Friday, March 1, 2019

Challenge Accepted

So, I planned a number of projects. I got them all set up, used some time off to organize them. Then I got invited to an Apocalypse game in little over a month. I love Apocalypse and the craziness of a full day game. My followers of Grandpa Nurgle were ready to spread his joy.

Yeah, whole top shelf is fully painted Nurgle. 

Maybe I'd even paint a few of my new pieces. Oh, wait its Imperium versus Orks. Well not really in the mood to work on Dark Angels, my most painted. Blood Angels need an insane amount of work. Plus my Bad Moonz Orks have been screaming for paint.

So only about 30 power level are painted, 100 power level built and I need 200 without lords of war. Quite a challenge in 6 weeks. However my Nurgle was done in a similar speed. Going to need to use some lunch time and not get distracted by too many converions. But that primaris tank really needs a deffrolla...

Day 1 successful increase in shoota Boyz.

Some more done on day two. Current resist some modifications. After all Orks gotta impruv on hummie stuff. 

Looking forward to this challenge.

Wednesday, February 20, 2019

First Game of Centauri Saga

So one of my Christmas gifts this year was Centauri Saga. I had wanted it for a while.

I'm a big fan of Twilight Imperium and greatly enjoyed TI4, but time wise it is an investment. My group also has become more focused on co-op games, not surprising for story RPG gamers. So a quick co-op 4x game, I was sold!
First things first, this is certainly not as epic as Twilight Imperium (possibly Legacy version will be). On the other hand after playing a game I feel the 60-90 minute length is accurate so that is a far trade off. Like most co-op games there are multiple missions you can play. We played the Repair the Jumpgate. While the game is rather straight forward, organizing the game straight from the box is not. We certainly spent longer than we should of. A lot came from not sure if mission cards needed to be separate.

Each mission has its own tracking card as well as numerous special event cards and rules. Most missions are set at a maximum of ten rounds. For this we needed to find 4 repair parts and successfully install them into the Gateway. During this time raiders will try to stop us. On top of that, we can only start the Gateway and win if no Raider Bosses are on the table (They appear on 3rd, 5th and 8th turns in 3 player).


Each player commands an Armada. The initial armadas vary by which commander you pick. During upkeep you can upgrade your spaceport or research using two energy crystals. This will unlock other upgrades you can pick from to improve the Armada.


At the beginning of each turn events or boss effects occur. This is followed by scanning which will randomly put a repair part and raiders on the board. If no repair part is found, two new tires are added (you can also move off an edge to reveal new tiles). If an enemy is in the square combat occurs. Fastest fleet goes first. Player rolls defense dice and attack dice against the raiders scores. If no enemy is present you can regroup or explore with random discoveries occuring. Naturally there are cards you can earn that allow one time bonuses and special abilities. They definitely saved us a few times.
Overall a great game. A nice feel of co-op, exploring, upgrading, and combat. It also easily fits in 60-90 minutes. Looking forward to many more plays and trying new missions. After a few more games maybe it will be time to take out the Legacy Version (they have add on pieces so the base game is still usable post Legacy.)


Tuesday, February 19, 2019

Abyssal Dwarfs and Translucent Reaper Bones

Three days and three updates, fun of Winter break.
Quick update on the Abyssal Dwarf project. I painted the Obsidian Golems last year, but never got to the rest of the army. I plan to go with a heavy golden theme. Thank goodness for an airbrush, definitely saves time!


Only thing I'm nervous about is my plan to use transfers for the shields. Always good to try something new!

Second thing I tried was some of the Bones Translucent. I figured I would just grey primer the ground (and basin for one). However, I tried a dry brushing of a few with the primer, and liked the results. I think a different color for flame will be needed.





Pandemic Legacy and Red Dragon Inn

So in the last year I got a sizable amount of gaming all things considering. A big part of this is my gaming groups more than willing to have a baby at the table.

My wife and I also apreciated two newer games for us, that got a lot of plays this year; Pandemic Legacy and Red Dragon Inn.

No spoilers!

Pandemic Legacy has been talked about all over

The place. However, I should start with saying we aren't huge Pandemic fans. Not that we dislike it, it just rarely shows up. It might be the tendency of one player taking charge or just not enough to it. Of course many games we play have borrowed ideas from it. But the added campaign mode and changes brought Pandemic Legacy to a new level. It also keeps to an hour or less a session, making the 10-20 needed games possible. This was ideal with a newborn (to be fair he slept well enough the first few months I managed beating Dark Souls 3, wish I could blame him for my lack of skill). The changes, stickers, and modified missions really brought a somewhat abstract game to life. The highest compliment I can give is we quickly bought Season 2 to try this year.

We got a few of the expansions.....


Red Dragon Inn has been a go to for a year now for end of a group night or just a quick versus game. Premise is simple. An adventuring party has vanquished some dungeon and have returned to relax at the Red Dragon Inn. Through gambling, drinking, and antics you will try to get your companions passed out or ejected from the bar due to lack of funds (to clarify this is not an actual drinking game). It's a fun and easy to learn game. Each character has their own deck of cards that brings them to life. A great silly game that you never take too serious. We also named my son's little stuffed rabbit after a character in the game....but he will also appear in another game next post, so I will wait on that.

Monday, February 18, 2019

Returning After a Break

So it's been a crazy two years. Having a kid certain changes things. Decided to come back to the blog to help organize and keep my projects going forward. But I can't really complain in terms of gaming. Still getting a few RPG/board games in a month. My wife and I managed to finish Pandemic Legacy Season 1. Project wise fully painted Zombicide and Massive Darkness were highlights.

Massive Darkness is a great dungeon crawler

Baby Arthur says no spoilers for Pandemic Legacy

I'm sure I will talk about all the games eventually. But I'll stick to this week's highlights. As much as I am trying to go fully painted with matching terrain, can't always in an RPG. I should give credit to Prepared 2: A dozen One Shot Adventures for the final battle of this week's session.

Well all painted but not exactly scaffolding on a moving Titan. But a great ending fight.

In terms of building I put together the Gamecraft painting station, really need flexibility in where I paint now. Went together quite well. Just some wood glue.

On mini progress did some basing some reaper metal miniatures.

 I built the nightstalker vanguard forces which were neat but a bit annoying.

Finally I started a project I shouldn't have. I started a Herd multibased army for Kings of war. I am using Hordes and Reaper bones models I have lying around. Should be different painting than the abyssal dwarf forces.

Hopefully I'll manage to get some painting in this week!

Friday, February 24, 2017

Kings of War Campaign Month 1!

This week I managed to get four games in! Possibly a fifth this weekend.

Kings of War

So the Kings of War Campaign has begun! The first round seems to be a bit more league like, which is fine since everyone is learning the rules. My goal for this just like the 40k campaign is a fully painted army for all official battles. So as previously mentioned I went with Ogres.
Small model count for the win!

So each month we have one assigned game then can get in side games, good versus evil are tallied for the win each month to see how the Battle of Tyris Gate is going.

So for my two unscheduled games I learned how brutal a horde of archers backed with cav and a flying Lord can be to face. My opponent was playing the Brotherhood, think old Bretonians.
Can't be that bad! Ogres squash puny human armor!

First game was over by round two. We played to three but stopped there. His rolls were good plus shooting combined with a flyer that can easily get rear/flank charges while you deal with shooter overwhelmed my army. At a thousand points I hadn't really thought of a good counter with Ogres. But always need to learn a new game and see how the ropes work.

We did a rematch which I still lost but it came exceptionally close down to the last turn. Probably should have picked a different priority targets, but dice also didn't go with me. I did return shooting fun with taking out a regiment of knights! I now have a better feel for the Ogres. I also have a better understanding how essential the magic items are in this game for a none casting army (undead have other fun).

Scheduled Game - Month 1 Ogres vs Kingdoms of Men

Funny enough both Bill and I are neutral armies, bit of a side skirmish to the campaign or battle because our allies want us to? Maybe my Ogres figure to get some gold during the commotion. You can read my opponents view at his blog. One of the best parts of Kings of War is the fact that the rules are straight forward enough we can catch up after not seeing each other in a long time and still get the game in despite being new players.
The river would be a game changing terrain piece. We counted it as an obstacle.

So my list consists of
-regiment of red gobbos
-horde of ogre warriors
-regiment of ogre warriors with pathfinder
-horde of shooters with bonus to hit (36" range, 4+, and piercing 2!)
-giant
-standard bearer with a BOOMSTICK! (lighting spell 3)

His knights and carbine cav were on the flank, countered by my giant and gobbos. The remaining forces were to the center right (from my view). The game started with moving forward some firing between units but nothing too substantial turn 1. Turn 2 saw the ultimate surprise the first kill went to the goblins! The Ogres would later claim it was the giant but the goblins shot and drove off the carbine cav!
We be goblins ye be food!

The ogre shooters would in two rounds take out his elite swordsmen. His Ballista would take out my standard bearer. His knights would take out the gobbos, while they spent the rest of the game hiding from the giant.

The river would wind up dividing my ogre units leading to the charge into the pikemen not being strong enough allowing them to hold, his standard bearer healing didn't help. The pikemen have ensnare plus the obstacle charge meant I was attacking at -2, lesson learned! The pikemen held my ogres in place long enough for a berserk horde to get the flank and well 60 attacks will take out most units! However, it also would slow his crossing allowing my shooters more time to eliminate the horde and standard bearer.
Damn you river!

Thank you river! Ogres are so fickle.

The pikemen engaged the Giant in the river, which was wiser than getting shot! The giant would waiver them but not manage to kill them. At this point it was the end of turn 6 and the roll said the game was over. The game ended with a difference of 70 points in favor of Ogres, not enough for a win. So a fun draw.
The gobbos will carefully tease the giant, since he didn't do his part and they did theirs! Probably not actually in his ear shot or better yet when he is sleeping.

The game was fun and I definitely learned the fun of ensnare combined with terrain! Overall I'm happy with KOW, tactics matter but the game isn't bogged down with rules that slow the game.

Hordes

I also got a quick 25 point Hordes game in. I'm a little annoyed with the cards being invalidated within a year of mk3. It seems to me they knew this was coming and should have playtested or made the decision before a new edition. On the side direction I do like war room so I'll just use it instead.

Either way did a mission where you needed to be in the center. I went continued with the days Ogre theme and did Thagrosh and his blighted ogrun buddies (not fully painted). My opponent went with his Grissel list. 
So much thinking and positioning forgot to take pictures!

We both rolled pretty poorly, but I had a number of lucky tough rolls. The check mate was when I made my warspears immune to fire and had typhoon and Thagrosh deliver 4 sprays (through my warpsears) to hit Grissel and kill the dire troll. Due to fire immunity the warspears survived and held Grissel in place. The next turn I lucked out and managed to hit with the final blow. Fun game but a lot of positioning. Not sure I really want to play 50 points any time soon.

Both my opponents were great this week, hope to get more gaming in. (and yes I will talk about the 3d printer and terrain, but wanted to test the buildings first).

Saturday, January 28, 2017

Army in a Month

So crazy year, but a decent amount of gaming, probably a bit too much ps4.

Painting

I'm currently working on a number of projects. However, one of my gaming groups has decided to try a Kings of War campaign. The campaign game master decided on 1000 point army. Decided to try something a little new and to go with my Ogre Army. My goal was to finish in about a month. My painting skills are decent but not amazing, so I would be relying on dip methods.
Round 1

The initial prime was white, however it was a little off. I figured the size of the model would make this less of a problem. For base colors I decided on a number of different pant colors, ogres not really having a uniform. Skin would start as a fair skin. Paints are all reaper.
Add some metal.

Some flesh wash then fair skin touch up.

At this point I added hair. The eyes I used white paint then a micron pen.

The next step was trying out the army painter strong tone shade. The size of ogres meant I needed to use a brush as opposed to actually dipping the model in stain.
A couple of other models stained with the ogres.

The weather was a little wet, needing me to let the stain dry for a few extra days before the dullcote. Next step will be basing. As always I am also working on numerous projects. The main ones (besides ogres) are Nurgle, 30 years war Cardinals guard, ancient britons, mansions of madness, and zombicide.

Next time: 3d Printing Fun