Due to multiple winter storms, MSG is operating on a restricted basis through Tuesday, February 12th. It is possible that a number of scheduled game sessions will be canceled during that time.

If you do come to MSG, be advised that the main entrance route is steep and still has ice on it. Be cautious for black ice and pay attention to the weather forecast.

W. Nickerson Street is mostly clear except between lanes.

Unless you are driving a four wheel drive vehicle we advise you not to attempt to exit by driving up the main access route. See the club map for the alternate approach route.

Below are some photos taken on Sunday morning. One group did meet at the club today with reduced attendance.

Main Route from 11th Ave. W. - not advised for two wheel drive vehicles going uphill. Given the slope, pedestrians are advised to be very cautious, or to not come by this route.

Alternate Route, 6th Ave. W to W. Ewing Pl. and going west along the canal waterfront - This route is level but snow covered. Two wheel drive cars should be able to handle this route; the problem for pedestrians is the length of the walk. Pedestrians should exercise reasonable caution when crossing snow-covered ground.

The parking lot itself is level with snow, ice, and slush. Once on the dock, the pedestrian access is under a roof and snow free.

The Seattle Department of Transportation has extended the closures at this intersection through to November 5th.

The interchange at W Nickerson St and 15th Ave W will be closed for 2 more weekends (Friday, October 26 - Monday, October 29 and Friday, November 2 - Monday, November 5). Please follow the posted detour routes below. From Monday, October 22 at 5 AM until Friday, October 26 at 9 AM, and from Monday, October 29 at 5 AM until Friday, November 2 at 9 AM, you can expect all movements at this intersection will reopen and remain accessible. Construction work will continue to happen around the intersection, but all movements will be accessible.

From Friday, October 26 at 9 AM until Monday, October 29 at 5 AM, and from Friday, November 2 at 9 AM until Monday, November 5 at 5 AM, you can expect closed movements at W Nickerson St and 15th Ave W including:

A. Northbound 15th Ave W to eastbound W Nickerson St 

B. Westbound W Nickerson St to W Emerson Pl Overpass (Fishermen's Terminal)*

C. Eastbound W Emerson Pl to northbound 15th Ave W

D. Westbound W Nickerson St to northbound 15th Ave W

E. Eastbound W Emerson Pl to eastbound W Nickerson St 

*Please note that northbound 15th Ave W to westbound W Emerson Pl Overpass (Fishermen's Terminal) will remain open during weekend work. 

The D Road (southbound onramp from W Nickerson St to 15th Ave W) will be closed Monday, October 29 through Thursday, November 1 from 9 AM to 3 PM for street repairs and utility maintenance. Please follow the posted detour.

This work is weather dependent. Typical work hours are Monday - Thursday 7 AM-10 PM; Friday 9 AM-10 PM, Saturday and Sunday 7 AM-9 PM.

For further information, please consult

http://www.seattle.gov/transportation/projects-and-programs/programs/maintenance-and-paving/current-paving-projects/nickerson

The Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) has partially closed the intersection between Nickerson Street and 15th Avenue West. This is the complex intersection at the south end of the Ballard Bridge. This is the final phase of the city's Nickerson Street repaving project. Weather permitting, the closure is scheduled for October 5th until October 22nd.

In the graphic above, routes A, C, and E will be open Monday - Thursday and will be closed at other times. All other lettered routes above will be closed for the entire period. Connections not lettered above will remain open at all times.

Bus detours on W Nickerson St (Routes #29 and 31)

King County Metro Bus #29 and 31 will be rerouted from W Nickerson St to 14th Ave W and then to W Dravus St, intermittently. To accommodate this, street parking on 14th Ave W will be suspended temporarily. 

For further information, including the official detour routes, please refer to SDOT's website on the project.

http://www.seattle.gov/transportation/projects-and-programs/programs/maintenance-and-paving/current-paving-projects/nickerson

MSG Member Thomas Prowell's latest game, #POTUS: Battle for the Trump White House has just launched its Kickstarter drive with new local publisher HGN Games.

Players represent one of 4 factions trying to get their bills passed while dealing with individual personalities, investigations, and the inevitable Presidential Tweet. Each faction behaves differently and there are opportunities for strange alliances. 

This is game is the first in HGN's projected Fighting Factions series. Future planned titles include The Death of Stalin, a game of 1953 Soviet Politburo politics, and Team of Rivals, a game of Lincoln's cabinet in the Civil War.

Call for nominations to the Board of Directors: We have two seats on the Board of Directors up for election this year. As a non-profit corporation, Dragonflight is ultimately run by a five-person board, elected on a rotating basis for three year terms. The seats up for election are currently held by Amy Gembala and John Poole. The term will be 1 January 2019 through 31 December 2021.

Nominations may be made by e-mailing dfelection@dragonflight.org. You must be a current member to nominate and the nominee must also be a current member. You may nominate yourself. Nominations are due by 5 pm on 10 August 2018. The election will be held at the Dragonflight convention, 24-26 August 2018. The two candidates with the most number of validated votes will be the winners and will be certified by the Board of Directors at the September 2018 Board Meeting.

Two games that have been developed at Metro Seattle Gamers are scheduled to see publication this spring:

Gallipoli, 1915: Churchill's Greatest Gamble realistically covers the first three days of the campaign, a time of wild maneuver, of decisive attacks parried by the timely arrival of reinforcements, and the onset of trench warfare. The map covers the entire peninsula from north of Anzac Cove to Cape Helles, based on the 1922 British Ordnance Survey. Players can choose to land at the historical beaches, or create their own plans.

 This game is designed by MSG member Geoffrey Phipps.

Hitler's Reich is the first of the Card Conquest System game series in which players recreate epic military contests of history in short, comparatively simple and easy to learn, but hard to master games.  Designed to be set up in minutes and played to conclusion in one sitting, these are not simulations but games, albeit ones packed with enough historical flavor, excitement, and decision making to give you the feeling of being there at the highest levels of command.

Former MSG attendee Fred Schacter is the developer of this game.

You may want to check these games out on the GMT website; use the hyperlinks above to do so. 

Another game developed at MSG that has "made the cut" on GMT's P500 list is The Seven Years War: Frederick's Gamble. The release date for this game has not yet been set.

 

This news is a little bit old but should be relayed because MSG members participated in its playtesting:

Illusions of Glory was published in 2017.

Illusions of Glory: The Great War on the Eastern Front is the latest Card Driven Game to simulate the Great War in Europe.  First came the award-winning legendary Paths of Glory by Ted Raicer, which simulates the entire war in Europe and the Middle East which is now a convention favorite.  It was followed by the well-received Pursuit of Glory, designed by Brad and Brian Stock, which focuses on the war in the Near East.  Illusions of Glory takes this proven game system to a new and exciting level by applying its focus to the Eastern Front.

MSG members Luther Harris and Ha Lee participated in the playtesting. Former MSG attendee Fred Schacter is the game's developer.

A special thanks to Fred for sending the club a complimentary copy of the game.

 

The annual membership meeting for Metro Seattle Gamers was held on November 18th. The general manager and treasurer presented reports explaining the process and rationale that led to the club's recent move to the Nickerson Marina Building, plans for the short-to-medium term management of the club, and a financial summary showing that the club is ahead of the fiscal plan associated with this move. These reports and the minutes are now on file in the Members Only Content section of this website.

The following officers were elected for 2018:

Secretary: Geoffrey Phipps

Treasurer: Stephen Graham

General Manager: Scot McConnachie

The other principal matter for discussion was the planning for the club's furniture drive. New tables and shelves are desired while preserving the flexibility of the space for different game setups. A couple of pre-built options for replacing the live game storage system, map cabinets and the IKEA modular wardrobe system, were rejected in favor of the club improving its current storage system or ultimately self-building a new system. Options before the club include retaining on-site storage for bulkier items, such as miniatures terrain. There was a consensus in favor removing the bulkier items from visibility in the club's space.

In other business, the club tightened up its personal food storage policy and will resume its search for a replacement refrigerator. 

Dragonflight, the Pacific Northwest’s longest running tabletop game convention, is still accepting events to be included in our schedule. The convention will be held from Friday, August 25^th to Sunday, August 27^th, 2017.

This will be the 38^th annual convention run by our namesake volunteer and non-profit organization. We are looking for additional volunteers to join us by offering boardgames, roleplaying games, wargames, and miniatures events to share with our membership. Situated in the comfortable and spacious Bellevue Hilton, the Dragonflight annual convention offers our members an excellent opportunity to find opponents, to showcase games of interest, to seek greater competition, to enhance skills in the art of scenario creation, and to otherwise express ourselves with the incredibly creative and beautiful games that populate our hobby. Dragonflight proudly remains a general gaming convention: while many conventions specialize in one game format or the other, we continue to offer opportunities for cross fertilization between the different formats of tabletop games. Last year’s convention was our largest convention yet: we hope that you will join the rest of our hardworking volunteers to make this year’s convention even better!

Registering to Attend the Convention

To submit an event please first register to attend this year’s convention, the price of which includes a required membership in the Dragonflight organization. For more registration information please consult the convention registration page:

Dragonflight Registration Information Page

As of this time Dragonflight is using TableTop.Events for registering to attend the convention. If you have not done so already you will need to set up a user account on that system. Here is a link to do that:

Dragonflight User Account Setup Page

We strongly encourage attendees to stay at the hotel, both because of overnight gaming activities, as well as to support the convention. Hotel information may be found on the following web page:

Dragonflight Hotel Information Page

The link to get the special conference hotel rate is here:

Dragonflight Conference Rate Hotel Page

Submitting an Event

Here is the convention page with information for event hosts:

Dragonflight Convention Host Information

To submit events to the convention please log in to your convention user account. Your convention user account is used to submit events to the schedule and to sign up to attend specific events. Here is the convention page that you will want to log onto:

Dragonflight 38 TableTop.Events Main Page

When an event is submitted the event will be subject to review by the convention staff prior to it being put into the schedule.

Submission Deadline

The deadline to submit events for the main convention program is August 10^th.  To maximize the chance of one’s game gaining players, submitters of events are urged to meet this deadline. Event submissions received after this date may make it into the schedule but will not be in the printed program.

Further Inquiries

To make further inquiries about running events at Dragonflight, or volunteering on the staff, please consult the following web page:

Dragonflight Staff Contact Information

We hope that you will join the Dragonflight community of gamers to make this our best convention yet!

For further information about the Dragonflight convention, the Dragonflight organization, and our other activities, please consult

www.dragonflight.org

Metro Seattle Gamers has moved to 

The Nickerson Marina Building
Suite 200D
1080 West Ewing Place
Seattle, Washington

This new location will be a step up in the quality of our facilities. MSG is only partly operational at this time (the phone does not yet work, for example) but we expect to be up to speed within the next several days.

MSG has completely vacated the Interbay facility. We will miss the sign.