Category: Games

The New Year Plan – Game Played Heroes Of Normandie (Score So Far -1)

When I look at what I have achieved in the last week or so I feel quite happy with my progress.  I have to admit though that I am still slightly ‘Off Plan’.

One of the reasons I may be put even further off plan was pointed out to me by both Veganman and Coronasan this week.  That reason, Board Games!

I haven’t played any board games for a while but I do have quite a collection in the house.  One such game is Heroes of Normandie. Both of the gents named above happened to point out that this game was on the original list we wrote last year.

I didn’t add any board games to the New Year Plan as it slipped my mind.  As board games are only likely to get a brief mention on the blog, due to a planned game of Heroes of Normandie that will likely have been played before this post is published, I will list it as being ‘Off Plan’.

Therefore, game played: Heroes of Normandie – off plan

Score for post -1 point / Total score -1

The New Year Plan – Progress Report – Dust Game Played (Score So Far 0)

So, although I lost a point by painting up a model that was not on my New Year Plan, today I get to win that point back again.  I am pleased to say that we recently played a game of Dust Tactics, a game we have neglected for about a year. (edit: In fact the last game I can find recorded on the blog was back in June 2016…)

I have not been out of love with this game, it remains one of my firm favourites, and we always seem to return to it with as much interest and enjoyment as when we started playing it. It is, in fact, one of the reasons Coronasan and I became reacquainted after a number of years in different gaming circles.

The plan was originally to get this game in before Xmas. With the holidays, and a number of ‘real life’ changes for both of us, we missed more than a couple of opportunities to get this played.  It actually resulted in me having time to paint up the last few units of my USMC force over the new year break (each cancelled game gave me a few extra hours of painting time).

My USMC managed to hold Coronasan’s Gorilla and Zombie heavy Axis force at bay and we settled on a draw in the end.

This game was one that we did propose for the New Year Plan so counts as a success for scoring purposes.  We hope to get another game of this in, in about 2 weeks time, so should win me some more points soon if all goes well…

Score for this post +1 point / Total Score 0

Gaslands – Delving In Old Boxes For New Ideas

So, Xmas is over and I have to admit that I have not achieved all that much in the shed for the whole of the holiday period.  I think I played one or two games but I have not been moved to pick up a paint brush for the last three weeks.

I have tidied up a bit…  I then made it all untidy again by moving all the left over snacks out of the house and into the shed (purely as an act of kindness to my womenfolk, who are all claiming to be dieting now…)

I have considered making New Years Resolutions…  Then disregarded the idea as it will just lead to failure…

But mostly I have been looking through old boxes…  Over the years I have had some great ideas.  Big and small they all find their way onto a dusty shelf or into a handy compartmented toolbox or ten.

As the pre-Xmas activity was all about Gaslands (Ospreys car wars like game) I have been digging out anything that might be a similar scale.  For a gamer that mainly focuses on 28mm wargames I can lay my hands on a surprising amount of 20mm(ish) stuff.

I am not altogether sure what the ‘official’ scale of Hot Wheels cars is but they match up with most things from 1/72 to 1/64 pretty well in my opinion.

I suspect that I am not that dissimilar to other gamers when I say that I have too often been ‘distracted’ from a project (lets say like collecting both sides for a 20mm Vietnam game) and found myself acquiring things, just because they might fit for a similar game.

In this case, while acquiring some 20mm supply trucks, for my US forces in Vietnam, I found myself buying 20mm Humvees in case I might be able to use them for a US in Iraq style game. Not that I have any 20mm modern infantry to use with them…

And of course when looking for Humvees you always see Landrovers…

At least I did more with the Landrovers than just put them in a box…

A couple of weapons that would do fine for Gaslands I think…

Useful things 5 amp fuses…

Quite why these were in the same box I will never know…

But this…  This has potential…  This should be good for my first War Rig (and its already looking like its been weathered!)

Lets not mention the fact I have about fifteen 1/72nd scale tanks.  I wonder if I can play a game of Gaslands with just tanks on both sides (a tabletop version of world of tanks anyone…)

I am pleased to mention we did get our first game of Gaslands in just after Xmas.  A simple affair, with minimal scenery, and only a few cars on the field.  We played a scaled back version of a death race mission.  I have to mention that my opponent, Veganman, managed to ram anything and everything in our first game.  Knocking out a number of cars even before we cleared the first gate.

In honour of that achievement I will be adding a Ram to the front of a car or two of my own before our next game.

I suspect that my next few weeks will be just as unproductive as I settle into the new year.  I do have a Dust Tactics game planned, and more Gaslands to look forward to, over the next week.

So that paintbrush looks like it is going to get ignored for a week or two longer at this point…

Dragon Rampant – Nurgle Vs Stunties

My Nurgle forces got an outing recently as a Dragon Rampant army against Coronasan’s freshly finished Dwarves of Tir-Na-Bor (They are all stunties to me).

A wing of Flying Light Riders fills one side of the table.

Bellicose Nurglings and a Greater War Beast form the strike force while Offensive Heavy Foot (Snails) and Offensive Light Foot (Worms) complete the force.

My Nurglings took a pounding from a mounted chariot cannon while everything else advanced.

Trying to use cover worked to a slight degree but Dragon Rampant makes you stay 3 inches away from other units so it makes you think more about unit positions and spreads you out for a lot of the game.

The Flies managed to evade and strike a few times before being caught in a retreat and wiped out to a man (or fly).

Worst played unit goes to the Nurglings who were useless when they got caught out in the open by a charge, but who also managed to recover and rout Coronasan’s elite armoured dwarf foot.

I fun game and a great excuse to get a few lesser fielded units on the table.

Warhammer 40,000 – Game Two

With most of the figures rebased or repainted that I need to get a small force on the table it was time for game number two.  My first game was a small skirmish against Veganman.

My Second game was to feature a proper force which we decided should be constructed using 100 Power per side.  I planned to use a Land Raider so dragged out my newest vehicle (purchased in the early 2000s) whilst Coronasan brought along a relic from an earlier age…

Thankfully he could not field his raider with all the other Blood Angels he had in the box.  He did manage to get a very large flier out for our first bash.  Almost a flying Land Raider, his Stormraven Gunship proved to be too heavily armoured for the force I brought along.  In the end I ignored it as best I could and focused my fire at other, seemingly softer, targets.

Those softer targets still proved much tougher than expected.  With all weapons having a chance of damaging any vehicle I thought that we would see more smoking wrecks but all our vehicles proved to be quite resilient.

Even my Landspeeders lasted longer than in previous rulesets.  Often these light skimmers would be destroyed with the first shots of a game.

Infantry proved to be quite resilient as well even with these new rules allowing units to move, shoot and then charge all in one turn.

As always we ended the game with a host of questions that our next game would hope to answer but also with the thoughts that 100 power may be too many for an average evenings play.  Next time 75 Power methinks…

Warhammer 40,000 8th Edition. 

With a slight pause in my hobby activity, while I was on holiday, Games Workshop caused a little bit of news with the release of a new edition of Warhammer 40K.  The eighth edition of the game takes it back to a more simple rule set and changes a few things to make it appear, at first glance, easy for new players to dive in.

I am certainly not a new player, but I have been ‘out’ of 40K for a fair number of years. We tried 7th edition 40K for a couple of games but it had little that was new enough to keep us hooked.   Age of Sigmar managed to hold us longer as it was very different from the normal, repackaged, Warhammer Fantasy game of previous editions.

8th edition 40K looks to be more like Age of Sigmar in its simple approach.  I picked up a Primer and Index for my old Space Marines just before I left for holiday and have pondered it for the time that I was away.

So, now that I am back in the shed, I have a 100 power point game planned for this week.

To prepare I have looked out my ancient painted figures, and even managed to run through a quick (30 power point) skirmish game with Veganman, to get a grip on the basic rules.

Some of the older paint jobs leave me slightly uncomfortable so I plan to touch up a couple of bits here and there.

How many other folks out there painted their original Space Marines in a Camo colour scheme? (Own up Coronasan as I know you had a few…)

Steam Wars – Big Navy Air Corps vs Scrunt Zeppelins Game

We got our, flyer heavy, game of Steam Wars in just over two weeks ago.  Shows how behind this blog really is…

Steam launch skimmer transport with deck gun; Balloon artillery spotter with bombs; Biplane with HMG and Bombs; Gyrocopter artillery spotter with bombs; Pride Of America Flying Steamship with deck gun and twin ack ack gun.

Plenty of Naval Ratings were fielded, supported by some rocket artillery and both the Octo-Divers and the Rocketeers.

Fighting this time across Coronasan’s ever expanding Harbour/ Industrial/ Air Landing Station.

Surprisingly most of our air units were not fast fliers.  My Gyro and Ship were slow and steady.  The Scrunt’s Air Ships were also moving less than 9 inches a turn.

After a couple of turns of manoeuvring things started to come into range…

Then as things heated up I forgot to take any more photos…

Needless to say Coronasan and I had a great time.  The rules for flying units have been tweaked again as very little was shot down by the end of the game.  Changes to make our flyers less resilient will be used next time, and we shall see if they are then too fragile.  If we ever manage to stop tweaking the rules Coronasan may even release it on his Steam Wars page for all to see.

 

Steam Wars – Balloon Or Ships Crew

Just a quick post today.  These three chaps were added as a last minute addendum to my most recent army list.  We managed to plan a larger game so that we could get all our currently completed fliers out on a table.  All those craft needed crew.

Made by Pulp Figures and some truly excellent sculpts as usual.  Some figures are made so well that they are always much easier and more enjoyable to paint than so many others.

As they will not be profiled in the game and so that they are not confused with any of the real units I have based them on very small round MDF discs (these are for flavour only and wont be on the table for anything but visual effect).  This also allows them to be placed on parts of the vehicles where other figures cannot fit in.

One will be used as hot air balloon crew, another will get to drive my small hover launch. The last will become captain of the Pride of America, the new Navy flagship.

It may have been planned as a playtest game for the expanded flyer rules but was always just going to be a flying fest for us to indulge in.

Pictures of that game will follow soon…

Steam Wars – Last Playtest Game. 

The last, somewhat rushed, painting run has been due to a planned upcoming game of Steam Wars. It was meant to be our latest playtest game but looking at the way it played out it may have been our last.  All we changed were some simple special rules and a few rules wording issues.  All in all Coronasan has pulled together a fine set of rules, that play simply and quickly, and allow us to get into a game without needing to refer back to a quick reference sheet or book all that often.

The US Navy (me) deployed south of the town while an invading Mechanica force (Coronasan) approached from the north.  Ball walkers were their main force of heavy guns while the technologically lower human force deployed steam powered tanks and their Rollerbots to deal with them.

The Mechanica force used small scouting drones in an attempt to outflank the Navy’s traditional forces but they were halted by a stream of HMG fire and failed to get into the flank of the Navy.

Steam tanks patrolled the long lines of the streets leaving themselves exposed to the possibility of return fire without cover.

The Mechanica force refocussed their efforts on their right flank and began to reduce the Navy’s hold on the town square.

To counter the numbers of Mechanica troops gathered there, the Octo Divers (the Navy’s newest development in close warfare) were deployed to force the machines back.

Their efforts were effective at first, but they lacked any effective backup and were soon to be out numbered and overwhelmed.

All in all a great game.  Lots of fun and it has renewed my desire to get the remainder of my Navy force done so that I can get the Martians fully underway and ready for their first outing.

Steam Wars – The Big Push Before The Game

The painting continues while I try to get a second new unit ready for our latest playtest game of Steam Wars.  The Rollerbots are definitely in for the game.  These Divers from Scheltrum Miniatures have been in the shed for over a year as I bought them at a past Salute.  The miniatures themselves are old school and detail is limited but the Octo-backpacks are a classic in my opinion.

While painting these five for our game I tried to take a few photos. But as they are so damned difficult to photograph, I ended up giving up and finished setting up the table for our game.

Steam Wars, as is the case with a number of games, benefits from plenty of scenery. However, it doesn’t make moving through said scenery a more complex or difficult than it should be.  A simple 1″ movement penalty for troops hopping a fence is all it takes.

Games should be easy to play so they can be played fast and without having to check back in the rulebook too often.

One final shot, when they were completed, was able to show their detail better.  These guys hate cameras as the auto focus can’t decide what part of them to lock on to…

My basic game sized (1500pts) Steam Wars force looks like this…

 

Lord Lavatt in his bath chair

3 units of Naval Ratings

2 HMG Teams

1 unit of Octo-Divers

1 unit of AT Rollerbots

1 unit of HMG Rollerbots

1 Tesla Cannon

2 Steam Tanks

1 Walking Steam HMG Armoured Platform

2 Steam Trucks (Transports)

 

Ready to play…