Cangames 2024!

I arrived home after the long weekend & another Cangames under my cap. Another chance to hang with some old gaming friends & make new ones....its what it's all about for me!

 

Friday

Arriving early to get my registration sorted, I got into a game of Dead Mans Hand. We had 4 players run through 3 scenarios. Split between the Law/Pinkerton's & Bandit/Mountain Men we were off.

 

The first scenario was just a shootout, the winners determined by who the last ones standing were.....

Victory went to the good guys! (Bandits/Mountain Men)

The 2nd Scenario was about getting the wagon off the table...unfortunately my images from this were blurry or had arms in them...suffice it to say we had some good early initiatives & extra move cards that allowed us to get away. Again the Bandits/Mountain Men took the victory

The last scenario took place at the mine. With the Lawmen/Pinkertons moving in on the illegal operation

 After much carnage...& me making full use of my Mountain Mens melee ability with knives, it was a bloodbath. Third game again went to the Bandits/Mountain Men. Great game Mike with beautifully painted miniatures & terrain. The card mechanics were cool too with the various actions.

 Friday evening it was time for some ancients. 

Vercingetorix and Caesar: Gergovia 52 BC

by Tod Creasey

158

In 52 BC Caesar laid seige to Gergovia a Gallic city commanded by the up and coming Vercingetorix. Can the legions complete their assault of the city before the allied tribes arrive?

This was a 6 player game. I played the gauls left flank infantry.

 This consisted of 2 Med foot, 1 Heavy Foot & some slinger/archer skirmishers. I used the first couple of turns & the mobility of my troops to rush forward to deny as much maneuver ground to the Romans as I could. I had some good command pips to get most of my force moving. The Heavy Inf were left behind.

Getting to where I wanted to be, we waited for the Romans to advance. The skirmishers were going at each other. The Romans did finally meet & hammered my Med Inf, but I did manage to hold him long enough for the Heavy Foot to arrive. As he broke through my units this disrupted his units so that they required individual commands to get things done. Lucky for me, he didn't get many each turn. One of my skirmishers did get behind him & a drawn out battle did see me finish his skirmishers off.

Saturday

 The Long day of the convention, with the first games starting at 0900, my day began with Frostgrave.

Wreck of the Golden Hind - Frostgrave game with goblin pirates, undead sailors and treasure to be found on board on of the most famous privateer ships. 

For this game, Duncan had brought out a massive Reaper Bones ship. This multi layer ship was something to behold.

All of our bands had the same spells & we watched as continous failures to cast was dimishing our wizard/apprentice health pools.

Approaching the ship, my crew were investigating the various piles of barrels & crates, discovering 2 treasures, which they began to haul off the board. Meanwhile the remainder made for the ship.

The deck of the ship was swarming with Skeleton Pirates, who would attempt to fire their cannons at approaching threats....of course being so old, many misfired causing a blast area template hitting anything nearby. As the others arrived, we began crawling through the gunports. What awaited inside wasn't pretty.

Working together, we were able to clear out the skeletons. The boat seen with the crew, was sunk by a cannonball, its crew scrambling aboard the large ship. I believe 2 of the warbands got away with their Wizard captains & all had much depleted crews.

My afternoon game was spent playing Rivet Wars. Again we had 6 players battling over the map, we played an intro scenario using basic mechanics, then moved on to Secret Missions & Action Cards

My last game for Saturday was Rubberboots & the Island that Time Forgot, but as Tod couldn't remember...became The Title that Tod Forgot! For the combat mechanics we were using the Silver Bayonet dice system.

Tod used the massive ship from the morning game as one edge of the table. I believe their were 9 players in all, in 3 teams of 3 players. Although on a team, each player had their own victory conditions.

I had a group commanded by a Conquistidor who was looking for what else....but treasure!

 

The table was littered with clue markers, that needed to be investigated. Sometimes good, but oftimes bad things would occur. Todd has an amazing assortment of miniature oddities in his collection.

 

As no-one was expecting the Spanish Inquisition...they of course showed up. They investigated the first clue & found ... a turtle!

 

While we were advancing, a portal opened & a fellow stepped out of it. I left the dealing of that with the Time Bandits who were part of my team.

 

Continuing with their exploration the Inquisition revealed a carnivorous plant, which they quickly moved away from.

 

As my crew finally reached some clue tokens, we managed to uncover 2 more carnivorous plants & an Ogre. Something tells me, just going after other players who had found treasure may be the safer course.

 

On the far side of the table, some witch coven was gathering  & summoning more nasties from its cauldron & incantations. This is also about the point where the Inquisitors had discovered some massive eggs...a treasure for sure & one that I much sought after. This lead to a mutual destruction of each other's bands

As if that wasn't enough, another faction arrived mounted on Pterodactyls, who wanted their eggs back & began flying about collecting them.

By this time, I had 1 remaining swordsman carrying off a set of eggs. As a Pterodactyl swooped towards him, he raised the eggs above his head & smashed them. It never hurts to deny others VP's. Thus ended the game. Not quite sure who it was that won, but I know it wasn't me 😀

Sunday

 My Sunday started off with The Battle of Newburn. This 4 player game pitted the English against the Scottish Covenators & used the Black Powder rules.

I played the English & took on the Foot troops, whilst my partner handled the mounted troops & cannon.

 

 My partner had a hard time not rolling high & thus spent the first few turns doing nothing. I got my foot troops moving fairly successfully I got to the road (helps to roll 3 actions off the get-go)

As the 2 factions finally met, it was back & forth amongst the foot troops, but the English eventually routed the Scottish foot opposing them. I think almost every roll by the Scottish side when required to test was a 4 or less, thus causing them to flee. This happed with their mounted troops as well. Their reinforcements had just gotten to the intersection when the battle was won by the English force.

The last game for my Sunday was one of the ones I play in yearly.

The Shakespeare Code – Doctor Who

by Brian Hearn

Join the Tenth Doctor, Martha and a cast of Elizabethan characters in London in the early 1600s as they attempt to foil the scheme of three witch-like Carrionites who plan to  rewrite one of Shakespeare’s plays in order to unleash a hoard of their fellow creatures upon the world.

As a nice bonus, Brian won an award for his game table!

This was another multi-player game & rather than use the standard Doctor Who Miniatures rules, Brian has started to dabble with the Pulp Alley Rules

 

 I played the Carrionite Corvian League. All the Leagues had 3 characters each in them.

 

The 3 figures comprising my League.

We had in effect 3 good vs 3 evil players in the game. Both sides working together (as in they couldn't attack their aligned players)

 

The Red Cultists & I swarmed Sir Francis Bacon, taking him out, though the bugger kept making his recovery rolls & would jump back up. Luckily when he was down, most of those involved were able to move away to do other things. We left a single Red Cultist to deal with him. The coloured blocks were used by Brian as an activation mechanism. The number of blocks in the bag = to your league members. As blocks were drawn you would activate the figure & place the block beside them, to denote they had performed their action for the turn.

In order for the players figure to enter the Theatre they were required to find a ticket. The many numerous plot locations around the table would potentially provide the ticket....assuming you had answered me these questions 3 type effect. For those unfamiliar with Pulp Alley, in order to successfully get a plot point, you are required to pass a challenge. The challenge is randomly drawn & the player must successfully meet the requirements to pass. Failure often means taking hits.

Another Pulp Alley thing is they have dangerous areas which when entered require a challenge be passed. The stage was one of these.

There were several tokens on the board which were also dangerous areas, anything from horse manure piles to human slop.

 Several of the players had made the stage & were garnering tokens (feathers) which provided VP's. The Queen managed to score the most feathers by games end & won the game.

So another Cangames had ended & to finish off we went to Yangtze's for Chinese food, only to discover that it would closing, & would have its own final curtain.

Guess we will need to find another after-con meal venue for next year!