Revving up Gaming (and March Madness!) Again...

Got in a couple turns of Sicily last night with Mike (we started late, and called it quits earlier than usual). The invasion is making inroads, but Mike is now mucking up key points on the pathetic road network -- something I'll have to deal with the whole game. It'll be a race to see how fast I can move vs. how fast he can evacuate units to the Mainland (so I don't get points for eliminating and/or isolating them). A very interesting game.

Spartacus will get a play (at least!) at Saturday's Millennium meet. Looking forward to that, and whatever else hits the table there. It'll be nice to just kick back for a day and just play.

For NCAA hoops, this is the best time of the year! I really enjoy "March Madness," and have made my picks in several pools. I NEVER do well in these pools, so you may want to pick opposite of me, LOL! For some early round upsets, I have Mississippi State over Washington, Western Kentucky over Illinois, and Temple over Arizona State. My Final Four is Louisville, Memphis, Pitt, and North Carolina. I have Pitt beating Louisville in an all Big East final. But, no matter what happens, it will be fun! Syracuse should make a good run, we'll see if Boeheim can let the athletes play without screwing things up...

Short Week...

Woo-hoo, about time we got this short week! I'm not overly excited about Thanksgiving, but I am about the 5 days off. It looks like I'll be playing Hannibal with Mike Cardwell and Combat Commander with Bob Titran over the break. Combat Commander is one of those games I don't think I'll ever tire of...

Being the nice guy I am, I suggested to Mike that we play Sicily: The Race for Messina as our next game, since it's WWII and hexes (2 of Mike's favorite things -- I will remain silent...). Besides, this game gets good ratings, and it's part of the "Victory in the West" system, with hidden unit strengths via chit draws. Mike thought I was suggesting a different Sicily game, the one by John "My Games Are No" Schletter, Sicily: the Italian Campaign. Luckily for us both, Mike stopped by last week to watch the game Bill Peeck and I were playing (written up a few posts ago under "Bessarabia"), and spotted my Sicily (or, should we say, the good Sicily!). He now needs to get a copy of this one off of eBay.

As for the Schletter "design," this comment on BGG says it all:

"Map is a 10 - one of the best I have ever seen. Everything else SUCKED - the rules are a disaster, the counters boring, gameplay almost non-existant [sic], even with revised (and re-revised) rulebook. I can't even remember how many hours I spent trying to get this turkey to fly. I even tried other systems, like OCS (exactly the same scale!) but in the end all the beautiful maps in the world couldn't get me to keep it so I gave it away. What a waste!"

Yuck!

Now that that's taken care of, I can rest easily...

Snow!!!

Finally, winter has truly arrived. About 3" of snow in my driveway when I headed to work. The 7-day forecast has us staying cold, so I imagine what's down will stay, and we will probably get more. Snow day? One can hope...

Cheyenne really loves the snow. Last winter was (probably) her first winter with snow, as I don't think she got any in her first year (she was a Nashville pup). I've gotta get out and play with her today -- she loves catching snowballs.

The Sabres are on tonight vs. Boston, and this is turning into a huge early season game. If the Bruins win, they really begin to open up space. If Barfalo wins, the race becomes tight again. They (the Sabres) have not played well lately. I'm hoping they can shake out of their funk...

Tomorrow (Thursday), Bill Peeck is coming by for some Combat Commander. As much as I love this game, I haven't played for a couple months, at least! I've really got to be more on the ball about this. Also have to get the rules down for Sicily: Race for Messina, as I think Mike and I will be tackling that next week. Maybe I should just play more Combat Commander!

4 more workdays, then onto Thanksgiving break. Yee-ha!