No gaming took place last night. After a pretty cool roast dinner we watched the Wales vs England match, and then John Wick 2 (we had watched John Wick the previous night, and guess what we are watching tonight?)

Why a roast dinner last night?

Nathan gets all the credit for that. I guess he fancied it while I was down visiting, because Sunday he said he had bought the stuff to make one, like a whole chicken, etc. Only problem he had was he’d never cooked a chicken before. So cooking duties fell onto me.

I’m still getting used to his oven, but the Yorkshire puddings came out ok.

I got to go into Basingstoke Centre today, and visit a gaming shop called The Gaming Den. Lots of stock, which is nice to see. I could easily have spent lots of money there but I was super strong.

Ok it helped that a visit to a stationary shop to pick up some index cards turned out to be a tad more expensive than planned.

Once home I quickly wrote out a couple of recipes that he’d asked for on the index cards and put them on Nath’s whiteboard for him.

The afternoon saw me making chicken noodle soup and visiting the Stonemaier web store to order the three new realms that were released today.

But whilst on the virtual store I was pleasantly surprised to see the Tapestry play mat had also been released.

I was aware Jamey had been looking at doing a play mat for Tapestry. But it had escaped me that they were actually in production. So I was definitely not expecting them in the store today.

After having the chicken noodle soup with slices of a fresh baguette to help mop it up, Nathan and I watched a brief Roll for Crit how to play for Marvel Champions.

It refreshed my memory (I don’t play this nearly enough) and gave Nathan an overview of the game.

It was enough so that we could play the following match up.

Nathan played Wolverine, whilst I played Phoenix.

Things seemed to be going well. The threat level of Thanos’s scheme was under control (by Phoenix) whilst he was getting thumped by Wolverine.

Then it went all Pete Tong as they used to say.

Thanos thumped Phoenix for a massive seven damage, followed by his minion Black Dwarf finishing the job off.

This left Wolverine to stand toe to toe with Thanos trading blows.

It was a heroic effort but in the end to no avail as Thanos managed to complete his scheme.

We really enjoyed going up against Thanos. With a better card draw we might have won. I think that is the difference between this game and the one with Diego with Ultron.

In that game our hero selection was totally unsuitable for the villain and his schemes. We got thrashed.

Here the match up seemed more appropriate. Phoenix keeping the threat under control whilst Wolverine did what Wolverine does. It felt like we had a chance.

Nathan really enjoyed our game of this. So it will find a place in the bag on future visits.

Our final game of the evening was a game of Rolling Realms.

Another winner with Nathan, despite me winning. But the scores were pretty close.

Our evening is finishing with the third film in the John Wick series.

There seems a nice symmetry to this months gaming.

November started with me visiting Nathan and playing games with him, and it ends that way too.

It means so much that I am able to spend time with Nathan. That wasn’t always the case over the last few years. Caring for Nan meant it wasn’t possible to get away for a couple of days to visit him. It was a heavy price to pay. But we did willingly out of love for Nan.

After having toad in the hole with onion gravy for tea Nathan and I played the latest expansion for Wingspan, and also stand alone two player game, Wingspan Asia.

But before we played I had to open up the box it came in (yep I hadn’t even done this since it arrived a couple weeks back), take off the cellophane, punch cardboard, and quickly read up the rule changes for duet mode.

I’m not sure why but playing Wingspan with unsleeved or “naked” cards felt so so wrong. It just didn’t feel right.

Wingspan Asia can be used as a straight up expansion for Wingspan by just shuffling the cards that come into the box with the core games plus any other expansions. Which is how it’ll probably end up for me.

This expansion makes it so Wingspan can also be played by six or seven players in what is called flock mode. Or as I will refer to it as “not for me mode”.

Then we have the final way this expansion can be used, and that is duet mode.

Duet mode is a two player variant of standard Wingspan that adds a duet board, and new end of round objectives based on that board.

You get to place a piece on the duet board when you play a bird or a card ability allows you put a bird on the board. Where the piece goes on the board depends on the habitat the bird was played on, plus either the food type used to pay for it, it’s nest type, wing span, or direction looking.

Some of the spots on the duet board also give you a bonus of some kind when a piece is placed on it, like drawing a bird card, or getting an egg.

If you can’t or don’t want to place a piece on the duet board you can instead place it on the area in the bottom left of the board. Then on a future turn remove the piece from there to reset either the food tray or the bird market place. I like this a lot. Ok I didn’t do it. But just having that there as an option is pretty cool. It also makes that placement of the duet piece a harder decision.

I like what the duet board brings to the table in a two player game. It adds a new tactical element and decisions that need to be made that encourages the playing of birds.

I also like that the first player marker goes to the player that didn’t win the end of round scoring. It almost feels like an attempt at a catch up mechanism!

This may just be how I play Wingspan from now on when visiting Nathan. Which is the only time I play Wingspan two player.

The bgstat history books will record that I beat Nathan with a tucking engine!

Today, as the events already told were yesterday, has seen a relaxed start to the day.

Starting with my regular everyday breakfast of a mug of coffee and two Nevill’s Pains Au Chocolat. What can I say I’m a creature of habit. Except when Tesco don’t have them. Then I have to improvise.

After a relaxing soak in the bath reading a book on data science, it was time to take a trip.

A trip to the local shops sees a charity shop find that no-one boasts about on the Facebook boardgaming groups I belong to. I got a large saucepan and a couple of trays ideal to make Yorkshire puddings in. I need, well Nathan needs that big pot. Tomorrow I’m turning the left over chicken from our roast today into chicken soup for him. He didn’t have a pot large enough for that.

Lunch for us was an impromptu fry up to use up the remaining sausages Nathan had in the fridge, and some mushrooms just on the right side of edible.

I did start to look at the Star Wars card game Sabacc that Nathan bought whilst he was State side the other month. We’ll play that over the next day or two for sure.

Our first game of the day was Tinners Trail.

I’ve only played this once before as a three player game with Jeff and Jonathan.

So playing it as a two player game was interesting.

It wasn’t an unenjoyable experience. I just thought the bidding was a little flat with two players.

History will show that Nathan won by a massive two points.

Right I have a roast dinner to cook before some more games this evening.

With a weeks holiday ahead of me I took the opportunity to visit Nathan for a couple of days.

I arrived Monday afternoon managing to avoid any of the usual traffic jam points like the M25.

The evening saw me attempting to teach Nathan how to play Brazil Imperial to very limited success.

The map I chose was an official from the publisher that I got off the bgg page for the game.

It looked an interesting two player map with the island in the middle. The chances of combat were low for this map, which I thought was perfect for a learning game. One less thing to have to absorb.

Nathan was finding it hard to follow what was going on.

I don’t think it helped with Nathan’s focus that he had consumed approximately three quarters of a bottle of 1800 tequila.

So we gave up after an hour or so of play. He wasn’t enjoying it.

There was no point playing another game so we had a film night instead watching The Batman. I’m not sure I like the look of The Riddler in the movie. But it’s a pretty solid Batman effort with a focus more on the detective side of the character. Which I like. After all he is the worlds greatest detective!

Tuesday saw Alien Fate of the Nostromo hit the table for a learning game.

I had bought this for Nathan’s birthday after he had said he regretted not getting it on his recent holiday in the US.

Wow! I love that when you open up the box you are confronted by a hissing Jonesy. It’s a lovely bit of art that does take you a little by surprise.

I played Ripley with Nathan playing Dallas.

Being brave souls we also played with Ash. Which is meant to add a further complication to the game.

I really do like the art on the player boards. It really captures the characters from the movie. The publisher could have easily gone the movie stills route. But I’m glad they didn’t. This art looks so much better.

The miniatures in the game look very nice detail wise. Just a shame they are made from a very soft plastic. Maybe a better quality would have pushed up the final cost of the game. Let’s face it, as boardgames go this is not an expensive game. There is a mass market feel to it.

It’s also a big shame that Ash isn’t also a miniature instead of the standee.

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I’m not sure if we misplayed a rule or two. But this felt suspiciously easy to win. Maybe we got lucky with the mission cards we drew for the game.

It’s just weird having played other Co-ops which even on their easy settings seemed more challenging.

Of cause it could be as the designer of the game Scott Rogers said we just got real lucky. Sometimes it happens.

We had fun playing the game. I liked the basic crafting mechanic. It definitely felt like Alien. Liked the fact when you encountered the alien you take a moral hit and run away. The encounter tiles added to the suspense, and making it feel like the movie.

Later on I introduced Nathan to the flip and write Welcome to the Moon. So you know what is coming now.

The following post may or may not contain spoilers for the Welcome to the Moon campaign. You may want to avoid this post and join me in a future one if you plan to play the campaign and want to experience it’s twists and turns as surprises for yourself. REMEMBER you have been warned.

As I was setting up the game I noticed on the first adventures player board that there is a Dalek that looks like it might be trying to get on the rocket!

How did I not notice this before!

Nathan noticed it straight away.

What a bloody cool little easter egg to include.

I decided we would work our way through the campaign. So instead of reading all the text I summarised the story so far for Nathan.

We then played Adventure 1 which obviously we chose a different route to the other campaign. Once again I was the captain for our initial efforts.

This route had us remove the number 7 card from the game, plus we are able to choose the mission cards for each adventure.

Nathan won the first adventure to become the captain for adventure 2.

Adventure 1 Chapter path taken: 109,147,169,12,7,77

Just like our experiences in the other campaign play through, this second adventure caught Nathan unawares. He too had been lulled into that false sense of security and “simplicity” of the first adventure.

All of a sudden the complexity level was dialled up a few notches.

I think Nathan didn’t enjoy this adventure as much because of this.

Our twist in adventure 2 was that we could circle plants on any of the orbiting stations regardless of where we wrote the number.

Adventure 2 Chapter path taken: 148,79,106,92

Our evening was finished off with another movie night, this time we watched the Nicolas Cage move The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent.

A movie in which he plays himself! Who then gets roped in by the CIA to help rescue a kidnapped girl. It’s not a bad film. The de-aging of Cage is a bit ropey. Definitely one of his better recent efforts.