Tabletop Fun

[Ceir]

Got to try something new at FLGS board game night, this week, Deep Regrets, a Lovecraftian fishing game. Despite screwing up in the midgame and not taking certain things into account for scoring, I did manage a Not Last on my first time playing. Enjoyable, and the fact that I can pinpoint the turn I screwed up is actually a good sign!

[Jay 2K Winger]

Dragonlance--

We got back from the Icewall Glacier last session, after killing the Great White Wyrm, Icingdeath, and the White Knight of the Tears, Tharkassus.

This session, we found ourselves in a fight against the Great Green Wyrm, Cyan Bloodbane, whom we previously encountered in Silvanost, where he'd been torturing the "king" of the Silvanesti elves, unleashing a nightmarish blight and undead monsters on the forests, and where our previous wizard, Justinius, had managed to turn the Green Dragon Orb on Cyan and forced him to flee. But Bloodbane's Nightmare had wiped out a lot of Kagonesti elves too, including the entirety of Sylphara's tribe, the Skyfishers, who had been defending the rest of the Kagonesti.

Fortunately, we'd just come into possession of Lesser Dragonlances. Used from dragon back, these things provided a number of benefits-- +3 to attack and damage, +2 to AC (but could not be used in conjunction with other shields), resistance to dragon breath attacks (half damage on failed saves, no damage on successful saves), as well as the coup de grace-- on a critical hit, the lance dealt additional radiant damage to dragons equal to the wielder's maximum HP.

We were also joined by about ten other dragonriders from the Whitestone Forces-- including several members of the Companions (aka characters from the Dragonlance novels) such as Caramond, Goldmoon, Riverwind, and so on. They also got Lesser Dragonlances, and they came in clutch against the Green Dragon Army and Black Dragon Army's dragonriders.

Cyan Bloodbane is dead, with Sylphara getting the final blow, declaring, "The last Skyfisher has her vengeance."

Only, we don't get a lot of time to rest on our laurels. While en route to this new battle, we'd spotted the Blue Dragon Army watching from the nearby Kalkist Mountains-- and they had the dreaded Death Knight known as Lord Soth with them. But after the battle, the BDA just went back into the mountains. We know their goal is to march on Palanthas, since Soth has a hatred for the city.

Plus side, it will take Soth and the BDA about 14 days to reach the city, while it will take our party considerably less, and the WSF will be able to get to the city a few days ahead of the BDA. The BDA will be avoiding the High Clerist Tower, on the belief that it's still garrisoned, while the WSF can pass by the High Clerist Tower without problems.

Main worries we have are that we didn't see any Knights of the Tears with the Dragon Armies in the battle, but we heard then that, after killing Icingdeath and Tharkassus, the Emperor called back the other Knights, as well as the Red Dragon Army, to reinforce his capital. Also that Kitiara Uth Matar, the Highlord of the BDA, may have her own objective and plans on moving on the Empire.

[Nunavut Pants]

Wow, I got within a hair's breadth of winning three Terraforming Mars games in a row!

In the first one, I played a corp whose (money) income went up each time anyone played a Jovian tag. I wound up with 8 Jovian tags, plus a card that gave me 1 VP/Jovian, and one that gave me 1 TR (which is income and VP) for each Jovian. I also had played Pets early on, which is 1/2 VP per city tile played, and there were a bunch of them played! Plus I had two cards which fed into each other nicely; one that would occasionally allow me to place an "asteroid resource" on it which was worth 1 VP, and another which allowed me to pay a bit of money to place an asteroid resource on any card.

Even with all of that, it still came down to a tiebreaker! I had more money at the end so I won. 106/106/101; tiebreaker was 76 money to 67.

The second game I noticed after a while that I was in contention for first place in all of the Awards. So I funded the three I was best in, which is a nice 15 points. I had set myself up for another VP at the end but miscounted by 1 money. Turned out that was the difference; I tied with another player for VP and lost on the tiebreaker.

The third game was not nearly as close. I worked my way toward the Builder milestone (8 building tags) and also bumped up my income. Turned out the income got high enough to claim the Specialist milestone, and I played enough cards with requirements to also claim the Tactician milestone. Finally I grabbed the Builder one as well. The extra income was also enough for me to be in first place for the Banker Achievement, so I funded that, and I made sure to work myself into (tied) first place in the Naturalist one, which an opponent funded. Those 25 points were more than enough to put me into first place by the end.

Scores were: 80/74/55