Ascension Tactics on Kickstarter

Usual readers of this blog (Hi Bob!) might remember that I’m a big fan of the Ascension franchise. I love this deckbuilding game to death, though I’m more of a fan of it on the iPad than I am on the table (all of that shuffling for a 10-15 minute game can get a bit tedious).

When Stoneblade Entertainment announced that they were Kickstarting a new variant of this deckbuilding classic, I had to check it out.

Ascension Tactics: the Miniature Deckbuilding Game is the result of all that.

This has classic Ascension gameplay, but it’s also a skirmishing game where you are commanding heroes on a map, trying to eliminate your opponent(s) and (depending on the scenario) take control of certain areas to earn enough honour tokens to win the game.

Images taken from Boardgame Geek

There’s even a Cultist miniature in the game!

Boardgame Geek Top 100 – Played or Play #20-11

We are getting close to the end of this 10-week opus, this look at the Boardgame Geek Top 100 games and which ones I’ve played.

This has actually been my favourite series to write so far in the 3+ years of this blog.

Mainly because it’s given me 9 (soon to be 10) weeks of guaranteed content, as well as some great interactions with my few fans. It’s been very interesting to see other people’s opinions of the games that we play.

And while there hasn’t been controversy, per se, there have been a few “oh, I love this game that you hate!” responses, which I also really like.

Nobody’s got on me for liking a game that they hate, which is a welcome change from most of the BGG forums. And they really haven’t gotten on me for hating a game they like. Just gentle nudges.

Sometimes reading the BGG forums for a game can be like facing off against the teeming hordes of people who disagree with you.

And sometimes you’re the only one on your side.

It can get quite tedious.

Not here, though! People who come here are all very nice.

I love you all.

And with that, let’s begin!

Dead Reckoning from AEG now on Kickstarter

A really quick post today because it’s a busy day.

Dead Reckoning, the pirate exploration and fighting game designed by John D. Clair with art by Ian O’Toole and published by Alderac Entertainment Group, is now on Kickstarter!

I got to play this at Dice Tower West and it is a phenomenal game. It’s another card-crafting game where you start with a number of cards in your deck and you will never get more.

Instead, you will be obtaining improvements for these cards that will make them even better.

You’re going to be sailing your ship around the board, establishing influence on islands that you’ve discovered, possibly attacking merchant shipping or other players!

But player-vs-player combat is not that punishing. You’ll just lose a few victory points and perhaps have to go back to the Harbor if you manage to get sunk. It’s not a brutal game by any means.

This

Battle is very cool, using a pirate ship cube tower to drop cubes and hope they land on places to do damage (or maybe even get you more stuff!)

I did a preview of our play of it that you can check out.

The Kickstarter will be adding (as add-ons) Saga expansions that will be a sort of campaign system that also looks pretty cool.

For $79 US you can get just the game. An additional $30 will get you the game plus the Daily Discovery add-ons, which includes the 1st Saga expansion.

You should definitely check out the Kickstarter, happening now. They’re almost to their goal already and it just opened a few minutes ago!

New to Me – June 2020

It was a month of horror in the Dude Take Your Turn household in June.

Not because of anything bad, and certainly nothing virus-related.

It’s just that 2 of the 4 new games played this month have to do with Ancient Evils trying destroy the world.

And we stopped them.

We stopped them all!

Ok, we cheated a bit on two of them (unintentionally), but still.

We are heroes!

That didn’t stop us from playing the games like this.

But it didn’t matter. We beat them!

We also got a cute little card game in and I rolled some dice.

So without further adieu (all of my adieu rolled off the table and under the couch anyway), let’s begin!

Now Even New Gamers Can Be a Hobbit

What does that cryptic headline mean?

Fantasy Flight Games announced yesterday that they are going to be reissuing 2000’s classic 2-5 player cooperative game with those little fellows, The Lord of the Rings.

Both pictures in this post are from the FFG announcement

This is a game from even before my time in gaming! Or to be more exact, during my 2-decade hiatus.

However, this game appears to be a classic Reiner Kniza game that’s been out of print for a while.

This 20th anniversary edition is going to be getting quite the upgrade too, though it will still have the classic John Howe artwork.

Stephen Buonocore Retiring From Stronghold Games

There I was last night, just innocently browsing Boardgame Geek for forum posts about my favourite games.

Then I saw the momentous news: Stephen Buonocore is retiring as President of Stronghold Games as of August 1, 2020. (the full press release is at the BGG link)

This one hit me over the head and knocked me for a loop.

Stephen has been such a huge presence in the boardgaming world, his personality filling up space in that world enough for ten people (at least).

He’s always been such a vivacious, outgoing and fun-loving presence wherever he goes. He’s livened up some Dice Tower convention live-shows, his energy bursting through the speakers on my iPhone. He’s always fun on social media and the pictures of him with fans are legendary.

This almost sounds like a eulogy, which couldn’t be any further from the truth since he’s still going to be gracing us with his presence all over the place. It just won’t be as an “official” presence anywhere.

Instead, he’ll get to just socialize and enjoy all the games without having to do the work! (Though why do I think he’ll end up doing something board-game related anyway? Just a hunch).

I finally got to meet him at Dice Tower West this year, and even though it was very short, it was still great just chatting with him and getting a photo (I know I’ve used this twice before now, but it’s so fitting).

Stephen said he prefers selfies to people taking posed pictures. And I suck at selfies. Sorry, Stephen!

But two other takeaways that just show great he is that I want to share.

Boardgame Geek Top 100 – Played or Play? #30-21

It’s that time of week again.

The sun’s out (kind of, though it’s supposed to rain by the time this actually posts) and we’re into Summer. Yet the temperature’s in the 60s in Vancouver and I’m really enjoying it.

I don’t need it to be hot and totally sunny in order to enjoy the weather. In fact, I don’t mind having it be overcast and raining (as long as I don’t have to be out in it).

Speaking of raining, how about raining games?

Yes, because we are raining games in this batch of the Top 100 on Boardgame Geek. Sure, I haven’t played that many of them, but there are a bunch of interesting games here.

And one or two that I wouldn’t touch with a barge pole (Editor: and now you’ve lost all of your two young readers)

Yes, I am allergic to Uwe Rosenberg games where you have to feed your people.

I literally break out in hives (he says figuratively).

Anyway, why don’t we just get started before I drive away the rest of my reader?

(That is not a typo)

New Ascension expansion announced

I’m a huge fan of the deck-building card game Ascension (as many of you who read this blog (hi Bob!) might remember), but I haven’t actually played it on the table in quite a while. The app is just so good that it’s hard for me to actually get it to the table.

Anyway, after the rather interesting Skulls & Sails expansion, the next expansion is going to use the same mechanic of a ship sailing around the board.

I haven’t actually seen an announcement of this, but it’s now on Boardgame Geek so I guess I can post about it.

The next Ascension expansion is called “Curse of the Golden Isles” and it uses the same “ship moving around the board” mechanic as Skulls & Sails.

“Ascension: Curse of the Golden Isle returns players to the Severed Seas, as they venture to recruit Heroes, build mighty Constructs, and raid their opponents’ Treasure as they vie to gather the most Honor before the game ends!

Along with the classic gameplay mechanics seen throughout Ascension’s ten year history, Curse of the Golden Isle introduces a new gameplay mechanic: Cursed Treasure. Players that collect pairs of Cursed Treasure tokens may use them to gain valuable Runes, Power, and more!”

The cursed treasures sound very cool though it will be interesting to see what the effect of these treasures are.

No pictures of the expansion are available yet, but here’s the cool-looking box cover.

I’m concerned that the app doesn’t even have the Skulls & Sails expansion yet and there’s already another one coming out. Ever since Asmodee Digital has taken over, the expansions have slowed.

I hope that’s not going to keep happening.

The idea behind this one really intrigues me, and I can’t wait to see how “cursed treasure” affects the deck-building aspect of the game.

Look for this one to come later in 2020, though who knows how production will be affected by COVID-19.

GMT Gives Free Games for COVID Job Loss

During these plague-filled times of dealing with the COVID-19 epidemic and all of the life changes that it has involved, I’ve been lucky. And I know it.

My wife and I both still have our jobs and while I’ve been working from home since March 16, my job has almost become busier.

I know that a lot of people haven’t had that luxury and have been laid off or had hours reduced or whatever.

It’s been a tough time for a lot of people.

Readers of this blog already know that I’m a big fan of GMT Games, even though I don’t really play war games. They do have a pretty good catalog of other games that I do enjoy and I just enjoy the idea of playing war games too.

The June 24 Update from GMT had some surprising, and really cool, news in it, however.

“We know that this virus, in addition to the threat it poses to our collective health, has had a negative economic impact on many of our customers, as well. As with so many social or economic problems, it’s not within our power to provide big fixes—to restore lost jobs, retirement funds, or lost earning power. But we’ve decided, as we did numerous times in the wake of the 2008 financial meltdown, that we can show support for those of you who have lost jobs by giving you a free game or two. I know it’s not much in the greater scheme of things, but we want you to know that we are thinking of you and that your welfare—including the ability to de-stress and decompress from the pressures of the world by playing games—is important to us. Here are the details:

Eligibility: If you have lost your job due to shutdown-related layoffs or closings since March 15, 2020, you are eligible to get one (non-US customers) or two (US customers) free games from us, from games that are in stock now. We’d love to give an extra game to international customers as well, but the spiking shipping rates overseas limit our ability to do so.”

Yes, that’s right.

If you’ve lost your job due to the current COVID crisis, you can get two free games (or one if you’re an international customer) that they currently have in stock (other than the now-shipping Imperial Struggle, which they are currently running out of even though they printed tons of them).

It’s not going to put food on your table, but if you are a gamer and you use games to help get away from your struggles a little bit, GMT has your back.

So get that game that you’ve been kind of salivating over but your recent loss of job is going to prevent you from springing for.

It’s not going to solve all of your problems, but if it helps relieve some of the stress you’ve been under for at least a couple of hours (or 6-12 hours if you do Here I Stand!), then isn’t that a good thing?

Kudos to GMT for looking out for their customers.

I obviously won’t be taking advantage of this offer, but hopefully a number of people do.

Give yourself a few hours of stress relief.

 

 

Boardgame Geek Top 100 – Played or Play? #40-31

Another week, another look at the BGG Top 100.

I’m really loving the response to these posts. It really heartens me and makes me want to keep going (even though this is the first post since the last Top 100 post, which isn’t necessarily a good thing).

One thing this whole project has instilled in me, though, is the desire to try new things.

And the big one for me is actually buying a Living Card Game and seeing if it’s something that I might enjoy.

Who knows? By the time we get to Arkham Horror: the Card Game, I might actually have played it since I bought the core set and we’re going to see how we like it.

That’s what gaming at home with the wife does: try new things and see what lands!

So many of the campaigns for the game are between printings or whatever that it’s hard to know where we’re going to go next with it (if it happens). People always suggest getting the whole campaign before you start it, which is the expansion itself and then a bunch of Mythos packs that will end the campaign.

Are we up for it?

I will report back when we know.

But I’m psyched!

Yes, I know this gif is all over Twitter, but it’s the first time I’ve used it, so who cares!

Let’s get on to the next 10.