Rob  0:26  
Hello, and welcome to another episode of whose turn is it anyway podcast, a podcast about our gaming group shenanigans. My name is Rob I am your current first player. So hopefully it won't go too bad but I am joined by JP 

JP  0:40  
Hello there, 

Rob  0:41  
Adrian. 

Adrian  0:41  
Hello 

Rob  0:42  
CP Chris Pouncey.

Chris P  0:43  
How's it going guys? 

JP  0:44  
Not just the current first player. You're the new first player. 

Rob  0:48  
Shiney 

JP  0:48  
You've taken the shiny throne

Rob  0:50  
That would explain why I've been shining all day. Like a vampire from 

Adrian  0:57  
Twilight 

Rob  0:58  
Twilight. Yeah, I've been like that all day. Just moving away.

JP  1:02  
Have you just admitted to that Adrian?, You a big Twilight fan?

Adrian  1:05  
Never seen it. Genuinely. 

Chris P  1:08  
Seems to have a lot of inside knowledge

JP  1:11  
Good to have you as a first player.

Rob  1:13  
Thank you. Thank you a little bit nervous, but we're all good in the hood. So hopefully, you know we've been doing it okay. And don't want to come along and completely, completely T bone this podcast that we've got going, so no but excited. Should be good fun. So what have you been up to me?

JP  1:31  
Not not masses. Work boring crap. 

Rob  1:35  
Nice

JP  1:35  
 Next.

Chris P  1:37  
Well, that was short and sweet!

JP  1:41  
I've got something... which is Gridcon. Coming soon. 

Rob  1:46  
Excited. 

JP  1:47  
Very excited. Yeah, I know technically I should wait to the end of the episode and talk about things we're excited about.

Adrian  1:52  
But it's also been in the past based on podcast timings

JP  1:56  
Yeah, Gridcon was brilliant. Everyone enjoyed Gridcon. I'm so tired from Gridcon. I can't wait. Good. So that's what I'm looking forward to

Rob  2:08  
I haven't been doing a great deal either. We've been very busy at home. So haven't been playing many games, a little bit of video gaming. And that is about it.

JP  2:18  
What are you playing on your video games? 

Rob  2:19  
Skyrim again. Yeah, I'll explain why at the end. Okay. So yeah, there's something that's kind of triggered me going back and playing it, it's very good, though. And I will talk about it later.

Leading to the section about let's talk about hex, where is the section where we talk about games that we've managed to get to the table, and I'll start off with Adrian, what have you been managed to kind of get down and play mate?

Adrian  2:52  
I've got quite a few. Normally, I turn up and say I haven't played much. But actually, I've played quite a lot recently. But what I want to talk about is Pandemic Legacy season one. So going to try and keep it relatively spoiler free this, there's a couple of bits I want to talk about that I'm hoping won't spoil it. But if you really like absolutely nothing information, you might need to skip ahead a little bit. But it starts off as regular Pandemic, like the normal base game, and it slowly... you play 12 months of the year. And every month, it adds new mechanics and bits and pieces. And it follows an overall storyline. And it does a really, really good job of it. I was really on... a big pandemic fan anyway. And I was really impressed with the storyline and the flow and the way that some of the mechanisms that they introduce lost across the entire game, and some just lost sort of for the next couple of months, it gives you something new, and then it kind of drops it and says okay, well, that's, you've had a couple of months of doing that. And yeah, it was just it started off I think like a lot of people do with legacy, I started off with four players at the table, then went nine months where we didn't get it to the table again. So we're down to three players of that group. And then it went like another six months. And then it was just the two of us were just like, let's just get this.

Rob  4:08  
It's like a like an actual pandemic, you lost people along the way?

Adrian  4:16  
But yeah, it was one of those where we just the two of us ended up doing... I think it was March onwards or April onwards, but really enjoyed it, there was one little sort of niggle point that I didn't particularly like, which is clearly to keep the story moving. It kind of goes 'if you haven't accomplished whatever you need to do in the last month for the last two months, then open this box and it counts as you count as having already completed it'. Like they've sort of given you a bonus and I won't say why otherwise it really ruins the storyline. But they're like, if you haven't completed it by now, we kind of need to get to the end of the story here. So you count as completing it. And it was a bit of a... especially part of that they gave you just a month to do it. And it was like so one or two games and it felt really short. period, like the rest shoehorned in. Yeah, kind of it was just that kind of thing of okay, well, you've managed a lot probably by now, but there might be a couple of bits you haven't managed to accomplish. And so we kind of need to push the storyline on to get to the end. So here's like a cheat almost like here's your get out of jail free card for that thing. And it kind of soured the experience a little bit, everything else had been going really well. And you could like move things from one month to another if you needed to. And sometimes you couldn't, because of obvious reasons. And then this kind of went ah. you've been able to move stuff from one month to another until right now when you can't, because we need to move the storyline forward. But the storyline was great. Everything in every box, all of the little stickers that came off, all that kind of stuff really was one of the most complete, haven't played many, many legacy games, but it was a definite complete story arc, felt really good all the components, all the extra bits, every time you open the box, there was excitement. So really good. Really, really enjoyed it. 

Rob  5:56  
Is it a one and done thing? Or can you do it again?

Adrian  5:58  
No. Well.... In the rulebook, it says you may play this again, there's no way anyone's ever gonna take that board out and teach anybody else how to play it with all of these extra rules. Because you've got 12 months, you know, you've got somewhere between 12 and 24 games worth of extra rules, and your boards a mess, because you've put stickers over it and all that kind of stuff. And so it's just not gonna happen, did it with Risk legacy we tried to play at once after the campaign had finished. It's just impossible. No one's gonna play it again. It's just that... it's there for that one experience, you get those 12 to 24 games out of it. The experience of... for what was at the time, I think I paid £45/£50 pound for it. I think that's about what it goes for. It's just amazing

Rob  6:41  
For 24 games, that sounds... I was expecting it to be at least sort of £80/£90.

Adrian  6:46  
Again, it's not got any massive miniatures in it or anything like that, all of the components are good, but basic. And so it kind of makes the most of its... of its money. But yeah, I was really impressed with it. Again, as always I'm behind the times I'm aware because not only have we had season one, we've had Season Two and season zero out since a lot of people have already played it. But for those that haven't, if you like Pandemic at all, do it.

Rob  7:11  
Every time I hear you talk about Pandemic, I really want to play it. I never played it. I really want to play it after hearing you talk about it

JP  7:20  
I've played base

Adrian  7:21  
I really enjoy it. I played the base a lot, I've played Iberia, quite a bit, and I've played Fall of Rome quite a bit, and I've paid a couple of the others. Star Wars has just come out, completely different again, Clone Wars. So it uses a similar sort of cube, but it's not cubes, it's little droids sort of thing of 'pull something off the top of the deck put a droid in those areas', it makes everything more difficult, but it doesn't have most of the same mechanics as the base version. But it just... I can... you can tell from a playthrough that it's going to feel Pandemic-ey, because they've got the games but yeah,, really good. If anyone enjoys the base game, I'd absolutely say whether there's two of you, four of you, whatever. Just go out and get legacy and play through it. 

Rob  8:00  
Im n gonna go and buy it now! You've sold it!

Adrian  8:03  
It's really good, it's really good. So no, I was really impressed with that.

Rob  8:07  
Awesome. Chris what have you been up to?

Chris P  8:10  
Me? Well, probably my weekly Gloomhaven, Marvel Champions, and one or two games of the Bloodborne: the card game since I got it from my birthday, which was sort of a while ago now. But finally managed to get it to table a couple of times. So that's been really good fun, been trying to play some of the characters in Champions I haven't managed to get around and playing, like Black Widdow and Hulk. Just they're a bit more ....

JP  8:35  
Some of the new ones? 

Chris P  8:38  
My collection still slowly growing. The addiction is still there. But no, yeah, just getting round to some of those you just didn't get round to playing when I first got them and just sort of had them lying around for too many...

Rob  8:48  
There's so many characters to play. Just never really got round to doing...

Chris P  8:56  
I'm just trying to make my way through those eventually. And but yeah, that's been...

JP  9:00  
how's the how's the Bloodbourne card game work, then I'm not... I've heard about it. I don't know how it works.

Chris P  9:06  
Essentially, it's a turn order deck builder, where you have a deck of enemies and bosses. And you have a deck of base sort of basic cards of basic attacks or basic abilities that you can do. And you go around in turn order on the table and then the turns over if you haven't killed the enemy, by that point, most of the time it goes, so you don't get anything for it. If you managed to kill the enemy, you get basically a series of sort of little mini trophies to go with the bloodbourne character, the main sort of game and then it's... you keep going round until all the enemies are gone. And then you tally up who's got the most points who's got the most trophies and then you win. Or you die. If you die you just miss the rest, and you sort of come backt. So it's no sort of 'once you've dead, you're out the game', you do come back, you just lose a couple of cards kind of thing. And then you come back again. One of the things I really like about it is, the stingy way that you get more cards is you sort of start the game with like five cards in the sort of collective pool. And then you go round, and when it's the end of the round, the first player picks a card that they want out of the pool where the next person goes and picks a card, right? So the person that at the end, it's the drag, get whatever terrible mess that's left that nobody wants to touch. So basically swearing Yeah, they're going 'you guys you just left me with a Molotov cocktail again, which has like one damage and nothing, which is useless against everything'. So then, once that goes, then you just cycled back out again, more  weapons, and you just go around. It is meant to be minimum of three player I have played it twice on two player just by tweaking the enemy's health a little bit because there are weapons that there's basically you can't kill the enemy because they have too much health. Yeah, essentially. Whereas I think the maximum weapon damage that does like six potential damage. And some of the enemies have like a minimum of like 15, so you literally can't do it if there's too few players. So we just tweek the amount of health and that has been fine. And we've managed to play it. And it works fine. So it is doable. It's just probably not recommended. But me. I can't find any more players to play. It just me and the missus.

'Please can I just not play this anymore'. Yeah,

She's like, It's eiter this, or Champions. Okay, we'll play Bloodbourne.

JP  11:13  
Bless her!

Chris P  11:19  
So is it corporative or semi cooperative or competitive?

It's semi cooperative, competitive. You are working together to defeat the enemy, but you want to try to get defeat the enemy first. If you can, you get more points of defeating the enemy or if you've joined in fighting the enemy, you actually get points. Okay, so it was like four players around the table. And the guy's got 15 Health, three of you do five damage. Those three people will get the points for killing the enemy, whereas the fourth person will get nothing.

JP  12:05  
So selfish co-op? 

Chris P  12:06  
Yes. Yeah. And based on how much damage you do, you get pools of blood, which then you use and bank for your character. Thats part of the game. And then yeah, whoever's got the most at the end of the game wins. It's good. It's good fun.

JP  12:20  
How does it play? Is it quite a short game as it goes?

Chris P  12:23  
I think there three of us and we played it... it probably took about 45 minutes to an hour. 

JP  12:28  
Okay, it's fairly short. 

Chris P  12:30  
You can get in an evening, you probably at least get two or three games out quite easily if you... once you know what you're doing and you can just go bang-bang-bang-bang on the table and away you go. So it's fun. Would love to get it to the table with us lot, cos there will be a lot of swearing involved.

Rob  12:48  
Doesn't sound like us at all?

JP  12:50  
No. 

Rob  12:50  
What have you been up to mate?

JP  12:52  
I have played, like Adrian, I literally went through the event list. And what have I played since the last recording and the last recordings was a while ago, wasn't it? To be honest. Becky is just an efficient recording machine. 

Rob  13:03  
Yes. 

JP  13:03  
As we've learned.

Rob  13:05  
 The complete opposite to me. 

JP  13:06  
Yeah, we've had a nice little break for a few weeks. So no, looking through everything and what do  pick because there's so much. So I'm gonna save one to talk about later. But the one I want to talk about right now is On Mars. It's not Terraforming Mars, but On Mars. So On Mars is a very heavy game designed by a prestigious designer called Vital Lacerda and he is notorious for making very complex very kind of thematic heavy games. Which are brilliant. 

Chris P  13:39  
I'm already intimidated. 

JP  13:41  
They are... well, On Mars I can't remember it's BGG rating, Adrian will probably know, but it's four... over four and a half. Yeah, it's literally on the top end of weight. And and basically I had my first play because Kerley... Kerley did own it. Theres a little hint to waht happened.

Rob  13:59  
And you own it now?

JP  14:00  
Now I have. I've acquired it off him. And basically I had my first play of it, what a few weeks ago? And I just absolutely loved it. Absolutely loved it. And I thought I would and I've been wanting to play one of his designs for forever. And yeah, off we go, played it loved it. So for those that don't know what the hell I'm talking about, what it is essentially you are playing as kind of corporations and basically you want to try and colonise Mars, right? And the whole thing is kind of a mix of worker placement, tile placement, kind of game where the board is split into two halves. The left side is essentially all the actions you can do when you're in orbit. And the right side is all the actions you can do when you're on Mars on the surface. And the kind of crux of the game... The bit that breaks your brain and breaks everybody is that you can only do the actions on the left side when you're in orbit and you can do the actions, the right side when you're on the surface, and you've got a plan because there's a shuttle that takes you from back and forth on either side. And, and at the start of the game that happens every turn, every round, it goes back and forth. And then later as you improve the life support system on Mars, it starts to get slower and slower and slower as the the end up spending more actions and more turns in orbiting. And you're like 'Shit. I need to get onto Mars and I need to do these things. I need to build buildings, I need to do all that stuff'. And just the timing of that just messes with you and getting the resources because a lot of the resources are in orbit, but you need to spend them on the surface. And and yeah, it's just... I love it.

Rob  15:39  
I got a headache already.

JP  15:40  
Yeah, it will break you. And anyone that like doesn't like heavy games, stay away from it. But yeah, it's just, I just found it a real joy to play, and just the production. The production quality of the game, by Igor Gryphon games who's the publishers, which is fantastic. Yeah, it looks really nice. The player boards and I didn't realise, like, what it was about games that I really enjoy, until I kind of played with that player board. And I mean, I really like games that have real complex player boards that are like your little command centre, and everything's got little slots, and everything goes in the right place. And the artist, it was brilliant. And and yeah, I just think the whole kind of components are just awesome. Awesome. And it's just, yeah, it's great. And it's made me kind of fall in love with the designer. And I want to try more of his stuff

Adrian  16:31  
I've said, we've talked a long time haven't we? I really want to get The Gallerist, you kind of mentioned a few different ones. But you've obviously started off with On Mars, it's probably the lowest on my list of his major games. But I'm still intrigued to try it. Because I've just got the, I suppose the thing that makes it simple for complex games is quite often it's: you choose an action, and out of that action, it kind of splits and splits. And so you get other choices from that first action. So yes, there's a complex thought process in where do I want to get at the end. But the decision can start with as simple as I want to get this one thing, which then means I could then have to choose one out of these two options, which then gives me two more options. And whenever you look at his games, a lot of the games that he does, sort of have this very simple, one single line, here's your first choice. And then it just splits and splits and splits and splits until you've...

Gradually gets more complex. Rather than just do whatever you want sort of thing.

Because ultimately, the thought process could be I want that bit there, which means I've got to head this way, this route, sort of thing down the tree, if you want to go down the line, however you want to sort of vision this splitting off.

Yeah, like skill tree. Yeah, you can make your way might be like...

Like 'I want to get to that one. And that one, that means I've got to go this way. So that means I have to have the resources to get there'. And, and so you kind of work backwards from there. Every time I've watched a playthrough of Kanban, or the Gallerist, or even Vinhos, because they're the three that are right at the top of my list of wanting to play. It just looks such an intriguing concept. And as you say the production quality is just amazing on all of them. And I've just, it's one of those where for something that hasn't got big miniatures or anything like that, and I'm pulling £120 pound on one of those games seems like a big buy into it. But I've just got a funny feeling like that I will enjoy it. I've been quite overwhelmed by quite a lot of heavy games recently. And I don't know that I want to do too many heavy games at the moment. But it's certainly on the top of my list of heavy games that I want to get to the table. I know you've picked up others, which I'm sure we'll talk about later. But I'm definitely intrigued

Rob  18:33  
JP's nodding with a real smug look on his face.

JP  18:33  
I'm no even sorry. But yeah, I've picked up Vinhos. I just thought I really liked the look of that. And you might think well you already got a winemaking game with Viticulture. Do you need another one? Absolutely. So I've got that. And the other one. The other one I've got my eye on is the Weather Machine as well, which I nearly backed. And now I'm like why not? Just because I probably could have got it

Becuse at one point probably backed everything.

Yeah. So yeah, basically I am just enjoying exploring his designs at the moment and  yeah, I mean, we played On Mars loved it. We'll finally got Vinhos in the diary in the next few weeks, and another On Mars. And so see how they go. What about you mate?

Rob  19:19  
I've only managed to get one game of Marvel Champions in in the last couple of weeks. Like I said, we've been very busy. So good fun. Good night. That was with you, Chris and a couple of our other friends 

Who did you play? 

Hawkeye again, okay, like I did only because I played the deck once and I didn't fully get to experience it. So I figured, play again. I've got the deck ready made. It's nice and easy to set up. So I thought you know rather than then changing it to find out whether I liked it or not. I thought I'll just played the same one again. We played it with you guys with different characters.

Chris P  19:56  
Yeah, we had She Hulk on the field. Black Widow as I said recently and also, I think it was, it might have been Venom.

Adrian  20:07  
Who did you play against? Who was the bad guy? 

Chris P  20:09  
Green Goblin. Green Goblin.

JP  20:11  
Which one, risky business. Or the other one.

Rob  20:13  
No, not not the normal Goblin, the goblin goblin

Adrian  20:18  
Two encounter cards straight off the top.

Chris P  20:19  
Yeah, that was fun and an unbelievable amount of minions that was just endless, and hoards, but it was so much fun. And we just suddenly just go, oh, look, now this 10 enemy on the field

Rob  20:30  
It came out of nowhere. And for a long time, it looked like we weren't going to do it for a long time. And then all of a sudden, it just kind of clicked, She Hulk started doing more and more damage, more and more allies were coming out, which is just absorb hits and allow you to stay in it. So it was good fun. It went on a little bit longer than... 

Chris P  20:49  
It was about four hours. 

Rob  20:51  
I nearly fell asleep at one point. But it was great fun. So yeah, but that's the only thing I've managed to get to the table.

And now leading on to the main event, I think it warrants a little bit of sort of historical perspective. I, obviously a member of this gaming group, but I've been very lucky that the rest of the guys in the group have massive amounts of knowledge on board games, publishers, designers, I'm just kind of the idiot that turns up to games that he's been invited to. And if I like them, I like them. And if I don't, I don't. I don't really worry about it too much. I know what I enjoy, I'll happily play the majority of games providing they're not Mindclash games because they hurt my brain. So I've been very lucky that JP is an avid collector of some of the greatest ball games in history. And I've got to experience them with a very patient person who's willing to teach me, so the reason we went... well, I thought about this as a topic that most of the games that I've experienced, especially when I started playing board games, were all Fantasy Flight published. So I thought I'd talk about Fantasy Flight as a whole, because there seems to be whenever I mentioned Fantasy Flight with a more experienced board gamers, there's not quite an eye roll. But there is a look on people's faces where the you can go 'God really?'. So it kind of feels like they've fallen from grace a little bit. And I wanted to kind of figure out why because they've published some of the greatest games I've ever played. And, look, I was looking at my collection, and probably 99% of it is Fantasy Flight published. So I wanted to sort of talk about some of the games that I've played and some of the games that you've played and loved, and then kind of find out what's really happened with them. Because like I say, my knowledge isn't as extensive as you guys. And kind of find out what the feeling is and kind of what's happened. So JP, yeah, your Fantasy Flight Journey experience.

JP  23:04  
Yeah, yeah, no, oh, my experience. And if you've listened to the very, very, very first episode of our podcast

Rob  23:10  
Which obviously everyone has

JP  23:14  
And apologies of the audio quality. We will still learning, shall I say we it was me. Young and stupid. Yeah, I was an idiot. No, I, we joined this hobby in 2017, as mentioned, and FFG we'll call them now, easier and quicker. FFG was kind of my first publisher to kind of re experience board gaming, and it was XCON, was my first ever kind of FFG game really. And I kind of had that and because I was coming in fresh because I was coming in new. I just thought whoa, this is amazing. I can't believe that board games exist like this and all of the usual things that many people kind of go through when they learn about the hobby. So naturally, you go into, well, what else do they do?

Rob  24:04  
And they always came with a handy little catalogue for games that were sort of coming out, and you think Yeah. Okay

JP  24:12  
Oh 'Masions of madness?'. Oh, like you end up kind of researching and then you find BoardGameGeek and what the hell's BoardGameGeek and you end up going on that. And then you know, it all spirals out of control. 

Rob  24:23  
For some of us. 

JP  24:24  
Yeah, so I kind of in the early days, I felt like I wanted to collect most of FFGs back catalogue. And I can kind of see my shelves growing and growing with games. Thinking go steady on boy. You've got six games, like, Jesus. Yeah, now I only have like a very, I think the Kallax was just a one by four set. And even that was getting, like, 'calm down'. And, and yeah, and I think it wasn't until probably fairly recently, maybe like two three Four years ago that I kind of noticed and and maybe as my tastes broaden and found out there were more publishers than Fantasy Flight Games. There are different ones out there that do all sorts of different things, and started dabbling and different games. I kind of started to see a shift with FFG. And lots of people leaving the CEO at the time, Christine Petersen, is it? Yeah, he basically designed Twilight Imperium, this guy, and he ended up running Fantasy Flight Games. And so anyone who designed Twilight Imperium for me, is like much respect because that game is...

Rob  25:33  
It's been mentioned a couple of times on the podcast before

JP  25:36  
It's so good, and it's so long, and it breaks people. But now he left and I think well back in what 2014 2015 Asmodee, kind of acquired FFG. And it just felt like a lot of the kind of properties that they were working on, a lot of the projects they were working on, were just being stripped away lots of teams and people kind of moving on and and leaving, or divesting or whatever. And yeah, just it just felt like that they weren't they were heading in a real positive direction. Lots of excitement, lots of new things, lots of innovation, they were trying out with things like Key Forge, and, and various other kind of properties. They just opened or announced of doing a whole digital kind of gaming arm of the business. And suddenly went 'No, we're going to cap this,  scrap this, we're going to stop this we're going to call this' and things were being dropped rather than things were being added. And maybe you know, I don't know, the the financial situations, maybe it needed to happen for it to be sustainable. Who knows? We're never going to know. But I think from a consumer, or from an outside perspective, I definitely noticed that they just don't feel like they're the company they were. And then it might be tarnished because of my experience and I broadened into, like, you know, going into MindClash games. Chip Theory games got to get it in.

Anyone's playing the drinking game. Yeah, there's your first Yeah,

But no, like, I'm literally quite agnostic of Publisher, I will try anything from any publisher. I'm more about the game now rather than the publisher. So that's kind of my feelings of them. I still love FFG I still think they've done and still do some fantastic games. Their production quality is fantastic for the most part so yeah, I don't kind of roll my eyes over it. I just feel like they're not where they were or could have been maybe. And that's just my inexperience stupid opinion.

Rob  27:37  
Because what the hell do I know?

JP  27:39  
It's not really founded on anything.

Rob  27:41  
Chris, when you came into it, you played a lot of FFG games. I think your your first kind of proper game was Arkham Horror, right?

Chris P  27:49  
Yeah, yeah, my first experience with board gamesort of in general, rather than, you know, monopoly and Cluedo. And then, few years later, it's like,

JP  27:59  
 oh, sorry what?

Chris P  27:59  
Yeah, exactly. Games that no one's ever heard of, or ever played or wish to play ever again in their lives. Once you get into this kind of thing, this kind of depth of stuff. No, it was strange. Oh, that's a game that we've got called Arkham Horror. It's about you know, mythological...I saw it played, and I was like, Okay, fine. All right. I'll give it a go. And then the rabbit hole went.... and then away we go

Rob  28:23  
I sold it to you as an RPG game with cards. 

Chris P  28:26  
Yes, he did. 

Rob  28:27  
I think that was the only way I could get him to the table. I was like, the story grows, you get... you level up. But you don't, 

JP  28:34  
Lied then, basically? 

Rob  28:35  
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And I don't feel bad about. But like, you know, the a lot of the games that we play now are Fantasy Flight Games. I was think I was listening to you then thinking that they're kind of dead and buried. But they're not, far from like, far from it. Because like some of the games that I want to talk about in a little bit, fairly new. Some of the greatest games I've ever played. But what was your sort of journey with with FFG? Did you start off with with FFG? Or did you kind of pick it up as you go along every now and then

Adrian  29:14  
FFG was certainly in the mix. I think anyone coming into the hobby now will have a slightly different picture to FFG to what I think anyone who's like 2016 2014 Before will have had, because essentially what they've done is FFG holds on to theLCG's, living card games. And the big boxes mostly atomic mass games. Now hold on to their miniatures, the Star Wars legions, the Crisis protocol wing, X Wing and Zed man, which does does pandemic just to drop that one and again. They hold a lot of euros. At the time when I first got into them FFG had a little bit of everything. Yeah, and so they were kind of a much more all encompassing brand than they are now, and if you were to get into gaming now you, you probably wouldn't recognise them. So yeah, I kind of I kind of did like, you know, Battlestar Galactica, that was FFG, Game of Thrones, that was FFG, I have played a few of those, then I went and played X Wing and Armada and a little bit of that kind of stuff as well. And played like Blood Bowl Manager. So they used to have a relationship with Games Workshop and used to run all of their IP board games as well. And then I'm going to kind of make a bit of a possibly controversial hot take on this, which is to say that I did what I think JP is talking about, but before is that, I think you get a certain way into gaming, like almost a certain number of years into gaming, and then your honeymoon period with FFG kind of lessens a little bit. And you kind of know what you want out of that company or what you don't want. And my feeling on that is because FFG do a great job of a certain level of components, you know, they produce a certain quality on the board, they produce a certain level, maybe not the gold standard, but they produce a certain level of rule sets. But what they really produce is a feeling, you look at every single game, whether it's like War of the Ring, and Rebellion, or whether it's Fury of Dracula, or Twilight Imperium, they all create a feeling, the rules may not be the most balanced, they may not be the most perfect rule sets out there. And it may not be the most top quality board game, but it will be a very good quality board game. But once you start realising where you actually want to get your feels from, and it may be that I still want to get the feels that FFG gives me when I'm playing a board game, but I think a lot of people, then it's a natural way into that level of board gaming, and then you diverge, and you figure out whether you want to be a beige Euro gamer, which I am, that's not an insult. But you know, if you want to be a beige Euro gamer, or if you want to be, you know, like a Zombicide, like dungeon, sort of basher, or whatever you want to go out and do. You kind of work out from there. FFG holds these lovely IPs that a lot of people know, Star Wars and stuff like that, for instance, it's a perfect way into that level of gaming. And then, like I found that I was just struggling to see where the balance was in certain games, or that after a few of each game, the feeling was kind of lessening because it's, it's all about the experience. And if you've experienced it a few times, how do you keep recapturing? And so I did what JP mentioned, I kind of went, Okay, what else is out there in the world. And I'd already started with some other games like I got into Dominion when I was first sort of getting into board games and some other ones as well. So I did have experience of non FFG, but certainly the percentage of FFG I was playing decreased over time.

Rob  32:44  
Is that because everybody else kind of caught up to what they were doing? Or is that because they lessened what they were doing? Is it because it felt, for me that they were the the main pillar, if that makes sense, because they were the only games that I was playing? Because they were the only games JP was buying? And you know, so my experience was mainly that, and then you started hearing about these other publishers that, you know, if you like this, then you'll like this from another ,from a different publisher. If you like your miniature games, now we've... this mad company called Cmon have come in. And if you like minis, they've got minis for everyone, so is it that everybody kind of caught up and maybe overtook them? Or is it that they kind of dropped off a little bit?

Adrian  33:37  
Yeah, I think... I don't think they've dropped off. I'll be honest, I think they have stood still and grown slightly in the way that they approach games, the way that they do different bits and pieces, there's as a couple of... I had some real problems with the way they first started out with X Wing and Armada and a few bits, which we'll talk about hopefully later on. But I think they grew a bit and I think other companies have grown more than them. But more importantly, I think other companies have also been able to buy lots of IPs. And therefore, you know, IP's were pretty much FFTs thing, if they get hold of an IP then they  would, and then they grew their own with the Arkham series and all that kind of stuff. Mr. Wibbles, you know, they, they grew on that side, whereas now other companies are like, Oh, you want a Umbrella Academy or you want... I'm just trying to think of like Dune and those kinds of things, you know, great. These other companies all have IP's on that. And so, between that and the sort of Geek Chic Big Bang Theory sort of love of

Rob  34:35  
Everything coming out

Adrian  34:37  
Yeah Geek culture really rising up, has meant that people have been interested in exploring more games as well rather than just whatever the IP is.

Rob  34:46  
Yeah, so I suppose back in the day, that was the big selling point. You love Game of Thrones.

Adrian  34:51  
I remember seeing Game of Thrones on a shelf and going what? Let's buy it straight away. Yeah,

JP  34:57  
They're a big casting net. That's what I think  FFG are, like the casting that you throw into the ocean to get the new people into the hobby and they're very successful. And because of those IPs, you know, Star Wars, what's this rebellion game I've heard about? And you play, and it's like. Oh, my God this is amazing. Brilliant.

Rob  35:14  
It's absolutely fantastic. So yeah,

JP  35:16  
I think they're very good at doing that.

Rob  35:18  
Because one of the best games that I've played ,new games, because I've been exploring older games, because I said, I didn't have a lot of games. So it's just whatever JP was playing, and I was invited to, but Outer Rim, for me, 

Adrian  35:32  
I've not played 

Rob  35:33  
It's, it's fantastic. Like they've nailed the thematics of it. They've nailed the IP. You know, it's very true to the Star Wars universe. And it is a lot of fun to play. And it's one of the best experiences I've had of a new game and, you know, in a very, very long time. So. So yeah, I mean, that, for me was was absolutely fantastic to the point where Tambo's got it, and I'm probably going to buy it anyway.

Adrian  36:02  
Happens a lot 

JP  36:02  
That that need is strong. But no, I think the thing I found for me, when I started to notice how I felt slightly differently about FFG was actually going to UK Games Expo. And usually FFG are a big prominent feature at the UK Games Expo, they have a lot of real estate kind of space they devote to their games. And they didn't stop to kind of think that they... they just didn't have like a core major release that they would push. Like usually every year, there's something that's coming. Outer Rim, I remember when Outer Rim came out, they all went behind it, there's loads of it all out. Loads of people start to play in, you got excited about it. But over the kind of years, the pandemic hasn't helped, obviously. But over the years, it's just

COVID, not the board game.

Leaving the board game out at the moment. And it's kind of... I feel like they haven't got this big thing they can kind of get behind and that might be unfounded. I don't know, it's just

Adrian  37:01  
Unfathomable was a massive release again, like, didn't tickle my tastebuds because I don't really get on with the Arkham theme. But the... like, if you look at the online forums, when that released, there was a big sort of, okay, this is brilliant. We've been asking for this for ages.

JP  37:19  
Maybe that's just my taste.

Rob  37:20  
We play Battlestar once, twice a year. Yeah. So for people that haven't played Battlestar in a very long time, or don't have £500 pounds, buy it in the first expansion. Exactly. Like that is wonderful, I think but because we play it quite a lot...

JP  37:35  
It doesn't feel new to me,

Rob  37:36  
That's it, it didn't feel new, it didn't feel...

Adrian  37:38  
And that's, that's sort of like, if you're two years into it, three years into it, the likelihood is you don't have Battlestar because it's rare as Rocking hores... So it's one of those where Unfathomable was a big release to sort of perhaps newer players, people who hadn't got like, got into BSG the first time or weren't into BSG. I think BSG for me is a better theme. And I think when I've sort of had look around, a lot of people did seem to prefer the BSG theme. But it's got a theme that's different. And it's new, and it's got better mechanics by all accounts in it and stuff like that. So I think that was last years sort of big... Or earlier this year, I've kind of lost track of time.

JP  38:16  
I think it's probably just me, but probably my feelings on it. And maybe they're just not releasing stuff now that I'm excited about. No, maybe that's probably what it is. And like you said, it's a good point. Because they are releasing things, and other people go yeah, that's pretty cool. But yeah, think it's probably just a me thing.

Rob  38:34  
But again, is that because other people are launching... there are more and more games, it feels like there are more and more games out there now.

Adrian  38:43  
Yeah, I think just people are encroaching on a territory that was encroached on. Yeah, you know, like before, they had quite a free rein of all the IP's, all this kind of quality of board game, there wasn't a lot else that had the quality of even Game of Thrones, you know, we've got those little marbleized...I remember going out and buying packs of those separate to the game because I wanted them other like Wargaming stuff, to sort of add like little markers and stuff like that, because no one had seen this kind of level of... it sounds crazy mix of marbleized plastic, and you're going Oh, no one has seen this quality of boardgame, because they hadn't. Genuinely at the time. There wasn't a lot of that out there. And now, the sides are being pushed in on that company, and I still think they're doing great things. But I do think people are taking a little bit of... yeah, a little bit of territory away from them.

JP  39:28  
They've definitely a bit more focused aren't they, I would say. Whether they're doubling down on the product line or the IPs that they have, they just feel like they've kind of they've shrunk in what they're doing. And then probably putting more effort into the things that they are doing, that's ot a bad thing

Rob  39:43  
Most of the games that, well certainly I play, and play with Chris, obviously Descent, Marvel Champions, Star Wars: Imperial Assault... and I get what you're saying about that feeling of... kind of dials down over time. But I think this stories that they've introduced with those games kind of keep it fresh, to a degree like the obviously once you've done the story, 

Adrian  39:44  
And this is the point isn't it? It's...

Rob  39:50  
But I've done two start play-throughs with Descent. 

Adrian  40:14  
Right. Okay. 

Rob  40:15  
And it was..., we had a game when it came out and we did three or four in like two days. And then we started playing it as just me and Chris, then Tambo came on, and Davey came on. And the stories were different. You know, the events... it was the same story, but different events happened in those things. So even... it was a nice twist for me thinking, I know what's coming. And then all of a sudden, it's like, get the big, you know, sort of 12 inch miniature out and set that up. And I'm like, Oh, shit, he's come out early. I've never seen him before. Oh, God. So you know, with the app and things like that it...

Adrian  40:57  
Certainly, like, you look at Imperial Assault, I was thinking Imperial Assault, that story is very the same, you have to buy the expansion to really get another story out. So this what I'm saying, right, they're growing, they're getting better. They are doing better things as time goes on. But some of those experiences are kind of frozen. You'll do them once or you can't really replay them without feeling the same sort of thing. Personal opinion.

Rob  41:19  
No I see what youre saying. I just anything with Star Wars I'm in! 

JP  41:24  
This is why this is a good topic. Because I think, for me and Adrian, we have a different view. Yeah. And it's not a negative view. And I think that's important. You don't we're not sitting there going are FFGs are rubbish. They're not. They're not at all they're bloody brilliant. The games, as we said, we still play them now. And and we love most of the stuff they put out, to be fair. But yeah, it's, you know, it's just a different contrast, isn't it? Yeah. Maybe you two are in a different space with it.

Rob  41:52  
We're casuals compared to you guys.

Chris P  41:53  
I'd definitely describe myself as a casual gamer. Very much in that honeymoon period with FFG. I'm still... basically, essentially, that's all I really play, bar maybe one or two things that are by different publishers, but I still find myself gravitating back towards those sort of classic FFG games.

JP  42:12  
I'm almost like, you know, when you kind of watch a series, and  we've had this conversation Rob, about Breaking Bad, and I feel so excited that he hasn't seen it. Yeah, listeners like have a go at him. He hasn't seen Breaking Bad.

Rob  42:24  
The only reason I haven't watched it because of how infuriated you get, the fact that I haven't watched it yet. But Chris is exactly the same with Game of Thrones.

JP  42:31  
Oh Jeez,

Chris P  42:32  
I haven't seen that. And every time you mentioned it, 'you'll love this', like I probably will.

Rob  42:35  
I get it from both angles. I enjoy doing it to you. And I hate the fact that he's doing it to me. But also, there's something nice about coming back to something you know, 

Like a comfortable pair of slippers. 

It's like watching Friends. You know what's happening, you still enjoy it. It's comfortable. And that for me? Like I haven't played Mansions of Madness in a very long time. But I'm always excited to play that game, it's great. If somebody said to me, shall we play mansions? Hell, yes. I am up for that. Same with Rebellion. I've only played it the once,... that one experience I had was it was just so goddamn good. I couldn't stop talking about it for about two days. My wife nearly strangled me

JP  43:22  
Yeah, but we can have two death stars.

Rob  43:28  
We were at the polar opposite ends of the excitement spectrum on that, to the point where, you know, I nearly died. But, you know, like even, like we played Journeys Through Middle Earth a couple of times when Kerley had it. 

Chris P  43:43  
Oh, nice. 

Rob  43:44  
Kerley sold it. So we kind of ended our thing, but I don't think we gave it a big enough shot. If you see what I mean, ya know,

Chris P  43:53  
It was just starting to get good. You're just starting to find some items and things where your character is starting to change and you can change the way they play rather than just... your the range and you do range things. Yeah, yeah.

Rob  44:06  
But the price of it.... it was going very highly priced, secondhand. And Kerley wasn't enjoying it as much,  which is absolutely fair enough.

JP  44:15  
Especially when he shelled out money to buy it

Rob  44:19  
So he sold it, and made a profit on it. And how dare he, but like, again, I kind of forgot that FFG did that game. Yeah. You know, and going through... we had a quick look back through the catalogue of games. Before we started this, and like Key Forge was massive. It was huge. It was almost like a, you know, it was a... it peaked very quickly from what I experienced. Yeah, I might be completely wrong. Again. I'm a moron. So

Chris P  44:52  
You're gonna keep bringing this subject up aren't you?

JP  44:54  
Because that's his caveat. Basically 'I know nothing'.

Rob  44:56  
People forget, and think I have a clue what I'm talking about. And I don't and I need to remind 'em, but like, I mean, it's all everyone played. But I remember guys like Alex buying packs. I remember like, you know, for days you having packs sat on the side there. Well, that's Ian's, that's Alex's, you know, that's this persons, because you you bought them in bulk.

You could buy like, kind of a box of 10 or something. 

I don't know why you bought 10 boxes of 10. But still,

JP  45:23  
I didn't buy that many. I think I ended up with what five, five maybe? 

Rob  45:27  
Is it still quite a big competition scene?

Adrian  45:32  
They broke the algorithm that makes the decks or something along those lines. And they've spent a couple of years fixing them and it's now ready to be relaunched or has just relaunched. I've got funny feeling from the hype, or lack of, that they've missed the boat on this one now, because it was so hyped, it was just kind of fell off. It was starting to sort of come...  my understanding of it was it's starting to come back down again. And then the algorithm broke, which meant that it just kind of died on its ass basically at that point. And then now they fixed it. And they're going to relaunch it again, or they have relaunched it, but there doesn't seem to be as much fun about it this time round

JP  46:08  
It's a different company, though, isn't it, a different publisher. The guy who used to run FFG, it's his new company. And he's taken basically Key Forge IP...

Rob  46:18  
Cos didn't Ian sell like a deck for like £130. 

JP  46:20  
Yeah, he had a rare combination of cards and he got £300 or something for it. 

Rob  46:26  
Absolutley crazy. 

Adrian  46:27  
That was kind of the point wasn't it,  that if you buy a deck, you can't change it, it is fixed, the deck you buy might be crap , or it might be brilliant, you know, and there were people turning up with their worst decks that they handed to their opponent for the day and their opponent had to play with it. And it was whoever won out of that.

JP  46:43  
It was kinda reversed, I'll give you my shit deck, you give me yours, see who wins.

Adrian  46:47  
And you know, there was like random ideas like that around which were totally unheard of. But it was only possible because of the way that they made Key Forge. So you know, totally revolutionary, totally, totally different idea that they came up with and they did, and you know, unfortunately say the algorithm broke or whatever it was, but yeah, sometimes something totally different something I hadn't really done before

Rob  47:08  
It felt like a bit of a flash in the pan, it kind of came very quickly and...

JP  47:11  
We played at UK Games Expo, the tournament, a few of us. And we entered into the tournament, we didn't do very well. And the best thing about tournament was watching a grown man cry. I don't know who he was 

Rob  47:25  
Oh, seriously? I thought you were gonna say like Ian or someone... Balling his eyes out, bless him.

JP  47:30  
 I think it was the finals or something, and he ended up having a break down. But that was quite interesting. It's just Key Forge

Chris P  47:38  
Please do write to us if this was you. We'd love to hear from you. Please tell us why.

Rob  47:45  
But again, something very different. Something that again, accessible. Most people have heard of Magic: The Gathering Yeah, it was almost like a, like a, an easier version of something like that. Again, to bring people in...

JP  48:02  
It's a low cost entry point. 

Rob  48:03  
Exactly

JP  48:04  
Like £8 quid. And you're in.

Rob  48:06  
But even so

Adrian  48:07  
I'm still trying to do Star Wars Destiny. You know, Star Wars Destiny was one of theirs. And yeah, I really enjoyed that. Unfortunately, they... and I think they did the right thing, right, they got to the end of what seven seasons of bringing out cards. And they went yeah, we're going to wrap this up and close it now it's done. Like, rather than ware through and relaunch and cause any problems, they kind of went 'we're done with this now', packaged it up sort of thing, and then left it as it was, but totally different idea of sort of a mix of card building, and dice chucking sort of game that was really good. I really enjoyed it. And again, that had production issues at the start. And by the time they sorted out the production issues, some people had already sort of like cooled on it and stuff like that, but really strong really good game that they produced. That was again a not a living card game, but an actual trading card game

Rob  48:54  
I've never heard of that

JP  48:55  
You'd love it, I bet.

Rob  48:57  
Has it got Star Wars in it?

Adrian  48:58  
Yeah, 

Rob  48:59  
Then I'd love it.

Adrian  48:59  
I will... I'm basically putting together a few different decks like pre cons, so that I can just rock up and hand out some decks and tell them roughly what's in it, and then we can do it that way. So I'm kind of building... I've managed to get a bit more in the dice into my collections and that's what I'm gonna do so  we'll definitely get another night of that

JP  49:14  
That reminds me of like... it's got nothing to do with Street Fighter because it hasn't, but it's the fact that you pick, what is it one or two heroes from your side? And then your opponent picks one or two heroes, and you might be like Darth Vader and someone else and you've got like Han Solo and Luke or or whoever from the Star Wars universe, and you just battling each other, and you've got like an environment you're fighting on, you're chucking dice, you're going 'I'm gonna apply that, do that damage, put my shields up' and it's like that to-ing and fro-ing back and forth. Really good. Kind of battley card game slash dice game. Yeah, I think you'd love it.

Adrian  49:35  
And it works. It does work fairly well with three players as well, which is very rare for for any kind of trading card game to work well at more than two. But it actually works pretty well, it can get a bit lopsided if you gang up on each other. But assuming you sort of play in good spirit, then...

Rob  50:07  
I like the way 'it'll start in good spirits'. And then everyone'll be like... nope. 

Adrian  50:10  
Yeah maybe, but it was really... Yeah, I played a couple of three player games and really enjoyed it. Because, again, like trading card games don't normally allow three or four players without doing weird shenanigans to the base game. But no, perfectly. I took a deck that I'd be playing two player and I took to a three player game,, and it worked, you know? So... 

JP  50:29  
Happy days. 

Adrian  50:29  
Yeah, it's very, I was very impressed with it at the time. And I'm... I think they've done the right thing by packaging it up and saying 'this is done' rather than stretching it.

Rob  50:38  
Because the quality will gradually drop off as they're running out of things to do.

Adrian  50:43  
Yeah, the fact that it's based on an IP right, it means that they've only got limited space to go in. And after, you know, seven, seven seasons, or whatever it was, with about, I want to say about 14 to 16 characters a season, they were getting to the point where they were like, This is old Luke, this is young Luke, this is Luke from episode four, episode five of... you know, and so it was getting a bit like, how much more space have you got in this, but that was really good.

Rob  51:06  
And then it gets to a point of how much you're willing to pay for those tiny tweaks. And again, that is slowly coming down. But I mean, we're just looking at the list in front of me all the games that are on this list that I've absolutely loved playing. And I've loved introducing other people to them. And I remember the first time we played Mansions, one of the funniest times I've ever had, where Chris just snuck through and we wondered what he's doing and thought he was playing it wrong. And it turns out he just masterminded it, absolutely spanked us all, but even like Kerley has recently got into Lord of the Rings, The Living card game. Wonderful game, we know exactly where to stand, knew exactly what to do, because we played other living card games very similar. But even like for my birthday when you bought me Citadels, yeah. Wonderful game.

Adrian  51:58  
That was somebody... that was a different company that started that one, I believe

Rob  52:01  
Oh, was it? 

Adrian  52:01  
Yeah, but whoever, like, Z-man had it for a little while, and then another publisher had it for a while. But what a great game.

Rob  52:08  
It's fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. Cos Davey has the deluxe version. He's got the deluxe version with the additional characters, and stuff like that. Yeah. And I think you bought me, like the travel version, 

JP  52:19  
The classic version 

Rob  52:20  
Yeah, I think we played it on holiday, we've played it with our wives, played it with our children. And, again, easy enough that everyone kind of, there's enough to it, tactics wise that I get confused.

JP  52:33  
I'm the spy. I'm the thief.

Rob  52:35  
Yeah, and I gotta keep looking at my cards trying to figure out who the hell I am. But, but again, really, really enjoyed it. And yeah, so it's not all about the big, you know, the big mini packs that you get in like things like Descent and like Star Wars, but also, you know, the living card games. So obviously, Fantasy Flight isn't really Fantasy Flight anymore. They were bought out by Asmodee in in sort of 2014 15. Where would your hopes be? For the company moving forward, as in again, like, I know, it feels like they haven't had any big releases in a while. But like you said, You've got Unfathomable. You've got Outer Rim.

JP  53:11  
I think Adrians point's completely valid. I don't feel like they have for me. And that's a different thing, rather than them not having it

Rob  53:18  
Or is it more kind of double down on what they've already done? Like Marvel Champions and Outer Rim and Descent? I know, there's a new chapter of Descent Part Two coming out, I think at some point, which I'm very excited for.

JP  53:30  
I personally would like to see them try and go back to their innovative roots of, you know, when they brought out again Key Forge as an example, it was completely new, like no one had ever tried doing anything like that, that I know of. I'd like to see them experiment a little bit on some of those things. And you could say that have, with Descent, with the the app, they've kind of pulled out with that. That's definitely an experimentation. But yeah, I'd personally like to see and do some of that new stuff that maybe that the other publishers don't even kind of go near, to help differentiate themselves a little bit. That's my view.

Rob  54:10  
Chris, are you happy for them to keep bringing out Champions pack? Or would you like to see them do something a little bit different?

Chris P  54:16  
I'm always up for playing something different. Yeah, I always find myself revolving back to the old stuff. But yeah, if they want to do, do whatever they're going to do. Give it a go. I love the heavy thematic stuff. So yeah, keep keep with that. It's fine by me, but obviously you have people... everyone's got their own opinion, so do what they want. 

Rob  54:36  
What would it take for Adrian to fall in love again with the excitement part of FFG.

Adrian  54:49  
I don't mind Twilight Imperium fourth ed. It's just that.... it is that it's unbalanced and it's got feeling and that's it. I don't... for that amount of time. I want something more out of my experiences. And there's me saying that with Axis and Allies, which is just the same starting moves, that anyone who's played it will just always play the same starting moves again. So there's a bit of hypocrisy in there. But just you know, I think I'm really happy with what they've done separating out, giving their euros to Z-man, having FFG be what they are: big box games, big experience LCG's. And then handing over the miniatures side. There's two reasons for that is that FFG, when they first started had this horrible business model, which was very trading card game esque of, ah, you want to buy the Y wing for X Wing, the game, but the card you really want is in that Thai fighter, because basically, the Y wing is not really much without that one, and eventually it got to the point where they were like, what you really want to be competitive, is you want this like tiny little ship, but we've put the card that makes it good in this big £80 pound Star Destroyer, you buy that star destroyer, and this little ship gets good and gets competitive and tornament worthy. And they've over iterations from Armada into Imperial Assault into or into Imperial assault into Armarda, into Legion, they've slowly pulled that back and pulled it back to the point where I think it's more bearable now than it was in X Wing because they were really bad. It wasn't even like, oh, to get this X Wing good. You need to buy y wing. No, it was to get this X Wing good. You need to buy the other side's packs that you don't want to play potentially, you know, the TIE fighters. So Atomic Mass games certainly don't seem to be doing too much of that, now that they've got hold of the miniature games. So from that point of view, I think they've done good things there. I'd like to see them tighten up their rule sets a little bit. Because like, we'll use Marvel... I know, we talked about Marvel champions a lot when we said we wouldn't talk about LCGs. But there's a page and a half errata on the word 'You', and they still use it in all their packs. Why? Like, I've got to go through a page and a half errata to work out if this you means me as a player, or me as the alter ego hero. Why, four cycles later, are they still putting the word you into things? Just... 

Rob  57:06  
They are consistent 

Adrian  57:07  
It's impossible, they're consistently bad, it's just impossible to get an understanding of it. And you just think 'Why did you continue to do that?'

JP  57:15  
Adrian's vein on his head...

Rob  57:19  
I don't think I've read the rulebook 

Adrian  57:22  
Well, there you go then

JP  57:24  
You two are the complete spectrum opposite

Rob  57:26  
But look at how happy I am with that game.

Adrian  57:32  
I'm not to the point of 'the rule book is so bad it's off putting' it's to the point of I wish they would tighten up things that they know they have issues with. Because if you look at their questions that they answer in live streams, they're very aware. The rule sets aren't perfect. All of that kind of stuff is you know, I really am a big fan of FFG. And some of the stuff that yes, I've coolled on it over the years, but just wish they just sort of fine tune a few bits of their company, and from a 'where do they go from here?', Just keep doing the same stuff. Just get tighter at the corners as to how you like how you produce that.

Rob  58:09  
For me, it's just bringing out the Descent. You bring that game out, I will buy it until I die. Like I have no problem with that whatsoever. Keep doing what you're doing with Outer Rim, Unfathomable, just if you purely stick to those three games for the rest of the time, you will have a loyal customer until the end of days. And you know what? I'm not even ashamed of it.

JP  58:34  
It's about what you enjoy, isn't it? 

Rob  58:39  
And, like I say, all these games that I've got, I will play time and time again. And for me that, like you said the experience of playing those games, I always get a little bit of it, always.

Adrian  58:54  
I mean, it's why they keep releasing expansions right? FFG there's almost like... it's almost a meme of FFG, oh, what? They bought out an expansion? Of course they have! It's because that's how you get the new experiences. Imperial assault, they bought out several boxes, Journeys to Middle Earth, they've bought out several boxes and several little packs to add extra monsters in and all that. That's how they keep producing experiences by selling you a new expansion. So from a business model, brilliant, I will happily buy them you're kind of getting the new experience you need to keep buying the expansions. Right and so for some people that will be their hobby, that will be their life. It's just buying constant expansions one on top of the other. Nothing wrong with that at all.

Rob  59:32  
So just keep doing what you're doing. Fantasy Flight. I love it

Okay, now it's time for a question from a member of the public which has kindly got in touch with us on Instagram, @boardgameJimmy He's commented a lot, and he's asked a very valid question which I think will shake us to the very foundations of our soul

JP  1:00:02  
Before you ask it though, just a big shout out to Jimmy he's he's pretty much engages with us a lot,  comments a lot,  shares our stuff, so massive thank you.

Rob  1:00:10  
Thank you very much.

JP  1:00:11  
Thank you Jimmy for that and yeah, we love you man.

Rob  1:00:15  
His question, as deep and meaningful as it is, I will need to answer honestly. And respectfully please.

JP  1:00:22  
Okay. What is it?

Rob  1:00:24  
What is your snack and drink of choice when it's board game night 

JP  1:00:27  
Jesus? 

Rob  1:00:28  
Yeah, I know. I know. I did tell you, I tried to warn you.

Chris P  1:00:32  
I've just reeled back in my chair to think about this. This deep, deep

JP  1:00:37  
Pondering question.

Rob  1:00:38  
So Adrian, what's your go to energising drink and snack to get you through the hard slog of the minefield that is the epic beige, Euro game.?

JP  1:00:51  
What gets you moving those cubes

Adrian  1:00:57  
For me, it's especially when you're playing a day, right? You need sugar halfway through the day, you don't start with the sugar, because otherwise you'll just crash.. I've made this mistake. You bring out all the snacks to the table. So if I'm hosting, quite often I'll have... in a supermarket you get the packs of just like brownie chunks and snowballs, the marshmallow kinda tubs, they're normally like three for whatever or whatever it is, I'd have a couple of those on the side, it gets to like, three, four hours in the gaming or maybe a little bit before that. And then those tubs come out and it's normally whatever I could get my hands on, brownies and cookies and flapjack bites and all that kind of stuff. So that's why I tend to bring.

Rob  1:01:36  
So nothing specific, just a broad genre of baked goods?

Adrian  1:01:40  
We have the games day, and I just bought packs and packs of Maoam. Which went down really well. It's sugar, and it's something you know, in the middle of the day, they're just going to do that and on that basis as well.. M...y drink that I just everyone always goes why? But I've always got bottles of it in the house, is Irnbru, love Irnbru. And it's just sugary. Like even the extra one that doesn't have any sugar and tastes sugary right, like it just tastes of...

Rob  1:02:08  
And because it's not your typical choice, nobody will nick it. 

Adrian  1:02:13  
Yeah, pretty much 

Rob  1:02:14  
Because Kerley always brings a bottle of Pepsi Max, and I always nick at least two glasses. So I get your choice, 'this is my drink'

Adrian  1:02:21  
I just like it

JP  1:02:22  
That's just reminded me, I have to say before I forget, but I've never seen him so angry as when he had a bowl of Bombay mix that Becky and his brother Jay were stealing, and no matter what side he put it, on his left side Becky was stealing it, and put it on his right side and Jay was stealing it and he's like 'right just you all, just piss off out of my Bombay mix!

Rob  1:02:46  
He's a very gentle man isn't he? He doesn't get angry about a lot

Adrian  1:02:50  
I imagine if you nick a couple of his Ice pops... He turns up with these Ice pops, if you nick a couple of those without asking first he'll er....

Rob  1:02:56  
You've gotta ask. You've got to show a certain level of respect, you can't take, you have to ask

JP  1:03:01  
Love it, love him

Rob  1:03:02  
 I think I know what Chris's is. But go for it

Chris P  1:03:06  
Mine? To starts off with: a cup of coffee with a couple of sugars in it, just to get you started get the sugar hit going

Rob  1:03:11  
You've gon the other way to Adrian, you start with the sugar

JP  1:03:15  
He's got a five course menu

Chris P  1:03:16  
And then top up the sugar halfway through with Red Bull or a can of monster or something just to get you through to the rest of the day. But the actual snack choices are Pringles or Doritos. Easy. The savoury starch? Gimmie gimmie.

JP  1:03:28  
What Doritos flavour?

Chris P  1:03:29  
Oh chilly heatwave, definitely yeah

Rob  1:03:34  
Nice and dusty for your cards.

Chris P  1:03:35  
Yeah

Rob  1:03:41  
I think I know what yours is you you've been quite boring lately.

JP  1:03:45  
It depends I think, I didn't even think about this question being an all day event or just the gaming evening, so gaming evening it's literally cup of tea and that's it. I don't tend to snack, because I'm trying to be healthy. But if it's a board game day, then you need to eat at some point. 

Rob  1:04:02  
Bare in mind this is the man who cooks a full roast dinner when they play Twilight Imperium. 

JP  1:04:06  
I don't anymore 

Rob  1:04:08  
Only because you've managed to get it down to seven hours

Adrian  1:04:10  
You say that, when we had the last boardgame day you produced like chicken nuggets and pizzas 

JP  1:04:16  
Yeah that's easy

Adrian  1:04:17  
It was like a buffet.

Rob  1:04:20  
I need to start playing TI just so I can get fed.

JP  1:04:23  
I've once made shepherd's pie, which which we broke TI about what, three and a half hours in four hours in, right lets down tools... shepherd's pie time. And that went down well. That was pretty good.

Rob  1:04:36  
I'm not surprised. playing a board game and getting a plate...

JP  1:04:40  
Anyone want shepherd's pie, bit of vegetables? Lovely. So yeah, I don't tend to put as much effort in now, because I can't be arsed but 

Rob  1:04:49  
You've changed 

JP  1:04:50  
Adrians right, Pizza's are easy

Adrian  1:04:52  
If you're doing a full day, my roleplay group basically does like a Ploughman's thing, where they kind of just put the ham and the cheese and the bread rolls and all the...

JP  1:04:59  
Beige buffet baby!

Adrian  1:05:00  
Baby sausage rolls and all that kind of stuff,

JP  1:05:02  
Snack as you go

Adrian  1:05:02  
Well it's inoffensive. No-one normally turns it away, like, you know, cheese board and ham and all that kind of stuff do they? And it's cheap and it's easy, you don't need to cook it or anything. So my roleplay group, every time they have, like a full day, they do like a Ploughman's kind of thing on, whoever's hosting it

JP  1:05:24  
But when I snack, it's kettle chips. And it'd have to be the chilli, Thai chilli, chilli and sour cream, the red packet, oh the best ones. You always go into the supermarkets and they never have them, you have to get them online, oh it infuriates me. Your red kettle chips, man they are the best.

Rob  1:05:47  
This man has told me if ever I see them, I have to pick them up for him. For me, I tend to struggle with getting to events on time. So if I do have time to pick up snacks, it's usually Doritos.

Adrian  1:06:02  
Not Rustlers burger?

JP  1:06:04  
Davey.

Rob  1:06:06  
Not Rustlers burger, but it's usually a pack of Doritos. But the biggest problem I always have, is if I have food, I can't not eat it. I can't think 'I'll have that in two hours time'. I'm thinking 'well I've just eaten my tea, I feel quite full, but those crisps are looking quite tasty'

Chris P  1:06:24  
It's opening itself before your very eyes. 

Rob  1:06:26  
Yeah, I really struggle to just leave it for later. I'm thinking do you know what, I'll just eat now and deal with the consequences. It's the same when you take a packed lunch to work. It gets to about half past nine, and I'm like, 'hmmm, they're right there. It would take seconds'. The person who I love playing games with because I know his snack selection is bang on point. Tambo

JP  1:06:49  
 Tambo

Rob  1:06:49  
Tombo. You never know what he's gonna bring. It's always delicious. It was, it gets the point where if you need something sweet, he's got it. Yeah. If you need something, savoury, he's got it, to the point where on Sundays, because he's a chef, he'll bring you the roast dinner roll. Yeah, on a Sunday night.

Adrian  1:07:12  
So Kerley's birthday, he turned up with platters of random stuff. But it was like this is all delicious, thank you very much

Rob  1:07:19  
And it's wonderful food and you just never know what he's got. You know, and he's never not turned up with anything. It's the one constant in my life. Tambo will never let me down when it comes to bringing food to a game night

Adrian  1:07:31  
Tambo and taxes

Rob  1:07:32  
So thank you very much Tambo, we love you lots.

JP  1:07:35  
Your pork and stuffing baps are Legendary.

Rob  1:07:38  
So thank you very much for the question. Great. Yes. Great question. A lot of fun.

JP  1:07:42  
Yeah. And Jimmy, we look forward to seeing you at Gridcon

Adrian  1:07:46  
 Having had seen you. 

JP  1:07:47  
We saw you, it was brilliant and great to see you. Whenever we see you.

Rob  1:07:52  
This is where you have, and annoyed him, and he's thrown you for a window. 

JP  1:07:54  
Maybe Yeah, maybe, Cheers Jimmy 

Rob  1:07:57  
Thank you very much.

And now it's time for our penultimate turn, where we talk about what we're excited about what we've got coming up, what we're looking forward to, whether it's board game related, or anything in particular. Chris, I will start with you. What have you got in the pipeline, what've you got coming up, what're you looking forward to?

Chris P  1:08:20  
Going to be kind of boring, not too much, to be honest, just more the same what I'm doing, I would very much like to get into the calendar, a game of fury of Dracula, mainly because Halloween is just coming. Thinking about it, like halfway through October, I haven't played this game in like a year. And I'd really like to go again, and I think only like one person owns it. So I'm like kind of I have to reach out and go 'can I play this game with you please?' So I'd very much like to get one of those on the cards at some point. But apart from that,

JP  1:08:54  
I normally play it at Halloween. And I get the vibe. I think this was when you first...

Adrian  1:08:59  
My first game with the group.  It was the very first week of November 2 week of November, and that was Fury of Dracula

JP  1:09:06  
Been a year has it?

Rob  1:09:06  
Who owns that game? 

JP  1:09:09  
Two people

Rob  1:09:11  
When you said one person, I was pretty sure...

JP  1:09:15  
I'm one of them. I don't get to play it alot

Chris P  1:09:17  
I think Kerley owns it, and you own it don't you?

Rob  1:09:19  
You get confused with board games thinking thay're pokemon and you've got to catch them all. 

Charizard, Fury of Dracula!

Adrian, what have you got coming up mate?

Adrian  1:09:29  
Well, timey-wimey stuff I've either had or have got Gridcon coming up. But there's a couple of games that I've either bought recently, or I've sort of pencilled in to play. So one of them is Space Base. So I've just bought that recently. So it's a sort of, I'd say it's Quacks level. If you've played, if anyone's played Quacks of Quedlinburg it's kind of that weight, you have a lineup of ships numbered One to 12, you roll two dice, you either activate both dice separately, and they relate to the ships that are numbered that, or you add the two dice together and you get the higher value ship and the higher value the ship is, the more rewards you get. And then as you upgrade your ships, the ship, you kind of have upgraded turns upside down and gives you a different bonus that you get on another player's turn. So if they then roll, let's say you upgraded your three ship. So your three ship is now better. But the one that was there, goes upside down. And now if JP rolls two threes, I get to activate that twice. Well, if I have a six and you roll two threes, I get to put them both together and get

Rob  1:10:37  
the sounds right on my complication level.

Adrian  1:10:39  
It's one of those things where there's a little bit of decision making. But to some extent, you are kind of ruled by the dice a little bit, you have some 'oh I can add them together, or I can keep them separately' and some of the ships will say, Well, if you've rolled a 10, you get to have the 11 instead, because it's like instead you can activate the card to the right. And so there's loads of little choices in there. And it's just the first to 40 victory points. It's really not very heavy at all. I deliberately bought it for some of the friends and some of our gaming group here that are kind of those light to midweight sort of people. So I've got that one. And then the other one is I'm holding Marcus, to a game of Castles of Burgundy, because I've never played  before. I'm determined to play one this year. And it's one of his favourite games and just yeah, really want to give that a go. Again, that's another of 'roll two dice, and do some things'. But that's a bit heavier, a bit more Euro gamey. But yeah, definitely on my list of playing. So those are my kind of two that I'm really looking forward to.

Rob  1:11:34  
I like games with choice, but just not too much choice.

Adrian  1:11:37  
It's that thing of, you know, you are ruled, by both those games, you're ruled by some extent by the dice. But then you have to make choices based on those dice. So you can't plan too far forward like that. 

JP  1:11:47  
I like that because it's tactical rather than strategic. 

Rob  1:11:49  
But playing games, like, especially the Perseverance game, you've played that enough that you know, kind of now what everything does, as a new player coming into that... It's like, I've got no idea. Yeah. And knowing that everybody else has an idea is very...

JP  1:12:03  
You've got 15 choices. Rob, what do you want to do?

Rob  1:12:06  
I've run out, run out the front door and never come back. But like just that, that randomness, and you have to deal with what you've been given. That, for me is the perfect level of weight of a game

Adrian  1:12:19  
That's why I bought it. As I said, like, I'm kind of getting burnt out on to heavier board games on the long run of heavy board games recently. And just, I think I'm kind of overcompensating by buying lots of even lighter than I normally would go board games to put in my collection.

Rob  1:12:33  
So you've gone through a mix of games. So it's good. JP?

JP  1:12:38  
Obviously, I said Gridcon. And just as a mental note, it should be weird because the time this episode potentially comes out the grid con episode in spec expansion pack is probably already been out. So. So yeah, we had a great time, I think listen to that episode. And then you can hear all about what we, what our thoughts were. Just really weird, because we haven't done it yet. Time Travel, strange. So I'm really excited about ISS Vanguard, because we managed to get the tutorial started. About a week and a bit ago, I actually played the tutorial on my own just to kind of figure out the rules, figure out how it works, and then went 'No, I've got to play this with people', reset it, got people around and replayed it. So obviously, I kind of knew what was coming up. But it was fine. So yeah, the tutorials very, very well done. Which is no surprise, Mr. Grogan actually wrote the rule book on this one. And it's just a brilliant way, kinda reminds me of what you said earlier Adrian, and about how decks of cards are kind of seeded to help you learn the basics...

Adrian  1:13:42  
The best type of introduction I've seen to a game yeah.

JP  1:13:45  
I didn't really have to read the book. It kind of just walks you through. And it kind of...

Rob  1:13:48  
Just did it for pleasure 

JP  1:13:49  
I did it for pleasure afterwards. That shows that , I don't know what it is, I mean, ISS Vanguard is a very narrative-driven space adventure explorer game, think Mass Effect, like the kind of video games. And it's kind of split into kind of two stages. You've got the the exploration stage, where you're kind of on the planets, exploring things, threats are happening could be alien stuff, it could be... not Mr. Wibbels, but other things, could be just the environment. And you're working together to try and do stuff. And there's a lot of like audio narrative logs that are played for that, which is very immersive. And what's cool, lots of like, oh, this is what's happening. 'Oh my god, oh the ships gonna blow up', all that kind of stuff. And then that's kind of half the game. The other half is actually driven by what's called the Ship Book. And if you've ever played XCOM, the video game where you're like researching projects, and engineering, producing things and tech and all that kind of stuff. It kind of drives all of that, and it's done in a really efficient clever way. And actually you think I'm just reading through a binder because essentially what it is is a card binder. You kind of go through step by step and you're making decisions, but it's really engaging, like, yeah, I want to do that, and I do that. At the start, I have no idea where this thing is gonna go. But I'm totally like, just on my way. I'm like, I can't wait. Playing on Sunday. I'm gonna see what the hell's going on. Awesome.

Rob  1:15:12  
I love it when something grabs you that deep. You're just looking forward to doing it again.

JP  1:15:18  
I could play that just, probably five days straight and just crack through it, but... work, you know?

Rob  1:15:22  
Work, life, children. For me, I've recently got into... I listen to a lot of audiobooks. And I have got into a wonderful book series called He who fights with Monsters. Stupid tile, like, doesn't really have any explanation as to what's going on. And it's by a person called Shirtaloon, aka Travis Deverell. It's narrated by an Australian person who really brings it to life. And it's basically an RPG game story in book form, about these characters and everything else. And that's why I went back and started playing Skyrim, because you can kind of build a character very similar to what he does in in this book, wonderful book series, if anybody you know, reads anything other than anything other than rule books.

Is there anything else to read?

Chris P  1:16:33  
Quizzical looks on two faces,

Rob  1:16:37  
But no, check it out. Wonderful, wonderful book series. I'm already on Book Three. I cannot put this thing down to the point where I did all the housework on Thursday, because I had a day off just so that I can listen to the book. Because I don't want to sit there with my headphones in doing absolutely nothing like a madman. So I did the housework. I mean,

JP  1:16:56  
Rob was talking my ear off Halloween night, when we're walking the kids around the village. And he's like, I've just listened to this book. And you've got to listen to it. And I'm like, Yeah, I'll get there mate, but I'm not as big into books as you, you have the time to listen to them. 

Rob  1:17:07  
Only because I drive. I listened to him while I drive. And I do so much driving in my job that it just makes things

JP  1:17:13  
If I did the same, I would be doing exactly the same with the audio books, because it's just a great way, you get so bored of doing radio don't you?

Rob  1:17:21  
But if anyone reads or listen to audiobooks, check that book out because it's a book series, and it's absolutely fantastic. So that's what I've been getting into. And that's why I've gone back playing Skyrim again. So yeah. And that with the final turn wrapped up, it's time to make sure that you've killed the boss totalled up victory points and decided who's won. Thank you very much for listening. If you do want to get in contact with the podcast, our email address is players@whoseturn.co.uk Our Facebook is Whose turn is it anyway podcast. Our Instagram is @whoseturnpodcast and our Tiktok is @whoseturnisitanyway Thank you very much again for listening and we'll see you on the next episode. Ciao.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai