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.

Bits and Pieces

It's been awhile once again, since my last post, and since then I have been dabbling here and there with different projects, modeling, painting and some gaming.

Free Comic Book day has come and gone and the whole family headed to the local store to partake. My youngest picked up some free comics, I picked up a couple of games that were on sale, Lord of the Rings LCG(Living Card Game) by Fantasy Flight Games and Tribune also by FFG. I've been wanting to get the Lord of the Rings game for awhile now and it's one of the better solo games I've played (you can play with 2 players, 4 if you have 2 core sets). Tribune is a worker placement game set in ancient Rome and is another fun game that was easy to learn and will probably make it to the rotation for family game night. We met up with a friend/gamer/opponent, Shawn for lunch at a nearby pub, a very enjoyable day all around.

As far as gaming goes I've played a few games of Tribune, once with my older son and again with him and my wife. The game is easy to learn and the game play flows well. I also have played Lord of the Rings LCG in solo mode a number of times and quite enjoy that.

I've been reading a few rule sets namely Dust Warfare by FFG and Cutlass by Black Scorpion Miniatures . I am looking forward to playing the Dust Warfare set as I already have enough miniatures from Dust Tactics, a board game that straddles board and miniature gaming set in the same background. The rules seem clearly written, well indexed and looks like it will be fun to play. Cutlass I am holding off an opinion until I give it a try though on initial read the mechanics seem a little dated relying on a slew of tables. These may be easy to remember in game play and it does have a good set of reference sheets. Cutlass is all about a campaign style of play in which your crew grows in size, skill and equipment as you play more games and I think as a one shot game it may not hold up so well. So this game would require a dedicated group of gamers to get the most out of it. 

I've also managed to do some modeling, pulling out some models I've had for quite some time. I've been working on some 15mm WWII miniatures for Flames Of War   getting prepared to play some games with the new 3rd edition rule book. I am working on some Germans now and will move onto some Americans when they are finished. A friend of mine picked up a 1/100, 15mm Sdkfz 251 plastic kit by Zvezda for me to put together and compare to the Battlefront ones which I have done.

The Zvezda kit. This is everything for the model. It also come with a card of game stats for their own game. No decals though, all snap together.

Battlefront in the background, the scale is very close.

Front comparison.

All together.

All the halftracks primed and sprayed  the basic colour.

I would have no problem playing these side by side on the table. For me the only issue is the Battlefront ones I have are late war while the Zvezda one is early war.

Panthers and a Stug. I magnetized the barrel of the Stug so I can equip it with the 75mm or 105mm gun.

I tried doing the camo with a brush which turned out ok. I just know I will never get them painted if I wait to get the airbrush out!

The same friend who gave me the halftrack kit also purchased a bunch of foam core buildings from GameCraft  Miniatures for use in our 20mm modern battles. I got him to order a couple for me just to give them a try. I've put mine together making the floors and roof removable so that figures can be placed inside. They will take some modelling to make them ready for the table but are quite nice and cheap!
 

A 2 story building assembled.

With the roof removed to the second floor. This is the biggest cutout to allow me to lift out the next level. I glued a paper lip under the edge to support the cut out section.

Both cutouts removed to get to the main floor. I am going to base the building so I need to get to the main floor from the roof.

And finally I've been playing around with the TerraClips to try out different board arrangements for a Malifaux table for the up coming Malifaux weekend at my house.

The view from one side. This is a box each of Streets of Malifaux and Buildings of Malifaux.

The other side. A little more open, perhaps some trees in the little park like areas.

 That's about it, hope you enjoyed.
Rob.

20mm Modern USMC Paint Tutorial

A reader asked if I could explain the pretty quick method I used to paint my 20mm Modern USMC by Elhiem Figures so here it goes. This is a little different than my usual post so I hope it is understandable.

It just so happened that I just received another batch of figures that needed painting up so I thought I would grab a bag, paint up the figures and snap a few pictures as I went along step by step.

First off I'd like to say that the basic colours and techniques are taken from the Enduring Freedom book by Ambush Alley Games. Piers Brand wrote  how he had painted the figures for the book and I mostly followed that changing some colours and techniques to match colours I had in my collection. 

The first thing to do is pick out the figures to paint and clean them up before glueing them on bases and priming them.

The selection I had to pick from

The figs as they came out of the package. Note the bent guns and various metal flash & vents. 

I straightened out the guns, careful not to bend them more than necessary and cut off any flash and scraped down a few mold lines, all with the knife.

Next they are glued on bases with super glue. In this case I used pennies.

Then I took them outside to prime them with a spray primer(GW Chaos Black) being careful to try to get the figs pretty well covered.

I brushed on some black paint to get into areas the spray could not get into.

That is the prep done which did not take very long. Now to get into the painting.

These are the colours I use for the main uniform. Vallejo 873 US Field Drab, 819 Iraqi Sand and 837 Pale Sand.

The main uniform area in 873. This doesn't have to be tidy.

All 4 done. I will only show one figure for each step though I am doing 4 at a time.

A heavy dry brush with 819.

I put this on brushing from various directions to cover most of the darker base coat except in deep folds. After it drys I do it again to make the Iraqi Sand more solid.

I then dry brush on a lighter coat of 837 Pale Sand.

I then put on a wash of GW Devlan Mud thinned down with equal parts water and mat medium to blend the colours together while adding some shade.

 

For the webbing, gear and boots I used 921 English Uniform and 988 Khaki.

Webbing, gear and boots painted 921 English Uniform. From here on you have to paint carefully to make sure you don't get any on the main uniform.

I then applied the same wash I used on the main uniform.

 

I then dry brushed with Khaki.(I've also used British Uniform with some white added)

The team finished with the details painted. Skin, guns, sunglasses and the mounting bracket on the helmets.

After that it's time to do the bases and take them to the table.

Hope this helps and excuse the photography, it really doesn't show the colours very well.

Thanks for reading,

Rob

Mostly Modeling

Well I didn't get a lot of gaming lately bit I have got in a fair bit of modeling, mostly in preparation for some Malifaux gaming. Now that I have most of what I need painted for my Seamus crew I think I might be switching modeling gears to some historical figs. I have plenty to work on so picking an era and scale will be the hardest part. I will probably work on some 15mm WWII while completing the 1/1200 Napoleonic ships of the line. Of course I could work on my 25mm WWII, 25mm EWC, 25mm Napoleonic, 15mm Napoleonic, 25mm Infinity, Warhammer, Warhammer 40k, etc, etc... Oh well I should just pick something and get into it.

My complete rivers, next some bridges.

A view at river level.

Seamus completed.

His Belles.

Flesh Construct.

Dead Justice. She'll be used with her Dead Doxy stats.

The only games I've got in lately was at A Few Glued Men recently. It was a short evening as there was a low turn out for the evening with only 5 people showing up. I played a 3 way game of Heroclix which I've played a few times but am not terribly familiar with. I played Nova Force vs. Shawn and his Sentinels and Gareth with Capt. America, his Howling Commandos and the Silver Surfer(for some reason). Gareth and I teamed up against the Sentinels and then turned on each other once we figured they were beaten down enough. Gareth pulled out the win by keeping his units fairly safe and thus being relatively intact to take on me and the remaining Sentinel.

Gareth complaining about how his forces would be wiped out before pulling out the win. Shawn plots.

Shawn with his evil plans.

Well once again that's it for now. Keep gaming.

Rob