Sunday, July 30, 2006

Session Report - Saturday 29 July 2006

The gaming session was a success. Dark Elf was the only one who made it, so he got Battleground 101. Dark Elf bought the Elven deck and a powerful deck it is.

I now understand more of Battleground rules but like Dark Elf said it would take time before everyone in the group would fully comprehend the rules. I must say that writing on these sleeved cards, an act unthinkable before, becomes natural after a while. There is ample space on the cards to mark modifiers and other markings important to a war game.

The game took only 2 hours and 30 minutes. We played using the quick start army and basic rules but without the command cards. 2 hours and 30 minutes is fast for a war game in my opinion and it shows our deeper understanding in rules of the game. It also shows how simple the game-play could be.

I am looking forward to the next game and after a few games in I think I will be able to do a full review of the game.

Friday, July 28, 2006

First Look - Battleground Fantasy Warfare

Battleground: Fantasy Warfare is a war-game that uses cards to represent battalions instead of miniatures. Players creates an army based on the agreed points. The game has elements of any miniature war-game and more.

The game utilities some very interesting engines.

Battle:
Players rolls a number of d6 to get a number of successes. A successful roll is equal or less then the target number. The target number is equal to a skill minus the appropriate opposite skill. (#d6) #/# versus -#/-#

Movement:
Each Battleground card is exactly 2.5 inches by 3.5 inches. These measurement are used to measure range for range attacks and movement. Measurement begins from ½S (1.25 inches) to LL (3.5 x 2) and so on. In short everything in the game could be measured using the long and short side of the cards. Each unit card has a half way mark making measurement and battles easier.

Orders:
The game also utilities a standing order system for giving orders to the units. There are basically 3 main types of orders:

R = range (unless there is a target within range move towards the nearest enemy, attack)
C = close (move towards nearest enemy then attack if possible)
H = hold (stay stationary and attack if possible)

Basically a unit that has been given the order will continue with the order regardless until the order is changed. Players has a limited number of command points. Command points are used to give/change orders take control of a unit and/or draw a command card.

Command Cards:
Command cards are tactical cards that bend the rules, boots stats, or degrade them. Typical in dual games.

A moral system is also implemented in this game. A unit flanked or badly damaged will have to make a courage/route check. Failure results in the whole unit turning around and runs away. Unit battling fearsome units must make fear checks or lose one point in all offensive stats.

These are some of the basic rules of the game. More advanced games may include a point based victory system, scenarios, terrain and much more.

Check out these PDFs for the official rules:

Basic Rules
Advance Rules

Wednesday, July 26, 2006

First Look - Curse of the Dark Pharaoh Expansion for Arkham Horror

Arkham Horror gets its first expansion. Curse of The Dark Pharaoh consist of hundreds of cards. Some are new categories of cards, Exhibit Items (new type of items), Barred from The Neighborhood (restricts your choice of destination), Benefits (added abilities), and Detriments (hindrance). Some adds to the old decks. The expansion almost doubles the amount of Arkham Location cards, Gate Cards, and Mythos Cards and Allies, and some new Spells.

Exhibit Items are powerful items that cannot be bought. Exhibit Items are items that can only be acquired during an encounter. Benefits are paranormal abilities that an investigator could acquire during an encounter. Generally it gives the investigator an ability that can be used on and is useful to all investigators. Detriments like benefits could only be acquired in an encounter. These generally slow you down preventing you from doing actions that you are use to do. There are limited about of benefits and Detriments and each of them unique. Barred from Neighborhood cards are acquired as a consequence of an encounter. Investigators who wronged the community gets barred from its locations. Each street has its own barred card.

Curse of The Dark Pharaoh adds bigger reward and penalties to the game increasing the games difficulty slightly. The expansion also adds a n element of decision making. Investigators are sometimes forced to make decisions, decisions with a high and balanced amount of reward and penalties.

The expansion is well worth it especially to experienced gamers. The added elements, especially the decision making element, grows the game like a true expansion should. I could not wait for the nest Arkham expansion: Dunwich Horror.

Need your feed back

We have a request to do a gaming session this weekend Saturday 2:30pm. This is mainly because our FLGS (Friendly Local Game Shop) is closed for the week end.

Please e-mail me your suggestions and your thoughts on the matter ok?

Game Sesion Report 25th July 2006

It was not the worst of sessions. It was not the best of sessions.

Considering some gamers came to the session tired and slightly peeved, it was not a bod session. It was so hot the fan and mosquitoes was doing nothing to help.

We did not finish a single game. We figured that Battleground would take too long and no one there was in the set of mind to learn. We also did not finish Arkham. Curs of The Dark Pharaoh adds many interesting elements to the game..Players are made to make hard decisions and it adds a higher level rewards and punishment into the game.

We need to to do another session at a better time with more players.

Tuesday, July 25, 2006

Gaming Session Tuesday 25th July 2006

There will be a gaming session at my house tonight.

Sorry for the late posting.

We are going to have a gaming session at my house tonight at 7:30pm. We are going to have a try at Battleground: Fantasy Warfare and Arkham Horror with Curse Of The Dark Pharoh Expansion.

Food? We could always order out be it nasi lemak, pizza or McD.

See you there!

Monday, July 24, 2006

In the "Ground"

I just received the news...BATTLEGROUND is in!!!keep an eye out for reviews on this site...

Saturday, July 22, 2006

The War Is Coming


Battleground Fantasy
Warfare is coming!

Expect for it somewhere this week. We have
2 sets (starter and reinforcement) of each race (Human, Elves, Orcks,
Undead). Although some of the sets are pre-booked my some players
there are still some that are up for sale.

Check out these
standard links to some info on this relatively independently produced
game.

http://www.yourmovegames.com/bfw/battleground.htm
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/18985




Forward: Local Gaming Scene

Here is a comment that is worth a post. Since I put up our blog at BoardGameGeek we have recieved much support and news. And to think we missed all of it all this while. But seriusly we rarely go to Kuala Lumpur anyway.

hey ipoh gamers, do you know of the huge euro gaming scene in kl?
check out:
http://web.mac.com/imagine_newszine
for all the latest euro games, next day delivery to ipoh via city link express and cash back rewards program.

boardgamecafe.net
for the latest news on gaming group activities/events in kl, spore and thailand.

read NST saturday issue for "wanna play?", a column dedicated to euro board games. in addition to comics corner stores, check out york house (bangsar shopping center), room (klcc, midvalley & 1utama), games circle (damansara jaya), toybox (paramount garden) & trisha sasha (desa sri hartamas) who carry euro games.

imagine games is the official distributor of fantasy flight, riogrande, days of wonder,
eagle, gmt, mmp, atlas, zman, asmodee, zoch, kosmos, uberplay,
face2face, amigospiele, rackham (confrontation minis) for malaysia.


Note:

Feeling bad about our past orders I calculated and compared our pass orders from Thought Hammer and these guys. I am happy to report that the prices are too not far apart. Some are cheaper and some are expansive. I also compared these guys to ComicCor and on many items the prices are diffrent. So some games are cheaper in one shop then the other after adding everything like shipping of course.

So I promise on our next pool order we will buy from the shop with the best prices.


New Design!

How do you like the new look?

I did not do this from scratch but I did edit it a bit. I am learning to code this all over again and honestly CSS is new to me. If you have any suggestions or if you think I should change or add to the layout please do tell.

Friday, July 21, 2006

Coldsnap Release Party

Hi everyone,

Coldsnap is being released worldwide this weekend and as such Release tourneys are being held. We'll also be running one and here are the details:

Venue: Game Vault, 15A Jalan Medan Ipoh 6, Bandar BaruMedan, 31400 Ipoh.
Date: 22 July 2006 (Saturday)
Time: 2pm registration, 2.30pm start
Entry fee: RM50 (Entry includes 5 Coldsnap boosters)
Prizes: Booster prizes will be given out depending on turnout.

Players will also receive a special foil to commemmorate this event!

Ok, see you there!

Posted on behalf of ntneko :)

Ticket to Ride

Easy to learn and play but hard to master. This is the description that all puzzle and strategy type games strive for. Ticket to Ride is a very easy game to learn and play. A perfect intoductory to the world of Euro Games. Almost abstract this puzzle/strategy train game plays very well in almost perfect 60 minutes each time.

Players stars off with 4 train cards and 3 tickets (players may discard one). The ticket deck and the train deck is set aside. 5 cards from the train deck is displayed face open. The goal is to get the most points. Each turn Players get to do one of 3 things:

Claim a route

Draw 2 train cards* (blind draw or from open face cards, if player draws a wild card from open face cards then draw only one) *One at a time and immediately replaced.

or take 3 tickets and discard up to two.

Players discard sets of cards equal to the colour and number of tracks on the board (map of North America). Players gets points based on the chart and the number of tracks he or she claims. To get more points players has to fulfil their tickets by connecting the 2 cities on their ticket. Failing to do so results in negative points based on the ticket.

The player with the longest track gets a special 10 points ticket.

Game ends when one player has 2 or less trains left. Each other players gets their last turn and the tally begins.

Overall this game is very simple. It has its flaws for example the cards used are not standard sized cards and the luck of the ticket plays a lot in predetermining the winner. But the game is perfect for an easy enjoyable game, a game to teach beginners and newcomers, and when you have only an hour to play.

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

First impressions of Ticket to Ride

Hey all,

As Ankabut mentioned, he has acquired a new board game - Ticket to Ride. He came into the Vault with it on Sunday and we managed to run a 3-player game.

This is a fun and light game and it only took us about 5 minutes to learn how to play. I'm not going to be able to give a run down on the rules here, basically because I don't really know them well but suffice to say I'd be able to play it again without much problem after having gone thru it once. Our 3-player game lasted about an hour and it was good fun. I look forward to having another game this weekend, perhaps we can set up a gaming session on Sunday?

Saturday, July 15, 2006

From Kuala Lumpur with plenty of stuff.

We got a new game!

Yes it is that time of the year again and this time we scored a copy of Ticket To Ride. This game won more awards that I gould pronounce! It is very simple and very good for lite beginer to intermidiate games.

I could not find a shop that sells Battleground Fantasy Warfare. I will place an order at Thought Hammer this Monday. This order will include the Dwarfs. If after a week the Dwarfs is still nor realeased I will cancel the item and we will get the stuff sometime in the first week of next month.

So please contact me if you want to place an order or if you have any thoughts on the order.

Friday, July 14, 2006

Board games from Comics Corner

I haven't checked the blog for awhile and so I was surprised to see Ankabut's post about the possibility of getting board games from Comics Corner. Well whaddya know, that's where I get the stuff for the shop from. I remember mentioning that I can also get boardgames from them although they mainly focus on games from Avalon Hill.

Anyway, if anyone wants to get boards from them I can certainly help out in that department. Let me know if you guys want anything from them.

Also, I'm glad to see you guys continuing to have fun on your Tuesday nights. Keep on rolling!

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

Session Report! 11th July 2006

What can I say about the last gaming session. It was one of the best ever!

I will not get into the details of the games here except that for games me did Bang!, Uno and Give Me The Brain, for dinner we had Nasi Lemak and McDonalds. If you want to know that happens in one of these gaming sessions, come to our next gaming session!

Thank You for those who made it.

Hang in there Dark Elf!

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

July 11th Gaming Session and Some News.

We are going to have a gaming session tonight! It has been a while and it is about time we rekindle our Board Gaming passion. Although no new games we still expect to have fun. Food? I am unsure we could order out as usual. I say we do whatever necessary.

Battlegrounds Fantasy warfare. As some of you know I am looking for buyers for the game so that we could pool our orders. A set of 2 decks (Starter and Reinforcement) plus shipping costs about 130MYR. There are 5 races although the Dwarfs are not released yet.

We have almost more then enough buyers which makes me want to order 2 sets instead. What do you guys think?