“Red five standing by!”

How overused has that line been over the years, although I could have used the immortal line from Toy story 2 “Buzz, I am your father”. Anyway as you probably have already guessed I have been introduced to the wonderful world of the X-Wing Miniatures game by Fantasy Flight, luckily Ashley found himself with time on his hands one night and offered to run an intro game for me.

For anyone that doesn’t know it’s essentially a table top battle game where each player controls one or more ships and attempts to destroy their opponent or complete a predefined objective. The game play is very simple (the rules are on Fantasy Flight’s website as a free download), has pre-painted miniatures and uses a variation of the Wings of War game system. Each player secretly chooses their ship manoeuvres and then reveals them in order of how skilled their pilots are, therefore you spend a lot of time (in my case) trying to second guess what your opponent is going to do.

I have to say that I have been quite sceptical on the game as the war gaming purist in me was put off by using “prepainted” miniatures, however it was immense fun. The fact that it isn’t an IGOUGO system made it more of a challenge and provided something a little different, the game set up was very quick and the rules very simple yet with a nice level of depth available from the various characters that you can include. I’d compare it to SAGA in that you can pick up the basic game in a few minutes however it has immense depth once you realise how much of the game play strategy is in the battle boards. In X-Wing the depth lies in the named characters and skills you can give some of the ships thereby creating interesting combinations and strategies.

I’ve still to try out any of the missions; this may be where the game lacks depth however I shall reserve judgement until I know more. However it may be the holy grail of introduction game for me as I plan how to get my kids into this crazy hobby. I was considering Dreadball however I’ve never been much of sports fan, but playing with little toy spaceships, now that’s something I think my kids would enjoy!

5x Zvezda Matilda II's

As the analogue hobbies painting challenge continues I'm finding it harder and harder to get my entries in on time. However I have been enjoying the themed rounds and as such I couldn't resist the hot round.

Challengers are expected to use their ingenuity in interpreting the theme, many were a lot more creative than I, however my submission was part of my ongoing interest in the North Africa theatre of World War Two. Firstly we have five Zvezda 1/100 Mathilda II tanks painted in a very generic sand colour scheme, I would have tried out the caunter  scheme however my eyes aren't that good anymore.

I used my google fu to try and find examples of the Zvezda model painted in North Africa colours but I could only find Soviet examples. These models are typical of the Zvezda range, cheap, easy to fit together but a little light on detail compared to metals minis, but for the price I can't grumble.

Also I managed to complete a little air support in the form of 1/144 Revell Hurricane, not a bad model just a little soft on detail like the Matilda's.

I think I may have been a little heavy on the black lining but I quite like the contrast it brings to the models.



Now I need to complete the other five Mathilda's for my small armoured company. I understand that in games like Flames of War a company of Matildas is seen as "gamey" but I don't care, they were there in that format, maybe the issue is the game and not the history :-P

FoW Batrep – BGG US Armour vs German Trained Panzers

Wow confident trained sucks!

I recently got together with Ashley for another game of Flames of War with his lovely models. I had suggested playing a few games of the Tank Aces campaign however we both agreed that after reviewing, it seems a little like FoW-lite and we’re starting to gain a little confidence in the rules to not need to play a dumbed down version.

Anyway after each totting up a 1500pts force from BGG we rolled up a mission, this time getting Counter Attack. I was defender and duly chose my table quarter and placed both objectives. Unfortunately for the defender I only got to put two of my platoons down as I had chosen an almost exclusively tank force and thus was limited in what I could deploy.

Ashley’s force consisted of 2 Confident Vet Sherman platoons and CiC & 2iC made up of 5x 75mm and 5x 76mm Shermans backed up by a full platoon of Doughboys, oh and a bloody plane!

However I had the cream of the Wehrmacht’s armour (crewed by scared school boys) in the form of 3x Panther’s, 4x Panzer IV’s, 3x Panzer IV’s, 3x Stug G’s, 3x Stug G’s, 2x Modelwagens and a platoon of Pioneers. Sounds good doesn’t it, well it wasn’t as they were just a tad inexperienced!

Anyway the game started off with me deploying my two platoons (3x panthers and my Pioneers along with my CiC and 2iC in Panzer IV’s) all over the first objective in my deployment zone. The Panthers were hull down on the hill, the pioneers dug in and concealed, therefore hopefully I’d pretty much made this objective a no go area. My reasoning being that this would force Ashley to move across the board and try and capture the uncontested objective in the table quarter next to my deployment. This would play right into my hands as he’d advance in front of my Panthers lovely big guns whilst my reserves would start to come on in the quarter opposite the uncontested objective thus allowing me to pincer his more experienced force with my numerically superior (but far less experienced) reserves.

At least that was the plan, it didn’t work too well. What actually happened is that Ashley sat opposite me and the Panthers and Sherman 76mm had a shooting contest! In theory I should have won however his damn plan kept turning up and dropping bombs on my lovely big tanks. Although by turn 6 (when the objectives went live) I had brought my reserves on and was cheerfully defending both objectives we had both lost our CiC and 2iC’s and with Ashley’s higher experience it was only a matter of time before I rolled badly for my company morale.

Game Ashley….grrrrr. Still it was good fun and played in the way I want to enjoy FoW so all in all a good way to spend an evening.

Here’s a picture dump of the action:

The initial set up! Note the undefended objective on my left flank. Hopefully my reserves can capture it before the Doughboys!

The effects of Air on Panthers. Why oh why didn't the Germans fit AA machine guns on their tanks?

Ashley begins to break for the undefended objective while my Panthers burn! Look at that Sherman blob, where's the artillery when you need it!

"C'mon boys, they don't know were coming!"

Meanwhile the Panthers bite back. Damn but they had a good gun!

Here come the reserves, Not so confident now are ya?

Blam! The Air picks on my poor little tanks

Meanwhile the GI's are still pushing through the hedgerow on their way to the second objective!

By now my CiC was toast, you'd think my 2iC would get the idea and get the hell away from the burning Panthers.

"We're in the clear lads, follow me"
"Err sarge ain't that a bunch of Jerry tanks over there?"
"Oh Sh*@"

And more armour arrives but by now it was too late.

All models used were Ashleys, this Mobelwagen was just too pretty to get its guns dirty shooting up the US Air earlier in the game and decided to arrive late in the game!

"Feuer...."

Ooh whats this, more Panzer's outflanking the poor GI's.
Ouch!

Oops, I got distracted by the soft infantry and didn't notice the rather unpleasant 76mm's waiting across the field

Holiday Adventures Part Deux!

or........ “he may be a defiler but his momma calls him sweetie”!

 

In my previous post I waxed lyrical on my holiday hobby adventurers, well this is the second part of said adventures and features a certain pale Orc (don’t worry it’s a short post).

Te Papa is the national Museum of New Zealand and is on the waterfront in Wellington (and walking distance from our house) therefore we spend quite a bit of time there with the kids as it has plenty of exhibits and is nice and large (i.e it takes a few trips to take it all in!).

Anyway as you enter the museum who should greet you but this charming fellow!

My kids think he’s funny, my youngest shouted “Daddy look, he’s like your soldiers!”.

Do you think they’ll end up being gamers?

The Missus Would Thrive in the Zombie Apocalypse! (Oh and a newpodcast!)

"Turns out I’m a bit of a dud when it comes to battling the undead whilst scavenging for supplies, as our most recent game of Zombicide would attest to. Its been a few weeks since we managed to squeeze a game, both my better half and I being a tad busy to think about battling the legions of undead however we decided to have a nice relaxing game last Saturday and played one of the smaller missions (mission 4).

This one is supposed to be played in 90 minutes however it took us a good 2.5 hrs to complete, however we did actually complete it which makes a change. It only uses 4 of the map tiles however it does use both the rotating door and several door switches. The objective is for the survivors to leave the prison and cross the road to a workshop to obtain the welder (presumably to fortify their sanctuary). The nasty part is that you have to activate the rotating door and then use the violet switch to open another door, however the violet switch activates a zombie spawn point in the same room that the rotating door switch is in. Therefore you have to leave someone behind, whilst the rest of the party battle through the hordes and retrieve the welder, get back in to the prison and shut the doors!

Well we managed getting to both switches no problem however by this point a big crowd of zombies were loitering right outside the prison door (a few fatties and an abomination included). Now normally when you get such a big swarm at a choke point like this you find the bottles and gasoline and Molotov cocktail their asses! However we couldn’t find any bottles (grrr) so plugged instead for battling through, leaving two of my characters behind to manage the doors and zombies that would be spawning in the prison once the violet switch was activated.

So how did it all go wrong Ste? Well it didn’t, at least not for the missus who bludgeoned her way through the rotting horde and made a bee line for the objective, clearing the streets in the process. However the survivor I had sent with her team was beaten down and returned as a Zombivor, but he was useful backing her team up.

Meanwhile I cocked up my movement leaving one of my survivors as zombie bait and she was dragged down and returned as a very wounded Zombivor. My remaining team member then miraculously found some bottles and promptly Molotov’d the room to clear the way to the rotating door switch so I could let the other team back in. Unfortunately this also meant I lost my poor Zombivor (so I’m down to two team members now, one of which smells bad and grunts a lot).

So there you have it, my team got beaten silly while my wife’s team were on their way to rivalling Rick, Darrell and Michonne as uber zombie killers.

(I don’t think we’ll play using the zombivor resurrection rules in furture, doesn’t feel right. Once you’ve been scoffed you’re dead!)

 

Oh and if you like zombie apocalypse stories then here’s a link to a free radio style drama podcast in the same vein as The Walking Dead. I’ve been enjoying this whilst painting for the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge. Each episode is about 15 mins and they’re broken up into chapters of 3 episodes. They finally finished the story at chapter 48 so my poor math skill calculates that there are 144 episodes running to 36 hours.

http://www.werealive.com/episodes/

Back to VSF - This time its Empire of the Dead

I guess the clue is in the title with this. As a bit of a break from all the Lord of the Rings/WW2 gaming Scott kindly offered to introduce me to the wonderful world of Westwinds Empire of the Dead, a victorian science fiction game that is definitely more gothic horror than sci-fi! 

Anyway it gave me the chance to play with my recently completed Brotherhood of the Black Sun that I submitted for the Victorian bonus round of the challenge, I desperately wanted to get my victorian football hooligan on the board. Anyway on a lovely sunny New Zealand summer day I made the commute after work up to Scott's secluded country mansion to partake in tea and dice rolling, taking both my newly completed models and the Warbases Warehouse model which I had finally completed over the weekend. Scott was keen to see the scale of retail scenery and how it compares to his splendid home made Victorian terraces. I originally thought that the warehouse was a little too large however when laid out next to his scratch built houses it all looks about right.

Anyhow, lets get to the action shall we, the scenario rolled was "Fracas" with both of us having to split our forces and each deploy in two opposing corners of the board. This meant that I could either choose to have two seperate engagements or frantically try to link up my forces to fend off Scott's agressive advances. My faction was made up of a President armed with a heavy pistol and big axe, VP with light pistol and flaming brand, 4 membership in bloody great suits of armour (my Ironmen!) and 1 membership with a pistol and sword cane (purple suit!)

Scott was using his Pall Mall Patrons with President and VP armed with Pistols and swords member ship with rifles, repeater rifles and scoped rifles (arghhhhhh). The game uses a points system where you spend shillings to hire the members of your faction so it was all balanced in game terms but to be honest neither of us cared as it looked like a fun story to play out!

Scott moves his president up through the graveyard to threaten my president who is hiding behind the warehouse while I sneak two of my Ironmen around the terraces (sneak in ruddy great suits of armour, yeah right?). To back up the Ironmen my VP takes aim with his pistol but he must be a little blind not to notice Scott's marksmen taking aim over the hedge!

I try and sneak my other two Ironmen round the other side of the terraces but Scott saw it coming and moved to intervene. Now if only I can get priotity and activate them first I can pulp the annoying bloke with the repeater rifle. Meanwhile my President and his buddy engage in a pistol duel with Scotts president and supporting chap.

"Surprise" comes the muffled shout from inside the armoured suits however I didn't get priority and Scott obligingly gunned them both down.

Not to worry I've got the outflanking manouver,..............ah, that didn't work did it!

My president is getting worried, his minions are falling and the Pall mall Patrons are sneaking round the back!

Not to worry, my VP makes a dash for the marksmen and in a flurry of pistol shots and flaming brand action....... fluffs his attacks and beaten down.

The state of play, I've got two members of my faction left, Scott suddenly remembers the breakpoint rule and advise me that I've lost "Phooey" cries I, " have at thee" and we agree to play on!

and in a stunning display of brutality its President vs President with the Brotherhood of the Black Sun emerging victorious as Scotts' president succumbs to his wounds.

But it was not to be as Scott swarmed my President after easily dispatching purple suit and mobbed him, but not before he despatched another one of Scotts faction.

A belting game with plenty of scope for campaigns and development, I enjoyed it more than In her Majestys Name and will definitely be investing in a copy. Watch this space for more victorian gothic horror sci-fi sillyness!