The 25mm Warrior

Last night was hard.

After dinner I had retreated into the bedroom leaving my family to enjoy themselves. The pain was damn near unbearable. Everywhere I went I limped my way there. Like a wounded animal I need some solitude, a black corner to lick my wounds. The plan as always would be to beat the pain with sleep. Most of the time it doesn't work. Pain has been known to keep me up for in excess of 24 hours before the exhaustion caves in on me forcing me to sleep.

As I lay there in hot summer night I felt ripped. A vast tug of war pulled inside of me.

I didn't want to sleep. I wanted to game, to paint, to model. It had been a long time since I had done any of that and I really, really wanted to do it. Problem was my body was recovering from a grocery trip I took with my wife and son. Did you hear that? I'm recovering from a grocery trip? The prolonged walking caused me to lean heavily on my cane which only transfered a bit of my foot pain into a lot of shoulder pain in my right arm. Even playing World of Warcraft in the wake of the outing was uncomfortable.

My back began to throb and stiffen on the bed. My mind was juggling between staying in the darkness or braving the increased pain my hobby activities would bring. What the hell? Years after my injury began I still have a hard time believing just what it cost me. The orders I obeyed carried with them the unknown reward of suffering. Pain in walking, pain in laying down, pain in painting a friggin miniature.

Just as I began to feel sorry for myself in the pitch blackness of my bedroom I was welcomed by a relativity new companion. Numbness began creeping up my thigh. My shoulder joined in concert. I moved around, rubbed my leg, tossed and turned to shake the swarm of numbness that was assaulting me. It only served to increase the pain with a burning that crescendo into a blaze then was snuffed by a rainfall of pins and needles.

I sat up, the gaussy moonlight that beamed through the window casted an eerie haze in the room. My eyes felt heavy, weighted by purple bags that hung beneath them. I wanted so bad to shake off the wanting. Wanting to paint, wanting to game, wanting life to be normal again. Everyone tells me to push through it. Well, what happens when I can't? What happens when this really does get the best of me? What happens when I'm just to damn weakened to fight anymore?

Luckily I fell asleep somewhere within all that torment only to awake to it all again. When I moved to my computer I was met by my homepage which is my blog. I felt even worse. The best part of my blog are the people that follow it and my damn injury keeps me from doing anything worth writing about. I don't want to just disappear, abandoning my blog, my hobby in despondency but really, right now, I don't know how to recover from this.

I guess there is no recovering from this. Just to take it day by day, hoping and knowing some days are better than others.

Sorry for the lack of posts as of late. JubieX's son is visiting us and well, it's hard to game with two kids in the house. As a matter of fact in nearly three weeks the only game we got to play was Pirates from the post below.

Just this morning it hit me. I missed my Top 5 Blogs and Storm Wardens Charity posts. Very sorry. The 4th of July weekend just added to the flurry of other stuff going on.

Once the visit is over and life gets back to normal a bit hopefully my blog will turn to normal and even more importantly, our game life. I had to drop you all a line though and wish all my fellow yanks out there a very happy 4th of July and don't worry, we're not going anywhere.

In fact we're just getting started :)

I'm a sucker for discounted games. It's a thrill to walk into a store and see a game that you we're interested in practically being given away for free. Adding to it all is my love of gaming. Really, I'll try and play anything. Nearly no game in a game store is off limits.

So you can imagine my thrill when I walked into Target and saw the Pirates Constructible Strategy Game by Wizkids on a big time sale.

Here is a close up of that price


That is just the tip of the iceberg of the treasure trove of packs I bought. With the packs being only a dollar it was easy to get a sizable collection of this game for dirt stinkin cheep. The game is simple too. All you do is go around getting more booty than your buddy.

It reminded me of college :)

Since my best buddy lives with me now it was even easier to dive right in to the high seas.

JubieX and I each formed a fleet of 40 points (a standard game). We were off and set sail in less than 10 minutes. It wasn't stated really well in the rules but we found a 4X4 area with the aid of a blue bed sheet did the trick for a game table. Check out the pics below and see just who has the better booty grabin skills!


The table mid game.


Nearly right away JubieX set a destroyer to interrupt my treasure hunting activities. He found out the hard way of what happens when you go up against a 5 mast ship.


My Schoener racing his Junk ship to get the last of the gold on an island.


Near the end of the game you can see my gold count was 15. In order to win you have to have 16, which is more than half of the starting gold that is randomly distributed to the islands face down so we can't see em. I had no choice but to hunt down the rest of JubieX's fleet. With my 5 mast ship fully repaired I set out to sink the scurvy dog!


With JubieX down to one ship I set up a blockade in front of his home island. I was prepared to chase him down but the bloody pirate did something brave...

HE RUSHED THE BLOCKADE!!!


In a desperate attempted to tie up the game he went toe to toe with my 5 mast. I knew he was hoping a bad round of rolling would save him...


It didn't.

I blew him right out of the water, sending him to meet Davy Jones!

The game was fun and just after one session you can see all the different ways to play it. The tactical approaches a player can take are nearly limitless and what's most important, the game only took about an hour which my feet really appreciated.

So if you have a Target around you go check out their collectible card section. You may be surprised what booty you find for dirt cheep :)