Monday, July 13, 2020

Monthly Summary for June, 2020

A little delayed!

Games Played
  • Europe in Turmoil - Two plays of one full game.  I played the Liberals, and Rob took the Authoritarian powers.  Early game went Rob's way fully, as I struggled to get momentum anywhere on the map.  At one point, he is sitting on 12 Victory Points (I think 20 triggers an automatic victory).  I start to catch back up with play in Austria-Hungary and the Balkans, and I'm in good position to score some serious points on the turn that Rob manages to trigger the Great War.  We play a war round, closing the gap further, but when we do final scoring, I'm not able to make enough ground, and the final score has Rob beating me by five points.
New Arrivals
  • Project: Elite - A Kickstarter I backed that arrived this month.  Looks to be a super interesting game, and something I think I can get played at some point upon things opening back up.
  • Elder Scrolls: Call to Arms - Received this for my birthday from Rob, a new minis game set in the Elder Scrolls world.  Rules and minis look pretty good.  I currently have the Core Box and the Stormcloak faction starter.
  • Advanced Squad Leader: Red Factories - Received this from my wife for my birthday.  I've actually been pretty happy to get some new things to expand my ASL collection, I can't wait until I have some time to play these!
  • The Operation Nightfall starters for Spycraft: The Collectible Card Game.  After playing this on TTS with Rob, I figured I enjoyed it enough that I wouldn't mind having some cards.  So I got some!
  • Some cards for the Transformers TCG.  Eh, I was curious about it.  Picked up some cards, and I'll give it a shot.
  • The new Commander 2020 decks.
  • A few other miniatures - Roget d'Vyaros, Doctor Stygius, Targ, Megaton Mashup, 100% Mayhem, two mini-crates.  Clearly a bunch of Privateer Press stuff.
  • The Men of Hawkshold box for Battleground, from the Kickstarter.  I love this game, and I have the original set of these guys, but wanted the updated cards (as some errata has been incorporated).  I'm eager to back the new faction, too!
Miniature Assembly/Painting
  • Still mostly assembly.  More Riot Quest, Monsterpocalypse, and Warmachine minis.  I am fully done with every Star Wars Legion model I own (need to buy more).  Painting on my Stalkers slowed down, although I did sit down for a major painting session only to discover my metal paints were all bad.  I bought new metal paints, so I'll be set to go when I can get some time.
Reading
  • Finished Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software.  Found it pretty interesting.  Several of the patterns I have used multiple times, so the refresher was nice, and I did manage to pick up some new ideas from the book.  Should help me think about how I design software in the future.
  • Finished Simulating War: Studying Conflict through Simulation Games.  This is a topic I find endlessly interesting, and this book proved to be worth the time, definitely.  It was super interesting to not only have different design strategies discussed, with examples, but also I found some new ideas that will be a huge help if I ever decide to try my luck at designing a wargame.
  • Finished Mind and Matter: A Life in Math and Football.  This is a memoir by John Urschel, who played football with the Baltimore Ravens, but is also a dedicated and successful mathematician.  A very quick, enjoyable read.
Kickstarter
  • I honestly can't recall.  The summer has kind of run together.  I'll try to update this correctly next month.
Resolution progress
  • Painting Points: Currently 0/10.  I actually sat down to paint, realized my paints were bad, and then bought more paints.
  • Number of Unplayed Games: Down another three.  July will see me start playing games again, so although I won't hit my goal, I should try to keep it even.
  • Warmachine/Hordes games: No games played this month.  I really need to try out Wartable.
  • Number of Books Read: Up to eleven, so a little behind schedule.
  • Weight lost: Down 18 pounds on the year.  Still going well.