Game Night

 Got together with friends and played a couple board games.

The first game we played was Return to Dark Tower, a remake of the class Dark Tower game.

Its got a companion app on the tablet that guides you through the game and controls the tower via bluetooth.

I was the spymaster. We defeated the caravans and then took about three attacks to defeat the BBEG.

The next game up was a favourite of the group, Twilight Inscription.

I was the Argent Flight.

Chad won, but I was happy with my score.

Stamp Swap and Endless Winter Paleoamericans

 I got to go on another board game night with my friends and we played two new games.

First up was Stamp Swap, a game where you are attending a Stamp collectors show and have three days to make the best collection!

Over three rounds you draft stamps of various colours and sizes and themes, and then swap with other players, then try to place on your board to meet the qualification for 4 categories. Its a quick game, we played twice and the second time took 40 minutes and was great fun. Would reccommend.

Second game was a meatier choice and is called Endless Winter: Paleoamericans.

We joked that the designer of this game wanted to play every game he liked at once so he created this game. Its got worker placement, tile placement, board map, villages to settle, tracks to race up, deck building... With so many mechanics and things going on it was almost overwhelming!

But we got into the swing of the game and had lots of fun by the end. Would definitely play again.

Board Games!

 Played some board games with friends in person a couple weeks back.

First up was Brass: Birmingham, the current highest rank game on Board Game Geek if you can believe it.

Don't get me wrong, its a good game. But the best in the world? I have opinions. Anyways, it was a tough game and in the end my numerous railway lines earned me the top spot.

Next up was Twlight Inscription, a roll and play game set in the Twilight Imperium universe.

I've only played it twice but its one of my favourites mainly because everyone plays at the same time. No waiting which is right up my ADHD alley. Chad won this game, but it was a good time with lots of decisions and rolling.

* * * 

While on the topic of board games, got a chance today to play a couple rounds of Memoir 44 with my son Aarjay.

We split the game one apiece, with me successfully completing operation Market Garden while he stormed the beaches of D Day.

Board Game Night

 I got together with some friends for some old fashioned board game night!

First we played Twilight Inscription, a roll and write game based off of  Twilight Imperium, the massive 4x game. 

It was a lot of fun once you got the hang of the rules and the symbology. I leaned into the Jolnar's reseaching and had all the techs by the end, but not enough victory points to win.

Then we setup and played
, the second edition of Dune Imerpium. 

It was fun but man I am having trouble groking this edition. Its like all the mental shortcuts tactics that worked so well in the first edition are not paying off in this edition. I need more practice.

Scythe

 Nothing like a lazy rainy Sunday morning to make the big board games come out.

And nothing is quite as nice of a big board game as Scythe, which can be set up, played, and put away in 3 hours. I played with my sons Terjoe and Aarjay and took off the kids gloves and gave them a right shellacking, winning 78 to 63 and 57.

We had fun and still one of my favourite games. 

Time Flies When You're Having Fun

What happened?

Life got busy. I really poured myself into work, kids activities in the evenings, and I just got out of the habit of posting. When I took a break from playing Magic the Gathering and did not pick it up again, it really started to feel like the blogging life was done for me. 

But I did renew the domain registration for two straight years so I did not let go entirely. It was always there, lurking in the back of my mind, the blog calling me...

I tried to fill the blogging urge with twitter for a while until Elongated Muskrat bought it and I left after that went through. I have made a Mastadon account where I've been posting some images but I feel like I am starting to require more space again.

Now, what have I been up to?

As I mentioned, my obsession with Magic the Gathering drafting died down. It was a combination of a release I was not excited in (Boo Alchemy) and the terrible market that forces you to pump money into the gems every month to keep drafting if you are not a good player. 

I've been doing a lot of board gaming still, both with my growing boys who are 15, 15, and 13 and with my friend group weekly both online and occasionally in person.

Our group has several games we like to play online via Tabletopia or Table Top Simulator or Board Game Arena. The big favourite is Tapestry with all the expansions.

So many paths to victories, so many different civs and city boards, its fresh every time. 

Another favourite is Dune Imerpium.

Intrigue, fighting, tech research, worker placement....  its an amazing balance and every game is anyone's up until the end.

Not complicated enough? Well let's bring in Ark Nova:

Its a game with so much going on that your first few games are an exercise in "what the hell am I doing?" but once you start to get it you find yourself begging for more.

Some other games we have tried an enjoyed are Expeditions, Heat: Pedal to the Metal, and Brass: Birmingham.

In other news, my urge to paint miniatures overcame my desire to have money and I've been sucked back into the 40K universe for real, harkening back to the origins of this blog. Fortunately, I've only dipped into Kill Team, the small squad action version of 40K so you have a completed kill team with 8-15 models instead of needing armies of hundreds including vehicles.

I started with a basic starter kit that came with Guardsman and Orks:

And after that I bought a Eldar Corsair kill team and started on those which you can see the progress on in yesterday's post.

And that's where we are at! Let's see if I can keep this thing going this time...

Rise of Fenris Campaign

My board gaming group that has been using Tabletop Simulator to play weekly board games this pandemic decided to try Scythe this spring, a favourite board game of mine. The group, 5 of us, enjoyed a few games over a few weeks so decided to dive right in and do the Rise of Fenris campaign.

Its an 8 game campaign with lots of surprises and additions and definitely worth the money in my opinion if you own the base game. Some of the rounds were better than others, but overall the campaign was a hoot and the final game last week was down to the wire. But I managed to pull a victory out from the jaws of defeat, winning with a score of 240 to 236 of my closest opponent. Lady luck smiled on me that night.

The one complaint about the base game that a few of us had is that there is a significant portion of the game dependent on luck: which encounters you get (some are better than others), which combat cards you get (last game of the campaign I was pulling all 5s and 4s while the Saxony player was only 2s), which player mat you get, etc. And the balance between some of the factions is terribly out of whack, for example the Crimea and Rusviet factions are better than the other 3 base game factions and all 5 of those are strictly better than the expansion factions from the Invaders from Afar pack.

That being said, its still a great fun game, and the expansion is worth it.

The Blog Lives!

 What the hell happened? What have I been up to since Feb 19th?

I've been chasing a particular project at work for about two years, pushing for a technology and implementation that I thought was very necessary for our product offerings and that people agreed was desirable, but could not get time funding for to actually do it.

Things came to a head in late February where I asked if I should just give up on this project and focus my energies elsewhere and my excellent managers found a way to carve the time for me to work on this pet project alone for one year. I went from "this is never going to happen" to "OMG this is happening RIGHT NOW" on a dime.

Since I've been campaiging for this project for two years very loudly I feel like my repuation is on the line based on the success of said project. If it fails to deliver, my hopes of influencing future projects could dim precipitously. My managers have assured me that they are measuring how much can an enthusiastic developer get done in a focused project in a year and that I cannot fail as a result, but there is a wide gulf between failing and succeeding that can be preceived as disappointing to others excited about the outcome of this project.

All of that to say, I've been working harder than ever in order to guarantee early success on this project which means less time for "smoke breaks" at work where I can put together a blog post over a couple days. The good news is that the extra work has paid off and I feel like my project has gotten off to a good solid start and I'm at the point where some of the pressure I put on myself can relax a bit so I can take a chance to breath again.

SO..... what's been going on?

Magic the Gathering: Arena

I have continued to play Magic the Gathering: Arena focusing mainly on Limited draft. When I last wrote I was commenting on how Kaldheim set was some of my most successful drafting ever, and now that the set has sunset I can see the difference. 

My end result with Zendikar Rising:

Game Record: 134 - 128 (51.1%)
Match Record: 116 - 112 (50.9%)
Total Events: 48 (7 Trophies)

And with Kaldheim:

Game Record: 134 - 109 (55.1%)
Match Record: 72 - 57 (55.8%)
Total Events: 39 (7 Trophies)

The number of trophies did nto increase but my win rates in matches and games both had a dramatic increase. And the results so far in the new set, Strixhaven: School of Mages?

Game Record: 65 - 53 (55.1%)
Match Record: 36 - 24 (60.0%)
Total Events: 17 (3 Trophies)

Still looking good.

Board Games

I talked about how we were entering a Golden Age of board games with my kids and that has continued. Not only is Axis & Allies and Tapestry a choice for us, but recently Settlers of Catan and Scythe have entered the picture, along with a borrowed copy of Memoir 44. And Tapestry and Carcassone have continued to be in the rotation.

Computer Games

With the exception of MTG Arena, there has not been much. Like I said, I've been busy with work and keeping 3 kids, two who are teenagers now, active and happy. We'll see if there is room for some extra games in the summer.

Entering the Golden Age

 My twin sons, Wilmick and Terrjo, are 12 and will be 13 in March. Although I'm not looking forward to the attitude and growing pains that come from raising teenagers, I have to admit I'm entering a kind of Golden Age because the twins like board games. Not just any board games, but complex board games like I like!

Last year we started playing and enjoying Terraforming Mars, and this Christmas I got Tapestry for a present and turns out the twins like that game too.

Tapestry Learning Game

Only one of the twins has a lot of interest in Twilight Imperium, but the other twin *loves* Axis & Allies and owns three of the games now (World 1941, Europe 1940 and Pacific 1940) and we played his new one, Pacific 1940) twice over the Christmas.

Twilight Imperium

Terrjo also got Carcassonne as a smaller board game pickup and its a hit with all the family, something that can be in and done in a hour and lots of fun.

Ah, all those years of missing board game nights and giving up Warhammer are finally paying off....

Board Game Review: Tapestry

From the website, Tapestry is described as "a 2-hour civilization game for 1-5 players". Which is a lie; its not a civilization game, its a victory point generating mechanics game with a fake veneer of a civ game. Don't get me wrong though, you could change all the civ game trappings to gibberish and you would still have a great fun game.

At its heart it is a game where you compete to put together the best engine at generating victory points based on the civilization you start with. There are four different engines and you can invest in any of them but its usually best to invest heavily in one to get the most benefits.

The first time you play it is overwhelming. The sheer number of symbols, options, mechanics, it is truely gobsmacking how much there is going on. Even though the game starts slow and simple, the actions and choices build up until you either find your engine humming along or stalling in the starting blocks. There is some element of luck too, based on the civilization you start with and the tapestry cards you draw that give different bonuses throughout the game as you go through the rounds.

There is some player versus player interaction. On the map itself you can do a little "fighting" over tiles and controlling tiles is one of the engines you can operate for victory points. And on each of the four tracks there are three landmarks you can earn to place in your capital city for more points or resources that you can spend, but only the first player to get to that landmark's spot on the track gets that landmark. This is the biggest source of competition as those landmark buildings are invaluable to building up your city and not only gives you more resources, but is another one of the four victory point engines.

Besides conquering tiles and building up your capital city, the other two engines are developing technologies and exploring tiles. Each of the engines is closely tied to one of the four tracks and often a player will pick one track to invest heavily on and a supporting track to supplement growth and development as it gets more and more expensive to climb a track as you proceed.

This game is available on Tabletopia and Tabletop Simulator as well as a physical board game. My friends and I have been playing it recently on a weekly basis on the latter and it is a big hit with my group. I have definitely added a physical copy to my wish list for Chirstmas.

Rating: 4.5 stars out of 5

Board Games With the Spawns

I haven't talked about The Boys much but they are a very large part of my life, both regularly and especially in gaming. The twins are turning 12 this coming April, and the younger brother is 10 next week, so they are getting to the age where more complicated games are not only intriguing for them but also possible.

This past week I started to introduce them to one of the big influences of my childhood love of board games, Axis and Allies. After doing some small scenarios and rules introduction, we broke out the latest version I purchased, Axis and Allies 1941.

It includes Destroyers but not Artillery pieces, comes with fewer bits overall, and the setup has fewer pieces per player and the economy is such that you buy fewer pieces every turn. But the general idea is the same: Japan and Germany have bigger starting forces and must win before the larger buying power of the Allies overwhelm them.

Since this is a shorter and simpler game then other versions its perfect intro for The Boys. And it went well!

Wilmick and Terjoe were the Axis, while Aarjay and I were the Allies. I went easy on them, helping them with strategy and ideas, and in the end I left a path open for victory before lunch.

Another evening Wilmick and I had a skirmish in Mothership.

Next up, Axis and Allies Pacific!

Terraforming Mars Board Game

I got Terraforming Mars for my birthday back in February but since I was going through a rough time I didn't get the gumption to try it out, then summer hit and we were busy living life outside, but finally a lazy Labour Day weekend arrived and my son Wilmik and I broke it out and learned how to play.

It was a little intimidating at first with tons of cards, tiles, and cubes but the instructions were clear and the game mechanics were straight forward that we got the hang of it pretty fast.

Basically the story is this: you represent a corporation trying to terraform mars and get the highest score. You score points by raising the temperature, making greenry, founding cities, and for accomplishing milestones, awards, and large projects. The game is for 1-5 players.

A few turns in, we have got a decent amount of water and Wilmik has planted a lot of greenspace.

My player card. From top to bottom, left to right: Money (for projects), steel (for building), titanium (for space projects). Bottom: plants (for greenry), energy (for heat and projects), and heat (for raising temperature). I'm getting ready to green the surface of mars and raise the temperature soon.

Wilmik's zone.

Many turns later, oxygen has been maxed out, average temp is approaching zero, and only a few aquifers left to place.

Not enough cudes for traking titanium so started using my old warhammer dice. On the left we see some of my ongoing projects which either add victory points or allow me actions.

Wilmik has a lot of completed projects (green) but only a couple ongoing ones (blue).

The game ends once all 9 aquifers are placed, oxygen reaches 14%, and temperature is +8 degrees C.

Our final board.

I got VPs for importing animals including small animals, fish, and livestock.

Wilmik added a lot of microbes and brought in pets for the people.

We tallied the end score and Wilmik won 82 to 71 victory points. His early push to green the planet made the difference as he scored VPs both for upping the oxygen level and the green tiles themselves.

Next time we will try the more advanced corporations with unique rules and the milestones and awards.

Good game, would recommend.