Game Weekends Galore

I have been gaming, planing and painting, oh my!

It started with a road trip with Tristan and Chet to one end of the province. We headed out Saturday morning and drove to Yarmouth, NS. where our friends Julian and Ian live. They usually make the trip this way so it was good to travel to their location this time.

We arrived around lunch time and Julian kindly fed us. We chatted a bit, and then played some games. Tristan, Ian and I played a three player game of Malifaux while Chet and Julian played a few games of X-Wing.

The Malifaux game went well. We used the multi-player variant from Wyrd Chronicles, Wyrd Miniatures' e-zine. I deployed in the center and on turn 2 or 3 made the fatal mistake of becoming fixated on one opponent and ignored Ian which he capitalized on. After that I was just trying to hold on for a few VP's. So lesson learned and I would be willing to give multi-player Malifaux another go though I think we would have to play on a 4 foot board instead of the 3 foot board we had played on. At 3 feet we were all just too close together right from the start.

After that we had supper and then pulled out Zombicide in which we were all killed, in fact I was killed twice. The first time was so early into the game though that I just started over.(no one wanted me to touch their dice, I don't get it.)

Later on in the evening we played a game of Fiasco which was fun but hampered by the fact that none of us had played it before and we started playing quite late, which interfered with the old creative juices.

Sunday we just chatted, had breakfast and headed home. So thanks Julian and Meaghan for their hospitality.

As soon as I get the pictures off my phone I will post them.

Next up is my 3rd Annual Malifaux weekend which I am doing some prep for though not as much as I probably should. Once again this will be a tournament format weekend and it looks like we will have 8-10 players.

The weekend after that is my friends annual Cottage Con weekend which is a fun weekend of boardgames.

In the meantime I am putting together another western frontier building for Malifaux plus playing a few practice games with Tristan. We also played a game of Dust Strategy board game. We have played that enough now that we are going to try some optional rules I printed off from a forum and one I came up with myself. So we will see how that goes. And on a similar theme I decided to paint my walkers from Dust Tactics/Warfare. I had painted the soldiers awhile but had not painted the walkers till now. I just painted them up with a very basic scheme and some weathering so they will look decent on the game table. I also had a fortuitous encounter in a game store with a chap who plays with a regular Dust group twice a month so I might try to get in for a game soon.

That's about it for now must get back to some prep work I guess.

The Malifaux jail under construction.

The interior, with two cells.

A game using the Terraclips, this time a 3 story building.

Top floor.

2nd floor.

The basement.

Seamus and crew enter the basement.The game ended in a tie.

Masking a camo pattern for Dust Axis walkers.

The camo sprayed, details to be added.

Allied walkers painted.

More Allied walkers.

A closer shot.

The Axis walkers.

Light Axis walkers

Light walker variants.

 

Lots of Games

I played loads of game this time round between some at home and the demo games at Hal-con its been a pretty full period for games.

Tristan and I played another game of Battlelore in which I finally got a win. After finishing all the scenarios in the main rule book we have started the scenarios from the Dwarf expansion that Tristan has. We have been ticking off each scenario as we go so we know exactly how many we have played.

At Hal-con I ran a few demos. I was only there on Sunday and was running the demos by myself but I did manage to get some interest in the games I had brought, running a few demo games of Dust Warfare and Infinity and some detailed game turn explanations for Infinity and Malifaux for interested folks.

I also played a game of Zombicide by Cool Mini or Not. My friend Chet had brought the game down and we had 6 players while he ran the zombies until one of the players had to go and then he hopped into that players spot. It was a fun game and very tense action. We managed to get a win though 3 characters died, including mine.

Eric, another friend came over on a day off and we played a game of Force on Force by Ambush Alley Games . The first turn took quite some time because it had been awhile since we had played last and we were introducing vehicles. After the first turn the game came back to us and we played fairly quickly after that and I got a marginal victory. We had made our own scenario with 2 HUMVEE's of USMC troops coming onto the board accompanied by a truck with a unit of Iraqi army soldiers working with the Americans. The insurgents were in ambush already on the board. The insurgents waited for the Iraqi army unit to drive by and destroyed the following HUMVEE with a RPG hit causing 1 light wound. The second HUMVEE swung wide and took cover behind a building. From then on the American forces slowly caused casualties to the insurgents with the second team flanking around the enemy on foot. The Iraqi army unit was badly mauled in the action and the USMC took 1 KIA before chasing the insurgents off the board taking a few POW's in the process.  

We also managed to play a small game of Infinity which was very quick with me losing. We played at 100 pts with my PanO troops taking on Eric's  Araidna. This was still a learning game and I learned that when the other player has a lot more units on the board I have to be very careful with the few, if powerful, units I have. The game was very fun though and we will play this again soon.

Finally Tristan and I played a 800pt game of Flames of War pitting an American Infantry Co. against a German Armoured Panzergrenadier Co. I took pictures during the battle so take a look below to follow the battle. Tristan wants to give this another go soon as well. I found the 3rd edition to be clearly written, easy to look things up during the game and fast to play, so I give this edition a thumbs up.

Hal-con 2012

The games room, Sunday morning, just starting.

From the other corner.

My demo games setup, Malifaux and Infinity. Dust Warfare came out later.

The Empire was well represented.

Zombicide, my character(red)about to be pulled down by a dozen zombie's, no wait one of the other players throws in a molotov cocktail and kills them...and me.

The empty square where I was, many more zombies on the way. The player that killed me was killed very shortly!

Flames of War

Initial deployment. Germans at the top. Panzergrenadiers on both flanks with StuG's in the middle. American infantry spread out along their deployment zone at the bottom with Shermans on 1 flank and a mortar platoon and HMG platoon on the other. The 2 beige stands are the American objectives while the 2 turretless panthers are the German objectives. 

German turn 1. The StuG's have taken up position in the crops, 1 panzergrenadier platoon moved into the town while the other is flanking behind the hill to advance on the objective.

American turn 1. Mortars try to lay down fire(miss), infantry advances on the town while the Sherman's advance on their objective taking out a StuG on the way. HMG's take up position on the hill.

End of turn 2. StuG's and Sherman's trade ineffectual fire. German's consolidate in the town inflicting casualties on the exposed American infantry. Out of the picture, on the hill, the American HMG's are overrun by an assault.

A view as the Americans approach the town.

End game The Shermans are halted by StuG fire. The Germans hold the town as the 2nd panzergrenadier platoon completes it's sweep onto the objective.

Force on Force

The set up. The USMC supported by an Iraqi patrol prepared to enter the board. Insurgents hidden in the compound and 2 areas of bush, one near the road where the USMC/Iraqi will enter and the other group further down the road near the hill.

Looking up the road. Insurgents hidden on the left and directly ahead.

The Iraqi's are pinned down under fire, 1st HUMVEE taken out with crew dismounted. The 2nd HUMVEE is behind the building with it's crew occupying the building. The first group of insurgents by the road have been taken care of.

The 2nd group of insurgents(top right in the bush) suffer from USMC fire.

The USMC team in the building(far back) advanced along the hill and took the building while the other team moved to the white truck and pinned the insurgents to cover their advance. A sand storm had blown up to help cover the movement.

 Infinity

The board set up. PanO on the bottom, Ariadna on the top.

A street view from the Ariadna side. One of my fallen troops in the background.

That's all or now folks,

Hal-con 2012 Ready or Not

A quick post before Hal-con.

I am only going to be able to make it one day this year due to some personal business that came up so seeing as I have a limited time to do game demos I have thinned it down to Malifaux(of course), Infinity and Dust Warfare.

I am out of time but have things pretty much where I want them if not quite the grand vision I had 1 year ago just after Hal-con 2011.

After Hal-con it will be time to start prepping and playing all the games that I have been saying "after Hal-con" like running Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay and some Flames of War.

Last week I also played a short session of Pathfinder over the web using Roll 20 web program. This was a first for me running Pathfinder as well as running a session online. As I said I ran the game while my son, Tristan joined in from his computer in another room and my friend Pat joined in from Ontario. There was a few glitches and I wasn't well prepared as this was somewhat of an impromptu session after a brief phone conversation with Pat but it worked better than I thought and was fairly easy to run. I had to get used to the audio lag which made conversation a little awkward but over all it went well and I anticipate that we will try it again pretty soon.

The Haqqislam force for the Infinity demo. They are not quite finished but close(enough).

The PanO demo team.

The Infinity table.

Most of the buildings are empty mushroom containers.

Getting down to street level.

The Dust Warfare table.

 
Maybe see some of you there.
Rob

The Madness Continues

Well surprisingly enough I have managed to keep some steam up painting my 15mm Napoleonics and WWII Americans.

I have painted enough British Napoleonics now to fight a reasonable sized battle using Lasalle. I can field enough to fight either a defensive or offensive battle with an extra attachment. With a little more painting this will be jumped up to 2 more attachments.

The way the army builder works for the game is that you get a number of units depending on the theatre/time period based on the type of command(Infantry, Guards etc,) and then the players decide how many extra attachments they will get, both sides receiving the same amount. The attacker also receives a slight boost in the number of base units. 

I have also continued painting up my Flames of War Americans. These are relatively easy to paint compared to the Naps. I have the 1st platoon and Company HQ painted and the 2nd platoon on the bench.

I am also painting up a few figures for Infinity, 6 figures to be exact.

The reason behind this is I want to get enough figures painted to field small forces in some demo games that Ed I will be running at a local convention, Hal-Con in Halifax. It is a Sci-fi/fantasy convention with a fairly large boardgame component. Last year Ian, from The Aethervox and I ran some well attended Malifaux demos and this year we are going to expand this to include other games. I will most likely be doing demos of Flames of War, Lord of the Rings by GW, Infinity, Dust Warfare as well as Malifaux. Because of the convention theme I will not be doing any historical games besides from FOW. I might bring in some pictures of other games in progress just to show people some of the other games out there.

Tristan and I also played a game of Battlelore which we haven't played in quite awhile and I forgot how easy it is to pick up and fun to play and if you are wondering Tristan won the game, 6VP for the win against my 4.

Anyways back to painting and skimming rules!  

My entire force so far. I have more yet to paint.

The infantry.

The cavalry attachment.

The artillery.

The force from the side.

The 1st American platoon and Company HQ. Bases will be done later.

Company HQ.

1st platoon.

Infinity demo force 1, PanOceana. Painting required.

Infinity demo force 2, Haqqislam. More painting required!