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!

November Games

September and October were pretty slow months for gaming... (I mean, I was pretty busy, just with OTHER STUFF!). I was pretty determined to get playing games again in November, however! I sat down at the beginning of the month to try and figure out how many of which games I'd have to play to actually complete either a 5x5 Quarterly Challenge or a 10x10 Annual Challenge (or BOTH!!) and, at that point, things weren't looking great... I don't want to make playing games UNFUN, by feeling like I HAVE to play a game TEN TIMES in ONE MONTH, just to complete a challenge...  or.. MULTIPLE games... 

Wednesday, 2 November 2022

Azul!? 

We'd planned to start playing Warhammer Underworlds on Wednesdays again, and I was pretty excited to try out Mollog's Mob... But, when Amanda got home, she was just feeling too tired to play that... but she said she'd play Azul. 

We played a pretty quick game and I squeaked out a win... 

Amanda decided that just wouldn't do, so we played a second game... 

And she just crushed me - I got less points than my first game and she nearly doubled her score!? So then we called it a night...  

Friday, 4 November 2022

Amanda and I finally got back to playing Warhammer Underworlds. This was the final game we were playing in Beastgrave (for now). For the rest of the year we are planning to play game set in Harrowdeep on Wednesday evenings (plus two extra games over the holidaze), which will get in 10 games of Harrowdeep - for the 10x10 Challenge. My plan is to also paint a new warband every week for Morgwaeth's Blade-Coven to face... 

This evening the Blade-Coven faced Mollog's Mob - a Dankhold Troggoth and assorted squig-beast followers and hangers on. Normally, when trying a new warband, I generally try using the cards that come with them - to get a sense of what they're supposed to be about and how well those cards work. Mollog's Mob is one of the Shadespire releases (the first group of releases) and... it shows... Just a quick glance through the cards it became pretty apparent that a LOT of the cards were just garbage and playing them would be very, very frustrating. So Friday evening before playing, I quickly edited the deck... and totally won... With a bit more deck editing, it could be a really nasty warband to face! 

You can read a full report and see lots more pictures of the game here:

Warhammer Underworlds - Morgwaeth's Blade Coven vs Mollog's Mob

Sunday, 6 November 2022

Sunday afternoon, despite our first big snowstorm of the year the previous evening (our power was out for a few hours, but luckily it wasn't terribly cold!) Neil and Jasper joined us to make characters for the Dresden Files Accelerated Role-Playing Game campaign that Finnegan is going to be running for us. 

We are playing Agents and consultants for the Vancouver office of the RCMP Special Investigations Division. A Division that is not well known and even less understood. They look into cases that seem strange and inexplicable. 

I'm playing a Weregoose that was first recruited about five years previous to the start of the campaign. My Character has previously been an adrenaline junkie/backcountry guide living in Squamish. The character have no control over the changing and blackout during the episodes. During one such episode that involved a number of people being terrorized and/or injured by a giant Canada Goose in Stanley Park one night, and ended up with them waking up in an observation room at a Mental Health facility after they were found in the area at dawn, naked and very disoriented... well that drew the attention of the RCMP Special Investigations Division. 

I have some other nebulous background ideas... haven't settled on a name... or gender... I guess I better sort that out, soon-ish! 

Wednesday, 9 November 2022

Warhammer Wednesday happening again - we played our first game of Warhammer Underworlds: Harrowdeep. More or less the same as all the other Warhammer Underworlds - a few rules added, others tightened up. 

Morgwaeth's Blade Coven faced Xandire's Truthseekers in The Hall of Sublimination and The Tortured Coil (actually from Nethermaze)

We tied at 9

You can see more pics and read the complete battle report here:

Warhammer Underworlds - Morgwaeth's Blade Coven vs Xandire's Truthseekers

Friday, 11 November 2022

Friday Evening we played Carcassonne with Traders & Builders and Inns & Cathedrals.

 Amanda was kind of tired and not super into it. So, I won. By a lot. Like, 243 to 190. 

Amanda lamented that I win this game a LOT. And maybe suggested that's why she doesn't love the game. Because it's "[my] kind of game, and [I'm] very good at it..." And... that's not UNtrue... but I resent her suggesting that I win "all the time..." 

I actually keep track of these sorts of things on Board Game Geek for this very reason... 

I have logged 44 games of Carcassonne on BGG. 11 of those I did not note the scores. Of the remaining 33 games where I did record wins and scores... The kids played in less than ten of them. Ananda played in 28 of them. I played in all 33. 

There were three ties (Finnegan and Keiran, Amanda and me, and... I forget the other...?) 

Amanda won 12 - 43% of the games she played in. 

I won 13 - 39% of those games I've played

The kids won the remaining games. 

Sunday, 13 November 2022

Wrath & Glory 

I forgot to take a pic DURING the game... Fun was had, I got to make use of all the EPIC stuff I'd been painting over the last month and got to run a role-playing game again... which I kind of missed. 

You can read more about the adventure and campaign here:

Campaign on Xoxigar - 3rd Squadron  - First Contact

Wednesday, 16 November 2022

Warhammer Wednesday was postponed due to dog yoga. 

It's a thing. 

(which worked out well, because I wasn't actually DONE this week's warband!) 

Thursday, 17 November 2022

After pointing out the stats regarding the statistical reality of our Carcassonne play outcomes, Amanda was a little less grumbly when I suggested it again this week. 

And as if the universe just needed to strike that point home, Amanda could just not stop drawing THE EXACT PIECE SHE NEEDED ALWAYS and beat me by 50 points... Before the end game scoring, she was well over 100 points ahead of me. Only massive unfinished cities and super farming saved me! 

Saturday, 19 November 2022

Warhammer Underworlds! Finally got to try out Da Kunnin' Krew. 

You can read the full game report here:

Warhammer Underworlds - Morgwaeth's Blade Coven vs Da Kunnin' Krew

Saturday, 26 November 2022

Distracted this week again and didn't get a new Warband finished for Wednesday... so we didn't end up playing any games until Saturday. Played another game of Carcassonne, but instead of just playing with Inns & Cathedrals and Traders & Builders, I also broke out, and reread the rules for the Abbey & Mayor and River II expansions - which was fun. We hadn't played with those for a few years, I think. I hope we'll be able to keep them in the regular play from now on... 

Sunday, 27 November 2022

Since we weren't getting to play a Warhammer Underworlds game this week (because I was distracted painting Oni) we decided to get in another game of Carcassonne...  While I won Saturday's game, but a LOT (308-233!?), this game was SUPER close (308-305!?) with Amanda just squeaking ahead! 

So that WAS a few more games played than last month! 

I'm not so sure I'm going to complete any challenges... 

Games Played so far this Quarter:

• Carcassonne x4
• Azul x2
• Dresden Files Accelerated x2
• Warhammer Underworlds: Harrowdeep x2
• Warhammer Underworlds: Direchasm x1
• Wrath & Glory x1

Not looking like any 5x5 challenge getting completed... I mean, it COULD happen... but I feel like it would all be quick games and very forced. 

Games Played so far this Year!

• Wingspan x11
• Terraforming Mars x10
• Warhammer Underworlds: Direchasm x10
• Carcassonne x9
• Azul x8
• Five Tribes x8
• Wrath & Glory x6
• Quebec 1759 x5
• Splendor x3
• Andean Abyss x2
• Dresden Files Accelerated x2
• Stone Age x2
• Warhammer Underworlds: Harrowdeep x2
• Wizard Kings x2
• Angola x1
• Bananagrams x1
• For Sale x1
• Kingdom Builder x1
• Marrying Mr. Darcy x1
• Mutant Crawl Classics Role Playing Game x1
• The Silver Bayonet x1
• Space Base x1

That's 88 games, so far... and that's not a bad thing... I just can't see getting to play ten different games ten times each for a 10x10 challenge... and that's okay... 

Am I still going to play a lot of games in December? I sure hope so! I'd like to bring that total to 100! Twelve games over the holidaze? That seems totally doable! I just don't think I'm going to even try to finish a 10x10 Challenge. 

I would like to get in a few more games of Warhammer Underworlds - and finish up a few more warbands. I wouldn't mind another game of Carcassonne and two games of Azul and Five Tribes. That would get those to ten plays this year! Then I'd have about six or seven games that I've played ten time each. Over half of a challenge done, and that's not nothing. 

Other than that...? Few more games of Stone Age and some role-playing games (Dresden Files and Wrath & Glory). Maybe some games we haven't played in a while... 

I like the IDEA of a 10x10 challenge - I like the idea of playing a game a bunch of times, in a relatively short period of time to really LEARN the game! Part of the reason I like the idea is I have a really hard time READING and understanding rules, so it would be nice to just have to read a few new rules and really learn a game well enough that I wouldn't have to re-read them again every time we played!? It'd be really nice to really learn TEN new games every year... but I just don't think these challenges really work out for me. They always feel a bit forced by the end of the year. 

I need SOME kind of roadmap, though, or I end up going NOWHERE... I'll have to come up with something different for next year. Maybe just the Quarterly 5x5 Challenges...? I'm not sure they went so well either, though... 

Game Plan 2022 - Q4

 Well... I don't know what I'm doing. The Q3 Plan did not work out at all... as outlined in the Previous Post. It doesn't look like much is about to change... 

GAMES

The last suggestions for the remaining challenges were:

Q4 5x5 Challenge

1. Warhammer Underworlds: Harrowdeep
2. Carcassonne 
3. Wrath & Glory
4. Kill Team
5. Stone Age

and...

2022 Annual 10x10 Challenge

1. Wingspan
2. Terraforming Mars
3. Five Tribes
4. Warhammer Underworlds: Direchasm
5. Azul
6. Carcassonne
7. Stone Age
8. Wrath & Glory
9. Warhammer Underworlds: Harrowdeep
10. Kill Team

So far this year, I have played:

• Wingspan x11
• Terraforming Mars x10
• Warhammer Underworlds: Direchasm x9
• Five Tribes x8
• Azul x6
• Carcassonne x5
• Quebec 1759 x5
• Wrath & Glory x5
• Splendor x3
• Andean Abyss x2
• Stone Age x2
• Wizard Kings x2
• Angola x1
• Bananagrams x1
• For Sale x1
• Kingdom Builder x1
• Marrying Mr. Darcy x1
• Mutant Crawl Classics Role Playing Game x1
• The Silver Bayonet x1
• Space Base x1

Wingspan and Terraforming Mars are done. Two games of Five Tribes shouldn't be too hard. 

One game of Direchasm...? Shouldn't be a problem for the 10x10 list. What held us up on playing Warhammer Underworlds was me insisting on getting a new warband done each week... and then not getting that painting done... One game of Direchasm won't be a problem... 5 or 10 games of Harrowdeep...? I don't know. It COULD happen... if I started pumping out Warbands and we played (almost) EVERY WEEK for the rest of the year... 

Azul and Carcassonne shoudln't be a problem. Those could be on both lists. 

Stone Age...? maybe the 5x5, but we'd need to play EIGHT games to get to ten now... I don't know... I don't know if we love it THAT much!? 

Wrath & Glory...? If BOTH groups manage to get in a game each month October, November, and December - I'll totally made that one. 

Kill Team... If I got motivated and got some of those new teams painted by the holidaze, I could probably convince the kids to play a few games when school is over - five would be very doable (for the Q4 5x5 challenge). Ten, though...? I don't know... 

There is very little chance I'm going to play any more of 1759 or Wizard Kings... Although, if I made a category of "Columbia Games Block Games" I could endeavour to get in three games of Hammer of the Scots and that might finish THAT off...!? Seems more likely than eight GMT COIN games... or... ten of something else...? 

Q4 5x5 Challenge

1. Warhammer Underworlds: Harrowdeep
2. Carcassonne 
3. Wrath & Glory
4. Kill Team
5. Azul

2022 Annual 10x10 Challenge

1. Wingspan
2. Terraforming Mars
3. Five Tribes
4. Warhammer Underworlds: Direchasm
5. Warhammer Underworlds: Harrowdeep
6. Azul
7. Carcassonne
8. Wrath & Glory
9. Kill Team...? 
10. Columbia Games Block Games (Quebec 1759, Wizard Kings, Hammer of the Scots)...? 

So in addition to five games of each of the 5x5 games, I'll need to play ONE game of Warhammer Underworlds: Direchasm, TWO games of Five Tribes, THREE games of Hammer of the Scots... and then FIVE additional games of Warhammer Underworlds: Harrowdeep and TEN games of Kill Team. 

MINIATURES

I have not been getting a LOT of painting done this year... Mind you, I haven't been buying a lot either... Though it is STILL more buying than painting. It would be nice to get into the black. 

Currently sitting at:

PAINTED

28mm Foot: 39

28mm Mounted: 1

Tokens and Bits: 6

Terrain Bits: 3

Micro Foot: 113

Micro Mounted: 9

Micro Tanks/Vehicles: 27

PURCHASED 

28mm Foot:80

Terrain Bits: 72

I'd like to paint at least 42x28mm figures - so I've painted MORE than I purchased this year. There are 89 days left in 2022. So... one every other day, on average. (plus all the micro scale stuff I'm trying to finish up!) 

Oh... and then there is the terrain... If I can batch paint the Kill Team: Into the Dark interior wall bits, I'd be happy. 

What is 44x28mm miniatures going to look like? 

Imperial Navy Breachers(12)

Kroot Farstalker(12) 

Mollog's Mob (4)

Da Kunnin' Krew (5)

Xandire's Truthseekers (4)

Skittershank’s Clawpack (5)

Blackpowder's Buccaneers (5)

That's 47... plus Terrain... Plus finishing up a few "Epic Scale" items. That's probably the best I could possibly hope for at this point... BUT, if I were to get anything else done... 

More Warhammer Underworlds...?

Elathain's Soulraid (5)

The Crimson Court (4)

The Exiled Dead (7) 

The Shadeborn (4) 

Myari's Purifiers (4)

Hexbane’s Hunters (6)

More Kill Teams...?

T'au Pathfinder Kill Team (10)

T’au Fire Warriors (5) + Drones

T’au stealth Suits (3) 

T’au Drones (many)

Corsair Voidscarred Kill Team  (10) 

Chaos Space Marine Kill Team (10) 

Assorted Objective Markers? 

Ork Kommando Kill Team (10) 

Not sure how much of this I'm going to get done THIS month, however as I'm busy with not one, but TWO daily drawing challenges!? You can see what's going on there over on my Art Blog:

https://artgeekbrown.blogspot.com/2022/10/

March Games

 

We played games this month. Here's what we got up to...  

Saturday, 5 March 2022

Saturday I picked up Five Tribes: Whims of the Sultan - so we can play Five Tribes with... well... FIVE. I guess I picked it up FOR Finnnegan, as Five Tribes is HIS game. 

I also picked up the new Aeldari Codex. 

In the late afternoon Amanda and I PLAYED Five Tribes... but it was just the two of us (as Finnegan was still running his D&D game), so we just played with the base game 

We played one game and I eked out a narrow victory, despite Amanda's protestations that I was abosloutely "destroying her" (219-209)

She had some time before she was going out to hang out with some friends, so we played again. 

Again, she was quite certain that I had won by "a lot", but it turned out that she had won - and by a much wider margin than I had in the previous game! (215-186)!!

Saturday, 12 March 2022

The following Saturday we played... 

you guessed it MORE Five Tribes! 

Once again, we played TWO games... 

Math is hard. I did each of these a few times because I kept not getting the same totals!? (I was pretty tired). eventually I busted out the calculator on the phone and added them up - and even THEN I was getting different answers!? so I kept doing them until I got the same answer three times in a row... then I figured it was safe enough to post withont someone with too much time on their hands adding it up and realizing I'd made a mistake and pointing it out in the comments... (please don't. I'll probably cry...) 

STILL hadn't tried out Whims of the Sultan, at this point, though... And, now that we'd played it five times, I kind of wanted to focus on playing a few other games to get THOSE to five plays for the 5x5 Challenge (Azul, Wingspan, and Carcassonne seemed most likely, at this point..). 

Friday, 18 March 2022

Friday evening Finnegan agreed to play Five Tribes with me and Amanda. 

It was a long, tiring week for Amanda. 

Once we got going, she livened up a bit. 

We were trying out the Whims of the Sultan expansion with it. I picked it up because Finnegan had said he was interested in playing this a lot more... and Amanda suggested this would be fun to play with Kurtis and Tanya... but that would be five if we ALL played together, and the base game only plays four. Whims of the Sultan, in addition to new, different tiles and the Whims of the Sultan cards (yet ANOTHER way to gain points!?), it adds components for a fifth player.

I thought we'd try it out with just us before trying to play with FIVE!? 

These goofballs... 

 

This ONE TILE netted me fifty points. With this one Djinn, I was able to add palm trees to the oasis, pretty much every turn... and the Oasis was adjacent to The Great Lake - a new tile, which is impassable (no meeples start on it or can be placed on it during the game) that DOUBLES the value of trees and palaces in adjacent tiles... so EACH of those palm trees were worth SIX points?! 

Yeah, I totally won that one... but not by much. We had a lot of laughs along the way... 

Saturday, 19 March 2022

The next evening Kurtis and Tanya came over to play... but then Finnegan decided NOT to play!? We played with Whims of the Sultan, anyway. 

Four player games (and, presumably five) are a whole different kettle of fish!? Because there are more players snapping up tiles and making use of meeples, you get a LOT FEWER turns at doing things before it's all over! So you really need to focus on... something.. in two player - and even three player games, I usually end up with a bit of everything. This game I ended without a single Djinn or ANY market goods card - which usually accounts for a large part of my total points... I still won the game. Amanda only controlled three tiles (out of potentially eight one can control!?) and had a single Djinn and not market goods... but she DID have the most Viziers, and in a four player game, that's a LOT or points (points + number of viziers you have + 10x the number of players you have MORE viziers than! so 30+ if you have the most in a four-player game! 

Wednesday, 23 March 2022

Amanda took a few days off this week and we actually played a game on Wednesday evening. 

Hadn't played Wingspan in a while so we busted that out. 

Amanda rocked the round end goals... In most cases she beat me out by ONE!? 

Mostly because I was too busy trying to fill my Forests and Grasslands with birds of ascending wingspans... The two bonus goal cards I had. That and the eggs and the Nectar just edged me ahead in the final tally! 

Thursday, 24 March 2022

Thursday, I somehow convinced Amanda to not only play ONE game of Carcassonne... 

but TWO games of Carcassonne!? 

She has admitted it's "not [her]favourite game"... But was "willing" to play... 

Friday, 25 March 2022

One more game of Carcassonne...

Saturday, 26 March 2022

Saturday Amanda suggested we play Wingspan in the afternoon... and then the games went SO FAST, we ended up playing THREE games!? 

Game One. At this point we were planning to just play ONE game - just to kill some time in the afternoon... 

pretty even spread on teh round end goals 

I got a BUNCH of points from bonus point cards... but Amanda eked out a win (I think from having a few more higher point birds) 

The first game went so fast, Amanda suggested we play again! 

This time I dominated the round end goads... and, well I DID win... by two points... but initially Amanda was suggesting that I was going to win by a LOT and when we initially tallied the points, SHE'D actually won - but then I remembered Id had a bit with a END GAME ability that would have put out more eggs on a all the birds in the wetlands, which pushed me past her. 

By the end of game two it was clear we were NOT going to get out and do any errands or projects about the house (it was really cold out. We were tired) and decided to play a THIRD

Again, I rocked the turn end goals, somehow!? 

But Amanda won this one, in the end, as well... 

It was a fun way to spend a cold lazy Saturday afternoon. 

I have a feeling Wingspan is going to be our most-played game again this year. We'll probably hit 50 plays by the end of the year (we are at 38 now!?) 

Monday, 28 March 2022

Keiran joined Amanda and myself for a quick game of Azul. 

Amanda just ROCKED the game - Yeah, that's her fillingalmost the ENTIRE BOARD with tiles - there is ONE SPACE left... she scored almost as much as me and Keiran together.. !? 

I didn't do TOO badly... probably one of my best games ever - I scored 118 points! Keiran did really good too, scoring 90-something... Amanda has 190-something, though!? it was CrAzY!? 

Thursday, 31 March 2022

On Thursday, Tanya, stopped by to exchange some stuff with Amanda and stuck around to play Azul... 

As with the last game (or so..?), Amanda and I were trying out the unprinted side - where you get to make up your own pattern. I tried to get fancy and not just do them on a diagonal (just like on the printed side, but in a different order) because my brain finds patterns amusing... 

This did not help me win. 

First game went so quick, Tanya stuck around for a second game! 

Still trying "funny" patterns. I did much better in the second game. But then so did everyone else... 

And that's IT for March!? AND the first quarter of 2022!? WTF!? 

Stay tuned, I should soon be posting my Q2 Game Plan... if it can even be called a "plan".