Merric's Musings

Jun. 30th, 2009

Amazon

Last week, I ordered a bunch of books from Amazon. (How many is a bunch? About 11 books, although two of the books are actually trilogies in one volume). All the books have been part of one order.

They've shipped to me in four lots (over about 2-3 days). Interestingly, the first two shipments (a total of four books) were with the "expedited International Delivery" which I actually ordered - which means that they'll get here in about four weeks time.

The other two lots of books (the other seven books) were shipped using UPS International shipping... which gives them an estimated delivery date of this Friday...

Go figure that one out!

The books:
By Stephen Brust: "The Sun, The Moon and the Stars", "Agyar", "The Gypsy", "Cowboy Feng's Space Bar and Grille", "To Reign in Hell" and "The Book of Jhereg". (that last I once owned, but it got lent to someone and has disappeared off into the aether).
By Judith Tarr: "The Hound and the Falcon" trilogy ("The Isle of Glass", "The Golden Horn" and "The Hounds of God"). I've read them all before and they're one of my favourite fantasy series.
by Michelle Sagara: "Cast in Fury", book 4 of her Elantra series.
by Barbara Hambly: "Mother of Winter", one of the Darwath series.
by Anne Bishop: "The Black Jewels Trilogy". Yes, I love this series. My first copies of the books have been given as a present for a friend. I want this edition as it has a much, much better cover.
and a game book: "Classic Battletech: Jihad Hot Spots 3072".

Jun. 22nd, 2009

David Eddings

I'm apparently really out of touch at the moment.

David Eddings, the author of The Belgariad and The Elenium, died three weeks ago. I only learnt of it today.

The Belgariad was the "big" fantasy series when I was still at school. (Along with the Riftwar saga, by Ray Feist). It took some time for me to actually get around to reading it, but it was so worth it when I eventually did. The genius of Eddings was in his characters' dialogue: it was funny, it was enjoyable, and it showed me that big fantasy epics didn't have to be stately like The Lord of the Rings - they could be lots of fun as well.

After I read The Belgariad, I joined the many, many people waiting for Eddings to finish writing the Mallorean, a series that seemed to have more than its share of delays. Actually, looking at the publication dates, it didn't have those delays - it just seemed like it at the time. Of course, it didn't help that books 1-4 came out in 87-89, and then the finale in 1991...

My favourite Eddings series, however, would have to be the Elenium, telling the story of Sir Sparhawk, Knight of the Pandion Order. Unlike "The Belgariad", it isn't a coming of age story. Instead, the main character is older, battered by the world, and incredibly sympathetic. It's sequel, "The Tamuli", while fun, wasn't up to the high standards of the earlier books: unfortunately Eddings' later books tended to be repetitive and without credible threats: the main characters would tend to just laugh off anything.

I enjoyed "The Redemption of Althalus", although it was obvious Eddings was slipping, but his final series "The Dreamers" was so full of repeated phrases and jokes that I didn't progress past the first book. It was sad to see a great author in his twilight years.

However, that leaves 17 books that I enjoyed very much - more than enough for most lifetimes.

Thank you, Mr Eddings.

Posted at 02:45 pm | Link | Leave a comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend

Jun. 15th, 2009

Weekend

I spent a busy weekend playing games.

On Saturday, I first stopped by Good Games Ballarat and played a game of Ticket to Ride: Nordic Countries with Mark; I also picked up "Naval Battles" and had a game of that with Liam, before heading over to Randy's and our regular boardgame day.

Of note from the BGD:
* Rich completely dominated a game of "Age of Empires III" (yes, the boardgame), winning with a score of 98 points. It was an absolutely brilliant performance from Rich, which none of us managed to get close to.

* We played "Sceptre of Zavandor" for the first time. It's ranked #177 on BGG. This was a very fun Eurogame: you're buying and selling magical gems, artifacts and learning new tricks of knowledge. The eventual object is to get a couple of familiars (sentinels). Randy came from a slow start to dominate the final part of the game, but I was competitive. Laurie decided to sell everything that would earn him money to buy something he didn't need, and came last by a long way as a result.

* We played "Nuclear Escalation", one of the variants/expansions to the classic game of "Nuclear War". Everyone lost. It's been 20 years since I last played it! It's a beer and pretzels game, much like "Naval War", which was also played here.

* My quest to introduce people to "Race for the Galaxy" continued. I really like the game, but I certainly haven't played many games with more than 2 players. Playing four players was really unusual - and a lot of fun. I won this game by a moderate amount. As Laurie and Ian were playing for the first time, this wasn't surprising.

* Randy brought out his new copy of "Wallenstein". Well, it's a 2nd-hand copy, but it was an absolute delight to play the fore-runner to Dirk Henn's Shogun. I don't like it anything as much as "Shogun", but it's a very different experience due to the way the events and the maps are different (despite everything else being the same!) Randy and Laurie did pretty well in this game. I had a promising start but ended in ruin.

On Sunday, I went back to Good Games Ballarat, but there weren't really enough people to make it a satisfying day. I played a game of Naval War with Liam and Jackson, and then a four-player draft (3 packs of Alara Reborn). I don't want to draft only Reborn again - the card selection is very unbalanced IMO, and a lot of really important staples are missing (like cheap ways of dealing with flying creatures).

I need more sleep, now!

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Jun. 9th, 2009

Delight of delights!

I've just bought Skin Trade, the latest Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter novel. Woo. Good stuff here: Edward's back, and Anita seems to be being taken far outside of her comfort zone.

Guess what I'll be reading tonight?

Posted at 02:22 pm | Link | Leave a comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend

Jun. 8th, 2009

Thoughts on my 4E anniversary

Incredibly, it is now exactly a year since I ran my first session of D&D 4E - the first session of Keep on the Shadowfell. In Australia, the adventure arrived about a month late, so I got it almost with the core rulebooks. Certainly, we all had the rulebooks when we played that first session, although we still (mostly) were using the pregenerated characters.

Yesterday, I ran a "interim" session for that campaign to make sure everyone in the group had achieved 11th level. Our next session will see us embarking on the first of the Paragon level adventures: King of the Trollhaunt Warrens, of which I've spoken highly before. I hope it plays as well as it reads!

It seems like a good time to reflect on how 4e has treated us and we've treated 4e over the past year.

Honestly, 4e has been a tricky proposition. There are things I adore about the system, for instance the healing surges, the lack of dependence on clerics and the much, much shorter statblocks for monsters, but getting used to elements like rituals and skill challenges has taken longer. We still don't use rituals much (even in the homebrew game I ran), and it was only during the D&D Game Day a couple of weeks ago that I was happy with how a skill challenge was written.

Then too, the players have had to get used to the system and the new emphases for playing and building their characters. The fighter is no longer the character for beginning characters. (Our group believes the ranger is far better as such). I've had a few players not quite content with the number of options available to their characters, but there have been two things that have gone a long way towards fixing that.

The first is the release of the Power books and the Player's Handbook II. With those books, it is astonishing to see how much they've filled in the system and provided a wealth of options for character building. 4E feels much more a "complete" system with them.

The other, and by no means the least important, is the D&D Insider. Nathaniel subscribed to it a few weeks ago, and he's now greatly addicted to it. The impact of being able to look up at the game table every feat and power published in the system without having to flip through masses of books cannot be underestimated. And then, when it includes feats and powers from books or sources (such as the minis) that you don't have? Fantastic! And Nathaniel is a Mac user!

So, as 4e matures as a system, a lot of the original rough edges are seeming to be smoothed out. It's no longer the 4e that was originally released.

Another aspect of 4e that might not be apparent to everyone, especially those that have only scanned the core books, is that the implied "points of light" world is getting more and more detailed. The adventures have helped here: although they're not quite as detailed as I'd like in the descriptions of individual rooms, I've read quite a bit of "setting" background which has filled in history, given relationships of the gods and primordials, and more material of that nature that I've found inspiring and entertaining.

Then too, books like Open Grave are great for more of those details. I really can't praise Open Grave enough. Its predecessor in the 3e days was a book I found particularly boring and rarely used... but Open Grave is finding its way into more and more of the adventures I write, and now it's beginning to inspire them as well.

E1 finally arrived this week. (Australia seems to get the rest of the D&D books on their release date. Why do the adventures seem to take 6 weeks more?) Inside it were a number of really nice surprises. The first was that E1 is properly the first part of a trilogy of epic level adventures. I don't think you can say that about the H or P series, but E1 has a very open (you might say, cliff-hanger!) ending. And it's a doozy. It may be another year before I run it, but I'm really looking forward to it.

The second really nice thing about E1 relates to the way that the rooms actually have descriptions in the first adventure book; in particular murals that give some of the history of the world, with History and related skill checks to allow the PCs to get even more information than just the bare mural. There's more of the primordial war against the gods here, which is one of the best things about the mythology of 4e.

Finally, I got a real surprise with the Raven Queen...

However, as I mentioned, it'll be a while before my group reach E1. They're only just up to P1, and the first aspects of Paragon levels are just becoming apparent... and we're all getting very excited.

You see, Paragon levels actually mean something in 4e. It's very much like what happened when you reached your first Prestige Class in 3e, but far more consistently cool and awesome. Nathaniel, who reached 11th level before everyone else (there's an advantage with hosting the game and therefore being present for every session!), was demonstrating the powers of his half-elven fey warlock to all and sundry yesterday. He's taken a paragon class that allows him to do damage whenever he teleports... and (by virtue of D&D Insider) he's got a utility power that allows him to teleport at will!

Oh, boy. It's not overpowered at all - although it's great for clearing out minions - but he's having an absolute blast with it. Greg's (new) cleric will be able to take on an angelic form, and that's making his day. I'm not sure what Adam and Josh are doing with their paragon levels, but I'm sure they'll enjoy them.

There really is a feeling that the PCs have gone from novice adventurers to being real heroes at the world. I can only assume that the same will apply once they reach the epic levels.

So, 4E, one year on. Am I enjoying it more than when I started? Yes, definitely. I would say that it's now my favourite version of D&D to DM. To play? I don't know. I haven't actually been able to play it yet! I think there are still things that can be done to improve the game, especially with regard to the way skills and skill challenges are handled, but I feel that it's breadth of options and ease of play have now reached a level where it is a truly superior system. Of course it's not for everyone, but it's a game I feel very happy playing.

Jun. 6th, 2009

Plans and possibilities

This Friday, I was hoping to take my friends through a rather nifty (if I do say so myself) adventure set in the dark heart of Farika, hunting a tiger. I'd worked out a bunch of entertaining encounters, thrown in some interesting NPC interaction, and basically based the entire thing around Nathaniel's character. Well, not actually: Nate mainly would provide a great deal of the original hooks, after that there'd be something for everyone.

When Nathaniel then indicated he wouldn't be able to make the session for some reason I still don't pretend to understand, my heart plummetted. Urgh. Although I could still run the adventure, it wouldn't be nearly as much fun for me. I really wanted everyone there for it.

Martin then posted early on Friday morning that he had a cold, and that we'd be braving a plague pit to come. I had, by this stage, decided to run an interim adventure to tide everything over until Nate could return. However, with Martin's attention likely to be distracted by bouts of coughing and sneezing, it seemed prudent to cancel the session outright.

In two weeks, then, we'll play the adventure I'd originally planned, and I hope it's as entertaining for my friends as it is in my mind!

Sunday's roleplaying, with any luck, will continue as planned. Greg's cleric along with Josh's new character (a Goliath Fighter, as I recall) will join the rest of the group in a town besieged by undead. I should really pull out Expedition to Castle Ravenloft for some ideas on how to handle it. I know some of the players don't want to stay there any longer than they have to, and they can try to leave if they like...

This is an interim adventure to get everyone up to Paragon level before we start playing the "P" series of Wizards adventures. I'm very fond of P1 from my reading of it; I hope it's fun to play. That should be in a couple of week's time. E1 has just arrived, and that looks really fun!

(For some reason, the recent Wizards adventures have arrived about 6 weeks late here in Australia. Does anyone know why?)

I went to see Terminator Salvation on Friday afternoon. Hmm. It's not a great movie. Indeed, it's not a very good one. I enjoyed Terminator 3 a lot more than this film, despite all the bad press T3 got. T4 has some of the most clumsy and awful plotting you can imagine. When you have a scene where the villain explains the plot, you're always in trouble with a film (unless it's a Bond film - that goes with the territory). When the villain is a computer with no possible reason to actually tell anyone the plot... arrgghh!!!

The trouble is that the film actually isn't that bad. It just overcomplicates the plot by making it all this giant plan. Remove the plan and everything works so much better! Skynet knows things that it really doesn't need to know. Even if you accept that it knows who some people are and their future importance, the way it then handles everything is dumb beyond description.

Making the film worse is that most of the roles in it are terribly underwritten and with little depth. You can see the actors trying their best, but mostly it's just an excuse to get to the next action sequence. However, action sequences work best when they have a point; When you care about the characters involved or their goals. "Survive the next action sequence" doesn't quite do it for me.

The score for the film is by Danny Elfman, who has written some brilliant scores in his time - possibly none better than those for the two Tim Burton "Batman" films. Unfortunately, it's completely undistinguished and unforgettable. It would have been far better if he'd used more elements from T2, which has one of the great film scores of all time, but no, nothing like that. Just bland, boring music.

After the disappointment of Terminator Salvation, it was off to Good Games for replacement gaming, in this case a four-player booster draft. The other players were Craig Kay (playing his first game of Magic in many, many years), Tim and Anthony. Tim and Anthony are relatively new players and Craig wasn't familiar with the drafting patterns of the new set yet (he eventually ended up with a 2-colour deck; I think a 3-colour would have worked better). Still, the draft was fun.

My own deck I was initially rather pleased with, but, looking back at it, I'm really glad I didn't have better competition. It was terribly slow and had tremendous problems in some games with getting out essential blue mana. There were some nice cards in it, though.

Possibly the card I overrated the most was this one: Kederekt Leviathan. I managed to completely miss the "non-land" part when I was reading it for the first time. It's still not a bad card, but it never came in helpful in the draft. Thankfully, I didn't draw it that often.

More fun, and perhaps the best revision-in-the-spirit-of-the-original-card was this one, Path to Exile. The original card was Swords to Plowshares; Path actually implements the name "Swords to Plowshares" better than the original! Good fun.

Good things about my deck was the card-drawing - there were two cards that could achieve it - and the special lands. It was still too slow, although inexorable if allowed time to develop. My opponents allowed me the time. The one time Craig could have taken the game, he then drew 10(!) lands in a row, and I came back with the win. Overall, the results were 2-0, 2-0 and (surprise, surprise) 2-0.

The decklist, just in case I ever want to refer to it again:

WHITE: Aven Trailblazer, Guardian of Akrasa, Path to Exile, Sanctum Gargoyle

BLUE: Kederekt Leviathan

GREEN: Drumhunter, Filigree Fracture, Jungle Weaver, Topan Ascetic, Tukatongue Thallid

GOLD: Aven Mimeomancer, Bant Sojourners, Crystallization, Ethercaste Knight, Marisa's Twinclaws, Rhox Bodyguard, Sigiled Behomoth, Skyward Eye Prophets, Stormcaller's Boon, Stun Sniper, Vagrant Plowbeasts, 2 Wildfire Borderposts, Winged Coatl

LAND: Ancient Ziggurat, Esper Panorama, Jungle Shrine, Rapture Shrine, 3 Islands, 4 Plains, 4 Forests

Jun. 5th, 2009

Old Friends and Magic

Last night, Randy was ill, so I was free to go to the Magic draft at Good Games Ballarat. There, I met with old friends Julian and Craig for the first time in quite a few years. It was really nice to see them again, especially Julian, who played D&D with me for a couple of years in addition to all the Magic games we had together.

Possibly the less said about the draft the better. We had nine players and unfortunately I had the bye in the first round (so I went and got some dinner for myself and Shane). The second round I was paired against Julian, where he demonstrated to me the most terrifying opening in draft Magic.

Turn 1: Forest, Elf

Turn 2: Island, 5/6 Monster.

Turn 3: Elf

It there was one thing my deck was notable for, it was how slow it was at getting out creatures. The first time Julian did this (in the first game), I was lucky enough to have a Crystalize in hand and so could negate the monster before it took me down. The second game, I was in trouble with my mana and all my spells were too expensive. The third game, Julian didn't draw the combo in his opening hand and I was able to take the victory.

What was the Monster? It was a little creature called the Nulltread Gargantuan. Here's the card:

To make things worse, the Elf wasn't actually an elf... it was a 1/1 exalted 1-cost rare. The Noble Hierarch. A very nice card indeed:

So, on turn three, it rentered play and I was facing a 6/7 attacking creature.

Still, I survived through the second match and then had to face Jesse in the final round. The first game was long... really long. Long enough so that I was really wondering where a couple of my great cards were (never saw them in the match, alas). Where Jesse had an advantage was in a little common 2/2. This one:

I had a lot of green in my deck, and I just couldn't attack past it. Meanwhile, Jesse was getting even scarier creatures out that all my creature kill and shutdown had to deal with rather than the Zombie.

Eventually, he killed my Stun Sniper and that was it.

In the second game, Jesse played the Zombie Outlander, followed it with an enchantment that gave it +3/+0 and First Strike, and that was it. I still came second in the tournament, but I can say that the deck I drafted wasn't good at all; definitely too slow compared to some of the other decks around - I consider myself very lucky to have defeated Julian in my first match - and with a horrible colour balance.

Here's the construction of the deck as I recall:

LANDS: 6 Forests, 5 Plains, 4 Mountains, 1 Savage Temple

GREEN: Algae Ghariel, Beacon Behomoth, Court Archers, Gift of the Gargantuan, Sacellum Archers, 2x Wild Leotau

RED: 2x Bloodpyre Elemental, Toxic Iguana

WHITE: Akrasan Squire, Aven Squire,

GOLD: 2x Bant Sureblade, 2x Behomoth Sledges, Crystalize, Deadshot Minotaur, Enlisted Wurm, Firewild Borderpost, Naya Charm, Pale Recluse, Rhox Bodyguard, Stun Sniper

Posted at 12:55 pm | Link | Leave a comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend

Jun. 2nd, 2009

Weekend fun - Le Havre, Age of Empires, Magic

I'm now mostly over the cold I've had for the last week and a bit. Hooray! I was never happier that Martin cancelled Friday's Star Wars session because it allowed me to recuperate a lot. Unfortunately, I had to cancel Thursday's boardgaming session, which would have probably found Randy, Sarah and me playing Android.

I was well enough on Saturday to get to the regular boardgame day, though. Weirdly enough, only Sarah and Randy were there - everyone else had a case of the "we've got family/acting/other commitments".

So, we ended up playing Android anyway! And my first multiplayer game of Le Havre, and a three-player game ofThrough the Ages.

Yes, we had a lot of fun.

Sarah also owns Le Havre, and had played a couple of 2-player games of it. I'd played a lot of solo game. Randy hadn't seen the game before. Guess who won? Yes, that's right: Randy.

Randy and I have played lots and lots of Through the Ages together. Sarah's never played it before. Guess who won that? Yeah, Sarah.

Thankfully, I won Android. Randy killed the suspect that Sarah was obsessed with, and my Android character successfully solved the crime (and made the crime worth a *lot* of VPs).

We also had a game of Ra with Randy's daughter, Wren. Randy won that.

On Sunday, I went into Good Games Ballarat for some extra boardgaming. Rich, back from his family obligations, turn up and I introduced three of the gamers there to the Age of Empires III boardgame. In the end, I won narrowly from Rich, who had an exceptional game. It was rather scary to see how many points he achieved from colonies...

We also had a three-player game of Race for the Galaxy, which I dominated; you really need to play that game a bit before you get good at it.

After that, I participated in a 6-player Magic: the Gathering draft using the Alara block. As with the draft last week, I blitzed the field: 2-0, 2-0, 2-0. Sarah and Daniel wandered by a little later on and demonstrated Galaxy Trucker to Mick, and listened to my stories about how terrible my deck was. Honestly, the draft was mad: I thought I would be playing blue throughout most of the draft, but I ended up building a Red/Black/Green deck. I drafted seven rares in the draft, and only used one of them in the final deck: the Feral Hydra. It's a rather nice card, and in the one game I played it it achieved terrifying proportions.

Once again I played a 17 creatures, 17 land and 6 spell deck... well, almost. It actually was 15 land and 8 spells, but two of the "spells" were Borderpost artifacts - basically a dual-coloured land. I won a lot of my games by having a better source of mana than my opponents. I can tell an inexperienced Magic player by the size of their draft deck: many are 50+ cards rather than the bare 40 I played with, and they really, really get into mana problems.

The game I came closest to losing was against Neil Nickless, against whom I've played many good games over the years. Neil had played a 2/3 flyer, and I just couldn't block it. I watched my life whittling away: 16, 14, 12, 10, 8... To make things worse, I was drawing a *lot* of land. In the entire game, I only drew 6 spells (and 9 land).

However, I managed to play first a Feral Hydra and then a Thorn-Thrash Viashino. The Viashino was funny: It's a 2/2 with Devour 2 and G:Trample. It ate a couple of 1/1 elves when I played it (the only other creatures I'd played) and suddenly was a 6/6. Then came Sylvan Bounty (creature gains +1/+1 counters equal to its current power)... and I had a 12/12 trampler along with the Feral Hydra, which was now 10/10. Neil lost his creatures futilely blocking mine, and the game was mine.

The deck, for those interested in such things:

BLACK: 2 Blister Beetles, Drag Down, Executioner's Capsule, Grixis Slavedriver, Yoke of the Damned

RED: Canyon Minotaur, 2 Dragonsoul Knights, Thorn-Thrash Viashino, Toxic Iguana, Vithian Stinger

GREEN: Algae Ghariel, Beacon Behomoth, Druid of the Anima, Elvish Visionary, Feral Hydra, Scattershot Archer, Soul's Might, Sylvan Bounty

GOLD: Firewild Borderpact, Exploding Borders, Marisi's Twin-Claws, Veinfire Borderpost, Valley Rannet

LAND: 4 Swamps, 5 Mountains, 6 Forests

Tags: board games, magic

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May. 26th, 2009

My Magic draft deck

CREATURES (17):
1W      Aven Squire (x2)
2W      Aven Trailblazer
3WW     Battlegrace Angel
5WW     Yoked Plowbeast
2R      Exuberant Firestoker
2G      Ember Weaver
3G      Algae Gharial
3G      Cliffrunner Behemoth
3G      Drumhunter
GW      Qasali Pridemage
RG      Nacatl Outlander
RGW     Woolly Thoctar
1RGW    Retaliator Griffin
2(G/U)W Messenger Falcons
4GW     Pale Recluse (x2)

SPELLS (6):
2G      Gift of the Gargantuan
(R/W)G Trace of Abundance
(B/G)R Sangrite Backlash
1WG     Sigil of the Nayan Gods
4RG     Vengeful Rebirth
3       Obelisk of Naya

LAND (17):
5 Plains
6 Forests
4 Mountains
Ancient Ziggurat
Jungle Shrine

Posted at 10:16 pm | Link | Leave a comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend

An exhausting Saturday

Saturday was a big day of gaming for me.

It started out at noon, when I ran the first of two sessions of the D&D Worldwide Game Day. The first group was mostly members of my regular games (Nathaniel, Martin, Rich and Josh) along with one complete newbie - Liam (I don't think he's even a teenager yet, though I might be wrong).

From my point of view, I think the session went well. The PCs were successful in their quest, and they did a really good job of co-operating (and occasionally rolling really good criticals). The adventure had a few flaws, but I really enjoyed running the skill challenge: it had a structure that made it work a lot better than some of Wizards' previous attempts at such.

We finished the session at 3.30pm, and after a short break I ran a second group through the adventure. This included someone who had never played D&D before (and wasn't enjoying it either) and three people who had - including Mark, one of the owners of Good Games where we were playing. As we were under more of a time limit on this one, I reduced the monster's HP by 25%, and I'm fairly pleased at how the session turned out. We finished just after six.

After that, Nash "dragged" me into a game of Small Worlds, the new game by Days of Wonder. It was really, really fun - I played some Forest Trolls, followed by some Fortified Halflings after the Trolls went into decline. That meant that my opponents (Shane, Nash and Jackson) really didn't want to attack me... and by the end of the game, I was victorious: 69 to 66, 66 and 61.

To finish off the day, I played in a booster draft of Magic using the three sets from the Alara cycle. I managed to draft a three-colour deck (Red/Green/White) which worked really well. How well? Well, I won all six games (three matches) I played in the draft. :) Shane had the one deck that probably could beat mine, but he mana-screwed himself in the second round and so we never duelled.

One of the cards I was passed (and used it against the guy who passed it to me in the final round) was the Retaliation Griffin: it's a 2/2 flyer for 1WGR. The trick? Every time I take damage, it gains +1/+1 counters equal to the damage I just did. When paired with the Exalted Angel (my first draft pick: creatures attacking alone get +1/+1 and lifelink), it was a terrific combination.

So, I won a couple of extra packs from the draft, and then headed off home (getting there after midnight) to crash... and then run another D&D session on Sunday.

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May. 21st, 2009

Dawn of Defiance update

Last Friday, we finished part 6 of the Dawn of Defiance campaign, The Core of Corruption. This installment gave us quite a number of troubles, mainly relating to its structure which assumed that we'd be more active in our investigation than we were happy in being. Honestly, most of us would be happy to have a big sign saying "Go This Way" at the beginning of the adventure, rather than the free-form investigation we ended up in... which mostly was frustrating as our plans kept getting foiled by one imperial faction after another. Urgh.

There was one glorious moment in the final session, when Martin - all credit to him - let me get away with some outrageous bluffing and retroactive maneuvers. Well, perhaps not that outrageous. Martin had assumed that we'd fight our way through all the final sessions, but my character, Miles, had other ideas (and a +19 Persuasion/Deception check). So, we impersonated engineers transporting oxyacetylene gear into a construction site. Except, I hadn't worked out the OA gear in advance. It's something I was doing on the fly. Martin let me get away with it, so our transport did have the gear in it despite us not specifying before we left.

Honestly, it's something I'm much happier with in a RPG: narrative flow of the game, with things being there because they feel right rather than having to painstakingly plan it all in advance. Yes, Miles is a master spy, so he'd have seen the gear and planned his cover around it. With Martin enabling it, it made the first part of the session really amusing. And then a stray blaster bolt ignited the gear once we actually got into a fight (actually, I don't think there was anything stray about it!) and the explosion took out a few imperials as well as severely hurting Miles, so the balance of the universe was retained.

That style of game is one I got very fond of when playing the Amber Diceless RPG back in the day; it's nice to see it here as well.

After that first couple of encounters, we got into the final encounters, which included a Jedi (Sith?) and his apprentices. Urgh. I used up a couple of Destiny Points just surviving that combat. It's not fun going into a Star Wars combat at half health at any time, and when you only have 60 HP to begin with? (Meanwhile, Greg's force-using meleeist is up around 100 HP). We survived and it was a fun fight, although the relative power of the PCs vs NPCs seems all over the place.

So we survived and escaped and we finally know what the Sarlaac Project is about. Well, we almost all survived: Miles' butler, Alfred, died in the final combat. Poor guy. I'll have to hire a new one next week... combat trained, of course!

Tags: dawn of defiance, star wars rpg

Posted at 01:01 pm | Link | Leave a comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend

May. 20th, 2009

Le Havre

Le Havre is a port city in France. Le Havre is the new game from the designer of Agricola. Guess which one I now own? Yes, alas, I don't own a town. However, in the stakes of really cool games, Le Havre is very close to the top.

The game is about developing the port city: building or buying buildings, harvesting goods and then manufacturing them into more useful commodities and - eventually - shipping them away for VPs. Sounds like Puerto Rico? Well, it's a long way from the game in how it's played. It's closer to Agricola or Caylus.

Unlike those last two worthy games, you only have one "worker". On your turn, you can either harvest goods or move your worker to a new building and obtain its effect (which can be converting goods to commodities, gaining goods, gaining commodities, building a new building, or a host of other effects). There's a couple of tricks here: the first is that you can't move your worker to a building that someone else has a worker in. This can be frustrating when you really want to build a ship but both wharves are currently occupied. The second is that you can use your own buildings for free... but other buildings cost. So, if you want to use your opponent's wharf, you have to pay him - either in money or in fish. Well, food. Most commonly fish.

I got to see part of the "simple" or "shortened" game played today by my students. Talk about frustrating - watching the game that I bought (for aus$96) being played by someone else! However, the game recommends it isn't played by 5 or more players; 3 is the sweet spot. They didn't get all of the way through the game - indeed, for 4 players, the shortened game still lasts about 2 hours! - but they got about 2/3rds of the way through... and now I want to play it more than ever!

The game is much less component-heavy than Agricola: only 110 cards, compared to over 300. However, it still has a lot of variety. The six special buildings are different each game (from 36), and the order the standard buildings come out can be very different.

I'm not sure when my first chance to play Le Havre with my friends will come. Friday night is D&D, Saturday is Worldwide D&D Game Day, and Sunday is more D&D. Hmm...

The poll for "best number of players" for Le Havre on BGG currently stands at:

solo - 3% best; 67% recommend, 30% avoid

2-player - 25% best; 69% recommend; 6% avoid

3-player - 80% best; 19% recommend; 1% avoid

4-player - 28% best; 62% recommend; 10% avoid

5-player - 0% best; 3% recommend; 97% avoid

Tags: board games

Posted at 04:47 pm | Link | Leave a comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend

May. 19th, 2009

I've got a box!

What's in the box?

May. 14th, 2009

Back in World War 2

Randy and I have been playing a few World War 2 games recently: Combat Commander: Pacific and Memoir '44 (with the Campaign Book) in particular.

Our game in the Pacific Theatre last night was dreadful for my marines: we were landing on a beach where Randy's Japanese had a most incredible defensive structure. The initial landing saw the death of all three of the first wave of leaders. From that point, it was all downhill. The session report is on BGG for those who are interested.

CC:P is a strange game after having played CC:E; you have a lot more control over certain aspects of the battlefield (weapons breaking, rallying, etc.), but it can be so difficult to fight the Japanese. Certainly, I made a hash of it last night!

The other game we've been playing, Memoir '44, was - in the beginning - a light, not particularly deep, wargame. It's changed as more and more expansions have come out for it. Once you get to the first of the Campaign Books, it's still a moderately light game... but it runs deep. Boy, there's a lot of play in the book - I can't recommend it enough.

The campaign book links scenarios into "campaigns" where your overall victory depends on how you do in each scenario - and which scenario you play next depends on whether you won or lost the previous scenario. Very, very cool. And then, these smaller campaigns are linked together into bigger "Grand Campaigns"...

Over two nights (a week apart), Randy and I played through Barbarossa North, part of the Grand campaign of Operation Barbarossa; we played the campaign, not the Grand Campaign. It was four scenarios long and saw a narrow victory to Randy's Russians: 19 to 17 by the end of it. I've detailed the first of the four scenarios here on BGG, and I'll try to post the other sections in the near future.

Posted at 10:34 pm | Link | Leave a comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend

Back and Forth

mood:

happy

I've been a bit busy recently. The good news is that I seem to be a little ahead of the game at work; I've sent a pile of report templates away to be proofread so it looks like I'll actually be able to make them available in good time to the teachers. Yay!

Sunday's D&D session saw us almost reaching the end of Pyramid of Shadows. By my judgement, they will probably only face the ultimate encounter in the next session, ignoring another three which would see them trapped in the pyramid if they try that. As most of them have slipped behind the XP curve a bit, I'll run a small adventure before King of the Trollhaunt Warrens to bring them all up to (at least) 11th level.

Greg missed Sunday's session - stupid Mother's Day! - and so managed to not lose another PC.

Before that session, I spent a couple of hours at Good Games playing (first) Ticket to Ride and then four or five games of Magic: the Gathering, of which I won all but one. This is particularly significant because I'm using Standard-legal decks based almost entirely on cards that have been reprinted in Tenth Edition. The only set in the last two years I've got any cards of at all is Lorwynn, and that's due to going to its prerelease - I don't have many cards from it at all!

However, as Tenth Edition has lovely cards in it like Verdant Force and Overrun, it's quite possible for me to play competitive Green/Black and Green/Red decks - at least against the moderately casual players I've been facing (who have tended to have problems with their mana).

I spent a large part of the weekend rereading Lois McMaster Bujold's Miles Vorkosigan series of books. Boy, they're good! I haven't been doing as much reading as normal of late, partly due to a lack of good new books, but also due to extensive gaming and TV-watching. Sitting on my desk is a game of Great Battles of Alexander, going back to 300 BC or thereabouts on the isle of Sicily. No, Alexander isn't in it; it's a battle between the Syracusans and the Carthaginians, but the GBoA rules were the ones it was written for. Go the hoplites!

Tags: board games, d&d, magic

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May. 7th, 2009

It's been a busy week...

It's been something of a busy week. I've been setting up all the end-of-semester reports at work, which is actually coming along nicely for once; I think I'm ahead of the deadlines. I've also been working on the computer room booking web interface, and that's looking good as well.

Gaming? Well, I spent last Sunday afternoon at Good Games, the new game store in Ballarat, playing boardgames with the owner and a few customers; none of them had played the games I brought along before (Ticket to Ride, Settlers of Catan, and Cosmic Encounter) and we all had a great time. I expect I'll be back there as often as I can, but my gaming life is getting rather full.

I've also made sure my RPGA/DCI registration was up-to-date, and I'm signed on as a Wizards Play Network organiser. I'm hoping to run a few Delve "Nights" (okay, afternoons) at Good Games - for my friends and for people new to D&D. At present, it looks like being one Sunday afternoon a month, with another Sunday being devoted to boardgames.

Last night I spent at Randy's (as normal) playing Combat Commander: Europe and then Memoir '44. M44 was a lot of fun, since Randy broke out my birthday present to him - the M44 Campaign Book (vol 1). For those of you who like M44, it's a must have: several campaigns of linked scenarios where the next scenario you play depends on the previous one, and there's also extra fun with reserve units and victory benefits. We played through two scenarios of the Barbarossa North campaign and we're currently only separated by a single VP! (Randy's in the lead). Alas, we didn't have time to play the final two scenarios on Friday night, but I dare say we'll get back to them soon.

Tonight is the resumption of my D&D Greyhawk campaign after a gap of about 6 weeks, and then Sunday is what is likely to be the penultimate session of Pyramid of Shadows. I've reduced all the monster HP in that game by 1/3, which seems to be working well so far.

Posted at 08:15 pm | Link | Leave a comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend

Apr. 28th, 2009

Arcane Power

Well, MilSims have apparently sent me Arcane Power. Which means I'll probably have it on Wednesday evening. That should make the arcanists in my D&D campaigns happy.

We've got seven or eight encounters left in Pyramid of Shadows. It was a better session this weekend, although there wasn't enough roleplaying with the Far Realm cultists to properly amuse Nate and Adam. Greg was hilarious playing his old character's sister. Oh, and he cured his old PC, only to have Xoria be petrified in the next encounter. Yeah, Xoria's annoyed Bahamut for sure. She's now dead, as her sister flubbed the Remove Affliction check badly - Xoria took damage equal to her HP, but she was bloodied before she was petrified!

Battlestar Galactica was fun on Friday evening; I was a Cylon for the first time (as Admiral Adama), and was last to reveal myself, at a point when I could put all the humans in the brig. They didn't survive long after that. It wasn't as intense as our previous games, I think, but part of that may be because I was a Cylon!

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Apr. 22nd, 2009

Anne Bishop - Queen of Shadows

Well, after reading Queen of Shadows for the second time (and then The Invisible Ring yet another time), I've got to say that it is definitely Anne Bishop's strongest book for a little while. It's much, much better than The Invisible Ring, despite drawing on that book for some of its resonances.

One of the truly exceptional things about Queen of Shadows is that in her Black Jewels trilogy, Anne Bishop told the story of a fight against corruption that is eventually successful. Dreams Made Flesh and Tangled Webs have explored the healing of some of the main characters after the war. Queen of Shadows looks at what it means to the rest of the world. And it does this with characters that I found really interesting.

Perhaps most surprisingly, the main character never really connects with the Queen of the title; despite her being the person needed, he doesn't feel it in his heart. I so hope this is explored further in the next book. I'm really pleased with this book and greatly recommend it. Mind you, I'd advise reading the Black Jewels series before you read this one, as Anne Bishop doesn't waste time explaining the basic facts of life in the world to you.

Tags: books

Posted at 05:46 pm | Link | Leave a comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend

New Wargames

Arriving in the post on Monday:

Empire of the Sun (The Pacific War, 1941-45) - a Card-Driven wargame by Mark Herman

Caesar: Conquest of Gaul - one of the Great Battles of History series. Also by Mark Herman (and Richard Berg).

C3i Magazine #17. (Yes, they're up to #21 yes; I've been getting back-issues!)

CCoG became a lot more interesting after the "Great Battles of Spartacus" expansion in C3i #21... I needed the maps!

Posted at 05:29 pm | Link | Leave a comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend

Apr. 17th, 2009

Books and games

Wandering into a bookstore last night, I found that the latest Anne Bishop book had been released: The Shadow Queen. I bought it and, after getting home from playing wargames with Randy, I read it. It's not that long a book, despite the 400+ pages (there's a lot of white space). It was very enjoyable, though. It meant I finally got to sleep a way past midnight, but it was worth it.

Although it is set in the world of her Black Jewels trilogy, it's another stand-alone novel that continues telling tales in the world she's created; yes, it has a fair deal of the main characters of Jewels, but it's also got its own tale that links back to another stand-alone novel, The Invisible Ring. I'm really enjoying her books and I hope she keeps writing them! (I note that there is a sequel to The Shadow Queen planned for next year... yay!)

The book I read immediately before that was one I've read many times before: Darkspell, the first book of Katherine Kerr's Deverry series. Now, this is a series I've been following since I first encountered it... ooh, it was probably in my first year at University, but perhaps even before that! Kerr used to contribute to Dragon magazine way in the past, but I know her much more through her writing. One of these days she'll write the final book of the Deverry series, and I'll be very happy (only one more to go! hooray!). Unfortunately, she's had periods of illness which have slowed the series down. 14 books in 23 years? She has written other things as well; it's just frustrating when you're eagerly awaiting the next book.

Deverry is one of my all-time favourite series, and had a particular effect on my D&D campaigns: Meliander's sister is named Gillian due to the hero of the early Deverry books, Jill. They're not that much alike, but it's where some of the inspiration for that character came from. I've terribly underused Gillian in my games, but she does lurk in the back of my mind wanting some time in the spotlight.

Speaking of D&D, Dungeon Delve and P3: Assault on Nightwyrm Fortress have finally arrived. I've no idea why it took Australia (well, MilSims) so long to get them, but I finally have them in my possession. I'm hoping the Sunday campaign will pick up once we reach the Paragon levels; it was going fairly well, but really began to drag in Pyramid of Shadows: 4 levels trapped in one structure is just too long.

The other thing mailed to me was Stalingrad, the second Battle Pack for Combat Commander: Europe, one of the easier wargames that Randy and I play. It's fun and enjoyable, and Stalingrad is a rather impressive battlepack: 8 new maps, 10 scenarios, 88 counters, and a campaign game which probably spans 3-8 individual battles. Lots of fun! Of course, the campaign game will take a while to play through...

Randy and I were playing CC:E last night, well, CC:M (the Mediterranean expansion), which saw me losing by my casualty count just getting too high. It was close, though: there were a couple of Sudden Death rolls that went against me that might have ended the game with me in front, but it was not to be.

We also played a very short Memoir '44 session (very short and bloody!) and a longer game of Twilight Struggle, again with the Chinese Civil War variant. That was a really good game; Randy won it by a fair amount (17 points!), but it felt close throughout.

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