"Life isn't about how to survive the storm, but how to play in the rain."


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QUICK INFO

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MY GAME BLOG
http://nothingbutgames.blogspot.com/

MY CLAIMS TO BGG FAME
Geek of the Week #106
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/1727082

Boardgeekian Rhapsody
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist.php3?action=view&listi...

MY TOP 10



MY MOST RECENTLY PLAYED GAMES


MY MOST WANTED GAMES


MY HOT 10 - (Games On My Radar For Purchase)








Check this thread by DKanht to see how to add these types of images to your profile too.

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MY GAMING BACKGROUND

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I'm mostly a avid boardgamer, but I have a ton of older Avalon Hill games and a large collection of German style games from the past 15 years or so. I also play a few miniatures games too, (PIRATES!, Battlefleet Gothic and a little Warhammer) but 95% of my miniatures effort is for Man O War - which I feel is the best game Games Workshop ever made. I have sizeable fleets for all the races and I have also created many ships of my own design as additions to the existing fleets.

Growing up, I can remember seeing games of Midway and Tactics II - that my dad owned, high up on the unreachable shelves in his closet. I remember the Saturdays where he and his Marine Corp buddy would get together and spend a few hours in battle. We kids would sit there for periods of 10 minutes or so at a time, watching and trying to figure out what the heck was going on, before we'd run off to play again for a bit before our curiousity brought us back again.

My first AH game was PanzerBlitz and I remember playing it in the 4th and 5th grade with my best friend Clyde. We still are best friends almost 40 years later, although he doesn't game anymore nearly as much unfortunately. On occasion, I'd get to stay for the weekend at his house and so after school we'd rush to his house and get his chores done so we could start a game. I can remember sitting there for HOURS learning the rules to the newest game he or I had bought and we wouldn't even get to start actually playing until late that Friday nite or early Saturday morning. We'd sit there all day, slowly taking turns until our knees couldnt take any more (the game was set up on a coffee table where you couldn't slide your feet underneath).

We went through many great games by AH... PanzerBlitz, 1776, Richthofen's War, Tobruk: Tank Battles in North Africa 1942, Starship Troopers, Speed Circuit, Squad Leader, Rise and Decline of the Third Reich, Circus Maximus, Luftwaffe, Wooden Ships & Iron Men to name but a few.

We seldom finished a game - I think we enjoyed the learning process as much as we did the game itself. The first time we did ASL (The Guards Counterattack), we struggled for the whole weekend to wrap our minds around that game system. I think we ended up playing that same scenario once a year because every time we went to play again it had been so long we had to start over and relearn it.

As a teenager I was heavily into Dungeons & Dragons (and later AD&D). How I managed to convince my high school friends (one who was our homecoming queen!) to try something like D&D is beyond me, but we had a great time playing and spent many a night hack'n and slash'n through the depths of the earth.

Through it all boardgames have always been the biggest part of my game time, and even as a teenager, I collected just about every Avalon Hill Game that came out. My favorite AH game would have to be Wooden Ship's & Iron Men which captured the feel of sailing a large Man O'War better than anything else Ive ever played. Naval games are very appealing to me although I would be hard pressed to explain why, and adding a fantasy element to it like Games Workshop did with Man O War destined the game to be a favorite of mine. I encourage those interested to come see what this out of print game was (is) all about - see the link to the Sea of Claws in my profile.

Playing this... ...Led to this....

Here is a picture of the portion of my collection that fits into these bookcases. These are really the most played games and they are easily accessible this way.



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MY RATING SCHEME

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I've decided to go back through all my ratings and really describe what I like or dislike about a game instead of a lot of the generic comments I have on a lot of games. I want people who read my ratings to have a better understanding of why I gave it that 10 (or that 1). I'm also adding a breakdown of some basic criteria in the form of "slider" controls that I can adjust to each game to hopefully show people even more information about how I feel about each game. An example of the "slider" is below.

... Abstract ...______♦____...Themed .....
......... Luck ...________♦__... Skill ...........
...... Simple ..._______♦___... Complex ...
.. Strategic ..._____♦_____... Tactical ....
.... Friendly ..._______♦___... Cutthroat ..
....... Fiddly ...________♦__... Elegant .....

Graphics: 9
Packaging: 7
Components: 10
Rules: 9
Fun Factor: 10

OVERALL RATING: 10
Rating Date: 11/19/2005
Rating History/Dates N/A

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OTHER BGG STUFF

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Some cool non- advertised areas inside BBG:

Pending Approval Game Entries: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/userqueue.php

The Correlation Tool is back! (Not on BGG)

http://www.lautapelaaja.net/bgg/

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MY AVATAR HISTORY

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The Bart with his back to you was the first I had. Most people recognize who it is immediately and don't give it a 2nd thought. However this IS an animated GIF. You just need to wait a few seconds to see it. What you see here is the original delay that came with the image. I changed it to about 90 seconds before uploading as my avatar and it took people by surprise when it did move because they weren't sure if they really just saw what they saw.

Christmas Bart was a short lived variation during the first Holiday season I had an avatar.


I switched to Disneyland Castle & Fireworks for a short time following the New Year after Christmas Bart. I quickly discovered that if you change avatars too often, people lose sight of who you are.


Derk had had his signature avatar since they were introduced and had never changed it. It was instantly recognizable and although animated, was not one of those really annoying repetitive ones. His was hypnotic and very cool looking. I went looking for something similar and found the one you see here - admitedly a pale comparison, but it has a similar feel to it. I didn't know what it was from, but I know I had seen it somewhere before. I later found out that it was the Invincibilty token from the PC game of Descent.

I added the Man O War Ubergeekbadge around the same time I had the Invincibility token and decided to keep that as a constant so I swap out my Avatar and still retain some recognizability. I created an animated avatar of all of Man O War ships that slowly cycled so that it appears that it is not an animated gif but the images DO change - only after a long while so you don't really notice.

When the Simpson's movie came out, the website had a way to upload a picture and have a Simpsons avatar made for you. It was the latest craze here at BGG and for awhile it looked like Springfield here.

During the Christmas Holidays of 2007, I had the Santa glove you see as part of my Christmas Game Giveaway contest. It was a cool picture I saw on the internet and decided to add some text to it for my avatar.

Gary Gygax passed away in Feb of 2008 and for a week many of us had tribute avatars. Mine was from the first D&D rulebook and was accompanied by a standard Geekbadge that said "G Gygax - 0 HP". It was well liked.

My most current Avatar is one I made to show my interest and anticipation of the upcoming final Indiana Jones movie due out this May. I took the images from the official website and painstakingly faded them out to create the avatar.

During the time of the release of the Simpson's movie,


My favorite games are so important that they have been featured on The Colbert Report: