February Games... and stuff... (Part One)

Well... we are getting in a lot more games this month! (Compared to January). So much so, that I thought I might break this month's update into two! 

The first week of February I picked up a few early birthday presents for myself.... 

My FLGS (Dragon's Den Games) had like FIVE of each of these old Nightvault Warbands (which are actually the two warbands that were originally included in SHADESPIRE core set, reboxed as individual warbands for Nightvault?) and somehow I talked them into giving me a killer deal on them!!! I am thinking I will totally run this for ToonCon at SOME point...  when there IS a ToonCon again... (or host a WArhammer Underworlds weekend campaign... or BOTH!) but there is ZERO chance I'm going to bring Morgwaeth's Blade-Coven or Skaeth’s Wild Hunt or any of these spindly, fragile warbands to a learn-to-play game and have some ham-handed brute break my $50 warband... (like they did my Blackstone Fortress figures!). So, I got some super cheap ,older ones that are SUPER CHUNKY and SOLID to use as loaner warbands! 

Because I "think ahead" like that... 

(Like a moron)... 

This falls under: "It seemed like a good idea at the time"... 

I also picked up Champions of Dreadfane and Khagra's Ravagers and some other stuff. I picked up the Castigators because the Champions of Dreadfane included a group of Sequitors - and both are part of the Stormcast Eternals Sacrosanct Chamber and could be used together in a Warcry warband... which reminds me... missing from this picture is the Warcry Bringers of Death Book - the last of the four Grand Alliance books for Warcry - now I have them all! MWA-HA-HA-Ha-Ha-ha-ha-haaaaaaaaaaaaaaa...

This kind of threw a wrench into the original painting plan for February... Despite Myari's Purifier's being partly painted... I kind of wanted to PAINT ALL THESE before getting back to them!? 

We tidied up a little corner of the upstairs the first week of February - as Amanda was doing a thing for an online conference the UofS was hosting, and she didn't want to look like she was presenting from a trash heap. While it was all tidied up, I thought I'd take a little "Shelfie". This is my Graphic Novel book shelf. Yep. Those are all comics. I've kind of run out of space, though... not sure if it's time to cull the collection.. or BUILD MORE SHELVES!? 

All of the history and game books are mostly in boxes and will go on shelves in the basement Game Room... y'know... whenever that gets finished... 

Friday, 5 February 2021

Amanda agreed to play board games with me on Friday evenings - and agreed to try and play five games of Kingdom Builder and London over the next two months. The first Friday of the month (the 5th), we played BOTH!

We started with Kingdom Builder and somehow convinced Finnegan to join us!

We were playing with Hermits, Lords, and Discoverers. 

I ended the game - running out of settlements first. 

But Finnegan (black) just crushed it!

after that, Amanda and I played London. I like London. I like every Martin Wallace game I've played - which certainly isn't ALL of them... but I have played a few. 

I did win this one... but I had a feeling that after a few more games, Amanda will figure it out, and i'd never win again! 

We also started watching The Expanse, Season Five on that Friday. 

Saturday, 6 February 2021

Saturday we continued the Harnworld adventure Chris had started the week before, at the end of January. Our group got into a fight. I bashed a guys head in with my club. That was about it. 

(and then, another episode of The Expanse) 

Sunday, 7 February 2021

Finnegan also agreed to play Warcry or Warhammer Underworlds on Sunday evenings with me through the rest of Q1. I thought we should start with Warhammer Underworlds, while it was still, relatively fresh in our heads... 

Finnegan decided he wanted to swithc things up and try out Morgwaeth's Blade-Coven... and utterly destroyed the Dread Pageant with them! A Full report of the game (and loads more pictures!) can be found here:

Warhammer Underworlds: Direchasm - Game Two

Friday, 12 February 2021

Had another board game evening on Friday...

That's Amanda's Look of Serious Concentration. 

We started with Kingdom builder - with played with Merchants, Citizens, and Workers victory cards and the Oracle, Barn, Paddock, and Farm boards. I finished, but Amanda totally won - largely because she did a good job of keeping ALL of her settlements as one big winding line and surrounded a few locations.

It went quicker - but we were just playing with two. 

Afterwards we played London again, as well. This went a bit quicker - mostly because we're remembering more now. Amanda seems to have groked it... She had this crazy engine going where she all these cards that didn't flip and gave her PILES of money and points each turn - and we each had ten Burroughs, so poverty wasn't a concern - and she just sat there and did the Run City action and amassed piles and piles of cash and points. 

Like ALL the cash. By the end we'd run out of the £5 coins. You score 1 point per three £ at the end of the game... she scored 45 points!? So over £135... !? I'm lucky to end the game with £13 (though I think I ended THIS game with about £20. She's ended the game without ANY money and uable to pay off loans (-7 VP per loan) 

It's WAY easier to do well in the game with only two players. Three or four makes it MUCH more competitive and cutthroat - and HARD. 

Saturday, 13 February 2021

Sometimes... Amanda just gets a bee in her bonnet. 

Today, that be was Kingdom Builder. 

I'm not sure if it was just that she had so much fun playing it the night before...? Or if it was that she wasn't sure how she ended up winning and wanted to see if she could do it again. Regardless, just after lunch she asked if I wanted to play another game, and I said "Sure!"

WE ended up playing on the Tower, Harbour, Barn, and Oracle boards with the Citizens, Hermits, and Discoverers victory cards... and I ended up winning... 53-33... 

So she said, let's do it again... 

In the next game we played with the Oracle, Farm, Barn, and Oasis boards, with the Lords, Merchants and Knights victory cards... and I won that one, 74-67. She scored higher and tightened the gap. 

She said "Best two out of three?" and i said "I've already won two...!?" and she said "you know what I mean - I want to see if I can win one". I said "okay..."

I didn't get a picture of Game Three.  We played with the Paddock, Harbour, Oasis and Barn boards, and the Hermits, Knights, and Merchants victory cards.... and I won that one 75-32!?

Then she had a zoom-quiz-get-together-thingie with her folks and relatives in England, who are all in LOCKDOWN! 

Afterwards, she asked if I was up for another game... and I asked if SHE was up for another game and she said YES!!! (Bee + Bonnet)

We played with the Paddocks, Oasis, Tower, and Oracle boards, and the Merchants, Lords, and Hermits victory cards.... and... um.... 89-54... 

"ONE MORE?! Before your game?!"

"why not..."

This final game with played with all the boards we didn't use in the previous game (so, Harbour, Tavern, Farm, and Barn) and Citizens, Knights, and Workers. And AMANDA WON! 80-67!? WOOO!

(Okay, at that point, I ended up helping her with a LOT of her moves... but whatevs... fun was had!)

So... that was FIVE games of Kingdom Builder in ONE DAY - I can check THAT off my Quarterly 5x5 challenge list! 

Later in the evening... 

We were scheduled to play one more game of Harnworld this week... but Chris wasn't feeling up to it... so we got together for a chat on Discord and I'd thought maybe we'd start making characters, or at least talking about AGe of Sigmar: Soulbound... but we didn't really get to that. Next week. For SURES.

Sunday, 14 February 2021

Because we are gluttons for punishment, Amanda suggested ONE MORE game of Kingdom Builder... 

We played with the Barn, Farm, Paddock and Oracle boards, with the Knights, Hermits, Citizens victory cards. 

AND Amanda totally won this one - without even any help from me!

Well... not much.... She did finally pick up on how to do things a little better and played a pretty solid game. Woo! 

later, just befoer supper, finnegan and i got in a game of Warhammer Underworlds: Direchasm. Tried out the new Khorne Bloodreavers warband. It was a pretty one-sided slaughter... 

You can see more pictures and read the complete Game Report here:

Warhammer Underworlds: Direchasm - Game Three

Monday, 15 February 2021

the 15th was the Family Day long weekend in Saskatchewan and still crazy-cold out. It has been a tradition that we play games on Family Day for the last few year. The kids are less interested in playing games this year, but I did manage to talk Amanda into giving Warhammer Underworlds a try... 

She played Morgwaeth's Blade-Coven and I played the Dread Pageant. 

Morgwaeth's Remains unbeaten! 

Teh Game took a little longer, having to explain and reexplain everything to Amanda. She did say she'd play again and expected it would take less time as she was finally, at the end of the game, starting to cotton on to what was going on. 

There will be a full game report (with lots more pictures) in the next day or so! 

Wow... what a month so far! Lots of games - and looking forward to lots more! Amanda is committed to playing boardgames every Friday evening (and fitting in a few more here and there). Finnegan is still keen to play Warhammer Underworlds (or Warcry on Sunday evenings). I'll be starting up Age of Sigmar: Soulbound next Saturday - and we have an EXTRA session planned for my birthday the following Thursday - as well as a few games with the family in the afternoon! Stay tuned! 

So... January...

I didn't do a lot of game playing in January... 

 

Kicked off the year with the lad's 17th birthday. (Can I still call him "The Lad" at this point?)

For his birthday he ran a one-shot Dungeon Crawl Classics adventure for a mix of friends from his Wednesday and Saturday D&D groups. It's weird, HE's the most social of any of us these days - he runs TWO D&D games a week and plays in two biweekly games - another D&D game and a Four Against Darknesss game.

Later in teh week, Finnegan was nice enough to try out Warcry with me. There is a full report of the game here:

Warcry - The Skaven's Prize

On Saturday, the 9th, Chris walked us through making characters for Harnworld (3rd Ed). It was super old school - the process of MAKING a character was really fun. Lots of nostalgic feels. Everything rolled up randomly - not a lot of choices - but it's fun to see the character develop. It's a game of it's own. stuff it rolled up, but then you have to fit it together... "Well... what does THAT mean...?" 

My character ended up being ugly, slow-witted, with an irritating voice... He's much stronger then average, but has the lowest possible stamina. The best thing he can do is hit stuff with his club. If he hits you with a club, he'd probably going to kill you... if he doesn't, though, you're probably be safe, because he'll likely be winded from the effort!? He was born a slave to a slave shepardess fourth of five children and an unrecognized bastard. His dad was known - a KNIGHT of a Questing order!? So my character ended up being a runaway slave who turned to thieving in the Big City.  

Super fun to put together... I'm not sure how PLAYABLE he will be. It was a HUGE nostalgia trip to make a character like this. I mean, who among us RPGers of the 80s didn't spend WAY MORE time making characters for games they'd never play than actually PLAYING the games!? It was fun rolling stuff up randomly and then making up the story behind all those dice rolls. An exercise in creativity within certain parameters. 

Unfortunately Chris was experiencing some work turmoil this month and wasn't able to actually RUN the game until the end of the month. 

One of the Saturdays Jon and I met up and had a bit of a Paint and Chat on Saturday evening. 

On the 30th we finally did get to play. We started in Rethem and had to take a message to... some other country...? Hijinks ensued. 

While we were playing I did a quick sketch of the three characters. from left to right is Denny the Dirk (my theif), Magnus Falk (Jon's Scribe), and Caadern the Ivinian (Christian's Viking mercenary) 

on the 31st Finnegan tried out Warhammer Underworlds with me. There is a brief report and review of the game here:

Warhammer Underworlds: Direchasm - First Game

In other news... 

I did get painting again! Like, miniatures!

I picked up WArhammer AGe of Sigmar: Soulbound and have been reading through it and planning to run it when Chris is finished with the Harnworld adventure. 

There has been SOME work on the basement... 

This is what the game room was looking like last summer. 

Here is what it it looking like now. It's hard to see in the two pictures, but in the one above this one, the wall is covered with some awful textured stipple and below, it is (mostly gone) from endless scraping and layers and layers of drywall mud... ugh... 

Should be finished with the mudding and sanding this week and by the weekend should, in theory, be painting walls. Next week, I'm to be cleaning up the floors and then starting to move stuff back in to have a useable game room... which will be handy if... y'know... The Plague ever ends... 

As for the GAME PLAN... Well... 

Games

I really done much towards the 5x5 Challenge... but If I had to select five games that I want to play five times over the remaining two months of 2021-Q1 I think they will be

• Warhammer: Age of Sigmar: Soulbound
• Warcy
• Warhammer Underworlds
• Carcassonne
• Some Other Board Game

This can happen... If I could get some buy in and make Friday Board Game Night and alternate between playing Carcassonne and... Other Board Game... with Amanda, we'd get through 10 in the next 2 months. Additionally, if Sunday because Miniature Night and I could get Finnegan (or Amanda) to play Warcry or WArhammer Underworlds, we'd easily get through those. I think Chris said we'd likely only play one or two more session of HarnWorld, so by mid-February we'll hopefully be starting Soulbound and playing that MOST Saturdays... for a bit, at least... 

Painting

I did get three WArhammer Underworlds warbands finished in January - two for John, one for me, plus a smattering of other things - mostly to get Warcry Warbands together. 

In February... There are TOO MANY THINGS that I WANT to do that just aren't all going to get done... I WANT to paint FOUR more WArhammer Underworlds warbands (Lumineth, Grymwatch, Beastmen, Sylvaneth) AND a Warcry Warband (cultists - that I will call "Chaos Marauders") AND a pile more stuff for John (20 Frostgrave minis) AND the last of the Wrath & Rapture stuff (Infernal Enrapturess, 3 Fiends of Slaanesh, 3 Bloodcrushers)... Except THAT alone is at least two months of work -at the pace I'M going these days... 

And then there are all the other things I'd like to do but even I'm realizing are unrealistic to consider this month... or quarter... I have minaitures sorted out for at least four or five MORE Warcry Warbands - Old Emprie troops to make a Cities of Sigmar Warband. Enough Dark Elves to make TWO warbands... that... are also "Cities of Sigmar" warbands...? Piles of Witch Aelves...  A bunch of Tzeentch and Khorne things from Finnegan's Warhammer Quest games that could be made into Warcry Warbands... and then all the Daemons of Slaanesh and Daughters of Khaine in boxes, squirrelled away from the last two Boxing Days for doing "when the basement is done"... 

AND THEN there are all the ohter things weighing on me... 40K stuff - Like Warhammer Quest: Blackstone Fortress stuff (the rest of the stuff from Escalation (plus EXTRA cultists), No Respite, and Ascension... AND the Chaos Space Marine force I'd started last year... and ALL THE OTHER 40K armies that are partly finished (Tallarn, VAlhallans, a few Catachans, Eldar, etc...)... AND Necromunda gangs... 

AND THEN there are MOAR THINGS I want to GET!? Like MOAR Warhammer Underworlds warbands - the Champions of Dreadfane.... Kharga's Ravagers (coming out this weekend)... The new Hedonites (no release day yet... but soonish...). The new Warhammer Quest game (back to the Mortal Realms for this one !)...

Aye-yi-yi!