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

Kill Team - second game

Finally after very little gaming and missing the UK GamesExpo due to a Stag do (came 9th out of 11 in the karting - so an improvement), DK came over for his first game of Kill Team. We played the same factions and teams from the last time (with Snakes-eyes and Steedo) - DK running the Space Marines and my good self running the Guard Tempestors.

The table had a lot of clutter - done some buildings in case you hadn't noticed from previous posts.
DK set up behind lots of it - it was going to be a cagey game.

The start of the game saw some good rolling by DK - his traps KO'd one of my Guard on the Advance positions moves before the actual turns had even started. Then he scored a hit on the Volley gunner - I was thinking that on was in for a long, but short night if you get my meaning. However a lot of combined firepower took out the DK's leader and put a wound on another intercessor.
The next few turns were frustrating for both of us as I pushed forward to get eyes on DK's troopers only to miss (2 turns running with the plasma gun!). DK was using command points deal extra damage to my move exposed Guardsmen. However I was getting in some crucial saves and hits. But I was only one KO or flesh wound from have to take morale tests.

A charge by a Reiver put my pressure on my comms specialist - who I wasn't using effectively.
In the final turn a big push to DK's objective marker and a defensive position on my own made for a pretty tense end. The use of 2 command points allowed me to shot before DK's readied marines - KO'd one, then other missed allowing my Flamer to toast him (another KO). Heroically my comms specialist held off 2 Reivers in hand to hand while my leader was able to KO the other Reiver.

Game ends with the Guard holding the objectives, with 3 KO'd guard and one with2 flesh wounds. The Marines with 4 KO'd. Win to me!!

To be fair DKs it was first game and we were doing a lot on fumbling through the rules (no prep done for this due to other commitments) - he claims I didn't read through the objectives fully - poppycock is what I say! The command point were a really good addition to the game (forgot last time), and I think my final use of them gave me the win in terms of the objective. I didn't like the all around facing rule (had to look that up) in a skirmish game, perhaps that's just me but which way the model is looking is relevant - perhaps a house rule. Another key thing is that you really need to know your team - DK came in cold and didn't know the strengths and weaknesses of the Marines hiding away the Reivers rather than getting then stuck in to melee (not that they did a good job in this game), we also didn't have full handle on the benefits of the specialist or command points effects for each of the factions - we only used the same 2 command points rules in the game.
I suppose that is part of the point of Kill Team - get your team and get to know all that it can do with the specialists and faction traits available.

We need to get more games in to get to that stage, which I think that we can do ....
I've also got to get the Skitarii done then!

Morts

More Sci-Fi bits done ....

So I have managed to complete a few more bits of sci-fi scenery in the shape of object markers/battlefield clutter in the top 2 pics.

The bottom left shows tops which can be added to the buildings for bit of variation and change.
Bottom right show the current WIP for the drill rig thing, dropship and crashed F16 .....
The is nearly in sight ......

Then the skitarii to build and paint .... And the chaos barbarians to finish ....

Morts

Sci Fi Terrain - nearly there

Had a bit of a push on trying to finish off the Sci-Fi terrain I started for Kill-Team and Starship Troopers.Due the mainly having SST stuff I went with a grey "real" sci-fi look scheme rather than the "grim dark" gothic look of the 40k universe. 

The compound (well sort of) with the Ironclad miniatures watchtower (without its roof) which provided the basis of the look. Foam core walls to add extra cover  

The command block - I plan to get some furniture for the insides in the guise of computer consoles and weapons racks etc. 

The bunker house/medical centre. 

Workshop/refinery thing.

I have to put the grass on the bases and I might see if can get some posters/warning signs to break some of the grey. 

I also have these items to finish off - objective markers/toppers for the buildings and a pumping station/drilling unit, dropship and crashed drone. 

Hopefully in the next couple of weeks - then a game .... That will take of planning.

Morts