For anyone paying attention that noticed there was no June games post... that's because I didn't play any games in June... The first week of June was a made rush to get things ready for our European Vacation... and then the rest of the month was the European vacation... during which we did not play any games. At least during June!
At the beginning of July we were still on out European trip. The first three days of July Amanda was at the conference in Paris (which was the "REAL" reason for the trip...). On the fourth we loaded everything up and got on a train that took us to Carcassonne...
Sunday, 5 July 2026
Playing Carcassonne... in Carcassonne... with the walls of Carcassonne in the background!?
It was crazy hot while we were there. Sunday was only 35°C, but it wasn't too bad in the shade of the rooftop terrace of our AirB&B... which afforded a spectacular view of the walls of the medieval city of Carcassonne, for which the game is named.
We had hauled our copy of Carcassonne with us on the European Adventure (well, just the base game...)
In the tourist offices, they actually SELL copies of the game! And a lot of the expansions AND a tile you can apparently ONLY BUY IN CARCASSONNE!? (obviously we bought one...)
(note; I later found the tile on BoardGameGeek, and there was no mention of it being ONLY available in Carcassonne... Ah, well...)
Monday, 6 July 2026
The following evening, after another day of exploring the city, we played another game. This time Amanda won!
Amanda had been a bit grouchy about losing the previous evening and had made a comment about wondering if she EVER won games and if I just won all the time... THIS is the reason I log games on BoardGameGeek! So I did look it up. I did look up the stats…
Over the last twelve years, we have played 52 games of Carcassonne.
I have 19 logged wins
Amanda has 16 logged wins
In one game we were tied for first!
In four of the games someone other than Amanda or I was logged as the winner (Finnegan or Morgan - which does not reflect on their ability or win rate, they’ve just played very few games!).
In twelve games, I did not record the scores or who won.
Initially when I started logging games on BoardGameGeek, I did so just to keep track of how many games we played... (hence twelve games where no scoring data recorded) but after hearing a lot of complaints of me "always winning games" - and did NOT feel like that was actually the case - I started to track the wins and scores). There are some games that I tend to win more. Usually ones requiring pattern recognition or geometry.. Amanda tends to win a lot of others - generally ones that require executive functioning skills and planning, worker placement, task management, short-term memory, etc...
Tuesday, 7 July 2026
in the morning we walked all over downtown Carcassonne again and took in the festivities around the start of the fourth stage of the 2026 Tour de France... and then walked up into the fortified city again and by 5 pm we were EXHAUSTED... so we went back to the apartment and ended up playing Carcassonne SIX MORE TIMES!?
Still in cheery dispositions...
Amanda started getting tired of losing...
At this point it was apparently five games to one...?
I'm fairly certain she won at least one other game... I'd have to go check BoardGameGeek again... the whole vacation was a bit of blur at this point!?
and one more made NINE games of Carcassonne played in Carcassonne (with the walls of Carcassonne in the background!?
(and just like that, Carcassone became our most played game of the year, so far... With ten plays, that is more than double the next more played game - Sagrada - at five! I mean, we still have five and a half months to go this year and plans to get playing Warhammer Quest again... so that could change!)
In some of the pictures it almost looks like a mural or background that would drop in with zoom... but I assure you, we rented a place with a rooftop deck that overlooked a square with a church and the walls of Carcassonne behind it...
After this it was onto a train the following morning to get back to Paris and then flying home to Canada the next!
Check out the Art Blog to see some of the doodles I did while I was there:
Friday, 17 July 2026
Friday morning I rolled out to the Warhammer Store to play a game of Blood Bowl with Vera! I'd hoped to get there before it got too hot (and hoped it would be quiet there - as it often is on weekdays... Alas, there was another group setting up a game of 40K when I arrived. It ended up being not TOO noisy and I got through the game without too much troubles!
Vera brought the Halfling team she's been painting for RJ - who I was to play on Monday! It was a bit of a preview of what COULD happen, I guess, if RJ couldn't make a successful dice roll to save his life... It was... wow... the game ended with the Gnarly Gobbos winning 4-1 - the solitary goal the Halflings scored was a pretty epic ONE TURN TOUCHDOWN where EVERYTHING went right. If things had gone right for Vera all game, it could easily have been the complete reverse!
Read all about the game here:
Blood Bowl - Another Pre-Season Exhibition Match - against Halflings!!
Monday, 20 July 2026
Monday I played my first Blood Bowl League game. I was pretty anxious about this. I was playing against someone I never met before and... you never really know with these open leagues that anyone can just join... but it ended up being a super good time! The fellow I played against, Ryan (or RJ, as goes by in the league, because there are two other Ryans in the league of 16 people!?) was a super friendly and fun opponent! He looks kind of serious in the picture above, but it was 90% laughs and 10% "Wow... How do I unfuck THIS situation!?"
It was definitely the fastest first half I've played yet! I don't think there was a single turn in that first half where either of our teams got to activate more than half of the team before some idiot self-downed themself or tripped over their own feet, fumbling the ball and ending the turn!?
It was absolutely EPIC in it's absurdity! Hilarious and ridiculous. These are the games I remember over the years; where just DUMB STUFF happens and we just can't stop laughing. This is the very best of Blood Bowl! I look forward to when we meet again on the fields of astrogranite (Where Leon Cankersore will have his REVENGE against those trees that wronged him so! I mean, there are splinters in there that will just NEVER come out!?)
My MVP absoloutely SHOULD have been #16 S. Maulfart... who was thrown by a troll (and was NOT eaten), landed on his feet without shattering his knees, dodged through THREE tackle zones and rushed twice to score that ONE goal in the VERY LAST turn of the game... only using ONE re-roll (from his Dodge skill!)
Instead the MVP went to Lil Bopper, the Goblin Pogoer, who, while not actually scoring any goals or beating anyone up, was probably responsible for the most forward movement of the ball during the game, having gained possession of it one multiple occasions and running it up the field before, ultimately, being brought down by those sneaky, nasty halflingses (or... as was often the case... his own HUBRIS!!)
For more pictures and some brief commentary...
Blood Bowl League: Match #1 - Gnarly Gobbos versus Los Sicarios (Halflings!)
Thursday, 30 July 2026
I have to admit... I'm not a huge fan of Uno... But I am a fan of Shepard Fairey... and after seeing his work at the Moco Museum and the Beyond the Streets Exhibition in Paris, so is Amanda! Soooo.....
We ended up buying a copy of the Uno Artists Series featuring his art work...
It arrived on Thursday...
So we somehow managed to convince the kids to try it out!
Morgan dropped out after one round, when they found out that a proper game involves keeping score at the end of each round and playing until someone got to 500... We ended up playing over a DOZEN rounds before someone scored over 500...
Will we EVER play is again...!? I don't know.
I know a number of the people Finnegan plays D&D with love it. Finnegan despises the game... but put up with it to play with us... so maybe he'll play it with them sometime..
Amanda will probably suggest it. We have friends that would play it... I don't mind it so much when I'm looking at fun art on the cards...
Friday, 31 July 2026
I'd had my second league game scheduled for the last day of July - but then my opponent got unexpectedly called into work!! Hopefully we'll get to play some time in the next week!
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Carcassonne! If that were a backdrop it'd an amazing one! With lighting effects and everything! I even see a bird in one pic. ha ha
ReplyDeleteLooks like a great location.
As for the Uno game, I have been known to drop out of a game when I found it was going to go on much longer than I had thought. The end game wasn't what I thought it was. That was just the first bit. There was much more of the same before we got to the end. And I wasn't really having fun (that was at a big board game meetup at a store, with some people I didn't know and some of whom I was not really enjoying being around anyway, to put it politely).
Oh! There were SO MANY BIRDS - all evening - dipping and diving and swooping to and fro by the dozen. I'm not exactly sure what they were. Swallows of some sort? and something related? Maybe Swifts or martins? Consequently, we were little bothered by the mosquitos!
DeleteThere was also a little lizard we spotted on two evenings, scampering about the rooftop terrace!
The location was, indeed, AMAZING!
It was very, VERY hot while we were there +40°C on a few days... and the house was like an oven. It had been advertised as having "air-conditioning" but it was wholly inadequate for that kind of heat.
One thing I'll give Uno, is everyone plays until the end. It isn't a game that eliminates people, who then have to sit around and wait until the round ends... and it is insanely simple to teach. But, wow, it can go on for-EVAR - especially smaller games with 2-3 people. Also, it can FEEL like people are ganging up or bullying you if you get hit with multiple +2/+4 for a few turns in a row (but often it's just players making an optimal move). Also I played with people a lot as a kid that got pretty gloaty about winning rounds... but.. assuming everyone has the most basic understanding of Game Theory, it is pretty much determined by the card draw. It doesn't take a tactical genius to win... just getting the right cards at the right time...
Perfect backdrop to the game! Weve only played it once as a family, to be fair we usually only play boardgames once as my wife and daughter dont like boardgames!
ReplyDeleteBest Iain
You've only played Uno once? or Carcassonne?
DeleteIf Uno, count yourself lucky, it is not a great game and can go on tediously long!
Carasscone, actually weve played Uno a lot!
DeleteBest Iain
Ha-ha! Yeah, I should have guessed. Uno is the game that Not-Gamers WILL play... and THAT's why I got it!
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