The End

The Christmas battle has finally wrapped up and it was full of carnage. By the end of turn 8 Evil had taken 93 casualties and thus had reached it's half way point and would have to start taking courage rolls at the beginning of the turn for every unengaged model. The ones that didn't pass would have to run away and be removed. Good had only (yes only!)taken 86 and therefore would have 1 or 2 turns where the Evil side would be rolling courage(hopefully losing lots of soldiers to their low courage) and they would not.

This is exactly what happened with many models running off the board. By turn 10 Evil had lost 132 models and Good 98 which was past their courage point as well.

The game lasted till turn 12. The Mumak was dead (hurray!) and the only Heroes left standing was a Eastering Captain for the Evil side and Eowyn, Faramir, Gandalf, Legolas and a Gondorian Captain on the Good side.

The game was a lot of fun for both of us with luck both deserting us and favouring us at different times and until the last few turns it could have gone either way but with the Mumak's demise the last hope for the Evil side also disappeared.

The battle rages between Gandalf and Saruman who just can't seem to finish each other off. Saruman eventually got knocked down by Sorcerous Blast and piled on by Gandalf, Faramir, and a couple of others.

Boromir attempting to finish off the Mumak but having to fend off three Nazgul and finally meeting his end at the hands of a Uruk-hai beserker.

Note the missing Boromir! The Mumak was finally finished off by a rain of arrows from Legolas and others. Without the Ent to wear him down Good would not have been able to deal with the monstrosity.

The end. A very sparse battlefield.

The Battle Rages

The battle continues and casualties mount. It is turn 7 now and the Forces of Good have lost 57 models including Aragorn, Gimli, Gamling and Damrod while the Forces of Evil have suffered 75 including Suladan, the Hasharin and the Troll. Both sides started with 183 models. I have a habit of rolling terrible for morale in any game so I hope I can get the Forces of Evil to their 1/2 way point first. 

Turn 6 Note which way the Mumak is facing. It has just finished stampeding through it's own lines causing significant casualties!

A closer shot. Will the Ent be able to finish off the Mumak or will the Mumak be triumphant. There is not much left of the Mumak's crew by this stage.

And So It Begins

The battle has begun! The forces are set.

The Forces of Evil: Moria Goblins with Saruman and a Cave Troll, Easterlings, a Mumuk, Uruk-Hai with Lurtz, Haradrim with Suladan and a Hashiri, Orcs, Warg Riders and Haradrim Raiders with 3 Nazgul spread through the line.

The Forces of Good: Rangers of Gondor with Faramir, Soldiers of Gondor(units spread through the line) with Gandalf, Rohirim with Theoden, Gamling and Eowin, my newly painted Ent, Aragorn, Gimli, Legolas, Riders of Rohan with Eomer, and finally some Dwarves.

A close up of the Mumak and Ent

 The first couple of turns did not bode well for the Forces of Good as their shooting was terrible. By the time the sides started to engage good had lost 12 to the evil loss of 3.

This is the end of turn 2 as indicated by the blue die in the foreground. The Troll is knocked down by Gandalf's magic. Note Aragorn and Gimli charging at the Mumak while the Ent throws boulders at it, but quite literally cannot hit the broad side of a barn.

By the end of turn 4 things where evening out though a series of poor die rolls started to make the commander of the Forces of Good rather irritated. I didn't think it was statistically possible to roll 6 ones in a row!

Turn 4: Casualties or mounting(the evil cavalry in the corner are part of the pile) Good has taken 21 including Aragorn while evil has taken 30.

Note that only Gimli remains as rocks were hurled on Aragorn's head from above and he could not roll a single fate to save himself!

 And it continues....

Christmas Gaming

The preparations for the Christmas battle are slowly taking shape, the table is set up and although I did not finish my terrain projects as hoped for they are at the stage where I can at least put them on the table. The army lists are ready so the next step is "TO WAR".

Tristan and I have continued our game of Deathwatch RPG and this session went much faster as I get used to the rules and was lots of fun. One more session should finish the scenario and then maybe I will recruit some more members for the team.

I also got in a few games in the last couple of days of games received under the tree. Pandemic once and Summoner Wars twice. 

Tristan and I Playing Summoners Wars which Santa brought Tristan for Christmas. He really liked it, its a fun fast game.

The battlefield waiting for the troops to arrive. Those are the new hills but they have to be flocked and finished off. The big hill under the ruins can be separated into 3 hills-2 corner hills and 1 table edge hill. 

A close up of the ruins, originally built as Weathertop a few years ago.

  

Some of the newer Osgiliath ruins from GW

These are the bases for my forests/rough area terrain. They have yet to be textured and I will make plugs in which I will base trees for forests are rocks to represent rough area terrain.

These are the trees based, I need to get more though.

The trees placed in the cut out areas of the base.

Me with a couple of my Christmas presents, actually Pandemic was a family gift from Santa.

The Grand Theory of Terrain Unification

I am slowly making preparations for the Christmas battle as mentioned in the last blog and I've been looking at my terrain and I believe it's time for a terrain redo.

Over the years I've made different types of terrain for various scales. I've had a 4' by 8' board with the standard hills. I've had a board painted with chalk board paint on which we drew  rivers in blue, roads in brown etc. and then placed hills on the board. This was mainly for micro armor. I've had 2' by 1' by 1" thick modular terrain on which I modeled the towns, rivers and roads again for micro armor. I made a bunch of 1" thick foam hexes to fit together forming rivers, hills etc.

Currently I am gaming on 2' by 2' sections with some depressions modeled into the 1" foam and then I place hills, trees and use felt of various colors for area terrain. This works well enough and I've stayed away from modeling anything scale specific. But looking at my collection of hills and trees I have noticed a problem. Over the years I've gamed in 6mm to 40mm and some of this shows in the terrain. Now I game almost exclusively in 28mm(WWII, 40k, Warhammer, Lord of the Rings, Malifaux) with some 15mm thrown in(Flames of War, Napoleonic) and once in along time 6mm(Epic Armageddon). Most noticeable my hills are made from 1' foam which is not high enough to block LOS for modern 28mm figures and then just other niggly stuff that bothers me.

So once again I've decided on a plan, "The Grand Theory of Terrain Unification" mark 4.12
-I am going to make maybe a half dozen hills with 1.5" foam
-I am going to make forests out of thin board which I will texture and place the trees on. In this way I can use the trees individually or on the board as area terrain. Without the trees on the texture board these areas can represent rough terrain.
-I will make river sections about 6" wide. I can then make different bridges to match the game scale.

I have some other ideas like roads and I can still use my fences and walls for the appropriate scale but  I really want to stay away from scenario specific terrain. Sure it looks cool and then it sits in the basement for years. What I am aiming at is a collection of terrain that I can use over and over and will not be so big that it will be hard to store. Sure I am going to have a box for stuff that will just be for 40k or WWII but if all goes according to the grand plan I will go to the generic terrain and set up all the natural stuff and then haul out the 40k box for some specific pieces which will make the board look different to say the Lord of the Rings battle I just had 2 weeks ago or something like that anyways.

I am going to try to get the first batch ready for the Christmas battle and that will consist of the new hills and forests and I will post pictures up with the battle report.

The battle is scheduled between Christmas and New Years so I had better get a move on but it really shouldn't take that long just for some hills and forests.

I hope everyone has a good Christmas and I will return in the new year.

Good Gaming everyone.

Rob

I'm Back

Well I haven't been very active in the hobby for the last little bit on the account of life.

Before the break I did get in some games though my memory is a little hazy now. I did get in a game of Firestorm Armada by Spartan Games with my son in which I was victorious! I concentrated fire on his battleship and managed a critical hit which destroyed it after which he withdrew his fleet. We are using card board cut outs downloaded from their website until we figure out which fleets we would like to invest in. A good way to try out the game without spending money on models.

I also picked up a copy of Deathwatch by Fantasy Flight Games. This is an RPG set in the Games Workshop 40k universe in which you take on the role of a Space Marine. It is a great read for the background. I started the introductory adventure with my son and it was a little slow mainly because it has been awhile since I GM'd and longer since I ran a similar game system which is based on the old Warhammer Roleplay game.

I played another game of Ravenloft with my son and a friend of mine. We successfully completed scenario 3 from the scenario book though at first we thought we had lost till we checked a rule, backed it up a turn and replayed the last turn correctly. A problem I find with co-op games is that players aren't keeping as close an eye on other players moves so even though people are not cheating sometimes you go "hey wait shouldn't this have happen this way". Still a fun game for a D&D fill in.

Modeling wise I have started some work on my 40k Orks which when completed will bring the force up to 1500pts. My son is agonizing over which Warhammer Fantasy army to start; Lizardmen, High Elves, Dwarves, Tomb Kings. So far he keeps returning to the Lizardmen even after buying the High Elves army book, so who knows. I guess I will have to dust off and update either my Orcs & Goblins or Empire armies.

Preparation is just starting for the annual familly Christmas battle which has become a tradition between my son and I. We have done it for the past 3 or 4 years and I believe this year I will have to show no mercy. So far every year we have done Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game by Games Workshop and this year will be no different. My son will command the forces of evil led by his Mumak while I will defend with the forces of good(bolstered by a surprise unit). I will post the army lists as they are finalized and the battle report when the game is finished. This game usually takes a few days as we battle when the Christmas festivities allow.

That's it for now, I plan on getting a few more games in, continue working on the 40k Orks and working on my 28mm WWII Canadians all while patiently waiting for the Ultramarines movie to arrive.

Finishes

The past couple of weeks have been busy but I still managed to get some gaming and modeling in.

The French fleet is ready to set sail, I just have to get the cowardly French commander to join me in battle, and at that point the reality of my poor tactics and /or luck may make me rethink all these comments. I love making army lists or building a new model, imagining how it will perform ideally on the table, and then getting the cold slap of reality in the face as it all goes up in flames.

So now I am going to start working on building up my 40k Orks and painting up a 28mm WWII Canadian platoon that me and a friend are going to field together.

As far as games go I've played Chaos in the Old World by Fantasy Flight Games and Space Hulk Death Angels Card game also by FFG over at a friends house and a game of Space Hulk board game at home vs. my son. Lost all games. I lost Chaos by not playing the right strategy for my chaos god. It was the first time I played and it took a couple of turns to figure out what I needed to be doing, oh well next time. Death Angels was cooperative so it wasn't all my fault, honest. Space Hulk was funny because I haven't played in such a long time I forgot to keep action points to unjam my stormbolters, and as my luck would have it I jammed up fairly early and I got mobbed by the geanstealers, end of game.

I want to talk briefly about the miniature game Malifaux because I've been meaning to. This is not a review or detailed game description but a few words about what I like about the game mechanics. Malifaux is a skirmish game set in a gothic, steampunk, western, magical, alternate history. The number of miniatures is generally less than a dozen per side and closer to half a dozen usually. The game uses a deck of cards per player instead of dice to resolve actions. The scenarios usually have multiple victory conditions which are different for each player and is usually not the elimination of the other team.

So, what do I like about it. Well as my luck is frequently not the best I really like the card mechanic because each player has a hand of cards which they can use to off set a bad draw when determining results of attacks etc. Basically a card is flipped from your deck and the number is added to a model's characteristic. This is compared to the target model's defense characteristic plus a card flip by your opponent from his deck. At this point the loser of the "duel" can play a card from their hand to win the duel(there is some other details but this is the basic flow). Anything that can counter bad luck is great with me and it adds a level tactical thinking about when to use your good cards. Also because the model count is low I feel I can spend some extra time painting the figures.

The main down side to the game is the amount of errata for the main rule book. Each model has a list a abilities and powers which is what makes the games very tactically diverse but you have to check every listing for errata which is very annoying. I can't wait for a 2nd edition or at least another print of model cards.
So you ask, why don't you win at this one. Well I do sometimes and I know why I am losing when I am so I will learn as I play. My friend who I play against is very good at looking at the various powers and working out a good synergy of powers within his crew. I on the other hand am a trial and error player so it takes a little longer to get things figured out so I will keep fighting with my Nicodem crew until I pull off a win(all my wins are with the Ortega's).

Overall I have a blast playing the game and depending on the crews fighting, each game can play very differently. I am hoping to build some purpose built buildings and terrain to add to the feel of the games.
Till next time

 The completed French fleet

 The French 120 gun flag ship

 The Canadians

The 1st squad ready for a fight