Again with the slow reporting!

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

Tuesday Night Triple Play

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.

jp

Games x3 & yummy, yummy chili

Halloween Gaming

Boo!

Steve, Rob and Eric came over for a bit of Halloween gaming last night while I had door duty for the little gobbers coming to the front of Casa Juan. I made a big crockpot of beef stew with beans, carrots, potatoes and The Other Half picked up a nice loaf of asiago cheese bread to go with it.

Steve and Rob made it first about 3ish and we played a game of Shogun. Not the old Milton-Bradley version, but the one that came out a few years ago. It has a unique tower combat system to resolve conflict. Each player in a battle has a number of armies that are represented by cubes. You pick up all the combatants from the table and toss them into the tower that has some plates that make it partially blocked. Which ever force that has more guys come out of the tower wins, but takes extra causalities based on what the looser has come out in the tower as well. Since the cubes may push out some of the armies that were trapped before, you can never be sure how many 'guerrilla' forces are hiding from you in the toss.



Eric showed about the end of Shogun, so we broke Agricola and used the family friendly version for the first round to teach Eric and Rob the basics. That went pretty well with Steve dominating the with 39 some odd points over the rest of us. In the second game we kicked it up a notch and used the full rules with the occupations and minor improvements. This was game was pretty ugly. I got the Sycophant out on turn one which meant that folks had to pay me one food to take one grain, which really slowed down farming until Steve got the grain sack cart out. I ended up with a few large wood pulls and used them to build a five room house with three stables in one turn, then upgraded them to clay. The game ended with Steve having 35, me 36, Eric 19 and Rob 17ish. Good game and I think Eric and Rob enjoyed it as well. Look forward to more in the future.

jp
Mawahahahahaha

I'll get you next Bill!

Quick Tuesday recap for me. Turn one... I move Magnus the Warlord forward. Chris moves eMadrak forard. Turn Two I move Magnus the Warlord forward and pop feat. eMadrak moves forward (out of feat) and chucks two power 20 axes at Mag's head. Mag's dies. Very sad. Well played Chris, but you suck. :)

On Thursday, I had Norm, Danyelle, Bill, A.J., and the Elder over for dinner and Race for the Galaxy. I was running late from work so the Elder and I made a quick stop for groceries and then headed home to cook, luckily most of the gang was running late too. (Defective Gamer Genes again!). I made a turkey roast cooked in teriyaki sauce. What I didn't know is that Bill has a really bad allergy to Sesame seeds and the teriyaki is loaded with sesame seed oil. Bill ended up in the ER, Norm dropped him off and came back. We played a five hand RftG with Norm winning with a military strategy and the Eldest having a strong second with about three six development cards. Bill called and had his meds to take care of his 'Save vs. Death' and Norm went out to get him.

Game two was a six handed game. The newest player (his game two), AJ did a great job of playing some good cards, couldn't say really what his strategy was, but he and Danyelle ended up tied for VP and he won on cards. Then, like any good victor, A.J. had to blow out to get back home to Sioux City.

Game three we went through the new combat rules, but it never came up in the game. Bill won with the Galactic Builder. That with the Interstellar Bank he was pulling in two cards every Dev phase and dropping 6 point cards for 2 or 3 alot. Easy victory.

At around 1130 or so My Sis and her boyfriend made it over so we rapped up the games and sat around and BS'ed for a while. They took off and I ended up cleaning the kitchen until about 1ish.

It was a good night, except for almost killing Bill.

jp

Curse you Bill, I'll get you next time!

Boston Day IV - No Chowda for you

So, here I am in Boston and I haven't had any 'Chowda'. What is the world coming too? Wednesday Night I had dinner with The Other Half's sister and her husband. We went to the historic Union Oyster House, the oldest running restaurant in the US. The company was great. Had a wonderful conversation with the sister-in-law and her husband about the kids, their get away house in New Hampshire, the upcoming trip for The Other Half to Europe with their parents. Good stuff. The food... Well... It was OK, but not a WOW factor by any means. It was loud and the wait staff while polite was very slow. I made major blunder and ate either too fast or something didn't sit well and I did get sick for the first time. After we left the restaurant we walked for 10 minutes while I was in serious pain, but then I found a deserted trash can and let it go and felt 100% better. It was freaky. The three of us walked out to the harbor and continued talking. Other then getting sick it was a good evening.

Class today was a discussion on Intellectual Property and Risk Management among other topics. I pointed the teacher to techdirt.com, which is a great site on IP, privacy issues, and other geeky news. If you follow the IP discussion, regardless of your view point, it is worth having in your daily scans.

Dinner tonight I took the instructors advice and hit a a place called Kaze Shabu Shabu. I had not heard of a Shabu Shabu before, but being a sucker for Japanese cooking in general (Still waiting for an invite to Gyoze night at the Rief house... Hint, Hint!), I thought I would give it a go. Wow. This one was good. It is basically a Japanese version of fondue, but for me, just the good parts... A few tasty veggies and meat. Each person gets a personal pot to cook their meat. I had chicken with some seafood, mainly scallops, salmon, fish cake, and some white fish. You throw it into the pot to let it cook usually veggies first to let them cook the longest, then a piece at a time of the thinly cut meats. Great sauce as well that you could make spicy to taste. In the end you make a broth that is tasty after all the stuff you've ate has cooked. If I was staying another night, I would most likely do this one again.

RftG update on solo play. Robot 7, Me 3. Stupid Robot.

I got cleared to play some D&D on Saturday since I'm getting back early and I've made a Dwarf Invoker for the game since Rob is running his campaign. Should be interesting. I'll post later this weekend on Thron and his exploits.

jp

Swish-Swish

Boston Day II

The SANS course continues the fire hose approach. Today we discussed some delightful topics as attack vectors, Defense in Depth, and Access Control.... MMMmmm... Access Control... The good part it is Richard Northcutt that is teaching the class and the man is a very entertaining speaker.

Last night I went 1-3 with RftG vs. the robot. I'll update the stats later. I hate that robot.

For dinner I went down to China Town (Short walk) and had a very good spicy seafood soup. The fish, shrimp, scallops, tofu, and crab were all good. The squid was OK, but the octopus was a bit tough, especially for my pouch. I did sneak some kimchi, even though I shouldn't be having any leafy veggies at the moment, but it was good. We shall see what it does to my system.

To treat myself (not sure for what) I went to the biggest of corporate schmucks, Starbucks, and got a no nothing coffee for desert.

Looking forward to dinner tomorrow and getting home early.

jp

MMMmmm... Access Control...

V-Day Away

Valentines Day is all but gone. The 'big' day didn't go as planned, but we did have a nice time. We made the Durham for the Chocolate expo, but afterwards we were pretty hungry and after a bit of driving around ended up at a great restaurant up on Dundee. Darios Brasserie is just a great place. The food for lunch (brunch) was the right price and very tasty. The 'Other Half' and I had been once before about a year ago and it was just as good this time. The best part of Darios is the beer! MMMmmm! Beer! They have an extensive beer selection from Belgium and France. I had Saint Bernardus Abt 12 which sits at around 10.5% alcohol. As I said the food was a good price for a fancy place, but be warned that the beer is a bit pricey... But then again you are paying for some of the best beer ever created. Next time I'm getting the Chimay!

After a leisurely lunch we decided we would hit the Art Museum on another day. We drove back home, stopping at Best Buy to pick up some tax software. So the 'Other Half' took a nap, I hit the taxes and got them all but done. Quick review tomorrow and that will wrap it up.

The only gaming input I have to day is from the Runes of Gallidon. It is an interesting concept were folks build their own character, adventure, pictures, to be included in a greater whole. They are using the Creative Commons license that will allow content creators to benefit from any published work. I'm going to try my hand at a 'mini-adventure' the trick being they want system 'agnostic' approach which is a bit tricky.

Sunday will see the next installment of the RPG group. Looking forward to a bit of mayhem.

jp
Drinker of Beers

Update, Dumpdate

Hello,

New Years went well for dinner at Sushi Japan Yakiniku Boy. We had 10 for the food frenzy with four couples and the Eldest and her new friend. Food was good as always, but some of the folks were not keen on the Sushi so much. The service was a little lacking. The waitress didn't come by the table for drink orders all that much, which surprised me, and she had a bit of an attitude which was a bit of downer. I didn't eat the most that night, I think that went to James with Brian a close second. Good times were had and that is what is important.

That evening we came home and The Other Half hit the sack. I had to stay up for a few hours so I played an old computer game called "Chris Sawyer's Locomotion". I know this game is ancient in game terms, being published 2004 and all, plus it shuns the 3D engine, instead using the 2D isometric graphics, but I can play that game for hours and hours. I guess I'm funny like that.

No real world gaming developments to speak of. The Eldest and I played a few rounds of RftG, I'm trying to bribe some of the single guys with dinner to come over and play with four or five players, but not much luck so far.

I also picked up the Wasteland II base set from Dragon Forge Design. I'm planning on getting a new Cygnar Army and re-basing some older models. The Plan is to theme it off of a more High Plains Drifter feel with dirty/dusty browns. Kraye and Striker (Alt) are the first to get the treatment, plus I will betting some new figs like Black 13, Strangeways, Ol'Rowdy... You get the idea.

I had today off, since the building was going to be empty. I spent the day doing Honey Do's and getting my new e-Bay batch up. Got to keep my gaming budget supplied don't ya know.

I'll post about Rob's game tomorrow night. I have no idea what is going on, so hopefully, I won't be a stick in the mud! :)

jp
Purveyor of Fine Games Since 1967