The Year of Skirmish and Cards

Skirmish and Cards

So been a crazy few months, a decent amount of gaming but a little disorganized in projects.

Cards

So due to schedules I've found myself playing card game over board games. Legendary Marvel has been a fun co-op game. With the dark city add on the combination of missions, heroes, and villains give it great replay value. Even if the random pull can make some really hard games. Serves as a good one shot as opposed to Pathfinder Card game.

Meg destroying me in Call of Cthulhu

The other main card game is Call of Cthulhu Card Game. We don't really design decks. We have three different boxes. At the beginning of each game we pick two factions each to mix our decks. It keeps it nicely balanced and keeps the game quick. Basically takes 20-30 minutes from deciding we want to play till game finish.

Skirmish

So been playing mostly Skirmish games, which lead to a lot of terrain projects to make it all work. Infinity is the first one, which needed a lot of new terrain. Most of my 40k terrain is dark grim ruined future ruins. Infinity is more anime espionage, so a very different look. On top of it the reactive turn of Infinity require a lot of blocking terrain. I owned a number of models, but needed terrain.

First game

Luckily, the new starter set came with a good deal of terrain. I naturally couldn't resist getting some more to spice it up. The ad's were a pain to put together but are well worth it.

Adds a nice flair

At historicon I picked up some Old glory sci fi terrain and an official terrain objective building. With some reaper pieces, I can do a relatively good table. Just need to paint them up.

Frostgrave and Songs of Blades and Heroes

I have a number of plays I will discuss in a later blog, these are both fantasy small skirmish games. One for one off games and one for campaigns. Terrain for a ruined city, particularly the floor takes awhile to make. However, my wife gave me a great ten year anniversary gift. Secret Wars makes a plastic board made of 24 1x1 pieces. It has a great bottom connector set up.

Spray and first coat

Some drybrushing

Set up

The following are a couple of in game shots with terrain

Lucky sniper shot takes out the opponents mage!

Historical

The other skirmish game has been Muskets and Tomahawks. The terrain is my buddy Sal's (check the painting the lead pile link). The British are mine, one of the few things I finished this year. They now have flags.

My final work in progress, is the one of the Zulu building, built and primed at this point. This was a 4-ground set in Warlord Games.

Next time I'll talk about the fun of all these rules systems.

Board Games! Betrayal at the House on the Hill and Arabian Nights - Theme Heavy

Board and more Board Games

Both at the store and home group, we have been focusing on board gaming. Just looking at my boardgamegeek account I've played ten different games this month. Four I've never played before. I'm going to comment on them in groups that match. This one is going to be theme heavy games.

Theme over Rules

Both Betrayal at House on the Hill and Arabian Nights the theme of the game is far more important than the competitive rules. For a competitive player these would both be a nightmare. They are not balanced at all. The experience and tale you form is where the enjoyment will come, not the victory.

Arabian Nights

Fantastical map of the known world...

1001 Adventures! Actually there are about 2500 adventures you could hit. At the beginning of the game you choose a combination of destiny and story points adding up to 20. If you earn your number of each and make it to Baghdad you win. What happens to you on the way can be quite crazy. A typical encounter you will run into something with an adjective and a letter. You then choose a response based on a list. Some options on the list you need a skill or be a certain gender. Another player then checks the matrix.

Try not to have 1e AD&D Flashbacks!

The player rolls a die that has a +, empty, or -. This will change the number from the matrix up or down by 1. Another player then finds the matching adventure and reads the text and what the original player needs to roll.

This tends to be very random. Normal logic doesn't always work, but fairy tale logic does. However, it is hard to have a real strategy. There are some city cards and quest cards that can help. In general it is best to get as many skills as possible. This tends to allow better results in the adventures. 

You also need to manage your status effects. Your wealth is always a status which decides your movement and can effect stories. Others are cards that can be both beneficial and dangerous. 

As the cards show married, cursed, pursued, wounded, and yes even sex-changed can happen. My character got married. Which can continually earn you points depending on your kids etc. However, Aladdin was cursed with a sex change and then pursued by a new lover! Seems my Tale was Ranma not Aladdin. The winner of the game had been kidnapped, cursed to be a werewolf but still managed to overthrow a Vizier. Since she was female couldn't marry the  princess but became the new Vizier (of Rome).

Overall this was a fun game. Where you are could effect the type of encounter. However, it could vary quite a bit. In many ways it was about mitigating negatives and survive to get enough destiny and story points. The variety of story and effects made the game a fun time of what will happen next? The statuses made the game shine. I see this game seeing a bit of play. I would not take this out with gamers who want a very competitive game. The theme is strong, however it borders on the ultimate choose your own adventure.

Betrayal at the House on the Hill

Three or more characters enter and explore a haunted mansion....unknowing that one of them is a traitor. The identity and the nature of the traitor is determined at a certain point into the game. Could they be an alien warping you into another realm? A cultist getting his Mummy Lord a Bride? There are about 50 possible scenarios.

The quality of the rooms is horrible and warp easy.

The first part of the game is building the house by exploring. As you enter a new room you place a new random tile matching the level you are on, basement, ground, or second floor. Your turn ends if an event, item, or omen is in the room. Omens are items/people that you collect. However, every time you pull an omen you need to roll. You roll six dice and if you roll under the number of omens, the traitor is revealed. That sounds tough, but the dice sides are blank, one, or two. The omen with the failed roll and the room decides which Haunt scenario occur. This will say who the traitor is. The traitor gets one briefing to read, the remaining players get a different briefing to read. 

My tentacled little kid taking out the professor...

This is a very hit or miss game. I like the building of the house and the various adventures. However, half the games I've played were good, the other half were not horrible, but not great. The game is best when short since it isn't really balanced. Some haunts greatly favor the Villain others the Heroes. The searching of the house doesn't really have enough theme. This means that the Haunt has to make up for that. This often can make an anticlimactic game if the Haunt is too one sided. I prefer Mansions of Madness. While that does have a set overlord and each mission has a set house, it is a better game. It still has random parts the overlord picks which can greatly change the feel. However, they are set made for the scenario so the theme builds up the experience.

So Arabian Nights I see more plays, not so many for Betrayal at the House on the Hill.

Random Stuff

So played some French Indian War Mini games. A lot of fun. The only bad thing is I'm now painting my redcoats for it. The red is fine, but they have a lot of yellow. My other two big projects arrived as well. First my great Christmas present of the Rorke's Drift Warlord Games set. The second is my French 30 years war models. Too many projects.

Attack Wing

So this month has mostly been a video game month. Between Assassins Creed Unity and Dragon Age Inquisition most gaming has been PS4. I've also been reading Call of Cthulhu 7e, Last Parsec, and Land of the Free Wargame rules. I'll comment on those later, but I did get a few games in this month..

Star Trek Attack Wing

I've mostly played the X-Wing version of Attack Wing. However, at Comic Con I saw the new Deep Space Nine Model, and figured I'd be buying at least that. So, I figured I'd get a few ships and see if the game played any different.

Dominion versus Klingons

Strangely despite the same rules (minor differences) the game felt very different. While some smaller ships have the same stats as x-wing, the battleships tend to have extreme stats. However unlike x-wing, the more powerful ships don't change base size.

Just a 6 in offense and no dodging. Look at that upgrade bar.

The movement for ships tends to be more varied as well.

Another change from x-wing is the pilot skill. You pay the points for the ship and captain separate. So have Kirk captain the Defiant or Sisko captain the Enterprise. Most characters are upgrades. Which can greatly change things. Torpedoes can fire in any direction, can be reloaded, and are more powerful with certain ships (I guess firing more?). Shields can be turned off to cloak or do certain mission objectives.

The game felt different in a number of ways. First due to the larger hull values, critical hits seemed to play a bigger part. Also how often in x-wing are 6-7 attack dice being rolled and the enemy having one to no agility dice? Naturally I was the ship getting hit by that barrage and he rolled all hits and criticals.

Overall, I really enjoyed this version of attack wing (except the weak Defiant). It plays different enough from Star Wars that I can see playing both. A warning, the first wave of ships are inferior in painting compared to x-wing. The later waves are equal in quality.

Back to X-Wing

So, we had another Descent session. As Overlord I seem to be failing. Maybe we should be playing the Shadows expansion which favors the Overlord a little more. Anyway we decided after the session to play a four player X-wing game. 

Empire versus Rebels (cause who else)

The game was a fun time. I was the only one who had played before. The rules are quick to learn. We avoided too many upgrades. So a red interceptor, Vader, tie swarm, Luke, an x-wing and two B-wings we battled.

Vader line up the shot...

Rebels one due to a few lucky kills early one. However, everyone enjoyed the game and were looking forward to trying it again. My wife was also quite excited to try the Dragon version which should be fun.

Hopefully, next time I'll talk about the new Cthulhu or Last Parsec.

First Mid-War Battle and a Team Battle at that

Mid War

So Grimm had a Mid-War FOW tournament scheduled last Saturday. Up to this point I've only played late war games and only my Irish guard are really painted. So, I figured I'd stop by but only play if they needed a fill in.

Of course turns out with me, there were four. We decided on a two on two German versus Russian Mid-War fighting withdrawal battle. Each player had 1500 points. We rolled and the Germans were defending against the Russians.

The battlefield somewhere on the Eastern Front

My team mate has some wonderfully painted tigers. In fact he modified them to match those in Kelly's Heroes. Since this would be four models at 1500 points, I decided to bring my Fallschirmjäger. So, my army isn't painted but I was excited to use them. My list was 2x full troops, hmgs, pak 40s, heavy mortars, nebelwerfers,  LG40s, and commands all with anti tank.

German setup.

Now I've only faced Russians once before. They brought the kind of army I expected. Thirty or so T-30's, lots of troops, full Katyusha, some more tanks, planes, hammer of god artillery and cavalry! They also took Komissar Boris Ivanovich Vasilevsky the 24" Komissar. Naturally they needed the whole table edge to set up.

Tanks, tanks, and more Tanks!

Just a little artillery...

Lots of Russians. Do we have enough bullets?

Since my team was defending, our main goal was to hold. The objectives were in the middle of our deployment, middle right and far right. We planned to have the objectives leave from middle table to right starting turn six. Our right flank would be our final objective and hold it till turn eight.

Two tigers would slow the left flank while the artillery would pound the middle of the Russians. The first few turns saw the Russians moving forward while firing artillery. Our forces returned artillery, hmg, and tiger shots.

Russian arty strike on the Fallschirmjäger.

Tigers holding the left flank.

Right flank holding strong while weakening the Russian mob.

Russians prepping for first charge.

The Fallschirmjäger in the field managed to stop the first Russian charge due to distances but the Komissar held them together. The Tigers on the left pulled back. The following turn the Russians made their charge. Now fearless vets should be fine right? Well see the thing with my rolling... in rpgs I tend to roll very high or very low but in equal amounts. In mini war games it tends to be much more the low....such as now

Seriously! Nine ones!

To be honest this was a game of bad rolls for everyone. This was a survivable encounter had I rolled average. With this many misses the unit was heavily damaged and the 2IC fled.. Luckily between the 2IC, rockets, and tiger we held the objective.

Luckily the Komissar was out of range to help the unit and we retook the objective.

That tiger holding the objective....rolled a one and arty took it out, ouch.

So, we found ourselves in a bit of a problem. We had to hold the objective another turn before we could pull in, and two bases were defending. Could a tiger and the nebelwerfers hold off the tanks, cavalry and remaining troops in the unit for a turn? Now Cavalry is often tough to get in a good position. However, the Russians had gotten it perfectly set to charge the nebelwerfers.

Perfectly set charge on the flank of the nebelwerfers.

Turns out Nebelwerfers are snipers with rifles!

Nebelwerfers turn out to have practiced a lot with their rifles. The hit the magic five times and broke the cavalry charge. This meant we could hold the middle objective till end of turn six. Our right flank objective was secure and too far for the Russians to make by the end. This meant the middle right objective would be the deciding factor. The Russian troops had been damaged but not destroyed. A single Tiger was blocking the objective. The tiger took the risk and assaulted the Russians, he rolled a one during the counter attack and was destroyed. This meant the Russians started the turn with the objective. Game over.

Tigers have bad luck too.

This was a great game. I'm glad I made it to the store. My fellow players were entertaining and easy going. When everyone rolls bad in a game it can get quite hysterical. It certainly got me motivated to paint up my Fallschirmjäger. I find I enjoy Flames of War the most in these team type mega battles. Mid-War has a slightly different balance, I'm curious to see what Early-War is like.

Some old and new...

So, as normal with the first month of a new year, a big drop in gaming. However, got a few games in.

While my Pathfinder campaign hasn't met, my other group has started our Descent Campaign. The four of us went with the main campaign, myself as the overlord. We also used the Conversion Kit since I have so many random DD models.

Of course the one picture I take is with mostly unpainted models.

We played the intro quest, the vampire's masquerade, and the fat goblin quests. The heroes won the intro and masquerade, I won the goblin quest. Both quests came to last minute runs. In the Goblin case I did a little maneuvering to get the big Guy out in time, last minute card to move a second time. In the Vampire case the players worked in a great formation to hold of the monsters and catch the vampire lady. A lot of fun.

General Thoughts:
1. It seems the Overlord is at a slight disadvantage but not enough to lower enjoyment. Maybe that will change as the campaign goes on.
2. I like that the overlord and the characters level up after each mission. It is simple and clean, giving new abilities without going overboard.
3. While it will be almost two months between sessions, the rules are easy enough it shouldn't take long to get back in character.
4. Overlord has to rely on his cards, monster can only do so much. Trip can be great!
5. I like this so much better than 1st edition, has a nice flow and mission structure.
6. Imperial Assault should be awesome skinned on this. For those who don't know that is the Star Wars using the Descent style rules.

So the new is Descent. The old is Hordes. I started Warmachine with the old black and white Prime book and old starter sets. My wife and I each have multiple armies. I've kept up with the rules (and fluff) but haven't played in a year or two.

One of my normal gaming buddies stopped by and was a tad frustrated with the newest GW grey Knight codex. He wanted to try his Trollblood again. So, we decided start slow and do a box set game. His Troll Impalers, Axer and Warlock Madrak versus my Legion shredders (4), Carnivean, and Warlock Lylyth.

I really miss playing this game. At these low point levels it becomes a game of positioning and setting up the best runs of attack. The warcaster/warlock is always so powerful and influential to your army, but if lost costs you the game. How much do you risk? The Fury/Focus mechanic makes so many choice each turn. The boosting to control your odds versus the synergy of your enemies defense.

Of course I'm not sure I'm ready to play in stores again with it. I love the game, but I'm not sure I can play enough to keep up to speed with weekly players. Then again depends if my rpg games pick up again or not.

Speaking of which I will end with this Kickstarter advertising, mostly since I'm excited to run it




Game on.

Hirst Arts Projects

In both miniature games and some rpgs terrain is always an issue. It can be quite time consuming or expensive. So, over the last few years I've collected a number of Hirst Arts molds. These are rubber molds that take in plaster. I currently use Excalibur plaster which is dental plaster that doesn't meet the standards for dental works. Basically the company gets to sell their 2nd tier plaster to modelers for less. I made a number of ruins and basic shapes. I even used it in my wedding cake top...

The current project was to use a number of the tiles to build three different dungeon terrains. I had cast a number of them over the years. I decided to put them on pink insulation foam so I could make pits and such.

This is the cavern terrain pre-painted.

Some more pieces. The lego L helps keep the walls straight.

I mostly went with basic designs with this test run. I did decide on this one fancy wall.

So, next I picked some pain to try. I went with house paint, Behr. First some Egyptian Nile for the cavern base. The paint was slightly thinned to get in all the crevices.

Then came some heavy dry brushing of sand stone

Some close ups (sorry not great light in the garage)

Overall, I like the look and effect. The painting is quick and gives a nice look and terrain. The main time issue is the casting. However, you can do stuff in between sets. Of course with school coming again not a bad activity for a break in grading.

For the fieldstone dungeon I went first with mahogany for the base coat. 

Then a drybrush of puddle for the stonework.

Once again I like the effect with just a little time of painting. I might add a few different color stones to enhance the fieldstone effect. 

Next step will be to start building the more interesting rooms and painting the gothic dungeon. Overall, a nice easy project just takes a little while.

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