English civil war

 

So, the time may finally have come for me to tackle this project. So far it has languished on a shelf in the garage gathering dust. However a recently posted YouTube video by a local gamer has inspired me to at least look at what I have and to catalog my unpainted collection. Make no mistake about it this is a list of unpainted, still n sprues and desperately in need of a good dusting and washing. So braving the the cold garage and seemingly even colder floor (I really should have put something on my feet) I rescued all that I could find and retreated with them to the relatively warmer basement.

New board game played, Alien Fate of the Nostromo review

 

Finally played another boardgame, it has been a while! This time around we tried out Alien Fate of the Nostromo, a cooperative game for 1-5 players. Now, I had heard some unenthusiastic reviews of the game, so my expectations were fairly low but I must say I was pleasantly surprised. It turned out to be a easy fast play appetizer type of game. The game box indicates a 45-60 minute play time and I have to say that seems to be accurate even the first time out. Now we were only two players, so I am sure that had an impact on game length, it certainly almost cost us the game as the randomly determined ending conditions were tough for only two players to complete. In fact the rules state that this particular ending should not be used for a 1 player game, two players gave us a better challenge.  

 

The board has a map of the Nostromo on it (two levels) along with a morale track. Run out of morale and you lose the game. At the start of the game, each player selects one of five character cards and places the associated plastic figure on the galley space of the board. Each character card shows the number of actions that the character can take in their turn, the unique power that the character has and includes spaces for equipment and scrap counters.

Each player will, in turn, activates their character and moves about the ship. Their task is to gather up 'scraps' which they will convert into useful items like a flashlight, an electric prod or even the ever handy incinerator. Along the way they may encounter a 'concealed counter'. These counters are revealed when encountered and will be revealed to be one of three things; nothing, Jonesy (the cat) or the alien. If it is the alien the alien token is immediately move to that space causing a morale loss and forcing the character to retreat 3 spaces. If it is the cat it freaks out the crew member causing a loss of 1 morale before then running away. 

After a character has had their action turn, the player then draws an encounter card and follow the instructions on the card. No card is drawn if the character encountered the alien. The cards usually indicate where to place more scrap tiles and a concealed counter. The card also tells the player how far the alien will move (1-3 spaces) 

At the start of the game objective cards (# of players +1) are drawn and displayed. These are the tasks the players must finish before the end game mission can start. Each objective card indicates a location and an item that must be matched up by the players. Once these objectives have been achieved the final mission card is revealed, this is the mission that must be completed to win the game. In our case it was the "Cut off every bulkhead and every vent" card. The mission alters the standard rules giving the players new rules and new requirements. In our case a 'concealed counter' was first placed in every named area on the board. Then our mission was to remove every marker before the self destruct system counted down to zero, 4 turns later. The alien of course was still in play and thank goodness he was because we were able to springboard off of him whenever he was encountered. Each time we were forced to retreat we used that 3 space retreat as a was to move around the board a little quicker.

This was a social cooperative game which created some constraints on the game play. Most notably, no one can die the worst that can happen is morale loss. It kind of takes the tension out of things, but is a better plan than forcing players to sit and watch as the survivors continue to play. The alien was not a major factor in the game and we seemed to equip ourselves with a fair amount of stuff that negated most of the negative consequences of alien encounters. I do think this game will play out better with more players where we will see more encounter cards being drawn and thus more alien movement. Also there is an option to include Ash into the mix. At his basic level he removes scrap markers. If the final mission card is "You have my sympathies" his powers change.

Overall it was still a fun game. It was certainly not a deep thought game but it was a pleasant diversion. Sometimes it is nice to play a fun simple game without stressing on strategy/tactics all the time. As I said at the start I would view it as an appetizer game, something to play before the main event. It would also work as a friendly game to play with people who are not pure board gamers, you know social gamers.

Raventhorpe order has arived and problems with Sgts' Mess

 

Thanks to Liz Truss, there was recently something of a sale on items from the UK, so I quickly cobbled together a few orders from a number of different companies to try and take advantage of the weak pound. I have a fairly big wish list for items from Raventhorpe and the first of the boxes has arrived today containing 21 items.

In this wave we have 7 German cars, 2 Churchill tanks, 2 Shermans, 2 Universal carriers (mortars), 2 M8 HMC, a Humber IV, a Hetzer and a Daimler AC. In the back you can see 2 skoda 152mm guns and out of the picture is a Somua Multiple Mortar vehicle (some assembly required) A good haul to start with, it fills in some gaps. I have at least one more box of stuff that should be arriving soon.

I also have an order in with Grubby tanks, but there seems to be a delay in gathering up the ordered items to ship to me. 

I had also placed an order with Sgts' Mess for a large assortment of bits and bobs, tarps, weapons, limbers and miscellaneous items. Sadly that order went unfulfilled. Shortly after placing the order I realized there was more stuff that I wanted, so, I reached out to them to add more items. No response! Three more emails to them yielded the same lack of reply. In the end I was forced to escalate the problem to Paypal. They too seemed to get no response. In the end I had to get a refund instead of all the cool toys that I wanted, very disappointing. Hopefully the same thing will not happen with Grubby tanks, at least he responds to emails.

Pulp Alley AAR pulp alley of the Apes

 

 

 

Fantastic Battles AAR July 29th game

 

So, a bigger battle this time, Dwarfs (1,500 points) vs a combined army of Orcs (750 points) and Undead (750 points). I must say I much prefer bigger armies, more scope for variety of units. I felt very restricted trying to come up with the small 50 point armies. I had to make far more compromises than I would have liked. 

We tried to try out some experimental rules*, succeeded with some of them, forgot to use others...oh well. We did use the following:

1. March column
   
2. Artillery variables rules
3. Orc Animosity
4. Undead [Racial] Only remembered part of these new rules

 * These experimental rules can be found at the end of this AAR.

The Battlefield

 

Fantastic Battles AAR June 26th 2022 game

 

 

Great gaming weekend!

So two days of gaming this past weekend was a good start. On Saturday I was involved in two board games, The classic Aliens game by Leading Edge and Sentinels of the Multiverse. Both are easy go to, comfort games that have been played a lot and therefore I have a vague recollection of the rules.

In the Aliens game, despite my best effort all my marines, actually made it off the board, although two of them, Hicks and Dietrich, were both wounded. In fact all the marines were able to escape, something that does not happen all that often.

The Sentinels of the Multiverse game saw Sky-Scraper team up with the Sentinels to combat Friction and Ermine. It was a long challenging game that at times looked like we were going to quickly go down in ignominious defeat and then we would suddenly get a reprieve where we were able to recuperate and then reenter the fray. Sky-Scraper found it very difficult to deploy her arsenal of equipment as Friction and ermine were able to destroy any such items almost as quickly as they were deployed. I could never get ahead!

On Sunday we played Fantastic Battles, a game that none of the players had played before. While the original plan was for a very big game the plan was changed to a standard 750 point conflict we me acting as GM.(I had more familiarity with the rules) The game lasted just under 4 hours and unlike many other fantasy games that we have played we were able to finish the game with a decisive winner.

It was great to get the boys back together to roll some dice and swap some tales, overall a good time had by all!

The game room has finally been redecorated and organized

So it took awhile, but at last the room seems to have come together. I still change things every now and then, more refinements than actual changes I mean it all seems complete. The painting area is the real big change, it feels so much more open, I no longer feel like I am crammed in against the gaming table (which is what I was) Now I have room to move, I can push back from the table and not bump into anything. I reduced the depth of the shelves so the wall of shelves is no longer so imposing. I have also shifted anything that I could out of the room. Such things as my bits boxes, my collection of models to be built (plastic) and sundry other containers are now out in the garage. Anything that might be harmed by the extreme cold/heat are now in the storage room. Just the essentials remain.

One of the big things that I did was to add more lighting. It is now bright down there, really bright. There are the two original hard wired LED overhead lights, but I have now added eight (8) more twin LED overhead lights, not hardwired, so I can rearrange them should I ever reorganize the room again (hopefully never again!)

Oh, there are many 'little' projects still to be done. I do need to label a lot of boxes where ever they might be stored, and I really need to organize the miniatures shelves, group stuff in some form of order, but also consolidate stuff, I still have some shelves not well used.

The new painting area, roomier no more bumping into things

Re-purposed shelf unit will be for big scenery items

More space around the table even places to sit

The shrine to my late, great dog, Hamish!

Still have a fridge, but the area is better organized!

The view as you enter the room, a pillar with pithy statements

 

So that's it for now. But please visit the club site to see our first battle in over two years!

Charge to the sound of the trumpet!!!

 

 My latest acquisition, again from Matakishi (Paul) are these fine Britannia US cavalry! All very well painted and based (although I will be rebasing) The collections consists of 40 mounted troopers ans 40+ dismounted figures, including 5 dead horses. These were apparently surplus to needs, I should have such surpluses! Well I guess in this case I do...

When I bought them I had no immediate plans for them, but at the price he was selling them for, being painted already, well, I just had to have them. Now that they are here I have decided to pack them off to Mars to defend American interests. Not having any Native American figures kind of made this decision a no brainer.

 

I also picked up these three beasties, which I had first seen on Paul's blog and had wanted them then. So they too were quickly snapped up by me. The poor unfortunate Ahmed is one of mine just there for scale.

That should be it for painted figures bought by me for a while. As I said it is just not something I tend to do despite my love hate relationship with painting figures. By the end of painting figures I really do feel good about it and tend to ignore or forget some of my complaining. 

More pictures.

 

 

 

 

A different kind of purchase for me

 

 I do not usually buy prepainted figures, but I decided to make an exception in this case. I got these figures through Lead Adventurers Forum bazaar from Matakishi. The price per figure made it worth while, assuming I can find a use for 40 ninjas. I can certainly make use of the Daleks and Davros, and many of the ninjas will become gangs in Pulp Alley. I am open to other ideas for them...

They are all very well painted and based, however I will be taking them off their bases at some point. Part of the reason I never buy painted figures (apart from the cost) is the fact that I am unlikely to paint any additional figures to the same quality. Well I certainly do not need to paint any more ninjas, but I will wok on some more Daleks using these as inspiration.

 

Just arrived in the post

 

 

It is kind of neat how Perry sends out their miniatures, it feels so old school!

These  figures are destined for some Silver Bayonet games. I went for a lot of figures from their Russian retreat section as they have a lot of unique poses, irregular clothing and a lot of charm. I also picked up a few figures for Napoleonic skirmish games be they Fist Full of Lead, Sharp Practice or some other set. So I have some more Spanish troops and some dismounted British dragoons.

 So, far more figures than I would need for Silver Bayonets but then I often supply figures for players who, while they do not mind pushing figures around, have no interest in buying and painting miniatures.

Progress is my middle name

Not really, what a dumb name that would be!

But the work has progressed, somewhat.

Mid move as seen last post

Paint racks moved to new location & shelving units in place

Cleaned up and shelves organized now a wider area.

Mid move

First shelf up

Last shelf up & new light installed

Still a lot of work to be done, but the painting table is almost usable and most of the floor is safe to walk on!

End of day one...can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs.

 

Thankfully nothing has been broken, yet, but it certainly looks like a tornado went through the place. Technically it is a simple straightforward  swap of furniture, but it has become like one of those puzzle squares where you have to slide the pieces around to form up what ever the image is, or the correct number sequence etc etc. To move the main storage shelf I had to move chairs and a desk to make a path. Before I can  place the storage unit where I want to I have to move the paints, but that means I have to set up the painting table but some bookcases are in the way. You get the point.

Here is the largest of the storage units to be moved. 

OOP Ikea large Billy cabinet 16" deep

An especially large fully loaded cabinet with 20 shelves in in, bloody heavy!  So out came everything, however 2o shelves of miniatures is not an easy thing to disperse around a crowded room. I had already taken other items off other shelves so the pile on the gaming table really started getting out of hand.

Stud finding with magnets!

Now, normally I am kind of lazy and will try to move a cabinet even with stuff in it, but this cabinet presented a challenge. As you can see, an air duct blocked me from doing a simple dragging of the cabinet. This challenge meant that I was forced to remove the 20 shelves in addition to the miniatures. Once done it was a 'simple' job  of tilting the whole thing onto me then pushing wobbling it over a floor joint hump, and under the air duct then back up with out crushing me or pushing it over the other way. All this with out ant help even from a traveling gamer (not pointing any fingers) Anyways as I am writing this after the fact you may surmise that I survived the experience and also the second large cabinet that was quite heavier, oddly shaped and just as awkward to shift as the first cabinet.

However despite the chaos and confusion I do see a glimmer of hope. Below is the newly cleared area where my painting table had been. Once done this area should be about a foot wider affording more room for the players and even room for a chair or two.

So could not work on it as much as I would have like to on Sunday, some rearranging and culling of books, the big push will come Monday and Tuesday. As a side benefit it was good to take another look at my Sci-Fi and fantasy book collection to see what I wanted to keep and what I could give away. Thanks to kindle a fair amount of my collection has migrated from paperback to digital. While I still love the feel and smell of books, the ability to easily flip back and forth to find certain passages, the lovely covers, my eyesight is much worse and the ability to adjust font size must win out over nostalgia and tradition.