Dude! Take Your Turn!
A Gaming Life
The OP & AEG Announce New Marvel Smash Up Factions
Even after all of this time, I’m still kind of on the fence regarding the idea of Alderac Entertainment Group and the OP teaming up to do an officially licensed Smash Up expansion.
The idea is cool, and I’m sure the execution will be there, but I’m not quite as excited as I would be for a “regular” one that’s full of funny factions and parodies.
On the other hand, what they’ve revealed so far has shown some really cool artwork and interesting card ideas that make me think this could work.
Especially if they have rules for combining sets even though the terminology is different (“character” in Marvel vs “minion” in the regular Smash Up).
As part of the online GenCon convention that happened over the weekend, a number of presentations that would normally happen with a packed house instead happened on streaming video, and the OP was no different.
They announced four of the eight factions that will be in the game (two of which we already know, so I guess they only announced two new factions): Avengers, Hydra, Ultimates and Masters of Evil.
Boardgame Geek Top 100 – Play or Played – #10-1
It’s been almost 4 weeks since the last post in this series looking at the Top 100 Games ranked on Boardgame Geek.
I was riding high, feeling all the love the series was creating and posting something almost every week day.
And then I hit a wall.
Call it a bit of depression, just a bit of the blahs, I don’t know what it was.
I really hit a point where I was wondering what the hell I was doing.
What’s the point of it all? When it comes right down to it, I don’t really know that much about games. I don’t play them nearly as much as most people who write about them.
Even less so now.
Who really cares what I think?
Am I just putting this crap out there because I want to hear myself talk?
Maybe those two posts about the Terraforming Mars: Big Box causing my blog traffic to increase almost 1000x over a week or so period and then watching everything plummet back to where it was before just kind of got me down.
Whatever it was, I just couldn’t bring myself to sit down and write this post.
Every time I did, I couldn’t think of anything that even interested me to say, much less interest all of you.
So I went back to playing Griftlands.
(side note: you must try this game. It is sooooooooo good!)
You know what it took to get me back to blogging? To actually sit down and write something?
A combination of a friend of mine who had asked my blogging advice about using WordPress actually starting his blog (and me finding it when he tweeted a link to it) and getting the notification that a former student of mine is now following the blog (I hope she actually reads this, and if so, thank you!).
At that point I realized that I needed to get out of this funk and actually start doing what I enjoy doing: writing about games.
Who cares if only a few people see it?
Even if only a few people really notice what I’m doing, that’s still better than nobody noticing.
And I like doing it, so why should I stop?
Anyway, I know this isn’t the “funny” intro that you’re used to in this series, but I thought you deserved to know why you’ve been having to hold your breath for four weeks for the next entry.
And really, you shouldn’t hold your breath that long.
Your face might freeze that way!
On that note, let’s start the Top 10!
Ascension Tactics on Kickstarter
Usual readers of this blog (Hi Bob!) might remember that I’m a big fan of the Ascension franchise. I love this deckbuilding game to death, though I’m more of a fan of it on the iPad than I am on the table (all of that shuffling for a 10-15 minute game can get a bit tedious).
When Stoneblade Entertainment announced that they were Kickstarting a new variant of this deckbuilding classic, I had to check it out.
Ascension Tactics: the Miniature Deckbuilding Game is the result of all that.
This has classic Ascension gameplay, but it’s also a skirmishing game where you are commanding heroes on a map, trying to eliminate your opponent(s) and (depending on the scenario) take control of certain areas to earn enough honour tokens to win the game.
There’s even a Cultist miniature in the game!
Boardgame Geek Top 100 – Played or Play #20-11
We are getting close to the end of this 10-week opus, this look at the Boardgame Geek Top 100 games and which ones I’ve played.
This has actually been my favourite series to write so far in the 3+ years of this blog.
Mainly because it’s given me 9 (soon to be 10) weeks of guaranteed content, as well as some great interactions with my few fans. It’s been very interesting to see other people’s opinions of the games that we play.
And while there hasn’t been controversy, per se, there have been a few “oh, I love this game that you hate!” responses, which I also really like.
Nobody’s got on me for liking a game that they hate, which is a welcome change from most of the BGG forums. And they really haven’t gotten on me for hating a game they like. Just gentle nudges.
Sometimes reading the BGG forums for a game can be like facing off against the teeming hordes of people who disagree with you.
And sometimes you’re the only one on your side.
It can get quite tedious.
Not here, though! People who come here are all very nice.
I love you all.
And with that, let’s begin!
Dead Reckoning from AEG now on Kickstarter
A really quick post today because it’s a busy day.
Dead Reckoning, the pirate exploration and fighting game designed by John D. Clair with art by Ian O’Toole and published by Alderac Entertainment Group, is now on Kickstarter!
I got to play this at Dice Tower West and it is a phenomenal game. It’s another card-crafting game where you start with a number of cards in your deck and you will never get more.
Instead, you will be obtaining improvements for these cards that will make them even better.
You’re going to be sailing your ship around the board, establishing influence on islands that you’ve discovered, possibly attacking merchant shipping or other players!
But player-vs-player combat is not that punishing. You’ll just lose a few victory points and perhaps have to go back to the Harbor if you manage to get sunk. It’s not a brutal game by any means.
Battle is very cool, using a pirate ship cube tower to drop cubes and hope they land on places to do damage (or maybe even get you more stuff!)
I did a preview of our play of it that you can check out.
The Kickstarter will be adding (as add-ons) Saga expansions that will be a sort of campaign system that also looks pretty cool.
For $79 US you can get just the game. An additional $30 will get you the game plus the Daily Discovery add-ons, which includes the 1st Saga expansion.
You should definitely check out the Kickstarter, happening now. They’re almost to their goal already and it just opened a few minutes ago!
New to Me – June 2020
It was a month of horror in the Dude Take Your Turn household in June.
Not because of anything bad, and certainly nothing virus-related.
It’s just that 2 of the 4 new games played this month have to do with Ancient Evils trying destroy the world.
And we stopped them.
We stopped them all!
Ok, we cheated a bit on two of them (unintentionally), but still.
We are heroes!
That didn’t stop us from playing the games like this.
But it didn’t matter. We beat them!
We also got a cute little card game in and I rolled some dice.
So without further adieu (all of my adieu rolled off the table and under the couch anyway), let’s begin!
Now Even New Gamers Can Be a Hobbit
What does that cryptic headline mean?
Fantasy Flight Games announced yesterday that they are going to be reissuing 2000’s classic 2-5 player cooperative game with those little fellows, The Lord of the Rings.
This is a game from even before my time in gaming! Or to be more exact, during my 2-decade hiatus.
However, this game appears to be a classic Reiner Kniza game that’s been out of print for a while.
This 20th anniversary edition is going to be getting quite the upgrade too, though it will still have the classic John Howe artwork.
Stephen Buonocore Retiring From Stronghold Games
There I was last night, just innocently browsing Boardgame Geek for forum posts about my favourite games.
Then I saw the momentous news: Stephen Buonocore is retiring as President of Stronghold Games as of August 1, 2020. (the full press release is at the BGG link)
This one hit me over the head and knocked me for a loop.
Stephen has been such a huge presence in the boardgaming world, his personality filling up space in that world enough for ten people (at least).
He’s always been such a vivacious, outgoing and fun-loving presence wherever he goes. He’s livened up some Dice Tower convention live-shows, his energy bursting through the speakers on my iPhone. He’s always fun on social media and the pictures of him with fans are legendary.
This almost sounds like a eulogy, which couldn’t be any further from the truth since he’s still going to be gracing us with his presence all over the place. It just won’t be as an “official” presence anywhere.
Instead, he’ll get to just socialize and enjoy all the games without having to do the work! (Though why do I think he’ll end up doing something board-game related anyway? Just a hunch).
I finally got to meet him at Dice Tower West this year, and even though it was very short, it was still great just chatting with him and getting a photo (I know I’ve used this twice before now, but it’s so fitting).
But two other takeaways that just show great he is that I want to share.
Boardgame Geek Top 100 – Played or Play? #30-21
It’s that time of week again.
The sun’s out (kind of, though it’s supposed to rain by the time this actually posts) and we’re into Summer. Yet the temperature’s in the 60s in Vancouver and I’m really enjoying it.
I don’t need it to be hot and totally sunny in order to enjoy the weather. In fact, I don’t mind having it be overcast and raining (as long as I don’t have to be out in it).
Speaking of raining, how about raining games?
Yes, because we are raining games in this batch of the Top 100 on Boardgame Geek. Sure, I haven’t played that many of them, but there are a bunch of interesting games here.
And one or two that I wouldn’t touch with a barge pole (Editor: and now you’ve lost all of your two young readers)
Yes, I am allergic to Uwe Rosenberg games where you have to feed your people.
I literally break out in hives (he says figuratively).
Anyway, why don’t we just get started before I drive away the rest of my reader?
(That is not a typo)
New Ascension expansion announced
I’m a huge fan of the deck-building card game Ascension (as many of you who read this blog (hi Bob!) might remember), but I haven’t actually played it on the table in quite a while. The app is just so good that it’s hard for me to actually get it to the table.
Anyway, after the rather interesting Skulls & Sails expansion, the next expansion is going to use the same mechanic of a ship sailing around the board.
I haven’t actually seen an announcement of this, but it’s now on Boardgame Geek so I guess I can post about it.
The next Ascension expansion is called “Curse of the Golden Isles” and it uses the same “ship moving around the board” mechanic as Skulls & Sails.
“Ascension: Curse of the Golden Isle returns players to the Severed Seas, as they venture to recruit Heroes, build mighty Constructs, and raid their opponents’ Treasure as they vie to gather the most Honor before the game ends!
Along with the classic gameplay mechanics seen throughout Ascension’s ten year history, Curse of the Golden Isle introduces a new gameplay mechanic: Cursed Treasure. Players that collect pairs of Cursed Treasure tokens may use them to gain valuable Runes, Power, and more!”
The cursed treasures sound very cool though it will be interesting to see what the effect of these treasures are.
No pictures of the expansion are available yet, but here’s the cool-looking box cover.
I’m concerned that the app doesn’t even have the Skulls & Sails expansion yet and there’s already another one coming out. Ever since Asmodee Digital has taken over, the expansions have slowed.
I hope that’s not going to keep happening.
The idea behind this one really intrigues me, and I can’t wait to see how “cursed treasure” affects the deck-building aspect of the game.
Look for this one to come later in 2020, though who knows how production will be affected by COVID-19.
Dude! Take Your Turn! 