A Guilty Pleasure?

It's been a while since I've posted.  The challenged wrapped up but end of term ramped up and them we went off to Banff for a weekend.  So no painting or mini games since late March but I've played several board games.  

For my birthday earlier this year I requested a copy of Mice and Mystics, which we have now played a couple of times.  It's a cooperative dungeon crawler game based on humans who have been changed into mice.  It got good reviews on line and I figured it might make a good "bridge" game to play with my family and or game group.  So far it's been played twice with games and not with my family.

There's a story line linking a series of scenarios.  Most of the heroes are loyal subjects of a king who's been done in  by treachery and an evil sorceress.  The try and fight back and have a series of missions related to  rescuing the king while battling minions (rats, spider and centipedes) while dodging a crow and the castle's cat.  It's a quick game to pick up and a lot of fun with good challenges and really nice storyline elements and flavour.  The currency is cheese, there's a ring of cat strength, a mouse that trips a mousetrap takes a hit but gets a cheese etc.

It gets two non-opposable thumbs up from me SQUEEK!

Games Night and Painting

I made it to the monthly games night again this weekend and played 3 board games.  The first was a tile/path game with a Japanese theme.  It turned out that I tied for first wince the game was constructed in a way that did not always allow for a clear winner.  If the game had 36 tiles instead of 35, there would have been a winner but the list on contents clearly showed that there were only 35 tiles to fit a 6*6 grid.  There war some interesting minutes searching through the box and around the floor looking for tile #36 before we reread the rule book!

I also played two games of 1812, both times I played the US.  I got my butt badly kicked in the first game by not protecting Pittsburg (one of my reinforcement points) and because the Brits took a wild flyer to attack it!  For the second game, we used the 1813 set up instead of the 1812 set up.  This had the brits occupy Detroit and Ogdensburg while the Yanks had Fort George and York.  There's an obvious time line problem there as the troops and ships used to take Ft George were the same ones used to sack York and then run away!  But oh well it gave a good game and it ended up as a tie.

1812 works well as a 3 or 4 person game too - there are 2 US forces (regulars and militia) that can be played separately.  On the Brit side there are 3 forces - Regulars, Canadian militia and native americans.  it worked well with 2 players taking the brits and militia and sharing the native forces.

On the painting front the 13th US Infantry is nearing completion so I'm looking ahead to figure out he next US regiment to paint.

Finally A Game Played!

The term is over, and the calculus papers are graded and recorded (it's all over but the crying).  Hurrah! Hurrah!


I finally made an appearance at the local monthly games night.  I didn't have time to put together a miniatures game but was happy to show up for the first time in a dog's age.  I was very glad that I did as I met a local gamer who has an interest in miniatures (sadly he's shipping back to Oz this summer).  We played a new game that has intrigued me in the shop.

This is an area control game where there are 5 forces in 2 sides.  The British control the redcoats, Canadian militia and the Natives while the Yankee imperialist pig-dogs (excuse the bias here) have regulars and militia.  Each force has a move in a turn, but the sequence of play is random so that the US can move twice (i.e. the regulars and militia) before the Brits get to react wit their three moves (redcoat, militia and natives) or it can be more IGO-UGO depending on how things turn out.  Also, if a force moves and other allies in the area get to move at the same time.  So if a militia move from Prescott to Ogdensburg then any redcoats and Indians at Prescott also get to come along too.  I'm probably making a botch of describing this but it gives a game which is very fluid and has very strong ebb and flow  - much like the real conflict.

The map shows the familiar (at least to Canucks) frontier from Detroit to Montreal.  Ship based movement is allowed based on select cards which can be played if available.  The army units are small wooden cubes in appropriate colours.

One entertaining combat aspect is the the dice have "hit the enemy" results "try again but you can retreat if you want to" and "you run away" results.  I had a lot of fun letting Ian roll away and watching him lose more troops than I did!  Militia and Natives are prone to flee, US regulars less so and redcoats not at all.  Therefore a small core of redcoats can outlast all the others in a prolonged conflict, especially if there are militia or natives to take the casualties!

I won the war as the Brits, conquering Ft. Meigs in a last gasp attack where the redcoats prevailed while the US militia ran away.  It was a highly entertaining game that literally went down to the last die roll.

I then played 3 games of "Hey That's My Fish" which was at a level of intellectual challenge after 122 Math 103 papers.  I won once, game second once and third once in 3 person play.