DAY TWO:Total Con, Where the Geeky Things Are.

By Tuna Farrell 

 



 

This is the second installment in a series of posts dedicated to our adventure at Total Con. Tuna secretly kept a detailed journal of the events and items of interest and we have decided it is important for us to not only share these bits of geekery with other folks but also to save them for posterity here.

Feb. 21st The vendor room wasn’t ready to open yesterday so we take some time to wander around in there. We see a lot of games we’d love to try but they’re not available to demo in the convention hall. Bummer. Still, lots of cool things that tempt us with their shiny cellophane wrappings and brightly painted images.

Quarriors set up

It’s day two of the convention and it is starting to fill up; there are definitely more people here than yesterday; though open tables are still pretty easy to find. We manage to get a copy of Quarriors from the library (the game Marvel Dice Masters is sort of based on) so we give that a go. Being familiar with the game mechanics we picked it up really quickly and it was pretty fun. A random guy walks by the table and offers to sell us his copy of Quarriors for “cheap”. Of course he keeps raising the price, which sort of aggravates me. I decide that as long as a new copy isn’t outrageously expensive I’ll buy a new one rather than give this guy my money.

It’s the principle of the thing.

Takenoko Deluxe.

We spend some time relaxing and just wandering around looking at what people are playing seeing if something catches our eye. We see a deluxe version of Takenoko (a Japanese import game that involves a panda eating bamboo. Yeah I know but It’s cooler than you might think) being played. I really liked the preview I saw of this on “Table Top”, however, I find the deluxe version a bit of a put off because the pieces are so huge. It’s beautifully made, really good quality game pieces. But all the pieces are 4-5 times bigger than the regular set, and the die that comes with the game is bigger than a softball. Plus it costs $300. I might buy the regular set, but not this collector’s edition.

Can't Stop, no seriously you Can't!

Next we play a game called “Can’t Stop”, a game from Mike’s childhood. It involves dice, a slotted board, and colored traffic cones. Yup, traffic cones. You advance your traffic cones across the board in order to be the first to the end. Believe it or not, it was fun. Not complicated, there was some real strategy involved, it was over fairly quickly, but it was pretty fun.

ApocalypZe, eh we tried.

A bit later we decide to try one of the developer games (ApocalypZe), a zombie based card game, with various survivor factions. It was .. okay. It felt overly complicated and didn’t seem to flow very naturally from one play to the next. They had obviously put a lot of effort into it and the artwork on the cards was very well done, but we probably won’t be picking this one up.

Eric Summerer of Dice Tower, with Flip Florey and Cris M.

The people from Dice Tower were doing a live recording of their show here at the con, and Mike wanted to attend. I was going along just because it was something to do and Al figured he’d show up and leave after a few minutes. I was pleasantly surprised that I enjoyed the show, and Al was even more surprised that he stayed and liked it as well. They had guests from several different gaming pod casts (Flip the Table, Not Just Another Pod Cast, and Cardboard Jungle). The Flip the Table guys are actually from Bangor Maine. This is probably as close to celebrity that I will ever actually get, so of course I am getting star struck being in such proximity to “famous” people; especially as this is a small con and we keep running into these guys everywhere.

The Pod Cast hosts talk about new games that they have played (Marvel Dice Masters gets a mention), games that they hope to play, and just general board/card game stuff. One new game they discuss is called “Doom That Came to Atlantic City” sounds pretty cool. It’s a reverse version of Monopoly. You start with a full city and then you have to summon the Elder Gods to destroy it. I’m looking forward to that one let me tell you.

They record two episodes, and at the end, perform a short skit about syndicated radio host Dr. Judy who gives dating advice and advises a female caller that her instincts that her boyfriend is cheating on her are spot on. What adult man plays board games all day?

*e-hem*

We also got some swag at the pod cast. Mike got some official Dice Tower Dice, and Al and I got some throwaway card games. Yay! Free stuff!

What's he Building in There? A win for Al that's what.

Not knowing what else to do, we decided to take one of the games we brought with us down to the game floor to play. “What’s He Building In There?” is a game I haven’t tried yet, though Mike and Al both have. In this game you are a mad scientist building a doomsday device and an escape vehicle. You have to place workers and your scientist on the board each turn to gather the materials you need to build both your device and escape. Another awesome game, even though I didn’t complete my doomsday device (I forgot my refined glass!).

Side note: There was a woman there selling cupcakes and cookies. Cookies had written on it “Bribe” to bribe your GM, or Health or Mana; cupcakes had little frosting dragons or frosting hands reaching up from inside. She also had a great business model. Roll a twenty sided dice. On a twenty you got a free cupcake, on a 17-19 you got .50 off, on a roll of one you had to buy two cupcakes. I told her “You picked the right audience for this".

I rolled a 10, Mike rolled a 17. They were pretty good cupcakes.

After several hours at Total Con I have made an observation. A majority of the people here are men over 40, in excess of 220-240 lbs. bearded, and wearing glasses.

…..

This makes me distinctly uncomfortable.

Mike and I had signed up for a con run game of Zombicide. We play this a lot amongst ourselves but we wanted to try it with a different group. Al signed up for an old Avalon Hill strategy game called Panzer Blitz while we did this.

Eight Minute Empire.

Al goes off to his game, and we head to the assigned table … no Zombicide. There’s a mother/son there waiting also, but no one is there to run the game. Mike and I decide to try out a game from the open cabinet called “Eight Minute Empire” while we wait to see if anyone shows up. Turns out the game is somewhat miss named. It took longer to play than eight minutes; though the rules only took about eight minutes to learn so maybe not.

So, no one shows up; Al finishes his game. Nothing much going on so Al decides to head up to the room with a promise/threat that he’ll come back later to check on us. Mike and I decide to wander around for a bit just to stretch our legs and hopefully our imaginations. We see one of the guys from the pod cast with a bunch of Zombicide stuff sitting out and we go over and say hello. After talking with him for a few minutes he asks us if we want to play a game. Sure!

Mega Zombicide layout with all the boards.

While he’s setting up he mentions that he had a scheduled game that no one showed up to. Turns out he had changed the assigned table because the original table wasn’t big enough and nobody updated the change on any of the lists. We had even asked one of the guys at the desk earlier and they told us the wrong table! We could have started playing over an hour ago.

Stupid convention people.

Mike our new "Star" makes his move while Tuna looks on.

So, the game itself is a custom made scenario created by combining all three Zombicide sets into one gigantic map, with a few house rules thrown into the mix. It wasn’t bad, but aside from a few small things it was too easy and didn’t pace as well as a regular game would have. The only bad thing? One of the players was some teenaged kid who was a total spaz. It wasn’t too bad in the beginning but as the game wore on he began to get on almost everyone’s nerves. He was actually taking turns for other players at some point, because he was too much of a spaz to wait for them.

For me, he was the only bad part of the convention (the hotel I consider a separate problem).

The game also lasted until 12:30 in the morning and lack of sleep might have made me a bit grumpy.

 

Later

Tuna

DAY ONE: A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To Total Con.

By Tuna Farrell

This is a first instalment in a series of posts dedicated to our adventure at Total Con. Tuna secretly kept a detailed journal of the events and items of interest and we have decided it is important for us to not only share these bits of geekery with other folks but also to save them for posterity here.

Feb 20th Not just another Geek Day, but a whole long Geek Weekend! Mike and Al arrive to pick me up around 10:20, so we can drive towards our long planned trip to Total Con: New England’s largest gaming convention (according to them). This differs a bit from Temple Con last year in that this convention is only about board games, whereas last year we went to a con that had a mix of themes and events. Our hope is that this one will have more access to games we can try out and more developers promoting new games (also for us to try out).

The drive down only contained two things of interest. One, the prerequisite stop at the New Hampshire Liquor Store TAX FREE BOOZE!! … you may have noticed I typed that all in caps. Because it’s important.

Second, Mike played us a pod cast called “The Dice Tower”. They review games and they talked about a game called Marvel Dice Master that sounded pretty cool to us. Plus one of the guys, Eric Summerer, from the pod cast was going to be at the convention and after listening we were hoping we could talk to him about it.

We arrive at the hotel too early to check in, but not too early for lunch so we go to a local sports bar that you can see from the highway but can only actually find by sheer luck. No, really, we drove around for a while and couldn’t find it; we turned into a side road thinking to turn around and then we could see it at the far end of the street. Still, we all got a decent beer and I got a mountain of buffalo wings.

Mmmm. Beer.

So, back at the hotel we go to check in aaaaaand there are three of us, two rooms and according to the desk clerk only two beds total. When Mike specifically reserved the rooms with 2 beds in one and 1 in the other. The response? “All the rooms are taken up by the convention”. Yeah, that’s US. Mike reserved these rooms the first day they were available. Y’know, so we could attend the convention!

So, they offer to comp Mike breakfast and send up a roll out bed. Mike tells them to "Piss Off" with the breakfast, well not really, but he was extremely angry about the mix up and refused the gesture. I offer to sleep in the roll away because I’m shorter than Mike. Plus I’m not sharing a room with Al. No offense.

The Sanctuary.

And it wouldn’t be Booze and Boardgames if we didn't talk about booze. We set up the bar in Al’s room, because he has a fridge and brought all his mixing paraphernalia. Al experiments with a new drink involving Elderflower liqueur and gin, and a couple other things. It’s a fancy gin and tonic really, but people who like gin (i.e. people who are not me) seem to think it brings out some of the flavor in the standard gin/tonic thing. Me, I’m sticking with the old standby: the Dark and Stormy. For the record, Mike did not provide any extra stormy during this trip, though he did offer.

Drinks in hand we prepare to invade the Con floor.

Okay, stuff in room, drinks in hand (secretly because you’re not supposed to drink at this convention) we head on down to the convention floor.

The first thing we see? The guy from the Dice Tower, Eric Summerer, who we listened to on the drive down. And he’s setting up the game we wanted to ask him about: Marvel Dice Masters. This may be really, really, really geeky; but that’s totally awesome. We introduce ourselves and ask him about the game and he offers to walk us through it. More totally cool.

Eric Summerer was really cool and down to earth, not like Al.

The game is sort of a cross between Quarriors and Magic: the Gathering. If you have no idea what one or more of those are, Quarriors is a deck building game but with Dice, and Magic: the Gathering is a collectible card game. And if you still don’t know … why the hell are you reading this? Anyway, Marvel Dice Masters is an awesome game. If you like Magic: the Gathering, dice games, and deck building you’ll enjoy this game.

Midgard.

Our second game was Midgard, a game about Vikings taking control of the various realms of Nordic myth. It’s a simple strategy game, but I had a lot of fun playing it. Not enough to go and buy it outright, but fun enough that I’d play it again.

Ticket to Ride.

Surprisingly, Al agrees to a game of “Ticket to Ride”. Al not being fond of games where there is no fighting or killing I did not expect him to go for this. And even more surprising he didn’t hate the game either, and thinks it might be a game he could play with his wife. It is considered one of the “Gateway Games” that brings people around to the wonderful world of tabletop gaming. ;)

After gaming around for a bit, we discover that a late night dinner is in order so we find our way to the hotel restaurant and enjoy some nice beers and burgers. Well, Mike had a fruity girly drink from the menu called a Gandalf, of course we quickly renamed it to “Gandalf the Gay”, seriously look at the picture.

Yup mike getting his Con on, drinking a "Gandalf the Gay".

Back at the room Mike and I play a round or two of Magic: the Gathering. Al actually seems to take an interest and we think we might have convinced him to perhaps start playing, but it turns out he was just exhausted. So, we have finally figured out the secret to getting Al to start playing Magic: the Gathering, just wear him down to exhaustion and put some cards in his hand ;)

Later
Tuna

February 9th; a sober, but fun, Game day.

by Al Butler

Kurt gets the low down from Mike.

This past Sunday we had another game session which went on for several hours and included all of the usual highs and lows of our get-togethers, sans alcohol that is “yeah I know”. Anyway it was a pretty “epic” day as you’ll see further on, and if you missed it I can only encourage you to show up next time and join in the fun.

We arrived around noon at Dirigo Hobbies in Gray, and after the pleasantries of “hey how you been? and how you doing?” were completed we got down business and began setting up a game of Toxic City Mall. This game is not easy by any stretch of the imagination, what with zombies that splatter you with toxic blood upon dying, and you starting out with a frying pan as a weapon. It tends to get a bit intense, but after the board was down, markers and tokens placed and much discussion of the new rules we were ready to give it a go. Kurt and his son Therin had never played any of the Zombicide games before so we took some extra time to educate them on the basics of actions, how to shoot, move etc.

While thus engaged, the owner of the store, Doug, came over and asked if would try out a piece of plexi-glass over the board tiles to see how we liked it. He has a plan for this, but more on that another time. The glass didn’t work so well as we had pushed two 6 ft. long tables against each other and the board tiles were resting right in the middle where the tables came together. This caused tiles to shift every time one of us moved the table. I think if we had a solid playing surface to start from, the glass would work really well. Also my OCD is a bit strong at times so I may have just been over analyzing it.

Layout after a few moves.

The scenario chosen, tasked the survivors with finding some other lost humans on the map represented by tokens. They then had to exit the board by driving off in either one or two of the cars available. The tricky part was there were a lot of tokens to grab and we didn’t know which ones were going to be the ones needed until we got them. Also there were four toxic walkers just waiting for us which did not give us a lot of options right out of the gate.

Tuna got some nice pistols right at the beginning and as everyone else searched the rooms in the first section they all ended up with a decent ranged and melee weapon. All that is except myself who found bottled water, rice, and of course a few undead. But with frying pan in hand I was undaunted by the fearful odds before us. (Sorry that’s the kind of thing that runs through my mind when playing).

The first few spawns were rather tame and with a bit of teamwork our survivors managed to get out of the starting area relatively unscathed. But then due to Tuna’s rather terrible shuffling ability we all of a sudden had loads of toxic zombies marching our way. Kurt found a chainsaw and really went to town on clearing out all the regular zombie groups until they took him down. Coming back as a Zombivor (yeah that’s so cool) he tanked us through enough so we could pick up two more tokens one of which was a survivor. Sadly our maniacal husky wielding hero succumbed to a large party of toxics and he was eliminated from the game. As Kurt is a decent sort, generally, we gave him the rescued survivor to play so he could keep going. Therin got to drive a Pimpmobile and run over a whole slew of ugly Zombies as well as blast his fair share with a shotgun. How many 10 year olds can say they did that?

Yeah we need that car all the toxics are covering.

Anyway, the last few tokens were in a large building on the far side of the board. By now the spawns were coming out at red experience level and we had to try and get to a safe door and try to “funnel” the marching masses of zombies, and pray we picked up the last tokens quick. As it turns out at this point I was the only one who could open doors so our whole team lost a turn waiting for my slow ass to catch up to them. Finally I wander up and kick in the door. The building consisted of ten rooms, which meant we had to flip a zombie spawn card for each of those rooms. As all of the zombie minis were pretty much on the board already this would mean a lot of extra moves for the bad guys. Mike had done the math and though he thought we could die it was our only shot. Card after card the horde came closer and closer and just when we thought we were goners the spawning was over and we could breathe a sigh of relief. Just one though, because the very next turn everyone was crushed beneath a tidal wave of stinking rotten flesh. Four plus hours in and we all wiped.

Awesome Deck Building game!

Tired and worn out Kurt and his son went home, and Tuna begged off as well. Mike and I decided to stick around and play a game of Marvel Legendary, after a sandwich that is. Legendary is a deck building game set in the Marvel comic book universe where you try to defeat masterminds and their minions. I like the game overall, but the Mastermind and scheme we picked for this match was really tough. The Dark City expansion cards which I included in the set really changed the dynamic of play. Harder but more engaging overall. We ended up losing horribly, and decided to call it a night.

Though we lost both games, we still had a lot of fun, and I cannot wait to set these titles up again with my friends and guild mates hopefully this up coming Sunday.

Cheers
AL

Geek Day...again? Man, how time flies.

by Tuna Farrell 

Thirsty Demon

Recap of December 7th Game day.

Al was taking his turn at hosting and we had a bit of a slow start, being just the three of us (Mike, Al, and myself (Tuna)). Valerie had promised to come later, as she was attending a distillery; which we all admit was at least a decent reason for not joining us.

Mike wanted to give Smash Up another try, as he felt he hadn’t gotten a good feel for it the first time. The game was much more competitive than the last time, with all of us actually fighting over control of the bases, with some very sneaky and nasty plays being made (some by yours truly). Also some stupid plays (also by yours truly). Al took an early lead and Mike and I made some quick strides to catch up; but I fell behind around mid game and it came down to Mike and Al at the end. They were only 1 point apart when Al managed to take the final base and win handily with a few point margin.

At least the Black and Tan Al supplied me with managed to take the edge off my sorrow at losing.

Mike has changed his mind about Smash Up and now thinks it’s a good addition to our roster

Mike's big Thumbs up 

We had decided to pull out an old favorite while we waited for Val to join us and Mike chose Forbidden Island. This game started off very poorly, with us pulling a Waters Rise card in the first draw, prompting three areas of the Island to sink beneath the waves before we even got a chance to do anything at all.

Forbidden Island has lots of snacks on it.

We got lucky for a turn or two, managing to capture one of the artifacts fairly quickly, but the island continued to sink beneath our imaginary feet while we gathered the remaining artifacts. Some quick planning made it look like we would be able to pull off a win without too much hassle when we drew the last Waters Rise card in the deck, sinking everything but the last tile. We had all the artifacts and managed to escape to the last tile but we had only one turn to win. We needed the right card to escape and if we didn’t the last part of the island would sink beneath the waves and our little wooden representatives would die horribly by drowning. Against all odds, Al managed to draw the correct card and away we flew to safety and untold riches by selling off the salvaged mysterious artifacts. 

Al had decided that food today would be supplied by the local pizza parlor so while he was out Mike and I played a couple games of Magic: the Gathering. I haven’t been able to play much lately so I was eager to take a hand or two. Unfortunately since I was unprepared for anyone to suggest a game I had not brought my own cards, so I used Mike’s instead.

I chose Black/White and Mike played White/Red. I had to pull a mulligan after it became obvious that the deck had nothing but land at the top. Despite my rigorous shuffle the top thirteen cards in the deck were Swamps. I think I might have been better off without using the mulligan. I made a few good plays, but Mike had the upper hand for most of the game and I conceded the game.

Al came back with the pizza and Mike and I started a second game, switching decks. I was doing very well, cancelling much of Mike’s advantage early on and then settling into a good rhythm of picking away at his health. He was down to 2 when he pulled out a wipe (GOD) card that cleared the field of every creature, followed up with a second card that stole 11 of my health and healed him for the same amount. I was one turn away from winning when he turned the tables on me and I was not able to recover from it, just couldn’t pull the cards I needed to either attack or defend well enough to stop him.

At least the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster Al mixed up for me managed to ease the pain and sorrow of losing.
A bit of history for the uninitiated, the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster is actually a fictional drink from the “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” novels, by Douglas Addams. It contains many fictional ingredients, and the effect of drinking it is described as being hit in the head with a large gold brick wrapped in a lemon slice. Many people have invented recipes to try to replicate this drink for us mere mortals forced to live in the real world, and Al managed to find one that tastes tart, strong, and is a deep electric blue.

One of Al's better concoctions

Val sends a message that she won’t be joining us (lame!), but we forge forward without her; strengthened by a second round of Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters.

 
Hey, we don’t call it Booze and Board Games for nothin’.

Mike seems to be doing most of the game picking today, and surprises me by picking “Legend of Drizzit”, one of the games Al has universally declared he despises. However, he is in a forgiving mood despite (or perhaps because of) his relative sobriety. He had to drive to get the pizza,I digress.

Mike and I agree that this game isn’t as well balanced as Descent, but it also fuels our Dungeons and Dragons addiction and we figure we can hold it together long enough for Al to not hate it too much. Set up also takes me a bit of time, as we haven't played in months, so I was unprepared.

Still, once we were set up, the game went smoothly for a few turns. We got lucky and didn’t pull any Encounters for the first four Dungeon Tiles explored (a record!), but things started to get a little difficult when we had to spend a couple turns after Encounters started putting out traps of exploding lava and rolling boulders. Overall, things weren’t too bad. That is until we managed to get the Troll. Oh, how we hate that Troll. A few bad rolls and Al went down, using up one of our Healing Surges, and Mike had to use another one.

Legend of Drizzit

We finally pulled the Boss card, along with its attendant monster minions. We were battered and bloody, but we finally managed to pull it down; resulting in Al’s first ever victory with this game.
Al seemed to be on a roll.

It’s still early, so we decide one more game is in order. Thunderstone is chosen as one we all agree on and that we haven’t played much lately. The set up is based on random card picks and it became apparent that we were going to have trouble. The creatures we had to fight had immunities, some of which was Magic, and half of the available Heroes were Magic based. Also, why do the Villagers always suck? I think next time we should make the set up a little less random so things suck a little less.

The game always starts slow while we build our decks, and Mike took an early lead. Actually, he stole a couple creatures out from under me a couple turns. Al had several frustrating turns and Mike and I talked him through a strategy that seemed to help him out a bit. Still, he had enough of a bad string for long enough that he would have to pull something extraordinary to catch up to Mike and I. Mike was in the lead but I made a few unnoticed pulls that I knew would net me a couple extra victory points at the end game.

Mike had the opportunity to end the game decisively when the Thunderstone Bearer was pulled from the creature deck, but he decided he wanted to grab as many points as possible. This may have not been a good move on his part because when the dust settled I managed to claim victory by eleven points over him. Because I’m a sneaky bastard.

       "Photo deleted by Al due to it's inappropriate and annoying content i.e he lost." 

Al had the idea for a photo op to show how our game collection has grown over the years we have been doing this and asked us to bring all of our games; which is one of the reasons we had so many titles on hand that we hadn’t played in a while.

We took a picture of the two games that Mike had, which started it all.

The initial offerings of Crack.

Followed by a picture of everything the three of us have added since Mike sucked us into this.

Our own stash on which to feed the addictions.

See ladies, that’s what allowing your significant others to game will do.

Later!
Tuna

Sleeping with the Fishes

[Mike's Note: Tuna has taken up some writing duties. I'm still providing the photos and captions.]

This is my first recap in a while, be gentle.

 

The day started a little later than planned, due to some delays in arrivals, but once drinks were in hand we quickly jumped into one of our newer games: “Shadows Over Camelot”. This is an Arthurian themed game (in case you couldn’t guess) where one player is chosen at random to be a hidden traitor. We love hidden games with hidden traitors, and Mike quickly jumped in to accuse people as the traitor. Of course, we were playing a tutorial where there was no traitor, but that’s never stopped him before.

Mike played Sir Percival, the only honorable one of the lot

Erin also invited herself to join, which I admit I was a bit nervous about, but she’s fairly well behaved and plays well. If the group has any issue with her inviting herself to play, then you need to speak up. Otherwise, she’ll keep sitting at the table when there’s an open spot.

The game went well, we managed to complete the necessary quests to defeat the encroaching evil minions of evil. It took a while, in part because we were unfamiliar with the rules and we played pretty cautiously. I can’t wait until next time when we get to have a real traitor in our midst, it will add a whole new level of difficulty.

The Lady of the Lake

 

Brian joined us around the time we were winding down the game, in time to join us for our next adventure into the lands of Italian crime families with the mafia inspired game “Nothing Personal”. In this game you lay out cards representing members of the crime family, and the players have to gain influence, cash and more importantly RESPECT with the various mobsters. This was also a lot of fun (despite my poor performance), though I admit that I think the game balance might be a bit off. 

Influence of the Capo means a lot of control over the game and makes it hard for the other players to overcome; though that may be something we can discover how to overcome in future games.

Mike bears the Capo ring

Want to whack another gangster? Here's how...

Play of the game goes to Anthony, who managed to steal all of Al’s respect and cash during the first turn, pushing him into an early lead. Al then spent the remainder of the game trying to get back at Anthony for this move, teaming up with Mike to further this goal. This led to Mike winning, and Al and I sharing last place a bit. I finally overcame this disparity and took over dead last.

Lots of influence chips on the gangsters.
Looks like many of these guys are off to prison soon.

 

Valerie showed up about halfway through “Nothing Personal” and I felt a bit bad for her having to sit around waiting for us to finish. Brian departed after finishing up and Val joined us for a final game of “King of Tokyo”, for those unfamiliar it’s a simple enough game where players take the role of giant monsters attacking the city of Tokyo. Erin rejoined us for this game, having to sit out “Nothing Personal” because there wasn’t enough playing pieces.

There was a bit of early decimation where Valerie managed to do a ton of damage (at least I think it was Valerie [Mike's Note: It was and I was hurt quite badly]), resulting in some quick deaths to some of the monsters. It rapidly turned into a war of attrition, trying to stay live longer than the other players.

Cyber Bunny Dies

King of Tokyo can be won in two different ways, either by points or surviving the longest. It came down to Erin and I at the end, she only needed one more point to win and I was low on health. One point is very easy to come by, and she grinned at me while she rolled the winning dice. Three points is a little overkill though.

I often win being a sneaky bastard (which I’m quite proud of by the way), so there was much rejoicing around the table as I was beaten by my thirteen year old daughter. However as I’ve pointed out recently, if I can be beaten by a thirteen year old girl and I continue to win against my guild mates, it only highlights their poor playing skills. ;)

The Twin Idols, Part 1

Last night began the second half of our Descent: Journeys in the Dark campaign. The Overlord gets more powerful creatures and the Heroes got to buy some better weapons. The Overlord's new power showed itself in the very first turn.

Jain Fairwood, normally known for her speed and archery prowess was instead completely knocked out on the very turn of the game! While she did manage to get up, it was far from her last nap.

Jain prepares to block the Ettin's club with her face

So it was looking a bit ugly for the Heroes with Jain down so early and a pack of these little doggies surrounding them.

Sit Ubu sit. Good dog.

But the Heroes had a new weapon!

Is that a hammer of stabbing?

Grisban stepped up to attempt his whirlwind yet again. He had three dogs in range. Let's see how he did...

It took a second blow with the hammer to bring down the third dog, but we'll forgive him.

Grisban killed 3 dogs in a single turn. The tide had changed quite quickly! The Heroes just had to kill one more dog, then they would have plenty of time to find the key.

Jain managed to stay on her feet long enough to find the key and started for the door. It appeared the Heroes had won but the Overlord had amassed quite a hand of cards. The cards started dropping and suddenly the Heroes were in some trouble.

Another dog (technically a Barghest in case you're curious) had come along and grabbed the key the Overlord needed to win. The most powerful Ettin had chased down Jain and she couldn't open the door. The Ettin attempted to throw Jain from the door, over a chasm, delaying the Heroes at least two turns. It came down to a tough dice roll to prevent the Ettin from succeeding. The dice were in the Heroes' favor and there was much rejoicing (and a little bit of lamentation)!

Again, the game balance was perfect and it all came down to one or two turns where either side could win. Next week is the second half of The Twin Idols and whatever peril that brings.

The Overlord Revealed!

This week's game night marked the half-way point in our Descent campaign. "The Overlord Revealed"  was the quest, with the Heroes sent into the dungeon to close 3 portals (which spawn monsters) while the Overlord tries to escape.

I (Mike) had pre-chosen the open groups for the Overlord to control: Shadow Dragons, Fire Imps, and Hybrid Sentinels. The Imps and Sentinels were from an expansion box, so the Overlord had a bit more power than usual.

The start was slow as the Heroes began surrounded by enemies. They managed to get to one of the portal controls but weren't able to close it right away. But they were able to keep the speedy Imps from grabbing the key the Overlord needed. Instead, the Overlord grabbed the key with one of the Dragons. While the Dragons are tough to kill, they move slowly and are tough to maneuver in the tight spaces of this dungeon. Also, the bow-weilding Jain Fairwood kept the dragon stunned to slow it down further.

But over time the heroes were beaten down. The dragon eventually died but a new Fire Imp stepped in to grab the key and run for the door. The Heroes were down to the final few turns and attempted to close the final two portals. Jain failed several attempts at one but it didn't matter as the heroes never got a shot at the final. Our drunken dwarf Grisban the Thirsty (who's Whirlwind landed several attacks this week!) finished his last turn in reach of portal control but had no time left to attempt the closure (I can't say enough good things about the balance in this game for most quests).

The Overlord ran out the door and claimed victory.

Next week begins Act 2, where the monsters get tougher and the rewards for the heroes greater. I suspect most will be selling their gear for upgrades, hoping they can do better going forward.

In related news, this quest was a big one and it ran late. The owner of the store we play at offered to let us keep playing (we did manage to finish before normal closing time) and considers us regulars!

Thanks again to Valerie for photos:

If only we had known the witch was deaf!

It's the October 2013 monthly game day recap!

We had 7 people, a new record!

Exclamation!

Al introduced us to the Old Fashioned, a drink I (Mike) really, really like. I think it's my favorite of all of the drinks Al has made. It's perfectly balanced and super smooth. It takes the edge off the alcohol without too much sweetness or fruitiness, yet those flavors are certainly present. I'm going to attempt this one myself soon.

Battling to see who is the King of Tokyo

We started the gaming with King of Tokyo. It's a push-your-luck dice game. Think Yahtzee but with giant monsters battling it out in Tokyo. It's a quick game but with 7 people, it takes several turns around the table to end. For those killed off early on, it was a spectator game. In the end, my Cyber Bunny narrowly defeated Jasmine's Pandakai. I then continued on to destroy Tokyo. That's not part of the game, but I did it anyway.

Scary and victorious!

Next was Cutthroat Caverns, a game where everyone works together to kills monsters but since only the person who lands the killing blow gets credit, the cooperation only extends so far. Tuna tried to 'cheat' yet again by obscuring his score but his plan didn't quite work this time. At least he picked the right game to try to backstab everyone.

Look at the camera

Next was Story War, a storytelling game that was new for all of us. One player is a judge and teams of the other players tell stories about why their warriors (everything from witches and wizards to dragons, rats, and pretty much anything else) would defeat the other team. The point is to be creative but it often devolved into arguing. There were some fun moments and some stressful ones. We all thought it could use some more structure. Perhaps next time.

The highlight of Story War was Al declaring that his Banshee's wail was incapacitating Valerie's Witch and Valerie immediately declaring her Witch deaf. Brilliant move!

Mike Face Palm (I'm not sure why but it must have been good)

We finished up by playing Cards Against Humanity for a while. Another fun day with a lot of great food and drink as always.

To wrap it all up, here's one more photo...

Brian masters the foreground photo bomb

Whirlwind? More like a gentle breeze

The continuation of the wheat saga...

It turns out the Splig, a lieutenant of the Overlord, used the wheat to gain additional health. The Heroes now had a tougher task ahead of them. Splig, the Fat Goblin, was torturing prisoners, looking for someone in particular. He was then planning to kidnap him. The heroes were faced with cave spiders, then fire demons, before battling Splig and his gobin minions directly.

Early on, luck conspired against the heroes. Splig found the man he was looking for on the very first try. So before the heroes had barely moved (they spent a turn recovering from last week's challenge), Splig was already on the way out.

The Fat Goblin himself

If only they could quickly take out some other enemies, Splig would still have to run straight into them to get out.

If only they had some sort of attack that could take out multiple enemies at once.

Oh wait! They did.

Grisban the Thirsty possesses a giant axe of huge damage and a move called Whirlwind. His attack hits every adjacent enemy. With so few enemies down, the hallway was packed full of them.

How could this crazy drunkard ever miss?

Grisban charged a group of a goblin and three fire demons! Result: Miss.

Later on, Grisban is in position again. Whirlwind. Miss.

Grisban, the small red dwarf hoping to kill something. Anything.

Again, as the heroes are desperate with so many enemies repeatedly knocking them down, Grisban goes for another big kill. He can't miss three times in a row right? Yes he can. Miss

Descent dice with the dreaded white miss X on the blue die.

Finally, as the fight has left Grisban behind, he has one last chance to take out the three remaining goblins that are causing the other heroes so much trouble. Whirlwind. Nope. Miss.

The last stand as the heroes block the way out.

But against all odds, the game still came down to the final turn. The heroes have four rolls of the dice to do nine damage to Splig. If they don't kill him now, he runs out with his prize. Three rolls later, two health left. It all came down to one roll. 

Watch to see what happened:

http://youtu.be/t0kgp4XTMWQ

A great feature of the game Descent is the balance. After two weeks of playing, everything came down to the last roll. And after that, the winner only received a small reward. Over the course of the campaign (which will likely take us in 2014), no side ever gains a huge advantage over the other!