Game Plan 2022 - 5x/10x Game Challenges

 I was thinking a little more about what games I might like to play in the coming months and try to solidify that into a challenge (or two... or three...?) 

Looking at the games I've played so far this year... 

• Wingspan x11
• Terraforming Mars x9
• Five Tribes x7
• Azul x6
• Warhammer Underworlds: Direchasm x6
• Carcassonne x5
• Quebec 1759 x5
• Splendor x3
• Andean Abyss x2
• Wizard Kings x2
• Wrath & Glory x2
• Bananagrams x1
• For Sale x1
• Marrying Mr. Darcy x1
• The Silver Bayonet x1

So, give that, and some of the games I'd like to focus on, I thought I'd come up with a 10x10 Challenge list to try and help maintain that focus. Some were obvious (as I'd already played ten, or very nearly...). Others, less so... and might get swapped out at some point.

2022 (PROVISIONAL) 10x10 Game Challenge List 

1. Wingspan 
2. Terraforming Mars 
3. Five Tribes 
4. Azul 
5. Warhammer Underworlds: Direchasm 
6. Warhammer Underworlds: Harrowdeep
7. Carcassonne 
8. Kill Team
9. GMT Games
10. Role-Playing Game? Or Columbia Block Games?

Wingspan is DONE, don't have to play any more... though I'm sure we probably will

Just need to play one more game of Terraforming Mars and that one is done too. Five Tribes only needs three. So neither of these will even feature in the Q3 or Q4 5x5 Challenges, as I'm sure we can just pick those up along the way. 

I've already played 6 games of Warhammer Underworlds (set in the Beastgrave - which I log as Direchasm on BGG because it was the set I started with...). My plan is, over the summer, run a narrative sort of campaign for Amanda with Warhammer Underworlds... 

The idea is the campaign will follow the exploits of Amanda's favoured warband: Morgwaeth's Blade-Coven. I'll throw different warbands at them each week and try to weave some sort of narrative between the clashes. The plan is to play five more games set in Beastgrave/Direchasm over the next month while I get a few of the Harrowdeep/Nethermaze warbands finished up. Then we'll switch settings - Morgweath will have found a way... well.. if not home, at least a way OUT of Beastgrave and closer to home (as Harrowdeep is actually located just off the coast of Hag-Nar - Morgweath's home temple from which she and her blade-coven were dispatched to the Beastgrave!). 

I like Carcassonne. Amanda is ambivalent. She'll play. We've played five games already, so I thought I could add that to the Q4 5x5 Challenge and we could knock those out in the winter. 

The kids and I are planning to play a little Kill Team campaign this summer. Initially it was just going to be me and Finnegan, and I was planning something similar to what I'm doing with Amanda with Warhammer Underworlds - run a little narrative campaign that focuses on the story of HIS Kill Team (probably the fancy new T'au Pathfinders from Kill Team: Chalnath!) and I'd come up with a series of scenarios for him to play through facing different opponents. 

I only just found out today that Keiran was DEPLY HURT that I didn't ask THEM to join us!? I only hadn't because the last time we spoke of whole 40K thing, they said in no uncertain terms then NEVER liked and of 40K - regular 40K or Kill Team or any of the role-playing games. They said they TRIED to get interested in it because everyone else was interested... but they just couldn't.... So I respected that and didn't even try to persuade them to play ever since... I mean, they've shown NO INTEREST in ANY games for over a year!? 

I guess Finnegan somehow got them watching If the Emperor had a Text-to-Speech Device and they've had a bit of a change of heart... 

(I guess I'm going to have to watch it now, too...) 

Rather than trying to play any of the GMT games TEN times, I thought I'd make it a broad category that could include COIN games (Andean Abyss, On a Distant Plain, Fire in the Lake), Labyrinth, Twilight Struggle, Paths of Glory, etc... It might be two games five times each (as I DO like the idea of playing a game a few times to really get to know it!) or three games 3-4 times each... but it probably WON'T be either on game ten times or ten different games, once...

The Columbia Block Games, like GMT, is more of a category of games. These include Quebec 1759, Wizard Kings, Hammer of the Scots. I've played Quebec 1759 five times already. I've played Wizard kings twice, but probably won't bother trying it again... I COULD just play Hammer of the Scots three times and call it DONE, but I think I'll try and add it to one of the Quarterly 5x5 Challenges... 

I'm still holding out that I MIGHT get a role-playing game of SOME sort going on again in the fall... 

So here is what the Q3 and Q4 5x5 Challenges might look like:

Q3 5x5 Challenge

1. Warhammer Underworlds: Direchasm (4 more) 
2. Warhammer Underworlds: HarrowDeep
3. GMT Games
4. Kill Team
5. Hammer of the Scots

Q4 5x5 Challenge

1. Warhammer Underworlds: Harrowdeep
2. Carcassonne 
3. Role-Playing Game? Or something else?
4. Kill Team
5. GMT Games

Should keep me busy! 

AND hopefully get me motivated to start PLAYING again... 

I HAD really hoped I'd get in some games of Song of Blades and Heroes and a few of the Osprey Wargame Series this year. Maybe I'll try to set up a few one-off games over the next six months and try to focus on those next year! 

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!

Game Plan 2019 - Part Two

The other week I went over some of my hobby goals for the next year in Game Plan 2019. Since then I have spent much time considering how the heck I'm going to do any of it, let alone all of it!?


GAMES

WELL! I think I've more or less come up with a plan to make sure we get through most of our Family 10x10 Board Game Challenge AND I get to play the additional games I have in my personal Challenge.

The 10x10 challenge requires playing at least 100 games in the year. Which is about two a week - a little less than two per week, actually. So I figured if we have two designated "Family Game Times" set aside each week, we should easily get through all those games. So we've kind of set aside Friday and Sunday evenings... Now not EVERY Friday and Sunday evening are going to work. This week, Amanda is at a First Aid class this Friday evening.... On Sunday I'll be playing a game of 40K with the fellow I'm going to be teaming up with for the Battle for the Abyss - Team Apocalypse Event.... Other Sundays we have tickets to Persephone Theatre... But there WILL be other times we can play games - and those will make up for any times we miss a Sunday or Friday game - or allow us to play, y'know, OTHER games.

The kids have two weeks off coming up in the next few months - on in February ("midterm break") and one in April ("Spring/Easter Break"). I'm quite certain we'll get some gaming in then!

I have six games on my own x10 Personal Challenge list. One of those is Wrath & Glory. I am currently planning to run a campaign starting in February on alternating Saturday evenings (the Saturdays my friend Bruce ISN'T running his Call of Cthulhu game). by the end of June, I'll have run 10 sessions... Hopefully it will continue past there, but we shall see...

The other five (40K, Kill Team, Coin Games, Eklund Games, and Dan Mercy Games) I plan to play on Saturday afternoons. As there are 52 weeks in the year, and 10x5 games is fifty games... I should be able to get those all played if I can managed to play one (almost) every Saturday - again, it is ridiculous to think I will definitely get to lay EVERY Saturday... but I'm sure I'll be able to make up a few games other times. Some days I'll probably get in a few games (like at the Apocalypse event - there are three rounds - that'll be three of my 40K games done, right there!).

I have made up new Challenge tables - and we've already knocked a few off. I need a place to post them somewhere in the house...


PAINTING

There is an awful lot of things I have that I really want to paint - and I want to paint ALL - RIGHT NOW!!! So I've had to do some prioritizing... For the next two months the main priority should probably finishing up things that I need to complete for scheduled events.

Five weeks from this evening I am running a Kill Team Campaign Weekend. I'm mostly good for miniatures - everyone is bringing their own (though I do have some miniatures my friend John dropped off to paint for his Chaos Cultist Kill Team - they are Space Rats... stay tuned for those!). Mostly I have a bunch of terrain I'd like to get painted up so I can have a half dozen Kill Zones that can be used by all the players. This mostly means finishing up the Mechanicus and Munitorum (and maybe the Wall of Martyrs) - the Imperialis Terrain might be nice, but not a priority as the planet it is taking place on has not been heavily populated for some time...

After that, there is the Battle for the Abyss - Team Apocalypse Event on 2 March 2019. I will probably need to paint up a few more things for that - depending on what I'm going to take for forces (which I'll be working out this weekend) Likely I will need three Tallarn Mortar teams and two more Scout Sentinels. Or... maybe I'll be painting the Reaver Titan... The team is allowed 300 Power Level - each player fielding 150 Power Level.  Each of the Warhound Titans are 75 each (150) and the Reaver Titan is, I think, 120 Power Level... leaving 30 to field... something else. My partner has Imperial Knights, so I think 30 points would allow him to field a Castellan...?

AFTER that is all sorted, I need to focus on Blackstone Fortress - as I would like to get playing that campaign by the end of March... (so much for me knocking off those models over the holidaze and starting the campaign in January! What was I thinking!?)

The rest of the year...? Well, I'll take it as it comes. Generally speaking I'd like to finish off the Valhallans, work on a few more Tallarn, get the Battle sisters done and at least a "Battalion" detachment of Drukhari for Amanda. I also have an Eldar force I've been piecing together over the years (decades!) that really needs to get some paint on it!! Maybe I'll throw some ECW or SYW historical into the mix - to play The Pikeman's Lament or Rebels and Patriots. AS I say, we shall see. After the Battle for the Abyss I will take stock of where things are at, where my interests are, what might have changed and reassess...


Coming Soon to Tim's Miniature Wargaming Blog:

I am hoping tomorrow I'll get in a game of either Kill Team or 40K - and might find some time to put together a battle report Sunday morning.

After that, I have another 40K game scheduled for Sunday evening. Hopefully I'll get a game report of that posted early next week.

On the workbench, I've been all over the place - prepping and priming newly arrived models (from the spree in December) - including, but not exclusively, the Blackstone Fortress minis, the Reaver Titan, a few Eldar to finally finish up my forces, some more Grey Knights, and a pile of Space Rats.... Who knows what I might actually finish first...? The Space Rats are what I've been working on last, and have kind of jumped to the front of the priority list.

Game Plan 2019

Having had a quick look back at 2018, it's time to make some plans for 2019. Now, these aren't written in stone plans... they're kind of like the Pirates Code: "They're more like... 'guidelines'".

Board Games

Challenges

First off, last years challenge was ill-defined and we just picked games we wanted to play and didn't really consult the rest of the family and it ended up being a mix of games I wanted to play with the family and games I wanted to play, but probably not with the family... so I'm kind of separating things into two separate challenges...

10x10 Family challenge

These are 10 games we've agreed to as a family to play TOGETHER at least TEN times in the next year:

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


Personal Challenges

These are a few more boardgames I'D like to play over the next year - some I might play with the family, others I might play with others...

10x GMT COIN Series games - not any one specific game, I'd just like to play 10 of them. Ideally I'd like to play the ones that I OWN a few times (A Distant Plain and Fire in the Lake). This might be expanded into just "GMT games" as I wouldn't mid playing Twilight Struggle and Labyrinth again as well... and, to be honest, ten COIN games might be a bit much...

10x Phil Eklund Games - not going to say which ones. I have a lot of them. I love them. Didn't get to play ANY last year. This could be High Frontier, Bios: Genesis, Bios: Origins, Bios: Megafauna, Pax Porfiriana, Pax Pamir, Pax Renaissance, Pax: Transhumanity (which is actually Matt Eklund... but whatevs...), or any other game designed by Phil Eklund.


Board Game Afternoons 

I used to organize board game afternoons on Saturdays - to play some of the longer games I have. That kind of fell by the wayside last year. I'd like to get it going again! Or maybe Sundays...?


ToonCon

We'll be going to ToonCon. I'll be running a game there. Couldn't say what that would be yet. If I had to decide TODAY...? I might say Warhammer Quest: Blackstone Fortress... but it's a long way off, so...


Miniature Games

I'd like to PLAY some 40K.... and Kill Team... a lot of the games I logged last year were games that I organized and ran for other people - mostly the kids and their friends... I want to push toys around and roll the dice myself a little more often. I could probably add that to the challenges; 10x Kill Team and 10X 40K!

I'd like to run a campaign of Warhammer Quest: Blackstone Fortress...? I mean, it's on the 10x10 list... Is it a board game or is it a miniature game...?

I would like to get some OTHER games on the tabletop this year - it would be nice to revisit a few of the Andrea Sfiligoi/Ganesha Games (Song of Blades and Heroes). I'm also pretty excited about the release of Rebels and Patriots - now just about all my favourite periods are covered by a Dan Mercy/Michael Leck game...

Game Weekend

There will probably be a campaign weekend in February. It will likely be Kill Team.

Role-playing Games

I'm pretty super-excited about the Call of Cthulhu game my friend Bruce is planning to run in the new year. It's going to be set in Arkham in 1928. I'm playing a professor of geology at Miskatonic - I'll have a completely separate post about that - once I've finished working out my character.

I'm also really excited to run a game of Wrath & Glory... or two... I'd love to run and "only War" campaign - Tier One - all the characters are Imperial Guard soldiers. I'm also enchanted by the idea of running an Inquisitorial campaign.

It would be nice if we could continue playing a campaign that Finnegan runs. The Star Wars Edge of Empire games were fun - and so was the Dungeon Crawl Classics game he ran earlier in the year.

The Girl says she'd like to run a role-playing game too!

Not sure where we'll find the time for all this - but hopefully we'll all get a chance to play and run a few games!


Painting

I'm planning to seriously cut back on the buying of miniatures and try to focus on getting paint on the stuff that I ALREADY HAVE!? Seriously, I WAY overspent my budget last year. Austerity measures will be put in place!

My first priorities are finishing up the Rogue Trader and Blackstone fortress miniatures - so I can get playing those games! After that, I'd like to focus on finishing up the Tallarn and Valhallan Astra Militarum forces I have - and maybe getting to work on all the Eldar I've collected up over the years. I would also like to finish up Amanda's Battle Sisters and get at least a battalion detachment of her Drukhari finished up. In addition to 40K armies, I have a LOT of 40K terrain - mostly picked up as part of Kill Zones boxes of Kill Team that I'd really like to finish up!

There are a few things I MIGHT pick up - if they actually come out! If there was an Inquisition expansion for Kill Team - like the Rogue Trader one - with a bunch of new minis including and inquisitor and acolytes and other stuff - I would totally be in for that. I can't even imagine what other Kill Team expansions or Kill Zones they might come out with - so far it's been mostly repackaged stuff that they already have... I'm curious to see how much more totally new stuff they might come out with...? Not saying I'm going to pick any of it up (other than an Inquisitor set) but I'm curious to see what this next year holds.

Games Workshop has been rebooting a lot of their old specialist games of the last few years - Blood Bowl, Necromunda, and most recently Adeptus Titanicus. I'm not going to get into any of those. I already have a TONNE of stuff for both Blood bowl and Epic. (I'll admit Necromunda is tempting... at least I could now just buy the rulebook and play with the stuff I already have). The one game I would probably get into if they rereleased it (and I kind of hope they do) is Battlefleet Gothic!

In terms of NON-GW/40K stuff, I would like to paint up a couple of companies for Rebels and Patriots (British and French for the Seven Years War). I have a hankering to paint up a few more ECW units for The Pikeman's Lament and a couple Dwarf units for Dragon Rampant.

We did also back the Hellboy Kickstarter (another game that kind of blurs the line between boardgame and miniature game...), though Amanda said it should be set aside and be a collective Xmas gift for the family - and we're going to play it over the holidaze next winter (though I am allowed to open it up and take a few miniatures out to paint them when it arrives - so that they are hopefully all painted by December for us to play with them!!)

Oh, and there's those Mice & Mystics figures I still haven't painted...


The War Room

I was supposed to clean out and renovate the basement games room this fall/winter. There was little movement on that project until the Holidaze. Things will move forward a little more quickly in the new year. Not sure if it will be done in time for the Game Weekend in February... but hopefully some time before the summer!


I do realize this is a LOT of stuff I'm planning... and there is no way we're going to get to do ALL of it... but, dag-nabbit, we're going to have some fun TRYING!


Coming Soon to Tim's Miniature Wargaming Blog: 

Ummmmm....? There are Blackstone Fortress and Grey Knight miniatures on the workbench - could be any of those... 

Hopefully we'll start seeing some miniature game reports going on here again. 

I think I am going to do a little post about my Call of Cthulhu character for the new campaign starting soon, as I've been having a lot of fun working out the background for him. 

December Games

December got off to a slow start... Then slowed down a bit more... and then picked up again over the holidaze... but not so much as in previous years (we watched a lot of movies this month...).

Monday, 3 December 2018 - Wrath & Glory



I was getting excited about the "imminent" release of Wrath & Glory (STILL WAITING!), and so decided to run Blessings Unheralded (the Free PRG Day quick-start rules and introductory adventure) again - for a different group of players.

I ran it for a bunch of guys from the local 40K league. While the last group approached he'd things from a completely different way than the authors intended... These guys when in a completely different direction - also apparently not envisioned by the authors. Ultimately they saved the day... sort of... and were much quicker about it. Being regular 40K players - who have read a lot of the fluff - they picked up on stuff that the other group would have had no idea about. Fun bunch of guys - kept me on my toes...

Tuesday, 4 December 2018



Not a game I play in, but on the 4th Finnegan played in the final adventure of a D&D campaign he's been playing in for three years now. They started playing at King Me Boardgamery, but somewhere in the second year it was just getting too busy and noisy there and so we offered up our place to play at. The character he started the campaign actually died a couple months in, and since then he's been playing a draconian cleric/paladin of Tyr... We always know when he was about to hit something as he would shout out "TYR'S JUSTICE!". I am curious to know what his new character's battle cry will be? I was trying to convince him it should be "NOT THE FACE!"


Saturday, 8 December 2018 - O Zoo Le Mio



Fun little game of managing and expanding a zoo. There and bidding/drafting and tile-laying elements to it. We haven't played in a while.



My zoo at the end of the game. I totally crushed it. Like, I had more points than both kids combined. You really have to get as many tiles early on in the game - I feel like if you end the first turn with money, you're probably doing something wrong.


Saturday, 22 December 2018 
Colonial Twilight: The French-Algerian War, 1954-62

Didn't get in another game for two weeks...



My friend Kurtis came over and brought his copy of Colonial Twilight: The French-Algerian War! I LOVE these COIN games from GMT, but I am apparently utterly clueless at how to prosecute either a guerrilla war or a counter-insurgency campaign!?

I played the Front de Liberation Nationale and Kurtis played the French Government. This one was interesting as it's a little different than the others in that it's only a two-player game - all the others I've played are four-player games, so you always have a supposed ally - whose one victory conditions are often at odds with your own!


Tuesday 25 December 2018 - Race for the Galaxy



Another family favourite that we haven't played in a while: Race for the Galaxy! My initial start cards didn't really point to any sort of theme (I love having a solid theme to my tableau - it's probably more important to me than, y'know, actually winning...), but I had a little bit of an Alien theme going on by the end of the game - and I think I even won...? Probably all the prestige - and the bonus victory points for being the only one with prestige for most of the game. It's my least favourite element of the game. I don't really feel like it adds anything to the game...


Wednesday, 26 December 2018



Well, first we went out to the annual Boxing Day Sale at Dragon's Den Games...



Always busy at the Den on Boxing Day... Line up went all the way to the back of the store - and for a bit wrapped around and back towards the front!



I mostly picked up 40K stuff: a Valkyrie, a few metal minis (Cadian Snipers, Kal Jericho and Scabs, Castellan Crowe, and a eldar Warlock), two Kill Team Commander boxes (Astra Militarum and Drukhari), and a bunch of Black Library books - including the fluffy book to go along with Blackstone Fortress (which I'm about half way through, now).

Finnegan bought a D&D book, a Read Dragon Inn expansion, A Star Wars: Edge of Empire adventure, a D&D mini for his character in the NEW campaign his group will be starting in the new year, and some Kroot (because I pointed out the January White Dwarf preview where there will apparently be rules for Kroot Mercenaries in Kill Team).

The Girl grabbed Codenames: Harry Potter, The Shadowrun Crossfire Prime Runner Edition refit kit (to make the edition she has playable with the new stuff they're coming out with?), Kids on Bikes the Role-playing Game, a harlequin Solitaire miniature and a great big Owlbear miniature!



Later we tried out her new Codenames: Harry Potter game



Like, FOUR TIMES. (It plays pretty quick).



This is a more co-op variant of the regular Codenames games - both sides are giving clues to the other side (and have different maps). You are both trying to locate members of the Order of the Phoenix. Unlike other versions of codenames that have only one assassin, there are three Deatheater/assasins on each map (that if the other team guesses, you automatically lose!). Interestingly, some of the positions that are death eaters one YOUR map are . We lost three of the four games. The maps are two sided and each side has nine locations for Order of Phoenix members, some are the same as the one on the other side that the other team is looking at - between the two maps there are 14 spaces that will eventually be covered (if you complete it and win!).



We also played Unstable Unicorns. One of the main things The Girl had been looking forward to getting at the Den was a couple expansions for this... but they were all sold out of them!



My stable at the end of the game. I won.



Later we played a game of Castles of Burgundy. Fun game. Still takes us a while to play - so we were up quite late playing it. I felt like I was doing good... Wasn't too far behind Amanda and thought I'd be getting a fair few points at the end of the game.... but then Amanda got MORE and just crushed us.


Thursday, 27 December 2018 - Terraforming Mars



I actually got this from my folks for Xmas LAST year... and still hadn't played it!! I had signed up to play it at ToonCon this year, but was utterly exhausted by Saturday evening and went home to sleep instead of staying to play.



I decided over the holidaze I would sit down and figure out the rules and set up a game for the family. As it turns out the game rules are pretty simple and straightforward (somehow I imagined they would be very complex...?)



I really like the game - some resource management... Not a lot of luck or chance - other than the random cards drawn... so many different approaches to victory. Amanda totally hammered us this game. We were pretty close in Terraforming Rating at the end of the game, but then she got a pile of points for tiles on the board...

Lessons were learned.



Friday, 28 December 2018 - Terraforming Mars, Again.



We played a second game of Terraforming Mars on Friday and my friend Robyn joined us. Having learned a bit from the last game - I was determined not to be left behind on the placing of tiles..



All my stuff at the end of the the game.



A lot more greenery and cities out there this game.



A lot of them were mine (I was red)... I kind of left everyone in the dust. Looking forward to playing this again - and having my ass handed to me now that they've all cottoned on to the necessity of getting tiles out there!


Saturday, 29 December 2018 - Star Wars: Edge of Empire

Finnegan offered to run a game of Edge of Empire for us. He's been playing in a campaign since September - they play almost weekly.



In the afternoon we made characters. Amanda made a Rodian (like Greedo) Bounty Hunter named Lakshmi Gumong. The Girl made a Wookie medical doctor named Chirubnifer.

I decided I'd play an IG-series assassin droid (IG-37) that some smart ass reprogrammed to be a protocol droid. Captain Gumong purchased me at a bargain basement price from a pair of Jawas thinking I'd add some muscle for her bounty-hunting operation. The Jawas swore all I needed was a new power pack - the old one had died and wouldn't recharge any more... and they didn't happen to have any they could sell her. By the time she found some and fired me up they were long gone. She first discovered my "inability to harm" programming in a armed stand off where she ordered me to shoot some thugs defending her quarry and I told her "But I can't do that, it's against my programming!" she says something like "and you waited until NOW to inform me of this!?"

Oh, and I convinced both Amanda and The Girl that Amanda's character didn't understand Wookie, and for some reason, out of the 3 million forms of communication I've been programmed with, my Wookie language program is a bit faulty - so any time The Girl's character wanted to say something She would growl and howl like a Wookie and I would "translate" - basically just totally making something up that generally had nothing to do with the matter at hand...

Hijinks ensued.

There were a lot of laughs..



We ended up doing a job for a Hutt - going to check out a mini facility he'd recently acquired as part of some winnings at in a game of chance. We were to ascertain the profitability of the enterprise and bring back 100,000 credits - the profit he was expecting to receive for the last cycle. We arrived to find the place seemingly abandoned - and then discovered some rogue droids that seemed to have taken over the place. We need up staying up pretty late  and have to leave it on a bit of a cliffhanger... hopefully we'll be able to continue the campaign in the new year.


Sunday, 30 December 2018

We'd originally planned to play Scot Pilgrim's Precious Little Card game - one of the games on the Tower of Shame - a pile of games I've acquired in the last year (or so...) but have yet to play. I ended up spending the entire day assembling this crazy new bed that Amanda ordered for The Girl. At the end of the day I was feeling a little ill and crazy tired and just not in the mood for reading rules and learning new games so instead we ended up playing... well... some other games.



We played one round of Codenames: Harry Potter - and won!

I like this better than Codenames: Pictures (the other Codenames game we have). There are actually pictures on the other sides of the Harry Potter cards - but they're pictures from the movies (usually of the word on the other side) and so they're of a specific thing - unlike the illustrations in Codenames: Pictures which are often like; WTF is that?!



Then after a bunch of "I don't know what do you want to play... I don't know what do you want to play..." we eventually settled on Century: Golem.



I totally thought Amanda had this one in the bag. I ended the game with five cards, but the last one I picked was only eight points, and she'd picked up a twenty and a sixteen and I was sure I'd only picked up cards that were around 12...



Kind of forgot about the eighteen I picked up early in the game... edged her out by four points, the kids weren't far behind either.


Monday, 31 December 2018

Today we planned to have a day of playing games together and watching movies. We ended up sleeping in really late and not really getting around to starting with the games until mid afternoon. I still have a headache, but wasn't feeling as bad, so I sat down to figure out Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Card Game. I had talked to someone who had played and, I can't remember exactly what they said, but I got the impression that it was confusing and convoluted. When I finally read the rules, they seemed pretty straightforward...?



The first Evil Ex we decided to face was Lucas Lee. I played Stephen Stills (the Talent), Finnegan played Ramona Flowers, The Girl played Knives Chau, and Amanda played Scott Pilrgrim.

I thought it was actually a pretty fun little deck-builder with a totally entertaining theme. If you're not a Scott Pilgrim fan, you might not dig it quite so much... but maybe you might, if you really love deck-building games...?



I ended up winning - just barely - Finnegan had defeated Lucas Lee and had a nice little engine going in the acquisition phase - picking up PILES of extra cards every turn. If I hadn't acquired a Crappy Apartment, he certainly would have and totally won...

This evening we're planning to finish up the Star Wars: Edge of Empire game and then watch a movie (or two) - if there's time...


Coming Soon to Tim's Miniature Wargaming Blog:

The next two posts will probably be a brief look back at 2018 and then some planning for 2019.

Thanks for stopping by and for all your kind comments this year and I hope you all have a fabulous New Year!

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.