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Le Havre, Part I

This week we began a game of La Havre. I say “began” because the playing time on the game box says 100-200 minutes. (They must know Ben.) We are playing the advanced game that has 21 rounds of seven turns each. One player gets to act on each turn. Since there are four of us playing, that means that everyone gets to act on two turns during the round except for one “screwed” person. At the end of the round, harvest is gathered and you must feed your workers. Unfortunately those pesky workers demand more and more food as the rounds progress. The rest of the time you are trying to gather wealth in the form of buildings and Francs. You can buy buildings, but it’s much better to build them. Because of this, all of us struggle each round to gather building materials. Ships also play an important role in the game. The rules state that it is unlikely you will win the game without any ships. We all built ships.

We halted our game last night at round 11 or 12. We all think Owen will win. He has a plethora of buildings. He also managed a triple-play at the diner earning him 24 Francs. (That’s a lot.) It’s be interesting to see how the second half of the game progresses. There are not that many buildings left to be built or purchased.

We’ll finish this game up in a couple of weeks. Right now it’s hiding under Mike’s poker table top.

Chaos Steve

Agents of Oblivion IV: A Night at the Art Gallery

GM: Evil Mike, Cruel Silver Tongued Devil
Samuel Smythe (Steve): Occult Branch, Polish National, The Healer
Baltasar Magnusson (Owen): Operations Branch, Swedish, The Lindquist/Forger
Cyrus Lowenstein (Ben): Operations Branch, American, The Ladies Man
Nick Harmon (Mike): Occult Branch, American, Combat Psychic

We had known for a while that the Russians were up to something at the Wroclaw Art Gallery. They were somehow going to pass on sensitive information using paintings. We had obtained one of the paintings and discovered the hidden code within in the painted shades of the art work. Although we couldn’t decipher the code, we did have a fair idea when the paintings would be handed over to the buyer or buyers. The Wroclaw Art Gallery Gala was happening in just a few weeks. International buyers from all over the world would be there. We’d be there too.

We obtained a couple of invitations to the Gala. Our plan was simple. Agent Smythe (and a date) would attend the gala as himself. The Russians already knew agent Smythe and would be watching his every move. Meanwhile, Agents Magnusson and Harmon would be disguised as waiters. They would be searching for persons of interest. Agent Lowenstein would hack into the surveillance cameras from outside and provide valuable identification information. Agent Lowenstein disguised himself as a bum and took up residence inside a trash dumpster located at the side of the gallery.

As the diversion, Agent Smythe was extraordinary. The man known only as “The Russian” tracked Smythe’ s every move, thus keeping him from noticing Magnusson and Harmon. Using some previous intel, Magnusson followed an exotically beautiful women to a smaller gallery. As luck would have it, Agent Lowenstein identified this woman as “Willow”, a Chinese operative looking to defect. Magnusson used all of his training to ignore Willow’s hints and direct commands to leave. This paid off.

Soon a group of men were seen heading to the same gallery. Agent Harmon stealthily followed. Smythe also followed but was noticed by The Russian. Smythe used a little of his power to cause the lights to go out so he could stealthy follow Agent Harmon to the gallery. Agent Lowenstein identified the men as known operatives from Italy, Israel, and the United States. Each was escorted by their own pair of armed goons.

…and that’s when the “shit hit the fan”.

As Smythe stealthily followed behind Harmon, he drew his machine pistol…which went off with a mighty cascade of bullets that nearly hit Harmon. (Yes, I critically failed my Stealth roll.) The goons at the end of the hall took up positions to protect their charges; firing their guns in our general direction. To add to our difficulties, Russian agents from within a secret room exited into the gallery shooting everyone, including Willow.

Bullets were flying everywhere and no one was sure just who was on what side of the battle. Willow was in grave danger. Knowing that we needed to extract her, Magnusson concentrated on getting her to a nearby elevator. Harmon overpowered the Israeli operative and used him as a bullet shield against the Russians. That ended well for Harmon. Not so well for the dead Israeli.

Lowenstein reported that the Russians had captured my date and were moving her out of the building. She was innocent of everything that was going down and was terrified out of her mind. Lowenstein left his post to save her. We were still in the middle of a firefight for our lives. Fearing more Russians Magnusson called for the doors to the gallery to be locked shut. Unfortunately Lowenstein was already heading to the front of the building (pushing his hobo shopping cart.) We somehow managed to get everyone in the elevator without Agent Lowenstein’s help.

Out front, Lowenstein opened up on the two Russians holding my date. One went down; the other pulled a combat shotgun and nearly killed Lowenstein. We were all betting on the Russian at this point. Before Lowenstein could do more than bleed all over the sidewalk, the Russian killed my date and ran off.

We all escaped will Willow. Unfortunately the U.S. and Italian operatives cleaned out the coded paintings and disappeared into the night.

Our handler, Mr. Myster was not happy.

Agent Smythe

Deadwood

You’ve missed a lot of game playing because I’ve missed a lot of writing about it. So here is a 10 second update to bring you up to speed.

Back in march we went to NormCon up around sunny Cleveland and played a bunch of Savage Worlds games. Last month we went to JimCon in sunny Brownsburg Indiana and played tons of board games and a few Savage Worlds games. (I assume both of the aforementioned cities are sunny. I was inside playing games so how would I know?)  In between these two outings were games of Agents of Oblivion and Savage Star Wars. We also played some board games. I lost miserably in them and have now forgotten their names.

Back to the present…

This week we played a couple games of Deadwood. This is a worker placement game that I first played at JimCon. I liked it so well, I bought it. If you’re familiar with the game Carson City, it’s very similar. It has the western theme, the placing of cowboys, and the buildings with special powers, but it’s simpler and I like it better.

Our first game got off to a rocky start with a cowboy from Mike’s ranch and a cowboy from my ranch having a shootout. They both died and went to Boot Hill. A few turns later, Owen picked up the rules and pointed out that we did the fight wrong. How we did was much more deadly than it should have been. We continued on with the game doing the shootouts correctly from then on. They were still deadly.

You win Deadwood by having the most money at the end of the game. Owen’s Onerous Outlaws won our first game with $22. Mike’s Manhandling Marauders came in second with $20. Ben’s Band of Butchers was third with $19 and Steve’s Sorry Saints were last with $12.

Our second game started great. After we had played though half the game I realized we had left a very important tile in the box from the end of the first game. After everyone through things at me, we inserted the tile so it could be played. Mike looked to be doing terrible, but in true Mike fashion was able to bring everyone else down with him. Owen won with $15, I and Mike tied for second with $14, and Ben came in dead last with $13. It was a low scoring game because that missing tile was the bank tile. When you play the game, you’ll know what I mean.

Chaos Steve

Agents of Oblivion Session III

GM: Evil Mike, Cruel Silver Tongued Devil
Samuel Smythe (Steve): Occult Branch, Polish National, The Healer
Baltasar Magnusson (Owen): Operations Branch, Swedish, The Lindquist/Forger
Cyrus Lowenstein (Ben): Operations Branch, American, The Ladies
Man Nick Harmon (Mike): Occult Branch, American, Combat Psychic

Before it gets to be next week, I should say something about this week’s Agents of Oblivion game. At the end of the last game, Agent Lowenstein had just critically failed a roll to adjust the court date for the guy we were trying to break free from prison. It wouldn’t be good for anyone if he were still there during the next full moon. To Agent Lowenstein it seemed that everything went without a hitch and the new court date was reset to two days hence.

We got a couple of hotel rooms and settled in for some much needed sleep, at least Agent Harmon and Agent Smythe did. Agent Magnusson had drawn the short straw and was rooming with Agent Lowenstein. That was strike one. Then Magnusson got a call from our boss, Mr. Myster. That was strike two. Apparently Mr. Myster had some <heated> questions about where we were and what we were doing. Keep in mind that just about everything we were doing was either against Oblivion rules or against orders given to us. Agent Magnusson smoothed it over though and our boss hung up requesting a complete status report within the hour. Agent Lowenstein got to work. Keeping mostly to the truth and focusing on our quest to rid our headquarters of the magical nexus nearby, Lowenstein got the job done. He of course left out our more heinous breaches of protocol, such a making a pack with the devil, the vampire lord Aleksander Nowak.

Moments after the report was sent, the doors of both rooms burst open and in poured men in full assault gear. Agents Lowenstein and Magnusson put up a valiant effort. Both were wounded. The sleeping beauties in the next room woke up to someone trying to zip tie them. We (Agent Harmon and Agent Smythe) fought back the best we could, but we were severely outnumbered and out gunned. The goons in the gear put bags over our heads and took us away in a black, unmarked delivery vehicle. License plate: URSCRWD.

We were taken from the vehicle and placed in a room somewhere. After determining that we were alone, we freed ourselves using Agent Harmon’s hidden knife. A neat trick seeing how Agent Harmon was still in his skivvies. Nonetheless, we were free and began to work on a plan to get out of the room we were being held in. The guard must have heard something so he opened the door to check on us. We couldn’t all get our hoods on fast enough so we tried to subdue him. That wasn’t going to well when we stopped for the night. Agent Smythe had just tried to raise his own Fighting skill through the use of his sacred arts. He critically failed.

What fate awaits our <snicker> brave heroes? Only Evil mike knows for sure.

Chaos Steve

Alhambra: The Card Game & Monopoly Deal

For Christmas Owen got me the game, Alhambra: The Card Game. This week we finally got to play it. I should note that we’ve also played the regular board game of Alhambra. I don’t remember anything about it, so we’ll just stick to the card game.

The card game consists of four different currencies, represented by four colors, and six different types of buildings. There is also a small board that denotes the four currencies. Building cards are placed beside the board so you know which currency is needed to buy what building. Only four buildings are available on any one turn. Also next to the board are four currency cards. The buildings cards and currency cards are refreshed after each player’s turn. On a player’s turn they can either, buy a building or pick up a currency card. To buy a building, a player discards a number of the correct currency cards equal to or greater than the price on the building. If the discarded currency exactly equals the price of the building, you get to take another action. This is very important in the game. You score points at various times during the game  by having more buildings in a specific color than your poor, hapless opponents.

So how did our games go? We enjoyed them even though at times it can be frustrating to see an opportunity pass you by because you were one or two short on the currency you needed. And how is it that Ben always had a plethora of currency in his hands AND a ton of buildings on the table? This happened both games. Even though Ben had a lot of buildings, he apparently didn’t have the right buildings to score a win. Mike won the first game with 99 points, Owen was second with 75, and (surprisingly) Ben languished in third place with 69 points. I was a distant last with only 50 points.

Our second game was a little more even all around. After the first scoring, in which I did very well, Owen read the rules and realized we had been setting up the scoring cards wrong in the currency deck. Fingers were pointed at both Ben and I who had read the rules (supposedly.) We decided to continue on with the game.

Ben had even more building cards down this game and ended up winning with 85 points. Mike and I tied for second with 71 points and poor Owen came in last with 61. It’s ok though, Owen gets his revenge in the next game.

We still had time so we played the Monopoly Deal card game. This is a great little card game that you can even play with non-gamer friends. The deck is filled with properties, money, and action cards. The idea is collect three property sets. If you do, you win the game. Just beware of the other players forcing you to pay rent or even taking over one of your property sets. We played two games of this. In the first game, it looked like Mike had the game all sewed up, but never count Owen out. Through some tricky card playing he got his three sets and won. The second game was much faster, but Owen was just as tricky. He had the cards and he knew how to use them. In one turn he went from have one set to having three and winning the game.

Next week, back to Agents of Oblivion.

Chaos Steve

Agents of Oblivion Session II

GM: Evil Mike: Evil Purveyer of Evilness
Samuel Smythe (Steve): Occult Branch, Polish National, The Healer
Baltasar Magnusson (Owen): Operations Branch, Swedish, The Lindquist/Forger
Cyrus Lowenstein (Ben): Operations Branch, American, The Ladies Man
Nick Harmon (Mike): Occult Branch, American, Combat Psychic

This week was our second session of Agents of Oblivion. We made it to Wroclaw, Poland without any incidents and began looking over the building that will house our import export business and our Oblivion base of operations. The building was a mess. Not only was everything rundown from the building going unused for a long time, but there was graffiti everywhere—some of it quite disturbing. We were able to find a contractor that would work for us to renovate the place and keep his mouth shut about a few special options we’re adding. We also all found places to live in the city.

It turned out that the disturbing graffiti were occult symbols of some kind.  We called in an occult specialist; Norman Korys. He’s a sorcerer, but he’s not in the phonebook. He confirmed that the symbols were bad news that essentially placed a curse on our building. He also mentioned that a supernatural nexus must be nearby, probably on the facility grounds somewhere.

We began having several accidents at the building during the renovations. This caused us to be visited by Officer Dawid Kowalski, who also happens to be the pack leader for a clan of werewolves in the area. He told us to do something about the unusual accidents or he’d have to report the strange goings-on to his superiors—and we wouldn’t want that now would we. We also agreed to break a certain “friend” of Officer Kowalski’s out of prison. Yes, we really did—and this without any authorization from Oblivion. I think our careers are off to a fine start.

But that’s not all. One day walking to the office, I realized I was being tailed. Using all of my tradecraft skills I led him to believe he had lost me, all the while lying in waited for him. I blew my roll to pickpocket his wallet when I “accidently” bumped into him. I did learn he spoke Russian and eventually tailed him to the Polish Art Museum.

We spent a huge chunk of time concentrating on how to free this friend of Kowalski’s. Owen impersonated his lawyer; Ben broke into various places for various reasons; I’m sure Mike did some things too. I had to make a visit to the known leader of the vampires in Wroclaw, Aleksander Nowak, to obtain a dead body. Don’t ask. I ended up walking away owing Aleks a BIG favor. I’m sure that will turn out ok.

We ended the night with Ben putting the final part of our plan into action. He critically failed the roll, and in our house, there is no re-roll of critical failures. We await our fates at the hands of Evil Mike. I’m sure it will turn out ok.

Chaos Steve

Pirate’s Cove

This week we continued our game of Twilight Imperium 3. After a few rounds we decided to call the game. We all agreed that Owen would probably win, even though the rest of us all had our plans…really good plans. We just decided that since Owen ruled his HALF of the entire galaxy with an iron fist, two War Suns, and his flagship that maybe we should give the win to him.

We had time for another game so we broke out an old favorite, Pirate’s Cove. I hate this game. Not because of any shortcoming in the game, but because the game simply hates me first. This particular game started off with me losing three straight battles in the first three rounds of the game. So fame-less I languished in Butcher Bay, or whatever that place is called where you repair your ship and vow revenge on all those involved with putting you there. It seemed an eternity before I earned that first fame point. Everyone else was doing fine. Their ships all included Parrots that improved various parts of their ships and many had Master Craft cards attached to their ships as well. Then my luck changed.

When you go to the Island to repair your ship you have the opportunity to get two Tavern Cards. I got Davey Jones Parrot that allowed me to roll SIX dice in ship battles all of the time. I also got a Master Craft card. I was back in the game! I few rounds later I made a play to take out the pirate ship and earn a bunch of much-needed Fame points. Ben rolled for pirate. The odds were in my favor. Things were going well. All I needed was for Ben to roll one or less hits on his three hit dice. Ben (the dog) beat the odds and rolled TWO hits! He sunk my battleship! Er, pirate ship. Once again I visited the island whose name I should have edged in my arm by now.

By this time Mike had a pirate ship full of treasure. (His Parrot allowed him to carry as much treasure as he wanted.) Soon after, he visited Treasure Island and scored 14 Fame points, shooting him far into the lead.

So now it’s the last round of the game. Mike’s got the win apparently sewn up. The Pirate is sitting at Treasure Island. Ben and Owen both go to Treasure Island hoping to destroy the pirate and gain the five Fame points from sinking her. Mike and I also ended up at the same island. I had a clever plan. I sent the Royal Navy to where Mike and I were. Mike had the faster ship, so the Navy would fire at him first. My hope was to sink Mike, Sink the Navy (I still had those 6-dice guns), and gain some much needed Fame points—so I wouldn’t come in last. The odds were once again in my favor. Things were going well until Mike’s 2-dice volley at me. Two hits would sink me. The odds were 9 to 1 that he would roll two hits. (A 5 or 6 on either dice is a hit.) Mike rolled double sixes! He sunk my ship. (By the way, the odds are 36:1 to roll double sixes.) This game hates me.

Back at Treasure Island Ben and Owen were fighting the pirate ship. Once again Ben’s luck held and he was able to end up being the one who sunk the pirate and gain the five Fame points.

Ben was now pretty close to Mike in Fame points. We revealed our Tavern Cards that gave us Fame Points. I thought I was doing well with three Fame points, but both Ben and Owen had five or six extra Fame points hiding in their hand. This caused Ben to tie with Mike for most Fame. So what was the tie-breaker? You fight to the death of course. Ben (the lucky dog) was able to sink Mike and win the game! The final scores were: Ben and Mike with 36 Fame, Owen with 30 Fame, and me languishing at 22 Fame points. Stupid game.

Chaos Steve

 

Agents of Oblivion Session I

This week we started a brand new Savage Worlds campaign using the Agent of Oblivion setting. If you’re not familiar with the setting, check it out here at Reality Blurs. Evil Mike is the GM for this one. He was sick with a cold while running the first game, but we still had a great time…mostly at his expense. Let me tell you about our characters…

Samuel Smythe (Steve): Occult Branch, Polish national, The healer
Baltasar Magnusson (Owen): Operations Branch, Swedish, The Lindquist/Forger
Cyrus Lowenstein (Ben): Operations Branch, American, The Ladies man
Nick Harmon (Mike): Occult Branch, American, Combat Psychic

Sidebar: Many of you may know that Ben has a slight stutter. One of the funniest moments of the night was when we were introducing our characters. Ben (of course) named his own character, but he gave him a last name that’s difficult for him to pronounce. So when it came time to introduce him to the other characters, he had a difficult time spitting out “Lowenstein”. The name alone is kind of funny, so I (quite innocently) asked him to repeat it. He did, again having a heck of time spitting out the name. By the time it was over we were all laughing so hard I had tears. You may think this is kind of mean spirited, but I you should know that we all love Ben. And he’s a very good sport about our teasing.

Now back to the game… We are all new agents fresh from our Oblivion training. The first order of business was to meet our cell leader, a Mr. Myster. Mr. Myster is an interesting guy with a tail and prosthetic leg. Apparently these “injuries” are from the backlash of using an untested arcane device. Something he immediately warned us not to do. We found out our cell is based in Poland, in the city of Wroclaw. We were currently in England so we caught a transport plane to take us to Poland. Agent Smythe has a major fear of flying and spent the trip rocking back and forth and mumbling things like “These things aren’t safe” and “we’re going to crash. I just know it.” The rest of the team was less than sympathetic. While on the plane Mr. Myster explained that our cover in Wroclaw is that of an import export business.

BOOM! That’s the sound we heard as an air-to-air missile blew a hole in the side of our plane. For a few moments I thought Agent Smythe was correct and we were all going to die. We scrambled for a parachute, tried to save some of the gear we were transporting, and jumped…

…right into a forest filled with German speaking Russian troops from some unknown place/organization. Prior to running into the Russians, we had hopped into one of the few items we saved from the plane, a SUV. When the Russian leader ordered us out of the car, our driver, Agent Magnusson, floored it (or floored it as much as you can in a tree filled forest) clipping the Russian leader along the way. Agents Smythe, Lowenstein, & Harmon exited the vehicle. Not a good thing since the Russians opened up on us with machineguns. In the ensuring gun battle the SUV was mostly trashed, and just about everyone was wounded.

We ended the night with us hoofing it to the German-Poland boarder wondering who the heck those Russians were.

More fun to come in two weeks!

Chaos Steve

Twilight Imperium 3: An End* and a Beginning

Last night we decided to halt our current TI3 game and give the win to Owen. Then we chose new races and set the board up again!

(*There were too many asterisks (rule mistakes) made in the game.)

This time the setup heavily favored Owen and I. We had a plethora of planets to plunder. Mike’s setup was not bad, but not as great as ours. Ben’s area was the least favorable. Ben made up for this by being the most aggressive. After “choosing” warfare twice in succession he quickly took over Mecatol Rex and a couple of planets in MY area. This allowed Ben to get a victory point, while removing my chance for one. (This will not go un-avenged!)

We got two turns in this time. Owen has delicate truces with both Mike and I, but the board is small and soon those truces will probably fall. (Not between Owen and I, just with Mike. Mike’s aggressive like that.) It was notable that on the very last action of the very last turn Owen had the opportunity to destroy all of Ben’s units on Mecatol Rex with a Political Action card. Actually there was only a 50% chance of doing that, but it also had a good chance of wiping out a few of Owen’s and Mike’s nearby armadas. The flip side (also a 50% chance) was that we would all receive TWO technologies of our choice! Alas, the fairness quotient in Owen would not allow him to decimate Ben that way. (Mike and I would have done it in a heartbeat!)

We’ll get back to this game in two weeks.

Chaos Steve

Zombie Apocalypse Session 6

GM: Mike Byrd

Character Name Player Name Zombie Kills
Head Other
Harry Babcock, lawyer Steve 13
Bill O’Malley, fireman Mike 15 3
Luke “Channel 4 Deering, news anchorman Ben 11
Vladimir Vasilevich, car mechanic Owen 4 1

(No zombies were injured during this session.)

It turns out we landed the airplane on an aircraft carrier. Who knew? Unfortunately the ship was already controlled by a bunch of redneck Californians. They quickly surrounded the plane and escorted us to the depths of the ship. There they expected us to die in a zombie arena for their pleasure. They made one mistake; they left us with our weapons. They weren’t going to send me to some zombie grave. I opened up on full auto with my M16. This took most of the group by surprised. The worse of which was O’Malley who was interested in woman they had also captured and who was standing in the middle of the large, open hallway. Shots flew everywhere and the fuel hit the wall. No, that’s not a new expression. Apparently Ben, playing one of the NPCs, thought that splashing an area with fuel was a great idea. Our battle raged on. The leader ordered the area evacuated and the zombies released. He thought to let the undead finish us off. His men never got the chance to open the doors.

It wasn’t long before we had taken over the entire ship. Bringing all of our resources to bear we sailed off to Hawaii. The credits rolled as we approach Honolulu harbor. Would we find the peace we were searching for? Would Vlad be healed of his zombie infection? Would there be a sequel? All these questions and more will be left unanswered…until next time.

Harry Babcock, King of Hawaii

I forgot to add how the evening started for me. (Steve, not Harry.)

I was unwrapping my super messy pizza sandwich from Penn Station and fail my Agility roll. The sandwich tumbled onto Ben’s off-white carpet. It was quite a mess. Ben assured me that after his liberal spreading of salt on the carpet, the stain will just vanish. Never mind that there are other, older stains, in the same area of the carpet. What, no salt for that old spill?

Steve