[gaming] Clank!

Tried out a new game this weekend:

Good dungeon-crawling, deck-building game. You are an adventurer exploring an underground dragon lair. Any kind of noise you make creates a "Clank!" and that can wake the dragon. The deck-building aspect is acquiring companions and weapons to help you move/fight better. Worked well as a 2-player but can accommodate up to 4. We will definitely be playing this more.

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Went up the hill to pick ramps after work yesterday. Things are still a bit wet and muddy but the picking was good- I brought back two grocery bag's worth. A few were washed for supper but the rest will be cleaned today. Then it's pesto and compound butter time.

Getting excited for Maryland Sheep and Wool this weekend. I've got to sort out what I'm bringing (an empty checked bag- to bring home all the goodies), plane knitting, what handknit item I'm going to wear, etc. I've started a small list of particular vendors I want to try an see.

[gaming] 7 Wonders Duel

Played several games of this 2-player game over the weekend:

Very fun, very clever game. Several different ways to win- you don't really know who has the most points until everything is tallied up at the end.

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Rainy/dreary here, but that's okay. I moved a few plants around Tuesday after work and a few days of rain will help settle everything into place. 

My secret crochet project is 95% done (I stayed up until 11:30 last night working on it). I just have to sew some ends after work and it should be good to go.

[gaming] Patchwork

Look, I'm quilting even when I'm not quilting:

Dollar and I are making an effort to get back to playing our boardgames. We have a pretty good selection of 2-player games, many that we've only played once or never. Last night was the first time we tried Patchwork. You use buttons to pay for tetris-like blocks and try to build a quilt. The person with the most buttons at the end wins. So cute. 

We're going to take turns picking games. Because if I get to pick all the time, we'll just be playing games where we sew quilts, hunt mushrooms or collect cats.

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Things were super windy last night and we lost power around 10pm. The generator didn't kick on (fantastic- gotta call someone to come out and look at it) so we were without power until about 5am. No big deal, them's sleeping hours... but what if you can't get any sleep because of incessant and shrill smoke and carbon monoxide detectors chirping to signal a low battery? 

We must have a couple dozen detectors in the house and garage. They're normally on house power but when we lose power, they use their 12 volt batteries. But we don't change batteries on any kind of annual schedule like responsible people. So we lost power last night and random detectors start chirping as a low battery warning. CHIRP. Every 30 seconds. CHIRP. Dollar and I get out of bed and wander around the house in the dark, sleepily trying to triangulate where the awful CHIRP is coming from. Go stand under one... wait... It's like a treasure hunt you don't want to do but have to if you want to go back to sleep.

Best case scenario: You find the detector, take it down, take the battery out. Worst case scenario: You wander around the house, waiting for the next chirp... that never comes. It was just goddamn chirping- why... why did it stop? Just to torture us? Let's go back to bed. Fall back asleep. CHIRP. Mother... fuhhhhhhh... Get up, shuffle around the dark house... try to find the chirp. At one point, we were huddled together in the basement, shivering, staring up at a smoke and CO detectors, waiting for a chirp... waiting... which is it? It's one of these two... I broke. "Just take them down! Take them both down! I can't take it anymore!"

You don't know real, spine-chilling fear until you grab a smoke detector, take out the battery... and it still chirps in your hand. Then you know you're in hell and the chirps will never stop.

[gaming] Hive

Dollar and I haven't played too many games this past winter but recently we've been playing a lot of Hive. It's like chess with insects.



Playing on a bottlecap tray on the couch. (The bottlecaps make it a little hard to see the hexagonal bug tiles in play.) Every bug has it's own ability. The goal is to completely surround your opponent's queen bee. Once you get the hang of how to use the grasshopper's jumping ability or the ant's quick movement, a game can be completed in less than 10 minutes.

I think some editions of the game come with the mosquito and ladybug expansions. I had to purchase these tiles separately and I wouldn't play the game without them. I use one or both every game. I think the pillbug is the only expansion I don't have.

I just searched and there is an android/iphone app for the game if you want to try it that way. It's much cheaper than buying the actual game- but I don't think I'm going to download it. Set up/clean up takes about 15 seconds for this game and I enjoy playing with the actual tiles.

[misc] Mmmmm, raw eggs.

[playing] Deadwood. Scored this game in a Yankee Swap before Christmas and I've played it 4 times. This is a cute game- you've got a gang of cowboys that go to Deadwood to annex various buildings: the bank, town hall, newspaper, gold mine, casino, saloon, etc. There is some player interaction in the form of shoot-outs. If you don't want to fight and you have a horse, you can skedaddle to the abandoned mine. Players gain infamy in the form of wanted posters (but you better go to the church and get rid of as many wanted posters as you can before the Pinkertons arrive). It's a fun game and only $23 from Game Surplus.

[reading] A Game of Thrones. I'm late to the series but have become so obsessed with the story. It's so well written. It took a little perseverance on my part to get over the fact that bad things happen from the very beginning. Bad things happen to people you like. Bad things happen to people you don't like. Bad situations abound. But it's so. well. written. And compelling. I only get a few chapters in every couple of nights, so I should be done with it by the time the first HBO season comes out on dvd in March.

[cooking] Ice cream. I received an ice cream maker for Christmas and I've made the best homemade ice cream. I ordered the Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream recipe book and their sweet cream base is awesome but uses raw eggs. Beat 2 eggs, add sugar, add heavy cream (hurg, this stuff has the consistency of white paint) and milk. Then whatever flavors you want. Then you add it to the ice cream maker to do it's ice-cream-making-thing. When I made my first batch, I told Dollar, "There's eggs in it." He said, "Weird." I said, "Raw eggs. Not cooked. Just... raw eggs blended." He said, "Uh... Oh... kay." I've been pretty careful about only using local eggs when I made this ice cream (from a farm two towns over). I don't know, we eat rare meat and runny eggs, so this can't be that different, right? ... I was a little apprehensive about the raw eggs but the ice cream is coming out so amazing that with worth the threat of salmonella. Also, this might help me to screw up my courage to make some homemade beef tartar with a raw egg yolk on top. Dollar has already told me that he will not eat that. Which is good, because I'll probably need him to drive me to the hospital.

[knitting] I made a little sample for a pillow cover:

Penny! Sigh. Anyway, I did a small test using yarn scraps to get exact measurements. Now I'm ready to cast on to the actual 16" x 17" pillow. I don't often swatch but I do know when it's important to.

[weaving] I hate weaving. What a tedious nightmare.

[crocheting] I can't get the idea of a mega doily rug out of my head. I just think this one is a little too mega. The .5 inch cotton cording that the artist uses appears to make a 1 - 1.5 inch thick rug once you crochet it up. I know a rug so thick and a lacy would be an open invitation in my house to trip and smash your head on a piece of heavy furniture. I think I'd go with 8/32 cotton cording and a slightly less open design.

[cross-stitching] Yeah baby, you know what I need? A new craft. I ordered some books and aida cloth. I am ready. 

[gaming] Memoir '44

Three day weekend, here I come. Just got an email from Days of Wonder that Memoir '44 Online Beta 15 was just released- with three new maps! Even a winter scenario. I know what I'll be doing all weekend.

We recently got the Winter Wars expansion for the actual game and I set up a scenario that looked pretty interesting:



This new expansion has special combat cards for fighting in winter weather during the Battle of the Bulge and special troops (e.g. mortars, tank destroyers). For this game, I played allies and Dollar played axis. I won, but only because I had 2 exit opportunities on the board and I scooted nearly all my units that weren't being killed by Dollar off the board. At the end, I only had 6 figures left on the board- not 6 units, 6 figures.



We also got the Breakthrough board and I can't wait to play a scenario on that- the board is huuuuuge. Not Overlord huge but huge for a 2-player game.

[gaming] Agricola

I finally pulled out my copy of Agricola to play a two-player game with Dollar. I've seen this game played a couple times (at Carnage and Unity) and I've played once at my gaming group but there's a lot going on. I re-read the rules and set up the simplified "Family Game" version. It went well.

Visually, it helps that I splurged and pimped out my game with the animeeples, vegimeeples and people-meeples. These little wooden pieces (purchased separately) replace the abstract pieces that originally come with the game.

Here's an example of what a finished farm might look like with all the new pieces (except for gold bricks- I'm not sure yet what those would be used for):



The people pieces in the core game are disks. Like, over-sized Necco wafers. I like having a Ma, a Pa and three kids:



These pieces can make the game funnier when you send Pa out to go fishing for a round- while Ma has to plow a new field and the boy is bringing home a huge load of stones. So unfair. But character-building, I'm sure.

The animals are sheep, boar and cattle. These pieces are replacing white, black and brown cubes. CUBES!! A white cube is a sheep? No. I need my sheep to look like clouds with stubby legs:



And the resources (which were originally small disks of the same color)... Wood and clay:



Stone and reed:



Carrots and wheat:



Also, in the top right of the picture is food. These... foodeeples (?) were not represented in the core game. When you went fishing or converted your animal(s) into food or baked bread, you simply got a generic +1 food token. Now you can stock the pond with real fish, get meaty legs, bake real bread.

Now all I have to do is find a deep tray with at least 12 sections... Might go look at fishing tackle boxes.

[gaming] Memoir '44 - Air Pack

Dollar and I picked up a few more expansions for Memoir '44 while we were at Carnage this year. (I think we have them all now, besides a couple Overload scenarios.) We tried the Air Pack first, which comes with 8 painted planes (and stands), new cards for every single Terrain, Special Rule, Action, Nation, Airplane, etc. This expansion also comes with a book of all the scenarios published so far, with revisions for new tiles and air rules.

I chose the Utah Beach scenario to set up. (By the way, I need to get a fishing tackle box and/or cases for all the troops, hexes, tiles, markers, blah-biddey blah-biddey blah. Looking for all the set-up pieces has me rummaging through the main box, the terrain pack, the eastern front, the pacific theater, the mediterranean theater, the air pack. Jeezum crow!)

Dollar and I usually play through once, re-set the board and then switch sides. This scenario started with Germany in strong defensive positions but they were way outnumbered by the US infantry and tanks. I played USA first and generally pushed all my troops up to overwhelm the Axis side. I was able to win 5 medals before Dollar was able to take any (having consistently awesome die rolls helped, too).

We set up again and I took the Axis side. Dollar could have done the same thing as me but he decided to be more... I don't know, slow and careful about it. Which resulted in higher losses for him. Allied still won, but it was close- 5 medals to Axis' 4 medals.

It was fun playing with the planes. Here Dollar's Lockheed P-38 Lightning intimidating some of my Germany infantry:



I launched my Fieseler Storch to do some recon of the US troops (just to the right of the top center):



I was able to perform a rescue of one of my lone infantry troops with the Storch as well.

It was a lot of fun with the addition of the planes. The planes click nicely into their stands and they are painted very well.

[gaming] I can't wait for Carnage!

Nice, I checked on the status of the custom game cards and FedEx says they should arrive tomorrow. I'm hopeful but... they left the printing facility in Hong Kong this morning. And they should arrive to my house tomorrow? Oh... kay... I really hope so- I would like to see the cards before I leave for DC on Sunday.

Also, a couple new games are coming via UPS tomorrow. An expansion for Shadows Over Camelot (which I am running at Carnage) and a new sheep game called Wool Rules. Another sheepy game. I actually did a search through BGG and there are lots of games with "sheep" and "wool" in the title. I'll have to collect them all!

[misc] Carnage is coming...

Cold weather is here and I think it's here for good. Reports were coming in yesterday from all over Vermont- snow. We got a wee bit of slush mixed in with rain. No snow. Yet. But this morning my car was covered with thick frost and I had to pre-heat.

Dinner last night was a very simple but yummy salmon, potatoes and asparagus. I use filets, rather than steaks. It's so easy and I love that it's all done in one pan. Tonight I have plans to make bacon wrapped scallops; we were at a wedding this past weekend where they were served but they were gone before Dollar had a chance to have some. So, these will be for him (xoxo).

I'm totally procrastinating on sending in my registration for Carnage Con. We probably won't get our first picks for games. But for the first time, I'll be running two games this year!

Spinning is going well. I have 4 bobbins full to start plying- some purple-gray merino and some black alpaca. I had a little set back this weekend when the leather strap that connects my right treadle to the footman broke mid spin. I bought some new, pink leather trim to use. Anything to make my spinning wheel more girlie. And now I have spare on hand in case it happens again.

[gaming] Small World

I have some pictures from a 4-player game of Small World. While I don't have a picture showing it all together (I did, but it looked confusing and perhaps overwhelming), I do have snapshots of the different components.

The sun shining on Small World. Here, you can see the board with race tokens placed on the various terrain spaces. There are victory coins in piles of 1, 3, 5 and 10. My two races are below the coins (the one on the right is in decline). And the black tray to the left holds all the race tokens...



Some races to choose from (from bottom to top: Fortified Halflings, Forest Orcs, Pillaging Ghouls, Diplomat Skeletons)...



The races. Here you can see Amazons on the hills and Humans on the farmland. There's a dragon token near the center of the picture- the Human special ability was "Dragon Master", so once per turn a human could jump onto the dragon and conquer any region in the world. Very powerful :)



The race tokens that look gray/dull have been turned over because they are in decline.

The game is very fun. The ONLY thing I dislike about the game is the token tray:



They are tough to get out and once you start putting them back, the first one or two can fall flat to the bottom, making it frustratingly difficult to pick them back out again. I need to find some new plastic containers or a better way to do this...

[gaming] Shear Panic!

And the games just don't stop. Last night I play tested a 4-player game of Shear Panic!. Yes, that means me playing all 4 players.

I've read. And reread. And re-reread the rules. It's complicated, yo. It difficult memorizing all the different actions one could take- Lamb Slam, Ewe Turn, Wool Rule, etc.

But, after a while I got it. Here's my flock once they entered Roger Ram's field:



Here's the blue player's control mat and the green scoring track depicting the different fields...



At that point, I hadn't reached the shearing field yet, where this guy wants to remove the sheep closest to him from the game:



The pieces are so cute.



So... The game is good. It's a complicated abstract strategy game, which sounds silly to me because it's just a game about a flock of sheep. But, the rules do make sense. Every so often, the sheep will panic (when they first jump off the truck at the beginning of the game, whenever the flock marker lands on a red space) and you have to roll a die to see which sheep panics and moves.

Also, if a member of the flock gets separated, there are rules on how to bring them back together. Because the flock always has to be together. Makes sense, right?

[gaming] Blokus / Wits & Wagers

We weren't going to play any games last night but the mother of all rain storms came and we lost power for three hours- 8 pm to 11 pm. We played a modified 2-player variant of Blokus by candlelight, which was nice.

I've read many reviews that this is a great abstract strategy game for 4 players. It's uneven with 3 players. And it's not very fun with 2 players. When I first got the game, Dollar and I gave the 2 player game a go and... Yeah, it was wierd. Each player is basically playing as 2 players.

BoardGameGeek to the rescue. I was able to find out that if you box in a smaller area, you can play the actual 2-player travel version: Blokus Duo

It was much more fun playing the travel version. I don't think Dollar's a fan of the game but I really like it. I was able to pick it up at Border's in West Leb with a 40% off coupon, so it was < $20 :)

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They also had Wits and Wagers at Border's, which I've recently heard is a good party game. Amazingly, it's available in the Xbox Arcade and I had Dollar download it. We played a couple times and it's a good "trivia game for people who don't know trivia".

The questions are hard (How many miles long is the Mississippi River? What year was Frankenstein published? When was penicillin discovered?) but stupid answers from other players and good guessing/betting by you is all it takes to win.

Here was the last question Dollar and I had:

How many sheets of toilet paper are in a standard Scott roll?

Dollar's guess: 300

Amy's guess: 1000

Betting round... Dollar starts putting money on various guesses.

AMY: What are you doing? It's 1000.

DOLLAR: What?

AMY: Yes! I'm sure!

DOLLAR: I don't know...

AMY: I'm totally sure! That's the toilet paper I buy! Put your money on my guess! Hurryuptimeisrunningout!

*Ding* And the correct answer is...

1000.

Thank you, thank you very much. Dollar was appropriately impressed that I knew the exact answer.

[gaming] Small World

Dollar and I have been playing the 2-player version of Small World. This is the newest game from Days of Wonder.

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In Small World, players vie for conquest and control of a world that is simply too small to accommodate them all.

Small World is inhabited by a zany cast of characters such as dwarves, wizards, amazons, giants, orcs and even humans; who use their troops to occupy territory and conquer adjacent lands in order to push the other races off the face of the earth.

Picking the right combination from the 14 different fantasy races and 20 unique special powers, players rush to expand their empires - often at the expense of weaker neighbors. Yet they must also know when to push their own over-extended civilization into decline and ride a new one to victory!

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The funnest part of the game is seeing which special power comes with each race. It's random, so you might have Flying Halflings and Seafaring Giants. The next game you play, there could be Flying Ghouls and Commando Giants. This adds to the re-playability of the game, I think.

Last night Stout Ratmen was a combo a player could choose and I kept saying Stout Ratmen like it was some guy's first and last name. Hello, my name is Stout Ratmen. It could happen, right?

Oh, and scoring is secret in this game until the end, when players tally up all the victory coins they've collected. The first game we played was close: 87 (him) to 85 (me). The second game was 97 (him) to 88 (me). After we revealed our scores for the 2nd game, I started digging around the couch and checking the floor for a 10 victory coin token I "must" have dropped.

I'm looking forward to playing this game with more people.

[gaming] Board Games at Triple Play

In case you live in the area, there's an bi-weekly evening of open boardgames at Triple Play in West Lebanon (remember they've moved from the mall in Lebanon to the Glen Road Plaza, across from the Powerhouse). I went last night and we played Kingsburg...

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In Kingsburg, players are Lords sent from the King to administer frontier territories.

The game takes place over five years, a total of 20 turns. In every year, there are 3 production seasons for collecting resources, building structures, and training troops. Every fourth turn is the winter, in which all the players must fight an invading army. Each player must face the invaders, so this is not a cooperative game.

The resources to build structures and train troops are collected by influencing the advisers in the King's Council. Players place their influence dice on members of the Council. The player with the lowest influence dice sum will be the first one to choose where to spend his/her influence; this acts as a way of balancing poor dice rolling. Even with a very unlucky roll, a clever player can still come out from the Council with a good number of resources and/or soldiers.

Each adviser on the King's Council will award different resources or allocate soldiers, victory points, and other advantages to the player who was able to influence him/her for the current turn.

At the end of five years, the player who best developed his assigned territory and most pleased the King through the Council is the winner.

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I liked the game. I read some negative reviews at BGG and, yes, it is a luck-based game in that you have dice to roll and if you keep having crappy rolls, you're not going to be able to influence very powerful advisers. But I think making the best of what you roll is part of a player's skill.

The ending of the game was anticlimactic. The last battle was resolved, we were all victorious and... the player who had been in first place for a while won. Which was... I don't know. I prefer games where you can't see who the winner's going to be until the end, you know? I guess I've just gotten used to Zooloretto (plus all the expansions) where you have absolutely no idea who the winner is until the game ends and you add up all the points.

The winter battles were the weakest part of the game. I spent resources and influence on building a strong army when it really didn't matter. People who spent nothing on armies were still able to win battles, which allowed them to spend their resources on buildings. One the the guys there said that this uneven mechanic was going to be resolved in the future.

[gaming] Incan Gold

Here's a fast (about 15 minutes) and fun game that I'm currently in love with- Incan Gold.

There are 5 rounds, which can last anywhere from 3 seconds to a few minutes (depending on what cards are turned over). The ancient temple (and rumored artifacts) are revealed in ascending order. Here we have already turned over cards 1-3:



Your action choices are simple- either continue exploring or head back to camp with the treasure you've found so far. The "press you luck" mechanic is what makes this little game so intense.

Here's a path of treasures and hazards. You can see a player's tent in the background, with some turquoise sitting outside of it.



If you flee- I mean, head back to camp, you get to tuck your treasure safely away inside your tent, keeping the exact amount secret from other players until the end of the game:



Here are the two actions cards. Everyone secretly chooses one, then reveals them together- you never know who's going to stay or who's going to go. The one on the left is the "back to camp" card, the one on the right is the "continue exploring" card.



Here's something I noticed recently. The guy's bag in the "back to camp" card has a tear in it!



I hope he didn't drop too many treasures on his way out.

But the BEST best part of the game is the NEW gems I got. I went to Gemstar Gemstone in Enfield with my sister to replace the plastic turquoise, obsidian and gold pieces.

Here's the pieces that came with the game:



Here are the pieces that we got:



So much prettier and heavier and nicer. Gemstar did have real turquoise nuggets but buying enough would have put me WAY over budget. As it is, I spent more on the gems than I did on the game itself.

But it was so worth it:

[gaming] Games from my collection

I've started to update my BoardGameGeek account and found a widget to show random games from my collection. Scroll down and look to the left-side column. You can click on these games to learn more.

BoardGameGeek, the website, can see a little intimidating because there is so. much. information. Lots and lots of info, images, trading, forums, files, stats, etc. It can seem overwhelming but there isn't a better resource for researching a boardgame.

So I've got Ravelry for all my fiber crafts, BGG for all my boardgame needs... Now I need an equivalent for cooking...

[gaming] Zooloretto

Sorry for not posting in a few weeks. We've been chillaxing with lots of game-playing. My current favorite boardgame is Zooloretto. I have all the available expansions (XXL, Exotic) and we play with them all- minus the building sites, which I feel is too... aggressive for some players. (Seriously, Dollar would considering it a combat action).

Anyway, the game is basically you filling up a zoo. That's the basic game. With the XXL expansion, you can have a petting zoo and fill it with baby animals. You have a savings book to make more money. You have a secret job board that gives you bonuses for specific animals. You can buy extra mini enclosures for a few kinds of animals. You can send full enclosures of animals to international zoos. There are pavilions to buy, a souvenir shop to win, a restaurant, and a polar bear and gorilla that help you.

As if that wasn't enough, I got the Exotic expansion that adds a track around your main board, to fill with exotic animals only. This expansion also introduces visitors to your park! Yay for meeples! They move around your zoo when you get new exotic animals or vendors. When an opponent places an exotic animal, a visitor color of his/her choice will move forward and yours will actually move BACK and head for the exit. "Did you hear Dollar's Zoo just got another koala? Let's leave Amy's Zoo and head over there!" I like that aspect of the game- fickle visitors subject to the lure of new animals.

Here are our finished boards from a 4-player game. I made some scoring spreadsheets to help tally things up at the end (because of all the expansions) and I'm always surprised at how close the scores are at the end of gameplay.

[gaming] New Games

Fury of Dracula. This is a co-op game where vampire hunters work together trying to track down Dracula across Europe. His current and previous locations are hidden (unless you have a card that reveals one) so you have to go from city to city, seeing if he's been there. I like that the game has the hunters working together but it was so long. After more than 3 hours of play, we finally had Dracula cornered- until he magically disappeared to another unknown location. Very frustrating and we called it quits after that. Do you know how many fights with Dracula or his minions I got into? None. I was all loaded up with a pistol, rifle, crucifix, etc. And I didn't get into one fight. But it was a good game- this was only the 2nd time I've played and it was a lot more interesting and fun than the 1st time.

Incan Gold. Previously knows as Diamant, I just got the 2009 edition. This is a fast and fun game...

"You and your fellow adventurers explore the ruins of an ancient Incan temple, looking for turquoise, obsidian and gold. At every turn, you must decide whether to play it safe by returning to camp with the treasure you've gathered so far; or to be a truly intrepid adventurer and keep on exploring. Going further into the ruins means risking your treasure by falling victim to giant spiders, wandering mummies, fire spouts and venomous snakes! But priceless Incan artifacts are rumored to exist here... and you can be the one to discover them if you conquer your fears and forge ahead!"

It's the press-your-luck element that makes this game fun. And the little pop-up paper tents that you hide your treasure under are very cute. The finishing touch would be replacing the plastic turquoise, obsidian and gold pieces with real little nuggets of turquoise, obsidian and pyrite. Perhaps a trip to Gemstar Gemstone in Enfield?

Shear Panic! As an avid knitter and gamer, I felt obliged to own this game. Plus, I love the tagline: "The best game ewe ever herd!" I haven't played this yet, but the pieces are very nice and I've read many good reviews. The game comes with rules for a two-player variant, so I'd like to try that with Dollar.

Other games we've pulled out recently: Alhambra, Memoir '44, Puerto Rico. I also recently taught Dollar how to play Backgammon. The weather is going to be pretty crappy for the rest of the week, so boardgames sound like just the thing.