Cottage Con, Dust Warfare & Malifaux Weekend

This will be a fairly short post not because I haven't done much gaming, the reverse in fact. I have done lots of gaming and am preparing to do more this weekend for my annual Malifaux Weekend, well this is the second year I've run it and hopefully I will keep it going. So the fact is I just don't have time to do a long post.

First of is Cottage Con. A friend of mine runs this annual event for a bunch of us. This is my third time going and I believe he has done it 5 years in a row now. It's a fun weekend of boardgames, lots of food and some drinks. My son comes as well and really enjoys himself. There were 13 people there this year and lots of games.

The stack of games.

Werewolf.

Small World.

 

 

 I played lots of games of which some were Small World by Days Of Wonder, Gears of War by Fantasy Flight Games, Werewolf by Bezier Games., Merchants & Marauders by Z-Man Games, Zombies!!! by Twilight Creations, Conquest of Nerath by Wizards Of The Coast and others I am sure I am forgetting.

I also got to A Few Glued Men and played a game of Malifaux vs. Ed's Gremlins. I cleaned him off the table but it ended in a tie, it was a fun game in which he managed to get the majority of his victory points with his last gremlin just before he was killed.

I also played a little Dust Warfare which seems to be a fast fun game to play but I am not sure it will catch on with the local group. I played a couple of turns just to figure out the rules. The first turn I really took my time to look up every rule as I went but by the second turn I hardly had to look at the book at all.

Next my son and I set up a full game and played it out. We used the battle builder to set up the scenario. It is a method of spending points to alter the battlefield setup and victory conditions with each player alternating spending their 2 points in 3 different categories, objectives, deployment and battlefield conditions. This allows you to try to alter conditions so that your army won't be outclassed by fighting in conditions it is not good at such as a close combat themed force having to cross lots of open space. There are also a list of scenarios you can pick from. My son picked up the rules quickly having played Dust Tactics which uses similar game mechanics.
   

The scenario set up, Axis deployment zone. Through the battle builder we came up with victory based on positions held which are secretly written down(Key Position), setup in opposing corners(Force Collision), and no battlefield conditions(such as limited visibility)

Allied deployment zone. The amount of terrain is equal to how much would fill 1/4 of the table and then players take turns placing the pieces keeping them 4" away from another.

This is mid game, a game lasting 5 turns. The Axis have the Allied Heavy Attack squad (lower right) in a very bad position now that the Axis medium walker has been taken out.

Same turn from the Allied side. They have managed to destroy a medium walker and are trying to flank right.

End Game. The Allied flanking maneuver ran into heavy opposition and took heavy casualties but managed to contest their objective.

The view from an Allied position, cover is very effective, and my armour rolls were very lucky as well. The game ended in a tie based on the scenario with the Allies(me) winning by the tie breaker rule of how many points a side destroys.

And now back to getting some preparations done for the Malifaux Weekend in a few days which is going to be tournament based this time with 6 players and me as the TO. For something different I am going to run a session of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay in the evening, I'll let you know how everything goes in a week or two.

I almost forgot I finally managed to get some paint on some of my Infinity figures, I should have the Pan O Fusiliers finished by the next post.