Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Rocky Mountain Retreat & Flivers for All's Quiet

I realize I have been absent for a couple weeks. Lot's going on as this becomes my busy gaming period until the end of May.

So to start, I was invited down for a weekend of gaming at a somewhat undisclosed location. Sorry to be a little vague, but this weekend is by invite only, so I was somewhat honoured to receive an invitation.

Thus having received my map of the location, I gathered the games I would bring & set off.

Below is the lodge where we spent the next 72ish hours gaming away when we were not sleeping. The venue was mostly boardgames, many of which I had never even heard of.
 

However Brent did run 2 sessions of the new D&D. I was in the second group. 



Brent even brought up his Dwarven Forge terrain for added visual appeal.


I played several boardgames, some of which did not inspire me, while a couple others drew my attention. I really enjoyed Bruges, the game looked fantastic & the artwork on the cards was top-notch. I also got an initiation into Star Wars: Imperial Assault. I picked up both games on my way back to Edmonton.

Now home I am again focussed on the All's Quiet human forces for the Mayday Game.
Below is the unit of Flivers. As stated in a previous post, I am not keen on these metal kits. They would have went together much better as plastic kits. Hopefully this will be done somewhere down the road, but....time will tell.



Being metal kits, you are pretty much forced to glue a couple pieces together & let dry before continuing. Imagine my frustration when I went to put the front wheels on during a later step to discover the fender/cab combo was too far forward, forcing the wheels to not sit as they were supposed to. I even popped the glue on a couple of the cabs to try & correct this....ARRRGGHHH!!!

Okie, so the first Fliver is an armoured variant with an HMG. 


Next, a canvas backed variant. The canvas is 1 solid piece of metal.
 

The last variant I left open backed & chose not to add the gubbins (tarp rails)

 
I have one more of these units to build & am not overly looking forward to it.

As to whats next, I have 2 more Mk III units nearly completed as well as the Mobile Field Artillery unit.

I also have the field artillery, which is again all metal units which will be slow to build.

Friday, March 20, 2015

Another game of Dead of Winter

A couple days late posting this, but I brought out Dead of Winter to the club Tuesday. This time we had Wiley, Emmy, Wes, Brian & myself.

The scenario we played was Home Sweet Home.


Emmy was first to play & what has become the norm, lost her first character to a Bitten result.


I also received a bitten result, which further took out Buddy. 3 Morale down on the first round..sheesh


We did manage to avoid our first crisis, but did not garner enough junk for the bonus morale.


Our next crisis, we fell short on.


This third crisis we let ride, as we were close to getting all the barricades needed built.


Sparky was finally brought low....reminded me of Old Yeller.


We did complete the scenario, & had 2 winners, Wes & Brian. Thanks folks for coming out.

Sunday, March 15, 2015

All's Quiet on the Martian Front - Mk III unit & Mk IV Monitor

Although it will appear I have not gotten much in the way of miniatures done for the game of All's Quiet on the Martian Front at Mayday, I will delve into that further.

However I did finish off another unit of Mk III Steamer Tanks as well as a Mk IV Monitor.



The Monitor consists of Resin body & Turret, with several metal pieces added. Overall not a tough model to build.

Armed with a main 7" Gun, 6x 4" Guns & a double barrelled MG.


This in effect allows a front arc volley of 5 shots, or 3 to sides or rear.


Comparison photo of a Mk II, Mk III & Mk IV. An infantryman is also placed for scale.



Front view


Rear View


I have 2 more Mk III units built & awaiting painting. The Flivers have been a long term project as they a multi-part metal & thus lots of waiting as things dried. They are almost finished, less wheels atm. (In hindsight I wish they had done the flivers in plastic).

Also the mobile artillery unit mounting for the Cannon leaves a lot to be desired. I am putting 1 together to decide how best to secure it so it doesn't fall apart. Again I wish they would have gone with plastic components for this model.

Further delays are due to the lack of any instructions on just how these are to go together. Looking in the Main rulebook hasn't been of much help as the models they have displayed for the Mobile Artillery are a different model kit. Ahh well, I will get through it.

Tuesday is club night, so looking forward to that.

Thanks for stopping by.

Wednesday, March 4, 2015

Another Kickstarter Arrives! & some Mk II MG's

I got a call at work from my wife stating that I had a BIG BOX arrive at the post office...needless to say it made my focus pretty single minded the remainder of the day. Now it was also club night...thus its opening would be delayed.

So to begin, I did play my first ever game of Robo-Rally at the club. Quite a fun little game where the best laid programming can be ruined by a vast amount of things.

Now onto the Parcel!


I had received my Reaper Bones II Kickstarter a few days earlier. So this was adding even more icing to the cake!

What I saw when the lids was opened.


The plethora of goodies the carton contained


And of course the closeups of the products.







These wolf guys look at all familiar? I was a very big fan of the Rackham Confrontation miniatures.... & I am sure many of those sculptors were involved with this line.




I also picked up a couple of the promo figures, although I wasn't able to get everything.



The requisite Rules book, hard bound.


There were also a couple of Zombicide characters that could be gotten through this Kickstarter...of course I had to have them!


So as my adrenaline returned to normal I finished off my unit of Mk II MG steamer tanks.





I am now working on 3 units of Mk III Steamers & then have quite a few other units to build.

Sunday, March 1, 2015

Some more Zombicide Zombies

Today I finished off another 5 Zombicide Zombies.


Up first are 3 more Walkers.

 

As well as a Runner & a Fatty



As I switch gears into All's Quiet on the Martian Front, there is hope I may be able to get another Zombicide character or 2 completed before heading off to the Gaming Retreat.