8th December - Bolt Action Game, Dreadball Match and the Return of Games Night

Quite the week for gaming this week. Left to our own devices on Sunday myself and The Youngest got a game of Dreadball in, no photos I'm afraid but a rather nail biting match with my Veer-myn managing to score the winning three point strike on the last action of the last turn of the match after failing to score for the three previous turns beating her Female Corp team two nil.

I've just finished packing up the first games night in two weeks after a work enforced hiatus and it was a great game of Betrayal at House on the Hill. A full six player game with the Haunt not triggering until after a massive nine omen rooms and another haunt that we hadn't seen before (no spoilers here but Haunt 32 for those that have the game).

Sunday night also saw The Wife's first game of Bolt Action with my
Germans and her Japanese teaming up against Toby's Americans and Mr Anon's Soviets. We called the game around 11:30pm deciding that next time if we attempt such an undertaking we'll begin early or limit the order dice per side to 50% of their total units to speed things up (We had 38 order dice in the bag each round :) ). The Allies got of to a reasonable start, but I think we'd evened up the odds by the end of the third turn and it was called amicably a draw. Not a proper AAR this time as I was helping The Wife with the rules and a bit of tactical advice, though she had the basics down by the second turn and made some decent calls herself tearing up Toby's US when the opportunities arose. It was also the first game on Toby's newly built table and terrain. I have to say it's pretty impressive consider the speed in which he's organised it all, not as impressive as I hope my tables to be once I get the gaming area setup early next year, but damn good regardless.

 View's of the table as we setup

The Wife's Chi-Ha takes out Toby's M3A1

View of the table after first round Axis side

Allied side after round one

The Sherman advances and fires in retaliation

Aaannnd the Chi-Ha is dead

After my Germans kill a squad and the supposed medic the Soviet's retaliate.
The unit of four is in the building I just didn't feel like fiddling with the floors

And we called it, the final move would be my HQ taking a shot at the exposed
Soviet squad and killing another three of them

Really good game I felt and I'd like to have another crack at it when we have more time at our disposal now we've got the base platoon's sorted we've got armour platoons on the back burner at the moment though we're all concentrating on catching up with what we have, though some of us with slight Kickstarter addictions have slightly more than others.

8th November - LocaliZed game 4th Nov

While working Melbourne Cup lunch with Toby we decided it was a good night to have a few scotches and give LocaliZed a whirl.

For those that don't know this is the game that the winners of Beasts of War Halloween design a game competition came up with. The conditions were they had two weeks to get it done, it needed to be suitable for Halloween and they had to include an ice-cream van.

The game plays really well. It's a PnP and comes with tokens to get you going. But I added the plastic minis from my game of Zombies to add  3rd dimension. Several turns in we ended up needing to cut out some 10 zombie counters as well.

We had a narrow loss going down as we were halfway through the final mission. It's definitely one that will get some repeated play.

Setup, man that church is full of Zombies

Around halfway through here, you'll notice the two 10 zombie tokens at The Source

Called it. You'll notice myself (red) and Toby (blue) died at this stage with only four turns left to win.

24th June - Progress and Games

Still on a rather time hungry work roster at the moment, but I keep telling myself it'll be back to normal soon. Continuing with the Saturday night family gaming we've played Pandemic and Elder Sign these past two weeks and managed a victory in both of these co-op games (admittedly Elder Sign was a just and the Youngest did end up a gibbering madwoman).

The Wife's Forge Fathers

My painting regime has been compromised with a six day week and some rather poor painting weather, but today I persevered and managed to  finish off my second warrior unit for my Saga war band (only badly smudging one eye which I was willing to count as a win) and I finally got around to putting the decals on the Wife's finally finished and as yet unnamed Dreadball Forge Father team. She did have them almost finished about two months back but decided she didn't like the paint scheme and redid them.

Had the gaming group round on Monday for our fortnightly games night and pulled out Munchkin this week. As you'd expect chaos ensued and I emerged from the fray victorious after the usual betrayal, last minute cursing and modifier pile ons (I believe one combat ended up with a player strength of 53 to the monsters 55). For me (and the group I'm fairly certain) the highlight was when the Wife bowed out early to sleep (being on a night shift and wanting an hour or two before work) I moved next to the Eldest and proceeded to bear hug her saying "Friend" over and over again. She blindly reached out till she found the dice and rolled to escape failing the first attempt but succeeding on her second try (for those who haven't played if you find yourself unable to win a combat you try to run needing a 5 or 6 otherwise you suffer from the Bad Stuff listed on the monsters card).

Not much else happening on the gaming front at the moment. Fingers crossed work settles down soon and I can manage to push some tiny metal men around on a table again soon and get the painting backlog on track again before my next deluge of said metal men begins to arrive.

Dreadball Training Match, Eclipse and some Kickstarters

Had the usual Monday night games night this week and pulled out a group favorite (and as my youngest daughter insists on me mentioning her game) Eclipse. Set in the future after a intergalactic war it pits up to 6 factions rebuilding their strengths and exploring a now unfamiliar galaxy. The game runs over 9 turns with several rounds per turns with players taking as many actions as there empire can afford (based on controlled planets vs system maintenance, actions costs). It ended this week early due to my kids bedtimes but we managed to squeeze in 5 turns before I had to call it for them. After a tally of victory points I had managed to pull off a 3 VP win (mostly thanks to the Terran's 2:1 trade ratio and some lucky combat VP draws).

Tuesday morning saw me heading to my Uncles to run him and my brother through a demo game of Dreadball. Unfortunately on the way over my brother got a call from his work and ended up going in to cover the other butcher that had managed to put a knife through his thumb. So I ended up playing against my Uncle. My Veer-myn team vs his Corp team. It was quite a good game with plenty of scoring on both sides.... but my rats got tired. 3 rushes of incomplete passes or just plain misses and some favorable scattering for my Uncle results in a rush 14 landslide to the Corporation. Had a good time though and have recruited another coach for the upcoming 2014 inaugural Lucid Cup League.

Also for anyone interested I've jumped on to another couple of Kickstarters

Games and Gears Battle Boards - injection molded hard plastic modular 2' x 2' terrain boards with a few different thematic options. I've upgraded my pledge to the x 4 early bird and added for some of the grid sheets for Deadzone and dust tactics, the dice and gaming tray bundle and the 10mm card building scenery. I'm keeping an eye out for the carry case they're working on which will be coming from Battlefoam as of last update. 

Zombie Miniatures - some rather nice Zombie and survivor minis with some urban themed terrain. They've got some themed bonus zombies for pledging before Christmas eve or following and sharing on facebook, twitter etc. I've jumped in at the Decomposition reward tier giving my 2 packs of the 12 zombies and 1 of the 5 survivors, it's running till Jan 10th and they're currently reassessing stretch goals and looking at seeding a few extra minis through them.

That's all for this week. Doesn't look like I'll be getting a game in next week, but my Deadzone package is on time at the moment for a Monday delivery so I'm thinking an unboxing post will be the call for next week :)

Finally Dreadball Ultimate :)

My mates and I have been playing a fair bit of Dreadball since I bought it last year, so it seemed to make sense to make my wife and kids buy me a copy of Dreadball Ultimate and a few other bits and pieces from Mantic for my birthday. After sitting on the shelf for the last month thanks to a variety of work-related reasons we finally too it down and played it's inaugural match.

Six teams and two balls on a pitch with 3 halves.... what more could you want.

We made it through 3 rounds before Trent managed to pull off a landslide victory with his Corp team. Possibly heavily assisted by my Veer-Myns inability to connect that final vital pass to the striker in the zone each turn and Toby's fixation in beating.... "attempting" to beat my strikers to the ground with his Orx I should say. Grant's Robot team managed 2 points with his 1st ever use of striker form and my daughter Arwen's Female Corp team managed to pick up a 2 pointer tho they later lost a point from Trent's use of her goal for his 3 point victory shot. My wife's Forge Fathers unfortunately didn't quite make it out of there zone having possibly started a little too far back in the zone for they're stumpy little legs.

It makes for a interesting match though, trying to keep track of 2 balls and 5 opponents, but I feel it'll become a semi regular on games night from here on out.

Here's a couple of shots from the night

Also if anyone's looking for a couple of different tabletop options this kickstarter might be worth a look in.

5 different design options with 6 different 2'x2' tiles in each (although some are still locked), comes pre-painted and with a variety of add-on options. Free postage to a decent amount of countries as well.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/554355176/games-and-gears-battle-boards

Unfortunately the Flodden game as been postponed but still hopeful I'll get atleast one more larger miniatures game in before Christmas

Update 19/11/13

Long time no post. I've been pounding my head against the wall for 6 solid weeks now thanks to work. It's looking like things might actually be settling down to the usual Christmas time mess so I may actually have a usable amount of spare time again.

But rest assured in the minutes I've had spare I have not been idle, I've still managed 3 out of the proposed 6 weekly board game nights and been back to my weekly gaming days with my brother and my uncle, although they've been board game days as well lately (not that I'm complaining a games a games as far as I'm concerned).

Still I've got a few pics of some stuff I've been working on and the games I got in this week. Hopefully a mini game in the next week or two as well.

 Got all the figures I was missing for my Stargrunt NSL Platoon (based on the Panzergrenadier example in the rule book) I had two squads from when I was around 12 and fleshed it out to the full platoon the other day. It's in a semi painted and assembled state, but it's my current "front burner" project at the moment. The Eureka Miniature bags in the back are the power armoured soldiers waiting their turn to be assembled.

I've also been working slowly on some building to help fill my Bolt Action (or any other appropriate period) games. Pretty happy with the way they're progressing as I've never really had a go a terrain/buildings before.

 Also this week got in a game of "The Call of Cthulhu" LCG with my uncle. I really enjoyed it. Fairly simple to pick up, quick easy game play. Definitely going to be picking myself up a copy at some stage. We've also been playing "Kingsburg" for the last couple of weeks. Another one I'd highly recommend and will be picking up :).

 Games night was "Zombies!!!". Build as you go map, simple mechanics, many, many, many opportunities to make zombie groans both male and female. What more could you want. After a couple of near wins for myself, my eldest (almost 2 weeks a teenager now) managed to snag the "The Keys are still in it" card letting her move 10 spaces instead of rolling the D6, then proceeded to kill the 9 zombies between her and the helicopter to win the game and earn the nickname "Helicopter Torrent" which she doesn't seem to like yet, but I assume it'll grow on her....

Then tonight a family game. "Small World Underground". Think Risk without dice rolls and a limited troop pool. During the game you put your race into decline and get new ones as required gaining victory points depending on areas controlled and the race's innate abilities or matched powers. I thought I'd managed to grab the game with 101 vp only to have my youngest snatch it from me with 116.


I'm hoping to get a minis game or two in next week depending on work and everyone else's availability and with any luck at least get my 4 base squads finished up.

Update 26/07/13

Due to some hiccups in organising and limited time, I've been unable to get together with my brother and uncle for a game the past couple of weeks. It's looking like hopefully we'll have things squared away this week and be able to get in a game or two before my uncle heads off to the UK for a holiday.

However I've managed to fit quite a few things into the past weeks including:


1. Introducing my board-gaming group into miniatures (Dreadball) as well as talking up the various skirmish rule sets I've been playing around with over the last few weeks (and in the past years). It may not look like it in the picture but I swear they were all smiling seconds to me taking the shot. They all agree that we need to run a league system once we've mastered the rules.



We've also kept up on our usual mix of what ever game caught my eye last week/month and has turned up in the mail this week along side some of my old classics including......

2. Dino Hunt!

In my opinion this game definitely needs a re-release and I've got several players now who'd agree with that opinion. I even had one of my chefs pop down to work on Sunday to have a game with my kids while they waited for me to finish off service and the ordering. That's right came into work on his day off to play it. I don't think we've ever seen that much excitement in the venue before on catching a Tyrannosaurus Rex, although to be honest I believe that was the first time anyone had managed to do it on the premise.

3. Magic Sealed Tournament (3 M14, 2 Dragonsmaze)

Picked up a booster box of both and played a 6 man tournament. Not much to report there, was one of the players 1st time, he seemed to pick it up pretty quickly and ended with a victory to myself. Managed to build myself a W/G/B fairly aggressive life gain deck, my best result being 72 life at the end of match

             

4. Painting my Veer-myn team for the aforementioned Dreadball. Keep in mind these are the first models I've painted in over 10 years so (apart from a practice run on a few of old genestealers) while they're not award winning (tbh I was never even close to that) I'm happy with the way they're going.

 I've also set a few goals for projects for the year mostly consisting on working on getting some terrain and buildings sorted for my own table seeing as of the moment it consists of enough  foot square carpeted tiles for a  table top with a few options for rivers and that's about it, although I do have the option of green or desert colours.

Also in a nod to my newly developed Kickstarter habit I'll put a link up to Privateer looks like it'll be a fun game and I'm already looking into beanies, pirate hats and parrots in view of the "you mush be wearing pirate headgear" house rule I'll be establishing :)