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