Looking Back at 2019

well...

I set out a LOT of things to do in Game Plan 2019... some of them I got done... others, not so much... I kind of revisited the plan in October with the 2019 Q4 Plans... some of those things got done... others...

Here's how it all rolled out..

Board Games

Challenges

10x10 Family Challenge

At the beginning of the year we collectively picked ten games that we all agreed to play ten times - all together, as a family...

I tried to convince everyone to select games that they liked, and/or wanted to play MORE - to either learn it better or just because they really, really enjoyed it, and tried to stick to shorter games that didn't require a full day commitment. I really tried to stay away from and "Should plays" games that I feel like I "SHOULD" play because I invested a lot in it or I really like the IDEA of the game....?

We settled on:

Warhammer Quest: Blackstone Fortress
Terraforming Mars
Splendor
Century: Golem Edition
Castles of Burgundy
Shadowrun: Crossfire
Sentinels of the Multiverse
Race for the Galaxy
Abyss
Power Grid Deluxe

Things started off well enough... we got a few games in... after a few months it was becoming painfully obvious that Finnegan just wasn't into it - he'd play the games when I suggested them and felt beholden to play them - because he HAD said he would - but he played them with zero interest or joy and basically played in such a way as to END the game as quickly as possible - regardless of the outcome or anyone else's fun... So I told him not to bother. We changed to "rules" of the challenge that it had to be a "majority" of the family. Then it became "as long at me and Amanda" when Keira complained that "how come Finnegan doesn't HAVE to play!?" and I was all, like, you don't HAVE to either - NO ONE forced you to do this!? GAH!? By half way through the year I was viewing them, pretty much as PERSONAL Challenges - though Amanda playing in, I think, all of the ones I recored, and Keira played in MOST of them... and Finnegan joined us for the occasional game.

In the end, of these we managed to play:

0x Warhammer Quest: Blackstone Fortress
12x Terraforming Mars
11x Splendor
15x Century: Golem Edition
6x The Castles of Burgundy
0x Shadowrun: Crossfire
4x Sentinels of the Multiverse
8x Race for the Galaxy
6x Abyss
5x Power Grid Deluxe: Europe/North America

As fall rolled around it became painfully clear that we weren't going to get through all of them - it was starting to look like there were a few we just might not play AT ALL!!? So I more or less decided to abandon the 10x10 challenge and tried to focus on a 5x5 challenge for the final quarter of the year (and resolved to just stick to 5x5 Quarterly challenges from now on!)


Q4-5x5 CHALLENGE

Hellboy: The Boardgame
Castles of Burgundy
Shadowrun: Crossfire
Race for the Galaxy
Abyss

Hellboy got on there because I knew we'd be getting it for Xmas and our plan had been, since we kickstarted it a year and a half ago, that that is what we'd do for the holidaze this year - play through a bunch of the scenarios. Three of the others were ones we were CLOSE ENOUGH to finishing off 10 games that I put them on there in hopes of finishing off at least HALF of the 10x10. Shadowrun: Crossfire... well... that's Keira's game and she SAID she still really, REALLY wanted to play it... so...

Of THOSE, what we actually played in the final quarter was...

3x Hellboy: The Board Game
4x Race for the Galaxy
1x The Castles of Burgundy

So... STILL didn't get in ANY games of Shadowrun: Crossfire, or any MORE games of Abyss...


Personal Challenges

In addition to the "Family Challenge" I decided to set a few more, personal, gaming goals... this is where I snuck in a bunch of "Shoulds" - Games I felt like I SHOULD play more of... and for the most part failed...

GMT/COIN Games
Phil Eklund Games
Kill Team
Warhammer 40,000 (8th Edition)
Wrath & Glory (RPG)

barely got any of these done...

I did play over 10 games of 40K, a half-dozen games of Wrath & Glory, three games of Kill Team, ONE Phil Eklund game (High Frontier) and NOT ONE GMT/COIN game!?

Despite the moderate success of the Family Challenge and the mostly failure of the Personal Challenge, we did get in a LOT of games this year... According to Board Game Geek, this is what I played:

17x Warhammer 40,000 (Eighth Edition)
15x Century: Golem Edition
15x Necromunda Rulebook
12x Terraforming Mars
11x 7 Wonders Duel
11x Splendor
8x Race for the Galaxy
7x Patchwork
7x Warhammer 40,000: Apocalypse
6x Abyss
6x The Castles of Burgundy
6x Wrath & Glory
5x 7 Wonders
5x Power Grid Deluxe: Europe/North America
4x Castles of Mad King Ludwig
4x Marrying Mr. Darcy
4x Sentinels of the Multiverse
3x Call of Cthulhu (7th Edition)
3x Dixit
3x Hellboy: The Board Game
3x Nations
3x Retro Loonacy
3x SET
3x Warhammer 40,000: Kill Team
2x Cthulhu Realms
2x Deep Sea Adventure
2x Kingdom Builder
2x Monarch
2x Perikles
1x Anomia
1x Carcassonne
1x Dominion
1x Epyllion
1x Exploding Kittens
1x Firefly Fluxx
1x High Frontier (Third Edition)
1x Just Desserts
1x Mysterium 1
1x Nature Fluxx
1x Nautilus
1x The Pikeman's Lament
1x Princes of the Renaissance
1x Ra
1x Railways of the World
1x Scythe
1x Small World
1x A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying
1x Twilight Squabble
1x Unstable Unicorns

183 games I played in total... a good chunk of them with the family. We set out to do a Challenge to play 100 games with the family... and a further 50 games of my own. I may not have played EXACTLY what I planned... but I got in a few enough games!

And this doesn't even include all the Role-Playing Games the kids played (I only log the games I play!). For almost the entire year, Finnegan ran a weekly RPG game on Saturday afternoons. It started off as Dungeon Crawl Classics, then over the summer he wrapped that up and started a D&D 5E game in the fall - which has, just now, come to a conclusion.... sort of... He's starting a NEW D&D5E campaign in the new year... in, more or less, the same setting - his own world... but a few years later...? In addition to the Saturday game, he's been playing in a campaign on alternating Tuesday evenings, and for the first half of the year was playing in ANOTHER D&D game in the tabletop games club at the local high school - while running a Star Wars: Edge of Empire game for the same club on a different afternoon. Since September, he's been running the D&D game on Wednesdays after school.

All the while the guy has been VERY involved with playtesting new Four Against Darkness adventures and rulebooks for Ganesha Games....



Oh, yeah. That's Finnegan's name there in print as official play tester and provider of helpful comments. (Proud Geek Dad Moment!).

So he may not have been participating much in our challenge - but he was still playing a LOT of games... just more role-playing games... and with his own friends!


Board Game Afternoons

I had hoped to get some regular board game afternoons going on Saturday afternoons... But that just didn't happen... for a variety of reasons. Mostly because I'd planned to play the games downstairs in the new game room (while the kids were playing role-playing games in the kitchen) and... well... the Game Room renovations just didn't get finished.

Next year I'd at least like to get a Game Evening going on Fridays!


February Game Weekend

I did plan and run a Game Weekend in February. Originally I'd planned to run Kill Team campaign weekend... but then I finally got my mitts on Wrath & Glory and I was SUPER STOKED to play that... and so I ran that instead... unfortunately I ended up having WAY TOO MANY players - would have been a GREAT number for a Kill Team campaign... too many for a role-playing game marathon!!!


ToonCon/Fall Game Weekend

As per the last few years, I had planned to run a game (or GAMES) at ToonCon in the fall... but early in the year, after my Game Plan was decided, the organizers of ToonCon decided not to DO ToonCon this year and made plans to move from the fall to the spring (too many other things going on in the fall!)

So I decided to host a fall game weekend myself. A number of people had indicated that the (Canadian) Thanksgiving weekend would potentially work for them, so I began preparing... the Short version of a long story: Didn't Really Happen.


Role-playing Games

I'd really hoped to play more role-playing games this year...

The KIDS sure played a LOT of Role-Playing Games - or at least Finnegan did!

I started out the year in a Call of Cthulhu game that my friend Bruce was running. But I ended up dropping out of it - there were just TOO many players... and... I just didn't love the system... For all of it's failings, I like the Savage Worlds Cthulhu a lot better...


Painting

I had different plans at different parts of the year... some I managed to complete. some were hopeful wishes that were abandoned in favour of OOH! SHINY!! Regardless of the success or failure of each plan I DID get a fair bit painted this year... maybe not as much as previous years, but still, quite a bit. there's a whole PAGE devoted to what I did - with links to each page where I posted each of the painted items:

 2019 Painted Versus Purchased

In short however I painted...

PAINTED

28mm Foot: 408
28mm Mounted: 14
28mm Artillery: 0
28mm Big Beasties/Vehicles: 10
Titans: 1

Micro Foot: 3
Micro Mounted: 23
Micro Artillery: 0
Mirco Tanks/Vehicles: 13
Micro Mechs: Micro Titans: 0

Terrain
Little Bits/Markers: 142
Ruined Bits (Walls, Rubble Piles): 0
Buildings: 0
3'x3' Tiles: 0
2'x2' Tiles: 0
1'x1' Tiles: 0
3-D Dungeon Tiles: 0
Movement trays: 16


PURCHASED (or otherwise acquired - gifts, trades, etc.)

28mm Foot: 707
28mm Mounted: 15
28mm Artillery: 3
28mm Big Beasties/Vehicles: 32
28mm Super-Heavy/TITANIC: 8
Small Terrain Pieces: 79

Micro Spaceships: 10

Micro Foot: 0
Micro Mounted: 0
Micro Artillery: 0
Mirco Tanks: 1
Micro Mechs: 5
Micro Titans: 5

DISPOSALS(Traded or Sold)
28mm Foot (painted): 0
28mm Foot: (unpainted): 0
15mm WW2: Loads


The bigger failure was in the acquisition department... I bought WAAAAAAAAAY more than I should have... More than I could paint... more than I really even have ROOM for anymore!? A LOT of them were "TOO GOOD DEALS" that just couldn't be passed up. Others were things I figured I should GET NOW BEFORE IT GOES OUT OF PRINT!

Definitely need to reign that in and just get some stuff PAINTED next year!!!!


The War Room

didn't happen...

I was supposed to have cleaned out the basement, did some renovating, added some lighting, built some bookshelves, etc, etc... I did clear out the room... sort of... and dismantled my old, gigantic gaming/hobby table... but that's as far as it got... maybe next year.... This past week I DID do some work on the drywall in the stairwell LEADING TO the game room...? There may be hope yet!


I Hope YOU all had a FABULOUS year of gaming and doing all of the other fun-but-not-so-gamey things that you do. Do let me know in the comments what the highlights were for your year!


Coming Soon to Tim's Miniature Wargaming Blog:

We've played another game of Hellboy that I hope I'll get a chance to do a game report for - and we'll probably get in another game tomorrow, hopefully. I have been painting up a storm the last few days, perhaps I'll post a few pics of the stuff I finish up in the next few days.

Until then...

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

December 2019 Games

PART ONE - BEFORE the HOLIDAZE

December got off to a slow start...



But there was enough stuff going on that I'm going to separate this month into two parts: pre-Holidaze, and HOLIDAZE! As HOLIDAZE officially begins this afternoon, this is what we got up to so far this month...


Sunday, 1 December 2019

I did kick off the month with a game of Necromunda..



Brent came by and tried the game out. You can read all about the game here:

El-Akarm Market Massacre

I'd hoped that this would be an EVERY SUNDAY thing... but have only gotten in games two of the four Sundays (so far!) this month. On the 8th we all had tickets to ELF! The Musical at the Persephone Theatre. All their musicals are just wonderful...

And Finnegan did get in a bunch of D&D games...

There was his bi-weekly Tuesday game on the 3rd (of which the last few sessions had been cancelled for one reason or another, so this was the first time they'd gotten together in over a month)


Friday, 6 December 2019



Friday evening he ran a one-shot for a friend and his son and the son of ANOTHER friend while Amanda and I were out. (This and all his D&D games aren't on the calendar above, because I don't log HIS games - not the ones I'm not playing in, at least!)


Saturday, 7 December 2019



Saturday afternoon he ran his regular game...



There was an epic sea battle/boarding action - which required busting out my half-built ships...



It looked like everyone was having fun.


Friday, 13 December 2019

The weekend of Friday the 13th is when things really got going for us...

well...

sort of...



Brent and Barb came by for supper and games. We ended up playing three rounds of Marrying Mr. Darcy - which was really fun, because I don't think we've gotten to play that all year..?



In the first round I played Lizzy Barret - but did NOT get to marry Mr. Darcy because my absolutely horrid sister, Jane (played by Barb), stole him away early in the game with a surprise engagement and I was left with Mr. Denny... Amanda played Georgiana Darcy - and married Mr. Wickham - much to the horror of her brother! Brent played my dear friend Charlotte Lucas, who did very well for herself and married Colonel Fitzwilliam! (Barb won the game - with 25 points)



In the second game I played Georgiana Darcy and (AGAIN!) she was wed to Mr. Wickham - with a scandalous elopement! I thought I did very well for myself scoring 27 points! But I was edged out by Barb, who again won - with 29 points! She'd been playing Elizabeth Barret and DID get to marry my brother, Mr. Darcy! It was a SUPER tight game, though - Amanda also scored 27 points - playing Lydia Barret and marrying Mr. Denny, and Brent was only just behind us with 26 points - having played Caroline Bingley and marrying Colonel Fitzwilliam!



In the third round we played with the Emma expansion. I have not read Emma - and am not terribly familiar with the story... (I feel like I HAVE read Pride and Prejudice... I know I've read one or two of Austen's books at one point or another... but mostly I remember the movie - with Keira Knightly -  and a stage play that was put on by a local theatre company a couple years ago). I played Harriet Smith, Amanda played Miss Bates, Brent played Anne Taylor, and Barb Played Emma Woodhouse. Now, this was just the first time we played it... but it seemed a just little like Emma really had things stacked in her favour... maybe it was just how all the cards played out...? I'll have to watch for that in future games and, if it happens again, know that the others really need to keep a watch on her and GANG UP!!!

As it turns out both Amanda and I ended up OLD MAIDS, scoring 15 and 23 points respectively (Miss Bates, played by Amanda - actually gets a few bonus points if she ends up an old maid - other wise we'd have been a bit close!) Brent managed to get Anne Taylor married off to Mr. Elton - and scored 21 points. But Barb won big, again, marrying Emma off to a certain Mr. knightly for a whopping 32 points!

I'd forgotten how fun this game can be - especially if playing with other people that are really INTO IT! We'll have to try and get this into more regular rotation!

Still haven't tried out the Undead expansion!


Saturday, 14 December 2019



Finnegan ran his regular D&D game in the afternoon. This week it was ALL THE GIRLS!? The party continued their journey by sea to the Island where the entire campaign is to reach it's ultimate conclusion.

In the evening, we had more friends over for supper and games. This time Amanda had invited one of her co-workers, Kathleen, and her sister Maureen.



We started off teaching them to play 7 Wonders. I played Babylone, Kathleen played Ephesos, Amanda played Giza, and Maureen played Rhodes. Maureen was just crushing it with the military - I totally thought she might win her very first game!



But then... SCIENCE! It really adds up!! I ended up winning - by just a few points (55). Amanda and Maureen were tied at 48, and Kathleen was just a bit behind at 37



WE played again and I decided to try something new - Stonehenge! I've never played it before. Amanda and Kathleen just flipped their Wonder cards and played on the B side and maureen just played Rhodes A again.

Stonehenge is kind of interesting... and tricky. When I pointed out that the third stage of my wonder gave me points for every stone I had (which, for some reason, didn't actually help me BUILD any part of my wonder!? Stonehenge is built of clay, Wood, Ore Papyrus and textiles, I guess...?) I guess everyone decided to not let me get any Stone - they also burried or discarded any science that came their way, suspecting I might do science again (seriously, there was hardly ANY science out there at the end of the game). I still won... well... tied with Amanda at 49. Kathleen was at 34 and Maureen was at 28 this time! (Both Amanda and I built up some actual military this time!)

Still, seemed like they really enjoyed it and were even talking about picking it up for themselves!



Afterwards we played Marrying Mr. Darcy - which is always great fun - but even more fun when people are really into it, and Maureen is a Jane Austen fan! I played Jane Bennet and Maureen played my sister Elizabeth. Kathleen played Lizzie's friend Charlotte Lucas, and Amanda played Caroline Bingley. Early in the game I had an elopement Mr. Wickham - which I got out of by discarding a pile of Character cards, I then was offered a surprise proposal from Mr. Darcy... which is stupidly TURNED DOWN, thinking I might still have a chance at landing the lovely Mr. Bingley! In the end I married... Mr. Collins.... Ended the game with a grand total of 15 points...

Amanda did even worse with Caroline Bingley - she ended up an Old Maid after turning down Mr. Wickham and scored only 13. Kathleen, playing Charlotte Lucas managed to marry Mr. Denny and scored 18 points. Maureen was the big winner landing Mr. Darcy and scoring 37 points!!! THIRTY SEVEN!!! Almost as much as the rest of us combined!!

I don't know why we don't play this game more!

Seriously, if you know any Jane Austen fans that don't really play games, but you'e LIKE them to start playing games - THIS is the one to get them playing!

Sunday, 15 December 2019



I actually had THREE people come over to play necromunda on Sunday evening!? You can read all about that game here:

The Ratskin Hoarde


Friday, 20 December 2019

Not a game, per se, but game-nerdy and mostly game buddies were invited... The kids and I Performed our Second (Hopefully) Annual Very Scary Solstice Concert (okay, it TECHNICALLY wasn't solstice until Saturday, but the kids wanted to do it Friday night so they could play their D&D game on Saturday without me rushing around like a Mad Bastard trying to clean up things around them...)

The concert is basically a bunch of traditional Xmas Carols arranged for two violins and a cello, with... alternative lyrics... based on the writings of Howard Phillip Lovecraft. A couple years ago we bought CDs and Song Books from the HPL Historical Society.

Last year we did two concerts - one Very Scary Solstice Concert and a second one two days later for people interested in singing traditional carols. The first was well attended and quite a riot - people singing and laughing. Only my family showed up for the second... and my sister wouldn't even sing. So the kids decided they only wanted to do ONE concert this year.



Some homemade cookies baked just for the occasion.



Cthulhu Cookies - Made by Keira.



Elder Sign Cookies - also made by Keira.



Us, playing the concert.

Over TWENTY people showed up and crammed themselves into our living and dining rooms. We ended up having to set up in the space between the two rooms - which was a little bit awkward... but worked out well enough in the end.

Again it was a riot of laughter and singing. I hope I can convince the kids to do it again next year!


Saturday, 21 December



Finnegan ran the final session in his D&D5E campaign that he's been running every Saturday since the beginning of September. All but one was able to make it! (He's actually been running RPGs for this group since the beginning of January - but it was Dungeon Crawl Classics to start with).

I think he originally intended for the campaign to run a little longer, but recognized there were some major problems with how was going and the group dynamic and after much thinking and postulating and bouncing ideas off of me, he decided to wrap it up - HARD REBOOT! Start again in the new year.

He had, briefly, even considered trying a completely new game system in the new year, but had decided to stick with D&D for now...



the final showdown with the big boss baddies.



It was pretty epic.


Coming Soon to Tim's Miniature Wargaming Blog:

In a week and a bit I'll have December Games Part Two - a wrap up of the rest of the month. Also around that time I'll have my traditional retrospective - looking back at the last year. Also I've been doing a lot of planning for 2020 - or, at least, the First Quarter of it! I also still have three posts about three of the Necromunda gangs I still need to finish up and post!? In addition to all that, I've been painting up Hellboy Miniatures - and am almost done enough to start playing TOMORROW!!!

For those celebrating Xmas today and tomorrow... and possibly the rest of the week - I hope you all have a very merry one. For those that aren't - I hope you all have an equally fabulous week/rest of your year!

September Games - Week Four

Picking up where we left off...

Sunday, 22 September 2019



on Sunday evening Amanda and I played a game of Necromunda. Sunday evenings, in our fall schedule, were to be set aside for a Necromunda Campaign. I had hoped we'd get TWO games in each Sunday evening - and that's all we'd need to do for our campaign... that hasn't happened yet...

We got started a bit late this week as Amanda decided to drag Finnegan out for a canoe paddle in the late afternoon (instead of doing it earlier when Keira and I were out at dance classes...?).



My Delaque gang and her Escher gang fought for control of the Narco Den.

You can read a full report of the game here:

Wenz Pipe - Battle for the Narco Den


Monday, 23 September 2019



Monday, after Ballroom, was supposed to be our "back up" evening for Neromunda - if we didn't get two games played. No one was (well... the kids weren't) feeling up to playing necromunda, so Amanda and I played a quick game of pPatchwork... and then we went and started watching American Gods.



It was, seriously, my BEST GAME EVER!!! I had only four empty spaces and even had buttons left over!!! WOO!



Amanda has a pretty amazing game as well!



Tuesday, 24 September 2019

Tuesday evening, Finnegan has his regular, fortnightly D&D game.



Amanda, Keira and I played a quick game of Retro Lunacy. Keira won.


Wednesday, 25 September 2019



Wednesday evening we all played a quick game of SET. Finnegan won this one - taking TEN sets. Keira and I weren't THAT far behind with seven and six, respectively... This just isn't Amanda's game... though she did collect two sets - which is pretty good, for her!


Thursday, 26 September 2019



Thursday Morning Bruce stopped by to play a few games. I'd invited him over to play 7 Wonders Duel, as I thought it would be a game he and his wife might enjoy, but it turns out he's apparently never played regular 7 Wonders... so we had to start with that. I recruited Finnegan to join us.



After that I played a couple rounds of 7 Wonders Duel with just Bruce. He did like it enough that we played two games and he borrowed it to take home and play with Adele.



The second game we played was one of my highest scoring games EVER - all this yellow cards!!



All the games were still pretty close - considering Bruce had never played either!

Friday, 27 September 2019



Friday evening we played a (relatively) quick game of Race for the Galaxy before watching a few episodes of American Gods.

We played with the Xeno Invasion expansion.



The Xeno Invasion was halted, largely due to my military-industrial complex... and that ended the game. I was a little worried we were all going to be hammered by Amanda who was collecting TWO victory points every turn (to everyone else's single VP) for surviving while having the lowest total military power. I just managed to squeak out a victory - thanks to the high military, I was able to put down a few high-point cards (Xenos forward Command - 9 points, Alien something-something for 8 points!). I ended with 48 points, Amanda and Keira were tied for second with 42.

Saturday, 28 September 2019



Well... I didn't get in a game... but there WAS a game going on at our place that 50% of the family played in!



Seems it was quite the epic adventure!


Sunday, 29 September 2019


Whoopsie... No games were played today.

It was a busy day. Keira and I had Irish Dance classes. Amanda did TWO Thai Yoga Massages, and in the evening Amanda and I went out to Glory - a play at the Persephone Theatre (which was amazing, by the way!)

Falling a little behind in our Necromunda campaign.

Monday, 30 September 2019

Last day of the month - Keira and I sat down for a quick game of Firefly Fluxx



An inauspicious start to the game, pulled a Creeper (REAVERS, no less!) on my initial card pull...



Things went better after I got rid of it. We were confused about one of Keira's cards (firearms) thinking it meant I couldn't STEAL any of her cards - when it actually referred to an ability conferred by a special rule card...



So many times I JUST ABOUT won... Hey look I'm filling that goal! Whoops forgot I had a creeper off to the side.



Eventually I got rid of the creeper and won the game. It was a longer game - actually went through the full deck once and had to shuffle the discards!

Well... that was quite a month!


The September 2019 Game-A-Day Challenge



Pretty close... Two of those Saturdays that are blank are days that I didn't play games, but there WERE games going on that 50% of the family played in (Finnegan's D&D 5E game), so I'd count them as "Game Days". The 19th and 29th were the only days where no games were played... but missing two days out of thirty... not bad... that's 28 days that we (at least SOME of us) DID play games! So that's definitely a win in my books!

The 'Family' 10x10 Challenge



A few games were checked off this month - Splendor, Century: Golem Edition, and Race for the Galaxy... Not quite the eight games a month we needed to play (every month) to complete this challenge - let along the 10-12 we'd have needed to do to catch up... Ah, well... as long as we're still having fun, right?!

Coming Soon to Tim's Miniature Wargaming Blog:

ummm.... not sure...

hopefully I'll be posting drawings for Inktober over on my Art Blog... or Instagram... or maybe Twitter...? Check those out later today or tomorrow.

ToonCon 2018

This past weekend I attended ToonCon with the kids (Amanda would have been there but she was busy dodging hurricanes and alligators in Florida and learning about nap yoga). This is, I think the 8th year the convention has been running, and I've been to... most of them...?


Friday Evening



As is our tradition, The Girl and I played 7 wonders. We got in two, seven-player games.



The first I was Babylon and did... okay-ish... I didn't really concentrate on any one thing. I think I came in second with 50 or so points.



The second game I played Rhodes and went all military and blue buildings, two things I seem to rarely do... and totally crushed it... Maybe I'll have to take this strategy more often in the future!

The Girl did pretty good - both time coming in just after me (3rd and 2nd, respectively). I's funny, because everyone remembers her as "That little girl that won 7 wonders a last year" (although it was actually two years ago).



While we were playing 7 wonder, Finnegan was playing Roll for the Galaxy. I don't know how he did, but when I popped by to see what was going on, he had a good theme going on, so he was happy (for me this was a HUGE geek dad win - having raised kids that are more interesting in developing an interesting theme or narrative in a game than whether or not they're actually doing well in the game!)    Later he said it was okay, but it mostly just made him want to play RACE for the Galaxy again (which we haven't for some time!).



After that we played Viticulture, which was great fun! I usually don't do all that great at the game, but I have a lot of fun playing it - going through the process of building a vineyard - planting and harvesting and making stuff into wine and filling contracts and so on. I came very close to winning this time - we ran out of time and had to just call it and at the end of the last round we had a three way tie for first - the tie-breaker was money and I had one less than the guy who won (I think he had £12 and I had £11...?)

I'm not sure what Finnegan was doing...? I thought he had signed up for Viticulture? maybe he was at another table? Or maybe he skipped out and went and played something else...?



Finally we played a couple games of Century: Spice Road - another game I really enjoy playing - and usually do quite well at. The first game I was ON FIRE! I think I ended with 80-some points, and everyone else was back in the 60s... The second game we had to just stop as it was five to midnight and they were kicking everyone out.


Saturday

I didn't get a lot of sleep Friday night... for a few reasons... One: I was still getting stuff ready for the Kill Team game I was to run the following afternoon. The Other: when we got home Finnegan's blood-sugar level was CrAzY high!? Like potential-Ketoacidosis-shut-down-organs-dangerously-high!? So I was up for some time just trying to get that down - without it crashing down so low he ended up hypoglycaemic!

So Saturday we slept in and skipped the first round of games... I still only ended up with about 5 hours of sleep, but we got there for the second round!



The Girl and I were playing Stone Age. I've never played it before. It was a lot of fun. Worker placement in the stone ages - your tribe hunts and gathers food and acquires resources and builds huts... It's funner than it sounds.



While we were doing that Finnegan was trying out Clank!

 

After that, I ran my Kill Team game. None of the four guys had played it or any Warhammer games before, but they were keen and fun guys to play with. I totally overwhelmed them with the rules and then we tried to play a game.



As I had suspected... it went very slowly... We did get through one full round - during which there was a LOT of shooting and no close combat.



The Mechanicus mostly shot up the Drukhari and the Heretic Astartes shot up the Genestealers pretty good.



We played PART of a second round. WE went through the movement phase and then I skipped straight to the fight phase (there wouldn't have been THAT much shooting anyway) because I wanted to give them all a sense of how the fight phase worked - and give the Drukhari and Genestealers a chance to do THEIR THING after having been mauled so badly by fire in the previous round.



And they kicked some ass - the Genestealers took out the Chaos Space Marine Champion and the Drukhari took down the Mechanicus Vanguard leader... it was pretty awesome...

Hopefully everyone had a bit of fun and at least got a bit of a sense of how the game plays...?



Now that I've got all this stuff painted, I'm looking forward to playing this for FUN - no longer under the pressure to get things ready for the demo and worrying about how it's going to go.



Shortly after the afternoon games was the auction... There are people that come to the convention just for the auction. In just over two hours they auctioned off 344 games (THREE HUNDRED FOURTY FOUR!!!) 2-3 per minute... They're THAT fast! Every year I have a good look at all the games that will be up for action on Friday (or sometimes earlier if they post the list of games beforehand). Find the ones I'm genuinely interested in, check to see how much they cost new and what they're selling for used and then set a maximum I will bid and I STICK TO IT - When they are auctioning things off that fast it is SUPER easy to get carried away... I've seen used games sell for almost what they cost new!?

I had about 20 games I planned to bid on a half dozen were ones I was genuinely interested in, others were more like "Well if I can get this for $5-10, I'll try it out..."



I won five lots. one was something that hadn't been on my list (the Dogs one) - When it came up, The Girl said she was interested in it. I don't like bidding on items I don't really know anything about, but I bid on it anyway and got it for about $16CAD. Looks like it goes for about $40-50 in the geek marketplace, so I think we did okay there... The four Flash Point expansions were all in one lot I picked up for $30CAD - this was another thing The Girl was interested in, but at least she pointed these out to me last night and I was able to look up how much they were new... Marrying Mr. Darcy came with the Emma and Undead Expansions. The older version of Brass I just about bought for $70 a year ago but managed to pick it up for $16 at the auction.

There had been a couple copies of Caverna I bid on, but didn't get... and kind of wished I'd bid just a bit more. Both went for about half what it is new. There was also a copy of Power Grid with a BUNCH of map and deck expansions which I bid on... but didn't get.. Ah well, maybe next year...

One of these years I should probably offload a few games I know I'm never going to play again!

We went home when the auction was done. There were a couple more sessions in the evening - Finnegan and I had signed up for Terraforming Mars and The Girl had signed up for Mission: Red Planet and Imhotep - but with so little sleep and having run a game, I was just DONE!


Sunday

Sunday was different as we were all playing totally different games!



The Girl started off with Flamme Rouge - a bicycle racing game.



My first two session were taken up by Pendragon: The Fall of Roman Britain  - one of the newer COIN games from GMT. I like COIN games in general - though they are quite complicated and I'm not really sure what they hell I'm even doing, let alone how to do WELL in them...



Pendragon seemed a little more straightforward than the others... But maybe it was the faction I was playing - the Scotti, of course!!!



We kind of had to call it at some point because I had to go set up for the next game I was running.



Finnegan decided this year he wanted to try out Twilight Imperium 4 - and he ended up playing that ALL DAY!



I was a little worried he might be get a little overwhelmed and frustrated, but it seemed to go well enough...



While I was still playing Pendragon, The Girl went and played Castles of Burgundy. She's played it at ToonCon all three times she's come - she liked it so much the first time, she asked her grandma to get it for her for Xmas - and she got it... almost two years ago... and we have yet to play it at home!? Hopefully we'll get it on the table soon while she's still got the rules all fresh in her head!



For the final session of the weekend, I set up a game of Railways of the World to run for a few people. Originally six were signed up, but only three of them showed up!? So I joined in, as it was a learn-to-play and I like to play and SHOW everyone what I'm doing and explain why.



For the final round, The Girl got to play Power Grid. Afterwards she was saying she loved it and we need to play ours more! Which  made me a little more bummed that I didn't get the lot that included the base game and 8 expansions... Ah, well...

So all around I think everyone had quite a bit of fun and got excited about playing MORE games!



Bike parking was at a bit of a premium at the location - this was the only bike rack within blocks. It's kind of crammed into this little space between a fence, a planter and a spot to park a car. A Different guy had parked there with us on Friday evening and I think his bike might have been dinged by a car trying to pull in or out of that space!?


Coming Soon To Tim's Miniature Wargaming Blog: 

Well... hard to say.. I've been so focused on getting ready for this past weekend for the last few months, I can't say I've given much thought to what comes next. Amanda would like me to clear out the basement so we can renovate the "Game Room". Surely that will be ONE of my priorities. I still have a lot of 40K and Kill Team stuff I'd like to get painted sooner rather than later.... I wouldn't mind getting a Kill Team campaign underway - even if it's just with the family... and I wouldn't mind playing some OTHER games - now that the kids are super excited about.