Dragon Rampant 3 player game

Steedo and DK came over for a game and I had chosen Dragon Rampant as a light (beer and crisps) miniatures game. I decided to play the game as a 3 player game, as the activation rules looked (from a  quick glance around the web) like a reasonable way of playing. At the start of the turn we picked a counter which decided the order we tried to activate units.
Due to the size of the table (150cm by 90cm - trying to go metric as it is a better system than imperial) I also decided that 12 strength point units would be 6 figures and 6 strength point units would be 3 figures (apart from some monsters and wizards).
The forces were Orcs (DK) - Leader Heavy foot (Orcs), 2 units of Light foot (more Orcs), bellicose foot (Trolls) and a scout wizardling. Undead (Steedo) - leader heavy foot Spellcaster (liche), bellicose foot (ghouls), 2 units of light foot (Skelllies) and greater war beasts (werewolves). I was commanding Dwarfs in their first outing in years - leader elite foot, offensive heavy foot (axes), 2 units of heavy foot (spears) and heavy missiles (crossbows).
The table was set up earlier by me roughly symmetrical, but we placed as an equilateral triangle (which caused a geometrical issue regarding the possible objective of the game).

The game started well for me with all units activating and moving forward, Steedo had a mare activating either 1 or no units and DK made a rush for dragon hill (in the centre of the table but not the deployment zones).

The game ambled along with DK getting the best of the activations, and between us destroying Steedo's ghouls. DK took out Steedo's werewolves with the help of a snakes-eyes roll with on their courage test. In the end the undead were suffering with just 2 battered half strength skeleton units and the leader left - a tough day at the office for Steedo. The Dwarfs and Orcs were still fairly evenly matched at the "end" of the game, both one unit down, but the dwarfs having virtually full strength units and none battered - but DK had been "King of the Hill" for the whole game.

The casualty is due to DK's sausage figures ..... glued back together now, which hopefully will hold for another 30 years!

This is the 3rd time have have played Dragon Rampant and each time it hasn't delivered the promise I hoped it would as a light beer and crisps game. There were slight over complications with the 2 strength points to remove a figure in most cases, which caused some brain burn. This game could have better if I had checked the set up properly and we had had a proper objective/objectives - I thought we would have a bimble about learning the rules and trying to kill everyone else's troops. We should have have also used the boast rules which have given the game a bit more purpose ......

So I'm currently thinking that Dragon Rampant won’t be making back to a table soon .... which is a bit sad as I had high hopes for a light game.

Morts

Progress undate ...... Some stuff finished!

So I have completed another 6 Chainrasps/Wraiths for a unit of 12. Just basing and varnish to be done.

Also finished a polar bear for Frostgrave ....

And I have impatiently slapped some paint on the Dwarf steam tank.
Hull.

Turret.

Wheels and commander not worth looking at yet.

Should be having a mid week game with Steedo and DK .... What to play??

Morts

A bit more work in progress .....and other things ....

So apart from finishing off the bases the first set of 6 Chainrasps/Wraiths are completed.

A fairly quick and easy paint job and they don't look too shabby - I have the next 6 primed white and ready for base coats and washes.
The dwarf steam tank has had some dwarfy bits stuck on and a crewman converted from bits.

I want to make the funnel taller, but am struggling to find the right diameter - but to be of honest the 5 minute look through the bits box wasn't exhaustive - I'll have another look over the coming days. Part of me would like to have a triangular "cattle catcher" thing coming off the front but that is going to take some thought.

On other things I have expanded the Morts library with some quality literary fair .....

Sort of birthday presents -
Beowulf - because I thought I'd like to read it - but is hard work, lots of "spake the son of" .... I hope the commentary will clear it up.
Tiamat's Wrath  - book 8 out of 9 from the Expanse, looking forward to this.
With birthday money -
Greek and Roman armies - cos it was silly money.
Norse myths - worth checking out different versions (I have the Neil Gaiman version somewhere).
Children of Hurin - looked nice, sort of regret not getting the hard back copy now that I see that it is illustrated by Alan Lee.
So plenty of reading to do! If I remember I'll put recommendations up ....

Morts

Work in progress......

So I have started some of the Chainrasps (wraiths) - currently top shot base coats done , bottom shot after washes (thinking that the green/blue wash might have been a little thick).

Got some high lights to do - then another 18 (for a units of 12 for Kings of War or Dragon Rampant).

I picked up a deep-cuts Polar Bear and a couple of Earth Elementals - smaller ones as support for the big one I already have.

Also is the current state of the dwarf steam tank - just waiting for some bits to arrived to 'dwarf ' it up.
Hope to finish the test Chainrasps in the next day or to.

Morts

Another year older .... Still no wiser!

So the weekend saw me get a little closer to my half-century, so I headed down to the Ocean city for the annual wargames show ..... With money but no idea of what I wanted and certainly no need for anything...... All I have managed this year making wise is gluing some Chainrasps together!

DK very kindly drove down - requiring a full English stop at Route 5 - nice.p

We arrived vied at the show bang on opening time and headed to the bring and buy (where DK had to register some items for sale) - but managed to pick up a copy of Star Wars: Imperial Assault (with expansions) for a snip! I saw a few things but am trying stop buying stuff I won't use .....

After a brief wander around looking at vendors (to see if I could spend some money) and demo games (for inspiration) - played a couple of round of Sharp Practice (a black power large skirmish game) - a nice set up and some interesting rules to deal with unforeseen events and the order of unit activations. 

The rules seemed easy to pick up and follow - had really good chat with the chap running the game (whose name escapes me, to my embarrassment), about gaming in general. It appeared to be a hybrid game in terms of scale with line troops in units rather than individuals. I could see some fun could be had from these rules, but it would be a new period, so very much on the back burner for now (probably for ever to be honest). I can see the appeal of 28mm for skirmish games, but for mass battle games 10mm or 15mm seems a better bet, so why doesn't anyone make 15mm Napoleonic (or early 18th century or pike & shot miniatures for that matter) in plastic?

Then another wander and DK and I played a demo game of Mantic's Deadzone - a skirmish game played on a grid - squares in 2D and cubes for 3D. This game featured some nice ideas - a minimum of 3 d8 thrown for attacks and saves - but 8s 'explode', meaning you get to role a extra die ....

DK started well with his Enforcers (humans) killing one of my Forgefathers (dwarfs), but this was the highlight of the game for him, as my squats slowly whittling his force down. 

The game ended with the final scores on the doors Morts 12 (or was it 14) and DK 4! It was a good fun game, which I think we could have invested in ...... had we not got into Kill Team.

After another wander I picked up a Steam Tank from Ironclad miniatures which I plan to convert to a Steel Behemoth for my Dwarfs .... Need some shields and dwarf iconography to stick to the front. 

Also planning to put a battering ram/spikes on the front (also replacing the 'metal' barrel on the back with 'wooden' ones). The turret gun will be a 15mm cannon. Hopefully it will look good. 

After this we then we headed back home with our booty (quite a lot for DK and not so much for me). 

Mortal Realms

Well I managed to pick up a couple of copies Mortal Realms - for the Chainrasps, wraiths for Kings of War or Dragon Rampant.

I have another copy on order - so I will have 30 wraiths, 18 dice, 3 rulers and 9 Stormcast eternals - not sure what to do with these to be honest. I was thinking that I could convert them into Grey Knights for Kill Team ..... But I am not sure.

Morts

Twilight Imperium 4 - Annual Championship in Cornwall

The collective headed down to Snake-eye's place for the annual Twilight Imperium game - who would be crowned champion for 2020 and be the proud owner of the trophy?

Steedo didn't look after in very well this year.
The journey into the wilds of Kernow involved a stop at Strawberry Fields for a quality breakfast!


And if your were DK 16 orange Rennie!! We did check this the max for 24 hours - not the 24 minutes DK!

We went for the same drafting process (adapted for Risk: Legacy) we used last year. The races chosen were; The Naalu (Sylon), The L1Z1X Mindset (DK), The Federation of Sol (Snake-eyes, who took it to annoy DK), The Univerisites of Jol-Nar (Steedo) and The Clan of Saar (myself).
Then we set up that Galaxy - where we did make a little error placing tiles so that Steedo and myself had very poor starting systems. There was some brief discussion about whether or not to play to 10 or 14 victory points - but it was agreed LAST YEAR that we would play to 10 after the 14 point (10 hour) epic.

We then got down to playing - it was a very close and tense affair with a few early VP points scored and DK spilling coffee over his cards. This meant that DK missed picking up the technology card, as he thought someone else had it (which they didn't) and it led to Steedo and myself missing out on the secondary action of Sylon's politics card (This meant for me I couldn't score a hidden VP) - Frustrating as it was, we couldn't replay and rerun the process - A fog of war moment!

Then Snake-eyes making a quick rush for Mecatol Rex. Which he was able to reinforce with air drops. DK tried to blast Snake-eyes off the capital, but he was unable to (partly to due to not having a bonus card, as Sylon was still drying off DK's cards after the coffee incident). So Snake-eyes picked up a couple of VP. The next turn saw DK having to keep his ships in orbit around Mecatol Rex and Sylon allowing Snake-eyes collect another couple of VP! Madness I say!

The next turn saw myself take Macatol Rex from Snake-eyes - with a cunning move using the Saar's special trade agreement card in concert with Steedo. However for some reason I allowed DK to have the Impeial Action on this turn - Stupidity I say! This gained DK 1 VP and COST me 2 VP!!! D'oh!

Meanwhile Steedo was quitely gaining VP and Sylon planets. We also got to vote on the Dreadnoughts weapons limit (Last year DK passed it and caused such pain to Snake-eyes and myself), but "Revenge is a dish best served cold, and space is very cold" to para-phase Khan in Star Trek 2.

The game was going at a good pace for us - with Snake-eyes and Steedo taking the lead, closely followed by DK, with Slyon and myself chasing the pack. I was frustrated as I was holding Mecatol Rex, but I was being thwarted in my attempts to get hold of the Imperial card! Objectives to score and points for holding the capital all being missed!

The last turn was a mad rush to grab points - the key to who was going to win, was going to be who was going to score first (how Steedo won last year over DK). For the last turn Snake-eyes was going to scored first ....... then Sylon then played a card which meant that Snake-eyes wouldn't have the Tactics and Strategy tokens to score the 2VP he needed to win. Steedo was looking confident .... was he going to retain his title. I was charging around capturing planets (which gained a trade good - needed for an objective). Fortunately the DK played the Leadership card which allowed Snake-eyes to recover the Tactics/Strategy tokens for the win! The final scores on the doors were Sylon 6 (chould have done more with his position), DK 9 (and desperate for promissory note which no one would give him), Snake-eyes 10 and the WIN, Steedo 9 (but potentially 13 I think) and myself 6 (but potential 9 if I could have scored - and I also had enough for another point, but you can only score one point at a time).

A very good game (probably the best we played) and the quickest at 7 and half hours! Still only want to play to 10 points! And a first win for Snake-eyes - well played

After this we played a game if Escape from the Aliens from Outer Space, an old style hex grid based game, which DK won. A bit like battleships - hmmmm. Probably needs another game.

Then we played a game of Mission Red Planet - I like this game but didn't have a good game (too tired is my excuse), but a better game than DK (too much Lambrini and Rennie I guess), We all thought that Sylon had this one in the bag, but Snake-eyes had it at the end!

The most little astronauts we have ever had on the board.

An enjoyable day and well done Snake-eyes.

Morts