Goal Met! 52/52! 27:1!
I managed to mee my goal of playing 52 Board/Card/RPG games and 52 miniature games last year. I also managed to diminish my lead and plastic piles 27 times faster than the gre--I painted, had painted or completed 27 figures for every one I acquired. The ratio was WAY higher until I traded for and was given a bunch of unpainted and half-painted figures. And I did all of this way under my budget! This year will be harder to meet the goals as I have had to cut two conventions from the calendar due to conflicts...
In the final week of 2012:
The first night of my Nephew's visit, we broke out Castle Ravenloft. It was great while we had five players but we lost one to pre-Christmas obligations. The rest of us muscled through the fatigue from travel, shoipping, work and school to try to Recover the Shrine of Ravenloft. We would have suceeded but in our fatigue, we forgot to cancel an event using some excess cards. The event we failed to cancel caused us to involuntary flee through a series of traps: Crushing Walls, Spears and then Fire Gouts. Needless to say we died as crispy critters.
My nephews and I played two games of Loot and Scoot in the run up to Christmas. It is an entertaining game of competitive dungeon crawling. Not having the actual game and unable to find the time to go out for it (too much building and wrapping), we bought the iPad application version. It is fun but not something I would buy in hard copy. Why? It's essentially parallel play and that does not really work for me in the sub-genre of Dungeon Crawl. Don't get me wrong it was fun. We had lots of laugh and enjoyed the competition. It was also neat designing your dungeon and exploring the other players' dungeons. But it lacked something for me--good game to get as an app.
My friend Stuart came down following Christmas. In the first evening I was too tired to set up a miniature game so we played Betrayal at the House on the Hill. The first game was quite good with the Haunt being a villain who shrank the other explorers and then let a cat out in our midst. We fled from room to room until one party member found a toy airplane. Then, it was Stuart Little to the rescue riding an Airhog. We escaped. Barely.
On the morning of Stuart's visit, he and I played two games of Alien Attack. I was thrashed each time. Essentially it was a race game and I have a tendency to push the envelope in the race games. The same reason I won't go get a pilot's license. All in all, it's a good game for introducing people to the concept of gaming. I wonder how the expansions will effect it. The first expansion adds some tougher aliens. The second adds Men In Black and National Guard. I suspect, they will only work if there is a player significantly better than the others and you need to disadvantage them. Frankly, I bought the expansion for the limited access figures.
Later the same morning, Stuart and I gathered my son and nephews and we played the C.A.T. Rescue from Space Hulk. As always this is a fantastic game. We played a game, switched sides and played it a second time. Both games were excellent. A big Thank you to Stuart for coming by for a visit and running some games. I received an an awesome present of some of the Dwarven Forge Ice Caverns. This is good stuff. It rivals the caverns in it's coolness (pun intended). I see an ice caves of Hoth game in my future. Or perhaps a Pulp exploration. Or an adventure down to the Mountains of Madness...where did that Shoggoth get to?
My various projects saw minimal activity as I had a bunch of family here...nine was the house count with a few in and out through the week. That said, I did some little thinking and planning:- Chaco enjoyed some planning for terrain. I think I may have talked Barry into sculpting a fort or observation poast.
- Colonialism/VSF got some paint brush time and some camels based.
- Conan is creeping forward all the time. I built more models, cleaned others and primed a third batch. I also began considering trying Hail Caeser.
- Fantasy enjoyed a rush of last minute work on New Year's Eve when I closed a sweet deal on some HeroQuest stuff. I also tracked down a free site where the scenarios and rules can be downloaded (http://www.yeoldeinn.com/). I had fun with this many years ago and suppose it might work very well. I'll have to run a game or two when the trade is finalized.
- French Revolution got a bit of research on the Cisalpine Republic. It also had some planning with Magister Militum about the Prussians
- Gamma World enjoyed some more planning as I piulled excess Star Wars, HeroClix and D&D figures from my boxes.
- Star Wars is finished. I managed to get the last five figures I deemed necessary to regard the collection as complete. In addition, I found out Wizards of the Coast is no longer releasing any more collections. The last figure, you ask? Cad Bane. I am embarassed to say I paid as much for him as a GW character figure. But, the collection is done. That is, almost-done as I still need to finish organizing and basing the lot.
As far as Painting and Painters in the final week of 2011:
- Chaco War: Basing of the Troops continued. I found the soil needed some brushing to instill a more dry look to it.
- Conan/LOTR/Colonialism/Pirates/Ancients/Medievals: I finished Seven pack Camels from Essex that have much value to many genres; Conan, Ancients, Arabian Nights, Medievals, Pulp, erc. I also started the next phase and started prepping various war bands.
- Dwarf King Lair is in the final stages of highlights and basing.
- Gamma World--Boy is it hard to get the Dreamblade bases off of the figures!
BLOGS:
Matt's Blog weighs in with four great AAR's (Zombies and three Dr. Who adventures) :
