Saturday, January 24, 2015

| 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

Thursday, January 22, 2015

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.

Wednesday, January 21, 2015

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.

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

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!

Monday, January 19, 2015

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.

Sunday, January 18, 2015

| 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.