Happy Easter

The tomb is empty. Death is defeated. Hallelujah!

The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. (Matthew 28:5-6)

Brother Claudio Stinks!

In a much earlier post, I related the mis-adventure of Brother Claudio while playing the Space Hulk: Death Angel card game.

Well, it happened again. And on the very first turn! Brother Claudio, you stink!

And his squad mate Brother Goriel was no better. While being attacked by Genestealers, he needed to roll anything but a 0 to survive the attack. Sure enough, I rolled a 0.

Or maybe I shouldn't blame the Space Marines for my bad dice rolling.

FYI - the Space Marines got slaughtered again.

Living through Death Angel

Saturday was

For more information see Geek & Sundry

Unfortunately, I had a prior commitment

which benefits SOS Children's Villages Florida.

To make up for missing the holiday, we decided to play a game last night. I asked Elizabeth what she wanted to play. Surprisingly, she pulled out this:

I've mentioned this game before (particularly about how bloody it is. We never won). Nevertheless, we decided to give it a go.

Things did not start off well. On the very first turn, Elizabeth lost one of her Space Marines. Then, as we made our way through the space hulk, our numbers were whittled down. About halfway through, my wife lost her last character. I gave her one of mine and we pressed on.

We then really started getting swarmed. My wife suggested that we give up but I wanted to see it through to the bitter end. We kept going. Somehow were able to speed through a couple of rooms. As we entered the final room, Elizabeth lost the character I gave her. Only 2 Marines left. I just needed to get to the control panel and activate it to win the scenario.

My Marines raced to it and engaged the control. I just needed to roll a 1 or less (the Death Angel dice are D6s that are numbered 0-5). Here's my roll:

Success!

It was the first time we won this game. Which goes to show, we should listen to this advice

Wrapping Up the 12 Games of Christmas

The 12 Games of Christmas have come to a close. Here are the last few games we played:

Boss Monster
Tuesday night we played Boss Monster. Players take the role of the eponymous creature, building a dungeon and luring adventurers to their doom. Bwaa Haa Haa Haaaa!

My dungeon

Anyway, my wife started out hot, killing 4 or 5 adventurers to my 2. But then I started a comeback. On the last turn, she has 9 victory points and I had 8 (we needed 10 vps for victory). We were facing elite adventurers worth 2 points each. I managed to lure a cleric into my dungeon. Using a magic spell I was able to defeat him and garner 10 vps. The adventurers stayed away from my wife's dungeon so she was stuck at 9 vps at the end of the turn. I won!

My winning haul

Space Hulk: Death Angel
My wife was tired Wednesday night so I played a solo game of Death Angel. Set in the 40K universe, players are Space Marines investigating a space hulk. Here is my hand as I enter the penultimate room.

4 of 6 Space Marines still left.

 I lost 2 marines in this room but managed to make it to the last room. I forget what the exact mission was but I just needed to activate the control panel to win. One marine made it there but the survivors were then overwhelmed by genestealers.

Basically, this ended up the same way as every other playing - DEATH. Probably why I don't play it much.

Mice & Mystics
We skipped a game on New Year's Eve (honestly, I fell asleep very early) but we were back in action on Friday with Mice and Mystics.

Our mission was to find and defeat the castle's resident cat.

Oliver says that the cat must win

It's a long scenario so we did not finish yet. We still managed to clear out a couple of rooms. We both controlled 2 characters, but Elizabeth was the star of the adventure.. In one room, we tangled with a spider, a very hard enemy. She rolled for Collin, one of her characters. One 3 dice, she scored 3 hits, and all of them counted double because of a bonus Collin had. So in 1 shot, he sliced and diced the spider into ribbons.

Elizabeth's roll against the spider.
One dead spider.

 Later, she had a similar roll with Lily the archer. Four hits on four dice.

Lily's dead-eye shooting

Oz Fluxx
Last night, we finished with a couple of hands of Oz Fluxx (sorry no pics). I took the first hand but Elizabeth won the second when I accidentally gave her the game. I transferred a creeper card (usually very bad) to her. But she had a card that let her win with it.

By my count, that was the 12th game. Elizabeth is working today and I go back tomorrow so we are likely going back to once a week games. Now Thomasina, our game-loving cat, will really be feeling the post-Christmas blues. :(

Quick Update

Gaming
I haven't been playing any space games since I last posted, but I have been playing games.

Last weekend Elizabeth and I served a Halloween meal for some family members. Here is our handiwork:

 Mummy loaf with "moldy" potatos

Witch Hats for dessert

We followed dinner with a game of Space Hulk: Death Angel. We finally won, although that's largely because I was doing it wrong. I accidentally used the Void Lock card for 6 Space Marines rather than 6 players. As a result, we encountered far fewer Genestealers than normal. I rectified the mistake about halfway through and we proceeded to lose 9 of our 12 Marines!

I recently picked up a copy of Zombies!, which we played on Halloween as we were giving out candy. My brother-in-law picked a card to move 10 spaces in one turn. He made a dash for the heliport, killed a zombie in the way, and flew to safety (Elizabeth and I watched him as the zombies closed in on us).

I also picked up a copy of the Scandinavia version of Ticket to Ride. I completed 2 routes and steamed away with the victory. We followed with Forbidden Island, but it sank to the depths with the last treasure.

NOTE: We played both Zombies and Ticket to Ride for the first time last week, and enjoyed them both. I foresee many replays.

Space Project

I received the miniatures I had ordered and have started painting. I really suck at painting so I'm not doing anything fancy; just enough to get them on the table. My camera battery died so I don't have pics yet.

A New Project - Space Marines

Elizabeth has been wanting to play a scary game (for Halloween) and I've been in a sci fi mood. The answer? Space Hulk!

I have a copy of the Space Hulk: Death Angel card game so we brought that out last night. We actually did pretty well - making to the 3rd of 4 levels before we got swarmed.

Here is our last position before we called it a night. We were pretty much assured of losing at least two more Marines in the next turn.

It is a fun albeit frightening game but the cards aren't as cool as minis. I've toyed with picking up a copy of the re-released Space Hulk game but the price puts me off (since it is OOP, copies are going for over $200!). So I decided to create my own version.

I just placed an order for some minis.

First up, the Space Marines:

Photo from Rebel Miniatures web page

Next, for Elizabeth, some kick-ass female mercenaries:

Photo from Rebel Miniatures web page

These figures are from Rebel Miniatures.

The enemies come from Khurasan Miniatures:

All photos from the Khurasan Miniatures web page.

I wrote up some very basic rules for the game and I'll be working on some sci fi themed tiles to represent the space hulk.

A Bad Day for the Space Marines

Played Space Hulk: Death Angel tonight.

On the very first turn, I attacked with Brother Claudio, using his special ability (shown on this card).

I just needed to roll anything but a 0 (the Space Hulk Death Angel die is a 6-sider with numbers from 0 to 5). Needless to say, I rolled a 0. Brother Claudio was the first of many casualties as the Space Marines had a bad day.