10 December 2016

Annual Napoleonic Clash: South Auckland Gaming Club

Ok, so it's been months since I posted anything and its been months since I've done any gaming. With holidays, cracked ribs and family stuff the year has just gone.

But with summer here bringing some much needed nice weather, it's reinvigorating my gaming mood.

A bit of a change up at the club this month, with Bryan not making the club meeting next January  they moved the yearly Napoleonic battle up a month. So that's what got beaten out today.

After some horrific Auckland traffic I managed to get there just as the table had been setup and sides were being decided. I ended up with some French troops.

With 8 of us there the sides decided and the pre-battle banter began

With the usual French and a Spanish attachment up against the Russian, Bulgarians and British  (Don't quote me on that, but I think that's what they had) on a roughly 16 foot by 4 foot table. The guys decided to start out closer together this year to get a fast game.

This year the teams were Leo, Bryan, Arthur and Phil with the Russian and Bulgarians, British. Myself, Glen, Kevin and Cavan with the French and Spanish.



Another addition this year was the objects, five spread down the table length. The side controlling the most at the end of the game would win.


Objects decided


Deployment begins



Troops start moving



Kevin's Spanish going for the Farm house objectives



Leo's troops start to take the vineyard objective.



Cowering Spanish hide behind the farmhouse ..(Good tactic for Kevin)


Well outnumbered I charge forward and hope for the best.


Phil and Kevin start the battle for the farmhouse.


Oh crap! 



The onslaught begins.


Leo and Glen start getting into through the vineyard.




Move bodies in the farmyard



The church battle begins between Cavan and Bryan


The bridge battle is all go.



I send Arthur's Russians packing and leave the hill objective free for the taking


And then get slaughtered losing the hill objective.


Glen mops up Leo's troops as the game ends.


I lost the hill objective, Glen and Cavan take the Vineyard and bridge objectives, while Cavan and Kevin ground out a draw over the church and farmhouse objectives.

The French and Spanish win 2-1.

A fun day, even with the mind boggling WRG rules.
Maybe one day I'll actually get some Nap figures myself to paint ... maybe.



26 August 2016

Frostgrave

Having originally come from the world of Dungeons and Dragons as a teenager before I got into tabletop gaming, Frostgrave caught my eye from its release, with its spell casting and character creation. So with my holiday coming up and a long flight, I thought I'd pickup the rule book for some holiday reading.

I've already figure out I can I use a mixture of models from my Warmachine and Hordes collections.

So for my first warband, the Witch I'm going to use my Satyxis Sea Witch and then use the Nyss Shepard for my apprentice. Followed up with the Croe's Cutthroats as the soldiers,so I don't need to buy any more models. I also should be able to create a nice looking Necromancer warband from my Cryx models.







25 August 2016

This and that

It's been all quite on the gaming front for the past month or more, with our regular gaming sessions having dropped off due to Mark moving to the other side of the moon and life getting in the way. But the usual once a month South Auckland Gaming club meetings have been about it.

Speaking of which, the last club meeting earlier this month was a mass 6000 point Kings of War bash. With Glen, Brian and myself taking the evil Abyssal's and Kin up against Caven, Arthur and Kevin with Ogre's and Dwarfs.

My main opponent during the game was Kevin with Ogres, who dealt out alot of damage and had me on the back foot from the start. Then as my units started falling one by one my hero's ran around fire balling and flaming everything in site.

It was a massive blood bath of six or seven turns (cant remember), with the game swinging back and forth. The end result was the Evil Abyssals and Kin came out some 75 points more left on the table. So a epic draw...although the Evil team claim victory of course :-)

Just goes to show just how well the rule set works. It's probably my favorite game of all time. It just works and it doesn't hurt the brain to play.



Next month at the club brings about the Saga campaign, a game I haven't actually played myself. Although I've had the rules for quite some time and seen a couple of games played.

I've started on the war band / army of Vikings. I'm actually making it up so I can use them as my second Hail Caesar army and even put together a human army for Kings of War. With my paint skills having slumped with lack of use, I'm slowly building them up keeping it simple and basic.



I also picked up the new Konflict '47 rule book, with the intention of using my Dust walkers along with all the Russian models I have from both Dust and Bolt action. Should mean I don't need to buy any models for the game. A quick flick through the book last nigh reveled the number of walkers on first release is quite low, so hopefully they will release more with the faction books in the near future.

On the board game side of things,been getting is a few games here and there, with Pandemic at the top of the play list at the moment.

Most of all I'm hanging out for my holiday ... heading overseas to Hawaii ... bring on the warmth.

28 July 2016

Saga -WIP

The Saga begins... yep, the saga of me trying to pull the clear top layer off the shield transfer sheet ..ahhhrrrr...   My first 16 Vikings almost done.

24 July 2016

Impending doom

Having gotten the board game buzz back again, the wife and I busted out Elder Signs, with the Unseen Forces expansion added in. The impending doom  immediately setting in as the howling wind and rain came through battering the house....very appropriate for the game.
I had forgotten how brutal the game can be, the first game took all of 10 mins to kill my first character and other 10 minutes after that to devour us completely. Game two we a lot more successful after removing the master level ethos cards from the deck and having remembered the rules and flow of the game. We managed to survive long enough to actually win . The Blessed and Cursed die addition from the Unseen Forces expansion making a really nice twist, which assisted no end in us beating the Old one.

I'm now look forward to trying out the new adventure of Omens of Ice, which I got given for my birthday.

22 July 2016

The Cure

The Cure ... or Not.

So earlier this week it was my wife's birthday, and with the past few years getting into board games I added in an extra present of a board game. Pandemic The Cure... dice game version.


So after three games the world is total fucked, pipped at the post by one dice roll.  Talk about a cliff hanger game, so easy to lose with one dice roll. Having only played Pandemic the classic board game version a couple of times, I cant really compare this to it, other than the theme. A two player game takes about 30 minutes so nice an quick, and rolling hand falls of dice is always fun. A definite great addition to the gaming collection.




11 July 2016

Warming the winter nights away.

A cold winters night, fireplace roaring in the background, Bookers Bourbon at hand (straight up of course) and little colored  plastic trains allover the table. Yep, its board game night at home.

It's been far to long since I busted out the board games at home, so with not wanting to slit my throat which is preferable to having to watch the "Reality TV" crap that the broadcasters seem to spew from every orifice these days ... First Dates UK, The Real Housewives Of O.C  .... W.T.F.

Thought I must have died and gone to hell for second, then decided to exercise that brain cell of mine and instead opted for Ticket to Ride, the African map.


Great little game, and the African map has a nice variant with points scoring, which still didnt help me as my wife crushed me yet again.

So with that I know my humanity has been restored and the soul destroying corporate steamrolling of Reality TV will have to go hungry.

09 July 2016

Sometimes... The dice just hurt

Jeepers, the last month has blinked by so quick. So today the usual crew of dodgy looking gamers that turned out for the South Auckland club meeting, on a hell freezing day ...well a bloody cold day at least. The hall was a couple of degrees colder than outside.

Some of the lads got stuck into there ACW game (which I'll get round to playing at some stage) While the rest of us played kings of War. So we ended up with four guys playing ECW and 6 playing Kings of War.


First game up I played Glen with his Abyssal army verses my Abyssal's  in a 3000 point brawl. We rolled up the pillage scenario and ended up with 6 objectives on the table. My winter blue themed demons looked great up against Glen's Red Devils on the winter white table.


 The first few rounds were pretty even, and then things slowly tuned against me as my deployment wasn't that great and my inability to hold up my right flank cost me in the late game. The addition of two regiments of Kin Crossbow men was a good choice and they added that extra range that was lacking in my last army list. In end I lost 2-4 and conceded in turn six with Glen holding 4 objectives

I think at 3000 points game, a few less units and having another horde sized unit would help, but overall not a bad result.


Second game Jason and I tried out he Last Stand scenario from the Destiny of Kings. Jason with his Kingdom of men ended up being the defenders as we played out 2500 points.
Jason's Defensive deployment

With Jasons deployment done and his horde of Knights on the table in open ground I was a bit stumped on how to tackle them. So I gambled on my Arch Fiend a horde of Morlochs along with an Efreet. I attached all three sides with my main push up the center on my table edge.


Sometimes... The dice just hurt
The lost Gamble

My gamble with my Arch fiend didnt pay off as Jason rolled magnificently and utterly destroyed my fiend in the first turn with his horde of Knights. My following tun the Morloch's dealt out 10 points of damage, which wasn't enough and subsequently got trotted over by the knights along with my Efreet.
The Gargoyles snack attack

On my other flank however my hell hounds and Gargoyles did lots of mauling and ripped through Jason's archers and a few other units. We ground each other down over the seven turns and ended up with precision played chess maneuvers, each of us trying to eek out a win. In the end it was a draw.

the last stand
It was a really challenging game, the different scenario made both of us really think,which made the game alot of fun. It also really showed how well balanced the army's are.Each with there strengths and weakness.  I can see myself playing KOW for quite along time to come.