Game boy

Last weekend, while in Newcastle, I played Indy HeroClix with PG and GH. We used an Asian temple map. I was the kick-arse chicks from David Mack's "Kabuki" comic, defending their home turf against inter-dimensional interlopers. These consisted of an alliance of good guys from 2000AD's "Judge Dredd" and "Strontium Dog" (PG), who were battling the four dark judges from "J/D" (GH). The first game was over in minutes as GH easily achieved his objective of eliminating a wounded and isolated Dredd. After we'd tweaked a few parameters, the second went for more than an hour - maybe closer to two. Victory could have been anyone's, but I was lucky enough to pass all of my crucial dice rolls and wipe out the unholy quartet of Death, Fear, Fire and Mortis. The remainder of the arvo we spent cooperatively playing "Hunter: The Reckoning" on Xbox, which ain't bad.

Through the week, I started one of my solo round-robin tourney's using the four theme decks from the new Magic: The Gathering expansion, Time Spiral. At this stage, "Fun With Fungus" (thallids) and "Sliver Evolution" (slivers, obviously) seem the strongest. Full results whenever I finish.

Last night, I met up with my gaming buddies SC, LC, TC and LPO. We began with the boardgame "Nexus Ops", in which you play factions competing to mine "rubium" on a distant moon, using the proceeds to buy more human and alien troops* with which to expand and enforce your claim. The game ends as soon as one player achieves 12 victory points (by winning battles and/or completing secret missions). That person was TC (I placed last on 4 points). We moved on to the card classic "Munchkin", but by this time the beer and red wine was starting to take its toll. I think we gave up on it before there was a result. "Runebound" we barely even started, which I now regret as it looked really good (like "D&D" compressed into a boardgame). When the others crashed out or drove home**, LPO and I went to a pub to play pool, then to an 80s party.

It's not often you can go space mining and dance to Toto in the one night :-)

*These are some of the coolest pieces I've seen, thanks to great designs and fluoro colours. The lava leapers remind me of squigs from "Warhammer".

**I'm referring to the one sober person here.