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Gathering of Engineers

Ludographic considerations from the Silicon Forest

Tuesday, February 14, 2006

Head stuck in a paint pot

Next weekend is a new gaming convention in the Northwest. Conquest NW. These guys have apparently been running shows in San Francisco and Los Angeles for a while, but 2006 is their Seattle debut. As it turned out to be the same weekend as our annual West Coast DBM 15mm Championship (Harbor Storm) our organizer hooked up with them to become a featured event at the show.

So, naturally, that means I have painting to do. I don't think I've EVER gone to a tournament without having to do some painting. Constantly tweaking things... Of course, the stories aren't any good if you're not doing the painting up to the last minute. This time, however, I think I've got it done early. Only 22 figures plus 9 pack horses to paint this time, and they're nearly all done. As a result, my head's been in a paint pot during my free time the last week or so. Hasn't been much time for boardgames since the big shindig at Mike's on Super Bowl Sunday.

Not that that's stopped me from acquiring any... Right after I start talking about culling the herd, there just seems to be an influx of new stuff. Games that have arrived at the house since the beginning of the year (or will be here shortly):

*Age of Steam Expansion #4
Bus
*Command & Colors: Ancients
*Defiant Russia
*Die Magier von Pangea
Drive (Crazy Chicken)
El Caballero
*Elasund
*Euphrates & Tigris Card Game
Fearsome Floors
*Here I Stand (shipping next week.)
Pizza Box Football
*Ra
Railroad Tycoon
*Red Vengenace
Roma
*Saboteur
*SeaSim
Settlers of Catan 3d
*Sixteen Thirty Something
*St. Petersburg: The Banquet
*Subulata
*Traumfabrik
*Wildlife Adventure
*Zing! (Die Sieben Siegel)
ZooSim

Needless to say, the “owned but unplayed” list just grew a bit. I've never played any of the ones with asterisks. Now that Jodie's worked through most of her morning sickness, and I don't have any pressing painting/work deadlines, maybe we can chop down through this list a bit. Jodie was reading the rules to Elasund a couple days ago, and it looks like a good one.

And it's definitely time to sell a few things... Need to balance the gaming budget a bit.




Given the recent chatter in the comments to Chris' blog entry last month, I've started looking closer at 18xx games. In particular the “entry-level” one-state games 18GA, 18AL, and the upcoming 18FL. These are designed for a small number of players, and around 3 hours playtime, max. THAT sounds doable. Long enough to give you a real feel for how the genre works, but not so long that you're spending the last four or five hours feebly managing a bad position. (Which is exactly where I expect to end up on my first few plays.) After a play or two on those, I think I'll be ready for the 1860 and 1856 I already own.

This all ties in to my unbreakable draw towards bigger, heavy (not necessarily war-)games. I'm just sorry I had to miss our group's recent Die Macher day. Next time, I'm there.

3 Comments:

  • At 1:35 PM, Blogger Tim said…

    Just FYI, but I own 18VA, which is one of the "one state" games, and will soon own 18Scan, which is aimed at the same target (but, notably, tries to incorporate some of the more complex elements of the larger games, like a forced merger late in the game - in this case, into the Swedish National Railroad).

    Anyway, needless to say, I'm up for any of these - including 1830.

    Tim

     
  • At 4:48 PM, Blogger Dug said…

    You paint pack horses? I realize that minis are all about detail, but pack horses? Nine of them? This is one wacky hobby.

    Doug

     
  • At 8:10 PM, Blogger Eric said…

    As Napoleon (I think it was Napoleon) said "An army travels on its stomach.")

    Of course, he said it in French.

    Anyway, in my primary game (DBM) every army has to have a camp at your near side of the table. Part of the fun in researching an army to paint is figuring out what sorts of unique stuff they might have had in their camp.

    In fact, one of the Holy Roman Emperors (can't remember which one) actually traveled with a zoo. So, painting that army gives you permission to put giraffes in your camp.

    You also have the option of making your camp "mobile" if you want - I'm taking that option with my Swiss so the pack horses can run away if necessary.

    I've also got some pack camels, but I haven't gotten around to painting them yet. (not to mention the camp fires and tents and benches and sheep and...)

    DBM's little (and older) brother DBA also requires a camp. You can see some rather nice ones here: http://www.fanaticus.org/DBA/eyecandy/camps/index.html

     

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