Quick Game Look - Cardfight Vanguard

As the people of Hooting into the Abyss know, I like robot based games as much as some people like Skaven, the richness of Malifaux or sleeving cards. It was thus probably inevitable I would try this one at some point. What caught my eye was the card in the picture above - it's illustrated by the fairly renowned animator and designer Masami Obari, who I'm quite a fan of. Buying a game based on one illustrator being involved seems a really bad idea, but buoyed by terrible influence from some other friends I nevertheless did so.

CabinCon

CabinCon

We are now only a couple of weeks away from the Hooting event of the year, CabinCon, the origins of the name are shrouded in mystery but it is a name that evokes joy in the heart of all the hooters.

The concept is simple, one cabin, 17 hooters and a plethora of games, any games, all of the games! We will be spanning board games, tabletop games, card games and RPG’s all in the space of 6 glorious days.

So whats going on I hear you ask? Come on, surely someone asked that? Well, here are the main games and some of the participants anyway.

Avengers Vs X-Men Battle Report, Month Three

After a little delay, it's time for the third Avengers vs X-Men event. The X-Men have travelled the world looking for Hope Summers and the Phoenix Force has finally arrived on Earth.

Iron Man's "Phoenix-Buster" armour didn't stop the Phoenix, instead it just broke the creature into smaller forces which imbued five X-Men with world-changing powers. This month we re-enact that battle with a selection of X-Men and Avengers.

The tournament changed up for this month, as we all get to use the Phoenix Force resource dial which was given to us in month one and the Phoenix shards which we've acquired in each tournament so far. We have six hundred points of Avengers or X-Men to pick teams from; the Avengers gain some bonuses but the X-Men imbue their team with new powers from the shards. It's... confusing. The dial was strange to get used to at first but between the YouTube tutorial and talking it over with the other competitors it seemed like something which just might work. The Phoenix Force has a dial with powers and modifiers on, which everyone assigned a Phoenix shard gets. They all also have a power based on a character who was originally one of the "Phoenix Five". If you knock someone out then the powers on the dial change up. If one of your Phoenixes is KO'd then the rest get more powerful to make up for it. So yeah, not too bad, just a little weird at first.

TEAM BUILDING

I was torn with a couple of ideas for teams, having recently acquired a few new X-Men pieces and wanting to try them out. As the one fan of Cyclops (yes, I know) I still wanted to have a Summers family day out. Instead though, I decided to go with the X-Men Time Team:

Bishop, time cop and lunatic who can soak up power and spit it back out, with the Colossus shard to toughen him up when he's out in the field.

Cable, Cyclops' alternate future son, he ran around time trying to hide his daughter from Bishop. I put the Namor shard on Cable so he had the X-Men team ability which he was originally missing.

Hope Summers, Cable's adopted daughter who he hid with in the future. I put the Emma Frost shard on her so that she would get telekinetic powers.

Jean Grey, an original X-Man brought to the present by Beast. She didn't have a Phoenix shard. I've seen what happens when Jean gets all Phoenixy and it's probably best not to repeat that.

Phoenix, the alternate future daughter of Cyclops and Jean Grey, because my god there's a lot of weird family drama with those guys. I put the Cyclops shard on her which would give Phoenix better ranged powers.