It was a long time ago now that I decided to push ahead with the huge task of creating a new set of wargaming terrain, but as of yet only the "He-Man cave" and some 6mm scale ruins have been completed.

This is just not good enough, especially as I failed to complete my new boards earlier this year.

As I still don't have the time, or the massive amount of space, required to finish the boards, I have instead started to work on a different little project.

It's been nearly twenty years since I last created an entire selection of gaming terrain. Over this time, I realised each and every piece failed to meet even my low standards, and as such very few of them even exist any more. They've either been stuffed into long-forgotten boxes, updated and re-painted, or in the majority of cases, just binned outright for being so bad.

The next part of my new terrain build is intended to replace one of the few survivors: the trees.

While those old forest sections I made back in the day have continued to see use, they've always annoyed me for how bad they look and how awkward they have been to store.

It's definitely well overdue that a major upgrade be attempted.

First up, the GW plastic trees were removed from the old cardboard bases I'd used. I was horrified when I looked underneath the leaves and saw that they were never even painted properly.

I soon fixed this with a grey undercoat, a drybrush with pale green, and my first ever use of contrast paints. I used my brown first on the trunks, but the paint was so thick (or so naff), that no contrast was created at all. So I've had to drybrush the wood back up with some khaki.
So to avoid a similar issue on the leaves, I used green wash with a tiny bit of green contrast paint mixed in, to at least get some definition.

Since that point, I've spent a long time creating a total of sixty new bases that I'm going to put trees on. As I'd got loads of shredded toilet paper that I was originally going to use on my boards, I have used some of that to create modelling compound for these bases. This has created some thickness that I will later be able to drill down into so I can glue the trees in.

After that, there's been lots of painting and gluing of grout, sand and flocks to build up a wide array of different looking bases.
When all of the different grasses, moss and trees are glued on as well, we will have a huge selection of crazy forest bases that we will be able to use to create woodland areas for our games.

I could move straight on with adding the trees, but I've decided to pause for now. This is because a big box was recently delivered, and if I delve into its contents, and figure out the mystical possibilities contained within, I may be able to create an even wider variety of trees for my wild and wacky new forests.

It seems to be that time of year again when I get the enormous urge to print board game stuff. The problem here is that I'd pretty much run out of card to print stuff out onto.

This meant a trip to the shops was in order so I could pick up a massive stack of the stuff.

Up first for the printing treatment was a game I've wanted to play for a long time, that I finally purchased recently. This is the pirate racing game called Jamaica.

The problem with this game is that all of the cards are really weird sizes, and as I am someone who likes to sleeve all of the games in the world, it bothered me that no sleeves were available.

So instead, I scanned in all of the cards and remade them to fit standard sleeves, and also be way clearer with their instructions at the same time.

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After our little dabble in this game at the board game cafe, I decided to have a mooch around to see if I could find it for a decent price.

Now, I normally like to buy brand new games, so I know that everything is there and in good condition. However, I found a listing for this game on ebay so cheap that it seemed worth the risk, even though the pictures didn't tell much of a story, and the description didn't even say whether it was even all there.

So I took the plunge, and am happy to report that it all worked out. A fully complete Castle Panic, in fairly good nick, for just £12. Less than half price. Can't grumble.

To keep this thing in somewhat usable condition, I thought it could do with a little bit of work.

Up first, I painted thinned down PVA glue around the edges of all the card pieces, as some of them were in the early stages of separation. I also glued the castle pieces into their stands.
Then I sleeved up the cards in my typical way, but they were slightly smaller than standard sleeve size, so I had to cut some card backing sheets to go in there with them.

Then the game was ready for a second attempt, which also saw us introduce the game to three new players. This time, we knew what we were doing a lot more, and our trades were far more efficient.
By the time we'd seen off all the enemies, only two of our towers were down.

A lot better than the lone survivor from last time.

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Now I'm loaded up with card to print on, I've been on the warpath looking for good print and play games. Unfortunately, most of them seem to be solitaire games, so they will not be able to journey with me to games nights.

One interesting little solitaire puzzle game I've found is Crystallo.

In this, the player must use a special deck of cards to match up symbols, which signifies an adventurer working their way through the lair of a Black Dragon, as they attempt to free six mythological creatures from the dragon's clutches.

Though the game is free, there was a fully produced version a while back that is no longer available. This version had these cool little gems to use as tokens, and I wanted to get the same feel for my version of the game.

On ebay, I found a pack of 30 plastic gems. The problem here was that the colours were random. But I figured there would be a good chance of getting 3 each of 6 different colours that could be used for the game.

However, as is typical, I didn't get what I wanted at all. There was just 1 each of red, blue and green, and there were only 2 yellows.
In contrast, there were 5 transparent, 5 pink, and 4 pale lilac. There was no other option: I was going to have to colour some of them.

First, I got a yellow sharpie and coloured one of the transparents. This matched very well. If some varnish could seal that colour in, I'd be sorted.

Then I coloured 2 of the transparents with a turquoise, hoping to match the single green to them, and make 3 crystals that would look sort-of sea green.

However this was a disaster. Not only could I not get the colours to match, I also made one hell of a mess trying to wipe off the sharpie ink afterwards.

After looking at some glass paints from a nearby store, I came to the conclusion that these wouldn't work either. As I could think of no other option, I elected to get another pack of the gems.

In this pack, there are plenty of greens and blues, but only one more red, meaning that this colour remains off limits. Shame, as there is a Firefox creature in the game.

Still, I now have a selection of 9 colours to choose from, and as I'm probably going to design my own version of the game from the ground up, I'll be able to pick the 6 most suitable ones for the task.

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It's hard to believe it's been two years since our first (and last) efforts at playing this game. I guess with Whitehall Mystery at our disposal, this game won't get much of a look in any more.

Still, on this occasion there were more players wanting to hunt the murderer, so this one came out in lieu of Whitehall.

Gareth braved the task of outrunning us coppers, but his starting place ended up being right up a corner, and he was pretty much boxed in from the start.

As is typical for me, I ended up starting in the complete opposite corner, so didn't even get in on the hunt.

With the other four officers blocking off any real escape route, Mr. X could not weave through the net and was soon slapped in handcuffs.

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Recently I've had two attempts at being Jack again in Whitehall Mystery. The first game of this came a few weeks ago, where I managed my one and only win so far. Typical that it was the one game I took no photos of.

The latest game saw me sneaking to the second drop off point without having to use any of my special cards for the first time. But all was not rosy in the murdering business. The rozzers were all hovering around me the entire run, and even though I managed to dump and carriage away, they immediately arrested me on the space I'd fled to, and my pretty decent start was immediately squashed.

Don't do crime and expect to get away with it, kids.

Just got done with a short 2019 game called Little Misfortune. I say "game" in the loosest sense, as there's not really any gameplay here at all.

This is mostly a storytelling game, that pretty much just gives the player occasional choices to make along the way.

In it, the player takes control of a little girl named Misfortune, who heads out on an adventure to find the Eternal Happiness as a gift for her mother.

That little description makes the game sound all fun and sweet, but it most certainly is not. It's actually super dark, and really quite twisted.

As she begins her journey, Misfortune starts to hear a strange voice inside her head. Along the way, she has brushes with some real adult issues, like depression, suicide and drug abuse. She also starts to encounter an elusive bipedal fox, who appears to be a mage of some sort, who may or may not be from another reality.

If all of this weirdness wasn't bad enough, it soon becomes apparent that a malevolent force is looking to manipulate our little protagonist, but for what reason?

Despite all of its dark and depressing themes, the game is also full of charm and bizarre humour. I think a lot of this is due to the writing and voice acting of Misfortune in particular, the little girl who is forever the optimist in the face of all kinds of messed up shit.

I wasn't always convinced by the other main voice actor in the game, who takes on the role of "Mr. Voice", who only Misfortune can hear. He has a very odd sound for the role he is cast in, and can't say closer properly, always saying clozer instead. That always just seemed weird to me.

If there's any big problem with the story of the game, it's that it becomes apparent far too early what is actually happening, at least for the player, if not for Misfortune. It would have been better to maintain more of a mystery, at least until the latter half maybe.

It was only short, but it was worth going through, and it's another game ticked off the very long list.

Fanceh!

Got to play our first game of Castle Panic recently when we visited a board game cafe in Birmingham.

In this, the players must work together to trade and use the right type of cards in order to kill off an encroaching horde of enemies. Said attackers have just one goal: to smash up the castle in the middle of the board.
If at any point all 6 castle towers are destroyed then the game is over and the players have failed.

This is an absolute classic game, and a pretty simple one at that. I'd seen gameplay of it a few times on Youtube over the years, so it was good to finally give it a go.

We definitely weren't trading cards correctly early in the game and we came under a lot of pressure, before we got our shit together and finally turfed those monsters out of there.

It seemed to go down really well, and I've managed to secure a copy from ebay for a measly £12. I just hope it's in pretty decent nick and all the bits are there, as the photos were a bit lacking in that regard.

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Probably the board game I've been most obsessed with over the last few weeks has been the puzzle game Cryptid, which I have delved into on Youtube quite a lot recently.

This is a competitive game played on a grid of hexes, where players are attempting to find the lair of the mysterious cryptid, which can only exist in one single hex. Each player is secretly given some information that eliminates some of the hexes. They then have to figure out what information the other players have by asking questions of them and performing searches, with the first player to successfully search the correct hex being crowned the winner.

We had a little muck around with it on our recent trip to a board game cafe. As of yet, I'm not sure how well it went down, so I'll have to float the question to the group as to whether this one is worth me picking up.

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The whole issue with Viking Raiders not having a big enough box for sleeved cards was getting on my nerves.

To that end, I had a think about what I could possibly do to fix this problem, and came up with a strange solution.

Using some cereal packet card and some foamcore, I created kind-of like a "sleeve" for the original box to sit in. This means that all of the cards can live together in one box with the lid fully closed, as one of the card decks can live down in the basement.