October AND November Games

I didn't play a LOT of games in October...

I know it looks like there are a lot of has-marks on the 13th and 14th - but that represents one or two plays of the same game, each logged separately, with a few expansions being use with each...

As previously reported, I played a few games over the (Canadian) Thanksgiving weekend.

I got in a couple of games of Necromunda with Amanda (Escort Mission and Rescue Mission) 

and one with Finnegan (Battle for the Bronze Gates) 

...And then some Not-so-Necromunda games with the family...


Friday, 11 October 2019

Unstable Unicorns

Race for the Galaxy


Saturday, 12 October 2019

Century: Golem Edition

and Splendor...


Tuesday, 22 October 2019

The only other games I got in through October were a couple games I played with Bruce (the Paisley Wizard) on the 22nd...

First I introduced him to Century: Golem. I won the first game, and then he crushed me in the second... 

and then I introduced him to Splendor... 

I typed this up at the end of October... but really didn't feel like there was much there and didn't post it...

So... November... 

Things didn't really get going until we were already a week into the month. Thereafter games were kind-of-mostly just played on Friday and Sunday evenings... More than in October... but less than other months...


Friday, 7 November 2019



On the 7th I played a game of The Pikeman's Lament (well... sort of... there were some fantastical elements added in from Dragon Rampant!). I initially set up the game for my friend Bruce, who, at the last minute, was unable to make it... so I played it out on my own... a full report of the ensuing escapades (with LOADS of pictures!) can be found elsewhere on this blog:

Whit's Fur Ye'll No Go Past Ye

Over the Remembrance Day weekend, we got in a few more games...


Friday, 8 November 2019



Starting with Friday evening, Amanda, Keira and I played Castles of Burgundy. I finally feel like these games are starting to go a BIT quicker (still not anywhere close to the reccomended game length, but still.... quicker than we've played it before...)



I played, like, my BEST GAME EVER and totally won! Woo!


Saturday 9 November 2019



Saturday evening Keira ran us all through character generation for a role-playing game called Epyllion - where we all play young dragons (sort to like Tales from the Loop... but Dragons?).



 I'm playing a lean, red, daredevil dragon with lots of spines, a barbed tail and an overbite.



I also have a burrowing horse-armadillo-alligator companion animal... It seems we are all genderless vegan dragons that like to eat cottonhoney (wait... is cottonhoney vegan? Maybe we're not Vegan... but we apparently don't terrorize humans or eat them or their livestock, so... ethical vegetarian dragons?).



Finnegan's playing a green naturalist dragon and Amanda's playing a black seer dragon.

It's kind of weird.

I kind of dig it.

I was really looking forward to playing the first adventure the following week... but that kind of didn't happen..

There had been a plan to play Necromunda on Sunday... And another plan for a game Monday evening... but both kind of didn't happen either...


Friday, 15 November 2019



Friday evening our friend Laura came over to play games. We started off with Race for the Galaxy - with only the first expansion (as I think it only added cards and no new rules). It was actually really fun to play this way again!




Afterwards we played Kingdom Builder... I was so wrapped up in the game I forgot to take a picture until we were done and had put it away... We played with Lords, Citizens, Merchants
Oasis, Boats, Standing Stones and Inns... or at least that's what I noted in the BGG entry. I forget which is which - the first three are what we got victory points from, the latter four are the boards we played with...


Saturday, 16 November 2019



Kids playing in Finnegan's D&D game - they play every Saturday. I just don't always take pictures and I never log the games on BGG - because I'm not playing with them! But occasionally I remember to mention that these games happen!



We had so much fun playing with the very basic Race For The Galaxy the previous evening, we played TWO MORE games on Saturday evening!



Keira bailed on the second one...



In the second game I had a pretty sweet Gene/Uplift theme going on... but I just couldn't find the 6 cost developments that could have gave me loads of points for such a theme...



THESE are the cards I needed...


Sunday, 17 November 2019



Sunday evening Orion came over to give Necromunda a try.



He played my Cawdor gang and I played the One-Eyed Red Snakes (Delaque gang)

The ensuing shenanigans were fully reported on here:

For All Those Who Seek Redemption

Since this game Orion has picked up the new boxed set and is busily working on a team of Enforcers! Hopefully we'll see them cracking skulls in the under hive sometime in December!



Friday, 22 November 2019

Our friends Bruce and Adele came over for supper and games.



Adele was running a bit late, so Amanda Bruce, and I started off with a 3-player game of Century: Golem Edition



Totally crushed it! Yeah... that's over 100 points!



Then we played a few more games when Adele showed up.



After that we recruited the kids to join in a six-player game of 7 Wonders. (forgot to get a picture of the game while playing... again.. so this is us putting it all away!?)

I played Menneken Pis, which is really weird.... I ended the game with 41 points. Amanda Plante Played Olympia and scored 49 points. Adele crushed it with Stone Hengescorring 61 points!
Bruce played Ephessos and scored 48 points. Finnegan played the Great Wall of China and ended with 44. Finally, Keira played Rhodes and came in second with 54 points.



After the Andersons took off, Amanda Keira and I played a quick game of Carcassonne - with just the basic set. I just squeaked out a win over the others by FARMING - had it not been for the couple farmers I put down, the Grrlz would have both been waaaaaaay ahead of me! I probably won't get to do this again... assuming we play again soon enough that they REMEMBER!


Sunday, 24 November 2019



This week Jacob came by to try out Necromunda.



We played another game with Cawdor and Delaque gangs.

Retribution!

I think I may have him hooked - he's already planning an Orlock gang!



Friday, 29 November 2019

Friday evening we invited more friends over for supper and games. This week it was Darrin and Jackie. We haven't played games with Darrin in, like, forever!? And we've never played with Jackie - honestly I didn't even know she played games - but she actually brought along a few of her own!

We started off with Anomia - on that Jackie bought. I'd never heard of it. It's a pretty like word association game.



After we played Set - again one she brought along (though we do have a copy and have played it a lot - though not recently - and we were feeling woefully out of practice!). Amanda started off by lamenting that she NEVER wins this game... and then crushed us!



We played a round of Exploding Kittens... I'm not a HUGE fan of the game - but we played with the NSFW deck mixed in, which I hadn't played with before, so that brought out a few laughs as I read some of the new (to me!) cards...

Finally we played Dixit (which Keira loves playing - but I will only play if we have at least five players - and we had five players in the house last night!).

November ain't quite over, but I'm pretty sure we're not playing any games this evening, so I think that's about it.

I like that Friday is, at least, finally becoming BOARD GAME NIGHT - and we've even been getting other people to come over. I'd hoped Saturday would become Family RPG night... but that just hasn't happened...YET! And I'm excited that Sundays are becoming SKIRMISH SUNDAYS and I've been getting in some games of Necromunda!

I've got another Necromunda game planned for tomorrow. There won't be a Board Game Night next Friday because it's the Rosebud's Burlesque Clubs annual XXXmas Show... But the following Friday we do have plans to have another couple over for supper and games AND another group of friends coming over on the Saturday that weekend. I'm sure there will be LOTS of gaming over the Holidaze! Stay tuned!


Coming Soon to Tim's Miniature Wargaming Blog:

As mentioned, I do have a Necromunda game planned for tomorrow, so I'll probably be posting a game report of that on Monday (or maybe later Sunday evening - if it's SUPER fast and bloody!!)

Still have more Necromunda gang posts to finish up...

Should have some Hellboy miniatures coming up in the next few weeks! 

The (Not-So-)Necromunda Game Weekend

Generally speaking, I plan two big "events" a year. One is the Wargaming Weekend in February - which started out as my wargaming birthday bash (a one-evening/afternoon game held for local friends) but then evolved into a wargaming weekend at the end of February (closest to my birthday) and has in recent years moved to the "Family Day" long weekend in mid-february to make it easier for those that travel from Edmonton or Calgary or Winnipeg to participate. The other is a fall convention game. Originally that was Heroe's Gambit here in Saskatoon. For a couple years I went out to Fallcon in Calgary. In recent years it's been at ToonCon here in Saskatoon.

This past February I had originally planned to run a Kill Team campaign of sorts. Previous skirmish campaign weekends had been a huge success - like the Shadow War: Armageddon campaign I'd run the previous year, or the Quest for the Skull Sword Frostgrave weekend or the Ronin Campaign I'd run previously. But as the date drew nearer I was losing interest fast - partly due to problems with Kill Team - but also because I'd FINALLY managed to get my hands on Wrath & Glory and was SUPER EXCITED to try that out... so we did... and that was a bit of a mistake... I had nine players lined up for the weekend which would have been great for a marathon weekend role-playing mini-campaign using a system I'd JUST picked up and read... Everyone said they'd had a good time, but I felt like they were just being polite as I'D been pretty disappointed with how it all played out - not at all how I'd envisioned it...

So, that weekend was a bit of a letdown for me. Just to be clear, it wasn't that the players weren't enthusiastic, or did anything "wrong" - I just felt like I had personally failed to run a seamless epic gaming weekend... I know... probably unrealistic expectations... AND around the same time I learned that there wasn't going to be a Tooncon this fall! They are planning on moving the convention from the fall to the spring - I think because there were often conflicts with other conventions going on in the fall (the Saskatoon Entertainment Expo being the big one)...? So, shortly after my game weekend, I started having conversations with a few people about hosting a second game weekend in the fall.

Initially it wasn't Necromunda - it was just a nebulous idea of a gaming weekend of some kind. We'd tossed around possible dates in September or October and, much to my surprise, the (Canadian) Thanksgiving weekend seemed the most promising for all. (I'd figured Thanksgiving people usually want to spend with family and stuff...?).

Late spring/early summer I picked up necromunda, and shortly after that decided that's what I'd run! Of the seven or eight people I was talking to, a couple were definitely not going to be able to make it, but the remaining "hard maybes"... or "I'd LIKE to"s....It was four months away... I get that it's hard to commit to something so far in advance when there is so much else going on these days... (though it does make me wonder how anyone plans weddings these days - aren't those are generally planned up to a year in advance and RSVPs are expected many months in advance.... and it's the same time registration for ToonCon would have opened...?).

Nevertheless, I forged ahead!

For the last four months I've been painting like a mad bastard. I tracked down and painted up some more Red Redemptionists, and a Cawdor Gang, and a Delaque Gang, and Kal Jericho and Scabs, and some Adeptus Arbites, and some Spyrers, and helped Finnegan paint up some Genestealer Cultists and a Magos and some MORE cultists, and Karloth Valois, and an assortment of Hive Scum and Bounty Hunters and an Escher Gang, and barriers and doors, and then I scratch-built a PILE of 3-D wall sections for the  Zone Mortalis boards in the basic box...

Then I ran three different games for the kids and a friend at the end of the summer (two of which were effectively play-tests of scenario ideas for this weekend).

And then I set up the Bronze Gates Campaign for the family - partly to have a game we could play together (as I wasn't running a role-playing game like I'd hoped to this fall) and partly to get some experience/practice at playing both Necromunda itself and the Dominion Campaign system - elements of which I was planning to use this weekend.

In the last few weeks I've been still feverishly cranking out stuff for the campaign weekend....



Desperately trying to finish up John's Vermyn (which he planned to use as Chaos Cultists) and some Old Ratskins (adding to the few I already had) for one of the scenarios... Maybe some more Escher Gangers if I could get some done or some gen-u-ine plague zombie figures I had (it'd be nice to not have to use generic zombies)...



and building a new custom cavern terrain tile (to use with the other cavern terrain tiles) for the aforementioned scenario involving the ratskins...



and ANOTHER huge batch of wall sections (because I'd picked up the Badzone Delta-7 tile set to set up some HUGE Zone Mortalis battlefields!) and some custom player order markers... They're just going to be plain - no time to graffiti these all up!

And I wrote out five 4-6 player scenarios (hoping that really only four would show up, but planning for six...) each with a foe to deal with (Karloth Valois and Zomibes, Kat Jericho and Friends, Spyrers, Rastkins, and Red Redemptionists),  and subplots for each potential gang, and...  well... you get the idea...

Can anybody guess where this is all going...?

Around mid-September one friend had to bail due to upcoming surgery... Of all the people I invited, he was the one person I had been fairly sure was actually coming (I mean, the dude had booked a B&B!), and, at that point, wasn't really concerned if anyone else was coming because he's super fun to play with and not only puts up with playing with my kids, he seems to genuinely enjoy it! If it had been just him, Amanda and the kids could have joined in and it would have been just a great weekend... But, as I said, in the end he had to bail.

Then, by the end of September, I was noticing it was pretty quiet on the communication front with the other potential players that had suggested they were interested, considering it was only a few weeks away. I thought I'd check to see if anyone was still available... and, one-by-one they eventually all (well, mostly) got back to me... two more dropped out... another never replied... leaving one player still planning on coming.

I was pretty much ready to throw in the towel at that point... but Amanda stepped in, knowing how distract I was about this, and she and the kids could play - that would make four players. The kids were lukewarm to the idea, but she pointed out they didn't actually have any other plans and that it's be like the other game weekends (like, we'd be eating out most of the weekend - which we rarely ever do otherwise).

Thursday morning the last player bailed...

ugh....

I think the kids, upon hearing this news, were most concerned that if I just cancelled altogether we wouldn't be eating/ordering out...

I had only a few things left to prepare for the weekend - a handful of figures to finish painting, touch-ups on the wall sections, and filling out a few cards for the antagonists... I could have gotten it done and played with the family, they'd have done that for me, even if it wasn't their favourite thing... but I fell into a bit of a malaise and kind of just stopped working on it all...


11 October 2019 - Friday Evening

Come Friday evening Amanda decided to stay late at work... since, y'know, there was now no rush to come home...

The kids and I DID order out, though (from Seasoned Fusion!). Apparently they don't deliver anymore, however, so I had to ride downtown on my bike to pick it all up. It was just above freezing. The food was lukewarm by the time I got home - but it was still delicious!

Afterwards we DID get in a few games... but not Necromunda...



Amanda, Finnegan and I played Race for the Galaxy - with the Xeno Invasion expansion. I started with the Anti-Xeno Defence Post, but by the end had a pretty solid Genes/Uplift theme going - honestly, I love having a solid theme better than winning the game... but I did actually win this one! Finnegan started with Old Earth and just started getting a mining engine up and running... when I ended the game. Amanda started with Epsilon Eridani and a mosh-mash of other cards... At least this time she participated in the war a bit, instead of cherry-picking and taking double VP every round (Finnegan learned that lesson from the last game and only had a military power of +1 by the end of the game and a HUGE pile of double victory tokens... which got him second place!)



My tableau at the end of the game. 49VP.



Afterwards we all played a round of Unstable Unicorns...



Amanda beat us pretty soundly with EIGHT unicorns in her stable at the end of the game!!


12 October 2019 - Saturday

As we weren't playing Necromunda, Amanda took the opportunity to head downtown with Keira and pick out some new glasses and do some other shopping. She also picked up tickets for the play at Persephone Theatre (which we had already seen earlier) for the kids to go to in the evening. They got back around four and we had a couple hours before the kids had to head out to the play, so we got in a few games...



First, we played a couple of games of Centruy: Golem Edition.



I was ON FIRE and totally rocked the first round - winning with 90 points!? WOO!



We played a second round, and this time Amanda kicked our butts...



I only gained 50 points...



After that we played a game of Splendor.



It was a super close game - I ended with 14 points.



Amanda had 15 and Keira had 13. Keira was pretty disappointed - she was SO CLOSE - she's never won a game of Splendor and had started to think this might be the first time! not-so-much...


13 October 2019 - Sunday

Okay... Sunday we DID actually play some Necromunda!

I HAD planned to play one game with each family member through out the day - these would all be games for our Bronze Gates Campaign...



First I challenged Finnegan for control of the Bronze Gates - the Toll crossing that gives it's name to the entire Region. I let Finnegan pick the scenario and he chose Zone Mortalis Scenario 2: The Trap. I'm not sure who was trapping whom... It went poorly for the Delaque Gangers...

afterwards I had hoped to play a game with Keira, but Finnegan and I didn't get started early enough and went longer than expected, so we didn't have time before the kids were off to my folks for the night.



while they were out, however, I played a game with Amanda!



We tried one of the scenarios in the Arbitrators section of the main rulebook - Escort Mission! A Guild Agent with close ties to how Cawdor and the Redptionists said if they would escort her out of the Bronze Gates, she would petition House Cawdor to have the One-Eyed Red Snakes maintain control of the Shrine of the Sinners Past (Bone Shrine) as there were no representatives of House Cawdor residing in the Bronze Gates at this time.

I actually WON a game and took control of the Bone Shrine!


14 October 2019 - Monday

On Monday I'd originally planned to run a larger 3-player game (one of the scenarios I'd originally planned for the weekend). But then Amanda was keen to play a Rescue Mission to retrieve the ganger she'd lost to me in the previous evening's game... I Thought maybe we'd get that done quickly and still have time to play a larger game afterwards.



We didn't get started with that until well after noon and by the time we were done it was supper time and no one was interested in playing games after supper - Keira is sick with a cold and Amanda had work to do on a costume she's supposed to bring along to dance class tomorrow evening... so... here I am writing game reports...


Coming Soon to Tim's Miniature Wargaming Blog:

I am working on reports for those three games of Necromunda - they should be up soonish...