If I am thinking correctly, that would be in a hour and half. So I think I will be up for a game about then. So a Skype game then? My name on Skype is WickedRonway.
Ok great. Anyone up for a try at 21:00 GMT tonight, 7th Dec?
I have NO IDEA how it will work via Skype, but hey ho.
Regards,
Fentum
I should be around at that time, maybe a bit later 9.30ish. Don't feel you have to wait though as i'm not 100% sure i'll make it
I'd be up for it. My Skype name is the same as here. I'm lazy that way. Unfortunately my mike's busted so I'd be text only. That ok?
Hoping to join the fun in 20 minutes,
I'm generally interested in skype-based play at GMT-friendly hours, but I won't be able to make tonight. Still, some other time, maybe?
Hey Arenson, what was your Skype name? I don't recall seeing it.
My skype name is the same as my forum name.
I've got some work I'm trying to furiously finish so that I'll be able to join y'all. The reality is that I probably won't be able to do anything until about 4:30 EST (9:30 GMT?) We'll see.
It'll take us that long to figure out how to use Skype!
Fentum, what name are you using on Skype as the Fentum I find is in the US and so probably not you?
I'd love to join in with you guys, but I'm at my coffee shop job and without my cards! Also I have forgotten/need to create my Skype account. Have some fun for me!
Here I am, finally online...though I won't be on Skype tonight, or tomorrow, as I'm not at home right now. I won't be on Skype till I get home on Sunday evening.
But here's what happened in that game I played with Mezike last night...
It was about half ten when we decuded to play, though it took us a while to actually start playing, and we didn't finish till about 1am. Yeah, long game but very fun ;). So, we decided to go up against the MAtriarch, as Mezike hadn't played against her yet. He decided he'd play two heroes, so there'd be three heroes in total, and went with Expatriette and Tempest. I chose Mr Fixer, in the hopes of getting out Driving Mantis style in order to redirect any Fowl-destruction damage that I might be dealt. Finally, we decided on the environment, choosing the Tomb of Anubis with the theory that the traps would help us get rid of the Matriarch's stuff.
So, Tempest was able to reliably clear birdies with Squall on more than one occasion. Expatriette achieved the same with her Sub-Machine Gun a few times to. We had both cohorts out at one point, which was annoying, but managed to get rid of them eventually. I'd started with a Harmony carde in-hand but never actually played it. I also started with Grease Monkey Fist style, and played it (more to just get a style into play than because I wanted that particular style), only to lose it to a Horrid Cacophony on the Matriarch's next turn :P. That was the only style card I saw during the whole game but that was okay. I actually didn't do very much damage, but was able to be effective nevertheless. We never took any damage from Fowl directly, but we did from destroying them. Also, one or two environmental traps hit us on a couple of occasions. However, after losing quite a lot of hp over a couple of turns, we finally stopped at around the 10hp mark. Because I'd drawn a Grease Gun. I played this, to stop all the bad guys doing damage (except the traps, which aren't targets so are unaffected by the Grease Gun), which meant Expatriette (whose turn was after mine) could gun down all the birdies with no repercussions. On the following turn, of course, my Grease Gun was destroyed, so I just played the Salvage Yard card I had in my hand and got it back again, playing it again the following turn. I also then drew a second Grease Gun, so played that on the turn after. On Tempest's next turn, he got one of my Grease Guns out of the trash with a Reclaim from the Deep, so I drew that on my next turn. The turn after that, however, I didn't bother playing it because by this time Tempest and Expatriette had whittled down the Matriarch to 5hp so I used Strike to do her two damage (I had a Pipe Wrench out). Expatriette finished things off - she already had Pride in play (and had done for most of the game), so on the final turn she played a Quick Draw to locate Prejudice as well, and unleashed both guns into the Matriarch's face. BOOM.
Who says Mr Fixer and Expatriette aren't much good? ;) Expatriette probably did the most damage, while Mr Fixer, I'm certain, saved everyone from dying with the multiple Grease Gun uses :). We ended the game with Mr Fixer on 10hp, Tempest on 9hp, and Expatriette on 8hp. And we had a good time, even if we were both half asleep by the end :D. Things looked rather worrying quite early on, when there were about a million birds out and we had no protection, but we managed to deal with it and ended up kicking some feathery arse :D.
Text-based games over Skype are a bit slow, yes, but that doesn't make them any less fun :D.
I'm not going to say that he isn't good, but games where he gets only one Style and none of his others kind of defeat the thematic aspect of his ever-shifting-style-and-tool approach to combat. At least he has Meditations in his deck. Yesterday a friend had to get through half of his deck before he could find a Tool, as there is no way for Fixer to search his deck for an Equipment card. That is atrocious. I'm not gonna say the guy is bad, but when I can't even Mister Fixer my opponents as Mister Fixer, that is incredibly lame.
Any which way, sounds like you guys had an enjoyable game against The Matriarch! That is phenomenal! Even on our good games against her, a lot of my Sentinels crew (myself included) find her to be rather tedious.
Good five person game today. Actually, two of them. We used only EE decks to accommodate the person who didn't have others and was new to the game. Took down Voss in Megalopolis and then decided to tackle Voss agin, but swapping out most of the heroes for other heroes.
Text only. It worked, and has its charm, but it's slower than voice.
Lots of fun!
That first game was great, a classic and efficient villain dismantling. The second was a bit more sloppy and ran on for quite a bit. Memo to self not to start a game past 10pm with a slow building team!
One thing we discussed was the lack of 'table vision' where you can't see everything that is in play, how this impacts on strategy and requires additional dialogue as you have to ask more questions of the other players. Although this is a major contributor to slowing the game down I quite like the way it feels like a group of individuals coming together, you know what they are capable of but never 100% on what their current active abilities are. It was fun to see us making a few sub optimal decisions, then working things out after all, which was as enjoyable a challenge as when we fixed a team strategy and played it out effectively.
Vassal may have helped but is limited. Is there any mileage in a Vassal module that has the card names but no text, and limited artwork? i.e. the same base picture on every card with the card name, also making the cards smaller. In this way it would be possible to have the whole game manageable in Vassal whilst still requiring players to own a copy, it would purely be a module for tracking game state in online games. Just a thought, or we could investigate live document sharing so HP and game effects re more easily visible.
Has anyone added our games last night to the stats sheets? If not, I'll do that today.
Also, I noticed Skype has a share screens option. Maybe if one or two players have open a spreadsheet or doc with HP and cards on table we can do something about the visibility issue?
Yeah, live document sharing would be a great way to go. It would be cool to run it with a stock image for each character so it isn't just a wall of text (not actual card scans, basically just an avatar). It's possible to paste images into excel then to put an HP counter in a cell next to it, with cards in play listed next to that. A bit of work for whoever is moderating but probably quicker overall if everything is visible at a glance.
Something like the attached picture for example, but with a space for Villain and Environment too.
Edit: I'm happy to do the build on the spreadsheet and distribute it to whoever wants to try running a game with it. I can add drop down selection (through data validation) to select cards that are going into play to save on typing. I'm pretty sure there is also a way to auto update the image based on selected character, I haven't had a need to do that professionally but vaguely remember doing something similar a few years back.
Mezike,
I can have a look into that. I do VBA coding in my job so should be able to hack something together. No promises on time, and it's not like I don't have enough unfinished projects but this should be fairly straight forward.
Ok great, I know I had some code somewhere in a spreadsheet that would make that happen but not on my current storage, and my excel work is steeped in crunching data with formulas rather than using VB. Do you want me to do the grunt work on the build then you can wave the magic VB wand over it? A collaborative effort :-)
btw it's fine to call me Daniel
Hello chaps,
I am that bloke who is new to the game with only EE and has limited knowledge of Skype.
It says a lot for the forum that a muppet like I can suggest a Skype match and it actually happen.
Kudos to Pwatson, Arenson, Ronway and Mezike for helping out a newcomer.
The actual play worked very well I thought. Skype text was fine.
Although new, i was pretty familiar with the heroes in the first game, and it was easy enough to visualise what was going on. I had never seen the heroes in the second game, and I found it a lot tougher. It's easy to play your own guy and to have villain and environment cards set up in front, but tricky to remember other hero's stuff - particularly if you have never seen them before. I reckon it would be a LOT easier with a bit of familiarity.
I quite enjoyed the effect that the less than perfect comms had. Mezike mentioned it earlier. It was actually like five people in a bit of chaos. Was then more fun to deal with the non-optimal choices.
All in all, good fun with a good gang. I'll play some more solo to get a feel for the heroes. I had pretty much no idea what AZ was up to mechanically , other than that he was building up to something thematically.
good game guys.
fentum