He's good! Just eatin', sleepin' and poopin', the way of all men. I won't lie, the first time I opened the diaper I was pretty startled. "How do I clean this shit!?"
Blogger is horribad. I'm thinking about picking up Blogsy, but it's $4.99! Blah-g.
In LotR, yep, turns with no monstars is a totally normal occurrence. Enjoy them! What deck were you using?
If there's a downside to this game, it's that you occasionally stall out with little chance of winning but it takes a while to lose due to the way the mechanics work. It's less of a big deal solo but it can make multiplayer games go long -- I think Aeryk and I stalled out after like 2 hours before calling it, although admittedly we were doing quite a bit of chatting, drinking, and Taco Belling. This is probably less of a problem if you are a better deck builder than I!
Other recent accomplishments:
- Replayed and beat two Infocom games (Zork II and Bureaucracy)
- Stowed the pieces for the Robinson Crusoe board game in a Plano box that fits in the board game box. INCREDIBLY SATISFYING!
Elzar, any replays/new thoughts on the Pathfinder game? My order got screwed up, but looks like I should have it Tuesday or so.
Friday, August 30, 2013
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I believe the children's are the future
I had wanted to post on how awesome the show Children's Hospital is on Netflix but I didn't want to not respond to the good baby tips. But then writing out posts on an iPad is kinda of exhausting and then I never wrote anything else. But I did bring up the bottle thing so we are gonna try and get baby to that stage before I show up! Guy Talk, big gay baby addition.
How's the boy doing?
We saw the horror flick You're Next this morning. It was a fun one! Has a streak of humor and bad assness to it that I enjoyed.
Finally finished a game of LOTR! Totally got my ass kicked, but it was fun. I think I finally quit with a threat level of 47 and barely a hero hanging in there with 1 hps. It was one of those situations where I probably should have quit a few turns earlier but i wanted to keep pushing on. Quick question:is it possible for there to be turns where there are no monsters in the staging area, just locations? I think that happened a few times, so since I skipped the combat phases of those turns, felt kinda weird. Hobbit Talk, mandalf edition.
Blogger is so tucking bad on the ipad.
How's the boy doing?
We saw the horror flick You're Next this morning. It was a fun one! Has a streak of humor and bad assness to it that I enjoyed.
Finally finished a game of LOTR! Totally got my ass kicked, but it was fun. I think I finally quit with a threat level of 47 and barely a hero hanging in there with 1 hps. It was one of those situations where I probably should have quit a few turns earlier but i wanted to keep pushing on. Quick question:is it possible for there to be turns where there are no monsters in the staging area, just locations? I think that happened a few times, so since I skipped the combat phases of those turns, felt kinda weird. Hobbit Talk, mandalf edition.
Blogger is so tucking bad on the ipad.
Thursday, August 29, 2013
Wednesday, August 28, 2013
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PRO TIPS
This seems obvious, but make sure the kid is able to take a bottle before you start your leave! Otherwise you are in for some hard times, my friend. That was our situation when I did my leave (in a similar plan) and although it was a great month, it was also way frickin' rougher than it needed to be. Struggled through the whole month, then put her in daycare for ONE DAY and she was fine with the bottle.
Also, if you are planning to put her in day care and don't have one figured out already, start now!!! Day cares can only take limited numbers of kids under 2 so it can be very hard to find a spot.
We don't have a TON to do around here and we already have one bassinet -- mainly it's getting the spare one out of the shed, cleaning it and rebuilding it, putting together the new two-person stroller, etc.
We were a little worried about how Kid 1 would take to the new one, but so far she seems pretty stoked! She wants to go in and see him sleeping all the time, tries to incorporate him into her games (when she's picking up all her books and handing them out to mommy and daddy, she'll try giving some to him), talks about him a bunch when he's not around and is good at being quiet when he's sleeping. She has had some jealousy, and a couple days of weird/bad sleep (nightmares?) that we were wondering if they were related to anxiety/change, but last night she slept like a champ, so hopefully that's past?
Because no post would be complete without talking about LotR: make sure to log your games in the Google form I set up! I got crushed by Quest 2 about 12 times before I set up the form. I got in a few games yesterday: one loss and one win against Hunt for Gollum, got CRUSHED by Journey to Rhosgobel (I just had totally the wrong kind of deck), and pretty easily beat Hills of Emyn Muil (that one was actually kind of a snoozer, lots and lots of locations). I skipped Conflict at the Carrock because that one's supposed to be a beast, and you need a deck really geared towards fighting.
To continue the title of this post here are some rules I messed up when learning to play, maybe it'll help you:
- Yes, Thalin kills the stupid crows before they have a chance to Surge (this is in the errata)
- If you don't successfully quest, you gain threat equal to the difference. If you just match the threat in the staging area, it's still questing successfully, even though you don't get any progress tokens.
- Use the cheat sheet in the back of the book (or a reference from BGG) to walk through the turns and know when you can play actions.
- Characters who committed to a quest stay committed until the end of the phase (this seems obscure but is sometimes really important)
- If you don't defend an attack, you have to apply the damage directly to a hero, ignoring their armor value.
- Multiple characters can attack the same enemy. You combine their attack score.
- Most importantly, HAVE FUN!
Also, if you are planning to put her in day care and don't have one figured out already, start now!!! Day cares can only take limited numbers of kids under 2 so it can be very hard to find a spot.
We don't have a TON to do around here and we already have one bassinet -- mainly it's getting the spare one out of the shed, cleaning it and rebuilding it, putting together the new two-person stroller, etc.
We were a little worried about how Kid 1 would take to the new one, but so far she seems pretty stoked! She wants to go in and see him sleeping all the time, tries to incorporate him into her games (when she's picking up all her books and handing them out to mommy and daddy, she'll try giving some to him), talks about him a bunch when he's not around and is good at being quiet when he's sleeping. She has had some jealousy, and a couple days of weird/bad sleep (nightmares?) that we were wondering if they were related to anxiety/change, but last night she slept like a champ, so hopefully that's past?
Because no post would be complete without talking about LotR: make sure to log your games in the Google form I set up! I got crushed by Quest 2 about 12 times before I set up the form. I got in a few games yesterday: one loss and one win against Hunt for Gollum, got CRUSHED by Journey to Rhosgobel (I just had totally the wrong kind of deck), and pretty easily beat Hills of Emyn Muil (that one was actually kind of a snoozer, lots and lots of locations). I skipped Conflict at the Carrock because that one's supposed to be a beast, and you need a deck really geared towards fighting.
To continue the title of this post here are some rules I messed up when learning to play, maybe it'll help you:
- Yes, Thalin kills the stupid crows before they have a chance to Surge (this is in the errata)
- If you don't successfully quest, you gain threat equal to the difference. If you just match the threat in the staging area, it's still questing successfully, even though you don't get any progress tokens.
- Use the cheat sheet in the back of the book (or a reference from BGG) to walk through the turns and know when you can play actions.
- Characters who committed to a quest stay committed until the end of the phase (this seems obscure but is sometimes really important)
- If you don't defend an attack, you have to apply the damage directly to a hero, ignoring their armor value.
- Multiple characters can attack the same enemy. You combine their attack score.
- Most importantly, HAVE FUN!
Did you guys have to re-buy baby-basic stuff like the bassinet? We're almost ready at home. She's got 2 more days to work before being off a month before delivery date. Nursery is basically done and clothes is washed and put away. Just have to put together the stroller and figure out car seat shenanigans. I'm going to wait till my wife's bonding is almost done to take mine, so baby has as much parent time as possible. I think work's gonna let me off for like a week or so also when the baby is born.
I get to be freaked out very soon!
For LOTR, yeah, I was doing a "leadership" deck those first few tries. It was suggested in the rules like that, so after I actually finish some games, I'll try the other builds. I found some "2-core set builds" on BGG that I'll also think about making later on. I guess before the expansions started coming out, people were all about multiple core sets. Sentinels of the Multiverse is SO EASY in comparison; at least mechanically. I gotta get back to that game, but I'm too obsessed with conquering LOTR for now.
I get to be freaked out very soon!
For LOTR, yeah, I was doing a "leadership" deck those first few tries. It was suggested in the rules like that, so after I actually finish some games, I'll try the other builds. I found some "2-core set builds" on BGG that I'll also think about making later on. I guess before the expansions started coming out, people were all about multiple core sets. Sentinels of the Multiverse is SO EASY in comparison; at least mechanically. I gotta get back to that game, but I'm too obsessed with conquering LOTR for now.
Tuesday, August 27, 2013
All right, I picked up that Redhorn Gate pack from that link you posted Rude! Thank's Lou! I had some spare PayPal funds so I threw in a couple of other things to make the shipping more reasonable. It SEEMS legit, unless the dude set himself up with a BGG account and 3k fake friends to scam me out of a few bucks. I guess we'll see!
This is my first full day of paternity leave -- I had to work yesterday to wrap up some loose ends. So far so good (knock on wood!). Last time we were both completely freaked out, but this time it's way easier since we are more comfortable with the basic mechanics. Things don't really get all that tough until a later on when the wife has been suffering months of sleep deprivation and the colic part begins, so may as well enjoy it now -- since the baby is either nursing or sleeping most of the time. That said, I really should get going on building this bassinet.
This is my first full day of paternity leave -- I had to work yesterday to wrap up some loose ends. So far so good (knock on wood!). Last time we were both completely freaked out, but this time it's way easier since we are more comfortable with the basic mechanics. Things don't really get all that tough until a later on when the wife has been suffering months of sleep deprivation and the colic part begins, so may as well enjoy it now -- since the baby is either nursing or sleeping most of the time. That said, I really should get going on building this bassinet.
Yup! It's a tough game, all right, and who to use for each step really is the big choice. I assume you're playing the first quest? The second quest is REALLY hard, and the third quest is really only doable with two players out of the box.
Try a couple of the different prebuilt decks if you haven't already. The four colors all play VERY differently and one will probably be to your taste. Purple's a good all-round set with lots of buffz. Red's great at fighting. Blue is quest boss. I haven't played much green but I think they're about healing effects.
I -think- any of the decks can beat the first quest solo, but purple may be the one to start with. Aragorn can both quest and attack or defend in the same round, and one of the other heroes has an ability that basically lets him do that for free. That deck in general tends to get a lot of resources to throw around later in the game. Don't forget to throw in your Gandalf cards! (You can have up to three of a card in your deck.) Super useful.
Try a couple of the different prebuilt decks if you haven't already. The four colors all play VERY differently and one will probably be to your taste. Purple's a good all-round set with lots of buffz. Red's great at fighting. Blue is quest boss. I haven't played much green but I think they're about healing effects.
I -think- any of the decks can beat the first quest solo, but purple may be the one to start with. Aragorn can both quest and attack or defend in the same round, and one of the other heroes has an ability that basically lets him do that for free. That deck in general tends to get a lot of resources to throw around later in the game. Don't forget to throw in your Gandalf cards! (You can have up to three of a card in your deck.) Super useful.
Monday, August 26, 2013
Played through 3 complete rounds of LOTR tonight and was able to follow along with the rule book pretty well. Seems REALLY FUCKING HARD. Tell me if this is right: one of the most challenging aspects of the game is juggling who gets exhausted and when. It seems like if I wanted to make headway questing, I was giving up dudes for defense, which in turn gave up dudes for attacking. It was so hard! My hand was mostly full of allies, but I imagine there are attachment and event cards that would help with the slow grind I was dealing with.
This one store on BGG seems to be selling your expansion J-Dawg:
http://boardgamegeek.com/geekstore.php3?action=viewitem&itemid=506636
They're asking $11.95 (yay) with $9.95 shipping (boo)
http://boardgamegeek.com/geekstore.php3?action=viewitem&itemid=506636
They're asking $11.95 (yay) with $9.95 shipping (boo)
Sunday, August 25, 2013
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Non-Standard Rules
It's a fairly unique system, and kudos to the chap that figured and balanced it out - I THINK it's the same guy who did Warhammer LCG and Cthulhu LCG? Definitely a smart genius.
Anyway, there are a lot of weird intertwined systems at work during the game, and once you struggle through like 3 turns, you pretty much understand wtf is going on, and then as soon as you walk away, you forget it all and need a refresher. It's seriously not that hard of a game once you 'get it', it's just the getting it part that's tough.
The whole game boils down to not letting your threat hit 50 before finishing the scenario. Each turn, a certain amount of threat exists via locations and enemy cards hanging out in the staging area. If you did nothing, ALL of that threat would be added to your threat and the game would be over pretty quick. So to minimize the threat you can match it by using characters that have questing points. Each point of quest reduces the amount of threat you take by one. Also, any enemies you are actively fighting (which can last multiple turns), the threat is reduced by that amount as well. Finally, you can travel to any ONE of the locations in the queue and further reduce the threat by that card amount.
If you happen to have more quest than threat, you then can begin applying progress tokens on the active quest card. Most stages of the quest cards require some amount of progress tokens to be placed before you can advance to the next card in the scenario. Any active locations you may have traveled too will sort of 'soak' your progress tokens and they must be played on the location BEFORE the quest card.
*intermission*
*Let's all go to the lobby, let's all go to the lobby...*
In a nutshell, combat happens in 3 stages. First, enemy cards that have an engagement value that meets or beats your current threat will move from the queue to engage with YOU, not a character you control, but 'all of your characters'. Next, each enemy will attack YOU. You can then opt to tap a character you control to block the attack. Compare attack to defense value, PLUS the addition of a random shadow card that may or may not affect the combat, then if there is any residual attack the blocking character takes damage. If you choose not to block, all the damage must then be applied to a single HERO you control. Note: undefended attacks can get nasty and are generally bad news. After all the bad guys attack, any non-tapped good guys can then tap to attack back and can even COMBINE their attacks on single enemies if you like.
After all your combat is over, you refresh your cards, move the threat tracker up by one, and do it all again. I left out the bringing cards into play, because on first read through the rule I understood that, I didn't understand anything else after that :)
Anyway, that's an overly long post that was probably unnecessary but once I got started, I couldn't stop. Next up, "War and Peace".
Anyway, there are a lot of weird intertwined systems at work during the game, and once you struggle through like 3 turns, you pretty much understand wtf is going on, and then as soon as you walk away, you forget it all and need a refresher. It's seriously not that hard of a game once you 'get it', it's just the getting it part that's tough.
The whole game boils down to not letting your threat hit 50 before finishing the scenario. Each turn, a certain amount of threat exists via locations and enemy cards hanging out in the staging area. If you did nothing, ALL of that threat would be added to your threat and the game would be over pretty quick. So to minimize the threat you can match it by using characters that have questing points. Each point of quest reduces the amount of threat you take by one. Also, any enemies you are actively fighting (which can last multiple turns), the threat is reduced by that amount as well. Finally, you can travel to any ONE of the locations in the queue and further reduce the threat by that card amount.
If you happen to have more quest than threat, you then can begin applying progress tokens on the active quest card. Most stages of the quest cards require some amount of progress tokens to be placed before you can advance to the next card in the scenario. Any active locations you may have traveled too will sort of 'soak' your progress tokens and they must be played on the location BEFORE the quest card.
*intermission*
*Let's all go to the lobby, let's all go to the lobby...*
In a nutshell, combat happens in 3 stages. First, enemy cards that have an engagement value that meets or beats your current threat will move from the queue to engage with YOU, not a character you control, but 'all of your characters'. Next, each enemy will attack YOU. You can then opt to tap a character you control to block the attack. Compare attack to defense value, PLUS the addition of a random shadow card that may or may not affect the combat, then if there is any residual attack the blocking character takes damage. If you choose not to block, all the damage must then be applied to a single HERO you control. Note: undefended attacks can get nasty and are generally bad news. After all the bad guys attack, any non-tapped good guys can then tap to attack back and can even COMBINE their attacks on single enemies if you like.
After all your combat is over, you refresh your cards, move the threat tracker up by one, and do it all again. I left out the bringing cards into play, because on first read through the rule I understood that, I didn't understand anything else after that :)
Anyway, that's an overly long post that was probably unnecessary but once I got started, I couldn't stop. Next up, "War and Peace".
There's 2 game stores near my house, so ill check them out this week. Online the only thing I saw was eBay where people were selling it for over $60 bucks!
I didn't even make it thru a single round. Mostly I was getting sleepy from having worked, but I guess I wasn't following the turn flow too well. Do your guys ever automagically because unexhausted or do you do that via cards? The whole "exploring locations" mechanic was interesting, albeit a little over my head. I never made it to combat either.
I didn't even make it thru a single round. Mostly I was getting sleepy from having worked, but I guess I wasn't following the turn flow too well. Do your guys ever automagically because unexhausted or do you do that via cards? The whole "exploring locations" mechanic was interesting, albeit a little over my head. I never made it to combat either.
Don't feel bad, I got literally almost every single rule wrong the first couple times I played. In fact I was so annoyed at the whole situation, that's why I sold off my first set to a guy in the game group. Then Aeryk had to bring it over recently...
Anything specifically giving you trouble?
Any of you who regularly goes to game stores online or offline (which I think it probably just Elzar, maybe Pumpkin?) -- keep an eye out for the Redhorn Gate pack for me. It's the only one I'm having trouble finding -- seems to be out of stock everywhere.
Anything specifically giving you trouble?
Any of you who regularly goes to game stores online or offline (which I think it probably just Elzar, maybe Pumpkin?) -- keep an eye out for the Redhorn Gate pack for me. It's the only one I'm having trouble finding -- seems to be out of stock everywhere.
I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around The LOtR card game. I tried playing a game while watching the official tutorial videos but it was too much. Will try again on a day I haven't worked so I'm less brain dead. Seems like a cool game though. I was starting to get it in a broad sense.
Welcome back Jael! How's Sin City?
Welcome back Jael! How's Sin City?
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