Nightlancer review - A little case in the Cyberwar

Nightlancer – Adversity Games

You find me at an interesting point in my “career” as a blog writer. Sat, looking at me across my gaming table (its a completely fictitious term, the truth is its really my dining room table) is a copy of a very very new game. In fact its so new that it isn't even out yet, heck its not even in production yet. What I have in front of me is a copy of Nightlancer, a game which is going to be hitting Kickstater in the next few months. So the initial thing to say here is, considering my blog has been going for all of three months, thank you ever so much to Adversity Games for considering me as a reviewer.

That aside, what we are going to do right now is look into this game in as much detail as I can muster. There is a lot to say as well about it. Quite frankly considering this game is in prototype mode there really is a lot of well rounded ideas in the box, and you can likely guess that my overall judgment on this game is going to be very positive. I'm somewhat loathed that I have to send this copy off to the next reviewer if I am honest. I'm going to, within this review, go through the background of the game, the overall turn mechanics and then a kind of hightlights and lowlights section (for what its worth the lowlights really are few and far between).

Now, I'm going to add a small comment from Adversity Games here, the game was in prototype phase so the graphical content of the game is going to be worked over before it hits kickstater. The box art gives you an idea of what they are aiming for, and if that is the case then anyone who has played Cyberpunk 2020 than you will have a pretty good idea of what the art work is going to be like. The whole game has that genre at its very heart, and certainly you can tell that they really are looking at condensing the feel of that RPG into a semi-cooperative/competitive game. That last part being quite important so read down later if you want to see what I mean.

Background

So the background.. set in 2099 the world is in the grips of geopolitical turmoil and dystopian disasters. Humanity begins to use cybertechnology and narcotics to basically try to forget the rubbish of the world, and become more than human. While this is opposed by some groups, the rich use these vices to “transcend” the state of being human. Do it too quickly though you might find yourself less than human. These techshocked individuals form raging bands and police control slips, further dividing the rich and poor, as slums become insecure zones. You play a Nightlancer, someone willing to take on dark jobs and use even darker cybertech or weaponary to give you the chance of affording a way out of the slums.

So, this is definitely a staple of roleplay game communities, with several games reaching into this post-human, dystopian ideal, but I've not seen many board/card games that delve into it. Sure there is Shadowrun out there and the recently funded Oligarchy card game, but it hasn't been a major genre outside of RPGs. While this means it certainly triggers a certain amount of comparison with RPGs, Nightlancer certainly doesn't suffer under its Grandad's shadow.

Gameplay

Predominantly Nightlancer is a character progression style card game. There are a lot of decks to look after, and this can be quite daunting at first. Certainly there is a reasonably large set up time, but there are two very handy organisation boards to make sure everything can be set out easily enough. Going though them then, there is the Blackmarket deck (for cyberwear, weapons and other items that you can buy), the Contacts deck (which you get at least two of each turn and can affect skill rolls, or grant more of the other cards), the Agendas deck (which you can use to gain points, or some of them allow you to maintain your ideals), the Skills deck (which you get a number of each time you finish a mission, and can buy one of if you want, adding permanent boosts to your skill values), the Missions decks (Low and High difficulty), and the Events deck (which tell you how many missions of each type to use each turn, and then sets an immediate challenge to all or some players). In the first game looking at all of this was a bit of a headache, but actually each deck has very specific times when they are used, and following the board around can be done by which deck you are using each time.

At the start of the game you set the various decks up, and then turn over an Event card (you get 8 in total, 4 early events and 4 late events). Using that card you then turn over the correct missions, open up the black market cards for the turn and hand out contacts. Then you take the event test, which is normally a skill test. Picking a missions to do then finishes off the prep stage of the game. The Street phase allows you to buy points, complete an agenda, take out a loan, or buy a single card from the black market. We only did one of these things, so working out if we wanted something to complete your mission was also a bit of a risk reward as you can't do anything else.  However, in light of a conversation this morning with Adversity Games, you actually get to keep going around (in turn order) til everyone has passed, and I think this is definitely a far better idea, as it makes the loan mechanic far more appealing, and obviously the option of completing more than one agenda and still buying items is really handy.  In the end trying to figure out if you should be using the money you have to get the points you need at the end of the game, or pick up those nice Cyberclaws so you have a better chance at a fight you know will be on your mission can be vital, and not being limited to one or the other will certainly help.

The mission phase resolves around taking at least three tests to try and get to the end. I've deliberately skipped a bit of the Prep phase hear because it'll be easier to explain now. When you pick your missions you do it in the current turn order, and being the first person on a mission makes you the primary person in the first team. People can offer to join you, and if you accept then you basically get someone along who will make the same tests as you, and between you the highest result is then used to see if you pass. Of course you can say no, at which point they can do the same mission in the second team slot. Should you both get to test number 3 then you have to fight each other to see who actually gets the chance to try and complete the mission. Losing a gun fight is really harsh, as you lose all life and a point of ideal (if you have zero health you aren't out, but if you have zero ideal you can't win the game). Lastly, if you have the right contact card you can lock out the second team space on a mission, making it yours and no one elses to run through. This is where the semi-cooperative/competitive thing really shows up in detail.

The tests for each mission basically fall into either standard challenges or combat challenges. Each of the characters has base skill levels and these can be boosted by items or skills. Now there is a lot to go through with those, but skills are always on, cyberweapons are also permanent, but you can only use one weapon in any one test, so you'll need to decide if the cyberweapon is the one you want each time. “Normal” items are limited, firstly by a carry limit of three, but some missions you need to be sneaky or quiet (so that big old sniper rifle has to stay at home). Add up your points, roll the dice and see if you beat the number. If so move on to the next test. If not, you might find yourself shaken (unable to carry on, but also safe from the next event), just outright failing, being followed by the police, or in an outright gunfight (and as we know from above, loosing a gunfight is pretty serious). Standard challenges can also have special “flavours”, which require additional cards in order to even be able to pick that option, whereas Combat challenges automatically cost health.

The game lasts 8 rounds, and each time you work through the same steps. You can choose to miss picking a mission, which you do need to do because it reduces your heat (how interested the police are in you) and lets you fully heal up. After the game ends you work out your score, based on the points you have gain during the game from cards or buying points. Then you also add points for the money you have stored up, the ideals you have left, and lose points for any loans or heat you still have. Highest score wins.

Highlights

Firstly, this is a really well put together game idea. There is just enough of a strategic edge to it without it being overawing, the cards have enough different options on them that you don't feel each one has limited uses, and there are plenty of strategies to winning each game.

It didn't take too long to work out how to play it. We missed a few rules each play through, and honest they make a big difference to the game, but they didn't stop the game being playable, so it is quite forgiving if you forget things

There are a lot of these semi-cooperative games that fall over because the competitive side is an afterthought at the end of the game. There are plenty of ways in Nightlancer to really make things harder for other players and keep it competitive.

Even with it being a prototype there was enough in the box to keep track of everything, and I do love any game that gives you a clear organisation method.

Going back to the background, this is a pretty unique genre for board games, and it doesn't stumble in terms of keeping the background in the look and feel of the game.

One of people in the first group I played it with said its not a game they would turn down playing again, and they aren't anywhere near as involved in the board gaming world.

Lowlights

I personally think there were a lot of symbols to have to remember. Now I personally think there are a lot of ways to deal with this, and certainly I think a lot of this will be solved with the move from prototype to production.

Lastly, the amount that goes out onto the table might well put off a group that has no gaming experience at all. This wouldn't fall into my gateway games list.

Overall

I really really like this game, and I will likely be putting money on the kickstarter when it comes out. I really felt that after playing this a couple of times I well on the way to working out exactly how the game worked, and we didn't really have to pick up the rulebook that often when we played it the second time around. I am looking forward to how the design moves forward. It also fits a very good gap in my games list, as I don't have many “light” strategy games where there are many options for winning and also a direct set of confrontation options. The fact that it can stand alone, not just as a game in my collection, but also side by side with the roleplay games that also fit this genre. I can see me showing this game to people who know, and play, a lot of other games. I really can see some of my normal gaming group really enjoying this game, and certainly there will be avenues they will open up that we didn't see a lot of over the weekend (certainly someone I know will really like playing the negative effect of cards on their opponents, which we did little of in the games we played). It has that scope for people to play it in different ways and each option will be viable to get the win.

There were a couple of hiccups because we missed rules, I do, however, think a lot of that will be the normal rush through of the rules, and some aspects of the rulebook needing a little reworking.  I'd also be quite interested in the event cards having a long term effect over the missions as well, just to add even more re-playability to the game (not that there isn't already a lot of that anyway)

This is a solid 7.5/10 game, but also one that might well go further up the scale the more it is played and the more options you get to see. Each game also doesn't go through all of the mission cards and there are more than eight of the event cards in the box, so there is definitely a lot of re-playability anyway.

The Important bits

The Nightlancer game has a facebook page which can be found at http://www.facebook.com/NightlancerGame

The images used on this page are from the Nightlancer page itself (as you will see)

Adversity Games themselves can also be found on the following pages 

http://www.adversitygames.com
http://www.facebook.com/adversitygames
http://twitter.com/adversitygames

It is well worth a look around the various pages, and I have added links throughout this post for Nightlancer itself so curiosity should have got the better of you by now surely.

Blood, Sweat and Tears - Metaphorically

Guild Ball tournament review

I'm almost slumped over my keyboard as I write this.  It's a really good sort of tired, not the type of tired I got from Malifaux tournaments where I would immediately have to get home and fall sleep due to the mind numbing headache that I would have.  I'm not entirely sure why Malifaux used to make me get headaches.  I would think on it, but it involves brain power I really don't have right now.

Today was a lot of fun though, even the vicious defeats were still a giggle.  Guild Ball, even in tournament games, just seem to be a massively social game.  So, here is a review of my five games (means I've now played nine games in total of Guild Ball, and I have to say I'm definitely hooked on this).  I took Midas and friends (Flask, Calculus, Vitriol, Compound, Venin, Mercury and Snakeskin), though I only ever swapped out once the whole tournament.  I can't remember the exact details of the game, but I'm going to highlight if I can

Game 1 - Pete Coyle (Union)

So game one was my first time against Union.  I was somewhat worried about what was going to happen here, having no idea of how to play against a team genuinely makes life a little harder.  So I decided to bring in my "normal" team, if such a thing is possible after four games.  I had Midas, Flask, Calculus, Compound, Venin and Vitriol.  Pete had Blackheart, Coin, Mist, Gutter, Averice and Greed, and Rage.

So, from this game I learnt a couple of tricks certainly.  Firstly Mist is amazingly fast, but doesn't do so well when he gets pushed off the side of the pitch by Midas.  Admittedly this left Midas out of most of the rest of the game (only appearing again at the end to kill Gutter; she didn't get to hang around long in most of the match), but it was definitely funny.

Rage hates Venin, with a burning passion.  More accurately he really doesn't like Venin standing next to him for most of the game and throwing Sacrificial puppet on him.  Without anyone else around to do anything to him, redirecting the first hit back to Rage stops him getting his additional free hit.  There are ways to break this trick, but that did sort of mess him up.

Also Vitriol has serious anger issues, running up with the ball, scoring a goal and then killing everything that came near her was definitely good.

I managed a 12-8 win, with one goal and four take outs.  Pete, I think, got 4 take outs.  It was a cracking game.  At one point we were at 8 all, but there was no way that Pete could take anyone out due to the Venin speed bump in the middle.

Game 2 - Rob Smith (Butchers)

I realised my mistake immediately.  Winning the first game meant I was playing someone way more experienced that me, and to make matters worse I was playing against Butchers (who I hadn't experienced yet).  Ox, Princess, Tenderiser, Brisket, Shank, Boiler and Rage lined up against me, and in a vague hope I could slow down the incoming mess I swapped out Calculus for Mercury.  Sadly, it really didn't work out so well.

It's difficult to explain what happened.  I spread out, but not enough that Rob couldn't chain this kills together.  I over committed Midas and Mercury (twice) and an experienced player was well and truly able to take advantage of it.  That said, it was still a good game.  Rob made sure he explained where I made mistakes as the game progressed, and gave me plenty of ideas of future reference.  I was actually amazed as to how much Rob went through the game with me, and I really appreciate it a lot.

It was a 12-0 loss and all through take outs, painful painful take outs.  Butchers are able to output masses of damage, and even Venin couldn't pull off his damage redirection shenanigans, he was just folded up and sent to the sidelines in a little box.  (I also forgot to take a photo before, during or after this game, I really wasn't thinking).

Game 3 - Mat Cook (Fishermen)

Yay, a team I've played before.  Mat Cook took the male voice choir of the Fishermen (Shark, Salt, Sakana, Greyscales, Kraken and Jak).  I'd gone back to Calculus, I'm not sure why, it just made sense.  Winning the initial dice roll helped, I thought, but Shark still got to the ball even with it being almost all the way back on my start line with Vitriol.  With a little bit of tackling back and forth Shark scored the first goal and Jak had managed to punt Venin off the board.  I wasn't impressed and I was 6-0 down already.  However, the situation was such that Midas was now in the middle of the board on his own, and had managed to take where'd they go off of Greyscales.

My normal thought with Fish is that I can't outscore them, but I can kill them if I get my hands on them, but I just couldn't work out how to get to them.  With Midas on his own though, and a good kick out, I managed to immediately score back, and the resultant kick out really wasn't good for the fish.  While Greyscales got to the ball first, Midas was then able to get over to the right side of the board to get in the way.  Fourth turn Midas, first unpredictable moving out of the way of Jak's ramming speed and then dodged around and stole the ball from Greyscales, more dodges and running later and I'd managed to get to another goal.

Shark did end up with the ball again, and promptly scored.  With the fish on a 10-8 lead and absolutely no damage on any of the fish anywhere I had one option.  A bad kick out to Vitriol, I lost the ball and Sakana booted it to the middle of the pitch.  A badly wounded Venin ran up and booted it towards Midas, but Salt managed to nick it.  Jak shoved Venin out the way, but Midas was still lurking and stole the ball and took the last shot of the game.

This was the only instance of the Midas show, with the rest of the team running about after the fish just to get in the way.  In my opinion a really really lucky 12-10 win for me.. really lucky.

Game 4 - David Millington (Moticians)

I've played these before too.. not like this though.  It all started so well.

Having kicked off to the Morticians I took a big gamble and sent Vitriol off at pace to steal the ball and score a goal.  At the same time Cosset did the crazy lady thing and went off to hit Midas.  Sadly in range and in sight of Compound, who punted her to the floor and Midas went a little postal on her.  6-0 up, great start.

So Midas still had influence, Obulus was in sight and unable to get away, great though I, I'll go have a go at him.  Apparently I can't hit the broadside of a barn when I need to.  Midas let me down.  At this point the coral began.  Midas was beaten off the board and then everyone else just started sucking up damage.  Once everyone was low a pumped up Obulus and David's Rage just went to town.  I lost 4 models in one turn, and having already lost Midas once I was 10-6 down and had 2 models on the board.  Before anyone could get back and lend a hand Obulus had sized up Compound and found him wanting.  I couldn't even hold on long enough to take out a 3 health Silence who was stood right next to Compound and looking like he would die.

It was an interesting game though, if for nothing else than seeing Mortician's played as a killing faction rather than a scoring one.  I'm going to have to give Obulus some more thought, or actually kill him when I have the chance!

Game 5 - James Reece (Brewers)

I did it again, I forgot to take pictures in this game.. thankfully I already had a picture of James' best painted Brewers team.

So there was a chance we would only have four games, all that had to happen was James had to win his fourth game.  He did not, so I got the fun and games of playing against him for game five.

Now James I know, I played against him in a Dystopian Wars tournament a couple of years back, and in fact in Malifaux last year (I'd completely forgotten this til I got home).  We'd caught up a bit during the day and it was really cool to get to play him again.  He fielded what I would assume is a standard-ish Tapper team, with Spigot, Scum, Friday, Hooper and Hemlocke.

There were so many things going on here.  James loaded one side of the board with all his models, but fortunately for me, I was receiving the ball.  The other thing I was quite happy about was that the side the ball was kicked to was fairly tight, and Venin was there.  He didn't last long, but did enough to hold the Brewers back.  In the meantime, Midas and Vitriol went off and scored, and poor Hooper got steamrollered (card and metaphorically) by Midas and Vitriol in the following turn.  In the meantime the rest of the Alchemist team where tarpitting the Brewers, just living through each of the Tapper rounds and then jumping up, healing and lobbing poison on everything.  I actually had all 5 poison tokens I own out at one point.

So, yes, being lumped on one side and with Hooper back on the Brewers did get the ball, and get it to Friday.. who promptly tried to score.. and missed.  So I did have 2 people around her, one of whom was also blocking her line to the goal completely, but still.  She missed.  I actually think the game hinged on this one moment.  Calculus, just back on after being Trapper'd, bounced into action, grabbed the ball and punted it straight to Vitriol.  Still out on her own in the middle scoring a goal was a given, and even though Spigot and Trapper promptly killed Compound they did it too close to Friday, who got herself covered in Compound bits and had to leave the field, meaning I only needed one kill.  Spigot, the poor lad, promptly got picked on by Midas and I managed to win the game 12-8.

Review over

Five mad and really good games.  I'm not actually sure how I'm awake at this time.  I'm now going to go out and unpack and clean out the car as I haven't for a while and I have a very very good and full week coming.  So, I bid you a due and here is hoping I can stay awake long enough.

A bit of Nostalgia #5

Scale of Complexity can sometimes be good.

Another Nostalgia post, which basically is a good thing because it means I'm getting back on track with keeping this thing up to date.  Once again I'm going back to a game which I used to play, and haven't had the chance to continue playing for a little while.  In this instance we are going to look at another roleplaying game.  As with last time I'm going to cover what I see as the three main areas of a game: The background, the system, and then the enjoyment level.

Though, always remember, as with any RPG, some games can win or lose depending on who introduced you to it and ran the games.  Believe me, the following game was not for the faint-hearted.

To Parlainth you say?  Piss off!

Welcome to one of the most complicated games I have ever played.  Thing is though, Earthdawn did it with such aplomb that you very easily forgave it all its complexities.  The main thing, however, that drove all of this forgiveness was just how different it was, to anything else on the market.  Earthdawn is a classic, a classic which continues to be developed, but in my opinion it is the second edition of the game that was always worth a really close look at.  Unlike Deadlands, however, even the later versions of the game have used the same system, the same background and the same fiddly dice mechanics of the original.  So lets start with the background.

Welcome to Earth (yes it is meant to be this earth, just a slightly different version of it).  Unlike in our written history, the truth about the Earth is that is goes through a cycle of magic rising and falling.  As magic drops the only thing that is left behind is humanity (and over time our technology), but as magic rises more and more species and "things" can exist.  In fact Earthdawn is set in the same universe as Shadowrun, with Shadowrun basically being set when magic starts to rapidly ascend again.  Anyway, back to the nostalgia.  The last time magic was on the rise (quite a long time ago), an Elven scholar realised that at the height of the magic cycle a rather nasty set of creatures called Horrors come into being.  These things not only feed on the massive amount of magic, but also any living thing that contains it.  Plus, those tasty morsels are even more appetising when they are saturated with Fear.  Of course it doesn't help that all name-giving races are inherently magical, even the humans (and there are rather a lot of them).

So our Elf decides that he has to work out how to beat, or at least survive, the arrival of the Horrors.  Starting as just a library, and over time expanding to a grand city, then the Theran Empire.  The empire traded the secrets they discovered for slaves from around the local area, ultimately demanding tribute to get the clever wards and protective mechanisms the other nations needed to get through the Cataclysm to come.  With the spells and plans of Thera, the people build huge underground cities to protect their people, mostly using the wards designed by the Theran Empire to stop the Horrors getting in.  Problem was, in some places it happened far too soon.  Some Kaer's weren't even ready, others only just sealed the gates in time.  However, when the Horrors came, more people lived through the event than perhaps would have done before.

The game world starts just 400 years after all of this (just?).  Players come from an area called Barsaive, where the Kaer's have begun to open again.  The world outside is a mess, creatures that once where normal and passive are now aggressive and changed.  That's just the fuana, flora and the land itself aren't much better.  More importantly for the characters though, the local Dwarven Kingdom of Throal aren't willing to be a slave nation anymore, and have rebelled against what little forces of Thera are up and about already.  Some Kaer's still sleep, and it is clear that others either opened far sooner, or were broken into by the Horrors.  There is also a sneaking suspicion that not all of the Horrors are gone, and that while it is the weaker Horrors that are left, a weak Horror isn't exactly pleasant to meet.

Taking it one step at a time

So the principle of the Earthdawn mechanics was extremely complicated to the uninitiated.  Certainly reading the rulebook wasn't a sure fire way of learning how the game worked.  I once said to someone that "should you ever want to play Earthdawn, make sure at least half of the group have already played it before".  Doesn't sound like a ringing endorsement I know, but all that I meant by it was that for novice players it could be a little daunting.

The good stuff of Earthdawn was that there wasn't any of the standard troupe about races and classes.

 There were no evil races, and there weren't any evil classes.  They were just things.  A lot of things.  Races are easy to go through; Humans, Dwarves (the main race of the area), Elves, Orcs, Trolls, Windlings (small faeries who were annoying but not kleptomaniacs), Tskrang (Aquatic Lizardmen) and Obsidimen (walking Rock people).  As I said, nothing was evil, you could play pretty much who you wanted (though there were some benefits and drawbacks to more or less all of them).

I don't think I can list all of the classes, there were so many, but I will highlight a few: Warrior, Sky Pirate, Necromancer, Elementalist, Duelist, Ranger, Archer, Acrobat.. it went on an on, with more being added to the list each time a new source book came out.  The classes were actually called Adepts, and this was because every single hero kind of used magic.  The idea was that anyone in Barsaive could, and often had to be, a bit of a soldier, but the heroes knew how to tap into the innate magic of the world to do even more impressive things.  To represent this, you could buy skills, and this is where it got really complicated.

Each "step" you bought in a skill made you better at that skill.  With me so far I assume.  However, unlike other games, instead of increasing how much of a + you got to your roll, or changing the target number, instead it completely changed the dice you got to roll to do your skill checks.  Step 1 was 1d4-2, step 2 was 1d4-1 and step 3 was 1d4.. easy enough so far.  Step 4 was 1d6, 5 was 1d8, etc etc.  by step 8 you got to 2d6 and then up to 1d8+1d6... it was a good job the step table was on the character sheet in 2nd edition.  Modifiers, like fear, generally changed which step you were on, so it could get very complicated.

Magic, actually lets say spell casting because it is different, was also a new experience for any long term player.  Unlike DnD, where you picked a spell, rolled a dice and saw if it worked, a true Spellcaster could be using up some of their actions, or even rounds, "building" their spell.  The game paid you off for this delay, by generally allowing you to blow the head off of something you hit (if you hit) that a warrior may have to spend some time actually hurting, but that whole click and boom approach to magic just wasn't there.

So was this actually fun?

Dear lord yes.

So here is the thing.  After a while a +1 each level of a skill is just boring.  You don't get a scale of power.  Those click and boom spells are great, but sometimes you are horribly reliant on them (and there was a way to get something like it in Earthdawn, but I don't have enough time here).  As a spell caster in Earthdawn  you really felt the raw and hard work you had to go through the get magic to do what you wanted, and sometimes the soul crushing horror when you can make the spell form, but can't actually throw it in the right direction.

The background, also, made sure that the game worked.  Remember what I said about everyone out there can be a soldier, but only the heroes could do the cool things.  Well, at rank 1 you were more or less the guy that was a soldier, you weren't much better than the normal people in the world.  So you start out doing the same thing they do, man the lines, hold back the local animals who aren't quite right, deal with the small time crones and crooks.  Do it enough though, and you really feel things shift around you, suddenly you are the daring heroes running in to save the army against the Horrors, you are meeting the Blood Elves of Thornwood (not actually the best idea) and diving into Parlainth as it reappears from the mist (a terrible idea).

What Earthdawn does, extremely well, is the concept of scale.  Not only of how much more powerful you become, but the scale of the world, the scale of the dangers and the scale of change from being a new Hero to something seriously special.  Yet at the same time, you could easily be put back into a box and slapped about a bit if you got too big for your boots.

Plus the diversity of what you could play.  It might well be daunting at first, but there were few games which allowed you to truly be something different each and every time you made a character and progressed them through the ranks.  Warhammer Fantasy RPG is probably the only game I have played that really made you feel like your character was growing and advancing in a unique way.  WFRPG probably does it better, but thats for another post.

There are four editions of this game now.  A game so good that when the original company went

under (FASA), it was then picked up by two other companies, before coming back to the resurrected FASA for the fourth edition.  I do recommend 2nd edition (though 4th simplifies some of the dice steps so might be less daunting).  I stand by the idea that it is a rulebook you have to really read to understand, and even then having a helpful few friends that have also read it will make a difference.

And never, ever, go to Parlainth.

Kickstarter #5

Back on track

Yes, its back.  Same as before, I will look through kickstarter and bring you four (this time) kickstarters that I really like the look of.  Once more, I have not been given copies of these games or items (mores the pity), and so these aren't reviews of the items themselves, and so this basically comes down to the fact that these kickstarters have done a lot to catch my interest just through what is on their page.  While I'd like to back them all, sadly I'm on a tight budget, so I might not get the chance, but hopefully a few of you out there will pick these up based on them being on my blog.

Legendary Showdown: Gamer's Quest - Killer Robot Games

I've got no idea if this is based on the Legendary/Legendary:Encoutners type system.  I am going to guess so, but it really is a guess.

I suppose the thing that draws me to this game is the setting, because its the ctrl-alt-delete universe.  Which just has to be a good thing, and likely means that while this game is based on a competitive card versus card system, at least its going to be funny.  Certainly is the advertising video is anything to go by there is going to be a lot of tongue in cheek fun involved in this game.

I also really like the artwork, which is obviously by the ctrl-alt-delete team.  I think that will help with this game being a lot of fun, and I certainly think it will be nice for the fans to see the correct art work for each of the characters and powers that you get to use.

The rewards for picking this up over kickstarter are also quite interesting.  There are collectors coins, fridge magnets, and a few other silly bits and pieces.  Stretch goals include new characters, new cards, and some oversize cards as well.  Plus there is a collectors edition if you pledge high enough with even more stuff in it and a special unrevealed bit of box art.

Legendary is something we already play in our little gaming group, so something else along those lines would be really good.  However, I'm not sure if Showdown is the same type of game.  Will be interesting to find out.  It is here if you want a look.

Dreamwars - Royal Art Games

So... its steampunk, which is a win in my book.  Plus it has weird horror monsters for you to fight against.  I don't think there was any way I wasn't going to be interested in this at least a little bit.

Dreamwars looks like it has a lot going for it.  The artwork on the board alone looks really good, they have a "random encounter" style play book which means each game you get different things happening, you have a character card which allows you to track everything that is going on.  All in all this looks like a really neat game.

The big thing here for me, once you get past all the art and the style of the game, is that Ordeals book.  The fact that they have the ability to randomise the way in which the game progresses is really good, because a lot of these sorts of boardgames can lose interest once they get predictable.  While a lot of games are going for this "the board also plays" kind of mechanic, it never gets old on me.  Pandemic (with its infection deck), Betrayal (with its traitor book), etc etc mean that those cooperative games are infinitely replayable (well may be not Betrayal, because you do learn what each encounter does in the long run).  I'm hoping this comes up the same.

The miniatures for the heroes also look really good.  Stretch goals look really good, I really like the idea of Rose Black the Queen of Guns.  Have a look at it here.

Vikings Gone Wild - Lucky Duck Games

This is based on a video game I have actually no idea about.  I'm going to have to do research after this and find out more.

Vikings Gone Wild is a Versus deckbuilder game, where you use gold to by buildings and beer to by Vikings.  Makes a lot of sense to me.  Buildings, however, don't go into your deck to be played, they drop down into your pay area permanently and by the seems of things have effects on every turn you still have them.

Scoring is done by attacking your opponents buildings, which obviously also helps because you knock out any benefit the building has.  There are also cards you can only get once you have a certain number of points.

Deck building games are a little bit of a hit and miss for me, mostly because you don't actually get to interact with your opponent generally.  If someone is doing really well, if their deck is jelling really well, then you very rarely get to do anything about it.  I have a feeling this is going to be a little bit more interactive, which can only be a good thing.

There are a hell of a lot of stretch goals already open, but that might be because this kickstarter only has 6 days left to go.  I almost missed it, but thankfully not.  The art is a lot of fun too, plus there are decent organisation boards being made for it, so unlike some Deck Builders this should be easy to manage too.  It's here if you want to look, but go quickly.

Oligarchy - Gary Wareham

I remember the Illuminati game, by Steve Jackson Games.  I also have a copy of, though never played, Netrunner 2.0.  There is something about the style of these types of games that really plays into my Dystopian Sci-Fi nerdery.  Its the kind of Nerdery that knows exactly where my copies of Bladerunner and Fifth Element are on my DVD shelf.

Oligarchy seems to take the Dystopian future ideas which are in Resistance and Coup, and moves it into a CCG/LCG kind of arena.  Certainly looking at the play examples in the original advert video, it has a feeling of being along those sort of one on one card games (a bit like Magic, rather than Netrunner).  Players play as one of eight "organisations" and using characters, resources, events and many other types of cards, try to knock your opponent out of the game.

Art work looks good, but I think the big thing for me is that this is a market which is dominated by Magic, Yugioh, and L5R (all of which are fantasy based games), bringing in something with a different feel is really important.  You can get into this game for just £20, which is really good, and higher pledge levels will give you a decent range of boosters.  Have to say this is the sort of Kickstarter than I think a collection of card players at a local club should dive into.  It does look like a decent game, and that is always helpful.

It does look really good.  I also noticed, via photos because I'm not able to make it, that this is being demo'd at the UK Games Expo this weekend, so I really hope this picks up really well.  If you are interested in this, than have a look here.

Thats better...

So thats it this week.  Feels better to be back into the kickstarter searching.  I may look at if this is going to happen every week still or if this will be once every two weeks, simply because more options open up that way and finding four really interesting games should happen more often than now.  I will try and decide soon.  Have fun at the Expo if you are there folks.  Hopefully more soon.

Designing a gaming board

Bushido blossom garden

I'm getting a bit lax at updating this, apologies for that.  My excuse is that I've been working heavily on getting my Guild Ball team finished, and that work is actually busy so I haven't had a lot of free time to actually get the posts completed and put up during my lunch breaks etc.

As such, I'm a few weeks behind on what I planned to put up.  It seems a bit silly now to put up all the old Kickstarter ones I had written, and as such I'm going to spend some time tonight sorting all of that out and putting up a decent sized blog post on Kickstarter stuff.  The Nostalgia posts are the ones that took a big hit, things I had planned to write are still swimming around in the void (otherwise known as my brain), but they just aren't in an editing window yet.

Rather than dwell though, the plan here is to look at my next big personal target.  I am finally going to put some effort in to make a decent gaming board.

Bushido

So, considering I play quite a few games, I have to work out what I want to make a board for.  Bushido is going to be the clear winner here, even if I haven't played it yet, simply because its actually a reasonable target to experiment with.  Bushido only needs a 2' x 2' board, the smallest of the games I play.  This should cut down on cost, and time, so thats a reasonable start point.  While I could tackle something for Guild Ball, a pitch is not really going to be enough of a challenge in terms of modelling hobby, as.. well its flat and basically you don't want fixed terrain features.  Plus they already produce some really nice "mouse mat" pitches.  Malifaux and Mythos lose out for now, simply because of the size of the board.  I haven't even started sorting out my Dark Age stuff so thats also going to be on hold.  Of course the 2' x 2' board also means I can fit in working on it while I'm working through my backlog of commission work.

The final decider though is the setting.  I'm a huge nerd when it comes to Japanese historical culture.  I don't know a lot, but I love every detail I do know.

Also, if I can, I want to run a Bushido tournament at some point within a year.  If I'm going to do that then I need a few good boards for people to play on.  Japanese village boards will be good to make in the long run, but there is something I want for my first board, something a little special.

Cherry Blossom

So this picture is pretty much the inspiration for what I'm going to be going for.  Cherry Blossom trees are/were very important for the Samurai, and gardens were carefully cared for.  As such, my feature board is going to be based off the idea of a Cherry Blossom Garden.

The Centre point of the board will be a small shrine area.  The shrine will need to be an open enough structure that objective markers can fit inside for some of the scenarios.  In addition I need to think about the spaces around that for the other markers that are in the game.

I want to include a couple of bridges and some water effects to do rivers encircling the shrine.  All of this needs to fit into the confines that I have already mentioned in terms of objectives, plus of course the board has to be relatively even, so there isn't an obvious benefit on either side of the board.

Then there is the last bit, the Cherry Blossom trees.. which isn't easy as their aren't really that many good options online.  This might mean I have to work out how to make my own.

Stage One

So the first step will actually be drawing the design, possibly on paper first and then scanning it over to computer to just neaten everything up.  It'll also mean I can make sure that all the spaces for the objective markers are going to work out.  Once that is done then I will be working on getting the materials together (I partly have this already as I have got the wooden base for making a game board already).  I don't want a completely flat design, but on a 2' x 2' area anything exceptionally hilly will likely stop the models being able to fit on the board, so I have to think about how I'm going to do this.
I've got some ideas as well for how to do the trees, but I'm definitely concerned that they will fall apart over time, so thats going to take a bit of thinking through.

In the meantime

I'm just going to put my Guild Ball painting up on here as well, just because.  It at least will show you what I have been up to with my time.

Ghosts, Superheroes and Mad Inventors

Board Games for the weekend

I'm going to have to finally accept that my Birthday week is over, and that I should get back to actually concentrating on real life for a little while at least.  However, just to prolong things a little further I'm going to do a short collection of reviews for the three games I played this weekend.  I managed to join a couple of reasonably local friends on Sunday afternoon and we rattled through 3 different games.

Steampunk Rally

So this was the first time our little group had played this game.  I picked it up from Sanctuary Gaming Centre a while back, but just hadn't really had chance to play it.  The way the game works isn't overly hard, but it isn't overly easy either.  We certainly found that we learnt it quicker by playing it, than by trying to explain it to each other.

Its played in multiple stages, but to be honest it feels like two parts that repeat.  Part 1 is drafting "component" cards, and either fixing them to your vehicle, or selling them for dice or cogs for use in Part 2.  Part 2 is then "venting" dice from your card, rolling dice and adding them to your card (allowing you to move, or gain shields etc) and then finally taking damage.  I personally think that Part 2 is the most complex section of the game, knowing that dice that are already on your vehicle are basically just taking up space now and don't mean anything at all, venting isn't about removing dice, but just lowering the value on them til they hit 0, damage is done after everything so you can deliberately damage your vehicle before you roll dice in the hope you can get enough shields to ignore it all.

Having said all that, it was a lot of fun.  I lost, by a mile, but seeing one tiny vehicle getting by with just one type of dice and a lot of careful shielding, while the other person up front (who won) having tons of parts, and at the end letting the entire back end of the invention get blow to pieces so that he could cross the finish line before anyone else could get to him.  Was good fun, and certainly something we worked out quickly enough that we could have a lot of fun as the game progressed.

Mysterium

This game is really good.  We've played this before, so it was really just a chance to indulge in a game people wanted to mess around with.  It is also quite a pretty game, with all the components, especially the ghost screen, being really well made.

Firstly this is a co-op game.  With three players (the minimum) you get one ghost and two mediums.  The ghost is going to try and give the players clues in order to identify a murder, location and weapon (each) and then finally information to point at the actual murder from the suspects (in a three player game the mediums have to play two characters, thus you end up with 4 suspects).  However, to do this the ghost can only use Dream/Vision cards.  These are a lot like the cards from Dixit, so its all very particular combinations and the artwork is slightly surreal.  Through the cards, the Mediums have to guess which Person, then location, and then weapon they are being given.  If you can  get all three right in seven turns (and all the other characters do as well), then the ghost gets another set of cards and can choose three to try and direct the players to the correct combination (the ghost picks which combination they like).

With more players the game gets more involved, but we have only played this with three so far.  I do like this game a lot, there is definitely a few interesting moments where the ghost (having to stay quiet) will get a little bit freaked out by what the players think they are trying to say with the Vision cards, and it definitely helps to know the way that someone else thinks.  It can be a little slow for the players while the Ghost tries to work out which Vision cards they want to use each time, and I think that is the only real downside of the game.

Overall though, Mysterium is a cracking little game, and its quite sedate, doesn't involve confrontation, and its quite funny to go through the process of chatting as characters about what the ghost has given each player.

Legendary

Specifically the Marvel version of the Legendary franchise.  We've played this one a few times, only once have we really struggled with it when we tried to take on Apocalypse.  This weekend we ended up going through three separate runs of the game and thankfully we finished each one, normally with a massive flare of face smashing as one or more of our decks fit together to produce some sort of obscure killing machine.

There are a lot of components in this game, so I'm going to be quite brief on its workings.  You build a Hero deck, which is basically the "powers" of five different heroes, some of which are fighting based, so which are recruitment based (allowing you to buy other powers), and added in there are special combination abilities that make cards better if you play other cards with certain symbols on them, or other cards with certain costs etc.  There is a Villians deck, which is the bad guys you have to fight, and then there is a Mastermind who you have to kill to win the game.

Again, this is another game I like, though I do sometimes wish you played as a set hero each and could buy in your own cards, rather than mix and match.  Having said that, this is why we have Sentinels of the Multiverse (another game we should play more).  It is good when you get the powers from multiple heroes working together into some sort of massive unstoppable machine, its just reminding yourself that you are basically playing each "scene" of the adventure, rather than playing one of the heroes.  The cards are very nice, the whole set up takes a while but it does work really well, and the play board keeps everything organised really well.

Millstone

So it's back to the millstone now, which is work and then getting models painted up and ready to play with.  My Alchemists are pretty close to being done now, just a little bit more NMM work and then the "little" bits like flasks, vials and stitching.  I'll be then moving on to doing work with the commission work, with a sneaky bit of work done on the Bushido models.  Hopefully those can then be completed really soon as well.

I'll also be onto the Nostalgia post (either later today or tomorrow), looking at Earthdawn.  Plus there will be a Kickstarter post done as well in the next couple of days considering I've not done one for two weekends now.

Long time no see

It's been one of those weeks

Not necessarily in a bad way, just one of those weeks.

So I've not posted for a while and that is because this week say me hit 35 years on this blue rock.  As such the weekend gone, and this weekend coming have been/are filled with lots of things to do, lots of people to see, and generally not time at all to write blog posts.  I have no issues with any of this, in fact I very much look forward to this weekend.

Of course there is a tinge of annoyance, as my car decided to mostly self destruct just before my birthday.  £400 worth of repairs is not a good birthday present.. especially when its me that has to pay.

However, this is a hobby blog, and while I resembled the grumpy remark on Monday I can at least claim I got some hobby done this week.  As you can see from the first picture I've been painting up guild ball models.  It's taking me a lot of time, I'm not as 100% into the painting mindset as I would like.  If anyone doesn't know, there are people who are mostly gamers and don't like painting, there are some painting enthusiasts who aren't big gamers, there are the rare few people who are just both at all times, and then there are people like me.  The ones who shift back and forth between the two points, and will have moments of just wanting to play the games, and others where painting is a blast and gets done really quickly.  I'm in a gaming mood right now, so the painting is on slow motion.  Still, the Alchemists are getting close to done, and then I will be looking at build a goal and painting up some commission work.

The Saturday gone was Vengeance, which sadly I didn't have a ticket for.  Something about only getting into Guild Ball after it was sold out, and not having finished painting models anyway.  Either way, with a few people I do know being there, and it being a 128 person tournament (the biggest GB tournament ever), I decided to go have a look.  At just over an hour away as well, its not a bad little drive when you have nothing to do.  I got there just as Game 3 was starting and I have to say it looked like one hell of a huge event.  How on earth the GBinformer guys kept themselves from having an anxiety attack while running the tournament I don't know.  It was really good to see everyone, and considering it was birthday weekend part 1 I decided to spend a bit of money.


Dark Age

So the first thing I picked up was the Dragyri Fire Caste starter set for Dark Age.  These are one of the Alien races for the Post Apocalyptic system.  As with many games these days it is a 32mm system, but these guys are huge.  There are only three models in the box set, but rather than being on 30mm bases, these three barely fit onto their 40mm bases.  Actually as it happened I got three 50mm bases and have had to email Cool Mini or Not to get some replacements (which they responded to very quickly and the new bases are on the way soon).

So first out of the box was the Volcanic Helot (the one without the shield).  She is a full metal model, which was fine, apart from the skirt, which came in two separate parts, which weren't quite shaped correctly and would not stay on the model.  I ended up creating two drill points to put a "shelf" of pins into place to tie everything down to at the back.  I'm going to have to fill them in later.  There was also a lot of use of pliers to push everything into the right shape.  Having said all that though, its a lovely, big, model.  A normal 32mm model next to her barely gets to waist height.

The Volcanic Phalanx (the other lady of the show) is an absolutely lovely Resin model.  The spear is a little bendy, but beyond that it was pretty simple to put together.  Don't quite know why the pose on the head doesn't quite seem to match the one in the picture, but other that that it really is very pretty.  the Resin looks good, feels slightly brittle perhaps, and there may be a couple of patches which aren't quite perfect, but its still really good.

The leader of the Pack is the Spirit Lord.  I love this model, but in equal measures it drove me insane as well.  The vast majority of the model goes together really well, but the "cloak" was in two pieces and again they didn't actually sit on the model at all correctly.  the small piece that goes over his shoulder wouldn't sit straight, and in trying to hot water bend it into place I ended up snapping it instead.  This means it now fits, but I'm going to have to paint it well to hide the problem.

Even with all that though, these models are lovely.  I'm going to want to spend a lot of time on them, because they are so big and because they have a lot of NMM work to do to make them look right.  If I'm in the right mood its the sort of challenge I'm going to enjoy.  Having done steel and gold NMM on my Alchemists, its going to be fun to work out Chrome and Bronze too.

I think Dark Age is on my list of really nice models that I might game with from time to time, but not often (I'll probably have to go down to Thetford for this one).

Bushido

I also picked up some Bushido, I really didn't like my bank account on this day.

All I got was the Ito Clan starter set, but I have to say I think I will pick up more of these and I certainly want to start getting this played locally, because its a nice game with quite a few unique quirks to make it interesting, while at the same time having enough of a similarity to Guild Ball and Malifaux that I think I know a few people that would like it.  Just wish there were more places to get tokens from.

Anyway, models (cus this is a hobby blog).  So lets start with Itsunagi Ito, who is the "leader" in the set.  I put that in quote marks because I haven't noticed any specifics about leaders in your war band.  In this case Itsunagi just costs more than anyone else.  Model wise he was really simple, though I had to do a bit of filing and cutting to get everything to fit.  The Daisho on his belt came as a separate piece that tucked in under some cloth wraps at his back.  The seating area for this had some major flash in it so I had to work on that to get it all in, but it wasn't too hard.  His right arm was fixed with a mold around his upper muscle, his left was a flat surface glue where there is a bit of cord around his arm.  This wasn't great because lining up the arm and getting the right orientation was beyond me.

The lovely lady with the hair fan is Sakura.  Nothing really to say with her, the right arm is a separate piece, and can easily be put on close to or away from the body.  I went with close to the body for the added contact surface. The hair fan is also another piece, but it caused no issues at all.  The model is really good, nice and simple in design and I quite like it.

Obviously there is a guy with a Snake head at the back.  Thats the big thing about Ito Clan, they are all "blessed" by the Snake Kami and some of them get gifts.  Akimoto is one such model that has gained snake features, and for him its his face that has changed first.  his Wakizashi on his belt was a simple small fit, and his left arm was separate.  I had a bit of gapping issues so I'm working on filling those in, but the model itself is still pretty good.

Possibly the most awkward models where the two Bushi.  The Male Bushi as a right arm piece that includes the blade being draw out of the scabbard, so there is a bit of effort in twisting the piece around so that it sits right on the scabbard on in the right hand sleeve.  The annoyance is on the scabbard itself, because the length of it is a separate piece as well (in both cases), without any indents to really get the things to sit straight or flat.  I'm eternally fearful of them just being knocked off.  They are so thin as well that there isn't really a good way to pin them, so its just hope (and I may magnetically transport these guys) that is going to keep it all together.  The female Bushi (who can also be used as a character) also has a separate pony tail.  I won't even being to comment on that.

I'm looking at painting these up using L5R Scorpion Clan colours (as both as the sneaky shady type clans in each respective game world), so there will lots of Red and Black going on.  Looking forward to actually gaming with these guys soon.

Games, Glorious Games

So my plan is to try and get some games in, certainly of Bushido and Guild Ball (Guild Ball models need to be finished first I admit, and that won't happen this weekend), and then Dark Age once the right bases arrive.  I've put my Bushido models into their bases already, and I'm going to base them up and then paint them on the bases, which is something I would normally not do.  That way I can play Bushido with the unpainted models and just do them when I have a bit of free time.  The same will apply to the Dark Age models.

So, Mr Hay, Mr Parker and Mr Straw... and anyone else interested.  Anyone fancy a game or two?