My Solo 10x10 for 2016 - Ten Games Ten Times Each!

So here is my solo 10 by 10 Challenge from 2016. Ever since reading about the ‘Play 10 games 10 times’ idea on the Most Glorious 1 Player Guild I’d been intrigued, and it certainly synced up with my previous blog’s mission of getting more mileage out of the games you already have.  Anyway, mainly I just wanted to take a break from all the other stuffs I’ve been up to recently and just get back to talking about playing cool games for a bit, so I hope you don’t mind indulging me for a little while.

I’d been planning to type this up for sometime but never really got around to it in January.  I wasn't sure whether I would be able to finish 100 games by myself just because of the sheer quantity of time that it would take up. But I soon realised that I would be able to complete the challenge if I was to shift around the games that I expected to be able to finish. For example, adding Mage Knight to the list was not the cleverest idea as I was only able to get four games in before I realised that the time suck on this beautifully constructed game was just too huge for me to smash ten games in a row.  But after cheekily swapping it out for Argonauts I was able to make much quicker progress through my personal 10 x 10 mission. Likewise Robinson Crusoe - although an amazing game - also had to be benched until the completion of my 10 x 10. Other honorable mentions go to Kingdom Death (spent more time assembling miniatures than actually playing it solo),  and Labyrinth: War on Terror (managed 3 games: one win on Easy mode, then one win on Coherent, followed by one loss against Attractive).

Airborne Commander

Airborne commander is a neat little deck builder.  Whilst there is limited replayability after you have figured out how to beat the game it is one of the most thematic games in its genre, and delivers a sense of commanding a paratroop division trying to pull it together in the thick of battle. The artwork is just great and the system for having blocking buildings filling up the play area really adds a level of tension that ratchets up as the game goes on.  As it was so easy to play this it actually appeared in my 10 by 10 a whole eleven times just because I got carried away and shuffled up an extra game and carried on playing.  I look forward to any expansion material that may be created for this game, and strongly recommend it if you can track a copy down.

Warhammer Quest Adventure Card Game

The Warhammer Quest Adventure Card Game is such a cool - and cruel - little game it's really a shame that it has been abandoned by Fantasy Flight.  The expansion Heroes are a must for anyone who has the game as they really add variety and flexibility for the players.  It's a shame that only one campaign was included with the game and that they chose to expand only the heroes but not the adventures. The adventures are really where the replayability is at of course but the fan community has us more than covered in that respect with the variants section on BGG overflowing with new quests.  The game would be given a new lease of life if FFG gave it a decent reskin - even Terrinoth would work - but I’m not optimistic about the likelihood of that happening.   I played through a full five adventure campaign with my 7 year old and with the warrior + elf combo we were able to win all of the adventures and finish the campaign successfully.  I also played the Delve Quest a few times and met with varying degrees of success now that the easy win loophole has been sealed by the FAQ.

There’s really a lot to like in this little game, with some neatly agonising options for the heroes.  It’s interesting to trace the evolution of the mechanics FFG picks and chooses in their adventure games like WHQ.  There are elements of Space Hulk: Death Angel, exploration and fighting similar to The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game, and other bits and pieces that have been tweaked and further complicated before being thrust into the Arkham Horror Card Game.

Warfighter: The Tactical Special Forces Card Game

Warfighter  is simply one of my favourite  solo games.  I rate it a perfect 10 out of 10.  Whilst I prefer the actual playing of the adventures rather than the kitting out of soldiers, after achieving a Strategic Victory campaign in the Eastern European theatre (possibly my favourite so far?) I have had a lot of fun playing through the provided adventures in the scenario book from the Foot Locker expansion - and I’m not just being biased because I’m the only non-Verssen to have contributed to the adventures therein! :D  Because they have already picked out all of the gear for your soldiers it takes the hassle out of the prep and you simply get to send your guys in and get on with all of the missions, whilst also experiencing some combos and play types you might not have necessarily stumbled upon by yourself.

For some reason I wasn't able to get into the idea of buying the World War 2 version of the game because I think it better suits the modern special forces theme, even though there were special forces heavily at work in WWII. I am also not too sure about the upcoming fantasy themed version of the game but that is mainly because I am super keen on getting more special forces missions and expanding the modern theatre more.  I am really excited to see what they have in store, particularly if they use some of the ideas mooted on the forums such as attacking a ship or an urban building or complex.  The expanded campaign that Dan has hinted at, which involves running a mercenary company sounds quite interesting too.  But I think, probably because of all the war movies I was raised on by my Dad, thematically I am more interested in genuine military war zones rather than fictitious mercenaries completing missions.

But the game itself is excellent in any case, I love the process of carefully threading your team through hostile territory and trying to cover off reinforcements, maintain your supplies and ammo, stay on top of suppressions and wounds, manage your hand/resources, and complete your objectives.  I often get cocky in the easier stages but then fate will deal a blow, such as having three highly experienced, fully armed and armoured veterans, a few missions deep into a campaign, stumble upon a suicide bomber without any remaining actions, overwatch, or self defense, and have said bomber take out the entire team and tank the campaign…  Love this game!

The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game LCG

I decided it was time to try to get back into the Lord of the Rings living card game that I’d championed so heavily back in the day, so I robbed a couple of elf decks from someone on the Internet and set about tackling the first two core quests followed by the Hunt for Gollum, Conflict at the Carrock, and the three Khazad Dum core quests. And then I only went and got cocky and tried to give Dol Guldur a go.  But failed miserably of course and was annihilated 5 times.  I forgot just how this card game could screw you over whenever it feels like doing so.  It is still one of the prettiest games I have ever seen and I have collected every pack so far but once I have  purchased the final Saga pack I think I am going to call it a day on this game because I still have hundreds of hours’ worth of game to play here and I haven't even scratched the surface yet. Plus the game is now being threatened by the Arkham horror card game which follows a similar model but provides a more interesting campaign and solo experience and you only have to run one hero without having to worry about a party of Heroes or playing two-handed.

Shadowrun: Crossfire

I continued my campaign with the human Samurai and elf Decker who are currently both hovering around 40 karma points each. I have now shuffled in the expansion which really adds to the gameplay enormously by introducing a much-needed variety to the proceedings. It is definitely a valuable investment for anybody who has and enjoys the base game. I'm not sure it balances the difficulty as much as some people seem to suggest but it definitely adds diversity and more options for the players which can only be a good thing.  This really is an amazing game and you are able to pick it up and play a mission in 20 or 30 minutes which not only means you can get plenty of game in and see your characters level up and collect lots of karma, but it also makes it a hell of a lot easier to complete your goal in your 10 x 10 campaign if you include a nice quick to play game like this!

I really love the game but also understand why some people are very frustrated with the difficulty. Even at 40 karma points I still have no idea going into a mission whether or not I'm going to succeed. And that Dragon looking down at me from 70 karma points seems completely impossible at this point.

Of my ten plays I was able to scrape two wins and three losses without the expansion, but then once I had added in the expansion and retried the basic Crossfire scenario I failed 5 times in a row without even being able to carry off a successful abort. Lols!  Next time I’ll be mixing up the missions a little more to give myself a chance...

Legendary Encounters: A Predator Deck Building Game

Whilst I actually prefer the Alien-themed legendary encounters set because of the movies and becaue of the variety of co-operative missions, the Predator legendary encounters set actually has the better gameplay. It looks like they were able to learn a lot of lessons from the alien encounters game and refined the formula to a much more playable and interesting state. I don't know whether or not they have been able to carry this through to Firefly because having only played it a couple of times I really did not get a sense that the campaign played in Firefly was anything new or interesting above and beyond what has already been established with this series of games. So in playing Predator I was able to mount a staggering 4 losses followed by 1 minor victory with the Tracker avatar. In playing the Predator 2 mission I suffered 3 losses in a row but was able to follow up with 2 major victories by Killing the Predator not once but twice with the reporter and then later with the OWLF agent, so in your face stinky dreadlocked vagina-face!

It's still a great game and I really enjoy playing this but with only 2 cooperative scenarios the game struggles in comparison to the alien legendary encounters game as I already said.  We did try the competitive predators game with my weekly group but it was not an enjoyable experience and was a total crap-shoot as to whether anyone would be able to gather the cards that they needed in time to pinch their win.

Friday

I have to tip my hat to Friday which is a solid little deck builder that the 1 Player Guild champions with huge fervour, and rightly so really.  For an introductory solo game Friday hits that perfect sweet spot between not being too complicated and also offering a ‘just one more go’ type of experience, especially given how easy it is to just shuffle up and go again. However, once you have figured out how to beat the game, much like Airborne Commander, there is less and less reason to go back to it for more. I would very much like to see a thematic version of this game with better art and a more interesting theme.  This is not to say I do not enjoy the Robinson Crusoe/deserted island theme but rather I think it could be better served by having interesting and cool cards rather than cards with names like ‘Very Stupid’ which my little boy finds hilarious whenever he sees them.  In any case, if I knew a guy with access to a cool fantasy IP and hundreds of beautiful, unique images I’d definitely have a word with him about a potential reimplementation...

Onirim

This is another game I bought based on feedback from members of the - you guessed it - 1 Player Guild who suggested that it is a perfect one player game and in many ways it is. However the theme is very abstract and the implementation of that theme in the card mechanics, whilst clever, is also very abstract and not really my sort of game. I definitely think it has charm but even with mixing in the expansions it simply is not the game for me. I have a lot of respect for the person who designed this game and the series and for their unique identity as they are all instantly recognisable but generally I tend to prefer games where I understand more about who I am and what I am physically doing within the context of that game.

And again once you have figured out how to beat the game you won't struggle until you start including some expansion content. So, after 5 victories with the base game and then throwing the Books expansion into the mix I was able to suffer a single loss followed by another 4 victories.

Beautifully presented game though!

Argonauts

This is a Kickstarter game which I was particularly happy with. The first board game I ever designed when I was a kid at school was a Jason and the Argonauts-themed Talisman rip-off. You travelled around the board getting into encounters as Jason and eventually had to save Media from a Hydra.  Whereas in this game you get to travel around the board getting into encounters as Jason and having to save Media from a Hydra. The fundamental difference between this game and the one that I created as a kid is that this game is exquisitely beautiful, carefully balanced, interesting to play, and provides a unique and quality co-operative experience that is perfect for the family.  Whereas my version was a bit bobbins.

I have a lot of fun playing this with my little boy who is old enough to grasp the main concepts quite well without much guidance.  And even though this wasn't technically solo I'm still going to included it in the list because we played at least 10 times using the vairant ‘Entropy’ rules which allow you to mix up everything including all of the boss monster encounters and all of the city encounters providing a nice replay value after you have finished the game many times already using the standard rules and setup (which we have).  The game is so pretty when set up it is one of those we keep coming back to and the mechanics are so slick, euro-y, and easy to follow but with a healthy dollop of theme and battling, that it provides for a rich and addictive experience which just keeps you coming back for more.  I love this game and am very happy with the quality and the components, and I'm looking forward to the producers’ next game Ironclad with great expectations.

Rune Age

Rune Age is one of my favourite deck building games and sorely overlooked by the masses it seems. I played the Resurgence scenario 10 times: Daqan Lords managed a win with just 2HP to spare at the end, the Dwarfs took a loss, Uthuks won with 6HP remaining, Elves, then Orcs then Undying all lost bitterly.  I followed this up with the Cataclysm scenario where the Daqan managed to win again with 11HP remaining, the Uthuks lost, the Orcs won at 2HP, and finally even the bloody Elves won with a whopping 9HP remaining!  I don’t know what that tells you about the stats but at least it goes someway towards validating the Elves which people seem to hate so much.  :D  And if you don’t play Rune Age you probably don’t have a clue what I’m talking about, suffice to say that for a deck-building game with such a small card pool it has a metric tonne of advice to offer lesser deck building games with much mightier card counts, especially with the sheer variety of scenarios and ways to play that it contains.

The expansion is an absolute must however, if you can track it down that is...

Okay, so thank you for joining me on my solo 10 by 10 journey of 2016. I have already set myself another 10 x 10 Challenge for 2017 and I'm looking forward to getting stuck into that as soon as possible. However I am having to try and learn new games such as Perdition's Mouth which are very complex and taking up quite a lot of my time which means progress on actually playing the damn thing has been bloody slow so far!  First world problems and all that.  :D  I  I also have a couple of other projects that have been consuming a whole bunch of my time, which I really must get back to asap…

Cheers!

T xx

No more games - play what you’ve got! Part 2, Return of the Living Deck Builders

I’ve banned new games from being purchased in 2014 to allow us a year to play through all the games we’ve already got – and there are a fair few of them, though a very modest collection compared to many other gamers.  If a brilliant, must-have game emerges this year I’ll just have to wait to see if it survives a few months of fair reviewing and the cult of the new to become a lasting classic, and if so I should theoretically have no problem picking it up in 2015 anyway. 

Truth be told, we’ve not passed the first quarter and I’m already wavering a little on this rule with the launch of the MERCS Recon Kick Starter.  If it goes anywhere near as mental as Myth it will be too good to resist given the amount of toys on offer for the standard pledge amount.  I pledged Captain on Myth and I’m worried about the seeming lack of structure and rules palava but very much looking forward to my international package arriving, whenever that might be.  And once our American friends sort out the rules FAQs and make us some nice reference sheets to get stuck in with I’m sure the whole game will run like a dream… 

Anyway, I’m definitely keeping an eye on Recon too to see how it goes, and already threw in my dollar pledge to keep up with their updates, and also because – despite all the rules hassles and apparent issues with Myth - they genuinely seem like a great bunch of guys.  Also, the Fireteam Zero KS game looks sweet too, with a great theme and cool minis…  Must.  Resist…

February was all about play-testing 1066, and getting to grips with Sedition Wars, which was an unexpected development considering I’d only originally bought the game for parts.  But Sedition Wars turned out to be a neat replacement for Space Hulk, which you can read all about if you scroll all the way down to, um, the next sentence…

Sedition Wars: The Battle for Alabaster

I didn't KS the game, and judging from the hate in the BGG forums I feel really bad for those that did.  But it was going ridiculously cheap in the UK last year (£20 for 50+ minis in the core set) and I needed the gluing and assembly practice for when [thing=55690]Kingdom Death[/thing] arrives.  I was dreading the process, but the barrier to entry on the game turned out to be even more enormous for me than I’d thought:

• The rules are a mess and took a thorough re-re-reading, with much head scratching.
• I had to glue in all the FAQ updates to the rulebook, and some of those didn't make sense either.
• Having not assembled minis since a Warhammer skeleton set when I was a kid (I should post pics of those – they’re hilarious, like each dude has a giant mutant fungal infection, if fungus looked like massive glue globs) I had to invest in some precision sprue clippers.
• I had a nightmare with poly cementing the figures because they all just fell apart overnight, undoing all of my meticulous work, that was one disappointing morning.  Lesson learnt – don’t bother with poly cement.
• Eventually got some loctite glue from eBay and spent three nights gluing the buggers together (everything except for the big monster's mouth tentacles, which I’ve left in the box to this day as being too fiddly for now).
• Managed to glue my forefinger and thumb together too, which are now permanently in the 'A-okay' pose.
• Then we had to pilfer the doors from Space Crusade as the game doesn't come with any, even though they're pretty essential to the gameplay.
• Then we had to nick the tiny red dice from Warhammer Quest to track character's health because the wound counters were too cluttered.
• Had to buy a hobby box to store all the counters in, which are poor quality paper counters, a few ripped whilst being punched, and paper particles were [i]everywhere[/i].
• Then when we finally played there was much rules up-looking on BGG required midgame too.
• Also, the tiles are afflicted by the dreaded warping.
• Universal Head's rules summary is essential to play it as are his updated character cards, so thanks once again UH for saving the day.
• And I still have to paint the minis.  Luckily I’m not a minis painter, so that will probably never happen.  Although, now that I’ve moderately successfully tackled gluing minis…
• Anyway, had I known there would be so much prep involved I might have avoided it altogether.

All that said, when we finally got to play, I was quickly addicted!

• There is way more going on here than in Space Hulk for example, with tons of individual character abilities, which can be activated in different ways on different turns.
• There are cool terrain features to interact with which change the landscape of each scenario.
• The flavour text is great, and really bulks out the huge rules book, though I didn’t read all of the flavour because…  it really bulks out the huge rules book.
• The back and forth play of actions and reactions makes for incredibly tactical and tense games.
• The minis are some of the best I've seen, and I especially love the overall look of the Vanguard figs.
• The tile art is really nice, if a little dark.
• And for a few weeks earlier this year this was all we played.
• The theme is a total winner for me, and it feels a little more gritty and nasty – vanguards getting infected and mutating into baddies, corpses turned into radioactive spores which can turn into monsters too - than say, Doom, which I also enjoy, but which is more cartoony.  I think I prefer Sedition Wars.
• The force points totals for choosing your guys each mission gradually open up as you progress through the scenarios, which means you can learn the basics with the first scenario and then you get to move on and access the bigger dudes and abilities as you go along.  I’m really looking forward to opening up the bigger squads and bringing out the big guns.  On both sides.
• In fact I'd happily go back to play it again right now, whilst the rules are still vaguely in my head, preferably.
• And now I also have some basic glue skills to apply to KD:M when it lands…

In our first two games I bagged two wins against Sam as the Strain, and the first game could not have been closer, with it coming down to the last die roll, which is kinda what you want in a game like this.

Then we played another session the week after and as I was the Vanguard in scenario 2 Sam wiped me out handily, which does mean that currently the Strain are unbeaten.  But I think it’s too early with a game like this to judge if the Strain are over-powered, it certainly didn’t feel like it in our second game.

Definitely want to play again with more force points to see more of the game and to try for a win as the Vanguard, but overall, and more importantly - for the price I paid - this was a really great purchase.

Games played in 2014 = 3

Rating in 2014 = 7.5

Last Night on Earth: The Zombie Game

Took quite a few sessions over the years with the base game alone before I realised I needed every expansion going for this game.  Started by picking up Survival of the Fittest, which I think was a mistake as Growing Hunger makes for a more sensible progression, and SotF assumes you’ve already read the GH rules anyway.  But once I picked them all up we were off, all the expansion decks got shuffled in, and we haven’t looked back.

We decided to have a bash at Plague Carriers, because it didn’t look too complex, and I think we’d only played it once before.  Sam played the zombies, with me as Victor the crim and Goddard the teach, whilst Dan was Sally the schoolgirl and Sam the diner cook.  We hobbled off to a tricky start but soon tooled up our heroes.  With fairly few wounds and some meek resistance from the Walkers, we raced out of hiding and hopped around the board getting head shots on all the plagueys with some added dynamite fun from Goddard and his permanent ‘lighter’, handily wiping them out with about 7 turns to go on the sun tracker.

As light and breezy as this is once you get past all the rules and FAQ issues, and as dice and card reliant as the luck is, LNoE is such a fun game, it will always have a place in the collection, even though it can sometimes go long for what it is.  And occasionally, like this time, the end result can be pre-determined maybe sooner than you’d like.

I’m intrigued by the levelling up rules from Timber Peak, but I’m not seeing the value in getting that as well as the base game now that we already have the LNoE expansions instead, and there just isn’t room in the collection for both.  Plus LNoE has so much replayability built in.  I’m also reminded that I picked up the Horror Clix game Freddie Vs Jason for £2 a few years ago, and the minis and bits from that went straight into the box for LNoE.  Which means at some point I’m going to have to sit down and design that Freddie Vs Jason Vs Zombies Vs Heroes scenario…

Games played in 2014 = 1

Rating in 2013 = 9

Rating in 2014 = 8

Thunderstone

I love the art style for this game, love it.  I really like the idea of light and its impact on the different levels of the dungeon, but I think it’s poorly executed.  It’s just basic maths at the end of the day, but it detracts a lot from what you’re doing whilst you’re working it out, even after a few plays, and there’s so much adding and subtracting that you really get less of a feel of dungeon exploring, which is ostensibly what this game is.  I hear they’ve tightened this up in the new edition, but I’m not really interested in re-buying the game again.

However, as a light deck builder, this passes the time nicely.  The random setups give tons of replayability, but can deliver some occasionally very odd gaming combos.  This particular session we ended up with only really high cost heroes in the line up, which meant it took us longer to get going, but then we beasted through the dungeons more quickly once we were up and running.  The pace was pretty even, though it felt like Sam was dominating for the most part, levelling up his heroes more often than I was.  But all those extra village visits would be his undoing as I just kept chipping away at all the monsters, and eventually beat him to the Thunderstone for the victory.  Just.  The scores were 47 to 45!

A good solid deck builder, but not the best deck builder…

Games played in 2014 = 1

Rating in 2013 = 8

Rating in 2014 = 8

Dominion

Sam properly kicked my arse at this.

I’ve still got tons of respect for it as the daddy of Deck Building Games.  But it feels like most other DBGs have improved dramatically on the design since.  This feeling might be mitigated with expansions, but why bother doing that when you can build on better DBGs already instead?  And there are so many Dominion expansions I’m not sure I’d know, or care, where to start.

That said, it’s a good, fast playing game, with occasional minor confrontation thrown in with certain cards in the random set up, like Militias and Thieves.  Again I like the card art in this game, which I’m a sucker for, though the box art is bafflingly rubbish – seems like a missed opportunity there, but certainly didn’t hurt its sales figures!  I don’t really get the feeling of building my city, but then I don’t really get much thematic satisfaction from deck builders, because everything you build or develop quickly disappears into your big stack of cards.  I think Mage Knight (or even Pathfinder) handles this deck building implementation more ‘thematically’ by making it a set of spells, items and actions you have available, instead of buildings or people that occasionally pop up, depending on what hand you’re dealt.

I’m developing this deck building mechanic as one element for my horror game Blackmoor, where your deck is a set of emotions your hero has.  Playing emotions drives the actions available to you, and as you explore the game, your more placid emotions are gradually replaced with more extreme anxieties, fears and rages, as your hero starts to gradually lose it from the events he’s witnessing.  So, for example, if you see flitting shadows in a darkened room you might get an anxiety card, but if you see a massive rearing tentacled beastie you get a terror card.  An anxiety card might help you to run away from something, but a terror card is less likely to help you, it might even drive you to do something crazy to get rid of it, like murdering an ally or stranger.  And of course if you don’t get rid of that terror card, and it’s still in your deck come the endgame, well, then really bad things are going to happen to you...  Since deck-building decks are constantly in flux I think mechanically it fits nicely with how a person’s emotions are constantly in flux, whereas more fixed game elements, like items or people will stay out in play independently of the deck building aspect of the game.

Anyway, rambling aside, Dominion am good, but not as fun as the other DBGs.

Games played in 2014 = 1

Rating in 2013 = 7

Rating in 2014 = 7

Rune Age

Okay, so here’s my current favourite strictly DBG (i.e. not Mage Knight) deck builder.

This is a hugely underrated gem of a game, with loads of different play styles which are all thoroughly fleshed out and enjoyable.  There’s a nice solo option, some great competitive scenarios, some which have direct conflict and plenty of attacking each other, some are more like competitive races, and then, especially with the expansion included – and you really do need the expansion if you get this game, for the extra units, variety and races – there are really cool cooperative scenarios too.

We decided on the competitive racing type for this session with two games of Monument, which we’d not played before (I won both sessions).  This is yet another great scenario, where you’re racing to build your civilisation’s great wonder or, er, Monument.  This is a great, really enjoyable game in any case.  Beautiful art, typical of FFG, set vaguely in the Runebound world, and with the random card load-outs and asymmetrical starting races, punishing event cards in all the scenarios, and the varying scenarios themselves, there is a ton of quality variety and replayability in this comparatively teeny tiny box.  The die roll when tackling events adds a really sweet element of tactical pressure – do I go and smite this dragon now with a potentially under-prepared force, or do I wait until I’ve got the firepower to tackle it and potentially risk my opponent getting there first?  There are also plenty of opportunities to sneakily steal your opponent’s cities and cause havoc with his deck too.  Actually notched this up a point in the rating because it plays so quickly and easily.  Definitely on a par with Resident Evil for best deck builder, probably even better than RE though.

Games played in 2014 = 2

Rating in 2013 = 8

Rating in 2014 = 9

1066: Tears to Many Mothers

We’ve been play-testing the crap out of my latest two player game design, 1066, Tears to Many Mothers, and I’m really delighted with the results.  Plays much faster and more aggressively than Fantasy Quest, which makes sense since it’s a more directly competitive conflict game, and with a much simpler rules set, which is much kinder on my feeble designer brain when I have to explain how to play it to others.

I put a ton of time and effort (like, hundreds of hours so far) into getting the little historical details to match up with the gameplay where possible, writing in as many of the characters and events involved in the battle of Hastings as I could, whilst keeping the deck sizes relatively pared down – currently just 77 cards on each side - though there are obviously narrative jumps and embellishments to aid the overall playability.  And every card has its own bit of historical flavour text so you might actually learn something as you go.  I should really start pitching this format to schools!  Re-living and re-writing one of the most important battles of the middle ages has never been so much fun!

We’ve repeatedly swapped sides and tinkered and tested and though they’re asymmetrically designed, both decks are evening out in the wash in terms of balance, and more importantly, fun.  There are plenty of cards on both sides which can trigger a moan of despair from your opponent, but also plenty of nasty quick-death cards to effectively counter them.  My mate at work, despite getting his arse kicked every time, keeps asking to play it at lunchtime, which has been an absolute god-send in terms of getting repeated play-testing in.  He finally, literally, beat me at my own game yesterday, now that familiarity with the cards and tactics is beginning to set in, especially in the little details – like manoeuvring Units and Characters into their most effective slots (e.g. the Norman cavalry were stationed at the rear, whilst the Saxon housecarles led the shield walls from the front, so if you can match those positions with your cards you’ll get a bonus), just like in the real battle.  And my gamer buddies have greatly enjoyed trying to break it, of course.  It even gets asked for like, you know, a regular game now, to kick-start the night.  :D

So many games, so many stats, but the most notable victories are the down to the nail ones, where both sides have claimed a Wedge each and are fighting hard for every single point of damage on that last Wedge.  Or when Harold gets his last point of health taken out by an Arrow to the Eye.  Or when the Saxons bagged that final Wedge battle by careful manipulation of… Drinking and Singing, literally drinking and singing their way to victory!

After compiling tons of feedback on everything from the rules, to the card template layouts, to the balance, quantity and relative strength of every card, I’ve ordered the latest and probably final version of the cards from Printer Studio and I cannot wait for them to arrive.  :)

Games played in 2014 = Many.  Tears.  To Mothers.

Oh, and here's a pic of Sam and me throwing down on 1066 at the GNOME 2014 Bolton gaming event, image courtesy of William Riley:

  

So that’s it for now, hopefully I’ll do a catch up again soon.  Here follows the rest of the games we want to get through this year.  Oh, and World of Warcraft: the Board Game has finally gone, I ditched it for £20 at the Bolton gaming event.  Slow and steady wins the race.

A Touch of Evil: The Supernatural Game

Arkham Horror

Call of Cthulhu: Collectible Card Game

Claustrophobia

Constantinopolis

Dark Darker Darkest

Descent: Journeys in the Dark

Descent: Journeys in the Dark (Second Edition)

Doom: The Boardgame

Dungeon Command: Sting of Lolth

Dungeon Lords

Dungeoneer: Vault of the Fiends

Dungeons & Dragons: Castle Ravenloft Board Game

Dungeons & Dragons: The Legend of Drizzt Board Game

Dungeons & Dragons: Wrath of Ashardalon Board Game

Eclipse

Flash Point: Fire Rescue

Fortune and Glory: The Cliffhanger Game

Gears of War: The Board Game

Gloom of Kilforth: A Fantasy Quest Game

HeroQuest

Invaders

Lord of the Rings

Lords of Waterdeep: Scoundrels of Skullport

Magic Realm

Omen: A Reign of War

Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Rise of the Runelords - Base Set

Resident Evil Deck Building Game

Return of the Heroes

Revolver

Robinson Crusoe: Adventure on the Cursed Island

Space Crusade

Space Hulk: Death Angel - The Card Game

Star Wars: The Card Game

Tales of the Arabian Nights

Talisman

The Ares Project

The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game

War of the Ring (first edition)

Warhammer Quest

When Darkness Comes

Zombies!!!

1066, Tears to Many Mothers