This Thursday sees a Pandemic Party being held in Wisbech at The Entertainment Centre in aid to raise funds to help fight ebola. I wrote about Pandemic Parties previously here. Hopefully if you live locally you will be able to attend, have a great time playing Pandemic the game and help raise funds to fight ebola.
Click HERE to get full details of the event (it's a facebook event page)
11th April sees the Third International Table Top Day. This is a general gaming day, with the intention to just play games, maybe try something new, meet new gamers, possibly introduce new people to gaming. Wil Wheaton is one of the brains behind this day, and his excellent web series Table Top.
25th April sees the first International Catan Day. A day celebrating the game Catan (that's the new official name for Settlers of Catan). So an excuse to play this modern classic.
So I hope this has given you a heads up to maybe organise something for these days yourself, or to ask your FLGS if they have plans for these days.
Finally my starfield playmat for X-Wing arrived! This was an Eggbox Terrain Kickstarter for Starscapes that I backed last year, £26 for a 3' by 3' playmat. Amazing value. It looks gorgeous. Look how awesome it looks with a couple of ships on it.
The only drawback is my “gaming table” (a fold down dining table) is about an inch not wide enough. But I will work round it. I'm so excited to take this with me on my next visit to Nathan for us to play on.
Well technically one is a new arrival (today) the other two came just after the New Year.
First to arrive were two promos purchased from Board Game Geek (BGG) for the games Alhambra and Tokaido (top half of the photo). I like that BGG gets promos (not all sadly) to sell. Most promos are gained from attending conventions (majority based in the US). So the only chance to get one is either eBay or BGG. BGG tends to be the kinder option of the two selling the promos at a reasonable affordable price.
Promos aren't necessary for a game. There said it before someone else did. So why do I like them? I have a character flaw. Sadly companies exploit people like me. My flaw? I'm a completesionist (is that a real word?) If I like something I have to have all the bits for it, expansions, promos, different covers (if comics), appearances (even if it's a single panel in a comic). So you get the picture. Yeah I'm weird. Besides my flawed character, promos add a little variety or new options to a game. For example the Takaido promo I got adds a new character for players to chose to play with. While the the Alhambra promo adds new tiles (buildings) to purchase.
In the later half of last year Fantasy Flight Games (FFG) announced the Scum and Villainy faction for the X-Wing miniatures game, which is wave 6 iirc. Now the Scum and Villainy version of the Aces packs for the Imperials and Rebels comes with extra cards etc that convert one or two ships to the new faction if you want to use them with the new faction. One of those ships that can be converted will be Slave-1 which I didn't have. Now the ships in X-Wing have print runs, and if you try and get a ship between runs it can cost you a lot more (depending on how desperate you are) than the rrp. Luckily Slave-1 and the Falcon (already got) have just been reprinted and the container ship has hit our shores and the contents distributed to the game stores. Which means these ships can now be bought for a sensible price again. Hence I've bought the Slave-1 while it is available. There will be many like me that will have waited for this reprint, and snapping up the ships at the correct price. Which means they will sell out quickly again and become scarce and expensive once more. It's a vicious circle.
I think it's pretty clear to regular readers how I feel about Dicemasters. For those still wondering I LOVE it. There are some official accessories for the game, such as setup boxes, card storage boxes, playmats and the subject of this post a dice bag. Below you will find an attempt at reviewing the bag using sketchnotes!
I'm still learning to sketchnote, and my “artistic” abilities are a bit basic but with practice I will improve. So bare with me as I find my voice and style.
Last night I held a gaming night at my home. Before everyone arrived I relocated the two canine criminals next door with Nan. They may look all cute and innocent in the photo below. But those innocent faces hide two of the most jealous attention seeking individuals you will come across.
What do the above games have in common, apart from not being cheap? Have you guessed? They all come with a shed load of miniature models. Models that really need a coat of paint to make them pop. Don't get me wrong they are great models, really detailed. But they are unpainted.
It's customary at this time of year to make New Years resolutions. I'm not big on that sort of thing. But it did get me thinking maybe I should set myself a goal for the year. So not a resolution but something to aim for. Which means hopefully I'm more likely to achieve it. Well that's the distorted thinking I have.
Anyway I thought the goal I'd set was to learn and to paint my miniature models that came with the above games. I've watched That Teri Girl on YouTube on her own channel and her Geek & Sundry Vlog, and she makes it look all so easy. I know there are more videos by others on painting. But I think this is one of the things I think would benefit from some-one sitting down with me and teaching, demonstrating techniques.
What would be amazing is if a local game store ran a workshop teaching model painting for beginners. Turn up, pay say £40, which would get you a basic model painting kit (brushes, some paints), a model to learn with, and the workshop itself. Afterwards you would have everything to continue at home. There could also be a more advance class as well.
Why did I suggest a local game shop should run this? Well it would be something else they could offer to add value for the customer that online retailers can't. It gets people in the store, helps build community, another sales opportunity (sell more paint,brushes,models,etc). If I was a store doing this, I'd be encouraging customers to either display their painted models in the shop, or have photos of their painted models on display. Maybe run a regular model painting competition.
So that's one of my aims for the year, and some wishful thinking.
Out of that great pile of games I took to play with Nath over Christmas how many did we get to play? Two! We played Marvel Legendary and Tokaido. There was a perfectly good reason for this. Nath had to work, and on his day off got called in to do cover. It's the one variable before Christmas we didn't know, what shifts he would be required to do. We did get to see two movies, Exodus: Gods and Kings and The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies. Nath enjoyed both games. However he did prefer the collaborative deck building of Marvel Legendary where Captain America, Black Widow, Thor, Punisher and Spider-Man defeated Magnetos evil scheme to turn the world leaders into killbots. And from the questions Nath was asking me I think he was interested in buying his own copy of the game. If he hasn't got it by Easter who knows what the Easter Bunny will get him instead of chocolate eggs.
While there Kate and I had a chat as you do. After discussing how Nath needs to work on his house keeping skills, the conversation got round to what sort of things a mother and son could do. So obviously I suggested playing board games. Kate doesn't do video games. I recommended the obvious ones that would appeal to her and Nath, and that could be played in under an hour (mainly), and were playable as two player games as well as with more players. So the recommendations some would describe as “gateway” games but they are games that meet the criteria I've just listed. So here is the list I suggested:
Are there any you would recommend that I have missed? If so leave your suggestions in the comments below!
Now I know in a post at the end of last year I wrote about games I was planning to buy at the start of this year (oh yeah, Happy New Year dear reader). Well I thought it might be an idea to share what my current wish list is for games in 2015. What am I looking forward to, what's on my radar, what do I like the look of. Now this list is in no particular order.
Expansions that are hovering on the wishlist
So that's the current wish list I have. How many will I get? Who knows? It's always in flux. Like Orleans I saw that reviewed today, there will be new releases through out the year, and one or two will be must haves I'm sure and push one or two of the above further down the queue. It's nice having a list though, it doesn't mean I'm going to buy them all, it just means these games are ones I like the look of at the moment, and if I had the spare cash would consider spending on one of the above.
As I was discussing with my friend Alan over Christmas (and I must of bored him with my boardgame talk), well it was more explaining/justifying, that I spend a lot of time researching the games I'm interested in. I watch/read reviews, watch game plays (if available), read the forums on BGG. Money is not in endless supply, and some of these games can be an expensive investment. So time spent researching before hand in my opinion is time well spent. It doesn't guarantee that the game once played will be to my liking but it greatly helps to reduce that risk. So you can be sure that I've already clocked a bit of time in researching the games/expansions on the wish list above.
So what do you think of my wish list? Has it given you any ideas for your own list? Do you have any recommendations that you think I'd enjoy? Why not let me know in the comments below?
It's not until you start putting stuff together that it suddenly dawns on you just how much stuff you will be taking. It happens when you pack for a holiday, a backpacking trip or a hike. You think oh I'll take this and I'll need that. And you don't think it's a lot, then finally everything you have thought of, remembered gets put into one place and that omg “there's so much stuff, too much stuff” moment occurs.
All of a sudden the games I listed plus a couple extra are in one place. And that photo above hasn't got the X-Wing stuff included. I've only got a little Ford Ka! The Space Hulk box will fill it up by itself!
Do I really need to take that many games? Will we get time to play them all? Should I bother with X-Wing? If I don't take them all which ones do I leave behind?
I know one evening my friend Mark is coming round to play a game or two, so the “gateway” games have to stay. Plus I'm visiting a friend who isn't a gamer, maybe I can introduce him to the delights of games with the “gateway” games.
I can't not take Space Hulk after all I've said about the search for a copy of the game over the years. I hate decisions like this, each game has a good reason for being selected for this trip.
What would you do?
Posted by me using my iPad and the Blogsy app