Lords of War Tourney for a Birthday Party... Genius!

Regular readers will know that Jacob and i are pretty mad for Lords of War and its probably the game we play most together out of all that he is able to. The simple rules and easy to follow mechanics make it ideal for any gamer, and Jacob has often taken his sets into school on end of term game days and taught his mates how to play!

Earlier this year Jacob said he would like to have some friends over to play Lords of War for his birthday, and he asked if i could set it up as a proper tournament for them which of course i said yes as it was a great plan haha.

In passing at Salute i mentioned to Martin (Of Black Box Games) that we were doing an LoW party for Jacobs birthday and he thought this was an amazing idea too... Roll on to November and a big box of LoW goodies arrived at our door from Nick & Martin, packed full of posters, gaming mats for the boys, some tshirts and one massive stack of shinny command cards for prizes!


So yesterday was the big day and Jacob and i transformed our bunker into a venue fitting for such an epic clash of Generals:

Round 1 was ready to kick off as our mighty generals faced off across the fields of war! The boys were all excited to take part in a proper tournament with me officiating and solving rules questions:

Round 1 drawing to a close with victories for the Dwarves, Undead and Lizardmen:

Round 2 ready to start after consuming some cookies of ultimate strength and the malteasers of destiny!

Round 2 in full swing as strategies learned in game 1 are used and refined against new opposition with desperate combat erupting across the land... this round saw victories for the Dwarves, Undead and Elves:

Our Generals required more sustenance for the final conflicts ahead... Jacket Potatoes of Wisdom aided by the Cheese and Beans of Justice :

Round 3 and the last great battles of our time were being waged as darkness drew close, long were the struggles and valiant were all our generals but victories were had by Dwarven, Lizardmen and Elvish commanders:

After a total up of the points scored using the official LoW system Jacob had won, but he had beforehand decided to pass on the winners prizes to the second place if he won as he had received his own tshirt, posters and shiny commander cards from Nick & Martin. Victorious instead was George her receiving his tshirt from Jacob and with a tin and full set of Dwarven Commander shinies. All of Jacob's friends took home a mat and a selection of shiny commanders along with badges:

They all had a great time and have begun bugging their parents for card packs of their own haha, they all wish for this to become a regular event so we are planning the next tourney for the Christmas holidays or early new year.

If you haven't played lords of war yet i cannot recommend it enough, its a lot of fun, easy to pick up, many many hours of play for the entire family not just hardened gamers.

Myself, Jacob and my wife Emma would like to thank Nick & Martin for helping to make Jacobs party such a great event and we look forward to the new challenges that the Undead vs Templars expansion pack will bring to our games! Cheers guys!

Spotlight: Lords of War Tourney @ Play Margate

Last Sunday i took Jacob down to the retro gaming show in Margate for a boyz day out and to play in the Lords of War tourney that was taking place on the last day of the show:

Sadly i couldn't repeat my performance in the Expo Championship and i lost out in the semi finals to Hamdi Tajaddin, a really good player rocking those dirty Templars!!!

The Final was a very tight game between Hamdi and the eventual winner, Mikael (Pictured with MY Sword haha). Jacob and i had a great day out and met some top people, Martin and the LoW gang were as always, a great laugh and it was nice to hang out with them for the day.

I cant be too dispondant tho as i currently top the Lords of War World League table for 2015, hopefully i can keep that spot with Dragonmeet coming in December!

Top 10 Players 2015

(as of 26th August 2015)

† = One Star General

†† = Two Star General

#	Player Name	Score (in 2015)	Favoured Faction
1	† Richard Bowker	284	Dwarves
2	†† Alex Sharpe	231	Dwarves
3	†† Mike Assuhidis	228	Undead
4	Jake Cambell-Smith	216	Elves
5	Kenzie Elton	151	Mercenary
6	† Gobbo Leone	143	Mercenary
7	Martin Kempken	119	Mercenary
8	† Ben Rowland	115	Dwarves
9	Hamdi Tajaddin	114	Templars
10	Jack Shaw	110	Mercenary

Whilst chatting with the guys i was able to get some goss on the next expansion for Lords of War, Undead vs Templars 2 and also on future products that i am able to discus hehe:

• The Kickstarter for UvT2 is most likely coming in October as they are finalizing some of the art work for it.
• The Undead will have necromancy as their magic type; They can "curse" an enemy unit, and if that unit dies with the token on it the Undead player can raise the unit to their side!
• Templars magic ability is "Inspiration", they will be able to buff their units to allow them to move along their attack arrows... Templar Cavalry is to be feared!!!
• The vote for the next race pack was won by Pirates vs Ninjas; quite a few details are still to be worked out but Pirates will have a selection of units that can shoot sideways like the broadsides of a ship haha, and Ninjas will have special attack arrows that dont show a value... they will use the values of enemy units and turn their strengths against them!
• A second terrain pack is being worked on, and they have plans for a multiplayer mat :-D

More details will come over the next few months and we are really looking forward to the Kickstarter and building up our Undead and Templar decks! Roll on October!

Lords of War: One last hurrah!!!!

Well well well, as I type Lords of War by Black Box Games has around 11 hours to go on the latest kickstarter campaign and it has certainly done well!

 

 

 

 

I would love to have backed this with a mega pledge as its such an amazing game but I already have all the existing sets hehe, so we are in for the expansion pictured above.

 

 

Now that's not all tho, due to the phenomenal success of the campaign our 10 pound pledge will net us the following too:

 

 

 

 

 

 

61 cards to further expand and customize our decks so Jacob and I can field exactly what we want in the on going struggle to be the best in our house hahaha

 

 

Seriously tho, its an incredible deal and if your still on the fence check out the how to play vids and snap up this great little game... you wont be disappointed!

 

 

Also, I shall be attending the Lords of War tourney at the UK Expo so expect a full write up of that along with a hopefull an interview with Martin and Nick!





Spotlight: Lords of War Elves vs Lizardmen Expansion

The guys from Black Box Games have just put the expansion to the Elves and lizardmen set on kickstarter and its funded in just 3 days!!!


Regular readers will know that my son and I love Lords of War, he was over the moon when I told him it had funded and he cant wait to get the new cards and try and crush my dwarves haha.


We did a review of the previous expansion and the original Elves v Lizardmen which can be found here for new readers.


Well a new set needs new cards, and Nick and Martin from BBG have sent me over a digital copy of the cards and artwork show off some previews:

 

 

Both the decks are greatly enhanced by these additions, making the them do more of what they did before, and the magic users for these races are very characterful and deadly... seriously, if your playing as a dwarf kill them asap haha.


Every end of term my son Jacob has taken LoW to school and taught his mates how to play, and recently some of there parents (Heathen non gamers!) have asked about picking up some sets hehe, Jacob wants me to run a tourney for his birthday later in the year so that will get a blog too.


lords of War is awesome, back it!!!!!!!!!!





Spotlight: Lords of War Extended!

My son and I play Lords of War quite regularly, and it has a decent following at the Bunker, so we were looking forward to receiving our copy of the Orcs v Dwarves Expansion: Magic & Monsters!

Since we chipped in together for our set from Cymbeline Games we picked up a t-shirt for our favourite factions; Dwarves for me and Undead for Jacob.

Dwarves rule! No Undead rule!

Having played a few games with the new set integrated into our armies we really like what it brings to the game! The magical units like the Dwarf Arcanist and the Orc Flame Thrower are great support units being able to buff your troops and put some lingering damage on tough enemy units. We do have our firm favourites tho... Jacob loves the Orc Bullwhip (A rather tasty ranged and melee unit that can move about the board) and I love the Dwarf Orgun Gun (Proper artillery that can cover a massive area of the board and lay down some serious hurt!).

Mid game is now really crucial, you need to preserve your commanders as taking them out is a viable win strategy... In our first game with the expansion Jacob had all his commanders in play very early so although he was ahead on card kill I was able to pick his heroes off by sacrificing weaker cards for the greater good! 

 

 

 

I cannot recommend this game enough, there is a lot of depth to it and by adding in the terrain and weather cards you get the feel of a proper tabletop wargame without the cost haha, and the kickstarter for the expansion to Elves vs Lizardmen is coming next month so there has never been a better time to get involved and pick up Lords of War!



Spotlight: Lords of War by Black Box Games

Second post of the day! I have been given a copy of "Lords of War: Elves vs lizardmen" by Black Box Games, by my good friend Tom at Cymbeline Games who is looking at stocking the range.

 



Lords of War is a card based system where armies of Dwarves, Orcs, Elves and Lizardmen battle on a map in a game of skill and strategy. They are currently running a kickstarter campaign to produce a third expansion with the Noble Templars pitched against the forces of the Undead:

 

 

I had some time this evening to sit down for a game with my stepson Jacob, he was very looking forward to playing as he loves card games like Munchkin and Smash Up!

 

First off we had a good look through the card packs and I explained to him what all the stats meant and how placement, combat and reinforcement works, and with this over and done with we were ready for a war:

 

 

 

 

 

The two forces are quite evenly matched, the elves have greater missile fire and the lizzies have better close in hitting power. The rules were very straight forward to read and after a few minutes we were both experts haha. Combat is based on the attacks of units exceeding the defence value of the enemy, you can gang up your forces to defeat a powerful foe as long as the arrows (see above photo) point at the enemy unit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Combat is simultaneous so can quickly swing to favour one side with a well placed card! Our game was very close, and Jacob picked up the finer points of strategy and tactics very quickly, I ended up victorious 20 kills to 15 :-D

 

 

We both really like Lords of War and are looking forward to playing it again tomorrow... please back BBG's kickstarter, the link is at the top of the review... or order a copy from Cymbeline Games haha