Miskatonic University Student

I was going to wait until my next game of Arkham Horror to write this, but I decided to get in my first impressions of the new Miskatonic Horror expansion while it is still fresh. The idea of an expansion for the base game and all the expansions of Arkham Horror is a bit off-putting. In practice I think it actually works great and it is a fix for all the Arkham Horror expansions that have been out for a long time and are well known (The revised Dark Pharoah being the exception).

I feel much better now

It has been a long while, so here is a badly done unboxing video of Miskatonic Horror

Unemployed

So I'm unemployed and playing games half the day. It's great! Unemployment at least through May has the jitters down and I'm hoping one of a few good positions I've applied for come my way. With child #3 on the way it is a good time to be relaxing at home and getting ready for the insanity of 3 CHILDREN!!!!

Dawn of War 2 was a lot of fun, kind of burnt out on the few maps it has though. More importantly I've been beta testing games that are a lot of fun. Unfortunately along with betas generally comes NDAs so not a lot of talking to be done about that either!

If you're following VOR, then the big announcement is the FAQ for 2.0 was released. Lots of new information there that I'm surprised isn't being discussed yet at bioplazm. I've been working on painting up a decent Golem army and Kirara has been greatly expanding her Growlers of late. Need to get down to basing them, but here are some older pictures I should have shown off but never did.

Anima Tactics is still looking good. I wish a lot more people played it locally, it is a shame. Hopefully when their rulebook is finally printed then the game can start picking up a lot more steam. Kirara has certainly "leveled up" with her painting of the fantastic Anima Tactics miniatures. Here is a painting of her "Konosuke" which was sold off on a commission. We got her a replacement so she'll be taking another stab at producing him with a new paint job again. The most recent stuff she has worked on has even better paint jobs than this one.

If you want to beta test Fallen Earth, then go here.

P.S. - Innsmouth Horror is coming. Then the Mountains of Madness movie.

P.S.S. - Keep your eye open on VOR, I expect another announcement sooner than melting glaciers.

Seattle Gaming

So laid off in Seattle has been a great opportunity for gaming. I've played 3 complete games of Arkham with my wife so far and we purchased the Dark Pharoah expansion for it which has made it a lot better and more interesting. The biggest thing is just not repeating Arkham Encounters like we used to and having a lot more interesting ones to really stir it up. They did a great job of balancing the basic game with it.

I've also gone back to playing Galactic Civilizations II on the computer since my Tabula Rasa accoutn expired. I've progressed a ways into campaign play for a change and I am enjoying it.

I made a road trip up to Vancouver B.C. that was a lot more difficult than expected. Actually got a grilling going across the Canadian border and had it easy coming back. Makes me really curious how many border incidents there are though. It is one of the biggest borders in all the world and easily one of the quietest too. Last time there was serious cross border action was the war of 1812, so why all the paranoia? Anyways I got to meet Skuzzy and discuss lots of wicked stuff about the future of VOR: The Maelstrom. One of these days we WILL throw down dice and a serious conflict will ensue.


I also got to have a good Union versus Shard play session with "Scott" yesterday. You can read a full Battle Report on the Bioplazm forums.

Now we're working on Anima: Tactics which I've yet to play since moving up to the Seattle area. There is definitely plenty of interest at the local game store though and I will likely demo for the game if I have time between my VOR playing projects and actually working.

Speaking of work, I've got plenty waiting for me to do up here since moving.

Game Time!

Well I managed to get laid off at work with a severance package! This means game time finally!!!

Got to play a game of Vor with Shard versus Razorback the friday I got laid off and came home early. I had fun writing a detailed Battle Report of our game on the Bioplazm website for Vor 2.0
You can read about my battle and see the detailed pictures for 3.75 turns of a game before interruption commenced. I'm also interesting in a painting competition "Golden Growler" through the Bioplazm website. I'll be sure to have a follow-up blog based on how myself and Kirara do.

On the other hand last night I got to play 1.5 complete games of Arkham Horror. I started off playing the board game by myself in a game shop and got 3 other people including the store owner to join in and we had a blast. 4 players trying to stop the awakening of Elder Lord from another dimension. It was actually a fairly easy game and we managed to dominate the streets of roaring 20s Arkham, Massachusetts so it was just a matter of enough of us making it through the other dimensions to come back and seal enough gates. Once enough gates are sealed it becomes difficult for the Ancient One to burst through in this basic version of the game. When Curse of the Dark Pharoah is restocked I intend to get that expansion and have at it again. I have high expectations that the expansion will make the game a little more difficult and a lot more interesting.

So while I'm job searching and hoping to move back to the Seattle area things are looking a lot better for me and a lot more fun!

Arkham Horror and more

The Wii is good, but it lacks enough good games. Still I feel in better shape every time I play dance dance revolution and my arms are stretching out from playing Godzilla.

The craze of the moment for both myself and my wife though is Arkham Horror. A lovecraft horror board game that has more role-playing elements than most "role-playing" games these days. If you've got a small group of friends who like role-playing games or board games then I seriously recommend this one as a great cooperative game.


Anima Tactics continues being a very fun game to play when we can. The continuing sculpts are unbelievable and we've added a diorama shelf to our house to proudly display both my wife's and my own painted figures. My wife has settled on playing light forces because she likes so many of the figures and can't be made to pick just one organization. Her most recent finished model is the painted asian princess in the picture. I expect we'll continue playing this game for a long time.

LotRO playing has all but ceased but they're recently announced Mines of Moria expansion will likely get us back into the game right away. Maybe with a new high level playing zone we'll play some more again as well whenever they release the next book. My only current wish right now is to find the play time around my children to get my Captain up to at least level 25.

I'm also hoping to finish up the last few figures on my shard force for VOR and then retire them to a box somewhere for safe keeping. The last razorback growler is being worked on as well, though I expect some more Firegut growlers in the future. Rest assured I can't resist showing off pictures of painted minis.

Until then keep on playing and leave a few comments in my blog if you're enjoying any of the same games I am.