A New Year round up

 

 

 

Happy New Year!!!...is it too late to say that on the 5th??  I've been back at work for 2 days so the Festive rest has worn off and it's back to the grindstone.


Xmas...

I hadn't left any tactically placed notes and lists around the house this year so wasn't expecting any gaming related pressies (and we'd agreed on severely curtailed gift-giving this year), however a good friend in Glasgow surprised me with a copy of Isle of Skye, a boardgame from Mayfair games. 

I'd read some reviews of it a while ago and it seems to be a Carcasonne type game but with bidding and trading of tiles and has very good reviews.  I haven't had a chance to get it out of the box yet but hopefully in the next couple of weeks...I'll post something when I get a chance.




The Force Awakens (spoiler free...)

My wife very kindly took me to see the new Star Wars film at the weekend...she isn't a SW fan so this was a big deal!!  There aren't many films that I go to with a real sense of anticipation....apart from this one it was probably the Lord of the Rings films that last had me worried about what might have been done to them (Incidentally I loved the LotR films...the opening scenes in Hobbiton are among my favourite film scenes...I felt Peter Jackson got that bit spot on compared with what was in my head.  Yes there are issues in places but I can live with those and don't get as hung up as some people appear to!)


So...Star Wars...I'll keep this Spoiler free so don't panic if you haven't made it to the cinema yet (although I was surprised at the love scenes with Han and Chewie!).  I had somehow managed to avoid any spoilers prior to going although I knew that it was...erm..heavily influenced...by A New Hope.  To be honest I had no problem with that...it's clearly a homage to the first film and the number of very similar scenes was striking.  In the context of the film I thought this worked well...JJ Abrams is clearly establishing his fanboy cred and providing lots of moments for 40 and 50 year olds to go "ooooh" and "awww" but he also set up the new characters well. 

It's great to see a strong female lead in Rey and I liked the chief baddie, Kylo Ren... a bit more nuanced than Anakin in the trilogy that shall not be named.  I hope that's it with the nostalgia now though and that the next film sets off on it's own without the need to reference the past.  All in all I loved it (and my wife stayed awake through the whole film which is quite a result!)


Planning....

It's traditional in the first post of the year to do a review of plans from the last year and set out my projects for 2016.  I had a quick glance at the post from a year ago and found I've achieved absolutely none of them!  So for 2016 my plans are....


nothing....nada... rien... ничего...heehaw...


The only definite is Frostgrave with the forthcoming games at the Shed (link), and hopefully stuff from the 2 Kickstarters that I've committed to (Heroes of Normandie and Conan) but that's it.  We'll just go with it and see where the year takes us....that sounds like a plan!!