I've just returned home from Fallcon number 26, held in Calgary Alberta. It was another weekend of miniature gaming for me & I managed to once again avoid any boardgames. I was of course tempted to get into Zombicide (which I don't consider a boardgame) but instead opted for a Too Fat Lardies game. More of that to follow.
I spent the weekend at Mark's new home (THANKS MARK & FAMILY!) & discovered it was located at the base of Nose Hill in Calgary, a large natural walking wildlife area. Bonus to them for the location! It was also a very easy drive to The Sentry Box for my yearly trip as well as to the convention site.
Now onto the games
Friday night started off with a large SAGA battle. I played the King of Englad...Oh King eh! Very nice! This is where I met one of Mark's new gaming buddies...Mike.
My force consisted of the King and 4 units of Hearthguard.
Across from me was Mark playing a force of Welsh.
I took my force along the flank, losing sight of the rest of the army, but not wanting to leave it open to the Welsh.
As I moved into the gap between the blocks of woods I noticed a gaping gap in our centre. Things were not going well there it seemed.
After a turn of being stumped by the Welsh hitting and running, I was able to draw his leader into a combat, where my Hearthguard aided in slaying the Welsh leader, forcing his army to retire. Alas the battle was lost however as most of the remainder of the army had been shattered. Regardless it was nice being able to out roll Mark!
Saturday morning Sean once again brought out his G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T game. You can see how popular this game is as we had 9 players. The objective of this scenario was to gather up as much of the Glowindium (blue stones) and hold the central repository of the Glowindium (centre of the table). Of course there were guardians of the Glowindium as we soon discovered.
A shot of the table showcasing some of Sean's excellent terrain pieces. As well as the scattered Glowindium.
I played the same force of British Camel Corps led by the esteemed Phil MacCracken with his Indian Guide Lal Singh. As can be seen below whenever someone successfully gathered some Glowindium, a roll was made to see if a guardian arose, which for most of the game was Giant Spiders.
The player beside me, fielding Stampy & the Sikhs charged the Giant Spider. I did send in Lal Singh to assist, though this spider was tough as nails & took down both Stampy, Lal and a Camel Corps member before succumbing. These buggers had saves of 14 which were very hard to beat.
Below is a shot of the Glowindium Repository.
I decided to split my force, taking 3 soldiers with MacCracken while the others formed a screen & dealt with any guardians.
Marco agreed to a truce with me on my right & spent quite some time dealing with this spider. It likely fed on 5 of his men before it was taken down. Meanwhile the Steam Tank trundled over what Marco considered his Glowindium, this broke a truce barkered between the two & led to a side shot from the cannon.
Eventually we were faced with a Giant Worm which went after Mikes Camel Jockeys. He did slay this monster after a short couple rounds.
Meanwhile the forces of Pasha Spice (Marco) were engaged with the Steam Tank and managed to get the crew to bail out. They were quickly slain by the sabre wielding pirates.
The evening found me in a game of Through the Mud and the Blood, a Too Fat Lardie's WW1 game system. This was a part of the battle of Cambrai in 1917, where the British were trying to penetrate as far as they could pas the 2nd & 3rd trench lines. The host Patrick had a fantastic battlefield.
I had control of the tanks Bosworth. The British forces had the use of 3 tanks & 1 aircraft.
The initial deployment with everyone but the tanks on blinds.
The tanks trundle ahead, with a couple of our infantry units suffered some losses & lots of shock in the open.
The British Air force makes a strafing attack.
Mark Stadel had control of the tank Bob & had taken a hit causing an engine fire. He was able to put it out.
We were only able to get my tank to the halfway point thru the wire before the game was called due to time. We did get started an hour & a half late so that ate into a lot of our time, as well as the teaching of players new to Lardie's systems.
Another fun year of hanging with friends, talking smack with Mark Stadel, making some buys from the auction & finally taking the plunge & buying into the Star Wars X-Wing Miniature Game.
So before the bell tolls midnight, here be a scurvy lot of crew for one of the pirate ships.
Three more are finished & off to swab the deck.
I gather these are a mix of Old Glory & Eureka Miniatures.
Many more Pirates are in light to sign up & are in various stages of painting.
With Fallcon only a couple weeks away I have finished the commission in time...whew! I know, some of my gaming friends will laugh at this, as they churn out regiments, etc...
So here we have the last 2 characters, plus their Zombivore counterparts.
First is Troy (who sure looks a lot like Ash 'Bruce Campbell' from the Evil Dead.
Next up is the Cardboard Tube Samurai. I am not sure which character this fella is based on. Anyone?
Lastly its Booty Call! With a scurvy pirate making off with the Royal Jewels. This is a metal Foundry miniature.
Between now & Fallcon I will hopefully be working on more Pirates.
Its a busy blog night here, as I now type up my second blog entry....I was absent for some time actually working on these figures, but I hope the wait was worth it.
But what's this!?/ Who let these Pirates on deck?....
Mostly they were near finished & I wanted them done & off the table, so here they make an appearance. The fella on the right is another Marine for one of the merchant ships
And onto Zombivores! Here we have the 3 added figures from the Kickstarter. Namely Dave the Geek, El Cholo & Nick, or rather them as Zombies.
As the original characters had been sold, I had to go back & find the images of the painted ones so I could attempt to match their paintjobs.
First is Dave the Geek, who never did get the hang of playing with fire, hence his burning arm. The decal I used for his original shirt, I could not find another of, so I had to paint it on & then use liberal splatters of blood to hide my poor attempt.
Next is El Cholo, still wielding his machete's
And then there is Nick. I think he turned out the worst for wear of all of them, having lost a shoe. The figure is fantastic however
Once of the additional characters received in the Survivor's box set was their version of Chuck Norris aka Eagle Chad, the All American. Here he is as both Normal & Zombivore. The beauty of this of course being I can paint both at the same time to ensure colour matching. Not sure how he upgraded to an Uzi from his pistols however.
All of my Zombicide characters and their Zombivore counterparts are heading off to a new home later this month, so don't be surprised with a double take when I eventually paint up my own set & they again grace the frames of my blog.
I have 2 more Zombicide pairings to complete before I am off to Fall-con.
Kevin ran a game of Fanticide at the club last night. He used forces from his LOTR Dwarves & Warriors of the Dead vs. a mixed bag of Goblins, Orcs & Trolls.
Kevin created the forces, giving them stats and abilities and generated a scenario. The dwarves and undead warriors were to try to gather 3 dwarf treasures & then get them off the board. The Goblins had to prevent that, as well as seek out the slaying of the leaders of the Dwarf/Undead for Pride.
The game is card driven, with a card for each unit per side. As well Masters & Legends receive command cards, allowing for more moving of units. Another thing that occurs is a random event card that is added each pass thru the hand.
The games lasts 6 decks of the cards. As units are removed, so are their cards, thus by the last deck, it went very quickly.
Ahoy the Troll Chieftain. This behemoth withstood several volleys of arrows before succumbing.
Meanwhile one of my Undead Warrior Units managed to bag the Orc Warriors, below can be seen the last of them. The mechanics are very easy to pickup & indeed the rules make for a very Convention Friendly set.
The second troll and some Orcs advance. The green token seen at the bottom right of the image represents one of the Dwarf Treasure Troves. The Undead Warriors were unable to pick them up & the Dwarves never even got close.
The troll charged into the Undead, only to himself be brought low.
The Dwarves left the field with 1 of the troves, while the Goblins managed to bag all 3 of the Dwarf force leaders. The final tally was close with a score of 74 - 68 for the Goblins.
Thanks to Kevin for bringing out his excellent terrain & finely painted miniatures for us to play with.
As luck would have it, I arrived home to find the parcel containing my own copy of Fanticide sitting on the dining room table!
