September Game-A-Day Challenge 2018 - Part 1

For the last few years I've found that are game-playing kind of falls off in the summer and we try to spend a bit more time outside, and so in September I've tried to jumpstart our game playing with a bit of a challenge of some sort. I think the first year, the challenge was to simply play a game everyday for the month of September. Later I instituted a rule that it had to be a DIFFERENT game each day for the entire month. This year I kind of backed off on that, but we've tried to select games that are on our 25x5 list.  

Well, here's how it's gone so far...



Saturday, 1 September 2018 - No Game! 

Well... that's a bit of an inauspicious start to a month of gaming every day!? We did BUY some game stuff on the first! I picked up the Drukhari Kill Team starter (for Amanda!) and the Death World Forest Kill Zone. Finnegan picked up the Deathwatch Kill Team starter and The Girl bought Unstable Unicorns.

Sunday, 2 September 2018 - Unstable Unicorns



The girl had bought this the day before. She'd first seen it on our vacation in Calgary and had been wanting to pick it up ever since. So she did. And then we played it. It was a pretty simple fluff game. I think Finnegan won. I'd probably play it again if we didn't have anything better to do and The Girl dragged it out and said "can we play THIS!?"


Monday, 3 September 2018 - London



This was our first time playing London in a long time... We probably played it last a year ago, in September, for last year's challenge!

The GIRL was EXTREMELY frustrated by all the cards she kept picking up that required money to play when she just didn't have any... and even more distraught (as evidenced by the picture above!) about all the poverty she was picking up...

Finnegan managed his poverty VERY WELL and just buried the rest of us in negative victory points at the end of the game. BEFORE subtracting for poverty and loans, I had 52 points, Amanda had 47, Keira had 41... I ended with 29, Keira with 10 and Amanda with 5... Finnegan ended 43 points...


Tuesday, 4 September 2018 - London



Day two of London. EVERYONE did much better at managing their poverty. Everyone had tried to totally avoid taking loans last game (because of the -7 VP for not being able to pay them of at the end of the game). The Girl won this one with 53 points. Amanda was second with 42, Finnegan and I tied for last with 40! Big difference from the previous day's game!


Wednesday, 5 September 2018 - London



Day three of London. Still doing way better than the first day - everyone had much less poverty at the end of the game, but somewhat lower scored than yesterday... The Girl won again with 45 points, Amanda 34, Finnegan 31 and I was just behind him with 30... The game also went a bit quicker.


Thursday, 6 September 2018 - London



Day Four of London. Amanda finally won a game. If I hadn't helped her with the cost-benefit analysis of her options in the last round, Finnegan probably would have won... mind you, if I hadn't helped HIM with the options for the last two rounds, I might have won...



We stayed up pretty late trying to get this game in, and everyone was pretty tired by the end of it...

I tried to go easier on the loan-taking this game - compared to the last two... I also tried to manage poverty better (I had the least at the end of the game - foe once!). Didn't seem to help much, though. EVERYONE has been better at managing poverty - especially seeing how much you can lose in our first game. I think we all scored lower this game, for various reasons... Amanda had 45 points, Finnegan had 42, I had  39 (crawling up from last place,  slightly), and The Girl had 32.

Friday, 7 September 2018 - London



Our fifth game of London this week - and in finally WON a game!!! Wooo!!

I built Buckingham Palace and St. Paul's early in the game. Later I had TWO Steamboats and 5 boroughs along the Thames - which totally paid off all my loans. On the last turn I was able to play two cards worth a total of 7VP (A train station and... the Tower Bridge...?)... I think it was those three things that really made the difference.

I ended with 56, Amanda was second with 37, Finnegan had 32, and The Girl had 22 (just wasn't her day... but she was in much better spirits about it compared to earlier in the week!).


Saturday, 8 September 2018 - Five Tribes



Friday we moved on to Five Tribes. I didn't make any notes about this game... other than the scores. Amanda claimed she had no memory of playing this game at all, but I'm sure she has. Despite that she did okay. I won with 154, Amanda was in second with 131, The Girl was third with 128, and Finnegan was last with 118.


Sunday, 9 September 2018 - Five Tribes



Again with Five Tribes. Went from totally crushing it yesterday (with 154 points) to Dead-Last today (with 139 points)... Mind you, my dead-last score today was still more points than everyone else's score from yesterday! Everyone else just did WAAAAAY better today! Amanda won with 164 points,  Finnegan was second with 157, and The Girl came in third with 142.



Monday, 10 September 2018 - No Game

We missed Monday... I blame Skewl.


Tuesday, 11 September 2018 - Five Tribes



Back at it with another game of Five Tribes. Amanda crushed it again. She beat us down with 161 points. Finnegan was pretty close with 156 points. Me, less so, with 133. The Girl dropped down to 109...?

Wednesday, 12 September 2018 -



Another busy, busy day - the kids and I got in a very quick game of Kingdomino in the evening between activities and going to bed... Finnegan won this one with 64 points! I though I'd done rather well with 58, and a couple 5x5 grid, but those mines he had... Yowza!  The Girl had 42 points.


Thursday, 13 September 2018 - Splendor



Thursday we played Splendor with Cities of Splendor.



It felt like a really close game - everyone was picking stuff up so fast, I felt like I couldn't keep up - but then I got the 5 and 4 red gems and then just had to pick up one more gem to satisfy the number of crards. While most had the gems satisfy one of the victory conditions, none had the points - and were probably a few turns away from doing so when I ended the game. I was pretty excited about the win as Amanda's won the last few and just left me in the dust. It's been a while since we played (as we've been playing more of Century: Golem), I think she'd gotten rusty...


Friday, 14 September 2018 - No Game!!

Busy day, and Amanda and I went out to the Rosebud Burlesque Club's Variety night and then watched the first episode of Dark Matter Season Two we we got home...


Saturday, 15 September 2018 - No Game!!

I had really hoped to get in a game of Kill Team in the afternoon, since most of my Death World Forest was complete... Alas everyone was busy with different things... Dance classes, homework, errands...



I DID get to pick up Kill Team: Rogue Trader (and some other stuff!)

In the evening Amanda and I went out and saw ANOTHER burlesque show - this time with the Menagerie Burlesque Company - two burlesque in a row!? Then we came home and watched Ready Player One - which I was underwhelmed by...

Sunday, 16 September 2018 - Century: Golem



This morning Amanda challenged me to a game of Century: Golem (actually, it might have been afternoon... we kind of slept in a bit...).



Despite scoring 91 points... she still beat me! With 93 points! Darn it, she's getting too good at this game too, now!


Well despite not getting in a game EVERY day, we have gotten in a few games - and crossed a few games off our 25x5 challenge list!



We made a list of games  we'd like to play for the rest of the month - mostly the quicker easier games on the list (Lords of Waterdeep, Space Hulk, Sentinels of the Multiverse, Legendary, Viticulture, and Hero Realms) and a few games of Kill Team - which I am still hoping we might get to play this evening!


Coming Soon to Tim's Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Some actual Miniature Wargaming!? I do still hope to get in a game of Kill Team later today and maybe get a game report up tomorrow...?

After that..?

I assembled and primed the Eludician Starstriders (that came with the Kill Team: Rogue Trader box) last night while watching Ready Player One - along with some more STC Ryza Pattern Ruins (that came with the Realm of Battle - Moon Base Klaisus box set). I'm thinking I'll use the Moon Base Klaisus boards for the ToonCon game, so I'm going to try and crank out a few of those STC Ryza Pattern Ruins over the next week and then on to some new Kill Teams!

Last Week's Games

Whoops - meant to post this last night, but we ended up watching Kindergarten Cop (long story) and a few more episodes of Heroes Season 3.... (during which I finished off my Tau Ethereal and got quite a bit of work done on the Tallarn Roughriders!). Despite all the movie and TV watching, we did manage to get in a few games over the past week...

On Tuesday (23 January 2018) we played Lords of Waterdeep with the Scoundrels of Skullport expansion.



I got to play the Harpers and some secret master that gave me bonus points for Piety and Skullduggery quests.

Finnegan got the Lieutenant in the first round and kind of crushed it... I mean in a worker placement game where you have one more worker than everyone else for pretty much the ENTIRE GAME... well... you really better win!!



I thought I did pretty good for myself with five Piety quests and two Skulduggery quests....



But the kids did BETTER!  I was Lin last place with 110 points after all the final counts were done...



Later that evening we played Splendor with Amanda when I got home from taking The Girl to her dance class. At the start of the game Amanda was suggesting that they all "gang up" on me...? I'm not really sure how you can...? I mean if you watch VERY CAREFULLY what others are doing... and can guess what they're planning, I guess you could try and hoard the resource gems that they're wanting...? but you can only hold so many and I feel like in a game like this if you spend any time trying to thwart another player, it's only going to be time taken away from working towards your own goals...

I'm not sure why Amanda thought I needed to be ganged up on, I'm SURE she's won just as many - if not MORE - games of this than me...



Either they decided to take pity on me - because I had a HUGE headache - or headache-be-damned I was ON FIRE! Because I totally cleaned up! I ended the game with TWENTY points!? Fifteen usually ends the game - but I picked up that 4-point diamond and the 3 point 4 black/4white patron on the last turn for a total of 7 points.

On Thursday (25 January 2018) I played Legendary: a Marvel Deck-Building Game  with the kids.



We beat down Mole Man who was trying to steal weaponized plutonium.



All the Heroes we used were female - at The Girl's request. They kind of kicked ass. Finnegan ended up feeling like it was a bit "too easy"... I didn't mind - the game didn't last FOREVER!

Friday (26 January 2018) we had another crack at Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle Game Four...



...and lost.

Again...

There was talk of playing again over the weekend, but we just didn't get to it. Or any other game for that matter... We did a lot of TV and movie watching... Finished of Heroes Season Two and started in on Season Three. We also watched a few movies this past week: The Big Sick and Kindergarten Cop...



Despite all that, we HAVE been managing to get games ticked off our playlist for the year. With 30 games that we want to play (at least) five games each - that's 150 games we'd have to play throughout the year - minimum. Which equates to about 3 games per week we need to tick off our chart. As this is the fourth week of January we just finished and have played 11 games... Not bad, I say!


In Other News....

I did go in for an MRI on Saturday... but now have to wait for at least a week - as they said that's when the Neurologist will have the report... of course then I actually have to schedule an appointment with her... so, probably MORE than a week... Ugh... On the plus side, I haven't been feeling as dizzy the last couple weeks and even the head pressure seems to be subsiding... so maybe it was just nothing..? That's what I'm trying to tell myself anyway!

Because I ended up going for an MRI on Saturday I missed Freezerburn - my friend John's annual invitational boardgaming day I think I've made it to 3 of the last 7...? or 8...? Missed two for Medical Reasons... and I think I missed one (possibly two) other(s) because John insisted on sending my invite to an email address that I haven't used for years!?

I'm hoping to get in a game or gameS of 40K 8th and/or Shadow War: Armageddon sometime this week - Especially now that I've finished Amanda's Tau Pathfinder Kill Team.


Coming Soon to Tim's Miniature Wargaming Blog:

A gen-u-ine wargaming after action report! Finnegan's Orks versus The Girls Harlequins...

After that...? Probably the Tallarn Roughrider Squad!