Cavalier 16

The first show of the year for me is always Cavalier...as short hop round the M25 and A21.  It's a nice sized show based in a local Leisure Centre in Tonbridge and usually has a decent turn out of traders and games.

This year was no exception...the show seemed reasonably busy when I got there around lunch time.  I'd had a few items on my shopping list...none of them essential for any ongoing projects, just things I'd spotted and been tempted by.  In the event I only picked up one of them and bought something I hadn't planned for (well...there's a surprise!)

I bought a set of the Oil storage tanks from the new Team Yankee range.  These should go well with some of my modern Afghan/Middle East terrain including an oil derrick and make a suitable target for blowing up.  I recently picked up set of the newish Osprey rules Black Ops so these will be handy for covert sabotage games.

I also succumbed and bought a copy of The Great War. the Memoir 44 variant game.  I've fancied this for some time and spotted it at a reduced price so I couldn't really say no...of course this wasn't on my shopping list!

I nearly bought some of the Ironclad miniatures VBCW armed miners...I've occasionally played games in this period at Eric the Shed's VBCW games but had no great plans to build forces.  The figures are really nice though and, coming from Lanarkshire, the thought of bolshie miners appeals.  I didn't buy them but am already regretting it...I can see these being on the list for Salute!  I was also tempted by more Heroes of Normandie stuff ...a Pegasus Bridge supplement and one from the French resistance, and the Warfighter modern card game.  I managed to resist the HoN stuff...I already have quite a bit and have more ordered via the recent Kickstarter.  The Warfighter game looks tempting but although they had various supplements for it, I couldn't find an actual set of the rules...probably just as well!

Apart from shopping there were a number of games on...no photos I'm afraid.  There were a couple of interesting looking participation games...a Zulu game which seemed to be based on Saga, and the Crawley Wargames Stretcher Bearer game which I played at SELWG and which is great fun.  Apart from that there were a range of games all looking very fine but I forgot to actually take any pictures!  The Bring and Buy seemed pretty busy when I popped by but I didn't spot any bargains sadly

I also bumped into Ray (link) who also seemed to be resisting the urge to spend too much.

Star Wars - Blasters and Bulkheads

So there's been a bit of a gap in posts...nothing since 24th Jan.  Work has reared it's ugly head again and tied me up on several gaming nights.

I've managed one game of Frostgrave since the New Year, kindly hosted by Eric and a couple of weeks ago I played out the 3rd and final game in the Heroes of Normandie D Day mini-campaign.  The previous instalments had meant that the German's had managed to acquire artillery support for the finale but the US began the game with several bits of wire removed thanks to their success in Game no. 2.  The US made it up to the edge of the beach but with (not surprising) heavy casualties and weren't in a position to drive the Germans off so France was kept Ally free on this bit of beach at least.

Onto this week's game.  I have a bit of a never ending search for a good set of skirmish rules for Star Wars (and other SF settings).  Previously I've used Tomorrow's War, Mutants and Death Ray Guns, Star Wars Miniature Battles...all of which worked fairly well with individual plusses and minuses.  I'd noticed that the rules that often get mentioned on places like TMP and LAF are 'Blasters & Bulkheads'... these are available from Wargames Downloads  and Lulu etc.

The rules are very much set in a cinematic Space Opera style with figure representing either Characters or Henchmen (who act as a group).  The rules allow you to tailor the characters to a particular setting by assigning them traits and skills to suit.  These can include the use of 'Essence' skills (...as in 'use the Essence Luke'...) which replicate very neatly the Jedi/Sith powers we know and love.  Game mechanics are fairly straightforward: all dice rolls are d6 and everything succeeds on a 4+ (with a 6 counting as 2 successes).  Armour and skills can give figures the chance to re-roll hits which can make armoured troops, like Stormtroopers, pretty tough... although not, as we discovered when a Wookie runs amok with an axe!

 

The scenario I'd cobbled together set a band of rebels and some Imperials both trying to capture a broken down droid which (as is obligatory in Star Wars settings) contained vital information.  The rebels took the offensive charging at the Imperials who were doing their best to wipe out the Rebel henchmen before moving onto the Characters (possibly a mistake).  The Rebel Characters meanwhile were slicing and dicing their way across the table showing that hand to hand combat is quite effective...especially when you're a Wookie or a Jedi.  The squads of Stormtroopers were very ineffective in melee as they weren't able to shoot and we discovered that punching a Wookie (even when you outnumber it by 5 to 1 is a recipe for disaster!!).

 

The Imperials had a Boba Fett type mercenary with them who managed to fly to the top of the ramp where the droid was inconveniently positioned and successfully activated it.  Sadly he then encountered the angry Wookie and was KO'd.

 

The Imperials definitely came off worst and the day went to the Rebel Scum.  As I was umpiring I'd sneaked on some Jawas who's been attracted by rumours of a broken down droid...my intention was to use these to cause mischief for both sides but I was distracted by umpiring and brought them on too late so they played little part although they did manage to worry both sides!  Oh well...my mighty Jawa army will have to try again another day.

 

The Jawas are coming!!

 

The rules were pretty clear and intuitive...there was some confusion when reading them about terminology (DN numbers and Goal numbers etc) but once we started playing both Andrew and Martin picked the mechanics up very quickly.  The skill system allows you to tailor the game to suit a particular setting so it could certainly be used for a more gritty setting.  There are rules for vehicles and campaign play but I didn't use these first time out.  Definitely worth exploring some more I think.

Frostgrave Cultists and Wizards

As promised here are some photos of my latest Frostgrave offerings...apologies for the shadows: I haven't got the hang of lighting them properly to avoid these. 

Lich and Apprentice

Skeleton made out of the Cultist set

A merry band of Cultists...

A wraith-type thing...

Summoner and Apprentice

Frostgrave

So, having bought the rules, painted the figures, bought some more rules and more figures, I still hadn't actually got round to playing Frostgrave!  Luckily Eric the Shed was putting on a Monday night game using his fantastic terrain boards so I had the opportunity to have a go and actually use the figures in anger.

I suspect there's a lot of tactical thinking about choosing your wizard type and spells and in making up your warband but in the end I decided to go with an Elementalist as this seemed the most straightforward tactically...Elemental Bolt...BOOM!!!! I figured this would be easier to cope with than other classes which are probably more subtle and nuanced.  Just to make things interesting we were playing a multiplayer game but the table was neatly divided between us and we had an experienced player on each side to keep things on track. 

The game itself was great fun with carnage all over the place and my great and powerful wizard rather ignominiously being felled by a dog!  Honours were pretty even in terms of casualties although our opponents did drive us off the table.  The game mechanics were pretty straightforward and very easy to pick up although it's easy to get distracted by trying to fight your opponent rather than snaffling up the treasure which brings in the victory points.  An excellent game which reminded me a lot of early D&D skirmishes...I've never played Mordheim but I gather this is the other key reference.

I was inspired enough to get out the Cultist box that I bought before xmas and I've built and painted 10 or so evil cultists, a Necromancer and a Summoner over the last few days.  They're not quite finished but I'll post some photos when they're all done.

Google Changes...

You may well have seen this cropping up on a number of blogs but Google are about to start mucking about with the settings around Google Friend Connect.  To be honest I've no idea whether this is going to have a significant effect on blogs or not but I thought I'd share the info that was posted a couple of weeks ago on Blogger Buzz.....

"In 2011, we announced the retirement of Google Friend Connect for all non-Blogger sites. We made an exception for Blogger to give readers an easy way to follow blogs using a variety of accounts. Yet over time, we’ve seen that most people sign into Friend Connect with a Google Account. So, in an effort to streamline, in the next few weeks we’ll be making some changes that will eventually require readers to have a Google Account to sign into Friend Connect and follow blogs.

As part of this plan, starting the week of January 11, we’ll remove the ability for people with Twitter, Yahoo, Orkut or other OpenId providers to sign in to Google Friend Connect and follow blogs. At the same time, we’ll remove non-Google Account profiles so you may see a decrease in your blog follower count.

We encourage you to tell affected readers (perhaps via a blog post), that if they use a non-Google Account to follow your blog, they need to sign up for a Google Account, and re-follow your blog. With a Google Account, they’ll get blogs added to their Reading List, making it easier for them to see the latest posts and activity of the blogs they follow.

We know how important followers are to all bloggers, but we believe this change will improve the experience for both you and your readers.

Posted by Michael Goddard, Software Engineer"

Armies Army Kickstarter

The Cold War seems to be the thing that all the cool kids are playing these days and over at the Armies Army site Keith has a Kickstarter live for what looks like an excellent range of BAOR troops and Soviets. His Kickstarter is running till 4th February but has already shot past it's target and the list of add-on's are growing.

I have some Cold War stuff in 1:300 which hasn't seen the light of day for a long time but 15mm would be ideal for Chain of Command...hmmm....I haven't signed up yet but my mouse is hovering!!

The kickstarter can be found... here

A New Year round up

 

 

 

Happy New Year!!!...is it too late to say that on the 5th??  I've been back at work for 2 days so the Festive rest has worn off and it's back to the grindstone.


Xmas...

I hadn't left any tactically placed notes and lists around the house this year so wasn't expecting any gaming related pressies (and we'd agreed on severely curtailed gift-giving this year), however a good friend in Glasgow surprised me with a copy of Isle of Skye, a boardgame from Mayfair games. 

I'd read some reviews of it a while ago and it seems to be a Carcasonne type game but with bidding and trading of tiles and has very good reviews.  I haven't had a chance to get it out of the box yet but hopefully in the next couple of weeks...I'll post something when I get a chance.




The Force Awakens (spoiler free...)

My wife very kindly took me to see the new Star Wars film at the weekend...she isn't a SW fan so this was a big deal!!  There aren't many films that I go to with a real sense of anticipation....apart from this one it was probably the Lord of the Rings films that last had me worried about what might have been done to them (Incidentally I loved the LotR films...the opening scenes in Hobbiton are among my favourite film scenes...I felt Peter Jackson got that bit spot on compared with what was in my head.  Yes there are issues in places but I can live with those and don't get as hung up as some people appear to!)


So...Star Wars...I'll keep this Spoiler free so don't panic if you haven't made it to the cinema yet (although I was surprised at the love scenes with Han and Chewie!).  I had somehow managed to avoid any spoilers prior to going although I knew that it was...erm..heavily influenced...by A New Hope.  To be honest I had no problem with that...it's clearly a homage to the first film and the number of very similar scenes was striking.  In the context of the film I thought this worked well...JJ Abrams is clearly establishing his fanboy cred and providing lots of moments for 40 and 50 year olds to go "ooooh" and "awww" but he also set up the new characters well. 

It's great to see a strong female lead in Rey and I liked the chief baddie, Kylo Ren... a bit more nuanced than Anakin in the trilogy that shall not be named.  I hope that's it with the nostalgia now though and that the next film sets off on it's own without the need to reference the past.  All in all I loved it (and my wife stayed awake through the whole film which is quite a result!)


Planning....

It's traditional in the first post of the year to do a review of plans from the last year and set out my projects for 2016.  I had a quick glance at the post from a year ago and found I've achieved absolutely none of them!  So for 2016 my plans are....


nothing....nada... rien... ничего...heehaw...


The only definite is Frostgrave with the forthcoming games at the Shed (link), and hopefully stuff from the 2 Kickstarters that I've committed to (Heroes of Normandie and Conan) but that's it.  We'll just go with it and see where the year takes us....that sounds like a plan!!