April Games

April games bring May... ?

Wow... Where did April go!? It feels like it just FLEW by!!! Here are the games we played through the month...

Monday, 1 April 2019



We kicked off April with a game of Terraforming Mars. We played on the Elysium board.  I played Terractor, Amanda played the Mining Guild, Finnegan played Phobolog, and The Girl played Thorgate.



This was a lower scoring game than some of our other recent games. Not sure why? Everyone rushing to Terraform the damned planet and grab as many Terraforming points as fast as possible…?



Amanda took Ecologist and Tychoon milestones, I took first for Celebrity Award, Finnegan took second for Celebrity Award, and The Girl took Specialist Milestone - but only because she went before me that turn! Had I gone first that turn, we would have ended up tied for second one point behind Amanda. As it was The Girl won with 69 points, Amanda was second with 65, I had 59 and Finnegan had 44.


Wednesday, 3 April 2019



My friend Kurtis came over for supper and a game. I made some quesadillas and we played Castles of Mad King Ludwig. Amanda and The Girl were out at a dance competition and Finnegan was working on some project, so we just played a two-player game. I’d never played it with less than three – and most often play with four. WOW! Two-player games go FAST!! I think we both built really fun little castles, but it felt like it was over before I really even got started!?


Friday, 5 April 2019

Once again Kurtis was over for supper and games. I feel like I’ve hardly seen him at all in the last 6 months – then twice in one week! It was pretty great!



Kurtis, The Girl and I played Splendor while we were waiting for the Pizza to cook and for Amanda to get home.



Since Amanda wasn’t there I actually had a chance to win! Woo!



Afterwards, Kurtis introduced us to a clever little press-your-luck game called Undersea Adventures, which I think he said he got around X-mas time, but hadn’t had a chance to play.



The first game went REALLY fast and almost nobody scored at all – trying to go too deep and not being able to get their treasures back to the sub before running out of air. Kurtis won with 9 points, I had 3 points and everyone else had zero… So, they all wanted to play again! In the second game, everyone was a bit more cautious and most made it back with SOME treasure. This time I won with 37 points, The Girl had 19, Finnegan had 18, Kurtis had 14… and Amanda still had 0 – always trying to go for the big treasures, never making it back…



After Deep Sea Adventure, we played Ra, which none of us have played for AGES. I felt like I was doing very poorly throughout the game – just not getting any bonus points for cultures (but not losing any for not having any) or rivers as long as some of the others, or nearly so many monuments as Kurtis and Amanda were amassing… I did have the most (or was tied for most) Pharohs through all three epochs, and that really helped me out. I was pretty surprised at the end when we counted up points to discover I was in second place, slightly ahead of Amanda – who had more than twice as many monuments and at least a few sets of three (of which I had none). I was Kurtis who won way ahead of both of us!



Finally, we got in a game of Century: Golem Edition – just so we could check on box off on our 10x10 Family Challenge board.



Kurtis ended the game after taking his fifth card, but I ended up squeaking ahead because I had a few higher point cards!


Saturday, 6 April 2019



Finnegan ran a game of Dungeon Crawl Classics for his friends in the afternoon. They’ve changed from every second Saturday evening to EVERY Saturday afternoon – hoping that they might actually get to play 2-3 times a month with everyone present (instead of 1-2 times – as the boyz often have to cancel due to swim meets). The Girl had to give this one a miss as she was at another dance competition. There was some pretty epic role-playing going on. There was a wonderful encounter with a depressed dragon (who reminded me a lot of Eeyore, from Winnie-the-Poh).

In the evening, I was supposed to be running Wrath & Glory, but once again players bailed at the last moment and I had to cancel…



However, one of the players still came over and we played a few games of Kill Team – which was a lot of fun! We tried out his new Kill Team: Arena set.

You can read the full report and see all the pictures here:

Skirmish Saturday Night: Kill Team



Wednesday, 10 April 2019



I got in another little practice game for Battleforce Recon against Robyn over at his place.

You can read the full game report here:

40K - Asuryani versus Grey Knights


Friday, 12 April 2019



Friday evening Finnegan set up a game of Sentinels of the Multiverse for us. This was the conclusion of a four-part narrative campaign  and finally in this game faced Baron Blade at Wagner Mars base.



I played Haka, again, and everyone else had the same heroes as our other games.



So this was kind of bad to draw on the second turn... But somehow we pulled it all together and beat down Baron Blade!


Saturday, 13 April 2019



On Saturday the kids had their friend Heidi over and they started a new D&D 5E campaign where they are playing juvenile Dragons. Hijinks ensued…


Sunday, 14 April 2019



I spent a good chunk of the day at Dragon’s Den Games playing in the Battleforce Recon 40K tournament. It’s a smaller “fun” event – just 1000 points. It was a pretty good time. You can read all about it here:

Battleforce Recon 2019




Later in the evening we all sat down to play Abyss.



We had watched Aquaman the evening before, so it seemed apropos…

Finnegan ended the game taking his seventh lord, but Amanda crushed us all, as per norm… damn, I thought I was doing pretty good starting to get going... and then it was over... and I was dead last again!? I like the game, but I just suck at it.


Wednesday, 17 April 2019



I played a game of Warhammer 40,000 (8th Edition) with my friend Other Tim. A full report of the action can be found here:

Get Morty


Saturday, 20 April 2019



Another Saturday game of Dungeon Drawl Classics where the party faced the "Boss Monster"



Miniatures were brought out. Characters died. It was pretty epic.

This should have been a Wrath & Glory weekend – according to the schedule of things. But a month or so ago, I’d seen an announcement that Morrissey was to be playing in Saskatoon this evening and, knowing that Amanda was a big fan of the Smiths back in the day, and that the following day was her birthday, I suggested we go. So, I’d cancelled the Wrath & Glory game. Then, the week before the concert, Morrissey cancelled the first leg of his Canadian tour… So, I told the guys the game was back ON!!! But then none of them could make it… Or maybe one could… and another couldn’t and the other never even replied…? I’m about to just give up on this…


Sunday, 21 April 2019

I thought we would have gotten in a few more games over the long weekend… alas… We ended up being busy doing… other stuff… Amanda was busy getting ready to head to Florida for a weeklong Yoga Teacher training and also find herself a NEW BIKE before she went.

We did get in ONE GAME on her BIRTHDAY. She picked Terraforming Mars (as it’s kind of her current favourite). We tried it out with Venus Next (which I’d picked up at the same time I bought Ellysium and Hellas, but we hadn’t tried playing with just yet)

The Girl played Morning Star, Amanda played Ecoline, I played the UNMI, and Finnegan tried out Aphrodite. We’d each had one new corportation and one of the older ones. I’d originally thought I’d try the Venus one – as I thought I’d played all the original game ones. But then when I dealt them out, I realized I hadn’t played the UNMI and thought it might be interesting. I can’t remember which Venus one I had… something to do with Microbes…? Maybe…? Started off very slow with the trees and colonies – I almost thought we’d end the game with minimal greenery and no colonies it was going so fast. Near the end I started plopping down colonies and greenery with straight Megacredits (not cards) because, well, I COULD! I was making an F-tonne of money each generation!

I totally took pictures of this game... but they seem to have disappeared!? I must have deleted them from the camera thinking I'd already uploaded them to the computer!? I don't know...


Saturday, 27 April 2019



It was the Easter Break, so most of the kids were away on vacation, but a couple of them got together and forged ahead!


The Challenge Board…



Dropping a bit behind... but not TOO bad, considering Amanda only played ONE game in the last two weeks – having been CrAzY busy with work the second last week trying to finish up stuff before going away for the last week of the month! I’ve already played more than 10 games of 40K this year. Not doing so well with any of the other personal challenges...


Coming Soon to Tim’s Minature Wargaming Blog:

I'm not sure... Painting has kind of slowed considerably this last week. Amanda had signed me up for a free one-month YouTube Premium membership a few weeks back so she and The Girl could watch the second season of Step Up (or... something like that), and this week we noticed Cobra Kai Season Two was available - so we watched that, and then watched another series called "Impulse" which I thought was pretty good... Now usually I get most of my painting done while watching (or, rather, listening to) movies and TV series - but those are usually on DVDs that I watch (listen to) in the basement. The YouTube series we have to watch on the computer which is up on the second floor (Oh, I'm sure there is a way to watch YouTube stuff on TV... but I don't have the technology and can't be bothered...) So I actually spent about 13 hours actually WATCHING stuff last week - which was 13 hours I wasn't painting.

I actually have some fantasy stuff on the workbench now, that's sort of "jumped the queue". It's all stuff for someone else though...

February's Games

We did play a LOT of games this month...

Friday, 1 February 2019



Friday night is Family game night and this first Friday of February Finnegan took us through the second scenario in his narrative campaign for Sentinels of the Multiverse. In the last game, we defended the Freedom tower from Ambuscade. Having defeated him, we discovered he had attacked the building at the behest of Baron Blade who wanted him to try and steal some piece of technology that Baron Blade wanted to use for some nefarious purpose. And so it was decided we must go and put a stop to Baron Blade, but to do that we would have to travel to space…. But how to do that? Well, apparently, the Maerynians have a few laying around, so we travelled to the Maerynian Refuge to see if we could borrow one… but when we got there AKASH’BUTA showed up and wreaked havoc upon the island… we had to put a stop to that!

And put a stop to it we did! We were a little concerned when Finnegan put out the villain card and it had TWO HUNDRED hit points on it!? Yowza! But it turned out to be not so bad because each time we destroyed one of the cards she put into play, it did a pile of damage to her… I ended the game by doing a colossal TWENTY-NINE damage – in one turn – to finish off AKASH’BUTA!

Starting to get the hang of playing Haka…


Saturday, 2 February 2019

Saturday evening is role-playing night, and this week Amanda and headed over to our friends’ place to play Call of Cthulhu, while the kids friends came over to our place to play Dungeon Crawl Classics.



In the Call of Cthulhu game I am playing George Patrick Fitzgibbon - a professor of Geology at Miskatonic University in Arkham Massachusetts. He is originally from England and served in the Tunneling Companies during the Great War. Amanda is playing Ethel Rigby, who is actually a character she played in the previous campaign (Masks of Nyarlathotep). This was the first real adventure of the campaign… and it was very nearly a total party kill at the first encounter and we totally failed to succeed in the mission.

I’m not sure where we’re going from here. As it turns out I’ll be missing the next two sessons – the first because of my annual Winter Wargaming Weekend and the second because of the Battle of the Abyss – team Apocalypse event at the beginning of March.


Sunday, 3 February 2019

Sunday evening is supposed to be our OTHER Family Game Night. As I originally planned to have a little “Apocalypse Practice’ with my team mate, we instead decided to play a game in the early afternoon.



It has been a while (over a year) since we played Abyss – so The Girl briefly went over the rules with us beforehand.



It took a bit for me to remember what was going on. I like the game – there are a number of different ways to gain influence (the player with the most influence at the end of the game wins) and you really need to pay attention to all of them – and manage and play your allies cards to gain as much as you can from them.



Amanda ended the game, but it was Finnegan that won – with 82 influence. Amanda was right behind him with 80. I didn’t do TOO badly with 73. The Girl was a bit grumpy to end up with 50 – when the rest of us being so close together. We were constantly, inadvertently, foiling her every move throughout the game – or at least is seemed like it.

Later, my Apocalypse partner bailed – being too exhausted from a busy week to leave his house (it was also really, really cold and snowy out – I wouldn’t have blamed ANYONE for not wanting to leave their house this week). So we ended up playing a second game!



This was our second game of Splendor so far this year. It was all very close – Finnegan triggered the end of the game, scoring 15 points...



But the round is finished before the game ends and, on my turn, I picked up a jewel card worth 5 points, which also allowed me to pick up another patron tile worth 3 more – rocketing me into first place with 17 points! The Girl was again terribly disappointed with this outcome as she ended with 14 points and had she had another turn would have picked up another scoring card. She has yet to win a game of splendor and was so very close with this game… Amanda wasn’t far behind at 11 points, I’m sure given another turn she would have managed to get 15+ as well….


Friday, 8 February 2019



I had tried to set up another Apocalypse “practice” with Halsten on Friday evening, but he once again had to bail – so I set up a little solo game to see how Titans did against massed tanks… The answer is, not so well… (if the tanks get the first shot!)

You can read about that – and see more pics here:

Titan versus Tanks


Saturday, 9 February 2019

In the afternoon, I stopped by Dragons Den Games and picked up a few things – a Fiend of Slaanesh and Khymerae (which I have since painted) as well as a couple of expansions for Terraforming mars (Venus Next and the Hellas and Elysium board).

Later in the evening, I kicked off the Saturday Evening Wrath & glory campaign. Three guys from the Hunters of the Warp – the local 40K League – joined Finnegan and I, and I ran them through the first adventure in the Darks Tides book.


Sunday, 10 February 2019



I played Phobolog. Amanda played Interplanetary Cinematic. The Girl played Saturn Systems. Finnegan played Thorgate. I think this was the first time we used Thorgate. Finnegan came up with a corporate tag-line "FEEL THE THUNDER!" which he used a few times throughout the game.

It felt like this game went very quickly. Like, TOO quickly. Like I was just starting to get into my stride, and BOOM the game was over!?



Finnegan won the Science and Thermalist Awards and took the Terraformer milestone. I came in second on the Science and Thermalist Awards. Amanda took the Builder milestone and was second for the Banker award. The Girl won the Banker award, tied with me for second on the Scientist Award and took the Mayor Milestone.



Amanda was the only one that made use of cards that took stuff from other players knocking off piles of my leaves and a few of Keira's, three of my titanium, one of The Girl's titanuium production and... I think some money of Finnegan's...?

The final scores were all very close – The Girl won with 61, Finnegan was just behind her with 57, and Amanda and I tied for last at 55.



Monday, 11 February 2019



Monday Amanda and I skipped our Ballroom dance class – mostly because Amanda was just too tired to go out and dance – but not too tired to play Terraforming Mars again. She had said we should play with the base game a few more times before adding any expansions, but when the girl and I set up the game, we went ahead and set it up with the new Elysium board.



Amanda was a bit cranky that we had done so at first, but warmed up to the new play. It was really interesting how different play was- how you had to think about totally different things when all the milestones and awards are different!



I tried out the Mining Guild – which was really fun. The Girl played Terator and Amanda played Helion. Finnegan just rocked Ecoline! He won the game with 83 points – the rest of us were back in the 60s! Ecoline had done really well both times it’s been played.


Friday, 15 February 2019



Friday, I kicked off my annual gaming weekend. You can read more about it and see all the pics here:

Wrath and Glory Gaming Weekend


Sunday, 17 February 2019



After the gaming weekend activities wrapped up, Paul stuck around and had supper with us and then played a game of Terraforming Mars. This was Paul’s first time playing it. This time we tried out the Hellas board.

Finnegan played the Tharsis Republic.  Paul played Helion. I played the UN Mars Initiative, which was interesting. Amanda played Saturn Systems. The Girl played Inventrix.



Paul got the Polar Explorer Milestone. I was second for both the Cultivator and Contractor awards.  Amanda took the Diversifier milestone and was first for both the Eccentric and Contractor awards. Keira got the Tactical Milestone and was first for the Cultivator Award and second for the Eccentric.



Amanda and The Girl ended up TIED with 65. Amanda ended up winning as she had over 70 Megacredits, and The Girl had only 40… I was just behind both of them with 64. Finnegan wasn’t too far behind with 57 – it was nice to see Tharsis Republic NOT win, for once (it’s done exceedingly well the other two times someone’s played it!). Paul was just behind Finnegan at 52 – which is pretty good for a first game!


Monday, 18 February 2019



Monday was Family Day in Saskatchewan – a Provincial Stat Holiday. It also kicked off a week-long school break. The kids arranged to get together with friends and play games most of the week. On Monday, they continued the Dungeon Crawl Classics campaign that Finnegan has been running for a few sessions now.


Tuesday, 19 February 2019



Day Two of the School Break Gaming Week – continuing with their Dungeon Crawl Classics campaign – I noticed Finnegan was running the old Against the Cult of the Reptile Gods D&D module.



Later, after the Boyz left, the kids played a game of Mysterium!

In the evening, we started watching Legion Season Two. Nothing to do with games, really. But I really enjoyed it, so I thought I’d mention it…


Wednesday, 20 February 2019



Day Three of the School Break Gaming Week – we played a little 40K Apocalypse game (if anything Apocalypse can be called “little”…)

A full report of the days shenanigans can be found here:

Tyranids Versus TITANS! 

(plus another FOUR episodes of Legion Season Two – I borrowed he DVDs from the Saskatoon Public Library and, as it’s a new release, I knew wouldn’t be able to renew it and so we were just blasting through it… Also, Westworld Season Two arrived this week… so we had one week to watch both shows… or, request it again and wait until we get to the front of the queue..)


Thursday, 21 February 2019



On Thursday, they started off with Kobolds Ate My Baby… which was great… because I needed more shouting in my life…

(Finished off Legion Season Two… in the end, I don't think I liked it as much as Season One... I still liked it, though).


Friday, 22 February 2019



Friday was Family games night again, so we busted out Century: Golem Edtion.



At one point I had EIGHT Pink Gems (the most expensive) on my caravan!



Finnegan ended the game taking a fifth card... but I won, because my four were worth more overall!

Amanda and I started watching West World Season Two.


Saturday, 23 February 2019

Sturday evening I finished running the first adventure in Dark Tides for the Saturday evening Wrath & Glory group.   We finished up early so Amanda and I watched a few more episodes of West World Season Two



Sunday, 24 February 2019

Despite Sunday being our OTHER Family Game night – we skipped it this week to finish off West World Season Two (because I had to take it back to the library on Tuesday).

It was… okay…


Monday, 25 February 2019



In the afternoon my folks came over and did stuff with the kids – My mom did some baking with The Girl and my Dad played Warhammer Quest: Silver Tower with Finnegan.

Later in the evening I'd hoped we'd play a game together - to make up for not playing one the day before... but then I ended up in ER for 7.5 hours (long story, short version: I'm FINE!)


Thursday, 28 February 2019



Finally, on the last day of February, I got in a game of Kill Team with my friend, Bruce. You can read about that action here:

Escape and Evade


And.. that's it for February!



It seems like we’re keeping up with our 10x10 Family Boardgame Challenge. At two months in, playing two games a week, we should be around 16... and we're at 15 games played (of course two games a week for the year would be 104... so... I guess we're probably right on target).



I’m… doing not quite as awesome with my 10x Personal Challenge, but I was busy preparing for the Game Weekend, and I expect things will pick up this next month – already planning out my weekends to fit in some board and miniature gaming! Heck, I’ll be getting in THREE games of 40K this weekend! I am hoping to get in a Dan Mercy Game, a Phil Eklund Game and one of the GMT/COIN games in on each of the remaining weekends of the month.

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Probably a report of the Battle of the Abyss – the Apocalypse event I will be attending with my THREE TITANS(!) this Saturday (2 March 2019)!

After that...? Who knows... I was working so hard to finish up stuff for the game weekend and then to finish up Leonem Caeruleum for the Apocalypse event... I haven't given a whole lot of thought as to what I should do next...

I suppose I should get working on the Blackstone Fortress stuff first - so we can get playing that!!

I have more old Necromunda gangers I'd like to finish up to use in Wrath & Glory...

There are the Rogue Trader minis too..

So many other things I'd like to paint - my craft world Eldar and harlequins... my Tallarn (still LOTS of those to do)... the Valhallans.... other Kill Teams and assorted 40K figures... forces for Rebels and Patriots and The Pikeman's Lament and even Dragon Rampant and Frostgrave that I'd like to finish up!