Wednesday 31 October 2012

KoffeeKlub Evening 4th of November

Battlestar Galactica
We're likely to have another bumper crowd this weekend, so time to roll-out another big co-op game, Battlestar Galactica.

BSG is a straight-up humans vs. cylons survival game, but with a twist... One (or possibly more) of the players will be hidden Cylon agents posing as humans in order to maximise the damage they can do and achieve their own victory conditions.

We have six seats at The Black Knight this Sunday between 7pm and 11pm, all are welcome.

"The scrolls tell us a 13th tribe left Kobol in the Early Days. They travelled far and made their home upon a planet called Earth, which circled a distant and unknown star." - Priest Elosha

Tuesday 30 October 2012

Cold City RPG - (AML) Scene #1 - "The Stakeout"

Cold City RPG
A Mother's Love: Session #1 - "The Stakeout"

"A Mother's Love" is a older storyline from a previous role-playing group, but set in the same Cold City world as our recent "Prisoner #8" adventure.

Characters - The RPA Team:

AndyB - Henrik Grubbermann (German, Deutsches Zivilburo)
Pete - Edmund Paley (US Diplomat)
Tom - Otto Hartmann (Austrian, former Wehrmacht Officer now with Deutsches Zivilburo)
Steve - Henri Lectuer (French, civil policing advisor)
Mike - Vasilly Reva (Soviet, former pilot)

Background: A flagged Stasi report had indicated possible ST (modified "super" soldiers) activity in a residential zone in Haring. STs have been an ongoing issue since the war ended. The RPA field team was ordered to stakeout the location and capture the ST should the reports turn out to be correct. 

We opened with Henrik and Vasilly travelling in their Willy Jeep to East Berlin (Hellersdorf) to meet up with two new field colleagues Otto Hartmann and Edmund Paley. Whoever came up with the idea of putting a Yank diplomat on a stakeout alone with a former Wehrmacht officer needed a good slap! (Although both of their skills came heavily into play as the evening matured).

Soviet "Gaz" Truck
Henrik and Vasilly passed a number of large Russian Gaz trucks, their wheels red with quarry mud, before pulling up along side a derelict house in Haring, a devastated residential zone in Hellersdorf.

Meanwhile Henri, who had failed to join them, was meeting up with "The Fatman", Igor Berbatov (a Black Marketeer) at his cabaret club in Pankow. The Fatman, suspect in Major Spiegelmann's disappearance, wanted to get his hands on the file the RPA had on him. In exchange he was prepared to give Henri details of where the August Von Erht painting "Three Gates To Darkness" would shortly be. Henri made the deal and cycled to join the rest of the team in Haring.

As Otto and Edmund leafed through the Stasi report they were flash-backed [flashback start] into the boots of Stasi grunts, Heinricht Beyer and Tomas Haas, to follow-up on information obtained from interviews in the area.


Eva Weis
Their role was to interview a woman called Eva Weis regarding the disturbances in the area. They started with a softly, softly approach, establishing that Eva had lost both her husband and two sons to the war and now lived alone. This worked well until they started to nose around the house without her permission. Eva got increasingly anxious and the Stasi got a little heavy handed [flashback end] ... as we cut back to the stakeout with the following information:

- Witnesses report a skinny man carrying a dead dog.
- He was dressed in a torn German army uniform.
- He had dirty/bloody hands.
- Sad, mournful look.
- Windows broken.
- Food stolen but not eaten.
- Eva Weis was a noisy neighbour.

To complicate matters further a member of the Stasi had been murdered the night before and Stasi presence in the area was high until nearly midnight, two hours after the scheduled soviet blackout had sent Haring into complete darkness.

At this point the team elected to investigate Eva's house under the cover of darkness, but not before Edmund had revealed a strange home-made radio/PK meter device and began tuning it to "detect ST activity" in the area. More than one agent rolled their eyes and convinced him to "put it away for now" and not light up the street.


Haring, Hellersdorf District (Berlin)
Circling to the back of the terrace houses they managed to enter the Weis house with some excellent B&E work from Henrik. On sighting the broken kitchen table we [flashback start] cut again back to the two Stasi officers "interviewing" Mrs Weis. This time there was little courtesy and as Haas searched the upstairs, Beyer beat and abused the screaming woman over the kitchen table. Haas ran downstairs, the table broke under the frenzied Beyer and they left the woman a weeping bloody heap on the kitchen floor. [flashback end]

Before long they all stood in the kitchen/hall, Edmund detecting a lot of ST activity "really close by". A floorboard creeks from upstairs.

"Hans? Hans, is that you?" called Eva, with more than a little fear in her voice.

Henri responds, pretending to be Hans, beckoning the woman down. Steve rolls well, but with one negative dice as part of his success. Eva rushes downstairs and into the arms of a waiting Otto. Quickly things go crazy as the ST bursts out from the cupboard under the stairs, armed with a screwdriver for Otto's neck. Otto is too quick though and with a single action he pushes the woman aside and punches right through the jaw of the oncoming ST, "killing" it with one blow. Henri knocks out Eva to cut off her screams.


ST's Muddy Boots. A clue?
In the clean-up they search the cellar and establish that the ST had killed the Stasi officer, probably in revenge for what the officer had done to Eva. Eva had clearly become a sort of mother figure to the ST and he became one of her sons "Hans" who had been lost to the war. The ST had red mud on it's boots, which somehow linked to the Gaz trucks they had observed earlier.

They transport both ST and woman back to the RPA building, Vasilly easing them through the Soviet checkpoints enroute.

Very enjoyable session of Cold City, a game that really benefited from the extra players.


For more on our scenarios see The Cold City Files.

Monday 29 October 2012

Learning ASL Starter Kit Part 2

We've walked-through some of the examples from richfam's excellent aslsk tutorial and GaryB has completed his Italian set-up to hold the town of Avola, Sicily.

In this scenario, Ambitious Assault (S9), elements of the Italian 146th Regiment are defending the small coastal town of Avola against units of the American 505th Parachute Regiment (arriving on Turn #1 from the North edge of the map) and elements of the British 50th Infantry Division (arriving on Turn #4 from the South edge of the map).

In setting up his Italians GaryB had to place them up-to seven hexes from S6, indicated by a yellow square on the map below.



GaryB's thoughts on his set-up "I was a little overwhelmed when I sat down to organise my defensive set-up, I had gone over the basic rules with GaryG and understood the counter designations and so on. Having never played before I did not have a feel for how fast the units would move, how far they would turn one etc. I settled for choosing what I thought would be the best locations for my support weapons and then would place my remaining troops in positions that would slow the Allies down. The first unit I placed was a regular 3-4-6 unit in hex O6 with the HMG, as from this elevated central location he could attack units on all the hills on each side of the map. I also placed my best leader in this location to maximise its effectiveness. The MMG I placed on hill W6 in the southern section to hold the British when they arrived. I placed LMGs in support of the HMG in O5, and the MMG in U5. The final LMG I placed with two 3-4-6 units on the road hex L8 with the intention of moving into the buildings K8/K9 as I guessed these would become key locations in the American attack. I was to rue this last decision as I underestimated how quickly the Allies would move into position"

Victory conditions state that the Allies win if the Italians have no unbroken multi-man counters (MMCs) in their original set-up zone (highlighted within the yellow area on the map above).

Turn #1
GaryB's set-up was solid enough, but I thought that I could exploit his soft underbelly by focusing my attack from the Western tree-line, just past the hills outside of Avola. This was Sicily after all!

Even at this early stage I was conscious that I needed to move quickly, so I sent two four elite units, with MMG and two quality leaders double-timing towards the trees. My other slightly weaker units would split off towards the East and make a delayed attack from that side of the town.

In response GaryB wisely moved his Italian troops into safer positions to the West, avoiding an unnecessary early encounter with the Americans. This was a delaying game for him after all, so engaging a stronger force head-on probably wouldn't be a good strategy.

End Of Turn #1
American Turn #2
In my first assault of the game I moved a 7-4-7 (with 9-1 leader) under the cover of smoke into tree hex M10 (point B on the map below). They took heavy fire from the Italian machine gun nest in the hills towards the centre of town, pinning the leader and breaking the squad. Not a great start!

I took the positions K8/K9 easily, despite fire from across the street and set-up two 7-4-7s with MMG. My key squad, another 7-4-7 (with 9-2 leader), would use the smoke and try to break across the street to get into close combat with the Italian LMG squad in M8. The roll went against me though and my unit got pinned at the tree-line under fire from two Italian 3-4-6 squads just to the South. Two turns in and I already feel like I'm running out of time...

American Turn #2
Meanwhile to the East, my 8-0 leader with 7-4-7 and 3-3-7 squads move into position having avoided any Italian attention.

Italian Turn #2
Settling for Prep fire the Italians focused their attention on taking out my MMG position at K8, but only managed to pin the unit, with other fire being largely ineffective. I had more success though in my defensive fire by fire-grouping against the 3-4-6 squad and 7-0 leader in M7, breaking both and casualty reducing the 3-4-6 to a 3-3-6 conscripts squad.

Italian Turn #2
The Americans are finally getting somewhere. Turn #3 would be a critical one and the buildings to the NW of town would need to be taken.

Friday 26 October 2012

KoffeeKlub Evening 28th of October

Mansions Of Madness
Halloween is coming to KoffeeKlub this Sunday and we'll be hosting a number of suitably themed games. Mansions Of Madness will feature, but we may have a few other tricks up our sleeve on the night. 

All are welcome, so stay awhile...


KoffeeKlub will meet at The Black Knight from 7pm to 11pm.


Death has come to your little town, sheriff.” - Dr Sam Loomis, Halloween.

Tuesday 23 October 2012

Learning ASL Starter Kit Part 1

ASL Starter Kit #2
I've posted some of my completed ASL SK scenarios previously on this blog, but most of them were actually played two years ago. I have a new opponent now so it's time to dust off the D6s and Infantry Fire Tables and get stuck into some ASL again.

I've had a look through the scenarios from both ASL SK #1 and #2 and picked scenario S9 Ambitious Assault as our starting point. S9 is the first scenario from Starter Kit #2 and covers a battle in Avola from the invasion of Sicily, July 1943.

This will be very much a learning game for my opponent GaryB. He has a lot of gaming experience, but hasn't yet played any ASL. I've always found it tougher to attack in ASL, so I will take the British/Americans attackers and let GaryB concentrate on his defensive positions. The scenario archive webpage also balances this towards the Italian defenders, so hopefully this will offset the starting gap in experience.  

S9 Ambitious Assault

Attacker: British/American (505th PIR/50th Infantry Division) (GaryG)
Defender: Italian (146th Regiment, 206th Coastal Defence Division) (GaryB)
Turns: 6 Players: 2 OBA: None Night: No
Avola, Sicily 1943-07-10

RESULT: Turn #6 win for GaryG and his American/British squads

Overview
Avola, Sicily, 10 July 1943: Operation Husky got off to a terrible start as gale-forced winds greeted the poorly-trained transport pilots flying in the paratroopers and glider men of the British 1st Airborne Division and the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the American 82nd Airborne Division. Instead of dropping behind the Allied beaches and seizing key bridges and strong-points, they were scattered all over the southern half of the island. One such group of men landed near the coastal town of Avola with Lt. Sammon the ranking officer. After a brief council with the remaining officers, he ordered this adhoc group of 75 paratroopers armed only with light weaponry to attack Avola in order to assist the British whose seaborne invasion of Sicily was starting to land.

Italians must hold out against a combined attack from two sides. The US attack with 5 squads, an MG and 3 leaders and the British enter the battle at the midway point.

Victory Conditions:
The Allies win at game end if there are no unbroken Italian MMC </= 7 hexes from S6, the yellow square.

Map/Victory Area:
Map
I'll be posting up our progress, so please keep an eye on the blog, or subscribe for future updates.

Bingers, Lt Gardner is back!





Cold City RPG - (P#8) Scene #5b - Going Underground Pt2

Cold City RPG
(P#8) Scene #5b - Going Underground Pt2 (#1, #2, #3, #4, #5a)
RPA agents Renoir (French), Wheeler (American), Bloom (British) and Gavril (Russian) encounter some undead Vopos officers in the tunnels of the Berlin U-Bahn.

Undead VoPo
...as Wheeler hesitated, Gavril went for the closest VoPo, smacking it hard in the face and breaking it's nose with a horrible crunching sound. Wheeler turned quickly to look for the others, but they were further down the tunnel and out of sight. No help there! 

Glancing back at Gavril, he saw the big Russian struggling to hold the creature back, so he raised his pistol and fired twice hitting a second VoPo in the arm and chest. It neither slowed nor showed signs of pain as it's arms stretched towards the American's face, plunging it's grimy thumbs into Wheeler's eye sockets.

Screams echoed down the tunnel and finally Renoir and Bloom turned back to help their colleagues. Too little, too late for Wheeler who lay motionless on the track, his eyes a bloody mess. Without a pause, Renoir and Bloom both fired into the fight, destroying one creature and wounding a second. Gavril himself had taken a few blows, but was still strong enough to twist the head from his assailant and throw it's motionless body towards the wall. The fight looked to be turning in their favour, as Renoir bent down to check the motionless Wheeler. He was dead...

Protective Goggles
The rest of the encounter became a hazy blur for Renoir as the rising Wheeler (now a zombie too) grappled him from behind and began to smash his face repeatedly into one of the U-Bahn rails. Bloom had troubles of her own to deal with as the boy Pavel (Gunter's killer?) appeared behind her. Fortunately she still had her goggles and a big Russian for protection. Gavril grabbed Pavel and Bloom injected him with a sedative, rendering the boy unconscious.

Once unconscious, the boy's hold over the animated corpse of Wheeler is broken and Renoir is saved. Exhausted and bloody the team call for the scene to be cleaned.

The Aftermath
Prisoner #8 - Classified
An RPA clean-up crew was assigned to the incident and the VoPos deaths were recorded as accidental, the unfortunate officers having been hit by a passing U-Bahn train. Renoir's injuries had him hospitalised for almost two months and during this time he and his fellow agents were interrogated and temporarily removed from all field duties within the RPA.

The RPA file records that Pvt Grey had taken illegal pictures in and around Spandau Prison during his guard duty there in January '50, before taking them to the Roth photography shop on Freidrichstraβe to be developed. One of the pictures taken looked down over the yard at Spandau and captured an image of a tattooed inmate (known only as Prisoner #8). Neither Pvt Grey, when he took the picture, nor Gunter Roth when he developed it wore any sort of eye protection and a "spark" travelled from the inmate (Prisoner #8) into the camera's film. A short time later Pvt Grey was found dead from an apparent suicide in the Havel River. Gunter Roth died whilst developing the picture and the "spark" possessed his son Pavel who fled into the Berlin U-Bahn.

Information surrounding the alien nature and origins of this "spark" have been filed as classified. 

Berlin's U-Bahn
For more on our scenarios see The Cold City Files.

Monday 22 October 2012

Gamesreport: 22-Oct-12 Ascension:Storm Of Souls

In a slight change of direction from the proposed game Michael, Chris and GaryB played Ascension: Storm of Souls on Sunday evening at Whitehead Primary School. The previously announced Paths of Glory was perused but postponed due to the limited time available. We are still keen to play this game at the KoffeeKlub though we may schedule all day Saturday game to tackle it in the near future.

I was very interested to play Ascension having read positive reviews about it and also about the iOS version of the game. So Michael ran a learning game for Chris and myself and gave us a solid insight into the strategy of the game. AndyB was very kind to provide the eponymous coffee for which michael and I were very grateful. Chris was there to prove the point that you do not need to be a coffee drinker to be welcome at Koffeeklub.

Ascension is a deck building game which reminds me of Thunderstone though perhaps it is not so tightly themed. The purpose of the game is to amass honour by defeating monster and to defeat more powerful monsters by buying heroes and constructs whilst keeping your deck from bloating out of control. Standard deck-building fare by all accounts. There are multiple factions, and styles of play and with more than the two games that we got through under my belt I think I could get to the subtleties of the game.

The game plays well and feels lighter and faster than other similar type games I have played lately. The first game went very much Michael's way. He knew the cards that could damage his style of play and banished them (removed from the game) as soon as they came out. He amassed a large number of constructs which worked extremely well together whilst Chris and I, basically, played the cards as they came up mostly without any deep strategy and the result was that Michael won handsomely 110(Michael)-73(GaryB)-72(Chris)

The playing board is not really required
Chris had to bow out early and the second game was a two player match between Michael and myself. This time I played much better clearing out my weaker cards from my deck early and replacing these with stronger cards. By the middle of the game I was comfortably in the lead with and efficient deck and Michael was chasing a little. His experience showed through as he gradually clawed back the lead and finally we finished the game with a score of 78-77 honour, with the victory going to Michael.

Thank you for Michael for bringing down the game and introducing it to us. I really enjoyed Ascension and would definitely play the game again. I will be checking out the iOS version though I am a little worried that playing the electronic version of the game with its automation and ease of play could take away from the enjoyment of the physical version. I will have to see.

Friday 19 October 2012

KoffeeKlub Evening 21st of October

Paths Of Glory
It's the weekend and that means KoffeeKlub! We have a few options available this week as Michael has offered to bring Paths of Glory, a WWI strategic wargame and Silent Death, a space combat game.

Silent Death
This week KoffeeKlub will meet at WeeGamers in Whitehead Primary School between 7pm and 11pm.



“Do days exist without calendars? Does time pass when there are no human hands left to wind the clocks?” - H.G.Wells

Thursday 18 October 2012

Twilight Struggle - USSR Set-Up

We've played a lot of Twilight Struggle on VASSAL recently and are beginning to get a reasonably good feel for the game and how it plays out. For any new player to the game, understanding the cards can be a real barrier early on, so we'll try to make that learning curve a little more accessible and give you a solid foundation on which to build your Twilight Struggle strategies.

Boot Camp
There are three shared decks in Twilight Struggle, an early-war deck (38 cards), a mid-war deck (48 cards) and late-war deck (23 cards) with your opening hand always coming from the early war deck. Mid-war and late war cards are shuffled in for turns three and seven respectively. Great, but how does that help me?

Well, the early war deck always gets played and has only 38 cards in it including three scoring cards (Europe, Middle East and Asia). That's less cards to get to grips with for your early plays and you can focus your strategy on board position for the early scoring cards that are due to appear.

Additionally some games of Twilight Struggle don't even reach mid-war and late war cards due to a sudden victory condition being met (one player reaching 20 VPs or starting a Nuclear War). It's essential to have a solid early war foundation on which to build should your game go the distance.

Standard Game Set-Up (with optional cards)

Set-Up
The China Card
During set-up for a standard game (including the optional cards) the board is pre populated with influence tokens for both the US and USSR players (see map above). At this point both players will be dealt a hand of 8 cards from the shuffled early-war deck, the Soviet player will also receive "The China Card" bringing his starting hand to 9 cards.

Before beginning turn one, the USSR player will add 6 influence into Eastern Europe and then the US player will add 7 influence into Western Europe.

Influencing A Country
For each country on the map the number in the top right-hand corner indicates how much more influence than your opponent you need to have control there. Control is important for both scoring (as scoring is based on countries controlled in the scored region) and in restricting your opponent as they try to influence the country. For example:

Example - Adding Influence
Poland requires 3 influence to control, so as the Soviet player I add three single influence points to give me control overall control there. Note that my influence markers are white with red text until I reach the number require for control.

My control in Poland will help when the Europe Scoring card comes up, but it will also make it more difficult for the US player to add influence there.

Continuing this example during the US player's turn he wants to take away my control in Poland. He can do this by adding his own influence there, providing he has influence in a country adjacent to Poland.

Normally 1 influence point will give you +1 influence in the targeted country, this changes however when the country is controlled by your opponent. First you must break that control by spending 2 influence points to add one of your own.

In the example the US player must spend 2 influence to add 1 US influence into Poland. Note again that both influence markers now have white backgrounds indicating that neither player now has outright control in Poland.

Scoring and Battleground vs. Non-Battleground Countries
Most victory points in Twilight Struggle come from the various scoring cards scattered throughout the decks. There are three area scoring cards in the early-war deck as pictured below.


These cards talk about Presence, Domination and Control of the respective regions.

Countries
Presence - You are considered to have presence in a region if you control at least one country there.

Domination - You achieve domination in a region if you have more countries more battleground countries (purple background e.g. W.Germany) than your opponent there.

Control - You achieve control in a region if you have more countries and all of the battleground countries (purple background e.g. West Germany) there.

Note that Control in the European scoring region wins the game during Europe Scoring.

If you have drawn one (or more) of these scoring cards they should heavily influence your strategy for that game round. Equally if you have drawn none of them your need to watch your opponent closely and try to work out if he has any of them.

Set-Up as the USSR Player
As the USSR player I now have my starting hand of 9 cards (8 dealt plus The China Card) and need to add 6 influence into Eastern Europe.

Option #1 - A solid start as the USSR player is to add 1 influence into East Germany, 4 influence into Poland and 1 influence into Yugoslavia.

A Solid European Set-Up For The USSR
I already have control in East Germany, but by adding a +1 there I can make it even more difficult for the US player to get his own influence in there once he adds influence into the adjacent West Germany. To add one influence in East Germany he would need to spend two points, but even then I would retain control as the difference would still be 3 points. He would need to spend a further 2 influence (a total of 4) to break my control there.

Similarly in Poland I have added 4 influence to control the country plus a little bit of a buffer.

My final point of starting influence is added into Yugoslavia. This is not enough to control the country, but it puts me adjacent to Italy so that I can begin to threaten Western Europe.

A More Aggressive USSR Opening
Option #2 - A slightly more aggressive opening to threaten re-alignment rolls into West Germany and Italy. 

This involves adding 1 influence into Poland, 3 influence into Austria and 2 influence into Yugoslavia with a view to achieving control in these countries early in turn #1 so that you can attempt re-alignment rolls vs. Italy and/or West Germany.

Re-alignment Rolls
Re-alignment rolls can be used to reduce your opponent's influence in a targeted country. For 1 Op point you can attempt a re-alignment and try to out-score your opponent on a D6 roll.

Critically players get bonuses to their roll:

> +1 For each country controlled adjacent to the target country.
> +1 If they have more influence in the target country.
> +1 If their superpower is adjacent to the target country.

This more aggressive strategy can be especially effective when you have either (or both) of Warsaw Pact Formed and Comecon in your opening hand.

Useful Cards For The USSR Re-alignment Strategy
Obviously you have other options available to you during your USSR set-up, but these should give you something to consider.

If you'd like to try Twilight Struggle, please drop us a message on the KoffeeKlub Facebook page or join us at one of the Sunday evening sessions.

Tuesday 16 October 2012

Battles #8 - Wagram

Battles Magazine Issue #8
My copy of Battles #8 finally arrived today along with two games Wagram, 1809 and Night Drop. Very excited! 

Battles is an independent wargame magazine published by Olivier Revenu and includes reviews, game analysis, historical articles, scenarios and player aids. The magazine is published quarterly and produced to a high standard, both in terms of content and presentation, each issue typically coming with a full game wargame included.

This issue's game is Wagram, 1809 a simulation of the battle between Napoleon and Archduke Charles (Karl) during the campaign on the Danube over the 5th and 6th of July 1809.

With my subscription, I also received a copy of Night Drop, which covers the first hours of the Allies airborne assault over Sainte Mère Eglise on June 6th 1944. One player takes on the role of the U.S. 82nd Airborne Division and the other takes the German ground units in the surrounding areas.

Wagram, 1809 (Left) and Night Drop (Right)
If you want to take a look at Battles Magazine, they have published issue #3 as a free pdf download. It's well worth checking out. Be aware though, should you decide to subscribe, stay patient as the magazine can take a while to arrive. All good things and all that! :)

Monday 15 October 2012

GamesReport 14-Oct-12: A Game Of Thrones

A Game of Thrones
Last night we met up at TBK and got our first six player Game of Thrones match-up since QCON. The unlikely wannabe kings were GaryB (Barratheon), Dave (Martell), Christian (Tyrell), Chris (Lannister), Michael (Greyjoy) and myself (Stark).

Three of the players were new to the game, so we spent a good half hour explaining the rules before getting started.

It was a cagey start with only the Barratheons making any sort of move by taking Kings Landing in their first turn. That proved to be a bit of a distraction as they mistakenly placed support markers the following turn after they had been banned from actions that round.

Stark had built up a sizeable navy in The Narrow Sea and took full advantage by moving into Shipbreaker Bay and taking Crackclaw Point from the Barratheons.

The Starks take Shipbreaker Bay
It wasn't to last though and the Starks were quickly pushed back to lick their wounds in the North.

The south was relatively quiet as both the Martells and the Tyrells jostled for position to improve both their supply and castle holdings. Martell wasn't beyond a few forays into Barratheon waters and ended up chasing one of their small fleets into the Sea of Dorne, only defeating them on the third attempt! 

In war we are often advised to adopt a "divide et impera" or "divide and conquer" strategy in order to gain the upper hand. Following a quiet start, playing with their boats, the Greyjoys decided it was time to adopt such a strategy and attack the Starks to the North and the Lannisters to the South resulting in complete devastation... for them that is...

The Greyjoys Take Riverrun
The Starks Take The Greyjoys
Whispers in court mocked them for dividing their own forces rather than those of their enemies and for the first time in recorded history the Greyjoys were left with little more than a few measly ships.

All of this non-sense to the West gave Barratheon the opportunity to take the lead and amass six strongholds, only one short of victory. Unfortunately in doing so he managed to peeve off both the Tyrells and the Lannisters who rightly turned on him during the next turn.

For the Starks though things were improving fast, first taking Seagard and then The Eyrie they went into the last turn holding all three trophies and six strongholds. In spite of some last turn politicking which saw them stripped of these trophies, they still managed to take Crackclaw Point to seal their victory. Hoorah!  

“When you play the game of thrones you win or you die. There is no middle ground.” - Cersei Lannister

Sunday 14 October 2012

Opening Day Pictures @ The Black Knight Gaming Centre

The Black Knight Gaming Centre
KoffeeKlub had a great day at The Black Knight yesterday, our thanks go out to AndyA for pulling it all together.

I've added some of our pictures from the day below.






"None Shall Pass!"
Castle Panic
Firestorm Armada (Trevor & David)
LOTR (Andrew & Mike)
MTG
Pandemic (GaryG, GaryB, Trevor and AndyA)
Race For The Galaxy (AndyA, GaryB and GaryG)