MORE June Games (and... Other Stuff)

Another week... a few more games...


It LOOKS like we played a LOT of games on the 2nd, 9th, 10th, and 15th... but those were each ONE game of Blackstone Fortress - but I used FIVE expansions with each game we played and I try to always log plays with each item I used, that I have catalogued on Board Game Geek... (Otherwise it looks like I got a tonne of stuff I never use... well... I DO have a tonne of stuff that I never use - so I'd like to remind myself that I DO use SOME of it!?)


Monday, 8 June 2020

As I had mentioned in the Previous Post, Monday was to be our Blackstone Fortress Night going forward... but that didn't happen. I was still assembling furniture. I'd been working all day on the bookshelves and the LAST ONE was missing a piece... and rather than wait another 3-6 weeks for a replacement part to show up - all the while tripping over a partially assembled book shelf and piles of books that were to go ONE said bookshelf - I decided to manufacture a piece and just get it DONE. This took me well into the evening, so I decided to do a swap with Keira. On Tuesdays, she and Amanda are to watch an episode of Supernatural together... so the two of them watched an episode (or... two...? maybe three...?) while I finished the book shelf...

In the afternoon I'd gone out to get groceries and popped on by the Dragon's Den to pick up Engine War - as it had finally come in!


Tuesday, 9 June 2020

In the afternoon Amanda and I went for a bike ride. As part of this whole new schedule of things, she had been planning to get up and go for a half hour ride to start off her day - to sort of simulate/make up for the riding she was no longer doing, now that she's working at home. It didn't happen at all on Monday (because we were up a bit late on Sunday). Tuesday we didn't get out until noon - Oh, she'd started her work for the day, but decided to take a break at noon and go for a bike ride for a bit of a break (actually, in the new schedule, she's supposed to take a break at noon anyway - in addition to the morning ride - and do some sort of movement yoga, a walk, a ride, and impromptu dance party, whatever, just something to get her up from the desk and moving around - her set up here at home is not nearly so... ergonomic... as her office on campus... and she's starting to feel the effects of just sitting at our home computer all day!)

As we neared the end of our short loop, I peeled off and went for a bit of a longer ride, heading BACK to the Dragon's Den - this time to pick up Necromunda House of Chains - which had FINALLY been restocked! Apparently it had arrived just minutes after I'd left the day before!


In the evening...



We started on a NEW QUEST in Blackstone Fortress - The Dreaded Ambull!



The game went a little late, so we kind of paused it - at a bit of a cliffhanger - and left it set up on the table to finish the following day.


Wednesday, 10 June 2020 

Wednesday morning we DID get out for a ride.



Despite the sun, it was a bit chilly (and has been for the last few days!)



WE rode down to the South Bridge and across.



Back through Gabriel Dumont Park.

As we got to the Traffic Bridge, I peeled off and went for a longer ride - No, not to the Dragon's Den again (though I was briefly thinking I might later in the day... at this time, however, it was a few hours before it would have even been open!). I just wend for a bit of a longer ride while Amanda went home to start her work for the day.



Saw lots of goslings in the park downtown by the Vimy Memorial.



And a Blue Jay on a wire.

Later in the evening we continued with the game of Blackstone Fortress we'd started the evening before...

Starting with the encounter with Obsidious Mallex...



Then a battle with the Ambull itself!!!

More on this game here:

The Dreaded Ambull


Friday, 12 June 2020



Out for another morning ride with Amanda. We did the 8Km loop to the south bridge again and she tuned back when we crossed back over at the Traffic Bridge. I did another 37Km to the North Bridge, and then back down to the South Bridge again... and then another 10Km getting groceries.

In the evening, it was "Family Game Night"



Keira's choice for the evening: Dominion. We played one round. 30 minutes, tops... Ah, well... better than nothing.



We played with the Base Game and Intrigue and used a set of cards called "Underlings". I basically just bought Stewards and used them to buy gold or trash Estates and Copper and when I had enough gold I just started buying Provinces. But I couldn't buy them FAST ENOUGH! Should have picked up a Festival or two...



Amanda and I decided to play something else. We'd had fun playing hanging Gardens last week, so we tried that again, except with just the two of us.



Wow... when there is just TWO playing you get a LOT more tiles - and points. Amanda got super excited and, upon tallying up declared she did "really good" and had 93 points... (I had 118).


Saturday, 13 June 2020

Finnegan ran his D&D game.

I ran my Wrath & Glory game. Three showed up, so their Characters arrived in the Xoxigar system and met with a high ranking Adeptus Arbites official on Xoxigar Tertium, who informed them of some potential Heresy going on! The investigation began.

Totally forgot to do a screen shot of the game... AGAIN!


Sunday, 14 June 2020



Kind of rained all day. I spent a lot of the day just painting and organizing... but I did dig out the cello (after not playing for 6 months) and retensioned the strings and tried to learn a new tune with Keira. She's also not played for months. But I thought maybe I'd try and get her to play with me once or twice a week through the summer - just to keep in practice. I probably won't start taking lessons again any time soon, but Keira is starting high school in the fall and has signed up for band. We met the band instructor in the spring and she seemed pretty excited at the prospect of having a violinist join.

The tune we were figuring out were the first few bars of a string arrangement of Rage Against the Machine's Killing in the Name Of. It's been stuck in my head a lot lately. It is both despairing and infuriating that it is STILL so utterly relevant almost 30 years after it came out!?


Monday, 15 June 2020



Last week Amanda got an email from work saying they could make arrangements to go in and pick up certain stuff to take home for work... Seems the university is planning on keeping their employees working at home for the next little bit! So Monday morning we rolled over there to pick up a few things.



Afterwards I went out for a ride on my own... just along the paved trails up and down the river.



It had been TOTALLY sunny in the early morning when we first went out. but it rained the whole time I was out alone....

Later in the afternoon the sun came out - which was nice, because I had to head out and pick up groceries!




In the evening Amanda and I finished The Dreaded Ambull and conquered the Lair of the Beast! the Explorers successfully stole away with 3 priceless Ambull eggs!

I'll do a full report on those escapades in the next few days....


Coming Soon to Tim's Miniature Wargaming Blog:

The epic conclusion to The Dreaded Ambull: The Lair of the Beast!

New distractions on the workbench.

Also started working again on a few posts about necromunda gangs I started AGES ago!?

July Games (Part Two)

(You can find Part One HERE)

This past week I've has this weird feeling like it's August already for some reason...? I've been looking at expiry dates on food items in the fridge and wondering why we have stuff that expired last month!? It's not August (at least not while I'm writing this, it more than likely WILL be when you actually READ this). It's the end of July and here are the games we played in the second half of the month.

Monday, 16 July 2018

Monday after work Amanda we all played a quick game of Century: Golem Edition. I think after finally winning on Friday she wanted to see if she could still beat me…

 

She totally didn’t… I scored 78… more than 20 points ahead of everyone else…



Saturday, 21 July 2018

We didn’t play any more games all week. I’m not sure why. I guess the kids spent a couple days hanging out with my folks. Other days we went on bike rides. Amanda was running her Kids Yoga Dance camp for kids. Everyone we pretty tired in the evenings and probably just wanted to hide in the basement and watch TV or movies…

Saturday evening I finallygot everyone to play a game of Warhammer 40000 (8thEdition). This was Amanda first game with her Sisters of Battle!



Sunday, 22 July 2018

On Sunday, I headed over to Brent’s for our semi-annual game of Angola with John and Kurtis. We’ve played in July and December for the last two years. Despite randomly determining who plays which faction Every Single Time Brent and I have ended up with the FAPLA and the MPLA (though we’ve each played both factions twice. John and Kurtis. This time I was MPLA. I’m not sure the government forces have EVER won…

The end of things… Government forces losing again with the FNLA controlling Luanda (for the second time this game!)


Monday, 23 July 2018

Monday evening we finally got in a game with Leanne and her son Taotao – who I’ve been trying to get together with for some time! We settled on playing Lords of Waterdeep

Amanda played The Knights of the Sheild secretly controlled by Larisa Neathal, I played the Grey Hands controlled by Mirt the Moneylender, Finnegan played the Res Sashes secretly controlled by Simnerza Sulphontis, The Girl played the City Guard who were controlled by Caladorn Cassalanter, Leanne played the silver Stars controlled by Rianne Byndraeth, and Taotao played the Harpers controlled by Halaster Blackstar III. It was Leanne and Taotao’s first time playing the game. Considering that Taotao did AMAZINGLY well scoring 111points, he was only beaten by Amanda who managed to score 112! We actually only got to play 7 or the 8 rounds and, given one more round, I probably would have finished upa few more adventure/goals I’d been working on and given them a run for their money… I probably won’t have won, but it would have been a bit closer…

Tomorrow they’re supposed to be coming back to play again…


Wednesday, 25 July 2018

Wednesday after work Amanda suggested we play a game and we eventualy decided on Marvel Legendary. We played with Daredevil, Punisher, Black Car, Moon Knight, and Spiderman. We battled against the King Pin this time and his scheme was an Organized Crime Wave, which kind of makes sense. Helping him out were Magia Goons, The Hand Ninjas, Streets of New York, Emissaries of Evil, Sinister Six and Spider Foes. IN the end We won... I punched the King Pin twice. His master strikes weren't too bad, but the cards revealed when you punched him were all bad...


Friday, 27 July 2018

Friday evening my friend Bruce came over to play a game and we settled on Agricola.

It was his first time playing. Amanda totally cleaned up, as usual, building a massive sprawling stone mansion and a huge family to take care of it all while doing just about every occupation she could… other than… y’know… FARMING!?

I didn’t do TOO bad. I came in second and was relatively please to have finally gotten a farm with some serious… y’know… FARMING going on! My biggest complaint about this game is that it’s too easy to have animals and too hard to actually plough fields and get stuff sown in them!


Saturday, 28 July 2018

We didn’t play games on Saturday…

 

But I did go and buy a BUNCH of stuff for Kill Team!! Expaect game reports in the not-too-distant future!


Sunday 29 July 2018

Sunday Kurtis and Shannon came over for an afternoon and evening of gaming. We told the kids they were welcome to join us... but they were busy doing other stuff.

We started off with Fresco. I won the game in the raffle at ToonCon last year and hadn’t had an opportunity to play it yet. There are bunch of games I’ve picked up over the last year that I haven’t had an opportunity to play yet and I’ve tried to stack them in a PILE OF SHAME in the living room and was hoping to work through them this month… or maybe in August… Anyway, they spotted it there and said they’ve played it before so we had a go at it.

It was fun enough. It’s a keeper – I’d play it again.

I just realized there are, like, 9 expansions for this!? At least one was included in the box I have. Not sure if I'll ever play this enough to justify running out and getting any of the others...

Next we played Century: Eastern Wonders. The second in the Century series that Plan B games is to release over three years (the first being Century: Spice Road that came out last year). I find it's much like Spice Road or Golem. You're still trying to collect cubes of spices, convert them to other sets of cubes to eventually trade in for victory tiles which give you points. Instead of drafting cards from a market, you are setting up trading posts on islands that your little boat sails to. Unlike Spice Road and Golem where there is only one of each card and only one person can get it, anyone can build a trading post on each island and then use it to convert their sets of cubes. It just costs more to build a trading post if there are already posts on the island. Also by building posts on a diverse set of islands (each has a different symbol on them) you can gain the bonuses - either straight points or in-game bonuses like faster ships or bigger holds, etc.

Eastern Wonders is okay I guess. I really like Century: Spice Road and Century: Golem Edition. Eastern Wonders felt, to me, like an attempt to add a layer of complexity to a game that is beautiful in its simplicity…? I’d play it again, but I won’t be rushing out to by this one…

My final score: 58 – dead last. I thought I’d been doing pretty good off the start I was the first to pick up a victory tile (the 20!?) and I was the first to empty a vertical row on my card and gain a bonus for my ship (the extra move). I don’t know where it all came apart…? One more turn and I’ve have picked up a fifth victory tile – for another 13 points, but that still wouldn’t have put me in the lead…? Ah well…

I took a break to make supper and the rest played a quick game of Century: Golem Edition.

I think Kurtis won this one as well…?

After supper, The Girl joined us and got us to play a game of Just Desserts (it’s her game and she loves it and just can’t get people to play it with her enough). I don’t mind it, it’s usually quick and it’s simple enough… We completely exhausted the Guest Deck, which I don’t think I’ve ever seen happen before. Amanda won.

After Just Desserts Shannon had to leave because she had to get up waaaaaaaay too early…

So, the four of us played Splendor – with Cities of Splendor! The Girl FINALLY won a game of this! (She’s been lamenting for some time that she NEVER wins this game…)

I wasn’t even close. I was all set up so that in the next two turns I would have picked up two cards worth another 7 points. (one requiring the 7 black and another requiring the six red…). But I still would have needed one more green card or two more points… Ah well… it was fun.


Tuesday, 31 July 2018

the kids snuck in two more games this afternoon...

First, at The Girl's suggestion, we played a game of Hanging Gardens - one of our older games that I still like playing. Simple pattern making/set collection. I never don't enjoy playing this game.

thought I was doing pretty good for myself - got a few complete sets - scored FIFTY-THREE POINTS! Not bad at all...

Until this monkey went and counted up his points and got FIFTY FOUR!!! It was all those walls and the Guard that really added up. (He said he was building it to keep the Egyptians out!)

Afterwards Finnegan put together a thematic set of Dominion cards for us to play with. He called it "Market Day". I feel like we've played a different thematic set that he also called "market day" , but no matter. This set included Village, Market, and Workshop from the base game, Trader, Spice Merchant, and Haggler from Hinterlands, Horse Traders and Harvest - Cornucopia and Plaza and Herald from Guilds. Not a bad little set. Trader got me scores of silvers. I tried to trash coppers with Spice Merchants, but always ended up with silvers in my hands... haggler is awesome - should have picked one up earlier. Horse Traders was pretty weak considering the others in this set - I didn't pick up any. I don't think anyone picked up a Harvest...


I though I was doing pretty good, in the end, with all those Provinces... Then Finnegan counted up his stuff. He had less provinces, but a PILE of Duchies and ended up with 38, I had 34, The Girl had 32

Super close game in the end - unlike the last time we played where The Girl utterly thrashed us! (I think she had 39 and I had, like, 18...!?)


I guess the month isn't entirely over as I post this, but Finnegan has D&D tonight and Amanda, The Girl and I are watching a movie (or two) while I get some painting done... so I think that's it for our gaming...


The Challenge Board

We only ticked a few more games off the challenge board this month... Dominion, Legendary and Lords of Waterdeep, I think... 

In addition to working on the Pile of Shame (see below) I'm planning to knock a few more of these off through August - go for some of the "low-hanging fruit" - games that we (mostly) know the rules for and can play in less than two hours. Surely we can do a few of those each week...?

If we do a September Game-A-Day Challenge again, that will hopefully get us caught up as well.


Plans for August

The Pile of Shame

As I mentioned earlier, I've been piling up a few of the games I've acquired over the last year or so and still haven't played in the living room. My plan it to leave them there until I actually get around to playing them.

Okay, Space Hulk isn't on the pile, because that's actually Finnegan's game... and Kill Team, while technically a game I've bought in the last year and haven't played yet, I JUST bought and I KNOW I'm going to play a lot of it... soon...


Coming Soon to Tim's Miniature Wargaming Blog:

I am STILL working on the Terminators for Space Hulk. There's so much detail on them. There have been a few evenings I sat down to paint and just felt like I didn't have enough focus or patience or something to paint that kind of detail, so I ended up assembling and priming other things - a few minis, some of the terrain from Kill Team... I DO still hope to finish off those Terminators sometime this week BEFORE I get painting anything else!!!

Hopefully in the next week or so you'll start seeing Kill Team and Space Hulk miniatures and game reports.

Oh and Finnegan finally finished off the Gorkanaut he started in December... perhaps I'll post a picture of that. Or Maybe I'll wait until we get it on the table for a game and post a picture of THAT! Not sure what I'm going to throw up against it. Power-Level-wise it's more than a Leman Russ tank, but less than two... and less than a Shadowsword or Knight - not even CLOSE to the Warhound.... He should have got a STOMPA! Maybe Gorkanaut plus Meganobs versus a Leman Russ platoon...?

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.