January Games

 So... 2024... These years all sound to me like something that's meant to be far off in the future with replicants and off-world colonies... not some shit I'm living NOW!? 

Monday, 1 January 2024!? 

Got the new year kicked off with a few games! 

Keiran suggested we play MORE Splendor! 

WE ended up playing FOUR games of Splendor! We each won one game... and then Amanda won the fourth one. 

Afterwards, Keiran and I played Set. 

Friday, 5 January 2024

I didn't play a game on Friday... I spent most of the day running out to get ingredients and then baking all day - cupcakes and then pizza... This was the day that Finnegan held his day long RPG marathon to celebrate his birthday. He turns 20 this year. (TWENTY!?!? HOW DID THAT HAPPEN!?) 

SIX players showed up most were from his two different weekly games, but two of them were friends that had moved away for university and were just back in town for the holidays and stayed long enough to play in his game! 

Monday, 8 January 2024

On Monday I played two games of Warhammer Underworlds with my friend Orion. 

You can read a brief report and see more pictures here:

Warhammer Underworlds Double Header

Saturday, 13 January 2024

Originally we'd planned to go over to Shannon and Kevin's... but it was REALLY FUCKING COLD (windchill near -50°C?!)... and we have a dedicated Game Room... and Finnegan's D&D game that is normally taking place in said Game Room on Saturday evening was cancelled... so we invited them to come over here instead 

The first game we played was Abyss. Which neither Kevin nor Shannon had played. 

I thought I'd done pretty okay, I knew I was way ahead in Lords I'd recruited and Allies... but wow... everyone else did so much better with the territories they controlled and monster tokens!? I've never seen that many points scored from monster tokens. Shannon had three worth three, three, and FOUR!?! I didn't even realize there were ones worth four, I thought they were all one, two or three!? 

Afterwards we introduced them to Hanging Gardens. 

I.. um... kind of ROCKED this one... 

So fun to play with them again... we vowed to do it again BEFORE four months had passed, like last time.. 

Friday, 19 January 2024

Friday evening, Amanda and I tried out Deathgorge. I'd used most of the Deathgorge rules when playing with Orion, but this evening we used the Deathgorge boards and objective hexes and other feature tokens and the rules around them... but then totally forgot to place any of the Available Feature Tokens... Also I tired out the freshly painted Thricefold Discord, which were super fun. 

There is a brief report with a few more pictures at:

Warhammer Underworlds: Deathgorge 

Saturday, 20 January 2024 

Orion came over Saturday and we played a few games... 

First we played a game of Warhammer Underworlds 

Then Amanda joined us for a couple of THREE-PLAYER games of Warhammer Underworlds!!

There are loads of pictures and a brief report of the three games here:

Warhammer Underworlds: TRIPLE-header! (Part One)

Warhammer Underworlds: TRIPLE-header! (Part Two)

Warhammer Underworlds: TRIPLE-header! (Part Three)

Sunday, 28 January 2024

The following weekend Orion was back... and so was her partner Nic! Amanda joined in and we played two FOUR-PLAYER games of Warhammer Underworlds!

There is a brief report and a few pictures here:

Warhammer Underworlds - FOUR-Player games!?

It was a REALLY FUN afternoon... 

That's about it for this month... I ended up playing EIGHT games of Warhammer Underworlds!! More than all the other games combined. And I'm kind of okay with that, it's been really fun. 

Next month I expect more Warhammer Underworlds... but I should also get in a few games of Warhammer 40,000 (both AT the tournament and, ideally, a few before!) and I have a couple of games of Warhammer, Age of Sigmar: Soulbound (the Role-Playing Game) arranged for the last weekend of the month! And, hopefully, we'll get in a few other games along the way! 

What have YOU been playing!? Let me know in the comments! 

MORE June Games (and... Other Stuff)

Another week... a few more games...


It LOOKS like we played a LOT of games on the 2nd, 9th, 10th, and 15th... but those were each ONE game of Blackstone Fortress - but I used FIVE expansions with each game we played and I try to always log plays with each item I used, that I have catalogued on Board Game Geek... (Otherwise it looks like I got a tonne of stuff I never use... well... I DO have a tonne of stuff that I never use - so I'd like to remind myself that I DO use SOME of it!?)


Monday, 8 June 2020

As I had mentioned in the Previous Post, Monday was to be our Blackstone Fortress Night going forward... but that didn't happen. I was still assembling furniture. I'd been working all day on the bookshelves and the LAST ONE was missing a piece... and rather than wait another 3-6 weeks for a replacement part to show up - all the while tripping over a partially assembled book shelf and piles of books that were to go ONE said bookshelf - I decided to manufacture a piece and just get it DONE. This took me well into the evening, so I decided to do a swap with Keira. On Tuesdays, she and Amanda are to watch an episode of Supernatural together... so the two of them watched an episode (or... two...? maybe three...?) while I finished the book shelf...

In the afternoon I'd gone out to get groceries and popped on by the Dragon's Den to pick up Engine War - as it had finally come in!


Tuesday, 9 June 2020

In the afternoon Amanda and I went for a bike ride. As part of this whole new schedule of things, she had been planning to get up and go for a half hour ride to start off her day - to sort of simulate/make up for the riding she was no longer doing, now that she's working at home. It didn't happen at all on Monday (because we were up a bit late on Sunday). Tuesday we didn't get out until noon - Oh, she'd started her work for the day, but decided to take a break at noon and go for a bike ride for a bit of a break (actually, in the new schedule, she's supposed to take a break at noon anyway - in addition to the morning ride - and do some sort of movement yoga, a walk, a ride, and impromptu dance party, whatever, just something to get her up from the desk and moving around - her set up here at home is not nearly so... ergonomic... as her office on campus... and she's starting to feel the effects of just sitting at our home computer all day!)

As we neared the end of our short loop, I peeled off and went for a bit of a longer ride, heading BACK to the Dragon's Den - this time to pick up Necromunda House of Chains - which had FINALLY been restocked! Apparently it had arrived just minutes after I'd left the day before!


In the evening...



We started on a NEW QUEST in Blackstone Fortress - The Dreaded Ambull!



The game went a little late, so we kind of paused it - at a bit of a cliffhanger - and left it set up on the table to finish the following day.


Wednesday, 10 June 2020 

Wednesday morning we DID get out for a ride.



Despite the sun, it was a bit chilly (and has been for the last few days!)



WE rode down to the South Bridge and across.



Back through Gabriel Dumont Park.

As we got to the Traffic Bridge, I peeled off and went for a longer ride - No, not to the Dragon's Den again (though I was briefly thinking I might later in the day... at this time, however, it was a few hours before it would have even been open!). I just wend for a bit of a longer ride while Amanda went home to start her work for the day.



Saw lots of goslings in the park downtown by the Vimy Memorial.



And a Blue Jay on a wire.

Later in the evening we continued with the game of Blackstone Fortress we'd started the evening before...

Starting with the encounter with Obsidious Mallex...



Then a battle with the Ambull itself!!!

More on this game here:

The Dreaded Ambull


Friday, 12 June 2020



Out for another morning ride with Amanda. We did the 8Km loop to the south bridge again and she tuned back when we crossed back over at the Traffic Bridge. I did another 37Km to the North Bridge, and then back down to the South Bridge again... and then another 10Km getting groceries.

In the evening, it was "Family Game Night"



Keira's choice for the evening: Dominion. We played one round. 30 minutes, tops... Ah, well... better than nothing.



We played with the Base Game and Intrigue and used a set of cards called "Underlings". I basically just bought Stewards and used them to buy gold or trash Estates and Copper and when I had enough gold I just started buying Provinces. But I couldn't buy them FAST ENOUGH! Should have picked up a Festival or two...



Amanda and I decided to play something else. We'd had fun playing hanging Gardens last week, so we tried that again, except with just the two of us.



Wow... when there is just TWO playing you get a LOT more tiles - and points. Amanda got super excited and, upon tallying up declared she did "really good" and had 93 points... (I had 118).


Saturday, 13 June 2020

Finnegan ran his D&D game.

I ran my Wrath & Glory game. Three showed up, so their Characters arrived in the Xoxigar system and met with a high ranking Adeptus Arbites official on Xoxigar Tertium, who informed them of some potential Heresy going on! The investigation began.

Totally forgot to do a screen shot of the game... AGAIN!


Sunday, 14 June 2020



Kind of rained all day. I spent a lot of the day just painting and organizing... but I did dig out the cello (after not playing for 6 months) and retensioned the strings and tried to learn a new tune with Keira. She's also not played for months. But I thought maybe I'd try and get her to play with me once or twice a week through the summer - just to keep in practice. I probably won't start taking lessons again any time soon, but Keira is starting high school in the fall and has signed up for band. We met the band instructor in the spring and she seemed pretty excited at the prospect of having a violinist join.

The tune we were figuring out were the first few bars of a string arrangement of Rage Against the Machine's Killing in the Name Of. It's been stuck in my head a lot lately. It is both despairing and infuriating that it is STILL so utterly relevant almost 30 years after it came out!?


Monday, 15 June 2020



Last week Amanda got an email from work saying they could make arrangements to go in and pick up certain stuff to take home for work... Seems the university is planning on keeping their employees working at home for the next little bit! So Monday morning we rolled over there to pick up a few things.



Afterwards I went out for a ride on my own... just along the paved trails up and down the river.



It had been TOTALLY sunny in the early morning when we first went out. but it rained the whole time I was out alone....

Later in the afternoon the sun came out - which was nice, because I had to head out and pick up groceries!




In the evening Amanda and I finished The Dreaded Ambull and conquered the Lair of the Beast! the Explorers successfully stole away with 3 priceless Ambull eggs!

I'll do a full report on those escapades in the next few days....


Coming Soon to Tim's Miniature Wargaming Blog:

The epic conclusion to The Dreaded Ambull: The Lair of the Beast!

New distractions on the workbench.

Also started working again on a few posts about necromunda gangs I started AGES ago!?

June Games (and... y'know... stuff...)

Well... it's June... 

I've played a few games... 

Monday, 1 June 2020

Spent the whole day at home waiting for a delivery that was supposed to arrive sometime between 8am and 8pm. It didn't. At all... The website tracking was down. Customer Service call centre was down. Not accepting emails... Looking like I was going to be just waiting around the next day all day to see if it would magically going to show up then...?

On the plus side, my little order from the BGG Store arrived with our fancy new Dual Layer Player Boards for Terraforming Mars.... So we played that instead of Blackstone Fortress (as we'd originally planned...)

(I also got some stuff for Power Grid - bonus bits so I can play the expansion boards with the stuff I have in Power Grid Deluxe and not have to buy a complete new base game... y'know... in case I ever bought any of the expansion boards...? I MIGHT!? And the bits were inexpensive and it would have cost a lot more to have them shipped at a later date, when I DO need them...)



WE only used the base game and Prelude. I played the Mining Guild with Io Research Outpost and a Metals Company. Amanda played Valley Trust with Power Generation, Mohole and Galilean Mining.



Holy CARP! I got a tonne of cards into play. I had slightly more TR at the end of the game got two of the three Milestones and won all three awards (which isn't as big a deal when just playing with two... as they are always second!) She still had TWICE as many points as I did from cards (30 to my 15 - which was probably, like, a record for me, or something...). Still, I eked out a victory with a 10-point lead (109-99).



Honestly, I think she let me win... just so I'd play with her again....


Tuesday, 2 June 2020



Tuesday evening Amanda and I FINALLY took on the Hidden Vault!

You can read all about that elsewhere on this blog:

Blackstone Fortress - The Hidden Vaults


Tuesday-Friday

It was a rough week. I wasn't very productive... or got out much... or played any games...

After a week of trying (in vain) just to get ahold of someone at the place we ordered stuff (email, phone, chat - all the things their website indicated to get ahold of them... nothing was working at all!?), out of the blue we got a call from the delivery company checking to see if we'd be around on Saturday to take delivery!?


Saturday, 6 June 2020

Our stuff showed up.

During the week, we came out with a new schedule for June - to give everyone some semblance of normalcy and routine. One of the things Keira asked to be on the schedule was a Family Game Night - which I was pretty shocked by - but totally excited about! It was supposed to be Friday evening... but... that didn't quite work out. So we played the game we planned to play on Saturday.



while we were waiting for supper, though, Amanda and I played a quick game of Century: Golem Edition.



She played her usual game of picking up cards - any cards - as fast as she could... and this time it worked out for her - her six cards added up to 92 - my four, only 79.

She was so excited! She figured it was only the second time she ever won.

(I checked our logged plays... she's actually won seven - of the 32 games she's played - so 21% of the time... of the 37 games I've played, I've won 24... 64% of the time. So, I DO win more of THIS game than her, but not nearly so many as she imagines...).



Afterwards we played Hanging Gardens. this is a really fun little game that we've had for some time, but haven't played in... almost two years!?



I did win this one, but it was very close!


Sunday, 7 June 2020

I spent the day assembling new furniture.

That is all.


Coming Soon to Tim's Miniature Wargaming Blog:

According to our aforementioned new schedule, Monday is supposed to be Blackstone Fortress Night... so perhaps Tuesday you will see a game report of what our Heroes do AFTER succeeding in their Quest for the Hidden Vault! (Or, maybe there will be NEW Explorers involved!?).

I've been doing next to no painting this past week.

I do have a post in the works for some miniatures I finished painting... gosh... WEEKS ago, now... but just haven't finished up the post... I may get to that this week...

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...?