10th November - Across the Dead Earth Game vs The Uncle

Everything went to plan and we got that game in today. The rules played smoothly and we'll hopefully get another couple of games in before the year is over. I really enjoyed the way the event card mechanic read and as we managed to use most of the fun ones during the game it played out as I thought it would. The only thing we didn't really use in this game was the grenades and that was purely as we both forgot we were carrying them in the heat of the moment.

The contended area

We setup the board as a small ramshackle trading settlement. A rather large State convoy had been overwhelmed by a roving horde of Sollus and after the plague victims had moved on our two rival gangs moved in to scavenge the much needed medical supplies from the two medical trucks and hopefully some intel about upcoming State movements from the command car that had crashed through into the settlement.

The Family head in from the North

The Red Claw from the South

The two gangs headed in from opposite sides of the road The Family (The Uncle) and the Red Claws (Myself). The Uncle has yet to paint his AtDE minis so he subbed in some alternates from his collection

You can almost here her saying
"Look at the pretty birdies"

The Uncle won initiative and sent Ezra (Medic) straight up towards the supply filled trucks (We had ruled that looting the trucks/car would take an action for this game signifying rifling through the vehicle or grabbing everything off shelves). My first move sent Shrimp (Scout) round the corner heading towards the command vehicle and saw our first event card "Look Out!" a failed save roll sent Shrimp crashing to the group dazed by some fallen roofing. This caused me to send Topper (Assault) and Shay-man (Medic) over to give her a hand, Topper to cover her and Shay-man ready to try his medical skills on her next turn.

The remainder of the turn saw The Uncle move to control the centre of the table with Drexyl (Sharpshooter) moving to cover the roadway and Adam (Leader) and Reggie (Assault) heading up toward the central objectives and getting into cover. I sent Fatboy (Heavy) over to the wrecked ute and Pyro (Grunt) forwards to attempt to get them into range and try to give The Uncle something to think about before he attempted any wholesale looting of trucks. Ronnie (Leader) moved up and spent his last action ordering Fatboy to get his head down.

The Uncle won initiative for the second round and sent Skylar (Scout) heading for the command vehicle but as she got there it turns out the driver had cleaned out the vehicle and dragged himself into a nearby building (event card "Information Error"). Ezra then looted the centre van and headed for his edge liberating the much needed medical supplies for his family members. Shay-man revived Shrimp after a bit of work. The bulk of this turn saw Fatboy W&W and Ronnie and Pyro moving up slightly. This allowed Reggie to take a shot at Ronnie, he managed a hit but didn't even manage to slow the old warhorse down. This caused Pyro to launch a torrent of abuse at the Family gang member (event card "Taunt") which caused the young man to lose his cool as he settled in to W&W himself.

Another turn and another initiative win for The Uncle. He chose to move Drexyl out to back up Skylar and take a shot at Pyro but his shot went wild. Shrimp moved in and engaged Skylar but didn't have the impetus to get a decent swing in. Skylar then began the melee but failed to penetrate Shrimp's defenses, sensing an opening Shrimp swung back mightily with her axe and knocked Skylar to the ground. 

 As we'd agreed that the trucks had to be looted from the back The Uncle moved Adam to the back of the un-looted van. After a quick thought Fatboy opted to use his W&W to take a shot at the opposing gang leader leaving Pyro to deal with Reggie's impending uncontrollable charge and scores a hit putting him out for a while. Ronnie then took the opportunity to W&W, just before Reggie responded to the previous turns taunt. The young man then charged Pyro and was clipped by Ronnie's SMG but his momentum kept him upright and he engaged with the flamethrower toting gang member. Sensing a chance at overwhelming odds Fatboy then charged to the rear and put Reggie down with some well timed knife work. Pyro then ran over to get Drexyl into range of his flamer and bathed the sharpshooter with deadly fire (rolled an eleven!!), but Drexyl must have been tipped off and was wearing some flame retardant clothing (the double ones that were the only roll that would save him).

Finally initiative comes my way. Pyro decides that he missed due to range and moves closer but Drexyl out draws him (event card "Quick Draw") and put him down. He then decides it's time to regroup with the others and heads back toward the convoy. Topper then loots the drivers corpse and heads back toward the Red Claw meeting point. Fatboy leans down grinning and tilts Reggie's head back ready to finish the boy off but finds a pale grinning visage looking straight at him with a pin between his teeth, Boom!! (event card "Sacrifice") Both men are taken out of action. Ronnie skirts around the edge of the trucks and takes a shot at Drexyl putting him down. He looks over and spots Pyro lying in his own blood and calls out for Shay-man to come running (event card "Medic!!") Shay-man quickly stabilizes him and then ducks into the nearby cover of the ramshackle building. Shrimp attempts to take Skylar out but is unable to finish the down gang member off.

That pretty much ended the game, the last few turns saw Pyro practically set himself alight trying to take Drexyl out, but then my gang members finally worked out which end of the knife to use to take people out of action. It was on the sixth turn that Ronnie put Ezra down the loyal medic unwilling to leave his fallen leader behind.

We'll probably have another couple of games with the sample gangs from the rulebook before we roll up our own starting gangs and we're going to look at organising some multiple story buildings and a bit more scatter terrain. I've started painting up my Family gang minis so I can get a game in with The Daughters or The Wife sometime soon, though my new three points of Vikings for Saga will hit the painting table after that I'd say.

9th November - Painted Across the Dead Earth "Red Claw" Gang

I had my first package (and second a few days later) of Across the Dead Earth turn up the other day. Thanks to the Kickstarter I'll be getting bits and pieces for the next two years, which I'm really looking forward too. The first package consisted of the rules, counters and cards and three gangs. The gangs being "Adams Family" a roving group of survivors with more of a family feel, the "Red Claw" a savage gang, think slightly crazed take what we want style and "The State" which is the faction that has taken control of one of the larger areas of post apoc English cities and surrounding areas. From a game point of view there is no difference between the style of gang it just comes down to outfitting and class options. The second package was a lovely resin building kit, a really nice thematic bar which I'm looking forward to getting on the painting table and having a real play with some different techniques.

My Uncle had also jumped on this one at the level lower than mine, so just the one package for him. We've been speaking lately about trying to get some sort of ongoing game happening and this one ticks the boxes, small size, character progression, the ability to set up a campaign with consequences hanging on the scuffles that take place and it'll let us add players in here and there depending on schedules without having too many disadvantages piling up.

While I think I'm leaning toward the miniatures that came for The State faction I opted to paint up the savages having just finished the Bolt Action weapons teams and felt like painting something not quite so uniformed. I got to play with two new techniques on these guys. My Flockbox and some static grass rather than the pre-made tufts I usually use, which was very cool once I got the hang of it, and I borrowed some weathering powders from Toby which gave me a chance to take all the shiny, clean looking clothes my savages were wearing and muddy them up a bit. As I'm going to be heading to My Uncles tomorrow for our first game using the system, I did these guys in record time getting them done in three roughly two hour painting sessions and then around 30 minutes to do the basing. A.A.R. to come in the next few days hopefully.

Ronnie, the Leader of the Red Claws

Shay-man and McHeed (Medic class)

Fatboy, (Heavy class)

Topper, (Assault class)

Pyro, Topper's brother (Grunt [No class]){But he has a freekin Flamethrower, come on who needs a class when you've got a Flamethrower :) }

Shrimp, (Scout class)

The full Red Claw gang

I'm not sure if I'll be playing the Red Claws or if I'll be creating my own Savage gang for the game tomorrow but either way looking forward to getting these guys on a table.

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.

2nd November - Finished Bolt Action German Weapons Teams

Put the finishing touches on these this morning. I'm pretty happy with them, only messed up one set of eyes really badly which is good going for me. If I had of been thinking I would have knocked over the little half-track I'd received for my birthday last month but it was on a separate shelf to the blisters so I managed to over look it. I'm thinking it'll be back to the Infinity Nomads next to finish off the Icestorm box or possibly atleast on of the Across the Dead Earth gangs that arrived a couple of days ago. I've got three days off next week, in a row no less, so I'm hoping to get a game or two in and hopefully a report or two.

    

German Panzerschreck Team

German Flamethrower Team 

German Medium Machine Gun Team

German Pak 75mm Anti Tank Gun

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.