The Impending Call of Time: Come on, it's time to go.
Tabletop's Week 9: Oh okay... was I a good week?
The Impending Call of Time: No...
Tabletop's Week 9: (Sad face)
The Impending Call of Time: ... I was told you were the best.
Tabletop's Week 9: (Wags tail)
Hello and welcome to this slightly later newsletter, I wanted to wait until after we had lots of details of the week's events before writing because for the first time since the end of exams I have time to write a decent newsletter. So yes, amazingly we've all made it through another year, but this does sadly mean that you may end up suffering from tabletoposis, a chronic condition where the desire to fill one's tabletop needs is left unfulfilled for a prolonged time. Symptoms include a shaking of the hands similar to a dice rolling action, constant quoting of various society nuances and an inability to wait until it all begins again in term one of 2019. Anyways lots happened last week which hopefully I will summarise in this newsletter, hope you enjoy!
Announcements? There's only one can I just call this Announcement?
Summer Events
For those of you around at uni over summer we will still have a weekly event taking place. This will be a fusion of both boardgames and wargames which will both be taking place together on Wednesdays. Keep your eyes on the Facebook page for where these will be or speak to our holiday officer Nigel. CCGs people are also welcome at these events and there will be space for your games, if you do want a specific room for CCGs booked contact Ares or Finnbar, ideally with at least a day's notice.
What's happening this week?
Couple of changes form last week outlined below:
- Wargames - Monday 5-10pm, B2.01
- Magic: The Gathering Draft - Tuesday 6-10pm, B2.02 - This week's draft is Unstable.
- Board Games - Wednesday 2-10pm, B2.01
- Casual Card Games - Thursday 5-10pm, B2.02 - Room change to B2.02.
- LARP - No LARP this week!
What happened last week?
Laserquest
So the week began with Comp Soc vs. Tabletop Laserquest. Tabletop went into the night as the current champions, looking to retain the title, however some valiant play from Com Soc meant they proved to be victorious on the night, handing the title to them. This levels out the overall standings so be ready to bring your A-game next time so we can get back on top!
EGM
Following this on Wednesday evening was our EGM. Thank you to all of you that turned up and congratulations to the winners of the egg tombola. Congratulations to Ares who is now officially our new Draft rep! All of the amendments voted on to the constitution are currently being done.
Term 3 Quiz
The term 3 tabletop quiz took place on Thursday evening and comprised of 6 rounds, plus a final EVER crazy random and totally bizarre John round that we've come to know and love. Congratulations to 404 Team name not found, for winning the quiz with a rather impressive 37.5 points, narrowly coming first by 1.5 points. They won a range of faction related goodies. The bonus John round was won by 404TNNF and Claw of the Bear, they are the lucky winners of two brand new Nintendo Switches! (PSA: They were actually just light switches with Nintendo written on them...).
Watch the Skies
Friday saw the long awaited arrival of the 'Watch the Skies' megagame. I think I, the Russian foreign secretary, speak for all nations and aliens alike that it was an exceptionally enjoyable day! I would like to thank on behalf of the society the control for the running of the game, but mainly the incredible amount of time and effort put into the whole thing by Callum and Finnbar, they spent so long getting this amazing day ready and somehow managed to exceed the generated hype. So what happened you might ask? Allow me to give you a rough step by step time-line on how close the world cam to total catastrophe multiple times but still prevailed, this will be a semi-Russian account of the game given this was my perspective:
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Turn 1 was pretty chilled out, the US had a navy stationed off the east Asian coast which caused some suspicions within China, Japan and Russia. This was the dawn of would would be the initial east Asian alliance (EAA). Meanwhile all the other world powers (India, the UK, the USA, Brazil and Frermany (France/Germany)) produced some form of trading box, each trading with two others.
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In response to the rising suspicions of a US attack on China/Japan/Russia, the EAA shut the airspace over their countries and their neighbours, announced to the world in a Russian press conference which was met with shock and passive aggression, but nonetheless apparent cooperation by the rest of the world. This allowed the EAA countries to secretly shoot down alien aircraft over their airspace, ensuring this alien tech could be used by the EAA.
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Turn 3 saw the first 'attack' of the game. An invasion into the airspace block of the EAA by 'American Bombers' follwed by the dropping of some sort of psychotic gas results in increased tensions both on the world stage and within the UN. Japan seemed preoccupied, with aliens we later discover, so the front of this apparent US aggression was met by Russia and China, with all three countries poised on the brink of nuclear war.
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Turn 4 as you would expect, began with a heated discussion in the UN and at the military table, with EAA members pushing for sanctions on the US while an investigation into the attacks took place. America revealed 3 of its bombers had 'gone missing' some time ago which was misinterpreted by myself, the Russian foreign minister, as a theft from an airbase, rather than they had been shot down and captured. Because the world's leaders were aware of the presence of aliens, despite not revealing this to the world yet, I, the Russian foreign minister, accused the US of supplying the aliens with these bombers... just as the press walked in and heard the whole thing, announcing it to the world instantly due to a confirming leak within the science council. This resulted in the collapse of most of the world's governments, but a divine intervention by control saw only the Chinese government collapse as a result of the created world panic.
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Work between the US and Russia confirmed that the attacks were of alien origin, using stolen US aircraft and as a result, tensions between the two nations dropped, even resulting in cooperation between the two. The UK, USA and India founded X-CORG, a task force for destroying the incoming alien threat. This was opposed by Russia and Japan, with Japan claiming to have held peaceful talks with the aliens where the aliens had claimed they were refugees, running from a large threat. This would've been firmly accepted by a couple of nations if it weren't for the claims by the UK that they were developing anti-mind control technologies to counter alien mind control. This also sparked an agreement by all UN members to remove Veto power from all nations in case of alien mind control.
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With tensions once again on the rise, the new Chinese government (the United States of China) declared that they were going to DEFCON 1, the brink of nuclear war, in order to nuke a suspected alien base on the lunar surface. This was met overwhelmingly negatively by all nations of the world as the reason behind the alien encounters was still potentially non-aggressive. As a result, the UN imposed trade sanctions on China in an emergency security council meeting.
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The Indian chief of defence went rough and assassinated the Japanese chief of defence, resulting in YET ANOTHER security council meeting. It was agreed that the accused official would be imprisoned effective immediately. Before this meeting could be finished a visitor from the Reticulans (aliens) entered the UN security council meeting to clear the alien name and state their full intentions. Japan had been right the whole time, the aliens were indeed running from the Laerti, an aggressive alien lizard race who had captured their homeworld. The base on the moon was confirmed to be an alien refugee camp and with promises from China not to blow it sky high, the sanctions on them were lifted.
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The alien chasing the Reticulans was located to be within range of Chinese developed interplanetary ballistic missiles (IPBMs) although they only had one of the four required to destroy the threat. Further nuclear warheads were provided by Russia, the US and the UK which were outfitted for interplanetary function and were all fired towards the approaching aggressor. The entire win/lose scenario of 8 hours of work came down to on d20 roll, did we hit the Laerti? BOOM, damn right we did. So yeah, that kinda sums it all up, there was a lot more going on behind the scenes in other worldly affairs and research but that is the tale of how the world became friends with our visitors who now reside on the moon!
Mini Socs Fair
Friday and Saturday saw the running of our stall at Socs Fair for the university's open days. Thank you to all the exec that ran this, it appeared to be very successful, and vastly superior to other stalls!
Extravaganza!
Last but not least, the boardgames extravaganza happened this weekend. Very similar to our usual boardgames weekend shenanigans so I won't go into it too much. I will however give you a handful of quotes that I've heard throughout the weekend:
During Articulate
Person 1: Oh, ummm, president of the states, abolished slavery...
Person 2: Oh, Barack Obama!.
Person 1: That big expensive store in London!
Person 2: Halfords!
During Spyfall at 2am
Person 1: So... what's your opinion on breastfeeding...?
Literally everyone else: WHAT?! WHY?!
Also walking in on Monday morning to find Callum and Finnbar had somehow manged to each produce beds out of those chairs in B2.02 and actually sleep on them was amusing.
Anyway I hope those of you that came to the week's events enjoyed them, it has been a crazy fun week. But sadly (or not so sadly depending on how your year's been) that is it for this year's newsletters. I hope you've all had a great year with us and hope you all get back to your homes safely for the summer and enjoy whatever plans you have. Please renew your membership next year with us for what should be another crazy year of tabletop madness!
Much Love,
Luke Scriven (Communications Officer)
L.Scriven.1@warwick.ac.uk
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Gallery
The Winners of the Term 3 Quiz!
The Society's Mini Socs Fair Stall feat. Ares.
The Central room of the Megagame.