Dune and Stuff

Well the better half and my good my good self escaped for a couple of days from the drudgery of chores and stuff … and she agreed to see Dune! On an Imax screen no less. 

So what did I think of Dune - well it is spectacular on the imax screen. The cinematography, special effects and production design are so good. I enjoyed it - but I like the David Lynch film from the eighties … I have read the books or seen the miniseries set in the universe. 

Now I think this helped me with the story and what was happening, because when I asked my better half what she thought, “it’s not the worst film I’ve seen”, was the reply. She found it difficult to follow what was happening at times and who was doing what. - this could have been my fault as I didn’t prime her ( DK suggested that I should have after the event), but as she is not a great fan of the fantasy and sci-if genres, I thought it would be best for her to discover the story through the film - but that didn’t happen. So that is probably a flaw in the film, that the narrative is tough to follow if you aren’t already familiar with the source material. We both found the sound too loud at times (probably our age) which seemed to muffle some dialogue. I am looking forward to part 2, but will have to go with someone else. 

Also while away we visited Belas Knap long barrow. 

A darn impressive tome to last 5000 years … 

Something spooky for Halloween. 

Morts 

New Kill Team stuff

While I have been remodelling the house I have also managed to find the time to get hold of a few extra things for new Kill Team. For a good price (Zatu games) I picked up the compendium.

I have to say I was a bit nervous about buying this, but it is a good resource - lots of stats in there. I have also got the White Dwarf with extra stuff for the Skitari and Sicarians. On reading the rules it became apparent that some decent tokens were needed (and the shaped based measuring gauges would help), so after prowling eBay for some - to no avail, I picked up the Kill Team essentials box from a FLGS - https://www.incomgaming.co.uk/  (well not very local to me to be honest, but obviously local to someone) - the shop was in one end of a pub - so gaming and ale. Potentially a quality gaming venue if you are in the area  

The barricades are part of the set up so that will help with a game. Hopefully I can organise one fairly soon, as I have a number of marine abs Ad Mech teams available ….

Morts 

DK’s birthday games

On Saturday the collective gathered together to celebrate DK’s birthday. Steedo, Sylon and Snake-eyes arrived early and got some games of Unmatched in. 

Tony the Tiger and my-good-self arrived around 2 hours later (me due to decorating and flu jab) … and the Tiger King (new name for Tony the Tiger …). 

We started off with a 3 games of Captain Sonar. This is a team game, where players take on roles of submarine crew. Captain who gives orders for direction, torpedoes, mines, drones and sonar. The First Mate - who charges and records what systems are available … depending on what the Engineer has used to power the movement of the boat. The Engineer who has to record what system have been used to power the movement - however if you cross off a system - then that system can’t be used. The radio operator who has to record the movement of the other teams sub - so that torpedoes and mines can find their mark. 

We played 3 games - two turn by turn and one real time. The teams were Snake-eyes, Steedo and Sylon versus Tiger-King, DK and myself. I found the turn by turn games the more enjoyable as there were actual tactics and planning which could be done. The real time game was chaotic as you were moving as quickly as possible, as were the other team. A fun game - which I would play again - the results were 3 sinking to my team!

After Captain Sonar we played a game of Skulls, which the Tiger-King won …. Then DK fed us with a very nice lasagna. At this time Steedo left to watch some amateur dramatics. 

We then played a game of Terraforming Mars. 

The game is obviously about Terraforming Mars - each player picks a corporation and some starting money or attributes. My corporation was a green one, so I set about improving Mars - I am pretty sure that I put more seas and forests down than anyone else. Unfortunately these in themselves don’t earn you victory points. The game was fairly close, but the final scores were Tiger-King 60, DK 59, Snake-eyes and myself 52 and Sylon on 46 (I had ended the game with the final forest getting the oxygen level up, but had to leave as my lift had arrived). A really good game with nice pieces - I didn’t get any red burner cards (these seemed to be provide some very good benefits to my competitors), but tried to be consistent with the corporation - even managed to get herbivores and predators on to the red planet. 

A good days gaming and hopefully DK was happy with his lambrini … which appeared to the gift of choice. 

Morts 

Home reconfiguration ….

For the last few weeks in have been reconfiguring a couple of the bedrooms up stairs while Thing 2 was away at university. 

Between Thing 2’s room and the little spare bedroom (what used to be my painting and store room) were a couple of built in wardrobes. These were a bit problematic as with a normal bed in the little room you couldn’t open the cupboard doors properly. So after a lot of effort and a new power tool (a reciprocating saw) I managed to get through to and remove the wood - there were a lot of nails holding things together. 

So that took 2 Sunday’s - then Roy of the Rovers, local plaster came around last weekend and the wall was replaced between the rooms - with the little room gaining all of the space - approximately 1.5 square metres. 

Pictures above of the finished plastered wall in Thing 2’s room and the stud wall from the little room. 

Thing 2’s room has now been repainted and just needs putting back together. The little room has been plastered - waiting to dry out then painting … 

So miniatures have had to take a back seat for a bit. 

Morts

Tinners’ Trail and beer …

Steedo invited Keeno and my good self over for some beers on Friday. I suggested that we give Tinners’ Trail a try, as Keeno would give it a go (not really a gamer, but loves Kernow). If I recall correctly Steedo bought it so he could groom Keeno into a gamer. 

So we gave it a whirl and had some beer (more on that in a bit). 

The game plays over 4 rounds. Each round players take it in turns to play an action - costing different amounts of action points - until 10 points are spent. Then scoring for the round is done - the order you finish the round in changes the value of the victory points you can buy. The actions can be build a mine which involves a bidding process (with potentially some bluffing), installing wheel pumps, building boats or later in the game railways and of course selling pasties. The aim is to earn money from mining copper or tin - each round a new price is randomly set for the price of each item. Mining can be expensive as you need to pay to pump the water out - for example if there 2 water tokens in a mine then it will cost £2 to mine each unit of tin/copper out. 

In our game Steedo and Keeno went into an early lead in round one, while I was building mines … in round two I was able to do a fair bit of mining when the price of copper was high … getting into a nice lead. Round three saw Steedo make a push for catching up. However I managed to strip mine the north Cornwall coast - so I managed to stay ahead. Round four was more difficult as there were few mines left and couldn’t mine, so I was worried that Steedo would be able to catch me. However Keeno managed to bluff Steedo into buying an overpriced mine …

The final board - Keeno 132,  Steedo 234 and me on 25something. The game was interesting - lots of elements to balance out - I think I was lucky that I didn’t mine much in the first round, then was able to in the second. I think Steedo was trying to experiment with the various different actions, which hindered his scoring at times. It would be interesting to see how it plays with more players. 

The bees tried were Fullers London Porter - a full flavoured beer - reminded Steedo on the Guinness West Indian Porter. Otter Head - a strong local ale, which we have had before, but suffered by following Ludlow Brewery’s Stairway - a light ale (with Eastern European hops), still a 5% beer which was the best of the night. There was something with peaches in it, but the less said about that the better.

Morts 

Bugs - done!

Well apart from a little basing to be done all of the Starship Troopers bugs are now painted. 

These last two are lumps of metal. I will try and sort out a showcase of the whole army at some point (when the basing is complete), but I have a new project of ripping out some built in wardrobes to do and lots of work to fit in as well, so I will see. 

The mantis bug - a big bestie which should deal quite a big of damage to marauder suits. I when for a basic mantis green - what an imagination. 

Finally the Brain bug - the arachnid master mind. It should have some little (chariot) bugs to carry it about, but when DK and I pick up a used set of Starship Troopers years (and years ) ago at a show there were no bugs in the box. I am hoping to pick up some cheap kids toy bugs to stand in sometime … not seen any yet. 

I am not out of bugs to paint so should get back to Blackstone Fortress next. I have purchased a copy of the new Kill Team compendium, so will look to see how that game plays soon … when I finish my chores.

Morts