Wife beating in Suburbia

Ha..Ha..Ha ..It's not what you think... its a board game!
So after a long hiatus in blogging, I though I get back into my blogging and start with the latest board games I've been playing.

 Yep, that's right, the wife has been beating me senseless in every game of Suburbia we have played so far. I picked this up a few weeks back, and after 6 games I still haven't won any. Dispite the losing, it's a fun game and something quite different from the typical board games I normally get. I would have actually never bought it, if I hadn't started a conversation with a gentleman in the shop at the same time as me. I'm glad I took his advise.

Here's a couple of shots of the box and a game in progress I swiped from the internet. I'm not going to review it as there are plenty of reviews out there. It's an enjoyable game for two players, I'm looking forward to trying it with 3 or 4 players.  Well worth a go if you get the chance.

I also picked up Mainframe on Friday, being a fan of the Android universe. Have yet to play it, but looks like a fun none brain taxing game. I'm pretty certain I'll be losing at that as well.

Now for a brain taxing game, have four or five drinks, then late at night bust out Ticket to Ride.

Yep, Ticket to Ride.. not just any Ticket to Ride, but the latest version, the Rails and Sails version. Oh and play it for the first time while your well into a Scotch bottle.  My wife is a huge fan of ticket to ride, so I bought her this as a random gift. 

It's definitely adding another spin on the game and a little mind bending with boats and trains and the need to manage how many of each you start with. Still, it's ticket to ride, so you cant go wrong.... unless you have had one or two to many drinks before hand.

And yep, of course I lost.

The telly so far, in the last few weeks since I started tracking our boardgames is 

Wife 13 

Me  2 

Impending doom

Having gotten the board game buzz back again, the wife and I busted out Elder Signs, with the Unseen Forces expansion added in. The impending doom  immediately setting in as the howling wind and rain came through battering the house....very appropriate for the game.

I had forgotten how brutal the game can be, the first game took all of 10 mins to kill my first character and other 10 minutes after that to devour us completely. Game two we a lot more successful after removing the master level ethos cards from the deck and having remembered the rules and flow of the game. We managed to survive long enough to actually win . The Blessed and Cursed die addition from the Unseen Forces expansion making a really nice twist, which assisted no end in us beating the Old one.

I'm now look forward to trying out the new adventure of Omens of Ice, which I got given for my birthday.

The Cure

The Cure ... or Not.

So earlier this week it was my wife's birthday, and with the past few years getting into board games I added in an extra present of a board game. Pandemic The Cure... dice game version.

So after three games the world is total fucked, pipped at the post by one dice roll.  Talk about a cliff hanger game, so easy to lose with one dice roll. Having only played Pandemic the classic board game version a couple of times, I cant really compare this to it, other than the theme. A two player game takes about 30 minutes so nice an quick, and rolling hand falls of dice is always fun. A definite great addition to the gaming collection.

Warming the winter nights away.

A cold winters night, fireplace roaring in the background, Bookers Bourbon at hand (straight up of course) and little colored  plastic trains allover the table. Yep, its board game night at home.

It's been far to long since I busted out the board games at home, so with not wanting to slit my throat which is preferable to having to watch the "Reality TV" crap that the broadcasters seem to spew from every orifice these days ... First Dates UK, The Real Housewives Of O.C  .... W.T.F.

Thought I must have died and gone to hell for second, then decided to exercise that brain cell of mine and instead opted for Ticket to Ride, the African map.

Great little game, and the African map has a nice variant with points scoring, which still didnt help me as my wife crushed me yet again.

So with that I know my humanity has been restored and the soul destroying corporate steamrolling of Reality TV will have to go hungry.

The new year's resolution

The new year’s resolution… keeping it simple … have fun, enjoy life while I can.

So with that in mind we got to play our first games of Steam Punk Rally yesterday afternoon. Having a read of the rules and watching the online video on how to play, we had the rules sorted pretty quickly. The first game I managed to win with a sneaky boost card. The second game was much closer with Yvonne beating me in the final round. Both games took about an hour for the two of us, which I think will speed up as we play it more. The game will be great with four or more players, as there will be no chance of planning the drafting stage of the game, where you get to choose cards and pass them remainder on to the next player. The game mechanic is quite different from other games I have played, with dice pools, card drafting (selecting cards from a card hand),using the dice in your dice pool as resources to build, fix and move your invention around the race track.

On the war gaming front I’ve acquired the X-wing imperial assault carrier, which I’m looking forward to a few games in the coming week.

My modelling is coming along nicely as I’m almost finished the ramshackle barn and fences. As we  as having started building the Sarissa Factory building as well.

It’s a world of S’laughter after all

On the board gaming front, I picked up “Small Worlds” the other day. Been meaning to get this for awhile as it look like alot of fun after watching a YouTube video or two.

Also I see there is a new expansion just out for Elder Signs, Gates of Arkham. It’s another favorite game of mine that doesn't see enough table light.

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/

“It’s always fun to go a little more  insane”  

On the miniature painting side I've been a bit side tracked by other things, but have started on my Bushido figures again which have been steering at me from the desk for far too long. Needed a change from the all those Pike and Shotte guys. Here's a few quick snaps using the old iPhone.

 This guys is all done, just needs a matt varnish.

Civilization

Game two: Rob vs Yvonne: A two player game of Civilization the board game, done and dusted in four hours. Being only our second game, we decided to leave the "Wonders" out of the game as suggested in the rules for beginners. With having a much better idea of what we were doing in the game this time around we both had plans from the start. I choose the Chinese and Yvonne took the Russians.

I found the game progressed much faster than our first, which wasn't  unexpected, we did find the begining half of the game was still the slow part. But it's much more crucial and really affects the end game, that was really apparent about half way through the game were we both had turns that stalled and we couldn't do much.

We were running neck and neck for most of the game. I was going all out and trying to win by the Cultue track while Yvonne was going for the Technology track again. I was about four turns away from winning by Culture, maybe three if I played my cards right and Yvonne was about three turns away on the Tech track, when she pulled a sneaky and used her abilities from her Russian card to full effect, and won again.

The art work in the game is awesome and the quality of the box and components is excellent. The game itself is what I describe as "Meaty" in both rules and play time. But if you invest the time to learn and play, it's an excellent game. Defiantly not a board game for beginners in the realms of gaming, but well worth it I think for those wanting to step up from games like Catan. 

I also saw today they have some expansions out for it as well which looked like they have some other interesting twists in them and additions. (Still a long way of from looking at thos getting those, but an option for sure)

On the modelling side of things I got a bit more done on my truck and also my other tank for my Japanese Bolt action.

We finished!

Yes after about 6.5 hours we finally completed our first game of Civilization last night. Yvonne ended up sneaking off and winning by a Tech Victory, in the process decimating my Military. I wasn't to far behind on the Tech level, and I had a good lot of coin which would have given me an Economic win if I hadn't of changed my mind halfway through the game and started going for a Tech victory. I probably still would have lost, once Yvonne worked out how the Military worked after I pasted her first few attempts in battle, she wiped my Military off the board.


I was surprised how much we enjoyed it, with the rather complicated set of rules the first game was always going to be a bit of a grind stone. But playing half the game one night and then coming back to it again two nights later made it seem shorter than it was. The second half of the game played faster, as the escalation of tech levels and the things you could do increased, speed things along.

The rule book is a bit hard to follow in places, but after a few turns and then some YouTube watching we had the rules pretty well sorted by the end.

 Our next game will be alot more enjoyable, having gotten our heads around the rules, it will leave us to concentrate on some sort of tactics, and of course will play alot faster as well.

It’s a very interesting game and with all the wining objectives and ways you can win the game. It makes quite a different game style from what I’m use to playing. It’s been a fun game so far, so I'm looking forward to the next attempt…cold winter night, roaring fire, a large scotch and a good meaty board game…Life must be good.

Go kiss an ash tray

Well I'm now back at the grind stone and managed to get through my first day and all 1200 emails. I always hate the first day back and sifting through emails. So to take the edge off the craziness I've got myself a good glass of Laphroaig from my holiday acquisitions. Its a "Go kiss an ash tray" brute. No smooching the wife tonight :-) Nothing subtle about the first sip, she's straight to the strong peaty noise and taste and then into the complex flavours that are classic Laphroaig.

I've got a few photos to still go through from the holiday, but that can wait as I needed to scratch that painting ich. So I worked on a few pike and shotte models before getting side tracked on my new vehicles for Bolt Action. A Gaz track and a Japanese type 94 Tankette were first up.

I'm using some basic chipping methods on the truck, but this time I'm trying out several layers of colours and chipping out each layer as I go. Seems to have worked quite well so far.

I've als finally gotten around to playing a game of Civilization that I got my wife for her birthday a few months back. We are about half way through the first game. It's far more intensive on the rules than any other board game I've tried. But we are getting the hang of it and things are starting to make sence now. We played for about four hours yesterday with lots of stops and starts trying to work out how things worked. I think we will like the game more as we get more games in... Time will tell.

Super Dungeon Explore

So with beer in hand one hand and dice in the other we rolled out a couple games of Super Dungeon Explore today. I ran the consol both times, and had a blast. I didn't have a couple of the rules quite right in the first game. (So I’m sure the boys will take a few digs at me for that …LOL) But even so we had fun.
Game one Mark playing the Deeproot Druid managed to be last man standing and he killed Starfire wining the game.

The second game we actually play six Hero’s so everyone could play (the game is only a 5 player), which was a bit of fun, and we through in a sixth spawning point and treasure chest once a couple of them had been destroyed. We ended up timing out just a Starfire got onto the board. So I call that a draw. :-)

The models are well made and are going to be great fun to paint, as are the rest of the components I thought they were well made. I know there was a bit of flak about it from some people online, but a few card sleeves will sort out the thin cards issue.

A couple of things could have been done better in production of the map tiles, namely the difference between the walls and floor squares. They are a bit hard to distinguish between, especially once you start covering the board in monsters and hero’s. (a minor thing in the scheme of things)

The one thing that I recon that needs re-doing is the rule book. Not easy to go back and check rules at all. The rule book looks nice, but no real index …Ahrrrrr …. (I hate that)


Theme                -         Awesome
Art Work             -         Fantastic
Models                -          Great
Rule Book           -         Average

Overall                -          Epic Fun

If you played Gauntlet as a child as much as I did … you cant live without this game, It is simply the board game version of an all time classic.(you can get over the rule book as its so much fun you forget about it) I can see myself buying some expansions very soon.

Steel Guard, Ninja’s and Ticket to Ride

Like the title, it’s a bit crazy, the week at work, seems like I haven't had a day off in months. Thankfully work wont take to much of my weekend. But I cant complain as I’ve only got a 2 day work week coming up then off to Melbourne for the air show. Can’t wait.

Anyway, at the end of the Battlecry tournament last week, the prizes were given out and next years tournament was discussed, with the plan is to go for another 600 point tournament but restrict it to a biblical theme. My Vikings or Egyptians don't make it into that period. (So .. oh bugger I need another army … twist that rubber army of mine.) As it would happen both the winners, Richard and Steven put up there vouchers they received as they didn't want them. As did Will with his best sports award. So I ended up getting them. (Thanks Guy’s, I definitely owe you lunch or something). So what army to go for, decisions , decisions. In the mean time I’ve started on my Samurai army for FOGR, and just finished up cleaning a bunch of Ninjas. Yes I know they don't belong in a Samurai army, but I just have to pop a few in the ranks for fun.

On the Dust side of things the boys dropped a large bit of coin on Dust models, thanks to Mighty Ape having a stall there and loads of stuff. Which means all my SSU Dust models I have will see some more action. Which is kinda nice, since I now own almost every model in the SSU. So this evening I busted out the airbrush and the Russian green paint and attacked the Steal Guard along with the Flames of War tanks I undercoated last week. So they are now well underway. I also throw together an army list of all my models and ended up having a game legal list, with only one model “Red Lighting” not in the list. Now this is a Russian force

Dust Warfare - Force Builder
Faction: SSU ( 974 / 1000 )

---  Heroes
Koshka Rudinova with Grand'ma (53)
Nikolaï (20)
Yakov (21)
Red Yana (22)

---  Red Platoon (273)
Command Section: "Red Command" Red Guards Command Squad (25)
1st Section: "Red Thunder" Red Guards Antitank Squad (20)
2nd Section: "Red Storm" Red Guards Assault Squad (26)
3rd Section: IS-48 B "Lavrentiy Beria" (85)
4th Section: IS-5 A "Mao Zedong" (85)
Support: "Nadbludatyel" SSU Observer Team (8)
Support: "Hailstorm" SSU Heavy Mortar Team (24)

---  Political Platoon (180)
Command Section: "The Drakoni" Commissar Squad (25)
1st Section: "Chinese Volunteers" SSU Auxiliary Attack Squad (15)
2nd Section: "Ohotniki" SSU Rifle Squad (20)
3rd Section: "Ohotniki" SSU Rifle Squad (20)
Support: KV47-B "Natasha" (40)
Support: BR 47-100 "Red Fury" (20)
Support: MIL MI-45 Airborne Transport (40)

---  Defense Platoon (80)
Command Section: "The Medvedi" SSU Command Squad (25)
1st Section: "Frontoviki" SSU Battle Squad (20)
2nd Section: "Fakyeli" SSU Close Combat Squad (21)
Support: "Jnetzi" SSU Sniper Team (14)

---  Steel Guards Platoon (325)
Command Section: "Heavy Red Command" Steel Guards Command Squad (45)
1st Section: "Red Tornado" Steel Guards Assault Squad (35)
2nd Section: "Silent Death" Steel Guards Sniper Squad (30)
3rd Section: KV47-E Aero "Nikita" (45)
4th Section: KV-3 M "Babushka" (50)
Support: MIL MI-47B "Burner" (50)
Support: MIL MI-45 Airborne Transport (40)
Support: KV47-G "Mikhail" (30)

Over kill …maybe … :-) … looking forward to testing these guys out

 

Also last weekend at Battlecry I purchased the expansion map for Ticket to Ride Africa. Tonight I got it out and played it for the first time with my wife. Surprise Surprise, she kicked my butt, almost doubled my score. The board is high quality like the rest of the Ticket to Ride boards, and it brings a new twist to the game with terrain cards that double your scoring points. The place names do a bit of a number on your brain the first time, but I think after a few more games that wont be an issue.

A nice expansion for a great game, and a good game to unwind with that doesn't need alot of brain power to play.

Smuag is Awesome

Yes, I finally got around to going to watch the Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug on Wednesday night. The visuals were epic and Smuag is awesome. Benedict Cumberbatch playing the voice of Smuag is awesome, he makes Smuag really come to life. The only thing I could fault the movie on was the sound, or lack of. Not sure if it was just the theatre I was in, but the sound was like is was missing a mid track. It just lacked that something, not sure how to describe it, it was just missing something . The 3D effects were great, and not over the top with head spinning senses like in the first movie.I’m definitely going to see it again.

Tonight I got in another game of Mice and Mystics using my newly painted miniatures. Talk about making the game, it looks so much better with painted models. I’ve only got the 6 mice to finish, then it will be onto the rest of the stack of models on my desk.

 

Played the second chapter of the game (AKA the second scenario) which was fun, especially when the cat Brodie turned up and captured two of the mice hero’s.

So far I found the rules for the scenario lacking in a few of the finer points. We keep coming up with questions on the scenarios. So it may take a bit of internet searching to see if they have clarified the rules a bit better, but overall it’s a fun game.

Great start to the Year

With 2014 well under way, I've just registered for the Battle Cry Tournament in February. The Vikings will be putting in another appearance, with the smaller 600 point games this year instead of 800 points, my Egyptians are definitely staying on the shelf. With smaller battle fields they have no room to manoeuvre and would just get squashed way to easily. (as proven in previous games late last year). My army list is really simple… lots and lots of sharp pointy sticks.

I've already played a game of X-Wing with my 11 year old nephew, which was alot of fun and the little bugger managed to win as well. Also got a second game of Mice and Mystic’s under out belts. It was alot easier this time, after we realized a mistake in the way we were playing… making it a gazillion times harder for ourselves in the first game.

Painting wise I got stuck into the models for Mice and Mystics over the last couple of nights. A few people online have done some really nice paint jobs on these models, so I had plenty of inspiration. Here's what I've done so far.

I'm now working on the Cockroach's.

Today I got stuck into cleaning up and basing a bunch of models, the first 10 were my Captain Nemo gang for Empire of the Dead. I've removed the slot base tabs and put them all onto some dragon Forge bases. Pinning them all as well. It was actually really easy with a metal cutting disc on the Dremal.

After that I found some old Samurai models in one of my boxes and realized I can use them for Ronin.  They were a bit more work, removing the old school metal bases, repairing a let or two and mounting them on 25 mm bases. It's a bit of an odd ball bunch, but I'll see if I can use them in Ronin.

Also my first garage kit is coming along. I've made several big mistakes, but it's all a learning curve. I think the next one will be much easy, as the casting is so much better than this one, and it's also slightly larger scale which will help. The chalk pastel technique was really interesting to try out. I found the Army painter varnish dulled it down quite a bit, so next time I'll be using about double the shading I think.