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! 

September Games

As alluded to in August Games, Amanda and I were on vacation at the end of August... well... *I* was on vacation... SHE had a conference to go to for half of the trip. The trip extended into September... 

Saturday, 2 September 2023

On the final Saturday of our trip I was thrilled to be able to meet up with my old friend Christian. We have known each other since...1988...? 35 years!? Yeah. He is currently posted to CFB Borden and was able to hope on a GO train in the wee hours at Barrie and rolled into Toronto just after 9am. Amanda and I walked to meet him at Union Station, then we made a meandering journey to Snakes and Lattes on College (with a brief stop at Meeplemart!) 

I DID NOT BUY ANYTHING AT MEEPLEMART!!! (I wainted until I got home and just mail-ordered it to save having to haul it back in luggage! Quite the little store!)

At Snakes and Lattes, we ordered some food and thought wed blast through a quick game of Splendor while we waited...

Alas, the food arrived before we finished... 

I had a veggie murger that was... Okay... Christian really enjoyed his burger and Amanda said the salad she has was AMAZING!? 

After eating we played Terraforming Mars. It was weird playing it without Prelude! Didn't end up with as much greenery on the board as when it's just Amanda and me playing.  

My playing area at the end of the game. I had the Mining Guild and did very well with it. Amanda played Tharsis Republic and Christian played Phoblog... It was a VERY close game, I think there was a 4 point difference between first and last place!

Amanda ditched us to go meet with a friend of hers that had also come into town for the weekend, so Christian and I played a few more LIGHTER games (as Terraforming Mars had tired my brain out!). We started with Azul. 

After that we played Carcassonne. Again, just playing with the base game, which I am not really used to. The tiles were VERY worn from use! 

Afterwards we wandered about, checked out the Beguiling (I bought too many books). Met up with Amanda and got some supper. Then made our way back to Union Station for Christian to catch his train back to Barrie. 

Wow... Such a great day of gaming and catching up with one of my absolute favourite human beings that I don't get to see nearly enough! I hope we can get another online role-playing game going again in the fall!!

Saturday, 16 September 2023

Met up with Chris, Christian and Woody online to make characters for the new Blade Runner Roleplaying game. 

Chris and Chrisitian are both playing human Blade Runners who have been partners for some time. Woody is playing one of the new Nexus-9 Replicant Blade Runners and has been assigned to work with the two veterans. The original two are not entirely certain they like the idea of a replicant working with them.

Unfortunately, because... LIFE... we won't get to play until sometime in October!?

And... that was it... 

I'd really hoped we'd get in a game of Crows with Keiran... Alass... 

I do hope we'll get back to playing more games once the renovation is DONE and everything is moved back into place (or into it's NEW place)... More on that in Game Plan 2023 - Q4, which I'll probably be posting tomorrow...? 

May Games

With demolition going on in the basement, the Game Room has been closed and will probably remain so until the fall... but that didn't stop us from playing games! I ended up playing games at three friends houses and even managed a few at home - where we could. 

Finnegan has shifted his D&D games back to the kitchen table. I kind of forgot how loud they can be! It's probably a bit louder still as a couple players have returned from University in other cities for the summer and attendance at game nights has been up! He's currently running TWO different campaigns - one on Saturday evenings and one on Monday evenings.

 

Friday, 5 May 2023 

Friday evening Amanda and I rolled over to our friend Shannon's new place to check it out and play some games. She was actually having a house-warming party the following evening, and had invited us... but I don't love parties, especially where I don't know who is going to be there and a large proportion of them are likely not going to be people I know... so we went over the evening before and played some games with Shannon and her boyfriend, Kevin. 

We started with a tiny little game called Tinderblox, which Shannon had brought over as a gift for Amanda's birthday a few weeks earlier. 

It's a fun little dexterity game that fits in a little tin box that can fit in your pocket. 

You draw a card from a deck which shows the orintation of one or more blocks which have to be stacked in the orientation specified on the card, and then added to the fire without knocking anything over. 

We played a few times! 

Afterwards Shannon and Kevin introduced us to Boss Monster. You play a Boss Monster (like, in a video game) and build dungeon to lure adventures into and try to kill them. I ended up with a pretty kick-ass dungeon (largely due to luck of having drawn some powerful cards that worked really well together!?) 

Saturday, 6 May 2023 

As I mentioned, with the renovation well underway, and the game room is closed for the next few months, Finnegan was back to running his Saturday D&D game on the kitchen table, amidst all the mess of stuff in boxes that were dragged out of the basement. That's left the rest of us unsure what to do... THIS Saturday we ended up playing a few games on the corner of the desk upstairs... 

Amanda and I started off with a game of Century Golem Edition

Keiran joined us for a second game. 

Afterwards we played Azul. 

Finally we played a game of Splendor. 

We didn't play any games the following week, but the week after that... 

Thursday, 18 May 2023

Finnegan and I rolled over to Brent and Barbs to play a few games. Jasper joined us there as well. 

The first game we played was Clank! In! Space! Neither Jasper nor I had ever played the game and Finnegan had played it once, years ago, at ToonCon. It was an interesting game - there's deck-building element and moving around a board doing stuff and kind of a race and trying to keep yourself alive... a LOT of moving parts. I died... Then Finnegan did. Both Jasper and Brent made it out alive and scored. 

It was a bit of a bummer as when I died, it was my move next and I easily would have gotten to a place and healed half my injuries... and into the end area where, if I then died, I'd have still scored points... I only had 65 points accumulated. I guess making it to an escape pod would have gotten me another 20 and I might have picked up a card or two with points in the final round or two it would have taken me to make it TO the escape pod... would have been close... alas. 

Afterwards we played Cyptid. The name sounded cool and both Finnegan and I had visions of cool cards with pictures of crazy monsters on it... Unfortunately the only monster illustration was on the cover of the box and it turned out to be a very abstract game of deduction... 

It kind of hurt my brain. We accidentally played with the ADVANCED RULES (by selecting a black bordered card, instead of a white one) It's a little like clue, everyone has ONE clue about where  the Crytid could be hiding in. You win by figuring out what everyone's clue is... and then finding that ONE HEX on the board that meets everyone's criteria!? 

Saturday, 20 May 2023

Saturday I wandered over to Kurtis' to play some games. Eli drove into town for his birthday to play some games. They're played a few before I got there. 

Brent had also showed up and the four of us played a game called Beyond the Sun. We each played a faction trying to develop technologies and/or colonize other planets.

There are a lot of moving parts to the game. 

By the end of the game I felt like I was starting to get a sense of what was going on and how to play the game... but then it was over. Probably should have leaned a little more into developing technology and worried less about snatching up planets earlier in the game. 

After that Eli had to take off... 

We were joined by Joe and played Castles of Mad King Ludwing. 

I love Castles of Mad King Ludwig. I just love making weird castles - that are strangely reminiscent of the hundreds of castles I drew on graph paper in my youth. How did I not end up being an architect?! 

After that we played Imhotep. 

I've played it once before (also at Kurtis'). I could take it or leave it... 

Finally, Brent and Kurtis and I played Shakespeare. 

This was kind of interesting. You have to recruit artisans and actors to build a set make costumes and put on a play. 

Wednesday, 24 May 2023

The following week Jasper and I rolled over to Brent's again and played some more Clank-In-Space! We had talked about playingVinci, but Brent suggested it was better with four and we should wait for a week when Finnegan was available. 

The first game I was just one move away from scoring any points... when I died... Had I been able to play one more hand I'd have made it across and scored around 125 points. Instead I scored ZERO and Brent won with 95. I think Jasper also died without scoring. 

We had time, so we played a SECOND game adding in stuff from the Apocalypse expansion. 

The second game I died one move away from an escape pod... 

GAH!? SO CLOSE.... 

So, I won this game with 76 points... because no one else made it far enough to score before they died!? 

The game is pretty brutal. 

Tuesday, 30 May 2023

This week Finnegan was available so we arranged to play Vinci... but then Jasper sent a note at the last minute saying he couldn't make it... Since Brent had set it up, we played with three anyway. It was interesting. I've never played, but I'd heard about it. It's a moderately historical game that Small World was based on (a game I have played a LOT of!) I had thought there might be specific empires - Greeks, Romans, Celts, Saxons, Vikings, Franks, etc, etc - like History of the World and a few other similar games - instead each new empire just had some random generic strengths or abilities - VERY MUCH like Small World! 

Finnegan found Brent's d100 in a container full of odd dice and delighted in trying to roll it... or... more to the point, getting it to STOP rolling!? 

We got through Vinci quick enough that it was decided we should play Clank-In-Space! AGAIN! 

Once again, I died just before making it to an escape pod. Brent AND Finnegan both escaped! 

And that's about it for this month... That's 32 games I've played so far this Quarter and 76 so far this year! I'm pretty excited about this Kill Team: Ashes of Faith box, I'm hoping in the next month I'll be able to knock out enough figures to play the campaign included in the box! I hope I can convince Finnegan to play out the campaign, I think it's seven games... six campaign games then a finale...? Seems doable through the summer! 

What's everybody else been playing? Let me know in the comments below!

February and March Games

I felt like I didn't play a lot of games in February (and was feeling tired...) so I didn't end up posting a regular, monthly February Games post, figuring March would be much the same and I'd combine the two... Then I played more games in March, so there's a bit here!? 

Sunday, 5 February 2023

Kicking off the month - one game of One-Hour Wargames for the Back of Beyond Campaign. You can read more about that here: 

Back of Beyond Campaign - Summer 1918

Saturday, 11 February 2023

While i HAD been playing a fair amount  of miniature games for the Back of Beyond Campaign... I hadn't board games with the family in over a month. Saturday afternoon I cleared off the kitchen table so we could play some games while Finnegan was running his D&D game in the basement game room. 

Initially I'd suggested Codenames and/or Kingdom Builder - both of which are fairly quick to play. Keiran suggested ALSO playing Splendor. In the end we just played Codenames... lots and lots of Codenames!?

THE FIRST ROUND - we were playing with the Two-Player Variant with one spymaster and two spies all on the same side and the Opposing side is run by an AI. Here we were the Blue agents and NOT off to a great start... New York and Bridge were out there - right next to each other in the middle of the grid... so I said "Brooklyn"... Amanda and Keiran guessed POLICE!? (because Brooklyn Nine-Nine!?) 

WE all took turns being the Spymaster. 

Keiran did exceptionally well as Spymaster (seriously want to be on THEIR team if ever we played against others!!) 

Though... occasionally they were frustrated by what morons their parents were!?

We ended up playing TEN GAMES of regular Codenames. 

Because apparently that wasn't enough.... 

We even tried mixing Codenames with Codenames: Pictures - and tried the variant with two spymasters and one spy... 

realized just before we started we didn't have enough to make a 5x5 grid... then realized after, that you only use 4x5 for pictures or the hybrid variant... oh well... 

Keiran (blue) was off to a commanding lead... but then I missed a few of their clues and Amanda and caught up and WON!? 

Finally we played one game of JUST Codenames: Pictures. Again, I think Keiran was a bit frustrated by what morons their parents can be. 

Sunday, 12 February 2023

There was one field battle to play for the Autumn 1918 turn of the Back of Beyond campaign. I played it on Sunday afternoon. You can read more about the battle and the season on campaigning here:

Back of Beyond Campaign - Autumn 1918

Saturday, 18 February 2023

Played one quick game of Splendor with Amanda and Keiran, while Finnegan was running his D&D game downstairs. 

Sunday, 26 February 2023

Sunday afternoon, my friend Jasper joined Amanda, Finnegan and me and I tried running them all through making characters for Hellboy the Role-Playing Game. 

I'd gotten really excited about this as I LOVE the Hellboy comics... and made it through the character creation section. I'm not sure we'll ever play, though. Just too damned many rules... I'd love to run a modern supernatural game using FATE or something like that. Might have to have another look at the Dresden Files RPG (which is basically FATE). 

Wednesday, 1 March 2023

I played two quick games of One-Hour Wargames for the Back of Beyond campaign. You can read all about those here:

Back of Beyond Campaign - Spring 1919

Sunday, 5 March 2023

I played a single quick game  of One-Hour Wargames for the Back of Beyond campaign. You can read all about those here:

Back of Beyond Campaign - Summer 1919

Saturday, 11 March 2023

While Finnegan was running his Saturday Evening D&D Game in the basement game room, Amanda and I played a quick game of Kingdom Builder (with elements of the Marshlands expansion). She beat me by ONE POINT! 

Sunday, 12 March 2023

Played the final battles of 1919 for our Back of Beyond Campaign. 

Full report of those actions can be found here:

Back of Beyond Campaign - Autumn 1919

Monday, 20 March 2023

Monday I played two quick games of One Hour Wargames for the Back of Beyond Campaign:

Back of Beyond - Spring 1920

Saturday, 25 March 2023

Friday afternoon I stopped by the Dragon's Den to pick up some paint. It was busier than usual and there were a few people lined up at the till when I'd found my paint, so I took a meander through the boardgame section while I was waiting. I was wondering why I even bothered as I was feeling ZERO need to buy any new games as I have a hard enough time finding time to play the ones I already have and like!? As I happed to walk past the Wingspan games, something caught my eye - a wingspan box that I did not recognize!? Apparently a NEW expansion (that can also be played as a two-player game on it's own) was released sometime last year!? 

I texted a picture to Amanda and she said "BUY IT!?"

So... 

Saturday evening we tried it out! The new "Duet Mode" was interesting - added something a little different to the regular two-player game. More to think about... 

Totally lost... But, hey, I got to play a game with Amanda! Yay!

The unfortunate thing, I realized after the game, was I was so focused on the MECHANICS - what's changed, what's different... that I never even took much notice of THE BIRDS!? I'll have to play it again and take more time to read about the birds and bust out wingsong.

Sunday, 26 March 2023

Sunday Afternoon, my friend Jasper came by and Amanda and I introduced him to Terraforming Mars. While he scooped up most of the Milestones and Awards, he didn''t quite cotton on to the importance of cities and greenery on the surface quite quick enough. I'm pretty sure it'll be a totally different game next time we play! 

In the evening after supper, Amanda suggesed we have another go at Wingspan: Asia. 

Monday, 27 March 2023

I played two quick games of One-Hour Wargames for the Back of Beyond Campaign.

Bolsheviks and Chinese fighting in the West.

Bolsheviks and WEstern Interventionists fighting in the East. 

For a full report of that action:

Back of Beyond - Summer 1920

Tuesday, 28 March 2023

Jasper was back, along with Brent, to play a few games. 

First we played a game of Wingspan. I was really excited because I got the higher point value on two bonus cards by getting four birds out in my last three actions!? Photographer - Birds with colours in their names, and one that required birds that ate fruit (Viticulturist...?) 

And then, because we had some time, we played a quick game of Century Golem

Brent just crushed the two of us, finishing the game with six scoring cards, while Jasper and I only had four!? 

They look so serious in both photos!? We were having a really good time. Maybe Jasper was just concentrating because both games were totally new to him! 

Wednesday, 29 March 2023

One more game of Wingspan: Asia! 

I'd actually arraged to play a game of Xenos Rampant on Thursday with Tim Miller, who I haven't played a miniature game with for AGES.... and then completely forgot until he showed up at my door... Unfortunately I was just starting to make supper for everyone and had not prepared at all for playing... so we had to postpone until next week. But he did hand out for a bit and we got caught up, which was nice. 

Also... I've been spending a RIDICULOUS amount of time playing Star Battles on Puzzle Baron this past month... Which is kind of gaming... 

I was mostly doing the 10x10-2 stars... but occasionally do a 14x14-stars - like this one above (14x14 grid each row, column and colour have to have exactly 3 stars in them!). 

(Because as soon as you finish them they disappear, this screen-shot was taken about four second before I finished, once I realized what had to be moved about to complete it)

I played it SO MUCH so that I ended up being in the top 20 (worldwide) in March... 

Ha-ha! Waaaaaay down in 17th place there... 

It was fun... but I played WAY TOO MANY puzzles to get there. Won't be doing that again! (I mean, trying to compete - I'll still play Star Battles and do Logic Puzzles... just not enough to score enough to place anywhere in the top 20... or even 100!?) 

Amanda has suggested a game of Wingspan: Asia when she got home from work on Friday, but because I'd ended in the top 20, I kind of just wanted to do a few more puzzles to keep my place there. having never done this before, I had no idea how competitive these puzzle-doers were and how many would be on there last minute trying to increase there score. Considering I was a solid SEVENTEEN THOUSAND points ahead of the player in 20th... I probably should have just played Wingspan... 

And that wraps up both March and the First Quarter of 2023.... I'll probably be posting a look back and the Quarter and Second Quarter plans later today or tomorrow!