[Mage Knight] I'd Vlaada Be Playing Talisman

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > The Game Room > [Mage Knight] I'd Vlaada Be Playing Talisman

«‹›7 »

Stelas: Sep 6, 2010

Deep breaths!

Intro Guide
Rules
Official FAQ

What?

Mage Knight owns. It's one of - if not the best - 'walk around and beat poo poo up and increase your power' fantasy games on the market. Part deckbuilder, part wargame, the idea is that you have a deck full of cards that constitute the actions you can take - throughout the game, as you gain Fame and experience, you'll add to this deck, increasing your powers and options until you can take over the nearby major cities in a blaze of glory. It's got tight mechanics, it's got a huge focus on efficiency, it strongly rewards strategizing and synergizing and planning ahead. It's also very daunting at first - there's a lot of fiddly tokens and things to keep track of - but a couple of plays of the included walkthrough will usually get anyone hooked.

I absolutely adore it, and it's even better with the expansions that add complexity and significantly interesting scenarios to the game. Unfortunately, we won't be seeing them in this thread, because this is effectively going to be a test run to see if this can even work particularly well PBP. Hopefully I've got a workflow worked out that'll make things go back tolerably quickly. Unfortunately, Recruiting... is closed. Sorry! As a test run, I wanted players who knew the game, and picked them ahead of time.

Notes

This game will be Standard Conquest, 4 players, base game only.
Direct PVP is off. You can go and take over keeps that belong to other players, but not fight them directly. It's going to be a huge mess in a thread.
The only houserule I'm using: If your first draw in a round has no Move, you may mulligan it until it does. I kind of consider 'having some Move cards' important to getting the whole engine moving, and it's an enormous kick in the pants if you don't.
When deciding your actions, please do as many actions as possible at once in bold. Obviously stop if you need a tile revealed, or an enemy piece - otherwise, try to bundle as much into a single post as possible. I'm only going to be double-checking your moves, rather than providing blow-by-blow feedback.
Off-turn posting is allowed. This is obvious, because sometimes you'll have to pick level-up choices or artifacts.
Audience posting is allowed. Since hands will be invisible, it's going to be a little difficult for new players to pick out what's being posted or what's going on, and I'd love to convince people to get their own copy. If you don't get what's happening, just ask.

Please note that I've cut the images down rather - they're jpgs at 80% quality, but some of the text is quite small so I've had to take rather large captures. If they start to get too big or too slow to load, let me know. Dropbox will hopefully hold up okay.

Players

Randomly selected characters by dice order and preferences:

Impermanent is Goldyx!

Gutter Owl is Norowas!

HOOLY BOOLY is Tovak!

Istvun is Arythea!

Day 1

Hand links have been PMmed. Tactics happens in reverse order to character selection; Arythea, then Tovak, then Norowas, then Goldyx.

_{Goldyx (Impermanent) - 5 card, 11 deck.

Norowas (Gutter Owl) - 5 hand, 11 deck.

Tovak (HOOLY BOOLY) - 5 hand, 11 deck.

Arythea (Istvun) - 5 hand, 11 deck.

Unit Offer | Fame/Reputation Track | City Listing}

Action Queue
- Arythea: Choose tactic.
- Everyone else: CO or choose tactics in order.

Stelas fucked around with this message at 23:12 on Sep 26, 2014

# ¿ Sep 26, 2014 22:31

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 18:48

Stelas: Sep 6, 2010

Wow, sorry, fell asleep pretty hard. And yeah, Goldyx is up next, not Tovak.

Norowas' turn happens. Turn order is decided, links below are rearranged. I'm gonna also bold whoever's turn it is from now on.

_{Norowas (Gutter Owl) - 5 hand, 8 deck.

Goldyx (Impermanent) - 5 card, 11 deck.

Tovak (HOOLY BOOLY) - 5 hand, 11 deck.

Arythea (Istvun) - 7 hand, 9 deck.

Unit Offer | Fame/Reputation Track | City Listing}

# ¿ Sep 27, 2014 05:43

Stelas: Sep 6, 2010

Also, just a note - the shadow on the map doesn't show it very well, but we're currently using the open board type, allowing up to 5 tiles sideways. It'll fit, just.

# ¿ Sep 27, 2014 05:51

Stelas: Sep 6, 2010

Impermanent posted:

The first blue token is used for Powered Crystallize, which I use to gain 1 green mana.

For the sake of my sanity, please differentiate between mana and crystals!

Also, when you're running the Vassal module as Game Moderator, everyone's cards go to Tovak's discard pile. I'm sure that'll. That'll be great. Fortunately I can do it manually, I guess, but turn change might get exciting.

# ¿ Sep 27, 2014 07:33

Stelas: Sep 6, 2010

Tovak's Turn

_{Norowas (Gutter Owl) - 5 hand, 8 deck.

Goldyx (Impermanent) - 5 card, 6 deck.

Tovak (HOOLY BOOLY) - 5 hand, 11 deck.

Arythea (Istvun) - 7 hand, 9 deck.

Unit Offer | Fame/Reputation Track | City Listing}

# ¿ Sep 27, 2014 07:37

Stelas: Sep 6, 2010

HOOLY BOOLY's actions are still valid... but I'd rather not rely on general COs in a game with this many moving parts unless I've been specifically told they're okay.

# ¿ Sep 27, 2014 08:26

Stelas: Sep 6, 2010

HOOLY BOOLY posted:

So uh being new to this PBP format what do you mean by CO? Call Outs? like of moves you're doing?

A CO is a conditional order - a set of moves you PM to the moderator to try to speed things up / designate your actions ahead of time. So I could have just taken your previous actions and run them - but given the way a lot can change between turns, I decided I'd rather not do so without your explicit 'this is absolutely what I want to do on my turn'. For the moment, just let me know if you want to go ahead with those actions or do something else.

Stelas fucked around with this message at 11:37 on Sep 27, 2014

# ¿ Sep 27, 2014 11:34

Stelas: Sep 6, 2010

HOOLY BOOLY posted:

Well knowing where Goldyx and Norowas are now it'd be kind a dick move to change my move so i'm just gonna stick with them!

I really don't mind if you want to change it; this is where you'd normally get to pick your actions anyhow. I doubt Goldyx was trying to block you so much as park his scaly rear end on the healing spring. That said, I'll keep going to get things moving along.

Stelas fucked around with this message at 12:06 on Sep 27, 2014

# ¿ Sep 27, 2014 11:59

Stelas: Sep 6, 2010

Arythea's Turn

Note that HOOLY BOOLY can still redo his turn if desired.

_{Norowas (Gutter Owl) - 5 hand, 8 deck.

Goldyx (Impermanent) - 5 card, 6 deck.

Tovak (HOOLY BOOLY) - 6 hand, 8 deck.

Arythea (Istvun) - 7 hand, 9 deck.

Unit Offer | Fame/Reputation Track | City Listing}

Stelas fucked around with this message at 12:12 on Sep 27, 2014

# ¿ Sep 27, 2014 12:09

Stelas: Sep 6, 2010

Arythea's Turn

_{Norowas (Gutter Owl) - 5 hand, 8 deck.

Goldyx (Impermanent) - 5 card, 6 deck.

Tovak (HOOLY BOOLY) - 6 hand, 8 deck.

Arythea (Istvun) - 6 hand, 9 deck, 2 move left.

Unit Offer | Fame/Reputation Track | City Listing}

# ¿ Sep 27, 2014 12:25

Stelas: Sep 6, 2010

Oh, look, Arythea's about to start burning upright citizens.

# ¿ Sep 27, 2014 12:30

Stelas: Sep 6, 2010

You're not playing Arythea right if you don't immediately tank yourself to X on the reaction track. Bonus points if you bought Call to Arms/Glory on the first turn and can lord your massive army over people.

Not that I'd be that mean.

# ¿ Sep 27, 2014 12:33

Stelas: Sep 6, 2010

Norowas' Turn

Arythea gets 2 Wounds to hand.
Arythea levels! Pick your skill from your sheet, and an Advanced Action from the offer.
Arythea reveals Dark Fire Magic (once a round, gain a red crystal and a red or black mana) and Hot Swordsmanship (each turn, +2 normal attack or +2 fire attack).
Arythea takes Training. Offer has been updated.

_{Norowas (Gutter Owl) - 5 hand, 8 deck.

Goldyx (Impermanent) - 5 card, 6 deck.

Tovak (HOOLY BOOLY) - 6 hand, 8 deck.

Arythea (Istvun) - 6 hand, 8 deck.

Unit Offer | Fame/Reputation Track | City Listing}

Stelas fucked around with this message at 12:50 on Sep 27, 2014

# ¿ Sep 27, 2014 12:39

Stelas: Sep 6, 2010

The above post has been updated. I'll probably do that whenever someone levels if they need to make a decision.

# ¿ Sep 27, 2014 12:51

Stelas: Sep 6, 2010

Bubble-T posted:

Stelas I have to say this is running very smoothly, I'm regretting not signing up now!

I'm really proud of the workflow I got together for this, it's letting me update very quickly. I wish I'd thought to get all this together for Clash of Cultures, but it's a bit late to really worry there.

- A customized version of the Vassal module runs the board, from which screenshots get saved out as .png.
- Batch file converts all pngs in the directory to jpg.
- Send most files moved to dropbox - this means all the links below the image are static and don't need constantly updating.
- Windows extension sends the map straight to imgur and gets me the link.
- Quote last post, update map url and hand sizes.
- Done!

By using static URLs you lose out on a detailed history of events, but it's so much easier it makes up for it.

Stelas fucked around with this message at 14:49 on Sep 27, 2014

# ¿ Sep 27, 2014 13:09

Stelas: Sep 6, 2010

Norowas' Turn

Tranquility is played; you need to nominate a card to discard if you want to play Improvisation. Hand is updated.

_{Norowas (Gutter Owl) - 5 hand, 7 deck.

Goldyx (Impermanent) - 5 card, 6 deck.

Tovak (HOOLY BOOLY) - 6 hand, 8 deck.

Arythea (Istvun) - 6 hand, 8 deck.

Unit Offer | Fame/Reputation Track | City Listing}

# ¿ Sep 27, 2014 19:12

Stelas: Sep 6, 2010

Yup. As per basic rules, as long as you haven't revealed anything you can revise and backtrack all you like.

Norowas' Turn

Norowas picks up some Foresters and some prestige in the deal.

Goldyx's Turn

_{Norowas (Gutter Owl) - 5 hand, 5 deck.

Goldyx (Impermanent) - 5 card, 6 deck, 1 gold mana.

Tovak (HOOLY BOOLY) - 6 hand, 8 deck.

Arythea (Istvun) - 6 hand, 8 deck.

Unit Offer | Fame/Reputation Track | City Listing}

# ¿ Sep 27, 2014 20:30

Stelas: Sep 6, 2010

Uh, weird, the Fame track didn't update.

Tovak's piece isn't on the track yet, the module just clusters them like that off the board.

e: There we go.

# ¿ Sep 27, 2014 21:48

Stelas: Sep 6, 2010

# ¿ Sep 27, 2014 22:03

Stelas: Sep 6, 2010

# ¿ Sep 27, 2014 22:08

Stelas: Sep 6, 2010

Goldyx's Turn

Goldyx picks up two Wounds to hand, one Wound to discard.
Goldyx levels and picks up Crushing Bolt.
Goldyx flips White Crystal Craft (one per round, gain a blue crystal and a white mana) and Freezing Power (each turn, +1 siege attack or +1 ice siege attack). Having already picked Crushing Bolt, he cannot choose from the Common Skill offer and must choose one of the above.
Offer updated.

Tovak's Turn

_{Norowas (Gutter Owl) - 5 hand, 5 deck.

Goldyx (Impermanent) - 5 card, 5 deck.

Tovak (HOOLY BOOLY) - 6 hand, 8 deck.

Arythea (Istvun) - 6 hand, 8 deck.

Unit Offer | Fame/Reputation Track | City Listing}

# ¿ Sep 27, 2014 22:16

Stelas: Sep 6, 2010

Impermanent posted:

(You calculated my use of the healing glade, right? By my reading of the rules, I should have taken two wounds to my discard and healed one of them.)

Yeah, I just wrapped it all together. Poisoned enemies drop a wound into your discard for every wound they drop into your hand, so you took two to hand, two to discard, then the healing glade healed one of the wounds in your discard, leaving you at three overall.

# ¿ Sep 27, 2014 22:27

Stelas: Sep 6, 2010

Tovak's Turn

Goldyx takes White Crystal Craft, strangely enough.

Tovak goes exploring.

_{Norowas (Gutter Owl) - 5 hand, 5 deck.

Goldyx (Impermanent) - 5 card, 5 deck.

Tovak (HOOLY BOOLY) - 4 hand, 8 deck, 2 move remaining.

Arythea (Istvun) - 6 hand, 8 deck.

Unit Offer | Fame/Reputation Track | City Listing}

# ¿ Sep 27, 2014 22:31

Stelas: Sep 6, 2010

Is that your turn over? (To clarify: you can still play other cards for move / sideways for move after revealing a tile, just not once you've stopped to take an action.)

# ¿ Sep 27, 2014 22:37

Stelas: Sep 6, 2010

Righto. Sorry, just trying to keep moving along!

Arythea's Turn

_{Norowas (Gutter Owl) - 5 hand, 5 deck.

Goldyx (Impermanent) - 5 card, 5 deck.

Tovak (HOOLY BOOLY) - 6 hand, 5 deck.

Arythea (Istvun) - 6 hand, 8 deck.

Unit Offer | Fame/Reputation Track | City Listing}

# ¿ Sep 27, 2014 22:43

Stelas: Sep 6, 2010

Norowas' Turn

_{Norowas (Gutter Owl) - 5 hand, 5 deck.

Goldyx (Impermanent) - 5 card, 5 deck.

Tovak (HOOLY BOOLY) - 6 hand, 5 deck.

Arythea (Istvun) - 6 hand, 5 deck.

Unit Offer | Fame/Reputation Track | City Listing}

# ¿ Sep 27, 2014 22:51

Stelas: Sep 6, 2010

Norowas' Turn

Norowas finds playmates.

_{Norowas (Gutter Owl) - 4 hand, 5 deck.

Goldyx (Impermanent) - 5 card, 5 deck.

Tovak (HOOLY BOOLY) - 6 hand, 5 deck.

Arythea (Istvun) - 6 hand, 5 deck.

Unit Offer | Fame/Reputation Track | City Listing}

# ¿ Sep 27, 2014 23:42

Stelas: Sep 6, 2010

Goldyx's Turn

Norowas takes a Wound to hand.
Norowas levels! Select a skill and an Advanced Action from the offer.
Norowas flips Bright Negotiation (Each turn, +3 Influence at day, or +2 Influence at night) and Bonds of Loyalty (Add 2 units to Offer, gain extra command token, 5 less influence to assign unit to this command token, unit can be used when others cannot, but cannot be disbanded.)

_{Norowas (Gutter Owl) - 3/6 hand, 5 deck, yet to draw.

Goldyx (Impermanent) - 5 card, 5 deck.

Tovak (HOOLY BOOLY) - 6 hand, 5 deck.

Arythea (Istvun) - 6 hand, 5 deck.

Unit Offer | Fame/Reputation Track | City Listing}

# ¿ Sep 28, 2014 00:22

Stelas: Sep 6, 2010

Goldyx more like Greendyx.

Tovak's Turn

Norowas has a levelup to resolve - skill and action.

... also, uh, please disregard the soldier sat in the firmament. He's gone now.

_{Norowas (Gutter Owl) - 3/6 hand, 5 deck, yet to draw.

Goldyx (Impermanent) - 5 hand, 2 deck.

Tovak (HOOLY BOOLY) - 6 hand, 5 deck.

Arythea (Istvun) - 6 hand, 5 deck.

Unit Offer | Fame/Reputation Track | City Listing}

# ¿ Sep 28, 2014 00:31

Stelas: Sep 6, 2010

I'm gonna pause here just for a bit, until Norowas' level up goes through - after all, it may change what's available in the Unit Offer, depending on the choice made.

Cripes. Thanks to the players for their speed, we're nearly through the first round in the space of about a day. I don't expect weekdays to go nearly as well, but what a start.

# ¿ Sep 28, 2014 00:41

Stelas: Sep 6, 2010

Arythea's Turn

The revealed units are not village units, so I've run Tovak's turn as written. Also, the map is correct, gold rerolled to gold.

_{Norowas (Gutter Owl) - 6 hand, 3 deck.

Goldyx (Impermanent) - 5 hand, 2 deck.

Tovak (HOOLY BOOLY) - 6 hand, 2 deck.

Arythea (Istvun) - 6 hand, 5 deck.

Unit Offer | Fame/Reputation Track | City Listing}

# ¿ Sep 28, 2014 00:58

Stelas: Sep 6, 2010

HOOLY BOOLY posted:

Oh okay i was wondering if that peasant was for sale or not, is it okay if i just end up getting the herbalists then?

Oh, no, sorry, I mean - when Norowas selected Bonds of Loyalty, the offer got 2 extra units put into it. I was pausing in case it rolled up extra village units you might want, but they were mage tower and keep-specific units, so I just went and got you the peasants. You're cool.

# ¿ Sep 28, 2014 01:10

Stelas: Sep 6, 2010

Norowas' Turn

Arythea has drawn her last card!

_{Norowas (Gutter Owl) - 6 hand, 3 deck.

Goldyx (Impermanent) - 5 hand, 2 deck.

Tovak (HOOLY BOOLY) - 6 hand, 2 deck.

Arythea (Istvun) - 6 hand, 0 deck.

Unit Offer | Fame/Reputation Track | City Listing}

# ¿ Sep 28, 2014 02:05

Stelas: Sep 6, 2010

HOOLY BOOLY posted:

Stelas are you rigging this game? I call elf favoritism

If I were rigging the game it'd be Arythea favoritism for sure. Every time I play, I seem to get enough luck that I end up with a truly terrifying ranged/siege spell build.

# ¿ Sep 28, 2014 02:24

Stelas: Sep 6, 2010

Talk about all the dull tiles coming out early.

_{Norowas (Gutter Owl) - 5 hand, 3 deck.

Goldyx (Impermanent) - 5 hand, 2 deck.

Tovak (HOOLY BOOLY) - 6 hand, 2 deck.

Arythea (Istvun) - 6 hand, 0 deck.

Unit Offer | Fame/Reputation Track | City Listing}

# ¿ Sep 28, 2014 07:52

Stelas: Sep 6, 2010

I'm going to be out for the day - strangely enough, playing this! Updates will resume tonight GMT.

# ¿ Sep 28, 2014 11:01

Stelas: Sep 6, 2010

I am so shattered. Oy. (Fun game though.)

thespaceinvader posted:

This thread makes me think we need a Mage Knight discussion thread. It does come up a LOT in the board games thread and tends to go on for a page or two at a time...

I'm liking the commentary from assorted players as we go, it helps keep things moving.

Norowas' Turn

Ooh, it's the pinata tile. Look at that nice, shiny monastery, and so close to an easily entered dungeon. (Offer is updated.)

_{Norowas (Gutter Owl) - 4 hand, 3 deck.

Goldyx (Impermanent) - 5 hand, 2 deck.

Tovak (HOOLY BOOLY) - 6 hand, 2 deck.

Arythea (Istvun) - 6 hand, 0 deck.

Unit Offer | Fame/Reputation Track | City Listing}

# ¿ Sep 28, 2014 19:40

Stelas: Sep 6, 2010

Tovak's Turn

_{Norowas (Gutter Owl) - 5 hand, 1 deck.

Goldyx (Impermanent) - 2 hand, 0 deck.

Tovak (HOOLY BOOLY) - 6 hand, 2 deck.

Arythea (Istvun) - 6 hand, 0 deck.

Unit Offer | Fame/Reputation Track | City Listing}

# ¿ Sep 29, 2014 00:57

Stelas: Sep 6, 2010

HOOLY BOOLY posted:

I believe i have 2 wounds in hand then?

1 Wound - you're taking a total of 4, but the peasants soaked 3, leaving you with 1 to soak yourself.

# ¿ Sep 29, 2014 01:51

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 18:48

Stelas: Sep 6, 2010

Arythea's Turn

Tovak takes a Wound to hand and a Wound on his Peasants.
Tovak levels! Tovak, select an Advanced Action and a Skill.
Tovak flips Shield Mastery (Each turn, +3 Block or +2 Ice Block or +2 Fire Block) and Night Sharpshooting (Each turn, +2 Ranged Attack if night, or +1 Ranged Attack if day).

_{Norowas (Gutter Owl) - 5 hand, 1 deck.

Goldyx (Impermanent) - 2 hand, 0 deck.

Tovak (HOOLY BOOLY) - 7 hand, 0 deck.

Arythea (Istvun) - 6 hand, 0 deck.

Unit Offer | Fame/Reputation Track | City Listing}

Stelas fucked around with this message at 02:40 on Sep 29, 2014

# ¿ Sep 29, 2014 02:07

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > The Game Room > [Mage Knight] I'd Vlaada Be Playing Talisman

«‹›7 »