STILL MORE June Games (and... Other Stuff)

One week left in June - and, indeed, in 2020-Q2! Guess I better look back at my Q2 plans and see if there are any games I need to quickly play in this last week to finish up any goals! (And maybe start making plans for Q3!

Tuesday, 16 June 2020



Another morning ride with Amanda!

For anyone interested in knowing a bit more about the lovely lady in so many of these photos, the union that Amanda is a member of recently did an article about her:

ASPA Member Highlight – Amanda Plante

(and though they didn't give me any credit, I took half the photos in that article!?)



She did the 8Km loop to the south bridge... and then I carried on for a bit of a longer ride to the North Bridge.



Just to give you a sense of where that is... the lower loop that I did with Amanda was about 8Km. I did about 40Km. It had been raining the last few days and so I decided to stay (mostly) on paved tails within the city.



Some new signage I noticed... presumably people were seeing the sign and just stopping in the middle of the road to look and see if they could spot some... the new addition to the signage leaves a bit of a mixed message, though... I mean.... are automobiles supposed to just HIT any wildlife that cross this road now? Because...  NO STOPPING!?



Some more new way finding signage along the trail, which is really nice. In fact reading the sign I saw that there was something labelled on the legend as "Meewasin Mowed Trails" through the Northwest swale. So I thought I'd check this out... If it was grassed it might, at least, not be muddy like a dirt trail would be.



They WERE, in fact, really nice to ride. And, unlike the grassy areas of Chief Whitecap park, not nearly so bumpy as I'd imagined.



Spotted this colourful critter when I stopped to adjust my jacket - which was strapped to my seat bag and had come loose and started rubbing on my tire.



Trail through the swale.



It was super quite out there - despite some very busy roadways surrounding it on all sides!



MURDER!!!



A lovely ride.



The forecast for the week was looking rather daunting, so I thought today was a good day to get a longer ride in - as I might not be able to - at least without getting soaked - for the rest of the week. 

In the evening...



Finnegan was playing in his semi-monthly D&D game that he PLAYS in (the other two games he's the DM)



While he was doing that Keira actually suggested WE play a game and said she'd like to play Ingenious!



I don't LOVE the game... but it's been a while, so I figured "why not?"

I lost.

Like, by a lot...

 

Afterwards, Amanda and I played game of Azul.

I lost that one, too.

Also by a LOT!

I don't mind playing it, though, because it has pretty tiles. and it's fun.


Wednesday, 17 June 2020



Wednesday is Work-In-Progress Wednesday at the Hunters of the Warp (local 40K group) so I took pics of the desk. I like W-I-P Wednesday. It gives me an excuse to tidy up the desk a bit and take a look at what I'm doing and wonder what the hell I'm doing!?

Yeah... this is "tidy"...



I've posted pictures of the completed Thunderbolts and XV86 Battlesuit, so I won't post those... but there is a lot of Chaos (like, miniatures) still on the desk, lurking behind them - Emperor's Children Space Marines and Cultists for Blackstone Fortress!



The whole work area needs a bit of a tidy-up!

I didn't really leave the house on Wednesday - it was pouring rain all day...


Friday, 19 June 2020

Out and about again - went for two rides. One with Amanda in the morning - short loop to the south bridge and then up to broadway, where I left her and she went to the dentist.



While on that ride I spotted this bird - at first I thought it might be heron... but I'm not so sure now...? Any ideas?



Also spotted a pair of Pelicans - which are pretty common along the river, but usually they're up by the weir - rarely see them this south.



Almost as soon as I got home, I was heading out again with Keira to make our first trip to the library in, like, for-EVAR!? I gotta tell you she was SO EXCITED!! The library withdraws has been the hardest thing for her in the whole pandemic!



More fuzzy goslings downtown..



As Friday evening is now "Family Game Night" we sat down to play "Railways of North America" (which is really Railways of CANADA!?)



Keira and I TIED for first with 82 points each! But she had $82000 and I only had $74000.... so... she won... so close!


Saturday, 20 June 2020

In the morning I picked up Warhammer Quest Blackstone Fortress: Dark Alliance and the new Psychic Awakening book - War of the Spider (and... um... the new Fabius Bile miniature...)

In the afternoon Finnegan ran his D&D game...



And in the evening I ran Wrath & Glory. We started out on Roll20... but while I could see and hear everyone... and they could all see and hear me... no one else could see or hear each other!? We reset and then woody and I could see and hear each other and Jonathan and Chris could see and hear each other... but no one else... Kept trying to restart and reset and screw around with things, but nothing seemed to work... so we set up a Webex meeting in one window and kept roll20 open in the other to use the character sheets and dice rolling app and the map I'd uploaded!

Once we got things sorted out we all had a pretty great time. Some investigating happened. There was a stake out. There was a brief combat with some servitor body-snatchers. They broke into the building they suspect the baddies are working out of.


Monday, 22 June 2020

Monday is Blackstone Fortress night! But it also kind of ended up being Work Late Night and Make Pie Night and so we got started a little late...



We kicked off the new quest this evening - the Quest for the Ritual Chamber - which was included in the Traitor Command expansion. So we really only got through ONE Exploration card - and AMBUSH! And then we called it a night. Looking forward at the things coming up this week, I put it all away until next Monday. Seems like I spent more time setting it up and putting it all away than playing... which was a bit of a let down...

Didn't even get to see the Traitor Commissar or Chaos Ogryn.... or gain any of the dataslates we are required to collect up (like "Clues" or "Ambul Spoor" in the previous quests) to find our way to the Ritual Chamber... ah well...


Coming Soon to Tim's Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Not sure if I'm going to write up this evening's game as a game report... it was pretty short... maybe I will...

Sometime this week Will be a bit of a look back at 2020-Q2 and some planning for Q3

Painting...? More Blackstone Fortress stuff? Excalation Explorers or Cultists? the Zoat from Dark Alliance!? or maybe the Ork Dakkajets from Aeronautica Imperialis? Or FABIUS BILE!!!?

September Challenge – Part Two

30 Games in 30 Days – Week Two(-ish)

Day Nine – Friday, 9 September 2016 – Dominion

The game we played used only cards from Hinterlands and Conrnucopia (well and the victory cards and treasure from the base set). It was fun. Used some cards we hadn’t used before. Some of them were nasty.

Later in the evening Amanda and I played 5e D&D Primeval Thule run by my friend Bruce.

Day Ten – Saturday, 10 September 2016 – Forbidden Island

A few weeks back The Girl picked up a copy of Forbidden Island and we finally got around to playing it this evening. Originally we’d planned for her to run a Shadowrun game, but we just got too busy during the day trying to get toehr stuff dune and didn’t end up having time. We promised we would play on Sunday…

Day Eleven – Sunday, 11 September 2016 – Shadowrun

Before the kids dance class we sat down and went through how the game worked out what characters we were playing and how the basics of the game worked… but that’s about all we got to doing. We did get to play after supper for a bit. 

Day Twelve – Monday, 12 September 2016 – Ingenious

Monday turned out to be pretty busy – but we got in a quick game of Ingenious just after lunch!

Day Thirteen – Tuesday, 13 September 2016 – Pandemic

Tuesday we played Pandemic. It started off okay, but then…

It looks pretty bad, but we actually won in the end – we were down to only three cubes left in the supply – but The Girl was playing the Quarentine Specialist and was sitting at Atlanta so she shot over to Riyadh (where I think that lab was) with a shuttle and just sat down in the middle of it until The Boy (The Medic) could get over there and mop things up!

It was a weird game. I think there was only ONE red cube on the table the whole game - which you would think would mean well less stuff to deal with - but not so! With no red cubes coming out it just meant that MORE of ALL THE OTHERS were constantly coming out! 

Day Fourteen – Wednesday, 14 September 2016 – Legendary

Quick game against Mysterio who was storming the Daily Bugle. The Boy always seemed to snap up all the Spidey cards so I ended up with a lot of Black Cat and Moon Knight. 

Day Fifteen – Thursday, 15 September 2016 - Hanging Gardens

I like Hanging Gardens. I’m never sure if I should try and just grab everything I can and hope for the best or selectively go for certain tiles to collect specific sets.

Fun was had. I did manage to get a complete set of the statues and the sculptor and two queens – so I did well. The Boy also did well with a couple complete sets. I can’t remember who won – but we were within one or two points of each other. The Girl just didn’t seem to have any luck at all with the cards and tiles…

Day Sixteen – Friday, 16 September 2016 
Contemptible Little Armies

(It was actually a highly modified version of Contemptible Little Armies…)

Today the kids helped me play test my Regina Trench game for ToonCon NEXT WEEK!! The kids played the Canadians (as the players will be doing in the game)…

…and I ran the Germans!

It maybe wasn’t totally fun for the kids – but it was a totally good play test! It was a complete and utter failure for the Canadians (I made The Girl cry - and she was the one that was doing "good"). One entire brigade never even made it to the German first trench line - one of their battalions was effectively wiped out and the other below half strength with morale failing - and the other brigade was still foundering in the Germans first trench line long after their protective barrage had moved on - which happens, but it took over half the turns I was planning for the full game just to take that front line! If the same thing happened at ToonCon I'd probably have some pretty disappointed players. BUT, I have a very, very clear idea of exactly what I need to change to the game to make it work a lot better and (hopefully) not be so disastrous for the Canadians!

(The kids also had the worst luck with the dice – they failed EVERY morale test they had to take during the game – six of them, when probablility would suggest they should have only failed two… So it wasn't ALL bad scenario design!)

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Probably after next weekend – I’ve got a lot of stuff to do to finish up for next week. I’ll get it done, but I probably won’t have so much time for posting stuff (I have been dutifully taking pictures of the whole terrain-making process so I can do a big post about that when I get a chance!) 

Family Day Long Weekend (of GAMING!)

In the Province of Saskatchewan The third Monday of February is a statutory holiday called Family Day. This Family Day long weekend we had a Weekend of Gaming!! Originally I’d planned to have a Song of Shadows and Dust campaign – but that kind of fell through as only Paul (in Winnipeg) and Terry (in Edmonton) showed any interest and so I decided to call it off – it seemed a bit much to ask them to collectively drive almost 1300km just to play games with each other and possibly me and The Boy… AS it turned out this was really for the best as we ended up having a massive blizzard over the weekend and the roads and highways are just awful!

The complete and utter lack of interest/response from my regular gaming pals for this weekend put me into a bit of a gaming funk for a bit… and then I missed Freezerburn and spent  five days in hospital (not related)… after that I decided “screw it” I’ll have a weekend of just gaming with my family. And after another bit I decided to invite a few others to join in as well….

Here’s how it all went down...

Friday Evening - 13 February 2015

Cold Harvest

I ran a Call of Cthulhu adventure called Cold Harvest. I used a homebrew mash-up set of rules using elements of Fear and Faith, Flying Lead, and A Tale of Blades and Heroes. I wanted something simple so the focus would be on the “role-playing” and not the system of rules. I wanted the focus to be on the role-playing as the adventure is investigation heavy with very little action. Unfortunately I also wanted to run it as a one-shot, one evening adventure… and one of the three players had to spilt just after 10pm giving us only three hours to play it in… so I tired to rush it a bit… and left bits out (some on purpose, others because i forgot about them in the rush)… and then we didn’t even get to really finish it… so it was a bit of an anticlimactic fizzle to start off the weekend. Luckily things went up from there.

Saturday - 14 February 2015

This is when the snow REALLY started to fall. It was also blowing and drifiting.

Small World

In the morning Rick and Other Tim came over to join Amanda, Myself, The Boy and The Girl in a six-player game of Small World! It was fun to try out a six-player game… but it also took a long time… and we had to cut it a bit short as Amanda and The Girl had to cut out to go to a hair appointment… ah well…

Glory To Rome

Once the girls were gone Other Tim busted out a game he brought along called Glory to Rome. I really enjoyed it – a lot of options and hard decisions to make every round – I still don’t really get the strategy at all, but I had a fun time trying (and I think I actually won in the end?). The boy was a little overwhelmed and didn’t have so great of a time…

Ingenious

After Glory to Rom Rick had to leave so Other Tim, The Boy and Myself busted out Ingenious.

Around the time we finished Amanda and The Girl staggered in having clawed their way through and over countless snowdrifts between our place and the hair salon downtown. At this point Other Tim had to be on his way and I headed out to start shoveling snow.

Sun Dogs on Saturday afternoon. For those that haven't heard of them they are the lights to either side of the sun in the picture and is the sun’s light being refracted through ice crystals in the upper atmosphere. Generally only visible when it’s really freaking cold.

When I finally come in I found the kids actually playing a game of  O Zoo Le Mio - which was kind of exciting – it is extremely rare that they actually get out a game on their own and play it – this may be the first time they’ve done that – at least the first time they’ve done that and played the game using the ACTUAL RULES of the game…

After supper we tried out two new (to us) games…

Dungeonville

Dungeonville… I’d picked it up really cheap (like $5?) off ebay a number of years back from a distributor that was going out of business… art by John Kovalic… how bad could it be. Maybe I won’t go so far as calling it “bad’… but it’s a little simple for the likes of us and it wasn’t exactly the most fun we had we had all weekend....

Dead Man’s Treasure

Pirate Faces!

Finally we played another new to us game (also bought cheap off ebay from the very same distributor – also $5). It’s a Reiner Knizia game, so it’s quick and fun enough and clever with a bolt-on theme.

Sunday - 15 February 2015

Onward to Venus

My friend John brought over his new game Onward to Venus – which is a super fun game designed by Martin Wallace based on the Doctor Grordbort graphic novels from writer/artist Greg Broadmore. I got to play the British Empire, Amanda was France, John the Germans, The Girl played the Russians (because… ballerinas…), and The Boy played the USA.

Let’s just say that the sun does not set on the British Empire! Huzzah!

John also got me two of the graphic novels for my birthday - which was pretty awesome - THANKS!

R-eco

After John took off we tried out yet another cheap ebay game that we’re finally getting around to trying out. I’d picked it up largely because of the theme – recycling – that’s a good thing to teach kids, right? While it turned out to be a clever enough card game, the theme was pretty weak and you were theoretically different companies competing to get the city contract and if you ended your turn with too many cards in your hand you had to “illegally dump” them… Ah well…

In the evening Amanda and I wandered over to the Persephone Theatre for their performance of Mary’s Wedding - which I thought was really well done.

Monday - 16 February 2015

Parthenon: Rise of the Aegean

John stopped by again this afternoon to join us for a five-player game of Parthenon: Rise of the Aegean. We’ve played this a couple times over the last month. I really like it. You play an island in the Aegean and start with two villages that generate one of six different types of basic commodities. With those you trade with other islands (players) or neighboring or foreign lands to get different commodities to build other villages, or workshops, or agora structures on your island. The first to build all six villages, two workshops, six agora structures and two wonders wins. I don’t know if we’re getting better at it of if it just gets easier with more players - The first time we played (a three-player game – me and the kids) I don’t think anyone finished building everything. The second time we played (four-player – me and Amanda and the kids) both The Girl and I finished on the very last turn. This game The Girl (who is eight) beat us all by finishing all her buildings with two turns left to go!?

Amanda took the kids out to go sledding for a bit afterwards while I did some cleaning and sorted out how to play the next game…

Techno Witches

Amanda getting a little rowdy – wanting to demonstrate how her witch pulled off that tight turn around the tower… Fun game – witches, on upright vacuums, racing around the tabletop…

Delta V

After supper we tried out one more new game – Delta V – where we played mining companies exploring for and mining minerals in the Delta V asteroid field. It’s sort of Memory match with rockets and aliens…

I don’t know about Amanda and The Girl, but The Boy scored 3 or 4 contracts for a total of 20 points, I completed two… for a total of -1 points… Clearly I should not be heading up any mining operations in deep space!!

Oh and over the weekend we played a few games of Hearts and Kaiser – which I’ve been teaching the kids with my new fancy schmansy deck of Cthulhu cards!

Phew!

Now to get back to some miniature gaming! 

I will still be having an 11th Annual Wargaming Birthday Bash on my actual birthday (Wednesday the 25th) and it WILL be a miniature war game!! If all goes according to plan I'll be running a great big game of Galleys and Galleons! (or if things don't go according to plan, it may well be some other game using the Song of Blades and Heroes engine - possible Flying Lead or Fear and Faith..?)