Some quick piccies of Daz's Northmen taking on all comers. The lords of Valhalla favoured his blades, as the warband tore through both mine and Ed's tawdry mobs!
Tuesday, 22 March 2016
Posted with Blogsy
First games of 'Open Combat'
Tonight's session laid out before us was our first go at Open Combat. Ed's kickstarted rules have encouraged him to lead several sessions of the game. In preparation, here is the warband that I brought to the table:
My original thoughts were to screen the necromancer with the shambler's and have him 'top up' the skeletons and Flesh golem; possibly taunt some unsuspecting mortal into a rash attack on the Golem. The skeleton's could scare their opponents before throwing themselve's against the foe - Jason and the Argonauts style...well, that was the plan! Here's the battlefield
The game went smoothly, with only a little reference to the rules for the special rules. The interaction of intimidating undead and low minded beastmen allowed the poor attacking skills of the zombies even out the aggressive attacking abilities of bovine foe.
Zombies were chopped down early on in the encounter, but they did distract their opponents long enough for the necromancer to lower the attacker's minds to zero (halting attack and defence ratings)
In the end, the shamblers did enough to whittle away the fighting prowess of the beastmen, with an ungodly archer being the last to fall.
The game played quickly with the action very quickly heating up. I quite like the fact that the zombies could'nt hit for toffee, but took a while to hack down using a relatively high defence. By contrast, the skeletons attacked furiously, but were brittle in defence. Overseeing the action, the necromancer played a timely intervention just enough to turn the tide in favour of the dark arts...
Saturday, 19 March 2016
Fit for a factory
This building has once before fallen beneath my weathering attempts, with little success. I'd tried doing it without powders, using inks and dry brushes only. With it being such a numpty building, I thought it was worth paying another visit to the factory floor. Here's how the inspection went.
This might be too dirty now due to too much use of the black powder, particularly on the light walls. Using the mucky paint ivory and wiping it off the chimney worked well to create the brick mortar. Going to try a card made factory next.
Thursday, 17 March 2016
Goods Shed and Cottage
Another nice find from EBay. Quite cheap, I think because the seller said there was a little damage, enough to put off a model railway modeller?
Well, I was quite happy that there was little interest! Got the models through the post, so decided to get them ready for the table straight away.
Again, a few simple techniques and a few appropriate resources can make a very passable effect for the games table. The models are certainly great additions for me!
Wednesday, 16 March 2016
Re-basing fatigue
Here's the latest set of re-fits. Getting basing fatigue, looking at the queue of kit still to do takes away the initial flush of enthusiasm. Must still persevere! I might do a few other things just to recharge the batteries, we'll see.
Nice kits, the Jagdpanthers - Skytrex models.
Finished the other half of my FOW motorcycles. Nice models compared to some Peter Pig ones I have.
More spare infantry peeled off of my previous vehicle basing. I'm trying to increase the amount of foot bases, saving time and a few pennies.
American artillery. The old Battle Honors crew are a little thin, both in terms of size and detail. I was going to give the guns a bit of a drybrush to bring out some more detail; might do this later.
Some nice anti-air assets, I particularly like the thin barrel on the Ostwind, quite strong too.
My old ASL days has always left a soft spot for the quad HMG maxim mounts - a whooping 24 fire power on the fire table!
Finally some more U.S. anti tank guns, similar story to the other guns in that they need a bit of a drybrush. Well that's all for now folks!
Tuesday, 15 March 2016
Foray into Combat Commander
Trying to restrict the flow of boardgames into the house can be a difficult habit to break, as the unplayed pile steadily increases. This was the case with Combat Commander. It was one of the desired games I watched through the binoculars for some time. And then the bargain motherload landed at the Cannon show in Retford last year - all of the 'East Front' block games and the above masterpiece for forty pounds!
As a good friend has said to me before, 'when you have the money you don't have the time, and when you have the time you don't have the money'. Fortunately at the moment I have more time, so can use it to spend on windfall purchases not yet played from the dusty 'to do' collection.
Myself and Daz tried Combat Commander last week to learn the ropes of the card activation system and it's impact on the flow of play. Tonight Ed made it earlier so I introduced him to the mechanics. When Daz arrived, we restarted the first scenario with Daz and Ed playing with closed action card hands, and I did a photo report on my Twitter feed (@foxgamer99).
What a cracking game it turned out to be, with a very, very close and slightly unexpected outcome. Both the more numerous Russians and co-ordinated Germans set up secretly on opposite sides of the board. Random objectives decided that a central building held the grand share of the victory points for the game.
Play progressed with an aggressive Russian assault down their left flank, destroying two defending rifle sections and a leader. This left the remaining half of the German forces to hold out in the all important building, defending strongly, waiting for time to intervene.
The random event system really adds to the chaotic nature of combat; in this case, random sniper activity and cowering Russians stalled several attacks on objective five. Ed performed a nice manouvre of a pinning force with machine guns supporting a grand left sweep lead by the two Russian leaders.
Daz held on tenaciously, disrupting the pinning force with accurate rifle fire and recovering his own battered sections at crucial moments. The game hung in the balance with Ed working into an assault position as the next photo shows...
...and the sudden death, game clock ran the game to a close, with a 'roll' of six on the dice. Against the odds - a German victory. What a great game with a real ebb and flow to the action. Quick, violent assaults with a slowing down of co-ordinating and re-grouping actions for the Russians; long range, leader lead German rifle fire disrupting the numerous, relentless hordes.
Definitely want to play this again; would easily convert to miniatures on a hexon board. No! Not another project!
Saturday, 12 March 2016
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