Thinking Outside the Box

What Good Are Games When There's No One To Play With?

2012-02-08T04:44:00.001-07:00

A little over a year ago I tried running an adventure from the Dark Heresy role-playing game. If memory serves me right, we played four sessions. We were using one of the introductory adventures and some of the pre-generated characters. I had spent a fair amount of time prepping the materials for the game and getting familiar enough with the rules to actually run things with some feeling of competency. The players pieced together the clues a little more slowly than I'd intended, but that was more my fault as a first-time game master than their actual detective abilities. Unfortunately, the session in which they would have encountered the final villain of the story never came to pass.

As a brief aside: I love the theme for Dark Heresy, which is set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe. The game system seemed pretty good, but it was a little tough to handle for me and the players so that could certainly have contributed to our incomplete adventure.

It seems that arranging gaming sessions with any kind of regularity, or regular attendees is a bit of a problem these days. Now I'm not certain that this is a problem I'm alone in experiencing, or if it's something that other gamers also struggle with. Since almost no one comments on the articles that I post, I may never know the answers to my question. Of course, it being a little after 4am I'm not exactly expecting an answer anyway.

Generally speaking, I have spent far more time with card and board games than I've ever done with role-playing games. That's not to say that I don't like them. I remember the first time I ever played one sometime back in high school. I can't remember the name of the game we played but it was a contemporary horror setting. The adventure was run by a friend of mine and it was a lot of fun. Similarly, we planned another session but never actually played again.

I recall an almost parallel experience while I was living in Japan. One of my friends there was an avid collector of role-playing source books. Of course, living in Japan it was difficult to find English speaking players! We played some sort of cyberpunk adventure with another fellow, which was a little slow on the action, but fun nonetheless. Once again, a follow-up session was planned but never materialized.

So perhaps my four-session experience with Dark Heresy was actually somewhat of an anomaly in that it went beyond session #1? I somehow doubt that's the case, as I've heard rumors, rumblings and whispers in the darkness, all saying that there are regular gaming groups out there somewhere. Some of them play card games. Some of them play board games. Some of them play poker, lose all their money and go home to lie to their wives about it. Maybe even those weird "furries", people that get turned on by other folks in animal costumes, have regular gaming groups, although I am not sure that I want to know about the games they play.

At some point in time I ended up with a hardcover copy of Deadlands Reloaded. This revised version of the game uses an engine called Savage Worlds. So having this sourcebook for a setting, I needed the core rulebook for the engine. Turns out the rulebook for Savage Worlds cost me a grand total of $12, and was the shortest RPG rulebook I'd ever seen. In fact, it was actually something I was able to read, make sense of, and still have time to do something useful before bedtime. (Which as you can tell...I didn't do, nor have I gone to bed.)

In addition to the clarity and brevity of the rulebook...turns out there are (quite literally) hundreds of settings like Deadlands Reloaded available for the engine. Want to play high or dark fantasy with elves, dragons, dwarves, wizards and necromancers? Check. Want to play a swashbuckling pirate adventure? Check. Need to fit someone with cement shoes for betraying the big boss? Check. The latest cult of the great Cthulhu needs infiltrating? Check. Want to save the world from aliens as a super-powered ex-villain. Check. I could go on, but I won't because I think you get my point. Any kind of adventure, ability or character I could ever hope to wish for, Savage Worlds either has, or has the tools for me to create.

Even though I seem to have no one to play with, I still seem to spend a lot of time reading about, researching, or thinking about games. Even role-playing games, which in my middle-length life, I've almost never played. Maybe some day.

What Would You Risk to Create a Lasting Legacy?

2012-02-03T11:49:00.002-07:00

If you have never visited my blog before, I would wonder how you got here and why. What random link on the interwebs did you (perhaps mistakenly) click to arrive at this point in space-time? I trust you'll find this site of interest; but if not I won't take offence. Besides, how will I ever know you were even here? If you have been here before, well, I'll simply question your taste in reading material. However, it's to you local regulars that I'm really addressing this entry to.

You see, last night I purchased a copy of RISK: Legacy. Now, I have always liked RISK, but the original usually took too long and was no fun to watch once you were eliminated from the game and others were still vying for global domination. So I bought a copy of RISK: 2210 A.D. a few years back, and found it to be a vast improvement. It's a lot of fun and has some innovative changes to the game that I think are all better than the original. Now we have Hasbro releasing RISK: Legacy, and I need volunteers to play it with me.

The basic concept of the new game is something I've never seen in a board game before. You see, as you play a series of games (a campaign really), the game changes. I mean really changes. We'll write on the board, create cities, modify cards and areas on the map, add new rules to the rulebook and *gasp* even destroy components of the game. Yes, we'll actually rip up and throw away cards from the game, never to be restored. What we'll end up with is a fully unique game, shaped by the people playing it.

From what I've read about RISK: Legacy so far, an actual game can take anywhere from 20 to 90 minutes to play. I'd also strongly advise anyone interested in playing NOT to read much very much about the game, as you'll ruin a lot of the fun that will come with opening up the sealed components throughout the campaign. The important thing to understand is that it's still RISK, but with some huge twists thrown in.

So if you want to play, here's what I need to know from you:

1. Can you commit to 10 (maybe more, maybe less) game sessions?
2. Can you play on Sunday evenings, from approximately 6pm to 10pm?

I expect that we would play every other week, or perhaps every third week. In a single session I could see playing two, possibly three games, depending on the length of each. The game can be played with 3 to 5 players. Ideally I'd like to play with a full compliment of 5, which means I need 4 volunteers. If the answers to the questions above are both "yes" submit a comment stating so on this post. Once I've reached a full compliment of players I'll contact everyone with a date for the first game night.

Let the battles begin.

Best of 2011

2012-02-01T14:11:00.005-07:00

Last year I bought and played a lot of new games, both on my PS3 and board games on the table. I've never bothered to do a best of type of article that I can recall, so I thought it might be fun to do this year. I've also been thinking a lot about games the past few days, since I haven't been able to PLAY any recently, so that might have something to do with it. This article is basically unplanned, unscripted and unnecessary. So strap in and follow along, or click the back button and take off!

Let me start out with the video game side of things. I bought my PS3 near the end of 2010, and it took a few months to find games that I wanted to play. I don't like online games, RPGs or any of the MMO stuff, so my list of likes is pretty narrow. It's also possible that some of these games weren't released in 2011, but that's when I played them...it's my list, so shut up and like it!

My Top Playstation 3 Games for 2011

5. Transformers: War For Cybertron

Great animation and a decent story. I honestly haven't spent as much time as I'd like with this game. I've been meaning to get back to it for the last little while. I do wish that the single-player story was a little deeper because, as I said, I don't care for online play.

4. Infamous

I still haven't finished this game, but it's on this list. Very cool story that makes good use of levelling up your powers. Tons of things to do and a big environment to play in.

3. Assassin's Creed 2

A huge improvement over the first game, which I did like quite a bit. The storyline is really ingenious and I liked having more things to do inside this game. Some of the circle puzzles are a little on the annoying side, but I can live with that if it's the biggest complaint I can come up with.

2. Batman: Arkham Asylum

Absolutely stellar Batman game. Hell, it's probably the best super-hero/comic book based game I've ever played. The storyline was top-notch, the controls were great, the graphics were awesome and it was quite simply an engrossing experience all-round. I think this is one of the first games that I've ever finished and actually WANTED to go back into to play again. There are still secrets to uncover dammit!

1. Rocksmith

Yes, a 'rhythm game'. If any of you read my initial thoughts article on Rocksmith, you'll know that I was impressed with it, despite my general loathing for Rockband and Guitar Hero. This game is fun, makes me enjoy practicing my guitar, and has enough depth that an intermediate player like me can still feel like he's learning something. And now that the online shop actually has some songs available, I can work on tunes I actually want to play (helloooo Megadeth!). I'm still waiting for the bass option, but I've got plenty to practice in guitar mode.

It was a tough call for me on Rocksmith or Arkham Asylum being tops, but in the end I had to go with the one that I've spent the most time with. I don't see my weekly hour investment with Rocksmith going down in the near future, so I had to give it top marks.

My Top Board Games of 2011

This list was a lot harder. Board games are difficult to get on the table more than once or twice over the course of the year, so really getting to know one well is difficult. I had to think quite hard trying to recall the games I'd played throughout the year but also taking into consideration whether or not I want to play them more, and what my gaming group thought of them as well. Games like Age of Conan, Scarab Lords and Call of Cthulhu are all in the 'like' list, but I had to pick 5. Actually it's my list, I could have had 55, but you'd have hated that 11 times more than a top-5, so here goes!

5. Game of Thrones LCG

I've played a lot of collectable and trading card games over the years. I think the living card game model is a vast improvement. This one I stayed away from for quite a long time, but after I finally played it...wow. It's a great game, but is even better if you know the books. It's really deep and can be hindered by aggressive deck builds (like any customizable game), but if all you buy is the base set, you can play a great game with 2 to 4 players.

4. Rush 'n Crush

A surprise entry on my list. I bought this in the fall and have only had a chance to play a few times, but man it's great fun. The racing by itself is excellent and feels good, but adding in the guns and weapons, that's even better. I'd love to try a multi-lap race with 4 or more players...I can smell the burnt rubber and charred metal already!

3. Betrayal at House on the Hill

This game wasn't even on my wishlist for 2011. I was actually planning to buy Mansions of Madness, but right before Halloween I changed my mind and went for this instead. BaHotH is the coolest, funnest B-Movie horror game I've ever played. For a game I've had less than a year to have been played 6 times is testament to how much I like it. It plays very quickly, it's easy to learn and it's a different game EVERY time.

2. The Resistance

I finally bought this little gem of a game after having looked it over at least four times during various trips to the game shops. Even after I bought it, it took another four months to get it on the table. Main complaint about the game is that it requires a minimum of 5 players. That can be a tough quota for some groups to hit. But wow, if you ever get this out on the table watch out! Accusations will be made, lies will be told, missions will be failed, and the spies might win. Social gaming fun at its finest for sure.

1. Sentinels of the Multiverse

Another surprise entry into my collection. I found out about this game online, after seeing rave review about it on Drakes Flames and BGG. The publisher is a start-up, and this is their only game...and it was new. So new that not a single game shop in Canada had heard of the publisher, let alone could get me a copy. So I ordered it directly from them, and paid a pretty penny to do it. That said, I don't regret a single cent I put out for this game. It hits a happy place in my heart: super-hero gaming. Not only that, but it's cooperative super-hero gaming...and it's done fabulously. While it's nigh-impossible to win with the standard rules for 2-players, it's still an excellent game, and I will love this one for a long time to come.

Well that's it for me. For now...

Almost Forgotten in the Cold(s)

2012-02-01T09:23:00.001-07:00

Over my extremely brief Christmas break, I actually did play a few games!

While I was out doing my Christmas shopping I stopped in at Revolution Games. They're one of the smaller game stores in Calgary, but I think they have an excellent selection, and their staff are generally pretty nice people. The prices are average, but if you get your name put in their computer, you get a discount for every $100 you spend. That's not so bad, considering most games cost a minimum of $60 nowadays...

I ended up with a used (but never used) copy of a game called Colossal Arena. It's a betting game by the much-loved, much-loathed Reiner Knizia. I've a few other games created by him and have never been disappointed, but I know that a lot of lifelong board gamers have a hate on for him. Anyway, we gave this game a try one evening after our regular VS tournament. It's a pretty odd concept, betting on monsters fighting in a tournament, but was actually a lot of fun! Everyone enjoyed it and there was a lot of back and forth, "Take that!" play going on. I'm looking forward to playing it again.

I brought it along with me to the family Christmas gathering but we didn't end up getting it on the table. My mom quite enjoys playing Settlers of Catan when I bring it, so over Christmas Eve and Christmas day there were a few games of that played. I think I won the first game, but after that, people started to catch on and competition was high.

Finally, after drawing attention to ourselves by asking questions like "has anyone got wood for sheep?", we had more people wanting to play than my 4-player basic Settlers game could accomodate. Luckily I had planned ahead and brought The Resistance.

The Resistance is a social deduction game that requires a minimum of five players, and can go as high as ten. During my Monday night gaming events I had hoped to play it several times, but we only ever had enough once, and ended up playing a long game of Arkham Horror. So this was the first time for me to give the Resistance a try. It was GREAT fun. Within the first few minutes there were fingers pointing and accusations flying. My sister and I were correctly identified as the spies, but played it very cool, allowing the first two missions to proceed successfully. Having allayed some of the suspicions, and after some odd behaviour from a few other players, people started to turn on each other and we were able to bring things crashing down. I highly recommend this game!

1/12th of 2012 Already Done

2012-01-26T12:13:00.000-07:00

So where've I been and what happened to all the talk about games? Well, I've been sicker than I can recall ever being with a cold for almost two weeks. It's not often I'm sick enough to be off from work for more than a day, let alone an entire week. I wasn't able to complete my workout program and haven't been doing much beyond sleeping, drinking copious amounts of tea and water, and lying mostly-comatose on a couch or bed. I'm finally back at work and generally alive again, albeit still packing a cough that might pass as a worthy mating call to local, lonely albatross (albatrosses, albatrossi?). It'll be at least a week before I test myself out in any kind of rigorous activity, which will likely mean restarting the 9-week program on easy.

As for gaming, I really haven't done any. I cancelled the Monday night board gaming at the beginning of January due to a confluence of general lack of interest (although I have to thank William for being a regular attendee / interested party) and frustration. I was just tired of trying to organize yet another thing. I do it at work, in my band, with my family and even with the VS group (which I must happily admit, doesn't require much organizing at this point). Having another thing on Mondays to send out invites for, pick games to play, familiarize myself with rules, get snacks and clean the house for each week just stopped being fun when people aren't answering or unable to come more often than not.

January's almost over, so I'm just going to concentrate on getting things sorted out for me. The rest of you can look after yourselves I hope!

Better Health Through Gaming - Weeks 6 thru 10

2012-01-10T13:25:00.000-07:00

Not stellar by any stretch. As I mentioned previously, my schedule sucked and my motivation seriously took a nosedive. Following my very brief 4-day Christmas break I also caught a very tenacious cold which I'm finally almost rid of.

I've found another interesting bug (at least I think it's a bug) in the software I'm using. If you miss a workout, and then go back and do it on a later date, it actually puts it as done on the original date, and not the date you actually did it. That's going to through my tracking way off, as I've been doing some current workouts plus some catch up workouts. I'm going to try doing a few more of each and see if my hypothesis proves correct before posting up any more statistics.

Happy 2012

2012-01-05T14:21:00.000-07:00

I don't quite know how this year is going to shape up just yet. I've got some changes planned, which may or may not impact this blog and my gaming habits. For now I'm not setting any rigid goals, plans or (gasp) resolutions. Too many people try to change too many things all at once at the beginning of a new year, and I've been guilty of doing so myself. The keys to lasting changes are small, obtainable sub-goals that add up to a cumulative result. Without a well-defined and realistic goal firmly in mind, one is doomed to failure.

I hope everyone had a great holiday season and is looking forward to 2012. I certainly am, whatever it brings me.

Better Health Through Gaming - Week 5

2011-12-13T11:56:00.001-07:00

Ugh last week was a long one, but I apparently survived. Mostly unscathed, at least if you don't count my almost utter lack of sleep. The company Christmas party went very well, and our performance seemed very well received. Now I just have to finish mixing three of five songs in less than four days. They're definitely not going to be my best work, but they should still sound pretty decent.

With all the craziness going on last week, I have finally missed some workouts. Both my Thursday and Saturday workouts were skipped entirely. This was a conscious choice by me. I simply didn't have the energy or desire to do them on those days. They are marked in my calendar to be made up. While all three make-ups likely won't happen this week, I think I might be able to slate one of them in.

Even with all of that stuff I still managed to lose a little weight. It's more likely due to my lack of sleeping than any food intake changes I made. But hell, I'll take it.

WEEK FIVE
Workouts: 3 (actually 2, the game oddly counts fitness test as a workout)
Duration: 52 minutes
Calories Burned: 408
Average Heart Rate: 115 bpm
Max Heart Rate: 173 bpm
Distance: 0.85 miles

This week will be better.

Better Health Through Gaming - Week 4

2011-12-05T14:13:00.000-07:00

Busy busy busy busy busy.

Work, practicing for a late-notice show with one band. Recording with another band (with a week less time than I was promised). Plus regular Christmas stuff and just trying to keep up with all the meetings I have to organize in addition to my normal job duties! Busy only barely starts to describe things.

So on that note; Monday night gaming is cancelled for this Monday and next. I just don't have the free after-work time to make it happen. Tonight I'll be doing drum cleanups and hopefully tracking bass parts if it all goes well. But you don't care about that, you're here to read about my pain and out-of-breathness.

Week 4 is finished and I've yet to miss a workout. The program thinks I did though. I made the mistake of starting a new program (9-Week on Easy) on the same day as finishing my first program. Since I marked Saturday as a workout day, it decided I'd missed that workout. I'll slip it in next Sunday I think, even though it's technically not correct.

Anyway, 4 weeks of exercise at 4 days per week is not a bad accomplishment. I just wish I were seeing more results. I know that I need to fix up my food timing and intake, so that'll be getting into the mix over the rest of December. It's not a matter of what you know, but what you do with that knowledge. So I guess it's up to me to keep things rolling.

WEEK FOUR
Workouts: 4
Duration: 1 hour, 48 minutes
Calories Burned: 754
Average Heart Rate: 116 bpm
Max Heart Rate: 179 bpm
Distance: 1.44 miles

The average heart rate is still going down, so that's a good thing I think. I'm hoping for a decent weight loss before Christmas...time will tell there.

Better Health Through Gaming - Week 3

2011-11-28T12:33:00.001-07:00

Another week is finished, and I am happy to say that I didn't miss a session for the entire three weeks of the Cardio Kick Start program on Easy. There were certainly a few exercises in the workouts that were not easy. There was one that I simply couldn't do at the end of my last session and I did have to skip it. One-leg hip bridges were beyond my ability that evening...especially at the end of my workout.

Here are the stats for week three!

Workouts: 4
Duration: 1 hour, 45 minutes
Calories Burned: 809
Average Heart Rate: 123 bpm
Max Heart Rate: 175 bpm
Distance: 0.94 miles

As you can see, I worked out a little bit longer and burnt more calories than last week. The distance was a little higher also, but I think the distance measurements in this case are weak relations at best. I don't really know how they're rating distance traveled when I'm actually running in place. However, I'll keep posting them up.

Over the three week program my weight went from 263lbs, down to 258lbs. That's a total of 5 pounds lost if you don't want to do the math yourself. While I consider this a definite positive result, I know that it can be improved upon. The simple truth is that I wasn't watching my food intake at ALL over this time period. There was still a lot of junk getting shovelled in. And you know what they say, "garbage in, garbage out."

Now that my kick start program is completed I'll be shifting over the 9-week fitness program. On the Easy setting, it is still a 4-day per week program. I don't know how long each session will be but I'll find out tonight. I'll also be taking some starting photos and measurements. If I do well enough in the program, I'll post them at the end, along with some after photos. Neither one will likely be pretty sights...let's aim for the after pics being less disturbing than the before photos.

Tune in next week!

Better Health Through Gaming - Week 2

2011-11-21T17:01:00.000-07:00

Another week has passed and I still survive. The workouts this week have been a mixed bag. A few were easy, the last one was harder than I expected, but progress is being made. Here are the stats:

Workouts: 4
Duration: 1 hour, 38 minutes
Calories Burned: 684
Average Heart Rate: 119 bpm
Max Heart Rate: 173 bpm
Distance: 0.90 miles

So it would seem I'm either not working as hard as last week, or my heart is a little stronger. I'd be inclined toward the second option, as my recovery times after high exertion periods is a touch shorter. Don't get me wrong, I'm still winded and red-faced, just not for as long.

This week is the last one of the Cardio Kicks Start program on Easy. I'll be following it up with a 9-week program, also on Easy. Tune in next week for another update on my progress, and don't forget to let me know you stopped by!

Better Health Through Gaming - Week 1

2011-11-14T14:51:00.001-07:00

Well I've survived my first week. In terms of commitment it actually was pretty easy. Four short workouts spread out over seven days. None of the workouts were longer than twenty five minutes in length. I will say that a few of the exercises, especially in the last workout, were harder than I expected on "easy" but I survived and here are the stats:

Workouts: 4
Duration: 1 hour, 30 minutes
Calories Burned: 580
Average Heart Rate: 121 bpm
Max Heart Rate: 183 bpm
Distance: 0.61 miles

As always, feel free to post comments on this or any of my posts!

The Best Game Company You've Never Heard Of

2011-11-09T14:48:00.000-07:00

A few months back I was scouring the reviews over at BoardGameGeek to find some interesting new games to play. Something that caught my eye was a game entitled Omen: Reign of War. What finally cemented it for me was Drake's review over on his blog. It had been released a few months previously, but I couldn't find anything out about it from my local game shops. No one had heard of it. Turning my focus online I found that this small publisher's games are only available through their website www.smallboxgames.com. So I took a (smallish) risk and ordered a copy.

When it arrived I found the packaging choice very interesting: they've chosen to use black plastic cases that look almost identical to old-style VHS cases, simply lacking the round knobby things that would keep the tape in place. Distinctive and fun choice.

Looking more closely at the game itself, it is a rather simple yet inspired design. Each of the unit cards in the game has multiple uses, so even if you can't afford to pay for the card, you can discard it to get more gold or more cards. In addition to great game play, the artwork is stunning all 'round.

With what I'd seen of Omen: Reign of War after two plays I decided to order the expansion, Omen: Shattered Aegis. I have yet to try the expansion, but it has more options for variant gameplay, tons of new cards, and even more standout artwork.

Another of their deluxe sized games was recently released. It's also a card game, but comes with more components than Omen. It's called Hemloch, and is designed by the same fellow that designed Omen, John Clowdus. You can certainly tell that it was by the same designer as it does have a similar style. However, it's also quite unique in the game play. While still technically an area control game, the method in which you go about things is vastly different, and the feel of the game is unique enough that you don't feel like you're playing the same game.

If there was one negative thing I had to say about Small Box Games it actually wouldn't be about their games at all. It would be about their shipping. Of the three items I've purchased from them, two of them have arrived with broken boxes. John was quick to reply to my emails personally, and sent me a replacement for the first broken case. I haven't bothered to notify them about the second because it's a minor break of one corner which can be fixed with a touch of glue. It is frustrating though, and I can see people being upset about receiving damaged goods. A simple fix for this would be a small investment in bubble wrap.

So if you're looking for a unique game to add to your collection, try something from Small Box Games!

Better Health Through Gaming - Prologue

2011-11-07T22:47:00.001-07:00

People are offended by stereotypes. But stereotypes exist for a reason...they're simply a distillation of a widely known fact. One example of said stereotypes would be that gamers are fat and lazy slobs. Trust me, I have seen many, many examples to support this particular stereotype. So in my experience, it is a fact. Of course almost any generalization has exceptions to it. Unfortunately at this point, I am not one of those exceptions.

About 10 years ago I had to undergo shoulder surgery, and following that, spent several months rebuilding all the muscle and mobility I had lost. Once I reached an equilibrium again, I decided to continue in my journey and make fitness a regular part of my life. A few years later I was a lean 179 pounds, 6% body fat and was training anywhere between 6 to 10 times per week. I was busy with training and all my other tasks in life, but I was fit and happy with myself.

Do I sound vain yet?

When I moved overseas I found it difficult to keep to a regular training schedule and diet. My work hours were strange, money was tight so I couldn't afford to go to a gym, and slowly mild depression set it. With it, came weight gain and loss of fitness.

Coming back home a few years later, I was a little heavier, but not seriously so. However, the rediscovery of all the things I'd missed while away that were not my family and friends, amounted to food and drink. The Japanese make many fine beers. Their pizza and nachos...not so much. A few months of binging turned into loose habits. I have had brief periods of less-unhealthy existence, but generally only for a few months at a time. The bad habits kept winning the battle. Building good habits is hard, and breaking bad habits is even harder!

So I find myself at a crossroads in life. As I age, I realize that my metabolism is no longer on my side and those bad food and exercise habits show greater and greater effects on my body and well being each year. My pants are also telling me that I'm a fat bastard. Being healthy is a much smoother road to being happy than drowning your sorrows in sour candies and cheese burgers. When you're active and eating well you feel better, have more energy, can thus do more things and perpetuate the cycle. But how do you do that when everything else you've tried has seemed to fail?

Simple, you turn to video games.

Well at least, that's the oh-so-brilliant plan! Consider this more of an experiment than anything. I'll be your friendly neighbourhood lab rat. You can be my unwilling spectators. Or willing, if you're into hearing about other people's pain and suffering. And really, who isn't!? If reality TV can find an audience, so can I! In all seriousness though, by posting things up here, I'm really just trying to find a way to keep myself honest and focused.

Over the next 12 weeks I am going to subject myself to assorted the pain and embarrassment of exercising, or not, and updating all you folks out there in the wide, wide world of web on my progress.

How am I going to track things? Yesterday I purchased a copy of EA Sports Active 2 for my Playstation 3. The game comes with three sensors: two that attach to the arms just below the elbow, and one on the right upper leg. I'll follow the exercise program as set out in the game, and update you all here on my weekly progress. The first program is a three-week "Cardio Kick Start." Following that I'll do one of the more advanced nine-week programs for my total of twelve.

At the end of it all I'll post up before and after photos, as well as statistics from my first and last workout, and assorted body measurements such as weight, BMI (body mass index), skin folds and all kinds of weird stuff. We'll see if you really can get into better shape from a video game.

Microscope, on!

Happy Halloween!

2011-10-31T11:12:00.002-06:00

I've been really busy the past few weeks, but wanted to write up a quick message for Halloween!

We tried our "Devoured By Zombies" VS System event last week and, while still fun, it didn't work as well as I'd hoped. I think my rules were a little too stringent, which made it pretty difficult to actually have a playable deck AND be able to eat your opponent's characters.

I think allowing recovery effects would be fine, but I'm still not sure about having 'can not be stunned' legal in that format. Putting devoured characters into play late in the game also seemed a risky proposition. Especially if you were dealing with small characters like one- and two-drops into turn six and seven. It just didn't capture the zombie horde feeling I was looking for.

One disappointment that I had was that no one really tried to build anything Halloween-themed except for me. Granted, the characters available to Underworld are not the greatest, I still had fun putting together a vampires & monsters deck.

Tonight is Halloween, so we'll be playing a game of Betrayal at House on the Hill. I'm really looking forward to that. I hope everyone has safe and happy haunting this evening!

Initial Thoughts on Rocksmith (PS3)

2011-10-20T12:36:00.004-06:00

As a precursor, I loathe games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero. My friends that do like them assume that since I'm a musician I'll be good at these games. In terms of playing the crappy plastic drums, those I can manage, but still think they're pretty silly, not to mention extremely uncomfortable to sit at. The singing at least is still sort of like karaoke. But when I got handed a little plastic guitar w/ buttons on it because, "hey you know how to play this song!" and subsequently had to try pushing buttons in the wrong place on the fretboard I was immediately turned off. "This is NOT a game for musicians," I thought to myself.

Enter Rocksmith. I hadn't heard about this game (for xbox and ps3) at all, but had it pointed out to me by my girlfriend in a flyer a few days before its release. About a year and a half ago I bought her a guitar, amp along with a book / DVD for beginners. I even spent some time in the first few months showing her basic techniques, how to hold the guitar, pick and basic strumming. She had always wanted to learn, or so she said. Of course, learning something like guitar is hard. Really hard. Especially when you have ZERO background in music, notation, theory or anything like that. You also need to actually want to learn how to do it. Now the guitar and all the trappings sit in her office, collecting dust, except when I am over there and decide to grab it for five, or fifty, minutes while I'm waiting for her to do her hair (or something).

So of course, something like Rocksmith appealed to her. It's not really a game per se, but rather a learning tool wrapped up to look like a game. Maybe making the practicing part a little bit more fun would encourage her to practice more than...once every two months.

For a little personal background: I'm a bass player. I've played bass in rock and metal bands for almost 20 years off and on. Currently, I practice with the band regularly, and intermittently at home. I'll freely admit that I don't practice bass a lot at home unless I'm learning a new cover tune. As such, I'm a solid bassist, but wouldn't call myself anything beyond adequate. I'm not flashy and you won't see me belting out any Les Claypool (Primus) or Billy Gould (Faith No More) bass lines.

Naturally, I own several guitars as well. I don't know many bass players who don't own at least one guitar in addition to their basses. The same can not be said for most guitarists. In fact, I know several who don't own a bass, and almost as many guitarists who've actually never even tried playing one. It's actually quite interesting to see one of these guys strap on a bass and expect to be good at it. Sometimes they are, but quite often it's more on the humorous side as they discover just how far apart the frets really are, and how heavy those damn strings are compared to those tiny guitar strings.

Anyway, back to my point (did I have one?). Right, that Rocksmith game. I did a bunch of reading, watched some promo videos from the manufacturer's site, and finally decided I'd give it a try and picked up a copy. When I got it home I grabbed my favorite electric guitar and hooked up the USB-to-1/4" cable to my PS3. Here are some thoughts on things after a few hours with the game:

+ The instructions for getting started holding your guitar and playing are good, but I did end up skipping through a lot of them simply because they're not targeted at me, but at the beginner.
+ The song selection is better than I expected once I got into playing through the "Rockstar Recommends" items.
+ The dynamic difficulty feature is really smart and usually gives you just enough new stuff not to make you annoyed.
+ It IS pretty fun.

- Customizing your tones and selecting guitars in the game is a bit of a pain.
- Playing through the theory exercises like bending and power chords more than once is annoying, because you have to go through the intro piece (or skip it)...which means you are waiting for it to load the exercise you just played.
- Occasionally it will throw an odd chord or a split chord at you when you've been playing only single notes. It doesn't show you how to play them and I haven't gone into the chord chart section for each song, but it can be a little frustrating to have them just thrown at you.

- The BIGGEST negative I found is that there is a little bit of lag between strumming a string and hearing the note. I haven't tried any of the suggested methods to fix this as of yet. It's enough to be troublesome, and I hope I can remedy it. If not, I'll have to take it back because it simply won't be usable long term.

Final Thoughts

I'm curious to see what kind of downloadable content they will come up with. I've heard that there are approximately 20 songs prepared as DLC, and that bass support will also be added that way. As a musician I can see value in playing through the game to improve my techniques and learn some new tunes. I'm really curious to see how many non-musicians, or people who want to learn guitar the game will encourage to stick to learning the guitar.

If it can actually encourage someone like my girl into playing a little more often, I'll consider it a successful game, but that remains to be seen...because she hasn't tried it yet.

Halloween VS Event Idea

2011-10-14T14:33:00.002-06:00

Devoured by Zombies!!!

So how exactly do you capture the idea of zombies in a superhero card game? By turning things on their head and considering all of your opponent's characters as zombies, that's how! I hope this seems somewhat thematic for the Halloween event. If you have any suggestions or comments please submit them to me before the 21st of October. Here's the idea...

Rule 1:
All characters in play gain the keyword Devour. This keyword's text is, "If an opposing character stunned by this character this turn would leave play, instead remove it from the game. That character is considered devoured."

This keyword can not be removed by card or character effects. Opponent's cards removed from the game this way go in a pile on your side of the table.

Rule 2:
Once per turn, at the start of the combat phase, you may put the lowest-cost devoured character card into play. This does not cost any resource points. If you have two devoured characters that share the lowest cost, you may choose only ONE of these characters.

Rule 3:
No recovery effects, KO effects or can-not be stunned effects can be played. This would encompass things like the keyword Evade, Quick Kill and Legendary Battles.

Give thanks (for turkey and games)!

2011-10-12T11:18:00.003-06:00

Recently I've been writing up sort of session notes combined with review thoughts into a collection of sentences. Well at least I think some of the strings of words might qualify as such. I'm still making ground after lamenting my lack of gaming, so that's been fun.

Thursday's VS System sealed constructed event was Marvel Legends / Marvel Knights. We had a good turnout of 6 players, including one new player! I do hope that we can maintain attendance of around that number. It makes for good match-ups and variety, as you're not playing against the same three people every week. The sealed decks that I saw were pretty interesting. Although mine wasn't particularly effective I was able to win a game. As we usually do with sealed games, we followed it up with a rare draft to give everyone a chance at the rares from the packs.

Saturday was my family's Thanksgiving dinner. This is the first time that I can recall ever having it on the Saturday. It's almost always on Sunday, but for whatever reason, this year my mom decided to change it up. I'm glad she didn't change the menu though. There aren't many things that can compare to a homemade turkey dinner with stuffing and gravy!

As a kid I played a lot of card games with my family, and the occasional board game. I remember learning to play cribbage from my grandmother before I had even started kindergarten. In fact, I can still play a pretty mean game of crib to this day. It is not high on my gaming list though, so I brought a couple of games with me to the house.

It was pretty interesting getting family folks to play board games out of their experience zone. Watching my sister tossing cards down during a game of Arena Maximus, desperately trying to cause damage to my uncle's chariot while she passed him was pretty funny. I won that game, but only just barely! Laarni and Laura were both within 1 tile of crossing the finish line before me and it was a tight race.

After dinner I hauled out Betrayal at House on the Hill, another recent addition to my collection. I've played it once already in a three player game; this time we had four people, including my mom. After exploring the house a little bit, all of the players except Laura were upstairs. As my luck would have it I found a weak spot in the floor and went crashing down to the basement. While I was digging around trying to find a way out, Laura stumbled upon a book and started acting a little funny.

A short while later the others found her in the chapel chanting in a strange language. Not wanting to see what was going to happen, the others pounced on her, and after a brief struggle were able to steal her book. Unable to complete her summoning ritual without it she gave chase! Another fight ensued and this time she lost...but the rest of us escaped the house with our lives and sanity intact.

You'd think that would be enough gaming, but not for a junkie like me. Even though my house is a mess amidst painting and renovations I was still able to ensure that the living room was clean enough to have folks over for regular Monday night gaming. We played what was probably the fastest game of Zombie Plague in history! Of course because there are dice involved, I ended up getting attacked, bitten and naturally...turned into a zombie. It was up to Scott and William to survive or escape. Which they did about 5 minutes later when Scott discovered the car keys in the trunk of the car. All I could do was shamble after the fading tail lights and wonder what their brains would have tasted like.

We capped the night off with a proper game of Sentinels of the Multiverse. The last time the three of us tried to play we were tight for time. This time we had ample space and time to play...but our valiant fight against Baron Blade ended in bitter defeat.

Fury of Dracula

2011-10-04T11:35:00.002-06:00

I like horror games. Shocking, I know. The biggest issue with horror games isn't that they're scary and that people don't want to play them. The issue is that a lot of people think it's a little odd to play horror games at say...Christmas, or Thanksgiving, or at your birthday party. That makes Halloween a sort of horror gaming feast to the rest of the year's famine. With that in mind I scheduled nothing but horror board games for the entirety of October's events.

The first game played was a new game to my collection, but not a new game. The version of Fury of Dracula that I bought is produced by Fantasy Flight Games, but is actually a remake of an older game of the same name, produced by Games Workshop. I sort of have a love-hate relationship with Games Workshop, because I think they make great stuff but it's generally too expensive. I also have a lot of trouble finding people to play Warhammer 40k with that I don't greatly disklike, so that's always an issue too.

And...once again I'm off topic.

Where was I now...oh right! Fangs, capes, stakes, holy water and a merry chase for a bloodthirsty monster through 19th century Europe.

Regardless of how many players take part in the game, all four hunter characters must be used to track down Dracula. With four players this left one hunter to be shared around amongst our three hunter players, which proved a little odd.

Scott, joining us for a Monday session the first time, elected to play Dracula. Sebastien, William and I took the roles of hunters; Lord Godalming, Dr. Seward for Seb and Will respectively, with me playing Mina and keeping an eye on Van Helsing. We doled out all the cards and counter tokens, and Dracula made his first move.

Our first day started off with a stroke of luck, Lord Godalming hit upon an early clue and we were hot on Dracula's trail. Mina decided to take to the sea in hope of heading Dracula off to the north, while the men closed in from east, south and west. As the day waned they had started pushing the Count south towards the coast and the good Doctor was able to force a quick encounter. Taking some scratches himself seemed a small price to pay as night fell; Dr. Seward landed a lucky blow with a stake causing Dracula a grievous wound and forcing him to retreat.

With full dark upon us Lord Godalming continued to chase the Count down, his trusty dogs lending him courage. Another fight ensued, but Dracula's increased strength made for a much more evenly-matched encounter, or would have if Seb hadn't thrown things into disarray by tossing handfuls of garlic at the Count as he dove into the fray. Unable to fight effectively Dracula once again made his retreat.

Surrounded on all sides we fully expected Dracula to take to the sea, but Mina's arrival from her voyage allowed her to telegraph ahead and notify the port authorities to the Count's movements. Effectively hemmed in he was forced to take wolf form and move secretly around our group, but only a few cities away.

Mina and Van Helsing were both able to track Dracula, but once again he chose to make a getaway rather than stay and fight. As the second day turned to night, with the hunters still hot on his trail, a singular bat was seen flitting through the cold evening air. Dracula had escaped us!

Our game took a full three hours and we ended it with no definitive winner. It was our first play and none of us had played before so there was a LOT of flipping through the rule book. The game has very nice components and a strong attention to theme, but still lacking a truly strong sense of danger or horror for the heroes. I think it's much more intense for the Dracula player as he gets to listen to all of the players' plans and formulate his escape, or ambush!

I do feel that the game is a little bit "swingy" in that fortunes for one side or the other can change very rapidly. While this can be a good thing, it can also be frustrating and lead to players feeling like they haven't accomplished much. This is especially true after having tracked and cornered Dracula over a several turns, only to have him to somehow escape to ANY space on the board.

I think playing with a full complement of 5 players would work best, but perhaps 3 players (with hunter players controlling two hunters each) would work well too. I'm sure the next play of this game will be much more fun!

Call for VS Event Suggestions

2011-09-28T11:08:00.002-06:00

Ok all you villains; I need your help! (Heroes just doesn't seem to be the right adjective for most of my readers, so you're stuck with what I give you...)

Most of the time when I'm putting together the upcoming list of event formats I simply try to think of what formats might be fun, and that we haven't played for a while. However this month I thought I'd try something different. I want you to help me chose the format for not one, but TWO of this month's events.

For the October 13th tournament, submit a comment on this blogpost with your top two suggestions from the format list. The format with the most suggestions submitted before October 7th will be the winner. A list of the formats can be found here.

With Halloween coming up I wanted to try something with a horror or undead theme. I'm uncertain what this could be or how we can apply it to a VS System event. Here's a simple example idea: each player must build a BYOTT deck that features Underworld as one of their teams. Post your suggestions for a Halloween themed VS event by October 20th. At the October 27th event I'll provide some prizes for the following categories:

- Most interesting, on-theme deck (voted on by the players)
- Winner of the tournament (decided by your own skill)
- Person who comes up with the theme we use (entirely up to my discretion)

One last thing: Even if you're from far, far away (like...Zimbabwe kind of far) don't feel like you can't make suggestions for us to use. I'm really looking forward to seeing and hearing what everyone comes up with!

Ever Wanted to Know How Resilient Your iPhone Is?

2011-09-27T15:31:00.001-06:00

The short answer: very.

After a 15 minute trip to the Apple Store I had a new back plate installed and I was on my way. The third photo above was taken before I had the replacement plate put on. The phone worked like nothing at all had happened, and continues to do so.

Just a little note however, I don't recommend trying this at home.

Games and Culture

2011-09-27T11:44:00.005-06:00

Well over the past week I was able to make up some more ground in the "play some games" category. Our regular Thursday night VS System event was lightly attended, but everyone had a deck built for the format. That's rather unusual lately so I was happy to see it. More than that though, I was happy to play with one of my personal favorite decks: JSA w/ Lobo. There's an earlier article about the deck and how it works here, so I won't go into the details of it. It was originally built for this format, and modified to work in Golden Age play with the addition of a team-up card. Of course I was playing without that, and was very happy to not only get Lobo out on the table each game, but actually trigger his text in one of them. Granted it's a turn six or seven win, but it's fun and does what it's supposed to do quite well.

We followed up the VS games with a test run of Sentinels of the Multiverse. WIlliam had already played the previous week, but Scott and Anthony wanted to join in too. As we were a little pressed for time I opted to play the villain and environment card for them and walk them through the game steps for the first few rounds. The team started things off a little shaky, but pulled together nicely after the second Kraken appeared!

Time did run out for us though and we weren't able to finish the game before the shop started to close up.

Saturday I wasn't expecting to get any gaming in. After doing some last-minute shopping I headed off to my nephew's birthday party. The little guy is now a hyper-active three year old and as such is a great amount of fun. Lots of pictures, lots of laughing. After he tuckered himself out I headed back home and met a few folks for dinner.

Now, generally Laarni has next to no interest in board games but on occasion will surprise me by suggesting we play one. That's what happened on Saturday evening and we ended up playing a two-player game of Touch of Evil vs. the Vampire! Our characters were quite weak so we decided to team up against the villain and make a go of it. After collecting some tomes and weapons, as well as a few extra health space we hunted him down. Of course we'd never fought a vampire before so we had no idea that he had a crazy mist form and could become all but impossible to hit! Luckily my partner was packing some holy water and kept tossing it into the monster's eye each time he attacked us.

I'll have to say that the finish of this game was a little dissatisfying. The way the vampire's mist-form is worded, it sounds like he is impossible to hit at all. However, after we melted his un-dead behind with holy water, I looked up the rules online. Apparently he still gets hit like normal, but gets a sort of saving throw for each of those hits. Hopefully I'll remember that the next time we play him!

On Sunday we spent the day off getting cultured at the local museum. There was a film costume exhibit on display, and I finally had a chance to check out the Warriors display that opened up a few years ago. Actually, I suppose we got a double dose of culture last week! The first production by Vertigo Theatre has begun and I bought season tickets again. The play was really tense and thoroughly enjoyable, as always.

Monday's game night was good but I'm a little disappointed by the lack of interest so far. This is the second week in a row that I've been unable to garner a group of players big enough to play a three player game. If I've ever invited you to play games on a Monday, don't feel like it's a one-time invitation. The schedule is up here on the blog, although we don't exactly stick to it! Just give me a call or a text or an email and let me know if you're interested in coming out. I'll be more than happy to make a chair available should there be space. And lately we've not been lacking for space!

Both of the games on the schedule for this week are better multiplayer so we ended up shelving them. Instead we played A Game of Thrones LCG using only the core set decks. Our game was House Stark vs House Targaryen. This is only the second time either of us has played with these cards, but we each started out with very strong board presence and a lot of cards in our hands. It went quite long because neither player could garner a distinct early advantage. Finally after seven full turns my Targaryen forces started to pull ahead with the repeated assistance of Khal Drogo. By that point though we'd had enough and House Stark surrendered.

After playing a second game with the core set I'm inclined to say that I actually prefer AGoT LCG as a multiplayer game. We'll have to rope another player or two into it and see if my initial thoughts waver or not.

Finally we played a game of Magic: The Gathering. William wanted to try his newly-purchased pre-constructed Foil Sliver deck. I grabbed the first deck in line out my deck box; a Red-Blue Budget Burn. My deck has no rares in it at all. I should have taken a mulligan right at the start, as I only had one land in my hand. However, I had a few red creatures and two copies of Lightning Bolt, so I decided to hold on. The result was a game that took way longer than it should have. By the time I got some Islands out William's mana pool was huge. I locked down some of his slivers with Narcolepsy, but couldn't make the swing back from 3 life.

Magic is one of those games that I do enjoy, but don't want to play that often. I will really only play in small groups of casual players. I'm not competitive enough, nor interested enough in following and purchasing each set, to want to play in tournaments.

I had planned a brief rant to cap off this entry, but I'll keep it for another day; I'd rather end on a positive note. And of course, I invite people to leave their comments, feedback, suggestions or complaints on this or any other entry on my blog.

Happy Tuesday!

Super Heroic Gaming - Sentinels of the Multiverse

2011-09-20T11:47:00.003-06:00

Last week I was lamenting my lack of game-playing time and dropped a list of games out that I was eagerly awaiting in the mail. Several of them arrived yesterday, so I have a pile of games on the table still in their shiny new shrink wrap. On Friday my copy of Sentinels of the Universe arrived as well, so I made sure to pick up some various coloured ten-sided dice and some clear sleeves before Monday's regular gaming night.

Not wanting to force my hopes on anyone I simply set the pile of new games, including the two games that were on the schedule, on the table. After a little "how've things been?" catching up, and the first part of a beer of course, William decided the Sentinels looked pretty interesting and that we should give it a try.

So try we did.

In fact, the unheard of happened. We actually played the same game more than once in the same evening. The game was so much fun that we played three games of it! However, the villains proved more than we bargained for in all but the first game.

Game 1: The Wraith and Fanatic vs. Baron Blade

Having heard that two single players with single heroes each was a difficult climb, we decided to use a modification that had been suggested: each hero player got to take two turns per round. While this was fun, the match up didn't seem much of a challenge and Baron Blade took a pretty severe beating in Megalopolis.

Game 2: Tachyon and Legacy vs. Citizen Dawn

"Let's play by the actual rules!" I suggested. Dumb, dumb, dumb. The Citizens protected Citizen Dawn with a vengeance, dealing out over 12 total damage to our valiant heroes before they even got to play a single card or power! It was an uphill fight, against the ever-growing Citizen army while being harried by velociraptors and T-rexes on all sides. In the end the heroes fell, having not even scratched Citizen Dawn. She gloated over their broken corpses in triumph. Ouch.

Game 3: Absolute Zero and Ra vs. Omnitron

"We need to play one of the easier villains again," I suggested. William simply rolled his eyes and shuffled the cards for the Wagner Mars Base. Omnitron started out with shields and some minions that forced us to alternate fire and cold damage, then started taking over the station itself! The heroes found themselves up against a self destruction sequence and leaking environments. With no oxygen to fuel his flames, Ra's powers started to fizzle out. Unable to stop the countdown, the base exploded and every one died.

Except for me!

Well, my character died. I didn't. If I had, you wouldn't be reading this now. At least we saved the Earth from being destroyed by Baron Blade's terralunar whatchamacallit.

Sentinels of the Multiverse is a simple game that is a LOT of fun. But it's stoooopid hard with only two players. We're both looking forward to trying it again, hopefully with some more allies to back us up!

The Thursday evening session this week should be awesome. Not only are we playing a great format for our VS System event (Special Guest-Star if you didn't read the schedule), but if time permits we'll also be able to fire up a game of Sentinels of the Universe! Oh yeah...

No, I'm Not Drunk Today

2011-09-15T14:03:00.003-06:00

My schedule, not to mention my general existence, throughout September has been filled with challenges. Many of these have been beyond my control and caused untold levels of personal frustration, but in reality I suppose things aren't all that bad when compared to other folks who don't have money for food, or for a place to live, or games. Those poor bastards who can't afford games are truly in a sad and pathetic place in life aren't they?

Anyway, my personal steaming pile of annoyances aside, if you have somehow found yourself reading my blog for the first time you might be shocked to find out that I love games. For anyone else, it's not news, just annoyingly repetitive. But hey, I'm not holding your eyes open and making you read this, so shut it.

As much as I love playing games, I really haven't had a lot of opportunity to actually PLAY any this month. I've missed one of the two VS System events so far, and will miss tonight's as well. The one I did attend was a sealed event where we had an uneven number. Rather than making folks that paid for cards to play in a sealed sit out, I opted not to play so that they could do so. See, even though you think I'm a prick, I'm actually a very caring individual...provided I don't dislike you. In that case, lock your doors or better yet, just move to someplace I can't find you. But remember, I will find you.

So then, since I haven't been able to play any games recently I apparently decided that I needed to buy more of them that I also won't have much opportunity to play. And just in case you'd forgotten, there are (at my last count) two games that I recently added to my pile o' games that have yet to be played, and probably another four to six that have only been played once.

I've filled my spare time by ogling game reviews, component breakdowns, video reports and generally being even more nerdy than I'm used to, simply to maintain my tenuous grip on sanity. Anyone else will tell you I lost my last hold on that long ago, but they're just jealous of how awesome I am and that I provide so much entertainment to the masses with my wit, generosity and good looks. Ok, maybe not good looks, but whatever. Just go with it, I'm writing here...!

Out of the massive "wow I'd love to buy that game even though I'll probably never talk anyone into playing it with me" list, I didn't do a great job of narrowing things down to a short list. There may have been logic and strategy behind the purchases over the past two weeks, but somehow I doubt it. Enough rambling, here's the damn list already:

- A Game of Thrones LCG core set, with the Kings of the Sea and Princes of the Sun expansions (all six major houses, even though I don't have 5 friends to play it with)
- Citadels (stab your friends in the face, in groups of 2 to 10!)
- Fury of Dracula (Halloween is coming. I had to order at least one horror game!)
- Minotaur Lords (I loved Scarab Lords and this uses the same system...)
- Omen: Reign of War and the Shattered Aegis Expansion (fantasy-based Greek warfare with cards = awesome I hope)
- Rush 'n Crush (Formula D is a stupid racing game...this has guns, bombs and turbo boosts so it must be better)
- Sentinels of the Multiverse (card-based superhero craziness)

EDIT: I've also been watching a startup game develop for the past few months. It's called Eaten By Zombies, and has been getting almost universally positive reviews. So I added that to the ordered list too. Have a look at a nicely detailed article about the game and how you can get a copy here.

I also ordered some promo cards for Dominion and Nightfall, as well and Thunderstone even though I don't own the game. They're for a friend who hasn't read the rules and we've never even played the game, but he bought it and I'm a nice guy, so yeah.

Go get yer own damn games...these ones are mine. But if you're nice (ie: bring me beer or willing women) I might let you play them.

A Post Without A Witty Title

2011-08-30T13:40:00.001-06:00

We got an early start on Monday, as I was able to get most of the day off. Over the weekend I had picked up a copy of an older Fantasy Flight game from the Silver Line called Scarab Lords. The game is essentially a two-player battle game. Each player takes on the role of the ruler of a house in a fantasy-based Egyptian realm, bidding their minions and their gods to take supremacy and rule all.

I had looked the box over on the shelf several times before finally deciding to buy it; and I'm glad I did, because I think it's a lot of fun. The artwork is really nice and the components, while simple, are good quality and provide a great game in a small box. The decks at first seem a little unbalanced, with the blue deck appearing the weaker of the two. I did determine afterward that we had missed an important rule that allowed a player to essentially skip their turn, and for a discard, replenish their hand.

I also came up with a modification to the advanced rules that replace the deck-building aspect with a shared-deck idea. I was able to test out the following day and found that it works out very well. It does have the side effect of making the game a little bit longer, but it adds a nice way to avoid decking out the opponent so quickly, as well as adding some more chances for random swings in power.

After William arrived, with cold beer to compliment the pizza, we sat down to a three-player game of the Call of Cthulhu LCG. I had set up a sort of draft box using the core set and the two larger expansions "Secrets of Arkham" and "Order of the Silver Twilight". We each chose two factions, dealt out an equal number of cards from each, and added a few neutral cards to flesh them out. As the decks were composed entirely of one-off cards, it added to the randomness of play.

The game is overall a very good one, but it does fall down a little bit in terms of multi-player friendliness. It takes a little bit longer and tends to get a little lopsided. Sebastien suggested that it might play better with four players as opposed to three. William eventually pulled out a victory taking a third story card. Sebastien and I each had two but were simply unable to stop his final push. By the end we were getting a little tired of the game and started throwing strategy out the window in favor of big swings with all or most of our characters just to see what would happen.

The final game was William's newly arrived copy of Quarriors. Yes, you read that right. The game's name sounds like an explosive sneeze but it is actually pretty good. It's a sort of deck-building game with dice. The artwork has a fun cartoony type style, and it and the dice are very colourful. The first few rounds took a little while to get going because we were harassing William as he read through the rule book. A few beers and a long day turned almost everything into a joke at that point, so 'scoring with the dragon' took on a wholly inappropriate meaning beyond the regular game terms. I enjoyed the game though and would certainly be inclined to give it another try.

For VS System on Thursday we're playing a sealed constructed format which I'm also looking forward to. The format lends itself well to a nice, even playing field for all, and gives everyone a chance to make use of cards that you might not otherwise. I'm expecting to see some interesting stuff hit the table. It should be fun.

Countdown to the EVE of Nightfall

2011-08-23T09:57:00.006-06:00

Yeah I admit it's a pretty contrived title, but I wanted to hit everything in there that's happened in the past week. The biggest thing has been my nutzo work schedule, which not only had me working late on Thursday, but for almost all of Sunday as well. That was a real shame because the weather here on Sunday was a gorgeous sunny day.

The format for Thursday's VS System tournament was Countdown, and I wish I could tell you who played what and how it went. However since I wasn't there, and no one has given me any details, all I can tell you is that cards were brought and games were played. I think.

Monday's scheduled game was EVE: Second Genesis. If you've played the online computer game you might have heard of it's CCG counterpart. The card game shares a lot of artwork from the computer game, and boasts some truly fantastic original art as well. The cards look great and I was looking forward to playing.

My anticipation was quickly dashed however. Within the first four or five turns, almost nothing happened and peace reigned in the galaxy. Sebastien's cartel started to build up a presence in the outer regions while William and I struggled to cobble together a few measly ships. When we finally did, we flew them around and generally avoided each other like children hiding behind a mother's skirts.

Finally I had a ship strong enough that I thought I could gain a minor victory and take control of an outer region in William's control. Issuing orders my ship went off in search of conquest. The orders I gave them however, were the wrong ones. Laser fire was exchanged, nothing happened and my ship withdrew in shame while Sebastien watched, or napped, I'm not sure.

A few rounds later I decided to try again and sent all of my might against Sebastien's unprotected home region. He had wealth, ships and power, but had unwisely left his starbase completely devoid of defenders. The cost for this mistake was his life, and his sanity, as he was forced to watch William and I struggle with the combat mechanics of this game for another half hour.

William set down to building more ships, faster than I could, flying in and doing a lot of pointing at cards. I pointed at cards too, we spent some time being confused by all the results of said pointing; and when the game was over we packed up all the cards and agreed that it sort of stunk.

EVE Second Genesis is slow to start, boring while it's not your turn, and the combat system really isn't any fun. The targeting system for applying battle damage isn't smooth and made our brains hurt even though the math was simple. I wanted to like it, and still think the cards are pretty awesome looking, but it's very unlikely we'll bother to play again.

-----

Two out of three then? No, not another game of EVE, please! We tried out yet another new game recently added to my collection: Nightfall. Yep another deck building game. Cooperative games, and deck building games seem to be a major trend in gaming for the past few years...and I really can't complain because I happen to like both genres.

Nightfall appealed to me for two reasons. The first was the theme. It's set in an end-of-days-where-the-sun-has-burned-out-and-monsters-have-appeared world and players control legions of undead, zombies, humans and werewolves trying to destroy one another. The second appeal-factor was the nature of the game itself. In games such as Dominion and Ascension, while both very good games, the level of player interaction is low to non-existent. The whole goal of Nightfall is to chain cards together so that you can attack and destroy your opponents.

We were only able to play a single 2-player game and it was a bit of a runaway win on my part. William and I were both trying to figure out how to chain cards together in a useful manner and I got off to an early lead. I'm not certain that the game is entirely balanced for a two player game, but 3 or 4 should balance out very nicely. I'd definitely play it again.

The artwork on the cards is pretty spiffy too.

If The Zombies Don't Get You The Dragons Will

2011-08-16T12:24:00.001-06:00

Last night's gaming session had a group of four, which is twice as big as last week. A 100% increase in attendance is pretty good I'd say. Before firing up our Warlord game, we decided to try out a print-and-play game I happened upon last week called Zombie Plague. The game has been around for over 10 years, and recently a member over on Board Game Geek posted up a very nicely done 10th Anniversary Edition. Since I like horror games (and who doesn't love zombies?) I thought I'd print things up and give it a go.

Since the game is electronically distributed for free, we needed some dice and pieces. I just happened to have a copy of Zombies!!! which suited us perfectly. There are three ways to win the game:

1. All of the search locations on the board must be searched by at least one player.
2. The house's windows and doors are all barricaded and the house is zombie free.
3. Someone finds the keys to the car, and all the (surviving) players get in the car.

Very early on in the game the survivors learned that the car was out of gas. One of them headed out to the garage to look for something useful while the others set about barricading the doors and windows of the house. As he made a quick escape to the side door of house he unfortunately drew the attention of several zombies, who slowly turned to follow.

Sheer weight of numbers started to pile up on several of the barricades and the three survivors had to make a fight of it in a very crowded living room. Jason's frying pan was heavy and difficult to aim, making it a poor choice of weapon for dispatching the undead. Seb's hatchet was sharp, but the short handle proved it difficult to land a killing blow. And William's teddy bear was simply helping him stay sane amidst the chaos.

Deciding that they simply couldn't secure the house, and seeing that they were drawing an ever-growing crowd the survivors decided to split up. After some tense outdoor moments and a few bites that proved harmless they were finally able to search everywhere of interest and make their escape alive, but just barely!

I think Zombie Plague is well designed, fun and tense. The more survivor players you have playing, the more zombies they'll attract. There are tons of mini-expansions available, as well as four maps (all nicely designed by BGG-member kwanchai) to play on. I intend to find a suitable box for it and add it to my collection. I'm sure it will get played again.

---

So where do the dragons come in you say? Well, the scheduled event was actually to play a few games of Warlord: Saga of the Storm. Jason had put together a Dragon Lord deck using Altus Darkheart, and wanted to test it out, so the rest of us formed up our armies and made ready for battle. Let's just say it was brief, bloody and extremely painful. By the end of the first turn there were three level 8 dragons on the field, in addition to the Dragon Lord. We basically scooped up our cards and conceded...none of our armies had characters that could contend with 23 and 25 defence characters. Especially not when they had 4 or 5 hit points each.

It's all a Trade-Off

2011-08-12T10:26:00.003-06:00

For almost a year, I gave Magic the Gathering a try. I enjoyed the game, it is well designed, relatively fun, extremely well supported, and the players are plentiful. However, the trade-off in my eyes was twofold.

The first issue with the game was the general player population. I played in a few organized events at my local gaming shop, and generally speaking didn't have any fun. The players were far too competitive, and generally not that accommodating to the newer players. I certainly don't mind losing, because in any game someone has to lose in order for another to win; but good sportsmanship goes a long way there.

The second was the frequency of set releases. As a casual player I simply couldn't keep up with the number of new cards, their interactions and combinations. Having to at least be familiar with a new batch of cards every three months is simply too much work in my opinion; that being of a casual player.

So what the heck am I talking about here and why? Well, one of the by-products of MtG having such a high player base means that highly sought after cards can rise in value quite quickly, and quite high. A few months ago I found a Worldwake fat-pack in Walmart, and bought it. One of the money cards in the game is Jace the Mindsculptor, and I happened to get a copy. I was pretty happy about it, as it was the first Planeswalker I had obtained, and I had a blue deck that it should work well in. I was looking forward to trying it out, but as the months passed and people's schedules were in flux, I never ended up playing that deck...so I decided to trade it.

I was able to trade a single piece of cardboard for a full board game Shadows Over Camelot, and a deluxe expansion for Call of Cthulhu. So that single card, that went unused for months, turned into something much more valuable for me: games and cards I can actually be certain I'll use. I don't think that's a bad trade-off at all.

Oh, and I do still intend to play Magic on occasion too! I just won't be playing with Jace (who happens to be banned in standard play now anyway). :P

Monday Night Gaming

2011-08-02T11:13:00.002-06:00

Starting next week I'll be hosting some semi-regular gaming sessions on Monday evenings on my kitchen table. The way it will work is simple. I'll post a schedule, similar to the VS one, but each week we'll play a different game. In addition to the date and game title, I'll list how many players can join the game. Simply let me know if you're coming by email or phone. When we reach the maximum number of players I'll mark the event as closed or something. Please try to give me a decent amount of notice, and not leave it until 5:30 the night of the game before deciding to come...as there may not be enough room for you by then!

Some nights we may be able to play a few different games. The schedule will only have the main game listed to keep it concise. If you have a game that you want to bring or try out with a group feel free to post a comment on this thread, or contact me directly.

I'm not sure if I can host games every week of every month, as my schedule may not allow it. However, we'll give it a try and see how things go for now.

Games will start between 6:30 and 7pm. We'll likely try not to go past 10 or 10:30, so that everyone can get home and get some sleep before work the next day. If you want to bring snacks or drinks, please do so, but please try to take care of any garbage or mess you might create. Of course I will have a garbage can, recycling bin, glasses and water available...we are playing at my house after all.

Next week we'll be playing the Age of Conan strategy war game. It's marked as a 2-4 player game taking approximately 90 minutes to play. I expect it to take around two hours for our first play, as it's a new game and we haven't had a chance to try it yet. Sounds sort of like Risk, but with monsters, and lusty women, and magic...and Conan.

A Game of Thrones (or "Why I Like LCGs")

2011-07-28T12:02:00.004-06:00

Over the past few years, I've introduced several people to the Call of Cthulhu and Warhammer Invasion living card games. Afterwards a few of my friends asked me about A Game of Thrones as well. That game was actually the first one that Fantasy Flight Games transformed from a collectable card game, into a living card game (hence LCG).

Not having read the books, and assuming it was strictly a political game set in a fantasy setting, I hadn't really done much research into the A Game of Thrones LCG. Even when the TV series started showing on HBO, I still didn't really pay it much attention, even though it got good reviews and was mentioned to me by several people as something I might like. Part of the problem was my initial thought that it was a political drama type of thing, something along the lines of Battlestar Galactica. That show had been recommended to me several times as well, and the three or four times I tried to watch it, I sat there watching people talk and argue. "Where was the action, fighting, adventure and space battles that would make this interesting?" I wondered.

Truth be told I still haven't seen the TV show, but that is largely in part due to the fact that I no longer have cable TV. It's been almost a year since I cancelled my cable in favor of DVD sets and a Netflix account. I save a lot of money that way, but I digress. The sheer amount of times that A Game of Thrones had been mentioned to be over the past few months finally converged with my purchase of an e-reader device. Wanting to get a good value for my first purchase, I decided I would give the novels a try and bought a bundle including the first four books. At just over $15, I wouldn't have even been able to buy used copies at a book store for that cheap. I've recently finished the first novel, and it is a good story. Rather light on the fantasy elements, but engaging nonetheless, and I do intend to continue reading the series in the future.

Ok so that's a lot of text that doesn't even really address the game in the title. Before jumping in and simply buying the core set for A Game of Thrones LCG, I was actually able to try the game first! Collin has a core set and brought it by for William and I to test drive.

The game plays very well with multiplayer, and the three (of four) decks provided in the starter box seemed quite well balanced. William had some issues with drawing playable cards early, and Collin got off to a quick lead. Granted, it was his game and he had played a few times before. My deck generated a lot of coins that allowed me to play more cards in the late game...and on the seventh turn I was able to choose a title that protected me from Collin's attacks and push through both opponents for victory.

I think the game would play equally well with 2 or 4 players, and it is one of the few card games that shines in a multiplayer format. I certainly would recommend it to anyone who likes a deep game with lots of options, variation, and difficult choices to make. Do not play this game with casual gamers, or people you are trying to entice into playing more games with you. They will hate it, because it is complex and highly variable. It's simply too much to provide those people with a satisfying experience. For anyone who enjoys other card games and has a little experience with them, this is well suited.

The core set also seems highly playable directly from the box. This is a strength of the Living Card Game format, as both Call of Cthulhu and Warhammer Invasion are also fabulous games that stand on their own with just the core sets. If you are going to be the only one providing cards to your play group, I would actually recommend sticking with the core set, and perhaps adding in a deluxe expansion once in a while. Deck building is not a necessity, and in some cases I think actually makes the LCGs less fun.

As for me, I think I will be picking up a copy of the AGoT LCG core set at some point in my future. Even though one of my friends has a copy and I'm sure would be happy to bring it to our gaming nights, it's a good enough game that I'd like my own copy to have in the house!

Dark Avengers Assemble!

2011-07-15T13:01:00.002-06:00

As I mentioned last week, we're playing with Marvel Factions this summer. I'd like to formally thank banstylejbo over at vssystem.org for putting this excellent set together. We were looking for a follow-up to the excellent DC Universe set, and this has definitely filled the bill so far!

Back to my original thread of thought...Dark Avengers. Why the hell would I want to try Dark Avengers, out of all the other teams available in Marvel Factions? The reason is actually two-fold. The first part of it is that I've always have a fascination with the mini-teams that most set designers have made appearances throughout years. Fearsome Five, Infinity Watch, Birds of Prey, Doom Patrol, and yes even the Purifiers have all made their way through the VS meat-grinder under my piloting. Some have been team-ups, others mono-team, but almost always fun.

The second part of the appeal about Dark Avengers was the premise itself. While I have not actually read the stories, I find it a pretty intriguing concept: villains taking on the roles, and in some cases even the identities of known heroes! The fact that they have a rather unique texting concept is just added cheese to the plot-twist pizza.

So here's the list I have after a few plays through with the team.

Dark Avengers Assemble!

4x Veronica Hand (1)
4x Marvel Boy <> Captain Marvel (2)
4x Karla Sofen <> Ms. Marvel (2)
4x Daken <> Wolverine (3)
4x Green Goblin <> Iron Patriot (3)
4x Bullseye <> Hawkeye (4)
4x Venom <> Spider-Man (4)
4x Ares (5)
4x Green Goblin <> Iron Patriot (6)
4x The Sentry (7)

2x Quinjet, Dark Ops
4x Heroic Mockery
4x Snack Time
4x The Monster Within
4x Lift Off!
2x In The Maw of Darkness

If you're at all familiar with the set, you may be asking why I didn't include the team-stamped location Stark's Gallery. In my first build I did have it and played a copy of it in my resource row during my second play-test game. However, when I flipped it over and read just exactly how restrictive the text was, I immediately decided to remove it.

The characters double as plot twists while in your resource row, but with the added requirement that they be KO'd when revealed. This means that you will usually be replacing them with cards from your hand, and as such you run the risk of emptying your hand quickly of both plot twists and playable characters. Stark's Armory only allows you one card draw per turn, and it must be triggered during a reveal effect. The added cost of also discarding a card for the effect is just not worth running it.

Seeing that the deck was decently ranged, but light on flight without a Green Goblin on the board, I decided to add in a play set of Lift Offs in place of the Stark's Armory. This card grants flight to a character for the turn and nets me a card without requiring a discard. I also swapped in two copies In The Maw of Madness for two of the Quinjets. The quinjets are good but with the addition of Lift Off, I didn't want to run the risk of making it unplayable. Maw is a nice removal effect that is very difficult to counter, because the card goes into the resource row. Unless they are a reservist, or your opponent has a way of KO-ing and returning it to their hand, it's gone.

In terms of the characters, it is a bit of a shame that they have no working text while on the board except for Victoria. Her text is extremely beneficial, but I did run two games where i didn't recruit her and things played out ok. As she's the only character with concealed, she can prove to be a big liability if you aren't careful about it.

And finally, if I were to really try to take things to another level I would seriously consider adding a different 3-drop in place of Green Goblin, and a much stronger 7-cost character as a finisher. The problem with removing 3-cost Goblin is that you then need a team up, which his text will help you find. Losing Daken for an off-team 3-drop doesn't seem like a great trade off as he is a good attacker. The Sentry's effect is not good enough to want to run a full four copies of in the off-chance you can actually fire it off.

I'd love to see a few more characters printed with the Dark Avengers team affiliation in a future set just to give them a few more options, but they were surprisingly fun to play and I will likely keep this deck around.

Iron Fist Legend (Heroes For Hire)

2011-07-07T10:30:00.006-06:00

Throughout the month of June my schedule didn't exactly allow me a lot of time to join in the VS events. But of the five Thursdays packed into the month, I was able to attend two of them; and took full advantage of the chance to explore some of the cards in Marvel Factions a little bit deeper.

After playing our two-teams event early in the month I found myself leaning towards the Heroes For Hire over Marvel Defenders. Not that they had poor cards or stats by any means! The 4-cost Hulk and She-Hulk drops they have are very solid and performed very well. There just seemed to be something more in the Iron Fist / Luke Cage cards I had used that first event that needed further attention. So with that in mind I stripped out the Defenders cards and started working around this pair of characters.

First off, the 2-cost Iron Fist with substitute is a great card...just not on turn two. So I decided to make Paladin my first choice, as he ALSO has substitute. The ideal play for turns two and three are Paladin on two, Luke Cage on three, then subbing out Paladin for Iron Fist to give Luke Cage +2/+2 for the turn! My alternate 3-drop is Colleen Wing, but you really don't want to play her unless you have no choice. This could be looked at further, and maybe swapped out for Shang Chi.

Turn 4 is a tough one. There are some options for a 4-drop Iron Fist, and they're good choices, but I don't like the idea of ditching my 2 if it isn't necessary, especially when my 6-drop Iron Fist is the hoped-for finisher. The best choices are also off-team, so I ended up going with Misty Knight for her leadership text.

Turn 5 and 6 are obvious here. Luke Cage and Iron Fist respectively. If you are able to get even initiative and save a handful of your attack-boosting plot twists for here, it should be over in a hurry. Of course I'm a fan of insurance so I do pack a 7-drop for those instances.

The locations available to Heroes For Hire in MFA are very solid and they even have a search card for Iron Fist, so that's a definite must for inclusion. If I were to say anything about weak points there are two of them:

1) Most of the characters have no flight or range. There are a few characters that get bonuses for being in combat with other flightless & rangeless characters but it's tough to do, as they only have one card that can cause this to happen.

2) There are no team-stamped cards for boosting defence WHILE defending. While not a desperate concern based on the higher-than-normal stats, it can be an issue if your opponent is also playing an aggressive combat deck. It also happens that their attack-boosting cards are almost exclusive to "target attacker"...so you do have a point of weakness during each of your opponent's attack steps.

The weaknesses can be addressed with some options. I'd definitely consider a play set of New Mutations to give all of my characters flight and range. Some acrobatic dodges or nasty surprises, or similar effects, might also come in handy while defending. I'll definitely be considering some of these if I revisit the deck in the future.

We still have a few months before getting into the next set so I'm looking forward to digging deeper into the other teams before then. I think my next focus will be Dark Avengers.

Until next time!

Factions First Blood

2011-06-07T15:41:00.002-06:00

Last Thursday's Marvel Factions event was great. It was disheartening to see that three of our regular players declined to attend, but the four of us who were there had a great time pitting our heroes and villains against one another.

Roy and Scott both followed the BYOTT format as laid out in the tournament rules with Defenders/Masters of Evil and Masters of Evil/New Warriors respectively. Anthony joined us with his Green Lantern/Anti-Matter offering and I played a Heroes For Hire/Defenders team-up.

We played three rounds so that everyone was able to play all the other attendees. My first game against Anthony went well in my favor, although some willpower defense boosts and hidden characters were looking troublesome. I was able to get a 5 and 6 turn Luke Cage / Iron First pairing out on the board that allowed me to get into the hidden area and have some beefy stats to work with. By the end of turn 6 things looked good and a short turn 7 cemented the victory.

My second game against Roy started out grimly with my initial board being very sparse, only recruiting a single two-drop until turn four. The balance started swinging back and forth at that point, and while the specific details have exited from my short-term memory, I recall a very tight final turn with me only barely edging out a victory. That game was a lot of fun due to the big control swings back and forth!

The final game against Scott was an interesting one. He had some troublesome exhaustion effects which not only prevented me from substituting characters into play, but also from attacking with some of my bigger drops. A few character powers and well-timed plot twists allowed me to over come this and attack up the curve with my smaller characters on turns 7 and 8. While Scott may disagree I think it was a solid game on both fronts. Had he one or two more exhaustion effects to play out I think the game would have shifted in his favour.

I don't usually win 3 games in a row, so it was a lot of fun for me. I trust it was fun for all the other players as well. Simply having some new cards to explore interactions with, either in-set or adding to existing decks will be a lot of fun. I sincerely hope that some of our other players will think so too and return to the fold as we enjoy Marvel Factions throughout the summer and into fall!

Updated Ages List

2011-06-02T16:43:00.001-06:00

With Factions becoming legal for our group as of May 15th, 2011 I've revised the Age list. It can be found HERE.

Marvel Factions is ready to go!

2011-05-21T16:01:00.004-06:00

Ok kiddies, here are the details for our first Marvel Factions-themed event, which will take place on June 2nd. The format is Bring Your Own Two Teams but...I've picked your teams for you! Remember that BYOTT means that you use teams of two different affiliations, and they are automatically teamed up. Additionally, ALL the character cards in your deck must have one of those two printed affiliations, and all other cards MUST reference one of those two affiliations in its text.

I selected the teams using random die rolls, and have made some allowances for players that do not possess full sets of Marvel Factions. Finally, you may ONLY use cards from Marvel Factions unless I've specified otherwise below. Here's the team list:

Anthony: Any two team affiliations
Charles: Heroes For Hire & Defenders
Collin: Excalibur & Asgardians (may substitute one team for a DCU team affiliation)
Jordan: Asgardians & New Warriors
Roy: Defenders & Masters of Evil (may substitute one team for a DCU team affiliation)
Scott: New Warriors & Masters of Evil
William: Dark Avengers & Excalibur

Collin and Roy, if you make a substitution from DCU...that team's cards can only be from the DCU set. No Infinite Crisis, Green Lantern etc... Also, can someone please let Anthony know the format if you see him next Thursday, as I'll not be attending (I'll probably be standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon watching the sun set).

Put on your deck building hats and let's see what you can do!

Printing Delay

2011-04-27T08:29:00.001-06:00

The printing is underway but will not be complete in time for tomorrow's event. I will update as soon as I have a confirmed delivery date.

We will be playing DCU sealed (Free!) tomorrow to make up for the delay.

Another Canadian Election Approaches

2011-03-30T12:56:00.005-06:00

WARNING: This article has nothing to do with games!

For the most part I'm not a person who is terribly interested in politics, but as I grow older I find myself paying more attention to where my money goes. This applies both to the money I spend of my own accord, as well as that which is involuntarily liberated from me by way of taxation.

The sad truth of the matter is that, locally, provincially and federally, I feel that the service I received for dollars rendered is very much lacking. I have written to my local MP on several occasions, and have never once received a response of any kind. Our provincial premier here in Alberta seems to live in an entirely different universe than those he has been elected to represent. Finally, our prime minister (as well as those who want his job) seem to be more interested in telling us how terrible their opponents are rather than actually doing anything to better the country.

As saddening as this entire situation is, these are the people that represent me, and all of Canada to the world. So perhaps some of the blame the lies with you and I. Canadians seem to have far too much apathy when it comes to being active in determining their political leadership. While we haven't had much reason to be interested (and it IS hard to be heard when Harper shuts down parliament for an extra month...), it's time to get interested and quick.

I'm tired of having things decided by minority governments who shouldn't be in power anyway, and I'm tired of being dictated to by supercilious idiots who aren't listening to what their citizens are asking of them. To all the politicians out there: start doing your fucking jobs and represent your constituents in an honest and earnest fashion.

And to all the rest of you: There's the old adage "if you don't vote, you can't bitch." So get off your ass, take an interest in your country, and come election time...go vote.

Bring Back VS System

2011-02-23T09:40:00.001-07:00

Quoted from Facebook:

"
Squire Kershner - February 23, 2011 at 8:58am
Subject: Upper Deck is asking you for your input . . . so do it!

There have been several announcements from Upper Deck and members of their staff, that they are looking for input and guidance from the masses regarding a re-launch of VS. Members of the VSSystem.org Council have been told, that if enough interest is shown on sites like VsSystem.org, or enough comments/likes show up on the below pages, there is a significant likelihood that UD's new gaming division could be convinced to relaunch VS System.

If you care about this game, and would be as geeked as I would be, to see VS back in production, take a the time to "Like" and Post on the following two pages. Tell your friends and gaming pals. We CAN make a difference.

PLAY MARVEL

Bring Back Vs. System
"

"Learn-to-Play" Tournament Report

2011-02-01T10:59:00.002-07:00

The Warlord "Learn-to-Play" tournament last Sunday was a lot of fun. We had 6 players come out to play; and were short another 2 due the lovely arctic cold snap we were enjoying over the weekend. Here is a list of players, factions and warlords that made appearances:

Alex: Yvaalis (Elf)
Charles: Yavlo (Deverenian)
Ed: Jorgun (Dwarf)
Jason: Krenthor Gouge (Nothrog)
Jordan: Rreg'jen (Nothrog)
Sebastian: Cathel Rowan (Elf)

After three rounds of fighting Jason and Sebastien were our two top commanders. Due to time, they were unable to play out for the win and made it a die-roll victory. After exerting a little of my mental power on the outcome (hey it could happen!) Sebastien was crowned victor of the event.

As the victor Sebastien extended a challenge to the Overlord "Drasek the Furious". Drasek was hungry though, and after only four rounds the entire elven army had been devoured in a shower of fire and blood. (A small bit of advice for anyone who is interested in challenging Drasek: multiple attacks per turn!)

The responses to the game was highly favorable by all the players who attended. In an effort to increase interest, I donated the decks used by the new players to keep. There was some older packs available at the store which all got purchased after the tournament, so I consider the event a great success!

If all goes well in the planning stages, our next event will be a Winter Campaign tournament. This would likely the be only Winter Campaign event being held in Canada, and the outcome of each of these can affect the course of the game in the future. For more details on the Winter Campaign please click here.

Warlord "Learn To Play" Tournament

2011-01-19T10:02:00.006-07:00

On January 30th I will be hosting a Warlord introductory tournament at 2pm. People who are interested in learning the game are welcome to attend. I will provide decks for new players to use during the tournament. Of course returning players are also welcome to come out and play with their own decks as well!
There will be prize cards available to all participants (subject to the number of attendees). In addition to the promo cards check out the other great prizes I have planned!

1st Place: Receives the first TWO packs from the latest expansion City of Gold (APS #20 - The Storm Awakens and APS #21 - The Mummy).
2nd Place: Receives APS #16 - Tales of the Ruby Rogue

If attendance is six or more players, the players will also gain the right to challenge an Overlord. Overlords are the lowest tier of the Warlord challenge system. It is a high-level character who acts as warlord of their deck. They typically begin the game with special rules in play to them to make them even more powerful. The player who comes in first in the tournament gets to challenge the Overlord first; the second place player challenges the Overlord second, and so on. If a player defeats an Overlord, then the Overlord is theirs to keep. Once it is defeated any players who did not have a chance to challenge it do not get a chance.

Please contact me if you're interested in playing!

Happy Holidays Everyone!

2010-12-20T12:20:00.004-07:00

It's been an interesting year. Everyone seems to be a little busier with family, work, home building and in general life taking its course. Our gaming group has gotten a little smaller over the course of the year too, which is naturally a little disappointing. As games are a form of entertainment they are usually among the first activities to get hit when schedules or budgets get a little tight. Of course, the Christmas season these kinds of changes are even more pronounced. There are family obligations, work deadlines, company parties, shopping to be done and all that other fun (and sometimes exhausting) stuff needs to get done.

As for my gaming habits, they have changed a little bit too. I've tried some great new games this year! Ascension, Warlord, Touch of Evil, EVE Second Genesis and yes, even Magic the Gathering have all been added to my realm of interests. A few games haven't gotten the attention I'd like, most notably being Call of Cthulhu.

We did try running a CoC league for a few months and while the game was generally well received, I just couldn't seem to draw in players for the long term. I still love the game and support it as best I can, but finding people to play and time to play is always a challenge.

For VS System our group is still going, and hope to make the Marvel Factions set legal for play early in January. It's a fantastic game with a ton of depth and a wealth of cards. The players (and I too) still love it and I'll keep organizing tournaments until I'm the only person showing up for them.

With Warlord, I'm officially a Knight of the Ordo as of early December. All that really means is that I've made a donation to the company that produces the game. Phoenix Interactive is a very small company and they work very hard to keep Warlord around. In addition to my newly-minted knighthood I'll be doing some demos of Warlord and hopefully putting together a small game night ever other week, complete with prize support.

So whether you've been able to get out for a game, or plan to recently...this is me wishing everyone who drops by my blog a happy winter holiday, whatever that may be to you!

Warlord on the way

2010-12-02T10:29:00.004-07:00

I was recently able to get things underway for obtaining prize support for Warlord. The original idea for running tournaments was once a month to garner interest and get some players comfortable with the game. The tournament day would likely be Friday evenings, but that will be finalized before the end of the year.

For anyone interested in obtaining some Warlord cards to play with, they are having a great sale right now over on the US Store.

With the move of our VS tournaments to Thursday nights, that opens up some opportunity for a few Friday nights to be used in a more open-gaming type of format. I'll be happy to provide decks for players interested not only in Warlord, but Call of Cthulhu, EVE and Warhmammer Invasion. And don't forget...Trilogy is once again hosting Friday Night Magic as well!

More details forthcoming!

BYOTT Universe Crossover

2010-11-09T17:12:00.002-07:00

This is a variation of Bring Your Own Two Teams. All the regular BYOTT rules apply, but with one catch: each of your teams must be from a different universe. This means that you may not have two DC teams, two Marvel teams or two Hellboy teams in your deck.

I will add one further rule... In addition to the approved ban list, I am going to add the cards "X-Men Assemble!", "Legendary Battles" and "Bamf!" to the ban list. These cards may not be included in your deck for this event.

So, who are you going to team up?

Build the New or Revisit the Old

2010-10-25T10:04:00.002-06:00

One of the things about customizable card games that is both a blessing and a curse is the infinite variety offered. Having dozens, hundreds or even thousands of cards to chose from can be liberating and daunting all in the space of a few heartbeats. Additionally, as most of us have some kind of addictive mentality when it comes to these sorts of games, invariably we will devote our time to more than one. We have now taken that variability and likely performed a square operation on it, rather than a simple doubling effect.

Whoa, pretty heavy vocabulary for a Monday morning I admit. I'm only two paragraphs in and I'm talking about math. Often when I'm writing something I have only the roughest sense of what my topic is before I start. Even more often I'll simply write a title on the spot and carry on from there. I may change the title after I'm done, but that doesn't change its initial impact on my creative process. In many ways this is very similar to how I approach deck building.

In a game where the player chooses which components he or she will play with, especially one like VS System, it's probably safe to say that no one of those players will approach deck building in the same fashion (and keep in mind that most of these ideas could easily apply to other CCGs). Likely there are some similarities, but even one player's methods will vary from one deck to another. For myself I find that the start of the process usually falls onto three main paths:

1. A single card: I've found a card that I want to build something around, either due to its specific effect or simply because I like the character.
2. A combo: Two or more cards have effects that are fun or seem particularly effective.
3. A theme: Either through a tournament format requirement, or something I think seems fun, this deck doesn't start with any particular cards in mind.

Now how does all of this chatter relate to the bloody title of my entry? Well when I started writing, I don't think it related to it at all. However, now that we've reached this point it all seems to make perfect sense. Let me explain.

So I've chosen one of the three methods above to begin creating my deck from. If I'm not a brand new player it's probably safe to assume that I have a few decks of my own already constructed. Another question to answer then becomes "do I modify something I already have to fit my new idea, or start from scratch?". In most cases I think the answer is quite simple. You have to look at your goal or idea and decide whether or not that idea fits with (and hopefully improves) the theme or combo of that deck, or if it deserves to be explored on its own.

One of the things I think that makes VS System so interesting is that, due to the team affiliation concept, each set can exist on its own as its own game providing combinations and thematic ideas from that set. Where it really starts to be great is that, by adding cards from other sets you can enhance those ideas and make them really fun, really deadly, or both. Judging what I have in my gaming bag at the moment I'm going to say that I fall firmly on the fun side of the fence.

I've recently taken apart several of my deadlier creations to make room for new stuff. Not necessarily new stuff as in the latest set, but new themes or ideas I haven't seen any of my players exploring. There's still plenty of room for that!

DCU Finale Tournament Story

2010-09-29T09:34:00.007-06:00

Well I'm a little behind, but last Friday we capped off our DC Universe season with a final tournament. There were six players who came out for the event (which is probably all of the people who are reading this article!). The rounds shape up as follows; the winners are in italics:

Round 1: Jason vs Jordan, Will vs Seb, Roy vs Scott
Round 2: Jason vs Roy, Scott vs Will, Jordan vs Seb
Round 3: Jason vs Seb, Scott vs Jordan, Roy vs Will

I ended up playing in Jason's place due to him having to leave after the first round. He found a really interesting little combo equipping Killer Shark with a Batmobile. Using his pay willpower ability to increase his attack and defense, while becoming unstunnable thanks to the Batmobile is probably not a combination that the designers foresaw, but it was pretty fun nonetheless!

One of the great things about this set was the big endurance swings in the late game. I saw a lot of games being played with endurance totals like 10/12 at the end of turn six, but ending on turn seven at -19/-12. That's just a lot of fun in my opinion, and goes to show that late-going games can be really exciting while still remaining close.

After two rounds we had two players with 2-0 records. Will and Roy faced each other down with their constructed decks, and when the dust cleared it was the end of turn seven. With it being Roy's initiative he played a ton of effects on his attacking 7-drop Hal Jordan to pump him up over 30 attack! Will took the bruising but was able to score a stun back. Having a few smaller characters left on his attack step to attack from his hidden was enough to win him the game and the tournament!

Congratulations to Will for placing top in the DCU tourney, especially considering his affinity for Marvel. My condolences to Roy, who had the bad luck of placing second in not one but two DCU tournaments. And of course my thanks to everyone for showing up and supporting our group well into the second year post-UDE. It's great to see and I hope to continue things into 2011!

Fall 2010 - The State of Affairs

2010-09-07T12:23:00.004-06:00

VS System

I thought that it would be good to update everyone about things with our gaming group as our DCU tournaments are coming to a close. As it stands, I'm very happy with the continuing attendance for the weekly Friday night VS System tournaments. We'll wrap up with DCU on the last Friday of September (Sept 24th) with another big tournament which I trust will be good fun for all. Please make sure to mark it on your calendar!

Through October and November we will play some fun tournaments with no prize support while I prepare things for December and into the New Year. The details of those plans will be forthcoming as they are solidified; but have no fear, we WILL continue playing VS into 2011 with more awesome new events and prizes!

Scheduling-wise, we've been talking about moving the tournaments from Friday evenings to Thursdays. I haven't settled on this yet, but am leaning toward making the change starting in December. There are a lot of reasons why this will likely happen, but until it's finalized with a date we'll continue to play VS tournaments on Friday evenings.

Other Games

A while back I ran a test league for the Call of Cthulhu LCG. While the game itself was very well received with the small number of players I was able to recruit, it just didn't make sense to try running weekly events. Based on that experience I have been trying to come up with some options for gaming that will allow us to have regularly scheduled, fun events (not only for Call of Cthulhu) for a variety of games.

The basic idea is to run a weekly tournament group on Sundays at Trilogy. The time hasn't been determined yet, but will likely be ironed out between Pascal, Sebastien and I over the next few weeks. Each week we would play a tournament for a different game, providing regular events to enjoy while not overloading people with deckbuilding chores or events to participate in. The tentative monthly Sunday game schedule would be:

1st Sunday - Warlord CCG (website)
2nd Sunday - Call of Cthulhu LCG (website)
3rd Sunday - Warhammer: Invasion LCG (website)
4th & 5th Sunday - Open board/card gaming or no events

Feel free to post comments here or contact me with questions or input. I'd love to hear what you think about things. These events are no good if they don't work for the players!

VS System Format List

2010-08-06T12:08:00.006-06:00

For reference purposes, I wanted to post up a list of formats available for play. I'll link it to the side panel and maintain as necessary.

Age Formats

Modern Age:
- DC Legends (includes DCX)
- Marvel Universe (includes MUL and MEQ)
- DC Universe
- Marvel Factions

Silver Age:
- Heralds of Galactus
- Legion of Super-Heroes
- Marvel Team-up (includes Hellboy)
- World’s Finest
- Marvel Legends (includes MAA, MCG and MEX)
- DC Legends (includes DCX)
- Marvel Universe (includes MUL and MEQ)
- DC Universe

Golden Age:
- All sets are legal in Golden Age. Banned cards may not be played.

Block Formats

Origins Block:
- Marvel Origins
- DC Origins
- Web of Spider-Man
- Superman, Man of Steel
- Marvel Knights
- Green Lantern Corps (includes Batman TCG starter set)

Crisis Block:
- The Avengers (includes Fantastic Four TCG starter set)
- Justice League of America
- The X-Men (includes The X-Men TCG starter set)
- Infinite Crisis
- Heralds of Galactus
- Legion of Super-Heroes

Legends Block:
- Marvel Team-up (includes The Hellboy Essential Collection)
- World’s Finest
- Marvel Legends (includes The Coming of Galactus)
- DC Legends
- Marvel Universe
- DC Universe
- Marvel Factions
Exclusives: MAA, MEX, DCX, MUL, and MEQ

Random Block:
Any 6 sets Chosen by a Tournament Organizer
Exclusives: MAA, MEX, DCX, MUL, and MEQ

Other Formats

Alter Ego
Instead of playing with the standard 50 endurance, players will be given an Alter Ego card at random at the beginning of each round.

Arch Enemy:
Build a Legend format with a twist: you must include 4 copies of a character card that is a traditional enemy of your legend character. For example: a Captain America legend deck could feature Red Skull as the Arch Enemy. The arch enemy character can NOT gain the hero's affiliations (even if they share a printed one). The arch enemy character MUST be recruited during the game.

Bring Your Own Set:
All cards in your deck must be in the same set. In other words, all cards in your deck must have been printed with the same three-letter set code. The actual cards you put in your deck don’t need to share a set code, however. For example, you can play a Flying Kick from a set other than Marvel Origins if you are playing a Marvel Origins deck. For this format, starter decks are not considered to be part of the base sets, but you can play a deck consisting entirely of cards from a given starter or the Hellboy Essential Collection set.

Bring Your Own Team:
This format is a Golden Age constructed deck format with further restrictions on deckbuilding. The player must nominate a team and all cards in the deck must be refer to that team. This means “generic” cards (that mention no team at all) like Mobilize or Savage Beatdown cannot be used.

Bring Your Own Two Teams:
This format requires the player to nominate two teams which are then automatically crossed over (no need for team-ups). All cards in the deck must refer to one or both of those teams. No generic cards are allowed. Any “age” can be used.

Build a Legend:
You must choose a character name and include at least 12 cards: with that exact name; and/or that refer to a character card with that name in their game text.

Clone Saga:
The uniqueness rule does not apply when recruiting characters with the same name. However, you characters with the same AND version does invoke the uniqueness rule.

Countdown:
Players start the game by placing the top 7 cards of their deck face down in their resource row. These cards can not be looked at. Players draw their opening hand, choosing to mulligan or not. After the first draw phase players may look at their resource rows. Rather than adding resources each turn, at the end of turn each player KOs a card from his resource row.

Dual Legend:
Follows the Build-a-Legend format, but you must include two characters each with 12 cards referencing that name.

Random Punks:
Same sets as Golden Age (see above). No rares allowed.

Special Guest Star:
Players may choose a single character card (up to four copies) to add to their deck. This card gains an affiliation of their choice in all zones for the duration of the game.

Super Build a Legend:
Follows the same rules as Build a Legend, but requires 20 cards that reference your legend character.

Super Crossover Sealed:
Modification of the Sealed Pack format when using packs from various different sets simultaneously. There are a couple of rules that need to be followed for this unique format:
1.Affiliated characters and character cards have all affiliations.
2.Cards that count affiliations, like Ethan Edwards count the number of printed affiliations instead.

Switch Deck:
Each player brings a constructed deck (in the specified event format) but does not play the tournament with it. Each round players will be given a random deck to play from the pool. Time permitting, the player with the most wins faces off against the player who built the deck with the most wins to determine a top place winner.

Necro Gaming...

2010-08-05T11:29:00.003-06:00

Hm...that title is better than the first one I almost went with, but on second thought, not by much! What I meant by that is that it seems most of the trading card games I like playing, or have been recommended, seem to die.

With VS System in our area, the resurrection came through my refusal to let a good gaming group die. We still have weekly tournies with a decent turn out, prizes and good times for all. I hope this will continue for a good long time.

Call of Cthulhu died as a TCG and was brought back as a living card game by Fantasy Flight. I ran a weekly league for about six months, but attendance was a problem. I still love the game and we do get to play occassionally. Seems everyone I introduced the game to enjoyed it as well, and we'd all like to play it more often.

The GIJoe TCG, well, it just died, but I still bring it back to life a few times a year at home or the local game shop. Good mindless fun with beloved characters from the 80s.

Warhammer: Invasion, is still going strong but I haven't played much since the fourth pack came out for the initial expansion story. As much as I love the innovative design of this game, I just can't support it with good conscience anymore. The power curve was way too much, way too fast. It's a shame really because the artwork is absolutely gorgeous and I really think the game plays well.

All of this rambling brings me finally to Warlord: Saga of the Storm. This game was recommended to me late last year, at which point I had never heard of it. Apparently it started out in 2001 as a collectable game and ran until mid 2008. After that it too was resurrected in a sort of living card game format.

I've yet to play a game with the cards currently being produced (as 4th Edition, or 4e), but I certainly intend to! After purchasing a set of Epic Edition starters and finally getting to play some games with those, I have to say I'm hooked. The game play is very fast, has good depth and variety between factions, and the element of luck to it in the d20 rolls keeps things really interesting.

As of September 2010 there will be a total of 21 Adventure Path decks (55 cards) available for Warlord 4e. I'm hoping to order some up in the next month or two and try to haul some friends into the mix. If I'm not able to, I'll still have some new card artwork to enjoy.

Lantern War!

2010-08-03T12:46:00.003-06:00

Last Friday was a great event. We had eight players some out for our DCU tournament. We were missing a regular player as well, which was too bad but it was still great to see so many people come out for the games.

We all built sealed decks using mock-packs from DCU. I had a ton of locations, but was pretty light on plot twists. Given that...I decided to play a mixed deck of Green Lantern, Anti-Matter and a few JSA characters thrown in for good measure. My mock-packs only had one team-up card (Janus Contract?), which was good for a three-way team up...but if you didn't choose Suicide Squad it got replaced at the end of the turn.

My first game ended in a coin-toss as Jason arrived too late to play (technically we should have given me a bye and he a loss for being late), but since we're pretty informal I just decided to flip a coin. The second game against Nathan was a tight race, with the health gains from my early Central Power Battery nearly being the difference. In the end it was Nathan's game by only 2 endurance! Round three paired me against Jordan, who apparently was not having much good luck for the evening, as I handed him his third straight loss.

Our top place winner was Jason, followed by Roy who narrowly lost the game against Jason. From I heard, Jason's copy of Amon Sur was the difference maker in that game. Everyone took home a ton of prize cards and I especially had a great time. It's always good to see so many people out for a night of VS!

Edit: Looking back through my selection of cards, I have NO idea why I didn't play an Anti-Matter deck. I had a very solid curve of 1 thru 6. The small number of Suicide Squad characters I had available fit into the drops very well, and my team up would have then worked too! Ah well...maybe next time.

Legends Block Format

2010-07-20T10:40:00.001-06:00

Legends Block is pretty simple and follows the same structure as the previous two block events that we've played recently. Build a deck from the following sets.

Legends Block
- DC Universe
- Marvel Universe
- DC Legends
- Marvel Legends
- World’s Finest
- Marvel Team-Up
- Hellboy

July Formats

2010-06-29T10:04:00.002-06:00

With July coming up really fast, we get to celebrate Canada Day. Flag waving in the sun is good fun, but I think I'm looking forward to having an extra gaming night this month. And what a cool event it's going to be! Make sure to clear your schedule, send the wife out of town or play dead then sneak out of the house...because the event on July 30th is one that you absolutely don't want to miss.

Before we get to the 30th though, we have some other games to play. The Avengers sealed event is pretty self explanatory. If we have more than four players we'll draft from three packs. If there are four or less, we'll play sealed instead.

I think most of us have played the Alter Ego format as well, but we're going to add another twist to it this time: switch deck. Not only will you get a random Alter Ego to play with each round, but it will be accompanied by a deck made by one of the other players. Talk about warping your mind...this one should be a lot of fun.

And finally, before we play the big golden age event you all salivate over, we're going to try another block formatted tournament. This time will be Crisis Block. You may only build your deck using cards listed below. The Crisis Block contains the following sets:

- Legion of Super-Heroes
- Heralds of Galactus
- Infinite Crisis
- The X-Men & X-Men Starter
- Justice League of America
- The Avengers
- Fantastic Four Starter

So get your deck-building hats on and strap yourselves in...July promises to be a good one!

Countdown to Fun

2010-06-17T09:59:00.002-06:00

So last week was our first time with a new format, and I have to say that I thought it went really well. It was a lot of fun being able to play a game with all the big characters out on the table. With the big guns on the table, the games didn't last very long and we were able to play four rounds.

I decided to go with Darkseid's Elite, using Darkseid and Kara Zor-El as my 7-drops. One thing that did come up with this format was that if you missed your 7 cost character it was really tough to survive the game. I feel that adding a little more chance to the game was part of what made it fun!

Here's an example of the craziness that ensued:

My last game was up against Will, who was playing a Heralds deck. He got his 7-cost Galactus out, and having first attack, simply burned me for 25 endurance right off the start! I was able to hit all my drops a cause us to gain a resource, allowing me to play a second 5-drop Darkseid to his 4-drop Human Torch. With an Apokalips in my resource row I was actually able to come back and make a narrow win out of it.

I think this is a format we'll keep around simply for its fun factor. It requires an entirely different deck building strategy and is a great format.

June Schedule

2010-06-04T09:37:00.004-06:00

Well summer is here, or so the calendar would have us believe. It's almost a week into June and I don't think we've broken 20C since March. But that could just be me being pessimistic!

Anyway, I'm a little late with the format list for this month. I've been swamped in paperwork, but for my job and on a personal front. If you take a look at the list of tournaments on the left you'll notice two tournament names. Let me explain them.

Countdown
This is something completely fun and different. It works like this:

1. Roll or flip a coin to decide initiative. Both players start with 50 endurance.
2. Each player places the top SEVEN cards of their deck down into their resource row. Players may look at their resource row, but no cards may be flipped yet.
3. Each player draws an opening hand of four cards and may decide to mulligan or keep.
4. Each player draws their two cards and turn 1 begins. Resources may now be flipped up.
5. At the end of each turn, each player KOs a card from he resource row. This means that you will be able to recruit a 7-cost character on turn 1, a 6-cost on turn 2, etc.
6. NO ALTERNATE WIN CONDITIONS may be played.

Origins Block constructed
This is a basic constructed game, but you may only use cards from the following sets:

- Green Lantern Corps
- Batman/LoA Starter
- Marvel Knights
- Man of Steel
- Web of Spider-Man
- DC Origins
- Marvel Origins

Don't miss out!

Battle of the Clones

2010-05-21T09:04:00.002-06:00

Last week we had 7 players out for our clone saga tournament. I always love to see that many players out for events! It's been a week since then, so I'll do my best to recall what everyone was playing.

Colin - Superman
Jordan - Magneto
Nathan - Dr. Doom
Roy - Iron Man
Scott - The Thing
William - Jean Grey
Me - Batman

I was only able to play two games, my third round being a bye. My first game was up against Scott, who started his early game strong. By turn four he had a copy of Yancy Street and an ongoing plot twist that made it so I couldn't target his clone character. I had the hidden Batman, Founding Member and used it to replace his Yancy Street on turn four. The tide seemed to be turning, as even with the Scott's character advantage things were looking pretty good for me. Next turn however, I replaced his ongoing (which I wish I could remember the name of!)...with another copy of Yancy Street! Things that were untargetable and massive meant my game was over.

Game two started of entirely different. I hit every drop up through turn five, at which point Jordan played an effect that caused us both to go down a resource. Not having another 5-cost to recruit on turn six to Jordan's full board left me at a distinct disadvantage. Magneto and his cadre of mutant misfits smacked down the Batmen with ease from there.

Aside from my games, there were several other close ones, and a few that were complete blowouts. The two decks running No More Mister Nice Guy definitely had a solid edge. Most of the players agreed that it is likely a card that should be disallowed for further Clone Saga tournament and I'm inclined to agree. As for me, while I love some of the mechanics that became available in Evolutions, I still don't think it plays nicely with the game as a whole. Other than the Marauders and Purifiers, the other teams just seem entirely too powerful compared to previous sets.

However...! The tournament was great fun and I was very happy to see another solid turn out. Tonight we're playing Modern Age Constructed and I'm really looking forward to it. I've got a new deck that I can't wait to try out.

Breaking My Own Rules...

2010-04-27T14:08:00.002-06:00

Last week was a Modern Age event that I played an illegal deck at. At least in the first game I did anyway. I had it in my head that it was built entirely from DCU cards, but in fact I had built it for the BYOTT (Bring Your Own Two Teams) event a few weeks back. As such, it had cards from DGL and DCR in addition to DCU. Roy had no problem with me playing it, but as the organizer of these things I really should have been paying more attention!

For the second and third games I promptly switched to my Doom Patrol deck. It's apparently the only Modern Age legal deck that I have at the moment, which I really should change soon. I've been neglecting my deck building lately, and in fact feel like I haven't even had much of a chance to play in the past few months. I'll be missing the Golden Age event that finishes off April as well, but after that I certainly hope to not miss any more for quite some time!

The schedule for May's events are now up as well. Just in case anyone's forgotten, the Clone format is very simple. Characters you control with the same name and a different version are not considered unique. So for example you could recruit a Batman, Shadow of the Bat when you already had Batman, Founding Member in play, but you could not recruit another Batman, Founding Member. Banned cards are still in effect as usual.

Godspeed Peter

2010-04-16T11:18:00.003-06:00

Ok this will seem a little random for most of you...since I usually keep my stuff here related to gaming and whatnot. Here's the story.

Something sorta freaky happened recently. There’s a band I have liked since high school called Type O Negative. I hadn’t given them much thought for a few months (they haven’t put anything out since 2007), but during lunch on Wednesday I brought them up in conversation…saying that I wanted to see if they were working on anything new.

So, when I got home and was doing some work in the evening I flipped open the Type O Negative website and saw that two of the band members had a new band called Seventh Void. I opened youtube to see if I could find a tune. I did…and one of the comments said “RIP Peter”. Peter Steele is…or rather was the lead singer for Type O. He died Wednesday. It was confirmed by the band on Thursday morning. The time of day we were having lunch was within an hour of the likely time Peter would have passed away.

I've come to believe over the past decade or so of my life that energy creates thoughts and feelings, and vice versa…so I don’t believe my thought about the band (which essentially IS Peter Steele) was random. Somewhere in the great energies that create our reality I caught a ripple of something...

I'm sure that Peter's bandmates, friends, family and fans will all feel the loss in some way. For myself, I'll simply wish him well on his next journey and say thanks for the music!

An Update

2010-04-06T10:52:00.003-06:00

Greetings all...

I've been a little lax on the updates lately. I have no excuses, so I'll not offer any. Last week we had four players join in for the Infinite Crisis sealed event. I opted to sit this one out, as I'd have made it an odd number and I didn't want someone else having to sit out for byes each round. Will took top spot and I owe his two copies of one of his prize cards, because I apparently couldn't count past four when I added them to the pool. Oh well, he'll get them this coming Friday.

I had also been meaning to post up a deck list for my BYOTTs deck from a few weeks back. I don't have it handy with me, but I had chosen Anti-Matter and JSA. I was able to build a deck using about 50 cards from DCU, with a few Anti-Matter supplements from DGL. It was fun to play, and a lot of the Anti-Matter characters I had were also Manhunter which proved pretty interesting. I actually intend to keep the deck around and refine it some more...likely dropping the JSA characters in favor of Manhunters / Anti-Matter.

There have also been a few questions about what I meant by "Restricted BYOS". BYOS means: Bring Your Own Set - so all the cards you play in your deck must come from the same set. By restricted I mean that there are a few sets that will not be legal, in order to keep things a little more fun. So, all sets are legal for the event except Evolutions (MEV), Marvel Legends (MVL), DC Legends (DCL) and Marvel Universe (MUN).

Don't worry, you'll get your chance to play all your abusive and nasty goodness at the end of the month in the Golden Age open event!

Relaxed Night of Sealed Play

2010-03-08T11:27:00.002-07:00

We had 4 players come out for the Marvel Team-Up sealed event on Friday; included one new player. It's always nice to have new people come out to play. Before we got started I asked if there were any rules he wasn't clear on. He wanted to see some examples of using reinforcement, so ran a quick demo for him before we started the tournament. Having an even 4-players I opted not to play and force one of the other players to sit out for byes.

With the players holding their packs and set to go, I lent my assistance to Nathan to help him build a somewhat balanced deck of Underworld and Defenders. He was lucky to have pulled two different team-up cards and a few generic pumps (including a copy of Big Leagues)!

His first game was up against Roy and things were going well into turn seven, where Nathan dropped a Crime Lords Hulk in front of his 6-cost character. I don't remember who that character was, but they did not share a team affiliation. Roy had his 7-cost Defenders Hulk out and gambled on there not being a team-up...which proved to be the wrong bet. Nathan flipped his second team-up, reinforced the Hulk and bounced Roy's attacker back to his hand.

Unfortunately Nathan's deck stalled out as the game went into turn 9 and Roy pulled off a resounding beating. Memorable moments for a new player, but even in defeat there was some success.

The second round saw Roy and Will face off against each other while Scott played the new guy. I wasn't hurrying anyone to play faster and just let the games go as necessary. This resulted in the second round being our last, but both games looked well-played and fairly close.

Next week's format is what I call "Uncommon Thieves", which means your deck can not include any rare cards. I've added the extra restriction that it must only contain cards from a SINGLE set as well. I'm interested in seeing what everyone comes up with.

Redirecting Attacks is Fun

2010-02-22T16:28:00.006-07:00

We're well past the 1-year mark when it was learned that the VS System game was no longer going to be produced by UDE. And I'm happy to say that things are still going strong for our hobby league. Our players are having a good time in our weekly tournaments and we've seen some cool new decks arise from the themed formats I've been setting up in our monthly schedule.

Last week's Ban-10 tournament saw some pretty interesting decks hit the table such as Secret Society, Speed Force, Team Superman / Crime Lords, League of Assasins, and Avengers. I know I'm forgetting Will's deck in there, but I didn't play against him so I'm not entirely certain what kind of dirty tricks he was using this time around.

One of the things that I realized was just how good our players are at building decks. Even without 50 of the most disliked or powerful cards being available to build with, people still come up with excellent combos and interesting effects. Jordan's Speed Force deck was especially punishing. One of those things that I bet would be a blast to play, but stinks to see hit the table against you.

As for me, I finally built a viable version of a deck I have had in mind since we did our Marvel Universe release celebration so long ago. It's simply titled "Deflection"...because what it lacks in cool it needs to make up for with a nifty name. Ok ok, the name is lame, but the deck isn't that bad!

Locations:
1x Underground Laboratory
4x City of Tomorrow - Team-Up

Plot Twists:
2x Face the Master
2x Hired Hit
1x The Family
2x Assault On Hellicarrier 13
1x Untouchable
2x Marked for Death
3x Good Night, Sweet Prince
3x Desperate Sacrifice
3x Home Sweet Home
1x Fury of the Amazons

Equipment:
3x Armed Escort
1x Lasso of Truth
3x Cosmic Cube

Characters:
4x A.I.M. Agents, Army - A.I.M. (1)
4x Sin, Synthia Schmidt - Raid (2)
2x Doctor Sun-Creator of Project Mind (2)
3x Albert Malik <> Red Skull - Axis Of Evil (3)
4x Red Skull, Alexsander Lukin - Raid (3)
4x Master Man, Max Lohmer - Raid (4)
3x Wonder Woman - Deflection Diva (5)
1x John Henry Irons<>Steel-Steel Drivin' Man (5)
1x Taskmaster - Mnemonic Assassin (6)
1x Kara Zor-El <> Supergirl - Female Fury (7)

The ideal setup is Red Skull on 3, Master Man with an Armed Escort on 4, and a Wonder Woman and City of Tomorrow on 5. Once you're set up, the idea is to use Wonder Woman, Armed Escort, Desperate Sacrifice or Hired Hit in order to deflect any and all attacks into Master Man.

With Red Skull usually alone by himself in the back row he's a ripe target, even without having an Armed Escort on the board. Most smart opponents will aim to avoid attacking Master Man at all, but with all the tricks available there to deflect, it is almost impossible to avoid unless you simply don't attack me at all. At which point, I will attack you on 6 and 7 with my ever-growing Taskmaster.

Good times for all. Well, maybe just me.

Ban List Tournament Reminder

2010-02-18T11:01:00.002-07:00

Ok I'm really late with this, but the card lists have all been available since Sunday in the comments for the last post. Here's the list in easy readable order, and keep in mind that ALL version of a card are banned if it has been reprinted in any other sets:

MOR-105 The New Brotherhood
MOR-101 Lost City
MOR-112 Dr. Doom Victor Von Doom
MOR-183 Cover Fire
MOR-189 Flying kick
MOR-210 Press the Attack

MSM-109 Bamf!
MSM-130 Devil's Due

DGL-024 Sinestro Green Lantern of Korugar

DJL-049 Guy Gardner Egomaniac

DCR-017 Michael Holt <> Mr. Terrific

DLS-187/MVL-258 Mobilize

MVL-029 Bererker Rage
MVL-045 healing factor
MVL 204 Dr.doom diabolical genius
MVL-217 Mystical Paralysis
MVL-267/MOR-214 Savage Beatdown

MCG-039 Pathetic Attempt
MEX-013 Silver Surfer's Board

MAA-003 X-Men Assemble!
MAA-019 Holocaust <> Age of Apocolypse

DCL-065 Beast Boy, Freak of Nature
DCL-141 Earth 3
DCL-144 Crime syndicate of Amerika
DCX-023 Superman/Batman Robot
DCX-026 A Clash of Worlds

MUN-026 Spider-Man, Secret Avenger
MUN-032 Captain America's Shield
MUN-064 Radioactive Man, Containment Suit
MUN-081 Speedball Is Dead
MUN-095 Iron Man, Mighty Avenger
MUN-117 Wolverine - Agent of Shield
MUN-185 Hulk, Green Scar
MUN-293 Quantum Bands
MUN-312 Invasion Plans
MUN-326 superhuman registation act

MEV-012 Havok - Proud Son
MEV-014 Jack Frost
MEV-057 James Proudstar - Warpath
MEV-165 Blink!
MEV-172 Warp Shards
MEV-179 Deadpool - Party Pooper
MEV-190 Mesmero, Vincent
MEV-202 Vision - Earth-10101
MEV-206 Weapon Plus Satellite
MEV-218 Alex Wilder - Child Prodigy
MEV-225 Victor Mancha - Son of Ultron
MEV-259 Muramasa Blade
MEV-274 No More Mr. Nice Guy

MEQ-013 Goblin Glider 2.0

Through the Ages

2010-01-26T11:48:00.005-07:00

There have been villains, and heroes putting themselves on the line to stop them. Well VS System is no different. With the end of UDE's set releases the fan community has taken things upon themselves to continue the game with fan sets, ban and card wording updates and other suggestions. With our local group adding fan sets on our own schedule I will be maintaining the following "age" list.

Modern Age:
- Marvel Factions
- DC Universe
- Marvel Universe (includes MEQ and MUL)
- DC Legends (includes DCX)

Silver Age (includes Modern Age sets):
- Marvel Legends (includes MAA, Coming of Galactus and MEX)
- World's Finest
- Marvel Team-Up (includes Hellboy)
- Legion of Superheroes

Golden Age (also includes Modern and Silver Age sets):
- Heralds of Galactus
- Infinite Crisis
- X-Men
- Justice League of America
- Avengers
- Green Lantern Corps
- Marvel Knights
- Man of Steel
- Web of Spider Man
- DC Origins
- Marvel Origins
- Marvel Evolutions

As you'll see, Evolutions is now only legal in Golden Age tournaments for our hobby league. I feel there are still a lot of power issues with this set, but don't want to ban an entire set from league play. We will start playing more age-specific events to encourage building new decks.

Tourney Report...sorta

2010-01-18T16:05:00.004-07:00

Ok it's been a few days, but our first constructed VS System event for 2010 has come and gone. I was really happy to see an increase in our attendance to a total of eight players!

Round 1 put me up against Jordan's Avengers deck. He had a great start with 2-cost Captain America in the hidden area complete with Captain America's Shield. I was playing my JSA-Lobo deck. When the 4-cost Iron Man arrived to bolster Cap and Black Widow things weren't looking too hot for my lonely visible Atom Smasher. I did have the Mr. Terrifics hiding and making him mean, but things weren't looking good...but the shield's exhausting effects were starting to help more than hurt at that point.

On turn five I was able to bring out the 5-cost Carter Hall. I got some choice stuns and was able to avoid triggering Iron Man's effect, only to have my Hawkman stolen by a timely-played Switching Sides! Drawing into another 5-cost Hawkman actually proved to be the game-breaker, and Jordan unhappily dropping no character. Initiative was mine and I'd saved up a couple of Press The Attacks, allowing me to swing three time with Hawkman. He was able to stun all three visible opposing characters on his own! Black Panther wasn't able to get through the wall that Atom Smasher had become and victory was mine.

Round 2 was short and painful. My deck was up against Scott's Inhuman/Skrull deck that abuses the Skrull version of Captain America and Franklin Richards. I knew I was done by turn two, as I had no way to get into the hidden area with this deck. I missed both my 1-cost and 3-cost Mr. Terrifics but was somehow able to survive until turn six and play a Lobo, and trigger his effect twice. However, never being able to stun back an attacking character on Scott's initiative that game really was over before it started.

Round 3 put me up against Dan's X-Force deck. X-23 was able to do big damage to me several times through the game, but Carter Hall came up big again. I under-dropped Jakeem several times to keep the costs of my characters lower than his, and was able to pull out the Hawkman / Lobo set-up on turn seven. Even with the massive Warpath on the other side of the table things were looking grim for Dan. The game lasted to turn eight, but on my initiative I drew into my Black Adam. The small boost to attack he gave to all my characters tied things up and we were done. I think if Dan had drawn one or two different defensive plot twists the game would have been his.

I ended up placing third behind William and Scott. After the third round was finished everyone drafted out their prize choices for the night and we headed off for a beer. Next week: Bring Your Own Two Teams, and more new prize goodness. Don't miss out!

It's Coming...

2010-01-13T12:29:00.004-07:00

VS System...2010 Is Underway!

2010-01-06T11:50:00.003-07:00

Hey hey hey kids!

Things are looking up for us this year. I'm very excited about the move to weekly tournaments. With this change you might have noticed the little monthly schedule on the right panel, which replaces the bi-weekly tournament information. It's easier and more practical to post the schedule for the entire month, as it gives you a chance to plan your gaming in advance.

Our first tournament of the year will be sealed Marvel draft. The set hasn't been determined yet, so you'll just have to come down and see what we've got. The schedule will follow the pattern you see there *points to the right*. The first Friday will be a sealed event of some kind, for as long as I'm able to get sealed product to play with. The second and fourth weeks will remain as Golden Age constructed events, and the third will be different a themed event each month. Should we end up with a fifth Friday in the month...well I'll come up with something!

On a different but related note, our new prizes are not yet ready to go. What that means is that this week we'll be playing for some older UDE prize cards, but next week we'll have some shiny new toys to enjoy. I'll also be happy to recap the plans for the year should anyone have questions.

Happy New Year and Happy Gaming. Bring out your cardboard super heroes and villains and wage battle over the tabletop this, and (almost) every, Friday night!

A Happy New Year Indeed

2010-01-05T10:53:00.003-07:00

Greeting gamers!

It seems that Fantasy Flight games has a gift for us in the New Year:

"FFG will be changing the collation of our monthly packs, adopting an approach that both existing and potential LCG customers have been requesting. Once fully implemented across all of our LCG’s, your monthly packs will include 60 cards, consisting of 20 unique cards in triplicate copy!"

No longer will we have to buy multiple packs in order to get three copies of that one super-awesome card needed for our decks. I love the living card game model, and this upcoming change makes thing even better.

The change to the new pack model will come into effect for each LCG with the start of their next pack phase. For Call of Cthulhu this will be after Dreamlands. For Warhammer: Invasion the changes will take place after the final pack of the Skavenblight cycle.

Excellent news makes me happy.

Battle of the Border 3 Announced

2009-12-30T10:49:00.005-07:00

Greetings everyone,

I was asked by bkwrds from vssystem.org to pass along the following tournament details.

When: January 16th and 17th (Both days start at noon)
Where: 69 Agnes St in Kitchener, Ontario
Formats:
Jan 16th - BYOS followed by MUN draft
Jan 17th - "Silver Age Constructed (DCR-MUN, + MEQ)
How Much: $20 entry fee (covers both days)

For anyone who is interested in attending, please contact bkwrds via private message on the vssystem.org forums.

VS System Council Errata - Incorrect

2009-12-29T10:32:00.009-07:00

In their year-end address to the community the VSSystem.org council has suggested an errata. The full text explanation can be read below:

Our final topic of the day is Nick Fury, Col. Nicholas Fury (MVL-123). This card has been nominated for an errata because of a broken interaction that allows for consistent turn 3 wins (sometimes turn 2) in Silver and Golden Age. The combo uses the following cards:

Nick Fury, Col. Nicholas Fury
Haywire, Suicidal Lover
Mind Gem, Unique * Infinity Gem
Soul Gem, Unique * Infinity Gem
Ratcatcher, Otis Flannegan or Apokoliptian Zealots, Army
Any team-up
In ten test games, KardKrazy won on turn 3 eight times, turn 2 once, and turn 4 once. The trick is to put a Soul Gem on Nick Fury and a Mind Gem on Haywire, Then have Haywire stun himself repeatedly with Nick Fury’s effect, and bounce to hand repeatedly with Soul Gem’s effect. Ratcatcher burns your opponent to death throughout this process. In Silver Age, you simply need to replace Ratcatcher with Apokoliptian Zealots to gain infinite attack. This version is equally unstoppable since you can include a single copy of Blind-Sided in your deck (Mind Gem will be drawing up your whole deck).

The council has decided to change Nick Fury to the following:

Nick Fury, Col. Nicholas Fury
Marvel Knights
Range
1/1
Loyalty
Exhaust X equipped MK characters you control >>> Stun target opposing character with cost less than X.
MVL-123
Rare

Chuck says: After Roy and Scott's comments, I had a really close look at this and they are indeed correct. The second line on Soul Gem reads “Whenever equipped character stuns a character with lesser cost, return that stunned character to its owner’s hand.”

In order to bounce Haywire back to your hand, he would have to be in combat with Nick Fury. Haywire is not being stunned by Nick, he is being stunned by Nick’s power, and there IS a difference. WIthout being in combat you can’t bounce Haywire back to hand, so there is no infinite loop.

Comment 2: According to rules lawyering this combo does actually work, but were I asked to rule on it I'd still say it doesn't work. My opinion and the truth seem to be in disagreement this time. I'm not going to bother adding the errata to the Legends FAQ...but should someone play a deck of this sort in one of my tournaments, I'll be extremely disappointed in them for being cheap. :P

I Luvs Me Some Muzak

2009-12-18T16:06:00.003-07:00

Oddly enough my parents never pushed me to do anything overtly musical as a kid. I didn't have the prerequisite piano lessons that a lot of kids did, or even get pushed into joining the school band. It's actually something I chose to do on my own. Now I can't recall exactly the process that went into it, but it's been a part of my life for so long (skill level notwithstanding) that I can't imagine not having an interest of some kind.

In junior high and high school I played in the concert band until grade 11, which overlapped into joining the metal band of some friends. It was interesting getting that gig, as it came about from being taught to play bass guitar for a school assignment. As soon as we had played it a few times and recorded it, I was asked if I wanted to join their band "because you're better than our actual bass player." We played some live gigs but mostly tried to blow out the power system of an old gutted trailer my dad had set up for us out on the farm.

Landing in the city meant more people to jam with, and eventually my first 'semi-pro' band. We played for several years all throughout Alberta and even a half dozen locations in Saskatchewan. Two CDs and the departure of the last remaining original member of Diesel Fly signalled the ultimate demise of that group.

I sort of hung it up for a while at that point, being tired of the travel, practice and personalities involved with it all. I ended up in Japan as a teacher and stumbled upon several locals who gave me a new outlet, even going so far as to lend me a bass for over a year! Our little trio in Japan was called "Nan-da-rou" which roughly translates to "What the Hell?!". An Aussie guitarist/singer, Japanese drummer and a Canadian bassist/growler made for a pretty interesting collection. Unfortunately we never got to play any gigs due to our guitarist having some visa issues and eventually having to leave the country.

After coming back to my homeland, I left all of my musical junk in storage...as I had no one to play with any longer. After about two years, something started the itch and I went and pulled everything out and set about putting together a new space. First it started with an audio interface and DAW program. This was promptly followed by a beautiful new guitar, then full on mixing and monitoring hardware, complete with a virtual drum program to get that realistic sound that computer muzak is lacking.

On occasion I do get to jam with a few friends, and have started writing again in a very limited fashion. My finishing touch for the newly minted casa-studio was an uber-spiffy Roland HD-1 v-drum kit. I can now jam, write or record, alone or with friends, in the middle of the night in my condo without anyone else in the building knowing. Adding in a singer would make it interesting, but I'm extremely psyched about the whole thing! Vocals can be recorded during daylight hours I suppose.

Merry axe-mas to all, and a happy shred-year!

Rant Time Is Upon Us...

2009-12-16T15:48:00.004-07:00

Ok I don't usually do this kind of thing, but I'm seriously annoyed at the situation thus far and have no other outlet for my rage so it's going up here on the blog.

UPS LICKS FUCKING DONKEY BALLS

So I receive a delivery notice last Thursday, stating that I have a package waiting and owe a minimal fee of $16.05. That's all fine and good. So I call their 1-800 number in an attempt to talk to a REAL LIVE PERSON, hoping to re-route the package to my workplace. Yeah right, before each of the enter-x bullshit menu options I get from the uppity computerized bitch on the phone, there's a plug for the fabulous technological marvel that is ups.com...where I can fulfill all my package-related desires with speed and ease.

But I'm already on the phone. After what seems like dozens of menu options I obtain a confirmation that my package will be available at the service center Monday morning. Of course, I can't understand the address the spits out at me, nor does asking to have it repeated result in a more-intelligable response. It appears that I must resort to looking at the website after all.

Aha! I find a UPS shipping center address, but I'm a little suspicious. None of these addresses even remotely resemble the one spewed at me by binary-bitch. Having been to the shipping center before however, I decide to take a trip up there on Tuesday AM before work in an attempt to reclaim my package, figuring they'll have had plenty of time to reroute it to the center and all will be lovely.

You know where this is going now don't you...

I arrive at what used to be the shipping center, only to find a BIG "For Lease" sign in the parking lot. Pulling up to the door I find a map, with a NEW location for the shipping center, which just so happens to be another 15 minute drive from my current location. And did I mention it's -27 degrees Celcius outside and icy as a freshly waxed witches ass? Off to the shipping center it is then, where are my skates?!

Upon arriving at the military-compound, I mean shipping center, there is no obvious place to park, nor decent signs to show you that you're allowed to drive through the gates to the place of parking-ness. I go in anyway, because I want my fucking box at this point. So I walk in, wait impatiently for a surprisingly short 5 minutes, and finally hand my delivery slip to a clerk. She looks the number up with alacrity, only to inform me that the package is not, I repeat NOT at the shipping center.

Yeah, I was happy about it too.

So great, where is this elusive box in question? Apparently it's still on the truck and the driver (love how it's the driver's fault now), didn't read his notes and hadn't brought it in the the shipping center. Fine...here's my proposal to the clerk:

"Well if it's still on the truck, how about we get it delivered to my office tomorrow?" I hand her a business card and indicate the address written clearly at the bottom. She accepts the card and circles the address, clearly, in blue pen. "Oh yes, since it's a downtown address we can deliver it before 5pm tomorrow afternoon."

Great. That's settled. I drive back to work, and think nothing of it until this morning, when I stop at the front desk to inform the reception staff that there should be a package for me today. Three PM rolls around and no package as of yet. Color me suspicious once again. Off to the bloody website we go again, to find this lovely collection of fiction:

AS REQUESTED BY THE CUSTOMER, THE RECEIVER WILL PICKUP AT A UPS FACILITY WITHIN 5 BUSINESS DAYS / ARRANGEMENTS HAVE BEEN CONFIRMED WITH CUSTOMER

I particularly enjoyed the "confirmed with customer" part of that story, didn't you? So after talking with the lady yesterday, they just decided that I'd confirmed that I would come back another day, pretend that I had been spoken with, and then not notify me of a god-damn thing that was decided with my 'confirmation'. Excellent.

At least after talking with the girl on the phone today the status is actually representative of the redelivery request. Let's see what tomorrow brings shall we?

December Gaming Schedule

2009-12-01T12:41:00.008-07:00

Greetings fellow nerds, I mean...no, I guess nerds is pretty accurate. But don't feel bad, we're all on the same page here. I felt it important to throw some outlines down for the rest of the holiday month here in regards to our gaming fun down at Trilogy.

This coming Thursday (Dec 3rd) we have another Call of Cthulhu Adventure League night planned. Come out and play some games before we finish up for Christmas! I have some gifts for anyone who can make it down and play three games. This event will also mark the end of the 2009 Adventure League, so I'll be giving out the FFG-provided prizes as well. Win or lose, you'll have fun playing games AND get an early Christmas present! What's not to like about that?

For the event on the Thursday, Dec 17th we will have an open tournament. Any card is legal for play, including legacy cards! Build your trickiest, nastiest deck with any cards you want. Faction head abilities will still be available for use to add for extra shenanigans. If you're all good little demons and devils, I might be convinced to hand out extra Cthulhu cheer for this event too.

There will be no event on Thurday, Dec 31st. Go out and ring in the New Year!

Ok here's the big one: our final VS System Hobby League event for 2009 will take place on Friday December 11th. I'd really love to see everyone come out for this event (Golden Age Open). I have some great prizes prepared to show my appreciation of the best player group in town. I'm hoping to have enough goodies to make sure everyone goes home with something spiffy. I'm laso hoping to talk Pascal into staying open a little later for us, but that's not yet certain.

There will be no VS System event on Dec 25th. (Like you had to ask.)

There is a lot of new stuff on the horizon for 2010 as well. Most notable is the move from bi-weekly to weekly events. That's right, we're going to start playing every week, with a pre-determined monthly schedule and new (yes you heard me...NEW) cards given away every week.

Be sure not to miss any of these great events...if you do Santa might not visit you for Christmas this year!

So Many Games, So Little Time

2009-11-27T10:10:00.004-07:00

This week I started cleaning up my place in preparation for the holidays. It has nothing to do with the fact that I've been lazy and not properly cleaned it since before Halloween, honest! One of the first things I have to do when cleaning up is collect all the various gaming junk lying around on the tables, counters and even the floor, and put it all into one spot. Well this time around I realized that one spot simply isn't going to cut it anymore, unless I get a bigger spot.

So today I thought it might be an interesting bit to talk about some of these games and why I like (or don't) them so much. For today, I think I'll restrict it to card games, because otherwise this list is just going to be too damn long. Grab a cup of coffee and let's go!

VS System - If you have ever met me, or come to this blog at all it's very likely that you know of my love for the VS System card game. This was not the first collectible card game I got into, but it has certainly been the longest love affair I've had with one. This game simply has it all: my favorite comic characters, awesome team options, epic battles and everything in between. I still run the local hobby league and with some new plans in the new year, hope to keep it running for a long time to come!

GIJoe TCG - This was actually my first collectible card game. I resisted picking it up, even after seeing demos of it in San Diego the year of its release. I finally caved in to buying a starter set after seeing the how-to-play video on one of the animated DVDs. This game is quick and easy, but a LOT of fun to play. Anyone from my generation would be crazy not to enjoy an all-out battle between your favorite Joes and Cobras! I still have a half-dozen decks for this game in the closet, awaiting battle at any time.

Teen Titans CCG - This was the third card game I ever played, and it's had limited game time on my tables. It's strange engine, but its based on a hilarious cartoon. I've built a few decks for it, but it doesn't get played often.

Marvel Ultimate Battles - A failed attempt by UDE to capitalize on their Marvel license. Honestly though, this wasn't a bad game at all. Some similarities to VS, but with greater focus on your heroes (or villains) as the stars made it interesting. We only played it for a month or two after its release. I can't see breaking it out again anytime soon, if ever.

Anachronism - This is an odd one. Collin got me into this game, based on historical warriors. It's been out of print for a while, but it's a fantastic game. It plays like a miniature game more than a card game and is fast and fun! I like this game because you can teach it to non-gamers in like 5 minutes and I've never had anyone say they didn't enjoy it. Roll some dice, conquer your foes. Great stuff.

Call of Cthulhu - Another of my favorites, but this one is a tough sell to non-Cthulhu fans. The engine is solid but takes some time to get your brain wrapped around. One of the biggest selling points for this game to me initially was the artwork. The cards are absolutely beautiful! The switch by Fantasy Flight Games to make this a Living Card Game (LCG) was a great one. LCGs are inexpensive to collect, but still provide a ton of play options for interested players. I also run a bi-weekly adventure league for this game. It's still growing, but I'd welcome any suggestions to make it more fun.

Warlord - An interesting card game that I was only recently made aware of. It's a battle game, but has some elements of miniature combat in it as well. Not out of print, but a very limited release structure. I have trouble getting people to play this one. A cool engine with a focus on protecting your warlord makes it a rather deep gaming experience. The warlord characters are usually the best ones on the field, so you have to balance getting him into the fight with protecting him from getting stomped.

Warhammer: Invasion - My newest acquisition, and a definite favorite. This game is designed by the same guy who created the Call of Cthulhu game, and there are some similarities. It is a vastly different game though, with fabulous artwork and a very deep game engine. This is also a LCG, which I love. Finding a balance between developing your capital, getting units out to attack with, and just surviving provides a lot of choices and a really awesome gaming experience.

Now of course, games are no fun without people to play them with...which does pose a problem from time to time. I have a lot of gamer friends and we all have our favorite games. So when it comes around that we actually have time to get together and play, we often want to play our favorites. That's a great thing and I always look forward to out VS tournaments (Starro tonight, woohoo!), and the Cthulhu nights (insanity awaits). But with all these other games in my possession I want to play them too...maybe I'll have to start bribing people with beer or something.

Now, go out and play. Tell your moms and wives that I said it was ok. ;)

Vs System notes

2009-11-23T16:00:00.003-07:00

Hey kids!

I just wanted to check in with all of the players and remind them to bring their team-play hats for this Friday's Giant-Size VS night. We'll be running both Galactus AND Starro multiplayer events. The Starro deck is a really interesting creation from the online community that I've play-tested a few times and feel is good enough for regular use. It's a different take on the Giant-Size idea that came to us with the Galactus set and is a lot of fun.

I also wanted everyone to think about what night would be good for them if we were to make the tournaments weekly rather than bi-weekly. Of course the prizing system would be vastly improved. Regular players would not only get to play more VS, but would be rewarded for playing on a regular basis with new cards and great new deck ideas. Please drop a comment on the site here to let me know which day is best for the majority of folks. Of course Trilogy's open-hours will affect what we're able to do, but please chime in.

You know you want to play more often.

CoC: Secrets of Arkham

2009-11-18T10:56:00.004-07:00

Well I'm back again, and have some happy news on the Call of Cthulhu Living Card game! Most of you probably have heard about the upcoming full-size expansion for the game, entitled Secrets of Arkham. The new expansion will include 100 cards total (2 copies of 50 new cards) and be released this winter.

In light of this news, I think it will be a great jumping-on point for players interested in joining our current Adventure League play. Currently all players have purchased a starter set and added cards from purchased Asylum packs to it. We'll continue with that format until I have news of a release date for the new expansion. At that point we'll have a round-robin tournament event for everyone to finish off the current league.

After the release of Secrets of Arkham we'll begin a new cycle with new rules, to be decided at that time. There will be a new Adventure League kit to co-incide with this and should spark another cycle of deckbuilding, insanity and fun.

The Ancient Ones Devour All...

2009-11-06T10:29:00.003-07:00

Well we had another night of demons vs investigators last night at Trilogy. Our Call of Cthulhu league is starting to gain a decent player base which I'm really happy to see. Four players came on Thursday to battle it out over story card and drive their opponents insane.

Sebastien is probably the bravest (or most insane) of us all, as he has not yet added any Asylum Packs to his original Syndicate / Cthulhu deck. The scary thing is that he's still winning a good portion of his games! Jason has built two decks, and is probably the farthest along into integrating Asylum Pack cards into both of them. They fought each other to a standstill over two games, each declaring a single victory and adding to their currency pools accordingly.

I was also able to play two games, one versus Sebastien and another against our newest player Cameron. Prior to last night's gaming I had set out to improve my deck further, after having been sorely disappointed by its performance thus far. It had some good cards in it, but I just couldn't seem to bring it all together.

After flipping through some of the cards in the sets I had already added cards from, I stumbled onto the Rope and Anchor Tavern, which lets you reduce the cost to play a card with a given sub-type by TWO! Nice. I also saw that a large number of my lower cost cards were Cultists, and began wondering if there was a way I could make use of that somehow. Well, I found my answer in a single copy of a 5-cost generic card that boosted all of my cultists by 1 skill and a terror icon. This fellow also happened to have the Ancient One subtype! Things were starting to take shape.

And take shape they did. In both games I was able to get that character (unfortunately I can't remember the name of it) out on turn three or four. Being able to sacrifice my one-cost cultists to destroy my opponent's unattached characters is EXTREMELY powerful. I was able to claim victory in two games in a row to close out my evening undefeated. I'll post up a deck list before the next tournament.

We still haven't determined a way to cap off this phase of the Adventure League, so if you have some suggestions please let me know!

Marvel Legends Draft Report

2009-11-02T15:42:00.004-07:00

We had a smaller turn out than I expected, but travel plans, wives and colds kept some of our regular players away. The six of us who were able to make it out each grabbed our three packs and the draft was on!

I set up two pods of three players to draft, but in retrospect I think that we should have all drafted together. Since draft is a format we don't play all that often I hadn't really thought about the team availability being a little easier in groups of three, but it didn't seem to affect things adversely...just something to note for next time.

Harry, Vern and Scott made up pod 1, Dustin, William and I made up pod 2. In my first pack I noticed a large number of Marvel Knights cards and started filling out my curve early on. A lot of the more team-specific cards were coming back to me, so I started grabbing them. After all three packs were done I had ended up with an almost complete MK build, only using two Doom characters and an X-Men 6-drop to round things out. It was also a mini Punisher legend deck, as I had been able to grab two copies of the 2-drop, one of the 4-drop AND a copy of the 7-drop Angel of Death, all to go along with some Desert Eagles, an M-60 and a copy of Sniper Shot.

In the first game William had relatively poor draw against me, but was able to make it a very close game into turn seven. I had to pay a fair amount of endurance to survive with cards like White Dragon, and after the dust cleared I was only barely able to pull out a win...by TWO endurance!

Game two saw me up against Harry, who was also playing an MK-heavy deck. He started burning me early with some Random Punks and had me pretty scared when he dropped his 3-cost Juggernaut down. I wasn't able to play a visible character until turn five, and opted to play Iron Fist over Vengeance due to his large defense value. In the end that was my demise, as when turn 7 came around and I had to attack into Harry's board, his Vengeance ended up burning me for an extra five, resulting in his victory...once again by TWO endurance!

My final match was up against Dustin, who hadn't played in quite a while and was struggling a little bit. Even with that against him, he was able to hit almost every drop through out the game. Similar to my second game, I was hampered by having hidden characters until turn five, and then sadly missed my six completely. With only a 1-drop on the visible area of the board it was all over for me.

In all three of my games I only got to use my Punisher stuff in the second game. I had one pathetic sniper counter and that's it. Definitely not the terrifying sequence of events I had planned to unleash upon my opponents. The only thing that got punished was my pride. :P

After 3-rounds of play we had our top three players. In a three way tie with 2 victories each, the final standings determined by tie-breakers (Mantis does all the work there) as Scott, Vern and Harry.

We tossed all the rares in a pile and set to drafting them out. If I recall correctly Scott went home with the Angel of Death and an accompanying Sniper Shot, and I think Vern snagged a copy of Three-Ton Boulder (don't ask me why). The box didn't have a Mobilize in it like our Legion draft box did, but it was still a lot of fun for everyone. Thanks for coming out to play guys!

Next up: Bring Your Own Two Teams

I Still Love VS System

2009-10-28T10:44:00.003-06:00

While I was away on my trip I didn't have a chance to play any card games. That's over two weeks without shuffling up a deck of my favorite comic book heroes and villains. As much as I loved being on vacation, two-plus weeks seems like an eternity in terms of non-gaming time. As an aside, I did get to play some board games with a friend in Osaka at their VERY cool gaming club. Imagine an entire apartment full of board games, card games, comics and DVDs at your fingertips. But back to my story.

Our hobby league hasn't held a VS System tournament in the time I've been back, but thanks to some of the regular players I have been able to play some games. Sunday afternoon William and I played out three matches. First up was his Wolverine legend against my Beast Boy / Doom Patrol legend deck. I was able to survive until turn 6, but only barely...as his Muramasa Blade-equipped Wolverine's made it impossible for me to keep my characters on the table.

Second match saw a reverse matchup: my Wolverine legend deck against his Jean Grey. This game was my turn to punish with the blades. William also had pretty poor draw and wasn't able to discard almost any Jeans to beef up his 5-drop. It might have played out differently if he had.

Our final match was Underworld vs. JSA (guest-starring Lobo!). Well at least my deck is supposed to star Lobo on turn 6. I never saw him, or ANY copies of T-Spheres. Couple that to the fact that Will was able to constantly recur a copy of Meatmarket from his KO pile for power-ups, and burn me with his Skreet (five times if I recall)...I had to concede defeat.

Tuesday night was another good evening for cardboard superheroing. Scott stopped by and we fought to an even 2-2 tie. My memory seems to be failing me at the moment and I can only clearly recall the final game; in which Scott pummelled my Green Lanterns with his leader-heavy Avengers. We each also had victory with our army Doom decks (Scott's is cooler than mine. Super Skrull is nice!), and my Squadron Supreme won out over...something.

After playing so many games I'm really looking forward to building some new decks, tweaking a few of my existing ones, and drafting Marvel Legends on Friday! I also placed a fairly large online order for more boxes for the Hobby League to use (World's Finest, Universe, Evolution etc). I can't wait for that stuff to arrive.
VS System truly is the world's finest game!

Legendary Battles

2009-10-27T11:36:00.002-06:00

Sounds like the name for a historical fighting game of some kind doesn't it? Well, in a sense I suppose it is. This coming Friday the VS System Hobby League will be running our first ever Marvel Legends Draft event. I've been looking forward to it for a while, and I'm hoping that we'll have a good turn out, even though it's Halloween weekend!

As for me, I don't have a lot of experience with draft but I really enjoy playing VS this way. You often end up using cards and team-ups that you would never consider otherwise, or find a neat little combo that you may have overlooked while deck building from the full pool of cards. And then, there are those cards that are really only playable in draft or sealed play.

The other cool thing that I like about running draft events is the rare-draft that we do after the main tournament. In my opinion, holding a rare draft from the packs opened removes the risk of players drafting a rare card that they won't use, simply because they need or want it for their collection. Every player will have a chance to pick from the pool of all the rares opened for the event, which makes things fair and fun. If you come in near the top of the standings in the tourney, you have a better chance at getting the top rares pulled from the box!

Marvel Legends is a great set, and we've never had the chance to draft from it...so I'm sure everyone will have a good time. Make sure to arrive before 6:30 to ensure that you have a spot in the game!

Prepare for Invasion

2009-10-26T15:22:00.003-06:00

Over the past two months I've been keeping a watchful eye on the preview announcements for Fantasy Flight Games' newest Living Card Game: Warhammer Invasion. Not being a player of the miniature game, I initially had very little interest in this card game. My love of fantasy in general, enjoyment of the Call of Cthulhu game, and appreciation for the Living Card Game model got me looking at things more closely. As time progressed and I saw more cards, my interest grew.

A few weeks back FFG posted up a 'how to play' tutorial on their website. The new tutorial goes through the game from setup to an in-depth play example, and is probably the second-best play tutorial for any game out there on the internet. (My first choice would still be for the CoC tutorial, which is a little cooler.) Having watched through the video and looking closely at all of the preview cards, my interest was truly piqued.

Then comes the news that the core set will be releasing a full three weeks early! Wow, that's impressive news indeed. So the internet starts buzzing with various reviews, several of which I read (partly in hopes that they're bad so I can save myself the money). To my surprise however, I have yet to see a review of the game that is anything BUT extremely positive. So that my friends, results in an online order of the core set, and my avid anticipation of its pending arrival.

It's doubtful I'll start a league for yet another game, but I can wait to give this one some time on my gaming table. Call in the reinforcements and sound the call for Invasion!

Enter the Dreamlands

2009-10-20T16:21:00.004-06:00

Hey everyone,

I'm back from my cross-Pacific adventure and it's good to be home. I trust everyone was able to get some good gaming in over the weeks I was away. Thanks go to Will and Roy for running Cthulhu and VS events in my stead. I really appreciate it, and I'm sure the players do too, thanks guys!

The next event coming up is round 6 of our Call of Cthulhu Adventure League. This event sees a turning point I think, as players will be able to add a third and final pack to their deck for play in the league. Trades have been slim across the board, so the pack choices have been critical to making the decks stronger throughout play.
After the sixth round concludes we'll take stock of the standings and organize a final tournament to crown the winner for the first phase of play. First place will take home a deck of Cthulhu playing cards as well as a faction pin. Second place will also obtain a faction pin. Following the final tournament we'll begin the second phase of the adventure league, so keep your eyes open for more details on that in the coming weeks.

To get you thinking about new deck ideas I thought I'd remind everyone that the next set of Asylum Packs has started: The Dreamlands. The forces of Day and Night come out to play in the second pack, entitled In Memory of Day.

Take a look here for a sample of some of the upcoming cards.

All Hail the Legion!

2009-09-21T16:07:00.007-06:00

Last Friday we played another Golden Age open tournament in our VS System Hobby League. It was great to see some old favorites hit the tables again. In my first round I faced off against Jordan with my long-suffering, never-victorious Legionnaires deck. We were tightly matched up until the 7th turn, where I was able to fend off just enough damage to make it a 3 / -2 endurance game in my favor. Through creative Cosmic counter manipulation I was able to maintain three characters with them and pull off Terror Incognita, causing Jordan to lose an additional 5 endurance, just to cement the victory.

My second round game was up against William. Initially I thought he was playing his ever-so-nasty Kang deck, as he runs the 1-cost MEV Mystique in that as well. It turned out to be an Underworld deck that makes use of her to boost up Meatmarket and Satana on turns 4 and 5 to kick my butt. With some copies of Armies of Quard to move his characters visible and give them spiffy attack bonuses he looked ready to trounce me. I was able to maintain a solid formation and utilize XS to reinforce twice and save myself huge breakthrough on turn five. With some readying effects like Need For Speed and Superboy allowing Cosmic Boy muliple attacks on turn six, the Legionnaires put the deadies back in the ground where they belong!

Round three put me up against Scott, piloting a Marvel Defenders Hulk deck. I had seen this deck before and knew what to expect, which definitely worked in my favor. On turn four (I chose even initiative each game) I was able to team attack his Sub-Mariner and remove him from the game with a copy of Forged in Crisis. Being his only character with flight after that, I was able to use the same re-readying tricks with XS as in the previous game. The Hulk was big and scary, but not doing too much damage. Turn six saw Hulk team attacked and removed from the game, greatly hampering Scott's chances at victory. We did play out until turn 8, but with Mon-El hitting the table and giving all my character 5/5 for the turn it was my game.

I was actually a little surprised to come in first, with Scott placing second and Jordan a solid third. William, Harry, Vern and Roy all came out to join us and we had a good evening of cardboard superheroing. I've never had such good luck with my Legionnaires deck and often found it to be lacking. I think a lot of it was simply getting a feel for what it does well and compensating for its weak points, like any other deck. I do plan to streamline it now that I have a preferred character curve identified.

Ok, so for the next two events I'll be away. Roy has graciously agreed to run things in my absence. Have fun and keep in mind...Marvel Legends draft to follow my return at the end of October!

Haskatonic Kicks er...Wha?

2009-09-21T10:02:00.002-06:00

So our Call of Cthulhu LCG league has been running for a few weeks now and seems to be fun for the players, but our numbers are a little light. So far we're averaging 3 or 4 players per event, and I'd like that to grow. So if you've picked up your starter set and are wondering what the do with it, the answer is...whatever you want!Most of the teams can work with any other, the key is finding some synergy or common thread that you can make use of to give them an advantage over your opponent. It seems a general consensus of the players so far that the Hastur cards from the starter aren't well suited to being your primary faction. However, they seem to go well with almost any other faction! They're like the vodka of CoC...mix it with something else and you'll probably be able to get something tasty out of it.

One of the more original pairings I've seen so far utilizing the Hastur faction cards was a team-up with Mistaktonic U, put together by Jason. He even gave it the cute little nickname Haskatonic (well as cute as demons and scholars driving you insane can be).

Think the Syndicate doesn't play nice with Cthulhu? Shub-Niggurath is too uptight to slum it with Shog-Sothoth? Or maybe those pesky folks at the Agency have turned to Hastur for the power to smite demons and evil-doers alike. Give something a try. You might be insanely surprised.

VS System Cubed

2009-09-11T12:03:00.002-06:00

Well our last event was a really interesting. A big thanks to Roy for putting together a draft cube for us to play from. The players all had a really great time drafting from it and playing our games. We ended up using four "packs" to build our decks, which I actually found to be very difficult. There were just too many good cards to choose from and it was tough to eliminate enough of them to get my deck down to a playable size of 30 cards.

My first game was against Collin, who missed drops on turn two and five. I hit a perfect curve all the way up with my JLA / X-Force free team up. I also had Black Bolt on the table and was able to team him up every turn after the first one, making him a minimum 5/5. With a full board advantage against him Collin just couldn't manage a win. Sadly for me things went downhill quickly from there.

I lost my second game, which netted me a bye for round three. My final match put me up against Roy. My deck treated me much as Collin's had in our game...badly. I couldn't draw enough characters to hold of Roy's characters and had to accept defeat as gracefully as possible. It was a fun game though!

In the end Roy's hard work putting things together netted him our first t-shirt prize: a really spiffy Iron Man shirt! Congratulations, and thanks again.

VS System Hobby League Changes

2009-08-26T12:38:00.002-06:00

Well we've had an awesome resurgence in tournament numbers as summer draws to a close. The previous two tournaments have had 7 or more players in attendance, which is really great to see again.

I've been a little behind on the tournament updates, so this will be short. Our most recent tournament was a switch-deck event decided on by Jordan. He won the first event in August with his villainous Thunderbolts deck. Well done.

In the switch-deck event we had time for three rounds of play in which we chose two first places: one for the player with the best record, and one for the deck with the best record. As a final round the top player and creator of the top deck played it out for the final bragging rights.

The top performing deck of the night was Roy's Weapon X. The top player of the night was none other than your truly, posting a 3-0 record. That put my League of Assassins deck up against Deadpool and his cronies. It was a close game right up through turn 5, but Roy took a powerful lead through turn 6. I was able to draw my 7-drop character, but without having a way to attack his hidden Mesmero I was sufficiently hand-cuffed and was forced to admit defeat. Congratulations to Roy in yet another victory!

Back to the title of the article, the players in the hobby group have decided to make some changes to the prizing structure. For the past two years we've been playing in free tournaments with prizes and t-shirts from the UDE hobby league kits, provided by Trilogy Gaming Club and myself. With those supplies coming to an end, a new prizing structure needed to be determined. So here it is:

Each player will now pay an entry fee of $2 per tournament.

Wait, now I have to pay to play VS? Well, yes. But the reason is simple. With the money we collect from the attendees, and liberally supplemented by me, I will provide a comic-themed t-shirt as a top prize once per month. The regular prizes of booster packs will still be provided as well.

Group Deck Dynamics

2009-08-07T12:39:00.003-06:00

Yesterday I had a chance to get together for an evening of VS with Scott and Collin. While trying to quiet my nephew down enough to go to sleep I watched them play two games one-on-one. Scott was playing a deck made mostly of cards from Universe and Collin had DC Legends. All of us made various remarks about the power levels of the cards from the new sets being frustrating to deal with, or in some cases plain over-powered.

Later on we were able to play a few three player games, and it struck me that the simple addition of another player really seemed to level out the playing field. Due to the number of things to consider when attacking and defending against two opponents instead of just one, many of the high-powered effects don't seem to be nearly as bad. While this doesn't really address or change the fact that the cards are in general more powerful, I think it's an interesting observation. It also might be a good suggestion for players who do use older sets, or were DC-only players to help keep VS interesting.

Another option is the multiplayer team format. The Galactus set is great for multiplayer. Several months ago I also found fan-created Starro set (and I'm ashamed to say that I can't remember who created it at the moment). However, it was a lot of fun to play as well, and I think I'll print those out on proper stock and set up a team-play even in the near future.

I'm really looking forward to the Ban-5 tournament tonight too. I guess I better decide what deck I'm going to play!

Sad Times, or Just a Rainy Day?

2009-08-04T10:25:00.002-06:00

Well color me more than a little disappointed. This summer has seen a pronounced fall in attendance at our VS System events. While I did expect a bit of decline due to the game's discontinuation I didn't expect the rapid drop that has happened recently. I know that I can attribute some of the losses to summer vacations happening etc, but I don't know if that's the entirety of it. Even a lot of our rabid regulars don't seem to be coming out anymore.

With all that being said, I'll continue to run events and provide prizes (it won't just be cards, I have some other good stuff too!) as long as people show up to play. And of course if you have any suggestions for formats, events or improvements in our game please let me know.

And Our New Champion Chooses...

2009-07-26T22:19:00.004-06:00

Our VS System tourney on Friday had a new first-time winner: Congratulations to Vern and his formidable Inhumans! Those moon-dwellers are full of tricks... Ben came in second, piloting an Injustice Gang deck centering on Criminal Mastermind. Impressively he was able to set up four copies of it in his row on not one but two of his four matches.

As per the winner's decree our next tournament format will be Golden Age Open: Ban 5. Each player chooses 5 cards that they can ban for this event. If a card has been reprinted, banning one effectively bans all versions (such as Mobilize or Flying Kick). Post your ban-lists in the comments to this article. Selections must be entered by midnight on Sunday, August 2nd. Your ban list is void if you do not join us to play in the tournament.

Caution: Post contains high levels of nerdity

2009-07-23T16:39:00.002-06:00

Hey again loyal readers. Er...I guess one begins to wonder if there are any such folks, but honestly it doesn't really matter much. This site is more for me than anything else, although I do heartily appreciate the comments by those of you who do stop by from time to time.

Ok so back to my ramblings. If you checked in earlier this week you may have seen my post about the Dark Heresy game we ran last weekend. During the course of this week I've been doing a lot more reading and thinking about role-playing games, genres, available books and all kinds of other related nerd-activities. *gasp* Yes, I used the n-word!

Thinking back on things, I think the first time I actually played an RPG would have been in grade 10 or 11. A friend of mine who had recently moved to town rounded up a few of us to play a game he went to special pains of describing as "not Dungeons and Drgaons". That game turned out to be "Dark Conspiracy". I don't remember much about the game or the play session except the cover of one of the novels he showed us. I do recall that we had a lot of fun and talked about playing again several times without ever actually doing so.

Going back even further this was not my first exposure to an RPG book. I had in fact bought one back in the summer of 1989 title simply "The Batman Roleplaying Game". I remember reading through the book a few times and simply not being able to figure out how this book could be considered a game. In my defence I'll simply say that I was only 11 or 12 years old at the time and the idea of a "game" outside of my Nintendo or something with a board just didn't make sense in my head.

Back in the present day, I realized that I have actually purchased a grand total of five RPG source books: Batman (which I have never played and am not sure of its location), Dark Matter (a book that uses the Alternity rules system), Deadlands Reloaded (it was just too cool looking to pass up on sale), Call of Cthulhu (purchased out of interest in the FFG Living Card Game) and of course, Dark Heresy.

Where am I going with this you ask? Well, after having played our Dark Heresy game to positive response, I think it may be possible to get a somewhat regular campaign of adventures going for that game. This in turn go me looking at the other books I had to see what kind of nifty plot ideas I could borrow or steal, yet ended up pulling me in an entirely different direction when I re-read the Deadlands Reloaded book.

The character creation section of DL:R had a simple paragraph about skills stating something along the lines of, "All standard skills in Savage Worlds are available in Deadlands Reloaded." What the hell is Savage Worlds? I didn't know either, so I did some digging around and happened upon the publisher's website at www.peginc.com. The Savage Worlds system looks like a generic RPG system that is genre-independant, yet versatile and unique all at the same time. The core rulebook only costs like $13! Now granted, I have not used this system, but judging from the Test Drive rules PDF and the one-sheet adventures available on their site it looks simply amazing. While I don't intend to toss aside the system we're using for Dark Heresy, I definitely hope that I can talk some people into trying a game of Deadlands, or another one-off evening of gaming, using the Savage Worlds system.

VS System: Golden Age Musings

2009-07-22T13:33:00.003-06:00

With our upcoming tourney on Friday night being Golden Age, it got me to thinking. I have lots of decks that I could play, but somehow I just think I need something new. Last event we cracked a box of Marvel Knights to use for sealed play, and I found that to be a lot of fun. I really enjoyed the Crime Lords / Underworld interplay and was shocked at just how awful the X-Statix really are on their own. After batting around some posts on the forums over at vssystem.org I decided that a mono-teamed X-Statix build just wouldn't be the thing for me to build.

So what does that leave me with? I have been playing the game almost from the beginning be there is a surprising amount of stuff that I've left untapped thus far. Looking back over the past few months it seems I've focused mainly on the mini-teams or those that seemed harder to make work on their own like Doom Patrol, Starjammers and Secret Six. Assessing those efforts as honestly as I'm able, I would say that my Doom Patrol deck is the only one that even remotely works as I'd intended. Where to go from here is a bit of a mystery, mainly because Golden Age has just so many options to explore!

Last month I built a Green Lantern / Gotham Knights deck based on an article by Shadowtrooper. It was fun to play, but didn't work that well for me. So I think I might go back to the first Marvel set and pick a team from there. I've never built a Brotherhood, Doom or FF deck...so maybe that's the way to go. I won't restrict myself to team-affiliated cards from just that set, but at least it will give me a place to start. Just which one I'll use on Friday will have to remain a mystery for now.

I know that a lot of the players in the online community feel that Golden Age is simply too wide open, making it unfair or broken. While there is some merit to the argument, I feel that not allowing Golden Age decks to be played at a time when our card pool will not be expanding further would be a terrible mistake. More specifically, in our hobby league group only a few players will go out and build something massively powerful for Golden Age play. More often than not it will be a new deck that is built for fun or just to try it out. However, the option is there to build something near broken in terms of power level. With the right amount of rare cards, time and solid deck design, Golden Age games can be a real battle of skill, or a straight-up scoop if you get the wrong matchup.

To me though, there's nothing better than playing Golden Age, because of all the options, you never know what you're going to see on the other side of the table!

Welcome to the Inquisition

2009-07-20T12:05:00.004-06:00

Yesterday I had the chance to run a game of Dark Heresy for some friends. This was only my second time as game master (GM), and our group consisted of one experienced role-player, one long-out-of-practice player, and two brand new ones. It was their first exposure to Dark Heresy however...

I've been buying the Dark Heresy books since they were first released early in 2008. Initially I had been shown the core rulebook by a friend of mine while on a trip to Pittsburgh and was captivated by the artwork. I knew little of the Warhammer 40,000 universe, and next to nothing about the miniature game. Before heading home on that trip I happened upon a copy of the rulebook for half price, and haven't looked back since.

I devoured the contents of the core book and have purchased all of the other products released to date. I've also purchased dozens if not hundreds of 40k miniatures, and now have pieces to build approximately seven different armies. Sadly only three of those are in any sort of shape to be playable, but I digress. The tabletop game is great, but I don't get to play often. However, it is grounds for another article entirely.

After reading the Dark Heresy core rulebook, I wanted to know more about this grim future they were talking about. So I started buying the 40k omnibus editions that Games Workshop produces. These are massive tomes containing three novels each, and usually sell for around $15 or $16 Canadian. In my opinion this is a screaming deal, because a single paperback now usually costs around $10. Once I had read through the Eisenhorn and Ravenor trilogies I was officially hooked and couldn't wait to start playing Dark Heresy!

I had only one problem: no players. Like any other game, it's no good without players. After asking around over the course of several months to mixed results I finally sent out a call, and was able to find four willing victims, er I mean players to take up the role of Acolytes of the Inquisition.

We set a day and time and I set about preparing their first adventure. It got off to a pretty rocky start, but everyone soon settled into their roles and the story began to take shape. They've uncovered some clues, met some unsavoury characters and drawn blood in their first combat encounter. It hasn't gone all too smoothly for our players either though. Wounds have been taken and damage done. For now they're resting up, but they'll soon be plunged into the darkness once more...

Thanks to everyone who came out to play and make it fun. I enjoyed running the game and am looking forward to the next session.

Awfully quiet in here...

2009-07-09T09:14:00.002-06:00

Which I'm going to blame on it being summer rather than the decision to ban Blink, but I suppose it could be a little of both. With the stupefying amount of rain we've had here lately though I think that there is probably a lot of kitchen table gaming going on.

I was able to do exactly that on Monday evening, playing several games of VS w/ Scott. My new Arkham Inmates insanity deck held its own against a massive Jean Grey legend, but just couldn't pull out a win on turn 9 (yes NINE) when faced up against a 19/19 Jean Grey, plus an 8-drop Professor X and an Onslaught. Even against all that the game was still pretty close. We also played a game with this deck facing off against the Fantastic Four. I believe that was my only win of the evening. Insanity is tough to build, but so far I think it's a blast to play.

My Legionnaires also got a chance to come out and play. Another deck I love to use because I think the characters are great. However, every time I play this deck I'm reminded that it is a little lacking. The Legionnaires are light on range, and many of them have rather low defense. I've thought several times about how to improve their performance, and this time I think I'll finally take it apart and see what I can do with it. Scott suggested a copy of two of New Mutation...which seems a pretty good idea.

The other deck that got to hit the table was my Purifiers build. Things started out badly for Scott's Hellfire Club, but I wasn't able to pour out mass amounts of Purifiers, and really once I get past turn 5 with them, their chances of winning decreases to almost zero. I didn't see a single copy of Birthing Chamber or X-Babies Attack except when rallying for Purifier cards. Thus they all ended up on the bottom of my deck. Magneto finally wiped out the mutant haters.

Even months after the cancellation of the game I still love playing and building new decks. I think I might finally build a Fantastic Four deck, as I've never done one before. They're not exactly my favorite comic characters, but they've got some great cards to play around with.

Happy Cthulhu er...Canada Day

2009-07-01T21:51:00.005-06:00

Well, here it's a national holiday and people were out in large numbers to enjoy the sunshine and wave their maple leaf-emblazoned flags proudly. I'm proud to have been born in such a great country like Canada, and now we need to protect it more than ever...from the ancient ones!Over the past few months I've been doing demos for the Call of Cthulhu LCG, and have been please with the reception it's getting from most players. One of the major selling points is that after you buy your base set, it's a minimal investment. The Asylum packs are released on a (near) monthly basis and run around $12. That's around the price of three random packs of your average collectable game, so it's pretty easy to get into for little cost. So in preparation for league play I thought I would give you a few pointers on getting started with the contents of your base set.

There are seven factions in the Call of Cthulhu LCG:

- The Agency: A human faction of law enforcement agents. (Symbol: badge, Colour: blue)
- Miskatonic University: A human faction representing academics and learned folk. (Symbol: scroll, Colour: gold)
- The Syndicate: A human faction made up of mobsters, gangsters and reporters. (Symbol: Dollar sign in a red triangle, Colour: Black)
- Cthulhu: Cthulhu and his minions, as well as cultists and human worshippers. (Symbol: Squid, Colour: green)
- Hastur: Centers on Hastur's role as the King in Yellow, as well as his minions. (Symbol: the Yellow Sign, Colour: yellow)
- Yog-Sothoth: Yog-Sothoth, the humans who worship and study it, and undead monsters it controls. (Symbol: a key, Colour: purple)
- Shub-Niggurath: Shub-Niggurath is responsible for creating mutants, monsters and the like. (Symbol: a goat's head, Colour: red)

Alright, so now you know the major players. The stakes are simple; protect your beloved country, your planet, your sanity, and the very universe against these foul monsters! Or...take control of these slavering demons and their follows and leave a wake of death, instanity and destruction in your wake. In order to do these things, you'll need a deck to play with.

For the first event or two you'll need to to create a deck from the cards in your starter set. The easiest way to create a deck is to chose two of the factions and add their cards together. You'll be a little short, so choose a few of the non-affiliated cards (they're grey) to fill out your deck to a minimum of 50 cards. The rule book has some further suggestions on which grey cards will go better with your faction choices. I've chosen to put Hastur and Shub-Niggurath together, because I think red and yellow won't hurt my eyes. Oh and they've got some pretty nasty powers too! If you're not sure about buying the base set until you've played a few games, one of my demo decks will work fine too, and I'll be happy to provide you with one.

Each month (every other event, as we're playing bi-weekly) you can add cards to your deck by purchasing an Asylum Pack. You're also free to make trades among the other players to help build up your faction's strengths.

Keep in mind a few things if you decide to mix a human and demon faction together. If you have a card in play that has Heroic keyword on it, you cannot play a card that has the Villainous keyword. And vice-versa. They cannot co-exist, so if you do want to play one, you have to chose to destroy the other when you do. This isn't to say NOT to play two factions like this together, as you might be able to come up with a neat strategy for it, but just a warning.

I haven't got a full count of how many players will be joining the league. But I'm expecting to have our league support kit in the next few weeks. I'll be running another round of demo games on Sunday July 12th, and have few more demo decks to give away. If you're interested in a demo or joining the league, please let me know. I'd be happy to help you build your first deck and answer any questions you might have about cards or rules as best I can.

Golden-Age Goodness!

2009-06-30T09:47:00.005-06:00

Another couple of busy weeks, but not too busy for some gaming goodness! I'll start off with some coverage of Friday's Golden Age VS System event.

We had five players for this one, which is a nice step up from the three we had a few weeks back. I do hope that our numbers will level out again as summer winds down. We had an Avengers / X-Men team up, JLA, Thunderbolts, Runaways and a Green Lantern / my Gotham Knights team up played by me.
I wish I could take credit for my deck, but I only had the idea. I found a deck list shortly after over on TCGPlayer created by ShadowTrooper that I used and it's probably better than what I would have come up with anyway! I had to make a few modifications to it, as I only had 3 copies of a few of the rares needed to make it run. After being released in two sets I was rather surprised that I only have three copies of Alfred...

My first match up was against Roy's Runaways deck. Let me just say now, that I think Runaways is extremely frustrating to play against. Some of their effects to burn cards from the top of my deck just seem a little too cheap, but that doesn't mean it's not a good deck. However, while I suffered a rather poor draw and missed a few drops, Roy's draws were worse. I was able to survive long enough for a win, but if he'd got a little better early set up I don't think I would have had a chance.

The second game was against Jordan's X-Men / Avengers deck. His focus was on Cyclops and Captain America, getting team attack and stun effects with Cyclops, and rallying goodness from the Avengers. I destroyed his team-up card twice, but just couldn't survive when he played a second copy of Concussive Force, requiring me to exhaust my 6-drop Batman and 8-drop Superman.

Round three paired me off with Colin, who I haven't played a game against in several months. Being a DC-only player, I wasn't terribly surprised when I saw his "Power-up Everyone" JLA deck hit the table. With seemingly dozens of copies of Nth Metal at his disposal, my Gotham Lanterns were beaten to a bloody green pulp in no time.

After some debating what we all though was a weird pairing for the final round, we decided that the computer did know what it was doing after all. We'd never seen it give a player two byes in the same event, but it all worked out and I faced off against Scott's Radioactive Man / Iron Man / Thunderbolts deck. Now I think I might have mentioned this deck before but the combination of +1/+1 counter generation, Radioactive Man's you-can't-play-stuff lockdown, and Iron Man is a very tough one to beat. I was able to last out until turn 7 and pull a couple of lucky Cover Fires to make it interesting, but again...the Lanterns fizzled out late game. It was a close one though, which is always good in my books.

Scott walked away the winner once again. Congratulations!

In-House Becomes Official

2009-06-24T16:28:00.002-06:00

Well folks, whether you agreed with my decision or not...it seems that the VS Council did. They also have decided to ban Blink, in addition to proposing an errata to Armed Escort. The official wording for said errata has not yet been released. I will post it here when it becomes available.

I do realize that this decision is disappointing to some of our players, but I feel the decision is the right one for the health of our game.

First In-House Ban

2009-06-17T11:08:00.003-06:00

After a lot of deliberation, discussion and debate, I've decided to add our first card to the banned list; MEV-134 Blink, Earth-295 - Clarice Ferguson.
This card will no longer be legal for play in scheduled tournament events run by me at Trilogy. The reason behind this decision is simple: I think that this card is far more powerful than the designers intended, and would remain so even with errata'd text.

Ivy Sweep-kicks the Elder Shoggoth...

2009-06-15T09:20:00.004-06:00

...as Superman flies by carrying Darkseid, who burns everything to a crisp with his Omega-beams!

What? It could happen! At least if the last comic book title I saw on the shelves is any indication. "Jesus Hates Zombies" is apparently the name of an actual comic, so if they're willing to print that, then my story idea should be more than acceptable.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, trying to alleviate the confusion of you readers. Well, let's start with Friday night's Arch Enemy event. We had four players, but one didn't have a deck that qualified for the format so we started off with a three-player vs. Galactus game. To save you the boring and painful details, the Scott-run Galactus deck kicked our butts.

Following that we played a quick three-player tournament. Scott was running Wolverine legend that included Mystique, Jordan was playing a Cyclops legend with Mr. Sinister, and I played Darkseid and included two different versions of Superman. Surprisingly, my Super-Darkseid-Man deck won both games and I ended up the winner for the tournament.

I didn't see all of Scott and Jordan's game, but Scott was victorious in short-order. My game against him was very close, with me winning by a narrow margin of less than 6 endurance. I was able to get set up well against Jordan who was working on building a small swarm for turn five. I was able to draw into a Superman, Metropolis Marvel that turn. The following turn put victory firmly in my grasp. Thanks for everyone coming out to play on such a beautiful evening which ALSO happened to be the Stanley Cup final game (I hate both teams, but I'm glad the Penguins won instead of the Red Wings).

Saturday I shunned the gaming tables for rowing on the reservoir and working on my tan (read: sunburn). Note to self: use strong sunscreen next time...as in, actually USE sunscreen next time. A fantastic barbecue (thanks Seb!) in the evening had me in bed full of yummy food by just after midnight.

On Sunday the plan was to play games anyway, but the sunburn cemented the decision as even the sun on my arms and knee in the car on the way there hurt a bit. Sebastien has started up a new-player league for UFS that runs on Sunday afternoons. I've played 6 games with my starter deck now and am only just getting the hang of how the game works. I scored my only victory due to running out of time while having higher vitality, rather than actually defeating my opponent.

I was able to get a few games of VS in too (it'll always be my first love!), as well as running two demos for Call of Cthulhu. Those were well received and I think both players really started to get a feel for the game.

It's been a great year for gaming with friends, and it's even more fun now that we're all playing several different games. I think it will help keep things fresh for all of us.

Now who wants to learn to play the GIJoe and Teen Titans CCGs? :P

Cthulhu Rises

2009-06-08T16:46:00.002-06:00

Just a note for anyone interested. I'll be running some Call of Cthulhu demos this Sunday (June 14th) after 4:30pm. We're looking at running a hobby league on Sundays after the new beginner UFS league that Seb and WIll are organizing. Currently I think it will be every other week, likely on the same weekends as our VS System games.

If you attend a demo and are interested in playing with us, I'll give you a two-player demo deck to use as a starting point for your deck building. For more information about the Call of Cthulhu LCG please see the website here.

Mmm Stale Blog...crunchy!

2009-06-03T12:20:00.003-06:00

I was chastened by one of our players today for not updating my blog in a while. Looking back I suppose my writing has been pretty sparse lately. Oops!

Well just because I haven't written much doesn't mean I'm not playing much. Just last weekend we had another Golden Age tourney with 5 players joining in on the fun. Scott was playing Avengers, Will his Wolverine Legend deck, Roy had some Negative Zone shenanigans, and Jordan...for the life of me I can not remember what he was playing. Whatever it was must have worked well though, since he went 4-0 to take top spot in the tournament! What's even worse on my part is that I played a game against him on Sunday and still can't remember what his deck was. I must be getting old, since it looks like I'm going to have to start taking notes. Regardless, congratulations (and apologies) Jordan!

As for me, I was playing my first build of a straight Starjammers deck. It's a fun little idea, but really didn't hit well for me in any of my three games. The one victory I had was more due to Will's extremely poor luck drawing into useful characters than my awesome deck building skills.

Here's the deck list:

Characters
3x Professor X, Mutant Messiah (1)
4x Raza Longknife (2)
3x Nightcrawler, Brimstone Cowboy (2)
4x Corsair (3)
3x Ch'od (4)
4x Hepzibah (5)
3x Rachel Summers (5)
4x Korvus (6)
2x Polaris, Back in the Fold (6)
3x Havok, Proud Son (7)

Plot Twists
3x Mobilize
2x Savage Beatdown
4x Messiah Complex
2x Cannibal Tech
4x Freedom Fighters
2x He Who Watches

Equipment
4x The Starjammer
2x Rapier
2x Ego Gem
1x Reality Gem

The basic idea is to get the Starjammer shifted out or recruit Professor X out on the first turn. From there you want to get Corsair on turn 3 with a He Who Watches to play before he stuns a character. Then Ch'od to do the same thing the next turn. I have to tweak it a fair bit, because it can't really last out well right now. I can get my opponent's hand size down pretty low before turn 5, but I don't have a way to cement the win. I'm open to suggestions!

Tournament report

2009-05-10T10:35:00.002-06:00

Well let's give this another try, and see if I can make it stick this time. Friday was a good night, with ten players joining in the Alter Ego tournament. We even had a new player join us I threw the players a little curve before beginning: there was only 1 copy of each Alter Ego card to choose from! Each player got to choose from the pile (like a draft), so if someone had already chosen the one you designed for might have already been taken.

I chose Superman as my Alter Ego, with 75 endurance. I was playing my new Outsiders deck, which had performed really well the first few times I played. Sadly between my match-ups and my draws, I was only able to win one of my four games. Seeing the different match-ups play out with the different Alter-Egos added in made things really interesting, and from all reports everyone would be interested in playing with them again.

After four rounds of play we ended up with Harry as the top dog this time around, with Jordan taking second place. It's always cool to see the younger guys take the the honors. Congratulations.

Rescheduled

2009-05-03T12:10:00.002-06:00

Ok kids, looks like we'll try to have our Alter Ego tournament on Friday, May 8th. We'll return to our regular schedule and have another tournament the following Friday. Due to them being back to back let's make the next one simple: Golden Age open.

Mediocre Deck-Man out!

Alter-Ego event postponed

2009-04-30T22:20:00.001-06:00

I got a call from Pascal earlier today telling me that the store would be closing at 5pm on Friday, May 1st. I'm trying to see if I can reschedule for the 8th, but am not sure at this point. Sorry for such short notice everyone!