Once Upon a Song of Blades and Heroes

Max and I sat down for a rematch. He played the Motley Crew, and I was playing the Human and Dwarf Alliance Squad. Max continued his tactic of always rolling 3d6 for his activation rolls. Let's see how he fared in this skirmish...

 Here is Max. A bit scared at the start but brave enough to fight on.

 I immediately send my artillery to the high ground with ground support from my infantry "tanks."

 Here the dwarves plug up the breach in the natural ring of rocks while hobgoblin magic flies by them.

The undead march forward only to be dead again under the weapons of the dwarves and the powerful crossbow of Kyper Sub.

The dwarves were not without a few lumps themselves...

Within two turns, the dwarves had defeated all of their opponents at the breach and sent the others fleeing.

Max was so intimidated by dwarf power, that he just had his remaining troops run away, and the Human Dwarf Alliance Squad won the day.

Take that, son! That will teach you to cross swords with your dad!

Thanks for reading and until next time may your Song of Blades and Heroes ring clear in the hall!

Max Discovers

Max wanted to play an RPG, but I thought that he might enjoy a miniatures skirmish game instead (in other words, I wanted to play Song of Blades and Heroes). I let Max choose what minis he wanted in his warband, and then I chose mine. 

He chose two dwarf warriors--one elite--a human crossbowman, a human heavy infantry, and a human wizard named Earon. 

I chose a bugbear guard, a hobgoblin heavy infantry, a hobgoblin commander, and a hobgoblin warcaster. We set them up on my Zuzzy mat with some terrain I chose, and the battle was on. 

Below are some pics of our skirmishes...

The humans and dwarves stand over the final opponent's body, victorious.

For our second battle, Max wanted to play the "bad guys" and chose several random minis for his warband. For simplicity's sake, I decided to play his warband from the game before.

His new warband had a frogman spearwielder, the hobgoblin warcaster, a dire weasel, two skeletons, and an orc skeleton. A motley crew, indeed.

Through superior tactics, the humans and dwarves devastated the motley mix and sent the warcaster running for his pathetic life. My forces had not one casualty.

Max is totally enamored of the game, as am I, of course. He picked up the rules with little problem. I found it awesome that he insists on always rolling 3 dice for activations no matter what. We have another battle set up, a re-match of sorts. I will post more about it after the combatants have met on the field of blades and heroes...

Thanks for reading and until next time, may your dice always fall your way.

Death Angels Fly Again and StormBringer Meets the Sentinels

My friend of 38 years, StormBringer came for a visit yesterday. After a visit with the family and lunch, us guys went to the Geek Cave for a bit of gaming. StormBringer chose to play Death Angel: Space Hulk the Card Game, a game near and dear to my heart. We randomly chose our 4 teams, and delved into the Hulk. 

 By the end of the game, we had lost only two Marines and launched off of the Hulk, the Genestealers left behind...A proud day for our Chapter!

After fighting off swarms of Genestealers, I introduced StormBringer to...

In real life, StormBringer is a runner and a scientist of sorts, and one of his favorite superheroes is the Flash. The obvious choice for his first game of Sentinels was, of course, Tachyon, the scientist speedster. I played Absolute Zero and Ra: fire and ice and fire. Max played his favorite, Tempest. We went against Citizen Dawn and her legion of supervillains in Megalopolis. 

We barely defeated her Dawnness but defeat her we did...Only Absolute Zero fell in our titanic battle. StormBringer loved it...as I knew he would. This game rocks. 

After our game, StormBringer and I packed up and headed over to our friend's house for two more games of SotM, this time with 5 players, and an epic game of Magic the Gathering: Commander that went way too long but was way too much fun! An excellent day of gaming it was. 

Thanks for reading and until next time, go save the Multiverse and have fun doing it.

SurfMonkey Makes a Run in the Dungeon and Once Again Saves the Multiverse With Me

In our most recent session, SurfMonkey brought over Plaid Hat Games' second game, Dungeon Run. He ordered it directly from the company's website and had it in time for our game night. Thank goodness he did. This game is fun! 

For our first game, SurfMonkey chose first and took the doughty dwarf explorer, while I chose the Vanguard paladin.

We made it through the dungeon. I was the first to make it to the Boss Lair.

SurfMonkey's dwarf ran into some trouble in the form the the fearsome War Altar.

The Boss makes quick work of me. But ultimately, I prevailed and started to make my way to the Entrance (or is that Exit?)

However, along the way, I met my former dwarf companion on the rickety Ancient Bridge. After a few feints and parries, we ended up striking at each other simultaneously, and ending both our careers, leaving the Summoning Stone to be found by another group of luckier adventurers.

For our second game, we decided upon different questers. I went with the human mage, and SurfMonkey went with the furious Tundra Orc.

In the end, I ended up with the Summoning Stone, but the Tundra Orc took it off of me as my spells failed me. A rousing, tension-filled ending!

Overall, I found Dungeon Run to be a fun time. It felt at times a lot like Summoner Wars in a dungeon, which is a good thing for me! I absolutely love the combat system! It seems to riff off of Deep 7's Kung Fu Dice engine, which I have always loved. The bits and boards are all top notch. Another success for Plaid Hat Games. 

After our games of Dungeon Run, we had time for one more game. We agreed upon Sentinels. I love playing this game! I played Tempest and Tachyon while SurfMonkey took on the roles of Legacy and the Wraith. Our heroes met the invading forces of Grand Warlord Voss at the Mars Wagner Base. In the end, the heroes were triumphant, with only Tempest falling to his nemesis.

Thanks again for reading and until next time, find a game and play it and love it!

Sentinel News Flash: The Ladies of the Multiverse Defeat Citizen Dawn While Other Heroes Take Down Baron Blade

The Ladies of the Multiverse (aka Fox Force Four) take on the self-proclaimed savior of all super powerdom, Citizen Dawn. Various teams of heroes had tried to stop the Citizens of the Sun in the Ruins of Atlantis and then again on Insula Primalis, but to no avail. However, four heroes met them head on in the sprawling Megalopolis to make their last stand against the Citizens...

Only the united front of Visionary, Tachyon, Fanatic, and the Wraith were able to bring the Citizens rise to a halt.

 Citizen Dawn was defeated, but like the sun, she will most likely rise again...


After that game, Maximan and I sat down to play against Baron Blade in the Ruins of Atlantis. Maximan played his favorite, Tempest, and I played Legacy and Bunker.

 Maximan ready to go. Great opening hand, son!

 Tempest barely standing after the titanic battle vs. Baron Blade and his minions.

Legacy barely able to move and Bunker's armor pitted and sputtering, but triumphant!

As always a fun time battling the dastardly villains of the Multiverse.

Until next time, heroes, may the cards fall your way and may you play, play, play.

Adventures Across the Globe...

For Weezoh's annual birthday get together, we all sat down for a game of the new Indiana Jones homage: Fortune and Glory the Cliffhanger Game. We randomly assigned characters. I had the pleasure of playing Duke Dudley, British Lord.

With a trusty machete and hatred for Nazis, the Duke began combing the globe to find artifacts and ancient temples before the Third Reich could.

We had decided to play the game cooperatively rather than competitively, so it was us against the evil Nazis. A few of us were close enough to one of the artifacts that we teamed up right out of the gate, while across the world, others of our intrepid team made their way alone.

What I Didn't Like: We had seven players to begin. Zoltar ended up--because of bad Initiative and being in the wrong places at the wrong times--not really playing much until the end of the game. There was a lot of down time for him which was unfortunate. I almost wish there was a way in the cooperative game for all of the adventurers to begin in the same place. That way, they could all aid in the retrieval of the same artifacts at that same time. They could split up if they wanted, but at least they could split up in even teams from the get-go.

I am not one to shy away from complex games with lots of rules, but the learning curve on this game was a bit steep as there were about three sub systems to the Task resolution mechanic: Combat, Sneak, and Skill Tests. I think a more unified mechanic would have served the game better.

In the middle of a temple deep in the jungle, there were several times when the Night Club Femme Fatale Danger card was revealed and had to be overcome. I found that a bit jarring to the immersion factor of the game.

What I Did Like: My favorite movie of all time is Raiders of the Lost Ark. I have seen it 55 times. This game does capture the feel and tension of those movies. 

I liked the task resolution for capturing artifacts (despite what I mentioned above). 

The bits are glossy and high quality. Bravo, Frogs! The game is fun to look at as you play. 

I liked the mechanic for how the artifacts are named: a 2-card system where one card is combined with another: For example: The Ring of Zeus. Or in another game it could be the Temple of Zeus, etc.

Dice, dice, dice. You get to roll a ton of dice! 'nuff said.

This game has a huge replay value with all of the random factors in a game.  

With this game being the learning one, it dragged a bit, but I would definitely give this game another go. But next time, I am bringing my fedora.

That's it for this post, folks. Until next time may the dice fall your way and may cliffhangers make your day.

Maxi Man and the Sentinels of the Multiverse!

Max and I played a game of Sentinels of the Multiverse today. He played Tempest, while I took on the roles of Legacy and Fanatic. That girl with wings is becoming my favorite hero to play! She has decent damage dealing with excellent healing, and Aegis of Resurrection and Wrathful Retribution are becoming my favorite cards. 

Max chose Tempest because he said the hero looked like Kit Fisto (and he does). Cool, huh? We fought Baron Blade on Insular Primalis. Dinosaurs were flying at us left and right, some stealing our stuff. Cool comic book fun. At one point in the game, Max used Chain Lightning and said, "No way," to how much damage Tempest was dealing out with it. I think he liked the game...I know I liked playing it with him.

In the end we were victorious over the fiendish Baron. Looking forward to more games with my son, Maxi Man.