Toltec-Chichimec

Today I finished the last DBA army I was painting for Dennis. This is a Tarascan/Toltec-Chichimec army IV/19(a).

I believe the figures are all from Black Hat Miniatures. This army is predominantly a bow army with some blades and a war band thrown in.

Next on my paint table is some Martians and more Carthaginians.

Hannibal Veterans

Tonight I finished the first units for my 28mm Carthaginian army. These three bases are of Hannibal Veterans.

Figures are multi-part plastic and are from Victrix's new Warriors of Carthage boxed set. You want to talk great value, this box is it.

I goes for 30 quid, so now it's about $78,395 Cdn. But for 30 quid you get 62 plastic figures: 24 Hannibal Veterans, 24 Libyan Spearmen and 14 Libyan Javelinmen.  Take that GW and your over priced shite!

On my paint table right now (and almost finished) is the last of the Meso-American DBA armies I'm painting up for Dennis. This should be done in the next few days hopefully. After that I think I'm going to do some more Carthaginians and Martians.

Martian DBA

No it's not a new version of DBA, just an awful title to drag you in. This weekend was a rather productive weekend for painting as I got two batches of figures painted up. First up is a trio of Veteran Assault Tripods for All Quiet on the Martian Front.

Figures are all plastic with some metal bits (all the extra plating is metal). As you'll notice one of the tripods is not based. Terry asked me not to base his figures as he'll take care of it himself.

Next up is the second army of the three I'm painting up for Dennis. This is the Spanish & Tlaxcalan army [IV/19( c)].

I believe the majority of these are from Black Hat Miniatures. This army is predominantly a shooting army with a Knight and Blade alongside some Artillery, Crossbow and a bunch of Bow.

On my paint table right now is a box of Victrix' new 28mm plastic Warriors of Carthage that I'm assembling.

Zapotec DBA Army

Tonight I finished the first of three 15mm DBA armies for Dennis. This army is the Zapotec Meso-American army (IV/53). I believe these figures are all from Black Hat Miniatures.

This army is pretty much all Auxilia and Psiloi. The army painted up pretty nicely.

Next on my table is a trio of tripods for Martian Front followed by another of Dennis' army.

Some Samurai & The Great War!

Last night I finished a couple bases of my long-running Samurai project. These are the first two bases of actual Samurai I've done.  Figures are from Kingsford Miniatures out of B.C. . Figures are based for Impetus.

I went with the same dark blue/grey base colour as my Ashigaru and added a pile of extra colour. I think they turned out pretty decent. One of my goals this year was to get four bases done, so I'm halfway there.

And also today my Kickstarter copy of The Great War (Commands & Colours World War 1) arrived!

I imagine I will be playing this at next game night.

For my next painting task, I've agreed to paint three 15mm DBA Meso-American armies for Dennis to pay off my purchase of a pile of his 25mm Macedonians. I've actually been wanting to paint Meso-Americans for a while and as they have no horses, even better! So next on my paint table are the Zapotecs.

Forbidden Stars

I picked up this new Fantasy Flight Game a week or so ago and finally got it onto the table last night. There was just two of us playing so we tried out the Space Marines and Chaos Space Marines. In this game you build up your forces and planets and try to conquer numerous worlds and capture objectives. Each world gives material (with which you build everything) and certain bonus items that can let you build powerful units such as Titans and large warships or build units for reduced cost.

The heart of the game are the Orders. Each player has 8 orders and they place them in a system where they want to do something. Other players can add orders on top of your orders, so certain systems can end up having a stack of orders on them. Orders are actually carried out from top to bottom, so you have to plan ahead to figure out the sequence that works best for you.

The four factions that come with the game are the Ultramarines Space Marines, World Eater Chaos Space Marines, Evil Sunz Ork clan and the Eldar of Craftworld Iyanden. Each faction has it's own units and own set of cards that reflect that races abilities.

As it was our first game it took us about 3 hours with my forces of Chaos triumphing over the Imperium scum. The game is for 2-4 players and I could see a 4-player game taking a good 3-4 hours. As this is a Fantasy Flight game, the components are of course top notch. Also as this is Fantasy Flight, they will probably be a few expansions covering the other factions in the 40K universe.

Cosmic Encounter & Manhattan Project

I got together with some friends last night to try out some new games he purchased. First up is Cosmic Encounter by Fantasy Flight Games. I've been wanting to try this game for a while so I was quite pleased my friend picked it up.

In this game you are a race with a set racial ability. Your objective is to settle 5 colonies on other player's planets. Every turn you have to launch 1-2 different attacks. Each player has a hand of cards with which to attack/defend and do an assortment of other functions. The game really shines in the variety of different races you can play and how they interact with each other. We ended up playing 3 games, with each game running from 1-2 hours each.

The other game we tried out was The Manhattan Project from Minion Games.

In this game your objective is to be the first player to get to a certain number of points and to do this you need to build nuclear bombs. Not use them, just build them. The basis of the game is placement of your meeples much like in Wizards of the Coast's Lords of Waterdeep game. You start out with simple labourers but you can get engineers and scientists. With these you can construct buildings like mines, universities and reactors, you can create plutonium and uranium, you can build fighters and bombers (with which you can attack the other players). But to get points you have to build plutonium and/or uranium bombs. It's not really a game for pacifists. It's a fun little game but it actually takes a while, there was 3 of us playing and it took a good 2 hours.