GAMING SESSION

A great full night of games. We started with Race for the Galaxy and did a 3 player game that Nate dominated. Then with the group we played a couple of rounds of Shadow Hunters, one I was on the winning team as shadows, and the other I got eliminated by my own team. ARGH! We then closed with one of my favorite games, Panic Station. Intense paranoia in one of the best deductive/semi cooperative with a traitor element games. Very unique, kind of modeled after the movie The Thing. My heart has raced more in that game in not knowing who to trust. This was the first time I have ever been the host with the infection, and I quickly infected Tyler and we systematically eliminated most of the rest and won. Admittedly I was not AS paranoid being the infected from the beginning. Thrilling none the less.

GAMING SESSION

Tonights session we got in a play of my proto-type Accession, which functions well as a quick strategic abstract, and a seven-player 7 Wonders, again with Leaders. The Leaders expansion adds another element, but seems too destracting for my strategies. The hit was Shadow Hunters which we played twice, a great deductive game where you are either on the Shadows (werewolves, vampires, etc.), Hunters (out to kill said monsters), or the Neutrals (in the middel of the conflict with your own winning condition). You move into different areas, generally pick from 3 sets of cards: Green Hermit - hidden questions you give to a player to find out a clue to who they are, Black - offense cards thats help you generally to attack, or White - defense cards that protect or help you heal. You can also attack players, but most of the time you do not know what team anyone is on! You can very innocently or maliciously thwart a player's efforts in this one, and there are generally multiple winners. A blast to play, even if you are Stephen who was eliminated quickly each time!

GAMING SESSION

Played Dominion as a starter, and then a group game of 7 Wonders with the Leaders expansion for the first time. They have many cool leaders from history included, but it took noticeably more time selecting them and using them in the game. But they added another strategic element. We then played a 5 player game of Belfort, with 4 being new to the game. Great game with many different elements involved with worker placement, building strategies, and area control, it even has dwarves, elves and gnomes units in it! There is a cool variability element with different guilds that are used in each game, but it took alot longer than expected (3 hours). Still a good game that was really close in scoring in the end.

GAMING SESSION

Starting the new year I would like to record more of the times that I play games, what games I played, and my impressions of them. We have a pretty regular Thursday game night at the institute with many students, some more hard-core gamers than others. Our first Thursday session of 2012, we played Eminent Domain, a fairly new deck-building/role selection game that has similarities to Dominion, Race for the Galaxy, and Glory to Rome. I played it with the designer last Fall at Strategicon, and while I like it, it doesn't play that smoothly and has limitations.

We also played a big 10 player game of Formula D, a racing game that I was stoked to play. It reminds me of playing Speed Circuit when I was young. We played the basic version and it was fun for a racing game. I would like to play the advanced rules. For the past month we have been playing quite a few games of Shadows Over Camelot, a cooperative game of the knights of the roundtable, but with a traitor element. It has been an OK game to play, but the basic cooperative element can end up just being puzzle-solving. It is the traitor element that makes the game suspenseful and tense.  We played with the expansion Merlin's Company, that has cards with flavor text straight from Monty Python's The Holy Grail. Josh was the traitor, and we had no chance against him this time.

New Years Revolution

The horrors of war. We like to re-enact it to wrap up the old year and enter the new. It also helps us to dispose of our graham cracker houses from Christmas. We have done it on New Year's Eve, but we waited for the 2nd this time. We start by arranging our houses out back, and setting up about 100 plastic army men, and imported sparkler tanks.

We then begin the action with a napalm strike, this time we used a plastic golf club. The melted plastic when dropped from a height makes a nifty "zipping" sound as it falls, splashing the scene with fire, especially when it bounces off of the tin-foil. It will begin to ignite the scene, and helps later for the houses to "flame on". Jonathan & Caleb led this part of the strike, and Hannah did most of the night photography.

With a little help, flames spread, and tanks fire off: igniting soldiers in front of them, and then rolling forward over them. Soon the war is ablaze.

The next morning I get the camera to document the carnage. War is a terrible thing.

To see the whole sequence, just cue the Platoon theme music and click here:

Click here to view these pictures larger

Resurrection Time

Since it is a new year, and since I believe in the Resurrection and in the principles of repentance and forgiveness, I will take the nudging of my wife and resurrect this blog from its dormant state to provide a format to share some things. Time is fleeting, and as I get older it sometimes moves way too fast. Too many memories and cherished experiences, and I am getting too senile and forgetful.
The picture is of the garden tomb, located in Jerusalem just outside of the city walls. I have had the blessed opportunity of being there twice, once when I studied abroad in Israel in the Fall of 1989, the other when I was able to visit on a CES tour with my wife in 1998. The garden tomb is a sacred place, and one of the highlights of each of my stays in the Holy Land.