First off, apologies (again) for the gap between posts. This time I've been a little distracted by recent events. Contrary to certain scurrilous rumours to the contrary, I'm a lifelong Seahawks fan, and I'm not sure I've finished celebrating the yet...
Vapnartak
The day of the Super Bowl was also Vapnartak up in York. This was my first time there and I have to say, I didn't leave with a great impression of the show. At first glance it looked good, but once you got off the ground floor the upper levels were cramped, with too many stalls in too small a space (and too many idiots blocking the walkways in order to have a conversation, what is it with some people). When you add in the fact that some parts of the venue were basically empty, and it all smacked of a lack of organisation.
What really bugged me though were the games that were on offer. They looked amazing, and it was obvious that a lot of time and effort had gone into setting them up but every time I went past there was nothing going on. What you had were a lot of impressive looking display tables, but nobody actually playing the games. With Hammerhead coming up in a couple of weeks, where every game there will be a participation game, I found it all a bit underwhelming.
That said, I was only really there for the DreadBall tournament. This was another official Mantic event and I've long since given up on actually winning one of these, as the tournament rules really work against my preferred style of game (i.e. they reward people who win games that aren't any fun). I'll probably rant on about that in more detail in future, but suffice it to say that I was going in looking to have some fun and maybe win the "Most Violent Coach" award (again) using my Teratons.
My first game I was up against Forge Fathers. A tough game but a lot of fun and I managed to pull out a win and get a couple of fatalities along the way. My second game was anything but, up against Orx and Goblins and nothing seemed to go my way. Meanwhile the goblins ran rings around me and scored an early landslide victory. My opponent even apologised to me for the way the game went, but at least it meant I got a longer break for lunch.
Next game was against Z'Zor, and for the first time ever I had a game that went to time and ended in a draw. Two very evenly matched teams, with an equal lack of luck when it came to scoring or causing injuries. When time was called I had one final shot to win the game, but threw a double-1. A draw seemed like a fair result given the way we'd played, and I had a lot of fun.
Going into the final game, I had one win and a draw and only 2 fatalities to my name. Things weren't looking good, but then I got drawn against a human team for the final game, My opponent, a guy by the unlikely name of Sock, had much the same attitude to the game as I did. This was a great laugh, and it didn't stop even as I took his team out of action one after the other. He got an early 3-point score against me, but I answered with a 4-pointer of my own and sat on that lead until the end of the game (I missed another couple of chances to score). At the end of the game I had a win, and six fatalities to go with it while Sock had no players left on the pitch.
Six fatalities in one game turned out to be more than anyone else had accomplished in the whole event, so mission accomplished and (mostly) a lot of fun had into the process.
God of Battles
Last week I set myself a mission; cobble together an army for God of Battles based on the spare Romans I had kicking about and a few other bits and pieces and head along to one of Foundry's regular gaming days to give it another try. As it turned out, I was the only one to turn up so I got to play a couple of games against Jake Thornton (the game's designer). To say I got schooled would be putting it mildly, Jake actually used our games as an object lesson in how to kill big powerful units like Ogres on his own blog. He's done a great job of writing up the games themselves so I won't duplicate that, all I'll say is that I had a lot of fun (despite the result) and I've really gained a new appreciation for this game. Anybody who's around Nottingham when Foundry are running one of these days, or who has a chance to play it any other time I thoroughly recommend that you check it out.
Painting Progress and New Armies
Like I said, I put together a new army for God of Battles last week. This consisted of a few units of Roman infantry from Warlord, plus some Mantic ogres and Foundry orcs and halflings that all together made up what I hoped would be an effective mercenary army. While I was building the army, I always had in mind the idea that if I built it correctly I could use it for Kings of War as well.
One thing I did when putting the army together was to base everything up using the Basius system from Wargames Bakery. I backed these on Kickstarter last year, but this was my first chance to actually try them out and I have to say I'm incredibly impressed. Easy to use, and the results look great. I got a number of compliments on the bases while I was at Foundry, and I've since gone on to re-base all of the WWII partisans I'm working on as well. The only downside is that it uses up a lot of green stuff, all told I've built almost 150 bases in the last 2 weeks and I'm all out.
With all that work, I haven't got a lot of actual painting done. I have managed to get a Nameless team done for DreadBall (plus a couple of spare players) and I'm working my way through a bunch of MVPs as well. All told, a total of 16 models painted.
On the other hand, I picked up a few figures at Hammerhead and a few more while I was at Foundry (some more partisans and a baggage train for the mercenaries) so that total's going up a bit as well.
Totals for this year so far: 42 painted, 27 bought.
Showing posts with label Tournaments. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tournaments. Show all posts
Thursday, 13 February 2014
Friday, 24 January 2014
Choices, Choices...
Sometimes having a choice really sucks.
A couple of posts ago I mentioned that I was working on some Italian Paratroopers for a Bolt Action tournament that was coming up in Stockport in March, specifically the weekend of March 8th/9th. This week Mantic have finally announced the date for the long delayed DreadBall national championships, March 9th.
Sometimes having a choice really sucks.
A couple of posts ago I mentioned that I was working on some Italian Paratroopers for a Bolt Action tournament that was coming up in Stockport in March, specifically the weekend of March 8th/9th. This week Mantic have finally announced the date for the long delayed DreadBall national championships, March 9th.
Sometimes having a choice really sucks.
Sunday, 19 January 2014
Dreadball and the Future
Another DreadBall tournament today, this time out at Athena Games in Norwich. Headed over there early this morning with Dale from PWC, he's fairly new to DreadBall and has more or less the same tastes in the game as me. As a result we both took Teraton teams and were both looking to play as aggro as possible, we both had our eye on the Hitman prize for Most Violent Coach.
I'm not going to write up a full report for this event, as I didn't take enough notes. All I can really say is I played 5 games that I thoroughly enjoyed, despite losing my first 3 in a row, and that the guys at Athena were really welcoming to the out-of-towners. At the end of the day though, I can report that I did indeed manage to take home the prize for most violent coach (again), apparently by a small landslide. Dale didn't go unrewarded though, he got himself a prize for the worst performing team (partly my fault, as we played each other in the final game which I managed to win).
Once again, I cannot recommend DreadBall highly enough. It really is an excellent game, and I look to be playing much more of it in the near future (tomorrow night at the club, then on to Mantic's Super League at Vapnartak).
Plans for 2014
As this is my first post this year, I guess I should try and lay down some idea of what I'm looking to achieve. I expect I'll be looking back on this list this time next year and making jokes about how little I actually got done but here goes...
Bolt Action
I intend to play a lot more of this in the coming year. While the game has its issues in places, it really is great fun to play and I have a couple of new armies on the go. First off, my Italian Paratroopers that I've been meaning to paint for several months. The good news is that I now have 25 infantry fully painted up, 3 sections and a couple of command models. I have an Autoblinda armoured car to start on, plus a Semovente assault gun on the way, with those plus a handful more infantry I should have a viable 1000 point army painted up.
Once that's done, it's onto La Resistance. At the tournament at Derby last year I somewhat jokingly announced that I was going to do an army based on the resistance from the classic sitcom Allo Allo, the plan really materialised when I found out that Artizan Miniatures do models for Michelle, Rene and a few more characters from the series. So I now have most of the models I need for the army, a list worked out, and I'm just in need of the time to get it painted.
Both these armies are being done with specific tournaments in mind. The Italians are destined for an event up in Stockport in early March, the resistance for the next event in Rushden in May. The good thing about this, is that it gives me the incentive I need to get things done. So here's hoping.
DreadBall
As I said, I intend to be playing a lot more of this. I have a Nameless team on the painting table right now, aiming for the league that we're going to be starting up at the club next month. We also have (largely speculative) plans to run a tournament at some point next year. On the subject of tournaments, I'm heading for Vapnartak in a couple of weeks, then Milton Keynes a couple of weeks after that. I'll keep you posted.
Dead Zone
From the people that brought you DreadBall, I haven't had a chance to play this yet. Largely because Mantic still haven't sent me the scenery that I was meant to get as part of the Kickstarter, so I've been holding off on assembling the bits I do have until I have the full variety available. Looking forward to playing it though.
Kings of War
Another Mantic game, this is another one I've been meaning to play for a long time but never quite got around to. I plan to rectify that ASAP, after all I have 3 armies for the game that need exercise (and that I will get around to painting some day, honest). Although I'm actually planning on a fourth, Kingdoms of Men based around the Roman infantry I have left over from an abortive WAB army.
God of Battles
Another great game from Jake Thornton, this time published by Foundry, that I haven't had time to play nearly enough of. The only real problem with the game is the fact that Foundry took most of the accompanying miniatures range off sale pretty much as soon as the game hit the shelves (genius, sheer genius). But the armies I want to use can be filled from my existing collection, so it's not going to stop me from getting more games in.
Kickstarter
Hi, my name is Rob and I am a Kickstarter addict.
I have backed way too many projects on Kickstarter, most of which have delivered games (and other stuff) that I'm really glad I have. That said, I need to cut down the amount of money I'm throwing at this, to the extent that I'm now only logging on there to keep track of various projects that still have to deliver. My aim for 2014 is to avoid backing ANYTHING on Kickstarter, although I freely admit to a healthy dose of scepticism as to whether or not I can manage this.
One things for certain, Mantic will not be getting any more money from me through Kickstarter. I've backed them on Kings of War, DreadBall and Dead Zone and they've managed to screw up delivery on all three. On top of this, their customer service when trying to sort out the problems has been absolutely appalling. I really do think that they're incapable of supporting projects as successful as the ones they've been running to date, so unless I see something to give me some faith in them I won't be throwing any money their way except to buy stuff off the shelves.
Judge Dredd
Last week we restarted the Judge Dredd campaign at the club. The gap between the top level forces and the smaller ones was just getting insurmountable, plus we had a number of new players sign up so we took the decision to go with a fresh start.
So I tried out a Justice Department force, that got absolutely hammered by Mike's Sov Judges. Obviously their first patrol after leaving the academy, but 3 sucking chest wounds later (one fatal, 2 crippling) I've decided to go back to where I've done best and restarted my Vigilante force. One win already, I'll keep you posted.
Other Stuff
Anyway, that should do for starters. I'll let you know how I get on.
I'm not going to write up a full report for this event, as I didn't take enough notes. All I can really say is I played 5 games that I thoroughly enjoyed, despite losing my first 3 in a row, and that the guys at Athena were really welcoming to the out-of-towners. At the end of the day though, I can report that I did indeed manage to take home the prize for most violent coach (again), apparently by a small landslide. Dale didn't go unrewarded though, he got himself a prize for the worst performing team (partly my fault, as we played each other in the final game which I managed to win).
Once again, I cannot recommend DreadBall highly enough. It really is an excellent game, and I look to be playing much more of it in the near future (tomorrow night at the club, then on to Mantic's Super League at Vapnartak).
Plans for 2014
As this is my first post this year, I guess I should try and lay down some idea of what I'm looking to achieve. I expect I'll be looking back on this list this time next year and making jokes about how little I actually got done but here goes...
Bolt Action
I intend to play a lot more of this in the coming year. While the game has its issues in places, it really is great fun to play and I have a couple of new armies on the go. First off, my Italian Paratroopers that I've been meaning to paint for several months. The good news is that I now have 25 infantry fully painted up, 3 sections and a couple of command models. I have an Autoblinda armoured car to start on, plus a Semovente assault gun on the way, with those plus a handful more infantry I should have a viable 1000 point army painted up.
Once that's done, it's onto La Resistance. At the tournament at Derby last year I somewhat jokingly announced that I was going to do an army based on the resistance from the classic sitcom Allo Allo, the plan really materialised when I found out that Artizan Miniatures do models for Michelle, Rene and a few more characters from the series. So I now have most of the models I need for the army, a list worked out, and I'm just in need of the time to get it painted.
Both these armies are being done with specific tournaments in mind. The Italians are destined for an event up in Stockport in early March, the resistance for the next event in Rushden in May. The good thing about this, is that it gives me the incentive I need to get things done. So here's hoping.
DreadBall
As I said, I intend to be playing a lot more of this. I have a Nameless team on the painting table right now, aiming for the league that we're going to be starting up at the club next month. We also have (largely speculative) plans to run a tournament at some point next year. On the subject of tournaments, I'm heading for Vapnartak in a couple of weeks, then Milton Keynes a couple of weeks after that. I'll keep you posted.
Dead Zone
From the people that brought you DreadBall, I haven't had a chance to play this yet. Largely because Mantic still haven't sent me the scenery that I was meant to get as part of the Kickstarter, so I've been holding off on assembling the bits I do have until I have the full variety available. Looking forward to playing it though.
Kings of War
Another Mantic game, this is another one I've been meaning to play for a long time but never quite got around to. I plan to rectify that ASAP, after all I have 3 armies for the game that need exercise (and that I will get around to painting some day, honest). Although I'm actually planning on a fourth, Kingdoms of Men based around the Roman infantry I have left over from an abortive WAB army.
God of Battles
Another great game from Jake Thornton, this time published by Foundry, that I haven't had time to play nearly enough of. The only real problem with the game is the fact that Foundry took most of the accompanying miniatures range off sale pretty much as soon as the game hit the shelves (genius, sheer genius). But the armies I want to use can be filled from my existing collection, so it's not going to stop me from getting more games in.
Kickstarter
Hi, my name is Rob and I am a Kickstarter addict.
I have backed way too many projects on Kickstarter, most of which have delivered games (and other stuff) that I'm really glad I have. That said, I need to cut down the amount of money I'm throwing at this, to the extent that I'm now only logging on there to keep track of various projects that still have to deliver. My aim for 2014 is to avoid backing ANYTHING on Kickstarter, although I freely admit to a healthy dose of scepticism as to whether or not I can manage this.
One things for certain, Mantic will not be getting any more money from me through Kickstarter. I've backed them on Kings of War, DreadBall and Dead Zone and they've managed to screw up delivery on all three. On top of this, their customer service when trying to sort out the problems has been absolutely appalling. I really do think that they're incapable of supporting projects as successful as the ones they've been running to date, so unless I see something to give me some faith in them I won't be throwing any money their way except to buy stuff off the shelves.
Judge Dredd
Last week we restarted the Judge Dredd campaign at the club. The gap between the top level forces and the smaller ones was just getting insurmountable, plus we had a number of new players sign up so we took the decision to go with a fresh start.
So I tried out a Justice Department force, that got absolutely hammered by Mike's Sov Judges. Obviously their first patrol after leaving the academy, but 3 sucking chest wounds later (one fatal, 2 crippling) I've decided to go back to where I've done best and restarted my Vigilante force. One win already, I'll keep you posted.
Other Stuff
- I have more scenery I want to build, for various games. We'll see if I can find the time.
- I really want to play more Ogre.
- I still have plans for some kind of ancients army. Maybe if I do get the Romans painted up I can find the time to use them for the kind of game they were originally intended for.
- There was talk last year of a Pirates vs Cowboys game, combining the rules from Legends of the Old West and Legends of the High Seas (from Warhammer Historical). I still want to make this happen.
- We're starting to play some games of Warhammer using older editions of the game at the club. Namely 5th edition, which I maintain is probably the best version GW did. I still have all my old books so I'll try to find time for a game or two.
Anyway, that should do for starters. I'll let you know how I get on.
Sunday, 1 December 2013
Mantic Open Day - Dreadball Tournament Report
Yesterday was Mantic's second open day this year, I went to the last one for the Dreadball tournament where I had a less than stellar result playing as Orx. This time, I had the new season 3 teams to pick from and went for the one team that's capable of playing even more aggro than the greenskins, Teratons. This gave me a team of teleporting tortoises where even the jacks are as good at slamming the opposition as an Orx guard, so my natural tendencies to win by just pummelling the opposition into the ground should be well-suited to the tools at my disposal.
I only managed a couple of practice games with the team before the event and only finished painting them the night before, no I wasn't exactly confident about winning my matches. However I went into this with one goal, whether I won or lost my matches I really wanted to be able to win the award for most violent coach.
Matt, from PWC, and I set out bright and early. Matt was about as well prepared for this as I was, also having only finished painting his team the night before. However in his case he had a good reason, he's only been playing the game for a month so this would be a bit of a baptism by fire. We got to Nottinghamjust before the doors opened to the same disused NHS surgery as last time, that Mantic are apparently looking to turn into a permanent games centre. They're going to have to sort out the lighting before then though.
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| Slightly worrying, the lighting at the venue owed a lot to duct tape and hope. |
My first game was against Adam, another Teraton player so this should be interesting. I was playing the home team, which allowed me to get a good start on the inevitable fight that kicked off by killing one of his guards with the first dice roll of the game. We had a very close game, but at the end of 14 turns I was ahead by 3 points and claimed the win. Unfortunately, that first kill was the only one I got so I was hoping for someone squishier for my second game.
Between games I checked out the Kings of War tournament that was taking place in the main hall. Some great looking armies, and unlike some companies I could name Mantic weren't worried about players using models from other manufacturers although the "best painted" prize could only go to an army of Mantic models.
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| I have no idea what this thing is, but it looks cool. |
My second game was against Chris, playing Orx so there goes that hope. This game was truly incredible, two teams who started out only paying token attention to the ball, then proving to be incapable of doing anything with it when they tried. We reached the end of turn 14 with the game scoreless and went into sudden-death overtime. I managed to miss what should have been an easy 1-point strike to win the game, then Chris's goblins got the ball, ran down the pitch and managed the same thing. Eventually I managed to score a point in turn 8 of overtime to claim the win, but this was a truly epic game against a great opponent who really took our combined incompetence in his stride.
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| Dreadball convict team |
We had a break between games 2 and 3 to allow us to attend one of the seminars that Ronnie was hosting, which was a nice touch as we hadn't had a chance at the last event. The seminar was just a Q&A session with Ronnie and Jake Thornton about the future of Dreadball, Dead Zone and Mantic games in general and was informative and amusing in equal measure. I may be reading to much into things, but at times the 2 of them didn't seem to be on quite the same page as Ronnie was making pronouncements from the corporate point of view that didn't seem to sit with Jake's game-designer point of view, so it'll be interesting to see how various predictions shake out.
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| Dreadball Brokkrs |
Highlights included - Dreadball annuals, Dreadball Extreme (saw some sculpts for a couple of teams for this, looks good), Warpath getting a 3rd edition (still free-to-play beta) that will be more in line with how Kings of War plays and Jake's throwaway comment about the next Deadzone scenery pack coming with added skulls and eagles in an obvious dig at another Nottingham-based games manufacturer. This last one got a huge round of applause, not least from the guys from Beasts of War who were filming the seminar (and whose contribution to the discussion was amusing, predictable given their recent history and largely unrepeatable).
Back to the tournament and game 3 saw me up against an Asterian team, unfortunately I have forgotten the name of their coach which is a shame because he really deserves a mention. This could have gone really badly for me, as Asterians were more than capable of running rings round me. They're also capable of getting my players sent off too, and 2 of my guards wound up watching from the sidelines as a result. I tried to get into a position to score, but the Asterians kept stealing the ball from me no matter what I tried. A well timed "The Ball Shatters" card stopped them from scoring a 4-pointer, and allowed me time to get back to plan A. Six fatalities later, we went into overtime scoreless and with only one Asterian player left on the pitch. Once I pounded him into the dirt, I won the game by default. Another great game against an opponent who really kept his sense of humour throughout the battering I dealt out.
Between games 3 and 4 I took the opportunity to pick up my Dead Zone kickstarter rewards, so I've got that to look forward to playing sometime soon. I have too many games on my "must play" list again, an unfortunately all-too-common occurrence.
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| The Dead Zone rewards waiting to be collected. Not ALL of these were mine. |
Game 4 saw me up against Luke and his Zzor, another hard-hitting team with 4 guards. Luke really made the most of his "sticky" guards, using them to keep my players on the floor once he had them down. Once again we managed a game with no scores, despite our best efforts, and went into overtime. This time my opponent had 5 players on the pitch, but only one of them was striker capable of moving the ball so I committed my only foul of the tournament and stomped on him while he was down. With Luke now unable to score, I won this one by default as well.
End result: 4 wins out of 4 games. Much, much better than I've ever managed before. Since none of my wins were landslides, and because all my tie-breakers sucked because of all the overtime wins, I would up in 6th place overall which I was more than satisfied with. More importantly, 10 kills over the course of the event saw me take home that coveted title of "Most Violent Coach". Mission accomplished, and proof that playing the ball can be regarded as optional in Dreadball. :-)
Overall I had a great day, played against some great opponents (I still have yet to play a game of Dreadball that I haven't enjoyed, win or lose) and had a lot of fun. In fact the only negative point on the whole day was getting home and finding out that, once again, Mantic have managed to screw up my Kickstarter rewards. Hopefully that gets sorted out quicker than the mess they've made of my Kings of War and Dreadball rewards, and I refuse to let that take away from my enjoyment of the day.
Sunday, 24 November 2013
One Night in Mega City One - Judge Dredd Campaign Day
Today was the third tournament I've attended at Mongoose for their Judge Dredd miniatures game, for that matter it was only the third that they've run (I intend to keep up my perfect attendance record if at all possible).
All 3 events have run with different rules, and I have to admit that I'm not 100% sure that this one works as a tournament format. Basically it was a competitive campaign, we played using all the rules from the basic campaign from the rulebook which meant tracking experience points, hero levels, injuries and income and all the other faff that comes with the campaign rules. At the end of the event, the force with the highest total value is the winner regardless of the number of individual games won.
Don't get me wrong, I love the JDMG campaign rules (after all, I'm running a campaign at the moment that shows no sign of stopping any time soon). But it's all a bit much in a time-limited format like a tournament. Plus things can all get a bit unbalanced and silly if you're not careful (which we weren't). That's not to say I didn't have fun today (I did, a lot of it), but I think the other events Mongoose have run worked better.
Anyway, enough of that. Back to the report.
I arrived at the event this morning with 2 force lists and all the models for both, still completely as to which I was using. One coin-flip later (literally) I had my answer, a Zombie Horde consisting of one zombie mistress with long rifle (to keep the enemy at a safe distance) plus 21 reanimated cadavers. This was compared to the other forces that had between 3 to 7 models each, so it was always going to be an interesting choice. I knew this was an option that may or may not work, either I'd be able to buy so many zombies that I could swarm anyone, or the other forces heroes would increase in level so far that I wouldn't be able to touch them. Time would tell...
We had a total of 6 players turn up, possibly due to the fact that Mongoose only started advertising the event 3 weeks ago. With 7 rounds in the event some duplicate match-ups were guaranteed, but Matt assured us he'd keep it to a minimum.
Round 1 was against Trish and her Ape Gang, playing the Scrawl War scenario (zombies spray-painting downtown buildings, whatever next?). She had 2 orang-utan snipers, a couple of chimps and a couple of gorillas - one with club and one with a double-barelled stump gun (the perfect zombie-shredding gun). I wasn't sure how this would go, but I worried less after my zombie mistress fatally out-sniped one of the orang-utans (Trish's gang leader) with the first dice-roll of the game. Trish had some terrible dice luck and didn't manage to take out any of my zombies as they swarmed over her apes. An easy win in the end, and enough credits earned to add 10 more zombies to my force.
Game 2 was against Richard, playing as Mega City One Judges. This was the Demolition scenario, and I was attacking which meant that my zombies had to attach explosive charges to a target vehicle in the centre of the board while Rich's judges tried to stop them. Rich gave a good accounting of himself, the judges' high-ex ammunition proving to be predictably excellent for taking down zombies. In the end though, I had too many models for him to stop and the target was history. This time I'd taken a lot of casualties that needed replacement, net result was that I still ended the game with 4 more zombies than I started with.
Game 3 was against Carl's Sov Judges and was the Demolition scenario again. This time the terrain was much more open and Carl did a lot of damage to my zombies before they once again swarmed over the objective and destroyed it. The zombie mistress sniped out another model but that was the only casualty I caused this game. Another win, but casualties taken meant that I had a net gain of 7 zombies, taking my total to 42. My force was winning games, but expanding too slowly compared to the way some of the others were advancing.
Game 4, after lunch, was against Andrew's Brit-Cit judges. Three judge players, all using forces from different cities. This was a straightforward Street Rumble, last man standing wins, and was back on the same table as my first game against Trish with all that lovely cover to shield my advance. The judges dropped a handful of zombies as they shambled forwards, then got dragged under by superior numbers. Slightly more successful, I added 10 more zombies to the force overall.
In game 5 I found myself facing Rich's judges again, this time in a Heist scenario that required me to stop them from fleeing the table with a number of recovered artifacts. Rich's force had expanded since out first game, and got a lot more dangerous. They were able to shrug off most of my attacks as the majority were able to flee the table with the loot. My first game loss, but I did earn a lot of credits and expanded my force by another 8 zombies, plus I picked up a Pyrokinetic mutant who'd fought for me as a mercenary this game and added her to the force as a loyal follower.
Game 6, I was facing off against Andy's Citi-Def. This was another Street Rumble, against a force with a missile launcher and lots of spit guns and back on the wide-open scenery. Familiar situation for me by now, lots of early game casualties before dragging down the enemy under weight of numbers. Another 12 zombies added overall this game, taking my total to 72.
The final game, I was back against Carl's Sov Judges, on the table where he'd caused so many casualties the first time out. It was another Demolition, but this time I was defending and Carl's troops had the explosive charges. But Carl had no interest in going for the objective, he was contesting the lead of the event and just wanted to pick up lots of experience and boost his heroes as much as possible. He spent the game retreating from my zombies, firing as he went, in a very tactical display that worked perfectly for him. We ran out of time just as I managed to corner him. Technically I won the scenario, since Carl never even approached the objective, but he did pick up loads of experience.
In the end, I won 6 out of my 7 games but my final force rating was only high enough to secure 4th place overall. Carl won, thanks to the experience he picked up from our final game.
7 highly enjoyable games, against some great opponents, but I can't help feeling that this way of running an event leads to some odd situations where losing a game can be much more beneficial than winning. If the next event runs the same way, I'll have to alter my way of thinking.
On a final note, I wound up with 78 zombies in my force after 7 games (plus my 2 heroes). This led Matt to comment that the zombies need some kind of "big option" for a bit more choice. A zombie T-Rex (from the Cursed Earth) was suggested, so there's that to look forward to. :-)
All 3 events have run with different rules, and I have to admit that I'm not 100% sure that this one works as a tournament format. Basically it was a competitive campaign, we played using all the rules from the basic campaign from the rulebook which meant tracking experience points, hero levels, injuries and income and all the other faff that comes with the campaign rules. At the end of the event, the force with the highest total value is the winner regardless of the number of individual games won.
Don't get me wrong, I love the JDMG campaign rules (after all, I'm running a campaign at the moment that shows no sign of stopping any time soon). But it's all a bit much in a time-limited format like a tournament. Plus things can all get a bit unbalanced and silly if you're not careful (which we weren't). That's not to say I didn't have fun today (I did, a lot of it), but I think the other events Mongoose have run worked better.
Anyway, enough of that. Back to the report.
I arrived at the event this morning with 2 force lists and all the models for both, still completely as to which I was using. One coin-flip later (literally) I had my answer, a Zombie Horde consisting of one zombie mistress with long rifle (to keep the enemy at a safe distance) plus 21 reanimated cadavers. This was compared to the other forces that had between 3 to 7 models each, so it was always going to be an interesting choice. I knew this was an option that may or may not work, either I'd be able to buy so many zombies that I could swarm anyone, or the other forces heroes would increase in level so far that I wouldn't be able to touch them. Time would tell...
We had a total of 6 players turn up, possibly due to the fact that Mongoose only started advertising the event 3 weeks ago. With 7 rounds in the event some duplicate match-ups were guaranteed, but Matt assured us he'd keep it to a minimum.
Round 1 was against Trish and her Ape Gang, playing the Scrawl War scenario (zombies spray-painting downtown buildings, whatever next?). She had 2 orang-utan snipers, a couple of chimps and a couple of gorillas - one with club and one with a double-barelled stump gun (the perfect zombie-shredding gun). I wasn't sure how this would go, but I worried less after my zombie mistress fatally out-sniped one of the orang-utans (Trish's gang leader) with the first dice-roll of the game. Trish had some terrible dice luck and didn't manage to take out any of my zombies as they swarmed over her apes. An easy win in the end, and enough credits earned to add 10 more zombies to my force.
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| One of Trish's gorillas, just before he tried to flee the zombies. He failed. |
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| The zombies swarm towards the objective as Rich's riot judge tries to stop them. |
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| Carl's Sov Judges lay down covering fire on the objective... |
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| ...as the zombies advance. |
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| Brit-Cit's finest fail to hold the line. |
Game 4, after lunch, was against Andrew's Brit-Cit judges. Three judge players, all using forces from different cities. This was a straightforward Street Rumble, last man standing wins, and was back on the same table as my first game against Trish with all that lovely cover to shield my advance. The judges dropped a handful of zombies as they shambled forwards, then got dragged under by superior numbers. Slightly more successful, I added 10 more zombies to the force overall.
In game 5 I found myself facing Rich's judges again, this time in a Heist scenario that required me to stop them from fleeing the table with a number of recovered artifacts. Rich's force had expanded since out first game, and got a lot more dangerous. They were able to shrug off most of my attacks as the majority were able to flee the table with the loot. My first game loss, but I did earn a lot of credits and expanded my force by another 8 zombies, plus I picked up a Pyrokinetic mutant who'd fought for me as a mercenary this game and added her to the force as a loyal follower.
Game 6, I was facing off against Andy's Citi-Def. This was another Street Rumble, against a force with a missile launcher and lots of spit guns and back on the wide-open scenery. Familiar situation for me by now, lots of early game casualties before dragging down the enemy under weight of numbers. Another 12 zombies added overall this game, taking my total to 72.
The final game, I was back against Carl's Sov Judges, on the table where he'd caused so many casualties the first time out. It was another Demolition, but this time I was defending and Carl's troops had the explosive charges. But Carl had no interest in going for the objective, he was contesting the lead of the event and just wanted to pick up lots of experience and boost his heroes as much as possible. He spent the game retreating from my zombies, firing as he went, in a very tactical display that worked perfectly for him. We ran out of time just as I managed to corner him. Technically I won the scenario, since Carl never even approached the objective, but he did pick up loads of experience.
In the end, I won 6 out of my 7 games but my final force rating was only high enough to secure 4th place overall. Carl won, thanks to the experience he picked up from our final game.
7 highly enjoyable games, against some great opponents, but I can't help feeling that this way of running an event leads to some odd situations where losing a game can be much more beneficial than winning. If the next event runs the same way, I'll have to alter my way of thinking.
On a final note, I wound up with 78 zombies in my force after 7 games (plus my 2 heroes). This led Matt to comment that the zombies need some kind of "big option" for a bit more choice. A zombie T-Rex (from the Cursed Earth) was suggested, so there's that to look forward to. :-)
Sunday, 22 September 2013
Judge Dredd Miniatures - Tournament Report
A couple of weeks ago we ran our first Judge Dredd tournament at the club, and when I say "we" I actually mean "I" since this was my project and my first time ever organising a tournament like this.
This was to be a combination tournament/campaign day, a mini tournament in the morning leading to a big multi-player game in the afternoon that would be directly influenced by the results of the tournament. Somewhat rashly I offered to provide all the additional miniatures required for the big game. This would include a horde of zombies, the Dark Judges themselves and the leading defenders of Mega City One (Dredd, Anderson et al). I later came to regret this promise.
In anticipation of my usual level of organisational skill I booked the week before the tournament off from work, so that I would have the time needed to paint up all the miniatures I had failed to paint in the run-up. With one thing and another this turned out to be most of them, but in the space of a week I managed to paint the following:
84 Zombies (only half of what I'd bought but more than enough for the game)
One Zombie mistress, plus a repaint on an old vampire model to serve the same purpose
One zombie Judge
All 4 Dark Judges and their spirit forms
Judges Anderson, Giant, DeMarco and Dekker
One Judge in holocaust armour
One rookie Judge
Mean Machine Angel
Not a bad little haul really.
When it came to the Dark Judges I had a minor crisis, I'd been waiting for the models from Mongoose to arrive. I'd got these as part of my rewards for supporting their Kickstarter and when I'd first planned to run the event it seemed certain that they'd arrive in plenty of time. Now the day drew closer and there were delays after delays until it seemed like they were finally going to arrive just a few days after the event. So at the last minute I mail ordered a set of the miniatures from Wargames Foundry, they're nice but they never did one for Judge Fear and they didn't do the spirit forms (although I had an idea for an alternative paint job which meant I bought 2 sets). On the Tuesday before the event, both sets of Dark Judges fell through the letterbox in the same post. I went with the Mongoose miniatures in the end, but I guess it shows I was panicking for nothing.
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| The Dark Judges - we have arrived (in the nick of time) |
With a hastily cobbled together force of Renegade Robots (we figured they'd get on well with Judge Death, both groups want the "fleshy ones" dead) my first game was against Arfon. He'd come down as a guest of Adrian's, one of our regulars, and this was going to be his first ever game of JDMG. So my robots lined up against his borrowed force of Judges, with their mission being to eliminate the highest ranking Judge. Long story short, I failed. I'd love to blame beginner's luck, or bad dice rolls, but the fact of the matter is I made mistakes and just got outplayed by the rookie. However the other Justice Department players all lost their games, which left Arfon in the lead in the tournament and things looking grim for Mega City One.
Game 2 was against Rich and his very colourful Citi-Def, who had travelled up from Welwyn Garden City for the event. This was the Raid scenario, Rich had one model deployed on my side of the table and I had to stop him escaping. Which my combat droid did with style, right at the last minute, with a sniper round to the back of the head. So I had a win, and the bigger picture wasn't looking too good for the Judges as once again only Arfon had managed a win this round.
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| Rich's Citi-Def - photo stolen from the Mongoose forums |
Game 4 was against another regular club opponent, Mike Whitaker and his Judges on a Lawmaster. You can read his account of the day here. We both took early casualties and the game degenerated into his Judge and my combat droid facing each other and trying to blast east other, suffice it to say that bike-cannon beat sniper rifle in this case.
So one win from 4 games, which left me firmly at the bottom of the table for the bad guys while Adrian went undefeated and finished the day with a perfect score. For the Justice Department Arfon had managed to hold onto the lead by the slimmest of margins (only 4 points separating 1st place from 3rd).
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| Me awarding Adrian with his trophy, photo courtesy of Mike. |
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| Arfon winning a trophy, first time out. |
And so we were onto the big game, a variant on the Zombie Apocalypse scenario. The bad guys each had access to a Zombie Horde force in addition to their regular tournament force, while the defenders got additional reinforcements. Both sides had access to some of the major personalities from Mega City One. The Dark Judges had Judges Death, Fear and Fire, while I had to make do with Mean Machine (a much lower level character as befitted my performance on the day, but also one of my favourite characters from the comic). The Justice Department had Judges Dredd, Anderson and Giant, while Arfon availed himself of the Judge in holocaust armour.
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| Mega City One in all its glory |
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| Mean Machine leads the charge across the wasteland while Judge Fear watches on |
On the whole, I'm very pleasantly surprised with how smoothly everything ran. Everyone had fun, every game seemed to be enjoyable and I think it's agreed that we're going to do this again. Though I may try to be a bit more orgainsed for the next one.
Friday, 20 September 2013
Operation Overlord - Bolt Action Tournament Report
August 31st saw the Phoenix Wargames Club in Rushden put on their second Bolt Action tournament this year, entitled Operation Overlord. Although I've been playing Bolt Action since the game first came out, I hadn't ventured near any kind of competative gaming. I think I'd been largely put off the tournament scene by my experiences with competative Warhammer but going along to a few other smaller tournaments, most recently the Judge Dredd events organised by Mongoose, convinced me that not all competative wargamers are complete dicks and I decided to give it a go.
I hadn't used my Russians for a while and due to other commitments the only practice game I was able to get in was a blue-on-blue (red-on-red?) battle against Chris's Russians at the club. That game had started out even enough but turned into a rout in my favour, I'm not sure how much I learned tactically but at least I'd brushed up on the rules.
So, onto the event itself. We'd be playing 3 games using custom scenarios and a different victory point system which awarded points based on the type of unit rather than their value. This meant, among other things, that I wouldn't just be able to throw my free unit of inexperienced infantry/cannon fodder into the fight like I normally do, as they were worth exactly the same as my veteran squad. That could make things interesting.
My first game was against an opponent whose name I have regrettably forgotten (common problem for me) who was using fallschirmjager. Lots of veteran infantry, a Puma recce vehicle and a big anti-tank gun which had me worried for my T-34. The scenario was a pitched battle with a twist, we each had to nominate an enemy unit that would be worth double victory points if destroyed. I picked the smallest of his 3 unit of veteran infantry, he picked my free unit of conscripts so I really couldn't throw them away now.
In the end I needn't have worried. The Puma turned out to be fairly annoying, in the way only recce vehicles can be (stand still and let me kill you, damn it), until I eventually opted to ignore it and concentrate on the rest of the army. I think I got more than my share of luck in this game as everything I set out to do worked almost perfectly. Even my veteran squad fubar'ing and fleeing at exactly the wrong moment was only a blip. When the dust settled all I'd lost was my mortar (to the Puma, after it stopped hiding) while my opponent had lost everything except the Puma and his medic. Final score 20-1 in my favour. But more to the point, a thoroughly enjoyable game against an opponent who took everything in his stride, even when it was all hitting the fan.
Incidentally, my conscripts took a total of 4 casualties, 2 of them inflicted by my own commissar. Nichevo.
Game 2 was against Pete Melvin, one of the event's organisers who was fielding more fallschirmjager. This time there were a couple of flak units on his side of the table, which was a concern as I was using an air force forward observer who'd so far had things all his own way. During setup we each exercised the option to hold a couple of units in reserve, in my case the T-34 and my squad of SMG-armed infantry (if they could outflank the enemy it would get nasty) and in his case 2 squads of veteran infantry. Setup was interesting, as we both chose a refused-flank option. My left flank had my conscripts and commissar facing off against a lone veteran infantry squad, while the rest of our armies were concentrated on the right. Turn 1 saw my veteran infantry take a big hit from a heavy mortar that wiped out two-thirds of the squad, while my AT gun blew up his armoured car (one of the flak units) with its first shot.
On turn two all of our reserves came on. My SMG troops had failed to outflank (different rules to normal for this scenario) and turned up on my own baseline so all I'd effectively done was waste 2 turns of movement, but my T-34 turned up on the right flank and was able to throw some more firepower into what was already looking a little one-sided. Both of Pete's units turned up on my left flank, which left the conscripts doomed but meant that those three veteran infantry squads would take little part in the rest of the battle while I mopped up on the right. Final score 15-5 in my favour, another major victory.
All of this meant that going into the final game I was the highest placed Allied player at the event. Which was mildly unnerving and meant that I had everything to lose in the final game, where we only had 750 points to use. This meant that I would be losing my commissar (not a huge problem, the guy was a bit of a liability) and my T-34 (big problem, it'd had a big influence on the first 2 games), and also playing against the guy who was top of the table for the Axis players.
This turned out to be Brian McGonagle, who was also using fallschirmjager (sensing a pattern here guys). I had the better set-up, with most of my army in cover while Brian's was largely in the open. Then I started rolling dice and it all went down the toilet. I lost my SMGs to a failed morale check (needing 8 or less on 2D6, with a re-roll) then lost my veteran squad exactly the same way. My airstrike didn't turn up until turn 4 by which point Brian had isolated the target unit to minimise the impact, the NCO of the target squad was the sole survivor, passed his morale check and spent three turns taunting my sniper who completely failed to kill him netting me no victory points. I had a couple of chances to pull things back but they didn't materialise and by the end of the game it was a minor win to Brian.
When all the other results were in I finished up in third place for the Allies, which was definitely more than I was expecting going into the event but still a little disappointing given the way things had worked out. Still I had three thoroughly enjoyable games against some excellent opponents, and now I'm off to warlord's first official Bolt Action tournament at Derby next weekend.
Incidentally I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the success of the other club members who were at the event. Ryan scored third place among the Axis players with his Japanese, and Tony took the best-painted army award for the Axis (with Ryan in second place). So a good day all round, and I'm looking forward to the next one.
p.s. I didn't take any photos at this event, but you can see Pete's here. Mine are the very basic looking Russians about halfway down. Brian's account of our battle is on the Warlord forums here.
I hadn't used my Russians for a while and due to other commitments the only practice game I was able to get in was a blue-on-blue (red-on-red?) battle against Chris's Russians at the club. That game had started out even enough but turned into a rout in my favour, I'm not sure how much I learned tactically but at least I'd brushed up on the rules.
So, onto the event itself. We'd be playing 3 games using custom scenarios and a different victory point system which awarded points based on the type of unit rather than their value. This meant, among other things, that I wouldn't just be able to throw my free unit of inexperienced infantry/cannon fodder into the fight like I normally do, as they were worth exactly the same as my veteran squad. That could make things interesting.
My first game was against an opponent whose name I have regrettably forgotten (common problem for me) who was using fallschirmjager. Lots of veteran infantry, a Puma recce vehicle and a big anti-tank gun which had me worried for my T-34. The scenario was a pitched battle with a twist, we each had to nominate an enemy unit that would be worth double victory points if destroyed. I picked the smallest of his 3 unit of veteran infantry, he picked my free unit of conscripts so I really couldn't throw them away now.
In the end I needn't have worried. The Puma turned out to be fairly annoying, in the way only recce vehicles can be (stand still and let me kill you, damn it), until I eventually opted to ignore it and concentrate on the rest of the army. I think I got more than my share of luck in this game as everything I set out to do worked almost perfectly. Even my veteran squad fubar'ing and fleeing at exactly the wrong moment was only a blip. When the dust settled all I'd lost was my mortar (to the Puma, after it stopped hiding) while my opponent had lost everything except the Puma and his medic. Final score 20-1 in my favour. But more to the point, a thoroughly enjoyable game against an opponent who took everything in his stride, even when it was all hitting the fan.
Incidentally, my conscripts took a total of 4 casualties, 2 of them inflicted by my own commissar. Nichevo.
Game 2 was against Pete Melvin, one of the event's organisers who was fielding more fallschirmjager. This time there were a couple of flak units on his side of the table, which was a concern as I was using an air force forward observer who'd so far had things all his own way. During setup we each exercised the option to hold a couple of units in reserve, in my case the T-34 and my squad of SMG-armed infantry (if they could outflank the enemy it would get nasty) and in his case 2 squads of veteran infantry. Setup was interesting, as we both chose a refused-flank option. My left flank had my conscripts and commissar facing off against a lone veteran infantry squad, while the rest of our armies were concentrated on the right. Turn 1 saw my veteran infantry take a big hit from a heavy mortar that wiped out two-thirds of the squad, while my AT gun blew up his armoured car (one of the flak units) with its first shot.
On turn two all of our reserves came on. My SMG troops had failed to outflank (different rules to normal for this scenario) and turned up on my own baseline so all I'd effectively done was waste 2 turns of movement, but my T-34 turned up on the right flank and was able to throw some more firepower into what was already looking a little one-sided. Both of Pete's units turned up on my left flank, which left the conscripts doomed but meant that those three veteran infantry squads would take little part in the rest of the battle while I mopped up on the right. Final score 15-5 in my favour, another major victory.
All of this meant that going into the final game I was the highest placed Allied player at the event. Which was mildly unnerving and meant that I had everything to lose in the final game, where we only had 750 points to use. This meant that I would be losing my commissar (not a huge problem, the guy was a bit of a liability) and my T-34 (big problem, it'd had a big influence on the first 2 games), and also playing against the guy who was top of the table for the Axis players.
This turned out to be Brian McGonagle, who was also using fallschirmjager (sensing a pattern here guys). I had the better set-up, with most of my army in cover while Brian's was largely in the open. Then I started rolling dice and it all went down the toilet. I lost my SMGs to a failed morale check (needing 8 or less on 2D6, with a re-roll) then lost my veteran squad exactly the same way. My airstrike didn't turn up until turn 4 by which point Brian had isolated the target unit to minimise the impact, the NCO of the target squad was the sole survivor, passed his morale check and spent three turns taunting my sniper who completely failed to kill him netting me no victory points. I had a couple of chances to pull things back but they didn't materialise and by the end of the game it was a minor win to Brian.
When all the other results were in I finished up in third place for the Allies, which was definitely more than I was expecting going into the event but still a little disappointing given the way things had worked out. Still I had three thoroughly enjoyable games against some excellent opponents, and now I'm off to warlord's first official Bolt Action tournament at Derby next weekend.
Incidentally I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the success of the other club members who were at the event. Ryan scored third place among the Axis players with his Japanese, and Tony took the best-painted army award for the Axis (with Ryan in second place). So a good day all round, and I'm looking forward to the next one.
p.s. I didn't take any photos at this event, but you can see Pete's here. Mine are the very basic looking Russians about halfway down. Brian's account of our battle is on the Warlord forums here.
Tuesday, 17 September 2013
What I Did On My Summer Holidays...
It's been a LONG time since I updated this blog, which is really quite inexcusable even with how much I've had to do from both a gaming and real life viewpoint. However, I seem to have a relatively quiet week ahead of me so I guess I've got time to touch on some of the highlights from the last few months.
Star Wars - The Card Game
July saw me heading down to Exeter for the regional championship for the Star Wars LCG. I'm a huge fan of the game but as with anything CCG/LCG related I really struggle to find opponents locally for either casual gaming or tournaments so I decided to combine catching up with family (my brother lives in Exeter, as does my 18 month old nephew) with another crack at a regional championship (I came 2nd in the event held in Sheffield on May 4th).
The tournament consisted of 4 rounds of swiss, in which I managed to win all 4 (a couple by tiebreaker and a couple by luck) which meant I finished in 2nd place at this stage. We then went to a top 4 knockout stage. My opponent in the semi-final turned out to be the guy I'd just beat in the final round of swiss and our rematch went much the same way which put me into the final. At which point my Sith deck decided it had had enough and didn't want to play any more - I saw none of the cards I needed and was beaten in fairly short order. I managed to win the second game with my Jedi deck (each round consists of 2 games, light side vs dark) but my opponent got the tiebreaker and the win. Second place again. Still, I'm starting to believe I may actually know what I'm doing with this game.
I can thoroughly recommend Clifton Road Games in Exeter, where the tournament was held. Great shop with a wide range and a huge gaming hall out back, the staff and regulars were all very welcoming and I wound up hanging around after the tournament to play Mansions of madness until past midnight. Great start to a holiday.
Judge Dredd Miniatures - Heroes of Mega City One
This was the second ever JDMG tournament held at Mongoose HQ in Swindon, I went to the first one as well and had a blast despite finishing somewhere mid-table. This one was a slightly different format, you had the option to field higher level heroes this time round (up to level 5) which opened up some options, or you could field mobs of minions. This made it hard to predict which way the meta would go and I had to hedge my bets a little, I wound up settling on a squad of 3 Judges, all boosted to level 5 and with a range of talents to take on heroes or mobs as necessary.
Adrian from PWC and I left Peterborough at silly-o-clock in the morning, making it to Swindon just in time for the start. I'll admit that I've not retained a great deal of detail from this event. I remember a battle against a robot force, all armed with sniper rifles and lined up against the back of their deployment zone an a massive table with a nice killing field in front of them; I lost that one. I wound up playing against Ady's renegade robots (naturally, you always wind up playing against the chauffeur) and won that one largely due to the fact that I knew exactly what he was going to be taking and had tweaked my force to take it into account. Otherwise I had a number of games against other Justice Department forces, all of which had more models than me but were lower level so I was able to take them apart bit-by-bit. When the dust settled, I'd wound up in 2nd place overall which was frankly astonishing. Looking forward to the next event Mongoose put on, there's no way I'll be missing it if I get any say in the matter.
Warhammer 40K - Club Campaign
I'll be brutally honest, this campaign has done more to send me into a general wargaming funk than anything else that's happened recently. I'm doing well (6 wins out of 6 games, some more by luck than judgement) and no disrespect meant to Dan (the campaign organiser) or any of my opponents but I'm really getting fed up of the mess that is the current 40K ruleset. Some of the new stuff they've put in there is great, some of it needed a lot more playtesting/rewriting before it was fit for release, and some of it is blatantly just there to sell new models (they're not even trying to hide it any more).
But what's really got my back up (and this may sound petty) is the new Space Marine codex, specifically the Centurions. Can somebody please explain to me what GW were thinking with these? Why bother with veteran company terminators when all the regular companies have access to these which are just better? Just retcon them into the background material and throw most of the existing stuff out at the same time. Plus they just look stupid. Prime example of rules being driven by the need to sell models (they're damned expensive as well). [/rant]
Anyway, the end result is that I've sworn off 40K for a bit. I've dropped out of the campaign, which thankfully is structured to allow people to do this with minimal problems, and won't be playing again for the foreseeable future. Which of course means that my Grey Knights have been put on the back burner indefinitely as well.
Judge Dredd Minatures - Club Campaign
This continues to bumble along, we're all having a lot of fun and eventually somebody's going to win it. In the meantime we all get to play some games and not take much of it too seriously. My Judgement League are now getting to a scarily high level without actually becoming all that competent in game, which makes things interesting to say the least. We haven't yet quite decided what to do about the imminent release of the new edition of the rules.
Bolt Action
I've been playing a lot of this recently, if anything it's taken over and filled the hole that 40K left behind. Great ruleset, much less fiddly than some other WWII rules I could mention and makes a lot more sense in game as well. It's a ruleset where you can just worry about tactics and let the rules pretty much take care of themselves, which is probably why I like it so much.
I went to my first BA tournament at Rushden a couple of weeks ago and will be posting a full tournament report in the next couple of days.
Judge Dredd - Necropolis 2 Tournament/Campaign Day
Somewhat scarily, this was the first time I have ever organised a tournament of any kind. Again, I'll be posting a full report soon but in short it all went surprisingly well. And while I didn't get all of the zombies painted in time, I did get more than enough done.
So anyway, that's what's been occupying my attention over the last few months. I'll try to keep this more up-to-date from now on.
Star Wars - The Card Game
July saw me heading down to Exeter for the regional championship for the Star Wars LCG. I'm a huge fan of the game but as with anything CCG/LCG related I really struggle to find opponents locally for either casual gaming or tournaments so I decided to combine catching up with family (my brother lives in Exeter, as does my 18 month old nephew) with another crack at a regional championship (I came 2nd in the event held in Sheffield on May 4th).
The tournament consisted of 4 rounds of swiss, in which I managed to win all 4 (a couple by tiebreaker and a couple by luck) which meant I finished in 2nd place at this stage. We then went to a top 4 knockout stage. My opponent in the semi-final turned out to be the guy I'd just beat in the final round of swiss and our rematch went much the same way which put me into the final. At which point my Sith deck decided it had had enough and didn't want to play any more - I saw none of the cards I needed and was beaten in fairly short order. I managed to win the second game with my Jedi deck (each round consists of 2 games, light side vs dark) but my opponent got the tiebreaker and the win. Second place again. Still, I'm starting to believe I may actually know what I'm doing with this game.
I can thoroughly recommend Clifton Road Games in Exeter, where the tournament was held. Great shop with a wide range and a huge gaming hall out back, the staff and regulars were all very welcoming and I wound up hanging around after the tournament to play Mansions of madness until past midnight. Great start to a holiday.
Judge Dredd Miniatures - Heroes of Mega City One
This was the second ever JDMG tournament held at Mongoose HQ in Swindon, I went to the first one as well and had a blast despite finishing somewhere mid-table. This one was a slightly different format, you had the option to field higher level heroes this time round (up to level 5) which opened up some options, or you could field mobs of minions. This made it hard to predict which way the meta would go and I had to hedge my bets a little, I wound up settling on a squad of 3 Judges, all boosted to level 5 and with a range of talents to take on heroes or mobs as necessary.
Adrian from PWC and I left Peterborough at silly-o-clock in the morning, making it to Swindon just in time for the start. I'll admit that I've not retained a great deal of detail from this event. I remember a battle against a robot force, all armed with sniper rifles and lined up against the back of their deployment zone an a massive table with a nice killing field in front of them; I lost that one. I wound up playing against Ady's renegade robots (naturally, you always wind up playing against the chauffeur) and won that one largely due to the fact that I knew exactly what he was going to be taking and had tweaked my force to take it into account. Otherwise I had a number of games against other Justice Department forces, all of which had more models than me but were lower level so I was able to take them apart bit-by-bit. When the dust settled, I'd wound up in 2nd place overall which was frankly astonishing. Looking forward to the next event Mongoose put on, there's no way I'll be missing it if I get any say in the matter.
Warhammer 40K - Club Campaign
I'll be brutally honest, this campaign has done more to send me into a general wargaming funk than anything else that's happened recently. I'm doing well (6 wins out of 6 games, some more by luck than judgement) and no disrespect meant to Dan (the campaign organiser) or any of my opponents but I'm really getting fed up of the mess that is the current 40K ruleset. Some of the new stuff they've put in there is great, some of it needed a lot more playtesting/rewriting before it was fit for release, and some of it is blatantly just there to sell new models (they're not even trying to hide it any more).
But what's really got my back up (and this may sound petty) is the new Space Marine codex, specifically the Centurions. Can somebody please explain to me what GW were thinking with these? Why bother with veteran company terminators when all the regular companies have access to these which are just better? Just retcon them into the background material and throw most of the existing stuff out at the same time. Plus they just look stupid. Prime example of rules being driven by the need to sell models (they're damned expensive as well). [/rant]
Anyway, the end result is that I've sworn off 40K for a bit. I've dropped out of the campaign, which thankfully is structured to allow people to do this with minimal problems, and won't be playing again for the foreseeable future. Which of course means that my Grey Knights have been put on the back burner indefinitely as well.
Judge Dredd Minatures - Club Campaign
This continues to bumble along, we're all having a lot of fun and eventually somebody's going to win it. In the meantime we all get to play some games and not take much of it too seriously. My Judgement League are now getting to a scarily high level without actually becoming all that competent in game, which makes things interesting to say the least. We haven't yet quite decided what to do about the imminent release of the new edition of the rules.
Bolt Action
I've been playing a lot of this recently, if anything it's taken over and filled the hole that 40K left behind. Great ruleset, much less fiddly than some other WWII rules I could mention and makes a lot more sense in game as well. It's a ruleset where you can just worry about tactics and let the rules pretty much take care of themselves, which is probably why I like it so much.
I went to my first BA tournament at Rushden a couple of weeks ago and will be posting a full tournament report in the next couple of days.
Judge Dredd - Necropolis 2 Tournament/Campaign Day
Somewhat scarily, this was the first time I have ever organised a tournament of any kind. Again, I'll be posting a full report soon but in short it all went surprisingly well. And while I didn't get all of the zombies painted in time, I did get more than enough done.
So anyway, that's what's been occupying my attention over the last few months. I'll try to keep this more up-to-date from now on.
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