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A Gaming Life
Friday Night Shots – Boardgame Arena
I know what you’re thinking.
You’re thinking “Dave, you really shouldn’t wear green because it really makes you look hideous.”
And I would agree with that!
You’re also thinking “Dave, what’s this? Two Friday Night Shots posts in a row? What’s gotten into you?”
And I would respond with “Inspiration, baby! Inspiration.”
Also the realization that I really need to keep writing or my writing ability will atrophy.
So anyway, welcome back to the bar!
Not much has changed since you were just here last week, but I think I may have the jukebox issues ironed out.
We’ll see.
Pull up a chair and let me pour you a drink of whatever you like.
What the hell is that?
Sorry, it looks like the jukebox repairs didn’t take.
Anyway, tonight I wanted to talk about Boardgame Arena and its renaissance.
No, not that renaissance!
Read MoreWho the Heck is Ix? – App Expansion Review – Dune Imperium: the Rise of Ix
If you’re a boardgamer and you haven’t heard of Dune: Imperium, what rock have you been hiding under?
I know that Boardgame Geek is not the end-all and be-all of board games, the game itself is currently ranked 6th and the new “version” of it (Dune: Imperium – Uprising) is currently 25th.
Two versions of the same game (with some differences of course) are both in the Top 25!
That’s a testament to how popular the game is (yes, rankings don’t indicate quality, etc).
I’ve played the board game twice on the table and I do really like it, but I have many more plays of the app.
In fact, I reviewed the game (and the Early Access app) earlier, so I wanted to concentrate on the first expansion that has now been released for the app: Rise of Ix.
As with my early access review (nothing much of which has changed, except some app oddities that I will mention below), this is going to be a review of both the app as well as the expansion itself.
The expansion adds some really cool aspects to the game, including some of what the base game was missing: removing cards from your deck and cycling through cards in your deck.
The expansion (and game) were designed by Paul Dennen with artwork by Clay Brooks, Raul Ramos and Nate Storm. Rise of Ix was published on the table in 2022 and just released in the app a couple of months ago in 2024 (for those who are reading this in the future).
Let’s take a look!
Read MoreTwo-Steppin’ in the Woods – Forest Shuffle Review
Tableau-building card games are becoming all the rage.
Or maybe they’ve been the rage and I just never noticed?
(Editor: “Doesn’t say much for your observational skills, does it?”)
One thing I haven’t seen much of, however, are tableau-building games where you are combining cards in certain ways.
Yes, set collection is a thing, but not in the way Forest Shuffle does it.
Designed by Kosch with artwork by Toni Llobet, Judit Piella, this game was published by Lookout Games in 2023.
In the game, you’re building (or growing, I guess) your own forest and hoping to attract various fauna and flora into it in order to score a lot of points.
The mechanism for doing this is drawing and playing cards to your forest, both trees that provide the basis for everything else and then the animals and plants that will gather around them.
The combination of all this makes a rather interesting-looking tableau!
Read MoreFriday Night Shots – Patreon
Welcome back to the bar!
It’s been a month, but I’m happy to welcome you back.
It’s always nice to get just a little bit of income from it, since nobody else really comes in here.
Other than Bob in the back, who’s sharing a drink they call loneliness, but for some reason he’s drinking it alone so I’m not sure what that’s about.
That kind of defeats the purpose!
Anyway, have a seat and let me pour you a drink or two so I can make something like $10 tonight.
Which would be a banner evening!
The jukebox is still on the fritz, though. It keeps on playing Bobby Brown even though I know I removed him from the playlist a long time ago.
I think it’s haunted!
Or maybe I’m just tired.
Anyway, there are a ton of gaming Patreons out there, and after joining a new one last night, I thought I would talk about some of them!
Read MoreDelving the Virtual Depths – Clank app review
(1/14/25: This issue appears to have been fixed! A while back, actually, in December. Sorry for being late to report that. Not that anybody’s looking at this review anyway…)
(11/28/24: It appears that Clank is suffering from the same asynchronous multiplayer problem that Dune: Imperium suffers from (unless the recent update actually fixed that game. Other players, except perhaps the first one, can’t view the results! Multiple friends have reported this issue, though one person was able to see the results, so it may be the first person can see them but not the others. This really needs to be fixed here too)
Dire Wolf Digital has made some amazing games, both for the tabletop as well as app versions of tabletop games.
Sometimes it’s just the virtual edition of a great board game, like the recently-released Cascadia.
Sometimes it’s just a tabletop game like the recently-released Wild Tiled West.
But sometimes it’s both, as they make the virtual version of their own game!
Clank was the first of many iterations of a great combination of deck-building games and moving around a board. It came out in 2016 and was designed by Paul Dennen with artwork by Rayph Beisner, Raul Ramos and Nate Storm. It was published by Dire Wolf Digital and Renegade Game Studios.
A couple of weeks ago, Dire Wolf published the mobile version (iOS and Android) as well as brought the Steam version out of Early Access, making it accessible to a lot of people.
Before I get started, I have to admit that I do prefer Clank in Space to this one, but the original fantasy game does have some attractions (and a bunch of expansions which will hopefully make their way to the digital platform at some point).
What are they?
Let’s find out!
Read MoreNew Garphill Games Kickstarter – Cards! And Other Things
(Edit: It appears that the promos in the 5-Year Anniversary Pack for Shipwrights of the North Sea are direct reprints and not compatible with Shipwrights of the North Sea: Redux. Still, it’s only 9 cards and the rest of the promos in that batch look really cool, so I’m not going to change my pledge.)
Today, Garphill Games opened an 8-day Kickstarter (though this time they will actually use a Pledge Manger for late pledges, though not for letting you add things to your pledge later.
Make sure your pledge is correct if you are going to do it now.
I was a bit torn at first, but there is some cool stuff in there.
First, the stuff I didn’t go for.
They are offering two sets of playing cards with artwork from all of the Medieval trilogies.
They’re also offering the Raiders of the North Sea playmat, the Raiders solo system, and the North Sea RuneSaga.
I wasn’t interested in those, but here’s what I did just pledge for.
One of the sometimes irritating things about Paladins of the West Kingdom is the Suspicion cards and how everybody is drawing from the same deck. One person might get lucky every time they draw a Suspicion card and get 2 silver, while others might get unlucky and get 0 silver because the 2 silver cards are already out of circulation (you do keep the Suspicion card until you have to discard it).
In this Kickstarter, there are individual Suspicion card decks so that won’t happen!
You could still get unlucky in your draws, but you won’t be affected by what other people have drawn and kept. Those 2-silver cards won’t be out of the deck unless you kept them.
In addition, you can buy every promo card for their North Sea and West Kingdom games that wasn’t part of the original Kickstarters in individual packs so you can pick and choose.
Did you back all of the Dice Tower Kickstarters and so already get those promos?
You don’t need to get them again!
I bought every promo pack except the one that’s exclusively for Raiders of the North Sea (mainly because I haven’t played that in ages, though I want to!).
So, basically I spent around $96 Canadian for about 135 promo cards and Suspicion cards.
Was that stupid?
If so, I don’t want to be smart.
The Kickstarter ends in 8 days so if you want to get in on this action, you better hurry!
Though at least there is a late Pledge Manager this time.
Oh, I almost forgot.
Garphill mention.
Yep, and it’s not even Friday.
Have a good night!
Combat Commander – After Action Report – Scenario 38 – Not One Step Back
It’s that time of the month again!
Time for another tale from the Combat Commander ladder, that monthly tournament of one of the best games out there that’s run by the renowned Patrick Pence, he of Patrick’s Tactics & Tutorials fame (and formerly of the Top of the Ladder but not after last month)!
After a bad losing streak, I managed to get a win last month. However, this month’s scenario was looking pretty bleak for my side.
The scenario is Not One Step Back, from the Stalingrad battle pack, and it looks really hard for the Soviets (which I was). The Germans are pouring fire down on the Soviets from four levels up and the Soviets don’t have much, if any, cover.
However, up to my play, there were 20 games finished so far and the Soviets won 10 of them!
Maybe I could make it 11?
My opponent was somebody I’ve never played before, Bay C.
Here’s the starting positions.
(Don’t forget that you can click on a picture to blow it up)
As I mentioned, the Soviets (brown – me) are on one side of this long gully stretching across the board. The Germans (grey – Bay) are up on the Level 4 heights across the way.
The Soviets can set up 5 hexes deep from the south side of the board, so sure, I could be on the Level 4 heights too.
However, look at the ranges on these units (the middle number on the counter).
They can’t reach shit!
Not to mention that the Infantry Gun and weapons team have to set up on the bridge (which at least has some cover).
Plus, I drew the public “Exit Points Are Doubled” secret objective, so I had to set up at least a token force to try and prevent any exiting off of the right side of the board.
The only cover on my side of the board is two hexes of brush, which I positioned Sgt. Maisky in to keep Biermann honest.
I basically copied another player’s Soviet setup because they won their game.
So why not?
This is a rules-light scenario. Basically, the Infantry Gun has to be on the bridge and the weapons team can’t move or rout off of it unless the gun is destroyed.
Secondly, the other Russians have to set up on the hill, so no setting up in the gully for what little cover that offers.
They have to be out in the open (except the two brush hexes).
That’s it!
Want to see how I did?
That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?
Read MoreBottoscon 2024 Retrospective
Once again in November I was able to attend Bottoscon, the largest wargaming convention in the Pacific Northwest. This year, they managed to get over 150 attendees, which is amazing considering that when they began 18 years ago, they had 32 attendees.
The convention is run by Rob Bottos, a prominent wargamer, and a cohort of other people who help keep the con organized and well-run, solving problems and making sure that everybody is having a good time.
It helps that I’m good friends with two of them!
The convention is in beautiful New Westminster, British Columbia, right along the Fraser River at the Inn at the Quay.
While the convention started as a wargaming convention, “regular” board games have assumed a bigger space as time has gone on.
This year, there were even some RPGs! Which I wasn’t aware of until it was mentioned in another blog post.
Wargames were still quite prominent, though.
Just like last year, the con was a 4-day convention, running Thursday – Saturday, November 7-10 (though Thursday had limited tickets available) and it was a very long, but very satisfying convention.
I wasn’t as tired as last year, though probably because I stayed at the hotel Friday and Saturday night so I had no travel time.
I’m going to go through the four days and talk about all of the many games I played: 24 total plays of 20 games!
And a bunch of new to me games, so I won’t go into great detail about them.
I’ll save that for my New to Me games post in early December.
Just like last year, the lighting was terrible for taking good pictures, so pardon the shadows!
These were taken on the fly.
Also, I’m not going to detail when we took lunch and dinner breaks, but this year the Boathouse restaurant (attached to the hotel) offered tableside service for lunch and dinner on Friday and Saturday so you didn’t even have to leave your table.
And you could get beer!
I took advantage of that on Friday, so it was non-stop gaming, but Saturday we walked over to the River Market and had some food there.
A chicken burrito from the Mexican food place and Chinese Sausage and Fried Rice from another restaurant, both were to die for!
It was also nice to just get outside for a bit.
But I did enjoy my beer on Friday night. That was a rare treat.
With that, let’s begin!
Read MoreTalisman 5th Edition – App Review
I’ve always enjoyed the Talisman app from Nomad Games. They’ve done a brilliant job not only bringing this game to computers and mobile devices, but also including all of the expansions for it, including a digital-only expansion!
The game of Talisman itself is a tabletop classic, though after playing the app, I know there is no way I would ever play it on the table.
It’s a roll-and-move fantasy game where you are moving around the board, drawing adventure cards, meeting strangers or events or possibly fighting monsters, and perhaps dying because you meet a 10-strength dragon when your character only has 2 strength.
Now Nomad Games has released a vaunted 5th edition of this classic game. Avalon Hill is releasing the tabletop version of it. The digital edition, I have to say, is quite good.
And it also reminds me why I will never play this live online or on the table.
Because this game is long.
And not the most exciting thing if you’re going to be playing for 4+ hours!
As an app, though?
Brilliant.
And I love the changes the 5th edition makes.
More after the jump.
Read MoreNew to Me – October 2024
As I mentioned the other day, October as a month really sucked, especially for gaming.
Being sick, missing three game days, I was totally surprised that I actually managed to play any new to me games!
Much less three.
I even managed to placate the Cult of the New to Me members by getting an older game in there.
I am getting a bunch of new games and want to get them played, so it’s becoming even more imperative that I get some older ones in there too.
Or I might have a riot!
Or a president chastising me.
Funny, I didn’t even realize he was in my cult.
Who knew?
Anyway, without further ado (all of my ado was stolen by a raccoon and buried in a tree anyway), let’s get started!
Read More