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 :)

The Dungeons and Dragon Ride

Continuing a theme, this is Jon. Jon has been running the D&D campaign for those of us who do and is another founder member of Enfield Gamers and all of it's previous incarnations.

Well known around the club for his horrendous dice and excellently painted figures Undead Jon is also rather keen on all things hailing from the afterlife. Jon is also well known for his immaculately prepared rosters / ganglists / character sheets and the amount of work that he's put into the D&D.

Thursday night saw the latest instalment of D&D and Jon had prepared another stormer as we headed back into combat. Visiting a mage college on the isle of Isleholme we found it in "lockdown" for reasons initially unknown.

Effecting entry / breaking in the place was eerily silent until we finally made contact with an immensely jittery mage. Calming him down it became that their menagerie had broken loose and stood between us and the Arch-Mage's quarters. Well why wouldn't it?
Said menagerie consisted of an Owlbear and a Roper. The Roper caused some issues, dropping Rob's Dwarven Cleric to strength zero, thus collapsing to the floor a la newborn, and gave most of us a stern fight. The Owlbear lined up against Charlie's Ranger and Ian's Warlock.

Owlbear = Ranger fodder

Over the next few minutes we all noticed just how effective the Elven Ranger had become with his flaming bow. Standing still he kicks out two double-arrowed bow shots. One round of decent dice kicked out 75 damage and definitely clipped the Owl's, well.....everything!

The Roper almost gave us a good whipping.....before Ranger-time!

As mentioned the Roper tied several of us up, fairly literally, (ho ho ho) for a few rounds and was proving quite the handful. This was until Ranger boy came around the corner and unleashed his Hail of Doom Arrows. The guy suddenly seems to have become the deadly love-child of Legolas and Hank (for those in the know)!!

The Assassin de-cloaked

Moving on we had to do investigative stuff, i.e stuff that we couldn't shoot to death, like read and think. This proved more challenging until trouble came and found us in the slinky shape of an Assassin-ette.

Appearing from nowhere she headshot one mage type before disappearing before our various eyes. Locating our Arch-Mage we combined confusion with him attempting to locate her via Detect Evil and a little bit of scrying. Proving unable to do so she once again de-cloaked and shot our Arch-Mage dead in the head with a natural 20. Dog food in a cloak!

As we left it......mild chaos!

To top things off our first met guide proved turncoat summoning a ghost and ghasts before legging it along with Assasin-ella. Time also stormed out on us whilst we contemplated various risky pursuits.

A cliff-hanger then, just like any good series :)

I was Rob-bed!

Say hello to Rob!

Tuesday down at the Enfield Gamers we finished off Necromunda raid campaign turn and Rob's Delaque were going after my Spore Cave.

Rob's a really good bloke and has been a mate of mine for years. Gaming wise he has a penchant for Dwarves, despite being over 6 feet in height, though he does eat and drink like one! Rob also has a habit of accidentally cheating.....mainly himself and always offers an extremely enjoyable game of whatever you might be playing.

Back at the game with only three sentries against almost Rob's entire gang I didn't hold out too much hope and was quite thankful when Rob, and his dice, tripped the alarm though he had power-axed the objective, Honest Bob's, to bits by then.

With the rest of my lads coming in from the flanks Rob's lads were caught in the crossfire as they made their "Strategic Retreat" and took the first possible opportunity to bottle it.

So technically I squeaked a win, suffered zero injuries and my Spore Cave was merely damaged rather than destroyed. Something of a lucky result.....cheers Rob!

It's a skate-by. The Juves stake-out Honest Bob's

Lying down on the job

Second round of the night were 3-ways based on the scavengers scenario with 4D6x10 creds on offer in the centre of the table. Drawn against Stewart's cowardly Escher and Jon's much depleted Cawdor I felt that I had a decent sniff of a result.

Jon's Tunnels allowed most of his depleted band of god-squad to deploy all over the objective which he quickly stormed whilst Stewart and I tripped over each other to get at him. Jon rained grenades down on the Escher-ettes whilst I hid and sniped manfully whilst shifting around the open right flank.

With his hand forced Stewart made the first assault on Jon's position only to be cut down by a two-way crossfire and running away like, well a big bunch of girls. So as Jon turned for home I chased after him and nailed two of his lads with a wall of Juve-tastic short range Uzi fire.

With the swag-bag duly dropped it was a 50-50 check as to whether I found it.....NO! Jon did manage to capture himself a couple of young girls (ahem!!) who were quickly ransomed to go with his glut of XP.

Rob-bed!!

RIP the WIP

After a bit of thought I've decided to kill the WIP page and consolidate irregular WIP posts into the main page as at the mo it's all feeling a bit to thinly spread.

As such I've moved the most recent WIP post over:

Dystopian Wars. I've played loads of Uncharted Seas enjoyably plus a couple of run throughs of DW and despite the richness of the Steampunk background I never found any of the model ranges to click with me fully, always an important thing for me, until now........

I've been reguarly flicking past Spartan's site since the first flying battleship was posted up and now the whole French fleet is up on pre-order and my mojo is well and truly engaged. Very Tintin-esque (yes I know he's actually form Belgium) they just hit the spot that other factions fail to shell / torpedo / thermic lance. The great big thermic lances on the cruisers look awesome and subs with mortars have got to be a winner.

I really love the control towers on the bigger ships and plan on emualting the sea blue / ice grey camo shown on Spartan's site. I also plan to name every craft after a French rugby player, wingers for escorts, fly half for the carrier, back row for the cruisers with locks and props for the big boys. Flagship quite obviously has to be La Chabal :)

Might as well pick up everything I need in one lump which with rules will be a cool ton but with a club campaign in the offing I don't mind making an investment that I know i'll get a return on. Best paint those Orcs for sale then :)

Bossing It

Hmmm another week between posts and Tharg knows how long since anything new has appeared on the WIP page, probably time to use it or loose it really :/ Just been busy with Life really, ....oh and the odd hour or two of skyrim :)

Last week saw a decent amount of gaming, another highly enjoyable evening of Warhammer Invasion though Stewart may disagree as I don't believe he managed a single win all night. I did at least TRY to feel vaguely guilty and am fairly sure I was less of a c0ck this time.

D&D on Thursday was a bit of a talky one and then some inter-party squabbling. This was mainly because, following on from last session's kill-steal banter, I decided to pocket the Paladin's magical ring, that summons his mighty other-planar steed Salsa-Queena, whilst he was sleeping.

When he found ou he was the only one that wasn't amused and my "Where's your horsey gone" song, in terrible Irish brogue, probably didn't help matters. This caused a number of minor recriminations and stamped feet. All sorted out in the end but guaranteed that we didn't get to the next combat so an early finish rather than get stuck halfway through.

Both sessions involved zero figures and I think its just that my attentions are elsewhere at the moment. No bad thing to have a break every now and then. Last night I did however manage to finish off the Orc Warlord and BSB on boars to a suitable for sale standard. Rather enjoyed painting these, especially the check on the banner and the ginger BSB boar :)

Technically at least 8 PPs due but i'll take 5 give the quick and easy intentions.

In an effort to clear the project the other 30 boy block is next up followed by the Boar Boyz which will definitely break the back of it. Manual 360 below.......

Mobbing Up

Waaagghhh.........I have finally finished the remaining 25 boyz to complete the first block of 30.

To be honest all the non front rankers got for highlights, post Devlan Mud, was a drybrush across the face followed by teeth and bone bits. Definitely more than happy with the result for a paint to sell job. Other than the front rank I wouldn't dare to try and claim 2 PPs a piece. 35 PPs for the remaining 25 boyz seems just about right :)

Can't tell you how glad I am to see the ladz finished. As a break I've already been working on the Warlord and BSB and quickly got them through to the standard wash of Devlan Mud. A happy diversion but now I'm on a bit of a roll the remaining block of 30 WILL be next pretty much breaking the back of the project.
Waaagghhh.........

Pieces of Eight

D&D Thursday night and Aaron got to flex most of his piratical muscles as we took to the river last night. What we later discovered was has inability to either swim or sail! Apparently its more about skills with a cutlass and the grog bottle.

Having brought home our recently  acquired column of refugees / life-contracted employees / indentured slaves we blagged some expenses form the Laird and then boarded our lift the south, The Salty Seaman.......ahem!

Settling in with the Seaman's three man crew our thoughts turned to.....well not so much mutiny more just outright theft. This was when the sailing credentials of our resident salty seadog came under s withering appraisal. So much so that we barely noticed the gale that suddenly blew up the river or the other sailing barge that suddenly veered across from the other bank and straight into our starboard side.

Picking ourselves up off of the deck we stood by to repel our demonic borders finding ourselves bereft of our regular formations, magical buffs and structure. It was a proper old scrap and as such probably one of most enjoyable and edgy dust-ups that we've had a for a while.

In amongst it all a bit of a kills competition developed  a la Legolas and Gimli. Originally between the unholy sworded Pirate and the holy sworded Paladin as the prime beef of the party. Mr Paladin bereft of his normal pack of buff spells, his 'roid rage, was struggling a bit while Captain Cutlass was having an easier time relying on his abilities as a purer warrior.

What wasn't expected was my Halfling Rogue getting in on the act but swinging amongst the rigging the broken nature of the combat allowed for plentiful backstab opportunities. A few decent dice later it was a run for the line between the Pirate and the Rogue with the Paladin having a bit of a lower lip wobble amongst allegations of kill steals. All good banter.

With the tide turned against the Rutter-Kin it was their winged herald that had been causing us most concern tying up the attentions of the Dwarven Priest and Elven Ranger. Hard pressed the herald dipped into his sack magic and pulled out Mirror Image which caught us flat footed at a critical juncture.

Much like Jon's Jedi Rob then checked his list of miracles and pulled out Dispel Magic which after a quick reference to the rulebook did the job. I couldn't resist highlighting the parallel as the Ranger belt fed arrows into the understandably piqued herald who suddenly found himself reeling and Rob with the chance of a major kill-steal. The roll came up a point short, despite Rob's search for every bonus possible only for the Elf to finish the job he started.

With both sloops rapidly taking on water we quickly boarded our opponent's vessel, looted it's hold and walked the water to the bank courtesy of the Cleric.

Final scores on the doors; Pirate 3, Rogue 3, Paladin 1/2 :)

Tough at the Top

Tuesday night was another dive back into the hive and it was raid-tastic as I took on Jon's Cawdor twice.

Attacking his water-still I found myself setting up on the far side of the table from the objective and,  more importantly, once again not taking the time to fully understand the scenario.

As such I quickly went for the less than stealthy firepower option, rolled a bunch of ones, a common theme for the evening, set off the alarm and got shot in the face by Jon's reinforcements. Taking a pasting, outnumbered, failing ammo rolls and half a table from the objective I quickly bottled.

In a bizarre twist the one Cawdor nutter I managed to drop, the stubber toting heavy, I captured whilst the Juve who dropped him almost died but, using his own Medic ability, ended up with a survived against the odds and extra D6 experience. Mental.

Feeling guilty via the turn of events I didn't want to just sell him into slavery and nick his stuff, a possibly crippling blow to Jon's gang so early in the campaign so he launched a rescue mission.

With just 3 sentries against his entire gang I was up against it form the start even before the dice and Jon's greater appreciation of he scenario rules took effect. His Bounty Hunter also did the business capturing two of my gangers. So despite forcing Jon to bottle he got his guys back and then traded me back my guys for his kit plus 35 creds.

So after an entertaining evenings battles we were pretty much even stevens plus some experience, in Jon's case plenty of experience so I guess he won. More than happy to do it again :)