Stargrave Terrain & Terraforming Mars: AE

Finished some more buildings and barricades this weekend. These pieces are all built from Mantic's sci-fi terrain sets. First up are 5 buildings and a ramp/bridge that I can place anywhere.

Next up is a bunch of barricades made with the same sets.

I've still got another 4 buildings being painted and another 2 that I'm actually waiting parts on as I ran out of connecting pieces.

Also this weekend, I got Terraforming Mars: Area Expedition to the table.

There was three of us playing it and it does seem to be a faster game as compared to full Terraforming Mars. I'm not sure if I like one better than the other. Something I've noticed with Ares Expedition is there's no way to really screw up other players, there's no event attack cards. That being said, the box is set up ready-to-go for card expansions.

The components are really nice as expected. The game does streamline things with regard to resources and you don't have to deal with where to place certain things on Mars. One of my players within 10 seconds noted the similarity to Race for the Galaxy. I noticed that right away from reading the rules. Overall, if you're played full Terraforming Mars, then this game will be a breeze. This game will definitely be finding it's way to my table many times.

Russian Infantry

Finished the last of the World War 2 Russian Infantry. These 28mm metal figs are from Black Tree Design.

There's nothing special about these figs, they're just basic riflemen.

And finally there is the sniper, Lady Death. This fig is from Warlord Games.

I've also picked up some more boardgames recently.

So I like GMT apparently.

Anywho, on the paint table is some Counterblast figs that will pretty much get used for Stargrave, I have a couple Soviet vehicles that I want to get done and some monsters I'd like to get done soon.

More Russians and On Mars

Finished another batch of Russian riflemen. These 28mm metal figs are from Black Tree Design.

I've still got another 8 of these guys sitting and waiting for paint. I can actually churn these guys out pretty fast.

Next is a Russian BA-64. This resin fig is from Army Group North Miniatures. Quick and easy to paint up. I didn't have any Russian decals, in the future if I get some I can always add them.

I've also had a request to post up some more boardgame stuff. So here's a game that I finally got to the table lately. 

I'm a big Vital Lacerda fan, add Mars to that and I'm sold. My copy was from the Kickstarter so has all the trimmings. And this game, like a few others of Lacerda's, got the Eagle-Gryphon Games treatment, so nice big box, spots for everything and a nice cover so it doesn't all bounce around. Eagle-Gryphon also did both Lisboa (perfection!) and The Gallerist, which I both have and they have the same type of thing.

In this game you're trying to expand the colony on Mars. All players are working to expand the one colony with their own modules. So in this game you have some resource collection, base building and expanding your own technology. All of this adds up to points at the end of game. Basically on your turn you're going to do an action and maybe an auxiliary action to get you towards your goal.

The game is a little more complicated than The Gallerist but not as complicated as Lisboa. The board has no text on it, it's all icons, so that can be daunting. I found a good reference pdf on BGG that I printed for the players. But overall, once you know what everything does it's just a matter of figuring out what the heck you're going to do.

The component quality is top tier, the box is beautiful, the instructions are colourful and easy to read. It could use a better player aid. I think it's an excellent game, not as good as Lisboa but better than CO2, Vinhos or Escape Plan, probably on par with The Gallerist.

Star Wars Legion Specialists & some Boardgames!

So I've been participating in the Analogue Hobbies Paint Challenge for the past couple months. Right before the Challenge began I started on the Imperial and Rebel Specialists packs for Star Wars Legion. And after a few months I've finally completed them. So first up are the terrorist, err, Rebel specialists.

From left to right: Comms Technician, 2-1B Medical Droid, Rebel officer and an R5 Astromech Droid. Next are the Imperial specialists.

From left to right: Imperial officer, R4 Astromech Droid, Comms Technician and a FX-9 Medical Droid.

I really like the Star Wars Legion sculpts, they have nice strong detail and you don't need to be a Golden Demon painter to get them to turn out nicely.

I've had a request to get beck to doing reviews of boardgames that I play. So I'll go over a couple we've played recently. First is the new version of Dune from Gale Force Nine.

I've never played the original Avalon Hill version, but it's my understanding that GF9 changed almost nothing rulewise from the original. The box is quite small and the components are decent and perfectly functional. The only thing I'd improve on would be to have a bigger board. There's territories that span multiple sectors and you could have troops in that territory but also in each individual sector. This is important when the storm moves into a sector. See the image below. 

Each of the red arrows is pointing to the same territory: Imperial Basin. The dotted lines are sector borders. As you can see the Imperial Basin spans 3 sectors. That's all fine and dandy, but if you're placing troops in one of the side areas of the Imperial Basin it's kind of tight. The counters will overlap into a neighbouring territory. It's a minor quibble but it could be a problem if that area got busy with multiple troops from multiple factions. Honestly it wouldn't surprise me if GF9 actually came out with a nice big mat like they did with Firefly.

So there's 6 factions in the game: Atreides, Harkonnen, Fremen, Spacing Guild, Emperor and the Bene Gesserit. There was only 5 of us so the Bene Gesserit faction wasn't used. Each faction has their own special abilities and some of them have their own special victory conditions. The faction I had was the Spacing Guild. Everybody has the same number of troop counters, so outright crushing everyone with one faction can't happen.

You attack something and usually one side gets completely wiped out, so you spend time slowly building up. I could see it being a bit tedious. In our game the control of key territories didn't sway much back and forth until late in the game. And we went the full 10 turns. In the end no faction or alliance had the requisite number of territories. My faction did have a special victory condition and that was at the end of the game if no one has done their victory condition, then I (the Spacing Guild) and my ally win. And that's what happened. I was allied with the Atreides and we won.

In this game you have to ally with someone if you plan to take objectives or it's pretty much impossible to win (unless you're the Spacing Guild of course). I could definitely see this game going the full 10 turns every time and it coming down to no one winning (well except you-know-who). GF9 has already announced an expansion containing the Ixians and Tleilaxu. I'd definitely like to play it again but I wouldn't want to play this often as it could get dull after a number of plays.

The next game is Nations.

This is the third time we've played this and I'd gladly play this game many more times. I love this game. This game is a good, simple civilization building and managing game. The premise is you have a nation with it's own special ablilities, units and/or buildings. Every turn you can purchase cards to improve your structures and military units, build wonders, acquire leaders and colonies and wage battles and wars. At the end of each turn you 'harvest' resources from your structures, wonders, colonies and leaders. And depending on the size of your nation, you may have to pay out resources. At the end or every year you have to also deal with any war that takes place and the two random events that occur.

To reflect an expanding nation you pull meeples from a pool. When you pull a meeple from the pool and add it to your active meeples you increase the amount or food you have to pay out or lower your stability. It's a nice simple mechanic to control the expansion of your nation. You don't want to keep pulling meeples from your pool if you can't provide for them.

As the game goes on you can get better of everything. Each improvement with usually provide more resources but will require more resources to put into action. At the end of the game victory points are added up and whoever has the most wins.

A couple points about this game:
1. There is no actual map. This is a nice mechanic as it saves you having to worry about front lines and where exactly your military units are.
2. Wars can be devastating. Only 1 war can be 'purchased' a turn. At the end of the turn if your military value is equal to or above the threshold set when it is bought, then you're safe. If you're below, ouch! Early on I was hit with a war and it beat me up but I was able to cope. One of the other players got hit by a war reasonably late in the game and it completely trashed him. As one player put it "he was reduced to caveman status". And he pretty much was. He ended up coming dead last by a substantial margin. There's definitely strategy around purchasing wars and when to do it.

I like this game because you've got lots of choices and it's actually quite hard to directly effect another player. Managing your civilization is relatively simple and you don't have to spend a ton of time micromanaging everything.

The base game has only the 5 civilizations but there is an expansion, but for some reason no one has it. I looked on the manufacturer's website and they will only ship to Europe. Not sure how I'm going to get a copy as I'd really like to pick it up.

Till next time!

French, Buildings & T'Zolkin

Been far too long since I've posted anything up. I haven't died, just been doing some non-painting things. A fair bit of my time has been getting figures assembled and primed for the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge starting in five days. I have got a few things painted as shown below. First up is a box of Warlord Games French Compagnie de la Marine for the French & Indian War. These figures are all metal.

Nice figs overall. The only fig I don't like is the guy lying down. I get why it's a realistic pose but it's an annoying pose, especially since he's the only guy lying down!

Next up is a group of eleven MDF European buildings from Sarissa Precision. I've had these assembled for a long time and I finally got around to painting them.

My favourite building of the lot is the Chateau:

I used my airbrush to do the main painting and it worked out great. I was concerned how the fire damaged buildings would turn out, but they turned out pretty good. I still have one building left over and if I remember I'll post it up once it's complete.

And finally I decided to paint up the cogs for my copy of T'Zolkin. I ordered some plastic centre of cog pieces from Shapeways to replace the stickers that came with the game. Turned out pretty good.

Over the next three months I'll probably have quite a few posts as the paint challenge progresses.

Fallcon 2017

This past weekend I went down to Calgary for Fallcon 30, a weekend of all things boardgaming! The convention this year had moved and was held at the arena at SAIT. I must say, the SAIT campus is really nice.

Friday

Jonathan and I played Wilderness War. Well, we played the first year anyway. Hopefully we'll be giving this another go soon. The second game of the evening was Tzolk'in: The Mayan Calendar.

Two of the players hadn't played in a year and the fourth hadn't played before. I was able to squeak out a win in the this one with the new player being close behind. Steve Zanini, the gentleman running the game, was kind enough to have had keychains made for everyone who participated. The keychains have a small wood Mayan calendar on them.

Saturday

Saturday morning saw me participating in a playtest of a game called Defenders of Wessex. In this game the players are defending Wessex against constant Viking attacks. The game was in the vein of Pandemic, a cooperative game where the players are desperately trying to stave off panic in the countryside all the while scrambling together enough forces to destroy the Vikings. We ended up losing the game. I hope this game makes it as it was an interesting, entertaining game.

For the afternoon, both Jonathan and I did not have a game so we pulled out Commands and Colors Napoleonics. We played one of the scenarios from the Russian expansion: Borodino: Shevardino Redoubt.

I played the Russians and was able to keep the French at bay till they finally got moving and then they quickly rolled over me. I need to get this game out more.

And next up was the most anticipated part of the weekend: the auction! As in previous auctions, there was an excellent selection of games up for bid. I was able to get a number of the ones I was interested in.

Now, I need to get them to the table!

One of the highlights of the auction this year was the presentation of the Canadian Boardgame Designer Award. This year, the award was brought in to the facility in the arms of volunteers from the 501st Legion. There was a pair of stormtroopers, a scout trooper, a TIE pilot and another guy in what looked like a modified Clone trooper outfit. Unfortunately I didn't get a picture. See Chen's blog for a pic: http://172minis.blogspot.ca/

After the auction, I played in a game of Mansions of Madness 2nd edition. I wanted to give this game a try to see how it compared to the 1st edition. The game seemed to flow a little smoother, but I have to say I do prefer the 1st edition where one of the players is against the rest of the players.

Sunday

Sunday started with the flea market and I was able to pick up two more of the scenario packs for Mansions of Madness 1st edition for a great price. Besides that, there wasn't really anything else that grabbed my attention.

After that was the last game of the weekend: Formula De. There were 8 people playing and we were racing on one of the tracks in Italy (can't remember which). Really fun game and a perfect convention game. We'll have to see if we can get the guy who ran it to come up for Mayday.

And then it was time to go home!

I'm redoing my upstairs flooring now, so it'll be a while before anything comes off the paint table.

3rd Kefcon

This past weekend I attended the 3rd annual Kefon boardgame convention. This was the first Kefcon I've attended. It was held at the Queen Mary Park Community League (near to Kingsway mall and NAIT). The facility was pretty nice.

Friday evening:

Cthullhu Wars

I played Nyarlathotep and was unfortunately surrounded so I had a slow start. I ended up coming in 2nd or 3rd (can't remember) out of 5 players.

Euphoria: Build a Better Dystopia

I had never played the game before but it seemed kind of interesting. Basically it's a worker placement game. I had a bad start and my starting cards were poor and never got used. I ended up getting squashed in this one.

Saturday:

The Castles of Burgundy

There was a couple games that I've had on my radar and have been interested in trying out. Castles of Burgundy was one of these games. Out of the four players, if I remember correctly, I was the only one who had never played before. In the game you collect tiles to add to your personal board. Adding tiles lets you do various functions. Early on I trailed the other players but by the end I was middle of the pack. Because I had picked up a number of end game scoring tiles, I ended up getting a pile of points at end-of-game scoring and won quite handily.

Archon: Glory and Machination

Originally I was going to play Eclipse but as there were only two of us (Craig and myself) we opted to play something else. Two-player Eclipse isn't really any good. Craig had brought out Archon in case another game was needed. Archon is a worker placement game with a clockwork steampunk type setting. I ended up winning this one.

Because Eclipse was a two player slot, once Archon was over I needed to find another game to fill the time. I got in to a game of Zombicide: Black Plague (sorry no pic!). It was the intro scenario and we won quite handily.

Once that was finished I had an hour or so till the auction, so I got into a game of Diceborn Heroes (sorry no pic!) being run by the games designer. This game is a anime-style cooperative fantasy game where the heroes work through a trio of quests to finally fight a boss monster. It was a pretty fun little game and I may pick it up if I get a chance.

Next up was the auction and I came away with a trio of games. I got the Yellow Sign scenario pack for Mansions of Madness 1st edition. As Fantasy Flight is now on 2nd edition, it's getting hard to find the packs I don't have. I think I'm still missing three scenario packs. I also picked up Subdivision from Bezier Games. I really like their Suburbia game so I wanted to get my hands on this. I also won a copy of T.I.M.E. Stories. The impression I had is that it's pretty well thought of, hopefully I can get this to the table soon.

Solarius Mission

After the auction I was supposed to get into a game of Eldritch Horror but the GM was sick so the game was cancelled. I ended up getting into a game of Solarius Mission. This game apparently is unavailable in North America at this time. This game is a worker placement retro space exploration game. It seemed actually quite complicated for a euro-style game. I ended up getting crushed in this game.

The convention also had a bunch of draw boxes for games that people could put purchased tickets into. I bought a few and put them into the draw box for Concordia. I ended up winning a copy of the game.

Sunday:

Hansa Teutonica

This was the other game that I have been meaning to try out. This is a worker placement type game where you place your pieces on roads between cities to try and complete the said roads. You're constantly having to knock off other players pieces from the routes you want( kind of aggressive for a euro!). I was the only one of the four players who had never played the game and I ended up winning narrowly.

Spartacus: A Game of Blood & Treachery

This is a great game and of the four players only one of them had never played. I'll pretty much get into this game whenever I can. We played a full long game and I ended up winning this one.

Overall it was a pretty fun (and tiring) weekend. September is a busy (and expensive!) month. Fallcon in Calgary is in three weeks and Gamealot is on the following weekend in St. Albert. I'll also be playing my first game of Dropfleet on Tuesday at the club's new digs, Red Claw Gaming.

Status Update

So I'm not dead. I haven't updated my blog lately as I haven't done much in the way of painting figures or playing board games. I bought a new computer last month and I've been fanatically playing Mechwarrior Online.

I have played a few new board games in the interim. Couple weeks ago a friend of mine received his Kickstarter copy of In the Name of Odin by NSKN Games.

In this game you're a hero who is trying to become the new Jarl. Through the use of card playing and activating buildings in your village, you raise a small force of guys composed of sailors, traders and warriors. You then use this force to go on various raids. The player with the most fame at the end is the winner.

The quality of the components was good although there was one thing noticeably absent and that's a quick reference sheet. It could really use one as there are a number of actions/abilities a player could do and they're not noted anywhere except in the rulebook. I'll look on BGG to see if someone has come up with one.  The game played quite quickly and a 3-player game could easily get done in an hour if all the players know the rules and are paying attention.

The second new game I played was Defenders of the Last Stand by 8th Summit.

Terry had just received his Kickstarter copy so he brought it over for a run-through. In this post-apocalyptic game, the players are trying to keep their town of Last Stand alive. The players go on missions to retrieve ancient items all the while trying to stem/stop the flow of raiders that are inbound to the town. There is 4 raider groups each led by a big boss. The players win the game by killing all four of the big bosses. We only played till we had killed one of them. As it was getting late we halted the game.

The quality of the components is good with a fair number of cards and plastic figures. The game is pretty simple to play, just very long. We played rather cautiously so maybe it would go faster if we had played more dangerously.  The one odd thing was it only came with two player references, which is odd for a 1-5 player game.

Still on my paint table are a number of French vehicles, although three of them are getting close to being done.

Assorted Figures & Games

Been a while since I've posted anything up. I haven't actually done much in the way of painting lately as I've had other things on my mind. Regardless, I finally finished a few figures that have been on my desk for far too long. First up is a set of 5 mechanical spider walkers. These metal figures are from Bombshell Miniatures' Mekkus faction for their Counterblast game. They are called Mekkus Cybots.

Next up is a trio of figures that can be used for Frostgrave. The first two are a Reaper small, metal fire elemental or familiar and a Frostgrave Frostwraith.

Picture is crappy, but they look decent in person.

Next is a Reaper Bones Avatar of Sokar. Not sure why I picked this one up, I think I just wanted to paint it as I like the Egyptian theme.

For board games lately, I've tried a few new ones out. I picked up Agents of Smersh by 8th Summit.

Fun game, not very hard, pretty easy overall. The story aspect of it is pretty interesting and pretty original.

Another one I've played (solo unfortunately) is Guns of Gettysburg by Mercury Games.

I've played one of Simmons' other games: Napoleon's Triumph and I find his boards are a joy to look at. Probably the best looking boards out there, especially for wargames. Excellent high quality components. I'd really like to give this one (or Napoleon's Triumph) another play.

Last weekend, I also got in a game of Mage Knight by Wizkids Games.

I picked this game up for a friend last year at Fallcon. It came with a couple small expansions. We finally got it on to the table and it's a pretty deep game. Not hard, there's just lots you can do. And lots of bits! I look forward to giving this one another try.

Sitting on my paint table right now is some World War II French infantry and a bunch of French vehicles.