Our last session had seen four players clearing up the rest of the goblins in Julkoun. This session saw the roster change again – we were joined by two new players, Sondra and Lily. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to walk them through character creation, so we used a couple of pre-generated characters for them; an Elf Ranger for Sondra and an Elf Wizard for Lily. … Continue reading D&D Encounters: Scourge of the Sword Coast, session 4
Two tournaments, three sessions of D&D, and several odd plays of board games; it’s been quite a week! One of the tournaments was the first of the monthly X-Wing tournaments. We had five players, with Garth playing whoever had the bye, as he was learning the game. Sarah played a build of three TIE Interceptors and I played the championship team of two X-Wings and … Continue reading A Big Week of Gaming
Ora et Labora is one of a series of games from Uwe Rosenberg that includes Agricola and Le Havre, all very good games that are partly resource management games, partly building games, partly worker placement games and partly engine games. By which I mean that you’re trying to build up interlocking pieces that work together; the player who is the best at building the engine … Continue reading Ora et Labora play report
David Cook had previously shown his love for Sword and Sorcery tales in the first couple of Slave Lords adventures and, especially, in Dwellers of the Forbidden City, which has a specific debt to Howard’s Red Nails. Master of the Desert Nomads is, for me, Cook’s most successful venture into the Sword and Sorcery genre. Conan or Hawkmoon could quite easily be imagined as the … Continue reading D&D Review: X4 Master of the Desert Nomads
This time, we got the rules right. Saturday saw Rich, Sarah, Dave and me playing another game of Power Grid. We used the new Australia map, which was the first time Dave and Rich had played on the map. Power Grid is a simple game. Each turn goes through the following phases: 1) Determine Turn Order. The player with the most cities goes first, ties … Continue reading Power Grid Australia – play report 2
My FLGS (Good Games Ballarat) will soon be hosting monthly X-Wing tournaments, as well as a Store Championship, so Sarah decided she wanted a bit of practice with the game. She had a couple of week’s leave, so we were able to get our times to sync up and have a couple of games before the first of the tournaments. Sarah definitely prefers playing the … Continue reading X-Wing play report
This season has been quite unsettled for player attendance at our store, with a number of new players trying out the game and then deciding it isn’t for them. Understandable, but when coupled with quite a degree of irregularity of attendance from the “regulars”, it’s made running tables rather tricky, especially given the wide variety of approaches to the game. My table had two new … Continue reading Scourge of the Sword Coast: Session 3
Last night saw some enjoyable board-gaming time. I played a game of X-Wing with Sarah, her first in some time, as she attempted to grapple with visualising star fighter (and bigger ships) movement. We then had a four-player game of Nations, which I won handily. My first win of Nations. Hooray! And finally we played a five-player game of Power Grid with the new Australia … Continue reading Power Grid: Australia
Although Michael was eager to play another game of Nations, I’d cunningly not brought it in today. Actually, I hadn’t expected to play any games, so having my ASL Starter Kits in the car was pure luck. However, given no Nations, he was more than happy to have a game of ASL, the first one where he controlled counters properly labelled as “Guns”. And what … Continue reading Advanced Squad Leader report: S12 Over Open Sights
As I was browsing the internet (a dangerous activity, for sure), I came across this wonderful blog entry on Rise and Decline of the Third Reich. Avalon Hill was the major player in War Games for much of its history, and as I get older, I find that investigating its older offerings to be quite rewarding. This is not to say that they’re better than … Continue reading Rise and Decline of the Third Reich and other Avalon Hill wargames
