And so it began...

My intention for this blog is for it to be a record of my gaming experiences, trials, tribulations and painting and modelling efforts.

Tuesday 18 December 2012

Dreadball - Corporation team

New game has been released called Dreadball (from Mantic) some of you out there may have heard of it. Sort of a science-fiction american football game. I didn't get the full game but picked up a couple of teams to play against my regular gaming mate who brought the game on the Kickstarter. We had our first game last weekend and it played really well so looking forward to the next one.
First impressions of the figure were smaller than I imagined and very disappointed by the amount of flashing on them, it was a devil of a job to clean them up and now that I have painted them I have noticed quite a few spots I missed :-(.
Anyway here is the Coporation team ready to go. The Corporation are essentially the human team.
The Corporation

'Lucky' Logan (MVP) flanked by two Guards (who just bash people)

The MVP known simply as 'The Enforcer'

Strikers - they do all the scoring

Corporation 'Jacks' - they are all round players
My next team that I have to do are called 'The Marauders' who are the Orc and Goblin sect. Sigh... more flashing to clean up....

Saturday 1 December 2012

Saga - Anglo Danes

It has been a while but finally pretty much finished my Anglo Danes for Saga. It is a 5 point warband which seems to be a nice size for a good game. I probably will add one more unit of 8 warriors at some point. To complete them I will add some snow (it is England after all) but as I will mass produce a batch will do it when I complete my Vikings. I probably also need to strap shields to the backs of my warlord and Dane axes as they look abit light on armour (and the Little Big Men shield transfers are very cool).
5 ppoints of angry Anglo Danes

Levy bowmen

Warlord plus 4 hearthguard

A unit of Dane axes

Unit of warriors

More hearth guard
So I need to get onto my Vikings which will mean painting up my warlord and 4 berserkers. I can then use my Anglo Danes (minus the Warlord and Dane Axes) as Vikings as they all dress pretty much the same.

Tuesday 25 September 2012

Little Big Men Studios shield transfers for Saga

Had a welcome surprise in the post yesterday with the arrival of some Little Big Men shield transfers.
The thought of painting all those shields did not inspire me so I thought I would give these transfers a try. I put one on this morning and it looks fantastic. Very easy to apply and should really make the figures stand out. Highly recomend them at only about $20 NZ for 48 transfers and only took just over a week from ordering them to arrival in my letterbox.
Sorry abit blurry but you get the idea. Looks very natural in real life.

Sunday 23 September 2012

The 'Saga' begins

I have made the jump into Saga. Saga is a game based in the Dark Ages where Vikings rampaged across Britain. Skirmish style with 28mm figures. The difference with this game and others is that they use 'battleboards' and special saga dice
Viking battleboard

Anglo-dane saga dice
The idea is depending on how many units you have decides the number of saga dice you roll each turn. Those dice can then be placed on your 'battleboard' to trigger activations and abilities. Very cool concept and works well. Played a first game last night and was very happy with game play.

I have brought a few boxes of Wargames Factories Vikings. 32 figures in each box give you heaps of figures and plenty of options for conversions etc. With the two boxes I can get enough figures to do a Viking and Anglo-Dane warband. I also picked up a couple of Saxon boxes so will do an Ango-Saxon warband at some stage as well.

I have assembled all my Viking and Anglo-Danish figures and will climb into some painting this week.
My converted Anglo-Dane warlord and four Dane axes

A unit of levy bowmen

A test figure. I plan to put snow on the base and abit of dead grass.
Will try and get a full battle report up here soon once I have a warband all painted...

Saturday 8 September 2012

Dystopian Wars tournament report (Tagcon 2012)

Last weekend I travelled north to play at Tagcon in Timaru. Usually a small tournament it has a really nice atmosphere and a greta venue.
I was playing Dystopian wars with a 850 point limit. Here is my fleet below

Mixed cruiser squadron

My Sky Fortress

One of my most effective squadrons, the destroyers (14 rockets at RB 3)
Day one vs Nigel with Antartica
The mission was
• The Grudge
o Sometimes an enemy ship is infamous, sometimes it’s a symbol, or is of unusual ability, or just has an insulting flag. One thing is clear; you will not tolerate it to float further. Fortunately you detected this ship when closing on an opposing radio outpost to cut off the enemy’s contact with the outside world.
o Before deployment-
 (starting with defender) both sides select an opposing vessel and declare this to the other side
• This vessel is worth double victory points.
 Both players (starting with defender) place 1 radio station in no-mans land (8 inches fm centre line) and no closer than 8 inches to the ‘short edges’.
• The radio station has stats as per book (dr 4, cr 6, hp 5, aa 2, ap 4)
o Deployment-
 Main body- deploy up to 8 inches in and no closer than 12 inches to the ‘short’ edges
 Advance guard, up to 16 inches in, and can be placed up to the short edges.
o End conditions. The game ends at the end of the turn when 2 of the 4 ‘objective’ models are destroyed/prized, 6 turns or time
 The objective models are the ‘grudge’ ships and the radio stations
Nigel had two battleships that were very slow to get into the actio so I was able to quickly over power him. I named one of his meduim flyers as the grudge vessel and my robots shot it down in know time while my other ships sat back and blew the radio staion to bits. Win to me

The FSA masssing to take on the Antartica fleet
Game two vs Dave B and his Prussians
The mission was:
• Infiltration
o On board your ships you have some ‘distinguished’ gentlemen who dabble in information collection and retrieval. To do their job they need to get to a certain port along with some of your marines (equipped with longer range jet packs) to ‘assist’ in dealing with the locals, unfortunately there appears to be an opposing fleet in the way.
o Before deployment
 Each player places 2 ‘exit’ point markers on the map. These are to be up to 8 inches from the opposing long table edge and no closer than 12 inches to the short edge
o Deployment-
 Main body- deploy up to 8 inches in and no closer than 12 inches to the ‘short’ edges
 Advance guard, up to 16 inches in, and can be placed up to the short edges.
o End conditions
 At the end of the turn when one side has flown off a total of 8 marines
 6 turns or time.
o Victory points
 In the assault phase a squadron within 4 inches of one of it’s fleets exit points can fly off 1 marine counter. This reduces their AP correspondingly.
 Each marine flown off in this manner earns 30 victory points.
I tried a refused flank tactic and massed my fire on his one flank decimating them by turn 2 and allowing my forces to sail across unoppossed to the exit point and fly off 'marines' at will. Win number two to me.

The FSA are at all stop unloading marines to win the game
Game 3 vs David and Empire of the Blazing Sun
This was going to be tough one as David had two sky fortresses and a carrier so buckets of tiny flyers and lots of activations.
Mission was:
• A quiet night
o A long day’s battle comes to a close. Damaged warships on all sides have sought safe anchorage to rest and repair. As the skies darken some unfortunate realizations have been made
 1) the enemy fleet appears to have bivouacked in the same locale
 2) their scout force and yours appear to be entangled
 3) there seems to be an eerie green scaffolding under the water
 Your orders- raise steam and secure the area; command will want to see what the ‘ground’ facilities for professor Malignant’s project are like.
o Before Deployment
 Divide table into quarters
 The ‘launch’- place a shuttle marker plus a 4 inch template in the middle of the map, for purposes of line of sight and movement- this counts as a mountain (incandescent rocket exhaust is not optimum sailing conditions). An area of radius 8 inches around the shuttle counts as the ‘central area’
 ‘battle damaged’-
• Before set up each player nominates 1 squadron in the opposing ’main force’-
• The squadron takes 4 hull points damage and a ½ mv token spread as the owner of the squadron wishes.
• Damage may be allocated to a maximum of ‘sunk’.
• Eg A Prussian player facing a British fleet nominates a opposing squadron of 3 Brit ‘tribal’ Cruisers, The Brit player may choose to just loose 1 cruiser, or have 1 at ½ move and the other 2 with 2 damage.
o Deployment
 Main body- deploys within 8 inches of their long edge and no closer than 12 inches to either short end
 Advance force- has outflanked, when deploying deploys within 8 inches of a short end and no closer than 16 inches to an opposing vessel. If this is impossible deploy up to within 8 inches of a short end and 2 inches from the players long end.
o End Conditions
 At the end of a turn one side controls 3 quarters of the table
 6 turns or time.
Sadly as the prevoius round had gonme over time we only had time for two turns. those two turns were very bloody. At the end I won just more so because of bonus VPs achieved when my Sky fortress sailed over a local island inhabited by dinosaurs and killed heaps of them. Win number three to me and the end of day one.

The infamous dino table. The dinosaurs were on the island in the fore ground.


Day two
Game 4 vs Nick and his Russian Federation.
Nick had won all his games on day one so this looked a tough one. A clever player he had focused on getting VPs not so much the mission objectives and with his russians being deadly in close in boarding actions had racked up points.
The mission was:
Reentry/Triangulation
o The infiltrators have reported back, an etheric frequency has been found to track the orbiter, and a new day has dawned. now you just need to find where that shuttle will be coming down.
o Before deployment
 Both sides alternate placing 2 ‘objective’ points each in no-man’s land
• 8 inches from centre of table,
• No closer than 16 inches from another objective point
o Deployment-
 Main body- deploy up to 8 inches in and no closer than 12 inches to the ‘short’ edges
 Advance guard, up to 16 inches in, and can be placed on the short edges.
• May not place within 8 inches of an objective point.
o Victory
 Control 3 points at the end of a turn
 6 turns or time
o Victory points
 Control of an objective
• A ship from a squadron must be at ‘all stop’ and ‘unbroken’ within 4 inches of the centre of an objective point.
• +100 vp for each victory point controlled at game end.
This game was the most enjoyable of the tournament, a real chess match. My plan was to just accumulate VPs and stay out of range using my superior lang range firepower. it was agood paln but I placed my sky fortress in the wrong place and with know wheer to go it got prized late in the game. My robots were my saving grace and they swooped in on the last turn to grab an objective. Still when the points were added up a had suffered a minor loss. game 5 would have to be a VP bonanza for me to win overall. My big hope was the Nick had to play david and his masses of tiny flyers, something I don't think he would enjoy.
You can just see my sky fortress sailing up the left into a whole lot of trouble.

Game 5 vs Bill and his Antartica.
Mission was
• Recovery
o What goes up must come down, although coming down in the midst of a battlefleet shooting at you is hazardous for one’s health according to 9 out of 10 doctors.
o Fortunately you are the one with the battlefleet, if only another force hadn’t turned up to also attempt to secure the capsule.
 Your orders- retrieve the capsule, or at least stop the other side from getting their gloves on it.
o Mission set up
 Place the shuttle on a short edge on the centre line.
o Deployment-
 Dice to select a long edge
 Main body- deploy in a box 36 to 48 inches from the shuttles short edge and up to 16 inches in from a long edge.
 Advance guard, deploy in a box 12 to 24 inches from the shuttles short edge and up to 16 inches in from a long edge.
o Special rules
 Shuttle is hit on a 6+ for turn 1, 5+ afterwards ‘obscured move’ (so if put on fire goes to 4+).
 The shuttle moves and shoots in the end phase- Move shuttle 12 inches straight ahead as a flier.
 Shuttle stats are as follows- flying model (massive non-capital))
• Dr8, Cr 10, hp 10
• 6 aa, 0 cc, AP 10
• Weapon- enormous static discharge has built up around the reentry vehicle. This will fire as a turret weapon in the end phase at the closest ship. tesla coils (s)- strength 12 rb 1. Turret, will hit as if the firing ship was not obscured.
• Due to the gravitational effects of the drive- surface ships can target the shuttle within RB 1 and torpedoes can be fired at it.
 Once shuttle hp or ap is reduced to 0 it crashes,
 Recovery operations- at the end of a turn an unbroken squadron is within 8 inches of the crashed shuttle + 50 victory points. The crashed shuttle will not move or shoot
o End conditions
 400 vp from crash recovery,
 shuttle exits map without being shot down,
 6 turns or time.
I had play tested this one before the tournament so knew the shuttle was really hard to shoot down so I just concentrated on Bills force for the first couple of turns while he turned his attention to the shuttle. By the time the shuttle came down my forces were massed around it his side was virtually destroyed. By turn 6 I had wiped him out and taken maximum VPs. Win to me. Sorry no pics of that game.

Wandering across to the other table David was just finishing off Nick so all was looking good. Come prize giving I was announced winner by only 5 Vps.
I won a starter fleet and promptly sold it to Dave B using the cash to buy some figures for my new SAGA army... more of that to come soon...

Saturday 18 August 2012

Dystopian wars battle report

Went down to the local club today and rolled out my FSA list (850 pts) that I was thinking about taking to Tagcon in a couple of week. Played against David and his Prussions. We adapted a mission from the new Hurricane season campaign book where the Prussians have to evade a blockade and breakthrough. Looked like it could be quite even but didn't work out that well for David (also dice not so kind) and we called the game with him having just his battleship and a gunship left vs most of my force. Here are some pictures.

The Prussian advance force (David has done a nice job on the airships)

FSA advance force. The Savanah (sky fortress proved pretty good when it got in close later)

First turn deployment with more forces to come on later. the prussians had to get off the board in the left hand bottom corner

The FSA main force arrives with battleship, flying robots and destroyers.


Now just have abit of touch up work on my sky fortress to go and to finally decide on the composition of my list for Tagcon.

Saturday 21 July 2012

Dark Age battle report

Got back to some good old skirmish gaming today with one of the best skirmish games out there, Dark Age.

It was my Forsaken against the Outcasts with the points set at 750. I won't list the forces as the pictures are below.
The Forsaken led by St Mary

The Outcasts with the imposing Mongo on the left
We randomly chose scenarios with my one being Escort, basically had to pick a model as my leader and escort it into the enemy deployment zone then make sure it survived. I picked the less threatening of my models, Judah.  My opponnets mssion was I think Glory Hog where he chose a model that had to kill its worth of me in points then get into my deployment zone.
Here is deployment.
Outcast deployment


Forsaken deployment
 I chose to split for my force with my two stronger individual models (St Mary and  the warwind) on one side and Judah on the other. I was hopeful my opponent would focus on my stronger flank allowing me to slip through on the other.

What happened....
All was going well until in the early phases with each side abit cagey. I then made a tiny mistake and took the bait of a unit of Brutes pushed forward that my strikes charged but only killed one. Then Mongo rolled in and killed all 3 strikes, yikes. Next turn got worse when the outcasts won initiative and crashed Mongo into St Mary and squashed her.
Mongo then rolled towards my deployment so I charged my Clergy Ann into him to stop him as it was apparent that was my opponents Glory hog and I had to stop him getting into my deployment zone. The Clergy Ann put a couple of wounds on Mongo but he survived. The brutes then charged in but did no damage.

The Warwind then instead of coming back to help the Clergy Ann and stop Mongo took a chance and took off towards the enemy deployment zone which I think confirmed in my opponents mind he was the leader. He then pulled his whole remaining force over towards the Warwind leaving Judah free.

Luckily next turn I won initiative and killed Mongo and one of the Brutes with the Clergy Ann. Before Mongo died he finished of the Clergy Ann.

The Clergy Ann take on the might of Mongo and the Brutes

The rest of the game saw my Wawind take the focus of attention allowing Judah to slip into the enemy deployment zone. A few anxious moments as I had quite a few shots come his way but thanks to his special ability 'sidestep' I dodged all the shots that came my way. Win for the Forsaken.

Judah sidesteps his way into the enemy deployment zone to win the game.

Monday 16 July 2012

Dystopian Wars - FSA dreadnought

I have finished my FSA Dreadnought at last. One of my favourite models of all time can't wait to field it in a game.



My new 'Hurricane season' book from Sparten games arrived in the post today so looking forward to reading that. It is a campaign book for Dystopian wars and from a quick glance has lots of fluff and missions so could be good. will try and put a review in soon.

Sunday 15 July 2012

Dystopian Wars - new models and battle report

Have been abit quiet lately but last few days have been busy on the painting table and gaming table. First the new models and I got 4 destroyers and my Valley class airship done on Saturday. Love the airship and think I will have to get a sky fortress very soon especaily after todays game (but more of that later).

Guilford Class destroyer squadron - can put out 15 AD at range band 3 with their rockets

The Guilford

Valley class airship
So the reason for my painting flurry was that I had a game scheduled at OMTS today vs Bill and his Covenant of Antartica. We played 850 points as an upcoming tournament we are both going in was the same.
Forces were
FSA
Battleship + escort
Savannah class sky fortress (was proxyed by the Valey class airship)
3 Lexington cruisers
3 John henry robots
4 Destroyers
COA
Battleship
Sky fortress
4 destroyers
2 meduim flyers
3 cruisers

Here is the deployment
The COA just after deployment. The destroyers in the centre were to feel the early firepower of the FSA.


FSA deployment
To sum it all up the COA pushed forward but the FSA crusiers took out a couple of destroyers while the FSA destroyers blew a cruiser out of the water with their rockets.
The fsa lost a couple of destroyers to the COA battleship but inflicted alot of hurt on the COA crusiers who were eventually completly destoyed by some FSA tiny flyer torpedo bombers and the sky fortress that sailed up the middle broadsiding everyone who got close. The coa meduim flyers popped up and destroyed a couple of FSA cruisers. The sky fortress finished both flyers with bombs and a broadside (double 1s helped). On the left flank the John Henrys came straight at the COA sky fortress and over a couple of turns to 4 HPs of damage and although damaged themselves all stayed in one piece. The two battleships slugged it out on the flank with the FSA battleship taking a minor points decision.
It was at this stage we called the game (lunch time) which was looking like a probable FSA victory with only a damaged COA sky fortress and battleship left.
FSA tiny flyers have just taken out a COA cruiser and face the wrath of the COA tiny flyer fighters.
Good game and probably cemented my force choice for Tagcon. The sky fortress was great, the destroyers at RB 3 are deadly to virtually anything and the robots... why they're just flying robots so are my first choice everytime.

Finishing up finally my Dreadnought tonight so hopefully a picture or three tomorrow...

Sunday 17 June 2012

Dystopian War update (painting plus battle report)

Got through a bit of painting this week finishing my FSA John Henry Robots and FSA Escorts. You can see the pics below. Needed to get them done as I had a game over the weekend at the club (OMTS) vs Andrew (of Hobby Hub fame).

We played a 850 game as talk is that Tagcon (September) maybe using 850 points. I didn't take any pictures but forces were roughly as follows
FSA
Battleship
Saratoga Aircraft carrier
3 x cruisers
3 x destroyers
4 x frigates
3x John henrys
2 flights of tiny flyers torpedo bombers
1 flight of fighters

Kingdom of Brittanica
Battleship
2 x 3 Vanguard subs
2 meduim flyers
3 x 3 frigates
1 flight of torpedo bombers
1 flight of fighters

We just played a standard kill everything game. I can't remember most of it but this is roughly what happened.
After deployment I found myself facing his battleship, one squadron of subs and two squadrons of frigates on my right flank against my battleship, cruisers and destroyers.
My frigates were on the far left while all my torpedo bombers, fighters and robots plus my carrier were positioned in the centre against the rest of his forces.
Turn one saw me slowly decimate his frigates. In the middle my carrrier took a point of damage from the other subs whilst I lost a robot to the long range fire of the battleship.
Turn two to three saw me focus fire on the battleship from all my right flank and virtually cripple it. His meduim bombers came over to target my carrier again to know effect and were gunned to virtual annihilation by my robots. My fighters swept into his fighters and killed three to the loss of two of my fighters. His vanguards on the right surfaced to fire their torpedos to little effect before my torpedo bombers lined them up and sunk two.
Next turns saw the end of his battleship and vanguards plus most of his frigates. It was at this stage we called it a game.
Abit of a rout but as Andrew commented after the game probably his initial deployment had him at a disadvantage. I think he needed to focus all his subs. 6 subs are scary.
I am sure there will be a re-match and a chance for revenge for the Brits.

I think 850 points is a good number for a tournament and hopefully the guys running Tagcon run with that.


FSA Escorts


FSA John Henrys robots

A John Henry close up


My favourite FSA model, my Saratoga carrier who took a ton of punishment in todays game but laughed most of it off.
 Next up on the painting tray is my FSA Dreadnought which is undercoated and ready to paint, more next week...