Games Played
- Cat Lady - Three games, all against Marina, with me winning the first two, 48-31, and 47-42, focusing on the toys and Catnip. The third game, Marina boxes me out of the toys pretty well, and she ends up beating me by about 12.
- Magic: The Gathering - Three games against my college buddy Eric, all Commander format, with me basically using the 2018 Precon decks. We tried a variant format for the first game where we each took two decks, and played them, with both of the decks under our control counting as enemies, but obviously not likely to go after one another. The 2018 Enchantment precon ended up outlasting everyone in that game, and then dealing E another loss in a one-on-one game before losing another one-on-one game. Deck seems to be a lot of fun!
- Warmachine/Hordes - Four games. First game was a 75 point game using Maelok in Blindwater Congregation against BK running Reznik2 in Exemplar Interdiction with the new theme rules and the new Steamroller rules. I end up winning, but it was with a heavy asterisk, as BK had never used this list before, and forgot a few of his capabilities, which definitely would have aided him (say, putting up Spellpiercer so my guys would be -2 ARM effectively).Later on in the month, in an effort to grow our group again, we actually ran a zero point 'tournament'. Our goal is to slowly grow our 'tournaments' into our full armies, so that we build some new stuff, play some games, and hopefully attract some new people. For this event, I took Skarre1, a Slayer, and 2 Stalkers. I lose the first game of the tournament to Matt S, who I was teaching the game to, running Trolls, who managed to get a shot onto my caster and kill her. Oops!
I then played BK twice, as Rob and Matt's game went long. BK was running Durst and 2 clamjacks, and he just didnt have a way to stop me getting Stalkers to his caster.
Not a great photo. Regardless, we talked about some options (primarily focused on using that well near the action) to force me into a disadvantaged engagement. Anyway, we'll reconvene in a few months to play some 25 point games!
- Star Realms - two games by myself on my phone. Gotta get my gaming in somehow :)
- Ascension- Deckbuilding game - same as above, 1 game by myself on my phone. Whatever!
- Behold, A Pale Glider - One play, solo. I'm not sure this game works. It's a postcard game that came free with Against the Odds magazine, but it seems to have serious, basic, playability issues. Is anyone trying these games out before sending them out the door?
- Cataclysm - Rob, Mark, and I restarted our game (Dan having to miss this session) as we had been playing a few rules wrong. I kept playing as the USSR, and we ended after three turns with the Axis powers in first place with 10 points, and the Allies and myself tied at 4. I've moved south near Turkey, the Pacific is heating up, and Rob is dominating Europe. Should be interesting, going forward.
- Cthulhu Realms - One game, played against myself on my phone, as above. Although I realize this is similar to Star Realms, I just didn't care for this, which is odd, giving that I do like the theme. It just didn't work for me.
- Nothing So Well Lost: The Siege of Rhodes - Another postcard game, which I played once, solo. This one was over quick, as the Crusaders succeeded in only two to three attacks early, but that was enough to disrupt, and eventually completely crush, the Ottoman attack. Again, these postcard games are pretty meh.
- Surrender Unto Caesar - Same system as the Rhodes game above, only in my playthrough of this, the Barbarians made a few early successful attacks, and wiped the Romans out.
- Warhammer Age of Sigmar: WarCry - One game against my brother as we sat down and learned this and played it with the warbands in the starter set. I end up winning, but alas, I didn't take very good notes. Game, overall, seems really interesting, and I'm sure we are going to play this more next month!
- A Sheer Butchery: Solferino 1859 - Came with the new issues of Battles Magazine. Looks pretty cool, but honestly haven't really looked at it too too much yet.
- Die Atombombe - Game that came with the 50th issue of Against the Odds magazine. Looks pretty cool, actually. Players are different factions in Nazi Germany trying to build an atomic bomb, while dealing with the politics of the country, the impending Soviet conquest, and attempts to stop the OTHER players from building the bomb. Might be a really interesting study.
- Dien Bien Phu: The Final Gamble - A second edition was released from Legion Wargames, so why wouldn't I pick it up? This game covers the final battle of the French Indochina War, and is very highly regarded.
- Fateful Days: The Marne Campaign - A postcard bonus game that came with Against the Odds magazine. If experience has taught me anything, it's that this game probably won't be good.
- Thunder in the East - I have been very excited about this series ever since the Kickstarter, but for various reasons, just never had the money to buy it. I finally did, and finally bought it. This is the first game in a series of games that will eventually encompass all of the European Theater of World War II. Really cool components, really cool goals, and I'm really excited to find the chance to play this.
- Riot Quest - New casual miniatures game from Privateer Press, where the models are usable in Warmachine. Of course I was in!
- Zombicide: Invader - Recently released as the result of a Kickstarter. Of course, whenever you back a Kickstarter from CMON, you get a lot of stuff.
- Repair work on my models, also started finishing assembly of my previous projects- the Battle Boar and Gatormen Posse. I've been fielding them, but mostly with pieces missing. Oops!
- Battles Magazine, issue 13. I have forgotten how amazing this magazine is. The articles are almost scholarly in their analysis of wargaming as a hobby and as a way to model conflict. I particularly want to call out the article by David Hughes on GMT's Holland '44 game, which he dissects in a way I've never quite seen before, and has caused me to consider how I examine conflict simulation games. An excellent issue.
- Hour of the Huntress. One of the books from FFG related to their Arkham Horror card game (in that it comes with cards for the game). It was a pretty short book, and I don't think it was great, but I enjoyed the writing, I enjoyed the story, and I think if the story was longer, it might have actually been a very good piece of fiction. As is, it mostly just left me wanting more.
- The Girl With All the Gifts, by M.R. Carey. Let me just copy my review from Goodreads: " I really enjoyed this! I kind of figured out how everything was going to end about halfway through, but I think that's probably expected of the reader. The book moves really smoothly, the story is engaging, the characters are interesting, and the POV shifts add to the narrative nicely. A very fine read, and one that'd I'd happily recommend."