In space, no one can hear you whimper...

This week Anthony and I played a board game which both of us have acquired in the last couple of months... Alien: Fate of the Nostromo.  I'd bought a copy off eBay a while ago but it has been sat in the 'to play' pile so when Anthony mentioned he had it as well I knew it wouldn't be long before it appeared on the table.

As you'd expect it's a nicely produced game with miniatures for each of the key crew members and one of the Alien itself.  The map features rooms and corridors on the Nostromo split over 2 levels.  

The game is cooperative.  Players are allocated 3 random missions that they have to complete before the final mission is revealed.  Each turn random event cards move the Alien or pesky Science Officer Ash who is doing his best to thwart the crew's actions, usually by confiscating the scrap material you'll need to build things like cattle prods, flame throwers etc. and generally getting in the way.  Some of the cards are incident free and Jones the cat makes the occasional appearance.  As the game progresses the more benign cards are removed, meaning the tension ramps up as things build to a climax.

In our case the final mission involved having each player in specific locations and having to manoeuvre the Alien into the airlock.  Of course the Alien is doing it's best to attack the crew... if it does, no-one actually dies.  Instead the player has to flee and the morale tracker counts down.  In our game we'd got 3/4 of the way through the morale track before successfully blowing the creature out of an airlock.

It's a fairly simple and quick game but nicely challenging and replayable.  And the board also features a lovely picture of Jones... what more could you want!

Nam!!

 1st game of the year was a chance to dig out some neglected figures and venture back to Vietnam for the first time in years.  

Last year I'd picked up a copy of the 2nd edition on Peter Pig's 'Men of Company B' rules... I used to play the original rules quite a bit and really enjoyed them.  Like a lot of PP rules they contain some really interesting concepts, but sadly like a lot of PP rules the layout can make it had to make sense of the rulebook!  I've picked v2 up a few times but never got very far into the rules so, when I'd suggested a Vietnam game to my friend Andrew I thought this might be a good spur to get to grips with them

In the event I failed completely to read them and had to dig out v1 since I was reasonably familiar with these rules.  MOCB is a small scale patrol-style game with the US (or ARVN) troops on a mission to drive off NVA troops and seize supplies, both of which gain victory points.   The US player has a choice of missions from 'Hearts and Minds' which gives more points for securing supplies and penalties for civilian casualties, to 'Bodycount' which emphasises wiping out the NCA/VC and is less worried about innocent bystanders!

The US troops activate zones by contacting markers which reveals hostile troops (possibly), civilians, and supplies.  Of course the NVA/VC player has a choice about where to place the markers and how to populate them.  There are options to 'interrogate' the locals and to call in artillery or air strikes.  The NVA/VC player has a chance of redirecting these however!

The M113s trundle happily down the road...

Uh oh....

In our game the VC sprang an early ambush from a paddy field, causing an expensive US casualty and pinning down one of the 2 M113s that were advancing down the road, thanks to a well-aimed RPG.  Sadly this was the high point of the game for the plucky revolutionary heroes.  I made a mistake in my allocation of troops... in hindsight I should have concentrated the bulk of my force in one location to hit the US troops hard... they really can't afford too many casualties.  Instead I'd spread them piecemeal across the table and lacked the killer punch I needed.  This allowed Andrew to deal effectively with each VC cadre he encountered and then to hoover up supplies and Intel.

Marines take cover in the jungle

Interrogating the locals...

I really like this game although I'm not sure Andrew was as convinced.  It has inspired me to properly read the v2 rules and have a think about other Vietnam rules that are out there.

Bliadhna Mhath Ùr

So it's a rather belated Happy New Year to everyone... resolutions steadfastly ignored, decorations are down, and I'm bracing myself for the return to work tomorrow :(

As is traditional it's a good opportunity to do a review of the year and look ahead although if 2026 is anything like 2025 I'm keeping my eyes shut!  On a personal level last year and 2024 before it were really tricky with lots of health issues in the family which have had a real impact on everyone.  For me this manifested itself in various ways but one of the most telling is that I haven't picked up a paintbrush in over 6 months.  Just didnt have the motivation to get going.  I'm feeling a bit more inspired (maybe the Xmas break helped) so perhaps I'll get going again soon.  I did keep on gaming though and a big thanks to my game-friends for keeping my spirits up ❤️

Looking back at blog posts I managed to have a game most weeks.  Boardgames seem to dominate with lots of games of Crusader Kings, Mosaic, Zombicide, Skyteam and a smattering of old school Metagames.  I have a pile of games I've picked up over the year that are still unplayed (can't resist a bargain!) and need to try and break some of these out of the box in 2026 .  There were some miniature games (Zulus, ECW, Jacobites and a rare outing for my Congo figures) but these were all definitely in the minority this year.  Im hoping to.start the year with a proper tabletop game later this week.

And so to 2026... no resolutions and no plans.  Maybe try to get to more that 1 show this year. Last year I only managed to get to Salute.  And try to get back into painting, at least a little bit.

Season's Greetings

As Shaky would say....Merry Xmas everyone!

I hope you have a lovely day however you celebrate, and that most of us made it onto the 'nice' list

Return to Fife

There's been another lull in posts as I'd been away for a pre-xmas catch up with family, as well as a chance for a bit of a break ahead of the festivities.  We headed back to Fife to a house we'd rented back in the summer.  We'd realised it was as cheap to do this as staying in a hotel for a few nights (especially if, as planned, our son was going to come and join us), it's only an hour or so to Glasgow, and it's a lovely place to recharge batteries.  Sadly my son went down with the lurgy that seems to be doing the rounds at the minute so decided not to come up.

Despite it being Scotland in mid-winter, we have brilliant weather and lots of lovely beach and coastal walks, met up with friends and family, and saw lots of wildlife... rabbits, gannets diving (which I could watch all day), a Minke Whale (or possibly just a large splash in the Forth but I'm telling everyone it was a whale!), and a worryingly close encounter with a seal which had wandered up onto the coastal path at dawn and which one of my dogs thought would make a very tasty breakfast!  Luckily all was well and the seal slithered over the rocks and safely back to sea.

Cisco remembers he was a hunting dog...

Last time we'd been to a few historical sites... not so many this time but a couple of interesting places both quite unexpected.  

First up is this statue of Admiral Cochrane who was born not far from my home town in Lanarkshire but spent a lot of his early life in Culross in Fife.  Culross may be familiar if you're a fan of Outlander as apparently it doubles as the fictional village of Cranesmuir in the series.  Incidentally in true Scottish style Culross is pronounced completely differently to it's spelling and is Coo-ross.

Cochrane is one of those larger than life, heroic characters who fought the French during yhe Napoleonic Wars, but was also a key figure in the South American Wars of Liberation and is a big inspiration for Hornblower and Aubrey.  It's reminded me I have a biography somewhere upstairs which I must get round to reading

Culross Palace

Next up was a very unexpected find, based on a small plaque we found on a house while walking with a friend and our dogs in Aberdour.  The plaque commemorate Captain Cyril Percy Ryan, credited as the inventory of the Hydrophone, used in submarine detection.  It turns out the house is is Hawkcraig House, also known as HMS Tarlair.  

Hawkcraig House 

During WWI this was an experimental station for the development of hydrophones, as well as mining and the development of a mine sweeping launch, controlled by seaplane.

Hellas

 Unusual boardgame last night ( I seem to playing more boardgames than anything else at the moment).  This was Hellas, a boardgame dating back to 2002.  It's a small, interesting game from Kosmos and Rio Grande games and seems to be part of a range of similar sized games which I need to go and explore.

It's a game of 2 Greek states expanding their empires and inevitably clashing over islands and land somewhere in the Aegean.   Visually it reminded me a lot of games like Carcassone (without the meeples) with players laying hex tiles around a central hex decorated with a dolphin.  Each of these features an island or land with a town and, sometimes, a temple.  Each player places a soldier in the towns to indicate they are controlled. Once a few tiles are down the serious business of expansion begins.  In each turn players have 3 options:

Voyage and add a new tile.  Placement needs to conform to certain rules so isn't always possible although I think we were always able to place one somewhere... just not necessarily in the place we would have wanted to put it. You also have to spend one ship to carry out a voyage and the ship is lost regardless of whether the tile can be placed or not.  The aim is to control 10 towns so this is a key way to win, but of course it does mean that players are likely to do action #2 which is...

Attack.  It's fairly easy to steal a town off your opponent... you only need to equal the garrison, or have 1 more if attacking by sea.  You have to leave at least 1 soldier to defend each town and they can only hold a maximum of 3 so it means attacking a town is likely to leave another one of yours vulnerable and there were several rounds of cat and mouse as each of us would build up our armies and force the other player into an arms race before launching an attack.

The 3rd action is called 'Burst of Strength' and this is effectively reinforcing with troops and ships and/or drawing a God card.  There are 3 decks to choose from: Ares, who is good for attacking, Poseidon, who helps with voyages, and Zeus who seems to be a bit of a general all-rounder.  The cards allow special actions, or let you cancel an opponents card which stymied both of us at points.

Playwise it's quite a tactical head scratcher.  It's easy to capture one of your opponents cities, but much harder to do so without leaving yourself exposed to them doing the same next turn.  The cards add a nice random element but don't feel overpowering.  The game itself only took about an hour or so to play and would be an ideal travel game as the tiles don't take up a huge amount of table space.  Defintely need to have a look at the other games by this company

Pre-birthday outings

 My birthday is looming closer and this yeas it's one of the 'big' ones.  My sister has kindly pointed out that it's all downhill from here on... cheers sis!!  As a pre-birthday treat my son treated me to a day out in London (something we haven't done as a dad and son for a long time).

First stop was at the Prince Charles Cinema in London's glittering West End to see one of my favourite films on the big screen... The Princess Bride.  Surprisingly busy for a Saturday lunchtime screening with a really mixed audience including some small-ish kids who were only a bit traumatised by the Shrieking Eels and ROUS's.

We followed this by a walk up to King's Cross which let me indulge my very nerdy hobby of Blue Plaque spotting...

 ...and we ended up at the British Library to take in their current 'Secret Maps' exhibition.  It was a very interesting exhibition with maps ranging from the 13th Century to the present day and touching on how maps are used to promote political agendas and their role in the history of colonialism.  A lot of the earlier maps relate, not surprisingly, to exploration and naval voyages as well as being tools to allow countries to establish their claims to far off lands.  There were also a number of more military maps and sketches which were really interesting.  Here's a selection of photos...

Map of India

'Disguised' map from Normandy.  Rugger is actually Pegasus Bridge 

Enigma

A frankly rubbish map by TE Lawrence showing settlements on the Red Sea coast of the Hejaz

A much better map by Lawrence showing his journey from the Red Sea coast to the Hejaz railway

It was really interesting, although to be fair, there were a lot of maps which can become a bit samey after a while and it could maybe have done with something to expand the exhibition.  Still very recommended though