Another long outstanding Kickstarter reward rolled in yesterday.  The Blue Bomber himself made an appearance on my doorstep and after a single play, I am intrigued.

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There have been many posts in the Android Netrunner Facebook group about changes to the tournament.  I hadn't read any of the new rulings posted to Fantasy Flight Games website until today.

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Muahahaha! First game ever with Argent Adept. Four heroes (Legacy, Argent Adept, Tempest, Bunker) vs Baron Blade. The Baron falls. It was not pretty. All three hasten doom cards at the top of the Baron's deck made lots of early damage. Argent Adept kept triggering Tempest's healing downpour... and then Tempest triggered it too. It was the only thing that kept me in the game. Finishing shot by Bunker and his Omni-cannon, charged to five.   Yes, I like Sentinels of the Multiverse. One of my favorite co-operative play games.

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http://nerdstable.blogspot.com/2014/08/first-thoughts-pathfinder-adventure.html?spref=fb

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I spent two hours this morning playing a solo conquest in Mage Knight the board game.  I took Tovak into the world of Atlantea, and used Nighthawk as the dummy player. It was an interesting run overall. more...

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I've been playing the Walkthrough scenario of Mage Knight the Board Game several times this week as several of my friends want me to teach it to them.  I'm still very impressed by this game.  By using a deck of sixteen base cards, I'm expected to conquer a territory in just a few rounds (anywhere from four to six rounds, each round having multiple turns.)  I explore new tiles, recruit units to help me, descend into dark dungeons and ruins, and if it suits me, sack monastaries, mage towers, and keeps for powerful artifacts and spells.  To be honest, at this point I have not successfully defeated a power city yet, which defeating two of them is the goal of the basic conquest scenario.  I've managed to learn how to get around, but learning what a great hand for attacking, or even a good hand, still eludes me at this point.  The upside is that I want to keep learning.  I've not even seen half of the advanced skills nor have I used a spell card once yet. There are still a lot of play options I haven't even attempted yet.  Time to go explore Atlantea again!

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Warhammer Quest was the first game I encountered that was a complete role playing game in a box.  Released by Games Workshop in 1995,  you took your adventuring party into randomized dungeons and complete a goal. Read on for more...
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Posted by: Tom Tjarks at 09:41 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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The next couple of posts are going to cover the various 'RPG in a box' games that have been released by Fantasy Flight, Games Workshop, Wizards of the Coast/Hasbro, and more.

Posted by: Tom Tjarks at 09:17 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I am a happy board gamer tonight.  I finally acquired my copy of Android: Netrunner from my FLGS.  I was hoping a friend might be able to score me one of the GenCon copies, but that ended up being a bust. 

Netrunner represented one of the more interesting variations on the collectable card game genre when it was released.  At the time, MAgic was the game in town.  You bought cards, you built them into decks, and squared off against the same pool of cards in your opponent's deck.  With Netrunner, your opponent was using a completely different pool of cards than you.  One player is the corporation trying to advance their 'evil' agendas, and the other is the 'Anonymous' of the day, hacking into the Corp's servers and liberating the agenda cards to score as their own.

Until Netrunner's release, I can't recall a CCG that used a format like that.  Not only that, but they were using art and terms from the R. Talsorian Cyberpunk universe which I was fond of (though I had not played any Cyberpunk yet.)  It was a great thing overall, but I was disappointed when it only got two expansion sets and then was dropped by Wizards of the Coast.  I was busy with work and social life at the time, and couldn't buy many boosters for the game.  I don't know if it was a general falling out in the CCG market or something specific to Netrunner, but it was just done. 
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Posted by: Tom Tjarks at 05:29 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I just wrapped up a two hour play of 'The First Reconnaissance' scenario for Mage Knight - The Board Game.  My initial reactions are jumping between 'omfg, theres so much I don't know about some of the cards' and 'that was pretty damn cool.'   More after the break.
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And I got to introduce Bran to BattleLore tonight.  He came away really liking the game.   I'm glad.  I have every expansion except 'For Troll and Country' scenario, Creatures expansion, and Dragons expansion. 

That, and I like the Command and Colors system a lot too.  I pointed out that Memoir 44 is a very similar system, and he wants to play that sometime too.  This is when I demonstrated the concept of Epic BattleLore by laying out the maps just to demonstrate the change in scale. 

Yes, I want a reason to pull out these games and play them.  Now if only a few more of my boardgaming friends lived closer to me!

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