Yesterday was a travel day.

The day started off with the usual travel prep of getting in the supplies for mum and the furballs. I usually use that shopping trip to pick up bits and pieces for Nath and me too.

Once back home and the shopping put away it’s time to start getting the stuff together for my visit. Clothes, games, food, and gadgets. I hope I have packed everything as it goes into the car. There is a calm acceptance of the fact I know I will have forgotten something.

All packed it is time to say my farewells to the two apex predators and mum. I left Nico in charge.

Three hours driving south with the latest Jack Reacher novel keeping me company. I managed to avoid the potential traffic queues at the expected spots on the M25 and M3.

While Nathan was out babysitting his niece for an hour I decided to make tea after repairing the hole in the bag in my copy of Splendor Duel.

Earlier whilst I was shopping I had an idea for a dish to cook for us and had bought the ingredients. It was time to see how that idea worked out.

I chopped up an onion and softened it in the pan. Added chopped chorizo to release the paprika infused oil from it. Then a good squeeze of tomato paste, salt, pepper, mixed herbs, garlic powder, smoked paprika, and onion powder were added. After a minute I added two cans of chopped tomatoes. Followed by drained cans of beans (pinto,black,black eye,cannellini,kidney, and butter), sliced cottage sausage (a Central European pork sausage), a splash of Worcestershire sauce, a pinch of sugar, and some vegetable stock.

I don’t know what you’d call this. It was kinda like a casserole/stew. I wasn’t following a recipe. I was just making it up as I went.

I was pretty happy with how it turned out. The balance was about right. I thought that there would be a strong almost overpowering taste of tomato. But there wasn’t.

The aim was to create something hearty, and healthy. I think I achieved that. Although you could argue the sausage and chorizo aren’t that healthy.

I served it with some sliced tiger bread. Ideally a fresh french stitch or tiger baton would have been used. But I used what was at hand.

Nath isn’t a big fan of beans. But he did enjoy it.

There was plenty left for the next day, and to freeze.

Afterwards as I sleeved LotR Duel for Middle Earth Nath played on his Xbox.

Yes no board games got played. But I’d done some needed game “admin” so things were ready for the next day.

That’s Christmas 2023 been and gone.

We are getting close now to that final top ten and my number one game of all time.

Here we go with 40 to 31.

31 Onitama (New entry)
32 Star Wars: The Clone Wars (New entry)
33 The Manhattan Project (Down from 15)
34 Santorini (Down from 8)
35 Long Shot: The Dice Game (New entry)
36 For Sale (New entry)
37 Red Rising (New entry)
38 Survive: Escape from Atlantis! (New entry)
39 Marvel Dice Masters: Avengers vs. X-Men (New entry)
40 Three Sisters (New entry)

Ebony my Mums dog passed away this evening.

Ebony and her brother Toby were trouble egging each other on all the time.

But they were beautiful souls.

Ebony always wanted attention and was my special girl.

The last few weeks Ebony, like Strider decided sleeping downstairs was better than going upstairs at night. Meaning Mum slept downstairs as well. Yes Mum had a proper bed to sleep on.

Ebony hadn’t been her usual self with food the last few days either becoming very fussy.

The signs has been there that soon we would no longer be sharing the same path.

However even when you know the inevitable is coming, it doesn’t make it any easier.

We knew she wouldn’t make it through the night. So before I left mum after tea I gave Ebony a hug, and thanked her, told her I loved her and asked her to say hi to the others for me.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Darren Christie (@whitespider1066)

Ebony will be missed greatly by Mum, myself and the two attack chihuahuas.

The house will feel empty and strange for a while. But in time we will adjust and remember the undying love that Ebony had for us.

Thank you Ebony

I grew up in Wisbech in the seventies.

Life was simpler. Despite only having three tv channels I think my tv and movie education was richer than the media bloat that we have now.

Holidays for me were watching which ever 1930’s serial the BBC had decided to show each morning. I loved Flash Gordon with Larry Buster Crab, King of the Rocketmen (the inspiration for Disneys The Rocketeer). I got to watch classic comedies from the likes of Harold Lloyd or Laurel and Hardy. I had Tarzan movies and tv show to enjoy. The Lone Ranger helped set my moral compass! I loved series like Champion the wonder horse, Skippy the bush kangaroo, and Whirlybirds, etc.

But one series both tv and movie that I loved was Planet of the Apes.

The tv show was great for the time, and like so many I watched at that age had fewer episodes than I remember. When I’ve looked into getting the series on dvd I’m like “no way was there just fourteen episodes”.

My memory of the show has me thinking it was formulaic for the time with the protagonists wandering from village to village fixing a wrong. Which seems to describe a lot of shows at the time such as Kung Fu, Logan’s Run, etc.

Mum and Dad even bought me a Planet of the Apes mask. It was plastic (light grey if my memory isn’t playing tricks on me), no hair, just something that went over the face held in place by elastic.

But after being left high and dry by the tv series when it ended I got to enjoy the cartoon series instead on (my memory wants to say) a Saturday morning.

I liked at the time how from that first movie and it’s shock ending, the movies, tv show, and cartoon expanded the world and lore. Although I was too young at the time to know what lore was, or pick up on the allegory/themes in the movies.

The Tim Burton, Mark Wahlberg reboot in 2001 was watchable, but despite its modern production values didn’t have the same impact emotionally as the original movie.

It’d be another ten years before we’d get more Ape movies that used modern sfx to create realistic looking apes and “remake“ the origin of the series. I love these movies. They did a great job of updating the franchise and it’s themes. I wish others would learn from this.

I’ve skipped the original book all this was based/inspired by (although my Audible library may be growing soon) as I’ve never read it. And back when I was enthralled by each new movie, and episode I had no idea there was a book behind all of this.

It had also escaped me there were also comic books expanding the universe. But thinking about it I shouldn’t be surprised. I need to correct this oversight soon.

So it’s fair to say I’m a fan. Not a hardcore fan that can quote chapter and verse about the lore or lines from the movies and shows.

Is it any surprise that I was then drawn to the theme of After Us?

The nice thing is the French designer acknowledges the influence of Planet of the Apes on the game.

However that’s were it ends.

To be honest like the majority of deckbuilders the theme is so paper thin to be non-existent.

I love the art by Vincent Dutrait. It truly is beautiful.

What I like about this deckbuilder is the simultaneous play. It really does speed things up.

Having now played the game at five players and two players I think it worked well at both player counts.

I like that this stands out from a lot of other deckbuilders with it being a race to get to eighty points, and not all about inflicting as much damage as possible to the other player.

There is very little player interaction, with the little there is in the game being which reward you copy from one of your neighbours in the second phase.

But it has to be that way with the chaotic simultaneous play.

I love the arranging your hand of four cards each round so you complete as many frames as possible. As the only frames you can activate are complete ones. Incomplete frames get you nothing.

Not having the buy 5 points tile out made a big difference in the two player game. I definitely prefer the game without it.

Is it my favourite deckbuilder? No. But it is probably top of the list if I want to play a deckbuilder with a group of people. It’s fun.

The second long weekend of May, aka The Kings Coronation started off so well yesterday with my car not starting. “It’s dead Jim” to paraphrase a famous fictional starship doctor.

Luckily a very kind neighbour was able to give me a lift to work. So I wasn’t late and losing pay (being paid by the hourly that could have hit me hard). Then thanks to a colleague at work upon hearing my car woes I investigated whether there was a college bus I could catch.

It turns out there was and it was free.

My walk home from the centre of town from the Horsefair allowed me to stop in at The Luxe and get a ticket for Guardians of the Galaxy 3 (GOG3) on the Saturday.

Sadly the car troubles meant I was not able to attend the Fenland Gamers club night.

Today after getting a couple of magazines to read and a birthday card for Mum I sat down with a vanilla latte and a bag of Galaxy Minstrels to watch the third and final part of the Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy.

I was a bit apprehensive about the movie as I knew it was a bit darker than the other two entries in the trilogy. Especially with the subject matter it touched upon.

GOG3 can be viewed in a couple of ways. The first as a separate stand alone movie, and the second as part of the three movie story arc. Although in reality it’s three movies, a Christmas special, the Infinity Gauntlet and End Game, plus the dire Thor 4 Love and Thunder.

As a stand alone movie it works, but just. You really do need to have seen the previous entries to the story to get the most from GOG3.

As the final entry I think this is a really great end to the story.

Yes tonally GOG3 is darker than the previous parts. It does have moments of humour, but these are used more sparingly and to greater effect. In a way I’m reminded of when the first Guardians came out. It felt fresh especially with its humour. And now Gunn has done it again. Pulling back on the humour, touching on more adult themes. A stark contrast to the way Marvel movies have been going in recent years.

As always the soundtrack is awesome, great use of source music, and there are one or two scenes that are similar to the previous movies.

I really enjoyed the movie. A couple of moments near the end my eyes nearly leaked. Which I say bravo to Gunn for manipulating me emotionally to that point.

I’d like to say Marvel are back on track. But at the moment GOG3 seems the outlier from the past few years.

Whilst I was enjoying GOG3 the latest three promo packs for Rolling Realms arrived.

If you get all the promo packs currently available for Rolling Realms you have doubled the number of realms that came with the game.

I like to think that Jamey Stegmaier has invented a new roll and write sub genre called the living roll and write. It’s the roll and write version of an lcg. How else do you describe the promo packs for the game? They work just like the packs that lcgs get adding more content.

Right time to read those magazines I bought. Laters.

Thanks to the Americans writing dates incorrectly and bad licence plate style spelling we get to celebrate Mar10 day.

I’m not complaining really, it’s nice to have an excuse to talk about that legendary Italian plumber Mario.

I’m not going to lie, and what I’m going to say may be considered by some as heresy. However my favourite Mario game might just be the GameBoy classic Super Mario Land.

This along with Tetris, and Zelda Links Awakening were games I played a lot at the time.

You’ve read about my Doom memories from my time working in Byfleet. But before Doom back in 1990 when I first starting working there my lunchtimes were playing on my GameBoy. During that time Donkey Kong joined the games I’d play to death.

Despite not finishing Super Mario Land (I got close) it still has a special place in my gaming memories.

But today I’m not firing up my GameBoy with Super Mario Land in it.

I’m going to celebrate Mario Day by playing my Super Mario Bros Game & Watch.

Laters.

When this post goes live I’ll be asleep.

Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas/Seasonal Greetings.

I hope everyone has a great few days R&R from work.

Please be kind to those of us working over this holiday period.

Darren and the Attack Chihuahuas

A week and a half ago I somehow ended up negotiating for a copy of Space Hulk Death Angel the card game plus two of the rare expansions.

I already had the core game, and was only really interested in the two expansions.

But unlike the others that had expressed interest in only the expansions if the seller was going to split the lot up. I reasoned buying the lot would be easier and make me a more attractive to the seller.

I guessed right.

There wasn’t much negotiating to be fair as we both were not that far off in the price we were thinking of.

So a deal was made.

With the arrival of Space Hulk Death Angel the card game and the two expansions (see photo below for which) it got me thinking about my other grail expansions.

A grail expansion or game for that matter is a game/expansion that you would love to own but for the following reason don’t. That reason is because the game/expansion is out of print, never likely to be printed again, and going for silly money on the second hand market. In other words difficult and expensive to get.

My grail expansions are the following:

I could add the Tannhausen expansions possibly to the above. But at the moment I’m not sure.

If I ever get any of these grail expansions it will be by luck, and I had some spare money at that precise moment in time. I’m not actively hunting them down.

So if anyone is interested I do have a spare copy of Space Hulk Death Angel the card game for sale ;)

I think it’s time to rectify the glaring omission of mine that I pointed out in my post on the new official Stonemaier Games scoring app.

All of us at Whitespider1066 Towers (basically me, and the two attack chihuahuas Nico and Loki) would like to wish Jamey and all those that work for and with Stonemaier Games a happy tenth anniversary.

It’s no secret that I’m a Stonemaier Games fanboy.

There is banter about me being so at our club game nights from time to time.

Now I don’t own every game by Stonemaier Games. That might come as a big shock to one or two of you out there. Which means I haven’t played them all.

An even bigger shock for everyone (unless you have been reading this blog for a long long time) is I actually don’t like one of their games! But it would count as two because if I didn’t like the original then I wouldn’t like the themed version of it either (which I haven’t played).

Have you guessed which game it is?

Yep Between Two Cities. Back when we played Jonathan’s copy it just didn’t jell with us. So if I didn’t like that game then sadly when Stonemaier released Between Two Castles of Mad King Ludwig there wasn’t much chance of it finding its way into my collection.

But enough of the negative vibe this is meant to be a celebration of Stonemaier Games.

The seven games I do own I absolutely love.

Do I really need to state once again that Scythe is my all time favourite game? I absolutely love the game. I think the only thing I need to add to the game at some point in the future (when finances allow) is the metal mechs.

I’m not sure how a new top 100 games would shake out using paired comparisons but I’d be surprised if a quarter of my top twenty weren’t made up of Stonemaier games.

But what is it that attracts me to Stonemaier games?

Firstly and I don’t think anyone would dispute this, is the production values. For a few years now I would argue Stonemaier have been setting the standards others try to achieve. From the components to art, and even the rule books. They are of such a high standard.

Then game play. The games are so accessible, usually easy to pick up, but offer depth as well. Plus they usually have an interesting twist on the core game mechanic.

Considering the high production standards of the games, the rrp is amazing, and surprisingly cheaper than expected. Often before release I’ve tried estimating what the game will cost and always I’m way over.

Then there is the support of the games via expansions, accessories, and easily accessible promos. Let alone the actually very good customer service.

I’m looking forward to the next ten years and the fond memories it will bring playing my current Stonemaier games, and future ones to come.

Nathan has been in the US of A on a family holiday with his biological family the last couple of weeks.

Before he left I had asked if he ended up in a Target, if by some fluke they had one in stock, could he get me a copy of the new D&D Starter Set Dragons of Stormwreck Isle.

Until I think October, this has been a Target exclusive.

Nath got home early last week, and when we finally managed to speak yesterday he said he’d managed to get it. He’d got the stores last copy. Which was a miracle really. I’d seen elsewhere that people were going to Target only to find it had sold out.

Yeah I know not much of a getting it early. Especially by the time I get to visit him. But still.

Nath and Josh (one of his older brothers) did buy some Pokémon cards over there. Much to the chagrin of other biological members of the family. I don’t get that attitude. But I’m glad they didn’t let it put them off buying something that brings them joy. There was a bit of education for Nath from his brother as he discovered how much some Pokémon cards can be worth. Do they play the game? No. I think they just enjoy the collecting side! Which is cool.

Nath nearly bought Alien Fate of the Nostromo from Target that also came with an Ash mini. When he finds out that in the base game Ash is just a standee not a mini he’s going to regret being talked out of it.

But at least I know what to get him for his birthday now. And I look forward to playing this with him.

Whilst we were chatting on the phone I was telling him about new games that I’d got. Sadly we won’t be playing Twilight Inscription together unless I take a folding table with me. His circular table just isn’t large enough. So it joins a growing list of games we can’t play on our visits.

However I do have new arrivals that we can play like Brazil Imperium. With its modular board the two player setup will fit easily.

Nath did request I bring Wingspan with me on my next visit as he really likes the game. That really does make me happy.

I love that we can share a love of board games.

Obviously we have more than that in common. We are both geeks. We like the same sort of movies and tv shows. We love video games. You get the idea.

However it’s when we play board games together that I feel we are getting some deeper more meaningful quality time together.

It’s just a shame his biological family don’t want to share in that sort of time with him. I think they’d all benefit from it. I know Kate sometimes tries. She even owns Wingspan (but hasn’t got to grips with it yet).

Anyway I’m hoping to get to see Nathan real soon. Assuming my rota for next couple of weeks doesn’t change.

I just wish we lived closer together.

But between visits I’ll take our phone calls.