DGT Cube - A Solution for Slow Play?

I'm intrigued by this device from Digital Game Technology.  It's a chess clock for boardgames.



I'm thinking it would be useful to speed up play in board games which have a lot of decision making like Blood Bowl Team Manager or as a replacement for the egg timer in RoboRally

If anyone out there has any real world experience please let me know how it's working for you.

Thunderbirds are Go... ing to be a Co-op Boardgame and RPG in 2015

Supermarionation fans are going to have an FAB 2015 as they celebrate 50 years of Thunderbirds.

In April ITV launches it's semi CGI remake of the classic series Thunderbirds are Go! and Modiphius have teamed up with Pandemic designer Matt Leacock to make a Thunderbirds Co-operative Boardgame and RPG currently going through the crowdfunding motions on Kickstarter.

Withing minutes of hearing about it, I backed it.  Game components look top drawer and with the extra RPG stretch goal already unlocked, it's two games in one.  Can't tell how it will play, but if Pandemic and Forbidden Island / Desert are anything to go by this should be a crowd pleaser.

Whilst you're waiting for this to be delivered check some of the stunning models created for the new series by WETA Workshops. I can't wait to see how it looks with the CGI characters added in.

Rich Dad, Poor Dad and the un-game of Cashflow

A close friend of mine and long time gamer has embarked on a new career as a property developer and has become a fan of the work of business guru Robert Kiyosaki author of the well known book Rich Dad Poor Dad.

Diversification and Passive Income are the mantra of many of these self help millionaires and Kiyosaki has branched out into the realm of games design.  Yes, you heard right.  He's a Games Designer, that's his BGG entry for the boardgame Cashflow, he designed back in 1996.

Now doesn't that look exciting

Recently I was invited to play this little gem of a game and boy does it suck!! 

It's a game of two halves, but both are roll and move.  In part one you travel around the center circle trying to avoid the here you travel around a very small 25 space center board landing on various "investment opportunities" either stocks and shares or property which you can purchase with your savings.  You also have the chance of landing on one of the "bad" spaces which may result in you losing your job and missing a couple of turns, having a baby (aka a joyous bundle of unplanned overhead) or landing on a luxury space and having to buy a suit or repair your car.  These "bad" spaces are so few and far between that they have little impact on the outcome of the game in fact the distribution is arranged in such a way that it is a statistical impossibility.

Once you've amassed a passive income which equals your salary you have essentially "left the rat race" and can now move on to stage two.  In which you basically do exactly the same but instead buy established businesses with even less chance of risk.  There's so little risk or consequence to the game and your decisions have so little effect that a game of snakes and ladders looks appealing by comparison.

There's a mild form of game balancing via the drawing of "career cards" which control what your starting cashflow stats are, but there's no game here.  No deep decision making, no evaluation of risk (it's all laid out on each card in bold text), no balancing of resources, nothing.  I'm speculating but I think that there's an educational reason for this, Kiyosaki wants to teach you that becoming a self sufficient is easy and in the game of cashflow it is in fact there's no way to lose.  I think he needs to listen to the wise words of real plutocrat Nick Hanauer.

A quick google reveals that the game retails for in excess of £100 shipped to the UK, so I guess the secret of cashflow is to author an incredibly lame game and charge the absolutely earth for it.  Apparently there are cashflow clubs where this pile of shite is played on a regular basis, probably because they're too ashamed to play it outside of those select gatherings. 

Someone needs to give them a copy of Monopoly or The Game of Life it will blow their freaking minds.

UGS - A Chronic Illness that only affects Gamers

I suffer from a little know chronic illness that specifically targets gamers...

UGS or more commonly referred to as Unplayed Game Syndrome is a form of addiction which largely goes unnoticed until your wife, girlfriend or significant other suddenly decides to have...

An Intervention

That moment when you are faced with the true scale of your problem.  Namely that you have too many games in your collection some of which, for various reasons, you've never played.  Heck, some of them still have their shrinkwrap.

Just 5 of my Unplayed Games
Tigris & Euphrates, La Citta, Sylla, Outrider and Warcraft The Board Game

My immediate response was denial, then I said

"If I've played it, I can keep it, right?", to which my missus replied,

"No, you have to choose some games to keep and some to get rid of!"

Faced with an ultimatum I used my powers of indefatigable man logic.

"But how do I know what to keep?  I have to play them first to know if they're any good and if I should keep them!". 

In the cold harsh world of decluttering this plea fell on deaf ears, suffice to say I have a few weeks grace in which to decide what to do with some of these potential gems:

Tigris & Euphates - A pre-loved Hans Im Gluck version of this Reiner Knizia classic given to me a couple of years ago by a club member on the grounds that I will play it more than he does.  I feel really guilty that I've never played it and so will definitely add it to my New Years Resolution list.  He also gave me his much played copy of RA (also by Knizia) and I absolutely love playing it, so this is something I have to have a go at.

Outrider - A tabletop car combat game using playing cards.  This was also my first experience of Print on Demand and Drive Thru Cards, but I haven't found the courage or energy to clip out the tokens and print off the road tiles PDF.  I'm a massive car combat game fan, so really can't understand why I haven't played this yet.  To be honest I might just be sneaky and hide this and some other card games inside other games.

Sylla - This years christmas gift from my step daughter.  It's a semi co-op civilisation building game set in Rome and is highly likely to get played in an upcoming boardgame night.

Warcraft: The Boardgame - I picked up this fantasy wargame for some ludicrous price like 99p or something, a total no brainer really.  It has a lot going for it; nice components, hex based map, 4 different races and it's by my favourite boardgames company Fantasy Flight.   I confess I've never played a single minute of World of Warcraft on any computer or console so I don't really have any preconceptions about the IP other than that the box art looks a bit Warhammery.

La Citta - Another 2014 Christmas pressie, this time from my missus, La Citta (pr: LA CHEETA) is yet another civilization building game set in the Italian Rennaissance.  Lots of components and it looks like this might have the potential to turn into a long game even with its 120 minute estimated play time. 

I'd love to hear from any readers who also suffer from unplayed game syndrome.  Do you have any experience with any of these games? Which of them do you think I should keep or play first?  Do you have any boardgame gems in your cupboard which you're too embarrased to play or you've just not got round to playing?  Leave your comments in the box below.

Dragonmeet 2014 Review - The changing face of gaming?

A bit late in the day, but here never the less here's my review of Dragonmeet 2014.

My christmas wish list for Dragonmeet 2014 like the best laid plans of mice and men... went to hell in a handbasket, meaning I didn't get to play half as many games as I would like, but did get to experience:

Castellan (Steve Jackson Games) - A 2 player abstract area control game, which is a bit pricey, but the gorgeous plastic castle pieces make it total eye candy on top of what is a solid fun game.  I also witnessed their Mars Attacks Dice Game which looked like a lot of fun for all ages.  I hope SJG make iOS/Android implementations of both these games soon as they are a lot of fun and more people need to play them.

Always / Never / Now is Will Hindmarch's hack of the one shot Lady Blackbird game by John Harper, set in a non-specific cyberpunk future.  It's got a very simple rules light system which rewards cinematic play and is perfect for a convention session.  Our awesome GM (a member of the London Indie RPG group) taught us the system basics and we were up and running very quickly, hacking, cracking and generally blowing things up in a style which John Woo and Michael Bay can only dream off.  It was hands down the most fun I've had at a con in years.

Drooling over the Sons of Anarchy boardgame at the 247 Toys stand, I played a few rounds of the UK edition of the Firefly boardgame (The one with the extra "Artful Dodger" ship).  It's definitely a long game with plenty of complexity and variety and whilst not as impressive as their demo tabletop (See photo) it will still end up on my BGG wishlist.

Firefly The Boardgame (UK Edition) includes 5th player ship "The Artful Dodger"

Chessex brought their usual truckload of dice (and a big jug to scoop them up with).

I love dice but they sometimes don't love me, they key...
...change them regularly and discipline the naughty ones

Small indie publishers were in evidence all over the show, along with a crop of new micro armour sci-fi miniature wargames fresh from their dropships like Firestorm Planetfall.

Smallcu.be travelled across the channel from belgium to show off their beautiful crokinole boards (I'll own one one day)

YAY Games UK put on a fine show with their fabulously grisly Frankenstein's Bodies game funded via Kickstarter and Chief Creative Andrew Harman was suitably kitted out in his blood stained butcher's apron.

Oakbound Games were showing off their War of the Worlds homage Tripods! in which players try to escape the Martian invasion of London and avoid the encroaching "Red Weed" which begins to cover the board.

Money is always in short supply and so my purchases were limited to a copy of Housing Crisis by Rack & Pinion Games, a tiny 2 player micro game about placing tenants in different sized housing developments.  It was reminiscent of some of my first games from the 70s/80s which also came in small zip-lock bags and I fell in love.

Housing Crisis Rack and Pinion Games, This much fun in a little bag is usually illegal!!

A couple of friends bought some of the award winning and wonderful All Rolled Up dice bags, a beauty to behold especially with the little hand grenade toggles. 

Free swag was minimal (Curse you global recession!) but I did get a promo Munchkin silver coin and "Official cheesy promotional bookmark of power!" from the SJG demo table.  Thumbing through the very glossy Dragonmeet programme you will also find "The Star Fish" a creature for use in Modiphius's WW2 Achtung! Cthulhu setting and "Ornery Octal" a magic item for Cubicle 7s The Laundry RPG.

Overall it was an enjoyable day but there were a few organisational snags, namely:

• Travel around the trade hall and more importantly between trade hall and gaming rooms felt more of a struggle than usual with what seemed like narrower aisles.  Attendance also seemed higher than at previous years events but this might have just been my perception as the venue felt smaller and more cramped than previous years.  (Organiser Chris Birch has confirmed that attendance was 1600 twice that of previous years)
• Locating the bring and buy stall and signup boards so close to the entrance/reception may have been a logistical necessity but it caused a bottleneck for people trying to get into/out of the trade hall all day long.
• Whilst I applaud the sentiment behind the charitable pre-booking of game seats, in reality it just meant lots of game sheets going up on the board were all pre-booked before the show opened its doors.  With seats in such short supply anyway, I'm not sure how much extra this raised for CLIC Sergeant and Vision Rescue, it didn't paint a very inclusive or open picture which is something that I've always liked about Dragonmeet.  Perhaps next year just take a £1 of the ticket price as a donation for these worthy causes and go back to the old system of first come first served, or at least limit the number of pre-bookings per game to 50%.
• Cloakroom facility was a neat idea which I wish I had used as the venue got hotter and hotter requiring frequent trips outdoors to cool off.
• A lack of game information in the days leading up to the event makes it harder to plan your day and you end up missing the seminars you want to attend.
• I didn't see any cosplayers, were they put off by the cold weather?  This may have been a blessing in disguise as they really need their own display space so people can fully appreciate the hard work that they put into their outfits, and space was at most definitely at a premium this year. 

As for the "Changing Face of Gaming" you can see some more photos from the show and attendees tell me "What it means to be a gamer" in this short video.

5 Boardgames Still Crying out for an App

1.  Car Wars

Original Car Wars "Pocket Game" Box Art
Published way back in 1981

There are a few noteable real time car combat games out there such as Death Rally, Auto Mangle, Indestructible, and Horror Racing.  I've had fun playing them all, but there's but nothing that's turn based.  A while ago I went through a period of playing Dark Wind which is a 3D turn based combat game, it was fun for a while but the interface was a bit clunky on my old mac.  there's a massive gap in the market here for a top down, turn based car combat game with an RPG/Tournament community angle.  Come on SJG this needs to happen alongside the re-launch of the Car Wars boardgame you promised during the OGRE kickstarter.

2.  Citadels

There's an iOS version of San Juan which sports a similar theme and variable abilities mechanic, so I don't see why there's not been a Citadels app.  I don't know how difficult it would be to program the  AI element but surely it's not be too tough a nut to crack.  If you solve that problem I think you're half way towards a version of the other Bruno Faidutti classic Mission Red Planet.

3. Formula D / Formula De

When Asmodee re-launched Formula De as Formula D an inbox flyer promised "raceronline", an online version of the game with tournaments and the usual multiplay options.  Well that never really happened (unless you spoke french) and the online site has since gone belly up.  Before anyone calls foul, yes I am aware of Racer Feud, which whilst a pretty good version is not officially licensed and personally I've found a bit buggy on my iPad2.

4.  Robo Rally

This is one of my favourite and a classic of the "programming" style games.  Once again a talented developer has released their own unlicensed version in the guise of Parcours.Robo, sadly it's a one player puzzle game and not the multiplayer anarchic deathmatch so typical of every game I've ever hand the pleasure to play.  I don't know who holds the licencse for this one as it's been through the hands of several different publishers since it was originally printed in 1994.  It's last reprint was in 2006 and it's high time that this got some appification.

5.  Thebes

Thebes by Queen Games

Whenever I feel the itch to be Indiana Jones, I dig out Thebes (no pun intended).  There's just so much variety in it but the game itself is quite simple to play, you either travel, research or dig.  I'd love to play it more often but the pre-game set-up takes a while to resolve in exactly the same way as Settlers of Catan.  It's probably not on any developers wishlist, but it's a game I love and I'd relish the opportunity to buy it in app form.

Honourable Mentions

I was going to add Battlelore to this list, but it appears that Fantasy Flight are in the process of releasing an iOS/Android/PC version, (albeit single player) of the game in time for Christmas.  I'll also be checking out the Bloodbowl app, maybe do a video review in the not too distant future.  

DIY Tournament Dungeon Boardgame

24 Cheap and easy 2.5D Dungeon Tiles

My RPG club, The Hobbit's Hole, runs an annual memorial tournament in honour of one of its founding members called the Manic Trophy.

This year it's my turn to host the game and I'll be putting on a simple dungeon crawl game.  I'm musing over the rules at the moment but here's my outline: 

PREMISE
My aim is to have a 3 to 5 player competitive dungeon crawl lasting no more than 45 minutes, in the style of the boardgame Dungeon Quest.  Players start on the same tile, like in Drakon, each time they move they reveal a new tile and orient it as they see fit discovering the dungeon as they go.  The final tile holds the great treasure and the Boss Monster.

I'm going to be using a version of the 9 inch cavern geomorph tiles as popularised by YouTubers TheDMGInfo / TheDM'sCraft / DM Kaydons Kastle, where each tile contains an encounter, be it a trap or a monster (or maybe both).  This also gives me a chance to use the cards from the Inkwell Ideas Creature Decks.  

I like the idea of having a finite number of "moves" to a game, everyone has an equal chance the player skill element comes from trying to push your luck or deciding to flee.  I've played  games like Lost Cities which use this sort of "push your luck" mechanic and enjoyed them immensely.

I need quick and dirty "trump" style resolution so I'm going to base everything around a regular deck of playing cards.  Players get to choose their card whereas the DM draws randomly from a deck.

To represent levels of the dungeon the DM deck is divided into 3 stacks; Level 1(cards numbered 2 to 6), Level 2 (cards 7 to J) and Level 3 cards (Q to A).  I have 24 tiles in the game so the first 10 tiles represent Level 1, the next 10 Level 2 and the last 4 are Level 3.

STATS & CHARACTER GENERATION

Looking at the card suit symbols we have:

• HEARTS - Look like a heart so should represent life force or vitality, these cards are used for all tests of strength and stamina.
• CLUBS - Look like a tree and sort of like a brain so these represent knowledge and intelligence.
• DIAMONDS - Looks sharp like a sword so these cards are used to represent Melee combat ability.
   
  
• SPADES - Look like an arrowhead so these cards are used for all Missile attacks and Dexterity based skill checks.
• JOKERS - Each player gets one of these to use during the game to automatically succeed at a challenge or to inflict an instant kill.  However, Jokers cannot be used to defeat the BOSS MONSTER, unused jokers are worth 15 points at the end of the game.

Players get to choose their class and pick up the relevant 2 suits of cards as follows:

• Warrior - ♥ (Strength) and ♦ (Melee)
• Wizard - ♣ (Intelligence) and ♠ (Missile)
• Thief - ♠ (Dexterity) and ♣ (Intelligence)
• Ranger - ♠ (Missile) and ♦ (Melee)
• Cleric - ♣ (Intelligence) and ♦ (Melee)

Additional Character Classes contributed by Stu Rat

• Barbarian - ♥ (Strength) and ♠ (Dexterity)
• Bandit - ♥ (Strength) and ♣ (Intelligence)
• Monk - ♣ (Intelligence) and ♥ (Strength)
• Archer -  ♠ (Missile) and ♥ (Strength)
• Warlord - ♦ (Melee) and ♣ (Intelligence)
• Gladiator - ♦ (Melee)  and ♥ (Strength)
• Swashbuckler - ♦ (Melee) and ♠ (Dexterity)

The first suit is their PRIMARY stat, e.g. Warriors ♥ (Strength) and is used to break ties.

ENCOUNTERS

Each time players move onto a new tile they will encounter either a monster, a trap or need to search for a treasure.

MONSTER ENCOUNTER: Players may either FIGHT using ♦ (Melee) or ♠ (Missile) or EVADE using ♣ (Intelligence) or ♥ (Stamina).  If a player succeeds in a fight the monster is killed and a treasure awarded.  If a player succeeds in evading the player can move to the next tile but the monster remains and no treasure is awarded. 

TRAP ENCOUNTERS: Players may either DISABLE using ♣ (Intelligence) or ♠ (Dexterity) or EVADE using ♥ (Strength) or ♦ (Melee).  If a trap is disabled it is removed from the game and the player gets a reward otherwise the trap remains.

NO ENCOUNTER:  Empty tiles can be searched by any player using any card. So there is merit in just following the first player and scratching around in the room once they've defeated all the monsters.

As detailed above, players resolve encounters by choosing a card and comparing it with the DMs Card, whichever is higher wins.  Players who fail an encounter must discard an extra card at random from whichever suit they used in the encounter.  In the event of ties a player who used their primary stat always wins, if they used their secondary stat they always lose.
I'm going to decide monster or trap based on a coin flip.  Heads it's a Monster, tails its a Trap, but you could design specific traps for each tile design you have.

TREASURE

Treasures are awarded for defeating monsters, disabling traps or succeeding in search rolls.  They are either drawn randomly from a seperate deck or if you want the rewards to increase in level as the challenges increase you can just award the challenge card.

THE BOSS MONSTER

When the last tile is drawn, the players have reached the end of the dungeon.  Any players who can move their character onto this tile in their next turn can attempt to defeat the boss monster either collectively as a group or try it on their own.  Players are reminded that the boss monster is an instant kill event and failure will result in death.  There's no such thing as a dead Hero in this game.

In either case they choose a card as normal, excluding Jokers.  However, the boss monster gets to  shuffle all the remaining challenge decks together and draws 1 card plus 1 card for each party member in the combat and discards the lowest card.

Players are awarded 2 treasures each for defeating the boss monster.

FLEEING

Players can FLEE the dungeon before drawing a new tile and keep any treasure cards they have amassed so far.  If their route out of the dungeon is blocked by a monster they must discard a card at random as they flee.

TURN ORDER 

Players determine their Initiative order by choosing one card from their hand.  Highest goes first, in the event of ties the player who used a primary stat card wins, all others discard and redraw.

1.  FLEE - Players may decide to flee the dungeon or continue exploring.

2. MOVE - Move through an open exit and reveal the next tile.

3. ENCOUNTER - Each player resolves the encounter as outlined above.

4. NEXT TURN - Play moves to the player with the next highest initiative.

SCORING

Once the boss monster has been defeated (or all players have fled the dungeon) the game is over and scoring occurs.

1.  DEAD players score 1 point for each unused stat card in their hand (+ 15 points for an unused joker).

2.  SURVIVING players score 1 point for each secondary stat card (+ 15 points for an unused joker) + the face value of any primary stat cards remaining + the face value of any treasure rewarded.

3.  The winner is the player with the most points

International Tabletop Day 2014

Last Saturday was the second International Tabletop Day and unfortunately it wasn't possible for my regular Friday night group The Hobbits Hole to host an event this year.  So a bunch of us did the next best thing... we went to someone else's event.

The Role Play Haven RPG Club are based inside Lewisham Hospital at The Lewis Club and they were a very friendly bunch.  They meet on Wednesday nights for RPGs and Monday nights for Boardgames.  

Game of Thrones - House Stark on the move

I got to play a couple of games, namely:

The Quiet Year

A free form drawing game based around a year in the life of a post apocalyptic community.  Players draw cards to determine what random events affect the community and then choose to either discover something new or plan a project.

Of course the temptation with this sort of game is for it to go totally gonzo and we ended up having Ninja Rabbits attacking a Nazi Zeppelin whilst a party of explorers went to the mysterious pyramid and discovered the ark of the covenant.

A Game of Thrones

With season 4 of the TV series just around the corner I couldn't resist playing Fantasy Flight's epic game of royal houses fighting for control of the Iron Throne.  I was playing House Tyrell and although the lack of any court influence at the beginning was a bit of a pain, I had a fantastic tussle with House Martell.  Sadly I couldn't stay to find out how it all turned out, but I will definitely play this again.

Thanks guys it was a lot of fun and roll on 2015 when we can "Play more Games!!"
 

Space Hulk on iOS - A first impressions video review

David Neumann's iOS News Blog on Boardgame Geek is a must read if you're an iPad owning boardgamer and I was over the moon when I read that Games Workshop had signed a deal with Full Control to develop an iOS version of Space Hulk.

12 months later...

It's finally here.


Available to download from the iTunes App Store

Cleopatra and The Society of Architects

I've been trying to get a copy of this sadly out of print game for a few years now and thanks to eBay managed to bag an un-punched German language copy last week.

Cleopatra and the Society of Architects

Published in 2006, by Days of Wonder, design by Bruno Cathala (Shadows over Camelot) and Ludovic Maublanc (Cash 'n' Guns), Cleopatra and the Society of Architects is a sumptuous 3 to 5 player game with an Egyptian theme.  Each player is an architect trying to impress Queen Cleopatra (and guarantee a prosperous afterlife) by constructing architectural features for her new palace project.  These adornments are represented by gorgeous plastic miniatures in the shape of 6 Sphinx, 2 Obelisks, 9 Column sections, 2 Door frames and Cleopatra's Throne and pedestal.

The Completed Palace

Ingeniously, the game utilises the box lid as a 3D game board onto which you lay the tessellating Mosaics of The Gods, Cleopatra's Throne and its Pedestal.  Columns and Door frames are placed around the sides of the box and interact with each other to score even more cash when built.  This gives the whole game a wonderful 3 dimensional feel which adds to its appeal and to be honest Days of Wonder could have made this game using traditional card components but it just wouldn't have had the visual impact (but would not have deserved the £40 price tag) or the tactile element which is so fun.

The game itself has a simple concept, collect resources from the market and build various items to decorate Cleopatra's new Palace.  Each time you build you earn money and the object of the game is be the richest surviving architect.

A smorgasbord of components

Yes, I did say "Surviving", because along the way you will inevitably acquire corruption amulets for having to use "tainted" resources, not offering enough cash to the high priest or simply trying to do dodgy deals with various "Worshippers of Sobek".  These corruption amulets get counted up in the end game and the most corrupt architect is fed to Cleopatra's crocodile.

There's a ton of different mechanics in the game from area control to trick taking and even a blind auction so there's plenty of opportunity for you to different strategies to try to win.  The multiple mechanics for gaining and removing corruption tokens means that you never really know who is in the lead at any time making for a tense and fun end game.  This is always something high on my priority list when I look at a new game.

As I said before my copy is German, and I foolishly thought that I could get away this as the majority of the cards just have the German names for Wood, Stone, Marble and Craftsmen.  However, the "Worshippers of Sobek" (aka the tainted character cards) had other ideas.  These cards have complex instructions on their use which needs to be readily available to the players.  My solution was to photoshop the German Summary Cards and replace the text with English, no mean feat I can tell you.  If anyone has scans of the English summary cards to donate, I would be most grateful.

Playing the game with 4 players

Outrider: My First Print On Demand Experience

I've been buying PDFs from the likes of RPGNow / DriveThruRPG and printing them at home for a few years now, but recently I took the plunge and decided to order my first Print on Demand (PoD) product.  Being based in the UK, I've always been reticent to use the PoD option as the costs have been quite high to have things printed in the US and shipped to the UK, but a couple of things made made me take the plunge.

• I had an interesting conversation with the CEO of OBS, Steve Wieck, via his blog OneBlogShelf, which re-energised my passion for making games.  I've had a few ideas for card games in the past and so this was a great opportunity to try out the PoD option particularly with respect to cards.
•  Another advantage of OBS was that I could convert some of the proceeds from my own product sales into credit with which to purchase the PoD copy of the Outrider cards
• Following the recent launch of DriveThruCards, a One Book Shelf (OBS) site which specialises in printing card games, I discovered Outrider, an auto duelling tabletop game by Dice Fest Games which featutures an innovative movement/manoeuvre mechanism using cards.  I'm a sucker for post apocalyptic road racing games and sook took advantage of the Launch Discount and got the whole PDF + POD Cards for £17.04 including delivery.

What Makes Playing Cards so Special?

I've made my own cards in the past for things like my DM's Decision Deck and My Item Cards and whilst I'm really happy with the results from my own prints there are a few things unique to playing card printing which are pretty insurmountable for the Print-at-Home (PaH) user.

Double Sided Printing - The major advantage of PoD over PaH is that you get access to commercial grade print technology Yes with a little lot of trial and error you can get pretty good results, but you will never match commercial printers which use registration marks for alignment.

Print / Paper Quality - Home printers have come on in leaps and bounds but there is no escaping that with every incremental increase in quality you have an exponential increase in cost.  High grade papers are really pricey and tend to drink ink like a vampires drink blood.  If you want a photo quality result you have to suffer that slightly tacky feel which as you can imagine does not make for good playing cards.  Casino's are very particular about their casino quality cardstock which has a very high opacity preventing stopping people seeing the card values through the substrate.

Cutting - Several cards are usually printed on a single sheet and unlike books are not bound together before guillotining.  I've had some great results at home, but inevitably you do end up with cards either not having precisely the same dimensions or being gaffed in some way.

What You Get

The Outrider download consists of 8 files; the rules, a scenario booklet, a series of optional Terrain Tiles and 5 files of cards, counters and dashboards.  The printed cards which will be delivered to you from the printer consist of:

• 18 x Manouevre cards.
• 8 x Vehicle cards (double sided 16 vehicles in total).
• 8 x Dashboards (double sided 1 for each vehicle).
• 15 x Counter cards (require cutting up before use).
• 3 x Range Cards (double sided single/double fire lanes).
• 1 x Turn Order/Control Loss Reference Card.
• 1 x Lucky/Second Wind car.

A sample of the 54 different cards contained in the deck

I would have preferred to have multiple sets of the manoeuvre cards included in the PoD element rather than the included tokens.  Personally, I find thicker cardstock counters are easier to pick up during play and would have been happy to do a little bit of DIY before being able to play.  Similarly the included Dashboards and Vehicle cards are double sided meaning that you can only play one of each style of vehicle unless you print your own duplicates.  At the end of the day you have all the files necessary in the PDF element so it's not too much of a hassle to print additional cards.

From the point of order it took about 12 days for my order to arrive, which is pretty good considering that it has to be processed, printed and delivered to the UK.  I suspect that if a UK printer/distributer  could be sourced this time lag would be greatly reduced.

A really nice poker style plastic card box was supplied for free (sadly, mine had a little crack in the lid)

The cards come cellophane wrapped, with a nice plastic poker style protective case.  Print quality is superb with a nice glossy finish.  Although the cardstock used was nice enough, it is slightly thinner in weight to regular playing cards.  This may become an issue in the future as I'm not confidentt it will stand up to normal gaming wear and tear from a bunch of hamfisted boardgamers.

How did the costs stack up

As I mentioned before, the discounted price for the PDF and POD Cards was £17.04 (which includes USPS First Class postage to the UK at £6.73) which compares favourably with say a Fantasy Flight Silverline game such as Bruno Faidutti's Citadels.  The cost of postage from the US to the UK is a significant proportion of the price (almost 40%).  This is of course largely out of the hands of either the printer or OBS and is the one issue which needs to be overcome if PoD as a concept will become generally accepted.

Final Thoughts

For me although the cost was comparable to a mass printed card game, the quality of the cardstock was a little dissapointing.  I also hope that the guys at OBS can source some UK based printing companies to add to their cadre of US ones.  This would certainly go a long way to making me choose PoD as a viable alternative to just buying from one of the big games manufacturers.  At the moment it's a bit of a 50/50 choice, which will most likely be decided by how much I lust after a particular game or not.

I have yet to actually play the game, so stay tuned for a follow up review.

On hitting the big 4 - 0

This year was a landmark birthday for me as I hit the big 4-0... Ouch.

Blood Bowl Team Manager The Card Game

However, my work colleagues bought me some Forbidden Planet vouchers which I promptly blew on Fantasy Flight's Blood Bowl Team Manager the card game.  The game attempts to recreate the fun of Games Workshop's classic Bloodbowl but rather than being a focusing on just one match between two teams, it follows an entire 5 week season of matches with up to 4 teams battling it out in the Blood Bowl Tournament. 

Tonight, I bribed my step-daughter into playing the first game with me (so I could learn the rules) by promising to do the washing up for her.  She wasn't too keen with either the theme or the complexity until she started to get to grips with using the powers on her team upgrade cards and then proceeded to beat my human team with her orcs.

I loved the fact that the matches are boiled down to just the weeks highlights, which sportsfans will recognise as homages to the weekly round-ups on ESPN.  This mechanic forces players to make choices about which cards to play in which highlight in order to maximise their chances of getting rewards such as team or staff upgrades, fans or being able to draft star players.

Although I've only played this game once it does manage to capture some of the flavour of the original game and features some of the famous star players like Morg 'N' Thorg and the Dwarven Death Roller.  It plays quite quickly (our game took slightly less than 90 minutes including reading the rules) and has a nice level of randomness.  Needless to say I loved it and am itching to don my spiked helmet and give it another go very, very soon.  8/10 - Spiketastic

P.S.  There are some great tutorials out there on how to play the game from the team at Fantasy Flight and Crits Happen and a review from the always excellent Tom Vassel's The Dice Tower