Well, I finally got to play a little HEROScape true believers. Dr. Doom had put together a nefarious plan to use his mind control powers to take over the world. Together with his Doombot, Hawkeye and the Boomerang (whom he must have taken control of earlier - yeah that's the ticket), they plotted. The mystic energies of the universe lead Thor, God of Thunder and the Silver Surfer to a remote forest location (where there were custom made rocks) for a confrontation with the forces of EEEEvville. Dr. Ashton Von Doom sent Hawkeye to the front and through his amazing skills, managed to wound the Silver Surfer. The Surfer then flew to action and returned fire using his cosmic blast to force Hawkeye to his knees. The Doombot entered the fray, but was initially ineffective in the fight. Thor saw his chance to finish off Hawkeye, but the bowman used his smoke arrows to hide all the agents of Doom from Thor's ranged attacks. The Silver Surfer ended up wounded from later attacks by the Doombot, but was able to finally finish off Hawkeye and then retreated to allow Thor to bash away. Boomerang was able to maneuver across the forest and in short order had actually managed to take down the former herald of Galactus. Seeing his brave companion fall, the God of Thunder went to work, quickly eliminating Boomerang and Doctor Doom's Doombot. Thor then turned his fury to the mastermind of the scheme. However, the tables quickly turned as a nearly defeated Von Doom managed to use his mind control powers to take control of the God of Thunder. A crushing blow to the powers of good! We can't wait to see what adventure is told next!
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Hey True Believer!
Well, I finally got to play a little HEROScape true believers. Dr. Doom had put together a nefarious plan to use his mind control powers to take over the world. Together with his Doombot, Hawkeye and the Boomerang (whom he must have taken control of earlier - yeah that's the ticket), they plotted. The mystic energies of the universe lead Thor, God of Thunder and the Silver Surfer to a remote forest location (where there were custom made rocks) for a confrontation with the forces of EEEEvville. Dr. Ashton Von Doom sent Hawkeye to the front and through his amazing skills, managed to wound the Silver Surfer. The Surfer then flew to action and returned fire using his cosmic blast to force Hawkeye to his knees. The Doombot entered the fray, but was initially ineffective in the fight. Thor saw his chance to finish off Hawkeye, but the bowman used his smoke arrows to hide all the agents of Doom from Thor's ranged attacks. The Silver Surfer ended up wounded from later attacks by the Doombot, but was able to finally finish off Hawkeye and then retreated to allow Thor to bash away. Boomerang was able to maneuver across the forest and in short order had actually managed to take down the former herald of Galactus. Seeing his brave companion fall, the God of Thunder went to work, quickly eliminating Boomerang and Doctor Doom's Doombot. Thor then turned his fury to the mastermind of the scheme. However, the tables quickly turned as a nearly defeated Von Doom managed to use his mind control powers to take control of the God of Thunder. A crushing blow to the powers of good! We can't wait to see what adventure is told next!
Monday, June 22, 2009
The Hero in Heroscape
Hmmm. I'm going to need to do a serious comic book Heroscape soon. I've been putting together some customs of Marvel heroes (I have nothing against DC, I just went with Marvel first). I actually decide to use them as rewards for my son. He can pick any four guys at the end of the week if he fills up his reward chart. His first picks were: Doombot, Nightcrawler, Hawkeye and Boomerang. All the figures are from Heroclix. I don't think the sculps are as good as the Marvel Heroscape, but they fit right in. Maybe when my new castle sets get in, I can do a huge bridge 'scape. Here's the list of customs that I have cards for (using GreyOwl's customs). Some are a little random (I got one lot of guys and then a bunch of single $1 guys off ebay), but I was trying to round out some of the heroes (Fantastic Four - done, X-Men - not so much, Avengers - a couple) and some bad guys (my son knows most of the Spider-Man ones, so I got a lot of them). I have a couple of other figures that I need to change the image on the cards to match the figures I have (Electra, Typhoid Mary) and a couple of guys (Arcane, Avalanche, Destiny) that this guy didn't have (I chose to go with one designer of cards to be consistent). This group makes 34 on top of the original 10. Very cool...- Annihilus
- Asp
- Bishop
- Black Cat
- Boomerang
- Daredevil
- Doctor Octopus
- Doombot
- Dr. Strange
- Gambit
- Green Goblin
- Hawkeye
- Human Torch
- Iceman
- Juggernaut
- Kingpin
- Lizard
- Mandarin
- Mr. Fantastic
- Mysterio
- Mystique
- Nightcrawler
- Professor X
- Rhino
- S.H.I.E.L.D Agents
- Sabertooth
- Sandman
- Shadowcat
- Shocker
- Spider-Girl
- Thing
- Thor
- Titanium Man
- Toad
- Wolverine
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
The Post Office is not the Only Winner...
I make a lot of game trades and my friend Mike "The Fonz" Garrett likes to point out that the only one coming out ahead is the post office. Obviously I feel ok ditching a game if I won't play it and will get something I will (even if I have to pay shipping). Occasionally a trade works out properly and I can come out ahead (though again, the point of my trading is to come out ahead in the "games I want" category not value). This time I did come out ahead. It started with finding a copy of We the People for around $25. I traded that for a NIS copy of Evo. I've been holding Evo for a bit now, but I received an offer for it the other day. The offer was for Liberté, an out of print Martin Wallace game (maybe someday we'll see the reprint from Valley, but I quit holding my breath waiting for anything from them). So, I'll be out about a total of $50 (including all the shipping) and have an unplayed copy of Liberté. Seems like a good deal to me.
Monday, June 08, 2009
Custom Heroes
Thor, Rhino, Daredevil, Annihilus, Hobgoblin, Wolverine, Sabertooth, Kingpin. These are all Marvel comic characters, and all guys that didn't come in the Marvel Heroscape set. Luckily there is a community out there that has created custom cards for the "others". The cards are easy - the figures aren't terribly hard either though. Heroclix figures are the target, and easy to pick up off eBay (unless I want to do Fin Fang Foom - he's like $80). So I started scouting eBay to pick up sets of guys. This time around I got the above listed group - $11.36 shipped for that group. That's $1.40 each, which isn't great, but I didn't pay more for a ton of guys I'd have to get rid of either. I'll probably work a bit on Spidey villains and allies, the Fantastic Four, and possibly the Avengers. I could go DC too, but for now I'm sticking to Marvel.
Gaming
Man, it has been busy summer - and we just started. I would have had this posted sooner, but the BGG was down again, so no links or pics were available. First off, last Thursday was a three-way Heroscape match. Erik VonBurg and Nathan Winchester came over and we ended up playing Bridge to the Forgotten Forest: Fall of the Dumutef Bridge. Erik had to hold the bridge against the combined might of Nathan and I. Armies drafted were - Charles: Minions and werewolves, Nathan: Sacred Band and Heroes to match, Erik: Dumutef Guards, Raelin, rats, Valkries, snipers and elven archers. Of course, Erik got reinforcements a couple of times during the game. This one was weird in that nobody drafted a ranged guy - a fact that we all missed until we started playing. Erik took advantage of that by getting some snipers later in the game, but my Minions were able to make a good push to keep Erik off the bridge. The team battle was fun and I got to see a few new combos. All I really see is the need to add more duplicates (more on that later).
Friday night was game night at the Gamer's Inn. The night started slowly and the first group of folks to arrive included Jerry George. Of course, I was in no hurry to sit down to a game with him, and I was waiting for Matthew and Amelia to get in a game of Confucius. After a while though, I got a note from Matthew that they'd be a little late, so I got talked into a game of Go West! with Dion Garner, Ray Morgan and Jerry. I had never played Go West! before and it was neither terrible, nor special. I kidded Dion that the last player (me) was screwed, because I was in WAY last place after a couple of guys scored the board. However, I shot out to a good sized lead and then held out the rest of the game. The trick was really to simply take the first and last territories and control them for scoring. Everyone moved the wagons off the last spot to keep me from scoring them (thus taking them out of the game).
Matthew Frederick and Amelia Boli had arrived as we finished up and they played a quick game of Balloon Cup while they waited. After everyone was done, I setup Confucius and we were joined by Dan Brugman. I have a hard time describing Confucius - it is a worker placement game with a unique little negotiation tool built in through the means of obligating other players to you through the use of gifts. There are a very limited amount of points to be earned in the game, so it has a nice tense feeling to it - I spend most of the game feeling like I either need another action, or that I'm an action behind everyone else and just following them. This game was especially bad, as I screwed up my first turn and then spent the rest of the games counting the number of actions I was wasting. The only thing keeping me in the game was that I appeared to be the only person using the student for the majority of the game (Amelia stepped in to steal it a couple times). Matthew won a close game with 21 points, Dan at 20, myself at 18, and Amelia with 7 points. I think we didn't do the bribery quite right (I don't think you can bribe and official that is un-secured by another player), but I'm pretty sure this only hosed me. The rules aren't entirely clear - I think I need to re-read through them. Regardless, this is a really fun game and might make my top 10 here after another playing or two.
After Confucius, Matthew and Amelia settled on playing a three-player game of Le Havre. I've been playing this a bit on the computer (as the short, solo version) and have found it to be a bit mechanical. Playing face to face (in a full game) is much better - shocking I know. This one is still a bit more mechanical than Agricola, but a good game none the less. This was only my second sit down playing of the game, but I was determined to get a ship (or two) as early as I could to avoid drowning in debt for food. This paid off really well for me (especially since Amelia took all the cattle). Though I felt pretty behind most of the game, it was apparent in the last 3-4 rounds that I had a decent shot. I was able to load up on coal and turn it into coke and then ship it and the cattle I had for really good money in the last round. There is a lesson there - if you build up the energy reserve and have enough ships, you only need to ship once, not lots of times. I admit I had a secret reservation about playing, but I did enjoy it and even got a win. Charles: 175, Amelia: 129, Matthew: 142.
On Saturday, I finished my first game in the online In The Year of the Dragon tournament. This was one of those games where everything that could go right, did go right. I was first player (I'll be interested to see how many first player wins there are) and took the dragon scroll x2. I never looked back. Of course, I'm not doing as well in any of my other games. I think I still prefer Notre Dame over ItYotD by a little bit. Saturday night, Erik came by for a quick game of Heroscape. We played Mirming's Lair, which is a two-player scenario where the first player to kill the dragon and get home with his heart wins the game. Both of us selected teams (rather than draft) and I got screwed. I pulled out a vampire and Major Q9 team. Erik pulled out a Blastitron / Gladitron + Deathwalker team. His soulborgs were immune to my most powerful ability. With very little in the way of power to combat Erik, my troops took their beating in short order. I didn't have the troops to contain him and he was able to get two attack glyphs and high ground that let his Blastitrons tear me up. It was a good army and has me thinking about how to best take it apart.
Friday night was game night at the Gamer's Inn. The night started slowly and the first group of folks to arrive included Jerry George. Of course, I was in no hurry to sit down to a game with him, and I was waiting for Matthew and Amelia to get in a game of Confucius. After a while though, I got a note from Matthew that they'd be a little late, so I got talked into a game of Go West! with Dion Garner, Ray Morgan and Jerry. I had never played Go West! before and it was neither terrible, nor special. I kidded Dion that the last player (me) was screwed, because I was in WAY last place after a couple of guys scored the board. However, I shot out to a good sized lead and then held out the rest of the game. The trick was really to simply take the first and last territories and control them for scoring. Everyone moved the wagons off the last spot to keep me from scoring them (thus taking them out of the game). Matthew Frederick and Amelia Boli had arrived as we finished up and they played a quick game of Balloon Cup while they waited. After everyone was done, I setup Confucius and we were joined by Dan Brugman. I have a hard time describing Confucius - it is a worker placement game with a unique little negotiation tool built in through the means of obligating other players to you through the use of gifts. There are a very limited amount of points to be earned in the game, so it has a nice tense feeling to it - I spend most of the game feeling like I either need another action, or that I'm an action behind everyone else and just following them. This game was especially bad, as I screwed up my first turn and then spent the rest of the games counting the number of actions I was wasting. The only thing keeping me in the game was that I appeared to be the only person using the student for the majority of the game (Amelia stepped in to steal it a couple times). Matthew won a close game with 21 points, Dan at 20, myself at 18, and Amelia with 7 points. I think we didn't do the bribery quite right (I don't think you can bribe and official that is un-secured by another player), but I'm pretty sure this only hosed me. The rules aren't entirely clear - I think I need to re-read through them. Regardless, this is a really fun game and might make my top 10 here after another playing or two.
After Confucius, Matthew and Amelia settled on playing a three-player game of Le Havre. I've been playing this a bit on the computer (as the short, solo version) and have found it to be a bit mechanical. Playing face to face (in a full game) is much better - shocking I know. This one is still a bit more mechanical than Agricola, but a good game none the less. This was only my second sit down playing of the game, but I was determined to get a ship (or two) as early as I could to avoid drowning in debt for food. This paid off really well for me (especially since Amelia took all the cattle). Though I felt pretty behind most of the game, it was apparent in the last 3-4 rounds that I had a decent shot. I was able to load up on coal and turn it into coke and then ship it and the cattle I had for really good money in the last round. There is a lesson there - if you build up the energy reserve and have enough ships, you only need to ship once, not lots of times. I admit I had a secret reservation about playing, but I did enjoy it and even got a win. Charles: 175, Amelia: 129, Matthew: 142.On Saturday, I finished my first game in the online In The Year of the Dragon tournament. This was one of those games where everything that could go right, did go right. I was first player (I'll be interested to see how many first player wins there are) and took the dragon scroll x2. I never looked back. Of course, I'm not doing as well in any of my other games. I think I still prefer Notre Dame over ItYotD by a little bit. Saturday night, Erik came by for a quick game of Heroscape. We played Mirming's Lair, which is a two-player scenario where the first player to kill the dragon and get home with his heart wins the game. Both of us selected teams (rather than draft) and I got screwed. I pulled out a vampire and Major Q9 team. Erik pulled out a Blastitron / Gladitron + Deathwalker team. His soulborgs were immune to my most powerful ability. With very little in the way of power to combat Erik, my troops took their beating in short order. I didn't have the troops to contain him and he was able to get two attack glyphs and high ground that let his Blastitrons tear me up. It was a good army and has me thinking about how to best take it apart.
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