Be Excellent To Each Other

Order cancelled because no stock.

Played 'Dead of Winter' for the first time, in a deserted church hall on a dark November night in rural Oxfordshire. Not as tricky as I'd feared, and although the game beat us we came very close.
Turns out I wasn't a traitor, but at least three characters had to be bumped off if I was going to meet my secret goal so I deliberately jinxed a crisis causing mass casualties. Oops. Didn't get exiled at least, although my poker face was even less convincing then that time I was the detective in a game of Cottage Mafia.

Definitely want to play it again.

Ordered it again from these people....

Sounds good. We should try again soon.

I know... I know....

Played 3, lost 2 won 1 at netrunner tonight. Lost cheaply once, won cheaply once and the other loss was 6-7 (need 7 to win). Not quite sure what to do with my decks but more money is needed....

I'm aware I am mainly talking to myself here but..

The Satisfaction of a Job Well Done.

Ways to win as the corporation in netrunner are to score 7 agenda points by advancing agenda cards or by having the runner discard more cards from his hand than he has.

I have built up a deck of cards for the corporation that threatens the runner when they steal agenda points from me (they discard 2 cards from their hand or take a tag (a tag means Stuff Can Be Done to them)). This means that the additional cost of stealing an agenda is two turns to draw two cards to replace those they discarded or one turn and 2 coins to remove the tag. Generally they do this as being tagged means Bad Stuff can happen to them, like losing cards. Or coins.

So, I was the Corp and had moved myself up to 5 agenda points. I had set up a remote server which had been safe enough and I was trying to get 2 more points from it to win. The runner broke in and took it and resolved the damage. He then had 6 points and things were not looking great. My next turn I was able to get a point back (installed a card and advanced it twice in my turn to score it). So, delicately poised. The runner had a good, if expensive, way of getting in, I had to have a think.

On my next go I installed a card in the server that was protected and picked up a couplle of coins. then it was his turn. Merrily, he ran the server, passing through the two ice layers. I wasn't amused.

Confidently, he accesses the card to score the victory points and SURPRISE!. Lose 3 cards from your hand and take a tag, Thank you very much. The runner had one move left, and not enough cash to remove the tag. So he drew a card, leaving him with two cards.

My go. I drew a card. Remember I got a one point card out a few goes back? That gave me 7 coins. I had used 4 to spring the trap, and had 3 left. And the runner had a tag. Just perfect to Burn his house down. He could not discard 4 cards as he had 2 so I won.

Low cunning made a victory pop out of nowhere. I was murdered in the next game, though.

"And then I rolled a four and a two"

I thought that as I hit "post'.

Won 1 lost 4* last night at netrunner.

Time for a rethink of strayagy as "fuck their shit up" is running out of steam in the local meta.

Could have won 2 but I over reached and went into a trap in one game, and the other 3 losses were a trouncing.

You should be more specific, and concentrate on fucking GazChap up.

Hero quest? Still available? My brother wants to buy it for his son.

From £50 on amazon and about that on ebay

So, can't buy it new any more?

My brief look at amazon and eBay suggests not

Mine to, sadly

It's not been avaliable for 20 years. Tell them to play on NeroQuest.

The Dungeons and Dragons boardgame is a fairly close proxy.

Otherwise Descent looks pretty good, if a little more complicated.

Played 'Ticket to Ride:UK' for the first time today. Unlike other versions, you can't start building all over the board immediately. You begin with the ability to build in England's green and pleasant one-and-two square lines. To build in Wales, Scotland, Ireland, and France, or on longer lines, you have to buy the rights to them at a cost of one love train or four cards. This slows the pace of the game down and means the early stages are more about building your hand and getting some short routes to build up from later. You also have to buy a propeller if you want to cross water and there are some other technologies that offer benefits. I quite liked the one giving me an extra point every time I claimed a route. As there's no bonus for the longest train, there's more incentive to go for extra tickets as otherwise you're just left filling in vacant connections or trying to grief others.

It felt very different to other TTR games, but I liked it and will play it again some time. Still annoyed about the lack of Oxford though - I might cross out Reading and write it in myself.

Sounds good, though. If only a major present giving festival was on the horizon.

Netrunner: Switched my factions around to mix it up a bit. See how that pans out.

Lolz. Ordered MOAR CARDZ

You should all be playing this.

Both new decks of cards so made last night failed in one way or another. Refinements have been put in. I drew a hand of cards and actually said "Christ knows what I was thinking". So 15% of the cards we t out and replacements drafted in. It was odd not trying to kill my opponent, though.

Whilst I think of it, the annual Oxford board gaming fest, OxCon, is being held on 30-31st January upstairs at the Mitre here in the 'Ford. I might be going to some of it. I think it was £5 per day last year, but when I get more details I'll post them.

Remember the 'Ford is just an hour or so from the Smoke.

Played the 'Game of Thrones' tonight. Never read the books or seen the show, but that doesn't matter. A wonderfully back-stabby strategy game. I always think that the best games are those that lead to lengthy post-game post-mortems, and we could have argued about where and when people went wrong all night.

You need to teach Gaywood how to play.

Also Dead of Winter.

There's more than one GoT boardgame. Mine is the CCG one.

Clearly Cuite Gomplicated

Play.lose.chat.refine.play.lose.chat.refine.play.lose.chat.refine.

i just selected this as my work-xmas gift.. anybody familiar with it?
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/2651/power-grid

I think Nervous Pete has played it.

I've played it once. It's great fun and pretty easy to pick up, but very, very tactical. It's the kind of game that you spend the rest of the evening analysing your moves and trying to work out just how that dam other player was able to beat you. Would love to play it again.

I own it.

It's pretty much as you'd expect.

I got some money for my birthday, and I did well in my appraisal today, so I treated myself to Imperial Assault, which will hopefully be turning up tomorrow...

'Grizzled'.

You love your mates. They love you back. You grew up with them, enlisted with them, and now you're cowering in the French trenches with them. Yes, it's the first WW1-themed co-operative game, and it makes 'Pandemic' look like calling in sick with a bout of manflu on a sunny Friday. The decisions you make will help the team effort, but people will get hurt. Badly. At least there's no harm in running away to fight another day, even if it makes peace even more unlikely. And if one of your comrades takes three hits (most likely administered by your careless card playing, for the good of the overall mission), everyone loses.

Seriously, it's hard not to screw someone or the team over. You play a card, and if a certain number of symbols on the spread of cards in play match, the mission is lost. People can opt not to, and withdraw to leave their mates in the fray, but the cards they have in their hand carry over to the next round. If you reluctantly inflict a wound to your mate, the bad stuff might upset their game and the team's chances. I was inflicted with 'pride', and so couldn't retreat until everyone else had (I didn't get a chance to render a comrade mute!).

The aim is to clear the 'peace' deck to unveil the dove and win the war. The more missions you fail, the bigger the 'war' deck becomes, making it increasingly less likely it'll be over by Christmas.

We played for three rounds, and then abandoned it. We had no hope of winning. At least in 'Pandemic' we can blame the modern transportation network for the spread of communicative diseases and in 'Flashpoint' on poor enforcement of fire safety orders when the game beats us and everyone dies horribly. But in this game, well, we were just cannon fodder.

I'm not sure whether we were crap, if it was difficult, or just plain unfair. But that's war for you.

Portal: The Uncooperative Cake Acquisition Game

We played this last weekend. It was great but we played it in teams. I'd love to have a go playing as individuals.

I received the ZOMBIECIDE board game. This appears to be a cooperative zombie killing game. It looks fun.

Ooh, please report back after playing!

Joans has had Marvel Legendary and Ticket to Ride America. I've had loads of little games; Cards and dice, Sussed, Ion and Sushi go. All quick games that I'm hoping to play with Chloe. We've got her Frozen Monopoly and some Shopkins game, I want her to see boardgames as a social thing.

I've had Labyrinth recommended too, so that's gone on my wish list with King of Tokyo.

I got that.

You'll have to bring it over when you come and stay next

Will do!

Christmas board games:
Pandemic legacy. Played one game and already had to rip up a card and write on the board. Stressful!

Codenames: great fun. Amazingly difficult at times but suits a wide range of people.

Machi Koro: lovely little tableau building game where you buy cards to generate income and ultimately become first to unlock your most expensive cards.

Sheriff of nottingham: take turns being sheriff and trying to figure out who is lying and who is telling the truth when they tell you what goods they have put in a bag. Great fun but you need to be in the mood for it.

Lords of Waterdeep: D&D themed action selection game like a lighter Agricola. Not played it yet but got base game plus expansion!

Space Alert: cooperative simultaneous action timed programming game. Choose your actions all at the same time, for all twelve of your actions. Then after the time is up, resolve them all in order simultaneously while threats creep ever closer and see how terribly wrong it all went. Love it!

I've ordered Risk: Star Wars based on Rock Paper Shotgun recommendation. I hope the game doesn't anger my wife too much, because otherwise i will have no one to play with.

We have Machu Lori. It's quite ice and laid back.

Sherrif is good fun.

As the wise people say, buy games the people you play with want to play, not games you want to play.

We've been playing Marvel Legendary. Seems good but we've just had a run through to learn the mechanics.

Having a break for baked Camembert. Nom.

I've picked up two X-Wing miniatures game core packs (1 X-Wing and 2 TIE Fighters each). Should be fun for the cottage. Might pick up the Millennium Falcon and TIE Bomber expansion packs before then too.