I couldn’t help quoting Klopp after Liverpool won their sixth Champions League title for the title of this blog post. It just seemed apt.
February saw some gaming. Not much though. Even less than January.
In total six board games made it to the table.
I was glad to get three of them to the table with a higher player count than my initial plays of them. They did not disappoint.
Getting Zombie Dice back to the table was cool. I really do need to leave this in the game bag, along with Sea Salt and Paper. Two nice little filler games for a club night.
With my upgraded dice cups for Liars Dice I need a better storage solution that would allow it with the neoprene mat for tracking bids to also be in the bag.
But as the search for that elusive bag continues I’m grateful that I got some gaming done this month.
Sadly I won’t be able to play any games tomorrow and record some rare plays for that once every four years opportunity.
But that just sums up my new normal. Hopefully Sunday will keep being a thing gaming wise, and with a bit of luck Tuesday will be a thing too.
It’s my penultimate shift at my current store today before transferring over on Sunday. But what a penultimate shift it will be. It’s going to be an eleven hour shift instead of nine.
There will most definitely be a knock on effect for the final shift tomorrow. I’m going to be knackered to say the least.
But the thought of playing some games on Sunday is helping me get through these final two shifts.
Especially since my copy of Wyrmspan and the deluxe components upgrade arrived yesterday.
Earlier in the week two new games also arrived, Tournament At Avalon, and Senso Battle for Japan. Both games where trick taking is the core mechanic.
These ended up in the collection due to me mistakingly watching a couple of YouTube videos, and seeing they were not too expensive on Amazon.
My get to the table list (image above) has been updated to reflect their arrival and addition to the collection. Whilst doing this I realised I didn’t have Fuji Flush on the list. So it’s been added to.
I’ve kept the games I played with Diego Tuesday evening on the list because I want to play them with a higher player count. They were fun at two player but sometimes at the higher player counts the experience will be different, more cut throat, frustrating (as more chances of others blocking what you want to do).
The plan on Sunday is (and I’m hoping Charlene is cool with it) to play Wyrmspan. Followed by, time allowing, one of the two new trick taking games.
In the meantime I just need to survive these last two shifts.
With a planned gaming session imminent (tomorrow night) and one next Sunday the hard decision arises of what to play.
So I carried out a brief exercise in the bgstat app of tagging some games that I’d like to get to the table.
It’s a combination of new additions to the collection (which will hit the unplayed challenge when played) and one or two games I’ve played recently that need to get played again.
Dune Imperium Uprising is the plan for tomorrow evening. Time allowing one or two of the smaller quicker games on the list might also get played.
There is the obvious elephant in the room can’t get played yet, as it hasn’t arrived, Wyrmspan.
Then Sunday because at the moment it’s just Charlene and myself it might be a chance to get the roll and writes on the list to the table.
I’d like to complete Welcome to the Moon and its story based campaign. Yes it’s not on the list. But still it’d be nice to get it to the table.
Enough of the blue sky thinking. Let’s see how well this plan holds up when it gets put into action.
As I write this latest “hey I’m still alive, sorry to disappoint” post I’ve not long woke up after a late shift and enjoyed my morning coffee.
We are ten days into February and I’ve played one board game.
There is some gaming planned for Tuesday evening with Diego. I think Ben is coming along as well. I’m really looking forward to that. Plus a week Sunday there should be some gaming taking place as well.
Neither of these two planned sessions will see Wyrmspan hitting the table. The UK and EU won’t start seeing their copies dropping through letterboxes for at least another week. Jamey on his latest live stream explained that this delay was due to “current events” in the Red Sea area. That’s the polite way of not getting political about the whole genocide and war crimes being committed by Israel in Gaza at the moment. Which despite the pathetic attempts by the UK’s most corrupt Government to justify their involvement in attacks on a sovereign nation Yemen, is linked to why there are any delays in shipping via the Red Sea.
Knowing this is the reason why I’m not playing or about to play Wyrmspan helps. It’s an inconvenience. Which doesn’t even register when you think of the horrors and suffering going on by those in Gaza at the moment. I’d gladly put up with even longer delays if it meant that this genocide stopped. And you know what? I feel so bad even mentioning this inconvenience in the same sentence as the suffering of the Palestinian people in Gaza.
I suppose whilst I’m going all political one of the surprising things about the most documented genocide and war crimes of the last one hundred years is the silence of so many in the boardgaming space. Many spoke up (rightly) on such issues as BLM, trans rights etc. But now with genocide, war crimes, and apartheid going on right in front of their eyes. All of a sudden they have lost their voices.
Their silence makes them complicit in those acts as far as I’m concerned. And most definitely hypocrites.
After the Second World War and the horrors of the holocaust came to light many over the following decades asked questions such as “how could the German people let this happen?”, or “what would I do if this was going on?”
It breaks my heart that we are now in the situation that every single one of us can now answer those questions.
For so many its remain silent, justify the atrocities, attack and try to silence those speaking out. All actions that enable those deplorable acts to be carried out.
At least with those supporting the genocide you know what horrible examples of humanity they are, and I know who to avoid.
It’s the silence I don’t get. I can only assume that it’s out of self interest they aren’t saying anything. That they think that if they speak out against it they will lose work, free games, etc. from those that support it, and vice versa.
Hypocrites.
I’m getting off my high horse now and my simplified views on this emotive subject.
January was a slightly better month for me gaming wise than the previous two months. But still the numbers weren’t great.
However I should be grateful that I got to play some games. Especially that some of those games were with Nathan.
Now I am hoping now that Nathan is driving, and has a new car. That Nathan will be able to navigate the British roads to find his way up to mine. Enabling us to play some of the bigger games that are not an option at his due to the clash between game foot print and the size of his table. Or in simpler terms his table isn’t big enough. To be able to at last share my favourite game of all time Scythe with him will be amazing.
My top 9 games for January 2024
What I do find incredible from last months stats is that I played 10 (not 11 as Knock Out Whist aka Trumps was not a new to me game) new to me games. That’s two thirds of the games I played in January.
I have ordered twenty new custom d6 dice for Fenland Gamers members to have. It’s a new design for the six face, that has the club name and year.
Like the previous design (which I still have some left) I’ll be giving them out to regular club members for free.
I even have a design ready to go for UKGE this year to give to club members that make it to the show and the annual club picture that gets taken there.
Plus I want to do a club poker chip. But I have to buy them in quantities of fifty to get them at a reasonable price. They are also a bit more expensive. So they will have to wait until later in the year.
There is only so much I can finance out of my own pocket for this sort of stuff. I’m not on some CEO banker salary.
I like being able to do stuff like this for members.
Whilst I’m talking about Fenland Gamers and this ties in with the last life, the universe, and coffee post, I am testing the waters on the viability of Sunday sessions. At the moment I have created one club event to gauge interest. I’ll write more on that in future I’m sure.
Payday was Friday. Which was just at the right time to enable me to order the latest offering from Stonemaier Games, Wyrmspan, along with the optional deluxe component kit. I’ll leave the neoprene playmats until the next payday, along with the Rolling Realms promo packs.
Interesting enough this release of Wyrmspan has an initial print run of 100,000 copies. That’s a crazy number. Usually (I think I’m remembering this correctly) publishers print twenty to thirty thousand copies of a game initially. Then if the game does well do a second print run.
We know Wingspan sold an insane number of copies (well over 1.5 million by now I would think). But does that incredible success translate to Wyrmspan?
I can’t wait to see the next state of the nation post/email from Stonemaier Games where they give the total number of copies sold for each of their games.
Until Wingspan, Scythe was the bestseller. I’m just curious to see if Apiary and/or Wyrmspan have it in them to challenge Scythe for that number two spot. I am expecting them both to do well.
When I was sharing with a friend at work Friday morning that I had ordered Wyrmspan she said my face lit up. I guess I’m pretty excited about getting the game.
It’s another one of those posts where I let you know I’m still alive.
Obviously writing one of these posts means I’ve done no gaming at all in over a week now.
My free day yesterday was an opportunity to play a game or two. But alas no one even responded to my post on the clubs discord server.
It’s probably for the best.
Not sure how good an opponent I’d be.
At the moment I’m feeling very bruised emotionally.
Thinking about it I’ve been this way for three months or so now.
I can’t wait until I swap stores which should help on that front. The three weeks can’t go fast enough.
The little bits of gaming during this time have been but brief rest-bite from it all.
I don’t think my new shift pattern will enable much gaming. Not unless I can fix the Tuesday evening gaming location or hope folks are free Sunday afternoon.
Things change. It’s the only thing that we can count on in life. Well that and the other two, death and taxes as the saying goes.
Things are going to change on the work front once again. For the better? Who knows?
In the meantime I have nine days off.
The plan is to go visit Nathan for a couple of days.
Obviously I’m taking the LoTR lcg and the Fellowship of the Ring saga.
But alongside that I’m taking some dice games with me to play as research. In that pile are Seasons, Viva Java the dice game, High Score, Yahtzee, Farkle, the Knizia books, Age of War, Hellboy the dice game, and hopefully Strike! (if it arrives in time).
I’m really looking forward to seeing Nathan and playing games with him. It’s been way too long since my last visit.
I just want to take a break from my Top 100 games of all time posts to wish all my regular readers, less frequent ones, and those that somehow stumbled upon this blog by mistake, a very merry Christmas.
I hope you have a great day with loved ones and friends.
It’s been another hectic week and it’s just going to get busier as we enter the run in to Christmas.
At work it’s basically all hands to the pump.
So December is looking like a bad month for getting games to the table.
Dune Imperium Uprising has arrived. Sadly it looks like everyone interested or possibly interested in playing it are recovering from a bout of sickness and diarrhea hitting their household.
The D-Day Dice Kickstarter has been a surprise arrival. No warning it was fulfilling, just an email from the Royal Mail saying a package was coming.
I have a new book to read. It’s all about cheating in video games. It’s an academic text and I’m looking forward to looking at the research and its conclusions.
