Descent Thur – Being a Drax Report

It’s become a tradition on the Drax report not to show people faces in the pics, it’s not that we don’t want to be identified and have our kidney’s stolen it’s more that we don’t want one of the lads wives to be kidnapped and forced to cook cakes for their gaming night, as she does for ours. Thur was no exception. Millionaire squares. far too good for the likes of us.

After a bit of a mix up detailed in an earlier post I finally received my copy of Descent, second edition. I’ve quite fancied this since the first edition. I’ve always been a fan of Heroquest type games and this seemed to be the grown up version of it. It is. It’s rather good. It’s got expansions and I want them all

I’ve played two games of this now and I really like it. It’s a Fantasy Flight game so the production quality is superb. The Cards and map pieces are very high quality as you would expect but it’s the models that really shine. After last weekend at MrSaturday’s my love for painting has returned and I’ve started to paint up the models for this game. I’m very impressed with them. For plastic, the detail is superb. Like Mansions of Madness the models are good and chunky, more so truth be told than MoM and you get a fair selection of them in the base game. About two dozen or so. They are about Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle game size so you could use those in your games if you wanted to, although the base size is a good bit smaller for Descent characters.

The rules are very straightforward, pretty much what you would expect and if you’ve ever played either Heroquest or Space Crusade then you’ve a head-start.

The game is in essence a dungeon bash where a team of adventurers work together (the first question from the team btw was do we HAVE to work together, can’t we just stab each other in the back?)(it was a proud moment, I’ve taught them well). The team work together and try and complete a quest whilst another player (guess who that was?) plays the evil overlord trying to thwart their efforts.

Each game consists of two halves of a predefined quest, act 1 and act 2. The second act being a bit tougher that than first. In between Act 1 and 2 you can visit the local shoppe and buy ice cream, breakfast rolls and Warhammers.

The game scales nicely so depending on how many players are in the party more numerous and or tougher version of monsters will appear.

There’s a fair bit of variety in the quests, rescue these guys, defeat those guys, defend against these slavering guys and so on and if you like you can play the whole thing as a campaign with leveling up and all that sort of good stuff along the way. There’s also a number of expansion which I’m sure we’ll never get to but would be nice to have.

This is the second edition of the game and a lot has been simplified from the first edition. There’s now a very concise and easy to understand set of rules to follow. A lot of thought has been put into how the game works and it really shows through, at no stage did anyone not know what to do or where to go after just a quick explanation.

The combat system is very neat, each weapons has a specific colour of die associated with it and have the potential to deal a range of damage accordingly. players roll specific coloured shield dice depending on their Armour to counteract this and theirs a few extra abilities throw in for good measure. Combat is fast and nasty, it’s quite possible to be knocked out in your first battle if you don’t work as a team or you rush in without backup.

There’s a nice variety of characters to start with (eight) and the game features a fine variety of monsters to go up against.

This game demands more play and the fact that I’m taking time to paint up the models (never done this before) should speak volumes of how good it is. This is a lovely game and I’m eager for another lash of it.

Next up was Turfmaster

http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/384/turfmaster

There’s been a bit of a racing theme going on for the last few sessions and I’ve had an urge to play horse racing for a good while now, don’t ask me why, maybe it’s the whole xmas racing thing but we’ve already had “the Really Nasty Horse Racing game” and now we have something a bit more serious, Turfmaster.

The first thing that strikes you about the game is the box, it’s very simple and austere with a drawing of a jockey in mid-flight. Very IBM. So I was expecting dull, complex and not very fun at all. not so! Turfmaster is a cracking little game and it’s got expansions. It’s also like hens teeth to get for some reason which is a pity.

Unlike The Really Nasty Horse Racing game this is purely about winning races, nothing at all to do with odds or types of horses. Everyone starts with a single horse (1-8 players) and it’s a straight forward race to the finish. Points are awarded for coming first, second, third and forth and the highest points after three races decides the game.

The rules are very simple. Each player starts with a finite amount of cards which dictate how far forward they can move every second round. They play them simultaneously with the other players and the pack (is that the right term?) is adjusted accordingly. Every other round it’s determined by dice but the player who changes each time can decide to slow or speed up the race to their best advantage.

The set of cards used for the game must all be played through over the course of the three races so it’s quite possible to wind up with fast cards for the first race and have to nurse your horse through the second and so on. It was very neat. I found myself slipping into first then running out of steam half way around the track. Whilst others were hanging back and attempting to storm forward late in the race.

The game is very simple and functional graphically. It comes with pre-painted metal horse and jockeys which are lovely to play with and add a good bit to the quality feel of the game. We had a large group on Thur so we got the game in it’s fully glory.

I liked it. It’s simple but it plays very well and there was excitement from start to finish in the game. Just a quick tip, read the rules carefully, it’s possible to make a school boy error from the start and spend the rest of the race playing catch up 🙂

All in all a good nights gaming. Hope to see this game at Knavecon, It and Descent are winners

We finished with a bit of Coup and Skull of roses

More of that soon

Huzzah!

Vic

February 2, 2014 0

Swopsies

I’ve been swapping boardgames on Boardgamegeek for a number of years now. It’s a great way (if you’re not the type who thinks every game should be a hostage) of getting new games cheaply. I’ve done it over forty times without a hitch. I’ve had delays (It seems that Canada sends it’s packages to Ireland by sea whilst we fly them) but I’ve never lost or not received a package…. Well until now.

I got involved in a trade before xmas for a game I’ve been after for some time (but didn’t want to shell out for), Descent, second edition. My trade partner received my package before xmas and then it went silent….

I contacted him, we waited, waited and then realised something was up. Since there was no tracking on these packages it wasn’t possible to find them so he contacted Royal Mail and there’s a long process of recovering the value of the package which takes months to complete. The hell with that. I kept in touch with my tradee and we agreed a deal…

This morning true to his word this arrived

For me this reinforces what I think of gamers, they are (in general) a decent sort

Now I reckon after we warm this game up on Thur it will be front and centre for Knavecon

Huzzah!

Vic

January 28, 2014 3

MrSaturday Put it Perfectly

January 27, 2014 0

Nations Thur – Being a Drax Report

There are at least a dozen jokes made each gaming session, all of them based on the game we’re playing and all schoolboy humour of the highest order. Some of them are even funny. Some of them. “Have you got wood for sheep?” (Settles or Catan), “Fill my ship with Seamen” (Serenissima), “My Turtle wins because he’s on top” (Pedzace Zotwie). Yes, the evenings just fly by! A new one materialised last night “you’re man rich”. But I digress

If you’re now in innuendo mode please switch back to normal or it will take twice as long to read this review

It was a hot, wet night in Murroe. Ok OK, stop it now. back to normal I said. We started with a quick lash of eight minute empire which took fifteen minutes with four players. enough said about that

Then the piece of resistance arrived. NATIONS

http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/126042/nations

For some reason madam yer wan or whomever it is reminds me of Supergirl doing here whole, “leave this place and do no harm” thing but that’s neither here nor there.

Nations is a game quite similar to Through the ages but quite different in ways

I’ve ranted about Through the ages before. It’s a GREAT game, a great great game however like all great games it has it’s faults, it’s long (3-4 hours+), it’s only four players, it doesn’t have much variety, it’s unforgiving and it only works well if all the players are at the same level.

It’s like the designers of Nations decided to rewrite it and change all of those points. so here goes

Nations is

Up to Five Players
Plays in maybe 2 hours
It has a HUGE variety of cards
Wars and mistakes aren’t the end of the world
you can handicap/boost players based on their skills

Actually the more I think about it the more I like it.

Everyone starts in the stone age with a few basic buildings that allow you to raise a meagre amount of food/ore/gold/stability/research ALL of which are important

There’s a touch of eclipse about it, insofar as you can start with a standard civilisation where everyone has the same abilities from the off or you can pick a different one so say Egyptians start with the pyramids which give them bonuses in one area but miss out on something a basic nation gets. I like that it’s neat.

As the game progresses you can spend gold to buy advanced buildings, advisor’s (leaders), military units, battles, wars and wonders all of which adjust and affect the income and spend of your various resources. It’s a fairly complex game but you’ll pick it up pretty quickly if it’s explained right (which it was) and it’s certainly a little simpler to play that Through the ages. Gone is happiness of your people, gone is revolt (well it works differently) and the whole thing feels a little bit easier to juggle without the killer of TTA where if you mess up one little thing you might as well give up now.

I’m not going to explain all the rules it’s far too complex and better rule readers than I can do that on boardgamegeek but here’s a few highlights

Like TTA it’s all about getting the right cards, getting the right rhythm for you building whilst blocking others from doing the same. Again like TTA you don’t directly affect others you just throw massive military spanners in the works and deflect people from the important purpose of building libraries and onto the important business of building spears.

There are eight rounds in the game spanning four ages after which each round a mini scoring round happens with a big score at the end. There’s several ways to pick up and quite often lose victory points and no one path to victory.

Something I really like about the game is you get a ton of cards for each age and you only pick a few so replay value of this game is very high indeed and there will never be two games exactly the same.

Our game rattled on with a few interruptions for about 2.5 hours. Not bad at all. I lost, it’s ok, I’m over it now. I was playing to learn and it was my first game and lots of reasons which I don’t need to explain. Let’s move on, nothing to see here.

Would I buy it? yes I would. It’s a great game. It does need another game for it to sink in but I really liked it and all those bullet points had me sold from the get go. The production values of the game are good, better than most but not quite up there with Fantasy Flight games. I can see this being reprinted in different stock at some stage but any copy is good.

This is solid, fun game, I take my hat off to the designers who seem to have gotten it all right. If you like TTA you’ll love this game

We rounded off with a bit of knifey spoony coup (don’t ask)

More of that next week

Huzzah!

Vic

January 24, 2014 2

Grey Hair is never fair

There’s something about Warlight. It’s an online game of Risk I’ve spoken about before. Now Risk is by itself not that good a game. It’s not, be honest. However this is still capturing my and the attention of some of my opponents. It’s got two things, well three

Lots of Maps
Levelling up
Hidden Movement
Asynchronous movement

Four so

Somehow this has lifted a mediocre game up into a really very good game, one that couldn’t be replicated outside of a computer (the hidden movement you see). I’ll be showing it at Knavecon. Have a google for it

Don’t trust Drax

Vic

January 22, 2014 2

Eight Minute Thur – Being a Drax Report

It’s quite usual for players to just pip others by a point or two to win a game, truth be told it’s the best part of gaming however whenever a final score is 0 v 80 v 2,800,000 questions need to be asked…..

We started the evening with Eight Minute Empire

http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/131366/eight-minute-empire

It’s a filler game but unusually it’s an map based empire game which usually take a number of hours to play out. Not so in this case, around twenty minutes and you’re done. The game is simplicity itself and it is very elegant. There is nothing superfluous about EME, you can pick up the rules in 5 minutes and it has elements from a number of it’s bigger cousins.

Each player starts with a set amount of money used to buy a card each turn from a line of six in a similar way to through the ages or small world. The further up the line the more expensive they are. As cards are bought the line is replenished from the deck in an conveyor style. Once you’ve played a certain amount of turns based on number of players it’s game over and count the score.

The cards have three functions, they keep a track of how many turns you’ve taken, they each have a resource type which is used for scoring at the end (you’re looking to collect sets of resources for bonus points just like 7 wonders) and they dictate the action you can take this turn.

Each players starts with three armies in the central part of the map (the game comes with a couple of maps and it would be easy to knock together new ones on an A4) and depending on the card they pick they can

Move their troops, Muster more either at the start or where they have a city, build a city, destroy enemy troops, cross water to another continent. The whole idea is to have the most guys in a particular region and better still have dominance of a continent each worth a few points.just like Age of Empires III

It’s fun, it’s quick, it’s lightweight, I can’t see fistfights starting over it but I like it and I want another game

Next up was

The Really Nasty Horse Racing Game

The RNHRG is a family friendly, STOP COME BACK IT’S GOOD! horse racing game which is a lot more fun that I had thought it would be. Each player starts with a stable of six horse rated from 1 (Arabian Stallion) to 6 (Unwashed pantomime horse), they secretly enter each horse in a race, work out the odds, bet on a horse and then try their best to win or more sneakily help the horse they’ve bet heavily on win. Along the way Really Nasty Cards can be thrown down to ruin a riders day, falling at jumps, stewards inquiry that sort of thing.

It’s surprisingly quick and it IS a lot of fun but there is more than a smidgen of luck involved, but then again betting is a mugs game and having done really well all game I lost it in the last two races, one of the others catapulted himself into a lead with a stellar score £2,800,000 to my paltry £80. Yes it’s silly, it’s fun, It’s not bad at all. I can see this being a great xmas game for families and I’m sure we will take it out again, probably next week.

For no good reason we pulled out a kids game called Waldschattenspiel or Shadows in the woods

I’ve spoken a long time back about this, it’s very different. One player takes the part of troll and can move around a path based on his dice roll, the others play the role of dwarfs who can move around and hide but cannot move through the light cast by the troll (who is a little tea light). It’s a lovely idea, you play it in the dark, not so sure about the game play but it was interesting enough for a good ten minutes. A tricky one to play at a con though !

Last off we had some more Coup which I’ve spoken about way to much and that was it

Thanks for the Caramel Squares which were both frightening and immensely satisfying to quote one of the day lads when they were revealed “Holy Shit, there’s an inch of everything!”

Good gaming,

Huzzah!

Vic

January 17, 2014 0

Seven Minute Abs

I’ve acquired Eight Minute Empire, nothing to do with abs or anything hasty like that, but the name keeps reminding me of the scene in “There’s something about Mary”

Eight Minute Empire is a filler game that (in theory) can be played in eight minutes. Like the pirate code it’s more a guideline. It will take a good twenty minutes to play and that’s fine.

It’s a map based, simple empire game (I love a good empire game me) where you struggle with others to control more and get more points at the end. What’s not to like?

A test drive on thur night is in order I think. Expect this front and centre at Knavecon

Huzzah!

Vic

January 15, 2014 1

Wet as an otter’s pocket Thur – Being a Drax report

Different people like different games, it’s like anything in life, some like Jaffa Cake Muffins some don’t…. (yes we had home made Jaffa cake muffins for Thur night gaming thanks to my wonderful missus). I like Leader 1 but the last group to play it were pretty ho hum about it. They didn’t DISLIKE it they just didn’t love it and well I LOVE this game. We had a big group on Thur which is always good so we split in two and while one group played Agricola our group played…. Leader 1. But I digress, first up was COUP

I’ve been ranting a bit about this game and we got to play the extra rules which makes for very interesting team play.

If you’ve been following my last column I mentioned COUP it’s a very neat filler game where players take on the roles and actions of various characters or at least claim to have those characters and try and be the last person standing. It’s a bluff game. Just like resistance. Matter of fact it’s by the same guys. Now where it gets more interesting is where each player starts on a team either Protestant or Catholic (it doesn’t matter really it could be team A or team B or itchy or scratchy whatever you’re having yourself) and they can only attack players on the opposite team. They can still call the bluff of their own team. To make it even more interesting for 1 coin they can swap teams and presumably avoid a bullet or pay two coins and make another player part of the opposite team they are currently on. This is a goodie I highly recommend coup. It’s the most fun game we’ve played so far this year and there’s only another 50+ gaming nights to go 🙂 Oh yes it’s also a Definite for Knavecon on the 1st March

We decided to split into two groups (let’s call them “my group” and “not my group”) and my group had a crack at Leader 1

All of the players bar myself hadn’t played but were avid racing fans and were slapping on the shammy cream in anticipation of playing this game. They’d previously played Rallyman and this wasn’t a 100 miles from that. What ensued was a great nights gaming.

The game starts with each player in this case picking two specialist riders from a choice of three, climbers (good at hills), Sprinters (good on the flat) and Leaders (a bit of both). Then the mass of riders known as the peloton belts off with all the riders safely tucked inside. It starts slowly enough with the riders peddling along happily keeping and eye on each other and then BANG! someone makes a break for it and others may or may not follow them. Just like real cycling the break away group try and stay ahead of the peloton and make it to the line before everyone else.

Buried in the photocopies we found a scorecard and realised (not surprisingly) we’d been playing wrong or more accurately winning wrong, just like formula 1 it’s points based on the two riders finishing position, so 50pts for the first rider over the line, 46 for the second and so on, SO finishing first doesn’t guarantee a win by any means if the next team get two high finish points with both their riders.

A fairly early break by three hill climbers set the pace, they did really well ascending then descending the mountain (we could nearly hear the whiz of peddles on the downhill) they were very quickly followed by the remaining riders who all broke cover and pursued them down the hill.

It was fast and tense. Riders jockeyed for position, trying to slipstream then pass the riders ahead of them. The hill climbers out of their natural element started to falter, burning through their reserves of energy on the flat ground. The downhill specialists reeled them in then passed them followed by a lone leader. One canny rider held back until near the finish then took off burning through cakes worth of energy (c) to pass everyone. The peleton kept it’s relentless pursuit and towards the end the horror settled on the players. The hill climbers would be caught by the peloton and absorbed again and there was nothing they could do. They were. Just before the last sprint the peloton swept in and took them back, three riders never finished and somehow… I won. Both my riders made it and although they came I think it was 3rd and 4th or maybe 4th and 5th their combined score won it…. FOR ME!!! YESSSS!!!!!

Best game ever ! 😛

While this was all going on not my group were enjoying Agricola. I’ve played it only once and very badly so I can’t comment and my head was down trying to slipstream during the whole thing so I leave it to someone who was there to describe it

http://dooradoyle.com/gaming/thursday-night-week-2-agricola/?fb_action_ids=10202723009737090&fb_action_types=og.likes

Last up was a bit of warm down Coup and we all headed home

A FINE nights gaming, more of that I say!

Huzzah!

Vic

This Drax Report is dedicated to the memory of my oldest friend Chris Maher who tragically and unexpectidly died last weekend. Chris was an avid gamer whom I grew up with and over the last 30+ years we had clocked a huge amount of hours happily gaming together. You are sadly missed old friend.

January 10, 2014 3

Coup D’etat

I don’t usually write follow ups to gaming nights but something about the game COUP has piqued my interest. Firstly I like it as is evidenced from the last post and secondly it’s ever so slightly broken, which is a pity.

It’s possible to get locked into a game a few turns from the end with no way out and this is something I’m sure others have discovered, not least the designers. Thus we have… the Inquisitor (no-one was expecting that were they!)

From my readings it seems that a new version of the game is on the cards (again pardon the pun) like they did with Resistance. The new version has two additions one of which is the aforementioned Inquisitor

This chap replaces the ambassador (no bad thing he was a bit weak) and has the following rules

He can do a mini ambassador move, swap cards, but only 1
He blocks stealing
He can look secretly at another players card (of the targets choice) and ask them to swap it with the court

I think this changes things quite a bit, so no more getting blocked in by inevitable assassins or coups. SO next thur we’re going to try this out along with the other rule

Oh I didn’t mention that did I?

There’s more

but it’s late and that can come in the next post

Huzzah

ZZZZzzz

Vic

January 5, 2014 0

First Thur of 2014 Thur – Being a Drax Report

The call went out for gamers to cast off the yoke of eating, new year spirit and goodwill to all men and get back in the sodden trenches of backstabbery and pettiness that is thur night gaming. We were not left wanting.

A number of the lads had gotten presents of boardgames for xmas and we all eagerly stuck our snouts in their gaming troughs and snuffled deep of new cardboard and rules. Truth be told (and this is one of the things that makes Knavecon such a good thing) there is nothing to beat someone bringing a new game to the table, knowing the rules and being able to explain them properly. Once again we had that last night with, Terra Mystica

But before that all started we had a lash of a game I was lucky enough to get for xmas, COUP

Coup is a neat little bluffing game by the same guys that did The Resistance

Each person takes two random cards which represent the influence they have on the court (the government). The deck consists of five sets of three duplicate cards the Captain, Ambassador, Assassin, Contessa and Duke. These are kept face down so no-one knows what everyone else has. Each of the cards have a particular action associated with it (the captain can steal, the duke tax and so on) and anyone can do any of these actions but in doing so they CLAIM they have those cards in their hand. So it’s all about bluffing. Where it gets interesting is where someone calls an action and someone else shouts “PULL THE OTHER ONE!” or words to that effect and one or other is incorrect. the loser has to turn one of their cards face up and if both of their cards are face up, that it’s they’re out of the round. Be the last person standing and you win.

It plays very quickly. you can have it done in five minutes, but we found that after a while the game became much more cagey with people not willing to risk their positions to stop others.

I liked it, I’m definitely going to play a bit more of this and I think it would play well over several rounds just like poker where you try and figure out the person rather than the cards.

SO onto the meat and potatoes (or turkey and sprouts if you will).

Terra Mystica is a game I have heard about over and over for the last year. It’s never been described as anything but awesome so I was delighted to get a crack at it.

Three things that struck me about it

There’s a lot of pieces
a lot of rules
it’s surprisingly fast

Luckily enough the game owner knew the rules and after a good half hour of explaining we were shakily off. It’s worker placement big style. There’s a LOT going on, a constant balancing act and although I thought it might get bogged down with analysis, play is swift. Each player gets one of 14 races and attempts to terraform the lands around them and build the biggest city, get the highest score and if possible cock block other players. There are numerous routes to victory and everyone’s race plays differently so it has a fantastic replay value. As a game it plays a BIT like stone age, puerto rico and a number of others but it is pretty unique in itself.

Having played one game I’m eager to play another and interestingly I think once setup you could play it within an hour. It’s certainly not the game I expected but that’s no bad thing. What I really liked about it is even though it’s relatively complex (it wouldn’t be the best game to teach a new gamer) none of the mechanics are superfluous or bolted on. I also liked that everyone got it very quickly indeed after the first turn.

As for turns it only has six and it whips around very quickly. There’s very little downtime as you’re constantly thinking about where to go next to leverage a bit of advantage. This game demands another replay and then another

After that we played Cthulhu Gloom

Cthulhu Gloom is a themed version of Gloom (I sound like I played gloom but I haven’t). It features a very nice mechanic of transparent cards which fit over each other and add bonus/negatives to each of the cards. The weird story is, you have to depress your four family members and then bump them off (no I have no idea why) and then everyone scores the depressed score for all your dead family members….. yes it’s a bit weird, but it’s not bad. Certainly a filler and at the late hour it was played it was tough to get an overall picture of it. The cards really are excellent, the whole transparent thing is superb

We also managed to get in a game of Cards Against Humanity and then it was high time to pull the plug and get some sleep.

Good start to the year

Huzzah!

Vic

January 3, 2014 1