Too Many Games?

My cup runneth over. I expanded my recently played list to 10 games.

Anyhow, thought I'd post the 5 games that I haven't played that I want to play the most:

The Devil's Cauldron
Here I Stand
Twilight Imperium
Descent
The Napoleonic Wars

There's certainly no guarantee that I'll play any of these games in the near future. I'd guess that the game that is the farthest out would be The Devil's Cauldron, since it seems pretty complicated and there's a lot of counters to punch out. I imagine of the above games Twilight Imperium is the most likely to be played next, but we'll see.

My 5 most anticipated games that haven't come out yet:

Burger Joint
Unhappy King Charles
Le Havre
Republic of Rome (Valley Games reprint)
Wars of the Roses

Of these Republic of Rome has to be the furthest away from being played, since it might not be released in this decade, if at all.

And, my list for out of print games that I really want to play:

Kremlin
Kingmaker
Raid on St. Nazaire
This Accursed Civil War

Finally, my list of games that I only want because they look pretty:

War of the Ring Collector's Edition
Axis and Allies Anniversary Edition
Samurai
Race the Wind (I also think this game looks like it would be fun to play

Kids' Games

On Tuesdays and Thursdays my wife works and my younger children are at the babysitter's so in the afternoon it's just me and my 7 year old, Gabriel. After homework (boring) we play (fun). He beat me in checkers and we tied in Hey That's My Fish!, but I did get a win in NHL 08.






Maybe I can get him to try Battlelore again next week. This time I'm going to set the game up before I even ask him. Last time he was all set to play but by the time I was done setting up the game he'd lost interest.

And he has pajamas on because it was wear pajama day at school.

Too Many Eurogames?

I was checking my blog to see if there were any new comments (there werent') and I noticed my boardgamegeek game tracking thingy was filled with what I would call "Eurogames." And, the answer to the question in this post's title is yes.

The Great Board Game Crash of..?

On recommendation from my buddy Marshall, I checked out the Fortress Ameritrash site today.

Read the article about how the hobby game industry may crash like the video game one did long ago. I found this fascinating. For starters, the "video game crash" reminds me of the Reagan presidency. When Reagan was elected I was 9 years old and when he finished his second term I was 17, so I did a lot of growing up during that time. What I remember of those times was people making fun of him because he was an actor/old/Republican/etc... There were scandals like the Iran-Contra thing. But he talked a good game, had buckets of charisma, and everyone loved him.

Fast forward to the beginning of this century, and airports are being named after him. All of a sudden he's remembered as being one of the greatest presidents ever. Not how I remembered it at all.

Now, I'm not saying Reagan wasn't a great president, that's not my point. What I'm trying to say is that how history has looked back on those times is very different from what I remember experiencing during those times.

Just like the video game crash. People talk about that now and I'm like, "What video game crash?" I remember having the Atari 2600 and loving it. I remember really wanting a computer to play games on but my parents wouldn't buy one ("Them computers are a fad!"). I remember playing the Nintendo Entertainment System when I was in 11th or 12th grade. Somewhere in between the Atari and the NES was the fabled video game crash. I didn't notice.

Granted, if the hobby board game industry goes belly-up, I'll probably notice since I'm a lot older than I was back in the early 80's. But it wouldn't be that big of a deal. I'll just watch tv and play Dungeons and Dragons like I did back in those dark days between 1983 and 1987.

Books

Went to Ocean City, MD (my favorite place on Earth) this past weekend. Lousy time for the most part (cold, windy weather and had to take my oldest son to the ER), but, I started reading The Road by Cormac McCarthy Friday afternoon. I got the book as a gift from my mom last Christmas, but with all of the other dumb stuff that I do I hadn't read it. Actually, I also got Six Frigates from my Uncle, and I haven't read that yet either. AND, I got World War Z the Christmas BEFORE last, and I haven't read THAT yet either. But I will.

Anyway, I finished The Road Saturday afternoon. Granted, it's only 250 pages, but I just couldn't stop reading it. Obviously I did stop reading to do stuff like take care of my children, but even then the book occupied my mind.

A very disturbing and upsetting read. However, very touching too. I recommended it to a friend of mine who is Mormon, and he half-jokingly asked if it was uplifting to the spirit. I said it certainly was (and it is).

So now my most anticipated movie is The Road which is scheduled for limited release in November. I couldn't believe it when I searched the Web for the book title when I got home in order to read others' opinions of the book that there was a film version coming out. It's funny, but the last movie I saw was No Country for Old Men, based on another of McCarthy's books.

Anyway, highly recommended.

On the Beach

My family and I are taking a little vacation in Ocean City MD this weekend. Right now our youngest is asleep and the other two are in the room next door with their Grandmother. So, since it's nice and quiet I decided to write an entry.

In the past month I seem to have more free time. For one thing, the baby is steadily sleeping through the night. Also, school has started which means an early bed time for the oldest. For one reason or another, it just feels that the initial storm of activity that hit us after the baby was born is starting to subside and we are getting into a nice routine.

With this I've been able to do some things that I had put on hold since Spring. I've started to reduce the pile of unread comic books in my den. I also have picked back up with my subscriptions through Discount Comic Book Service (highly recommended). I even bought some back issues, namely all of the Secret Invasion books released so far.

Finally finished my terrain board. Right now I have a Zamundan village set up on it, and I'm pretty pleased with how it looks. I'm not so much proud of my modeling skills, I'm just glad I finally finished it.

As for gaming, I haven't played a miniatures game since Historicon. However, I have continued to play board games and Hammer of the Scots is our favorite. I've got a copy of the reprint of The Napoleonic Wars and I'm looking forward to giving that a try. I admit that I haven't felt like trying any new games lately. The other day we played Tannhauser, which seems like a pretty fun game and I love the setting, but my heart really wasn't in it. Then we played Robo Rally and I can see how it could be a really fun time, but again I just wasn't into it. Then we decided to play Hammer of the Scots and it was awesome as usual. I think since I've been stressed around the house lately I just don't feel like trying new things. Hammer feels both comfortable since I know the rules but intriguing since there's so many different strategies to implement.

As for painting miniatures I picked up my German tanks that I ordered through a friend of mine from Maryland. I'm going to experiment using the Army Painter spray paint and shade and see how they turn out using those. Plus I'll need more German infantry to support them.

I've even had time to play video/computer games, something I haven't done with any frequency since maybe last April or so. Unfortunately, my Xbox 360 broke and I had to send if off to Microsoft to be fixed. My wife gave me Spore for our anniversary and I'm looking forward to installing that when we get home. (In case you're wondering I got her a vintage Return of the Jedi Ewok Village playset)

Well, I'm wasted. I'll take some photos of my terrain board and post them next week.

Assembly Point

I attended Assembly Point in Glen Burnie, MD this past Saturday. This is a local con put on by my wargaming club, The Army of Central Maryland. It was a pretty fun time. My buddy and I brought some board games with us and at first it was just him and I playing Hammer of the Scots. After that though we got a 5 player game of Shadows Over Camelot going and it was a blast. I finally got to be the traitor and it was all I had anticiapted it to be.

There were some pretty nice looking miniatures games going on, and there was a very well supported Flames of War tourney as well.

Unfortunately we couldn't stay long and we headed home after we finished Shadows. Hopefully they will run this con again next year.