There's been a little rumble of activity on the tabletop these last couple of weeks.

Up first was another game of Sheriff Of Nottingham. After my disastrous effort earlier this year, I decided to be a good little boy this time, and declined to smuggle any naughty things into market. Of course, I got checked a lot, so got paid a lot.

Thankfully, the only time I smuggled in some illicit goods I was not checked.

This led to me getting the joint top score with 146, a much better showing. However, I was still beaten into second place, as Gareth, who had also scored 146, had managed to get more goods to market and so won the tie break.

This was then followed up by a game of Codenames, which we'd not played in quite some time.

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After playing the first adventure in my Unlock! box a few years back, I'd been waiting eagerly for the chance to get back to it.

Nobody at the time really liked that first adventure, as it was all kinds of loopy, and was very awkward to understand, especially as it was our first attempt at this game. But I'd read online that the other two that came in this box were much better.

A few nights back, I popped round Scoob's, and we gave those other two adventures a bash to see if the online discourse was true.

Well, a mixed bag is the only way to describe our evening.

I think we liked the Animal-O-Matic scenario, as it was cool to jump into the bodies of different animals to get different abilities. So while we certainly didn't do very well, it was at least enjoyable.

The last adventure, Around The World In 80 Minutes, had us gnashing our teeth in frustration, much like the very first one we tried a few years ago. I wouldn't say it was as bad as that first one, but it certainly had its share of weird, logic-breaking puzzles that just made us look at each other and ask "What the...?"

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It's been nearly three years now since I renovated my old Super Cup Football game.

I recently found out that the grease I'd used on it, lithium grease, was really not supposed to be used on plastic, and could indeed damage it over time.

To remedy this, I got some silicone grease instead.

Cleaning off the old and replacing it with the new was not a stupendously fun task, but it's done now nonetheless.

We had just our 2nd game of Sheriff Of Nottingham recently, which like last time, was a 6-player game.

This time, I got absolutely rinsed, and not once was I allowed into Nottingham without someone checking my bags. Of course, this also included the time where I went for broke and tried to sneak in three crossbows.

This all meant I finished well off the pace in last, with just 83 points, over 40 points behind the winner.

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I've introduced a few more players to The Gang, and after the three-player game from last time, I've now played both four and five-player games.

The four player game went very well, and we won our two games 3-1.

But this game gets harder with more players, and when we stepped up to 5 players we lost our first game 0-3. Then in the second game we were losing 0-2 before things started to click and we managed to win 3-2.

We then wanted to play a decider, but lost this 1-3 as we all seemed to get a lot of very similar hands, and were unsure of where to place ourselves in the order. And then as we didn't want to end the evening on a loss, we played one last game and managed to win this one 3-1.

It's pretty difficult right now for everyone to find the time to get some board gaming done, but over Christmas we managed a few little attempts.

Up first, we gave Ca$h 'n Gun$ its first run out in quite a while. We'd played a few games of this years ago with a crappy print 'n' play version I'd made, but now we can play with a proper copy.

Of course, during the two games, I was the only player to get eliminated, though I can't remember who actually won.

After that, I introduced my sis and bro-in-law to Black Sonata, which they played co-operatively. It was pretty close, with just a few cards left, but they managed the win.

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It had been six years since I last played this game, so when I took Marvel Legendary over to Scoob's to blow the dust off of it, we decided to play with the introductory setup.

It was a pretty good job we did, as though we won, we counted just five cards left in the villain deck before the final scheme twist rocked up, which would have lost us the game.

After that, we tried The Gang for the first time. Now, none of us know anything about poker, and we failed in the first game 2-3. But we decided to play another and managed an equally tight win, flipping the score round to 3-2.

And then, I dipped my toes into the world of Munchkin for just my third play, this time with the Age Of Sigmar version.

At the end of this one, I had a bit of bad luck which denied me the win. While Me and Scoob blew most of our cards preventing Emma from winning the game, I was next in turn order, so had a good chance to win now everyone was empty.
Of course, I failed to draw a monster as I kicked the door in, and I had none in my hand to play. Then Scoob, who went next, pulled a faily low level mob and easily had enough to take the victory and reach level 10. The cheek.

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Back on New Years Eve, a bunch of us got together to try a murder mystery. This one was called Killer Christmas Party and had us investigating the death of a CEO.

There was loads of printed info to get through, and also lots of extra info that could be found on the internet through various means.

To be honest, I pretty much lost the plot and my brain switched off. So even though the murderer was discovered, I don't really remember anything or know what happened much.

I think my plan is to leave it a few years and try going through it again on my own, so that I can take my time and really plot everything out.

Of course, just like last year, we again broke out Secret Hitler for another couple of games. This saw the return of Secret Hitler proper, instead of the Secret Sith Lord version I made before.

It also saw us use, and successfully at that, a little script I'd made that delivered all of our information to us on our mobile devices. This meant there was no need for the eye-closing moment at the start of each game.

Yet again, of course, my team got spanked in both games. But it's always a laugh so I'll let it slide.

Board game updates haven't really been present on this site for quite a few months, but there are a few little updates and highlights from this last year that I can share.

Starting all the way back on New Year's Eve, we had a few games of Secret Sith Lord, which I think was probably the last time we played this version of the game.

There was another game of Jamaica at some point, which I handily managed to win by racing out into the lead. Only me and Gareth were over the -5pt line by the end.

We also tried my two newest games at the time. First was The Crew, which has an amazing rep online, but which we really didn't get all that into. We played a few rounds of it and managed to progress a ways, but ultimately it didn't motivate us to go back to it yet.

Then I buckled and bought Cryptid, which we had tinkered with the year before but not properly played. I can't really remember who won this game, but we made quite the mess of the board by the end of it. Looking at the colours, and who was sitting where, I think Gareth is the most likely to have won this.

We also had another game of King Of Tokyo. Again, I do not remember who won. What I do know is that I, controlling Gigazaur once again, most certainly did not win.

I introduced Scoob and his wife to Survive The Island when I popped over their's for a game. It was fun and close, and Scoob pulled out the win with 22, while I got 20 and Emma got 19.

In easily the closest game of 7 Wonders we've played yet, Gareth and I tied for the lead on 54pts, with me only taking the win because I had 5 treasure to his 4. The two other players in this were also very close on 42 and 40 respectively.

After months of waiting, I finally got to try my proper copy of Whitehall Mystery at last. Fittingly, I managed just my 2nd win as Jack. Again it was very close, and the officers actually made an arrest on my final dumping spot on the turn before I got there.

Our second play of Viking Raiders didn't really go very different to the first. We attempted a "short" 3 player game to 6 victory points. Yet it still took us a good 2 hours to finish it. I capped off a fairly decent year for board game victories when I got the ability that dropped my victory requirements to 5, as I'd got just enough in all three categories to take it.

Where the victories eluded me was in our co-operative play. Specifically, we gave the word game, Alibis, several attempts. As of yet, we have failed to succeed. We clearly need to expand our mental dictionaries.

My usual winter painting shenanigans are continuing, primarily with five more Blood Bowl star players.

The selection this time consisted of five players of very different heights, evident when they all lined up together.

I also got stuck into the players Scoob gave me a while back, with the star Wardancer and Treeman in the mix.

The model I'm using for Bertha Bigfist is the first 3D printed one I've properly painted. Much like the 3D printed Tifa Lockhart, who will appear back on the blog at some point, I had some issues with very obvious layer lines on some of the more upward facing surfaces. That's something I'm really going to have to be mindful of.

But still, I think she'll work, and to be honest, may never even get used. To be even more honest, none of these players will ever get used again if I don't sort out the ERL house rules I started.

This painting leaves me with just six individual players in my collection left to paint, and then the Lizardmen and Wood Elf teams also. Of course, I've got so many ideas for new teams and players. Ideas which will only increase if I really get into the printing side of things.

Just too many "ifs" and "whens" to keep up with.

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And here's the snaps of the latest Blood Bowl players I've completed: