Sunday 26 October 2008

Dire Troll Mauler

Here he is:

Dire Troll Mauler

I just finished him and immediately took a photo. This is the guy that got swamped by those damned scouts of Martin's.

I am in the process of finishing my Fell Caller and my Totem Hunter as well, so that by Sunday I should have a fully painted force for the tournament.

Thursday 23 October 2008

Borka vs. The High Reclaimer

Background
Martin, Mike and I are playing in the Subcultures tournament in Utrecht on November the 2nd. The Tournament is 500 pts, which is a bit lower than we are used to and there is a time limit, which we are definitely not used to, so getting some games in before hand is a must. We built our armies and had a practice game last night.

The combatants were, Martin’s menoth against my Trolls:

Menoth List

The High Reclaimer
Revenger
Exemplar Seneshal
Exemplars Errant
Idrian Skirmishers
Zealots
Vengers


Trollblood List

Borka Kegslayer
Earthbore Dire Troll
Dire Troll Mauler
Trollkin Champions
Fell Caller
Totem Hunter

We played a standard 6 round game where you could win by holding the hill in the middle for two rounds. Holding the hill seemed to be only an afterthought, as we both went straight for each other in an attempt to grind ourselves into foul smelling paste.

Observations
My only mistake was misusing my Dire Troll Mauler, which got it killed. Martin’s mistake was relying on Zealots to do something useful.

I charged my Dire Troll at the Zealots and managed to contact and kill a couple of them. Unfortunately, the Idrian skirmishers poured down off the secondary (read: unimportant) hill, surrounded the poor dumb beast and over the course of a couple of rounds, killed it. Of course he did eat a couple of them, but because he was frenzying, I couldn’t control him to choose sensible targets.

Zealots can be very effective in the right circumstances. Unfortunately, even in the right circumstances they can still prove a little unreliable. Martin always chooses Zealots (I used to as well) and his fortunes with them (against me) have not been so favourable. Last night he managed to get them into range twice to throw fire bombs and the only models they managed to kill were themselves.

Conclusion
Overall, luck was with me and definitely made the difference as both Borka and the Totem Hunter survived rounds where with average rolls (Martin's damage rolls) they would have been toast. I don’t want to put my victory all down to luck though, as we both played a pretty good tactical game, which was decided on victory points because the round limit was up. I think I am going to use this army in the tournament, because it showed it could do well against a predominantly infantry army; I just need to make sure I use both my Trolls to full effect.

Monday 13 October 2008

The alley of confusion bullets

I thought it would be interesting to document some of those old memorable moments that mark certain games and campaigns as special and fun. These anecdotes will often be something a character has said or done to turn a regular situation on its head. However I won’t just limit it to in game content. The player in the starring role instead of their character will be a fairly common choice for this segment.

To kick this off I am going to relieve a moment from a science fiction game that I ran about ten years ago. I will change the names to protect innocent characters and their not so innocent players, but if you are reading this and were involved, drop me a line if you would like me to include real names. Anyway, I call this first one:

The alley of confusion bullets

The characters had chased some crooks out of a secret high tech manufacturing plant and were really desperate to catch them. As is the want all groups of gamers, they split up at every possible opportunity and so Darren found himself alone in a section of the city that was narrow winding alleyways and was all of a sudden confronted by the villains, that had decided to stop running and take on the lone man that was chasing them.

Guns were drawn and Darren had the edge. He shot one of the villains through the chest and then dived behind a dumpster for cover. The other characters could hear the gun fight, but they were some distance away and due to the echoing of the tight spaces, couldn’t pin point where the skirmish was taking place.

Darren was doing quite well on his own though, so he ignored the calls of his comrades over the radio, knowing full well that he could handle five punks with guns. Popping out from cover, he brought down another and ducked back in time to avoid a hail of return fire.

Once more Darren emerges to shoot one of the villains, but this time with the unexpected addition of a bullet to his own collar bone. Down he goes. He is bleeding out and he knows it, so he decides that now would be the time to call for assistance. Grabbing the radio as consciousness is slipping away, he says to his teammates,

“I’m being shot at and I don’t know where I am!”

Much laughing ensued.

I would be interested to hear other people’s memorable moments.

Future moments i intend to write up include (but are not limited to):

Flame on swamp thang
Can I just shut up
I got us a load of dirt instead of those computers
The hand of destiny
Cheezel and the chandelier of shards

Sunday 12 October 2008

Super hero mansion

Without leaving the confines of our not so secret headquarters, we managed to play a whole session of Mutants and Masterminds (last night) and just develop our characters. At first I felt like we hadn't accomplished anything, but upon reflection and some sleep, I think we may have helped solidify our character's relationships with one another.

The big surprise was my secret coming out. The other characters discovered that I am actually a robot and not a person piloting a robotic suit. My other big secret (where my consciousness comes from) is probably going to be exposed in the next session. Oh what fun.

Tuesday 7 October 2008

Total defeat

Martin and I played another small game of Flames of War to complete our rules familiarity process. It was a success in that we are now comfortable with the rules after three small games, but from my point of view (as a player) there was only failure. In exactly 20 years of wargaming, I have never come out of a game not having inflicted a single casualty on the enemy; until tonight.

To be fair to myself, the scenario made it tough for me, as I was the attacker and I really didn't have a mobile enough force. Had I been the defender, I probably would have done a lot better.

So here is the only game play shot I am going to post. It shows my Grenadiers moving toward the British line in front of the houses. I needed to get past the houses to take the fuel and/or ammunition dump that lay just to the North.

IMG_8377

I failed miserably.

After the game, we set up the terrain again so that we could show off our newly painted miniatures. Here is a shot from each side:

Martin's commandos
IMG_8381

My Grenadiers
IMG_8379

Having suffered the worst defeat ever, I came away wanting to play again even more. I really enjoyed the game and playing against Martin means that losing is not a problem; there are players out there that I really don't enjoy losing to.