Bits and Boards and the Art of Fly Fishing

You may remember that I went out and bought a fishing tackle bag, with space for 4 Plano 3750 tackleboxes, in order to cart around my game bits.
The plan was to keep all of the boards, rulebooks, and larger bits for 3-4 games in one single box, and carry around the bits separately.

Especially with my last influx of games, this plan has kind of been neutralized.

Small World was really the impetus for the plan, and most of its current bits still fit in one tackle box, but there are enough large lumps leftover that I've brought back its box (but not the insert) to keep all of its own stuff separately.

I kinda forced Galactica into the plan, but now that I have Pegasus, the tacklebox has definitely filled out a bit. If I wanted to go to the effort of printing up 100 little tuckboxes, I could throw all the cards into the box, but as it stands, the Pegasus box is just the home for the boards, books, and character sheets.
This one may have to be modified in short order, as soon as get my grubby hands on Exodus.

The third of the original tackleboxes found a home when I brought home Power Grid. Not only does Grid have a lot of bits that need to be separated, but the box is exactly the right size to fit a Plano 3750 inside it. Was a very cool discovery.

The fourth original tacklebox still has a lot of my VTES counters of various types in it, but is bound to get repurposed someday.

I'm just thankful that Pandemic, with its expansion, fit in the original box which is smaller than one of these tackleboxes to begin with. Good on Z-Man games for providing some pretty awesome storage stuff (as well as shrinking the pawns down and re-issuing a full set) in the expansion box.

And ah yes, Dominion.. I've just finished sleeving the whole of Alchemy and Prosperity; everything fits in just the original box (with some slight modifications) and the Alchemy Box (with its insert; the "starting cards" fit nice and snugly here).

I can't wait to actually play some of these games again, after spending so much time storing the bits.. :)

Gametastic Friday

So, today (technically yesterday now) a whole lot of games arrived.
First, my Thoughthammer package which I've been waiting for since August has finally arrived! Sleeved most of the new Dominion stuff already, and played a few games with my wife. I'm so relieved to not have to bitch about that anymore.

Secondly, my copies of On the Brink (Pandemic expansion) and Pegasus (BSG expansion) also arrived today. But I didn't check that until just now; I saw the package had arrived but assumed it was something less-interesting that I had ordered.. Heh.
So hopefully we'll take the opportunity to check out at least OtB this weekend.
For the moment, Pegasus is just $25 plastic basestars ;)

More interesting posts coming.. I just wanted to get that out.

More birthday gifts...

Amazon credit has been applied and some of it spent on Pandemic On The Brink, and BSG Pegasus.
I'm not actually sure if I will ever get a chance to play with my own copy of BSG with Pegasus in it, but I'm so excited about Exodus, I want to give my money to FFG :)

I may end up getting more boardgames with more credit soon, but I am also saving money for my other (HTPC) project, so I should pace myself. Plus, I still have to catch up on actually playing some of the games I've got. i.e. Power Grid.

Josh's Birthday Boardgaming Night Brief Report

So, the afternoon/evening turned out pretty well. Not as many people showed up as I thought would, but that's alright, we had a good core.

The game-playing itself started with Race for the Galaxy; not my favorite game. I like San Juan, but I have never been able to wrap my head around all the extra complexity of RftG. But I give it a chance whenever Matt wants to play it. There were only 3 of us, and 2 of them play this game A LOT 2-player, so I knew I had no chance while I was more "moseying for the galaxy".
In the first game, I was going for a "Rebel" strategy, but really spent more time collecting things with the Rebel keyword than paying attention to my score.
In the second game, I started with an "Alien" strategy, but (as Jen pointed out) if you buy an expensive Alien location on turn 1-2, you spend the rest of the game Exploring and you lose.

Next came a game of Small World, when some more showed up. We played with the Necromancer Island expansion, so there were 4 "regular" players and 1 Necromancer.
The jury is still out on this variant. It seems like the only way to prevent Nerg^H^Hcromancer from winning is to sit there and be peaceful, and only attack as much as it takes to keep your slight edge in coins. The basic thing is, whenever a unit dies, it becomes 25% of a ghost. And when 14 ghosts are on the board, Necro wins.
Now, the game did last until the last turn, and the Special Necro Powers were particularly useful for a "Necromancer sits on his hands and is unattackable" strategy, but he still ended up winning.
I can't say I'm entirely faultless; I chose a few super-aggressive race/power combinations and "had no choice" but to keep attacking.
There may be some other subtlety of the NI rules that we missed; I'm willing to try it again.
It also worked out pretty well to use the Leader Tokens as randomizers for the races, although we didn't actually incorporate the Leader mechanic.

After that, we played a game of Citadels. Not much to report about that one.
Except the whole crew was getting pretty punchy by this point.

Then, most people went home, and it was down to me and Mike (Talita had also gone to bed). We played a couple of 2-player games of Pandemic before calling it a night. We lost the first one due to too many outbreaks (with some killer chain reactions), and we won the second one. Parts of the game do seem anticlimactic (at least with 2 players), but I still like it.

Dominion was suggested, but not played. That one will come out next time, really really hopefully with the expansions I'm missing.

If I think of anything else to add, I will probably re-edit this post, so please watch this space carefully.

Who knows when I will be able to do something like this again?

Pandemic Report #1

Not quite enough to say about the game yet to justify a BGG Session Report or Review, but Talita and I just played 2 "intro level" games of Pandemic, and I really quite enjoyed it.
We won the first game, but it seemed tense, lots of Outbreaks.
The second game started out seeming easier, but we ran out of cards; discarded too much Yellow early and didn't realize it. :(

I have heard that people think the Operations Expert is underpowered, so much so that the expansion gives him more abilities.
But this role was in both of our games, and I found him to be pretty useful, mostly for curing a disease when you have the right hand without moving.
Maybe after a few more games, I'll notice it.


But yeah, so far, I rate Pandemic a GRRRR

Birthday present

And my latest birthday present, Pandemic, will get played this weekend, and hopefully before then.. :)
That is all.

Just so this isn't a dumb twitter-like post, here's a question:
Is the Pandemic "On the Brink" expansion considered to be ESSENTIAL, or is it something like BSG Pegasus where it changes the game but you can always play the normal way?

Be Not Afraid...

...the new Small World expansion and mini-expansion have arrived!

So now the only thing I don't have for SW is Tales and Legends, which is stuck with the Dominion Prosperity shipment :(

But I have all of the "normal" expansions, with all the races and powers.
And all of the bits still fit in my tacklebox (more or less).


Will be happy to play this one on Saturday.
Necromancer Island should be interesting...