Thursday, December 30, 2010

Daemon Win

Completed a Beast of Nurgle last night. Here's a front and back view of this lovely chap.
I knocked this guy off easily yesterday. Painting Nurgle is easy! Some dark green, light green drybrush and then the amazing Devlan Mud wash. I added all the hooks and little "shell" shapes as it was rather plain without it. And I do have to say that I love Devlan Mud. That's one thing GW does do right: their washes.

Went over to Dave's today for a 2000 pt. battle against his Brettonians. See Dave's page (link down on the right) for good coverage of the battle. Dave had some really bad luck which was fortunate for me. My Flamers really payed for themselves. The Beast didn't really pay for himself. Due to his high toughness he withstood any damage but went poof due to bad combat result. My biggest disappointment was my Daemon Prince of Nurgle. The spells I ended up getting were not very good and he was not worth even remotely the 490 pts he cost me. And in general my magic was rather poor except for one good casting of Gift of Chaos that caught all 3 of Dave's knight units. Overall the battle was a long hard slogging fight. I look forward to getting my guys on the field.

Sunday, December 26, 2010

Xmas & Boxing Day Goodies

Christmas/Boxing Day 2010 has turned out to be full of boardgames. For Christmas I acquired Civilization from Fantasy Flight Games. Got in a 2-player game today and I had a pretty good time. As this game can take up to 4 players, I'm really looking forward to playing this game with all 4. The game I feel really reflects the computer game with lots of things to do.

For Boxing Day, our local Wizards comic shop had a rather nice sale: 25% off everything and if you spend over $200, it's 50% off. Well, my credit card took a beating. It was rather embarrassing as I stumbled out of the shop with an overflowing armful of boardgames. My catch: Tide of Iron and it's expansion Days of the Fox (Fantasy Flight Games), Kingsport Horror (FFG expansion for Arkham Horror), Descent: Tomb of Ice (FFG expansion for Descent), Imperial (Rio Grande Games) and for a friend of mine I picked up Agricola and Pandemic (both from Z-Man Games), Dominion: Intrigue (Rio Grande Games expansion for Dominion) and Bridges, Castles & Bazaars (Rio Grande expansion for Carcassonne).

2011 is shaping up to be a year filled up with loads of boardgaming fun!

Thursday, December 23, 2010

Commands & Colors: Napoleonics

My copy of Commands & Colors: Napoleonics (CCN for short) came in today. Here's a pic of all the parts:
The box is the typical thick, solid Commands & Colors: Ancients (CCA) box. Also exactly like CCA, are the painted wood blocks, with red for the British, blue for the French and dark brown for the Portuguese. My only quibble is from a distance and in poor light, the Portuguese blocks look similar to the French blocks. It would have been better if they were a light brown or beige. The stickers for the blocks have nice artwork and are labelled/coloured as to what they are, for example the stickers for French Cuirassier Cavalry are Yellow and say "CUIRASSIER". In CCN, infantry are blue, cavalry are yellow and artillery are red. There are no blocks for Victory Banners, instead there are card chits.

The dice are like CCA in that they are the black "gaming cubes" on which the stickers must be attached. The dice faces have 1 side showing cavalry, artillery, crossed sabers and a white flag and 2 sides showing infantry. The cards are also the typical high quality GMT cards that they use in most of their games.

The gameboard, unlike the gameboard in CCA, is not thick cardstock, but in fact is a good mounted board much like that in Twilight Struggle or Labyrinth. This surprised me as I was not expecting a mounted board. The terrain tiles are double sided like CCA and show: forest, hills, rugged hills, towns, field works, river, fordable river, bridge and sand quarry. There is also a track for both sides showing which units have formed squares.

Next up is the card handouts. Theses are like the ones in CCA, being of the 2 page, double sided variety. The first handout has the various terrain tile effects and a summary of the various cards. There are 2 copies of this handout. The final handout shows a listing of the ranged fire and melee dice per unit, the ranged fire and melee combat tables and on the inside shows the breakdown of each sides units and their particulars. There are 4 copies of this handout. Two of those copies only show French units on the inside and 2 copies show the British/Portuguese units on the inside.

Lastly there is a 23 page rulebook and a scenario booklet. Scenarios covered are: Rolica (2 scenarios), Vimiero, Corunna, Talavera, River Coa, Bussaco (2 scenarios), Redinha, Salamanca (2 scenarios), Garcia Hernandez, Aire, Quatre Bras and a little heard of battle called Waterloo.

I've been really looking forward to playing this game for quite a while and I'm hoping I can get in a few games before the holidays end. We'll see.

Monday, December 20, 2010

Flamers!

Finished a group of 12 Flamers of Tzeentch tonight. This collection of Flamers are 3 different styles. First up is 1 Flamer from 1992 (I believe).


Next is a group of 8 Flamers from 1995 (again I think),


And the last 3 Flamers are the current style.

Next up is a group of Bloodcrushers and a Herald of Khorne. I doubt I'll get these done before Christmas due to the detail on these babies.

Descent

Had some friends over on Saturday for a game of Fantasy Flight Games' Descent. Quite a few bits in this game as you can see.

I played the Overlord with the 3 players as the intrepid dungeon explorers. Unfortunately it didn't work out well for them and I won the game. Unfortunately we didn't have time for another game.

On the painting table is a group of Flamers of Tzeentch. Also, Tuesday is the last EWG club night of the year and I'll be playing a game of Warhammer vs. Dave and his Brettonians. Should be rather entertaining.

Friday, December 17, 2010

Labyrinth

Had my friend Chris over today and we played a game of GMT's Labyrinth: The War on Terror.

Having played GMT's Twilight Struggle I was eager to get this game. It's a card driven game much like Twilight Struggle but that's probably were the similarity largely ends. In Twilight Struggle, both sides operate identically in that they can do the same actions. Not in Labyrinth. Both sides operate completely different and don't have any actions that are similar. It is a harder game than Twilight Struggle and will probably take a few games to get everything down. In our game the Jihadists (me) ended up winning the game.

The game has 4 different scenarios that determine how everything is set up. Each side has 2-3 ways in which they can instantly win. Otherwise the game ends when the players go through the card deck. Before the game starts the players can determine how many times they actually want to go through the deck: 1, 2 or 3 times. As this was our initial game, we plodded through it and we only went through the deck once. As a result it took us about 3 1/2 hours. Experienced players going through the deck 3 times would still take a good afternoon to play. And as with all recent GMT games the production quality is top notch. Hopefully I can in a few more games this Xmas season.

Thursday, December 16, 2010

More Daemons

Today I finished another batch of Daemons. First up is group of 10 Bloodletters:

This next pic is of a group of 6 old style Bloodletters:

I like the 1 piece simplicity of the old metal minis but the actual sculpt is a little goofy compared to the newer sculpts. Finally last up is a Daemon Prince:

Next up is another batch of Daemons, I'm just not sure what yet.

Saturday, December 11, 2010

Oh the Horror!

Tonight I finished a large block of 24 old school Horrors.


These models are actually a combination of Pink and Blue Horrors (the Blue ones were the small ones). The pink ones turned out pretty decent but the purple ones didn't turn out as well as I had wanted.

Next up I think I'll do some more Bloodletters and maybe a Daemon Prince.

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

More Khorne!

Tonight I finished a unit of Flesh Hounds and Karanak the Flesh Hound champion.

I also finished the hero, Skulltaker.

Next up is a rather large unit of old-school metal Horrors.

Friday, December 3, 2010

First Daemons

Finished the first group of Daemons tonight - a group of 10 Khorne Bloodletters.


Next up is a group of Flesh Hounds and Skulltaker.

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

TK . . . Done!

Finally finished the last of my Tomb Kings tonight. The last pieces were 4 Carrion.

Woo hoo! Done! Now if only they'll release a new army book. From rumours on Warseer, it looks like it won't happen till May at the earliest. Yippee. So next up is the first of my Deamon army and a group of Bloodletters.

This past week I received a pack of wee magnets from KJ Magnetics that I had ordered. Shipping was pretty quick, a mere 8 days from the US. The ones I got are 1/8" x 3/32" discs. I'm pretty impressed so far. I'm looking over at my metal file cabinet and Skulltaker, the Khorne hero, is walking up the side. Skulltaker is a rather hefty all metal foot mini. I'd definitely buy from these guys again. Check them out. KJ Magnetics: http://www.kjmagnetics.com/

Sunday, November 21, 2010

An Update

Been a few weeks since I posted. I haven't got any painting done in the past week and a half. I'll hopefully get back on that today. Four Carrion to go and my TK are done. Looking forward to getting onto my Daemons.

Had my friend Chris over for some gaming last night. We played a game of Twilight Struggle and I (as the USA) got soundly trounced. I swear Chris went through the deck ahead of time and took out all the US cards. We also played a few games of CCA, and I was able to recoup some self esteem with a few victories. Hopefully this week should see the arrival of my copy of GMT's Labyrinth: The War on Terror.

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

A Whole Lot of Chariots

Tonight I finished the last of my Tomb King Chariots. I have to say I really, really hate painting chariots. They're a lot of effort for a unit that really isn't that good. The paint job on these is alright, I was just tired of looking at them.

You'll note the chariot on the far left has no crew. I did up an empty chariot in case I need a mount for a Tomb King/Prince.

I also finished up a group of 6 oil drum bases. I am in the near future planning on doing up some 15mm sci-fi. I'm just waiting to get in on some early Christmas sales maybe from the likes of GZG or Rebel Miniatures. So far I'm just accumulating terrain.

These are from JR Miniatures 15mm World War 2 Stalingrad line.

Up next I have the last of my Tomb King miniatures: a group of 4 Carrion. And after that: Daemons!

Monday, October 25, 2010

Last of the TK Foot Units

Tonight I finished the last of my Tomb King foot units. First up is a block of 20 skellie warriors:

A couple Tomb Guard (not sure why I had 2 that didn't get painted with the rest):

The foot and mounted version of the Army Standard Bearer, although I'll probably never use him as the Tomb King army banners aren't worth it and why waste character points on a 'meh' character.


And lastly is this character that could be a Liche Priest or a Tomb Prince/King. This fig isn't GW but is from Crocodile Games, Wargods of Aegyptus line. It is a Harbinger of Khanum. I figured it would make a suitable Tomb King figure.


Next up is a group (squadron?) of 6 chariots. And after that will be a unit of 4 Carrion and that will be the last of my Tomb Kings. Well, until the new book comes out and they have something cool worth getting like a Sphinx or something.

This past weekend I had some friends over and we played a couple games of Rio Grande's Antike:

Pretty simple game but pretty fun. We played with 4 players but I'd like to try it with 6 players.

Sunday, October 17, 2010

Galatians

Finished 5 bases of Galatians/Celts last night. These are Warlord Games minis. These are the first 28mm I've used the 'magic dip' on. They turned out pretty decent. I've missed the odd highlight or two, but they decent for wargaming.


Next up is the last of my Tomb King foot units: a pile of skellie warriors, some characters and a couple tomb guard.

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Colosseum

Played another game of Colosseum the other night. I've only played it with 3 players and am looking forward to playing with a bigger group (it can accommodate up to 5 players).

Monday, October 11, 2010

Some Phalangites

Finished a pair of phalangite bases yesterday. These are 1st Corps minis and have Little Big Men shield transfers.


The unit on the left is Antigonid phalangites and the one on the right is Seleucid phalangites. Not the greatest paint job I've done, the trousers on the Seleucid phalangites really didn't turn out like I wanted them too. I guess they're okay for wargame standards.

The next batch is more historicals: 5 bases of Galatians/Celts. I'm actually planning on using the 'magic dip' on these. I'm hoping this will speed up my painting on these so I can get them done in a reasonable amount of time.

On Saturday I introduced my friend Chris to Warhammer 8th edition. He had his grey and silver Horde of Chaos vs. my Tomb Kings. I ended up losing when his Daemon Prince got close enough to unleash a couple of spells on my Heirophant that obliterated him. A Chaos army is hard to deal with. He didn't have any marauders so everything had at least a T of 4 which rendered my shooting virtually useless. And in close combat if it wasn't for the fact he had a lot of Always Strike Last Great Weapons I would have got almost no hits in. And I think my Tomb Prince needs to be fired as yet again he missed almost every attack. Back to the boneyard for him! If I had one complaint about TK it would be that the attack incantation is utter crap versus every other attack spell.

I also got in a couple games of Colosseum by Days of Wonder. http://www.daysofwonder.com/colosseum/en/
It's a fun and rather fast game where players strive to put on bigger and bigger events and gain more and more spectators. Pretty good game with some nice components.

TIll next time.

Sunday, September 26, 2010

TK Ushabti

Finished my last group of 7 Ushabti yesterday.


Going to take a bit of a break from painting Tomb Kings. I'm going to go back and paint some Impetus bases. First up is a couple bases of Phalangites. After that I think I'm going to do up 5 bases of FL Galatians which will probably take me a number of weeks to do them.

A wee bit 'o CCA

Had Chris over tonight. Played a couple games of Pandemic. It's not an easy game with only 2 players. So we switched to CCA. First scenario we played was Lake Trasimenus from the 2nd Punic War.


The Romans were able to change history and squeaked out two wins. Next up was one of the battles of Alexander the Great, the battle of Jaxartes River vs. the Scythians.

The Macedonians easily won both games. This scenario is fun if you like sticking your hand a blender. There is no way the Scythian player has any hope unless they ate they're lucky charms for breakfast. It's completely lopsided for the Macedonians.

Next up was a couple games of the Battle of Ipsus between Antigonus and Seleucus.

Both games were very close with Antigonus narrowly winning both games. This was a fun scenario with plenty of units: infantry, chariots, cavalry and elephants.

Monday, September 20, 2010

Normans vs. Saxons

Had Dave over on Sunday for a game of Impetus pitting my Normans against his Saxons. Unfortunately the only pic I took was after the setup.


Normans on the left, Saxons on the right.

Saxons won a pretty solid victory. I think this is a hard battle for the Normans. Shieldwall is tough to fight against, pretty much negating the hard slam of a cavalry charge. Better luck next time!

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Quick Update

Been a couple weeks, since I've posted. Presently I'm painting my remaining group of 7 Ushabti. After this I'm going to take a break from painting Tomb Kings and switch back to my ancients. I've got a pile of units left: 4 units of Phalangites, 2 units of Hoplites, 4 units of Galatians, an elephant, a scythed chariot and I think enough extra minis left to do another base of Hypaspists. So in other words a lot. After the Ushabti I'm going to do a couple units of Phalangites to start.

This weekend, Dave's going to be in the neighbourhood so we're going to get in a 300 point Impetus battle between my Normans and his Saxons. Should be interesting as both of our armies have Poor command structure. Two commanders or three commanders, I wonder what I should take.

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

TK Cavalry

Tonight I finished a large batch of 18 Tomb King heavy cavalry.


Not sure what I'm going to paint next, maybe some more Ushabti or some infantry, haven't decided.

Also on Tuesday I've got a 2500 point game against Dave's Empire army, so I'm expecting to face a rather nasty gunline, but we'll see, and it'll give us a chance to give 8th edition a good runthrough with bigger armies than last time.

And I see I've cracked 300 painted minis this year, I'll have to try and get up to 400 by years end, which shouldn't be a problem, now 500 on the other hand...

Friday, August 27, 2010

Assorted Tomb Kings

Tonight I finished another batch of Tomb King minis. First pic shows 5 light horse and a Tomb Scorpion, second pic shows 3 Ushabti and the last pic shows 2 characters, an old style Mummy and Khalida.




Next up is a large unit of 18 TK heavy cavalry.

Sunday, August 22, 2010

Even More Tomb Kings

Tonight I finished my latest batch of Tomb Kings. This is 18 skellie archers and 3 chariots. I have to say, I hate painting chariots. They're just not fun to paint.


Next up is an assorted batch of TK units including some more light cavalry, some Ushabti, a Tomb Scorpion and a couple characters.

Also this weekend I had some friends over for a couple games of Arkham Horror. We lost the first one and won the second one. That brings us to 2 victories out of 5 games. Whenever I have my next boardgame night, I'd like to try out Antike from Rio Grande Games.

Saturday, August 14, 2010

More Tomb Kings

Today I finished my latest batch of Tomb Kings. A unit of 5 light cavalry and a unit of 15 skellie warriors.


Next up is a unit of 3 chariots that I started a long time ago and a group of 18 archers. Game night is on Tuesday and it looks like I'll be playing 1250 points in a 3-way battle versus a Lizardman army and a Brettonian army.

Wednesday, August 4, 2010

WFB 8th Edition & TK Victory!

Last night at game night Dave, Mark and I played our first game of 8th edition Warhammer Fantasy Battle. The game was 1000 points a side and had me playing my Tomb Kings against Dave's Empire army with the assistance of Gunner Mark. Here's the game at setup.


This next pic is I believe after turn 2. The Flagellants on my left flank are heading straight at my catapult meanwhile on my right flank the Empire Outriders have already shot down half of the skellie archer unit. In the center the unit of Ushabti was been dwindled down to one piece.


This next pic shows the battle at the most crucial point. The Flagellants on the left flank have destroyed the catapult and are effectively out of position for the remainder of the game. The Outriders on the right flank have destroyed the skellie archer unit and are desperately trying to get back into it but fortunately (for me) they don't make it in time. The Tomb Scorpion has risen up and destroyed the detachment of swordsmen and is in position to charge the block of halberdiers along with the main skellie unit.


This last pic shows the mangled halberdiers about to be charged again by the Tomb Scorpion and the skellie block.

In the end the shattered remains of the halberdiers with the general and priest attached ran off the field and handing me the win. A couple points of note: Mark rolls awesome for artillery (at least for me he did). Both Empire arty pieces were destroyed by misfires. Fun.

I thought the battle was a good introduction to 8th edition. Infantry blocks are awesome now. When I hit a unit and am rolling 15 dice for 3 ranks of skellies with spears, that's cool. And another thing, troops that are killed are replaced by rear ranks and can attack, so I don't have to worry about my front rank being killed and not being able to fight back. The artillery rules I kind of have an issue with as you don't have to do guess weapons first, you can shoot them at any time. This is going to make Empire and Dwarf gunlines awesome. Magic is interesting, I don't have to worry about 15 power dice armies anymore. I've read how they can be abused, so we'll see. The variable charge range is interesting, but as I play Impetus it doesn't freak me out any.

Thank you to Dave and Mark for an entertaining game and I'm looking forward to many more and thanks to Marc for providing the Egyptian themed terrain.

Sunday, August 1, 2010

My Tomb King Army

I thought I'd post up a pic of my Tomb King army at present. I probably have an equal number of minis that are still unpainted, but the bulk are skellies, which paint up pretty quick.

Saturday, July 31, 2010

Full Thrust Civvie Ships

Completed a batch of 7 civilian ships for Full Thrust. These ships are all Ground Zero Games.


Next up is a batch of Tomb King cavalry and infantry. I have a 1000 pt. game vs. Dave on Tuesday, we're going to give the new 8th edition rules a try.

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Terrain!

Finished some terrain tonight. First up is some assorted terrain for Full Thrust:



There's a sun, a gas giant and a couple smaller planets/moons and a number of asteroids (courtesy of my back yard). The planets aren't super stellar (no pun intended) but for a first stab I think they're pretty decent.

Finally I finished painting up some craters that I purchased from Woodrow's War Store http://www.toysoldiers.ca/
Couple coats of drybrushing and they've painted up quite nicely.

Sunday, July 25, 2010

Full Thrust Trainwreck

Had my friend Chris over tonight for a couple games of Full Thrust. First game came down to one ship on each side with one box left on each. Chris won that one. Next one, well let's just say that I need a shower after that one. He inflicted enough damage that I had to roll for criticals on every system and managed to hit an insane number of critical hits including my bridge and life support. I ended up losing that battle by my remaining ship having it's crew bail due to lack of life support. Ugh. Well, I suppose Chris has to have one or two victories. Next time will be a different story.

Friday, July 23, 2010

Macedonian Baggage Train

Finished my Impetus baggage train base for my Macedonians tonight. All the figs are Foundry.




Next up is a batch of 7 merchant vessels for Full Thrust.

Also, like a crack addict I've been enticed back into Warhammer. I ordered my copy of the new rulebook yesterday. As I already have a virtually complete Tomb King army, I probably won't need to buy any more minis.