ChrisTalbot.com

If you enjoy playing chess but don't get a chance to play all that often, I'll recommend checking out SchemingMind.com. It's an online correspondence chess community with a pretty good Web-based client for playing.

I've acquired quite a few board and card games this summer, and now I need to take a bit of a break from purchases and focus on playing through my growing collection. I still have a couple of games en route to Chez Talbot, though, but after they arrive, that's it. Any acquisitions made for the next few months will have to be via trade ... well, unless I find the deal(s) of a lifetime, that is. ;)

The Canucks Amuck September meetup was on Saturday, and I got a lot of gaming in during my many hours at Hart House that day. I got there a couple of hours early to meet any of the other early-risers, but only Justin showed up early. But that worked out great. The two of us got in two full games and part of the setup for another game before anybody else arrived. All told, I played Battle Line, Battlecards, two games of Honour of the Samurai, the first scenario for Sergeants! on the Eastern Front and "cutthroat" Carcassonne.

After the meetup was over, the lot of us headed over to the Hairy Tarantula to take advantage of the quarterly sale. I left with some new games, including the much-ballyhooed Through The Desert, which Jacquie and I played last night. I'm not sure I quite understand why TTD is so highly-rated, but maybe it's just that it was just a two-player game. Perhaps with three or even four people, it would be a much better game. But even still, how can you go wrong with plastic camels in pastel colours?

I finally have my Mobile Infantry assembly line set up, and I'm starting to glue pieces together. Right now, I have more than a dozen headless and armless torsos with legs in a box. So it begins. With any luck, I'll have the MIs assembled in the next week, and then I can start working on the Arachnids.

I expect that I should be ready to play my first game Starship Troopers Miniatures in two to three weeks.

The Law and I started talking a couple of days ago about maybe trying to get a new Civilization III PBeM game going. We're not sure if it's going to work, though, seeing as he has the latest expansion and I never acquired anything passed Play The World. Still, just in case, I installed Civ3 last night and played it for a little while. Man, I really suck at that game. I've never really figured out how to run my civilizations very well.

As Rawl has already written on his blog, we visited The 100th Monkey in Pickering last night. This is a café just off of Liverpool south of Bayly. I had heard of the place in the spring when I was trying to help my boss (Steve) find an Internet café in the east end, but the number we found for the place was out of service. I figured it had closed up shop.

Not true, though. Xavier told me about the place, and it was then that I realized Rawl and I might have another place to go for sitting, lounging and drinking coffee (or in Rawl's case, tea). So we dropped by last night to hang out and work on the murder mystery party we're doing for The Law's Hallowe'en party this year. I really, really like the place.

The owner, Ryan, is still building it up. What he has so far is pretty cool, but he wants to turn it into a full-blown cybercafé. Right now, it's mostly a lounge with a few TVs and Xboxes scattered throughout, but I the vibe is right. If he can attract some good regulars, then I think he's got a winner in The 100th Monkey.

Xavier and I are looking at maybe having a board game night there, and Ryan seems pretty cool with that idea. So here's hoping it works out alright.

Loki turns one year old today. He started the day off with a bang by eating toilet paper (thankfully, not used toilet paper) and suffering through threats of going into the Bad Boy Box.

Was he named well? I think so.

Happy birthday, Loki!

Someone at the Mongoose forums is painting up the RvB guys using the Starship Troopers Miniatures Marines. Too funny. Maybe I should do this, as well. ;)

Don' forgit 'tis International Talk Like A Pirate Day, matey. Hoist the colours an' drop the sails. We set sail for the open seas. Yarr!

What the hell is Nintendo thinking? It looks like a remote controller with handheld touch mouse.

Modern technology can be a pain in the ass sometimes, especially when it breaks down at a crucial point, but the availability of desktop publishing software and an easy way to transmit desktop published documents in a way that anybody can read them (read: PDF) is just too cool. Sometimes, even when I'm fully aware of a technology, it can still amaze me.

In an effort to keep my board game budget to a minimum these days, I've been toying with the idea of desktop published (often referred to as DTP) games. A lot of designers have created games and then uploaded them to sites like WebGrognards or BoardGameGeek, and offered their games to people in PDF or some sort of graphical format. And while some of them look like crap, there are a few that, if they were available in published editions, I would gladly drop the money for.

Anyway, I have been a few DTP games at BGG for a few weeks now, and tonight I finally took the plunge. I'm in the process of getting two such games ready for play -- Battle Platform Antilles and The Shining.

TABS has been using a YahooGroup for its online presence since the group got started last year, but now the admins have closed up the discussion group and launched a new Web presence. If you're in the Toronto area and you have any interest whatsoever in board games, war games, CCGs, CMGs or miniatures games, then do yourself a favour and become a member of the group at TABS Online.

On Saturday, I got up at my normal weekday time, which I'll admit isn't exactly really early anyway, and then had Jacquie drop me off at Dave's place in Pickering. Shortly thereafter, Dave and I set off for our trek into the city to attend TABS' CondoCon IV, a quarterly mini-convention held in the recreation room in one member's condominium building.

Since CondoCon started at 9:00, Dave and I were running a bit late, but shortly after we arrived, the two of us were invited to join a game of WildLife. I'll admit I got my ass kicked really badly in the game. There were five people playing, and by the end, most of the others were roughly even and I was trailing the second lowest score by about twenty points. Ouch. Okay, I guess I suck at that game, but I enjoyed it enough that I'm going to keep my eyes out for a copy of it. Unfortunately, it's out of print, so it might be tough to find.

After that, we took a break for lunch and the TABS crew invaded a local pizza joint en masse. We were probably there for close to an hour, and then we all started heading back to the room.

With lunch over, several of us were trying to figure out what to play next. A few people broke away for a game of In The Shadow of the Emperor. Another group of us broke off to play a six-player game of RoboRally, which turned out to be as chaotic and fun as I had heard. The unfortunate thing is I don't see the game working very well with fewer than four players.

The last game of the day I played was Duell, which I brought because Justin said he was interested in checking out. So I re-read the rules, noted a few errors I had made the last time I played it, and then taught Justin how to play. I lost ... but only by one point. :)

After that, everyone helped pack up and then Dave and I headed back to Durham.

It's difficult to tell if this fan film will be worth the purchase or not, but I'm considering it: Saving Star Wars.

Gaming friends tend to blame me for sucking them into games. Logan blamed me for getting him back into EverQuest. The Law is currently cursing my name for reactivating his HeroClix obsession. Justin and Nelson are blaming me for sucking them into Pirates of the Spanish Main.

In the last case there, I think it's going to work out pretty well. Justin and Nelson are currently working together to improve PotSM. They have played a few games of it now (or so I'm told), and while they found it fun, it seems they have some issues with the game. And they're valid issues. What kind of cannon can fire in such a wide arc? Cannons on ships fired pretty much straight -- and that was it. So I think they're fixing that. It sounds like they're also adding in a hex map.

Hmm... I'm looking forward to seeing their improved rules when they're done.

You know those games that you played at friends' houses as a kid and you wished that you'd been able to convince your parents to buy for you because they were so freakin' cool, and you know that you'd still play those games today? I wish I had convinced my parents to buy me Fireball Island when I was young. I'm itchin' for some Fireball Island action.

Thanks to Dave at Wyldstar in Oshawa, I had a chance to check out the starter kit for the upcoming Axis & Allies Miniatures game. He broke them out for me and I got to spend about 10 minutes taking a look.

A few comments (but a reminder that this is based on a quick glance at the minis)...

The miniatures themselves look pretty spiffy for a collectable game. The paint jobs are better than what I've become accustomed to (read: WizKids' Mage Knight and HeroClix games). The units all look fairly sturdy, although the tanks are hollow in the centre (you can tell this by turning them over and noting that there are no innards). So if you consider that, what you're getting is a shell, not a big hunk of plastic. Maybe this saved money?

The starter kit comes with a handful of tanks -- a Sherman or two and a Panzer or two. The kid in me really thinks the movable armaments are neat. I don't know my tank terminology, so I'll make it simple. The top with the big gun swivels. A small thing, but a neat thing.

The infantry units are mounted on flat, circular bases, as I expected. They look half-decent, as well, but there are no movable parts (also as expected).

The starter kit comes with both Axis and Allied forces, but I would say the number of units present isn't really enough to put together a good-sized force for either side. However, once Dave unfolded the maps, I realized that it might not matter. The maps are small ... tiny, even. The starter kit comes with three or four maps, but each of them are maybe a bit bigger than the SJG Ogre map (yes, seriously), and they don't appear to be made to easily fit together. So my guess is that each battle is meant to be a very small skirmish.

I have a feeling that some of the more hardcore minis gamers that get into this will discard the maps entirely and choose to go with some kind of measurement for movement. I know that's what I'm thinking I'll do. The maps are just too laughable.

I only took a quick glance at the rules, but they seem to have kept to the spirit of Axis & Allies. It's been quite a while since I played the game, but the combat mechanics looked to be about what I remember from the game (with some obvious modifications for movement and range).

Considering what's available in the starter kit, I'm thinking that to really get into the game, it will be almost necessary to buy two starter kits. This way, you could field a bigger force per side. I'm not sure what the price tag will be on the starters, though. If pricing from WizKids starters is comparable, I'm thinking each kit will likely be in the $25 to $30 range. But since it's actually Hasbro/Wizards of the Coast that's putting the game out, pricing could be higher or (if we're really lucky) lower.

Fiddling around this morning, I played through a game of Shadows Over Camelot solo. I knew I was destined to lose playing it that way, but I wanted to get a good idea of how the game worked. I like it. Even with a full complement of players, I see it being difficult, though.

On Wednesday night, I made yet another trek up to David's place in Thornhill. I swear the rest of the TABS members must be a little miffed at me, considering how much of David's gaming time I've been taking up recently. This will likely be the last time I game with David for a few weeks, though. I'll see him next week at CondoCon, but we don't have anything else booked for before or after that -- although he has mentioned that he'd like a Granada: The Fall of Moslem Spain rematch. Additionally, he'd like to get another learning session in of Star Fleet Battles, which is what he thought Justin and me on Wednesday night.

SFB was technically the first hex-and-counter game I was exposed to. Back in high school, I was friends with a guy named Chris Chesher (who I actually contacted via email several months ago when I found out he was part of the Toronto area Living Greyhawk crowd). Chesher was a strategy game player, particularly PC games Civilization, Esterian Conquest and VGA Planets. However, he also liked to play tabletop war games.

At that time, I was into Supremacy. A couple of my D&D players were also Supremacy fans. Both Tim and Steve enjoyed playing Supremacy with me, and we tried to get in a couple of games a year. Well, Chesher picked up a copy of SFB and then wanted us to give it a try. As I recall, he had played it before, and he was willing to teach us.

Unfortunately, Chesher wasn't a very good teacher (sorry to Chris, if he's reading). The learning session didn't go well, and after it was completed, those of us who were being taught had decided we really hated SFB. I even went so far as to make a vow to never play the game again.

So much for that vow. After hearing David and another guy in TABS talk about SFB and how much they loved the game, I slowly coaxed myself into volunteering to give it another whirl. I'm glad I did. David is an excellent teacher, and he introduced us to the game in a way that made sense. He ran Justin and I through a very simple Klingon versus Federation space battle, with each of us using a light cruiser from our respective races (I was the Feds, BTW).

It was a fun night, and I think the game actually captures the spirit of Star Trek combat. Justin blew my ship away, though. Still, even though I lost, it was still fun. ;)

EDIT: Dec. 3, 2007 -- I knew I'd posted something somewhere about playing SFB in high school, but I couldn't find it. Chris C. pointed out to me it was on my blog, and he also pointed out that I was full of shit when I wrote this. We never played SFB in high school -- and Chris has never played it. Sorry, Chris.

The death in the family I mentioned earlier this week was of my Uncle Ray's wife, Nancy. Her funeral was yesterday in Vienna (Ontario, that is -- near Tillsonburg), and Jacquie and I fought traffic (both ways) to attend it.

This morning, I learned that a friend from college (who I had mostly lost touch with) died last week. I last chatted with him a couple of months ago via email, and I learned he was not well then. I'll refer to him by his handle, as it's what people on the Internet know him by -- and most of those people know him as the founder of Infiltration, an urban exploration zine.

Rest in peace, Ninjalicious.