u/Straight_Art_9067

THANK YOU, trashcan lid, is the TL;DR here.

Gep wiped out everyone on the map on the 2nd terror card, including the sibling & fiancée. I wasn't going to be shocked if he offed the werewolf too, had it made an appearance. So that was a race to the bottom of the terror deck when the discarding started, but I had a plan to wipe out the puppets as close to the Finale as possible, and got it done fairly quickly. I also got Zappo which helped sneak in a search before the finale hit. (+1 trashcan lid)

I pot-shotted Gep at least once after I got the throwing axe well before the finale and he never added heath via terror cards or events. It came down to me v. him and retaliate + guard kept me in it. Then, just when my cards were taking a rest I realized I had the trashcan lid. Saved!

Critical Blow ended it, black dot for Gep, MASSIVE relief for me after so many fails.

That box is gonna collect dust for a bit while I bash away at the Intruders next. Ugh, not sure why people claimed Geppetto was weak sauce when the game usually starts weak but spirals impossibly out of control by the Finale. At least having a clean board (what with all the genocide) did weaken what he and the puppets could have done.

Yay Asami! Let's never speak of this again. I was never here.

Oh and all of that was off the record.

/walks into wall trying to make a hasty exit

I scored a Kallax very used at Value Village for $35 USD today, and now you folks can see the current state of our collection with very minor omissions (Mille Bornes is on another shelving unit right now).

On top: Inheritors, which I'm not seeing in anyone's COMC posts. We love it!

Cribbage Wars, and the designated Tile Cup for Azul.

Bottom right: Odd sized and/or underplayed games.

Horse Racing (with metal figures). Very fancy, $40 find at the Nerd Mall (aka Auburn Outlet Collection in WA)

Backgammon in a metal case

Deluxe scrabble

Box o' dice and pens

Let me know if anything else needs decoding.

Oh, Pandemic is the 2007 edition. It threw us that it didn't have the tiny cubes like newer ones.

And: We have the extra tracks, etc, in the Heat box, which is why it is hee-yooge.

I popped into Mission Thrift yesterday in search of board games and made this discovery: Apparently it translates to Chinese Chess.

The game pieces are wood and very eye-catching. I didn't open the game board as it felt "brittle". It's just a very thin sheet of paper with delicate red lines printed on it. It is not a standard 8x8 chess board.

I forgot to take a pic of the price sticker but it was something like 14.99 USD.

Have you seen this game before? I didn't buy it, but it was an interesting find.

We loooooove HEAT: Pedal to the Metal and wanted to play it with a large group (Yes!). The large group included our grandkids ranging from 4 to 12. (But!)

So, a new plan was hatched, and I am submitting it for anyone in a similar bind. (Wanna play HEAT but the players can't/won't "get" the official game mechanics.)

I put the cards aside and instead grabbed 2 6-sided dies. First we rolled 1 die for starting positions, then, play went like this in turn order, using the Great Britain map:

Long straightaway: (Starting line to SECOND corner!) Rolling 2 dice. Move your car, hugging the "racing line".

Tight turns: (Everything AFTER the SECOND corner until you're making the approach to the finish line, AKA the space AFTER the final corner.) Roll 1 die.

It played out like "real" HEAT without all the trappings. They loved it! I'm hoping this hooks the older kids into learning it properly, but for an inclusive all-ages HEAT fix this worked a treat. Give it a try!

(Photo for entertainment purposes only and I am well aware that's not the GB map.)

We freakin' LOVE playing HEAT: Pedal to the Metal. We're working our way through the game guides and have played on all 4 tracks included witn the base game. So naturally I am starting to check out the many expansions. Any recommendations? TIA!

Heat: Pedal to the Metal was marked down to it's lowest price since I've been keeping an eye on my Amazon cart, so that means Buy All the Board Games.

We just started playing through the haul, but:

Carcassonne: Instant hit. We like No Escape which is also a tile laying game so that was a good primer for this. I'm learning quickly that cities can really burn you depending on size. (Damn you, missing crucial piece! /shakes Snoopy fist)

Azul: Queen's Garden: We were up super late struggling through this one. It took three YouTube videos to finally click for us (so, thanks, Meeple University for filling the gaps) and now we're looking forward to playing it again with our new knowledge.

Munchkin: I had to stop by the Outlet Collection in Auburn WA yesterday, and stopped by the Community Convention Center. They sell board games on consignment, and I've now gone 3-for-3 picking up games off of them since finding out about that shop. Legends! (Added photo of us playing Munchkin at the 15% Board Game Cafe in Tacoma... now we have it in the stash! Woot!)

One of my wife's co-workers is into board games so we met up with her and another couple to play board games until we dropped! The 15% Board Game Cafe charges $10 per person on weekends for all day gaming. They have a HUGE selection, very nicely organized.

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In our 7 hour session we played:

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Guillotine

Mysterium

Pandemic

No Escape (brought from home - we really wanted to try it with more than 2 players)

Munchkin - we used poker chips to track levels

7 Wonders was attempted but apparently a bunch of expansions were mixed in so we had to abort

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We definitely will be back!

I saw this at a local shop in passing recently and it really nagged at me. What on Earth did they do to make this a Drag Race tie-in?

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(I swear this is not a jerk post.)

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This store apparently sells All the Monopolies and All the Clues. (They have South Park Monopoly, which tells me they take selling All the Monopolies very seriously.)

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I returned to this store today and made a point of reading the back of the box.

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What it isn't: A murder mystery. (This is where I tread the jerk tightrope, but all I could imagine is, narrowing down the suspects was gonna be a slog. Q: Where did you slay? A: Everywhere, baby!)

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What it is: A "find the thief" caper. The meeples/tokens are various drag elements.

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Question: Are you a Clue purist, in that it's a murder mystery for you, or not at all? Or are you into reimaginings of the old classic like this one? 🤔

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If you're wondering: The store is at the Auburn Outlet Collection in Washington. Worth a look!

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This ties in with my post from yesterday when I made the arduous drive/walk to Sun Top Lookout. I wanted to cap off my photo day with this shot from just outside Sumner, but the infamous Troll Clouds prevented it. So, here's the make-up shot from today.

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Yup, it's still got it.

(Edited to add: I actually got up on the railroad tracks this time for a better photo. Success, I think?)

I drove until I couldn't (the lookout was closed), then walked the rest of the way. Not a cloud to be had until AFTER my journey. Then the troll clouds rolled in for the sole purpose of covering up the top of the mountain.

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It was quite the trip for a low-slung VW Beetle. Fair to say this was one and out, but a doozy.

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Huge thanks (again) to the couple who tossed me a water bottle. I kinda treated this like a trip to Dollar Tree and wish I'd worn more appropriate footwear, but I'm home how with loads of photos to pore over.

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Sun Top is 5200 ft, fair warning to those with altitude issues.

From the Amazon heading: "WestCreek Underdog Solid Body Electric Guitar, Mahogany Body, Maple Neck, Rosewood Fretboard, Rounded End Frets, Bone Nut, 22 Frets (CherryBurst)"

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My brother is coming over to visit for a week and I wanted the option of playing tunes together rather than passing my main guitar back n forth. People seem enthused about this brand and model, so I rolled the dice.

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Out of the box: Flawless, as best as I can tell.

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Feel: I really expected it to be chonky, because my Grote LP is chonky. This is slimmer and more refined than the Grote and presumably all actual LPs.

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Tone: I guess I would say it has more "bite" than the Grote. To be fair, my rig is built around the Grote and needs some knob twiddling now, but generally speaking this WestCreek guitar delivers the LP bacon. I'll like it more with my preferred strings.

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Key features: Alnico pickups out the door, rather than having to put them in later. Rounded frets are nice but not as smooth as one might expect. They're not sharp like say, Donner. Bone nut is a plus.

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Worth it? I think so. I have no plans to upgrade anything but if I did I'd install locking tuners.

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As the photo will attest, I went with Villainous and we have been enjoying it. BUT, previously I saw a video talking up Marvel Dice Throne and wonder if it is in any way comparable, such as replayability, character depth, etc.

I am very aware the games are NOT hot-swappable. But they seem "adjacent" at a glance.

FWIW I'm not seeing Dice Throne in any "check out my collection" posts but maybe I am missing it.

Weird ask, but does anyone have experience with both titles?

ETA: Thanks for the great feedback! I'll keep Dice Throne in my cart, as our grandkids enjoy Dice games and Marvel. I was concerned that if we had one of these, we kind of had the other. Battle Yahtzee makes the cut! 🤣

No Escape: We've been playing it all weekend and really enjoying it. It's just us two players, so we created a variant where we randomly draw and place up to 8 maze tiles around the board (1 per exit) before actual play begins. It helps extend the game a bit as the raw, fresh out of the box version was going by lightning quick.

Villainous: No spoilers as it just arrived today, but I'm guessing it's something to do with you and the other Disney villains joining forces to clear land, file permits and draw up blueprints to create a fifth gate at Disney World to stave off aggressive competition from Universal Orlando. Bonus points for bopping Yoshi on the snoot, and pointing at things at Harry Potter Land and loudly proclaiming "Disney did it!" I also bought an expansion pack.

Seen from Main Street off of Shaw.

Huge props to whoever maintained this pedal prior to putting it up on Reverb. It's in excellent condition and was in fact the Toan I have been looking for and not finding, though arguably the Azor SAG Overdrive, while useful in its own way, wasn't cut out for the job.

THIS pedal really brought the joy to my playing. Suddenly I'm sounding like I'd always hoped I would, which now inspires me more than ever to break free of the minor pentatonic rut I've been in since 1991. I'm also enjoying triads.

Side note, I've been surprised nobody is putting Pettyjohn pedals in their rigs. (To be fair it doesn't seem like Pettyjohn is actively producing pedals lately.) Strymon has that "look" kinda, but the first time I saw a Pettyjohn pedal (on JHS YouTube, of course) it struck me as "serious gear" in contrast to say, Caline pedals, no offense.

Anyway, yay for good deals on Reverb!

I got tired of crawling around on the floor to figure out what knob and switch does what, and came up with a workaround: An under-desk tray to lift the box up and put it where I can see it, then it swivels under the desk when I'm not making any adjustments.

Since Simplifier-type Sims aren't really "pedals" in that there aren't any footswitches housed on the unit (see how I addressed the super duper Simplifier that has a separate footswitch?) it was nice to get the sim off the pedal board, and ultimately off the floor.