Back from Oblivion

Hello, again, everyone! I hope the new year is bringing lots of gaming goodness your way. I have dropped off the face of the San Antonio board gaming scene quite completely these days, and the number of posts here is a reflection of that. Of course, the culprit is this.

Nonetheless, board gaming does continue here at the Fortress of Solitude. I am declaring this the year of the solitaire game. My plan is to invest time into one solitaire game per month for the rest of the year. Here is the current schedule:

February: Hornet Leader, Carrier Air Operations. The plan is to fill out a squadron using SABG Classic member names (since I don't know the current ones), and fly a full campaign. Who gets to fly the trench run and pop the proton torpedo down the exhaust port of the Iranian nuclear bomb factory? Stay tuned.

March: Where there is Discord. Definitely one of the more attractively produced games in my collection, this rather complex simulation of the Falklands War (from the British perspective) cries out for table time. To keep things tense, I'll assign the names of SABG Classic members as individual ship captains. Watch out for those Exocets!

April: Raid on St. Nazaire. Too long has this classic simulation of the British raid on the St. Nazaire U-Boat pens gone unappreciated. Again, to make things up close and personal, I'll assign individual SABG Classic member names to be the leaders of specific commando counters. With casualties projected to be over 50%, it might be time to consider upgrading your life insurance policy.

May: Labyrinth. I know this gem is seeing lots of SABG table time, but I'm postoning diving in until the solitaire game flowchart patch is published in the next C3i. Who knows... I may be kicking myself later for postponing playing this game (much like I did when it took me a year to get War of the Ring to the table. In any event, I have high hopes here.

Summer: Ambush. Hopefully by this Summer, Hornsfan will finally decide to donate his collection of Ambush expansions to yours truly. We'll see... In any event, I hope to lead a rag tag band of SABG brothers through the base game campaign. We'll see who survives to have their memoir converted into an HBO miniseries.

Later in the year.... Okay... I'll need to take a look at the collection to see what else I have to choose from. I know my mint copy of Task Force Games' Intruder (a.k.a., Alien: the Board Game) will be one of them.


What else to catch up on.... Oh, yes.... Yomi. Wow! If you like 2-play duel-style card games and are at all a fan of old school 2-D fighting games (e.g., Street Fighter), then you need to check this out. The designer of the game is the man behind some of the actual design and balancing of recent Street Fighter video games, so he knows the subject matter well. The good news is you can play the card game for free here. I picked up the full set of 10 decks with play mats, and am itching to get some play time in. In the mean time, if you'd like to arrange some on-line play at roughly 15 minutes per game, just shoot me a note or leave a comment here.

Okay... that's long enough for one post. See ya!