TSM Geek – Jan/Feb 2023

Wow, we’re into the third month of 2023 already, where did that go!

Well, I blinked, obviously, and missed most of it, at least in hobby terms, I don’t appear to have accomplished much at all. At least this is going to be a short post… Is that a sigh of relief I hear?

Skipping the Family Fun part, as we’ve managed next to no adventuring as a family this time, despite the recent half-term. I was ill for the majority of it and didn’t even lift a paintbrush in anger. So, straight in to games…

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Games

After our game of Eldritch Horror, which I talked about in mid Jan – Disaster and Devastation – we managed a couple of games of Summoner Wars. A few weeks later, we got a few more games in, this time with a couple of expansions – Faction decks.

I’m not going to say much here, as I hope to have my first thoughts out about it in the next few weeks, but I will say that we were both impressed. Think of it as Magic The Gathering with a board. Okay, not as complex but in terms of summoning monsters, casting spells, and the potential to create your own deck, it has the same dynamic. However, you get to move your monsters around the board and take a swing at those of your opponent, all good fun.

It’s actually quite simple to pick up and play but I was impressed with strategic choices you have in front of you and how you can use the cards in your deck together to have a stronger impact. I’ll cover it more when in my First Thoughts post.

Cthulhu: Death May Die. The more I play this game the more I like it. We played twice, the same scenario, and it was a blast. I’ve already posted my First Thoughts but now it’s time I bit the bullet and wrote up a review, so it looks like I’m going to be busy over the next few weeks.

The scenario we played had our investigators trying to gather up some artifacts and use them to close gates, through which all manner of foul beasts were spawning – that’s usual in this game. The problem was, we had to have two artifacts at one gate and two at another, at the same time, without any guards being present, when the Elder One advanced along its track.

Doing this required some pretty nifty team work, I’ll tell you, with the investigators using their talents to aid one another in their quest. I was fortunate, as one of my characters had the co-dependency insanity, which enabled me to move either her to her dependent, or vice versa. This proved vital at one point and enabled us to win the… Oh no, my mistake, get close to winning the game! The Elder One’s marker got to the end of its track, causing us to lose the game (Think of it as the world ending!). We played Yasmin’s Investigators turn through, though, because we thought we would have won if she’d gotten her go, and lo, we did, it was that close.

Admittedly, the first run through of this scenario wasn’t quite so successful and we lost quite quickly, but that’s where this game comes into its own. It rewards repeat play. Playing a scenario, you’ve never played before, or at least not played for some time, often means you’re feeling things out. What are the best strategies? How best to utilise your investigators’ skills? Where do the monsters summon most and how does this effect the game? All things that will hinder you on the first play.

It isn’t a particularly long game, about an hour, maybe less, per scenario, and resetting the game takes a mere minute or two, meaning you can take the time to learn and play again, utilising what you learnt and putting it to good use (hopefully).

It’s really thematic too, especially the Discovery cards and how the story they tell unfolds. You might meet a character who, depending upon what you’ve already discovered, may help you or hinder you in your quest. You might find a coffin, but if it’s already been opened, then you might be cursed. It’s this mechanism of the game that I really love and its made we want to search out the expansions.

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Painting

I’ve now completed all the base box characters of The Walking Dead: All Out War game. I say completed, I haven’t actually based them yet, as I was waiting until I had finished them, to do them all together. Maybe next week?

So, that’s Rick Grimes, whom I featured in my last Geek, his son Carl, Derek, Liam, Patrick, and Sandra. A bit like with the Mansions figures, I’ve been using quicker techniques and experimentation to get them done, and I learnt a few things as I went – more of that when I post about them.

Here they are as they rolled of the production line, so excuse the pictures…

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Screen Shot

Haven’t watched anything worthy of posting about, at least I can’t remember doing so, and if I can’t remember, it then it ain’t worthy, right!

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Between The Sheets

There may be a lack of content in some of the above categories but here’s one that I’ve managed to fill, with four books read since the start of the year, all of which were Christmas pressies.

None of the following books are really aimed at the general reader, you’ll see what I mean as I go through them, and so feel free to dismiss them after you’ve read the title.

‘Take Your Eye Off The Ball 2.0’ by Pat Kirwan. Get ready… It’s American Football… still reading? Good, because if you’re into the NFL then this is a great book. For me, it was a must read.

I’ve only been following American football for a little over three and a half years and my team, The Arizona Cardinals, crashed and burnt last season, but that’s another story, let’s return to this one. TYEOTB, to cut a long title short, was the perfect book for someone like me, who’s become fairly familiar with the game but lacks that insight that comes with years of watching and understanding the sport.

Apart from being an easy read, it was very informative, filling in the gaps of my football knowledge. 11, 12, 13 personnel? I now know what they’ve being harping on about all this time. 3-4, 4-3? I know what it means and how it should work. I even understand how they look at things in the combine and how the draft works. Things I hadn’t gotten my head around before.

Kirwan presents it all in an easy manner, explaining everything in a way that I found just clicked and I’ve learnt a great deal, which has enhanced my viewing of the game – I can even understand why my team were pants!

As an Englishman with a love for American Football, I can heartedly recommend this to other, likeminded souls on this side of the Atlantic. How it may come across to those who’ve been immersed in the game all their life, I have no idea, but I’m very happy that my wife got me this for Christmas!

Groundcrew Boys by Peter Heard is a Kindle Direct Published book, and it shows. There are a lot of errors, spelling and grammar, throughout the book but that doesn’t deter from it being a decent read. I felt the title a little misleading, ‘Groundcrew Boys,’ as it’s about the RAF life of the author, rather than stories of the ‘Boys’ and, as he was a Squipper (Safety equipper), I thought it was stretching it a bit calling himself groundcrew. To me, groundcrew are the lads who work the aircraft, though I know the Squippers look after the pilot and his needs, and do work at squadron level, occasionally even venturing out to an aircraft itself – if it’s not too far to walk or too cold out on the pan, that is (Ah! The banter, how I miss you!).

It’s not a book that just anyone is going to pick up and read. You either have to have an interest in the ‘Groundcrew’ comings and goings, or have served yourself, otherwise you’ll probably not appreciate it.

For me, it made me smile at times and nod along as he reminisced, but I wanted more in depth and focused stories – he does lose the thread here and there and the continuity of the book doesn’t flow. He’ll branch off onto something and then jump back, leaving you wanting to know more… it never comes!

Overall, a book for those who know they’ll get something from it. I enjoyed it but once was enough, it’s off to the boot sale for this one.

The next book is very much in the same vein but features short stories from several engineers who served in the RAF. It’s called… ‘Groundcrew Boys’ and is by David Gledhill with Simon Jakubowski. Despite the same name, this one is a much better and polished publication. It also features a few people I know and worked with, so I had a vested interest.

Again, it is a book that will be most appreciated by those who served, especially as it helps if you know what some of the force’s jargon means. It gives a much better appreciation of what goes on at the engineering level and though most stories are based in the 80s and before, much of it still applied when I served, albeit with an increased dose of Health and Safety and bureaucracy!

I really enjoyed this book. The stories, the photographs, all made me think of my own time in the RAF and the pranks we played, the friends made and lost, and the joy of a job well done – I think this book sums it all up and will be going into my ever increasing pile of books to keep.

Finally, there’s ‘The X-Files Book of The Unexplained’ by Jane Goldman. In this book, each chapter takes an episode or two from the series and delves into real world phenomena. For example, the chapter, ‘Feral Humans’ uses the ‘Jersey Devil’ as its inspiration. It explores the myth and legend surrounding the real world Jersey Devil legend that has its roots way back in the 1700s. It also highlights the stories of humans being raised by animals, stating the research behind it, and giving explanations of how it occurred.

Other chapters focus on the likes of Biological oddities, such as the belief that the Venus Fly Trap may be from another world, and the eggs of a freshwater fish parasite that were hatched after being buried for over 300-years! There are chapters covering AI, Genetic tampering, Cosmic experiences and a whole host of other strange things.

Initially, I didn’t think I was going to enjoy this book but the more I read the more fascinating I found it. It certainly pens the mind to things that may at first seem unbelievable. The world we live in always has been able, and indeed is still capable, of surprising us. Throwing things up that you just wouldn’t think possible. In the end, much can be explained by science, even if it is just an explanation of how a story became twisted by events over many years to end up becoming folklore and legend. All I can say is, ‘I Want To Believe!’

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