September Games - Week Two

Still doing pretty good on the SECOND week of my September Game-A-Day Challenge...


Sunday, 8 September 2019



We started our long anticipated Necromunda Dominion Campaign this evening!

There is some background and details of the starting gangs and territories here:

The Bronze Gates Campaign (A Necromunda Dominion Campaign)



It was a short and brutal fight that ended with the leaders of the two gangs in a vicious melee together!

Full details of the game can be found here:

Encounter a Fahr's Pipe


Monday, 9 September 2019



On Monday Evening, Keira and I then played our first game.



It did not go well for the One-Eyed Red Snakes (my House Delaque gang)...

Full details of the game can be found here:

Battle at Bilton's Corner


Tuesday, 10 September 2019



Keira humoured me with a super quick game of Retro Lunacy after her dance classes.

I won.

and then I went to bed... not feeling really well - but I got in my game for the day!!


Wednesday, 11 September 2019



One Wednesday we tried out Twilight Squabble. Keira bought this when it came out a couple years ago. I'm not sure why...? She hasn't seemed particularly motivated to read the rules and figure out how to play. So, I finally sat down and ran us through a game (the card pack hadn't even been opened - it was still in plastic!?).

We tied in the balance of power, but I was just ahead in the space race - so I won!


Thursday, 12 September 2019

Thursday evening Amanda and Keira played Century Golem Edition with me.



Our starting market - so many men generating cards! And a victory card that's 20 and all pink... and everything else was green and yellow!? So Weird.



Been a while since Keira's played, she said she'd forgotten how fun it was. Hopefully this will mean she'll be interested in playing it more often..?



I squeaked out a win, but just barely. 78 points. Amanda had 73.


Friday, 13 September 2019



Friday we played Mysterium. Originally we though we'd have seven, but then two bailed and it was just us and Laura - which was fine. Everyone figured out who their suspects were with a turn to two to go... Finnegan guessed who the murder was... but he was the only one... Ah, well...


Saturday, 14 September 2019



Finnegan did run his D&D 5E game in the afternoon... They actually finished up the adventure, levelled up (to third level already!) and then played a funnel adventure for Dungeon Crawl Classics...

And in the evening....? Well, I picked up Stranger Things Season Two on DVD from the library (Yes, we have not seen Season Two - or Three!! - yet. Amanda won't let us get Netflix because she says we'll never get ANYTHING done if we do... she's probably not wrong... so we have to wait for things to be released on DVD...) So we started watching that and I didn't get to play any games. But there WAS a game on Saturday, at our house, that half the family played it... so I'm counting it as a successful week!




Coming Soon to Tim's Miniature Wargaming Blog:

More games in our Necromunda campaign!

Fall Plans

Over the long weekend we all sat down to go over our clandars and sort out schedules for school and work and other activities and appointments and such. Looks like it’s going to be a busy fall and winter with all the extra yoga and dance and music and theatre classes lined up. Keira is taking six - SIX! – dance classes and volunteering at another for dancers with special needs! Both kids are taking Improv. Amanda and I are both taking two dance classes (Irish for me, a Burlesque Group dance class for Amanda and we’re taking a Ballroom Dance class together!)… Cello… violin… Amanda’s teaching FOUR regular yoga classes… it’s a little crazy!

We did manage to set aside a few times a week for games, though – mostly on the weekends!


GAMES

Friday Night is Boardgame night – Ostensibly a FAMILY boardgame night, but I’m not forcing anyone to play. The idea is to pick a game we’ll play on Friday evening, see who is interested in playing, if the kids aren’t I’ll see if other friends are interested. I’ve decided to further reduce the requirements for the 10x10 “Family” boardgame challenge to me (as it was MY idea) and at least ONE other family member… so it may be just me and Amanda finishing off that challenge… but whatever…

Saturday Afternoon, Finnegan is planning to continue running his D&D5E game. Currently there are SIX players (including Keira) – three guys, three girls! It gets a bit noisy when they ALL show up. 

(Finnegan is ALSO still playing in a D&D game on Alternating Tuesday evenings and will likely be involved in another through the tabletop games club at the local High School - he may be showing less interest in playing board and miniature games with his dad, but gaming is still the kids main passion - especially role-playing games and Four Against Darkness)

Saturday Night is going to be role-playing night. I really want to get a Wrath & Glory game going this fall. Keira has been wanting to run role-playing games for AGES and has amassed a pile of them (Shadowrun -5th Edition, Firefly RPG, Song of Ice and Fire RPG, Epyllion, and others) so I thought I’d alternate running games on Saturday evening with her.

Sunday Night – Skirmish Night – On Sundays I’m going to arbitrate (and play in) a Necromunda Dominion campaign for the family – starting this Sunday and running for thirteen weeks (rather than the suggested seven) - more on this shortly! I might run another one in the new year and open it up to other players.

I’m hoping to wrap the Necromunda campaign up by mid-December – right around the time all our activities will be wrapping up for the term. At that point, I’m hoping to run the family through a Blackstone fortress campaign and then, over the holidaze, I’m hoping we’ll play through a Hellboy campaign of sorts!

There will be a few evenings (or entire weekends!) where we miss the occasional game – like when Amanda and I attend plays at Persephone Theatre (we’ve been subscribers for some time). Actually, most weekends in October will be out. The first weekend is the Saskatoon International Burlesque Festival (which Amanda is involved in). The second weekend is my Necromunda gaming weekend – so there WILL still be gaming, but it will be ALL Necromunda! And the last weekend the Rosebud Burlesque Club will be putting on its annual Peek-a-Boo Halloween show over two evenings (which, again, Amanda is involved in). I’m sure there will be other things that come up… but it’s good to have some kind of a plan – otherwise NO gaming would happen ever!

For the last few years, in September, the kids and I have done a 30 days/30 games challenge. As general interest has waned a bit, I thought I’d just make it a personal challenge to play a game every day in September and hopefully the family will humour me enough to play a few of those with me. So far I played Nautilus with Amanda and Brent on Sunday (the 1st) as well as a game of Century: Golem Edition with Amanda (and then Amanda and Keira actually played Patchwork while I was making supper), and yesterday I played 7 Wonders Duel with Amanda. Tomorrow I’m heading over to Kurtis’ to play Perikles again with Brent and John and maybe Darrin. Not sure what or when I’ll get in a game today, or Thursday, but it shouldn’t be too hard to convince Keira to try out some of those little games she’s picked up over the last year or so and never had a chance to get them on the table, or try out all the different boards she got for Flash Point she picked up at the ToonCon game auction last year that are still in shrink wrap!


PAINTING

For the next five weeks, I’m going to be concentrating on painting up miniatures and terrain for Necromunda – for use in both the Dominion Campaign and the Necromunda gaming weekend I am hosting over the (Canadian) Thanksgiving weekend in October. I’m hoping I can finish up my Escher, Orlock, Van Saar and Ratskin gangs, as well as a gang of Chaos Cultists for John (made up of Mantic Games Vermyn) as a pile more walls.

After the Necromunda stuff is completed I’m going to start work on the Blackstone Fortress figures and Hellboy figures.

That should keep me busy enough – but I do have a few other projects lurking in the wings that I may do a little work on from time to time; I have TWO Imperial Knights that are very nearly finished and, darnit, I woud REALLY like to just have them finished off! There are nearly a dozen Imperial Guard vehicles – many of which are assembled – that I’d like to get painted over the fall/winter, even though I have no immediate use for them either. Those Eldar Titans… A bunch of Epic stuff… some other 6mm stuff (modern)… and much, much more… stuff I’ll work on when I need a break from the main projects.


Coming Soon to Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

A painting update of an assortment of odd and sundry items.

News and background for the Necromunda Dominion Campaign I’ll be running with the family this fall.

MORE Necromunda stuff!!!

September Game-A-Day Challenge 2018 - Part 1

For the last few years I've found that are game-playing kind of falls off in the summer and we try to spend a bit more time outside, and so in September I've tried to jumpstart our game playing with a bit of a challenge of some sort. I think the first year, the challenge was to simply play a game everyday for the month of September. Later I instituted a rule that it had to be a DIFFERENT game each day for the entire month. This year I kind of backed off on that, but we've tried to select games that are on our 25x5 list.  

Well, here's how it's gone so far...



Saturday, 1 September 2018 - No Game! 

Well... that's a bit of an inauspicious start to a month of gaming every day!? We did BUY some game stuff on the first! I picked up the Drukhari Kill Team starter (for Amanda!) and the Death World Forest Kill Zone. Finnegan picked up the Deathwatch Kill Team starter and The Girl bought Unstable Unicorns.

Sunday, 2 September 2018 - Unstable Unicorns



The girl had bought this the day before. She'd first seen it on our vacation in Calgary and had been wanting to pick it up ever since. So she did. And then we played it. It was a pretty simple fluff game. I think Finnegan won. I'd probably play it again if we didn't have anything better to do and The Girl dragged it out and said "can we play THIS!?"


Monday, 3 September 2018 - London



This was our first time playing London in a long time... We probably played it last a year ago, in September, for last year's challenge!

The GIRL was EXTREMELY frustrated by all the cards she kept picking up that required money to play when she just didn't have any... and even more distraught (as evidenced by the picture above!) about all the poverty she was picking up...

Finnegan managed his poverty VERY WELL and just buried the rest of us in negative victory points at the end of the game. BEFORE subtracting for poverty and loans, I had 52 points, Amanda had 47, Keira had 41... I ended with 29, Keira with 10 and Amanda with 5... Finnegan ended 43 points...


Tuesday, 4 September 2018 - London



Day two of London. EVERYONE did much better at managing their poverty. Everyone had tried to totally avoid taking loans last game (because of the -7 VP for not being able to pay them of at the end of the game). The Girl won this one with 53 points. Amanda was second with 42, Finnegan and I tied for last with 40! Big difference from the previous day's game!


Wednesday, 5 September 2018 - London



Day three of London. Still doing way better than the first day - everyone had much less poverty at the end of the game, but somewhat lower scored than yesterday... The Girl won again with 45 points, Amanda 34, Finnegan 31 and I was just behind him with 30... The game also went a bit quicker.


Thursday, 6 September 2018 - London



Day Four of London. Amanda finally won a game. If I hadn't helped her with the cost-benefit analysis of her options in the last round, Finnegan probably would have won... mind you, if I hadn't helped HIM with the options for the last two rounds, I might have won...



We stayed up pretty late trying to get this game in, and everyone was pretty tired by the end of it...

I tried to go easier on the loan-taking this game - compared to the last two... I also tried to manage poverty better (I had the least at the end of the game - foe once!). Didn't seem to help much, though. EVERYONE has been better at managing poverty - especially seeing how much you can lose in our first game. I think we all scored lower this game, for various reasons... Amanda had 45 points, Finnegan had 42, I had  39 (crawling up from last place,  slightly), and The Girl had 32.

Friday, 7 September 2018 - London



Our fifth game of London this week - and in finally WON a game!!! Wooo!!

I built Buckingham Palace and St. Paul's early in the game. Later I had TWO Steamboats and 5 boroughs along the Thames - which totally paid off all my loans. On the last turn I was able to play two cards worth a total of 7VP (A train station and... the Tower Bridge...?)... I think it was those three things that really made the difference.

I ended with 56, Amanda was second with 37, Finnegan had 32, and The Girl had 22 (just wasn't her day... but she was in much better spirits about it compared to earlier in the week!).


Saturday, 8 September 2018 - Five Tribes



Friday we moved on to Five Tribes. I didn't make any notes about this game... other than the scores. Amanda claimed she had no memory of playing this game at all, but I'm sure she has. Despite that she did okay. I won with 154, Amanda was in second with 131, The Girl was third with 128, and Finnegan was last with 118.


Sunday, 9 September 2018 - Five Tribes



Again with Five Tribes. Went from totally crushing it yesterday (with 154 points) to Dead-Last today (with 139 points)... Mind you, my dead-last score today was still more points than everyone else's score from yesterday! Everyone else just did WAAAAAY better today! Amanda won with 164 points,  Finnegan was second with 157, and The Girl came in third with 142.



Monday, 10 September 2018 - No Game

We missed Monday... I blame Skewl.


Tuesday, 11 September 2018 - Five Tribes



Back at it with another game of Five Tribes. Amanda crushed it again. She beat us down with 161 points. Finnegan was pretty close with 156 points. Me, less so, with 133. The Girl dropped down to 109...?

Wednesday, 12 September 2018 -



Another busy, busy day - the kids and I got in a very quick game of Kingdomino in the evening between activities and going to bed... Finnegan won this one with 64 points! I though I'd done rather well with 58, and a couple 5x5 grid, but those mines he had... Yowza!  The Girl had 42 points.


Thursday, 13 September 2018 - Splendor



Thursday we played Splendor with Cities of Splendor.



It felt like a really close game - everyone was picking stuff up so fast, I felt like I couldn't keep up - but then I got the 5 and 4 red gems and then just had to pick up one more gem to satisfy the number of crards. While most had the gems satisfy one of the victory conditions, none had the points - and were probably a few turns away from doing so when I ended the game. I was pretty excited about the win as Amanda's won the last few and just left me in the dust. It's been a while since we played (as we've been playing more of Century: Golem), I think she'd gotten rusty...


Friday, 14 September 2018 - No Game!!

Busy day, and Amanda and I went out to the Rosebud Burlesque Club's Variety night and then watched the first episode of Dark Matter Season Two we we got home...


Saturday, 15 September 2018 - No Game!!

I had really hoped to get in a game of Kill Team in the afternoon, since most of my Death World Forest was complete... Alas everyone was busy with different things... Dance classes, homework, errands...



I DID get to pick up Kill Team: Rogue Trader (and some other stuff!)

In the evening Amanda and I went out and saw ANOTHER burlesque show - this time with the Menagerie Burlesque Company - two burlesque in a row!? Then we came home and watched Ready Player One - which I was underwhelmed by...

Sunday, 16 September 2018 - Century: Golem



This morning Amanda challenged me to a game of Century: Golem (actually, it might have been afternoon... we kind of slept in a bit...).



Despite scoring 91 points... she still beat me! With 93 points! Darn it, she's getting too good at this game too, now!


Well despite not getting in a game EVERY day, we have gotten in a few games - and crossed a few games off our 25x5 challenge list!



We made a list of games  we'd like to play for the rest of the month - mostly the quicker easier games on the list (Lords of Waterdeep, Space Hulk, Sentinels of the Multiverse, Legendary, Viticulture, and Hero Realms) and a few games of Kill Team - which I am still hoping we might get to play this evening!


Coming Soon to Tim's Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Some actual Miniature Wargaming!? I do still hope to get in a game of Kill Team later today and maybe get a game report up tomorrow...?

After that..?

I assembled and primed the Eludician Starstriders (that came with the Kill Team: Rogue Trader box) last night while watching Ready Player One - along with some more STC Ryza Pattern Ruins (that came with the Realm of Battle - Moon Base Klaisus box set). I'm thinking I'll use the Moon Base Klaisus boards for the ToonCon game, so I'm going to try and crank out a few of those STC Ryza Pattern Ruins over the next week and then on to some new Kill Teams!

September Game-A-Day Challenge: Week Four

The last week the game-a-day thing was wearing a bit thin - oh we made it, we've played a different game each day of the month so far!



The remaining two days are the first two days of ToonCon (which I'll have a separate post about on Sunday) where we will be playing another half dozen or so games...

But this last week, for various reasons, we pulled out all the super quick games and were trying to squeeze games in between different activities or just before bed...

Day 23 - Saturday, 23 September 2017 - Warhammer:40K/Timeline: Historical Events



In the afternoon on Saturday we finished off the game of Warhammer 40,000 (8th Edition) we'd started the evening before - a full report of that game can be found here:

First Crack At 40K 8th

Because, technically, that was a continuation of the previous day's game, we'd decided we should play another. Originally we'd planned to play through Pax Renaissance, but then got watching Heroes Season One and everyone seemed more interested in watching more episodes of that than playing Pax Renaissance....



...so, between two episodes, we quickly got out Timeline: Historical Events and played a quick game of that. I won. I pretty much always do. We went back to watching Heroes.

I don't win the game because I know more about history that everyone else in the family... okay, I DO know more about history than everyone else in the family, and it is a significant factor in me winning all the time, but I also play smart - I always do the hardest ones first and leave the easier ones - the ones that I DO know the exact date for for last, which seems to be the opposite of what everyone else does. For example, I have no idea when the Mutiny on the Bounty was... I would guess between 1600 and 1800... so I'd try to get that our first before there are other 17th and 18th centre cards out there. When the only other cards out are the Roman invasion of Britain and the Beginning of World War One... well, it's going between those!


Day 24 - Sunday, 24 September 2017 - Pax Renaissance



FINALLY we got to playing through Pax Renaissance. I'm running a Learn-To-Play event for this at ToonCon this weekend and, while I've played it a fair bit this year, it's been a couple or so since I last played. So I wanted a chance to brush up on the rules and have them fresh in my head for this weekend. I also wanted an opportunity to try explaining the rules to people that had never played and, for the most part, weren't even really familiar with Phil Eklund games.

They've all actually played Pax Porfiriana - once, over a year ago. Both kids have played Pax Pamir as well - The Girl, again, once, over a year ago, and Finnegan played it twice. Finnegan has also played Pax Renaissance once, but it was a while ago as well. So they were pretty much like newbs.

Amanda was utterly lost, she looked like she was about to fall asleep through half the game -not from boredom, just from being very, very tired. She said it looked really interesting but was just too tired to figure it out. The Girl was actually really close to winning with a Renaissance victory - Laws and Republics, but a second comet showed up and Finnegan scooped a Imperial victory!

It was a really fun game! It seems like everyone would be willing to try it again sometime. Perhaps on an afternoon when everyone is still wide awake!

Unfortunately the following morning I remembered WHY we had originally planned to play it Saturday. I actually had a nagging feeling when I told the kids on Saturday it was okay to put it off until tomorrow that there was some reason why we couldn't play it on Sunday, but couldn't think of what it was. Amanda and I had tickets for a play at the Persephone Theatre Sunday evening... totally missed it... DOH!?

Day 25 - Monday, 25 September 2017 - Codenames: Pictures

We were out to dinner at my folks to celebrate my sister's birthday and then the kids had their swim lessons and when they got home they desperately wanted to watch more of Heroes... so we play ONE quick round of Codenames: Pictures. I teamed up with The Girl and Amanda played with Finnegan. Amanda and Finnegan got a bit of a head start when The Girl guessed wrong on my first clue and actually picked on of THEIRS. We got it back by the end and actually won! 

Day 26 - Tuesday, 26 September 2017 - Coup

 

Amanda and I had spent a long day out running around looking at countertops and tiles for our kitchen renovation. by the time we got back in the early evening, finnegan's D&D group had arrived and they were well into their game. After they left, we got in a super quick game of Coup before we all went off to bed. I don't love Coup, but we were running out of quick games to play. I actually ended up winning - mostly by NOT EVER bluffing!?

Day 27 - Wednesday, 27 September 2017 - Drakon



We actually had a bit more time today, but spent way too much time deciding what to play and ended up settling on a game of Drakon - which we played in, like, 15 minutes. The Girl suggested we play another round, but I was feeling a bit of gaming fatigue and said "no"...

 Day 28 - Thursday, 28 September 2017 - London

Today we had a bit more time on our hands - or at least we THOUGHT we did, so we broke out London. It's been a LONG time since we played but everyone seemed to have pretty fond memories of it and I was feeling like more Martin Wallace games play the same (sort of) and we've got A Study in Emerald down to just over an hour, so surely this wouldn't take us THAT long to play.. by the time we had a quick review of the rules and got it all set up and started playing the first turn, we realized we had less than an hour before Finnegan would have to leave to go play D&D (he's joined a group that plays after school on Thursdays and it just happens to be run by an old friend of mine that happens to teach there). But we left it out hoping to finish off the game after both kids get back from their classes at Persephone School of Theatre... which we did. 

Final score: 

Keira - 103 points

me - 73 points 

Finnegan.. 3 points... 

Seriously, he had 62 victory points accumulated at the end of the game, but Keira had managed to get rid of almost all her poverty and Finnegan was sitting on a pile that added up to -59 points!! He also did not get into the land buying and only had 4 stacks at the end of the game. Early in the game I thought his strategy of having only a few stacks would do well in reducing poverty, but whenever he ran the city he'd gain a bunch from cards in hand and didn't really get much out of each time he ran his city... I think it's more efficient to have about five stacks - that way it's a bit more efficient when you run your city, in that you at least get some stuff out of it each time you run it. Also - BUY LAND! 

I like London. It's been waaaaay too damned long since we last played it. I do feel like it's another  game that we should play, like, 4-5 times in one week and then the rules (and maybe a bit of the strategy) will be solid enough in our heads that in the future we can just pull this out and play it in an hour (like we can with A Study in Emerald - Second Edition - well, except Amanda she always has to be reminded of the rules... and then still kicks our butts...).

Coming Soon to Tim's Miniature Wargaming Blog:

As I mentioned this weekend is ToonCon! We're all signed up for a lot of fun games. 

I think Friday night we're all signed up to play 7 Wonders and then I'm playing Dominion, but some of the others are playing Roll for the Galaxy (I know Finnegan is, and maybe The Girl...?). 

Saturday is a long day! I'm starting off with Castles of Mad King Ludwig and Finnegan is signed up for Sentinels of the Multiverse. I'm not sure what Amanda and The Girl are doing. After that I'm playing Scythe - so many people have raved about it, I thought I'd best check it out. Everyone else is playing Viticulture (which I'm kind of wishing I'd signed up for instead...). While I'm still playing Scythe I think some of them are playing 5 Tribes, or maybe Imhotep or Terra Mystica...? I can't remember. After that is the game auction (we had a pretty BIG HAUL from that last year!). Finally, in the evening I'm running my Faustus Furius: 3000 game while everyone else is playing... Small World..?  or Codenames...? I'm not sure... I know Nations is on in the evening, and despite everyone having played it and liked it, I don't think any of them signed up for it. 

Sunday I think I'm starting with Kingdom Builder and Finnegan is playing Dominant Species... Again, I can't remember what Amanda and The Girl signed up for...?! After that I'm running the Pax Renaissance Learn-to-Play game for the rest of the day. I have a feeling Amanda and the Girl are signed up for Castles of Burgundy and Amanda may have signed up for Tzolk'in: The Mayan Calendar. I know Finnegan didn't sign up for anything in the last slot on Sunday because none of the games were of interest to him. The convention had a HUGE games library which you can just play pick up games with anyone who isn't doing anything, so I think he's planning to do that! 

Stay tuned for reports of the entire weekend and a separate report of the FF3K game! 

September Game-A-Day Challenge: Week Three

Into our third week and still going strong(-ish)




Day 15 - Friday, 15 September 2017 - Lords of Waterdeep



Having a bit more time on Friday afternoon (after finally submitting our Education Plans for the year!) we broke out Lords of Waterdeep! The Girl scooped the Harpers (which I usually play) so I ended up with the Red Sashes. My Lord was actually a Lady - and so was The Girl's - if only Finnegan's had been one then we could have been playing LADIES of Waterdeep! The Girl did a 25 point quest early on and kept her well ahead of the rest of us for most of the game. For the longest time I was fighting Finnegan for second place... then on the second last turn Finnegan played an intrigue card that allowed him to draw quest cards equal to the number of players, take one and pass them around for the rest of us to take one. Among those was a card that was worth FOURTY POINTS - and I just happened to have ALL of the requirements sitting in my tavern (or maybe I needed on or two things, but they were easy to pick up that very turn!). That suddenly put me into a commanding lead that neither of the kids could hope to catch up. 

I also ended up succeeding at TEN Piety and Arcana quests - each of which got me an additional 4 points, so... The Lieutenant I picked up in the first turn to two and having that one extra agent is a HUGE advantage! I had pointed it out and discussed it so no one would be shocked if I got it and cleaned their clocks with it. I wasn't even the first to go -and it wasn't even the first quest I picked up, so I didn't really fell all that bad about taking it and having that extra agent.

Day 16 - Saturday, 16 September 2017 - Race for the Galaxy

Originally I'd actually set up Agricola to play, but then Amanda and The Girl got back from running some errands over an HOUR later than I'd expected them, so we didn't end up having time to play... I'd left it out and hoping we'd get to play it on Sunday. As Amanda and I were heading out to a show at the Persephone Theatre Saturday evening, we needed to play a quicker game - so I busted out Race for the Galaxy - which we haven't played for a while (though according to BGG I've now played it 45 times!). For start worlds I'd had the Uplift Mercenary Force and Old Earth, but I had two Alien cards in my had - one of them being a 6-cost development that gave piles of points for Alien things, so I decided to go alien... and then Amanda played the Alien Research Team start world and is seemed we would BOTH be vying for alien things... I was a little worried I was going to do poorly as all the worlds and developments I was putting out were only 1-2 points each and I wasn't racking up the victory points from producing and consuming and I wasn't raking in even MORE victory points from prestige like Amanda and Finnegan were... 

More than winning, what I really like doing in the game is having a pretty solid THEM to my tableau, and I was pretty happy with the mostly ALIEN them - with a bit of terraforming on the side. IN the end the pair of six-cost variable victory point developments did okay for me and I ended up with 57 points... Finnegan had 63 (I think - damn I hate prestige...), Keira had 40-sonething and Amanda said she was in the high thirties...? 

I don't think she could have counted right - with those few big point cards and all the prestige she had...?

Day 17 - Sunday, 17 September 2017 - Agricola

We DID get to play Agricola on Sunday after all...  We didn't quite get done before the kids had to head out to Irish Dance - but we left it set up and finished it off after they got back. 

The game went as most of our games of Agricola go - Amanda carries on about how she is "Floundering" and "has no idea what [she's] doing" and how she's "going to do very poorly"... and then by about round five she's completely dominating the game. By round ten she had a six room stone house (yeah, SIX!) and five family members (and complained that it was stupid that the game didn't allow you to have MORE family members!?). Due to varied occupations she collects two food EVERY round and a clay (one of which, with an other occupation, can be turned into two food at harvest time), and she can convert as many stone as she likes into two food (per stone)... Oh and gets an additional wood every time she collects wood.... The rest of us had yet to build a third room in our pathetic little wood shanties. At the beginning of round twelve she's developed nothing else on her land (other than the sprawling mansion - I joked about her being a hobby farmer that lived on a sprawling average and just worked in the city). With five workers over the last three turns she filled that up pretty quick! 

This was my sad little farm at the end of the game... Never even got to expanding the house or family... But it DID get SEVEN fields ploughed - which is too many really - you don't get points for any beyond five (other than you're not LOSING points for not having the area developed. One thing I don't like about the game is it's so hard to get fields ploughed. I was DETERMINED this game to get more fields ploughed. 

I started the game with a couple occupations and improvements that I thought would work out for me - something involving going straight from wood to stone and a quarry that gave me 3 stone when I did day labour and... something else... I can't remember... but I just couldn't get them out. Part of the problem was I misread the card that allows Major improvements - I'd thought it said build major and/or minor improvement (as so many of the action cards do) - around the second or third round I had it ALL planned out and then when I went on that action card and realized I couldn't do BOTH it kind of screwed my whole plan and I was scrambling to refigure everything so I had food for everyone by harvest - had to make some less than optimal moves with put me further behind... ugh... 

Amanda admiring her end game farm. 

I have to admit, it was a pretty amazing farm...

And she totally destroyed us. Yeah - she had more points than then next two highest scoring players combined!? Clearly the way to go is to get lots of jobs in the city to support your farming hobby and build a big-ass mansion and family and THEN develop the rest of the farm! 

Ah well... fun was had. 

I'm not fond of the four player game - I recall the five player has WAY BETTER action cards - there are so many more options available.


Day 18 - Monday, 18 September 2017 - Love Letter

This week got a little busy again. We ended up playing a quick game of Love Letter in the evening after the kids got back from swimming lessons, just before we all went to bed. 

I swear I get this had EVERY SINGLE GAME.... 

Day 19 - Tuesday, 19 September 2017 - Monarch

I spent a good chunk of the day wrecking more of our kitchen and dining room... So I didn't feel bad taking a break and playing a not-totally-quick game... 

We played quick-ish game of Monarch while I was making supper. In Monarch we play at princesses building up the bestest court. Finnegan snapped up the scimitar before I could wrecking my plan to fly the Might Banner again, but I ended up getting the GET WISDOM CHEAP card (whatever it is called) and ended with a court full of wisdom cards.

This game I kind of just collected money and didn't bother buying cards - the than a few upgrades to the lands - to make MORE money and waited for an opportunity to pick up one of the BUY STUFF CHEAPER cards - and then blow all that money as fast as possible buying up cards of that type... worked out pretty good...

In the end Finnegan flew the Banner of Might and The Girl flew the banner of Culture... Fun was had...


Day 20 - Wednesday, 20 September 2017 - For Sale



There always ends up being a day where we don't get to playing a game earlier in the days and have to quickly get one in just before bed... and we end up playing For Sale...


Day 21 - Thursday, 21 September 2017 - Samarkand: Route to Riches

More wrecking of the old kitchen today - almost done with the demolition. Next week I have some preparing for ToonCon to do and then beginning the first week of October we start putting the kitchen back together.



I finished up early enough we had almost two hours to play a game so we got out Samarkand: Route to Riches. We've played this about 7 times now and are getting pretty quick at it. I think it took us over and hour - but it FLEW by. 

Finnegan ended the game by making an alliance (or trade agreement) with the Persians - the only group that hadn't yet made one (and I think it used up the last trade agreement token of the Levants...? which also ends the game). 

I managed to marry into five families (collecting up 5 wives in the process) - The Girl also managed to marry into five families (collecting five husbands in the process - although at first she considered collecting wives - or BFFs as she called them, "because they looked prettier"...). 

It was a pretty tight race. The Girl and I both had final scores in the 80s and Finnegan wasn't far behind with 70... He only had four wives, so...

The last few times I've played with four or five players and you only get a maximum of 7 or so cards. Playing with three was fun as you could have up to TEN cards - which made for a lot more possibilities.

Day 22 - Friday, 22 September 2017 - Warhammer 40,000 (8th Edition)

Technically this is getting into week four, but whatever... This evening we had our first go at 8th Edition 40K. I'd set the table earlier in the afternoon thinking we'd play with Finnegan's Orks and my Guaiacan Commandoes (the Astra Militarum's lesser known jungle fighters...). But then we decided it's probably work better if I just ran the game and the kids played and The Girl wanted to play with her Eldar. Unfortunately we got started later that I'd hoped and then it took us a little longer to get set up and going that I'd anticipated and we ran out of time. We'd only gotten through the first half of the second turn... Can't really say much about it... we knew going in it was a pretty miss-matched scenario. We did leave it set up and might finish it off on Saturday after The Girl gets back from dance classes...

What's Next...?

Well, hopefully we WILL get to finish the game of 40K and I'll get to post a brief after action report. 

After that I'll probably have a few jet bikes to post as I finish them off over the next couple days. I have some terrain I'm going to fix up and a few more things I need to do to prepare for ToonCon - which is ONE WEEK FROM NOW! 

I'll probably post post on Friday about the games we've played between Saturday and Thursday, and then on Sunday I'll hammer out a report of what went down at ToonCon! 

Stay tuned!