A Mixed Bag

 I had my son and grandson over for a gaming weekend so that he could try out his new Underworlds figures and beat me at face to face Blood Bowl as he has tired of beating me online. He is ten years old and amazes me at how well he has picked up complicated rules for a series of games when all it does is make my head hurt and leave me with one strategy, to simply roll better dice. I think in the end I won two Underworlds games (see comment on dice), drew one half of an 11's Blood Bowl game, won a 7's match 2-0 then lost at Wings of War.

Underworlds.

A couple of times I was left floundering and felt like I was being hustled, in James' defence he did tell me to "read the rules Papa" and, once I had made my mistake, was willing to point out what I should have done. What the weekend brought home to me at long last is that I am a wargamer, not a gamer, I am lost with games played on something not usually larger than a draughts board, or built as you proceed with colourful hexes. Three guys (or women Reg) are not armies or warbands, they are game pieces, I am also at a loss to the myriad cards involved in most of these types of games, in Underworlds you will have at least a dozen all with different abilities and rules which if there is an R in the month and it is past 1600 hrs and it is raining you cannot use on an opponent because the moon is in the wrong quadrant and he (or she Reg) has a magic glass slipper.

I have now had about six weeks of enforced non-wargaming here at me Casa, I have also had to abandon a few club nights as well due to circumtances beyond my control. A lot, no, most of my spare time revolves around wargaming, things like scenarios, buying figures, painting figures, researching and playing to name a few, meeting like minded people, finding new opponents and building new armies and entering a new period. I am beginning to get withdrawal symptoms and am desperate to spend money or lay on some games, but I still have maybe two months to go before the War Room is complete. In the meanwhile I am grateful to the guys at the club and Rob and Matt who take the time to set up some wonderful games which I can play in. I would also have to include the bloggers whom I follow, whose exploits I enjoy reading over a cup of good coffee.

I am still painting and am slowly, very slowly finishing off the last six heavy cavalry to add to my Italian Wars armies, I have a couple more bits and pieces but will again take my time. I have quite a lot of mapping to do and for now most of my time will be devoted to finishing these projects.

Dreadful weather this morning as I set off to Penrith for another rendezvous in Matt's dungeon. If you follow Matt's blog you will know he has painted up Tallarn figures of late and I noticed them the last time we played and they are lovely and full of character, so we agreed to play some Xeno Rampant the next time we met. So strap in for a Drop Ship ride to hell.

My Star Ship Troopers.

My Tallarn troops dropped on a desert planet to claim it for the Empire and quickly ended up in a bug hunt, although my guys were actually the hunted and not the hunters. In a few turns I had suffered severe casualties and thought I would be heading back down the M6 tout suite, but just as things were darkest my remaining troops began to fight back and a lot of the bugs hit the deck in brutal hand to hand fighting. It was now time to hit the insects with my mech, this hero dealt out mayhem and the upper hand now lay with my boys, my one remaining squad had retreated in front of a huge monster and now their fire combined with shots from the war mech secured victory for the Empire.

LV-426.

 

This planet is ours.

The monster.

Here they come!

More bugs.

As my exhausted troops reorganised and another drop ship brought reinforcements to boost my command back to normal a new threat appeared, a more sophisticated enemy (Tau) this time had landed to claim the planet for themselves. I drew my men into a defensive position and immediately suffered losses from long range fire, not again I thought. The Tau were being aggressive on my right flank and I concentrated all my fire on one enemy at a time, this was successful and enemy losses approached 50%. Things didn't go all my way and my squads began to lose soldiers, one heavy squad being completely wiped out. I moved all my men into cover and hid while I manouvered them to best bring overwhelming firepower on the remaining enemy. My mech with help from some infantry now brought down the Tau in power armour at which point with the Tallarn moving forward and only one and a half squads left Matt conceded.

The bad guys.

Steady boys.

More bad guys.

Exhuasted but victorious, say cheeeeese!

Xeno Rampant, a new one for me and not a game I would ever buy, I played Lion Rampant once at the club a long time ago. It is very fast and can be very bloody, the only mechanic I didn't like was where you have to get a certain number on two dice to shoot, and if you fail the initiative gets handed over, this can hamper your response to what is happening on the table quite significantly. Now I was pretty unlucky at this on several occasions so this might influence my feelings towards it. Overall it was a bit of fun with some lovely figures and as you can see we managed two games fairly quickly, almost too quickly in the first one. A perfect game for a club night.

If I get no interuptions next week I should be back at the club for a game with Rob, not sure yet what it will be.

The work on the War Room is advancing very quickly, not a good photo but the new wall is mostly up and blocking the light. Although the ceiling has been lowered and the walls brought in the space looks bigger. I think the table tennis table will be lost in there.