I've been considering moving my Gaiomon deck from a Red base to a Black one, but I just am not a fan of that bottom end. The BT8 Agumon is great, especially the alt-art version, but I prefer the DP+ red Koromon, the black Agumon X is too costly to hardplay, and I just prefer the ST1 Greymon which is an obligate Red digivolve. Wish there were a Red/Black SA+ Greymon, or one with a "2 from Agumon" evolve line.
For Digimon, we’re up through BT13. Thankfully prices in general have been falling, so individual sets are moderately more affordable and I’ve been able to close on some stragglers from my collection. Favorite decks lately have been Blue Flare and Gaiomon, but there’s a lot of fun variety.
I disassembled Angels and rebuilt Myotismon, but I’m not sold on it. Gotta do some testing but I might want to try a different build instead.
I made some status-tracking cards, for effects that last long enough into a turn you’d want a reminder. These are an update and refocus of a slightly earlier project. I just noticed some of these cards have a drop shadow and others don’t; I’ll fix that in my graphics files and keep it in my back pocket for if I want to have cards printed for another reason.
I recently ordered the remaining in-print Academy stuff I didn't have; two copies each of Druid, Elementalist, Monk, and Necromancer. The package arrived today and of course it's only a single copy of each. I've messaged Arcane Wonders, hopefully I'll get this addressed quickly. It's not as if I'm playing any time soon but it's still disappointing that I have to wait even longer.
Our tax return came in really quickly this year. I'm using most of my share on debt, but I did buy some computer monitors, a docking station, and attendant accessories. I'm finally going to have my perfect desk setup; plenty of screen real-estate, a clear desktop, and a quick and easy way to switch between my work and personal computers without moving a ton of cables around.
Looking forward, I'm hoping to be able to get BT11 at or near release, and I might want to get printed copies of the Academy Forcemaster and Warlord. Not committing to either, though; Joc and I are trying to hold each other responsible for nonessential purchases, so both will require a talk first. Of the two I'm more focused on Digimon.
In other games, my hobby focus for the foreseeable future is going to be on finalizing my Pathfinder house rules document, so I can move on to transcribing my Iron Gods game and actually play it for once. I'm incorporating a lot of third-party Akashic material, and a good chunk of it is revisions to Akashic Mysteries itself. Consequently I've decided to just lift over most of the book and collect it as "Ultimate Akashic", in the same vein as Dreamscarred's Ultimate Psionics. Particularly, this'll let me rename the base classes and scrub off AM's ill-advised layer of orientalist paint. I might even release it as a PWYW on DriveThru. I'm not quite solid on that yet, though. Most of it would be reprinted rules from other works, which seems rude even if permissible by OGL. For another, I'd be taking a heavy editorial hand to that content, modifying or cutting things I don't like - whether because I think they're thematically incoherent, redundant, poorly written, or excessively overdesigned. It might be Ultimate Akashic at my table, but that title might come across as a bit pretentious in the wider community. Also, putting in the work to catalog my changes and get Section 15 properly filled out doesn't seem especially rewarding. We'll see.
My Digimon collection is in a pretty good place right now, all considered. Only truly expensive stuff is still uncollected. I think that for future releases, at least in the mid-term, I'm going to hold off on buying them for a bit. Unless I hear about availability shortages or something, I suppose. Joc and I are investigating the possibility of getting a house (!) so I'll be saving any collection expansion until after we've figured out what the deal is there.
I did retire MaloMyotismon and build a Blue Flare deck. Hopefully soon Joc'll be through with her more pressing work and we can have some hobby nights. Really want to play some Digimon soon.
Got BT10 in last weekend, pretty happy with the results. The set is blessedly pretty cheap compared to BT9, in terms of singles. Didn't even break $90 on the slush-buy, and that with accidentally overbuying the MetalGreymon this set. A lot of expensive promos have dropped in price, too - Sunarizamon under $10! - but I'm holding off for now.
Deck updates will be nice, particularly for the Sakuyamon Plug-In deck. Also have touch-ups for Bugs and Cyborgs. As for new decks, I like the look of Blue Flare and Bagra Army, but for now I'm just building out Canoweissmon. Gonna add Kimeramon and one of the early WarGreymons - probably BT1 since it protects from Options. My brother might build out a proper RagnaLoardmon deck, too, which looks fun.
EX3 is hitting next month. Love me some dragons, and there's a great piece for Cyborgs.
We played Dinogenics this weekend when that brother visited, and let me tell you I had a lot of fun. I was afraid it had too much going on but it played really well. Hoping to hit a higher player count at Thanksgiving.
Bought some Mage Wars this weekend for real cheap, so I've decided to fill out the core 4 for both Arena and Academy. Working out what I ought to consider a "complete" collection has been fun, it'll be easier with the cards layed out in front of me. Going for a "complete experience" as opposed to "complete collection" thing here, if that makes sense. Never played much of it before but I love tactical and card games, pretty hard to say "no" to mixing that peanut butter with this chocolate. I may branch out to add the Druid vs Necromancer stuff, but that strongly depends on the final collection layout I settle on - if I need doubles, those get too costly very quickly, even at the steep discounts I'm finding online.
I ordered a Berserk Fury Zoid earlier this year, and it finally shipped, two months later than it really ought to have. That'll be a fun build, eventually. I really ought to plan out a couple nights on biweekly schedules so I touch my various hobby projects and play my verious games reasonably often. Hopefully as the boys get older actually pulling that off gets easier.
Got BT9 opened last night and made my customary finishing order. No SECs and I didn't buy any - they're sitting at ~$30 each, so that's what, $250 for eight cards? No thanks. I did finish out the promo Gammamons and Hiros, though, in anticipation of getting BT10 and building Canoweissmon.
What I'm really disappointed about price-wise is the promo Okuwamon from the Update Pack included with each box. That's running $25 and it'd be perfect for my Insectoids deck, but I just cannot justify that price point.
I'm bringing alt-arts with me this Thursday to try and trade for some EX2 AAs for Joc's Renamon deck, maybe someone'll have Okuwamons for trade.
This set has pieces for Shoutmon Blitz, Armor, Garurumon, Cats & Angels, Insects, Alphamon, and Machinedramon. Gonna take a look at each later, see if I can't expand them out. I am missing some of the pieces I'd want to use, but it's a start. I also really like Gaiomon, might try and slap together a BlackWarGreymon deck.
I've tweaked most of my decks, and made several completely brand-new ones, so over the course of the next few days I'll be posting deck techs for each of them. The only one that's unchanged from the version currently on this site is Eosmon Yellow. I do have some thoughts on that one, below, but nothing I've committed to. I've also got some prognosticatory deck ideas fot BT9 and BT10.
Got our BT8 preorder in today, and it was a decent pull. Also got the starters plus the entire rest of the set ordered. I considered getting some other expensive cards that have fallen in price, but I think I'm gonna have to hold on those a bit longer - we're still talking $10-20 cards in playsets. Hopefully their prices will continue downward; maybe rotation will finally hit and some of these will be affordable.
Gotta think about what needs updating. I think this is the shortlist;
There are a couple other neat bits or buildarounds that might be worth investigating, and Veemon Armor looks like it could be fun. Several of the Veemons are tied up in Blue/Green Imperialdramon though.
Next set on the horizon is EX2, which we have to get because it's Tamers themed. After that I'm mildly interested in BT9 - X-Antibody plus the remaining Armor digivolves that didn't fit here. I might have to be much more conservative post-EX2, though, if only because childcare eats up so much of our budget. Hopefully my wife will be moving up the ladder at her job, and it sure would be nice for me to get a cost-of-living raise…
In other news, lots of Jurassic Park things happening. Dr. Sattler vs. T Rex finally shipped, and there've been reports of copies of the JWMG in the wild, in Europe at least. Hopefully that'll come here soon too. That'll be fun to review, but I'd like to trick it out with some tokens and sleeves, and I already covered finances.
I'm hoping we hear more about MonPoc soon too.
