Guardian Force UK

Well my predictions were made out of hope rather than an educated football guess so I only got the 4 correct.

This round was interesting with 21 goals in just the 8 games.  There were calls for goal line technology, calls for Capello’s head and calls to the Nigerian Prime Minister to let his team go out and play with the other boys and girls.

OK, England.  They are out and here’s a list of things I need to say about it… (more…)

A few weeks ago I decided we need something a little new in the GFUK circle so I went out and purchased the highly recommended Fantasty Flight board game of “Arkham Horror”

I am a massive HP Lovecraft fan so the though of a multilayer co-operative board game sounded really appealing. It doesn’t come cheap (around £40-50) for the starter however it’s got a lot of pieces and it’s very high quality build.

How Does Arkham Horror Work?

Essentially Arkham Horror is a scaled down version of a tabletop roleplay game, there are preset characters and equipment, events, monsters and locations all represented either on the board or by tokens, you make skill checks with D6 and different effects come out of passing or failing them.

When the game starts an “Ancient One” is selected, these monsters are typical Lovecraftien gods or Great Old Ones such as Cuthhullu and Azathoth. Each Ancient One has different on going effects, monster modifiers and combat powers so the Ancient One chosen at the start can massively change how the game plays out offering large variety.

Each Ancient One has a Doom track which fill up as the game goes on, if it fills up the monster awakens and you have to face it in (a usually very difficult) combat session so your usually aiming to win the game before this happens. Winning the game is done by closing and/or sealing gates to other dimensions which open each turn, essentially it’s a race to shut the gates as they’re opening. (more…)

So my predictions were OK, I got 13 out of 16 correct. I wished I’d trusted myself and gone with Japan over Denmark and of course no one could have predicted Italy failing as bad as they did.  Another 16 games and 33 goals which isn’t bad.  England are through, France and Italy managed to get as many points combined as New Zealand (Who were unbeaten BTW), North Korea conceded 11 without response. (more…)

Well that week seemed very quick.  Except for the 90 minutes on Friday night that dragged like a cat bringing home a freshly killed “gift”.  We found out that 4-4-2 doesn’t work, the ball doesn’t dip and the referee doesn’t know his dive from a swinging elbow.  There were many good results with the big teams continuing to drop vital points but again the ball seems to be hampering those long shots and free kicks.  There was an improved 42 goals in 16 games so maybe they’re getting used to it.  France are doing their best to take over Holland’s title of “Most Self Destructive” but ever competitive England are starting to challenge for that title too. (more…)

So, the first week has gone and the first round of matches is complete.  With 16 games and just 25 goals it hasn’t been the goalfest every fan wanted.  Blame the ball, negative tactics or vuvuzelas, only Germany, who have had the ‘Jabulani’ ball longer than any other team managed to score a few.

So after the first game round robin portion of the tournament, here are my “Awards of the week” (more…)