The Return of Mike B (aka - Game Night).

Friday night was game night at Rob and Michelle's place with a nice surprise - Mike Bauerlein. Mike used to own a FLGS that we'd play at every Friday night in Mesa. Mike had moved to Missouri and he's moving back and so he and his father and daughter came by to join in the fun. I arrived ahead of the crowd, followed closely by Noah Antwiller. The two of us team up against Rob and Michelle in a team game of Ingenious to start the night off. I think this game plays best with four in teams and offers interesting gameplay in a relatively short period of time. It also mitigates some of the luck. We called the game near the end as Noah and I had done a decent job of cutting off Rob and Michelle so they couldn't score their lowest color.
Mike and his family arrived as did Matt Cullinan, so after the greetings, we pulled out Ra. Mike joined Rob, Noah, Matt and I for one of the classics. I don't seem to always do very well in this push-your-luck game, but in the first round I was willing to bid on a number of groups that put me at 5 Pharaohs - scoring me a guaranteed 5 pts each round. I spent the rest of game grabbing little bits of points and avoiding taking any loss of points. Rob spent most of the game pulling Ra tiles and hoping not to "Ra" out before getting something decent at the end of each round. In the end, I had the high score! Unfortunately for me, so did Mike. When we compared total suns (the tie breaker), of course we had the same score, so we settled for tie.

By the time we wrapped up, another load of folks had arrived - Nathan Winchester, Niecy Westmoreland, and Matt and Liz Longieliere. With a bigger group of folks, we broke into three games. I sat down with Liz, Rob, Niecy, Nathan and Mike for a game of Top Race (ASS edition).This is a great little screw-with-everyone race game (not unlike Ave Caesar, except with betting). Unlike the first time I played this game, I managed not to lose money on any of the races. In fact, I played ok. However, Rob ran away with the last two races and betting. I think I beat Nathan though, so it wasn't a total loss.

The three "Matts" were still in the middle of their Agricola game, so Amelia, Liz and I pulled out GemBlo. I had only played this once a number of years ago, but this is essentially a Blokus variant that plays 6 players. It was still fun with just the three of us, though it took us a little while to figure out what part of the board to use for three players. I threw most of my big and difficult pieces out early (playing for blocks as much as I could) and that helped me finish with only 7 stones worth of points and a win. The three of us then finished the night with a three player game of Alhambra. I was never in a position to get any purple buildings and my giant wall didn't seem to help me much. Amelia scored a ton of purple points the whole game and won by about 15 or 20 points.

The Cost of Boxing up Combat Commander (and more)

I've received a few questions so to answer them all:

• $12 - This is the box I used from Staples - it is really sturdy. I got clear with a "smoke" lid. Don't buy a cheap box.
• $42 ($7 each) - I bought bead boxes like the picture. They have these at every Walmart I've been to (or had - I had to go to three to find the 9 I bought).
• $18 - Ultra Pro Clear card protectors. I went with the clear ones to show off the different backs to the cards. I've never played the game without them, so none of the cards show any wear.
• $4 - Counter Clipping Jig by Jesse
• $2 - 200 count cardboard boxes 
• $30 - Litko markers and smoke and blaze markers.

Now, that makes the cost around $108 for the parts that aren't the game. Dang. It doesn't seem that much when you buy it in small chunks. I had a few folks ask me if this solution will hold CC:E + CC:Med + CC:Pacific. The answer is - nope. This should hold CC:E + CC:Med + expansions (Paratroopers, Stalingrad, Normandy, Resistance!, and the stuff from C3i), but if you put 9 of the bead boxes in the box, there is no room for the cards. That's ok by me - Pacific is really its own game as opposed to all of the others which are really a set. FYI- the Pacific box top sits up about 1cm with three bead boxes stacked on the maps and rules.

Boxing Up Combat Commander

The goal: figure out a solution for storing Combat Commander: Europe and Combat Commander: Mediterranean. The problem: CC:Med takes up as much space as the original game, but isn't a standalone either - it is a full on expansion.
After a little bit of internal debate, I finally decided that whatever solution I settled on for putting things together was going to take space. I had originally settled on a solution that had each faction basically in a small Plano box and the cards bagged. All of which sat on the maps and rules etc in their own boxes. Not terrible, but it meant having to always haul out two boxes and sifting through everything to find the things you wanted/needed for a game. It also didn't lend itself as a solution when you started adding in the small expansions and scenarios from C3i. The best solution I had seen on BGG was one guy (Chick Lewis) that used a file case to load all his stuff. I started here and looked at a number of different storage solutions for the chits before finally settling on some bead boxes. These boxes are clear, fairly flat, and hold 24 individual cases with clear screw tops. The chits fit well in them and are easy to find and get out - it is also easy to pull out certain ones (like the suppression markers, smoke, wire, etc) and have them sit off to the side without taking up much space. I got six of them and fit everything in with room to spare. Not sure the expansions have lots of chits, but if they do, I have space for them. With the cards, I decided to use a couple of the deck boxes I have floating around. Each holds three of the sleeved decks (perfect!) and the two boxes easily fit in the case. There is also sufficient room in the case for a couple of hanging folders for the maps, rules, reference cards, and scenario books. The box I purchased (Staples) also has a flip up lid on top with some spaces where I have put all my little plastic bits. So, this takes up a bit of room, but the system works really well. Robert and I pulled all our pieces out from this setup the other day to play and it was pretty smooth overall.

Rush to Contact

Outskirts of Hitdorf, Germany - April 6, 1945. After crossing the Rhine, leading elements of Company A, 1st Battalion, 504th Parachute Regiment found themselves met by elements of the 62nd Volksgrenadier Division on the road to Hitdorf. Both side reported contact and immediately called for reinforcements.
Robert Bolan came over to resume our battles in Combat Commander:Europe after a 5-6 month layoff. He had lost the last time we played and chose to play as the Allied/American forces this time around. The scenario laid out with minimal units for the Americans and Germans. I had luckily drawn my secret objective as the spot closest to me and least likely to be ever taken by my opponent, so I setup my group near the house on the hill and hoped to maybe pick of any approaching Americans before reinforcements arrived. Robert quickly used what he had to basically over-run the other objectives and was well positioned when it was reinforcement time. The Germans arrived quickly and all at once and I setup to lay seige to the American's position in the central part of the map. I used another group on the far East side of the map to race off the map for points and as reinforcements when Robert would get his next batch of men (the Americans trickled in over three or so time spots). For a couple turns, I used my men in high-ground areas and machine gun teams to try and repel the Americans. Robert was giving the West side of the map a wide bearth (no cover near the road to approach my machine gun) and so I chose to try and race more units off the map. However, Robert stopped them dead in their tracks and eliminated them shortly after. My other units were not seeing much success either and Robert kicked their ass with two rounds of devastating order cards. He was able to call in artillery on my mass of machine gunners assaulting his houses and then through a series of the most lucky events, I lost recover cards in consecutive rounds, keeping me from regrouping. Without the ability to fight back, he demolished the Germans and forced a surrender victory. I played this one poorly (should have forced Robert to assault my positions) and Robert had all the karma. Next round is my pick. We'll have to see what happens.

El Grande

This month at the work gaming night, I introduced my fellow gamer/co-workers to El Grande. We had exactly five - Robert Bolan, Ana Lopez, Danielle Reader-Jolley, Deborah Allwes and myself. I went over the game and there were a few confused stares. Probably partial due to a number of co-workers being a bit fatigued. Despite that, once we started everyone seemed to really like the game. I myself enjoy this one a lot - though I've only played it three times (once with expansions). I think this one seems hard to get to the table due to it seeming to be really best with five players. I could see it being ok with four, but not as good. At any rate - I started out with an early lead which I managed to hold onto the entire game. Not that everyone didn't make some moves at the end of the game. In the last round, everyone managed to knock me out of first place in every place I was going to score in - with the stupid Castillo. Luckily in the last round, there was a "score first place only" in every region action that accounted me a good sum of points which let me hold out. Ana managed to be within a few points - she was in second most of game. Danielle kind of mis-understood the scoring and didn't score well in the first scoring, but made up ground in the last two to finish in the middle of the pack. Robert and Deborah were fighting to avoid last, but Deborah managed to eck out two more points than Robert.

Through the Ages

And yet another game of Through the Ages in the bag. I apparently learned something from the last beating I took at the hands of Steve Bauer. This online game was played with Robert Bolan, Nathan Winchester, and Matthew Frederick. The game started with my taking Homer - he's nice for some early points which is probably the amount I won this game by. The difference for me this game was two things: one, I NEVER got a mine upgrade. That's right, I played the whole game never having more than three bronze workers. I never even saw a mine upgrade card - the jerks I was playing with snatched them up as fast as they appeared on the board. This forced me to pay more attention to what I was taking and to play more efficiently than normal. It worked. The turning point for me was probably near the end of the first third of the game when I passed taking a swordsman technology. Saving my science points for knights and saving myself the cost of buying (and expending) swordsman helped immensely. As the game neared its end, I looked to have a pretty comfortable lead. Right up until Robert declared war on Nathan. Nathan DESTROYED Robert and garnered a reward of 21 culture points. Suddenly I wasn't sure I could hold him off. I grabbed Gandhi to earn points and built items solely gearing myself to generating as many last round points as I could. After the dust settled, I had managed to finally knock off Nathan from his undefeated streak. Nathan's "super science" strategy has been defeated (and not by uber military). Some interesting things to note:

• Never upgraded my mine, nor had more than 3 bronze workers.
• Never disbanded anything
• Didn't build the Transcontinental RR (built a late Ocean Liner Service)
• Didn't change governments until late in the game - switched to Republic 
• Never had more than 2 military actions

I'm not sure how much more of this game I have in me. It plays awfully tight and seems a little unforgiving when everyone knows the cards and pacing of the game. That kind of non-flexibility is ok in games that are shorter, but this game is pretty long to be that unforgiving. The other thing that is bothersome is that this is a rich get richer game. Fall behind and you are screwed. I still like the game, but its just about to fall out of my top 10 after nearly 10 plays.

Return to Lipki

I have returned to Lipki, Russia. The year is 1941 and I'm in charge of a German recon mission. On the other side? Erik Von Burg and the Russian army - out on a search and destroy mission. And this is why I play Combat Commander. Because it draws you into the story. But unlike some games that are all story and little game, there is plenty of game here. This was the first time Erik had played Combat Commander, so I went back to the beginning. Heck, it had been 5 months since I last played, so I had to go back and review the rules before Erik came over so I could remember everything. The game started slowly for Erik as he made a small mistake and had to regroup his forces in order keep his troops in command range of his leader. He made up for this by quickly taking out a small squad of Germans he ran into in the forest. I was forced to huddle in some buildings and try to hold out against Erik. I killed a couple of his squads, but it became a firefight across the road - with his side having a slight advantage with two medium machine guns. I contemplated moving a unit around to the west and then north to score some points for moving them off the board, but Erik managed to draw the Time! card over and over. He finally went through his deck and suddenly the game was over. When we revealed the objectives I managed to edge him out for the win.

Random thoughts on storing Combat Commander

Now that I have Combat Commander: Mediterranean, I've been considering the options for storage. Each of the Europe (base) game and Med fit in their own boxes using the Plano containers (pictured) I have now. Three of these (20 spaces each) and the card decks fit into the boxes with the lids either flush or just barely lifted. The problem is - CC:Med is not really a separate game - it is an expansion (and in some ways "completes" the base game). I could of course just use GMT counter trays, but six or seven of these will fill a box and require the cards and maps in another box. The other issue I have with the counter trays is that I'm not sure the lids won't just pop off and dump chits everywhere. I'd also really like to have all of the materials in one container. A lot of the published scenarios and tourney scenarios require both Europe and Med. Then of course there are the expansions :

• Combat Commander: Battle Pack #1 - Paratroopers
• Combat Commander: Battle Pack #2 - Stalingrad
• Combat Commander: Battle Pack #3 - Normandy
• Combat Commander: Resistance!

These will add to the bulk of maps as well as add counters. At this point it almost looks like I need a tackle bag solution like I use for Command and Colors: Ancients. The problem with this is that the Plano boxes are too big for the little chits. While there are lots of chits, they aren't so plentiful that I need the kind of space that the C&C:Ancients blocks require.
This morning, I was over at Walmart looking at their tackle selection trying to figure out if I wanted to just use a tackle box and what might work. Then I wandered over to their craft section and there I found bead boxes. These smaller boxes are fairly flat and have 24 containers inside them (thus I'd need 5 to meet the current storage need and maybe a 6th for expansions. These aren't too bad for size (I'd still need some other solution for toting everything around, but the clear plastic should work pretty decently). The small containers have screw tops to keep the chits in. I'm kind of leaning this way if I can figure out a solution for keeping these and the cards and all of the maps and booklets together.

Gaming With Nathan

Nathan Winchester and I haven't played anything face to face in a while - its been busy for us lately. He just got back to town after being in Washington for training for his new job and he wanted to game. He stopped by after work and we had a little dinner and then played some games. We started the night with a couple quick games of Hive - including the new ladybug. Ladybug was interesting though not really a factor. I lost the first game stupidly and then we pushed in the second.
Next up, we pulled out Caylus Magna Carta. This one is short and sweet and still interesting. This game, our setup had no food card and we didn't pay attention to build one right away. Nor did either of us build a gold and thus our game went by pretty quickly. I amassed a good amount of cash and then managed to get the card down that lets you buy the castle stones and purchased my way to a victory as quickly as I could. Of course, the last time we played we forgot an important rule - the player who collects the most building stones each round is rewarded with a gold resource marker. Well, we forgot AGAIN. That might have made a bit of a difference.

We ended the night playing Louis XIV. I haven't played this in years, but obtained a copy in a trade a while back. This isn't a bad little area control game. It is interesting game (though the two-player version is slightly odd). I'm still not too keen on the end game scoring thing with the coat of arms, but it doesn't make the game bad. Nathan did manage to score a single point more than I did for a win despite my winning a number of CoA bonuses. I'd like to play this with three people (four was rough IIRC).

Through the Ages: A Story of Civilization

Last Friday night was game night at Rob and Michelle's place. Matthew Frederick had indicated wanting to play Through the Ages face-to-face, the two of us sat down with Steve Bauer and Robert Bolan for a marathon game of TtA. We knew this would be a long game with four players and we were not wrong. Unfortunately, Steve has played often enough to know how to kick all our asses. And kick he did. Robert and I probably should have conceded about two hours before the end of the game (at least two hours). We learned a lot about the game (that had previously been essentially hidden from us by the online system we use for PBEM games. Of course, having more knowledge of the game hasn't made me any better of a player. Today we finished another online game and Nathan is now a stupid 6-0 in this game. I'm really on the fence with this one ATM. I like the game, but I just don't seem to grok it. I'm torn between wanting to figure it out and not wanting to play it anymore. I'll likely keep playing online and for sure I will not play it again F2F with four players (in fact, I won't play this with 2 online or F2F). Not sure how many more beatings I have left in me though.

That Didn't Take Long

Well, I found a copy of Battles of Westeros on an auction - unpunched for $40 (plus shipping). I'm not all that glad I get to glue the set, but at least I have nobody to complain at if it isn't done correctly.

So now the real question is - what / how do I get rid of some things in my collection to make room for the incoming stuff? As I look around my collection I realize it might be time to sell off a few things. Indonesia, Bus, Keythedral pop out immediately as games I should sell. I'm on the fence about keeping C&C:Ancients. I like the game, but I'm not sure I need it. Worse case, I need to get rid of my copy of Exp #1. I should probably trade or sell off Battlelore as well.
On another note - anyone have a suggestion for how to store the Combat Commander series? I'd just keep them each in their own big box, except that Europe and Med are really one giant game. I'd rather not have to lug both boxes around if I can figure something better out.

New Games

Despite the fact that fell in love with Battles of Westeros, it was not among those that I chose to recently order when my friend Dion Garner asked if I wanted to get in on his order. First on the list of things to get was Thunderstone: Doomgate Legion. For whatever reason, I had dragged my feet on getting this one. I finally pulled the trigger. I also finally got around to updating the online Thunderstone Randomizer I've been writing. I got Doomgate Legion encorporated (before I got the box). I also had to order a ton of new sleeves for the game. Well, it turns out that Thunderstone: Dragonspire came out this past week - I missed getting it into the order with Dion, so I just bought a copy (along with 400 more card sleeves) from the Game Depot. I have the game (and all expansions) sleeved now and I'm working on incorporating this latest expansion into the generator. I have to do the village and Thunderstone cards and maybe work in a couple of tweaks and I'll finally be caught up. Sadly, the fully sleeved game doesn't fit in any one box. The expansion boxes are fantastic for holding sleeved cards and AEG did a great job in printing dividers for all the cards - but even with leaving out all of the random game generating cards and a stack of disease cards, the game still took up the entirety of the Dragonspire box and half of one expansion box. I'm guessing the next expansion will easily fit in, but it'd be REALLY nice if they could figure out a jumbo box or something.

The second game I had in Dion's order was Combat Commander: Mediterranean. I now have the three big boxes in the series and will start gathering the smaller expansions as well. I mentioned to Robert Bolan that I heard that someone was thinking about running a CC tourney at the Geekway and he said we need to resume our weekly games. We really do. This is such a good series and we both enjoy it a lot. I forgot all about buying more sleeves for this one. I'll have to get on that. I'll also have to run my butt over to Walmart for a few more small Plano containers for the new chits. I'm starting to think I need to just swap out everything in my CC:Ancients/Battlelore bag and keep all the Combat Commander stuff in it. I'm not real sure I want to do that, but it might be an option.
The last little bit I got in Dion's order was the Ladybug expansion for Hive. I had no clue what this truly added to the game (and I didn't care in the least). Hive is a no-brainer for me and so was this. Turns out the Ladybug moves exactly two times ON other tiles, then once off. Sounds interesting.

Finally - the last of my splurges was because of Dion, but not in the same order. When I picked up my games, he told me about Labyrinth: The War on Terror. I had heard NOTHING about this. No excitement, no reviews, nada. So what is it? On the surface, it looks a lot like a "modern" Twilight Struggle with the US versus the Terrorists. It is a CDG and Dion indicated that it was like Twilight Struggle in that the more he plays it, the better it has become. Twilight Struggle is really an excellent game that has held up really well for me. Nathan Winchester and I have always managed a couple of games of it while traveling to and from the Geekway. I looked at the box at Dion's and decided to get this by the time I got back to my place. I don't know if this will replace Twilight Struggle on our trip this year. I have a travel version of Twilight Struggle we play that is easy to do in places like an airplane. I'll likely bring Labyrinth along (unless the Geekway guys get a copy out there) to play regardless.

Thunderstone Randomizer Updated

I finally got around to updating my online Thunderstone Randomizer. I added the Doomgate Legion expansion cards as well as the promos from the Promo Pack (I had already included the Clan Promo and the Death Sentinel Promo in the previous release). I like the way it has turned out so far, though I'm less happy with the code backing the web page. Too many moving parts and validation pieces make it a pain to update and each new set that gets added makes the testing for combinations / correctness a huge pain in the butt (permutations are a pain to test).

With Dragonspire hitting the shelves, I'll probably update this again soon while the little nuances are still fresh in my head. Then I'll go check and see what the other apps are offering and what suggestions / features people have asked for. I need to figure out the Google API for databases so I can add a feature to save card sets after you generate them (that way if you find a really good combination, you can replay it). I suppose I'll have to figure out some logic for making a "smart" deck builder (for the wimpy people out there that have to have items and heroes that directly match up to the monster cards).

Friday Night Gaming

This weeks gaming started off with my introducing In the Year of the Dragon to Nathan Winchester and Robert Bolan. Though it is ok, this game wore itself out on me really quickly - possibly because of the double dragon strategy. At any rate, I wanted to teach Robert and Nathan so we could add yet another game to our online repertoire. I started and took the double dragon (and ended up losing). Nathan took a double dragon in the second round. I tried to hold him off with a load of dragon ladies mid game, but his houses were beating me and in the end, he had too many people in his service.
Erik Von Burg came over as we finished up our game and mentioned that he hadn't played Thunderstone, so I pulled it out for the four of us.  We randomized everything in the base set and Wrath of the Elements. We ended up with three fighter types and a thief type in the hero pile. In the monster pile? Pain Elementals, Undead Doom and Spirit, and Death Traps. The village wasn't terribly interesting except for the trainer - everyone but me was grabbing them and burning through their militias for XP. The hero piles all disappeared pretty quickly. I had managed a couple of early kills, but got stuck a little in the middle. Nathan had come on strong, but a rash of traps killed of a number of his hard earned heroes. I started grabbing ambrosia each turn just for the pure VPs and when we added it up, I had indeed bested Nathan. Of course, Erik managed to best me - by one point. And of course, having played sparked my need to dig back into the code we started working on for randomizing the decks. I just need to update the village list and I'll have incorporated the Doomgate Legion and promos. We'll see if I ever get around to Dragonspire...

We finished the night by having Erik teach us Powerboats (which I picked up on Erik's recommendation). This is a fun little race game with some odd three sided dice. I pushed my luck a few too many times - however I managed to finish all the races, unlike Erik who blow up in the third race. Since dice were involved, Nathan didn't win this one - Robert did.

Catching Up

Theme good! Game - so so

Well, crap. My last post was Smell the Glove? Well, ok then - away we go. Robert Bolan came by at the end of January for a bit of gaming. We started out playing a couple of games of Hive. I really enjoy Hive because  it is short and yet tense and interesting. Robert and I managed to split games before Erik Von Burg stopped by and we setup Arkham Horror. We played and managed to win, but in trying to convince Robert that there is a decent game here I think I just managed to convince myself that there is too much stuff around an ok game. I like the theme, but it seems to be a lot of work for what is roughly the same payoff as Pandemic. We all kind of wished the end had come about 30-45 minutes sooner. Oh well.

Try and guess what this game is about

A week later was gaming at Rob and Michelle's place. I finally got to play Before the Wind. This is a little card game where you are trying to collect sets of cards (goods) in order to meet the requirements/wants of the ships (which earns you points). You are trying to balance collecting the goods and earning money to buy goods and space in your warehouse with what your fellow players are doing. We only had three players (Rob, Amelia and I) and I think this one would be better with four players. Having said that, even with four, I think this one isn't anything special. After Before the Wind, Erik arrived and so Amelia and I played a game of Empire Builder. I had managed to acquire a copy of the new edition for something like $22, so I had brought it along to get it played. This was my first playing of any crayon rail game. I'll have to say that it was also just ok. Though it has been a while, I'd have to say I think I like Dampfros better (which isn't a true part of the crayon rail games). The components of the newest edition are way better than the older ones, but the game was a bit longer than it needed to be.

2006 Spiel?

In the world of online/PBEM gaming, Nathan Winchester, Robert and I have managed a few games. We started with a game of St. Petersburg which I pretty well ran away with. We then moved on to Thurn and Taxis. I had only played Thurn once before, so had to refresh myself on the rules. The interface to the game at Yucata.de is really really well done and made it much easier. Unfortunately, I suck at this game. Nathan has managed to win both games we've played online and I have managed to be last both times. I'm getting a better feel for the game, but I can't figure out why it won the Spiel. It doesn't seem to be anywhere near the class of game like Ticket to Ride. Maybe it was just the other craptacular choice in 2006, but I'm not sure I'd have even suggested this one. Vegas Showdown and Ingenious are both FAR better games than this. Thurn is good, but not Spiel-good.

Is AoS on its last legs with me?

Anyway. Last week was my monthly manager meeting at my office. We have one manager that flies in and likes to play games and another from Tucson we've coerced into joining us. This month, I introduced them to Steam. The manager from Tucson (Deborah) may have been in a bit over her head, but she picked it up as the game went along. The other players were Robert and the out of town manager - Danielle. Danielle is pretty sharp and also picked a starting spot away from the rest of us. Having played quite a bit of AoS and Steam, I had a distinct advantage over three newbies and easily won this one. I hope the next time it will be closer as this is a game that is very satisfying to win against good opponents. I've also decided that I prefer this to AoS. the goods market and urbanization are much cleaner in Steam. I don't even mind that there isn't an auction. I'd be willing to play the auction version, but it doesn't hold the same tension since you can take money whenever you need it.  After Steam, Deborah had to drive home, so Robert and I taught Danielle Thurn and Taxis so we could try and suck her into our PBEM habit. Danielle won and I (continuing my reverse dominance of Thurn) was last.

New favorite in the C&C series

And the last game of this round up is the Battles of Westeros. Erik and I both had this past Monday off for President's Day and so he came over so we could try out BoW. BoW is the latest in the line of Command and Colors based games and I have to say is now easily my favorite. I didn't read the rules - Erik did and based on that I'll go with - not good. I printed out the Universal Head summary and I think having that (and having played every other game in the system) helped. Erik was the Stark side and I took the Lannister as we played the first scenario. It came down to the last round and I was not able to capture both of the hexes that the scenario required. Basically this game is more of the same from the C&C series - hexes, order a unit, move and roll some dice to combat. The trick is - the ordering mechanism is different. You roll the dice to start each round and that determines some of the unit types you can move. You also get a certain number of cards for each round you can use them as well in conjunction with any leaders you have on the board. The end result felt LESS luck driven than the previous C&C games (where you can have a hand of LEFT cards when you need RIGHT or MIDDLE cards). Not only that, but you may have the ability to rally (reset any army to accept orders again that round) your troops, which can make your play much more tactical and less "well, these are the cards I have". The box says it is a Battlelore game, but it is WAY better (and without the stupid magic cards). Heck, they might have just as well said it is a Battle Cry or Memoir 44 game. The dice are different. The ordering is different. It really is as different as it is similar to the other C&C offerings. One of the things I really liked was the theme. It did a good job of integrating the Westeros mythos without having just paid lip service to the theme, nor having shoehorned it. It is just a good fit. This is now a must have for me and I'd happily trade off my BL stuff when I get this.

Gaming with the Work Crew (AKA Smell the Glove)

This past week was our company Kick-off meeting. My employer flies everyone into town for a couple days of meetings and activities. A group of us pulled together a bit of time on Thursday night for some gaming and we started off with Telestrations - which is easily my favorite party game. We had our usual laughs (like the drawing of Italy that was backwards and thus looked like a sock yet was still "recognized" as Italy).
After a good number of belly laughs, a few people left and I pulled out Medici. I was the only person to have played before and joining me were - Steve Wicklund, Danielle Reader-Jolley, Robert Bolan, Deborah Allwes, and Bruno Bernard. I slow-played the first round to simply conserve cash. I was not quite prepared for Deborah's willingness to throw goods away left and right though. In the third round of the game, I had only four goods on my ship and with only three tiles in the bag. Robert was drawing and needed two tiles. He choose to be greedy and take two tiles out - hoping for the golden 10. He didn't draw it though, and I got the 10 which made my ship the top ship in the last round and scored me enough points for the win. Whew!
After our Medici adventure, we found a couple of other company folks and played another quick game of Telestrations to get in a few more laughs.

Through the Ages (for 2)

Nathan Winchester, Robert Bolan and I finished another couple of games of Through the Ages. Except, it was more accurately, I finished two player games with each of them. Nathan basically raped me the whole game being a bully with his military forces. I tried going the "more advanced" route with Robert, but that didn't help in the end. This is such a good game, but it really becomes mediocre with only two players. I think I'll stick to three player (possibly four).

Finishing a Few Descent Figs

With a three day weekend and some free time, I broke out the paints and Descent figs for some finishing. These skeletons were done, but needed to be "dipped". They look much better than my pictures convey. I tried a mahogany brown and I really like the effect.


For these manticores, I used the black (ie - Tudor). The one thing I did see with the brown was that it really shaded the guys "brown". the Tudor tends to darken but not really muddy the colors. For the giants and skeletons, the brown worked well, but I will not use it for the dragon or demons.



 The giants are sooooo much cooler than these pictures show. They are really amazing looking. One thing I did was spend too much time on them. I dry brushed their hair a bit, but you can't tell in the least (the blue pants guy had MUCH lighter hair). The other thing I realized is that I need to use much much more bright colors. The orange pants for the one giant looked retarded before the dip and they look great now.

Of course, I just got done dipping all of these figures, so they are still shiny. After they've had a few days to dry, I'll cover the bases in black and give them all a spray with the flat clear cote spray.

Still left: regular skeletons, dragons, demons, ogres, and of course, all the heroes.

Through the Ages (again)

Nathan Winchester, Robert Bolan and I finished another game of Through the Ages. I am getting a little better at the pacing, though I still didn't win. I had a lead through the game, but knew it wouldn't be enough at the end - it wasn't. Nathan killed me in points at the end of the game I was back of him by 36 points. Robert stagnated in the last third of the game, which didn't help slow Nathan down. I imagine we'll be playing this one quite a bit more.

Battleball

With some recent nice weather, some of the boys in the neighborhood have broken out the footballs. along with the upsurge in football interest, my son dragged out Battleball for us to play. He chose the Iron Wolves and I had the Black Harts. We played four games and with the same end result each time - a victory for the Black Harts. The first game I showed Ashton a few tricks with throwing the ball around. After that, nothing was working for the poor guy. I was able to roll under his rolls and crush his guys again and again. I haven't seen rolls that bad since Robert and I played Combat Commander! Still a great little quick game.

Friday Game Night

This week, Nathan Winchester and I planned to head over to Rob Smolka and Michelle Zentis' house for a bit of Friday night gaming. The two of us arrived about the same time as Jeff Claussen and the group decided to start with a shorter game while we waited for Matthew Frederick and Ameli Boli. Our choice was Through the Desert - a game I enjoy a lot, but don't tend to play very well. This night was different as I managed to weave in-between folks while Michelle and Nathan used all the purple camels. I ended up able to take a pretty good amount of 3-pt tokens and hit a lot of the oasis which, at the end of the game saw me ahead by 9-10 points! The game was over incredibly quickly which was probably to my advantage. If we had gone on much longer, I'm guessing that Michelle would have block anything I could have done to score points.

Matthew and Amelia arrived and had brought 7 Wonders along. This is a hot new game for me - I enjoy the pace and length of this little card drafting / civ game. Rob suggested we all play since it supports 7 players and Nathan was the only new player, so we quickly went over the rules for him. I didn't really start with great choices of materials, but I was able to start getting science (green) cards, so I grabbed those and spent the next few rounds collecting the cards that built off those for free. I somehow managed to get three triplets of science buildings and one other to score 25 points in science. That and a little more military than the players next to me at the end of the game pushed me into the second win of the night!

My streak would come to the end though as I pulled out Cyclades for the first time. This is a little war-euro-game I've had for a while that I've really wanted to play. Erik Von Burg had arrived at Rob and Michelle and joined Matthew and Nathan and I. Don't let the descriptions fool you, this is a well themed EURO-game. There are dice for combat, but the amount of randomness is pretty low, really the game is about the auction for turn order and the ability to do something on that turn. The auction is ala Amun-Re, where you bid on an item and if outbid, you must bid on something else. It took us a few turns (and lots of mistakes in tactics) to get into the flow of the game and then it went pretty well. At the end, Nathan and Matthew both needed to win the Neptune auction to win while I needed to have Ares and go before either of them to win. At the cost of all my money, I was able to hold of Nathan for one turn, but the next turn Nathan was loaded with cash and could win with either of two powers and he won. Unfortunately, we all kind of felt that the end game was a bit flawed - the random ordering of the powers and the fact that the one you needed might not be there didn't feel quite right. The game wasn't bad, but wasn't great (like Chaos in the Old World) either.

Through the Ages

One of my favorite new games from last year was Through the Ages (of course the game wasn't new last year, just new to me). I had only played two player games of it though, and I wanted to try this one with three players. After teaching it to Robert Bolan, we agreed that we needed to try it with three (Nathan Winchester being the intended third of course). As luck would have it, I remembered finding an online implementation of the game at Boardgaming-online.com. Though there were a few things we discovered we had missed or played slightly off, it really isn't a bad PBEM implementation. There are a couple of times when you have no action but to pass (for example - in bidding) and you still have to "take your turn", but that's a small complaint I think. I started with Homer as my leader and was scoring a good number of points and thus started with the early lead. Also due to my more militant take on things, I received a number of colonies through the game. However, I stagnated in the mid-game and haven't played enough to grasp the pacing of the game well enough to recover. Nathan came on strong in the mid-game and crushed Robert and I at the end.

Torres

Nathan Winchester had suggested that we try Torres online. Since my friend Robert Bolan hadn't learned this one yet, I offered to teach him while we were watching a football game. I don't know that I had ever played this two player but the goal was to try and teach Robert all the nasty tricks that Nathan would try to use. I showed him how I was going to put the game out of reach after the first turn by building a sprawling castle that prevented his biggest one from growing. Then I started climbing. Robert figured out placing two levels next to my climbing stack to prevent my advancing, but a card allowing me to place under my knight remedied that situation and made the score that much worse for Robert. We played quickly and while the game wasn't that close, I was again reminded how good a game this one is.

Oregon

Robert Bolan and I fired up a couple of games of two-player Oregon on yucata.de recently. This of course after introducing the game to Robert in a 3-player game with Nathan Winchester. In our three player game, Nathan kicked our butt by getting a good number of the same areas for the first 7 turns or so and managed to place nearly all his people in groups! After easily beating us, Robert and I tried a couple games as two-player. I wanted to see if the luck was mitigated head-to-head and we each ended up winning a game. As a two-player game though, it was about as luck filled as Ballon Cup - which is to say: VERY. As a three or four player game, this one is ok, but not great. It seems a little too complex for a family game, and too luck filled to appeal to the euro-game crowd.

Power Grid

I have a confession. I almost lost a game of Power Grid against newbs. Some people I work with got together for a little bit of gaming the other night. Danielle Reader-Jolley, Tim Baker, Robert Bolan and I all sat down to play some PG. Robert has played once before and the game was new to Tim and Danielle. We played the US map with the standard deck of power plants. The game started out normally and Robert decided to slow play his hand by staying back of everyone a couple cities - that didn't work out so well for him. Luckily for him, EVERYTIME he chose to get out of an auction he got a really good plant at cost. Danielle ended up with some "green" plants and cheap fuel plants and spent the game hoarding money while Tim and I plodded along. As we hit the third step of the game and I realized I had no chance to beat Danielle, I did the only thing I could - I guessed that we'd have another turn, and I didn't buy into every city I could afford. My hope was to get cheaper fuel in the last turn and have enough cash to power as many cities as Danielle (though I was sure if it was a tie, I'd lose to cash). In the last round, Danielle made the mistake that cost her the game - she didn't buy a new plant and could only power 17 cities. I had to get a new plant and had the ability to power 18. Only Robert was before me in claiming cities, and he couldn't keep me from grabbing cities until I had 18 of them. As the only player who could power 18, I won.

New Look

That was surprisingly easy and annoying at the same time. I applied a new template and played with the colors a little bit until I found something I liked. I played with the CSS a little to try and get the corners rounded on the posts and side items. Looks good in Firefox, but not IE - too bad. I'll probably spend a little time and see if I can't do something with the page banner, which I think is a bit too tall and looks fuzzy. Banner updated. Welcome to Things of No Interest 2011

Thunderstone

Ashton and I busted out Thunderstone: Wrath of the Elements and did a little gaming. Our mix included Golems, Pain Elementals and the Horde. We had a mix of heroes: Seleurian Wizards, Outland Warriors, Chalice Questers and Amazons. We also had a good mix of weapons and spells making the Amazons the least effective and desired hero. We had Goodberries, the Feast, and Ambrosia as well, so the Outlanders were the obvious choice - even though I forgot and didn't notice the VPs on those cards. My son was going for the big bangs and had a good number of wizards and magic missiles and fireballs. Though he ended up with an Outland Khan in his deck, my deck was far faster at bashing baddies and in the end I was killing anything I wanted at will. Even though I beat Ashton, the best part was how quickly he picked the game up even though it had been over 6 months since learning to play it.

New Year, Same Story

My son and I played in the last city championship of the season for Pokemon down in Tucson over the weekend.We did - poorly. Poor Ashton went 1-3, with his only win from a bye in the action. He was pretty even-keeled about it, so I was glad to see him handle it without dampening his enthusiasm for the game. As for me, I also went 1-3. My single win was almost pure luck, as my opponent had 4 chances to knock me out, but ended up on the wrong side of a coin flip each time while I held out. Next up? The next set of pre-release events are the end of January.