Well June turned out surprisingly good.
Back to playing SWU on a regular basis, and hoping in the near future I’ll be saying the same about Netrunner. I just need to get something going for Ashes.
So this is how the top 9 for the month ended up.
Let’s finish as tradition dictates with the raw stats.
Some cracking titles hit the table this later half of the month.
Star Wars Unlimited Twin Suns: I have to tip my hat to FFG their Twin Suns precons are fun to play. Is it really a surprise when their spotlight and starter decks have also been fun to play? I finally built a new deck. I call it All the Vaders. I think the title describes it best. It’s very thematic. I have got to play it at a Twin Suns night, and it was fun to play. The Twin Suns playmat is gorgeous. Larger than expected. But amazing value.
West Story A Town Building Game: a 2 player learning game. Which means we went all in and used the expansion stuff as well! Plus the advanced rules!! Ok they added little to no extra overhead to the game. I can see the Machi Koro similarities in the building your town and activating it. However that score track mechanic is something else. Having the zones on the board only accessible based on where you are on the score track, genius. Making victory points optional inspired. Definitely need to get this to the table at higher player counts.
Pili Pili: chaotic fun as usual.
Ginkgopolis: I think my experience of the game was ruined a little by a key rule not being explained properly. Need to possibly play again.
Tropichaos: becoming a go to filler.
Magical Athlete: great light fun asymmetrical racing gaming. That’s a bit of a mouthful but it sums up the game really well. Love the asymmetrical powers, and the drafting.
Bolomaze: this game doesn’t even have a bgg page yet! So the tactic of gathering cards and waiting for the right moment to play them was the winning strategy. So I stayed at the start, got a swap places with another player card, two cancel cards, and move cards. Waited until an opponent got to the top. Swapped places, countered the counter, and moved on to the finish to win. It was an ok game.
Slambo!: wow! Anthony and I played a couple of games while waiting for Marcin. We also played a three player game later. It’s a very quick, fun filler. You are trying to not bust the running total by either going below zero or over ten. Each turn you play a card that even adds or subtracts its value from the running total. First person to collect three cards of shame looses. Quick to teach. Simple quick fun.
Big Shot: a nice auction area control game. It was over due a return to the table. It gets very tactical about where you place the cubes you win in an auction.
Skyrise: an auction area control game that has been over produced. But does look good on the table. It is an interesting game. Definitely would play again.
Big Top: a small auction game. Plays fairly quickly. A nice light auction game.
A brief post with a short video of Ace playing.
At time of posting it’s an estimated 116 days until he joins us.
We are currently in the middle of another heatwave. What’s that the fourth or fifth this year?
Having the tarp up has been a genius idea. With the picnic rug, and about 4 litres of water also out, the garden is dog hot weather friendly.
I can confidently let the dogs decide how much time they want to spend outside, and whether it’s under cover or not. The back door is open. They are in control.
It’s the only way to handle this heat with them.
The old sheds contents is still in the garden.
I thought I’d found a reliable person to take it to the landfill. But like the previous guy, a time and date gets set, and then it becomes a no show. The only positive is no cash had been handed over.
Looks like I have several trips to the local council dump in my immediate future.
I did do a short update with the latest photos of Ace’s paw, which can be found here.
But since that update I’ve received another batch of photos showing Ace modelling his new paw sock.
I think Ace is going to have one of those faces that when he’s happy will look really dopey with the tongue dangling out the side.
Going by my calculations we are approximately four months from Ace making the epic journey to join the Monster Squad and his forever home.
I don’t play poker, especially Texas Hold ‘Em.
I’ve never really been attracted to it. Even when much younger.
My card game of choice growing up was knock out whist. I played it at secondary school during tutorial time. I played it a lot with my dad’s aunt (she really was a card shark).
However recently I’ve become more interested in it. Or to be more accurate some of the theory behind the game.
Apparently, and I read this somewhere a while back but I don’t recall where, that top MtG players have done really well in poker tournaments because they are MtG players. It appears that although totally different games. MtG players are used to making decisions based on incomplete information, reading the board state, etc. The skills are transferable so to speak.
I follow the chess content creators the Botez sisters on YouTube, and the elder sister Alex (?) in the past has taken part in poker tournaments.
I think because I watched those poker videos YouTube throws up from time to time a poker video in my feed.
Add in that to complete my Knizia books I got his book “Poker Plain and Simple: A Brief Guide for Beginners, Spectators, and the Curious” which also peaked my interest.
So I’ve started down the rabbit hole and bought a couple more books on poker, “Essential Poker Math, Expanded Edition: Fundamental No-Limit Hold’em Mathematics You Need to Know” by Alton Hardin and newly arrived “Modern Poker Theory: Building an Unbeatable Strategy Based on GTO Principles” by Michael Acevedo.
Obviously I’m not claiming that I’m going to become a master poker player over night.
However I think just like MtG has transferable skills to poker. I’m proposing that some of the poker/MtG skills are transferable to other games. It’s a bit like the Discovering Chess Openings book that clearly has ideas/theory that transfer to other games, particularly war/skirmish games. Really.
I’m particularly curious about the game theory side. I can see that side being a big rabbit hole to dive into.
My progress might be slow through these books because I tend to read them whilst sitting outside, getting shade under the tarp as the monster squad chill out.
So bare with me as I start this side quest, which might even see me play a game of poker.
There has been another Ace update from Peru.
Let’s get straight into it.
“Ace completed his second appointment with the vet in preparation for his flight. He’s looking a lot better.”
The last couple of days I’ve been testing a couple of items that I’ve had for a while now. Mainly because I’ve not really checked them over since buying them, and they need that before using them in anger.
One draw back, even hinderance, that does put me off is that I have a small garden, which is 50% or just over concrete. And until recently a quarter was taken up with a shed (I now have to get the contents to the dump).
The first was the Dutch Army poncho that I have.
The poncho is designed to be used in conjunction with the Dutch Army hooped bivy bag (which I also have and need to test).
I don’t know the dimensions of the poncho. However it is smaller than the Aldi tarp. I’m going to guess this is 6ft by 4ft approximately. So not much living space if being used as a shelter. But being a person under 6ft in length it would provide adequate cover for me. And when used in conjunction with the intended bivi or any bivi it is perfect for providing a bit of additional cover from the elements whilst in the bivi.
Having missed the previous days constant rain (which the Aldi tarp handled really well) to test the waterproofness of this poncho, I had to resort to using a hose pipe.
As you can see from the photo above the water beaded nicely on it.
The second item I was testing was the British Army basha.
This is much bigger than the poncho, with plenty of living space under it.
If you compared the material used by the basha with the poncho. The poncho is made from a heavier, more durable material. But that makes sense because the poncho is designed to be used as its primary function first and as a shelter secondary. So is more likely to receive wear and tear while in use.
This too handled the hose pipe test well. However I did notice about three pinholes near seams. So I need to see if these need repairing or not. So ideally I need a good bit of rain to see if they are an issue or not.
I’m not sure what the neighbours think going passed seeing the tarps/poncho setup. However apart from testing the said item. The main point having one up is to provide shade for the dogs in the heatwaves we have been experiencing.
But that’s the testing of those two items done. And I can be fairly confident they will perform as expected when used in anger.
Well this was a surprise.
Not only has the month gotten off to an amazing start in the number of games played. But some of the gaming was Netrunner and SWU. With the later being played weekly, and the former possibly becoming a monthly thing. Things are looking up for these two games for me. Now if I can get a regular Ashes thing going.
Netrunner: in the aftermath of UKGE and trying to capitalise on the flurry of interest of those that did a demo of the game on the NSG stand, a Netrunner session was setup at “local” game store Angle in Peterborough. I got a chance to playtest my two decks a bit more. The corp deck needs more testing because it had mixed results out of two games. The first I just wasn’t getting ice to secure my servers. Naturally I lost that game. The second game with the corp deck it won. Servers were iced up. I was getting additional advances, scoring agendas, stole an agenda back, tagging the runner, getting value from the tags. It worked. It also helped that the runner was not finding their ice breakers. Now the runner deck needs tweaking. Some of its milling and recursion worked. The main idea works. But I need to look at the economy and ice breakers. Overall it was a fun evening at a new location. Can’t wait until the next Netrunner evening.
Star Wars Unlimited Twin Suns: I attended my first SWU TS evening at the Angles and got to play a couple of three player games using the new Master and Apprentice, Count Dooku and Asajj Ventress precon TS deck. Which I have to say was pretty fun to play. Especially the spamming out of droids. I must build my All the Vaders deck idea.
Shallow Regrets: I carried this with me everyday at the expo, but never got a chance to play it. This is a very fun light micro game that gives the feels of its much bigger brother. Plus it plays much quicker! I like that there is a little take that. With the micro expansion you get on going abilities as well. Which I think almost makes it a must include.
Agueda City of Umbrellas: Nice production. The game is ok. Not amazing. But also not a bad game. It’s fairly quick to play, and doesn’t over stay its welcome.
Las Vegas: the new edition plays up to six players, but the publisher Ravensburger did drop the quality of the components, and tweaked the rules. So I’ve decided to stay with the previous version and include the new 5 or 6 player variant when playing at 5 players. It’s disappointing really that they dropped the quality. The rules tweaks? I don’t think having a larger die worth 2 points is that great a change. I’d rather have the larger dice of the previous version.
Beasty Bar: this was surprisingly fun. Lots of take that trying to manipulate the board with the card you play. Everyone has the same cards, it just down to you trying to second guess the cards you think your opponents are going to play, and remembering what they have played. Very much similar to the first round of Libertalia. That is the game really. Why didn’t I think of that until now? Still fun.
Tropichaos: loved this. There is so much component wise for being in such a small box, tile holders, tiles, tokens, season track, bag. But this is a nice tile drafting game that plays quickly as well. Nice tactical element as well having to decide when you score tiles. Miss the season the tile scores its maximum and you could be looking at zero points. Like Deep Sea Adventure, simple, quick, and fun.
Kobayakawa: I saw this described as Love Letter with betting/bluffing. At three players it was fun. However I think this is amazing at the higher player counts. As you can see below in the new arrivals I did buy a copy of the previous version just to get the metal coins!
Railroad Tiles: I like Railroad Ink, well the app version. The roll and write is too “arty” to play physically. More so than Cartographers. So a couple of years back when the publisher did Railroad Tiles as a kickstarter I backed it all in. I have played this once. And it was fun. Charlene requested to play this. So who am I to disappoint?
Seti Search for Extraterrestrial Life: I’ve wanted to play this. Massive game, can be a bit overwhelming when you see everything set up. However I really liked it. Like the asymmetrical player powers. Really like it. Would love it in my collection. But can’t justify another game that’d rarely hit the table.
Pixies: like Rebel Princess this has become a staple of a club night.
3 Chapters: at six players this played very well. Yeah still a very nice trick taker with its twists of drafting your hand, and scoring.
Excalibur: was great fun at six players. However this game is over priced for what it is. What the deluxe version goes for you can get much bigger games.
Duck & Cover: this was ok. It’s light, quick. Not a game I’d ask to play.
Yesterday’s plans got thrown out of the window with the passing of mums cat Ramsey.
It wasn’t a surprise. The last few days Ramsey hadn’t been eating. He’d drink water, find a comfy spot, and just lie there.
Ramsey was 16. So not a bad age for a cat.
Ramsey will always be remembered as the cat that took five or six years to work out he could open the door at the bottom of the stairs in Nan’s house!
Yes Ramsey was a house cat. When mum moved in to help look after Nan he came with her. With the two little monsters downstairs during the day with Nan, Ramseys world was upstairs. I don’t even think the little monsters realised there was a cat in the house!
It wasn’t until after Nan left us that Ramsey discovered he could open the door at the bottom of the stairs. When he did suddenly his world got so much larger.
Despite being bigger than the two little monsters added together they still managed to exert their dominance working together.
Ramsey is lying in rest next to Nico in the back garden.
This mornings coffee and doggy snuggles seem even more poignant and comforting.
There was gaming Friday and it was mostly light games this week. I’ll share which ones in the gaming round up.
But this was the first club night where those attending could get this years club poker chip.
This is the third year I’ve done the poker chip for members. I’m still trying to source a place that will produce a sew on patch at a reasonable price. I’ve tried a couple but not been happy with them yet.
If you know of a good place to get sewn sew on patch please leave a comment below.