Dance Card

Would you look at that I've actually added a new page! Nothing too stunning, a showcase page for my current gaming.

The last batch Tuesday night's at Enfield Gamers I've been playing through  the first three rounds of the club's Infinity campaign during I have insisted on making a bunch of school boy errors where I should have known better. My dice have also been pretty terrible early doors at which point I've found myself fighting from the back foot. Having said that against both Jon and Rob I've somehow come back to clinch last turn draws. Last night it was snatched by the last dice rolled, much to Rob's chagrin.

In honesty most of my mistakes came from not playing in a while and as such failing to pay attention properly. I must get back to regular games and as such that's kind of the point. X-Wing is my main game and will remain so for quite some time. I've invested a lot of time, effort and even international travel but got so much more back from it.

Infinity gives me the long term hobby project that I need, as well as being the Sci-Fi skirmish that I've spent so many years looking for. Netrunner adds an extra element of quick turnaround, low hobby impact gaming. It's far more than a filler game but it can do that if it needs to.

With three different bases covered I can see that being a template for the forseeable. Even within that triumvirate I'll need to juggle priorities. There's been a lot of competitive X-Wing recently but as I blogged recently it'll be far more casual until the New Year now. Infinity got some hobby love with Thunderdome but there are plenty of minis to get across the painting table with a few ships to break things up. The club campaign will get me fortnightly games at worst but I want to keep that up at the least.

With another local event day in a couple of weeks and a Team Tournament at the end of month Netrunner needs to be prioritised for current table time though I'm happy to take the slower learning curve there. As such I'm not going to be looking elsewhere for a while. I'll be tempted I'm sure and other games will rotate in and out such as SAGA and Dreadball. The magpie effect is notorious amongst gamers but the bases covered as they are it will be interesting to see how I hold out.

Pretty good so far ;)

The Twelve Days of X-Mas - Days 10 & 11

Evening All,

Well yesterday was somethign of a bust but today has been better. The Mordor SAGA chaps are coming along nicely with the two Orc warrior blocks drybrushed various browns and the dozen Uruk hearthgaurd having recieved thier first wash. I've kept the Uruks simple and close to the movie scheme, though mine have to have green skin.

Otherwise Mr C and I got in a couple of games of STAW playing a couple of the scenarios that come with the various ships.

First up was a field test for a new Romulan cloak on a pair of science vessels. Trying out the Neg with a pair of Vor'Chas I went straight for the small ones ignoring their escorts. It was a fairly close run thing and I crippled my fleet in the process but score one for the ridge-heads.

Next up was the Klingon Assasination mission which gave Mr C the chance to run his Feds. Beaming a pair of brave Klingon warriors down onto the planet they continuously failed to plug Picard as his taxi finally arrived. Thankfully my pair of D7s lasted just long enough for the K'Tinga to pchase down the Defiant and blow it out of the sky.

Running the scenario again Data and Sulu appeared to provide an extra bit of Fed swerve at which point the Defiant clung on to its final Hull Point just long enough to escape to critically damanaged victory!

All in all the scenarios work well and produced three close games. More of the same please!

Confessions of a Dreadball Coach VI

Found this one hanging around unpublished for some reason, better late than never........

Well I think it's part VI, can't remember who Rocky fought in that one but there you go.

The vague relevance of that particular remark is due to that myself and Chris had another heavyweight dust-up as I went with Z'Zor against his Orx.

As I have a Ludwig figure I proxied him as a Jack to take a book team rather than a make do and mend. Given our previous outing where the teams had been reversed and Chris had declined to field his strikers I was keen to try them out.
















Finally pulling a home game I went for an aggressive setup and went for an attempted early slap-down. Very quickly the game polarised around all four Gaurds clubbing each other relatively ineffectively while the Jacks saw to the actual action.

Personally I was pretty happy with this as I had my Gaurd and a Jack tieing up all three Orx Gaurds giving me an extra ball handler.

Not sure quite what good it did me as I had my first experience of Skill 5+ Strikers. Along with some choddy dice they did everything to not win me the game. Running them round was no problem but constantly picking up the ball on one success was an arse along with a mere 50% Strike rate.

In honesty I think average dice would have seen me take the game but it wasn't going that way. I'm not the sort of geek to work out the percentages but was soon left wondering if I was better off with Strikers on 4 dice at 5+ or Jacks on 3 dice at 4+.

To confuse me further, not always that difficult, the tie brake was an extra dice to Dash versus Slide, which I found incredibly useful picking up a 3 point strike.

Chris' Goblins however played like absolute champs doubling pick-ups with ease. I did manage to put a bit of Jack-Slam on them to keep me in the game.

Entering Chris' final rush he had to sort this scrum out, having finally given up on squishing big bug, but produced the Orx / Gobs combined goods to take the game by a point!

Another excellent game which Chris soundly deserved and I enjoyed immensely. I can see Z'Zor as late bloomers in a league and needing advances in a one-dayer. Rather like them to be honest, not sure why but don't care!

Chris does tend to Slam more than I do and taught me a few lessons there too, thinking I need to try that one out a bit more myself.

So good stuff all round and just as well that I've got Buzzcut all done :)

Un-Friendly Fire.....

......or how in Space(Hulk) no-one can hear your Sgt scream as you heavy flamer him!

This week at Enfield Gamers I cracked out Space Hulk as myself an Chris played through the first "Suicide Run" mission from each side of the table. Something of the partially sighted leading the blind as this was Chris' first upgrade from Space Crusade and I hadn't played in ages.

Ably assisted by our fellows and occasional reference to the mysterious pamphlet of rules we refreshed as we went and had a jolly good time doing it :) In short the Marines won twice, the second time being a relative cake-walk as plenty of early command points saw them leg it toward the objective at max power.

 

 During the second game we stumbled upon the scenario that you see pictured below:



Poised for apparent victory it all went a bit wrong via the BA dice. At this point the Sgt has expended all of his Action Points and no Command Points remain. All he had to do was clear a 'Stealer and get out of the way for the Heavy Flamer to win the game .........but NO!

 

Cunning minds went into overtime and it was suggested that a Heavy Flamer blast to the Sgt's tile would clear and block it, allowing the BAs to claim certain victory with their next turn. Due to the BA's rapid advance 'Stealer resources hadn't had the chance to build up and very few were about.



The point further raised was is this a tactic that ANY Space Marine would sanction, especially against a Seargent of the 1st Chapter in a highly valuable set of Terminator Armour?

 

Well, this is TOYS so of course we did :) 2+ to kill.......'Stealer roasts........Sgt rolls a 1!

A quick 'Stealer turn and Game Over Man, Game Over! but for the Xenos!

 

A highly entertaining evening of toy love, but are we likely to hunted by the Dark Angels as fallen?

Much mirth ensued as we chatted around the point and then reluctantly went home :)

 

More action shots;

 

 

Balls of Iron

As previously threatened I've just inflicted DreadBall upon my housemate / landlord, Mr Christian.

Basic rules with no event cards, fouls etc as this was my fifth game out of the blocks but even then my reference to the rulebook was minimal.

Mr C took Orx while I ran the Humans. As a seasoned BB player pick up was quick and he was soon giving out plenty of SLAM!! I meanwhile tried to hone the more silky skills which generally came off until the final move / strike...........at which point cr@p dice struck.

All in all it was a good tight game the Mr C won in the last rush. So, one more convert and a definate purchase for myself. I've already started working through possible paint schemes in my head.

Happy days :)

Smash and Grab

Brace yourself people its another two parter except this time some actual gaming is involved! With my better half away for the weekend I took the opportunity to go down to Tabletop Nation for Mantic's Dreadball day.

Having heard and read a fair bit about it and as a fan of Mantic's previous boxed games offerings I was keen to have a go. Hell I was just keen to roll some dice.

As a headline I was impressed! Despite obvious comparisons its definitely not a Blood Bowl clone. Think more of Speedball for those of you that remember :)

As often with Mantic there's a simple mechanic with the devil in the detail and a strong element of resource management. It makes for another trademark tactical thinker whilst also rewarding proactive play.

Statlines are basic with plenty of action based options. Actions are completed by achieving a number of successes against a target number. Number of dice rolled is the variable.

Nothing complex but 6s explode for a bonus roll and how much you succeed by gives you bonus actions or defines how hard you hit. Positional and combo play is key.

Rolling play with no reset after a score keeps things fluid as does the incremental scoring system. 1 point for the easiest score upto 4 for the most difficult. Game score is the differential so a couple of big scores can win it for you before time.

In short lots and lots of variation and options. Tactics far beyond a Blood Bowl cage are a definite requirement. Games are quick and pressurised. I'd originally been dubious of chess clock Kings of War but with Dreadball I'd be an instant proponent.

Played three games as a novice and quickly picked it up with plenty of spare time for a mooch between the racks and glances over shoulders. Would have been more than happy to have played a bit more as a mark of my interest.

I did manage to resist "investing" in a starter deal mainly due to my hiatus status. Talk has been to get the PDFs and proxy the figures but I feel that would be somewhat disingenuous even in the face of some criticism of an established company using kickstarter. The undoubted demand settles that issue!

Humans, Orcs, Veer-Myn and Dwarves first up with plenty of others to follow including droids and tentacled xenos. How could any Bowl/Ball-Head say no?

One to mark for definite action once I'm reestablished. Humans in London Wasps colours I think :)

Creeping Infestation

Good evening one and all. First off I am pleased to report that I am physically recovered from various bouts of the lurgy.

As I've blogged repeatedly I've been slowly preparing to finally definitely cut the cord on GW and other than holding onto Mordheim, Necromunda and Blood Bowl finally turn my back on their games systems and continue my hobby life in blissful ignorance of whatever they wave at the masses in the future.

So a strange thing happened at the club tonight......I played a 500 point game of 6th Edition 40K.

It all started a couple of weeks ago when Rich picked up a discounted semi-whim copy via a contact who assured him it was definitely worth a go. From there a few of the guys blew dust off figures and codexes and suddenly a 500pt campaign was being touted.

Last week I looked on with interest before playing a game of Zombies!!! noting a few interesting mechanic changes and an apparent shift towards firepower over assault. This week there was no "escape route" and I borrowed Shaun's Marines to take on Nick's Imperial Guard.

Having watched Nick floor Shaun with "1st rank, 2nd rank" fire across an open plain I first placed as much scenery as possible to limit lines of fire [like the scenery deployment rules] and then took advantage of  deploying second to deploy everything far left.

Early doors I did incredibly well at losing my Devastator squad to incredibly poor dice rolls whilst wondering why I bothered to hide them in a wood [no cover save if you have your normal armour save]. The few frag missiles that I did kick out weren't overly effective as all blast markers automatically scatter [though I quite like the BS modifier thing]. It did leave me feeling apprehensive for Ork players :/

Thankfully Nick's Master of Ordnance was even more inaccurate though the appearance of Sly Marbo spelt plenty of marine death. He was at least good enough to take himself out in the blast though

After that mobile short-range rapid-firing bolters proved their effectiveness and carried the day for me. Another nice touch is bonus victory points for claiming first blood, killing the enemy commander and moving into the enemy deployment zone. Cool sort of side-plot thing.

Haven't played any of the other scenarios, fairly obviously, but I've heard nothing but good things. Sceptical as I was keen to be on one 500pt game everything flows well. "Cinematic" is a phrase I've heard thrown about amongst the blurb / froth and that's the feel I got.

Scarily I found myself discussing the upcoming starter set with mini-rulebook, no way I'm coughing £45, and how the chaos figures would fit in well with the Oni and GI figures I already have. Could really go for a Nurgle / zombie cultist theme...........slippery slope?

I did grasp at the straw of being unhappy at paying £25 for a codex only to be referred to and offered one of many knock off PDFs.

Just when I thought I was out...........I find myself pulling myself back in!!

Pride and Predjudice

Hello people and welcome to another delayed after-action battle report.

Monday night Stewart dropped primarily so that I could make up my missed first round of the club's Warhammer Invasion campaign and secondarily so that he could take up my previously blogged intention to play a proper game of Dwarf Kings Hold without being an arse.

Primary task completed, I just about won the three game round thonged in the first, squeeked the second and romped the third, I was already in a better frame of mind and with a positive mindset, thanks to Project Pandora, I settled in to a cup of tea and opened my mind a little.

Based on the same set of mechanics as Pandora the game played very similarly, very much as expected.

A similar, but blindly drawn, token activation sequence provides an element of resource management as well as the need to co-ordinate your forces whilst pre-empting you opponent. Opposed dice rolls for combat also means that both players remaining active throughout despite the relatively IGO-UGO turn structure.

The basic mechanics are VERY simple, reminds me of LOTR in that respect, but racial special abilities and effects give greater variation than just the statline and give the Dwarves and Undead their relevant flavour.

Playing a couple of scenarios through, taking each side in turn, results were genuinely varied effected by tactics as much as the vagaries of the dice. Identification and control of various choke-points throughout the floor-plan add an element of  urgency and tension to the game as well as the scenario.

Use of fighting arcs and facings can be critical and can seem a little technical at times but not overly "rulesy", more efficient use of the rules which is unavoidable with any system.

All of these comments are just as applicable to Project Pandora and I've found all of the scenarios I've played to be well constructed and balanced. I do feel that both games tread a fine line in that respect and that it might not be so easy to construct your own scenarios. Thankfully Mantic are doing a good job of providing supplements along with additional troop types to spice up your games.

So, another good fun "little" game from Mantic. But one that deserves to be treated with respect!

You sank my Battleship!!

Somewhat delayed but I have wrested control of the stand alone PC! It's a tea break for those of you that need to know!

So back to last Saturday night and a far more successful attempt at playing through a game of Dystopian Wars. This time we upgraded to a couple of islands and the use of tiny flyers i.e. playing the game as designed and even manged more than a couple of turns, in fact we managed a whole game in about 3 hours.

This time we upgraded to islands!!

Second proper game out with starter fleets and things flowed a lot better just remembering fleet and ship special rules as well as the different types of ordnance and their effects. We had quite a few more flyers on the table this time round which did mean regular reference to the rulebook but generally their was a lot less page turning and more dice rolling involved.

We still did a few bits wrong, obviously, and we weren't playing with the event cards, as neither of had got round to ordering any.

Having had my battle-ship viciously battered by flyers last game I was determined to get stuck in with her this time out and organised my deployment around her and my wish to engage the Tommy-Tanker as soon as possible. Stewart went for a split deployment so I gratefully piled in after his "Old Gal's" group with all haste.

One shot....

......one kill!!























Early doors the Brits had the marginal rub of the dice but it soon became clear that this was an engagement that was going to be decided by the sheer number of 6's that either of us could roll. Once again my Battle-ship came in for some long-range torpedo punishment from the Brit heavy rotors and it all felt a bit overly familiar as I pushed on.

I concentrated my fire on those Brit ships escorting the "Old Gal" until she nosed out to unleash herself. Fortunately it was more of a tizzy than a full-on tantrum and then it was time to power up the the Death Star / Heat Lance and have a poke back.

DR of 6 x2 = 12 dice minus 1 for 3 damage halved by Redoutable = an 11 dice shot.
Blizzard of sixes = 23 hits = 2 criticals one of which was a double 1 Magazine Explosion = KABOOM!!!
KABOOM!!! = game winning advantage!

Magnificent men in flying machines

After that we then went on to find out exactly how destructive wings of Tiny Flyer fighters can be against medium and heavy flyers. By then the dice had turned in my favour so the answer was VERY! Stewart did finish off by gleefully dispatching a good number of my destroyers by air-dropped mine but with the guts Death Star-ed out of his fleet it was a case of mopping up whilst his last stand bombers fled from the scene.

So, a highly enjoyable, though rather freakishly 6'd, game. We both learnt the true value of DW air-power and the need to play with your combined arms Admiral's hat on. Interestingly Spartan have just released air-group starter sets but to be honest I think you'd be missing out to play just air forces.

I have to admit I was somewhat sceptical when DW was mooted as a viable Land-Sea-Air game. Now I am far less so but would suggest that only grander all-day games could probably handle all three effectively though I'd be interested to see how easily it would shrink down, so to speak.

Interesting times!