Never being Boring

Hello people,

So, after the qualified triumph of Yavin / Expo as a bit of variety I've been dabbling elsewhere, which is allowed under my self imposed gaming restrictions as I haven't spent any money. Nor will I.....honest :)

Nigel recently picked up Warhammer Quest: Silver Tower and has played a couple of games down at the club. I jumped in for a game last week and it short was really impressed. There are plenty of reviews out there, here's Beasts of War two pence, so the main contribution that I have to make is that it FEELS right. Simple mechanics, depth to tactics plus a need for co-operative play versus the random event studded scenarios.

Production quality is as high as you would expect and the figures are gorgeous, the otherwise overpowered grim-dark fitting very nicely, though I still can't get on with the Celestians. As much as anything the game actually fits with, what I remember as, it's original ethos. It's not often that this gets said but WELL DONE GW. Ahem,....

All of this is just as well as GameZone's HeroQuest 25 version is apparently still under production as well as 18 months overdue. What seems to be lacking is any form of recognition of that issue. Gears will grind slowly I'm sure...... (grumble)

Speaking of slow grinding gears, it's almost like it's deliberate, Rich ran me through TANKS, Battlefront's new game commanding a tank platoon. It looks like a kind of Flames of War lite but it's actually a boardgame, just on a 3x3 tabletop.

Nothing wrong with that but maybe you should make that plain. Rich referred to it as WWII X-Wing which isn't too far off as you have a 100 point platoon of variously pointed tanks that you can equip with Ace abilities and various other crew, equipment and ammunition. Movement is template based, combat decided by attack an defense dice with critical damage causing extra effects. Topping everything off is a numerically rated initiative system.

So WWII X-Wing. It's good fun, once again simple mechanics allowing depth of tactics. As much as there's the room to be gamey genuine tank platoon tactics still have thier place.

Both good games in thier own rights, there's plenty of them out there. Meanwhile I'm slowly getting back to some casual flying,Dengar to the max! Elsewhere it's an entire weekend of Netrunner on the cards, ahem, with Dark Sphere's Regional Saturday and Gaurdians of Tyr Sunday. It's been a while since I've played regularly so I've got a bit of learning curve to re-climb.

Happy Days :)

The Spirit of the Season

Hello people,

With Enfield Gamers mothballed until 6th January a few of the chaps reported to casa del Oddleg Tuesday night to scratch the itch. After a few minor emergencies it was myself, Charlie, Rob and Mr C.

Mr C had been keen on playing Rebel Assault, an early gift from himself, but he was running late so the rest of us plumped for War on Terror and had it set-up as he arrived.

It hadn't come out of the box for a while but the simple RISK-esque mechanics meant we were soon back into the flow of things with minimal effort. From initial deployment Rob made a play for Antarctica and South East Aisa while I went for the Americas with Charlie and Mr C set to carve up hte Europe / Africa landmass. Much as with RISK no-one fancied trying to take and control Russia.

Charlie was fairly aggressive straight out of the blocks taking lumps out of Rob and Mr C. Mr C took the bait while Rob consolidated and I quietly built my powder puff pink empire :)

Fighting on multiple fronts (lessons form history?) saw Charlie fairly stretched and deploying his state sponsored Terrorists early doors. Mr C responded by Nuking him (subtle that lad) into a very definite 4th place at which point Charlie turned terrorist! This is an excellent mechanism within the that means that eliminated players take control of the Terrorists making them a proper late game faction and keeping all your players in the game.

Having learnt our lessons in previous games about deploying Terrorist with wild abandon only to be mullered by them during the endgame (lessons from history?) myself Ron and Mr C quickly developed a co-operative strategy to keep Charlie in check. It took a lot of effort but worked, also producing a far different and interesting game.

Charlie played his part well, including rhetoric and trying to set the coalition against itself. As we moved into the endgame Mr C was, predictably, the one to make the final play throwing Nukes at me...twice (subtle that lad). Thankfully my carefully prepared Nuclear Bunker and Disarmament Treaty foiled his plans for me to complete my liberation of the Americas to claim the 10 Liberty Points required for victory.

"America.....saving the world from the world...and all that lovely gushing oil" ;)

Merry Christmas

WWII in various Colours

Hello people.

Yes, been a little while. Busy elsewhere and all that Jazz.

Last week was all WWII and EotE, which was all good with me. WWII kicked off last Saturday by breaking out Heroes of Normandie with Rich.

Cracking open the box we were somewhat overwhelmed with the number of tokens in there.......no dice though :/ Even as crusty old gits at this sort of thing it was all a bit bewildering for a while but once we were playing, which very nearly didn't happen, everything slotted into place ;)

In short it's a good (board)game with alternating initiative and a central "order" system. In short you get X number of orders plus one Bluff for roughly X x 2 units. With an order you can move, fire, or do something useful (but not move and fire). Any unordered units can make a move at the end of the turn.

Playing through two scenarios the cartoon / caricature feel of the background comes through in the gameplay and scenarios. With the points system it seems that you can play the game in a much more "traditional" manner but we haven't got that far yet. Definitely intend to find out though.....got far too much of it sitting around not too ;)

Moving on Tuesday night at Enfield Gamers was a 4 way game of Bolt Action at 500 points each, 1000 per side. We kept the Order Dice separate for each individual force, as you're supposed to, to see how it played out.

The table itself looked a bit Ardennes so that's what we went for with Paul's Yank Brandenburgers supporting Charlie's Heer against Damien's Brits and my Commandos.

The early game on my left flank was dominated by my RN FO as Paul ran away from the smoke spotting rounds at every opportunity. As such his elite Paras made a rush up the very open centre of the table and got shot to bits for their trouble.

On our right flank honours were fairly even thanks to a lucky mortar hit taking out a Bren Carrier balancing the Heer inability to pass an Order though the plethora of Steg 44s were doing a job.

Eventually the RN support fire turned up, though somewhat short, in fact plastering the Commandos with Pin markers. Almost prophetically I'd made a load over the weekend!

Thankfully the Commando's Elite status meant they were able to wear them well seeing off a Brandenburger squad in combat whilst outnumbered 2 to 1 and secure the flank. Meanwhile the plucky Tommies followed their forefathers with a number of well timed bayonet charges urged on by Lt Simpkins who bashed the Bosch brigand to secure the game.

A good game and a bit more learnt. Throughout the Deutsch-Dice stormed out of the bag ahead of the Brits which naturally put us on the defensive but also allowed us to mount a coordinated counter-attack. 

The more I play this game, the more I want to play this game :)

What would Jason Statham do........part deux!

ITuesday night down at Enfield Gamers was the latest installment of the Zombiecide narrative campaign.

Following on from last time out PROD was missing one of its main agents provocateur whilst COCS had forgotten to bring the master spreadsheet. As such and with what looked like a relatively grab the objectives mission in front of us we did everything a bit half arsed on both the co-operation and planning fronts.

As such the zeds had the chance to bite back and did so....hard!

Kitting up early doors I went particularly Gun-Fu and most of us were fairly maxed out pretty quick. 

Jon / Jason picked up a chainsaw and went all red mist. Unfortunately it must have running on vapours as his dice were shocking and a bonus zombie turn saw him go down quicker than a Deathrace extra. It must have been a stunt double....obviously!

Charlie / Ned meanwhile went around assembling a pack of four dogs which once he'd found a second, fully fueled, chainsaw turned him into psycho-tramp flinging 11 dice in combat.

Unfortunately our lack of focus soon meant that the zeds were coming thick and fast while we scrambled for the last two objectives. Psycho-tramp carved a path with the rest of us in support but an Abomination had turned up and we hadn't the means to take him down.

Finally sharpening up a gap appeared between mobs and we went for it....only for a bonus zombie move to shut us down and see us swamped.

Unable to Psycho-tramp our way through all but one of us were munched for a total cast wipeout, or at least what should have been. 

I've mentioned before that I'm not sure about the whole Zom-vivor thing. I get that you're basically "on the turn" and see the extra facet to the game but it doesn't quite sit right with me personally. There are two strands to my thinking;

1. It feels like you're being rewarded for failure. Several times now a Zom-vivor has done the necessary damage and pulled victory from the jaws of Zom.

2. Surely the survivors wouldn't be overly trusting of thier newly shambling buddies. That's quite a leap of faith.

For the campaign we decided that a Zom-vivor will spend D3 games "on the turn", including the bitey one, before having to be put out if there misery.

Personal choice but I'd rather pick up a new character rather than let my personal hygiene go so drastically.....even as a wargamer :)

I shall say theese only wonce!

Hello people,

Not been a lot going on here as I've been rather busy with OTHER stuff.

Meanwhile this lot FINALLY turned up from Devil Dog. As seems to be the case with KS I can't quite remember what I pledged for but a Feck-off sized box has been emptied and stacked in a significant proportion of a spare bookcase.

I tend to remember pledging for two basic sets (amongst 4 of us) but I'll have to check. There's so much stuff there I'm not sure we'll do anything with it for a while for lack of knowing WHAT to do with it. I suppose that this is possibly a stealth issue with KS. It's taken so long to turn up that we've moved on to other things, most recently Bolt Action, which kind of dooms Heroes of Normandie to it's shelf for a while.

Pledge goals, i.e. free stuff, is all good but how complete does your pledge "packet" become. With a decently planned campaign you'd hope that it would all be sorted out for you but I get the feeling that it's all to easy to loose sight of that if the face of freebies.

I have recently found myself passing up on a number of tempting campaigns simply by asking myself "what would I actually do with it?". This seems to be far more pertinent than "do I need it?" because we all know the answer to that one? ;)

Anyway, hopefully Heroes won't gather too much dust before it sees some action. We'll see!

A Good Day to Die

Evening all.

It's been a good 24 hours of gaming with another Firefly session Saturday night before the OP4 ST: Attack Wing event down at TTN which was another sell out event.

Running my Sons of Moggh Klingon fleet I was running two K'Vorts with Worf and Martok plus Gowron in a B'Rel. Goals for the day were to have fun, pick up a win and trial Advance Weapon Systems. Glad to report that success was achieved on all three fronts. As for the games themselves;

First up I was against a two ship Fed Enteprise-B / Excelsior Flagship build with Khan and Picard generating more actions and cards than you could shake a stick at. Even  my opponent had trouble keeping track. I slammed Enterprise hard early on but he side-stepped away and I didn't manage to concentrate properly damaging both but not killing either. I dropped cloaks too early for other actions, red mist, which was something of a mistake. Lesson learned. 0-1.

Second up was against a K'Tinga swarm. Prioritising keeping the cloaks up worked well and proved the difference between two scarily similar fleets. Gowron's B'Rel came in for a lot of attention and died just as quickly as game 1, when it couldn't roll an Evade to save it's life. Quoted to me as a "glass gun" I might need to rethink this one. Big win to go 1-1.

Third up was two Excelsiors with Kirk, Picard and something new to me, Anti-Matter Mines. Managing to clobber Kirk, only for him to cheat death, I was Hyperdrive buzzed within about 2mm to be liberally showered with the Mines which took out my entire fleet on turn 3! Something of a situational one trick pony but it did the job big time for 1-2.

To be honest game 3 almost took the shine off by my opponent was a decent guy and I'm happy that I've learnt a lot from the day. To round out myself, Ian and Mr C played the three-way co-operative Scimitar scenario, twice in fact as the first time round we got smashed!

So, good day, don't even seem to mind that it's Monday tomorrow :)

Mutant Chronicles??

Hello people,

Back from the wonders of the week-long work training course this pile of shrink-wrapped geek-goodness was waiting for me. It's about bloody time as there were some "issues" with delivery resulting in a re-send, direct from the States thus incurring Import Duty, and a previously un-mentioned product split. Annoying but at least it's here, unlike Heroes of Normandie which is delayed further than the second front it represents!

Tomorrow night a few of us are getting together round at Rich's for another run-out with Firefly before heading down to TTN on Sunday for their most recent ST-AW Organised Play event. So, this seems like the post to expand my recent musing about "hybrid board-games" (Rich J's phrase), especially given GW's 25% share-price nose-dive following the announcing of their half year financial, though I appreciate that this is a relatively tenuous link.

Meanwhile, back in the room, the thought process works something like this;
- "Traditional" wargames take a lot of time and effort to get going, building and painting armies, scenery etc
- For new gamers this can be something of a barrier, though naive enthusiasm usually sees them through
- Veteran gamers, or at least the ones in my group, tend to have time as their most limited resource, as demonstrated by the number of abandoned projects that litter the bits boxes
- Wargamers are all about the toys, the figures. We tend to be somewhat disparaging towards "pure" boardgames and those that play them. Where's the "hobby" in that we ask?
- Boardgames with "proper" figures are apparently far more acceptable, they scratch the required itch. Thus the rise of the Hybrid-Boardgame

The Hybrid-Boardgame has a number of major selling points; 

- Everything you need to play the game comes in the box, it's (potentially) a self contained project

- You can get to playing the actual game very quickly

- There is still the possibility / necessity for figure painting

- The game tends to play quickly, 2hr max making campaigns far quicker

- The games themselves are well crafted being fast, fun, furious and even true to period / genre

- Less of an investment in respect of both time and, often, money

For myself, my apparent conversion has snuck up on me somewhat, starting with Blood-Bowl and Space Hulk whilst still playing 40K and Fantasy as my main games. I suppose that as my gaming has moved towards skirmish then its become less of a leap to make. The important point here is that I'm not complaining, I'm more than happy to be a Hybrid-Boardgamer!

As much as I'm still not a fan of pre-paints, painting my own figures is a big part of "my" hobby, the figures themselves have improved no end in terms of sculpt quality, material and re-paint potential, just look at the Zombiecide offerings! Speaking of ZC the rise of the Hybrid-Boardgame seems intrinsically linked to the rise of KickStarter within the hobby. The nature of Hybrid-Boardgames lend themselves to KS particularly well to the point of being almost self funding, they form Mantic's entire business strategy, and in some cases an apparent license to print money.

The offerings available have simply exploded over the past 18 months or so. Dreadball, Deadzone, Mars Attacks, Kingdom Death, Descent, Hero-Quest, Incursion, Dust Tactics to name but a few. Then you've got X-Wing, Attack Wing and Wings of War as various birds of feather competing for our Geek time and money. How about Spartan's Uncharted Seas, Firestorm Armarda and Dystopian War, tha tmuch different?

So is this doing real damage to the 6"x4" plus wargames community? GW's aparrent woes are likely far too circumstantial but the rise of KS and it's effects on the wider community have been well documented. Plenty of hobby wedge is being hoovered up in this manner and there is surely only a certain amount to go around. We've certainly noticed an effect in and around the club.

A bit like Marmite the reaction seems to be love or hate but whichever camp you're in I'm sure the Hybrid Boardgame is not only here to stay but likely to keep growing. The question is where and when is the saturation point?

A Game of Two Tales

Evening all,

Back to the grind for three days and rather looking forward to the weekend and reacquainting myself with the brushes.

An oasis of geekdom I got in a game of Dreadball with Ian last night down at Enfield Gamers. Niffing  of varnish I dug out my Nameless while Ian opted for his beloved Forge Fathers. 

As it was thier first game I took two of each position, Striker, Sticky Guard and Hard Guard to give them an equal run. As the Away team I paired up the Sticky and Hard Guards in anticipation of laying some serious smackdown leaving the Strikers to scuttle about after the ball...except it didn't quite work out that way!

In short my Slam rolls were somewhat poor while the Fathers gave my lads something of an "lesson" which soon saw my injury box packed tighter a tin of John West. The Fathers were going full on with some big assists, Slams in the back and plenty of Stomps involved.

It didn't help that I forgot that Hard Guards have Can't Feel A Thing but it wouldn't have made a lot of difference. I was lucky to be avoiding multiple deaths! What also helped was the Father's total inability to handle ball while the Ref rolls pretty much all went my way.

So around about rush 6 I had a Sticky Guard a Striker left the pitch total, who thankfully manged to scuttle through for a 4 pointer. Speed and Skill 4 left them vulnerable to Gang-Slams but gave them good ball skills.

Around rush 10 the Slam game began to even up a bit as I put both Father Strikers off the pitch and grabbed a 1 pointer to leave Ian chasing the game a bit too hard. Managing to fend off the stumpys, despite a Striker kill a piece, I took the Landslide on the final rush and breathed out hard. It certainly didn't feel like a walkover!

As I'd thought Nameless are something of a combo team, with the ability to both hit hard and move the ball quickly, and refreshingly different to the Jack-tastic Z'Zor and Terratons I've been playing recently. Potentially able to take on most other teams effectively I think they could be vulnerable to specific targeting by Slam teams. I've seen it suggested that you need to target the Sticky Guards but I think it's the Strikers you need to go for.

Having said that next time out ill try a single Sticky, sprinting around to assist, with both Hard Guards and three Strikers. I think they might struggle against Striker spam and maybe the Asterians if they get some good Foul rolls. 

Looking forward to finding out :)

The Twelve Days of X-Mas - Day 8

So checking back I apparently started attaching paint to my Nameless team, the Wakadaisho Wave-Riders, back in November. Today I finally finished them off, bar numbering which will be a minor Day 8 job.

After quite a bit of work It's nice to have them all finished to a decent standard and that's all my Dreadball stuff to date fully painted! So more PPs for 2014 and a second finished project, as much as this one has been on and off on that count :)

I-Phone shots I'm afraid as I can't find the charger for my camera, though they've come out well enough and I'm sure it's just run off somewhere obvious I haven't looked yet.

As previously mentioned the Strikers had some alignment issues on the hex bases but in some ways it might be a bonus in terms of them actually fitting next to any other figure!

The Hitty Guards and Jon Doe are pretty slim by comparison. JD looks somewhat static compared to his less All-Star compatriots and the most Zoidburg :)

Obligatory team shot with the Spawn looming out of the background. Rather looking forward to giving these guys a run out, hopefully in the Enfield Gamer's upcoming Champions League. Not sure what the pre-game snacks might be :)

The Twelve Days of X- Mas - Day 3

So, Day Two, as Boxing Day involved stuffing my face with roast ham, though I did at least go for a run first!

Day Three, today, was a bit of a lie in and chores to clear the decks for action. Action itself comes in the form of Firefly - the boardgame this evening round at Rich's along with Mr C and Ian. In short there's an awful lot of cards and tokens to take in but a set of simple and intuitive mechanics that keep things flying along at a shiny pace.

Name of the game is running round the 'Verse doing jobs, legal, illegal or immoral to recruit crew and soup up your Firefly before attempting to complete the super-job for that session. A good crew and plenty of kit is essential to see you right as you plot you course through troubled time and space.

Board Game Geek says:
Players begin with a ship, and travel from planet to planet, hiring crew, purchasing ship upgrades, and picking up cargo to deliver (jobs) all in the form of cards. Some crew and cargo are illegal, and can be confiscated if your ship is boarded by an alliance vessel. Travelling from planet to planet requires turning over "full burn" cards, one for each space moved. Most do nothing, but you can also encounter an Alliance ship, have a breakdown, or even run into Reavers. Completing jobs gets you cash. First player to complete the story goals wins.

The publisher,  says: In Firefly: The Game – based on the popular Firefly television series created by Joss Whedon – players captain their own Firefly-class transport ship, traveling the 'Verse with a handpicked crew of fighters, mechanics and other travelers. As a captain desperate for work, players are compelled to take on any job — so long as it pays. Double-dealing employers, heavy-handed Alliance patrols, and marauding Reavers are all in a day's work for a ship's captain at the edge of the 'Verse. Firefly: The Game is a high-end thematic tabletop boardgame from Gale Force Nine (GF9) and the first in a series of tabletop hobby board games and miniatures games from GF9 set in the Firefly Universe.

Everything is there from the show, characters, kit, ships and missions. Starting off easy you need specific equipment and skills for the big scores, and could happily play in that mode without the bigger mission arc.

If you're even vaguely a fan then this is an AWESOME game, even if you're not it's very good indeed. SHINY :)

Turtle Soup?

Evening All,

Tuesday night at Enfield Gamers was our last club night of 2013 and with the Spirit of the Season in mind Ian's Judwan Land-slid me....twice.......in a total of about 15 rushes.

My dice didn't help too much but then I did also make some dumb-ass moves, something of a habit against Ian. Several of my lads ended up rolling around for several rushes at a time, which is sort of impressive against a non-Slam team.

Twice, across the two games, I went for a Dash and failed, whilst also getting smacked in head several times by a ball launch. One of these came from failing to pick up the ball from DB1 but another couple of times it was all down to a few tactical Feints. One feels that most of these events were somewhat avoidable!

While my Gaurds did their bit in laying the Slam the Jacks simply didn't turn up for the party. My Coaching rolls being distinctly random didn't help otherwise. As such even beginning to challenge the Jud score-rate just wasn't happening!

Not horrifically unhappy. Learnt a few bits and recognised that some nights the dice just aren't with you. Ian's well known for keeping them to himself :)

Rising from the Depths

Evening all,

Just a quick, slightly fuzzy, one as I've finally made some Nameless progress, finishing Big Bo-Bo and the hitty gaurds. The real work came in settling on a scheme that works across all of the positions but it got there.

6 Painting Points so far with the Sticky Gaurds, Strikers and John Doe (repaint) to go. Numbering is likely to be on the bases unless I get assaulted by inspiration. Unfortunately I've also noticed that in cleaning up the Striker mounts they all now face the point of a hex whcih is an arse but not the end of the world.

Tomorrow night at the club sees the tradition of Pizza Night plus a mini bake-off between a few of us. Proper nerdy eh? Bit more Terraton action for me and possibly a side order of Klingon!

Throw another shrimp on the barbie?