Escape from Colditz!

This past Tuesday I brought out Escape from Colditz for the guys as the club.

I had 4 players (prisoners) scrambling about to gather the stuff needed to aid in their escapes while I played the German guards.

One of the conversations was which edition & year my copy is. It has the Gibsons Games logo on the sides, though from looking at Boardgame Geek, this isn't the 1973 version, so I am guessing 2nd ed?

The prisoners at the start of the game. Each colour represents a different allied nations prisoners.

We set a 2 hour limit (as we were playing at the store). The players began running about gathering equipment, which of course allowed me to start arresting them & putting them in solitary. I filled these first 2 cell blocks quite quickly.

I would suggest the players didn't really plan working together, they consistently left the guard spaces free for me to keep repopulating them & then snagging yet another prisoner to send to solitary. 

Chen did manage to make a run for it with 1 prisoner, however I had the Shoot to Kill card held in my hand & managed to bag him before he got away.

As it stood, time ran out & I had got the 'win' for preventing any escapes. Good little game without oodles of bits & pieces, apart from the meeples, & a few decks of cards.

I then got home to find a parcel awaiting me. My Deluxe copy of Big Trouble in Little China had arrived!!!!! 

 

The deluxe version allows for 5-6 players instead of the 1-4. I will be taking some vacation & hope to solo play a game of this before taking to Scott's next Saturday.
I've been watching some of the playthrough videos on YouTube & it looks like its going to be a blast!
 
 Stay tuned...
 

Frostgrave - Total Eclipse

This past Sunday we had our 15th game of our Frostgrave Campaign. We had another of the fellows return who hadn't been with us since early in the campaign...remember the guy whose warband was chased by a white gorilla? Yep that guy!

We started the Thaw of the Lich Lord campaign book as our next grouping of scenarios & started with 'Total Eclipse'

Again the warbands present & their members are as follows;

Eben (me) 

Innovar (Craig)

Ludwig (Chen)

Bob (Scott)

Ulrich (Chris)

We played the scenario pretty much straight from the book, however I added that upon the total eclipse (turn 5) we would at that point switch over to the Thaw of the Lich Lord creature tables. Of note, any rolls that revealed either the Ghoul King or Lich Lord would be re-rolled. 

I also added in the use of Ulterior Motives for this scenario, as initially the warbands are merely scrounging until the eclipse changes things.

I will now allow the AAR to tell the tale...

 

 

3 out of the 5 Ulterior Motives were successful (It Shall Be Mine, Sould Drain, & Ancient Ancestor). The after game revealed the following;

Ulrich (Chris) - 100xp, no treasures. Reggy, Ricken, Sear, Slug (all badly wounded, missing next game)

Bob (Scott) - 520xp, 4 treasures - 40gc, Ring of Will, Staff of Power (1), Boots of Speed, Gloves of Strength.

Ludwig (Chen) - 890xp, 3 treasures - 340gc, Staff (+1Fight), Grimoires - Banish, Mud

Innovar (Craig) - 350xp, 3 treasures - 260gc, Grimoire - Call Storm, Magic Candle of Summoning, Cloak of Protection (+1). Marion killed, Townsend badly wounded (miss game)

Eben (Me) - 515xp, 6 treasures - 430gc, Grimoire - Bone Dart(2), Enchant Armor, Circle of Protection; Scrolls - Miraculous Cure, Transpose, Invisibility; Potions - Elixer of Speed, Teleportation

Unfortunately Ulrich took the brunt of the pain having so many badly wounded troops. Our next campaign game will be in October as September is a busy time for all with Fallcon, the Edmonton Expo, etc. Plus I have quite a bit more terrain bits to work on for the ice floes.

As always, thanks for taking the time to visit the blog.



 

A Song of Ice & Fire

Tonight George brought out the Song of Ice & Fire Miniatures Game. This is one of the kick starters I also bought into.

Chen & Craig played the Lannister's while Bob & I were the Starks. Each of the units have special abilities, as well various leaders & commanders can add further bonus's to units they are with.

There are objectives scattered around the board, which if a unit touches them provides some sort of bonus. I must say I am not a fan of all the cards on the table though. Perhaps a numbered sideboard, with the cards on a matching field to that of a numbered objective token.

My Stark Outriders advance with Greywind. There are several actions a unit may perform. The unit bases are well displayed with arc markers & the front facing arrow.

 The Mountain charges & kills Greywind. This guy is insane, as all his hits cannot be defended against.

 

The Casterly Knights charge the Stark bowmen. Charging often provides either additional dice or rerolls of attack dice misses. The archers managed to hold on...though barely. As well losses from units start at the rear rank & units will suffer reductions to their combat power as losses ensue based on ranks.

   

One of Bob's best rolls, the emblem (6) due to the unit causing them counted as 2 hits each. So in this case 10 wounds were caused. Of course it was ruined when the Lannisters  managed to save 8.

Robb Stark & Jaime Lannister meet (top right) The Stark's initially had a flank attack.

The Lannisters remnants then turned & attacked.

The game goes until one side earns 12 VP, however due to the store needing to close & us having to clean up, we were unable to finish. The Lannisters had 7VP to the Stark's 4.

One last look at the Mountain! 

The figures were very nice, their movement trays well thought out (notice the finger dents to aid in picking them up.

Thanks George for bringing this out. There was a lot to digest in regards to abilities & such, but I do look forward to more games of this system.

I arrived home to discover a parcel awaiting me....my Terrain Crate has arrived! However due to the lateness, I wasn't about to open everything & truth be told, all the stuff I got can be seen on the Kickstarter page.

Terraining Day

Just like the subject says, today was spent painting up some of the scenery packs for Song of Ice & Fire, which George will be running at the club Tuesday. He didn't pick up any of the terrain packs & thus asked if I would bring mine.

Well I certainly could, but...it needed to be painted.

So here are the ones I chose to get finished.

First up the woods piece. Though the unpainted ones did have brown trunks & green foliage, it needed paint to make them pop! The unpainted ones can be seen by scrolling down here.

Also part of the Woodland set are these 3 hedges.

 The other box I painted was the Northern Ruins set, which includes this muddy/boggy ground piece

And the 3 pieces of wall.

I am looking forward to giving this game a try Tuesday, & I will be sure to take photos of it.

Thanks for stopping by.