I recently had the pleasure of corresponding with Matt Hyra, designer of the DC Comics Deck Building game (a favorite of mine), as well as many other great games. Titles to his credit include Food Fight,  The Locke and Key Card game, and Batman:Arkham City Escape. He also worked on the WoW CCG as well as the VS system.  As you will see below he’s got a ton of great projects he is working on and I think we will all enjoy them when they get released by Cryptozoic in the future.

First, I wanted to take this time to thank Matt for his time and look forward to talking to him some more in the future!

Game 3 Batman

So in my random choice of the next Hero to use, up comes the Dark Knight himself. Now I will admit I am quite fond of Bats in the regular game so I was pretty excited to see how he will do in this solo set up. Generally there is no shortage of equipment and when people generally are not trying to block you or take them all for themselves it should be pretty easy right?

Ohhhhh soooo wrong…..

(As a refresher Bats gets +1 for EACH equipment he plays on a turn)

Turn 1 Kid Flash, Bane, ClayFace Penguin, Cape and Cowl
Power—> 5 Cape and Cowl (nice start!) Roll 3 Clayface gone

Turn 2 KF, Bane, Catwoman, Pen,Ssquad
Power—> 2 Kid Flash (at least something was there to buy right?) Roll 1 Bullet Proof gone

Turn 3 Power Ring, Bane,CW,Pen,SS
Power—> 6 (1equipment) Power Ring + Penguin Roll 3 Cat Woman Gone

Turn 4 Super Girl, B,Watch Tower, Poison Ivy ,SS
Power—> 3 Poison Ivy Roll 1 Super Girl gone (anyone surprised? 3rd straight game shes gone QUICK)

Turn 5 Fortress of Solitude, B, Watchtower,Cape + Cowl, SS
Power—> 6 (1E) Cape + Cowl –grab some def. and more equip Roll 3 Watchtower gone.

Turn 6 FoS, B, Grundy,Bat Signal, SS
Power—> 4 Bane Roll 4 Batsignal gone (grrrr)

Turn 7 FoS, Riddler, Gundy,SSpeed,SS
Power—> 7 (1E Ring for +2—>with power to a 3) SSp+ SSq Roll 1 Fortress gone

Turn 8 SSp, Rid,Grundy, Penguin, Trident
Power—> 9 (2E) R’as Al Goul Roll 4 Penguin gone

New Villain Anti Monitor—- As luck would have it no defense and after shuffling RAS goes to the line up. (um that’s kinda crappy luck)

Turn 9 SSp, Riddler, Grundy, Trident, Trident, Ras
Power—> 2 NADA Roll 4 Trident Gone

Turn 10 SSp, Ridd.Grundy, Trudent, Ras
Power—> 10 (2E) Grab Grundy + Trident Roll 5 RAS IS GONE —- DOH!!!!
I know I could have gotten R’as back here, but my thinking was he would take a while to get to me, and Grundy goes straight to the top of my deck and I pick up a trident which is SUPER important in these solo games for top decking.

Turn 11 SSp, Ridd, Lasso,Lass (yeah I know who shuffled!), Ssquad
Power—>9 (1E) Sspeed, SSq, Lasso Roll 5 Zatanna gone

Turn 12 SSp, Ridd, Lasso, Swamp Thing, Riddler
Power—> 12 (3E including Trident) Anti-Monitor which goes to top (could this be the break I need?)
Roll 5 Riddler gone
New Villain Brainiac which I use Super Speed on his attack

Turn 13 SSp,Ridd, Lasso,ST, SStrength
Power—> 9 (1E) Anti Monitor destroys a couple of cards and I end up with Super Strength and Lasso
(Also a Harley Quinn came out making me put a punch on top of my deck slowing me a bit as well).
Roll 1 SSpeed gone.

Turn 14 SSquad,HQuinn, Lobo,Swamp Thing, Robin
Power—> 9(1E) Lobo + Quinn (need to thin out this deck in a HURRY) Roll 5 Robin gone

Turn 15 SSq, Man Of Steel, Cape and Cowl, SwT,Doomsday
Power—>5 SSpeed Roll 2 Man of Steel gone (apparently to hang with Super Girl)

Turn 16 Grundy,Bow, C+C,SwT, Doomsday
Power—>10 (1E) and naturally Brainiac is 11 so I am SoL, Grab Grundy and the Bow
Roll 2 XRVision gone

Turn 17 Util Belt, Doomsday, C+C, SwT,Doomsday
Power—>14 (1E) Also used Lobo to destroy some which might help but too little too late Defeat Brainiac
Roll 1 Belt gone New Villain Deathstroke— Lasso gone

Turn 18 Trident, Doom,C+C,SwT,Doom
Power—>10 (1E) Anti Monitor destroys SwT 2Face comes up Roll 6 pick 2 Face gone
New Villain Lex SSpeed to avoid it

Turn 19 Trident, Doom, C+C, Catwoman,Dooms
Power—> 14 (3E with BOW) Lex plus a Doomsday (Also used anti monitor in turn to mess with the board a bit. Roll 3 C+C gone

New Villain Captain cold and face down goes the Batman… not what I needed right now!

Turn 20 Trident, Zatanna,Batmobile, CatW,Nth
Power—> 19 (3E) plus BOW) Get Cap Cold, Zatanna,Trident Mobile and Nth

A good turn finally at the end but it was too luttle too late as Black Manta and THE JOKER escape! (Would have been cool and fitting to have the Joker as the final villain).

Final Tally
Villains 27
SSquad 9
Others 27
Total 63

Ugh not a great play. Obviously if Ras had not been ripped from me I might have been able to pull it off but alas the Dark Knight goes down swinging.
Total extra points from Equipment 22 not quite as much as Green Lantern who was able to get 24 total points from his ability in the game (and as a reminder WWoman got 17 extra cards over the course of a game)

And I cannot wait for the next time I get to take this out and play it.

Ok here goes session #2 Wonder Woman. (been picking them random)
For this one I made 2 slight changes.
I now refill the whole middle before rolling the D6. I missed the original author’s saying this and it makes sense to do so to “simulate other players”.
Also I have changed Poison Ivy to +1 Power and Draw 1 Card. I look at her as a cheaper Bane. He’s cost 1 more and now +1 more then her.

Soo on to game # 2!!!

As a Reminder Wonder Woman’s power is for each Villain you acquire or defeat you draw 1 additional card when refilling your hand at the end of your turn. I will put +1 +2 etc after the turn to denote if I drew more cards

Turn 1 Kid Flash,Penguin,Super Girl, Man Of Steel, GA Bow
Power–> 4 Get Penguin Roll 3 Super Girl Gone (2nd game in a row she gets killed on turn 1!!)

Turn 2 (+1) KF, Bat Signal,Heat Vis, MoS,Bow
Power—> 4 Bow Roll 6 Swamp Thing Gone

Turn 3 KF,BS,HV,MoS, SSpeed
Power—> 5 Kid Flash, Kick Roll 2 Bat Sig Gone

Turn 4 SSquad, Clayface, HV,MoS, SSp
Power—> 3 Kick Roll 3 Heat Vision Gone

Turn 5 SS,CF, Cheetah,MoS, SSpeed (3 Villains in lineup!)
Power —> 5 Cheetah + Kick Roll 6 Nth Metal Gone

Turn 6 (+1) SS,Clay, GArrow, MoS, SSp
Power—> 7 (w/bow) Ra’s Al Goul Roll 3 Green Arrow Gone ( )

New Villain Parrallax (Discard all cost 2 or less)

Turn 7 (+1) SS,Clay,BatMobile,MoS, SSp
Power—> 4 (was left with 2 cards both kicks) Get Clayface Roll 5 Sspeed gone

Turn 8 (+1) SS,Cat Woman, BM,MoS, J’onn J’onzz
Power —> 7 (Plus I Cheetah’d SSq) Buy JJ’onzz Ra’s to bottom of deck Roll 4 MoS gone

Turn 9 (+1) King of Atlantis,CW, BM,GArrow, High Tech Hero (Holy Heroes!)
Power—> 8 Get King o’ At + HTH Ra’s to bottom, Roll 4 Green Arrow gone (OUCH 2 GA now gone that hurt)

Turn 10 BLue Beetle,CW,BM, Doomsday, Lobo
Power—> 8 Doomsday Roll 2 Catwoman gone Parrallax becoming a problem for me to beat

Turn 11 (+1) BB, Grodd,BM, HVision, Lobo
Power —> 3 + JJ = 6 + Cheetah (took Bmobile) Buy BBeetle Roll 5 Lobo gone

Turn 12 SSquad, Grodd, AQM Trident, HV, Bow
Power—> 7 (w/Bow) Grodd + Cheetah a SSquad Roll 4 H Vision Gone

Turn 13 (+2) DKnight, BMobile, AMT, Catwoman, Bow
Power—> 7 + JJ’onzz = 14 Parrallax (finally!) + Catwoman Roll 5 Bow Gone
New Villain Atrocitus Punch randomly put under hero

Turn 14 (+1) DK, BM,AMT,Lasso, Bizzarro
Power—> 13 (including a King Of Atlantis to destroy a punch) Defeat Atrocitous and grab the Trident Roll 1 DKnight Gone

New Villain Sinestro 1 Hero in hand discard 1 Vuln

Turn 15 (+1) Trident(yep another), BM,Robin, Lasso, Bizarro
Power —> 8 Bizarro (I know he won’t be worth anything not getting any Weaknesses but I have to keep getting extra cards each turn so he’s a nec. Evil) Roll 4 Lasso Gone

Turn 16 (+1) AMT, BM,Robin,SStrength,Grundy
Power —17 (finally one of THOSE turns) Ras,Biz,SS,Doomsday,ClayF,Punch
Get Sinestro and Grundy (Grundy goes to top) Roll 5 Fortress of Solitude gone
New Villain Darkseid —No effect I obviously have a Villain in hand

Turn 17 (+2) AMT, BMob, R, SSt, Riddler
Power —> 6 + Parallax Just enough for Darkseid! Roll 1 Trident Gone

Villain Captain Cold (Flip WW after drawing up)

So now I have 3 turns to go and 3 Villains to defeat! The suspense is killing me!!!

Turn 18 (+1) GArrow,BM, R, SSt, Riddler
Power—> 12 (JJ’onzz is a monster in solo play) CCold and Riddler
Roll 2 Bat Mobile Gone

New Villain Deathstroke I choose to destroy a Batmobile in Discard

Turn 19 (+2) GArrow, Watchtower, R,SSt, Emeral Knight
Power —> 14 (W/Bow) Deathstroke and Green Arrow Roll 1 Scarecrow Destroyed

New Villain Lex Luthor but no villains in center (GRRR would have been nice with Bizarro in deck)

Turn 20 (+1) Arkham As,Watch T, Robin, SSt, EK
Power—-> 10 exactly plus Cheetah Lex goes down and grab a Robin

What a Dramatic Win on the last turn!

Final Points
Win +5
Villains +41
Green Arrow +5
SSquad +4
Others +24
Bizarro +0

Total 79

Total extra cards drawn to start turns 17!!! Good use of Super Powers

All in all I thought Wonder Woman went real well. There are SO many Villains plus the Super Villains, that it’s crazy how many extra cards you get to start turns when played well. She’s always been easily a top 3 most powerful Hero pick in my mind. There is rarely a game where you don’t get a pretty decent use out of her (unlike Flash where you can totally get hosed).

I thought Parallax was gonna be my downfall but once I got him down and was able to get rolling the rest was just fighting the clock. Good Game for sure.

The next one is done… a little foreshadowing… A Bat has a hard time in the night!

So I will apologize another time about being so slack and where the heck the time has gone and why I haven’t posted in a long time eventually. But for now, I wanted to post the 1st in my experimental series in seeing how I do with each of the Heroes in the DC Comics Deck Building Game with a great Solo Variant from Casey Hughes over on BGG.com

So basically here is how the variant works

Choose you Hero (random or select your favorite) or 2 Heroes if you want to do a team-up.
Super Villian deck as normal
Board set up as normal, except turn the Weakness deck facedown as it will be used as the game timer. You could use a D20 or any other way to track the turns, but the deck just happened to be 20 cards so it worked out perfect.
Begin the Game

At the start of each of turn, flip over a Weakenss card. Play your turn as normal up until the point right after you draw 5 new cards. Then choose one card from the line up and destroy it. Refill the line-up. If the card is a Villian with an Attack treat it like the On Patrol variant where you suffer that Attack. Flip over a new Super Villian if needed, suffering their First Appearance – Attack like a normal game. Proceed until the entire Weakness deck has been turned over(20 turns) and total your score. Award yourself +5 points if you clear the entire Super Villian stack and +1 point for each remaining facedown Weakness (turns).

Notes about certain effects:

Any of your cards that need to reveal or discard a card from your foe’s hand or deck use the top card of the Main Deck as a substitute.

And another poster, LunarKnite, posted some good clarifications on how certain villains and super villains would work

BANE: Attack: Each foe chooses and discards a card.
Changes to Attack: Draw a card.

BIZARRO: At the end of the game, this card is worth 2 VP’s for each Weakness in your deck.
Changes to At the end of the game, this card is worth 2 VP’s for each Weakness left in the time limit.

HARLEY QUINN: Attack: Each foe puts a Punch or Vulnerability from his discard pile on top of his deck.
Changes to Attack: You may destroy a Punch or Vulnerability from your discard pile.

POISON IVY: Attack: Each foe discards the top card of his deck. If its cost is 1 or greater, that player gains a Weakness.
Changes to Attack: Reveal the top card of your deck. If its cost is 3 or greater, replace a Weakness to the time limit.*

SCARECROW: Attack: Each foe gains a Weakness.
Changes to Attack: Replace a Weakness to the time limit.*

STARRO: Attack: Each foe discards the top card of his deck. You may play each non-Location discarded this way this turn.
Changes to Attack: Reveal the top two cards of the main deck. You may play each non-Location revealed this way this turn.

SUICIDE SQUAD If you already played two other Suicide Squad cards this turn, each foe discards his hand.
Changes to If you already played two other Suicide Squad cards this turn, you may draw 5 cards. (Though it is possible to play four or more Suicide Squad cards to get the effect again, I don’t think it’s entirely likely, but you may want to put a limit on it.)

*What this would mean is you get to increase your turn limit by one, essentially.

As for certain Super-Villains, here’s what I thought of to make them fit a solo game.

CAPTAIN COLD: +2 Power, and an additional +1 Power for each foe with a Hero in his discard pile.
Changes to +2 Power, and an additonal +1 Power for each Hero in your discard pile.

THE JOKER: +2 Power and each foe chooses: He discards a random card, or you draw a card.
FIRST APPEARANCE-ATTACK: Each player puts a card from his hand into the discard pile of the player on his left. If the card you received has a cost of 1 or greater, put a Weakness on top of your deck.
Changes to +2 Power and you choose: You destroy two cards into your hand or discard pile or you draw two cards.
FIRST APPEARANCE-ATTACK: You must destroy a card in your hand. If the card you destroyed has a cost of 2 or less, put a Weakness on top of your deck.

BRAINIAC: Each foe reveals a random card from his hand. Play each revealed non-Location.
FIRST APPEARANCE-ATTACK: Each player chooses two cards from his hand and puts them on the table face down. Shuffle all of the chosen cards face down, then deal two back to each player at random.
Changes to Reveal the top card of your deck and the main deck. You may play each revealed non-Location.
FIRST APPEARANCE-ATTACK: You must choose two cards from your hand and take two cards from the Weakness pile. Shuffle the cards face down, then deal two back to yourself. The other two are destroyed.

I decided to do a few things different.

I wouldn’t take the weaknesses away from my 20 round limit. I want them all to be 20 rounds and that’s all no more no less. And b/c of this I won’t use Poison Ivy to add weaknesses back for more rounds. (I might just take her out of the deck period for the rest of the games).

And finally, I won’t job the system. Meaning if I get some unforseen wacky combo (which can happen when you get ALL the super villains in your deck) I will try and not job the whole game to get higher points.

Roll a 5 and Blue Beetle gone (that one hurt a bit really wanted him for protection)

I wanted to take a moment to extend a great big THANK YOU to Josh from Board Game Reviews by Josh. Josh is doing a monthly feature on Board Gaming Charities, and featured our charity and the 24 Hour Board Game Marathon for TSS in his October installment.

Please check out his site. He does some amazing work and I love his plethora of reviews!

As a reminder our 24 Hour Board Game Marathon to Benefit Turner Syndrome Society is set to take place on Sat Nov 10th 2012 at the Gamers Armory in Cary NC. Please check out Gamersforcures.com for all the great info on our event!

Also we have gotten some of our raffles to the printer and should have them this week.

This year’s BIG 5$ raffles will be for these prizes:

–Dan

The second of my awaited spring/summer releases I was waiting on is finally less then 3 weeks away. In a beautiful PAX scoop Massively got hands on and announced that Torchlight 2 will be here September 20th. Ahh just in time as I have weaned myself of f of Diablo 3. In the trailer/release video (below thanks to Massively for the scoop) you see all the classes and some of the action. It’s straight Diablo style as before with the same cartoony look as the first Torchlight.

This is all fine to me b/c I don’t care about style and, TBH, the change up in weight is what I really like about TL. If it was heavy and dark like Diablo I don’t think we would like it as much anyway. So hopefully the skill trees are awesome, the slotting dropped spells are great (like in TL) and the loot is plentiful. I suspect it will all be the same but just BETTER, so I am fairly certain I will be playing and trying to beat this again with all the available characters in the game (Like I did with the first TL and D3).

So set your alarms for Sept. 20th and make sure you take that Thursday and Friday off from work and have a nice 4 day weekend to take it all in! I know I am excited… how about you?

So before we got to recording we got to play some games at Adam O’s amazing nerd lair. (And boy is his collection a sight to see!)

When I arrived Chris was about finished teaching Adam The Great Heartland Hauling Co. so since I already had played it (At Gen Con), I was ready to step in.

It’s a fun light intro to pickup and deliver which you can play in about 15-30 mins. As always in it I finished in last but I do really enjoy the new game and think anyone should check it out (plug plug, it’s on kickstarter now!)

Then as Gyroplay arrived we got into a 4 player game of Divinare kind of a deduction game with some great screw your neighbor to it as you pass some cards around. It’s a simple enough concept. I will dumb it down and scrape off the theme to explain it quickly. There are 36 cards with 4 colors in the game. They are not even tho, as one color has 6 cards, one 8, one 10,and 12. You will take out 12 random cards and then deal each player 6 cards. Each color has an oval mat on the table which has the number track. It starts off at a lower number just above the minimum value (for example the green as in the picture has a 3/4) and then up to the max value (green 9/10).

(Image borrowed from BGG.com)

The first thing you will do is pick three cards from your hand and pass them to the right. So now you have seen essentially 9 cards to start the game. For the first 2 rounds you will take turns placing one of your cards next to the color wheel matching the color of the card. You then must take one of your tokens and put it on the oval score track of that color. You basically are trying to deduce what number of cards of that color will be played by the end of the round. The trick is this. Each time you place a card you HAVE TO move your token to a different number and you cannot be on the same number as an opponent. SO, there is a ton of room to screw your neighbor and planning is key.

A second twist is, at 4 cards left you pass two to the right, and at 2 cards left you pass 1 to the right. So you will have seen a ton of cards and will jockey for position constantly. Scoring is where things get a little easier. When all the cards are played, you look at where everyone is. If you were right on with your “guess”, you score 3 points. One away, 1 point, 2 away no points, and if you were 3 or more minus 1 point. If you happened to guess where there is a red dot all scoring is doubled. A red dot with a hole in it, tripled! So you can go for it all and win or lose big with gutsy guesses.

Check it out if you have the opportunity, we had a great time playing and also it was a lot better then I expected. I have to say, you can pretty much take almost any game and when you put it with our group we will turn it into a heckling screw your neighbor curse fest. Which is a GOOD thing. Simply a blast to be able to laugh and have a good time with a game that I wasn’t sure I would like but we had a good time after all. And as always I finished in last. This time tho, I knew it was quite the possibility. Not b/c I suck (prolly true also), but b/c I was going quite all in with my turns and taking some huge risks, which generally never payed off. Adam walked away with the narrow victory over Chris.

Finally Red showed his mug and we got into a nice meaty 5 player game of The Pillars of the Earth with the expansion. It’s simply one of my favorite games out there. Long and meaty worker placement goodness! (I won’t go into all the rules for this one b/c it would take entirely too long)

Chris was the only one who had never played it and IIRC Gyroplay had only played it without the expansion. BUT, it was easily explained and we were off and running. As it always seems to be Red’s master workers were picked out the bag first (or 2nd) in EVERY ROUND, which seems to be quite the theme for that game. Gyroplay had a nice size lead for nearly the whole game but a 17 point last round by Adam and 16 by myself pushed us over the top, and Adam (as usual) gets the win. I managed 2nd by 2 or 3 points (I think), but it was real close by all of us, and I think everyone had a great time.

I love podcasting 100% but TBH this was a day that I liked. Long day of gaming and ALSO getting in a podcast on top of it.

What’s some of your recent plays?

As the finishing packing for my trip to Gen Con this week has gotten a little boring I decided to stop for a few mins and get up part two of my LoL NOOBS Diary. Hope you enjoy!

So as we heard in the last episode of The Geek Allstars, my mentor Josh Augustine, has chosen Singed, and Twisted Fate for me to use exclusively for the next few months. He has also given me a bunch of pointers in game play and also told me how to allocate my rune slots in the player set up.

Singed is an alchemist themed Champion (good for a pharmacist huh?). He’s a  tank-y type who does AOE poison damage per second, can slow opponents, has an ability which can toss someone over his shoulder (perfect for throwing a hurt champ back into your friends or behind a turret to be shot down), and a buff ultimate ability which pumps up everything he does (attack, run, defend etc).

Twisted Fate is themed directly off of X-Men’s Gambit (He even looks like the Gambit as he looked in the first Wolverine movie. He throws cards for damage, throws random better cards for damage, has a big passive buff you can level, and his ultimate ability is a gate to any far off portion of the map. In Summoners Rift it can cross roughly 1/2 of the map or so. In some others (Dominion) he can go just about anywhere on the map.

For the first few days I hadn’t had much time to read a bunch of write ups on these champs so I was basically wining it on my own wiles. I have been slowly picking the hang of lanes up a bit and have been more effective at leveling. Yet my main problems remain that I am consistently a few levels behind everyone in the matches and also fairly clueless at what items to buy.

I figure the leveling could be some b/c of both getting killed way too much and also spending time trying to figure out what to buy in the in game shop. So I have reverted a bit more as I play to what the mentor has said, “just focus for now on buying the recommended items”. Seems like a good idea, I never really thought it was that important to listen to them but hey they are the game designers so I am sure they know what they are talking about. Now I focus a ton more on picking a couple of helpful items up early and some consumables and then focus on one BIG item to work towards after this. But more on items a bit later.

So I ventured forth on my first few games with Singed. I liked the idea of being able to throw other champs over my shoulder into my turret or more importantly my teammate to land the killing blows. I think this, paired with my play-style will mean more assists then kills, but hey I just want to see if I can get some kills and see more people on the other team die and not me. My first few games were as usual, 5v5 vs beginner bots. Getting the hang of his aoe on movement and the slow wasn’t easy at first and I admittedly died a few more times then I prolly should have, and for that I took a TON of abuse from a human player on my team. I explained that it was the 1st time I have played Singed and I was trying to get the hang of him. I didn’t get any “oh sorry” from him but he did shut up for the rest of the match so it was a win win in a way. I started to get the hang of him a bit more and soon it was time to quit for the night. More iP earned and another Level achieved in game. I was feeling like I was progressing so this is a good thing.

The next day before playing I was able to peruse some forums and guides on Singed. There wasn’t a whole lot that was novel or real new BUT I did get a bit more of purchase order and some play tips. That night I met up with a couple of the regular guys in my 10 man playgroup and a ton of progress was had. See IMO Singed can shine early and level quick with his AOE poison that he puts down as he runs (ability 1). My matches I played with strangers I was lagging behind b/c all 3 of them I ended up with strangers with me on the lane and they were kill stealing like mad. This hurt my leveling and money quite a bit. Tonight, I was on teamspeak (TS) with Alan, quite a vet LoL in our group, and was able to co-ordinate much much better. We took a lane together leveled well and I was able to utilize the toss back and slow to near perfection. We were quite the force in the land and pushed easy, taking out turret after turret. It was a very successful night and I now found out how much I am starting to love this game. Not only did I learn the value of co-ordination over TS but also how much fun teamwork is in this game.

Now it was time to hit up playing Twisted Fate vs bots, so I could get used to his abilities and strengths and weaknesses. Josh had mentioned how he’s got some great attacks and the ultimate ability to teleport  nearly 1/2 way across the map. In addition to this you reveal the location of everyone on the map. Both can come in quite handy in a tense 5v5 SR match. Another big thing to learn how to do is to time the “random” card select ability to get it to be the stun attack.

My first couple of bot matches are a disaster as always for me. Well by disaster I don’t mean I died a ton, but with TF I mean I didn’t manage to contribute much of anything. Sure I was killing some minions in the lane but I just was not able to make any headway at all vs other champs. It just felt like throwing chopsticks instead of knives in battle. I was going to need more practice with TF to be effective.

Lastly for this entry today I will talk about the next weekly meet up with my group. We had a fairly full group this night, so we were able to get in some 5v5 with it being all of our group. Alas, I am still a punching bag in the group. I am starting to realize the other team is regularly targeting me and feeding on me to get money and levels quick. My team sometimes pair me with the perfect match or best player but sometimes just use the other teams salivating to make progress elsewhere. I end up with a 2-2 record on the night but little of it is because of me. I even get moved around a bit in one match, and I can hear the frustration in the one guys voice when talking to me. He even tells me how bad Singed and TF are to play b/c neither does anything particularly well. It seems he must be tired of babysitting me and doesn’t want to try teamwork, which worked REAL well with me and Alan, and just wants the kills. I am sure my day will come tho, as I level more and as I figure out better and better strategies.

One thing I am starting to learn is that a bunch of people out there, and even to a decent degree in my group, don’t care about winning the match. Nope they care more about kills of other players in the match, and winning is secondary. Not me. I want the win first and the kill count second. Sure, I would love to see 2 and 3x the amount of kills plus assists to death ratio on my guy. But to me Ill take a 2-4-7 with a win any day of the week.

How about you? Do you want to win the match or would you take a loss every time if you got 10 kills? Send me your thoughts or comment here.

GeekJock

–Next time: I get some play time with Josh in game and start to have more success. Also, my first DOMINION matches. How will Singed do in there?

There has been hype of all kinds the last few years in PC Gaming. I have embraced some of it (See SWTOR, Skyrim, Arkham City), and have avoided others (League of Legends, Minecraft, Dungeons of Dreadmore). LoL is the perfect example of one that I have not entirely avoided on purpose. Although I am not really a huge PvP gamer in arena-type matches, I do LOVE being able to play games in a team vs bots (AI controlled opponents).

Recently a buddy of mine John had mentioned that his regular online gaming group was switching from Dawn of War over to LoL for now and had invited me to join them. Since I am a gamer and love co-op stuff I figured a group of 5-10 was a decent enough way to play a new game. The group uses team speak (TS) so playing a game like this with new friends and not having to go up against “ringers” all the time was definitely the way I wanted to learn the game.

Now, when I get into a new game, especially online games such as any MMO or here, LoL, I tend to dive in head first into the game. I read all sorts of blogs, tips, hints, forums etc. after I play a bit. Then it was a time that I still knew nothing about the game so forums would do me little. The terminology would mean nothing and the myriad of Champions would be names I would have 0 idea what they meant. So I DL the game and did some of the initial tutorial type stuff. Right away I wasn’t too happy with the game play. My PvP typically is of the FPS variety or MMO variety. Out smart someone with terrain and powers and think your way with maneuvers to victory in little skirmishes. Sure LoL has quite the depth of strategy but right away in tutorials I noticed it’s WAY too much running away and trickery to stay alive for my taste. I would often have some AI bots down to a sliver only to have them run somewhere and get away, or find a way to get to a super turret before me and I would be mince meat before being able to kill anyone. It was frustrating as all hell, and I hadn’t even gotten out of the tutorial. I grew tired of the voice from above saying “STAY BEHIND YOUR MINIONS!”. Well the extra time i had to learn was over, and it was now time to play against the living on my 1st night.

So I met the guys and they were all real nice guys, and all knew each other for years and were ALL way ahead of me in the game already. The game uses both a leveling outside of it from 1-30 and an in match leveling which is all part of the game play. I have NEVER really been a huge fan of any game where a leveled up player has a huge advantage in game play. Sure I have no problem with them having an advantage of putting in the extra time, but in some games (Call of Duty I think is another in online matches) it just equals being able to stay alive after 5 shots to the head and then one shotting the lesser guy easy. Not my cup of tea. I would rather see a way to up level a player in matches to the avg levels and then have a way that the other players could have their slight advantage but not an overpowering one. BUT alas I am playing LoL and so I will have to just deal with it.

Right away when playing the guys I was getting just slaughtered all over the place. It was still my not knowing the different heroes I was playing and also not knowing the tactics. I picked things up gradually over the first night but a player kill by me was few and far between. As with the bots the most mind-numbingly frustrating thing was having a player on the ropes with less then 100 HPs and chasing him (being at full myself) and having no way to finish him off. Then he turns around and somehow manages to take out my WHOLE life pool before I could even get that last kill. And thus I was to the edge of my rope and I had had it with this damn game. Luckily that was the last full 5v5 match we had with all players of the night. I had played 3 or 4 with them and I was just tired of getting 2 kills (if any) 16 deaths and 4 assists in each. Win or lose on the match it’s frustrating. Luckily as well, we had 4 other guys willing to play more so we got in some 5v5 vs beginner bots matches in. Those 2 games playing with a consistent champion was MUCH better. I felt a sense of teamwork and teaching and the wins meant more to me. I CONTRIBUTED to the greater good.

Over the next few days I thought about my experiences playing LoL and I wasn’t so discouraged by it all as I had been the 1st night. SO I went back on by myself and played some 5v5 vs bots with other players. This went well some matches and not so well others. I had used Heimerdinger with some good success the last few games the previous night so I thought support would be decent for me, but alas it was a new week so some NEW champions were free instead of the previous week’s roster of freebies. This night I tried out another support champ, LuLu. While I liked her as a whole, playing in a random PuG (Pick up Group) of 5v5 was hard. Normally with friends on TS you can co-ordinate and I could have a regular partner stay with me to buff up with her abilities. In this match it just wasn’t happening. People had their own things going on and sticking with one guy was impossible. My next match I would finally find a champion for me. Malphite. I took the big stone brute b/c the previous match I was tired of the bot killing me a ton with a Malphite/Annie combo in my lane. I also figured even if people left me alone I could hold my own vs beginner bots.

In those last 2 matches of my solo night playing I did just that. I was actually holding my own! I was 2nd on the kill list once and even had a very small (<2) number of deaths. While I honestly didn’t feel “confident” I felt like I was making progress in learning the gorilla warfare tactics of the game and coming to terms with them.

But Like I mentioned, there was still SOMETHING missing. I figured I needed someone to point me in the right direction. One big thing that was missing in my game was knowing what gear to buy in game and then also buying runes for these empty slots. I know enough about mastery trees from my MMO days but I needed some help with picking them as well. I decided to see if a buddy of mine was up to the task of mentoring me, and helping me pick out one or two Champions I will stick with on a real consistent basis when I play for the next 2 months or so. This buddy was former PC Gamer Associate Editor Josh Augustine. I had been reading about LoL in PCG for the time it’s been out and Josh was a LoL vet. Ever since we had him on our show, The Geek Allstars, on episode 6 (where he also gave us some tips to play LoL) I had kept in touch and spoke a bunch on twitter. So I hit him up and asked him if he was up for the challenge of turning the GeekJock from noob LoL player into a boneafied threat on the battlefield.

Be it pity, the challenge, or just being a total nice guy, Josh was excited and raring to go! I told him a bit of my experiences and how I liked playing and he went to the drawing board thinking of what one or two champions I would be working on for the next few months.

To hear how the first installment of our audio segment goes, you will have to listen in to the next episode of The Geek Allstars, which will be posted late Sunday early Monday on itunes. It will have the full 20-25 min conversation where Josh gives me some pointers and also picks the Champion(s).

Then that next day I will post the next installment of my noob diary right here!

Thanks for reading and if you have any tips please feel free to comment. If you would like to play with me add me as a friend on LoL my name on there is: CanesRx

–GeekJock