Discipline

Afternoon all.

Wasps lost away to London Irish this afternoon. Apparently it was a rather lacklustre game. We did at least score the only try of the game but gave away SEVEN kickable penalties. We did the same against Newcastle a couple of months back and the talk then was all about indiscipline. Boring but important.

I KNOW that most gamers have the same issue when sticking to planned projects. I've been experiencing a reasonable bout myself recently coupled with a fairly busy real life.

Having picked up a few other bits recently and selling the painted O&G's last weekend has taken the steam out of that particular project. The 30 strong block of boyz has been stared at a few times but that's been it!

This weekend I've finally got to grips with various bits lying around the place, cleared the decks and had a bit of a word with myself.... I've also done a deal for a bit of variation.

Well it is Christmas......almost!

The church has had a dust of white spray over the brown and all the tiled sections blacked in. The plan is to Devlan Mud everything and then drybrush back up to white. With the rooves I want to try the multi-shaded tiles technique that I've seen used to good effect elsewhere.

With my unexpected success in the Mordheim campaign I'm in need of some Orcs and these Rackham Samadat armoured Goblins will do well for them. Armed with swords and axes I need to source some axes, possibly Marauder ones which will be the full extent of any conversion work. Paint jobs as before.

The Gunship has had its based gravelled and a coat of black undercoat. Intention is to go for a hard edge blu-tack blob camo working through dark green, mid green to dark sand using foundation paints. Had thought of picking up some sprays for that but will give the tank brush a go first.

A quick 90 minute job in between the other bits to put some points on the board for the month...all three of them!

Tough at the Top??

The latest session of Enfield Gamers Mordheim campaign, run by yours truly took place on Tuesday night and my incredible run of luck reached new heights as, despite my best efforts the Oriental O&G's triumphed again.

Going for a bit of multi-player action the two prime warbands, myself and Ed's Skaven, were both entrusted by The Count escort his personal seer to an Arcane Fulcrum outside of Grunburg to perform an ANCIENT RITUAL to locate the Grimoire of Grunburg. Scene-stealing stuff!!
Using the Breakthrough scenario, with a few minor tweeks, the other warbands lay in ambush. Three sets of human Mercs and the Undead jumped Ed whilst both Dwarf bands and the Possessed blocked my path.

Both myself and Ed had what we both believed to be a real seer and a decoy, not being aware of each other's mission, thus only one of the four was the real deal and one of us had been double crossed by  The Count.

Even with rout tests at 50% I honestly expected niether of us to make it through and as such have the ambushing warbands squabble amongst themselves. This was not to be the case.

I'll assume that  Ed used superior cunning, skill and application of force. I happen to know that I rolled a horrific number of 6s on casualty rolls which quickly saw Rob's Dwarves routed and my right flank open for a bunch of gobbos to leg it down with my non-decoy seer. Even despite my Troll failing repeated Stupidity tests I fought Jon's Possessed to Rout only to be hammered, literally, by Ian's slower Dwarven reserve who didn't take a single casualty.

With both apparently kosher Seers kept safe an odds-evens roll would decide which band had been double crossed.........it wasn't me.

So next time out it's ANCIENT RITUAL time with the the bloke whose running he campaign in the boss seat........move along, move along, nohing to see here ;)

The Road To Hell??

The Dwarves routed left an open flank

Mopping up on the left

The Lone Troll drools on!

SHOW-time!!

Big toys, BIG boys!

No jazz hands but plenty of the usual, though Warfare was only my second show of the year and it's not fair to compare to Salute. Well attended by traders, gamers, games and the general "fraternity" it was a good day out.

Scarily all of the O&Gs bar the Giant sold, because he's a monster of colour?, putting £120 into my pocket.

The obvious question is could I therefore have got more on E-Bay? Answer; don't know and not bothered. The extra expense was well worth the day out and I picked everything up when I still had a staff discount.

Being disturbingly restrained I picked up a few bits of scenery for CURRENT projects only so Renedra's Tent Camp and Barrel packs, some wooden crates and a small flock of sheep.

Think of me what you will!


Products For Wargamers produce a range of laser cut self assembly MDF buildings, of which I have a couple, and had an excellent new part built building frame. They sold out so I'll order from the site, should be up on Tuesday

Write your own SAGA

We spent a fair bit of time early on taking in a demo game of Gripping Beast's SAGA, of which I have sent plenty blogged about. Some really nice ideas in there for what looks like a simple skirmish game with resource management and everything! We bought a set with intent to try them out Romans vs Gladiators in time for the next series of Spartacus.

LEGO Dr Who vs the Daleks

There was some nice games about but not too many that I hadn't seen before other than this one. Apparently it cost a small fortune in LEGO and Daleks. Great idea though.

Ta-Daa!!

Very, very multi-part :(

Some time later

Some more big ol' boys!

Rich picked up Soda Pop's Super Dungeon Explore and we found a spare table and cups of tea to crack on with a game only to find that the figures were very, very multi-part. 90 minutes and much "commentary" later we played the 30 minute tutorial....for about an hour. Since then we've worked out what we were doing wrong :)

Good game, good game!!

Cocked and Loaded....

....or should that be the other way around?

Got another Deadlands session in last night and not a single shot was fired by us or even at us as we went around Investigatin' the sabotage of an experimental, ghost rock powered, mechanical saw mill.

This mainly involved ROLE-playing and some rather satisfying Cthulu-esque Notice and Persuasion roles on locals and Injun's alike. Flattering said redskins with school supplies we chatted to their crazy ol' medicine man for a number of hours before visiting their Sacred Grove, without managing to desecrate it.

Wonders might never cease and seemed unlikely at the beginning of the evening whilst upskilling when Charlie's Mad Scientist with Big Gun added Schizophrenia to his Paranoia only to re-roll the result for something less entertaining.

The sabotage of the second psyco saw-mill, at a rival camp, injected such much missing mayhem providing a number of leads for us to argue over. Next session may well se the conclusion of our mini campaign but I'd definately be keen to play again or even just continue on from where we are!

Elsewhere, I'm off to Warfare tomorrow with Shaun and Craig mainly just cos' its been a while since Salute and I fancy it as a day out. Not looking for anything in particular but always a show I've enjoyed previously so will see what finds me.

Very tempted to put the painted O&G's on the Bring and Buy while I'm there to start the increasingly obvious process of recycling them. Previously I've always priced to sell but with E-Bay as a back up I'm interested to experiment and see what market conditions may or may not support.

Thinking that I'd price at retail, so a free paintjob!, I've hit the GW site for a little research and come back a little shocked;

Boss on Wyvern; £40 in Finecast, mine's metal so £25 is a steal isn't it??
20 Big Uns; would be £51 worth of GW plastic so £40 and they'll fly off the table.....won't they?
3 Wolf Chariots; based on the Orc variant at £16.50 a piece. £12 as singles?
10 Wolf Riders; will now set you back £20.....apparantly.
1 Giant; at £31 in plastic, mine's the old metal version so £20 is a good deal?

So, IF everything goes at my less than retail, except the wolves, fully painted super bargain prices that'll be about £140, after B&B fees, for recycling AND i've apprarantly done my potential purchasers a massive favour.......

No wonder I don't want to play Warhammer any more.... 

Zom-Heim 1.0: Not awful!!

Following previous posts HERE and HERE, last night at the club I roped Charlie, Lewis ans Stuart into playtesting Zom-Heim 1.0 with me. Cheers lads!

We played through the Defend the Find scenario a couple of times, playing once with each side. On all occasions it was the the Undead as attacker with either Sharpe's 95th or Rogers' Rangers defending.

From the start things looked stacked against the defenders, especially against the zombie horde list. In the end it was a 3-1 victory count to the Undead with the two games involving the Ghoul family being very close run.

The zombie horde games were rather one sided but, as we later discovered, that was mainly because I failed to notice that the Undead can have a max of 15 warband members .....rather than 22!

Otherwise, the initiative thing worked well, adding an extra element of Horror-ific tension, though having to constantly reload handguns did a lot of that! A few little things came up which were all dealt with comfortably by common sense, which was rather pleasing.

Two ad-hoc revisions were allowed along the way;
- Overwatch, lifted straight from Necromunda, which worked seamlessly.
- All handgun equipped models gained a "free" spear to represent a bayonet. It just seemed necessary to give balance......it even managed to take out a charging Ghoul Lord (Vampire), much to my personal disappointment.

So all in all pretty good, definitely not awful which was my fear. The whole idea definitely seems to have legs. I think I next need to work up some warband variant and having already been thinking about how to work in National Characteristics that seem de-rigour for the period.

To Excel!! :) 

The Army Painter

The past week, mainly the end part, has finally witnessed some brushtime all of which has been devoted to my first block of 30 Orc Boyz, see updated WIP page.

I'm sure that we've all experienced the vaguely numbing pain of block painting a large regiment. For Fantasy stuff I often spray black and then Ogre Flesh, followed by drybrushes up through the browns to get the leatherwork done early and key the majority of colours. Then comes near instant descent into Oh My Dear God (OMDG) as I begin basecoating in all of the block colours...... until about three or fours colours things seem to pull together a bit.

By comparison detail work is a relative breeze and wash-work strangely staisying before realising that I'm only half-way and higlighting is required. Enter my friend OMDG

In preparation for said roller-coaster ride I've recently laid in some supplies and filled a few holes in my hobby supplies. I've been aware of The Army Painter range for a while now but have been vaguely put off by their promotion of dip-shading, about which I harbour dark age atitudes (though I admit it could be a useful tool).

Anyway, back at the point, primarily due to cost I dropped a couple of their sprays and glues into my virtual basket and needing some brushes decided to continue with the theme. I like the way that they name their brushes with their intent in mind and so picked up the above.

Shaped more chunkily, somewhat pen-like, than GW's offerings I've fond them to be very comfortable in the hand delivering a high degree of control. I really like them and wiould recommend them highly.

Always happy to be wrong, just as well given how often it happens!!

Don't roll a 1......or loose your Lunch!!

Last night at Enfield Gamers it was the third campaign turn for the Mordheim campaign.

My oriental Orcs & Goblins have been doing worryingly well and started the evening ranked 2nd of 10 with my newly recruited troll amongst their poorly washed midst.

The brief for the evening was Top Dog with the two Skaven, Greenskin and Dwarf warbands set to take each other on with a 3 way fight for top Reikland contender and a Possessed / Undead encounter rounding out the first round of the evening.

Unfortunately real world lurgy saw a bit of a reshuffle and I ended up in the middle of a Reikland sandwich.

Part of the reason I love O&G's is the random element that they bring but last night was a bit extreme.

My gobbo squig handler, on the right next to the die, failed animosity on a number of occasions attacking his apparent warband rivals three times, stunning one and taking another two out of action.

Sneaky little git! Must have been that Special Brew fungus he had for lunch. Rab C Goblin?

Ghu-Ankh (Gonk), my troll, spent several turns stupidly drooling before rushing in to a mass combat at which point he became a lean, mean vomit machine. Blowing chunks over all comers he regenerated 5 separate wounds whilst taking out the same number of warriors, killing Charlie's Captain and Champion in the process to leave his two youngblood's squabbling to leave his warband!

The Dwarf warbands just barrelled in to each other, Slayers to the fore, and proceeded to hack chunks from each other with just the odd black powder blast to interrupt proceedings.

The Skaven fight was between the campaign's two leading warbands with Veskit on one side and a home-weened Shaman of unholy destruction on the other. Veskit proved his fee as his employers just shaded a close encounter.

Now that we've established something of a pecking order I intend to get a bit more narra-tastic with events weaving things around the leading warbands and the fabled Grimoire of Grunburg. So that will be a Skaven tale then!

You dirty rats!

It's ALIVE.... Franken-Leg?!!

As previously metioned I recently picked up Dashing Dice Games' halloween released Witchfinder General: Days of Revolution. It turned up last week and I've slowly been reading through.

For being home published it's another perfect bind quality product and there are some nice ideas within the mechanics, though I am only about halfway through.

Alternate activation within the turn is a personal favourite and there are some interesting ideas for terrain, gloomy conditions, cavalry and artillery as well as looting livestock.

Other bits just feel different rather than better than other stuff but I should reseve judgement until I play a game.

Scenarios are there but not any army list type stuff or a campaign system and I do want that. It can all be added in but if I'm doing that then why not reverse the process into a system that I'm more familiar with and am already thinking of using?


Having read a few more pages on the train home INSPIRATION struck on the wander home and the bolt has sparked a birth;

Oddleg’s Enterprises in Association with Angry Productions proudly presents;

 

Zom-Heim 1.0

This a WIP set of “conversion” rules for Mordheim intended to sit alongside and be played in conjunction with the Empire In Flames wilderness campaign rules supplement available for download from the Games Workshop website.

Just in case it needs saying everything presented here is entirely unofficial and all my fault!

Format:

Play Mordheim but with the following additions / adaptions;

Turn Sequence / Priority;

Use a standard deck of cards with the Jokers removed. Deal 12 cards to each player.

At the beginning of each turn each player “bids” a card from his hand, both playing them face up simultaneously. Highest card gains priority Ace high suited Diamond, Heart, Club, Spade low to high.

Starting with the player who won priority each player activates either one Hero or a group of up to three Henchmen who are within 4” coherency and runs through the full turn sequence with the activated figure(s). Continue to activate back and forth until ALL figures have been at which point the turn ends.

Once all 12 cards in each player’s hands have been played discard them and deal 6 new cards to each player. Should insufficient cards remain in the deck for all players to receive 6 cards reshuffle the full deck and repeat the 6 card deal.

So, not a lot so far but on top of the previous Zom-Heim army lists it feels like a decent start. I'm tagetting a couple of games on the Club's next Open Gaming night and I'll see where it goes from there.

All feedback welcome!

What a difference a crowd makes

WARNING: This is a sports based post.....

Haven't touched the brushes at all this week for a number of reasons. One of them was that I went to Wembley on Sunday, in the company of the Dawes, to watch a double header of Four Nations International Rugby League.

Now League isn't MY version of rugby and is often viewed, by union fans, as the poorer relation for and played by northerners and big girl's blouses.

The first game was Wales vs New Zealand was a massive non event with the Haka being the most entertaining moment of an utter mis-match whitewash. You could visibly see the Kiwis coast through the last quarter whilst the crowd entertained itself with an obligatory mexican wave.

England vs Australia was an absolute stormer. England went hard down route 1 for the whistle and the crowd reaction was fervent to the point of outright hostility. Now I shout my head off at a Wasps game but it's WHAT I, and my fellow supporters of both sides, shout that's somewhat different. I've NEVER booed or whistled an opposition kicker either.

Nothing as bad as a football match but it was a level that I'm not used to or more to the point was expectant of, not that I'm looking to exacerbate the North - South divide you understand!

It was a quality game with plenty of conviction form both sides. The mood of the crowd was not helped by a number of crucial ref decisions going against England and the Kangaroos eventually ran out as winners. Interesting to see how England went with Bash whilst the Aussies looked to move the ball a lot more, much like their Union reputations!

Rugby League; played and supported by Northerners, no big girl's blouses. Personally I'll be sticking to scrums, rucks and mauls.

OGGY OGGGY OGGY!! :)

Dyin' Ain't Much of a Livin'

And yes I do fully intend to work through the whole of the album for titles :)

Another session of Deadlands Thursday night and I'm really enjoying the system and setting. Having got a better hold on how to play the rolls we got some work in on playing the roles!

Despite each of us receiving a random pre-generated character most of us seem to be continuing a  previous theme.
- Charlie has a / another amoral wilderness warrior with a penchant for large guns and an overwhelming urge to deploy massive firepower. D&D: Elven Ranger bow-master. Star Wars: Human Mercenary.
- Rob has a / another man of god. The current one was "inspired" to liberate a gatling shotgun and employ it to do "Good". Shame about the bounty on his head! D&D: Dwarven Cleric. Star Wars: Mon Calamari Sniper / Field Medic
- Myself, I've picked up an investigative reporter surviving on persuasion and smarts whilst avoiding a stand-up fight at all cost. D&D: Halfing Rogue

Only Mr Christian has had a major change picking up a Card-Shark Mage against his D&D Paladin and Star Wars close combat Quarren soldier.

Nothing wrong with any of that, just an observation.

Moving on from Tree-Ville with met up with our new employer to whom we are to act as bodygaurd while he picks up and delivers a steam-punk super-valve to a lumber camp. We had the evening to ourselves and Mr C's card-shark set to work cheating the locals out of the majority of their earnings ably assisted by Rob's "prayers". Their prior Paladanic / Clerical combo would be turning in their cots!

Next morning we went to catch the train only to be desperado'd on the crowded platform. I dived for cover, taking our employer with him, whilst the other boys opened up with maximum effect! The local Marshall prevented me from liberating and newly unwanted items to sell on. Old habits!

Delivering the valve it turned out to be for a new ghost-rock powered mechanical logging machine. With a number of dignitaries in camp the Prof spooled it up for the first time only for my Danger Sense to kick off. KA-BOOM!!!

Previously we'd done a bit of investigative groundwork and any possible sabotage could come down to a number of factors. The rival camp down the road has a similar machine being built by the Prof's ex partner. The local Indians have asked both camps to leave their sacred trees in the vertical position and a number of parties of logging scouts (ahem) have gone missing!

That would be my bit then!

The Three Amigos!

Shaun and rich popped round last night for a veritable riot of Musketeer.

Despite a few games with Ganesha's recently released Flashing Steel, Rich ran us through a free set, "And One For All!" from Eureka. Download and examples of play HERE.

The first thing that made me sit up and realise that this was something DIFFERENT was the declaration that "you don't measure movement". It turns out that you move, and interact, between terrain and playing figures. Not SO new to me then!

I'll let the Eureka site explain the mechanics to you but basically you get the chance to make multiple actions, successively gaining a die per action attempted to test against that action with. Just don't roll a 1 at any point as that's when you loose initiative and your run of actions ends. SIMPLES!

In short, once we'd spent a couple of turns learning it all became very intuitive. The mechanics actually encourage HEROIC play and I soon found myself looking for any possible flourish which really suits and brings alive the swash in one's buckle.

Relaxing HEROICALLY after another successful sourjon in the name of her majesty the Musketeers slake their hard won first at the local hostelry unaware that Rochefort and the Cardinal's guards stand ready to enter, stage left!

Rudely interupted from his third horse-pie Porthos intercepts Rochefort's diversionary rowing boat borne amphibious assault!

Rochefort shows his true quality, as cad and bounder, by holding the serving wench, Yvette, as a human shield. Booo, hisss, booo!

Porthos sees off the less the crack Carmine Marine division by employing, empty, beer barrel artillery but puts his trick back out in the process!!

Aramis and d'Artagnan rush to Yvette's aid but so keen to impress her they fail to deal with Rochefort!
Note - to generate a decent dice pool to take on Rochefort I attempted many witty retorts and manly postures only to continually roll 1's ending the activation prematurely.

Milady De Winter gets in on the act attempting to Seduce / Distract d'Artagnan. Failing, he only had eyes for Yvette, the green headed monster reared with Milady resorting to dagger play and a whirling kick to his nethers!

The remaining Cardinels Gaurds storm into the beer garden whilst d'Artagnan takes Milady roughly in hand much to her continuing fury.

Whilst his fellows remember the scenario objective of escaping, rather than chatting up the bar maid, Aramis duels with Rochefort moustache-o, moustache-o!!

Pulling hard on the oars the d'Artagnan and the Musketeers slip from the Cardinal's clutches once again bidding sweet adieu to Yvette, who remains entirely unmoved by their attentions!

Despite Shaun's general take on board / bored games we quite happily ran through 3 games of The Three Musketeers: The Queen's Pendants from which all of the above figures were sourced.

Run on card activation its a good fun game. A trifle stacked towards the Musketeers and it probably doesn't hold up well to repeated play but it kept us well entertained for an hour or so.

Shaun and Rich have both picked up copies primarily for the figures, counters and all important activation deck which at £30 is a pretty good deal.

As is often the case, talk soon turned to how both games could be turned to other genres / theatres with particular talk of 70s Action Movies and Matrix style stuff  for  "And One For All!".

I know Kung-Fu!!