KTTC Game Night Report

Good session at Keighley Table Top Combat last night. First I played Dave at X wing with both of us flying Decimator / Phantom lists.

X-Wing Match Report

My list: "Is there an Echo in here?" (100 points)

Commander Kenkirk (60)
VT-49 Decimator (44), Emperor Palpatine (8), Ysanne Isard (4), Engine Upgrade (4)

“Echo” (40)
TIE Phantom (30), Rebel Captive (3), Fire-Control System (2), Veteran Instincts (1), Advanced Cloaking Device (4)

The idea with the Decimator was that it would fly around the edge of the board, trying to keep at range 2-3 of everything. Once it's shield are gone (which wouldn't take long) both Kenkirk and Ysanne will give it potentially 2 evades giving the Emperor more time to swing things in his favour.

Meanwhile, a high pilot skill Phantom is mixing it up in the fray, ending up who knows where, attacking first, obtaining a target lock, vanishing straight away and giving out stress to anyone who tries to shoot him. Echo was always given an evade token if he was in arc of a foe to ensure he survived as long as possible.

Dave was flying

"Whisper" (TIE Phantom) + Advanced Cloaking Device
Patrol Leader (Decimator)
2 x Academy Pilots (TIE Fighter)

So had a numerical advantage against my higher pilot skills.

This was the first time I had flown a large base ship and managed to keep it off the asteroids until Dave blocked me with one of his TIEs. He was targeting my Decimator and I was targeting his Phantom. Some early crits left my Decimator with no actions (bye Engine Upgrade) and a wounded pilot (bye extra evade die) but he managed to hang on to the end.

Echo flew well but a daft turn left me at range 1 of the opposing Decimator on an asteroid. Thanks to lucky dice and a bit of Emperor-ish fiddling he only lost one shield and went on to dish out some hurt to the Decimator.

I also kept forgetting to use my Fire Control System, Rebel Captive and missed two dice modifying opportunities with the Emperor. I was left with 2 hull on my Decimator and 1 shield off the Phantom when the last TIE fighter went down in a blaze of fire.

Advanced Cloaking Device is an automatic include on a Phantom, it really changes the game. They are such fun to fly as well! Dave was a very talented and sporting opponent and flew his custom painted ships very well.


Netrunner

I gave Jacko a tutorial game of Netrunner with my Noise MK II and NBN core only decks. He scored an early 4 agenda points but the Noise R+D mill got going and it was just a case of picking through Archives. A very quick game with poor card draw on my part with nothing but Cyberfeeders!

I then played young Jack, the same way round. I ignored his remote servers and just hammered R+D with Medium, getting up to 12 accesses. A couple of Demolition Runs later and I had the required agendas and he had 4 cards in R+D. Ouch.

I got poor card draw both games, and I'm not so sure about trying Magnum Opus for money as it didn't get drawn in either game but both were fairly quick. I suspect that the Noise deck wouldn't be so clever against HB with their punishing ICE.

Anyway I've ordered the Order and Chaos expansion to get some more juicy virus cards!

MeepFest Games Festival 2015, Left Bank, Leeds

Jack, who organises our gaming club Keighley Table Top Combat, told us about this board games festival happening at Left Bank Leeds, a former church in Hyde Park. There were going to be loads of free games to try and play, a Netrunner tournament, bar, awesome food... what are we waiting for?

Jack, Luke and I arranged to meet on the train and head over together. Transport logistics was spot on and we arrived at the venue for the start with a few games already going on.

The "Big Pile Of Games" really did exist!

So we grabbed a brew and went to look for games!


Apples To Apples

Best described as a polite version of Cards Against Humanity. One person takes a green card with a word on it and then everyone else submits a red card from their hand that best matches the green card. Laura the lovely event organiser was running this demo.

New Labour. Definitely tame.

This is the sort of game you could play at a dinner party as a bit of an icebreaker. No rules and you get to find out a bit more about your opponents, sorry, guests! We just need to get a set and have more dinner parties. Maybe wait until everyone gets drunk before getting CAH out eh?


Catan

Some guys were setting up a Catan demo on the next table. I play Catan: Junior with the kids so definitely wanted in on a demo of the full game. Unfortunately the main demo was full but Catan: Star Trek was empty so we piled in. Starships! Tritanium! er... Water!

Very similar mechanics to Catan: Junior but with mini Enterprise-s instead of pirate ships and a Klingon Warbird instead of the Ghost Pirate. Roll for resources, trade resources, build stuff, win game. Good fun, I will definitely be purchasing the regular version. Cheers to Phil (?) for the demo.


Food!

I missed the start of the Netrunner tournament so went to get some food. Manjit's Kitchen had a little stall set up and the Chilli Paneer wrap sounded too good to miss. Having eaten their stuff before at a previous Leeds event somewhere I was expecting good things and I was not disappointed!

Absolutely delicious, fresh ingredients, so many good flavours and textures. Set the dial to NOM.


Munchkin Steampunk

I missed the starting game of the Netrunner tournament so went in search of a nearby game. Some people were playing Munchkin Steampunk with some fantastically titled cards.

I joined part way through but the gist of the game appears to be screwing over your opponents as much as possible, either that or the game demo-er just preferred to play that way! Amusing cards and simple mechanics.


Netrunner Torunament

I came (joint) last.

Damn you Ichi 1.0! Damn You!

X-Wing Demo

Jack from t' club was running an X-wing demo so I wandered over to take a look at that. Folk seemed to be enjoying it if playing a little slower than most.


Roll For The Galaxy

Ian from Aireborough Community Gamers was running a bit of a session with Roll For the Galaxy with Ashley and Grumpy Neil from the Netrunner tournament. Roll and assign dice in secret to explore for new worlds, develop and settle them, produce goods, ship goods and eventually get enough Victory Points for... er... victory!

I quite enjoyed the mechanics of the game once we got into it, which took a few turns. Grumpy Neil had played before so was a good person to ask for hints!

Oh noes, the rocket is chasing meeeeeeeee......

I didn't find the theme that compelling as it seemed a bit tacked on and fractured otherwise I might have considered buying a copy. Still an enjoyable game and, finally, with the last roll of the dice, I WON SOMETHING! YEAH!


Colt Express

Luke and Jack played this and were full of praise for this Wild West train shootout game. Sounds ace.


Takenoko

I really wanted to get in on a game of Takenoko as it looked ace but all the sessions were full :( Grow decorative bamboo and protect from roving panda so that the Emperor can judge your garden the most beautiful. Fantastic looking artwork!


Discworld

Luke and I picked this up but never got chance to play it. Vying for power in Ankh-Morpork in the absence of the Patrician, Lord Vetinari. I love Pratchett so this might be a good one to try in future.


In Summary

What a fantastic day out, really well run with loads of stuff to do. Even if I hadn't have spent 2 hours playing Netrunner I would still not have got round to palying all the games that I liked the look of. It was only £3 to get in and what flipping great value it was.

All three of us were totally brain-baked so we strolled back into Leeds for our train and our beds soon after.

Leeds Netrunner Tournament

After hearing about the Core Set only Netrunner tournament at Leeds MeepFest via the Run Last Click blog I thought I'd give it a go. I mean I can beat Louise and Luke just over half of the time so I can't be that bad.... right?

Decks

A first go at deck building on the eve of the tournament so lots of thought and research went into it. Not.

Gabriel Santiago (Criminal) thinking he has a reasonable economy with Easy Mark, Bank Job and 2 credits for running on HQ.
with
2 x Gordian Blade - crims need a code gate breaker
2 x Akamatsu Mem Chip - didn't want to be waiting for a console
2 x Corroder - better than Aurora
1 x Medium - criminal puts pressure on HQ so wanted to add pressure to R+D also. Didn't manage to use this card effectively

Haas Bioroid thinking Biotic Labor, good economy and reasonably tough ice. To this I added
2 x Wall of Thorns
2 x Neural Katana
2 x Tollbooth
2 x Research Station for a bit of added hand size - these got trashed fairly quickly and didn't really bring any benefits.


Tournament

Round 1 - bye
I was busy playing Star Trek Catan so missed the start of the games. An odd number of players so I got a bye (two free wins apparently but I didn't count them).

Round 2 - vs Ashley (Criminal and Haas Bioroid)
Runner - despite wanting to play conservatively I face checked an Ichi with one Gordian Blade installed and the other in the trash. That would be no code gate breakers for me then. Played very poorly, couldn't get in anywhere. Ashley scored out easily.

Corp - After Ashley pointed out that I needed to pay to install more than one ice on a server I felt even more stupid than before. Shortly after he Inside Job'd a server to steal an agenda I thought was safe. I managed to score an Accelerated Beta Test but we were running out of time. I didn't do my sums right and my opponent got into my remote server on the next to last run to pinch an agenda and then riffled through archives for the winning one.

0-2

Ashley went on to win the tournament so I didn't feel too bad at being beaten by the best man.

Round 3 vs Grumpy Neil (Shaper and Haas Bioroid)
Corp - Stupidly used my Biotic Labors to score out three 2-point agendas leaving me needing only a single point to win and only two three point agendas to do it with. Neil had some Datasuckers and Cyberfeeders up and running and quickly made short work of my defences, nabbing the last agendas from R+D.

Runner - Ate an early Aggressive Secretary but got back up and running, nabbing a couple of agendas. Low on time I made a last minute run on R+D and pulled a Priority Requisition off the top for a straight win, my first, last and only. Even then I felt like I'd got lucky rather than won on skill.

1-3


Analysis

Finished the tournament joint last with Neil, even though the table said 4th I'm choosing to ignore the wins from my bye.

I was very frustrated with my performance. Really pissed off actually. I'm sure I can play better Netrunner than that. I could blame low blood sugar, the time of day (I always have a mental slump early afternoon), poor deck choice. Fundamentally I didn't concentrate and I feel like I played badly for myself which is most annoying. I failed to be cautious when approaching HB ice and paid. I failed to do my sums and paid. I failed to concentrate and paid.

My decks were OK but I didn't make Medium or Research Station work for me so they were poor choices on reflection. However most games I ended up with a decent amount of cash so at least my economy wasn't too bad.

Lessons Learned

• Do your sums
• Caution over confidence
• Know your opponent's deck
• Practice more
• Play a wider range of opponents
• Chill out, it's just a game dude!

Massive respect to people who play games at National and Worlds level. They usually play 8 rounds of two games just to make the final cut. My brain was baked after four games. I had to go in search of caffeine and sugar immediately afterwards.

I came away with two new ID cards as a consolation prize, lets see if I can put these to work!

Lastly, well done to Ashley who was a really nice guy and played some good cards to win the day. Kudos to Neil too for being a good opponent.

p.s. don't ask me where the Bill and Ted idea came from, I have no idea  8-)

Android: Netrunner - First Impressions

In a rather positive move, The Guardian has started reviewing board games in it's regular games column. For someone who used to play Warhammer 40k when-I-was-a-lad I've been greatly cheered to see that it and some new contemporaries are still going strong. It's also interesting to read about games I was only dimly aware of like Magic: The Gathering.

Scanning through the "favourite board games" article, I noted the glowing review and subsequent article extolling the virtues of Android: Netrunner. Strategy, bluffing and an element of chance all in one game with a dystopian sci-fi theme? Sounds perfect!

One trip to my local friendly games shop and I was equipped with the "Core Set" which contains everything you need to get up and running.

** Support your local bricks-and-mortar shop! ** I bought my copy of Netrunner, and a couple of other games, from the friendly and helpful folk at IQ Gaming in Huddersfield. I kind of wish I lived a bit nearer and earned more money as I'd be down there a lot! Good service in helping me find the games I was looking for and directing me to places where I could find more info on the game and their regular game nights. A good vibe about the place with lots of games taking place in store even early on a Sunday morning.

Tutorials

There is a slickly produced video by Fantasy Flight Games which demonstrates the basic game mechanics. Whilst this gives a basic idea, the best intro video by far is Nam and Jeremy's which covers pretty much everything you need to know delivered with enthusiasm and humour.


Early Results

Me - "I'm going to play this."
Luke - "Hang on, what does this bit mean?"
* share a confused look* 
Both - "RULES!"

Following the recommendations in the manual, Luke and I have played 10 games with Jinteki (corp) vs Shaper (runner) from the core deck taking five goes at each faction. Overall score 6-4 to me and most of the games were very close. Playing with Luke is great because he likes geeky things too.

Luke and I showed the boy how to play and he enjoyed it so much he's been nagging to play again and again. I've also shown Louise how to play and, to my surprise, the really enjoyed it and demanded to play again despite us finishing our first game at quarter past ten on a school night!


Initial Thoughts

The game mechanics take a few games and some referencing the rules to get the hang of but we were into it by the end of the fourth round. No two games are identical, even when playing the same factions, due to the order in which the cards come out of the stack or R+D.

I was also surprised how differently the Shaper and Anarch runner factions played. Shaper is all about building your strong icebreaker rig steadily and a steady economy from Magnum Opus before launching a difficult to defend against attack. Anarch is, on the face of it, much more complicated to play with virus tokens everywhere. With Medium up and running you can quickly start to get lots of access to R+D. Throw a couple of Stimhacks in there and it just gets crazy.

More time is required to get the feel of the finer points of the strategy and I have the feeling that this game could very well being a long standing favourite with lots of replay value!

Geek out.