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I’ve been listening to the Harry Dresden books for the last several years. The Latest, Twelve Months, just came out. Would you join me in a book club reading? That’s us reading a bit and talking a bit about the book.

Tonight Megan and I had a really fun game night!
While Abigail played Minecraft all night, building fantastic worlds, we played Rummy 500 and Scrabble!

Yesterday we worked on the most enjoyable cluster puzzle with 300 Kawaii Creatures. The most fun was us having to identify the creatures to one another across the table, “I’m looking for a yellow teddy-bat about to hug.” “Oo! Here it is! heheh!”

And the other day, the three of us had rousing games of Sleeping Queens and Hive!

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It might have been fun if I knew how to play.

It was fun picking out dreadnaughts with Heather, less fun being told that I didn’t know how to play.

I got to play Wilmot’s Warehouse with Megan, Abigail, and our neighbor’s, the Quinns! It was great fun spending time at their house, playing with their bunny, having fun in the backyard, working my vice: novel fizzy beverages, and playing board games! Yay!

In the game, we had to make up a story to memorize the positions of all 35 tiles. Sounds impossible but we TOTALLY did it!

A complex resource gathering and worker placement board game.

We finished the game in about 3 hours. By the end, I sorta-mostly understood how to play. Fun nonetheless!

Played last night with Kevin, William, Toni, and I met Paul for the first time.

On Monday I got to play 2 good boardgames, Aquire and Red Rising.

Aquire is all about merging companies. It took me a while to figure out how to win, reminding me of the pain of my recent IRA mis-contributions. But hey, a good game none-the-less.

Red Rising has cards with characters, in a mix of a trick taking game with multiple stacks of cards to take. The art is nice too. I liked it and would play again!

Last night I played 7 Wonders at Monday night gaming.

It’s very complicated.

I suppose I mostly understood how to play by the end of the game but not really why. It’s 90% me vs. the cards I randomly get. And nothing seemed to “happen” during the game until we tallied the score at the very end.

Scoring is so complicated. I made most of my choices based on “ooh, that’s a pretty card, I’ll choose that one.” and I scored in the middle of the pack at the end of the game. So many of the “strategic” choices come down to whether luck will favor me getting the right cards. There are just so many ways to score victory points that it all evens out in the end.

I’ve also got to admit that I was distracted the entire evening due to some personal issues. So maybe the game is actually better than I experienced.

The night opened with a rousing game of Abducktion. I was too late to get in, but fun was had.

At the end of the night, we played a little round of Liars Dice. Such a simple game, but ultimately rather satisfying!

Last week at Community Games Night, I played Raiders of the North Sea again. Despite learning it just last month, I had mostly forgotten how to play. I ultimately played a bit better than the last time but quickly remembered that I would rather be playing directly with other players (either with or against); I’m playing mostly against my cards and the board. It was fine, the pictures are pretty.

Last night at Monday Night Gaming, I got to play Arcs: Conflict and Collapse in the Reach. It’s a complex, very nice game! By the end of 2 1/2 hours of gameplay, we were officially 3/5 of the way through a game and I was still figuring out rules, but it was fun! And a very good group to play with, teaming up with Kevin against Arthur will always be a thing. And Arthur will still always win ;-)

Kevin getting a shot of me getting shredded by my own attack on Arthur’s blue ships

I got about 2/3 of the way through playing Small World world at Monday night gaming. I had to bail because Abigail said she missed me, so I rushed home. I think it takes a few playings to get the hang of all the characters and their powers. We all played quietly, focusing on the many many pieces on the board.

Last night I got to play Raiders of the North Sea with the Hall of Heroes Expansion at Monday Night Gaming. It’s a fun group to play with. I still prefer games where I’m playing directly against my opponents’ wit. In this game, there are lots of ways to accumulate Victory Points. Sadly, very few involve direct interaction with the other players. I was most enthralled with the notion that when each of your raiders gets killed on a raid, you get an increasing amount of Valhalla points, which translates into exponentially more Victory Points. I thought about using that strategy…. “get killed as much as possible” but it didn’t work out. Instead I played a middling game and… tada ended up winning! I’m still not in love with games that focus on Victory Points for the win, but we had a good night of gaming!