Saturday Game Day

The local convention, Nuke Con, hosted a Games Day at a local high school on Saturday.  I ran several events and had a pretty good, solid day of gaming.

Dominion - Had two games with three different students.  They caught on to the game quickly and we had a good time as I hadn't seen a few of the cards we used in play.  Namely the Witch, whom I have been cursed now several times, and the Gardens, which is what helped me to win the first round.

Pandemic - Again, two games with a set of three students.  We played the base set plus expanded roles on round one and had know issues containing the viruses, having won with a good round or two of cards left to be drawn.  Second game we used the Virulent Epidemics, which made it a bit harder.  We did win, but had to do it on the last draw.

Formula D - Only had two kids on this one.  First race was Monnoco.  One of the kids got over aggressive early and had to sneak around the rest of the track.  Second race was Race City on  the back with me crashing into the wall, leaving one of the kids to finish in first.

Song of Blades and Heroes - Steve and Paul showed up around 430ish and we played two games of three way battles of SBH.  It worked out pretty well as a whole.  The first game was to capture the 'Ring of Power' in the center of the table.  Eric and I met in the center early and bashed heads, with my leader grabbing the coin and falling back.  Following the gruesome kill on Bobbie the Ogrun, Victor did some fleeing, dropping the ring.  Paul's Paladin leader steps up and snags the ring and heads towards the deployment safe zone.   Solid win for Paul.  Game two was a king of the hill type scenario.  I switched to a dwarf list and Paul made a small adjustment to his leader.  Paul jumped to a big lead holding the hill due to bad activation roles by both Eric and I.  It was a big bloody mess, with Eric whittled down to Zarzathor, his Dragonborn Leader, left on the table, a few of Paul's Paladin friends, but the leader being gone, and I was down to my Dwarf Lord and a Thunder Gunner.  Some how, the Dwarf Lord stood the longest on the hill, but Paul's force took the day with the most victory points.

Good times.

Really looking forward to the SBH league on our alternating Thursday.  Bill and Bob may be joining in too, which would be cool as they have been playing for some time.

jp
Play!

Thursday Night Song of Blades and Heroes

Hello!

Steve, Paul, Eric, and I got together and started our campaign for the Song of Blade and Heroes game (SBH).  Paul had an Elf list using his painted Harlequins, Eric ran Alexia the Necromancer with a few Risen undead and living support, Steve had his five Gladiator crew, and I ran a no shooting list with a solid leader, some heavy armor guys, an Ogre, a cheap shield mage, a dog, and a stealth dude.

Paul and I paired off since it was his first game - It went pretty good for me as I should have died a few times, but Paul and I kept tying on the combat rolls.  The Elves have a real high Quality stat that keeps them in there activations, but the lower Combat score hurt there ability to fight the big guy.

In the end, I whittled down the Elves only loosing my Shield Mage.  We talked about list building with the ideas, namely the author's dislike of shooting tactics and their higher cost value.

Eric and Steve's game was fought on the nice city terrain as the Gladiator's came out of the graveyard (?) to attack the Necromancer in the Inn (?)  -- Silly Scenarios! The Low Quality hurts the Undead plus Eric forgot their special rule of getting a +2 on Moral checks.  Opps!

I expect that Paul and Eric are going to revamp the lists for round two as they needed some tuning.

Tomorrow is Nuke Con Game Day.  If your board, feel free to come by for a game!

jp
Game On!

Nuke Con Game Day

I've signed up to run a few games at Nuke Con's Game Day, Aftershock on 1 May.

1000 - Dominion
1200 - Pandemic
1400 - Formula D
1800 - Song of Blade and Heroes Mini Campaign.

If you are board, feel free to swing by!  It is held at Papillion South High School.

jp

Saturday Nuke Con Round Up

Ahoy,

I got to spend all day Saturday at Nuke-Con and had a great time. I had signed up to play La Havre and Dominion early at the con. I've been interested in both of these games for some time, but never had chance to play them. Unfortunately, the guy running these games never showed which was the only downside to the day's activities. Luckily I brought Pandemic (with its expansion) and Race for the Galaxy with me. I played two games of the base Pandemic with a nice guy named Jim since he was suppose to play in the La Havre game as well. We cleaned up pretty well on easy, but lost to the game on medium, with the role combination that we ran being the real stickler.

Around 10ish, the time I was suppose to be playing Dominion, Steve volunteered to sit out of the Flames of War tournament as they had an odd number, so we picked up the Pandemic and added the Viral Strains into the deck for a few games then the Mutant Strain for a few more, and finally both on the final game. We had a few players come and go as we played, what was most likely 6 or 7 games. Good times were had by all as we saved the earth about 50% of the time.

At 2pm, I had signed up to play in Bob's White Line Nightmare home brew using the Savage Worlds engine. It was a 'Car Wars' like game where the players had to race around Council Bluffs and got $500 for hitting designated wickets and $100 for every zombie killed. I played 'Big Sam' an obese, but lovable driver of an armored PT Cruiser with a rocket launcher on the roof. It was a fun game, with the mechanics dragging the game just a tad. By 5pm, of the five players, only one had a working car and was racing around backwards trying to not get swarmed by the Zombies. One was just getting pulled out of his pickup, another had wrecked his sports car going too fast around a curve, and myself and one over were racing on foot to the safety zone. Although I ended the game with the lowest cash prizes (my wickets kept being randomly selected at opposite ends of the table... A mechanic I think needs to me adjusted as others got three wickets right in a row), I had a great time... Just wish Sam could run a bit faster. ;)

At 6pm to about 8pm I ran Race for the Galaxy, and unlike other board game runners, I showed! :) First game was with two younger players that had both played before. They had a pretty solid understanding of the game, with only a few minor reminders (like grey planets do not produce goods). The older of the two kids took the first game by 3 VP over mine. The second game Steve joined in as did a new guy Daniel that had just picked up the game, read the rules and played the 2-player vs. his wife. Daniel did a good job of picking up the parts he missed when you just learn via reading and was soon on his way. I won the game with 47 VP with a brown planet build strategy having both of the <6> brown cards allowing me to double dip the planets.

Afterwards, Steve and I broke out his copy of Agricola and played three games of 1v1. Steve won the first two by health margins and I won the third by a few points. I really liked this game a lot. It falls into that pleasantly complex category, especially when we added in the occupations and the minor improvements as those really changed the complexion of the game and your strategic options.

We finished up around midnight, and I packed up my stuff and hit the road. It was a very pleasant day of gaming and I can't wait for next year!

jp

(=| KABOOM! |=)

Lets see if I can do better in October, shall we?

So last month I was pretty lame in my posting. Only 7 out of 30 days. Pretty sad to be honest. I offer no excuses and take full accountability for my own lameness.

To make admends, here are a few things going on in the world of games for me.

On the Brink - The new expansion for Pandemic finally made it to my grubby little hands. What I didn't know is that it is actually three expansions in one. In case the old game was just too easy (Yea, right), it offers three new challenges for the players:

• Virulent Strains - Replaces regular outbreak cards with special cards that can do funky things and make it harder to kill off one of the strains
• Mutation! - Adds a fifth color virus (Purple) to the mix with extra cards on how it comes into play... Making it harder to kill off the other strains
• Bio-Terrorist - Adds a bad guy to the mix, where one player sits on the bad guy side and tries to keep the other players running... Making it harder to kill of the other strains...

Do you see a trend? :) In addition you get new 'Roles' that can be played and a much needed update to the Operations Specialist, new special player cards, a fifth player, and best of all, petri dishes to store all the little wooden viruses. Those were pretty cool. With out playing the game yet, my only negative I can say is that all the stuff doesn't fit in the main box any more, forcing you to carry both. I'll post playing views after Nuke-Con where I hope to get a game or two in.

Speaking of Nuke-Con, it is this weekend and I'm spending all day Saturday. I schedule several board games, but it looks like only Dominion will get in the mix, which is fine, because I've been really wanting to try it out. I'm also playing in Bob's White Line Nightmare game which should be a fun four hours. I'm also running a few rounds of Race for the Galaxy, assuming anyone signs up. Either way, it should be a good day of gaming. I'll post the outcomes of what I end up playing.

jp

Must... Blog... More...

Nuke Con Game Day Back Brief

Greetings,

I spent the day at Nuke Con's Aftershock at Papillion South High School playing a variety of games. I signed up to run a few games that had a different set of participants.

• Race for the Galaxy - Two new players so it took us about an hour and a half to get through the game. Still good and gave Mike and Gabe a chance to try out something new that stretched their notion of a game.
• Pandemic - Played twice. Once with Mike Edmond, Elizabeth, and myself. The outbreaks took us pretty early as we had a huge chain reaction in Asia. Second game we added Steven, which caused us to use all five characters, but only get one card to start. We were rocking along, had victory in our grasp, when we got the last two epidemics in a short order that exploded Asia (again!) and we lost do to lack of virus cubes.
• Formula D - The new version. First game Mike, Steven and I played the newer street racer game. Steven took a health conservative view to some dangerous curves, and was able to zoom ahead at the end to win the two lap race. Second game we played the traditional Formula Racers and I took this one (Only game I won all day I might add!).
• Thurn & Taxis - I didn't have this on the schedule, but I brought it because it is the best game of 15th Century German Postal Service every created! I challenge you to find a better... Can't be done. Steven did a great job of managing the flow and dominated the final VP count 41-27-8.
  
• Mexican Dominoes (Las Cruces Rules) - Ann set up to play some dominoes and after three false starts :) we got rolling along. Game had seven players... Ann, Steve, Susan, Steven, Becky, Lilly, & Me. I've played Mexican Dominoes a ton, but Ann's Las Cruces' rules were a tad different. I liked some aspects like being able to voluntarily keeping your train open, but didn't care for not being able to play on any open position until your own train was out. I think that takes a few of the 'dumping' strategies away from the players. Regardless, it was still fun and I think I ended in the middle of the pack. Ann took it on the last round with her closest peers getting really bad hands to finish up. Good fun. I look forward to it again at Nuke Con. :)

Had a good time, a bit noise at times, but given that this supports the High School gaming club, which I never had growing up, I suppose that is OK. Anything that gets the kids started on their addictions early is A-OK with me. :)

jp
Vroom!

Saturday Gaming... Sort of :)

Saturday was light on gaming as I hung around the house or was out eating with The Other Half. For gaming I spent some time on Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword. With the 'newish' PC, I can play the larger maps with out too much sluggishness in the system. I'm on the brink of winning that game, but then I usually cheat and play on one of the lower settings too. :p

After dinner The Other Half and I sat down and played two games of Rummikub, a tile game based on the Rummy card game. We usually have a decent time as we play, although our styles of play are different as we seemed to be in reverse gear on acknowledging when we were done or still going. I went 0-2 the night on Rummikub as The Other Half took both games and left me with 1 and 3 tiles respectively. We don't keep score, but she did a good job of snuffing me tonight. While we play, I hook up the little notebook and we listen to Pandora Radio. She has a mixed channel of Symphonic Rock and my John Williams station. Pretty eclectic mix but good listening while we play games, besides, like she says, it's like a present each time a new song starts!

When we wrapped up, The Other Half went off to read and I broke out Race for the Galaxy for a few solo games. I did much better tonight having won 50% of my games (2-2). I've updated the spreadsheet for those statistic geeks. Not as exciting as following the baseball box scores for some, but just as good for others! :) I won, with of all things, Old Earth and New Sparta. The best part was that I only lost by a total of 3 VP with the two games I lost. The trick seems to be that you have to really engage early and not let the Robot develop a strong VP pool. Also I am pretty excited about the next set too. It comes out next month (I think) and will allow players to attack from one player to another bringing more direct player involvement then before.

Late add: Nuke-Con is running their games day, Aftershock, on 2 May. I've signed up to run Race for the Galaxy, Pandemic, and Formula D. No WM/HD, but if you want a fund day of gaming pretty cheap you can get the details from the Nuke-Con site. These folks do a lot of hard work to try and bring the different game groups together. I felt it would be fun to just do some boardgames this time around.

That is about it for the moment. I'll be posting another post shortly, but it is a different story and I did not want to cross the streams. And why don't we cross the streams?

jp
It would be bad.

Nuke Con Back Brief

This weekend was Nuke Con, the 'big' convention for the Omaha area. I had not been in three years due to a conflict between friends. Silly really. Only High School Drama ranks higher on the scale the Gamer Drama. I hate Drama!

The folks that ran the event did an outstanding job. The floor was moving all three days, the staff was efficient and nice, and the attendees were ready to play some games. An outstanding set of circumstances. I big Bravo Zulu to the staff.

On Friday I took the eldest with me and we meet up with TJ to play a bit of Boltz-N-Voltz as a prep for the test play. That went well and we worked out some misunderstandings in the rules. We also played Monsterpocalypse, the new CCM from Privateer Press. It seems to be a pretty cool game. Flows well after three plays or so and was fun to play. The monsters are very well painted for pre-paints. Look forward to the release, just wish I would be able to run it!

Saturday TJ and I ran a play test session. Got some good feed back and some not so helpful feedback in about 2.5 hours of testing. TJ and I then laid down some more MonPoc. I took off around 5'ish and picked up PJ and went and had dinner at Feta's (Opa!) and went to see Religulous at the theater. I liked it. A lot. Not very friendly in the midwest I assume, but I've never been a real religious type of guy. I did find it funny that the two most intelligent sounding people he interviewed were both Roman Catholic Priest. The Father in charge of the Vatican Observatory was just spot on what I would expect for a modern day practitioner of faith to teach. That being the bible is a cool story, but be real... It doesn't teach modern science and shouldn't be interpreted to do so! Any ways... I would recommend it if your feeling won't get hurt when he makes fun of the religion you think is correct. The big thing I learned, that I didn't know before was that Thomas Jefferson (Good old Tommy J!) edited a copy of the Bible taking out all the mysticism and focused on the teachings. I may have to see if it is in the library.

Sunday was a bit disappointment. I had scheduled a WM tournament, knowing I would not get a heavy turn out. I got one. Thanks to Smitty for showing up. He won a Drago by default that I will order soon. We played a game of Warmachine, his eStryker, my Denny. Good solid game. I forgot that his spell move is 2 inches per focus not 1 inch per focus, so he zipped behind my line and charged me after I had pretty much taken out the rest of his army. I also gave Smitty a MonPoc demo.

Not sure when I'll get a D&D game in. I am really missing that. It is fun to run and I want to get back to the story. Next weekend is not looking good as it is the first weekend home since I got the Eldest last month. Maybe after Warmachine Weekend... Maybe! Stupid obligations!

Until next time!

jp
Gamer of Games

Lost in Maryland

So... here I set doing my on-line check-in for Southwest Airlines. My last business trip as a contractor and counting the days until I get a nice long 6 day weekend.

I took the Fields of Glory book to read on the plane and at dinner... I've posted in other locations that I thought it seems overly complex. The amount of things you seem to have to remember seems to be a bit high, but I'll give it a go.

I am going to look at one of the Crusaders armies, but the new job has a cut in pay so I know that PJ is going to be very critical of new gamer purchases. Not sure how I'm going to pull it off. I do get home before her, but we shall see...

Going to Nuke-Con this weekend. I'm scheduled to run an IK 4e game, but to be honest I am less then prepared. Only one person has pre-reged. I hope it doesn't grow so I can canx and just play some board games. Bringing the eldest with me to goof off. Saturday I'll be play testing Boltz-n-Voltz as well as MonPoc. I got my demo pack in the mail and hope to open on Friday and teach myself the rules.

Well... Tickets are printed and I'm off to bed. 1/2 day meetings and full day travel... The joys of it all!

jp
Workn' for the Man!

Iron Kingdoms...

As a certified Fan Boy of Privateer Press, I was less then excited to here the latest info on the Iron Kingdoms RPG line is pretty much... Nothing. Very sad. They have said they won't go 4e with the current GSL in place. I'm hoping the promised changes may change their minds, but I doubt it. I don't think the IK range brings its money in worth the effort it takes to produce. This is sad as it is one of the great things I like about the IK/WM world.

I like 4e, a lot really, and would love to see the conversion take place. Some intrepid fans are working on some aspects and storing them at Gobbernomicon, a wiki that is holding other odds and ends IK info. I posted my Farrow conversions for review on the site. It would be cool to start building the world from the ground up, but unless I win the lottery tonight, I don't see me having the time to do that. I'll add my two focus worth from time to time. I like the monster creation and the new monsters for 4e are realtively easy to create from the stats given in the Monsternomicon Vol I & II.

I've committed to running and IK RPG event at Nuke Con and WARMACHINE Weekend. I will use an adventure thread I've used before and convert a few iconic IK classes to fourth level.

Not sure if I'll ever get to test play before, Nuke Con, but I'll try.

jp
My Fan Boy is bigger then your Fan Boy!

Nuke Con 08

I've signed up two events for Nuke Con 08.

On Sunday I'm going to run a WARMACHINE & Hordes 500 point tournament and on Saturday Night I'll run a IK RPG based on 4e Mods.

I can't hit the Fall Out Shelter, but you might. Not sure what the issue is. Nuke Con site is www.nuke-con.com.

Rob is running a FoW tournament on Saturday in the morning if I remember correctly as well.

jp