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.

Cottage Con

Last weekend we had the annual Cottage Con event hosted by my friend Rob T at his, wait for it, cottage with most games supplied by Shawn. It was another great time full of board games, BBQ food and a good bunch of guys.

Tristan and I arrived Friday and were the last to arrive. There was already a game in progress so we filled the time playing Summoner Wars, one of the 3 games I brought. We then played a game of Rune Wars Friday night, another game I had brought. On Saturday I played Age of Empires III, Conan,  Blockus and a Zombie game in which you have to defend your house. Sunday I played Ascension and Zombie State. There may be 1 or 2 other games that I am forgetting.

The 3 things I took away from the weekend were:
1. It's always a blast playing a bunch of games with good people, my oldest son included. Thanks again for hosting Rob, and look forward to next year.
2. Make a record of the games I play because it starts to get hazy after 3 days of gaming.
3. I may be able to save the world from a Zombie outbreak but I can't protect my own house from them.

Now it's on to preparing for the Malifaux weekend in three weeks. There is going to be 10 players so it may be a little crowded but hopefully everyone will have a good time. So I am trying to paint some figures up, at least the ones that seem to get on the table frequently and maybe work on some terrain.

I think, between friends and I we have everything needed to play some games of Force on Force so we will try to get a game in soon. It is supposed to play quickly so I am looking forward to giving it a go and see how it works. The community on the Ambush Alley forum is quite friendly and have already helped me out deciding on scale and reading through back posts

So that's about it. Board games galore, getting prepared for the Malifaux weekend and also getting stuff ready to try a game of Force on Force.

I will put up pictures as I finish work on the figures for Malifaux and Force on Force.