donderdag 31 januari 2013

Playstation Challenge part 1 of 12

And here we are, the first month gone by in the Ultimate Challenge.  I'm posting this half a day before on schedule as tomorrow starts another hectic Magic The Gathering weekend in view of the London GP preparations, so let's have a look of how both contestants faired.

Below is the current standing, with after each number the points or extra trophies gained by both contestants in the race to ultimate bragging rights and free food...



Yokai_Tomsche



Points: 26.265 + 3570 points gained
Level: 13 - 28% + 35%

Platinum Trophies:5 + 2
Gold Trophies: 48 + 3
Silver Trophies: 227 + 29
Bronze Trophies: 949 + 138

Games played: 187 + 11
Games Beaten: 24 + 2

AnRoDr



Points: 34.155 + 2790
Level: 14 - 26% + 32%

Platinum Trophies: 8 + 1
Gold Trophies: 86 + 7
Silver Trophies: 254 + 8
Bronze Trophies: 1157 + 116

Games played: 157 + 7
Games Beaten: 16 + 1

This means Andy starts the year with a lead of 8670 points, currently the gap is 7905 (WIN TOMSCHE)

The gap has been currently reduced by 765 points in advantage to Yokai_Tomsche, meaning at current the challenge is being won by yours truly.

Looking at all the numbers the last month, Andy did score ,ore golden trophies then me, but the extra platinum I gained over him is the main reason for the closing of the gap, as this grind included a whole series of bronzes to boot.

Both contestants did raise a level as well in the PSN network ranks, at the moment putting Andy on a solid top 1500 national ranking, namely 1419th and 102671th worldwide.

Compared to that, I'm only 2025th in Belgium, and 150247th worldwide, these numbers on 1204769 tracked profiles by YGC at the moment.

At this rate, we actually should both be able to make a top 1000 / top 100000 at the end of the challenge if one takes a quick glance over the Leaderboards on YGC and the average progression rate on those.

Well, that is it for the first of the 12 score reports, February is a short month and I'll be out of the loop for a week, so I expect to loose terrain again the comming month, but we'll see in the end wo will be the crowning champion of the ULTIMATE PLAYSTATION CHALLENGE 2013

woensdag 30 januari 2013

Preparing for London

Two and a half weeks to go for the London GP, which will be my official debut on the whole GP circuit.  I plan to play at least two this year (London and Antwerp) and for the London one, whose format is Sealed Gatecrash, I'm going with limited ambitions.



The plan is to score those final points to be eligible to play the World Magic Cup Qualifiers, whose 'entry level' is 300 Yearly Planeswalker Points here in Belgium, something I need about 40 still this year.  With the regular FNMs and everything, this should be do-able to get anyways before the 17th of March, but safe then sorry and the likes.

Technically, that would mean entering alone is sufficient, but I'm planning on at least giving it a shot as every win would grant me 24 points (3 points with a x8 multiplier) but as the format is Sealed and your dependant on the pool you'd be pulling, I've been watching the side event calendar as well.

I'm going to register on the friday, but as I will be playing normally only during saturday, lacking all skills to actually make it to day 2 all things going normal, I have been watching the available pick up events, and two are at the moment intresting for me... IF I can rebuild my standard deck on time.

Both are the Constructed format and register from 15.00 until 20.00 on saturday (or until full if that comes first), and are the Standard format one and the Legacy one.  I'll be hauling both decks at least along.  THE benefit of Magic vs Miniatures, less hauling ;-)
Can't see me pack and haul two extra wargame armies 'just in case' hehehe.

Further preparation wise I'll be playing the comming FNM Gatecrash draft, drafting not to win but to try and get at least 2-3 potential cards for my Standard decks in the making, being the retuned RDW and the Orzhov / Cypher deck I'm building, together with both Release events this saturday and sunday.  Next week it'll be booster openings from the on the way booster box and card sorting (and reading!) so I should be armed well enough to at least not make a weird mistake.

Sounds like a plan.  Flawed, but a plan nevertheless...

zaterdag 26 januari 2013

We Are Legion!

Yesterday I played the Midnight Pre-release for the new Magic set, Gatecrash, and came in a hefty 12th place on 39 players.  Guild of choice?  Boros.

Why, well, because I play a red / black aggro deck in Standard, and with the new set I'm filing in a heap of red and white, expelling the black.  Mainly to be better able to counter on the one hand the life gain currently raging through type2, and on the other hand the new White enchantment Blind Obedience, which would render my Haste creatures all useless.

I was lucky yesterday that out of my 5 boosters and guild booster, I might not have gotten any usefull rares (I had 3 out of 5 Simic's, including the Prime Speaker), but did get for example no less then 4 Skynight Legionairres, getting me a ncie 3 win, 2 loss ratio and both losses actually being caused by top decking and one color screw.

Tomorrow on the third pre-release I'll be playing Orzhov (my favorite fluff guild) for the promo and the sticker, but I'll also be building over time an Orzhov deck, but for the short run, I'm color mutating my black to white to be able to stay competitive, planning to have it completed by the time I return from London.

This is my current Type2 deck, a sort of mix between a Rakdos and an RDW deck:

Lands:

14 Mountains
4 Dragonskull Summit
4 Blood Crypt

Creatures:

4 Ash Zealot
3 Gore-House Chainwalker
2 Hellhole Flailer
3 Hellrider
4 Lightning Mauler
4 Rakdos Cackler
4 Stromkirk Noble
3 Vexing Devil
2 Falkenrath Aristocrat

Spells:

2 Brimstone Volley
4 Pillar of Flame
3 Searing Spear

Sideboard:

2 Flames of the Firebrand
1 Havoc Festival
3 Archwing Dragon
2 Rakdos Charm
2 Rakdos Return
3 Slaughter Games
2 Zealous Conscripts

The deck worked pretty simple; race with all the low cost creatures by adding haste if needed with the maulers, get the Aristocrats out and then slice the throats of your humans to make her more powerful.  Archwing Dragons where mainly to counter Supreme Verdicts and the likes.

The deck really shined against Omnidoor which it could easily outrace, and had a field day with Re-animator decks and the recent Chronic Flooding one from the Nagoya GP, but struggled against Band once the Thragtusks came in, and was near chanceless versus the Silverblade Paladin / Wolfir combo white green aggro which actually outraced it.

So what am I going to change?

First of all, Skullcrack.  The wet dream for an aggro deck, and I'll be replacing the two Flames of the Firebrand, the Havoc Festival and a Slaughter Game with it.  Then move a Searing Spear and a Pillar of Flame to the Sideboard and maindeck two of the 4 of the new red burner from heaven.



Rakdos Charm while be replaced by Boros Charm on a 1-by-1 ratio, same as the Rakdos's Return while be replaced by his equivalent of Boros, the Aurelia's Fury, in the sideboard.




The final two Slaughter Games will be replaced by the white Ray of Revelation, to be hopefully able to handle any Blind Obedience's being popped out.  I expect that card to appear in many sideboards, so if I see one plays white, I will be siding in the Ray every time to be sure.



Bigger critter wise, the Hellhole Flailer will be replaced by 2 Boros Reckoners, I love that beast and if I should be able to couple it with a Lightning Mauler, it will hurt, especcially if all the weenie blocks on it transfer damage to the opponent as well.



For the Falkenrath Aristocrat at first I thought of replacing her with two more Reckoners, but seeing the mana curve not comming in issues, I'm going to try out 2 Firemane Avengers.  With all my little one drops, I should be able to trigger the Batallion and do all the extra damage quite easily.



Mana base wise, it's just replacing the black / red dual lands with equivalents in white / red, as I don't have any more 'off colour' cards really then before, au contraire even.

This should give me an equivalent of my current dual coloured deck, starting with fast and aggressive play in round 1, to be able to swap in some tricks if needed in games 2 - 3 if it stalled in the first game.

We'll see how it goes once it is build, and then we can thinker afterwards anyways now don't we.

vrijdag 25 januari 2013

Saint Seiya Myth Cloth: Poseidon

Continuing with the Atlantis item of yesterday, here is one more thing of the legend of the Sunken City-State.

Julian Solo, Poseidon, Lord of the Oceans.

In the Saint Seiya storyline, this is the second enemy of the Saints of Athena in the manga, the third one in the anime series as the Asgard story line is set between Sanctuary and Poseidon there.  As the machinations of Gemini Saga's twin brother, Kanon, are set in motion, Julian Solo becomes the vessel to carry the essence of the God of the Oceans and is awakened a century to early.  Athena, knowing that Hades is at the brink of re-awakening, can`t permit the left over Gold Saints from the Sanctuary battle to fight the battle, as this might result in the loss of more of her elite warriors, allows the bronze saints to fight in their place.

Not to the liking of Golden Leo Saint Aiolia, but the bronze saints get silent support from Dohko of Libra who grants them the use of his cloths weapons to destroy the pillars of the Marina generals.

As the gold saints work their way past the Marina generals, they face off against the God, and manage eventually to defeat him thanks to aid of their masters and their golden cloths of Saggitarius, Libra and Aquarius, and the human shield provided by Shun, Ikki and Shaina.

Poseidon is defeated eventually and his essence re-sealed in an urn, but he re-awakens briefly in the Hades story arc when his mighty cosmo sends 5 golden cloths, granting Shun the Virgo and Ikki the Leo cloth, across the time and space dimensions to aid the bronze saints in their battle in Elysium versus the twin gods Hypnos and Thanatos.





Now assembling the cloth has no challenge at all, as the object mode is a man standing tall holding his spear.  Still, the model is well detailed and the face and hair, tricky points in any miniature, are well executed.  The model has a certain regal grandeur to it, like any of the God models I have in my possession so far, though it is FAR less intricate and complex then the Hypnos and Hades cloths.

I really like the model, even though I`m not to great on the whole Atlantis series of cloths, some are lovely, some rather bleugh, and as said to infinity I love the Gold Saints and the Asgard God Warriors the best in designs.

Still, he isn`t to expensive (this is the regular cloth, not the Royal Edition collector series) so it`s definitly worth it to snatch one of the internet if you can.

donderdag 24 januari 2013

Deep under the ocean

The legends tell of a city-island called Atlantis, first mentioned in Plato's Timaeus and Critias work in about 360 BC.

A city made of gold, full of technology, and inhabited by highly intelligent and beautiful, some even daresay alien, people.  A land with wealth beyond imagination, where no one ever grew sick and aged far beyond normal human expectations.

A city destroyed by an unknown cataclysm as the wrath of the Gods decended upon them...

Until now, as the city has been located, and daring adventurers mount an expedition to retrieve the lost knowledge of Atlantis, braving the mysteries of the deep seas in order to unlock the ancient secrets.






Now to be honest, I`m still in doubt about the Lego Atlantis series.  Sure, the theme is quite cool for a `believer` like me, but I`m not entirely sure about the sets.

On the one hand, they are quite different from any before, being submarines and wildlife for the most, and the promotional Squig was definitly one of the more intresting promo sets of the later years.





But on the other hand, the sets are perhaps a bit TO different for my tastes, not to mention they aren`t the easiest to store on the shelves once build with all their special appendages and such.


Truth is, I got this lot of 3 sets really cheap of eBay, but I probably won`t be looking for any extra sets of the series to add to the collection, it`s a bit the same as the recently released Legend of Chima series, nice sets, but they just don`t `do it` for me compared to for example the Orient series.

'Till next time, may thou bricks fall in place!

dinsdag 22 januari 2013

Platinum 5: Kung Fu Panda 2

Okay, so I scored my 5th Platinum Playstation Trophy.

What can I say about this game?  One word: AVOID



The game is utter crap, boring and I'm very 'bleugh' I spend 16 euros on this rubbish.  The game play is hackily, the graphics look like a bad Playstation 2 game, it's full of glitches like items falling through floors, enemies staying stuck in the walls and it is bloody short.



If you look for a fun game based on a funny movie, look somewhere else, because this one ain't worth the money nor the time invested in it.

The game is in the same style like games such as Mini Ninjas, but worse in that you have a few levels (aka, 3 short storylines and a final boss).  If you want a fun little game that doesn't take 100+ hours to finish, look to the first Dak and Jaxter game for example.  Way better graphics wise, and that is an HD upgraded PS2 game... 'nuff said.



I have the platinum, but like hell did I have fun with the game, it was frustrating to collect the items and a long grind in pushing through it.

Three Wishes

Aladdin is an impoverished young ne'er-do-well in a Chinese town, who is recruited by a sorcerer from the Maghreb, who passes himself off as the brother of Aladdin's late father Qaseem, convincing Aladdin and his mother of his goodwill by apparently making arrangements to set up the lad as a wealthy merchant. The sorcerer's real motive is to persuade young Aladdin to retrieve a wonderful oil lamp from a booby-trapped magic cave of wonder. After the sorcerer attempts to double-cross him, Aladdin finds himself trapped in the cave. Fortunately, Aladdin retains a magic ring lent to him by the sorcerer as protection. When he rubs his hands in despair, he inadvertently rubs the ring, and a jinni, or "genie", appears, who takes him home to his mother. Aladdin is still carrying the lamp, and when his mother tries to clean it, a second, far more powerful genie appears, who is bound to do the bidding of the person holding the lamp. With the aid of the genie of the lamp, Aladdin becomes rich and powerful and marries Princess Badroulbadour, the Emperor's daughter. The genie builds Aladdin a wonderful palace – far more magnificent than that of the Emperor himself.
The sorcerer returns and is able to get his hands on the lamp by tricking Aladdin's wife, who is unaware of the lamp's importance, by offering to exchange "new lamps for old". He orders the genie of the lamp to take the palace along with all its contents to his home in the Maghreb. Fortunately, Aladdin retains the magic ring and is able to summon the lesser genie. Although the genie of the ring cannot directly undo any of the magic of the genie of the lamp, he is able to transport Aladdin to Maghreb, and help him recover his wife and the lamp and defeat the sorcerer.
The sorcerer's more powerful and evil brother tries to destroy Aladdin for killing his brother by disguising himself as an old woman known for her healing powers. Badroulbadour falls for his disguise, and commands the "woman" to stay in her palace in case of any illnesses. Aladdin is warned of this danger by the genie of the lamp and slays the imposter. Everyone lives happily ever after, Aladdin eventually succeeding to his father-in-law's throne.



Another of the collectable Lego minifigs I acquired, this one hails from the Series 6 of figures.  The genie of the lamp is a nifty character, and that he looks like the Lego version of Robin Williams's genie character makes it all the more sheer awesomeness.

zondag 20 januari 2013

To be or not to be

To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether 'tis Nobler in the mind to suffer
The Slings and Arrows of outrageous Fortune,
Or to take Arms against a Sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them: to die, to sleep
No more; and by a sleep, to say we end
The Heart-ache, and the thousand Natural shocks
That Flesh is heir to? 'Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die to sleep,
To sleep, perchance to Dream; Aye, there's the rub,
For in that sleep of death, what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. There's the respect
That makes Calamity of so long life:
For who would bear the Whips and Scorns of time,
The Oppressor's wrong, the proud man's Contumely,
The pangs of despised Love, the Law’s delay,
The insolence of Office, and the Spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his Quietus make
With a bare Bodkin? Who would Fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered Country, from whose bourn
No Traveller returns, Puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have,
Than fly to others that we know not of.
Thus Conscience does make Cowards of us all,
And thus the Native hue of Resolution
Is sicklied o'er, with the pale cast of Thought,
And enterprises of great pitch and moment,
With this regard their Currents turn awry,
And lose the name of Action. Soft you now,
The fair Ophelia? Nymph, in thy Orisons
Be all my sins remembered.




This definitly is my all-time Lego collectable minifigs model so far, hauling from the series 8 of collectable models.  Think collectible card games with Lego minifigs, you never know what model will be in a sealed polybag when you buy it.

Now I just get myself a shopping basket full of the models, and make a 'deal' with the little munchkin, stating they are all for him but if he gets one particular model, he'll hand it over to me, keeping any doubles he might have of said model.

Or point out which ones I'd like a double from once he has openend all the little bags.  He doesn't trade anyway yet, so all his spares just go into his big box of Lego anyways afterwards, and I'll be able to get the cool looking ones for my display shelves.  Fair dinkum' me thinks ;-)

woensdag 16 januari 2013

A Big Step: Two Days in the Valley

Yes, I loved that movie, and not only for the Charlize Theron scene, I just like Danny Aiello.  But that isn`t relevant, I`m happy to say that I managed to sort out each and every brick in colour now, and temporary storage space has been found and freed up.



Until I have a definitive spot and more `slot boxes` to finetune the whole heap of bricks, this has to do for now, and I`m happy with the way it all turned out in the end.  So far I already `resurrected` 5 classic sets, including the small pirate ship I set out from the beginning to rebuild (more on her in a later post).

As an award to myself, I treated myself yesterday night on a `building evening` and did a few of the more modern sets, mainly from the Atlantis series and one from the Prince of Persia franchise.  I`ll be showing them all as well in due time, but for now... I`m going to start cooking before the misses gets home hehehe.

And then this evening, it`s back to sorting out things... but this time of a different kind as I`m going to be tackling more of my Magic cards and sorting them all out.

Ciao ciao

Turn A Gundam - BSL round 2

The second round, and another well deserved loss.  I personally adore Blue in VT`s painting style, check out his blog for one, but not when I`m paired up against him.

He is just to good for my skills, and I can perfectly live with the defeat.



It is a bit pity though that I`m not going to be able to make a fresh entry for round 3, with the pre-release and release weekends comming up, and I want to be armed as good as I can for the GP London as I can, otherwise it wouldn`t have been the deal to travel there in the first place.  So i`m spending the comming free time in weekends to battle it out at the card table and not behind the painting desk.

Still, at least I now have some painted mobile suits of perhaps the strangest of all the Gundam franchise series, the basic suits look `odd`, the Gundam has a mustache, and the setting is what looks like the Interbellum but turns out to be aeons after the high tech settings of previous series.  Complicated story, go watch it and you will have a smile on your face with this series.

dinsdag 15 januari 2013

A Big Step: T plus 30 Hours

A day and a bit later, and I`m amazed to say the sorting of my ancient Lego bricks is as good as done.  I have only two baskets from that `swivle tower` I posted yesterday to go, but I have a problem right now as I`m running out of plastic containers to store them in, and don`t want to go use cardboard containers as these ones stack better.



The solution?  I`m going to try and build some of the older sets in order to `remove` some bricks from all the containers into the models, and hopefully can get the remaining bricks in the boxes that way.

I tried my hand already on one of the classics, set 6890, the Cosmic Cruiser I also showed yesterday.  The set is from 1982 (I was like 4 back then!!!) and I always loved the model.  Don`t ask me why, but when I was a kid I thought he was one of the Thunderbirds vessels, probably the fact it has an auxiliary vehicle comming out of it like Thunderbird 2 had...



Now this was old school building, the actual build only took like half an hour, but I spend more then an hour and a half rummaging through all the boxes for the needed bricks.  You must realise, back then the building instructions (you can get the all Lego booklets scanned on this site) didn`t have an inventory of bricks to be used.  Nor did they have numbered bags like now.  Nor did they show what bricks where needed in each step.

So you have to analyze the plan before you go looking for the parts, trying to remember as good as you can while going through your boxes (and back then, those used to be big cardboard boxes with everything just tossed in, at least now I had it all sorted by colour) and look at times for ages for a certain brick (and usuall, that peticuliar one was never to be found).

I had it happen as well with this vessel.  I couldn`t find the second blue sidebrick with the black markings printed on, probably ended in a lawnmower or vacuumcleaner two decennia ago, so you will need to improvise, in this case a non printed blue brick.



This is what makes Lego so fun for me, and I think makes it a great educational toy.  You need to think and sort problems as you go instead of all those modern straight from the box, don`t dare to mix and match my collection, and look the plan says this as this generation is used to.  I know, I saw it with the Little Munchkin as well, I think he is going to flip out should I print him a plan and say "look kid, built this.  Search and keep searching for the needed bricks.  Don`t find them?  Use a different colour, but please try to keep the colours together as I spend a day and a half sorting them hehehe".

Which mind you doesn`t mean I don`t like the present day Lego kits.  Actually, I adore them, they are drop dead gorgeous (and I`m going to build me a trio of Atlantis kits this evening as we speak... well, after pizza, I don`t feel like cooking after all day sorting Magic cards and Lego bricks), it`s just at times, the old-fashioned way has a more satisfying feeling to it when completed succesfully!

Until next time, ciao ciao!

maandag 14 januari 2013

A Big Step

The start today of a week off from work, and the plan is simple.  With the Lego virus nibbling back on my sanity (using the Little Munchkin and my little cousins as an excuse) I finally took the step to sort out all my old Lego bricks that have been in moving boxes in the garage.  For like 20 years now.  So there are a lot of old jewels in there, no instructions though anymore but only my mind to try and remember more or less which of the bigger sets I had.




So today, a night through and the better part of tomorrow morning will be spend on sorting out the old bricks.  At the moment I`m filtering out all the transparent parts and all the minifigs and equipment, before going over to coloursorting all the bricks on well, erm, color and main types (basic bricks, flat bricks, plates, others...)




After that I`m especcially going to look for the bricks to build the following models, as I`m 100% sure I had those waaaay back (amongst many others) as a start.







After that the hardest part... making storage space available for all the build models with trying to sell off more of my wargame figures, which means I first have to sort them all out lol.

Sorting... the never ending vicious cycle...


zondag 13 januari 2013

Playstation Level 13

In the battle of the Playstation challenge, I have gotten a serious bump... thanks to my girlfriend.  She finally found a game she liked doing, and in a 3 hour gaming session last evening, she managed to pop no less then 13 trophies (12 bronzes and 1 silver) AND scored the achievement for the trophy that put me into level 13.

Her game... Happy Feet 2. 



Yes, the game based on the dancing pinguins.  I can't tell you how or what the game is all about bar it has catchy music (the movie soundtrack) but the few eyes I dropped on the screen while building lego star wars planes was that you have to level songs by dancing onto them and collect other pinguins... or something like that.



But anyways, now the level 13 trophy in my archieves is... 'Close To You' (bronze): Assemble a group of three pinguins.

Thanks babe, and keep that rate up ;-)

zaterdag 12 januari 2013

May the Brick be With You: Rebel Fighters

Build some Star Wars rebel fighters today.  With the munchkin having a few of them, I could not stay behind of course, but I wanted to build the sets of 'my' Star Wars from when I was young.

That is the Luke-era thank you, yes I'm an eighties kid ;-)

First one build today was the A-Wing.  These small interceptors come with additional figures of Admiral Akbar and Han Solo, a quick and easy build, but a great model none the less.



And it is the unfortunate bugger piloting the vessel that crashed in the Star Destroyers bridge above the forest moon of Endor, as his onboard computer reveals us...



Second is the venerable X-Wing of Luke Skywalker and R2-D2.  A superb model and the wings actually fold into attack position due to Technic parts.



Small point of critique or warning though, if your kid isn't used to building Lego's, this box, rated 8-14 years isn't the most ideal gift, it is a rather complex build as it contains a lot of mechanics to make the wings work, and that then gets covered up bu the exterior hull.



It also comes with minifigs for 'Red Leader' Jek Porkins and his droid R5-D8 and then you have to add an extra small white brick with red marking on each wing to indicate the rank and identification of the variant fighter.  Nice detail attention if you ask me.

But if your a Star Wars fan or a Lego love... buy this one peeps, it is a very elegant and nifty model, with great inner workings!

donderdag 10 januari 2013

Lego Pharao`s Quest

Today I finally build my Sphinx from the Pharao`s Quest series of Lego Adventurers while visiting my mom and having chitchats of things like planning marriage, educating a kid, future career plans and more of that sort.

Yes, we have those talks in strange ways, my mom watching some soap opera`s and me building lego sets, but we`re in a room adjacent to each other and can talk open and non-forced that way.  It`s something that has been that way since well, I was a kid, and never change a winning team they say.

I bought the box a few weeks ago in a discount action of the local Bart Smit toystore, and I really like the whole setting.  I admit that in the whole `non-franchise` of the modern day lego settings, the Pharao`s Quest series ranks as my number 2.  I mean, it has mummies and an Indiana Jones feel.  Witout being the actual Indiana Jones lego series. 

My top series of the non-franchise ones must be the Oriental Adventurers series, I really love those, and the third place should probably go to the Atlantis series, but I`ll show pictures of the kits I have from those series when I get around building them.

So mummies it is then, these are the two sets I have of the series and build now, the Scarab Attack and the Sphinx set:






The Sphinx is pretty big and can upright itself to a walking position, with a tomb that can `explode open` to reveal a mysterious golden sceptre...






And the 1930s car is just sheer awesomeness...


`Till the next build, ciao ciao

dinsdag 8 januari 2013

Caverns of Nathuz after action report 1

Deep inside the Caverns of Nathuz, the Golem Lord has discovered an ancient artifact and is using it to create his own army of monsters.  You must fight your way into the caves, but can you recover the Sceptre of Summoning?

Tonight we tried the second set of the Lego Heroica series family game, estimated at a playtime of around 15 minutes and compared to Draida Bay this one is for 3 players.  The new hero in the fold is the Thief, who's special ability is to steal gold when he defeats monsters with his Melee ability.

The set also introduces the Trade Post, where you can exchange gold for weapons that copy the abilities of other heroes in the sets, and treasure chests that can contain gold or traps.

For the first run of the game, the board was set up as the race to get the Sceptre, and didn't include the Golem Lord himself, that will be for the next time we play the game.  I took command of the Thief (black), the Little Munchkin took control again of the Wizard (red) and the GF took the Barbarian (yellow), hence known as Slaughterhouse.



The Barbarian and the Wizard went for the central route, bypassing and ignoring all treasure for the most part.  The Barbarian slaughtered his way through the dungeon, taking down a truckload of bats and golems, only to fall to zero hit points in the fight with the last Golem.



This openened an opportunity for the wizard to pass by the recuperating Barbarian and grab the Sceptre, winning the game.  Two games played, two victories for the Little Munchkin so far.

And the Thief?  He had taken the southern route and missed most of the game being stuck behind rocks and ending in last place, as he collected far less points then Slaughterhouse the GF on his way to the objective room.



Next time it will be the version with the Golem Lord, before moving on to the other sets and in the end the grand finale adventure.