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Carnivean

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Posts posted by Carnivean

  1. Posted

    Nothing specifically about the BBTM this month, though I am looking into doing some for next month. For those will more than a passing interest in Blood Bowl though here is Issue 3.

    BL!TZ magazine issue 3 can be found by following this link:
    http://blitz.ausbowl.com/blitz_issue_03.pdf

    HUGE World Cup II feature
    AusBowl Origins article
    The Art of Schwager Interview
    State updates
    Custom pitch wrap
    Exclusive Fiction
    Hindley Street Bowl and Gathering of Might tourney reports
    Plus more!


    I hope you enjoy the BL!TZ.

  3. Posted

    Hey everyone,

    I post very little on these forums but am here a lot looking at the LCGs and BB of course.  I run a little'ish website for the Blood Bowl community in the Australian/New Zealnd region and we produce a magazine for the region.

    This month we had an Interview with Jay Little which I thought you may like to read about and maybe even get something out of the rest of the magazine.  The magazines are about 20mb in size too, thought I would let you knwo before you click.

    blitz.ausbowl.com/blitz_issue_02.pdf

    If you like that one there is also issue 1 available and if you really like what we are doing I will let you know when we do our third issue.  We only put one out quarterly so it wont fill up this place with spam :)

     

    Sorry if this is not the done thing, but thought you guys might like what we asked Jay about!

    Cheers

  4. Posted

    Hahma said:

    Okay, well perhaps my example was perhaps a slight exaggeration with the 15 weeks. But if you spend $50 on a video game and spend 50 hours to play through it completely twice in one week's time after you buy it, are you going to blame the game company because you are bored with it? All I'm saying is that if some people choose to play a game of any kind more obsessively than casually, then I don't feel it's the game designer's fault if those people get tired of it quicker than the people that choose to play the game more casually.

    OK for me it boils down differently and also let me say that everything below is on the current state of the game.  I have high hopes for it and love co-op games in general, but LOTR being a constructive card game is a different beast.

    I can play AGOT repeatedly, against the same player, with the same deck, 5 or 6 times in a night without a problem.  And then I can do that weekly and still be challenged.  This is largely because of the opponent.  The opponent starts waking up to my strategies, so I tweak my deck.  I burn him with a new strategy and he then evolves his deck too.  It's a process that I enjoy a lot.

    In LOTR the opponent is static, so the wrestling of tactics, strategy and wills is missing from the gameplay.

     

    And lets go back to the D&D element for a second but lets forget the DM entirely.  D&D is a coop game run in scenarios, much like LOTR LCG.  I dont know about others, but we dont play through the scenarios more than once.  It is relatively static regardless of the random aspect of the dice and people's decisions.

    Sure LOTR can change slightly from scenario to scenario, but essentially the story is the same . . . through the woods, up the river, rescue a hero from the dungeon.  Same objectives, same bosses, etc.

     

    For me this is where it falls down at the moment.  The game seems to be too static for my liking.  Once we have played through each of the scenarios once, that's it.  There is no real reason changing a deck, the opponent is static with a fixed card pool.
    This may get better over time, it could also get worse as the player card pool gets bigger.

    I am just concerned that the scenarios dont have the legs to carry the game enough on their own with the other dynamics of LCGs

  5. Posted

    We already have "Exhaust a Spirit character to do X" cards.

    I can see more cards in this vein and when an "Exhaust a Lore character to do X" cards start appearing, in addition to the card draw, Bilbo will come into his own.  We are judging him on current card pool and about 3-4 spoiled cards, hardly fair on the little chap!

  6. Posted

    I think the 3+ thing is more just if your group is that dynamic.  AGOT is great with 2-4, no dramas at all.  WI doesn't seemed as well designed as AGOT when talking 3 or more players.  What you will find is that some cards have an effect that scales meaning it is definitely more effective in a 4-player game.  You will likely end up with a deck built for 4-player Melee games in case people want to have a go at that level and a 2-player Joust deck which you use most of the time.

    The different game types can be fun as well, so that can offer a break from standard game.

    In our group now we are finding the following happens . . . AGOT at 2 players, then AGOT or LOTR as more players turn up depending on what people what to do.  WI seems to get pushed to the side more often than not.  WI got played a little pre-LOTR, but since then not much at all.

    The Core Set really is great though for AGOT.

  7. Posted

    Hey Mestrahd,

    Well I have 2-3 Cores of AGOT, WI and LOTR.  Personally of those three, AGOT is easily the best out of the box.

    Having played LOTR, you know that the Event cards eat into player decks in the core set and that is understandable.  Characters are limiting in terms of customisation.  Also the LOTR card pool is bare.  Neither WI and AGOT are going to have this issue.  The decks are larger out of the box and are broader in scope.

    Our group isn't as heavily into WI as AGOT, but reading around the balance in WI is getting there now.

    AGOT I love to death.  Some players are still just using the CS and have a great time in our group.  A lot of that has to do with imagery as much as anything, but it is a solid game, enjoyable play and as balanced as anything can be is something like a Core Set.
    Add in that there are deluxe boxes now for all but one house (Lannister) and there are plenty of options for people in your group to go forward with.

  8. Posted

    Troymk1 said:

     Alright I have been playtesting the 6 encounter card variant for 4 players and here are the results.

    Scenario 1 =  beat the scenario in 3 turns, Score 134. (including Thalin being lost to an unlucky shadow effect)

    Scenario 2 = beat the scenario in 4 turns,  Score 126. 

    Scenario 3 = have failed 3 times. Last effort was the closest. 9 turns Beravor, Theodred and Dunhere Killed and all 4 players pushed over 50 threat by a nasty combo of encounter cards. 

     

    I think Scenario 3 is do-able with 6 encounter cards but it will take some luck on my part.

    That looks similar to ours though we have only played S3 once and we scraped through.  All our wins were over 110 as well but I didn't keep notes (i think one may have been like 118).

    If I demo to people I get out the dual-sphere decks and run the rules as is.

    If we are playing with our group, we construct and play 4/6 threat cards for 3/4 players.

  9. Posted

    I have similar concerns with it slowing down as well.

    I find the problem is the event deck.  Imagine you played MTG, but every game was against the same opponent with the same deck.  AGOT where your opponent played the same deck without changing a card.

    Then each month, they get some new cards, make a new deck, then play that repeatedly until another month passes.
    I can see it becoming a fringe game in our group, mainly because the challenge in other games is a live opponent making tactical and strategic decisions.  That part is missing from the event deck.  All choice has been removed from it.  There is no battle of wills.  I know what cards are in the event deck after a couple of plays and start mitigating against possible negative events before they happen.  Surprise element has gone.

    I am definitely giving it at least one complete cycle of APs, maybe two. 
    I agree that the heroes are a big problem in terms of choice and that hurts any creativity, even with a small card pool.
    On the card pool front I am also worried that 2 different cards per AP will not meet our thirst for new cardboard.

    Personally I LOVE coop games.  BSG, Shadows over Camelot, Space Alert, Ghost Stories amonst others but LOTR LCG seems to be missing something intangible in our group

  10. Posted

    The original CCG was phenominal, until STG made their "announcement that would knock everyone's socks off"

    That announcement was Horus Heresy and it killed the CCG stone cold.

    The dynamics of the original, 2 turn assaults, shooting, redeploying were great.  Things like Fleet Cards and Planet/Region cards REALLY lend themselves towards the LCG format.  Will we ever see something like the original CCG?  I dont think so but it is nice to dream.

  14. Posted

    Entropy42 said:

    Are there really that many 3-ofs in the base set that you want to draw all the time?  I feel like I could make my pre-cons better by going down to only 2 of many of the triplicates, thus increasing my chances of drawing the more powerful single and double cards that are in there (like Gandalf).

    FWIW, I've played with the 6 cards for 4 players rule, and found it to be good.  We did this while also scaling up the quest cards, so if it said reveal an additional card each quest phase, we revealed 4 additional cards. 

    I haven't played enough games where Northern Tracker was game breaking, but I have noticed I'm always happy to get him out.  His ability is unusually strong in MP.  Is he unique?  If not, maybe a rule to say he is would help.

    By removing the 3-ofs and going dual sphere changes it more.  Just going to 2-ofs itself wouldn't make a huge difference as you say, but we haven't increased the 1-ofs.  We just use the core set at the moment to try and balance it at that level.  Also things like Faramir and Steward of Gondor got split between the Leadership/Spirit and the Tactics/Leadership deck.  So other things got lowered just through making dual-sphere decks.

    Yeah NT is not unique.  But even with one he can clear a hell of a lot in 2 turns with a large portion of the Locations as they are mostly 2 progress.

    And yeah I guess in MP, he ramps up quickly.  We have had 4-player games where we have drawn 4 Locations on the quest.

  15. Posted

    We started doing that and it worked well, but a few of the guys felt that we were messing with the rules, so we started trying the "max 2 copies in 30 card decks" solution.

    I dont think it was messing with the rules too much myself, but the 2 copies thing seems to dilute things down enough to reflect close to a 50-card deck.
    From how it played for dual-sphere 30-card decks, I think we will stay with that until a few releases come out and a few more heroes.

    Taking the chance of getting cards from 1/10 to 1/15 is a lot closer to the approximate 1/17 from a 50-card deck

  16. Posted

    Hmmm, while we should definitely take a wait and see approach in general, those two I just suggested were ideas thrown around after a game where the Trackers turned it from a VERY tight game into a cake-walk.

    It is definitely a game changer though and a card we are watching as a group closely.

    Also take a look at the Carrock, it is definitely going to be the final destination in terms of the quest based on it's ability with the trolls and the way you travel to the location.  The "immune to player's cards" effect is there, I bet, to prevent people circumventing the quest the way it is meant to play.  I cant see it being a common location power except for Location based scenarios.

    The threat reduction ability of the Trackers is crazy, crazy to the point where we never travel to a Location if one is in play, as a general rule.  We had about 16 threat on the board with 14 from locations and in two turns there was 2 threat in the staging area.  With 2 or even 3 Carrocks out at once, the Tracker would still be removing 6-8 threat, which is massive in this game's scope.

    To me the Locations are there to be a persistent threat, they are tougher to manage than creatures just because the rate at which we can negate them.  The Trackers ability to nullify massive amounts of threat seems to be a little unbalanced at this stage of the game.

     

    Wait and see for sure, but they are a massive card in the game.

     

  17. Posted

    Elven Archer said:

    That Northern Ranger seems to make or break the game for us EVERY SINGLE TIME.

    Not sure how to fix that problem. Even drawing 6 encounter cards during the staging part of the quest phase in our 4 player game won't affect this Location vs. Northern Ranger problem. The Northern Ranger is either:

    a) questing and knocking down an unlimited number of locations or

    b) not out there and therefore the group dies by being overwhelmed with locations.

    Our group is trying to avoid the drawing extra cards mentioned earlier.  What we did was try to get a 30-card deck to play more like a 50-card and by cutting max duplicates to 2 instead of three has made a difference at 30 cards.  Putting a restriction on our decks as opposed to changing the rules feels less like cheating :)  But as you said the problem with the Rangers is still present.

    We were talking about it after last week's games and suggestions have been thrown around and there were two that seem to have merit, though we haven't play tested it yet:

    1. Response: After Northern Tracker commits to a quest, Northern Trackers gains progress tokens equal to it's remaining life.
      Response: Travel phase.  Exhaust Northern Tracks to place any progress tokens on Northern Trackers onto Locations in the staging area.
    2. Response: After Northern Tracker commits to a quest, Northern Trackers gains 4 progress tokens.  Northern Trackers may only gain 4 tokens in this method.
      Response: After a successful quest that the Northern Trackers were committed to, Norther Trackers may move it's progress tokens to innactive Locations.

    The first one has the Trackers stock-piling tokens but then having to not commit to a quest to utilise them.  It also ties the token accrual to the life/health of the trackers.  Healthy trackers are better trackers.

    I like the second one too.  Fixed tokens and it doesn't have to exhaust to use them but must be questing on a successful quest.

     

    The one thing with the Trackers at the moment is that they can clear the board in around 2 turns, and pretty much hand an auto-win to an extent.  I am not saying they should be changed but they were two ideas we came up with just chatting about the same thing after a game.

  18. Posted

    Elven Archer said:

    The locations will rarely hurt you if you can quest with 1 or more Northern Rangers. It's just the treachery and enemies you have to handle.

    Yeah I am starting to think they need to be toned down a little.  We didn't have one out and were battling to break even on a few rounds and the threat before the draw was pushing up toward 12 . . . there was about 7 locations out and about.  Everyone was on edge.

    Then I drew a Ranger and told everyone if we held on for 2 turns (i was playing the Spirit/Lore adjusted starting deck i mentioned in our group and had only 2 spirit resources) then all would be fine.

    Next turn 2 more locations and it went to a 15 threat in the SA, but the Rangers were out so almost all of them would be completed next turn.

    It was the first time we felt pushed even in the third game with four players, but the Rangers killed off any perceived doubt we had about succeeding.
    That being said it has been our favourite 4-player game to date.

    Out of interest, we used the following discuassed in this thread:
    Adjusted dual sphere starter decks (listed previously)
    Did not include any of the cards that appear as singles in the CS other than Gandalf
    Did not use the extra threat cards mentioned above.

  19. Posted

    We had a close one on Friday night on scenario three with four players.

    The 30-card decks split with the Spheres I list above worked a treat.  In those though there were none of the 1-of cards just to make it tougher . . . no Beorn, Horn, Brok, Grim Resolve, Celebrian's Stone, Unexpected Courage, etc.  Also there were no 3 x any card in any individual deck.  Taking out those game changing cards mean we had to dip into the second CS, but the end result was worth it.
    Gimli was the captured Hero, but resource management was interesting, you definitely have to think more about the cards coming forth and the amount of time before cards can come out is increased, especially in the off-suit of the cards.

    End score ended up being around 140 from memory with 2 new players.  3 heroes lost, Gloin, Beravor and Theodred.  Everyone on 40+ threat, one on 47.  It was the first game we have fealt like it was a challenged.

    Taking out the singles from the core set I think made a huge difference.  Limiting to a max of 2x put it back closer to a 50-card experience (chance of drawing any 2x card in 30-card deck is 6.67% vs 6% in 50-card deck) added to things as well

  23. Posted

    Nerdmeister said:

    Are you sure about this?

    To quote the all-mighty book of rules: "Phase 2: Planning - ...... after a player plays an ally or attachment card from his hand, he places it faceup and ready in his play area"

    Seems to me that if you go by the rules you can only play attachments on cards belonging to you. If this rule has been altered somehow, does that mean you can play allies into another player´s play area as well?

    I'd be inclined to follow this rule first:

    The Golden Rule
    If the game text of a card contradicts the text of this
    rulebook, the text on the card takes precedence.

  24. Posted

    I also think that people will get a lot out of making a killer co-op deck, one that no matter who you are paired with can drag the poor players out of the mire and on to glory.

    If in a tournament you reverse swiss seed, then the best will play with the worst player and to continuing winning the good player will have to be on his game.  That is the part I am looking forward to . . .

  25. Posted

    fabest said:

    So, as long as an official errata doesn't modify it, Despair removes progression tokens only from the quest, and not from anything else.

    You need to interpret the rules as little as possible.

    Have to agree.  Location is irrelevant.

    When Revealed: Remove 4 progress tokens from the current quest card. (If there are fewer then 4 progress tokens on the quest, remove all progress tokens from that quest.)

    It doesn't even come into play in the card text.  Remember that if a card contradicts a rule in the rulebook the card is what we go with.  Not that there is anything about the rulebook here, but we shouldn't be trying make a rulebook rule fit when the card overides the written rulebook anyway.

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