Kill Team - Skitarii started ... at last.

So I finish some buildings and thought what should I do next to avoid completing the barbarians ....
I looked at some old Rackham miniatures for Confrontation, even got as far as opening a blister pack and looking on the web for how a shield could/should be stuck on (still not completely sure), then thought Kill Team Skitarii need doing.

Now I have to say that these little blighters are a bit of a pain to assemble - as I don't have instructions, because they were picked up cheap off eBay - the legs and cloaks have to go together in a particular way. Having checked the web - some arms don't match with certain bodies. So on the whole a bit of a challenge - I went for numbers on the sprue close together, then stick them together - which seems to have worked. I have assembled them so they are basically the team from the starter set (I have the cards and want my life to be simple), with the exception that I have changed a Ranger for a Vanguard - so it is my team and I prefer the helmet to the hood. I have also paid over the odds (on eBay) for a Sicarian Ruststalker to add a little more melee punch to the team. Artists impression below - horrific looking thing.

But I didn't need or want 5 of them so an overpriced one will be heading to this team. God knows when they will be finished.

Morts

Made some stuff ......

So after all the sci-fi buildings for Kill Team and Starship Troopers, I found some cheap fish tank (not a new idea by any means) plants for jungle type off world foliage. In retrospect I probably should ha have reduced the size of the "weights" or removed them completely. But for £4.99 and some time not too bad an effort.

After all the sci-fi I was inspired to finish off a couple of other buildings that I have had hanging about for a bloody long time. The first one is a stable/inn which was picked up years ago at a pre-school fair (considering the big one if off too university in September!), I have been meaning to sort this for ages. I still plan to stick some barrels and other bits and bobs around it.

I think I could get away with using it from late Roman through to the Peninsular war - neither of which I have any figures for.... But it will fit into any fantasy setting and Dark Ages too!

Then I have this sort of flat-roofed dwelling (I think there is a post about playing with MDF which it featured in long ago) - I think this could find its way into Ancient Greece and fantasy games. Again I plan to stick some bits around it at sometime.
The sci-fi stuff has been grassed and some posters stuck on - I would like some control panels/computer terminals for the interiors - perhaps if I can make a games show this year.

Morts

Quacks of Quedlinburg - Played

After the Sellswords and Spellslingers game DK arrived and we played a couple of games of
Quacks of Quedlinburg. This is a game of brewing potions so that you can be the best Quack in Quedlinburg - but you must do this without making your pot explode with too many cherry bombs ...
The basic mechanic is you buy ingredients which you pull blind out of a bag and put into the pot - each ingredient has a value which moves you score up - but if you score more than greater than 7 cherry bombs your pot explodes and you can either score victory points or spend buying more ingredients. If you don't explode you get victory points and spend buying stuff. Effectively the game is a deck builder with the different ingredients interacting with each other in your pot and in some cases with others pots (black moth things).

The challenge is knowing when to stop pulling things from the bag and watching the probabilities. However knowing the probabilistic doesn't help when you inevitably pick the cherry bomb you don't want - Snake-eyes and I managed this on more than one occasion each!
We smashed through the game twice, because it is bloody good fun - possibly one for non-gamers to play as the idea and mechanics are quite simple, plus blindly getting ingredients from the bay knowing the risk is entertaining. Certainly a game worth getting to the table and to a collection.

Unfortunately Steedo managed to convincingly win both our games, DK and I managed a 2nd each and Snake-eyes got 2 losses. Then we played a game of Judge Dredd - Cursed Earth and lost! It is a tough game.

Always a good evening if you can manage 4 games!

Morts

Sellswords and Spellslingers - Protect the Village.

After about a years break we managed to play a game of Sellswords and Spellslingers. I dug out the previous characters that we had created last year. Steedo had Jackal, a rogue and Brutus a burly fighter. Snake-eyes had Houdicar the wizard and Malco the fighter. I had Brunhilda another fighter, Debs the healer and new boy Roger Redcap (replacement for Woody who died last game.

The scenario we played was defend the village - which was being terrorised by a Frost giant.
The game started with the giant appearing in the northwest of the table and our magnificent seven patrolling the perimeter .... Apart from Jackal who was in the WC and Brutus who was sleeping in a  wagon. Houdicar was luckily standing in the field in the path of the giant ..... Snake-eyes activiated his wizard 3 times ready to unleash a tiro of fireballs at the lumbering giant .... This could be a quick game ....but unfortunately the fireballs turned out to be just enough to light a cigar - real hamlet moment. The rest of the heroes rushed around the buildings to inception the giant and rescue villagers, with Roger loosing off a few arrows as he went! Apart from Jackel who started playing with his oil flask ..... until he remembered that (we read the rules) he needed to light the flask, so he wandered into one of the buildings to get a flame from a cooking fire.

We ran through the activations for the heroes again, with the giant getting closer, but this time Houdicar was successful with his fireballs - causing significant damage, Roger getting some hits in with arrows and Brunhilda slashing and hacking the giant - eventually taking him down. Jackal was disappointed not to throw his oil flask ......
Other notable events were the rescue of 1 villager by Malco, and the finding of a rope by Debs - but both actions gained an extra XP. But a good win for the magnificent seven (including Steedo's characters, who did .....).
Sellswords is a really nice RPG light which I/we should play more - perhaps solo. We all had a good laugh and the game had some tense moments - Steedo tried to inject some role play to his characters which was nice.

Morts

Shadespire/Night Vaults - Played!

I had a free evening so DK invited me over for a game or 2 of Shadespire/Nightvault by GW.
DK had done his usual very nice paint jobs on the miniatures for the game - git.
Some pictures below.

We played 2 games in the evening - both very close. In both games l was the golden sigmarine (or whatever they called) ranges and DK was the brutish Orcs. The game is based hex gridded boards which you get to pick each game - each one with different placements for terrain, troops and figures. The boards are nicely illustrated and DK had done a top job on the terrain pieces he had - but they are obviously flat. I don't know if it is the mini-gamer in me but I find it a bit odd flat board but really nice minis - I know it's a game and this speeds up set up massively, but in someways you could have card standies rather than figures and it wouldn't change the game at all.
The other big part of the game is deck building - which DK had done already (as he now has other friends outside of the collective - we do need to think of a new name), having played a few times.
There are 2 decks - Objective - where you get get objectives to score victory points .... Which you can then spend, paying for upgrades to buff your troops! You get 3 of these per phase. The other deck is gambits and upgrades. Gambits you play straight away when possible for an advantage and as already stated Upgrades you have to spend a victory point to activate - 5 of these per phase.
The game play rattles along at good pace and DK was kind  enough to let me do some "I've forgotten to do ...." semi retrospective card playing as the newbie ... (Double standards on the "fog of war" rules by me there).

So how did the games go? Pretty quick and close 8-7 to DK on the first - tactical blunder by me charging my last sigmarine rather than shooting .... Slightly lower scoring 7-6 to DK, should have been a solid win to me but I missed DK's final Orc 3 times in shooting and combat which gave him loads a points .....bugger!

With the design of the game part of it is the picking the cards for your deck - which impacts on how you play your warband. So there is the part of the time investment in created YOUR warband as well as the modelling side, but DK has done that for me in this case - but would I do the necessary homework off my own back? Difficult to say considering how long Kill Team is taking, but probably not enough - which is probably why I like games such as Kings of War, DBA, Maurice, Settlers where the picking cards is not an essential of the game - unlike Netrunner which I generally didn't have much  a clue about how to "synergise" the cards to be able to win.

A good evening with a easy to play tactical game - loads of thinking involved. Certainly would play again. Thanks for the games DK.

Morts

WIP -.Crashed and Dropship

So apart from playing a game I haven't got much painting done recently, been busy and a bit hot in dear old Blighty. But I have finished the crashed fighter apart from decals and static grass.

I don't think it's too bad as a bit of scenery (but I might have got the roundel orientation wrong).
I have also made progress on the dropship - still some work to do painting wise and some decals.

Getting there.

Morts

Played! Judge Dredd - The Cursed Earth

So after another break from gaming, due to weddings, helping with DofE expeditions and the like, Steedo came over for a very short notice game of Judge Dredd - The Cursed Earth (JDTCE) - was planning to pop down the local but that didn't happen!
JDTCE is a re skinning/variant of Lost Epeditions with a Dredd theme - the quality of the cards is very good - and the box matches Odin's Ravens so that's nice - they can sit next to each other on the shelf (gathering dust like all the other games .......). Steedo reckoned the the component quality was higher than in lost expeditions. The objective of the game is to catch Max Normal who has gone into the Cursed Earth carrying the Block Mania virus, before the perps (Satellat and Mean Machine) catch him. So we are chasing and racing to victory ..... Obviously if the team of 3 judges die you lose .... So more than one way to lose.
You set up a location track, then deal out encounter cards to either move on, gain experience (survival or negotiation), food, ammo or health. The encounter cards also help the perps move on, expend ammo/negotiation/health and gain radiation - which you can't get rid of and if rad tokens exceed health the character dies. There are also Psi events, now we did play this wrong (which may partly explain some of our lack of success, but not much), which means you add a card to the end encounters to play or take a health from Judge Anderson,  then each player takes a card, chats about it without being specific and the best (least worsed) is added to the end of the encounters.

We settled into a standard Street Judge level of the game and caught up and passed the perps, before sucumbing to radiation poisoning .... Then we tried the Cadet level and did worse .... So we tried it again and died .... Then again and the result was the same - death! By this time the pub had been forgotten (sorry Fudger) as we had to win a game!
Once more unto the breach we went this time playing Chief Judge (Hard) level, with a change on strategy - one of the judges (Giant) was going to take most of the hits and radiation - and we were doing to chase down Max.

This worked - victory!

The game plays well and Steedo and I enjoyed the challenge - hopefully it will get some more plays soon (before I forget the rules) and I will need to try it solo. But apart from character names and locations I am not sure it felt like Dredd (as I recall the comics from the mid eighties that are in the loft).  Anyway a good game!

Morts