29th January - 26th Saga vs The Youngest

The Youngest didn't feel like board games at the Australia Day barbecue at my place, so I volunteered to play something else with her. After a bit of a brainstorm she decided she'd like to have a game of Saga. So borrowing two points worth of models from her sisters Norse Gael we setup for a Champion of God clash (Basic slaughter/victory point game).

She won the toss and began with an aggressive move with her dog unit (Irish special warrior choice). I was playing around with some different unit size compositions in this game and met her charge with my large block of warriors who not only cut her dogs down at the loss of four of there own went on to take out the trailing group of hearthguard behind them and finish up with still two of the original twelve souls on their feet.

It was at this point I was subjected to some very well used Irish Champions (single model half-warlord type units) and some very nice use of her battle board with both Champions being used to great effect cutting down swathes of Viking warriors while seemingly shrugging off blows the would fell lesser men. While I eventually managed to pull one of them down with a warrior unit her other champion not only survived an attack from one of my hearthguard choices but only left one of them standing.

My Berserkers did there job taking out her six man hearthguard block but unfortunately they were wiped in the combat as I was going to swing what was left of them (if any) into that surviving man to try to bring him down.




Not letting herself focus on any one section of the battlefield this time The Youngest also kept a unit in reserve and was able to completely stall my flanking attempt with relative ease.




It was only in the last turn of the game I was able to grab my victory using my warlords "bodyguard" (read sacrificial) unit of warriors to charge in and take out her favourite champion (with use of Valhalla giving me an additional eight dice versus some poor rolling from her) and a last action charge of warlord on warlord (though I may have managed to "Side by Side" my warriors into the fray as well).


It was a great game with a close finish and it really did come down to the dice on this one. She had been getting her US Ariadna stuck together over the last week of her holidays so I'm looking forward to her getting them finished off and getting some Infinity in with her in the upcoming year. The Eldest has been getting a few bits and pieces in herself and has decided she wants her own Nomads for Infinity rather than relying on mine so I picked her a few bits and pieces up down at Cancon.

Going to be hopefully getting together with The Brother soon to put on a demo game of Guildball for him and I'll be handing my Butchers guild over to him if he enjoys it.

28th January - 24th Visit to the Australian War Memorial

I'm afraid I didn't get a lot of photos of anything while at Cancon (read that as none I meant to take some of the amazing tables but just never quite managed to pull out my phone) I did however get some shots while at the War Memorial.

Gallipoli Landing Boat

Barrel from captured Amiens Railway Gun

A couple of bi-planes, I'm afraid I don't know a lot about these but you've got to admire the fact that people were willing to not only fly but fight in these.

You may be able to spot
The Brother and The Uncle in this one

You might be able to spot myself and The Uncle in this one

 Got quite a few shots of the Mephisto 

(WWI German A7V tank)

Bullecourt

Dernancourt

Lone Pine

Un-exploded German WWII bomb

I got a game of Saga in against The Youngest on Australia Day so I'll attempt a write up of that in the next couple of days I'm having to adjust to being back at work after a whole four days away ;).

21st January - Painting Update

Well I've been pretty busy getting a whole mess of nothing done :). While that's not entirely true, we've been playing through our new wave of board games, on the war game front I've not done an huge amount.

The Wife and I played a game of Relics finally. Her Nuem up against my Britanan, I haven't got any photos as it was mostly un-assembled models none of which was even primed. Enjoyed the game and after reading through the 2nd edition beta rules on the web site I'm interested to see where they end up but I like the direction they seem to be taking. I followed this up with a game against The Youngest and her Vaettir. I lost both of these games but it's spurred us all onto getting this glued and primed.

On the painting front I've managed to finish off my gargoyles for my Abyssal Dwarves and I've moved on to my Angkor Heavy Mortars. 

Gargoyles

WIP Mortar teams

The Current Force [I may need a bigger light box ;)]

Halfbreeds, another set of Lesser Golems, the Greater Golem and my Slave Orcs to go. But I'm thinking the Britanan will probably hit the table next and possible the remaining couple of figures for my Nomad and PanO forces for Infinity so every one in the house has a full 300 point force ready for the upcoming Beasts of War online campaign once it launches.

Heading down to Canberra this week end for Cancon with The Brother and The Uncle so looking forward to that. I'm also entering my first tournament on the Monday with the Saga: Southern Fury Grand Melee so looking forward to getting a few games in with some different people and seeing how I go.

7th January - Quick Hobby Update

Just a quick one before I head off to work today. I've got a few shots of the last couple of Antenocitis Workshop Forward Base buildings and a shot of my Cracked Earth Studio buildings.

The Forward Base Buildings:

Hab 8 - Recreation Centre

Hab 5 - Workshop + TAG Bay

Hab 9 - Armoury

[This will look more impressive once I get the gun inserts painted and in the cabinets :)]

And the prepainted Cracked Earth Terrain:

They are slightly modular with the sphere in cog on the tower and the water tank & one of the chimney stacks being removable from the inn. I'm definitely going to be picking up the ruined building they have on offer and possibly one or two other bits as well.

That's about it for today, I've started painting up the rest of the gargoyles for Kings of War so I'll hold off with the pics of the completed unit and just put them all up when they're done.

6th January - 3rd Jan Saga vs The Brother

So after a couple of daughter free days I headed up to pick up the kids and to get a game with The Brother in preparation for our upcoming Saga tournament at Cancon.

Pagan Rus 

Vikings

There were two scenarios we hadn't played yet in the player pack so we setup for Champion of God (not that it was something too different from what we've played before but it was easier than setting up a hill :)  ).


The first couple of turns had us both closing in though I was being cautious of his Slave (levy) unit and their javelins after my Bondi (warriors) failed to crack then last game but finally in the third turn I offered a few words to the gods and charged in. I was determined to try some different tactics on this one but Frigg and Ullr I just find to be such a nice combination. I went with it and this game saw some nicer die rolls decimating the Slaves and pushing them back onto his larger unit of Varjazis (hearthguards) effectively blocking them in.

The Brother responded with some javelin fire but failed to take out a man, he also began to bring more soldiers over to assist against the obvious Viking push.





The next melee saw some different ploys from both of us with his Slaves ending up with higher armour than my warriors though I used Thor so we ended up fighting two rounds of combat. The first had him left with only two Slaves and the second took out those men, leaving me with five Bondi left. Deciding I could afford to lose the unit I slammed into his eight strong Varjazis unit and using Frigg, Valhalla and Heimdal I managed to tear down half the unit, a trade off I was happy with.

The Brother slowed down the next turn with The Great Winter reforming his battle lines. 

I took what I would later find out was bait and moved forward to engage his warrior unit only to see his plan on his following turn.

On the last turn he took his gamble and the Pagan Rus Warlord sprinted out of his line and called upon the Eastern Anger, but unfortunately the gods just weren't with him on the day and more of his own men fell to the arrows including the brave man himself. I myself lost only two Beserkers with the rest of my men safe behind firmly held shield walls.

My final turn saw my Beserkers die against the Pagan Rus warriors that had been offered out as a lure. Though my Warlord and accompanying Hirdmen (hearthguard) closed in and finished them off bringing the game to a close.

Really close game which we thought ended in a draw in the scenario (I was one victory point up) later on I read something and found out we'd been working out the slaughter vps wrong and it's possible I had a very minor win, but I can't remember exactly was in the area that we had for not counting towards victory points (we'd been playing that your models removed by your own abilities don't count to the total, in fact they do).

I've finished off the rest of the basic building for the Forward Base Sci-Fi building but I've now run into time to go to work so I'll try to get a small post up later with the last few buildings and a quick photo of my Cracked Earth Studio buildings which arrived yesterday.

1st January - Happy New Years!! and The Last Week

Happy New Year!

It's been a busy couple of weeks since my last update with work, Christmas Day and all the bits in between. Hope everyone has had a nice couple of weeks and caught up with friends, family and hobby :).

First off I would like to publicly thank my lovely wife for her main gift of Kingdom of Death: Monster. I've yet to begin assembling any of the many, many, many.... many sprues in the box but I'm definitely looking forward to getting into it soon.











The Christmas Tourney went off well, while we only got two rounds in thanks to some of us (The Brother and myself) getting a little carried away with Christmas cheer everyone had a great time. We ended up with eight players two Vikings, one Pagan Rus, one Welsh, one Irish, one Norse Gael, one Anglo-Danish and one Anglo-Saxon. The Brother took out the day with two solid wins with his Rus. We're thinking next year it'll be probably be a Boxing day tourney so that we manage to get all the rounds in but these are the things you learn as you run family holiday tournaments :).

I've been spending most of today sorting, checking and assembling my Forward Base Power Strain Plus pledge from the Antenocitis Workshop Terrain for Infinity kickstarter. I've assembled six of the buildings so far today and I've only come across one slightly miss packed bag of resin and one missing perspex bag which I'll get sorted out once I've finished the lot. I have to say I'm impressed with the quantity and quality of product I got for myself on this one. I'm only putting the basic structure together at the moment, I'll wait till it's all together before I start assembling the resin exterior and interior pieces but I think already they are an exceptional product and the adding of the final details can only improve that opinion.

 Cargo Containers

 Hab 1 - General Purpose

+

Hab 3 - Dormitory

 Hab 6 - Science Lab

Hab 7 - Admin/Comm Tower

Hab 4 - Big "L"

Hab 2 - Med Lab

They all have internal scatter and various other resin components. I'm hoping to tackle another building or two tonight but we'll see how it goes, either way I'm pretty sure I'll have the basic assembly done in the next few days. I've also knocked together The Wife's Anglo-Danish hovels I got her for Christmas though I still have to finish off the thatching on the roofs.




Gaming wise I'm heading up to The Brothers place on Sunday and we're aiming to get a game or two of Saga in, and then possible another one or something else here on Monday possibly. I've finished off my test regiment of Gargoyles for my Abyssal Dwarf army but I haven't quite got around to getting a photo done yet.