Rampant disease! Again?!?

Another Friday night, and yet again the world is caught in the grips of Pandemic.
This time we're trying the 'In the Lab' expansion, adding extra flavour to the process of discovering the cures for the four diseases.
Just L, Kn, and myself playing tonight -pausing the game about halfway through as Kn ran out of puff.
So far blue (the "Blue Flu") has been cured, but black and yellow are getting away from us. (Black = Zombies?)

Star Wars!

K and I enjoyed a game of the Star Wars TCG Pocketmodels game on Saturday night.

I decided we should 'team up' and play against an imaginary opponent, as then K and I could discuss our card selections and tactics freely - making it more of a learning experience as well.

We decided to play the Rebel Alliance, and so I chose the Imperial opponent forces and K and I worked out what might make a good Rebel force.

Unsurprisingly, the 'opponent' made a couple of poor decisions and K and I managed to destroy the opposing fleet.

It was a fun evening with K, and I have to admit that the Star Wars TCG is not a bad little game.  (and to be honest, something about all the little Star Wars ships is hammering on my collectors button)

  

Saved the World!

Woot! Smashed the game Pandemic today. K played the Medic brilliantly. Love how fast he grabs the intricacies of these games :)
S was with us after a business trip from Perth, and I have to tell you - playing Pandemic with two trained medical scientists who actually work fighting diseases adds a whole extra level to the game :)

Dice... In....Spaaaaaace!

Taken on the ISS

Friday Night Games - Rampage!

Gonna try to remember to blog the Friday night games regularly for the rest of the year.
So tonight was "Rampage!" - our four kaiju attempt to eat the most of the city. Kn has a strong game, playing his attributes well in attacking our kaiju and going for extra points, but in the end it is L who pulls out the big win with many eaten meeples and a good number of teeth claimed from us as well!

Big BadaBOOM!

Woot!  I got mail!

My LITKO order arrived yesterday, and I'm nerding out over little bits of plastic (again).

For on table bling during FWC (and other games, I'm sure) I've got myself some 'Smoking Wreckage', 'Medium Artillery' and 'Micro Blast' markers. 

They are very well made, with nice crisp edges (the artillery blasts were actually a bit ouchy as I pushed them onto their bases!).  Some assembly is required, but none of the bits I received had any problems fitting onto each other, and all I had to do was add glue.  I used my Airfix model glue, as I didn't want to risk using something (like superglue) that would fog the plastic.  (I did do a small test area first, just to be sure)

Below is the result of a late evening excitedly gluing.  No fingers were glued together in the making of these markers.

A lot of explosions

And because I am hanging out to use them, here's a small diorama showing the markers 'in action'...

A destroyed Battle Wagon in front of a unit of suppressed Orks, while another two orks are narrowly missed by an artillery barrage. 

Squats tend to tinker, ya know.

Speaking of Squats, I was considering the options available in the list for them and was feeling a bit restricted.  So I figured, ya know - I bet you'd have a hard time convincing a Squat not to re-jig their equipment any chance they could get.

So I got to re-jiggering...

The flamer on the Squat Trike is a nice piece of kit, ignores cover and hits anything in a line for 20cm... but sometimes you don't want to get that close.
Sooo, well, I've got all these Imperial LasCannons just lying around.  How could a short hairy engineer resist the temptation?

Nice!

Now... that covers those that like to reach out and tap something, but what about those that like to clamp on the trigger for some real rock'n'roll?

Heavy bolters for that!

 


Finally, the standard 'Rhino' APC is a bit of a light-weight.  Any Squat worth his steel-cap boots and overalls could see it needs to be up-gunned.  More LasCannons!

Not quite an IFV now, but with a bit more to add to a fire-fight...

 Looking forward to finishing the paint jobs on these and adding them to the Brotherhood motor pool!
  

Waargh!

Just a quick update on the Orks.  

They are coming along nicely, although slowly (as all wargaming projects are at the moment)

Soon the first batch of boyz will be ready to charge out and cause some havoc for the local Squats.

L-R: Gun Wagonz, Gretchin, Boyz, Warbozz, Attack Wagonz, Nobz, NobBozz.

Another cool board game

A few weeks ago I got the phone call from my friendly local gamestore that finally another game I saw on Tabletop had come in.

Tsuro - The Way of the Path.  A gorgeously produced game with a simple yet strong gameplay.

The players are dragons, or perhaps dragon-riders, who must fly the path as it is revealed before them without either crashing into another player or being on a path that leads the off the edge of the board.

The box is beautiful.  Opening it reveals a beautiful rice paper insert first, then the heavy card board folded in four.  The rules are on a piece of folded card.  The tiles that form the paths are neatly stowed in the box, as are the player markers.

I'm thinking if I could find about 8 smallish Asian dragon figures they'd be fun to paint and would add to the feel of the game.  

The kids don't quite appreciate the strategy of it yet, but they'll grow into it.  We had a game of it on Easter Sunday with more adult players and it went really well.

Catching up

OK, so it has been a while since I commanded a battalion of Leopard 2A4 across Germany's fields, or swept my horde of Mongols across the steppes, or even given ol' Jerry some what-for I should bally well say so!

However, I have still been able to enjoy some games of the less lead-intensive type.

Here are some games I have enjoyed these last few months:

Fluxx - Star Fluxx, Zombie Fluxx and Monty Python Fluxx.

Yeah - it is a weird game, and it took a couple of games to really understand what i was doing enough to start to feel like I had any kind of say in what was going on (it initially feels like you are just getting dragged along by the game, but it is possible to regain some control once you realise how the cards interact)

This is popular enough now that I keep a couple of decks in my desk drawer at work and we have had numerous games over lunch.  Star Fluxx is the favourite.

Munchkin

Inspired by the Geek and Sundry show Table Top on YouTube, my manager picked up Munchkin.  We have had a couple of games now, and its a shame we can't drink at work, coz its a great beer and pretzels game.  It does seem that a game can get a little unbalanced though, the last winner had the table in front of him covered in cards equipping and beefing up his munchkin, while the rest of us had a whole bunch of nuffin.

Last Night on Earth

Another Table Top hit.  We had a games night at my manager's place back before Australia Day, and finished the night with a introductory game of this.

Good fun as your few survivors explore the buildings of the town looking to fulfil the mission criteria so they can escape while fighting off hordes of zombies.  Feels a lot like Mall Of America, except it has a game turn clock to keep you moving along.  

I was controlling the two college students and it was funny how the guy was pretty useless and kept trying to make out with the girl (an action card the zombie player can get) but she was ruthless once she got hold of a pistol.  Good fun, looking forward to the harder missions.

Memoire 44 online

Still enjoying an occasional late game on the laptop before bed.  
I like the combine mechanic of choosing a card to play, and then making tactical movement decisions this game offers.

Zombie Dice

Yeah, another Table Top recommendation.  Damn you Wil Wheaton!!!

Wheaaaaaattttooooooooooon!!!!!!

Great game, though.  Push-your-luck dice roller as you try to collect brains and not get shot in the face.  The kids loved it last Friday, we played 4 times.  Kn grabbed the idea really fast, balancing his risk and boldness.  He also grocked the different coloured dice really quickly!

So, still getting some games in, and building up the games cupboard as well.