I'm a Millionaire!!

I missed the actual date, but at some point in the last few weeks my blog stats tipped over the 1 million views threshold!  Admittedly a fair number of these are probably bots but that's fine.... I know there are real people out there who read and comment on my ramblings and that's much appreciated.

I started the blog back in 2012 when blogs were the new cool kid on the block.  It was really more of a diary of games I was playing for myself than anything else, but it has connected me with lots of gamers across the world and led to me finding a regular real-life gaming home with Eric the Shed and his motley collection of gamers.  Ive also acquired at least 1 weird stalker but thats another story!!

My posts come in fits and starts but thank you to all the lovely people (and lovely bots) who stop by and have a look and comment.

108 Outlaws

Recently my son was off at the UK Games Expo in Birmingham and came back with a selection of interesting boardgames.

Last night we dug one of these out and gave it a go.  It's 108 Outlaws from Origame and is a very abstracted card game based loosely on the Chinese story 'Outlaws of the Marsh', better known to folk of a certain age as The Water Margin...

I have pretty good memories of watching this with my dad and remember him being particularly amused when we watched it in a bar on a Spanish holiday... a Japanese tv version of a Chinese story, dubbed into German, with Spanish subtitles!

The deck consists of (not surprisingly) 108 Outlaws consisting of Earthly Fiends and more powerful Heavenly Stars, because these outlaws are actually reincarnated Demons.  Each card has different roles (infantry, cavalry, reconnaissance etc) and unique powers and the aim is to score victory points at the end of the game (which happens when one player has 12 cards in play).  

The Heavenly stars cards score victory points and these can also be earned by undertaking a campaign, essentially matching symbols on the Campaign card to those on your cards in play.

It sounds a bit complicated but is actually very simple and easy to pick up.  All the info is on the cards, albeit in some very abstracted symbols, and the whole game only takes about 30-40 minutes to play.  If you're smart (like my son) its possible to engine-build sequences of actions to enable multiple actions each turn.

It's a neat little game and would be ideal for travelling.

Teutoburg Wald round 2

 A few weeks ago Anthony and I played out the opening Command and Colours scenario in Arminius' battels with the Romans in xxxx (report here)

Last week we decided to move on to Arminius's assault on the encamped Romans (spoiler... it shouldn't end well for the Romans!)  The Romans have built a fortification of sorts and can either fight it out or try and break free, gaining VPs for units that escape off the table.  Anthony (or possibly Antoninus) tried this first, but his cavalry came to a sticky end, jumped by several

warbands as it break out.  It did cause quite a bit of damage on the way though. (I think we forgot... again... about evading or the cavalry might have been able to retreat back into the camp)

The Germans advanced around the flanks of the camp and the heaviest fighting took place on the edges with the centre remaining pretty static... always a risk in C&C depending on how the command cards fall out.  After a bit if tussling over the palisade the barbarians were able to break into the camp and force the Romans back.  There was a bonus target of supplies in the camp centre, worth 2 VPs and I found myself getting drawn into a fight for this before I realised that there were easier targets elsewhere in the camp and the warbands began hunting down the remaining Romans.  

On paper it looked like a convincing win for the Germans but actually most of my remaining units were pretty beat up and wouldn't have lasted much longer so it could have been much closer.  Next up will be the Romans' Revenge... might not enjoy that one so much!!!!

Warlord Epic - Romans v Carthaginians

Haven't posted for a few weeks due to work and general business.  Here in London we're currently sweltering in a mini-heatwave which is particularly unpleasant to those of us used to cooler Scottish climates... it's definitely 'taps aff' weather, as they say in Glasgow!

A couple of weeks ago I had a game of Hail Caesar with Andrew, using his newly acquired HC Epic Scale Romans and Carthaginian armies.  These were a real bargain and he has masses of them.  We played a relatively small game and there was a lot left packed away in storage boxes (he even got those thrown in with the deal!!).  Epic scale equates to about 13.5mm or a small 15mm size figure and en masse they looked great.

The Romans definitely looked outnumbered on the table but had the advantage of better commanders, a hefty piece of artillery,  and more flexibility in manoeuvering and redeploying their legionnaries.  And they had their secret weapon... flaming pigs!  The Cathaginians on the other hand had the advantage of numbers... their units are larger and can soak up more damage.  And of course we had elephants...

Oink!!

The game was a close run affair... both sides were struggling with mounting casualties but the Carthaginians were better able to absorb these and continue fighting.  Sadly neither the elephants or the pigs actually got stuck in to the fighting (I think the elephants may have provided some support but there was no trampling involved).  The figures looked....erm... epic.  A really fun game and a rematch is definitely on the cards

Samurai at the British Museum

 I finally managed to make it to the Samurai exhibition which has been on for a while at the British Museum.  I have a bad habit of failing to remember when exhibitions are due to close and end up missing them (The recent Hiroshige exhibition at the BM was a case in point)... the other day I checked the details of this on thinking it had ages to run and discovered it closes at the beginning of May!  So I sneaked off work for the afternoon and popped along, nabbing one of the few remaining tickets. 

It's a great exhibition charting the rise and changing nature of the Samurai, from the early middle ages (in European terms) through the late 19thC decline of the Class and the opening up of Japan to the West.  The end of the exhibition looks at the impact and depiction of Samurai largely from the end of WW2 both in Japan and in other countries.  From a wargamey perspective there's a lot to see with numerous suits of armour, swords and other weapons etc.  I'm always reminded when I see 'proper' Japanese armour that the colourful variants that you often see on the table are less common and a lot of it is black or very dark shades... certainly from a distance it would be hard to make out the fine detail.

To be honest while I always enjoy looking at militaria, it was the art and more mundane objects that I really enjoyed... lots of embroidered or printed scrolls, ceramics, small items like tobacco pouches etc.  These were really interesting and well presented.  The last section on Samurai in more recent art and media was also fascinating.  

So here's a selection of photos from the exhibition.  There are also a few from the Assyrian galleries at the BM.  Although this is a period I know very little about, I'm always drawn to it whenever I visit the museum.  I've just ordered a (hopefully) accessible introduction to this period to try and educate myself 

(Google decided to upload the photos in reverse order and I can't be bothered re-doing it, so these are going from the most modern to the oldest historical periods!)

No idea... but I love it!

The ultimate samurai!

Illustrations from fighting in China

The Perry expedition arrives on Japan

Tobacco pouches

Lovely painting of a cat

Good example of kintsuge which coincidentally my wife had been doing the week before at a ceramics workshop

A rather OTT hand cannon

And the Assyrian photos...

Lovely Assyrian hunting dog

Teutoburg Wald

 This week we had a great game of Commands and Colours using Anthony's lovely 54mm Romans and Germans.  The game is one that suits adapting to different scales.  I like the blocks from the original game but it definitely looks good with figures in different scales.  Small scale bases give it that epic look, while going grand scale has a very old school feel.

This scenario is from the earlier stages of the battle and sees the Romans being attacked while hemmed in by marshland to their rear (spoiler... this is a bad thing and the Romans paid the price for it).  The Germans are deployed on and around a central hill and my first instinct was to hold this and defend the high ground, but more sensible thoughts prevailed and I decided to do what the tribesmen do best and charge straight at the enemy, preventing them throwing pila and pushing the back against the marsh.

No subtlety... CHAAARGE!!!

My first combat was pretty spectacular and set the tone for the game... wiping out a Roman unit and killing one of their leaders!  This was followed up by wiping out both the Roman cavalry units before they could advance (we kept forgetting about the Evade rule which might have spared them but to be fair they could only evade into the marsh which wouldn't have been great.  It wasn't all one-sided though.  The Romans did wipe out several German units but there were always more to replace them.

There's a big hole where the Roman centre used to be!!

Great fun and looking forward t trying the scenario based around the end of the battle at some point.

No Salute for me this year

 It's Salute this weekend which I rarely miss but this year it coincides with World Parkinson's Day and as I work for a Parkinson's charity I'm going to be very busy meeting volunteers and the public at events.  Probably just as well for my bank balance although I don't think there's anything I'd have been likely to buy!

In a plus move however I've actually picked up a paintbrush for the first time in about 9 months.  I'm an irregular painter at the beet of times and over the last year my motivation for painting disappeared (symptomatic of other black clouds I think).  Anyway, I managed to get a bit of a grip and dig out some assembled figures from the Guards of Traitors Toll set (which I bought at last year's Salute!).  Thoroughly enjoyed painting them and have started in some more figures now.

Luckily my gaming mojo didn't disappear too, so here's a couple of photos from a recent Neil Thomas game played with my friend Anthony and his lovely 20mm figures....