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10Nov/12

In this episode, we are joined by a fourth host – Noah from New Jersey has made the trek to Kansas, and has joined the cast of the Gamer’s Haven Podcast.

We sit down and update you, our faithful listeners, about what we’ve been up to over the last few months, and then dive into a discussion about the whole GM vs. Player mentality that floats around at times – you know the mentality, the one where the GM says players ruin his/her adventures, and where the players say the GM is out to get them?  Yeah, we tackle that one.

In the Three Parter, we all take on some reviews.  Nathan kicks things off with a review of the Fantasy Flight Games Star Wars: X-Wing game.  Ethan talks about the Z-Man Games cooperative board game, Pandemic.  Jeremy talks a bit about the Sine Nomine Publishing setting, Stars Without Number.  Finally, Noah chats a bit about the new Sentinels of the Multiverse Enhanced Edition, Rook City, and Infernal Relics expansions from Greater Than Games.

We wrap things up with some Random Encounters (of which we need more!) and talk about some Kickstarters that you should be checking out.

Running Time on this Episode is 99 minutes.

 About X-Wing

Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures Game is a tactical ship-to-ship combat game in which players take control of powerful Rebel X-wings and nimble Imperial TIE fighters, facing them against each other in fast-paced space combat. Featuring stunningly detailed and painted miniatures, the X-Wing Miniatures Game recreates exciting Star Wars space combat throughout its several included scenarios. Select your crew, plan your maneuvers, and complete your mission!

Whatever your chosen vessel, the rules of X-Wing facilitate fast and visceral gameplay that puts you in the middle of Star Wars fiercest firefights. Each ship type has its own unique piloting dial, which is used to secretly select a speed and maneuver each turn. After planning maneuvers, each ship’s dial is revealed and executed (starting with the lowest skilled pilot). So whether you rush headlong toward your enemy showering his forward deflectors in laser fire, or dance away from him as you attempt to acquire a targeting lock, you’ll be in total control throughout all the tense dog-fighting action.

Star Wars: X-Wing features (three) unique missions, and each has its own set of victory conditions and special rules; with such a broad selection of missions, only clever and versatile pilots employing a range of tactics will emerge victorious. What’s more, no mission will ever play the same way twice, thanks to a range of customization options, varied maneuvers, and possible combat outcomes. Damage, for example, is determined through dice and applied in the form of a shuffled Damage Deck. For some hits your fighter sustains, you’ll draw a card that assigns a special handicap. Was your targeting computer damaged, affecting your ability to acquire a lock on the enemy? Perhaps an ill-timed weapon malfunction will limit your offensive capabilities. Or worse yet, your pilot could be injured, compromising his ability to focus on the life-and-death struggle in which he is engaged…

The Star Wars: X-Wing starter set includes everything you need to begin your battles, such as scenarios, cards, and fully assembled and painted ships. What’s more, Star Wars: X-Wing’s quick-to-learn ruleset establishes the foundation for a system that can be expanded with your favorite ships and characters from the Star Wars universe.

Buy X-Wing from the Noble Knight Games

Buy X-Wing from the Gamer’s Haven Amazon Store

About Pandemic

Several virulent diseases have broken out simultaneously all over the world! The players are disease-fighting specialists whose mission is to treat disease hotspots while researching cures for each of four plagues before they get out of hand.

The game board depicts Earth with several major population centres. On each turn, a player can use up to four actions to travel between cities, treat infected populaces, discover a cure, or build a research station. A deck of cards provides the players with these abilities, but sprinkled throughout this deck are Epidemic!cards that accelerate and intensify the diseases’ activity. A second, separate deck of cards controls the “normal” spread of the infections.

Taking a unique role within the team, players must plan their strategy to mesh with their specialists’ strengths in order to conquer the diseases. For example, the Operations Expert can build research stations which are needed to find cures for the diseases and which allow for greater mobility between cities; the Scientist needs only 4 cards of a particular disease to cure it instead of the normal 5.

But the diseases are spreading quickly and time is running out. If one or more diseases spreads beyond recovery or if too much time elapses, the players all lose. If they cure the four diseases, they all win!

Buy Pandemic from Noble Knight Games

Buy Pandemic from the Gamer’s Haven Amazon Store

About Stars Without Number

The year is 3200 and mankind’s empire lies in ashes.

The Jump Gates fell six hundred years ago, severing the links between the myriad worlds of the human diaspora.

Now, the long isolation of the Silence falls away as men and women return to the skies above their scattered worlds.

Will you be among them?

Stars Without Number is a retro science fiction role playing game influenced by the Old School Renaissance and partially inspired by the great fantasy role-playing game editions written by Tom Moldvay and Frank Mentzer. The contents are compatible with most old school clones and are designed to be easily imported to your own favorite gaming system. In addition to a complete pre-made stellar sector, Stars Without Number offers GMs and players the tools to create their own sandbox-style adventures in the far future.

  • Classic mechanics adapted for science-fiction adventure in the far future
  • Extensive GM support for building adventure-crammed sandbox settings more quickly and easily
  • World building resources for creating system-neutral planets and star sectors
  • 100 adventure seeds and guidelines for integrating them with the worlds you’ve made
  • Old-school compatible rules for guns, cyberware, starships, and psionics
  • Domain rules for experienced characters who want to set up their own colony, psychic academy, mercenary band, or other institution

While Stars Without Number can be fitted to a wide range of settings, the backdrop provided is a vast canvas of scattered stars awaiting exploration by intrepid spacefarers and bold explorers. Tramp starships flit from world to world, trading the treasures of distant suns as reckless wanderers find adventure beneath alien stars. Elite mercenary bands launch surgical strikes from orbit, grav-tank dropcraft crashing down on the heads of native kings while guerilla fighters plot to draw knives in the dark of two moons. Alien eyes watch human interlopers from the acidic mists of forbidden worlds, their shining, poisonous relics plundered by daring hands. All the classic elements of sci-fi adventure have room to shine in Stars Without Number. Come make them your own!

Get Stars Without Number for Free from RPGNow

About Sentinels of the Multiverse

A mad scientist holds the world hostage with his terrifying inventions. An alien warlord from a far away galaxy brings his limitless army of bizarre minions to conquer the planet. A giant rampaging robot cuts a swath of destruction across the coast, destroying major population centers. And who will stand in their way? A team of heroes, all with impressive powers and abilities stand between the world and the forces of evil. Will you help them? Answer the call to protect the multiverse!

Sentinels of the Multiverse is a cooperative, fixed-deck card game with a comic book flavor. Each player plays as one of 10 heroes, against one of 4 villains, and the battle takes place in one of 4 different dynamic environments.

Each player, after selecting one of the heroes, plays a deck of 40 cards against the villain and environment decks, which “play themselves”, requiring the players to put the top card of the appropriate deck into play on the villain and environment turns. On each player’s turn, they may play a card from their hand, use a power printed on one of their cards in play, and draw a card from their deck. Each round starts with the villain turn, continues clockwise around the table, then concludes with the environment turn. Each villain has various advantages, such as starting with certain cards in play, as specified by the villain character card. Play continues until the heroes reduce the villain to 0 or fewer HP, or until the villain defeats the heroes, either via a win condition or by reducing all the heroes to 0 or fewer HP.

This re-release of Sentinels of the Multiverse comes in a larger box with space for the cards from the core game as well as the Rook City and Infernal Relics expansions. Besides the full set of dividers cards, HP tokens, modifier tokens, and improved artwork throughout the game, it also includes updated card rules to fix a few mechanics from the original print run, as well as to include the (H) mechanic introduced in the Rook City expansion, which balances the game for 3-5 players.

Buy Sentinels of the Multiverse Products from Noble Knight Games

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