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.

Games, Post Holiday

I did a little gaming over the holidays but generally just relaxed enjoying a variety of European beers I had received, the hops part of my blog title!

Tristan and I usually throw down a fairly large miniature game over the holidays but this year the interest just wasn't there so we gave it a pass, maybe next year.

We did play a couple of games of Conquest of Nerath, a fantasy themed board game of world conquest, which he had received for Christmas. One game between just him and I which we played using 1/2 the board and then a 4 player game with a couple of his friends. Both games were fun with Tristan winning both. We also played a game of Ascension, a deck building game,which I won by 1 point, a surprise to us both because it really looked like Tristan had it in the bag.

I did play a fair bit of Pathfinder, acting as the DM and 2 more players will be joining next session which will make a 4 player adventuring party. It has been awhile since I DM'd for a full group of PC's so there will be some relearning but it should be fun. I am running this game over the internet using the Roll20 web based program which seems to be working out pretty good. I have started a blog about the campaign, mostly for the players but anyone can check it out here.

One of the next miniature games I am planning on playing is another Force on Force game set in Iraq from the Road to Baghdad book. Unfortunately I thought all I needed was to build and paint the USMC transport, an AAV-7, but when I looked at my forces needed for the scenario I realized I had not painted up the second squad of 13 men. So the last few days I have been prepping and painting up the second squad and should have it done fairly soon. While I am at it I am taking the opportunity to paint up the rest of the troops I have which isn't that much extra but does include a sniper team and a few special teams. Once they are completed I will post a picture of the complete force. Down the road I think I might want to get a few more HMMWV's, maybe a LAV or 2 as well as a MRAP(Mine Resistant Ambush Protected).

I hope everyone had a good holiday and got some gaming goodness in.