Grail Game - Illuminati Crime Lords

 Crime Lords is a stand-alone Illuminati variant.  As the original Illuminati is one of my top ten favorite games, I am hopeful about this one.  I haven’t played it yet, but I added it to my grail list when I found out about it.

 

I finally picked up a copy for $12 US, plus double that for shipping.

 

It was supposed to be complete, and it is.  In fact, the 2 sheets of counters, and 2 sheets of money are all unpunched.

 

With the reprint of Illuminati, I kept hoping that they would reprint this as well, but they haven’t yet.  Now that I finally have one, I expect they will.

 

 

Shopping at the Sentry Box

 We did a road trip in August to Vancouver Island and  back for my niece’s wedding.  We drove straight there but took our time on the road back.

While coming back through Calgary, we made sure to stop in at The Sentry Box – a very large game store.  Their prices may not be low, but their selection is unmatched.  They often have a deep selection of older products that are still in stock. 

 

It is not complete.  I wasn’t able to fill everything from my want list, but I did find a lot that I have not been able  to get.  They did not have the Lion Rampant expansions The Crusader States, and A Viking in the Sun (not published by Osprey but rather the University of Edinburgh).  I did get The Last Samurai Rebellion expansion for the Men Who Would be Kings.

 

They had a bunch of forces for Silver Bayonet.  I was very tempted, but ended up spending my budget elsewhere.  I also looked at the Hairfoot Jousting figures and, if they had had all six from either faction, or even all twelve from both, I probably would have bought them. 

 

They had no Dust Tactics, Batman Miniatures, or DC Universe figures.  These were a long shot though.  I did not find any model kits in the time I had to look.  While they did have some older video game systems, they did not have any Intellivision at all.  I also did not find any of the Fallout Factions sets, else that would have probably made my stack.

 

 

I was hoping to pick up a bunch of older codices for Warhammer 40,000.  I did find the eighth edition Ork codex for $20, as well as five books in the Psychic Awakening campaign for $10 each.  Out of the nine books in the campaign, I previously only had the first book.  The remining three books I have since picked up online.

This has given me a bit of a boost towards filling in some gaps in my 40K editions.  I have picked up the Chapter Approved 2018, and 2019 editions, as well as the eighth and ninth editions of the Tyranid codex from Facebook Marketplace.  I will keep an eye out locally and try to fill in more gaps, especially as the new edition drops next year.

 

I bought the Goblins team for Blood Bowl.  This has been scarce to find.  With the Orc team on my painting table, I figured that the Goblins could be painted concurrently.  I grabbed the new Gnome Treeman as well.  I am tempted by the idea of putting together the stunty teams for a league, if I can out together the time.

I finished up with the Warriors 2 and Wizards 2 sets for Frostgrave.  These are the female characters in very multipart sets.  No one locally carries them and they are tough to find online.

All together I spent just a bit over $300 dollars in a bit over two hours.  It made a very happy little game stack.

 

My Road to 55 - the first half of 2025

 There is a local place that has a fair amount of classic video games including a fair sized Intellivision section.

I popped in and got Tron:Solar Sailor for $50, and ABPA Backgammon with the top number for $15  This completes the last of the original Intellivoice games I needed.

 

I found a copy of Venture by Coleco from ebay for $15 plus $22 shipping.  I had played this on the Colecovision back in the day.  This means that I now have 4 of the 8 Coleco games.  I just need Mouse Trap, Donkey Kong Jr, Turbo, and Zaxxon.  This is the first one of the other company titles that I am halfway to completing.

 

I also picked up The Electric Company Math Fun from ebay for $9 plus $34 shipping.  This included a color manual, and has a top number on the box as well.  There were two versions of this game, one where you entered the answers starting from the left, and a later version where you start from the right.  This is the left version.  This was the last one that I needed from 1979.  I now have all the ones from 1979 to 1981.  I now would now need 8 to complete the original 19 with top numbers.

 

 

Running Total:

Original 55 Mattel Electronics:  49/55

1979 – complete

1980 – complete

1981 – complete

1982 – missing Shark! Shark!

1983 – missing Bump ‘n’ Jump, Buzz Bombers, Kool-Aid Man, Motocross, and Pinball.

 

Original 19 top numbers missing – Armor Battle, NBA Basketball, NFL Football, Auto Racing, PGA Golf, Space Battle, Tennis, The Electric Company Word Fun.

I’m not sure how much effort I’ll put into these beyond getting the red box Space Battle, and the Auto Racing with the alternate steering. 

So far I have spent $270 plus $134 in shipping to help complete this.  Although some of that includes lots which included some Imagic games.

 

 

Next 41 – have 12

Activision (7): have Pitfall!

Atari (3): have Pac-Man cartridge only

Coleco (8): have Carnival, Donkey Kong, Lady Bug, and Venture

Imagic (14): have Atlantis, Beauty & the Beast, Demon Attack, Microsurgeon, and Swords & Serpents

Interphase Technologies Ltd (2); missing Blockade Runner, and Sewer Sam

Parker Brothers (6): have Frogger

Sega (1): missing Congo  Bongo

 

I am especially interested in chasing down the 3 games that I need to complete the 10 games released in 1982 – Mouse Trap, Dragon Fire, and Tropical Thunder.

In addition to the Beauty & the Beast and Demon Attack that were include in the lots above, I spent another $74 plus $86 in shipping to get these games.

 

 

From the remaining 29, I don’t have any at all.  I’m not sure I’ll get the ESC games, as I’m pretty sure I may not get the ESC module to run them.

INTV (21): I have none

Dextel Ltd (2): missing Championship Tennis, and World Cup Soccer

ESC (6): I have none

 

I’ll look at getting the ones that aren’t on the Flashback – Commando, Dig Dug, Diner, Mountain Madness: Super Pro Volleyball, and Pole Position.  Tripple Challenge is not on the Flashback, but the three games included (Backgammon, Chess, and Checkers) are.  Tower of Doom is on the Flashback but the file is corrupted, so I will probably get that one.

I haven’t spent anything on this group.  Yet.

 

In addition to what I started with, I have spent a total of $344 on this collection so far, plus another $210 in shipping charges.  Plus the $30 that I spent on a working Intellivision.

Bookshelf/ Gameshelf

 My wife felt like seeing her sister who was about to retire.  So we did a quick jaunt over to see her.  The drive was about eight and half hours - seven hours of casual cruising followed by one hour of white knuckle terror as the sun set, the fog rolled in, and visibility dropped to zero.

We spent a lovely day with then, and came back on Sunday.  This time we had the time change and divided highway with us so the drive wasn't as rough at the end.

While in Thunder Bay, we had dinner one night at The Tilted Turret.  It is a pinball pub, with 9 pinball machines.  It was a cute little place and the pizza was great.  They had a deep dish on the menu that would have been good to try.  Maybe next time.

We also got to pop in to the Bookshelf/Gameshelf.  We had a bit of concern as they had moved from their old location but we found them.

I was able to get some old 40K codices - Traitor Legions (7th), Drukhari (8th), and Munitorum Field Manual 2019.

I got some more SSU troops for Dust Tactics - Rifle Squad, and Specialists.  Also some more blisters for Batman Miniatures Game - Police Set 1, and Reverse Flash.

Old Toys

 As a child of the Eighties, I lived through a golden age of toys.  With the adoption of plastics, there was very little that could not be done for toys.  Model kits were still a common thing and, even though I never managed to get into them, model trains and rockets were readily available.

 

I had a few early Lego sets, from before the minifig, and some of the early space sets.  The non-rectangular fancy elements were very few and far between back then.  We would build spaceships, and hide secret compartments inside of our builds, but Lego was fairly pricy back then and I did not amass a huge collection.

 

I had even less Playmobil.  They were even more expensive than Lego back in the day but have become much more reasonable as they haven’t increased nearly as much as other toys have. 

 

Both of these companies have embraced licensing.  I picked up some Lego Scooby Doo sets, including the big castle.  I have yet to get around to building it though as I don’t yet have a good place to display it.

For the Playmobil, I bought a bunch of the Ghostbusters figures, and the Ecto-1.  I did not buy the building as again, I don’t have proper room for it.  I picked up the Scooby Doo gang and the Mystery Machine.  They had blind bags of the ghosts/creatures and I got most of the first wave.  I even picked up the Back to the Future figures, and got the Hoverboard Chase set and the Advent calendar on sale.  I finally saved up enough to get the Delorean.  I don’t have any interest in Marty’s Pickup Truck set except it includes the Jennifer Parker figure.

The James Bond vehicle and the A-Team Van are priced much too high for me, being over $100 each.  I don’t have enough interest to justify the cost.  The same is true for the Enterprise.  While it would be neat, at over $500, the price and size are so out of scope to even consider.

 

Now I have to save up for a Detolf from IKEA to be able to display them.  I have a space between the bookcases already.

The next big thing?

 I’m still trying to put off buying Marvel Crisis Protocol.  There is a lot of it, it is pretty pricy, and it doesn’t seem as much fun as the Marvel Universe Miniature Game that I have most of already.

I have skipped some other games for the same reasons even though you would think they would be a good fit for me.  I didn’t get the Star Wars Imperial Assault, or even X-Wing.  They both have a lot of expensive expansions, and I have older games that cover similar areas like Star Warriors.

 

Even the new Star Wars Legion game would just be a newer replacement for the old West End Games Star Wars Miniature Battle Game for me. 

 

The newest one that is currently giving me pause to consider is the new Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corps game from Gale Force 9.  It only has a few expansions, it isn’t that expensive as these things go, and it seems pretty good from what I’ve seen.

What is slowing me down though, is that it doesn’t seem as good as another Aliens game that I already have from Leading Edge.  I didn’t get all of the miniature figures for that one though so I might get the new game so that I can use the figures and upsize the old game.  Even with that though, I don’t have a huge burning need as I already got a set of figures from Treehouse to upsize the game.  The only reason I haven’t yet is that the Treehouse figures are 50mm and the Gale Force 9 figures are 25-32mm.  Both are much bigger than the original 15mm figures from Leading Edge to replace the cardboard standups in the original game. 

The other reason is that the new games have sold through their initial run already.  If I had access to a copy in the store that I could just pick up I would probably buy it.  As it is now, I will have to see how I feel when they finally get around to reissuing new sets.  Since I am already back to painting figures, I may be sorely tempted.

I didn't get anything painted in August.  I was mostly focused on papercraft.  I did pick up a few figures though.  

I had been looking at the Fallout: Wasteland Warfare at my local game shop for a while now.  My son is into Fallout and the game can be played solo if he is not interested.  It's been marked down 25% for a few months now and I keep picking it up and looking at it.  No-one has bought it as it has a huge gash in the bottom - like it had been dropped on the edge of a counter.

I had ordered Fallout Shelter and they brought in the Fallout: Wasteland Warfare: Survivors - Vault Personnel in error.  They saw that it was an error and offered it to me for $30 instead of the $40 it was.  I picked it up.  

The next week when I went back, I picked up the Wasteland Warfare starter and they gave me a further deal down to $55. 

Bought
Unmatched Cobble and Fog – 4
Dracula’s America – The Forsaken – 9
Fallout: Wasteland Warfare – 13
Fallout: Wasteland Warfare: Survivors: Vault Personnel – 4
Chronoscope – Horace ‘Action’ Jackson – 1
Chronoscope – Pulp Era Professor – 1
Reaper – Willow Greenivy – 1
WizKids – Timber Wolves – 2

Painted


Aug total – figures bought 35, figures painted 0
Running total 2020 – figures bought 110, figures painted 67

Figure Painting Total - June 2020

With the new, new edition of Warhammer 40,000 being announced, I figured that I should probably get the rules from the eighth edition. 

 I ordered a Dark Imperium starter but it was out of stock. By the time they got back to me to let me know it was out of stock, I was unable to get it locally. I did the next best thing to get the rules and models, I bought the rules separately and a Know No Fear starter. 

Bought 

 Batman Miniatures – The Dark Knight starter – 13 (Batman, Bane, Catwoman, Talia, 3 Police, 3 Mercenaries, Alfred, Tumbler, Batpod) 

Unmatched – Jurassic Park – InGen vs Raptors – 4 (Muldoon,3 raptors) 

Warhammer 40K – Know No Fear starter – 31 (1 Primaris Captain, 5 Primaris Intercessors, 3 Primaris Interceptors, 5 Primaris Hellblasters, 1 Death Guard Lord of Contagion, 5 Death Guard Plague Marines, 1 Death Guard Foetid Bloat Drone, 10 Death Guard Poxwalkers) 

DCU - Uncle Dudley 

 Painted 

BM - Suicide Squad - 3 (Captain Boomerang, Diablo, Killer Croc) 

BM - Arkham Knight BM - Talia (painted as Mystique)

DCU - Crime Syndicate - 5 (Johnny Quick, Owlman, Power Ring, Superwoman, and Ultraman)

MU - Black Panther 

MU - Colossus 

MU - Rocket Raccoon 

MU - Sentry 

MU - Starlord 

MU - Starlord (alternate Heroclix model)

June total – figures bought 50, figures painted 15 Running total 2020 – figures bought 75, figures painted 53

Covid - 5

Things are starting to open up again. More stores are re-opening, including our local comic book store. We are both still working from home and have no word on when that might change.

People are encouraged to wear masks when out and about. Shan has bought a few online, and my mom made a set for us. You have to wash them every time that you use them. A lot of people are still not wearing masks – probably less than half.

With the movie theatres still being closed, we have kept our regular movie night, but are instead watching movies On Demand. With the commute being non-existent, and having no social obligations, we have managed to keep up with our PVR. Normally, at this time when the shows are ending their seasons, we are right on the buffer of our PVR. With the extra time, we currently have 100 hours available.
With not much scheduled to come back in the fall, we should be able to keep on top of it. We may even have time to watch all the Netflix Marvel shows that we missed. So far, we have only seen the first season of Daredevil.

With the extra money I have saved, and being inspired by actually getting some figures painted, I placed an order for the DC Universe miniature game, and The Crime Syndicate boxed set. I have the PDF of the first edition rules but have been putting off getting the hardcover until I had a few figures painted so we could actually play. The Crime Syndicate is a complete team of five figures that mirrors the Justice League.
As it would happen, the very next day after placing that order, Miniature Market had their daily deal for the Batman Miniature Game second edition Dark Knight starter for about half price. With more buildings, a Batman and police team, as well as a Bane and mercenary team, plus a Tumbler and Batpod, I snapped it up. Even with the move to third edition, this was too good a deal to pass up. It had been on my list but I could never justify the cost – even with the bundle pricing compared to getting the parts separately.

New-master reels?

My wife and I are of an age where we used to have Viewmaster reels. These were little white discs about the size of a coaster that you could put into a special viewer and, if you held it up to the light, you would see a 3D image. There were ones for cartoons as well as the more grown up travel ones.

We still have a number of the reels, and we have picked up some of the old ones on the secondary market. When we were still planning to go to Disney World, I had picked up a bunch of the old Disneyland reels for my wife.

She has picked up some of the new VR viewmaster reels that work with a new viewer that has a similar style as an old viewer but holds your cell for VR.

There is also a site that allows to submit images and they will print new reels for you. But the reels only hold 7 images each, so if you have a big event with more pictures, you either have to get multiple reels (like the old 3 packs with A, B, C reels) or choose your best 7 shots.

For her birthday this year, I was tempted to do a Disney set, but that would be hard to edit down to even a few reels. Instead, I was able to select 7 shots to use from her fiftieth birthday and put together a reel with those. I placed the order on May 5 and it came on May 10. It’s supposed to have a five day turnaround before shipping according to the website but I guess they were slow so they finished early and sent it out.

It was sent by UPS so that’s always a tossup. I got an email telling me that there would be duty charges and I could pay online. So I pulled out some money to leave my son in case they came while we were at work but in getting the paper this morning it seems that they just dropped it off in the mail. We were home but they didn’t even knock, they just left it in the mailbox. So I guess the $6.82 in duty wasn’t enough for them to worry about.
I got a letter from UPS about two weeks later collecting on the duty that they should have collected on delivery. So I called them and paid it over the phone.

Figure Painting Total - April

I only picked up one more figure for the Batman Miniature Game when I picked up the second edition rules and the Magic rules.

BM/DCU – Batman (Nightmare)– 1
Apr figures bought – 1, figures painted – 0

Running total 2019 – figures bought 117, figures painted 0

Figure Painting Total - September

While we were in Thunder Bay, I popped into the two game stores and picked up a bunch of the new Blood Bowl figures and rules. I have 4 of the new teams, and still have figures I can use for others, but I would have liked to get the Dark Elves and maybe the Elves to round out my sets.
I have already assembled, based, and primed the Blood Bowl figures.

Burning of Prospero - 47
Revel – Fokker E-III
Revel – Nieuport 28
Savage Worlds – Texas Ranger Male – 1
Savage Worlds – Texas Ranger Female – 2
Chronoscope – Andrew Lane “The Ghost” – 1
Chronoscope – Wichita Witch – 1
Chronoscope – Frank Buck – 1
BB – Dwarf Giants – 12
BB – Skavenblight Scramblers – 12
BB – Ogre – 1
BB – Troll – 1


Sept figures bought - 81, figures painted – 0

Running total 2018 – figures bought 174, figures painted 0

Prospero achieved!

Our local Games Workshop posted that the Horus Heresy games have been discontinued and removed from the website. Even though they were released about a year apart, they discontinued both Betrayal at Calth and The Burning of Prospero at the same time.

Since I missed out on the Gangs of Commorragh, I will probably have to pick up the rest of the game (without figures) online cheap, and then have to buy the figures for a much higher cost.

I wanted to be sure that I was able to get Prospero without having to do that. So even though I haven’t been able to save up beforehand, I checked with the misses and got the approval that it wasn’t going to cause any problems to pick it up. I probably could have waited a little bit as they had six copies but I didn’t want to take the chance.

I also popped in to a new Hobby Store called Hobby Sense and picked up some glue as well as a Revel Nieuport 28 and Fokker E-III. They seem to be a nice new store with a lot of model kits.

Game Knight new location

I also popped into the new location of Game Knight, a local game store. They have a much bigger place. It looks really nice. I was looking for expansions for the Firefly board game (which they no longer had) and ended up picking up some figures while I was there.
They had a lot of the Reaper Bones figures. I picked up a dumpster, 5 western figures, and 3 other figures. The dumpster is for scenery for Batman miniatures / Universe / Last Days.

The western figures are for RWNN and Dracula’s America.

The three other figures caught my eye and looked like they would be fun to paint.

I also picked up some 30mm and 40mm bases for some proxy Universe figures. I picked up a 2” base in the hopes that it would be close to a 60mm bases but it is too small.

The Reaper figures don’t come with bases. I almost picked up 25 1” GW-type bases for $5 but decided not to.
I’ll have to go back and get them.

Deathwatch: Overkill - acquired

I was finally able to save enough to get a copy of Deathwatch: Overkill. It took a lot longer than I had hoped due to the spike in gas prices cutting into my discretionary funds. In the meantime, Gangs of Commorragh has been discontinued and has disappeared from the shelves and online.

I was in the area, so I had popped in to the local Games Workshop. I would have picked up the Gangs set now and pushed back the Deathwatch but they no longer had the Gangs set. The Deathwatch: Overkill had been boxed up to send back to the main office but he dug it out for me. It had a bit of shelf wear on the corners but at least it was here.

Gangs of Commorragh was going to be the next on my list but, if it’s out of print, I may try to save up for the Horus Heresy: Burning of Prospero or get some of the other Blood Bowl teams. Or I might try to get some more figures from Knight Models for the DC Universe Miniature game.

Figure Painting Total - February

I finally got a Bommerz over da Sulphur River. It only has 6 figures - planes, and 4 of those are Orks. I look forward to playing it. If it is even passable, I should be able to paint up the planes and get a few in the painted column.

I was also able to get my hands on two of the Games Workshop painting handles. I've heard good things about them, so anything that makes it easier for me to start actually getting some paint on the figures has got to be a good thing.

Bommerz over da Sulphur River – 6

Feb figures bought - 6, figures painted – 0

Running total 2018 – figures bought 6, figures painted 0

State of the Marvel Universe - miniature game

With a bit more searching, I was able to get more figures for the Marvel Universe Miniature game. I think I’m good now. I have all 5 starters, 13 of the 19 single figures, the 3 sets of markers, and the spray template. Of the Spider-Man game figures, that work with the Batman Miniature game but also have cards to use with the Marvel Universe game, I don’t have any of the 3 starters, but do have 4 of the 5 figures.

I have all the key figures I had wanted. There are still two figures that I am interested in, Loki and Elektra, but those both seem to be rare and expensive, so I will substitute Heroclix figures. I would also substitute for the rest of the figures I need unless the price drops on them significantly. These are Thanos, Doctor Octopus, Incredible Hulk, Venom, Hulkbuster MK44, and the other sculpt of Black Widow. If I run across the Spider-Man starters at a good price, I would get them as well – Superior Spider-Man, Spider Robots, and Goblin Cult.

Now I just have to paint them.

FunAgain again

I’m ‘saving up’ to get more of the Games Workshop big game boxes, like Deathwatch: Overkill, The Horus Heresy: Burning of Prospero, Gangs of Commorragh, and the new Blood Bowl. However, FunAgain had another sale, so I picked up a few more figures for the Batman Miniature Game. I didn’t get too many – there is the pending second edition coming, and they have been grouping older figures into sets.

I ended up ordering two of the larger figures, Solomon Grundy and Clayface, and two regular figures, Deathstroke and Harley Quinn. On sale, the larger figures were hard to pass up. All four are figures that already have cards for the DC Universe game as well so that gives me a fair amount of villains to use.

The Court of Owls set and the Gotham Butcher are also on sale and are tempting in that they are a pretty small crew. I’ll probably pass for now and see what becomes of the Court of Owls crew with the new edition.

BMG - more figures.

I was going to stop buying miniatures for the Batman Miniature Game and save up for some of the Games Workshop boxed sets. But then Fun Again Games had a summer sale so I ordered a few more.

I ordered the Modern Batman as it comes with a Robin. I already have the Ben Affleck Batman, and now the Armored Batman from the DC Universe Trinity set. This one goes with the World’s Finest card in the DC Universe and is supposed to be the best Batman for the points in the Batman Miniature game.

I also got a Ravager, who is a Free Agent, so she can work with any team. She also used to be one of the best figures in the DC Universe game. In addition, as a Justice League Grey, she will work with either team.

I also picked up a Lobo, another Free Agent who can also be used in DC Universe. I don’t know if he is good, and I wasn’t a huge fan of him in the day, but I’m looking forward to painting him.


I am pretty sure this will be the game that gets me to start painting again.

Shopping in Thunder Bay - or not-so-local FGS

We did a trip to Thunder Bay to visit relatives for the Canada Day long weekend. It’s a bit of a drive – with the Ontario part being mostly one lane each way and only 90 km/h. I’ve done it once in the early spring and it was harrowing.
As the semis would pass, they would splash slush on your windshield and you could not see for 3 – 4 seconds. You had to hope there wasn’t a turn or a drifting cars until you could see again.

Thunder Bay has two great gaming stores. Thunder Games is located underneath a strip mall. It mainly focuses on miniature games, and has a large Games Workshop section, including many older books and games. This time I was able to get a copy of Kill Team, and the hardcover Imperial Agents codex. They also had the revised Dark Angels and Tau but I passed on them for now.
I did pick up a Season One for Blood Bowl. I don’t have the newest version of Blood Bowl yet, but I know that I’ll end up getting it eventually.

The other good store is The Game Shelf – which is attached to a used book store called The Book Shelf. It reminds me of a Sentry Box-lite. They had a bunch of Warhammer books that I could have picked up at the Book Shelf but I left them this time. I did find a hardcover Farsight Enclaves for $6.95 so I grabbed it.
Going through to the Game Shelf part I picked up some Heroclix starters. I also got another Dust building, and I picked up the Trinity set for DC Universe Miniature game.

I’ll probably have to pop back to Thunder Bay next year for a wedding, so I’m already looking forward to going back to these two stores to fill in more gaps from my lists.