What are you playing?

[moosegrinder]

The dividers in Dragonspire are definitely only for Dragonspire. There's randomisers for all sets but you only get the dividers for the set apart from in Wrathgate where you get the thingummy...base set dividers because AEG didn't put any in. You can fit all the cards in the new box and that looks like what he's done. I can't take a piccie as I can't find my camera but I'm using the sponge dividers currently.

I'll take a picture tomorrow but now I have to go to bed because my brain is trying to expand beyond my skull.

[jonnyalpha]

Joyrex! Ask Paul if he'll give Rllmuk users a discount as well. His site gets pimped about on these pages enough of the time.

He might go for it.

[Exit Chamber]

Just got back from a three hour session of my friend's WFRP based fantasy game. My spectacularly bad rolling is becoming somewhat tiring now. Only one critical fumble tonight at least. I'm keeping the world's bow string manufacturers in business!

Also played a few games of the Game of Thrones card game at the weekend, as well as a very drunken game of Talisman, the highlight of which was my wife toading one of my mates who went in a bit of a huff. Much fun was poked.

[Joyrex-J9]

The dividers in Dragonspire are definitely only for Dragonspire. There's randomisers for all sets but you only get the dividers for the set apart from in Wrathgate where you get the thingummy...base set dividers because AEG didn't put any in. You can fit all the cards in the new box and that looks like what he's done. I can't take a piccie as I can't find my camera but I'm using the sponge dividers currently.

I'll take a picture tomorrow but now I have to go to bed because my brain is trying to expand beyond my skull.

Right I get it now - I thought that was a lot of stuff to cram into one box. I had all the expansions muddled up in my head

Cool thanks mate!

Just got back from a three hour session of my friend's WFRP based fantasy game.

He's made his own RPG? That's pretty hardcore.

[Exit Chamber]

Yeah, he has spent a few years planning his world, and this is now the second "generation" of the game, based about 2000 years after his first campaign, with the players actions in the first gen having had a huge impact on how the world has been shaped.

[Joyrex-J9]

His own ruleset? Or just an epic WFRP campaign?

(I say "just" but you know what I mean)

[Exit Chamber]

His background/world using WFRP rules. I gave to say, it's a great system, really simple, so no faffing about in rulebooks.

[michael]

Taught a couple of mates to play Lords of Vegas last night - I love it, and they seemed to really enjoy it too. It really works with the theme, you're totally encouraged to risk it all, and risk it regularly. Even if you screw up, you can build up funds pretty speedily to try and make a push for victory! Took a couple of hours, but not bad considering two of the three players hadn't even heard of it before. Hopefully they'll be up for it again - I certainly am, as I lost by 4 points

[SimonC]

Had a bit of a session yesterday. Played a couple of games of 4 player Pandemic in the afternoon and we got soundly beaten in both. A couple of epidemics came out in quick sucession in both games and we had too many outbreaks in the 1st and ran out of cubes in the 2nd. We all really enjoyed it though and i think it will get plenty more plays.Then it was 3 player Arkham Horror in the evening which was excellent fun as ever. We got some seals on the board pretty early but then got very unlucky as they never came out as gate locations again! Yig eventiually awakened from his slumber but we had some lucky dice rules in the final battle and defeated him. Two player Carcassone at 2 in the morning probably wasn't my best idea, but never played it 2 player before and it really was a tactical battle. Made my head hurt having to think like that so late in the night but I think i enjoyed it more 2 player than the 3+4 player games i've played before.

[moosegrinder]

Just played some Thunderstone Dragonspire to try and get a final bead on it before reviewing it. The missus won by 3 points, but the game was quick and entertaining. Good shit.

[moosegrinder]

WoW TCG, a pretty dull game of Dragonspire and hilarity with Ticket To Ride tonight. I lost all 3 (except WoW TCG, but that's only because Donk has a new deck he was trying.

Absolutely fucking gutted Ascension has the same deck twice in it, some sort of distribution error. Emailed the chap at Heron to see if we can sort it.

[Mogster]

Wrath of Ashardalon came today, and I've been spending a lot of time with it. The components are amazing, and the Ashardalon "mini" really is huge. The rules are really slick too though, and other than a few vague instructions I've been able to leave the rule book alone since my first adventure.

That first adventure is a bit nuts though. It instructs you to play with a single hero, tasked with escaping a small dungeon. The problem is that a bunch of the game's events are clearly balanced for groups of heroes, such as trap cards that require you to forfeit an attack to escape. On my first attempt I was faced with a real nightmare scenario too, drawing a monster card that actually spawns three of the bastards at once when I was already running away from two others. Then I drew a trap.

I gave up on the first adventure after that failure and jumped ahead to the second, which is intended as an introduction for a group of players. This time 2-5 heroes could be used in a quest to kill 12 monsters. I played the Dragonborn wizard and the Elf Paladin, which made for a much easier game than my former lone rogue. It was all going swimmingly for most of the game, only for things to take a bad turn with only two monsters left to kill. The paladin got stuck in a cage, and I kept failing my rolls to free her, taking a fair amount of damage in the process. She got out eventually though, only to die and use up a surge shortly afterwards. A similar fate befell my wizard, but by this point i only had one monster left to kill. Naturally I then ran straight into that three monster team again. Gulp!

Somehow they all failed their attack rolls though, giving my wizard a chance to use a hard hitting daily power against monster number 12. 8)

I'll try and get one of my friends to join me tomorrow for the same scenario. I'm just hoping the DnD name won't put him off! Maybe I'll hide the box.

[michael]

Hahaha, Legion Demon! What a bunch of fuckers they are. We played it last night, me and four first timers. "Shall we take out Ashardalon?" I asked. "Nah, leave it in, there's no way we'll pull that encounter."

Fourth tile. "Ashardalon Arrives". FFS. Two of the party dead within two turns. Lots of fun though.

[Mogster]

Legion Demon! That's the one.

This game is pretty much the holy grail for me. It's a dungeon crawl with worthwhile solo rules that's also simple and quick enough for non-gamers. Brilliant!

[Joyrex-J9]

Just clearing the place up after a weekend of boardgaming. Had some of London 'muk crew over () for boardgames, beer and well more boardgames (oh and knitting but unless we start a rllmuk knitting folder I'll leave that out!)

Had a great time, got to play loads of games; we got though Carcassone, Dominion, Seven Wonders, Alhambra, and Munchkin. There was an aborted attempt to get a game of Ravenloft going, but I stressed out trying to get it set-up and ditched it, in favour of something simpler.

Surprise hit for me was Munchkin - which descended into some epic & bitter rivalries, lots of piss taking and generally being pretty horrible to each other. Doesn't sound it, but it was fun!

Yeah good times.

[Uncle Mike]

Great times. Thanks, Joyrex!

I've not really ever played these before, and Carcassone & Munchkin in particular were great.

[Mogster]

I still haven't managed to get my friends to try Munchkin.

I finally played a proper game of Wrath of Ashardalon today though, after dragging my brother over. We played through the same scenario I tried on my own on Friday, and it was pretty awesome. We did cheat a little bit towards the end, deciding to rewind a decision Sands of Time style after a slight misjudgement resulted in utter failure when victory was a single turn away. He's keen to try the next adventure, so I'd call that a success!

[strawdonkey]

I headed over to Daventry for the WoWTCG tournament at VaultCon. Ten players, sealed pack (six boosters, open them, construct a 30-card deck out of the contents).

I won!

They served cups of tea at this place which was a major win too.

[jonnyalpha]

You're on a bit of a winning streak at the minute aren't you?

Well done. And what did you win? Games?

[idespair]

Having recently moved, I went along to the local wargames club for the first time last night and joined in an intro game of Malifaux. Only one person had played previously, although I'd read through the rules, so we ignored the usual battle set-up procedure (choosing weird terrain effects and various missions to undertake) and went for a straight four-way battle.

I'd brought along The Dreamer and his friends, facing off against a bunch of Steampunk Cowboys and some demons. They set up their gangs (between 5 and 8 figures), and I put a small boy with his comfort blanket onto the field. Little did they know.

For those who don't know Malifaux, it eschews dice in favour of a deck of cards. Every time you cast a spell/attack/etc you flip the top card of your deck and add it to the relevant stat, comparing it against a target number or your opponent stat+card flip. Beat the target, or score higher to win. You also have a hand of card drawn at the start of each turn which you can use to replace your flip, as long as you've not got any negative modifiers. Sometimes an action will require a particular card suit as well as a number, and certain suit combinations can trigger additional effects. It sounds complex, but you soon get into the hang of it and find yourself trying to work out your odds of success based on what cards you've already run through in your deck. You only reshuffle when you're out of cards.

We didn't get chance to finish the game, as we spent quite a while checking rules and so on, but it was a lot of fun. My little guy is fairly tricky to use, as he's all about teleporting your figures around and summoning monsters to the table rather than straight up fighting. Still, his demon form caused much amusement when we realised that he heals any time anyone near him is hit in melee. Shortly after an entire gang had run in to engage him.

I didn't get any pictures of the game, but here is my team:

Left ro right: Daydreams (x3), Coppelius, Lord Chompy Bits, The Dreamer, Teddy, Stitched Ones (x2)

[strawdonkey]

You're on a bit of a winning streak at the minute aren't you?

Well done. And what did you win? Games?

Cheers Yeah, seem to be doing ok with a Top 8 at a large national event and second, third and now first at local qualifier events.

Have won well over £70 worth of sealed WoWTCG product and more foil promos in the last month, and more deck boxes than I know what to do with!

[paddyo]

Those Malifaux figs are AMAZING!!

Never heard of that game, sounds really cool though

[moosegrinder]

Those figures are the tits. That teddy is wicked!

Last night was mine and Donk's nerd card night, but we weren't in the mood for WoW TCG so we went into Ascension. Once again, the fucking rules are written by the bloody designer and so there was some wrangling and Googling done but we got there in the end and hilarity ensued. The cards just seem ridiculously bent. Massive fun, mind. We had a couple of games of that and then moved onto trying to fathom Castle Ravenloft. Rules. Rules rules rules. Written by fucking idiots. Sigh. Anyway, we fathomed it and almost got to the end of the first co-op campaign but it got late and then a Gargoyle turned up and fed us our feet. Looking forward to giving it another go, mind.

[Campfire_Burning]

I had a blast at Ascension last night, too. The rulebook's lovely and clear and the rules are portrayed simply - they just forgot to include half of them. All rule books should contain an example or two of how an actual game might go. I had to look up rules containing The Cultist (who wasn't explained at all) the centre row (it didn't explain when to restock it) and turn order (which, without the regimented limits of Buys like in Dominion, is basically a free-for-all).

Aside from that, year, it's massive fun. I just managed to win by making a couple of last minute purchases of cards with high honour values. The centre row mechanic - where you're competing for the same cards, you can banish stuff the other player's after out of spite, and every time you remove a card from the row you're gambling on the next card drawn from the centre deck - is fantastic, as are the 'instant' monster rewards. And it moves so fast. It handles like a speedboat compared to Dominion and Thunderstone.

Thank you so much to the guy who sent it to me.

[moosegrinder]

We know who sent it you, chuff nuts.

Yeah it's proper rapid and yeah they left out half the bloody rules. I swear to god these pillocks have never heard of proof-reading. Going to punch A Touch Of Evil tonight, read the rules then head over to Headless Hollow and read them again.

[Campfire_Burning]

Also, I hate it when these games screw up their terminology. If you're going to spend the rulebook referring to a Centre deck, it's probably a good idea to have one marked on your map of the game board. Portal deck, FFS!

[Joyrex-J9]

trying to fathom Castle Ravenloft. Rules. Rules rules rules. Written by fucking idiots.

Oh god yes. Try to find the "this is what you need to play" is a mind fuck. Spread randomly across the two books with no clear indication which of the 34,000 tokens and cards you need (or don't), more than half of the cardboard seems to be for specific adventures.

[Exit Chamber]

Remember people, rules = fun!

[jonnyalpha]

You bloody whingers.

If you don't have to read the rules several times, print out a player aid and set up guide, laminate turn order sheets and consult several online FAQs then where is the fun? You lot just don't know how to have a good time.

I'm going to mention Gosu again here because the rulebook almost ruined everything for me. It's short, clear and has examples. Bloody useless, I haven't had to print out anything and my laminator remained cold and unloved. What a disgrace of a game.

[moosegrinder]

All joking aside, I'm impatient as it is. I have a poor sense of time so shit seems to go to quickly and so anything that seems like it's wasting time that could be used doing fun things pisses me off no end, poor rules is just one of many things.