So Wrong.

I found out that last week they made Francie play Fury of Dracula at game club. That is so wrong. I've been told that the expressions on her face during the game were photo worthy.

This week enough people showed up that Francie got to play something more to her liking. She learned three new games last night. She is no longer allowed to complain that I teach her too many new games, when it's really only like one new game every month or six weeks. Truth is however, we have gotten to the point that there are no more new games I want or need to teach her.

I played Pandemic which I would play again, but I don't need to own. I think I have pretty much a three tier rating for games:

Must have my own copy.
Will play other people's copy.
Avoid playing.

Also played Escape from Atlantis, which was very fun. The guys kept calling me evil. "You're are an evil, evil woman." The sea serpents and sharks just don't get rolled often enough.

Excellent Gaming Over the Past 2 Weeks

I got Pirate King on sale at B & N. We had lots of fun playing that last week.

Al gave me Cavetroll for Valentine's Day. Haven't had a chance to play yet, but will probably try it before the weekend is over.

Last night at game club exactly five of us showed up. We played an awesome game of Fury of Dracula.

Today we all got snowed in, so Francie came over in the afternoon. She brought Arkadia which I liked. It's a Euro puzzle game, but it doesn't pretend like it's not. It is very pretty too. Francie had been telling me that it was a really easy, light game, but it isn't. Pirate King is a light easy game. Arkadia is somewhat Go like. I was surprised Al liked it, since he doesn't like Through the Desert. Then we played Railroad Tycoon. Over vacation, Francie borrowed Age of Steam because she had heard so many people raving about it. She convinced us all to try it with her. We all decided it wasn't any fun. While we were playing Railroad Tycoon Francie kept commenting on how much cooler all the bits were, and how much more fun it was than Age of Steam. I kept teasing her that she had a little bit of Trash in her soul. After RRT, we had dinner, and then another game of Arkadia. Al and I both beat Francie this second game. So Francie said that maybe the game was harder than she thought.

If the roads are clear tomorrow, Francie and I are going to game club. Otherwise she may come over here again for a couple games of something.

Playing with Francie

Francie is finally back home. Tonight we played Age of Discovery again. It's an hour of crunching numbers, but I like it. I like boats.

Francie may be up for CGC game night tomorrow. It depends upon how the knee is doing. She is also worried about doing the stairs. It's in the basement of an old textile mill, and the stairs are pretty crappy. I got my heel stuck in a knot hole once. I'm worried about the temperature. It has been wicked cold here. If we go I'll have to bring gloves.

Age of Discovery and Fire & Ax

Went to Elliscon yesterday with Al and Z. Didn't get there until 4 pm because, well, I'm a slug and slept until 12:20 p.m. Bought some "used" games for $10 each - no shrink, banged up boxes, but unpunched. Mystery of the Abbey, The Hobbit, and Monster Mash I. Played half a game of Fire and Axe: A Viking Saga with the CGC guys. We had to quit before we were finished because Elliscon was closing. The CGC guys were not happy that we didn't finish, and I felt kind of responsible because I was the one who really wanted to play and talked them into it, even though it was getting late. I did point out to them that now five of us know how to play, so we can play on a Thursday night. It was only half a game so I don't know what I think about it. Raiding is fun, but it is clearly not a good path to victory.

I found out that three, yes, THREE of the CGC guys have StarCraft but NONE of them have played it yet. Gamer dudes bewilder me sometimes. So it looks like I may get a chance to play sometime in the next month. Yay!

Today I went to visit Francie. The people from work sent her a "Get Well" fruit basket with three games. We flailed through Age of Discovery. I think that I like it. We'll probably play again over Thanksgiving break.

Elliscon

Going to Elliscon tomorrow. Francie won't go with me because she is totally lame. I mean really lame. She's recovering from knee surgery.

Games with Francie

The school year has begun, it is getting dark earlier, and the rainy weather is at hand. We are getting back into our little gaming routine. Tonight we went over to Francie's and played Settlers while the girls played dolls. Francie now has the hang of the game. Al and I both made some risky choices that didn't work out for us. Francie played a solid, conservative game and won.

Francie likes to play a game to death; until she knows every strategy; until she doesn't even have to think about her moves. Then she likes to play it some more and beat everyone. Then she is ready to move onto something new.

Me on the other hand, I like the challenge of the new. I like variety. I have a half dozen games in my cupboard that I really want to play, but haven't had the time for; yet despite this, I hear the sirens' call of new games. I keep going over my wish list and loading and reloading my cart at Thoughthammer. We won't be placing an order until November for our holiday gifts, but I can't help myself.

Here's what's in the cart now:

Last Night on Earth: The Zombie Game
For me. I know no one will play this with me except Al. Will LNoE be my new Buffy?


Warrior Knights: Crown and Glory Expansion
A gift for Al. He loves his Warrior Knights. He carries it to Game Club nearly every week, but no one will play with him. Poor Al.


Memoir '44: Winter/Desert Board Map
Also for Al. He keeps picking this up at the game store, and then putting it back down again. Think he wants it? Yeah, I think so.


Ticket to Ride: Switzerland (Swiss Map Expansion)
A gift for Francie. She plays a lot of two player with S. This will make her happy.

Settlers of Canaan

A gift for the Temple. They have a small collection of games. Most of them are standard mainstream games. I think this would be a good addition.

Cities & Knights of Catan, The

Because by December, Francie will finally be ready for this.

Yspahan

Francie played Yspahan last night at game night. She has found her new true love and wants me to add it to our game order. Crap. She's going to make me play with her and it is going to suck isn't it. She also guilted me into promising to play Torres with her soon. I guess it only fair, since I made her play Warrior Knights and Struggle of Empires.

Also in the news - Francie finally plays Settlers of Catan.

A couple of years ago I introduced Francie to Settlers of Catan. She played it once, declared that she hated it and refused to play again. I told her that the only reason that she hated it was that we have the Mayfair first edition with the less than intuitive textured color swatches on the cards. A few months ago Francie picked up an unpunched more recent edition for $2 at a yard sale. I've been trying to convince her that she should try playing it, since the resources on both the board and cards are more clearly illustrated. But would she listen to me...noooooo. Last night Francie announced that S had finally twisted her arm into playing it and that they really liked it. Duh. She confessed that I was indeed correct and it was my ugly edition that had put her off. Yay. So now we have an light family game that we can play together. I was really getting tired of the same old same old. Plus, now that we have enough people who like to play, I can finally justify getting the expansions.

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."

Cleopatra and the Society of Accountants

F got this game for her birthday. She loves it. She wants to marry it. Well, maybe not marry it. Maybe just lick it's obelisks. I don't understand this, because whenever I introduce her to a nice man, she's all like "Meh. What a nebbish. He looks like an accountant." Considering that she finds accountants unattractive, you would think that a game where you play an accountant would totally turn her off. But she's totally into it. Go figure.

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.

CGC

Sat. CGC was meeting just a few miles from my house, so Francie and I decided to check it out. Our goal was to meet some gamers, and play some new games. Francie's birthday is in a few weeks and she wants a new game. We crossed our fingers and hoped it wouldn't be teenagers playing CCGs or scary old dudes pushing chits with tweezers.

There were about eight guys there, all very nice, playing Euros. Most were married and had kids, so they didn't mind that we brought the girls along. Z and S found a corner on the floor and played A Dog's Life Francie spotted a copy of Cleopatra and the Society of Architects which she has been wanting to try for awhile. The owner was happy to set up the game and teach us to play. Francie won, no surprise, and I got thrown to the crocodiles, also no surprise. It wasn't my kind of game, but it wasn't bad. I could tell that Francie loved it, so I told her that if she got it, I would play with her. I think it is a solid family game that S and Francie's parents could play.

Francie and S played a game of Wizard with a couple of the guys who wanted to play something light after finishing Power Grid. I thought it was really nice that they had no problem letting S play. Meanwhile, I played a game of Modern Art. I was surprised that I actually enjoyed this game and didn't do too poorly (came in second). I might be willing to play it again.

I left to take the girls to dinner. Francie stayed and played El Grande which she really liked. I told her that Al and I would play that with her too, but she felt she wouldn't get to play often enough to be worth owning. Other than Al and I, she mostly plays with her daughter and parents, so she she won't buy anything that they won't play. So it sounds like it will be CaSoA for her birthday gift.

I had an enjoyable enough time to be willing to make the longer drive to the club's regular meeting location. Al wants to come next time too.