Holiday Game Action

The boys and I wrapped up another thoroughly entertaining adventure with our Toronto crew yesterday, but it was the only D&D we've played in quite a while (aside from a brief Shattered Realm episode that I managed to shoehorn into one weekend morning). With all the kids' activities, it seems to be getting harder to find the time to roll dice. Progress on our main Shattered Realm campaign is pretty damn slow, and other D&D stuff we'd like to do -- an Eberron mini-campaign is probably at the top of the list -- seems like it will be tough to pull off.

I'm looking forward to the holidays, as it will give us an opportunity to spend time together and have fun. When the kids aren't playing Xbox with their cousins, we'll dig into some of their gaming-related Christmas stuff. I'll have numerous units to assemble for the Tanks miniatures game, as both boys are now quite interested in twentieth-century military history. On that score, Nathaniel will also be getting a couple of Axis & Allies games. (I only remember the classic -- apparently now there's a whole slew of related titles.) It wouldn't be Christmas for Nathaniel without something 40k, however, so he's also getting the Space Marines codex and the Ultramarines codex supplement. We aren't playing 40k very much these days -- it's hard to find time to play anything -- but he enjoys poring over game rules, coming up with optimized units, playing through solo games, etc. Matthew, meanwhile, is more interested in Xbox than tabletop stuff, but he did ask for a 40k model in addition to the aforementioned tanks. He's going to use the model as a vehicle for his futuristic Shattered Realm hero, so it will be fun to build and paint it together.

Speaking of painting, one of the coolest gifts the kids are getting are their own customized miniatures from Hero Forge. Matthew designed Kai, his sniper from the sci-fi Shattered Realm (and the one who will be riding around in the 40k vehicle), and Nathaniel opted for Demorus, his original Shattered Realm ranger. I'm looking forward to painting the minis and helping bring those characters to life!

History Lesson

Nathaniel wanted to play the wargame Tanks this evening, but since today was the 75th anniversary of D-Day, the boys got an impromptu history lesson first. When we got into the game, Nathaniel's American forces hunkered down in the woods while my German armored units pulled up and formed a semicircle around them. Despite taking withering fire from the German tanks, the Yanks withstood the storm and came out victorious, with Nathaniel's beloved Super Pershing obliterating a hefty Tiger to win the game.

Big Train's Big Hit

An epic battle of Tanks ended prematurely when Nathaniel flipped out at his (perceived) bad luck on dice rolls, so we shifted gears and introduced Matthew to Strat-O-Matic. His team, the Montreal Comets, faced off against Mickey Mantle's Chicago Magnificos. In a nail-biter of a pitcher's duel, Montreal's Walter "The Big Train" Johnson edged Bob Gibson by a 2-1 margin. By far the most memorable moment of the game occurred when Johnson homered off of Gibson to aid his cause.

Hall of Fame League

I think our Strat-O-Matic Hall of Fame League is ready to rock and roll! I ended up adding a fourth team that we can use as an opponent for solo play or as a team that guest players can use. Here are the four clubs:

• Montreal Comets (Matthew) -- Players debuting 1891-1910
• New York Gothams (Nathaniel) -- Players debuting 1911-1930
• Rochester Lilacs (John) -- Players debuting 1871-1890
• Washington Monuments (N/A) -- Players debuting 1931-1950

Yes, "Lilacs" is totally a goofy name for a baseball team, but I'm keeping with the theme of nineteenth-century baseball, when teams often had wacky names. Heck, the Dodgers were once known as the Bridegrooms and then later as the Superbas, so why not a team called the Lilacs?! Just imagine the uniforms! Okay, let's not imagine the uniforms...

Anyway, tonight I ran a solo game to kick things off, with my Lilacs facing the Monuments. The first at-bat featured Jackie Robinson against Cy Young. I honestly felt some genuine jitters as I rolled the dice. Robinson drew a walk off of Young, and the game was underway! The Flower City boys rallied from an early 0-3 deficit to win 8-5, surviving two homers from Ted Williams and one from Joe DiMaggio. King Kelly and Deacon White -- who grew up a stone's throw away from my hometown of Horseheads, NY -- delivered the big hits for Rochester.

I'll recap the game tomorrow for the boys and hopefully they'll be eager to jump into the action -- if, that is, I can tear them away from Tanks...

Tanks: The Modern Age

It was only a matter of time.

Gale Force 9 is getting ready to rock our world with Tanks: The Modern Age, a game that brings the action of Tanks into the Cold War era. The boys are going to flip out when I tell them this game is just a month away from release!

However, I hope the rules will be backwards-compatible with the original game, as just yesterday the boys played an Amazon order for some WWII American and German reinforcements...

Pershing Hunt

We're back to Tanks this weekend, and Nathaniel decided he was going to load up a single Super Pershing with an elite crew of heroes and upgrade cards. He's now driving all over France while Matthew's German tanks are trying to track him down. Here's a cool shot of a Panzer ready to strike.

Not depicted in the photo, however, is the fact that the Panzer's engine is on fire, having just been hit by a shell from Nathaniel's Pershing!

Wargamin'

Sometimes Nathaniel disappears for a while and I'll find him upstairs in our game room, deeply engrossed in wargame strategy. He'll set up a game mat with X-Wing, Tanks, or, most often, Warhammer 40,000, and then play both sides of the battle. He'll test out different tactics, or how certain units play against other units, and he files all that information away in the seemingly limitless databanks of his seven-year-old brain. I need to hurry up and build my Drukhari army for 40k, because there's nothing I can do with the Death Guard that he hasn't already anticipated...

First Gaming Action!

One of the best features of our new house is a big upstairs playroom that's perfect for anything from D&D to wargaming to action figures. Although I was fired up to resume our Shattered Realm campaign, the boys wanted to do some skirmish games, so first we set up an X-Wing scenario that took us all morning to play through. Here's a look at one of the initial engagements...

Note the red TIE Interceptor that came barreling in so fast that he overshot the Rebel fighters! He didn't fare much better in the later stages of the game, when an Imperial traffic jam allowed my Rebels to carry the day...

Next up, we shifted gears for some Tanks action. The battle has yet to be concluded, but this Panther appears to be in trouble...

Holiday Fun

I hope you're all having a great holiday season! Ours has been pretty quiet. Bad weather in the Sierra Nevada mountains whittled down our Los Angeles trip to a mere few days (including driving down there on Christmas Day), but Santa brought us a lot of fun new game stuff, including a Pershing and a Panther IV for our Tanks armies, the fantastic Forbidden Island (the predecessor to Forbidden Desert, a family favorite), and Poop: The Game (it's a real thing).

See you in 2017!

Revenge!

The boys and I have spent most of this dreary, rainy Sunday building models and playing Tanks battles. The U.S. Sherman tanks (Nathaniel and myself) have largely had the upper hand over their German Panther or Jagdpanther (Matthew) foe. Below is a photo of the final turn of our most recent battle. One of our Shermans was temporarily disabled -- although completely undamaged -- so Matthew drove his Jagdpanther right up and destroyed it at point-blank range with a single shot. Our other Sherman, hiding in the forest, then immediately blew up the German tank with a well-placed side shot. It's been a lot of fun, but we definitely need more tanks!

Tanks

Tanks is a hot new World War II miniatures skirmish game from Gale Force Nine. People usually describe it as Star Wars: X-Wing but with tanks instead of spaceships. Indeed, the mechanics are similar enough that if you know how to play X-Wing, you basically know how to play Tanks.

Here's a look at all the goodies that come in the box...

As you can see, the models come unpainted and unassembled, which is great for artistically-inclined Warhammer 40k fans, but not so great for folks (like yours truly) who prefer their games to be playable right out of the box. In any case, a core set gives you enough bits to build two American tanks (Shermans) and one German tank (Panther). Other tanks (including those from the UK and the USSR) are available in reasonably-priced expansion sets.

And now a closer look at one of the two identical sprues containing the Sherman pieces...

Finally, here's an image of one of the sprues that contains the pieces you can use to build either a standard Panther or a Jagdpanther...

Amy and the boys come back tomorrow after a week-long trip to Los Angeles, and I can't wait to introduce them to Tanks...as well as Oregon Trail! How about that? Two games to help teach the boys about history!