Sunday, January 29, 2023

My top 10 games of 2022

 

 

I have put together my top 10 games for 2022.  Note that these are games that I have played for the first time in 2022, not necessarily games that were released in 2022.  With all the games that I already have, I got another 13 games plus expansions last year.  Some were gifts, some were purchased at the thrift stores, and some were new.


Again I failed to play ten new games.  I did get two solo plays in this year.  I brought a couple of solo games to the table a few times (Firefly Adventures, and Big Trouble in Little China) but was unable to find the motivation to figure out how to play them.  This was also the year with the fewest new game purchases but also the first year I did not manage to play any of the new games purchased.

 


The new games were: All’s Quiet on the Martian Front, Castles in the Sky, Disney Villainous: Bigger and Badder, Dust Warfare, Gamma Wolves, Marvel Villainous – Mischief & Malice, Pulp!, Star Wars Villainous: Power of the Dark Side, Street Wars NYC, The Men Who Would be Kings, Unmatched – Battle of Legends Volume 2, Unmatched – Hell’s Kitchen, Unmatched – Redemption Row.

 

The ones I picked up not new were:

Dust Tactics Revised Core

 

None of these hit the table this year.  Some games from previous years were finally played.

 

 

7 – Codenames: Pictures – we’re still not a huge fan of the Codenames system – where you have to give clues to your team about which card to pick, and more importantly, not pick.  My wife preferred the pictures to the words in Codenames, while I prefer the words.


6 – Button Men: Beat People Up – we used to love Button Men back in the day.  It is a simple battle game using dice.  The new game has the characters printed onto cards instead of buttons.  It didn’t play as well as I remember but that could be due to the other player who was new to the system.


5 – Gold Town – I was finally able to print out the components for this game and played through it solo.  It is more about miners going to town to cash in their gold and get supplies than gunfights.  The rules are pretty detailed to go through but it plays pretty well after the first few rounds.  It doesn’t seem to overstay its time and will be worth giving it another try with more people.


4 – Marvel Splendor – it plays similar to the regular Splendor game with a few modifications.  The Marvel theme does make this more likely for us to pick up.  I am sure that there is more to this game that we have not figured out yet but we do look forward to playing it more to try to figure it out.


3 – Disney Haunted Mansion: Call of the Spirits – a simple, quick card game where you try to collect sets of ghosts without collecting too many haunt cards.  The player who collects the most haunt cards loses their largest set. 


2 – Don’t Look Back – a horror movie skirmish game.  The rules are a bit jumbled, but I was able to play this solo.  It seems like it should be a pretty fun fit for our group.


1 – Transformers Armada: Battle for Cybertron – This is based off of the Star Wars Duels system, and more importantly the new Unmatched system.  It is a simplified skirmish game using cards.  It went over well with our group so we should be able to play some of those as well. 

 

Sunday, January 15, 2023

Figure Painting Total - December 2022

 I didn’t buy a bunch of figures in the last few months.  I also did not get a lot painted in the last few months. I was looking on track to finish another 100 figures but my momentum fizzled ot in the last three months.  

I got two figure sets for Christmas but the Justice League set was missing the arms sprue.  So I will add the rest of them when I get the missing pieces.

 

Bought

DCU – Justice League – 2*(three figures missing arms)

DLB – Mama Luna’s Pizza - 3

 

 

Painted

 

 

Dec total – 5 figures bought, 0 figures painted

Final total 2022 – figures bought 194, figures painted 75

 

Saturday, January 7, 2023

Books read - September to December 2022

 Sept

The Store that Timothy Built by William Stephenson

Tinsel by William Goldman

Trolley Car Treasury by Frank Rowsome, Jr.

 

Oct

Barbarians at the Gate by Bryan Burrogh & John Helvar

Artemis by Andy Weir

I Killed by Ritch Shydner and Mark Schiff

 

Nov

All Tomorrow’s Parties by William Gibson

A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs

 

Dec

Pulp! by Marco Arnaudo

Frostgrave Ghost Archipelago: Gods of Fire by Joseph A McCullough

Frostgrave Ghost Archipelago: Cities of Bronze by Joseph A McCullough

The Men Who Would be King by Daniel Mersey

Frostgrave: The Maze of Malcor by Joseph A McCullough