Much to my delight, I’ve been able to play two games of Advanced Squad Leader (Starter Kit version) in two days; Mick was more than happy to play the game again, and it looks like our sequence of games will be continuing, whenever both of us are free and it’s just the two of us. (So, not daily!) We moved onto the third scenario of … Continue reading ASL Starter Kit: S3 Simple Equation session report
One of my hobbies is Advanced Squad Leader, a board game first published in 1985 (and deriving from the original 1977 Squad Leader). Well, when I say it’s one of my hobbies, it’s sort of two: one hobby is collecting it and another is wishing I could play it. Time is not really the problem here; instead, it’s finding players who are interested. However, one … Continue reading ASL Starter Kit: S2 War of the Rats
The cook and explorer once sailed in a boat, but bacon and ham wouldn’t keep her afloat. The tropical isle, where they were washed up, With bacon, and ham – and only one cup. A stranger, a native, a friendly face, Did greet the two, they noticed his race; The jungle, they thought, would have ham and wood, But lions, and bears, might chase … Continue reading The Cook and the Explorer – A “poem” of the new Robinson Crusoe game
The new year has begun with a burst of reading, much like 2013 did. And so the first and second of January were spent mostly reading the eight novels written by Julie Kagawa, which fit vaguely into the category of paranormal fantasy or urban fantasy. As more and more people write in the field, it really begins to stretch; it’s pretty easy to tell where … Continue reading Days of Reading – Julie Kagawa
This Saturday's game wasn't meant to have eight players. Lee was meant to be running his Pathfinder game, which would have left me with a scant handful of player (and thus, heavy on the henchmen). However, Lee was ill, so I inherited his players, all of whom have played in my AD&D game at one time or another. Daniel also turned up, and Tim as … Continue reading AD&D: Hellhounds and Hellknights
The final AD&D session of 2013 saw seven people playing, and the regular range of character levels from 1st to 9th. It also saw the group discovering What Lay Beyond the Orcs of the Bloody Eye, as – after rather destroying the first group they met – the group then negotiated their way past the other orcs. Mostly with, "Let us past or we will … Continue reading AD&D: Chairs of Doom
The penultimate AD&D session of this year had six players in attendance, with characters ranging from first level to ninth level, and another trip into the depths of the Caverns of the Oracle. It turned out to be quite dangerous, as a number of hellhounds attacked the party as they got closer to the levels that Hextor’s followers hold in sway. The party consisted of … Continue reading AD&D: Magic Items, Resurrection Survival failure and other things
I'd shown Sarah one of my new acquisitions last week, and, upon finding that it was just the two of us for Thursday-night gaming, she had to make a choice: play Space Empires again, or learn Bomber Command. As she put it, "It's the choice between a game I really like or one I don't know!" But she, like me, enjoys learning new games and … Continue reading First game of Bomber Command
I never read enough of Dragon Magazine when I was younger to be familiar with Ed Greenwood's early articles, where he gave the first hint of the Forgotten Realms. For me, the Realms properly came into being with the publication of the original boxed set in 1987, and the publication of its first books, Douglas Niles' "Moonshae" trilogy, and R.A. Salvatore's "Icewind Dale" trilogy. The … Continue reading Winter Never Ends – the Legacy of the Crystal Shard Launch Event report (part 1)
Onto Icewind Dale! Problems with couriers meant that the delivery my FLGS should have received of the Launch Event kit still hadn't arrived on the Friday before the event… yes, the one on the next day. This was something of a problem for running it. I got extremely frustrated and a quite a bit angry and vented about it on EN World and Twitter. I … Continue reading The Strange Story of the Legacy of Icewind Dale Launch Event
