The well-being day came and went. I did get to play some of the games I took with me in the afternoon.

Deep Sea Adventure was a hit with my friend Sam. I think she might be getting a copy once she is back from her holiday. In the meantime I showed Sam the Oink games app on her phone with the game (I think) free.

Love Letter along with Cat in the Box, and Sushi Go Party also hit the table that afternoon.

It was a great afternoon gaming with friends and colleagues who I don’t usually get a chance to play with. I hope that I get a chance to do this again.

Sadly Scythe Expeditions didn’t arrive by Friday evening. I knew it was a long shot. The update from Stonemaier was UK/Europe would be shipping this week. I was hoping that there might be a small chance it’d make an appearance but it was really wishful thinking.

I know Spiral Galaxy has started shipping however I’d love to know how many champions are in the UK with Expeditions orders. I’m not totally convinced they are shipping champions first. Or are there that many champions in the UK that ordered it?

Anyway last night was a chance to play a game or two with Gavin. It’s been a while since we last had an opportunity to play some games. With the stars aligning Diego was also able to join us, plus Julie and her son.

We started off playing Star Wars: The Clone Wars.

I really like this game. Obviously the theme is right up my alley. I am a Star Wars fan.

The components are great. The models of the villains and the Jedi are really good. Plus the robot figures that are used instead of disease cubes are not only detailed but have a variety of different poses.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars uses the pandemic engine. And I really like the changes they made to it.

The most obvious is the completion of missions and defeating the villian instead of curing diseases. Another is there are no outbreaks. Instead a block aid ship gets placed that needs taking out first.

Setup is much quicker with the missions. There is no shuffling cards into decks.

Talking of cards you don’t draw cards at the end of your turn. Instead drawing a card is one of the four actions you can take. Giving you much more control over your hand of cards, or allowing you to go hunting for a card.

Naturally the game beat us. Sorry Ventress defeated us. It had looked like Ventress was going to beat us royally. We had only completed one mission, the threat level was going up far to fast. But then we had a spurt of completing the remaining three missions and having a chance to defeat Ventress. However we ran out of time before we got that chance.

I think Nathan is going to enjoy playing this.

My final game with everyone was Vaalbara which Diego totally rocked. I left them playing Perudo.

A great evening gaming, and a long overdue catch up with Gavin.