The Hobbit: Dwarf Grimhammers

It's been a few months since my last trip to middle-earth, I've now returned and painted a box of dwarf grimhammers from the Hobbit range.  These are really fantastic looking models and I'm very pleased with them.

A couple of weeks ago I actually played the Hobbit game for the first time, playing through a couple of the scenarios in boxed set.  It's quite fun really and I'd like to play it a bit more and use the rest of my middle-earth figures, however to take the next step you really need to buy the £50 rulebook (for the army lists and points values), and that's a bit steep for me.

Axis & Allies: The Battle Of The Bulge

For the first time really this summer last weekend saw quite a bit of gaming activity, as well as playing a fair bit of Jurassic wars (see two posts back) we also finally got around to playing the Hobbit game from games workshop and my friend brought round a new board game for us to try, Axis and Allies: the Battle of the Bulge.  I've played the original Axis & allies game many times, but this is the first time I've tried many of the 'off-shoot' games that have been released using the same brand.  This one of course sets out to simulate the battle of the bulge at the end of 1944 in Belgium.  It's very different from the original Axis and Allies game.  The objective of the game is for the Germans to capture more territory than they did in the historical campaign and for the allies to stop them.

It started to go wrong on turn one as the Germans fail to push back the whole Allied line 

The board and pieces all look good, they don't scrimp on playing pieces either and we never go close to running out of any of the troop types.  I took the allies and my friend took the Germans.  The Germans start the game getting to attack on turn one without any response from the allies, this push didn't go as well as my opponent hoped, with one group in particular holding out unexpectedly, which critically slowed the Germans down.

By mid-game it looks like the Germans are about to breakthrough

 

 

Reinforcements are fixed and each turn both sides get a set group.  The Germans seem to start off getting the upper hand, but by the mid-game the allied reinforcements and planes (which you get from turn 5-8) swing it back in the other direction.  The other major consideration is supply (fuel, ammo, etc.)  which you also have to manage, the allies get the lions share of this too, but it can be captured.  This is designed well I think, it's not complicated, but does add another tactical layer to the game. 

Mike makes his next move

 

 

I won a convincing victory in the end, with the Germans only having around half the territory they needed to win at the end of turn 8.   I liked the game and in particular it's played at an interesting scale, but I also have a few concerns, I'd never played before, but had no real difficulty in halting the German advance against someone with experience.  Admittedly this is only after a single game, but the allies seem to have a distinct advantage.  My second concern is replayability, I want to have another go, being the Germans next time of course, but then I don't have a desire to play the game for quite a while after that.  The proscribed reinforcements hamper this as inevitably games are going to play in a similar way.

In the end the German attempted breakthrough is insufficient and easily knocked back.

40K Eldar Wraithlord & Space Marine Land Speeder Storm

I've been having a busy summer and have got almost no painting done over the last couple of months, but finally I've managed to finish a couple of bits off, first of which is this Eldar Wraithlord.  I'm pretty pleased overall with this guy, although I still haven't quite managed to get yellow right.

Also this scout transporting land speeder storm. It's supposed to have four scouts in the back as well being transported, which I will get to at some point (maybe) but this has been on my painting table for a year or so and I just wanted to get it useable as quick as possible, for a 50pt model it's taken a lot of work.

Review - Jurassic Wars

Today I'm having a look at yet another impulse purchase; a cheap travel card game called Jurassic Wars. The game features dinosaur cards which fight each other until one player has no cards left.  It feels like you're playing a more advanced version of Top Trumps.

The game comes in a small, but sturdy box, which is labelled as a 'dice arena', but it's just a box really.  The box contains a rules booklet, 7 dice and 33 cards.  The rules booklet is in black and white and is 8 pages long.  The rules are clearly and concisely written and we had no issues with understanding how it was to work.  You get 7 6-sided dice, 4 green (for the herbivores) and 3 red (for the carnivores), the green ones have 2 faces with stars and the red ones 3 faces with stars.  It's a nice little touch that they did special dice, ordinary D6's would have worked just as well, but simplifies the process a bit and makes the game more accessible.  Then finally what you're really paying for is the cards, they're standard playing card sized and seem to be of reasonable quality.  One thing I'm really impressed with is the artwork on the cards each dinosaur has been brilliantly rendered , if I'd have had these as a kid I've have spent hours just looking at the pictures.

Gameplay is a series of one on one dinosaur combats, which sees players rolling the number and type of dice shown on the dino's card and the player with the most stars wins that round and either reduces the opponents dice or kills him if there are no dice left to remove.  Play keeps going until only one player has no dinosaurs left.  Tactics revolve around which order to play your cards and when to play your limited supply of combat cards (that have various affects on the dice).

I think it works best as a two-player game really, and if you have the full 5 players there's going to be a bit to much waiting for your turn.  There's only so much depth in the basic game, but there's already a bunch of extra rules on the website which add that extra depth to the game and includes a couple of new ways to play too.

In my introduction I labelled this as a travel game, but that's not really fair, whilst it is suitable as a travel game due to its small size, we've been having lots of fun with this at home on the dinning room table.

In conclusion this is a great little game, inexpensive, good mechanics, suitable for players of different levels and with a great theme as well.  Highly recommended!

Hunters, Explorers and Adventurers - Part 2

Somewhat later than anticipated we have my second bunch of explorers that I plan to take dinosaur hunting.

Starting with these 4 from North Star games.  These are the first models I've got from Northstar, pretty good on the whole, nice detail and character, but there was a lot of flash.

and then these which are from foundry like the last lot.

You'll notice a Renaissance captain looking slightly out of place on the right, foundry have started giving away a free model with orders (a fantastic policy) and this was Julys free model, jolly nice he is too.

Hunters, Explorers and Adventurers - Part 1

The latest additions to my collection are these models from Foundry's Darkest Africa range.

Starting off with a pack called 'Clean limbed British officers and adventurers' which is a brilliant title, and has some fantastic models, and even includes an Allan Quartermain (middle left) who's one of my favourite characters.

This next pack is called 'eccentric explorers', which is actually a group of historical explorers of Africa.  from left to right, Sir Richard Francis Burton, John Hanning Speke, Dr Livingstone, Henry Morton Stanley, Sir Samuel Baker, and the German Carl peters.  Another great set, with some of the key characters of the Victorian era in Africa.

And finally 'big game hunt' which includes a German hunter, some native helpers and a lion to hunt. 

And what are these for? Well the idea is to go hunting, but hunting for dinosaurs and other prehistoric beasties!  In the deepest African jungle in the year 1890, some mysterious creatures have been spotted and the race is on to bring back specimens to the great Museums in London and around Europe.  Not entirely sure on rules yet, will be homebrew of some sort, and we plan to have a bit of fun with this. 

Army Focus - Mordheim Warbands

I've not been getting much painting done recently, work commitments, holidays and nice weather have all taken precedence!  However I've not completely forsaken this blog, and today we have a look at my warbands for Mordheim.

Despite GW's policy of getting rid of specialist games as a distraction that doesn't generate enough profit, these warbands and the game of mordheim are directly responsible for my return to wargaming and the significant expansion of my collection.  I gave up wargaming as I went to university and for several years played no more than a bit of Bloodbowl.  Towards the end of my 7 years away me and some friends had a hankering for a few games and mordheim allowed us to play with limited space and the few models we had lying about.  When I returned home it was mordheim that we played and also brought my friends from home back into the wargaming fold.  Specialist games work and it's a real shame to see them go.  Anyway without any further waffling or ranting here are my warbands:

 

The first of my warbands was these Averlanders.  Based on the empire mercanry sprue mostly with the addition of a few halflings, a faithful hound and an elven hired sword.  A (very) shooty warband, and large as well.

These Bretonnians were nowhere near as successful, being severally limited by a low max warband limit and low stats.  However, the 4 classic citadel foot knights are among my favourite models.

 

Dark elf corsairs, mostly made from a single plastic boxed set, with the addition of a very old metal witch elf and 2 old dark eldar warp beasts to count as cold one beats.

Some more classic models here in this Norse warband.  The berserkers and the jarl are also among my favorites.  The ability to find uses for cool models without needing an army is of course one of the delights of skirmish games like mordheim.

Some actual mordheim models in this possessed warband, but also some added plastic beastmen (the rest of the box made up a beastman warband) and an old pink horror I had in a box for the warbands second possessed.

Skaven warbands tend to become rather sprawling and mine is no exception.  Fun to play, although often frustrating when it comes to the break test.

One of the last warbands I made, for an intended lustria campaign that never happened.  Saurus are great and even skinks have their uses.  Rolling lads got talent on a saurus will always give you a smile.  I've used the old 5th ed boxed set single pose models for the henchmen and metals and newer multipart plastics for the heroes.

I've always loved the imagery, background and models of the witch hunters, but have also struggled to make them work.  Much like the Bretonnians they suffer from low numbers and average stats.

And finally a ridiculously shooty wood elf warband (played using the high elf shadow warriors rules).  Mostly built from one plastic wood elf boxed set with the addition of a metal shadow warrior as the leader and a mordheim elf wizard.

We're not playing mordheim at the moment, so no more work on any of these is imminent.  I do have unpainted beastmen and undead warbands too that I might get around to one day, but then again I might not.

Zvezda 1:100 Scale Art of Tactics WW2 Tanks

Oh dear I've been on ebay again and have discovered a new range of cool toys.  This time a range of 1:100 scale WW2 vehicles made by Zvezda.  They are simple snap fit kits (although a bit of glue certainly helps), with reasonable, although not excellent, detail.  What I like about these is that unlike the other cheap plastic kits from places like the plastic soldier company these come singly and for under £3 (inc. postage) a tank as well!  Cheap enough to pick up on a whim and provide an interesting painting diversion.  They are of course the right scale for flames of war, which there has been more mutterings about playing, although that has yet to come to fruition.

The first one I bought was this German PZ-IV Ausf.D medium tank.  A key part of the German forces and the best detailed of the 3 kits.

My next buy was this small and somewhat flimsy looking Soviet KhT-26 flame thrower version of the T-26 light tank.

 

 And finally this monster of a tank the Soviet KV-2, a massive tank with a massive turret and gun.

 

 

Something that these additions have made me realise is the great disparity in size between different tanks that isn't always obvious through pictures etc.  From left to right we have a Churchill, Sherman, the tiny KhT-26, the KV-2, a Panther, the PZ-IV and finally a StuG. 

Army Focus - Star Wars Miniatures The Rebellion

A few weeks ago I put a post up showing my star wars miniatures Imperial collection/army.  It generated quite a lot of interest so today I've dug out their opposition, the Rebel Alliance.

Whereas most successful Imperial squads are based around a few commanders and then a whole bunch of troops the rebels are very much a hero based faction with luke, han and co normally being the driving force.  they also lake the really heavy items of the Imperials, no walkers or tanks here.

 

There are several 'sub-factions' in the rebellion, including commandos, wookies and the forces from the battle of hoth.  The 'sub-factions' aren't official, but the various commander effects mean that they often work best that way and add a nice thematic element to your force.

 

And finally, although technically part of the fringe faction (can be used by any other faction or as a faction in their own right) we have these ewoks.  These are all surprisingly useful and the standard ewok and wicket whilst not being powerful are very points efficient and are great for filling out squads with extra activations.

Dreadball - Judwan Team & Season 1 MVP's

A lot of painted Dreadball minis to show off today.  Starting with the first of my season 2 teams, the Judwan.  I love both the look and gaming concept of these guys (all strikers, so no punching at all, but super quick and skilled) and will definitely be using them in my next game.  Included in the pics below is the Judwan star player Mee-kel Judwan (awesome pun!), I've decided that I may as well paint team specific MVP's in the colours of said team so from now on will be painting them at the same time as the teams.

The next batch of pictures contains The season one MVP's.  A bit of a mixed bunch, Buzzcut, the Enforcer and John Doe are all brilliant, but Gorim Ironstone and Number 88 are not.  Surprisingly my new favourite MVP is Wildcard and her Tron styling, it's amazing how a paint job can change so drastically my opinion of a model.

Buzzcut, The Enforcer & Reek Rolat

 

Number 88, Wildcard & John Doe

 

Gorim Ironstone, Lucky Logan & Slippery Joe

 

Finally I've also painted the Kickstarter trophy....

If you read my last Dreadball post you'll remember that there were a couple of issues with my delivery, mantic quickly got back to me and my female corp guard is no longer headless!  On top of that a z'zor jack will also be heading my way, I have to be patient on that front, but will end up with a free guard model for my trouble, I can live with that.

On other mantic related news deadzone did rather well in the end reaching over $1.2million!  Which means I will have another huge pile of models to paint come the winter, brilliant!  I'm really looking forward to the game as well and after loving dreadball have no worries that mantic will be able to deliver on their promises.

Why You should Plegde On The Deadzone Kickstarter.......

Essentially because I have and the more of you that do the more freebies I get!  But seriously this is looking like a great deal for what you get with a lot of cool stuff.  Lets have a closer look.

Deadzone is mantic games latest game that is being launched on kickstarter, much like dreadball was, and like dreadball is written by the genius that is Jake Thornton.  Although it shares some basic mechainics with dreadball and is set in the same warpath universe, this is an elite skirmish game.  Something I've been wanting to add to my collection since the winter when it's too cold to play on my large table in the garage.  We tried a home-brew system, but well I'm no rules designer and this looks simple and elagant, but full of possibilities.

If you're going to pledge you should really be looking at the $150 (note thats dollars not pounds) strike team level which gets you the rules, a board, a bunch of scenary, 4 complete factions (plus a 5th one of your choice free!)  and some special chracaters (and hopefully soon some zombies).

Just on the amount of stuff you get it's good value, but I think the real value in this set is the versitily of it and the different ways it can all be used.  The core way of playing is as a standard skirmish battle game one on one trying to kill each other.  Fine.  Great.  But it's much more than that it also has a Mordheim/Necromunda style campaign system, which as we all know are a lot of fun.  It also come with the nexus-psi campaign which is a narritive camapaign using set models and objectives, currently 7 scenarios, although that might rise further yet if more poeple plegde, thats more scenarios than came in dwarf kings hold:dead rising which was a scenario driven game...  And thats not all, solo rules are in the works so you can blow up some.....

you'll get 5 zombies for free but 20 more for an extra $15 is hard to resist

Zombies!  Another great addition to the game is the shambling zombies that will attack all factions even the plague they are 'related' too.  Which means of course you have to fight the 'enviroment' as well as your opponent.  All in all thats a lot of value and gameplay variety from one set.

 

But I'm not finished.. all the models and scenary can also be used for sci-fi wargames!  The scenary will obviously easily translate and you can never have enough scenary  it's rather cool stuff as well thats deisgned to be assembled in many different ways.  The models will all have rules for warpath and I'm going to slot most of them into my 40K armies as well.  I already use enforcers in my imperial guard, the plague are going to make great mutated cultists and the bigger ones chaos spawn.  The rebs will make a fanatastic alt Imperial gaurd squad as well (probaly veterans) and although the marauders are orcs I'm tempted to use thoose ripper suits with guns as obliterators. 



Look at everything you get so far! 5 sci-fi zombies to be added soon as well and a whole week to go!

Pledge now!