Game Plan 2022 - 5x/10x Game Challenges

 I was thinking a little more about what games I might like to play in the coming months and try to solidify that into a challenge (or two... or three...?) 

Looking at the games I've played so far this year... 

• Wingspan x11
• Terraforming Mars x9
• Five Tribes x7
• Azul x6
• Warhammer Underworlds: Direchasm x6
• Carcassonne x5
• Quebec 1759 x5
• Splendor x3
• Andean Abyss x2
• Wizard Kings x2
• Wrath & Glory x2
• Bananagrams x1
• For Sale x1
• Marrying Mr. Darcy x1
• The Silver Bayonet x1

So, give that, and some of the games I'd like to focus on, I thought I'd come up with a 10x10 Challenge list to try and help maintain that focus. Some were obvious (as I'd already played ten, or very nearly...). Others, less so... and might get swapped out at some point.

2022 (PROVISIONAL) 10x10 Game Challenge List 

1. Wingspan 
2. Terraforming Mars 
3. Five Tribes 
4. Azul 
5. Warhammer Underworlds: Direchasm 
6. Warhammer Underworlds: Harrowdeep
7. Carcassonne 
8. Kill Team
9. GMT Games
10. Role-Playing Game? Or Columbia Block Games?

Wingspan is DONE, don't have to play any more... though I'm sure we probably will

Just need to play one more game of Terraforming Mars and that one is done too. Five Tribes only needs three. So neither of these will even feature in the Q3 or Q4 5x5 Challenges, as I'm sure we can just pick those up along the way. 

I've already played 6 games of Warhammer Underworlds (set in the Beastgrave - which I log as Direchasm on BGG because it was the set I started with...). My plan is, over the summer, run a narrative sort of campaign for Amanda with Warhammer Underworlds... 

The idea is the campaign will follow the exploits of Amanda's favoured warband: Morgwaeth's Blade-Coven. I'll throw different warbands at them each week and try to weave some sort of narrative between the clashes. The plan is to play five more games set in Beastgrave/Direchasm over the next month while I get a few of the Harrowdeep/Nethermaze warbands finished up. Then we'll switch settings - Morgweath will have found a way... well.. if not home, at least a way OUT of Beastgrave and closer to home (as Harrowdeep is actually located just off the coast of Hag-Nar - Morgweath's home temple from which she and her blade-coven were dispatched to the Beastgrave!). 

I like Carcassonne. Amanda is ambivalent. She'll play. We've played five games already, so I thought I could add that to the Q4 5x5 Challenge and we could knock those out in the winter. 

The kids and I are planning to play a little Kill Team campaign this summer. Initially it was just going to be me and Finnegan, and I was planning something similar to what I'm doing with Amanda with Warhammer Underworlds - run a little narrative campaign that focuses on the story of HIS Kill Team (probably the fancy new T'au Pathfinders from Kill Team: Chalnath!) and I'd come up with a series of scenarios for him to play through facing different opponents. 

I only just found out today that Keiran was DEPLY HURT that I didn't ask THEM to join us!? I only hadn't because the last time we spoke of whole 40K thing, they said in no uncertain terms then NEVER liked and of 40K - regular 40K or Kill Team or any of the role-playing games. They said they TRIED to get interested in it because everyone else was interested... but they just couldn't.... So I respected that and didn't even try to persuade them to play ever since... I mean, they've shown NO INTEREST in ANY games for over a year!? 

I guess Finnegan somehow got them watching If the Emperor had a Text-to-Speech Device and they've had a bit of a change of heart... 

(I guess I'm going to have to watch it now, too...) 

Rather than trying to play any of the GMT games TEN times, I thought I'd make it a broad category that could include COIN games (Andean Abyss, On a Distant Plain, Fire in the Lake), Labyrinth, Twilight Struggle, Paths of Glory, etc... It might be two games five times each (as I DO like the idea of playing a game a few times to really get to know it!) or three games 3-4 times each... but it probably WON'T be either on game ten times or ten different games, once...

The Columbia Block Games, like GMT, is more of a category of games. These include Quebec 1759, Wizard Kings, Hammer of the Scots. I've played Quebec 1759 five times already. I've played Wizard kings twice, but probably won't bother trying it again... I COULD just play Hammer of the Scots three times and call it DONE, but I think I'll try and add it to one of the Quarterly 5x5 Challenges... 

I'm still holding out that I MIGHT get a role-playing game of SOME sort going on again in the fall... 

So here is what the Q3 and Q4 5x5 Challenges might look like:

Q3 5x5 Challenge

1. Warhammer Underworlds: Direchasm (4 more) 
2. Warhammer Underworlds: HarrowDeep
3. GMT Games
4. Kill Team
5. Hammer of the Scots

Q4 5x5 Challenge

1. Warhammer Underworlds: Harrowdeep
2. Carcassonne 
3. Role-Playing Game? Or something else?
4. Kill Team
5. GMT Games

Should keep me busy! 

AND hopefully get me motivated to start PLAYING again... 

I HAD really hoped I'd get in some games of Song of Blades and Heroes and a few of the Osprey Wargame Series this year. Maybe I'll try to set up a few one-off games over the next six months and try to focus on those next year! 

June Games

 Wow... a bit late... Had some computer problems the last week or so which were a HUGE headache and I just don't have it in me to get into all that... 

Also didn't really get around to playing much this past month... but I guess it was better than APRIL!? 

Wednesday, 8 June 2022

Brent came over again and we had another couple tries at Quebec 1759. I marked up the blank dummy counter/blocks as leaders/detachments and we played using the 2nd edition rules. I think it played way better.  

I played the French for the first game

Brent's British seized the Plains of Abraham on the 16th turn (the LAST turn) I only had three regiments along with three of the little detachments and Montcalm. All of the Militia had left. The Quebec militia left because of territory being captured, and Wolfe burning their farms and stuff. the Montreal Militia was gone because the British had captured Cape Rouge for a bit choking off their supplies... All of those opposing blocks were 4CV regiments.  

We switched sides and I played the British. I took the North Shore approach. This was our big battle at St. Charles. The French took a good hammering and fled across the river into Quebec. The British followed them there the following turn and a second, smaller battle was fought on the Plains of Abraham and the French, vastly outnumbered were all but utterly destroyed. 

That was on turn nine. 

I had to survive 7 turns of harrassing raids and skirmishes from the Ottawa and assorted Militias. Above is all that remained to hold Quebec at the end of the game. I think it actually ended on Turn 15 because I had TOTALLY wiped out all the opposing French - Just 23CV holding down the fort - if it had dropped below 20 I would have lost the game. 

both games were very close, but ultimately British victories. I think in the future, if playing the French I need MORE forces at St. Charles and Levis and not worry too much about holding Montmorency or Beachamps. 

Afterwards we tried out Wizard Kings - also a block game from Columbia Games. There are similarities... but also some considerable differences. 

I played the Elves (green) and Brent played the Orks (Orange).

We played about five (out of ten) turns. It was TOUGH - though a lot of the troubles we had may have been because of our map choices and orientation. The picture above was Turn Four where the Orcs and Elves met in a big battle. We both tooks some lumps, but the Orcs ultimately retreated.

On the fifth turn, I sent a task force of two wizards (that can "fly") and some mermaids across the wather and captured a fairly lightly held city and at that point Brent threw in the towel as he figured there was no way he'd be able to recover from those losses?! 

It was an interesting game. I might like to try it again. it's too bad I have the original edition. the current edition comes with seven different armies - instead of just two that are in the box I have... I'm not sure I'm going to play it enough to warrant buying the new edition... It would certainly give a lot more options for replayability... All the components (blocks and maps) can be used with either edition. the new edition comes with maps #13-16 (I have maps #1-4)... 

I don't know... I guess I should play this a few more times and see if I figure it's something I'd play more... 

Monday 13 June 2022

I think Amanda was supposed to go for a walk with her friend Val today, but it ended up raining so Amanda suggested a game of Wingspan instead. 

My Birb Sanctuary at the end of it. 

Wednesday, 15 June 2022

While Finnegan was out at work and Keiran at their new dance class, Amanda and I sat down to play a quick game of Warhammer Underworlds

It was nice to get back to playing this. Amanda and I last played in NOVEMBER of last year!? 

I tried out the relatively recently painted Magore's Fiends

They were pretty nasty. 

In the end I think it was a pretty close game... The fiends won 11-8...? 

But that was me just using their deck straight out of the box. With some deck editing they could be REALLY NASTY! I think I lost one dude and Amanda had lost four of her team - but did well scoring cards, especially early in the game.

Thursday, 16 June 2022

Thursday Morning Brent cam around to play games..

We started off with another game of Wizard Kings. 

This time I played the Orcs and we tried to set up a map that woudn't be so plainly advantageous to one side or the other... sort of... The elves still had a massive amount of woods in their lands (as they should, really). 

It was a pretty one-sided affair. We didn't even play it to the end of the game, about halfway through it was clear there was no hope for the Orcs... 

I had actually been thinking MAYBE I might look for some of the expansions or the new edition - perhaps with more options and maps it could be good. It seems like it has POTENTIAL - and Quebec 1759 was pretty interesting when we finally figured it out. I'm not sure I want to invest that kind of money just to see if maybe it might get good - expecially when I have SO MANY GAMES that i know ARE good, that I just don't seem to find the time to PLAY!? 

Since the first game went so very quickly, we played a game of Terraforming Mars. 

Tim played Mining Guild with Mohole Extraction and Supplier took Ecologist and Specialist Milestones

Brent played Credicor with Society Support and Biosphere Support - took Generalist Milestone and Desert Settler and Celebrity award.

It was a SUPER close game!!! I eked out a victory at 116 - 112!?!?

Sunday, 26 June 2022

Sunday, Amanda and I were back at Warhammer Underworlds again - hoping to make this a regular thing. We'd actually planned to play TWO games this evening... but ended up running out of time and just played the one. 

I played Ironskull's Boyz

Amanda was playing Morgweath's Blade-Coven.

Amanda took one look at the Boyz and decided she was not going to be winning this one... 

And then the SLAUGHTER began... 

It wasn't the Witch Aelves getting slaughtered, tho... 

I did take out a few of the Witch Aelves... but just couldn't score ANY cards. Amanda scored ALL THE CARDS and won SEVENTEEN to five... 

Wednesday, 29 June 2022

Over to Brent's this time to try out Andean Abyss - one of the GMT COIN games. I LOVE the idea of the COIN games... I just have NO IDEA how to actually PLAY them... 

I played FARC and Brent played the Government and the Cartels and AUC were run by bots. 

This first game went REALLY QUICKLY - with me getting a couple lucky cards early in the game that put me in a winning position and Brent scrambling to stop me. I really fell bass-ackwards into this win. It was all luck of the card draw - no masterful strategic moved. 

Because Brent only lives a few blocks from where Keiran is now taking nearly three hours of dance classes on Wednesdays through the summer, I thought I'd head back and try blast through a second game! 

This one was NOT so quick as the first and we did not get to finish it.. 

I think this is were things were when we had to stop...? 

This time around I was playing FARC and the Cartels and Brent played the Government and the AUC. It was a LOT harder... 

Thursday, 30 June 2022 

Thursday Amanda and I played one more quick game of Warhammer Underworlds - just so I could have one more game that I got five plays in. 

Mrogweath's Blade-Coven faced Morgok's Krushas... And this time it was the Orruks turn to lay the smack down! 

We actually played with different decks this time. There is a new format of play - Rivals - where you play with either the deck that comes with your warband (i.e. ONLY cards specific to that warband - no generic cards) OR one of the pre-made Rivals Decks. I have a few of these decks; Illusory Might and Silent Menace. The decks contain 10 Upgrades, 10 Ploys, and 12 Objectives, and are supposed to be playable decks... I actually have TWO of the Illusory Might decks so we each played with the exact same deck... it seemed to work for me a bit better. Or, I was able to figure out how to make the cards work together than Amanda...? I don't know. I don't think she's excited about trying that again any time soon. Maybe I should distribute the cards into binders to use in making custom decks... 

And that wraps up 2022Q2... I my 2022 Q2 Plan, I hadn't laid out what might be in the Q2 5x5 Challenge, but guessed it might include Five Tribes, Wingspan and Terraforming Mars... and had HOPED I might get going with Kill Team again... 

Here's what we actually got to playing:

Games Q2

• Quebec 1759 x5
• Warhammer Underworlds x5
• Wingspan x4
• Andean Abyss x2
• Terraforming Mars x2
• Wizard Kings x2
• Splendor x1

So... TWO games played five times... a third made it to four... Yikes.

More on that in the Q3 Plan (which I guess I had best get started on...). 

May Games

Well... we played a FEW more games in May... 

Sunday, 1 May 2022

Amanda and I kicked off May with a game of Wingspan. First day of the month and we've already played as many games as we play in all of April... so things were looking up! 

I felt like I was flailing most of the game... somehow I managed to keep up with the Round End Goals... 

AND somehow managed to scored 20 points on bonus cards - (sets of next types, birds worth less than 4 points, and different colour/action types on bird cards in a single habitat) - largely because of a lucky random-from-the-top-of-the-deck card in the third round that just happened to work for two of the bonus cards to tip them over into the higher scoring amount - had it not been for that incredible bit of luck I probably wouldn't have won... or it certainly would have been very close! 

Not the highest scoring game we've had... I guess we were BOTH a little out of practice! 

Sunday, 8 May 2022

The following Sunday, Amanda invited someone they know from work (and her two daughters) to come over and play Wimgspan. 

There were some interesting Round End Goals - NONE involved Eggs in nests of any kind or location!? 

My sanctuary at the end of it..  I COULD have gotten one in the forest... but it was worth more points to just keep the card in hand and win the last Round End Goal (most cards in hand!) 

They've clearly played a lot of games before - though not wingspan. The daughters totally picked it up right away and did exceptionally well... Mom... had to have a lot of things explained... and re-explained... and... 

Sunday, 15 May 2022

Again, on the following Sunday, Amanda and i played Terraforming Mars. 

And Terraform it we did! 

My tableau at the end of the game. 

As per usual, Amanda rocked it 

Thursday 19 May 2022

Brent came over on Thursday to play something and we settled on Warhammer Underworlds. 

Despite having finally just finishing Magore's Fiends... I did not play them!? 

Brent has never played and it's been half a year since I last played... so it took some explaining (and some remembering!?). Brent took Morgok' s Krushas. I took Ironskulls Boyz. 

GRAAAARRR! First Blood! Bonecutta charges 'Ardskull and takes a chunk out of his hide. 

Now we gots a Proppa Brawl goin' on! 

Ironskull's Boys had the right mix of numbers and hard-hittin' MFs to whittle Morgok's Krushass down. 

Right down to the end. 

Not a point was scored for holding objectives! All MURDER and Mayhem! 

Ironskull's took the day! 

Despite time taken figuring things out, we still had some time so we played ANOTHER ROUND! 

This time we switched things up a bit and I took the Storm of Celestus - a Stormcast Eternal warband. 

Despite these guys and gals being Sigmar's supreme bad asses, I have just had NO LUCK playing Stormcast... like... EVER...!? 

Couldn't even take ONE of them out!? 

Brent won this one! 

Sorry, no detailed, blow-by-blow report for this one... maybe when I get playing with Amanda or Finnegan again... 

Friday, 27 May 2022

Our friends Ryan and Andy came over to play Wingspan

I just had the worst time meeting Round End Goals and only had one Bonus card for most of the game and thought for sure I'd be dead last. In the end, all the OTHER stuff - points on bird cards, Nectar, a second Bonus card I got on the very last round, all added up and put me in the lead!? 

It was a SUPER CLOSE game in the end, though. I think the lowest score was 94 and I won with 101!? 

Amanda and i had planned to play Warhammer Underworlds on Sunday... but didn't - hopefully through June we'll get going on that again

Tuesday, 31 May 2022

Brent came by to play games again and this time we tried out Quebec 1759. I bought the game, used, YEARS ago and just never got around to playing it. It is the first edition of the game and we tried playing the rules, as written and... honestly... I have NO IDEA how the British are supposed to win that!? 

In the rules i have, Amphibious Assaults are CRAZY hard - the defender DOUBLES their CV AND scores hits on 5 and 6 (instead of just 6 in all other cases - and in amphibious assaults the second edition!?)

This was the British at the end of the first round of battle... BEFORE the pursuit fire due to the routing... I think they escaped with a total of 2CV - out of the 16 that had been committed to that battle!? 

The British second attack at Beauport... went similarly... I lost on the THIRD round (out of potentially sixteen)!? We actually played a fourth, which saw the rest of the British utterly wiped out, but then remembered that the British lose if they fall below a total Combat Value of 20... which I'd for sure done by the third round... or maybe even the second...!?

We had a downloaded copy of the current (2.0) rules and made a few changes (mostly dropping this hits on 5+ in Amphibious Assaults ) and tried again.

This was a MUCH CLOSER game. 

I played the British again and made it to the Plains of Abraham seized it by battle and held it against counter attack - pretty much utterly wiping out the French... I forgot to count the British total CV at the end of it... if I had less than 20 I would have lost anyway. It would have been close! 

We played one more game - this time with me playing the French. This was the final battle  - the British trying to seize Quebec by a battle on the Plains of Abraham on turn fourteen... he had too few forces left, though... and after the battle had dropped below 20CV! Whew! 

In total we played Nine games this month (better than the ONE we played in April!?) 

So far this Quarter we've played: 

• Quebec 1759 x3
• Wingspan x3
• Warhammer Underworlds x2
• Splendor x1
• Terraforming Mars x1

For the Quarterly 5x5 Challenge I'll likely try to get in two more games of Wingspan and Quebec 1759 and three more games of Warhammer Underworlds. I'm not sure what other games we might get in. 

Next week Brent and I were planning to play Wizard Kings - another Block Game (similar to Quebec 1759) from Columbia Games. It seems like there might be enough replayability there to get in five games over the next month (but maybe we'll knock off two more games of Quebec 1759 first!). 

That's potentially four (Quebec 1759, Wingspan, Warhammer Underworlds, and Wizard Kings). I'm not sure what else...? FATE maybe...? 

A week or two ago, Amanda and I had planned to reserve Friday evening for boardgames, Saturday is for role-playing games (finnegan running his D&D game, in-person, in the basement Games Room, and me running a FATE game online), and Sunday evening for Skirmish Games (like Warhammer Underworlds - but possibly also returning to Blackstone Fortress or trying out Kill Team or Warcray or Cursed City...). So far we played ONE game on the Friday night, no one showed for my FATE game on Saturday, and we were too tired this past Sunday to play Warhammer Underworlds... Maybe next weekend... (Although I already know THIS Friday is out, due to a final dance recital!)  

And so far this year we've played:

• Wingspan x10
• Five Tribes x7
• Terraforming Mars x7
• Azul x6
• Carcassonne  x5
• Quebec 1759 x3
• Splendor x3
• Warhammer Underworlds x2
• Wrath & Glory x2
• Bananagrams x1
• For Sale x1
• Marrying Mr. Darcy x1
• The Silver Bayonet x1

As far as a possible Annual 10x10 Challenge - I already have enough games of Wingspan in... Five Tribes and Terraforming Mars will definitely get 10 plays. Azul would be easy to get in four more of. I still have hope that we WILL get playing Warhammer Underworlds again and get in at least 10 of those through the rest of the year... That's five of them (four of which were in last year's Challenge - at least Five Tribes is new...) I have no idea what the others might end up being... 

Playing games with Brent every week (now that he's kind-of-sort-if retired) should get a few NEW games on the list (he's mostly interested in 2-player wargames - which is nice, because I have a few and NO ONE in my family would ever play THOSE!?). After we've played a few games of Wizard Kings we might try out Hamer of the Scots (ANOTHER Block Game from Columbia Games!?) and we've even talked about trying out some of the GMT COIN games - or Twilight Struggle or Labyrinth!? We shall see...