My tale of thrift shopping regret

In my previous post, I mentioned a regret I had of not buying a certain game I came across while perusing a thrift store. Here's my story about that.

At the time I was working on the edge of downtown Lethbridge and my workplace was within walking distance of three thrift stores. One or two days a week I would walk to one of them during my lunch hour and peruse the games and tools. One day I went to the Salvation Army. I was looking through the games section and came across one called Star Wars: Epic Duels. Just the fact that it was Star Wars was enough to draw my attention. I picked it up and saw that it was a Milton Bradley creation. This immediately became a point against buying the game as I felt like this box I was holding contained one of those terrible games with almost no fun factor that come rushing out of the big game-makers and toy companies at the release of the movies they are merchandising. And I've seen Star Wars related titles that easily fall into this category.

Image gleaned from boardgamegeek.com.

Of course, one shouldn't judge a book (game) by the cover and the reputation of the publisher, so I opened it to get a better sense of the game. It was like opening a big bag of chips; full of air. There were a few miniatures that were done just well enough to be recognizable as the characters they portrayed. There were a bunch of cards and some smallish-looking battle maps as well. I don't know if it was so, but I had the distinct impression that the game was incomplete and that was strike two.

I thought about how nice it would have been to check on BGG to see if the game was generally liked. I might have decided to look it up when I got back to work, but probably forgot to do so. On the other hand, I had recently purchased some other games while thrifting. One was Kriegspiel (a low-rated game and one I could never get myself excited about trying). Another was Colosseum (a highly-rated game, and for good reason). I was feeling that I needed to slow down my thrift-store game buying because of a growing collection of games versus and the space restrictions at home. With the first two strikes considered, I didn't want to add another possibly un-fun or unplayable game to the mix. So that made strike three.

Thus, I did not buy the game. A gamble that would only have cost me $1.50.

The thing about regrets is that you can't have them unless you know what you are missing as a result of the regretted action. So the rest of the story is how I came to that knowledge that turned that one decision into a regretted one.

Some years later, Jenni and I took the kids out to see Jenni's relations in Victoria. During the visit, we went to her cousin's house. They are gamers (he even develops game apps) and after eating, we settled in to play a few. One they pulled out was Star Wars: Epic Duels. Their kids were excited to play and we had no problem filling out a 6-player game.

If I remember right, the make-up of the game was a fight on the Geonosis battle map. The light side combatants were Anakin and Padme, Windu and clones, and Luke and Leia against the dark side forces of Palpatine and guards, Vader and storm troopers, and Boba Fett and Greedo (played by me).

I was a cruel opponent, shamed for claiming the first kill of the battle which also happened to put the youngest player at the table out of the game. I choked back the emotions continued a strategy consisting mainly of hit and run maneuvers and rocket attacks that whittled down the light side who could only direct their retaliations against my team mates.

I really enjoyed the game. I liked the balance of luck and strategy and thought they worked well for a skirmish situation. I liked the way the battle decks were customized to their respective characters, with special actions that reflected the fighting styles of the movie characters. I liked how easy the rules were and how quickly it played, as the youngest of the kids playing was 6 or so, rules were easily grasped and attention was easily kept.

Talking with Jenni's cousin afterward, we found out that his wife had purchased the game for him as a gift and that she didn't want to say what she spent on it. Looking at Ebay just a couple of days ago ('cause I'm curious again, maybe hopeful even), the least expensive option of a complete game was $95 plus shipping.

So that's the regretful part: what I might have had had I taken that lowly chance those years ago.

I no longer work in Lethbridge, so my thrift store shopping visits have been drastically cut. And the times I do go, there is nothing interesting to me, just a lot of Trivial Pursuits, Scene Its, and the other usual thrift store fodder. The chances of seeing this game, or anything else I'd be interested in, are practically nil. Therefore, I have somewhat shifted my gaming acquisitions to games I can build and since my interests have been gravitating toward skirmish games, I decided to make some figures to help in that regard. Then, thinking about introducing the kids to such games, I thought again about Epic Duels.

Twenty-one years ago my brother went to a friend's house and played Axis and Allies and told me all about it when he came home. After that, I drew my own map and made my own units and filled in what he couldn't remember about the rules to make a homebrew A&A. No sense in deviating from that kind of creativity now. There is a website devoted to Epic Duels and its contributors have developed many alternate duelist teams and duel locations and made them available to print. So that's what I've decided to do. Make my own version of the game. Currently, I'm staying away from the original pairings, in case I somehow can acquire the original game for less than $120, and focusing on other characters from shows and books, like Ahsoka and Grand Admiral Thrawn.

I mention Ahsoka and Thrawn because those are the first two characters that I have now modified some Heroclix to represent. Thrawn is currently all painted, though I've been thinking of adding an ysalamiri to the sculpt. Ahsoka has a base coat. I think I've got a simple enough idea to do Rukh (Thrawn's personal bodyguard and minor character match-up in the unofficial Epic Duels line-up).  Of course, Heroclix scale are much bigger than the figure scale in Epic Duels, so I would want to have different figures if I did acquire the original game anyway. I'll cross that bridge if I get there.

Of course, I have ideas for other characters from outside the Star Wars franchise.

My only issue is whether I can stay on target long enough to make something fun and playable within a reasonable amount of time.

Pictures of mods to come with a later post.