Another game night! Just two players again but we do have more players scheduled for our next game night.
Aliens: This Time its War
My friend wanted to start off with one of his favourites - a game which he has been able to win several times recently. ;)
We played two games and as before, I went with the marines while he went with the Aliens. Given his recent success, I was determined to get some wins. My friend, on the other hand, was looking to get the night off to a good start. Unfortunately for him, luck was not on his side and I managed to get 2 wins.
What was most hilarious though was when I killed the Alien Queen and my friend tried to get revenge by destroying my Power Loader. I informed him that the Power Loader can't be destroyed by the Alien player at which point he expressed shock at how unfair the game was. Coming from someone who previously claimed that the game was unfairly balanced in favour of the Alien player, this was music to my ears!
Battle Line
We followed up with one of our combined favourite games. Battle Line is a great game which is simple to learn and play but has massive depth. And as per usual, I won all 3 games.
:)
Talking with my friend, I did realise why. Primarily, he isn't good at risk assessment. There was one situation where he started off with two 1's and then split them up into separate war zones. This was a bad idea as he could potentially have had three 1's which, while not the best hand, would have at least forced me to potentially commit something better to that battlefield. Instead, he split up his hand and allowed me to defeat the other two battlefields more easily.
Red7
A new game. This was actually a game my friend had purchased and I was looking forward to playing it as I had heard good things about it. Unfortunately, my friend didn't really understand the rules so the first game we played was a complete farce as the rules, as he understood them, were clearly broken - a fact which I promptly proved to him by exploiting the flaw to get an easy win.
At this point, it was pretty obvious that we didn't understand the rules so I jumped onto BGG and downloaded the rules to read myself. I only skimmed the rules but got enough to let us play almost correctly. We played 2 more games with the new rules and we both ended with 1 win each.
I have since reread the rules properly (taking my time so that I didn't miss anything!) and we did miss a pretty important rule about card draw. This was a shame as the rule would have changed the game significantly and added a lot more skill to the game. As it was, I didn't really enjoy the two games we played as the game felt so random. Hopefully, I'll get a chance to replay the game again at a later date using the proper rules.
Thursday, January 28, 2016
Thursday, January 21, 2016
The Long War
Welp - kinda disappeared from the blogosphere for a while. Hopefully, I'm back to normal now and can start up my blogging again.
Part of the reason for the delay is due to XCOM - specifically The Long War mod.
Over Christmas, I purchased the XCOM enemy within DLC which was on sale at Steam. Fair warning - Steam sales are dangerous! I didn't get very far in the game before I got bored. To be fair, part of the reason I got bored was because I was itching to try out The Long War mod.
If you've never heard of it, The Long War mod is pretty much considered THE essential mod for XCOM. It changes up the game massively - so massively that I'll leave the detail to the link above. However, in brief, you have new classes, more soldiers, new equipment, a new tech tree and tons of voicepacks and maps added to the game (strictly speaking, the maps weren't added but recycled from the special missions which in the past, weren't used for normal missions). Naturally, to take into account all the new toys and skills you have - the difficulty in the game has been ramped up massively.
What is really impressive about the mod though is the way it forces you to change how you play.
Soldiers now suffer from fatigue after a mission and need a rest before going back out into the field. And the missions come thick and fast so you really don't get much chance to rest! This means that you are constantly cycling through soldiers so you have to focus on building up a great squad rather than relying on just a couple of super soldiers. The fatigue mechanic also makes SHIVs (robots) useful again - in the base game, they were just a waste of time and its great to now actually use them regularly. This is combined with an increase in the base squad size from 4 to 6 soldiers so that you don't feel punished by including the SHIV in your squad (bearing in mind that SHIVs don't gain experience).
This design philosophy permeates through the whole of the mod. Another example is that fighter kills are now tracked and fighter pilots gain experience and get better as a result of this. Suddenly, choosing which fighter to send out on an intercept has much more meaning.
The one big problem that I can currently see is that The Long War really is a long war. You have so many tactical battles that progress in the game slows to a crawl (which is further exacerbated by a slowed research speed). To be fair, this isn't a problem if you love the tactical game and are willing to spend lots and lots (and lots) of time on it.
In my case, with the lack of time I have to game, I can see me taking months to play through this mod. Hopefully, it doesn't impact my blogging schedule too much!!
Thursday, December 31, 2015
Tabletop year in review - 2015
Well, we are at the end of the year and I thought it would be interesting to do a review of my tabletop gaming over the last year.
Full analysis below:
Full analysis below:
Wow. 154 plays spread out over 16 games in 2015. Given my "gut feeling" that I didn't get anywhere close enough time to game, that number is a lot higher than I would have expected.
I won't talk about every game on the list but did want to talk about the games where I had over 10 plays (on the basis that these are the "best" games I played in 2015).
Lord of the Rings: The Card Game
No surprise that this is leading the pack. I got this game in May and immediately fell in love with it. It's a brilliantly thematic game which combines the deep deck construction that you see in games like Magic but without all the issues that Magic has. The only reason it didn't get more plays is because its quite difficult for me to get hold of the expansion packs.
I fully expect this game to continue getting a lot of plays in 2016 particularly as the game works brilliantly as a solo game which makes it relatively easier to make it to the table.
Ticket to Ride
This is a really fun entry level Euro which I primarily play at work with some colleagues during lunchtime. This really should have more plays but sometimes, its hard to find the time to play - particularly when everyone is busy. Regardless, I expect this game to continue to get a lot more plays in 2016.
Yomi
Another great game which I rate extremely highly. Part of the reason that this has so many plays is that you rarely play just once when you play - normally going for a best of 3 or best of 5 to determine a winner. We even managed to get several multiplayer games which is an interesting twist on the normal 1v1 mode. Although I prefer the 1v1 mode, it was fun to try out the multiplayer.
Unfortunately, the rest of the group doesn't like this game as much as I do and its likely that the number of plays in 2016 will drop significantly.
Space Hulk: Death Angel
Got this game in February and managed 12 plays. This is actually surprisingly low given how much I enjoy playing this game and how quickly the game is to setup and play (relative to other games on this list). Part of the reason for this is the overall lack of time I have to play games. Another part of this is my buying Lord of the Rings in May which coincided with when I started to play this game less often.
Despite this, I very much enjoy this game and it will like see more plays in 2016.
Aliens: This Time it's War
This is a fun two player game which is actually available for free as a print and play game. Of the 10 plays this year, 4 of them were solo. This was either using the variant solo rules or with me playing the game 2 handed. While the solo rules are okay, my preference is to play 2 handed with me controlling both sides. The other 6 plays were with my main gaming buddy on the odd occasion where our game group session only had 2 players showing up.
Both my friend and I enjoy this game as it manages to capture the theme extremely well and it is likely that this will see more plays in 2016 (although I don't know if it will make over 10 plays if I don't play it as much solo).
Thursday, December 24, 2015
Lord of the Rings LCG - Hunt for Gollum
Gandalf has requested your assistance in the search for the elusive creature known as Gollum. Your search begins in the Anduin Valley between Mirkwood Forest and the Misty Mountains. You make your way along the banks of the Anduin River, a likely place for Gollum to find food.
The quest starts off really thematically in terms of the mechanics. As you start your search for Gollum, if you quest successfully, you draw 3 cards and keep 1 of them. This card is in addition to the card per player you draw as part of the questing phase which means that you are burning your way through the encounter deck.
Mechanically though, this really works well as it really feels as if you are searching for something in the encounter deck.
While making the staging area more dangerous, it does have a minor advantage in that you can possibly dump really dangerous encounter cards. Overall, not sure if its a net positive or negative from a difficulty point of view but I love it mechanically.
Rumors have led you to the eaves of Mirkwood Forest, where the Woodmen whisper of a new terror in the night...
Mission 2B on the other hand feels really odd. The story has you going to Mirkwood Forest. However, mechanically, the only difference with Mission 1B is that you draw an extra encounter card at the beginning of the mission. This is counterbalanced by the removal of the extra card per questing phase that was present in Mission 1B.
This is further exacerbated with Mission 3B which has no additional story beats but simply introduces an additional mechanism where only Heroes who previously found a Clue to Gollums location can quest. Thematically, this could have been really interesting if the story supported the mechanics. However, the story fails hard.
In effect, you spend the entire quest searching for Gollum. You never actually find him but you spend all 3 missions searching for him - and without any story beats, the quest ultimately falls flat and feels boring.
Extra Cards
Despite the failure of the quest itself, I am glad that I bought this adventure pack. The pack comes with some extra cards - some of which are extremely fun and useful.
To start with, you get Bilbo Baggins whose power lets the first player draw an extra card. I used this ability to create a new deck focused on deck draw which has been extremely successful even with the limited cards that I have.
In addition, this adventure pack introduces a new type of card called Songs. The Song of Kings, which is available in this pack, gives the hero it is attached to the Leadership resource icon. This is pretty cool in that you can give it to a non-Leadership hero and he ends up with the ability to pay for cards from 2 different pools. When couple up with Steward of Gondor, which grants 2 extra resources per round, you can build a deck that is extremely flexible in paying for whichever card you happen to have in your hand.
The quest starts off really thematically in terms of the mechanics. As you start your search for Gollum, if you quest successfully, you draw 3 cards and keep 1 of them. This card is in addition to the card per player you draw as part of the questing phase which means that you are burning your way through the encounter deck.
Mechanically though, this really works well as it really feels as if you are searching for something in the encounter deck.
While making the staging area more dangerous, it does have a minor advantage in that you can possibly dump really dangerous encounter cards. Overall, not sure if its a net positive or negative from a difficulty point of view but I love it mechanically.
Rumors have led you to the eaves of Mirkwood Forest, where the Woodmen whisper of a new terror in the night...
Mission 2B on the other hand feels really odd. The story has you going to Mirkwood Forest. However, mechanically, the only difference with Mission 1B is that you draw an extra encounter card at the beginning of the mission. This is counterbalanced by the removal of the extra card per questing phase that was present in Mission 1B.
This is further exacerbated with Mission 3B which has no additional story beats but simply introduces an additional mechanism where only Heroes who previously found a Clue to Gollums location can quest. Thematically, this could have been really interesting if the story supported the mechanics. However, the story fails hard.
In effect, you spend the entire quest searching for Gollum. You never actually find him but you spend all 3 missions searching for him - and without any story beats, the quest ultimately falls flat and feels boring.
Extra Cards
Despite the failure of the quest itself, I am glad that I bought this adventure pack. The pack comes with some extra cards - some of which are extremely fun and useful.
To start with, you get Bilbo Baggins whose power lets the first player draw an extra card. I used this ability to create a new deck focused on deck draw which has been extremely successful even with the limited cards that I have.
In addition, this adventure pack introduces a new type of card called Songs. The Song of Kings, which is available in this pack, gives the hero it is attached to the Leadership resource icon. This is pretty cool in that you can give it to a non-Leadership hero and he ends up with the ability to pay for cards from 2 different pools. When couple up with Steward of Gondor, which grants 2 extra resources per round, you can build a deck that is extremely flexible in paying for whichever card you happen to have in your hand.
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