The recent announcements by Wizards of the Coast have shed some light on what will be coming in 2011. It gives us a strong indication as to what Wizards new strategy will be for D&D, as well as giving us a clue of how well supplemental books have been selling. My analysis of the new way of selling D&D involves a lot of guesswork. Perhaps … Continue reading D&D in 2011: From Books to Digital
Death’s Reach is the first adventure of the Epic Tier produced by Wizards of the Coast; it continues some elements raised in previous adventures in the Heroic and Paragon tier adventures, especially the fight against Orcus, whose minions have been the major foes in several past adventures (in particular H1 and P2). It was now time for us to embark on our play of the … Continue reading Death’s Reach (part 1) – Portents of Dread
I’ve just organised the miniatures I’ll need for the first two sessions of Death’s Reach into a container so they’re all ready for next week. Well, except for the Goristo demon which doesn’t fit, and is sitting on top of the container. Assuming I don’t do something completely boneheaded like forget to take them to the session, the only thing I really need to do now … Continue reading Sorting out minis…
Merry Christmas to you all! I spent a very nice Christmas Eve: played Labyrinth and Twilight Struggle with Sarah, then Brass with Sarah & Jesse, and finally ended up going 1-2 in a FNM Magic draft (the one win was a bye… sigh). I did draft some nice cards though. Today, my brother and his wife should be visiting, and tomorrow there’s the Boxing Day … Continue reading Merry Christmas!
Well, I now own a copy of the classic Call of Cthulhu adventure, “The Masks of Nyarlathotep”. When will I run it? Well, that depends. I’m sure I’d have players when I’m willing to start, but it’ll take quite a bit of time to run. How much? I really don’t know. Given our fortnightly play, possibly up to half a year. I’d really like Sarah to … Continue reading Masks, Labyrinth, and games next year
Astonishingly, Twilight Struggle is currently the #1 boardgame on BoardGameGeek. It’s one of my favourite games, possibly my second-favourite boardgame (my favourite is Through the Ages), and it seems that I’m not alone in my regard for it. It’s now above Puerto Rico and Agricola and sitting happily in #1. I managed to get in a day of boardgaming yesterday, aided by Rich and Robert; … Continue reading Top boardgames
THE “MAY I?” BLUNDER The new Civilization game gets a lot of things right, but there are aspects to the game which really, really irritate me. The primary one of these is the cards and resource abilities that allow you to cancel another player’s action. It adds a level of timing to the game that just doesn’t feel right, and it slows down the game … Continue reading Thoughts on the new Civilization boardgame (part 5)
If Military and Tech victories are the most obvious in the new Civ boardgame, and Culture is achievable if tricky, the victory condition that is the least obvious to me so far is the Economic Victory. ECONOMIC VICTORY Gain 15 coins. What are coins and what do they do? Well, coins appear on some squares on the map, some techs, and some great people and buildings. Each … Continue reading Thoughts on the new Civilization boardgame (part 4)
Well, last Friday I managed to run a session of Universe, a science-fiction RPG from a very long time ago by SPI, a company that may not have existed when I bought the game. It was the very second RPG I owned and Friday was the first time I have ever run a full session of the game. Given I bought it in 1982 or … Continue reading Universe…
I’ve now played four games of the new Civilization boardgame from FFG. I’ve won three of them, and the original 2-player game I played wasn’t finished (though I was on my way to a loss). At present, I rate it as a “7” on the BGG site: “Good game, usually willing to play”. It’s a very FFG-type of game which – thankfully – is in … Continue reading The newest Civilization boardgame – Thoughts on the game (part 1)
