Snowman's 2013 Year In Review!!!

And so another year has drawn to a close but just how did it stack up to the previous?

Drowning In A Sea Of Unpainted Miniatures...
Total miniatures bought: 250+

Total miniatures painted: 35

Terrain pieces built: 2

Unfortunately 2013 proved to be something of a dud for me in the miniatures department.  While the total number of minis I bought might look impressive at first glance, the number is only so high because my Reaper Kickstarter came through... though I only painted a grand total of one miniature from that massive collection.  In fact the only reasons I made any progress in the painting department was due to my VSF colonial army (a project that I only managed to half complete) and my Malifaux Guild crews (though I still need to make some time to work on Lady J in the near future).

But Flooded With More Gaming.
Total games played: 107

In sharp contrast to my miniatures progress this year, my games played greatly increased to almost half again my plays for 2012.  A huge factor in this was discovering what we thought was an FLGS though it quickly became apparent that F had nothing to do with friendly.  Even so we meet some good people there and played some great games as well but this still leaves the question of which games hit the table the most?

Rounding out the bottom of our top five game list at four plays a piece we had a four way tie between Betrayal at the House on the Hill, Gloom, Quicksand, and Star Wars: X-Wing.  Of these four I have to say that I think the best would have to be Gloom.  Every time we played it we had a blast telling the story of our poor family and all the terrible mishaps that befall them.  I had high hopes for X-Wing (mostly because those miniatures look amazing!!!) but after trying it out I decided to give it a pass for now.

Coming in at five games a piece was Cargo Noir and Temple Run: Speed Sprint Card Game.  Yeah, you actually read that right.  Cargo Noir is a great game from Days of Wonder with beautiful components and fun player interactions while the Temple Run thing... yeah, not so much.  As a goofy filler game/gag gift I'll admit that Temple Run was better than I expected but it hasn't seen the table for months now.

Sitting pretty as our third game with six plays this year is Dino Dice by Steve Jackson Games.  A fun little press your luck game this is a perfect one to grab a take with you.  In fact now that I think about it I might just throw this one in the car so we'll have it on hand in case we need something to kill some time.

Coming in at number two with a massive thirteen plays this year is The Resistance by Indie Boards and Cards (you can find my review of this game here).  This is a great game that we have thoroughly enjoyed though we have never tried using the plot cards.  We'll have to see about throwing those in sometime soon to see how they change the game.

And last but not least, our number one game for 2013 blew all of the others out of the water with an astounding twenty four plays since we picked it up back October is...  King of Tokyo!!!  This game is amazing in my opinion and I'll be putting up a review of it next week to sing its praises and explain why this instantly became our go to game.

One Big Roller Coaster Of A Year

This year has been one of major swings for better and worse here in Snowman's Land.  We were able to find an FLGS early in the year... only to find out that it actually wasn't quite as friendly as we had originally thought.  I was finally able to take part in my friend's Big Hunt Colonial game which I have been looking forward to since I first heard of it literally several years ago...  only to be completely disappointed by how incredibly painful a grind it turned out to be.  Then again through it all we did manage to have some fun and meet some good people, plus we were able to get the family around the table more often which is a definite plus in my mind.  Then again things are about to change in a big way here in Snowman's Land.  Moving Day is coming... but more on that later.  Until next time...