A Long, Long Absence

So it has been a very long time since my last post, various other activities and responsibilities seemed to get in the way and then the habit of blogging was broken unfortunately. But I hadn't stopped gaming or modeling so here is an attempt to get back into the habit.

This is a very short recap of my gaming over the last little while followed by a brief battle report of my most recent game which was a modern game of Force on Force.

RPG's
I have been playing and running a fair number of rpg's including, as a player, a game of Vampire and the conclusion of a Call of Cthulhu (CoC) campaign. I have been running Star Wars quite regularly  and Dragon Age sporadically.
The CoC game group is going to switch over to Shadows of Esteren while the Star Wars group is going to take break to another system as yet to be determined before returning for the next chapter of their adventure.

I also was able to play in a couple of rpg's at Hal Con this year which was fun and the first time I have participated in a convention rpg, playing a couple of Star Wars scenarios run by the same game master and a CoC game. Both were very enjoyable.

Planning is underway for CottageQuest 3 in which a group of us rent a cottage for a weekend and play a variety of different rpg's.

Miniatures.
Seems like there is less going on here though I have recently started to paint again. Chet and I once again did game demos at Hal Con this time with Batman the Miniature Game and Star Wars Armada.
Games I have played in my spare time include Armada, an Imperial Assault campaign, some 15mm WWII with Battlegroup and recently Force on Force.

Board Games.
My birthday was another board games weekend with friends at the house and I have played a variety of games with the family. I finally played Cthulhu Wars which is impressive. Also I finally  made it into the Board Room Cafe in Halifax for a Shawn's Birthday.

There is probably stuff I missed but that is a brief overview of the last year and a bit!

So in rough chronological order the pictures!

The CottageQuest gang!

 Some of the games.

Armada at home. 

Hal Con 2015

Batman with demo Chet.

Birthday games.

Battlegroup.

My Germans vs Chet's Canadians.

The German's were triumphant!

 Force on Force

Road to Baghdad scenario 3

The Iraqis are in the buildings and surrounding terrain while the USMC must drive through.

The USMC enter the board. The bottom APC and infantry are not really there, they are waiting to come on.

M1's start leveling buildings even as the USMC loses an APC taking 2 KIA's on the left(out of the picture) to an rpg.

The M1's get called away and must exit as quickly as possible leaving the rest of the USMC forces to finish off.

At this point a sand storm blows in limiting visibility.

The tanks have left.

The Iraqis have disabled  2 Humvees, 1 AAV7 APC and caused 3 KIA as well as a number of lesser wounds.

The End. There is not much left of the Iraqi forces but they did enough damage to win the game.

More Edge of Empire and Some Good Old Games Workshop

My modelling has sort of ground to a halt lately do to a lack of interest but I find the various aspects of the gaming hobby always keep me involved and right now I am not in the model building/painting frame of mind. I have been getting some models on the gaming table though and playing a few games which is always good.

So before I went camping with the family for a week in PEI Tristan and I got in another game of good old Warhammer 40k. This game I pulled out my Space Marines and we fought another 1250pt game. I did do a little painting here in that my Landraider Crusader had been built but never painted so I put on a quick coat of paint so that it at least wouldn't stand out in my army as the one unpainted piece. Let me just say I expect my Orks to consistently fail their army saves but my Space Marines...oh well that's how it rolls I guess.

While camping we played a few short games I brought with me which were  Munchkin by Steve Jackson Games and Once Upon A Time by Atlas Games. These are games the whole family can play including my (almost) 5yr old(with help). I think he may be a rpg enthusiast as he really likes the story telling games like Once Upon A Time or just the old around the campfire taking turns telling a story game. I also brought Gloom but we didn't get time to play.

Tristan and I are preparing a game of Warhammer Fantasy now. This will be another 1250pt battle and we have played the latest edition before but not in quite a long time.

I ran the second session of Star Wars: Edge of the Empire and have pretty much integrated the full rules into play now. We finished off the basic scenario that came in the beginners box and started the downloadable adventure from FFG. The core rules are pretty fast which makes the game fast to play allowing more time for role playing so now I have to polish off my understanding of some of the more common rules like starship combat, healing and repairing so I can concentrate on role playing the NPC's. I have to say that as of right now I really like the system but the equipment section is a little sparse but has enough to get through. I am hoping that this will be expanded on fairly soon.  

I also started to run a game of Dragon Age RPG be Green Ronin for my son Tristan and Michelle. This system is very easy to get into. I started them off with the free Quick Start adventure and will be finishing it up the next session and starting the adventure that comes with Set 1. I am not sure how this game will run in the long term and it seems hard to track down the second set that takes the PC's to level 10 and I assume fills in some more details. I had wanted to pick up the set before I started to run it but could not find it.

My 1250 pts of Space Marines. My Crusader just has a base coat of paint.

The battlefield.

The enemy, IG perhaps unwittingly tainted by chaos.

The setup, Vanguard Strike. The mission, Purge the Alien.

The units close. The Predator and Leman Russ exchanged inconclusive fire for a number of turns.

Still early in the game. The IG holding their positions and waiting for me to close.

My Crusader and Terminators enter play. The Terminators did some damage but were taken out by the IG gun line.My Space Marines engaged the IG infantry but after failing 4 out of 5 armor saves in 1 round I could see the writing on the wall. So my Company commander issued a challenge to try to redeem some glory. he failed to hit once and then failed all his armor saves and was pounded into dust. My SM must have got a hold of some Stormtrooper armor from Star Wars! The game ended in a 7-3 loss.

The First Edge of the Empire Session and More 15mm Preparation.

Well it wasn't hard to find a group interested in trying the Star Wars Edge of the Empire RPG by Fantasy Flight Games. In fact the group that played the Call of Cthulhu campaign transferred straight over to the Star Wars game with me taking over the GM position with Shawn becoming a player(previously the GM) and a new player(a big SW fan) joining in for a total of 5 player characters taking part. We started off playing the adventure out of the beginners box with a few additions to make the adventure a little more open. The players picked up the game mechanics pretty quick and the first adventure is pretty action orientated. The next session will finish off the starter adventure and we will continue with the free online adventure that extends the story. The players seemed to enjoy the game and liked the narrative aspect of the dice mechanics.

We went camping last weekend near where my friend Chet lives so he came out for the evening and I passed on some Flames of War materials I had picked up for him from Gametronics in New Minas. We also all played a fast, fun game of  Forbidden Island which we lost.

My son Tristan and I have been dusting off (literally in my case) our Warhammer 40k miniatures and trying a few games of 6th edition. 1250pts of Orks vs. Imperial and the games are pretty fun though there is some frustration playing the Orks!

I have been working slowly on trying to get my Flames of War Germans finished off and they are coming along pretty well with the hopes of doing a beach landing game soon.

Works in progress:

10.5cm German battery.

The battery all together. Finishing details and shading still required.

Spotters, HQ and staff.

US spotter plane.

StuGs from the Open Fire starter set.

Tiger 1's from Plastic Soldier Company.

7.5Pak40's from the starter set as well.

First 40k battle:

The setup, scenario is Big Guns Never Tire with Dawn of War deployment.

The bulk of the Orks.

My Deffcopters advance on the flank.

and are quickly taken out, a general advance as the Imperial Guard stays put.

Closing on the other flank.

My center has been destroyed.

Nearing the end, my Deff Dread tore apart the Punisher but the IG got a 7-4 win.

 The Second Game.

The second game. Scenario: The Relic, deployment: Hammer and Anvil.

The IG line.

The Orks pile in, moving on either flank. While the IG squad in the center drop the relic and run after the Killa Kans charge them.

The IG Chimera is destroyed while the Leman Russ blows up taking some IG with it.

The carnage at the end. The Orks won this one 2-0.

The Ork pile of dead.