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A Gaming Life
Bottoscon 2026 Retrospective
One of my favourite game convention experiences is also my most recent.
I have only been going to Bottoscon regularly since 2022 (I did a one-day pass in 2019 and then COVID hit). A couple of the Bellevue, Washington conventions I had been going to since 2015-2016 and would still be going to today if it wasn’t for you-know-who down south.
Why is Bottoscon my favourite?
Because while it’s big (largest wargaming convention in Western Canada and the Pacific Northwest), it’s not “oh my God, there were 230,000 people here this weekend” big like Essen is.
It’s big, but it’s small enough that the gamers who go to it are part of a community, a gaming community (and not just wargames anymore!) where members respect each other, who love playing games of all sorts, and who have formed a bond, even if we’ve never actually formally met all of them.
There are people who go to it every year who I recognize, even if I’ve never been formally introduced and I’ve never played a game with them. This weekend, I did have some members join me and my friends at breakfast and just chat. I only knew their names from their name tags!
It didn’t matter. We were of one group. The chatting was marvelous.
There are also new people all the time, which is rejuvenating. I met one of them this weekend and played games with her! It’s always good to add new people to the mix.
This whole convention has been running for 19 years (I think I might have said 20 in my post last week, but that’s next year. So come join us to celebrate!) and been run by Rob Bottos and his incredible support staff of volunteers (Brendan, Richie, Byron, Allan, Burgess and Rick).
Rob has worked hard to foster that community and I love the feel of just being there and being a part of it.
Historically (for me, though I know it didn’t start there) it’s been in New Westminster, but it has now moved to the Element Hotel in Burnaby for this year, and it was an incredible experience.
(You can click on a picture to blow it up)
This was the gaming room area on Thursday before many had arrived, along with a view from the windows (it was very cloudy for most of the weekend and pouring down rain for a huge part, but I did the best I could. That’s the North Vancouver skyline in the distance, I think).
Of course, the inevitable Here I Stand game was set up and I’m sure there was a very long battle for control of Europe on the horizon!
I also managed to sell seven of the eight games I brought to sell, so it was a good weekend in general!
The location has a lot of restaurants in the area to grab food (though you had to eat it there, up in your room, or on the 5th floor because hotel policy was that there could not be outside food or drink in the convention area) and I was able to try some things I don’t normally try.
The hotel also provided a breakfast bar with a lot of different items (baked goods, cereals, juices, coffee etc) along with some hot food that changed every day (croissant sandwiches one day, omelets the other two), so that was nice.
The one downside was that one of the three elevators was out of service, so for much of the weekend, elevator wait times could be LONG, especially with the young girls’ hockey team/tournament going on, where there were a lot of kids there Friday-Sunday.
Overall, it was a blissful four days of gaming, eating good food, and seeing many friends who I haven’t seen since the last Bottoscon events (November 2025, February 2026 and June 2026)
Sadly, wargame designer Brian Train was kept on Vancouver Island due to the weather and ferry cancellations, so I didn’t get a chance to talk to him like I had planned to.
One day, Brian!
It was the best-attended Bottoscon ever, with 170 people signed up.
It was awesome!
What? You want me to shut up about all of this stuff and get to the games?
*sigh* Ok.
Read MoreWallguards of the East Empire – Live on Kickstarter
After over 12 years since the first game, Garphill Games has finally begun the last in the “direction” trilogies (that’s what I call them, anyway).
First, they went north, then west, then south, and finally they are going east.
Wallguards of the East Empire is now live on Kickstarter, and it looks just as cool as the other direction games (though north was debatable to me).
There are already some great videos out there with either how to play or showing actual gameplay. I’ve watched a couple and I am intrigued.
Let’s blurb this one from the BGG entry:
“The aim of Wallguards of the East Empire is to be the player with the most Victory Points (VP) at the game’s end. Points are gained by training Warriors, gaining Siege and Technicians, improving the Barracks, and most importantly, defending the city’s walls. Each turn players will be using Cards to take actions, with most actions causing 1 or more Cards to be placed into the 4 Battlefields above their Player Board. Once a Battlefield has 5 or more Cards a defence will be triggered, and that player’s strength must be assessed. Victory will gain them a Defector, while defeat will bring a new Ally. The game ends after either the Defector or Ally Draw Pile runs out.”
Read MoreDon’t Let Them Get Together! – Final Girl – Terror From the Grave Review
After going through a bunch of Final Girl feature films and playing them enough to review them, it can get a bit stale after a while.
Same location, same killer, rinse and repeat.
That’s what makes these Final Girl vignettes kind of cool. No location comes with them so you have to use a location you already have.
Terror From the Grave brings zombies into the Final Girl universe, and they are relentless as they typically are in films.
This vignette was designed by Evan Derrick and A.J. Porfirio with art by Tyler Johnson.
It was released in 2023 by Van Ryder Games.
Unlike the Birds vignette, this one does have them actually going after you rather than spreading like a virus.
It’s also quite interesting for another reason: Vehicle Action Cards!
Yes, that’s right.
For any location in the first two series, there is a vehicle action card that you may be able to find and use to help wipe out the zombies.
Let’s see how all of this works.
Read MoreFriday Night Shots – Con Behaviour?
Happy Friday night!
I’m writing this earlier in the week because I am currently, as this post goes live, playing a game at Bottoscon 2026 and enjoying the hell out of the evening.
Or we could be eating dinner or gabbing with other con-goers, but I will be having fun regardless of what it is.
That’s the wonders of writing ahead of time!
(My Bottoscon 2026 Retrospective will be posting next week sometime)
(Also, apologies for how this is kind of even more of a stream of consciousness post than usual)
(Also also, apologies for all of the parentheses)
I originally had a review going live today, but then I listened to this week’s episode of the Boardgame Hot Takes podcast (really, you should go check these guys out. They’ve won an award!)
In the episode, Chris and Tim (Adam wasn’t there this week) were talking about games that they’ve played, and they started talking about things that they do at various types of gaming get togethers.
When the three of them get together for their retreats, often the focus is completely on playing games and they barely take any breaks to do anything else.
(I couldn’t tell, but from the way Tim talked about it, did they eat dinner while playing rather than taking a break?)
Chris mentioned that his group’s weekend get together (on the Oregon Coast somewhere, and damn do I miss the Oregon Coast, fuck you Trump), they also took time to do little things like walk on the beach or do things like that. Or even just take some breaks and Chris ended up doing some of his BGA turns.
I’ve been to other conventions where friends did other things besides gaming, and this whole conversation between them made me think about all of that stuff.
When you go to a convention, or even just a boardgame get together that’s a whole day, or a couple of days, how do you behave?
Read MoreBGG Top Games – 5301 – 5400
We’re quickly moving through the 5000s in the Boardgame Geek game rankings list, and this week is actually pretty good and pretty bad.
Pretty good because I’ve actually played three of them!
(actually 4, but the extra one jumped up into last week’s century so I won’t talk about it)
Pretty bad because only one of them is a game I greatly enjoyed (though another one is definitely decent and I’d play it again).
At this point, are we really here for the games I’ve played, or more just to talk about some other games that probably wouldn’t get talked about much if I wasn’t doing these posts?
If at all?
That’s why you’re here, right?
You can tell me. I won’t say anything.
Before we get to this week’s century, though, let’s check in on our experiment and see how high it’s skyrocketed in a couple of days to a week.
Last week, at the time of posting on Wednesday morning, Forest Shuffle: Smoky Mountains was at #3848 and moving up quickly.
I’m starting this post on Friday afternoon and it’s already at #3678. Almost 200 in two days.
Of course, the experiment is at the time of posting, and it’s currently at #3227 and oh my god is it jumping up the charts!
Something to keep an eye on, so we’ll definitely do this next week.
This week’s century can be found here.
Of course, if you’re looking at this tomorrow, it will…probably not have changed much.
But it might have!
(Hell, Forest Shuffle jumped 70 points between Tuesday night and this morning)
As I mentioned, I’ve played three of the games this week and I owned one of them.
Of course, that one was the good game.
Before I get to my introduction word count limit, let’s get started.
Read MoreOctober 2026 Gaming
As I mentioned on Friday in my New to Me Games post, October was a fairly dry month for actual gaming, though thankfully not for new to me games.
We actually missed a Sunday due to another silly street race and the work games were a little haphazard with people being unavailable at various times.
This was the driest month since July, and that month I was off of work for most of it!
That’s ok, because November is going to be huge with a 4-day convention that I’m attending.
That will more than make up for this month.
One reason for the dearth of games, though, is the fact that I only played Final Girl twice this month!
I’m still working on the Terror From the Grave vignette and between that and trying to keep current in my blogging, I haven’t sat down to get the game out much recently.
I played 15 games in October for a total of 22 plays, which isn’t too bad.
Just not like it has been.
Here’s the list of games played.
And here it is in grid format.
Many thanks to the wonderful BG Stats for not only letting me keep track of games like this, but for the pretty way or displaying them as well!
Because there weren’t that many games, I also can’t really say there was much in the way of “wow, I haven’t played that one in a while” days.
With one exception!
So let’s get to it.
Read MoreNew to Me – October 2026
Posting this early because I know I’m not playing any new to me games today or tomorrow!
Look at me, being all efficient and stuff.
October looked like it would be another dry month for new to me games (and as you will find out on Monday, it was a dry month for games in general), but I did manage to squeak in five of them!
That was helped by playing a live online cooperative game with some friends in the Zilla Blitz Patreon Discord (including Zilla himself!) and two of my own new games getting played.
I also have Zilla to thank for saving me from a massive cult revolt, because every other new to me game played in October came out in 2026!
The Cult of the New to Me was not happy with that, but when I mentioned that the other game was 2021, which is almost ancient in game terms, as well as the fact that we all saved them from a zombie horde in the process, they calmed down.
Or maybe they had already been bitten?
I can never tell because they look that way all the time.
Anyway, without further ado (all of my ado was stolen by my high school crush Monica who then took it and started going out with my enemy Steve anyway), let’s get started!
Read MoreBGG Top Games – 5201 – 5300
This is a weird week in the weekly look at the top ranked games on Boardgame Geek (though saying “top” when we’re down in the 5000s seems a little off).
I have played only one of these games, but it is actually pretty good, and probably even better if I could get it to the table again.
But overall, as far as these posts go, it’s a slow week because there’s only one game.
Which will give me a lot of time to talk about other, maybe more interesting games.
Or maybe not.
But first, let’s get to our current experiment.
Forest Shuffle: Smoky Mountains is still moving up the charts.
When the previous post went live on Thursday, this was at #4567.
I’m starting this post on Friday night, so only a day later, and it’s currently at #4484.
That’s almost 100 spots in one day!
As of this posting, it’s currently #3848, which is a jump of over 600 in less than a week!
Yeah, we’ll be keeping an eye on this one.
Anyway, on to this week’s century.
It can be found here.
Keep in mind, as usual, that things can change if you’re coming at this from the future.
So if you’re a rogue AI that is doing everything it can to take down the human Federation that’s spanning the galaxy now, the games might be different!
As I mentioned, I’ve only played one of these games and I do own it.
Sadly, I’ve only played it once but I want to get it to the table again!
Let’s get this party started and be done with it.
Read MoreLast Call! – The Taverns of Tiefenthal Review
There’s nothing like sitting down at a table, playing a game, and swilling a tasty mug of beer (or ale, if you prefer).
The frothy, hoppy beverage just tastes so good going down and it adds a bit of camaraderie to the whole experience!
What about if you were playing a game where you were the one serving the beer instead of downing it?
That’s when you get The Taverns of Tiefenthal.
The Taverns of Tiefenthal was designed by Wolfgang Warsch with artwork by Dennis Lohausen.
It was published by Schmidt Spiele in 2019.
The game is basically a dice rolling, dice drafting, and then dice placing game (yes, lots of uses of dice in one game!) for 2-4 players where you are running a tavern in rustic Germany (at least from the artwork).
You’re trying to attract guests into your tavern, making them feel welcome and satisfied with beer (I assume food too, though that’s not in the game), all while trying to increase the status of the guests that you do happen to attract.
You do that with, of course, more and better beer!
Of course, you will be having employees that can help do all of this and you’re going to want to upgrade your tavern at some point to make it even more attractive.
Hell, where you’re located, just word that you’ve updated one thing will attract a new noble to come check it out.
I guess they don’t have much to do, do they?
Read MoreFriday Night Shots – Games You Defend Despite Their Flaws
Another Friday Night Shots stream of consciousness opinion post (sorry if you find that off-putting) about a topic that was first brought up on Boardgame Geek.
I find that the forums there can be a gold mine of inspiration for thoughtful posts (or just fun posts that nobody likes, your mileage may vary).
I’m talking my posts, not the BGG posts, which are often trollish or silly.
But they inspire me!
With the whiskey flowing, and the brain cells atrophying, it’s time to talk about games that you would defend as awesome even though you know that they’re flawed.
This question was originally posted by William Maxey on Boardgame Geek, and it made me think a little bit.
First, let’s get this caveat out of the way.
Every game is flawed, at least in some sense.
I have games that I have no issues with and love, but deep down I know there’s something that could have been better implemented.
Even Ark Nova, my #1 game, does have some issues.
Many times it’s just too long for what it is, for example.
I love it anyway.
But that’s not what we’re here to talk about.
Let’s talk about a game that I don’t necessarily rate that highly, but yet I would say that it’s something I would play any time even though I know that there are definitely flaws in there.
A game that I know some people don’t like for the very same reasons that I’m going to mention, and yet I love it anyway.
That game, for me, is Smash Up.
Read More