Conan and the Princess

 This week we dug out a game I haven't played for a few years... Conan which I bought as a Kickstarter several years ago.  It has languished unloved and forgotten in the loft for too long so when Anthony and I were discussing it recently we decided to dig it out and have a game.

Conan pits a number of players against one who controls all the 'baddies' using an interesting resource management system.  Players use coloured gems representing energy levels/health to perform actions and in theory can do as much as they want in one turn until they run out.  Of course it only recovers slowly so players need to manage this carefully. The GM (or Overlord) uses a similar system but once a unit or character has activated it moves to the end of his row and then costs more to reactivate.  This forces the Overlord to spread his activations around different units or spend his precious gems to keep reactivating the same one.

Actions, combat , magic etc are all pretty intuitive and we quickly got into the game.  We played the 1st scenario in the book.  Conan has been asked to rescue a princess who has been captured by the evil Zogar Sag and is about to sacrificed.  She is hidden in one of a number of huts in the village.  Conan also has to bring back Zogar Sag's head!  He has brought along a couple of pals to help... Hadrathus, a wizard, and Shevatas who is a more nimble thief-type.

If read various opinions on how to set this scenario up and whether all of the Overlord's figures should start on the table.  I thought it was much more fun to have most of them hidden until Conan and his gang looked into a tent or I chose to bring them out.

The village seems strangely quiet apart from a couple of Picts and their pet Hyenas...

Nice doggy!   Shevatas decides to avoid fighting the Hyenas and nimbly runs away to another part of the village

oops... our heroes weren't expecting to find a giant snake hiding in the tent!

Shevatas finds the Princess guarded by some Picts who are quickly despatched

Conan had already wounded Zogar Sag and Hadrathus finished him off with a blast of lightning

Grabbing the enemy's head he teleports to the edge of the village and off to safety.  Shevatas has also escaped with the Princess winning the day for our heroes

In true Robert E Howard style,  the Princess is completely passive and exists purely to be rescued by our manly hero... slightly problematic!!  I'd forgotten what a good game this is.... some clever mechanics and well thought out scenarios really capture the feel of the books.

An unexpected seaside find

 Last weekend we took advantage of the unseasonal sunshine and popped down to Ferring in West Sussex to take the dogs for a walk on the beach... turns out everyone else had the same idea and it was absolutley hoaching with people and dogs.  Ferring has a nice beach but more importantly has an excellent dog-friendly cafe, The Bluebird Cafe and is a mecca for pooches and their owners.

On our return walk along the beach to where we'd parked the car we walked past this square building which I'd missed on the outward walk.   Turns out to be a WW2 pillbox, sited on the coast to defend against enemy invaders...

There's a whole rabbit warren of information about pillboxes here!  And here's a picture of Cleo guarding the beach against any potential invaders (unless they've brought snacks in which case she'll happily surrender!)

Bad Day at Calton Creek

A return to the wild west last week with a game of Fist Full of Lead. Having played Gunslinger a couple of times recently (see previous posts) this is a very different game. I guess if you want to know the specifics of each pistol and break down the action into seconds Gunslinger gives that really granular feel, but for this week's game we wanted something much more cinematic and fast moving and FFOL definitely suits this style of game.

We went for a simple scenario... In the town of Calton Creek Johnny Fingers and his gang of mean desperadoes have stumbled out of the saloon looking for trouble... at the other end of the street Marshal Knutt and some concerned townsfolk have gathered to put an end to the trouble  (bonus points for the name references!)

Johnny Fingers and his gang hit the streets looking for trouble

...but the Marshal and concerned citizens are determined to stop them

Little Heap and Short hit the dirt under a hail of gunfire but somehow survive.  Short mainly survives by being... erm... short... and harder to hit!

Johnny Fingers climbs onto the saloon roof but eventually is hit and collapses,  His gang scatter now the leader is dead.

A very different cowboy experience and great fun... it felt much more like a scene from a western!

Gaslands

 

Last week we gave Gaslands a rare outing as Andrew hadn't had chance to try them before.  To keep things simple we had a couple of cars each and raced around a figure of 8 track... I possibly made the track a bit too big but I was worried that my rubbish driving skills Andrew's lack of experience would make negotiating tight bends a bit tricky.  In hindsight a smaller arena would have upped the level of carnage which is always a good thing in Gaslands!

Each vehicle's weapons don't activate until they've gone through the first gate so Andrew took advantage of this by speeding through Gate 2 and immediately dropping mines in the gateway!

We'd decided to award points for completing a lap but more points for wrecking vehicles.  Andrew's lead car sped round the course and took the 1st lap before deciding that racing wasn't as much fun as concentrating on attacking enemy vehicles!

I spent a lot of the time trailing behind Andrew's lead car while his 2nd vehicle, a truck, struggled to get up to speed... his dice rolling was pretty atrocious for a lot of the game until he managed to line up a shot on one of my cars and managed to roll this...

... 6's count as 2 hits so this was pretty devastating, immediately destroying one of my cars!

He then proceeded to execute a very neat reverse turn and blast my other car into smithereens... I'm putting this down to beginners luck and definitely not my rubbish tactics!  Excellent fun and a game that I ought to get out more often

Mosaic

I've always been a big fan of the PC game Civilisation... I hate to think how many hours have slipped away on various versions of the game. So I was intrigued when Mark suggested trying his newly arrived boardgame Mosaic which draws a lot of inspiration from Civ. This was the Kickstarter edition which comes with lots of nice components... I guess the standard version won't be quite so flashy but still lovely I'd assume.

The game takes place around a map of the Mediterranean although each Civilisation isn't restricted in where they can place cities and towns. These allow you to start gathering trade goods which is one way to gain gold and buy your way to victory. But the joy of Mosaic is that there are.multiple ways to advance and win. Each player takes one action per turn including 

working to produce those vital.resources like food, stone and ideas: some serious thinking is required to access the next important resource... Technology. Claiming different forms of Technology is vital in gaining more points. You can also Build things... not just cities and towns but also roads, baths and a host of things that enhance your civilisation.

Players can also build Wonders, create different styles of Government and claim different Achievements, allow which add to your victory point tally.

Scoring is carried out at various points in the game depending on when the Score cards turn up in the different decks of cards. In both of our games I came last but I really didn't mind... I loved the game and was pleased that I'd improved my score in the 2nd game (even if I was still last!). It's always a good sign when you mull over the game the next day, thinking about what you might have done differently.  

One of the things I really loved about the game is the huge variety of ways to win. There are lots of different strategies that can lead to a victory... I just need to find one!! Highly recommended.