Shopping Spree

Today I took Z on a little birthday shopping spree. Al came along to carry the packages.

First stop was Time Machine, the most awesome hobby shop in the world. Z picked out a little fairy figure and a pack of gum as a reward for behaving at game club while I was trapped in the endless game of Power Grid. I picked up Rails of Europe and three green glitter dice. Al got nothing.

Then on to the Mall.

Build-A-Bear. Z used her birthday Build-A-Bear coupon to get PJs for her stuffed cat. Al got nothing.

Limited Too. They were having a buy 1, get 2 free sale on accessories. For some reason games are considered accessories. Z got High School Musical Mystery Date, a pillow with speakers in it for her ipod, and a Polly Pocket. Total cost $16. Al got nothing.

Bath & Body Works: Al got sexy shower gel that makes him smell all outdoorsy and manly. Al says that technically he still got nothing, since the shower gel is really for me.

Z and I played Mystery Date when we got home. Z says she rates it a 20.

Blue Moon City

Al and I each had five offerings on the Washington Monument. Whoever could get 12 crystals and get to the center first would win. Al had 11 crystals and was four spaces (two turns) from the center and two spaces (one turn) from my position. I had 12 crystals and was two spaces (one turn) from the center. It was Al's turn. He turned to me and said, "Clearly, you are 'going up' next turn. I have no choice. I must now land on you, kill you, and take a crystal. Where are the dice?"

Buying Games

Francie has been bugging me to place a game order because she wants Tikal and Colosseum. So, while biking on Saturday, we all finally agreed on what we wanted to order. After we finished biking, I stopped at Tuesday Mornings to pick up a vacuum cleaner. What do I see? Tikal for $15. So I picked it up for Francie. That threw off the game order because we didn't make the minimum for free shipping. I was going to bag the order until after WBC, but Al and Z really, really wanted Under the Shadow of the Dragon and Francie and S really, really wanted Colosseum. So, with Al's blessing, I returned the vacuum cleaner, and added the Arkham Horror - Dunwich Horror Expansion (Yay!) to our part of the order to make the free shipping. You gotta' love a man that says "Screw the carpet. Get the games."

Buffy CCG

Al and Z got me a couple boxes of BTVS CCG boosters for Mother's Day, and I picked up another box for myself this week. I have been trying to build some decks now that I have nearly all the cards, and enough duplicates to make something decent. Al asked me to build him a Spike deck, which I finished last night. We tried it out, and he beat my Willow deck in 3 turns. I wasn't even close. I think I have to work on a new deck for myself. The thing that I don't like about CCG's is that most of the "game" is in building the deck. Building a strong deck isn't too hard. What is challenging is building a couple of decks that are well balanced against each other.

Marvel Heroes vs Puerto Rico

We played Marvel Heroes again last night. Al lost. Afterwards I asked him if he had a good time despite his loss.

Al said," I got to be the Thing and fight Juggernaut. On the other hand, I could have spent the evening selling coffee like the lady at Dunkin' Doughnuts. . . Uh, yeah . . . Let's leave Marvel Heroes set up and play again tomorrow."

Caylus

Played Caylus for the first time. It made Al grumpy. Afterwards we played Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots and felt better.

Marvel Heroes

Today was Al's birthday. When he opened Marvel Heroes his first words were "Wow . . . WOW!" Z was literally jumping with excitement as I popped out the figs (a huge pain).

It took quite a while for us to work through the rules, which we found a bit jumbled, requiring three trips to BGG for clarifications.

Al and I struggled through a learning game, with Z stopping by to help roll the dice and add color commentary. We caught on to the basic mechanics quickly, but there is a lot to remember. Reviewing the rules afterwards, I see that we forgot a lot and played a few things wrong.

I had read many comments that the game was too dry and abstract. We didn't find this to be true at all. Both Z and Al are comic super hero fans, and brought the richness of the knowledge of that fandom to the table. They narrated each headline and provided a play by play for each combat.

"Toxic gas cloud released over the city! It's Storm to the rescue. Using her wind control, she blows the gas into the upper atmosphere, where it becomes harmless. But what's this? It's the Green Goblin trying to make an escape. Storm hits him with a lightning bolt. He retaliates with explosive pumpkin bombs, releasing more toxic gas. . .etc."

I do see, however, how ignoring the flavor text and focusing on the numbers could turn this into a mathematical exercise of "I'm going to the 6 headline. I'm using my red power to roll 5 dice. You use your yellow power to roll 4 defense dice. . ."

I agree that the story track was gamey and disappointing. I also agree that Marvel Heroes feels unnecessarily complex. I think we may play without the story track, the mastermind mind rules, or the power-ups for awhile. We are going to consider those elements as the expansion. I think this will allow us to more quickly master the mechanics and strategy of the base game and make it easy enough for our daughter to play.

Giant Silly Mutant Monster Weekend

Today we played Gammarauders.

We set up and picked bioborgs. Al choose Roddis the Octopod. I choose Dweemish the Hamsterian.

Turn 1: Al plays two "ANY" recruitment cards, gets 5 hovertanks and moves them out towards my fortress.

Turn 2: Al plays two gammajet recruitment cards and gets 5 gamma jets. Al plops 9 hovertanks, 9 gammajets and Roddis on my fortress, and then slaps down the "Super Hovertank" card - his hovertanks are now worth 2 each. We roll. I lose. Roddis trashes my fortress. Al wins. Game over.

Al says, "This game is stupid. Let's play Monsters Menace America again."

Total playing time, including set up, about 15 minutes.

Toxicor vs Megaclaw

Played Monsters Menace America with Al while listening to Velvet Underground.

I was Megaclaw. Al was Toxicor.

Toxicor is the now the King of the Giant Monsters. Megaclaw fell over, re-squashing New York and rolling into the sea from whence he came.

Al says, "I don't care what anyone says, this is a great game. squISH squISH STOMP!"

Package

ThoughtHammer package arrived this afternoon. That was super fast.

In it was:

Mission: Red Planet - this is one of Al's birthday gifts. He likes to play games that have themes that tie into what ever he is currently reading. He's been reading a lot of turn of the century - 1930's Sci-Fi recently, so I thought this would fit the bill. Last fall he was reading a lot of Arthurian stuff. I tried to find him an Arthurian type game and was surprised to discover that there is almost nothing in print with this theme.

Marvel Heroes - also one of Al's birthday gifts. This one will be from Z. When she saw the box she squealed "Spiderman!" She clutched the box to her chest and carried it around the house for awhile with a huge, blissful grin on her face. The only other super hero game that we have is Power Puff Girls, which means that this game has a lot to live up to. It is hard to beat shooting dice at figs to knock them down. I know Marvel Heroes has gotten mixed reviews, but other than no whipping dice at the figs, none of the flaws that people have found are deal breakers for me. It's not a bidding game. It's not an abstract puzzle game. So I'm in.

Cleopatra and the Society of Architects - this is an abstract puzzle game. Fortunately it is not for me. Francie ordered this one as a birthday gift to herself. I told her I would play with her, since as abstract puzzle games go this one is prettier than Torres *spit three times*. If I play something she likes, she'll play something I like. True, there is a whole list of my games that she won't play, but eventually I think I can get her to work her way up to kicking some vampire butt. Just the other day she mentioned that she might be willing to try Return of the Heroes. She saw the board set up at our house and liked the map. Maps, trains and 3D game elements are her weak point. Fury of Dracula does have a very nice map as well as train rules.

Kingdoms - also something Francie ordered. It's a gift for her daughter. She is going to put this away for her daughter's birthday or something, which isn't until November. She gives me heck for having under played games on my shelf, but it is okay to hide a game away until November. She could have just waited until I did my fall order. She still doesn't get that I will order more games before November. She told me that she doesn't understand why I will need new games in six months when I still have T&E sitting on my shelf and haven't played it with her yet. Mostly she just likes to yank my chain about T&E, because she really wants to try it and we keep putting it off. I bought T&E last year when Al was reading some ancient civ something or other. Dan told me that it was chess-like. Al plays chess, so I got it for him. We attempted to play it twice, and laughed our asses off, but not in a good way. So we shelved T&E and pulled out Age of Mythology and slugged it out with Medusa and the Mummy. Age of Mythology may be a deeply flawed game, but having that Medusa sitting on your card satisfies that ancient civilization itch so much better than inner, outer, exterior whatever conflict. So what was I saying? Oh yeah. Francie got S some math homework Kingdoms for a birthday gift. I threatened to teach S some math and some probability and statistics. Three letters. RPG baby. Francie just rolled her eyes.

Counter Trays - so I spent the rest of the afternoon punching and sorting Betrayal at House on the Hill into my new counter trays, while my mods compiled and my jobs ran.

Gammarauders

Al says he will play Gammarauders with me if I can remember how to play. Okay, I can't remember how to play, but I can read the rules. I remember this game had a problem with being a bit endless with only two people. I'll have to do some research to see if anyone has ever come up with a solution to that. I'm also thinking of pulling out the reverse combat results and the teleport cards. If I remember correctly, the reason we haven't played this game in a decade is that the last time we played, I threw down both of these on the same turn and won game, resulting in Al vowing that he would never play Gammarauders again.