Happy New Year! Final Post of 2025

 Where has the time gone? Here we are on the cusp of 2026!

So with that in mind, here is the last post for 2025. I did a lot of gaming during December, so lets see what I was up too.

We started our Necromunda Campaign. I played my Malstrain infected Nomads against Elliott's Spyre guys. We were trapped within some ruins & needed to find the exit. There were 6 doors which we would need to open to determine whether it was truly the exit, or just another dead end.

Due to the deployment rules for the scenario, Elliott's truck had to begin within some building ruins & took some damage exiting it.

My Malstrain Coalescence amongst the ruins.

I had an additional member join my gang, but he didn't even last turn 1 with the Spyre having 2 actions each.

As I was checking a door, terrors arrived & swarmed my Nomad & Malstrain.

The Coalescence did get into melee with one of the enemy, but was taken out shortly after. All my gang were taken out of action, with the death of one of my riders & the other having an eye injury. This portion of the campaign does not allow for replacements.

On the 20th of Dec, Craig had the gang over for Cthulhu Wars. I got to play a new faction & managed to win the first game by 1 doom point. We then switched up the factions we were playing & played again, I believe Arlene won the 2nd.

On the 21st I went to pick up a local sale of Rising Sun. All the figures were painted & there was the Daimyo Box & 2 other expansions as part of the sale

As with all my figures, I immediately pulled them out & started getting washers attached to them. Also as the figures are painted, I have now begun to get the bases prepped with gel, primed & will be painting & flocking them. That will be continuing into the new year.

The figures are all shiny, so will get a matte overspray once they are done.

On the 28th I was invited over to Bob's to play some Fistful of Lead with another long time gaming buddy & his son who were visiting family in Edmonton.

I was playing the forces of Evil & there were 2 scenarios unbeknownst to Will & Arthur. For the 1st Scenario I had Igor attempting to dig up a corpse in the cemetery to collect a brain. I also had Frankenstein's Monster who was trying to nab a young woman & Drusilla. Additional forces for me, were some swarms of rats & bats.

Pitted against me were Will playing the Scooby gang, while Arthur played Buffy the Vampire Slayers gang.

I was able to nab the girl, but was forced to drop her when I got swarmed by the Buffy gang. Drusilla who was running interference was taken down quite quickly.

Igor held his own with the assistance of some Rat swarms, but was eventually taken down. With the forces of evil defeated, Frankenstein's monster fled. The rescued girl informed the 2 sleuth groups that there were catacombs beneath the chapel.

The gangs enter the catacombs. They still had the wounds received from scenario 1, as they had no time to recover. Velma quickly encountered a trap. For this scenario, each side could have a max of 2 figures per hex unless a piece of terrain was also within the hex, then it was limited to a single figure.

The arrival of the forces of evil was based on a die roll. I eventually got Dracula on the board, who was by himself for a few turns. The Sleuths split up, with Buffy heading off through the door. We wouldn't be seeing them again for some time.

With Fred & Daphne both injured, Dracula went for their blood. Which is just about when both of us kept failing to land hits on one-another. Daphne was the first to fall however. Meanwhile the only member of Buffy's team to join the Scooby team encountered another trap (see the big red hand).

Eventually some rat swarms & the Frankenstein's Monster arrived to help Dracula.

Soon Fred was down, leaving only Scooby & Shaggy. This was a long battle.. Dr Frankenstein arrived & was battling it out with Zander. By now all the rat swarms were defeated.

Scooby was able to take down Frankenstein's Monster, but then was removed by Dracula. By this time the Bride of Frankenstein had awoken & moved into the chamber with the remaining Evil forces to await Buffy. She was slain by the duo & that left Willow as the sole member of the Sleuths.

As Willow entered the hex, she stumbles into another trap, taking yet another wound. Dracula & the Bride made quick work of her & resumed their evil plots. Thanks Bob for inviting me over & as always, it was great to hang with Will again over a gaming table.

On the 29th I was off to Scott's for a Noon start of Alliance! The Columbia Napoleonic game that our friend Bruce was part of making.

We randomly drew our nation & I got France. We didn't have a 7th player, so Spain was a NPN (Non Player Nation) that began under French control. Scott used one of his 54mm Napoleonic figures for the turn marker.

Thing started off well, I was able to capture Rome & Naples & was working my way through the Neutrals in Germany. Meanwhile Britain & Prussia were squabbling over Denmark & Sweden. However France lost control of Spain, which then became under the control of Turkey who invaded & succeeded with insane dice rolls against the fort. This is the turning point of the game leading to Turkey's winning the game.

All the other factions in Europe decided that France was bad & created a Grand Alliance that lasted the rest of the game. By 1811 France could only hold onto the VP spaces within France. I was able to oust the Spanish from French Territory, but was never able to push outwards due to always having to rebuild forces for the next wall of opponents. England did eventually land in Spain & began seizing the VP locations, but by then the Ottoman Empire had already won.

So a couple of things we noted about the game, which needs to be addressed.

1) Scott didn't find a turn marker, so he used a model. 

2) The board that comes with the game is so small, we placed a single block on the map & it covered an entire location. We were lucky that Bruce lent us the light mouse pad enlarged map, which provided lots of space for blocks.

3) There are not enough nation flags for marking control of Neutrals. France ran out of them on turn 2, & we started pulling them from other areas that didn't have VP's

On a personal note, this game plays much like Empire in Arms in that if the other nations just gang up on France, it can't hope to win, as it cannot break out anywhere. If Napoleon wins a battle, the other Nations are chipping away elsewhere.

It would be good to have National Objectives for each nation that they should be trying to attain, whether it be the creation of Poland, Turkey creating the Ottoman Empire, Prussia/Austria/France trying to sieze the German Neutral States, etc.

 The advantage I saw with Empire in Arms is that if France defeated a Nation, it was prevented from attacking France again through Diplomacy for another year, which would allow France to focus elsewhere. With that said, we didn't have a nation get defeated, so were unable to see the effects of that. With that being said, it is a good game, that flows fairly well, though it was hard getting used to trying to roll 1's in battle.

Today I stopped into the Post Office & had a parcel of another Kickstarter arrive.

This was for Ascending Fate

As stated at the beginning, it was a busy December, gaming wise & now I am settling down to watch the finale of Stranger Things to bring in the New Year.

Thanks to those who follow & visit my little blog space. Here is to another year of gaming in 2026. Cya on the flip side!

Merry Christmas!

We are at that time of the year again, winding down the day to spend a night of relaxation enjoying A Christmas Carol & National Lampoons Christmas Vacation, as is our tradition. Tomorrow will be another relaxing day ending with the traditional Turkey Dinner.

Credit to whomever owns the photo, Too good not to share!

Wishing all those who visit & follow my blog Merry Christmas! 

Necromunda - Malstrain Coalescence

We had to delay our new Necromunda Campaign due to illnesses amongst the gang last month, so we are preparing to launch this Sunday.

With that opportunity, I was able to get my Malstrain Coalescence built & painted.

This is a resin kit, which as its winter, always concerns me when the superglue hits the cold. But it is what it is.

This is certainly one of the most disturbing models I've put together. The tentacle driven through the top of the head & out of the mouth is something right out of Cthulhu.

After spraying the model with Matte finish, I went in & brushed over the tentacles, bulbous tumors & breathing flutes with Satin finish. 

Now to see how it performs in our game Sunday. Thanks for visiting!

Blood & Plunder at EWG

 Last night we had a good showing with 11 people out. While Gaston & Scott continued their Commands & Colour's Campaign, the rest of us played Blood & Plunder on 2 tables. These were hosted by George & Julian

Each table was set for 4 players.

I was playing a force of British Buccaneers. I had another unit of Sea Dogs, but the card was being shared with Craig.

Craig & I were on one side, against Richard & Chen who were playing the Spanish. Our objective was to get our units within 4" of his starting zone.

As we played, it was noted that perhaps we should have had a bit more of a plan. Our forces were quite spread out from one-another. However this was a learning game for most of us.

Photo by George

Craig & I watch as Richard advances. Richard's dice were hot this eve!

Photo by George

My main unit with Commander attached. The commander had 2 command points to issue, however only 1 command can be issued to a unit, so having him way over on the right with just 1 unit, halved his potential. Dice are used to mark various effects. In this case, the unit has moved, & also expended half its ammo in a shooting attack. I think the using half fire is the way to go as we learned later in the game.

Eventually my unit got atop the hill & could see Chen's forces advancing.

Photo by George

Meanwhile Richard had managed to get his spear wielding unit into the mix with Craigs Seadogs & pretty much annihilated him. Fatigue quickly builds on units, really limiting their effectiveness & eventually routing.

Chen charged my unit with his spear guys & I think Sea-dogs? With the addition of my commander & waiting until I had more actions on my unit, I was able to reload each turn & unleash another volley. Of note is that there are modifiers applied to ranged weapons depending on how far they are shooting.

Below we see the end of Craig's second unit. Suffering that much fatique which was more than the figures remaining, forced them to rout.

Craig did manage to get one of his units into the Spanish zone, only too be gunned down by the basically untouched Spanish Militia Musketry. Thus ended the game.

This system makes for quick games, as units are quickly fatigued & handicapped as they receive fire & suffer casualties. Thus its a great game for club nights, as the small units allow for a couple hour game. Thanks Julian & George for bringing this out for us!

Space Station Zero at EWG

After some conversations with Chen, he agreed to run a Space Station Zero campaign at the club. 

 

He generated some crews for the 5 of us that chose to take part in the campaign. We had 2 crews - Monster Hunters (Richard & Craig) while Colin, Will & I took a Merchant Crew.

 

With characters split amongst the players, we entered an Abandoned Docking Bay Access Port (Challenge 1) which connects the general Docking Bay Zero safe area to the unexplored areas beyond. These bays are broken down, barely lit & full of dangers!

As my camera battery was dead at launch, I asked Colin if he would grab some photos to use for this post. Alas we didn't get a photo of the full table layout.

 

Obstacles & Enemies for the game were pre-rolled by Chen (which makes it easier for him to bring whats needed). Our challenges were...

A Poison Chemical Gas Leak. 3 leaks were occuring causing every activating character to roll a Life Save or suffer damage based on fails. We had to get characters at each location to turn off the leaks.

Our 2nd challenge were some Ancient Sentries consisting of robotic guards, their weapons non functioning, so they were armed with their hands or weapon remnants to swing in battle.

 

Several crewmen suffering the effects of the poison gas..

 

The shambling sentries did manage to get into melee with some of the crewmen.

 

As for the Captain of the Merchant crew, he was taken down by a sentry, but survived, missing the next scenario. One of our Engineers wasn't so lucky & died from the poison gas.

 

So we move towards the next Challenge, but I won't spoil it now. How long will the campaign go? My guess is until we lose everyone, so the question is, are we up for the challenge?

 Thanks Chen for running this, it played quite quickly once everyone got the mechanics down. Thanks Colin for snagging the photos.