Another fun game day thanks to all who attended!

So despite an interruption in the gaming day, we were able to tackle a few games today. The 'big' game saw us return to Pulp Alley after too long an absence. Two leagues of apes, one a scientific expedition, the other a gorilla general and his troops struggled over a ruined city landscape each trying to capture (or help) a lone astronaut (Brent) 

The game worked out to be very hard on each players gangs. The Chimpanzees lost their gorilla zoo keeper gang in a brawl that also resulted in their gorilla gang that they were fighting being eliminated. The other two gorilla gangs found disaster due to terrain & plot point perils. Ultimately it was a close match going right down to the end of turn six, but a well placed shot by the gorilla leader, along with a clever card play, saw Zira wounded forcing her to drop the plot point that she controlled. This left the gorilla leader as the only owner of a plot point and thus the winner!

While we were able to jog our collective memories about the rules and were able to play with only a few errors, it is kind of sad what simple rules defied or immediate recollection.

After Pulp Alley we tried out a board game called Mare Nostrum, an empire building game. It was good to finally take this one off the shelf and give it a whirl. Like all games there was a rules learning curve and lots to think about regarding strategic goals. The game itself is actually quite simple, rules wise, but presents a lot of options for the path to victory with lots of replay potential. The turn sequence is quite intuitive and quick to pick up leaving players able to focus on their plans for conquest.

We rounded off the day with two quickie games, Tsuro and King of Tokyo. Both lightweight games but both entertaining.

Next time we will hopefully play a full game of Mare Nostrum and maybe What a Tanker. Still want to do more Fantastic Battles as well!

July 10th gameday and plans for the 17th

So three of us got together on the weekend to play a couple of game. It wa a truncated game day tarting at around 1:30 an extending into the early evening. 

 

First up we tested out The Walking Dead game by Mantic. Technically the game i to be played either solo or head to head, 1 v 1. Today was jut a run through to see how the game functioned, not so much a test of the proper way to play the game, more of an extension of the tutorial contained in the quick start guide. 

We started with two players and as our third member arrived we split up the forces so that we each controlled 1 character. The mechanics of the rules were fairly straightforward and despite our disregard for the proper turn sequence the game gave us a feel for the game. I plan to try and run the solitaire small forces version and will repot on it on the Rants & Ramblings blog.

Our second game was a boardgame, Conquest of planet Earth. This is a game that two of us have played fairly often, but was new to one of the players. The game can be played competitively or cooperatively, we chose the latter.  Our three alien races were: Vyborian Arbiters, The Fome Guild Mages and the Trun. So these three alien races had to try and conquer circa 1950's Earth in 10 turns. Well the only race that had any real success was the Trun who were controlled by the player who had never played the game. He accounted for the majority of the fear points (victory points) and brought us closer to victory than the two veteran players have ever been. Alas as is typically our fate with this game the poor colonizing aliens were once again repelled by truth justice and the American way, in other words, the military industrial complex came through again!   

On Sunday July 17th we will hopefully get to try out another game of Fantastic Battles along with a Pulp Alley game, and maybe one other quick play miniature game TBD!

See you then!

these are your empires, at the start of the game. U/d mar 30th

map test

 

First look with 6 starting places (white circle) new map added

Overview map

Now we are six

So we have our 6 players, and our 118 hex map.
I need to do some adjustments (I have some 'new' tiles to mix in) and I will set up the locations of the capitals and post a picture soon.

Rules will also be sent out.

Players should ponder what .fantasy. nation they want to play. The choices will be loosely based on the Warhammer 3rd edition armies book, which includes listings for the traditional fantasy armies. If you are keen to try something different email me and we can look at fleshing out something that will fits the system.

Important, do not post or otherwise reveal your choice to anyone but me, I am trying to have a blind element to this game to avoid any preconceived/preexisting ideas about the players. This way all you will know is that the enemy is, say, Orcs, not that Frank controls them. Also it means that you may not realize which nation is actually an NPC nation, if one exists.

A reminder, since we will not actually field any lead figures we can just build off the lists without any concern about having the appropriate figures.

and so we take another step

The map is being built today.
So far there are three players signed up.

Once the map is built, and the rules sent out nations can be selected.

more updates to follow

February 1st game day

Thank you to all who attended!

We had two sessions on Saturday. In the afternoon the 2-6pm group tested out

 All Quiet on the Martian Front. 

 The evening 7 until whenever session saw us playing one of my favorite games 

Eclipse.

Both games went well, and offered up a lot of fun and some challenges for the members who played.

The jury is still out on AQMF, but we all liked the dynamics of Eclipse.

I will be posting an AAR for the AQMF game on my "Menelduir' blog.

Next game day is most likely to be Saturday February 15th. While the games to be played have not yet been selected, I am hoping that one of them will be Fist Full of Lead!

 A proper invite will be sent this week.