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.
Friday, 24 January 2014
Tuesday, 21 January 2014
Getting Stuff Painted
This is an idea I've seen over on the Mantic forums that I quite like the look of, so I'm going to give it a try. The basic idea is that you keep track of the number of models you acquire over the course of a year and the number of models that you manage to get painted. If the painted models outnumber the new stuff, you win.
Anyway, I'll make sure to keep track of things here on the blog as the numbers change. Right now I'm doing quite well, the only issue I can see is all the stuff I bought on Kickstarter last year that's due to turn up soon and will only hurt my numbers (it all counts as being acquired this year). Oh well, serves me right I guess and there are worse problems to have.
So far, I have aquired Chopper and some electro-cordons for Judge Dredd (via Kickstarter) and have painted 25 Italian paratroopers and one DreadBall Teraton Keeper. So far, I'm winning. :-)
Totals so far:
Anyway, I'll make sure to keep track of things here on the blog as the numbers change. Right now I'm doing quite well, the only issue I can see is all the stuff I bought on Kickstarter last year that's due to turn up soon and will only hurt my numbers (it all counts as being acquired this year). Oh well, serves me right I guess and there are worse problems to have.
So far, I have aquired Chopper and some electro-cordons for Judge Dredd (via Kickstarter) and have painted 25 Italian paratroopers and one DreadBall Teraton Keeper. So far, I'm winning. :-)
Totals so far:
| Models | No Aquired | No Painted |
|---|---|---|
| Standard Infantry | 3 | 26 |
| Large Infantry | 0 | 0 |
| Cavalry | 1 | 0 |
| Heroes | 0 | 0 |
| Monsters/Vehicles | 0 | 0 |
According to the formula used for this challenge, that gives me a total of 26 painted and 5 acquired (cavalry count double) or 26/5 for short. We'll just have to see how long I can stay ahead of myself.
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.
Monday, 23 December 2013
Catching up
So, it's been a while since I last posted. Largely because I haven't really had much to contribute, but partly because I've just been a bit busy recently.
Anyway, as a bit of a catch-up this is what I've been up to recently at the club.
The Judge Dredd campaign continues. I had a couple of games against Dan and his two robot forces. The first one was a complete whitewash that lead to my ape gang dropping out of the campaign due to the number of fatalities and serious injuries they picked up facing off against Dan's more experienced force. The second was much more enjoyable, I took a brand new Justice Department force against Dan's less experienced robots. This was a much closer fight which I eventually won due to heat seeker ammunition ignoring cover.
I also managed to get in a few games of Ogre, the new "designer's edition" that I backed on Kickstarter. Great game, easy to play but very tactical and a lot of fun. Thoroughly recommended, if you can find it anywhere.
Last week I got in a game of Star Trek Attack Wing, the Wizkids game that uses the same rules as Star Wars X-Wing (but with cloaking devices). Turns out Romulans can be really annoying to try to draw a bead on, and that teaming up Kirk and Picard in their respective Enterprises is really quite effective.
Tonight I continued trying to get new players interested in Dreadball. First off, I refereed a game between Mike and Dale, neither of whom had played before. Mike has his own team, the Asgard Valkyries, playing in the colours of his beloved Minesota Vikings. Dale borrowed my teratons and proceded to pummel Mike into the floor, then lose by a landslide. The moral of this story: while you don't have to always play the ball, it helps if you don't ignore it completely.
After Mike left, I took over for the second game. I wanted to try out my new Zee team (I finished painting them in the early hours of this morning) while Dale kept the Teratons. This was much closer. Dale kept pounding on me but couldn't advance the ball. In the end, he won by a singke point as I failed a last minute attempt to even the score.
Lessons learned:
1: Zees are incompetent on a level I hadn't truly appreciated, but a lot of fun.
2: The "Monkey Business" special rule gives you a random number of free coaching dice each turn. This is great unless you're me and manage to roll 0 dice for 5 consecutive turns.
3: Teratons really are a bad match-up for a Zee coach.
Net result though, Dale's now talking about getting his own Teraton team. Looks like we'll have 8 players for the league we're starting in the new year.
Ultimate DreadBall next week!
Anyway, as a bit of a catch-up this is what I've been up to recently at the club.
The Judge Dredd campaign continues. I had a couple of games against Dan and his two robot forces. The first one was a complete whitewash that lead to my ape gang dropping out of the campaign due to the number of fatalities and serious injuries they picked up facing off against Dan's more experienced force. The second was much more enjoyable, I took a brand new Justice Department force against Dan's less experienced robots. This was a much closer fight which I eventually won due to heat seeker ammunition ignoring cover.
I also managed to get in a few games of Ogre, the new "designer's edition" that I backed on Kickstarter. Great game, easy to play but very tactical and a lot of fun. Thoroughly recommended, if you can find it anywhere.
Last week I got in a game of Star Trek Attack Wing, the Wizkids game that uses the same rules as Star Wars X-Wing (but with cloaking devices). Turns out Romulans can be really annoying to try to draw a bead on, and that teaming up Kirk and Picard in their respective Enterprises is really quite effective.
Tonight I continued trying to get new players interested in Dreadball. First off, I refereed a game between Mike and Dale, neither of whom had played before. Mike has his own team, the Asgard Valkyries, playing in the colours of his beloved Minesota Vikings. Dale borrowed my teratons and proceded to pummel Mike into the floor, then lose by a landslide. The moral of this story: while you don't have to always play the ball, it helps if you don't ignore it completely.
After Mike left, I took over for the second game. I wanted to try out my new Zee team (I finished painting them in the early hours of this morning) while Dale kept the Teratons. This was much closer. Dale kept pounding on me but couldn't advance the ball. In the end, he won by a singke point as I failed a last minute attempt to even the score.
Lessons learned:
1: Zees are incompetent on a level I hadn't truly appreciated, but a lot of fun.
2: The "Monkey Business" special rule gives you a random number of free coaching dice each turn. This is great unless you're me and manage to roll 0 dice for 5 consecutive turns.
3: Teratons really are a bad match-up for a Zee coach.
Net result though, Dale's now talking about getting his own Teraton team. Looks like we'll have 8 players for the league we're starting in the new year.
Ultimate DreadBall next week!
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.
 |
| 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.
 |
| 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.
 |
| 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.
 |
| 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. :-)
Tuesday, 5 November 2013
Judge Dredd - Kind of a Reboot
Tonight marked our first campaign games using the new edition of the Judge Dredd miniatures game. We'd made the decision to continue running our existing forces from the original campaign, which has given rise to a few inconsistencies (robodogs now have completely different stats, some mercenaries aren't even an option any more) but nothing we couldn't figure out.
In preparation for this, I painted up a few new models for the Judgement League. This was to take advantage of the fact that it's now possible for me to actually spend some of the credits my force has been accumulating so far, and takes the full force up to 8 models with a scarily high total value.
As it happens, I'm also running an Ape gang in the campaign. These are a newer force with less experience, specifically so that I have something to fight opponents with smaller forces. We have a new player, Dale, with a zombie force that's only played a couple of games so this seemed like a good idea. So guess which force I wound up using tonight? Put it this way, the new models didn't see the tabletop.
My first game was against Dan, who's been using robots since the start of the campaign but has just started a new force (robots again) so that he can rebuild using the new game rules from the start. This was a fun game, although I had the lion's share of the luck this time out. High point of the game was when Doris, one of my gorillas, blasted Dan's mercenary executioner droid out of the sky with a double-barreled stump gun then laid out his demolition droid two seconds later. In the end, Dan's one remaining droid ran away while I only lost a single chimp.
The new game rules worked really well. I've found myself taking a completely different route with regard to talents as the force advances, which I guess shows that the changes have added some viable new options.
Second game was against Adrian's cursed earth desperadoes, another new force and one that he's really gone to town on with some of the conversions (although I suspect he may tire of me referring to one of his lovingly converted mutants as "fish boy"). This was considerably closer than the first game. Ady's Klegg mercenary took out one of my gorillas before I could return the favour and his robodogs swarmed another. In the end though, the fact that my apes were higher level with better stats meant that I made the most of the long range gunfight and got another victory under my belt.
Incidentally, the other game going on was Chief Judge Cal (under the control of Andy) vs Dale's zombie horde. Since Dale was so badly outnumbered we allowed him to take zombies as mercenaries (not normally allowed) and so he was fielding a total of 86 zombies plus a few other, random models. He still lost, and there were many, many casualties. But the game scaled up to that size of battle really easily, which speaks volumes in and of itself.
So yeah, new rules are a big improvement over the previous version (which I was already a huge fan of). Looking forward to next month's campaign games, maybe next time I can unleash the League.
In preparation for this, I painted up a few new models for the Judgement League. This was to take advantage of the fact that it's now possible for me to actually spend some of the credits my force has been accumulating so far, and takes the full force up to 8 models with a scarily high total value.
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| L-R : Outlaw, Captain Metropolis, Wreckage and Bluestreak. The new additions to the Judgement League. |
My first game was against Dan, who's been using robots since the start of the campaign but has just started a new force (robots again) so that he can rebuild using the new game rules from the start. This was a fun game, although I had the lion's share of the luck this time out. High point of the game was when Doris, one of my gorillas, blasted Dan's mercenary executioner droid out of the sky with a double-barreled stump gun then laid out his demolition droid two seconds later. In the end, Dan's one remaining droid ran away while I only lost a single chimp.
The new game rules worked really well. I've found myself taking a completely different route with regard to talents as the force advances, which I guess shows that the changes have added some viable new options.
Second game was against Adrian's cursed earth desperadoes, another new force and one that he's really gone to town on with some of the conversions (although I suspect he may tire of me referring to one of his lovingly converted mutants as "fish boy"). This was considerably closer than the first game. Ady's Klegg mercenary took out one of my gorillas before I could return the favour and his robodogs swarmed another. In the end though, the fact that my apes were higher level with better stats meant that I made the most of the long range gunfight and got another victory under my belt.
Incidentally, the other game going on was Chief Judge Cal (under the control of Andy) vs Dale's zombie horde. Since Dale was so badly outnumbered we allowed him to take zombies as mercenaries (not normally allowed) and so he was fielding a total of 86 zombies plus a few other, random models. He still lost, and there were many, many casualties. But the game scaled up to that size of battle really easily, which speaks volumes in and of itself.
So yeah, new rules are a big improvement over the previous version (which I was already a huge fan of). Looking forward to next month's campaign games, maybe next time I can unleash the League.
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