Sherlock and The Mob

Played a couple of my non collectible card games at the Club on Tuesday, firstly a game of Family Business and then Sherlock Holmes Card Game, both classics from the eighties and nineties.

At least Family Biz managed to get a reprint and new edition, Sherlock hasn't been available for over a decade despite being a classic. Have started using Card protectors on my copy as the wear on the back of the cards make it pretty obvious who the bad guys are. The use of the original Sidney Paget illustrations on the cards was a master stroke.

The other players, Tristan, Mark and Simon, none of whom had ever played either of these games, enjoyed both of these classic old school games, both of which were using simplistic rules long before the 'euro-game' dominance of the gaming scene.

Tristan became the head mobster by keeping a low profile after the rest of us wiped each other out, and I never did get to play the St Valentine's Day Massacre despite having the card in my hand all game.

Managed to get five rounds of Sherlock in. Tristan taking the lead in the final round after a capture of Moriarty. Tristan 77pts, Mark 102, Simon 168, Tel 229 - low score is better. My score wasn't helped by being caught with the villain three times!

Also in my now venerable game box was a series of score sheets from the early 90's (and one with an actual date - May 93!) featuring the former gaming regulars of the Furness Warlords group such as Hopper, Ray, John, Lee, Gareth, Rob M and Dave Y.
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Dead Again

The Urban Dead online game has finally left the doldrums! The balance of power has shifted in Malton and, according to the stats page, the zombies now outnumber the living by 4:1.

The cause of this shift? The Dead have returned after having launched an invasion a few years ago, organised by the Something Awful forum in early 2008 as an attempt to ruin the game. Apparently they are at it again, The Dead have returned.

The first invasion was a big one, but was, in my opinion, one of the best times to play the game as it had a real apocalyptic feel to it, what with hiding and sleeping in ruins, because all the 'safehouses' were overrun and ruined. There was real difficulty in finding vital resources such as first aid kits and revivification syringes until Kevan, the game's designer, tweaked the search rates and sort of spoilt things. I feel too many people are stuck in their comfort zones in the game; and the furries that occasionally pop-up in Malton Zoo are even stranger than the idea of a zombie Apocalypse so kudos to the Dead for hunting them.

A certain amount of revisionist history in the linked forum thread above, as they didn't come close to their intent of trashing the game the first time round; ruined buildings always were viable locations for searching and living in, it's just that the standard survivor is afraid to use them and prefer huddling together with the lights on waiting to get eaten. Also those who whinged about being dead (lowercase) are probably without friends to priority revive them. The original Dead had a good rampage, trashed the place big style and then things went quite, with only around 10% of invaders carrying on; This still made them the biggest single group in Malton.

Unfortunately, regardless of the current record ratio, the numbers are not currently as much as last time and despite the Danger Map on the wiki being mostly red (for zombie controlled) or grey (ghost town - few zeds or survivors) the humans are still holding out, they just can't hang around one spot too long. Time for the old 'river tactics' of ducking and diving behind the zombie 'wavefront'. Thankfully the actually density of the zeds compared to map locations is low enough to make hiding possible. The 10000 locations in the game (more if you include inside of buildings as distinct) are too much for even the 1500 members of The Dead to cover.

Update: (22 May) The maps slowly changing to a more friendly colour, less Red and more Orange, but not in the area I'm currently camped. Kevan has tweaked the search percentages again so very easy to find first aid kits and revive syringes. My group is currently trying to set up a series of decoy repaired buildings to distract the zombies a bit and continues to work on the still long revive queues.
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In The Air

Played some games of Wings of War at the club as nothing else to do. Choose to play a basic free for all given the uneven numbers of players. Single seaters only, with free choice of planes. Managed to win the first two sorties but was first down in the third and final one.

Elsewhere Graeme was demoing the new Cutlass rules, from Black Scorpion, in another three way battle.
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Ring Hordes

A Middle-Earth based game of Hordes of the Things, as the Rohirrim face off against a force of Orcs and Easterlings defending a stronghold. I controlled the Rohir force on the right, matched up against the Easterlings, and also got to roll the command dice for both commands, which I preceded to do badly. Forces supplied by Matt and Dave M.

From Furness Wargamers Fantasies