Dark Souls (Cards): Catacombs of the Abyss

A board game session from Dark Souls: The Card Game

Descending a hidden ladder within the cathedral, the team prepares to battle more undead with our herald switching to the more magical arts of the sorcerer class (mom), while the rest remain the same: assassin (wifey), warrior (DL) and cleric (me).

The path ahead has two branches, a shorter but tougher one or an easier but longer one. We decide to take the short (level II) path first and get absolutely wrecked by a giant skeleton and an Alonne knight that guard the pass with a few invisible enemies (can't attack them until the others are dead). It's a close victory but we still have to retreat to the bonfire afterwards.

For our second excursion we took the longer (level I + level I) route, and while our sorcerer got hammered by a bad combo involving a big hollow and a crystal lizard, we manage to push through to the chamber of High Lord Wolnir: a lich so massive, his main body doesn't move (and can't be hit). Instead its his two giant hands that we need to destroy while they slam, slap and claw us around. It is an incredibly close fight with DL clinching the win just before we are defeated (I used up all my heals)!

Wolnir is better designed in the card game than in the PC game.

A quick trip back to the bonfire earns our assassin the onion knight's Catarina Armor. She's not too happy with it as it looks ridiculous but quickly changes her tune when we proceed onwards (level II) and encounter the pyromaniac Xanathous King Jeremiah! The armor saves her from a lot of damage and her special backstab which only does one damage turns out to be fantastic against weak but heavily armored enemies.

We opt to return to the bonfire to recover before fighting through the same area again (level II, but no invader this time) and make it to the final boss of this area: the Abyss Watchers - the lead of whom does big damage. His two allies though? Not so much. We quickly decide to just ignore them since it would cost more cards to attack them than to just tank their hits.

The weaker ones vanish anyway once we reach phase two where the main Abyss Watcher consumes his allies to gain strength and start doing area attacks worth seven damage! I manage to use an acid spray scroll to weaken his armor and he is promptly brought down by everyone else in that same round, with the sorcerer blasting him away as the finishing move. Area cleared!

Compared to the video game Wolnir is much harder in card form while the Abyss Watchers are far easier in card form.

August 2021 Review: Lockdown 2 Month 2

Sounds like a level of GTFO!

The lock down continues for me and I'm really missing our regular board game sessions. The Dark Souls: Card game ones I'm posting now are the last we managed to play prior. PC game wise Ghost Recon Wild lands has taken a back seat on the Friday night co-op list for Strange Brigade which is both funny and cool. Basically we start with GTFO then switch game when Archer needs to leave (not everyone can play into the wee hours). Meanwhile my non-Fridays are filled with a random scattershot of games, movies or TV shows which no doubt I'll be posting about shortly. :P

Most Viewed Posts in the last 30 days:

The Banner Saga
GTFO: R5B1 - Smother (Normal)
GTFO: R5A1 - Floodways (Extreme)

The Banner Saga was a really fun thing to play through. You do need all three games though so that you can do the full story. No surprises that the GTFO play through / walk throughs are back to round out the top three.

Dark Souls (Cards): The Pontiff and his Dog

A board game session from Dark Souls: The Card Game

On a quest to stop the coming darkness, four adventurers arrived at the border of Irithyll City: a warrior (DL), herald (mom), assassin (wifey), and cleric (me). After a quick scout of the lesser patrolled areas (level I and I) to get some practice in they returned with their hard earned loot at the bonfire. DL was not happy as his weapons didn't make it to his hand during these and he basically served as the monster's punching bag.

The same again happened passing through the next (level I) area to reach our first boss: Vordt, the armored giant dog that breathes ice (additional damage if you walk around). It is an intense battle where everyone lands hits on the beast until finally it is brought down by the cleric (a rare thing since I barely ever attack). After recuperating at the bonfire, DL earns the wolf great sword which is finally a worthy weapon in his eyes.

The sword comes in handy as the team tries to reach the cathedral (via a level II path) and encounter Knight Slayer Tsorig. Using the blade and his special ability to hit an entire row, DL cleaves through the opposition and leads us to victory - earning the Knight Slayer Ring (ignore 1 point of enemy armor).

Since Tsorig hurt us bad in the fight, its back to the bonfire to recover and then back through the same (level II) path which is now guarded by silver knights and an old knight who has incredibly high armor. Too bad for him, he is weak to magic and the cleric uses his magic shield to eradicate the trouble some foe.

We needed to beat three of his clones!

Finally the party reaches the cathedral to face Pontiff Sulyvahn, a psycho dual sword wielder who summons clones of himself during combat. Despite this HP sponge gimmick, he proves to be an easier fight than his dog Vordt and the party quite easily defeats him with the assassin landing the killing blow, completing this zone. 

Compared to the video game Vordt was a lot harder in card form while the Pontiff was much easier in card form.

GTFO: R5A2 - Recollect (Overload)

We're going backwards on the floor level today to complete a mission we've done many times now, only this time we're going after the OVERLOAD bulkhead which is short, sweet and deadly. For the most part, our entire run follows the normal version with a few differences, starting with the load out.

DL: DMR/Sniper/Mines
Archer: Heavy SMG/Sniper/Auto Sentry
Me: Auto Pistol/Combat Shotgun/Auto Sentry
Jim: DMR/Combat Shotgun/Auto Sentry

Note: We didn't go for Prisoner Efficiency, which means also doing the Extreme version (turn off the lights) on top of everything. We'll save that for when we need to unlock the E floor.

Tool Expenditure was as follows:
1 mine for the regular bulkhead class II cluster alarm
3 mines and two auto sentries on the long bridge for the class III cluster alarm

After opening the cargo room (Zone 20) is when most of the changes take place. It is important that in this entire segment, one person stays in the long bridge room to prevent the cocoon chamber from respawning. Also do not pick up the Hi-Sec cargo until everything is ready! This includes looting and sharing out the supply packs in Zone 20, again mining the long bridge and leaving one auto sentry there. Facing the Overload bulkhead (which is in the same room as the bridge), turn left and find some stairs up.

We put another auto sentry here facing the bulkhead, and a few low mines. Upstairs, at the over watch position looking at the Overload bulkhead the last auto sentry faced the stairs. Most importantly, Archer was carrying some fog repellers and Jim and I each had a c-foam grenade. Once set, DL and Archer took the over watch position while Jim collects the Hi-Sec cargo and just takes it out of Zone 20, then drops it to head to over watch.

This starts the endless "final chase" waves of 2-3 strikers and also unlocks the overload door which I open. Inside is one big room with random pillars and a single hard disk inside a cabinet we need to collect. Of course, it is guarded by a mother which auto-wakes as soon as the door opens. Mothers fart dense fog which makes it difficult to track them, and more worryingly can keep birthing 10-15 baby strikers every minute or so. While our team have snuck past one previously (for Archer, this was his first), we've never killed one before. This changes now. :)

Combat plan is simple: hold the over watch position until the first wave of babies is dealt with, then while Archer throws fog repellers from upstairs Jim and I charge in with C-foam and combat shotties. Of course, I miss my grenade throw. Luckily Jim doesn't and so with the mother frozen we can destroy all the bulbs on her back really quickly with the combat shotgun pair and finally put her down.

Then the snipers simply have to hold position while the shot gunners retrieve the hard disk. Afterwards, someone has to carry the cargo while everyone else covers and as a team head to the extraction point to hold and GTFO! FIRST MOTHER KILLED! YAY!

Dark Souls: The Card Game

(and the Seekers of Humanity expansion)

Based on the computer game series of the same name, this deck builder sees up to four players cooperatively strive to defeat two bosses (per session) before their bonfire dies out. This bonfire dwindles each time the players use it to intentionally to claim their hard won loot, or each time the team is sent there automatically if one of their number dies.

Much like the original game, visiting the bonfire restores you but also returns enemies in the areas previously cleared. This isn't too bad, since there are only around five "rooms" per map, of which you'll likely only visit three at most - encounters that also feature minions from the game, and if you have the Seekers of Humanity expansion - the much deadlier invaders.

Combat is pretty simple once you get the hang of it, and your deck holds armor and shields to defend yourself against the enemies who always move first as well as weapons to strike back - each having multiple options of various stamina (also cards in your deck). Using these will eventually send them to your discard pile, as does taking damage - and outside a few select healing abilities you won't ever get your discarded cards back until you use the bonfire. Run out of cards? You died.

It's an interesting system but one where you get hands where there is nothing you can do during your turn. Is it as hard as the computer game? Nope. It also doesn't really have much lore/story to it on its own, so having someone familiar with the franchise helps. I still quite enjoy it though and give it three souls out of five.

Play through:
Chapter 1 - The Pontiff and his Dog
Chapter 2 - Catacombs of the Abyss
Chapter 3 - Linking the Fire
Chapter 4 - Pursued into the Darkness

That's it for now. Thanks for reading!

Incomplete Feels: Verdun Genshin Impact

Something's missing.

Verdun

This mainly PVP WW1 trench warfare shooter has people group up into squads of four (with 32 max on each side) to compete in either pure death match or to push forward the front line in matches across various maps. Note: there are some co-op vs AI modes but those feel tacked on. While weapon load outs can be unlocked with XP points, they are mainly fixed to the company and squad member you are playing so not everyone will not have the same gear even if they are on the same side.

Two people shooting one enemy? What a waste of ammo.

While it works well enough there is one glaring problem in it for me: Ammo. You spawn with ammo, and that's all you get. There is no method to get more, nor can you collect gear from fallen allies or enemies. This means at some point, you will be running up to the enemy to punch/melee them which is really annoying and also makes the game feel incomplete. Out of ammo? Just go die and respawn to start having fun again. Stupid design. Still worth a look if you are interested, but not one for my gaming group. I give it one and a half executions for desertion out of five. Yeah, don't run off the map.

Genshin Impact

Set on a fantasy world with incredibly cute slimes, you are tasked with finding your sibling who has been abducted by a god. The gorgeous world is currently at a decent size and great to explore, especially with your glider and the combat system which focuses on how elements interact with each other is really neat. Voice and music wise, it's also very good and the story is quite easy to get engrossed in.

"Hmm, something is missing though..."

Until you are forcibly pushed out to do "fillers". Yep, since story chapters have a mandatory "Adventure Rank" level you need to reach before unlocking expect to your main quest (in the prologue it's protecting a city from a dragon) to be interrupted by the likes of chores such as food delivery, obtaining a glider license and retrieving books that need to be returned to the library. Dailies and weeklies exist too, because we can't neglect everyone's favorite (sarcasm) "kill ten rats" quests. It's always surprises me to find MMO mechanics in single player games, that's just poor design. I grind enough in MMOs thank you.

To top that off, you also are basically stuck with your initial party unless you play the gambling gachapon stuff (recruit at random) AND on top of fillers between actual story, the edges of the world reek of being unfinished BECAUSE IT IS. That's a shame because it's such a nice game but these problems just suck the fun out of it. Worse: instead of devs releasing actual content, they just keep putting out more and more gachapon characters because that's easier. 

In it's current state, I don't recommend this to anyone as it's currently just a really pretty money toilet. If you still want to try it out, I hope you enjoy flushing.

Chernobyl 1986 (movie) and Blood Red Sky

Two disasters. Only one isn't boring...

Chernobyl 1986

Don't worry, I'll always be an indecisive idiot.

When flakey fireman Alexey reunites with his old flame Olga it feels like a midday drama come to true. The actors do a good job with what they are given but the plot simply plods along until for unexplained reasons the reactor explodes , and then the story becomes ultra interesting continues to plod along slowly. It almost feels like they were intentionally adding padding in some cases.

I for one always wondered why they didn't make a movie about the Chernobyl "dive team" and now I have my answer. At least the film is upfront about being fictional with the characters but it really feels second rate compared to the HBO Chernobyl series. Watch that one instead. I give this one and a half ropes out of five and wouldn't watch it again.

Blood Red Sky

Nadja (Peri Baumeister) does a great job of being a caring mother to her sometimes capable but more often annoying, headstrong kid. She also does a great job of being a self conscious vampire seeking treatment for her condition overseas. This involves a flight that unfortunately has hijackers involved. Queue the vamp on a plane shenanigans which prove to be highly entertaining.

Ready for some in-flight entertainment.

The plot moves along at a quick pace for this action flick and there is a decent body count and gore to go with it so yes, I very much enjoyed this one and can recommend it to other action / vampire fans. I give it three autopilots out of five and would watch it again.