Board Games at The Edge

The Edge and LXG are teaming up to bring you board games at The Edge! This event will be held at The Edge Quenesland on Saturday November 5, running from midday to 7pm. Come one, come all!

LXG will be there with board games for all ages (okay, most ages), so come along to experience a game you’ve never played before. This is part of a public open day The Edge are running as part of their Independent Games Festival.

The Edge is located close to the State Library of Queensland at Brisbane Cultural Precinct, so is easy to reach via public transport or simply walk across the Kurilpa Bridge from town.

A Longer Wait…

If it seems like a long time since the last LXG meeting, that’s because it is, and we still have three weeks to go until the next meeting!

Having our meetings regularly on the third Sunday of each month makes it easy to calculate when each meeting is on. However the calendar can sometimes play little tricks on us. So October’s meeting was on the 16th, whereas November’s meeting won’t be until the 20th, a five week gap.

The wait will be worth it!

War Machine and Hordes Escalation League Starting

Warmachine and Hordes

Battle Box Bash!

The B.B.B. is an escalation campaign using Warmachine and Hordes Battle Boxes as a starting point.

The rules are designed for a fun campaign rather than serious tournament style play.

Your army must use the official battle box (or equivalent) for your faction. A few unofficial battle boxes for Minions and Mercenary and Retribution have been created but not sold by PP and these can also be used. Please contact me if you unsure what is in you battle box force.

Because points for the various Battle Boxes can vary from 8 to 13 points in order to start from the same level please add models to your battle box to have a 15 point army.

Tier Lists are allowed

Any games can be played at LXG meetings throughout 2011 and 2012 though this is not compulsory, you can playe xtra games out of session if you like.

Schedule

December – February 15 points (Must include your Battle Box)

March – May 25 points (Must include your Battle Box)

June – August 35 points (Must include your Battle Box) in this period we hope to run a 1 day tournament though CMIC (Cooinda Multiannual invitational Clash). This will be confirmed closer to the date.

September – November 50 points (Included Battle Box) may sub the Warcaster / Warlock from the battle box in this period we hope to run a 1 day tournament though LXG (League of Extraordinary Gamers)

By the end of November 2012 we should all have a painted 50 point army and possibly two 35 point lists suitable for tournament play.

Points
1 point per game (Per person played) includes both inside and outside the campaign is
fine.
1 point for playing the game with a fully painted force (all games count)
1 point per win (all games count)

The goal of B.B.B. is to learn the in-and-outs of a new faction for WM and Hordes and paint some great models – finish the League with a great looking 50 point army or even two playable 35 point list armies and most important have fun playing games!

More Auscon Photos

Another batch of Auscon photos have been posted to Facebook. These ones include the winners of the LXG board games challenge. Congratulations to Barabara Kerr and Alex Done!

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150338825771429&set=oa.306284676052952&type=1&theater

Independent Games Festival at The Edge

The Edge Brisbane are running an Independent Games Festival between September to November this year. Board Games aren’t a major feature, but ARGs are front and centre, which should interest many of our club members. The festival also shows off the work of emerging and established game designers, and we have both of those groups among our club membership.

For full details go here.

Also, LXG will be involved in one of the public days, on November 5. You’ll be able to play board games with us at The Edge. More details coming.

A Game of Games, October Update

Here they are, the standings in full after the October meeting. I say in full, there were a couple of cards handed in after we ran the scores yesterday, so those are yet to be tallied.

On the first day, fully nine people managed to get their first rank, with several more getting very close.

Current Standings (updated October 2011)

Rank	Title	Points
16	God / Goddess of Gaming	5,000
15	Emperor / Empress of Gaming	3,000
14	King / Queen of Gaming	2,000
13	Viceroy / Vicereine of Gaming	1,500
12	Grand Duke / Grand Duchess of Gaming	1,000
11	Archduke / Archduchess of Gaming	800
10	Elector / Electress of Gaming	600
09	Prince / Princess of Gaming	500
08	Duke / Duchess of Gaming	400
07	Marquis / Marchioness of Gaming	300
06	Count/ Countess of Gaming	250
05	Viscount/ Vicountess of Gaming	200
04	Baron/ Baroness of Gaming	150
03	Baronet/ Baronetess of Gaming	100
02	Knight/ Lady of Gaming	50
01	Esquire of Gaming	Adrian R. (37) Leanne J (30) Jason C (30) Eddie C (27) Luke vS (25) David K (24) David M (24) Terry K (22) Ross vS (21)
00	Novice of Gaming	Megan B (19) Emily C (18) Courtney J (16) Justine S (16) Alex D (16) Keith D (15) Grace C (15) Jeremy N (13) Darren C (13) Lance A (12) John M (10) Graham M (9) David R (8) Peter G (8) Oliver C (7) Liam F (6)

October Meeting Review

The October meeting was another busy one, we can tell because the kitchen was completely out of food by two o’clock!

Popular games today included Memoir ’44 and Smallworld, which were in almost constant use. Other games played today included Colossal Arena, Magic: The Gathering, Dominion Intrigue, Twilight Imperium, War Machine and Puerto Rico.

A Game of Games got off to a good start, with several members getting to 20 points or more on the first day, meaning they have moved up a rank. Some technical difficulties will delay getting the full table online, namely that the old copy of Excel 97 doesn’t like the macros we’ve asked it to run and keeps freezing every time we try to read the file. Don’t worry, we have the game slips and can re-create the file if necessary! Saved by our paper systems! The results and standings will be up here as soon as possible.

Web Round Up

A few more internet destinations that may interest the gamers. Many of these have already been posted to the LXG Facebook page.

The Brisbane Zombie Walk is a charity event for Sunday 23 October.

about 40 photos from Auscon are now available on their facebook page.

A board gamer who thought he was experienced discovers otherwise at the Essen Board Games Show: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/features/9159-An-Innocent-at-Essen

A review of the new board game, Fortune and Glory: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/10/08/cardboard-children-fortune-glory/ (thanks Nigel for this link!)

For the miniatures players there is a new miniatures company, Fireforge Games has established itself, with some very nice looking Teutonic Knights due for release later this year.

A Game of Games – How to play

With A Game of Games ready to kick off, it’s a good time to cover the basics.

To play A Game of Games, you need to:

1. Join LXG! This game is only open to club members. Joining on the day is fine.
2. Find a game and some people to play with
3. Make sure you grab one of these forms and fill it out

4. At the end of your game, note the position of each player and then hand in the sheet.
5. Goto 2 and repeat until you can’t play any more!

There will be an area set up near the canteen to drop off or collect sheets, and all the committee members have a supply so we shouldn’t run out.

You can check out the ranks at the ranks page here. As the Game progresses, members names will be noted against each rank. It’s a long journey to Godhood, but there’s plenty to achieve along the way.

Good luck and good gaming!

Innistrad Multiplayer Set Review

This article is a review of the new Innistrad expansion for Magic: the Gathering. It is unapologetically taken from a multiplayer perspective, so many tournament worthy duel cards will be ignored, and many ‘junk’ cards will be praised.

Overall this set is a solid addition to multiplayer magic. The main focus up to the release has been on the double-faced cards. For multiplayer aficionados the real gems lie elsewhere.

Set mechanics.
Innistrad has several mechanics, some work better than others for multiplayer.
Flashback: What’s not to like, two spells for the price of one card. With multiple graveyards for players to track, this can often allow you to spring a surprise on the group, especially with cards like Unburial Rites or Devil’s Play.
Morbid: creatures are always dying in multiplayer, making this an easy condition to meet. The trick is getting the right Morbid cards down to take advantage of this. Skirsdag High Priest is definitely a card to watch.
Double-Faced Cards: An interesting evolution, cards with two front and no back. The werewolves, with their mechanic of flipping back and forth as spells are cast or not, are too unreliable for multiplayer. Using them you’ll quickly discover that it is your opponents who control which side faces up in your turn, not you. Individual cards such as Garruk Relentless or Cloistered Youth allow the kind of control that will be welcome in a multiplayer game.
Curses: A Curse is a new enchantment sub-type, allowing you to enchant your opponents with an effect they’d rather not have. Curse of Death’s Hold can wreck small creature based decks in any format, while Curse of Stalked Prey will have everyone in the group smiling (except the victim!).
Spirited Humans: This isn’t a mechanic as such, but there’s a group of Human creatures in White that put a flying spirit into play when they die. These humble creatures can be very good when multiple players are using Wrath of God, and can also make your own Kirtar’s Wrath more effective.

Other notable cards:
Army of the Damned: More zombies than you can shake a stick at plus the stick.
Mindshrieker: Repeatable deck attrition that simultaneously pumps your flyer. Mill one opponent while belting the one with no flying defence!
Kessig Wolf Run: This can cause creatures to crash through for large amounts of damage late game, and you can always pump someone else’s creature if they are attacking that opponent you can’t hit…
Bloodgift Demon: This card acts like Phyrexian Arena, but you get to choose who it affects.
Intangible Virtue: a card no token deck can afford to miss.
Blasphemous Act: This card becomes cheaper the more destruction it will wield. Combine with Mark of Asylum for maximum effect.
Scourge of Geier Reach: You noticed this one already, right?
Caravan Vigil: Given the frequency with which creatures die in a multiplayer game, this card will both fix and accelerate your mana development.
Cellar Door: Over the course of a game, this can net you a fair few zombies.
Grimoire of the Dead: All your creatures are belong to me.
Inquisitor’s Flail: Any creature with Double Strike will love this. Also consider the older creature Spitemare as a carrier, where your opponent has a single large blocker.

To see the full set, click for the Innistrad Card Image Gallery.

Additional: The Innistrad block has now been released, so you can also read our Dark Ascension Multiplayer Set Review, and our Avacyn Restored Multiplayer Set Review.

Club Meeting, October 16

This coming Sunday is our October club meeting.

This meeting will see the full debut of A Game of Games, so get ready to play!

October also sees the start of our new Dominion league, if you want to learn to play this popular new game, now is a great time to start.

Our huge range of board games will be ready to play, and the Grand Melee league for Magic: The Gathering will have another round, only three rounds remain in this year’s league.

Come along and see us this Sunday!

Game Review: Small World

Small World, from Days of Wonder, is a fantasy conquest board game with an interesting twist. The world is too small for everyone to fit. The object of the game is to expand at the expense of your neighbours.

There are plenty of fantasy races to choose from as you expand your empire. Halflings, Humans, Elves, Orcs and more. Each race has its own innate ability to help them through the game. Halflings build their little holes in the ground, Orcs love to pillage, and so on. In addition, each race is randomly assigned a second ability.

Abilities range from gaining more gold from a particular terrain type to more esoteric abilities such as flying! This changes game to game and provides a huge variety in play, as races rarely play the same way twice.

The objective of Small World is to push your opponents out of the way and grab as many provinces on the map as you can. More provinces equals more money, and the player with the most money at the end of the game is the winner.

One twist in play is that each race loses the ability to conquer as turns go by. Eventually they are of no more use to you, and here you can push them into decline and take a new race. A race in decline can hold provinces until pushed out, but has no special abilities. Your new race can conquer provinces around the old one, or even take over another area of the board entirely. One trick of a successful game of Small
World is knowing just when to push your current race into decline and choose a new one.

Small World is a game for 2-5 players and scales nicely with the number of players in your game. Two double-sided boards are provided, with a different board for a 2,3,4 or 5 player game. Each race has a number of tokens to represent its current military might and both tokens and board are very well illustrated and add to the bright fantasy feel of the game.

Small World takes only one game to master and can be played in around one hour. The game is available in the LXG club library.

If you enjoyed this review, you may also enjoy our reviews of:

Chaos in the Old World
Cyclades
Summoner Wars

2011 Brisbane Zombie Walk

The Zombie Walk is coming back to Brisbane! This year’s day is October 23. Head of to the Brisbane Zombie Walk website for full details.

If you’re not familiar with the event, it’s a charity fundraiser to raise money for the Australian Brain Foundation (what else?) to help with their work to reduce the incidence and impact of disorders of the brain, spinal cord and nervous system through the provision of support, community education and research. (No, LXG has no formal involvement here but we’re happy to point out the event). It’s a worthy cause and one that every zombie should support!

The Christmas Angel is Coming!

A few people have been asking what the special conditions will be for this year’s xmas Grand Melee game of Magic: The Gathering. We do something a bit different each year.

The format for the December Grand Melee is Christmas Angel. What is that? I hear you ask. Well…

As per last year, the December melee is free to enter (no pack required) , but you can only gain points if you already have points this year.
deck construction, legality etc, is all as per normal.

At the start of the game, the Christmas Angel will appear under the control of the pivot player (the player who is top of the table in terms of the leaderboard)

The Angel is a 4/4 white creature token with flying.

When control the Angel:

At the beginning of your end step;

if you caused a player to lose 2 or more life this turn, or gain one or more poison counters, control of the Christmas Angel moves to the player to your left.
Otherwise, control of the Christmas Angel moves to the player to your right.

If the Angel is not on the table it reappears under the control of a player as above. In addition you lose 4 life. Protect the Christmas Angel!

Dominion League

Starting in October 2011 and running until November 2012 is our first Dominion league. The league is open to all LXG club members.

Playing and Scoring
Only four-player Dominion games will count. Any Dominion set with whatever expasnions you like (or none) may be used.

For the league, players get 10 points per place (ie first place gets 40 points, second place 30, third place 20, and fourth place 10 points). This is scored separately from A Game of Games (your games still count for this too). Make sure your game slip is put into the Dominion Box for recording after scores are entered for A Game of Games, otherwise they will only count for the league.

Once during the league season, a player may apply to have their score restarted. This is at the discretion of the league organiser.

Final
The Final will be held in December 2012, as a single game featuring the four players with the highest average score gained over the league season. You must have played at least ten scoring games for your average to be eligible.