Monday 31 December 2012

Happy New Year Everyone!



Well, Hogmany has arrived, so it's only appropriate that I wish you all a Happy New Year and wish you all the best for 2013.

Sadly, we've had a pretty shitty end to the year, so we've ended up cancelling our plans and opted for a big night in: a big dinner with a few drinks.  Neither the Mrs or I feel like socialising at the moment, so with the mandatory visits from and to relatives tomorrow, this sounds like the best option.

Still, always looking forward instead of back, I've lots of ideas for gaming in the next year and have set some goals and targets that will appear here tomorrow.

Again, have a Happy New Year and I wish my readers all the best for the coming year!

Scott

Friday 28 December 2012

You have got to be FRAKING Kidding me!

So my first proper day off today in about two weeks i.e. no work, shopping, in-laws or hangovers, just a day to do what I want.  Thought I could spend a bit of time with the Mrs, do a few chores and then spend the majority of the day in the Man Corner, getting in my first entry for the painting challenge.

Nope.  In fact, I didn't even get to breakfast before it hit the fan.

Turns out our boiler went on the fritz.  No big deal right?  Things happen, it's winter, won't be a huge deal to fix.  Not according to the engineer who came round, spent an hour poking around in there with some fancy bits of kit, then gave us two choices; expensive 1 or expensive 2.

Well, that's just fantastic.  We even got the bloody thing serviced about six weeks ago and it got a clear bill of health from the friendly (but obviously incompetent) engineer.  That's put a dampener on the day anyway. We've gone with expensive 2, which, at this time of year means no heating or hot water for at least a week.  At least the Mrs got a scarf for Christmas.

Actually, I can feel a long rant and moan coming on, so I'd better call this post done.  Hope everyone's day went better than ours.  S.

Thursday 27 December 2012

2012 - A Hobby Retrospective

This time last year, I put up some plans for what I'd do in 2012.  As the year's almost done, time to have a quick look at how I got on.

Great Italian Wars

Ah, yes, my big project for 2012.  Well this started off well, as I painted up all the figures I'd bought and started on a couple pieces of terrain.  Sadly, this project didn't survive the decision of Venexia Miniatures to shut up shop, depriving me of the main range of figures I'd planned to use.  Now I could have gone onto another range of figures, but as I'd taken the time and effort to select the ranges and check their compatibility etc, I simply didn't feel like making the compromise on this.  Officially on hold, as Venexia's range have been sold onto an American company, but they've yet to see the light of day.

In the future, I think I'll follow my usual practice and load up on figures early on, precisely to avoid this happening again (although, I've mentioned a few time on here that our hobby has proven to be remarkably resilient considering how far up shit creek we collectively are.)

Improve my painting & Infinity, Hordes and Warmachine

Hmmm, bit of a fail here.  I painted about fifteen different miniatures, but haven't really managed to finish up any of the starter lists I'd written.  Fairly sure it's an ego thing holding me back here, the figures I paint aren't as good as I imagine they will be.  Things are definitely improving, but it's slow going.  Recently I've been enjoying the Iron Kingdoms RPG and I've seen some upcoming figures for Infinity.  I think this looks like a decent quarter two project next year.

Dystopian Wars

My aim was to finish up all the fleets I had without going crazy and buying more.  Mission accomplished as I finished up my Empire of the Blazing Sun fleet (and took it to a tournament) as well as a Covenant of Antartica and Prussian Empire fleet (both sent off to eBay.)  I've not had DW on the table in a while, but it's nice to have a fleet ready to go if needed.

Flames of War

Another success in that I've painted up the target 600 points of Fallshirmjager.  Again, I've not yet had a game with these yet, but I have all the figures I'll ever need so I'll keep plugging away at them.

So I missed a few of my, admittedly vague, goals this year, but in other ways, it's been an excellent years gaming.  In 2011 I played many more games in any year since my school days, while 2012 has been even more prolific.  I've branched out and gotten over a dozen RPG sessions in and picked up a few games that, in the past, I wouldn't have thought were really "me."  Definitely going to put up another set of resolutions/targets for next year, but this time, I think I'll schedule updates throughout the year to track my progress.  I also want to put up one of those painting checklists on the blog.

Wednesday 26 December 2012

Only War 40K Rpg



Well I trust everyone's recovered from whatever trials you put your bodies through yesterday. Everyone one got what they wanted from under the tree?  The Mrs and I decided to go halves on one of these tablet computers (sharing hasn't caused any arguments, yet) so I thought I'd put it through it's paces on the 'ol blog.


 
My copy of Only War turned up on Christmas Eve and I've had a couple hours to flick through. The latest in the line of 40K role playing games, Only War sees you inducted into the ranks of the Imperial Guard, fighting in one of the Imperium's countless wars.


Are these guys from the Gaunts Ghosts series?

Setting aside initial concerns about how much fun playing a nameless grunt would be, FFG seem to have made a number of interesting additions to the 40K RPG system, most notably the squad mechanic and a dedicated set of vehicle rules (about time!)



The book itself is mostly up to the standards expected from FFG, the only criticism I have is that there is less artwork than in previous books and a lot of what is there is recycled from GW's back catalogue.


Proper vehicle rules.  Finally.

Only War is by far the best 40K RPG to be played with miniatures, but I still need to be convinced just how much role playing there is on offer here.  Still the book was a nice distraction over the last couple days and is a goldmine of background material for Imperial Guard fans.


Monday 24 December 2012

Merry Christmas Everyone



Whether you're full of festive cheer or, like Nibbler above, rather non-plussed by the whole thing, I hope everyone has a great day!

We've been summoned to the In-laws again this year, so I'll have to be at least a little sociable!  They usually keep me fairly well fed and my glass is never usually empty, so I'll just have to struggle through!

Off to watch a classic Christmas film. . . Die Hard.

Sunday 23 December 2012

Hello insomnia, my old friend.




Ah, it's been a few months since we've last met, but there you were at three this morning, barging in like some drunken idiot determined to get me up!

Seriously though, I only get very mild insomnia from time to time  and long ago learned not to struggle, but instead to get up and do something (semi) productive.  So here I am Blogging away at ten to five in the morning, having spent the last hour doing some painting for the Analogue Painting Challenge.



Participation in the challenge so far has been minimal (just a few comments posted,) but this is my work's busiest time of the year and it was always vastly optimistic to think I'd get anything finished in week one.  Still, paint has been applied, hopefully with more to come.

P.S.  Might not have actually been full on insomnia, as I dozed off whilst writing this.  So now I'm shattered again and have to head off to work in 30 mins.

Sunday 16 December 2012

Quarriors



Nothing planned at the club this week, but I still popped along for a blether and whatnot.  On the off chance, I stuck Quarriors in the bag, just in case anyone else felt like a game.  I usually take a game along every time I go after one notorious evening this year, when there were only two games on, but twenty four people had turned up!

Adam fancied a game, so we found a table and set up.  Quarriors is a dice-pool-building game.  The aim is to summon creatures (represented on some dice) who then attack the other player's creatures, before scoring points for their owner.  It's one of those deceptively simple/complex games;  I explained the game mechanics and turn order in about five minutes, we had a couple trial turns and then we were off playing.


Players start off with a fixed bag full of dice and take turns to draw six out randomly and roll them.  Players can then use symbols on these dice to buy more powerful dice from a central pool; creatures or spells for instance.  Most creatures have different abilities along with their own stats for attacking and defending and there are plenty of creatures to choose from.

What makes Quarriors such an enjoyable game is that the dice probability/luck balance is almost perfect.  What do I mean by that?  Well, I might have rolled well enough to buy two really powerful creatures, but the creature itself is only on three sides of it's particular dice. So you have to create a dice pool that gives you the best probability of rolling enough creatures and the cost required to use them.


The game certainly passed the "just one more game" test as we managed to squeeze in three games, despite only planning the one!

I wasn't really in the mood to write up a full review, particularly as there are the couple excellent links available, but just wanted to recommend Quarriors to you all!

Thursday 13 December 2012

I'm Back Baby - Online, that is




Finally, after long delay, we're back online with a full, wired, proper internet connection.  Now, technically, I haven't exactly been offline since I picked up one of these mobile internet usb sticks.  But the limitations on it really hold back what you can do.  For starters, no Skype, iPlayer or gaming.  I also have to manually load pictures on every web page (something of a pain if you read a lot of blogs.)  Oddly, some plug ins like Disqus or Skylight don't work. Worse, it only works on the laptop, so no Xbox or tv internet access!

Since the idiots at my isp closed our account (idiots, they refunded us six months payment in compensation,) it kind of feels like I've lost, if not an arm, at least a finger!  It's had an impact on the amount of Blogging I've done; sometimes I can't face the hasstle uploading images.  So now I've a few evenings planned on Halo, as well as catching up on a few films.  Just in time for the holidays.

I'm well aware that this is a "first world problem" and that there are far more important things going on in the world, but my little world just got a bit better.  It also gives me an excuse to put this up:


Wednesday 12 December 2012

Death Angel: Deathwing Quick Game Report


Brought out Death Angel the other night for a few solo games, wanting to try out the Deathwing expansion I'd picked up cheap (see here and here.)  I thought I'd put up a summary of one of the games and try and show off some of the hooks that keep me coming back!


I chose to play the game almost straight from the book, leaving out most of the changes I've made to the game.  This meant choosing three pairs of Terminators at random, then drawing their formation at random.  If I want a more tactical game, I choose both the squad and their formation myself, which I think is a sensible enough change.  The object of the game is to move through the four, randomly chosen locations and complete the objective on the final card.



So we entered the Space Hulk with a force of Techmarine Hephaestus (Red Team,) Sergeants Arbalan (Team Yellow) and Zaltys (Team Blue,) each accompanied by another Terminator for six in total.  Each pair have different special abilities they can use, but they only apply to the three guys named above - losing them hurts a lot more than losing their "goon" as we shall see.



The squad emerged from the Void (air) Lock to be immediately attacked by four Genestealers (GS.)  I'm not going into the mechanics too much here, but quickly, the Marines have a choice of three actions in a turn, move+activate, support or attack and they can't do the same action two turns running.  Combat is very simple and brutal, with only one dice roll determining life or death and the key thing to remember is that getting attacked from behind is waaaay worse than from the front.


Turn 1, so far so good.

Team Blue Supported the squad by placing a support token on him.  This lets him re-roll attack or defence rolls, but his special ability lets any marine use that token instead of just him.  The other two teams attacked, each taking down one GS.  Zaltys support ability was immediately needed to keep Hephaestus alive.  At the end of each phase, an event card is drawn that adds a random event, spawns more GS and moves the GS already in play.  This turn, we had a gun jam meaning Team Zaltys wouldn't be able to attack next turn.  Damn.

This turn saw two Support tokens enter play and Techmarine Hephaestus Activate the door.  Doing this lets you kill a number of GS when you move to the next location card - imagine the squad sealing a door behind them, cutting them of from the pursuing GS.  Lots of GS attacks this turn, as we couldn't thin their numbers this turn, one of which took out Sergeant Zaltys (and his handy ability.)  Brother Gabreal, Arbalan's goon, was then surrounded by all the GS in play.


Down one Terminator already!

So some sneaky manoeuvring needed this turn.  Gabrial moves and uses his ability to take one of the swarms opposite with him, leaving him facing four and Raphean against two.  Red team then attacked but both missed.  Team Yellow put another support token on the door. At this point there was only one GS card in one of the spawn piles.  If it came into play at the end of the turn, we would instantly move to the next location.


That was a bit harsh! Two down.

The GS attack, Gabriel surprisingly survived (needing a 5 on a 0-5 sided dice) but Raphean was killed.  The "Out of Thin Air" card put two GS behind Arbalan and, with no more GS cards left, we moved to the Black Holds.  Immediately another two GS appear behind Brother Jerico, but we manage to seal two of them behind us.


Two more Genestealers attack!

With all the GS spawned already, the squad should be able to move to the third location in two turns at the latest.  Red team then supported Jerico, who was up against four GS, and triggered Hephaestus Gun Servitor attack.  Unfortunately, it missed.  Jerico kills one GS while Gabriel missed.  Jerico dies and Gabriel moves into his position, only to be killed in turn by a second swarm of GS behind him!


Hmmm, not many Genestealers here. I'm a bit suspicious.

A secret route appears, letting the marines evade some of the GS attacking them.  The remaining squad members, Hephaestus and Arbalan, enter the Hibernation Clusters.  Not many GS to get through to the final location, can we hang on?  Following the rulebook word for word, the two marines would be overwhelmed by GS in a turn.  I use a little house rule to keep four "slots" in the formation; meaning that although there will be GS everywhere, the marines are never in a position, however unlikely, where they can't survive.  This turn Arbalan puts a support token on himself, triggering his ability to try and stop and GS spawning on him (he fails.)  Hephaestus manages to destroy the spore chimney, reducing the places where GS can appear this turn.  With his Quick Instincts, Arbalan attacks a swarm, but doesn't do any damage.  Only two GS appear, but that's enough to take us to the final location.


The Genestealer Lair.  Bugger.



No more GS will appear this game, but two Broodlords do. They draw all the GS in play to their location, fortunately the big swarm wasn't facing either marine.  Both attack, but only kill one GS.  Arbalan is then killed, leaving Hepheastus alone against thirteen Genestealers. I'm sure he went down swinging!


Some points:

We were put up against the hardest possible final card.  The other two can both be one on dice rolls.  The card we had here actually penalises you for rushing through the game. Maybe if we'd thinned the numbers against us a bit, we might have had a fighting chance.


The other two options for the final mission, both easier than the Broodlord card.

Even with all the GS against the squad at the end, there was still a chance to win.  The way the GS move around relative to squad means that the Broodlord may have been isolated and vulnerable.  That didn't happen, but there was a chance it could!

The Deathwing expansion is well worth taking.  It certainly appears that their abilities are much more effective than the Blood Angels from the base game.  In fact, I think I drew two of the weakest teams from the Deathwing; the Assualt Cannon and Librarian teams are both capable of taking out whole swarms at a time.  Next time I think I'll play with all six teams in a single game.

Well, I hope that made sense to those of you who've read this far.  You should get this idea that the game is very fast paced, very brutal and very difficult.  There's probably slightly too much random in there for some gamers, particularly when attacking, but I don't think that the game is ever decided randomly.  One of my 
favourite games, hope you enjoyed reading about it.

Sunday 9 December 2012

Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge 2013




Over at Analogue Hobbies, Curt is once again running his annual painting challenge.  And in an act of extreme masochism, he's expanded it out to 47 entrants - to tie in with his Revenge of the 47 Ronin theme.  Given the amount of posts he put up last year, Curt certainly has his work out this time around.  I've managed to nab a place in the 47 to spur me on painting through the dark months.

The challenge runs from the 20th December to the 20th March and, although preparing and undercoating figures is fine, you can't put brush to paint until the start date.  So in the interest of full disclosure, here's what I currently have on the painting table:

6 28mm Romano-British Shieldwall - these are almost finished, just details and a decision on the shields left.
6 28mm Welsh Skirmishers - base coats done.
6 28mm Waffen SS - again, just needing the equipment and basing finished.
1st platoon for Easy Company - about 30 15mm figures.
24 10mm ACW Union infantry - just need some minor details and basing. These are from an abortive ACW army, I very quickly abandoned 10mm to switch to 15mm along with others from the club.

As none of these are eligible for the challenge, I'll try and finish off some of these (although I've no real drive to finish the ACW or SS stuff at the moment.)

So what will I be focusing on in the challenge?  Well it's historicals only, so over the next three months you should see:

28mm Dark Age Welsh/British
15mm Easy Company for Flames of War
15mm American Civil War Union
10mm Punic Wars - maybe, MAYBE

Oh, and a 28mm Samurai figure (the tribute all must pay to Curt for running the challenge!)

I've no intentions of winning or even being competitive, I just want to be involved in what is a highly entertaining community event.  Last year's challenge seemed to be everywhere on the blog scene and there were many wild and varied entries on show.  So thanks again to Curt for running the event again this year (47 entries?  He must be nuts!)

Wednesday 5 December 2012

Ground Zero Games Offer


After waking up to find everything outside covered in the white stuff and an entertaining, but very minor, car crash on our road, I made the executive decision to hunker down today and do absolutely sod all.  Not that I needed much of an excuse, it's back to work tomorrow after a weeks holiday with an early, early start.

While our Chancellor busy giving us an update on how screwed we are and the shadow chancellor badgering him to borrow far more(!?!) I was summoned to the door by our postman, who handed me a wee parcel - and who doesn't love getting parcels in the post?

After some prompting from a couple friends, I went and placed an order from Ground Zero Games for some sci-fi figures (I'll talk later about what and why.)  What clinched the deal was the promotion GZG have on. I'll quote the release from their website:
CHRISTMAS SPECIALS NOW RUNNING!

Our 2012 Xmas Special starts from 00.01 (UK time) hours on SUNDAY 25th NOVEMBER and runs until MIDNIGHT (UK time) on Thursday 20th December. All qualifying orders (which are all those for over £30 of product, EXCLUDING VAT AND SHIPPING*) will get TWO specials included:

1) All orders for £30 or more of goods at list prices EXCLUDING VAT* get a FREE GOODIE BAG of extra minis and stuff - how much you get depends on the size of your order, and we'll tailor most of the contents to fit the kind of items you are ordering (plus the occasional novelty item or a sample that might tempt you into other ranges and scales...). What goes in the bag is OUR choice, so no cheekily asking for particular things please, but those of you who have had our previous Xmas deals will know that we give you a generous selection of items that you can actually use for your armies/fleets!
Sometimes we put in the odd special or unreleased item too, so you never know what you might get....

2) In addition to the Free Stuff with your order, all qualifying customers will also get a VOUCHER that you can use to get a generous DISCOUNT off a further order placed after Christmas - so you can get your pre-Xmas stuff now, and then use the voucher up when you have some gift money from all those relatives who have absolutely NO idea what to buy for you!
So the discount is nice, particularly as it runs to February, but the goody bag I recieved was really outstanding value.  I received two extra (big) packs which came to 25% of the value of my order AND they were from the same and similar ranges, so they'll both be of use. Excellent stuff.  Anyway, back to the couch!

Sunday 2 December 2012

Climbing Clachnaben On A Winters Day




Next to no painting or modelling this weekend as it was the Mrs birthday on Saturday.  She fancied going for a walk somewhere so we went up and around Clachnaben, taking the in-laws for company.  There's been snow lying on Deeside for a week or so, and it made for some very picturesque views.  Gave me some great inspiration for my Easy Company "Bastone" army, although the troops in the Ardennes certainly didn't have to put up with our north-east wind!  It was bitter.  Officially we were at 2º but the wind meant it felt much colder!


If you've ever wondered what a hunk of granite looks like, well here you are.

True story, a few years ago, Aberdeen were playing Lokomotiv Moscow in the Uefa cup and at the time I was managing a mobile phone store.  On the day of the match a group of Muscovites were in the shop and we all got talking.  They particularly wanted to know where they could get hats and scarves.  I said that as they were from Moscow, surely they could cope with a chilly day in Aberdeen?  They replied that they were used to a normal, dry cold at home, even though it was -20º, all you had to do was wrap up.  Here however, the cold just ripped through you, the wind and the drizzle came from every direction and seeped into your bones!  It wasn't even that cold for our winter at the time!  Great guys though, gave us some Roubles as a souvenir!


Doesn't really look as cold as it was.

Walking with the in-laws is a hell of an experience.  They took up "serious" walking a couple years ago and they're the kind of couple who throw themselves into something wholeheartedly.  Consequently they have every kind of gadget and piece of paraphernalia available; sun glasses, snow glasses, thick gloves, thin gloves, portable seats, snoods?, poles, some kind of Asian wool base layers, removable spikes, countless clips, straps and bags.  Everything.  Watching them unload themselves for lunch and load up again was a bit of a spectacle!


Yours truly, hiding from the in-laws...err, I mean the wind!

After that, I took the Mrs out for dinner and a few drinks.  That should keep me in the good books long enough for her to ignore the box of figures due to arrive this week.