A good week

This has been a fine week on the gaming front.

First off, a Japanese game designer whose work I greatly admire got in touch and in passing invited me to attend a Kyoto playtest session of his newest design. Unfortunately, work commitments meant that I couldn't make it this time around, but he invited me to go along to another session next year. I'm quietly thrilled about this, to put it mildly.

Second, I managed to win a copy of Victory Games' 2nd Fleet in an auction the other night. I've played a few Vassal games of Sixth fleet with Brad from Hexsides and Handgrenades, so I was pretty pleased to be able to find another in the series at a reasonable price.

Thirdly, Ukraine '44 has been on the table this week and it's been most enjoyable moving pieces around and seeing how the game ticks. It's just the level I like to play - operational, lots of manoeuvre, both sides have different strengths and weaknesses, you can keep all the rules in your head, there's plenty to think about strategically, and yet it's over and done with fairly quickly.

Fourth, an old Commands and Colors: Ancients offsider dropped me a line about Ukraine '44 and we've decided to crank up the Vassal engine for a PBEM game.

Fifthly, after spending some time with Simon Miller's To the Strongest! rules, I'm inspired to sit down with my own grid/card ideas and try to pull them into better shape. It would be nice to put on another multiplayer game next year.

Good point the sixth, an associate (who shall remain nameless at this point) is sneaking a day off work on Monday to come down for some ancients gaming.  One (or perhaps more) of DBA 3.0, Sword and Spear, To the Strongest! or Dux Bellorum will get on the table, and we hope to finish things off with a debut game of the modern naval rules, Shipwreck.

All in all, things could be much worse!

Finally - and this is not game related - I've rediscovered an old batch of tapes filled with songs recorded on acoustic guitar and an old four track from around 2001-2003. After listening to a few bits and pieces, it may turn out that some of them will be worth revisiting. It's quite nice to find a snapshot of one's younger self and not be entirely embarrassed by it!