Dude! Take Your Turn!
A Gaming Life
Book Review – The Road to Roswell by Connie Willis
I know what you’re thinking.
You’re thinking “Dave, your new haircut makes you look so good!”
And I would agree with you.
But you’re also thinking “a book review from Dave? How long has it been?”
And the answer would be quite a while.
I typically only do book reviews for books that really grab me, and sometimes not even then (he says, looking at the list of other wonderful books that he’s read but couldn’t muster the will to write about).
Last week, however, I hit a book that not only captivated me (I read it in one day, and that’s 400 pages worth, something that I just don’t do) but it also seemed really worth writing about.
The Road to Roswell, published in June 2023 and written by noted science fiction author Connie Willis, is a hilarious take on a number of SF subjects. Part road trip book, part UFO invasion story, part UFOs are nonsense, and part Romantic Comedy, this book is hilarious fun.
Read MoreFriday Night Shots – Tiebreakers
Hey there!
It’s another Friday, and it’s time to belly up to the bar, have a drink (whatever you like), and chat a little bit about board games.
Don’t mind the music. I’ll turn it down.
Steely Dan is so good that it can make it hard to talk.
Anyway, where were we?
Oh yeah, how about chatting about tie breakers!
Nobody likes ties (except soccer…sorry, football fans).
Most games that have points have the potential to have ties in them, though.
So a good board game is going to have a series of tiebreakers in the rulebook.
I can’t think of any game where it just says “you tied? Oh well, you tied. Sucks to be you.”
Read MoreNew to Me – July 2023
July was yet another weird month for games, as I explained in last week’s “games played” post (sorry this one took so long after that).
Even with that, I was able to get six new to me games to the table.
Granted, three were quick card games, but still…
Not only did I get six games played, but three of them are from 2020 or older!
That made the Cult of the New to Me happy.
They even threw me a party!
Maybe that’s why this post was so late.
But I always persevere!
Anyway, without further ado (all of my ado disappeared with a bike thief anyway), let’s get started!
Read MoreDire Wolf Digital Going App Crazy With Announcements
(Edit: 10/5/23) – Finally, the last design diary! I think.
Nope, there are 1-2 more coming.
Paul Dennen reveals how Contracts work and it looks like a major boost to the beginning of the game, at least in trying to get money.
You can take a Contract and then fulfill it, often just by going to the designated space.
Not all give you money, though. Some give you cards, or troops or what have you. And some aren’t just going to a space. It might be “Harvest 3 Spice in one move”
Contracts are a modular addition to the game, though they don’t seem like they add much complexity. Maybe in the decision space?
Either way, there are of course some cards that use Contracts as well. If you’re not using this module, you can take them out.
The diary also confirms there will be 9 leaders in the game, including the Emperor himself!
This looks seriously cool and I am debating whether or not to get it even though I have the original game and both expansions and haven’t played them much (the expansions not at all).
We’ll see!
(Edit: 9/13/23) – It’s been a while, but another designer diary! This one details spies and how that system works.
You can send a Spy to a space and then later send an Agent (recalling the Spy) to the space even if it’s occupied by another player’s agent. You can also send a Spy and then if you play an Agent there later and recall the Spy, you get to draw a card.
To place a Spy, you’ll go to this new space. Or there will be cards that let you do it.
There’s a bunch more at the diary, so check it out!
(Edit: 8/25/23) – Another designer diary was published today for Dune Imperium: Uprising. It’s all about the worms!
Yes, designer Paul Dennen talks about bringing the famous sandworms directly into the game.
Check out the rest of the diary for more cool pictures and a description of how these worms will work in the game.
(Edit: 8/17/23) – With all of the controversy on BGG regarding the Dune Imperium: Uprising release, Dire Wolf has now published a designer diary addressing the genesis of this “standalone expansion”. You can read it here.
Original post is below
A lot of news came out of the recently-completed GenCon last weekend. Too much for me to be able to keep up with, especially because this isn’t technically a “news” site.
The “news” I post about is stuff that I’m excited about, and boy did Dire Wolf Digital deliver on that in spades.
Yesterday, they summarized it all in a post on their web site, so this post can seem like it’s only one day late instead of massively late.
Dire Wolf Digital announced a slew of games that they are going to be making digital versions of, and many of them just made me want to jump up and down.
They’ve previously announced the Clank digital game, but they re-announced it on their page.
(Yes, there are some board game announcements on this page too, but those didn’t excite me nearly as much).
But there’s a bunch more stuff, which I’ll get to after the break.
Read MoreCombat Commander After Action Report – Scenario #20 – A March in December
Wow, this is really late.
I mean, really late.
Yes, this is my report for July’s ladder game.
Almost a week into August!
Not only that, but I am probably playing my August game next weekend.
I’d better get on this!
Anyway, welcome to another tale from the Combat Commander ladder.
July marked 2 years of continuous play for me (I joined in May 2021 but had to take June off for personal reasons. I’ve had 2 years since July 2021).
The ladder is run by the delightful Patrick Pence, he of Patrick’s Tactics and Tutorials fame.
This lets me play one of my favourite games at least once a month! (And recently, more than once a month).
My opponent this (last?) month was Brice F, somebody who I’ve never played before.
The July scenario was scenario #20 from the Mediterranean expansion, called A March in December.
(Don’t forget that you can click on a picture to enlarge it)
It has a line of Russians (brown, me) marching through the forest, suddenly attacked by a bunch of Finnish Sissi elite units (light blue, Brice).
Yes, the Russians are pretty much surrounded.
This is bad!
The scenario is interesting because of a couple of special rules.
The Russians set up first in a road hex (no more than 9 hexes from the north edge of the map). The Finnish then set up in a forest hex that doesn’t have a road (no more than 9 hexes from the south edge of the map).
After the Finns set up, the Russians then place their machine guns.
The Finnish use the Italian deck and discard rules (2 discard maximum) but they can discard one card even if they do an order.
Brice used that a lot.
Finally, the Finnish cannot exit units from the map unless the Russians have no machine guns on the board. If they are able to exit, they can exit off any map edge with a number 6 or less.
Needless to say, the Russians want to keep at least one gun safe at all times.
This was going to be a massacre, wasn’t it?
Let’s take a look.
Read MoreFriday Night Shots – Who’s First Player?
Welcome back!
It wouldn’t be a Friday night without seeing you here.
I hope your week has gone well and, if you’re like I am, looking forward to a long weekend.
Grab a seat, and let’s chat about “first player rules”!
This will probably be a short one, but for me it’s entertaining.
I was inspired by this post on Boardgame Geek.
Entitled “Does the person with the first player marker for the first turn have a disadvantage?”, it’s a serious question (kind of) about advantages/disadvantages of being the first player in Terraforming Mars, by Stronghold Games.
However, that’s not the point of this post (I seriously have no idea if there is an advantage/disadvantage to going first in the game).
It’s this quote, from the rulebook, that the post highlights:
“The player who most recently won a game of Terraforming Mars is given the first player marker…”
Further discussion in the thread indicates that the poster seriously considers this a rule that should be followed.
What?
Read MoreColossal Cat in the Box From Bezier Games Coming to Kickstarter – August 29
(Edit: 8/29/23:) – It’s live! And it’s $81 CDN before shipping.
Something to think about…
Exciting news for trick-taking fans everywhere, especially those of the quantum trick-taking game Cat in the Box.
I like to think that Bezier Games decided to release this now because I finally did my review of the game (Editor: “We’ll let you have your delusions”)
What is “this”, you might ask?
“This” is the Colossal Cat in the Box edition of the brilliant card game, coming to Kickstarter on August 29th from Bezier Games.
(All images in this post provided by Bezier Games)
Apparently, according to the press release, it will be exclusive to Kickstarter, so whether or not it will ever hit retail is unknown.
Designed by Muneyuki Yokouchi with artwork by Osamu Inoue, the Colossal edition will revamp all of the components as well as come with two mini-expansions!
Read MoreJuly 2023 Gaming
July was an interesting month for gaming, mainly because I had no idea what kind of gaming I would get in.
I was off the entire month of July, so there wouldn’t be any lunch time work games.
However, there were no Sunday holidays so every Sunday would be a game day.
I also got an extra game night in, something that I think I will be repeating once a month from now on.
So what ended up happening?
Here’s my list of games played.
I managed to get 14 games played (one fewer than June) and 16 plays of those games (4 fewer than June).
It probably wouldn’t even have been that much if I didn’t have some quick games in there.
Here are the games in grid form, so you can see even better!
Many thanks to Boardgame Stats for a great app that produces these images.
Some interesting stuff this month, even if there isn’t quite as much.
Let’s take a look at it.
Read MoreFriday Night Shots – Table Talk
Hey everybody!
It’s Friday, and it’s two Fridays since our last visit to the bar.
Sorry for missing last week. Things got away from me a little bit and I just wasn’t in the correct headspace to write.
However, I have my Captain Jack and Diet Pepsi set up, the music’s playing softly, and I have a fine visitor like you coming in!
Sit down and take a load off, my last Friday of vacation.
I’m trying to pretend I’m not sad about that.
Anyway, tonight let’s discuss the appropriate level of table talk in a board game.
This was inspired by a thread on Boardgamee Geek entitled “Is Trying to Manipulate Part of the Game?“
This thread was posted in the Terraforming Mars forum, talking about things like “If someone plays an Asteroid, is it ok for people to talk about who the player should choose to eliminate plants from?”
The original poster actually said:
“When someone plays an Asteroid, neither player should tell them who has plants or even that they forgot to do the action.
Likewise, when one of the players is close to having a second reward but a other person who does not have one can have it, we should not talk about it.”
He then wanted to get the designer’s opinion about this.
Of course, he got everybody else’s opinion as well.
This struck me and I decided that I would like to talk about it a little bit (and then I promptly decided I wasn’t up for writing so that got delayed until this week).
Read MoreCombat Commander After Action Report Supplemental No. 2 – Scenario #92 – Let England Shake
This is almost becoming a regular thing.
Which is great!
My May opponent for the Combat Commander ladder, Ted W, was so fun to play against that we played once again in June.
That was so fun that when I had some free time last week, I asked Ted if he’d be up for another game, this time his choice.
He chose Scenario #92, Let England Shake, from the Combat Commander: Sea Lion battle pack of scenarios.
This battle pack has a series of scenarios during a hypothetical German invasion of Great Britain.
In this scenario, a British counterattack hits a German HQ at Highclere Castle. The Germans (me, grey) run into the wooded hills above the castle instead. The British (Ted, tan) pursue them. With dusk settling in, the Scots Guards took up positions and began exchanging fire with the Germans in the woods.
Don’t forget that you can click on a picture to enlarge it.
Read More
Dude! Take Your Turn! 