Games Played
- KeyForge - Three games against my brother, winning once with each of my decks, and losing once with my artifact deck. I actually feel like my artifact deck is the better of these two, but Matt actually had no issues dealing with it with one of his decks. Anyway, still pretty happy with my decks.
- X-Wing (Second Edition) - Three games. Two against Joey, who
recently picked up the game, and is interested in playing Imperials. I
have not been having a whole lot of success in the new version of
X-Wing, although I do enjoy it. For my games, I took a four ship Scum
list that involved Fenn Rau, a Scurrg, a Z-95, and an M-3A. I figure
practicing with a variety of ships will give me the best chance to
actually... you know, get good at the game. So with that, I ran this
list against him... and actually managed to win both games. The second
game, I played much better, as I figured out what the heck I'm doing
with my ships, but regardless, both were wins. The third game I played
was against my brother, who recently bought Separatists. He took a list
with Maul in an Infiltrator and a bunch of Vultures. I had a few bad
dodge rolls early, which left some of my ships destroyed, and I followed
that up with a few bad plays... and he wiped me. Still, I learned a
lot about my squad, so maybe I can turn this into a lesson!
Getting into position... to destroy my poor squad :( - Folklore: The Affliction - Two games with Bob up in PA. I had eyed this on Kickstarter when it was running, but didn't jump on it. Thankfully, Bob did. We played the first story, which had two chapters, with each of us running two characters. I used the Slayer and Illusionist, he took the Exorcist and Witch Hunter. We managed to complete the story successfully with only one death (the Slayer). Overall, we had a great time- it really does give an "old school" D&D feel, and the story was actually pretty interesting. Looking forward to getting this played again.
- All or Nothing: The Fight for Fort Mercer – October 22, 1777 - Wrote up a session report of this, here.
- Ascension: Deckbuilding Game - Played a solo game of this on my phone. I won against the computer AIs.
- Europe In Turmoil
- Played this against Rob. It's a lot like Twilight Struggle, a game I
enjoy but find kind of stressful to play. This one takes all of the
things I enjoy about Twilight Struggle, and adds some improvements to
it. The major additions seem to be the space race (into a naval arms
race) - where each step has an impact on the game (the space race is TS
only has a few spaces where something happens, if I remember correctly),
and the Great War itself. The specter of potential war is ever-present
in this game, and happens under certain conditions. When the war
happens, you play a mini-game, with choices influenced by the status of
control of the board. The war itself can change the influence layout of
the board, and the post-war state of the board is what you'll use to
determine victory. It was a very cool game, one I may get at some
point.
Fighting over Europe... with ideology - Catan Histories: Rise of the Inkas
- Two games with Megan, Christian, and Marina. This is my first
experience with the Catan Histories series of games, which seem to be
self contained games with a bit of historical background to their setup,
play, and victory conditions. Marina described this as her favorite
version of Catan so far, and although I wouldn't go that far, I would
say that I enjoyed it quite a bit. It required a different style of
play, and it included goods, which aren't always present, and it was
definitely a lot of fun! I won both times- I think I figured out the
placement of my second and third tribes well, which my opponents did not
manage to do quite so fast.
- Federation Commander
- One game against Rob. This was a teaching/learning game, where we
each took two ships (of roughly the same point value) and played against
one another. I took the Federation, who are a good introductory race
for any of the SFU games, and Rob took the Romulans, who he likes
thematically. On our first pass, I did pretty significant damage with
my photon torpedoes, and he dropped a Plasma-R and Plasma-G that I ran
from. Unfortunately, the Plasma-R did end up catching one of my ships,
and further shooting ended up destroying it. We called it soon after,
as I was in pretty bad ship. I had a great time- I'd really love to
play this again!
Torpedoes incoming! - HATE
- One game again Matt, teaching him the game. He took the Hate-focused
tribe, and I took the Support-focused tribe, and we played the Big Oven
scenario. In this, Matt, as the attacker, needed to rush to the middle
of the board, and work to destroy four of the oven spaces, which
weren't too absurd to destroy. My objective was to grab any attacker
bodies, and cook them. We go back and forth, and a lot of damage was
done to each tribe, but in the end, Matt managed to get the final oven
destroyed, just as I had the final body I needed to cook to win, and on
my way back to finish it. Down to the wire!
Matt is halfway through destroying the ovens. I am halfway done eating for the day - Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle-Earth - This game came out in the last month, and Rob picked it up, so he came over, and we played it. I took Gimli, he took Beravor, and we played through the first quest/adventure. We ended up getting overrun near the end, and losing. What a great time though- FFG definitely seems to have learned from their previous, similar games (Imperial Assault, Descent, etc), and this feels like the best yet of this genre of game. I'll consider getting it some day.
- Warmachine/Hordes
- One game against BK. BK is getting back into the game (yay!) and I
was happily there to show him the ropes. He took the Harbinger of
Menoth in the Faithful Masses theme. I didn't want to take my top-tier
stuff, because I think they could be a negative play experience,
especially when you are first playing, so I took Jaga-Jaga in WWFF.
This is still a very good list (I know people take it to tournaments),
but it at least lets my opponent play the game. So, we played, and
it... was rough going. I'm not very good with WWFF, but actually had
the bright idea to put all my lesser warlocks on one side, with Jaga and
her battlegroup up the other side... and it worked better than my
previous tries with WWFF at least. I still struggled dealing with all
of BK's defensive tricks though- the penalties to hit from the Harbinger
and Set Defense, plus the high armor, plus Martyrdom... I had some
difficulties. I did, however, end up winning, by throwing everything
into his infantry, which chipped away at the Harbinger via Martyrdom,
and managed to Overrun a Blackhide Wrastler into her, and on his final
fury, killed her. Whew!
- Omega Master Rulebook - This is a rulebook for Star Fleet Battles, explaining the rules for using the 21 races in the Omega Octant. I owned a copy of this, but it was in the basement of the apartment in Catonsville, and flooding saw it get ruined. I finally replaced it.
- Two miniatures for Warmachine/Hordes - The Bride of Arkadius and Seeker of Silence mini-crate variant sculpts. These are both character miniatures I already have the base versions for, so I wasn't overly excited about these, but they are nice miniatures, so I'm not super disappointed.
- Dungeons and Dragons - the three book collector set (Dungeon Master Guide, Player's Handbook, and Monster Manual). I'm going to be running a campaign at some point!
- I have begun working on assembling my Blackstone Fortress
miniatures, as my brother expressed interest in playing. I haven't made
great progress, as I kept getting sick when I wanted to work on them,
but at least I started.
- Counterfact Magazine, issues 8 and 10. I think I've caught up on reading all of the issues
- The March and April issues of White Dwarf. Very good reads. GW is doing a great job!
- Against the Odds Magazine, issues 48 and 49, dealing with the first Caliphate and the siege of Charleston. Lots of good historical articles- and hey, I played one of the mini-games that were included!
- Municipalists - I received this as part of the Goodreads First-Reads program, where they send you free books so you can review them. This one was about an AI helping solve a terrorist attack, and taking the field in assistance to an 'agent'. It was perfectly fine, although not really exceptional. It read quickly, the characters were enjoyable, and the plot moved. So, yeah- if you're looking for a nice quick read, take a look!
- Until We Reckon: Violence, Mass Incarceration, and a Road to Repair - Another First-Reads book, this one a non-fiction book about how we deal with violent criminals. It was very enlightening, and interesting, although probably not something everyone would be interested in. I learned a lot, definitely.
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