Tuesday, May 31, 2022

May Games

Well... we played a FEW more games in May... 


Sunday, 1 May 2022

Amanda and I kicked off May with a game of Wingspan. First day of the month and we've already played as many games as we play in all of April... so things were looking up! 

I felt like I was flailing most of the game... somehow I managed to keep up with the Round End Goals... 

AND somehow managed to scored 20 points on bonus cards - (sets of next types, birds worth less than 4 points, and different colour/action types on bird cards in a single habitat) - largely because of a lucky random-from-the-top-of-the-deck card in the third round that just happened to work for two of the bonus cards to tip them over into the higher scoring amount - had it not been for that incredible bit of luck I probably wouldn't have won... or it certainly would have been very close! 

Not the highest scoring game we've had... I guess we were BOTH a little out of practice! 


Sunday, 8 May 2022

The following Sunday, Amanda invited someone they know from work (and her two daughters) to come over and play Wimgspan. 

There were some interesting Round End Goals - NONE involved Eggs in nests of any kind or location!? 

My sanctuary at the end of it..  I COULD have gotten one in the forest... but it was worth more points to just keep the card in hand and win the last Round End Goal (most cards in hand!) 

They've clearly played a lot of games before - though not wingspan. The daughters totally picked it up right away and did exceptionally well... Mom... had to have a lot of things explained... and re-explained... and... 


Sunday, 15 May 2022

Again, on the following Sunday, Amanda and i played Terraforming Mars. 

And Terraform it we did! 

My tableau at the end of the game. 

As per usual, Amanda rocked it 


Thursday 19 May 2022

Brent came over on Thursday to play something and we settled on Warhammer Underworlds. 

Despite having finally just finishing Magore's Fiends... I did not play them!? 

Brent has never played and it's been half a year since I last played... so it took some explaining (and some remembering!?). Brent took Morgok' s Krushas. I took Ironskulls Boyz. 

GRAAAARRR! First Blood! Bonecutta charges 'Ardskull and takes a chunk out of his hide. 

Now we gots a Proppa Brawl goin' on! 

Ironskull's Boys had the right mix of numbers and hard-hittin' MFs to whittle Morgok's Krushass down. 

Right down to the end. 

Not a point was scored for holding objectives! All MURDER and Mayhem! 

Ironskull's took the day! 

Despite time taken figuring things out, we still had some time so we played ANOTHER ROUND! 

This time we switched things up a bit and I took the Storm of Celestus - a Stormcast Eternal warband. 

Despite these guys and gals being Sigmar's supreme bad asses, I have just had NO LUCK playing Stormcast... like... EVER...!? 

Couldn't even take ONE of them out!? 

Brent won this one! 

Sorry, no detailed, blow-by-blow report for this one... maybe when I get playing with Amanda or Finnegan again... 


Friday, 27 May 2022

Our friends Ryan and Andy came over to play Wingspan

I just had the worst time meeting Round End Goals and only had one Bonus card for most of the game and thought for sure I'd be dead last. In the end, all the OTHER stuff - points on bird cards, Nectar, a second Bonus card I got on the very last round, all added up and put me in the lead!? 

It was a SUPER CLOSE game in the end, though. I think the lowest score was 94 and I won with 101!? 


Amanda and i had planned to play Warhammer Underworlds on Sunday... but didn't - hopefully through June we'll get going on that again


Tuesday, 31 May 2022

Brent came by to play games again and this time we tried out Quebec 1759. I bought the game, used, YEARS ago and just never got around to playing it. It is the first edition of the game and we tried playing the rules, as written and... honestly... I have NO IDEA how the British are supposed to win that!? 

In the rules i have, Amphibious Assaults are CRAZY hard - the defender DOUBLES their CV AND scores hits on 5 and 6 (instead of just 6 in all other cases - and in amphibious assaults the second edition!?)

This was the British at the end of the first round of battle... BEFORE the pursuit fire due to the routing... I think they escaped with a total of 2CV - out of the 16 that had been committed to that battle!? 

The British second attack at Beauport... went similarly... I lost on the THIRD round (out of potentially sixteen)!? We actually played a fourth, which saw the rest of the British utterly wiped out, but then remembered that the British lose if they fall below a total Combat Value of 20... which I'd for sure done by the third round... or maybe even the second...!?

We had a downloaded copy of the current (2.0) rules and made a few changes (mostly dropping this hits on 5+ in Amphibious Assaults ) and tried again.

This was a MUCH CLOSER game. 

I played the British again and made it to the Plains of Abraham seized it by battle and held it against counter attack - pretty much utterly wiping out the French... I forgot to count the British total CV at the end of it... if I had less than 20 I would have lost anyway. It would have been close! 

We played one more game - this time with me playing the French. This was the final battle  - the British trying to seize Quebec by a battle on the Plains of Abraham on turn fourteen... he had too few forces left, though... and after the battle had dropped below 20CV! Whew! 


In total we played Nine games this month (better than the ONE we played in April!?) 

So far this Quarter we've played: 

  • Quebec 1759 x3
  • Wingspan x3
  • Warhammer Underworlds x2
  • Splendor x1
  • Terraforming Mars x1

For the Quarterly 5x5 Challenge I'll likely try to get in two more games of Wingspan and Quebec 1759 and three more games of Warhammer Underworlds. I'm not sure what other games we might get in. 

Next week Brent and I were planning to play Wizard Kings - another Block Game (similar to Quebec 1759) from Columbia Games. It seems like there might be enough replayability there to get in five games over the next month (but maybe we'll knock off two more games of Quebec 1759 first!). 

That's potentially four (Quebec 1759, Wingspan, Warhammer Underworlds, and Wizard Kings). I'm not sure what else...? FATE maybe...? 

A week or two ago, Amanda and I had planned to reserve Friday evening for boardgames, Saturday is for role-playing games (finnegan running his D&D game, in-person, in the basement Games Room, and me running a FATE game online), and Sunday evening for Skirmish Games (like Warhammer Underworlds - but possibly also returning to Blackstone Fortress or trying out Kill Team or Warcray or Cursed City...). So far we played ONE game on the Friday night, no one showed for my FATE game on Saturday, and we were too tired this past Sunday to play Warhammer Underworlds... Maybe next weekend... (Although I already know THIS Friday is out, due to a final dance recital!)  

And so far this year we've played:

  • Wingspan x10
  • Five Tribes x7
  • Terraforming Mars x7
  • Azul x6
  • Carcassonne  x5
  • Quebec 1759 x3
  • Splendor x3
  • Warhammer Underworlds x2
  • Wrath & Glory x2
  • Bananagrams x1
  • For Sale x1
  • Marrying Mr. Darcy x1
  • The Silver Bayonet x1

As far as a possible Annual 10x10 Challenge - I already have enough games of Wingspan in... Five Tribes and Terraforming Mars will definitely get 10 plays. Azul would be easy to get in four more of. I still have hope that we WILL get playing Warhammer Underworlds again and get in at least 10 of those through the rest of the year... That's five of them (four of which were in last year's Challenge - at least Five Tribes is new...) I have no idea what the others might end up being... 

Playing games with Brent every week (now that he's kind-of-sort-if retired) should get a few NEW games on the list (he's mostly interested in 2-player wargames - which is nice, because I have a few and NO ONE in my family would ever play THOSE!?). After we've played a few games of Wizard Kings we might try out Hamer of the Scots (ANOTHER Block Game from Columbia Games!?) and we've even talked about trying out some of the GMT COIN games - or Twilight Struggle or Labyrinth!? We shall see... 

Tuesday, May 17, 2022

Warhammer Underworlds - Magore’s Fiends

I did a thing!

I finally finished up Magore's Fiends - a Warhammer Underworlds warband - that I picked up with a bunch of other Shadespire stuff last summer. I started them ages ago and they were almost entirely painted... when... distractions happened!? And they hovered on the periphery of the ever-overcrowded paint table. When I cleared it all off a few weeks back - this was the only one left on the table... well.. and one rebasing project... and another that just needed to be primed... but this was the only one I was PAINTING, and I piced it because it WASN'T Eldar or Harlequins and it was nearly almost done... AND I'd just picked up Nethermaze... anf felt like I should finish off a Warhammer Underworlds warband, hoping it would get me motivated to play again, which, in turn, might motivate me to PAINT MOAR!? 

We shall see. 

I think this is the first Warhammer Underworlds warband I finished since I did a little Stocktaking back in November

Magore Redhand, a pair of Blood Warriors and a Flesh Hound named Riptooth make up Magore's Fiends. Devoted to the Blood God Khorne, they are giant armoured murder machines that live for combat. 

They entered Warhammer Underworlds in the First Season - Shadespire. 

Magore's Fiends

Magore Redhand 

Riptooth

Ghartok Flayskull

Zharkus the Bloodsighted

Now to get them on the tabletop... 


Warcry Warband!? 

The warband can also be joined up with Garrek's Reavers to form a Warcry Warband. 

Warcry Tome of Champions 2021 gave us states for ALL of the named characters from all the Warhammer Underworlds warbands - no more guessing at what different models could "count as". 

Actually, it's Magore's fiends plus four of Garrek's Reavers (Everyone BUT Garreks) makes 1000 points - though one of Arnulf or Targor has to be taken as a regular old Blood Reaver

Magore's Fiends Khorne Bloodbound Warband 

  • Magore Redhand 180
  • Riptooth 180
  • Zharkus the Bloodsighted 115
  • Ghartok Flayskull 115
  • Blooded Saek 135 
  • Karsus the Chained 130
  • Targor 80
  • Bloodreaver with Reaver Blades  (Arnulf) 65

Total: 1000 points

Maybe I'll get another actual Bloodreaver from somewhere instead of using Arnulf... just in case anyone gets confused thinking I'm fielding 85-point Arnulf 


Age of Sigmar!? 

ALL THE KHORNE!!! 

Adding in All mu Khorney stuff makes for potentially a sizeable force for Age of Sigmar (if you ignore the fact that all my Daemons are on 40K Bases!? Maybe I need to rebase them onto something a bit more generic...) 


Wednesday, May 4, 2022

I Did a Thing: Nethermaze

 I did a thing... 

It was a little hard to justify this one to myself... 

Especially considering I haven't been painting much lately...

Especially considering I haven't even been playing many games the last month... 

Especially considering I haven't even PLAYED Harrowdeep, the game that this is an expansion for!? 

Especially considering I haven't even painted the miniatures for Harrowdeep

Especially considering I haven't even played ANY Warhammer Underworlds at all in the last five months since Harrowdeep came out... 

Especially considering I haven't finished painting any of the dozen or so warbands I have yet to paint from the PREVIOUS editions of Warhammer underworlds... 

Yeah... 

But I did it anyway... 

There wasn't a TONNE or warbands for this "season" like there have been for previous ones... Harrowdeep seems utterly collectable 0in that it is within reason to be able to collect all expansions and warbands without it being too absurdly expansive, or impossible to paint all the minis - at least in theory). I'm not sure if I'm going to buy the last one, though (The Exiled Dead). 

I DID buy Harrowdeep... so I was king of feeling like "in for a penny, in for a pound"...?

I do LIKE Warhammer Underworlds. I think the reason we stopped was because in November and December of last year I was really focusing on playing OTHER GAMES to get in enough of those to complete a 10x10 Challenge and I had played WAAAAAAAAAY more Warhammer Underworlds than I "needed" for the challenge... So we kind of stopped and fell out of the habit. Downside of such "challenges", I guess. 

The warbands... Daughters of Khaine Shadowstalkers and Skaven... how could I not!? I really like the look of the Shadowstalkers and would like to get a Warcry Warband of them at some point (y'know, if I ever got playing Warcry or Age of Sigmar again...) and I figured Amanda would be keen to try them out (as she'd been a big fan of Morgwaeth's Blade Coven). Also, the ubiquitous Skaven seem like the perfect faction for inhabiting the underworld settings of Warhammer Underworlds. I'm a little surprised it took THIS LONG to release a new Skaven warband - the only other one being Spiteclaw's Swarm (which I never managed to track down a copy of...) 

These things are seasonal - sure, it will be available for a little bit, at least, in theory... but within a year, these will be out of production and out of stock and if/when I got back to playing Warhammer Underworlds, I'd have only the Harrowdeep boards to play on in this setting... 

At this point I am feeling like I very definitely will NOT be buying any more Warhammer Underworlds when the new season starts... UNLESS we a) start playing again, b) REGULARLY, and c) I get caught up on painting warbands.... at least a little... Like if we started playing again and had a weekly Warhammer Underworlds night and I got at least HALF of the warbands I have to paint, painted... I might CONSIDER buying into the new season... if it was a really cool setting AND the warbands looked interesting. I kind of have a LOT of stuff for this game with a LOT of really cool options and possibilities.... so... 

New Necromunda box also came out this last week... As super cool as all that looked, there was just no way I could justify that one to myself (let along Amanda!)... 

One thing I DID do in the last week was clear off the workbench entirely. I picked ONE UNIT to put back on - hoping that without all the clutter I might be able to focus and get something done. The ONE UNIT also happened to be a Warhammer Underworlds unit )because it was small and almost done and I needed a break from Eldar and Harlequins) 

For reference, this is what it looked like before... except this is only showing a small portion of the desktop which was FILLED with at least 3-4x as many half-painted miniatures... They're ALL gone - stored away into little transparent boxes in the "on deck" areas adjacent to the painting area. 

Will it help?

Will I finish up the Blood Warriors of Magore’s Fiends?!

I don't know. 

We shall see. 

I'm a little behind on my Birbs of Saskatchetoon drawings... so, maybe not this week... 


Sunday, May 1, 2022

April Games

We did not play a lot of games this month..... 

Actually, we only played ONE game this month... 

Monday, 25 April 2022

Kicking off the LAST WEEK OF THE MONTH, Amanda and i played a quick game of Splendor... 

I actually won - which I haven't for a while. Amanda made it to 15 first, but because she went first, I got one more action and was able to pick up a card worth three taking me to 17!? Woo! 

I've almost always played this as a 3 or 4 player game. Two is weird. There are only three... merchant...? Tokens...? I forget what they're called. And way less gems in play. My strategy is usually pick up as many of the cheapest (green back) cards as FAST as I can and use those to grab merchants tokens for points and then a couple of the yellow backed cards if I can just pick them up with the cards I have.. I almost NEVER pick up those blue-backed cards... 

This game... I somehow acquired THREE of the blue-backed cards - including that final one that won me the game! 


Kind of held out hoping we'd get in a few mroe games before the end of the month... but that just didn't happen. 


I guess I did do a bit more bicycling... and I have been doing a LOT of drawing and painting... (So much so, that I've posted more on the Art Blog so far this year than I have on any other year in its entirety! 

I've also just been feeling really TIRED and by the evening (when we's usually play games) I just want to sit and watch Netflix... Mostly we've been working our way through all six seasons of Lucifer this month, but we also watched all of Heartstopper in one evening, and watched a fun little movie called Metal Lords. I'm sure there were others... but I can't remember them...