February Games

This month also got off to a slow start and I thought it might be a repeat of January... but things picked up about halfway through... This probably COULD have been split up into two pots... but by the time I realized I should have, the month was almost over... so... 

Sunday, 6 February 2022

Almost a week into the month before we played any games... 

Amanda and I played Wingspan - with ALL THE EXPANSIONS!? 

Sometimes, when playing with just the two, I try the goal board that's point per/max five, rather than points for most. Sometimes it works better... sometimes it's just to easy to get five... Like this one... 

My sanctuary at the end of it all... 

Tuesday, 8 February 2022

On Tuesday, after school, Keiran actually asked ME if I wanted to play a game?! Well I wasn't going to past THAT opportunity up! 

We played Splendor and they were delighted to WIN - for the first time EV-AR!? 

After Amanda got back from teaching yoga, we played For Sale. (Which we haven't played in a long time!) 

Didn't get Amanda in the playing picture... so here are the two of them with the box. 

Friday, 11 February 2022

Played with Ellysium and Prelude

Amanda (red) played Inventrix with Ecology Experts and Research Network - took Ecologist Milestone.

I (blue) played Credicor with Io Research Outpost and Mining Op - took Tycoon and Generalist Milestones and Desert Settler Award.

I actually won a game of Terraforming Mars! Yay! 

Saturday, 12 February 2022

If playing Terraforming Mars on Friday weren't enough, we played again TWICE on Saturday evening!?

The first game we played on Hellas 

Amanda played Credicor with Nitrogen Shipment and Power Generation - took Diversifier and Energizer Milestones and Cultivator Award.

I played Vitor with Supply Droop and Metals Company - took Polar Explorer milestone and Space Baron Award.

I won this game as well. 

Amanda suggested "best two out of three...?"

I'm not sure she understands how that works... as I'd already won two!? 

In the second game, Amanda played Tharsis Republic with Bio Lab and Society Support. She took Gardiner and Planer Milestones and Banker Award

I played the Mining Guild with Acquired Space Agency and Self Sufficient Settlement and took Mayor Milestone and Miner Award

Both tied for Scientist Award.

I had SO MUCH steel production... and just couldn't draw any building cards!? It was ridiculous!? 

Friday, 18 February 2022

Some friends, Kurtis and Tania, came over on Friday to play games.... They're both co-workers of Amanda and both recently started dating each other (Though I've known Kurtis for longer than he's been working in Amanda's office) 

We started with Wingspan. 

Of all our games, I don't think we've used the Food Cost of Played Cards goal before!? 

My Sanctuary at the end of the game. SO close to filling the board. my bonus card awarded 2 points per card in the row with the fewest... so would have been cool to get two more.. but it just wasn't happening. I had one more I COULD HAVE played, but went with eggs for my last activation instead... The card was only worth two points... and it would have taken two eggs to put it into play - so, net zero... Or I could gain eggs, discarding food or card for an extra one... for four eggs and four points... IF I'd played the card I would have also not had to share the round end goal... but that would have only gained two points... so... still better to do the lay egg action. 

Afterwards we played a quick game of Azul. I think Kurtis had suggested it because he thought Tania might like it. She did. She totally crushed it... 

THEN we played Bananagrams - which Keiran owns and we haven't played in AGES... but Tania is a bit fan 

This was mine at the end of the game. 

Saturday, 19 February 2022

Friday evening, Amanda and I played Terraforming Mars again. 

Amandas mess of cards at the end of the game. She played Thorgate with Mining Ops and and Galilean Mining... She took all three milestones: Diversifier, Energizer AND Rim Settler.. AND took the Cultivator and Eccentric Awards... (after I sponsored the Cultivator!?) 

How it all looked at the end. I had a LOT of cities and got a lot of points from them... but not nearly enough to catch up... 

I was playing Tharsis Republic with Acquired Space Agency and Martian Industries and trying to build a lot of space stuff... I almost single-handedly heated up Mars... A lot of Amandas points were from the milestones and one card (I forget which) that she got out on the first turn - along with a couple that gave her, like 8-10 power generation - which scored her 2VP/turn by spending energy resources... it was crazy. 

Sunday, 20 February 2022

Sunday we played Terraforming Mars again... 

Amanda played Cheung Shing Mars with Power Generation and Self Suficient Settlement. AGAIN she scooped three milestones before I could get any - took Terraformer, Planner and Builder milestones. She also won the Thermalist award

I played Phoblog with Biolab and Business Empire... got off to a slow start and Kind of knew I wasn't going to win by the second or third turn when Amanda took her third milestone!? In the end I won Scientist (with 10 tags!) and Landlord Awards and put a LOT of greenery and cities out there... but just couldn't catch up. 

After supper, Keiran suggested they'd like to play a game and settled on Azul. 

They just crushed us... like 64 points to Amanda's 49 and my 40!? WTF!? 

Finnegan and I stayed up STUPID late and binge-watched all of Space Force season 2. 

Monday, 21 February 2022

Monday was Family Day in Saskatchewan (and the beginning of public schools February break) so everyone was at home and, theoretically, not working or having much to do... so we did get in a few games. 

Amanda and played Carcassonne. 

Afterwards Keiran suggested we play Azul again. Amanda suggested we try on "the OTHER side".

She refered to is as "the hard side".  Without the pre-printed pattern, she had a really hard time figuring out where things could go without messing things up. 

I didn't find it particularly challenging. You can basically follow the same sort of pattern that is printed on the opposite side... but start with whatever is easily available the first round or two and then follow that patter. Yeah. Totally rocked this one. Keiran also did really well.

Friday, 25 February 2022

Friday was my birthday. I'd really hoped to host a weekend of in-person gaming, but the way things have been here in Saskatchewan in terms of Covid, that didn't seem like a great idea... Which was a bit of a downer. 

And then the whole Russia invadine Ukraine thing... ugh... 

Despite all this... I tried to stay positive and have a good time. 

We went and got donuts from Darkside Donuts and a non-dairy "ice cream" cake from Fable Ice Cream - both located just a block away! 

The cake we had with lunch. Actually there was a lot left over and it would last a few days! 

It was delicious. 

Then Amanda played a game of Terraforming Mars with me. I played my 50th game of Terraforming Mars on my 50th birthday! 

"Oh, you thought I was going to go easy on you? Think again! 

Pretty much from the get-go, it was pretty clear I was going to lose - Amanda just got an AMAZING group of cards to start with and scooped up all three milestones in the first few turns and was generating just piles of money and resources... 

She was playing Point Luna with Metals Company and UNMI Contractor.

I was playing a game of catch up the rest of the game. 

I did not catch up... 

I played Ecoline with Early Settlement and Mohole.. 

We Terraformed Mars. I got a lot of greenery and cities out there. I did a fair bit of the temperature raising. But Amanda has SO MANY cards in play - I think she had 39 points of cards to my ten or eleven...? And then the three milestones!? She ended with 150 points and I had... maybe 120...? 

After Terraforming Mars we nipped downtown to pick up some supper from Seasoned Fusion. 

We had the donuts from Darkside for dessert. 

In the evening, the family joined in for a few more games. 

Everyone joined in for Splendor.

I think they LET me win... 

(this also happened to be my 40th game of Splendor!) 

Then we Finnegan dug out Five Tribes - which we have apparently not played in 3.5 years! They very definitely did NOT let me win this one... I was dead last. 

Saturday, 26 February

I tried to run a game of Wrath & Glory online. I didn't have much prepared. We spent most of the time discussing the situation in Ukraine. We did develop the background a bit more. Everyone arrived on Xoxigar Secondus. One of the tank crew died of Space Herpes and had to be replaced with fresh meat from the Reserve Squadrons.... that's about it... 

And that's it for February.... 

How are things going for  GAME PLAN 2022 Q1...?

Well....

The miniature-game-a-week-plus-game-report thing hasn't happened so far... 

5x5 Challenge...? 

So far I have played:

• Terraforming Mars x6
• Azul x3
• Wingspan x3
• Carcassonne x2
• Splendor x2
• Wrath & Glory x2
• Bananagrams x1
• Five Tribes x1
• For Sale x1
• Marrying Mr. Darcy x1
• The Silver Bayonet x1

Terraforming Mars is done and looks like a contender for a 10x10 by the end of the year. We'll probably play two more games of Azul and Wingspan in March to get in five of those... Splendor might make it to five (seems kind of lame having two short an easy games on the challenge - Azul AND Splendor...) Maybe Carcassonne? 

It WON'T be Wrath & Glory as we are only scheduled to play every other week... so we'll probably only get two games of that in. 

Everyone had a lot of fun playing Five Tribes... could we play it four more times in March?!

I'd LOVE to get some miniature games going on... but I just haven't had the energy. I also haven't been painting much. Usually it's the PAINTING of miniatures that gets me excited about PLAYING with them... no painting... no playing... which is ridiculous, because I have SO MANY, FULLY-PAINTED that I could EASILY set up any number of games in any number of periods... bah. 

Maybe the new Eldar Codex coming out next week will get me motivated to play some 40K...?

Interest in Silver Bayonet has waned and unlikely to recover. Neat idea, not enough there to keep my interest. So many other systems I could do the same thing in and have more fun and better campaign rules. Song of Blades and Heroes... Savage Worlds... I'd actually thought about replaying the last game we played USING Song of Blades and Heroes to see how it compares... but just didn't get to it. 

June Games

I doubt I'm going to get up to any games today, so I thought I'd get this posted...

June got off to a bit of a slow start… We started off the month all sick with colds – one of the worst colds I can remember, I was coughing and miserable for a full three weeks! One would think while we were sitting at home not doing much of anything else, we’d get some boardgames in… but that was not the case. Everyone was thoroughly miserable and just not in the mood for gaming!?


Monday, 4 June 2018



We did get ONE boardgame in while we were all still sick… well… two, really… WE sat down and figured out how to play Cytosis: A Cell Biology Board Game (perhaps we should have been playing with the Virus expansion – included with the game!?). I had kickstarted the game last year…? I have a few other games from Genius Games and like them well enough.



We started by watching the how to play video and then quickly reread the rules and were on our way. Honeslty it was almost a month ago now… so I don’t remember how it all went… I remember it was pretty fun and according the the game play recorded on BGG I won…



Later in the evening when Amanda got home from work (oh, she was sick too, but she’s a bit of a martyr…) we convinced her to try playing it with us. As the person with a gen-u-ine biology degree I thought she might be able to go a little more indepth with the explaining the mechanics of what’s going on in the cell – the things the game mechanics are trying to mimic… She had a hard time remembering some of the stuff – that biology degree was 30 years ago!



She remembered enough to totally crush us all!

(It probably wasn’t really her knowledge of Biology that helped her win…)


Friday, 8 June 2018

This was supposed to be a Rogue Trader evening. But I was still sick… so we cancelled AGAIN…


Thursday, 14 June 2018

We didn’t play any more games for over a week and a half. I brought along Retro Lunacy to the dress rehearsal for our Irish Dance year end recital on Thursday. Finnegan and I played a couple quick games in the gents change room while waiting for his turn on stage, then we played a couple more with some of the girls out in the hallway…

I didn’t take any pictures on rehearsal day.

Oh, we were still all quite sick – but the show must go on!!


Friday, 15 June 2018



Again I took along a few games to play backstage while waiting for our time onstage. We got in four more games of Retro Loonacy as well as a game of Love Letter and two games of Set. It killed the time. Fun was had.


Saturday, 16 June 2018



Saturday morning we dragged our sick butts out to the Dragon’s Den for Free RPG Day!!  I picked up Blessings Unheralded, the Wrath & Glory quick-start rules and adventure , Finnegan picked up... something? Dungeon Crawl Classics? or the Pathfinder Adventure...? The Girl picked up Kids on Bikes, which I hope she'll let me read at some point as I was interested in it too.

(Finnegan and I went back later in the day – just before closing - and picked up a few more items – I grabbed Eldritch Cock)


Sunday 17 June 2018



We had another crack at Harry Potter: Hogwart’s Battle.



So close… we got to Voldemort… but things when downhill very quickly at that point – especially with Belatrix Lestange out (drawing extra Dark Arts cards) and we hadn’t even finished with the Hoarcruxs.



Lesson learned: make sure you deal with the Hoarcruxs early in the game!

Later in the evening, Amanda and I went over to Aaron and Emily’s to play in Bob’s Numenera game (along with Bruce, Adelle, and Richard). We missed the previous game and apparently have been hired by someone new to go back into the Jade Colossus and… do… something… I can’t remember…?


Monday, 18 June 2018



We apparently played Century: Golem Edition on Monday…



I won with 72 points. Amanda and Finnegan both had 60 and The Girl had 58.


Thursday, 21 June 2018



Amanda and I went over to our friends Kurtis and Shannon’s for the evening to play a few games. We started off with Azul – which was a fun game of making tile patterns… sort of…? I guess you could call it a tile drafting game…? I don’t know. It was pretty quick and fun. I’d totally play it again. Not going to run out and buy it or anything.



Apparently, I won with 67 points. I like pattern games...



We brought our copy of Century: Golem Edition over for fun. They actually have Century: Spice Road (which is the exact same game – but with different components – wooden cubes representing spices instead of little plastic games and different art on the cards)



I won this one too!? With 84 points!



Then we played Deluxe Weed. I sooooo didn’t win this one… Amanda and Shannon tied with 38 points, Kurtis had 30 and I had… 18…. I probably shouldn’t be a marijuana grower.

Kurtis suggested we play this again on 17 October (the official date for the legalization of Marijuana in Canada…)


Friday, 21 June 2018



This Friday was another Rogue Trader evening, but I decided to run Blessings Unheralded – the Wrath & Glory Free RPG Day adventure (with quick-start rules). Initially Bob and Bruce showed up to play with us (and The Girl even joined us to play this evening) but then Bruce got called away (family crisis!)



Bob played Pater Nemoris, a ministorum priest, and Amanda played Battle Sister Henna Orten (and finally got to use one of her Sisters of Battle minis!).



Finnegan played Battle Brother Trujon Kull, a space marine of the White Scars chapter, and The Girl played Sergeant Gael Harden.

Now, no adventure ever survives first contact with the player characters, but at every single junction, these guys did something COMPLETELY different than what the adventure’s author expected players would do, after the first contact with the Pox Walkers I was pretty much making shit up as I went… Both Bob and Amanda played their characters as demanding and arrogant and pissed off, or simply blew off and discounted, a number of important NPCs that they were supposed to ally with and gain important information from. Finnegan – playing the impetuous White Scars space marine– ended up being the Voice of Reason, more often than not!?

We didn’t even get to finish the adventure… Hopefully next session… I am really looking forward to the full release of the game later this year! Though it looks like it ain’t going to be cheap! The “All-In” pre-order bundle is $275USD (+$50 shipping to Canada!?). I’m not pre-ordering for a number of reasons – I like my FLGS and try to support it whenever I can, the shipping (seriously, it’s apparently cheaper to ship to anywhere in Europe than it is to Canada!?), and there are a few things in the ALL-IN bundle that I’m just not interested in (why would I want a set of acrylic tokens to represent characters, enemies and NPCs when I have MINIATURES! The dice and soundtrack(?) and “deluxe collector’s box” I can also do without).


Saturday, 23 June 2018



ANOTHER crack at Harry Potter: Hogwart’s Battle  Uuuugggghhhh... getting so sick of this... We actually started with a few low powered villains so we tried to concentrate on building decks and trying to get rid of the Hoarcruxs... didn't work. Finnegan (playing Neville) just couldn't get healing cards when we needed them - when he did get them, no one needed them anymore because they'd been knocked out and just recovered with 10 health. I couldn't get lightning bolts... I had cards that would removed tokens from locations, but the only time I actually got them, the old location card had just been removed and there were no tokens on the new one... couldn't get any cards with dice on them... I picked up Arthur Weasley (gives all players two coins) just in time for the Hoarcux to come out that doesn't allow anyone to gain coins on other players turns (effectively making a six cost card USELESS!?)...



Worst. Game. Ever.... I think we only took out ONE villain (Peter Petigrew) and maybe two of the hoarcruxs...



Then we played a game of Dominion  which we haven’t done for a while. Once again the kids put together a themed set - Keira called it "Fancy Folk" it included: Butcher, Baker, and Candlestick Maker from Guilds, Fortune Teller from Cornucopia, Duchess, and Noble Brigand from Hinterlands, Chancellor and Woodcutter from the base game, and Baron and Duke from Intrigue. The Girl totally crushed it. She ended with 39 points. Amanda had 38 (so close!), I had 29 and Finnegan had 28… It was an interesting set to play with.



Finally, we played a few rounds of Bananagrams. I won the first round because apparently there is a rule where if you claim to have completed yours when there are less tiles than there are players left in the center (which normally ends the game), but have a misspelled word in your… whatever it’s called… your called a “rotten banana” and kicked out of the game… I think she’d tried to spell “mutt” with one “t”…?



The first round went pretty quickly se we played a second.




Again, Amanda probably COULD have won – she’d finished hers, but then realized one word was incomplete as she’d taken a letter from the end of it to put in the middle of another elsewhere in her bananagram(…? Is that what they’re called!?) upon realizing this she had to totally rejig most of it and I managed to finish mine up before she could…


Sunday 24 June 2018



Ugh... this fucking game... we burned through the first two location cards by the end of the second round and everyone had been stunned at least twice. Called it at the end of the fourth because we were onto the last location card, hadn't taken out a single hero and were drawing four Dark Arts cards per turn - because Belatrix Lestrange was out - and had been since the beginning.

There is just too much random chance in this game. I was starting to realize by the end of this that it's probably harder with more players - as there are a LOT of cards that assign damage to ALL players and each time a player is stunned a token goes on the location card - which draws the game closer to the end with the players losing. It would be interesting to try with just two and see how much better they actually do.

We lost so fast, Amanda managed to convince us to try it again…



It started off not too bad… the Basilisk sucks though.



Very quickly the market place was full of stuff I couldn’t buy… I only gained four cards in the entire game (Cedric Diggory, Confundus, Proteago, and the Marauders Map - and the last one I only gained on the second or third last turn and never really even got to use it...).



Sweet Jupiter! We FINALLY beat this fucking game... Hermione (played by The Girl) having Proteago(?)  really helped – the spell that allows you to cancel the effects of one villain for an ENTIRE ROUND. In fact, I think it really is the only way to possibly beat Voldemort. He just wrecks everything so fast otherwise.



Everyone was quite happy to finally win.



Their characters.



This was my last hand.

Keira's gone and bought the expansion, but I hope we can take a break from this for a while...

The game really needs some way of ditching cards from your deck and ditching cards from the market...

I would be curious to see how the game goes with less players, though. Not curious enough to actually play it again anytime soon… but maybe sometime.



Afterwards we played a quick game of Splendor. Amanda was up to her usual tricks – constantly going on about how she has no idea what she’s doing and questioning herself and each move and how poorly she’s doing and then…



“Ooops! I guess I won” (with 16 points). The Girl was almost there with 14. Finnegan just couldn’t get the jewels he wanted to pick up points – he had a LOT of cards at the end of the game – just not very many that gave points and Amanda had scooped the Nobles he’d been working towards. He ended the game with only 3 points!



I wasn’t too far off… 11 points. I forget what was out, but I feel like I was only a turn or two away from scoring 15…



Amanda wanted to play someCentury: Golem Edition, but the kids decided they’d had enough game playing and so she and I sat down to play a game together.



(apparently the kids had really just had enough of being crushed by mom and scurried off into Finnegan’s room to play Bananagrams!?)

I should say, tired of being crushed by their parents. Centruy: Golem, unlike Soplendor, just isn’t Amanda’s game (yet….)…



It’s my game (oh, Amanda bought it, it’s “hers” in the sense of who owns it, but so far I’ve been dominating the game for the last little bit). Won the first game with 68 points (Amanda had 47).

It was a quick game, though, so she decided we should play again before making supper…



That next one I won with 85… (though Amanda also improved her own score, gaining 63).



She was not impressed.

So… we played again…



86… (to Amanda’s 60)

One more game…



She actually ended this game (by collecting five cards)… but still lost as the total for my four was greater (68 to 65). She is closing the gap. Soon it will be just like Splendor, she’ll beat me once, and then I’ll never win another game of it…

Not today though…


Monday, 25 June 2018



Monday, after work, Amanda wanted to have another quick go at Century: Golem Edition. “just one game” she said, while supper was cooking.



We played one quick game. It was quick.



That’s the “are you fucking kidding me” look I get when I scooped the card she was working towards and it happens to be my fifth card ending the game…



Which I won… with 85 points… to her 50…

Apparently that one quick game was too quick, she demanded a rematch... also before supper...



She's catching up. Next game she'll probably win, and then I will never win again...



Honestly, she COULD have won this game if she'd been paying a bit closer attention. There was a card requiring five blue gems that gave 15 points she was working towards, but there was also one requiring four blue games that gave 12 points - but was in the +3 coin column (so, still worth 15 points, effectively) she could have gotten a turn before - that extra turn got me one last card for +8 points



76 – 73… Yeah, my days of dominating this game are drawing to a close…


Thursday, 28 June 2018

On Thursday I picked up a couple new games from Genius Games – Peptide: The Protein Building Game and Virulence: an Infectious Card Game. I like Genius games. They are fun, well thought out games – with the added bonus of having pretty strong sciency themes. I often wonder if the kids actually pick up on the science behind them – Cytosis, which we played at the beginning of the month, is basically a worker placement game – much like any other. It could easily be played without knowing ANY of the science behind it. (I place my thing on this spot and move this over to there and complete the conditions for this cars which gets me X points…). But when I mentioned I was going to pick up Peptide: The Protein Building Game, Finnegan actually said “oh, so it’s on a smaller scale then…?” recognizing that the game was focusing in on protein building which was just ONE of the things you could do in the cell in Cytosis! Educational gaming FTW!



We didn’t play Peptide, though. We ended up playing Virulence. Which is a really quick, fun game involving bidding and set collecting. You play “viruses” of varying virulence (cards from your hand) trying to infect a cell to build more “viral components” (cards that gain you either points at the end of the game or cards that give you an in-game benefit – or sometimes both…)



My hand and the mess of cards I’d collected at the end of the game. This was worth 54 points… The Girl, however, had 85! (even though she had -6 from having the least number of Spherical Envelope cards!)



Afterwards we played four rounds of Retro Loonacy. Originally, I said I’d play just one. I won that first round in less than a minute. So, I said I’d play another… I think Finnegan won that one, but it was also SUPER quick, so we played again.



Seriously, I think these were the fastest games of Loonacy we’ve ever played. In the end, we played four rounds – three of which were won without anyone drawing an extra card from the deck! I ended up winning two, as did Finnegan. The Girl was a little frustrated by this and ended up throwing cards at us – but she was smiling and laughing while doing so and so I guess it was all in good fun...?


Whew, that WAS a fair bit of gaming in the end… I had hoped to get in a few games of 40K this month – especially with Amanda and her Battle Sisters which STILL haven’t seen action (well, other than the ONE she used in Wrath & Glory). Next month, for SURE we’ll have to get some 40K in…

We also didn’t tick much off the 30x5 challenge board… I think there was only ONE game we played towards this (Dominion). But we were having fun, so…


Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

July… I do have some projects to work on and might not have as much time for hobbies. I would like to finish up at least the FIRST Knight… and finish off a platoon of Valhallans… and maybe play a few boardgames on our 30x5 list – how hard could it be to get in a few games of Dominion or Railways of the World or London…? Now that we’re done with Harry Potter (for the time being, at least) hopefully we can get started on one of the other campaign-type games we’d planned to play this year – Hero Realms or Mice & Mystics or Shadowrun: Crossfire.