February Games... and stuff... (Part The Second)

Wow... we played a LOT more games this month... well... compared to LAST month!?

You can see the games we played in the first half of the month here: 

February Games... and stuff... (Part One)

Friday, 19 February 2021

London again. 

I think we broke it... 

I mean, I love this game, but, yeah... There is so much that just doesn't work for just two players. 

I found the last few games poverty was just a non-issue. Because we both had ten Boroughs, and always less stacks, we were always getting rid of piles of poverty EVERY round and never accumulating it. We tried starting with more - FIFTEEN, instead of FIVE!? And it STILL wasn't even a problem. With ten Boroughs and no poverty you can just build these engines of cards that never flip and just keep Running City over and over and over again and just accumulating more and more and MORE money and points and... it gets to a point where the game could just go on for-EVAR because no one is picking up cards and depleting the deck that triggers game end!? 

Fire Brigade can be awful in a 3- player game - but a bit of a leveller if someone is getting ahead - when you run that card mid-game-ish in a 3 or four player game, that's 3-4 ounds the opponents have to cough up to the bank... with a two-player game, I had to pay TEN - which seemed like it would be awful... but... I recovered, I guess. 

I like London, but I think we'll have to wait until we can play with three or four before we play this again. Maybe some of these problems have been addressed in the new edition... but... I just can't bring myself to shell out the money for it when I already have this one... and... well... SO MANY OTHER GAMES!? 

So... maybe if the kids could ever be talked into it... or.. if the pandemic ever ends. 

Saturday, 21 February 2021

Saturday evening we made characters for Age of Sigmar: Soulbound. Finnegan is playing a Khanite Hag Priestess, Jon is playing an Idoneth Deepkin Soulreaver, Woody is playing a Black Arc Corsair, and Chris is playing a human bard. Randy, who wasn't able to join us will be a Stormcast Eternal.

Thursday, 25 February 2021

Out early with Amanda to picked up (vegan) Ice Cream Cake from Fable Ice Cream AND donuts from Darkside Donuts!?! Woo! 

said ice cream cake and donuts

Also picked up a FEAST from Seasoned Fusion Tastes 

lunch with the family - followed by GAMES with the family. I can't remember when I was able to convince ALL of them to sit down together to play a game. I feel like it was when we played Hellboy the Board Game over the Holidaze at the end of 2019!? Originally we'd discussed playing Firefly - as we haven't in a long time and it seemed the one that Keira was most interested in... but on the day, I had a huge headache and anxious about the evening's game and decided it would probably be better if we just played a few shorter games.

We started off with a round of Splendor... 

Which I actually WON!? A rare treat indeed... they probably LET me win... because they're feeling sad to this old guy... 

Next we played Carcassonne (with Traders & Builders and Inns & Cathedrals). Finnegan won this one, but it was all very close in the end - I think everyone was within a dozen point spread...? 

Finally we played a game of Dominion, which I feel like I haven't played in for-EVAR!? (According to BGG it was just last year in JUne... the time before that was 2019 in June... and the time before THAT was in 2018... in July... so... not a regular one to hit out table...) 

counting up the points Amanda, Finnegan, and I had a THREE-WAY TIE with 26 points each!? WE all anxiously waited for Keira to count hers up - as we were going to have a great laugh if she ALSO had 26 (and Amanda was going to proclaim victory, as we'd looked up the tie-breaker, which is whoever had taken the least number of turns) but Keira ended up with 32 points! 

We's also talked about playing Race for the Galaxy - which was, for a long time, a family favourite... but we just didn't have the time. I still had stuff to prepare for the evening... 

And CAKE to eat!!!

It was delicious. 

After a lighter supper and the ice cream cake Jon and Chris joined me and Finnegan to kick off our Warhammer: Age of Sigmar: SOULBOUND role-playing game campaign! Before getting going, though we had to finish up a few background things...

Randy was able to join in a bit later... later though he was, we'd really only just gotten going. I was running the Crash and Burn beginner adventure (available free on Drive-Thru RPG) - and have a few more adventrues lined up when they make it to Brightspear... er... IF they make it to Brightspear!? 

Friday, 26 February 2021

Friday games continued. I'd almost forgot - although Amanda taking (most of) the day off on Thursday completely threw me off and it ended up feeling like a Saturday... but then Friday ended up feeling like Sunday... or... maybe another Saturday?! My rhythms were all off!? 

Finnegan was playing Four Against Darkness with some friend online and Keira had a new book from the library to read, so Amanda and I sat down to play London again. 

It was more out of habbit, at this point. I think both of us are getting a bit SICK of it as a two player game. We tried it with some new house rules this week - again using 15 poverty to start (instead of 5 - it was still NO TROUBLE at all to get rid of it all by the end of the game in a two player game... probably because - compared to a 4-player - you have twice as many turns to play and twice the poverty deleting ability of having double the number of Burroughs...) AND this time we instituted a new rule that said you cannot do the Run City action two times in a row... and no duplicates of non-flipping cards in your tableau (i.e. you can have BOTH omnibusses in your city display!) 

Amanda won the game 137-122. All game she'd been complaining about how poorly she was doing and how I was "Rocking" the game... and then beat me by 15 points. 

After the game, because it was early (because she'd actually STOPPED work on time - and we're playing the game much quicker now!) she suggested we play ONE MORE TIME - because we are gluttons for punishment... and that would fulfill the challenge - having played it 5 times in Q1 (and then we could move on to play... SOMETHING ELSE!!!) 

This one I edged out a victory - 115-111 - but only because I burried the other omnibus and thus Amanda didn't end the game with ALL the money and was, in fact, not able to pay off one of her loans - losing her 7 VP (and another was lost to to pverty generated by holding two cards at the end of the game!) 

Whew! DONE with that one. I do like it. I can see why they did a second edition. I's still totally play it with four players. 

I'd planned to play Age of Sigmar: Soulbound on Saturday, but wasn't feeling well and had to cancel at the last minute. 

Sunday, 28 February 2021

Finnegan was busy with math homework that he's fallen a bit behind on, so Amanda played a game of Warhammer Underworlds with me. She played Morgwaeth's Blade-Coven and I played Garrek's Reavers. Morgwaeth's remains undefeated in the Beastgrave! 

I'll probably post a full game report tomorrow. 

THE 5x5 QUARTERLY CHALLENGE (so far...) 

So far this Quarter, I have played the following games: 

• Kingdom Builder x8
• London x5
• Warhammer Underworlds: Direchasm x5
• HârnMaster (3rd Edition) x3
• Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Soulbound x2
• Carcassonne Big Box 2 x1
• Dominion x1
• Splendor x1
• Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Warcry x1

So... Three of five completed. I expect I'll get in 4 more games of Soulbound through March... Initially I'd thought Warcry would be number five... but I may have to change that to something else. Maybe Amanda and i will find a different board game to play on Friday evenings...? Or maybe I'll just say we'll play TEN games of WArhammer Underworlds - counting it as two choices in the 5x5x