Another boardgame night, another loss to Cthulhu and his fellow elder Gods

 

So, we had our 5th loss this year, which means, going back to last year, that we have played 14 games and only won twice, very bad record. We have recently decided to each play two investigators in an attempt to boos our chances of succeeding, so far it has clearly not helped.  This time around we each lost a few characters and were soundly trounced by an epic monster that sped the doom track at an alarming rate. We lost our previous game due to a different epic monster that could only be stopped by a specific magic artifact, an artifact that did not appear in time for us to have a chance to win. In fact we failed to even complete one mystery.

The challenge with this game is the extremely random nature of the game. By this I mean not so much the random skill rolls or the random monster draw, but the instant kill draws that one can make. Things that instantly kill you without even a chance to avoid such a fate or the epic minster that pretty much guarantees that the players will lose. This lessens the fun of the game. While I accept randomness in games it is still nice to take actions and gather items that will somewhat mitigate the vagaries of fate. While it may emulate the nature of the source material it makes for an annoying game.

We also played yet another game of Sentinels of the Silver age and then pulled down a game that we may have played once  or twice, Star Trek the deck building game.

Bad rule book but an okay game. We played this after losing in Eldritch horror. It was late in the night when we started and I really did not feel that much like gaming; I was tired and still annoyed by Eldritch. In the end it was a good way to finish off the night as the nostalgic nature of the game did much to offset the ill feelings conjured up by both the rule book and the previous game. 

First miniatures game of 2026 - Pulp Alley

The original plan for the game

So, I ran a Pulp Alley game at the OMG Library meeting on January 11th. The picture above is what I set up at home as I plotted out the game. I brought along my usual assortment of leagues and one of the players brought their own  league of shapeshifters. It was a quiet day at the library with only five of us showing up, just right for four teams and a ref!

The modified layout, with walls and a different major plot point.

The major plot point, was a wild eyed high  priest performing a summoning ritual. Each of the leagues started with a plot point, each plot point needed to be placed in a specific location to disrupt the incantation. Once placed the league would be able to close with the high priest. To add some extra challenge, cultist kept showing up to engage the leagues. The game was a variation of the Fantastic Device scenario.

The plot points were placed by completing a normal plot point challenge. Competing leagues could interact with a placed plot point to disrupt the enemy leagues and to gain points. In theory this meant that leagues should guard their placed plot points.(or prevent the plot points from being stolen prior to placement) Not everyone went after the other plot points and for the most part they congregated in the centre of the table. 

It was a tough battle but the playing of a parlay card part way through turn 6th sealed the deal and ended the game.

Even more ruminations about Fantastic Battles rules ideas

Some more ruminations about tweaking Fantastic Battles. While it is a great set of rules I am looking at ways to modify it to fit what I want in a game.

What a Tanker meets VSF

British Monitor vs Japanese monitor off in the distance 

This was our second game of What a Tanker! You can find the first game HERE The first game went so quickly we figured we could get another couple of games in, but that was not to be! This time around it was two monitors fighting it out.

Both  had armour/strike 8/6. Both also had slow turrets, with the British also having a turret with a reduced traverse. The British tank also had heavy armour.

The Japanese find cover but are driven back by the British fire.

Turn four sees the Japanese race down the road finding some cover.

Pulp Alley game at the OMG Library location

 

The four monsters deployed 12" from the centre

So, the mission was for each league to track down, capture and return a monster to the windmill, where Dr Frankenstein was waiting. The leagues entered from the edges.

The leagues, the two left most did not participate 

The leagues were, the mad scientists, the monster hunters and the angry citizens. Two new players and one veteran fought it out to control a monster. The mad scientists and the angry villagers were both able to capture a monster and move it to the windmill, and thus were both able to go for the main plot point.

October 30th game day Franco Prussian Wargame

 

A rare excursion out of my basement to someone else's basement. In this case I went to visit George for a Franco Prussian war game using the Chassepots and needle guns rules. I was on the French side commanding the centre (centre right in the above picture). I had one brigade and a battery of three cannons. In the foreground you can see a skirmish of light infantry vs light infantry.

My forces begin to advance

Another board game night, a space theme!

 

A real blast from the past, this game has not seen the light of day for 2 decades and yet I was able to remember many of the rules, needing only to scan them to get playing. I did not select this game to play and he who did was not convinced what we opened the box. It looks very much a product of its time, a large board, lots of plastic figures and Styrofoam storage trays. It looked an awful lot like A&A! Happily it does not play like A&A. The really big thing about this game is the solar system map that dominates the centre of the board.

Every turn you must advance the planets and asteroids on their respective tracks. Each planet moves on its own track at its own pace. As a result planets will become closer or farther away from each other each turn, thus impacting on ones strategy for conquering the solar system. 

Battlefleet Gothic August 23rd

 

Back on the 23rd of August a bunch of us got together for a four player game of Battlefleet Gothic. It was Orks against the Imperium in a 1500 point game. It was the first time a battleship had been used by us for quite some time. It also marked the first appearance of an Ork big ship.

Both fleets lined up along the long edge of the table facing opposite short edges. As a result they both had to maneuver their fleets to bring their weapons to bear. This was a challenge for the Orks with their lesser turns and especially a challenge for their Rok.

All Quiet on the Martian Front Saturday August 30th

 

The battlefield, American deployment zone in the lower left

Martian deployment zones, top left and lower right

Martian forces

American forces

We played the breakout scenario from the rulebook, with around 295 points a side. The Americans started in one corner and had to somehow make it to the opposite corner of the table. The game had a 3 turn minimum with a die roll after the third turn to see if the game comes to an abrupt end. It was a tight fit for the American forces but they needed to force a breakout and had to do it quickly so keeping troops in reserve was counter intuitive.

It was a close game with much carnage on both sides, the Martians lost 5 of 12 tripods while the Americans saw many of their tanks destroyed. The game did end after three turns, which were not nearly enough turns to have given the Americans a chance of winning. Ultimately the forces seemed to be fairly evenly weakened. As the Martian player said if this was a Martian victory, a few more like this and the invasion would be over.

More pictures follow...

A lucky find

 

So, I walked into a hobby store not expecting to find anything and instead I found a treasure trove of Plasticville buildings! Now I view thus as a bit of a mixed blessing, you see I already have plenty of buildings for my Pulp Alley games, but I also believe one should buy things like this when you see them as you are not likely to see them again. 

Now these are very nice models, well built, very clean and in good shape. They also are building that I have not seen before, how could I say no? 

Something old, very old; Some GW Man O War ships

 

Actually, a mix of Man O War and some of the ships from Mighty Empires.

I was inspired to dig these out of storage after watching a game of Galleys & Galleons run by a fellow named Morgan at a recent OMG meeting. The game looked fun enough(more interesting than I thought it would be) and digging these out was no problem. 

The game is by Nic Wright author of many, many games, most notably (to me at least) Fantastic Battles. GG does look to be more versatile than most other naval/fantasy naval games that I have encountered before. Like Fantastic Battles, GG allows you to customize your ships any way you se fit, but it does include sample ships to help you to understand what you are designing. Anyways more talk about the game after I have tried it out. 

The picture above shows nine pirate ships from Mighty Empires and some Empire ships from MoW. I am missing one of the Wolf ship hulls, but I do have the aft deck should it show up.