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.