MEGAforce Boardgames Night: Dad's Army

T'Other One and I played his copy of the Dad's Army, a recent charity shop acquisition. 

The game was a 2021 re-release, the original, by Denis Fisher was released in the 70s.

Set up for play

How to Play

Each player has two characters, cardboard standees with cartoon versions of iconic characters (Cpt Mainwaring, Sgt Wilson, Lance Corporal Jones, Pike, Walker, Godfrey, the Vicar and the Verger). They are paired by token colour. 

The objective is to be the first to get both characters to a square, randomly determined at the start of the game, and different for each player. Movement is by d6 throw, and all movement points must be used. 

To help and hinder, various squares are War Department depots, with cards that allow an additional move of a specified character; air raid cards that move all characters* to the air raid shelters, then players place a random number of bomb tokens, which block squares (certain squares are 'unbombable', though not, interestingly, the safe squares you are aiming for); 'Union Jack' cards that allow removal of a random number of bombs; and the Mr Hodges card, allowing the player to swap any character on the board* with the irritating ARP Warden. 

And that's it.

T'Other One has played this before, it was my first try. The game took about 30 minutes to play. 

Who do you think you are kidding?

For me, if a game based on an IP is to work, it has to provide a good play experience, and it also has to feel like the IP (I must finish off my post about GWs Doctor Who game).

Dad's Army does neither.  

There are some interesting game play ideas, but they aren't used to best advantage. Placement of bombs can be quite tactical, but the availability of Union Jacks means they are a minor hazard. 

The one sheet rule book is sketchy, and often confusing.  I suspect folk less used to board games would find it baffling. 

As for the Dad's Army feel, the board artwork is reasonable, with some reference to both Wartime Britain, in the form of propaganda posters and locations such as Jones' Shop (but sadly no Jolly Roger Ice Cream Parlour).

There is no practical difference between the different characters, you're simply moving bits of cardboard around. You could replace the names and you'd have a rather pedestrian board game nominally set in Wartime Britain. 

Grades

I'll give this one a D. Possibly a D+ for mechanics and D- for veracity to the source material and general 'feel'. 

The potentially interesting ideas in gameplay can't raise it to a C because it's so annoying seeing them wasted here. For instance, at the start of the game each player draws two numbered cards, one pink and one black, to give a grid reference for their destination square. This is neat (though better colour printing on the board would make this more obvious) but it's never used again. It could be used for the bombs (though that removes tactical placement), or at least for where Hodges sends an opposing character, and surely there could be extra War Department cards that capitalise on the random location generation?

I would have liked to have seen more characterisation; perhaps Godfrey moves slower?  Maybe some reference to specific situations in the episodes?  But I doubt it would be worth it.

I understand that T'Other One is donating it to another charity shop.  Hopefully the next purchasers get more out of this than we did.

Caveats

I mentioned above that the game is a re-release.

The original game has a backstory of the Home Guard in an occupied Warmington On Sea. There are landmines to cope with, and part of the objective seems to have been to cover swastika markers with Union Jacks.  Understandably, these have been removed in the modern version, but I'm not sure if there was any more interesting game play involved with this aspect.

I wonder if a casual group with a love of the source material might enjoy this?  Even so, I think they might expect a bit more characterisation.

*unless the character has arrived at the destination square, in which case they're safe.

MEGAforce Boardgames Night: Villagers

With MEGAforce down to two members recently, Grim and I tried out Villagers. There's a two player version which was ideal for us to learn the game.

What is Villagers?

Villagers is another game from Haakon Hoel Gaarder, designer of MOON, and is available from Sinister Fish Games. The conceit of the game is post Plague Europe. Settlements are struggling to rebuild and need to attract new workers. 

There's a stream of potential new villagers travelling along The Road, and players take these and try and fit them into their village.

The winner is the village that to amasses the most gold by the end of the game.

Gameplay 

Players start with one Founders card, the farm around which the new village will accumulate, eight gold, and a hand of five Villagers cards.

The game consists of Draft phases, where players alternate taking Villager cards into their hand, either from the face up cards on the Road, or face down from the Stacks placed above the Road and used to restock the Road during the Draft Phase. There are no restrictions on which Villagers you can draft, but you might not always be able to add them to your Village straight away.

Players can draft two Villagers, plus an extra one for each red Food symbol in their Village, to a maximum of five.

Once the Draft Phase is over, the Road is cleared and restocked from the Reserve (the cards not yet in play).

The Build Phase is where you add Villager cards to your village from your hand. 

Players take turns to build two cards, plus one per Build symbol, again to a maximum of five.

Example Hay Suit

Villagers mostly build up in chains, for example; Hayer, Grazier, Milk Maid and Fromager (see above), requiring certain existing cards which they are placed upon. The chains all fall into a series of suits, Grain, Hay, Wood, Ore and Grapes (two more are available in larger games with more players). Some Villagers also require Unlocking; in the chain above, the Milk Maid requires the Cooper. Ideally, you already have the relevant Villager in your village, which earns them two gold. Alternatively, you can call on the skills of an unlocking Villager in another player's village, but you have to pay them. As a last resort, you can pay the Bank if no unlocking Villager is in play, so Unlocking is a problem that money can solve.

There are three types of Base Villagers, Miners, Hayers, and Lumberjacks. Up to three of these can be built in addition during the Build Phase by swapping them for cards in the player's hand. These don't add gold or anything, but are vital to build those chains of villagers.

Play then continues with more Draft Phases and Build Phases until a Market Phase is reached.

There are two Market Phases. The first when the first two left hand Stacks are exhausted and the second when all the stacks are exhausted, signalling the end of the game. These are where you actually collect gold. Some gold will have been placed on Villagers during Build Phases and some Villagers have gold symbols. The Second Market Phase also allows you to collect Silver, which is simply a way of differentiating gold collected at the end of the game, it's worth just the same (this sounds odd, but it works fine in practice). Silver is often dependent on other cards in your village, such as the Peddler, who gets three silver for every two gold symbols in your village.

Extras 

There are Solitary Villagers, such as the Priest, who don't belong to any suit. They are mostly used to add Silver in the Second Market Phase at the end of the game.

There are also Special Villagers, who either have a one off effect, like the Tinner, who automatically unlocks all Villagers that you build for the Build Phase when she is played, or permanent, like the Monk, who replaces any one Villager in a chain.

The game part way through. We are in the Build Phase just prior to the First Market Phase.

Briefly, top row, l to r; First Market Phase card, four Stacks, three piles of Basic Villages. Next row, l to r; The Road of six Villagers, the Refresh pile and the discard pile.

Below that are our villages, arranged as we saw fit. You can see some of the chains building up.

My village, with a very creditable 171 gold.

Grim's winning village with 186 gold.

Summary

Villagers is a great fun game. Of course, there's more to the rules than my brief description above, you'll have to play to find out.

I did find the art style a little jarring, it works wonderfully for Moon, for this game I'd have preferred a more 'Medieval' style, but that's just me.

If you like a game with more interaction with other players, there are expansions that introduce various Villagers who can effect other villages (in the base game the Apprentice can do this, but I don't think any other villager can) among other extra effects.

I'll give Villagers an 'S' Tier ranking, just behind Moon.  It looks to have a lot of repeat playabilty and there's a real sense of the different crafts relying on each other to thrive.

Champions of Midgard; MEGAforce Board Games Night

A Viking Saga

Grim brought another new game along recently: Champions of Midgard. 

Each player is a Viking leader vying to become the new jarl of the township. This is achieved by racking up Glory.

The best way to gain Glory is by defeating Monsters, either the Trolls that constantly threaten the town, the Draugr that lurk nearby threatening villages, or the legendary Monsters found overseas.

But to do this you need Viking warriors (dice of different colours) and you get these in various ways by placing your worker meeples.

Worker Phase

There are various locations about town that grant resources such as food, coin or wood, or the various warrior types, swordsmen, spearmen or axemen.  Some locations allow you to build a private ship or hire a public longship.

Placing a worker meeple in a location blocks it for the rest of the current turn. Once this phase is over, combat begins. You did remember to place meeples where you want to fight, didn't you?

Fighting Phase

Players then assign Viking warrior dice to fight. Only one player per target, and no fighting among yourselves!

Combat is straightforward, the monster has a set offense (the number of warrior dice it automatically kills) and a set defence (the number of hits required to kill it).  The warrior dice are thrown and the results applied.  The dice have some blank faces, and shield results block kills from the monster.  Swordsmen are the weakest warriors, and axemen the strongest.

The game plays over eight turns, and although T'Other One and myself were new to Champions of Midgard, we'd all got pretty fast as play went on.

There are lots of nice details, such as Destinies, which grant extra Glory at the end for certain achievements, as an example, I had Draugr Slayer, and got extra points for killing the most undead. 

Runes are one off special abilities and the Merchant's Quay provides new goods each turn.

My favourite bit is fighting the legendary monsters, such as Fenris Cubs or Lyndwurm. They are all found overseas, so you need a ship. There are a couple of public ships available or you can build your own. The ships are equipped with warriors, but they also need meat to feed them. A deck of cards represents potential hazards on the way, such as storms or whirlpools, and these can rob you of meat or warriors. Then the survivors get to fight the Monster.

The board at the start of play. T'Other One won with just short of 100 Glory! Grim and myself trailed around the 70s.

Final Thoughts

Champions of Midgard is a great fun game. At it's heart it's a resource management game, but there is enough 'dressing' that it really feels like a Saga. The artwork, especially the board itself, looks great, my only complaint being the horned helmets. I thought we'd buried that bit of Victorian nonsense back in the eighties.

Component quality is good, with wooden meeples (deluxe versions are available with horned helmeted meeples, just wrong).

I'll definitely put this in S Tier, it provides a great evening's entertainment.  I grew up reading the Icelandic Sagas, so this is just my sort of game.

Champions of Midgard is designed by Ole Steiness and produced by Grey Fox Games, and there are a couple of supplements introducing more Jotuns and Valholl and a couple more options for expeditions.

Space Hulk; MEGAforce Board Game Night

The recent MEGAforce evening saw a return to a Games Workshop classic from 1989,  Space Hulk.

What is Space Hulk?

The game pits small squads of Terminator Marines against Genestealers in the cramped confines of an abandoned  drifting spaceship. 

The Marines have storm bolters and heavy flamers while the 'Stealers just have speed and very sharp claws. 

There are lots of great rules features, such as putting Marines Overwatch (and the attendant risk of bolters jamming), the use of 'blips' to hide the number of 'Stealers out of direct line of sight, and the time limit on the Marines turns, that give the game the right feel.  Its fast and deadly, and if the Marine player doesn't move fast, it goes very badly very quickly.

I've played this before, many moons ago, using T'Other One's nicely painted minis, complete with metal Terminators (rather than the plastic ones), but it was Grim's first go. We shared control of the five Marines, and our objective was simply to disable a terminal with a flamer shot. T'Other One had hordes of stealers trying to stop us.

Ready for Action, the flamer burst marks the target room

One Marine down

Two Marines down

Victory! (for the 'Stealers)

The mission didn't go well for us, T'Other One did a great job of keeping up pressure from multiple directions. Eventually we lost the Heavy Flamer, and with it, any chance of winning. The remaining Marine fell the following turn.

I could blame our bad luck with the Command Dice (a d6 for extra Action Points) or T'Other One's good luck with the blips, but to be honest, he kept us on the back foot (boot? claw?) from the start.

Take Two 

But Space Hulk is a pretty quick game to play, especially the early missions, so we tried again.

This time we had better luck and forged ahead. There were fewer 'Stealers and we managed to burn the launch controls, albeit at the cost of one of the marines who opened the final door and selflessly stepped into the room to allow the flamer to fire. His sacrifice will be remembered.

Only one 'Stealer to hold off, Victory is ours!

Over recent years we've played quite a few old GW board games, many of which I remember with fondness from back in the eighties and nineties, and mostly from my collection. But they've generally felt clunky and a lot less fun than the newer generations of games.

But Space Hulk stands up very well. It's still a slick rule set, simple enough to grasp, but with lots of potential for tactical thinking. It's also exciting, and captures the tension of a beleaguered crew beset by swarms of enemies.

There were a couple more editions, the most recent with some amazing minis, but the first edition is still, to me, the best.

I usually give a tier ranking for our board games,  well,  if you're looking for a tense fast paced action shoot em up, then definitely S Tier.  What it does,  it does very well. 

I'd go as far as saying that I prefer it to Aliens, mostly down to the less complex rule set. It doesn't have the cooperative side that Aliens has though. 

GW released a couple of supplements, introducing Librarians with psychic powers and Genestealer hybrids with weapons, but the base game is enough for me.

Somewhere in the loft of shame I have my own copy, perhaps it's time to get it out and get it painted.

Camel Up; MEGAforce Board Game Night

After a virus that seems to have robbed me of nearly a month, I can finally get back to gaming and hobby stuff.

The most recent MEGAforce meeting was my first evening out in ages.

Grim brought along a game called Camel Up. A game where the idea is to make the most money betting on camel races in a desert. 

The game is simple enough, although the instructions seemed to overcomplicate it a bit. As is often the case, a quick skim of the rules helped, but actually playing was the best way to learn*.

The game is played over a series of legs and finishes when the first camel crosses the finish line. Players have the opportunity to bet on each leg as well as the final result. They can also use the dice to move camel(s) and there are oasis hazards that generate money and move camels back or forwards.

There are a couple of features that make Camel Up great fun. Movement is controlled by five different coloured dice (corresponding to the camels). A cardboard pyramid holds these dice and is inverted to roll one when the camels are moved. Once all five dice have been rolled, that particular leg is done. The race carrys on, with the camels continuing from where they are, but there's a chance to gain or lose money depending on what bets have been placed during that leg.

The other fun feature is The Stack. Camels sharing the same space are stacked, and the meeples are designed so they easily do so. Camel Up indeed! Stacks are moved as a unit, meaning some camels can end up being moved several times in a leg. 

The game at the finish. White wins! Both white and yellow are top of a stack. My money was on blue at the back (which did get me a small payout).

Overall, another great fun game that deserves placing in A tier.

Play time was a bit under an hour, it's sure to speed up now we know the rules, and I'd happily play again.

There are betting strategies that we were just getting the hang of, and Grim's placement of his oasis raked in a lot of cash for him.

It's also taught me that I probably should keep my betting to imaginary races rather than real life.

*We made one small mistake regarding movement of stacks combined with an oasis. The proper rules look to be even more fun.

Last Night On Earth; MEGAforce Board Game Night

While editing my recent post about Hanabi and Sushi Go, I realised that I forgot to post this regarding the previous MEGAforce meeting, so here it is.

The most recent MEGAforce meeting was the closest to Halloween that we'll get, so T'Other One suggested a game of Last Night on Earth, which seemed appropriate.

The game usually plays with one player running the zombies and the rest are the survivors. Unlike Zombies! which we played a while ago, the survivors are working together to achieve an objective.

For this particular scenario there were two zombie players, and Grim and I ran a couple of survivors each. The goal was to keep the manor house in the centre of the board as free from zombies as possible. The zombie players were trying to have nine or more zombies in the manor house at daybreak.

Now I'm not a great zombie fan, and a lot of the references, tropes and in jokes pass me by. I am a fan of good games though, and Last Night On Earth IS pretty good. 

Game Play

The cards all feature photos of the game designers and friends either as survivors or made up as zombies. Items are photos of those things. The minis are well done and are instantly recognisable from the cards and T'Other One has done a great job of painting the survivors to match the artwork.

Game play is straightforward, with the chance to search locations (draw cards), move, and, of course, fight zombies.

Fighting zombies is risky. The survivor rolls 2d6 against the zombie's 1d6. Merely beating the zombie only drives it back; to destroy it, the survivor must also roll doubles. The secret is in getting equipment to help.

Zombies and Survivors have their own event decks, which can give the survivors equipment, or can be played to help or hinder.

The game does give the feeling of being beleaguered, those zombies just don't stop, and can be nasty, especially in numbers.

At sunrise we'd managed to keep the zombie numbers in the manor below nine, but this was at the cost of three out of the four survivors. We ended up drawing out the zombies (they have to move up to survivors in adjacent spaces), but only the nurse survived.

If I were a bigger fan of the Undead, Last Night on Earth might squeeze into S tier, but since I'm not, and most of the references are lost on me, I'll stick it in A tier due to the great game play, atmosphere and the great touch of using photographs of the designers.

Hanabi and Sushi Go; MEGAforce Board Game Night

We played a couple of different card based games recently, Hanabi, by Antoine Bauza and Sushi Go by Phil Walker-Harding.

Hanabi 

We played on 4th of November, so Hanabi was very appropriate. It's a cooperative game involving a group of firework manufacturers putting on a display.

Unfortunately, all the labels have been lost, so we have to rely on clues from each other, and hope to get the display ready before an oncoming storm.

This works by each player having a hand of five cards, but players never see their own hands. All the other players do, and this is how they can give hints. The cards are one of five colours (white, red, blue, yellow and green) and one of five numbers. The fireworks must be built up in numerical order, must be a single colour and there can only be one of each colour.

On their turn, players can give a hint to another player by telling them which of their cards are a particular colour or number, or discard one of their own cards, or play one of their cards. The number of hints are limited, but can be bought back by discarding, and playing a wrong card brings the storm closer.

We played a couple of games, scoring 14 the first time, and 18 the second, out of a maximum of 25.

Endgame, apparently this score is 'Excellent; the crowd are delighted'

A great fun game, with a straight forward mechanic, but requiring a good bit of thought (and, apparently, a better short term memory than I possess). 

Definitely A tier.

Sushi Go

A fast, fun card game where the object is to build a meal over three rounds, making sure you have enough puddings at the end of course.

We've played Sushi Go quite a few times now, and it's a good one to have handy to fill in ten to twenty minutes at the end of an evening.

When I first played, this was my first experience of 'pick and pass', where the players swap hands each turn. Thus you know what each hand is after a while, and strategies can be built around denying players cards that might benefit them.

Some dishes are worth points on their own, some are worth more in combinations, and some require other cards.

Puddings are played through all three rounds, but are only applied at the very end, gaining or loosing points for having most or least puddings.

While I don't like Sushi, I really enjoy this game. Part of this is the speed of play, there always seems to be time to squeeze in a quick game. Partly for this reason it earns a solid A.

Two good A tier games*. Hanabi is great for getting the mind working. Sushi Go for a quick game.

Both games are available from various online retailers, and at least one chain of UK booksellers stocks Shushi Go.

*Don't let that put you off, both are very highly recommended, but they don't quite provide the gaming experience that I get from, say, Moon.

Board Game Night: Wingspan

The MEGAforce was down to just two this week, but we ploughed on and tried Grim's latest game, Wingspan by Stonemaier Games.

The end game

How to Win

The aim of the game is to have the best collection of wild birds, measured by a value given on each bird card, plus a couple of personal goals drawn randomly at the beginning (one of mine was to try and get lots of birds with eggs on their cards at the end of the game, Grim was collecting birds with small wingspans, nominally passerines). There are also changing goals each round for extra points, and some birds have the ability to cache food or 'tuck' other bird cards - presumably they predate them or perhaps mob them and drive them off.

Game Play 

Each turn players take it in turns to either play a bird card in the relevant habitat (costing food, and potentially eggs), collect food (randomly rolled with special dice in the 'bird box/feeder' dice tower) from the forest, lay eggs from the grasslands or draw bird cards from the wetlands. Doing any of these last three actions also triggers abilities that any birds played in that habitat have.

The game is played over four rounds, each consisting of a number of turns, initially eight, reducing by one each round.

Stand outs 

The action economy system is great. Using small cubes to gain actions, but losing one each round really focuses you on your endgame.

The 'bird box/food tray' is a fun addition. Not completely necessary, although you do need to differentiate between food dice available and those which have been claimed, which it does admirably. Fortunately it does fit in the game box simply by separating the tower from the tray.

Minor grumbles

We found the starter deck, designed to help new players learn the game with four pre determined turns of the first round, more of a hinderance than a help. But we've learned that lesson, and we'll probably not use them with future new players.

For a game with an ecological focus, there's a lot of plastic. Plastic eggs, plastic trays for the various components.  There has been a move towards wooden or card components in many games recently, that would have been appropriate here.

And being an American game, the birds are all North American birds, though some birds do have a wider range than just North America. I'd like to see a more international supplement.

*EDIT* apparently there is a European supplement, along with several others.

Overall 

There's more to the game than my brief description, and initially it seemed rather complicated, but by round three we were pretty sure of play and were building strategies. 

I'm certainly looking forward to playing again, hopefully with the rest of MEGAforce, although it did play very well as a two player game.

I'll place this firmly in A Tier, with the understanding that this may move up or down slightly with repeated play.

Board Game Night: Moon

We played Moon again at the latest MEGAforce board/card game night.

Moon is from Sinister Fish, and is the third in a loose series by designer Haakon Hoel Gaardner, all based around the idea of developing a settlement.

How it plays 

In Moon the idea is to build the most popular moonbase over three eras. At the end of the game the base with the most 'hearts' (likes?) becomes the lunar capital.

Each player starts with a base which grants one resource and one flag, or specialism. Structure cards are added which grant extra resources (blue structures) or flags (yellow structures). 

There are also a few pink structures which can be 'flipped' once each era to gain some extra boost, often bonus hearts dependant on the number of certain resources currently owned, but there are other effects, such as unflipping another card or gaining access to the discard deck. 

Black cards are structures that usually add bonus hearts at the very end of the game.

There are a small number of Reputation cards that grant assorted bonuses and are claimed on meeting certain requirements.

Building structures usually requires spending resources and having access to flags.

The game uses a 'pick and pass' mechanic; each hand represents a travelling expedition of settlers, scientists and technicians. They travel from base to base, offering their services to each base in turn, allowing the building of structures. Each hand includes an expedition card, giving a special rule that can be accessed, such as trading in one resource for an extra heart.

When the structure cards in each hand are exhausted the current era ends and various bonus hearts are awarded, such as for the player with the most of each flag.

The game then plays through again, using the next era's deck of structure cards and new Expedition cards.

There's a more, I haven't mentioned the rovers or assimilation, but hopefully I've given some idea of how the game plays.

What's good about Moon 

The different eras give a feel of progression. Era 1 structures are the basics of lunar living; basic accommodation, roads, solar panels and even toilets. Era 2 has more exciting stuff, such as ice mines and elevated roads and Era 3 includes museums, opera houses and trades unions.

The Expedition and Reputation cards are drawn randomly vary from game to game, and the hands draw from much bigger decks, so there's something new each time, so far we have seen several new ones each game (and I've managed to miss collecting Reputation cards I've earned just about every game).

The artwork is appealing, and there are fun quotes, such as 'they dug too deeply' on the mine. 

We are all starting to develop strategies now, though with the random nature of the cards, these are not always a sure bet. I'm gaining a reputation as the Water Baron of the moon, though it doesn't always pay off.

In Conclusion 

I really enjoy this game, this is the third or fourth time I've played, and the large number of cards leads to a different experience each time. 

I'll place it firmly in S tier, just ahead of Era! 

The winning moonbase 125 heats at the game's end

If you like the sound of this, Moon can be purchased from various online retailers, though stocks do fluctuate. Certainly Sinister Fish usually have it in stock, along with a deluxe version and teh Valkyrie expansion.

Board Game Night - ERA and Top Dog

The MEGAforce played another game of ERA Medieval Age the other evening.

As always, it was great fun.  I thought folks might like to see what the boards looked like at the end of the game.

T'Other One's winning burg. A large walled town which he initially filled with low value housing before adding higher status builds. By the end of the game he had an impressive eleven dice 

My second place  culture rich town. That's a university, a monastery and three churches! Small but (nearly) perfectly formed. I added two of the churches in the final turn and never got to roll their dice.

And joint fourth place. Both the towns have quite a bit of empty space ideal for future development, but the game finished at this point.

We also had a quick game of Top Dog, a kid's card game that was quick, simple and fun to play. Essentially it's about choosing sled dog teams to complete for trophies out of random decks of cards. As the dogs include chihuahuas and poodles, you might not always get a great team.  

I can't see folks clamouring to play this regularly, but it certainly fills in a bit of time at the end of the evening if the main game has finished early.

Actually, the basic system is so simple that I can see the potential to reskin it* to a more fantasy or SciFi setting, perhaps with a little added complexity with extra cards with hazards etc.

If you have the same dog type, their value is multiplied rather than added to determine who wins each race.  Thus the polar bear wins this race 18 to 14.  Players with the same score have collided and are out of that race.

There are various different trophies to win, the overall winner given by the player (musher) with the highest value trophies.

Boardgame Night: Warlock and Kingdominos

The MEGAforce played a couple of games last night, one old one and one new one.

Warlock

I remember Games Workshop's Warlock from decades ago.  It was a staple at the Kirklees Military Modelling and Gaming Society, but how well does it stand up today?  I dug out my copy to show the rest of the group.

The aim is to be the last remaining wizard and claim the title of Warlock. The 'currency' of the game is magical energy, which is used to cast spells. There are 128 spell cards (with lovely nostalgic artwork) which are used to attack or defend and can have either a magical effect or a physical one. Think of this as casting spells directly or summoning help. A matrix shows which spell counters which, for example the 'Damsel in Distress' can be used to counter the 'Hero', and the 'Saint' can be used to counter most of the monsters.  It's left to the players' imaginations exactly how this happens. Physical effects can always be dealt with by summoning something else bigger to fight, or even tooling up the wizard with a magic weapon to sort it out themselves.

If a spell can't be countered the victim is banished to Limbo.

The game is played out over a series of three duel rounds, and the last wizard with any magical power is the winner.

The game, from its components to its slightly fiddly game play, is very much of it's time. The experience was also slightly hampered by me confusing the various house rules we used back in the day with the actual rules as written. Careful re-reading showed me just how far we had departed from the official version. 

Warlock in play

Kingdomino

Kingdomino is a kingdom building game where the aim is to have contiguous terrain types with crowns (representing resources) in them. The game has nice chunky tiles and wooden meeples for the kings. There's even a little card castle for each ruler. Scoring multiplies the number of contiguous terrain by the number of crowns in each terrain. There is an elegant method of picking the dominoes, where picking the least value tile one round gives you first choice next round.

My kingdom, bottom right, is mostly lake and wheat fields

It took us about 40 minutes to play through a full game. Sadly my huge lake lacked enough crowns to win me the game, Andy did much better with his mountains.

The winning kingdom

Opinion

Of the two games I preferred Kingdomino. Play was simpler and more streamlined, but there is plenty of tactical choice involved. If I'm grading these games I'd give Warlock a B. It's still fun, but I think game mechanics (and components) have generally improved over the years. 

I'll give Kingdominos a solid A, it was much easier to pick up and I had more fun. I should say that it is marketed as a game for younger people than the MEGAforce, which might explain the relative simplicity and shorter gameplay time. This is not necessarily a bad thing.

*EDIT* I should point out that Kingdominos is available from many stockists, including the big South American river.  There is a younger audience version called Dragominos, Queendominos, which is both a stand alone game and a supplement to Kingdominos, and also a supplement to either King- or Queen- dominoes called Age of Giants

Board Games Night - Cascadia

The Monday Evening Gaming Association (known informally as MEGAforce) tried a new board game last night, Cascadia.

The game at the scoring phase.

The aim of Cascadia is to create the most sound ecosystem using habitat tiles and placing wildlife tokens on them.

There are five different habitat types (mountain, forest, prairie, wetlands and river) and the hex tiles usually contain more than one type. 

There are five wildlife types as well (Grizzly Bear, Roosevelt Elk, Red Fox, Chinook Salmon and Red-tailed Hawk), and the habitat tiles have icons to indicate which wildlife token can be placed on it, but only one token per tile.

Five cards are drawn at the start of the game to determine the points scored at the end, so using the recommended starter cards we got points for placing pairs of bears in adjacent tiles, for placing long 'runs' of salmon or for placing hawks not adjacent to other hawks. Some of the other cards impose quite tricky conditions for scoring.

There are always four tiles and four wildlife tokens for a player to choose from, drawn and placed in pairs. These are usually taken in the pairs but can be placed separately in a player's ecosystem.

Once each player has placed twenty tiles the game finishes and points are totted up. 

Firstly the points from cards are added.  I adopted a fairly scatter-gun approach to placing my wildlife and definitely didn't make the best of it. I did benefit from trying to make large habitat zones which did my points total a lot of good.

All in all a great game. The concept and play is simple, but there are hard choices to be made when choosing and placing stuff.

I'll currently place this firmly in A tier, though I suspect once the more complex victory cards are used it might edge into S tier.

Cascade is produced by Flat Out Games, Grim had a Kickstarter version of the game.  The rules include a solo version, and works for 2 to 4 players in group play.  There seems to be some sort of campaign or quest system in the back of the book, but I didn't explore this.  There is some good scientific information about the habitats and creatures used in the game as well, making it informative as well as entertaining.

Birthday Zombies!!!

As is the custom, T'Other One had complete freedom of choice for the Monday game nearest his birthday. He chose Zombies!!!  from Twilight Creations. The object of the game is to be first to reach the helicopter, while, obviously, avoiding being eaten by zombies.

The town layout is drawn randomly from a tile deck, there are event cards to play, giving equipment or hazards for the other players and health and bullets to be found in many of the named buildings. We've played this a few times, notably for T'Other One's stag do. 

This time we added the Mall expansion. The Mall is discovered somewhere in the town, and the helicopter pad is on the top of the Mall. It has its own tiles and event deck.

The helipad is revealed (lowest left) and it's full of zombies 

'Eaten' players respawn in the town square tile, meaning it's a long plod back towards the helipad, we ruled that respawning at the entrance to the Mall was better. I think all of us had to respawn at least once.

There was a good bit of card play, such as doubling the number of zombies on the helipad (snigger),  but by eleven o'clock we were sort of helping each other by clearing zombies out of the way.

T'Other One's yellow pawn about to respawn. So close. Gosh, I wonder why there are so many zombies on the helipad?

In the end Grim (blue) managed to get through. 

Zombies!!! is a fun Beer and Pretzels game with many expansions. I suspect that regular play needs these expansions to add something fresh, we certainly enjoyed the new cards.

Every time I play it I think the mechanics could easily be adapted to exploring an infested space station, a sort of more random Space Hulk type game.

Board Game Night - Aliens AGDITC

The Monday night games group have been playing a lot of board and card games recently, see my thoughts on Era here.

Last night we had another go at T'Other One's copy of Aliens: Another Glorious Day In The Corps, from Glae Force Nine. The game is nicely produced with lots of tokens, cards, good quality boards and, of course, lots of Alien minis (and a few Marines). The game is co-operative, with the players trying to achieve the mission goals while the A.I. controlled Aliens try to stop them. 

I've played this a couple of times before, indeed my first game seemed so easy that I wondered what the fuss was about (we had to find Newt and get her off the board. We were incredibly lucky to find her first thing and convince her to follow us).

Last night's Bug Hunt was a different matter.

Part way through the game. The marines are the green minis, the three piles of cards control various hazards, provide equipment and indicate the passage of time within the game. The white blobs are blips.

We had to eliminate all the blips before running out of time. The game has an elegant way of using cards to measure time, sadly even with my character, Frost, using the flamethrower we just ran out of time.

"Game over, man. Game over"

The game was pretty fast moving and very tense. I felt it captured the feel of the second Alien film nicely. 

It's been a while since we got any minis out and it was great to see T'Other One's nicely painted 'bugs'. He also has some great 3D terrain, which, while not required (we didn't use it last night) certainly adds to the look and feel. 

It would be fun to try the scenario again and see if we can do better.

ERA Medieval

The old Monday evening RPG group has become a board games group. We found that as our schedules became busier it was harder to guarantee the time required for an RPG campaign, but a series of 'pick up and play' games is just right.  A while back we worked our way through Mantic Games' Star Saga (and we may go back to do the expansions at some point), but for now, we are trying a variety of different games.

To be honest, we gather to chat and enjoy each other's company, but it helps to have a good game; recently we've been playing some great games.  Here's a few you might want to look out for.

We played the old GW Judge Dredd board game (long out of print).  Fun and it does a good job of capturing the feel of the old Judge Dredd comics.

Ravensburger's Alien game is another IP based board game. In this co-op game the players are the crew of the Nostromo, trying to fulfil various missions and avoid the Alien. The use of randomly drawn objectives (with the final one being hidden until the others are achieved), means that each game is different, and there's a Fear track to beat as well. Perhaps the only oddity is that the Alien never kills (unless the Fear track reaches zero, in which case Game Over Man*), it just ticks that Fear track down and forces the crew to run away.

My current favourite is ERA Medieval Age; two games in and I'm hooked.  The aim of the game is to build the most successful Medieval style city.  Each player has a peg board on which to build, and a small number of buildings (1 farm, 3 longhouses, 1 keep and 3 wall sections.  Certain buildings grant resource dice (peasant, burgher, clergy or noble), others give bonuses, e.g. a farm grants one extra food resource each turn.  Rolling the dice means you're never sure quite what resources you have to build with, and you can lose resources to other players in the Extortion phase.

The game has a built in limit, either two full rounds or when five building types have been used up, so games last around one to two hours.  Points are then calculated for different buildings (with a nice bonus if they are enclosed by a city wall) to determine the winner.

We are still finding our way with the various strategies, and we now have access to the expansion which introduces more new buildings and roads and rivers.  I suspect we'll be playing more of this over the weeks.

My winning city from our second game

As an indicator to how popular the game is, I'm the only one of the four of us who hasn't got their own copy.  There is a solo option, and I suspect that some of the others are practicing strategies.

The game was published by Plan B Games, but they seem to be merging with Asmodee.  You can find details of where to buy the game here.

*Yes, I know.  Wrong film, but I couldn't resist.

Game Box Restoration: The Warlock of Firetop Mountain

Relics from the Loft of Shame

As I've been sorting through my gaming stuff recently I've realised that I have a lot of old board games.

Some of these are broken or incomplete, so I've scavenged any useful bits and thrown the remains away.

Others are complete, but I've no interest in playing them, such as the official Pirates of the Caribbean board game which I had high hopes for.  It has some nice components but the rules don't promise much. 

These were donated to charity shops in the run up to Christmas.

There are others that I'd like to keep, at least until I've played them enough to decide if they are worth holding on to. However, as is typical with a lot of my stuff, condition isn't always great. In my defence, these were in poor condition when I got them, usually bought at charity shops or at car boot sales (I even trained a work colleague who collected antiques to look for gaming stuff - thanks Alec).

Warlock of Firetop Mountain is one of these. Released in 1986 by Games Workshop and loosely based on the Fighting Fantasy gamebook of the same name. I'm unsure how good the game is, but as Monday night is currently board game night, I'd like to give it a go.  But before I do that, it needs some attention.

Internet image of contents

Box Repairs

Fortunately the components are complete, though the character sheets have all been used.  The box itself is torn and bent, and isn't really fit for purpose as it is. Recent viewing of YouTube videos* suggested that this was repairable, and I have an ulterior motive, it's practice for another restoration project I've got planned for 2023.

The card is bent in many places

and the joints are torn

I started by giving the box a good clean using window cleaner spray and a microfibre cloth.  This got a lot more muck off than I expected!  

Then I straightened out those bends and creases in the card.  I misted the inside of the box with water then placed a glass mat on the top and bottom of the section I was straightening, with baking paper to protect the surface of the card and stop it sticking.

I then piled books on top to flatten the card and left it to dry.  It's surprising how effective this technique is.  The box isn't like new, but the sides and lid are more or less straight.

Any tears or rips were held together and Mod Podge carefully pushed into the join.  The Mod Podge essentially joins the pieces with a plastic.  I used formers; either a couple of smaller glass mats for straight pieces or a couple of metal angle brackets (designed for holding wood together, find them in your DIY shop) for corners.  Again using baking paper to protect the card.  The mats or brackets were held in place with books or clothes pegs.

Once the box is whole, any remaining tears or rips can be fixed with Mod Podge, and areas of bare card were also given a cost Mod Podge to seal and protect them.  If the resultant card/Mod Podge sandwich was too thick, I clamped it with the glass mats and pegs again.

Some internet restorers (yes, board game restorers are a thing) touch up the black with paint or a sharpie, others keep the box as is to show it's history.  I'm not sure, if I keep it I may touch up those white bits.

The repairs are a lot stronger than I expected.  I'm happy they will hold up to normal wear and tear.  With the box fixed I can replace the contents without worrying that the pieces will get lost.  If it proves popular with the group I may make trays for the cards and minis, but they are currently bagged up.  I will, of course, paint the minis.

* in particular, Always Board, Never Boring.  His restoration of a complete Heroquest set is an inspiration (and *Spoilers* may be what I intend to do next year).

Birthday Gaming

Last month I had a 'significant' birthday. As part of the celebrations I got in a game of Kings of War with my son.

For the battle, he used his growing Undead army (1 regiment of Skeleton Spears, 1 regiment of Ghouls and 1 regiment of Mummies, led by 2 Necromancers, one with the Boomstick), and I matched them with Kingdoms of Men.  

I have been experimenting with 500 point forces for Kings of War, and this was my 500 point Kingdoms of Men army (2 regiments of Spearmen, 1 regiment of Bowmen and a troop of Mounted Scouts, led by a Hero with the Inspiring Talisman), with a couple of characters added (Army Standard Bearer and Wizard) to bring the points up to 600.

The game was great fun, although I lost comprehensively.  I really messed up using the mounted scouts, trying for a flanking manoeuvre, but failing utterly against the skeletal spearmen.  

 

The scouts try to stop the skeletons...

Needing a 5+

The Ghouls and Mummies took on both regiments of Spearmen.  The living held them off for a while, doing better than expected against the Mummies, and worse against the Ghouls, but eventually the Undead prevailed and turned to face the Bowmen, who had been unable to find a target for most of the battle, as all the undead regiments were in melee.

The main clash, Living vs The Dead

The victorious Mummies chase the Bowmen

Meanwhile, my characters were busy, the Hero taking on and destroying one Necromancer, while the Wizard had a magical duel with the Necromancer with Boomstick

My hero prior to slaying one of the foul necromancers (a very nice Tortle wizard)

Fresh from wiping out the scouts, the skeletons take on the hero, Necromancer with Boomstick nearby.

Great fun to be playing, and it's got us both thinking about expansions for our armies.  I definitely need something tough to tackle the likes of Mummies; perhaps more cavalry?

I also played a couple of games of Cosmic Encounter with the Monday evening gamers (who are apparently called the MEGAforce Gamers, according to T'Other One). 

This is a game I first played back in the late 1970s, and I've tried every edition since.  The current version, by Fantasy Flight Games is the best so far.  They've tightened up a lot of the rules, and structured the turn a lot better, so that there is less confusion when powers work.  I highly recommend it it you are looking for a bit of light-hearted fun.

Holiday HeroQuest

On a rainy day in the middle of a holiday week, what better than a family board game (or several)?

Amongst other games we got in a game of HeroQuest. This was a nostalgia trip for me and my kids, and an introduction for my wife and the future son-in-law.

Great fun, and Max joined in too. 

Max wonders if there is any more treasure to find now the gargoyle is slain.

Painted HeroQuest Undead

Well I've been busy decorating and sorting things out with my collection of 'stuff', and not just gaming related stuff.  So hobby has taken a bit of a back seat recently, although I am still managing to run an online D&D campaign weekly.  I have managed some hobby stuff though, and you might have seen my replacement tomb for HeroQuest.  Now I've finished painting all the Undead minis from the HeroQuest base game. Actually, I started painting these at least twenty years ago, with the intention of having a fully painted set, but never got them finished.

Back then I removed the integral bases and glued them on Citadel 25mm round bases, but these work out just a bit too big for the grid on the board. 

I've taken the opportunity to rebase onto 20mm square bases, I managed to find some with rounded corners, which look good. 

There's nothing particularly fancy about the paint scheme. The mummies and skeletons already had an off white/bone/tan base coat so I washed it with Army Painter Strong Tone wash, then drybrushed with either Vallejo Game Color Bonewhite for the skellies or VGC Stonewall Grey for the mummies. They were then all given a final drybrush of VGC Off White, with the teeth picked out to add extra interest.

I hadn't really paid attention to the patches of mummified flesh before painting, but I think they really lift the mummies, giving a nice contrast to the pale bandages. 

The zombies were pretty standard. The flesh was a base coat of Vallejo Extra Opaque Heavy Grey, then highlights of VGC Dead Flesh, before a wash of AP Strong Tone.

Extra details and bits were painted as I felt like at the time. All the undead got a dot of VGC Livery Green in the eye sockets.

I'm pleased with these, they are certainly an improvement on the earlier paint job and they will do fine as boadgame pieces. The new bases work well too.  They are small enough to fit in the squares on the board, and being clear, the nice artwork on the board can still be seen.

I wish I'd thought a bit more about positioning on the bases though.  The mummies and zombies are fine, but the skeletons could have been put at a bit more of an angle, so that big scythe doesn't get in the way as much.  Still, they are no worse than the original rectangular bases.  I could have made the metal ore rusty too, the small patches are OK, but I might go back and make them look older and more decayed.

I'll paint the 'greenskins' soon, six goblins, eight orcs and three fimir.  As with the undead, I have many of these part painted, but I'll use my current method of orc painting, as seen in the Kings of War orcs I did last year, which you can see starting here.  

Once I've got the HeroQuest base game painted*, I suppose I should finish it's spiritual successor, Dungeon Saga.  Seeing how well the clear bases work for HeroQuest, I'll definitely be using the technique on them.

* Apart from the base game, HeroQuest had several expansions, most of which I have (somewhere in the 'loft of shame').  Return of the Witchlord included two more sets of undead, identical to the ones in the base game, which allowed the story to focus more on the undead nature of the final enemy.  Similarly Kellar' Keep contained a couple of extra sets of the greenskins.  There were later expansions that included ogres (which now look small compared to current day minis), four different evil wizards and henchmen.  A couple of US only expansions introduced female heroes and more monsters, sadly I don't have any of those.