Tuesday, September 20, 2011

WFB Escalation League - Opening Night Results!


The first game of the Warhammer Fantasy Battles Escalation League crowded into the back room of Borderlands tonight.  We had more players than tables to play on, and appreciate everyone who hung on the sidelines until a table was available.  Luckily the games went fast and fun.  We look forward to many more full nights and watching everyones armies grow in future weeks.

Below are the league standings after the first night.  This overall score represents a combination of your generalship (game result), painting, and sportsmanship.  Where people have tied in overall score, degree of game victory and painting rating are used as tie breakers to determine rank.

RankPlayerGame 1 Overall Score
1.Vincent19
2.Paul19
3.Josh19
4.Ian H19
5.Chris R19
6.Taylor15
7.David D15
8.Chris B14
9.Ryan O13
10.Ben S13
11.Terry S10
12.Jordan F10
13.Issac G10
14.Jeff D10
15.Clayton H10
16.Oliver10
17.Nate J10
18.Storme9
19.Wiley K9
20.Kyle M8
21.Tony B8
22.Ryan J6
23.Maurice M6
24.Eli K2
25.Mike F2
26.John E2

See you next week!  And until then, join us on Facebook in the Order of the Black Sheep Escalation League Group to discuss the league or call out challenges.

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Counting Down, 7 Days.......

It's almost here. Just one more week and the Order of the Black Sheep and Borderlands Games Warhammer Escalation League will arrive. Bring the fun and get ready to roll some dice.


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Thursday, September 8, 2011

Everything starts somewhere. Sometimes finding that start is easy, but other times, not so much. My interest in gaming evolved over time, but it did have a few places that I would consider focal points that encouraged my interest. One of these things was a game called Magic Realms. This was a game that my dad owned, though I don’t remember ever seeing him play it. I remember being fascinated with it when I was in grade school, though I had only ever seen the side of the box which was where the name was at. Magic Realm. What could be in that box? To a pre-teen who like cartoons and comic books, the word “magic” ensnared my curiosity like nothing else. I mean, it’s a box, placed high out of reach, with contents unknown, and titled like that. How could I not be fascinated?

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At some point, my dad let me check the game out. It was the first time I had ever seen the cover of the game and I was blown away. On the cover was a knight in armor, a dwarf, and some chick with a bow fighting a giant dragon, while in the background a badass looking wizard watched over it all. The cover alone was enough justify my youthful enthrallment in this item. If it was that awesome on the outside, what wonders would I behold once I opened the box. To be truthful, I probably didn’t spend more than a few seconds looking at the box before tearing into the contents, but these thoughts did get seared into my mind during the short time I had to process them. I was overdosing on pure, unadulterated awesome. Opening the box did not disappoint. Tons of cardboard counters, cards that read “Treasure” and featured descriptive names on the reverse side:Photobucket
tiles that had colorful names of different forests and mountain terrains:Photobucket

and large cards of different types of heroes with, to my young mind, some of the most amazing artwork in the world:
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I was enthralled. But then the roadblocks came. Trying to read the rules was above my head. The rulebook was not the back of the box like I had been used to, but a giant book written in small font with a lot of words and technical phrases that I wasn’t familiar with. I quickly moved on from trying to decipher the rule book to looking at the game pieces and making up my own game for them. I made my own game maps and built little armies out of the game pieces and pretty much used them like I would my G.I. Joe figures, staging battles, pitting good vs. evil, and elevating heroes.
Photobucket I played with the game like this for months, though I eventually lost many of the pieces and had to give up playing with it. The game always held a cherished place in my memory, but it wasn’t until I was much older that I had an opportunity to revisit it.

I couldn’t ever remember the name of the game a few years ago, but I had joined the site [url]www.boardgamegeek.com[/url] and was able to find the game once again. A trip to ebay and $80 later and I had a copy of the game once again. Opening it up brought the old memories back in a rush. I sorted through the contents, organized them, and sat down to read the rulebook. I figured that after teaching myself how to play Magic: The Gathering, Warhammer Fantasy Battles, and the Star Wars CCG, I could handle this old game. Well, I figured wrong. The rules were still pretty complicated and there were few clear example of how to play in rulebook. This added to the fact that I wasn’t sure if the game I bought was complete, caused me to shelve the game. I have looked up different guides on how to play the game but I haven’t had enough motivation since I got it to try to play it for real. Maybe I will at some point, but for now, I think I will keep it as a reminder of my childhood and first foray into the fantasy game genre.