Opening Day

With the World Series getting underway tonight, baseball is coming to an end in 2023, but in my fictional nineteenth-century universe, we're just getting started. After the Canaries' devastating championship series loss to the Haymakers last season, will we see the Birds recover and end their title drought, or perhaps will the Blue Legs or Resolutes surprise us? The tenth season of my Strat-O-Matic league begins tonight!

Season 4 Championship

Season 4 of Blitz Bowl madness has come to an end! Who walked (or, rather, limped) away with the coveted Sigmar Cup? Read on!

After my debacle the other night with a miscounted score, I started the championship game over from the beginning. This time, the game couldn't have played out more differently: In my first attempt, the teams grappled in a gritty grudge match, while the rebooted game featured touchdowns on the game's first three turns! The Reavers connected for a passing touchdown during their first sequence, then the Giants ran for a score on their first possession, and then the Reavers notched a running TD on their second turn. Madness! The excitement didn't end there, however, as the Giants made some aggressive plays to rack up challenge cards, and we were all tied up at 9 before the dust had settled. Both defenses held firm for the middle portion of the game, and as the clock started winding down, the dwarves ran for a touchdown to open up a 15-10 lead. Their defense pulled back to guard against a big TD, forcing Reavers to go after challenge cards in the hope of picking up enough points to chip away at the Giants' advantage. By the final turn, the Reavers still trailed, 15-13. They put themselves in excellent position to score two points on a challenge card to tie the game and send it to overtime. It all came down to one dice roll: An armor saving throw by one of the dwarf players. If he failed the save, the Reavers would claim the points and tie the game, but if he made the save, the Giants would hang on for the win. The odds? The dwarf needed a five-up on a D6 check. Oh, the drama! I must have let that D6 rattle around in my closed fist for at least half-a-minute before I hurled it down on the board.

Five.

The dwarf held his ground, the Reavers failed to claim the points, and the Giants won the game and their second Sigmar Cup in franchise history. Congrats to the Giants on winning the most exciting game of Blitz Bowl I think I've ever played!

One Last View of Dragon View

After overcoming countless foes -- and one very nasty real-life game glitch -- I completed the Drakkhen sequel Dragon View today. Here's a photo of my character, Widsith, about to take on the final boss...

The game concludes with a lovely (and lengthy!) series of cutscenes showing what happens across the game world after the hero's victory. Spoiler alert! Don't look if you want to play through and be surprised by how the story turns out.

The defeated villain is redeemed, and the hero is proclaimed king of the realm!

Hail to the king, baby!

Next up, I'll be putting the world of Drakkhen aside and delving into a new Evercade cartridge dedicated to the "cinematic" games of Delphine Software International. I remember playing Delphine's Flashback on my Sega Genesis long ago and just being blown away by the story and the silky-smooth (rotoscoped!) animation.

Season 4 Playoffs

It's playoff time! Here we go!

Wild Card: Champions at Reavers

After being humiliated 11-1 by the Avengers in their first-ever playoff appearance last season, the undead Champions came into this Wild Card matchup determined to have a better showing. The red-hot Reavers, however, jumped out to a quick 8-0 lead. The Champions made things interesting on a rare five-point touchdown (three points for the TD plus a two-point challenge card) midway through the game, but they never threatened again. The Reavers put the game away with a late touchdown and the final was 15-6 in favor of the two-time defending titlists. The humans then set their sights on a threepeat, but first they would need to defeat the rival Giants -- who are, ironically, dwarves and not actual giants -- the only other franchise in this league that has claimed a Sigmar Cup.

Championship: Reavers at Giants

These two titans were meeting for the Cup for the third time in four seasons. Early in the contest, the Giants got the ball deep into Reaver territory, and it was all the humans could do to keep it out of their end zone. The teams picked up a few points on challenge cards over the next several rounds, until, around the halfway point of the game, the Reavers managed to heave the ball to midfield in the hope of mounting an offensive push of their own. The Giants briefly took the lead on more points from challenge cards, so it was 5-4 in their favor until the Reavers picked up a card that made it 6-5. And that's when I realized something was wrong, as I couldn't account for the score. Somewhere along the way, I had miscounted the points. (Either that, or Tzeentch is up to his old tricks!) In such a tight contest, a single point might well be the difference. With no clear resolution that was fair to both teams, I decided to toss the whole game and start again. We'll try again tomorrow!

Season 4 Recap

Tonight was the final regular-season game of my Blitz Bowl league. Here's how the five teams fared in Season 4:

• Giants (9-5-2): The dwarves set a new league record for wins and denied the Reavers a fourth straight first-place finish. This dominant team boasted the league's best offense (10.50 points per game) and second-best defense (8.81 points against per game), and tied the Reavers for the best point differential (+27).
• Reavers (7-5-4): Their quest for a third straight Sigmar Cup will continue, but first they'll need to get past the Champions in the Wild Card game. The Reavers didn't muster much on offense this year, but their defense (8.06 points against per game) was the best in the circuit.
• Champions (7-8-1): It took a nerve-wracking win in their last regular-season game to secure a Wild Card spot for the second straight year. With a point differential of exactly zero, this team is the very definition of average.
• Grasshuggers (6-8-2): The halflings remain the only team in the league that has never reached the postseason, but they made things interesting in the last few games and narrowly missed out.
• Avengers (5-8-3): They led the league in touchdowns (14) yet again, but there isn't much else I can say about this team. Last season's runners-up for the Sigmar Cup finished dead last this year, and their point differential of -29 was the worst for any team in league history.

Next up: The Wild Card game between the Reavers and the Champions for the right to face the Giants in the championship!

Quadruple Digits

I added the complete list of Troya Novan emperors to my Druid Cycle spreadsheet this evening, bringing me up to 1002 named characters. Quadruple digits, baby!

Back to Basics

My boys spent the early years of their D&D careers adventuring in the cozy little Shattered Realm campaign setting. The clock is ticking on their time with us at home, however -- Matthew is already sixteen! -- so I was feeling a bit of urgency to get them into the Druid Cycle world. They're now involved in two campaigns, one with their two older cousins and one just with the three of us. Although the campaigns are set in different countries, both are plugged in to a broader narrative about an impending succession crisis in Troya Nova. It's been a lot of fun to get back to basics in this game world, as I had been focusing on world building for the past several (many?) years; it was awesome to add new characters, locations, and cultures to this world, but I felt that I was shortchanging the "core" that has made the setting so special. It's been amazing to reconnect with the roots of this campaign world and share it with a new generation of players!

TWD Inbound!

I received an email indicating that The Walking Dead RPG that I backed on Kickstarter is going to be shipping soon! We'll be using this system (which features the same core game mechanics as the Alien RPG) for a Front Porch Multiverse campaign that is, in some ways, a loose sequel to our recent Tales of the Ternion superhero story. The intrepid heroes of this new game will be trapped by a devastating winter storm in a remote corner of upstate New York just as a zombie outbreak is occurring all around them.

This campaign will also be the first we've ever done that uses entirely 3D terrain. As I've mentioned over the past year or so, I've printed out and painted numerous buildings and countless smaller objects (tables,  beds, garbage cans, etc.). The campaign will feature three distinct settings -- the "downtown" of a small community, a top-secret military base, and a survivalist compound in the wilderness -- that the players will explore. The final task in my long list of preparations is to round up the zombies because, well, you know, you kinda need zombies for a zombie campaign! The minis from the excellent cooperative board game Zombicide are the same scale as the minis we use for our RPG campaigns, so I've pressed them into service. And, yes, I'm painting them. I was able to repurpose fifty-six miniatures from Zombicide, so I'm now in the midst of slapping some color on them. They won't be great, but no two will be the same, and at least they'll look better than flat gray plastic.

Which Universe Is This?

Did I somehow stumble into a weird alternate dimension? Because in the universe in which I currently find myself, celebrated sci-fi author H. G. Wells basically invented the modern wargaming hobby with the publication of the Little Wars game system in 1913. Among the game's fans was beloved actor Peter Cushing, who owned thousands of soldier minis and spent hours staging elaborate wargames. 

Saved By the Save

I've been working my way through the Drakkhen sequel -- known by many names, but called Dragon View on my Evercade cartridge -- and digging the unique blend of side-scrolling beat-'em-up action and open-world roleplaying. Everything was going great until the game started crashing every time I entered a particular room. A bit of googling revealed a known issue with the original '90s programming. The bug is related to how the game is saved, and from what I learned on Reddit and other sites, I would need to start the game over (farewell, 30th-level hero!) and save it differently in order to avoid the issue on subsequent play-throughs. I didn't relish the thought of starting over after completing about three-quarters of the campaign, so I fired off a quick email to Evercade's tech support and let the game sit for a few days. Evercade responded with an overview of the issue and a recommended workaround. I gave it a try, and voila, the game no longer crashes! My hero can now continue his quest with a renewed sense of purpose, optimism, and confidence in his ultimate victory. How's that? Well, when I tried over and over and over to enter that room, there was one time when the game didn't crash. For whatever reason, it skipped all the way to the final cutscene that plays when you win the game!

Baldur's Gate 3

So apparently there's this D&D-like game out now where the objective is to have sex with all the NPC companions and you can win the game in five minutes by stuffing one of those companions into a box.

Hard pass.

More Retro Fun

I'm taking a few days for much-needed R&R, and with the kids busy with their schoolwork, I have the opportunity to just bum around the house and do my own thing. That means lots of Evercade time! I played through Final Fight, one of the all-time classic Capcom beat-'em-up games, and I've also started a new campaign in Drakkhen II, or Super Drakkhen, or Dragon View, or whatever it's called. It's the sequel to Drakkhen, and it seems pretty damn cool so far, with a nice mix of new stuff and familiar stuff.

Lost Relics

During our recent summer trip to New York, I had picked up a copy of Lost Relics, the latest in the Warhammer Quest line of cooperative dungeon-crawlers. Lost Relics is a smaller (and cheaper) game than its celebrated predecessors Blackstone Fortress and Cursed City, and it uses a modified and simplified version of the game engine that the boys and I have come to know and love. Matthew and Nathaniel weren't terribly interested in this one, so I solo-played it in the evenings as a way of getting a little break from my usual Strat-O-Matic fare. Tonight I completed the last scenario in the campaign, as illustrated by this image of the game's final turn.

Here, my hammer-wielding tank has just killed the evil sorcerer who had trapped this warband of heroic Stormcast Eternals in his bizarre vault of relics. The sorcerer and all other adversaries are represented by tokens, unlike the larger and more expensive Warhammer Quest games. I'd prefer to have miniatures for all the characters, but in this case, I think the flat token is quite appropriate for the last combat sequence, wherein my warrior absolutely squashed the sorcerer with two devastating hammer blows.

Frakkin' Drakkhen, Man!

I plugged my Evercade into the TV with an HDMI cable so that I could play out the last few minutes of Drakkhen on the big screen. Spoiler alert: Here are some pics of the game's ending!

You can see my fighter and scout on the left. What of the priest and wizard? Fear not! They didn't perish in the final battle; they have magic items that render them partially invisible, so they appear as the sparkly white mist to the right of the scout. 

And, for some reason, there's an electric guitar in this world!

I'll be ready!

A Triumph 32 Years in the Making!

Drakkhen is about as unforgiving a game as you'll find. Touch a gravestone and a horrific, invincible monster emerges from the underworld to destroy you. Step on a flashing road and a dragon god comes down and rips you to shreds. Take an idle step into any body of water and you drown in seconds. Hell, even the constellations in the night sky sometimes coalesce into living creatures and attack you. We're talking Oregon Trail-level dangers here, people!

Well, approximately 32 years after playing Drakkhen for the first time and experiencing death in all its many, many forms, I've completed the game on my spiffy new Evercade. I expect a return trip to the world of Drakkhen sooner than later, however, as Nathaniel is already talking about starting it over so that he, Matthew, and I can all play through it together.

Blue Beetle

The Blue Beetle movie opens today. As with the last couple of DC flicks, it's a kind of awkward leftover from the Snyderverse era -- and yet James Gunn has indicated that the character is part of the new DCU. Whatevs. I just hope it's a good movie. The Blue Beetle movie I'd really love to see would be an adaptation of the (in)famous Blue Beetle #5 from 1968, in which Steve Ditko crafted a powerful statement about art, creativity, and individuality.

Victory Is Mine!!!

During our week here in Los Angeles at my in-laws' house, the boys and I got the opportunity to play an absolutely epic game of Conquest of Nerath, an Axis & Allies-like wargame set in the Fourth Edition D&D world. My brother-in-law Ben joined us for the fun. He took command of the undead realm of Karkoth (black), Matthew led the seafaring elves of Vailin (yellow), Nathaniel played as the humans and allied races of Nerath (silver), and I reigned over the monstrous hordes of the Iron Circle (red), as shown in this pic taken on the game's final turn.

In this free-for-all game, a player needed to amass 20 victory points to win. On the first night of our game, Ben jumped out to an early lead, unleashing the necrotic powers of Karkoth upon those hapless humans in Nerath. Matthew, then, started to mass elven forces on the other side of Karkoth's territory, so I was perfectly happy to let the boys worry about their uncle while I quietly built up my troops in the Iron Circle's desert wastelands. The game proceeded slowly for the first two evenings of play, with all of us scoring a few victory points here and there, primarily by raiding dungeons for magic items. I ended the second night in the lead with 10 points, but the others weren't far behind. 

Tonight, which was our last night in LA, I decided to unleash my master plan. When my turn came up, I launched six separate attacks and one delve into a dungeon for treasure (and, more importantly, the prospect of precious victory points!). Although the troops I landed on the shores of Nerath were repulsed, every other mission was a success. The most glorious moment came when I sailed a strike force across the sea to mount a surprise attack on Matthew's poorly defended capital city. In a single turn, I went from 10 victory points to a crushing 21, thereby conquering the world!

Season 9 Awards

Another hockey season has come and gone! Let's see who took home the hardware... 

Scoring Champion: Cyclone Taylor, D, Victorias
Although Taylor has won his sixth scoring title in nine seasons, I was thinking at first that it was a bit of a down year for the league's all-time points leader. When I checked the numbers, however, I found that Taylor's 36 points (11 G, 25 A) were the second-best single-season total of his illustrious career. The guy just makes it look that easy. This time around, he bested runner-up Gord Roberts of the Bulldogs by six points. 

Forward MVP: Hobey Baker, RW/C, Victorias
First-time winner Baker finished third in the league in points (29) and tied for second in goals (14), but his contributions go far beyond the scoresheet. Baker is arguably the game's best defensive forward, matching up every night against Roberts, Frank McGee, Joe Malone, and other top snipers to prevent them from scoring. As a testament to his two-way play, Baker posted a league-leading +18 plus-minus this year. Bulldogs teammates Gord Roberts and Tommy Dunderdale came in a distant second and third for this year's trophy.

Defenseman MVP: Si Griffis, Bulldogs
Taylor (36 points) and the Comets' Mike Grant (26) finished first and fourth, respectively, in the scoring race, but Griffis takes this award despite racking up far fewer points (4 G, 12 A). What gives? Well, Griffis was a dominant shutdown defender this year, and his +13 led all blueliners. It's especially eye-opening to compare his plus-minus to that of the other two Bulldogs defensemen who logged as many minutes as he did: Jack Laviolette finished at -5 and Frank Patrick at a dismal -11. The Dogs were elite at five-on-five with Griffis on the ice, and utterly hapless when he was on the bench. 

Goaltender MVP: Bowse Hutton, Victorias
In the closest race of all time, Hutton reclaimed his title from young star Hap Holmes of the Bearcats. Hutton edged Holmes in save percentage (.924 to .923) and goals-against average (2.25 vs. 2.30) to earn his fifth Goaltender MVP award.

Rookie of the Year: Didier Pitre, LW, Thistles
Pitre was not as dominant as recent freshmen like Newsy Lalonde or Joe Malone, but he's the clear choice for this year's trophy. He had great offensive numbers (10 G, 11 A), played well at five-on-five (+5), and, considering that he suits up for a team that generally suffers from excessive goonery, Pitre was a perfect gentleman and took only a single minor penalty all season.

Playoff MVP: Cyclone Taylor, D, Victorias
So many great candidates: Jack Darragh (6 G, 9 A, +4) and Didier Pitre (6 G, 8 A, +3) of the Thistles, Newsy Lalonde (7 G, 7 A, +6) and Billy McGimsie (4 G, 9 A, +7) of the Victorias. In the end, the trophy went to Taylor (4 G, 13 A, +7), who led the league in playoff points and tied for the league lead in plus-minus. What put him over the top was his virtuoso performance in the decisive Game 5 of the finals, where he showed the world that he truly is the best player in hockey. Taylor becomes the first player in league history to have won multiple Playoff MVP trophies, as he also took home this award way back in Season 2.

Season 9 Finals

Season 9 has come to a close with the crowning of a Creighton Cup champion. Here's how it went down!

After such a high-scoring opening round, I was shocked that the Thistles and Victorias were scoreless through two periods in Game 1. The visiting Thistles were struggling to generate quality chances, while the Victorias were utterly discombobulated after losing key defenseman Gordon "Phat" Wilson to injury. The clock continued to tick toward the end of regulation when Billy McGimsie scored on the power play to give the Victorias a 1-0 lead. A crushing blow for the Thistles? Hardly. After the ensuing faceoff, rookie winger Didier Pitre skated in and scored a highlight-reel goal to tie things up mere seconds later. Then, moments into overtime, Tommy Smith tallied to give the Thistles a stunning victory. Chuffed from this win, the Thistles returned home with the hope of taking a commanding lead in the series. Dan Bain scored twice early in the first period, but the Vics found their footing and fought back to earn a nail-biter 4-3 win. Wilson returned to the Vics' lineup for the third game, another back-and-forth contest that was knotted at three going into the third. The Thistles' Alf Smith scored his second goal of the night midway through the frame, and it held up to give his team a 2-1 series lead. Now the Victorias would need to win on the road again in order to keep their championship hopes alive. In Game 4, they scored early and often, with two goals from Marty Walsh pacing the team to a 5-1 triumph. 

So we were all tied up at two games apiece! The decisive fifth game would be on the Vics' home ice, but thus far the visiting team had won every game in the series. At first, it seemed the trend would continue, as brothers Tommy and Alf Smith staked the Thistles to a 2-0 lead early in the first period. Cyclone Taylor and Newsy Lalonde, however, answered back before the end of the frame, and the game remained 2-2 heading into the third period. Taylor scored again to give the Vics their first lead of the night. As the desperate Thistles pressed, Vics' winger Marty Walsh scored a backbreaker of a goal that made it 4-2 for the home team. Time was slipping away for the Thistles, but as it turned out, these two teams weren't nearly finished lighting the lamp! Around the halfway point of the period, Thistles captain Tommy Phillips scored a power-play goal to draw his team within one, but Walsh notched his second goal of the game a minute later to restore the Vics' two-goal edge. Taylor tacked on a late marker to complete a playoff hat trick and run the score up to 6-3. When the final buzzer sounded, the Victorias had completed their series comeback and earned their fifth Creighton Cup in nine seasons of play. As for the Thistles, this snake-bitten franchise has experienced yet another heartbreak. Maybe next year, boys, maybe next year!

Retro Fun

My new Evercade EXP is totally rad! I'm really digging the retro gaming fun, so much so that I can overlook the system's piss-poor battery life. (Seriously, it's that bad.) With some vacation time coming up next week, I picked up a smattering of cartridges, each of which is a collection of ten to twenty retro games. 

I bought one particular cartridge, I have to admit, solely for game Drakkhen. I have such vivid memories of playing this D&D-inspired fantasy RPG on my old Tandy 1000 SX back in middle school. The game was revolutionary for its time, and mind-bendingly difficult. I never finished it, and it aggravated me to no end, but I always had a healthy respect for this game. I'm delighted to be able to give it another go on the Evercade. I've already rolled up my party, and we're on our way!