Greater Tioga County Area Gaming Group

This forum is for use by groups of folks who want to help organize their local gaming groups. If you have some people in your area and you want to organize game play at the table you can post to this forum!
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Brennor
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Re: Greater Binghamton Area Gaming Group

Post by Brennor » Wed Feb 11, 2015 7:14 am

Sounds like the deck worked very well and was a good game. Those Khazad-Dum quests were a pain.
[url=telnet://brennor.dyndns.org:1896]Akarian Dawn MUSH[/url]
SRGC v0.22: SR2+++ SR3++ h+ b+++ UB+ IE+ RN W+ dk+ ri+ ad+ m+ gm+ M- P+

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Vardaen
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Re: Greater Binghamton Area Gaming Group

Post by Vardaen » Wed Feb 11, 2015 7:42 pm

I have to try them now in Nightmare mode!
"He that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom." - Gandalf
J.R.R. Tolkien, Council of Elrond, The Fellowship of the Ring

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Vardaen
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Re: Greater Binghamton Area Gaming Group

Post by Vardaen » Fri Feb 20, 2015 10:13 pm

Ringmaker Cycle Continues

So we continued our LotR Game on the third AP of the Ringmaker Cycle, Trouble in Tharbad.

Having regained Saurman's gold we seek out a dwarf Nalir in Tharbad who might have a map Saurman wants. We find the dwarf, but he's promised the map to someone named Bellach, but he doesn't like the man and so sells it to us instead, which has some bad repercussions for us as Bellach wants that map!

This AP is cool, it plays with your Treat Elimination Level, meaning that instead of loosing if you hit 50 threat it could be lower than that. The whole theme of the AP is running through the streets of Tharbad trying to escape Bellach's men while keeping Nalir alive so he can give you the map.

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So as you quest you drop your threat as you sneak around Tharbad. Take too long and your TEL drops by 10.

So in our game, we had a new member join us for the firs time. He hadn't played anything like this, but was an old D&D player back in his youth. He seemed to have a good time and was asking about how to buy the cards and when we played next! Our regular third member couldn't make it because of white out snow conditions and a desire to not crash his car and die (the priorities of some people!).

Eilandor: Legolas, Bard, Gimli - the Ranged and Attack Deck
Me: Gandalf, Elrond, Galadriel - the Quest and Cancel/Threat Deck
New Guy: Beregond, Mablung, Denethor - the Sentinel and Degend Deck

We had a good time, it was a bit slow going, Galadriel's main use was pointless as if I used her for threat reduction she'd be removed from the game, and I didn't get the ring Nenya for many many turns. However we stuck it out a bit and then my deck was rolling. The other guys were doing great handling the enemies. We did end up having our TEL drop to 40 and at one point I was at 37, and the others were in the 30s as well.

Then my deck hit its stride and I was questing for 20+ we quickly reduced threat then and get each of us down to 0. We moved to stage 2 and Bellach appeared. Some good timing of Feint, Swift Strike, and Great Yew Bow kept the really bad enemies from attacking and using their powers against us. A few rounds on stage two and we did it, escaped over the ruined ford in Tharbad with Nalir in tow.
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Its on to The Nin-in-Eliph next, a trip through some terrible swamps that make the Midgewater look like a kiddypool! hoping that our third returns, and our new forth as well for an epic trek through the Swanfleet.
"He that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom." - Gandalf
J.R.R. Tolkien, Council of Elrond, The Fellowship of the Ring

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Vardaen
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Re: Greater Tioga County Area Gaming Group

Post by Vardaen » Wed Apr 22, 2015 5:44 pm

Space Alert!

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The Co-op game of chaotic space combat where you yell at someone for looking out the view port three times in a row as a meteor is slamming into the side of the ship!

We play this recently with our group of five. I've had this on the shelf for 2 years and finally picked it up. We managed through the first three training simulations. Using the app on your phone really helps, and after having the group watch a 3 mintutorial on youtubewe dove right in without much insanity. Oh who am I kidding it was all insanity.

Lots of fun, doesn't take long once you get it. I highly suggest you go get this and play some night. I'm sure this would make those very left brained people's heads explode a bit! Fun!

We also recently played Nightfall once again. I still enjoy this game and its right right around 4-5 players. We used this to introduce someone new to gaming and its hooked them.

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"He that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom." - Gandalf
J.R.R. Tolkien, Council of Elrond, The Fellowship of the Ring

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Vardaen
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Re: Greater Tioga County Area Gaming Group

Post by Vardaen » Thu Apr 30, 2015 8:35 pm

Now that we are back I thought I would post our recent local game play. We had a night of Nightfall with 5 players, one person new to the game, and the rest having only played a few times each.

This game is a lot of fun and what I think it pretty simple mechanics for the base rules, and then it gets pretty complex with all the card options and possible tactics. It can make a big difference on who you sit next to some times I swear, right Eilandor?

Anyhow we played two games, the first one took a good long while as our new guy got used to it, and in the end it was Eilandor that won. This was actually the first time we used the opening draft mechanic for the other folks so that was interesting as people tried to get moon combos for their private archives. We are using cards from several sets, Core, Martial Law, and Blood Country. A few of the MVP cards of this game included:

Propane Improv, All Out Lunge, and Big Ghost
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This guy just was able to do alot of damage to minions.

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Coupled with a card draw I had it feed really nicely into direct damage.

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He's big and mean! He also made an appearance in the second game and was 7 Strength at times when the Wolf Moon was in plan! Massive.
Game two really stuck out however, we used the Moon Phase option creating global effects over the game. This time we had some real duds hit the table, right Eilandor? This game I won, with only 4 wounds some how. One player had 20 wounds! Ouch. That was totally table politics.

The 'winner's this time around included:
KC.Bigelow and Relentless Grinder but the most hated card on the table was "Harley Dobberman"
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Seemed like when he was played people had 1 or 2 cards so he never came out at full health.

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Didn't work once! People never had more than 5 cards in their hand, total dud.

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We hated this guy. Discard a card to take damage when you play a minion! Oh my lord this one sucked. Luckily he didn't stack so when 3 were on the table at once we didn't have to kill the guy that summoned them (I mean the player not the minion!)
All in all good fun. Next time we play we are shifting over to Coldest War, Dark Rages and Crimson Seige. With Avatars. Then maybe after that we can try our hands at Eastern Skies the last expansion which was praised for some great new mechanics.

I found a great site for this game, all card images, and rules.
http://nf.s3rvant.com/?mode=fullpics
"He that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom." - Gandalf
J.R.R. Tolkien, Council of Elrond, The Fellowship of the Ring

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Vardaen
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Re: Greater Tioga County Area Gaming Group

Post by Vardaen » Fri May 15, 2015 5:33 pm

I have finished my third installment of the Rise of Orthanc custom quest for LotR LCG.

This is for the FFG Co-Op LCG Lord of the Rings. It loosely follows the campaign here War of the Ring: Rise of Orthanc as our PCs adventure through the north. Part 1 and Part 2 are up on OCTGN as well, plus you can find the PDFs for them on Board Game Geek. If you play this game, check this out, let me know.

Part 3 on BBG:
https://boardgamegeek.com/article/19239410#19239410

My Profile on BGG as all parts, including player cards check it out here:
https://boardgamegeek.com/user/Vardaen

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"He that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom." - Gandalf
J.R.R. Tolkien, Council of Elrond, The Fellowship of the Ring

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TetNak
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Re: Greater Tioga County Area Gaming Group

Post by TetNak » Fri May 15, 2015 9:34 pm

Love these. I played a game of the core the other night for the first time in a long time.
"Kings have no friends, only subjects and enemies."

- King Stannis Baratheon, First of His Name

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Vardaen
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Re: Greater Tioga County Area Gaming Group

Post by Vardaen » Wed May 20, 2015 3:16 pm

We had a game night recently a bit smaller group than normal only four but it was good fun. A go at Settler's of Catan, which was new for two of our members, and they both enjoyed it. I won, longest road and cities again, always a good tactic. I'm now undefeated in Settlers since buying the game recently. Huzah!

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Image Then we switched over to Legend of Drizzt, a co-op D&D tile/board game dungeon sort of crawl. In this you play a member of Drizzt Do'Urden's company, Wulfgar, Drizzt, etc, and you go on little missions as a party ala Hero Quest or Decent (without the dungeon master aspect). We did the opening multiplayer dungeon with a shortened version of it even cause we were low on time. This game lets you play 1 to 5 players so that's pretty nice. You explore, deal with traps and monsters and various effects, collect XP and treasure, and for us we had to find Mithril Hall and recover an ancient crown while being stalked by an assassin after the same crown. It seems based on 5th edition for its powers, healing surges, and other aspects as best as I could tell.

Our archer learned early on not to be in the front line, and our Drizzt (the guy that owns it) learned to remember to read his powers! As Wulfgar I had a ton of health and hit pretty hard, and with fun treasure that booted my speed I was able to be all over the place. It was pretty hard even for an opening adventure, but I think that's cause we were getting the feel of it and not using great tactics.

We managed a win* but almost lost. If one PC dies the whole group looses. All in all a pretty decent experience, one I'm ready to try again with a few more members, or even pick up and play with Lil'Vman, I think he'd love it. The components were nice, plastic minis that if I could paint would be pretty nice I think.

* Win because we did a few retcons and might have played how you spend XP a bit fast and loose.

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"He that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom." - Gandalf
J.R.R. Tolkien, Council of Elrond, The Fellowship of the Ring

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Vardaen
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Re: Greater Tioga County Area Gaming Group

Post by Vardaen » Fri Jun 12, 2015 4:55 pm

Slowly the local gaming group is looking to doing some actual table top RPG! We are moving into Pathfinder Adventure Card game to do a little RPG Lite. Really the Card Game has about 0 RPG but it has the Campaign feel to it and in generally is just a really fun game.

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We previously had play about 8 adventures Eilandor and I and one other guy. We have started over with a 4 player game, with 2 more to join us as later on. Starting over gave a few us a chance to try some new characters.

Me: Merisiel - The Rogue
Eilandor: Harsk - The Ranger
Player 1: Kyra - The Cleric
Player 2: Valeros - The Fighter
(Amaris: Lini - the Druid)
(Player 3: Unsure)
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Tackling set up was a good hour, teaching it to the new guy, refreshing ourselves, building starting player decks and set up of the first scenario was a good long while. But once we had that done we started in on Bringandoom! As expected Eilandor rolled really bad for a while, but not to be outdone we all rolled really bad and failed the first round of encounters around the table. The high light was me offhandedly just saying to someone, "All you need is better than a 2". They then of coursed rolled a 1 on a d12 and 1 on a d10! Failing the check by the only possible roll. That set a fun tone for the night.

We managed to collect a Longsword +1, a few other minor items, but also a Crown of Dipolomacy and a good number of new spells for the Cleric. All in all I forgot how much fun that game was, and with 4 players, eventually 6, it was a real good time! Looking forward to taking on the next few adventures!
"He that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom." - Gandalf
J.R.R. Tolkien, Council of Elrond, The Fellowship of the Ring

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Vardaen
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Re: Greater Tioga County Area Gaming Group

Post by Vardaen » Wed Jul 08, 2015 5:11 pm

Reading Tet's great recap of his group made me realize I hadn't recapped our stuff for a while.

Over the course of a few sessions we have continued the PF ACG with our six characters, from time to time 1 PC or another wasn't around but we decided that we'd level up PCs that missed a session regardless just so we are all on level footing. It is a Co-Op game after all, and its more fun this way.

So we completed the Poison Pill and Black Fangs Dungeon, which completed the opening 3 adventures, and the scenario. The best part of the 2 sessions went something like this.

With 7 locations to close, we closed 3 of them on turn one, which was spectacular luck. That gave us 29 turns to close the other 4, easy right? Not so. Harsk (Eilandor) got trapped under a land slide and spent about 5 turns trying to dig out, and when I came to help it didn't seem to do any good as I was stuck too.

Then our druid declares she really wants to Saber Tooth Tiger we believe to be in the game, our Wizard does some meta gaming and checks the box, and yup the STT is in the game, so when it comes time to close the next location early, they decided not to so the STT will show up. It takes me 2 turns to realize it can't possibly be there, since that location has no Allies available, so we waste tons of turns now trying to close it the long way. The group moves on a bit, and with some ranger powers we discover the STT is coming up next in one location. So our Cleric hops over there, uses his high WIS and collects it. Great he can trade it away at the end of the game to the druid.

We hurry and struggle to close places but we are quickly running out of turns now, and we realize we have about 4 left, and almost no chance to beat the dragon when it shows. A well timed Levitate spell, which had proved useless previously, helps greatly. Then we just simpyl luck out and draw the villain with 2 turns left, we poor what we have into it, and kill him, we block his escape, and win the game, with only 1 turn left. It was close.

Then the druid looks at the cleric for the Tiger, and the cleric reads the card a few times, and decides to keep it for himself!!! Needless to say that causes some serious tension! Some of us are laughing, but don't believe he's really keeping it, and yup, total jerk, keeps the STT for himself.

It will come up I'm sure next game when the STT hits the table, and our Druid (Amaris) decides our Cleric (Princess-Magnet) can't be in my house any more and kicks him out on his ass! :) Fun times.

We also inducted a new member, a wife of our Fighter, who has now plated Werewolf and Ticket to Ride with us. I think she's going to be more of a casual gamer than a hard core nerd, but its a solid bump for board game night up to 7 members.

On a side note we also played Werewolf (yeah the one where villagers hang people trying to ferret out the werewolves) with a bunch of our kids one evening, it was game of about 7 with me running it, and the kids loved it. Looking forward to playing it some more this summer around the camp fire with more families. Kids seem to really dig it even if Lil'Vman can't defend himself or laughs and gives himself away a bit too much when he's not a villager. And a thanks to one of our ancient members here who long ago shipped me this game from Austria/Germany (I can't remember who it was exactly).

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"He that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom." - Gandalf
J.R.R. Tolkien, Council of Elrond, The Fellowship of the Ring

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