30th March - 24th March Dropzone Commander vs The Wife

Got a second game of Dropzone Commander in with The Wife. Found a few bits and pieces rules wise we'd missed in the first game including some how the alternating battle group activation which made the game much more enjoyable for both of us. We just played out the scenario from the two player starter set again and this time ended up with a drawn result after six turns which came down to the final activation.

 The Wife won the first initiative roll and pushed hard on the centre building and making moves to secure her right flank ready to move her troops in for the second objective after finding the first. I held back on my troop deployment until my last activation instead moving my Reapers (anti-air) up to threaten her Eden (gate) and dropping my Hunters (standard tanks) in order to start shooting at the building containing her troops in an attempt to bring it down.

I managed to win the roll for the second turn and started by opening up on the Eden bringing it crashing down to the ground. The Wife moved one of her other two closer to the centre but didn't push it as far forward having learnt her lesson. My second activation was the Hunters who fired at the building managing to roll well enough for four points of damage, but unluckily for me not a single Shaltari troop fell from collapsing masonry. The Wife then managed to find the objective and pulled rapidly from the building getting it off table quickly securing one of the three possible points. My infantry failed to find their target this turn, but on the other flank I'd pushed into the building ready to take on The Wife's heavy defenses. Unfortunately I'd lost track of The Wife's Tomahawks (standard tanks) and lost all my Hunters to them.

The Wife won the next round and sent the now blooded Tomahawks off the other side of the board in order to threaten my troops searching away currently unchallenged. My troops finally found their objective and headed for the table edge in their Invader (APC), hopefully to outrun her tanks. Meanwhile my other squad of troops opened fire on a second Eden and managed to take it out with some impressive fire. Though she quickly countered by sending in a squad of Braves to challenge me. Her Kukri (anti-air) began to trade fire with my Marauders (drop ships) and re positioned Reapers slowly whittling me down.

Of course at this point I got a little involved in the game and forgot to take anymore photos. Turn four and five saw an epic close combat battle that would leave me with one stand of Warriors (out of an original three) with just three damage points left after finally taking down her two stands of Braves. Luckily for me I had also managed to find the objective putting victory just within reach. I managed to win the initiative in the final round and went for my gamble for the win attempting to rush my Warriors back to their Invader then it to it's Marauder, but no! Two of The Wife's three Kukri were in range and their reactive fire took it's toll with the Marauder barely staying in the air after the first salvo, then crashing down to the ground from the second. The Invader and it's precious cargo survived but I had no way of getting it off the board and with it being the last turn we shook hands and called it a hard fought draw.

The Wife is so impressed with the game that we've now expanded up to 1000 point forces, although mine are the only ones together at the moment and I just primed them this morning so I may even get a base coat on them tonight. My mate Toby as also taken the plunge, buying himself a 1000 points of The Resistance and he's coming over tomorrow night with his starter kit to get his first game in so hopefully third time is the charm and my Scourge will come up with an outright win this time.

24th March - Finished Scourge Starter Box

Finished off my Scourge starter box a couple of days ago. I'm leaning toward a gloss or semi-gloss varnish so they're not quite officially finished, but they're done enough to serve the purpose of a blog post.

Scourge Skirmish Size Box Set Army

I've kept my colour scheme fairly simple but I feel it's come up rather nicely. It's just a base coat of Vallejo model colour copper, followed by a very dry dry-brush of Army painter silver then a solid coat of the same silver on a few raised areas. The vents I pre-shaded with a thin wash of Vallejo Black-grey and finished it off with a wash of Games Workshop Nuln Oil.

Hunter Tanks

Reaper Anti-Air Tank

Scourge Warriors

Invader APC

Marauder Medium Dropship

I've also got a bit of progress done on my terrain entry for the Across the Dead Earth Facebook competition, but my clippers broke earlier this week so I'm just waiting on a new set to finish off a few more bits and pieces.








After the Bolt Action game with Toby the other day I've had another play with an army list. So I've begun to work on the Panzer IV H and a 250/1 half-track that have been sitting on the shelf for the last few months. So I should hopefully knock them over in the next couple of days in between shifts at work. I've order some more drill bits and magnets so I can magnetise the  Schurzen depending on the fit out of the particular game. It's also my first go at camo with the air brush, I think I'm starting to get the hang of it now.

15th March - Making Tables and Hobby Progress

It's been a pretty busy couple of weeks. Toby and myself got my tables built for my hobby area. One 1.7m and one 2.25m long, which took up most of last weekend. Pretty happy with the way they've turned out and I'm going to use a similar plan to build some gaming tables next. The only difference will be some shelving underneath. There'll also be a few shelves going in on the wall and I'll be investing in some paint stands so it'll end up more organised. I've also got a few chairs on the way.

Didn't get a huge amount of gaming in, but The Wife and I put our starter armies together for Dropzone Commander. She's playing Shaltari while I've gone for the Scourge. Have to say I really enjoyed my first game, so it's now on the painting table. It seems to be fate as I've just received notification that my 10mm scale games and gears cityscape battleboards are on their way. So I'm looking forward to getting some more games in. The Youngest has expressed interest in the UCM left over from the two player starter set my Scourge came from.

I also had the first wave of Cthulhu Wars turn up this week. So far we've got two games in, one with The Daughters and a second one with The Wife as well. It's incredibly intuitive, with the girls realising their mistakes from the first game before it finished, and the second game The Eldest doing far better, but The Youngest came from behind with some rather aggressive Elder Sign collecting as the Yellow Sign faction and taking the win out from under me. Going to get a few more games in tonight at the weekly board games night. Definitely hanging out for wave two to come out with more factions and Great old ones.




 I've also got a fair amount of progress done one my entry for the Across the Dead Earth base camp competition on Facebook. It's pretty much done apart from some detailing work and I've ordered a couple of bits of pieces for finishing.









I'll put up a couple of WIP pics of my scourge as well, the quality of photo is average but I'll put up some nicer ones when they're done.

4th March - 2nd March Bolt Action vs Toby

It's been a while since I'd got a game of Bolt Action and Toby was keen, so Monday morning saw me head over there for a game. He's got a few more bits and pieces than I do when it comes to troop options so I figured I'd have a play with veteran units this time. I kept full ten man squads for this one, but I'm thinking I may drop the numbers down and run some slightly different load out on the units and add a little more support into the platoon.

We played the grab the intel mission as it plays from the rule book. Some poor morale roles for his US marines left his centre a little lacking and my Hetzer managed to shutdown his entire left flank on the approach to the objective.









Once I got to the centre the veteran status paid off. It's amazing how much different a target number one higher can make to the casualty role. Then the following turn a series of hand offs down the line saw the germans secure the intel without any real dramas.






I have to say after a week or so of not getting much in it was good to cram in a large amount of hobby on the days off. The Wife and myself managed to get in a game of our latest kickstarter delivery Dawn: Rise of the Occulites which was a lot of fun so I'm looking forward to getting in a few more games in and trying out the advanced/campaign rules for it.

On the kickstarter note I'm currently backing a couple that may be of interest to people or maybe not. Toby was keen to get into Wild West Exodus, so after watching the Beasts of War week on the game I'm liking the way it appears to play so I've gone in on the Unfinished Business kickstarter they're running. Also keeping on the skirmish level I've backed Warbands as well which sounds interesting with your group being made up of any combination of the ten fantasy races and various classes.

Starting work on the hobby/gaming area next week hopefully. Aiming to get the hobby/painting station built and setup, then if the tables seem sturdy enough I'll be using the same materials/plan to get some proper gaming tables built and free up the dining table so it can be used solely for it's intended purpose again.

3rd March - Ruined Modern Buildings

One of my mates works in the warehouse for a computer parts supplier and he bought home some packing foam for me to have a play with. Seeing as I'd been playing a fair amount of Across the Dead Earth lately I decided to get some ruined buildings knocked together as I'm lacking in the terrain department as it is and I can't keep the borrowed bits and pieces from The Uncle forever.

All the foam has been glued together with a hot glue gun. The concrete render was made with a mix of equal quantities of PVA and Polyfill, 1/2 quantity of sand, a squeeze of black paint and a little water to get it to the texture I wanted. Once that was dried I gave it all a going over with a concrete paint and wash via an air brush, and the same with the weathering and rust run offs. The rusted rebar is just gardening wire painted with the same rust. Then the whole lot was finished off with various basing materials.

I'm pretty happy with how they finished up and I'm currently working on a slightly larger compound for the themed competition with the Across the Dead Earth Facebook group.

2nd March - 1st March Game with The Uncle and both Daughters

For starters you'll have to forgive my lack of updates lately, I've been fairly under the weather and didn't really get anything done. I did manage to finish off some ruined buildings I've been working on for Across the Dead Earth which I'll put a post up about in the next day or two but didn't get any miniatures painted since finishing off my Combined Army force.

Dropped round to my Uncles yesterday and got a game in. We were intending to play a quick couple of skirmish games, but The Youngest seemed more interested in playing something larger and seeing as we've been watching a fair amount of documentaries on ancient Rome that's what went on the table. We should have widened the table slightly but time constraints and the last minute change of plans worked against us but the girls enjoyed themselves and that was the point really.

We saw some Imperial Romans (The Uncle and The Youngest) line up against some Dacians (myself) and some Celtish allies (The Eldest). We were using the Piquet system and rolled up the unit quality. Naturally The Uncle and I both rolled abysmal generals and both girls rolled perfect commanders for their sub-commands.

It wasn't a bad game with both The Uncle and my forces constantly racked by command indecision and stationary so the girls ended up mostly fighting it out on the flank. After a fierce effort The Eldest was eventually routed by The Youngest although it was an incredibly close affair. Eventually The Uncle and I came to blows and after a few melee resolution card both sides saw some disorganized results on both sides the superior Roman armour and my inability to bring my numbers to bear (I could moan about the lack of table size but I'll remain silent) saw a good portion of my line collapse and we took an ordered retreat from the battle field.

Dacian Line

Roman Line

Celtish Cavalry Advances

Skirmish Units Clash

Roman Levies Break

 Romans and Dacians Clash

Cavalry Clash. Eventually the Celts will break and rout

Dacians collapse from here but not a bad
fight on a battlefield not of their choosing