Hot Heart

You may recall that I raved about this game a long while back. Well, that was the first edition, which is brilliant (and also no longer available, nor seeing a reprint). This is a more streamlined, accessible version that aims to capture the thrill and paranoia of the original. Since it's tough to bring out the original on regular occasions, and I have an additional, less-experienced board gaming group now, this version seems a wise choice. No longer do you have to spend ages going over the rules each and every time, struggling to remember all the special cases yourself as well. Set up looks quicker, with fewer tokens and cards, while it sounds like it's quicker-playing and retains the same atmosphere and tactical elements.

Now, this is podracing.

New Shane Black film. Not a fan of Russell Crowe, but this looks good.

Oh, wow, that looks dreadful.

Finished Jessica Jones. Amazing stuff. Towards the start I was a little apprehensive when things were slower, with some subplots that seemed a little too tangential (although, you could guess where they were going) but things escalate quite dramatically and everything ties together nicely. I was even impressed by Tennant, who I'd worried was just going to be hamming it up as "evil Doctor Who". But, yeah, it has so much going on and a really cool, interesting, surrounding cast of characters that I think I prefer it to Daredevil... and I really liked Daredevil. The action scenes were also pretty neat, but I think Daredevil's were generally cooler and had some really strong moments. As for Civil War: I'm hyped. It's worth bearing in mind that, despite the expanded cast, this is not Avengers 2.5. It is still a Captain America film in the vein of Winter Soldier (which was awesome), so I wouldn't expect the same sort of thing. Hell, I'm glad it's not quite like the comics because, frankly, that sucked a whole bunch and is one of the continuous big "event" comics that Marvel kept doing that put me off them. This seems rooted in the characters' relationships, the underlying principles and tensions and that's what makes good stories. All the big Marvel comic events were, essentially, "A thing happens, now let's have 5 issues of setup and 3 issues of just everyone fighting. Don't worry because we'll reset everything in a year anyway" and it bloooows. I want to see that Cap/Tony fall-out, I want to see why Black Widow is pro-reg after everything that's happened. I want to see Ant-Man. And I want to see what the fuck Martin Freeman is doing in there.

Whatever, Ethan. We know it's really because you also thought Tearaway was Game of the Year of All Years Ever.

If you hate Sunbreakers, check out this video from 2:50 onwards. Soooooo satisfying, particularly the very end. He was probably thinking, "We got this in the bag now..." *KCHUNK*

When you get the heavy ammo all to yourself in a Rumble match. I definitely think playing with my cousin puts the skill level for matchmaking waaaaaay lower. Of course, now when I go solo in matchmaking, I get wrecked and am the worst person ever. Anyway, I had a good Iron Banner overall. Bought everything just because and got a 319 helmet drop from getting rank 5 (thank fuck, because the raid is stingy as fuck for helmets for me)

Too many TV shows to watch. I started watching The 100, thanks to this article and a Prime membership. I can see it has some potential, despite its YA trappings. I always liked the concept of BSG and some of the dilemmas but the mystical bullshit dragged it waaaaay down. My friend says it doesn't improve after 5 episodes or so, which is concerning because he'll watch any old crap if it has hot chicks in it... I also watched the first episode of Jessica Jones. Could be good, and I'm reassured now those quips and stuff aren't all in a poorly-edited trailer now. I'm interested to see how it pans out over so many episodes. I'm also noticing a parallel to Daredevil's setup but not in a bad way or anything.

Iron Banner definitely feels different. As much as I disliked Control because half your team played it like Clash... playing Clash exacerbates the whole team coordination thing. If I run solo, I still try and stick with groups but without communication, any half decent fireteam can flank you and teamshoot you much more effectively, plus camping becomes too viable. My performance can vary drastically, and without Control zones as a focus or rallying point it's a little too hectic. My K/D varies from 0.75 to 2.75 match to match.

More like MaleGaze, AMIRITE?!

Yeah, it's a pretty easy pick up and play kinda game; the lightest of "tactical" miniature games in a sense. From Steve Jackson games (Munchkin) so you get an idea of what to expect. Robert Florence piqued my interest with it here, and with lucky timing, I found a decent set on eBay. Speaking of lucky timing, I found an auction for Legendary Villains (although, I know you said that's your least favourite, Dean) due to end the next day, put in a fairly low bid all things considered, it went unchallenged and I won. Even says "Used" but the photos are of a box with the shrink-wrap still on it. Guess I'll see on that though... In other news, managed to get some people who'd never played tabletop games since childhood into them last night. Started with Colt Express, which was a riot. That's always a good game for introducing new players, I find. Not too simplistic but not overly complex, and part of the fun is the chaos that ensues. Plus, 3D train. Then we played Assassin's Creed: Arena, which they really enjoyed as well. There was a good mixture of event timings and animus glitches that made for a tight game and there was some actual smart tactical play going on as well. They're eager to try all sorts of games now. They're interested in Firefly, and I love that but... maaaaan, that's gonna be a tough one to teach. Gonna have to pare it right back to basics again.

Gave Frag a spin. It's alright. Pretty simple, trashy game. Exactly what you'd expect from "Arena Shooter: The Board Game." You "build" your guy's stats and then roll dice as you run around collecting weapons and gadgets, and shoot at people. Wound up a pretty tight game but then most of us were playing it fast and loose anyway. No use trying to apply much in the way of strategy or tactics, given how swingy dice rolls can be and how unpredictable the card play makes it; don't drag it out too long if you can help it. There are enough cool weapons, gadgets and special cards that you should have some fun moments. Mine was getting a cool combination that saw me hit someone with a 13 dice attack, wiping them out in one go. And I played a solo game of Burgle Bros. today. Really cool co-op game that packs a lot of game into such a small package. You play a team of burglars breaking into a building (represented by floors of 4x4 tiles), aiming to crack the safe on each floor and then escape via the roof. Each player controls a character with a specific ability and then you have 4 actions a turn. This could involve "peeking at" (revealing) an adjacent tile or moving, but there are also tile-specific things like hacking or safe-cracking. The real trouble is that each floor has a guard who patrols it; which is done via a deck of cards showing a part of the grid and a die used to track his speed. The knack to beating the game is being able to "manage" their movement so as not to get caught (sometimes by deliberately tripping alarms to divert them). Since only the guard on that player's floor will move at the end of their turn, there's a dire need to split up the team as well (exhausting the patrol card deck bumps up the speed by one). Getting caught by a guard costs a "stealth token" (life) and you only have 3; if anyone loses all 3, that's game over. So, you're moving around, encountering all sorts of different tiles that throw spanners in the works (that second floor in the picture above completely fucked me with all the deadbolt and keypad tiles) and hunting for a safe. However, finding the safe isn't enough; you'll need to crack it by using actions to add dice to the tile and then roll the combination. "How would I know the combination?" you ask. Ah, see, here's another clever part. The combination for a safe consists of the numbers in the bottom-right of all tiles in the same row and column as the safe, .i.e. 6 numbers, but not necessarily 6 unique ones. So, as well as avoiding the guards, you'll have to reveal those tiles. You can start "cracking" the safe without having uncovered them all, but if you'd already rolled that number, it won't count retroactively. And that's it in a nutshell. There are a bunch of extra wrinkles like tools, loot cards (a KS bonus variant that gives identities and extra mechanics to the stuff you boost from the safes, i.e. more plates to spin) and a "lost visual" card to put in the guard's patrol decks. I only played the two-floor intro scenario (normal is 3) and that was tough enough. I can imagine a three-floor one would be a real tense affair, given that each time a safe is cracked, it then boosts the speed of that floor's guard and any below. I can see a ton of replayability and some scope for tweaking the difficulty, plus it's really easy to teach and sits in a nice sort of middleweight space as a co-op game. Plus, it's real pretty. And I just had a readthrough of Paperback. A blend of Scrabble (or any word game) and deckbuilding mechanics. The idea of the theme is that you are a writer looking to find fame via publishing your work and so it sort of ties in loosely. I just liked the mechanical concept itself. You start with some basic letters and wild cards, then use them to spell out words in order to score more money to purchase more valuable cards with other letters and abilities. The rest is somewhat standard deckbuilding fare, except I really like the "common card" mechanic. This is simply a face-up card that anyone may use during their turn, enabling them an extra free letter, or a space so they can make two words, or to reverse a double-letter card. There is a stack of four, and when a player reaches a 7-letter word, they can opt to take that card for themselves, which then reveals a new one beneath that can only be taken after an 8-letter word. You can guess the next one, and then the final one ends the game. On top of that, there are some fun little variants like player powers, awards and thematic bonuses. While not an official variant, I think it might be fun to get everyone to write down every word they spell during the game and then award bonus points to the player who can make the most comprehensible sentence(s) out of them at the end.

"Find these beasts... or whatever they are." In other news, the first-person action stuff looks cool... but the actual punchline. Eesh...

In a nutshell, matchmaking might find you some arsehole who wants to sit there and do nothing while still getting carried through the thing (as is the case with many heroic strikes at the moment), picking up the loot at each checkpoint whereas LFG is full of people committed to getting something done, using mics and actually communicating. EDIT: seriously though, join these guys and they'll help you get all sorts of stuff done, with people on most times of the day.

It's bad enough trying to do heroic strikes with randoms, since you'll usually get at least one dick who isn't actually doing anything. On a raid it would be a huge pain in the arse. You could probably find a US clan who boast about "sherpa-ing" people through raids and such, with people on at all hours. There's one in the UK, which is the one my cousin found, but they don't have many US members. Sleeper stimulants.

Ha, no. I'd try and help you at some point, but you really need at least 5 of you and I'm not sure about timing. That Destiny LFG site should find you some people as many need to run it again for an exotic weapon quest. I did it last week and it was hilariously easy (level 40s at 300+ light doing level 26 content); much easier than I expected as well. We absolutely melted Atheon in just a single run thanks to black spindles and sleeper simulants and touch of malices...malicii...maloose. On that subject, I (and a regular fireteam friend) helped a friend with whom I'd never played before get the black spindle from yesterday's daily heroic. Took us three tries (like last time) but we nailed it on the final go; trick is having someone really focus on taking out the blights asap (there are 3 waves of them at the end) otherwise it's difficult even just to get a shot at the boss.

Well, I was £7 off "free" shipping on some birthday gift shopping and this had been sat on my wishlist for a while so figured it was time.

Dark Below will segue into Taken King nicely though.

Making up an Amazon order for free delivery and this was only £12 anyway.

Considering everything you get in the package (nothing is exclusive, but would cost more further down the line) it seems like a pretty great deal. Here's hoping you manage it!

Technically, I haven't "bought" it but it's on Kickstarter and has absolutely smashed its target (from a well-loved designer and company). The agonising thing will be the wait... Scythe Sounds like my sort of game in that it is a hybrid of mechanics with asymmetrical gameplay and gorgeous presentation. Takes place in an alternative 1920s Europe, in which there are mechs alongside regular agriculture. It's got elements of worker placement, area control, engine building, action selection, deterministic combat, resource management, etc. It sounds like it captures what I love about Cyclades, but also expands on the more passive elements (a bit like Hyperborea) and it seems perfectly viable to win by pursuing a peaceful eurogame style or an aggressive expansion strategy.

Yeah, I'd like to say it's not that common but the Destiny forums seem to be full of the biggest crybabies and arseholes around... On the plus side, my cousin found a clan full of some of the nicest people who seem to be on nearly every day helping newbies through the raids and such. I've got a regular group through it (which is mainly a blessing, but also a curse because I want to get a raiding group with other friends and you guys going).