Christmas Haul

 It is a good time to be a gamer, because of my kids. I always prefer games as gifts and this year did not disappoint. On top of a great holiday with family and friends, I received some great games and the family did too. I'll review these more in depth soon but for now, here is the household gain.

1. Elder Sign (FFG): This is just a great game, period. Fun to play on your own, more fun with friends. I'm sorta amazed at what this game does for me, given there are no miniatures and I'm already dating Strange Aeons skirmish pretty steady and have Mansions of Madness waiting in the wings. It reminds me of the time I was studying Wing Chun and taking yoga at the same time. The less complicated yoga was giving me more of the control and focus that I wanted than the more complex but still awesome Wing Chun was doing. Funny when that happens.
2. Star Wars X Wing miniatures (FFG): Dang, just a fun dog fighting game from the classic trilogy with surprising depth. If they could market the conversations, line quoting from the films and all the other fun social products this game seems to draw out... fans of Episodes 4-6 would finally get what they wanted with episodes 1-3.
3. Der Schwarze Pirat (HABA): It means, "The Black Pirate" and is a kids game that is more addictive for parents than I expected. Using a baster-style hand bellow, players blow little ships around an embossed board, trying to get to ports to collect accumulating gold. The wild card is the Black Pirate, who players randomly become when he appears on dice rolls, to attack their friends and try to rob them of their own plunder. Again, this is a kid's game but there is strategy, tactics and kinesthetic challenges that everybody really enjoys.
4. Lego Creationary: Haven't played it yet but it looks fun. Wonder if we can use all the other storage bins of Legos we have with this...
5. Jenga Death Star Angry Birds (Hasbro): More kids fare that again, is pretty addictive. Kids really enjoy it most when adults can quickly re-set the constructs again for knocking down.
6. Super Dungeon Explore (Soda Pop): We haven't played it yet but we are all looking forward to it. I assembled and cleaned all of the miniatures prior to Christmas and the wife suggested the kids and I paint the minis together, so that's what we are going to do. The children have already given me notes on how I am supposed to paint "their heroes" for them. Cute.
7. Multi-Game (Game World): The standard 12-games-in-a wooden-box deal. We'll hit up classics like chess, checkers, backgammon, etc. I never played chess until after Warhammer 40K so this time I'll get it right for the future of mankind.
8. Standard deck-of-card games: Never to soon for critical reasoning

Thankfully, we kept video games for the 360/Wii to an all-time low.  Physical games have outscored video games and we intend to keep it that way from now on. The kids are already talking about SDE names and back-stories for their characters as well as how to work together in the upcoming games, all music to my ears.