From Russia with love

We went berserk in the Battleshed last night. Instead of our planned game, Sam of Wee Blokes headed over and eagerly revealed his latest purchase.

A shiny new game box was placed on the table with some rather nice fantasy artwork on the cover. It even had that enticing 'new' smell. He did warn me that he had something different to try out so I was pretty much in the dark when I got to play Berserk: War of the Realms.

Jail Break in the 'Verse!

There was an epic game of Firefly in the Battleshed on Sunday. A marathon four hour game with all the current expansions in play, including the latest, Kalidasa, which is the second Rim expansion (after Blue Sun) adding another new star system to the 'Verse. 

Zombicide in the Big W

With Firefly being a demonstratively popular multi-player club game - at least, at Livingston Battleground anyway -  I thought it would be a good opportunity to try another game I've had lurking in my 'Play me! Play me!' gaming shelf - Zombicide from Guillotine Games.

The choices we make

What makes a perfect gaming session? Like all things in life, it's subjective, and open to so many variables. But sometimes, enough of those variables align to say, yeah, that was just right.

At Livingston Battleground this weekend, four gaming veterans - or old farts as the younglings called us - reverted to another game of Firefly. A regular stalwart for when none of us had organised a particular game.

Its probably whimsy, but when you have four experienced gaming mates, playing a semi-familiar board game over a four hour period; chilled, (as I believe those same younglings say), with much hilarious craic, fun and camaraderie, it's the perfect antidote for a heavy working week.

What helps, is that Firefly is not overtly adversarial. In line with the TV (and movie) series, it's all about individual traders meeting the overall objective. At the beginning of the game, a random scenario card is drawn. It's the first player to meet to meet those objectives that wins. Each player is free to do what they please. Cooperation, or not, it's up to you. At the start of the game, you draw ship and owner;  it's up to you to find crew, kit and supplies...

Lets go shopping...

It's a great game, highly recommended for club play with 3 or more players. We played with the expanded 'Verse, so we had the Reavers and Rim space to navigate amongst all the normal difficulties. I've reported on a few games now, so I won't go over old ground. Suffice to say I thoroughly enjoyed the club game this weekend. Massive thanks to JF, JM, and BG! 

Board games are like buses...

And another board game incoming! The Plastic Soldier Company, from whom I recently purchased a set of Tiger 1 tanks, have announced a Kickstarter for a Great War Strategy board game. 

It's definitely something that interests me, so it's my second KS backing of the year - and its only February! Details below...

The King Is Dead!

As my reader knows, I'm not adverse to a bit of board gaming. Indeed I have accumulated a reasonable collection that fights its own corner, literally, in the Battleshed. Even over at my local club board games are regularly represented such as the likes of Firefly, Battlestar Galactica and the club's home-grown game, NUMA: The Affinity Chronicles. Of course, having the availability of multiple players ensures much hilarity, devious skulduggery and adds to the fun.

So its intriguing that the venerable Osprey Publishing, who will be familiar to many, are embarking on their very first board game, The King Is Dead. It surprised me that it was their first! Details are a wee bit sketchy currently, but as their article below says, 'Watch this space!...'

Bluff and paranoia aboard the Battlestar Galactica

My first visit to my local gaming club, LivingstonBattleground, for 2015 so after the round of belated 'Happy New Years' I was quickly subsumed into a five player game of Fantasy Flight's Battlestar Galactica board game. Having never played before my fellow players soon had me up and running with at least a basic understanding of what I was supposed to be doing. 

"Each player is secretly assigned his or her loyalty at the start of the game. Players will either be loyal to the humans, or to the Cylons. Humans and Cylons have specific and conflicting winning objectives. The human players win by reaching Kobol, but the Galactica will be threatened by a host of challenges along the way. Only through the cooperation of the humans will the ship (and fleet) survive. The Cylon player(s) wins by either destroying the Galactica with attacks from the Cylon fleet, or, through sabotage, by reducing one of the necessary resources (Food, Fuel, Population, or Morale) to zero."

The game is designed to be played cooperatively for 3-6 players. We had five players, so there were two Cylons amongst us - but who?  It quickly became a delicious game of bluff and paranoia, with each player drawing and playing various skill cards,  all done exhibiting their best poker faces. 

For example, my character was the Chief Engineer, Galen Tyrol, who somehow seemed to spend much of his time in the ship's brig - apparently my fellow players all somehow suspected him of Cylon tendencies. Not sure how to take that! On my turn my fellow players can pool some or all of their skill cards in their hand to help me escape the brig, but as it's done without revealing what they've actually played in the skill test they may be surreptitiously making it more difficult for me to reach the required pass score!
 

The Great Recession in the Verse

Still in then throws of a lean gaming period (for me), I really appreciated the opportunity of another game of Firefly, the board game,  over at Livingston Battleground today. A two-player game against an experienced player, 'J',  with all the current expansions in play. It was a challenging game for both pilots, as life in the 'verse often is!

The scenario, 'The Great Recession', somewhat appropriate considering my recent gaming activity, had us competing for a drastically reduced number of jobs with the winner being the pilot with the most cash, less costs, after four of the contacts had no more jobs to offer. I managed (don't ask!) to get no less than five outstanding Warrants making any dealings in Alliance space, um, difficult!  J got the win, having the most cash as per the triggered victory condition (see photo), although it was reasonably close; if I wasn't delayed with a tricky entanglement dodging and scrapping with those bloody Reaver ships, I could've been me! 

Apart from the usual challenges navigating the 'verse, the pilots had to deal with an angry fleet of Reaver ships, somewhat ruthlessly provoked by me early on, hoping to steal a lead on my competitor!

If you're a fan of Firefly (me, me!) then I can highly recommend Firefly the board game. Its relatively easy to learn and goes a long way to simulating life in the 'verse. As with many of the GF9 games, it does contain a lot of tokens and cards and needs quite a bit of 'space' to play. It isn't a quick game, with the two-hour to play estimate for most scenarios being very optimistic! However, there is an excellent set of solo scenarios included and what with the expansions and online support its worth the effort. 

I came across and excellent tutorial on YouTube recently by GrumshBGG, which I recommend to anyone interested in this game.

NUMA: The Affinity Chronicles

A quick preview for you! The guys over at Livingston Battleground are a talented and resourceful group and have been coming up with many home-grown and scratch-built projects over the years. So it's no surprise they've used all that experience to develop a game with a potential commercial release in mind. 

After a long period in development, with numerous re-designs and lots and lots of play-testing, the game, NUMA: The Affinity Chronicles, is the distillation of all that time and effort. As its still in 'beta-test', (to borrow software release terminology),  I can give you a basic summary of the game.

So what is it? It's a Military Sci-Fi,  hex-based board game where players build a squad of mercenaries from a number of available factions, with the aim of being the first to complete three Victory Conditions / Contracts (VICONs). 

Each player will start with an officer faction card, each with their individual stats and abilities, initially two 'energy' to use on your squad's HUD and a random amount of cash. From there on players start to develop their squads by using trading posts on the board to buy new recruits and kit.  Managing your squad and available resources to complete your objectives is an immersive and key part of the game.

 

NUMA is an unstable and dangerous world, both politically and geographically, where players will have to contend with each other, NPC factions and random events - both good and bad (Wipeout!) - at every turn. From fierce fire fights to Orbital Strikes, from shady contracts to surviving quakes and tremors in treacherous city blocks.

I have only scratched the surface of NUMA: The Affinity Chronicles, hopefully wetting your appetite for a full review and  AAR in due course!