Game Night 3

Game night 3 was a smaller affair that kicked off with a burp, thanks to KC Strips, fried new potatoes and corn on the cob. It took a bit for the food stupour to wear off and everyone to get motivated enough to actually play anything. But once we did, it got rolling.

Fantasy Munckin was the game of the night. We added Clerical Errors and Unnatural Axe for fun and profit (some of the cards are genuinely halarious). The games got more cutthroat as time went on. I won the first one, Mitch and I both won the second one (we were both playing level 9 clerics when a Divine Intervention came up), Mitch won the third and Sherman got the fourth. Munchkin is a fun fast paced game normally but the fourth round took FOREVER mostly because three of us were theives and spent a lot of time stealing from each other and losing levels. Still, much fun.

After that the bloodlust and cutthroat vibe was high in the room (must have been all that red meat, man those steaks were fantastic…ahem, anyway)we decided to play some Zombies!!! We managed to play out every tile in the town including the helipad (Sherman has a reputation for closing off the town so the helipad can’t be played). A couple of buildings became power struggle centers; notably the Sporting Goods store and the Police Station. Multiple event cards resulting in building repops and zombie waves on the streets made both places ridiculously dangerous. Nonetheless players kept trying to assault them, mostly due to beer and bad attitudes. Both eventually fell, but while we were scrapping over the crumbs in both buildings Sherman was strolling around town accumulating zombie kills like he was on a rabbit hunt.

He eventually bagged his 25th kill and the game while the rest of us were thinking about running for the copter and not beating each other up. Fairly classic Sherman strategy.

After that it was homeward bound for the troops. (World of Warcraft for me) and planning for the next Game Night.

Fiction with Braaaaaains….

I’ve been reading a HUGE amount of zombie fiction over the last six months. I go through genre phases every now and then. Just to give a quick overview I thought I would list what I have read so far and rate it on a 1 (worst) to 5 (best) scale with small amounts of commentary here and there.


Brian Keene
The Rising (3)
and
City of the Dead (4)

Serious downer of an ending. Fun read though with a different spin on the zombies

Joe McKinney
Dead City (4)

If 24 had zombies it would be this book.

David Wellington
Monster Nation (4)
and
Monster Island (5)

Monster Island is the one of the best zombie novels I’ve read so far, hands down.

Bowie Ibarra and Travis Adkins
Down the Road (3)
and
Down the Road: On the Last Day (3)

Eh, it was something to read.

J.L. Bourne
Day by Day Armageddon (3)

Written journal style. The guy had obviously read World War Z.

Max Brooks
The Zombie Survival Guide [4)
World War Z (5)

World War Z is a must read for anybody who has enjoyed a zombie movie in their life ever. If you haven’t read it go buy it now.

Len Burnheart
Reign of the Dead (1)

Avoid this book at all costs.

David Moody

Autumn (3)
Autumn: The City (4)
Autumn: Purification (3)
Autumn: The Human Condition (4)

The Autumn series is a mixed bag. Atypical zombies in a plaugue style world with a UK twist. They are well written for the most part and focus on the characters more then the zombies. The Human Condition is a fun collection of short stories set in the world of the first three books.

Big Bro

I picked up the new Nine Inch Nails album ‘Year Zero’ last week. I like it although musically it is pretty par for the course NIN with a couple of stand out tracks I enjoyed. What is more fun is going down the crazy rabbit hole of dystopian future they set up as back ground information for the album. It is classic dystopian, drugged out mega christian America sort of stuff. Fun reading though, you can get started here:

http://www.ninwiki.com/Category:World_of_Year_Zero

You should check out ‘Plauge Zone’ the free serialized novel written by the talented David Wellington. You can read his other novels there free as well, but I encourage you to buy them (like I did) and support the dude. It is worth it if you like zombies, or good stories, or good stories including zombies.

http://www.brokentype.com/pz/