Triple T - gaming it since 1981

Painting plans for the year.

Let's just pretend for a second that I'm actually going to paint all the stuff I'm about to mention, and not quit some in a fit of pique after losing a test game with silver surfers. Or find that another of the greatest games in the world have been published and I ABSOLUTELY MUST HAVE MOAR TOYS OMFG URK LOOK AT THAT SCULPT. Or just get sick of painting 128 28mm Macedonian pikemen and slash my wrists with one of those frigging annoying green sprues the manufacturers insist on sending out with their plastic boxes. Seriously. Why am I paying for that crap...

I've made an effort over the last year or so to rationalise the collection down to stuff I'm actually playing, and especially to historicals. Just the other week we playtested a game of By Fire and Sword and my opponent dragged out some 15 year old 15mm Mongols to table. Now, forgive me for saying it, but you won't see anyone taking out their decade-old Warhamster models except to remind themselves how much they splurged. Maybe a wee tear remembering the good old days.

Of course, because it's 15mm and no one's much interested in Eastern Europe <cough>racists<cough> I'll not be playing much of it, but I will at some point finish painting a skirmish force. By Fire and Sword is a pretty promising ruleset, so sooner or later people at the club will be bound to take it up. After all, it was four years after I suggested Impetus that McZ finally stopped laughing and pretended to introduce me to the game, and maybe three after Pelarel declared Bolt Action only worthy of taking out back and beating to death with a leek that he turned 180 and is now all in.

So Impetus. This is probably my go-to game at the moment. It's easy to get into, but with hidden depth, is somewhat easy to build an army for, and the guys seem to be able to concentrate on it. That said, I think the Polish Army I'm building will probably be the last. After all, this way I have a completed army from every period - Minoan, Successor, Roman, Viking, Medieval. So far I have the German Pikes mostly painted, and next is the Pancerni cavalry. Eventually... WINGED HUSSARS URK. This has to be finished in time for V3 in May. We shall see.

Mostly though I'm working on AWI Continentals for the demo game at Easter. Only two battalions to go! From there it will doubtless be a lot of Black Powder played.

After the AWI are two projects. I'm working on a brigade of 15mm Kingdom of Italy infantry, and some heavy cavalry to accompany them. I'm thinking they're actually not looking too shabby. Going all in and getting the AB minis seems to help compensate for my cartoonish painting style.

Next is a Swedish army for Pike and Shotte. I've picked up a lot of spare 30 Years War minis from the Regiment, and am planning on getting a few games in this year. It's a period I'm keen on, and there are a huge range of plastics to get me started.

And because I myself am not immune to a wee bit of the magpie-ism, there are now a few - stress on few - 1/285 scale Leopards and YPR-765's sitting in the to-do pile. Besides Team Yankee sounding like something you'd expect drunk uni students to indulge in, it looks to be a lot of fun. Am looking forward to seeing if there is any way in hell to stop the Soviet hordes with autocannons and TOWs!

Finally, a couple of years back Nick and I bought a great pile of Macedonians from Foundry. His Greek army was there, unfinished, and for the taking so I've swept them up and bundled them in with the excess from my Impetus Macedonian army. It's a brave decision, but I'm turning them into a DBMM Selecuid army. Nick would hate it. Really, seriously hate it. But hang in there bro, I'll finish them for you.

Pooch's Intro, and a Magpie list

#shamelesslyfollowingonfromMcBethandMczermof

Hi all, my name is Pooch, and I am a game-o-holic....

The rest of the Regimenters asked me to do a bit of an intro, although that seems to have just been so that they can blame me for their other posts! But anyway, I have been gaming for ages, like most of the Regimenters I played a LOT of Flames of War, before I really stretched out into any number of other historical periods. I have been co-authoring a modern ruleset Skirmish Sangin, and you can find the zombie blog here to support the zombie game Skirmish Outbreak which I also coauthored.

And since it is apparently my fault that we are talking about our plans for the year (aka Magpie List), it only seems right that I submit one of these too! Like the rest of the Regiment, I have a number of games which I want to play, paint or look at starting. Unlike some of the other magpies, I am not very good at buying into games other people play, which means I have a lot of random things painted/half painted/not started. While that works out sometimes (see 6mm Team Yankee), it more often than not means that I just end up with yet another box of stuff that never gets used.

So my goal for this year? Paint and finish things so that I can play the games people are playing.

Simple, right? Stealing the list of games from McB and McZ:

Warmachine / Hordes
This isn't a game for me, and I am going to keep hiding from it. So nothing here!

Frostgrave
I played my first game of Frostgrave yesterday, and it was.... random. Turns out if you give my dice the opportunity to kill me, they will definitely take that opportunity! But still, painting wizgangs is fun, and it does mean I get to pull out some of my old random GW figures. I have so far completed a Lizardmen band (more on them forthcoming).

Next up I think I want to paint up my Skaven wizgang, which means getting a Grey Seer to lead them

Flames of War
I haven't played this game in quite a while, but there is a competition called Panzershrek that me and a buddy have been meaning to get along to for a really long time!

Trick is, I sold all of my FOW. All of it.

So, that means I need to get a 1000 point FOW army, whatever that might be!

Team Yankee
TY is a good find I think. I like using 6mm tanks, and have found it interesting enough to play so far. I haven't got the tactics for NATO clear in my head, but have enjoyed the games I have played of it. Extra bonus is I have an absolute ton of material for it, and a good chunk is painted well too!

So plan with TY is to paint the remaining US, strip the British and repaint the whole lot and buy and paint the required elements so that I can have a full Russian force too!

Infinity
Another game which I own, but haven't managed to do anything with. I bought Prinny's spare Aleph force, and then promptly put it in a box and never did anything with it. In January I pulled out a single bot and tested a colour scheme on it, and so now it is just a case of working through all of the models.

So I need to paint all of the Aleph I own, and then maybe buy and paint any other Aleph I decide I would like BUT only after finishing the army and playing at least one game!

Impetus
Ok. So I need to be honest here. I am RUBBISH at completing Impetus armies. In fact, the list of armies which I have started and part finished goes:

• Imperial Romans (twice)
• Greeks
• Persians
• Hun
• Celts
• Thirty Years War Spanish
• Italian Wars Papal States
• Spartans (yes, two attempts at Greeks!)
• And I am sure I have forgotten some... 

In every case, I painted up a base or two and then get bored or distracted, then promptly forget how to paint them, and so get frustrated. But not this time. I am going to complete a Norman army, using the Conquest Games plastic figures, and I am going to get them done for V3.

AWI
Yep. I am in this one too. I currently have the British Light Infantry in a bag, for me to paint. Hoping to pull them out once the current painting queue is clear

Bolt Action

This is definitely one I am keen on getting into properly. I have just finished my first army, and have no less than 3 others in various stages of completion, so there is plenty of work to do here!

Miscellaneous
Beyond the games above, there is a giant list of other things I have which I want to have a go at, or complete. Things like In Her Majesty's Name and Napoleonics, and that is before you even start to consider my Moderns and Zombie gaming! My other goal for the year in this space is to take this mountain of unpainted kits and other stuff: 



Before you yell "That's not much"- I promise that it isn't the whole lot :)

And turn it into fully painted things which I can either display, or use in gaming.

 

Keeping on track?

Well, to keep myself on track (because of my inability to stay on task), I am going to put up a post each month of how I am tracking against all of the above.

 

Wish me luck, if nothing else, it will be entertaining watching me fail...

 

Pooch

 

McZ's Magpie Resolutions

#shamelesslyfollowingonfromMcBeth

I had a pretty good year keeping the magpie at bay in 2015, amazingly. I started one new game (Frostgrave) and bought a sum total of zero models for it. I picked up maybe half a dozen releases for my Warmachine Protectorate army and mostly spent the whole year staring at my assembled, but unpainted Teutonic Order army and used that as the lever to not spend more money on anything else!

So, like McBeth, I'm making a list for this year to try and tick off. I kind of hope that, come the 2016 Christmas holidays I'll be able to post a bunch of photos or links to posts with all this stuff in it. Am I going to get it all done? Probably not. But that's not a good reason to at least have a crack eh? I also blame Pooch for making me actually look in the boxes in the cupboard in the games room and finding things that I now want to do stuff with!

Warmachine / Hordes
I basically own one (or two...) of every model Privateer Press has released for the Protectorate of Menoth. Currently I plan to pick up three unreleased models this year - Pyrrus - Flameguard Hero, the Hand of Judgement and an Indictor. I doubt I'll ever buy a Colossal for Warmachine, but if I do, when the Revelator comes out this year, I'll make a call one way or the other. My real project this year is two 50 point armies for the Hordes Minions Faction, specifically the Farrow pact. I like the organic / mechanical mashup they do so there's lots of opportunity for some nice warbeast conversions.

What's to do:

• Paint two warlocks - Midas and Helga. 
• Purchase, convert and paint the three heavy war beasts required for both lists
• Purchase and paint one or two units

Frostgrave
I love this game. Love. It's fun to play, relaxed, silly and the other magpies are great to play it with. I've really enjoyed painting some old Warhammer Fantasy models to use for it and have been quietly painting new warbands for no really good reason other than the occasional game.

What's to do:

• Purchase and paint a wizard / apprentice for my High Elf warband
• Purchase and paint an apprentice for my Tzeentch Chaos warband
• Convert and paint a box of old Chaos Warriors for my Tzeentch Chaos warband
• Purchase some cheap daemons (hopefully from TradeMe) to make up the numbers! 

Flames of War
Unlike the rest of the magpies, my time playing FoW has not reduced to near zero! I had some great games with clubmate Richard (check out his blog here) last year and will be keen to play more games with him in 2016. What we'll play is something of a mystery although we do both have quite complimentary collections so anything's possible. My Flames collection is mostly painted and so forth so this is all pretty low priority given everything else on this list but if Panzerschreck in July is Early War, some of it might come screaming up the priority list pretty quickly.

What's to do:

Italians

• Purchase and paint a CR42 Falco
• Paint my Lancia da 90mm trucks

Germans

• Finish assembling and painting my Late War StuG company
• Tidy up the infantry and paint camo stripes the vehicles in my Early War Pionier company
• Paint four Panthers for Late War Panzerregiment Franz Bake

Australians

• A tidy up of the basing and some TLC is required for these guys - they've been a bit knocked about. 

Team Yankee
We've blogged one game of TY so far and played a couple more. Suffice to say, I'm keen. I've got most of the models already and enjoy playing Flames of War. So I have already ordered (yep) a few bits and bobs to make up the options for TY  that I want to use. It'll give me a couple of understrength tank companies, some recce, some artillery and an infantry option that'll either be in BMPs or be landed by Hind Ds. This, especially, is cool.

What's to do:

• Paint 5 T80s, 10 BMPs, 3 HAIL21s, 3 2S1 Carnations, 2 Hinds
• Rebase infantry to be identifiable for TY and possibly paint a few more LMGs 
• Rebase vehicles

Infinity
Infinity, Infinity, Infinity. It's a game I love playing. I love it's complexity and the world that it's set in. I hate the fact that I am almost always undone by lucky crit rolls because I don't know how to play the game that well. It needs to be played more. I've painted most of my Chinese Yu Jing army already and basically haven't bothered to finish it because we've not been playing enough. So, I figure if I get it done, and get a table made over the winter (see below) there is more chance I'll play it more too.

What's to do:

• Finish my partially completed Shaolin Monks, Yaozao Remote and Su Jian IAU
• Paint my Celestial Guard Link Team
• Paint my Authorised Bounty Hunter
• Purchase and paint a Terracotta Warrior and one (or possibly both because they are such nice models) Yan Huo Invincibles. 

Impetus
The end is in sight. I have painted, at the time of writing, 8.5 of the 15 bases of models I have for my Teutonic Order army. That's really quite exciting for me, given how long they've sat unpainted because I was too scared to paint all that white.

What's to do:

• Purchase and paint two bases of Livonian allied light horse and 2 of light foot
• Finish painting the 'change' base for the knight wedge (super low priority!)
• Apply transfers to tabards and shields for all the Teutonic foot and horse
• Make and apply banners and pennants for all the lances and foot banner bearers
• Build the baggage dice tower (this is a fun project I'm looking forward to) 
• Base the whole army (which I have no idea on how I'm going to do at this point) 

It will be done for V3, Prinny's Last Hurrah before he departs for Europe, in May. It. Will. Be. Done.

AWI 
Like a lot of the magpies, I am painting stuff for the big Brandywine game. No idea if I'll actually play in it, but it seemed like a nice little project for a change of pace. The assembly is done, but I've been focussing on painting my Teutons while I have the mojo to do it so it's next off the list.

What's to do:

• Paint two regiments of Maryland infantry for Triple T
• Paint a regiment of Hessians for McBeth

Bolt Action?
I think I'd like to play BA this year. I think this will be my one serious project that doesn't involve models I don't already own. But I am having a hard time deciding which army to paint - there are too many cool options. It was going to be Italians until I decided I don't want to paint more Italians and then it was going to be Aussies (using Warlord's lovely Chindit models which were on sale at Dat Ape) until they sold before I got to order them. Now I'm back to the drawing board. Tempted by Early War French, Marines, Rangers, Blitzkrieg Germans, honestly......MAGPIE!

Terrain

I have been meaning to put together a decent table for Infinity for a while, partly to encourage me to play it more. Dat Ape has some really nice options that I will invest in some time this year. Either the Plastcraft stuff or the really sweet looking modular bits from Mantic. Not sure yet. I'd also like to finish making up a few other bits to go with my GF9 ruins to make a good set of terrain for both Warmachine and Frostgrave and finally, my 15mm European terrain needs a bit of TLC. This is a winter project I feel.

Stuff that's been done

Yep. I have actually already done some stuff. [smug]

• Finished my Savage Orcs for Frostgrave - I found a Forest Goblin Shaman in the bits box, so he got painted and that was the impetus to finish off the Savage Orc Boar Boy (just in case mounted ever comes into Frostgrave!), the Forest Goblin Fanatic (I made it for Mordheim, seemed silly not to keep it) and the Stone Troll (also for Mordheim) who's just part of the warband. 
• Clean out my bits boxes - I have chucked a lot of random stuff, broken bits and pieces, failed terrain construction projects and reboxed all the things in my bits box into containers for different game systems. It was amazing what turned up. Some of that stuff will find it's way onto the blog this year, although what I do with an out of print 40K Callidus Assassin is a mystery.  I'm open to suggestions on that one. 
• Clearing my desk - it's already clear enough for me to go back to painting on the desk in my games room instead of on the end of my gaming table. Success! 

[/smug]

Anyway, that list is slightly terrifying so I best crack one eh?

2016 - New Year Plan (McBeth)

Now that the 12 Games of Gamesmas are out of the way, I can now look at what the rest of 2016 will hold for my magpieisim! A long post follows...




There are several projects that I'm working on, or have an eye of starting this year. Pooch mentioned to us a while back that blogging a post like this will 'help with our issues' and 'lay out a path for keeping the magpieisim under control'.




Pffff. Whatever.






Anyway, a look for the future! Here is a break down of the things I want to do this year.

• Flames of War

Our time committed to Flames has reduced to almost nothing this past 12 months. I'm running the ValleyCon16 Flames comp this year so don't have to paint anything for that particular competition, but I have an eye out for later in the year when we make our first post Nick pilgrimage up to Palmerston North for Panzershreck. I hear that Panzershreck may be Early War this year and will continue to be a 1000 point doubles competition. I have a couple of Early War armies (NZ Divisional Cavalry and a German Infanteriekompanie) but I also have the bones of a Free French French Foreign Legion rifle company in a box in the basement that needs to be painted. It would also be a great accompanying unit for the Div Cav for Panzershreck! I've also picked up some other units for my Late War 51st Highland Division rifle company that need to have some paint applied. 16 years of playing Flames (and getting paid in product!) has lead me to a point where there is not much more I want to do in regards to making more armies as my time commitment to Flames competitions winds down.






To do for 2016



Free French


Strip, paint and base:
2 platoons of Legionnaires
1 platoon of Sappers
1 75mm Artillery Battery
1 25mm AT Battery


These will join the already painted and based Australian 2pdr Portee Platoon, H35 Hochkiss Platoon and a veteran British Marmon-Herrington troop.






Scots


Paint:
Wasp troop
M10 tank destroyer




Purchase and paint
M10 Tank destroyer (a second one for the troop)

• Blackpowder

As mentioned in previous posts, I set the group on a path towards a large multi-player American Revolution game for a convention that is being held over the Easter Weekend in the Hutt this year. We have been smashing through the painting of troops and terrain in preparation for this but we still have a long way to go. I'm in command of the British and have been steadily painting units for them. So far I have completed the 3rd Brigade (15th, 17th (replaced with 45th because no-one does the flag!, 44th and 42nd), the 1st and 2nd Grenadier Battalions, the Guards Brigade (1st and 2nd Guards Battalions), a cannon and some brigade commanders.






To do for 2016




Paint and base:
6pdr Cannon
12 figures of Hessian Jaegers
2 Brigade Commanders






Purchase, paint and base:
54 figures of Hessian Grenadiers (will swap out one battalions worth for McZermof for some Rebel Scum so he does not go mental painting them!)






Add to that finishing off the terrain and that's me for the next 2-3 months!

• Bolt Action

Our new magpieism! I'm planning on doing a late war British rifle company for this, based on the 51st Highlanders again. Haven't really settled on a list or purchased any figures yet OR EVEN PLAYED A GAME but as the other are keen and I REALLY WANT TO PLAY 28mm WW2, I'll get involved as well :). Stay tuned on this front. Ideally Mighty Ape ('Dat Ape) will restock its Bolt Action stocks so I can spend some Xmas vouchers with them :)

• Frostgrave

McZermof and I played a couple more games of Frostgrave for Gamesmas and rekindled my like of this lightweight but very fun game. While I don't need anymore figures or warbands (Wizardbands? Wizgangs?), I have plenty of Perry Miniatures plastic medieval sprues lying around for me to make more mooks. As seen in the post for Gamesmas, I also dug out my copy of Heroes Quest so I can use the monsters in that game for Frostgrave. Those figures will probably get a lick of paint this year.


Maybe.






The real thing I want to do for Frostgrave is make some terrain to accompany the Big Hand Statue. I've plenty of cork board and MDF in the basement so I may try and yet again get the Junior McBeths involved and get some terrain done this year to flesh out a table of ruins.






To do for 2016




Paint:
Heroes Quest monsters (particularly the undead)




Make, paint and base:
Terrain - ruined buildings!

• Infinity

This is both the RPG and the table top game. Over the Christmas Gamesmas break Pelarel loaned me the rules for the tabletop game with the fluff book as well. The fluff really impressed me. I had played a few games a while ago but had never read the books or setting fluff to get what it was all about. Now I've read through it I must say Corvus Belli have done a fantastic job of creating a fully fleshed out universe. I have some Haqqislam figures already, but as people have already commented on their surprise that I did not start with Ariadna forces initially, I'll be looking to get a starter pack for them. How can I not run a force that combines my two favourite national forces; Scots and French!






To do for 2016




Buy and paint:
Ariadna sectoral starter pack

• Napoleonics

I started my first blogs on this forum with pictures of the 15mm Austrian army I was building for Napoleon at War. Since then interest has not waned, but time spent on the army has been marginalised. I have done some more work on them in regards to basing them and adding flags, but the AWI stuff has been more pressing.






To do for 2016
Paint and base:
2 battalions of Germans
1 battalion of Hungarians
1 squadron of Hussies
Finish the basing for the whole army
1 more 6 pounder to mount on the limber base.

• Competitions and Travel

There are only a couple of events that I want to get to this year. There is ValleyCon of course, seeing I'm the registrar, committee member, treasurer and am running the Flames comp. There is the historical convention run by Allen Yaxley which will be held over Easter where we will run the AWI game and there is also Panzershreck. Anything else would be a bonus, but most other comps fall at times during the year that other non-wargaming things pop up on as well. I may head over to Call to Arms this year and play Bolt Action or Impetus perhaps.






Right, now onto the things I would like to do this year!

• Kings of War

This game looks cool. I wasn't a big fan of the Warhammer Fantasy game, but the background fluff was interesting. With the death of Warhammer and the rise of the apparent abortion that is the Age of Sigmar, Kings of War has taken off in New Zealand. There are now organised events around the country and the size is growing. I've looked longingly at the Mantic stuff on Mighty Ape ('dat Ape!) and it is a very reasonable price. More so when you consider that as Kings of War uses a set base size for the different strength units (a'la Impetus) you don't need to actually put the right amount of figures on each base. You can go for using less and model nice dioramas and use the spare figures for more units!

*Mantic Games

I'm fascinated by the undead armies in these types of games so I would look at running an undead army of skeletons and zombies for Kings of War. Throw in a Vampire Lord on a frickin' undead Pegasus and I am in! I may have to paint the pony to look like this though:

Undead my little pony. Seems Legit.

• Team Yankee

Having played a couple of games with Pooch, I'm pretty sure I like it, but really need to play more. I have a West German force in 6mm with Leopard 2s, Leopard 1s, Marders etc that was originally done for Cold War Commander that I would like to use whenever Battlefront get to expanding the available nations from the current 'Merican and Soviet ones. The models are all old Heroics and Ros 1/300th and are all just a bit shit, so I'd love to replace them with some smexy new ones from GHQ or CinC miniatures.

*image copyright Battlefront Miniatures

• Dead Man's Hand

This fell by the weigh side very quickly after we started playing it two years ago, but that is to be expected when we jump from one shiny to another shiny like some wargaming whore. I liked the cinematic feel of this game and Tank Engine has a sweet town set up that we should use more often.

*image copyright Great Escape Games

• In Her Majesty's Name

Another 'silly' game in the vein of Frostgrave or Dead Man's Hand, but very enjoyable none the less. I have a British army and a Vampire force, plus I can repurpose my DMH desperadoes for a cowboy/villain list as well.

*image copyright Osprey Publishing

• Ambush Valley

Pelarel and I did the testing for Battlefront's 15mm Vietnam book, Tour of Duty. Again, much like Team Yankee, we didn't like the scale that Battlefront went for (being company + scale rather than 15mm). For us, the Vietnam war was platoon scale. So, with some NVA, VC and ANZACs we are getting through painting and basing 15mm figs on individual bases for some Ambush Valley. We've played Ambush Alley and Force on Force a bit in the past so it will be interesting to see how it translates to Vietnam.



*image copyright Osprey Publishing

On the twelfth game of Gamesmas...

...an exciting game of Infinity!

You'll remember from an earlier blog post that we Magpies indulged in a game of the Infinity RPG well, this is the tabletop wargame from Corvus Belli that the RPG was based on.

It's the far future and man has reached out to the stars. The Human Sphere encompasses countless worlds, all controlled by various mega corporations who are nominally overseen by the AI, Aleph. In addition to the human corporate factions there are also 2 alien factions: the Combined army and the Tohaa and a group of rebellious humans who hate the idea of toe the line to an AI - the Nomads.

For those not familiar with the Infinity game, here's a very quick summary :)

Infinity armies usually comprise around 10 figures, one of which is your Lieutenant. Each figure generates an order, with an extra order generated by your lieutenant. These orders, with the exception of the Lieutenant special order, can be used by any of your models and a model can use more than one order in a turn. So you can activate all of your models once or one model 10 times in a turn!

A single order is broken down into two parts, generally you can have one move part and one action part (there are some exceptions but you'll have to read the rule book - you can download it for free form the Infinity website linked above - nice people these CB guys :) ) When you declare the first part of your order - the move or action part can be used in either sequence,  move-shoot or shoot-move for example - any opposing models that can see the model can declare a response action - an ARO. the ARO can be to shoot at the active model or dodge an attack or a number of other actions. 

Well, onto the game. We set the table up at Tank's and Scotty and I organised our 300pt armies.

we used Tank's Mars Attacks road tiles to give the board a bit more life - I really liked the effect so I think I'll be looking for a 4x4 road mat soon though preferably one where the roads are not parallel to the board edges. I just think it looks better that way :)

We chose the Annihilation scenario from the main rule book and rolled two classified objectives each. The main scenario was to kill as many points of models as possible of the enemy force whilst preserving your army.

the classified objectives are kept secret from your opponent, mine required me to perform one Coup de Grace against an enemy model and my second was to use my hacker to hack an enemy model. Scott turned out to also have the Coup de Grace objective and also a demolitions objective.

The scenarios last 3 rounds. this doesn't sound a lot but, with the ARO mechanic, you're always engaged with the game and a hell of a lot happens!

I went with my usual Japanese Sectorial army:

Domaru butai with Chain rifle (lieutenant)

Kempai (chain of command)

Raiden with Spitfire

Keisotsu with combi rifle

Ninja Hacker

Ninja Sniper

Ninja with combi rifle

Tokusetsu Eisei Doctor

O - Yorio TAG (big red stompy robot and his two little Krazy Koala bomb bots :))

Scotty used his Nomads, I can't remember exactly what he had in there but there was a Sin eater with a Spitfire (nasty piece of work) a Reverend Moira a Mercenary and a load of dudes :)

well we kicked off. Scott elected to choose board edge and I chose to go first. 

After deployment, my first order of business was to drop my Ninja Sniper out of TO Camoflage and take a shot at the Merc standing on top of the building. The Merc tried a dodge ARO but my sniper rolled better and drilled the guy where he stood :) Yayy, a great start to the turn.

the Merc is just at the end of the far walkway :) (if anyone can figure out why Blogger ignores the rotation correction I put on my images and how I can get around it please comment below! :( )

the rest of my turn involved moving my O-Yorio and Domaru Butai up my right flank and the Kempai and Keisotsu up the left whilst moving my still hidden ninjas over the roof tops towards the enemy. My ninja with the combi rifle took a shot at the demolition guy and took him out. I had just enough movement to get to him but not enough orders to deliver the Coup de Grace.. next turn...

In Scotty's first turn, his Sin Eater ran to the three storey building, up onto the roof and hosed my sniper with his Spitfire!!!

Not a great start - my ARO was particularly ineffective and I'd managed to move the rest of my models into positions where they couldn't see him.

Scotty moved his reverend Moira onto the low roof with my Ninja standing over the unconscious demo guy..

and proceeded to blow him away! She managed to cause 2 wounds to the ninja, killing him instantly and denying Scotty the opportunity to Coup de Grace him.

Scott was starting to get ahead on points..

My turn 2 started with me moving back my O-Yorio to hose the Sin Eater with it's HMG, but I'd forgotten that the Sin Eater fires at full rate of Fire in ARO, not the single shot like everyone else! He was a priority target sitting up there but I rolled some appalling dice and Scotty didn't and the O-Yorio went down in a burning heap!!! I was seriously behind in points now!

It was getting late and the remaining turns are a bit hazy but essentially my Domaru butai wasted a couple of orders trying to throw grenades up onto the roof with the Reverend Moira before he remembered that he had a chain rifle that auto hits and 2 woulds so was likely to get the better of her anyway! He did and was able to deliver the Coup de grace to the demo guy before retreating along the walkway. After his final turn, one of Scotty's grunts took a shot at him but was still in range of his Chain rifle's template - the Nomad missed then failed his armour roll and another one bit the dust.

in the centre, the Sineater moved away from the edge of the building to get a better bead on the Domaru but then I noticed my Ninja hacker had LOS and managed to get an ARO shot off which killed the Sin eater! 

My medic earned his keep on my final turn by running up the building to the Ninja Sniper and reviving her!

on his last turn Scotty moved his sniper and tried to put my sniper back down  but the ninja got the better of him with the ARO and dropped the Nomad sniper instead!

A real game of ups and downs, we ended up both killing roughly the same number of points of each army - just under 150pts. this gave us 1 Scenario point each. Scotty was unable to achieve either of his classified objectives but I managed to get my Coup de Grace in for a second scenario point and a win! BANZAI!!! :)

A great game and I'm really looking forward to playing more infinity this year...

On The Eleventh Game of Gamesmas....

The magpies gave to me, Dead Man's Hand!

Ahhh, back to one of my favourites genres, The Ol' West. McZermof and myself decided to break out Clearmont (see above) and play (McZ's) Mexican Banditos against my good old wholesome Outlaws. We had a ring in as my Bro-in-law Doug joined us for the evening. The first scene was a rescue from the "For A Few Models More" act in the main rulebook, called Hang 'Em High. McZ took on the roll of the Bad Guys with his Mexicans trying to rescue a compadre from the Outlaws noose (Doug).

Each side had 3 normal dudes of 2 rep each. The Mexicans had two with pistols and one with a repeater rifle, the Outlaws had two armed with pistols and one with a shotgun. Gunfire was exchanged furiously until Doug made a bold move and charged into point blank range with his shotgun and shot Bendy Bendy Rodriguez in the head.

This gave McZ the impetus to make a run for the prisoner. He also started a firefight with an outlaw in Rogan's Bar - the two spent 3 rounds shooting point blank at each other for a few light wounds (not a window was left unbroken in the place though)

The second Mexican was gunned down trying to protect the prisoner - forcing the Mexicans to withdraw and their compadre back to the gallows.

The Second scene in this act was GET ME OUT! This time the Mexicans tried to break an injured compadre out of jail. They had 4 normal dudes (Tank Engine in charge this time) and the Outlaws (Doug) had a Gun Fighter and two normal dudes. The scene opened with the Mexicans making a run for it - the Outlaws tried to pin them down but with the initiative, the Mexicans made it to cover.

The second turn saw Pedro Rodriguez shoot Injun Joe right through the heart in a risky - but successful move. Doug saw his opportunity and came screaming in with his dead eye gun fighter, who missed every shot :( Bendy Rodriguez (who had a miraculous recovery from his death in the previous game) took careful aim at the Gun Fighter and let loose with his repeating' rifle only to discover he had forgotten to load it. The gun fight continued for a round with a few hits being registered but no real damage, until Bendy could reload, but Doug had a plan. He played the Upstanding Citizen card on Bendy (ending his activation) but it meant the shopkeeper leaped out from the back of the Sheriffs office and shot at Bendy (but missed). Bendy swung his rifle and bashed the Shopkeeper into submission.

A lucky shot saw off the Outlaws Gun Fighter and the Mexicans made a break for it and escaped with their compadre, with the last Outlaw running from the town with his tail between his legs.

There was plenty of blood in the streets.

It was great to break out Dead Man's Hand again. It was fast and fun and even Doug (non wargamer) had it mastered within a turn or two. It has a very cinematic feel and, in my opinion, it is the best Ol' West game out there at the moment (and yep I have tried a few). The terrain is a mix of Game Craft Miniatures, Sarissa, Black Flag, 4ground and home made and the cool game mat is from Hotz Matz. YEEHAA!

On the tenth Game of Gamesmas

The magpies gave me Bolt Action by Warlord Games!

So game number 10 sees Scotty with his recently painted Hungarians face off against my British (Kiwi) army.

This was my third game of BA and number one for Scotty, with McZermof on hand to see if he wants to play this game and also be the "dice out of bag selector".... though he may of just wanted to see if he could mess up both of our cunning plans :-)

We rolled up "Hold until Relieved" and after much thinking Scotty decided I can be the defender.

What followed was a super fun game, that ended up in a glorious 7 turn draw.

My feeling is that BA is going to be the game I would like to play the most often in 2016, it is fun/silly and is very hard to take too serious. Plus 28mm WW2 is super nice to paint and look at.

Here are some pictures of the action. These are in no real order

The table

The defenders on the crossroad

Hmm that is a lot of pin markers, also the British artillery seems to be quite close to us.

The left flanking force, by the end the Hungarian Nimrod was still in the fight, after being immobilized by the Staghound 

Yet more pin markers on the defenders, and someone looking very happy  

This is the part that went wrong for us, with those pin markers on the infantry and with both NCO's killed both infantry squads decided to sit still for 3 turns.

Nimrod hunting kiwis

In the distance is a super nice heavy artillery model

Veteran Hungarians about to get up to mischief

Recce is crazy good in BA

Hunting command teams with a Arty observer

On the 9th Game of Gamesmas

The Magpies gave to me, Frostgrave by Osprey!

It's a mega post for game 9 of Gamesmas! Some games of Frostgrave with McBeth, McZermof and Scotty! We haven't played Frostgrave since our first outing last year and it's a game that we've been meaning to play some more. Since then, I've also dug up an old Forest Goblin shaman to act as my apprentice in this warband so I was pretty excited to put him on the table.

The whole exercise started well when McBeth and I rolled a 3 and 4 respectively (on a d20) to see who got to pick sides followed by a 1 and 2 respectively to see who won initiative on the first turn. Unfortunately, McBeth's dice didn't really pick up from there.....

McBeth's and my warbands met in the ruins where both our wizards would be hoping to drink from the Well of Sorrows. The Orc warband was Wizard, Apprentice, a Treasure Hunter, an Infantryman, 2 archers, 2 thugs, a thief and a war hound. The human warband was Wizard, Apprentice, 2 Treasure Hunters and a Tracker.

Orcs attack! 

Humans attack! 

 McBeth (in his own words) had forgotten how to build a starting list and had gone for what was actually quite a cunning plan, at least in principle. His treasure hunters were going to run up the board, grab the loot, drop it back on the base edge and then come back to the fight and give the Orcs what for.

McBeth tries a cunning plan

Unfortunately, when one was Elemental Bolted before he could escape from the board, it started going squiffy.

The Orc Shaman casts Elemental Bolt. Again.

Shortly after that his apprentice went down to a lucky bow shot and the treasure hunter engaged by the war dog wound up being bitten to death. It was all a bit silly. In the end, after a sort of suicidal charge into the centre of my warband to let loose some very effective Scatter Shots, there followed a lunatic exchange of Elemental Bolts and McBeth's wizard was dead and the orcs emerged triumphant.

McBeth rebuilt his warband with some distinctly lower quality troops and we had another crack, this time over some tombs filled with treasure and also filled with gribblies. He started well, with his wizard taking 4 points of damage failing to cast his first three spells with quite a degree of derpitude. I would have mocked, but my Orc shaman was no better. Turns out that casting Elemental Hammer is hard.

The first three tombs we opened summoned gribblies (note the position of both my wizard and McBeth's wizard and their alarming proximity to gribblies) but while wraiths are a very scary beast indeed, being immune to conventional weapons and doing double damage on anything they hit, Prinny graciously rolled terrible hit dice and, once again, Elemental Bolt managed to do most of the work (since in this game, casting Elemental Hammer proved to be somewhat difficult...)

Damaged but impending gribbly! 

McBeth's wizard casts Meat Shield

The second game was much shorter as my appalling dice led to me being 4 orcs down (one who was effectively eaten by a Wraith I couldn't kill with both Elemental Hammer AND Elemental Bolt) in fairly short order and as McBeth easily acquired the one contestable treasure, it became a "run away from the last remaining gribbly" game as I withdrew what was left of my warband. Charging into the teeth and bows across the table wasn't going to end well....not all that Savage Orcy of me, I know, but it was late and it's a reasonable drive back from Casa del McBeth.

CUE TIME TRAVEL.....

And now, it's not Wednesday but Saturday and time for MORE FROSTGRAVE. This time, the Orcs are meeting the Cut-throaty warband of Scotty.

Scotty tried a cunning plan - a Chronomancer and his apprentice, 4 crossbowmen and 4 thieves. It started well enough with a couple of Orc Thugs going down and a human Thief. Then, all of a sudden, the same thing that happened on Wednesday happened. I landed one Elemental Bolt, then another (including on the guy who was a mere inch from the board-edge with his treasure) and the thieves sent to engage my spell casters were thumped into next week (one with a lunatic Elemental Hammer)

Turn one. Fighting stone pillars for treasure (because that's a sentence you use!) 

Thief 0, wizard 1. 

Thieves still 0, wizards 2. 

Shortly after this, a possessed demon spider killed both the Man-at-Arms and the thief.

At the end of this, there was one model standing. He became known as "Scary Goblin." 

This game reminded both of us that this was why you need wandering monsters on the board. It stops people like me getting a bit to blast happy with Elemental Bolts.

For the second game of the day, Scotty Jr. joined in for some teleporting hilarity in his first ever game in the Frozen City. He brought an interesting mix of toys - a Necromancer and his apprentice, a Templar, a Barbarian, 2 thieves and a wardog. And an IMP! There was a bit of photo-fail here...

Suffice to say, we played the Complex Keep as a three-player game (without adjusting the number of treasures) but it all went.....weird. Scotty Jr. teleported a thief in front of my wizard, who promptly Elemental Bolted him into next week. I immediately followed up by teleporting an orc thug, then a goblin thief into the midst of Scotty's warband creating a melee that eventually saw claimed two of Scotty's thieves, Scotty Jr.'s war dog and thief, Scotty's apprentice and, eventually, the goblin thief who will forever now carry the moniker "Scary Goblin." He did a very nice job cleaning up about 300 gc of enemies. Not bad for a 20 gc model with Fight +1. :)

In the end, Scotty Jr went down first (although deserves credit for having the last spell caster standing on the table) followed by me as I was thoroughly overrun by crossbowen whose dagger skills surpassed their shooting.

Once again, Frostgrave is a brilliant beer and pretzels game, it's lots of fun, delivers constant challenge combined with silliness and a lot of laughs. Lots and lots.

I'm going to keep working on my High Elves to bring a real change in the kinds of spells I think I should take to theme the warband and much to my delight, I discovered a classic GW Tzeentch sorcerer riding a flying disc in my collection of random models alongside a box of old Chaos Warriors and a Dragon Ogre! Warband number 3, here I come!