Dun! Dun! Dun! Dun! I've done the ton!

The winter blues' bloglag hinting at outright blockage since my last post three weeks ago has been all the more trying for yours truly because this post marks another small landmark for 2009 here at RD/KA!:- my 100th post; more in one year than any since 2005, when I began to blog.

I didn't expect to take nearly 4 years to surpass in some 10 months what I'd first achieved in less than 5. So this is very satisfying let me assure you dear readers. RD/KA!'s 5th birthday is next year; if the bloggery continues in this vein, then I would hope to see 2010 marked also by my 500th post. Fingers crossed I guess. :0)

To celebrate I'd like to look ahead at what the rest of 2009 and then 2010 might bring here at RD/KA!. But first, naturally enough...

Boardgames roundup
There's been plenty of FtF gaming in since my last post, a cheering total of 20 plays of 7 different games in 6 sessions through those 3 weeks.

Carcassonne
As I noted in passing last month, after languishing on the shelf for more than 2 years, the highly esteemed tile-laying game Carcassone finally returned to the table a couple of months ago. Of the regular crew only Gav had played it before, but the game has quickly worked its charms on everyone else who's played it. Early results have shown Gav is as much the player to watch at Carcassonne as he has recently shown himself to be at Settlers.



In a nice change, 2 of my 7 games of Carcassonne this month were played on a visit to a friend- Mike, and his girlfriend- Antje. Antje had played the game with her German mother and was keen to give it another go. Cue a pleasant evening. It turns out that Antje's not played Settlers yet, so I'm hoping that another pleasant evening will be on the cards sometime soon. =D

Ivanhoe
In the same vein of old games and new gamers, a recent Friday night visit on Badger's part took an unexpected turn when we were joined by my neighbour- Liam (last seen fantasising about being Rommel). A couple of hours' blether later it was clear Badger and I weren't going to be playing the expected Conflict of Heroes. So I suggested a 3-player game of Ivanhoe, Badger's and my recent filler of choice. Liam accepted cheerfully and went on to win 3 of the 4 games we played. He'll be back! B-)


Conflict of Heroes
Badger'd made a previous appearance, at which we had played Conflict of Heroes, naturally enough. We moved on to the next 2 scenarios, and... there were tanks, at long last! I only had 2 puny Russian T-26's, but was able to use them to great effect because I deployed them hidden to ambush Badger's German column entering from the board edge. Another highlight of this game was the chase: one of my T-26's trundling around in circles as it tried to evade the pursuing German tank. I won that game, and we both already look forward to the rematch. ^_^

Wings of War
The first choice of game being Andy's a couple of weeks ago, we found ourselves taking to the skies because Andy wanted to give his new in Wings of War: The Dawn of WWII a run. We ended up playing a game each of WoW-W1 and WoW- WW2:

• Andy and Donald each took a Bf109 against my Spitfires.
• Andy and my WW1 Central Powers against Donald and Gav's Allies in Wings of War WWI: Famous Aces and Watch Your Back. We settled on a single-seater and a two-seater each:

1. A pair of Roland C II's, a Fokker DVII and the Red Baron's Fokker Triplane for Andy and I.
2. A pair of DH4's, a Sopwith Camel and a Spad XIII, for Donald and Gav.

As before we used Andy's collection of WW1 models for the game.

A couple of pictures as the dogfight starts to get intense

I confess that the irresistable toy value of these aside, I had been originally sceptical of their merits as playing pieces, because I thought they'd overcomplicate dealing with what I'd remembered as the commonplace of airplane cards overlapping. It turns out that using these models in WoW is nowhere near as footery as I'd feared; in fact it might well be that they're easier to use than the cards, as well as being much more attractive.

Andy and I are talking about putting together a Wings of War campaign game of some sort. We're hoping that this might prove more popular than our our late, unlamented attempt at a Crimson Skies campaign. We'll find out once we get it rolling I guess. :-\

Fluxx and Munchkin
Dave made one of his welcome appearances last Sunday, making 3 with Donald and myself. These 2 fillers appeared on the table after he'd been introduced to our current favourite Euro- Carcassonne, naturally enough (at which Donald won 2 victories suggesting that Gav might have to look to his laurels).

Both Fluxx and Munchkin were new to Dave, but that didn't stop him sharing the honours with Donald- 1 game each of both. Donald found these results particularly pleasing: because I'd scored a duck on the day (probably because I should've known better than pick up a duck in a dungeon); a victory to be added to his February trouncing. :-/

Descent
Donald couldn't resist the lure of the 'Seat of Power' when his choice of game came up. So it was that we descended once more 'Into the Dark'. I was really pleased to play Descent again a year after our previous run through the quests from the basic set. This was just a trial run so that Donald could get used to the role of the Overlord before we move on to the adventures from The Well of Darkness. I'm really looking forward to this! ;)