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.

21st December - Saga Game, Hobby and Christmas Tournament Preperations

It's been a bit of a busy week with the Christmas build up at work but I've persevered with hobby along side it all.

I was up at The Brother's house on Saturday for The Sister-in-Law's birthday so we decided to get a bit of a game starting before lunch and then finishing it off after we'd returned. The game had The Brother, The Eldest Nephew, The Eldest and I face off in the A Feast for the Crows scenario.

The game began with the normal first turn moving spree. The Nephew used his second turn to send his rather heavily armoured Beserkers across the table at me and even though most of his men were swiftly recruited to Valhalla only six of my brave Warriors fell. On the far edge of the table the Pagan Rus and Norse Gael quickly closed on each other.

The Norse Gael warriors closed on the Pagan Rus but fate was not with the brave souls on this day and while they did bring down one stalwart Rus Hearthguard only one Dane axe wielding man survived to pull back from the fray. On the other Norse Gael flank my warriors slammed into The Eldest's other warrior unit crying out to Freya and Ullr. While two of my men fell they pushed back the Norse Gael leaving four of them lying dead at the site of the skirmish. The Nephew then closed the turn with a cheeky Loki taking my surviving two warriors from his previous attack.


The Brother took the opportunity offered to him and charged The Eldest's exposed warchief taking him out and unfortunately for my daughter her cursed dice continued as she failed to kill any of the attackers. The Norse Gael warriors hurled their javelins at my warriors felling two more of the brave men. This was followed up by a brutal attack killing two more of my men with her losing one of her hearthguard. I retaliated with a charge from my own hearthguard cutting her remaining hearthguard down.

I decided to take the offered bait from The Nephew charging my Beserkers into his Hearthguard the brutal combat ending with all men lying dead on the ground. I then decided enough was enough and put The Eldest out of her misery for today's game finishing off her remaining warriors and vanquishing her from the field. The Nephew then decided to send his warchief over in an attempt to draw me out for a duel, but with the constant use of his fatigue the poor man fell short. With the generous amount of fatigue on the board thanks to the combats The Brother finally pulled Endless Waste out of his arsenal and began to reap the victory points.

The last couple of turns had the Great Winter roll in limiting all movement. I looked at closing on The Brother's forces but they were sadly out of reach. The Nephew Loki'd my second tattered warrior unit and I finally gave in and closed on his warchief although I brought a handy group of hearthguard along with me and at the cost of one of my loyal followers took out the rival warchief.

The final score saw The Brother take victory with sixteen victory points although I wasn't far off the pace with twelve. The Nephew got a respectable ten and unfortunately The Eldest only managed four and a half, but I have to point out that her dice were heavily cursed on the day.





Painting wise I took a break from my Abyssal Dwarves and knocked over a Jotum for my Pan O Infinity faction. I'm not sure if it will ever actually be played with now though as The Wife has decided she likes the look of the Tohaa which we've now bought the bulk of a first attempt at a 300 point force.

I've also got the table's set up for the Christmas tournament. It's looking like there'll be ten of us playing so I've got five 3x3 play areas set up. I'm thinking we'll be running two boards as Crossing the Fords, two as just a standard fight and possibly one as Sacred Ground.

Finally I've almost finished a small stone circle for the Sacred Ground board, I just want to add a few vines or some poison ivy to the stones themselves and I've gone back to my Abyssal Dwarves starting work on my gargoyles.

18th December - Finished Tables

One last days work then some driving and the tables are done (just have to get time to paint/stain the legs and shelving but that can happen when/if.. it does). Had The Youngest helping this time round and she did a great job.

We got two tables over in the end on Monday as The Wife's car was in getting hail damage repaired so I had to duck out after loading the trailer with the other two tables and Toby got held up doing some running around for his parents (who had graciously allowed us to work out of their garage, use the tools and store the tables there for the last three weeks, a big thank you to them for that), but two was enough for us to get out all my newly arrived second wave Cthulhu Wars for games night and fit it all nicely with room for all.

Toby came round the next morning and dropped off the last couple of tables, but I was up at The Brother's house getting in a game of Saga (battle report coming in the next few days once I get some time) so while he got one in the table with the battle board shelves was too much for him so I finally got it in the house yesterday. Now I have to rearrange a few things downstairs to make it all fit a bit nicer but I'm happy to have them all here all ready for Christmas.

Two, that's right two different types of shelving!!