Lost Cities

Lost Cities is a great two-player card game that has entertained my wife and I for over ten years.

There are five suits, each with a different exploration theme. Each suit has three investment "handshake" cards and cards from two to ten. Each player has a hand that they must play a card from and then must pick up a card.

Where they play it and where they pick it up from is what makes the game really fun. They can either play it on their side of the board, on the corresponding suit area, or on the board itself. Cards on the board are free for anyone to pick up, therefore when you pick up you can do so from the deck or the board. You can never pick up a card once you have played it on your side of the board. Players alternate playing until the deck has been exausted.

Two things of note. Cards have to be played so that they increase, never decrease. Handshake cards have to be played first and once a numbered card is played you cannot play a handshake card.

Scoring is done by adding all the card values and multiplying the result by one plus the number of handshake cards. One caveat though and its a doozy...if you play a card on your side of the board the score starts at minus 20! Therefore if you have twenty points of cards in a suit then that suit counts as zero, like the below example.

In the example below, having the nine gets you nine points (29 minus 20 is 9).

Having the handshake added gets you 38 points (29 times 2 minus 20)!

Therefore you can have a low score in a suit of minus 80 to a positive score of two hundred and sixteen. You also get a bonus twenty points for having eight or more cards in a suit.

You play three games and whomever has the highest score is the winner.

Mercenary Rover, Nomad, and Mule Magnetic Jack

The Mercenary Multi-Jack is a good kit made even better by magnetism! I was hesitant to magnetize my multi-Cygnar jacks and now wish I had as it was easy using a drill bit to make the slots for the magnets. Now I only have to get a few more multi-jacks to have the ability to field combinations of these three jacks on the field.

I started off with Krylon black primer spray paint. Then a rough brushing of P3 Traitor Green and shading with P3 Thornwood Green. Additional shading was done with GW Gryphon Sepia and P3 Coal Black mixed 50/50. For highlight I used Traitor Green mixed 50/50 with P3 Menoth White Highlight. Then it was P3 Pig Iron drybrushed heavily on the metal parts. For the damaged slashes I used P3 Thamar black to paint a line and then just below it painted a line of P3 Cold Steel. I then washed it with Army Painter Strong Tone Ink. The base was painted with P3 Gun Corps Brown and arcs painted with P3 Bootstrap Leather.

For the barrel on the Mule I used P3 Bootstrap Leather and drybrushed P3 Rucksack Tan. I want to use it with Constance Blaze's Highborn Covenant list with a unit of Arcane Gunners for some super blowback action.

The Nomad.

The Rover. I particularly like the scratches on this one.

Pinata (nee Balloon Cup)

Pinata (nee Balloon Cup) is an excellent and short two player game. In it you alternate laying cards down on your side of the game boards to get either the highest or lowest point total in one of the candy levels from one to four.

  There are two sides to each of the four levels of boards, a high side and a low side.

Each card laid must correspond to a coloured candy. Therefore if you have two yellow, a red, and a blue candy you must lay down two yellow, a red, and a blue card. If your side, in a candy level, is filled with the required cards you can start to lay cards down on the opponents side.

Once a level has been filled with the required cards on each side, the winner of that level gets the candies, the card is flipped over and the level is filled with candies equivalent to the level number.

 Once one player has enough candies, in a particular candy colour, they get the prize associated with that colour. First player to three prizes wins.

Its a simple game but lots of strategy can be utilized.

In the predecessor, Balloon Cup, the numbers on the cards were more varied and larger. As well, you could lay cards on your opponents side at any time. You could also tie in a level in Balloon Cup to get the cubes while in Pinata you cannot. This made it a more heated game.

 

My wife prefers the art in Balloon Cup although I like the new version for its less varied card scores.

Pendragon RPG

Greg Stafford's Pendragon, fifth edition, is an excellent role playing game of not only shaping how your character and lands develop and change but it can also force you down certain paths.

It does this though your traits and passions. Traits are two sides of a coin and vary from one to twenty with both sides adding up to twenty.These traits are described as virtues and vices such as generous and selfish, prudent and reckless, and valorous and cowardly. Passions can be such things such as loyalty (to different people or persons), love (same), and hospitality. As a player chooses to do, or refuse to do something they can unless they have a corresponding trait or passion that is sixteen or higher. Then they must abide by it unless they roll a d20 higher than that trait or passion. In other words they succeed with the trait or passion if they roll equal to (a critical) or lower.

For example, if a horde of Saxons come over the hill to avenge their brethren that were just slain by your group and you had a hatred (Saxons) of sixteen or higher, you might fail the roll and have to stay.

Another example is if you were asked by your lord to tell what happened with the Saxons in the previous example. If your modest was sixteen or higher and you failed your roll, even if you wanted to brag or not you would speak of how you could not have been victorious without your fellow knights.

This system is not hindering as it might seem. You play a person with feelings and desires. Goals and a back history. These traits and passions can change if you put the effort into it. If you roll exactly the number of the trait or passion, or constantly do things that would make a change in personality (always heading off into battle with little thought, for example, being more reckless than prudent), you would make a check beside that trait or passion. At years end, you would roll a d20 for each checked trait or passion to see if it increased. This is achieved by rolling equal to or more than that value.

Skills are checked against the same way. This means that the more a player uses their traits, passions and skills the better they can get.

Combat is a nicely elegant system and takes little time. Each player uses the weapon skill for the weapon being used. If they are against multiple enemies they can spit it as they see fit. These scores are altered by various modifiers to get the final score they must meet (critical) or get under. The enemy rolls at the same time as the player. The higher number that is is successful that considered a success but the lower number can use their shield to reduce the damage dealt. Criticals cancel each other out and one side that gets a critical does double damage. If enough damage is dealt it may have a change to drop their opponent to the ground with the blow (which will give all the downed person's enemies a bonus in targeting them in combat and a minus for the downed person).

The long term planning for a player's manors is also fun. What to build, the year's crop success and random events make for tense winter seasons. You also have marriage and heirs to take care of as well as marrying off your sisters and daughters.

Another excellent feature of the game is each game session can take place in an evening of three  to four hours.

I'm having a blast and its simple to learn and play. The wiki article is good for more details and the game is sold from the website at the beginning of the article and here.

Worldworks - Streets of Malifaux Terrain

Worldworks is a maker of pdf printable and thick cardstock terrain. Last XMas I bought this on sale but didn't put the Streets of Malifaux together because I didn't have the plastic clips and continuously forgot to buy them...until now!

The terrain really puts a good theme for Malifaux but it can also be used with Warmachine and Infinity. I especially like the ramps and ladders as well as the flexibility to make your own configurations.