Games Played
- HATE - Six games, all against Rob. He and I have been
playing a Chronicle, with me as the Um'Gorr tribe (who are extremely
aggressive in combat), and him taking the Bul'Gar tribe (who focus on
tricks with their Shamans). Over our three clashes (six total battles) I
have gone 5-1, and at this point I am holding all plenty of spaces, and
am up on both Resources and Hate, AND have inflicted one more death on
his warband than he has on mine. I have had my Prince with two upgrades
killed, which was unfortunate, but overall, I am in pretty good shape.
Our first battle, King of the Hill, with me as the attacker. 
A scenario with me as the Defender... collecting things to bring to my shaman - 3-Up - Three games with my brother and his kids, teaching the game to them. We let the kids win each game.
- Codenames: Duet - This is a weird two player cooperative version of Codenames. I played Three games with Christian, with us losing each game. I have to say, I think each of the losses were primarily my fault- either bad clues, or bad choices. We were very close to winning the final game. I have to say, I did like this- if my wife enjoyed Codenames at all, I would definitely pick this up.
- Shut the Box - Three games against Christian. Extremely quick games, I lose the first one, and win the last two. Neither of us fully closes the box, sadly. We got close once or twice.
- Keyforge - Two games against Frans, my first times using my own decks! Apparently, I have a deck with a lot (7 or 8?) artifacts, that moves some of my Amber onto them for protection, and controls the board effectively. My other deck... depends on Martians for the heavy lifting, and everything else deals with Amber generation. Both seem a lot of fun. I end up winning both games, with Frans running a Horseman deck.
- Star Wars: The Card Game - Two games against Eric S. First game, I take my Sith/Imperial Navy capital ship deck against his Hoth Speeders deck. I get a ship out, go aggressive, and destroy one of his objectives, and keep a hold on the Force. However, I leave myself open, and he begins to counterattack, using his Tactics icons to keep my capital ship completely worthless. He kills two objectives, and I'm starting to get nervous... but then I draw two capital ships with blast icons, put them in play, and kill enough of his objectives to get the win. Whew. Second game, I take MY Hoth Speeders deck against his Sith deck. I go very aggressive, wear him down, and keep the Force to my side. Eventually, I win.
- Hordes
- Two games, both with my Minions. First game I take Rask in Will Work
for Food against Joey's Armored Corps force with Kozlov as his
warcaster. I alpha him, and kill quite a bunch of stuff, but I don't
kill any of his heavy jacks, and he's able to kill the first wave of
beasts I send. My second wave isn't nearly so strong, and I run out of
army to throw at him, and end up conceding. Second game, I play against
Ryan B, who I met for the first time, who took Rasheth in the Exalted.
I make tons and tons of mistakes, but do okay in the attrition part of
the battle. However, I make a mess of the scenario, and end up getting
assassinated anyway.
- Traveller Customizable Card Game - Two games against Rob, my first time playing this game. I win with the Type S Scout starter against his Beowulf starter, and win with the Marava Free Trader starter against his Beowulf deck which is a starter with a few changes. This is a game I backed on Kickstarter, as I can't turn non fixed-release card games. This one is pretty good. I have to admit, I feel like it has a lot of similarity to the Star Trek card games, with the mission requirements and hazard/dilemma cards. The mechanic of using your cards to pay for other cards is not my favorite, but it does play smoothly. I could see playing it more.
- Shadows of Brimstone - One game with Mark and Rob. We played with the asian-themed expansion, with Rob taking the Ninja, me taking the Monk, and Mark taking a Samurai warrior. We didn't get very far- our third room we all got swarmed and killed, sadly.
- AuZtralia - My first time
playing this, and I played against Rob and Mark. I play kind of at
random, as I've not played it before, and end up getting into the center
too quickly. When the monsters start spawning, they all come for my
stuff, and just wipe me all over the place. I end up dead last at 20
points. The game ends at 30 points, Mark ends at 39, and Rob wins,
scoring 40.
- Blitz! A World in Conflict
- This is World in Flames light, and I played with Rob (as the Axis
powers), Mark (as the US and UK), and I take Russia. I spend almost the
entire game doing nothing, although Rob does eventually launch an
invasion against me, but it ends up grinding away to no effect. The
effort he puts in does give Mark all the room he needs to win. I think I
needed to have been a bit more aggressive in the early game, maybe take
out Turkey and something else, and try to give me at least some
cushion. It might also be that I need to let the Germans in, at least
some, since that is a path for the USSR to gain victory points. Seems
like an okay game, but the victory point rules are kind of a turn off.
- Star Wars: Legion - Played a full 800 point game against my brother. I took the Rebels, with Luke + Leia, a bunch of Rebel Troopers, and a T-47 Snowspeeder. Matt took Veers, Boba, an AT-ST, and a bunch of Stormtroopers. I am able to manage the AT-ST pretty well, giving it an Ion token one turn, and getting behind it with the T-47 to put on a ton of damage, and I eventually destroy it. The rest of the board I get into a heated firefight with, but manage to grab just enough objectives to win, 3-2.
- Hive
- Taught this game to Christian. Sent an ant onto his side of the
board, spawned a beetle, and walked it on top of his Queen Bee, holding
her in place, and I spawn a bunch of things to slowly surround her.
Christian threatens my Queen, but I get her out of the way just in time,
and end up winning. I forgot how much I like this game. I should get
it someday!
After my Beetle move which helped seal the game. - Magic: The Gathering - One game of Commander against Matt and his kids. Jonas and Eli use Jonas' decks, Matt uses a Wizard precon from last year, and I take my Kalemne deck, which is the only deck I have handy. There are a lot of dead creatures every turn, but eventually I manage to get enough out to win.
- Jenga - One game against Matt and his kids. Eli ends up knocking the tower over, and we decide to play something else after that.
- Kill Team - One game against Matt. I take my Gellerpox Infected again, using the three Hulks plus a Glitchling. Matt takes Space Marines, but the missions is Take Prisoner, which doesn't favor him. He doesn't accomplish much with shooting before we get stuck in, and once I am in, I have no problem getting a few points, and end up winning. It helped that I rolled like fire, and he... didn't.
- Dominion - Two
games against Christian, teaching him the game. First game was with
the recommended starter setup, and I use Mines to upgrade all of my
Treasure cards before chaining markets and other things to buy a bunch
of Provinces. I end up winning 40-30, I think. We then randomize to
get ten cards for the tableau, and play again. This time, I use a
Moneylender to upgrade my coppers into Silver, effectively, and manage
to kill my deck up with Gold. I then grab two Adventurers, use them,
and am able to blow through the Province cards. I end up winning 42-24,
I believe.
- A Few Acres of Snow
- Played against Eric S, taking the British. This is my first time
playing this game- him and I have both heard that there is a broken
strategy for the game, but neither of us knew what it was, and ended up
having a great, close game. He and I bumble around a bit, I lay a few
sieges, take a few places, and manage to successfully defend against
every raid, luckily enough. I end up winning 59-52, with almost all of
my points from developing locations. Definitely a game I enjoyed, and
would love to play again.
- Ft Sumter
- Played this against Eric S, playing as the Union. I focus on the
Political and Opinion places, with a bit of work on the Armament track.
Eric focuses on the Armament section, and tries to just slow me down in
the other places. We play, and end up tied. Unfortunately, Eric's
focus on Fort Sumter helps, as control of it determines who wins ties.
So, that'd be him. Overall, the game seems just okay. I didn't love
it, but I certainly didn't hate it. Just... okay.
- Treasure Island
- Played this at a Winery with Dan, Marina, and Kaitlyn. I've never
played this, but I really enjoyed it- you use dry-erase markers to mark
where you've searched, where you've moved, and what you're doing, and
you have a person who hid the treasure also working to give you clues
that could be true or false (he has a limit to the amount of clues he
can give that are false). Just, a lot of fun ways for him to mess with
us, and the game was a lot of fun. We ended up sticking Long John
Silver right next to where he buried the treasure, and I found it on
literally the last chance we would've had to find it. Whew!
Taken literally 15 seconds before I move and find the treasure (as orange)
- Empire of the Sun - I owned a previous version of this game, but it got destroyed in a flood in Catonsville, so I am extremely excited to own it again. I haven't had the chance to play it yet, but it's a game I've always been eager to get on the table. Pacific Theater, World War II, and Card-Driven.
- Nations at War: Stalin's Triumph - This is the Nations at War expansion dealing with combat around Kursk in World War II. Buying this means I own everything that's currently out for this game.
- Massive Darkness Bloodmoon Assassin and Heirophant - And buying this means I'm caught up with THIS game.
- ORIGINZ: The Superpowered Card Game - I backed this on Kickstarter, and it finally arrived. Seems like a decent game. Allows deck building as well, which is something I always look forward to.
- Tonkin: The First Indochina War (Second Edition) - From Legion Wargames. Covers, as you can imagine, the First Indochina War. I know a little bit about the system, which seems interesting, but I don't know much about the war. Still, overall looks like a good game.
- Ici, c'est la France! - This game covers the Algerian War for Independence. I own the first edition of the game, but never played it, but I prefer the current packaging from Legion Wargames, and mainly bought it because it'll match the other games on my shelf :(. I know, a stupid reason.
- A variety of Warmachine minis, and some Infinity minis. Can never have too many minis, right?
- Warmachine/Hordes - I get most of the assembly done for a fourth
unit of Gatormen Posse, a Battle Boar, AND I actually put some green
paint on my gators! There's still a lot of painting to go, but it feels
good to have at least some paint on my models.
- Counterfact Magazine Issue 9: War in the Megacity. Overall, a pretty interesting read, although the title article about combat in megacities wasn't particularly earth-shattering. It felt mostly like common sense, honestly. With that said, there were some articles I found interesting- the history of the Spanish nuclear weapon program, for instance, was something I knew nothing about, but learned from this issue.
- Nemesis Games, from the Expanse Series. I'm maybe a third of the way through the book. Very different style of story than the previous books, as the characters are all out dealing with their own personal issues. Can't wait to finish it!
