If you like Infocom stuff: this is amazing.

| Think this was my idea at Rudies house.

http://www.theverge.com/2015/11/18/9758214/coolest-cooler-amazon-kickstater-shipping-production-delay

Thanks for the lead jr0n.  I didn't think of checking BGG, but I'll check that too.

When did you guys move back down to SoCal?  Where are you living?

| I guess I should read the blog once in a while!

Yeah, things have kinda trailed off, huh?

Anyway, holy shit, congrats dude! April's not far off! Now I feel guilty that I didn't see your news last week and so I will forgive you if you don't name the kid "jr0n".

Good 2-player games... really depends on the complexity level. If you don't mind some fantasy theming and a little (very light) combat, Small World is a great 2-player game. Five Tribes is supposed to be good as well, but a little heavier and I haven't played it. In other companies, Agricola is REALLY good, with a great theme about building your farm/growing your family, but is heavy. Takenoko is supposed to be really good, but haven't tried it... Love Letter is fun, quick, and also is cheap.

You might try poking around the Family Games section of BGG and see if you see anything that whets your whistle.

The game I've been playing lately (with Rude and Pumpkin [I live in SoCal again btw]) is Kingdom Death: Monster. I backed this over Kickstarter 3 years ago and it just got delivered a few weeks ago! Pump and I both backed it because of the pretty, pretty minis, but it has unexpectedly turned out to be a really good, although grim and creepy, game. The crazy thing is that the kickstarter price was $100, it's currently selling for $295, and it's actually selling pretty well at that price. Gamers be crazy.

There was a Star Wars trailer, look around in the Internet for it if you want to check it out!

Hello!  I am not sure how everyone feels about Bernie Sanders, but I guess it doesn't really matter.  I think everyone, except Art who does not care for the Descendents, can appreciate this.

I surfed this morning, which reminded me how lucky I am to live here.  I don't make all the bucks so I won't be rich, but man, it is pretty beautiful sometimes.  Just as I was bursting with admiration for this place, a HUGE rainbow popped up.  I really don't believe in God, but that was the closest I came to something spiritual in a long, long time.

Now having said that, THIS is crazy!

I hope everyone is well.  Miss you guys.  No homo.

I introduced the wifey to Ticket to Ride board game, then we discovered the app was way easier to get through a game.  Got Europe and Switzerland too, but the OG one is still the best (USA, all the way!).  Apparently there is a Pennsylvania expansion version?

Since Days of Wonder produces some good games, we decided to go all in and get Gang of Four (which we can't play, because we are a gang of two) and we got Pirate's Cove, which we sadly discovered is a 3+ player game.  Oh well.  I taught her Cribbage and Gin, so we can play that too.  Any other suggestions to wet our appetite? Preferably 2+ players?

I have to write 45 grade reports this weekend, which is brutal. This consists of basically writing 500 word explanations of the grades that kids got and how they can improve. I have probably cried about that to you guys in the past. :'(

Funniest shit I saw this week.

Officially in the second trimester.  Yikes!

Came across this funny Simpsons moment LINKAGE

I watched a pretty good documentary on Amazon Prime the other night.  Salad Days is about the DC hardcore and punk movement in the 80s.  Lots of cool pictures, videos, interviews, and insight about which I was not aware.

The Cubs have made it to the next level of playoffs.  I am cautiously optimistic about their chances, as I have been burned before by getting my hopes up.  I also have to remember that they are, after all, still the Cubs.  You never know, a 107-year-long drought may end this year, making Back to the Future II the best sage of all time!

How many iterations of "Generic Eric" was this song on in high school?  Mordred

Keeping the Action Team alive!

About three weeks ago, I found out that I am going to be a dad.  Our kid is due on April 14.  I am nervous.

Sad the decay of this blog.  Decided to torture myself today.

Whipped Cream.

| So there I was... there I was... in... the Congo

Been playing this mobile app called Slingshot Braves which is a pretty nifty single player / multiplayer combo with some RPG elements. At least it was until the devs slowly succumbed to the power-creep greed cycle... which basically took what was an interesting strategy / turn based combat game that involved the player 'pulling back' and firing their character through the map to bounce off and hit / damage bad guys, build combo damage for consecutive hits, that combined when your partner was successful in making contact with your player on their turn, etc. It was great. Then, they started introducing more and more powerful weapons with more and more powerful special attacks, and more and more powerful bosses that required a very specific special skill to do any real damage too... that typically required the player to buy gems with real money.. and now it has become a game that unless you exterminate every bad guy on the screen within 1-2 moves, you get killed yourself. It's kinda stupid. The RPG side of the game has nearly completely disappeared and the dev on that side is at a standstill. I don't remember the last time they added in any actual storyline or new towns/villages to explore.

On the upside, a co-worker just recently told me that Plague Inc. has been released on mobile. I've heard a lot about it on the PC and was tempted to buy it but not at the $15-20 price point. Free mobile app with a 99 cent no-more-ads-option? Hokay! It's a decently fun little game! Kind of morbid playing as the bacteria/virus/fungus/etc that tries to spread across the globe before being discovered, and then racing against the cure to try and take down civilization.. which of course means the death of the player as a plague as well... with all the hosts being dead. So that doesn't make a lot of long-term sense but that's overthinking it. :) Do recommend, good time waster.

| OMFG... surprise live action FPS! LOL

This is beyond epic... haha.. so awesome

| Eric's dwarf obsession got a boost?

Jon and I played Song of Blades and Heroes ages ago (the only time my 15mm figures ever got any play...) and it was OK.  They're kickstarting it right now, but what might be of interest to Eric are some pretty cool Dwarf minis.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/9742092/song-of-blades-hammer-and-forge/description

maybe these suckers could offer you the edge your dwarves will otherwise not have against Aaron's Orcs?

| Still playing me some Payday 2

Had a run on the new map "Cook Off" where you basically play the first level of "Rats" in perpetuity.. taking over a meth house, then finding materials to cook meth, then defending said meth against waves of enemies while you run the bags back to a getaway van... as many times as you and your crew want, up to something insane like 100 bags (which would take hours).

So anyway, log into a crew, start playing, get about 3 bags in and notice there are no enemies and there's one of our guys standing at the back of the van throwing in a continuous rainbow of bags in the van... oh lawd, a hacker. But not just any hacker. Maybe the most ridiculous hacker run I've ever seen.

For those of you who aren't familiar with Payday 2.. a very well run, near maximum difficulty mission taking 3 days with no margin for failure on any of the days (Pro Jobs you don't get to restart the mission.. if you fail a stage, the entire thing is scrapped and you get nothing)... you might see upwards of $3M in cash as your split and around 1M in XP. And that's perfect run.

Back to our Cook Off Hacker.. he takes a minute or two to dump in however many bags. We get the 'mission success' and debrief... $623M in cash as my share and something stupid like 150M in xp. I couldn't do anything about having received that XP.. except to reset my character back from the now maxed out level 100 back to level 0 (and gain a level of infamy, which confers some small perks), and then NOT keep any of my cash on reset. With his hack, it would be possible, in the span of maybe an hour or two, to go from absolute infamy/level zero to maxed out infamy of 25 and level 100... that's just nuts.

Additionally, I got to thinking.. it really takes the fun out of the game to just instantly have everything. I don't relate to the hacker mindset I guess. I'd rather be presented with a set of challenges/puzzles and have to solve my way through them, and/or earn skills and grind up to being able to solve them with a mixture of game elements and my own player skill / thought.

| *tumbleweed rolls by...*

Eric invites me to his blog, and then never posts again...

It is awfully quiet around here.

In case you need your dose of nerd, here's my Kings of War 6mm Demons of the Abyss army.  So when are we actually going to play, guys?

Guys?

| *Taps Mic*

Is this thing on? lol

So Sunless Sea! I've been playing it a bit.. pretty fun. It's very text-story heavy, with a semi-random map.. lots of exploration and really the heart of the game is resource management. Making sure you have enough fuel and supplies to make it from point A to B to C and back home to port without running out of gas is pretty much the core of what you do.. and along the way try to work through the various story lines, deliver X cargo to Y location for a Z% chance of what you need to further the story. I'm no where near the end of it (it's pretty rouge-ishly brutal).. the story pretty much tells you right off the bat your first few captains are going to probably die a horrible death, and they'd be right. Heh. I find myself starting to keep hand written journal/notes about places visited, which shops offer which supplies.. who wants certain goods/services and will pay a premium (or offer a discount).. so in that regard it sort of combines old school RPG gaming with the video game experience. Dig it.

Darkest Dungeon! Did I already pump this one enough? I can't get over how much fun it is. A very differently packaged dungeon crawler / character building system. I love how the prevailing theme is how fear and dungeon crawling will slowly break even the sturdiest of adventurers without enough care/mental health maintenance back at home. The voice overs are just absolutely perfect. The combat is compelling and interesting, and the dev's are still cranking out tons of free updates. I think it's technically still an 'early access' game but it plays like a polished, finished product. Highly recommend.

Otherwise, hope all is well with you and yours. :) I'm coming up on my summer vacation at work... yay 17 days off! Very much looking forward to some respite and mental health recovery myself. Hard to believe I'll be there a year and a half soon. Crazy! It's never boring, that's for sure. And getting paid hourly is something I am now getting very accustomed to. lol. Yay for overtime and double time pay!

On that note, time to get ready for my swing shift today. Lates!

| Zombo Apocalypse & Comic Con LV 2015

Went to this place called Zombie Apocalyse the other day and thought you guys might enjoy it if you are here in town with the kids.  They converted a paintball field on the weekdays, and made it into a Zombie infested city.  Then you have to run from safe-point to safe-point away from all the zombies armed with a shotgun with 12 paintball shells.  It was creepy!

It's totally awesome dawesome for little kids I would imagine.  But afterawhile you comprehend that the zombies can't "touch you" so then it takes a lot of the fear out.

It reminded me a lot like "true dungeon" except TD was probably more interactive and challenging for adults and less frightening.

Also went to comic con, but other than the Street fighter II machine that was free to play, it was okay.  There wasn't a load of people, it looked really empty and not as many scantily clad heroine costumes as would have hoped for.

| Sunless Sea ?

Anyone else play this? I see it on sale in STEAMZZZZ for the next while and it looks intriguing.

SUNLESS SEA TRAILER VID

Semi-related, saw the X-COM "The Bureau" expansion on sale for $3 so I grabbed that... pretty excited to have a new environment/new toys/mechanics to play with in the X-COM game-verse... but.. instead of being a turn-based tactical strategy game.. they turned it into just another FPS clone? Whaaaaat. I don't hate it, but it's just so.. uninspiring. It FEELS like a knock off of other uber-linear shooters, but without the pinache of, say, Mass Effect.

It was awesome.

It's nothing like Borderlands. There are real stakes.

So Mad Max Fury Road is getting crazy good reviews (99% on rotten tomatoes right now), so maybe I'll eat my hat and go see it.  The preview made it look absolutely over-the-top awful (yea, I've played that video game with the midgets too...) but hey.  Maybe I'm just a grouchy old man that just needs a good action flick to calm me down?

NERRRRRD!

Heh heh, Grand Moff Tarkin is playing Battle Masters.  Awresome.

This is so good!

It is a lot weirder and more operatic for sure, but... have you seen Road Warrior lately? It is pretty bonkers.

Plus it's mostly practical effects! I'm in for that alone!

I hate to be that guy.  Maybe old age makes you jaded, but I think I played this in Borderlands 2.  I was seriously expecting the midget psychos with hockey masks to come out.

| I mean, seriously

What the fuck is this shit?

| World War Great: The Great War

Interesting  Kickstarter out of UK for a new Command & Colors game (Memoir 44, etc). If you buy a retailer 6-pack, it works out to $56 bucks a person. iJawn is seeing if there's enough people interested!

Kickstarter Page
BGG Page

| Dungeon!

So there I was, at my local mexican place (the only legit mexican food I've found up here so far), and I see a Tacoma Games store has opened next door! While they were making our delicious take out food, I took the kiddos over there and went to see what was what... tons of table top games! Yay! Found a copy of Dungeon! on the shelf and was surprised to find it was exactly the same game, just with different box art. Brought it home and the kiddos and I have been playing every night the last three nights. So far, Bennett, Haylee and I have all won a game. It feels awesome to share some of the love of gaming with the kiddos and pass that on, even more so with a game that I loved as a wee lad. Glad to see that my remembrance wasn't overly romanticized... still a very fun game! 3 down, 97 to go? :D

| AHHHHHHHH GAMING

So wish I could have been there. Had the wifey permission and money to do it, but as the new guy at work, was shat upon when I put in my request for time off. :(

In happier news... check this awesome article/blog out.. Elrockenstein, I'm looking at you. BTW.. I take a terrible and great pleasure in passing on the Bob Marley bottlecap ear-herpes. It's the gift that keeps on giving, and one can never get rid of.

Isolated Drum Tracks - very cool!

| Skull

Got to try out a really fun bluffing game called Skull & Roses last night. I've known about it for a while but never bothered hunting it down. I think it would have done great at Mancon! I'll pick it up before the next big gathering.

Everyone gets 4 coasters in their color, 3 of which have a rose on it, 1 which has a skull. Everyone plops one face down in front of them, then people can start raising the bid or someone can issue a challenge. "I can do it in 3." It goes around the table till people have bet higher or passed. Then, whoever had the final bet, has to flip over X number of coasters around the table. If he can do it without showing a skull, he wins 1 of the 2 points you need to win. If you flip over a skull, you randomly lose 1 of your 4 coasters. Sounds simple, but a big caveat is that you must always flip over ALL of your own coasters first, before dipping around the rest of the table to hit the number you bid.

It was goofy fun and would have fit perfectly in that drunken haze sweet spot we were in most of this past weekend.

Game reviews:

I forgot we played Aliens. I liked it! I was probably an hour past when I shoulda gone to bed that night, but I enjoyed playing it. If we would have tackled it as a morning game, it probably would have had a very different dynamic. I've already played the shit out of Marvel Legendary, so all the changes for Aliens really stood out as pretty cool. Don't sell it off just yet!

Dead of Winter: I liked it a lot more than I expected. My sinuses were shitty ALL weekend, so I wasn't at the top of my game (sitting at a table and being TOP), but I'm super glad we got a game of it in. I would totally play it again. I wouldn't buy it, but would play it a few more times.

Doomtown: That one is pretty tough to breakthrough, but I think I got a taste of the system. Seems like it would totally be fun if I had the time to invest in learning the cards. Elrick did a pretty good job teaching a pretty dense system. Maybe when Jdawg moves back to LA I can get into it.

| Cayucos, In Summation. Perspectives from Elzar

It went too fast, as always, yet I don't know if I could survive mentally and physically if it went much longer. I miss real life, and real sleep, and real schedules enough to feel out of sorts by Sunday, but I also hate work, responsibilities, not playing games, and not being drunk enough to want to stay.  Truly First-World problems.

I vote we can Kubla and GenCorn and just do Cayucos twice a year!  I think I've made this argument for at least the past 2 years, post-Cayucos.

And now, brief thoughts on all the games I played:

Thunder Alley: I effing love this game.  I could play it daily and I don't think I'd get sick of it.  The movement, the dick moves, the little puzzles to maximize your movements each turn but not being brain burny, just makes this one a keeper for me.  3 player games rule, and the 5 player one was fun too, despide the drunkedness.

Arctic Scat Avengers: Lots of fun for 3, too long and slow for 5, not dynamic enough for 2.  PLays fast, interesting combat, with the first expansion module it opened up a few other avenues to victory which I appreciated.  Fast enough to get on the table a fair amount, but we'll see if there is interest the next time it is proposed - it may have overstayed it's welcome (but I don't think so)

CAH/Telestrations: CAH is always fun but I think it's somewhat hampered by some of it's awkward un-funny rounds, which is fine. I love the expansion, of course :)  Telestrations has taken over top spot for me as a party game.  I can't remember a time that I laughed that hard and kept a smile going soooo long my cheeks hurt.  Probably a CAH session comes close, but I think the torch has been passed at least for the time being.  VARIANT: Draw a CAH white card, draw it for Telestrations.

Spyfall:  Just when I think we sort of 'got it' we decided to move on.  I didn't hate it, but I'm not sure I'm smart enough to succeed at playing the spy, ever, so I might bring down the fun for everyone when on the first questions I'm ousted.  Dunno, I'd play it again, but it wasn't memorable for me.

Splendor: Clever little engine/deckbuilder game.  I didn't hate it, would play it again, almost foolishly purchased it post-con thinking I could get Leslie to play it, then came to my senses.

Brew Crafters: I found myself square in the middle of a hella heavy Euro and I didn't hate it!  I realized that theme actually does matter to me (shocking) at least wrt Euro games.  It was fun, TONS of paths to victory, lots of different choices and angles you could play, and enough randomness between games (which beers will be available and which skilled worker cards will vary from game to game) to keep it fresh.  I liked it and will play again!

Trains: Totally confused at at first since I had no idea what the goal was or how the flow of the game went.  By the end, I was cranking right along and it was pretty fun!  I like the side map, I like that it's a weird theme of Japanese trains, and the turns move super quick.  Not my favorite game, but I'd play it again.  Fall into the Kingdom Builder category for me.

Tiny Epic Defenders: The rules are so short I feel like I CAN'T be missing something, but this game is super hard to beat and I am 0 - 8 so far.  Its cute, fast, fun, interesting, but it seems to hit a point as soon as the big bad is revealed, the rest of the map falls apart all at once and we lose.  I dunno how we could plan any better since we were doing GREAT up until the reveal.  Will need to investigate.  This will hit my first 10x10 since I have 8 plays under my belt so far!

Pandemic: The Cure: Not my favorite. I was also pretty drunk when I was introduced to it so I didn't completely follow the flow/rules, but even after my second, less drunk (but still drinkin), game, I wasn't impressed.  Would avoid.  I liked using the 1 -6 coasters for Los Vegas, however!

Los Vagos: Took a few rounds to 'get' where the fun was, and I think on my second game with the two 'fuck with you dice' (each player gets 2 white dice that can be used to mess with other players, but don't directly work to anyones benefit) I got it and it was totally fun!  So fun I grabbed a copy.  This one I MIGHT be able to get Les and Wy playing, but time will tell.  I also liked the post-Pandemic apocalyptic story we spun about gambling in the skies of the pleasure blimp before it ran out of gas for the last time and it came crashing down to earth.

Legendary Encounters: Aliens: It was late and I don't think Rude was into it so it sort of dragged.  There's a lot to absorb and if you don't really wanna get into it, it's easy to just have the game sort of happen around you without caring.  We got all the way to the Queens and she tore us apart with a double attack before we could even touch her.  Would play again, but not at the top of my list.

Doomtown: Me likey!  Played an interesting game against Jr0n that was as much re-learning the rules as it was playing for me, and I finally sort of can recognize some of the shittier cards in the started deck that I should replace, but when I tried to make the replacements I was overwhelmed by the options and stopped.  Maybe next time I will get that much more comfortable with the game and NOT be overwhelmed and start chipping away at that deck.  Second game against Rude was challenging because he played a job card right off the bat and those are tricky to figure out, particularly for me and my lack of experience.  We sorted it out with some vet help, and I don't think that left a very good taste in Rude's mouth, but it's such a hard game to teach/learn because it's fairly complex in it's rules as well as it's options for actions each turn.  Still love it.

Dead of Winter: Another one where I don't think Rude was into it and it seemed like a chore.  Slows down with 4 players, I think 3 is the sweet spot.  I like it, but at this point could easily sell it and be okay.  The epic saga of Forrest, the Drunken Santa was pretty good :)  Contemplating suicide, hittin' on the ladies to score some booze, going nuts, and eventually getting eaten.  Good times.

Machi Koro:  It was the perfect game to listen to music, drink whisky sours, and eat pizza to.  I had a great  time with this game.  The rules: roll (2)d6, collect coins based on roll, maybe buy another card.  Fun to build your odds of getting a roll engine, fast enough that it doesn't really matter if you lose every game.  Picked this one up (along with the expansion) and MAYBE can get Wy to play it with me.  Looking forward to more whiskeys and dice!

Age of War: Boring Reiner dice game, like a lite version of Elder Sign, but not as fun.  Played it once, tossed it in the bag probably never to be seen again.

Love Letter: Fun!

Chili Dogs: Delicious, but not without a terrible, terrible cost.  The house plumbing is no doubt still recovering.

| Mancon Post Partum

Missed you at the mancon, Jael! You woulda had fun and it wasn't the same without you.

That said, another great mancon in the books. Like every year, I got to try some awesome new games, some duds, and a bunch of games that were supposed to get played but totally didn't. There's always that weird gaming regret thing where you WISH certain games had hit the table (and maybe a few others didn't).

CHEERS: Los Vegas! I knew people would like it, but it's a hard sell, especially since 1. I don't have a legit copy 2. My bootleg copy was left at home 3. We played a copy cobbled together from Pandemic The Cure location tiles, Dave's ugly dice, and Elrock's awesome handwritten money!

JEERS: Pandemic The Cure - I really liked it the couple times I played it at home, but at mancon it fell flat for me. The first time we played it was alright, but I got in a 3 player game with Enron and Elrock, and we probably should have just played more Machi Koro.

CHEERS: Thunder Alley! Way funner than a GMT game should reasonably be, but don't worry, their less than stellar artwork was there. It actually didn't bum me out once we started playing, because it's just a totally fun and awesome racing game.

JEERS: Chili dogs! Enron made us delicious food as always, but I should have limited by chili dog consumption because goddamn, those are still kicking my ass a couple days later.

CHEERS: Telestrations, holy shit. The #1 Laugh-Out-Loud Party Game from USAOPOLY! It could have been horrible, but the first time we played it, I laughed harder than I've probably ever laughed in my life. Playing Cards Against Humanity AT Edition beforehand def helped get us in the mood, but the degenerate drawings that come out of our heads are pretty priceless.

JEERS: Lack of rotistier chickens. Also bummed we didn't play Shadows of Brimstone, IMPERIAL FRIGGIN ASSAULT, and a bunch of other stuff I'm not remembering.

Wish this trip was every 6 months, do it!

| After Action Report

Good times were had, as were chili dogs! It was great to come up on Thursday for once. Rude - thanks for the rides to and fro, and guys thanks for hauling my shit there and back. Much appreciated.

I highly enjoyed playing Thunder Alley, Cards Action Humanity, Rude's Weird Spy Location Game, Telestrations, Splendor, Puerto Rico, Istanbul, Chaos in the Old World, Pandemic: The Cure, "Los" Vegas, Relic, Mr. Jack Pocket, Doomtown, Dead of Winter, Runewars (although I did not expect it to take TEN HOURS! holy shit!), Telestrations again, and whatever I'm forgetting.

I mildly regret not having played Shadows of Brimstone, Crossfire, Netrunner, Risk Legacy, Small World, Saga (maybe later on in February in Santa Clara?), or seeing what this Arctic Chicken Avengers is all about, plus whatever else you guys think I should regret not playing.

Sorry ya couldn't make it Jael, I missed ya!

Welcome to the challenge, Matt! I dunno, 100 minis isn't really a challenge for you. What would? Maybe you should go for 500? A thousand?

Woo hoo!  I can never find the link to this blog...  But I've decided to sign on to the 10x10 challenge with my own custom rules: I can count painting minis.

I'm already done for the year.


But just for curiosity's sake, I think I will track games in Jon's nifty spreadsheet.  Not yet quite sure if my random choice of games is amendable to his spreadsheet, but I'll give it a try.


Do any of you track plays on boardgamegeek?  I've never done that, but play so infrequently these days, maybe it's a good way to track this stuff? 

I'll flip through the Steam Workshop again tonight. I was trying to pay attention to the comments on some of the mods regarding stability and all that. Maybe we can find something we both already know. I downloaded the Netrunner one (which I DON'T already know). Since that's a card game, maybe that'll be a good first one to try. There were a few different version of the Vladda game Tash Kalar, but I don't think either of us know that, and it might be too weird trying to learn a game in an awkward buggy environment.

Have you found anything you'd especially like to try on Tabletop Simulator, Rude? We should give it a shot one of these evenings. I was having a lot of weird graphic bugs on OS X, but I can switch over to Windows and see if it performs better.

| Holy...

I picked up Tabletop Simulator on Steam and I'm going through the 65+ pages in the Steam Workshop and it's like when we all first discovered Napster but for boardgames... it's every game I've ever owned plus every single one old and new I want to try.

Now, I know it'll never replace playing games in person, but dammit, it'll do in a pinch a lot of the time. We gotta try some of it out! (I found the Star Wars dice in there, so we're ready for the next session!)

EDIT: After loading up a bunch of modules (the old Aliens game with the standup guys!), it's cool, but it's basically like a 3D vassal mod with physics. I like it, but you're still at the mercy of who scanned (or more commonly took assets from VASSAL mods) and if rules/functions were able to be approximated in the system. Pretty cool!

| 10x10

Here's my plays for the year so far (pretty much all short games):

I'll start filling in the J's spreadsheet, but my tentative list is:

1960: The Making of the President
Castles of Burgundy
Trajan
Lord of the Rings LCG
Robinson Crusoe
Pandemic The Cure (this one's pretty fun!)
Forbidden Desert (kinda hard right now)
Friday (the solo game I'm horrible at)
Rivals of Catan
Flashpoint Fire Rescue (any map BUT the original map? That could be funish)

| 10x10 list

Hey fellas, I put a link to my 10 x 10 list here. It's editable, so you guys feel free to jump in and add your own on separate tabs if you like. There are a couple of duplicates already.

I ended up with a mix of classic and new stuff:
1. Warmachine/Hordes
2. Saga
3. Deadzone
4. Twilight Struggle (swapped Mage Knight out for this)
5. Agricola
6. Galaxy Trucker
7. Shadows of Brimstone
8. Doomtown
9. RPGs
10. Paint 100 minis challenge

I got a cribbage app. I don't think I like cribbage! I don't think I understand it much either. Sometimes I score more points than the computer. Most of the time I don't. Nobs.

| No Progress to Report

My team has been in town this past week at work so I have been on site all three days so far.  4:30am wake up, in by 6am, on the road home at around 8pm head hits the pillow at around 9pm.  Rinse repeat.  Bullshit 14 -16 hours days is for the birds.

Needless to say, this has put a dent in my 10x10.

Normans look rad! Go for it!

I personally think part of your goal should be entering a mini at GenCon this year because I bet you could place for sure it not win outright.

I'm mightily tempted by this 100 minis challenge. If I paint my Saga army and my SoB cores alone, that would almost cover it right there - I could paint a few other outstanding warcasters/solos and be done. Hmm. It actually sounds really doable.

| battle cribbage

On one of the vlogs I watch at work, they're doing gamer resolutions for this year and a lot of people are also doing the 10x10 challenge (posers). The host brings up that in past years when he's done that, he's sometimes discovered that having to play a game a 6th or 7th time, he'd realize he really didn't like the game that much. Like you can discover that games you imagine you really like, are kind of irritating as you explore them further. I hope we discover some games we didn't know we hate too! (Looking at you, Battle Cribbage).

Then the lady who invented the 10x10 challenge is this year doing someone's 2x2x12 challenge where you play 2 unplayed games twice in a month. She said a similar thing can happen with just a second play of a game, where it goes from liked to unliked. That's too many unplayed games to buy, so I'll stick to 10x10, thank you very much!

Elrock: bring your Cribbage decks and minis! I've never played it, but if it's not too long, it could be fun to try.

GW: Roll a 1 phase, indeed!

| Because, Games Workshop

"Why doesn't GW just put the game out again, in like a more modern style of packaging?"

"...the ability to buy complete teams at reasonable prices"

GW's business model, for at least 15 years, has been laser focused on getting people to spend lots and lots of cash putting together 40K armies, WHFB armies, buying the related rule books ($70+ each), and painting supplies. Anything distracting from that is a non-starter. It's actually somewhat miraculous that they rereleased Space Hulk.

For a long time they had some minimal support through the specialist game subsection on their site but that's gone now.

Their bread and butter is 40K which is still the big dog of minis wargames. WHFB sales have been in the shitter for a long time, though. It wasn't even in the top 5 in the last list I looked at which was for 2013 - I'll add a link when I'm not on my phone but that list had top minis game as

40k

Star Wars X-wing

Warmachine

Star Trek

Hordes (which is the same game as WM so it's weird they're tracked separately but w/e)

Hopefully they release 2014 data soon.

I'm totally down for turb-blood bowl. The weird Java version we all played for awhile was a lot of fun. Why doesn't GW just put the game out again, in like a more modern style of packaging? Imagine a box with a field and 2 teams and then the ability to buy complete teams at reasonable prices.

| Menace and the Saga of the Bloody Bowls

Saga: DO IT!  And do it by ManCon!  Run down to Brookblurst, grab those Normans, and git em painted!  3 Saga armies at ManCan > two armies!

Bloody, Bloody Bowls:  I know you mentioned you would bring your teams, is there any interest from anyone else in playing some 7's vs. the full game?  Its on a smaller board so the play is faster and I THINK there is less bookkeeping, too.

Here's a link to the rules summary:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/92588516/Sevens%20v0.3.pdf 

And the original rules here:
http://www.gamingcorner.nl/rules/boardgames/bloodbowl_7.pdf

And a sort of ugly but functional pitch here:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/92588516/blood%20bowl%207s%20pitch.pdf

Menace Painting 10x10 Rules:  I think finishing partially painted mini's is totally acceptable if Cribbage counts towards my 10x10 games this year.

You can do it, Menis!

Def get your BB team ready to roll, because I think everyone there will be down for some Blood Bowl action. Saga too, because if J-Dawg moves back to the LA area, he'll need someone to play historical battles with.

I saw that card game bundle. Has anyone heard anything about the Mojang game, Scrolls? I remember it being a big deal, because Minecraft, but I'm so out of the video game loop, I know nothing about it. The other thing of note about that bundle is if you pay $35 to get the t-shirt and Star Realms physical set (MSRP ~$15) they have a single alternate-art card for the game. Kinda pricey but it's for charity n all that shit.

PS: Seeing they have that not-great Dominion Online game expansions as part of the bundle, got me to read it's wikipedia page. Interesting background of how he created the game.

Oh man, 100 minis?  I don't think I've even ever finished painting 100 minis yet.  I have 100s (hundreds!) primed though...

While I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be able to do 100.  Shall we see how far I can go?  And as for figures, trust me I have plenty just sitting around. Just staring...  Most are older than all your kids.  Does finishing partially painted ones count?  Partial credit?

As coincidence would have it, I'm trying to paint up a Blood Bowl chaos team for Cayucos Con.  Maybe 10-16 minis by Feb?

Maybe try some Saga minis later?  I think I'm going to start a Norman army.  Just ordered the rulebook.  Curse you and your enabling peer pressure.

Dang, sons! Check out this pretty amazing online card game Humble Bundle.

Yeah, Pump you should definitely take the 100 minis challenge! You know I've got some you can paint....

That sounds like an epic challenge. Menace, DO IT! Or, TRY IT!

| Pumpkin Conversion

How can we get an equivalent challenge going for Pumpkin?  Since he pretty much hates games and won't play them unless we make him at Kubla/Mancon/GenCon, what is the miniature painting equivalent of 100 games?  100 minis?

I painted 37  minis for Saga, Eric-stylee, in about a week and half but I know that Pump is much more precise and exacting in his point jobs.  Do you think 100 mini's this year is fair?  Is that insane?

If it's not insane, I have some mini's I can totally ship you to 'help' you meet your goal, Pump!

Cribbage is so fun! I can never keep the rules straight in my head and have to keep relearning it, but it's always a good time.

| +1 Gamez

1 - Fallen
1 - Sons of Anarchy
2 - Cribbage
2 - Letters to Santa

Ya, I don't see how a solo-play of a non-solo game wouldn't count, when solo games count fine on their own. You're basically playing a variant.

I think I'll add Lord of the Rings Card Game to my list. That's another hard one that I only played 1.5-2 times, mostly to try and figure out the rules. I started watching rules explanations last night to relearn it, and I bet it'll be fun to try and complete the quests from the core box.

| 10x10 Flat File Database

This is my flat file database tracking games I have played so far toward the 10x10 goal:

1 - Fallen
1 - Sons of Anarchy
1 - Cribbage
2 - Letters to Santa
0 - Russian Roulette (until my 40th BDay, then all bets are off)

QUESTION: Are solo plays of non-solo games allowed?  IE Combat Commander or other wargames where I tend to play solo almost exclusively?  Also see: Thunder Alley

Ya, the XCOM board game sounds cool. I guess you aren't really controlling the troops in a tactical way, but instead you and the other players are like the administrators of XCOM, and you do budgeting and research. I still don't exactly get it, but people are saying it's fun.

Jon: That's a tough list! Mage Knight, especially. But it looks like a good balance of doable ones and some harder ones. Saga also sounds difficult because it's dependent on Elzar and maybe Menace or whoever else. The RPG one I'm fully behind. 

I'm still mulling over what games to shoot for. There's a bunch of light weight games that my wife and I play pretty regularly, so it almost feels like cheating to include them. The toughest one I'm going to put on the list is Robinson Crusoe. I only got through 1.5 solo games of it, and it was pretty brutal. I want to get my money's worth, so that will be great to play 10 times to completion.

| Bored Games

Gonna have to try and play on with the family for the most part I think. Does Candyland count? lol Actually, have a cool Pirate-themed game the kiddos like to play called "Pirateology", it just takes a good long while per game. Roborally may yet again see the light of day as well!

X-com is an amazing game on the PC, and I can totally see it translating well to a turn based board game. The action point / combat system is perfect for that.

Still thinking over which games to put on my list. Here's what I've got so far:

- Shadows of Brimstone: The big Warhammer Quest-meets-Deadlands game I got from Kickstarter. I've only played it a couple of times, but it looks like the fun is about the campaign and building up your character. Gotta do it!
- Saga: I would extract to extract maximum juice out of this fun Viking wargame. 5 meetups, 2 games each time. We can do this, elzar!
- Role-playing Games: I would like to role playing game 10 times this year.
- Warmachine/Hordes: Still the best, and I don't think we played 10 times last year. (Note: enr0n and I probably started playing almost exactly 10 years ago. Numerology!)
- Agricola: Wife likes it (and has played it hundreds of times on the iPad), but we haven't had that much time for gaming in the last year. Let's change it!
- Galaxy Trucker: See above. I think the wife actually likes this one more than I do, so it shouldn't be too hard to get this one done!
- Deadzone: So fun, almost all of us have it and we've barely scratched the surface of it.
- Mage Knight: This one's going to be tricky. It is long and requires focus, has a bunch of rules that I'd need to remember, and absolutely can't be played around the young'uns because the mana tokens look exactly like candy and are super sharp. But it's very satisfying, I have a cool expansion I've never used, and I didn't play it once last year, so it's on the list!

Not sure what else. Doomtown? That's a fun one, and plays quick, so it seemingly should be easy to crank out that many games. Better put something simpler on the list.

You and "Ken" should go halfsies on the new XCom board game from FF that integrates with an iPad for... stuff. (I've never played an Xcom game, so I don't have much attachment any which way.)

| 100 Games in 2015 - Yikes!

I think my plan will be to start logging whatever I actually do get to play and then seeing about midway where they are stacking up and where I have a chance to push through and meet some goals.  I don't have a captive player in the house (Les has had enough of games with pieces, but still plays TTR on her phone all the time), and Wy will play with me, but would rather play with the streetkids, which I get.

 I'm looking into a game group locally, but they often play over the hill at Game Kastle, which is a drag, but imma keep workin it, and I'm gonna start rolling some bones with the contractor that did the deck!  He's pretty nerdy (played through xCom like 10 times and loves the Shadowrun video game) and picked up Level 7: Omega Protocol having never really played a boardgame in his life.  His name is Ken and we'll see what happens.

 "Hey Ken, wanna come over and play Thunder Alley again?"
"We've played it like 8 times already"
"Yeah I know, but it's for this thing I gotta do.  Trust me!"
*click*

Love it! In! I'm starting to get my spreadsheet and list together. I'll post a link and talk about my choices later on.

| The cure

Got in our first game of Pandemic: The Cure tonight and it was pretty cool. It's the dice version of Pandemic, and it captures the feel of the original pretty well, while streamlining the whole experience into a tighter and quicker game. We did some stuff wrong but still ended up losing in a nail biter ending. It'll be fun once we get a few more plays in under our belts.

| 10x10 2015 Board Game Challenge

I saw this on Board Game Geek and wanted to try it myself. Let's all give it a go!

By the end of 2015, you will try to play 10 games 10 times. Make a list now, and then just check off your plays as the year goes on. It doesn't sound like a ton of games, but that's ONE HUNDRED games! That's kind of a lot. You're not tied into the list you make today and can switch games off or on the list. Just have your 10 plays of 10 different games by the end of the year.

Maybe someone with better excel skills can whip up a google-spreadsheet that we can link from here to track everyone's progress. Between Mancon, Kubla, and Gen Con, there's plenty of time to get a bunch of plays in.

The Welsh! You should go for it. Based on my ~2 minute reading of their faction rules, they're a lightly armored skirmishing force that likes to hit and run with javelins. They can also ride ponies!

I got interested in Saga from one of my forums as well. Sounded interesting so I picked up the rules and a couple boxes of plastic Viking-era dudes. Reasonably cheap minis (as far as these things go). Aeryk and I are trying to fit in another game day before ManCon, hopefully we'll have something to report.

FYI, there is a pretty baller sale on RPGs at drivethrurpg (pdfs) ending today. The star of the show is probably The One Ring bundle, which has the corebook plus two other books for $15. That's a good deal for the core alone and it's a rad game! Of course, the pdfs might also be available at the library... I'm also tempted by the Firefly bundle. Linky 1 (bundles), Linky 2 (moar bundles), Linky 3 (individual books).

Saga you say?  I been reading about it for a while on some of the forums I stalk.  Didn't think anyone would interested.  Hmm Welsh elves...

Ahh yeahhh...  Kill La Kill.  I did indeed consume that fizzy pop.  Crazy, absurd actiony show.  I give it a 7.  You should see some of the cosplayers.

| Random Stuff!

Been meaning to post about a bunch of random stuff. Here we go:

- Saga: Dark Ages: This is a Viking-era minis game that I tricked elzar into picking up. We've only played once so far (in Santa Clara in the middle of an insane rainstorm), but it was fun! Essentially, you field a bunch of Vikings and shit. At the start of your turn, you roll a bunch of fancy dice with weird symbols (different runes and shit) on them. You use the symbols you rolled to pay for the things you want to do on your turn. A lot of the time you'll be using them to activate units of dudes (for example, you can activate an elite unit by paying a die with any symbol, warrior units activate with slightly harder symbols, and your crappy units who lack motivation can only be activated with a rarer set of symbols). But in addition, you can spend dice to activate special abilities from your faction's special list; for example, the Anglo-Danes (my faction) have numerous defensive abilities that you can pay combinations of dice for, the Vikings (elzar's) have more offensively oriented abilities. Fun mechanic overlaying a pretty simple movement/combat system, definitely seemed like a keeper. Hopefully elzar and I will get in another game at ManCon.

- Primer: I've been getting back into painting/building minis after a long dry spell. One of my issues has always been that I really have no backyard (just a TINY shed, on a 6'x6' patio, on an interior courtyard). I can spray prime by clearing out my shed and setting up a booth (which I will probably do tomorrow in fact), but it's a real hassle. So I've been looking into brush-on primers which I believe is brave new territory for this crew. Citadel makes some stuff that I have determined to basically be garbage -- it worked OK on the plastic Saga mini I applied it to, but three coats into a metal Warmachine mini and it's STILL patchy, with very little "tooth" like you get with a standard primer. Since metal Warmachine minis are like 65% of my minis collection, that doesn't work. I poked around on forums to learn what the big kids use and it seems that Liquitex gesso is one of the popular options, so I bought a big bottle of it off Amazon. It should arrive, and I'll keep you all posted on developments as they occur!

- iOS apps: I picked up Monument Valley, which is a very short adventure/puzzle game. It was really pretty and weird and I strongly recommend it.

- Weird anime: I have always liked the anime art style but I've never liked any of the actual shows I've tried watching. Recently for a variety of reasons I watched this show Kill La Kill on Netflix. (Don't Google it at work, it's kinda NSFW.) Anyway I ended up... well, I don't know if I exactly liked the show, but it was fast-paced, bewildering and bizarre things in a way I generally found pleasantly numbing, and it was pretty inventive and entertaining, so I guess I sort of did, although it was occasionally incredibly creepy? The premise is a familiar one: the student council at a Japanese high school is in the process of a fascist takeover of the rest of Japan, empowered by transforming school uniforms. Into this comes a transfer student armed with half of a giant scissor who is looking for answers about the murder of her scientist father. After getting her ass kicked, she returns to the ruins of her father's mansion where she finds a sentient school uniform which forces her to wear it against her will. When the uniform is fueled by drinking her blood, it turns into possibly the most ludicrously skimpy thing ever animated ever but gives her kick ass combat powers. Oh! This perverted looking uniform was made by her father specifically for her and also kind of looks like him. She uses her powers to start kicking ass and taking names at her high school. This is in the first episode and things start getting a lot weirder after that. Quasi-recommended? (Definitely not recommended to elzar.)

| Another Shitty Start to Another Shitty Year

Last year pretty much ate a dick. Here's hoping this one is better!

| Happy New Year!