Back Again

Tuesday and the club has got back together after the Christmas recess. Not too many turned up and only a few games in play.

Martin was once again trialling a battle for his scenario book for Cheer Boys, Cheer! and, like last time, was short of terrain as the club owns no wide hills, barring a couple of foam ones, for making valleys.

The Battle of Morton's Ford, 6th Feb, 1864

The Rebels were starting to get a bit worried as the Blues crossed the river unopposed except for the cannons which themselves were coming under counter-battery fire from the Union positions on the far side of the river. This was pretty ineffectual due to the fortifications.

From Furness Wargamers

Ancient Antics

Finally got roped into doing DBA for the first time in a mini tournament with six players. A round-robin with each game was nominally twenty minutes each. Armies were randomly allocated from Paul's central collection of plastics and I ended up with the Sea People, who were apparently half Viking - half Village People.

From Furness Wargamers

Recon in force

Had nothing better to do on Saturday so went on a trip to the land of Tykes and journeyed to Recon, one of the smaller conventions, and organised by the Wakefield and Ossett Wargamers, being held in (or rather outside) Pudsey. Went the scenic route via Settle before hitting the nightmare that is Bradford traffic system.

From Conventions

Magic Formula

At a loss for games on Tuesday, didn't fancy a small DBA tournament, set in what looked like Egypt judging by the pyramids and sphinxes, and the Uncharted Seas game was already full.

Didn't bring my usual selection of games and unfortunately everybody thought likewise so we were sort of stuck at what to do. Craig normally brings something along but as he hadn't currently arrived, it was decided to do the 'summon Craig ritual' and send me out to get my games. True to form the ritual worked and by the time I got back Craig was there setting up a game of Formula D (De as was).

Use to play this game enough in the past (with Jon, Ray and Ian) to actually have full World Champions and running two cars each, but this is the first time playing the new version.

The new version has flashier components than the old, with peg based dashboard rather than the paper and pencil pads formally used. The cars look smaller than previous and are one piece but coloured rather than the old with their clip on wings which you could mix and match.

The race was a two lapper on a proper racing circuit (Hockenheim) rather than one of the gimmicky street racing ones included in the new version. Six players racing one car each.

Didn't get off to a good start, taking two collision damages in the first third of the track and leaving most of my tires on the tarmac.

Everybody bar Craig headed into the pits at the end of lap one, and being within a turn of each other a large tailback ensured. Not sure that the pit rules were done properly as I didn't think you could stall in the pits; either fast or slow stop and out in Fourth gear (or lower) regardless of the pit roll. Another new thing in this version is the limited ability to fix two damage to other areas of the car as well as renewing the tyres.

More carnage going around the second lap but not from my car. Jim's Tractor ended up falling apart half way round the second lap with Keir's soon to follow. Did manage to use up all my tires and brakes to just survive the last corner, and putting myself one step ahead of my rival for third\fourth place. Thought I had blown it at the end as I rolled one short of the finishing line, but thankfully the guy behind was just as bad at rolling the die as I was and came up two short of the line. So staggered across the finish line in third.
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What (Space) Armada?

A Steam-punk\Victorian Sci Fi mini campaign set out in the asteroid fields, which apparently are filled with independent Cornish miners and the fleets of the Great (and not so great) Powers which are trying to take over.

Matt - Italians (Red Pins)
Tel - Germans (Black)
Paul - British (Light Green)
Dave M - French (Blue)
X - Spanish (Yellow)

From Furness Wargamers in Space

Asteroids are spread out at roughly two to three hex intervals, making a merchant\supply ship with your fleet essential if you need to hop quickly from one to another.

Builds are done at the end of each turn and use a mechanism similar to that used in a Ancient Greek naval campaign done long ago at the club. The better ships are harder to build (12+ for a Battleship) but get easier after each turn of failure. (plus one per turn)

Poor Spain nearly got knocked out early, becoming the victim of the first battle, and ended up with all their asteroids captured by others leaving only 'a ragtag fugitive fleet' of destroyers and merchants floating in neutral space. Maybe an idea for a TV series there. Unfortunately this gave the Italians a number of captured ships, including a battleship.



Everybody else is slowly heading towards the victory condition of 6 out of the available 19 asteroids. Matt moves his fleet into the same hex that I've just captured in an attempt to hold him off, having to give up one of my hexes to move there. It's an even fight, both of us having a Battleship, Fortified Cruiser and a Merchant, but some bad rolls for damage control doomed my ships after the first exchange of fire.



So the Italians end as the dominant force in the asteroid belt, which might make up for getting kicked around in Africa.
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Armoured Carts

Set somewhere in Poland sometime in 1915 during a period of fluid warfare. Played with Warhammer Great War, the Russian list is unofficial as the supplement covering this area is a long time delayed.

Both Germans and Russians are given the same objective, take control of the ruins in the centre of the table. Shell-holes and barbwire was set up by the players without knowing entry points.

From Furness Wargamers

The Germans got a captured Russo-Balt Armoured Car to play with, scratch built by Dave M; again no official rules for this type so guesswork involved. Not as good as the ones the British get to play with. Reinforcements are available based on die rolls at the start of each turn.

The AC rushes, or more like tootles at 9" rough and 12" on-road, down the road towards the enemy in an attempt to slow their advance, and maybe give the German troops enough time to get into position.



The Russian Infantry ignore the Car, not even attempting to swarm it. Instead they set up their HMG and after a couple of bursts destroy its forward MG and then the Car itself.

Questions were asked over the mobility of the HMGs as according to the rules, once setup they should remain in place for the rest of the game. This would of left the Russian MG blind to the rest of the battlefield so implemented a couple of turns delay and then allow it to move again.

Assault on the main ruins. Both forces arrived in consecutive turns but it was the Germans who launched an assault, should Russians have got cover save as both forces were internal to the building. Germans soon become out numbered as extra Russian troops pour in.



Forces in woods not particularly well protected as both platoons resident there get chipped away.

Russian Mobile reinforcements turn up. Three Armoured Cars, Two Russo-Balts making their way past the wreck of the German vehicle, and a Putilov-Garford reversing to try and get it's rear-mounted gun into action.



Additional German troops finally turn up and advance towards the centre, managing to wipe out a platoon of Russians who were pursuing the survivors from the big melee.



Unfortunately this wasn't enough to take the victory away from the Russians, who dominated the centre.

Things might of played quicker if the forces were entering on the long edges rather than having to move across the table. It took a number of turns till any action happened as the forces tried and close on each other.

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Prior to the battle there was reports of a strange unidentified object floating overhead. Apparently its green skinned inhabitants had got confused over the date of the big space battle, turning up a week late or centuries early depending on your time-frame.


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Moonbase Alfalfa

Its big battle time as the heavyweights from various fleets move into the contested region, which is also currently being visited by a certain free-roaming moonbase.

From Furness Wargamers in Space

Once again it's 'Good guys' vs 'Bad Guys'. All ships and terrain from Geordie Paul (not LaForge). Best of three capture, two planets and the base in between being the objectives.

The 'good guys' reach the moonbase first and enlist their help against the oncoming hoard. Not that it did the base much good as waves of Cylon Raiders destroyed nearly all the Eagles and Hawks newly launched from the base.

Even worse, The Borg Cube decides to do a bit of grazing, assimilating part of the base and repairing itself in the process. This damage was caused by the wave gun from the blue ship sent to protect the base.



The Blue Battlestar and friends suddenly work out that the Klingon is almost impossible to hit due to it's speed boost from its elite crew. Even combining weapons only gives a slight chance of doing light damage.



Both available versions of the Enterprise head to engage the Cube after easily dealing with the two Shadow craft.

The Wave Gun gets lucky and recharges straight off (a nice 6 on the die) and lines up for another closer ranged shot at the giant Oxo cube.



At this point the game was called, with the general agreement that the bad guys were going to lose, as the combined power of the ships present should take out the already chipped Borg, leaving only the Klingons and Cylons contesting a single planet.
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Crete Assault

More fighting for the defense of Crete. Regular setup of defending British\Empire troops verses German Paras and some regulars. This time a bridge assault with the Germans coming from both directions to try and dislodge the Brits in the Gorge so that they could link up. 20mm figures and terrain supplied by Matt. Rules are 40K based but with limited weapon range and ammo.

And for a change there was armour involved as 2 Panzer mk.III's try and take on a Matilda, a Light Tank, and some AT weapons.

From Furness Wargamers

As can be seen the centre section of the battle field was terrain heavy.

As I was in charge of the paras, trying to link up with the main force, I decided to place all my troops on one side of my deployment zone away from the open terrain. They hugged the terrain like mad when advancing with only my snipers and MGs popping up to shoot, and my observers sending in some mortar fire. Only really had one effective mortar (the sole medium) and spent most of the time trying to move my remaining light mortars forward.

A long range duel broke out between an MG34 and a Bofors gun. The Bofors eventually won but with it's crew badly depleted and was then taken out by fire from a couple of Anti-Tank Rifles.



The tank battle was a bit of a stand off as they traded shells at close range but with little penetration. The allied anti-tank gun never got a chance to fire as the panzer's refused to come directly down the road. One Panzer got a bit shaken for a while but no vehicles were put out of operation on either side.

Eventually the paras and regulars were able to wave at each other across from the high ground to the rear of the farm house, in which my sniper and observers were hidding, with a good view of the bridge.

The game ended at this point as the allies agreed to withdraw due to their low ammo situation. The Matilda was almost out of ammo, two rounds left, and with the German Infantry closing into charge range holding the bridge looked pretty unlikely.
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Pumpkin Head

It's Halloween in the zombie infested city of Malton. And that normally means that the great creator Kevan the programmer has laid on something special.

This year it was Pumpkins. By going to the various parks in Malton, and dodging zombies along the way, a survivor can pick a pumpkin and carve it.

So my brave character took the risk and ducked out of the hospital in Dartside to wander to a park and pick pumpkins. Turns out that though extremely heavy they don't affect you encumbrance; I picked three and ended up at 150%+ encumbrance, which lead to a slight problem when I tried to carve the things.

Apparently a hand axe is no good for this, and with no knife there is not much I could do. There was no point in searching for one as I'm already over encumbered, so I decided to get creative and started attacking people with pumpkins! Turns out they're not one shot weapons and doesn't turn people or zombies into pumpkin heads.

Malton itself has gone a bit quite. It's increasingly difficult for zeds to go on city wide rampages and they are now restricted to certain districts and small travelling hordes. Nothing as fearsome as The Dead invasion.

I run both a survivor (part of Tikhon Medical) and undead (mainly acting feral and hovering around Grigg Heights) characters to keep some form of balance, but having both maxed out in levels things have descended into familiar routines.
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Battle for the Planets

An even larger battle then last week, as the combined collection of spacecraft from Paul's and Martin's fleet collide in combat.

From Furness Wargamers in Space

Although the ships on both sides were numerous they are not very good, in fact they pretty much expendable dregs. The better ships from their respective fleets are due to turn up in a couple of weeks for an even bigger battle.

Planets are there to be captured, whoever captures the most of the three wins.

The combined Good Guy\Bad Guy fleets include a varied mix of races, and lead to some match ups that would never happen on TV or at the Movies.

Inner System


Middle Planet


Outer System


In the end the bad guys won, two planets to one; the inner planet being the only good guy capture.
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Final Front Ear

A bit of a Sci-Fi theme on Tuesday as two separate space games were being played out. Graeme, Colin and Co were trying out the Star Trek game Federation Commander by Amarillo Design Bureau. Their family of ST derived games are based upon the original series and has branched into a different universe history, normally refered to as the 'Star Fleet Universe' than the follow-on series\films due to IP rights\limitations.

From Furness Wargamers in Space

A simple get to know the rules style encounter saw the Federation come off worse as Klingon drones made and exploited large holes in the shields.

Paul was organising a five player (later to be six) game of DTS, using his original rules which differ quite a bit from Martin's version. The main one being that the whole ruleset fits on 1/3 of an A4 sheet of paper!



As can be seen there's quite a bit of difference in fleet sizes between the games, despite Federation Commander being a fast-play variant of the legendary Star Fleet Battles. The more cinematic DTS has ships flying (and being destroyed) everywhere.

Some of the ships in DTS look remarkably familiar to those in FC! Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent. (or at least one letter been changed anyway.)

A big multi-player bash is planned for the near future.
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Bound Again

Another go at playing Runebound and this time it was a success! (nearly)

From Furness Wargamers

Poor old Mad Carthos didn't get off to a very good start, having to spend his gold on healing when he eventually got to town. Decided it was best to get some distance between poor Carthos and the rest so headed north and over the mountains to a nice secluded zone, where he started to fare a little better. When he finally got some more gold he had a choice when he visited town; heal his three wounds or buy something explosive. The Bomb won.

The game did drag out a bit with there being the full complement of six players. There's only so much interest you can take in someone elses fights, and the distance between players can even make following the combat that much more difficult. It really is a better game when only four are playing.



Eventually we ran out of time and as a last gasp effort I moved onto a red counter and, despite being underpowered, took on a bad guy just for the hell of it. Didn't do too bad managing to get them down to two health remaining before getting put down.

So we never managed to finish it, think at least a couple of people were in with a shout of knocking out one of the Red level beasties, especially Colin with his before combat hits and cannon fodder followers.
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Runebounder

Attempted to play 2nd edition Runebound which Graeme had brought in. Played the 1st edition a couple of times a few years back with Ian and Co., but long enough ago to make the rules fuzzy, and the new edition changes were unknown to me.

Cock-Up with the dice as we were all rolling only the one; it was only after checking the combat example that it became apparent that both 10 sided dice should be used. In the original edition it was a single 20 sided die, other changes are on the FFG forum.

Have never played it with six players before and it did seem to slow down a bit as you wait for your turn.

Everyone sort of agreed to try it again next week, hopefully using the right rules this time.
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Uncharted Jabberwocky

A big multi-player game of Uncharted Seas on Saturday, hosted by Jabberwocky Games to celebrate 'International Talk Like A Pirate Day'. Starter fleets only due to the large number of first time players. A bit chaotic trying to keep things in sync as people wandered around and other spectators asking questions, plus a noisy kid shouting out the same things repeatedly as if you couldn't hear him the first time (why didn't the pirates keelhaul him?)

My elves were put on the left flank and given the job of taking out a Bone Griffon fleet. First time I've played against them but I had already heard about their perceived deadliness at range. Also no Star Cards in this game which knocked back the elves due to the negation of their magical trickery.

The sides line up
with the 'bad guys' winning initiative and moving first.

From Uncharted Seas

from bottom to top...

'Good Guys' (right)
Thaniras Elves
Iron Dwarfs
Thaniras Elves
Bone Griffon
Dragon Lords

vs

'Bad Guys' (left)
Bone Griffon
Shroud Mages
Shroud Mages
Bone Griffon
Imperials

Fortunately all the troublesome Orcas were placed on one side with an island separating them from the rest of the fleet, so I had a pretty much unobstructed path towards the cruisers and the rock chucking battleship with my own cruisers and frigates, and the bonus of a couple of isles to shield my battleship as it moved forward.

Split the Kipper
risking going out of control radius.


Didn't have to worry to much about being out of command as the lead cruiser soon slide beneath the waves. The other cruiser was soon decrewed as well.

After a disastorous ramming attempt by three Orcas, that resulted in them getting wiped out, I finally managed to get my battleship in close range of his. Since it was an all trebuchet layout I had only the plague gun to worry about. Even with some crew damage my ship was still able to put 14 dice of shots into the undeads ship. The opposing player was a bit disappointed that he didn't get both the trebuchet and broadside dice to play with, if he had known I don't think he would of been so keen to bring it so far forward. I don't recomend the Bones for a first time player, too many extras to take into account, best to get the basics nailed first.

Just before the rake
speed bump frigate to stop his turn.


Some how the opponent managed to get his battleship stuck against the edge of the world and my frigate effectively locked it in place for a turn. With his one remaining cruiser sailing away and being harassed by my other remaining frigates, and his other squadron of Orcas being dealt with by the neighbouring dwarfs there was no rescue for the big ship.

And with time running out and people having to run off, the game was declared as a narrow good guy victory, primarily due to the taking out two of the bad guys battleships in the final turn.
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Bad case of the DTS

I didn't feel too hot so decided to sit out and watch a few games instead.

Martin had brought along his spaceships and was organising a game of his still unreleased DTS rules. These rules have been in various stages of development for over 5 years now and are based on an original idea by Paul.

From Furness Wargamers

Unfortunately he had forgotten the fleet record sheets so had to reuse some existing ones. There is actually over 20+ fleets to select from, but given that most are derived from well known TV shows it's doubtful that anything would get published.



A close game with Colin just being shaded out. A collision between his own ships might of been a deciding factor. The players were suitably impressed that they requested further games.

Also at the club a GQ3 WW1 game was under way with a battle between the German and Russian navies in the Baltic. A couple of games of 40K and a single WH fantasy game, plus the usual role-players and a table of Card gamers.
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Tanks for Nothing

A modern day home-brew conversion of the original G.E.V. from Steve Jackson Games.

India vs Pakistan in the 60's. Got to command some Shermans for the Pakistanis, which surprisingly was not the worse armour in the battle.

From Furness Wargamers

Given the job of holding the left flank, the idea was to move the troops in to defend the village (where they get x2 defense) and screen the shermans behind the village and hope the enemy got close enough for us to do damage (we weren't told that the tanks also benefited from the built-up areas defensive bonus else our deployment would be quite different.)



With no overwatch available and with weaponry not affected by range the numerically superior and better equipped Indians could standoff and blast at a distance. All I could do was replenish the depleted forces in the buildings.

The other, right, flank collapsed early as the armour went head to head in fairly open ground. Losing our Forward Observers early didn't help much to stop the enemy advance.

We just managed to hold on till our reinforcement's arrived, but they soon disappeared into a cloud of smoke and wreckage. Not a very balanced scenario.
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Water Wings

A quick visit to Jabberwocky Games to check if they had the Thaniras War Dragon available for Uncharted Seas. Managed to purchase one; now I've got to work out how to paint it. Might co-ordinate it with the rest of my unconventional purple coloured elven fleet.

A beginners competition involving just starter sets and no cards is due to be held in the store in a couple of weeks. (from mid-day on Saturday 19th?)

Phil was involved in a big Flames of War eastern front game taking up the entire main table. Looks like the shelves are slowly filling up with stock as more new lines come in.
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Rule Britannia (and Hibernia)

Another old post.

March 2006

Got delivery of the new edition of Britannia and boy are the components sweet. Well worth the £25, full colour map and counters, and nicely layout rule book with pictorial examples. Overall a big improvement on the Gibsons Games presentation. Minor quibbles about it include the lack of tribe names on counters (each has its own unique picture\emblem on) and the fact that the inlay tray in the box seems to be from another game! there just isn't enough room for the components once they been punched out.

Also this week: The ongoing Irish campaign came to a conclusion at the Wargames, with Tel O'Malley becoming High King of All-Ireland (barring the bits the Normans have). After many skirmishes between the rival claimants it came down to a meeting of all nobles to decide democratically upon the king. This didn't work as planned as the ensuring stalemate descended into an all out fight. O'Malley becoming King due to the principle of last man standing.
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Minas Tirith

Another old post transfered over.

January 2006

From Tuesday:

So how do you defeat a charge by the Rohirrim like what happens in the movie? Simple, line up your Trolls and Mumakils and watch the horses bounce off. You can then kill any Hobbits and cross-dressers at your leisure.

This game played was based upon an old SPI game from the 70s. An almost direct conversion, but instead of counters we used minis on an hex based table top. The actual walls of the city actually looked quite neat being made from components of a block stacking game based upon the Leaning Tower of Pisa!

We lost in the end, apparently even in the original game it was almost impossible for the bad guys to win. maybe it was because I spent to much effort in trying to kill off the main characters. Didn't think much of the map layout either, with no outer ramparts to the Pellenor, and hills scattered around the place.

On thing I might of done is convinced then to do 'The Battle of Un-Numbered Tears' which appeared in a wargame mag over 10 (nearer 20!) years ago.
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The Return of Gareth

An old post from my first attempt at a blog on MSN Spaces - stopped using it as was a bit too public with notification of posts sent to work colleagues.

28 September 2005

A right blast from the past last night as not only did I end up playing Britannia for the first time in nearly a decade but the Britannia man himself, Gareth, made an appearance later on.

Might as well of not bothered with the game after turn 4 as the Romans decided to attack the Welsh (Me) straight off, with the result that Hadrian's Wall ended up being built in Cheshire and basically gifting the game to Red. Blue might of stood a chance but was being played by a first timer\child who liked attacking anything. The game ended at turn 13 due to time, but my last group (the Danes) were basically played out even before the Magnificent Sven turns up ('We came, we saw, we went home')

Told Gareth about the Sunday Board Games, but he's mostly busy that day.

Also of note :- There's a new Edition of Britannia coming out late 2005\early 2006 by the original designer. The original versions of the games (two separate set of rules by Gibsons and Avalon Hill) had their rules messed around with by in-house people (who obviously knew better than the PhD holding designer!) so the new edition should be a little bit simpler\slicker.

http://pulsiphergames.com/britannia/index.htm
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Desert Prats

Another go at Pauls quick play WW2 tank game based upon Warhammers armour combat resolution. Once again set in the early North Africa theatre.

A mini campaign but different from last time in that it used a non-symmetrical hex map rather than a symmetrical nodal one. Two forces venturing down a valley to try and capture their opponents villages\command posts. Movement was hidden but scouting neighbouring hexs with armoured cars and aircraft was allowed. Unless you were willing to play the encounter out the only things your scouts could see were clouds of dust.

From Furness Wargamers

The allies held line deciding to wait for the Axis to advance. A minor skirmish occurred between scouts but after that it was a wait for a few turns until the first major clash occurred.

As the units approached each other and the through the dust it soon becomes clear that the allies have the upper hand on the ground. The big fear of Mk III Panzers were unfounded. What we didn't take into account was the air support.

The Italian airforce prove to be decisive, the bomber taking out both main tanks. This completely swung the encounter to the Axis especially as the fighter returned for a second strafe damaging the remaining armoured car.



After this the campaign came to a close. It turned out that the Axis force was the only one assaulting and the main rump was defending their command post. So It would of been possible for the Allies to stop it penertrating any closer to our own CP. Despite the recent loss the campaign was called as a draw.
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First Fleet Fight

First Uncharted Seas battle for my almost completed Thaniras Elves. Verses Colin and some of Graeme's Orcs (Colin leaving his beloved Dwarfs at home.). Two other US games were also taking place.

Slightly smaller than the recommended 4ft by 4ft table size with an Island in the middle of the playing area to split things up. At least the Elves had the weather-gauge in their favour at the start with the wind directly behind them.

The massed squadron of six orc frigates was an awesome sight as the wall slowly advanced forward, devastating an elven frigate squadron with their linked forward fire. That was until they got frozen in place by the Elves magic and were encircled and picked off in place by the Cobra Cruisers. Did manage to get the cruisers and a couple of frigates behind the Orcs and out of their devastating forward fire zone, but the damage had already been done to the Elven Phoenix Battleship which ended up rammed and taken prize.

The Orcs started to get frustrated with the Elves magic which they were not able to counter effectively. The carefully lined up shot against a cruiser by the Orc battleship went to waste as the ship was magically transposed out of shot.

The Orcs did mange to have effective damage control as they repaired their Battleship from five damage down to one. This proved to be decisive as at the end of the game their was only the battleship and one elven frigate left on the table hiding behind the island. Even sailing into the wing the frigate is faster than the battleship so was able to escape eventually.
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Martians! Mobsters! Munchkins!

Finally got my copy of Martians!!! off Phil. Contents very similar to Zombies!!! Don't think I need to punch and de-chad the tokens as can use my existing ones. As per usual with Twilight Creations one of the first things to do is check up online for FAQs and rules clarifications. Unlike previous games and expansion the rules weren't posted up on the TC site or BoardGameGeek in advance.

Started the night with a game of Family Business. A full compliment of six players lead to a lot of shutting out of participants as interrupt cards sent the turns back across the table. It not for the fact that it's a fun game then this could really annoy people but it was taken in the right spirit. The game could do with some more cards in the deck as we managed to get through the deck at least twice, might even of been three times. 'St Valentine's Day' was used to good effect twice to wipe out a number of mobsters.

Strangest quote in the game must go to the player of the Capone Gang after inspecting his mob, 'I don't recognise any of these names!', 'not even Al?'

True to life Dillinger had a couple of close escapes from the Hit List before becoming the final casualty of the game; leaving Jim with the sole surviving non-entity mobster and the win.

This was followed by a couple of games of Munchkin, the original version with both 'Unnatural Axe' and 'Need for Steed' expansions. Both were over quite quickly as, with more people than normal playing, there seemed to be more assistance given. Managed to win the first game after a string of volunteers helped me kill a high treasure monster. I gave up the loot but got two levels to jump to ten and the win. Not so good in the second game, as a joint victory happened when an elf assisted a combat with both participants at level 9, soon to be 10.
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Small Bites!

Munchkin Bites! one of the many alternate versions of the original game. Compatible with the original and the other expansions. A three player game everybody reaching level 9 prior to the winning kill.

Despite the close finish I didn't enjoy playing it as much as the original. The card balance didn't seem right with a lot of cards being passed between players due to charity and one card in particular that effectively allowed hoarding if you passed the charity cards to the right person. Also the cartoons and puns on the cards just didn't seem as good.

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Elsewhere Jim was refereeing a game of Uncharted Seas with an home-brewed convoy scenario with his own scratch built dwarven ships to supplement Graeme's fleets. Was a large game and took up three tables with five players, 2 Dragon Lords, 3 Dwarfs.

Details of the scenario are available on the Spartan Games Forum.
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Swede Three Kings

Back at the Hall this week and a good turnout despite of the 'summer' weather i.e. Throwing it down.

A good mixture of games going on. 40K Planetstrike, Zombies!!! (with expansions), Uncharted Seas, AK-47 and a game of Svea Rike which I took part in.

A three player game, with two experienced players and a newbie, so of course the newbie won with a massive land-grab, normally a bad idea given the number of cards and events that can do over regions. I came second with a large pile of gold thanks to some excessive merchant activity in the final stage of the game. My only chance was if 'War with Russia' happened so as to remove his Finnish provinces, but it never did. Martin trailed in last.
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SA-80 Monarchy

No club on Tuesday due to a meeting in the Hall, so a small gathering at Matt's to try and finalise the rules which appear to of morphed into 'SA-80 Monarchy'. Unlike the club drinks and cake was provided; Thanks Matt.

The unit list has expanded a lot but still no stats for Routemasters, so how militia are suppose to get around I don't know.

Played an unconventional (for AK-47) 2 vs 2 game with equal point forces on an over-sized table. Lots of tanks and mobile units on the board.

Much querying over the effectiveness of artillery as it did seem powerful as it could standoff and blow the toughest tank apart with some ease. We didn't play the official encounter rule so it was more like a conventional wargame with forces and reinforcements approaching from two sides, rather than AKs more usual popping up at a chosen corner or side. This gave the guns a lot more security than what they would normally have.

Despite this the guns are being tuned down a bit.
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AK-47 Monarchy

People were thin on the ground this week with only three tables up and running.

Fought a couple of battles as a group of oldtime gamers may have finally found a use for their old 70s\80s Cold War stuff. A proposed campaign on a later day Britsh Civil War (they claim that they've never heard of the 30's based campaign 'A Very British Civil War' but the ideas are very close).

So I got drafted to do a couple of trial games using the original AK-47 rules. First game I was the defender, second the attacker. In both cases the defenders position was nerfed by poor setup roles, weak armoured car forces trying to fend off tanks. Both ended in the attacker holding two out of three objectives (40pts vs 20pts) but unable to do the clean sweep as in both instances the clock ticked down rapidly.

Ideas for tweaks are already being collected to shift the setting into more in line with 1st world conflict rather than 3rd world bush wars.
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Jabberwocky Jappers

Phil's games store has finally opened in Ulverston. Jabberwocky Games is no longer just a website, but is the first dedicated games shop in Furness since System Games in the early 90's. A bit of a brave thing to do given the economic climate.



Missed the grand opening and apparently a good job too as supposedly the store was packed. Things were still a bit sweaty when I turned up at 12.15.

The usual suspects turned up as can be seen above with Colin guarding the entrance. For some reason all the old dears walking past kept chatting to him asking him what's it all about.

They even had Morris Dancers and Folk Singers laid on, but I think that might of been something to do with the local Folk Festival.



Finally broke and went on a bit of a spree. Bought the Uncharted Seas revised rulebook and Thaniras Elves starter fleet (with free blister pack), and the Race for the Galaxy boardgame. Also got an opening day discount and a free pair of Jabberwocky dice!

The Uncharted Sea stuff was selling quick and along with Flames of War probably made up the majority of sales. Seas definitely seems to be the in thing at the moment. Graeme was demoing it at the back of the room in sauna like conditions.



Somehow, despite a poor fantasy round, the FW team managed to win the Sci-fi\Fantasy quiz gaining Jabberwocky tee-shirts in the process. I was surprised that I was the only one on the team who knew who Thulsa Doom was. And also the only one to recognise the funky first series theme tune for Space1999. What is this and other worlds coming to.
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Not Much

A number of regulars missing so only played a few card games this week. Was a bit of a strange start as the hall was initially taken with a children's party going on.

Played Family Business, the gangster card game that I've recently purchased (but had played a lot at the old Furness Warlords club) and also Chrononauts form Loony Labs and in true Loony style almost totally random game play.
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Nurgle Wipeout

Another Campoon map turn, and with Martin absent the Nurgles headed for a wipeout as all three of his 'friendly' neighbours ploughed into them.

Mark has withdrawn to his island in preparation of him being missing the next few weeks. His position on the mainland was pretty much untenable now.

Paul seems to think he in a good position but his capital is vulnerable to a quick march from Matt. Even I could get there unmolested but I don't have the strength to take it so I have been harrasing Dave's borderland from my new base. If Matt goes into Paul's territory I'll might go raiding there instead.
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Martian Malarky

Those pesky martians are at it again, as we play another test of Paul's combat system, this time on a larger board.

An initial Martian landing force verses some Armoured Cars and fixed gun positions.

From Furness Wargamers

A strange object lands in the green and pleasant land.



Mobile (for turn of the 20th Century) troops are sent to investigate as artillery digs in 'a safe distance' away. The object opens up and disgorges a number of strange machines.



The cars pay an heavy price as the Martians destroy everything in their path (including hostile trees and churches). But what they don't spot till too late is a sneaky detachment of cars circling behind.

The sneak attack pays off and the Martian forward base is destroyed even as the cars turn to molten slag.



With their Command Post destroyed the Martians could not win, but they could earn a draw by destroying the British command post which was protected by the artillery. This the Martians did quite easily using their superior weaponry.
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Dutch Phalanx

Phalanx, the North-west premier wargames show was once again held at St Helens. Not too bad a drive, wet in places but still made good time. Did have to drive around St Helens a bit to try and find the route to the Centre. It didn't seem as well signposted as past years.

Seemed a bit quieter than last time, with less traders and more room for the demo games. There also didn't seem to be any boardgame traders other than the second-handers. The bring and Buy was also a bit thin of items, only a couple of things perking my interest.

From Phalanx

Martin was demoing his Anglo-Dutch Naval rules, doing his largest battle to date (Goodwin Sands\Dover) and aided and abetted by Graeme, who had managed to purchase some more Uncharted Seas stuff, despite its scarcity, in his continuing quest to defeat Colin's Dwarf Fleet.



A couple of demos caught my eye, a Sudan fight, and a very impressive Dresden demo.



Didn't purchase much myself, just some 15mm Abyssinian Riflemen from Irregular Miniatures to help bulk up my army and a copy of the latest Battlegames magazine. So not as eventful as past years but still a decent way to waste a few hours on a Saturday.
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Martian Meltdown

No Campoon this week so just a quick play test of some ancient rules downloaded by Paul. These are quite complex by Paul's usual standards as they spanned over two A4 pages rather than the one sided rules he's more familiar with!

An hex based system with simple army lists and a quick play mentality, the idea behind the test being to find a set that was simple and quick for use in future campaigns, the lack of expertise in Warhammer Ancients currently being a bit of a dampener in the current Campoon, as people avoid combat or use the table resolution mechanism instead.

From Furness Wargamers

A simple battle, Romans vs Barbarians\Misunderstood Culture. Four players taking half a sides forces each. Matt the Romanophile and Dave S vs Me and Paul the Geordie Barbarian.



With only one set of rules it was mostly taught verbal, and a few mistakes were made, but they were a quick set to pick up and everyone seemed to enjoy it.



The Romans had stronger forces than the Baa-Baas and despite manging to hold my flank we were eventually overwhelmed.

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After that it was time to test some more rules, this time Paul's home brewed 'War of the Worlds' campaign rules. Based on one of the recent movies (not the Tom Cruise bore fest.) it has more of a World War One feel about it - War Machines vs Tanks and Armoured Cars.



Very much a game in development, the campaign element involves transport between small battle boards and the protection of factory elements as both sides try to gain the upper hand. The Martians by building more war machines, the Brits by mass producing tanks and guns.

Only four battle maps involved this time but I believed that its planned for a much larger campaign map.



The Brits won the first battle vs Martian scouts, mostly due to the help from the Navy, but in the second battle the tables were turned as proper War Machines started coming off the production lines.



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