Sunday, December 30, 2007

Early evening game

It's been a good gaming day for me.

I've now combined all of the Lord of the Rings games and expansions into a single box, thus saving about a foot of shelf space. HUZZAR!

I also got to play a game of Sword & Sail and have published an audio review of it on my gaming podcast. It's a light wargame that plays both quickly and easily. It's a good lunch time game actually and I may well take it to work to give it a try there.

I've just finished a couple of hands of Treasures and Traps with the whole family. This is fantastic family card game. Again it's light and fun. There are 100 cards in the deck and every one has unique cartoony artwork.

It's not a game for the very young as part of the game play is to attack the other players. It is good, and fun!

What shall we play tomorrow?

Saturday, December 29, 2007

Friends and Foes

Yesterday I tried my first game of Lord of the Rings with the "Friends and Foes" expansion.

It was a two player game and it seemed rediculously hard. It was very difficult to progress along the board because you had to keep fighting the ever increasing number of foes.

Each foe strips you of assests or makes you miss a go in order to get rid of it. This seemed very problematic for just two hobbits.

The cards are very nice and the mechanics work very well but it all seems to be just too much for two.

I also started combining the games and expansions in my Lord of the Rings set into a single box. Stacked up the games reach just over a foot high. And that way too much space.

I removed the insert from the base game, made up tuck boxes for the four sets of cards and dropped all of the components into baggies. I've been able to throw the Friends and Foes box away. I hope to do the same for the Sauron expansion today.

Thursday, December 27, 2007

Lord of the Rings : The Confrontation

Well yesterday I played my first game of LoTR : The Confrontation with my son. We actually played two games, once from each side.

The sides are very differn't. Saurons forces are physically stronger but the Fellowship characters have a number special abilities that outway the abilities of the opposition.

this gives the fellowship player a genuine challenge. How to win. If you play the fellowship by trying to match strength against strength you will lose, and lose quickly.

After two games I saw a number of stratergies that you have to apply. A primary tactic for the fellowship player is to make the most of retreats. If you play the hobbit charactes up front , they are basically too weak to win any fights, they do however reveal what enemies are up front.

So if the hobbits reveal the enemy and retreat you can then advance the characters from the second row to deal with the enemies. Many of the followship characters can immediately defeat a particular enemy, so with any luck you can advance these to the revealed enemies and take them out.

Another obvious character combo is that of Frodo and Sam. When together Sam's strength increases from 2 to 5. However I suspect this is not worth using. As only one character can occupy the mountain spces it's very difficult to get them as a pair across the mountains. Also its too risky to advance Frodo first, so Sam has to go first. If he gets revealed, then it's 10-1 that character behind him is Frodo, which gives the game away.

The Boromir character is very strong, as he immediately removes hmself and the enemy from the board. Yet that also leaves a big gap in your line. You really need to keep in your second row so that you can use him to take out a big baddie. I'm not really sure yet of the best way to use him.

This game felt poor after the first game, but having played two games I can see some depth and cleverness in its design. I'll certainly be playing many more games, and I suspect that like Chess each play will teach me something new.

On another note I printed out the pages of the free Print And Play game "Sword and Sail". I will probably have this made up tomorrow so will be able to give it a few games this week. I currently plan to review this on the Print And Play Podcast at the weekend.

Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Christmas Gaming Goodness

Back to my blog after a long absence! I thought i'd start by sharing what gaming goodness I've recieved this Christmas.

Firstly I got a copy of Lord of The Rings the Confrontation Deluxe Edition. This is a two player game rather like an advanced and better themed version of the classic Stratego.

Two further additions are expansions to Lord of the Rings. This game is a wonder cooperative game where the players work together against the game.

Anyway, the first expansion is Friends and Foes. I haven't had time to play it yet, but this game adds a lot of features to the game and even makes it a little more difficult. Each turn there is a chance of Foes appearing to block the path of the ring bearer. I'm getting all excited.

The second expansion is Sauron. This changes the game up a bit. Instead of all the players working together, one player now plays the part of the big bad guy himself. I'm not so sure I'd want to play the bad guy but it does look like a very interesting addition to the game, and again I'm looking forward to playing this.

My son also got a board game. We managed to get hold of a second hand copy of The Lost World. This game is based on the film of the same name. He spotted the game somewhere on the web and kept bringing it up. So we looked around and bingo(!) we found and won a copy on EBay.

The rules are rather simple and the game itself does not have much depth but I know he's going to love playing this game, as the Dinos get TO EAT PEOPLE!!!!

I've got a fun filled game playing week ahead.

Thank the Lord.

Thursday, March 08, 2007

Podcast Novel

I've been listening to a Podcast Novel called "Daughter of the Sun" by a chap called Lonnie Ezell.

It's a high fantasy story riddled with magic , human monsters, undead, adventure and buckle-swashing.

The story follows the struggle of a mother and father trying to recover thier stolen daughter, and I have to say that Lonnie's writing really brings home the love that this family feels for each other, his rich emotion filled text has kept me hooked to the story.

I'm really liking it so far. Lonnie is reading his own book in the podcast and I have to say he has an excellent voice for it. The language can be a little crude at times so I wouldn't recommend this story for youngsters, but there's not much of it and it's always contexual.

Go Listen/Read. Daughter Of The Sun