X-Wing - Playing among the stars

The last two weeks were a little busy so Penny and I didn't get to play much X-Wing together.  She still asked on a daily basis though so I think she's quite interested in the game.  That didn't stop us from doing other X-Wing related things together though.  Like making a starfield battle mat.

I was tired of having the ships slide around so much on the dining room table so spent a few days looking how other people made their DIY starfield battle maps.  Lots of things came up on the internet ranging from felt cloth (decided against this as it would just slide off the table) to yoga mats (lots of pros but relatively expensive compared to other DIY solutions).  So armed with this knowledge of what others had done, I spent an afternoon (while doing other errands) looking for some materials and pricing them out.  I ended up picking up two black anti-slip shelf liners (something like this but 18" wide and shorter) from the dollar store for $6 and taping them together underneath to make a 36" wide field.  The mat looked good, gripped the dining room table well and the ships didn't slide so much when placed on the mat.

To make the mat even better, Penny and I looked up various star fields on the internet as references and spent an evening painting the mat.  She had a lot of fun flicking the toothbrush of white paint on to the mat and adding some large pink gas clouds/planets/stars to one of the quarters.  The following was our end result

We were happy with it, but I might try and find a way to make her pink celestial bodies blend better with the rest of the star field at some point in the future.

X-Wing - Adapting for a 5 year old

Since picking up the Force Awakens Core Set for X-Wing last Sunday, Penny has asked to play the "Star Wars game with ships"' almost every day this week.  Sadly I could not oblige every day because of work but we did play a few more games.

Having a second ship certainly helped even things out since we weren't playing with Actions or pilot skills.  The game at this level was basically just ships moving and shooting at each other so a lot of our games came down to who could point their ship at the enemy and roll better.  With only 1 ship, Penny had quite a disadvantage despite the added shielding, but with 2 ships she was able to hold her own much better.

My TIE Fighters chasing down a Z-95. Penny's X-Wing coming in fast to help the Z-95.

Earlier today we went back to Game Quest and added a bit to each of our respective forces (pay day!).  Penny wanted the YT-2400 but she didn't have enough money for it.  She was going to settle for just the HWK-290 and another Z-95 but I mentioned to her that we could look through our old video games and trade in any games that we didn't play anymore to see if we could get the extra money to get the freighter.  She was quite happy I suggested it and we ended up getting a fair amount for the games we traded in.

HWK-290 and YT-2400

After pooling all of our money together, we got enough to get the YT-2400 and a HWK-290 for her, and Slave I and a TIE Bomber for me.  I had a hard time deciding between Slave I or the Imperial Aces expansion (both the same price at Game Quest) but finally decided on Slave I as it was the only one they had and I needed a big ship too.

TIE Bomber and Slave I

Anyways, what I really wanted to write about was how to modify the game a little (and it really is just a little) so that someone as young as 5 years old can play.

X-Wing - Getting into the game

Last night I found out that they released a new trailer for The Force Awakens so I decided to watch it before dinner.  While I was doing this, Penny asked what I was watching and jumped into my lap and watched the trailer with me.  Afterwards she asked to watch the other Force Awaken trailers on the playlist so we did.  She's really excited by the new movie and I really want to take her so to help prep her for the new movie I decided to take her to Game Quest after dinner to see what Star Wars X-Wing stuff they had.

We ended up buying the X-Wing Force Awakens box set and proceeded to learn the game as soon as we got home.  The game officially has an age limit of 14+ but ever since Penny was a baby, I've been pushing the envelope so to say with her toys and entertainment.  While taking out all the tokens and templates she ended up choosing the X-Wing as her ship.  So I ended up with the Imperial TIE Fighters (well I guess First Order) as mine.

We played through the tutorial mission easily enough.  She understood how to use the maneuver dial and what dice to roll and what the symbols meant except for the Eye as it's not described in the tutorial mission and took me a while to find out what it actually does.  It took her a few turns to realize she shouldn't tell me her plans as it would allow me to plan my own moves better.  Unfortunately for her, the dice just did not go her way and my TIE fighters finished off the X-Wing at the end.  There was a moment mid-game where she annihilated one of the TIE fighters in one volley though and that made her happy.

While we were cleaning up all the tokens she declared that she needed another ship.  I did not dispute this because the two TIE fighters had a slightly higher point value than the lone X-Wing.  Using just the basic ships with no actions or pilot abilities heavily favours the side with more ships I think.  As we play more games I might introduce actions but I don't want to overload her as she just turned 5.

So today, after her skating lessons, we went back to Game Quest and picked up a Z-95 Headhunter for her.  That should even the playing field against my two TIE fighters.  Haven't had a chance to play another game but we will no doubt get a few games in on Remembrance Day which we, with me being a teacher and her just starting school, both have off.

I don't think my wife has seen this comic yet, but I think I'll send it to her soon.

Video Games - Fantasy eSports and Alpha Draft

While watching some League of Legends videos on YouTube an ad popped up for the fantasy esports site Alpha Draft.  The ad basically said, if you like esports come make a fantasy team and see if you can win money.  I clicked on it to check it out thinking I'm a fan of esports (League mostly) and maybe I can generate some free money out of this much like I did with Diablo 3 a few years back.

I've been playing on Alpha Draft for about 2 weeks now and so far after an initial investment of $15, have been making money each week.  Not an appreciable amount mind you as I messed up the first week and used the second week to make back what I had lost and initially invested.  However, much like selling stuff on Diablo 3, small gains eventually lead to larger gains and as long as I am growing my funds each week, I'll be happy.

So far the experiment is working and I'm curious to see just how much I can make by the end of the summer.  Might post my thoughts on how I pick a team later as I get more experienced with each game.

Travel - Visiting Japan is Bad for the Wallet

Spring break this year was way different than previous years.  In previous years all I really did was stay at home and watch Penny while my wife works.  This year though we went to Japan for my brother's wedding.

We were there for 10 days and spent it split between Tokyo and where my brother lives in Kofu.  We also managed to get to Kyoto for a day trip and see the bamboo groves and the Tenryuji temple in Arashiyama.   Didn't get around to visiting Himeji castle (too far for a day trip) so couldn't cross that off the list (see World Wonder Tour). Just means that I'll have to go back in the future.  Japan will be a lot more fun when Penny is older I think.

Anyways, while in Tokyo we visited the Akihabara district which in the past was known as a big electronics shopping area but now is kind of a hotbed for otaku culture.  Lots of shops catering to fans of video games, anime and manga.  So many arcades and toy shops.  We visited a few shops over 3 days and I ended up walking away with 3 Gundam plastic (aka Gunpla) model kits; a high grade Wing Gundam Zero Honoo, a Master Grade Deathscythe and a Master Grade RX-78.

I like mecha anime and although I have yet to watch the original Gundam series, I am a fan of a few of the other Gundam series (namely Gundam Wing and recently Gundam Build Fighters).  Buying the model kits also helped sate my model building appetite.  With Games Workshop being out of my price range I figured getting back into Gunpla would be just fine.

Once we got home I decided to start with the Wing Gundam kit.  The last time I built a Gundam model was back in high school and it had been a while since I last put any kind of model together.  It was only a high grade kit therefore easier to put together than the master grade kits.

I spent more time than I usually do being a lot more careful about cutting the pieces out and filing pieces down to make them smooth.  After the break are some WiP shots as well as the finished product.

Northern Fancon 2015!

The weekend of May 8th-10th saw the first ever Comic Con style event near my home, Northern Fancon 2015!

I was a pretty excited about the event and my parents ended up buying me a ticket for Christmas.  The event itself didn't seem to have that much for the first few months as it took forever for them to post a schedule for events and things (their guest line up kept growing as time went on as well).  I think it was about a month or so before the event took place that they started scheduling panels and about 2 weeks before the event that they had a schedule for the guest panel/interview and some workshops.

It didn't feel like there was a whole lot this first year.  I felt like I was in a trade show with lots of booths for vendors, artists and even some other events coming up later in the year.  Maybe that's what these things are like?  I was hoping for a few more gaming related events like tournaments or demos or what not.  The venue has a lot of space and closed rooms so I could see doing a wargaming tournament or card game tournament or something.  There was a (seemingly hastily put together) Settler's of Catan tournament as well as a Smash Bros. tournament but that was only for one day and I think they could have easily done something like a Warhammer tournament or Magic: The Gathering draft or what not.  I mean Northern BC has a large community of wargamers and Magic players they could have easily tapped in to (no pun intended) for either logistical support or participants.

There were some cool guests though; most notably William Shatner, Jewel Staite and Tia Carrere.  My family was totally stoked that John de Lancie was there as he appears in one of my favourite fandoms (Star Trek) and also one of my daughter's favourite shows (My Little Pony).

Speaking of Mr. de Lancie, when we went to get his autograph he noticed Penny and asked her if she was a fan of My Little Pony, to which she replied yes.  He then continued to talk with her and told her that he suspected daddy (me) actually wanted his signature on one of the prints featuring Q and proceeded to pick one and sign it for me.  Mr. de Lancie then told Penny that he would give her one too as a present and signed a print of Discord (his character in My Little Pony) to which she said thank you.  He made the event quite worth it for both Penny and I.  Kind of regretting not getting a photo with him, but c'est la vie.

My father in law also got something out of it as we shelled out the money to get him an autograph and photo with William Shatner.  He grew up watching the original Star Trek and is a big fan.  He also had a great time perusing the comic book vendors looking at old comics he used to read as a kid.

One of our favourite parts about Fancon was all the cosplay going on.  Penny decided to participate when we told her she could dress up.

MTG - Constructed Pauper and UR Fiend

For the first time in a long time I participated in a paper constructed event.  I usually participate in pre-release tournaments and maybe a draft once in a blue moon but not constructed.  Playing competitive constructed Magic just takes too much time and effort, at least in the Standard format.  I could try an eternal format like Modern but the meta-game is rather large and would require a large initial investment (both time and money) to be competitive.

Thankfully, the friendly local game store (Great White Entertainment) hosted a legacy Pauper tournament.  And fortunately for me I had built a legacy Pauper deck a while back to mirror one I played a lot on MTGO.  It's a ridiculously fun deck and can win out of nowhere while also rewarding skillful play as some match-ups require it.  I wasn't running the most optimal version but I had no idea what the competition would be so didn't think a fully optimized version was necessary.  Unfortunately I was wrong.  Still had fun and now I know what to expect for next time.

The deck I played is as follows and the event only ran 3 rounds due to time constraints and having only 10 people participating.