Omnipotent Fowl

Last night at Enfield Gamers we kicked off the Britannia Jugula campaign with six newly formed Ludi and their equally green Lanistas (Lanisti?). There was much hamming it up and Spartacus quotes a plenty, especially where Jupiter's prize male chicken was concerned. In fact there was as much effort put into making grammatically poor threats as there was playing the game.

I am running Ludus Peckhamus of House Trottari hailing from the marshland to the south of Londinium....which partially explained the smell.

First up I faced Rich and his well hated Sagittarius. In honesty I started playing the deck building side of the game fairly well, building Vox Populi and marshaling my resources. It didn't help when I pretty much let myself get outmanoeuvred on the sands which was quickly stained red by my Secutor, a dead kind of red in fact!

To be honest I was having trouble "seeing" potential manoeuvres on the gridded board and it was costing me dear. That was until the penny finally dropped, clanged even, at which point I pinned two of Rich's lads up against a wall and smashed the both into it repeatedly to take a shock 4-2 win.

Push backs are an important part of combat. If you don't have the space to move back into you take an extra wound. Suddenly I only had to beat Rich's "roll" rather than double it!

Second game was against Shaun who tends to play the long game so I got stuck into him early. Problem was I failed to make it stick, manoeuvre again, and we ended up in a mass scrum in the middle of the arena. Eventually Shaun ground out a 4-1 win.

Third and final game of the night was against Paul who came at me from the off but fairly piecemeal. His dashed out and netted my new Sector which would have proved far more effective if he'd had someone to take advantage of it with.

I was effectively forced to fight around my netted man with fairly minimal resources but still with a touch more than Paul who hadn't built up at all in order to press on me. My advantage and defensive posture told as I forced Paul to engage on my terms and took a convincing 4-1 win.

Applying the campaign rules I had somehow done rather. The two dead Plebi were easily replaced from the slave pens while Rodanius my Murmillo tank and Triggorus my Hoplomachus (a spear is just a broom handle with a point) had both gained enough XP to ping up a level to each going another point of Attack bonus. This in turn garnered Ludus Peckhamus an amount of fame and reputation.

Not quite sure what that means just yet other than a target on the back and higher running costs I'm sure :)

For a "simple" game there are lots of little details to remember to apply. The quick play sheet had a section "10 things that you will forget". That does however mean that there's plenty of depth both tactically and strategically. Even as a fairly seasoned hack (cough) it took a bit to keep up though this was mainly because I was to busy having frenetic fun.

Frenetic is definitely the correct phrase, there's a lot going on on both sides of the arena and plenty to keep track of and second guess. It provides a good "buzz" to the game. 

We played through three rounds in about 2 1/2 hours as newbies with just decks and quick play sheets more than happily :) For the campaign it'll be every other week to keep things fresh and avoid overload. 

By Jupiter's omnipotent male hen, thou knowest where we reside!!

Nut and BOLTs

Evening All,

This week I have mainly been playing Bolt Action, thinking about Bolt Action variants and playing what we thought was a Bolt Action variant.....but isn't!!

Tuesday night down at Enfield Gamers myself and Ian got in a game of BA with my Commandos taking on his French at the Top Secret scenario. Taking on a more numerous opponent with a pair of artillery pieces, armoured car and light tank was something a bit new so I concentrated on going after the objective.
 Keeping back the carriers for a couple of turns I was forced to make a flanking run with them by Turn 3 but did pretty well with them. Even though they got tonked eventually they let Ponsonby-Smyth almost make off with the objective only to get sniped at which point Spatchcock grabbed it and ran. Rolling for the 7th turn he didn't quite get the chance to make it away but very close.

To represent the objective we used a Cthulu dice and quickly decided that it was the Necronomicon! This set me to thinking about how easy it would be to twist BA to Wierd War II. Flicking the net the other day I stumbled across a blog detailing a BA version of the Red Skull so pretty easily would be the answer.......interesting!! Possibly a refocus for St Peytersburg??

Moving on, myself and Rich have been trying out the Alpha ruleset for Gates of Anatares. It's taken a few games to start getting a grip on how the game is and more importantly what it isn't. Despite various rumours it's not a return to early versions of 40K and more pertinently it's REALLY not BA re-skinned!

Other than sharing the Order Dice and Pin system a lot of the core mechanics are substantially different.
As an example being in area cover doesn't make it harder to hit the target but makes them more difficult to kill, i.e gives a cover save bolted on top of "toughness" and armour (resilience+armour+cover).
The effect is that you can still hit, and crucially pin, with less chance of a kill aka suppression of the target.

It took me a while to catch on to this whilst also dealing with a D10 system, drones and exotic equipment all within an Alpha ruleset. For a while I was thinking that it was a simple mechanic made fiddly but that was to misunderstand.
The other thing to GoA shares with BA is the necessity to use proper tactics and make co-ordinated use of your force!

Same again Tuesday night!

PULPed

Evening All,

Myself and Rich have got a decent amount of gaming in this weekend. Firefly, Boss Monster and our most recent kick, Pulp Alley.

After having a run out with some Star Wars figures the other week we tried out the campaign rules with a couple of linked scenarios and our own fully fleshed out "leagues".
For myself I went with the White Russians, that I've had knocking around for quite sometime. Running through the league generation process there are a LOT of different options, which gives you an awful lot of scope, to fill your Ten "Slots". Your Leader is free, a Sidekick 3 slots, an Ally 2 slots and a follower 1 slot.

As I often do I started with the figures I fancied and fitted the rule to well er....fit!

This is with the new phone camera. Pretty good!!

From the left;
Baron von Blut - Leader - 4 extra Slots
Anastasia - Sidekick - Femme Fetale
Boris "The Bull" - Sidekick - Retains stats despite injuries
Anna - Ally - Daredevil
Sergei - Ally - Sniper skill
Dawidowksi - Follower - Rugged Yak handler
Oleg - Follower - Rampant Yak

Rich has typed all of our recent exploits, complete with dodgy accents and obvious catchprases, over on his Blog so I don't have to! But then, he does it so very very well. Take a look and give it a try :)

To INFINITY and Beyond?

Just recently I've noticed the INFINITY starter set and I'm highly tempted.....

Wayland are doing 20% off pre-order by the end of the month to go along with the exclusive pre-order figure.

Operation Icestorm
The new, and long awaited, 2 player starter box set from Corvus Belli is finally here.  While Infinity has some great faction sets as jumping in points, this new 2 starter set will be a great way to start playing Infinity, add to your factions or start a new one.  This box is bursting with amazing miniatures as well as the new 3rd Edition rulebook and everything else you need to play Infinity.

There will be an exclusive miniature for all orders received before August the 31/08/2014. Here is what you get in the box:
PanOceania Faction:
3 x Fusiliers, 1 x Svalarheima Nisses, 1 x ORC Troop, 1 x Akalis Sikh Commando, 1 x Military Order Father-Knight.
Nomad Faction:
3 x Alguaciles, 1 x Grenzer, Grenz Security Team, 1 x Mobile Brigada, 1 x Spektr, 1 x Reverend Healer.
 Exclusive for Pre-Orders received before August 31st 2014
1 x CSU, Corporate Security Unit.
Plus: Game Mat, 3 PanO Dice, 3 Nomads Dice, Scenery, Ruler, Markers & Templates, Introductory Rulebook.

I've ummed and ahhd on Infinity for a while now. I love the figures the fluff and the feel.

Having watched the Beasts of War unboxing the scenery looks really good despite being fold up printed cardboard thought the "Game Mat" looks like a fold-out printed piece of paper rather than a Deadzone style mouse-mat that I was kind of hoping for.

The thinking is that it's a project in a box for a game and IP that ive been eyeing up since Salute 2013 with plenty of crossover scope for EotE / Sci-Fi roleplay and skirmish. If it grows as Infinity then great, if not then thats fine too.

As much as i could do with sitting down and planning my projects for tge rest of the year this feels like an absoloute steal that will provide a bit of variety with defined goals.....a scary idea for any lead mountain merchant ;)

I seem to be talking myself into it, if noone else, with remsrkable ease!!

Resistance is Futile....

Evening all,

A few of us from Enfield Gamers headed down to Marquee Models (MM) in Harlow for their first Star Trek: Attack Wing Organised Play (OP) event otherwise known as the Tholian Web.

MM had 8 players booked in but only 5 rocked up. Between myself, Mr C and Shado we had Klingon, Federation and two 4th Division Battleships. Between them the other two players deployed a Borg cube and two Borg spheres all tooled up with multi-factional upgrades and captains.
In short is was violent, dirty and...well short! Three rounds took a total of 2 hours and with a bye each round only two players got a full set of three games, excluding myself and Mr C.

With the least competitive fleet out there, amongst some fairly serious offerings, I got absolutely hosed against the Cube / Sphere fleet, sat one out and then was a single Hull Point away from taking Shado only for the dice to go against me. It was a good competitive game and well needed to save the day for me, figuratively as well as literally.

Fair enough MM are just getting their OP games of the ground and the local community should support that for it to flourish, you get out what you put in. Their are always going to be growing pains but that first game was awful and unfortunately it wasn't just the fleet that I was facing!! :/
There was a fair bit of post event chatter about balance, abusive lists and gamesmanship :(

However.....I find myself looking forward to the same event down at TTN next Sunday and really want to get a few games in with my Dominion. Happy Day!!

Inner-Geek-Space

Hello people,

Time for the thinly veiled catch up / musings post that you all love so much ;) Feel free to run away now.

So the other week myself and the missus went down to Newquay for a few days and managed to explore a little bit of Cornwall (including several rather large pasties).

As part of our travels we visited Tintagel castle which has a strong connection to the Legend of Arthur and is also somewhat more ruined than I'd expected. Wandering about the place, pamphlet in hand, we gawped at the remains of Dark Age abodes and peered into Merlin's Cave with requisite suspension of disbelief.

Despite not having much more above thigh height than the main bailey it is still impressive being located a massive rocky outcrop. Wandering around the scenic views of rolling Cornwall I found myself thinking that I must crack my LoTR SAGA force out at some point. Also need to finish up the Troll and those Fatigue markers. 

Later that day the sat-nav took us along some seriously tight costal roads with high hedges and crops brushing both wing mirrors at once. "So this must be a bit like bocage country then!" said the inner geek with an impressive level of wonderment. "Hmm, Bolt Action league when I get back!".

I'm guessing that this is a common phenomena for many of us? Feel free to share :)

Big Bang Theory

This Tuesday night down at Enfield Gamers was the second round of the Bolt Action Escalation league.

Myself and Damian had somehow jammed it to joint top spot having gone undefeated so it was Brit on Brit action as my Commando geezers took on his Tommy regs. For flavour I decide that they must have been Free French being a bit too free with the English roses and due a good slap ;)

Story of the game was that if you live by the shell you die by the shell as the FOs ruled the roost. 

Lining up either side of a road with little hard cover I got the run of the Order Dice early doors and got forward fast to claim the territorial advantage. We both brought in our artillery quick as. I targeted his Cromwell, as I was unlikely to take it out otherwise, while he went for geezer packed left flank.

Mine arrived ASAP sprinkling the Cromwell with pins while Bren Recced away to safety. I pushed my left past his smoke round as I'd been able to wear it in other games and was keen to push my advantage.....only to have 7 units pinned to the nines the very next turn!!

Unfortunately this is when it all went proper Pete Tong as I FUBAR'd twice in as many checks and rolled ones even when I could Rally. Half my left flank ran off and the rest to got shot to pin-dom come (A Section were wearing 7 at one point).

On my right D (Assault) Section weathered a storm of .303 to have a sniper and a section at their mercy....only to fail repeated orders and hide behind thier wall. 

The one up was the medium mortar ranging in on the Cromwell and effectively pinning it out of the game. At one point it caught on fire by the crew hung in by the skin of the 1st Lt's leadership bonus.

As much as I was pinned to feck I wasn't loosing units and Damien was wary of any assaults. As I'd run off and gone Down he was having trouble picking up the Attrition Points but eventually managed the 2 he needed for victory on the final turn by turning everything in the lone PIAT.

In honesty if I'd run away properly I could have salvaged a draw but it wouldn't have been deserved and would have sat badly with me. It was still an enjoyable, though frustrating, game mainly because Damien's such a good guy. I once again learnt plenty, I really should have charged up one flank with D Section running a Flanking manoeuvre but there you go.

This was 750 points and next time out is 1000. Definately going to add an AEC III but also tempted to make room for a Wasp flame-carrier but not so sure that I should. We'll see ;)

Bolt loads of ACTION!!

Evening all,

Dropped round to Rich's this afternoon with a pack of biccies and 750 points of commandos for a couple of, what turned out to be highly entertaining, games of Bolt Action......action!

Feeling a bit D-Day we played Point Defence through a couple of times taking turns as defender.
List for the day was as follows;

2nd Lt Ponsonby-Smyth
RN Petty Officer Polyp (FO)
Cpl Spatchcock (Medic)
A Section - 9 Geezers (Vickers K / 2 SMG / 6 Rifle)
B Section - 9 Geezers (Vickers K / 2 SMG / 6 Rifle)
D Section - 7 Geezers (5 SMG / 2 Rifle / AT Grenades)
Medium Mortar / Sniper / PIAT

The first game saw quite rightly saw the Commados attacking off of the beach and drive inland. Looking at the table I decided early on to go for the centre and right flank. Everyone but D Section, who flanked to the right, were in the first wave and were to "hop" up the ruins, lay down fire and then make the assault.

Rich had a very small veteran force with a Panzer IV, Hanomag, 1st Lt, two five man squads of Stg44s, a flamethrower, medium mortar sniper and medic. Early doors this didn't give me too much to shoot at. Polyp plastered the centre as the lads pushed up into position while D Section got into position.

Once Rich turned up he sniped off the PIAT and the mortar spotter to leave me to weather his armoured counter-attack and wonder if I shouldn't have hit the right with Polyp and flanked left with D Section. Staying with the plan everyone broke cover as D Section arrived and went all "Geezer". Thankfully the mortar had redeployed and pulled off a stunning shot to smoke the Hanomag.

The Flamm-Mann however managed a decent one-man counter attack wiping out D Section before eventually biting a bullet while A Section moved up and stormed the bridge under the nose of the Pz IV. At the end of turn 6 everything looked touch and go, though it later transpired that I'd grabbed the win with two objectives.

As such I was rather pleased when we rolled up turn 7, until Rich wiped A and D Sections. Ponsonby-Smyth took the right flank only to catch an 80mm mortar round while Spatchcock couldn't quite hold the bridge all on his lonesome. Thankfully B Section were just about on hand to claim the right flank for a very bloody draw and the best game of BA either of us have played to date! :)

Advancing off the beach......

....into the newly ruined French hamlet!

Up and at 'em!

A bridge too far?

Go, go, go...

Cpl Spatchcock RIP

D Section a la flambe

Ponsonby-Smyth. Now you see him.....

.....now you don't! B Section look on!

For the return fixture Rich went all SS Uber-Commando and went for the Blitzkreig advance with everything going over the central bridge. Polyp once again proved to be worth far more than his zero points as he plastered the bridge, destroying the Hanomag and liberally sprinkling Pins all over the place (seriously he's unstoppable, I'd take two but I'd hate myself!).

In honesty Rich never recovered as I'd moved up into the ruined hamlet and poured fire into anything that managed to move off of it. The PIAT once again got a lot of attention and eventually fell to the 80mm at which point the PzIV ran around with impunity. I tried assaulting with AT grenades only to find out it's really an option of last resort.

At the last Rich ran his Sniper, Cpl Spearz, at my left flank in a final attempt to grab an objective for the draw. It was a desperate race as pretty much everyone chase after him including Cpl Spatchcock who'd been garnering himself something of a bloodthirsty reputation thanks to his Sten and Spatchet knife combo. D Section finally brought him down to take the win.

Polyp hits the bridge...

....and the boys pour it on!

Panzer-assault.....

....re-models Cafe Rouge!

Run Spearz.....RUN!!

Spearz bites the bulletz!

So, two more excellent games of BA. It's a pretty simple system and can be a little bit gamey but far less than most and actually rewards proper tactics while clipping along at a good place for a good fun game. We like this one :)

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 :)

Lock and Load

Evening all,

A couple of days behind schedule but the brushes have been unpacked, along with everything else, and the painting station had been restocked in that rather OCD way that we all know and love.

Priority 1 is to get the Commandos put together. I've drafted up a 500 point list for the club's escalation league, which just happens to be 25 "geezers" (plus a Royal Navy FO)  in strength, all available from the one box of green berets that I already have. 

As of this evening I still only have three chaps built though I have now started the production line and am the the proud owner of 3 "geezers" and 22 very literally unarmed, headless torsos. That's a 2nd Lt plus batmen leading two squads of nine troopers supported by a light mortar and a sniper team.

Should be getting a couple of 500 point games tomorrow night at Enfield Gamers borrowing Rich's Aussies which will be a move on from the multi-player games we've been running through recently. Last week was an interesting return to the jungle as myself and Paul ran 1000 points of armoured Yanks at a mini horde of Japs run by Rich and Damien.

Somewhat outnumbered and needing to take 1 of 3 objectives for the draw and 2 of 3 for the win we went for the cross country route up the left flank. Mobility proved to be our strength, while the Sherman 76 was something of a drab elephant. Late game aggression bagged us the draw but it was left too late to threaten the win. It was interesting to feel the threat of massed infantry despite our armoured status.

Anyway a few shots of the game;

Way of the Exploding D6

Hello people,

Last night at Enfield Gamers I got to play something of a "proper" wargame as Rich ran myself and Shaun through Osprey's new samurai skirmish offering, Ronin. 

There were fully painted figures, with flocked bases, running around on a 4x4 table covered with a gaming mat, hills, woods, a road, river, broken ground and a walled house plus attendant scatter pieces! I was well chuffed ;)

I also rather enjoyed both games of Ronin that we played. It's a small scale skirmish system with initiative, alternate individual figure activation and plenty of skills and equipment that many such modern day offerings feature. The difference is the resource management element, this time in the combat phase, that is doing so much for the genre these days.

In short every figure / character has a number of Command Points (CP) which are allocated prior to combat as either attack or defence points. Unsurprisingly attack points boost your attack dice pool while defence dice boost your defence dice pool. 

Combat itself is an opposed dice roll with combined attack dice roll + character fight value +/- bonuses vs combined defence dice roll + fight value +/- bonuses + armour. The difference determines severity of wound.

Relatively standard stuff you might think, along with attendant weapon and ability modifiers, but the rub comes in the fact that you allocate CPs blind prior to chat and then reveal simultaneously. This introduces an element if bluff with their use becoming both highly tactical and situational. This the game within the game is created and highly enjoyable it is too :)

Lady Luck still plays her part and did Shaun no favours for most of the evening. There are several lists available and my warrior monks featured a rock hard and tooled warlord with similarly keen Sensei with a couple of very green initiates.

Outnumbered in both games I followed the mantra of mutual support and combats did tend to clump. In both games it was my warlord that did most of the damage whilst the slack-jawsdid their   best to stay alive.

As with most skirmish systems a variety of quality scenarios is key and a number are provided and it wouldn't be difficult to convert over the huge number out there or write your own.

So a good solid system with enough detail and meta to keep you engaged and necessitate proper tactical play whilst still knocking along at a rate of knots. We played two games in the night from a standing start and probably could have had a third. 

You could also use the system for just about any sword, shield and bow or matchlock setting. Add in a bit of "magic" and you can cover the fantasy base too.

With my Dreadball painting nearing a conclusion it'll definitely be the LOTR orcs and gobs up next though my Comfrontation Bushi greenskins would do just as well as a dozen figures is more than plenty.

Looking forward to a few more dramatically raised eyebrows and poorly dubbed challenges ;)

Han Shot First.....again....

....but this time where no one can hear you scream, ...other than over the comm that is!

Last night at Enfield Gamers I had another run out with X-Wing in a four way with Rich, Shado and Mr C (geek housemate) all of whom are experienced players, Shado a Regional Champion no less!

As such I was always going to be on a steep learning curve which is no bad thing with such an intuitive game. Some might say basic, others elegant. Feel free to have a go, preferably with someone elses figures and then choose your own adjective.

Anyway, I had fun and learnt a few of the game's nuances. Nothing earth shattering, mutual support, concentrated firepower etc but a nice game that keeps you thinking thanks to its blind orders and its initiative system.

I do get the feeling that your list could be crucial and spam might occasionally be on the menu, along with some rather blocky formations, but its so damn cool to have Luke and Han on the table that you don't care. Lots of missions out there too once you've had your fill of dog-fights.

Mr C has gone pretty big on it and got a lot back from it too. Personally I won't be investing, as much as anything there's just not the space in my flight pattern, but am happy to play pick up games now that him indoors has enough for me to borrow and play at home, quite keen actually :)

On a sidenote we watch a variety of geek telly taking turns with the remote. Recording as a habit we can each follow our own preferences when the other is out. Mr C has introduced me to Grimm and Arrow successfully where others have failed.

As a point of, sort of, interest I'm cold on Revolution and pick at the plot-holes where I'm far more forgiving of Defiance, other than the cyborg assault early doors. Similar as they are I seem to give Defiance more latitude as its overt Sci-Fi and feel like that lets me smooth over the same type of cracks far easier. I so also like the interaction between the different races, conflict from within rather than from without all the time. Same reason I go for B5, BSG and Deep Space Nine when I can't play nicely with next Gen.

No big thing just something I noticed recently and it helps pad the blog inches much as X-Wing gives me a little bit extra geek to my gaming :)