December Games - Part the Second

 And thus began our Holidaze.... ...

The kids finished up skewl on Friday. And Amanda took MOST of this week off... She went in Tuesday, because she had to go to campus to teach a yoga class anyway... But took the rest as vacation or used up a small amount of the excessive accrued overtime... and a personal day... Next week, between Xmas and New Years, the university is closed and EVERYONE has the week off - except for a few essential staff that need to go in to take care of critters used at the Vet college, etc... 

Lots of time for GAMING! 

Friday, 17 December 2021

Kicking things off, Keiran, Amanda and i sat down to play a game of Carcassonne - we added in Traders & Builders and Inns & Cathedrals. Amanda cleaned up with the trade goods - scoring 30 points for having the most of the wine, grain AND cloth! But then I got 64 points just from farming - which kind of won me the game! 

Afterwards Amanda and I watched The Expanse with Finnegan and then just the two of us watched Wheel of Time together. 

Saturday, 18 December 2021

our Friend Kurtis came by for an evening of gaming. We finally tried playing the Century Golem Edition with ALL THREE games combined... It was a little much... It was interesting, I guess, to see the way they incorporated the mechanics of three different games into one. But there were a LOT of moving parts. 

Since it was so much work to set it all up and figure it out... We played it again. 

I like each of the games on their own. Mixing two together was interesting. All three was a bit much. 

Afterwards we played a couple of games of Kingdom Builder. EAch game used two of the new(-ish, to us) Marshlands edition boards and cards. 

In the first we played with the Hermits, Captains, and Geologists Kingdom Builder cards and the Tower, Fountain, Canoe, and Barn boards. This was the first time I saw the Canoe being useful. It seems like it could be a VERY powerful Extra Action... but only really if you can get BOTH. 

The Game was CrAzY close - Kurtis and I tied at 42 and Amanda has 41!

I the second game we played with Scout, Miner, and Messenger Kingdom Builder Cards and the Temple, Harbour, Farm, and Refuge boards. Only one of the extra actions allowed putting down additional settlements (the farm), the others only allowed up to pick up and replace settlements. I grabbed two farns quite early on so for most of the game i was placing five settlements every round to the three that Kurtis and Amanda were placing... and I just cleaned up!? 

That long orange line across the board, alone, gained me 44 points from Messengers... thats more than any of us scored in TOTAL in the previous game!? 

Monday, 20 December 2021

Monday evening we played a quick game of The Hanging Garden. Keiran had suggested it, so I wasn't going to pass up the opportunity. We haven't played it since June of last year. 

Keiran and Amanda started clearing away their garden while I was laying out my tiles!? So I didn't get all three extended gardens. 

Anayway, here's what my garden looked like at the end of it - along with all the tiles I'd collected... 

Amanda won. By lots. 

Tuesday, 21 December 2021

Tuesday Amanda went into work for one last day this year - and stayed very late!? When she finally did get home, we all played Codenames: Pictures. We ended up playing six games - every one had a chance to team up with every other member of the family and within each pairing, each took turns being the Spymaster and the Field Operative. 

In Game One, Amanda and I were the Spymasters. I was paired with Finnegan and Amanda with Keiran. Amanda and Keiran won when Finnegan accidentally selected THE ASSASSIN!  

Game Two - Keiran and i were partnered up and Amanda Played with Finnnegan. Keiran and Fnnegan were the spymasters. Amanda and Finnegan won this round. 

Game Three - Keiran and Finnegan remained Spymasters, but we switched partners again. Amanda and Keiran won. 

Game Four - Back to Amanda and me being Spymasters. Kerian and I won - but only because Finnegan, again, accidentally picked THE ASSASSIN! 

For the last two games Amanda and I were partner and the kids were partners. Finnegan and I were Spymasters first. The kids won. 

Then Amanda and Keiran took a turn at being Spymasters. Again, Finnegan and Keiran won, despite Amanda and me haveing a pretty commanding lead to start... 

Good fun. Wish we played this more. It is very quick! 

Afterwards, because we are heathens and there was zero chance we'd be doing our traditional family get together on the 24th... we just opened up presents on the Solstice. 

Wednesday, 22 December 2021

Got the whole family together again to play O Zoo Le Mio

We haven't played this in YEARS, but played it a fair bit about 6-7 years ago. It's a fun little game where you play a zoo (or... the Zoo Manager) trying to build bigger better attractions at your zoo - by matching up tiles to make bigger enclosures. Fairly simple, very clever and not too long.. 

Out little zoos at the end of the game. 

Thursday, 23 December 2021

Initially, a friend of Amanda's was initially supposed to come over and play Wingspan... but kind of bailed on us. 

So Amanda and i just played on our own... 

This was the THIRTIETH game of Wingspan we've played since Amanda got it for her birthday in may. 

It was all festive colours.

(and apparently failing at math...) 

Friday, 24 December 2021

For many years we used to go over to my folks place on the 24th for our family gathering - spend the afternoon and evening there. presents were opened, games were played, puzzles put together and FAR TOO MUCH FOOD was consumed. Because of the pandemic and my parents current situation, this was just not feasible. 

I did get out for a bike ride in the early afternoon, despite feeling a bit run down (probably from the Covid vaccine booster I'd had the day before).

When I got back we played some games. 

Managed to wrangle the whole family into playing Kingdomino again (because it is QUICK!) 

Did I mention that Keiran got rainbow hair the day before...?

 Oh, they got rainbow hair all right! 

The game was SUPER close and everyone built lovely little kingdoms around their castles. 

I ended up winning. I thought I had done well, but then when everyone was telling me their scores I was amazing they'd all scored 10-12 points MORE than me... then they reminded me about the bonus for not having any blank spaces and for ending with the castle in the middle! That bonus fifteen put me in first with 64 points, Keiran had 63, Amanda had 61, and Finnegan had 60!? 

Afterwards, Amanda and i played Castles of Burgundy. Amanda by the end of the first round Amanda was about 50 points ahead of me and stayed well ahead for the rest of the game. I ALMOST caught up at the end with bonus points... but not quite... 

After I post this I think we'll be settling down to watch the new episodes of The Expanse and the Wheel of Time. Loving the Expanse. Indifferent to Wheel of Time. After we are done the latter, I think we'll check out The Witcher... 

I still need to play two more games of Kill Team to finish off ten games of that for my 10x10 challenge... I'm not sure what I'll do for the tenth game... The easiest might be to just play four more rounds of Codenames: Pictures. It might seem lame to add that in to a 10x10 challenge... but I've played THIRTY games of Wingspan... THIRTY!!! I think we've done okay for playing games this year! 

I hope everyone out there is having a happy, HEALTHY holiday season - and I do hope you get in a few games! I expect there will be a few more games we'll be playing this last week (and binge-watching shows on Netflix), as we all have the week off and won't be going out much at all - with the Covid numbers skyrocketing again! 

November Games - Part II

 

Didn't get in QUITE as many games in the second two weeks of November as we did in the first two.. but still... games were played. Fun was had. 

Thursday, 18 November 2021

On Thursday Finnegan and I tried out The Silver Bayonet for the first time. 

There is a full game report with more pictures, you can read it here:

The Silver Bayonet - Wolf Pack

Friday, 19 November 2021

Friday evening Amanda suggested Terraforming Mars, again. 

! just could not get stuff together to grab ANY of the milestones. 

And hardly got any cards out... well... compared to what Amanda put in play!? Despite that, I was only trailing by about 16 points - I was way ahead of her in Terraforming Rating and managed to get a lot more cities and greenery on the planet... 

This was our 10th game this year - so we don't NEED to play anymore... also it was the 43rd play of all time... still like playing it. Mostly... 

Monday, 22 November 2021

I'd hoped to get more games in over the weekend - and Sunday had started to be our Warhammer Underworlds night again... but then movies (Red Notice and Free Guy) and TV (The Great!) and Book Clubs happened and we didn't get any games in. 

Amanda did have Monday off so after doing a few errands we sat down to play a game of Warhammer Underworlds: Night Vault! 

There is, as always, a complete game report with loads of pictures here:

Warhammer Underworlds: Nightvault - Stormsire and Lady Harrow

This was, officially, the tenth game we've played in the Nightvault of Shadespire... and so that's another game that I've played ten times this year! Woo! 

Next year I'll probably just start logging all the Warhammer Underworlds games at Warhammer Underworlds: Harrowdeep... 

I guess I better get painting THOSE warbands! And Elathain's Soulraid! Harrowdeep seems like just the sort of place THEY'D be hanging out! 

Over the next day, or so , I actually DID some stocktaking of all the Warhammer Underworlds warbands...

Stocktaking 2021 - Warhammer Underworlds

Friday, 26 November 2021

BLACK FRIDAY

I did go to my FLGS and picked up a few things. Warhammer Underworlds terrain (Arcane Hazzards for NightVault and Primal Lair for Beastgrave - they look like they'll work as interesting scatter terrain bits for other games as well!) and the latest White Dwarf... That's it... 

I had thought of picking up Stargrave... but they were sold out. I looked for Rangers of Shadowdeep or Five Parsecs from Home - a couple other games I've been thinking out - also didn't have any. I EVEN looked for a single Gloomspite Gits Leader - either the Fungoid Cave-Shaman or possibly the Loon Boss... (for... REASONS!)... but, nope... So not much there. 

I did break down and pick up the Rangers of Shadowdeep PDF later in the day as it was on sale at Drive-Thru RPG. My printer died printing it off... It was on it's last... whatever - we've probably had it for the better part of a decade... but it finally gave up the ghost just as I was printing the last few pages... The last 20-30 pages are crap... I'll probably reprint them when we get a new printer. 

I also picked up some stuff from the HPL Historical Society (as they were having a Solstice Sale - a little EARLY!?). Actually, that was the night before, now that I think about it... 

AND I ordered some Regency Zombie Hunters from MiniFigs/Matchlock Miniatures... but they weren't even on sale... 

Later in the evening, Amanda and I played Castles of Burgundy.

I actually filled all my pastures, which, I almost rarely EVER do!? Amanda almost always scoops up the critters and I grab buildings... But Friday's game was almost the entire opposite. 

SHE was grabbing all the buildings right off the start to try and fill a large section of her map that needed them. 

Sunday, 28 November 2021

Sunday evening Amanda and I played Marrying Mr. Darcy. Amanda played Georgiana Darcy and I played Elizabeth Bennett. 

Georgiana Darcy ended up marrying colonel Fitzwillaim and Elizabeth Bennett married Georgiana's brother Mr. Darcy. 

We BOTH ended up tying a twenty-six points in total, but Georgiana had a higher dowry (Tie-breaker #1), so Amanda won. 

It's okay as a two-player game, but I recall it being way more fun with more players. Especially players who are fans of Jane Austen! I did ask the rest of the family if they were interested, but they were more interested in electronic devices...  

Kids these days, amirite? 

And that's about it for November...

Looking at my 10x10 Challenge Plays to Date:

1. Wingspan 27
2. Retro Loonacy 12
3. Warhammer Underworlds: Direchasm 12
4. Azul 11
5. Century: Golem Edition – An Endless World 10
6. Kingdom Builder 10
7. Terraforming Mars 10
8. Warhammer Underworlds: Nightvault 10
9. Warhammer 40,000: Kill Team 8
10. Necromunda 6

So we got to at least ten for everything except Kill Team and Necromunda. Getting in two more games of Kill Team in December shouldn't be a problem. Four more games of Necromunda might be a bit more tricky... I've almost been thinking it might be easier to get in nine more games of The Silver Bayonet, or six to eight games of... something else we've played a few games of so far this year... 

• Castles of Burgundy (4 plays, so far - need to play 6)? 
• Kingdomino(3/7)? 
• Carcassonne (2/8)? 
• Splendor (2/8)? 
• 7 Wonders Duel (1!) 
• Dominion (1!)? 
• Just Desserts (1!)?  
• Lords of Waterdeep (1!)?  
• Viticulture (1!)? 
• MARRYING MR. DARCY!? (1!)

Finnegan and I are pretty keen to play some more of The Silver Bayonet... I guess we'll see how the first week or two goes... The kids have the last two weeks off, surely I can talk them into playing a few games then? We already have plans to play Wingspan again next Monday. I'm sure we'll end up with THIRTY games of that before the end of the year! I think there was one more Centruy Golem Edition combination that we hadn't played (all three?), so we'll likely get in one more game of that. 

Long Weekend Gaming

 The first of July is a Statutory Holiday here in Canada, and this year it fell on a Thursday. The University was nice enough to just give all of their employees Friday off as well, and Amanda also took Monday off, giving us a FIVE-DAY Long Weekend. The last week of June has been brutally hot and it carried right on into the weekend, smashing records for high temperatures. So we were glad of the basement Game Room to escape into to play some games throughout the weekend. 

Not only is it oppresively hot, the city is STILL doing work on our street, finally getting around to repacing the water main. In teh meantime, we're still getting water pumped into our house through an above ground BLACK PVC pipe, which, in this sun and heat, means that by mid morning, the water coming out of the cold tap is just as warn as the water coming out of the Hot tap (by mid afternoon, the "cold" tap water is HOTTER than the "hot")! Fun times... 

Thursday, 1 July 2021

Today's high was 35°C.

I went out for a bit of a ride in the morning, heading Southeast of town into a 40Km/h wind, which, despite it being 30+°C out there the wind made it tolerable. 

to round out the ride to 40Km, I did an extra little loop up to the University Bridge and saw there was a rather large Cancel Canada Day rally down at the Vimy Memorial

After the discovery of thousands of children buried in unmarked, undocumented mass graves at Indian Residential Schools in the last few weeks, not a lot of people were feeling all that excited about celebrating Canada Day. There was a pretty good turn out, despite the oppressive heat!

A good chunk of the afternoon was spent watching the final season of Glee while I did a bit of prepping and painting miniatures.

In the evening our friends Brent and Barb came by to play Wingspan. It's been a LONG time since we've seen either. I think Brent came by in August last year to play a game while restrictions had been temporarily lifted before the "Second Wave" hit. It's been over a year since we've seen Barb. 

It was Barbs first time playing Wingspan, so we tried out the Swift Start cards and instructions. It's a set of specific cards to start with, with a larger card with specific instructions on them on what to do for your first three turns of the first round. They were okay... I could see how they might be handy to show people how to play if they'd never played and weren't super familiar with... y'know.. games...? We all took an instruction sheet and the cards, but by the second or third turn Brent and I were already thinking, this is NOT how I'd go about this (give the goals drawn or cards we'd picked up or the bonus cards we had.... but we all played along. 

At the end of the first game I had a pretty full board and lots going on. I scored 96 points, which won me the game! (Barb came in second!) 

We played a second game with the Oceana Expansion, which Brent had not played before. Super fun. I almost filled my board. Had I ONE MORE ACTION,  I totally would have filled the board (because I had a bird that could have been played that had an End Game Action that would have allowed me to play another - they weren't terribly high point cards - I didn't think it would have won me the game or anything - I just thought it would have been fun to FILL THE BOARD!). As it turned out I scored EXACTLY 96 again!? But this time, that was only good enough for THIRD place!?

Had I been able to do things a little more efficiently and get that one last bird out during the game, it actually WOULD have made a big enough difference, as I think I would have had 4-6 more points, and Brent won with 100 (the highest score I think we've seen so far!) and Amanda was in second with 98! 

Friday, 2 July 2021

Today's High was 40°C. 

In the morning I went out for a ride on the tandem with Amanda and we picked up some groceries on our ride. 

Afterwards I headed downtown again with Keira to pick up books from the library. We saw the big group of not-so-goslings-anymore swimming out on the river. 

The afternoon consisted of more Glee - finishing off the series - and a bit more painting... and a LOT of sweating!?

To escape the head, Amanda and I hid in the basement for the evening and played a rather long game of Terraforming Mars! In two player games I feel like we usually play about 13-14 turns - might occasionally blast through in 12, might have played 15 before - but this one took 16 turns!? 

Mars was looking VERY green by the end of it though, and heavily populated. WE literally FILLED every space that COULD Be filled with stuff! (I was yellow, Amanda Black) 

This was the first time I've ever play Robinson Industries - and I've yet to see a game where they haven't won (so, yeah, I actually beat Amanda at Terraforming Mars again!) 

This was definitely my highest scoring game EV-AR - with 164 points!!! Amanda also beat her previous high score with 146! I got insanely lucky with my initial draw which gave me the Research Outpost which reduced the cost to play EVERY card through the entire game - I also had a bunch or plant and microbe cards that either gave me plant production or was one of those "place a cube on this card everytime X happens..." so I was gaining points every turn from many of them. The space force had 15 cubes on it - gaining me 1 point per cube! that was HUGE for ONE CARD!!

Saturday, 3 July 2021

In the morning I headed out to my FLGS - Dragon's Den Games - to pick up the new edition of Age of Sigmar! The Narrative Play - Paths to Glory campaign system looks pretty fun. 

I spent the afternoon reading roles and trying to figure out said campaign system and how many forces I could put together for the campaign system. I have enough miniatures to do at least six... but all require a lot more painting. 

In the evening, Amanda and I played Century Golem Edition: Endless World. This was only the second time we got around to playing it since I got it for Amanda for her birthday in April. I ended the game - taking my eighth card first, despite having eight point cards to Amanda's six, I was only three points ahead of her for point cards (33-30!). I had one point more than her for bonus cards, and she had one more spare gem... so it ended 53-50. 

Afterwards we finished up Handmaid's Tales Season Three. 

Sunday, 4 July 2021

Out for another morning ride to finish off my 200Km for the week. 

I saw cows. Which shouldn't be a thing of note, living in Saskatchewan, other than just recently I'd noticed I used to see a lot more cows out on my rides in previous years and hadn't seen any so far this year! I was wondering if there just wasn't money in it and people had stopped raising them around here. 

In the afternoon, Amanda and I played a few games, starting with 7 Wonders Duel. 

I usually don't do so well at this game, but I was ON FIRE (not literally) and totally rocked this game. I nearly won with a science victory, but in the end won with 72 points (to Amanda's 51!?). I guess she's out of practice...? 

Afterwards we played Castles of Burgundy and, again, I won... mostly because I got VERY lucky and filled out that HUGE buildings section that netted 36 points! I ended the game with 188 and Amanda had 164. She was probably feeling like she'd worn the wrong shirt by the end of the game. 

Monday, 5 July 2021

In the morning Amanda and i went for a ride.

We took the tandem and rode up and down the Meewasin Vally Trail. 

On the other side of the river near the university we spotted a few hawks. The first one we spotted was soaring not very high overhead on an updraft by the river bank. 

The next one we saw was standing by a juvenile Richardson Ground Squirrel it had attacked and injured, presumably for breakfast... 

It flew off as we drew near. 

So, of course we played Wingspan later in the afternoon...

And that was our extended long weekend! All in all, it was pretty fun!

How was everyone else's weekend?