Session Report: Games With Dave

Dave came round on Tuesday night for another night of games. This time we went back to Space Hulk, which we started playing when we started doing these mid-week games nights, but we hadn't played for a few weeks.

I'd had the lion's share of the Space Hulk wins so far, but Dave was keen to visit me with pain and retribution. So we started the fourth campaign mission, with Dave playing the Space Marines first. The map for this one is symmetrical, with the marines try to get from the bottom of the map to two rooms near the top (one on each side) and hit them with a flamer. I decided to harry Dave from all sides - so I used all the Genestealer entry points, those in front, to the sides and behind. My reinforcements came in dribs and drabs from all sides and kept Dave's Terminators under attack, but I'd chosen the wrong strategy, and as I killed of the last non-flamer marines, Dave's two remaining flamer marines simultaneously hit the two targets winning him the first round.

I chose a conservative strategy for the second round, with me playing the Space Marines, and set off slowly making for one of the target rooms. Dave however had a brainwave, he only needed to keep me from one of the targets - so he concentrated his waves upon waves of Genestealers on the other side. He managed to kill one of my flamer marines just before I hit the first target, but by then he had such a wall of Genestealers I couldn't fight my way through, and eventually my second flamer marine bought the farm. Damn. 2-0 to Dave. Nice work.

It wasn't too late so we decided to slip in a quick game of Carcassonne before we called it a night. This time we used the river expansion, which Dave had never used before. I got off to a decent start, claiming a decent chunk of real estate for one of my farmers, and as the game went on not even Dave's Monastery Alley was able to get him enough points to beat me. Final scores: me 119, Dave 85.

At least I won something :-) Another great night of games. At the end Dave offered to pop along to Leeds with me tonight, and we agreed to go to the pub for a couple of pints on Sunday. I promised to make the new Jorvik prototype to take along with me - trying out the that idea Dave had ages ago.

In other news it's been a bit of a rollercoaster week for me on the games side. I've been (and am continuing to be) very busy making games, Border Reivers is rolling off the presses at a phenominal rate as I try to get as much done as possible while The Wife is away. I've now got six finished copies (two of which have been claimed), and I've another six which I will have finished apart from the tiles today or tomorrow. I've sold two copies this week, and I'm off to Hugo's games club in Leeds tonight to try to play it and sell some more tonight. Unfortunately I've also had a sale in America fall through when he realised just how bad the exchange rate is. I've also heard from the UK Games Expo - where I had hoped to release It's Alive! I was told a couple of weeks ago that they had no space - but now they have roomd for me - yeay! Unfortunately, (nothing comes without a down-side this week) it's more than twice the price I thought it was - so it's not an easy decision to make. Hmm.

Playtest-O-Rama

Dave came round Tuesday night, ostensibly for more Space Hulk, but we both really wanted to do some playtesting too. Dave had brought Citywise, and I had Artist, Jorvik and 'The Submission' to get to the table too.

First up was 'The Submission', which I'll be pretty vague about until I've made a decision about it. The game is designed for 2 - 4 players, and Dave and I played a 2-player game. Initial impressions were that the game would definitely be better with more players, it was good fun with just two though. Dave ended both rounds, and although I won on points in the first round by a small margin Dave slaughtered me in the second, striding to a comfortable victory. I need to play this a lot to reach a firm decision about whether or not to invest large amounts of my money and free time in publishing it. Initial impressions were favourable though. I'm not wholly convinced about the theme, I like the theme, but as a publisher I've got to think of the theme as the hook that will take a potential player from seeing the box to wanting to buy (and play it). I don't think the theme as it stands is the best for that given the market I'll be predominantly selling to (the UK).

After that we had a quick game of Jorvik. Dave didn't seem overly enamoured of Jorvik, noting that there was very little player interaction. This is something that I'm aware of, and need to put some effort into fixing. Hmmmm. Dave won again, Two for two.

The third game of the night was Space Hulk. We've been playing this now over a few weeks, taking it in turns to play both sides of each mission. It was my turn to play the marines in the third mission, and with a nice winning streak behind him already for the night, and knowledge of how hard this mission is for the marines, Dave thought he stood a good chance of winning his first Space Hulk game. And he was right. So right. I was slaughtered, in about four turns. Oh, how the mighty have fallen - nice work, Dave!

Seeing as Dave had made such short work of me in Space Hulk, we decided to get a quick game of Artist in to round the night off. I explained the rules of the game to Dave and we were off. As I've mentioned before, Artist can be a bit of a brain-burner, and leaving it to the end of the night was possibly a mistake. Still, I enjoyed it (and I think Dave did too), and I finally won something. I'm beginning to think that Artist is possibly closer to publishing than Jorvik, despite being much newer - I need to play it a lot more to make sure. Dave had some good ideas too about how to simplify the scoring areas. Another good night of games.

Session Report: Space Hulk And More

Tuesday night Dave came round again for games. As before, the headline act was Space Hulk the old Games Workshop game with a very similar feel to the Aliens film. As a bonus, this week we had a warm-up act: a game of Dave's own devising.

We set up Dave's game and he talked me through the rules - it was interesting being on the other side of this, in the last few months I've explained the rules of Border Reivers a lot, but this was the first time I'd ever played another designer's prototype. I'll not go into much detail of Dave's game as it's his job to decide how much information about the game he wants to make public and when, what I'll try to do is get across how the evening felt from a playtester's point of view.

First impressions of the game were good, the prototype was well-made and visually interesting, and I could tell from one look at the board what the theme was. If anything, the prototype was over-produced, as this was the first time Dave had played the game, so a lot will change over the coming months. While he explained the game Dave was quite self-deprecating, which I was told I was doing at The Cast Are Dice - it's obviously a common reflex. However, if you start disparaging the game you've designed, you'll put players off. The game had several things I really liked: fixed length; a clearly defined beginning, middle and end; some excellent events. It also had it's fair share of weaknesses, as you would expect from a game in the very early stages of development. The first few plays of one of my games are awful, as it takes time and practice to take the ideas in your head and turn them into something that works in reality. It came in at around an hour, and although I was at a loose end a couple of times, at no point was I bored or regretting playing it - a good sign.

After the game, we went through the notes I had taken about the things I liked and disliked about the game. We discussed possible solutions to some problems the game had and ideas for ways the game could be changed. It reminded me how much my playtesters had influenced the design of Border Reivers, especially The Wife and Mal, who contributed some excellent ideas to the finished game. One of the things I do is keep a list of people who have playtested a game I'm working on - they definitely deserve a mention in the rules for their contributions.

I'd definitely be up for playing it again, and I'll be interested to watch another designer's game evolve over the coming months. Perhaps we'll play Jorvik or Sennon next time too...

After that we played a couple more games of Space Hulk. We played the second mission again (I was the Genestealers this time), and then the third mission from one end only. Again, I really enjoyed the Space Hulk, good clean fun, and since I was the stealers both times, I got a side order of vicious disemboweling of my enemies with my good, clean fun. The theming of Space Hulk is really well done, when playing as the marines you feel very claustrophobic as the unknown numbers of enemies swarm around your limited troops. Coupled with the enhanced maneourveability and faster top speed of the stealers you feel very vulnerable. I remember a computer version, which really laid the claustrophobia on thick - the cramped corridors felt tiny when a stealer swarmed towards one of your marines, followed by static as contact was lost...

Both sides have definite tactics, with the stealers wanting to stay out of LOS for as long as possible. They are also far more powerful when they attack in waves, that way you can maximise the chance of a weapon jam being capitalised upon by a stealer, as you will undoubtedly lose a few before the weapon jams. Marines on the other hand want to keep as much distance between themselves and the stealers as possible, and excel when they can cover a long approach with overwatch fire. Great stuff.

In the end I won all three games that evening, I'm keen for more though :-)

I had hoped to do a load of construction this weekend, however I might have to go to Bristol instead. The reviewer from the BBC magazine had some difficulty getting their head round the game, and wanted to play it with my parents (which would be a case of the blind leading the blind :-) ), and conveniently there's a do on, in preparation for my sister's wedding this weekend so I've an excuse to be down in Bristol. We shall see.

How Much?

After Tuesday night's game of Space Hulk, I thought I'd look into whether or not Games Workshop still made the miniatures for it. I had no intention of buying any, I was just interested to see if they were still in production, since although Space Hulk has been out of print for many years now, the miniatures are shared with Warhammer 40K their futuristic miniatures wargame.

It turns out they are still making them, but the price of them absolutely staggered me. They are selling packs of five plastic terminator models for a staggering £25. That's five pounds each for plastic miniatures. £25 for two plastic injection moulded sprues. That's ridiculous - that's what it is. Who buys this stuff? Millionaires? At that price the Space Hulk game box would cost £65 just for the miniatures alone, ignoring the counters, map pieces and rulebooks. Mental.

In other news, after a few days break after Psychocon, I've finally started manufacturing more copies of Border Reivers. I've three copies in stock, but I really should try to build on that, there may yet be a run before Christmas, and I need to take advantage of all the gluing opportunities I get, as soon it will be getting too cold, even on the good days. What I really need to do is find a cheap, permanent glue that can be used indoors, that is high-tack, bonds quickly and can be easily wiped (or rubbed) off areas it has got on accidently. Any ideas?

Space Hulk!

A couple of weeks ago at Beyond Monopoly I was introduced to Dave briefly, but I was supposed to be starting a game of Leonardo da Vinci, for which I needed the rules explaining, and he too was having a game explained to him. Afterwards I looked him up on BoardGameGeek, and found out he was interested in Space Hulk an old Games Workshop game with a very similar theme to the film Aliens. As a kid I'd really enjoyed this, so I was quite up for a game for nostalgia's sake. Dave emailed to apologise for the brief introduction, and I replied offering a game of Space Hulk.

Last night Dave came round for Space Hulk. In the game, players take the side of either the Space Marines, an elite genetically-engineered human fighting force, or the Genestealers, a multitudinous horde of ravenous alien killing machines. We played the first mission in the missions book, each playing both side once, and then the second mission (but only from one end - it was a much longer scenario). The Genestealers come in waves, and have no long range attacks, but are deadly in close combat. The Space Marines have good long range weapons, but are weak in close combat and have only a few pieces (five marines in the two games we played). I was worried that the game would fail to live up to my fond memories, and turn out to be a complete let down, but instead it was really good fun. Sure it has a plethora of dice rolls, but it still has some nice strategic descisions, and the oppressive feel you get when playing as the Space Marines as wave after wave of Genestealers surround you cutting you off from your objective really puts the pressure on. I won all three games in the end (I think my memories of good tactics to employ were fresher than Dave's), but I really enjoyed it, even when it was looking very bleak for me. Good stuff. I'd definitely be up for more of that in the future.

Afterwards, we play a couple of games of Carcassonne, as we didn't really have time to play the second scenario the other way round - both Dave and I had to be up early. Dave had never played before (although he had played Carcassonne - The Castle). The Wife joined us so we played a couple of quick 3-player games. As ever Carcassonne was a great game - quick, simple to play and explain and yet with interesting strategic decisions to make every turn. I won the first game and Lou the second, our many games-worth of experience teaching us the value of farming.

It was a great night's gaming, and I'm really glad that Space Hulk lived up to my rose-tinted memories. Plus, Dave is a really nice bloke (hi, Dave!), and you can never have too many gaming friends.