More from me for once!

Of gaming... 
The festive season hasn't all been food and photo uploads this year (though there will be more of those later in the day), I've managed to roll a few dice here and there as well!

First of all there was the "Painting and gaming retreat". That is to say I had a few mates round during the day on christmas eve to play some games and do some miniature slaughtering before the family overdoses began.

Space Hulk Smash:
I played what can only be described as an epic game of space hulk. I was the stealers, and Simon and Mo took on a squad of terminators each. Simon was unlucky and I got to him fast, chomping both his flamer and his lieutenant within the first few turns. However, it was the evacuation mission and he managed to get one guy out so not a complete failure.

Mo on the other hand was indeed blessed of the dice gods on that day. Performing a perfect fighting retreat, he killed scores of genestealers in multiple locations. Giddeon (? thunder hammer dude..) himself was responsible for 60 xenos deaths - he simply couldn't put a (cautious) foot wrong. With plenty of snacking, chatting and festive tales intermingled, we managed to make one mission last about 3 hours!

The rest of the day was spent with the other guys, painting and chatting about festive hobby plans until we parted ways to head off to various pubs and family events for the evening. Its at this point I realise I've achieved none of those hobby targets except website updates.....

And FoW too:
But it doesn't end there. Once a month we meet up at a local pub for Hobbyists Drinks, and last night was the latest of these. Beforehand, Eddie came to my place to start a game of Flames of war. I fielded everything I have made up for my tank Company (2225points) ad he took a small selection out of his Estonian SS collections to face against me (his small selection also being about 2225 points... ). The grand plan had been to start the game at a ice relaxed pace, head to the pub, then finish it off sometime over the weekend.

There's no need to finish it off. It was a massacre!
My brave Yanks would be the attackers in the Hasty Engagement mission. Unfortunately they paid heavily for their lack of planning.

Before me was arrayed a single squad with attached HMGs and Pak 40, spread thin to be within reach of both objectives. The Pak40 stood facing mennacingly up the cobbled road through the center of the board.  On their left flank stood two .88's and on their right, the remaining two Pak40's.

Those fearsome, but stationary, AT emplacements were the least of my worries however, for as the attacker in this mission, I barely crossed the center line. The reason for this being 3 Panthers anchoring the center of the German line. Less Anchors however, more harpoons. The Panthers were immune to my fire from the front, and rolled forward in the first four turns to be within just a few inches of my base line destroying everything in their path, whilst my carefully surrounding fire bounced off from all angles completely inefficiently.

When I finally managed to get a few shots on target, and subsequently got some infantry in ready to finish the job, my battle weary forces turned around to be met by the german lines, almost untouched, before them. We attempted to move forwards once more, but a combination of the torrent of AT fire, the arrival of a Tiger reserve unit and some very fine Goliath Maneuvering left me with no units in Eddies table half at the end  of turn 6, and the battle was lost.

Great game, but I got to the pub with my head hung low.

Saluting waffle...

Of Salute....
 Well, That's Salute done with for another year!

I was painting a couple of commissions (no, I dont really do those....) for the show and also painting as much World of Twilight as I could squeeze in. I didn't want to be buying loads more when I still had a heap unpainted - that would be totally against the theory of the Pledge!

The day itself was another great one, full of catching up with old friends, making soem new ones, putting faces to well known names and talking all things model and paint. Whats more, I actually rolled a lot of dice without it being "work"! Amazing result! I played a few games of World of Twilight, had a great intro of Timeline 300, and even played a demo of Flames of War V3. More on the gaming later.

 The Shock of the show for everyone was Dropzone Commander. 10mm sci-fi with great sculpting and model design, and an impressively large range which nobody saw coming! I'm very much looking forward to putting brush to resin with these figures. Lots of pictures can be found in the thread on TacComms here.

Another highlight for myself was finally meeting Chris "Curis" from Ninjabread. I've watched his blog for years, and heard many a good report on the man himself from Epic Tournament goers. I popped by his stand to pick up a copy of his new book - punishment of the Dice Gods and ended up temporarily taking over his stall frontage whilst we talked epic and looked through a few epic bits from my miniatures case. The Book is great - I highly recommend it for anyone who's not adverse to laughter!

The Obligatory Purchase List: 
A Pile of World of Twilight figures. I'm not counting them. I dont want to. :p
Two Cans of Coat D'arms Matt Varnish - I love the stuff.
 Warhammer Historicals Legends of the Old West and Showdown - they had a sale one, couldn't resist!
Peter Pig Destroyed Sherman & Jeep markers / Objectives.
 Half a Flames of War Intro Box with my Mate Ed "The Fez" Turner - I get the Shermans... you can see where this is going!
Ninjabread, Punishment of the Dice Gods (Signed, no less!)

 Overall I think the show felt nice and busy, but still had plenty of space between the stalls and the games. The display games were as impressive as ever, and those hosting demo games were doing a great job of keeping the punters entertained. Beasts of War had put on a large Hobby Lab area which looked busy every time I passed it and the trade stands were uniformly Bustling. A success for all!

Of Salute Gaming...
I've actually got a bit to report! I played Timeline 300 at Salute. Its 10mm Victorian Sci-Fi, and is being made by Troublemaker Games. What sets this apart is that there's a Construction and resources back end to the game but it IS a miniatures wargame. You start with a number of Coal mines, and a construction unit. Every turn your mines generate coal, and you may use this to construct new fighting units from your mobile construction unit and bring new forces to bear. Do you save up your points for an enormous Landship, or flood the field with infantry quick & try to overrun your foe? Love it! The game mechanics themselves are quite simple, fast flowing and fun. There's ironing to do, but it certainly has some good concepts and I'd happily play it again. Oh, and if you're playing as the Martians, DONT run your construction unit forwards - you are restricted by soem killer minimum ranges as I found out myself!

 I Played Flames of War. First time in a few years, but it hasn't changed too much. It was just 3 shermans Vs 2 Stugs, and I got killed in the end, but I didn't take too much persuading, and now I'm looking into a small American force. Yes yes, I've only recently finished selling off my huge Soviet forces, but who cares, that's Hobby!

 I also played World of Twilight. I love the game, but dont get to play much so I took my collection to salute and saw them in action as demos as well as playing myself.
Thanks to Gekilian (Chris! or hereafter, the Tactical Prof. ) for a great game. I certainly didn't deserve to come out with a draw. My Slingers are now the SS - the elite "Suicide Slingers" unit. Herder Captains are great additions if you have your head screwed on (which I clearly didn't). I also take back any bad word I ever said against Commander Brenar's usefulness in smaller games. If he's that lucky next time I use him then he's a permanent addition to my forces. Having watched my own poor commandership see to the death of most of my forces and helping me out couple of pointers, Chris then had to watch as Brenar refused to die until the last moment, taking down 2 devanu and a small sea of Grishak with him, leaving an empty board at the end of a marathon game!

A tale of old and new

Of Gaming...
Monday night was another good one at the Guildford Games Club. Having watched a number of encounters, and bought my own squad, I finally played my first two games of Infinity Last Monday.

I do like the rules set. The way you have to think ahead to cover all angles and possibilities (such as enemy Paras ona first "intro" game! Grrr... ) really appeals to me. I really think it could be fun with two teams of Ariadna with basic rifles duking it out, but for the while I'll enjoy my plethora of special weapons none the less!!

First game I lost, to aforementioned Para. Though I would like it noted that that only occurred after my opponent stated where he was dropping, and wanting to learn the intricacies a little better, I asked "So Why didn't you choose to drop him here and do this?". To which my opponent replied "...ohh.. that's not a bad idea..." and proceeded to kill 4 ofmy team in a single turn.

Second game I was more ready for it and new more what my troops were capable of. I set up a good defensive position and waited for the right moment. When the time was right, and the passage of travel clear, my Rocket launcher exposed her position and took down the enemy medic. Now the game was on - my Ant-Tank trooper dashed from cover, got a good shot off on the enemy ORC suit with his Adhesive launcher and followed it up with a Demo charge to knock him out. His final action moved him back around a large pile of pipes, to a rather exposed position, but one which was well covered by fire from the rest of my squad. The enemy were walking into a hailstorm if they went for retribution.
The following turn the AT trooper worked back around the pipes and took out the enemy medic, and had a good try on the enemy lieutenant too. unfortunately his luck had run out, and he was subsequently taken out by the nefarious enemy para, who this time had to drop behind his own lines to shore them up. That didn't last long however as he in turn left himself open to a shot from my Kazak Veteran, and the game was called as he hit the floor.

Thanks James - Great Games!

Of Painting...

This week I've finished off another unit which has been on the workbench for an obsene amount of time. Literally years! So, FINALLY, 10 sad little classic empire handgunners are dust-free, fully painted and in the cabinet - photos next week!

In the mean time I have two galleries of the very old, and one of the very new for you in this update!


For starters, we have "Epic, The Early days" - a gallery of some of my earliest forrays into converting epic miniatures and some not-so-hot paintjobs to keep you entertained. (22 pictures)

Secondly, we go up to 10mm scale, with the eventual arrival of the inevitable Warmaster Miscellaneous Gallery. Most of these figures were painted as random painting fun when the models were new, but there's a fair variety in there from many different races! (29 pictures)

And last but not least, we jump further up the scale chart and to something brand new. It may only be a tiny one, but I open the 28mm Roman Gallery with my first completed regiment - Warlord Games Slingers. Soon to be followed by many more I hope :) (3 pictures)

As ever - thanks for looking!

Totals:
New Galleries - 3
New images - 54

Latest two SoW Games

Had a Couple of great games of Seeds of War lately - here's the super-quick over-view of them both - more details in article form soon!

Game 1 - 800 points, Krayt Vs Andrayada

We went for a big game, and a good one it was too!

6x4' with many a building, and a few forrests for good measure.

Game 2 - 400 points, Krayt Vs Andrayada, testing "Suburban Carnage" Bolt-on

As part of our continuing testing of the Bolt-on rule sets, we played a small game on a 4'x4' board, absolutely packed with buildings.

We decided (ok, I declared...) that each force should contain at least 50% infantry, which would be deployed in the buildings in the center of the board at the start of the game. The aim was to test the Building rules, so we figured we needed targets!

The winner was stated as the first player to completely wipe out the opponents infantry forces.

In the first three turns, James succeeded in levelling a very large section of the city, as my infantry ran from building to building, watching them fall like dominoes behind them.

My Veterans and Basileus formation came into play in turns 4 & 5, making a couple of good assaults and suprisingly, the standard monitior formation did a fine job too, showing an Andrayada warrior Phalanx how to do it up close and personal in the last turn.

In the end, we both had infantry left alive, but, having both taken armies designed to take down buildings, very little that could actually kill infantry in the open!

We declared a draw & a great success for a playtest.

The outcome:
Buildings are too easy to destroy with standard AV fire.
They're far too hard to destroy with Artillery.
Infantry escaping a falling building should have some chance of gaining suppression counters when they successfully escape, or they walk out as though nothing has happened.

Tweaking needed!