Last Games of the Year - Kings of War

In what will probably be the last post and game of 2017 - Steedo and I faced off in a smallish game of Kings of War. 1000 points of Hobgoblins (Orcs) and 700 points of Undead versus 1000  points of men and 700 points of Elves. The only restrictions I had placed were no hordes. I was a little concerned that with 4 units of bows the forces of good would overwhelm the forces of darkness - had I got the balance right?

Starting positions for a dominate scenario below. 

 Steedo had the first move and with the speed of the werewolves got into contact with my forward Gladestalkers, surged some skellies through the woods into the other Gladestalkers and then his Skulks wavered my bowmen - I was going to have little to shoot with!

But I was going to be able to flank charge his Goreriders with the Beast of War and use the Knights on the trolls!

The Knights did take out the troll but the Beast of War failed to rout the Goreriders (on the inspiring reroll! Arrggghhh! It was then caught in the flank by a unit of Hobgblins and the leader and it was dead! The Knights were locked in a battle with Hobgblins to the front and skellies in their flank - this went backwards and forwards a number of times! Over on the Elven side of the battlefield the werewolves could not clear out some Gladestakers - mainly due to a heal spell taking off the damage!

Due to poor placement by me or good placement by Steedo I was unable to get my Elven Archers and Spears in the battle effectively - and Steedo was grinding up the last of the men quite effectively with the Hobgoblins - the Skulks probably being the most useful unit on the day despite being the cheapest on the table (excluding heroes). 

The final positions above - all I have left are the Elven archers and spears and the heroes .... Steedo has 5 units and 3 of his 4 heroes. He also has a lot more troops in the middle of the board, so a victory!

It was another good game of Kings of War - the game was tighter than it ended, I certainly thought that  I was going to win for a while but the game provided plenty of ups and downs for both of us - perhaps the best being Steedo rolling a double 6 to rout the Knights only to have to reroll and getting double 1 making the Knights steady ....

The game saw the first major outing of the undead - who did OK. Werewolves fast but seemed to lack bite - the skellies good at holding things up - no waver score and a relatively high nerve. 

Cheers and happy New Year as I probably won't post again this year. 

Morts

Debt paid.

I was short of six zombies for a Dragon Rampant unit or Kings of War regiment (and of course for Frostgrave) and Steedo offered up the required number - but as part of the deal could I paint 4 heroes for Zombiecide - but they came in a box of six!

Quite enjoyable to paint - not sure I've painted anything "present day" before. 

Might get some basing done before Christmas... But not much else. 

Mort

Christmas party and a trip out!

For the Christmas party the team headed out to Board in Isca - faces have been obscured to protect the innocent. 

So from left to right we have DK (let's pretend that it stands for the Dark Knight), Snake-eyes, Steedo and Sylon. 

We managed 2 new games over the course of the evening - neither of which we have played before or that someone in the collective own. 

First up we played Century Spice Road.

This was a fairly light game involving trading up spices to buy point cards - there was a element of deck building, as you tried to get the right combinations to buy the points cards. The end ends when a player collects their 5th point card. I managed to get a number of collect spices cards which allowed to just pick up spices without trading, this meant I was able to finish the game with the 5th card - where as the rest of the collective only managed 3 cards - a win to me!

After a little bit of bimbling we moved onto Shadows over Camelot. 

This is a good cooperative game with a 'traitor'mechanic, which is always fun. It involves winning quests to thwart the forces of darkness. We managed to win the Grail, Excalibur and the Black Knight - we initially thought this was a little bit light and that we were going to win easily.

 But by the end 3 of the Knights of the Round Table were dead (although Snake-eyes would have used the Grail to resurrect ) and Camelot was one Seige engine from falling and Darkness winning. Steedo played a blinder as a traitor, but was in fact loyal! A close run thing. Certainly worth another play and a tough game if there was a traitor.

So a good trip to Board. Now what was my opinion of Board, well - food was nice if overpriced to be honest. I think we where a little disappointed by the lack of support/experts - we did get some help setting up Century Spice Road - but that was it! We muddled through Camelot to start with but picked it up pretty quickly. Someone about to rule check with or suggest a game I thought was part of the idea of a board game cafe. I have to say I'm not sure that they are set up quite right as once they did our initial food and drink order we didn't see any staff again - Sylon had to go to the counter to order a second round of drinks. Surely in a cafe trying to sell more food and drink to the customers who will be there for sometime - we were there for 4 hours (normally we get through a fair amount at a home venue) - so a visit to the table to ask "more drinks/food (do you want dessert?)/everything ok" could add to the turnover. So I think there is room for improvement ....

Overall a good night out with the collective!

Morts

Cracking weekend

First off got to see Saint Etienne in Bristol on Friday night (after a bit of stress with the better half being caught in an "incident" on the M5 on Friday night. 

A cracking gig - loads of classics and Christmas tunes! A really good night!

Saturday night I was left home alone so got some zombies and skellies assembled - Gondorians undercoated and a little tidying of the work space. 

 Plan to get these and some dwarfs finished over the holiday period!

Morts

For Gondor!

Managed to paint some more troops for Gondor. 12 spearmen and one mounted archer.

I only have 13 to go and Elendil and Isildur and I'll have finished a Dragon Rampant force or a small force for KoW. Obviously they can be used for Lord of the Rings games as well. I would like to get some new spearheads - some plastic high elf spearheads by GW or Mantic would fit the bill if I could fine some. 

Next to the painting table are some Dwarf pikes ... Then it is some zombies or skellies or some zombiecide heroes for Steedo (as he gave me 6 zombies to make a unit up to 12 for Rampant or KoW) .... Hopefully there will be time over the festive season. 

Morts

Star Trek - line 'em and blast 'em!

We (I) haven't played Star Trek Attack Wing for ages .... But it made a return to the table - sort of like ST:Discovery returned the series to the telly - I like STD (finarr finarr), it makes Star Fleet grey and ambiguous and more interesting than some of the other series. 

Steedo and I picked 100pts each and went head to head with Star Fleet and the Klingons. Steedo went for Janeway and Voyager along with a Galaxy class and Excelsior - one good captain and a couple of rubbish ones. I went for a K'tinga, a Negh'var and a Vor'cha with middling captains and photon torpedoes!

Starting positions ...

The Klingons cloaked and the Vor'cha flanked around the planet - the Feds rushed forward - probably tweeting "we come in peace" messages ...

Which didn't last long as Janeway opened up! But the Galaxy class was put out of action in a turn! Not destroyed but the weapons were out of action and if she fired the critical hit card would be flipped - thus taking hull points to zero! The K'tinga wouldn't be able to cloak as the shields were destroyed.

A bit of fancy flying and the Negh'var is getting a bit of a slap!

Move flying about and the Voyager and the Negh'var exchange fire!

The Klingons think they have voyager in the crosshairs - but it is the Negh'var which is destroyed! 

Insert Klingon swear word here! The K'tinga is chipping away at Voyager. Effectively each side has lost a ship - all the Galaxy class can do is fly about.

The manuvering continues and the Vor'cha de cloaks to add the coup de grace on the Excelsior - the fuzzie photo is to replicate the de cloaking and is in no way reflective of the poor photography seen across this blog!

A few more a exchanges - chipping away at Voyagers hull (finally putting the Galaxy class down - an act of mercy really). Voyager also managed to take out the K'tinga - but she was an honourable ship and it was a good day to die!

The Vor'cha finally destroys the Voyager and that bitch Janeway - victory to the empire. 

It was a fun pick up game - the first time out for the voyager and the K'tinga - both need a repaint. Like most things we should play this more - some of the ship stats don't quite match the ships from the series - the Vogayer is more powerful than a Galaxy class ....

Steedo and I reckon we need to play with more cards and less ships .... Probably in another. 2 years then ...

Live long and prosper 

Morts

A Dark Lord and making stuff

We I have managed to paint a Reaper Bones Lich Lord for any game I feel like really.

A nice figure and I think it look good - probably better in the plastic rather than the picture which highlights my limitations as a painter ....

On the left I have also been playing with green stuff to attempt to make a mirror for Galadriel (aka an objective marker) with the aid of an acorn cup. The idea is to have the bowl (acorn cup) grown out of a tree ... It is still a work in progress. 

On the right is the basis of a wardrum for the Hobgoblin kings of war army. It is going to have wheels ( must have some realism as it would be rather heavy to lug around a battlefield). Still some way to go with the skin and decoration.

Got to have something to do on the long winter evenings......

Morts

Dark Warriors

Managed to get these painted - a mixture of very old Chaos Warriors and Frostgrave Cultists (Knight and Templar) and a couple BTD Saracens as Evil elite soldiers for Kings of War (could be used as Soul Reavers in an undead army) or Dragon Rampant.

Pretty pleased with these.

Morts 

For Halloween .... Well almost

Managed to paint 12 skellies for Dragon Rampant, KoW or Frostgrave. 

Some Eureka Hoplite ones

Some Mantic ones

I wine with the damaged and dirty shield design. 

To be honest I found painting the bits of fabric a bit of a pain - just 12 more to go and 12 zombies and the undead are finished apart from leaders and stuff. 

Morts

DBA 3 - Game Report

Well the last game of DBA we played was in September 2015 .... Which is a pity as it is a good game. 

DK popped over for a quick game of DBA 3 ... It wasn't quick as we hadn't read the rules and chatted a lot while playing - in fact we thought this might have been our first game of DBA 3 (it was our second). 

This time it was DK as the Camilian Romans versus my good self as Syracuse. The Romans were the attackers and for the first time we used the Littoral waterway rule allowing the me to put 2 units in reserve (nice). 

The initial deployments and end of the first turn. 

The game started very slowly for two reasons : 

1 We were trying to get an advantage with the Bad Going protecting the flanks. 

2 Both of the Generals were on the opposite side of the battlefield (the hill)  to where we did the most of the tactical moves - now costing 2 pips due to the distance. 

The light troops clash on the waterway side of the battlefield. The generals face off by the hill - which is all they did for the entire game. 

First blood to the Romans as they took out the psi, but this was balanced with aTriai eliminated. 

With two elements destroyed on each the game was in the balance. 

The battle lines continued to clash backwards and forwards especially over by the waterway and woods. I kept managing to break up DK's battle line but was unable to score enough to kill an element!

Then DK would roll a good pip dice and move everything back!

A flank attack on a lone element of spears ....

And a frontal assault on my artillery (which had already repelled one attack) were enough to get the final two elements DK need for the win!

I have to say I really enjoyed getting DBA to the table once again - the game plays well and makes you have to deal with all sorts of tactical choices. The game felt very close and but for some dice rolls I could have won. 

There is something nice about the simplicity of a 1 vs 1 game (although this can be teams) which doesn't make your head hurt like the 3-5 player games where you have to worry about if I do this what will X,Y and then Z do (I thinking Risk here).

Morts

Half-term break.

Well the half-term break started very well with a 12 hour gaming session about DK's to celebrate another step closer to 50. A number of games played including Rhino Hero, Codenames, Table football, Capital Lux, Red Planet, Concordia and a couple of games of pool at the local. The main event was the 11th game of Rsk Legacy (only 4 games to go) which DK won, as a birthday treat. I haven't won in ages and have been the player who attacked in the last three games for the win - got to change the strategy. 

Had a good 12 mile hike around Exmoor (mainly in the rain) where we saw a majestic stag - sorry no picture as  my phone was in my rucksack. 

Also got some painting done but namely the bedroom and ensuite ..... But managed to squeeze in some important stuff in the form a Reaper Bones Purple Worm .... Ooo er misses and some Dwarf Spears.

Got to varnish and base now - got to decide if I do the dwarfs on 20mm squares or 25mm rounds. 

Morts

Trying to get things done.

Work is busy as usual but I am trying to find time to paint stuff - although this is difficult to do at times. 

In recent weeks I have completed my 10th Abbots Way walk across Dartmoor and I have reports to write soon. 

I have managed to play 7 Wonder Duel and win a game at lunchtime at work. Although this was a test game so weather it really counts I done know.

Painting wise I have prime coated some Dwarfs, Skeletons and Zombies .... For Frostgrave, Dragon Rampant and Kings of War fun - although playing a game would help with the fun element as well.

I have managed to get some werewolves done. 

2 Reaper Bones and a metal North Star Frostgrave mini. Not a bad job on these - got some basing to do now! More for the forces of the undead!

Morts

Started new job - so not being doing much.

Well the gang managed to get together and get a few games played. Snakes-eyes managed to beat me at Carcassone by 2 or 3 points (Sylon was lapped by the leading pair) grrrr.

We then continued the epic Risk Legacy (I think we played the tenth game) where I have to say Steedo gave me a good slapping but Snake-eyes trounced us all will a win for the new Mutant faction (2 hours for a game of Risk is pretty quick). 

Then we played Nine Worlds - where I was pipped by a couple of points by Sylon ..... 10 pence short!

Not my night, but good banter. 

I have managed to paint this Great Earth Elemental for Frostgrave and Kings of War

Not a bad effort for a couple of hours work and considering the state the painting area is in!

Really have to tidy this up ...... Hopefully later today!

Morts

Trip out .....

The family went for a visit to the dreaming spires of Oxford and clocked some good miles walking around the colleges, eateries and of course pubs.

Being a bit of a fantasy literature, movies, games and miniatures fan I had to make sure I visited the Eagle and Child. 

This being the venue of meetings for the Inklings - the group included the big daddy of fantasy literature JRR Tolkien (the man who started it all with the hobbit). 

The reason for the pictures above of the Rabbit Room is that according to Wikipedia (so it must be true!) the Inklings met in the Rabbit Room until the pub was refurbished (I assume the room became a walk through as shown in the picture above so the meetings weren't as private?), so the group upped sticks and went across the road to the Lamb and Flag!

So I followed them and had a pint there as well!

Hopefully the visit to these places will inspire my painting and games!

I will recommend people to visit Oxford as it is a beautiful city with plenty of history and things to see and do - but Cambridge wins as my family come from that area.

Morts

This week I have mostly been ........in Middle Earth

It has been a fairly busy week .... Helping the outlaws move and trying to keep on top of things around the house, but I did get some painting done.

First up an ice troll for Frostgrave or anything I want really. Also 3 more Dark Aliance "Mordor" war trolls (I now have 6 painted trolls so a horde for Kings of War). 

I went with a grey skin tone to contrast with the brown ones I did earlier in the year. 

Then I have Faramir and 6 of his Rangers - making a scout unit for Dragon Rampant or a Troop for Kings of War or of course Rangers for Lord of the Rings. 

All need varnish and basing. 

I have to choose if I finish off my Dwarf or Gondor forces ...

Morts 

A little bit of painting done .....

Well I have done a little but of painting - the first up a few Asgard Dwarfs to complete a regiment for Kings of War and a unit for Dragon Rampant.

A couple of crossbow Dwarfs for a KoW troop or scouts in Dragon Rampant.

Both units need uniform basing but I will wait until I can do all the Dwarfs at once.

Also did these treasure/objective markers for Frostgrave (although they are useful for lots of games). 

Off to finish some trolls and Rangers .....

Morts

Airfix Battles - Play through

At UK Games Expo I picked up Airfix Battles the introductory wargame (with bonus cards) for a bargain price as Airfix are not going to support it (Morphius indicate that they plan to re publish but without any branding as a generic WW2 game). 

I had had a bash at the first scenario a while back but then hadn't had time to reflect on the game - so DK and I had a go at scenarios 1 and 2. 

The game is driven by command cards which can be used as basic (fire or move - there is reinforce but we didn't try this), special orders (do something special) or interrupts (bugger up you opponent on his turn!). 

The game itself is self contained - so I didn't need any miniatures to play it (but they would be nice), with card chits and paper maps. The combat is brutal and with the introductory scenarios I felt that the lack of units as you learnt how to play was limiting (but made sense, we still have to do armour). As far as the results went DK did smash me twice .... Next time the fatherland will be successful. 

We did like the command card mechanic and even the set up for scenario 2 meant that it has replayability - need to go through some more scenarios and rules (tanks!) but this game has legs. 

I managed to download some extra cards and scenarios. There are also solo and group play rules. 

Morphius may bring out the rules for NOT playing on a grided board in the future, but time will tell. 

Morts

They Come Unseen - Osprey Games ... Some thoughts

Way back in February I was given They Come Unseen. There are a couple of reason for taking 6 months to get in to the table: 

1 - the components were incomplete and it took awhile to get replacements, which Osprey did so no complaints there. 

2 - we have too many games and not enough time to play them ...

The game parts are really nice and it is a well produced game (which all the Osprey games I have are) - would have been nice to have little ship models but the card ones do the job well. 

The game is a challenging one of hidden movement, reasource management and timing. The theme is NATO subs try to destroy Soviet ice stations in the Cold War - there are 6 stations, 4 of which (randomly selected) the NATO player has to destroy - the Soviet mission is simples, destroy the subs. 

NATO had 2 subs and 2 sets of mines (the NATO player can't directly attack Soviet ships), the Soviets start with 2 destroyers, 1 supply ship (which can refuel and/or re-arm the destroyers at sea) and 2 container ships which can move supplies about the ice stations and resupply the supply ship at sea. 

Destroying the different ice station affects the Soviet supplies they have available. 

There are weather rules - but we haven't tried them yet as we felt we needed to get to grips with the basics first. 

On Thursday Steedo and I played 2 games, once each as the subs and then the destroyers - the results were NATO 2 wins and the Soviets zero - didn't even manage to sink on sub between us!

We were seriously worried about the balance of the game and if the Soviets had a chance of winning at all. 

So Snake-eyes was able to make a visit down oh Friday (after his early departure from the last session), so after a quick run through the rules (well about half an hour) he took on the role of the Soviets versus me as the NATO subs. The game progressed as Steedo's and mine had the previous evening, with 2 ice stations taken out without Snake-eyes making any contacts .... Then Snake-eyes changed tactics and started overlapping the sonar zones of the destroyers and before I knew it ....

He sank my sub! (To paraphrase an old advert)

I managed one more ice startion destroyed before he sank the other sub .....

So we played another game this time Steedo and I having a sub each versus Snake-eyes as the Soviets again .... This time he was on us very quickly using the "Snorts" (the NATO players resource management is to recharge the batteries by coming to periscope depth, but this leaves a reference point for the Soviets)  to pinpoint the location of one of the subs - and within 3 turns had sank one! Steedo ploughed with the mission and with some well placed mines and an ice station destroyed left Snake-eyes with only 2 salvos to destroy the last sub .... Which he managed! 

Two impressive wins to Snake-eyes!

So 4 games in two evenings 2 wins to NATO and 2 to the Soviets - the game is balanced then. I would like to try this with more players (it says up to 5) as the communication between players would be interesting to observe. Overall a good game with lots of replay ability.

We also managed 2 games of Arboretum, which is an interest German card game about trees ... Could be anything which you have to create runs of cards to earn points. Suffice to say I only had a vague idea of the rules (but enough to come up with a couple of strategies ... Mainly holding on to high point cards to stop others scoring), but managed to win both games - Yay me!

So Friday stood out as a rare thing - no wins for Steedo!

Morts

Kings of War - linked battles.

We had a sort of mini campaign with Kings of War - Snake-eyes and myself each had 1000 points of Orcs (well my Oldhammer Hobgoblins) each and took on Steedo and Sylon with 1000 points of men and elves respectively. We were playing on 4 by 3 tables with 5 objective markers (loot scenario I think). The games were limited to 6 turns and no horde units). The number of objectives won would be converted to artifacts for the next game.  

Steedo and Snake-eyes table.

Snake-eyes' giant and chariots smashing into Steedo's war rhino!

This this encounter Snake-eyes almost destroyed all of Steedo's army - but came up short by 1. The upshot was that Snake-eyes would be able to pick 2 artifacts and Steedo none. 

Mine and Sylon's table. 

Sylon' Elven Knights trying to flank the Hobgoblin cavalry, but exposing their own flank to trolls!

Again there was a good victory for the forces of darkness with 2 objectives going to me and 1 to the elves. 

The games went pretty quickly, so we went for the big one! The initial forces were returned and each side got and extra 1000 points each (so 3000 points per side). With the extra artifacts Snake-eyes and myself were feeling confident of another victory for the Hobgoblins!

Initial set up and first moves below. 

I do think that there is something "cool"* about seeing loads of figures on a table. 

This time the battle didn't go the way the Hobgoblins planned.... On the left flank Snake-eyes troops collapsed against Steedo's men a complete turn around from their earlier encounter. The right flank of the Hobgoblins smashed through the elves but were running out of troops!

The pivot at the centre of the table.

The end of the game - just 2 Hobgoblin units (and most of the heroes)  left to try and take on 4 units of men, a beast of war and 2 war machines (and all the heroes).

So in the end a victory fo the men and elves (although we didn't point it out) - classic fantasy literature evil getting the early upper hand and extra artifacts but the forces of good winning in the end!

Overall I think the games went well and everyone seemed to enjoy them, but I am not sure if we should have saved the final game for another day as it became rushed at the end as we tried to finish quickly as DK had arrived (to play some other games) and curry needed eating to soak up the beer. 

After pack up - Snake-eyes had to leave which was a pity as we were planning to play Risk Legacy (we are about half-way through). But we pushed on with Nine Worlds (Steedo win), Have at Thee (me win), Codenames (no wins out of 6 for me!) and Coup (Sylon did very well with this one). 

A long days gaming (an quite a lot of tidying for me too!). 

Morts

Got some painting done .... And sort of finished the Hobgoblins ...

Well got some serious painting done. Haven't finished the bases yet - got a big game today. 

Some Harpies for Greek myths and rats for Frostgrave.

A demon and Medusa for Frostgrave. 

Now after 30 odd years I have finally completed all the C36 Citadel Hobgoblins* - very Oldhammer!

Top - Voxin the witch. Bottom - the last of the Warriors. 

A converted chariot - crewed by couple of the rocket launcher team.

Finally - the great Khan on a wolf. 

These will see a battlefield soon. 

I plan to do an army showcase for this lot.

*Still have some old Chronicle Hobgoblins/Black Orcs to paint!

Morts