Aftershock

We played a game of Aftershock last night. Remarkably, we did pretty well, ending with a total of 8 Relief Points and every player on a positive score.

This is an interesting game, both to play and because of its development background. It is a cooperative board game based on a humanitarian relief operation. It was designed by Rex Brynen and Thomas Fisher after a workshop at the 2013 Connections conference. While it is a fun recreational game, it is also used in workshops and political science courses.



Set in the fictitious country of Carana, four players - the Government, UN, NGOs and an international military task force - attempt relief operations after an earthquake. Each of the five districts in the country have a deck of cards that have to be "resolved" by providing the necessary resources such as food, water and medical supplies. However plans quickly come unstuck as event cards introduce disease, social unrest and general mayhem. Each player has slightly different strengths and victory conditions, but victory can only be achieved through coordination and cooperation.

I recommend having a look at the game. Proceeds from the sale go to the World Food Program

Formula D 2016

We just had our annual Formula D game this afternoon. This year, I chose the Sochi track, which proved to be quite challenging. While the corners are fairly fast, the straights between them are at just the right offset to cause problems selecting a gear, particularly once the corners become congested.

It was fairly close for most of the race with a pack of 4 or more cars in contention for most of the running. This year, after a mid-race driver change, Tony/ Grace won, with Michael coming second, Jacqui coming third, Dave fourth and myself (Todd) a very distant, and damaged, fifth. Lee, Tim and Clare all crashed, and there was quite a bit of debris on the track by the end.

Brickvention 2016

Brickvention seemed even bigger and better this year.
There were many new impressive models to see. Some highlights below.

 

 

Lego at the Powerhouse Museum

Over Christmas, we went to the Powerhouse Museum (Sydney) and saw the lego DC Comic exhibition.

The "artwork" was pretty good and there was obviously a lot of work in making the statues and murals. However, the lighting was ridiculously dark and flash photography was banned. I have no idea why it needed to be quite that pretentious, they are not 15th Century oil paintings.

So the photos below are very grainy due to having to deal with the lighting.

I'm not sure when the exhibition finishes, but it is worth having a look if you get the chance.

Klingon Ships for FT

I have finally started painting the rest of the Klingon fleet. As motivation, I did the FT stats for the core ships. These ships should prove useful against the main Federation vessels found elsewhere in the blog.
Core Federation Ships
Additional Federation Ships
Variant Federation Ships

Note, the "D" weapons are "disruptors". These work the same as pulse torpedoes (photon torpedoes), except they do a fixed 2 pts of damage and cost a mass of 3 (+1 per extra arc) instead of 4.

First is the D5 War Cruiser. A medium sized ship built purely for war.

 

The D5W is an upgunned Heavy War Cruiser.

 

And finally, the venerable D7 Battlecruiser. A little less powerful than the Federation constitution class cruiser. Note, this ship is confugured with a science lab similar to the Federation cruiser. During a major war, that space may well be refitted to improve combat effectiveness.



 

While raising the subject of the science lab space, it might be appropriate to mention some rules. Typically, the Federation conducts research and exploration missions with its ships more often that military actions.

 

A ship conducting research (on a planet) must first establish orbit (see the FT rules), and then spend a turn collecting research data. For each point of lab space on the ship, roll a d6. A score of 5 results in one point of data collected , while a roll of a 6 results in one point, plus a re-roll. A typical mission might require accumulating 5 points of research to consider the mission successful. Of course, it wouldn't be a game if there wasn't an enemy vessel either trying to collect the scientific data first, or simply destroy the research vessel.

 

In a purely research oriented mission, a dedicated science vessel, with a larger lab, might be deployed to conduct the research, while being protected by a military vessel.

 

BFG Ships for Full Thrust

I posted some BFG ships a couple of years ago, but seem to have deleted some of them. I also realised that someone asked for the points cost for them. So, here are some updated FT ship diagrams.

While I have retained the BFG ship classes, they are all much larger classes when compared to FT ships. This is in part due to the physical size of the ships and in part due to the weaponry.

The Weapons labeled with a "T" are standard FT pulse torpedoes and those labeled "L" are long range torpedoes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Brickvention 2015

Once again we went to Brickvention this past January. It is an amazing collection of lego displays.

For me, this year's highlight was a fantastic snow white mosaic made from small angular pieces of lego. Viewed from one side it looked like snow white, and from the other the evil queen. The photos don't do it justice.