September 6th - Brimstone Boardgame Night - Featuring Tash Kalar

The Windsor Gaming resource returns to Brimstone Games on Saturday September 6th as part of their twice monthly boardgame night which hits on the 1st and 3rd Saturday of every month. These events run from 5pm to 10pm and are open to all ages.

Brimstone is working to become Windsor's premier board game shop. They've got a great selection of the hottest games and tons of gaming space to play them. Not only that but all board games are currently 30% off!

Win a Board Game! 

Every Board Game Night at 8pm the store will draw 1 ticket and the winner will receive a free board game!

Players earn 1 ticket for playing games, limit of 1 ticket per night. Earn 1 ticket for purchasing a snack or drink, limit 1 ticket per night. Earn 1 ticket for bringing 1 or more board games for people to play. Earn 5 tickets for each board game purchased. First time players will receive 5 additional tickets.

You can find Brimstone at 3298 Walker Rd. Parking is available on the south side of the building and on the street around back. Note that Brimstone used to be located in McGregor. This is no longer the case, they moved into Windsor just over a year ago.

Featured Game: Tash Kalar: Arena of Legends

The featured game this week is: Tash Kalar: Arena of Legends from Vlaada Chvatil and Chech Games Edition.

Tash Kalar is a very interesting abstract strategy game. Each player takes on the role of a wizard who is competing against other wizards in an arena battle. The wizards aren't fighting each other though instead they are using this clay like stuff to form monsters to battle each other and control the battlefield.

The game is quite a bit of a thinker as players try to position their playing pieces into the proper patterns to summon the right monsters.

There are a few different ways to play and this Saturday I'll be showing off any that people want to try. I personally thought this game was a cool mix of The Duke with an arena battle game.

The Spoils is not dead and has a cool new beginner box

The Basic Box of Awesomeness

A few weeks back I was approached by John Westcott about The Spoils Trading Card Game. It seems Arcane Tinmen has just released something new they are calling the Basic Box of Awesomeness.

This email surprised me. Why? Well I remember seeing The Spoils, like 8 or so years ago at RIW Hobbies in Livonia. They were doing some kind of demo deal. It looked like a Magic the Gathering clone. I never heard about or saw the game again. I assumed it died the same death that most Magic isotopes died.

I guess I was wrong. Seems the game is still going strong and has a new box out there. So I agreed to check it out. I figured if it lasted the CCG glut there must be something there.

Gaming for 24 straight, to raise funds for Extra Life!

Support Windsor gamers helping sick kids.

October 25th members of the Windsor Gaming Resource will be gathering at Brimstone Games to play games for 24 hours straight in support of Extra Life!

This is our second year in a row supporting Extra Life as a group (some individual members have been doing it longer). Last year we raised $1800 for The Children's Miracle Network of Hospitals blowing away our $1000 goal. This year we are doubling that goal to $2000 and we would love to blow that away and hit at least $3000 or more!

What is Extra Life?

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Extra Life was started in 2008 by the Sarcastic Gamer Community as a tribute to one specific leukemia victim: Victoria Enmon. The group created a 24-hour long video game marathon to raise money for the hospital that treated and fought beside Tori. 100% of the funds raised went to the local Children's Miracle Network. 

Now thousands of gamers have joined in this annual event. In 2009 the event spread allowing participants to donate to the Hospital of their choice and now hundreds of websites and tens of thousands of gamers will take part in this charity event this year.

What is the WGR doing for Extra Life?

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As many members as possible are going to head to Brimstone Games at 10:00am on Saturday October 25th. Once there it's simple: we game, and we game for 24 hours straight. We'll be going until 10:00am on Sunday. We will be playing board games, miniature games and maybe even some pen and paper roleplaying games.

In addition to all the gaming, at 8:00pm on Saturday night we will also be hosting a live game auction. Anyone is welcome to attend this portion of the event. We've got a great selection of games to auction off and 100% of the proceeds will be going to Extra Life.

You can find Brimstone at 3298 Walker Rd. Parking is available on the south side of the building and on the street around back. 

What can you do to support us?

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Come play games: You should come join us on the 25th and play some games! Even if you can't come out for all 24 hours it would be awesome if you could stop in and say hi, bring us some caffeine and/or play a game or two. We would love the support and encouragement. You can show up at any time during the event. Stop in after work, say hi at lunch, whenever. 

Join our team: Extra Life lets groups of participants make a team page and we have one for the Windsor Gaming Resource. Even if you aren't going to actually come out to Brimstone and play with us, if you are going to participate at home or at your own FLGS we would love to have you on our team. Click here to join up!

Sponsor a Windsor Gaming Resource member: Any amount helps, even a buck, and the Extra Life site has a wide variety of payment options even including a monthly donation deal. They also offer charity receipts. Support me directly by clicking here.

Participate in the live auction: The auction will be held at 8pm on Saturday October 25th and there will be a wide variety of new and used games on the auction block. All money raised will be donated to Extra Life through the group page.

Donate games: Are you a game publisher? Do you have too many games and don't know what to do with them? How about donating your games to the cause. You can either give them to us to play during the event or you can donate them to be sold at the live auction. Any donations can be dropped off the day of the event or contact gilvanblight(at)gmail.com to make arrangement before then.

Thanks to our sponsors:

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While organizing this event I sent out emails to a variety of game companies asking if they would be willing to support the WGR in this effort. Last year Stronghold Games and Z-Man Games were awesome enough to support us. This year many other companies have stepped up to the plate.

Huge thanks to Z-man and Stronghold Games for supporting for two years in a row!

Thanks to Rio Grande Games, Loony Labs, Mantic Games, Game Salute, Alderac Entertainment Group, Minion Games, Blue Orange Games and Arcane Wonders for supporting us for the first time this year.

Games & Grub at the Green Bean August 22nd

Friday August 22nd we've got a Games & Grub event being held at The Green Bean's Windsor Star News Cafe. This all ages event runs from 6pm until 11pm.

The Windsor Star News Cafe is located at 300 Ouellette Ave, 3rd floor. This is the cafe that is part of the new Windsor Star located where the old downtown palace theater was.

The Green Bean Cafe has great food, coffee and other yummy things. The location is also licensed and offers some awesome beer from Walkerville Brewery as well as local Wines. Street parking is free after 6pm if you can find a spot and there are two parking garages in a very short walking distance if you can't.

We play a wide variety of games at these events. You will find card, dice and board games. We've even seen some miniature gamers bring their armies out. There's no theme to the event. Our last gaming event saw games of King of Tokyo, Fleet, Nothing Personal, Macao, Clubs, Arabian Nights, Space Station, Caverna and more.

We encourage you to bring some games out, whether an old favourite or something new you want to try out. If you don't have anything to bring, that's cool too. There's always lots of variety and people are always happy to teach you the games they have brought.

The Best of Origins 2014 - Subdivision

This is the third (p)review in my Best of Origins 2014 series.

This is another one coming from Bezier Games Inc. They were also behind my favourite game of Origins, Castles of Mad King Ludwig. They even had deal at Origins where you could pre-order both and get a discount. 

Subdivision is a follow up to Suburbia, it's still a city based tile laying game but it's zoomed in from Suburbia. Here you are looking at one small subdivision of the city. To me it felt like Suburbia meets 7 Wonders and that was a very good thing.

It's interesting to note that Subdivision isn't from Ted Alspach, the designer of Suburbia but rather from Lucas Hedgren. As far as I can tell this is Lucas' first game. The art though, if it isn't obvious is from the same team.