This weekend, I get to geek out on gaming while I attend the 4th annual Geekway to the West gaming convention, which happens almost literally in my back yard.

I'll start early on Friday morning (8:00), come home late Friday evening (23:00), keep the same hours on Saturday, and finish up from 12:00 to 18:00 on Sunday.

I'm excited because I don't get to do tons of really serious gaming. Cat's really wonderful about letting me host periodic game nights, but those seem to fall about once per quarter, or less. We have some friends who live nearby, and they like to play games, so we bring out games when we hang out with them, which is quite frequent. But those games are necessarily lighter ones, which, while still fun, don't really scratch the itch that I get from time to time to really play a meaty game.

My last game night occurred in March, and we got to pull out Arkham Horror, which was a blast. If you're not familiar with the game, Arkham Horror is a cooperative game, where players work together to beat the game. It was a great dynamic in the group, as we could openly discuss strategy and tactics of each action and decide how we wanted to proceed in order to prevent an ancient evil power from awakening and devouring the earth, or placing all of her inhabitants into thrall, or something like that.

Cat very kindly played Twilight Struggle with me a few weeks later. It was confusing for her, at first, and was nearly a train wreck, but we pulled through, and her view of that game is now, "It's not that bad."

But back to this weekend. I'm really excited for a few reasons.

1. Last year's event was just great. Games non-stop from start to end. I won a raffle, even. Sweet.
2. This year's event is one full day longer. Need I say more?
3. Now that I know what to expect, I've spend some time on the internets, particularly at boardgamegeek.com, lining up some games beforehand.
4. That means that I know up front a good chunk of what I'll get to play. Here's what's on my plate, so far:
   • Combat Commander: Europe - Currently my very favorite game. I've got two games lined up.
   • Twilight Struggle - This is a TENSE game, simulating the Cold War. I'll play it at least once.
   • Nexus Ops - Super fun battle game
   • 18FL - this is one of a large collection of games known as 18xx. They're called train games, but the real focus is on stock manipulation, using train companies as the drivers for the market.
   • Tichu - this is a ladder/climbing card game. If you've played Scum/A$$hole/Revolution, you're familiar with the general thrust of this one. Tichu will be played in a tournament format this year.
5. The Trade Table - last year, I traded in a game I hadn't played in years (Samurai Swords) and brought home Memoir '44, which was a blast. I haven't played m44 in quite a while, but I credit that game with piquing my interest in tactical war games, and it's the one that set me on the path to CC:E, mentioned above. This year, I've got two (maybe 3) games to trade in, so we'll see what I get back.
6. The Play-to-Win Games - They have a selection of games that will be given to drawn winners at the end of the weekend. Just play it to get your name in the hat. My buddy Craig brought home a handful of games from this promotion last year.

So there it is. I'll post something after the event to let you know how it went, but I fully expect it to be a great time.