November Games - Part Two

 Yikes... what happened to November? What happened to this YEAR!? 

Played a few games in the First Half of the Month, The last two weeks... less so... 

Friday, 20 November 2020

On Friday, Kurtis came over for pizza and games... but he brought his own pizza. 

We started off with a game of London - I had suggested it, because I haven't played it in a long time. Took a while to re-figure-out the strategy... or at least A strategy. I did well on keeping poverty down throughout the game. Kurtis had had a PILE, but in the last few rounds had structures that eliminated almost all of it!? We actually ran out of Underground tokens as he was able to put so many of them in play and that kind of won him the game right there! It took Amanda a few MORE turns than Kurtis and I to get a rhythm going and was constantly trying to catch up. 

I really like London. Wish I could play it more.

After that we played a couple rounds of Monarch. In the first I ended up fling the banner of Might, Amanda had Bounty and Kurtis had Culture. In the second game, just to switch things up, I went with Culture, Amanda took Might and Kurtis flew the banner of Wisdom. I ended up wining both games (more because of luck than any solid strategy!?) . 

Saturday, 21 November 2020 

On Saturday we finished off the Fated Accelerated game I'd started the week before... except Christian wasn't able to make it... and Chris was, but he'd missed out on what had happened the week before and was a bit lost! 

The game was set on Mercury in the not-too-distant future. Bit of a mystery/thriller/conspiracy adventure as the players were trying to figure out what the hell was going on around them and who they could trust. 

Saturday 28 November 2020 

Only Jon and Chris were able to make it out to RPG night, and I had very little prepared, so I convinced Finnegan to run a quick game of Four Against Darkness for us - I played Gronq the Barbarian (who worships Croq - God of Ugly but Comfortable Footwear), Jon played a Cleric Named Felquis, and Chris played Lief Qjingleberries (the "Q" is silent) an Elf. We also had a halfling named Quincy following us along, basically to carry a lantern for us, so we could see the rooms and corridors of the dungeon we were bashing. We fought some hobgolbins, rats and bats a couple ogres and a troll. It was a pretty fun, light game and I'm glad I finally got around to trying it out. 

Finnegan has pretty much ALL of the Four Against Darkness stuff - including a few that aren't released (as he is helping with play-testing and proofreading/editing) - and just loves the game. Seems like we will have no trouble recruiting him to run more games if we are without players - or a game to play - on any Saturday night in the future! 

 Just thirty-one days left in the year (and Q4)!

I never really did come up with a plan for the fourth quarter... 

If I were to retroactively pick out five games to play five times - just to keep up with THAT part of the plan, I'd probably go with Fate Accelerated (as I've played six games of THAT already!), Century: Golem Edition – Eastern Mountains (we've played four - I'm sure we could get ONE MORE game in during December) 4 and then Azul, Carcassonne, Codenames: Pictures or Monarch (we've played two of each). Four Against Darkness could just as easily go on the list, I'm sure Finnegan would JUMP at the opportunity to run more games of that! 

Little has moved ahead with the renovation as my FINGER IS STILL BROKEN - went for an x-ray last week (or... the end of the week before..?) and through I haven't heard back from my doctor, we could see the results online and it said there was still a visible fracture... I've also sprained my LCL (ligament on the outside of the knee) and THAT feel like its taking for-EVAR to heal!? GAH!? 

I've still done no painting of miniatures... though I did get a lot of other painting done this month! 

Probably be back in a couple weeks with an update. Hope everyone is safe and healthy. Things are going sideways here. New Covid-19 cases are just spiralling out of control. Despite so many examples of best practices in so many other places that seem to have it under control, the prairie provinces just seem to want ignore other places success stories to learn how awful pandemics can be the hard way... 

November Games - Part One

Not a LOT to report... because there is not a lot going on. Still haven't painted any miniatures. I have been creating pictures - I kind of jumped in one Dinovember, but have been losing interest this past week. You can see what I've been up to on my Art Blog:

Dinovember 2020

We did get in a few games so far this month - mostly this past week. 

Sunday, 1 November 2020 

Amanda suggested we play a game this evening and I suggested Carcassonne, as we haven't played it for a while. 

Saturday, 7 November 2020 

All the guys actually showed up for Saturday RPG night and we made characters for a short adventure I was planning to run using Fate Accelerated the following Saturday (or two? depending on how it went...)

All I really told them was that they were to make characters that would be residing on a Danish National Research Station on the planet Mercury in the not-TOO-distant future.

It was really a lot of fun making the characters 

Jon's character is an American Geologist and a bit of a conspiracy theorist. 

Chris' character is a Robotics Engineer - building, maintaining and operating remote robotic devices. 

Christian's character is a Reactor Engineer - he's a bit of a fuck up, and this is sort of a last chance posting. 

Woody's character is the station's doctor. The alcoholic black sheep of an influential Danish political family, who has been bounced around from remote station to remote station all over the solar system - to keep him off Earth and as far from the prying eyes of the sensationalist news media. 

Seems like a fun group for what I have planned. 

Wednesday, 11 November 2020 

Amanda suggested we play a game. I suggested two shorter ones. 

We started off with Patchwork. 

I think this may have been my Best Game Evar! I ended with 35 Buttons (Amanda had six)! I think my previous highest score was, like, 20...? 

Next we played Azul... I thought I was doing pretty goo here to... but in on the last turn, especially with the end-game scoring - Amanda just blew right past me, leaving me in the dust... Ah, well... It's just fun to play - I like making patterns.

Both of these games we have now played 10 times! (which was actually the reason I selected them - I was looking at my "five and dime" lists on BGG and thought I should play a few of those on the "five" list that were at 8 or 9 plays, just to move them over to the dime list... I should look through the general play list and see if there are any games with 4 plays - to play again and get THEM on to the five list... 

Thursday, 12 November 2020 

Thursday we tried playing Codenames: Pictures - with the two-player/co-op play version of play. The idea was to discover all OUR agents (red) before all the blue ones were revealed. The first game I played the Spymaster and we ended with just one blue agent that hadn't been revealed. 

Then Amanda took a turn at Spymaster and we revealed ALL eight of our agents with only four blue agents being revealed (THREE were still hidden!) 

These two plays put this one on the dime list as well! 

Friday, 13 November 2020 

Our friend Kurtis came over for supper and games on Friday evening. 

We started with Abyss.

Damn, I was feeling like I was ON FIRE and playing my best game EVAR (or was just getting really lucky...?). What's going on this week!? 

But as it turned out my BEST EVER wasn't quite as good as Kurtis' trying-to-figure-it-out play... Ah well... I was having fun, so... 

Next we played Castles of Burgundy. It was really fun to play with 3 players (as most of the last half-dozen-or-so games I've played were 2-player games with Amanda - there were simultaneously more options, but more challenge in that I to REALLY had prioritize what I wanted to do in a given turn as there was TWO people going before my next turn snapping up all the good stuff... 

Kurtis took an early lead and maintained that almost right to the very end.... but I, apparently, was playing the LONG game - setting myself up for big points later in the game or in game-end scoring. I think THIS definitely was my best ever/highest scoring game of Castles of Burgundy. Amanda, no the other hand, who usually dominates Castles, just couldn't seem to get her game together tonight? 

Saturday, 14 November 2020 

Started playing the Mystery on Mercury adventure I cooked up for the lads using Fate Accelerated. Didnt quite get through it all and ended on a glorious cliffhanger! 

Monday, 16 November 2020 

Finished the first two weeks of November the way we started - with another game of Carcassonne. 

Not much else going on. We had a large snow event and we've barely left the house this past week. There are a few pictures over on the Bike Blog:

Tim's Bike Blog: November

Probably back in a couple weeks with another game update... Let me know if you stopped by by posting a comment below - and tell me what games you've been playing! 

October - Act Three

The GRAND FINALE, as it were... 

or... 

Something like that. 

But not really... 

On Friday, 23 October 2020, Amanda and I played Terraforming Mars.

We played on the Elysium board with the Prelude expansion. The game took us fourteen turns. 

Amanda played Cheung Shing Mars with Society Support and Galilean Mining from Prelude. She took the Specialist AND Generalist milestones. She sponsored the Industrialist and Benefactor awards - but only took the Benefactor! She ended the game with 139 points. 

I played Valley Trust with Biolab, Research Network, and Donation from Prelude. I took the Ecologist Milestone and Desert Settler and Industrialist awards. Ended the game with 116 points. 

I did get together with the lads on Saturday evening... but we didn't end up playing a game... Just a bit of a chat about things. 

There were no games the last week of October. 

I was looking over John Lambshead's One Hour Skirmish Wargaming and considered setting up a game on the dining room table a few times... but just didn't get to it. It does look like an interesting game, so I do hope I get to it in November. 

I tried to keep up with the drawing, but ended up flailing a bit... You can see what I got up to over on the Art Blog:

October Challenge - Part the Third

I also tried to keep up with the riding. I did a bit of walking too. There are pictures over on the Bike Blog:

And a Few More Pics from October

Things aren't looking great here with the Covid-19 situation. As of the end of October, we've had the highest number of active cases since the whole thing began - more than doubling the two previous high points in May and August... and they just keep rising... 

Hope you are all healthy, safe, and happy.