SurfMonkey Gaming: The Cooperative Games Invasion

Monthly SurfMonkey time! The first game to hit the table was the phenomenally popular cooperative dice game: D-Day Dice. Dice, WW II, and tough decisions, what's not to like? There are several scenario boards in the base game; we played the 'tutorial' board known as the Tiger Exercise. 

You roll dice every turn as you make your way up the beach. You gain resources through the dice to help make sure you complete your mission of reaching the final bunker. Along the way you recruit specialists, gain troops, and requisition equipment. You also have to muster your troops' courage to make sure they can continue to move forward in the face of withering machine gun fire. 

SurfMonkey and I had a few tough moments, but in the end we were victorious, assaulting the final bunker and winning by the skin of our teeth. 

I must say, I quite enjoyed this game. SurfMonkey says it plays well solo. I am going to put this one on my wishlist and see if it makes its way into my hands by Christmas. 

The next game hitting the table was Shadow Rift, a cooperative deck-building game where you and the other players must protect your village from an incursion of monsters coming through a shadow rift that has opened near your town. 

You and the other players must try to seal the rift or build up the walls before the monsters clog your town with enough corpses to trigger the plague. We did very well, narrowly avoiding disaster on more than one occasion. I took on the role of main monster killer, while SurfMonkey ran his deck as the main village booster. That strategy seemed to work as we sealed both rifts before the monsters littered the village with too many corpses.

I like this game and would play it again. I think it will be a nice game to bring out to scratch a fantasy itch, but I think, if I had the itch this game scratches, I would rather play Rune Age. Time will tell. 

The final game we dared to play is one of my personal favorites, and a cooperative game to boot. Space Hulk: Death Angel the Card Game. Love it! 

Though I have played the Space Marines from the first expansion packs, I had not yet played any of the new locations. Last night changed all that. We played with the Adrenal Genestealers and the new location cards.

Long story, short: We got crushed. The relentless advance of the Genestealers and a few unfortunate Event cards sent our marines to their doom. 

I enjoy this game every time I play. I look forward to more Death Angel soon. I have a request into Kato Katonian to pick me up the second expansion at Gen Con 2012. He is on his way there as I type these words! Hopefully, the next time I play it will be vs. the Tyranids...as if the Genestealers aren't difficult enough. Sheesh. 

Overall, two wins out of three in three separate cooperative games. Not a bad night, I would say. I think cooperative games are a nice departure from the heat of head-to-head competition. 

What will next month hold? Will there be new games coming out of Gen Con that make it to our table? Tune in next month to find out! 

Thanks for reading and see you soon. Until next time, play some games!

magehammer

Questers and Creatures Session Report: Doom at Dark Tree

This past Saturday night, four former students came over for our annual game night. In attendance were Nick, Zack, Brandon, and Katie. They graciously agreed to play Q&C.

Nick, Zack, and Brandon came prepared with characters ready to go. I had printed out some pre-generated characters and Katie chose the most 'magical' one. She was to be the group's magic-user. Speaking of the group here is the roll call:

Faldrik: Dwarf Fighter/Archaeologist.

Goloin: Dwarf Cleric of Tristan / Aristocrat.

Hunter: Human Thief / Spell League Witch Hunter

Chanterelle: Human Magic-user of the Town of Wingit.

I took them through a module of my own design called QC 1: Doom at Dark Tree. It is a pretty basic adventure in the vein of most old school modules.

Faldrik brought his friends to the city of Northgate in response to an old dwarf who had claimed to have found the location of one of the lost Dwarf Stones, ancient relics thought to be able to bring the dwarven gods back to Mevun. He provided them a map to an ancient tomb where the last bearer of one of the Dwarf Stones, the dwarf wizard, Demdothor, had disappeared.

His interest piqued, Faldrik and the others decided to follow up on the old dwarf's information heading to a lost tomb outside a nearby village, Dark Tree. However, little did the questers know, a necromancer had taken up residence in the ancient tomb. The evil one turned his attention to the unsuspecting denizens of the small village.

When the questers made it to the village it was deserted. On guard, they continued onward to the tomb. Once at the ancient burial site, they discovered a host of undead. After making their way into its depths and fighting through skeletons and zombies, they found a necromancer and defeated him, bringing his evil machinations to an end.

They found the Dwarf Stone among the necromancer's treasures. Faldrik also found an ancient magical greataxe.

They soon returned to Northgate and brought the Dwarf Stone to the old dwarf. He was ecstatic to finally have one of the eight Dwarf Stones in his possession. He warned the questers to be wary, though, as an organization existed who would stop at nothing to prevent the dwarven gods from returning. That organization may have turned its attention on the heroes. Now the questers wait for the next opportunity to explore the unknown and combat evil.

Overall, I was pleased with how my system worked. I did increase the damage clerics do with their Smite Undead ability.

I really want to thank the players! Their backgrounds and passion for the game really inspired me. Thanks again for a great gaming experience, guys!

King of Tokyo: SurfMonkey Brings on a Rune Age While Waging a Summoner's War

On our monthly game night, SurfMonkey and I brought quite a few games to the tables. I suppose with the exception of one game, it was a night of Fillers. Not that there is anything wrong with that...

First up was the fast and furious King of Tokyo! A game I had heard raves about and that, IMHO, lived up to the hype. Dice rolling modified with cards providing special attacks and powers. SurfMonkey and I played two monsters each. 

The only improvement I think it needs is to provide a special ability for each of the monsters as to set them apart. Otherwise, though, it was fun and solid game by the designer of Magic the Gathering. I guess you really can't go wrong with a pedigree like that.

Next up, I exposed SurfMonkey to the fun dice roller, Martian Dice! I pulled out a last minute set of rolls that took me over the 25 point limit and utterly crushed SurfMonkey's hopes of stealing anymore Earthlings. A fun, quick filler that makes me smile when it hits the table.

It had been awhile since this deck builder had hit the table. I had been in the mood for it lately, and I am glad SurfMonkey suggested it. We tried the fully co-op scenario, Cataclysm. Man, is that one hard! We played it three times and only made it to the third stage of the Event deck once. Whew. Was it tough. He was playing the Uthark Yllan, and I the Latari Elves. I always enjoy this game and need to bring it to the table more. 

Although SurfMonkey and I have been playing Summoner Wars to death on the iOS, we still felt it needed to hit the table. If for no other reason than to try out my brand new faction dice! 

As always, it was an epic struggle. I was playing the Sand Goblins vs. his Shadow Elves. In a brilliant ending move, with one of his Summoner bearing down on my Summoner, I used Silts to bring the sneak beat down to Selundar, ending the battle. What a finish! What a game!

What do we have in store for next month? I know not. What I do know is it will be a good time. Until next time, good reader. Play more Summoner Wars!

IMStuds and Summoner Wars

In between games of Summoner Wars on the iOS, I have managed to sit down for some good old fashioned Summoner Wars with Max. It was weird to switch from digital to cardboard but no less cool. A great game transcends mediums.

Max isn't the only one I have been playing against on the cardboard battlefields of Itharia. My brother, IMStuds was in town, and we managed to sit down for some Summoner Wars goodness of our own.


Now. I have been doing very well against him on the iOS, but how would I do against him face-to-face? 

Turns out I did pretty well:


1st game:


IMStuds: Cloaks

Me: Fallen Kingdom


I won

2nd game: 

IMStuds: Phoenix Elves

Me: Guild Dwarves

I won

3rd Game:

IMStuds: Vanguards

Me: Cave Goblins

I won. He wounded Sneeks

4th Game:

IMStuds: Cave Goblins

Me: Vanguards

I won. He almost won. Sera was beat up.


Good times. It was nice spending quality time with my bro. See you on the virtual battlefields!

Father and Son: Two Days of Tabletop Gaming

Over the past two days, Maximan and I have had the opportunity to play some games. We started with a Song of Blades and Heroes game (played the evil marauders, and Max the dwarven defenders), played two games of Summoner Wars, spent some time playing a Flying Lead scenario, and then finished with yet another Song of Blades and Heroes game (this time I was the good guys).

It was a great time spending time with my boy. 

Below are some pics from the games. Hope you enjoy checking them out as we did playing.  

                                     

Questers and Creatures Session Report

Over the past several months, I have been percolating a game design that has become my latest rules-lite fantasy role-playing game. It is a typical dungeon crawl-focused set of rules, simple enough for Maximan to handle, but also deep enough to be a satisfying experience for me. I finally wrote up the rules--which are still a work in progress, of course--but it was time to get it to the table. 

As mentioned in my previous post, SurfMonkey was kind enough to playtest it with us. His input was the final piece I needed to balance out the game. After applying his suggestions, Maximan and I sat down for a few sessions of RPG, sword and spell, fun. Below is the pictorial history of that session. Enjoy!

The Rulebook in all its homespun glory.

Here is the adventuring party, hired by the local mayor of the village of Vigil--a most unusual fellow--Uncle Pugga, to investigate the abandoned and supposedly haunted shrine of Palan on the outskirts of his town. Recently, there have been rumors of livestock and travelers disappearing near the shrine. 

The questers approach the shrine alert for trouble.

As the questers investigate the shrine, the halfling, Gorbo Foothill, and the wizard, Zortan Gethen, find an activation sigil on the altar of the shrine. After pushing the sigil, the group feels a slight rumble in the earth. Soon, the questers found themselves in combat with hyena-headed creatures known as gnolls. 

After dispatching the gnolls, the questers found a stairway behind the shrine that led down into darkness, a sub-level of the shrine, no doubt. There the questers encountered a room of orc guards. The presence of the orcs definitely points to something wicked occurring here under the abandoned shrine. After defeating the orcs, the party searched a statue room where they found some hidden magic items and two doors. After Gorbo picked the door's lock, they were attacked by a band of kobolds pouring out of the other door. This subterranean area was proving to be a bit more crowded than anticipated.

Bronden healed his companions' wounds with the power of his dwarven god. Then wanting to investigate the area the kobolds came from, the questers left their newly unlocked door behind. 
Down a passage, they found the room the kobolds had recently inhabited and yet another door.

Behind the door, unlocked by Gorbo, was the living chambers of a foul and evil priest of Mordenmaul, Thola Doom. His cozy, macabre bed chamber was guarded by the undead! Five skeletons leapt to their master's defense.

After a pitched battle filled with magical dooms, and magical missiles, the questers rid the world of the evil priest and his foul minions. They searched his room and found gold, silver, and a magical ring of Damage Warding. They also found a letter Doom was composing to a woman who lives in a 'haunted hole' nearby. The two were apparently planning on turning the denizens of Vigil into their own personal undead army. Now the questers must quest to find this mysterious woman named, T'ashra. 

On the way out from under the Lost Shrine of Palan, the questers decided to open the door they had unlocked earlier. Behind it was the final resting place of a paladin of Palan known as Palathas. His spirit roused and granted his sword to Nameless Nada to use in further forays against evil. The sword proved to be a holy sword that provides a bonus in battle and is particularly effective against the undead. The adventurers left now to continue their quest to rid the world of evil. Off they go to find T'ashra. 

I am looking forward to the second chapter of this story. Hopefully, Maximan and I will find some time to tell the tale in the coming days. Expect another update when we do. 

Thanks for reading and until next time, roll some dice while traveling the imagination.