T-Day Specials

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?

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

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.

jp

Dominion Play

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

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

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.

jp

 

 

A game? Why yes!

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…

jp

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I blog, honest…