JP: 0:57

Welcome to Whose turn is it Anyway, your board gaming podcast where we're excited to have you join our gaming group. I'm JP I am excited to be back as first player.

Ian: 1:07

Booo. I don't know. I just like to be contrary,

JP: 1:12

Fair enough. Yes, and the other lovely voices you can hear are Ian. Hello, and Kerley. Hello, everyone. We're here to talk about our futuristic voyage into the cyberpunk universe of Netrunner. Yes, it is. He's very excited.

Ian: 1:29

I've been waiting a while for this episode. Yeah.

JP: 1:30

When are you gonna do Netrunner? When are you gonna do Netrunner? Should we do a Netrunner episode

Ian: 1:33

Thing is you shoot yourself in the foot because like you're doing episodes that I'm really interested in. So now I have no motivation to try and take first player off doing the stuff I want anyway,

JP: 1:42

Maybe that's what we want there. Yeah, first play. Yeah. wouldn't blame you. Should we get on with the show? Yeah, let's do it. So now we come into our second turn where we talk about hex or the games that we've been playing probably over Christmas, right? More or less I'm looking at Kerley, he's been playing games every day since

Kerley: 2:10

Eight days in a row where I was playing game days. That is a streak that was a good streak that

Ian: 2:16

I know a lot of people have like a peek of board gaming around Christmas, because obviously people are travelling and seeing their families like doing social things. And board games are one of the things that tends to come out. But it just hasn't even made a blip on Kelly's radar because he was just 24/7 board gaming anyway,

JP: 2:32

Is basically gaming and then just have turkey.

Ian: 2:35

Turkey instead of a Chinese. That's the only thing that's changed.

Kerley: 2:38

Yeah, no, absolutely. It's one of those things that people were off over Christmas, right, that golden sweet spot between Christmas and New Year. Yeah, nearly everyone's off. I mean, most of it. I know some of you, thanks for working down the, you know, the shops and the railways and things like that,

Ian: 2:54

I was I was because I was working that week, but I don't Yeah, that's it. I mean, Becky, for example. She worked for the you know, actually do anything useful. So you then went ahead and thanked people who actually do valuable work NHS, and she was working in the theatres and things like that. But for the most part, people are off, I'd say probably 70/80% people. So yeah, it was just a good time to get in some games with people that go on.

JP: 3:17

I'm going to pick on you first. Oh, which 70 odd days of nonstop gaming, what game you're going to pick to talk about?

Kerley: 3:24

Well, as I say, I could pick a few but. We'll go with Well, I've played two games recently, and I'll go with Scythe. Long time since I got Scythe to the table, and I absolutely loved it. Okay, yeah, I really enjoy a good game of Scythe is one that we only get out every six months or so. Yeah. And I absolutely love it. And I always forget how quick it plays and how satisfying it is. And yeah, just genuinely good fun. That old timing element of when the game finishes because the game just finishes bang. There is no one gets an extra turn. Okay, round to the first play. Nothing like that. And is it somewhat unpredictable? Because I've never played Scythe, but it can kind of creep up on you. Yeah, suddenly it's too late to do anything. Yeah, the timing is absolutely critical in that game. And if you get a gotcha on everyone else, like no one's really expecting you to finish like a bomb bomb.

JP: 4:14

It's really points. Yeah, probably lost.

Kerley: 4:17

Yeah, that's it, you know, and yeah, so I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed that. And that that was really good fun.

Ian: 4:23

That was one that I think Kris wanted to get to the table. Right. Yeah,

Kerley: 4:25

We're getting we're getting it to the table in February. I think. Even Yeah, early February as well. So because I know he's really excited about it. So yeah, be quite keen. Yeah, it's been it's been a few months have gone and then I've got it twice in like two months, which is which is still great. But yeah, I forgot how much I enjoyed it. What fraction did you play? So I played as you're gonna have to forgive me? So Tractors. Oh, Crimea. Crimea, the yellow? Yeah, like,

JP: 4:50

the yellow flag. So yellow, tractors, tractors. Yeah, but I really I really like that faction, because you can spend combat cards as resource guy. Yeah. And It's it's based on an alternate history of 1920 plus so you're

Kerley: 4:59

They've got a good starting area. He doesn't have the modular boards. Yeah. So that was that was nice as well, because I knew roughly Yeah, you knew that puzzle alone. Yeah, a little bit. Yeah. So yeah, there were a really good starting faction. They got good starting abilities. They got a good kind of after the Great War, yeah. But is if history took a Riverwalk, and for those of you have played it before. Yeah, so absolutely love playing Scythe again. I think we've talked about it previously in the pod, so I won't go into the show. I'm sure what, what everything else there's quite a well-known game. Yeah, that's it. But yeah, if you imagine an alternative, I guess. 1920 says is mounting 20s But yeah, you've got like some different direction and got heavily influenced by Mechs and modern stuff mixed in with some old stuff like Mechs you've got and then you've got, but it looks very 1920 Yeah, steam and awesome technology, it's been introduced, so it's kind of oldy worldy steampunky.

Ian: 6:00

Kind of, like Eastern European. Yeah, like rapid technological development. Yeah.

JP: 6:05

The art works beautiful.

Kerley: 6:06

Artwork is stunning. It's really well designed game. If you've not heard of it before, but very unlikely. But it is a Stonemaier games, the same people. And as much as Yeah, some people are hit or miss with Stonemaier, but I think the component quality is very high. Their customer service has always been very good to me and Becky, so definitely, I think they've definitely got a good reputation out there for the most part, although not with everyone. Great game. It's not really a combat game, which mechs and stuff like that. I assume it's an area control. Makes me think of combat is not really that. So yeah, it's a brilliant game really loved it. Looking forward to playing it again. There's a few weeks time,

JP: 6:41

nice, nice what about you Ian.

Ian: 6:44

So yeah, our I was with my parents over Christmas. And our home does tend to become a haven of games during Christmas, but not the kind of games that most people who listen to the podcasts are interested in. We have even had Christmases where we play Monopoly. But this year, actually one of the presents I got from my sister was a really, really smart little game, I think it's like a Mensa approved game or whatever the accreditation is that you can get called and I'm going to pronounce this wrong, but corridor Quorridor, but with a qu at the start. And it's really neat little game, you can play two player or four player. And essentially, you've got a little person that you're trying to get across the board. And every move every turn, you can either move your person, or you can place a fence down to try and make it harder for your opponent across the board. But you've got to kind of do it strategically without blocking yourself. And it's yeah, it just it played really neat. It was just surprising after reading the very small by our standards rulebook Yeah, the pamphlet I was like this. Yeah, this seems like so simple. Surely this is just going to become really boring straightaway. But it kind of reminded me of other sort of Mensa type games and things like chess, where it's like, oh, there's all kinds of hidden complexity there. Yeah. And you start to build your own meta game as well. Because it's like, Ah, well, I know my sister always puts up a big wall over here and tries to stop me doing this. And yeah, it's it's a cool little game. I'm sure it's probably effectively solved. I can't imagine that there's too much to really discover. But yeah, certainly it was. It was fun. And we tried to four player games as well, which becomes carnage. Yeah, much more cluster is like, because you've got all four of you basically racing to the middle, but trying to stop everyone else getting to the middle so that you can get to the other side and then just create and amaze. Yeah, the second half of the game is mostly putting down fences to send the person who's very nearly got to where they need to go making them go much further to get where they need to go. But yeah, no, it's good. I definitely recommend it is yeah, I think on BoardGameGeek it's like sub two in terms of like weight, it's really really easy. Learning five minutes play at once and you've learned if you

JP: 8:56

I first came across this game on like Tik Tok I think on the socials as you know, I do a lot of our socials. So I ended up wasting a lot of my time videos. But I watched some videos of it being played and literally within five seconds, I got it. I got this, this game. It's literally that simple. Move your guy, place a fence. Yeah. And then it's quite mesmerising to watch. It's like that, that you just watched this thing evolve. And I ended up watching it for like five minutes.

Ian: 9:24

I can imagine if you watch people who have played it a lot or are good at it. It probably is like a very, very simplified version of go. Yeah, where the kind of the board state sort of develops and things might or even like chess where like, to the uneducated eye a certain move, you can't explain why it's a good move. But someone who's very good at the game can explain why it's a good move. And they know that it's good. Yeah, that makes sense. It's kind of yeah, there's a lot of sort of lateral thinking, I think, and kind of weighing up different permutations and being able to visualise like the routes. Yeah, so yeah, it's a good little game.

Kerley: 9:58

I really like low complexity, low entry games, and then high sort of ceiling for skill. Yeah, that's like one of my favourites.

Ian: 10:05

Yeah, exactly. And that's, I think that's what this is. I mean, we only played a handful of games. We certainly are no good at it. But it strikes me as that kind of game that probably you could sit down for hours and hours and hours and play lots of it and really refine kind of a strategy. It was good fun.

JP: 10:22

Nice, nice. Well, I I am going to talk about Cubitos or Cubitos or however you put it however

Ian: 10:31

I still don't know just pick In games we can't pronounce. Yeah,

JP: 10:33

Absolutely. And I talked about this on I think our Christmas special that was a game was gonna play because I get a game every every year for the family to play at Christmas Eve. And we have played that since Christmas Eve our first game we've played it eight times eight times, which is pretty good going considering my family yes pretty good yard stick majority of those times were with my son he loves He absolutely loves this, it does sound fun. He absolutely loves it. So for those that don't know what this game is, and this is going to be quite difficult to explain is basically Cubitos is a world full of cube like characters, and cube cuboid type people. And every year they put on a cube cup a race, right? Yeah, stick with me. Stick with me, guys. Yeah.

Ian: 11:23

Is it like the Camel Cup?

Kerley: 11:25

Yeah, are the graphics similar to Minecraft, because in my head, yes, get Minecraft

JP: 11:29

Very kind of blocky looking kind of artwork on that. And then you have you do this cube cup. So you have basically you pick your racer, they're all the same in terms of abilities that just look different. And they all start and start lines in the middle of the border, you've got a track racetrack with kind of interlocking squares that kind of go all the way around on the racetrack. There's like water, there's barriers, there's bonus pickup things there like Mario Kart where you kind of get abilities and different things, money, etc. But the bit, kind of how it works, is essentially a dice builder. So it reminds me of Quacks of Quedlinburg a lot, except that's a bag builder. But it's the same sort of principle of push your luck, push, push your luck. So you'll start the game with seven light grey dice and two dark grey dice. And these dice are really small as well. They're like, really, really, really tiny, but you end up having like, loads of them in your hand at some point you're just chucking like 15 16 18 dice at once.

Ian: 12:37

Who doesn't love rolling numbers of dice at the same time very

Kerley: 12:41

Says the ex-Warhammer player that's very satisfying.

JP: 12:43

So you've got these, these grey dice seven light to dark and the light grey dice are pretty much the shittest dice that they've got five blanks and one side got a bit of money on the dark grey as one money and one movement. So you can imagine basically like sort of basic, basic, your basic had of cards in a deck-builder, right? They're, they're pretty crap, and you need to kind of upgrade them. So you kind of roll in these things. And the crux of it is that you, you roll and as soon as you get three or more hits, so anything that shows a symbol, you put that into like your active zone. And then if you want to roll again, you're basically pushing your luck, because if you roll all blanks, you bust right and any lose what you've already got lose what you've already banked. And so you're like, I've got 3 money and a movement, I think I could get a bit more money rolling, you bust, you go down. And then you basically forego that. And there's catch up mechanisms in there that says like, if you bust, you'll end up going up on this funds track, which is a track to the side, and that might give you a little bit of money might increase your hand size of how many dice you can roll. There's quite forgiving, yeah, if you crap out a lot, it's not the end of the world. And actually, there are some strategies that you might want to crap so that you can get better in the late game. And it all depends on on the races that you raised. So that's the kind of general mechanics so if you you accrue money to buy extra dice, and these extra dice, various different colours all have different abilities. And what's really good about it is that every dice has a stack of cards for the same coloured dice that you can basically play in different races. So it's very varied. So the green dice might have 12 cards. And they all they have similar themes, but they all work differently. So every race that you race with, it feels different. And that kind of changes the the mechanics and combinations of how you interact with other dice colours and stuff like that. So yeah, you kind of got dice that give you more money generation you got dice that help you protect you from busting you've got dice that you kind of comparing swords to other players. Whoever has the most swords then can do extra stuff. There's all sorts of bunkers, things that are going on that as you can imagine, in kind of any deck builder, you type games, you're accruing more dice, you're kind of getting the monetary discard pile you redrawing up and then you basically have this cycle of dice you're trying to manipulate to get the right combinations at

Ian: 15:11

And you're getting more powerful as the game is you're accruing new but it's a race

JP: 15:15

At the end of the day. You're trying to get your character, your cuboid character around the track to the finish line.

Ian: 15:20

The victory conditions very simple. Yeah, even though there's lots of little things that can happen along who's better at it

Kerley: 15:25

Who's better at it, you or Josh? I think I've got the edge. Yeah,

JP: 15:29

But he had the last game you play He He had such a stonking race where he was rolling, like 10 movement in one go. Which is mega like you move.

Ian: 15:41

You can you can say is you're amongst friends is a safe space. He got really lucky.

JP: 15:46

And you know, it's it's one of them it's like you kind of building your little engine of life where you go and you just have some fun he?

Kerley: 15:55

Yeah, it's such a good because it play

JP: 15:58

My only complaint with it. Actually, it's and it's not a bad thing. But it's a max 4 player, right? And I go, why can't it do more? Because it's simultaneous play as well. Components maybe? Yeah, the fact that don't put more components in our bag. That's an expansion coming, I'm sure. But yeah, it's all simultaneous play, you're rolling at the same time. You're resolving it pretty much at the same time. So the downtime and it's minimal, that's nice. So you're, you're just going for it doing it and then where it matter, cuz sometimes it does matter. You can kind of say, Hold on. I want to resolve in turn order, because it might matter but generally,

Ian: 16:36

I guess possibly there might be what dice that let you mess with other people's dice, stuff like that.

JP: 16:40

No, I don't think it's that interaction. I don't think it's that interactive in that you can screw other people per se. But it's it might be that you need to compare something before someone moves

Ian: 16:54

Oh, like you were saying, you know, this is not the most swords or whatever. Yeah,

JP: 16:58

So there's a methodical process that you would go through but you can all go through it at the same time, so teaching it is brilliant. Because you're right we're just going to do it off we go. Yeah, and you can teach it in seconds in your office hours cool. Yeah. Cubitos try it out. That's that's the games we played right. Let's get on to the main event. Sounds good. Okay, gents, it's time to get ourselves in the future. No, cyberpunky and moody. Now we're entering the world of Netrunner.

Ian: 17:32

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. If JP's feeling saucy with his editing. He will put some cool cyberpunk music.

JP: 17:39

Yeah, if I can be arsed No, that's not gonna.

Kerley: 17:41

He's already said that's not happening. Yeah.

JP: 17:44

Silence. So I thought what we'll do first is we've got to kind of a bit of a process to kind of walk through this topic in general, but let's start with what their hell is Netrunner, Ian I'm actually going to pick on you Oh, because Netrunner you have proclaimed to be one of your favourite ever games. And you've not shied away from saying that this. This game is one of your favourite. Which I have to

Ian: 18:09

I don't think it's just one of my favourite games. I think it is one of the best games. Yeah, that there is. And we'll get into lots of detail later. But first, what's important to point out is that the reason I got in to Netrunner is all your fault. Yeah, just like everyone in the group being in the group is your fault. Yeah, this was the game that you lured me in with all those years ago

Kerley: 18:33

Ah, and then you brought me in.

Ian: 18:35

And then I lured Kerley. Which is why you two are handpicked for this episode. Well, yeah. Yeah. And again, I'm sure we'll touch on later me and, Kerley shared a collection for some time, until I had to buy him out. Sadly,

Kerley: 18:47

Yeah, it was over a year we live together. And well, I mean, to say a lot of Netrunner was played...,

Ian: 18:52

They were nightly for hours, right. And it was ridiculous. That given times, but it just shows what we could get miss. Like we were fully addicted from the word go.

JP: 19:01

Yeah, and let's put a disclaimer, this, this episode is not going to be kind of a deep dive into the strategic game of Netrunner, because we don't want to lose people.

Ian: 19:12

And also none of us are any good. So we can't offer any insight.

JP: 19:17

So if you've never heard of Netrunner, and this is kind of your first foray into this game, or maybe you've heard of it, you're not really sure what it's all about, then hopefully, this episode is for you, right? Because we want to try and bring this game to life. We want to share how freaking amazing this game is and how it should be played more. And but yeah, Ian, set the scene. Bring us all into the future. What is it?

Ian: 19:43

So Netrunner is in many ways, quite a unique game. So it's an asymmetric to play a card game. So there's a lot of things there that people's ears will be picking up already. So it's asymmetric. The two players are trying to do different things in a game of Netrunner. One player is playing as an evil mega corporation, you're trying to advance their dastardly agendas and basically screw people over and the other player is playing as usually a much more ethically, it's kind of admirable, although not always, but it's an opposing what's called a runner who's basically like a hacker and they're trying to hack into the corporation systems and stop them from advancing their dastardly agendas and doing bad things all while trying to to not be killed, and all of those kinds of things. So the whole game is set in this futuristic cyberpunk world very reminiscent of, you know, the game Cyberpunk 2077 and stuff like that and heavily influenced by stuff like William Gibson novels like Neuromancer and stuff like that. There's a lot of concepts in the Netrunner world that kind of draw from those sorts of source materials.

Kerley: 20:58

Reminds me of Blade Runner as well. Yeah,

Ian: 21:00

Absolutely. Blade Runner is a great example of something else has got crossover with it kind of dystopian future. Anyone who watched

JP: 21:09

Altered carbon?,

Ian: 21:11

Exactly, yeah. I'm so glad you remembered that. Otherwise, we're gonna have to pause again. Exactly, exactly. So if you'd like any of those sorts of genres of movies, or TV shows or games, this is going to be really up your street. But outside of the theme, the actual game itself is just fantastic, let's say is a card game. And it is a two player card game. Now that can sometimes be something that puts people off, because like we talked about in the earlier section, you know, having a low cap on maximum players can sometimes be made things a bit restricted, but what I find with Netrunner is because it's one on one. Well, if you've got four people, then you just play two games. If you've got six people, you play three games and you just rotate those if you divide by two,

Kerley: 21:53

But even then, if you've got five I tend to find it makes you're good. That's it. quite a good game for viewing because it does feel like a tussle between two absolutely that person you justtheir only sitting out one in five goes, that's it would work. Yeah.

Ian: 22:05

Yeah. Yeah, the person sitting out just watches the game, we'll make some teas or whatever, you know, it's gonna be useful. Yeah. You're right, though, that's a really good point that it's, it's a game. In my opinion, that's very watchable. Once you understand the game, every game is different, you know, the permutations of what can happen even when people are playing very well established archetypes and decks that are sort of known, the kind of a competitive level, still, every game is different. Because the the order that your cards come just completely changes, what you're going to be able to do and when. And so yeah, and we'll talk later about the deck building elements and stuff, I'm sure but but yeah, in short, it's this battle between the evil mega corporation and a runner. And the corporation is trying to create servers and like, say, advanced these evil agendas. And the victory condition is that you score, what are called agenda points. Yeah. So these agendas are a type of card in the game, and the corporation is trying to score them. And the runner is trying to steal them. And that's another thing that's kind of unique about Netrunner is the interactions between runner and Corp. Yeah, you know, it's not just two players doing their own thing. And then seeing who wins at the end, you are literally fighting each other is fully interactive, as the runner you, as the name implies, you go on what are called runs, and you actually try and break into a given server as it's called on the on the corp site. One thing about Netrunner is there's a lot of terminology. Oh, yes. And we'll try to keep it to a minimum as great as grip,

JP: 23:33

You need a big glossary.

Ian: 23:34

But But it all becomes very, it's all very thematic. So it all fit makes sense. But yeah, the interactivity is another one of the things that I love about the game is the fact that you know, the runner is going on runs. And they're, you know, the corporation is then doing things during those runs to try and stop them. And there's all kinds of defences and different things like that. So it's a very interactive game. It's a very dynamic game. Like I say, every game is different. I mean, me and you clearly, we played hundreds, if not 1000s, of games of Netrunner over the course of a couple of years or, and I don't feel like we had too many games that felt the same. No, not at all. You know, it was very varied.

Kerley: 24:14

But we got well into I think I remember us making a deck of each one each. So I think there's got it. There's three, we won't go into this right now. Because we will but we run the factions and for core, we had one deck each of each one and we would cycle through all the possible permutations just Well, if we were that bored.

Ian: 24:36

Yeah. Yeah, we were Yeah, we were trying to match them against each other to see Oh, which which, which faction that we built is strongest. Which one do we prefer to play and which one wins the most and all that kind of stuff.

Kerley: 24:46

The biggest surprising thing about that is we actually both had girlfriends at the time.

Ian: 24:50

Which is astounding. I mean, they were probably just glad to be rid of us. Yeah.

JP: 24:59

So you were living in the same house pretty much at the same time. You had that 'shall we have a quick game?'

Ian: 25:04

That did largely increase the volume of Netrunner that was played and in fact mean you we started on it run a collection together jointly because we thought it's really silly for us to have our own separate collections. We'll just both start pitching in and but yeah, that's the elevator pitch for Netrunner, it's cyberpunk, futuristic, two player asymmetric card game with those Yeah, those two distinct player types of cooperation and runner battling out and it's just bloody great.

JP: 25:34

If that sounds interesting to you know any of our listeners, then you know, keep keep listening because there's a lot to unpick with this game.

Ian: 25:42

And even if it doesn't sound interesting, please just still listen, still keep listening. We appreciate that.

JP: 25:46

Yeah, or just use the chapters. Let's get right to that section. But it's all good. It's all good. Now, I wanted to kind of touch upon kind of our group's history with Netrunner. And like my first kind of interactions with it, I bought the Fantasy Flight version of Netrunner in somewhere like mid now it would have been late late 2017 or something like that. So you know, it's been out a while by the time I kind of got my hands on it. Yeah, it's in 2012 was the release which is an Android Netrunner. Fantasy Flight basically this this game the mechanics into the own IP of Android have their own universe of characters and and that that tastic is what's the Android on the universe and under utilised in my in my opinion, it's brilliant. And I first came across this game and this is again going back to fantasy flights catalogue and I had in

Ian: 26:48

XCOM under the covers every day. What can I buy next?

JP: 26:53

Yeah, absolutely. And I watched the official Fantasy Flight video the tutorial video of what's what is this game is all about and I watched that and I was instantly hooked.

Ian: 27:04

I probably have no better idea from what I remember that video you probably weren't any clearer on what the game was, just looked really cool

JP: 27:12

Like you're hacking and just want to you know what you're protecting, putting down firewalls which called Ice and, and it just this is great. I've never seen anything like this before. And I instantly bought it. And I managed to co cohere like Rob into playing the game. And so Rob come and play this he went well what do you mean this looks weird? No, play it and we played it and yeah, he enjoyed it and is basically I found that I can manage to condense the core box into my basically work rucksack quite easily protected. And I can take it on my work trips, which is where I took it to America when I was working out in America with Mr. Witt here with with Ian and we managed to play. I'll teach you in the hotel bar. Yeah. Only because there was bugger all else to do

Ian: 28:01

Well, that's it. I remember that was a very cold trip. It is. This was in Maine. Yeah. So like Maine in the winter is just snow. It's really cold. So proper winter. proper, proper winter. Yeah. And yeah, we couldn't find any bars or pubs close enough to our hotel that we wanted to walk to them. Yeah. So we just sat in the hotel lobby bar. And you said, Oh, I've got this game that I got, like, alright, let's give it a go. And yeah, I was hooked instantly. Yeah, as were you. I mean, this is why you were so keen that you brought it to the states. Yeah. I need to show this game to everyone.

JP: 28:34

Yeah. I think we've been played on in the airport before we weren't at home as well. We did.

Kerley: 28:37

We had a quick game, the airport. Yeah. And we were living together at the time. And you came back and you were like, Yeah, this game. I knew that. JP that I'd never met before.

Ian: 28:49

No, that's it. I mean, this was kind of the the beginning of that introduction isn't there, but I just knew from your history playing Magic, combined with just what how I knew your gaming personality was I was like, You're gonna love this game. And so yeah, I very quickly convinced you to supplement my new addiction by sharing the collection.

Kerley: 29:10

It's got to be done. Well, you weren't wrong, though.

JP: 29:14

So yeah, so this is kind of our history with the game we played, you know, a fair amount of gain since but I think it's probably a good point to talk about the history of Netrunner

Kerley: 29:23

I think it probably kicked off the group to be honest, when you really drill it down. Yeah,

JP: 29:26

I think it was the last part of the origin of the Loaded Dice. One of one of the core staples, was that that really transitioned us into the hobby.

Ian: 29:35

Those certainly one of the first games I remember you, JP, effectively shopping around to people trying to bring them in, which obviously was the start sort of cult. Yeah, exactly. You know. Now you we were just talking about your Frosthaven arriving and is like, yeah, again, really is first one's free

JP: 29:58

You're welcome, guys.

Ian: 30:01

It really is the game publishing industry that should be thanking you. I mean, yeah, you've made significant revenues for several publishers.

JP: 30:09

Let's cover the history because like people would have probably heard of Netrunner the game that died and twice twice. Yeah, and maybe people still think it's dead. And they Yeah, peolpe think it's this historical game that people used to play a lot and then stop playing so in as our encyclopaedic knowledge of Netrunner

Ian: 30:29

And here is the Netrunner historian. Fantasy flight And I think the reason for that is that Netrunner is a game is actually did a reasonable job of and I'm sure some people would disagree, there's probably people screaming at their device very representative of various communities that are out there, at the moment. But overall, given what a difficult task it it seemed to, you seem to be able to route, like, Get behind was, I think Fantasy Flight actually did a pretty decent job of trying to shepherd that game now. Thanks in large part to a guy called Damon Stone, who was the lead designer for a long time is very well known in the in the board game community. And yeah, he did a lot of good work to try and keep this game balanced and fair and fun. And yeah, but it all it all came to an end. And yeah, right at the time, where they just released that revised core, which was kind of, as you say, jarring to the community. And a lot of people were very heavily invested in Netrunner then, and I mean, emotionally, not financially. Yeah, the community was incredibly tight knit, you know, lots of online interactions through, you know, Slack, and there were forums and stuff. some of the characters in there because they represent, you know, their, their sexuality, or gender or whatever. It's incredibly diverse. And that's one of the reasons why I mentioned Damon, because I know he was a big driving force behind that. It's always been a game that, aside from the

Kerley: 31:54

The communitiy is still really strong right? mechanics, and the, you know, the abilities that cards have, the theme was always so important. And the diversity of that theme, and the people that you see, in Netrunner are truly diverse. There's all ages, all races, all, every possible kind of diversity, you can imagine. So 2018 Fantasy Flight, discontinued the game is sort of, you know, send shockwaves through the community, and people are understandably very upset. And a bunch of people decided, Nah, we're not having this. And a group came together with the intention of trying to find a way to continue the game initially, it was just, you know, a meeting of minds to kind of say, Look, we don't want to stop playing Netrunner just because they're not making the game and Yeah, well, how do we do that? You know, how do we still organise tournaments, and it very quickly snowballed into those people saying, well, we don't just want to keep the competitive side going, we want to we want more cards, like we want, we want this content. Yeah, we want this game to continue evolving. And eventually, they banded together and formed a nonprofit at the time called Nisei, which was based on a card from the game called Nisei mark 2, I know it's a 4 2 jinteki agenda. Anyway, we're not gonna get in anyway. It's a good card, but they've since rebranded as Null Signal games, because there were some unfortunate connotations around the word Nisei that I'm sure you can Google if you're interested. But yeah, they came along, banded together and just started trying to do it and made lots of mistakes, for sure. Especially at the start. But they've been doing that now for what four years, almost four years? Yeah, it would have been summer 2018. So yeah, coming up on four years, they've released multiple cycles, they've run World Championships, European Championships online offline obviously with the pandemic they've survived through that had incredible success. They're now popping up at you know, boardgame conventions all over the shop. So the expo there UK games Expo, I think they've they normally have a presence at PAX as well over in the States. Just doing fantastic stuff.

Ian: 34:08

It's as strong as it ever was, if not more so. So and that brings us you know, basically up to present day that's kind of that's what's been happening for the last four years and it's it's a game that a lot of people who played in that 2012 to 2018 period and then just kind of left when FFG discontinued, probably thought the game was dead. But more and more recently there's there's word is getting around you know, I mean Shut up and Sit down did a video

JP: 34:33

I wanted to point that out because that video that they did I duuno how many months ago. Last year deep into last year wasn't it? Tom Tom Brewster sit down he did a bit brilliant video of you know, is can you still get internet run? I think it's called Yes. And I watched it. And I thought, You know what, I've got an afternoon. I watched it. And it instantly after watching it got all excited. Because yeah, my history was I used to have it, I grew it a little bit. I've got quite a few Deluxe boxes, those big boxes. And I got to a point where I just didn't play any more. And like most of these collections, they sit on your shelf and I sold it. And I always regretted it I think selling my collection of Netrunner and there's always had a kind of a special place in my my gaming collection and history. And it wasn't until I watched that video and thought wow, this actually there's a lot of weight behind this game. So there was a lot of support for this game. And and yeah I just thought brilliant and instantly checked out was was then Nisei. Checked out the system gateway course then checked out all these things and ended up buying a copy and yeah, brilliant. Yeah, loved it. Loved it. Let's dive a little bit deeper and explore rubbing my hands. Yeah, the actual corporations and the runners of Netrunner. So again if you stuck with us, because I know we've kind of laboured a bit of the history and we've gone through kind of where our thoughts and feelings on the game but let's actually dive a little bit deeper and explore right so we're gonna start with corporations, right? So in the game, there are four corporations that you can choose to play as, which are NBN, Jinteki, Weyland, and Haas-Bioroid Yeah.

Ian: 36:22

I was just waiting for you to forget one of them. And yeah, and then start flailing. But no, you nailed it. Yep. All corps

JP: 36:28

The general premise of the corporation, as we've kind of said at the beginning, is that they are pretty much building their their bold state, and they start with 3 central servers. And they will basically build remote servers as the game continues. And the central servers are essentially your

Kerley: 36:47

We did warn you about the terminology deck of cards, which is your r&d, your discard pile is your archives. And your headquarters or HQ is your hand, essentially, which is represented by your identity card, which gives you your kind of faction ability

Ian: 37:06

We haven't even gone to the Runners side.

JP: 37:07

Yeah. And it gets really spicey, it gets a bit mad. And then kind of throughout the game, you're playing operation cards, which are like event cards that you're paying credits and money for to do many cool things within the game, you're kind of playing ice, the ice is like the firewalls, your defenses. Yeah. And these cards are like played horizontally in front of the servers that you play. And and essentially building your defensive lines and these ice is, for me is what excites me the most about the game, wherever you're What I love is that almost everything the corporation does interacting against the ice, or whether you're putting the ice down as your kind of shields against the runners. That's why I love about it. Because each of these ice has what's called sub routines on and they're essentially things that will will trigger. If a runner attempts to try and break through that they don't have the right tools get through could be they need money, it could be that they need to have a specific set of software, it could be all sorts of different things, and it creates this maze for the runner to try and navigate through is hidden. Yes, yes. So when the corporation is building these defences, the ice cards are installed face down, they go onto the board face down, and the runner doesn't know what they are, until they run into it.

Kerley: 38:30

And the thing that protecting is face down is exactly they don't even know what the what the reward is going to be on the I would say I did some air quotes then because it's not always know exactly, could be a trap.

Ian: 38:43

Yes, exactly. Precisely. Yeah. We'll talk about jinteki the faction. But yeah, I think that's one of the things that's great about the corporation side in general is the hidden information. Yes, they're building that board state. And yes, the runner is going to interact with it. But there's a huge amount of uncertainty until the runner does Yeah. And so you can play all kinds of mind games as the corporation.

Kerley: 39:04

Well, sometimes as a runner, you make a run, knowing you're never gonna make it, just to get some information for the first... just open it up. So you know, yeah.

Ian: 39:11

Or for many other, you know, just for economically to force your corporation to spend some money to force the corporation to pay to enable these bits of defence. Yeah, exactly. So you might run just to deny them having money to do something else the next turn. Yeah. So yeah, it gets tricky gets deep, pretty quick.

JP: 39:33

Yeah. So the the 3 central servers is obviously how the runner can kind of interact with either cards in your hand cards in your deck or cards in your discard pile. But the remote servers is essentially where you're playing assets, which could be you know, a economy gives you money, these things, or agendas, which can be put into these remote servers as well. And as Ian said, earlier, agendas are the, the cards that you want to try and advance to win. And it's also the cards that the the runner wants to try and steal. So this is why becomes a shell game where you're putting, you know, the different cards or face down, you're putting all the defences of their face down. And it gets quite thematic, right, because as a runner, you're trying to hack into a server, you don't know what's in there. You don't know what countermeasures you're gonna come up against and you don't know what traps that can be laid for you and and just the beauty of of as a corporation what I enjoy about the Corp is just laying all of that that say, setting up the puzzle. Yeah. And the mind games as you say that you have between you and the other player

Kerley: 40:35

The runner gets in all the way in past all your defence and then they flip a trap and it's gone.

Ian: 40:41

It's pretty much one of the most, like most iconic, early experiences that you have in Netrunner is like spending every resource that you have, and every card you've got out using everything to get into a server, only to find out there's something really, really kills in the end. Yeah, it's not an agenda. It's something that you feel like in a kick in the knackers.

JP: 41:03

And you feel like a greedy bastard. You feel like yeah,

Ian: 41:08

And there's a lot of like poker face moments where it's like, oh, yeah, I'm gonna Okay, I'll, I'll use this bit of defence. And yeah, you know, you know, I want you to get in because you're gonna die if you get in. But you have to kind of play the game of like, oh, you're gonna get to access it now. And yeah, it's a lot of fun.

JP: 41:26

But that's that's kind of the the general overview of corporations and I'm sure that there's there's a lot more in it, guys. Than we're kind of giving.

Ian: 41:33

This is the 30,000 foot view.

JP: 41:35

Yeah, yeah, but let's just talk briefly about the different factions. So Hass-Bioroid, the purple faction cards, if you want to call it that, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but they there's a fraction they're pretty much all about ice and defence robotics. And so.

Ian: 41:51

So yeah, there's thematically and mechanically so Yeah, that's those guys So first, we got Jinteki who're the thematically, Haas-Bioroid are a corporation who produce what are called bioroids basically humanoid robots. And so that's kind of what their theme is based around is that you know, production of viruses and the selling of bioroids into the world. Mechanically in the game, what they're big on is, is yes, they they have a lot of very big ice. So like ice that costs a lot to use, but that also has some very impactful effects on the runner. They do a lot of what's called core damage now you might have previously known as brain damage, which is such an effect that causes the runners hand maximum hand size to be reduced, and it can kill them if your hand size gets into the negative then you lose on the next turn. So yeah, big ice certainly is a feature of Hass-Bioroid but the probably the most iconic mechanic within Haas-Bioroid is the idea of efficiency. red fractions. Naughty naughty so from my knowledge Jinteki loves the trap. Yeah, loves dealing net damage to the runner and essentially loves to try and kill them basically basically eliminate the runner without having to score and they've obviously got ways of scoring like all corporations do, but they just love a trap. One of the cards that just sticks in my mind is snare. Yeah. Which is just a tip on bait and switch trap diner card that you will run into and you will swear

Kerley: 43:38

If you play Jinteki You're always like, I wanna get into that server but I don't

JP: 43:42

Yeah, I know. It's gonna hurt. It's gonna hurt me going through to get the server, it's gonna hurt me whe I get there

Ian: 43:47

If you haven't died to a snare, I could argue that you haven't played Netrunner, it's that kind of Yeah, it's a rite of passage. Exactly. It is. So yeah, you're right. Jinteki again, thematically, they're about kind of bio organics and stuff so like they're involved in a lot of kind of futuristic farming Yeah, and genetics, genetic manipulation you know, breeding animals and maybe in some cases people biological or genetic stuff. They're doing all that kind of thing. But yeah, so that's that's

JP: 44:26

NBN so the like the the tele news broadcasts, they

Kerley: 44:29

They were my favourites yellow.

JP: 44:32

Who love a tag don't they?. Yeah, they love it. They love tagging the runner and then doing horrible things to the runner. If the player is tagged, yes, screw with that do lots of horrible, nasty crap.

Ian: 44:45

I think like 90% of cards that start with if the player is tagged are NBN. But yeah, in terms of NBN as a whole, thematically, they're a media corporation. So you know, pick your evil media billionaire of choice. Yeah, exactly. You know, it's there. They're controlling the narrative, and they're controlling news and propaganda and and politically, they're very heavily involved. So yeah, dramatically. That's where they fit into the universe. And then mechanically, yeah, tagging is a big thing. And again, we've mentioned more terminology without explaining what it is. The idea of a tag is that the corporation's figured out where the runner is. In the games, it's basically a tokens that you accrue and if you have tags you, quote unquote, are tagged. And then there's lots of tag punishment cards that can only be played when your tags or perhaps scale up their impact depending on how many tags you had. So yeah, tagging is like a huge, huge part of the end game plan.

JP: 45:48

And then that leads us to the last one, Weyland. So murderer, murderer. Yeah, Weyland, basically, you know, the corporation in Aliens? Yeah, it's like them. Basically, they don't give two craps about anybody. That's it. That's where they borrow the name from absolutely, Weyland, their modus operandi is to kill you. Pretty much find to kill you eradicate you from the planet.

Ian: 46:10

From a thematic perspective. Yeah, they are involved in things like construction and development of cities, you know, large scale construction projects. But most of that is really just a front for dastardly things they're doing. I mean, they're politically corrupt. They are definitely engaging in literal murder, sending out death squads to hunt down people that they don't want to be around anymore. You know, burning entire cities to the ground to make way for their new superhighway? Probably as close to like the mob as you could get to this. Yeah. I mean, there's even there's even an identity within Weyland called the outfit, which is effectively the mob in the future. It's the family and they're very much yeah. Mercenary and in it for the money. Yeah.

Kerley: 46:59

Is it fair to say this might be a wrong representation of them, but they've reminded me with like, the most classic, like Corp faction, where they're just totally evil. What they do, they do well, but they're not like a Trappy faction or a fast track.

Ian: 47:13

Yeah, I mean, in the same way that Jinteki has a heavy focus on net damage. Weyland have a really big focus on meat damage, which again, it's more terminology actually net damage and meat damage in the game do exactly the same thing. They're just two different flavours, the type of damage some cards can protect you from one and not the other. So it depends what you're facing. But again, yeah, they do a lot of murders. And they definitely try and kill runners. Probably more like explicitly and more directly than Jinteki. Jinteki, like I said before, are more like we're doing our thing will kill you. If you try and you mess with us. You know, you will end up dead right but it won't look like we murdered you. But you'll end up dead. Weyland is just like, if you even say something bad about us. We're going to send a guy round to shoot you in the head. Yeah, a lot of fun but a lot Murder. Murder.

JP: 48:05

There you go. That's the corps. So we switch switch sides. Yeah, the side of the table, which is the runners

Ian: 48:12

I was gonna say Good, good side. But actually, as will explain, a lot of the reasons are also not good, but the names are yet we thinking of one faction in particular,

JP: 48:23

Um, we Yeah. So that the runners in general, their whole kind of game really is to kind of build up their rig. And the rig is essentially broken down into three different kinds of card types, you've got software, which is all of that you're kind of anti countermeasures to interact with the opponents ice

Ian: 48:43

Programmes. So if we're going to, we're going to enforce the glossary they are.

JP: 48:49

They are software and you've got different types of programmes that will interact with different types of ice. And there are like three types. I think from memory.

Ian: 48:56

Three types of ice, three kinds of icebreakers. But there are other programmes that aren't icebreaker virus. Well, they do other things. Yeah, basically, programmes are cards that run it will instal your weapon to then use later to do something.

JP: 49:09

And then you've got your hardware, which is like your consoles and generate memory units, which these programmes are need to consume in order to be installed.

Ian: 49:17

If you're lost at this point, don't worry, because everyone is when they first experience all of this jargon. It's normal,

JP: 49:23

It's normal, but you've got your hardware, and then you've got your resources, which could be jobs, your locations, people I used to like them for that exact word. They were my that are helping you out or those kinds of things. And then essentially, you're trying to build this Board state so that you have the tools in order to make runs and find those agendas and score them. But let's start with the Shapers are my knowledge and memory the Shapers are all in it for the tinkering they they love tinkering with all the different kinds of software hardware and they run and hack because they can and they get enjoyment out of the process. The challenge yeah don't do it for political gains don't do it for... it's an intellectual exercise. It's in there they're creative and exploratory. Yeah. Yeah. And and I think because of their their favourite. Yeah, because they were versatile tools. You felt kind of fraction they have a lot of toys to play with. And and Shapers are, you know, they're good, versatile. Runners. like you had the tools to be able to bring up what you want it to go down the method that was best for that situation, whereas a lot of the other ones try and overwhelm the corp with their what they're trying to do. Yeah,

Ian: 50:30

Yeah, when I agree. First off, Shaper is is probably the most intricate of the main runner faction. Fiddly, some would describe it as. There's a lot of times where you're realising synergies between cards and it's kind of like, right, I'm gonna fire this thing off, which then lets me do this thing, which it's not quite combo II, but there's a lot of interdependency between the cards, a lot going on. Yeah, they tend to instal a lot, you know, they'll they'll often have a bigger rig than some of the actions.

Kerley: 50:59

And the word you used. I like to say it's not combo-y, but the other words you use was perfect was synergy. There's a lot od synergies. And that's great.

JP: 51:06

So that's Shapers. Yeah. Criminals. Yes. Yeah,

Kerley: 51:09

That's why they're not all good guys. Right

JP: 51:11

No you're playing as a criminal. So criminals. Thematically, they are definitely in it for themselves. They're in it for the money. And they like to find the kind of backdoors and ways of breaking into the corporations, and lots of light bait and switch and yeah, Sneaky. Sneaky.

Ian: 51:33

Yeah, I mean, like, thematically, the name says it all, they're criminals. You know, they're out for hire. They're not in it for political or moral or ethical reasons. They just want to get paid. Yeah. And that's, that's the only reason they're doing any of this. Mechanically. Yeah. Like you say, sneakiness is definitely a big part of of what they do. They're very focused on money, credits the economy side of the game, both gaining their own money and denying the corporation's money freezing. There's some really like classic classic criminal cards that are about that kind of economic fight between the two sides with a corps hand as well, you know, very much to do with that kind of sneaking in there and having a look at their files. But yeah, so when, when JP was talking about those three central servers the Corp starts with so HQ, which has their hand r&d, which is their deck and archives, which is their discard. Each of the three, three main runner factions, more or less, focuses lightly slightly on one of those three. And for criminals, it's its HQ. It's the player's hand, they have lots of cards that allow them to access more cards from the corps hand cards that allow them to get into the hand even when it's well defended. So that's definitely get there as well. Yeah, get extra perks like money, but criminal have a lot of ways of either temporarily or permanently flipping some of those cards to both gain information and try and scupper the corporation's plans. So yeah, that along with the, the economic side of things is really what they're about.

JP: 53:11

And then last up, because there's only three runner archetypes, so the last kind of main function is Anarchs. And I think they're probably my favourite as the name suggests, they are very politically motivated, they will basically watch the world burn, if it means that they're getting justice, and basically what they stand for, and they are the most destructive, kind of runner archetype that that there is they love basically spreading viruses all over the the corporation's board state, and manipulating various things based off those viruses. Basically, blowing stuff up, getting rid of stuff and yeah,

Ian: 53:49

Destruction is probably, as you would imagine, for a faction called Anarch... Destruction is like, the key word for them, you know, they, they destroy ice, they destroy entire servers. In fact, in some cases, they try and destroy the entire board state in order to win with a little help from from some friends that we might talk about later when we talk about manufacturers. But yeah, Anarcs are single mindedly just getting what they want. And they don't care what the cost is. And they're not, they're not like criminals, they're not in it for the money. And they're not like Shapers, they're not in it for some kind of higher purpose. They are just focused on getting the outcome they race by any means. So yeah, it's a really fun faction to play because you're often messing with the corp and that's a nice feeling because in a lot of other situations it's kind of the corp that gets to mess with you because they've got the information advantage.

Kerley: 54:44

You always feel like you're up against sometimes kind of flip

Ian: 54:48

Yeah, they just like do you know what doesn't matter what you do as a corp because I'm just gonna mess your shit up it's just it can be so much fun

Kerley: 54:57

That would go quite nicely into I imagine we're It's true on the corp side as well, even when she, I don't going to talk about deck building Yeah, well yeah, I mean couple a couple of minutes on deck building I mean deck building I've, if anyone who knows me knows I love deck building.I know it's not for everyone and hence why Netrunner DB website and it helps you out with that stuff. Thank God for that website, is essentially I love the the deck building element for both sides, both Corp and the runner side but essentially, you you pick a corp and that's static, but as the runner side when you pick one of the runner factions, you also have to pick a single runner Within that faction, and they all have show many different identities. But yeah, so the idea being is that they've all got kind of asymmetric abilities. And really what the three individual mini-factions do is they add differences to those and different slants to that. But essentially, what I like about it is, is that if you pick a Shaper faction on your runner, it tells you how much of other factions you can include within that their influence. Yeah, that influence and that influence can be spent. But there are some really powerful cards, there might be three or four influence and there are other ones. Exactly. And there are other ones that might be 3,

JP: 56:15

Or 1

Ian: 56:17

There are some neutral cards and there's lots of cards that are one thing you could do to you could put, you know I was about to say you've got loads of them, you can never have more than three copies of a card. Yeah. Except some very specific cards that say on the card. Don't at me. Yeah, but by and large, yeah, three is the maximum of any card.

Kerley: 56:35

So sort of getting that balance, right, where you might go, Well, I can only afford one influence for that one, because I want to include that and that and that and that, isn't it? Oh, it's mental. Because every every runner faction has a strength. So you're like, you're trying to pick trying to get the best of everything else from other ones. And to be honest, if you make a what I would call mono colour, single colour single. Like if you just pick Shaper cards and spend any cost you struggled to play the game. So you do have to branch out a little bit borrow the tools. Yeah, exactly. And it's really interesting little puzzle for me. For some it will switch people off like I know JP, although you kind of have interested in that the effort involved is not something youwould enjoy

JP: 57:15

I appreciate the complexity that the deck building offers in Netrunner and other card games, but I can't be arsed. Yeah, so net decking is what they call it, where you can literally go on, you know, beg borrow and steal from from the people who have done the hard work. And you just read the stories of like, this is what this deck is trying to do. This is the win condition, and it's geared up for I love that

Ian: 57:39

The beauty, in a way of the deck building mechanic, I don't want to do it from scratch, and I'm quite happy to go and grab a deck that I know is very good. And then learn how to play pilots and then maybe tweak it a bit to make it my own.

Kerley: 57:52

I was gonna say I'm nowhere near these people who like to just make it from scratch, I like to grab a theme, grab a creative push, and then take their deck, export it and then I will tinker it a lot. So I will go right I like that. I like that I'm not too keen on that, I prefer that. So I'll change maybe a third of the deck but the rest of it will be the same. So I'm not a completely from scratch. So I do Net deck and then modified to a fairly large,

JP: 58:19

So if you want to get involved in the deck building, it is there.

Ian: 58:24

It's very, very rich and the tools on their own DVR again, they were good even four years ago, five years ago.

JP: 58:31

But hopefully what you can take away from this is you can tell we love this game. Yeah, I wanted to do an episode on this game, because I think it just deserves the time, it deserves the conversation. And actually just talking about it makes me want to play it right now.

Kerley: 58:46

It deserves a promotion as well. Yeah, you know, I'm not saying it's ignored, because there is a really good community, but I think it's better than that exposure it gets.

Ian: 58:56

Yeah. 100% Yeah, 100%. Agree. I mean, I still maintain that this is up there as being not just one of the best card games out there. But one of the best ames

JP: 59:07

I would say, in any of this conversation has been very interesting for you as our listeners then which we hope to have, which we and if not sorry, but we'd love it, then I'd urge you just to pick up System Gateway, right, and we'll put the details on, you know, in the show notes of how you can find that. And the System Gateway is a very small box that you can buy, I don't know, about £30 quid or something like that. Yeah. And, and it gives you a good starting kind of foray into both sides and various different... all the factions that we we've covered. And it also gives you some starter decks with some neutral identities on that literally out the box, you can basically take the cellophane off and you get like all decks ready to go, you're ready to go. And I think that that is just a perfect way of just starting to learn the game. And you know, because someone else that you know, you think they might be really interested in this and you can learn that together. That's brilliant. That's perfect. Even

Kerley: 1:00:02

Even if you don't want to pay the money for it. Just go and have a look at the YouTube video. Shut up and sit down did on it. Yeah, go and have a look

Ian: 1:00:10

If that doesn't whet your appetite, then it's probably not for you. But if you watch that and think oh, that was interesting. Do it.

JP: 1:00:16

And also just watching Tom just become this persona of John Netrunner. Yeah, that's also pretty entertaining

Kerley: 1:00:26

JP bed time, a Friday night.

JP: 1:00:29

So we go on to the questions. Yeah, let's do it. So we're back after that long Netrunner chat. We're gonna pull in a question from Stuart Annew who's actually from my gaming group and he has asked if your house is on fire. Steady Stewart. Wow. Yeah, it's dark. Maybe with a Netrunner theme, if Weyland have sent the boys round. Yeah Weyland to send the heavies around your house is on fire, but your loved ones and pets are safe. He did say that. Yeah. You can grab only one game to say from the flames. What would it be?

Kerley: 1:01:11

It's a tough one. That one. I mean, to be honest, like because of the value as well. I would say for me, Terraforming Mars, because I've got the kickstarted big box. And I love that game. I would say it's probably going to be that one as you know. In fact, I would say value wise, my Lord of the Rings collection, there's probably more but yeah, We'll go with Terraforming Mars

Ian: 1:01:34

It is like you're pretty much your number one game. Yeah, like I know you've got a few that are on the periphery.

Kerley: 1:01:39

Yeah. There's ones that kind of sneak up over the time, but consistently been up there.

JP: 1:01:44

Still very still strong. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, good shout.

Ian: 1:01:48

It's a lot easier for me as famously my collection is almost non existent.

Kerley: 1:01:52

Well, he's got one game.

Ian: 1:01:53

So I leech off the lot of you

JP: 1:01:55

It's Netrunner, or it's the other one. Do you know that?

Ian: 1:02:00

I actually wasn't gonna say Netrunner. But now that you mention it, yes, it would have to be Netrunner. I have irreplaceable stuff in there. I've got, like promos and stuff around back in the day that would either be incredibly expensive or borderline impossible to find. Now, my original answer was going to be my Crokinole. Say, your Tracy board. And that would hurt me a lot. But I could replace relatively cost effectively replace that board. I couldn't replace my Netrunner collection. Yeah, that's fair enough. So yeah, actually, in keeping with this episode, yeah, my answer would be Netrunner.

JP: 1:02:36

I mean, you're gonna know what my answer is. Yeah,

Kerley: 1:02:38

You need a wheelbarrow? I think I can guess

Ian: 1:02:40

Fog of Love right?

JP: 1:02:41

Yeah. I love that game. Fog of love is not going to burn. No, it's probably going to be Bones, Too Many Bones. I mean, it's neoprene is gonna go up, isn't it? The poker chips might be alright. Apart from the artwork. They might be a bit charred. But no, the challenge with that is the Trove chest is heavy and right, you're gonna need a wheelbarrow Exactly. But if only to take the Trove chest out to pay for the new house, which is

Ian: 1:03:08

Yeah, you've pretty much covered the deposit

JP: 1:03:12

That's the obvious answer. So what wouldn't they the obvious answer for me would be like, the what the game that I've just fell in love with. Pretty recently the games that you were most sad if you did yeah, Lisboa. Which I've just got in to, and I freaking love that game. That's literally it was peering into the floor, but it's not there anymore. No Lisboa, which I will talk about in a future episode in more detail. So I think that would be one and again, it's not cheap. But it's beautiful.

Ian: 1:03:47

This is a much tougher question for you guys. Because yeah, you've got massive collections with lots of really valuable and sentimental and really great games in it. So it's a lot harder for you

Kerley: 1:03:58

In a couple of weeks time is going to be a more difficult question

JP: 1:04:04

Lots of more value coming into the Kallax shelves. But yeah, anyway thanks for that question Stewart . Cheers Stew. I'd like to know what your game voted safe is? Let us know

Ian: 1:04:14

And anyone else? Yeah in the comments. Yeah.

JP: 1:04:17

Great stuff thanks Stewart As we head towards the end of the episode, we need to talk about our penultimate turn. So what is coming out what are we excited for Mr. Kerley? I know you have got some lovely presents. And they're not Christmas presents.

Ian: 1:04:37

You just mentioned Kickstarter a minute ago and your eyes lit up. Yeah.

JP: 1:04:41

Which one or ones have you gotten even

Kerley: 1:04:43

I think I'm gonna abandon an upcoming game that I was going to talk about and just talk about Kickstarter instead. Because this is like the most exciting Kickstarter incoming that I had ever. This is the post the kind of mid pandemic ordering kind of too many clicks online and we all kind of had, that make it less fun to arrive now. So I've just had Mosaic turned up a whole bunch of the Colossus edition says a lot of like really spangly new bit, and I won't go into detail but it's a Civ builder and it's really highly rated and

JP: 1:05:17

But you don't like Civ games?

Kerley: 1:05:18

No, I don't like Civ games. I love Civ games, I've got so many of them, it's difficult getting them all to the table and yeah, yeah, so I'm looking forward to that. Just the whole aesthetic was immediate of what I'm getting that game and it's just I love it. It's getting really good review. So looking forward to that.

Ian: 1:05:34

We'll be able to discuss it on a future episode. Yeah, once you've had a chance to get into it,

Kerley: 1:05:38

I mean, that's another one for me and JP to have a little tutorial play The other one that's just turned up and it's gone to

JP: 1:05:42

Happy to my parents. This is how long ago was it was before I moved house, That's pre pandemic. and I hadn't bought a new house yet. So I didn't even know where it was going to be. And I knew it was going to be a long time. So I have to put in the address from my parents. Brilliant. So this is how long ago this was I looked at the date the other day, and it was I think it was March 2019. I ordered it and is what, January 2023. Three, three and a half plus years. Europa Universalis. All right. Yeah. Basically based on a computer game, and it is. I mean, the computer games more like flipping a spreadsheet anyway. But it's an area control strategy. Are you sure it's just not like, Excel?

Kerley: 1:06:34

So I think the board game is a little bit more accessible. But I did look at the complexity rating on BGG. And it was like 4.5 ish, which is like

Ian: 1:06:44

There's not much that gets up there. Yeah, no

Kerley: 1:06:46

Anything over 4. It's a bit of a brain burner. So 4.5 and I looked at the rule book, and it's like, you know, half a centimetre thick. And it's like proper, chunky, lots of charts. Yeah, exactly. You look at it, and the pages are like, actually ram full of information.

Ian: 1:07:00

So as soon as you get up there, I cant help but start thinking about, you know, like battle for North Africa. Yeah. It's like, right, we're going to do our action. And then I'm going to go open up this book and find out what happens for 20 minutes.

Kerley: 1:07:12

So I you know, I'm hoping once the rules are down a little bit, I'm gonna watch a video JP is gonna come around, and we're gonna do a little bit of a yeah, we'll play it, but it's gonna be pure learning. So

JP: 1:07:22

yeah, we'll have a learning day. Yeah.

Kerley: 1:07:26

Yeah, so that's a

Ian: 1:07:27

That's a really good idea, though. I imagine a lot of people don't do that. Because when they get a new game, they're just excited. And they want to get into the table and play it. Because they haven't really learned it, they can't really teach it. And probably everyone has a bit less of a good time than they should

Kerley: 1:07:40

And as well, it's about approaching it with the right mentality. Like as much as we say, our first game as a learning game, you still want to win it, whereas if

Ian: 1:07:50

JP is quite happy losing, I mean, you wouldn't still be here otherwise.

Kerley: 1:07:53

So it's a change of my mentality where I'm literally going into it going, right this doesn't matter. I'm not trying to win it. I am trying to feel it out. What does this do? What does that do? And as well, time goes out the window. So it's more effective. Right? Let's look that up. And you don't get frustrated, because you know that's the plan.

JP: 1:08:12

Yeah, the pressures on sometimes when you're facilitating or running learning games with other people. Because I mean, you by main objective in doing that is to make sure everyone has a great time. Yeah. And it's

Ian: 1:08:25

Sometimes in conflict with everyone learning the game.

JP: 1:08:28

100% So it's, I think we've a game with that complexity. 4.5. it just warrants that time. Yeah. And investments just to make sure we know what the hell's going on. Yeah, and

Kerley: 1:08:40

it looks like the bgg ratings are through the roof. Yeah, reviews are through the room. Yeah, looks. loves it. So I'm really looking forward to get my teeth into it and just sort of, you know,

Ian: 1:08:51

Figuring it out.

JP: 1:08:52

Is it another Civ game?

Kerley: 1:08:55

No, of course not. Yeah, of course.

JP: 1:09:00

One's heavy, ones... Lighter.

Ian: 1:09:02

Like you said, Because Kerley, you know, famously doesn't really enjoy Civ games. He's trying to get into them. Yeah. So we try some really, you know, forced himself. Yeah. So

Kerley: 1:09:11

That I'm really looking forward to get my teeth into yeah, that one. And literally, just before recording, I've had an email from Yeah, the distributor for Cephalofair, I forget the pronunciation

JP: 1:09:22

I can never pronounce them. Yeah. Oh, God, I'm gonna be back

Kerley: 1:09:25

Frosthaven's on the way. So Frosthaven is due to arrive in the next couple of days. I've just had the email. I knew it was around now, because I knew that the boats were arriving. But there's the first shipment has just been sent. And apparently I'm in it. I'm sorry. Yeah, brilliant.

JP: 1:09:41

Yeah, I'll go next. Mine's another Kickstarter/Gamefound can't remember which one. But it's Hoplomachus: Victorum remastered, which is I think probably three weeks away. Nice. So yeah, I'm obviously I haven't had any dispatch notifications, or I'd be a bit more excited, but I know it's not far. And for those that don't know what this game is, it's literally gladiators fighting in an arena, it's made by Chip theory games,

Ian: 1:10:09

Of course, of course. Excited and how many expansions are you going to be buying?

JP: 1:10:15

There's only two big boxes because because you've got you've got Hoplo remastered which is as the name suggests the remastered version of the original Hoplomachus game that Chip theory brought out, one of their first ever and when you look at the

Kerley: 1:10:29

How long ago was it? What we talking 10, 8 years?

JP: 1:10:33

Yeah, maybe something like that. It looks dated. It's basically the art works all done on kind of open source. So is this the kind of mismatchy work all over the place. But it's always been a very good game. And I managed to play a little bit a Gridcon, as you'll know if you've listened to the Gridcon episode. And I'd loved it. And I just think it's a lovely little tactical skirmish game, but actually the Victorum box, which is the separate box, which is actually what drove the campaign originally is solo only, right? So you go on this grand solo campaign, kind of travelling around the various world and and kind of areas which has all the different factions, like the new Argonauts, and the Amazons, and the Parthians. And, and the Atlanteans, and all those kinds of things, and your recruiting unit for your kind of posse. And essentially, you're trying to go through different areas and taking on some of the other big gladiators all the way up to the big boss, which could be Pluto, or one of his many minions like the Hydra and other things and you just literally go another and because I really do love a solo game yeah, I think I do like solo again, that's quite engaging. And, and it just spoke to me. And then I learned about I'm just chuckling because you said it spoke to you. And in my the remastered as well, which is more multiplayer where you can literally just get, you know, four of you on the table. We all have a team and we all just go and shoot dice and kill each other and just have a bit of a good time. mind, I was envisaging 'JP, back me'. Yeah, this Kickstarter box just going that's exactly what happened. JP you have to back this. I mean, I don't need much convincing. So yeah, that's, that's Hoplo. Looking forward to it. I'll let you know when actually gets a bit closer. What about you Ian?

Ian: 1:12:25

Well, you know, all of my Kickstarters that I've been backing, they're all coming in. I've been I've been down my local game shop all the time buying... no of course I haven't. But I do have some stuff coming up, which is exciting. This weekend. In fact, me and Becky and Kris from podcast, are headed up to Wales for a Invitational crokinole tournament night. There's a guy called Steve Steve burrows, who's super active in the crokinole community. And especially in South Wales, he's introduced many, many dozens of people to the greatest game on Earth. And he's running a little friendly team tournament at his house. And we were asked to put together a team, which I did, and we're gonna go out there and try and kick some ass and I still have to report back. Yes, yeah. We'll get some pictures for the socials and whatnot. And obviously, we're going up, you know, branded up, we're going to wear our hoodies and represent Whose turn is it anyway. Yeah. And hopefully bring home some prizes and/or glory.

JP: 1:13:27

Nice. Should we get some video?

Ian: 1:13:28

If not, at least a good story

JP: 1:13:30

Yeah. We see no photos. That means they did really bad

Ian: 1:13:33

We broke down on the M5 and gave up. Never got there. So we've got that coming up. And alongside that I'm, as I've promised probably the last three or four episodes that I've been on. I am going to start getting signed up for some game. What? What Yeah, exactly. So got lots of plans for games to happen. And yes, I will. I will. I'm saluting JP as the boss of the group. But yeah, hopefully January will will get me to the table a bit more.

JP: 1:14:05

Good stuff goes. Right. We've got the end of the show. And I just want to say it feels nice to be first player again. Yeah, obviously...

Kerley: 1:14:15

Does it actually?

JP: 1:14:16

Yeah, yeah. I've always enjoyed first player. Others have maybe enjoyed it and maybe gone. Oh my god, there's a lot of work involved. But you know me I like that. Yeah. It's quite nice because it's good to kind of have some of the other players to have a go and talk about some of the topics that they wanted to talk about. And it's been quite varied.

Ian: 1:14:38

I think as well it probably makes the podcast feel even more real because it's kind of like we started you were first player. Yeah, we did some episodes and now it's kind of gone out and gone around and come back to you and it's kind of like you're doing it again. So sort of, do you know what I mean? It makes it feel more concrete. Yeah, it's not just the thing we're trying now it is actually a thing Yeah,

JP: 1:14:59

Yeah, it kind of work but it works for us and it just means everyone can kind of pitch in if they want to with with the content ideas and others like yourselves to be fair like to pitch in and help the chatting. And it all needs a bit of everything so no good to be back as well so so with that

Ian: 1:15:16

Notice how neither of us said it's good to have you back but no, well read into that what you will

JP: 1:15:24

Tough Shit. So with that, let's wrap up. So if you've enjoyed the show, as always, then you can get in touch with us via a variety of our handles. So we are actually on BoardGameGeek if you want to kind of check us out become a fan and subscribe from on that point of view you can you can also email us at players@whoseturn.co.uk we've got our Facebook page which is Whose turn is it anyway podcasts or you can get us on Instagram@whoseturnpodcast and finally on tiktok @whoseturnisitanyway. So we'll be back again in a couple of weeks and whose turn is it? Anarch, Shaper, CriminalHi