Building up a Head of Steam

As any regular reader of my modest missives many have become aware posts have become a bit lean around here recently.

Some of that is just that I've had a couple of busy weeks out in the real world, I'm running for Sport Relief this Sunday despite my semi-crippled status and the training has been knackering. Some of it is the continuing shift of my version of the hobby.


The shocking truth is that I haven't picked up a brush in at least a fortnight and I don't seem to mind too much at all! I'm still getting plenty of gaming in but with it being all Necromunda (previously painted), SAGA (Rich's figures), D&D (very few figures) and Warhammer Invasion (no figures) there's been absolutely no need.

Six months ago I wouldn't have settled for that but right now its simply not an issue. Its not like I don't have enough projects knocking about with St Peytersburg and the paint for sale Orcs to name but two but I just can't get the motivation at the mo for anyhting I'm not actually playing!

I am however looking to be playing Distopian Wars in the not too dim and distant future and with my fledgling French fleet now waiting for collection at the local Royal Mail depot.

As previously mentioned the whole Captain Nemo / 20,000 Leagues / Tintin thing plumbs the.....ermm depths? for me that other naval genres just don't and the DW French simply fit that bill.

I reckon they should be a fairly quick project and one that gets the brush-mojo back on track.

I also really like the look of Mantic's upcoming Ver-Myn and a mate of mine does the Outrider thing for them so will be getting some early. I've generously "offered" to lend a brush hoping that I won't have to beg :)
'Til next time!

Bows don't kill people....Arrows do!!

A bit more D&D Thursday night and it was an all action session with plenty of high quality biscuit action to boot.

Previously we had done a bit of research / book work and that having secured the Mage's College. Well I hadn't, I'd tried stirring up a local workers revolt, following failed payment negotiations with said mages, only to find out that the workers were more than happy with their T&C's. BAH!

Working a few things out we placed the ANCIENT TALISMAN over the local map to identify three locations of ANCIENT POWER which we'd need to go and extensively re-model.

One of said sites just happened to be the island next door so after a quick ferry ride we stood outside and old tumble-down tower.

Going a bit Skyrim we ignored it and scouted around for the hidden goblin burrows and decided that we'd much rather take that route in. Flush with over confidence following a brief scuffle at the entrance we continued to go all Skyrim scouting about as much as possible before actually doing anything revealing a fair sized cavern system in the process.

Top left is the main chamber with the Gobbo Lord and his bodygaurd being entertained by a Bard strangling a bag of carts, possibly literally. The resultant screeching gave us plenty of cover to go for the flank whilst the Palaldin and Elven Ranger of Ultimate Bow Death (plus wolf) stood ready.

As such we quickly found ourselves heavily outnumbered with a side dormitory of snoring greenskins to contend with and plenty of passageways leading to who knew where. Those of us on the side mission decided to go for the sneakily killing them in their beds approach. Even the Dwarven Cleric was convinced as Goblins are evil aren't they?

Admittedly we hadn't stopped to converse with any of them at any point but with the green skin and piggy red eyes we couldn't possibly be wrong.

Possibly it was his struggle with the moral compass that caused the Dwarf to crash to the floor waking the Goblins whilst we all tried to look friendly and innocent.......at least until the Warlock unleashed a round from his Staff of Fireball!

Much to our chagrin said barbecuing caused zero greenskin deaths at which point a general melee ensued cavern wide. The Ranger lined up the Gobbo Lord with a double double-loaded shot just to watch them splinter an inch from his nose. Oh dear, being kept honest on this one then are we?

Bull Rush-ed to max the Paladin shouted loudly to attract attention (he must have some serious faith in his god....or the drugs!) of most of the Lord's Samurai bodygaurd who acted as the well oiled machine that they soon proved to be and we were soon in a proper scrap bereft of our normal formations and battle-schemes.

Fighting as two groups we did our best to re-group. Ranger-boy quickly plugged the Goblin Mage before he caused too much grief but the star of the show was the stunted god-botherer who could utilise his hurting anyone not googly-aligned miracles. This was a new thing as many of the party are a darker shade of neutral...ahem!

Taking on the Lord and a couple of his best boyz el Paladino was confident in his full plate / Bull Rush  combo until it became clear that these were no ordinary goblins. Their samurai skills and weaponry soon had him checking and re-checking both his character sheet and the rule-book for any edge available.

"I can lay on hands!" "I can cast miracles? Which ones!!" and so on. As a learning curve it was steep but incredibly instructive. Unfortunately for one not quite instructive enough. Dumb Paladin Down, we got a Dumb Paladin Down!!

Meanwhile, unable to take down the Elven Uzi, he manged to take down the Gobbo Lord with one critically hitting set of double arrows doing 104 points of damage!!, the DM took revenge on Wolfie his faithful companion. Not sure which loss was more mourned ;)

A bit of Cleric-ing later everyone was back on their feet / paws and we cleared up a touch as the session timed out. Somewhat bloodied and bruised we need to regroup and push on, though next time maybe a little less blase!

All in the bones!

I dropped round to Rich's yesterday for a bit more SAGA action. Rich has blogged up a sterling battle report so I'm not going to go into the same level of detail but focus more on what I learnt and my developing impressions of the game individually and as a whole.

Playing Battle of the Fords it was fairly obvious after the terrain went down that it was effectively going to be two separate games on each flank and so it proved to be. As such deployment was going to be even more critical than usual and resulted in both of us loading our left flanks with both Warlords and their retinues as mobile reserve. This time I took the Anglo-Saxons to get some experience of their battle-board.

The left flank plus LONG-house

The right flank plus LONG-house

What became crucial during the game was the LONG-house on the Rich's Viking bank of the river. By entering and exiting it Rich was able to redeploy his lads much quicker than he could by foot and also use it as something of a bunker. Not a whinge, all entirely within the rules and I'm not looking to get into a debate about them BUT it did have a major effect on this particular game.

First clash results in.....

......a feast of crows!!

Getting first turn I took the game by the scruff and piled across both bridges. I made decent progress on the combining Gebur bowfire and Ceorl assault. On the right my sister Ceorls got caught stacked up on the bridge and were piled into by the Beserkers who promptly exploded yet again but this time taking all of my lads with them.

That would be one less SAGA dice each then. In fact that became another major feature of the game with both of us co-ordinating units to do our best to wipe out full units to get the knock on effect of reducing SAGA dice available to the other.

Left flank in the balance

My main assault on the left quickly became the main focus of the then game with the Vikings making repeated charges from their LONG-bunker. Dice, both SAGA and D6, ground me down at which point the Viking warlord delivered the telling blows and sent me scurrying back across the river. The lost units were bad enough but going donw toi 3 SAGA dice was crippling!

Following across the Viking Bondi were made to pay dearly loosing 3 of their number to my scabby Gebur bow. With numbers across the river scoring all the victory points Rich resisted the temptation to sudue them wary of any further casualties that they might inflict.

Right flank at the death!

On my right flank my own Warlord had similarly lead his Hearthgaurd through the defending Bondi who, through the battle-board, had exploded themself to maximise thier attacks. I had however used all my remaining SAGA dice to re-roll their saves and only a few fell.

Toting up the VPs Rich had more warriors across the river but mine were Hearthgaurd and scores were exactly tied! All those little errors and bits of luck throughout the game had proved crucial.

As much as we'd concentrated on using the battle-boards to the letter of the rules we'd still let each other off a number of technical errors as mates do. Not having to refer to the rule-book once this was my main learning point.

Rather like this one :)

Grasping at straw?

This is some of Rich who dropped round Monday night with shaun for a bit of SAGA action.

I've played a few times now but this was my first time out in 28mm Dark Age mode, you know as the game is designed and marketed, and we went for a simple "Kill the Warlord" scenario.

Given choice I took the Vikings and Rich had the Anglo-Saxons. Shaun had joined us and was quick to inform me that despite the pointy hat brigade being technical favourites they hadn't yet claimed a victory amongst a good number of games. Playing at 6 points I couldn't resist a unit of beserkers or "paper tigers" as Shaun called them.

Given the victory conditions we somehow conspired to deploy our respective Warlords as far away as possible from each other. As such they generally ignored each other for a bit and urged their respective forces into a bit of general carnage.

As an experiment Rich had combined three units of Hearthgaurd types into one uber-unit which he rolled towards me with all haste. I shot him up a bit and then he made that first charge of the game into my eight Hirdmen. Running through the process, battle dice were expended and attack dice mounted up on both sides. Double-handed rolling was required and breath was held........

.....for one hit a piece! Neither of us saved so after an awful lot of gnashing and wailing it was one down on each side and as the attacker Rich bounced. Just another Friday night after the tavern then?
I flung in the paper tigers who instantly exploded on a 1 to 1 basis with their opponents. Not sure if they were armed with war axes or rigged up with C4 and a presing need to visit Valhalla. Point is they got there pretty quick each with a new mate.

Wiping themselves down Rich's boys then got another dose of Hirdmen who with numbers on their side claimed all but one of the yocals for a couple more new residents at Odin's feet. As such Brave Sir Robyn and his faithful retinue bravely ran away and hid in the nearest house, probably for a quick cup of tea and a nice hearth-cake!


I meanwhile concentrated on butchering the remaining Anglos which shouldn't have been too difficult with their elite dead and Warlord hiding, ........SHOULDN'T have been.

Multiple big bunches of 1s and 2s later this was the final stand-off (featuring every figure left on the table) as my dice did all in their power to snatch a defeat from the jaws of near certain victory. With the sun setting the Warlords clashed on the final turn of the game only to bounce off trading insults in language that neither understood.

My one extra mutilated unit claimed the Vikings a technical victory but with hardly even a Bondi remianing to haul a goat, let alone take over the place, I think that is the more honest result.........a winning-ish draw :)

OHHHH-DINNNN!!!

It's a habit......

.....winning that is or so they say.

Wasps finally picked up an ugly win on Saturday and I was there to bellow them on. ANY win after nine straight league losses is mana from sporting heaven :)

I jubilantly returned home to my recently ordered Warhammer Invasion expansion March of the Damned turned up and so I spent some of last night sleeving cards and seeing what I'd got.

I've suffered something of a reverse of fortune recently and have been receiving something of a pummelling to all comers. My Dwarf deck in particular is still waiting for its first win despite coming agonisingly close on a number of occasions.

Much as with any strategy based game now that I've got the mechanics into my head its time to work on the army lists, so to speak, a little more. The Dwarf deck is a bit slow starting without enough decent combos and too many "Battlefield Only" bruisers. MotD has given me a few extra Slayers that fit the bill so they'll find their way in and I'll theme the deck to suit.

I'm still definitely looking to theme decks rather than going all killer but I definitely want to get a bit more competitive. With my main all conquering Chaos deck I'd actually like to get a bit more of a corruption theme in there, maybe got a bit more beast orientated and IF I'm feeling really brave take the insanely nasty Blood Dragon Knights out :/ Even the Orcs could do with some tweek.

Admittedly I'd be taking them out to put them in an Undead deck, possibly with some Dark Elf stuff as I haven't touched them at all yet. I've also been very impressed by the Lizardmen and their savage ability, which Stewart has harnessed to disgusting effect alongside the poncy High Elves. Not wishing to copy, or touch a high elf with something other than an axe, I'll have to find another option.

So as always boring prep is the key, just need to sit down and do it :)

Hit the LIGHTS!!!

I've found a format and I seem to be sticking to it :)

This is Lewis. Lewis has been doing an excellent job running Enfield Gamers' current Necromunda campaign and last night he came up with an absolute corker for us all to battle through!

Basically we were playing the Scavengers scenario with the low-light Treacherous Condition on Space Hulk boards or what we quickly dubbed Space-Munda which turns out to be a particularly awesome game.

Armed to the max

We basically used the board squares for movement and range and the corridors for line of sight, no shooting round corners, as per Space Hulk itself. We did play that you could shoot over another model's shoulder as long as you were directly behind them which added a certain element and allowed a bit more firepower to be applied.

To add an extra element to the scenario we made the lighting level a bit more random fluctuating on a D6 each turn. 1: 4 inch LoS, 2-5: 8 inch LoS 6: unlimited LoS. This helped make the games incredibly cagey as everyone strove to gain the drop on the other with the risk/reward equation being particularly savage.

In Space no-one can hear you Munda??

My first game of the evening was against Lewis's Goliaths and we quickly realised that the four flamers that we were deploying between us were likely to have a major effect on proceedings especially when set onto overwatch. For both of us this was something that we'd never done with flamers, why would you in a standard game?

The first few turns were all about manoeuvre / redeployment as most games generally at which point I suddenly found myself with the unexpected upper hand loot-wise. Then IT happened!

Beasty Strike 1

Beasty Strike 2

IT was my apparent need to employ the scenario's optional Beasty attack rule. Lewis wasn't keen to go tit for tat but I managed to goad him into it. The result?..........I lose a ganger and juve who between them were carrying 3 loot tokens...as in a scream in the darkness and NEVER seen again....awesome :) My fault one suspects.

The loss of both loot and numbers soon told and forced into a corner with half my starting number still in the fight it was time to make that Tactical Withdrawl that we all know about. Nothing on offer but more pain

Juve-tastic: A killer in the making

One upside was one of my Juves, TK9237, scoring a total of 5 wounding hits, 4 of which were in combat. Suddenly he's top ganger and fairly tasty in a ruck, an uncommon trait for a Van Saar.......he probably deserves a name.

More D&D tomorrow night and I need some sleep :)

Half Measures?

Hola,

Quiet weekend watching the rugby so I also managed to crack on with the next block of 30 Boyz. All my brown dry-brushes and block skintone was completed before I split them into two lots of 15 for the detail work. This way I can go back and forth whilst washes etc are drying and the idea of churning through 30 lots of anything was just too much to contemplate :(

Working through I noticed two particular boys where I'd gone a bit OTT with the stack flock fur and effectively given the one-sies or gorilla costumes, you decide, and though they might amuse. Green wash and basing tonight!

Elsewhere, with the usual "it's almost payday, lets buy some more toys" itch in full effect I've been somewhat torn between another cycle of Warhammer Invasion,  Stewart has been caning me horribly with his Lizardmen and Undead decks both of which interest me, and going full bore with Dystopian French. I was tempted to go for both but last month saw the card getting some non-toy related batter (frassing rassing Dick Dasterdly!) and I REALLY shouldn't.

So, prior to Orc related funds I'm going to be sensible and just pick up the Lost and the Damned WI expansion along with the DW French fleet box plus the Toulon cruisers, BIG thermal lance thingys and the rulebook..........maybe some of the subs, only and extra £8 :)