This has come up in some of our games, to the point where I wonder if I lost some of my tokens. Chenelling isn't usually a problem until midgame when creatures arent coming out as quickly. But damage can be when we've got a couple swarms going at it.

I wouldnt mind beimg able to pick up more counters somehow.

That's actually closer than one of the fellows I game with every couple weeks, so I can absolutely do that. Google shows The Gamers Grotto in town. I've never been there, and there may be other options, but it seems emminently doable.

Send an email to robertrodger at earthlink.net if you want to set something up sometime.

After maybe a dozen plays with a few different mages I won my first game of Mage Wars last night. Most games played out roughly the same for me, I come out strong, pressure my opponent and then fail to seal the deal at a critical moment allowing him to get his strategy coming and defeat me in the end. This happened regardless of which mage I was using, whether it was a deck of my own design or one of the spell books, whether it was someone who played before or was their first time. I was getting convinced it wasn't him, but me.

Maybe I'm just not good at this game.

The last number of plays I've been tweaking a Warlord build. I'm not that into creatures and like the idea of suiting up and burning my opponent to the ground. But still, I never quite got it to work. A few times I knew what I did wrong. I changed my plan at the last minute. Things like, "Hmm, instead of suiting up and charging why don't I spent two turns getting out whassname, the 24 point demon to put on some pressure while I get all my armor and buffs on?" Not a horrible plan, but not one the book was put together around.

But last night... it worked. It was honed.Curses, a Battle Forge, and a supply of utility spells including my much beloved Teleport.

First turn I pop out the Battle Forge, drop a Harmonize on it and advance. With the extra action and mana boost I soon had my Lash and armor on. Instead of dicking around or getting distracted by what the Warlord was up to I brought out Bear Strength and Vampirism. My opponent helped me out by camping out in his corner with a line of Spear Walls to defend himself. His Iron Golem came out and that gave me a moment's pause. A huge, burnproof, poison proof, nonliving collosus should give any fire mage a bit of a pause. But the golem is slow, and I had two copies of teleport... and two mage wands.

I beat up a couple of his goblins while letting the golem cross the spear walls and get to me. Then out comes the mage wand, a teleport into the Warlord's corner and started beating the hell out of him. No pun intended.

I was further helped by a number of bad rolls on his part. His hurled boulder which should have given me some real grief turned up blank. Litterally blank. No armor needed, but I was slammed which slowed me down a little. Not enough, but a little. The Helm of Fear kept some of his goblins from harrassing me, but even when I got hit, being able to vampirise 9 dice of attack took most of the sting off.

When we first started playing this game, the guy I was playing last night expressed disbelief that you could finish a game in under three hours. Well, an hour and a half in last night I put an end to that as I drained the last of his life, and won my first freaking game of Mage Wars.

I have to play a couple more times with a couple other guys to prove to myself that it wasn't just the bad die rolls that got me this game, but... I did it. I finally did it.

Maybe I should stop playing now.

Nah...

I love this game.