The "plan" for 2013

So, here we are at the end of another year and the start of another. Like many others I like to try and give myself some direction for the coming year and set some goals, but, also like many others, my plans usually don't survive first contact with the next shiny new thing to come around the corner! However, we'll try it again for 2013. In no particular order, the finalists are :- 

• Dystopian Legions - This is one of the new shiny things I was talking about! But I really like the models  and the game looks pretty solid, so I intend to build out my British army for it and see how it goes.
• Malifaux - I finally got to play this in 2012, but I never really got going with it properly. I want to finish off the figures I have for it and maybe get a few more. Thankfully this will require very little monetary commitment, it's just the painting time required.
• Infinity - Another skirmish game that I really like the look of. So much that I have bought a number of the Bakunin Nomads and am in the process of acquiring a bunch more Corregidor. Of those, enough are painted to start playing right away, so that's quite high on the priority play list!
• Force on Force - This is a no brainer. I probably played more FoF this year than any other game and I want to keep it up. So, expect more of the Murdistan campaign and hopefully some Mogadishu games, too.
• Maurice - This is a bit of a difficult one. I got a 10mm starter army from Pendraken and starter basing them on 25mm squares, but it turns out that George has 15mm figures already. The only other folk I could play have theirs based on 30mm squares. I'll probably complete the figures I have, but it remains to be seen where we go with this.
• Super Heroes - I really want to do some Supers gaming this year. Whether this be SuperSystem or Pulp City I don't care! :) I have enough figures that I could just acquire the SuperSystem rules and actually get a game, but Pulp City is also very tempting. I know that some folk at the G3 club play PC, so I could probably just proxy some Supremes to give it a try.
• Zombies - This is mostly just for solo gaming, but the numbers of zombies required means I may not get this off the ground too soon! In fact, if there's anything that is going to drop off the radar then this is most likely it!
• And the rest - Vikings, cowboys, boardgames and everything else that will take my fancy at the time!

So there we have it! Let's see just how much actually gets completed by this time next year! I'll also try to keep my post rate up and perhaps even post more. I managed more posts in 2012 than either of the previous and my hit count and members have increased accordingly. This isn't the most prolific blog in the world, compared to some, but I try to post a variety of things and keep it interesting, so thanks to all you readers for looking and making it worth doing. Please keep reading as I am approaching my 100th post and I intend to give a little something back to one of you when I hit that landmark!

The nearly finished KoB Line Infantry to whet the palette, so to speak!

Run out the guns!

Today was my annual festive season game with James and Carl. For the past couple of years we've tried to play something that doesn't get trotted out very often and this year we decided to revisit Trafalgar, the Napoleonic naval game from Warhammer Historical. This set of rules was actually the game that featured in the very first post on this blog, which shows how long ago it was we played. Unfortunately, in that time I've not painted any more ships, so the OOB was the same, but we played a different scenario. In this, the Royal Navy, under Admiral James, was trying to capture the moustache-twirling scourge of the Carribean - the Spaniard Don Carlos! There was a simple, small island in the middle and the wind was blowing from the East as the Spanish ran North into a Royal Navy ambush.

The two Spanish ships run with the wind as the Royal Navy attempt a pincer move.

Don Carlos places the San Justo (74) between the enemy and his prize vessel, the mighty Santa Ana (112).

The two larger RN 3rd rates, HMS Caesar (80) and HMS Captain (74) turn to cut off the escape route while HMS Agamemnon (64) rounds the island in pursuit.

Caesar and Captain engage San Justo, which turns into the enemy  to divert attention from Santa Ana.

Caesar and Captain pass San Justo on both sides and deliver  devastating broadsides which knock out her rudder. She  will never recover and took no further part in the battle. Santa Ana turns to make her escape as Agamemnon races in.

Caesar and Captain execute a beautiful turn and  prepare to punish the Spanish 1st rate with  a stern rake!

Santa Ana limps away, her hull ablaze, but Caesar and Captain are now worryingly far behind. Agamemnon strives to gain a position, but, crucially, the wind starts to turn into the ships and we all have to start to tack. As the Spanish sailors manage to deal with the blaze, the Royal Navy have lost the initiative.

Santa Ana sustains another broadside from Agamemnon, but lives to tell the tale! She sets full sail and stretches out a lead which the British cannot close quickly enough.

A good, fun game was had by all! Both Spanish ships were very roughly handled but managed to make good there escape, giving Carl a narrow victory. Santa Ana escaped with just a single hull point left! We all really enjoyed it and vowed to not let it wait another two years before we played again. And who knows...I might even paint another ship or two by then!

Ghost of games past and future

Last Tuesday was a really nostalgic games night for me. For the first time in about 15 years I played a game of Blood Bowl. Now, Games Workshop gets a lot of flak for their marketing and business practices (£45 for 4 resin figures...!) but people can sometimes forget that they actually used to make some very solid games. I would always rate Blood Bowl and Space Hulk among the best miniature board games ever. I recall many games of Blood Bowl at my friends house using the second edition with the hard core rules, so that games went four quarters and lasted hours! Brilliant stuff!

And then, a few years ago, I made the most elementary error any wargamer can make! I sold my teams on eBay, thinking I would never play Blood Bowl again! Cut to a couple of months ago and I'm collecting my copy from the local GW store! D'oh! However, Michael from the Phoenix club got wind of this and also got a copy and bought about 5 painted teams on eBay, so at long last we were ready to take to the pitch and bash each other's brains out! And you know what? It's still as much fun as I remembered!

The crowds cheer as the players line up for the kick off...

...and the carnage begins!

I was playing Undead versus Dwarves! This was not a running game! :)

I'd actually never played an Undead team before, so it was a bit of a learning curve, but it was fun! I really liked them and might actually pick up one. The other team I have my eye on is a Shadowforge Elf Team.

So, that was my ghost of games past! But what of the ghost of games future? Well, a wee game called Dystopian Legions has popped onto my radar and I simply couldn't resist...!

The first Kingdom of Britannia section is on the paint table already!

Santa's Sleigh Dash - Festive 7TV Fun

Last Tuesday was the last night at the club for 2012 due to us getting kicked out for panto season! So, George thought it would be nice to lay on a  bit of seasonal fare with a 7TV game. I'd never played it before, but George has run a couple of games so I was in safe hands. The scenario....eeerr, I mean plot...was as follows:

Somewhere near the North Pole...

...some cheap BBC style effects have been employed!

The good guys move towards the shack. Apparently a UFO carrying a rotund alien clothed in red and white has been shot down by the Russians. It is imperative that the technology for such an amazing vessel is recovered.

But they are not alone! The villainous Lana Serv and her accomplice Travers lead in the Coalition of Evil!

The dastardly Guru follows his trusty Fembot towards the projected location of the crash site.

Some trusty Snow Troopers cover the flank of the forces of good.

Two Iron Comrades make sounds like the probe droid from Star Wars as they float towards the friendly trappers! These mechanical monsters would pin down the good guys on this side for the whole game.

A charismatic alien known to his friends as 'The Medic' is mercilessly cut down as he finds the crash site, He will surely regenerate into a different model in time for the next episode.

The Snow Troopers desperately try to pin the Guru down, but his mental powers blast the mind of one after another, leaving them dazed and confused!

I really enjoyed this game. 7TV was a lot of fun despite the fact we left out the gadgets for simplicity sake. It's a pretty easy game to pick up and the 'audience appreciation' points and event cards add a lot of theme. I look forward to playing it again when we may see the goodies try to recover the fat, red alien's navigation device.

Leibster Blog Awards

So, there seems to be an award thingie doing the blog rounds where bloggers can give the nod to other bloggers that they have found to either be useful or entertaining, or whatever. I was really surprised to see my little blog receive this award, as it's hardly a titan in the field like Anatolis Games Room or The Angry Lurker! But it was a really nice gesture from Caliban (aka Paul) so I'll accept graciously and post my choices, although I'm struggling to see a blog in my watch list that hasn't already been nominated!

The rules:

- Copy and paste the award on your blog, linking it to the blogger who has given it to you.
- Pass the award to your top five favourite blogs with fewer than 200 followers by leaving a comment on one of their blog posts to notify them that they have won the award and list them on your own blog.
- Sit back and bask in that warm fuzzy feeling that comes with knowing that you have just made someone's day.
- There is no obligation to pass this onto anyone else but it is nice if you do.

My nominations are:-

• Shed Wars - This is a very interesting blog covering the FIW mostly. As this is something I'm looking at (I have Muskets & Tomahawks) then I found this most inspirational.
• Pulp Citizen - This is mostly about Pulp City. I don't play it (yet) but I like the genre and the site has lots of nice pictures and very entertaining batreps.
• Hard Boiled Zombies - Another genre that I really want to break into is zombies! I have ATZ and some 15mm figures and the batreps here are very entertaining and inspirational.
• Colgar6 and the Infinite Legion of Toy Soldiers - Keeping with the zombie theme, but also with a healthy dose of cowboy action! It's almost criminal that this blog doesn't have more followers!
• Dales Wargames - Lots of Flames of War and Commands and Colors thoughts and analysis. Definitely worth a read if you're into either of these systems.

General Store in the Works

Another wee update on the World Works Games terrain. Here we have a General Store over two stories. As you can see, the second story just sits on the first so you can easily lift it off. The quality of the textures is first class and I'm really looking forward to getting more done. I have a dozen more floor tiles to finish and I'l probably concentrate on more tiles until I have at least 3 foot square.

Single story on the four tiles.

Roof off. The stairs look quite nice inside.

Built up to 2 stories. There will be a balcony on the front when finished.

The stairs are now outside. The edging is still to be done, too.

The roof is off. I like the rug on this tile.

As you can see, the stories just lift off.

All the above...yes, all of it...comes apart to just this little pile! 

Connectors, posts, anchors...oh my!

I did some more cutting, folding and gluing last night. It seemed like I was doing it for an eternity with little progress, but I realised that I was actually doing the most fiddly bits - the anchors and posts. In the end, it turns out I made enough anchors to do my two tiles with plenty left over, all from one sheet. It was tedious, but easy. The posts were a bit more of a challenge. It was relatively straightforward to cut them (after reading the instructions - this is recommended!), but I found that folding them was a little difficult, as the dual layer of card means the outer layer doesn't quite wrap around the inner correctly. I'm sure there's a knack to it, but it was a little frustrating. It meant that I had to colour in a bit more than just the edge, but once assembled it all looked pretty good! I also tried a single wall and that was really quick to do, which is encouraging. It means that once I get enough posts and anchors done, I should be able to churn out the rest of the terrain pretty quickly!

The tiles all conncected. You can actually hold them up!

Rear shot showing the connectors in place.

Anchors attached and posts in place. The wall is complete. The stairs I did a couple of nights ago.

All assembled. Inside...

...and out!

Some terrain is on the cards!

Fuelled by the insane amount of fun we had with the Wild West game the other week, I decided to try and add some terrain into the mix. However, I don't have a lot of space to store large gaming pieces, so I thought I'd give the modular paper terrain offered by World Works Games a try. One of my boardgaming friends has a lot of paper terrain and his setups look stunning, so it seemed like a worthwhile thing to embark on. I've completed 6 of the tiles, which measure 6 inches square, but it did take me a bit longer than I'd have liked. I think that it'll get quicker with more practice, though. And I have to say, I am pleased with the result:

The 4 floor tiles. A building will sit on the wooden one.

These 2 extra tiles will provide the first floor and the roof.

Gunfight at the Triple-G Corral

Played an excellent game of The Rules With No Name at the G3 Club tonight. George has quite a wee horde of cowboys and I managed to finish another few for my own gang, so we thought we'd duke it out Wild West style! Also taking part was my brother, Carl, so we had a three way shoot out at the Triple-G Corral!

The quiet town of Woodside doesn't know what is about to hit it!

The terrain was placed as above and my gang, the Barons, entered bottom left in the pic. Carl's gang, the Hogfields, entered in the next corner counter-clockwise and George, the Jones', from the far side corner. The common objective was a stash of loot being held by a suitable villainous character in the hotel in the top left of the picture. The scenario had a wee twist though. I decided that a neat way of counting VPs would be using playing cards, especially as we used poker chips for activation. Each time your gang kills another character then you get to draw a card, with numbered cards worth 1, face cards worth 2 and aces worth 3. But cards are also playable, with numbers allowing a re-roll, faces allowing you to roll 2 dice and pick the result and aces allowing you to declare a single dice to be whatever you want. So you can gain advantage but at a cost in VPs. The other wee twist is that each gang hates one of the others, in a cyclic way. So the Barons hate the Hogfields who hate the Jones' who hate the Barons. You get to draw an extra card if you plug one of your hated foes!

So on to the game. Each gang immediately made a beeline for the hotel, but Carl moved one bandito towards my corner. I duly activated one of my gunmen and took a potshot at long range. Scooter had obviously been down the range, as his bullet took the hated Hogfield lackey straight between the eyes. I then sent Beauregard Baron, my shootist, to my right to make sure of him and get into the Hogfield's flank.

"Yup! He's dead, Pa!"

"Boss! Them Joneses are over here!"

"Well, don't just stand there, you stoopid dawg! Shoot 'em!"

Meanwhile, the rest of the Hogfields had made it into range of the Jones' and began firing wildly. George had a bit of a slow start and got a little bogged down in a fire fight. My legend Uncle Jess and Lucas were closing in on the hotel. From their position they got a good view of the action unfolding between the Hogfields and Jones' but were a bit too far away to intervene. However, their proximity to the hotel would pay dividends later!

"Look, Uncle Jess! We caught 'em blindsided!"

Making a break from the gunfight, George's Legend, Frank Jones, made a run for the hotel and made it first, bursting in on the target. A quick draw duel saw the rich land owner wounded. As the gunshots rang out in the hotel, Uncle Jess told Lucas to cover the back of the hotel.

"Knock, knock!"

"Holy cow! There's more of 'em coming!" BLAM! BLAM!

Back over at the Hogfields, a couple of barrels of grapeshot from Bill Elder, a Jones gunman, saw Bull Duvall, a Hogfield gunman, wounded. He lost his nerve and cowered behind the stables for the rest of the fight.

"Momma!"

"Who wants some more?"

Hearing the gunshots from the hotel, Jesse Jones ran to help his brother out, but he didn't count on Lucas Baron who had been skulking around the corner of the hotel. As Jesse neared the door Lucas leaped out and shot him clean through the head!

"Oh no you don't!" BLAM!

Things were now finely in the balance. Just as his brother was gunned down, Frank finished off his mark and seized the loot. If he could make it off the table, George could still win, despite the Jones gang being sorely roughed up. The Hogfields were still bogged down trying to pick off the last Jones', but trouble was brewing for him as Beauregard and Scooter Baron were moving up behind them.

"Ol' Scooter's got you now!" BLAM!

BLAM! "I'll take that loot!"

The last picture above shows Frank Jones finishing his mark off, but under the balcony lurks Uncle Jess Baron. Frank was the first to activate and ran out of the hotel, past Lucas and straight towards the board edge. But just not quite far enough. Crucially, Uncle Jess activated and claimed an action chip which let him activate again! He darted from his cover and let fly with his sawn-off shotgun!

BOOM! BOOM!

In a nail-biting finale, the buckshot caught Frank Jones dead in his back and killed him outright. Uncle Jess ran over, grabbed the loot and was off like a hare! Lance Hogfield, Carl's Legend, managed to wound Bo and Scooter, but it was too late. The loot had fallen into the clutches of the Baron gang and was gone!

This was a most fun and entertaining game. The Rules With No Name give a really fun game with lots of flavour. Sure, there are is the oddity of only moving in a straight line, but I think it makes you consider your moves a lot more and I actually quite like it. Certainly, this game was very cinematic and had lots of high drama and tension and we all came away from it grinning like the proverbial Cheshire cat! I think we definitely have the beginnings of a campaign here and next we'll start to add in more gang members and give the ones that survived this scuffle some skills. All in all, I'd highly recommend this rules set for anyone thinking about gaming the Wild West!