Cottage Con

Last weekend we had the annual Cottage Con event hosted by my friend Rob T at his, wait for it, cottage with most games supplied by Shawn. It was another great time full of board games, BBQ food and a good bunch of guys.

Tristan and I arrived Friday and were the last to arrive. There was already a game in progress so we filled the time playing Summoner Wars, one of the 3 games I brought. We then played a game of Rune Wars Friday night, another game I had brought. On Saturday I played Age of Empires III, Conan,  Blockus and a Zombie game in which you have to defend your house. Sunday I played Ascension and Zombie State. There may be 1 or 2 other games that I am forgetting.

The 3 things I took away from the weekend were:
1. It's always a blast playing a bunch of games with good people, my oldest son included. Thanks again for hosting Rob, and look forward to next year.
2. Make a record of the games I play because it starts to get hazy after 3 days of gaming.
3. I may be able to save the world from a Zombie outbreak but I can't protect my own house from them.

Now it's on to preparing for the Malifaux weekend in three weeks. There is going to be 10 players so it may be a little crowded but hopefully everyone will have a good time. So I am trying to paint some figures up, at least the ones that seem to get on the table frequently and maybe work on some terrain.

I think, between friends and I we have everything needed to play some games of Force on Force so we will try to get a game in soon. It is supposed to play quickly so I am looking forward to giving it a go and see how it works. The community on the Ambush Alley forum is quite friendly and have already helped me out deciding on scale and reading through back posts

So that's about it. Board games galore, getting prepared for the Malifaux weekend and also getting stuff ready to try a game of Force on Force.

I will put up pictures as I finish work on the figures for Malifaux and Force on Force.

Prep, Games, Planning

This is just a short blog to mention a few things going on.

As mentioned before I bought a copy of Force on Force by Ambush Alley Games and have sucked in at least two other players to give it a try so I've been busy putting together a table for our first battle while waiting for some the military forces to arrive. Eric and Pierre already have a significant number of plastic and metal figures as well as vehicles so we should be able to get a test game in soon.

The town being built using insulating foam board.

The buildings complete with vehicles for scale.

The right flank with a T-55.

The left flank with a Bradley.

I've also managed to get some painting done on my ECW figures which I will probably put up for sale when the unit is complete.

This weekend I am off to a friends cottage for his annual "Cottage-Con" where a bunch of us get together to play various board games for a weekend. This is the only time I see some of these friends and some new friends have been made, a good time all around.

Also, I've been continuing with the planning for the Malifaux weekend and have a few more interested people that have contacted me so the group is growing and as long as everyone has a good time I will consider making this an annual event perhaps moving it into a local community hall to have a larger gaming space. I will talk to everyone involved after the Malifaux weekend is over and gauge interest for that.

And the big news, I've completed the 1st season of my PS3 F1 racing career coming in 3rd overall and starting season 2 with 2 wins, woo-hoo!(after I finish this 3 year career mode I will have to turn it up to hard and have my ego deflated)

Rob H

Back Again

After the last post apparently the ball I dropped was my blog because it has been a little over due here. I have been up to quite a few things since the last post and I don't think I will remember them all so this will just be highlights and what my poor memory can recall.

Big news, a local group of gamers including me have kicked off a miniatures game club in the Halifax area playing any miniature game that can be played in our time slot. Right now we are meeting once a month and we will see what interest we generate. The main games right now seem to be Malifaux and Warmachine but we would like to get more variety in time and I am going to see if I can squeeze in some historical gaming, maybe some small Flames of War or some skirmish game like Disposable Heroes.

As for getting games in I've played Malifaux at the club with my Perdita crew vs. Leveticus. I lost and was on my back foot most of the game. I have never played against that crew before and he does seem tricky to deal with. It wasn't totally Leveticus's way and I did manage to take out Rusty Alyce and Killjoy.

I also played another game of Infinity against my son. We used the full rules this time though I am sure we did not use all the skills to maximum benefit but the game was fun and played smooth enough. I won this one and there was some very cinematic action like when the Haq Lt dodged HMG fire 3 times, was finally hit only to have the round bounce off his armor before he made his escape off board.

I also picked up the Osprey edition of Force on Force as well as the Road to Baghdad scenario book. Me and a couple of friends are gathering our 20mm and 1/72 miniatures to get a game in soon.

I haven't done a lot of model work but in the last couple of days have started to get back to painting the ECW regiment. I am pleased the way they look and will put some pictures up soon on the WIP page.

Finally what has been eating up my free hobby time is the new F1 game for the PS3. I used to play F1 games all the time but stopped when I stopped following the real F1 season. I still play racing games and picked this one up recently just to try the F1 games again. And I love it, the game is a good mix, at least for me, between simulation and game. You take penalties when you screw up and you can't just ram your way through the traffic. So probably not for everyone but I think Codemasters have done a great job here.

First Infinity game using the quick start rules. 3 miniatures per side.

The same game.

A miniature's perspective.

The second game at 150pts. I set up the street grids on a diagonal to cut done on LOS.

Overall view of the battlefield. The shuttle is a cardboard model I down loaded from the Infinity site. Infinity

My friend Pierre and my youngest reading Force on Force.

Balls in the Air

Well its been fairly quite here as far as actually getting games in lately. I have got in a few, a game of Malifaux, Arcane Legions, a really short trial game of Infinity as well as a family game of Pandemic.

Mostly I've been doing planning and prep. I am planning a Malifaux weekend for about 6 people towards the end of June at my house with all kinds of Malifaux goodness. I will have 3 tables set up with games going on Saturday through Sunday with an appropriate movie thrown in, a BBQ and perhaps a trip to the pub.

Another friend of mine hosts a board game weekend at his cottage and that will be coming up in May and though this will only be my second time attending it will be a good time. Lots of games, food and friends and my older son will be coming as well. To top things off an old friend I haven't seen in some time is hoping to be able to fly in for the weekend...great!

A group of like minded individuals including me have got together and are attempting to get a local miniatures game group together with the first couple of trial nights already booked in a community room. My friend Shawn has been doing most of the leg work on this and hopefully it will take off.

As far as my own game related activities go I've been putting together some Infinity models and I will soon put up some pictures on my WIP page. I have a mixed opinion on these models. There is perhaps a little more work involved in putting them together than other metal  miniatures I have constructed but the sculpts are very nice looking. I have some Napoleonic naval vessels to get to the shipyards(commission work) as well as some new 15mm Napoleonic recruits to get ready for the Lasalle rules. I am also getting my paint scheme worked out for the 25mm ECW figures by Warlord Games. This unit I plan on selling after I have them finished.

So although I haven't accomplished much I have a lot of balls in the air, I hope I don't drop too many!

Arcane Legions, Rome vs. Egypt. I like the game but the collector aspect really stops me getting into it.

Forward units close in. The terrain is very abstract.

The figures are about 1/76. Not great quality but a paint job really helps and they are very cheap.

Before my friends complain here is the results of the few games that I did get in. Arcane Legions vs. my son-win, Malifaux vs. Eric-loss, family game of  Pandemic (co-op) win, though there was a screw up with a deck shuffle which I am sure helped out the cause. Almost forgot the Infinity game vs. my son-loss. We were using the quick start rules.

Malifaux Demo

Well, Shawn and I ran our Malifaux demo game this weekend at the Dartmouth Sportsplex for March Out To Game.

The room was full with lots of games going on, so it was great to see. Malifaux was the only miniature game represented as this is a mostly a board game group. This did have me a little concerned if Malifaux would draw any attention but I think it actually worked in it's favour with lots of people coming over to check out the miniatures and terrain and we quickly got 3 players wanting to give it a try.

The setup. Shawn is giving a quick background and game explanation. Yes I forgot the fences.

Two of the victims, I mean players checking out the stat cards.

Shawn gave a quick run down on the background and rules and the players were eager to pile in and give it a go. We had tweaked the scenario a bit and changed the strategy to shared turf war which meant one team's models had to outnumber the other team's models in their enemy's  setup zone(their 6" side of the table edge), and their enemies half of the table scoring VP's in the process. This way slow and fast moving crews would not be penalized.

Once again it was Guild/Resurrectionists vs. Arcanists. The figures used were:
Guild with Perdita, Nino and the Peacekeeper.
Resurrectionists with Nicodem, Mortimer and 2 Punk Zombies
Arcanist with two crews:
Ramos with 2 SteampunkArachnids and the Steamborg Executioner
Rasputina with Wendigo, Ice Gamon and a Ice Golem.

The game proceeded with the crews closing on each other with Nicodem raising a few extra troops along the way and Ramos raising a Arachnid swarm. Nino took to a rooftop while Rasputina starting throwing up her ice columns to block LOS and movement into her side of the table.
 

The crews close in. Nino's on the roof and ice columns are up. One was destroyed by the the Peacekeeper.

The Arcanists, agents of chaos advance while talking tactics.

The Resurrectionist player. I suspect Nicodem is about to raise another Punk Zombie.

As the crews approached each other Nino took out the Ice Gamon and damaged the Steamborg. The Steamborg charged in causing chaos by pushing Zombies out of the way to get to Nicodem but couldn't quite make it. Perdita charged across the street followed by the Peacekeeper while Rasputina's crew moved to head her off. There was a mighty brawl in the saloon with the Wendigo going down and the Ice Golem smashing through a wall.  Rasputina then channeled Biting Chill through the Ice Golem which
brought Perdita down to 1 point . Then the Peacekeeper joined in and speared Perdita in the back of the head killing her. Way to go Peacekeeper!(if you remember they were on the same side)

The Steamborg about to shove some zombies around.

 The game ended with the Steamborg getting torn apart by Punk Zombies and the Arachnid Swarm meeting a similar end. Ramos then blew himself up but failed to take out the Punk Zombie next to him allowing zombie models to cross over on that side of the table for VP's

The corpse counter left by Perdita after her own Peacekeeper speared her through the back. It is experimental equipment!

The Peacekeeper trying to smash it's way in. Not successfully. Did I mention it was experimental.

The game ended shortly after with a victory going to Guild/Resurrectionists. Only Nino was alive for the Ortega's but Nicodem was stronger than when he started with undead allover the place. For the Arcanist I believe it was Rasputina and the Ice Golem left in play but not in a position to get any VP's. Ramos' crew was wiped out but I have to say the luck of the cards deserted him at the end.(and I should know about that)

Overall a great game, the guys that joined in where great to play with and caught on to the mechanics quite quickly and most importantly I believe they had fun. The game generated some interest and who knows maybe a few new players. Some people that were not able to play expressed an interest to try it out in the future so perhaps the Halifax area Malifaux group will grow.

If I got any points of the battle mixed up I'm sure I will be told as I am just going off memory.

Contemplating what to do.

Other than that not much else to say. I played Runewars with my son over a few days and pulled out a win there.

More Malifaux

Shawn and I have been doing some prep to put on a Malifaux demo this coming weekend and to this end we have played a couple of games and also worked on models and terrain.

The first game we played was between Shawn's Rasputina's crew and my Ortega's. Ice pillars were everywhere and although Nino Ortega made a gallant attempt to halt the stampede of victory points by Rasputina the game ended something like 6-0 for the Ice Queen.

The second game was with 4 small crews which is the way we are going to run the demo. It had Nicodem and the Ortega's vs. Rasputina and Ramos. Nicodem/Ortega had the Reconnoiter strategy while R/R had A Line In The Sand. We did not use any schemes as this is going to be a teaching game and we thought we would avoid the extra confusion. For the other 2 players we had my son who has played once before and another friend, Pierre who has never played. We teamed up one grizzled veteran with one new player per side. 

The game went well with a win for Nicodem/Ortega and I think we learned just a few things we will do differently for the demo. Both new players did suffer at the hands of the veteran players but they still hand fun (there is a lot to learn). The true test being the fact that I believe Pierre will be joining in for some more games in the future.

Other than that I have been working on completing models and terrain for the demo.

If anyone is interested in a proper battle report let me know and I will throw them in every so often.

If you want to check out a great Malifaux podcast take a listen to The Aethervox Podacst at  theaethervox.com/. The guys do a great job and they are only a 3-4 hours away from me so maybe sometime there will be a game. 

I am also going to be starting a miniature painting service if anyone is interested and I will add details here as things progress.

Here are some pictures of models and terrain for the upcoming demo and I will tell you how things went next time.

The completed Peacekeeper.

The buildings for our Malifaux frontier town.

Malifaux for the Young

Let me say that I would generally not recommend Malifaux for a younger gamer. There are a number of reasons for this, the background content, the models(some are...well intense), the amount of special rules for each model and the math is a little more involved than the typical d6 style games.  

My son, who is 10, has wanted to play though. This is probably because he knows it's the game I "sneak" out of the house to play without him. So a few days ago I said to him that if he really wanted to play we could play a small game and we set up a scenario. The 2 crews we used were Perdita, which he would use and Nicodem which I would use. We also played with small crews which turned out to be three models each and drew for a strategy each but no schemes.

And the game went quite well. It didn't take my son long to get into the flow of the game and he has the patience to read through the stat cards.(he will probably have them all memorized soon!) He probably enjoyed the game even more than some others because he could concentrate on a few models and each one was a character.

Having said this there are certain crews and models I would not like him to play at his age and I would not let him read the stories in the books. Also when we played we both described the model's actions as we were playing, weaving a story as we played the game. I definitely described the actions with a lighter tone and in actually the game can be quite humorous, who knew. 

It was a fun game that ended in a tie and I'm sure there will be more.

On the building front I have completed the 3 buildings I've been working on for Malifaux I just have to give them finishing details to make them Malifaux specific. I will work on getting a water tower together and get the zombie horde painted in time for a game demo at the end of the month.

Talk to you soon.

A view of the Ortegos. The three round markers were evidence I had to destroy.

Nicodem's side approaching the town.