October Games

We got in a few games this month. Unlike previous months - and previous Octobers - all the games seem to be clusetered around weekends - or on Hallowe'en....



There are a couple reasons for this. One is that we - as a family - are doing waaaaaaaay too much other stuff (mostly on Weekday evenings)... Sunday The Girl has Irish Dance Classes. Monday she had swimming and Amanda and I are taking a ballroom dancing class. Tuesday The Girl has Lyrical and Jazz dance classes. I have my Irish dance class, and Finnegan plays D&D every other Tuesday. Wednesday both kids have violin lessons, The Girl has Ballet and Finnegan plays in a Star Wars Role-playing game and Amanda leads a Yin yoga class. Thursday Finnegan plays in another D&D campaign, and both kids have Improv classes at Persephone Theatre school (but at different times!? Luckily it's very close by!). Friday is the one day we don't have much going on... Oh, except my cello lessons, every other Friday... Saturday The Girl has Tap classes and volunteers with the Spirit Fliers and Amanda leads two more yoga classes... Uggggghhhh.... it's maddening... On top of all this Amanda decided we should get an annual pass for the local climbing gym - and so, in theory, we're supposed to work in some time to go climbing so that money doesn't all go to waste.

(and amongst all that, Amanda's expecting me to find time to renovate the basement before the end of the year...)

Also, this fall, Finnegan has started a new sort of schooling. He's still schooling at home, but is doing an online curriculum - which is a LOT more work that what we used to do! And the curriculum is all set, so there's not working games into the curriculum and no spare time to just have a fun afternoon game...

So... weekends...

The first weekend of October was the Thanksgiving day weekend her in Canada. I already did a post about the games we played that weekend...

Long Weekend Games

The next weekend was ToonCon! Again, I've already written a post about that weekend...

ToonCon 2018

So... what did we do for the REST of the weekends in October?


Monday, 15 October 2018

Okay... technically this WASN'T a weekend... but we'd had so much fun playing games all weekend and we wanted to keep the momentum going and The Girl wasn't able to go to swimming for some reason and Amanda was in Florida dodging a hurricane so I played hooky from Ballroom dance class and we played some more games. It was glorious. Not that ToonCon wasn't fun. But it was really just great for the three of us to sit down and play a couple games together.



First we played Kingdom Builder. In previous years we've usually played Kingdom Builder at ToonCon - but this year it was on Sunday and I was playing the COIN game, The Girl was playing Castles of Burgundy, and Finnegan was playing TI4.... So we decided to play Kingdom Builder this evening...

I made no note of which victory conditions we were playing with... I'm  pretty sure one was points for each settlement in the longest horizontal line... and the others...? One might have been points for each separate clusters of settlements...? And the other might have been points for each settlement surrounding a castle...? I ended up with 67 points, The Girl had 53 and Finnegan had 44... but, more importantly, everyone had fun playing a game we haven't had a chance to play in a while!



Next we tried out a new game I got in the ToonCon game auction; Marrying Mr. Darcy! I remember seeing this when it was originally a Kickstarter and had thought of backing it... but didn't at the time. I'd also seen a copy at King Me Boardgamery about a year, or so, ago... but didn't pick it up then... So I was pretty excited to pick it up, along with the Emma and Undead expansions!

In our first game I got to play Elizabeth Bennet, Finnegan played Caroline Bingley, and The Girl played Kitty Bennet. There are two phases to the game - Courtship and Proposals. Through the courtship phase you take turns drawing and playing event cards - usually the event cards allow you to pick up and play Character cards, which generally add to your character points in one of your five traits (Beauty, Wit, Friendliness, Reputation, and Cunning), but sometimes the Event Cards have some other effect! Once all the Event Cards are played, we move on to the Proposal stage where, in order of cunning, the players all try to get various suitors to propose to them. Who potentially proposes depends on their particular standards and your characters traits (for example Mr. Bingley will only propose to someone with 5+ Friendliness or 5+ Beauty. Mr. Darcy, on the other hand, will only propose to someone with 5+ Wit) If a particular suitor is already married, he obviously will not propose to you (hence the need for cunning - to go first in the proposal round). Once everyone is (hopefully) married off points are tallied - this includes you character points (Beauty, Wit, Friendliness, and Reputation - but NOT Cunning) and your marriage points - each suitor has a marriage point value for each character (for example, Kitty Bennet gets 12 points if she marries Mr. Deny, 10 points if she marries either Mr. Wikham, Mr. Bingley or Col. Fitzwilliam, 9 points if she marries Mr. Darcy, and 6 points if she marries Mr. Collins....).

One of the Highlights of the game was when Finnegan, who was playing Caroline Bingley, drew an event card that involved reading a letter from an aunt or something where she discovered her "true nature"...? (Or something like that...?) I think he had to discard the top cards of each type - though it was early in the game and he only ended up being able to discard two - and then draw four and immediately play them. ALL FOUR cards that he drew were friendliness cards... for Caroline Bingley - who says right on her card; "Mr. Bingley's sister is well to do, and not terribly pleasant..."! That's quite the reversal of character! The Girl pointed out that she had enough friendliness to marry Mr. Bingley at which point Finnegan exclaimed "I CAN'T MARRY MY BROTHER! THIS IS PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, NOT GAME OF THRONES!"



I had a number of Suitors, but was plagued by a scandal - and Event Card I had drawn earlier in the game which gave me a -1 to all proposal rolls! I ended up marrying Col. Fitzwilliam for a total of 22 points. Finnegan, playing Caroline Bingley married Mr. Denny for a total of 24 points, and The Girl, playing Kitty Bennet, married Mr. Wikham for only 21 points.

I thought the game was marvellous - light,  good fun, and pretty quick - a good filler game when you have half an hour to kill.

Amanda returned from Florida later that evening and the following morning we hit the ground running and didn't play anymore games until the following weekend...


Friday, 19 October 2018



We finally played Castles of Burgundy. The Girl had played this at ToonCon two years ago and had loved it so much, that she'd asked for it for her birthday or Xmas...? and someone got it for her...? I said we'd play it with her when she read the rules and could teach it to us all... and so it sat... Last year she played dit again and there was another bout of wanting to play it... but... it didn't happen... Again, she played it at ToonCon this year and had desperately wanted to play it on Monday, but we just couldn't find it!? We spent HOURS turned the house upside down and inside out trying to find it - it's a boxed board game - how hard could that be to find!? Pretty hard actually! Eventually I gave up, but noticed it was only $40 on Amazon and said "Eff it! How much longer are we going to search for this thing?! What is our time worth!?" I honestly couldn't believe it's actually in the house anymore - though I can't think of any reason it would have left!? So I just ordered another one and it arrived on Friday.

The Girl read the rules and explained it to us all and we finally all played it together. It was fun. Don't ask me to explain how it plays... I'm sure if I sat down to play it, it would all come back to me, but at this exact moment, I don't remember much about how it plays... other than rolling some dice and somehow gaining little hexagonal tiles and placing them and getting points and stuff...



Apparently I got the most points and won!

I do remember feeling like it was a pretty slick game and understood why it's been on the Board Game Geek Top 100 (Currently #11) for so long.


Saturday, 20 October 2018



This evening we introduced Amanda to Marrying Mr. Darcy! Once again I played Elizabeth Bennet, Amanda played my elder, prettier sister, Jane Bennet, Finnegan played our younger sister Lydia Bennet, and The Girl played Georgiana Darcy!

At one point, Amanda drew the "Elopement" card and eloped with Mr. Wickham losing all her reputation! She gained back enough reputation to get rid of him later, but was only able to attract Mr. Collins as a suitor.



I managed to marry Mr. Darcy this time around and won the game with 27 points! Finnegan wasn't far behind, marrying Mr. Denny had gained him 25 points. The Girl married off Georgiana Darcy to Colonel Fitzwillaim for a total of 19 points. The earlier elopement had tarnished poor Jane Bennet so much she was only able to attract Mr. Collins, so Amanda ended the game with only 17 points...

Fun and laughs were had.


Sunday, 21 October 2018



Finnegan and I set up and played a game of Space Hulk while the Amanda was out taking The Girl to her Irish dance lesson. There is a full report of that action elsewhere on this blog:

Space Hulk: Exterminate!


Friday, 26 October 2018

This past Friday we started a Kill Team Campaign



Amanda's Drukhari took on The Girl's Harlequins in the Deathworld Forest Kill Zone.



Finnegan's Orks took on Bruce's Genestealers in the Sector Munitorum Kill Zone.

There is a full report of those action, and a bit of a background to the campaign elsewhere on this blog:

Campaign on Xoxigar


Saturday, 27 October 2018



While Amanda was out teaching yoga and The Girl was at her dance classes, our friend Laura joined Finnegan and me for a game of Arkham Horror! Finnegan and I played two characters each - partly because I think the game goes a bit better with more characters - but also The Girl was very disappointed that she might miss getting to play this so we each took and extra character so that if The Girl and Amanda got home early enough they could easily join us take over our spare characters!



I played Dexter Drake (magician) and Gloria Goldberg (author), Finnegan played Michael McGlenn (tough guy) and Jenny Barnes (dilettante), and Laura played Kate Winthrop (scientist or researcher?). In this game we were fighting the Ithaqua! Ithatqua is awful (they're all awful) with the coming of Ithaqua an unseasonable winter storm descends on Arkham and anyone caught in the streets at the end of a turn suffers one stamina from the cold!

In the end Ithaqua was awaked by too many gates open and we eventually lost when all characters were devoured - but we knocked 7 or 8 marker off the doom track fighting!

In the end Amanda and The Girl ended up running some errands and didn't get back in time...


Wednesday, 31 October 2018

Not a weekend...

The Girl's ballet class was cancelled. Sometimes this happens, as they figure most kids won't show up anyway because they all go out trick-or-treating... So we planned to play GAMES!!

Finnegan still went out to play in his Star Wars role-playing game, so I played a few games with his sister, DEATH...



First we played a few rounds of Retro Loonacy, I won the first three rounds... but eventually Death gets you...



Then we played Cthulhu Fluxx. I haven't played Cthulhu Fluxx in a long time. I'd gotten kind of tired of Fluxx game for a while, but I actually had a lot of fun playing this one!



WE totally lost... because... CTHULHU!!! If it hadn't been for the Ungoal that beat us both coming out, I would have won on the next round as there was a play three rule in effect and another rule that said you could still win if you had an investigator keeper in play - and I would have been able to play Randolph Carter (an investigator), The Cultist, and the At Home with the Whateleys - a goal requiring The Cultists and the Farm (which I'd already stollen from Death a few turns before...).



When Finnegan got home we set up another game of Arkham Horror - and this time we decided to try out the Kingsport Expansion. I'd picked up the expansion a few years ago, but we've never played it because I always felt we'd never really played the base game enough to really feel like we knew what was going on enough to add MORE to the game. That's part of the reason why I added it to our 25/30x5 list for the year.



This time I played Tony Morgan. I had the kids pick out and character for me - and they wanted to all play characters from the new expansion. Finnegan played Rex Murphy and The Girl played Lily Chen. This time around we were fighting Y'golonac.

After 3 hours we kind of just gave up. Everyone was getting pretty tired... I feel like if maybe I just played 4-5 more times, I might have a better clue how to play... but when the games take 3+ hours... I don't know... It feels like a LOT of potentially dissatisfying game play to try and get good at a game that I'm starting to wonder if it will EVER get that good - especially when there are SO MANY other shorter games that I really, really enjoy and almost always have a lot of fun playing! (like Marrying Mr. Darcy! Though maybe with enough plays it will get boring...).

I mean I DO like me a good long game that you can really sink your teeth into and plays out to tell an epic story of... something...? This is starting to feel like an epic exercise in frustration!?

One thing that kind of bugs me about this game is the skill sliders - I mean I get that if you increase your speed, you decrease your stealth - that makes real world sense... but I don't get the inverse relationship between fighting ability and willpower...?! Part of me feels like I should set them at median levels, so you have SOMETHING in every skill, but it at the same time it feels like just about everything has a negative modifier of some sort, so if you only have median numbers, you'll still effectively have nothing... The answer seems to be to crank them over to the highest level of whatever you're best at and HOPE that when you draw an encounter card it requires the skill you have and not the one you suck at... Which brings me to my other gripe: I feel like there is a bit TOO MUCH random in this game....

I almost felt this evening like maybe it's time to get rid of this game - except I think a new edition was just released - so there will be tonnes of people getting rid of theirs... Maybe it's just because I was super tired and had a HUGE headache... Maybe we'll try again next Hallowe'en...


25/30x5

We did manage to knock a few games off our 25/30x5 list...



With only two months to go and 80+ games still to play... I think this is going to be a bust... I do hope we'll get a few more lines completed - and play all of the games on the list AT LEAST ONCE - I mean, that was the point of the list - to make sure we got to play some games that we really wanted to play - the secondary goal of the list was to play some games we really wanted to learn better and played them enough times that we DID feel like we knew the games better. I think that's worked well enough for most of the games we've played five times already... Next year maybe we'll just stick with a 10x10 challenge ten games we really want to play a lot more of (ten times!) and maybe we'll have a side list of another 10 or so bigger games we want to make sure we get on the table SOMETIME in the year...



Coming Soon to Tim's Miniature Wargaming Blog:

More of the Campaign on Xoxigar...? We were planning to play on Friday... but now we've committed to going out to an art show beginning at 5pm... sure, we could be back by 6pm... but then Amanda has to run out and teach a Yoga class at 8pm - which she's volunteered to do every Friday for the month of November to try and help raise money for Diabetes (as it is Diabetes awareness month).

Painting... I'm just about finished up a few final additions to my Mechanicus Kill Team - I have a Tech-Priest, a Tech-Priest Dominus, and four more Sicarians (a second Infiltrator, and Infiltrator Princeps and two Ruststalkers), then that team will be DONE!

I have some Orcs for Shadespire on the workbench as well, along with the Imperial Knight I started so long ago. The Girl has been reminding me that I promised I would help her paint all the Mice & Mystics miniatures once ToonCon was over... and now it's over... so...