April Games

 Oh, I guess it's May now... Maybe I should post this!? 

Monday, 2 April 2023

No games over the weekend, but on Monday Jasper and Brent stopped by and played Wingspan. This week I added all the European and Oceana cards back in. Brent won this one, largely by playing ALL THE NECTAR - seriously, he won - by a LOT - in all three regions, totalling 15 points for nectar!?

Tuesday, 6 April 2023

Tuesday evening, Other Tim stopped by and we tried out Xenos Rampant. You can read the full game report here:

Xenos Rampant - Daemons of Sidon IX

Saturday, 8 April 2023

Out of nowhere Amanda suggested playing Agricola on Saturday. Okay, I might have suggested it was a game I'd like to play sometime, amongst a long list of games we could play when she suggested we play a game that evening. It's been FIVE YEARS since we last played, so... we did not do well... 

Well, Amanda did not do well, somehow it all came together for me near the end...!? Kind of forgot about the negative points for NOT having any particular thing or unimproved spaces on your farm... That burned Amanda a LOT more than me. 

Sunday, 9 April 2023

Amanda felt she needed to redeem herself after last night's debacle...

I have to say, this is probably the most diverse farm I've ever made! 

Amanda also had a much more diverse farm and consequently scored 200% more points... She still didn't catch up... 

So she suggested we play again in the evening?!

That evening. 

Very pleased with her very diverse little farm! (As she should be - it was a well played game!) 

And now that she's won, she said we don't need to play it anymore... which is a shame, as we'd played three games!? Two more and I'd have a game locked in for a 5x5 challenge!? (Am I still doing that!?) 

Wednesday, 12 April 2023

Our friends Ryan and Andy came by and played Wingspan with us. It was so great to see them. It felt like it has been ages since we'd seen them.

Amanda just destroyed us all. She scored 22 points from Bonus Cards alone!? I think she ended with 107. Andy and I only barely made it into the 90s - and Ryan only had 77 (He'd had a bonus card that gave him points for having birds that were 4 points each, or less!?) 

Thursday, 12 April 2023

No Brent this week, so Jasper came by to try out the two-player version of Wingspan: Asia

The game plays pretty quick, once you know what you're doing... or... can pretend you know what your doing, like me... 

The game went so quickly, we set it up and played again. Both times Jasper won and now he only wants to play the two-player version. 

I informed him the next time we will play with Wingspan: Asia will be to try out the SEVEN-PLAYER version that Amanda is keen to try out!? 

Thursday, 20 April 2023 

One week later, Brent came by to try out the two-player version of Wingsapn: Asia.

 We ended up playing two games... the first one I felt like I had no idea what I was doing. I lost. By a LOT. 

Second game was marginally better. Got a few more cards out. Scored a bunch more points. Still lost... 

Friday, 21 April 2023

If that weren't enough Wingspan, Friday evening I threw a little surprise party for Amanda (whose birthday was this weekend) and set up a SEVEN-PLAYER game of Wingspan! 

Despite my initial concerns that it might be a bit unwieldy and take FOR-EVAR, the rules for playing with six or seven players are pretty slick and it all played very smoothly. It took less than 3 hours, and one player had never played Wingspan before!? 

I like the "friendly ties" thing. 

Sunday, 23 April 2023

Sunday afternoon, I played one of the battles for the Back of Beyond campaign Summer 1921 turn. 

Monday, 24 April 2023

Monday was a VERY BUSY day of gaming! 

First, I I played the second battle for the Back of Beyond campaign Summer 1921 turn. You can read teh full report of both battles here:

Back of Beyond - Summer 1921

In the afternoon, Brent came by to play a game. Jasper was supposed to join us, but had to bail at the last minute - which was a bummer as he's a big D&D fan, and we'd been planning to play a D&D themed game (and ended up playing TWO D&D themed games!) 

Finnegan joined us and we played Lords of Waterdeep. It was good fun. depite playing it over a dozen times in the first few years we had it, we've onlyolayed once in the last FIVE YEARS!? 

I played the Harpers (secretly controlled by Samnereza Sulphontis). Finnegan played Larissa Neathal and the Red Sashes. Brent played Silver Stars and Kyriani Agrivar. Despite not building THAT many buildings (Larissa Neathal's secret goal), Finnegan totally won the game! 

Afterwards, Finnegan mentioned he'd like to try out Tyrants of the Underdark sometime as well. As Lords of Waterdeep had not taken us very long and we had nothing else planned for the afternoon, Brent and I suggested he get it out and we try and blunder our way through a game. 

I forgot to take a picture of us playing. Largely because I was so focused on trying to figure out what the hell I was doing!? It's an interesting game. There is a deck-building element to it, very similar to Marvel Legendary, which we've played a lot of in the past, but it is NOT co-operative and there's a board with an area control element to it... 

I'm pretty sure we got the game for Finnegan for his birthday a few years back... but may have picked it up at the ToonCon auction or maybe "used" at the Dragon's Den...? Though it seems the game had never been used (the inner circle markers hadn't been punched) other parts were missing!? This included the victory point tokens (not that big of a deal, we have plenty of things that could be used as vidtory tokens) and the control tokens. The latter was a bit more tricky, as on the tokens was printed the benefits for controlling the relative locations. Mostly we were able to figure this out by looking at pictures of the game on Board Game Geek (but later we realized we got the Victory Point bonus for one of them wrong - though I don't think it would have made any difference in our game, as it was not controlled until the end of the game - by me - and I don't think I had it under total control - which gives the victory point bonus) 

Definitely a fun game - there are a LOT of moving parts and things to keep track of and SO MANY WAYS your opponent can mess with your plan!? I hope we get to play it again - a few times - so I can get my head around some of the strategies! 

Saturday, 29 April 2023

I played the final game of the Back of Beyond Campaign (One-Hour Wargames). You can see more pictures and read the last campaign report here:

Back of Beyond - Autumn 1921

All in all, not a bad month... What got played:

• One-Hour Wargames x5
• Wingspan Asia x4
• Agricola x3
• Wingspan x3
• Lords of Waterdeep x1
• Tyrants of the Underdark x1
• Xenos Rampant x1

Demolition began in my basement yesterday - beginning what will (hopefully!) be the last of the basement renovations. So the game room is closed up - possibly until the fall. I did bring up a few board games and some stuff to play Kill Team - which I'm hoping to get back to playing this summer! 

July Games (Part Two)

(You can find Part One HERE)

This past week I've has this weird feeling like it's August already for some reason...? I've been looking at expiry dates on food items in the fridge and wondering why we have stuff that expired last month!? It's not August (at least not while I'm writing this, it more than likely WILL be when you actually READ this). It's the end of July and here are the games we played in the second half of the month.

Monday, 16 July 2018

Monday after work Amanda we all played a quick game of Century: Golem Edition. I think after finally winning on Friday she wanted to see if she could still beat me…

 

She totally didn’t… I scored 78… more than 20 points ahead of everyone else…



Saturday, 21 July 2018

We didn’t play any more games all week. I’m not sure why. I guess the kids spent a couple days hanging out with my folks. Other days we went on bike rides. Amanda was running her Kids Yoga Dance camp for kids. Everyone we pretty tired in the evenings and probably just wanted to hide in the basement and watch TV or movies…

Saturday evening I finallygot everyone to play a game of Warhammer 40000 (8thEdition). This was Amanda first game with her Sisters of Battle!



Sunday, 22 July 2018

On Sunday, I headed over to Brent’s for our semi-annual game of Angola with John and Kurtis. We’ve played in July and December for the last two years. Despite randomly determining who plays which faction Every Single Time Brent and I have ended up with the FAPLA and the MPLA (though we’ve each played both factions twice. John and Kurtis. This time I was MPLA. I’m not sure the government forces have EVER won…

The end of things… Government forces losing again with the FNLA controlling Luanda (for the second time this game!)


Monday, 23 July 2018

Monday evening we finally got in a game with Leanne and her son Taotao – who I’ve been trying to get together with for some time! We settled on playing Lords of Waterdeep

Amanda played The Knights of the Sheild secretly controlled by Larisa Neathal, I played the Grey Hands controlled by Mirt the Moneylender, Finnegan played the Res Sashes secretly controlled by Simnerza Sulphontis, The Girl played the City Guard who were controlled by Caladorn Cassalanter, Leanne played the silver Stars controlled by Rianne Byndraeth, and Taotao played the Harpers controlled by Halaster Blackstar III. It was Leanne and Taotao’s first time playing the game. Considering that Taotao did AMAZINGLY well scoring 111points, he was only beaten by Amanda who managed to score 112! We actually only got to play 7 or the 8 rounds and, given one more round, I probably would have finished upa few more adventure/goals I’d been working on and given them a run for their money… I probably won’t have won, but it would have been a bit closer…

Tomorrow they’re supposed to be coming back to play again…


Wednesday, 25 July 2018

Wednesday after work Amanda suggested we play a game and we eventualy decided on Marvel Legendary. We played with Daredevil, Punisher, Black Car, Moon Knight, and Spiderman. We battled against the King Pin this time and his scheme was an Organized Crime Wave, which kind of makes sense. Helping him out were Magia Goons, The Hand Ninjas, Streets of New York, Emissaries of Evil, Sinister Six and Spider Foes. IN the end We won... I punched the King Pin twice. His master strikes weren't too bad, but the cards revealed when you punched him were all bad...


Friday, 27 July 2018

Friday evening my friend Bruce came over to play a game and we settled on Agricola.

It was his first time playing. Amanda totally cleaned up, as usual, building a massive sprawling stone mansion and a huge family to take care of it all while doing just about every occupation she could… other than… y’know… FARMING!?

I didn’t do TOO bad. I came in second and was relatively please to have finally gotten a farm with some serious… y’know… FARMING going on! My biggest complaint about this game is that it’s too easy to have animals and too hard to actually plough fields and get stuff sown in them!


Saturday, 28 July 2018

We didn’t play games on Saturday…

 

But I did go and buy a BUNCH of stuff for Kill Team!! Expaect game reports in the not-too-distant future!


Sunday 29 July 2018

Sunday Kurtis and Shannon came over for an afternoon and evening of gaming. We told the kids they were welcome to join us... but they were busy doing other stuff.

We started off with Fresco. I won the game in the raffle at ToonCon last year and hadn’t had an opportunity to play it yet. There are bunch of games I’ve picked up over the last year that I haven’t had an opportunity to play yet and I’ve tried to stack them in a PILE OF SHAME in the living room and was hoping to work through them this month… or maybe in August… Anyway, they spotted it there and said they’ve played it before so we had a go at it.

It was fun enough. It’s a keeper – I’d play it again.

I just realized there are, like, 9 expansions for this!? At least one was included in the box I have. Not sure if I'll ever play this enough to justify running out and getting any of the others...

Next we played Century: Eastern Wonders. The second in the Century series that Plan B games is to release over three years (the first being Century: Spice Road that came out last year). I find it's much like Spice Road or Golem. You're still trying to collect cubes of spices, convert them to other sets of cubes to eventually trade in for victory tiles which give you points. Instead of drafting cards from a market, you are setting up trading posts on islands that your little boat sails to. Unlike Spice Road and Golem where there is only one of each card and only one person can get it, anyone can build a trading post on each island and then use it to convert their sets of cubes. It just costs more to build a trading post if there are already posts on the island. Also by building posts on a diverse set of islands (each has a different symbol on them) you can gain the bonuses - either straight points or in-game bonuses like faster ships or bigger holds, etc.

Eastern Wonders is okay I guess. I really like Century: Spice Road and Century: Golem Edition. Eastern Wonders felt, to me, like an attempt to add a layer of complexity to a game that is beautiful in its simplicity…? I’d play it again, but I won’t be rushing out to by this one…

My final score: 58 – dead last. I thought I’d been doing pretty good off the start I was the first to pick up a victory tile (the 20!?) and I was the first to empty a vertical row on my card and gain a bonus for my ship (the extra move). I don’t know where it all came apart…? One more turn and I’ve have picked up a fifth victory tile – for another 13 points, but that still wouldn’t have put me in the lead…? Ah well…

I took a break to make supper and the rest played a quick game of Century: Golem Edition.

I think Kurtis won this one as well…?

After supper, The Girl joined us and got us to play a game of Just Desserts (it’s her game and she loves it and just can’t get people to play it with her enough). I don’t mind it, it’s usually quick and it’s simple enough… We completely exhausted the Guest Deck, which I don’t think I’ve ever seen happen before. Amanda won.

After Just Desserts Shannon had to leave because she had to get up waaaaaaaay too early…

So, the four of us played Splendor – with Cities of Splendor! The Girl FINALLY won a game of this! (She’s been lamenting for some time that she NEVER wins this game…)

I wasn’t even close. I was all set up so that in the next two turns I would have picked up two cards worth another 7 points. (one requiring the 7 black and another requiring the six red…). But I still would have needed one more green card or two more points… Ah well… it was fun.


Tuesday, 31 July 2018

the kids snuck in two more games this afternoon...

First, at The Girl's suggestion, we played a game of Hanging Gardens - one of our older games that I still like playing. Simple pattern making/set collection. I never don't enjoy playing this game.

thought I was doing pretty good for myself - got a few complete sets - scored FIFTY-THREE POINTS! Not bad at all...

Until this monkey went and counted up his points and got FIFTY FOUR!!! It was all those walls and the Guard that really added up. (He said he was building it to keep the Egyptians out!)

Afterwards Finnegan put together a thematic set of Dominion cards for us to play with. He called it "Market Day". I feel like we've played a different thematic set that he also called "market day" , but no matter. This set included Village, Market, and Workshop from the base game, Trader, Spice Merchant, and Haggler from Hinterlands, Horse Traders and Harvest - Cornucopia and Plaza and Herald from Guilds. Not a bad little set. Trader got me scores of silvers. I tried to trash coppers with Spice Merchants, but always ended up with silvers in my hands... haggler is awesome - should have picked one up earlier. Horse Traders was pretty weak considering the others in this set - I didn't pick up any. I don't think anyone picked up a Harvest...


I though I was doing pretty good, in the end, with all those Provinces... Then Finnegan counted up his stuff. He had less provinces, but a PILE of Duchies and ended up with 38, I had 34, The Girl had 32

Super close game in the end - unlike the last time we played where The Girl utterly thrashed us! (I think she had 39 and I had, like, 18...!?)


I guess the month isn't entirely over as I post this, but Finnegan has D&D tonight and Amanda, The Girl and I are watching a movie (or two) while I get some painting done... so I think that's it for our gaming...


The Challenge Board

We only ticked a few more games off the challenge board this month... Dominion, Legendary and Lords of Waterdeep, I think... 

In addition to working on the Pile of Shame (see below) I'm planning to knock a few more of these off through August - go for some of the "low-hanging fruit" - games that we (mostly) know the rules for and can play in less than two hours. Surely we can do a few of those each week...?

If we do a September Game-A-Day Challenge again, that will hopefully get us caught up as well.


Plans for August

The Pile of Shame

As I mentioned earlier, I've been piling up a few of the games I've acquired over the last year or so and still haven't played in the living room. My plan it to leave them there until I actually get around to playing them.

Okay, Space Hulk isn't on the pile, because that's actually Finnegan's game... and Kill Team, while technically a game I've bought in the last year and haven't played yet, I JUST bought and I KNOW I'm going to play a lot of it... soon...


Coming Soon to Tim's Miniature Wargaming Blog:

I am STILL working on the Terminators for Space Hulk. There's so much detail on them. There have been a few evenings I sat down to paint and just felt like I didn't have enough focus or patience or something to paint that kind of detail, so I ended up assembling and priming other things - a few minis, some of the terrain from Kill Team... I DO still hope to finish off those Terminators sometime this week BEFORE I get painting anything else!!!

Hopefully in the next week or so you'll start seeing Kill Team and Space Hulk miniatures and game reports.

Oh and Finnegan finally finished off the Gorkanaut he started in December... perhaps I'll post a picture of that. Or Maybe I'll wait until we get it on the table for a game and post a picture of THAT! Not sure what I'm going to throw up against it. Power-Level-wise it's more than a Leman Russ tank, but less than two... and less than a Shadowsword or Knight - not even CLOSE to the Warhound.... He should have got a STOMPA! Maybe Gorkanaut plus Meganobs versus a Leman Russ platoon...?

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!