So many Squats...

Zillions of the buggers!

So the process starts with prepping the production line of infantry. Rows of warriors and beserkers awaiting their base coat.

Also standing by are some Predators which will be providing some decent armour support.





Loving even just looking at these guys, flashbacks to the 90's.

30 minutes every day

As I was listening to the "Meeples and Miniatures" 10th anniversary special a few days ago, they mentioned in passing a philosophy of getting in just a 'half-hour a day' of painting and the projects will just fly by.
So... let's give it a go. I've been wanting to get my Squat army rounded off for ages, plus the painting itch has been growing for months.
Been wanting to stoke up the airbrush as well :)

Friday night Munchkin

Just a quick entry for a quick Friday night's game of Munchkin. 

Kn, L and I had a fun little game.  I thought I was doing quite well, with a good initial hand that got me up to +8 right away - but it was Kn who quietly and quickly raced ahead and suddenly was equiped with +16.  When he shot ahead to level 9, was ready to have his final battle and whipped out two cards that added another +10 - yeah, that was game over.

Well played, Kn, well played...

Friday, some oldies

Friday, 9 April

After a gap where we were busy on the Friday evenings, we had Kn, Kr and I home this Friday evening (L was off to the art gallery)

We started with an old favourite (I think the kids had a burst of nostalgia) - Super Farmer.  As seems to be typical, my dice rolls plagued me with herd munching predators while the kids cornered the rabbit market and finally built up their super-herd.  A win to Kr with Kn close behind.

  

The next game was a couple of rounds of the Angry Birds card game, which combines a dice  rolling game with a dexterity challenge at the end as you try to knock over the Boss Pig with a flicked dice.  Simple fun.

 

Next was Gloom, but some rules confusion undid the game.  So then we finished off with some more Super Farmer, which Kr won again.

 

Jinx also wanted to play Super Farmer...

Friday stall, long weekend game day

Attempted Catan-Egypt again this Friday, but unfortunately the kids ran out of battery pretty early into the evening, so the game was postponed but never returned to.

However, the long weekend provided a great game day on Monday afternoon with D and R coming over for a nice dinner and plenty of games.

L, Kn and I warmed up with a couple of games of Run Zombie and then a couple of games of Bang the Dice Game.  D and R arrived just then, so we introduced them to Bang and had two great five player games.  The interesting quirk was that despite thorough shuffling and attempts to randomise the dealing of roles, we managed to have exactly the same roles for both games!  R as the Sherrif, D and I as Outlaws, Kn as the Deputy and L as the Renegade.  In the first game the sheriff and deputy won, and the second went to the outlaws.

Then we got into Betrayal at The House on the Hill.  Great fun game although we were all unfortunately eated by a tentacled horror, but you get that/ So that was a win to D.

The last game of the evening was Ticket To Ride, a classic pleaser.  Unpredictable to the end, R came through for a strong second place, with D third and myself a distant last.  But the big win went to L who completed a bunch of routes and secured the longest route with the most trains in a chain I can ever remember seeing! (43)

Building Egypt

Friday 4th March
This Friday night game was Catan - Egypt.
All of us joined in, although poor Kr's batteries ran out first and she more or less snoozed to the finish. The rest of us had a good game, though. I got out to an early lead with some good positioning on the map, but L and Kn managed to get close towards the end - Kn building many Temple Cities and L working the production cards. But I secured the win with the longest trade road and some temple cities and settlements. Good game!

More robo-painting

Got up a bit early this Saturday morning and enjoyed a quiet hour of painting.  Still working on the figures for RoboRally.

Friday night Munchkin

26 February 2016
Friday night gaming, and we decided to go with Munchkin!  It's been a while since we last played, but all the fun of dealing and backstabbing was there - Kn doing a good job of running interference as L demonstrated how its done with buying levels and picking good fights.  I had built up a strong 20+ level munchkin, but the dark horse of the day was Kr, who snuck up from behind and came through to win in a close finish. 

The stone tower

21 February 2016
I have been eyeing off this fish-tank decoration for months as a cool piece for my planned sci-fi desert table I'm slowly working on - but it was just a bit more expensive than I was keen to pay.  Not unreasonable, just not at my trigger point.

Until I found it in their half-price bin!

WooHooo!

X-Wing 2 : The kid kicks butt

19 February 2016
Kn and I are getting into X-Wing more.  So we lined up for a second Friday night in a row for another game.  The gamer itch had needed a scratch, so we had a new A-Wing to try out as well - Kn opted to take the Rebels this time.
We worked out our small squadrons using the free download of Army Builder which only allows three ships per squadron when trialling it - but that is fine for our purposes right now.  We agreed that 74 points gave us enough points for a reasonable match-up.
The rebels had a named pilot for the A-Wing, and two unnamed pilots for the X-Wing and Y-Wing.  I took the Imperials with a named pilots for all the TIE advanced and two TIE fighters.   I was also keen to try the Swarm Tactics ability as well.

One turn to close and then the next we were into the turning fight and Kn started showing that he has picked up the rules and some of the subtlties of the game pretty fast!  One of my TIE fighters went down quite quickly - killing my idea of using Swarm Tactics.  Another couple of turns and I managed to damage the X-Wing and take the shields of all the other fighters, but also got damaged in the process.  Unable to turn quickly, Kn demonstrated still more understanding of the game, manouvering his ships to set-up an effective kill-box for my crippled ships, and providing some smack along with it.  Somehow, my TIE Advanced survived long enough to make a pass and take out the X-Wing, but was soon cleaned up after that.  A comprehensive win to Kn but the empire will be back!

X Wing!

Friday, 12 Feb

After a short practice solo game, a barely started test game and a no-show game, we finally got a full game of X Wing on the table for a family effort.

L and Kn took the Imperials, bringing out Darth Vader, Mauler, and an academy pilot to take on Kr with Luke Skywalker (X Wing) and myself with Dutch in a Y Wing.

For a game where most of us were learning on the job, it went pretty well. I can see how the game would shine when all players know how to finesse the balance of their ships and various add-ons, and play the actions to their best advantage.

Kr was unfortunate enough to get mobbed quite quickly by all three Imperials while I was having trouble bringing the slower Y Wing to bear on the enemy, which left me not lasting long as the TIE fighters then all pounced.

Kn and I are still energized enough by this taste to try again soon, and the new A Wing that I bought to add an option for the Rebels will be seeing action quite soon I feel.

Paint + figure = Amazeballs!!!

26 January 2016
Shock - horror!
I actually managed to sit down and get some painting done!
Actually, not such an accident - just me promising myself it was time to enjoy some painting.

So this is 'Smash-bot' from 'RoboRally'.  After the cool big game we had last weekend, I've had the motivation ramp up to go over the basic inked silver they come with out of the box.
Each will be a distinct colour scheme as well, to help players remember which one is theirs.

So satisfying to pick up a brush again.  It's been way too long.

Long Weekend Gaming

So on this Oz Day weekend we went down to have a day with J and A at their holiday house on Phillip Island. (Nice!) Also there were C (with J and E) and later T (with G) turned up as well.
Apart from enjoying a swim, we managed to get a few games played as well.
As a homage to the past, we started with a couple of rounds of Star Fluxx.
Boss Monster was suggested, but then C had a better suggestion - Boss Monster 2!  So we enjoyed a round of that before heading out for another swim.
Roborally proved to be a hit again, although with seven of us it did take a while. Eventually the younger ones dropped out.
King of Tokyo was fun with C and J and K and K. I managed a smashing double kill on the monsters in Tokyo in one turn, which took J and Kn out. It was a close finish with Kr sneaking in a points win.
The other guys stayed the night, but we had to head back for another busy day on Sunday, so left late for the drive home where everyone but me snoozer in the car.

New Game - BANG!

Picked up a new game the other day, "Bang - the dice game".  Not to be confused with "Bang" which is a card game.  After hearing the D6 Generation talking about it in a recent podcast I decided to keep an eye out for it next time I was in the shops, and that turned out to not be long later.

We played a couple of games on Friday night, and it is a good game - fast, easy to learn, some strategy to master, and the personality cards will keep it fresh for some time to come.

We finished both games with the Outlaws winning via the demise of the Sherrif, which seems like the easiest of the win conditions.

Good fun game, and looking forward to trying it with even more players!

Just an afternoon this time

After the previous weekend's full 12 hour marathon of gaming, we kept it to a more respectable few hours when L's friend D came over on Saturday the 23rd of May.
After a yummy big Asian feed up at the China Bar, we launched into some gaming.  I piled a bunch of our games on the table, and we started with Tsuro, which D had not seen before.
As always, Tsuro impressed with it's beautiful presentation and fun gameplay.  A couple of games were had.

D then introduced us to Saboteur, a great little game where you are dwarves trying to mine your way to the gold, but someone is trying to foil you - or maybe isn't, as the role of saboteur is randomly assigned, and there is a chance that none of the players are it.  I was the saboteur for the first two rounds, and had a great chuckle as L's naturally aggressive gamestyle drew the attention to her, allowing me to succeed with my nefarious schemes! Muah ah ah ah ahhhh!

Then we got to the main game.  D is a longtime Catan player who introduced us to the original game, so we wanted to share our new Egyptian themed Catan with her.
The game went well, but experience won over enthusiasm in the end, with D securing a comfortable victory over L, Kr and myself.

For a whole day!

So the new local FLGS ran a whole day of board-gaming a few Saturdays ago.  On May 16th, the game day called GateCon was an opportunity for Kn and I to get there fairly early and play as many games as possible - to be joined by L and Kr later in the afternoon.  Also there were LnK who were running the D&D 5th Ed demonstration game.

Kn and I paid our gold coin to access the game library and then started with one of our own games brought from home... 

Boss Monster
We bought an expansion for this a couple of weeks before, and this was the first chance to use it.  Lz joined Kn and I as we broke out the "Tools of Hero-Kind" expansion which adds new cards to the game.  The 'Items' give the Heroes some new powers as they enter the dungeons but if they die in a room you (the 'Boss') get to keep and use the item yourself.  In our game they provided a nice little touch, but didn't throw out the game balance or anything.  It was amusing that 'The Fool' hero managed to get an item that allowed it to get through Lz's dungeon and cause a wound to her.  That was a first!

 

Smash Up

We borrowed this from the game library as Kn and I had been keen to have a go since we saw it on TableTop a few days before.  

A card battle game, you randomly put together two factions as your side and then attempt to invade bases with your minions.  When the base is destroyed you gain points based on how many of your minions were on it at the time.  It's a pretty good game, and I was very happy with the performance of my Pirate UFO's.  Kn enjoyed his Ninja Dinosaurs as well.      

We had another game in the afternoon when L and Kr joined us at the con.  

King of Tokyo
Another game that we had seen on Tabletop, and we could borrow from the game library.  Just like SmashUp we were lucky to have found another 'con goer who had experience with this game and could run us through the rules so we could jump in quickly.
Having selected our giant critters we jumped in and started battling it out.
Rolling dice, pushing your luck and working to a strategy all come together for a fun little game.  I managed to buy a heap of added ability cards which helped in the end to secure a win.  Kn loved it enough that we had a second game right away, and then another game later in the afternoon once Kr had joined us.
 

Dominion
Kn took a break from the board games to try some D&D 5th Ed (doing a good job as a Dwarf Fighter) and so I joined in with some others who were setting up a game of Dominion, which looked interesting.
Dominion is a 'deck building' game where you have your own stack of cards that you draw from and add to during your turn, buying new cards to improve your deck and get extra victory points.  At the end of your turn you shuffle your deck again and deal yourself a new hand for your next turn.
It was ok, an interesting concept - and very Euro, with a nice Medieval theme, but I'm not all that taken by it.  Maybe just not enough Ninja Pirate Dinosaurs eating cities.

Munchkin - Legends
Kr and L had joined us by now, after lunch, and it was time to bust out my Munchkin board and get to kicking down doors.
I was hoping for a few more players, to get the back stabbing really going, but there were just four of us this time.  Still had a good game though, and it was nice how the board was received.

Camel Up. Cup? Up.  I guess...
Is it Camel Cup or Camel Up?  Will we ever know?
Great game of racing camels around the pyramid and betting on who will win the sections and overall places.  Interesting mechanism where the pyramid is used as a dice cup to roll out one die at a time to move each camel, the player having to decide how to bet based on the previous players' turn with the camels and then if they want to move a camel or not.
The board is beautiful, the camels are well done - including their stack-ability as they share spaces around the track (hence the Camel Up confusion) and there are nice cards and coins, and the pyramid dice dispenser is a great touch as well.  Fun game.

Smash Up - again
As mentioned before, we had another go at Smash Up so L could have a go.
Kn was on to his third D&D character by now, as Krl worked on his total-party-kill skills.
 

Takenoko
It was really late now, 9pm heading towards closing time at 10pm.  But L and I wanted one final game, and jumped at a chance to try out Takenoko (another Tabletop game).
The lateness was the biggest hurdle as we got our head around the gameplay, but it rapidly became clear that this is a very elegant game with some nice strategy decisions to work with as you build the garden, tend to it and look after the dietary requirements of the panda.
We didn't get to finish it, but we'll happily have another game when the opportunity is found.
 

The End
That was a big day of gaming.  The kids did very well, and we all had a great time. 

Settlers of Catan, but not in Catan

We have a new FLGS! Down the road in Nth Fitzroy is a new game store that also has space for gaming. We checked it out this Sunday, and were badly tempted to buy much stuff. But reason prevailed and we escaped with just the collectors edition of Settlers of Catan - Egypt. Which is just Catan with an Egyptian skin on it, and some nice pieces and an extra scenario.
We also grabbed an expansion pack for Boss Monster, just some extra cards.
L and I managed to get a game in yesterday of the base Settlers rules. It was fun, although we had to fudge a third player as the kids weren't interested this time. It worked out and L won 11vp to my 7vp.
It's a fun game, I can see why it is regarded a classic.

Grrrr! Arrrgh!

Friday night games, and Kn chose "Brown Bear" and 'Rampage!' (aka Trouble in Meeple City)
Brown Bear a simple little game of turn based card drawing with a memory aspect if another player picks up a card you want and puts it back. Fast, so we had four games before moving on.



Then Rampage! Lots of Kaiju fun. Some of us may have tried to focus a bit too much on knocking the teeth out of each other while L snuck away to a good meeple-fed win.

Need more space!

Storage is always a problem. Especially as our board games collection continues to grow. So a couple of weekends ago a quick trip to Bunn-waas and some power tools (woah!) and saw dust resulted in this...
A brand spanking new shelf unit big enough to store more gaming gear in comfort.

First ever game of Settlers Of Catan

Had our first ever game of Settlers Of Catan on Saturday night. Played at a friend of L's place using the expansion to get it up to a 5 player game. Awesome.
Kr and Kn got the hang of it right away, and played well even after a big day. The three adults had a great time and I almost pulled off a win! But was beaten at the post by D 😄
Great game, and I will now definitely be buying it as soon as I'm near a FLGS again!