The Big Dux

Binx and I are planning a second outing of Dux Bellorum this Wednesday and with that in mind I thought it a good time to post a pic of my completed Welsh Warlord and faithful chums.

The banner and shield designs are all Little Big Man studios transfers.
The base is a modified 4Ground movement tray.

And here he is ready to continue the fight in Saga, his loyal bard proclaiming songs of his heroic deeds!

Good Life Gamer - May

 

Good Life May.  So how did May work out?  Let’s find out, together….

Buying

It went quite well, I found some 1/100 or 15mm scale aircraft from Revel, their micro wings range, which have some of the more popular WW2 aircraft I wanted and for less than £3 each.  I bought a Typhoon, a Hurricane, a ME109 and a FW190.  I plan to use these for both Flames of War (FoW) and Battlegroup Overlord (BGO).  Unfortunately the first kit I built, the FW190 was missing the canopy. I have  contacted Revel in German and I am waiting for the replacement to arrive.  So far so good.

I bought Airland Battle for the PC after an article I read on Model Dads.  Curse you.  It is very pretty and rather challenging but somehow manages to keep the pace of the game manageable rather than the 100 mouse clicks a minute that Star Craft 2 requires.  Set in 1985 means that I am very familiar with all the British Army kit as I served at this time.  This will unfortunately compete for my table top hobby time.

'Saga' and 'Musket & Tomahawk' Indians

You wait for ages for a new post and 3 turn up at once....

Anyway, whilst I was painting my Blood Bowl Nurgle, all other painting slowed to an almost standstill, but now I'm back in the game.

I have finished a unit of 12 levies for my Saga Skraeling.

When I painted my first two units of Skraeling warriors, I took a lot of time on the skin (probably too much) and was worried that I, A: wouldn't be able to replicate it and B: doing it would drive me insane with the next 25 models I have.

So when it came to painting these, I took a different approach. Instead of doing a handful of mixed colours, I made the jumps a lot bigger, going from Tanned Flesh, with a flesh ink wash, to Dwarf Flesh to Elf Flesh, with a final light ink wash to hide the cloudiness of the colours.

The final result looks very similar, if not the same as my previous work, meaning that my Skraeling will be done a lot quicker, and not stress me out as much as anticipated

Before moving on to some more Skraeling, I have now moved onto my 15/18mm Musket & Tomahawk French force, starting, as I had the correct colours on my paint station, with the Indian.

They only took a few hours, including a dinner break, so I have now started on another unit, which I will no doubt blog about soon. For now here is a preview of the completed Indian unit.

Dead Mans Hand......

Well it's about time I got back to posting, I've sort of been busy with houses moves etc etc blah blah blah....right enough of that and down to the fun bit.

With the introduction of DMH to the club I went for the wonderful looking Black Scorpian figures and had decided that I would go for the Outlaw gang so with those five and Tombstone2 I made a small gang.

I wanted to have a similar look to all the models so that you never know which one is doin the killin, if they all look the same you can't finger them in a lineup...

First up is the gang boss...

 

Then "The man with no name"....

 

Flames of War Pegasus Bridge Style Mission

As game night would fall on the 5^th of June we decided that we would theme a game to commemorate it D-Day.  Originally our plans were grand and involved as they often are but family priority, shortage of member attendance and I forgot for a bit all conspired to mean we would have one game.

 

As I had been to Normandy during the D-Day celebrations a few years ago and had spent most of the trip in the company of some of the men from the Oxford and Bucks Light Infantry company that had conducted the Coup de Main at Bénouville Bridge; now known as Pegasus Bridge, we decided that the game would be loosely based on Operation Deadstick rather than a historical refight.  I had spent a bit of time looking for a 1/100 – 15mm scale Pegasus Bridge but they were very expensive and I found Horsa gliders, at Old Glory, far too late to get them painted.  So the using only bridge we currently have and focusing the battle after the landing here is the battle

 

We used Flames of War for the rules at the request of Cortez and Ballboy.  The armies were drawn from the British Airlanding list from Market Garden and a Grenadier list from Grey Wolf at just over 1k points.  What is a few points between friends?

 

The objective was the bridge; whoever controlled the bridge (umpire’s decision) would be the winner.  Both sides would have reserves.  The British had scattered reserves to represent the slight spread of the gliders, the Germans would get a slight delay (Turn 2) for their reserves to account for units garrisoned away from the battle.  There was an 88 defending the bridge and was controlled by the German player.  It could be captured and used by whoever was in control of it.  

 

Games Night 12th June

So with a plethora of game at my feet, many worlds and time periods to investigate what should I play this week?
Same as last week of course!

Cortez was very keen to have a go at Dead Mans Hand again and I was quite happy to indulge!

Gallows

(look, I could have gone off on one here with various Gallows lyrics and references, I didn't to avoid the Misery. I dread the night these references kill the rhythm of the blog and we all abandon ship. *cough*)

The Cowboys had got their hands on a member of the Bandito gang and were plannin' a hangin'

This was nooooooo gonna happen!

With the mission rules the cowboys were all surprised as the Banditos ambushed the gallows area this meant the 3 bandito gunmen had the drop on the Cowboys and went before any cowpoke could move.

In a round of superlative shooting the cowboys were out of action before they knew they were under attack.

One managed to dive behind a stage coach as the second shot went off only to be caught by a well aimed bullet between the stage coach wheels..

On to Scene 2

The Guns of Never-One

(if only)

Having rescued their chum and buddy from the gallows the Banditos were buoyed up and looking for more trouble.

Rumour had it the Sheriff was out of town!

Time to bust Javier from jail!

The banditos were placed in the centre of the table around the jail and had to escape via a table edge of the cowboy players choosing.

Javier was legshot and had to be in base contact with another gang member to move. It was gonna be a tough run!

Games Night 5th June

D-Day minus 1
However on one table D Day was in full swing as the Brits tried to capture Pegasus bridge....
More of that another time (maybe)!!

On the other table Binx and I set to for our first games of Dead Mans Hand.
A quick(ish) read of the rules and we were off.
We chose a different scenario to the one Zed and Cortez played to get a full feel of what was on offer...

"Ayy, you a steenkin cheeeet, gringo"

The first Scene was set, Binx (it was bound to have been him) gang member was cheating at cards and my bandito was noooo happy!

Only one way to settle it, DUEL!

This game kicked off with pontoon and confusion (mine!). I just wasn't sure how the pontoon connected with the game mechanics. It was easy in the end....

Anyway my bandito kept a cool head, drew first and

!!BLAM!!

shot a hole clean through the Cowbinx head (straight 20, baby!)

on to the next scene in seconds!

"These locals are going loco"

With the duel over the gangs ran to main street to see what had happened. Blood in the sand meant bullets started flying!

We had about 6 guys each and it felt like the fight had escalated from the duel.

The mission - to take out 2 enemy gang members.

This was where we really got a feel for the rules.

Most gang members start in the buildings with a few in the streets.

Bullets whizzed back and forth with not a lot happening early on except for realising both of us could roll a ridiculous amount of 1's on a D20 leading to gang members going out of ammo faster than Elliot eats a sandwich in Tesco.

These rolls only got worse in the 3rd game!

We grasped the quick shot rule well (a fighter can have an out of turn shot but gives up their activation of 3 actions later in the turn) and it is a good trade off between using the quick shot or awaiting your go,

In the end Binx took out 2 banditos before I'd taken a 2nd member of his gang.

This was largely helped along by one of my guys running up to a shotgun wielding cowboy and going "click, click, click" with his pistol rather than "pchow, peoow, pNnning".

On to the final scene.....

"HEY! Cowboy, you een the wrong town"

The biggest of the fights and the bosses come out to settle the argument.

Half of each gang starts in the street and only 1 is actually allowed in a building or on high ground.

Objective, kill or break the other gang!

We'd got the rules by now and things were moving quite quickly. It seemed as though Binx was getting the upper hand early on as he had plenty of rifles to lay down long range fire.

Some great cinematic moments occurred including Binx's "man with no name" (lets call him             for effect) ran to a window to fire at the bandito outside, only to find a bullet in his face as leaned out of the window.

Then there was the cowboy in point blank range of my bandito who re loaded, took aim and...ran out of ammo!? (this happened a LOT!).

My boss went off on a bit of a charge and suddenly found himself staring down the barrel of a shotgun.....

Initiative cards were played and the shotgun went first.....

El Guapo closed his eyes and preyed.....Click!

ANOTHER 1 !!!

My boss ran in and took the foolish cowboy in combat.

More fire was exchanged and the Banditos began to gain the upper hand, even forcing some "big nerve tests" (fail and its game over).

It came down to Binx Boss and another cowboy facing off against 5 banditos.

In a torrent of fire the Banditos tore the Cowboys apart (too many "under fire" markers to continue) and the game was won!!!

Thoughts on Dead Man's Hand

• Its fun
• Its fast (once rules are learnt)
• Its a little cluttered (markers and cards everywhere)
• Its quite random (D20 leaves a lot of variables)
• It needs a campaign system
• Its fun (did I say that already?)

"You see, in this world there's two kinds of people, my friend. Those with loaded guns, and those who dig. You dig."

Games Night 29th May

This week saw two games of Warhammer being played, on one table Cortez and Elliot had a Skaven civil war, on the other Binx and Lordybloke pitted the new army books of the Daemons and High Elves.

 

 

Below is the report of Binx and Lordybloke's game, playing Battleline, both forces deployed diagonally across the board. The Daemons deployed first, pushing everything as far forward as possible, whilst the High Elves sat back as far as they could, with only their eagles daring to get close to the rampaging horde of other world beings.

 

 

 

Turn One: The Daemons move toward the Elf line as fast as possible. Not much happened in the magic phase, apart from the Daemons managing to reduce their Invulnerable save to 6+ until their next magic phase.

The Elves shuffle about a bit, with only the Eagles really making any significant moves, attempting to slow down the advance with some march blocking.