigarettes, it’s dark and you’re wearing sun glasses.
Everyone is racing to get to eight points in the short game and ten in the long version. You can get these points in a couple of ways, winning battles being a damn good one.
The map is divided into around twenty regions some containing your starting walled city, some temples and some open areas. Because of the clever layout of the map everyone is pretty much two spaces from temples and maybe four from each other so in no time at all you can be happily spilling blood (preferably your opponents) on the hot sands. Couple this with the ability to teleport to most parts of the map from your home city and you can be up in anyone’s business quick sharp.
The primary resource is prayer points which can be spent to raise troops, buy upgrade cards, teleport or raise your pyramids to a higher level and thereby grant you access to better upgrade cards. Everyone gets two free each night but you get bonus ones from taking and holding temples at the end of the round or stopping everything and having a quick pray. Some cards grant extra ones too and crucially (we missed this first time around) you can gain them by sacrificing your warriors to the gods once a battle has ended.
I’ve heard this game described as a knife fight in a phonebox but since there’s no such thing anymore I think of it more as a fistfight in a saloon with the piano never skipping a key. It’s all about being the last man standing at the end of the round in certain locations and not losing fights.
Upgrading your guys is essential if you’re going to survive. There are three colours (or colors if you’re American) of upgrades. blue (resources), red (attack), white (Defence) each with a level shown on your pyramid. Some of the higher upgrades give you access to various mythical monsters each of which will fight alongside your troops and grant attack, movement, Defence or some other bonus (I never leave home without one). Upgrade cards are unique so there’s a mini arms race going on for upgrades in conjunction with the race for points
For a conquest game it’s pretty quick. You’ll be done and dusted in and hour plus once the rules click for your group. If you want a longer game you can just up the victory points goal. Simples
This is a neat game. It’s fairly simple to learn and play. Looks great and plays smoothly. Don’t expect anything subtle or deep, it’s a pure slugfest but there’s still plenty of skill required to come out on top and there’s a definite urge to play again straight away after its finished. Longevity wise I’m not sure how often this game will appear after the initial appeal but in the holy words of Rick Deckard “I didnt know how long we had together… Who does”. Great game. I’ll be demoing it at Knavecon
Huzzah!
Vic
Happy 7 – Kickstater
In a continuation of the “Why do we love games” articles I spoke to Patrick Siebert, someone pretty serious about his gaming and a regular on the board game group. He co-hosts a real fun video blog on gaming called Just Got Played and is elbow deep in Siege of Verdan a new strategy game due to be released later this year. I’ve been chatting to Patrick for some time now and despite being American he does have a decent sense of humour and obviously a good Irish first name so he’s not all bad. Once the Teleport technology is in Beta we plan to get him to attend one of the Knavecon’s until then I asked him a few quick questions to see what he’s all about. Best read with the correct accents. Enjoy.
Patrick what’s your earliest memory of gaming.
How did it all start for you? I was the youngest of 4 kids and my brother was 7 years my elder. My first memory was of a war game spread out all over our kitchen table. I want to say it was Richthofen’s War , but I could easily be wrong about that I was five and instantly in love with the stories my brother spun about the game as I watched older kids struggle for victory.
What’s big in your gaming life at the moment?
Well Siege and Just Got Played of course, but other than my own stuff, I would say I am wrapped up in Pandemic Legacy like everyone else, and I have taken a shine to a game called Toast! and Operation Faust at the moment.
What is it about gaming that you love the most?
I love to sit down with people and truly interact with them, put my phone down , and give someone my attention even if it’s just for a little while. It helps, that with little exception, people in the tabletop community are usually very intelligent, and very supportive. I think board gamers are some of the greatest people in the world.
You’re big into your gaming. Want to let the nice people know about just got played and Siege ?
Yes, I host a game review channel with Brian Fiore called Just Got Played. We try to focus on unpublished and Kickstarter games. The little guy is really fighting to get noticed in the game world right now, we feel it is important that they get free, fair and honest reviews no matter how small the project. So please watch Just Got Played; you may get to see something you otherwise would have missed. We are 100% ourselves on the show and our humor can be a little…offensive, so enjoy that.
I have also created a board game that I will be bringing to Kickstarter on February 26, 2016, called Siege of Verdan. I truly love this game and how it works, even if I hadn’t created it. Each player starts the game with nothing more than a ruler (each with different individual abilities), a capital city, and a few resources from the state they occupy. They draw a hand of cards and spend resources to get explorers (move quickly and can traverse water), scouts (move quickly and have a little combat strength), Merchants (increase resources and allow trade between players), and diplomats (allow trade and enforce sanctions), military units that will wage war against your opponents, military units and capital city), spies and assassins that can eliminate individuals that oppose you – all while the Kings spoils track clicks down. This is just a quick “blurp” but the game tells an amazing story every time it’s played. Just great fun.
What’s your favorite style of game?
Wow, another tough one. I like deep games that offer lots of player options. It needs some luck to, not a lot, just enough to make things interesting.
What’s the secret to a good nights gaming?
Great relationships! If you love the people you are with you can have fun playing almost anything. Free booze helps too.
What do you think is the next big thing in gaming?
I think we will see an increase in scenario/campaign based games, Time Stories, legacy style games, even Imperial Assault are already getting lots of attention and are doing well. I also think you are going to see a little uptick in slightly more complex party games, I predict more drunk people playing games!
What does 2016 hold in store for you?
I could go on forever, Siege of Verdan will be published, Just Got played will continue bringing you mildly humorous and very offensive reviews of great games. We will be going to conventions like Dice Tower Con, Gen Con, and Prototype Con and doing interviews and meet more great people in the industry. I will also be giving away my “designer” underpants (I have a pair of boxers shorts I had lots of game designers sign.) So that will be given away in some charity someplace. I would love to get a campaign of Imperial Assault going. I also recently got a fortune cookie that said I will be drugged and left for dead on the side of the Road in Mexico, so I am really looking forward to that. What about you, what are you looking forward to?
Games wise, I’m looking forward to a stack of games as yet unplayed and the first Knavecon of the year. That and wealth, happiness and Power.
Thanks Mr P. Talk to you soon
Splodin Kitty
Are you special? Are you precious? Do you have interesting obscure hobbies and a bunch of other special, precious obscure hobbyist best friends forever friends? Were you BIG into one potato two potato when you were a younger child? Great news! Exploding kittens will slot perfectly into your collection!
Exploding kittens is an elimination game in which the occasional no brainer choice appears. I could write a macro for the other players or a flow chart and have the same experience. I’m not familiar with the art or setting but it’s a low grade adventure time/uncle grandpa trippy sort of thing. Once you’ve laughed at the text on the cards you’re done. You just bought a pig (cat) in a poke
The game sees you trying to avoid drawing an exploding kitten from the draw deck. There’s one less than the number of players mixed in there so it’s last man standing.
It’s all about card counting and memory. If you’re good at that and to be honest all you need to do really is remember when people played their defuse card your good.
Every turn you have to draw a card at the end of your turn. If it’s an exploding kitten it’s game over for you if you don’t have a defuse card (everyone starts with one). The trick is to draw as few cards as possible or force a player to give you one of their good cards.
There’s a number of card types in there allowing you to skip your draw. Force another player to take two draws. Cancel a card. Look ahead three cards and stack the deck.
There’s a set of basic rules and more advanced. The advanced didn’t raise it much higher. The three games I played were enough. It’s lite but it’s no Great Dalmuti.
I was happy to have tried it but I won’t be rushing back. Less of this sort of thing
Huzzah!
Vic
Victor Gannon Games 