u/FrenchieSmalls

Got a session of TED in tonight with my first four painted stock miniatures, which really elevates the experience, I gotta be honest. Much more immersive than everyone being in gray! I tried to emulate the card art as much as I could, while still being dynamic enough to see well on the board.

I got slaughtered by the hydra boss in the end (due in part to a series of unwise decisions earlier in the game), but nevertheless: this is not only one of my favorite TE games, it's one of my favorite dungeon crawlers, period!

Looking forward to getting the rest of the minis painted soon...

Stumbled across this game in a local charity shop in apparently unplayed condition... for only £4! Couldn't pass it up, obviously. Got it to the table today (and it is definitely a table hog), and it's beautiful in person, but setup is a bit of a chore.

I was really impressed with the thematic ties throughout, it's super engaging because of all of the little details that just... well, that just make sense because of the theme. Tindaya is mostly worker placement and resource management, with some engine building involved.

Some of the coolest elements, though, involve the changeable board: erupting volcanos wipe out landscapes and turn surrounding water to land, and tsunamis flood the lands and even separate land into separate islands. But how far these events spread is based on the wrath level of the gods that create the events, which in turn depends on how well you have met their sacrificial demands. In the end, I was overcome not by the gods, but by colonization (you have to deal with conquistadors as well!).

This one is more complex than I'm used to (4.06 on BGG), and the decision space is pretty big. But I definitely enjoyed myself and am looking forward to the next play.

I kept on getting close(ish) to the 21+ threshold... 17, 15, 19, 18, 16, 17... then I finally started playing smarter after understanding the flow a bit better... and knocked it out of the park here with 24 points!

A great Button Shy entry for solo play, I'd highly recommend it. And I haven't even started the campaign scenarios yet!

Really fun solo game that I bought on a whim. The goal is to navigate your ship through uncharted waters, while dealing with disease, unrest, morale, exhaustion, and weather conditions and ocean currents. With a big stack of encounter cards and random draws for ocean maps, along with both single game and full campaign modes, it seems there will be a lot of replayability here... all in a box about the same size as Witchcraft!

I played a full edict for the first time tonight (The Roman Wall). I was doing so well for the entire game... I had efficient card play (finishing the deck just at the end of each round), I developed the entire Southern border early on, I had nice gold and resource engines going, I had built 8 developments and defeated 2 barbarians, and I blew past the victory point goal just before the end of the last round...

...which is when it hit me that I was so busy concentrating on developments that I had completely forgotten to build the third and final section of the wall for my edict.

I previously attempted to do some contrast shadow and highlight base coating on this figure. It did... not go well... to say the least.

But the final paint job turned out okay in the end, regardless. Yes, I know: I NEED TO THIN MY PAINTS... but I'm learning little by little, so I'll get there eventually

To commemorate my first ever DnD session campaign, I bought a figure to represent my Druid Tortle character. I'm having a first go at trying uniform undercoats for shadows and highlights that I think should look good for the final results... fingers crossed!

This game is notoriously hard to win, and I got absolutely thrashed on my first playthrough a couple of days ago. So today I decided to make things a bit easier by trying a single partial edict (photo #2) in a short game, a mode which normally requires a full edict (photo #3) for the easiest level.

However, as I was playing through the rounds, I realized that I had actually learned a lot more good strategy during my first abysmal loss a couple of days ago than I had originally realized: I fulfilled the partial edict less than halfway through the game! But this (partial) win was obviously not quite as satisfying as it otherwise could have been, had I picked the full edict from the start.

So I decided to pivot after the first (partial) win and calculated the difference in both gold and glory points that would be needed for a win, had I been trying for the full edict all along (and had the 2 additional loan cards to pay off in the process).

The result was that, at the very end of the game, I needed a net total of 6 gold for a (full) win... which is exactly what I ended up with (photo #4)!

This win was sooooooo much more satisfying than simply packing up when I initially completed the partial edict. And the kind of in-game pivoting that made it possible is really only pragmatically feasible with solo games... because I'm the only one whose opinion I have to satisfy... and when I'm satisfied because of it, I'm the only one who benefits (so no hard feelings due to "cheating")!

(also, I need to swap the virtue cards on the non-dominant dice, I realize that now)

One of the main benefits of a dedicated vaulted gaming table, IMO, is the ability to "pause" a gaming session by simply covering it up. However, I don't have the space right now for a real one... so I made a temporary one!

The idea was to use separate trays to hold parts of a game, then put all the trays together into a single stack when finished with a session. I decided on extra large (18" x 18") serving trays. I put adhesive felt on the bottom three trays (which lay on the dinner table), but left it off the fourth, so that it could serve as the "lid" for the stack when turned upside down.

To keep the stack together, I drilled 1cm holes in the corners of the middle two trays. When stacked together, I then slip 1cm dowels into the holes, so that there is no shearing motion in any direction (since the dowels rest very snugly against the corners of each tray).

For some game elements, like the e-raptor JOTL card organizer shown here, the top lid may have a bit of lift. But it should work just fine for most of my games.

All and all I'm really happy with how this turned out! I just beat scenario 7 of Jaws of the Lion, and scenario 9 is ready to go inside the stack when I next have time...

A tower defense lane battler, with elements of dungeon diving and worker placement. With expansions included, the combination of choices for heroes, quests, and gameplay modes brings the replayability to a level that most of my games don't come anywhere remotely close to... all in a very small package!

(overripe banana for scale)

Previously, I posted about an [in-line water filter](https://www.reddit.com/r/Bonsai/s/MKa8XVVgo8) I purchased to help reduce limescale in the tap water I use for my bonsai. I said that I would carry out some pH and evaporation tests next time we had some hot days.

Well, those hot days are definitely here, so I filled one ramekin with water from the filtered hose, and another with water from an unfiltered hose. I tested the pH level of both after about 30 seconds of off-gassing.

I then used a measuring cup to keep exactly 1/4 cup of water in each ramekin, with a small piece of black Velcro stripping in each. My thought was that as the water evaporated, any scale/solids in the water would be absorbed by the Velcro and be visible against the black.

Well... the pH and final strip from one of the ramekins is on the left side of the photo, and those from the other ramekin are on the right side. Can you guess which is which?

Such a clever system of multi-purpose cards to create a game that feels MUCH larger than it is... in this tiny tin box there is fishing, digging, trading, crafting, dungeon diving, battling, looting, stat leveling... even carnival games!

I have no idea how I'll ever be able to beat this one (very hard to meet the end-game goals in time), but it doesn't matter much because the whole experience itself is a lot of fun.

I didn't get the "best" win scenario, however (I only had 2 defeats remaining), so it looks like I'll be looking forward to another campaign in the near future...

I live in mid/south UK, where the water is "hard to very hard", potentially having long-term effects on the health of my trees.

Rain water isn't really a solution, since it takes ages to keep filling my watering can from the water butt and, besides, it's easy to run out in the summer months.

Short of installing an actual reverse osmosis system (which has its own issues with water waste), I decided to try an inline filter to help reduce scale, even if a little bit.

Here's hoping it works...

I bought this Japanese cherry blossom from my local garden center, which had buds all over that were really close to popping. I did a hard chop all over as soon as I brought it home.

Less than two weeksA month and a half later, it was flowering all over and just starting to push some growth.

Today, exactly twothree months since the hard chop, and after only 1.5 months of growth... this thing is huge! The new leader has grown just under half a meter and has seven branches of its own.

EDIT: I'm a dummy who can't math good.