March Gaming Round Up

When I started this year I thought I'd do weekly round-ups, since we were going to be playing so many games. but some weeks we just don't play that many. Seems silly to write up something about just one... (Well unless it's a blow-by-blow miniature game after action report!). We didn't play so many games in March - at least not for the first three weeks.

I think I mentioned that we played Viticulture on the 2nd in the February-Plus-a-Bit-of-March Round-Up.

Friday, 9 March 2018



A week later on the 9th I played a game of The Pikeman's Lament with my friend John. There's a full report of that game here:

Somewhere Else to Be


Sunday, 11 March 2018



On Sunday Amanda and I travelled over to Chez Genest to play in Bob's Numenera Campaign - Escape from the Jade Colossus. I'm playing "Rocking Rick" a Craven Jack who is Getting the Band Back Together... He's a washed-up, has been (or... never really was!) rocker that is always talking about getting the band back together and reliving the glory days of his youth (or at least the glory days as he remembers them), which he will tell anyone all about if they are interested to listen - or unable to get away...

I think we kind of ruined Bob's plan for a sneaky-beaky in-and-out recovery scenario, when I ended up performing and impromptu rock concert on my electric sitar at the Jade Colossus. It created pandemonium.


Friday, 16 March 2018



It wasn't until Friday that we got in another game. My Rogue Trader game was cancelled again so the family sat down to play a quick game of Splendor before watching a movie (I think it was the Royal Tenebaums...? Which I'd never seen before!)



The last game I pointed out why I was always winning... Amanda adopted my strategy and now I will never win the game again. At the end of the game she had 15, Finnegan had 11, I had 8 and The Girl had 5...



Well... we've played our five games of this, so we don't really need to play it anymore this year, right?


Friday, 23 March 2018

The following Friday my friend Aaron's kids had the day off school so they came over to hang out for the day and we played a few games.



First we played some 40K - there is a report of this game here:

40K Friday



Later the kids play a game of Sentinels of the Multiverse amongst themselves.


Saturday, 24 March 2018



On Saturday I was out all day playing in my first 40K tournament ever: The Battleforce Recon Tournament at the Mana Bar in Saskatoon. Full report on that here:

Battleforce Recon Tournament 


Sunday, 25 March 2018



Rounding out the weekend Amanda and I were off to play Numenera again. The Rock concert at the Jade Colossus continued...  I actually have a jacket and tie like I was trying to draw (the tie is purple and sparkly!). I'd meant to bring them, but forgot... next time...


Monday, 26 March 2018

This last week of march we decided "Enough with this not-playing-games nonsense!" and made a plan to play a few games and more or less stuck to it.



Monday we ended up playing Five Tribes.



This game went a bit longer, everyone was paying close attention to the paths where they were dropping off stuff. setting things up for potential future use.



In the end The Girl crushed us by collecting up PILES of market items...

Tuesday, 27 March 2018



On Tuesday, The Girl set up a game of Super dungeon Explore for us.



I played my Wandering Minstrel and though I collected a cool Elvish Bracelet early on, I was knocked out on, like, the second turn...



Eventually they got me back into the game... but it didn't last long. I was knocked out again. I don't recall the game being THIS HARD when we played before. Maybe I need to read the rules... I think The Girl might be missing something. Or maybe we didn't play it right previously!? Or maybe she just picked really tough opponents...!? I don't know. we got our butts kicked and never even made it off the first board!

We need to paint some of those baddies!


Friday, 30 March 2018

I'd hoped to play another game on Thursday, but I ended up running around doing errands all day as I wouldn't be able to get to doing any over the long weekend. While out and about I picked up Game of Thrones Season Seven at the library and we ended up binge-watching the ENTIRE SEASON Thursday night (and, well, Friday morning...). We didn't get up on Friday until after noon...

Amanda had Friday off so we mostly hung around the house and played games all day.



To start things off we continued our Harry Potter: Hogwart's Battle campaign, taking another crack at Game Six. Our three starting villains were Dementors, Professor Quirell, and Death Eaters - so between Quirrell and the Dementors the active player was losing 3 health every turn... but if we went after them first, the Death Eaters would cause more pain for each new hero brought out. Things looked pretty grim from the get-go...



But we managed to take out the Dementors and the Death Eater and a few other nasty ones that came after.. and then Ron started laying the smack down!



And again! BAM! I think I did TEN damage this round take took out the second Death Eaters card and Crab and Goyle...



...and we actually managed to beat Game Six! Huzzah!

It was a REALLY LONG GAME. Each game just adds more cards and more (and HARDER) villains. I'm kind of not looking forward to Game Seven - it adds a whole new element - Horcruxes! We'll probably need a full day for that one... Hopefully we get lucky and beat it the first go!



Later we played another game of Splendor while waiting for pizza to cook. Amanda crushed it.



After supper we played a long game of Nations. I tried to play China again, Finnegan had Greece, Amanda played Egypt, and The Girl played Rome. Things were pretty rough for for me in the first two ages (ancient and medieval) I happened to be dead last every round - because I never had any military. All it seemed like every single time I MIGHT get ahead or something might work out for me, someone else would screw me over! And it's not like they were even playing mean and actually paying attention to what was going on with events or what I was trying to do and TRYING to screw me over... they just did. I'm not sure which is worse. I think it might have been easier to take if it were that they were paying really close attention and figured out what I was trying to do and cleverly came up with a devious plot to utterly ruin my plans... instead of just putting a guy on a building for no particular reason that just happens to give them one more stability than me and thus takes the 10 book bonus I'd been hoping to get from the events... Ugh...



In the renaissance I picked up the Rangers and started picking up battles and switched things up and started going first.



It wasn't enough to catch up to Amanda (who kept saying the whole second half of the game that this was her "WORST GAME EVER" and she was "TOTALLY GOING TO LOSE THIS ONE"....). Finnegan had a great pile of victory points accumulated and had been second for books throughout the whole games. I thought there might be a chance he might win it...



Despite all her protestations, it was Amanda in the end.


Saturday, 31 March 2018

If a day of gaming at home wasn't enough - we were invited over to Kurtis and Shannon's for a day of gaming over there on Saturday!  The kids and I arrived mid afternoon and they were just finishing up a game of Imperial Settlers.



The first game we played was Spoons. Basically you put a pile of spoons in the middle of the table (one less than the number of players). Then deal out for cards to each player. Then you pass a card to the player on the left and pick up one from the player on the right (the dealer draws from the deck of cards, the player at the end just drops cards into a discard pile). You continue doing this until someone gets four of a kind....



Then they grab for a spoon in the centre of the table - once you see someone going for a spoon you can grab one as well (you do not need to have four of a kind) the person left with out a spoon is out. Remove one spoon and continue.... I was the first out. I think Finnegan was one of the last three...? I don't remember who won.



After Spoons a bunch of us played 7 Wonders (with the Leaders expansion, and some extra wonder cards, and the bonus anniversary expansion pack for Leaders....).



I had the Great Wall of China and totally rocked the science!  I ended up winning with 66 points. Finnegan (I think he played Stonehenge...?) had 63, and Kurtis (I forget what he played) had 61. The rest were in the 40s and 50s.



A few of us played Century: Spice Road next. I really like this game. If I were to buy another game this year, it would probably be this (I feel like I'm pretty much done with buying games... I have so many that I already don't get to play enough - and no space left to store any new ones....).



I ended the game with 54 points, as did Brent. Eli edged us out with 55...



While we were playing Century: Spice Road, Kurtis taught Finnegan to play 7 Wonders: Duel.

After this we took a break to eat supper. Shannon had made a wonderful chilli for us all (and this time left the cilantro out - bless her heart!).



After supper Brent taught Shannon, Finnegan and The Girl how to play Pecunia Non Olet. It's a game about poo.



You are the owner or manager of a public toilet in Rome and charge people money to go poo in your toilet...? different people take longer to poo... I don't know.. It's about poo... The kids seemed to like it. I have no idea who won. There was a lot of laughing at their end of the table and poo-making sound effects...



Meanwhile, Kurtis, Amanda and myself played a couple more games of Century: Spice Road.



Kurtis won the first game with 77 points, Amanda had 65, and I have 51...



The second game I did a little better with 97 - strangely Amanda had exactly 65 again, and Kurtis had 51 - which is what I'd scored in the first game... weird?



Brent, Amanda, The Girl and I played a game of Castles of Mad King Ludwig afterwards. I LOVE this game... I could care less about winning, I just like making weird castles. The castles often end up looking not unlike the plans for castles I drew as a youngster.



I didn't love this castle I made as much as others I've made... I didn't do too bad in the game, though. I came in second with 92 points. Brent won with 97 (on the very last turn he finished a... workshop...? the one that gives you and extra goal card and got a goal that gave him 2 points per little square room - of which he had SIX!?), Amanda had 90 and The Girl had 84.



Finnegan had didn't end up playing any games after supper. He'd discovered Kurtis' Judge Dredd comics..



Finally we figured out Nations: The Dice Game. Kurtis had picked it up some time ago, but never got around to trying it out. I'm not a HUGE fan of dice games, but didn't mind it. It's similar to Nations, except that I takes a coulee hours less to play and there isn't as much awful stuff that just happens to you if you're not paying attention and not a lot of screwing the others players over...

WHEW!  What a day! We ended up playing almost as many games on Saturday as we had the rest of the month!?


Coming Soon to Tim's Miniature Wargaming Blog

I've got a lot of different stuff all over the painting desk... I have no idea what I'll finish up next. I think it's time I cleared it off and started over with just one thing...

This coming Friday the Boyz are coming over, so we'll probably get in another game or tow of 40K...