I Got AGOT

Despite a setback (no gaming at the FLGS), this weekend turned out to be incredibly enjoyable for my dorky inner self.

It started off with my acquisition of the A Game of Thrones board game. Maybe that wouldn’t be too exciting for some people, but I loved the books and can’t wait for the HBO series. I bought a copy of the game for my brother-in-law and the game play was great. It really straddled the line between military game and political bargaining game, and that yielded a flavor similar to what I would imagine from the books.

And then it went out of print. I’ve been checking Ebay intermittently since then, but there has never been more than one or two copies available, and they have always been driven up to a premium price plus shipping. That got frustrating pretty quickly. So I took a shot and posted a message in a local forum. I got a line on someone with a copy of the game and ended up acquiring it at a discount. So hurray for me.

I also played my first game of Pathfinder on Sunday. Character creation was a lot of fun. I wanted to play something far from an archetype, and I wanted it to be ridiculous, so I went for a Half-orc former pimp using the Inquisitor class. He has a fur coat, a high charisma, and +11 on intimidate checks. In-game he acts as a bit of a jack-of-all-trades, but there was one moment that really got me excited.

One of my favorite podcast hosts talks about the “wow” moment in gaming, and mine happened in an encounter with a bunch of skeletons. We were pretty much on our last legs, due to our GM rolling some ridiculous to hit rolls. Our barbarian and usual tank was on his last hit point and locked in a cell, though he had succeeded in bashing two of the enemy. Our rogue was dragging our Halfling to safety, and my orc was standing in the doorway covering the retreat. The last skeleton came after me, hit me twice, and took me all the way down to zero hit points. Everyone thought our doom was assured, but I used my Orc special ability to play one more turn before collapsing. I connected on my to hit roll, and did just enough damage to waste the skeleton, and since I had pronounced the judgement of healing, I got one hit point back. Needless to say, I did my funky end zone celebration dance.

Finally, I even managed to fit in some of my more typical hobby activities. I put the finishing touches on the last two Raptors. After that, I did custom shoulder pads for the whole unit. I think they look great, and I am planning on fielding them next game, regardless of how less than optimal they are. I’ll post pictures with the next hobby update.