Content — Boards & Swords

Arkham Horror LCG Battle Report: Echoes of the Past (Path to Carcosa Part 3)

Disclaimer: If you haven't heard about Arkham Horror: The Card Game, you might have trouble with this post. Also, potential spoilers ahead.

Last time, I continued our recap of playing through the Path to Carcosa campaign. Now that we’ve witnessed a crazy play and made a party get “lit” (har har), it was time to get down to business. The next scenario, Echoes of the Past, has us go to the nearby museum to investigate a rumor that this is not the first time that “The King in Yellow” has come to Arkham.

Decuma: Card Gaming Before Role Playing (Interview with Kimi Hughes)

One thing I’d like to start doing on this blog is interviewing various people in the tabletop gaming communities (board games, RPGs, etc.). I used to do this back when I did the Boards & Swords podcast solo, and I miss talking with new people and finding out about cool new projects in the works. At the time that I realized this, I also came across a brand new Kickstarter called “Decuma” from first time Kickstarter company Golden Lasso Games.

Golden Lasso Games is the brainchild of Kimi Hughes, one of the hosts of the Happy Jacks RPG podcast. I’ve talked about Happy Jacks before in my video last year highlighting women in RPGs. I also follow a few cosplayers, and Kimi is very active in that community as well (her company name stems off the fact that she is a big fan of Wonder Woman).

BlogChris RenshawFebruary 19, 2020RPGs, Roleplaying games, roleplaying game, ttrpg, rpg, golden lasso games, happy jacks RPG podcast, kimi hughes, kickstarterComment

Let’s Get Mystical - Early Thoughts on the Doctor Strange Deck for Marvel Champions

Fantasy Flight Games (FFG) has been announcing a lot of new stuff for their Marvel Champions Living Card Game (LCG). Some might argue that they should focus on getting more stock of the products that have been already released, but those kinds of issues usually take weeks to fix. In the meantime, last week we found out about the newest hero that will be coming to the game, Doctor Strange. Currently, the schedule has this hero deck becoming available in May (March = Thor, April = Black Widow, May = Doctor Strange).

Containing the Insanity! Creating a Custom LCG Case

Unless this is your first visit to this website, you are probably familiar with the fact that I am a big fan of the board games made by Fantasy Flight Games, specifically their cooperative Living Card Games (LCGs): Arkham Horror the Card Game and Marvel Champions the Card Game. Both of these games come in smaller “core” boxes, but with the vast waves of expansions that FFG is known for putting out, these types of games quickly outgrow these boxes.

Arkham Horror LCG Battle Report: The Last King (Path to Carcosa Part 2)

Disclaimer: If you haven't heard about Arhkam Horror: The Card Game, you might have trouble with this post. Also, potential spoilers ahead.

Last time, I began recapping our group playing through the “Path to Carcosa” campaign, which ended with me realizing that I had mixed up the Act & Agenda decks. In the next scenario, The Last King, our characters stumble into the weirdest dinner part ever in order to find out more about the play “The King in Yellow”.

You Got Your Iron Man in My D&D! (Eberron: Rising from the Last War Review)

Having played Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) 3.5 edition in college, when I got an actual job in 2008 and was able to afford things I started playing RPGs again. Unfortunately, I ended up playing a lot of D&D 4th edition, but at the time I was loving it. After getting the core books, I wanted to get some of the vast sourcebooks that were available. There were a ton of different settings, but the one that grabbed me was Eberron. Written by Keith Baker, it was a custom setting that was submitted to Wizards in a D&D3.5 contest that became a full setting supported in 4th edition as well.

If the idea of flying ships, magical trains powered by elementals, and huge steampunk colossi in your D&D game sounds awesome to you as it did to me, then you are in luck. Wizards of the Coast has teamed up with Keith Baker to make Eberron: Rising From The Last War, an official D&D 5th edition sourcebook that updates the lore of the world and brings its mechanical and mystical creatures into the most recent version of the game.

You Are Not Prepared! - Early Thoughts on the Black Widow Deck for Marvel Champions

I love the new Marvel Champions Living Card Game (LCG) from Fantasy Flight Games. You might have gathered that from the post I did talking about teaching the game to my dad. Well, FFG recently showed off some of the cards in the upcoming Black Widow hero deck, currently scheduled to release in April. The more I play this game, the more I want to dig in deep into all aspects of this game, so let’s take a look at the released images. Note that I have not yet read the FFG article where the images debuted as I wanted to capture my initial thoughts of seeing the cards.

Arkham Horror LCG Battle Report: Curtain Call (Path to Carcosa Part 1)

Disclaimer: If you haven't heard about Arhkam Horror: The Card Game, you might have trouble with this post. Also, potential spoilers ahead.

Last time, I talked about playing through the Dunwich Legacy solo. Well, I still have my campaign night group interested in playing Arkham Horror, so we sat down to play Path to Carcosa starting with Part 1: Curtain Call.

So, I’ve been very anxious/nervous to play through the Path to Carcosa scenario. Part of it is because this is the third time I’ve tried to get the campaign going, with only getting to the 3rd scenario in the previous attempts. The idea of actually being able to complete the campaign is very exciting to me. However, looking online at all the Arkham Horror discussions, people almost universally consider Path to Carcosa to be the best campaign that Fantasy Flight Games has put out. Therefore, I’m a bit nervous to play through it as I’m afraid that I may have built it up too much in my mind.

How Can I Teach Young Gamers It's Not About Winning? - Ask the Prof

Caveat: Not a real professor. I just play one on TV….if your TV is looking at my YouTube videos. Also my grandfather used to call me that when I was in college.

Now that I am back to blogging more often, its time to revisit this column. Got a question about board games, roleplaying games, comics or pop culture? Send me an email Chris@ocdcast.com or tweet me @ChrisTheProf on twitter with the #asktheprof hashtag and I may answer it in a future column.

Pulling from my archives, @BKfishen4Games asked on Twitter:

"How can I teach young gamers that it’s not all about winning?"

Brandon from the Brawling Brothers podcast (@BrawlingBros) asked:

"How do you loosen up the 'stiffs' at the table and have them fall into character?!?"

First of all, calling them stiffs is probably not helping your cause. Secondly, I totally know where Brandon is coming from. One of the first games I ran as a GM was the Star Wars Saga Edition RPG from Wizards of the Coast (basically D&D 3.5 but with Star Wars). I was trying to get a new group of friends into RPGs and as such pretty much everyone in my game had never played in a RPG before. A couple of players got into it, but there was one or two people that basically acted like we were playing Zork:

I Finally Played Gloomhaven! (First Impressions)

As you may or may not know, one of the hottest board games of the past 2-3 years has been Gloomhaven designed by Isaac Childres. No matter what list you look at: top selling board games, top 100 board games of all time, hardest board game to dead lift, Gloomhaven is high on that list, if not #1 on it. This board game takes a standard “trope” of board games, which is the “go into a dungeon, fight a bunch of monsters, complete some quests” style, or “dungeon crawl” game and do something unique that makes the game feel truly different.

For years, I’ve seen the hype around Gloomhaven and knew that it was a game that I needed to try at some point. There’s miniatures, an evolving story, and an in-depth setting that just screams “PLAY ME”. Yet, the game is a big burden to play: at $100-150, it is an expensive game to purchase. Especially if you dont already have a group dedicated to play it. Several groups have offered to start a Gloomhaven campaign, but nothing ended up panning out. Fast forward to Pax Unplugged last year, when Frosthaven was announced. This game is going to be huge, and I knew I wanted to talk to Isaac about the game on the podcast, so I managed to get a review copy of the game and told myself I’d play through the game solo so that I could 100% make sure that it would get played.

Note: Some minor spoilers of the first scenario ahead.

Arkham Horror LCG Battle Report: Lost in Time and Space (The Dunwich Legacy Part 8)

Disclaimer: If you haven't heard about Arhkam Horror: The Card Game, you might have trouble with this post. Also, potential spoilers ahead.

Last time, I talked about playing through the Dunwich Legacy solo, especially the trouble I had playing the penultimate scenario, The Last King.

Arkham Horror LCG Battle Report: Where Doom Awaits (The Dunwich Legacy Part 7)

Disclaimer: If you haven't heard about Arkham Horror: The Card Game, you probably might have trouble with this post. Also, potential spoilers ahead.

In previous articles, I talked about my experiences playing the Arkham Horror Living Card Game (LCG) with a brand new group of people. Well, for the past year, I’ve also been solo playing through the first “full” campaign, which is called the Dunwich Legacy. After a long time, I’m finally getting close to finishing a campaign, especially since I’ve had most of these cards for a couple of years now.

Marvel Champions LCG Battle Report: So I taught my Dad how to play

I’ve started doing “Battle Reports” for my Arkham Horror Living Card Game (LCG) plays, so I’d like to start doing them for my plays of the Marvel Champions LCG from Fantasy Flight Games. Unlike the Arkham Horror game, Marvel Champions doesn’t have as much story in each individual scenario. So I probably wont post a battle report every time I play the game, but if I’m trying a new hero/scenario/etc, I’ll post up some thoughts. Today, I’d like to talk about my experiences over the holiday break teaching Marvel Champions to my Dad.

(Potential for some slight spoilers on specific scenarios, but as I mentioned it wont impact your gameplay as the story isn’t the main focus of Marvel Champions)

Blog, Most PopularChris RenshawJanuary 13, 2020marvel champions, fantasy flight games, lcg, marvel, card game Comment

Arkham Horror LCG Battle Report: The Devourer Below (Night of the Zealot Part 3)

Disclaimer: If you haven't heard about Arhkam Horror: The Card Game, you probably might have trouble with this post. Also, potential spoilers ahead.

Last time, I talked about how the group was starting to fall into their roles as we went through Part 2 of the Arkham Horror the Card Game Night of the Zealot mini-campaign. Well, now it’s time to talk about Part 3, the conclusion to the core box: The Devourer Below.

BlogChris RenshawJanuary 6, 2020arkham horror, ahlcg, Arkham Horror the Card Game, fantasy flight games, board gamesComment

Arkham Horror LCG Battle Report: The Midnight Masks (Night of the Zealot Part 2)

Disclaimer: If you haven't heard about Arhkam Horror: The Card Game, you probably might have trouble with this post. Also, potential spoilers ahead.

Last time, I talked about how I managed to finally get a regular group to try out the Arkham Horror: The Card Game from Fantasy Flight Games. We played through the first scenario in the core box, The Gathering. I played my deck pretty horribly, but we managed to make it through to the end.

Well, now it’s time to talk about Part 2 of the core box: The Midnight Masks.

BlogChris RenshawDecember 23, 2019ahlcg, Arkham Horror the Card Game, fantasy flight gamesComment

Acquisitions Incorporated Review (D&D)

Fresh off the heels of PAX Unplugged, today I’ll be taking a look at a sourcebook for D&D 5th Edition that was made in partnership with Penny Arcade, the people behind PAX. That sourcebook is “Acquisitions Incorporated”, and if you have been familiar with D&D and/or Penny Arcade then you probably have a good idea of what this book is about.

For those that aren’t aware, “Acquisitions Incorporated” was the name of the D&D adventuring party started by Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik of the webcomic Penny Arcade, along with Scott Kurtz from the webcomic PvP. The crew started their adventures on the official D&D podcast back in 2009, where they were DM’d by the master himself, Chris Perkins (hey did you know I got the chance to interview him?). Since then, the stories and legacy have grown across several mediums, such as comics, animation, and even various streams on Twitch. In fact, one of the highlights of several Pax conventions is the chance to see the crew play another crazy adventure live.

BlogChris RenshawDecember 18, 2019Dnd, D&D, Dungeons and Dragons, Dungeons & Dragons, Penny Arcade, D&D5e, Dnd5e, RPG, Roleplaying game, Role playing gameComment

Arkham Horror LCG Battle Report: The Gathering (Night of the Zealot Part 1)

Disclaimer: If you haven't heard about Arhkam Horror: The Card Game, you probably might have trouble with this post. Also, potential spoilers ahead.

I have been a longtime fan of Arkham Horror: The Card Game from Fantasy Flight Games. It's been in my Top 10 Games of all time lists both times [links] that I've done them. The game incorporates several things I enjoy in games: story bits, customizable decks, and some small roleplaying elements. However, the problem with the game has always been finding people to play it with. I have all of the first 2 campaigns, The Dunwich Legacy & The Path to Carcosa. I even have most of the stand alone scenarios. Every chance I get to play the game at Gen Con or other events I try. Yet I have never finished any of the longer campaigns because I could not get a group together to play regularly.

Until Now.

BlogChris RenshawDecember 16, 2019ahlcg, fantasy flight games, Arkham Horror the Card Game Comments

Contrast Paints & The Swiss Army Knife of Star Wars Legion

Chris looks at the new Contrast Paints from Games Workshop/Citadel and how they worked on some Fantasy Flight Star Wars Legion minis. Oh, and how are those minis by the way?

BlogChris RenshawNovember 25, 2019star wars, star wars legion, fantasy flight games, miniatures Comment

Satanic Panic: A Terrible Kickstarter

Warning: This is going to be a long post.

Chris gives some information and opinions about a Kickstarter that went south

Chris' Top 50 Games of All Time (2019 Version): #50-41

Around this time last year, we finished our series of Top 50 games of all time on the podcast as a celebration of hitting 100 episodes. This year, we decided to do an update but instead of doing a long series again, we are only talking about our Top 10 list. Therefore, I figured I'd use the blog to talk about the rest of my favorite games.