Blackstone Fortress - 2nd Play

A few days ago most of the collective gathered at the Tiger King’s for a game. He was recovering from an operation to remove some metal from his legs. DK had gone down earlier to play one of the Tiger-King’s many Kickstarters - some like a It’s a Wonderful Kingdom. Anyway they were still on turn 1 when Steedo and I arrived due to discussing the escalating conflict in the Ukraine. So we watched as DK won by the use of giant rats. Also around the same time Snake-eyes arrived to participate in the main event - Blackstone Fortress. 

With 5 of us I was playing the hostiles - we were also playing the stand alone version, so people have a grasp of the rules for when the campaign starts properly (next game. Snake-eyes was the Rogue Trader, DK was the ratling  twins, Steedo the eldar ranger and Tiger-King was the robot UR-2501. 

The first exploration card was a challenge which the team breezed through with Janus Draik getting 10 of the 12 points needed. 4 clues and 1 piece of archotech collected - might be a quick game.

The next card was an Ambush combat card - eek!

Unfortunately for the team I managed a succession of very good dice rolls - putting 3 critical hits on Snake-eye character and at least one on most of the other characters … this became a run for survival very little collection of objectives - although I think Steedo managed to pick up some archotech. The team staggered to the mag-lift and escaped. I had even forgotten to do the reinforcement rolls …

Around this time there was a break for dinner cooked by Tiger-King’s better half, of chicken, veggie curry and a dal. Accompanied with rice and naan bread. Very good it was too. 

Then we returned to the Fortress - would the team be able to get back from the brink. 

The simple answer was No. Unfortunately the hostiles were too hostile … the restrictions due to critical hits meant that the team simply didn’t have enough activation dice to deal enough damage to the critters of the Fortress. I also started roll well again and remembered the reinforcement rolls. A good job it was a practice game otherwise some of the characters might not have been available. 

I think that campaign system will add to the game as characters can get “tooled up” and the consequences of actions have a long term effect. 

As we finished Blackstone Fortress more quickly than expected, we had a go with Masquerade - this was a tense bluffing game, where you might not be who you think you are …. It was eventually won by Steedo, with DK annoyed that in my attempt to win, I allowed Steedo to win … rather than do something which might have allowed him (DK) win … we do seem to have a mentality one occasions of focusing on stopping others winning rather than go for the win ourselves. 

On Saturday I went for a wander around the moor. 

Lovely day - still managing a full pack!

Morts 

Eldar or whatever ever they are called Rangers

With the Blackstone Fortress out of the way I got on with my Space Elf Kill Team.

The first 5 are metal Rangers - picked up cheap on eBay. 

Two Rangers.

The Ranger leader. 

Two more Rangers - looking pale enough to be space vampires. Pretty happy with these - but as I painted over the unfinished paint job of the previous owner I didn’t notice that there was a few little bits of flash that I should have removed. It was a little too late by the time I did spot the issue. 

Have assembled the Dire Avengers as the second part of the Space Elf Kill Team. I have also put together the Cultists of the Abyss… um Chaos cultists which I got for my birthday. I think these will be based as normal rather than the Blackstone … black bases as I don’t think I can get the rules or cards for them at a reasonable price point. Just need some Chaos Space Marines to complete the Kill Team … actually I could do with either some deathmarks or flayed ones for the Necrons too. 

Morts 

Blackstone Fortress - finally finished.

The last three explorers for Blackstone Fortress have been finished - a little later than planned (more than one self imposed deadline missed …). 

The Rogue Trader - Janus Draik

The Imperial Robot or Man of Iron - UR-025

The Asuryani Ranger - Amallyn Shadowguide

Overall pretty pleased with these - planning to get these to the table in the next week. 

With these done what to paint next?

Morts

Obsidius Mallex - Big Boss of Blackstone

I have managed to get a bit of painting done. All the baddies for Blackstone Fortress are now painted. 

The boss - Obsidius Mallex and his two hench Chaos Space Marines are done. I am fairly happy with these, but I think my painting skills are getting worse (could be the eyes or both). This has happened before when I have left Guard units til the end - so they can be the best, but what happens is the need to finish them and complete the job means they aren’t quite as good as I would have liked them to be (a bit rushed) …. 

The Fortress is now full populated with its denizens - three heroes to go. 

Morts

Raiders of the North Sea

DK, Tiger-King and myself were hosted for a game at Steedo’ s. A veritable display of beige snacks was arrayed before us as were many candles for mood lighting. As DK and Tiger-King are known for their lack of time management skills - Steedo and I set up the board for Raiders - remarkably easy as it is all marked on the board. 

However DK then arrived, but Tiger-King didn’t, so we had a go at a little filler game 8 minute Empire that DK had brought over. 

This was a nice little area control game which you picked cards from the top row (until they were all gone) by paying different amounts for them. Scoring was done by collecting sets of cards, controlling areas and continents. We cracked on at a fair pace - but not the eight minutes the box said … the final scores were Steedo 18, Morts 17 and DK 14. No time for a second game as the Tiger-King had arrived and was reading the rules to Raiders (always dangerous) and demanding pizza. 

The first game of Raiders was a little bit slow as we had a few rule questions (and because Steedo had to pop out to collect his offspring), but was remarkably straightforward to play once you started … either place a meeple in the village building and resolve the action, then pick up a meeple from a different building and resolve that action OR raid across the sea paying the cost and having the crew requirements needed. 

The first game was won by my good self, with Steedo 2nd, DK 3rd and the Tiger-King in 4th. I got the win by mainly by focusing on resource collection and then getting victory points via offerings to the Chief. The others had done more raiding, gaining victory points there and from the Valkyrie track. Apparently this was a test game, so we set up again. 

The second game was a different game - we were playing the actions cards much more and I think the raiding started more quickly - Tiger-King had a very weak crew, but was able to raid for plunder but not gain victory points. This was interesting as it then prevented others from going to those settlements. DK had collected the most offering cards in this game. The results were DK for the win, Tiger-King and myself in joint second, and Steedo bring up the rear. 

The way the cards come out has a big impact on how you play the game - this was certainly true for me as I couldn’t play the same tactics in the second game compared to the first. Planning is difficult as the where people have left meeples will effect where you can place yours and where you can pick up, so the order you do something or the if you can it it at all. 

I really liked the game, it reminded me of settlers in some ways, as I think that a very causal gamer could pick up the rules and play quite happily with a reasonable chance of winning. 

Thanks to my bro for getting this game - sooty it took over a year to get to play it … might have to look at the expansions. 

Thanks also to Steedo for hosting, the Hobgoblin Gold as a birthday gift and the slightly over cooked pizza. A good evening of games, finished of with  DK’s tales of his public school “friends” (I think you should get some counselling …). 

Morts 

Birthday haul

So during the week it was me birthday and surprisingly my good lady actually bought me a games related present - this does happen very often, so was rather nice. I now have the Cultists of the Abyss expansion (of an expansion??) for Blackstone Fortress. So some nice chaos cultists to support the traitor guard and chaos space marines … but you don’t get any cards or stuff to play they in Blackstone Fortress, because that stuff was in the Escalation expansion set. Now I get that what GW have done is made these Cultists available for general sale (probably for use in 40k games as they are nice miniatures), but the set isn’t really an expansion - so is a bit of a con for a causal or gift buyer. A bit naughty. 

My older bro got me Goat Lords card game, which will be played soon. Last year’s Raiders of the North Sea will be getting an outing this evening with luck. 

On my birthday I got an email from Osprey Games saying they had a sale on … so I wandered over to the website and found the Judge Dredd Helter Skelter (Wildlands re skin) for £18 and the Dark Judges expansion for £7.50 - bargain ad I had look at these and widlands before as a possible purchase. So off they when to the shopping cart, which the added a bonus discount for buying the game and expansion. Postage was a massive £1.50. An absolute steal. Ordered and arrived in 3 days. 

Still behind on the painting … none done this week. Possibly a game report on Raiders of the North Sea soon.

Morts