Still Gaming!

It's been almost a year since last post.  In that time I have had a busy life with not enough gaming to keep the beast in me satisfied.  A lot of what gaming I have done has been online, World of Tanks.  That's on the backburner a little bit now, though I still like taking my PzIV for a bit of a spin.

About a month ago I did manage to get in my first ever game of Agricola.  If you don't know, it's another Eurogame with lots of bright colours, non combative themes, wooden counters and elegant rules.  Agricola is latin for 'farmer', and the idea is to be the best farmer at the end of fourteen turns.  Players are judged by family size, house size and construction, herd and crop sizes, as well as farm improvements.  I managed to win (30pts), with Julie a narrow second (27), then Nancy (20) and Tony (17).  I've given our copy of the game away for xmas, but will soon get another as it got the thumbs up from all concerned.  Here's a pic from the end of the game:

A hard evening's farming in Agricola.

We gave several games for Xmas, including a copies of Billionaire and Treasure Island to my nephews.  In return, I picked up a copy of Conditierre - a card based bidding game themed around the Renaissance Italian Wars.  I hope to get a couple games in after New Year.

Speaking of the Renaissance, I have brought my character back to a (lower) level of activity in Renaissance Kingdoms.  I'll be posting on the experience in future, but I'll say here that is was kinda nice to stretch my alter ego's legs after over a year of inactivity (just enough to stop him being eradicated).  I am so glad I kept him because now he can be older and wiser.

Finally, my most excellent missus has finally gotten around to clearing out another room in our house for my use in gaming and modelling.  This was needful as the last attempt at doing this was promptly followed by a stream of visitors that hasn't stopped who all use the 'spare' room.  The kids might miss their 'toy room', but I think I'll be able to convince them that it's a fair trade if I get space to model and game.

Anyways, sorry to be away so long.  Glad to see that my blogging comrades have kept up the good fight in my absence.  And, Adelaide Gamer wishes you all a brilliant New Year and many good dice rolls in the one that will follow!

AAD and other things

Well, I hope all those who read this had a safe and fun silly season. We at Adelaide Gamer did, most certainly. Not much in the way of games though, except for a bit of Tanks. And a recce on some modelling, for when I get the chance.

In the World of Tanks I have seemed to shift up a gear in my playing style, although it isn't necessarily immediately obvious when viewing the stat pages I think I am playing a lot smarter than I was a month ago. This is reflected in steady kill ratios of 1 per game or higher, and climbing averages for experience across my stable (T34, T34-85, IS2, SU-85, MS-1(!)).

I have also joined a clan, the ANZAC Armoured Division (2nd Battalion) - or AAD2 for short. The core of the clan consists of committed long term WoT players, it was formed in April 2011. The original AAD is presently 89 members, the 2nd Battalion has 30. The 1st Battalion is the gang who will provide the armies when Clan Wars finally starts up a Asia-Oceania server and fighting the daily round of battles in the quest for World Domination at a time more suitable for oceania timezones than does the present North American based server (early afternoon aussie time).

When you realise the First Battalion is composed of those with top level tanks waiting for the clan wars to start, and that the Second Battalion is for the more relaxed, less developed Tanker, then you'll probably understand that I give no secrets away when I say that the plan is to hit the ground running when Oceania opens up for conquest, grab territory and hang onto it. Apparently there's some well established russian clans with the same idea, so it will be interesting.

On a more mundane level, the AAD runs a basic forum and Team Speak set up which, when combined with a little message discipline and the ingame information streams in WoT, provides good forums, meeting points, communications networks and information storage to run a pretty major operation. The TS server set up is good, with channels for individual platoons, companies, training ground players and miscellaneous use, as well as main lobbies. Very functional and focused, without being neurotic about it. Kinda like us ANZACs (Australia New Zealand Army Corps, from WWI and Gallipoli) like to think we are.

Oh. And I'm chasing down some putty for the T34-85 model, and eagerly awaiting the end of silly season so I can set up and use my new air compressor and spray gun.

And there's a Knizia game of the Hobbit to learn and play.

And S&T is releasing its Germany-Russia 1920 hypothetical game in a couple months.

2012 looks like being a very good year.