Brett had indicated an interest in ASL (Starter Kit) when I’d been playing a couple of weeks ago, and discovering him this afternoon with nothing else to do, I suggested a game. He happily accepted. Thus began one of the more lopsided games in my experience. It’s the game a moderately experienced player has against a complete newbie – not only to ASL, but to … Continue reading Advanced Squad Leader report: S4 Welcome Back
Saturday’s boardgaming consisted of two games: Archipelago and Terra Mystica, before D&D kicked in. Archipelago is something of a controversial game on the ‘Geek, mainly because it has a way for every player to lose; the players need to co-operate enough to stop that happening, but it is still every man for himself. It’s made trickier by hidden victory conditions. Each player knows a open … Continue reading Archipelago and Terra Mystica
I’m feeling really good about last week’s role-playing. Three games, each with a different version of the D&D rules, all memorable for their own reasons. There are times when things come together, and that was the case this week. D&D Encounters – Legacy of the Crystal Shard – D&D Next This has been a challenging season to run, but it’s been getting a lot better … Continue reading Three Games
Much to my delight, I’ve been able to play two games of Advanced Squad Leader (Starter Kit version) in two days; Mick was more than happy to play the game again, and it looks like our sequence of games will be continuing, whenever both of us are free and it’s just the two of us. (So, not daily!) We moved onto the third scenario of … Continue reading ASL Starter Kit: S3 Simple Equation session report
One of my hobbies is Advanced Squad Leader, a board game first published in 1985 (and deriving from the original 1977 Squad Leader). Well, when I say it’s one of my hobbies, it’s sort of two: one hobby is collecting it and another is wishing I could play it. Time is not really the problem here; instead, it’s finding players who are interested. However, one … Continue reading ASL Starter Kit: S2 War of the Rats
The cook and explorer once sailed in a boat, but bacon and ham wouldn’t keep her afloat. The tropical isle, where they were washed up, With bacon, and ham – and only one cup. A stranger, a native, a friendly face, Did greet the two, they noticed his race; The jungle, they thought, would have ham and wood, But lions, and bears, might chase … Continue reading The Cook and the Explorer – A “poem” of the new Robinson Crusoe game
The new year has begun with a burst of reading, much like 2013 did. And so the first and second of January were spent mostly reading the eight novels written by Julie Kagawa, which fit vaguely into the category of paranormal fantasy or urban fantasy. As more and more people write in the field, it really begins to stretch; it’s pretty easy to tell where … Continue reading Days of Reading – Julie Kagawa
This Saturday's game wasn't meant to have eight players. Lee was meant to be running his Pathfinder game, which would have left me with a scant handful of player (and thus, heavy on the henchmen). However, Lee was ill, so I inherited his players, all of whom have played in my AD&D game at one time or another. Daniel also turned up, and Tim as … Continue reading AD&D: Hellhounds and Hellknights
The final AD&D session of 2013 saw seven people playing, and the regular range of character levels from 1st to 9th. It also saw the group discovering What Lay Beyond the Orcs of the Bloody Eye, as – after rather destroying the first group they met – the group then negotiated their way past the other orcs. Mostly with, "Let us past or we will … Continue reading AD&D: Chairs of Doom
The penultimate AD&D session of this year had six players in attendance, with characters ranging from first level to ninth level, and another trip into the depths of the Caverns of the Oracle. It turned out to be quite dangerous, as a number of hellhounds attacked the party as they got closer to the levels that Hextor’s followers hold in sway. The party consisted of … Continue reading AD&D: Magic Items, Resurrection Survival failure and other things
