Merry Xmas

I've braved the after effects of the latest storm to hit the North of England (I think this one's called Eva) and trekked up the M6 to Glasgow for the holidays.

Actually the weather wasn't too bad,  which is probably a relief to the people in Cumbria, and the roads were very quiet...I guess everyone skived off earlier than I did this year!

Anyway...have a great Xmas and I hope you all get new toys to play with!

Xmas shoot out

The Guildford club has a bit of a tradition (like a lot of clubs I suspect) of staging a Xmas Special in the last meeting before the break.  This has never never involved anything xmassy as far as I know but is usually a large, not very serious, multi-player game.  Over the last few years we've had numerous Cowboy shootouts and one year we had a mass Spanish Civil War tank battle with each player controlling a number of tanks and armoured cars (I know that doesn't sound even vaguely realistic but we were going for a tabletop version of World of Tanks!)

This year we were treated to a seasonal 1920's Gangster shootout instead, courtesy of Mike of Black Hat Miniatures fame.  4 teams of Gangsters all converged on an arriving train to meet/rob/escort one of the passengers.  In typical style the game descended into a bloody mess pretty quickly with hijacked cars crashing into each other and running over the odd pedestrian.

One of my characters (we generally had 2 each on the assumption that they wouldn't last long) discovered some dynamite in a builders yard and failed to blow up any of the opposition but did destroy the train's tender!  Unfortunately a team mate who was also laden with sticks of dynamite was then shot, setting off a chain reaction and devastating the builders yard!  Other highlights included one character getting stuck while trying to exit the car via the shot-out windscreen and spending several turns firmly wedged despite the aforementioned dynamite extravaganza going off next to him, and a character immediately dubbed 'Batman' for his highly successful tactic of ignoring guns and sticking to hitting people with his baseball bat.

At the end of the evening somebody won (not the Italians...we were all dead) and we all had a great game.  The rules used were Howard Whitehouse's excellent 'Mad Dogs with Guns'

And since it's xmas here's an appropriately titled song combining Gangsters with Xmas (and a candidate for the best titled song ever!)...



Heroes of Normandie - D Day

This week we played through scenario number 2 from the Heroes of Normandie D Day.  The scenarios link into a 3 part campaign: we'd played number 1 a few weeks ago which was a US assault on an observation bunker which nearly succeeded but failed with the last move of the game.

This scenario ('Cut') involved the first wave ashore tasked with breaching the barbed wire defences with Combat Engineers and Bangalore torpedoes.  It looked like a very daunting scenario for the US especially when the German mortar arrived but thanks to the smart use of bonus moves by Anthony playing the US engineers,  they were able to breach the 6 barbed wire hexes needed and claim the victory...bugger!  This means that in the final scenario...cheerily titled 'Bloodbath'...the barbed wire will be cleared but at least I'll have the use of artillery as a result of winning round 1.

I know I keep saying this but HoN  really is a great game.  I really like the mini-campaign idea which makes the results of each scenario a bit more important.   There's a Kickstarter currently running for HoN which will put together a compendium of rules and info as well as some new terrain packs and storage boxes etc.  The good news is it offers a really good deal but the bad news is it won't deliver till September 16!  Needless to say I signed up.  The Kickstarter only has 3 days left to run and can be found here

More Frostgrave stuff...

Yet another addition to the Frostgrave pile! (...because the pile of unpainted stuff just wasn't big enough...)

I saw on Facebook that Annie at Bad Squiddo Games had some sets of the Frostgrave Spell Cards which looked like a useful addition to the game.  I'd meant to order these as part of the Nickstarter deal recently but forgot to add them. 

Although they aren't really necessary I think they might save some flipping through the rule book checking on spell effects at crucial moments.  I also picked up a Summoner and Apprentice set, just because.....

Action Stations!!

This week saw a rescheduled game down at the club following yet another family emergency (this year seems to have been full of them and this one was particularly crap).

I'd arranged a game with Andrew using the Coastal Forces collection I'd bought at SELWG in October and dug out my copy of David Manley's excellent Action Stations rules.  These are a favourite ruleset which given their relative thin-ness are full of great ideas and rules for scenarios ranging from Convoy escorting to submarine actions, rescuing downed pilots, Q-Ships etc...even including ideas for a  St Nazaire type attack.  They are relatively simple and provide a great game with small petrol and ammo-laden boats zipping around at 30 knots in the dark, dodging flares and (hopefully) avoiding collisions.  It reminds me a lot of a naval version of X-Wing!

I'd put together a convoy escort scenario set somewhere in the Med with a German freighter being escorted by a couple of S Boats, an R Boat and a Vorposternboot (armed trawler)...I always find balancing these kind of games tricky and so added a Siebel Ferry for the Germans at the last minute.  The British had 4 Fairmiles, 2 MTBs and 2 MGBs with the objective of sinking the freighter and getting away intact. 

 

The RN cunningly split their attack, circling round an island and coming at the Freighter from 2 directions.  The S Boats engaged one pair and following a few rounds of largely ineffective fire we both managed to shoot up each others engines, leaving the normally speedy attack boats limping around and trying to repair the engines.  An MGB and a S boat ended up drifting alongside each other both on fire and full of holes while the other MTB managed to get into an attack position on the freighter despite being under heavy fire.

The other pair of RN boats had managed to zip past the VP Boat without taking much damage and were also in a position to launch torpedoes although in this case from the rear.  Andrew's splitting of the attacks meant whichever way I turned I would face some hit side on and the freighter went down in a flurry of torpedo hits.  By the end of the game the RN had lost 2 boats out of 4 and the Kriegsmarine had also lost 2 small boats but also crucially the freighter giving the Brits the win.

Agincourt and The Tower of London

This weekend I ventured up to town to see the Agincourt exhibition at the Tower of London.

Despite having lived on the edge of London since '87 I've rarely done any of the obvious touristy things apart from some of the main museums.  I have visited the Tower once before but this was on a school trip from Glasgow back some time around 1978!  As I have a bit of a castle-fetish this always been a bit of an anomaly so the prospect is seeing the diorama and visiting the Tower seemed a good chance to tick it off my 'to do' list.

The Tower certainly isn't a cheap day out at £24 per ticket but certainly wasn't having any trouble packing in the tourists.  As I arrived there was a Yeoman guided tour about to start but as there were about 100 tourists surrounding him I decided I could probably manage by myself.  The layout is well signed and the walk around the walls and towers takes you through the history of the castle from it's  founding up to WW1. 

Traitor's Gate

The White Tower

The importance of the Tower means that the records are very detailed on the whole...for example in one tower it informed visitors specifically who was incarcerated in the room and why (John Baliol for example).  There was also a lot of preserved and poignant graffiti on the walls of the rooms/cells.

Medieval Toy Soldiers...probably purchased at Ye Games Wokshoppe

I decided to give the Crown Jewels exhibition a miss (partly because of the crowds but also as it holds little interest for a staunch republican!) and headed off to the White Tower which holds the Armoury collection and, after a lot of climbing, the Agincourt display.  The exhibition contains a number of artefacts from the 15thC and the Agincourt campaign and is interesting in it's own right but as a wargamer I was obviously keen to see the mass display of the Perry brothers work and it certainly doesn't disappoint.  The diorama consists of 4300 figures in a 3 x 4m display case.  Rather neatly they have incorporated some downward looking periscopes which give a figures-eye view of the battlefield.  The whole spectacle is very impressive and I liked some of the little touches around the edge of the field...I tried but failed to spot the wire bristles that had been used to represent arrows stuck in the ground...apparently they had put these in knowing they were unlikely to be visible to the audience but just because they felt they ought to!

There was no photography allowed in the exhibition due to some of the light sensitive items on display (written records etc) so here are some photos I sneakily took on my phone without a flash!!

Luckily I managed to come away without the urge to start a new period, although it's probably just as well the gift shop wasn't stocking any boxes of Perry Miniatures...actually they missed a trick there!  Mind you I do still have my Wars of the Roses figures to paint....

My Frostgrave Nickstarter...

I'd signed up for the latest Frostgrave Nickstarter from Northstar Miniatures which was due to be shipped out on 17/11.  I'd been out to a meeting on Monday 16/11 and arriving home found the Red Card of Doom which meant the Postie had sneaked up the path and run away again before anyone could answer the door and would mean a trip to the Sorting Office.

I managed this on Thursday and sure enough it was my Frostgrave bundle.  There were a range of deals on offer but I'd gone for a fairly modest collection...the Thaw of the Lichlord supplement, a box of the new Cultists (which look excellent) and a few extra miniatures...some treasure tokens, a Lich Wizard and Apprentice, a Templar (with a big hammer!) and a rather Nazgul-ish looking Frost Wraith. 

 

 

All look excellent and the supplement contains quite a lot of new additions to the rules as well as a series of linked scenarios.  This might prompt me to finish the first batch of figures I've started for the game before I get going on the new figures.


I noticed at the end of the supplement it mentions the next release 'Into the Breeding Pits' which is set in the catacombs and sewers under the city and scheduled for release in July 16.... now I need to check if my son ever got rid of his GW Skaven....!!!