!Cancelled! Tuesday Night Game Session - 30th May !Cancelled!

Due to the lack of players who could join us tonight the game session is cancelled! No worries, there is a high cance that our next session will have some new games.

See you guys next time!

EPL off season, Saturday nights are cool!

Hey guys,

Yesterday a couple of us were talking and were wondering if people would be interested in gaming nights on Saturday at the Vault. I'm thinking of it as an alternative gaming night to supplement the existing Tuesday night sessions.

I'm happy to start it at 8.30pm Saturday nights if people are interested. This offer is good so long as Liverpool isn't having a live match telecast on Astro during the EPL season :)

Tuesday Night Game Session - 30th May

Hey it is still Saturday right?

I was having doubts of doing a Thursday night game because it is so close to my trip. But I guess its ok to here is the announcement of a Tuesday night gaming session.

There is no promise of food so I guess we will order some McDonalds or something? All I got is Pepsi. The games for this gaming sessions are going to be card games. Short and fast.

Bang! (with house rules on the “Jail” card. A player can only be held in jail for no longer then the amount of life he/she has)
Give Me The Brain
Uno 
Poker (Texas Hold'em)
and maybe Shadows Over Camelot.

Just small short games.

At first I wanted to use biscuits, or M&M's as something to play for in poker but “winning” food that has been passed around by multiple hands does not seem like a win situation. Anyway games are going to start as usual after twilight prayers (1930hrs) and if you have any ideas or news please e-mail me.

Finally what do you think, since it is usually the same band of gamers that participate in the games, if we do an RPG session once in a while?

Early to rise, early to bed, makes a man healthy, wealthy and dead.

--Rincewind, The Light Fantastic

Missing Spider.

I am going to be missing in action from the 2nd of June to the 8th of June. I am going on a trip to Bangkok. With the promise to visit the biggest shopping mall there I will try to get some games and stuff but as the name of the city suggested it is not really a place to be looking for board games. Anyway if you guys want me to look out for certain titles and stuff do e-mail me.

We are in a process of gathering players for a game this Tuesday night. No finalizations yet. I will post an official session post on Saturday if all goes well.

Thunder rolled. ... It rolled a six.

--Guards! Guards!

Color-fixing in Rav-Guild-Diss drafting

Righto, readers,

I just wanna deliver my report of my little draft on Saturday and a few tricks I learnt about how to draft multiple guilds and yet be able to play all the goodies from them.

Today was a Ravnica-Guildpact-Dissension booster draft. Now booster draft is significantly different from Sealed Deck. In Sealed Deck you have a huge pool of lovely Limited bombs and your chances of hitting good Ravnica mana fixers like any of the guild Signets or guild two-mana lands (otherwise known as 'Karoos') are high. But in booster draft, no such luck. You'll be vying for signets and such other fixers with fellow drafters, and in the same breath you need to be able to pick quality creatures, quality Auras (the new terminology for local enchantments) and such other stuff.

So in booster draft, the set Ravnica features the Green-White, Green-Black, Blue-Black and Red-White colour pairs, while Guildpact features Black-White, Blue-Red and Green-Red, and finally Dissension wraps up with Blue-Green, Red-Black and Blue-White. With TEN colour pairs stretched across three sets it's obviously impossible you can stick to, say, Green-White alone, or Blue-Red alone. The only logical choice is to go tri-colour or if pushed, quadricolour.

Today, what did I pick??? Among my bombs,

1. Two Streetbreaker Wurms (6/4 creature for 3 colourless mana, 1 Green mana and 1 Red mana, huge beater)
2. Guardian of Vitu-Ghazi (4/7 vigilance for 6 colourless mana, 1 Green mana and 1 White mana)
3. Loxodon Hierarch (4/4 for 2 colourless mana, 1 Green mana and 1 White mana, gains you 4 life when it comes into play and can be sacrificed to regenerate each creature you control)
4. Leafdrake Roost (Aura - enchant land. Enchanted land has GU, Tap: Put a 2/2 Green and Blue Drake token with flying into play)

Now despite all the commitments to different colours (Red, White and Blue) I still managed to cast my bombs consistently and got a draw for one game, a win for another and lost the third game, my opponent 2 victories, myself 1 victory. How did I get all my bombs out consistently??? The answer - look to the colours of the bombs. They all share one common colour - GREEN.

Yes. Green, in Ravnica, Guildpact and Dissension, is one heck of a powerhouse colour, for Draft at any rates. It provides a VERY powerful mana-fixing base. Check out these Green or Green-based mana fixers I got today:

1. Utopia Sprawl (A common aura, enchant Forest. When Utopia Sprawl comes into play, choose a colour. Whenever enchanted land is tapped for mana, add one mana of the chosen colour to your mana pool)
2. Silhana Starfletcher (common creature. 2 colourless mana and 1 Green mana for a 1/3. When Silhana Starfletcher comes into play, choose a colour. Tap: Add one mana of the selected colour to your mana pool)
3. Silkwing Scout (common creature. 2 colourless mana and 1 Blue mana for a 2/1 flying creature. One Green mana to sacrifice it and search your library for a basic land card and put it into play tapped)

There's no denying it - you want to play multiple guilds, you sure as heck better draft Green mana fixers. Don't worry about being stuck with playing only Green-related guilds - heck, think about it. If you take the Gruul Signet (2 colourless mana for an artifact. 1 colourless, tap to produce 1 Green mana and 1 Red mana) and Golgari Signet (the same as the above except it taps to produce 1 Green mana and 1 Black mana), doesn't it open you to the possibilities of the Rakdos guild (the Red-Black guild)??? With Green as your mana base, provided you get enough Green mana diversifiers and fixers (including the ever-useful Signets) literally ANY guild's power cards can be played - heck, you can even go five-colour if it suits your fancy.

So now, I'll end this post with some creatures and spells you should keep an eye out for in Ravnica-Guildpact-Dissension draft (REMINDER: This list does NOT surpass powerhouse creatures or spells. Do NOT draft a colour fixer over a top-notch creature, then blame me for teaching you to do so. Colour fixers rank from 3rd pick to 6th pick and should stay there, but the occasional better-grade ones may pass as 2nd pick or even 1st pick if there's no better options)

General fixers (should be picked in all 3 sets)
The 'Karoo' lands (Simic Growth Chamber, Izzet Boilerworks, Orzhov Basilica, Dimir Aqueduct, etc.)
The Guild Signets (Selesnya Signet, Rakdos Signet, Gruul Signet, etc.)
The Dual lands (Overgrown Tomb, Hallowed Fountain, etc., but then again these are rares, so it's gonna be tough)

Fixers in Ravnica
Civic Wayfinder (excellent bargain - 3 mana for a 2/2 plus finding a land, AND IT'S JUST A COMMON. May qualify for 1st pick if there aren't any particularly powerful creatures)
Farseek (a lovely common, must-pick if you get it from 3rd to 7th. Allows you to play most guild cards with ease)
Birds of Paradise (Best fixer around, but it's rare so don't dream of it - hard to find, hard to draft)
Terrarion (Despite its one-shot nature it gets you a card when you sacrifice it and allows you to cast that totally off-colour bomb you have in hand, so yeah this goes from about 4th-9th pick depending on how many off-colour bombs you have...)
Perilous Forays (umm, this one goes lower, about 9th to 11th pick. Don't draft it unless you've got lots of Saproling production, this is kinda tough to use)

Fixers in Guildpact
Silhana Starfletcher (sorta like Civic Wayfinder, except if this guy gets killed, you lose your mana source. He can qualify for 1st pick but I'd really pick most creatures over him. Only worth his weight in gold as a 3rd-6th pick.)
Wild Cantor (1 mana for a 1/1 that can be sacrificed to add one mana of any colour... kinda like Blood Pet but a bit more potent. Qualifies as a 5th to 9th pick but I don't like its one-shot nature... can be used if you're desperate for fixers though, but watch it, this gal is delicate.)

Fixers in Dissension
Vesper Ghoul (surprise, surprise!!! What is a Black creature doing here??? Nonetheless it is a reliable colour supplier so this can qualify among the 3rd-6th pick range, and may go as high as a 2nd pick if you really need to fix your colours.)
Coiling Oracle (right, this isn't really a 'mana fixer' per se, but it's just wondrous if it happens to reveal a Karoo land or even just a basic land off the top of your library. At any rates it counts as a mana fixer, but if you're playing Green and Blue this can go as high as a 2nd pick for you. For all other colour combinations, 3rd-8th pick)
Utopia Sprawl (Very economical and encourages you to run more Forests to support your diversification. I can pick this as high as 3rd to 5th. It's really quite worth it)
Elemental Resonance (Not really the best, but I suppose could qualify if you're really desperate. 8th-10th pick for me)
Verdant Eidolon (4 mana for a 2/2 that DOESN'T fly is already a bad deal, and in addition I need to spend 1 mana to sacrifice it for 3 mana of ONE COLOUR?!?! I don't get to choose my colour combination?!?! Alright forget it. This is bad if you're seeking tri-colour or quadricolour. 9th-11th pick.)

Yeah so this is my advice to those who wanna play multiple guilds in Ravnica Block booster draft: Pay attention to the Green fixers coming around and pick them, and pick them well - they'll give your consistency in playing multi-colour a great boost.

Stats

Firstly, it seems like my brother can't find any interesting games in Hong Kong which was a surprise. I'd always thought one should be able to find any crap in Hong Kong, hmmm......

Secondly, 23rd May Tuesday night is not going to be my night off. But anyhow you guys go ahead and plan your meeting, no need to worry about me. I'll join you all on the 30th May.

(Yes, its another a Tuesday. It's the only night I'm off).

GPT KL - Reminder

i Everyone,

The next event in Ipoh will be a Trial for Grand Prix Kuala Lumpur! That’s right, this year the Grand Prix circuit will be making a stop in our very own backyard on 3-4 June. So here’s your chance to win some prizes as well as a 3-round bye to GP-KL!

Event: GPT Kuala Lumpur

Date: 21 May 2006

Time: 10am registration, 10.30 start

Venue: Game Vault, 15A Jalan Medan Ipoh 6, Bandar Baru
Medan, 31400 Ipoh. Tel: 012-3876288

Format: Sealed Deck (1 Ravnica tournament Pack, 1
Guildpact booster and 1 Dissension booster). Top 8
Booster Draft

Entry Fee: RM50

Prizes: 

1st place: 3 Round BYE + 36 Dissension Boosters

2nd place: 18 Dissension Boosters

3rd & 4th place: 9 Dissension Boosters

5th to 8th place: 6 Dissension Boosters

9th to 16th place: 3 Dissension Boosters

17th to 32nd place: 2 Dissension Boosters


A Grand Prix only comes to KL once every 2 years so don’t miss out on your chance to start out ahead of the rest with a 3-round bye! See you at the trial!

Wearn

Board Game Session Report - 16th May

Firstly I would like to announce that we broke the 4 player record.
The game went well today. We managed to do a 5 player Puerto Rico and a 4 player game of Bang!

With some egg sandwiches and sardine sandwiches, a bottle of orange cola and a bottle of ginger beer be begun our game.  Dark Elf was late to the table. We have just finished dealing out Give Me the Brain when he arrived with the much anticipated Puerto Rico, at last a full 5 player game of Puerto Rico. Each player excited, each with a unique strategy in mind. The game started slow with set up and a new player Vhleow.

I tried the concentrating my resources on producing goods.
Vhleow was experimenting for his first game.
Bortacks concentrated mainly on producing doubloons and getting bonus buildings.
Arthas again concentrated too much on populating his plantations and buildings.
DarkElf goes straight for bonus buildings.

Bortacks and Dark Elf started off strong in the game with Arthas on their tail Vhleow making erratic choices and finally me with a weak start. With money and buildings Bortacks and Dark Elf had an easy time with Arthas constantly choosing to play mayor. Vhleow by the middle of the game got the hang of it and had a full plantation. I on the other hand was wasting building rounds but caught up in points during shipping. Without money I could not buy bonus buildings. Arthas has almost the same situation as I, except he had a larger variety of expansive goods. Alas the game is decided mainly with bonus buildings. With bonus points and doubloons every role the main contenders were Dark Elf, Bortacks, and Vhleow. The game ended with Bortacks winning.

An anti-climax to the game. We hurriedly pack the game back into the box and Arthas was more then ready to go home.

Bortacks can be a pain.

Which brings me to the saviour of the session: BANG! A light, Spaghetti Western themed card game that has fast and furious action if played properly with some house rules concerning the jail card.

With the new guy as the sheriff it was all out war! I was an outlaw with the ability to appear one range further from others making me hard to hit in the beginning of the game. This also made Bortacks (renegade) the main target of Dark Elf’s (outlaw) ability to draw a card from another player’s hand. Logically it should not be but with Bortacks continuously playing a draw from another player’s hand card on Dark ELF, the only target in range, they were trading cards like mad folks. Vhleow, put me in jail. Not thinking of using a house rule I was in jail for many-many rounds. The dynamite was passed around and Bortacks was caught between Vhleow and Dark Elf but managed to survive. Dark Elf seems to have his own brewery tucked in this self somewhere as beer flowed out of his like a river keeping his strength up. Vhleow tried to shoot me once or twice but missed, hitting the barrel I was hiding behind. The dynamite blew up while in the possession of Dark Elf, making his health level down to par with the rest of them not in jail, after being passed around for at least 3 turns and in all that time, I was in jail. After managing to break out I played the Indian card killing Bortacks and Dark Elf then I tried to play a Bang on Vhleow but he had a beer in his hand and I thought all is lost. But unable to finish me off Vhleow ended his turn with no Miss cards in hand thus his life was ended with a BANG! It was a big surprise to me the Bortacks was the renegade and not Dark Elf.

Thus the game ended on a high note for every one. With a hiatus for about least a week we hope our next gaming session will be good no matter what the game is.

Let's just say that if complete and utter chaos was lightning, he'd be the sort to stand on a hilltop in a thunderstorm wearing wet copper armour and shouting 'All gods are bastards'.
--Rincewind, The Color of Magic

Tuesday Night Gameing - 16th May

If all goes as plan there will be a game session tonight.

We are expecting around 6 people but we have yet to break the 4 players record. Games are staring at 1930 to 2000 hours. Games includes Shadows Over Camelot, Puerto Rico, Betrayel at the House on the Hill. We also have Bang! and Give Me the Brain for those short sessions and if there are extra players.

See you there!

Dilemma......dilemma

The new "Grafting" ability of the Dissension set really makes things interesting. As for those who do not know, "Grafting" is a creature ability that allows other creatures to move a +1/+1 counter from the "Graft" creature to themselves when they come into play. Creatures with "Graft" comes into play with a number of +1/+1 counters as stated by the "Graft" ability". For example, a creature with "Graft 1" will comes into play with one +1/+1 counter making it a 1/1 creature.

The creature I would like to write about in this post is Vigean Hydropon, a "Graft 5" creature that cannot attack or block and cost 1UG mana to cast. Basically, its just sits on the table and do nothing while other creatures tear the five +1/+1 counters of it when they come into play one by one.

At first glance this bloody creature looks like a comatosed victim. Well... it really is a "vege", it's a mushroom afterall. But as the game goes on, one will see how annoying this bloody thing really is.

Remember the old nintendo game "Super Mario Brothers"? Well...... Vigean Hydropon works just like the power-up mushroom in that game, the difference is it can do it 5 times. ITS A FREAKING +1/+1 COUNTER BANK!!! Now enter "Scatter the Seeds", a 5 cost instant with convoke ability that puts three 1/1 sapolings into play. But wait, with the bloody Hydropon in play, instead of 3 1/1 creatures, u get 3  2/2 creatures (3 1/1 saprolings with additional +1/+1 counters each grafted from Hydropon)  and to make it worst, during opponent's turn, sigh... Need I go on?

Now, u might say, "If its so bad, just kill it with a removal". Ok... So u want to kill it... hmmmm... Red burn spells won't really fry it, its a 5/5 after all, that makes black removal the only choice. My question is, "Do u really want to kill it with your black removal spell? Are you positively sure you don't want to keep it for something worst later on"? Dilemma......dilemma.

http://cards.mtgnews.com/Cards/DI/Vigean_Hydropon.html

"To be or not to be, that is the question", Hamlet.

 

We might get more people to join our little group

As everybody knew, 13rd May Saturday was Dissension Release Party. So as we were trying to brutally bury each other with magic spells, a not so frequent(as in I forgot his name) visitor turned up. It seems that this visitor has a friend who is interested in board gaming and just bought "Betrayal at the House on the Hill".
At once I gave him Ankabut's cel number and ask him to contact Ankabut for the errata and extra bits of the game. Furthermore, I ask him to bring his friend to game vault and try out a session or 2 with us geeks. Hopefully we can "seduce" more people into our little group.

"Do or Do Not........there is no try". Yoda.

Dissension Release Party

Dear Gamers,

We will be running the Dissension Release Party tournament this coming Saturday , following are the details:


Dissension Release Party

Venue: Game Vault
15A , Jalan Medan Ipoh 6,
Bandar Baru Medan,
31400 Ipoh.

Date & Time: 13May, 2006 ( Saturday ) at 2pm

Entry Fee: RM50

Format:Sealed Deck (1 Ravnica Tournament Pack & 2 Dissension Boosters Pack)

Each participant will get a Special Edition Release Party Commemorative Card. Booster prizes will be determined on that day.

The Game Vault Re-Opens. Game Session 14-15 May

The week end is almost upon us and thus also the re-opening of The Game Vault our local gaming store. Expect a MTG draft game every time there is enough number of players.

We will be board gaming only if there is no MTG draft or there is enough players for a game. Expect Shadows Over Camelot and Betrayel at the House on the Hill.

See you there!

Non-Session Report for 6th May

It seems that no one is doing a session report of the last gaming session.

We started the game after a lunch of Nasi Lemak and Quail Eggs. Me, Dark Elf and Arthas started a game of Arkham Horror. Bortacks came in late. The game went well and we won.

Games and food goes well together... Excepts when it makes you sleepy... And when it rains making it a nice afternoon to sleep... And when the couch your are sitting on is comfortable enough to sleep on.

Saturday Afternoon Gaming Session - 6th May

There will be a gaming session at my house on Saturday 6th May from 1330hours/1.30pm after the afternoon prayers. We have requests from some gamers and the green light from my mom for Nasi Lemak! We are expecting a larger number of gamers so again if you are coming and you are planing to bring someone please e-mail me. Can't have a shortage of nasi lemak can we?

There is no target game for this session but a session with more then 4 gamers is the goal. And no I do not know what to do with more then 4 gamers.

I hope you could make it!

Session Repot for 2nd May

We started our game late.  Two of us had  delays and when we all got together we ordered some McDonalds and taking orders took me a while.

Our first game for the evening was Shadows Over Camelot. I played King Arthur, Bortacks played Sir Bedivere, Arthas played Sir Galahad, and Dark Elf played Sir Percival.  Like any session of Shadows Over Camelot it all started great. King Arthur, confident with his ability to find the holy grail headed for the quest, while the other knights drew cards preparing themselves for a quest. Sir Bedivere  did a lot of mistakes leading us to think that he was the traitor. He also manage to finish and win the quest for Lancelot's armour, but none of us dares to accuse him for it is rare that there is a traitor among us. Sir Galahad was new and he played a card that shows that he was no traitor. Sir Pircival has a strategy, to he has the ability to foresee trouble and he had a plan to keep his heath. After successfully winning a battle against the Saxons Sir Pircival came to Arthur's aid. The quest for the grail was almost to the end when  waves after waves of despair sends Arthur back to Camelot to replenish himself. Sir Bedivere does his best to discard useless cards and passes the useful ones to Arthur.

The challenge of the Black Knight were ignored, the holy grail was won by with the aid of all, the protection of Camelot against the Picts, the siege engines and the quest for the Excalibur were our goals. With equal number of black and white swords on the round table Sir Galahad won a hard fought battle against the Picts and Mordred. In the efforts  of protecting Camelot from the siege engines the Sir Galahad was lost, thus Sir Palamedes takes his place. The efforts to gain the sword Excalibur is then headed by Sir Pircival while the others protected the castle and exchange cards. The number of siege engines was threatening us closer to our doom and the quest for seems like a lost cause. On the round table were about 6 white swords and 4 black swords, the end is near and we must survive.

With the final push King Arthur sacrificing his replenished life, replenished by the Grail to get the mighty sword. So close to winning and so close to defeat by the siege engines, Sir Palamedes calls upon the lady of the lake thus winning the knights the Excalibur, two white swords and  the game. But all was not well in Camelot for there was a traitor amog us.  Sir Percival! While Sir Bedivere takes all suspicions away from Sir Percival, the traitor keeps in his hands powerful cards, throwing away some of them into the lake for Excalibur. Turning  2 white sword to black by not being found out, the game ended with the traitor winning the game with 6 black swords and 6 white swords.

Arthas loves to talk about his women...

Our second game was Avalon Hill version of Cosmic Encounter. I have to say that I never really had a good session playing this game. It is true that although the production quality of Avalon Hill's version of Cosmic Encounter is good there is something amiss. I played the Parasite, strong at first by aligning myself with everyone else I lost because of my mistake. Arthas played Empath. He was quite ill by the time we started this game. He did some clever moves but he was not at his best. Bortacks came in strong but nnot as strong as he could be. Playing the Oracle his strategy was war his limitation was in the orders and his hand. Finally Dark Elf was the winner again with Chronos. Dominating on my mistake after being tied with me at 4 other planets each, he won the game.

Library

Here is our current library of board games and card games.

• Alhambra
• Arkham Horror
• Bang!
• Betrayal at the House on the Hill
• Cluedo
• Cosmic encounter
• Doom
• Give Me the Brain
• Memoir 44
• Monopoly
• Puerto Rico
• Shadows Over Camelot
• Uno
  

We are planing to get more soon. Maybe somewhere near August.
Do you have any suggestions on what games we should get?

Tuesday Night Gaming - 2nd May

There is going to be a Tuesday Gaming Night this week on the 2nd of May. As usual it is going to be played at my place. I am hoping for at least 5 gamers to attend this night. I am still in thge process of getting back my Shadow Over Camelot but just in case I can not get it back in time I will prepare a Battlestations senario.

Hope you could make it!