New Games on my Radar

Every so often a new release game or game expansion catches my eye. Here's a list of games released in 2009, or due for release in the near future, that I currently have on my wishlist.


Commands & Colors: Napoleonics - Anyone who knows me will tell you I'm a big fan of Richard Borg's Commands & Colors series of wargames. The next installment in the series will be Napoleonic warfare and is expected to be published late 2010 or early 2011. Can't wait.



Commands & Colors: Ancients Expansion Pack #4: Imperial Rome - I simply love C&C Ancients. This expansion pack provides more Romans and pits them against enemies such as the Parthians, Ancient British, Teutonic Barbarians as well as more Roman on Roman Civil War fun.



Commands & Colors: Ancients Expansion Pack #5: Epic Ancients II - Rules, cards and battles to play this great game in 'epic mode' on two boards laid side by side. Two to eight players can enjoy these larger games.



Rush n' Crush - I enjoy racing games and I enjoy combat games. Rush n' Crush blends these two themes together nicely in what has been touted as faster, more bloodier, version of Formula De. Published this year by Rackham and AEG, Rush n' Crush is set in the AT-43 universe on the war-torn planet Ava, where the inhabitants have invented an auto racing sport involving armoured racing cars, twisted speedways filled with dangerous obstacles, and no rules racing. Sounds like a lot of fun for 3 - 6 players where there can only be one winner.



Letter of Marque - Recently published by Fantasy Flight Games and designed by Bruno Faidutti this is a light bluffing game with a theme of treasure, temptation and trickery on the high seas. I've enjoyed Faidutti designed games such as Red November and Diamant (with Alan R. Moon) so am looking forward to Letter of Marque.



BattleLore: Heroes Expansion - OK, OK, more Richard Borg and C&C goodness in the form of mighty Heroes for BattleLore. This expansion introduces player-created Leaders and Champions to augment your camp's forces in battles.



BattleLore: Dragons - This BattleLore expansion provides three deadly dragons to unleash on to your battlefields. Cool.




BattleLore: Creatures - This new BattleLore expansion includes sculpts of the previously limited Earth Elemental (now billed as a Rock Elemental with new rules), the Hill Giant (now a Forest Giant) and the brand new Hydra.

Gaming With Grandma - 104

Another Saturday morning gaming session with my mother (AKA Grandma) and 8 year old daughter, Maddie.

Our game this morning was Formula Motor Racing, designed by Reiner Knizia and published by GMT Games. I'd purchased this game earlier in the year but had not broken the shrink wrap on it until today. For Grandma and Maddie it was their first play but I'd played it before.

I had fond memories of playing this game with some mates at the famous Young and Jackson pub in Melbourne back in 2004 before we attended the Australian Formula 1 Grand Prix. (On a side note the pub is well known for the beautiful nude painting Chloé, painted by French artist Jules Joseph Lefebvre in 1875 - click on the link to see the painting, oh, and I do recommend the pub's own beer brand, Naked Ale, made in honour of Chloé).

We decided to play three races and the winner would be the team with the most points at the end of the season. Grandma was yellow, Maddie was purple and I was green. The non-player teams were red, blue and orange.



Game 1:
1st - Maddie - 10 points
2nd - Blue - 6 points
3rd - Grandma - 4 points
4th - Wayne - 3 points
5th - Wayne - 2 points
6th - Red - 1 point

So after Game 1 the teams were 1st Maddie (10), 2nd Blue (6), 3rd Wayne (5), 4th Grandma (4), 5th Red (1), 6th Orange (0).

Game 2:
1st - Grandma - 10 points
2nd - Wayne - 6 points
3rd - Maddie - 4 points
4th - Blue - 3 points
5th - Orange - 2 points
6th - Blue - 1 point

So after Game 2 the team standings looked like this - 1st Grandma (14), 2nd Maddie (14), 3rd Wayne (11), 4th Blue (10), 5th Orange (2), 6th Red (1).

Game 3:
1st - Wayne - 10 points
2nd - Blue - 6 points
3rd - Grandma - 4 points
4th - Red - 3 points
5th - Orange - 2 points
6th - Maddie - 1 point

Final season standings were 1st Wayne (21), 2nd Grandma (18), 3rd Blue (16), 4th Maddie (15), 5th Red (4), 6th Orange (4).

Going into the last race of the season it was still any one's game. Through clever play (and a little luck) I managed to pull out a win on the final race to gain enough points to push me to the final 1st place.

Grandma and I thoroughly enjoyed the game. Maddie said it was OK but wasn't too keen on the 'take that' aspect of the card play. You could see her enthusiasm for the game start to wane whenever she lost a car or had a bad card played on one of her cars. I suspect (and hope) that as she matures as a gamer she will come to enjoy games where one can interfere with opponent's plans.

I believe games are an important way to learn how to cope with challenges and setbacks. Always trying to help my children learn life lessons I pointed out to Maddie that both she and Grandma were actively targeting Daddy with bad cards throughout the three games. I explained to her that rather than getting upset I accepted that I would most likely not win but instead chose to enjoy the challenge of trying to do my best despite the odds stacked against me. Let's hope a little of that philosophy has sunk in for her.

Kids can sometimes take things too literally

I was sitting with my three year old daughter Georgia.

"OK, Georgie, imagine you had one apple and I gave you another apple," I said. "How many apples would you have?"

"Two!" she exclaimed.

"OK, now imagine if I took an apple away," I said. "What's left?"

She points to her left.

We all cracked up laughing.

Family Vacation

We got back on Saturday from a week-long family holiday at the beautiful Noosa region of the Sunshine Coast here in Queensland, Australia. We're very lucky that this area is only a couple of hours drive north of where we live in Brisbane.

We coincided the holiday with my friend Steve and his family and we all stayed at the Coral Beach Noosa Resort at Noosaville. Steve and his wife Fran have two little boys aged 6 & 4, so we had a combined gaggle of four kids aged 8 and under.

Maddie enjoying the beach at Noosa Heads

We all had a lovely time eating, drinking, relaxing, and swimming at the pool, saltwater lake and beach. Although I took along a few card and board games, none got played. We were all pretty tired at the end of each day, and after the kids were in bed we only had enough energy for a few quiet drinks.

A ferry trip on Noosa River looking towards Noosa Heads

I took my Xbox 360 along so was able to play some two-player Spec Ops missions from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare with Steve. I don't get the chance to do much co-op gaming and it was a very enjoyable experience. I may be tempted to get onto Xbox Live next year but the only problem is sparing the time.

Georgia and I having fun in the sun

We had a wonderful time on our holiday. The girls had a great time swimming at the pool and beach every morning and my wife and I enjoyed some delicious seafood and getting away from the everyday rat race for a while. Now it's back to work and dreaming about the next trip.

Modern Warfare 2

Today was the international release day for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. This is the sequel to the acclaimed Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare that was released back in November 2007. As it is the week of my birthday I decided to spoil myself and pick up this latest installment in the Call of Duty series.

I do enjoy a good FPS so while the wife and kids are asleep this evening I'll be firing up the Xbox 360, cracking open a cold beer (or three) and taking on those terrorists.

Gaming With Grandma - 103

Another Saturday morning gaming session with my mother (AKA Grandma) and two daughters. Our game of choice today was PitchCar Mini. This was a game I recently received in a trade offered for my Formula De Circuits 19 & 20 Suzuka & Melbourne by Tony Archer (BGG User aPilgrim). The trade went very smoothly and I know I'll definitely get more use out of PitchCar Mini than the game I traded away.

Maddie about to flick her car around the track

I've played both PitchCar and PitchCar Mini and enjoy them both. PitchCar Mini is probably more suitable for smaller children and saves on space required for set up. I would love to eventually get another set for larger tracks as well as some of the cool expansions.

The winner is the first player to finish three laps of the track. We played three games with 3 year old Georgia joining in on the 3rd game. Surprisingly she pulled off some great shots but still needs a lot of practice to perfect her flicking style. Maddie at 8 years old soon picked it up and Grandma improved well over the three games.

This track set up was fun with players being able to set up shots that would whiz around the curves and into the straights. I went on to win the first two games easily but only just pulled out a win on the 3rd game after coming from behind on the last lap.

Genealogy

One of my interests is family history and genealogy. I've done some research including family interviews and even had a subscription to Ancestry.com for a year. I've been able to get some good info but had never done any serious research at libraries or a family history society.

Well, today I finally took the plunge and joined the Queensland Family History Society Inc. When I visited today the library assistant was very helpful and gave me a tour of the premises. They appear to have a wealth of information and I can't wait to get started.

The entrance to the library - image courtesy of Queensland Family History Society Inc.

The library is located at Gaythorne, a suburb on Brisbane's northside, and is conveniently only a 5-10 minute drive from where I live.

Gaming With Grandma - 102

Another Saturday morning gaming session with my mother (AKA Grandma) and daughters Maddie (8) and Georgia (3.5). We played two games today and they were both new for us all.

First up was WobBally published by Invicta Games. WobBally is a bright, colourful and ingeniously designed dexterity game. It is similar to Jenga in that on your turn you are trying to remove pieces (marbles) of a teetering tower. In this instance it's a tower made of marbles sandwiched between seven plastic rings in seven layers. A coloured die and a numbered die determine which coloured marble from what level is to be knocked out with a short plastic rod.


The trick is to use short, sharp, horizontal jabs to dislodge the marbles. Make sure you have some way of containing the many marbles that will fly everywhere when the tower collapses. WobBally is quite a fun dexterity game for up to six people. It has a very slight luck element but overall does reward skill and precision.


Georgia was the first knocked out and Maddie was the second knocked out. That left a showdown between Grandma and me. We played ball for ball until I eventually won when Grandma made the tower come crashing down.

Our second game of the morning was a board game version of Hangman. Maddie revealed that she really enjoys this game as her school class sometimes plays Hangman on the blackboard against their teacher. We played Grandma/Maddie versus me. I won 4-0 but did use some tricky words - Sandwich, joints, salves and syringe, trying to keep away from the more commonly used letters of T, R & E.

I was obviously hungry when I was thinking of an eight-letter word to use

Reinforcements for Patton's Best

Back on 24 May 2009 my wife picked up some board wargames for me at a garage sale. Among them was one in particular I wanted to play. That game was Patton's Best, a solitaire wargame in which you command a solitary Sherman tank and it's crew during WWII. Unfortunately the game was missing some counters.


So I contacted Ken Miffitt (BGG user BostonKen) from Connecticut, USA, who had recently uploaded a nice scan of the backs of the counters to the Board Game Geek site. There was already an image on the site of the front of the counters from another user but unfortunately the image was of a lower quality than Ken's image. So I sent a message to Ken to ask if he could provide me with a scan of the front of the counters. Although Ken had already punched the counters he was happy to oblige.

So once again a big thank you to Ken and I was pleased that my GeekGold (GG) tip to him, combined with the GG he had already earned, allowed him to purchase a GeekBadge.

Gaming With Grandma - 101

Another Saturday morning gaming session with my mother (AKA Grandma) and eight year old daughter Maddie.

Our first game of the morning was Wanted!, an action card game published by Ravensburger. Cards are played to the middle of the table and if an action card is revealed all players must take the correct action associated with that card. For example, if it's the burglar escaping through the window with a bag of jewellery (as in the image below) all players must raise both hands in the air. The slowest person to do so must take the face up card pile into their own hand. The first player to empty their hand of cards is the winner.

Wanted!

I won the game.

Next up was Haunted Castle which was designed by Lucien Geelhoed and also published by Ravensburger. This is a card game of pattern recognition. Each player has a reference card in front of them depicting the eight characters. On a player's turn they turn over the top card of the deck to reveal a card depicting seven of those eight characters. First person to correctly guess which character is missing from the card gets to take the card as a point.

Haunted Castle

This is a fun game and there is a certain tension of trying to be the first to recognise the missing character. Final scores were me, Wayne, on 19, Grandma on 10, and Maddie on 4.

Our last game of the morning was the Labyrinth Card Game which was designed by Max J. Kobbert and was also published by Ravensburger. Ravensburger does publish some good quality games. This tile laying game is all about trying to lay tiles in such a way that there is an unobstructed passage from one symbol to a matching symbol.

Labyrinth Card Game

A piece of non-slip matting is essential for games like this as these tiles would easily slide out of place on the smooth wooden surface of the table. Final scores were me, Wayne, on 9 with Grandma and Maddie sharing second place on 4 points each.

Once upon a time in Nazi occupied France...

I saw Inglourious Basterds this evening.

Wow, me going to the movies twice in one week. Now normally I'm someone who waits to rent films when they come out on DVD. As a parent with two young kids I rarely get the opportunity to go the the cinema, and when I do go it's by myself. Going to see a movie by myself is actually something I enjoy and I only do it for movies that my wife doesn't want to see and that I want to view on the big screen. So far this year it has been Bruno, District 9 and now Inglourious Basterds.

I'm a fan of Quentin Tarantino's scripts and directing ability. Of his feature films my favourites are Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs and Kill Bill 1 & 2, and less so Jackie Brown and Death Proof.

I did enjoy Inglourious Basterds. It was a long film at 153 minutes and was heavily subtitled (I don't mind subtitles). One of the things I enjoy most in Tarantino's films is the dialogue and although a lot of it was in either French or German I was not disappointed. As with most Tarantino films there were scenes of brutal violence. There were also some scenes that were extremely tense and yet other scenes that broke the tension and had the audience laughing out loud.


Of the actors the most enjoyable for me was Christoph Waltz's brilliant performance as the villainous 'Jew Hunter' Standartenfuhrer Hans Lander. He really was good. Some actors did jar for me, most probably because I've seen them in other genres (i.e. comedies). I'm talking here of a heavily made-up Mike Myers (of Austin Powers fame) and B.J. Novak from The Office.

Inglourious Basterds is a movie that I will be seeing again and one that I suspect will eventually make it's way into my rather small and select DVD collection.

Highways and Dieways

Maddie has been bugging me to play Heroscape for some time now. The problem with Heroscape is that it takes time to create the map board and as we always played on the dining room table we had to dismantle it at the end of a game. I wanted a more permanent solution so that we could create a board and then leave it in place so that we could play it a number of times.

Over the last few months I've slowly been cleaning out and tidying up our downstairs rumpus room (aka game room, rec room, play room) so we now had space to erect a table. I had a 5' x 3' table with detachable legs that had been stored in the garage for years that was just perfect for the job. The other advantage of having a table set up downstairs was that I would be able to set up and play some of my solo wargames that I've been wanting to play.

So my wife suggested that we invite over her girlfriend's son (who is also Maddie's classmate and friend) for a Sunday afternoon Heroscape battle. I've known Jackson since he was born and as he is currently Harry Potter-mad I suspected he might enjoy a game like Heroscape. Besides, Maddie wanted to team up with Jackson against her dad. So it was on; me versus two eight year olds.

First I needed a map. I headed over to the fan site Heroscapers.com and perused their Battlefields of Valhalla section. These are maps designed by fans that have been voted the best tournament maps. I selected Highways and Dieways, a map that required one Rise of the Valkyrie Master Set and two Road to the Forgotten Forest Expansion Sets.


There is a free Heroscape battlefield editor program called VirtualScape that allows you to create and view your maps in photo-realistic quality 3d images (as shown above). This is a really handy program as it allows you to see at a glance what your battlefield will look like. You can also nominate starting positions for the armies (as shown above in red and yellow spaces).

Maddie and I set up the battlefield while my younger daughter, 3.5 year old Georgia, played at making her own map with spare terrain pieces. Below is an overhead picture of the Highways and Dieways map we created. I chose not to use the two glyphs as this was a training game for Jackson.


When Jackson arrived after lunch I gave him a brief description of the game and then let them choose their armies. Jackson chose Kelda the Kyrie Warrior, Emirroon and the Izumi Samurai (total 220 points) and Maddie chose (Raelin the Kyrie Warrior, the Nakita Agents and Jorhdawn (total 300 points). I decided to choose an all-Marro force of Ne-Gok-Sa, Me-Burq-Sa, two squads of Grok Riders, one squad of Marro Drones and the Marro Warriors (total 500 points). So it would be Maddie and Jackson fielding a combined Jandar, Uller, Vydar and Einar army of 520 points versus myself fielding an Utgar army of 500 points. My two young opponents would have a slight army points advantage but more importantly they would have the advantage of a combined 6 orders per turn versus my 3 orders per turn.

Maddie and Jackson's initial deployment

My initial deployment

It was a fun battle. I did give advice and talked through options and tactics with the kids but let them make the final choices on where they moved their figures and who they attacked. I didn't pull any punches with my game play though as I was playing for a win. That said, it was a very close game and the lead swung back and forth several times. There were shouts of excitement from the kids (and myself) when great dice rolls were made and there was even a bit of trash-talk (at an eight-year old level).

Ne-Gok-Sa's final stand

Maddie and Jackson went on to totally defeat the evil hordes of Utgar in a climactic final battle on my side of the board. Their victory did not come cheap however as Jackson only had a wounded Emirroon left and Maddie only had two of the Nakita Agents left standing.

This particular battlefield was designed for one versus one tournament play and I found it to be just the right size. The game took around 2.5 hours to play and we all enjoyed ourselves.

Gaming With Grandma - 100

The players this morning were Grandma, Maddie and me, Wayne. Our first game was The Simpsons Slam Dunk Card Game (AKA It's Mine) designed by Reiner Knizia.


This game is similar to Ra and Razzia and having the Simpsons theme is kid-friendly. The winner is the first player to win two hands and it turned out we only needed two hands to determine a winner.

1st hand - Grandma 41, Maddie 19, Wayne 12
2nd hand - Grandma 35, Maddie, 32, Wayne 21

Final scores were 1st Grandma, 2nd Maddie, 3rd Wayne

Our next game was Risk Express which is also designed by Reiner Knizia. Risk Express is a light, dice-rolling game of world conquest that captures the tension and distrust of the original Risk but in a refreshingly short play time.


Final scores were Grandma 1st with 15 points, Wayne 2nd with 13, and Maddie 3rd with 8.

Maddie suggested we next play our old family favourite Gulo Gulo. This charming dexterity game from Hans Raggan, Jurgen P. Grunau and Wolfgang Kramer is a great game for adults and children to play together. I watch my daughter nimbly pluck the coloured eggs from the bowl and then when it's my turn I always curse my (comparatively huge) adult fingers.


I was able to position myself to be the first player to examine the stack of tiles containing Gulo Junior however fluffed it when it came time to draw the purple egg. Maddie went on to win.

Our final game of the morning was Mamma Mia! (yes, the exclamation mark is part of the game name). This is a card game designed by Uwe Rosenberg and is all about making pizzas (no wonder I feel hungry every time I play this game). Players have hands of ingredient and order cards and the game is all about memory and timing as you try to play order cards when you think there are enough ingredient cards that have been played to fill your order.


The game is played over three rounds and at the end of each round the discard deck that players have been playing cards to is turned over and the cards are flipped over in the order they were originally played. When ingredients are revealed they are sorted into piles and as a player's order card is revealed the ingredient pile is checked to see if there are enough ingredients to fill that specific order. If so, that player gets a point. The player who has the most points at the end of three rounds is the winner.

Round 1 - Grandma 3, Wayne 2, Maddie 2
Round 2 - Grandma 2, Wayne 3, Maddie 2
Round 3 - Grandma 2, Wayne 2, Maddie 1

Final scores were Grandma 1st (on tie break) with 7 points, Wayne 2nd with 7, and Maddie 3rd with 5.

Well done to Grandma who won three of the four games played this morning.

Pikmin

Saturday morning at our house means family gaming. This usually involves playing a variety of board games from my collection with my 8 year old daughter and mother (who visits for a couple of hours every Saturday). Because my wife is at work and our younger 3.5 year old daughter is too young to play we choose games that allow three-players.

Now we haven't played many board games over the last couple of months. The main reason for this is that we have been engrossed in playing Pikmin on the Wii console. Pikmin was originally released for Nintendo's GameCube video game console back in 2001 but was re-released and became available in Australia this year with new play control for the Wii (conveniently just in time for Maddie's birthday in June).



Pikmin is a real-time strategy video game where you control Captain Olimar, a tiny space-faring astronaut from the planet Hocotate. Captain Olimar has unfortunately crash-landed on a planet and your goal is to help him locate the missing 30 pieces of his crashed spaceship so that he can rebuild it and return to his family. There is an urgency to this as you only have 30 days before his life-support system is exhausted.

Captain Olimar soon comes into contact with strange alien beings called Pikmin. These small creatures have characteristics of being half plant and half animal and they follow Captain Olimar around and do his bidding. They come in three colours - red, blue and yellow. Each colour has it's own special abilities and Captain Olimar must discover how to use each type of Pikmin in the most efficient way to help him locate and then transport his ship pieces back to the main ship.

Even though it is a single-player game it is fun to watch and has a nice soundtrack. Being more adept at the controls I usually play while Maddie and my mum (AKA Grandma) give advice. It feels like we're all playing together to achieve a goal. I have to admit that at some points in the game, where I have been unsure of how to proceed, it has been my 8 year old daughter Maddie who has made a suggestion that has then allowed us to progress. So this is really a great problem-solving game for kids as well as adults.

Pikmin shares many elements of what I enjoy in board games. It's has worker placement, resource management, puzzle completion, and heck, it even has combat. With beautiful graphics and easy game play with the Wii remote, this is a game I highly recommend.

Maddie has already written a note to Santa that she'd love Pikmin 2 as a present. I'm also excited to learn that Pikmin 3 is currently in development. Here's a link to the official Pikmin site. Search YouTube for Pikmin game play if you're interested in seeing how the game plays.

You are not welcome here

I saw District 9 this evening.


Best movie I've seen in a long, long time...

Alien Plants

I've recently noticed a certain type of plant that grows wild in places along the embankment of the railway line on which I travel to and from work. It's a strange plant and I do not know its name. Its long leaves grow and curl into such positions to suggest that it is animated. I can imagine those leaves flailing around, searching for food, and then closing on a hapless bird or small animal that has wandered too close. John Wyndham has a lot to answer for.


The specimens in the photo above are about 3 metres (10 feet) in width. I'm always on the lookout for things to inspire me for miniature scratch-building projects. These plants look suitably alien and I could imagine them as perfect terrain for some futuristic miniature tabletop skirmish game.

Solar Halo

I took the family for a day trip up to Tamborine Mountain last Sunday. One of the cool things I saw that day was a rainbow ring around the sun. This is an optical phenomenon known as a 22° halo and forms when sunlight is refracted in hexagonal ice crystals suspended high in the atmosphere.


The photo was taken with the camera pointing directly at the sun. The ring was observable with the naked eye and was even more spectacular than the photo suggests.

Fight The Flab - 6

The 1st of July is here and it's time to record my success or failure in shedding unwanted body fat in June. It's been a busy month with work, and also Maddie's 8th birthday and my 11th wedding anniversary (and the 16th anniversary of first meeting my wife). I've recovered from the lengthy cold I had back in April/May and have started exercising and eating more healthily again. My favourite way to exercise is to go for a long brisk walk around my neighbourhood while listening to history and gaming related podcasts. The cold weather has certainly arrived and it's been a wet month which has affected the number of times I've been able to get out and walk. Still, I got in about 30 km during the month.

I can now reveal...

I lost 2.5 kg (5.5 lbs) in June.

I'm back on track and looking forward to July.

January weight loss: 1.5 kg (3.3 lbs)
February weight loss: 5.0 kg (11.0 lbs)
March weight loss: 2.5 kg (5.5 lbs)
April weight gain: 2.5 kg (5.5 lbs)
May weight gain: 2.5 kg (5.5 lbs)
June weight loss: 2.5 kg (5.5 lbs)

Total weight loss since 1 January 2009: 6.5 kg (14.3 lbs)

All the Fun of the Fair

It was a beautiful winter day today. In Brisbane Australia that means a cool crisp morning, warm dry day and a clear blue sky. The perfect day to head outdoors and get some fresh air. So me, my wife Deb, our two girls Maddie and Georgia, and Deb's Dad (AKA Dah) hopped in the car and drove to a local school fair.

I was pretty impressed with what was available at the fair; jumping castles, a mini-Ferris wheel, putt-putt golf, huge slippery slide, tea-cup ride, swinging chair ride, outdoor rock climbing tower, a laser tag course, not to mention the amount of food and activity stalls, white elephant, trash & treasure, and books to name a just a few.


If I was a 10 year old boy I could have spent the entire day playing on the awesome laser tag course which had sandbagged barricades and other obstacles to run around. The laser guns looked pretty cool as well.


The girls had a great time and we spent about three hours wandering around enjoying ourselves before heading home.


On the gaming side I picked up a some board games - Loopin' Louie, Tank Battle and Tip-It for only a couple of dollars. We all had a great time and it was fun to get out of the house and do something different in the fresh air.

Gaming With Grandma - 99

Saturday morning at our house means family time playing games together, mostly board games and card games with myself, my mother (Grandma) and seven year old daughter Maddie. This morning we decided to try out some games my wife had picked up at a garage sale last weekend.

Our first game of the morning was Wanted! which is a quality card game from Ravensburger. In this game the deck is dealt equally face down to all players with any remaining cards put aside. The winner is the first player to get rid of all their cards. The cards depict the four main characters; a police officer, a judge, a bank teller and a burglar. Each character has a main specific card where they are shown doing their profession. For example, the police officer is holding up a badge, the judge is shown in court with a gavel in his hand, the bank teller is in the bank and the burglar is coming out of a window with a bag of jewellery. These are called 'action cards'. Now the catch is that there are also cards showing these four main characters doing the other characters' professions. For example, there will be cards with the police officer burglarising a residence, or the burglar sitting in the bank, or the bank teller holding up a police badge.

Wanted!

On your turn you turn over the top card of your deck and quickly play it to the middle of the table. If it is not an action card the next player will quickly turn over their top card and play it on top of the card played by the previous player. This will continue, the tension slowly rising, until an 'action card' is played. That's when the fun really starts. If it is a police officer action card then all players must grab one of the police badge cards (there is always one less than the total amount of players). If it is a judge action card all players must bang their fists on the table and shout "Guilty!". If it is a bank teller card all players must slap their hand onto the action card (or over other faster players' hands already on the action card). If the action card is a burglar card then all players must put their hands up in the air. The slowest player to perform any of these actions takes the cards on the table and adds them face down to the bottom of their deck. If a player makes an incorrect action then they also share the cards with the slowest player.

All in all this is a simple, fast and fun game which adults can easily play with children. I suspect it would also be a fun little filler for an adult game group. We played two games with the results being myself 1st, Maddie 2nd and Grandma 3rd in both games. This one is a keeper.

Our second game of the morning was Haunted Castle, another game from Ravensburger. This is a fun and quick memory/observation game with lovely artwork. Essentially it's flip a card showing seven characters and be the first to spot the missing eighth character. First player to correctly guess keeps the card. Final winner is the player with the most cards when the deck is exhausted. We really enjoyed this one as well and ended up playing two games. Final scores of the first game was me 14, Maddie 10 and Grandma 9. The final scores of the second game were me 20, Grandma 8 and Maddie 5. We all agreed this one was also a keeper.

Haunted Castle

Our final game of the morning was Right Turn, Left Turn which was published by Playroom Entertainment. This game was designed by Reinhard Staupe who also designed Sherlock (AKA Der Plumpsack Geht Um which we all enjoy) and it is easy to see the resemblance between both games. Whereas Sherlock is a memory game, Right Turn, Left Turn is more of a puzzle.

Right Turn, Left Turn

When a card of the central face down deck is turned over, all players must then follow the directions on that card and mentally calculate the final destination card. The direction card will state which traffic officer card you will start at by showing a symbol. You start directions at the traffic officer card with the matching symbol. Then you must move so many right and left spaces following the perspective of the starting traffic officer. You'll notice that some of the traffic officers have their backs turned and some are facing the front. The left/right perspective of each of these will of course be different. The first player to correctly identify the final destination card gets to keep it. If you guess incorrectly then you must give back a previously claimed card. The first player to collect 6 cards is the winner.

We only played the one game. Final score was me 6, Maddie 1 and Grandma 0. There are ways you could handicap older players by having them close their eyes and only open after the other younger players have had a chance to follow the instructions for say, a count of 5. Even so, the game felt like more of a chore than a fun time. There was little player interaction and we all thought it just wasn't that much fun. We agreed that this was not a keeper.

Overall I hadn't had high hopes for any of these kids games. I was pleasantly surprised by both Wanted! and Haunted Castle and I can see these games being played a lot more, especially when Georgia (who is currently three and a half years old) gets a bit older.

Blood Bowl HeroQuest Goblin Conversion - First Four

So I've recently got into the Blood Bowl board game. Now "got into" really only means downloading the Living Rulebook, reading the rules and scouring for more info every Blood Bowl related website, forum, image gallery, podcast and YouTube clip that I can find. I haven't yet played a game but I've read a lot on the various available teams and their tactics.

While my initial enthusiasm is so high I decided to have a go at creating a Blood Bowl team from scratch. Looking around at the spare miniatures I have lying around I came across some HeroQuest goblins. I've bought a number of second hand HeroQuest board games over the years and have a collection of miniatures from that game that have been damaged in some way. Most notably are the goblins which seem prone to having their weapons broken off.

This is what the goblins should look like.

Some of my HeroQuest goblins still on the sprue

And this is my collection of damaged HeroQuest goblins.

Weaponless HeroQuest goblins

I've been wondering for some time what to do with these little guys. What good are weaponless goblins? Well, what about Blood Bowl? I could create a goblin Blood Bowl team! Sure, the goblins are probably one of the suckiest Blood Bowl teams but they sure look like a lot of fun to play. The decision was made.

The first thing I did was to get some epoxy putty for converting the miniatures. The most famous type of modelling putty is Kneadatite which is also known as 'green stuff'. This is a type of putty that comes in blue and yellow strips and when mixed together forms a green-coloured putty with the consistency of sticky chewing gum. The beauty of this product is that after a few hours at room temperature it will dry rock hard. I didn't end up getting green stuff though. The easiest stuff for me to get at my local hobby store was Tamiya Epoxy Putty. This stuff comes in yellow and white strips and when mixed together turns a pale yellow colour.

The only modelling tool I used was my normal hobby knife with a scalpel-like blade. I used this knife for both cutting off the arms and also the sculpting of the putty.

The first step was to cut off the arms of the goblins and then use plastic cement to glue them back on at different angles. I then mixed small blobs of putty and used these to model shoulder pads and helmets. Here are some photos. All photos can be clicked on for a larger image.

Goblin with knuckleduster

Goblin with single spiked shoulder pad

Goblin with double spiked shoulder pad

Goblin flippin' the bird

Below are two of the goblins next to original goblin figures. This will give you a better idea of how the arms have been repositioned and see the putty conversions that have been added.


Here are the other two converted goblins next to a couple of original sculpts.


And here are the four boys next to a human and orc linemen from the 3rd edition Blood Bowl boxed set for comparison. I think the large goblin armour shoulder pads give them an amusing appearance.

Size comparison with Blood Bowl figures

And finally I present the first four players of my goblin Blood Bowl team. This was my first time sculpting with epoxy putty and I found it to be a very enjoyable and satisfying experience. It took me on average about two hours per model. My plan is to create 16 goblin models (11 players plus reserves) with each model being a unique individual. After that I plan on sculpting a couple of troll players for the team and of course I mustn't forget the goblin bombadier, looney, fanatic and pogoer models.

The first four goblin players for my goblin Blood Bowl team

Blood Bowl

I've recently become interested in Games Workshop's Blood Bowl. I always find it interesting how I develop a new passion for a game. I often forget exactly how or when the initial spark of interest occurred. Often it will be through noticing an image or comment on BoardGameGeek or a blog. In the case with Blood Bowl it was listening to a podcast.

First up let me say that I've been aware of Blood Bowl pretty much from when it was first released back in 1987. I was a big Talisman fan around that time and read White Dwarf magazine for its role-playing articles (yep, back in the early days White Dwarf actually had non-GW related miniatures articles!). I saw the advertisements for Blood Bowl, but not being into Warhammer I wasn't that interested. Fantasy football with orcs, humans and elves? Pfft! I never gave it another thought.

Then back in June 2008 my wife picked up the 3rd Edition Blood Bowl boxed set at a school fete for $2. Sure, it was missing the rules and 4 human players (1 catcher, 1 linesman, 1 blitzer and 1 thrower if anyone has any spares!) but pretty much everything else was there. And it was only $2!

The 3rd Edition Blood Bowl Boxed Set

Even with the boxed set in my hands I didn't think it was a game I would seriously get into. I thought I'd probably sell it on eBay or perhaps see if I could trade it. I stuck it on a shelf and pretty much forgot about it. Until, that is, a couple of weeks ago when I listened to the latest World's End Radio podcast.

The World's End Radio podcast is produced by a couple of Western Australian guys, Luke and JJ. They had an episode (episode #19 'Going for the Grope') devoted entirely to the Sand Groper Cup. The Sand Groper Cup is an annual WA Blood Bowl tournament and this year was attended by almost forty players.

Listening to this episode, with Luke and JJ's discussion around their team composition, tactics and strategy, the interviews with the tournament organisers, and interviews with some of the attendees, and how much fun these guys were having, it really made me reconsider my original opinion of Blood Bowl. So much so that I downloaded the latest free version of the Blood Bowl: Living Rulebook from the Games Workshop specialist games site and have been researching the game like crazy over the last few weeks.

What appeals to me about Blood Bowl is that the rules are free and you only need 11 miniatures for a team. That means it's a fairly cheap game to get into. There's also the almost roleplaying-like aspect of league play where you develop a fledgling team through a season of games, increasing individual player's abilities as you progress.

I've been pretty surprised at what appears to be a huge cult following of the Blood Bowl board game world wide. And coincidentally, a new Blood Bowl video game will shortly be released for the PC, Sony PSP, Nintendo DS and Xbox 360 platforms.

An image from the computer game

The ratings and personal comments on BoardGameGeek give this game a glowing recommendation. I may just start painting up the teams from the boxed set and will look around at whatever other miniatures I have that I can use. Oh yeah, I even found a Blood Bowl league currently running in Brisbane.

Garage Sale Goodies

My wife picked up some kids games at a garage sale on Saturday morning. They were Wanted!, Haunted Castle and Right Turn, Left Turn. A bargain at $3 each and all the cards were still in shrink wrap.


With a family of two young girls (7 and 3) I'm trying to build up a fairly good library of board and card games for their age group. It would be nice if, when Georgia's a little bit older, they can pull out a board or card game to keep themselves amused on a rainy weekend. Within a year or two they'll be bringing their friends to our house to play. While I suspect that they'll probably be engrossed playing Nintendo Wii or DS, it will be nice to have some actual face-to-face games as a back up.

Gaming With Grandma - 98

Another Saturday morning of gaming with my mother (AKA Grandma) and seven year old daughter (AKA Maddie). We only played the one game this morning and that was Der Schwarze Pirat. This is a kids game from the German company HABA and was designed by Guido Hoffman. Players use a rubber squeeze tube, or bellows, to blow a jet of air to push their playing piece, a small wooden ship, around the board. The board represents the ocean and a number of islands laden with pirate treasure. The object of the game is to move your ship around the islands, entering the bays (the light blue areas) and grabbing the gold coins. The person with the most gold coins at the end of the game wins.

The beautiful artwork of the board

On your turn you roll two dice. The first die determines how far you can move your ship (either 3 or 4 squeezes of the bellows), or allows you to move the black pirate ship (3 squeezes of the bellows). The second die determines on which islands you will place a gold coin or coins.

This was our seventh time playing the game and we all noticed that our skill with the bellows has improved a lot since our first time. It's much more exciting when a player can skillfully manoeuvre from one side of the board to the other between the numerous islands with four bellows squeezes. Mind you, there's always the chance of shipwreck by either blowing your ship over on its side or by accidentally forcing it on to an island. There's also the amusing chance of having someone misjudge a squeeze altogether and the ship goes nowhere. Having said that, we found ourselves cheering for the other players when they did make skillful (or just plain lucky!) moves. A fun, fun game.

The Black Pirate AKA "Der Schwarze Pirate"

Final scores were me 16, Maddie 11 and Grandma 8.

Queensland - 150th Anniversary

The state in which I grew up and currently reside, Queensland, celebrated its sesquicentennial anniversary today. 150 years ago, on 6 June 1859, Queen Victoria signed Letters Patent separating the state of Queensland from New South Wales.

Although one of my parents was not born in Australia (my mother emigrated from Switzerland with her family when she was nine years old), I've done some family history research on my father's side and the earliest Australian-born direct ancestor I've found is one of my paternal great-great grandmothers who was born in Brisbane (the future state capital) in 1855.

The area that currently forms Brisbane was originally (from 1825) the Moreton Bay penal colony, intended as a place for recidivist convicts who had offended while serving out their sentences in New South Wales. In 1839 transportation of convicts to Moreton Bay ceased and the Brisbane penal settlement was closed. In 1842 free settlement was permitted and people began to colonise the area voluntarily.

I have no indication whatsoever (unfortunately) that this particular great-great grandmother was the daughter of convicts. In Australia in the past, having an ancestor who was a convict was quite shameful, however times have changed, and these days having a convict ancestor practically means that you are 'Australian Royalty'. ;)

Fight The Flab - 5

The 1st of June is here and it's time to record my success or failure in shedding unwanted body fat. Unfortunately the cold I developed halfway through April continued into May, amusingly coinciding with reports of Swine Flu worldwide. Thankfully I didn't have any type of flu; no fevers or body pain or anything like that. No, this was mainly a head cold affecting my sinuses and throat. Still, enough to knock me about, cause me to take time off work and generally feel pretty miserable. So I've been off-track with my fitness regime for the last seven weeks or so due to ill health. I'm only now feeling the lingering symptoms starting to dissipate. So after a disappointing month of feeling ill, no exercise and eating and drinking as I pleased I can now reveal...

I gained 2.5 kg (5.5 lbs) in May.

So I seem to be sliding backward! Being ill sucked all the motivation out of me. It just goes to show how important one's health is. Today is the first day of winter and summer seems like a long time away. I'm still feeling positive though, and we have a family beach holiday planned for November so that's a big incentive for shedding a few kilos of unwanted body fat.

January weight loss: 1.5 kg (3.3 lbs)
February weight loss: 5.0 kg (11.0 lbs)
March weight loss: 2.5 kg (5.5 lbs)
April weight gain: 2.5 kg (5.5 lbs)
May weight gain: 2.5 kg (5.5 lbs)

Total weight loss since 1 January 2009: 4.0 kg (8.8 lbs)

Gaming With Grandma - 97

Another Saturday morning gaming with my mother (AKA Grandma) and seven (almost eight!) year old daughter (AKA Maddie) while my wife was at work. Our three year old daughter (AKA Georgia) spends her time during these gaming sessions either perched on my lap or away watching Dora the Explorer DVDs.

Our first game of the morning was Coloretto. This is a fun set-collecting card game with a little bit of bluffing thrown into the mix. It was a first time play for Maddie and she did surprisingly well. Final scores were me 47, Maddie 41 and Grandma 17.

Coloretto

Our second game was Der Plumpsack Geht Uhm (AKA Sherlock). We always enjoy this fun memory game. The mere fact of having to move the plumpsack around cracks me up. What the hell is that thing anyway? A walking scrotum? We played that the winner would be the first to claim three cards. I won with 3, Grandma was on 1 and Maddie scored 0.

Der Plumpsack Geht Uhm

Next up was an old favourite, Nobody But Us Chickens. This is a fast little card game of bluffing. The aim is to claim the most chickens from the chicken coop over several nights. Players can play chickens, guard dogs, foxes and rats. Depending on who plays what card when will determine how many chickens a player can claim. Final scores were Maddie on 27, me on 23 and Grandma with 19.

Nobody But Us Chickens

Our final game of the morning was Cloud 9. This is an exciting push-your-luck style game where players are ascending through the clouds in a hot-air balloon. Those who stay in the basket the longest end up with the most points, but also risk losing points. Final scores were me on 50 with Grandma and Maddie sharing second place both on 40.

Cloud 9

UFO?

On my predawn walk to the train station yesterday morning I couldn't help but notice an object in the sky. I quickly pulled out my phone camera and snapped a picture. What do you think it was? A comet? A meteor? An alien spacecraft?


Actually it wasn't any of those (unfortunately). It was simply the contrail from a high-flying passenger jet being caught in the light from the sun. It did look cool though from my earthbound and still predawn perspective. Click on the picture for a larger image.

The One Ring Dice

I was very excited to receive a package in the mail today. These are some dice that I ordered from The One Ring site, a site dedicated to the Games Workshop games Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game and War of the Ring.

My precious...

I was very pleased with these dice, very pleased indeed. Not only do they have some gorgeous colouring and patterns but they have the words and symbol of The One Ring in place of the six. These dice will add some extra theme and excitement to future LOTR games.

A big sincere thank you to Alan Harrison (Dagorlad) of the One Ring Site who organised the production and sale of the dice. Unfortunately my first order of dice went missing and failed to arrive. Alan kindly offered to replace them and they've now arrived today with a second order I placed. Thanks again Alan!

By the way, if you want to see some really excellent Lord of the Rings terrain check out Alan's library articles here.

Garage Sale Goodies

My wife stopped at a garage sale yesterday morning and called me to ask if I was interested in any of the following games:

World War II: European Theater of Operations $4

1776 - The Game of the American Revolutionary War $4

Statis Pro Football $4

B-17 Queen of the Skies $4

Patton's Best $4

I got her to buy all of them for me. These are all out-of-print Avalon Hill and SPI games and $20 for five board wargames is not a bad price.


I'm not much of a cardboard chit and hex map wargamer however I already own and have enjoyed playing B-17 Queen of the Skies. It's a solitaire game and although one doesn't have too many decisions to make it certainly captures the feel of piloting an aircraft on bombing missions in World War II.

Of the other games in this lot the one that I'm most interested in is Patton's Best. It is also a solitaire game and puts you in the commander's seat of a Sherman tank in General George Patton's best fighting division, the 4th Armored. Similar to B-17 Queen of the Skies, in this game you control only one vehicle and its crew, starting out with a basic M4 Sherman tank and progressing to later command any of 17 different Sherman variations. You can take part in either one-off engagement scenarios or play through a campaign with your crew gaining experience (and potentially being wounded or killed) as you go.

From a quick reading of the rules it looks like you have more decisions to make in this game than in B-17 Queen of the Skies. Sure, the enemy reactions are still determined by a number of tables, but having to make more decisions will probably mean a more engaging and hopefully enjoyable game.

I'll probably keep Patton's Best and sell the rest on eBay to recover the overall cost of all the games and hopefully make a little extra to fund other aspects of my hobby.