Making the games table - Part 1

A while back I purchased a folding table when the better half decided that we were having a move ar ound. For the princely sum of £12.50 I picked up the following .... But have since been busy with work, decking and car shelters. 

But today I managed to get started. 

So folded in situ, up before the ends got squared off - discovered that the folding leaves are a cm difference in length. Starting the sanding!

Primed the base unit - legs removed for sanding and oiling/varnishing. 

Then the underside as I put the frame around the top (the angled wood cost more than the table!). The frame goes approximately 5mm above the table top. Bottom right the top of the table framed - a bit annoyed as I manage to lift a bit of the ply with a panel pin when tidying up the corners - agggghhhhh! Not a lot I can do about it now. Hopefully the varnish will put some moisture back into the ply - which was very dry when I squared off the ends. 

I have given the first coat of paint to the unit now - so with luck the table will be finished tomorrow. 

Morts

Arrived in the post - gaming mat!

As a treat I purchased myself a 3 by 3 gaming mat from Loke Gaming Books - which arrived very promptly. 

With its own bag for transporting it! Nice.

The design is their Highlands one - but I thought it looked like good scrubby northern climes generic lands. 

The picture above shows how it matches with my general basing style. Might need to darken the edge on some of the sand bases ... But not a priority. 

Next job is to get the gaming table done - sanding, painting and varnishing. Hopefully next week. 

Morts

First Kings of War battle in 6 months!!!

Wednesday saw Steedo and I manage to get a game of Kings of War in for the first time since Christmas. It was also fought on the kitchen table as the games room is full of other stuff (bedroom furniture from one of the girl's room). 

This was a smallish battle of 1500 points a side - approx 1400 of troops and 100 points of artefacts. It was the Undead vs Hobgoblins (Orcs). 

We were also using the Kings of War Battlefield Cards - the conditions limited shooting to 18 inches and shooting over 9 inches had a -1 modifier (but neither army had much shooting). The objective cards were getting base and field objectives - but Steedo and I just battered each other and ignored them .....

From top left clockwise - initial deployment, end of first turn - the Soul Reaver (vampire) infantry getting into trouble - but both Skulk (Orc skirmishers) troops have been destroyed. Bottom right and the Soul Reavers have been forced back. The trolls and werewolves are starting to trade blows!

(TL) The undead centre has been destroyed - a two on one cleared out the Soul Reavers and the Gore Riders chewed the bones of a skeleton unit to little pieces! But some skeletons and zombies flank a unit of Hobgoblins. (TR) The battle lines are being reset. (BR) The Hobgoblin left flank is destroyed leaving just the Wizard and Warleader - but (BL) the undead's left flank has also ceased to exist! Well there was a Necromancer over there. 

The field at the end of turn 6! Where the game ended. The Hobgoblins about to march over to smash the remaining skeleton unit and mop up the remaining two Necromancers. So looking fairly one sided if counting points "killed", but then we looked at the objective cards ....and as we had forgotten these neither of us were controlling any - d'oh! I did have more points within the centre of the board 3VP to me, but Steedo had put "bounties" on my 3 most expensive units and managed to kill one so got 3VP too!

Apparently it was a draw ..... 

The Battlefield cards were interesting and I would certainly use the strategy cards again - for in game changes. We will need to check the objective cards out again as we sort of ignored them for the duration of the game. 

Morts

World of Tanks -Rush ..... Bargain game play through.

Managed to get two games played last night -.Steedo and I had a Kings of War battle (report on that later), then DK joined us to have a run through of my bargain buy of a few months ago World of Tanks -Rush. 

Now as the game was picked up very cheap and doesn't have the best reputation as a card builder expectations were pretty low (I hadn't read the rules, but had watch a play through on YouTube). 

However we were pleasantly surprised with the game. 

It played through relatively quickly and had some interesting machanics for getting victory points and ending the game. The basics were start collecting tanks (duh!), use them to defend bases, attack other players or use their special abilities. I need to use the special abilities more next time we play.  We found that to gain medals (a source of victory points) you needed people to defend their bases with their tanks but on occasions no one did .... So no medals issued that turn, but a captured base was worth 3VP. It could be frustrating watch the card you wanted disappear into the "graveyard" pile or not having the right amount or sometimes type to buy a card. The amount of cards we were collecting meant it was difficult to kept track of who had what in turns of victory points. So it was a close game 18 to me, 16 to DK and 11 to Steedo. 

The hour or so that we spent playing this certainly covered the pitiful outlay I made on the game. And we are up for another (hopefully in the near further). The downside of the game NO BRITISH TANKS! Shocking we invented the bloody things - they are in the expansion ... But my google-fu have failed me and I go can find a copy. 

Morts

The Elves of the Second Age

Well I have rebased my Lord of the Rings 2nd Age Elves - so now they can be played as GW intended as individuals for the "Battle Strategy Game" - well large skirmish game, or as a force in Dragon Rampant (planning to run them as reduced model units so the units are smaller than the Orcs) or with sabots HotT. Of course there is nothing to stop them being press ganged into Kings of War - but that would indicate that. Actually played some of the games I have .... Haven't been doing too well with that recently as work has been pretty busy, weekends taken up with weddings and parties .... It's been a tough time (the less said about the "dancing" the better). And the hot weather and the World Cup (it nearly got home) isn't exactly conducive to painting and gaming. 

That and the "gaming table" needs sanding and painting .... Along with the decking and garden furniture. 

Anyway I managed to rebase Gil-galad, Elrond and their forces (at some time these will be supplemented by some Elves from Lothlorien when they get painted). 

The Elven Lords and their forces arrayed..

  The Lords themselves. 

The light horse. Mainly conversions of the plastic Elves and Riders of Rohan. 

The Spear Phalanx. All metal - with a few press moulded shields. 

The Archers. Mainly plastic apart from the command figures. 

The army need some light troops, but as already suggested they will come from the forces Lothlorien. 

Hope you like them. 

Also got a lot of rebasing of Orcs to do ....

Morts

Star Trek - Ascendancy

With a bit of grief from the other halves and Slyon leaving the country to avoid gaming and marital clashes, the collective assembled at Steedo's to play Snakes-eyes new and shiney Star Trek Asendency! We were playing with the Cardassian expansion for a 4 player game. 

We allocated the races randomly. I was the Federation, Snake-eyes the Romulans, Steedo the Klingons and DK the Cardassians. 

Snake-eyes had also invested in a rather nice official gaming mat. 

The game is a 4X game - Explore, Expand, Exploit and Exterminate. 

Intially turn order is randomly decided by cards - until contact is made them players can bid for first what position they want to play the round in. 

The turn is a build phase - ships, resource generators, pay for research, then a command phase were you can find systems, move ships and create fleets, try to take control of a system, initiate combat or invade systems. But with never enough resources or command points to do what you want.  

Some pictures of the game - top shows early game no first contacts made. Bottom left the Feds, Cardassians and Romulans have made contact and have exchanged trade agreements. Bottom left an explore card has caused the Klingons and Cardassians have had to exchange systems - which was of no benefit to DK.  

The exploring stage did leave DK and I frustrated as he was finding anomalies (worth points to the Feds), when he wanted to find planets to invade (worth points to the Cardassians) - these little tweaks to each race was where the game tried to inject a Star Trek theme (the Romulans had to research and the Klingons had to fight with no retreat or surrender). 

The game plodded along quite nicely - with no one appearing to be getting ahead. Steedo was amassing Klingon fleets, so not one made contact with him, where as DK and I had to make contact to  gain a trade agreement to earn production points to build ships!

Then DK pulled an explore card which made him swap a system with Steedo - this an Steedo and Snake-eyes quietly collecting Asendency tokens (5 needed for a win - checking for a win is done at the end of the round, so more than one faction can "win" in the same turn, but then it goes to number of systems controlled).  This change really mixed things up leaving me as the Federation having to play against type and attack the Romulans and Cardassians in an attempt to win by controlling two other home systems. 

The initial plan went pretty well - taking Romulus and holding off the counter attack (and effectively putting Snake-eyes out of the running). The second part was successful as Cardassia Prime was taken, but the lack of command cards prevented the vital reinforcements being moved to stop DK (very much in character) take it back (by levelling the place to the ground and destroying all the resources!) - a move which ended my chances of victory, but served it up nicely to Steedo .... 

Bloody Klingons!

Overall a good game - shared some similarities with Twilight Imperium (but lighter and a bit quicker). I think we would play it quicker next time (Snake-eyes has now bought the Ferengi expansion). Plenty of replayability with this as the explore part of the game is random (perhaps too random for some DK) and the game basics are the same for all factions, with some changes to made each more Star Trek. 

I would like to play it again, but I think next time no one will be left by themselves to quietly collect points so that their win can't be stopped.  

Morts