So, my Viking/Neanderthal heritage comes back to bite me!

 

So, for awhile now I have had a weird growth in my right hand that sort of resembled a swelling but was not a swelling. It was/is a tight blister looking but rather solid mass that was beginning to impact my ring finger. It was making the finger curve inwards, somewhat, but was also making my hand start to contort. In fact I now do the 'Vulcan' live long and prosper hand sign  while my hand is resting.

On Monday this week I received a call from the plastic surgeons office at the General Hospital to book me an appointment for Wednesday. Having been referred to them for a while now, I lept at the chance.

It never occurred to me to take a before picture of my hand gut I did take one after the visit, as it worked out that it was not just a consult but turned into an action appointment. So my hand was numbed (surprisingly the needles somewhat hurt) Then the doctor stabbed my hand repeatedly with 3 or 4 other needles. 

You can see the stab marks!

It seems that what I have is, I kid you not, Viking Disease (formally known as Dupuytren's contracture) It is a condition where the connective tissue under your palm's skin thickens. It causes nodules and tight cords that permanently bend your fingers—most commonly the ring and pinky fingers—toward the palm. The condition is genetic, primarily affecting people of Northern European descent over 50. It causes nodules and tight cords that permanently bend your fingers—most commonly the ring and pinky fingers—toward the palm. The condition is genetic, primarily affecting people of Northern European descent over 50. Apparently it has been studied a bit more and it seems to go back beyond Vikings to Neanderthal days! 

The puffy bits have gone down a bit, but the hand was not that nice looking even before the procedure.

There is no cure as such, all they can do is break up the fibrous growths/hardening or in extreme circumstances remove them through surgery. My procedure was the breaking up one, quite amusing as you could hear and feel the popping  as he plunged the needles into my hand again and again. So much fun. Happily the injection kept the pain away, unhappily by the evening the injection had worn off. 

So this whole thing put a bit of a crimp in my hobby plans as I had planned to do quite a bit of work on my wild west stuff. Fortunately by Thursday night the pain had receded  enough to allow me to tackle some projects, so in the end, not much time was lost.

For now the problem has been abated but it will return. Apparently, some of my hobby activities can cause this to return quicker as can my diabetes, oh joy. Guess maybe I should do something about that last thing...

What a Cowboy gaming weekend part 1 of 2

So, on day one we had four players, two per side with four tables set up in advance. The first game saw the attackers looking for the one mule that had the precious cargo of gold dust. Rough terrain and plenty of trees offered lots of terrain to hide behind and some hazards to slow up movement.

We made the mules mobile targets, moving in a random direction at the end of each turn. The river was difficult terrain while the ford operated as a minor obstacle.

Board game night

 

So, we played a trio of games on Monday, including a first go at Thunder Road Vendetta. We also brought out some other fun games that do not make it to the table often enough, Zeppelin Attack and The Cards of Cthulhu.

All these games are lightweight but lots of fun, and quick to play. It had been a while since we last played The cards of Cthulhu and we foolishly thought we could play it without reviewing the rules in detail. As a result we cheated ourselves a bit, making it a bit more difficult for us to win, but win we did, no no harm no fouls.

Zeppelin Attack is a  deck building game of two fleets of zeppelins duking it out. It was a battle of my ice commander vs a simian mastermind. Tracking ones score as the game is possible, but neither of us made any effort to do that. By the end of the game we both thought that the other player had won su we were bot wrong.

The start of the race after all vehicles have had a chance to move

So, the game started off well for me (I was the blue team) but I made a few crazy decisions, fun ideas but still a little mad. I got it into my head to try and take out some of the enemy, and some of my own, by racing to the forward edge of the board. Once one vehicle exits the map via the front of the lead tile, the rear tile is removed from play taking with it any vehicles left on it. In this case the small vehicles of both teams were removed.

Brilliant right!?! So when my medium vehicle got shunted off the board I decided to try that stunt again to even up the odds by removing my opponents medium car. Well, I had the movement that I needed to do this all I had to do was navigate through one perilous area. It worked out to be an oil slick which caused me to careen off the map! Bereft of vehicles, that was the end of my game.

Boardgame night

 

Well, it started off as a tough fight, but in the end we were able to defeat the two Fey enemies. It is often a tough choice to go with the Sentinels team as they have low hit points and we often get quite pummeled by the villains. I used Ra and Fanatic from the original box, it has been a while since I used them, they really do perform differently than the new definitive edition. I had to get used to this change as I have been playing the new version a lot lately. 

We also played Invincible the deck building game. I really do like this game, not certain why as it is an odd game, but it is fun.

What a Cowboy!

 

A test of a soon to be played campaign. This scenario had the attackers coming in from the right with a plan to burn down the large building, it did not go well.

 

Defenders defend the objective (lucky deployment)

Boardgame night

 

So, we had one of our rare losses of Sentinels of the Multiverse the other night, it wasn't even close. We went up against Apex and his werewolves and just never stood a chance. In retrospect perhaps we should not have selected two werewolf heroes...My two characters Ra and Tempest were the first to fall, then Alpha leaving Haka as the last hero standing. Thankfully we decided at this point that there really was no chance of winning and ended the game. 

The worst part, for me, was that I was able to reduce Apex down to 1 hit point before that card you see poking out from under his card healed him. That may seem like it was close, but it wasn't he was never going to down. Not certain what we needed to do to put him down for good, but we were not the team to do it.

We also played a couple of games of Star Trek. It is a lightweight game, but one that I am beginning to enjoy more with each play. (and not just because we won)

What a Cowboy!

 

Well into the game, approaching the end showdown.

After a game of Midgard my two evening players sat down for a game of What a Cowboy! It was a simple showdown scenario, each player had three characters, a Legend, a Shootist and a Greenhorn. It was pretty mush the first time for both  players and they picked it up very quickly.

Emmitt (in red shirt with rifle) trying to use the covered boxes as cover from two enemies, while Paden, behind the wagon tries to support Emmitt as does Jake(blue hat).

Unfortunately for Emmitt, Paden's aim was not so good and Emmitt falls to friendly fire.

Once the dust cleared after a furious exchange of gunfire only the enemy Greenhorn was left while Paden and Jake were okay.

It was a fun game. There were plenty of Bonanzas called out, a trick shooting attempt and a lot of shooting. All casualties were caused by the Silverado gang including a civilian, a Shootist and two legends including their own Legend Emmitt!

We got most of the rules right this time and it was enjoyable. I hope to get a campaign of it going in the near future.

May 30th second Midgard Heroic battle game

 

Empire initial deployment

So this was a repeat of the Bloody Beck scenario but with both armies having only 350 points and two players. I had reduced the point total from the earlier game as we only had two players and the games was starting around 5:30-6 pm and we did not want to go too long. That would not be a problem!

Once again Orcs took advantage of the uncontested areas and sent their cavalry charging across the shallow river

Fortunately Empire cavalry had arrived on the table in reserve

In an unexpected move, the Empire sent their hand gunners across the river!

The hand gunners eliminated one skirmish unit, but failed to wound the Orc Army Commander, then the Giant attacked!

May 30th Game day Midgard Heroic battles first of two games

 

Defenders deployment 

So, our recent gameday saw us play two games of Midgard and one game of What a Cowboy! Both Midgard games were the same scenario, The Bloody Beck but with different players and different army values. Game one saw two 450 point armies and four players battle it out while the second game saw two players using two reduced armies of 350 points each.

Orc disposition 

Mad dash across the river!

Boardgame night

 

So, we brought this game out again, I am not certain why. There is an old idiom about insanity; "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results". However when we sit down to play Eldritch Horror we really do not expect much but sudden death after hours of play. We certainly have low expectation of ever winning this game. (we have just not this year) But it does make me want to amend that old idiom. Why do we play this game?

This game went on for three or four hours before a random card killed two of the characters and severely weakened the other two.(it was a lose d6 wounds/Sanity with no way to prevent it) It is the challenge of this game that regardless of any planning death can just reach out and smite you. We do not mind the vagarities of the dice rolls, failing a task even when you have lots of dice and some rerolls, that is what can happen in any game involving dice. It is the random unpredictable disaster that can occur because of a simple card draw. We have played this game where the first mythos card drawn has spelled doom right away for the entire game, or the ever enjoyable first card draw that has us spend clues to avoid some doom before we ever had a chance to obtain a clue.

Yet we still bring this game to the table, six time so far this year. Again, we do not mind a challenge, not much point in playing a coop game if there is no challenge, it is just the unreasonably way in which this game screws you over.

We also played a game of Sentinels of the Multiverse (our 23rd game this year) It certainly presented some challenges but we lost no heroes and all it really took was time to defeat the villain.

These are our characters from Eldritch Horror. First up my characters

My co-players characters.

Cangames 2026 loot

 

So, as with any convention there are merchants and a bring and buy. This year I managed to pick up a few things, there was so much that I could have bought but I tried to apply some restraint, some...

The items pictured above were purchased from CENTURIES. Kamal is the owner/operator and a more pleasant person you would be hard pressed to find. We first encountered him at Hotlead in Stratford Ontario. Our club was so impressed with him that we invited him to Cangames and he graciously accepted. This is his second year at Cangames and we historical gamers truly appreciate having access to so many miniature options including some fantasy stuff as well. Please visit his site to see all that he has on offer.