Scratching the Itch; Summoner Wars IOS

by Al Butler

Summoner Wars IOS App

It has been rather cold up here in the Northeast; negative zero temperatures each morning, with the thermometer not getting above freezing throughout the day. I cannot speak for others but, for me, such frigid conditions tend to stifle my board gaming hobby a bit. Normally, about once a week, I will grab a title from my library after work, set it up, and try and play a solo variant or two, or perhaps simply organize the components so my OCD is satisfied. Not in this weather though, for by the time I get back to the igloo, I mean house, all I want to do is eat something and curl up in a warm spot.

It’s exhausting to say the least. However, the itch to play remains, and so like any good Junkie I have found a way to scratch it and satisfy the addiction.


Many board games have been converted into IOS (apple) apps that can be played electronically on either an iPad or iPhone. A particular title I have had my eye on is a box game Summoner Wars by Plaid Hat Games, which has been available for IOS for quite some time now, so I decided I’d give it a try. The download was free, so it was a far cry less expensive than buying the Master box set ($30-$50). I figured this way I could not only try out the game cheap before going all in but, I could also keep my ass warm in bed under comforters, electric blankets, three cats, etc. while I played.

Tap or drag to move during movement phase.

The concept for Summoner Wars is similar to several popular collectible card games: you control an all-powerful summoner with the ability to cast magic and bring various types warriors to fight battles. It uses a card-based mechanic for building magic and summoning new cards, however each card is put on a grid-based field, creating a physical strategy on top of resource management.

I Feel, the iPad is a perfect fit for Summoner Wars. An entire table with dozens of moving cards is condensed to a single screen. Managing the field, your hand, the discard, die rolls, and every other aspect of the game is laid out in a smart and intuitive way, which makes learning and gameplay flow easily. Every card in play has all of its main statistics visible from the field view, and any further special abilities can be read with a quick double tap.

Double tap any card to view up close special abilities.

I’ve played dozens of games and have even bought a couple of expansion decks to add variety. Each race, Elves, Dwarves, Undead, etc. have their own unique special traits as well as strategies for playing them. The AI opponent rarely becomes predictable even after working the same deck combination over and over, but I think a human opponent in online play would really make this title shine even more. Yes that’s available too.

Ranged attack!

The one thing I suggest strongly to anyone who decides to load this app, is to run through the tutorial in full and read the manual before trying to play a match. I being "all knowing" failed to do so and got my ass kicked due to skipping this most basic step. Once I went back and read it, all was good again.

Play the tutorial and read the rules.

So there you have it, I will continue to scratch away at the itch by playing Summoner Wars for IOS each night while all comfy and cozy neathe the covers. At least until things begin to thaw out a bit around here, and I can stand on the dining room floor and not have my feet turn blue. I have also decided to add the Box Set back onto my list of games to purchase.

Summoner Wars App Store Link.

Cheers
AL

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

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

Zombicide: Toxic City Mall

by Al Butler

One of my all-time favorite cooperative board games to play with my guild mates is Zombicide by Guillotine Games. We have run through countless sessions, all of which were entertaining, tense, but most of all fun. Seriously who could not enjoy the dark sociopathic vision of a roller skating waitress named Wanda, gliding up to a pack of zombies and hacking them to bits with a chainsaw? A bit ridiculous to be sure but that is just the kind of thing that happens in this game more often than not. The popularity of this title with our group brings it back to the table time and time again. Hell Zombicide was in all three of our top five lists of 2013, number one on mine.

So it is no surprise that one of the expansions for Zombicide, named; Toxic City Mall, made its way into my collection through a Kickstarter campaign. This add on game can be played with either the original Zombicide or with the other expansion which is also a standalone title Prison Outbreak. (Which as you all know has Berserker zombies). TCM introduces a bevy of new items, rules and of course the green toxic zombies themselves hence the title. There is a lot going on with this expansion, so I have to limit myself to pointing out those particular items that really make a difference in game play, and leave off copying all the rules down. You can download a copy of the Toxic City Mall rules *here* which will give you a better understanding of some of the mechanics.

Well the first big game changer is obviously the introduction of Toxic Zombies. These green monsters give off mucus like spray (my words) when killed and thus it is best to either shoot them at a distance with ranged weapons or, have a Gas Mask (yup new item) which makes you immune to the deadly effect. Some of the new survivors which were included in the set, have an immunity skill that can be chosen at the appropriate experience level. Toxic Abominations are particularly nasty in that they cause all regular zombies in their zone to become infected each turn.

 I already mentioned Gas masks as new equipment that the players can search for and use, but here are a couple more, Assault rifles “AR-15 pimped out”; .44 Mag pistols which do 2 damage and blasts Fatties; Laser pointers, when added to certain weapons increase accuracy i.e. +1 to die rolls, and Hollow Point bullets that increase damage +1. I can see a player wielding two .44 Mag pistols with hollow point rounds, and laser sights firing away at an Abomination right now. Oh yeah there is also a wee FLAMETHROWER you can pick up as well.

Having some of these in a survivor’s inventory is essential to your survival in TCM as this expansion can make a game go south really, really, fast. Don’t start thinking that because you have the flamethrower that you are simply going to waltz through a scenario like Arnold Swarzenegger in Terminator. No sir, the game is balanced enough that each play and every decision matters right to the end, you might have great gear, but this isn’t World of Warcraft, and the zombies just don’t stop coming.

 Another cool part of the expansion is the "Ultra Red" mode gameplay and its unique equipment.

This does everything.

 Ultra Red mode allows Survivors to gain experience beyond the red danger level and to get additional skills. They also get to use Ultra Red weapons which are so powerful only red level survivors can equip them. These cards are shuffled into the deck and must be searched for. Ultra Red play works like this:

“When your Survivor reaches the Red Level, put the experience tracker to “0” and add any experience points gained past the minimum required to hit the Red Level. Your Survivor is still on the Red Level and keeps his Skills. Count additional experience points as usual and gain unselected Skills upon reaching Danger Levels again. When all the Survivor’s Skills have been selected, choose a Skill among any Zombicide Skills (except those featuring brackets, such as Start with [Equipment], for example) upon reaching Orange and then Red Level.”

So your Survivor has the potential to be a “super survivor” which I daresay you may need on some of the larger scenarios.

 The last thing I would like to highlight is the introduction of what the game describes as Zombivors. These are Survivors who have fallen to the undead and have returned only to fight alongside their old human friends. Zombivors are much tougher than mere humans as such they take five full hits to kill rather than the two for their counterparts. When a player dies he/she can be resurrected as a Zombivor on the next player's turn. The new Zombie keeps all experience and equipment they had prior to becoming a pile of rotten flesh and get to choose new skills. Their miniature is replaced on the board with their Zombivor mini (which are all so much cooler looking) and the game moves on. Hmmm so in reality you could during a very long and epic game become an Ultra Red Zombivor!!!!

This past weekend I solo play tested scenario one from the rulebook which incorporated the original Zombicide and TCM. I wanted to get a feel of the mechanics before our next game day and see how they worked. Needless to say I was pleasantly surprised. The Toxics ramped up the tension right out of the gate as I tried to find my way across the board. I spent a good amount of time searching rooms for gear trying to get decent ranged attack weapons. As it turns out I didn’t search long enough for, about a half hour later, my little band of four was completely over run and destroyed. Every flip of the card and roll of the dice kept me on edge wondering what was coming next, and I had so much fun I wanted to start all over again. Sadly my wife let me know I had big boy responsibilities and it was time to put my toys away.

Me getting my ass kicked.

 Overall TCM is an awesome expansion to an already epic game line. If you have not already added it to your list of "need to haves" I suggest strongly that you take a close look at this one. Hopefully come next game day we will get to go on a toxic zombie killing rampage as a group, I know the guild will love the twists that these green blighters bring to the game.

Cheers
AL

*note: We have not received nor do we anticipate receiving any compensation for our endorsement of the game mentioned in this post. The opinions and views expressed are our own and not influenced by outside parties in any way. If you wish for to send us money by all means we’ll take it, however we will fully disclose such in writing and then say and do what we want anyway. Thanks.

Star Wars: X-Wing game

by Al Butler

As a Child of the Seventies, I know I should be more enthusiastic as concerns the entire Star Wars franchise. The original films, which I did see in theaters, had a definite and lasting impact upon my generation. Yet, somehow, I was unable to immerse myself in that fantasy sci-fi world when it came to board games, pulp novels, and definitely not the “dolls” mass produced as “Action figures”. (Dolls are for little girls’ period!) The Franchise needs no further elaboration in that the Billions of dollars it has produced since 1977 should be evidence enough of its power and popularity. Until recently, outside of the movies themselves, anything with a Star Wars theme received an “Eh, so what?” from me and I moved on.

 However, that was before our friend Mike introduced us to a neat little miniatures game called Star Wars: X-Wing.

The components of the minis are top notch, and the flight/movement templates (including hard banks, and reverse maneuvers) really make the game play easy. In this game you command various ships from the Star Wars films such as Tie-Fighters, X-wings, and even the Millennium Falcon, in a tactical combat situation. All of the minis are pre-painted out of the box (big plus for me) and have a great amount of detail on them. The various cards are easy to read and interpret, thus eliminating a need to constantly cross reference charts and lists in a rule book. The other components like the defense and hit die (eight sided) are also well made.

This is not over Frodo!

Game Play is simple and the rule set is light so you don’t have to have a bunch of thick rule books and con people into playing, they will often join in of their own free will. Using a point system each side is allotted so many points from which to build their fleet. As each ship needs a pilot, the player must purchase one from the different types available, and then deduct the cost from his/her total point allotment. Some pilots cost more than others but the more expensive ones tend to have special bonuses associated with them that enhance the ship in some way. You can also use points to purchase upgrades and equipment for your ship like an Ion Cannon or mines etc. Once a player has used all of his/her points their fleet, or even single ship, is built and they are ready to start.

Each player then picks one of their ships and using a small cardboard dial, which comes with each craft, secretly chooses what maneuver that ship, will perform. Next they “activate” their ships to move by following the initiative order and implement the maneuver they chose on the dial. This is done by taking the appropriate template, fixing it to the front of the ship’s base, then while holding the template down with one hand they pick up the ship and move it to the front of the template.


To fire at your opponent you must first check to see if a target is in range (another measuring template is provided for this). If you are able to shoot then the attacker rolls some red attack die and the defender some green defense die. The attacker simply tries to roll more hits than the defender evades. The order in which movement and attack are determined is simply done by using your individual pilot’s initiative number which is printed on the ship card. Low initiative numbers always move first and attack last while high initiative is the opposite, move last but shoot first.

Take that Hippies!

This game is fast, easy, and very engaging to play, even for guys like me who don’t care for anything in the Star Wars genre. However there is a downside to this entire laser blasting fun, the cost. Base sets, which start you off with, templates, dials, dice, two tie-fighters and one x-wing range anywhere between $30 and $40 US and by all accounts you need two of these to facilitate group play. There are also countless expansion ships which all are purchased separately. Mike has been building his fleets of ships slowly and now has quite a nice little collection going.


Overall, having played twice, I feel that this little Miniatures game is worth the price tag, in that larger games with more players and ships are much more fun than the simple head to head play of a base set alone. This past weekend we set up a game with six players and until the very end everyone was around the table watching, calculating and discussing events as they unfolded. This included even those of us who were knocked out early due to a cowardly and treacherous act by one of their team mates. (Anthony)

Brave Sir Robin in Slave-1 runs away.

So if you are looking for a space themed miniatures game that is easy, fun, colorful, and engaging I recommend parting with your hard earned shekels for Star Wars: X-wing.

Cheers
AL

Rome at War III : Queen of the Celts

by Al Butler

Queen of the Celts 

Queen of the Celts is the third installment of Avalanche Press' tactical war games set in the Roman Period aptly named Rome at War. This version focuses on the invasion and subjugation of Britain by the empire. What caught my attention with this rather small game was two things; 1st the price I paid for it on Ebay, a paltry $6.00 US, and second the tragic tale of Boudicca  Queen of the Iceni tribe, which has long been of interest to me.

Revolutions and conflicts which are inspired by a desire for freedom from tyranny, spiced up with a bit of revenge hold a special place in my heart thus, I knew I had to pick this game up.
 So last Sunday, amidst the chaos of a wailing snow storm and cruel flu bug I laid this title out and played my first game. Avalanche Press is notorious for two aspects of their play systems. The first one being the use of the "bucket of dice" combat resolution, which entails throwing a number of dice equal to the combat strength of the units involved then applying all sixes as hits. Initially I thought that this system would be more fun than the old CRT (combat results tables) of Avalon Hill war game legend. However after a few rounds of tossing handfuls of die the novelty faded along with the dim winter daylight out my window.

The second and really painful aspect of this AP game is the rule book. Having perused this sixteen page mess of cross references and special conditions every night for a week prior to actually laying out the pieces, I was still forced to reference the book almost continuously during play. It is not written well and is is no way linear in presentation. I had hoped that by getting the game set up some of the odd rules would make a bit more sense to me. No such luck in that department. I walked away from the table after 3.5 hours feeling like I had not done anything right, the best way to sum up the rules and book is to call it "counter intuitive". For a game that is supposed to be 1.5 stars (easy) on the difficulty rating one would think the literature would be easier to read.

Another small bother I found, outside of the obtuse rule set up, was that the maps are not mounted but plain glossy paper. I have always been a stickler for having playing surfaces mounted. Paper maps easily tear and have creases along the folds which need to be flattened out or the playing pieces tend to rise with the fold when laid out or stacks of counters fall over unbalanced. I could, lay a piece of plexi-glass over the map itself to solve the issue, but I don't have one readily available nor am I so inclined to go and purchase any. Paper maps of course are of small consequence if the game itself is dynamic and enthralling..... yeah there is a bit of a no on that part too.

Right Flank of Celts at start up.

As most battles of the time were fought on open flat terrain, the maps have very little in the way of variation. For example: the battle of Medway scenario used a map that had a river running across the northern portion, and a few swamps in the southern corners. the river, was barely an obstacle for the Roman legions, in that to attack them while crossing offered no bonus to the Celts. Thus negating the advantages of river defenses. The swamps were never entered by either army so no use of terrain to advantage, which for me is anathema. The "Ground" and the choice of ground is extremely important in armed conflict. The Generals of the time understood this as well, and I find it difficult to believe that they were unable to thwart a river crossing where the enemy had no bridges or engineers to build them. 

Celtic Counters

On the plus side the counters are really very pretty to look at and help one absorb the "theme" of the game. There are a few different types of units Leaders being the most important, followed by what are called "Long" units representing large formations of infantry i.e. Legions, and smaller "auxiliary" units that consist of archers, light infantry, chariots, and oddly enough, artillery. The mix of different forces made me smile as I thought the use of combined attacks using all the different types would be exciting and fun. Sadly the game didn't play out that way.

A fundamental concept of this game is what is described as "Command". Leaders command various units within their sphere (movement allotment) and only units "in Command" can be moved or attack. Of course units can be Out of command by being outside their leaders control or the leader failing a morale check which essentially means he has lost control of his troops. This system is supposed to represent a sort of "fog of war" situation and though it is hard to wrap ones head around at first actually makes sense. Essentially a player could find him/her self with half their army out of command and immobile, thus creating a tense situation indeed.

Romans crush the right.

In the scenario I played, not once were any troops out of command which made decision making much easier, however, the constant rolling of dice to determine command got a bit old. Also at the end of my game the Celtic right flank was rolled up and pushed back into center group. This created a situation where it became difficult to determine which troops were commanded by which leader, and who could activate and when. Ultimately I made a House rule in which the local commander became subservient to Army commander and gave control to Army Leader. If the counters had easier to read divisional numbers rather than tribe names on them such a situation would have been negated. As it was, once the Celtic Right fell in with Center, I found myself trying to look up the starting troops from the scenario set up booklet to match the names with the leaders. Frustrating to say the least, thus my making the House rule and moving forward.

Half the troops intermingle after being pushed back, command difficult to determine.

I am not going to go over every aspect of this rather difficult experience, as I am sure that most of you can tell by now I do not give this game very high marks. I will say though as I doggedly moved my Celts to the fore to try and thwart the Roman advance a wee thrill of excitement ran through me. I could see the chariots racing off to my left tearing up the light infantry of the enemy while my larger tribes locked horns with the legions on the right. I almost felt the desperation of the Celts as they began to succumb to the disciplined heavy troops of Rome. However, one wee moment in an entire afternoon, makes not for good game play and I felt rather worn out in the end. Perhaps I'll try this title again someday after I make a reference sheet for the various stages and rules so I can easily memorize them.

As it stands today Rome at War III will remain in my game closet till that time or someone asks to play it. I've far too many titles to pick from that make me happy to spend too much time on those that don't.


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

Al's Top 5 picks for Christmas

I have not made a Christmas list since I was a child, for a myriad of reasons. However, this past year I began to embrace my "inner child" by starting to rebuild my game collection. Long ago, I had many wonderful titles from which to pick and play at leisure, but over the years those boxed childhood memories disappeared. I have spent countless hours searching the Internet, for some of the old favorites and this work has paid off handsomely as I have acquired no less than eight titles long out of print.

But, looking at my shelf the other night, I realized that for all the games I now own, most would not be enjoyed by the majority of today's "gamers", as they are slow, methodical and long to play. So I decided that it was time to flesh out my collection with a variety of newer games and compiled a list for Santa i.e. my wife, in the hopes that on Christmas morning my eyes will be dazzled by a new and shiny title we can all play next game day.

After watching tons of video reviews, and reading everything one could about the various games I thought would add variety, I submitted the following five for Santa's approval. Let's hope she's listening. So here, from last to first, we present the five top picks from my Christmas list. I pray at least one title is under the tree.

#5  Forbidden Desert; produced in 2013 by Gamewright, this is the sequel to Forbidden Island. In this version the players are looking for a legendary flying machine on an ever shifting board. With up to five players I can see this game being very interesting. We have had loads of fun in the past with Forbidden Island, and from all accounts this desert version is better. There is a little more strategy involved in Forbidden desert but I think that will only make the gameplay richer. The Dice Tower recommends this game highly

#4  1775: Rebellion; Produced in 2013 by Academy games Rebellion is a 2-4 player strategy war game based on the American Revolution. Each player has a set of cards to position and move their troops and custom dice are used to resolve combat. Though this is a war game (I can hear you all sighing now) it is actually very simple and fast to play. I've had my eye on this for awhile now, in the hopes of introducing some of you "let's hold hands and skip" type players to something a bit more aggressive. Worry not this game is considered a "light" game and great for introducing new folks. The use of small wooden cubes instead of the traditional cardboard counters also intrigues me.

#3 Summoner Wars Master Set; I have been on the fence with this card game for some time, but after loading the IOS app and playing through several rounds I decided to look at the board version again. Introduced in 2011 by Plaid Hat Games, the Master set comes with 6 faction/army decks, a heavy duty mounted board, five dice and 20 wound markers. By all accounts this is THE head to head deck building card game, and those who play it are rabid fans. High marks all around from BGG and Dice Tower. Games can last anywhere between 30 to 45 mins each so it plays relatively fast. I see Tuna being really good at this one.

#2  Conflict of Heroes: Awakening the Bear (2nd Edition); Another offering from Academy Games in 2012 this version of the original award winning CoH offers more units, new ark work and more firefights. What CoH brings to the table overall is a fast, and fluid system of play that is easy to learn. Simultaneous play means no long waiting for opponents to finish their turns, and the basics can be taught to a new player in about 5 minutes. What I am interested in is the larger 1 inch counters that depict, individual squads, vehicles, airplanes and tanks. The art on them is beautiful. CoH has been in the top ten lists of gamers since its inception in 2008 and this re-issue only reinforces it's popularity. This is a "Must Have" for my collection.

#1  Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game; Lastly the ultimate addition I would like to make this Christmas is this game from Upper Deck 2012. Set in the Marvel Comic book universe players use various hero decks i,e, Thor, Hulk, Thor, Spidey or THOR, to defeat various Villain decks like Magneto. What makes me slaver over this? Well two things really, first; game play is very interactive and has a bunch of random twists and turns to it through aptly named cards "Scheme Twists". Like other games such as Thunderstone Advance, there are slots on the board for villains and minions which the players must defeat, however in Legendary those minions are constantly on the move and if they escape bad things can happen to the players. My second reason is the theme. Between DC and Marvel comics my friends and I always leaned to the marvel universe as it was/is so awesome. I mean think about it who wouldn't want to be able to call on the God of Thunder to help you with a wee problem?  I can say in all honesty that if I do not receive this DBG for Christmas I am going to buy it myself as a present to me.

So there you have it. Al's (my) top five games to be had for Christmas. Keep your fingers crossed and I hope you all get what you are praying for as well. Ahhh if your not praying for my untimely or gruesome end that is.

Cheers
AL