Carronade 2015

A bit late but Falkirk District Wargames Clud is hosting its annual show this Saturday.

It is a  good day out, with an excellent mix of traders and some great games to have a look at and take part in. As well as this there is a bring and buy and a good painting competition as well.

The details can be seen on our club website:
http://www.falkirkwargamesclub.org.uk/Carronade/Carronade_Home.html

Stepping through the Breach

Its been a while since I have tried anything new, and I had the opportunity to give Malifaux a bash.  I have been eyeing up the models for a while as I quite like the Tim Burtonesque vibe they have got going for them. I haven't jumped in mainly due to a lack of players coupled with the steep cost of the miniatures making it a risky investment.  

I promised that I would never get involved in that boutique style of game again after realising the amount of Urban War models that I have gathering dust in the man cave.  Luckily there are already a few players and a couple more that are interested in jumping in.  Certainly enough potential players to mitigate the risk of the investment in money and (more importantly) painting time.

My second game was to be against Andy, who was trying the game for the first time, against me with the vast experience of my one previous game!  Alistair was supplying the toys for both sides and giving Andy some much needed assistance.

I opted to take Lilith fro the Neverborn, which are basically the original monsters that inhabited Malifaux before the humans arrived. They basically hate the invaders and want rid of them.  Andy had Mei Fang, who works for railworkers guild (or something Like that!).

The good thing about Malifaux is that the victory conditions selected from a few options at the start of the game, with each player potentially having different ways of earning victory points.

We played with force sizes of 35 soul stones, which is ideal for beginners. 

I opted for:

Lilith

Barbaros

2 Terror Tots

2 Wardgeists

1 Cherub

I cant quite remember what was on the other side but it contained:

Mei Feng

Shang

Ember

Metal Gamin

Arachnid Construct

Some bloke pushing a cart of dynamite.

The victory conditions have two elements. There is a randomly generated strategy, which applies to both players, and then each player secretly selects two schemes that they are trying to achieve. Succeeding in Strategies and schemes earn you victory points, with the player who has the most at the end of the game being the winning. The strategy we ended up with was to basically to kill as many of the opposing gang in the game, which was nice and simple for a first game. I opted for two fairly simple schemes, the ritual and hold the line.  For the ritual I had to get a marker in each corner of the board, and for hold the line I had to get four markers along the centre line of the board.

The game got off to a quiet start with my motley crew of monsters advancing, while Lilith and the Waldgeits summoned as much cover as possible while the rail crew advanced from the other side of the board. I sent my terror tots to the corners to start dropping some markers, while Andy tried to close the distance.

In turn three all hell broke loose as the two crews engaged each other.  We both tried ot do as much damage as possible, with Andy's gang being much more direct in its approach. I tried to isolate and confound my opponent and I think I succeeded up to a point.   

Casualties were fairly light up until that last turn of the game where I managed to finally kill Andy's crew leader and a few other of his models, while narrowly avoiding the Loss of Lilith (by the skin of my teeth!).

All in all an interesting, if slightly confusing evenings gaming. Malifaux is quite a dense game with a steep learning curve.Each model has a long list of different abilities, most of which have the ability to be improved or synergise with other models in your crew. It helps keep the game interesting as there is lots to learn.
 I also quite like the idea of the fate deck being used rather than dice as it adds another twist to the game.  There are only so  many high results in a deck so it becomes a game of odds as well, as if you draw out the high cards early on in a turn then it will limit your chances of success later on.

I have acquired a copy of the rulebook from e-bay and it was an enjoyable read, and will probably jump in and get a few bits and pieces as well.  The Neverborn at the moment seem the most interesting as the range of models is quite good and the abilities of the models set them apart from most other wargames.   So another game tried, and looks like another game added to the repertoire!

Gang Wars

Life has been very busy lately so not much blogging going on.

Last night was the latest instalment in the clubs Necromunda campaign. THis is game 7 of a 10 game campaign, but so far I have only played in about 4 games (I think).  To be honest I have not been enjoying them very much so have skipped a few games.  

Whoever wins a game gets to pick teh scenarion for the next round, and as John and his Eldar won last time he sleected a scenario tailored specifically to his Eldar.  As far as the other gangs were concerned it was a pretty normal loot fight, with each payer trying to secure some loot counters without sufffering to many casualits. The Eldar however had come in search of a missing soulstone, and JOhn had to secretly select one of the loot counters to be the soulstone. That became his primary target for the mission, with the Eldat having a break point ot 75% and not allowed to voluntarily flee the battlefield.  

The other players were me with my Cawdor gang, Douglas with his Genestealer Cult and Andy's gang (I still cant remember what they are).

Andy started off and we pretty much all ganged up on the Eldar, and they took a pretty hefty pounding as a result.  I tried to make my contribution but my gang is well behind teh curve at this point in the campaign so Andy did most of the heavy lifting.

After a few rounds the Eldar were looking pretty ropy and I decided that the Genstealers that were breathing down my neck had ot be dealt with. Unfortunately it didnt quite go toplan and after a couple of rounds I failed my bottle test and exited the game, with the Genestealers right behind me.

This left John and Andy to fight for the win and with John having taken a good beating from everyone else Andy made short work of him, and what with John stuck until he failed a bottle test they finally called it when John got down to his last model, as there did not seem to be any point in spending the rest of the night chasing down a lone Eldar.  

So a fairly typical game of Necromunda for me, and a resounding victory for Andy and his gang.  I came away with no lasting casualties and gained another pile of useless stat advances and skills.  

 I suspect that that will be my last game in this campaign as I am not enjoying it.  I am finding the campaign system for Necromunda very frustrating as my gang has some excellent close combat advances, while not one of them has actually been in combat yet in the entire campaign!  While all the gangs have basically the same profiles the difference in skill lists seemd to be a bit silly. Some gangs get seem to have acces to some excellent skill sets that give them improved shooting and technical skills, while some seem to get skill sets that would seem better suited to Mordheim.  The running joke at the moment  is that my gang would be an excellent gang to use in Mordheim, where there are less firearms.  If I were to try this again I woudl probably select a different gang to use, something with a more suitable skill set!

Nest week something completely different.   Malifaux!

March AD565

We opened our Dux B campaign this month, slightly late but such is life.

 

My Kingdom of Alt Clut was subjected to a raid by an ambitious Saxon warlord from North Rheged.

 

We rolled for random scenario and got a Village Raid, with both of our forces having the maximum force morale ratings.  The village ended up being positioned in the middle of the table, and the Saxons managed four moves before the Britons reacted. This pretty much put them at the village just as the rather lazy Brits arrived on table, in the topmost corner, almost as far away as from the village as it was possible to be.

Quite British Village.

Saxon positions at the start of the game!

 

British forces start to dribble on to the board.

Relative positions of the two forces at the start of the game.

This was not a great start, but I hoped that it would take the Saxons a wee while to find the loot, giving me a chance to muster my forces and intercept them. Unfortunately the Saxons proved rather adept and had uncovered everything within a couple of turns, and then made a run for home.  My Britons tried to give pursuit but a rather inconvenient wood caused a bit of a bottleneck, delaying my tardy forces even more.

 

The Saxons made a break for home, while using some of their more experienced warriors to cover their retreat. I closed the distance but never quite managed to close the distance. When it got to the point at which it looked like I would not be able to stop the Saxons exiting the board I put my campaign head on and decided that I did not want to risk a fight for more than likely no benefit.  Andy was likely going to win the game anyway, and risking combat would potentially expose me to making Andy's margin of victory larger, giving him more glory and more gold, not to mention the exposure to my kingdom while I replace the losses.

 

In the end I decided to the let them go, and saving my resources for another day. This meant that the Saxons gained a Beggars Bowl in loot and with not a single casualty on either side were ready to raid again in April, and my British also incurred no casualties so could field a full force to defend against any attacks in the month of April.   I also decided to spend the money I started the campaign with to promote myself to Prefector, which means that as soon as I get the cash I can start building some defences for my Kingdom, as I think I am going to need them!

This is about as close as the two sides got to each other, I didn't charge in as I did not want to risk my shieldwall being flanked by the Saxons inside the village.

Endgame

 

Campaign Madness

So the blog has been very quite lately, mainly due to a lack of any gaming activities for a long time.

 

I finally managed to get to gaming last night with the opener of the clubs Dux B campaign. I will post details of that game shortly. 

 

Our club has recently gone a bit campaign mad, with three Chain of Command campaigns all about to kick off.  John, the lunatic behind this mad scheme asked if I could host some of the campaign details on my blog.   I have created a couple of pages introducing the campaigns, with one set late and one set early war, with a third to follow shortly, set on the Russian Front.

 

I am a bit of a technophobe so far have only managed to create a page for each campaign , detailing the original brief supplied by John.  I will try and get the campaign maps uploaded at some point, and try to work out how to add extra posts on to those pages, so that I can track the casualties and results of each campaign.

March Madness

I don't know what it is about March, but it seems to be the month when everything goes wrong.

Things have been going pretty well this year. The painting has got of to a flying start, with over 40 models painted already. My usual annual output is about 100 models so that is a pretty string start to the year.

We have two campaigns about to kick off, one for Dux Britaniarum and one for Chain of Command, plus our ongoing Necromunda campaign.

On a non wargaming note my training for this years cycling events have been going well, and with my first event in just over five weeks I was feeling quite strong going into this.

 

Then March happened.   My Dad was taken into Hospital and had to have major surgery. He was in intensive care for over a week.  Thankfully he is now on the way to recovery and is now back at home.  This was a worrying time and everything else got forgotten amongst daily visits to the hospital. 

This caused me to miss a couple of weeks gaming and painting, with one game being cancelled twice.  I really dislike cancelling on people, especially at the last minute as it can leve them at a bit of a loose end.  However such is life and sometimes it cannot be avoided.  

Followed on from this I have managed to pick up a stomach bug, which has laid me low for a few days as well.   This has led to a very quiet month hobby wise, and the lack of updates on the blog reflects this.

Hopefully things are returning to normal and next week there should be some kind of hobby activity to report on, rather than having a moan about real life interfering with playing games with toy soldiers.

Gruagach in the Woods

Back to Middle Earth for this week’s game. I got a pack of Woses for Christmas and they were pretty much the first things I painted this year.  They only appear in one scenario, in the Return of the King book.  In this scenario the Rohan are trying to sneak through some forests that are infested with Orcs and other nasties loyal to Sauron.  Theoden enlists the help of the Woses to guide them through the woods unseen.

The view up the board from the Orc edge.

In the scenario the good player has to get Theoden and half of the rest of the Rohan off the far edge of the board, while all the evil player has to do is stop him.  At the start of the game there are only a few orcs milling bout on the board, while the Wose are using their excellent woodsman skills to stalk the orcs unseen. Every turn D3 Rohan appear on the board, while D6 Evil troops also wander on to the board. If at the end of any turn there is an evil model within 6 inches of any good model the alarm is then raised and the remainder of the evil force arrives on the board, basically making the game virtually impossible for the good player to win.

Rory and Kenny volunteered to play, with me being the Umpire. Rory opted to play the forces of Rohan, leaving Kenny as the forces of darkness.

We started with the Wose fairly evenly spread across the board in small groups, with the orcs concentrated in the centre of the board.  The wose managed ti inflict some early casualties, while Rory opted to hang back with his Rohan so that he had time to build up his forces. Kenny started moving his troops up the board in an attempt to get them within the magical 6 inches that would allow him to deploy all 70 of his troops at once.  

Woses skuking in the woods.

Woses brek cover

Theoden marshals his forces.

Rory managed to get most of his Rohan on the board and inflict a few casualties before the inevitable happened and he was spotted.  He had managed to advance about half way across the board but was not facing an uphill struggle as Kenny deployed the remaining 50 or so orcs on to the board.  

Charge!

Theoden being the mighty hero that he is he promptly dug in his heels and led the headlong charge into the heart of the orc forces, trying to force his way through.  There was a lot of early successes from the good side and the orc casualties started to mount quickly, but it looked like there were going to be to many orcs to fight.  Rory decided to change his route of attack and Theoden led his troops over the hill and charged off the ridge into the orc forces, cutting down a lot of orcs and managing to exit the board, along with three of his warriors.

The alarm is raised and the orcs arrive.

Theoden leads the charge

Too many orcs!

The lasft few rohan flee the field.

Alas the rest of the Rohan did not fare so well, and were soon overwhelmed by the orcs. In the end both sides were broken on the same turn and the majority of the remaining Rohan fled the field, leaving to few left for a Rohan win. We stopped at this point and didn’t bother rolling to see how many orcs fled the field as there was no point.

A good scenario, and in the end the Rohan gave a very good account of themselves, with nearly 40 orcs killed for the loss of 7 Rohan lost and 6 woses.  The only thing about this one is that it could be very easily be ruined by one player being a bit “gamey” in their approach, rather than playing in character.  I think the key to this one is to move the Wose ahead of the Rohan, making best use of cover to eliminate the orcs before the cavalry reach them as once the alarm is raised it is pretty much game over unless the good player has managed to get pretty close to the board edge.

Next week is another visit to Middle Earth, and we are probably going to have another go at this scenario.