F:AT Thursday - Seasons and Fire

In the city of Heliopolis, once every five hundred years, the bird comes to die and be reborn in flame. The Phoenix, resplendent in it's red and gold plumage, it's cry a song brutal in it's beauty builds it's death nest with care and perfection. When the time is right it bursts suddenly alight and collapses into cinders. This time, however, a new avian  does not arise from the soot but  eight grim faced humans. It is F:AT Thursday and they do not bring renewal wreathed in fire but board games and these they shall play.

Two events coincided in a strange symmetry this week. The first was the terrible occurrence of a house fire at Uba's and Al's home which you may or may not have heard of. Fear not, the family is safe including the household pets. The house however suffered some major damage from the flames and the subsequent water damage. Needless to say, this put a crimp in our gaming style as they have been the hosts of our weekly gathering.

The second event was the attendance of some fellow F:ATies from far off locales. Matt Loter and his wife Trish, Billy Zavos, and Bernie "B-styles" made the trip up for "Josh Con" which is Josh's birthday celebration. Their arrival was much cooler than the house fire.

So not having a location suitable for such a large crowd, we decided that when in doubt we should head to the home of "Earth's Coldest Beer", to whit, the ELKs club. The first portion of the evening, as you might imagine, was spent drinking said beer and discussing things AND stuff. Smack was talked, asses were busted, and shit was shot. Then a truck load of pizza arrived and was quickly devoured. It just goes to show, as ever, people are first and games are second. Hanging with a group of cool people is one of life's simple but profound pleasures.

However, we are F:ATies and True Believers one and all so we HAD to play something before the night was over. I had brought my crokinole board over and that saw some use as Engineer Al once again proved that when it comes to flicking, he is king. Annoyingly so. The coldest beer had gone a bit to my head and so I was useless. Billy Z, being a Canadian for god sake, really had no excuse. Al crushed him and by extension his entire nation. Matt and Trish kept a brave face but I think we all knew that Al, the soul destroyer, had exacted his toll.

Having bailed from the Crokinole, I joined a game of Seasons with Josh and Bernie. This is a game where you draft a series of cards into your own stockpile then afterwards over a series of turns you roll a bunch of dice and draft those as well to allow you to gain resources, convert them into VP's and then win the game. The cards get to be played when you can afford them and they give you a bit of rule breaking special powers or boosts to your veeps. It was ok in the way that Kingsburg is ok. A bit more control perhaps and a bit more depth with the card play. Bernie likes it but I found it to be just so-so and basically forgetable. I will say this though, you could kill a man with those dice. Each weighes about a pound and could cause some serious damage if hucked with velocity.