Monday, October 26, 2009

Misc Things of No Interest

Yes sir - time for another pointless posting. Let us start with - Dice Towers. Once upon a time, I built a couple of these out of foam board. I traded one away and gave another to The Fonz for his birthday. Well, I never rebuilt nor replaced mine. So the other day I'm poking around the BGG and happen to catch a thread from someone who has created his own cardboard dice tower. He offered to send out a some to the first few posters who agreed to throw up a review. I received this over the weekend, but haven't had a chance to put it together yet. There is actually a youtube video of him putting it together and while a little complicated, its also pretty slick. I'll be putting this together soon. I think I'll also make another foam tower so I have something of a baseline to compare the two. I'm hoping to play Chaos in the Old World again this weekend, so we'll get to put it through its paces.
Apparently I'm in denial. I refuse to become a Magic Whore, yet I cannot resist the siren call of other CCGs. I actually kind of like the Pokemon TCG (they call it a TRADING card game not a COLLECTIBLE - whatever). I think what made it really fun was when I lucked into a HUGE lot of cards at a very good price. I took the cards and built about a dozen decks for my son and I to play with. We don't really mess with the decks, but having lots to choose from is a good time and the decks I built do pretty decently against the commercial decks (though I have yet to build one that can compete with the championship ones). At any rate, I saw an auction this last week and threw in a bid for the Call of Cthulu LCG. This is another FFG CCG turned LCG. FFG decided to take their card games and package a base game and then sell chapter packs (set of 40 or so card that come out monthly with known cards) rather than blind 10 card boosters or whatever. Being a fan of A Game of Thrones, I'm pretty well all in on that one already, but I really believe it plays better with four than 2, so it hasn't seen much action. Call of Cthulu is a two player game, so depending on the complexity and maturity level of the theme, I may be playing this soon with my son. I really like the appeal of having built base sets.
On a side note, I see where FFG is going to release investigator figures for Arkham Horror. They are going to sell in packs of two or three and be fully painted. This would be really cool, except that there are 49 investigators with all the expansions. At two to a box, that is at least 25 boxes you'd have to get to get em all. I believe the retail is going to be like $15 (so maybe $11 online). Are you kidding? That's almost as bad as my paying $20 for Chicago Express: Narrow Gauge & Erie Railroad Company (it was worth it).
I'm really close to pulling the trigger and ordering stickers for my poker chips. I still can't decide if I want to leave the denominations off the front art. They'll look cleaner and I'm starting to lean this way, but I still kind of want the denomination on both sides of the chips. Bah - I'll probably end up dragging my feet on this one for another couple months.
Essen 2009 has wrapped up and I can say I payed very little attention this year. If there was a big deal this year, I missed it. Last year was about the Agricola follow-up Le Havre and The Splotter game Duck Dealer. Planet Steam and Fits and a bunch of other games. I have so many unplayed games still that it is probably a good thing this year seemed quiet. I can very quickly come up with a bunch of games that I still need try and a bunch more that need to be played more - just from my collection. And a ton more I don't even own. Now, having said that, I would still like to be able to go to Essen someday. Someday

9 comments:

Mike said...

Have you played or read anything about "Netrunner"? That's supposed to be a decent CCG.

Things of No Interest said...

I have read loads of good things about it, but it is a dead game with tons of fans. It makes the entry cost a bit much comparably speaking.

Bobby said...

Unless they changed their minds again, FFG is not going to release the figures because price point was too high for people who bitched on their forums.

Mike G. said...

Since it is cooler outside, I would suggest a power grid expansion to go with the dice tower :)

And FFG did ditch the investigator minis.

Things of No Interest said...

Here's the deal - I'm not an Arkham nut - I just found the figure announcement a bit much.

Bobby said...

Well, since you are a nut, I thought you might be an Arkham nut, too! :)

Unknown said...

Thanks for the plug on the dice tower. In case anyone is interested, they are now up for sale on my E-Bay store.

http://tinyurl.com/buyadicetower

Thanks,

Mike said...

Put the denomination on both sides. Utility should have priority here.

Things of No Interest said...

I thought about that, but there are two reasons I am leaning against it.

1) After you look down at the chips a couple times you'll know the amounts, you shouldn't have to look at them all night to figure out the value. Hell, they are blank now and folks figure it out. Plus, how hard is it to flip it if you look at the wrong side.

2) I'm going through the effort to put art on them, so I either have to make the art lost behind the value, or make the value small enough to not get in the way, and thus hard to see.