London Games Crawl --- 29 April 2017

The Hamilton Road Games Group meet almost every Saturday at the Couch Branch Library on Hamilton Road in London, ON. We tend to go with table-top games of a more military/conflict type of game, but we're not completely tied to that. This year, we had the chance to be part of the London Games Crawl. The Games Crawl is a program to raise awareness of games available in the London area and (to be honest) to increase 'pull-through' for the gaming and/or comic book stores in the city. People visit the stores, get their card stamped, and enter raffles for prizes... of games!. It's been going on for a few years and this year the Games Group (33 or so years active) was part of it. Since we didn't have prizes and give-aways, the small number who stopped by were from the neighborhood and wanted to see what we being played.

We wanted to have a showing of table-top figure gaming that wasn't too complex, so we felt the best game to fill the bill was "Wings of War", a very playable and enjoyable game of WWI airplane combat. It's a game coming out of Italy and can be played with or without models.

Of course, it's 'way more fun with models.

I was "flying" Richenbacher's SPAD, the bottom plane.

Bear and I fly by each other.

Katie's Italian SPAD

The card are chosen three for each turn and show where the pilot/player wants to go.
Often we can't tell left from right, especially when your plane is headed toward you.

Martin's hand? Could be. He's maneuvering the Neuport.

Bear, Matt, and Beth discuss flying, lunch, and guarding the dumpster in basic training.

Martin's Neuport

Arial traffic jam

... although they get sorted our at times.

Katie's SPAD takes a run at Bear's Albatross.
If you get shot down, you just choose another plane and enter on the next cycle of turns.

Once the SPAD went down, I chose a British SAE to try out, and the game ended soon after.

Colour commentary from the press box - Aurel and Andy do the play by play.

Following this, Martin, Matt, Bear, Katie, and I played a game of "Ticket to Ride", a train line building game set in the 1880-1890 era in North America. It's a great game but there's no sense taking photos of the playing. If you like board gaming, "Ticket to Ride" and a number of it's variants are well worth the time to get and play.

More to come later... again.

Swap Meet in the snow

This past weekend at the Hamilton Road Gaming Group, there was no specific game scheduled. Instead we decided to hold one of our infrequent swap meets. People bring in gaming materials - games, books, figures, whatever - and swap them for what others might have. It makes for an interesting day. I brought some figures and a wooden box that I had unsuccessfully put up for sale at last year's Hot Lead bring-and-buy. Everybody brought something.

In the midst of all the swapping, we played a few board games. Andy, Beth, Bear, and I played one of Andy's games, Kill Dr. Lucky. (Jonathan left early due to commitments and Martin was not feeling well.) Think of it as a reverse Clue where you don't solve the crime ("Colonel Mustard - in the library - with the candlestick."), but you do the crime, provided you are alone in the room with Dr. Lucky and no other player can see you. There's more to it, of course, but I found it to be a simple, fun game with a few twists, like the fact that Dr. Lucky moves on his own in a predictable path, but he can also be moved by a player or by a card drawn on a player's turn. The box art calls it a "family game" about murder. Some families I know would just draw out the terror and torture, but that's another story.

Nothing like murder and mayhem to liven up a family gathering, is there?

The board has a number of rooms and Dr. Lucky wanders around all the time.
No wonder the family is in a murderous mood.

Then we played a game of Ticket to Ride. Andy sat out and helped Bear who had never played the game before and Kevin joined in. This is a favourite game of my family and I always find it fun. You complete routes through-out North America (well, the USA mostly) and gain points by taking the routes and completing your tickets. The longer the routed called for on the ticket, the more points. For example, Montreal to Los Angeles is a big point run, while Dallas to New Orleans is less so. There is a European version of the game, but I found that one to be rather convoluted with special rules about routes across the Black Sea and the Baltic. It's also a bit complicated for an English-with-a-smattering-of German speaker since the cities are all noted in their native language. (London is London, but Moscow is rendered as "Moscova" or something similar. C'est la vie!) I think Kevin won, but Beth was a close second. I came in dead last.

A great game developed in Germany. Ah, those playful Germans!
Actually I don't think you can beat the modern German board games. They are the best I've seen.
Good development and excellent graphics and playing pieces.

So where shall we go this weekend?

Beth and I had to leave to take care of some family business and give Beth a chance to rest up a bit. She'd been stage manager for a local theatre group and it tires her out a bit. As we were getting ready to leave, Andy, Kevin, and Bear were breaking out a game called Guillotine, a game based on that rollicking fun time in France, the Revolution and the associated Terror. In the game, you try to make sure you're at the end of the line for the you-know-what by interposing lesser cards in the que or shoving your opponents to the front.

Cake to eat is extra.

As to the swapping, I picked up a rule book called Traveller: The New Era. I'm playing the a20 version of Traveller now, but I'll use this title as inspiration, pictures, and ideas. In my Traveller universe, the Empire has never fallen. So there. Beth picked up a Star Trek engineering guide to the Next Generation Enterprise, NCC-1701D. She's been collecting these books for a while.

Beth and I brought copies of The Game of Life and Jenga as well as a bunch of small table games, which Kevin picked up after he realised that his daughter was having a sleep-over for a few of her friends and new games would be just the thing! Kevin also took some WWI figures and vehicles. Andy took the big green box and was glad to see that the bottom of the box was magnetised and just the thing for his small WWI ships. He also got some magazines from Kevin. Bear was thinking about making a Teutonic Knights army for Hail, Caesar! and I had some figures that would be very workable. Truth to tell, I'd often rather give some figures to a friend than sell them to a stranger... although the money is nice, too.

Some of my swappables on a library table. Lots of 15mm stuff, some 25mm, and a few 1/72nd scale figures.

Off to Kevin's house! He said the pink box would be as big a hit as the games with his daughter.

Kevin, Bear, and I check our trip tickets for Ticket to Ride. (Beth took the photos.)
Meanwhile Andy does a fourth or fifth review of the box of Kevin's books.

Another reason we felt we had to leave a bit early - 5 to 10cm of new snow.
It's been a rough winter here in Southwestern Ontario.
Our temperature has reached -23ºC with a wind-chill factor of -33ºC at times.
(That's -9ºF and - 27ºF if you prefer Fahrenheit)

Next week should be a fleet action and Andy is secretively setting up the scenario. He's been muttering something about a Kraken or Godzilla, but who knows?

Board games abound - 4 January 2014

When we gathered on the first Saturday of January of the new year, our time was limited because of a number of factors. So we postponed the scheduled Warhammer Ancients game (which the historical section of the group had planned) and went with board games of various types.

A few of us played a hand of "Cheating Moth." This is a card game where cheating is not only tolerated but encouraged! There are rules for catching cheaters but only one player -the one who holds the "guard bug" may catch the cheaters. It's simple and a lot of fun.

Bear throws down a card while Katie looks bemused. I was holding the "guard bug" (the green card on the table) but I only caught Bear cheating once... once out of his FOUR times he confessed to.

Derek sets up a game of "Last Night of the World", a zombie apocalypse board game. This drew a lot of attention so you see (from left) Tyler, Derek, Katie, Bear, and Rob. I don't do zombie games; I find them - for lack of a better term - "icky." Besides which, I've worked in high school and I've seen enough zombies.

Beth plays "Pokemon Monopoly" with one of our youngest members. There are so many variants of Monopoly these days. The original game seems to be an excellent way to take up an entire weekend AND destroy your family. I saw a magazine article years ago where a group played Monopoly on the streets of Atlantic City, NJ, using the streets on which the game was based. They rolled huge dice - the size of packing crates - and ran around the city for a few days.

After the camera was put away, I ended up playing "Ticket to Ride", a railroad building game based on the map of North America in the early 20th Century. Each player gets "tickets" and attempts to complete the route outlined. For example, you might have to build your route from Chicago to New Orleans or Los Angeles to Sante Fe. Each completed route earns you points, some more than others. The biggie seems to be Montreal to Vancouver although the New York-San Francisco run might be bigger, if such a ticket exists! At another table, some folks broke out the Star Fleet "Heroclix" type game. I think I'd like to try that one sometime.

We've had a lot of snow here in Southwestern Ontario and more is coming today. I'm not sure what we're playing this week, but if time and duty (and weather) allow, I hope to be part of it.

If you're in the vicinity of London, Ontario, most any Saturday, stop by the Crouch Branch Library on Hamilton Road between 10am and 4pm (more or less) and see what the games group is up to that week! With the exception of some holiday weekends, someone is usually there. We meet in the large meeting room unless the library needs it for an activity, then there's a smaller room we meet in.