JP's Gaming Blog

T-Day Specials

2010-11-26T21:53:00.000-06:00

Thanksgiving Day was a good gaming day for the old boy. The Eldest and I started it out with a few learning games of Castle Ravenloft Board Game. It is basically 4e D&D streamed down to the bare essentials for an elemental board game. Despite me failing to catch one very significant rule, we came very close to winning once and got throttled the others. As with most role play experiences, it is a cooperative game that seems to do a fairly decent job of managing the 'bad guys' against the players.

Later that day we played a few hands of Dominion. We split the games 2 and 2. After six Eric made it over and we tried our hand at Ravenloft again, still having not won a game. When Paul showed we threw him into the mix and that is when we found that we should have been taking treasure cards on every monster kill... Oops! That made it a much more balanced game and we got our first win!

Afterwards The Eldest went to crash and the Eric, Paul, and I tried a go at Space Hulk: Blood Angel from Fantasy Flight Games. It was late and since I had been up since about 3am, I was a bit tired. The mechanics took a few rounds to figure out, and I would like to try again when I am more focused and we can try three or so games back to back in order to figure out the best way to conduct the cooperative aspects of the game.

On Friday when the Eldest got off work we tried Ravenloft again as a two player and were very close to winning the next adventure. Just one stinkin' gargoyle away from a win! Later we went to the theater and caught RED. I have been wanting to see it as it looked alike a great action flick. It was perfect summer fare at the very tail end of fall. I give it 3 1/2 out of 4 ex-CIA operatives. John Malkovich was a hoot.

jp

Gaming? What gaming?

2010-11-11T12:28:00.000-06:00

So I have a few minor updates on the gaming front, but not much since I've been traveling again for work and such.

I picked up Blood Bowl Legends and have started playing a campaign of that. Also picked up a discount bin casino game and have been doing a bit of Texas Hold'em and such to pass short periods of time.

The Eldest and I played three rounds of Dominion the other night. I went 3-0 and felt bad. She likes the game, but her strategies didn't pan out or took too long to develop.

Tonight headed to Steve's to do what I hope is the last play test before we clean up the rules and ship them out for the next review cycle.

jp

FoW and The Walking Dead

2010-11-01T10:43:00.002-05:00

On Saturday I was able to go to the de-escalation tournament. Paul ran a good show which had each player’s list shrink from 1750 to 1500 and finally 1250. I brought my Italian Squadrone Esplorante with lots of little tanks. First game was versus US Mech Infantry which I had a great start with, but when Morgan’s reserves all came in on the flank and rolled across the board killing all in their path. Second game was against Michele from Des Moines and her Irish Recon force. Solid game, I didn’t really read the scenario correctly and failed to grasp that her reserves came on right on the objective. She played a solid game and with the Sherman’s coming in I really wasn’t going to bounce her off with an L-6. Last game was vs. Kyle and a US Infantry team. This was a pretty good game and I actually killed an entire platoon or two and only had a marginal loss when time was called. Over all I was 0-3 with 5 points. Not too good, but I had three good games.

Sunday was Halloween and we did a bit of decorating, but only got about a dozen kiddos. So I was able to bring in a big bag of left over candy, like everyone else to the office. At 9pm, the first episode of The Walking Dead started. The show was outstanding. I never been a huge zombie guy, but I really liked how this episode wasn’t about them. It was about the undead walking around. Don’t get me wrong, they were there, but the story is what is driving this story, not the gratuitous violence. The lead character, Sheriff’s Deputy Rick Grimes, waking in a world that was not the one he remembers, having lost his family, and beginning his quest to find them, still takes the time to find the crawler he encountered early in the show and provide the mercy that was needed. Lots of promise is this one. I’ll keep tuning in.

Dominion Play

2010-10-19T21:14:00.001-05:00

The eldest and I got to play some Dominion after dinner tonight.

We did three games with me taking two and her stomping me on the third. Just took her a while to get warmed up I guess!

I'm going to try and sign up for the FoW tournament at the Game Shoppe on the the 30th. I haven't played in about 6 months so it is about time to get stomped there too. I'll have to dust off the Italians.

Not much new going on. Hope to go see RED this weekend and looking forward to The Walking Dead on Halloween.

jp
What me game?

Vacation Return

2010-10-17T20:34:00.000-05:00

Back on the ground in the Big O! following a week in New Hampshire. The Other Half had been wanting to go for years and we were finally able to make it out.

Look At The Colors!

The Other Half On The Lake

The Flume!

More Pics can be found here!

Didn't get much gaming in, but The Eldest and I played a round of Pandemic and Settlers of Catan Card game when I got back. Hope to get in a board game night soon this week.

jp

Movie: The Social Network

2010-10-04T15:08:00.001-05:00

Since I don’t play games in more… Shessh!

The other half and I went to see The Social Network on Sunday.

In short, it was a good movie. Well written and acted. However it did not persuade me to go and join Facebook. I have my own grumblings on privacy (funny since I blog, well, sort of blog) plus the feeling of its use as a mechanism for malicious code insertion. But, back to the movie…. It is a Hollywood version of the founding and creation of Facebook told from the point of view of two law suits against the founder from people who were either ‘wronged’ or felt the idea was ‘stolen’ from them. I’m sure the facts were played with loosely, as is Hollywood’s right to make the boring entertaining, but it felt like a good story. I particularly liked Jesse Eisenberg’s portrayal as it was just geeky enough and snarky enough to be entertaining.

So even though I don’t “Facebook” I found the movie worth the price of admission. I get it 6 out of 8 friends.

A game? Why yes!

2010-09-24T12:06:00.001-05:00

A few game to report since my wildly late last post.

First up I picked up ‘Small World’ and gave it a try a few times. First game was a five player game at the Shoppe on the day I picked it up. Solid game, easy mechanics. The rules make it sound actually harder than it is. I then played the Eldest twice each of us taking one game and then as a palate cleanser with Steve after some play testing. The game is pretty fun and I’m sure it will be on the rotation for a while as it is fast and fun.

Play testing – The conversion continues, just real slow. Between travel and work and kid stuff (don’t ask!) I’ve gotten less time than ever, but Steve and I have had two solid sessions and we are looking at one more major change then ship out the next version for the grand editor to review. If folks are interested in a bit of play test, let me know and I’ll hook you up!

Songs of Blades and Heroes Campaign – I did get a game in this Thursday and won! Eric’s Orcs, that thrashed me last time, took a bit of a beating during a Break Through game. However his warboss still was able to kill Bobbie Jr. dead… Long live Bobbie the Third! In the end I left Eric with a few archers as the remainder of Victor’s Boys exited the board scoring victory points for the win. Thanks for the Game Eric.

Civ V was released this week and I did down load it on Wednesday, but only played a bit of the tutorial. Since I have nothing planned this weekend but helping the Elder move back in to the house I’m hoping to get some evening hours to play a few dozen turns…

I blog, honest…

Mud Fest

2010-09-07T20:06:00.000-05:00

Not gaming related really, but... On Sunday I did another mud run.

More pics here... I wasn't told about the group costume thingy on the last picture, but I was a last second add for the event so it was OK. As mud runs go, being an expert after only two, it was pretty fun. The Soaring Eagle Vineyard was nice and scenic with a nice view of the countryside.

Tripping again for work and will be missing yet another SoBH night. Some rumblings of trying a Mech Warrior RPG/mini game campaign. I'm probably one of the only mini gamers that hasn't played the game so I am interested in delving in to it.

muddy

Saturday Board Games

2010-09-05T11:29:00.000-05:00

Saturday Night I went to the Shoppe to play a few board games for a change of pace. We tried two games, Small World and Factory Manager.

First up was a learning game of Small World. We had a full five players with two of us being newbies. It is an interesting game with deceivingly easy mechanics. In fact, reading the rules made them harder then they needed to be. Some subtle game play techniques and strategies along with the variable race/special powers seemed to ensure a strong since or re-playability with will be nice. I think the regular guys would like it as it has a good military theme, if not a bit silly, but fun/quick play style. The two newbies ended up coming 1st and 2nd with only a 2 point separation.

Next, a bit late, we played a game of Factory Manager. It had been a long time since Steve and I had played so I was re-learning from the get go. I made some huge mistakes early, combined with the misplaced board made for a bad results for me. The gang was good to play with, if a bit too serious at times, but still a fun time. :) I came in dead last... by a large margin! :)

Good times,

jp
Better warlord then middle manager

24 days later...

2010-08-25T13:54:00.001-05:00

Wow,

I suck as a game blogger... Heck, I suck as a gamer lately. Between work and the current vacation I haven't had much time for gaming. I did get in on the last round of Songs of Blade and Heroes with the guys before I left for vacation, but will miss this weeks effort. I went 0-2 for the last session making me 4-2... It sucks loosing! :)

While on the road I did get a few games in. Taught a couple Ticket to Ride and Pandemic. They have played a lot of settlers, but hadn't tried these yet. We got a few games of each after the 8 kids went down. It was a hectic days. Last Saturday was the Warrior Dash, the race that a group of us went to attend. Here are some neat pics with a link to others...

The gang post run...

Should be back in September with more gaming action, at least I hope so...

jp
long lost gamer

Warmachine Saturday Nights

2010-08-01T21:10:00.000-05:00

Since I've been doing all this 'oh so fun' business travel, I hadn't gotten much gaming in on a non-computer source. Played lots of good old Spider Solitaire as well as the electronic version of Race for the Galaxy. I'm getting better vs. the computer as I am up to winning 1 in 5 vice 1 in 20.

Since I was back, Paul and Eric came over for a few games of Warmachine on Saturday night.

Eric and I played a 35 point game with his Durgen Madhammer vs. my newly assembled Drake MacBain. I also put into to play Dannon Blythe and Bull, the Bounty Hunters which ended up being the stars of both games.
Eric played a great game, keeping it very close. He used some primed Nyss hunters to keep a flank in check that I had a full unit of Sam and Devil Dogs w/ a Mule. Blythe and Bull marked Boomhowler and did a good job keeping them suppressed until they moved in to finish them up. It ended with Blythe and Bull swarming Durgen as the new mark and hacking away.

Second game was Paul's High Executioner Reznik a few 'Jacks, a full Exemplar Errants w/ UA and the new Errant solo. I used the Steelheads with Countermeasures to keep the Errants from shooting while having Blythe and Bull pick them off to help secure the flank. It ended with a giant scrum in the middle with lots of dead Heavy Jacks... Four I think... It took the Bokur and MacBain to take down Rez, but it wasn't pretty.

Good games guys and thanks... Next time I won't make soup! :)

Home... For now...

Test Play Continues

2010-07-25T19:44:00.000-05:00

So Steve and were able to continue our play test of the starship version of Song of Blades and Heroes. We doubled the number of ships on the table and found some balance issues which I think were resolved. We also spent some time brain storming some new concepts to add to the mix. The biggest issue is the 'shooty' nature of the game vs. hand to hand. It is a 'starship' game after all. :)

I think we are on the right track, and the 'double the size' seemed about right. Steve and I broke out a list of other options we wanted to try, away from the 'preformated' ships that we hope to include. These include a escort Swarm vs. Max Cruisers and Carrier centric vs. Gun boats among others.

I 'could' have posted this with Steve's re-post of the campaign, but man I've been to lazy and I needed to the count up!

jp
Travel is my middle name in July!

Song of Blades and Heroes

2010-07-25T19:37:00.000-05:00

I'll I can say is that work is conspiring against me. It feels like eons since I've played in the campaign, but luckily Steve is keeping it going. I missed the session a few weeks ago and now I'm in San Antonio for this weeks. Here is Steve's recap from the previous encounters...

jp

Something must have been in the air as five warbands became quite active last week. The nefarious gnome and his rat-men warband were out and about and got attacked by a new warband. Apparently some samurai from the Far East made their way to these lands and sought to make their mark with them. Meanwhile Grut decided to take the orcs on a shortcut back to their lair - through the lands held by the Normans. The Romans were also spotted but soon disappeared. What was Tribunus Maximus up to?

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Gnome & Rat Men vs Daimyo Ogata & Samurai - Ambush

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As the gnome and his crew were wandering the countryside dropping off barrels of ale in random locations, they fell into an ambush by samurai and ashigaru led by one calling himself Daimyo Ogata. The gnome and his rat men had faced many such challenges and moved forward boldly. Deciding to flank about the large hill where he thought the bulk of the enemy lay, he sent rats to probe about a stand of trees. There the ambush revealed itself and a samurai and ninja met the scouts head on. While this battle was joined, a new addition to the warband, a large rat ogre, moved to get around the fray in hopes of flanking the two Asian warriors and put them down. This is when the rest of the ambush revealed itself. Daimyo Ogata showed himself and started yelling orders to hidden ashigaru bowmen - something about oni and apparently orders to engage it. The bowmen quickly formed a battle line facing the rat ogre and let a devastating volley fly bringing the "oni" down. While this victory seemed to embolden the invaders, it only redoubled the resolve of the gome and his gang. Ratmen soon poured into the battle and threatened to overrun the lone samurai and ninja. The Ogata ended up throwing himself into the fray only to find himself overwhelmed as well. As the daimyo went down, so did the fighting spirit of the ashigaru. The ambushers fled the field, taking their wounded with them and leaving the gnome and his gang to bask in another victory.

On the way to their camp, they had to cross a dangerous ravine where Shin, one of the yari spearmen fell to his death. Back at camp the ninja recovered from her wounds but seemed a bit too fond of sake after that fight. Daimyo Ogata was a bit worse for wear and had to rely on an elixir to ease his wounds. While not a win, the loss could have been much worse.

The gnome and his gang sadly had to put down the rat ogre - his wounds too grievous to recover from. While this was a set back, they stumbled across a wishing well and were rewarded with a charm stone.

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Grut & Orcs vs Normans - Break Through

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After successfully driving the gladiators away from their lands, Grut decided to take a shortcut back to the orc camp - straight through the middle of the Norman holdings. As much as Grut loves a good scrap, he thought that they should just push through any resistance that the Normans put up as they went home. The Normans had a bit of an objection to orcs wandering freely and engaged them vigorously. Seeing armed troops on the field was all Psycho needed to go off into a frenzy and charge into the Norman ranks. Grut however, was content to try and get his warband to break through intact and pressed on while the berserker practically held the enemy back single handedly. Psycho eventually fell to the weight of numbers against him and the Normans were able to run down a couple orc archers as well, but Grut managed to drag them away with the warband.

On the way to their camp, the orcs came across a tribe of lizardmen. The shaman was being too belligerent so Grut just cut him down and looted their village for 25 gold. After they made it home, the two archers made a full recovery while they recovered Psycho's body and got a priest to restore life to his corpse.

The Normans fared reasonably well as only their mounted knight required any serious care and an elixir tended to that nicely. As they mopped up and this incursion into their territory, one of the men found a keg of ale that apparently was randomly dropped off in the countryside. Who could have left it there?

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Grut & Orcs vs Daimyo Ogata & Samurai - Accidental Encounter

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The orcs were out and about the countryside foraging as they awaited Grut to make plans for their next raid. Meanwhile Ogata and his samurai were in that same area gathering wood and supplies and generally putting Shin's twin brother through his paces to make camp in this new land. Not knowing what to do about the other in this accidental encounter, fighting soon broke out. While the orcs were badly outnumbered, the samurai and ashigaru were scattered about which posed a problem for them as they were not accustomed to fighting autonomously. The orcs however were used to this style of combat and soon gained the other hand. The ashigaru bowmen Gisaku turned and traded arrows with Pin who while a more skilled bowmen, did not enjoy the benefit of the superior range the daikyū gave. It was not long before Gisaku found his mark. Meanwhile Shin's twin brother Shin was staring down the gullet of an angry lizard and his orc rider. Needless to say, a yari wielding ashigaru was little match for for the orc and his mount who then turned for other prey. Yohei was not in any better shape as an orc rushed him before he could get a shot in with his daikyū. While he fought surprisingly well for an ashigaru, he did succumb to the relentless assault of the orc swordsman. Slick rushed Ogata and while he fought well, the daimyo got the upper hand and cut him down. Daimyo Ogata and Grut soon found each other on the field and were trading blow after blow but neither could get the upper hand. Heihatchi seeing his Daimyo in trouble, moved to assist him but was shot down and the sashimono fell to the ground. Distressed, Ogata tried to protect it but before long an orc archer charged down from a nearby hill and grabbed it. Waving it in triumph, the fighting spirit soon left the samurai and they withdrew from the field.

As they made their way back to camp, Ogata came across a corpse by the road - a victim of the rampaging orcs no doubt. Oddly enough they had left his coin purse of 20 gold. Heihatchi and Yohei made full recoveries while Shin ended up a bit shaken from the experience but otherwise ok.

Grut and his warband celebrated their victory and teased Slick for having a case of nerves after his run in on the battlefield and drank to Pin's memory. Hearing all the commotion, a centaur champion came upon the orc camp but seeing as they were an evil lot, decided to move on.

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Tribunus Maximus & Romans vs Normans - Dungeon Raid

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Somehow the Normans caught wind of what the Romans were up to. They got word that the Romans were busy secreting their treasure into the dungeons beneath an old ruin in their territory. With great stealth, they managed to slip into the Roman lands undetected and sought to uncover the secrets and treasure Maximus had hidden below. Unfortunately between the secrecy of the Romans in hiding their wealth and the stealth by which the Normans sought to extract it, little is known about what went on down below.

Two legionaries were later spotted getting some medical attention but otherwise in good health. There are also reports that a patrol was sent out to try and retaliate against the Normans for defiling Roman ground but all that turned up was an empty cave.

The Normans were also spotted sometime after the incident honoring one of their dead. Another Norman warrior in attendance was seen with some bandaged wounds but appeared un-phased by his injuries. However they could have used a better day to honor their fallen as the cold, damp weather caused another soldier to catch a cold.

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My apologies for any inaccuracies (but that's what a comment section is for right?) and for those whose names I left out (gnome, Norman leader, etc.) please drop in the comments so future reports are more complete.

Steve aka Daimyo Ogata

Test Play and Ivanhoe

2010-07-12T20:33:00.000-05:00

On Saturday night Steve and I gave our new development hobby a test go. It is a star ship combat version of Song of Blades and Heroes. It went pretty well for a first test and we found a 1/2 dozen positive changes. Afterwards Eric, Paul, Suzanne, Steve, and I played two rounds of Ivanhoe. This is a great little deck building game set in a medevil tournament. As the players you have to win four of the five different tournaments; Jousting, Swords, Axe, Mace, Hand to Hand. You have special cards that mess with things as you try to build the largest point total during rounds.

Paul had a great come from behind win in the first game and I took the second after four of us had one three tournaments.

Big thanks to Eric for picking up the game!

jp

Again with the slow reporting!

2010-07-07T21:58:00.000-05:00

On Sunday Steve, Eric, and I got together for some holiday board games. We started with Race for the Galaxy with the new expansion. Solid game with I think Steve winning. Susanne came by while we finished so I taught her the game quickly while the guys scarfed on home made chili and hot dogs.

The second game had Susanne getting some great cards and she played them well for her first game. In the end it was very close with me eking out a win at the last by one point.

Susanne took off and the three of us played a new game that Eric picked up called Cave Troll, as in "They have a Cave Troll" fame. :) It was a fun little game. I know Eric was hoping for more PvP in the game, but it was still a good, quick played dungeon crawl type. I one our game with a solid lead thanks to Steve and Eric beating each other up.

Rob came by just as we finished and he joined in a game of Agricola. I do enjoy this game, but I need to remember that it doesn't play as fast as I think it does. I had to pack up an bail at 5 and we were only on round 8 or so which was sad, but the guys pressed on with Steve taking the game after Eric gave him a solid run.

On Monday Steve, Susanne and I took to the road and went to the Star Wars in Concert event in Des Monies. The concert was pretty good and they had Anthony Daniels as he narrator. We all enjoyed the show which lasted about 2 1/2 hours or so. The orchestra was very good as were the chosen visuals. Afterwards we met TJ and Casey for dinner at Fong's Pizza which is one of the coolest themed pizza places I've been to. I had a slice of the Thai Pizza that was outstanding. It was good to see TJ and Casey, but they were off to the late version of the show and we all took off shortly after eating.

This month looks to be a grind at work. Most likely traveling every week... Grrrr....

Hope you all get some good gaming in!

jp

Thursday Night Song of Blades and Heroes

2010-07-02T05:59:00.000-05:00

I had to travel for work this league night and wasn't able to make it. It also look like life conspired against several others and only Steve and Eric made it out to play. Much sadness. :(

Here is the report from Steve, hopefully Eric can describe his band of Orcs a bit.

John,

Ended up being just Eric and I for the league and so we only played one game.

Eric decided to retire his previous war band as they had gotten pretty banged up over the weeks and brought in a new one - Grut's Orcs led by Grut himself. I'm afraid you'll have to get in touch with Eric to get the details, but they were eight strong and scrapping for a fight.

It seems that this orc war band decided they wanted to take a walk through the escaped gladiator's lands - break through scenario to be precise. Well Hunk and his gladiators weren't about to let the orcs get a free pass and decided to intercept them. So four gladiators marched out and things started out slow for both sides - each approaching cautiously (i.e. only one activation on each side before turning over the turn) before the violence broke out. Hunk went charging in as is his way and soon ran into his orc equivalent. Unfortunately for him, Hunk's charge fell short and after butting heads with the orc berserker, Hunk was soon out of the fight and Celeris who was flanking Hunk broke off at speed. Maximus and Tyranus on the other flank engaged and brought down an orc beast rider. Flushed with his success, Max came around the hill to prep for the berserker's charge whom Celeris was leading right to him when orc archers fired from the woods in ambush. While he shrugged off most of the arrows, one did graze him, stunning him temporarily which was all the opening the orc leader needed. Charging down the hill, Grut ran Max through and Tyranus and Celeris opted to withdraw from the field.

From some reports, the orc beast rider made a full recovery. Meanwhile, Hunk shrugged off his wounds, but Maximus did not recover and joined the ranks of the dead.

Both war bands made their way home through a haunted forest without event.

With that the gladiators opted to part ways as trying to hold their territory had become far too costly.

-------------------------

While I was badly out numbered, my guys were pretty good quality by comparison, but Eric's dice warmed up where I never really got going. Eric taking out my two strongest models - particularly Hunk in the early part of the game - pretty well decided the scenario. My major mistake was letting Max get into short range of the archers Eric ran into the woods. He got 3 shots at me at a 4 v 5 combat and I was just asking to be knocked down with one of them.

With the gladiators now worth only 277 points and having lost their 2nd best guy, I think they're down and out. In the process of putting together a new band for next session. Could go either undead war band or maybe samurai/ninja. I'll be playing with options and looking at models so we'll see.

Steve

Thanks for the update Steve! Looking forward to some good Race and Agricola on Sunday!

jp

Father's Day Race

2010-06-22T21:50:00.000-05:00

The eldest and I went to dinner at Hooters and then went and played two games of Race for the Galaxy with the newest expansion.

She spanked me on the first round 80's to 40's... The new Prestige tokens add a different flavor to the game. I need to check to see if we are doing the Prestige Leader thingy right.

Second game I won 38 to 37. It went a lot quicker the first, but I think it was because we were trying to re-learn.

Right now I'm getting my butt handed to me by the computer version. One win in a dozen odd games... Grrr...

jp

Race for the Galaxy Players Rejoice...

2010-06-21T19:06:00.000-05:00

Two items for Race for the Galaxy...

First the new expansion has been released, "On the Brink", has been released. I guess it came out a month or so ago and I wasn't paying attention. While I was waiting at the tournament yesterday I opened it up to start reading, so no unboxing as I ruined the shrink wrap, besides, it is a card game!

This version adds Prestige that can be spent in the game for effects (based on the cards) but also counts as VP so spend wisely. Coolest card so far is the Death Star type card that allows you to blow up planets of your opponents.

I haven't played yet, but the Eldest and I are going to try it out on Tuesday as my Father's Day present.

The second bit of info is that someone has developed a pretty good downloadable AI for RftG. Keldon's done a few games, but this one seems pretty darn solid. So far I am 0-3 vs. the damn machine... I think it cheats! :)

jp
Race'n

Warmachine Weekend Invitational

2010-06-20T19:47:00.000-05:00

We ran the Warmachine Weekend Invitational on Saturday and had 14 folks show. Big thanks to the Des Monies crowd for filling in the ranks.

We ended up having four rounds, with Des Monies guys Chad and JD going in for the title and big prize. Chad's Troll's took the day for a victory.

Other Interesting Sights:

Adam fielded McBain after putting him together in a drunken stupper the night before! :)

Alan from Lincoln, the sole Lincoln rep I might add, put together and played a 50 point Kraye list in under 24 hours... That is a lot of gluing my friend...

Eric played in his first full WM tournament and did well. Lessons learned and force compositions noted for the next event...

The Des Monies guys are good... They bar has been raised!

Hooker needs to get more sleep before a match!

Thanks to those that played, it was a good time!

jp
PRESS

Saturday Warmachine

2010-06-12T16:00:00.000-05:00

Had a few hours this morning, so I got to try to play a few quick games.

Eric and I played his Highborn vs. my Cygnar. It was going all Nemo's way, but, as usual, I left the caster just a bit to far forward, allowing Madhammer to drop several shots on his dead. Win Mercs.

Second game was Dan's Highborn with Ashlynn vs. Nemo again. I got lucky on a chain lightening that hit Ashlynn for 9 points of damage, then got a sword knight to charge up, rolled a nine to hit and finished the job with solid damage. Was worried about all the solo's he had flooding the left flank, but I tried to rush the other side to stay alive.

jp

Song of Blades and Heroes Campaign Meet Two

2010-06-06T09:13:00.001-05:00

Thursday (Yes this is three days late) we had our second meet up for the Song of Blades and Heroes Campaign. We had five show up, Paul, Eric, Bill, and myself with Steve hosting.

Since we had an odd number and I had the most wins, I took the option to sit out and watch the first round. One of the pairing was Eric's King Vinter vs. Bill's Wild Gnome with the battle being fought in the mountain lands using the Hold Out scenario. Eric had to deploy his force in split sections, but they showed up on the second turn which really didn't effect the game set up. The battle was met in the middle with the Gnome's rats moving up in blocks. The battle was fought hard, but the Gnome was victorious. Bill found an Eldritch graveyard with gold loosing one of his giant rats and a wererat. Vinter found a shrine that gave him a gold.

The other game was Paul's new Maximus' Veteran's of the 1st Cohort vs. Steve's Slave revolt of Gladius Imperious lead by Hunk-ra. The battle was fought in a standard field with the Difficult Ground scenario. Paul took the victory after removing enough gladiators that Steve's small army was in peril of being wiped out. One of Paul's guys picked up an illness and Steve found a trap and was able to disable it for a gold.

Second round had my Victor's Boys vs. the Gnome and his wererats. We fought on open land with the difficult ground scenario, which was odd. We did have a special terrain feature of a teleport field but neither one of us tried it out. Bill focused on taking out my weaker dogs to force a test on the warband, while I tried to keep closing the gap without setting up the charge for his rats. In the end it was the Gnome in the corner surrounded by some poisoned house guard. I took the win, but it wasn't very pretty. I found a cave that was empty and one of Bill's rat got ill.

The other game was Eric's King Vinter vs. Paul's Romans. They played the Ambush with Eric hiding his forces with markers. Paul won and got eh Murder of Crows (?) while Paul was lucky enought to recover a forgotten treasure.

Since it was my third game I was able to apply some advances. Everyone (except the dogs) went up in quality except Bobbie that I gave fearless.

So Victor's Boys as the currently sit. I just bought Goosmire to the force:

Duke Victor - Personality Quality 2+ Combat 3

"Special Rules: Hero; Leader; Noble

Jose D' Luk - Personality Quality 3+ Combat 2

Special Rules: Sheild-Mage; Shooter: Short

Marco, Polo, & Marlo Quality 3+ Combat 4

Special Rules: Heavy Armor

Bobbie the Ogrun Quality 3+ Combat 5

Special Rules: Heavy Armor; Big; Savage; Fearless

Goosemire the Troll Scout Quality 3+ Combat 4

Special Rules: Big; Dashing; Long Move; Outrider

Sneaky LeRoy Quality 3+ Combat 3

Special Rules: Stealth; Shooter: Long, Sharpshooter; Poison

Argos & Magnus Quality 4+ Combat 3

Special Rules: Animal, Greedy; Savage

Post if I missed something guys!

jp

Saturday Games

2010-05-31T13:23:00.000-05:00

I got free Saturday night and went down to the shoppe for a few games of Song of Blades and Heroes. I had created a 'big' list with Butcher and Man O' Wars that was mixed bag.

First game was versus Eric and his new Leaderless Orc band. It was breakthrough with Eric as the Attacker. He had to get his folks off the board and I had to kill them in the process. I got 1 point for every 20 points I killed, he got 1 point for every 15 off the board. He had a great start that forced a morale test do to the loss of a banner, which spread out my team, but the Berserker had already done a pretty good job of taking out two miniatures. With the one leader and having to split my forces, the Man O War had a hard time with the 'slow move' in getting to be a threat. It was a close game with me getting 11 points and Eric 8.

Second game was a learning game with Adam. He played the Khador list since it had a lot of repeat miniatures and I played by Victor's Folly list. It wasn't a bad learning game, but Adam did get to feel the pain of the activation system a few too many times. :)

This week will see the second run for the Campaign. I'm looking forward to that!

jp

Big Saturday of Gaming

2010-05-23T09:41:00.000-05:00

As The Other Half is wont to ask, "Isn't 12 hours of gaming enough"... It is a rhetorical question I am sure, because I think she knows the answer...

It started out with a Warmachine tournament that Adam ran. 35 point steam roller with 8 players. First round I was matched up with Wayne playing Cryx and Montenabra in a Kill Box scenerio. Wayne played it very well, and I left an unseen charge lane to eButch for the Deathjack (Overun for the win) which left him dead. Quick and deadly, not how I expected the game.

Round two was versus Tony and eFeorra. Tony went on a assassination run, letting it all hang out, but ended with three points shy. Lola to face for the win. Statistically, on average rolls Tony should have had the win on that one, but his dice crapped out on him

Round three was versus Lincoln Alex and Aspy. A little more involved game, but I I kept missing a stupid Deathripper needing sixes and accidentally killed my own berserker. This left a free line for the slayer to combo strike eButch to shreads.

I ended 1-2, but Adam ran a solid event and I had a good time, even if I was getting a bit brain dead doing basic math.

Eric and I went to grab a bite to eat at a new Mexican place called Antojitos. No website, but here are the two reviews posted. It was really pretty good food for a little hole in the wall. Recommend the trip for lunch or dinner. I'll be hitting more often for Tuesday night dinners before heading to the shoppe!

After dinner Eric and Paul got their first campaign game in for Song of Blade and Heroes. They ran an Assassination game (again!) in the Hill Lands with Paul's Wolves of Orboros lead by Kiya and other druids hunting down Eric's Ex-King Vinter and his magical revenge tour. (Ok... I made that last bit up!) Vinter refused to be bullied by the dirty hippies and moved his forces out to confront the enemy that would dare to 'hunt' him down. That didn't work so well. Paul took Vinter out which ended the game. Eric had lost Vinter and two of his Halberdars. The halberdars will miss a game each, while Vinter picked up Hatred of Dirty Hippies (Wolves specifically), additionally he found a Trap while exploring and the Harlot did a stand up job of disarming it to find 5 gold. Kiya then found a 'Blessed Glade' and a Charmstone along with his win.

We then broke out Formula D and did a 2 car team, 2 lap race on the Sebring track. That took a bit longer then normal given that we had to track two cars each, but it wasn't too bad. Paul had a large lead, but crashed his lead car leaving me in first place, with Eric pretty far behind in second. Eric crashed his rear car on a bad roll around a corner. I finished in first, with second place in debate. Paul's second car crashed coming out of the corner, in sight of the finish line while Eric and I battled the final corner, neither of us with break or tires to spare. I timed out the roll nicely allowing me to accelerate in 4th gear out of the corner and putting me just ahead. Fun game.

It was a fun day of gaming.

jp
12 hours? Pish, give me 20!

Song of Blades and Heroes Campaign

2010-05-21T21:38:00.000-05:00

Greetings,

We had the first night of our Song of Heroes and Blades campaign on Thursday Night. We had six folks commit so far, with two being unavailable due to work and family.

Attending Current Warbands:
Me – Victor’s Folly – Disposed Noble, Victor, his loyal retinue, remaining house guard, and hounds
Steve – Imperious Gladiator – Hunk-Ra and his savage Gladiators break free and fighting for their futures
Bill – Thieves Guild – Gnome Sharpshooter leading Wererat and trained large rat thieves
Bob – Sir Raymond’s Crusade – Mounted Sir Raymond with his knights and warriors

First round

Victor’s Folly vs. Sir Raymond’s Crusade fighting over Difficult Ground on a standard battle field. The game was going well, with first blood going to Sneaky LeRoy throwing one of his poison grenades and a walking knight. We got into a good scrum with him taking out my hounds and me taking out a mix of knights and warriors. As is often in SBH, when things start to fall apart they do so quickly. Bob hit the testing zone and soon found him taking multiple morale tests which saw his gang fall back which allowed me to get a few free hacks. Sir Raymond made a bad judgment and tried to turn the battle, only to come a bit short. The reminder of his warriors opted to leave the field. Post battle, Victor lost Magnus the Hound and found a cursed glade which his already hurting hound, Argus, suffered more indignity. Sir Raymond’s luck fared little better having lost his only mounted knight and a few minor injuries…

Imperious Gladiator Vs. Thieves Guild with the Gladiator’s having to Break Through the border town held by the Thieves. I only caught the tail end of the game, but it appeared that lots of punishing mayhem with plenty of bad dice rolls. Bill lost several Wererats to gruesome kill melee checks as they ran off the near side of the board. The battle ended with the Gnome deciding that his pride and noble nature had been satisfied when the last of the large rats were dispatched by one of the two remaining Gladiators. Post battle, Hunk-ra needed emergency surgery that cost all the gold he just earned and had one of the speed gladiators loose his life for his brothers while his twin took a -2 to quality for a game. The Gnome rallied his troops, but lost a Wererat (I think), but was lucky enough to find a Watchtower that was abandoned in their swamp.

Second round

Imperious Gladiator vs. Victor’s Folly with Victor trying to secure the bounty on Hunk-ra (Assassination) in the forest lands. Steve was pretty depleted, despite the win and couldn’t replenish his force. He opted to hide in the woods to let Victor track him down. Victor’s house guards, backed up by Bobbie the Ogrun engaged Maximus, but failed to do any significant damage. Hunk-ra, then berserkered his way up to Bobbie and swinging twice only knocking himself down on the second blow. Bobbie and Marco, Master of the Guard, took turns hitting Hunk-ra to finally capture the bounty. Post battle, Victor found a wandering begger and gave him a gold coin to receive a ‘thank you’in return. Shessh. Hunk-ra survived the battle this time and found a watch tower.

Thieves Guild vs. Sir Raymond’s Crusade fought an assassination as well in the scrub lands. Bill’s Gnome was hunting Sir Raymond, but couldn’t get a good activation. One glance I look over and Bill was down to three figs while Bob had most of his moving forward. Next thing I know the Gnome plugs Sir Raymond with a crossbow and game over. Post battle, the Gnome found an Alehouse while losing one of the Wererats (I think), meanwhile Sir Raymond found a ‘charm stone’ for a re-roll.

Next official instalment is June 3rd, but with Paul an Eric missing out, I’m hoping that they can get a game in on Saturday, plus Mark has shown an interest and is going to work on a force. Hopefully I can get him a learning game in on Saturday night.

jp

One Year Surgery-versay

2010-05-14T11:47:00.000-05:00

Next Tuesday is a double decker anniversary. It is mine and The Other Half's 10.2 anniversary... 10 years together followed by 2 years of marriage and it is my first year following my surgery for Gastric By-Pass. It has also been over a month at what the Gastric folks cal "Onederland"... That being your weight starts with a 1 vice a 2 or 3. In my case I've stabilized at about 196ish + or - 2 pounds any given moment.

The surgery, with out a doubt, was the single greatest contributor to the weight loss. For me, I don't think it could have happened any other way. But... Here is the tricky point. In October I was 214. In that time I have lost ~18 pounds, but my body fat level has gone from +30% to 16%. For that I give thanks to the 6am morning workouts. They are hard, constantly varying, and truly enjoyable in a sick and twisted sort of way. I think I can count on less then one hand the number of workout days that I've missed since October. Traveling, vacation, work, training... Doesn't matter, I'll get them in. Equipment or no, something can be worked out. Using the handy-dandy Air Force BodPod, I know that although I have lost 18 pounds of weight, my non-fat weight has gone up almost 17 pounds, which means I've gained 17 pounds of muscle and lost 35 pounds of fat.

Happy snaps to follow:

Like I said, couldn't have done it without the surgery... I was just too addicted to all the foods I loved but didn't love me back, but the workouts are what helped re-shape the body afterwards. I won't be posting weight stuff here anymore... Over at the workout side as things progress. Surgeon thinks I have pretty much leveled off. He may be right, but I would like to drop another 10 pounds of total weight while gaining some more upper body strength. My next six month goal is to complete 'Linda' as proscribed. Better known as three bars of death, it is ten rounds of decreasing sets (10-9-8-7...) of 1.5 times body weight Deadlifts (That would be ~300, my one rep max is 280ish), body weight Bench Press (200, but have no idea on the Bench as we don't do it very often), and .75 power cleans (150 while I currently am working out around 95...) so lots of room for growth!

Thanks to everyone that has been supported, it means a lot!

We now return you to your normally schedule geeky stuff! :)

jp
Keep on truckin'

Games and Movie...

2010-05-10T18:28:00.000-05:00

Hello,

Saturday night Paul and Eric came over and we played three rounds of SBH. First was Eric's list versus my Victor's Folly. The scenario was chance encounter where each player deploy's his enemy's force one at a time, no closer then one 'Long' from an enemy figure. It started strong for me getting two kills early on and trying to consolidate my position... Then it all went down hill failing multiple early activations. Eric held it together and used the 'Distraction' from the harlot to transfix my Bobbie the Ogrun and take him out of the game.

Paul and Eric played a game of control points. Half way through I thought Eric had it won, but before you could shake your head and say 'WHHHAAATT', the Paul's Menoth had cleared the field. The third game was Assassination, with me having to kill Paul's leader. Well... That didn't happen as Paul's force pretty much slaughtered me to a man before I could get to his head honcho!

We then played a road race game of Formula D in Chicago. Two laps, lots of twists and turns. Eric was behind most of the race, but pulled ahead in the last three turns. Paul came in second and I did a slow putter in for third.

The gang is gearing up for a SBH league. We started on earlier, but know that all the main participants have a game under there belt, we are set to re-boot with a few others added in.

On Sunday, Eric and I hit Iron Man 2. I enjoyed the movie. It wasn't quite as good as the first Iron Man, but I think some of that was the 'newness' of the whole thing last time. The Avenger's ties were pretty strong and Scarlett Johanson's Black Widow combat scenes were pretty darn cool. It was a great intro into the summer movie season and I would recommend the show to any comic book/action flick fans. I give it 6 out of 7 Arc Reactors.

jp

Saturday Game Day

2010-05-02T15:57:00.000-05:00

The local convention, Nuke Con, hosted a Games Day at a local high school on Saturday. I ran several events and had a pretty good, solid day of gaming.

Dominion - Had two games with three different students. They caught on to the game quickly and we had a good time as I hadn't seen a few of the cards we used in play. Namely the Witch, whom I have been cursed now several times, and the Gardens, which is what helped me to win the first round.

Pandemic - Again, two games with a set of three students. We played the base set plus expanded roles on round one and had know issues containing the viruses, having won with a good round or two of cards left to be drawn. Second game we used the Virulent Epidemics, which made it a bit harder. We did win, but had to do it on the last draw.

Formula D - Only had two kids on this one. First race was Monnoco. One of the kids got over aggressive early and had to sneak around the rest of the track. Second race was Race City on the back with me crashing into the wall, leaving one of the kids to finish in first.

Song of Blades and Heroes - Steve and Paul showed up around 430ish and we played two games of three way battles of SBH. It worked out pretty well as a whole. The first game was to capture the 'Ring of Power' in the center of the table. Eric and I met in the center early and bashed heads, with my leader grabbing the coin and falling back. Following the gruesome kill on Bobbie the Ogrun, Victor did some fleeing, dropping the ring. Paul's Paladin leader steps up and snags the ring and heads towards the deployment safe zone. Solid win for Paul. Game two was a king of the hill type scenario. I switched to a dwarf list and Paul made a small adjustment to his leader. Paul jumped to a big lead holding the hill due to bad activation roles by both Eric and I. It was a big bloody mess, with Eric whittled down to Zarzathor, his Dragonborn Leader, left on the table, a few of Paul's Paladin friends, but the leader being gone, and I was down to my Dwarf Lord and a Thunder Gunner. Some how, the Dwarf Lord stood the longest on the hill, but Paul's force took the day with the most victory points.

Good times.

Really looking forward to the SBH league on our alternating Thursday. Bill and Bob may be joining in too, which would be cool as they have been playing for some time.

jp
Play!

Thursday Night Song of Blades and Heroes

2010-04-30T22:32:00.000-05:00

Hello!

Steve, Paul, Eric, and I got together and started our campaign for the Song of Blade and Heroes game (SBH). Paul had an Elf list using his painted Harlequins, Eric ran Alexia the Necromancer with a few Risen undead and living support, Steve had his five Gladiator crew, and I ran a no shooting list with a solid leader, some heavy armor guys, an Ogre, a cheap shield mage, a dog, and a stealth dude.

Paul and I paired off since it was his first game - It went pretty good for me as I should have died a few times, but Paul and I kept tying on the combat rolls. The Elves have a real high Quality stat that keeps them in there activations, but the lower Combat score hurt there ability to fight the big guy.

In the end, I whittled down the Elves only loosing my Shield Mage. We talked about list building with the ideas, namely the author's dislike of shooting tactics and their higher cost value.

Eric and Steve's game was fought on the nice city terrain as the Gladiator's came out of the graveyard (?) to attack the Necromancer in the Inn (?) -- Silly Scenarios! The Low Quality hurts the Undead plus Eric forgot their special rule of getting a +2 on Moral checks. Opps!

I expect that Paul and Eric are going to revamp the lists for round two as they needed some tuning.

Tomorrow is Nuke Con Game Day. If your board, feel free to come by for a game!

jp
Game On!

Nuke Con Game Day

2010-04-25T21:48:00.000-05:00

I've signed up to run a few games at Nuke Con's Game Day, Aftershock on 1 May.

1000 - Dominion
1200 - Pandemic
1400 - Formula D
1800 - Song of Blade and Heroes Mini Campaign.

If you are board, feel free to swing by! It is held at Papillion South High School.

jp

Week Summary

2010-04-25T08:08:00.000-05:00

Had two gaming events this week.

Tuesday's normal game day at the Game Shoppe had us continue our slow grow league at 35 points. I had a game with Mike S and his Cryx. He ran Denegra and I had the Butcher, again. Solid game, but his assassin run didn't quite get the run it needed and the Butcher was able to apply Lola to face, though it was close call.

Afterwards, Tony brought a friend and we gave him a demonstration of the game. He has the summer off, so he was looking for a non-WoW hobby.

Saturday, Steve, Eric and I got together and played Rune Wars. It was a brutal game. I had the Elves, Steve the Humans, and Eric the undead. I started very strong, but only had two food and messed up my timing and lost several elves the first two seasons as I expanded. Eric's undead had a nice enclosed protected area, and Steve looked to be in the tough spot. However, Steve was able to expand and roll, making great use of his units to clear out my Elven homeland and rolling to a victory in the end.

Paul showed up near the end of Rune Wars and when we wrapped up we played Formula D. Four car, two lap race in France. Paul had poll position, then me, Steve, followed by Eric. Steve stalled on the start and looked to be doomed, but by 1/2 way through the first lap had taken the lead. It was a cool track allowing 6th gear a few times. I crashed on the second lap failing to stop once in a two turn corner. Paul followed shortly afterwards. This allowed Steve to coast to a first place finish with Eric nursing it into second.

We talked about playing on Thursday nights every other week for Song of Heroes and Blades league. Hopefully we can get that worked out.

Great night of gaming guys. Thanks much!

jp

Monday Night Gaming

2010-04-20T10:59:00.001-05:00

Greetings,

Steve and Susan came over and we had burgers & asparagus for dinner. The three of us went to the basement and played three games.

- Ticket to Ride – Susan hadn’t played in a year and she likes train games. Her and I were pretty close, but she completed two extra tickets which got her the ‘most traveled’ and the extra routes. Poor Steve misjudged his train lengths and ended up losing most of his tickets because he couldn’t connect the far distant ends.

- Dominion x2 – We next played two games of Dominion. We hadn’t played in a few months, so we quickly reviewed and found that we had been making a mistake from the first time, namely not dumping the remainder of your hand after each turn. That made a huge difference in circulating cards and getting more cards/gold to do stuff with. The first game was pretty standard but had no ‘attack’ actions except the witch, but she really didn’t come out to play. The main players were Festivals and Villages giving lots of multiple actions in the game. I took a pretty aggressive approach to collecting Provinces and it paid off in the end. The second game we ended up with all the ‘attack’ actions as well as the moat, which was pretty interesting. Steve took a Thief route, Susan took a Spy route, while I cornered the Laboratory market. The Spy/Lab combo worked well for Susan as she slowly cleaned out the Provinces and Duchy cards. For me the highlight was having five of my six Laboratories in a single turn. +2 cards, +1 action, followed with a woodcutter for +2 gold and an extra buy. J

We wrapped up around 830, which was good timing and I got my food and gym stuff packed up before bed.

Gaming? Yes, gaming…

Here we are again...

2010-04-19T06:27:00.000-05:00

Mid April and I haven't posted any game stuff. I suck.

I've gotten some gaming and gaming related stuff done between work trips, but not a lot.

I took some Khador, a Spriggian and the Uhlans to build when I went to Montgomery for a week, but my super glue exploded in the luggage, luckily I was smart enough to put it in a plastic bag so it didn't destroy everything else.

On Saturday we had our WARMACHINE 15 point Megabattle. Ten folks showed up, which was a good turn out, we were able to play two takes on the scenario and everyone seemed to have fun. Here are some happy snaps...

From Mega Battle

You can see the rest of the pics following the links above.

The rest of my gaming time, if you want to call it that, has been spent on Locomotion by Chris Sawyer. It is a pretty old game, but it is a pretty neat transport system game if you like that sort of thing. I've always been a fan of Chris' Transport and Roller Coaster Series, but I don't think he is moving any games lately.

Steve is coming over tonight to get some board game action on. I'll update on what and how later this week... Promise.

jp
Wanting to game more

Recruits in KC

2010-03-28T13:53:00.000-05:00

Dan, Adam and I went to the 50 point Steamroller event that Kris put on down at Recruits in KC. Recruits is a great little con, running a whole $5 for entry, which makes it a pretty good buy on your gaming dollar. The 3.5 hour drive each way was the only real turn off since we didn't stay for the whole weekend.

Kris had 30+ players for his event which means we had a 5 round tournament. I had my fully painted Butcher list which consisted of:
- Decimator
- Berserker x2
- Juggernaut
- Full Winter Guard w/ UA
- Kovnik Joe
- Grey Lords
- Full Battle Mechanics
- Full Man Of War Shocktroopers
- Manhunter

I ended up 2-3, with my wins coming against relatively new players. Two of the losses were close affairs, one was plain stupidity on my part.

Game One vs. Epic Thagrosh of Everblight
I did a great job of killing tons of stuff in his army, but left Thags enough room to fly in and kill the Butcher. Stupid wings.

Game Two vs. Menoth
New player with the Testament. His deployment was pretty tight, and bunched together. His last attempt at an attack run was his feat getting Knights Exemplar in charge lane to Butcher, but only two could make it. The Testament took a Rip Saw to the face twice in return.

Game Three vs. Cryx
Newish player with Epic Dhenegra. He really didn't play to much to her strength, trying to Hellmouth some ends, but never going for the throat. It ended on time, and I held the most points in the boxes.

Game Four vs. Cryx
Montenebra with 3 Seethers, Nightmare and Leviathan. Once again I had this one pretty much in hand, killing most of the army, but where I thought I had covered the charge lanes on the Butcher, they were able to use overrun and a dead Man O War to get the charge to kill him.

Game Five vs. Cygnar
Sloan. She is a B!^@# and I mean how. Butcher, engaged in combat, Def 18, shot in the face. End.

Kris ran a pretty smooth event, maybe could be tightened up between rounds a bit, but overall good time. We stopped a Jason's Deli for dinner on the way home and it must have been kids from hell eat free night. 9pm and the place was packed with runaway 6 year olds.

Got to the Shoppe and our cars at around 1am, back home around 130. Tired puppy.

jp
Stupid Sloan.

Saturday Morning Gaming

2010-03-20T22:46:00.000-05:00

Went to the gym early on base and did my workout, then headed over to the Shoppe for a few games of WARMACHINE.

We are in our 35 point game paint/play/slow grow league. First game was against Dan L. he played Epic Cain and a whole mess go Gun Mages. I had the Butcher, 2 Berserkers, 1 Juggernaut, MoW Shocktroopers, Winter Guard, Kovnik Joe, Battle Wizards & War Dog. I did a pretty good job of closing the gap and engaging the shooters. All except the one that mattered, eCain. Dan got the win with eCain's feat up and guns a blazing.

Game two was versus Adam's old witch list. 2 Berserkers, 2 Kosite Hillbillies, Crow's Cutthroats, Yuri 'da Axe and his two buddies. This game was interesting. as only the Old Witch, the Scrap Jack and the Berserkers deployed normally. Everything else was either advance deploy or ambush.

Adam used the Kosites pretty good to hold up the Winter Guard, while the Butcher went up the middle with his 'Jacks. I got some good combos on tramples and slams to get some of the Crows and 'Jacks out of the way. When the Old Witch popped her feat, Butch kept the focus, advanced into the danger, survived and dropped a big rock on her head and rolled really well on the damage. Flat Old Witch.

It was a good game Adam. You too Dan. Thanks much.

Spent the rest of the day with The Other Half, got some dinner at Jason's Deli then came home and watched two episodes of Rescue Me. Neither of us was sure it was going to grab us, but both thought we ought to give the first disk a try.

Later still did some base and painting on the Khador... Trying to get them ready for Recruits in KC next weekend.

jp

WARMACHINE Lincoln Tournament

2010-03-13T21:19:00.000-06:00

Hey,

Six of us went to Lincoln for a Warmachine tournament that Sam was hosting at Hobby Town. It was Tony, Adam, Dan, and I with Chris and Mike in a second car. We played four rounds and I did exceptionally bad. 25 point lists contained:

Butcher (+6)
Berserker x2 (12)
Juggernaught (7)
Decimator (9)
Man-O-War Kovnik (3)

Very Jack heavy, but it was fun to run with not a lot of surprises for what you were getting. I played three experience players and lost with my only win coming from a newbie. Tough games all around, but not the best player I suppose.

Big thanks to Sam for running the event.

Butcher for the Wi.... Whaaat???

Saturday Gaming, Friday Edition

2010-03-13T08:25:00.002-06:00

I took some comp time on Friday given all the travel I had been doing. If nothing else I earned a butt load of credit and travel comp time to use the past three weeks.

Steve was between mid shifts so I invited him over for some gaming after he had his sleep. He showed at 2 and we had a chance to play a few games. We started with Song of Blade and Heroes. It was the first time for Steve to play and only my second. He had some painted Gladiator figures from a game that Suzanne got him at GenCon, so I created a gladiator list for him that was pretty nifty. I broke out my GW Dwarves and created one for me.

It was a good solid intro to the game. I had a few extra numbers on Steve, but he had the quality troops. Despite my slow speed, I was able to get up on the hill to move closer to Steve's force, but it was Gladiator Boris' Berserk combined with Reckless that issued first contact. Unfortunately, since he always had to advance, he couldn't get an attack off, allowing the Slayer to hit and take him out early. Additionally the Iron Guard were able to gang up on LeRoy to take him out on turn five or so with a "Gruesome Kill", causing his band to fall back. That is when the tide turned and the remaining gladiators said, "Hey, it is only Dwarves! Come on!"

I moved my Commander too close and he was netted and killed pretty easily. That caused my forces to fall back twice, once from the dead leader and once for being under 50% strength. The band dispersed to the wind and they never recovered. Steve was able to pick off the rest of the band solo fashion, while the gunners tried vainly to pick off approaching forces.

In the end Steve won taking out all the Dwarves. We chatted about the game and both liked the system and may try to set up a campaign with the gang as it seems to play quick and simple.

We then set up a game of Agricola then ran down to Hectors for dinner real quick. Good Mexican food and pretty solid pricing. If I could drink I would have had the Dos Equis Amber, from what I remember of my beer drinking it is yummy. As it was I had two tacos and was pretty full. Steve, The Other Half, and I had a pleasant conversation while waiting and eating.

When we got back to the house we started up Agricola had a few rounds and Paul showed to deliver me a printed copy of the Song of Blades and Heroes series as he has access to some great printers at work that can handle the job effectively. We chatted for 1/2 hour or so then Paul headed down to the Shoppe while Steve and I finished up the game. Steve went with a Occupation and Improvement strategy, trying to leverage all the freebies to get extra resources. I focused on a little of everything, but tried to get the extra actions (babies) as early as I could. With the expansion rules, the new fuel requirements kept playing havok on my wood collection, slowing down my fence building. Steve ran into trouble at the end between feeding his large family or building a stone home. He ended up feeding the family as it looked to be more points then those lost on the home. Final score was 28 to 37 in my favor, with my concentration on card point improvements making the difference.

Good solid afternoon/evening of gaming. Thanks for coming over Steve and hope you made it through the Mid-shift OK!

jp
Off to Lincoln for WM Tournament.

Song of Blades and Heroes

2010-03-07T15:09:00.000-06:00

I've seen Song of Blades and Heroes (SBH), from Ganesha Games, on the street for a while, usually associated at a post on Tabletop Gaming News. I've always kind of discounted it due to the really cheap looking cover. Heck it looks as bad as some of those original D&D cover art. Compare for yourself. So it was with some trepidation that I plucked down an entire $8 on a PDF version of the rules while being board out of my skull one evening on my last work trip.

What I found was a really clean, simple to execute rules set for a generic fantasy gaming. In a nut shell, each figure on the board has two stats; Quality and Combat. The Quality goes from 2+ to 6+. It is the number you need to roll on a D6 to activate the model this turn. Combat is your martial skill and is a single roll up of your offensive/defensive/armor/weapon/skill/etc. It ranges from 1-5. One of the unique items I like on SBH is the activation system. When you choose to activate a model, you roll between 1-3 D6. Your choice. For every die that comes up on or above your Quality level, you get an action. If you get two or more failures in a single roll, then your turn is over. This forces the player to decide how risk averse the are... Roll a single die for everyone and you will get to activate everyone, but be very limited to only a single action. These actions walk, jog, run, attack, powerful attack, shoot, etc... each take 1-3 actions. If your only rolling that single die, then you can walk up to your opponent, but you won't be able to attack him.

On Saturday night late, after I had the green light, Eric came over and we tired a quick game. He had a small undead hoard with a Wraith, zombies, skeleton warriors and a few archers. I had an orc list with a warlord, 4 warriors and 4 goblin archers. What really struck each of us during the game was the importance of the leader's ability to make your Quality better while in the Long range. Eric's zombies had a real problem being Quality 6+ after his leader left them behind.

They have a quick and dirty mini campaign that can be completed in a night once you get the rules down as an average game is suppose to be about 45 mins long. Ours was a bit over an hour, but we did keep looking up stuff to make sure we got it ok.

Another great feature is that you can build your army as you like since they have an online warband builder that allows you to create a custom warband. So break out those Warmachine or Warhammer figs and get to building boys!

Finally, the seemed to have expanded past Fantasy. They have both a modern gun centric game using the same core rule set as well as a Napoleonic skirmish game which might be interesting.

jp
Another one?

Slackerville...

2010-02-28T14:22:00.000-06:00

So I only posted four times this month. That is bad. I wish I could say I haven't reported more gaming stuff, but I really can't, it has been pretty quite.

Still on the road for travel, but did have today off (vice Saturday that I put in a 10 hour day in) so I went to the theater and saw "The Wolfman".

I guess I would give it 2 out 6 silver bullets. It was visually well done, except the close up of the wolfman looked a bit comical. It looked like they were trying to pay homage to the old B&W version, but it didn't really get pulled off well. That combined with some rather lack luster acting it just didn't sell well. Which is sad, because the Wolfman has always been my favorite of the classic monster movies.

I did purchase a PDF version of "Song of Blades and Heroes" for $8. It has some real simple game mechanics that looks like it would fit well in a skirmish game. It claims to be playable in under 45 mins once you are comfortable with the rules. I hope to ~~pressure~~ ~~strong arm~~ talk into the gang into trying out. Cost would be zero as we all have a ton of fantasy figs and I've bought the rules already. It looks perfect to run a mordhiem type campaign with a significant reduction in book keeping.

Any Hoo... Have a good one and I'll catch you next month with more game stuff... I hope!

jp
Post? What Post?

Saturday Gaming

2010-02-22T10:14:00.000-06:00

So I've been real slow in getting game stuff on the blog. Been a tough month for gaming.

On Saturday I went to the Shoppe after my work out and played three games of Warmacine. First game was a bonus game against Mike C. I played Butcher, Devastator, Full Man O War unit and a Manhunter. He played a bunch of pointy eared elves... I can't tell them apart... He misjudged some distances with his caster (Eagle dude) and failed a charge on the Butcher, allowing him to return the favor.

Second game was against Paul A. as a league game. He had Ashlynn list with Precursor Knights, Nomad, & Rupert. Not a bad list, but not a lot of 'fodder' for getting in the way or big hitters to take out MoW/Jacks. I ended up trampling the Devastator to Ashlynn and getting her with the buzz saw.

Third game was another bonus game with Eric F. He was playing Reznik, which is always tricky given Engine of Destruction. I can't remember all the details of Eric's list, but it was a good game.

Afterwards Eric, Adam, Mike and I played two games of Formula D. We tried the street racing rules on the first game. Made for interesting play with the Nitro rules. Eric took first, I snuck in on second due to Mike's spin out. Second game was traditional on the Sebring track. I won, with Eric in second and Adam coming in third, while Mike crashed.

Good games all around. Thanks guys!

jp
Play!

Afterwards

Runewars Unboxing...

2010-02-15T20:40:00.001-06:00

The much sought after, slow to produce Runewars Unboxing Video... :)

jp

Runewars... To Arms, To Arms

2010-02-08T20:44:00.000-06:00

I broke down and purchased Runewars a few weeks ago when I had bonus points to spend at The Game Shoppe. Saturday gaming has been hit and miss with events and schedule, but I was able to get Rob, Steve, and Team Chaos (Eric & Mark) to play last week. The box says it takes 3 hours to play, I assume that means when you have experienced players. It took us about an hour to set up the board and read the rules to get us all on the same sheet, then playing took us about four hours. Now, those turns did pick up steam the further we went along and we all started to understand the finer points of the game.

The turn order the first round also includes race selection. Rob took the Elves, I took Humans allowing Team Chaos to have the Demons and Steve the Undead. Wouldn't have been natural if they hadn't. :) The random board construction was an interesting add, allowing each game to be a bit different as home realms and map tiles used alters for each game, let alone how they are placed together. Rob's Elves got 'stuck' way out on a lonely limb and Steve's undead were on the low side of the other side behind some defendable mountains. Eric's forces and my Humans were squared across from each other pretty tightly.

One of the nice features to this Fantasy Flight Game is that they built in an end-state vice 'total dominance'. You have to collect Dragon Runes and have control of six of them or six 'years' in game time pass with the winner being the player with the most Runes. In the end, Eric and I were racing to get the Rune's in place, but Eric and Team Chaos was able to get their hero into town first. The turn went five full years plus a spring and summer.

Everyone seemed to like the game, I would like to see a 6 player expansion with Dwarves and Orcs as the new races so more folks can play.

I need to record the audio for the unboxing, so I'll post that up as soon as I can get to it.

jp
Defend the Realm!

Steelhead Riflemen... A sign of things to come?

2010-02-04T12:43:00.000-06:00

I must admit, despite playing Khador for the slow grow league, I am still very much a big fan of the merc stuff. Privateer has come out with a preview of a unit that I didn't even know was on the horizon, the Steelhead Riflemen unit...

Flavor text reads:

A doctrine of combined arms lies at the heart of the Steelhead Company’s training manual and their riflemen are one of the most important elements of these combined forces. Working in concert with other Steelheads, or the regular forces of a client army, the riflemen are skilled shooters capable of decimating enemy lines or providing covering fire to ensure that their allies reach the enemy in one piece. Every rifleman is a solid marksman, but when ordered to concentrate their fire at a single target they become truly deadly.

This sounds like they will synergy with the other Steelhead units in the game. Adam should be happy to expand his force in a very shooty direction as well...

What I wonder, like many others, is a Steelhead Warcaster that far away? If Merc's go the way of other factions, will we see 12 casters? That would mean four empty slots, three if you take Gorten Epic (which would rock, but that is a different story/wish list/wild speculation)... Only time will tell, or a preview, what ever comes first. :)

jp

Fire for effect!

Oh No They Didn't!

2010-01-27T09:20:00.001-06:00

Look Out! Mutants are incoming!

Just saw a news feed that Amazon has a listing from Wizard’s of the Coast for a 4^th Edition D&D setting for Gamma World. Post apocalyptic goodness is sure to abound in this tactical centric version of the game. I may have to force the gang back to the table again for some mutants and other shenanigans.

Link says October of this year: http://www.amazon.com/Gamma-World-Roleplaying-Game-Setting/dp/0786955082/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1264605405&sr=8-3

Oh yes they did!

Battle Build Trench System...

2010-01-24T19:00:00.000-06:00

Greetings,

I purchased these back in December for use in the upcoming slow grow events. The company, Battle Build, is a UK firm and has some nice looking terrain pieces for both 28/30mm and 15mm.

Local guys will be seeing these on the table.

jp
Incoming!

Mk II Saturday

2010-01-23T22:26:00.000-06:00

With the new card decks in for Mark II we had a bit of a feeding frenzy playing today.

We had about a dozen players from 11 to 6 at the Shoppe. I got to play three games with Irusk, which was fun.

Game 1 versus Pat's Legion. I had Irusk, Berserker, Juggernaut, Full Winter Guard Pat had Lilith, four Shredders, Carnivian. I rushed forward, while Pat set up the Shredders on my left flank, moving Lilith and Carnivian wide to the left. My Juggernaut had Superiority on him, and the WG kept running up. Two Shredders engaged the Berserker and they tied each other up for most of the game. The Juggy ran into Lilith's face, forcing her to move away, while the Carnivian moved forward to engage, and the wreck the 'Jack. In the end, it was Irusk failing three of four attack rolls versus the Carnivian, allowing Lilith to heal him and letting him loose to squish him flat.

Game 2 versus Adam's Merc list. Another bloody mix. We pumped the points up to 25 and I added Kovnik Joe, Widowmakers, and a 3 man MoW Shocktrooper. Adam had Mags, a Renegade, a Mangler, 10 trenchers, and 6 Crow's. The Mangler with new spell from Mags that replaced Fury was just mean. After getting shot by Crow's, I ran the MoW to engage, while Kovnik Joe and the WG went to the Trenchers. The Renegade's obliterator shot hit Irusk, but it was on the feat turn and I wasn't knocked down, which is always nice. In the end, Adam took a chance with Mags, stepping out of combat to try and shoot Irusk, but loosing the aiming bonus hurt and he missed. I had the Juggernaught step to Mag's to finish the day.

Game 3 versus Paul's Merc List. Paul was running Ashlynn, Mule, Vanguard, Precursor's with attachment. I had the core list, but could add Kovnik Joe in. Biggest lesson learned on this fight is that Ashlynn is very capable assassin in MkII. Look out for that 11" charge under her feat, it was just ouch!

Great having the turn out and hopefully we have a gone one next week.
jp
My 2 focus

Haiti Fund Raiser at RPG Drive

2010-01-20T14:59:00.001-06:00

Interesting concept.

Give $20 at RPG Drive on donations to Doctors without Boarders, get $1400+ in PDF products. This actually is a great concept for the companies that are donating their products to get them in the hands of those that might otherwise pass on them due to an unknown name/pdf prejudice/etc.

It looks like the RPG download is being overun with folks and clogged up their intertubes for downloads, so if you do go, you may have to wait a day or two to start downloading all the goodies.

I glanced through the list, a few gems in the mix, a few duds, but I will most likely support and see what they all look like.

jp
$20 is cheap in the long run

Khador Vs. Cygnar times two

2010-01-20T14:51:00.000-06:00

On Tuesday Erik and I played a pair of 15 point games of Warmachie MkII. He played his Siege list that includes a Ironclad, Gun Mage Adepts Unit, Jr. Warcaster and either a Charger (game 1) or a Sentinel (game 2).

Game one I played Butcher, Berserker, Juggernaut, 3 Man of War Shocktroopers, & a Manhunter. Erik did a good job of neutralizing the manhunter early with the powerful attack on the charger, he also got good use out of Siege's Force Hammer spell, knocking down both 'Jacks, but he forgot about the Shake It Off, with focus, allowing the Juggernaut to stand up, with two remaining focus, under Butcher's feat and his spell that allows free charge/boosting... It ended up with a squished Siege. He also used the GMA to keep knocking back the 'Jacks, slowing their advance.

Game two I played Irusk with Juggernaut, 3 Man of War, full Winterguard, and Manhunter. In this game it was close, with everything dieing on my side except the Jugernaught that I kept running with Superiority into Siege's face and two of his GMA that were being stubborn. In the end Siege charged Irusk, couldn't finish the job, so Irusk kept all seven focuse, but couldn't finish the job either, allowing Siege to make Irusk go splat.

Good games! Thanks Erik.

jp
I feel MkII a rumbling!

Italians on the roll

2010-01-17T19:59:00.000-06:00

On Saturday I got to participate in the first Flames of War event of the year down at the Game Shoppe. It was Paul's first tournament as an organizer and he did a real stand up job on keeping the games rolling and players in line. We had 12 participants with an equal split between axis and allies. One Italian (Me!), five Germans, six Americans.

Round One: I played Mick's American Infantry, but the scenario had delayed reserve rules in effect, meaning half my army wouldn't be on the table until much later in the game. In fact, I never got two platoons on the board and I lost due to attrition, unable to stop the big heavy monster's that Mick brought. I lost more then 50% of my platoons and my CO was dead, so everyone that was left fled. Loss at 5-2

Round Two: The scenario was about the Mid War Monster breaking down and having to go rescue it before your opponent got it off the table. I won the attacker roll, so it gave me a bit of an advantage for the scenerio, but the mobile reserves put a pinch on my first round forces... P40's and L6's... That was it. The Heavy Machine Gun Motorcycle Platoon came on turn two, but nothing else until turn four or five. Luckly for me the P40's were able to take out Eric's Monsters and thier platoon before it moved, forcing his infantry company to slog across the table. It was a very close game early on while I was out manned, but Eric, despite trying hard, had his dice betray him, allowing me to reorganize and push in with a tank assault. Win at 5-2

Round Three: Again with the reserves! It would have been nice to fight a battle with the troops I brought. I played Rob who had to Tiger Monsters. The goal was for him to capture one of two objectives on my side of the board. I lost this game due to breaking with out a CO again, but I killed two Tigers which was a win in my book. The hero of the game for me was the P40 CO that became the Unknown hero, rallied his platoon to allow the P40 a desperte shot at the back of the second Tiger to take it out of the game... Of course, he died shortly after, but hey, that is OK.

I did a history. I thought it was pretty good, and the guys seemed to like it. I've posted it up in Google Docs, but the formating got a bit messed up and you loose the appeal a bit since I printed it on card stock in booklet format. I think that helped me with best historical (I think that is what it was) which is a combo of painting (fully painted baby!), history, and sportsmanship. I was pretty stocked, but will likely funnel the $20 into new Khador stuff (or Cygnar stuff) for Warmachine. :)

jp
Avanti! (Crap... I forgot to do that that the entire tournament! Dang!)

Late Night Prep

2010-01-15T22:30:00.000-06:00

The Mid War Monsters tournament is tomorrow morning, so I've been madly painting trying to get the Italians at least looking presentable. I've also been doing some research for the 'background' or fluff for the unit I'm playing. I decided to go with an intelligence report (Technique and Tactics) on the Italian Reconnaissance Forces and printed it in booklet form. I think it turned out pretty well. If I figure out a way to share it I'll do that.

My force is here:
HQ
L6/40 - 4 stands at 120

Combat Platoons
Armor Car - AB41 - 4 stands at 125
Lt Tank - L6/40 - 5 stands at 150
Motociclisti Platoon - 5 stands at 115
W/ Passaglia Bombs at 10
Motociclisti MG Platoon - 5 stands at 140

MWM
P40 - 4 stands at 385

DIV SUP
Anti-tank - 47/32 Platoon - 4 stands at 185
Carri - M14/41 - 5 stands at 300
Anti-tank - Lancia da 90/53 - 2 stands at 220

Total 1750

It is a pretty heavy recon list, but I thought four combat platoons was pretty good.

I'll let you know how the games go.

jp
ZZZzzzz

Tuesday Night Warmachine

2010-01-12T22:08:00.000-06:00

Turn out was still low given our pre-Mk II events kicking in at the Shoppe, but Phillip and I played a pair of MkII Prime only games using the new rule book.

Round One was Kreoss vs. Vlad - I put Vlad and his Jacks a little to far out in front and they got knocked down with Kreoss' feat, but luckily I got good use out of the Shake it off rule. Still didn't matter in the end as he took several rocket shots then Kreoss was able to thread the needle to squish Vlad dead. Very sad.

Round Two Testament vs. Sorcha - Wash repeat... New Testament is going to get more play I think in the long run. I again got my caster shot first, then stabbed by Temple Flame Guard that Big T brought back with his feat. I never even got to pop Sorcha's.

I like the MkII stuff so far, I just got to figure out how to play the new Khador stuff.

jp
Bing Bing

Coming into the first corner...

2010-01-10T16:24:00.001-06:00

Greetings,

Saturday saw two races in the Grand Prix League for Formula D. We had two new teams, Mark's Team Death with Frankenstein & Stalker and Jake's Team Gumby with Gumby & Argos.

The first race was Sepal Malaysia. Tough course with three injuries being taken, including our first fatality with Gumby himself dying on the first corner of the first turn. Hard luck. We only had four wreck markers on the table, but many of them were double ups from dropped engines and suspensions in the same spot. However, three of those four were on the first turn, making it tough passage for us slow pokes. Frankenstein took an early lead and never looked back making a spectacular race for his first time on the circuit. Zur finished second, with SPR's Chewie taking third. Team Ariete's Marboni came in fourth.

The second race switched to the United States with a three lap event at Watkins Glen, NY. This race was fast, with plenty of 4th gear action in the snaking turns. Again, Frankenstein, quickly becoming a nemesis to all racers and adored by his fans, took an early lead and held off Luigi to finish first. Third went to Team Zealot, who moved into tying position with Team Ariete for the Grand Prix Cup. Chaos' Val brought in 4th while BJ Foyt and Chewie finished. 6 wreak markers littered the track, but all racers finished despite the bump and grind.

Driver	Team	DP Earned	DP Used	% DP Used
Morboni	Team Ariete	19	4	21%
Kalev	Team Zealot	18	5	28%
Frankenstien	Team Death	16	8	50%
BJ Foyt	JP Racing	14	9	64%
Luigi	Team Ariete	12	6	50%
Gumby	Team Gumby	11	0	0%
Val	Chaos Inc.	11	4	36%
Eld	Chaos Inc.	9	0	0%
Zur	Team Zealot	8	4	50%
Chewie	Team SPR	7	4	57%
Dale Burnout Jr.	JP Racing	6	2	33%
Titania	Valkyrie	4	0	0%
Solo	Team SPR	3	0	0%
David Kidder	Valkyrie	3	0	0%
LaMont	Shadow Racing	3	0	0%
Margo	Shadow Racing	0	0	-
Stalker	Team Death	0	0	-
Argos	Team Gumby	0	0	-

Grand Prix Points
Team	Owner	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	Finish	DNF	GPP
Team Ariete	Steve	2	1		1	1	1	35
Team Zealot	Eric	1	2	1		1	1	35
JP Racing	John		1	1	1	2	1	23
Team Death	Mark	2						20
Chaos Inc.	Rob		1	1	1		1	19
Team SPR	Paul			1		1	1	9
Valkyrie	Susanne			1				6
Shadow Racing	Leah				1			4
Team Gumby	Jake						1	1

jp
Ka-Boom

The New Merc Contracts are Here, The New Merc Contracts are Here!

2010-01-07T20:42:00.000-06:00

Yippe!

Privateer Press has posted a PDF with the new Mercenary Contracts for Warmachine MkII. They, in general, look pretty cool.

The Four Star Syndicate didn't see any real changes, which is fine, it was pretty straight forward anyways.

The Highborn Covenent got much better, simply by adding a unit Gun Mages or Long Gunners, both of which can take attachments. You can now paint up those Order of the Rose Lael Gun Mages you always wanted to do. Sweet!

The Seaforge keeps the same goodies, but instead of advance deploy, they get an extra 4" on the deployment zone. That should help with the general movement/mobility issues for those stunty legged folks.

Talon Charter - Didn't see any big changes here.

Magnus' Agenda gets moved from a Contract to a 'Theme Army' that has a bunch of bonuses, depending on how thematic you get with your choices. Neat things like Mag's Jacks can start with upkeep spells running in advance of the game or units getting pathfinder for the first turn. Pretty nifty stuff.

Makes me miss my merc already since I'm running Khador for the slow grow league.

jp
one if by land, two if by sea

First update of the year

2010-01-06T20:30:00.000-06:00

Greetings,

Hope you all had a good and safe New Year. Last Saturday, Steve and Suzanne invited me over for some boardgames and food. I got to play a few games during that time and it was in general a good evening.

First up was a non-league game of Formula D. Suzanne's friend Patrick and his son Jake along with Steve and I ran a two lap Monte Carlo. Patrick did a solid job of hitting the turns just right and ended up not needing to pit, which allowed him to maintain a sizable lead. Steve ran his tire heavy car, but it couldn't keep him on the track in the long run as he came in third. I took second with Jake racking up a 'did not finish'.

The second game of the evening Pandemic. We played on 'easy' with the core epidemics on the first one. The team did pretty well as we won with zero cards in the draw pile. The second game we added the Viral Epidmics from the "On the Brink" expansion, and it did a pretty effective job of killing us all dead. Very sad. The players were Steve, Jake, JD, and myself.

The third game was Apples to Apples, a solid party game that had most in attendance playing. Suzanne's friend Will took the top apples for the prize.

The fourth game was Ninja Burger by Steve Jackson Games. It was pretty cute, simplistic, but cute. Surprised they haven't come out with a Pirate Pizza competitor to be honest. It was a pretty cut throat game, but Will came up on top again.

We finished up with Figaro, which is a interesting take on 'crap on your neighbor' style card game. It is played in three rounds of scoring so if you do bad in one round, you have a chance in the other two. It was fun and quick and I took the win.

I took off after that through the snow and got home around 1130ish or so. It was a good plesent evening of gaming.

jp
#1

Dominion Unboxing

2009-12-31T16:18:00.003-06:00

The second Game I got myself for Christmas was Dominion from Rio Grande Games... Here is the unboxing video I did for the game.

Two things I found in error... First, I turned the background music down too much and it is almost completly lost, second, I state one of the cards shown is the Thief, when in fact it is a Spy, but I'm to lazy to re-record the whole thing again and I don't have the know-how to cut and splice the audio track. Live and learn!

Master of his Dominion

Elementry My Dear...

2009-12-30T20:23:00.002-06:00

The buddy flick set in late 1800 England.

That is the new Sherlock Holmes in 7 words. Not that it is bad, far from it, it is a very entertaining movie that hits all the right wickets for modern pop culture.

Quick Take Aways:

Robert Downing Jr. - He is still on the rise and does a wonderful performance as Holmes. When first cast I was a bit apprehensive, but he pulled the accent out well and his slightly neurotic (OK, really neurotic) take on Holmes was interesting and entertaining. I really liked the director's approach with the character where he digested a scene, typically fights, but would have liked to have seen that break out with other items.
Jude Law - As the 'retired' military surgeon, this Doctor Watson was a bit younger then those portrayed in the past, but so was Holmes for that matter. Law is a great actor, with a wide range and he did well in this film. My biggest complaint was the limp. An injury suffered in the line of duty mysteriously disappeared in fight and chase scenes, but reemerged in conversation/dialog intense scenes. Huh?
The 'Buddy Flick' - Holmes and Watson played off of each other extremely well, and the interjection of Watson's future wife played to the conflict of the buddies being ripped apart.
The Action - Hey, it is the modern pop world that we live in and if we don't have the prerequisite number of explosions and bloody fight scenes, then it ain't going to cut. Come on! I think some story got left on the floor, I'm not going to spoil, but a few spots could have used an additional scene to help tie things together a bit better, especially at the end.
The Big Professor M - Professor Moriarty plays a very minor, behind the scenes, wait for the sequel roll. He is there, but he isn't the force to be addressed in this film, but I'll be you my stake in the Baker Street Irregulars that we see him in his full glory next time.
The 'Tag' - Didn't happen. I sat through the credits, expecting to see a sneak peak of Moriarty or some other thing, but it didn't happen. :( Oh well.

In the end I enjoyed the movie and would recommend it for the theater for its full large screen effect. I give it 202 out of 221B Baker Streets.

Watson

And they are off!

2009-12-30T13:32:00.006-06:00

On Tuesday, as part of the triple play, we held the third race of the Grand Prix League event. We had three new teams come into the frey and three returning teams. The new teams were:

Smuggler's Paradise Racing (SPR) with Solo and Chewie (Team Owner: Paul)
Valkyrie with Titania and David Kidder (Team Owner: Susanne)
Shadow Racing with LaMont and Margo (Team Owner: Leah)

The starting field for this race was as follows:

Kalev for Team Zealot
LaMont for Shadow Racing
BJ Foyt for JP Racing
Titania for Valkyrie
Solo for SPR
Lugi for Team Ariete

The race was held in Zhuai, China and consisted of two laps. The race looked ominous with the first turn producing our first debris field due to a collision. This same turn had five of the six racers in the turn zone and within three of the end of the turn on the same round. However, Solo took a quick and commanding lead and pulled a good 40+ car lengths ahead of all the competitors.

Coming out of the last turn of the first lap, with Solo having a firm lead and a solid car, he opted to skip the pits and head directly into his second lap. Kalev trying to make up ground also passed up on the pits. BJ Foyt, Titania, Lugi all entered the pits next and LaMont by passed, allowing him to pass Lugi who had a hard exit.

In the first turn of the second lap, Solo misjudged his distance and burnt all his tires to spin out just outside the turn. This allowed Kalev to move ahead with the lead. BJ Foyt coming in quickly attempted to pass the slowed Solo, but couldn't maintain his momentum before Solo had his car running again at speed.

Unfortunately for Solo, on the hairpin turn, he lost control of the car and slammed into the wall. Having received major injuries, will be unable to participate in the next race, but he did make the ESPN highlight reels. This left Kalev in a resounding lead and the rest of the pack clumped together in attempt to win second place.

Kalev crossed the finish line with two turns to spare, hitting the last turn perfectly to accelerate to 6th gear to head across the finish line uncontested. The pack hit the final turn in tight formation, with Titania and Lugi neck and neck, but in fourth gear. BJ Foyt timed his gear shift and entered the final turn in fifth, allowing him to accelerate to 6th and zoom pass both Titania and Lugi to steal second. Titania finished third followed by LaMont making a strong showing at the end and Lugi puttering across on the final roll.

Current Grand Prix Points

Driver Standings:

Great game of racing. We only had five debris fields on the board, but it was still alot of bump and grind between the cars. Looking forward to the next race!

The Comish

Tuesday Night Triple Play

2009-12-30T09:57:00.005-06:00

I was able to sneak out for some gaming on Tuesday night and had a real good time playing a wide variety of games.

First up The Other Half and I ran some arrends to the doctors and the kitchen counter stores and got some samples. About three or so I made it to Steve/Rob's and started cooking up some chili.

Once that was started, Steve, Susanne, and I played the new expansion for Agricola, Farmers on the Moors. Moors added in some really nice items, taking an already pleasantly complex board game and cranking it up a notch. I really liked the concept of the fuel and how the executed. It provided motivation for conversion from a wood house early, to help pay for future fuel expenditures. Steve took an early lead using his wood hoarding techniques to build a five room house early, but fell into trouble with his massive birthing campaign and had to take a begging card. In the second to last round, I took both birth tiles that allowed me to push ahead of Steve and the actions needed to replace my wood house directly to stone with the conservator. I give the expansion a pretty high rating for the new stuff it adds to the game.

Second game was the next race in the Grand Prix League. We had three new teams show and a return of three teams for a total of six racers on the field. We raced on the Zhuai track that really limited the 6th gear action. I'll post a complete update in a new posting with all the action an current standings in a blatant attempt to get my blog post count up for the month.

The last game was again Steve, Susanne, and myself. I had opened up Dominion as it will be my next unboxing, but I wanted to at least play the game once so I could talk to it more intelligently during the video. I really liked the game and I can see that it will have a high degree of replayability. The player interaction is not high, in fact it can be pretty random given the cards that come up for the kingdom cards, which are chosen at random prior to the game. Once everyone knows the rules, it actually moves along very quickly. Each game will have a slightly different strategy, based upon the cards that are chosen again, but some key things we noticed was that concentrating solely on victory points (VP), which you need to win, diluted your ability to conduct actions, which you need to get VP. Also, concentrating to much on money development at the experience of actions or VP, and not making the switch to a VP build soon enough, put you in a hole when end game was approaching.

Solid night of gaming, with three very different game styles, all good stuff. Thanks for Steve for hosting on such an odd night and for Suzanne for the corn bread muffins.

Games x3 & yummy, yummy chili

Repo Men...

2009-12-27T09:25:00.004-06:00

Wow...

Just Wow...

If you haven't seen the redband trailer for Repo Men, you ought to check it out. Talk about disturbing vision of the future. Jude Law and Forest Whitaker are a pair of great actors that seem to really have a chemstry based on the trailer.

Should be worth the watch.

How's the Pancreas?

Oh Silent Night

2009-12-26T21:49:00.003-06:00

Hey all,

No real gaming news to report. I did play a solo game of Pizza Box Football, which I won 24-21. Go Team!

The bad weather here in the Big O! kept everyone safe indoors as well as it being the holiday weekend, we didn't get a chance to get together to play. I got some Civ IV as well as good old spider solitaire in. The Other Half and I played two rounds or RummiKub and tried a few of Mexican Train (sans the contraption) while listening to Pandora.

We also watched Godfather III. We knew it was suppose to be bad, but I hadn't seen it. Good to get it out of the way finally.

My workout for the day called for bench press, which I don't have, but I chalked up 1 1/2 hours of shoveling show drifts as good enough! :)

Wednesday coming, the Eldest and I are off to see Sherlock Holmes. It has gotten some decent reviews and I'm looking forward to it... Sometime this week I've got to squeeze Avatar into the mix as well.

A brief calm before the new year storm

Factory Manager Unboxing, now with YouTube

2009-12-22T16:29:00.005-06:00

Greetings,

So, I guess I am geeking out a bit. I figured out how to use the Window's Movie Maker and it was pretty easy to get the pictures all together with some audio narrative.

So...

Let me know what you think!

And Action!

Edit: I found out how to add both voice and audio, but it appears to have down graded the visuals. More tinkering to follow!

Gentlemen, Start your engines!

2009-12-20T08:50:00.008-06:00

And they are off!

Last night we kicked off the Grand Prix League for our Saturday group. Only four folks are in the league at the moment, but we have plenty of room for others to join in. Here are the quick Grand Prix Campaign Rules we came up with.

Quick Grand Prix Campaign Rules

Each player (team) has two drivers on hire. Either driver my race on a given race day, but only one driver per team on the track per race day. If four or less teams are present and they all agree, they may choose to run both racers on the same race. Races with five or more cars will be limited to two laps while races with four or fewer cars may be three lap races if all team owners agree.

Players use the rules for the Advanced play and may design their cars per the rules. All cars are returned to full operational capability at the start of each race

A team earns Grand Prix Points (GPP) based on the finish of their drivers.

Finish Results	GGP Earned
1st	10 Points
2nd	8 Points
3rd	6 Points
4th	4 Points
Other Finishers	2 Points
Did Not Finish	1 Point

Driver Points:

Drivers earn Driver Points (DP) for the following items (Cumulative):

Action	DP Earned
Competing in a race	1 Point
Finishing a race	2 Points
1st Place	5 Points
2nd Place	3 Points
3rd Place	1 Point
Crashing Your Car, Minor Injury	1 Points
Crashing Your Car, Major Injury	2 Points
Crashing Your Car, Dead	10 Points, but then you can't spend them can you.

Use of DP. During the race a driver may spend their earned DP on the following three items:

Action	DP Cost	Times Per Race
Re-Roll	2	2/Race
Extra Break	3	1/Race
Extra Tire	3	1/Race

DP can be used in race as they are extensions of the driver's experience and abilities in the thick of the race.

Crashes:

If a driver loses control of their car and it is eliminated from play, roll the black D20.

D20 Roll	Results
1	Driver dies in fiery wreckage. Team hires new driver with no Driver Points
2 - 15	Major Injury, Driver is hurt and must miss at least one race.
16 - 20	Minor Injury, No impact on the driver

Campaign Winners:

Grand Prix Championship Team: Team that has collected the highest GGP earned. Ties for GGP will add the remaining DP of their drivers. Further ties will compare earned DP of their drivers.

Driver of the Year: Driver with highest earned DP

The Pericoloso Trophy: Driver with the highest percentage of DP used (Spent DP/Earned DP)

-------

We ran two races for the night. The first one was Monoco that came with the new Formula D box set. Since only four team owners showed up, we opted for the dual car race, especially since all our drivers were newbies. Here are the teams and their drivers:

- Team Ariete (Steve) with Morboni and Luigi
- Team Zealot (Eric) with Zur and Kalev
- Chaos Inc. (Rob) with Eld and Val
- JP Racing (Me) with Dale Burnout Jr. and BJ Foyt

Race one was very competitive with 10 debris fields littering the track, most of them around the tight 3-stop corner. It was a tight two lap race with three racers not finishing the event. In the end Morboni lead the pack out of the final turn for the checkered flag. He was followed by Kalev, Eld, and Dale Burnout Jr. Team standings following the first race:

- Team Ariete with 11 points
- Team Zelots with 10 points
- Chaos Inc. with 7 points
- JP Racing with 5 points

---

Our second race took us to the Nederlands. With one of his racers out with a major injury (Luigi), we opted to run only single racers for this very fast track, but took it up to three laps. Morboni took a commanding lead, but was caught by Val of Chaos Inc, only to slingshot back into the lead again on the final two turns. Meanwhile, Dale Burnout and Zur spent time tight in the corners, trying to push their damaged cars a bit faster for third, with Zur finally hitting the wall and not finishing. Team results following Race Two:

- Team Ariete with 21 points
- Chaos Inc. with 15 points
- Team Zealots with 11 points
- JP Racing with 11 points

---
Racer Standings by Driver Points (DP):

Driver Rankings
Driver	Team	DP Earned	DP Remain	% DP Used
Morboni	Team Ariete	16	2	13%
Val	Chaos Inc.	8	2	25%
Kalev	Team Zealot	6	0	0%
Dale Burnout Jr.	JP Racing	6	2	33%
Zur	Team Zealot	5	2	40%
Eld	Chaos Inc.	4	0	0%
Luigi	Team Ariete	3	0	0%
BJ Foyt	JP Racing	2	0	0%

Stay tunned for more racing news as the cars hit the course in the future!

Self Proclaimed Commish of Grand Prix Racing

Triple Header

2009-12-14T19:39:00.002-06:00

On Saturday I got a full day of gaming... It was enough to make any gamer jealous! The day started off with me at the Gym working on the Cross Fit Total. Max weights for back squat, shoulder press, and dead lift. My total was still pretty low and it put me in the beginner category, but that makes since given I just started about a month ago.

Afterwards I met Phillip, Adam, and Dan for our minor little farewell to MkI game. We played a 2K point game with Phillip and I playing against Dan and Adam. Phil had Epic Feorra and Kreoss and I ran Epic Caine and Halley. Not very fluff, but that is OK. Adam had Epic Magnus w/ Bart and Dan had Epic Butcher with Irusk. I got very lucky. By all rights I should have been dead with Haley on turn two from a Obliterator and eCaine on turn three from a supped up Mariner, but Adam's damage dice just couldn't pull it off, leaving each of my casters with ~5 points each. I ended up gatecrashing Bart with eCaine and having a bunch of stuff pick on Magnus. Phillip put alot of effort on eButch and needed eFerrora in the front to finish the brute off. We called the game with Team Adam/Dan only having Irusk left but us needing to wrap up the game. It was a hoot to play, just felt bad that Adam couldn't capitalize on my bad play! Farewell MkI!

Afterwards I purchased a few items. A set of the Italian P40 tanks for the mid war monster tournament for Flames of War in January. I also got the girls their Christmas presents and picked up a pair of board games for myself. I 'hope' to do an unboxing, after my business trip, of Factory Manager and Dominion as well as a detailed review of the game when Steve and I can give the game a go.

I headed over to the 'Man Cave' afterwards and Eric, Mark, Steve, Rob, Kyle, and I played that EPIC board game that had been itching at us. We chose Conquest of the Empire and had a pretty good time. Some really interesting mechanics in the game that I really liked and some that were a bit old... The premise of the game was Caesar had died and each player was attempting to take control of the empire. I really liked the alliance format. The real interesting mechanic that I really thought gave the game a twist was the alliance bidding. You had to form an alliance with half the players on one side and half on the other. You could not attack members in your alliance, but you could choose to lend support to attacks. This would not stop you from stealing influence from your alliance members, but you couldn't go all commando on them. Additionally although the game had huge armies, it wasn't about combat capability, but winning influence and victory points. I was able to gain control of Italia early which allowed be three scoring rounds at the max value, that allowed me to 'recycle' senate votes giving me a prime position to win more votes, especially the ones or additional victory points and chaos reduction. Once I got the solid lead, it was too late for the others to counter to any affect. Here is were the alliances become interesting as I was trying set up players to be on my side that were the biggest threat. The troop and combat roles were a little uninspiring, but like I said, it really wasn't the focus of the game.

Afterwards we introduced Kyle to Agricola on the family setting. It was another good game with each player being within 6 points of each other. I won in the end, but only because I stopped Steve from grabbing enough foods and forcing him to slaughter all his sheep to feed his family.

A great, fun filled day of gaming by any measure.

On Sunday The Other Half and I took the Dog to meet a co-workers dog that will be visiting over Christmas. It was a good encounter with dogs and people all getting along.

Icy as snot out today, and cold, with more cold to follow. I suppose you got to love winter, but I'm not sure why. :)

jp
Game on!

Again with the Snow and a What If?

2009-12-09T08:48:00.003-06:00

Greetings o' frozen ones,

Another day in the house after spending 45 mins snow blowing the drift out of the drive way. It has stopped with the snow, but the winds are wicked cold with wind chills in the -10's. Brr. Even when I had the day off (Thanks Uncle Sam), I still had to drive The Other Half into the hospital for work. The base may be unessential, but the hospital is not. I find that amusing. I needed gas after dropping her off and I got stuck twice in the neighborhoods trying to get to the gas station. Luckily the Subaru is all wheel drive and a bit of 'back and forth' got me unstuck in a few moments. When the gas low light came on during the second stuck, I was a bit nervous. Lessons Learned: (1) Fill up with gas before a big storm, and (2) stick to the main roads and out of the side streets.

I played one round of Grind solo, but think it needs a second player to get a better feel... Some of the odd rules (plays and what not) need to be hashed out between a few folks to get a better understanding.

With the down time I've been playing Sid Meier's Civilization which is always good for burning hours and hours of downtime. I've always enjoyed the series and if I could only play one more computer game for the rest of my life, it would most likely be this one. Luckily, I don't have to worry about that too much! :-)

Break - Break

I found this video on-line:

I thought it was a real neat piece. I've always enjoyed alternative history stuff and this just feeds to that premise. My earliest encounters with Alt-Hist was the Marvel Comic's "What If?" that looked at different views of the standard heros. That led to the DC's Elseworld brand that did a much better job of treating the concept with an adult flare.

That led me to read the works of Harry Turtledove that has written may Alt-Hist titles. I haven't finished the Timeline-191 series, but I did enjoy Turtledove's approach.

That is about it for today... Stay warm!

jp
Cold is the suck

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

2009-12-08T09:16:00.003-06:00

Brrrr....

One of the biggest benefits for being a civil servant is the 'Snow Call' Here I sit, all warm and cozy at home in front of my computer vice being warm and cozy in front of my computer at work. Now, I wish I would have known this before I made the 40+ minute trip to the office so I could go to the gym first only to get the call as I was getting to the gate and having to turn around and drive the 40+ minutes to get back home. Oh well.

Nothing really new on the gaming front. Haven't had the chance to do much since my last FoW game with Paul. The Elder came over to work on some applications and we played four quick games of Giza with me winning the first, her the second, drawing on the third, and her murdering me on the fourth. We then played a quick game of Race for the Galaxy with had me getting a score of 63 points to her 40+. Good game with me building Rebel military plus Imperium bonus cards while she had a lot of the developments that gave you free stuff (cards/vp) for any round.

I broke apart the Grind board game and put together the pieces. It is set up in the basement and I might try a solo round to give the rules a whirl. On Saturday Kyle and I are trying to move the group to a big 'Epic' board game. He has several of the Eagle Games that look pretty cool. The Conquest of the Empire or the Napoleon in Europe could be good ones for a long Saturday night. On Saturday morning four of us are getting together for a four way battle. May even bump it up to 1K all vs. all 20 minute turns for something different and interesting. That would be our own little farewell to MkI event.

More to follow this weekend, in the meantime stay warm and dry!

jp
Waiting to shovel

Blatent attempt to increase posts

2009-11-30T21:40:00.002-06:00

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!

The Next Level...

2009-11-28T08:15:00.004-06:00

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!

Long Weekend, Lots of Driving

2009-11-23T19:54:00.002-06:00

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?

Saturday Game Action

2009-11-15T09:20:00.005-06:00

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!

On the road again...

2009-11-10T07:05:00.003-06:00

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

Zombies on the road

2009-11-07T10:30:00.002-06:00

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

Touchlight Update

2009-11-04T08:06:00.000-06:00

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 1^st 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.

Killer of zombies

A little of this, a little of that...

2009-11-03T21:15:00.002-06:00

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!

Halloween Gaming

2009-11-01T09:05:00.004-06:00

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