Hello Top Men and Top Women. I’m back for another blogging. It will be the bloggingest blogging that’s ever blogged. Or it’ll be, you know, some words.

It’s the last day of my winter vacation, also known as my favorite week of the year. No office from the 23rd to the 3rd, it’s been pretty sweet.

Kayla got back from Cuba late on the 31st, so we had our family Christmas on the 1st. Once again, I got totally spoiled this year (I did some spoiling myself). New pyjamas, some Skylanders sets, some Disney Infinity 3.0 Star Wars sets, some trade paperback comics, candy and of course board games. I got Eight Epics, Love Letter Premium and Pandemic Reign of Cthulhu. Eight Epics looks like it’d play best as a solitaire game and Love Letter Premium is the same game as regular Love Letter until you have five or more players, so the opportunities to play them with other people will be limited. I’ve already had the opportunity to play Pandemic Reign of Cthulhu with a friend’s copy earlier in the week so I can say that it’s a tight game that I enjoy. The tweaks they made to the game for the theme are pretty nifty and the Cthulhu theme is much more enjoyable to me so it’s a better fit for me than regular Pandemic.

Earlier in the week, we got together at Fab’s for our Christmas amongst friends and it was a lot of fun also. Owen is getting older and he’s quite a hoot. We waited until he was in bed to exchange gifts and I got some classic board gaming swag this year. Back in the 80’s, Milton Bradley cashed in on the Pac-Man game by releasing not one but two games based on the franchise: Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man. I got both! They’ll get brought out to our next retro game night for sure.

I got plenty of gaming in during the week. The friends I made at our last Criq get-together have been inviting me to game with them regularly. Our last get-together included the game of Pandemic Reign of Cthulhu I mentioned earlier, an introduction (for them) to Mice and Mystics but most of all, it was my first opportunity to bring a beast to the table: Star Wars Rebellion.

The best I can describe Rebellion the board game is a cross between the classic Rebellion computer game from 1998 and an area control game (think Risk). It’s commonly referred to as “Star Wars in a box” by reviewers as it captures so much of the Star Wars theming in its mechanisms and missions. The downside to the game is that the combat system is a bit of a slog (much like the computer game as I recall). They also don’t include enough dice to be convenient. Each player can roll a maximum of 5 red and 5 black dice. Common logic would say to include 10 of each. They include 5 of each, so simultaneous dice rolling can be a problem. Fantasy Flight Games does sell a dice pack for extra dice, but really, considering the game’s cost, I think they could have included all the dice we needed with the base game. The other warning I have to offer is that it’s a LONG game (3+ hours easy, not including set up and break down) to play. The Empire’s goal is to destroy all the troops (land and space) in the Rebel base. The Rebels just want to last until they can get their influence marker to meet the turn marker (both are starting at opposite ends and move inward) by completing objectives. The Empire is an easier faction to play as they have a decided advantage in troops and troop production. I wasn’t feeling very confident in the early game as the objectives I had to complete seemed very difficult to achieve. Still, I managed to squeak out a win thanks to a Rapid Mobilization mission that allowed me to move my base before they could destroy it. When the Empire moved in on my first base, they didn’t have very many land troops so while they cleaned house in space, my land troops were safe long enough for me to jump out of there. I chose the most remote system possible for my new base and they just couldn’t reach it in time.

That’s all for this week. Have a good seven and we’ll do this all again next Monday. Carja V.