Really?
Yes Adam, really.
:)
Only new gaming items I have to provide is a new video game. Well, it is an older video game that I just got. The Lego Star Wars Complete Saga. Not sure I like it, as I might be just to damn old for the finger coordination needed on the key board. That coupled with my inability to figure out the paths or puzzles or just stop dying makes it rather frustrating. :)
Next few weeks are going to be hectic in real life during the week and it is looking like I will not make WM Tuesdays until the 22nd. That blows.
I'm hoping that The Other Half and I will go catch Christmas Carol at the Omaha Play House one of these weekends too. That should be fun as I love the story (I may be the only person to admit to watching the Susan Lucci's Ebbie on TV. Sad, but if Scrooged is on, or Henry Winkler's An American Christmas Carol I'll be glued to the tube like some sappy sap person.
See you in December!
jp
Three Ghosts!
Monday, November 30, 2009
Saturday, November 28, 2009
The Next Level...
Yesterday saw the start of the next level for Flames Of War slow grow league. The Italian Africa Recon Force continues its growth. I got my 600 painted up and I thought they looked pretty good. I put together Thursday (Happy T-Day) and Friday enough to field most of my 1250. This includes the M14 tanks, two big 90/53 AA guns, an additional L6 for the HQ, and a Mortocicli Machine Gun Platoon with a soloturn anti-tank gun team attached.
I played a game versus Paul's Kiwis using the break out scenario. I was the attacker since I was a mobile force and had to fight my way through his two quadrants to the one diagonal opposite my deployment zone. I opted to have my two Mortociccli platoons come in as reserves on the objective side of the board. Paul had to bring one of his two mech teams in reserve and choose the Shermans. My volume of machine gun fire did me well as I swooped in on his positions with my tanks and Paul's dice betrayed him to the end. I had a platoon on the objectives on Turn three with Paul's Shermans unable to contest them. It was a good educational game for me, allowing me to see the best way to deploy the HQ, broken up vice as a single platoon.
On Friday I also picked up a Dremel as it was on sale at Lowes. Since I've got Iron Fang to stick together, I wanted to replace the pole arms with something that wouldn't bend so much. I'll post how that goes.
A week ago, TJ dropped me a note to let me know that his local game store had Grind on sale for $35. That is below retail costs! He swung by on Friday since he and his wife were passing by and dropped off my copy! Sweet. I opened the box and peeked, but haven't had a chance to play yet.
jp
Ci siamo!
I played a game versus Paul's Kiwis using the break out scenario. I was the attacker since I was a mobile force and had to fight my way through his two quadrants to the one diagonal opposite my deployment zone. I opted to have my two Mortociccli platoons come in as reserves on the objective side of the board. Paul had to bring one of his two mech teams in reserve and choose the Shermans. My volume of machine gun fire did me well as I swooped in on his positions with my tanks and Paul's dice betrayed him to the end. I had a platoon on the objectives on Turn three with Paul's Shermans unable to contest them. It was a good educational game for me, allowing me to see the best way to deploy the HQ, broken up vice as a single platoon.
On Friday I also picked up a Dremel as it was on sale at Lowes. Since I've got Iron Fang to stick together, I wanted to replace the pole arms with something that wouldn't bend so much. I'll post how that goes.
A week ago, TJ dropped me a note to let me know that his local game store had Grind on sale for $35. That is below retail costs! He swung by on Friday since he and his wife were passing by and dropped off my copy! Sweet. I opened the box and peeked, but haven't had a chance to play yet.
jp
Ci siamo!
Monday, November 23, 2009
Long Weekend, Lots of Driving
Made it back to the Big 'O' this morning around 10am. The Eldest and I went to Canon to see my sister off on her next stage of her adventure. She is moving to Seattle area and since everyone was going to be near by we did an early Thanksgiving. The trip out was fine, left nice and early, but the return we got off late and given the bad fog I was tired by Grand Island and we had to stop and get a hotel room.
It was good to see everyone, in fact I saw some old friends I hadn't seen in years. Matt was a great buddy in High School and he is in Denver and sees my folks once every few months or so. He is looking at a conversion to civil service, like I did, but for DoE. I think he would be happy with the time off benefits as he is still big into shooting and know is into Dragon Boat Racing! How cool is that? It was great to see him.
Plus I got to see Jeff who is a part owner/brewmaster at McCleallan's Grill & Bar. I couldn't have the beer, but I was told it was as good as always.
Only gaming I got in was one game of Race for the Galaxy as a learner, one Pandemic, and a few games of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cribbage.
Not sure what gaming is planned for the weekend, but I did get my Weird War II book for the Savage Worlds system... Looks pretty interesting and will be useful if I can pull together a Weird War II campaign.
jp
Are we there yet?
It was good to see everyone, in fact I saw some old friends I hadn't seen in years. Matt was a great buddy in High School and he is in Denver and sees my folks once every few months or so. He is looking at a conversion to civil service, like I did, but for DoE. I think he would be happy with the time off benefits as he is still big into shooting and know is into Dragon Boat Racing! How cool is that? It was great to see him.
Plus I got to see Jeff who is a part owner/brewmaster at McCleallan's Grill & Bar. I couldn't have the beer, but I was told it was as good as always.
Only gaming I got in was one game of Race for the Galaxy as a learner, one Pandemic, and a few games of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cribbage.
Not sure what gaming is planned for the weekend, but I did get my Weird War II book for the Savage Worlds system... Looks pretty interesting and will be useful if I can pull together a Weird War II campaign.
jp
Are we there yet?
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Saturday Game Action
I got to head over to Steve's a bit early on Saturday to play my last game of the Flames of War Slow grow. It as a good solid game against Steve's Italian Infantry force (1 full platoon with Carri squad in support). I ran the same 600 point list of a L6 HQ (3), 5 L6 platoon, 4 AB-41's, 1 Motorcycle Platoon, and the 20mm AA. Steve used the Infantry to camp on my objective and used the Carri as his assault side. I used my AA on the objective and ran everything else forward. Got some good MG shots on the platoon and assaulted doing well... Except for the 2IC in the Wabbi, that ended up killing four guys + the Company Commander when the L6's finally failed a moral to continue. The Motorcycle Platoon then rolled in, dismounted, and assualted the remaining Infantry platoon, to get to the objective. However, the Carri Squad rolled the AB's and was threating the dug-in AA guns, but just couldn't pull it off. I won, but by an ugly 4-3. It was a solid game and I had a good time playing against Steve as always.
Eric showed up just as we finished and we played tho hands of Race for the Galaxy. Eric was having no luck at all and couldn't get the cards to come out for him. Steve made it a close game on the first one, but I one by a few points with the Galactic Developer. Second game I massed 52 points to Steve's 47 using the Separatist Colony, a solid military build, but the <6> cards for explore bonuses (worth 11 I think) and the development bonus.
We then broke out Agricola which is fast becoming one of my favorite games. Eric and I were running head long with Steve having some resource issues. I played an occupation that limited the player's ability to collect their goods timely which really slowed down their development, allowing me to sprint ahead a bit. With the Sheep Farmer and a fence builder bonus I was able to fill up many spaces, plus the plow allowing me to plow 3:1 actions helped me fill up the board quickly. Close game with me having 38, Eric 32, Steve 9.
Steve's lady friend and her friend came over and we started a game of Talisman. It was the GW 4th edition with the Fantasy Flight add-on. It went pretty well, kind of slower playing then I remember, but I had to bail out near the end as it was getting late.
Solid Saturday of gaming. Good times! :)
jp
Game On!
Eric showed up just as we finished and we played tho hands of Race for the Galaxy. Eric was having no luck at all and couldn't get the cards to come out for him. Steve made it a close game on the first one, but I one by a few points with the Galactic Developer. Second game I massed 52 points to Steve's 47 using the Separatist Colony, a solid military build, but the <6> cards for explore bonuses (worth 11 I think) and the development bonus.
We then broke out Agricola which is fast becoming one of my favorite games. Eric and I were running head long with Steve having some resource issues. I played an occupation that limited the player's ability to collect their goods timely which really slowed down their development, allowing me to sprint ahead a bit. With the Sheep Farmer and a fence builder bonus I was able to fill up many spaces, plus the plow allowing me to plow 3:1 actions helped me fill up the board quickly. Close game with me having 38, Eric 32, Steve 9.
Steve's lady friend and her friend came over and we started a game of Talisman. It was the GW 4th edition with the Fantasy Flight add-on. It went pretty well, kind of slower playing then I remember, but I had to bail out near the end as it was getting late.
Solid Saturday of gaming. Good times! :)
jp
Game On!
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
On the road again...
I feel like a zombie now... Three time zones in three nights. My body is just phhhhtttt!
Finished up Seattle trip with a visit to the Science Fiction Hall of Fame and Museum and the Experience Music Project. It was one of the coolest museum trips I have taken. I could have spent another hour or so looking it was that neat. You got to see alot of the cool props used from the early days of Sci-fi TV up to the glory days of 70's campy shows (Buck Rodgers anyone?) and into some of the more modern shows/movies. They have Captain Kirk's original chair from the Enterprise, which in person, looks like it has seen better days. In fact almost all the Star Trek props were pretty low class, given that the TV resolution was so poor and with proper camera angles, it didn't really matter too much.
Later that day we went to the Geek Chic warehouse and I met Robert and his family that my buddy JC is a partner with. Didn't get to see any complete tables, but I did get a chance to spy The Alexandria Codex which is a nice piece of wood working. They, as a whole, are doing very well and are working feverishly to get caught up on back orders. Robert was a nice guy with a lot of contacts in the gaming world.
Friday night we had dinner at JC's families house then played a few games of Pandemic with his kids. Good games, but I was getting tired so we broke at about 930. Here are the highlights of Sunday to today...
0300 Pacific Time - Get Up
0400 Pacific Time - Drop off Rental
0600 Pacific Time - Get on Plane
1230 Central Time - Get home
0450 Central Time - Get up at home
0615 Central Time - Start the Filthy Fifty*
0625 Central Time - Regret starting the Filthy Fifty
0652 Central Time - Finish Filthy Fifty
0730 Central Time - Get to work and check 50+ emails
1200 Central Time - Head to Airport
1330 Central Time - Get on Plane
1900 Eastern Time - Get to Maryland
2000 Eastern Time - Eat a crab cake at G&M
2100 Eastern Time - Return to G&M to get jacket left behind GRR!
2130 Eastern Time - Arrive at Hotel and check in and watch Broncos loose... Stupid Broncos
0030 Eastern Time - Crash
0700 Eastern Time - Get up and do 5K on treadmill (36:36 is a good time for me!)
0830 Eastern Time - Update Blog!
I don't think I have any other business travel for a week or so.
*Last thing. The Filthy Fifty. My god. The cool aid drinking Crossfit guys are just insane. Our Monday work out was 50 of the following: Box Jumps, Jump Pull-Ups, Kettle Bell Swings, Push Press w/ bar, Knees to elbows, Wall Ball (throw 12# ball 10' on wall and catch in squat), burpees (don't ask!), double unders (jump rope with two passes for each jump.) I was beat. Still sore.
Well... I've got to hit the shower. More later!
jp
Like a band of gypsies we go down the highway
Finished up Seattle trip with a visit to the Science Fiction Hall of Fame and Museum and the Experience Music Project. It was one of the coolest museum trips I have taken. I could have spent another hour or so looking it was that neat. You got to see alot of the cool props used from the early days of Sci-fi TV up to the glory days of 70's campy shows (Buck Rodgers anyone?) and into some of the more modern shows/movies. They have Captain Kirk's original chair from the Enterprise, which in person, looks like it has seen better days. In fact almost all the Star Trek props were pretty low class, given that the TV resolution was so poor and with proper camera angles, it didn't really matter too much.
Later that day we went to the Geek Chic warehouse and I met Robert and his family that my buddy JC is a partner with. Didn't get to see any complete tables, but I did get a chance to spy The Alexandria Codex which is a nice piece of wood working. They, as a whole, are doing very well and are working feverishly to get caught up on back orders. Robert was a nice guy with a lot of contacts in the gaming world.
Friday night we had dinner at JC's families house then played a few games of Pandemic with his kids. Good games, but I was getting tired so we broke at about 930. Here are the highlights of Sunday to today...
0300 Pacific Time - Get Up
0400 Pacific Time - Drop off Rental
0600 Pacific Time - Get on Plane
1230 Central Time - Get home
0450 Central Time - Get up at home
0615 Central Time - Start the Filthy Fifty*
0625 Central Time - Regret starting the Filthy Fifty
0652 Central Time - Finish Filthy Fifty
0730 Central Time - Get to work and check 50+ emails
1200 Central Time - Head to Airport
1330 Central Time - Get on Plane
1900 Eastern Time - Get to Maryland
2000 Eastern Time - Eat a crab cake at G&M
2100 Eastern Time - Return to G&M to get jacket left behind GRR!
2130 Eastern Time - Arrive at Hotel and check in and watch Broncos loose... Stupid Broncos
0030 Eastern Time - Crash
0700 Eastern Time - Get up and do 5K on treadmill (36:36 is a good time for me!)
0830 Eastern Time - Update Blog!
I don't think I have any other business travel for a week or so.
*Last thing. The Filthy Fifty. My god. The cool aid drinking Crossfit guys are just insane. Our Monday work out was 50 of the following: Box Jumps, Jump Pull-Ups, Kettle Bell Swings, Push Press w/ bar, Knees to elbows, Wall Ball (throw 12# ball 10' on wall and catch in squat), burpees (don't ask!), double unders (jump rope with two passes for each jump.) I was beat. Still sore.
Well... I've got to hit the shower. More later!
jp
Like a band of gypsies we go down the highway
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Zombies on the road
Out in Seattle area since Thursday and spent Friday night and today with an old collage buddy. We went to Zombieland last night and had a great time. The movie was very funny and the graphic nature was so over the top as to make it comical. I only jumped once, when the clown came under the bathroom stall. Stupid clown.
I thought that Emma Stone did a good job as did the entire cast. Woody Harrelson, playing the lovable brute, his strength, was funny as well.
After the movie, Julian broke out some old stuff he has held since college and returned my old copy of Top Secret and Champions `1st edition. Wow... Talk about old school. We had a great Top Secret campaign going in college where I remember running gun battles in the African jungle. Good times. :)
This afternoon we are off to the Science Fiction and Music Experience museum. I'll post more about how that has gone later, but it should be pretty cool.
jp
Rule #4 - Double Tap
I thought that Emma Stone did a good job as did the entire cast. Woody Harrelson, playing the lovable brute, his strength, was funny as well.
After the movie, Julian broke out some old stuff he has held since college and returned my old copy of Top Secret and Champions `1st edition. Wow... Talk about old school. We had a great Top Secret campaign going in college where I remember running gun battles in the African jungle. Good times. :)
This afternoon we are off to the Science Fiction and Music Experience museum. I'll post more about how that has gone later, but it should be pretty cool.
jp
Rule #4 - Double Tap
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Touchlight Update
Salutations,
So after the marathon download, I ran Touchlight and it booted up nice and easy in Vista. You get three classes to play; Melee, Shooty, Magicy… The art is borderline cartoon, but in a hip sort of way that I actually like. I started the game on easy, because I suck, and ran for about 45 minutes before bed. The interface is pretty intuitive (click to move or attack w/ melee, right click to shoot/magic what is active in the slot). The neat mechanic that I like is that you get a ‘pet’ companion, either a cat or a dog, that accompanies you on your adventures. They even carry a little backpack to help with the inventory control and have a few item slots that can give them bonuses. The rest of it looks a lot like Diablo… Red health potions, blue mana potions, scrolls to identify, scrolls to teleport to town… The magic uses gems to increase abilities on items. LOTS of slots to equip things too.
My understanding is that the mines/dungeons are pseudo random, in that they pull upon some finite number of pre made dungeons, but put together in a random format. This is suppose to increase replayability by not making every 1st level crawl the same, etc…
Leveling is pretty straight forward. You have just a few stats; Strength, Dexterity, Magic, Defense. You get five points a level to increase those four stats… The others are derived from those. You also have skills, spells, and (mystery slot I can’t remember) that allows you to buy ‘bonus’ powers.
I’ll post more as I move along the game.
Also the news reader tells me that the new Nemo fig is posted and it is suppose to be cool. Can’t see from current location, so I’ll have to check it out tonight.
jp
Killer of zombies
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
A little of this, a little of that...
Kind of a shotgun approach today...
First up I am in the process of downloading Tourchlight form Runic Games. It is getting some good reviews and is suppose to be a good solo RPG experience, plus it was only $20 for direct download. Since my CPU time at home is limited, I've never really jumped into the MMO scene, but I do like the fantasy RPG setting, so I'm going to give it a go and let you know.
Privateer Press has posted some information on the new Cygnar Book. Key word I saw was new 'units'. That is plural, meaning more then one. Should be interesting to see what they come up with. Plus they have named the new caster as well. Go check it out! :)
At WM night at the shoppe, it was a very low turn out. I blame the lateness in the year, MkII around the corner and the major explosion at the Shoppe. I did get a game in with Dan and we played Khador vs. Khador. Dan use Irusk and I played Vlad. It was a solid game, but came down to caster v caster with Vlad using old reliable, BoK, to stay alive.
Finally, check out these two links.
Character Interaction Charts - Shows some cool doodle connections for Star Wars and Lord of the Rings on how/when characters interacted. Pretty nifty.
250 Best Movies Ever - Done as a subway diagram. Different, but cool tool.
jp
Waiting for Torchlight to download!
First up I am in the process of downloading Tourchlight form Runic Games. It is getting some good reviews and is suppose to be a good solo RPG experience, plus it was only $20 for direct download. Since my CPU time at home is limited, I've never really jumped into the MMO scene, but I do like the fantasy RPG setting, so I'm going to give it a go and let you know.
Privateer Press has posted some information on the new Cygnar Book. Key word I saw was new 'units'. That is plural, meaning more then one. Should be interesting to see what they come up with. Plus they have named the new caster as well. Go check it out! :)
At WM night at the shoppe, it was a very low turn out. I blame the lateness in the year, MkII around the corner and the major explosion at the Shoppe. I did get a game in with Dan and we played Khador vs. Khador. Dan use Irusk and I played Vlad. It was a solid game, but came down to caster v caster with Vlad using old reliable, BoK, to stay alive.
Finally, check out these two links.
Character Interaction Charts - Shows some cool doodle connections for Star Wars and Lord of the Rings on how/when characters interacted. Pretty nifty.
250 Best Movies Ever - Done as a subway diagram. Different, but cool tool.
jp
Waiting for Torchlight to download!
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Halloween Gaming
Boo!
Steve, Rob and Eric came over for a bit of Halloween gaming last night while I had door duty for the little gobbers coming to the front of Casa Juan. I made a big crockpot of beef stew with beans, carrots, potatoes and The Other Half picked up a nice loaf of asiago cheese bread to go with it.
Steve and Rob made it first about 3ish and we played a game of Shogun. Not the old Milton-Bradley version, but the one that came out a few years ago. It has a unique tower combat system to resolve conflict. Each player in a battle has a number of armies that are represented by cubes. You pick up all the combatants from the table and toss them into the tower that has some plates that make it partially blocked. Which ever force that has more guys come out of the tower wins, but takes extra causalities based on what the looser has come out in the tower as well. Since the cubes may push out some of the armies that were trapped before, you can never be sure how many 'guerrilla' forces are hiding from you in the toss.
Eric showed about the end of Shogun, so we broke Agricola and used the family friendly version for the first round to teach Eric and Rob the basics. That went pretty well with Steve dominating the with 39 some odd points over the rest of us. In the second game we kicked it up a notch and used the full rules with the occupations and minor improvements. This was game was pretty ugly. I got the Sycophant out on turn one which meant that folks had to pay me one food to take one grain, which really slowed down farming until Steve got the grain sack cart out. I ended up with a few large wood pulls and used them to build a five room house with three stables in one turn, then upgraded them to clay. The game ended with Steve having 35, me 36, Eric 19 and Rob 17ish. Good game and I think Eric and Rob enjoyed it as well. Look forward to more in the future.
jp
Mawahahahahaha
Steve, Rob and Eric came over for a bit of Halloween gaming last night while I had door duty for the little gobbers coming to the front of Casa Juan. I made a big crockpot of beef stew with beans, carrots, potatoes and The Other Half picked up a nice loaf of asiago cheese bread to go with it.
Steve and Rob made it first about 3ish and we played a game of Shogun. Not the old Milton-Bradley version, but the one that came out a few years ago. It has a unique tower combat system to resolve conflict. Each player in a battle has a number of armies that are represented by cubes. You pick up all the combatants from the table and toss them into the tower that has some plates that make it partially blocked. Which ever force that has more guys come out of the tower wins, but takes extra causalities based on what the looser has come out in the tower as well. Since the cubes may push out some of the armies that were trapped before, you can never be sure how many 'guerrilla' forces are hiding from you in the toss.
Eric showed about the end of Shogun, so we broke Agricola and used the family friendly version for the first round to teach Eric and Rob the basics. That went pretty well with Steve dominating the with 39 some odd points over the rest of us. In the second game we kicked it up a notch and used the full rules with the occupations and minor improvements. This was game was pretty ugly. I got the Sycophant out on turn one which meant that folks had to pay me one food to take one grain, which really slowed down farming until Steve got the grain sack cart out. I ended up with a few large wood pulls and used them to build a five room house with three stables in one turn, then upgraded them to clay. The game ended with Steve having 35, me 36, Eric 19 and Rob 17ish. Good game and I think Eric and Rob enjoyed it as well. Look forward to more in the future.
jp
Mawahahahahaha
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