23rd October - Finished Infinity Operation:Icestorm Pan-Oceania

Finished off the Pan-Oceania from the Infinity Operation:Icestorm starter box today. I got into the game after watching some of the videos on the Beasts of War site. On opening the box I was greatly impressed by the quality and level of detail on the miniatures. I have to say even at my level of painting they were a real pleasure to paint. Now looking at these photos some people may notice certain bits missing from the heads of the helmeted troopers, suffice to say we had a slight "Wife, Youngest and shelf" incident and we managed to lose a couple so I decided it was best to keep a level of consistency and sacrificed the remaining ones to the gods of conformity.

I'm planning on putting the Nomad faction on to the painting table next before moving on to the next project.. maybe some more Saga Vikings, maybe my Counterblast models we'll see. Also I will be taking these guys off their current bases once the Basius2 kickstarter has completed and delivered and dressing them up a little more.

In the long run I think I'm leaning more towards the Combined Army as my faction for Infinity based on the models available, but that may change as I see more of the rules.

 The Svalarheima Nisses I think is my favourite mini for this faction and possibly out of the starter set. Something about the cloak just does it for me. You can see my poor attempt at green stuffing the left arm join, next time I think I'll wait for daylight or get some proper lighting and file it back a little more. But experience teaches so......

Akalis, Sikh Commando

Fusiliers

Orc Trooper, another nice scuplt

 The Military Order Father Knight is another figure I think stands out. When I re-base this guy I'm going to have a better go at the interior of the Nomad Mobile Brigada torso he's standing on. At the moment I just gave it a few licks of GW's Blood for the Blood God. I'd like to go back over it and add some more detail such as highlighted bone colouring and maybe some edging of skin tone.

The completed starter force. I will be grabbing the Auxilia Infantry
and Jotum TAG as the book suggest, but that will be further down the line

21st October - 19th October PM Saga vs Toby (Anglo-Saxon)

The gaming fiesta wasn't over when I got home after the game against The Brother, I'd organised Toby to come round for a game and he decided that he would risk his rapidly failing car after all and bought round his Anglo-Saxons for another clash of Saga.

After running out to rescue him from his possible now practically written off car and giving him some time to organize a tow for the next day we set up the board and prepared to face off. Thanks to the beauty of the random terrain chart we ended up with a table split by a series of uneven ground limiting our ability to make it into combat with each other (kind of laughable when both our intro four point forces have no missile weapons what so ever). It was a slower game with lots of maneuvering and re-maneuvering but the clashes that occurred were nice bloody and decisive combats.

The battle-weary Vikings take to the field again after crossing the Welsh river

Anglo-Saxons rethink rushing across the field

The Anglo-Saxon warchief heads back for the treeline as the Viking Warriors
advance, ignoring the Anglo warriors cresting the hill

The Beserkers rush the enemy warrior unit, felling ten of the bastards at the cost
of there own lives, but look at all those hits

The remaining two Anglo-Saxon warriors look around bewildered at the destruction
wrought by the four fur-clad men

As you can see from the photos all the action occurred on the left flank. Those two remaining warriors would end up winning Toby the game on victory points 10 to 9 as they would both bravely through themselves in front of blow that would have felled his Warchief and given me the game.

It was good to get a couple of games in after a week or two of not managing to get much done mini-wise apart from painting. And we've all confirmed that another two or three points of figures is definitely in our futures. The Youngest finished off her bases on Saturday just gone as well, so all that remains in her shields and some re-gluing of a couple of spears.

20th October - 19th Oct Saga game (Vikings) vs The Brother (Welsh) AM game

Finally got a game in with The Brother. It's been a year of odd hours and various other game delaying issues but we've finally managed to get together for a game. Up at 5:30am for a 7:00am meet up at the markets so the girls could have a bit of a wander with there cousins (although one did have a sleep in) we got back to his around 9. A cup of tea and a catch up with his wife and we sent the wives off to the beach with all the children (five between the two of us now) and set about getting the board ready. This was pretty much his first game and I'm now up to my third game so we started with some rule book flicking but as the game progressed we got a bit of a flow happening.

Left Flank

Right Flank

 We settled on the Battle of the Ford scenario or for our game Battle of Cooper's Ford (thanks to accompanying Coopers Pale Ale, cheers mate). This is a seven turn game with VP awarded for gaining the opponents side of the river (Cooper's Creek).

The Welsh taunt the Vikings over their lost deployment initiative

The Brother won deployment so I was deploying in response to his initial half deployment, then he got to finish off in answer to mine. I opt'd to split my force to cover both fords, with him leaving a more central unit to respond to any breakthroughs.

The Viking warriors push back the Welsh levies

I'm starting to get a feel for the Viking play style I believe but I still make a few errors, one of which was rushing my warrior unit forward a little early, but to be honest if I had have rolled better and taken out a few more levies I might have been happier with the result. The following counter assualt be the Welsh Warchief with a Side by Side activation of his Hearthguard took the unit out of play and lost me an order dice very early in the game

The Welsh response destroying the warriors to the last man

Finally we're across..... not for long though

The next lot of combat action occurred at the other ford with a back and forth struggle between our warrior units on that flank finally ending with the welsh pack reduced to a single man, although that gave the central welsh unit an opening to push me back over the ford.

More Welsh taunting as the come across the ford

The hostility on the other flank had not abated though with the welsh pushing forward over the ford to meet the combined fury of my Beserkers and Warchief. This allowed me to leave their broken corpses littering the muddy banks on my side and push over the ford, littering it's banks with hastily raised levy bowman although my Beserkers didn't quite have the momentum left falling to the Welsh Warchief.

The Warchiefs lock horns

The closing chapter of the game began with a cinematic climax, the two Warchiefs facing off with the waters of the ford flowing around their ankles as they trade off blows along the bank. Many mighty blows were exchanged as these titanic men struggled with each other. The Vikings fatigue laid heavily on his shoulders slowing his defense ever so slightly (The Brother spent a fatigue token to lower my armour) although he still managed to lay three blows upon his enemies shoulders. He took a countless amount of punishment in retaliation though (eight hits!!) and the end of the combat saw both foes falling into the foaming water and their rapidly fading bodies being swept downstream.

The rivers again flow clear, nothing left of the combatants
but blood and muddy footprints

The final few moves saw the lone welsh warrior killed off and my remaining hearthguard unit pushing over the ford and throwing the last remaining welsh unit back with a horrific amount of casualties finally securing the opposite bank, but a what a cost....

Have a look at The Brother's blog post over at Stand and Deliver for the welsh perspective on this clash.

It was a great game and we're going to be making an effort to get in some more of the next month or two, which should be aided by The Brother going on holidays. I also had Toby come round that night once I'd gotten back from The Brother's and we had another game of Saga, his Anglo-Saxons vs my weary but rebuilt Viking force, I'll get that report up in the next couple of days hopefully.

18th October - The Daughters play Mars Attacks

Been quite a busy couple of weeks at work since I went back covering holidays and things, and a couple of busy ones still to come but I've managed to squeeze a bit of hobby in among it all. It's been a week of parcels, including our pre-ordered copy of Mars Attacks from Mantic it's been a great week of opening boxes.

Parcels have included:

1. The Wife's and mine Christmas presents to each other of the Dropzone Commander two player starter, a plastic Shaltari starter and the new rule book.
2. The Youngest's Bolt Action Italians for her Christmas present
3. A new A3 self-healing cutting mat to replace my ridiculously small one
4. The first five Horus Heresy books (which I've now almost finished in the space of a week)
5. My Counterblast Kickstarter pledge reward (I got all five starters)
6. Mars Attacks
7. And my Tarot of Loka Kickstarter reward

I've got a few other things coming next week thanks to War and Peace's moving sale last weekend.

We've been playing through the Infinity starter boxes run of scenarios The Eldest vs The Youngest and The Wife vs myself.

But today was allocated towards our first game of Mars Attacks. We opened the box and put the terrain together after lunch and I have to say that I had no trouble with the clipping the terrain together this time (compared to Deadzone which I found needed a little filing back here and there) and we ended up with a board like this.

The game plays much like Mantics Deadzone but at a parred back level (a lot less modifiers). For those who haven't played the game works on a square system (cubes for Deadzone) with combat interactions being resolved by opposed 3d8 dice pools. Modifers are simply added dice to the pool such as clear line of sight or aiming (Deadzone can remove dice from pool as well) and rolling your stat or higher for a hit. 8s are critical success which allow you to roll an additional dice. Line of Sight is quite simple with either Yes I can see it or No I can't. Victory is achieved by getting to either victory points. 

The game lasted for three turns with the girls activating two models or a model and a card in rounds until everyone had moved each model once then the turn progresses. The opening scenario for the game pits five martians (The Eldest) vs six US marines (The Youngest). The Eldest took a quick lead but stalled at around five points, from there The Youngest came back to take the game only allowing her sister to gain a single extra point. They both enjoyed the game and I can see us using this as a quick game when we have the odd half hour or so to fill.

For me apart from reading a lot of 40K fluff (which I have to be honest is brilliant) I've been working away on the PanO that came in Infinity Operation Icestorm. These still have a bit to go and I've got a bit of touch up still to go (and faces to paint) but I'm happy with the way there coming along. I've also been loving the way the game plays and Infinity 3rd edition week on Beast of War so I've pre-ordered the new rule book from The Combat Company getting a bonus mini in the deal.