X-wing table complete

Last week I made headway on a space board to use for X-Wing. However to make it playable I had to mark out a 3 by 3 square. As it was already three foot wide I just had to divide up the length.

Marking the line. I was going to paint it white however I decided to go with blue in the end so the contrast wasn't so stark. 

I am happy with the final result. I preferred the table as solid space however the line had to be made for a game of X-Wing. Of interest, while cutting the wood originally I didn't think about size, so if you were to play two games of X-Wing at once, there would be one 3 foot side and the other about 1/2 a cm off. 

The table even looks good for an epic board game. My green felt however does provide an easier surface to use, namely when picking up tokens and cards. Here Dan, Alex and I are playing a game of Arkham Horror. 

It was nice playing Arkham Horror as it is truly a classic. The mechanic is very clunky although it is impressive that it manages to hold such a complex co-operative game and keep it fun. We didn't quite finish however I am pretty sure Shuddle M'ell would have consumed us and inevitably the whole world. 

Grr, I am Shuddle, call me uddle for short. 

Hello world and DIY X-Wing space table

Well it has been a while! I finally decided it is time to get back into the blogging world again! First off I better give a shout out to Paul from Dog of War for nominating us for a Liebster award which I will have to work out how to put on our website. I think that means we will have to nominate some lucky bloggers out there.

What have Dan and I been doing lately? Well after our last post we played a fair amount of FOW honing our skills. Unfortunately I am a terrible procrastinator when it comes to painting so that took a lull. Dan has been working on some large scale model planes. After FOW we played a fair amount of Star Wars X-Wing. I even attended a FLGS tournament and came 4th out of 13 which I was pretty stoked about!

Store championship range ruler! #selfie

With that in mind I decided for the upcoming Wellington Call to Arms tournament I will join in on the X-Wing tournament. It's pretty happening over here at 50mm game room. So without further to do here is my most recent DIY project.

The eery science of space, and a grassy knoll.

Not so bad. Pretty much just used black spray paint for the base layer (I had to use 2 cans) and blue to create the nebula/stars. As you can see its outside drying right at this moment. Next step is to paint a white stripe down the centre to split the table into two as its 6 by 3 where a standard x wing game is 3 by 3. Conveniently enough it can work as two tables side by side or the 6 by 3 size works perfectly for the x wing epic rules.

"Play more games" Wil Wheaton.
(Yes I did back Wil Wheaton's Table Top season 3 while we weren't blogging). 

We only ever make it to turn 8, a 7 player game of Eclipse.

Well as the title suggests whenever our gaming group plays Eclipse, one of my favourite boardgames at the moment, we only make it to turn 8/9. This is probably due to the epic proportions of the game, this particular game taking 6 hours! Yikes. This was due to multiple factors, trying to watch the All Blacks vs South Africa (which we won), teaching a new player, two players leaving during the game. Anyway I wont get into the nitty gritty as Eclipse just doesn't make for great session reports like Flames of War. If you haven't played before feel free to read a review of the ipad app I did which has an overview of the rules here. 

We played with some of the additions added by the expansion, most notably increasing the game to 7 players. However this didn't last as one of our players had to quit in turn 3 as mentioned above so we helped him bankrupt his society (this was our new player). Then around turn 5 or 6 Dan left so Chris played both Dans Orion Hegemony and his Rho Indri Syndicate who had formed an alliance earlier. Anyhow here is a shot of the starting set up...

Sorry Zac you got an action shot.

• The players and Races in order of play were: 
• Stephen (me), Enlightened of Lyra
• Zac, Machanema
• Ben, Hydran Progress
• Alex, Magellen
• Chris, Rho Inhri syndicate 
• Dan, Orion
• Matt, Humans. 

So the game went down something like this: During initial exploring some diplomacies started, and by turn two Dan and Chris formed and alliance a new component of the expansion. This was worrying for the rest of us as they were the combat races. They then swept through taking over alien hexes. Ben and I being Lyra and Hydran races best at turting kept to ourselves while Zac steadily expanded. Zac and I kept positive relations aware that we may need to team up to beat up Chris and Dans forming empire. I sublimed my mind to my shrine grid, a Lyra special abitily where I build shrines on my hexes, eventually giving me advantages. 

Finally combat broke out between factions, Dan and Chris attacked me, luckily Zac and I had formed an alliance by then so took them out together. Whew. 

Orion and Rho verses Lyra and Machenema

Things were getting hot but Zac and I had a pretty good defensive position, unfortunately our attempts to expand were not so successful but fun none the least. My Shrine system was going well giving me and extra disc first up (turn 4) and wormhole generator (turn 6), and I was having a lot of fun playing them. Ben as the Hydran was researching like a boss, he had filled all research tracks by turn 8! He was in a healthy position and conflict broke out between Zac and him but ended with neither being better off. I attacked the Orion and Rho alliance and got wasted, however this was more in order to keep them off my turf. Then the game ended. 

The end game shot

The game score looked like this

1. Machanema and Lyra allicance (Zac and I) both on 43 points.
2. Hydran on 42 points, very close
3. Magallen, 37
4. Orion and Rho alliance on 32
5. Humans, bankrupt. 

It was a pretty high scoring game in the end and I think we all enjoyed it. Having 7 players really added to the game, as did the expansion. The length was not so great, although we added in the fast play variant at the end having multiple players taking turns at the same time around turn 5. The rugby and Chris having to play for both himself and Dan slowed things down a bit. One of the best parts was I thought the Enlightened of Lyra, the race suited my play style and were a lot of fun to play with their special shrine grids. It is worth noting I was able to build a shrine per turn and if we had finished the game should have been able to finish with all 9 giving 12 VP. 

My shrine system

My player board end game. 

Once again can't be bothered editing this post so please excuse grammatical errors. 

Xia: Legends of a Drift System - Kickstarter Campaign.

Sorry for the lack of posts over the last week. I was sick with hand foot and mouth disease, so the blisters over my hands made it hard to write up any posts. Although it was good for one thing, I managed to re-watch all of Firefly (it didn't take that long as Fox canceled it after 14 episodes), which happens to be one of the best shows in the 'verse. I was prompted to do this after finding out that Xia: Legends of a Drift System's Kickstarter page was live. Despite what it may sound, this is not a racing game, this is a sci-fi which board game designer Cody Miller has been working on for nine years!

Xia: Legends of a Drift System 

The game board after set up

Xia: is described as a 3-4 player sandbox game. It was inspired by the idea of being a small time captain of a small starship (aka: Serenity) and making your way in the universe. Here is the blurb from Board Game Geek:

Xia: Legends of a Drift System is a 3-5 player sandbox style competitive space adventure. Each player starts as a lowly but hopeful captain of a small starship. 

Players fly their ships about the system, completing a variety of missions, exploring new sectors and battling other ships. Navigating hazardous environments, players choose to mine, salvage, or trade valuable cargo. Captains vie with each other for Titles, riches, and most importantly Fame.  

The most adaptive, risk taking, and creative players will excel. One captain will rise above the others, surpassing mortality by becoming Legend!

The aim of the game is to get the most fame points (FP) thus becoming the most famous ship captain. The sandbox style means there is multiple ways of doing this. You can be a trader  become a pirate  an explorer, a minor, a bounty hunter, or a combination.

Drift Systems

The game is set in a 'drift system' which is some kind of outer rim world which has skewed gravity fields making planetary orbits random. The drift system is the only one habitable by man and is called Xia.

The spaceships

A spaceship trading with a planet in Xia

The game comes with 15 spaceship miniatures 3 which are NPC's and 12 which you can buy and use in Xia. There are 3 tiers of ships and all the players start with a tier one ship. These all have names such as the Puddle Jumper. The ship has a certain number of spaces which you can outfit with technology such as engines, guns, missiles and shields. The spaces remaining are used for transporting cargo. All in all this looks like a fun component of the game, designing and upgrading your spaceship.

Here are the components of the game

The Rules and Final thoughts

I have flicked through the PDF rules which you can get from the Kickstarter website. Well to be honest I am not 100% convinced, maybe about 70%. Why so? I guess flying round space, simply mining astroids or trading resources seems a little unexciting to me, although combat seems neat but not a major part. The setting is kind of fun however and the art pretty good but not amazing. I love the idea of piloting my own starship like Captain Malcolm Reynolds from Firefly. However in this game it seems that trading, mining etc. are just game mechanics and the theme may not quite overcome that. 

Well I am sceptical, so I won't invest in the Kickstarter. Maybe I will be better off Getting Firefly: the game when it is released. However I am keen to give the game a shot sometime and hopefully be convinced otherwise! 

One of the ships loaded up,
the orange objects are damage markers

Check out the Kickstarter website here. Photos taken from the Kickstarter site. 

Eclipse session - Playing Planta

Last two games nights we have got in two games of Eclipse. It goes along with the current sci-fi theme at the moment. Maybe if we were a more established blog we could call this sci-fi month. For most of the club this is a new game, however in this game we implemented Aliens. To do this fairly we handed out random diplomacy tokens at the start of the game then had the choice of the alien or Terran in that colour. It was a five player game and Chris and I chose the aliens, he got a bit of a doozy, Eridani Empire, and I got Planta. 

I like both these races. People seem to have there problems with both. I however like them because I like the feel of each of these races. The Eridani is the once powerful empire, however are now struggling and in decline. The start with some pretty sweet resources and starting research. However they have 2 less influence which hurts hard later on in the game. The Plantas play like a weed, they multiply fast, getting to explore up to 2 hexs a move, and have 4 rather that 3 colonist ships. However there ships are not very good with bad initiative and less customisable so easy to destroy.

The game in progress, round 4.
I am green.

I managed to secure a good position early on in the game. Spreading fast and I managed to secure a couple of good techs early; improved hull and plasma canon. I mostly had a cruiser heavy fleet, I feel cruisers have an advantage over dreadnoughts, cheeper so you can have better action density when you buy two ships and you can have 4 at a time. Plus there is less to upgrade to get them to a satisfactory level.

I managed to secure the centre hex early on in the game, nice. However for the rest of the game I defended my position rather than move out and attack. I had quite a few battles from those contesting for the centre hex. Some were quite large so we used the over flow tiles to battle on the side. However the lack of initiative was crippling causing some heavy losses before i could even shoot. The shields were very helpful as a protective measure. I managed to win most battles but not without some serious losses.

A middle hex combat pushed to the side.

Sadly we had to cut the game one round short (round 8) due to time constraints. This round was the hardest for me as my focus was mostly on defending the centre hex. Zac playing Terran got behind my only weak point and got a interceptor into my home hex. Perhaps if we played the next round it would have been the end for me and my weeds. I think if I had gone on more of an offensive after taking the middle hex I would have been better off as it would weaken the opponents. However then I would have been open for attack from others. 

Planta player board.

Over all I enjoyed playing Planta, although there lack of initiative and weak ships hurt later in the game. I feel that they probably are a better defensive specie so in that sense I played them ok. However I am sure there are much better strategies out there, 

Photos take from my iPad so not the best quality. See our Eclipse for the iPad review here. 

Star Trek: Attack Wing

I feel like we need to get back to more posts about miniatures. Although this post is not 100% about miniatures it is a step in the right direction. Lately at our games night we have been playing through a D&D campaign and interchanging with boardgames. Last night we played Eclipse, which was pretty darn awesome! So lets look into Star Trek: Attack Wing, WizKids new game using Fantasy Flight Games 'flight path' game mechanic from Star Wars X-Wing.

Star Trek: Attack Wing

I have known about this game for a little while however only just recently looked up the progress. It looks as if they will be able to release this game soon! However is it worth it? I am thinking maybe not. Attack Wing uses the 'Flight Path' game system which was created for Star Wars X-Wing Miniatures Game, which is awesome! However now that I have a decent range of X-Wing models I am not sure spending more to get a game which is similar is a good idea.

Lets have a look at some of the ships!

The ships come pre-painted.

By looking at the bases they seem almost identical to the X-Wing ship design, at a guess I would say they are a similar size to. The Stats seem to be, well, attack, evade, hull and shields. Notice anything familiar to X-Wing?  

A giant pilot card,
over a giant ship!

Some of the symbols seem similar to X-Wing. Perhaps from left to right, evade or bost, target lock, not sure about this one, focus. 

Looks like you attach the captain to your ship

Jean-Luc Picard was an awesome character! 

As I said before, although this game looks pretty cool, I feel it won't have much more to offer than X-Wing. Although I do prefer Star Trek. It seems pretty similar so far. I also feel the other disadvantage is that Star Trek was more about Exploring New Worlds, rather than in space combat, although this does feature a little bit. Where as X-Wing uses specific fighter ships, the theme seems more appropriate. 

I think if I was to get a Star Trek game Star Trek: Fleet Captains (also by WizKids who have the Star Trek license) looks pretty sweet! 

A promo game in progress

It comes with a lot of ships! 

This game by the look of things has more of a Star Trek feel with specific agendas to match the different fleets. It also has a lot of space ships! Where the base set of Attack Wing comes with 3 ships then there are I believe 8 separate ship expansions worth about 20NZD each. 

However on the whole I am excited about trying out Attack Wing some time and maybe if I did not have X-Wing I would buy Attack Wing instead. I will leave you with some pictures of an Attack Wing game in action with a very large set... and my favorite Star Trek intro scene quote...

"Space... the Final Frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its continuing mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before."

Feel free to check out some of our X-Wing Miniatures game posts which uses the same 'flight path' game mechanic here. 

Who is John Hurt, Doctor Who season 7 finale

Normally we do posts on table top games, however I thought I would do a one off post on Doctor Who. I figure it fits in with the geek (I like to think chic) vibe of our blog. However I must admit I found this season an underwhelming, dragged out season, scattered over almost a year. There where some high points like Asylum of the Daleks, the first episode. However the last episode I thought was a little bit unexciting, yet has raised some questions about the 50th anniversary episode. I would probably give it a 6.5/10

I will try keep this as spoiler free as I can. However there will be one main spoiler, I personally don't think it is a big one, however it is hard to say so don't read on if you are worried. Don't say I didn't warn you! 

The poster for the season 7 finale

So I am not really interested in going into the episode. However at the end it introduced the Doctors darkest secret. Which apparently is, well, himself played by actor John Hurt. This was introduced with what I thought was a pretty cool shot and title, here it is:

Cool huh, well maybe that shot doesn't do it justice but I love shots with 'Introducing said person as character'. So there is of course plenty of speculation already as to who he is and where he fits into the Doctors timeline. The internet seems to point towards the Valeyard which is an amalgamation of the Doctor's dark aspects, supposedly between the 12th and final incarnation. The Valeyard was introduced with the 6th doctor in Trial of a Time Lord.

Another suggestion which I thought sounded pretty good was that John Hurt was playing the Doctor between the 8th and 9th when the Doctor destroys Gallifrey. Some people thing that John Hurt will be both. Perhaps he will just be the next Doctor after Matt Smith, a new Doctor could be nice. Matt Smith has bene good but there comes a time for the Doctor to move on, just as it was time for the Pond's to go. Who ever he is I am sure not many people will get it right, only the crew of Doctor Who will know. Till November.

Well I am looking forward to the 50th anniversary episode. The return of David Tennant and John Hurt as a mysterious incarnation of the Doctor will hopefully make for a good episode. 

Eclipse for the iPad!

Games club on Monday saw a bunch of new guys coming along to check it out. We played Empire of the Dead and X-Wing. However with all our efforts tutoring newbies we didn't manage to prepare for a session report. Next week however we are planning to start a D&D campaign. However on other news...

I just found out that a iPad app for Eclipse is about to come out soon! No not the twilight movie Eclipse. I have only played this game a few times but it is pretty enjoyable. Though appearing complicated it has a pretty simple but intuitive gameplay I thought. Plus I'm a sucker for sci-fi.

Here are some screenshots. 

It looks like the board is in the middle
with the player boards at the side

Player boards must be easily collapsable to zoom in. 

Good some instructions or I would get very lost

My only concern would be from previous experience. I got Le Harve for my iPad knowing it is a top rated game. However it is such a complex game that it was pretty hard to learn on the iPad. Maybe because I already know some Eclipse basics this will be easy enough to learn. 

I think I will definitely get this when it comes out in the app store in a week or so. 

Firefly: The Game!

I notice this a week back Firefly: the boardgame!

I felt my heart rate rising as I am sure any fan would. A game based on one of the greatest TV shows of all time.

I must admit, although the cards look great, the board doesn't catch my interest just yet. However it looks like they may be touching it up a bit as suggested by the "Images not final." Apparently it is based on a game called Spartacus: A game of blood and treachery. I have not played this game but it is well rated, in the top 500 on boardgamegeek. 

Here is a little description from the publisher about the gameplay, and it sounds good! 

In Firefly: The Game, players captain their own Firefly-class transport ship, traveling the ‘Verse with a handpicked crew of fighters, mechanics and other travelers.  As a captain desperate for work, players are compelled to take on any job -- so long as it pays.  Double-dealing employers, heavy-handed Alliance patrols and marauding Reavers are all in a day’s work for a ship’s captain at the edge of the ‘Verse. 

Check out the publishers, Gale Force 9, official statement here.

By Steveisatree.