Going through a long dry spell of no board gaming and then coming back to Rialto is like finding a thirsty man in the desert and offering him a warm glass of urine.

Somewhere out there a screenwriter is typing up the scene where Stefan Feld and I grapple atop a waterfall, eventually going over the edge and seemingly plunging to our deaths.

If you take out Feld, then thanks for taking one for the team.

A long-overdue game of War of the Ring to introduce a friend. Many newbie mistakes on his part led to my first-ever FP military victory (Orthanc and Minas Morgul).

I've been playing the campaign scenarios in Down in Flames: Aces High. Dan has done a marvelous job of distilling the essence of these WWII planes into cards and he provides a ton of them.

It's not too deep but fast, fun and playable. I prefer the campaigns though. It gives the game some structure and excitement.

Spartacus last night. This is a very good game. While I feel like the dice really betrayed me costing me the win (6/8 guard rolls failed, 2/3 healing rolls resulted in death, 2 battles I was ahead in ending in a loss), probably the decision to sell one of my gladiators and only run with one was the key decision which caused my loss. However the game was close and ended up with 2 guys fighting it out in the arena after tying for a win, while me and the other player would probably have hit 12 the next turn. I tried a different path to victory, and only won 2 non-hosting auctions, but won 3/4 of the hosting auctions which gave me a lot of power and control over who got the influence for winning in the arena.

Glaber and Solonius do seem a bit more powerful than the other two houses, so until the new houses appear in the expansion, I think all our games will have an unofficial alliance between Tullius and Batiatus, just so they have a chance to stay with the two power houses.