Library Games

Saturday, 25th June, and I had organised a Wargaming display in our local library. So I and Steve mawson, of the Rushden club arrived and set to work geting the terrain on the table. We kept things simple, as we wanted to attract newbies to the hobby. So the game was 40K, the sides were Blood Angels Vs Eldar, and we onl;y used about 1000 pts.

Soon the youngsters came in, and we quickly had them rolling dice, and making tactical decisions with our miniatures.

With some sage advice from Steve, on the best course of action!

Such as.." if you hide behind this baracade, you get a cover save!"

"which you will need against that lot!"

Our two young Space marine Captains rush to attack the xenos threat!

But the Eldar have other plans!

A very successfull day, with new players as well as some with a little experience geting to grips with the hobby, and having a great time. We will do this again in the future.

Been Busy...

I know I am a bit late posting...good excuse, I am seting up in business as a self employed AC Engineer, in the mean time, here is some eye candy!

Not all mine, Western gunfight from last year...Ashleys great looking Valkyrie, and Steve's Elephants,in one of his typical 20mm WW2 games.

More recently, a game of malifaux from a few weeks ago, using myRasputina December crew, against Collette. Nearly had them..nearly! Certainly didn't like me popping ice pillars everywhere! Good game

Contracting Trouble Tryout

As promised, the report on our game of Force on Force using the new terrain.
     We added some of the resin buildings, and street clutter that Steve owns to the layout, then set up the Contracting Trouble scenario from the FoF rulebook.

Steve, on the right controlled the Insurgents, and Peter (centre) and Richard (left) had a US fire team each. I managed the rules.

The US force comes in to the town, warily to rescue two hapless contractors who have wandered in to a dangerous area and whos vehicle had then broken down.

Insurgents soon start engaging the Americans from every corner. However due to the US superior training and fire power, they manage to work thier way further in to the town, each fire team covering the other with over watch on every bound forward. At the end of each turn Steve rolled for re enforcements, then rolled on the" Hot Spot" location to see where they appeared.

 The two unfortunate contractors near thier broken down VW van await rescue. The Insurgents using them as bait to lure the US forces further in to a killing zone.

But there is a long way to go, with deadly AK47 fire fom every angle and rooftop.

The US only suffer one light wound and one serious wound, but manage to dispatch many jihadists to paradise.

More shooting as the US get towarda the objective. Steve rolls a 1 on a reaction test, and recieves a fog of war card, that informs him he may set up a road block on a road not previously traversed by the coalition player. He sets it up near the Contractors, but out of site of the US fireteams.

Good use of the petrol tanker, as the barracade! However, the first US fireteam manage to get to the Contractors, then move back out, supported by the second fireteam on overwatch,blasting away with thier SAW and 40mm UGL.

 A brilliant game, and lots of fun. I am really enjoying Force on Force, thanks to Neil Shuck for introducing me to it on the Meeples and Miniatures Podcast.

Force on Force Table

Since purchasing the Force on Force rule book at Salute, I have become aware that we have a serious shortage of suitable terrain at the club. Well on Tuesday, I was in Focus,our local DIY superstore, and I only then became aware that the shop was closing down, and had lots of stock on special offer. Time to build the boards! I thought, so collected materials, and a hot glue gun. Tuesday was spent then creating the buildings, weds afternoon painting the basic colour, and thursday painting details, and texturing the base. Now we have some pics of the finished product.

 General view of the board. As I had purchased 2 wall insulation sheets, of 1200mm x 500mm, I decided to cut them to 3ft long, and use the off cut to create the cores for the buildings. So we have a 1metre by 3 feet board. The buildings once cut out, were then faced with core board, I purchased from a stationers, with windows and doors cut out. Walls were the same fome board mounted on stiff card. I then painted with a textured exterior wall paint, and applied a sparse burst of desert colour spray paint from the Army painter range. Be sure that if you try this, you have totaly coated the polystyrene in the wall paint,( which is water based!) as the arosol paint will react with the polystyrene, melting it. The arch was a model I have had for some time, but looks good on the layout.

US Infantry move into the town. Models are mostly Caesar miniatures plastics 20mm, but the SAW gunners are Revell, the Caesar box had none in! However they match very well.

Insurgent RPG team wait to ambush the Americans. Again, Caesar Miniatures plastics.

 Another RPG ambush! The game is set for the start of the Contracting Trouble scenario in the FoF Rulebook

 An old truck I found and painted up for use as the Contractors vehicle. I have to find some 20mm civilians now to act as the Contractors! maybe Hornby Railway figures may do, I will check it out!

More assorted Caesar Miniatures insergents engage the US patrol.

Another RPG gunner waits in the Archway covering the Contractors Truck.

Just for some variety, a pic of one of my M1 Abrahms , not in the scenario, but a good pic!

And the Bradley....same reason!

 I have also scratch built some Re Enforcement markers for the game, and downloaded some game tokens for overwatch and so on from the Yahoo group forum.

http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/AmbushAlley/

A good resource area for fans of the rules.

 The first game on my new board is scheduled for club nite on Monday 13th June. I will publish the battle report, of course!

UK Games Expo 11

Ah! It is June, so it must be UK Games Expo. 3 days of gaming fun with a slant on board games and RPG's rather than full on table top miniatures gaming. I arrived at the Strathallen hotel on the Friday 3rd at about 1230, and had a liquid lunch, played some solo Death Angel, then booked in to my room, and sorted out my convention tickets. I then had some games with players in the games library room. After dinner, and more drinks, Maurice and  Niel, my partners in crime arrived, and after a few drinks (this is getting to be a theme, I hear you say!) we tried some of the games in the Games library.Firstly Zombie Close. The blurb in the con magazine made the game sound interesting, however, after we had played for 10 minutes, we were not too impressed with it. A little simplistic, and the rules were not very good at conveying thier meaning from the one page rules card. If it wasn't for one of the developers friends noticing our deliberations and interjecting we probably would have been in ignorance now! So obviously not good as you will not have the game designer on hand to tell you what he meant . talking of game designers, we started talking to a couple of chaps who had a plain looking white box, in which wa thier board game Milton Keynes.

This was a fun game, if not very PC! you can build Chav estates, and pikey camps in an attempt to be the top developer in the new city, bidding on plots and bribing polaticians to get your new buildings in to the Buckinghamshire skyline. Check out the website, or look it up on boardgame geek http://alnstar.com/miltonkeynes/

The Saturday started the Con proper, and it was a glorious sunny morning, as well breakfasted we awaited the doors to open.

Once inside I wandered around the many traders, and picked up my first purchase, Sid Miers Civilisation, the Board Game. There were plenty of the usual mix of miniatures and boardgames/rpg games, as I said with the emphasis on the Board RPG side, so there are more people in costume than maybe at a Wargame show.

From Steam punk to the Doctor, Starwars to Danes it certainly is an eclectic mix.

after looking round the show, we sat in on a seminar by the UK Games Media Network. Basically a group of Podcasters and bloggers.After a Subway lunch the afternoon saw more shopping, and drinking, with my second game purchase, Tinners Trail...and you thought tin mining was boring...no!

then some Malifaux purchases from Simple Miniature Games, the Dreamer box set, and a couple of Teddy's..well you just have to!

Battle of Towton game in 28mm on a massive teddybear fur winter scene, great!

Starship combat, lovely painted minis here.

Closer view of one of the models.

 In the afternoon maurice and I played some Magic the gathering, and later we all retired to the gaming room in the Strathallen for a try out of my new Tinners Trail game, with a fellow gamer who dropped in to our table to play, nice to meet you sean! This is part of the ambience of the show that I like, the easy way gamers who don't know each other can just get together to play a game.

The main board game room in the Strathallen

Maurice plotting his next move on Tinners Trail

Next to Akbars for a curry, and no the good admiral was not there...."its a trap!"

Maurice has made a new friend...a giant naan!

 Back to the Strathallen for a game of Descent Journies in the dark, which took us to past midnight.

Next morning, another lovely full English Breakfast, and over to the Clarendon Suites for the last day of the con.

Some of the traders at the con, GZG on the left, and some game designers giving demos to the right.

More games being played in the Clarendon Suites. I purchased a supliment for Descent,Well of Darkness from Games Lore. Then we decided to go upstairs to the malifaux free play area with my crews for a game. maurice decided to play with my Gremlons, Hog Whisperer, Ophelia, Raphael, and four hogs, whilst I opted for the Cult of December crew.

Maurice moves on to the great looking malifaux terrain.

Rasputina , Ice Golem, and Ice Gamin

Raphael takes cover!

After our game, this inspired me to make the last purchases of the day, a few more Malifaux bits. Then a cup of coffee a last wonder round, and we finally left the con. A great great weekend, can't wait till next year!