Jolly Boys day out

Hello people,

Tuesday night down at Enfield Gamers we continued the Jugula campaign with a day event at arranged by some backwater Magistrates to appease and distract the locals from the Roman yoke.

House Trottarius travelled up from Peckham having impressed in recent events with a number of wins and a few honourable defeats. A couple of casualties early doors have been balanced by the advancement of the the whole Ludus. Dominus Delanus has been well pleased....luvly jubbly!

Introducing for you entertainment, (L-R);

Rodanius - Murmillo - A simple lad, bit of a plonker at times but favoured by Delanus. The tank of the outfit, recently worked out what the pointy end of his sword is for - Palus; +1 Attack
Boycanius - Secutor - Razor sharp but mouthy. Looks for the opportunistic, flashy kill. Quick feet around the arena - Palus;  +1 Movement
Damianus - Thraex - A young lad, very intense, shunned by Rodanius. Enjoys his trade almost a little too much, likes to play with his opponents - Palus; +1 Defense
Marlenius - Dimacharius - An instinctive fighter, emotional in the arena. Brooding, blows hot and cold around the Ludus. Very, very close with Boycanius - Palus +1 Attack
Trigarius - Hoplomachus - Dumb but dependable. Same "lucky" spear his entire career. Eight new shafts, nine new heads but still the same spear. - Palus +1 Attack
Albertus - Retarius - An ex-sailor of some experience with a net. Sailed many seas and has a story to tell for every one of them. The elder statesman of the Ludus - Palus +1 Attack

This week the trip north didn't sit too well with the lads. Somehow they never seemed to get into the groove of things. Despite taking the initiative an working around the arena pretty well they somehow lacked the....execution, and failed to make their advantage count. After that they rocked onto the back foot and slowly slid to defeat.

Thankfully no one died, always a bonus, but with the Ludus' newly found Popularity and Fame has massively increased costs and the trip only barely turned a minimal profit. Such is life, two weeks to recover before the next event...."This time next year Rodanius..... :)

Little Donkey

Hello people,

Been a bit quiet on here I know mainly as I had last week on holiday down in Newquay which was gorgeous. Brace yourself for any number of catch up posts and possibly the odd landscape shot :)

Tuesday night was back to business down at Enfield Gamers as the third round of the Bolt Action league saw us hit 1000 points with a fan written scenario. 

Taking on Rich J's Estonian SS I knew I was in for one of our typically bloody affairs. I was also less than happy with my list as a good few games and browsing of Warlord's forums had produced a few themes. Many small units seems to be the meta as the ability to dish out pins is highly prized.

It's not a meta I want to join at sacrificing any semblance of historical accuracy but I've become aware of the better choices within the lists. I hadn't really taken too many!

Rich's force was small, elite and infantry light maxing out manoeuvre and concentrated firepower at the expense of numbers. He applied it well while I, unfortunately, played like bit of a donkey...a donkey that the dice turned against!

A lot of things went right for the SS as he crept up and then went all out his truck-borne assault force of flamethrower, captain and assault rifles. From the comfort of my farmhouse I shot the truck to pieces only to loose the whole of A Section to the flamethrower. Meanwhile B Section's flank assault has stalled under an air-strike while I let D Section get caught in no mans land and pinned to buggery.

The important phrases there is that "I let"! Throughout the game I made a number of poor tactical decisions. Several times I made a good tactical choice to then not implement it. It's said that you make you're own luck and I made mine somewhat shoddily!

Lessons of the game;

- I SHOULD have landed smoke on the Stug rather than allow it free reign to dominate.

- I SHOULD have had the sniper on Ambush to target the flamethrower.

- I SHOULD have moved the PIAT up to support B section.

- I SHOULD have ignored the truck and then shot the snot out of the flamethrower from Ambush as he debussed.

I did however do SOME things decently but my game didn't have too much edge to it. BA is a good game with simple mechanics but does demand decent tactics over buckets of dice to bully the odds into submission.

Already knowing that the list was likely to change we had the usual post game chat at which point advancing under smoke was discussed along with the importance of transports. Air Observers also came up!

Most of all, despite it being one of THOSE games, I still enjoyed playing the game. I've also taken delivery of an Engineer Section :)

You got a real pretty mouth!

Evening all,

Standard Sunday night "look at what I've painted" post as I've finished off my SAGA Mordor Orcs. Following Bolg, literally and figuratively, I've gone for a "human" fleshtone with some green washes in there for a bit of a tint.

In fact I've deliberately gone out of my way to paint them up as a dirty, scumbag rabble of inbred scum with a high incidence of shuffling gait and exaggerated overbite. Lots of pre-higlight and wash work which I'm very happy with. So happy in fact that I'm 90% going back to the Uruks to replicator the skin tone as mountain wild men gone even wronger. Will likely have a go at a mix of darker skintones as a nod to their "heritage".

So another 32 PPs and just the Goblin levy to go for the generic 6 point force of proper scum. I'm thinking lots of leathers for these chaps as the models have a lot of armour that is simply not representative of their station in life!

So far I haven't sorted any banners or musicians.....duelling banjos anyone :)

SLAM-ed!!

First two rounds of the DreadBall league down at the Enfield Gamers last night which saw a healthy turnout of coaches raring to go.

Levels of preparation were decidedly mixed with myself well towards the bottom end borrowing Shaun's unpainted, unbased humans. To cap things off I walked in with the team unnamed and unrostered as well.

Don't worry though they definitely paid me back for it :)

First game of the night was against Ian's Forge Fathers, the Green Tray Stackers. Ian is well known around the club for the quality of his dice to the point where "Ian Dice" is a fully coined phrase. Fully prepped and far more experienced I was soon handed something of a lesson.

In short it was 7-0 at the end of the 7th rush which did at least leave plenty of time for post match analysis and tea making.

In honesty I made a few opening turn blunders quickly compounded by poor dice resulting in quick turnovers. Ian took maximum advantage. Buying up event cards each turn he deployed them to maximum and brutal effect. 3+ strength for Slams also helped :)

Main lessons;

1. Cards are important buy them whenever you can. Effective use means three activations for that player / play.

2. Sequence of play, do the no risk things first (schoolboy error from an experienced BB player!). Just because the game is fast and furious doesn't mean you should be!

Second game of the night was against Rob's Veermyn team, The Biters. Due to my lowly ranking I got to choose my opponent and did so partly because Rob always gives a good game and also so that I'd gain some experience of the Veermyn.

What followed was a (full) game of Benny Hill-esque incompetence as we were both plagued by the same appalling dice conspiring to ensure that neither of us could score. We could both set up the strikes no problem but no matter how many dice we could muster.........NOPE!

Eventually I managed a solitary 2 point strike in the 12th rush to break the deadlock, snatching unlikely victory from the jaws (sigh) of ludicrous draw.   

Main lessons;

1. Those cards again, HUGE part of the game as is the need to "play like you've got a pair". Go for doubling the big strikes to whip up the crowd to gain more coaching dice. Risk vs reward not playing by the percentages!

2. Look at all the options. Veermyn are quick and skillful, several times Rob just stole the ball from me and skittered away. Slam and bash is not the only way to win the game, not by a long chalk!

So by the end of the evening;

A Guard died against Ian but selling his body and my income bought me a 3rd Guard which isn't so bad.

One minor win / one big loss means that I'm currently mid league which is cool.

I've learnt a lot more and enjoyed myself massively doing so. Lots / some prep before the next round!

I've just ordered the Gamers Edition :)

Sing while you're Winning?

And after another extended break I finally return :) I had the whole week off with the Jubilee and didn't manage a single jot or iota of hobby. I did manage to pick up a head-cold though.

Returning to the Enfield Gamers on Tuesday night Charlie was, erm........lucky enough?.....to be facing off across the table for the latest round of the Fantasy SAGA campaign. So it was Viking Orcs versus Anglo-Danish Khemrian Undead....as you do.

As something slightly different Charlie had taken a Shaman / Liche Priest as one of his units. I have access to one myself but hearthgaurd sword-arms have served me well so far and it was extra rules to learn. Was interested to see how they worked.

Rolling up the river crossing scenario I deployed my main strength of  two units of six hearthgaurd plus my recently skalded Warlord, Gonk, on the right, as an obvious Hammer, with my warriors and levy on the left as an obvious Anvil. No points for subtlety but his name's Gonk and he's an Orc!

Early doors I piled across on the right, spending arm-ring bonuses with abandon, to crash in early and target the Khemri Warlord. Route 1 all the way! My initial foray was quickly nullified by the dice gods but thankfully Charlie's reply was across the board rather than quite so blunt as mine and my HGs weathered the storm.

In all honesty Charlie seemed to get the rub early on, especially with his SAGA dice and seemed to succumb to the temptation of spreading his resources about. It sometime seems that when you have less to work with you're forced to pay more attention to what you're actually doing with it.

Throughout the game as a whole quite a few dice went into his Shaman and, probably because it was a new thing, the return didn't quite seem to be so effective. Surely a case of playing it through a few times.

Generating just 5 SAGA dice myself I spent the first few turns putting everything into my Hammer. Charlie tried slowing me down by using one of his abilities to place extra Fatigue across a couple of my units.

This actually helped me at times as I repeatedly used Frig to burn it off AND gain extra attack dice. Additionally Charlie was spending two SAGA dice where I was spending one. Continuing the Route 1 approach my dice rallied and despite losing a number of Hearth-Gaurd I tore up Charlie's left and hacked down his Warlord in typical Orcish fashion.

As such Charlie was now generating two less SAGA dice and forced into trying to get something from his Shaman. He had chewed through the majority of my HGs but was facing the last few and Gonk with a handful of Levy whilst I transferred the majority of my SAGA dice into my left flank and pushed up the Anvil.

My last couple of HGs could be run by Gonk, for whom they finally fell as the Anvil rolled over the final Khemri Warrior and the Shaman, though not without cost. Generating ZERO SAGA dice and a single Khemri levy remaining my own scum-horde brought proceedings to a close with a single volley.

Despite wiping Charlie out it was a close run thing, losing 3 points of troops myself including all of my H-G's and their arm-rings which are now lost to me permanently. I honestly feel that a few dice here or there could have made a huge difference to the result. I had less SAGA dice and they weren't rolling nearly as well as Charlie's but my extremely focused use of them along with that necessary touch of luck saw me through......but not by much!

Gonk however simply doesn't care as he's attained such status amongst the Skalds that they're already writing him into legend. There's just one catch........to attain such status he must find himself a glorious death next time out.

Ian's Norse Dwarves and Stewart's Welsh Goblins have also reached similar status. Ian and I are keen to give it a go (it's the shield-biting bit I think!) so that looks like a match-up. Stewart has decided to retire into grace and comfort............well he IS Welsh!! :) 

Two Tribes

Last Tuesday I performed the minor miracle of actually turning up at the club, Enfield Gamers, and taking part in Rich's Fantasy SAGA campaign.

Being a game behind, having not played for a while and drawing Rich's Skraelings as opponents (not played against them before) I wasn't over-optimistic about result and in all honestly gratefully settled in to a probable "suck it and see" game.

Can't quite remember the name of the scenario but it involved gaining victory points for controlling the three, equidistantly placed, terrain pieces. Toting plenty of hearthgaurd types against the Skraeling warrior horde I sipped on my tea and relaxed further into my expected thonging.

Early doors and the direct approach!

Rich picking up first turn saw him surge into his local forest and bundle up the central hill, led by his Warlord giving it a bit of Charlie Big-Potatoes to seize the initiative and lay the gauntlet firmly in my direction. Quickly deciding that I didn't fancy my chances in outplaying him through the scenario I moved everything but my levy up towards the hill, picking up the "mislaid" gauntlet intending to return it with vigour.

Fully aware that I was risking my Warlord and retinue I awaited on onslaught that never really came other than a number of sharply propelled javelins, which claim a couple of my best boys but left me otherwise unscathed. As such I felt sure that I was being baited for a cunning trap........

Come and have a go if you think you're hard enough!

......which I simply steamed straight into.

Decent SAGA dice were focused onto the Hearthgaurd and their support and the assault began. Heathgaurd plus Warlord steamed into a big unit of warriors. Can't remember the ability name but after the first round I forced an immediate second round, prior to fatigue or retreat, and wiped the lot.

Happy to oblige!

The supporting Hearthys took on the Skraeling retinue, carefully avoiding the Warlord, to do exactly the same leaving Charlie Big-Potatoes all on his Jack Jones with an eight strong warrior band eyeing his feathers. In for a penny, in for a pound!
Three hits! One ignored, one saved AND.........one for the kill! On turn two!!

We both just sat there, sipping tea and wondering what had just happened and exactly how!

Mopping up the stragglers

After that, despite Rich's best efforts, it was, unfortunately, something of a one-sided affair. With a very offensive battle-board I was initially caught in two minds, sit on the terrain and take the points or go for the kill. Carrying a few casualties I went for a bit of option one followed by option for any feathered type that got too near.

Rich did make a suicide run at my Warlord, who survived by the skins of his meat-shield, and then beat a retreat to avoid a possible wipe-out. Finishing off another couple of units the variable game turn length ended proceedings before that became a possibility.

Having pulled of such a result my boy "Gonk" has become rather heralded gaining Reknown hand over fist, gaining warriors, arm-rings a settlement and a shaman almost overnight. So much for a catch up game!

The orcish Skalds may bellow his name but the Skraelings will be howling for revenge :)

Game Over Man, GAME OVER!!!

Tuesday night down at the Enfield Gamers saw the final round of the Necromunda campaign.

With the Easter holidays in full effect four of us played out the chase for Castellan Locke in the Space-Munda confines of the sub-hive maintenance tunnels. With just 3 gangers a piece and the Flickering Lights it was always going to be a tight game but.....

Locke, knowing his fate as he continued down the corridor bleeding, finally sank to the floor, his old bones knowing their end. Loading his last clip into his pistol he aimed into the shadows and waited. As the gangers closed in on his location, shooting could be heard throughout the tunnels, especially the telling sounds of flame throwers.

Then, from out of the shadows they pounced, first an escher - Locke's shot not hitting its target, he was too weary, but he still had his chainsword to use.. The old man swung at the escher, her aim particularly bad he noticed, but it wasn't enough.. his own lights fading as the final blow was struck..

His final comfort found in the yells and screams of the gangers.. 'Stealers!' ... he knew they didnt stand a chance, the cube was safe..

In short we blew just enough chunks out of each other to then allow the randomly generated 'Stealers to overwhelm us just as we all started thinking about a truce! Stewart's Escher got to Locke first but were gunned down by the remains of my Van Saar and Lewis' Goliath who soon became 'Stealer-bait.

Jon's Cawdor featured two hired guns, an Enforcer and a Bounty Hunter who soon went "independent" after I repeatedly hosed them with promethium to roast his one remaining ganger. The Enforcer was an absolute beast with T5, Carapace Armour and a Suppression Shield but though he fought his way to the cube he couldn't fight off a trio of xenos......

So, not quite the final result we expected but an entertaining final game to an excellently narrative campaign. Many thanks to Lewis for all his efforts!

Return to Space-Munda

Enter the 'Stealers = Escher flee!

Flamer 1.....

Flamer 2.....

Closing in on Locke and the Data-Cube

Get some! Get some!

All vs All vs 'Stealers

Final throes

Close Encounters of the Xenos kind

I AM THE LAW!!!!

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!!

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 :)  

The Unusual Suspects

Tuesday night Lewis' Necromunda campaign kicked off at Enfield Gamers and I for one had been looking forward to this one as Necromunda gives me a direct link back to when GW was COOL!!

I wanted to use my Copplestone / Rogue Trooper figures and reviewing what I had it quickly became clear that close combat was the far lesser option and as such it was a toss up between going for Van Saar or Delaque. With the Genetic Infantry being high end bio-technology in themselves Van Saar tipped the balance.

As such greet the gang, Rogue's Rejects;

Alpha Team: Gunnar (Ganger w Lasgun); Rogue (Leader w Plasma Gun); Bagman (Ganger w Lasgun);

Bravo Team: Venus (Ganger w Lasgun); Eight-Ball (Ganger w Lasgun); Lulu (Ganger w Lasgun)

Charlie Team: Bo (Juve w A Pistol); Franky (Heavy w Flamer); Luke (Juve w A Pistol)

Delta Team: Jym (Juve w A Pistol); Benny (Heavy w Flamer); Bexley (Juve w A Pistol)

So two games on the night, each with a bonus campaign territory on offer, plenty to play for.

Despite best intentions I hadn't managed any practice games and so was a bit rusty when facing Stewart's Escher. Based on Dark Eldar Wyches his gang looks very dynamic and soon launched a concerted frontal assault against my slightly skewed deployment.

To be honest he totally got the drop on me and it was only luck that saved me, his being significantly worse than mine. Somehow coming out of this mis-match with only one fighter downed I countered up the left flank with a flamer and the Juves flooring three.

Stewart duly failed the very first bottle-roll of both the game and his campaign to leave me with the win. To rub in salt one of his girls was killed while I didn't have to make a single injury roll. Karma then settled things with me as I got greedy with my Archeotech Horde and ruined it, literally! Fair enough really.

Second game was against Lewis' Goliaths. We were both toting a pair of flamer heavies which saw some serious cat and mouse. Reacting to Lewis' two sets of tunnels I set up on either flank but quickly realised that I had OVER-reacted.

As Lewis shifted his focus to my right flank I raced across the high ground, losing one of my GI's to a fall, until Lewis made the early campaign Death or Glory charge which left me with a third of the gang down or out of action.

Faced with stacking odds I decided to concentrate on another day and gave up the game along with the bonus territory. Karma once again rode in as I had 4 serious injury rolls to make......a full recovery and various scarring resulting in a LD 9 heavy and two Juves that cause fear.

Post game was even better with an Isotropic Fuel Rod to convert my new Ruin into a Homestead and a Hot-shot Power Pack for one of my couple of gangers who picked up BS advances. Three Juves all picked up Techno skills. Not too shabby despite mis-deploying twice.

NEVER split the party! :)