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.