Cedric Phillips is a Magic player. He lost a game at a GP because he was playing this game I had never heard of and missed the start of the round. The name was Codenames and when I checked it out, its apparently very popular all over the world. In fact, so popular, every place I tried to look for it, it was sold out. So, I had to order it from abroad.
Fantasy Flight Games’ Warhammer Quest: The Adventure Card Game is a brand new version of the ageless classic Warhammer Quest. Both games are set in the Old World and feature a group of heroes going into a dungeon to fight a bunch of monsters with quite high odds of them all dying. The original game had miniatures and cardboard rooms but this brand new version only has what FFG is famous of doing: cards, more cards, custom dice and counters. And naturally one of the most disordered rulebook there is.
When this new version of the Warhammer Quest was announced I could not help but to feel a kind of déjà vu. Fantasy Flight Games taking an old classic and turning it into a whole different beast with a boatload of counters on top? Yes – they did that with the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay.
Since I have always liked the approach WFRP 3rd edition had (even though I know a lot of players really disliked it) I was immediately sold on this new approach too. I have nothing against painting miniatures and playing with them (far from it) but if someone is doing a reboot they should at least consider about making it a bit different than the last time (I’m looking at you Film Industry). Otherwise why would I even by the remake?
But since a very few people are interested in the story about “how I bought this new game” I’ll get straight into the juice stuff. Trying out Warhammer Quest: the Adventure Card Game!
Your (well, not actually your, but a human) brain is the most complex thing we know of. Its the pinnacle of evolution (thusfar) and it can work out things no computer can with ease.
Still, its so buggy, you’d want your money back, if you had paid anything for it.
Last weekend it was Lauri’s and Sarianna’s (Lauri’s wife) fifth anniversary. For the Guild, that’s just another excuse to play games. (Hopefully Sarianna was aware of this plan.) Since this was pretty close to our usual annual event, PasCon, this sort of became it. (And hopefully, the guests outside of the Guild weren’t too bothered about what they had to witness.)
Since quite a few of the writers on this were there as well (well, everyone except Ville), we decided to join forces and make a common report. So, this might be a bit long. Hang on, there’s bound to be some good parts in there somewhere.
— Aki
As a fortunate accident my father bought an older Lego set from a closing sale and brought it to my son. He believed to have bought a regular castle with some minifigs but instead he had bought Heroica – Castle Fortaan. In essence it is a dungeon bashing “board” game that follows the style of other Lego game (only a few rules and encouraging words to come up with your own). So naturally I had to try it.
I bought this game pretty much on impulse one Friday between the rounds at an FNM. Later on I found out that this game is popular among MtG players between rounds in large tournaments in the US. I can see why. Its fast, and it hones certain skills needed in high-level MtG.
I know we’re a bit late on this, but it felt like a good idea, so here’s a short one anyway. Perhaps we’ll have one in good time next year. (No, we won’t.)
Note that we are not getting any money for any of the links. They might not be the best sources, but they were the ones I found first (well, in some cases they are the only sources). Anyhow, do your own research if you want the best deal.
Once again, I might be full of shit, but what I understand, psychologists studying happiness seem to believe that happiness has to be intrinsic (come from within us) to last. However, right now, most of our society seems to be geared towards getting extrinsic (from outside us) happiness.
This might sound like some New Age garbage, but this wasn’t told to us by the universe (at least not personally), but its a real result of real studies.
So, why am I writing about this in a gaming (sometimes comics) blog?
In advertising families and children are often synonymous. Any movie for children is advertised as a movie for the whole family. I can see why parents (which I’m not) might want to distract the children just long enough to be quiet for a bit, but that shouldn’t be the extent the adult can enjoy the situation. And studios have (sort of) understood this. Most Pixar and many DreamWorks animations take the whole family into account by making the films be more than noise and colors for the kids (which is a way too patronising view of the children anyhow).
But this is about games.
Couple of weeks ago I was in Utrecht for the Magic: the Gathering Grand Prix, which is the highest level open tournament in the game. As usual, I regard these more like excuses to visit certain cities, so why not stay a full week at the former capital of the Kingdom of Holland.
One of the points of interests in the city for me personally, was Oudegracht (the Old Canal), as for some peculiar reason, there are seven shops dedicated to all things geeky (although, I seem to have missed one).