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Agents of Oblivion and Solomon Kane

Over Christmas we got together with some friends for a day of Savage Worlds gaming. Evil Mike reminded me that I needed to write something up about it. So here we go…

Mike started us out with an Agents of Oblivion game. If you’re not familiar with Agents of Oblivion, then come out from under your rock and check out the Reality Blurs web site. Oblivion is an organization charged with keeping all of the weirdness in the words under control and under wraps. No need for the highly excitable public to know what’s really lucking under their bed.

Cast of characters: Ben, Infiltrator; Steve, Agent; Owen, Combat Wizard; Lee, Computer Specialist; Shaun, psychic.

Our adventure was rather mundane, as we were tracking down a human trafficking organization in hopes of stopping it. This led us to a party given by the Polish ambassador in Poland. Our plan was twofold, attend the party on the upper floor and infiltrate the office areas on the bottom floor to see if and how the Polish ambassador was involved. Owen and Shaun would attend the party while Ben and I, with the support of Lee, would break into the offices. Everything fell apart from the very start thanks to Ben.

Ben, our Infiltration Specialist, shows up at the party. He was supposed to be infiltrating the lower offices with me. Owen stepped up and we broke into the offices together, thanks mostly to the help of Lee. Neither Owen nor I had much in the way of breaking and entering skills. After much mindreading, overcoming security cameras, and Ben causing a spectacle of himself at the party, we had the information we needed.

Our final assault on the trafficker’s base in the desolate mountains regions of Poland went well and the world was once again safe for beautiful women between the ages of 19 and 25. Owen said that this was “…the second best game of the day—a solid second.” Well done Mike! Mike is going to start the regular weekly gaming crew in a game of Agents of Oblivion the next time we get together for Savage Worlds. We’re all looking forward to it.

The final game of the day was my memorable Solomon Kane game. Of course, Mike had to remind me last night just what game I ran last Thursday. It was so memorable. The players (or wanderers) were being drawn to an island off the coast of Africa called, Cao Tome. There on a volcanic peak that thrust out of the island like a giant obelisk to the gods they expected to find and defeat an ancient evil. They were accompanied by an alchemist looking for the elusive Philosopher’s stone. The stone reportedly had the power to turn any base mineral into gold. The natives called the peak “The Great Dog Peak”. It lay deep inside the island’s jungle area. A jungle haunted by who-knew-what.

They met a tribe of natives that actually lived in the jungle area. The chief was adamant that they turn around lest they disturb the Dog People and bring death to them all. The band of wanderers would not be put off by native superstition. Then, as they climbed to the top of The Great Dog Peak, they met the Dog People. Standing eight feet tall and swathed in gold, they turned out to be quite formidable.

Eventually the wanderers reach the summit and met face-to-face with the evil they sought. He was once a man, but was now much more…and everything he touched turned to gold. After a fearsome fight, the wanders defeated the man, releasing him from his curse. They also destroyed the Philosopher’s stone, knowing that no man should have such power. This would have been inconceivable to the alchemist that joined them, but they had killed him earlier.

A fun day for everyone and we hope to do it again soon.

Chaos Steve

Twilight Imperium Part 2

Last week we played part 2 of our Twilight Imperium game. We were supposed to wrap up the game during the session. That didn’t happen. Here’s what did happened.

Owen scored an amazing four victory points in one turn shooting him into the lead. I was able to get an additional two points. Ben and Owen accumulated huge armadas. Mike held on to Mecatol Rex, but is spread a little thin on the board. His “death” ship that takes everything with it when it is destroyed seems to have its sights pointed at Owen. I’m stuck between Mike and Ben trying to decide what the heck to do to get more planets without starting a major war that I can’t win.

We got through 1 ½ turns. There will be some tense moments in the coming rounds. Will Mike’s Death ship become his saving grace? Will Owen continue to dominate the known universe? Will Ben become even more aggressive and move on Mecatol Rex? Will Steve figure out what he’s doing? These and other questions will answered next time.

Our scores so far: Owen 6; Steve 4; Ben 3; Mike 2.

Twilight Imperium Part I

This week was the first of our two-part 4-player Twilight Imperium game. We usually have six players, so with just four, we’re hoping we can get the game done in just two weeknight sessions. I’m cautiously optimistic.

As usual setup took forever. It started well before 5:00 and ended well after 5:00. I got what we call “the War Sun race”. I started with a war sun. Mike had the race that copies technology from other races and was sitting right next to me. Can you see where this is going? And rightly so Mike’s race’s name ended in “virus”. So basically Mike is a virus scourge upon the universe. (Just like in real life.) Owen was the worm race. I mean the worm hole race. (Not sure how an entire race develops from a worm’s hole, but hey, I’m not a game developer.) Ben’s race did something special too. Something about a bunch of ground forces living together in tight quarters, I don’t remember the details.

At about one hour and thirty minutes into the game, Owen scored the first victory point. I was supposes to note the time of the first attack (by Ben) by failed to do so. I did happen after Owen’s first point though. And he did attack Owen. Unprovoked. Ben mumbled something about a victory point.

Next round Owen was prepared to strike back at Ben’s home world. Ben was completely blind to this until Mike pointed it out and ruined Owen’s chances. Owen and I gave Mike “the stare”. Mike made a lightning strike at Mecatol Rex and was able to put a small occupational force on it. Ben was salivating, wanting to attack, but could not muster the meager forces to do it.

Owen and I eyed Mecaltol Rex too. The difference was we had fleets in striking distance. Mike’s luck in this game continued to hold as one of the 2 or 3 Action cards in his hand was exactly what he needed to keep Owen and I from attacking Mecatol Rex. But I needed to attack Mike this round because it would earn me a victory point from my preliminary secret object. (You get a preliminary secret objective at the beginning of the game. Once you complete that you get your real secret objective.) I sent a single cruiser again his race’s super battlercruise and two destroyers. I missed on the first round, but so did Mike. (Apparently viruses are lousy shots.) I tried to retreat, but that was too costly. Mike eventually destroyed my cruiser, but I got my victory point.

We ended the night’s fun at 9:00 after the end of the third turn.

I think everyone would agree that during the entire game I played awful. I screwed up the strategy cards I was given and I missed obvious opportunities. I’m hoping that next week is better.

I don’t recall everyone’s victory point level when we ended. Maybe one of the guys can note that in the comments.

Chaos Steve

 

Egizia & Kachina

Tonight we’re going to start playing a two-part Twilight Imperium game using the expansions. Because of this, I thought I should get last week’s game in here for the record books.

Once again we tried out Egizia. We liked the game the first time we played it. But now with one game under our belts, we wanted to try out our new strategies. Whatever strategy Mike was using, it was working. Throughout the entire game he had a very solid building force with lots of food, stone, and builders. We all we pretty sure he was going to win; all except Ben. Ben held out hope that he might pull off a victory. That’s not to say Owen and I were doing horrible in the game—we weren’t. We just didn’t seem to have the resources the other two guys had accumulated. The game ended in a titanic struggle for either Mike or Ben to win it all. After numerous recounts, lawsuits, and general unrest, Ben was declared the winner by one point. Ben had 138 points, while Mike had 137 points. I ended up with a respectable 129 points, with Owen one point behind me at 128.

Egizia is a fun game that plays quickly. Even for a bunch of “Turn Angst” players like my group.

We still had time for a short game and chose Kachina. Kachina is one of Mike’s favorite games and the rest of us like it too. It’s another game where “Turn Angst” can get you as you struggle to get the most points out of every play. Mike seems uncanny in his ability to score big points no one else sees.

For a while Mike and I were neck and neck, with Mike always taking the lead. I feel behind towards the end of the game and Ben replaced me as Mike’s main contender. Owen was just struggling to stay up with us for most of the game. But as usual, Owen’s big point surge came near the end of the game.

Mike did win with 70 points. Ben had 65 points. Owen had a surprising 64 points and I came in fourth (not last) with 59 points.

Chaos Steve

Zombie Apocalypse Session 5

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

The airport was deserted. At least that’s how it seemed. After our initial fight with a group of zombies, any others seemed to just disappear. The problem was…it was too quite. Heading to the back of the terminal–to the tarmac where our ride to Hawaii (hopefully) waited—we discovered why the terminal was deserted. A group of brave souls had barricaded themselves on the tarmac and were currently holding off hordes of undead. More importantly, with them was a plane.

We discovered that the plane needed fuel and the fuel was in a truck not too far from their position. The only problem was the horde of zombies in between them and the truck. Fortunately we were in apposition to help both them and ourselves.

Channel 4 uncharacteristically volunteered to get the zombie horde’s attention while the rest of us went for the fuel truck. (Honestly, I think the rest of us took one step back.) Channel 4 also kept the non-combatants travelling with us. Personally I didn’t think we’d ever see Channel 4 again.

The trip to the fuel truck was short and sweet. We had information that the truck keys were in the pockets of one of the dead lying around the truck—past attempts to retrieve the fuel I guess. In the meantime, things got bad for Channel 4. Out of the undead mob came a massive zombie bear (Thanks Ben for playing that Adventure Card.)  Channel 4 and the rest decided this was a good time to follow us to the truck–quickly. The zombie bear lumbered after them. Once again Channel 4 showed his mettle and stood his ground against the bear while the others escaped. I think he thought it might count for more than one zombie if he killed it. We’re all keeping track of our zombie kills now. As for me, I took a couple shots at the bear, but the darn thing was too tough. O’Malley helped out Channel 4 with the zombies, who now noticed us. It was Channel 4 though who took down the huge zombie bear with an amazing 40 points of damage to its head. Vlad found the truck keys and we all piled on. It was going to be a rough ride through the zombie horde. We made it to the plane squashing a few zombies on the way. We fueled it up and boarded with the others. Thankfully they had a pilot amongst them.

Cruising at 30,000 feet is not the time to fine out there are infected people on board. And as luck would have it, they were in the cockpit (and the bathroom.). The fight for the cockpit was both bloody and difficult. Never mind that the plane was plunging to the ground the whole time. We killed the zombies and took back control of the plane. We got the plane flying level again but had a new problem. There we no pilots among us and we needed to land somewhere in San Diego.

Mike our GM used the new Savage Worlds Dramatic Task rules for us to successfully land the plane. We failed miserably even using two Adventure Cards. A third adventure card got us safely on the ground.

I’m not sure what San Diego will hold, but we need to find a way to Hawaii!

Harry Babcock

 

Egizia

This week we tried a game that has been sitting in my ThoughtHammer.com wish list for months: Egizia. In Egizia the players are builders constructing the famous monuments of Egypt. Each player manages three main resources: food, bricks, and laborers. There are also three main building areas on the board: the Sphinx, the obelisk and graves, and the great pyramid and temple. The game only lasts five turns, but each turn is busy with the players gathering resources, increasing their laborers, and finally building. One interesting dynamic of the game is how you gather resources and set your plans for building. You have eight ships that you place along the Nile at various points. Each of these points either grants you a special card and/or grants you a special ability. The twist is that once you place a ship, your next ship must always be downstream of your previous ship.

We began our game and it was obvious that none of us knew exactly what we should be doing. Building at the Sphinx earns you a few victory points and grants you cards that earn you bigger points at the end of the game under certain conditions. So not only do you need to earn points during each turn, you have to be mindful of what points you can earn at the game’s end. When the game was over we decided that the Sphinx cards are very important to winning the game…as Ben and Owen showed us by their point scores.

We liked the game and want to try it again now that we have an idea how everything works. Ben won our game with 105 points. Owen was a close second with 100 points. I was a distant third with 87 points and Mike the Builder came in last with 79 points.

Chaos Steve

Thunderstone

“Thunder, Thunder, Thunderstone!” This week we played Thunderstone—a fantasy-deck building game so close to the Dominion game that there should be lawsuits. But we don’t care about that. We only care if the game is fun…and it is.  My friend Bob loaned me Thunderstone about six months ago and we just now got around to playing it. (This is mostly because I have to give it back to Bob this weekend. We should have played it sooner!)

As I mentioned, the game mechanics are very similar to Dominion. The difference is that in Thunderstone you are building a deck of heroes to venture into a dark dungeon, destroy horrible monsters, and come out again with the fabulous prize—the thunderstone. The heroes can be equipped with various items such as weapons, spells, and food. Besides the thunderstone, the other prizes in the dungeon are the monsters themselves. Killing monsters is the main way to garner victory points. When you kill a monster You also get experience points (XP) and it gets added to your deck. You can use XPs to level up your heroes so they can become more powerful.  Many monsters, once they are in your deck, add special abilities or gold that you can use later. When you’re not killing monsters in the dungeon, you are going to town to buy more cards to add to your deck. These cards represent the weapons, spells, and food I mentioned earlier, but can also be heroes and various town folk that have abilities to help your heroes.

Let there be light! Light is very important in Thunderstone.  The entrance to the dungeon is filled with three visible monsters, ranked 1 through 3 by its position next to the monster/dungeon deck. The higher the rank, the deeper the monster is in the dungeon and heavier the light penalty is. This penalty translates into negate attack values for your heroes. To overcome this darkness, the heroes can possess various light sources ranging from torches to fireballs. (Yeah, fireballs!)

So what did we think of the game? We liked it…probably a little better than Dominion because you get to fight things! That is, we liked the overall theme of Thunderstone better than Dominion. Ben had played Thunderstone before, possibly hundreds of times. Still, he knew the rules just as well as those of us that had never played before. We like Ben. Still that didn’t keep Ben from winning the first game. He had 30 points. Mike was close with 28 points. (Note: Mike may have actually beaten Ben, but Mike didn’t realize there were victory points on some heroes as well as monsters. Mike only looked at his monsters.) Owen and I were pathetic with 11 and 12 points respectively.

With one game under our belts we re-randomized the village, heroes, and monsters and played again. This time things turned out quite different. (Ok, not really that different.) Mike won with 28 points. (Mike was a monster killing machine.) Ben was second with just 18 points. Owen had 14 points and I had 13 points. But this time, Owen and I were not pathetic.

Chaos Steve

 

Zombie Apocalypse Session 4

GM: Mike Byrd

Harry Babcock, lawyer (Steve)
Bill O’Malley, fireman (Mike)
Luke “Channel 4” Deering, news anchorman (Ben)
Vladimir Vasilevich, car mechanic (Owen)

I was currently holed up in a supermarket with a few of other survivors and O’Malley’s kid. I hate kids. A couple we had met at the supermarket had left their SUV at the gas station. The zombies had run them off while they were trying to fill the SUV’s tank up.  We needed the SUV since my Smart car could only hold 2 comfortably. A plan was hatched to lure the zombies away from the gas station. I would drive the Smart car, with Vlad as a passenger, to the gas station and we would slowly lure the zombies away. In the meantime O’Malley and Channel 4 would sneak through the back of the gas station to the SUV, fill its tank, and drive off to pick up the rest of the survivors.

Channel 4 was restless though and nearly forgot the plan and wanted to head to the gas station early.  O’Malley was ready to stop him with physical force if necessary. He looked almost as if he wanted Channel 4 to bolt. As it was, Vlad and I soon had our own troubles. Things were going fine until we got trapped between two hordes of walking dead. I decided on the bold maneuver of gunning it down another street while firing my shotgun at the zombies—to attract their attention. I had failed to mention to anyone that coming from the big city, I’d never learned how to drive a car. The car smashed into a building after I lost control of it during the turn. Vlad was nearly hurt, but he’s a tough one that Vlad. I did get my shot off though…in a big way. The round blew up in the chamber nearly taking my hand off, but it was enough to get the zombies attention and they were back after us. Vlad and me hopped out of the car and ran down the street to the market to join the others and wait for O’Malley and Channel 4 to return.

In the meantime Channel 4 had got sidetracked in the hardware store across the street. He was looking for a chainsaw. He’d obviously seen too many zombie survival movies. Those things are heavy, loud, and you have to get real close to a zombie to use it. Not what I would call the perfect zombie killing weapon.  O’Malley seemed to have a good time at the gas station judging from the booze and porno magazines he returned with. He also had a satisfied smile on his face, but I didn’t ask him about that. He was able to get the SUV filled up and brought it around for the rest of us. I’ll say one thing for O’Malley; you can count on him to get the job done. We pointed the SUV out of town looking for the nearest airport. Our destination: Hawaii.

There were some glitches at the beginning of the trip out of town. The SUV broke down almost immediately. Fortunately O’Malley came through again. He had brought a bunch of hoses and belts with him from the gas station. Soon we were up and running again. We drove all night and in the morning light saw an airport. We needed a pilot though, so we began looking for survivors. We entered the main terminal and were immediately beset by walking dead. Channel 4 got himself into quite a pickle. I thought he was a goner. But just about the time I was going to put a bullet through his skull; O’Malley turned up again and saved the day. O’Malley uses a fire axe as if he was born to it. O’Malley also gave me an M-16 from his duffle bag since I’d lost my shotgun. I’m beginning to like that gun. A three-round burst to the head takes a zombie down pretty easily. Let’s just hope I don’t run out of bullets.

We secured an area in the main terminal. Now all we had to do was find a pilot.

Harry Babcock

Ticket to Ride

I’m late. It’s almost time to play this week’s game and here I am just getting around to telling you about last week’s game. Last week we played a couple of games of Ticket to Ride. I think this is one of the best family games on the market. We played using the 1910 expansion which adds extra routes and an extra bonus point card for the player who completes the most destination tickets. I would highly suggest you get this expansion if you own Ticket to Ride. Besides the extra cards, it also comes with a complete set of train cards that are larger and easier to handle.

We played two games. In both games Owen was playing on a completely different level than the rest of us. He kicked our butts and took names in the process. In the first game he ended with 150 points. Mike came in second with 110 points. Ben and I tied for third place with 100 points each. Ben won the tiebreaker, so he came in third place. Never mind about my placement.

Mike had mentioned earlier to us that he has been playing a lot of Ticket to Ride on his PC or iPad (I forget which.) This seemed to actually hurt him because he had become so used to the program marking his destinations and displaying completed ones so he could focus on the uncompleted ones. This caused him to miss a couple of destinations that he thought he had completed, but really hadn’t.

In the last game Own did even better with a final score of 170. I barely grabbed second place with 133 points. Ben was right behind me with 130 points. Mike had a dismal 72 points. I had made several stupid mistakes during this game and I realized that even if I had played the game perfectly, I still wouldn’t have come close to Owen’s score. Well done Owen.

Chaos Steve

CotC Thursday PM

Norm’s Monster Hunter 101 (Agents of Oblivion) game
After arriving at CotC (on time even!) we started out in Norm’s Agents of Oblivion game. We all played different AoO branch types. I was the “Combat Wizard” which immediately prompted many choruses of “Pinball Wizard” with Pinball replaced with Combat.

I named my guy, Gus Gustavo from Guatemala. But to make it easier on the gringos, they could just call me “Steve”. Coincidentally, Steve’s character was Miguel something and he went by “Mike”.

Our mission was to fly in and land on an old shipping barge that Oblivion was using as a portable Guantanamo bay, but for Vamps and Werewolves. Apparently something had gone terribly, terribly wrong.

We soon discovered that an alien device was on board and one of the ancient vamps on board had gotten free, taken over the ship and was using the machine to open a rift in space-time in order to bring an ancient god into our world! Suffice to say, we kicked ass and took her down!

Dinner
It was pouring down rain, so we decided to eat at the bar in the hotel. It was slow service, but the waitress was run ragged and did her best. Food was good though when it finally got there!

Mike’s Knights of the Old Republic game
We next played a new campaign I’m running for the guys. It’s set in the Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic timeframe. The players start off as 0xp characters looking for one of the few remaining Jedi to train them in the Force and the ways of the Jedi. Some were already strong with the Force, others, not so much.

I don’t want to spill too much here, since I’m running this for another group at JimCon, but I will say this…we got a later start than I expected, and I had a timeframe of 4 hours in mind. So when a good stopping point presented itself, near to when I thought my 4 hours had elapsed, I called the game, intending to pick it up next time….except I was an hour earlier than I wanted! So, we may finish this up later in the con. Doh!