Shadowrun: Crossfire

From BGG:
The shadows of the Sixth World have every kind of danger you can imagine: ultra-violent gangers, flesh-eating ghouls, mages that summon spirits from toxic waste, backstabbing corporate raiders, hard-nosed police officers, and even dragons. You don't have much — mainly your guts, your wits, and your friends — but maybe that's enough. Between you and your teammates, you can sling spells, hack the Matrix, talk a tiger out of his stripes, and bring down a charging ork from a hundred yards away. Will that be enough to face down the worst the mean streets can throw at you? You're about to find out.

Shadowrun: Crossfire is a cooperative deck-building card game for two to four players set in the gritty, cyberpunk fantasy world of Shadowrun. Play a shadowrunner team and take on tough jobs such as protecting a client who's marked for death, shooting your way out of downtown when a run goes sour, or facing down a dragon. In each game you'll improve your deck with a mix of strategies, while earning Karma to give your character cyber upgrades, physical augmentations, magical initiations, weapons training and Edge.

Shadowrun: Crossfire includes two obstacle decks, a black market deck, a crossfire event deck, mission sheets, role cards, runner cards, and upgrade stickers.

Played this today with Leslie.  We played it as a 2 player game, I think 4 player is the best option, but never the less we enjoyed ourselves.  I keep getting confused and stuffing up the order of play at times, but apart from that the game flowed smoothly.

Much like the Pathfinder game, you can develop characters over play sessions, however with Crossfire I could actually work out what I was doing where the Pathfinder version left me more confused than anything.

My rating: 6-7/10

Link for rules: Full Rules.pdf

Arena of Death - courtesy of BPLaser

I need to wax lyrical about a small Brisbane based company called BPLaser.  They have to be the most responsive business I know when it comes to listening to a clients designs and producing an end product worthy of high praise.  I will for the next couple of months post some pictures of their pieces and my attempts to bring them to life on the table.

Here is the arena I asked Paul to create.  It's official title is Arena MkIII (don't ask what happened to MkII).  More pictures in due course, I have to clear the table for a game of Napoleonics tonight with Andrew R.

The arena is modular, with each three wall section allowable to be removed for ease of transport.  I've elected to glue mine in.  The base board allows for miniature games that use movement by tape, while in the top right corner you can see hexes for those systems that use that as movement.  The doors to the arena are removable.  They are very nice.

If you want to find out more of BPLaser then here is their link: BPlaser

Eminent Domain: Microcosm Card Game

BGG Link - Eminent Domain:Microcosm

Played this today against Leslie.  A fast play game where the only thing that I now have difficulty with is the scoring and beating Leslie to the cards either he or I want.  The game has a small deck (34 cards) that once depleted ends the game and points are scored to determine the winner.

Player Aide: EM-Microcosm_PlayerAid-v2.pdf

Detailed Rules: Detailed Rules PDF

My rating: 6/10

Twilight Struggle - Boardgame

BGG link for Twilight Struggle

I played this game for the first time today with Leslie.  For a two player game it has enough depth in tactics and a simple enough game mechanic to provide a great couple of hours entertainment.  It's slotted into my "will have to buy this" category.

In the early war I as Russia won the Korean conflict, the Arab-Israeli War and the Vietnam conflict,  So I was racing away in the early war game, then Leslie started to come back in the Mid-War period.  I was still making inroads around the world, but Leslie was playing the victory point win, rather than a territory match.

Slotted for a game next Tuesday.  Hopefully I may have read the rules by then and learnt from my mistakes.

Rules link: Twilight Struggle Rules-2009.pdf

Rating: 8/10

Board at the time I had to leave.  USA victory.

Eden - Jokers circa 2010 painted timeline

Hard to believe that it's been 5 years since I touched Eden.  I think that there are only or is only one person besides myself at the Blind Pig who has played Eden,

These are my Jokers.  I thought I had previously posted my painted work of these, but it doesn't appear so.

Enjoy.

Blind Pig Club Day 13th June 2015

Good turn out with many of the regulars showing up.  My bag an Owen and Thomas request was met as they both turned up!  Of course thanks to all the regulars who help set up an pack up each time.

Over 20 people attended today (I think middle 20's not sure).

Games in play:

40K
Star Wars Armada
Star Wars X-Wing
King of Tokyo
EPIC Armageddon
Dreadball
Star Flux

and there was the BSS as well.

Next meet is 18th July 2015.

See you all there.

Great start to the day, large group playing King of Tokyo.
John McD won!

X-Wing in play between Wade and Michael C.

Pat playing Armada versus Leslie, no he is not asleep.

Dreadball action between Michael S and Simon.

40K

40K

40K

Star Wars Armada Games 5 & 6

On Thursday I got in two games of Armada with Leslie.  This time the mission or complication to the battlefield was minefields.

Game 5: Synopsis.  I refused to enter the area of the minefields, choosing an edge, hoping that by restricting Leslie's area of operation he would activate the minefields and cop the damage instead of me.  Leslie said that he didn't enjoy the game (this time, and only time he's ever said so in all the games we've played), which I can understand as I mauled his ships, and my Tie's actually learnt what they could do.  High praise came from Leslie when he said I was playing the game the right way!

So I've won my 5th 3rd game in a row of Armada (at game 5).

Game 6: We played the minefields scenario again, slight rearrangement of mines but that was it.  I miscalculated the phase for engineering and was left without repair facilities for 3 turns, but thankfully there was an outpost that helped.  Better game for Leslie, he picked ruthlessly on my Admirals ship and on turn 5 took him down.

The end of the Admiral and his Star Destroyer.  There he is!

Now he isn't.

Leslie is jubilation of having destroyed a Star Destroyer, can't
you see the tears of joy running into his beard!

Retaliation time.  Empire killed the Rebel flag ship, can't
remember which ship it was.

Rebels did work really hard and inflicted damage to reduce the
other Star Destroyer to half it's hull points.

Queens Birthday Napoleonic Bash

I took photo's which means I have given the game the "kiss of death" to me winning.  Due to my many problems with family and health evening games are hard to come by these days which means Andrew has to roll the dice and hope we can get a game in.  This Queens Birthday public holiday was one where the "Signs were Right" and we were able to battle away.

Picking the wrong list again (the one with the large battalions) was the wrong one, but did better performing actions against the french than the rest of my army did.  Not out-scouting the french meant that I had to resort to drawn maps and troops placement - something I fail at when anticipating my opponents intention.

Below will be photo's of action of the day with comments.  I lost, no big surprise there.  Hopefully better next time round.

Sorry for the poor photo's, I only have a tablet with which to work that has better than odds with taking shots.  So the quality will vary - sorry.

The french main deployment.  Andrew has been painting more
french - as if he needs anymore.  All his cavalry were fresh painted
troops that were getting their first blooding.

From memory Guard of some variety or another.  Bearskins for one.

french captivation with buildings is disturbing.
This lot spend most of the game holed up.

Prussians bravely advancing towards the enemy.

Never have any success with cavalry.  They either fail (90% of the
time) or extraordinarily do something that totally bemuses Andrew.

Right flank getting stuck into the "entrenched" french.
The Hussars were badly mauled by artillery overshot.

Cavalry engage.  Troops side-step or go to square, expecting the worse.

There is the much reduced Hussars from artillery fire.  One casualty
on the column, but 3 causalities on the horse.  Honestly all I can do is cry at times like this.

Well at least the other french artillery had their line of fire blocked
more times by their own troops.  Mind you the heavy artillery was nice to
see on the table.  The Elite Miniatures pieces are large!

Yes, we charged and made inroads.  I learnt a long time ago that
assaulting buildings was difficult going.  Here is where the large
battalions allowed me to soak up the damage, while reducing the
french capacity to remain viable.

 

Second unit of Hussars caught between two anvils.

french Lancers engage, they have the advantage.
Andrew failed to break me, I did two causalities, I needed sixes! 

 

Having driven off the Lancers, I was engaged and survived a round
with the other french cavalry.  Survived for a brief period before
being broken and fleeing the battlefield. 

Last throw of the die.  Taking on the artillery, sadly the shooting
phase did enough to repulse my troops and it was all downhill after that.

Fleeing and reorganisation of what I was left with.
The french gave up being brave and hid in the building again.

Left flank fighting withdrawal and forlorn hope remaining.

Star Wars Armada Game 4 with Leslie

Today was my fourth game of Star Wars Armada.  I'm not getting any feeling of dislike for this game or my opponent.  So a huge thanks to Leslie for allowing me to visit and enjoy a fun day of gaming.  It beats sitting at home with nothing but my illness to keep me company.

Leslie got to pick the missions available to choose from.
I had to pick one of the above as the mission we would play.
I chose Opening Salvo.

My first turn.  Learnt to keep my Tie Fighters close as a screen
which seemed to work in this game.  The one silly choice of tactics
was to sail my Assault Ship off on his own.

The Star Destroyers keeping formation and trying to keep their
main guns aimed at the enemy ships.  Assault Ship still alive.

Opening Salvo gave me an additional two red die.  I severely mauled
Princess Leia's ship, and she spent the rest of the game keeping out of
range of being shot at.

Now you see the Assault Ship!

Now you don't.  Only the Tie Fighter screen remained.

Rebel Fleet Admirals ship locked onto.  Destroyed.

Rebel ships just have that speed and maneuverability as can be
seen throughout these photos.  My slow speed and maneuverability
left me scratching the air a lot of the time.

Leia's ship hiding off out of range.

Final turn.

Leslie and I are coming to grips with the rules, learning where we have made mistakes from having others point them out to us.  It's all good.  The missions is what makes the game more than a set up and kill as many of the enemy ships as possible.

For instance with Opening Salvo the End of Game victory determination was "Each player increased his final score by half the fleet point cost of each enemy ship in the play area that has at least 1 damage card, rounded up."  Most if not all Leslie's ships had damage cards on them, where the only ship I had which did was removed from play as a casualty.

Looking at actual losses I lost an Assault Ship of 56 points (I think, I don't actually own the game so don't have the references available)  I think the one ship that Leslie lost for somewhere in the 40's.  Throw in the loss of Tie Squadrons lost and it would certainly have been a win to Leslie if the Mission Victory points had not been the determining factor.

So I'm looking forward to some more games soon, though there are more ships coming out, which should change play style as time progresses.