July Games (Part Two)

(You can find Part One HERE)

This past week I've has this weird feeling like it's August already for some reason...? I've been looking at expiry dates on food items in the fridge and wondering why we have stuff that expired last month!? It's not August (at least not while I'm writing this, it more than likely WILL be when you actually READ this). It's the end of July and here are the games we played in the second half of the month.

Monday, 16 July 2018

Monday after work Amanda we all played a quick game of Century: Golem Edition. I think after finally winning on Friday she wanted to see if she could still beat me…

 

She totally didn’t… I scored 78… more than 20 points ahead of everyone else…



Saturday, 21 July 2018

We didn’t play any more games all week. I’m not sure why. I guess the kids spent a couple days hanging out with my folks. Other days we went on bike rides. Amanda was running her Kids Yoga Dance camp for kids. Everyone we pretty tired in the evenings and probably just wanted to hide in the basement and watch TV or movies…

Saturday evening I finallygot everyone to play a game of Warhammer 40000 (8thEdition). This was Amanda first game with her Sisters of Battle!



Sunday, 22 July 2018

On Sunday, I headed over to Brent’s for our semi-annual game of Angola with John and Kurtis. We’ve played in July and December for the last two years. Despite randomly determining who plays which faction Every Single Time Brent and I have ended up with the FAPLA and the MPLA (though we’ve each played both factions twice. John and Kurtis. This time I was MPLA. I’m not sure the government forces have EVER won…

The end of things… Government forces losing again with the FNLA controlling Luanda (for the second time this game!)


Monday, 23 July 2018

Monday evening we finally got in a game with Leanne and her son Taotao – who I’ve been trying to get together with for some time! We settled on playing Lords of Waterdeep

Amanda played The Knights of the Sheild secretly controlled by Larisa Neathal, I played the Grey Hands controlled by Mirt the Moneylender, Finnegan played the Res Sashes secretly controlled by Simnerza Sulphontis, The Girl played the City Guard who were controlled by Caladorn Cassalanter, Leanne played the silver Stars controlled by Rianne Byndraeth, and Taotao played the Harpers controlled by Halaster Blackstar III. It was Leanne and Taotao’s first time playing the game. Considering that Taotao did AMAZINGLY well scoring 111points, he was only beaten by Amanda who managed to score 112! We actually only got to play 7 or the 8 rounds and, given one more round, I probably would have finished upa few more adventure/goals I’d been working on and given them a run for their money… I probably won’t have won, but it would have been a bit closer…

Tomorrow they’re supposed to be coming back to play again…


Wednesday, 25 July 2018

Wednesday after work Amanda suggested we play a game and we eventualy decided on Marvel Legendary. We played with Daredevil, Punisher, Black Car, Moon Knight, and Spiderman. We battled against the King Pin this time and his scheme was an Organized Crime Wave, which kind of makes sense. Helping him out were Magia Goons, The Hand Ninjas, Streets of New York, Emissaries of Evil, Sinister Six and Spider Foes. IN the end We won... I punched the King Pin twice. His master strikes weren't too bad, but the cards revealed when you punched him were all bad...


Friday, 27 July 2018

Friday evening my friend Bruce came over to play a game and we settled on Agricola.

It was his first time playing. Amanda totally cleaned up, as usual, building a massive sprawling stone mansion and a huge family to take care of it all while doing just about every occupation she could… other than… y’know… FARMING!?

I didn’t do TOO bad. I came in second and was relatively please to have finally gotten a farm with some serious… y’know… FARMING going on! My biggest complaint about this game is that it’s too easy to have animals and too hard to actually plough fields and get stuff sown in them!


Saturday, 28 July 2018

We didn’t play games on Saturday…

 

But I did go and buy a BUNCH of stuff for Kill Team!! Expaect game reports in the not-too-distant future!


Sunday 29 July 2018

Sunday Kurtis and Shannon came over for an afternoon and evening of gaming. We told the kids they were welcome to join us... but they were busy doing other stuff.

We started off with Fresco. I won the game in the raffle at ToonCon last year and hadn’t had an opportunity to play it yet. There are bunch of games I’ve picked up over the last year that I haven’t had an opportunity to play yet and I’ve tried to stack them in a PILE OF SHAME in the living room and was hoping to work through them this month… or maybe in August… Anyway, they spotted it there and said they’ve played it before so we had a go at it.

It was fun enough. It’s a keeper – I’d play it again.

I just realized there are, like, 9 expansions for this!? At least one was included in the box I have. Not sure if I'll ever play this enough to justify running out and getting any of the others...

Next we played Century: Eastern Wonders. The second in the Century series that Plan B games is to release over three years (the first being Century: Spice Road that came out last year). I find it's much like Spice Road or Golem. You're still trying to collect cubes of spices, convert them to other sets of cubes to eventually trade in for victory tiles which give you points. Instead of drafting cards from a market, you are setting up trading posts on islands that your little boat sails to. Unlike Spice Road and Golem where there is only one of each card and only one person can get it, anyone can build a trading post on each island and then use it to convert their sets of cubes. It just costs more to build a trading post if there are already posts on the island. Also by building posts on a diverse set of islands (each has a different symbol on them) you can gain the bonuses - either straight points or in-game bonuses like faster ships or bigger holds, etc.

Eastern Wonders is okay I guess. I really like Century: Spice Road and Century: Golem Edition. Eastern Wonders felt, to me, like an attempt to add a layer of complexity to a game that is beautiful in its simplicity…? I’d play it again, but I won’t be rushing out to by this one…

My final score: 58 – dead last. I thought I’d been doing pretty good off the start I was the first to pick up a victory tile (the 20!?) and I was the first to empty a vertical row on my card and gain a bonus for my ship (the extra move). I don’t know where it all came apart…? One more turn and I’ve have picked up a fifth victory tile – for another 13 points, but that still wouldn’t have put me in the lead…? Ah well…

I took a break to make supper and the rest played a quick game of Century: Golem Edition.

I think Kurtis won this one as well…?

After supper, The Girl joined us and got us to play a game of Just Desserts (it’s her game and she loves it and just can’t get people to play it with her enough). I don’t mind it, it’s usually quick and it’s simple enough… We completely exhausted the Guest Deck, which I don’t think I’ve ever seen happen before. Amanda won.

After Just Desserts Shannon had to leave because she had to get up waaaaaaaay too early…

So, the four of us played Splendor – with Cities of Splendor! The Girl FINALLY won a game of this! (She’s been lamenting for some time that she NEVER wins this game…)

I wasn’t even close. I was all set up so that in the next two turns I would have picked up two cards worth another 7 points. (one requiring the 7 black and another requiring the six red…). But I still would have needed one more green card or two more points… Ah well… it was fun.


Tuesday, 31 July 2018

the kids snuck in two more games this afternoon...

First, at The Girl's suggestion, we played a game of Hanging Gardens - one of our older games that I still like playing. Simple pattern making/set collection. I never don't enjoy playing this game.

thought I was doing pretty good for myself - got a few complete sets - scored FIFTY-THREE POINTS! Not bad at all...

Until this monkey went and counted up his points and got FIFTY FOUR!!! It was all those walls and the Guard that really added up. (He said he was building it to keep the Egyptians out!)

Afterwards Finnegan put together a thematic set of Dominion cards for us to play with. He called it "Market Day". I feel like we've played a different thematic set that he also called "market day" , but no matter. This set included Village, Market, and Workshop from the base game, Trader, Spice Merchant, and Haggler from Hinterlands, Horse Traders and Harvest - Cornucopia and Plaza and Herald from Guilds. Not a bad little set. Trader got me scores of silvers. I tried to trash coppers with Spice Merchants, but always ended up with silvers in my hands... haggler is awesome - should have picked one up earlier. Horse Traders was pretty weak considering the others in this set - I didn't pick up any. I don't think anyone picked up a Harvest...


I though I was doing pretty good, in the end, with all those Provinces... Then Finnegan counted up his stuff. He had less provinces, but a PILE of Duchies and ended up with 38, I had 34, The Girl had 32

Super close game in the end - unlike the last time we played where The Girl utterly thrashed us! (I think she had 39 and I had, like, 18...!?)


I guess the month isn't entirely over as I post this, but Finnegan has D&D tonight and Amanda, The Girl and I are watching a movie (or two) while I get some painting done... so I think that's it for our gaming...


The Challenge Board

We only ticked a few more games off the challenge board this month... Dominion, Legendary and Lords of Waterdeep, I think... 

In addition to working on the Pile of Shame (see below) I'm planning to knock a few more of these off through August - go for some of the "low-hanging fruit" - games that we (mostly) know the rules for and can play in less than two hours. Surely we can do a few of those each week...?

If we do a September Game-A-Day Challenge again, that will hopefully get us caught up as well.


Plans for August

The Pile of Shame

As I mentioned earlier, I've been piling up a few of the games I've acquired over the last year or so and still haven't played in the living room. My plan it to leave them there until I actually get around to playing them.

Okay, Space Hulk isn't on the pile, because that's actually Finnegan's game... and Kill Team, while technically a game I've bought in the last year and haven't played yet, I JUST bought and I KNOW I'm going to play a lot of it... soon...


Coming Soon to Tim's Miniature Wargaming Blog:

I am STILL working on the Terminators for Space Hulk. There's so much detail on them. There have been a few evenings I sat down to paint and just felt like I didn't have enough focus or patience or something to paint that kind of detail, so I ended up assembling and priming other things - a few minis, some of the terrain from Kill Team... I DO still hope to finish off those Terminators sometime this week BEFORE I get painting anything else!!!

Hopefully in the next week or so you'll start seeing Kill Team and Space Hulk miniatures and game reports.

Oh and Finnegan finally finished off the Gorkanaut he started in December... perhaps I'll post a picture of that. Or Maybe I'll wait until we get it on the table for a game and post a picture of THAT! Not sure what I'm going to throw up against it. Power-Level-wise it's more than a Leman Russ tank, but less than two... and less than a Shadowsword or Knight - not even CLOSE to the Warhound.... He should have got a STOMPA! Maybe Gorkanaut plus Meganobs versus a Leman Russ platoon...?