Twelve Games Finale

 Here are my remaining games for the 2021 Twelve Games of Christmas challenge.

Game 8 (Fri. 12/24) - I played a quick MicroBattle game using amendments based on Sellswords & Spellslingers. I used my blocks rather than minis for this game.

Game 9 (Sun. 12/26) - Some more MicroBattle. Sorry, no pics. I actually played 3 short games, but I'm just counting it as one. The most interesting was my replay of Operation Last Train using 3mm figures. Instead of tracking individual figures, I treated each stand as a squad and tracked that. It has me hankering for some more small-scale sci-fi fun.

Game 10 (Tues. 12/28) - No game on Monday. Instead, we watched a movie along with commentary from an online friend of my wife. If you like movies, you may enjoy his commentary. Check out his YouTube page at Stone Gasman.

On Tuesday, we played a couple of card games, but I'm only counting them as one game.

• We started with Holiday Fluxx. My wife, being a hoarder, likes to store up cards. So she was very happy when she played the Draw 3 card. Then I countered with Play 4. Well, this annoyed her. She eventually won by stealing my Christmas wreath. Then she said she did not want to play a rematch because she hates playing Fluxx with me.
• So we moved on to Love Letter. This was a riveting battle as the princess's favor kept switching back and forth. Eventually, we wound up tied 6-6. The next round would decide the game. On one turn, I had the Prince and Bishop. I took a chance by playing the Bishop, which meant that I compared my remaining card to my wife's. Highest card wins. It turns out she had a lowly Guard. Victory was mine!

By the way, our cat Thomasina loves Love Letter. Our nickname for her is "Princess," so whenever we mention the princess in the game she thinks we're talking about her.

Game 11 (Thurs. 12/30) - Another twofer that I'm counting as one. We started with Codenames: Duet. 

Essentially, it is a cooperative guessing word game with a loose spy theme. One player gives a clue and the other tries to guess words that match, leading to allied operatives. If you guess wrong, the assassin gets you.

I blew it in the very first round, getting iced by the assassin. We tried again. The assassin did not get us, but we ran out of time.

We then played more Love Letter. My wife cleaned my clock this time.

Game 12 (Sat. 1/1) - And we close off the challenge with Ticket to Ride: Nordic Countries.

Here is the final board. I was white.

You may be able to trace a white route from Copenhagen (just off the bottom of the picture) to Murmansk (all the way at the top). This route gave me 24 bonus points. Things were nip-and-tuck the whole way, and I almost did not finish a 10-point route. As it turns out, I managed a 17 point victory!

And that's it. The Twelve Games of Christmas challenge complete!