Thunderstone, 23/2/2012

Our most recent foray into the dungeons of Grimhold was a little one sided on my part but it's worth mentioning how it all went down. Udead - Doom, Enchanted and Doomnights were our enemies for this game, and the heroes were Lorigg Thieves, Redblades, Clerics and Amazons. This was an interesting set of heroes actually because they're all relatively low power, and with almost no magic power going around for the first few rounds, we were going to have to rely on wit, guile and cunning in order to secure victory in the dungeon.

We had quite a lucky draw of monsters as well in a sense, because our first few opponents were relatively low-powered. This gave me the opportunity to get into the dungeon early and rack up some kills, even though in some cases I hadn't even got a hero. (I'd got militia, but you know what I mean.) It did also mean I got some disease cards; you can't avoid it with Undead - Doom, but in the Thunderstone game you can at least get rid of that card in a round so it didn't bother me too much.
Dave hadn't cottoned on to this and spent the first few turns trying to build up some forces, so when he did eventually decide to venture into the dungeon, most of the easy monsters had gone...

We found our way blocked by a couple of high-powered monsters that needed a very strong attack before they would go down. A couple of them also had the added effect of killing one of the fighters. The obvious tactic at this point was to go into battle without a fighter - after all, it was only the Redblades that counted as fighters. However, it became apparent to me that there was no way we were going to manage this, as the thieves, clerics and archers we had left couldn't come up with a powerful enough attack. I was well ahead of Dave by then and I knew it, so I had to make an uncomfortable decision that I could afford to lose a Redblade Assassin (as good as it gets, and the top level heroes also grant victory points) to take out some of those high-powered monsters.

We also came up against a monster that could only be hurt by magic; I got around this by drawing a top level Cleric who is strong enough to use a polearm, which brings their attack power up to 6, then drawing the arcane energies card that converted all attacks with weapons into magical attacks. It was  a tricky manouvre but I'm quite pleased that I pulled it off!

Nasty little beast, this...

The other monster that gave us some grief was Blink Dog, part of the Enchanted set, that can't be attacked if any light penalty applies. I'd stocked up on torches and lanterns but this is really where the Thieves became useful, as the higher level cards come with light bonuses. That way, I managed to use a combination of Thieves and Amazons to take out the Blink Dogs. The Amazon's thing is their attacks become more powerful in the second level of the Dungeons. It doesn't really work if you don't have any light because the penalites would negate this anyway but all of the hero cards in Thunderstone are best used in combinations, and Amazons are no exception.

By the time we found the Thunderstone, it was a bit late in the day for Dave to pull it back, but fair play to him for making a fight out of it. By then, I had so many monsters that I was drawing one in almost every hand, and very few of them worked to my advantage so I found myself having to deal with this. This might have given Dave some room to rack up some points, but it was too little too late for him, as I found the Thunderstone. The final score was 54-15, so quite an easy victory for me.

That's twice I've won it now so I'm at level pegging with Dave. I think for this game, you really need to be aware of what everything does together so that you can use it to its best effectiveness. That's not easy, since it changes each time, but it's working a damn sight better than picking a strategy for the game and sticking to it (a popular wargaming effort, but it's not a wargame!) Also, it's a good idea to remember that if you can go in for an attack, it's a good idea to do it, otherwise you leave the other players open to take their own spoils!

Then again, Dave also plays Resident Evil, which works in a similar way but rewards caution to a certain extent because you don't know what you're going to be attacking from one round to the next...

31/1/2012: Aye, Dark Overlord

Hi,

So this is part of a project I'm involved with for work. This one is actually going up around one or two other blog sites that Coady Consultants use, but I thought I'd put it here anyway because it's actually quite good to see how I'm turning a very entertaining hobby in to something I can use in a professional environment. So, what we have is an introduction from John, the Head Consultant, Company Director and also my Dad, and then I'll make a few comments about what I've seen while playing the game:

John:

Our work is all about relationships, productive ones between us and our customers that often present us with an opportunity to try something that is hopefully different and memorable: we hope!

The Director of an innovatory and outward facing team from one of our major clients-a local university-was involved in a feedback exercise related to Conflict Styles. The activity was originally used with the University’s mediators and Dignity at Work Advisers. As our conversation developed the possibility of an extended Team Development Day was discussed and we are due to deliver towards the end of February 2012.

We tend to work along the (to me at any rate) pretty obvious lines that we learn better when we’re having some fun and even though it’s taken some knocks of late, the application of multiple intelligences still holds up for me. There’s a superb piece on TED and YouTube by Sir Kenneth Robinson called “Shifting the Paradigm” in which he present a cogent and enjoyable argument that we’ve tested the joy out of learning: it reminds me that there’s a range of approaches that are valid, have value beyond the event and help us to understand a little more about each other and ourselves.

So, at our next Team development Day, we are going to use a fantasy role play game that requires participants to think on their feet and shift blame: some might argue that this is and has been the primary survival tool for a successful career! Machiavelli would have “got it” straight away.
 

We’ve employed an enthusiastic game player/developer with a view to expanding the approaches we use to Team Days and other areas of our work: watch this space! So it’s now over to my elder son, Matt to talk about the specifics.

Matt: 31/1/2012: Aye, Dark Overlord at the University

This came about as an introductory session to a portion of a development day that Coady Consultants are organising at the University. My part of the day involves running this activity for the team after the lunch break, and we are having four ‘observers’ to comment on the behaviour of their colleagues during the game and to what extent they show the various skills and attitudes that would be conducive to having a good game, and also for getting on effectively in the workplace.

I’ve covered how the game works before in my gaming blog; this and the whole story for how this came about will be in a future blog about the event itself. However, for the purposes of this piece, I would like to discuss a couple of things I’ve observed as I’ve played the game.

The game works incredibly differently between different demographics. The players still have to do the same things to win (or at least, to avoid losing,) but the style of play varies hugely. I’ve noticed the following things about the people I’ve played it with:

The Family

Playing Aye, Dark Overlord! with my family was absolutely hysterical. We played it on Christmas Day in the evening and it was great fun watching everyone being the Dark Overlord; we were really playing up to the role and it was great to see how differently we all did it. Seeing my brother lost for words is a very rare occurrence and I will savour the moment for many years to come. And given the fact that there is generally – across a great many people – a certain prejudice towards the themed games I tend to play, it was great to see one that the family could pick up reasonably quickly and have a play. Great stuff.

The Club

I took it down to the Black Country Roleplaying Society where I go every Thursday, to see how the game played in its own demographic. The guys with whom I played it were all what we might consider seasoned gamers; they know how card games work and they play to win. They had the right idea, but it seemed to be less about having a laugh with it and more about making sure that they didn’t lose. It was still fun, though.

The Professionals

I won’t pretend that I didn’t approach the idea of playing a game like this with academic professionals in the middle of a working day with some trepidation. But at the University, the game actually went as well as I think anybody could have expected. We had already covered the behaviours and skills we were looking for on the day and the team were making sure of the things that were important – speaking clearly, making sure everybody got a turn and at the same time having a bit of fun with what for many of them was an unfamiliar activity! I also saw the team turn the game right around on its head, and all start working together as a team to overthrow the Dark Overlord by coming up with an explanation he had no choice but to be satisfied with. I don’t know what the team do on a day-to-day basis, but if the accommodating and collaborative style they showed here isn’t conducive to a great working environment, I don’t know what is.

So, three different groups, and almost literally three different games! One thing that didn’t change, though, was the fun. We always enjoyed it. And I’m looking forward to running the activity at the Univeristy in a few weeks’ time, to give some light relief in to what is promising to be an enlightening and very productive day for the team – and, it seems, for Coady Consultants.

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...