February Round Up

     Note for next time, I need to start making my blog entries when stuff happens instead of at the end of the month. Much easier to break it up in bite sized chunks for me and my memory. Oh also need to take pictures of my games. 

    To start this month off, Rachel picked out one of the new games she had on her list, Targi, to play together this month. My elder brother,Shawn, gifted it to us for Christmas this year. We both enjoyed the game, really tight game mechanics specifically for two players. Targi uses a grid of 16 cards with players picking one of the border cards to dictate which rows and columns will be their actions for that round. Opponents can't take actions across from pawns already played or where the thieve is placed.

Standings at the end of the game.

    Usually, I would be able to get a row or column to either get resources I needed or block Rachel, but this would come at the cost of not getting the right column as Rachel would play her pawn on the column. We did pretty well, scoring 37 for Rachel and 32 for me, there was a couple times I miss read or interpreted resources and gold as interchangeable when they aren't. I will also note that we started the game on my birthday during a nap, then continued the next day after work and during another nap, Rosalind woke up from a nap before scoring which made it more tense to find out who won!

    Sunday BBBS D&D had a new participant. The party went to investigate a disappearance at a farmhouse. When they rolled up on the house they noticed a cellar at the back of the house. Alright what do you do? I throw dynamite! Is what the new player cried out. Not worrying about details in the moment, I said okay you chuck the dynamite. Orcs came out to check out the explosion. Which is where we stopped. I don't want to go too off the rails with random stuff to happen, but I appreciate integration. The players are new and have pretty simple characters for ease of use, so this made me discuss this with the player after the session. Did they sneak in somewhere to find dynamite? Phandalin is a mining town, dynamite or a fantasy resource similar to dynamite could exist in this world. Or maybe this character's rogue character isn't just a rogue, maybe they are an arcane trickster, a blend of wizard and thief. It's a nice way to workshop this idea.

Squirrel plotting near tree.

    Rachel and I played through the expansion of Photosynthesis: Under the Moonlight, which adds in, you guessed it a moon cycle. I picked this up with my order from Board Game Bliss in January without really looking at reviews, because CUTE ANIMALS! What could Rachel want more in a board game? The game now has the sun and moon cycle and moving around forest critters to collect said lunar rays. Rules stated to randomize the critters, Rachel got the turtle, slow but can dig up babies for bonus victory point objectives and I got the squirrel, fast to basically never miss the movement of the moon and can eat seeds that the opposing player plants. Both were fun to play, there is a total of 8 forest critters to play. We played Moon and the Forest Animals with Moonstones, but could have played with The Great Elder Tree instead. 

If a tree falls in the forest does the turtle care?

    Rachel went to visit her mother in Fort Saskatchewan to help around the house. I feel so helpless when she leaves with Rosalind, not only does she take care of our child, she is a domestic, a nurse and daughter for her mom. They have been travelling a lot as a daughter/mother duo, Rachel has shown great strength and determination when it comes to taking care of Rosalind, I have the bar set high for when I start my parental leave at the end of March. 

    While away, Rachel gives me repairs and such to do around the house. We have multiple pets that makes it a bit difficult to leave our house for super long, luckily we have my brother, Nathan, who isn't as allergic to our cats, who will come to take care of them almost every time we leave.  Another reason why I stay home. Work, cats, and house. 

    Besides fighting off entropy of our rest shack, and feeding our somewhat domesticated lions, I was able to play a couple games of Robinson Crusoe: Adventure on the Cursed Island. 

    The first tutorial game we played on Family Day with my brothers, Shawn and Nathan, I read the much thorough and competently written rules and thus picked up a bunch of rules that I didn't use or know about. This game went pretty smooth, that is until the Carpenter (me) found a venomous snake in his boot, getting sick and bringing the morale of the survivors all the way down. We all died on round 6 due to lack of health care on the island.

    On Sunday that weekend, we were determined to beat the first scenario. Focusing on the goal of making a 10 piece wood pile and making a fire to signal our rescue. We took it a bit too cautious to begin, assigning two pawns on exploring, gathering and building which meant that we would guarantee our success, but would make our progress slower and have no extra events happen. This could be rewards now for a punishment later, something we kept taking our last game, which is probably why we lost. For the most part they are hinderances. 

    Castaway, the first scenario, eases you into game mechanics, adding weather slowly, first just rain on rounds 4-6, then snow and wandering animals from 7-12. On the second last night, our island was hit with a devastating snow storm. We were forced to discard food and wood to help keep ourselves warm for the night. The next morning, before actions, we were to have the stockpile ready to signal the rescue, but we were one wood short. 

    Between games Adventures on the Cursed Island, Shawn came over to play Marvel Champions: The Card Game. I enjoy this game, there is a lot of replay value in the base set. Each player selects a hero and creates a deck based on four archetypes, then picks a villain to face as a group. Your options for heroes are Spider-man, Iron Man, She-Hulk, Black Panther, and Captain Marvel. With it being a Living Card Game, money will get you even more! Three villains are in the set as well, each having a bit different AI. 

    I played Black Panther, who is a "build up" type character, starting out weaker, then as he gets upgrades he can activate them all at once. Shawn was Captain America who discards cards to throw his shield around. While the players are heroes, the villain will just attack them, but as they switch to alter egos, the villain will scheme, which acts like a timer. If they scheme too much, they will succeed in their plans, adding minions or power up. 

    That is about it for playing, I was pretty busy painting this month. Originally, I thought I would do the Final Girls Expansion to Don't Look Back because it is Fem-bruary. Time to focus on the female miniatures! Okay so I didn't quite completely focus on just females, as I just painted all the miniatures in the core box as well, but that's still 7 minis. Working on some terrain for this setting to take a proper picture of the gang, for now, have one on top of my basing material container.

The whole gang with two killers, Jason is kitbashed from a Hal Gordan heroclix.

      

    I would also like to take this time to mention that I will be taking commissions for eyes. HA! I kid, he looked pretty good without the whites so now I don't want to make it even worse.

    I also finished off my Character of the Month, name and backstory to be determined with her own post and better photography.

Wizkids Female Pirate

    

Next on the Hobby Desk

    I spend a whole month neglecting the Corpse Wrack Mausoleum, time to get it done! The new Kill Team: Nachomonday is really catching my attention. Chaos and Corsairs! Could just run those two without buying the compendium. Might wait to see the price tag.