Wednesday, December 24, 2014
Happy Holidays from Snake Eyes Gaming
Monday, December 15, 2014
Doomtown Game Day: New Town, New Rules OP Kit
Snake Eyes Gaming will be running the first Organized Play (OP) kit for the expandable card game Doomtown Reloaded on Saturday, December 20th at 5:00 pm. Bring a legal Doomtown Reloaded deck (constructed following the deck building rules out of cards from the Base Set and/or New Town, New Rules) and fight for control of Gomorra. Greenhorns and Experienced Gunslingers alike are welcome!
Where: Snake Eyes Gaming
201 Cayuga Ave., Suite 10
1130 Perry Hwy
Altoona, PA 16602
snakeeyesgamingllc@gmail.com
When: Saturday, December 20th 5:00 PM
What: Doomtown Reload Organize Play (OP) Kit #1.
Cost: $6 for each participant
2nd Place: Fourth Ring Deck Box (metal)
3rd Place: Fourth Ring Deck Box (metal)
Participation Prize: Alternate Artwork Pistol Whip (featuring Alice Stowe)
Additional Prizes: Alternate Artwork Pony Express (the old artwork from Deadlands)
As we said above, Greenhorns and Experienced Gunslingers alike are welcome. In fact, there will be an opportunity to get a demo or a couple of practice games in beforehand if you arrive prior to 4 PM.
Hope to see you all at High Noon in the Town Square!
Saturday, December 6, 2014
Game Review: Lord of the Rings the Card Game
The Lord of the Rings Card game is a
cooperative Living Card Game in which players work together to
complete a harrowing Quest. Living Card Games (sometimes
alternatively called Expandable Card Games) are card games that are
not collectible. Rather than coming in randomized booster packs with
different rarity levels of cards, sets are released that contain
fixed cards. In this manner players can purchase expansions that
contain the cards that they are interested in using. Most Living Card
Games have Core sets that contain a good mixture of cards that will
allow a player to make multiple decks and begin playing. Expansions
are released every 1-2 months (depending on the particular game) and
contain a full play set of all the cards in that expansion. The
cooperative play in Lord of the Rings allows players to work in
concert to complete the Quest that they have been assigned. The game
can be played by 1-4 players and scales in difficulty as more players
are added.
Each player controls three Heroes which
represent the
adventurers striving to complete the Quest. Heroes
start the game in play and will help define the type of cards that
the player will use in their Player Deck. In addition to the ability
to attack, defend, and make progress towards completing the Quest –
each Hero also possesses abilities and/or traits that represent the
way in which that Hero acts. Powerful Heroes are more Threatening to
the Enemy than less powerful Heroes which means that they will have
less time to complete their mission before the Enemy reacts to their
presence. Threat acts like a game clock that determines how much time
a player has to finish the Quest. The following heroes are among
those that come in the Core set: Aragon, Legolas, Gimli, Eowyn,
Theodred, Denethor, and Glorfindel. Each new expansion contains at
least one additional Hero including Elrond, Frodo, Boromir,
Galadriel, and Prince Imrahil.
The Quest deck contains the Locations,
Enemies,
and Treacheries that the players must overcome to complete
the Quest. Locations are places that must be explored during the
Heroes journey. The geography of Middle Earth is represented in the
Core set by Location cards like Mountains of Mirkwood, Necromancer’s
Pass, Enchanted Stream, and Old Forest Road. Enemies are the monsters
and villains that must be fought during the Quest. Enemies include
generic monsters such as Wolf Rider, Forest Spider, and Hill Troll;
as well as specific villains like Chieftan Ufthak and the Nazgul of
Dol Guldor. Treacheries represent the attacks and attention of the
Enemy through cards like Caught in the Web, The Necromancer’s Web,
and Pursued by Shadow. The Quest itself is made up of the Quest Cards
that define which Locations, Enemies, and Treacheries the Heroes
could face as well as the conditions necessary for the players to
move through and hopefully complete their mission. Each expansion
contains additional Quests, Locations, Enemies, and Treacheries for
the players to face.
Tuesday, November 25, 2014
New Project with an Old Plan
Winter is coming (the pun is partially intended), and as
such it is a great time to start a new project. Each year I seem to get
involved in a new hobby project to carry me through the dark depths of winter.
I find that having something creative to spend the cold evening where I can’t
be outside gives me something to look forward to. It should be noted that I do
not generally make a conscious decision to go out and start something new
because it’s getting cold. It just so
happens that about this time of year I find a project to get interested in and
work on it most of the winter. In the past, I’ve worked on White Scars, Tau,
and DeadZone as my winter project.
Like most years, I wasn’t even thinking about a new project.
And then a shadow of an idea started to grow in my mind causing me to look at
models and think about paint schemes. Eventually I realized I was on to
something and purchased enough to get me started.
It all started during the End Times. I have not played
Warhammer Fantasy more than a handful of times since 6th edition. As whispers
of the End Times started to surface though I couldn’t ignore them. Named
Special Characters with models dead? Nagash returned? An apocalyptic breath of
air was blown into the Warhammer Fantasy universe and it made me want to
participate. Now that I had the urge to begin working on a Fantasy army I had
to decide on which force I would begin working, there are a lot of cool models
and a lot of cool rules so it was quite a decision.
In the end I came up with a simple solution, I’ve always
liked the Lizardmen but never owned or painted any of their models. I ordered a
couple of Skink Regiment, Saurus Regiment, and Carnosaur and got started
working. I’m still working on setting out exactly what my goal is (i.e. am I
shooting for 2,500 points or 2,000 points or what?) but I expect to have the
first 1,000 points completed soon so you may see them coming soon to a table
near you. A couple of small point value games will probably indicate on which
units I will be spending the winter months.
What projects are all of you currently working on? Please
feel free to share them below.
Tuesday, November 11, 2014
Weekend in Review
Thanks for another great weekend of gaming! We would like to
offer a sincere thank you to Hershel for his assistance on Friday night. We had
a great, busy evening (and late night) full of Friday Night Magic and the release of the new Commander decks featuring Planeswalker commanders for the first time. Hershel's
assistance was instrumental in making Friday night happen.
Saturday was the Grand Prix Trial for Baltimore, 17 participants attended and dueled throughout the afternoon. When the dust cleared Luke was the victor, congratulations and good luck! There was plenty to do for all participants because those that did not finish in the Top 8 were able to Draft afterwards.
This past weekend also saw more fierce battles in the Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40K escalation leagues. Saturday night also marked the banishment of Glotkin by a night goblin shaman wielding the Skull Wand of Kaloth. The world has certainly not seen the last of Glotkin, the brothers will undoubtedly make their way back from the Chaos Wastes to once again threaten the Old World.
Interest in Living Card Games has continued to grow. Three intrepid players command the heroes of Middle Earth as they battled across the Anduin to the verge of Lorien and then plumbed the depths of Dol Goldur. Two players braved the unknowable and avoided going mad from the revelations they uncovered as they competed to solve mysteries in Call of Cthulu. The struggle for the future of the doomtown was fought in the dusty and bloody Town Square of Gomorra twice by six different players, with the Sloane Gang shooting their way to victory and later the Fourth Ring biding their time as the Law Dogs and Morgan Cattle Company waged a battle for supremacy against the Sloane Gang that cost both sides equally.
The Sunday HeroClix event was Marvel vs. DC. Sixteen players showed up for this cross over spectacular in which TJ emerged victorious and Paul distinguished himself with the Fellowship award.
Saturday was the Grand Prix Trial for Baltimore, 17 participants attended and dueled throughout the afternoon. When the dust cleared Luke was the victor, congratulations and good luck! There was plenty to do for all participants because those that did not finish in the Top 8 were able to Draft afterwards.
This past weekend also saw more fierce battles in the Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40K escalation leagues. Saturday night also marked the banishment of Glotkin by a night goblin shaman wielding the Skull Wand of Kaloth. The world has certainly not seen the last of Glotkin, the brothers will undoubtedly make their way back from the Chaos Wastes to once again threaten the Old World.
Interest in Living Card Games has continued to grow. Three intrepid players command the heroes of Middle Earth as they battled across the Anduin to the verge of Lorien and then plumbed the depths of Dol Goldur. Two players braved the unknowable and avoided going mad from the revelations they uncovered as they competed to solve mysteries in Call of Cthulu. The struggle for the future of the doomtown was fought in the dusty and bloody Town Square of Gomorra twice by six different players, with the Sloane Gang shooting their way to victory and later the Fourth Ring biding their time as the Law Dogs and Morgan Cattle Company waged a battle for supremacy against the Sloane Gang that cost both sides equally.
The Sunday HeroClix event was Marvel vs. DC. Sixteen players showed up for this cross over spectacular in which TJ emerged victorious and Paul distinguished himself with the Fellowship award.
Monday, November 3, 2014
Election Day
We at Snake Eyes Gaming just wanted to remind everyone to go out and cast your votes. If you're not sure where your polling place is then you can find out that information at the following location: https://www.pavoterservices.state.pa.us/Pages/PollingPlaceInfo.aspx.
Wednesday, October 29, 2014
Weekend Recap
Happy
Wednesday everyone! Not only did we have great Autumn weather last weekend but
there were also a couple of cool events at Snake Eyes Gaming to recap.
Living
Card Games are a relatively new edition to Snake Eyes Gaming and as such we
wanted to make a little time to highlight some of the games that we're most
excited about. With the help of the people that volunteered to demonstrate
games, we successfully ran demos of the following living card games: Doomtown
Reloaded, Warhammer 40,000 Conquest, Lord of the Rings, Call of Cthulu, and
Star Wars. In addition to the people that showed up and participated in Living
Card Game Day we had others express interest in learning to play several of the
games. Snake Eyes Gaming will schedule another living card game day in the
future but in the meantime we plan on holding game days and events for a few of
the games that we demonstrated.
Snake
Eyes Gaming also hosted a Grand Prix Trial on Saturday. The Legacy formatted
event brought 15 participants who dueled for a spot in New Jersey on November
16 & 17. Congratulations and good luck to the winner who traveled all the
way from Pittsburgh to participate in our Grand Prix Trial. In addition, we would
like to give a special thanks to Bruce who donated his time to run the Magic
tournament.
Thank
you to all of the people that assisted with and participated in the events that
we ran last weekend. There will be plenty going on this coming weekend as well
with the start of Round 2 of the Warhammer Fantasy Battle Escalation League, a
special Halloween themed booster draft for Friday Night Magic (Innistrad/ Innistrad/
Avacyn Restored), and more!
Thursday, October 23, 2014
Living Card Game Day!
The following Living Card Games are guaranteed to be on hand for demos and games: Lord of the Rings, Doomtown Reloaded, Call of Cthulu, and Star Wars. In addition, there may also be demos of the brand new Warhammer 40,000 LCG Conquest.
In the Lord of the Rings LCG up to four players each control three valiant heroes (such as Legolas, Gimli, Aragorn, Elrond, Haldir, Celeborn, Glorfindel, and more) and together they attempt to complete a quest. The game focuses on quest lines (each of which is a series of thematically linked quests) and captures the essence of the Lord of the Rings through use of simple to learn/play yet still elegant mechanics. Saturday's demos will focus on the exploration of Khazad-dûm. During the three adventures in the Khazad-dûm cycle the players will first try to pass through the long dark of Moria unnoticed by orc patrols, then use the Book of Marzabul to locate Balin's missing expedition, and finally attempt to escape Moria amidst a seemingly endless tide of orcs and something darker and worse.
Doomtown Reloaded is the story of the struggle for the
The characters, starships, and situations of the original Star Wars trilogy come to life in Star Wars, a head-to-head Living Card Game of tactical combat and
strategic planning that allows two players to wage cinematic combats
between the light and dark sides of the Force.
Command such legendary characters as Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Leia
Organa, Boba Fett, and Darth Vader. Launch strategic assaults against
your opponent’s objectives. Tempt fate in thrilling edge battles. Seek
to make an ally of the Force or master its power for your own purposes.In Call of Cthulhu players take the roles of investigators, villains, and unspeakable horrors inspired by the dark mythos of H.P. Lovecraft. Agency detectives, Miskatonic University students and faculty, and the members of the mysterious Syndicate all join the fight against otherworldly beings including
There is no set schedule for what time of the day each of the games described above will be demonstrated. Demonstrations will be running from 2:00pm onward as we have people interested in trying each of the games. No matter what type of setting or mechanics you favor, one of these games has something for you!
Sunday, October 19, 2014
Game Review: Dungeons & Dragons
D&D
was the first game that I ever played. Back in 1990 my brother asked
me to fill in for a missing player as his group attempted to solve
the mysteries presented in Night of the Walking Dead. Those of you
that have played a campaign with me will not be shocked to hear about
my early run in with Night of the Walking Dead after all, that
adventure usually shows up in some guise in every campaign that I’ve
ever run. My character at the time, Charles, was a heavily armored
warrior that was often out of his league in every arena of his life
except melee. His story is one of duty, betrayal by those he was
loyal to, and ultimately corruption as he sank to the level required
of him by his new lord. All of that is a story for another day
however.
When
I first heard that there was a new edition coming out I was equal
parts excited, relieved, and curious. I have played every version of
the game that was released during my 24 year tenure – AD&D, 2nd
Edition, 3rd
edition, 3.5, 4th
edition, and Pathfinder.
When the playtest was released I jumped on it and guided an
incredibly motley group of heroes through the first stages of an
adventure line that culminated in them largely ignoring the subtle
political threat posed by the yuan-ti, killing a ship full of pirates
on a river dock in broad daylight, and sailing off into the sunset on
said pirate ship. By the time that cycle was finishing our group had
switched back to 2nd
edition because we were
having some nostalgic cravings. One of the beauties of this game is
that the stories of heroic adventure (and misadventure!) are
independent of the rule mechanics through which we form them.
According
to the design team of D&D Next they had a number of stated goals,
some of which I will reiterate here. The first design paradigm that
they laid out was simplicity and elegance in design. Their idea from
the beginning was that a player should be able to quickly generate a
character that has some depth and learn the basic rules of the game
without too much difficulty. Following from this premise was the idea
that adventurers should be single session phenomena where the arch of
the story and action can take place in a few hours of real time
rather than becoming ordeals that last for many sessions. The
stories themselves didn’t change but the mechanics used to tell
those stories were streamlined. The second design paradigm was to
shift the emphasis of the game from solely combat back to a more even
split between Exploration, Roleplaying, and Combat. The third concept
was character balance at all levels of play between the classes. I’ll
go into this a little more below. Finally, and most importantly,
their objective was to appeal to Players from all editions. The
Design Team doesn’t care what edition you play, they just want you
to play. To me, D&D Next resembles 2nd
edition while other people
in my group say it resembles their favorite edition. They tried to
create an edition that anyone will recognize as having elements of
their favorite version and I think they succeeded.
The
first thing that you will notice about the Player’s Handbook is the
hefty price tag. At $50 this PHB is one of the most expensive books
Wizards has ever released. The Player’s Handbook is full of new
artwork (like the great piece on the cover of King Snurre) and contains all of the rules necessary to play more than 12
different character races (Human, Wood Elf, High Elf, Drow Elf, Rock
Gnome, Forest Gnome, Hill Dwarf, Mountain Dwarf, Hairfoot Halfling,
Tallfellow Halfling, Dragonborn, Tiefling, Half-orc) and 12 different
classes (Cleric, Bard, Barbarian, Monk, Fighter, Rogue, Wizard,
Sorcerer, Warlock, Paladin, Ranger, Druid). Each character chooses a
path to specialize in during their progression through their class.
Some characters choose it early such as Clerics devotion to a deity
or a Wizard choosing their school of study. While other will not
focus until later, like the Rogue that becomes an Assassin or a
paladin that choose the path of vengeance. The character paths are
reminiscent of the prestige classes and paragon paths of old.
A
new addition to the core rules of the game is the Background section.
It is this section that makes character generation and early
character development shine. From Kriv’s (dragonborn rogue) over
enjoyment of alcohol to Meeshak’s (human fighter) hatred of nobles
many of the traits that help make those first adventures where you
are still feeling out your characters personality are based in the
background section. This is the part where you find out who your
character was before they embarked on (or had thrust upon them) a
life of adventuring. The power level of characters has been reduced
across the board. This reduction is evident in the spell list where
spells no longer get better every time the character attains a new
level. It can also be seen in attack bonus and saving throws.
Characters are still quite powerful and are now better balanced
between the classes than ever before (Fighters have some neat
abilities that allow them to dominate the ebb and flow of combat) but
there is an element of danger that has been missing from the game for
a while.
If
you have talked to me at any time since we were at the Pittsburgh
Comicon then you have probably heard me talk about how awesome the
new Monster Manual is. The first thing we all notice about Monster
Manual's is the artwork. The art in the new book is a mix between
amazing (beholder), mediocre (most of the demons), and recycled
(umberhulk). I can’t think of any artwork that is purely bad
though. The next thing you’ll notice as you flip through is that it
looks like they included everything! The first night I had the book I
texted all of my usual playing companion that the modrons were back.
Of course that message was autocorrected to “The morons are
back!!!” but the point remains that the book is full of
monsters from the days of yore as well as those that will be familiar
to newer players. For example, there is a chart in the demon section
that explains the classification system used by mortal demonologists.
On that chart Nalfeshnee are listed as Type IV, which is what they
were called a LONG time ago.
A
more in depth analysis will reveal that the layout of the book is
excellent for ease of use. Each page denotes the letter of the
alphabet covered on that page for quick referencing and the monster
statistic blocks themselves are well organized for quickly
referencing during play. Some monsters have Lair traits which provide
details for the influence that those monsters have on the surrounding
world. For example, animals living in the area around the copper
dragon lair sometimes gain the ability to speak (although they never
reveal any information about the dragon). The Monster Manual is the
best gaming purchase I’ve made in a long time.
I
hope that these reviews have been helpful for you. If you are
interested in learning more about the new D&D edition (or just
D&D in general) then you can download a free sample of the rules
from Wizards of the Coast:
http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/basicrules.
The link will take you to a page where you can download a roughly 100
page version of the Player's Handbook and a roughly 100 page version
of the Monster Manual/Dungeon Master's Guide. Enjoy!
Monday, October 6, 2014
Has it Been a Year Already?
There are a lot of great events and activities planned for the month. This month at Snakes Eyes Gaming there will be:
- Warhammer Fantasy Escalation League
- Warhammer 40K Escalation League
- Heroclix Events
- Friday Night Magic (plus other Magic of course!)
- Living Card Game Demo Day (Saturday, October 25th)
- There have even been rumors of a 2nd Annual Costume Party
Please feel free to leave any comments, thoughts, or memories about the our first year below.
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