Tsuro Picnic

16 October 2015 | Hisham | | Board and Card Games, Family Pics
 

Once upon a time, earlier today, Irfan came up with the idea of setting up a mat out in the yard so he and other neighbourhood kids can play board games outdoors.

A Tsuro picnic

Later, there were even sandwiches and apple juice!

With food and drinks!

Here's hoping the boardgaming will help Irfan and the other children to improve their social and language skills as they interact with one another.

Perhaps someday there will be RPG picnics?

 

X-Wing: The Asteroid Gambit

07 October 2015 | Hisham | | Board and Card Games, Star Wars
 

Yesterday, Irfan and I finally started playing the X-Wing Miniature Game that was given to us by Darren when we last visited Kuala Lumpur. What Darren gave us was astoundingly lots, so many thanks to him for letting us have this trove.

We started with the basic game. Irfan controlled an Incom T-65 X-Wing fighter and I controlled two Sienar Fleet Systems TIE/ln fighters. His Pilot Card is Luke Skywalker, and mine were "Mauler" Mithel (apparently the father of Reljii Mithel) and Academy Pilot (a strange name to give your son, Mrs. Pilot). We did not carry Upgrade Cards, like astromech droids and proton torpedos.

Here's a picture of an X-Wing

The sculpts for these minis are amazingly detailed. One might even want to collect them because they look very nice indeed. I have seen the Corellian Corvette mini in a box back in KL some time ago and it looks fantastic. And still too expensive for me to pick up.

Here's another picture of an X-Wing and a TIE Fighter

The game is at its core elegant in its simplicity. Initiative, attack, defense, weapon damage, et al are numbers assigend to you on your pilot card. You manoeuvre your ship, then you attack if you are able to. Deciding your move requires a Manoeuvre Dial that you would turn to your choice of move, but you would reveal them from the lowest initiative so the higher initiative players would know what your move is. Moving your ship requires a Manoeuvre Template which would help you move anywhere between 1 to 5 spaces in Straights, Turns or Banks.

Attacking requires the roll of a number of red eight sided dice where you might hit with normal damage, hit with critical damage or "Focus". Defence requires the roll of a number of green eight-sided dice where you might evade or "Focus". A Focus token is used when you declare that the pilot will be Focused after its manoeuvre, which allows the pilot to able to turn any red or green die with a "focus" result to either a hit or an evade respectively.

Hits and Evades cancel each other out. Remaining Hits is the damage dealt out to the fighter being shot at. The X-Wing has Shield Points that has to be depleted by attacks before you start to affect its Hull Points. Deplete a ship's Hull Points and it gets destroyed.

Here's another picture of two TIE fighters

So we used the old West End Games' Star Warriors battlemat, which looks kind of busy and distracting but it is less busy and distracting (and far less embarassing) than our linoleum. Asteroid tokens were scattered all over board as obstacles. We just chased each other around the board for a bit. I attempted to outflank him with my two TIEs, but it was much more difficult that I thought it would be.

Here's yet another picture!

Irfan scored some hits with his Taim & Bak KX-9 wingtip cannons on Mithel's TIE early on. One more point of damage inflicted, and Mithel would be all like, "LOOK OUT!" and smash into the Death Star trench wall asteroid. Above, both TIEs had finally gotten the upper hand and flanked Luke, but all my attack rolls were embarassingly bad, like the linoleum. For some reason, although he had higher initiave, he was unable to put the TIEs into his field of fire. He was not able to shoot.

In case you need another picture...

This allowed my TIEs to let loose with their green cannon bolts, which eventually hit a lucky break and depleted Luke's Shield Points and some Hull Points. Ultimately, Luke and Mithel had the same damage result - one more damage would destroy either - but in the end it was Academy Pilot's attack that took out the X-Wing.

The gameplay was quite enjoyable. I even used a soundboard for the relevant sound effects whenever we fire and things explode. We hope to play with more Upgrade Cards and maybe use the Millennium Falcon and the Slave One next time.

 

Hari Raya at Pasir Mas

20 July 2015 | Hisham | | Board and Card Games, Family Pics
 

This year I was able to take a full week's vacation for Eid vacation at Pasir Mas. I was able to take a vacation because I had a job to take a vacation from this year, which is one of the many things I am grateful for this year. We arrived a couple of days early so Ain could work her magic in the kitchen. There was also a lot of orange soda thanks to Abang G.

Orange and Brown family

Eid was on a Friday. Irfan and I walked to the masjid, and almost missed the Eid prayers but got into the back line just in time.

Tok Bah and Tok Man, also a Tall Boy
 

Legendary Guardians

05 July 2015 | Hisham | | Board and Card Games, Recent News
 

On our recent return to the city, the GOKL gang gifted upon us more fun stuff: the Guardians of the Galaxy expansion set for the Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building game. Since then, we never had the opportunity to break it out of the box to play it... until today.

The Hero cards included were Star-Lord, Gamora, Drax the Destroyer, Groot and Rocket Raccoon - thrown into the limelight thanks to last year's film no doubt. Poor Phyla Vell, Adam Warlock, Bug, Mantis and Cosmo the Space Dog. Pip the Troll was absolutely inconsolable.

The Masterminds provided in the set are Thanos the Goonie and the Kree Supreme Intelligence, supported by two Villain sets: Kree and Infinity Gems - the latter able to act as either Villains or Artifacts.

Irfan and I played twice, both times against the Supreme Intelligence. The first game against the Intergalactic Kree Nega-Bomb Scheme was a massacre because all the Master Strike and Scheme Twist cards were shuffled on top of the Villain Deck. We could barely touch the Supreme Intelligence because it collected a truckload of Shards that increased its strength against players attacks before we all lost. (Irfan was glad he captured Korath the Pursuer though.)

Early in the game and how many KOed Master Strike cards?

Also, Scheme Twists activate the Nega-Bomb that wiped out all the Heroes arrayed in the HQ.

So we thought we'd switch Star-Lord for the Hulk in the second game, because he's a heavy hitter! Irfan wanted to capture Korath again. He even collected enough Hulk cards in the Forge the Infinity Gauntlet Scheme to punch the crap out of the Time Gem.

HULK SMASH

Hulk will punch the crap out of anything.

For this game, the Henchmen cards were Hand Ninjas. Why would Hand Ninjas be henchmen to the Supreme Intelligence and the Kree villains? BECAUSE COMICS! Irfan took out three Hand Ninjas in a single... um, hand.

The game's afoot... er, a-hand

I bet the Hand wishes all they had to fight was Daredevil.

Meanwhile several Scheme Twists returned captured Inifinity Gems back into the city, reinforcing their strength with more Shards. Finally, here is Irfan's hand of three Hulk and one Groot cards, the coup de grace that wiped out the last Supreme Intelligence Mastermind card, dealing a whopping 16 damage points!

Final Victory Point tally: I got a measly 9 points while Irfan acquired 32 - for capturing 3 out of 4 Mastermind Tactics cards and the final Mastermind card, as well a host of Kree and Hand bad guys.

Korath the Pursuer escaped Irfan though. Next time, Korath! Next time!

 

A Legendary Card Game with Marvellous Heroes

16 January 2015 | Hisham | | Board and Card Games, Recent News
 

Before we left the city, the GOKL guys gifted to us Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game.

From Upper Deck!

A box of cards.

We tried to play it when they brought it over the last time they visited, but it was too late for a game, we only managed one round before they had to leave.

Now, after I've located which of the dozens of moving boxes the game was hiding in, Irfan and I finally started playing it.

 

Aidiladha at the Tenth Floor

06 October 2014 | Hisham | | Board and Card Games, Family Pics
 

Another year, another Aidiladha spent in Kuala Lumpur. There was no balik kampung because of insufficient resources. So yesterday we tried to make the best of it.

In the morning, we went for Solat Aidiladha at the Pandan Indah mosque. This morning, for some reason the khatib was not firing all engines. Perhaps he was exhausted.

Then it was time for salam hari raya between ourselves. First, Irfan salam and kissed Ain.

Followed by the same with me, after which, Ain started cooking some nasi lemak in anticipation of impending visitors.

In the afternoon, Irfan's school friend Fikree and his family, as well as his cousins Aiman and Zara, came a-visiting. Apart from savouring the nasi lemak, Irfan, Fikree and Aiman played some Tsuro while Star Wars Rebels was playing on television.

Even young Zara was intrigued by the game.

Since boardgaming was pretty fun, the crew moved on to Small World.

After many weeks of differing levels of smog over the city, it was refreshing to have clear skies (and breathing air) for the day.

Especially for this holiday.

 

Mos Eisley Shoot-Out

23 September 2014 | Hisham | | Board and Card Games, Role Playing Games, Star Wars
 

Peter Schweighofer, who was a writer and editor at West End Games back in the '90s and the editor-in-chief of their Star Wars Adventure Journal periodical, sent a couple of rare gaming memorabilia to me which I received earlier this month.

The first was the Mos Eisley Shoot-Out miniature game.

The stuff even came enclosed in an ENVELOPE!

The game is a simple boardgame that came with a paper foldout grid map of the streets of Mos Eisley and cutout miniatures of characters you could play in the environment. The rules were a simplified version of West End Games' Star Wars The Roleplaying Game combat rules. It was also marketing material that cleverly generates excitement for the RPG itself.  

Maps and figures!

I don't think I'll be clipping out the paper figures out of the document. And not just because I have other paper minis that I could use for the purpose. I'm uncertain, but the map looks to be a segment of Jennell Jaquays' amazing full-colour foldout map that came with the Tatooine Manhunt module, which I once ran early during the Strikeforce Enteague Star Wars D6 campaign.

Retroactively introducing Thrawn to the Galactic Empire

Finally, Peter also included a promo card of the splash page artwork illustrated by Doug Shuler that accompanied the short story Mist Encounter written by Timothy Zahn in Star Wars Adventure Journal #6. The photograph above places the card alongside its printed page counterpart in the book!

Peter is currently a freelance writer who produces excellent gaming sourcebooks like Pulp Egypt for the Any-System Key. Thanks for letting me have a piece of Star Wars RPG history, Peter!

 

A Birthday Once More

21 September 2014 | Hisham | | Board and Card Games, Family Pics
 

It's Irfan's 12th birthday. We were supposed to set something up for him, like allowing him to invite his friends over. But because of low resources, we had to cancel. But Cikma and Ayah Cik The Younger came with a cake anyway, so we held a small gathering. I was not even in the right frame of mind to take photographs so we do not have photos of the cake.

The GOKL group did pass the gift they bought for Irfan, which was the boardgame Tsuro.

I did however take a picture of Irfan unboxing and playing Tsuro.

He didn't know whether to be Ryan Higa, Freddie Wong or Rod Roddenberry
I got kicked off the board by the boy's maneuver. Now it's just his mom and him

We love you Irfan. It's been a rough year what with - among others - the UPSR fiasco and the absolute unreliability of this country's education system at this point in time, but we will strive for a better year for you next year.

Also, many thanks to everyone who wished him a happy birthday over the many online channels available!

 

Pacific Rim Heroclix Battle

21 August 2013 | Hisham | | Board and Card Games, Family Pics, Friends
 

Ivan and Kai of the GOKL gaming group dropped by to visit us for Aidilfitri.

The Aidilfitri visit is of course an excuse for some gaming shenanigans.

L-R Slattern, Knifehead, two Gipsy Dangers, Coyote Tango and Scunner

Once upon a time - about a month ago - I asked Kai if he knew where to get any Pacific Rim Heroclix figures. At the time, there was none in town. When his order from Noble Knight Games arrived, he offered to sell two figures so Irfan and I can play! The jaeger I picked was Gipsy Danger and the kaiju I picked was Knifehead. This game needs more jaegers and kaiju. A Tacit Ronin clix would be awesome.

But since a host of clix were arrayed on the dinner table, Kai taught Irfan to play.

 

Star Wars Living Card Game and Not Dying

22 June 2013 | Hisham | | Board and Card Games, Star Wars
 
That Rancor is a potent attacker

Another gift from the GOKL gang, I finally started playing with Irfan the Star Wars: The Card Game from Fantasy Flight Games. Designed for two players, but with a future expansion rule that would allow for more than two players, I spent the last couple of days duelling cards with Irfan. He has won once and I twice. It was enjoyable.

I'm certain we got some details of the rules wrong because we played and read the rules on the fly - and I never really played any card games before this. We kept discovering new things that we missed when we played earlier. In any case, you can view the video tutorial by FFG here.

 

Battleship

08 September 2012 | Hisham | | Board and Card Games, Family Pics, Recent News
 

Recently I've been teaching Irfan how we played Battleship back in school, using a grid paper and pencils. And soon after, in addition to yelling "You sanked my battleship!" his cruise missiles being launched and flying it toward my ships were also being dramatised using hands and voice.

Old School Battleship

Later, he used his duit raya to purchase Battleship: Hidden Threat card game where the traditional game is ported to cards where you randomly array your battleships with your Missed cards in a grid, and you have a hand of different cards that you can play either to reveal your opponents' cards, attack your opponents' ships, repair your damaged ships, implement shields on your ships and even allow you to play more than one card per round.

It doesn't take a lot of time to play, perhaps 30 minutes at the most, but we can easily bring it about with us anywhere and set it up for a quick game when we have the time to play it.  

Not Really A New School Battleship
 

Small World

13 April 2012 | Hisham | | Board and Card Games, Friends, Role Playing Games, Trawling The Net
 

Created by Felicia Day and Wil Wheaton, Geek and Sundry's new biweekly TableTop web series features 30 minutes of tabletop gaming video that shows how much fun it is to pay tabletop games from boardgames like Ticket to Ride to card games like Munchkin to roleplaying games like Fiasco! Each episode, hosted by Wil, shows how each game is played by playing it onscreen. Every episode also has different guests.

Irfan and I saw the first episode together and he totally fell in love with the board game they played, Small World.

Societies of fantasy races rise and fall!

Small World allows a player to control a society of one fantasy race after another, allowing your race to expand or decline each round using the game rules. The game randomly mixes in special abilities and racial abilities, and by planning a combination of these abilities you are able to maximise the number of points you acquire each round. At the end of a set number of rounds (which depends on the number of players) the player with the most points win.

 

Escaping the Death Star using Dice

26 October 2008 | Hisham | | Board and Card Games, Star Wars
 

They're just posing for a photoOnce upon a time, Sila brought back with her a Star Wars: Escape the Death Star Action Figure Game, which is actually a board game with two sets of rules (an easy and an advanced rule) as well as two Hasbro action figures, a Luke Skywalker in stormtrooper disguise with removable helmet and lightsaber, and a Darth Vader figure with removable helmet (complete with exposed back of head) and lightsaber.

It must have been ten years since, and I've never actually played it until recently. Because Irfan wanted to try it out. However, I realised that the easy rules were too easy and straightforward, and the advanced rules were too complicated for Irfan.

So the gamemaster in my blood took over, and I not only modified the rules so that the difficulty level of the rules are something in between and it's something Irfan can play and enjoy. Also, I can integrate what Star Wars action figures I had with me into the modded rules that I came up with. It took several runs with Irfan to refine the rules, but I think I've almost got it. Hopefully this game will also teach Irfan the basics of role-playing.

Here are the new rules:

 
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