Friday, 19 April 2013

It's been a while...

A slight apology for the extended absence, we recently had an extra member join our little gaming circle, and we're more inclined to play games which can meet the requirements of 5 or 6 players... as such Doom The Board Game has been sat on my shelf quietly seething with demonic power.

To that end I will give a quick shout out to Ben... and a hearty welcome to the madhouse.

For those that might be interested, we've been playing Risk and also D&D - The Fantasy Adventure Board Game. I must say, compared to the mathematical-excursion that is 'real Dungeons & Dragons' this version plays quickly and is great as a pick up game with little or no knowledge required! so, kudos to the games designers for that.

Below are a few snapshots of that game..


Some Intense purple action!

Drink, dice & dungeons. 

The single worst roll of the night
(this roll has zero effect)

The action in this shot is
almost too much to handle.

Stunning stuff!!!
whatever it is that's happening?


You can find out more about D&D - T.F.A.B.G at Board Game Geeks!

http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/6366/dungeons-dragons-the-fantasy-adventure-board-game

Now.. lets move past the amuse bouche and onto the main course ...

More Doom!

Saturday, 3 November 2012

Level 3 - Game 3 - Session 11

Rather than pick up from the previous 'Paused' game... mostly due to the huge amount of time it has been from our last session, we decided just to abandon that game (Session 10, RIP) and start over.

Beer's were shared around and we got down to business. In no time at all and due to the ever increasing abilities of the marine players they stomped through the first few corridors, imps and zombies posing no threat. Having reached the first main room (Area 2) of the level, I, as the invader player, managed to get some frags against the weaker green marine, and the red marine. Blue marine now sporting 4 points of body armour is becoming a thorn in my side as even the heaviest hitters such as Demons or Hell Knights have trouble denting his health.

At this stage I realised that I'd forgotten to add the 'timer' stacks which count down the number of turns the marines have to achieve each objective stage in this level and announced that "in the next turn you have to reach the first scientist" perhaps a little unfair, but I had at least a good indication of how many turns had passed due to the number of invader cards I had in hand / had drawn.

It's worth pointing out that use of 'Earthquake' when combined with the 'Watchful' ability of Demons causes much annoyance to marine players, but all said and done the marines were still having a very good run at this stage.

Doom, the board game, players, blue marine, red marine, marines, photo,
Blue Marine (left) and Red Marine (right) enjoying the beer and chocolate on offer.
The slaughter of evil things continued as the marines seemingly without effort dispatched 2 Hell Knights as they went through area 4, and the spawning invaders and invader cards proving to be entirely ineffectual, the marine players went on almost unhindered.

Upon reaching the final room, the Cyberdemon looming over the wounded marines I had a gut feeling that this might be the time that the marines make it through, Red marine spawn-jumped to the back of the room by 'forcing' a death upon himself, the other two marines tied up the front half of the room and impressively managed not to die straight away to the Cyberdemon Green took the brunt of the damage and caused the marines last loss of this game but only their 4th frag...

With one of the marines now re-spawned and with full health, Green takes great pride in causing pain and death to the invaders while Red, hovering around the final trigger square tangles with 2 Mancubus and defeats both.

Doom, the board game, level 3
(Click to expand)
It was an almighty blaze of destruction in the final room, I genuinely believed that the invaders could win, but sadly due to a rather pathetic show by the Cyberdemon the marines had an easy run of it.

And so, we ended the session and tallied up the experience so that the marines could move on to Level 4.
What horror awaits them there?...

Saturday, 28 July 2012

Beer!

Sadly due to a beer festival ... it appears there's no game!

Have a beer to enjoy... looking at while we've enjoyed ours real ones!


Monday, 23 July 2012

Level 3 - Game 2 - Session 8

So, here's the missing data-stream report from marsbase that you've all been waiting for..

Level 3 or "Inferno" as it is known is essentially a time trial level (I explained in my previous session write up about the timers involved) and this means that mostly the marine players are entirely concentrated on covering as much ground as possible...

The invader player (myself) is tasked with simply halting the progress, I thought I was doing well to do so on this play-through, using 2 earthquake cards and also making best use of the 'insanity' card to cause the chosen marine player to halt for a turn.

Sadly because of the fact that in most turns the marines were opting to run (except for the now far overpowered Marty... who can opt to make an attack and move which he can then follow with another attack and move, giving him running speed and twice the killing power)

Marty



The invaders were entirely unable to cause any slowing of the marines progress in this round and other than whittling away at the marines health which caused a few frags by the time the marines had found the 1st scientist (in the 3rd room) the marines chewed their way happily through even the largest targets that came their way, Hellknights, Cacodemon, Mancubus... each as ineffective as the last.

Due to the time we decided to put the game on pause until our next session, the marines had made their way into the 5th room and claimed their 2nd scientist. Unless the invaders can have a better 2nd half this level may be beaten sooner rather than later...

Level 3, Inferno, Doom, Board Game,


Saturday, 21 July 2012

Wait... what?

It occurred to me I'm a little behind, I've been busy helping move in to my new house as well as tidying my current abode (rental) so I'll be updating last weeks game sometime soon (about to go round for the off-week shenanigans so I cant do it right now)

To those that visit expecting updates... sorry!

Good (or average...) things come to those that wait.

Wednesday, 20 June 2012

Level 3 - Game 1 - Session 7

This was a surprising round, starting with a little confusion which needed clearing up about experience awards and rewards.

We ascertained the following:

  • Denz- needed to make effective payment for 'sharpshooter' sub-skill.
  • Ace- actually had more exp gathered than she'd realised and purchased a new skill (Spec Ops)
This will be reflected as an 'end of level 2' addition to the game summaries.

Level III : Inferno

Level 3 commands the marines to play faster, as there are three distinct timers (other than the natural countdown of the card deck. As such the marines all made quick headway through the somewhat linear level easily avoiding game loss due to timer count out.

The speed at which the players went through this level leave little to report there was a snag in area 2 which forces the marines through a rather well packed room full of invaders. They lost 3 frags in quick succession. and an incident with a grenade bouncing around in the tight off-shoot of area 2 caused much laughter and annoyance.

demons, doom, board game,
The trio of battered, bruised marines and now somewhat weapon-less, due to an incredible bad run of weapon breaks, continued onward toward the end of the twisting corridor,

hellknight, doom, level 3, board game,
Another 2 frags as they entered into area 4 simply due to the three Hellknights blocking the way forward.

The remaining frag spent as Marty rushed through the teleporter into the final area greeted by an angry Cyberdemon which had a few friends with it.

Another of those fantastic 'rough' maps with lines n' stuff all over it... red skulls are supposed to show the approximate point at which a marine suffered a frag

doom, board game, level 3, map,

Wednesday, 6 June 2012

Level 2 - Game 5 - Session 6

This game spanned a fortnight due to our group's dynamic we play DooM tbg only every other week, and on the off week indulge in other games or movies or rockband... whatever. This game lasted over the fortnight because of real life commitments (i.e some of us work!) which meant the first half of this game was played out then 'paused' as we took an early night of it, I'm sure if it weren't for our commitments beyond playing silly games we'd have stayed up all night to finish it there and then,

And so.. from hazy recollection... the first half..

As I recall the pushing was done by a reckless Marty with many shotgun rounds being expended, due to the turn order for this game (we cycle the order of players in each game..) Denz would open the round usually thwarted by several cards from (me) the invader, or softening up targets then Ace would go, uninterrupted due to the carefull skill card she'd pick up a couple of kills or further soften large targets and then Marty would do a mad rush into the frey using killer instinct to wreck havoc among the invaders that are in play.

This procedure basically got the players pretty safely through the first 3 area's even exploring the mysterious and as yet undiscovered vault room... the vault, still closed. The players smashed their way through what I can only say was a paltry effort by the invaders to stall them, seemingly via the tactic 'we'll stop them with our mounting corpses'

And so, with an Archville recently spawned into play, the players had reached area 4 and only two deaths to account for the game was called to a pause.

I took some pic's of the pause so if the board were disturbed we could set it back up.

 Left: this single Archvile taunted and followed Denz.


Right: the point at which the players reached as we decided to pause the game. with blue marine (Marty) about to get locked in and devoured



Left: this is what happens when Ace gets bored waiting for her turn... one of our pet bearded dragons becomes integral to a 'dice stacking game'











So to part two of this shenanigans.

With the aid of some beer and the promise of food after the game, the players launched into this round of play, through some trickery the invader quickly came up with a third kill almost straight away, using the lock-in card along with a few other bits to nail down a separated Marty and then separate Marty's body parts form each other.

This allowed a spawn which Marty (ab)used to spawn across the room sweeping up tokens as he went and getting the 2nd part of the unlock for the vault. With this new occurrence Denz went back via area 3 running for the vault room eagre to find what was inside, meanwhile Marty and Ace dispatched a wandering Mancubus and Hellknight, Ace taking great pride in nearly outright killing the HK in one shot... With Denz completing his mad rush back through the level only to be caught short by the Archvile and a lone Imp on his return taking substantial damage.

Ace and Marty were doing all the could to make entry into area 6 both of them very low on health this struggle ends badly as Denz comes running into Area 4 only to see the blood and viscera of his team-mates being liberally applied to the walls, the multiple Trites of area 6 weakened Ace to a critical level and Marty had once more re-spawned into action ever eager to be right at the front ready for his killer instinct ability to overpower whatever he chooses to get angry at.

However, in the furor of getting the red key, and trying to regroup the team It's all a bit too much the Invaders, mostly Archvile and Hellhights at this stage;  proving too strong to simply run past and ignore, and too tough to take down easily. The players enter into the corridor leading to area 5 with only a few points of health each and 4 kills stacked against them. In the battle of what has come to be known as 'the cafĂ© of wooden benches' Denz decides that his SMG needs a break... and so, promptly breaks it while attempting to see of a Z-Sec Zombie which frustraitingly just refuses to die (even to the point that when he does kill the damn thing, I spawned another one in the spot where it had just died!!)

The card deck was perilously low at this point... and if the deck runs out its an immediate frag against the players, so they were all tooo aware that just 1 more death would be too much.

With Zombies chasing them and the corridor of area 5 stacked with even more ferocious Hellknights the marines put their game faces on... BFG time... a slight oversight of range meaning that in the flash of instatanious death that see's off a Hellknight and 2 archville, the blast is enough to remove half of the already damaged Marty.

This assault coupled with chain-guns all-round means that nothing can withstand the onslaught the marines now present. The amount of ammo being expended enough to reforge into a small monument to the marines, chain-guns wielded by Marty and Ace buzzing and spewing out death before them.

So the players jauntily wade through the sludge and gore that was once a corridor full of hell-spawned deamons and then...

Klaxxons sound, lights flash... The last card is drawn from the invader deck, and the 'timer' frag is added to the pile, that's now 5 frags stacked up, not a single one of the marines has more than 4 hit points remaining and they know all too well that the next room has a Cyberdemon waiting.

So, with BFG's drawn, the remaining chain-gun whirring a buzz of anticipation and a small discussion on how best to get through the teleporter, the marines make entry into Area 7.

Ace goes through, and shreds the Zombies that confront her upon materialisation followed swiftly by Marty who in swift and direct action rushes the remains of the mob and dispatches them with good old fashioned buckshot to the face at point blank range.

The team Commander then injects himself with the experimental concoction of steroids and adrenaline resulting in him entering a berserker mode.. and jumps through the teleport.

Thanks to the players being clever with their turn order ... Marty makes 'sight' on the Cyberdemon and promptly takes out the Hellknight in one attack with his chain-gun ripping through it like hail stones would go through paper its demonic form splattering its innards in a cone behind it and then evaporating into ash as its demonic form burns away from our reality. In this same moment the chain-gun sputters then explodes leaving Marty holding its smouldering shell stood directly in front of a blood spattered Cyberdemon.

From behind them bellows Denz roaring out as he runs in, not even slowing down he dives through the obscuring steam barges past the bemused Marty starring at the wreck of his chain-gun and the giant daemon now towering over him. Denze pushes out his fist and charges headlong into the things gut, and straight out the other side dripping with its blood as it literally tears in two at the force of his monumental attack bellowing triumphantly as the unknown drugs start to leave his system... Ace dashes past, and they quickly make exit as a flow of zombies begins filling the room behind them coming inn via the teleporter.


LEVEL 2: THE SHORES OF HELL - COMPLETED!!