OUTRAGEOUS!!!

 It's outrageous that we've had to wait so long for a sequel to one of the most surprisingly fun superhero flicks I've ever seen. Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom premieres today!

Rise of the Cavilliverse

Finally! Gotta admit, I was getting worried...

Domino Draft

In preparation for Season 10 of my historical Strat-O-Matic hockey league, I conducted another draft to add new players to the league. This year, the top two rookies are both enormously talented centers, a coincidence that ended up having a domino effect on the league. With the top pick, the Millionaires selected pivot Mickey MacKay, giving them a glut of middle-men on their roster. In need of scoring wingers and stay-at-home defensemen -- and seeing that the Comets had a surplus of both -- the Millionaires pulled the trigger on a blockbuster trade. They shipped center Duke Keats (himself a former #1 draft pick) and longtime captain Art Farrell to the Comets in exchange for offensive dynamo Frank Foyston and steady blueliner Lester Patrick. There was a lot of additional wheeling and dealing afterwards, with all teams except for the Thistles making at least one trade this offseason. The Millies and Comets made the biggest changes, but when the dust settled, I think the most improved team may be the Bearcats, who raised their ceiling by drafting skilled center Frank Fredrickson, and raised their floor by adding solid veterans Joe Hall and Fred "Steamer" Maxwell.

Season 10 Awards

Another season, another set of year-end awards! Who took home the hardware? 

Position Player MVP: Dan Brouthers, Blue Legs
Although his teammate Jimmy Collins was an early favorite for this trophy, Dan Brouthers earned his first MVP award with a season of solid all-around play. Brouthers led the league in total bases, tied for second in home runs, and even bested Cap Anson as the top defensive first baseman in the league. Sam Thompson of the Haymakers and Roger Connor of the Canaries were also in consideration. 

Pitcher MVP: Cy Young, Haymakers
The Haymakers floundered this year, but you can't blame it on Young, who nearly carried this team to the playoffs all on his own. Sporting a 6-4 record on a team that went 11-13 overall, Young pitched a league-leading 86 innings with a sparkling 1.88 ERA that was not only the best among all starting pitchers, it was one of the best in league history. Young outdueled the Resolutes' Christy Mathewson (4-3, 2.57 ERA) and the Blue Legs' Old Hoss Radbourn (6-1, 2.78 ERA) to claim his record-setting third Pitcher MVP trophy. 

Playoff MVP: Elmer Flick, Resolutes
The Resolutes are not a team of superstars, at least not among the position players. They work the count, take bases-on-balls, get slap hits, steal bags, bunt each other over, and hit sac flies. No one exemplifies Resolutes baseball like right fielder Elmer Flick, who got on board more often than any of his teammates and absolutely ran amok on the base paths. Connie Mack had that huge home run in Game 4, but Flick was quietly brilliant throughout the series.

Season 10 Championship

The winner of the James Creighton trophy in Season 10 is...

The Resolutes!

Game 1 was an absolutely incredible pitchers' duel between Old Hoss Radbourn of the Blue Legs and Christy Mathewson of the Resolutes. The two aces matched zeroes inning after inning. The game was scoreless in the bottom of the eleventh -- Mathewson was still pitching for the visiting Resolutes, while Radbourn had given way to Al Spalding for the Legs -- when King Kelly doubled home Nap Lajoie to give the hosting Blue Legs a 1-0 victory and a matching series lead. Adding to the sting of the loss for the Resolutes was a serious injury to starting third baseman John McGraw. In Game 2, Jake Beckley's RBI double ended the Resolutes 24-inning scoring drought (going back to the regular season). Meanwhile, this time the injury bug bit the Legs, who lost shortstop Monte Ward and right fielder Wee Willie Keeler, the latter of whom had recently homered to tie the game at 3. The visitors pulled ahead in the eighth on second baseman Bud Fowler's run-scoring single, and the tally held up as the winner in a 4-3 contest. With the series tied at one game apiece, the action shifted to the Resolutes' home park. Mathewson took the mound again but was not as sharp, giving up three runs -- including two on a single to reserve outfielder Harry Wright -- in the second inning. He was stingy thereafter, however, and his teammates started to chip away at the lead. Right fielder Elmer Flick drove in runs with three separate hits, including a walk-off double in the bottom of the tenth inning. The Resolutes now found themselves in a position to claim the championship on their home field if they could win Game 4. John Clarkson was good for the home side, but the Legs' Tim Keefe brought his very best stuff, striking out Resolutes left and right. A solo home run from Lajoie seemed like it might be enough for the Legs to even the series, but Beckley drove home Flick in the seventh to tie the game at 1. In the eighth, light-hitting catcher Connie Mack stunned everyone in the stadium by crushing reliever Spalding's pitch for a two-run shot. With the score now 3-1, Clarkson took the mound in the ninth and sent the Legs packing with three quick outs to end the game and the series. 

Congratulations to the Resolutes on their second title in franchise history!

Flashback

I won Delphine's amazing Flashback today, and the game was just as fun on my wonky Evercade as it was on the ol' Sega Genesis. At this point, I can put the Evercade EXP hardware aside and now load up carts on my new Super Pocket. First on the list is a collection of Atari Lynx classics!

Season 10 Championship Preview

The Canaries won't be able to end their title drought this year, nor will the Haymakers be able to add to their overflowing trophy case. This year's championship series will feature the game's best rivalry, the Blue Legs against the Resolutes. These teams have met twice before in the finals: In Season 6, the Resolutes trailed 2-1 in the best-of-five series and then stunned the Legs with back-to-back shutout victories to steal the title, and then in Season 8, when the Blue Legs savored sweet revenge by sweeping the Resolutes in three straight. 

This year, the Blue Legs finished in first place with a record of 15-9, while the Resolutes came in at 13-11. Both teams had identical +10 run differentials, however, with Pythagorean records suggesting that the Legs were a little lucky and the Resolutes a bit unlucky. Despite the identical run differentials, the teams had very different approaches. The Legs led the league with 3.92 runs scored per game and, not surprisingly, had more home runs (and extra-base hits of any kind) than all other teams. They had solid pitching, but their run prevention was bolstered by a defense that was perhaps the best in league history. The Resolutes, meanwhile, posted a spectacular 3.04 runs against per game, thanks to a diverse pitching staff that limited hard contact. Offensively, they played "small ball," leveraging their plate discipline and speed to manufacture runs. It will be fascinating to see how these two very different teams fare over the five-game series!

The Knight...Monsters...?

Over the summer, we learned that western Nevada was getting a minor-league hockey team (owned by Tim Tebow, to add a little dose of "huh?" to the news). The team's name and logo were revealed yesterday. Ladies and gentlemen, the Tahoe Knight Monsters will be taking the ice next season and filling our brains with cognitive dissonance. So they're both knights and monsters? I'm not quite sure how a dragon can also be a knight. (Okay, okay, I'll admit there's Ironside from the Druid Cycle campaign world.) The "Knight" part of the name clearly is meant to evoke Nevada's other two professional hockey teams, the STANLEY CUP CHAMPION Vegas Golden Knights and their top minor-league affiliate, the Henderson Silver Knights. Is Tahoe angling to become Vegas's ECHL-level team? I sincerely hope so, but if that's the case, why choose a teal-based color scheme that's so obviously linked to Vegas's bitter rival, the San Jose Sharks? Would any self-respecting Knights fan (of the Golden or Silver variety) be caught wearing teal? Well, this guy will, because no matter how much I detest the name or colors, I'm here to support our team, and I'll be completely decked out in Tahoe gear. I'll also be even more eager to get my hands on next year's EA Sports NHL hockey game for our Xbox, as that series includes all ECHL franchises, so my boys and I will be able to play as the local team!

EXP Stands for "Expired"

The good news is that I completed the Bond-esque Operation Stealth, one of Delphine's cinematic titles of yesteryear. The bad news is that my Evercade EXP now only works if it's plugged in -- a distinct disadvantage for a handheld game system. I'm going to try my luck with the Blaze Taito Super Pocket, which also plays Evercade cartridges. Here's hoping the lil' guy will give me portability when I need it. Next up on my list is Delphine's masterpiece, Flashback, which I absolutely adored on my Sega Genesis back in the early '90s.

No Running Allowed

It's hard to keep pace with all the wacky rule changes in Major League Baseball. From in-game rules to the ever-evolving (and now suddenly very controversial) playoff format, baseball feels like it's in a state of flux. (How long until it evolves into blernsball?!)  

Larger bases and limitations on pitcher disengagements led to a significant increase in stolen bases this year. It's kind of ironic, then, that in my nineteenth-century Strat-O-Matic league, stolen bases are at an all-time low because starting catchers are throwing out runners at a ridiculous rate. Roger Bresnahan of the Haymakers has gunned down nearly three-quarters of would-be thieves, with fellow first-string backstops Buck Ewing, Connie Mack, and King Kelly all above 50% as well. In contrast, big-league catchers in 2023 were at just under 20% in throwing out base stealers. 

As I hit the halfway point of Season 10 of my historical league, the drop in base-stealing success is just one of the storylines I'm tracking. The Blue Legs got off to the hottest start in history with a 5-0 record, 26 runs for, and just 8 against, but then quickly fell back to the pack. Here at the midway mark, the Legs, Haymakers, and Resolutes are all sporting identical 7-5 records, with the Canaries bringing up the rear at 3-9. No team has pulled away thus far, so I think all four have a legitimate shot at reaching the championship series. As we look ahead to the second half, however, I wouldn't be surprised to see the Resolutes claim first place, as their actual winning percentage (.583) is below their Pythagorean (expected) win percentage (.624), which is by far the best in the league.

TWD DOA

Sometime this week, we'll be receiving a package that contains various materials for The Walking Dead RPG, which I was glad to back on Kickstarter. It will make for some fun reading material over the Thanksgiving holiday, but unfortunately it won't serve as the rules system for our upcoming zombie campaign. 

Nathaniel and I have spent many hours combing through the PDF version of the core rulebook, and we both came to the conclusion that the system really needs to be used for "theater of the mind" gaming, and is altogether impractical for a fully 3D campaign like the one I've been cooking up. The rules are fast and fun, and -- like its sister game, the Alien RPG -- shockingly lethal to player characters. They are also abstract. Like, really abstract. This is not a game for maps and miniatures, let alone an entirely 3D environment. Nathaniel and I went down some house-ruling rabbit holes but ultimately were rewriting the game. We even explored the possibility of re-skinning Alien for a modern setting, but that don't work out very well either. 

As such, I've landed on the TinyD6 system, which we used for the Tales of the Ternion superhero campaign and then again more recently for our Doctor Who game. I really wanted to make TWD work, but I guess it just wasn't meant to be.

Butts and Zombies

With Matthew and Amy at a swim meet this weekend, Nathaniel and I have been keeping ourselves busy with some gaming fun. I completed Delphine's renowned Another World on my Evercade, albeit with some assistance from the internet to get past some of the more opaque puzzles. I gave Future Wars a go, but the port to Evercade makes a certain early section of the game unplayable due to the Evercade's controls, so I'm wondering if users of this recently released cart will complain loudly enough for some sort of patch to be released. Undaunted, I moved on to a third Delphine title, Operation Stealth, a James Bond-style adventure that's been loads of fun so far -- even though I haven't yet managed to get my secret agent through customs and out of the airport!

When Nathaniel finished his homework, we got down to business with a few hilarious games of Butts in Space, and then turned to more serious business: adapting the brand-new The Walking Dead RPG rules for use in our upcoming family campaign (a loose sequel to the recent Tales of the Ternion) that will utilize all the 3D buildings I've printed (and laboriously painted) and hordes of zombies from Zombicide (also laboriously painted). The TWG rules don't quite meet our needs; the main sticking point is that combat with walkers is abstracted and not played out round-by-round, whereas our fully 3D campaign will require much more precise rules for how many walkers there are, how far away from the heroes they are, etc. Nathaniel is always up for discussing game rules, however, so I think we'll land on some solid house rules before our packed calendar affords us time to get the campaign started.

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.