Tag: Fantasy

09/4/13

Seasons – Deconstructing the Boardgame

So exactly what would you expect to find in a game simply titled Seasons with a wizards and a stylized nature scene on the box?

Brant Guillory, 4 September 2013
Photos by Henry Vogel

“Hey man! I need a new kind of game to play.  Help me out and let’s design one together, OK?”

“Sure!  What kind of game do you want?”

“Well, I’ve been a huge Magic: The Gathering fan for about five years now, so I definitely want something with some deck-building in it.  But collectible games are getting such a bad rep that there’s no way we’re going to make any money off of it, so I’m thinking something like Dominion, where the cards all come in the box, y’know?  But still magic and wizards and sorcerers and stuff.”

“OK, so kind of Magic: The Gathering, but all in one box?  That’s intriguing.  But how do we make it not so obvious that it’s just Magic-In-A-Box, or, maybe ‘Mox’ for short?”

“Well, I’ve been thinking about this, and there’s other games like the new Warhammer Fantasy Role Play and Quarriors that have these custom dice with all sorts of different symbols on them, where the symbols determine what you get to do each turn, so that might be cool.  It would mean that we could replace Magic’s mana cards with some kind of roll-dice-get-mana action or something.  And we can do cool colors, too.”

“I like that.  People love rolling dice.  Well, except those snooty Eurogamers who don’t believe in randomness.  But if you can put buckets of dice in there, you’ll definitely get anyone who loves a wargame to come running!  But that just gets the mana distributed, and it doesn’t really tell you what kind of mana you have.” Continue reading →

08/22/13

Warlock Four-Player AAR Tuna Session 10

LongBlade (LB): No, gentle reader, you have not miscounted or misread the title. Our last report came from Tuna and ended on Turn 38. The remaining players have had a few interruptions in real life, so we must pick up the story at the earliest point Tuna can share with us, Turn 58.

 

TURN 58

Tuna opens the turn by researching a new spell, Barren Lands. This is an offensive spell that will turn any land with resources into barren terrain.

Tuna-Turn-58-Warlock-AAR-turn58-anewspell

He then continues on his mission to clear out Monsters in the Northeast, to clean the land for settlers he anticipates will soon move there.

Tuna-Turn-58-Warlock-AAR-turn58b-clearmonsters

Continue reading →

07/25/13

Warlock Four-Player AAR – Tuna Round 3

LongBlade: Hmmm.

Hmmm, hmmm, hmmm.

As of Turn 38 our four-player Warlock game suddenly became a three-player game. Bartheart had the misfortune to be crushed by MetalDog. It was tough to watch but these things do happen.

You you may recall, dear reader, Bartheart had sent a request for help to Tuna. Tuna couldn’t figure out how to conduct trade for a turn, and while that delay was costly, probably most costly was a probable distraction between the other two players. Allowing MetalDog free reign to go one-on-one against any other player is likely to only feed MetalDog’s success.

So let us turn our attention to the north and see what has preoccupied Tuna from helping a possible ally in Bartheart.

Turn 34

The Command Tent declares war on Tuna.

turn34b-tendeclareswar

turn34a-tenthitsmehard

Here a picture can tell a thousand words. In this case it probably tells the outcome of the game even though three players still wander the land. On Turn 32 Bartheart lost the city of Unceraculum. It’s now blue, indicating MetalDog has conqured it (in the lower center of the above image).

More interestingly, however, is the fact that The Command Tent and Tuna are going after each other hammer-and-tongs. They should be able to see that MetalDog is crushing Bartheart. Will they call a truce and attempt to gang up against MetalDog? Or will they stay locked in a deathgrip with one another and ignore the threat from their south?

Some good news for Tuna – he’s founded a new city and building an infrastructure to get some higher quality archers.

turn34e-irilbows

Continue reading →

07/18/13

Warlock Four-Player AAR – Bartheart Round 3

Longblade: Bartheart started our four-player Warlock AAR but quickly ran afoul of MetalDog, who was moving quickly to attack his newly found neighbor. Things were not looking good for Bartheart, as MetalDog may be the most experienced Warlock player on the planet. Let us see how things are going.

Bartheart:

Turn 31 – One down, two to go.

Lost my newest city, no screen shots of that debacle… too depressing…

The Blue Horde is wailing on my skeleton city. I’m having severe food problems  making it hard to field any kind of resistance.

Warlock Four-Player AAR – Bartheart Round 3 Turn_031

Continue reading →

07/8/13

Warlock Four-Player AAR – Tuna Session 2

LongBlade: Tuna’s images from Session 2 have managed to make it through to my scrying ball. His script, however, has not. As a result I have had to draft an imp to decrypt his images and piece together the narrative of the game. But fear not! We have managed to decypher Tuna’s actions and intent. We think. That, or I will banish a hapless imp back to a summoning circle for another few decades to teach it a lesson.

 Turn 20

As we noted in previous sessions, Tuna’s initial 20 turns were lost to us. But we pick up with him on Turn 20. As we have seen from the other three players, Tuna is the last to be discovered. As a result he’s been up to no good fighting the AI. Three of his archers have been besieging the city of Duropilon. One of his units has been damaged and his first move is to cast a spell to heal that unit.

Warlock-AAR-Tuna-Session2-turn20a-healing

Continue reading →