Boardgames, Card Games, Gaming
We’re aiming big for Knavecon II. We’ve decided to expand the venue to accommodate more people. So Knavecon II will be able to accommodate 100+ people comfortably (and unlike ryanair you can bring as much baggage as you can carry)
I’ve included a picture with Dec in the background to give you and idea of scale 🙂
Remember 7th September Knavecon II
Huzzah!
Well we finally got to play Mansion of Madness after several Thursdays of false starts and it was as good as I had hoped and more. The Mansions of Madness is a very nice model/map game set in the HP Lovecraft universe. 1920’s, unspeakable horrors from beyond, maniacs, tommy guns, hats. It’s got it all. The game itself in essence is a dungeon romp in the tradition of heroquest and it’s ilk but it’s very clever and the setting is magnificent.
Unlike say the excellent role playing game, this is competitive with the GM trying to kill/drive insane the investigators whilst the investigators are trying to solve the mystery against the clock. The game contains a lot of clever ideas and unlike some others games like this none of these are superfluous or counter productive. Despite being story driven the game has a fantastic replay value. Each of the six scenarios that come with the games have multiple branches so it’s quite possible to play the same scenario over and play a very different game.
A lot of thought has gone into this game and it’s obvious from the start. Like all FF games the quality is superb. like all FF games there are a LOT components, in the case of MOM there are a L O T of components and separating them out is a chore. Once bagged and tagged there is NO air in the game box.
The rules are excellent, straightforward and fast. The one thing against it is the setup time. It took us a LONG time to setup however if we all shut up talking shite (we could hardly do that) and got on with it I’d say we’d be up and going in under a half hour. what IS nice in setup is the invetigators have to setup the map whilst the GM sets up the pieces within.
SO how did it go?
The investigators stumbled in the house of lynch learning the rules as they went (which turned out simpler than we thought) and immediately did the thing demanded of all horror movies/games. Split up and go separate ways (possibly with candles and night dresses). Within a very short time axe weilding manics, zombies and other assorted bad stuff was all over them like a Brian. In fact one luckless investigator was like a maniac magnet, you couldn’t leave him alone in a room for five minutes to search but an axe wielding maniac would splinter the door and come for him. Despite the best efforts by the GM (me) to drive them mad, hack them to death I was unsuccessful but more importantly so were they and the time ran out for them and in the case of the scenario I picked that was all she wrote for the hapless investigators. Queue Thunder and Lightning and manic laughter.
Overall this is a fantastic game, definitely one of the better games I’ve played in a long time. We seem to be having quite the run of good games lately with Spartacus, Waterdeep and this.
More of this sort of thing I say
and now that I’ve learned the rules (mostly)
It’s going to be hitting the table again soon
Hail Cthulhu !
It was high noon (8:30) and the folks in the homestead had fixed a mess of food (put on the coffee), reckon it was time to play Way out West
But before any of that could happen we had to play
Letter of Marque
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/29096/letter-of-marque
I got this as a swapsee and I can see why it was swapped to me. It’s grand in a sort of Bread is grand kinda way. I had not strong feelings about it one way or the other and I’m sure it will hit the table again. it’s a bluffing/guessing game with a bit of card counting. nothing special and it has ships in which is always good. it’s very quick and we flew through 2 or 3 games of it before the main event.
WAY OUT WEST
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/884/way-out-west
Soundtrack from Good the Bad and the ugly – CHECK
Coffee – CHECK
Cowboy quotes – CHECK
Spittoon – eh no
I like this game and want to play it again. It’s pretty past. there’s a LOT of in your face aggression (although we may have taken this a bit far as there wasn’t a whole passel of development, just a few wounded cowboys and a lot of cattle and tumbleweed at the end). It’s a semi worker placement game for want of a better term. it’s not so much about cock blocking other locations on players although this does play a part, it’s more about and a lot of fun for that russeling cattle, muscling in on other players patches and generally causing mayhem whilst trying to maintain your own economy.
It’s great fun, it really is and the cowboy theme works really well. The rules are very straightforward although the original ones in the box are a bit confusing and a better set can be downloaded from BGG.
There were shootings, stagecoach robbery, rebranding of cattle, sheriffs killed and banks robbed. Not bad for the first turn. Newton got behind and being the decent group we are we picked on him continually for the whole game until he was eliminated. Always kick a man when he’s down just in case.
Drax (an expert in cattle and cattle prevention) started to slip ahead but was brought under control by the combined agreement of The enemy of my enemy is my friend for this turn or at least until he does what I want and then he’s my enemy again. Cattle swapped hands a lot, there were a LOT of shootouts, truth be told I don’t think a single turn passed without one and in the end… I think drax won it. Strong cattle management and stronger muscle and bully tactics won the day
So after that and with a little time left we had a lash of half Tishu (500pts).
Great game, team Awesome split and fought against each other and despite some nice play by the weaker half of team awesome , good prevailed and I won (I mean my team won). Drax lost. Cosmic Balance was restored
More of that next Thur
Huzzah!
Knavecon 2 is confirmed for the 7th September in the Southcourt Hotel in Limerick.
the last one was a big success, we’ve had to book a much bigger room for the the next one!
As Renée Zellweger famously said in the movie Jerry Maguire “You had me at Cthulhu”*.
SO, I decided to have a crack at Mansion of Madness once again. All pieces were laid out the instructions carefully studied and it was quickly brushed aside when players arrived. This is going to elude for a while. I’ve settled on a plan to set it up with a friend of mine not on a Thur night and do a play through to get the hang of it. It’s just too good a game to ignore and too good a game to get wrong, so bare with me.
First up of the night was
Alien Frontiers
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/48726/alien-frontiers
The tagline on the front is “Do you have what it takes to colonize a new world?”. Based on my performance in last nights game I would have to say NO. it’s a nice little game. Can be quite quick and involves some nice cock blockery. Had been a while since we’d played so took a few rounds to get back into the swing of things i.e. cock blocking. I didn’t win. but since Drax didn’t come thur night due to some dentistry issue (I can only assume he had his fangs removed by the vampire council) it didn’t matter.
It was then straight into
Lords of Waterdeep
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/110327/lords-of-waterdeep
This is the game that just gives and gives. It’s very much more than the sum of it’s parts and I love it to bits as does everyone who’s played it so far. It’s proving to be the game of the year so far for me anyway. Again no success like some of the newer players but it’s all about playing and not about winning*
*(it’s about winning)
**(and drax losing)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tichu
Last of the night was a ‘quick’ game of Tichu. Our newest member picked it up like quicker than a student would pick up a half smoked fag. The new team awesome after a tichu fail and a 1,2 win against never got off the stocks and with a shortened end game (500pts) and a late finish 2am. We had to concede defeat. We didn’t have to LIKE it but we did have to concede it.
BTW If you haven’t played tichu yet, you really are missing out. Incredibly awesome and relatively simple card game
SO more of this short of thing next thur and a hearty
HUZZAH!
I’m a big fan of books but my reading speed due to lack of time and having to move my mouth when I read has led me to a novel solution which I’m going to share with you now.
Pseudo Audio Books
I first came across he idea almost by accident when I was using a Kindle. The old kindle 3 used to have audio and it came with a Text to Speech function which was rudimentary but after a bit of getting used to worked fine. I hooked my kindle into my car speakers via a cassette/MP3 on a long journey and listened to my book. worked a treat. Kindle have since removed the feature to reduce production costs but you can do it yourself if you have a smart phone. Here’s what I recommend
iPhone.
I recommend using Voice Dream.
http://www.voicedream.com/
it’s around €4 for the app on the itunes store and you can buy extra voices for it (I listened to a the windup girl which is set in Thailand with an indian voice, added a lot to it)
if you have an android device I recommend IVONA text to speech
Both are excellent, the voice is probably a tiny bit better on the Ivona but both are excellent.
Listening in your car
I’m assuming if you’re smart enough to get this far you can figure out how to play the audio in your car via a converter. I recommend doing it via Bluetooth if you can for the best quality
and that’s it.
My reading has increased several fold after going this route. contact me if you have any questions
Huzzah!
Well after a thorough read of the rules we were all set for Mansions of Madness. After a full half hour of talking rubbish, drinking coffee and talking more shite, ohhing and ahhing the models, looking at all the extensive cards we agreed it looked like a fantastic game, so we put it away and took out Spartacus with a promise of revisiting MoM real soon. Maybe even next thur.
So it was we had at it with Spartacus once again.
I Totally confused Borys a couple of times during the game, once by being nice to Newton and the second time by flipping a coin to decide something (I hand’t actually said heads or harps I just flipped a coin and said, NO, can’t do it but thanks for them money). The way to go in this game is definitely be the host. a couple of unexpected wins by some underdogs and somehow I convinced people that Borys was Bad and I was good and I cruised home to a handy victory. It was only at the end they copped what I was up to by selling everything i owned and having and unassailable bid for host pushing me over the line. Great game but I think we’ll let it sit now until the expansion arrives
With a tired bunch we decided against K2 but that’s going to be a definite for another night so it was
Kingdoms
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/119/kingdoms
This is a game that can go terribly right for you or terribly wrong. It’s a wee bit too random for me, but then again I have never won a game of it so I would be critical.
a very early lead by Brian couldn’t be stopped despite our best efforts so some embarrassingly low scores crept in at third and fourth positions.
SO, next week DEFINITELY it’s Mansions of Madness
Huzzah!
“Malicious enjoyment derived from observing someone else’s misfortune.”
Games tonight 8:30
My House
Victor Gannon Games 