14th June - 11th June Deadman's Hand vs The Youngest

I've still yet to get the Dropzone Commander game in with The Wife, and it looks like it may have to wait until Sunday but I did get a quick game in with The Youngest on Saturday.

Not much to report it was a bit spur of the moment but after some serious ammunition issues for the Pinkerton's the Indians successfully.... well I guess slaughtered them would be an appropriate term.

The contested town

Repeater rifle on the rooftop

Shotgun wielder ready to engage

Dud shells for the rifle makes for a difficult time

This town ain't big enough for both of us

The bounty hunter somehow survives the onslaught 

Of course it's too much to ask for a last chance

One last chance at saving the town from the savages results in barely a flesh wound
on the chief and the death of several Pinkertons

Might not have been what I was hoping to get on the table but it's always good to get a game in with either of The Daughters. Painting wise the Lilliputians are well under way and I'm toying on either continuing on the Home Raiders factions or get started on either my Veer-myn for Deadzone/Warpath or my Gremlins for Malifaux sometime soon.

12th May - 5th May Deadman's Hand Game vs Toby (Outlaws)

Finally got a game of Deadman's Hand in with Toby last week. We'd grabbed him the Outlaws box as a Christmas present last year when we'd grabbed all our own gangs. A little bit of friendly pressure and sure enough they got pushed up the line in his painting queue and we're all ready for a game.

I got a few more building put together since The Wife and I had our first game, so the table offered a bit more cover than our previous game.

Once again the scene is set. The Pinkerton's having ousted the corrupt 7th Cavalry settled in and proceeded to clean up the streets. Unfortunately some of the more undesirable elements that had been cleared off  decided to band together and attempt to do some clearing out of their own.

The first two turns saw both of us spreading out through town. I sent my Detective with the Repeater up to the roof tops in an attempt to cover the street approach. The Special Agent along with a couple of detectives headed behind the main street buildings, while the Bounty Hunter took the remaining two and headed through the Sheriff's office in an attempt to surround the Outlaw force. I believe Toby had the same idea, but used the multitude of rear and side entrances of his table edge to get into some really nice firing positions.

It was during the third turn the the game began in earnest with shot's being fired on both fronts, but Toby's elevated covered positions proved to hard for me to crack with not a single shot of mine managing to place a single under fire marker on him, while his shooting proved to be effective leaving me with several gang members under fire. 

The forth turn began and after some woeful initiative cards on my end and some brilliant ones on Toby's I decided to take a rather large risk and played one of my face cards allowing me to swap three initiative cards between the gangs. Now having the bulk of initiative I decided to take a risk and rushed a couple of detectives out of cover and into point blank range of the Outlaw leader but only managed to score a single hit on the man, even after burning a second card for an additional modifier for all shooting against the man that turn. At the end of the turn the final result was one under fire marker for the Outlaw leader with three on my shotgun wielding detective, who had missed completely, and one downed detective after some devastatingly accurate return fire.

The next turn saw my lack of accurate shooting continue, while Toby managed to spread a few more firing markers around and would have taken another Detective out of the game if not for another card from my hand. The next turn saw my luck turn though. Finally I was landing some shots managing to take out his right hand man with a single shot and spreading some under fire markers across several more, while not taking too much fire myself. A couple of turns later things were in my favor with myself short the poor shotgun wielding detective who just could not land a shot down along with the Bounty Hunters second back up man. However I'd removed Toby's entire flanking operation with some fancy shooting from the Special Agent and his partner. And finally with the last action of that round my Detective on the roof top who had yet to hit a single target in the game thus far. Finally found his range and put two incredible shots into the Outlaw leader putting him down and sending the Outlaws packing.

Another good game. I have to admit even though the dice gods were against me from the start combined with a couple of tactical blunders, having already had a game in me and making use of at least one of my cards each turn definitely gave me the edge on this one. Toby enjoyed it though so along with The Wife and hopefully both of The Daughters I should be seeing this on the table a bit more as something in the quick afternoon game category.

Hobby-wise I've finished off the Sisters of Acquisition for Across the Dead Earth today, and I think they've come out fairly well, although to be honest I did rush a little to get them finished off. I've got a fair chunk of the State finished as well along with the Trader's Caravan so with any luck I'll have the painting table cleared next week ready for my next big project. I've decided it's time to stick together rather large amount of various zombies I've got for a few reasons. One I want to have a play with the sollous rules for Across the Dead Earth, Two getting them finished and stored away will help clear up the miniature shelves a fair bit and Three I'm intending to do the bulk of the painting with the airbrush so I can play around with some different techniques cause let's be honest they're zombies so of course they'll look a bit ratty :).

Just finished playing the second installment of our micro practice Across the Dead Earth campaign with Toby tonight too so expect another battle report soon along with pics of the finished Sisters

28th April - 27th April Deadman's Hand Game vs The Wife

Well I finished off The Wife's 7th cavalry gang for Deadman's Hand during last week and have now started up on my entry's for the Across the Dead Earth Facebook painting competition. My gang entry (the Engineers) is almost complete and I've made a start on my single figure (Penny, the nurse from the Sisters of Acquisition) as well as making headway on the rest of Penny's fellow gang members and my State gang from my original kickstarter package.

With her gang finished the only thing to do was to have a game to celebrate! This was the first game of Deadman's hand either of us had played. I picked it up last year as themed Christmas presents for the family after the wild west game at The Uncles last year. The Youngest got Indians, The Eldest Banditos, The Wife as you see above and I grabbed the Pinkertons. I also grabbed a 4Ground bundle to go with it although I've still got three buildings left to assemble, but I'll have them knocked over this week around work hopefully. I just went for a simple theme of "This town ain't big enough for the both of us", although I'm thinking we'll play through some of the scenes from the rulebook for a bit of campaign play.

The rules are nice and easy with a card based initiative and a hand that gives you some limited influence on the game combined with a single die (d20 or d10 depending on action) mechanic for shooting, hand to hand or morale actions. The hit mechanic is simple with a successful shot/strike applying under fire markers with a model able to take so many depending on his profile. An action can be spent to remove markers enabling you to make some risky actions and being able to spend a turn recovering from your bravery to continue on, which encourages some heroic (read desperate) maneuvers at times.

The game started with both of our gangs deployed in opposite corners of the table. The Wife opted to keep fairly grouped for the first couple of turns while I sent my gang running off in pairs in various directions with my repeater armed Detective (base gang member) hanging back behind a hedge to offer some covering fire.

A few turns in and we'd begun to exchange fire with my Special Agent (Boss) heading into a building to take cover from some carbine fire from The Wife's Troopers (base gang members). Another of my Detectives had rushed across the street taking a shot at a Trooper managing to get an under fire token on him then ducking into the Sheriff's office to take cover from any returned fire.


The Wife then started to have a bit of a surge, landing quite a few good hits on my detectives not enough to remove anyone yet, but enough to slow me down. But then she made her only major blunder of the game forgetting I had my Bounty Hunter (adv. gang member) sitting on the edge of the sheriff's office as she ran her Indian Hunter (adv. gang member) into point blank range for me where I quite happily took her offering and gunned him down. Across the other side of the board she did manage to lock me down with some well positioned Troopers, but was unable to land enough shots to put anyone out of action.

I decided then it was time to pull a risky move and sent my Special Agent across the street pistol blazing backed up by a Detective with a shotgun, of course they both missed wildly and ended up out of ammo (requiring an action on their next activation to reload). The Wife took a few shots managing to get a single hit on the Detective but was unable to do enough to make me regret my gamble. Several turns later saw my Detective taken out of the game but with help from the flank I'd managed to take out three Troopers and only had the one hiding in the back to deal with on this side. However this concerted action cost me my Bounty Hunter as The Wife's Officer (boss) gunned him down before he knew what hit him. Her remaining Trooper got a sight on the now solo Detective at the Sheriff's office and began to take shots.

The Wife managed to pass her Big Nerve test so the game continued but it was the beginning of the end for her. My Special Agent finished off the Trooper in the building. The Wife sent her Officer across the street toward my repeater toting Detective and not to be caught out I took a quick shot but both of our shots went wide. The final real activation of the game saw another Detective manage to get three under fire markers on the remaining Trooper. The Wife decided that yes this town definitely wasn't big enough for the both of us at this point and pulled out to lick her wounds and return another day to try to settle the score.

It was a good fun game and I'm hoping to get Toby round with the Outlaw gang we got him for Christmas to see how they play.

14th April Finished Panzer IV and 250/1 Halftrack

Been moving a few rooms around this week moving all the games and the last of the miniatures downstairs and shuffling the lounge room around, but I've still managed to fit in a fair amount of hobby time and even a game.

Painting wise I've managed to finish off my Panzer IV and 250/1 Halftrack for my Bolt Action Germans. Used mostly the airbrush on these ones and I'm really happy with the final products.

I've also almost finished off The Wife's 7th cavalry for Deadman's Hand, while I've been using the left over paint on my palate to make some progress on the trader's caravan for Anyaral. I'm going for a mis-match bright colour scheme so rather than trying to do it in one sitting I've been painting random sacks, etc as I go and it's starting to come along rather nicely. Hopefully I've have it finished in the next couple of week.

Once The Wife's force is done I'll be putting some Across the Dead Earth minis back on the painting table to paint up my entries for this months Facebook competition with the engineer's as my gang entry and Nurse Penny out of the Sisters of Acquisition as my single figure.

The Daughter's and I headed over to The Uncle's house yesterday and got a game of Crom in. For those not in the know it's a skirmish set of rules based in the Hyborian age (Conan). It's not a bad little system with character's having a dice pool that they assign each turn to movement, combat or special. I took a few pics and a few notes so I'll get to work on getting a battle report up in the next few days.

12th January - Fixed Nomads, Pinkerton's and Anyaral

I've been incredibly busy the last week and a bit with a whole slew of things hobby wise. Painting, kit building, board games and a couple of quick skirmish games against The Wife. And all this pinned around work, running The Wife around in her car (mine's out getting hail damage repaired) and having The Daughters home on holidays.




First off gave those dusty looking Nomads another spray with the varnish and they've come up beautifully, not a hint of the frostiness from before. Forgive the blurry photo but didn't bother taking a better one seeing as I'd already put a post up for these guys.



My first painting project for the year was getting my Devanu Outcasts painted from the Anaryal: World of Twilight kickstarter. A few reasons for this. Number one the models are brilliantly cast and I wanted to see how well they'd turn out painted. Two I'd promised The Wife I'd get them on the go as she was right behind me with this one both of us coming to the other about going all in for this one. And three there is currently a painting competition that he's running for the next three months offering Twilight Points to be used as webstore credit as a prize and I really want to get more, the thirteen or so baggies I've currently got not being enough after seeing some of the stuff that is being worked on at the moment. I won't go into too much detail as I'll be putting up another post for these on their own to link into the forums as my entry. But here's a picture of the first lot I've completed. I got right into these and had them done in about three days, essential I broke it down into one type of creature per day.

I've now got the Delgon Kalgarkii soldiers out on the back deck with the primer coat drying. These will be a little more subdued colour wise being a militaristic theocracy faction of grey skinned Fubarnii the smaller race that currently dominates the world, having rebelled and overthrown the older Devanu empire. The Delgon were never enslaved buy the Devanu but still have been subject to their raids at times



A couple of months or so back, The Daughter's and I had a game set in the old west and they loved it. So a quick word to my mother and there's a couple of Deadman's Hand gang boxes for them for Christmas, Renegade Indians for The Youngest and Banditos for the Eldest. Not to be left behind I picked up a 7th Cavalry box for The Wife, The Pinkertons for myself, the Outlaws for Toby and a bundle deal from War and Peace Games for the 4 ground Wild West themed building kits (The bundle I grabbed is gone by the looks {Everything!!} but there are still a couple of different ones there).  I've put together the back street buildings, the gallows and the sheriff's office just by knocking them over one at a time after work.

Pinkerton's visit the local sherrif

Once I'd finished up with the Anaryal figures I also got my gang painted up and finished. After the likes of the Anaryal and Corvus Belli Infinity metals I've been painting I have to be honest I did not find these as enjoyable to paint but I'm still happy with the way they'be finished up. I've also now got The Wife's 7th Calvary drying so we can try to get a game in within the next couple of weeks.

Some of the Boys watch the front

And the back

And someone has to cover from high ground