Warhammer 40,000 6th Edition - Speculation and Concerns

I've been seeing a lot of chat going around recently about the possibility of Warhammer 40,000 (40K) 6th Edition coming out in the Summer. Now I've never really known what to believe about the rumours I hear about Games Workshop, because of what I know of the company and their methods I'm pretty sure most of it is just speculation. But, GW can't go for a year these days without some big release in the summer to keep their shareholders happy, and with much of 2011 being given over to some expansions to Warhammer Fantasy (not universally well-received) and Dreadfleet (I've not heard kind things said about this game from anyone other than the GW staff so far,) this year will have to be massive for them. And what could be more massive than a re-vamp of their most popular game?

I'm approaching these rumours with... some trepidation, if I'm honest. While I've been doing the hobby on and off for 13 years now, this is the first time I'll have been involved long enough to sit from one game cycle to another; that is to say play one edition of a game long enough to care if they change it to another. 40K 5th Edition came out literally 2 weeks after I started working for GW back in July 2008, and I never really played 4th so while I was aware of the changes to the rules, I didn't really appreciate how it would affect the dynamic of the game. I certainly will this time around, which brings me on to my main issue: what's wrong with the version we've got now?

Actually thinking about it there are certain areas of the game that could benefit from some attention. Here are the three changes I think should be made in 6th edition 40K:

You won't see this lot going to ground...

1) 'Go to ground' They either need to change this rule or remove it completely, because right now it's useless. Quite frankly for how often I see it used I wouldn't be surprised if even the regular gamers didn't know what it was, and I'm pretty sure I only knew because I was a member of staff and I had to. How it works is when your unit gets shot at, after the opponent has rolled to wound but before you take your armour save, you can choose to 'go to ground,' where you lie your models down on the floor and they get a 1+ bonus to their cover save, and if they don't have one they gain a 6+ cover save. All well and good, until you realise that they have to spend the following turn getting up, which means they can do NOTHING for all of your turn. With the game presumed to last 5 turns, that means your unit will be useless for 1/5 of the game. And for how much difference it usually makes, it's probably better to take the extra wounds and at least get some action out of your unit next turn.

How the rule might work a little better is if the unit CAN act in a limited manner the following turn. For example, if they want to either move or assault, or both, they have to do it as though they were moving through difficult terrain. If they want to shoot, they count as having moved, whether they have or not - so you couldn't fire heavy weapons, or a rapid fire weapon past 12''. This would ensure that they could get the benefit of an improved cover save and provide an incentive to keep them alive in the first place. I've never had the opportunity to playtest such a thing but I think it might be something for them to think about for the new edition of 40K.

2) 'Sweeping Advance' This rule has caused some controversy over the time I've been playing 40K. For the way the rule works in 5th edition, I think it works better than 4th, but there's still a way to go. In 4th edition, the loser of a close combat would take a leadership check, and there may be some modifications to this but I can't quite remember what they are now. If the unit passed, they stayed in the combat, no problem. If they failed, they would have to run 2D6'' away from their opponents. The opponents would usually then have the option of chasing them down 2D6'' or consolidating D3''. If they went with the former and rolled equal to or over the losing side's roll, they would catch the running squad and wipe them out to a man/ork/whatever. It now works a little differently in 5th, where this time if the losing squad fails their leadership test which is modified down by however much they lost the combat by, both players roll a D6 and add their initiative. If the losing side comes up with the higher result, they run off 2D6'' as before. If the winning side has the higher result, the losing side is completely wiped out. Either way, the winning side then get to consolidate D6''.

Now in some ways I like this rule, and in some ways I don't. For a start, I like that the sweeping advance rule is now based on Initiative rather than a random number on 2D6, because a hulking, stupid Ork should be easier to catch off-guard than a quick, nimble Eldar Dire Avenger. I like the fact that the winning side is no longer obliged to chase after their opponents in order to wipe them out, because that would mean they'd end up alone and unsupported ahead of their own lines. And consolidation is better now that it's D6'', because let's be honest in a game like 40K where are you going to go with D3''?

Could one of these guys take out 20 Orks? It's possible...

On the other hand there is the same problem Sweeping Advance has had since at least 3rd edition - it is perfectly possible for your 1 remaining model to completely wipe out a much larger number of models on the other side, as long as they win combat. Now, 40K doesn't purport to be all that realistic, but the idea of 1 Space Marine being able to wipe out an enitre squad of Tau to a man because he won combat and got a higher initiative roll just doesn't have that cinematic level of believability that makes the rest of the game so good to play with your imagination. Unfortunately I can't really see a way around it. Well, I guess they could change it a little bit so that the losing side takes damage relative to the amount of models left in the winning side, say, D3 unsaveable wounds per model on the winning side. But that would make the Sweeping Advance rule a lot more complex than it needs to be. So, it'll be interesting to see what, if anything, GW does with this.

3) The Starter Box: This is a bit of a funny one, and partly a reaction to the fact that I've been branching out from GW and started playing some board games and role playing games as well as wargames. Basically, what I'd like to see from the starter box is a 'Game in a Box,' that is to say that if the boxed set to 40K - currently Assault on Black Reach - is the only thing you ever buy from Games Workshop, you could still put it together and get some games in without ever having to buy expansions, or extra models, or nothing like that, which would make it a board game as well as a war game. Reason is basically it might be a little easier to get people to drop the £100+ that GW are charging for their starter bundle these days (core game, hobby starter set, can of black spray paint) if they don't then have to feel obliged to spend another £3/400 on armies/books/terrain/campaign materials/transport before it's actually going to be any good.

Not a bad set of models, but what are they fighting over?

Now looking at what they've got at the moment, GW are not all that far away from it. In the AoBR, you get 2 reasonably balanced armies, one obviously the good guys and one obviously the bad guys, that work differently enough so that you could have a different experience for playing as the other side from time to time. You get all the stuff that you need to play them - a mini-rulebook that nonetheless has all the rules, a guide to the set, some dice, templates and measuring sticks although you do make life very difficult for yourself if you don't at least invest in some extra dice. What you don't get is any scenery. Now I know scenery isn't quite as exciting as models, but it's also not an ideal situation to play the game straight out of the box if there are no buildings to occupy, no walls to duck behind, no objectives to capture. So basically, everything that's in the starter box now, with some scenery, please.

Will GW fix this for 6th edition? There's no reason why not. When questioned about the apparently high price of the boxes and the models, I can remember my former manager telling customers that they put them up at the price it costs GW to make them. If that is true and they are now selling for £60 a core boxed set that they once sold for £40, that gives them another £20's worth of tinkering to do with the boxed set that will make it a more complete experience than it is now. Of course, this is a sweeping generalisation, and I know that it's not even close to being that simple for GW, but it is a change I would like to see and they will have to work very hard to convince me that they don't have the capacity to make it.

So those are my 3 tweaks to the game that I'd put in for 6th Edition. As you can see, it's all minor, niggly stuff that I could actually sort out myself with a couple of 'house rules.' And therein lies my main concern, which is how much change are GW going to make that will warrant a new edition of the game?

If they release a game that's fundamentally similar to 5th edition but with a few tweaks to the rules, as I have described, then their currently existing fan base will find it a bit harsh to spend the £45-50 they're charging for their new rulebooks when all they actually need is a PDF updating their old ones. And since the game has not changed all that significantly since 3rd edition - you still do the same things to move, shoot and assault, the wound tables are always the same, the stat lines are always the same - that seems to be a likely course of action for GW at this point. But will it really be enough for a new edition?

The book might be impressive, but was the game any good?

However, we all know how maverick GW have been over the last couple of years, so what if they actually do go ahead and change the game completely? That's a truly terrifying prospect, since I've not heard many kind things said about the new edition of Warhammer Fantasy either, to the point where many of the 'veterans' refuse to play it, and that game saw some significant changes almost to the point where it was a completely different game. It would be horrible for the same thing to happen to 40K, since it's been an integral part of my imagination for the last 13 years. By the way I never played WHF 8th so I'm going to reserve my judgement on the game until I've actually played it. That is, if I can find anyone to play. I struggle enough with 40K and Lord of the Rings!

Of course, with GW, it's all about the recruitment. They've realised that they've got competition now, and where in the past veterans would hang on to them for life, now they'll be lucky to keep someone coming into the store for 3 years. That's how long it takes for most people to work out that everything they enjoy about the hobby, be it the painting, the gaming, the background, the modelling, whatever - everything they enjoy, they can get elsewhere, probably for higher quality if they know where to look and almost certainly for less money. So GW may still be the biggest players in town, but if they ever were the only players they're certainly not anymore, and the only way they are going to keep their business ticking over is to act like what they are; a way in to what has now become a much larger town. They have to keep a constant influx of new hobbyists coming into the shops to replace the ever-growing number of people who abandon it. So all the decisions they make are not to please veterans, it's to get more people in to it.

Thing is, I can't quite see how a new edition of 40K is going to help them with this. For someone wandering into Games Workshop for the first time wondering what the hell it all is, the concept of editions, 40K, or even wargaming, will probably be alien to them. What are they going to care what edition it is, or how the rules have changed? Sure, the release day will probably raise some eyebrows and entice a few more people into the shop to have a look, but how will it help them to recruit beyond that?

So, to sum all that up in an open message to Games Workshop: I hope you know what you're doing guys, I really do.

29/12/2011: Braggart

This is once again thanks to the guys at BCRPS, where I got into a game featuring Tony, Scott, and his step-son Josh. The thing I love about this game is simple: it's hilarious.

Knowing that Josh didn't really know how to play, I was trying to be as tactical as possible while making sure that everybody was in the runnings until the end. So while it wasn't necessarily tactically sound to use the 'Pick Pocket' card on Scott, since Tony had more cards, I chose to do so anyway because I'd been picking on Tony all the way through the game and I didn't want to bully Josh. It was particularly amusing since 3 of us, including me, bragged about rescuing the princess - only to have our claims shot down with a well-placed 'Liar!' card.

In the end, it was a draw between me and Tony - which, for how flexible the scores are, can't come up too often.

The lads at the club play this before the roleplaying games begin, and it's not looking likely that I'll have The Fakes practice on Thursday any more for a while, so there may be more of these coming up...

25/12/2011: Aye, Dark Overlord!

Come on Matt, surely you've got better things to do on Christmas Day than write another gaming blog?

Actually, no I haven't. With the presents opened, dinner eaten, Amy talked to, family entertained and my guitar played to the point where my fingers scream in protest if I so much as fondle the strings, I think I could do worse than write about one of the nicest experiences I've had with my family for quite some time...

The concept of Aye, Dark Overlord! is wierd but fiendishly simple: One of you plays a Dark Overlord, who is accusing his Goblin Henchmen of causing a catastrpohical failure in his plan to take over the world. The rest of you play the Goblin Servants, making up excuses to get out of trouble and passing the blame on to each other. The Dark Overlord expresses his displeasure by dealing out Withering Look cards; as soon as someone gets 3, that person loses and the game is over. The hapless goblin is dragged down to the Dark Overlord's deepest, darkest, dingiest dungeon to await a fate that even Kragmortha's best torturers haven't thought about yet.

So there's no real winner to this game, it's all about participation and interacting with each other. And if I can do that with my family - bearing in mind that my Mom and Dad are coming up on 60 and the kids are 18, 24 and 26- then it can't be too bad!

Happy Christmas, gamers!

22/12/2011: Kings of Chicago

How do I get myself in to these situations?

This one came about, as so many of them do, in the Roleplaying Club in Blackheath. I'd brought along a few games, but Pat had some too. This one, Kings of Chicago, reminded me and Paul of an old PC game Gangsters, that was absolutely brilliant as a concept though I found the game very difficult and rarely got very far. So I decided to give it a go, joined by Pat, Mel and Chris's brother Doug.

So how does this game work? You're chasing 'Power Points, which can be obtained by opening businesses in the city, having the most influence, or conducting mob jobs. You do this by driving around Chicago in a car, opening businesses if you have enough resources, shooting out anyone who tries to stop you, and every so often the resources, events and opportunities get updated. Details on exactly who has what are kept secret in a separate folder, one for each player which is a nice touch indeed.

That's how you win the game. However with four of us playing, it became a game of how do we stop the other guys from getting too far ahead? Example: Pat systematically clawed his way up to 7 power points largely by opening businesses. He was comfortably ahead of the rest of the crowd until I opened a level 3 business - which is basically as good as it gets -  and caught up with him, also at 7 points. At this point, I only needed to complete a job and open a level 2 business in order to win, which was never far from my grasp. So the other players had to do what they can to stop me: Using the police to bust my jobs, attacking my business,  using events to steal my resources. We didn't make this easy for each other.

So what do I think of the game? A good one, in all. The system is as good as it needs to be; there were no 'What the hell just happened?' moments and it was all pretty clear exactly what does what, and in what order. The only slight ambiguity that I didn't like was the fact that the cars move in squares based on how much you can roll on 1D6. I don't know what this purports to represent exactly, as at some point you're going to roll all 1s in one phase and by no stretch of the imagination should it take you 4 turns to get to the end of the road. This did happen on a number of occasions. However, this comes across to me as a necessary evil - you'd either have to use a specialist dice (not actually all that common,) or increase the size of the game to take 2D6 which nobody wants because it's a pretty decent size as it is. Is the experience representative of gangsters in Chicago? Well it's a board game, so in of itself probably not - but when we were playing, there were insults, threats, lots of "are you talkin' to me?!" backstabbing, loansharking, underhanded tactics and a ferocious struggle for power, so actually it's likely not all that far off. It's a good environment to trade that sort of thing and being role players, we were more than happy to get into the role of vicious gangsters.

Who won in the end? Well, Pat reckoned we'd have the game wrapped up in about an hour. This was at 8:30 and we were still playing 3 hours later, in a huge power struggle that could go either way and we hadn't got a hope of finishing before the club closed. So we counted up how many power points we all had, and we came up with the following:

In 4th place was Doug, who'd started off neatly enough but had some very bad luck with the driving and in the end his tactics looked like he was scavenging off the other players, which wasn't really working very we;ll for him. I'm pretty sure he ended with 3 points.

In 3rd place was Mel. He again suffered from bad dice rolls but used the opportunities to exert power over the city by taking over the most territory. The result was that he almost always had the police in his pocket and the extra power point awarded for having the largest territory; none of the rest of us had a hope of catching him up on that one. He had a lot of money but only a few businesses to show for it, which cost him in the end with 5 points.

In joint first with 7 points a piece were Pat and me. Pat had got a steady hold on a lot of the small businesses and built up a veritable army of gangsters which were working well for him, as we were never going to be able to affect this significantly. If he lost 1 business, he could just open another one quite easily. I'd done the most jobs and got a fair number of gangsters, but what really set me in the runnings was the level 3 business I'd opened, which continued to remain open despite Doug's best efforts to shut it down. This was a bit of a risk - if he'd managed it, the balance of power would have shifted very quickly, and my hopes for victory depended on keeping that business operational - but in the end it paid off, another half an hour and I'd have got it, I reckon. Having a gangster with the driving skill helped as well.

Thoroughly enjoyed it, probably won't play it again as it's not a new game and isn't for sale on Amazon so if I want it I'll have to chase obscure copies. But if you do happen across one and you're looking for a not-so-friendly evening in with a few friends, you could do far worse than this.

See you next time!

8/12/2011: Blood Bowl Team Manager: The Card Game.

I actually played this one down at the Roleplaying club in Blackheath; we're taking some time off the roleplaying games in the last couple of weeks of the year and using the time to try out some different board games and things like that. I've seen this one talked up by Fantasy Flight Games over the last few months and really wanted to try it out.

Before we did, though, we stated with a quick round of Braggart, in which you have to pay cards to make the most strategically fantastic boast out of everybody playing. Having never played the game, or indeed anything like it before, I fluffed it completely and came on to the bottom of the pile.

And now on to the main event...

Blood Bowl, when it was a Games Workshop game, looked really good and I'd always wanted to give it a try. Unfortunately it had been and gone by the time I got in to the hobby, and now it's been lumped into the forlorn graveyard of 'Specialist Games.' These are basically a collection of spin-offs from the core systems that GW produce and, once the initial excitement of the game has passed, absolutely refuse to give them any mid to long term support. And that is a crying shame because they've come up with some absolute gems in the past, but anyway...

The card game, I must admit, hit me with some incredulity. How do you do a sports game in cards? My answer was apparent as soon as I saw said cards; they shouldn't be news to anyone who's played an FFG game before and it's less of a sports game, and more of a battle system. Actually, so is Blood Bowl. So what happens in the game is that you commit your players to highlights of 5 seasons, and try and win the most fans by the end of the game.

This particular game we had Chris, who's game it was, playing Dwarves, yours truly playing Chaos, Paul playing Orcs and Mel playing Wood Elves. There are subtle and important differences to each team; the Wood Elves have more skills that will enable them to capture the ball, and Chaos are out to cause as much brutality as possible.

So how the game works is this: You draw a hand of 6 cards that represent players on your team. You then each take it in turns to commit one player to a game in the highlights. Each player comes with a number of points representing their power over the game, and once all 6 cards from each player are down, the side that has the most points is the winner of that game and gets any associated bonuses. These include coaching tactics to help you win more games, a 'Star Player,' more fans, or even a set of bonuses specifically related to your team.

That's the short version. In reality there's a lot more going on and we all know it. So... Each player you put down (beyond the most basic blocker) has a skill that can, on the turn you put him down, be applied to the game. This represents the character's influence over the game. For example, my Chaos Beastmen work as tackling muscle, and as it's pretty much taken for granted that they're going to cheat at some point, they automatically get a 'cheat' token, and then get to make an attack against any member of the opposing team, if there is one there. If that attack is successful, their card effect kicks in and they have to take another cheat token. Cheat tokens are skulls and one side, and on the other is an affect applied to the game at the end. This will be either more fans (What you're looking for,) more star power (Better than a kick in the teeth but not all that useful as you're unlikely to commit to a game you're not already sure you're going to win) or if you're unlucky, your player will be sent off. As the Chaos Blood Bowl team purport to be more interested in fighting than playing Blood Bowl, this isn't exactly uncommon.

And so it carried on for 5 seasons. But as will all Fantasy Flight games, there has to be a winner...

In 4th place was Mel, who made a really big effort at winning the major tournaments featured in the game at the expense of regular matches, an interesting tactic but a bit of a gamble which unfortunately didn't pay off.

In 3rd place was Paul, who appeared to be struggling but due to his card effects got a lot more fans at the end of the game. He only didn't come in ahead of me because I managed to use one of my Chaos cards to switch around one of the games and apply different bonuses for winning and participation.

I came in 2nd. I had ammassed the most fans by the end of the game but I hadn't taken into account that a lot of the effects of the coaching cards give you more fans at the end of the game.

For this reason, Chris quite comfortably came in first.

So, the Dwarves are the Blood Bowl Champions of the World for the time being. Unfortunately I won't be participating in tonight's game due to other commitments. I should hopefully be back next week though!

See you soon...

5/12/2011: Lord of the Rings: Warriors of Minas Tirith

A bit late posting this but my internet was playing up yesterday...

These guys were a bit of a funny bunch for me because I painted them almost entirely in Games Workshop on Monday Nights when I've been going in, so I didn't do anything at home at all other than the undercoat. Actually the Dudley store is not a bad place to paint because the air in there tends to be quite dry, and therefore the paint and even the washes tend to be dry by the time you get to the end of the batch. The lighting's good as well, or at least I think it is. A career painter probably wouldn't but my alternative is the energy-saving lightbulbs at home, which do the job but it is true, they do distort the colours slightly!

here they are, resplendent in all their glory - my soldiers of Gondor. What made me want to do Gondor? Well, when I've collected armies in the past, and I'm talking specifically about when I worked for Games Workshop, I tended to just buy whatever I felt like and figure out how it was going to work in the army later. With Lord of the Rings, my army is Harad, and I didn't really know how to put an army together in the usual sense; War of the Ring was coming out and I wanted to do an army no one else was doing and use Mumaks. So far, I win about as many games as I lose, but I was always inspired by the Gondor army in the War of the Ring rules, and how they'd used a relatively limited pallette (We're talking 50+ colours I've used for painting my Harad,) to create an army that looks quite good.

What I didn't want to do was plan out my army list. Not being funny but I find that quite constricting. I also didn't want to put together an army on an ad hoc basis because it almost always turns out to be next to useless when I put it out on the gaming table. With the Gondor army, I've gone for the middle ground in between - I know what I want and don't want in the army, and I know where I'm going with it, but in the meantime buy whatever I feel like from the Gondor range and build the army up that way. It's hardly wrong to add more core choices to a War of the Ring army...

For painting them, I largely followed the guide in the Lord of the Rings rulebook. The more interesting parts are starting them off from a basecoat of Tin Bitz, to the point where one of the GW staffers thought I was literally doing the whole army in bronze. Actually, drybrushing Boltgun Metal over this and highlighting it with Chainmail creates a nice rusty effect, giving the impression of seasoned campaigners who've been in the forces a while, have been round the block and know the game. The other cool trick from the guide, which is conducive to the same effect, was to paint their sheilds a very dark grey rather than black, to give a worn impression. To be honest, black is rarely a good colour to use anyway if you're going for realism, and that's quite important in Lord of the Rings where the models themselves are true scale rather than heroic. Realistic is a rather flexible term to use when applied to models, but the LotR models do take themselves a bit more seriously than the Warhammer ones or 40K.

The one place where I deviated slightly from the guide was with the faces. For those, I used Tallarn Flesh, washed down with Ogryn Flesh, Dwarf Flesh for the mid-tone, Elf Flesh for the highlight and then a neat little trick that Griff taught me ages ago where you water down some more Ogryn flesh and glaze the face, which ties all the highlights together. Bearing in mind that a lot of those colours, plus some others used elsewhere on the models, were released after the Lord of the Rings rulebook was published, I think it goes to show that I've been learning quite a bit! Which is good because I find faces very hard to get right. Especially when most of them are covered with helmets...

That's about all I'm going to say about them. So, am I collecting these for Lord of the Rings or War of the Ring? The movement trays would suggest the latter, though if I'm honest I'm a fan of both. I'm thinking of Lord of the Rings at the moment, simply because I could play a simple game with the stuff I've got now; they just need a few additions like a banner and a hero. And on that note, the next step for the army is Faramir, who I'm painting now, and the Command secion, who I've just ordered.

Whether or not I'll get any games in is anybody's guess; the 82s are starting back up again soon so Monday Nights will become busy for me again before too long. If I get a night off then maybe.

29/11/2011: Thunderstone

We were meant to be playing Dungeons and Dragons with Dan tonight, but he had to work, so...

This was an interesting game. For Monsters, we drew Undead: Doom, Humanoid and Abyssal. A lot of those guys - and certainly the first 3 that we drew - were horribly powerful. However, for Heroes we drew Dwarves, Outlanders, Feyans and the wizards that begin with S, I can't remember the name now. We didn't use them all that much. We also drew two Edged weapons and Goodberries, amongst other things...

Now, remember last game where I promised myself I wouldn't make the same mistake of trying to equip Dwarves with Edged weapons before I'd actually bought any Edged Weapons? So do I. I remembered it so well that the first chance I got I went straight for one of the Outland Warriors, who's effect is significantly different: 3+ for a basic attack, and then you can destroy a Food card for an additional 3+. As I rarely use Iron Rations in any game, I had no problem with destroying them, and the added Militia and Dagger combos that I drew - to be fair I had some good hands - meant I took an early lead with killing monsters. Careful use of the subsequent experience points meant that I got to upgrade the Warrior card, which was great because subsequent levels rely on drawing monsters in your hand to give the Outlanders a bonus to their already substantial attack. Combine this with the fact that by then I'd already got a some Dwarves and Edged weapons, and there were small times when I couldn't do a huge amount of damage in the Dungeon.

Dave was trying to employ a similar tactic but at the same time was throwing away all his militia cards. I can see why you'd want to do this - making your deck faster is never a bad thing - but militia can be useful sometimes, especially when you get them in numbers and can equip them with daggers. In some situations it would work, and I don't think that this was one of them. He also missed some opportunities to attack the dungeon, either because he'd missed the effect of some of his cards or there were points where he wasn't concentrating (there was a text conversation going on at the same time in the early stages of the game.) The most interesting thing he did was use the Banish spell to send the Archduke of Pain - which to be fair neither of us had a hope of beating at that point - to the bottom of the Dungeon. A risky move, considering that it's worth a whopping 8 victory points and it if' it's at the bottom of the Dungeon there's no chance we'd have been able to fight it again before we found the Thunderstone. In the end it wouldn't have made much difference, and since the game ended before either of us really got to grips with Wizards, Banish was probably the best thing he could have done at that point.

We were moving through this Dungeon a lot more quickly than we ever had before; I think this particular combination of Heroes had swung the game much in favour of the players. However, only one of us could win. And for once, that turned out to be me, simply because I'd killed more monsters. Also, Goodberries give you victory points as well, I had a couple of those. We had about the same number of top-level Heroes. The final score was 56-34. Quite a comfortable win for me, and certainly not usual; I was quite please with this!

Ah, and I misread one of the rules. 'Spoiled' does not mean that you destroy whatever it is the card is supposed to 'spoil.' It actually means you get to pick up one of the associated cards. As it happens, it didn't matter so much, as we were both playing to the same interpretation of the rules so no one was cheating. Something to keep in mind for next time though...