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