Motivation and Movies

I am really struggling to get motivated fo paint anything at the moment.... 

I was trying to paint some Frostgrave Barabarians and GW Chaos mash-ups as part of SAGA (very fantasy Viking)/Dragon Rampant force. When I made these I was very keen to get paint on them, but I'm not enjoying painting them now and am not happy with the job so far .....

But I'm trying to finish them off - a couple of days ago I thought I'd try something else to paint.  However when I sat down to pick something ... There was not inspiration, which is a pity as I have Space Marine and Skitarii Kill Teams to make and paint. I blame work as it has been a intense since the  Christmas break. Nothing at all to do with some heavy weekends of rugby and gaming ....

I have put some liquid green stuff on Steedo's weird trees for his Kill Team ...

Hopefully a bit of washing and dry brushing will get the painting bug going again - need a purpose to paint I think.

Have been to the cinema twice this month and seen the Favourite and Mary Queen of Scots. 

Interestingly book ending the Stuart dynasty - so a couple of historical dramas. 

What were they like?

The Favourite was well acted and interesting, but I found it started and finished in quite an abrupt way. No little filler bits of historical facts to get you up to speed or understanding the time scales - I have read a few biographies of John Churchill and one on Sarah, so I have a pretty good grasp of the political situation both in England and internationally (with the Was of Spainish Succession and Louis the XIV). In the interviews for this film - there was much made of the power these women welded (which they did), but I didn't find it that clear as the focus was on the bedroom politics (which none of the biographies I've read give much credence too), between the women. I also found the score quite grating.... I will watch it again sometime. 

Mary Queen of Scots, was more of your more classic period piece with the historical notes at the start and finish. It focused on Mary's reign in Scotland until she fled to England (with the imagined meeting between her and Elizabeth), which then rolled into 25 years later having her head lopped off. Mary always seems to be played as an intelligent, tragic but strong character - but she had to have been a poor judge of character and not quite as clever as she thought.... The ending facts claim "disputed" plot to kill Elizabeth - probably manipulated rather than an innocent victim.... But this runs counter how intelligent she is made out to be. Elizabeth is played rather well by Margot Robbie as having plenty of self doubt and lacking in some confidence..... a new take in some ways and possibly a little unfair on good queen Bess - but a little sympathy in her direction is probably due. An easier watch than the favourite. 

Morts

Kill Team - Imperial Guard version 2.

So to try and get the painting mojo back I finished off 3 figures for my 2nd Imperial Guard - Starship Troopers themed Kill Team. 

So a sergeant (SICON adviser) and a sniper and a heavy weapons trooper - with ther equivalents that I painted ages ago. 

The planned Kill Team list. 

Sergeant 5

Guardsman Gunner sniper rifle 5 + 1 = 6

SW Gunner sniper rifle 5 + 1 = 6

SW Gunner grenade launcher 5 + 2 = 7

SW Gunner grenade launcher 5 + 2 = 7

Guardsman with Vox-caster 5 + 5 = 10

Guardsman (11) @ 5 = 55

Total 91 points. 

I might change the grenade launchers to plasma guns which will up the cost and drop a trooper. But it is a big Kill Team anyway.  Should be able to have a game now! Got to print some tokens - but looking forward to trying this out. 

Painted something- well finished off some stuff ..... Back to the barbarians.... Then the rest off the lead/plastic pile!

Morts

Twilight Imperium 4 - 2019 Game!

So on Saturday the collective headed down to Kernow for the annual Twilight Imperium game-a-thon.

Due to the lack of trophy last year Sylon made an excellent Lego one for the winner of the event. He had already put his name on it for last years victory - so we were playing for whose name would adore it this year. 

Snake-eyes had decided to run the set up like Risk - Legacy (which worked rather well I think). A dice roll deciding the order of of picking faction, starting place, trade goods and something else I can't recall. TR shows starting places. We had the following functions:

Snake-eyes - The Nekro Virus 

DK - The_Universities_of_Jol-Nar (bullied into not having the Hacan - I think we agreed at the end of the evening that next time no one should play the same faction more than once!). 

Steedo - The_Barony_of_Letnev

Sylon - The_L1Z1X_Mindnet

Morts - The_Federation_of_Sol

Snake-eyes also decided that we were going to play to 14 victory points. 

Bottom pictures showing early moves to gain planets and resources. They also show off the rather nice  movement stands that Sylon had made to make movement easier ... I think that we had played at least 2 hours by this point. Highlight from the early game was an attack by Snake-eyes with 2 cruisers on a fighter and carrier to steel some of my tech by winning a combat - however some quality dice rolling by Snake-eyes meant that his ships were despatched easily. 

Late game pictures - I had lfallen behind a bit at this point and devious strategy card picking had stopped Sylon picking up victory points from holding Mecatol Rex - the capital. This move effectively prevented Sylon defending his title. Steedo and Sylon's early occupation on Mecatol Rex cause the agenda phase to be added to the game early on - this caused the game to become much longer. 

The agenda caused a major incident in the game - A directive had to be voted on which would cause all fleets to reduce the compliment of Dreadnoughts down to 2 and the number of cruisers down to 4. Snake-eyes couldn't vote and inexplicably DK chose to try and predict it. This allowed Sttedo and Sylon (with virtually none of those types of ships) to pass it! Massively reducing Snake-eyes and  my fleets - I lost 18 points worth of ships and had to spend a couple of turns rebuilding!

The bottom 2 pictures show the massive fleet build up for the battles to take - and hold Mecatol Rex, with 2 Victory points attached to it. During the afternoon and evening Snake-eyes and DK had been building up quite a lot of points from tech and Steedo had been quietly getting points as well - leaving Sylon and myself trailing the pack. 

End of turn 7 I sent in a softening up attack on Sylon's forces holding Mecatol Rex. Then in the final turn Steedo sent in everyship he had and took the capital system. Snake-eyes waded in with his fleet and destroyed the remains of Steedo's fleet - but with no group troops could not to take the system. All the while DK was confident of a win - he'd have 15 at the end of the scoring phase.

The result was that with cunning use of a strategy card - Steedo was the speaker and scored points first. This meant that with a secret agenda card Steedo scored the magic 14 points first thus ending the game and Winning! .... Before DK had a chance to score! 

Final positions, score track and smug Steedo. 

This was an epic game - 14 hours and 2.30am get home .... Mental! 

It was good time and I think we all enjoyed it - although on the last turn I ended up passing as I couldn't get enough points in the last turn to win (10 points was my total and even if I could have taken and held Mecatol Rex I still wouldn't have been able to catch DK - Slyon was in a similar situation. 

Perhaps after 3 years we are getting better at the game and this one was certainly the most aggressive and tactical we have played. I need to think about how Steedo plays as he has been the most successful player (3 wins out of the last 4 games). I also think that next time we should play to 10 points - it might not make the game significantly shorter (we didn't make 10 points in 11 hours of play).  Also in previous games we didn't get to Mecatol Rex as early so we didn't have as many agenda phases to go through.

A great day - thanks to Snake-eyes for hosting (provider of pizza and pulled pork) and a well done to Steedo for winning.....

Morts 

Lord of the Rings - Dragon Rampant.

So before my nephew departs dear old Blighty for Daneland, he was desperate for another game and in particular another chance to use my Lord of the Rings miniatures. This is sort of a problem as the Men of Gondor and High (Noldor) Elves are individually based and the forces of Mordor are still based up for Horde of the Things ..... So step forward Dragon Rampant! To solve the problem of mixed basing.

To keep things simple as I haven't played the rules (apart from a run through of Lion Rampant - years and years ago) I avoided most of the fantastical rules as I would be running the rosters for both sides. Orcs were light foot, Uruks heavy foot, Trolls bellicose foot (3 figures to a unit), Warg-Riders light cavalry, Wargs were lesser war beasts and the Nazgul General elite cavalry (one model). 

The Elves foot units were 6 figures each Spearmen were heavy foot, Archers light-missiles (with sharpshooters) and heavy cavalry with missile option. The army of Gondor Archers light-missiles, 2 units of heavy foot and 2 units of heavy cavalry- one with the missile option. 

Pointed up there was 50 points of evil and 48 points of good - way bigger than the 24 points for a standard game - and squeezed on to a 3 by 5 table rather that a 4 by 6!

Set up was done as in Kings of War as I wasn't properly prepared (no surprise there). 

Initial deployments!

The little Dane stared advancing across the table - I was hindered by failing my first 2 activations (poor dice in this game is a killer - to be fair that is true of any game involving dice throwing). 

The pictures show the lines moving towards each other - initial charges by the Gondorian cavalry weaken the centre of the Orc line - the trolls not doing much. Out on the left the Elven cavalry force the Wargs back and routed a unit of Orcs and on the right the Warg-Riders were routed by a combination of melee and archery. 

But the attack was causing problems for the forces of good - weakening the cavalry considerably. One unit of Gondorian cavalry down to half strength and the Elven cavalry running out of strength points completely.

Below the final picture of the game where in conceded the field of battle - even though I had routed more units, time was against us and the little Dane has the fight to the death attitude of Harald Hadarda! In any event it would have been a close run thing - the Elven foot were all at 100% and not engaged, but the Gondorians were suffering and the Orcs still had the Wargs running about, 2 units of Trolls, 2 of Uruks, 2 of Orcs and the Nazgul. 

The rules play fast (and I was fairly lax with the spacing and forgetting things) - I will be giving them another bash sometime - but next week is the annual Twilight Imperium event game! 

And Happy New Year!