Top 10 new Games for 2013

Making a top 10 list for 2013 was pretty easy as I had only played 14 new games last year. The ones that did not make the cut for the top 10 were the following:

11 – Fleet Admiral – It may have done better but there was some confusion in the rules about the goal. More playing may have improved this ranking.
12 – Input – This was an old one. I like how it plays but I don’t think that there is enough legs there to warrant lots of play. The often ties if you can’t wipe out the opponent fully cause this to be off the list.
13 – Agricola – This game takes too long to set up and is much too confusing to pick up from the rules. Granted, we played without the cards but I don’t like that it forces you to diversify. There should be risks to specialization but still allow you to corner the market if you want.
14 – Aquarius - I’m not a huge fan of this one. It does play well with multi-age groups and is simple to pick up. If my daughter didn’t beat me down in it I might like it more but I’ll end up playing it more than many of the other games in my top 10 anyways because it’s quick and the rest of the family likes it.


The top 10 for 2013 are as follows:

10 – Cthulhu Fluxx – The first of the Fluxx games we ever played. I’d know about it for decades but had put off getting it until the Tabletop episode made it look worth giving it a try. It’s fun but the Ungoals are a bit harsh.
9 – Twixt – I had always seen this on the old Games magazine top 100 but had never played it until now. I like it but it is a bit too simple.
8 – Nowhere to Go – I don’t actually own this one but we did try it in the store. I like it but again I don’t know what kind of sustainability it would have.
7 – Othello – I can’t believe that I had never played this before. I have played lots of Reversi – but that’s a Ping Pong/Table Tennis kind of difference.
6 – Unexploded Cow – We played this a lot. It’s cute and would be higher but the rules could explain the first round better – when you roll higher than cows does the last cow explode or do no cows explode?
5 – Risk: Battlefield – I’ll always have a soft spot for Risk games and this one has enough variation to make it in my top 5.
4 – Fluxx – It’s a good version of Fluxx to play with people who don’t know any of the more specific variants.
3 – Walk the Plank – This one is seeing a lot of love from us. It easily replaces Get Bit! in our rotation.
2 – Monty Python Fluxx – More Fluxx goodness but with a Monty Python flavor. Know what I mean?

1 – OGRE Designer’s Edition – I was a big fan of the original pocket box set of Ogre and never did get the old Deluxe Set. This one is huge, and loaded with Kiskstarter goodness. Except for the sheer size of this, I can’t think of a fault with this game.

Board Game channels

My two favorite board game related channels on youtube are Tabletop, and The Dice Tower. Tabletop is hosted by Wil Wheaton and in each episode they play a board game. He usually has celebrities (of varying degrees) playing with him and it is good to see them outside of their field. Even though they often get the rules wrong, it gives a good example of how the game plays to see if it would be worth looking into trying it. Tsuro and Fluxx were good examples of this – I had known about both for years, but wasn’t interested until I had seen them being played.

The Dice Tower is mainly hosted by Tom Vassel and usually does board game reviews but also has news, and a lot of top 10 lists. What’s nice about it is once you’ve watched a few of them, you get a feel for the games he likes, and can use that to gauge if you would also like it. Case in point – Tom really likes Cosmic Encounter and Nothing Personal. Based on the reviews for Nothing Personal, I can tell that I will not like it.

Another feature of The Dice Tower is their top 100 games lists. I have sat down a few times and looked at it, but it seems daunting to rank 100 of the games I have and have played. I will look at making a few top ten lists though.

involuntary new laptop

We were broken into early in January. As these things go, it could have been a lot worse. There wasn’t a lot of damage and the only things taken were some American money and our laptops. All of my wife’s jewelry was spread across the bed but they don’t seem to have taken any of it. I guess I don’t buy my wife nice enough things.

With the laptops gone, it made connecting to the internet harder. We still had the old desktop but that is a pretty rough connection for facebook games. It also helps point out how much we are connected – when watching tv we usually have at least one laptop on – which allows us to pop into imdb.com as needed to find out why we know the guest stars as well as to check Wikipedia for information as needed.

We’ve added an alarm system and have worked through with the insurance people to replace the laptops. We didn’t have the boxes anymore but we were able to get copies of the receipts from Best Buy. As long as you have the card on which you bought them and know the date range, they can find it in their system and reprint it for you.

After much going back and forth about my requirements we agreed on an HP NO20CA laptop. The requirements for the laptop had been – DVD superdrive, keypad, at least 500 GB hard drive, 2 USB connections, SD slot, HDMI connection, and a Radeon HD6310 or higher (the old one was HD 7520). The keyboard, superdrive, and video card seemed to be a tricky combination to fulfill.


Which basically means that I am now working through getting used to Windows 8.

a little wish list

Christmas was good. We didn’t go too crazy with gifts. We looked at finally getting me a Waacom tablet but I figure that I would need one at least 5x8 and that pushes the price from about $100 to about $200. I know I would find it useful for drawing and graphics but am not sure if I would use it enough to justify the higher cost.

Other reoccurring items that remain unfulfilled on my gift list are the next set of Cerebus tradebacks. I have the first four and keep meaning to get the rest of them. With Dave Sim fading into the woodwork, I should probably put more effort into getting these while I still can.

I also keep putting on the Young Indy dvd sets as well as season 3 of Kung Fu. The Indys are too expensive and the Kung Fu was in the bins for $10 but I haven’t seen it since. I finally was able to snag a season 2 of Kung Fu at Walmart as well as a used copy of most of the first set of Young Indy at the library sale.

The key problem with giving someone a gift list is that you cannot buy anything on it while that list is in effect. So the items have to be things that you want enough to get but not enough that you must go and and get them - at least not until the list expires.

Figure painting total - 2013

It looks like I had also picked up a Mantis Assassin/Hunter Bug for StarShip Troopers in October that didn't make an update.

So that brings my total to a reasonable number of bought vs painted for the year.

40K – Dark Vengeance boxed set - 48
Walking Dead horde – 14
SST Mantis Assassin - 1

Running total 2013 – figures bought 63, figures painted 0

I remain ever hopeful of putting a figure in the painted column - perhaps this year will be the one to do so.

Books Read September to December 2013

Sept
Neil Gaiman’s “Make Good Art” by Neil Gaiman and Chip Kidd
1000 Incredible Costume & Cosplay Ideas by Yaya Han, Allison DeBlasio, & Joey Marsocci aka Dr. Grym
Shadows in Flight by Orson Scott Card Marvel Comics – the Untold Story by Sean Howe
The Winston Effect: The Art and History of the Stan Winston Studio by Jody Duncan

Oct
Home Upgrades Under $600 by Better Homes and Gardens
Watchmen – The Film Companion by Peter Aperlo
101 Top Tips from Professional manga Artists by Sonia Leong
Matther Mead’s Halloween Spooktacular by Matthew Mead
The Art of Colored Pencil Drawing by Pat Averill, Cynthia Knox, Eileen Sorg, and Debra Kauffman Yaun
Warhammer Armies Dwarfs (6th edition) by Gav Thorpe & Alessio Cavatore

Nov
Apollo: The Epic Journey to the Moon, 1963 – 1972 by David West Reynolds
Bead Bugs by Amy Kopperude

Dec
Understanding Architecture by Robert McCarter, Juhani Pallasmaa
Built from Scratch by Bernie Marcus and Arthur Blank with Bob Andelman
Amazon.com: Get Big Fast by Robert Spector
Time-Life Books: The Old West – The Townsmen by Keith Wheeler
Period Costume for Stage & Screen: Patterns for Outer Garments, Book I: Cloaks, Capes, Stoles and Wadded Mantles by Jean Hannisett

Wide screen - in 3D

We don’t really have the same kind of Black Friday sales up here (since we like to spread out our turkey dinners and have Thanksgiving in October) but they are starting to pick it up to keep people from shopping across the border. We managed to pop out and picked up a 50” LG 3D smart TV at Best Buy. Or so we thought.

We didn’t set it up right away as we didn’t have room for it on the old wall unit. Due to the size of the TV compared to the space plus the size of the base, I had to cobble together a piece to sit on top of the old space but jutting out a few inches farther to allow the base something on which to rest.

When I finally did have time to set it up, we noticed that it was the wrong model – without the 3D. A quick call to Best Buy, followed by a quick trip to exchange boxes, and we got the new one set up. Aside from the mix-up originally, Best Buy was pretty good about the exchange and fixing their mistake.

So it all worked out in the end. The wife really likes the new TV. Now we can finally get a blu-ray player to make the dvds look better. Plus we'll need to get a new unit or mount it on the wall later once we get rid of the old wall unit - but that's future David's problem.