10 x 10 Challenge #27: Dark Dealings - Games #1 & #2

Going back to my list of games that I had selected for the 10 x 10 Challenge; I decided that next up would be Dark Dealings by Nevermore Games. A game that I had been really looking forward to playing for a few months now..

So much so that I didn't pay much attention to the notes that I should have been making for my write ups during the first couple of games. I also wasn't really too sure about what information I needed to be capturing either, having not played the game before; so what information I did take down was lacking in relevant detail.

In short, I really screwed the pooch on this one.

Luckily however I noticed where I had gone wrong by the end of game two, so I made sure to capture everything I needed in game three; and that working out of what's required (even if a little late) does stand me in good stead going forwards.

As a (very) brief summary of my first two games though, I would say the following:

Game #1

Being the first game I didn't get very far at all in the final (combat) phase; having not drafted particularly well in the second (defense) phase. I had completely neglected to draft any cards which could deal with one of the thieves that I had drafted in the first (hero) phase; which meant game over (as soon as you encounter a hero that you cannot defeat, you lose the game).

Game #2

Having developed a good idea of how to play the game, and having started to form some tactics; I did a LOT better in the second game. This time around I made it as far as the seventh hero before I had to concede (as I had used all of my defenses on the previous six heroes).

In Summary

There we have it, two VERY brief write ups from some VERY sketchy notes made on the fly. Not that I plan to let this set the tone; intending as I do to return to blogging as usual with the next post, having captured a lot more of my last game as it was played through my note taking.

10 x 10 Challenge #25: Eight Epics - Game #10

It doesn't seem all that long ago that I first broke out Eight Epics for the first time as part of my 10 x 10 Challenge; and here we are already. The tenth, and final game.

Before we get to it though, I'd like to take a moment to reflect on the some of the highlights so far. There was the outrage at Makano, the first win, and the first loss of an avatar in the first round (that didn't end the game there and then). All of them quite memorable moments.

So one last time (as a part of the challenge at least), it is time to shuffle the threat deck, setup the avatars (I'll be going with my standard game four order for the avatars again), and draw my first card..

Round 1 - Threat: Narssis, Unholy One.

Defeating Narssis took a lot out of the avatars, as I ran through seven out of eight of them trying to clear the challenges. That said, the losses were minimal given the effort exerted; with only 8 Life Points being lost amongst the group as whole; leaving me in a very strong position to deal with whatever threat I may be next. 

Round 2 - Threat: Pirn, Rampaging Overgrowth.

I'm always happy to see Pirn, because as threats go; he doesn't tend to cause me too much in the way of problems.. Then again, I used to say similar things about Uluwash, and look what happened there. Pirn came good though, and went down without too much of a fight; but to the cost of losing one avatar (Sylliph) in the fray.

Round 3 - Threat: Hronthar, Winged Flame.

Hronthar is the polar opposite of Pirn, in that he rarely comes quietly; and this game was no exception. Whilst the avatars where able to clear the first two of his challenges without taking much more than a scratch; challenge three introduced them to a whole world of hurt.

By the end of round three the avatars had lost a total of 23 Life Points as a group; with five of the remaining seven avatars being reduced to half of their starting Life Points, or less.

Round 4 - Threats: Makano, Drill Strider / Serrin, Shadow Reaper.

What a final draw for the final game!

It was hard to know where to start. Normally I would target the threat that I thought was going to be the most difficult to beat first in the final round, but if past experience has taught me anything; it's that these are both difficult customers, more than capable of wiping the floor with me individually - let alone as a team!

Seeing nothing in it, I decided to go for Serrin first. Sure, Makano may be broken in my opinion; but I have found that the best way of dealing with Serrin is with re-rolls (as opposed to abilities); and I'll get more of those to work with if I tackle him first.

Serrin was still hard work though, and I had to cycle through several of my avatars more than once (using Leafwind's ability) in order to secure enough re-rolls to secure victory against him. So by the time I came to face off against Makano; only four avatars remained, all of them on 1 Life Point.

When it came to Makano, the avatars did put up a good fight (clearing half of his challenges), but sadly all they had left to throw at him was not enough; and the game was ultimately lost.

Final Thoughts   

Eight Epics has been an interesting game to play; but I'm not sure that it will be one that I will return to too frequently in the future. Not because it's bad, but more because it simply doesn't have a whole lot going on that would keep me coming back to it.

As you've seen from the various playthroughs here, the same avatars keep coming up again and again; which can get a little repetitive. Something which leads me to fully understand why the AEG release of this game came with a couple of in-box variants. It needs them!

That's not to say it's a bad game though. With its quick setup and play times it's a perfect filler game, or a nice way to round off a long days gaming.. It just doesn't pack the "big game in a little box" punch that say Harbor does.

So in summary, Eight Epics probably wouldn't be my first choice to bring to the gaming table; but if I were only looking to kill 20-30, it certainly wouldn't be my last.

10 x 10 Challenge #24: Eight Epics - Game #9

It looks like I've fallen behind again. Not with my gaming thankfully (Eight Epics - Game#9 was played on Sunday), but certainly on my blogging (as Eight Epics - Game #9 was played on SUNDAY!). I would like to be able say it's not my fault. That there were unforeseen circumstances.. And I might be able to do just that if I hadn't seen this eventuality coming a mile off.

This update has been a little slow in coming due to the fatigue that has been creeping up on me for weeks; and it was only a matter of time before something had to give. Thankfully though, I am happy to report that after a few days of taking things at a slower pace (or as close as my life comes to it); I am beginning to feel my energy levels pick up, and with a few early nights I should be as right as rain in no time.

So where are we at?

Not quite where I wanted to be by this point to be honest.

I had hoped to be a little further along in terms of the difficulty toggles at this juncture, but as the game is still proving a good challenge; I have kept to my original decision of only incrementing the difficulty with every game won. It was tempting to turn it all the way up for the last couple of games just to see how it would play out; but I'm so close to bringing home a win at this difficulty, I decided to stick with it.

So as with my previous game, I arranged the avatars as I had in game four, created a threat deck, and drew my first card..

Round 1 - Threat: Serrin, Shadow Reaper.

I was a little worried when I saw this as the first draw (I thought I was going to have another game five on my hands), but things went surprisingly well.. To a degree. I did push Caroosh a lot harder than I should have (pushing too hard being the running theme in this post, and did lead to him being eliminated); but with a few subsequent lucky rolls and some well timed uses of Sylliph's ability the threat was overcome a lot easier than I had expected.

At the end of the round the avatars as a whole had lost 10 Life Points (6 of which were Caroosh's), with only one other avatar taking any significant damage (being reduced to less than half of their starting Life Points).

Round 2 - Threat: Uluwash, Devouring Tide.

Uluwash managed to maintain his streak as one tricky customer in this game; requiring a lot of the avatars abilities to clear his challenges. Not that his slippery nature had quite the impact on the avatars that it had done previously, with the party easily pulling through with a respectable loss of only 18 Life Points amongst them.

Round 3 - Threat: Broxix, Pestilent Breath.

Next up was Broxix, and whilst I thought I used a fair few of the avatars abilities on Uluwash; Broxix took the biscuit (and the factory they were made in to boot). Beating Broxix came down to the wire (and the last active avatar), and the group as a whole had started to show some wear; with the total Life Points lost increasing to 25, and two of the avatars only holding on by one single point.

Round 4 - Threats: Makano, Drill Strider / Pirn Ramapging Overgrowth.

It wouldn't be a game of Eight Epics without Makano making an appearance; and in this instance things started off well enough (although I did lose another avatar clearing the first challenge). The first three of Makano's challenges were passed quite easily (with the exception of the loss), and without too much in the way of resistance. Challenge four however was an absolute nightmare!

By the time I had locked in the final dice I had lost another two avatars, with the other four being reduced to only 1 Life Point each.

Despite the odds being heavily stacked against them, the avatars did manage to clear two of Pirn's three challenges in the final round; which whilst not enough to win the game, was never the less quite impressive.

Final Thoughts

Another very close game, and the first time I have ever lost an avatar in the first round and still managed to make it to the second. Beyond that, I am not sure that there is much more that could be added in the way of additional commentary and reflection; so given my goal of reducing waffle, onward to game ten!

10 x 10 Challenge #23: Eight Epics - Game #8

Time for another game of Eight Epics, and as with my last game I will be keeping the order of the avatars and the difficulty toggles set as they were in the fourth game.

So with no new decisions to make, I prepared the avatars, created the threat deck; and drew my first card...

Round 1 - Threat: Makano, Drill Strider.

To say that me and this threat have history would be an understatement. To this date, Makano has been a massive thorn in my side every time that I have drawn him.. And I seem to draw him a lot (he's been drawn in six out of seven games I've played so far by my count)! This time however, things went very differently.

Whilst I did take a good few licks on the first challenge; I passed the subsequent three with great ease, meaning the avatars as a whole only lost 12 Life Points. Less than they lost to Narssis in the opening round of the last game; who in my opinion is comparatively a less difficult threat to overcome.

Round 2 - Threat: Uluwash, Devouring Tide.

Riding high on the success of round one, I was happy to see Uluwash drawn next. True, he had given me a hard time in the last game; but I would say that was the exception as opposed to the the rule. Little did I know at that point, that I was in store for more of the same.

High roll after high roll put a serious dent in the avatars; eliminating one (Jarroth), and leaving five others on half of their starting Life Point totals, or less.

Round 3 - Threat: Broxix, Pestilant Breath.

Last round I needed all low rolls. This round I needed all high rolls, so it was quite ironic and amusing to see all the low rolls come out as I tried to beat Broxix; just as all the high rolls had come out during my battle against Uluwash.

Putting my love of irony aside however, this meant the condition of the avatars went from bad at the end of the last round, to significantly worse by the end of this one; leaving only two of them standing (Leafwind and Ophinia), both with only 1 Life Point.

Round 4 - Threats: Narssis, Unholy One / Hronthar, Winged Flame.

The last round was pretty short and sweet as the remaining two avatars decided to try their luck with Narssis. However, being as badly depleted as they were they were unable to check off even a single challenge; ending the round and the game.

Final Thoughts

The dice were definitely against me this time, but I still made it to the final round (if only briefly); which I'm going to take as a good sign.

To me it means that I am getting closer to beating this difficulty setting; and I'm doing so more through strategy and critical thinking than I am through blind luck. Quite impressive (even if I do say so myself) when you consider that this is largely a luck driven game.

10 x 10 Challenge #22: Eight Epics - Game #7

Continuing on with my 10 x 10 Challenge, and the related blogging; I set up another game of Eight Epics, using the same toggles and starting line up as I did previously. I may not won a game playing the avatars in this order as of yet, but I am convinced that this is probably one of the best orders to place them in.

So I lined them up, set their Life Points, prepared the threat deck, and drew the first card..

Round 1 - Threat: Narssis, Unholy One.

Based on past experience Narssis can be a tough cookie to crack, but there are far worse threats I could have drawn for the first round (Serrin, Shadow Reaper and Makano, Drill Strider spring to mind). That said, Narssis is far from a walk in the park; and I found myself burning through a lot of resources on the last challenge trying to roll a four, after rolling everything else required with the initial roll.

At the end of the round, the avatars had lost a total of 15 Life Points, with 5 of them being reduced to half of their starting Life Points or less.

Round 2 - Threat: Hronthar, Winged Flame.

I haven't seen Hronthar since my first game of Eight Epics; but by my recollection he was at the tougher end of the scale when it comes to threats, requiring consistently high rolls to defeat. Something that the dice were quite happy to give me in this instance.

The avatars did lose a handful of Life Points this round, but it could have been a lot worse; and the party still had more than enough strength left to drive home a win at this midway point.

Round 3 - Threat: Makano, Drill Strider.

If the previous games of Eight Epics have taught me only one thing, it's that when Makano is drawn you're going to either lose the game, or take serious loses. This time was no exception.

By the end of the round, a total of 31 Life Points had been lost amongst the avatars, with seven of the avatars being reduced to less than half their starting Life Points, and of those seven; six only had one Life Point remaining.

Round 4 - Threats: Uluwash, Devouring Tide / Pirn, Rampaging Overgrowth.

Entering the final round I knew that the chances of winning were slim to none after the pummeling the avatars had taken; but I did see a glimmer of hope when I saw who the final threats were. Uluwash and Pirn are two threats that I consider to be on the easier end of the scale. So despite the pasting that the avatars had taken at the hands of Makano I still felt that there was a chance I might snatch victory from the claws of defeat.

Seeing no real difference between the two, I opted to take on Uluwash first.. And it did not go well. I needed low rolls, but continually rolled high; losing three avatars before overcoming the threat. So in the final showdown I found myself facing Pirn with only three avatars (the other two were exhausted), who were all on half life or less.

At first it did look as if I might just pull this off, taking down the first challenge without too much difficulty; but as the dice scaled, my chances of winning dwindled dramatically. This left me facing the final challenge with only one avatar; which just wasn't enough, and the game was lost a couple of rolls later.

Final Thoughts

Another close game, and another game were Makano proved just too much to deal with. Makano aside however, it does feel good to be consistently making it through to the final round (and in this case the final threat) on this level of difficulty.

10 x 10 Challenge #21: Eight Epics - Game #6

Undeterred by my last short and frustrating game, I re-shuffled the threat deck and setup another game of Eight Epics; leaving the toggles and avatar order unchanged from game four.

I then drew my first threat card; which was..

Round 1 - Threat: Makano, Drill Strider.

Urgh! Of all the threats to draw first after what happened in my last game. Unlike my last game however, the avatars did come out the other end of the round victorious; but it was a push. I ran through six of my eight avatars during this encounter; with four of them being reduced to half of their starting Life Points or less.

Round 2 - Threat: Durge, World Breaker.

I think of Durge as one of the easier threats to overcome. True, there are eight challenges to overcome on his card; but as six of these only require that you roll one dice (with a 1 in 6 chance of success), lucky rolls can take you a long way. Caroosh and Khantos can also cut through the challenges with ease using their abilities. So there are plenty of options when you encounter Durge; and the odds are certainly in your favor.

That said, I took some heavy losses during this encounter; as for love nor money I couldn't roll the 1's that I needed to clear the last few challenges. The extra effort expended to clear these took the total Life points lost by the party from 13 to 30; and left six of the avatars with half of their starting Life Points or less, with three of them being reduced to just one.

Round 3 - Threat: Uluwash, Devouring Tide.

Uluwash is another threat that I consider to be fairly easy to overcome, but once again I found myself taking some considerable losses during the encounter; with two avatars being eliminated during the conflict, and the remaining five avatars all being reduced to 1 Life Point.

Round 4 - Threats: Broxix, Pestilent Breath / Narssis, Unholy One.

From previous experience, I know that both of these threats can be quite difficult to overcome; but when weighing them against one another, I am of the opinion that Narssis is probably the more challenging of the two. He makes you roll more dice, and the results that those dice have to show is more specific. So perceiving him to be the more difficult opponent I chose to go after him first, as I reasoned he would require more resources to defeat; resources I may not have after tackling Broxix.

The dice however were firmly against me on this one, and despite my best efforts to manipulate the results using the abilities of my remaining avatars; the game was lost at the first challenge, with three of the remaining avatars being outright eliminated and the other two being exhausted.

Final Thoughts

This is my third successive loss at this difficulty level, but I'm not complaining. I've made it to the final round twice, and to the final threat once. This tells me both that the level of difficulty is about right for my ability at this point, and that I am close to surpassing it.

So I may be losing at the moment, but these defeats are not without a sense of progress and achievement; which keep me coming back to this fun, challenging, and sometimes frustrating game.

10 x 10 Challenge #20: Eight Epics - Game #5

This was without a shadow of a doubt the shortest game that I have played all year. Possibly even the shortest game that I have played in the last decade; lasting as it did little more than 5 minutes!

So given the brevity of the game, I'm sure that it'll come as no surprise when I tell you that I didn't win. I also imagine that most of you that have been following my recent Eight Epics postings can guess what spanner in the works brought such an abrupt end to the game.. That's right; Makano.

Makano is such a pain to encounter, and incredibly frustrating to play against. So much so that on more than one occasion I have considered removing him from the game completely.

This isn't something that would normally cross my mind (as it's cheating really), but Makano seems broken. Broken to the point of breaking any game where he is drawn as a threat. Something which I feel this attempted play through illustrates nicely.

He was the first threat I drew, I had a full compliment of fully powered avatars; and I still lost.

That just doesn't seem right. It could be me though. Maybe I'm missing something.

So, I'm throwing the question out there (before I throw the card out of the game); is Makano in your considered opinion broken, or just extremely difficult to beat?

10 x 10 Challenge #19: Eight Epics - Game #4

Continuing with my 10 x 10 Challenge I set a few hours aside yesterday for gaming; and following my comfortable victory last time, I decided it was time to turn up the heat a little. This could have been done in a number of ways (imposing a time limit on the game, or increasing the number of threats); but I instead opted to preset the order of the avatars.

I would now have to work through them in a sequence determined by myself, which after some thought I decided would be..

1st - Caroosh, Stone Fist.
2nd - Gron, Furnace of Justice.
3rd - Sylliph, Moon Diver.
4th - Jarroth, The Cogsmith.
5th - Auriel, Harbringer of Healing.
6th - Khantos, Arcane Master.
7th - Leafwind, The Wildling.
8th - Ophinia, Envoy of the Dead.

The reasoning behind this order being that I would lead with my less flexible avatars, and reserve those capable of buying me more time (Leafwind and Ophinia) to last; where their abilities would be the most useful.

Plan set, I drew my first threat; which was..

Round 1 - Threat: Uluwash, Devouring Tide.

Uluwash fell rather easily, aided by having Caroosh in prime position; and some favorable rolls. All told avatars only lost a total of 8 Life Points dealing with this encounter, but Caroosh and Sylliph had bore the brunt of this; being reduced to 3 Life Points and 1 Life Point receptively.

Round 2 - Threat: Narssis, Unholy One.

Next up was Narssis, who was incredibly hard work. I cycled through most of my avatars in the process of taking him down; and increased the total Life Points lost amongst the avatars from 8 to 18!

Five of the avatars has also now been reduced to half of their initial Life Points, or less.

Round 3 - Threat: Makano, Drill Strider.

The avatars took a real pummeling overcoming this threat; increasing the total Life Points lost amongst the party from 18 to 29 by the time the last challenge had been resolved. All but one of the avatars was now on less than half of their starting Life Points, with four of barely clinging on by their last Life Point.

Round 4 - Threats: Pirn, Rampaging Overgrowth / Broxix, Pestilent Breath.

When faced with these two threats, I opted to tackle Broxix first. I figured that of the two, he was going to be the most difficult to defeat; so that's where I wanted to direct the bulk of resources, using whatever remained to overcome the much easier (in my opinion) Pirn.

Narssis did indeed take up a lot of my resources, and by the time I came around to facing Pirn I had only two avatars at my disposal; with the rest of the party either exhausted or eliminated. Unsurprisingly this was not enough to win the game, but I did come close; making it to the second of three challenges on the final threat.

Final Thoughts

Electing what order your avatars will act in throughout the game at setup has really added a new dimension of challenge to the game. It's also changed the strategy that I employ as I play; as no longer can I rely on having the optimal avatar for the task at hand at my disposal. I may have already used them, or they may be several activations along.

The already tight margin of error just got a lot tighter with flipping that one toggle; but I think that's a good thing.

10 x 10 Challenge #17: Eight Epics - Game #3

Spurred on by my success in the previous game, and determined to keep my plan on track;  I decided to go for another game of Eight Epics to round off my Sunday session. On the subject of keeping things on track, I did also want to get this post up on Sunday as well; but unfortunately time got the better of me. By the time I was done gaming it was 11pm, and I needed to get up no later than 5:30am the next morning.

Still, better late than never as they say, and whilst I have fallen behind a little with my blogging; at least my 10 x 10 Challenge is still on track, which is a positive.

Speaking of gaming and positivity, whilst it felt great to beat such a tough game; I opted to keep all of the toggles set to easy for this play through as well. I had initially planned to increment the difficulty slowly with every successive victory, but on reflection I did only win the last game by the narrowest of margins. So I didn't feel that I was ready to up the ante just yet. Not whilst the current difficulty was still offering me a credible challenge.

So with all toggles set to easy, I pooled the dice, readied the avatars, and drew my first threat..

Round 1 - Threat: Pirn, Rampaging Overgrowth.

I was quite happy to see Pirn come out again. He's not too difficult to beat with his flexible challenge requirements (six dice matching, seven dice matching, and finally eight dice matching); and there are plenty of avatars that can help get you there. Personally though I feel the avatars best suited to the task are Sylliph who can manipulate large chunks of the dice pool, and Khantos who can remove dice from the dice pool.

The initial rolls for each challenge where however poor. Very poor. So I found that I had to more evenly spread the threat across the available avatars, using Jarroth to flip dice instead of removing them with Khantos, and using Ophinia to copy Sylliph's ability so as to spare Sylliph for future challenges.

It didn't take long for the avatars to beat Pirn, but it did come at higher cost than I had anticipated; with three of the eight avatars now having dropped to half of their initial Life Points.

Round 2 - Threat: Makano, Drill Strider.

Makano was next, and of all the threats that I have faced in Eight Epics; I would say that he is probably one of the most difficult. Makano is unique in that he is the only threat that changes his "mode"; mode being the best word I can muster to describe the pattern on threats.

Usually a threat will be pretty consistent. Pirn for example requires that you roll all identical numbers, and when it comes to Uluwash you need to roll progressively lower numbers with larger and larger dice pools. There is a pattern. Makano however flips "mode" with every new challenge, meaning that swapping avatars between tasks is almost obligatory; running the very real risk that you will exhaust the entire party (and lose the game instantly).

This is something that I came close to as I flipped from avatar to avatar, as I slowly worked my way down the list of challenges; and even this course of action alone wasn't quite enough. With the additional use of abilities and re-rolls, the number of avatars on half life or less had increased from three to five by the end of round two.

Round 3 - Threat: Broxix, Pestilent Breath.

As threats go, Broxix is somewhat of an endurance round; requiring that you complete eight challenges in order to defeat him, with realistically the only avatar suited to the task (results of fifteen or higher over three dice) being Gron.

This was certainly true of my game, as leading with Gron I was able to cut through the first three challenges with ease before having to pass after a really bad roll. Unfortunately however the bad rolls just kept on coming, which meant spending Life Point after Life Point; leaving the party in a bad way as they entered the fourth and final challenge (six avatars on half life or less, with two of them reduced to one Life Point). 

Round 4 - Threats: Narssis, Unholy One / Uluwash, Devouring Tide.

Considering the beating that I took in the previous round I was very happy to see these two threats as my final draws. Narssis can be a little tricky, as he requires that you roll  a sequence of one through six on six dice; but Khantos is more than flexible enough to deal with this. Uluwash on the other hand is really straight forward; and many of the avatars abilities can be used to overcome him relatively easily.

Using this reasoning I targeted Uluwash first.. Which went south pretty fast after a few poor rolls and some equally dire re-rolls. I did defeat him, but not before I had spent more Life Points than I really wanted to; and exhausted five of my eight avatars.

Thinking ahead however I had purposely not activated  Leafwind when tackling Uluwash; who I let lead the way in the battle against Narssis. Even if he didn't complete any of the challenges, I had enough Life Points left on him to return all of my other exhausted avatars to play.

This course of action did lead to Leafwind sacrificing himself, but not in vain as after a few more rolls that his sacrifice had made possible Narssis was defeated; and the game was won.

Final Thoughts 

Despite a lot of bad rolls I did win, and a lot more comfortably than in my last game it has to be said (four of my eight avatars survived). Some of this I would attribute to Serrin not being drawn, as I find him a particularly difficult threat to overcome; but that's not to say it's all down to the luck of the draw. I'd also like to think that I'm beginning to play better, and making more tactically sound decisions; having gained a better understanding of the game and its nuances.

So with that in mind, I feel that I am now ready to start increasing the difficulty of the game via the toggles. Slowly at first, but with a view to making it to the harder settings by game eight or nine.

10 x 10 Challenge #16: Eight Epics - Game #2

Not wanting to fall behind with my 10 x 10 Challenge, and with the end of the week quickly rushing towards me I decided to take the opportunity presented by a quiet Sunday afternoon, and to get a little gaming in. In order to keep to my schedule, I needed to get two games in today; and after looking over the collection of games I had chosen for the challenge, I decided that I would go for another game of Eight Epics.

Selection made, I set up the game using the same set of (easy) toggles I played with in the previous game; and drew my first threat..

Round 1 - Threat: Uluwash, Devouring Tide.

Not a bad initial draw. Only three challenges, and none of them particularly difficult to overcome. I just needed to roll low, and largely the rolls were favorable. Even when I rolled incredibly high on the last challenge against Uluwash, they were all sixes; which Jarroth, The Cogsmith was easily able to convert into one using his ability.

It wasn't all plain sailing however, as a couple of the avatars were reduced half of their starting life; which is bad news so early into the game. As the party as a whole had only lost 10 Life Points however, it could of been a lot worse. I mean, it's not like we lost an avatar.

Round 2 - Threat: Broxix, Pestilent Breath.

This is the last thing that I wanted to see so early into the game, as from my experience of dealing with Broxix in the last game I knew just how punishing he could be; and how little room there was for error when challenging him. Learning from my mistakes though, I weighed my options and elected the avatar that I felt had the best hopes of putting a significant dent in Broxix. I chose Gron, Furnace of Justice.

His ability to turn any dice into a six was just the ticket it seems as he plowed through the first FIVE challenges Broxix laid down, having to retire on the sixth due to a combination of a very poor initial roll and the exertion in getting that far. The task of defeating Broxix then fell to Sylliph, Moon Diver.

Sylliph, whilst not particularly well suited to defeating Broxix had a good run of things. Taking challenge six, whilst a lucky roll took challenge seven without any avatar intervention. With Broxix on his last legs, but with a couple of my avatars having taken a bit of a kicking I tagged in Auriel, Harbinger of Healing; with the plan being that even if she could not finish off Broxix, she could heal some of the wounded avatars before passing the torch on to someone else.

As luck would have it however, Auriel rolled EXACTLY what was needed to pass the challenge, and resolve the threat with her free re-roll. Broxix went down. All too easily when compared to last time, which I think just goes to show how important picking the right initial avatar to tackle the current threat is (where last game I was mostly just guessing).

Round 3 - Threat: Narssis, Unholy One.

Like Uluwash, Narssis was a new one on me; but he didn't seem too difficult. Each challenge required that you rolled a straight of one through six, on the six dice; and you had to do this four times to defeat him. Easy enough, although I knew that I wouldn't be able to rely on the abilities of my avatars too heavily to pull this one off, as none of their abilities where suited particularly well to the task at hand.

So, seeing this as largely a crap shoot I opted to put Auriel in the ring first. If nothing else she could heal some of the injured avatars from the previous round, and every time she did so; she could re-roll a couple of dice if she wanted. Re-rolls where largely how I believed I'd be dealing with this threat anyhow, so if I could patch up avatars that my prove more valuable in the next round in the process, all the better.

Re-roll and pass was largely how the challenge went, and with a couple of incredible rolls by the avatars (one of which had only a 1 in 36 chance of coming off, that came off with the initial attempt); the battle was won, and the avatars where ready to face the final threat.

Round 4 - Threats: Durge, World Breaker / Serrin, Shadow Reaper.

The final confrontation was truly embodied the epic in the Epic Eights, going down to the wire; with the avatars securing their victory as only one of them remained standing, with only one of their life points remaining.

As I played through the last round I took almost a whole A4 side of notes that I had intended to share with you all, but as per my previous post I want to start reigning in the length of these session reports; and this post is already long enough as it is. However, if you imagine every movie scene ever where the hero has to diffuse a bomb, conveniently doing so with only one second left on the timer; I'm sure you get the picture of just how the final sequence of the game played out.

Final Thoughts

Another really enjoyable game, but I am starting to notice a theme developing. The theme being that this game is bloody HARD! Considering that I had this game turned down to its easiest settings, and that arguably the solitaire variant is easier than the co-operative game; still only making it by the skin of my teeth just goes to show the level of the challenge that beating Eight Epics presents.

Something that I am proud to have accomplished (even if it was with the training wheels on).

10 x 10 Challenge #15: Eight Epics - Game #1

Given that I've been playing 100 Swords since February as a part of my 10 x 10 Challenge, I needed a break. So, I looked down my list and decided that I'd go for a game of Eight Epics; a co-operative dice game from the designer of Love Letter.

The version that I have is the English release by AEG, and before giving a brief rundown of play I'd just like to say how impressed I am with the product. Eight Epics is only a small box game.. But that small box is like the TARDIS! Inside you get the game, a variant which could be its own expansion, and a scenario which is equivocal to a promo.

The rules also offer several toggles too, so you can make the game easier if you're finding it a bit rough; or harder if you're finding it a bit of a cakewalk.. Not that I find the latter very likely. As personally even with all of the difficulty toggle set down to their lowest levels I still had a hard time of things. That said, prior to this session I hadn't played the game before; so it is both probable and likely that I wasn't playing optimally.

How did I do though? Let's see..

Round 1 - Threat: Pirn, Rampaging Overgrowth.

This one wasn't too bad as an initial draw. Only 3 challenges, and all of them quite flexible (getting all of the dice to match, but it can be any number). Khantos, Arcane Master came in pretty useful here as dropping dice from the pool allowed me to quickly tip the odds in my favor.

Leafwind, The Wildling was also pretty useful in allowing me to get extra activations out of some of the other epics, meaning I got a few free re-rolls on top of those provided by his ability. He did take a bit of a pummeling as a result though, dropping to half health by the end of the round.

Round 2 - Threat: Makono, Drill Strider.

This one was a little trickier to beat, requiring that I beat 4 challenges and really mixing it up in terms of the requirements of each challenge; from low rolling to high rolling, including sequences and matching. Tactically this took some planning, and I'm still not convinced that I did the best job I could here as 6 of my avatars were on less than half life by the end of this round.

We did scrape through though, and that's the main thing. I also dropped really lucky on the initial roll against the sequence, getting 7 of the 8 numbers I needed to complete the challenge before an avatar even got involved!

Round 3 - Threat: Broxix, Pestilent Breath.

This is where it all really began to fall apart. Broxix can soak up a lot of punishment, and by the end of this round all of my avatars where on less than half of their initial life totals, with three of them being reduced to only one life!

The party was in a bad way to say the least.

Round 4: Threats: Serrin, Shadow Reaper / Hronthar, Winged Flame.

The last round (at least in the easy game it is), and that means that the party has to take down two enemies without a respite in order to claim victory. This was a bad combination too, as both of these enemies would take a lot of effort and resources to bring down. Resources I frankly just didn't have.

Deciding that the Hronthar was probably the easiest of the two (as he could be taken down with a few lucky rolls), I elected to battle him first and set about it. Long story short, it did not go well. I needed a lot of high rolls, and I just wasn't getting them. I even had to sacrifice an avatar to seal the first challenge, and there were still two more to go after that!

Auriel, Harbinger of Healing was next to fall as I patched up Khantos in one last attempt to bring down the dragon.. Which I did! It was a token victory though, as whilst he had slain the beast, Khantos was now my only avatar that wasn't either dead or exhausted (and he was down to his last life point).

The game it seems was over. The last avatar had fallen, and the earth was screwed.

Final Thoughts

I honestly enjoyed my first game of Eight Epics. It's a challenge, but I like a challenge; and I look forward to hopefully being able to meet that challenge as I play more games. True, luck is a factor (as you might well expect with a dice game); but it can be largely offset in the case of Eight Epics by making good decisions. Certainly better decisions than I did.

Still, live and learn.

Experimental Playground - Check It Out!

Experimental Playground is an awesome little blog that I have been following for years, and when I noticed a couple of weeks ago that I had somehow neglected to add it to my blog roll; I made myself a mental note to correct that oversight.

It has however been a mental couple of weeks! What with getting everything ready to start my new job, coupled with being seriously short-staffed in the role I was filling up until Friday past; I have been spread pretty thin. It's been exhausting to say the least and something had to give. So blogging unfortunately got put on the back-burner for the most part.

Don't get me wrong, I got a few posts up. Just nowhere near as many as I had expected to, and it also hasn't escaped my attention that I have fallen behind in a number of other blog related areas (10 x 10 Challenge, One Man And His Dice write ups, etc).

Things are calming down now though, and I am hoping that over the next few weeks I can get back on top of things and begin to clear this backlog.

I digress though. This post isn't about me or the many plates that I currently have spinning. It's about Experimental Playground; a great little blog that I wanted to share with you all and, that I highly recommend checking out.

What's so great about Experimental Playground?

Well, Experimental Playground has an excellent range of print and play games that are all free to download; the vast majority of which will require only a single piece of A4 card to print off their components, and look just fine in black & white.

The games are also really quick to assemble, typically taking only a few minutes to cut out all of the pieces you'll need to play. Couple this with learning the rules, and finding a couple of dice; and you'll often find that this means that you can be up and playing within the space of an hour of your download.

That's an impressive turnaround! Particularly when I compare that turnaround to the time it would take me to get into a typical game picked up from the store. With longer rulebooks, cards to sleeve or tokens to punch (sometimes both), it might take me days to get going.

Does this mean that these are lesser games in some way then? Not at all! They're just simpler, and more economical games than something you might typically pick up at the store. They have smaller footprints, require less components to play, and keep the rules short and sweet.

Basically, what we have here are mini games. A concept within gaming that has become very popular in the past couple of years, with notable titles such as Tiny Epic Galaxies, and Harbour by Scott Almes. So, if mini games are your thing, or you're a big box gamer just curious about them, then Experimental Playground could be just what you're looking for.

Last but certainly not least in the list of reasons why I like this blog, is that the bulk of their games are intended to be played solo. As a largely solitary gamer, this is a big plus; but as I see it, it really works for the group gamer too. The reason for this conclusion being that it makes their games far more accessible to any of you who are curious and decide to download a game or two to try.

That's the beauty of solitaire games. You don't have to wait for your gaming group to meet up or, for a friend to pop by to give them a go. They're just there. Ready to play when you are. So to combine that freedom with print and play games that are ready to go in next to no time, is a winning formula in my book.

If this post has piqued your interest at all (and lets face it, free games are generally worth a look to the avid gamer), the authors over at Experimental Playground have compiled a list of links to all of their games here for ease of use, including links to their roleplaying systems that you can also freely download.

One Man And His Dice #6: The Bigger Picture

When we last left Erik, he had just had his first (if brief) combat encounter of the adventure, striking the Giant Rat that he encountered dead with the first and final sundering blow of his axe. Taking in his new surroundings he did find a couple of interesting features in this simple yet well stocked larder. However, not being anywhere near desperately hungry enough to want to try something from the smorgasbord of Orcish cuisine on offer, or to risk attracting unwanted company by smashing open the locked box he had just found; Erik thought it best to press on through the only other exit in this room.

Before he does however, and we rejoin the adventure I want to take a brief moment to discuss a couple of the decisions that I took at this juncture, with regards to the overall adventures direction.

It was at this point that I started to consider the purpose of the dungeon that I'd be raiding. Who built it, and why? It would be easy to have the band of Orcs set up base in this set of caves, just so as they had a roof over their head as they raided the local area. Simple, but not very compelling in my mind. So I got to thinking. What else could be happening here?

It was then that I hit upon the idea of the Orcs being sent here by an imposing greater force to secure the cave for their arrival, or perhaps to retrieve something. Orcs do after all tend to be toward the lower ranks of the monstrous hierarchy, and it's totally conceivable that they'd knuckle under if someone of significant enough power told them to do so. With that imposing force probably having demonstrated their power by horrifically killing the head of the tribe, or by some other equally blunt display of force.

So there was something here that someone of power wanted.. Not something likely to be hidden in a bunch caves I thought, so toying with this notion I decided that beyond the door Erik was about to open was a dungeon of great craftsmanship. A place that someone in a time long since past had gone to a lot of trouble to hide. They'd built it into natural caves, in a remote area of woodland, ensuring no one knew of its location.

At this point however, I am quite happy to leave the exact nature of what they hid away from the world as a blank. Allowing this element of the adventure to take shape as the dungeon is generated around it, with the only certainty being that whatever this thing turns out to be, it will be a major plot point that drives the story forward long after this dungeon is cleared of the Orcish infestation.

That's really all the detail that I need at this point in time too. I now have an idea as to who built the dungeon, and why the Orcs have taken up residence here, along with a few additional ideas that I can use to shape the adventure as it plays out.

I think I'll leave it there for now, but please join me for the next One Man And His Dice installment; where we will return to Erik's adventure, and the wonders that now lay waiting to be discovered in in our newly imagined dungeonscape.

SCRAWL: Random Societies

Carrying on the idea that I seeded in my previous post, another thought has occurred to me. Why not do something similar with societies?

Again, with regards to the level of detail that I plan to capture, I want to keep it loose. Conveying just enough information to spark the imagination, whilst leaving plenty of scope for creativity on the part of the player. So, I'll look to cover topics such as how the society is ruled, the currency they use, and their core values; but nothing much deeper than that in terms of specifics.

I want the player to have the freedom to make these groups their own. So whilst for one player a "devout society" may be humans building temple, upon cathedral, upon chapel, for another it may be a secluded sect of goblins pursuing their goal to resurrect a dragon god.

By keeping the statements simple but meaningful, you hand the control back to the player; and with a little creative flourish there is no ends to the worlds they can bring to life this way.

Society is one of those words that gives me as the author a little flexibility too. Take our "devout society" above. That could be the culture of an entire realm, be regional, or even just apply to a small remote community who have fallen out of step with what everyone else considers the norm.

Society doesn't really know scale, so players can throw as many of these at their realm as they want; covering groups of people from the entire populous to a small huddle of folks in the tavern. It's that flexible!

I think I may be on to something here, but any comments and suggestions are as always more than welcome.

SCRAWL: Random Realms

I had a bit of a brainwave this morning as I lay there in my think tank (it looks like a bath, but it's where most of my better ideas come to me).

I had a lot of fun creating the realm for my current SCRAWL / One Man And His Dice campaign, but wouldn't it be great to have loads of unique realms ready to go; that you can just pick up and run with? I think so. So, I explored the idea further.

As well as how am I going to do this, my initial thoughts concerned just how much detail to go into. I see this very much as a sandbox tool, so I don't want to go to heavy on detail. Just enough for players to have an environment to explore, where all the larger details are largely covered. Stuff like climate, the general lay of the land; and with the finest details covering places of note, major cities and maybe a brief on what monsters are commonly found causing trouble.

SCRAWL already does a pretty good job of this with the wealth of random tables it boasts, but what I am proposing is a more focused version of those tables, plus a few others that come together to create what I would almost call a signature for a specific land.

One element that I am keen to steer clear of with this whole idea is the inclusion of maps. Instead I'd rather the player maps the region in their mind as they explore it via a series of weighted tables; skewed towards building something similar to that of anyone else playing through that particular realm, but still unique to the player. A close analogy would be human DNA, where whilst we all look human (and our building blocks are the same), we're all relatively unique.

This is something that is still very much at the drawing board stage, but I thought I'd share it with you now whilst the idea is still fresh in my head.

Any thoughts?

One Man And His Dice #5: There's A Rat In The Kitchen

When we last left Erik, he had just uncovered the location of what he believed to be the Orcish lair. Hidden by dense woodland, and concealed inside a cave to the north of one of the villages that they had raided; the only clue that this may be the place that he had been searching for was one grim totem left at the caves mouth as a warning to any would be trespassers.

Not so easily deterred by such warnings however, Erik makes ready his gear for the task ahead. Taking out his flint and steel, he ignites his torch and casts the piercing light into the gloom beyond the cave mouth; revealing the top of a rough cut stone staircase. Taking a firm grip of his axe with his free hand, Erik takes one last breathe of fresh forest air into his lungs before stepping over the threshold.

Referring to the map for this adventure I see that Erik will find a room at the foot of this flight of stairs; and like all but one of the rooms in this dungeon, its contents will be randomly generated using a couple of simple charts. Rolling some dice and comparing the results to these charts, I discover that the room I am about to enter is currently being used as a larder; and that I will encounter a monster there. Further rolling reveals that this will be a lone Giant Rat.

A rat in the larder I think. That makes sense. It was likely drawn there by the food. I then flicked through the pages of the adventure looking to see if there was any description for the larder, and it's contents. There wasn't. Looking again however, I did find a note near the charts explaining that the room descriptions were more of a cosmetic thing, and had no impact on play.

That's fine I thought, but as I had committed myself to the idea of there being food in the larder I decided to envoke the rule of simplicity and serendipity (as per the rulebook). In situations like this my instinct is to just wing it, and after mulling it over, 1D6 provisions seemed like a fair amount of food to place in the larder given its size. So I rolled a single dice, and got a 5.

Sorted! Splash in a few pieces of set dressing (a wooden table, and a couple of shelves), and the scene is set.

Back to the action. Unsure of what to expect, Erik descends the stairs into the murk and the gloom, ever watchful for guards and booby traps. He is only a few feet from the foot of the stairs, when an audible scratching catches his attention. Pausing for a moment, Erik pans across the room with his torch. Seconds pass like minutes as the tension slows the passage of time for him, and then he sees it. Reared up on its hind quarters in the corner of the room is possibly one of the largest rats Erik has ever seen. Easily the size of an adult pig, and with teeth comparable to daggers.

Startled by Eriks intrusion, and the sudden illumination of his torch the rodent bolts towards him. Possibly fleeing for stairs behind him. Possibly going for Erik. Erik just doesn't know, and Erik isn't willing to risk mutilation to find out. As it charges Erik, the rat bounds off of its powerful back legs through the air, lunging towards him. Adrenaline courses through his veins as he brings his axe down heavily into the leaping rats neck with one mighty swing, landing a fatal blow. The rats body flying limp and lifeless one way, and a spray of its jugular juices the other as Erik's axe parts the air.

Combat is over no sooner than it began.

Now alone in the room, Erik takes the opportunity and time to fully take in his new surroundings. Working by torchlight, he takes a quick inventory. Other than table and shelves that were immediately apparent, Erik sees a shoddy looking door in the far corner of the room; and beneath the table, a long wooden crate covered poorly by an old dirty cloth. He also takes a closer look at the food which does appear safe to eat, if massively unappealing to him.

Upon further inspection, Erik finds a heavy iron padlock on the crate. A sure indicator that there is something of value inside, but Erik is no locksmith. In trying to decide what he should do he realises that the best course of action is probably to leave it here for now. He could easily smash the crate open with a few deft swings of his axe he thinks, but the noise might attract some unwanted attention; and he reasons if someone locked it, then someone must have the key.

Seeing little else of interest in this room, Erik approaches the shoddy wooden door; ravaged by age, rot and damp ready to continue his adventure..

Before he does though, I decided at this point I decided that a couple of house rules were in order. One for trying to eat something you probably shouldn't (in this case, Orcish cuisine), and one for smashing open chests.

For the food I decided that a medium (4+) Hardiness ability test would be sufficient. If the character makes it, then they manage to keep the food down with no ill effects. If they fail the test however, they are gripped by vomiting and painful stomach cramps. They lose 1 Vitality and it is as if they had not eaten anything at all. A character can never die from this effect though, so if they have only 1 Vitality remaining, they do not lose it; but they still become violently ill.

When it comes to smashing open a lock, the player needs to make a Strength ability test equal to the Lock Picking ability test +1, as well as having something appropriate to smash the lock with; such as an axe, a mace, a hammer or, a heavy rock. So in the instance of the long crate above, Erik would need to make a medium (4+) Strength ability test to destroy the lock, as the original Lock Picking ability test would have been successful on a 3+.

Should the player fail however, the noise attracts a wandering monster as is appropriate to the environment they are in (probably Orcs in Erik's case).

I think we'll leave it there for now. There is still rather a lot to write up from yesterday's session, but as this post is already pretty sizable, it's probably better to break it up a little.

Tune into One Man And His Dice next time, where we'll be continuing our adventure through the Dungeon Of The Orc Boss, and finding out what's behind the door.

SCRAWL: Another Successful Session

I'm so glad I made the time to sit down and have myself a session of SCRAWL today. It's been most enjoyable.

Not only that, but I found myself drafting the play reports for One Man And His Dice as I went along, which should make writing the session up a lot easier than last time.

Posts on how Erik fared in his quest to clear out the orcs den to follow over the next few days, along with a couple of house rules that I cooked up along the way. 

10 x 10 Challenge #13: 100 Swords - Game #7

Following on from my previous 10 x 10 Challenge posting, it was now the turn of The Glowing Plasmapede's Dungeon Builder Set (DBS) to be combined with The Blue Mammoth's Dungeon. I wasn't too sure what to expect based upon this expansions previous outing, as it didn't really seem to do much of anything in the way of changing gameplay.

This could be for a number of reasons though. It could have been so close to the style of The Red Dragon's Dungeon that it was indistinguishable when combined with that dungeon deck. It could be that whatever it does, just didn't happen; either because of the way the cards fell or because the cards that would have otherwise shone through got buried under the boss. The A.I could have taken the cards that otherwise would have changed the flow of the game.. These and many more possible scenarios besides could account for why the addition of this DBS just didn't seem to add anything to that game.

So when I shuffled this DBS into a deck I had only played once, so little was known about what might happen next that it was as if I had never played a game of 100 Swords before. It's not often you get that out of a game you've been playing on and off for months! In fact, I don't think it has happened since playing Dominion years ago; when we first introduced the Seaside expansion. That's how rare of an event it is!

Without further ado though, let's take a look at how the game went..

Turn 1: The first card revealed was a Ding Beetle, which in turn revealed another card; the Pink Eye. This was both a good and a bad thing, as whilst it gave me a view of the dungeon as a whole; it was a little early to be revealing such a powerful monster, which I had no way of defeating at this point - whatever I drew from my deck.

Turn 2: Not being able to slay the Pink Eye, I rented the Monster Scents Bag so that I could at least pass it and pick up some of the other items in the dungeon to give myself a fighting chance of killing something. I didn't make a lot of progress with this plan, but I did acquire a Torch Sword with which to improve my deck.

Turn 3: I had to rely on the Monster Scents Bag again this turn, and again didn't achieve much as a result; thankfully I was able to steer the Pink Eye into the A.I's path, and the A.I was only more than happy to take it. Normally letting the A.I take a 6 Gold value monster would be a bad thing, but when it's hampering you turn after turn, you just have to let it go and hope that you can claw back the points with the freedom getting rid of it grants you.

Turn 4: Not a lot to report for this turn, other than the A.I taking the Dungeon Yeti as it's trophy for 5 Gold. It's only early days, but two successive turns like this is going to be hard to come back from; and I know it!

Turn 5: This was a really good turn for me. I got hold of a Tempo Sword, which I used to retire my Awkward Sword; optimising my deck, if only slightly. I'd also picked up a couple of other decent swords in previous turns (a Combo Sword, and a Key Sword), whilst the A.I was busy killing stuff.

Now all I needed to do was get the Tempo Sword out a couple of more times, and my deck would start chewing up the dungeon. I could start to close the gap. The A.I taking the Ogre Brute for 5 Gold at the end of the turn however meant the gap I wanted to close was only getting more and more vast with every passing turn.

Turn 6: This turn was pretty standard, with the whole dungeon being revealed. Other than picking up another Tempo Sword, there isn't much more to say about it.

Turn 7: My engine started to churn out trophies this turn, taking out both the Tall Grass and the Siren; helping me close the gap. The A.I did take another good sized trophy also however, in the Space Guardian (worth 4 Gold).

Turn 8: I started this turn by playing a Tempo Sword (which I'm fast becoming a fan of), to retire a Crappy Sword from my deck. I then revealed a Rat Man which in turn revealed a Single-Use Sword. I hadn't seen this card before, and had previously thought that one-shot items where a new thing introduced by The Darkness Dungeon Builder Set.. Guess I was wrong! Although the concept of "bane items" does still seem to have been introduced by that DBS.

Not that I was going to get my hands on this sword just yet either way, as a Boring Door blocked my progress and ended my turn. Before consolidating the dungeon however, the A.I took its prize. A Shiny sword, for another 4 Gold.

Turn 9: Not drawing my Key Sword I rented the General Purpose Key, and dealt with the Boring Door; moving beyond it into the next chamber and claiming the Single-Use Sword. This left only one card unrevealed in the dungeon, which was found to be another Rat Man by the A.I; which it also claimed as its trophy for this turn.

Turn 10: I got to start my turn off using another brand new item, the Launch Boots; which took me straight to the third chamber where I revealed a Laser Obelisk. Something that I had no hopes of beating with my current hand. So I pressed on into the next chamber, revealing a Shadow Door; which hid the Laser Obelisk. Luckily I had drawn my Key Sword this turn, so short work was made of the door and, I even had enough cards left in hand to move into the final chamber; where I encountered a Sticky Man. I slew this without difficulty, and retired a Crappy Sword into the bargain; but in hindsight it was a mistake to do this, as it left the Laser Obelisk as the card to the far right of the Dungeon - which the A.I claimed as its prize. Essentially I handed it 6 Gold. Bugger!

Turn 11: This was another turn I started off by playing a Tempo Sword to thin out my deck a little; in this case retiring a Crappy Sword. Next up I acquired a Sniffer Hound which I used to move to the center of the dungeon, where I encountered a Bat Man. This was easily taken out, before I used the last of my cards to move into the next chamber where I found a Puzzle Sword. It was bat men all around when the A.I took its action and revealed another Bat Man at one extreme of the dungeon, which it took as its prize for this turn.

Turn 12: After shuffling my deck, I found myself drawing my newly acquired Sniffer Hound, which I used to move to the center of the dungeon again, where I revealed a Locked Sword. Another lock and no key, but at least one I could pass. Moving into the next chamber I took the Puzzle Sword which had been revealed the previous turn, and ended this one. The A.I took a Corrosive Slime this turn, which was fine by me; not being either useful to me or valuable to them.

Turn 13: I started this turn by renting out the General Purpose Key, with a goal of snatching the Locked Sword. I did have a Key Sword somewhere in the little that was left of my deck to go through, and means to draw a card; but as there was no guarantee it'd be the card I needed, and seeing how thin the Dungeon Deck was getting I didn't want to take the risk. Key in hand the next thing I did was to play a Tempo Sword to get rid of a Crappy Sword from my deck. Whilst I couldn't be sure of the card I'd draw from my play of the Combo Sword I had in hand, I could at least stack the odds of it being something good in my favor! Moving into the second chamber of the dungeon, I encountered a Horn Warrior; and played my Combo Sword for both strength and the draw.. Which drew the Key Sword. Bugger!

Still, whilst I no longer needed its ability, its strength added to that of the Combo Sword was enough to take out the Horn Warrior; so I at least got a trophy out of it. Next I continued on to the Locked Sword, and took that into my hand by using the General Purpose Key. Lastly I used my newly acquired sword to slay the Tall Grass in the next chamber, leaving very little of the dungeon for the A.I to pick at; who had to settle for a pair of Launch Boots. Another low value trophy.

Turn 14: On the last turn I kicked things off by playing my own pair of Launch Boots to leap straight into the third chamber, where I found another Tempo Sword. Not a lot of use this late in the game. More of a hindrance in fact, but I took it none the less; if only for the Gold. It's ability for me to draw a card also helped, pulling a Decent Sword to my hand. The only problem was at this point that I didn't have much more that I could do with it, and the only card still in my path was the last one in the dungeon; and unless it was a very low value card I didn't have the resources to both get to it, and take it.

So, for no reason other than I could, I used the Torch Sword I had to reveal it.. And found it was the boss.. At the end of the dungeon. With nothing more I could do, I had to accept that the A.I was going to take it, and that would be the end of the game. Had I done enough to catch up?

Win, lose, or draw?

In a word. No. The A.I beat me 54 Gold to 49.. But what a come back! Given how lucky the A.I got so early in the game I think I can say without any hint of being prideful or arrogant that I played a damn good game. One that again was swung by whoever could claim the boss.

Afterthoughts

This was another tight game, which I feel just goes to show how well balanced this game really is. So far I have been able to combine any dungeon deck, with any DBS and still play a well matched game. One thing I did notice however was that this was a longer than usual game. Maybe that's what this DBS' gimmick is? It would make sense, as The Magic Computer's Dungeon Builder Set seems to speed play up; and there is a certain affinity in the design of the DBS' that I own for mirroring. Light (The Chroma Dragon's Dungeon Builder Set) and Dark (The Darkness Dungeon Builder Set), so why not fast and slow?

10 x 10 Challenge #12: 100 Swords - Game #6

Carrying on with my 10 x 10 Challenge, it was the turn of The Blue Mammoth's Dungeon to be plundered of its loot. A dungeon deck that despite owning as long as The Red Dragon's Dungeon, I had not yet broken out other than to sleeve the cards. Since picking it up I have read a few posts over at Board Game Geek however, which suggested that when comparing the two decks side-by-side; The Blue Mammoth's Dungeon should be considered the advanced deck, which may have been why I steered clear of it initially. Using The Red Dragon's Dungeon to learn the game, before venturing into the more complex aspects of gameplay.

Feeling that I had a solid grasp of the basics now though, it was time to take off the training wheels.

How well did that go?

Well, as far as I can tell there were no errors made during gameplay and, if I'm honest the advanced deck isn't anything I couldn't have handled straight out of the box. There were a few situations where you needed to think a little harder about what you were doing, due to the timing of effects; but nothing major, and certainly nothing to intimidate the novice.

The Game

In brief, the game went a little like this..

Turn 1: Nothing of any real significance happened, but the whole dungeon was revealed due to my trademark play style; making planning for the next turn a lot easier.

Turn 2: Planning is one thing, but when you draw 5 Crappy Swords as your initial hand, you pretty much know that you're not going to be doing much that turn. The A.I however took the Laser Obelisk for 6 Gold; putting me on the back foot, and playing catch up.

Turn 3: I managed to take 2 Tempo Swords in this round, which as the game progressed I found to be incredibly useful for thinning out my deck. Something that I always found the Wither Sword was particularly poor at. The dungeon was also stripped bare in this round, with only one card remaining; which had also been revealed.

Turn 4: Not much to report in this round, other than the dungeon being completely revealed again.

Turn 5: I accidentally retired one of Tempo swords in this round (when a Tempo Sword is played, it retires a card in your deck; and the only card left in my deck was my other Tempo Sword). It wasn't all bad in this turn however, as I acquired a Combo Sword which I used to top-deck a Key Sword that I had previously looted. This was critical as I had just revealed a door, and without my turn would have been over. Instead I found myself with an extra trophy! Score!!

Turn 6: Another turn with nothing worth writing home about, which when compared to the previous turn really stood out as an anti-climax.

Turn 7: Another slow turn, with the only event of note being the revelation of the Pink Eye; which in turn revealed the rest of the dungeon.

Turn 8: I quite literally couldn't do anything this turn due to a poor draw. Having nothing that could deal with the Pink Eye that was now blocking the way, or any of the other threats on the dungeon.. Which I think is actually a first! Usually you can do something, even if you have to use rental items. Not this time though.

Turn 9: This turn I managed to slay the Pink Eye in the dungeon, but that was about all.

Turn 10: This turn I acquired the Bow Sword, which looked to be a very powerful sword. Alas, I did not get to use it as my last reveal unveiled the boss; which the A.I promptly took, ending the game.

Win, lose, or draw?

I took a loss on this one, trailing 30 Gold to the A.I's 36. A difference exactly the value of the boss, so this would appear to be another instance where the player that slays the boss, wins the game. Something that I believe happened in an earlier play through of The Red Dragon's Dungeon.

Afterthoughts

I cannot deny that I am impressed with The Blue Mammoth's Dungeon. Whilst it doesn't make any groundbreaking changes to the system, the little things that it does add are done well. Cards like the Tempo Sword for example, which have a one-shot effect when you take them, but then do something else completely different for the rest of the game.

This and other subtle little tweaks combine to create a gaming experience that mirrors the other dungeon deck well, creating a feeling of consistency; whilst not mimicking it so closely as for it to feel like more of the same with a different paint job.

In short, good stuff!

One Man And His Dice #4: Wood For The Trees

Following on from my previous post, we re-join our hero at the edge of the woodland where all signs indicate the orcish warband terrorising the local villages have set up shop. He’s close, but Erik will still need to find the den itself.. And the woods are a big place. Full of twists and turns that could easily see a stranger to these parts become lost or worse. No doubt the reason the orcs chose this location.

For this part of the adventure I decided to do something that is again not strictly by the book (oh, the rebel with a dicebag that I am!). I decided that searching such difficult terrain could take days, and in that time any number of things could happen.

To simulate this I gave Erik a fate roll every day that he searched for the den, with an initial target of 6. That target number then dropped by 1 every day, as an expression of the ground covered and the discovery of clues left behind by the orcs. This made certain that the adventure would not consist of endlessly searching through the forest, whilst offering up the strong possibility of some random woodland encounters (one of which would be generated for each day Erik spent searching without locating the orcs hideout).

At this point I also took a couple of more executive decisions with regards to this element of the overland adventure. In addition to the encounter (rolled up randomly with Explore To The Core), I decided that Erik would need to consume a provision for every day he traveled aimlessly. I did also consider having Erik hunt for water, but gave it up as rather pointless notion. The woodland around him was rich and green; so there was evidently no shortage of water in this area; and without a doubt as he trekked through the trees he would come across at least one clean source a day. He also had a waterskin with which to carry away some of whatever he found, which should be more than enough combined to offset any risk of dehydration.

So, day one of our game within our game and I rolled a 1 for the fate roll. Not a promising start, and worlds apart from the 6 I needed.  Time for an encounter. Rolling on the forest encounters table I found that Erik had been greeted by a friendly woodland spirit. Better than an angry one! The spirit accompanied Erik for a while as he searched the immediate area but seeing that he was getting nowhere and somewhat distracted by his puckish companion they both settled down for a rest, Erik planting himself upon the mossy trunk of a fallen tree.

Before they parted at nightfall Erik and the sprite played a simple game of chance. Whilst enjoyable, it was not profitable; losing a small amount of coins (5 GP) to the woodland creature. Erik did wonder what stock such a being placed in the material wealth of man as he lay there under the moonlight that night, but surmised that for this creature the coins where probably no more than a memento of the time they’d shared together.

With a warm feeling inside Erik settled into his uneasy surroundings; somehow feeling safe in the knowledge that such friendly beings inhabited this place.

Day two and Erik is once again up with the dawn chorus. The early bird catches the worm after all. However rolling a 3 for his fate roll today he doesn’t catch any orcs. This entire area of woodland is almost bereft of life friendly or otherwise, with the most interesting living thing being a patch of odd colored mushrooms growing in the shade of one of the mightier trees. Knowing nothing of them, Erik thinks better of eating any of strange fungus. The last thing he needs at this point is to fall ill. Suspecting there may be more to them than meets the eye however he does decide to collect a few, with a plan of learning more about them when he returns to civilisation.

Erik concludes the day by setting up camp and taking in his surroundings. It’s quiet. Too quiet. Could it be that the presence of the orcs has driven away many of the creatures that call this place home?

After a restless nights sleep full of dark dreams Erik awakes on day three. Taking a few minutes to compose himself, Erik takes a firm grip of the haft of his axe and steels himself with a gritty resolve; and soon the woes of the night have slipped into the aether like mist yielding to the sunlight. Unable to recall his dream, but unable to shake the feeling in pit of his stomach Erik presses on into the forest in search of the orcish blight.. And rolling a 4 for today’s fate roll, Erik finds them!

Only an hour or so after waking Erik comes upon a large collection of rocks in a clearing. Rocks the size of small huts, wildly overgrown with trees and shrubbery. Near perfectly concealing a yawning cave mouth worn away by the ages into one of the larger stones. Erik could have easily missed this if it were not for the subtlety of orcs, who wishing to mark their territory have planted a marker at the entrance to their lair; adorned in blood, tribal symbols, and crowned with a humanoid skull. A warning to anyone who would trespass into their domain.

To Erik though, this is far from a warning, It’s an invite!

This is as far as I was able to play through to in my first session due to time constraints, but as you can see I am far from done. There are a few seeds for future adventures down the road that have been planted, and I am just about to enter into my first dungeon; the Dungeon Of The Orc Boss.

Stay tuned to One Man And His Dice as we take the plunge, and delve into the depths of darkness to push back the green tide.