Year End Report....

I can't believe it's been a year and a half since I last posted. Time flies when you have kids! As I look back over the last year. Advanced Squad Leader (ASL) definitely got the lion's share of time played, with my participation in two separate online tournaments, and one online playing league. Squad Leader, on the other hand, was almost shelved, with no games played, but the game materials being looked at. Puerto Rico got a big 3 playings, while Simply Catan I remember playing at least twice, but I bet it was more.

Our family also purchased a three games this last year. The first one we purchased, Life: Twists and Turns, was to be a teaching tool for the kids to show them that unrealistic spending can lead to bankruptcy. Unfortunatley, after going 30000 in debt to go to school, you can usually become a millionaire by the time your 40, not to mention travel around the world. So much for bright ideas. We definitely should have read the reviews before ordering this one.

The second game we bought was Made For Trade. This game was an addition to our son's school curriculum, helping him see how economics worked in the colonial times. Once we got it, we started a basic game. Man, were we bored! The most exciting time was when we landed in the hotel and had to spend half of our wages for a room! My wife and kids played the more advanced game, and it seemed better. I'll just bow out for now .

The last game was another teaching tool game - Great States. It's a basic trivia game for kids, where the answers are all on the mapboard. Helps promote understanding where the states are and what each state is famous for. Another boring one for adults, but for kids learning the states, probably a good one. Another one that doesn't have much drawing power for me, though.

Am I a collector?

Perhaps - perhaps not.

I got myself worked up in such a frenzy a couple weeks ago that I ended up with a purchase of a couple gaming magazines off of Ebay, Puerto Rico at a local gaming shop, and mail ordering Airships At War, 12th anniversary ed.and Riesenflugzeugabteilungen (Airships At War expansion) from Sierra Madre Games. Puerto Rico is for our family (my first non-war game purchase in a long time), in which I am currently trying to figure out to play this weekend. Airships and Riesenflugzeugabteilungen are for my self, since both are solitaire play games pertaining to the Great War and the aerial bombing campaigns against Britain. And the two magazines (one of which I am unfortunately returning due to missing pages) are for rounding out my Star Fleet Battles collection.

Soooo, do I collect. I think the answer is yes. I have only played one game in the last month, and that was Task Force Game's Intruder. Of course, it was an interesting run, but the poor saps on the station had it almost too easy. The only problem was that the intruder kept cloning and increasing in power right before I would be able to capture the last one. In the end, it was Intruder 2, Crew 6. Whew! And I didn't have to set off the nuclear destruct bomb, either.

As the end of the baseball season is here, I need to contact the local gaming group again and set my "date" for getting out of the house. Perhaps I will get to play Richthofen's War again. The contact person said he would like to do a Panzerblitz scenario. Have never played that one, but I'm game. Either way, I feel that the money put into these games are going to start coming back out of them.

Hmmm, On the collection side again, I noticed that Spartan #5 came up again on Ebay. Will this be the last one? I doubt it.

Wondering through the maze of my AH games....

Well, I've gone an done it. Broke out the boxes from 25 years ago. They still had a slight smoke smell to them - a present from my parents. No matter, they will come "clean" soon enough, if left out to air. I pick up my favorite from back then. Just as I remembered it, Richthofen's War still has that pesky Pepsi stain on the front picture. I seem to remember having map clips for the three folding maps, but there aren't any in the box. Must have sold them when I let go of Air Assault on Crete. Ah, the rules, that infamous page that requires a Mapfolding 101 class in college. I'm going to have to get those OCR'd and put into a word document, so I can print out a regular "flip page" rules set. Now if there was only an opponent included!....

This was about 2 months ago, at the start of baseball season. Nathan and Christian are close to finishing up and things are going to be going a little slower in my life now. Great! I've been dreaming of what I should do with my old (new) hobby. I have a number of games that I own, but I think that Richthofen's War is the best place to start. I've downloaded the VASSAL module and have parsed through the rules once. Also contacted a local boardgaming club, so I should be lined up for opponents during the summer months when its too hot to go out. I am also trying to accumulate various RW related articles/variants/etc to complete the game out. I was very surprised at how much is out there. Unfortunately, most of it is for a price, and I have a hard time justifying purchasing a $20 collector's edition magazine, just for a couple of columns of text. Perhaps someday, when I am rich and famous, I can spend that money without batting an eyelash. But now, with 4 kids at home, I have other priorities. Perhaps soon, there will be someone to fight in the skies of France.....

Jim