Eldritch World Tour

Nothing to do with the Sisters of Mercy, but my first solitaire play through of one of my Xmas presents, a copy of Fantasy Flight Games Eldritch Horror, a sequel\companion game to the original Arkham Horror. Rather than being isolated to activity in the Miskatonic Valley this game is a globe trotting affair, much like the classic Call of Cthulhu RPG campaigns such as Shadows of Yog-Sothoth and Horror on the Orient Express.

Rulebook is quite hefty at 16 pages long and with another 16 page Reference Guide to go with it. Big board and numerous card decks and tokens all in the high quality that you would expect.

 

Playing in one player mode, with one character in play (I later read that solitaire games are 'more dynamic' with two characters). I choose Leo Anderson, the Explorer, who starts of in Buenos Aires and choose Azathoth as the opposing Ancient One, as the rule recommend that entity for beginning players.

Ring Impetus

A game of Impetus, heavily modified for a fantasy setting - Middle Earth. A force of Orcs and Haradrim, with their pet Giant Oliphant in tow, take on a force of Elves, Rohir and Knights of Dol Amroth.

The elves face off against the Orcs, as the Cavalry get the task of dealing with the Easterlings and the Mumakil.

Fiasco

Spent Sunday down in Leeds at the Fiasco show, organised by Leeds Wargamers. Held at the New Dock Hall opposite the Royal Armouries.

A nice drive down despite the rain, as the roads were mostly free of traffic. Venue is a decent size for the event and was not overcrowded. The actual footprint of the stalls appeared bigger than at Phalanx but that could be because of fewer stalls rather than larger floorspace.

Purchased some more 28mm French and Indian War miniatures from AWMiniatures at a reasonable rate. Hopefully the new purchases will kick start me to finish/start the previous batch of FIW figures I bought off North Star at Phalanx in June along with the Musket & Tomahawk rules. Also bought some 4Ground mdf buildings to go with them.

Spent the rest of the afternoon across the square at the Royal Armouries, a place I've not visited in a decade. The dockland area surrounding the site being totally transformed; The exhibits inside not so much, but at least it's free admission. The place still requires a day to go round in full, but managed to take in the bulk of the four impressive main halls.

Wonky War Wagons

This week a couple of games of Basic Impetus
Tony vs Tel, Matt vs Dave M, with potential decider at the end.

Managed to win the battle I was in via a war of attrition and some double sized pike units. Both sides had artillery, and both actually managed to hit and damage something. A first in our Impetus games. Without the central core of Infantry, one of Tony's superior Cavalry unit was eventually broken, taking his losses above the threshold.

The second battle between Matt and Dave M, was more interesting with half of Dave's force consisting of War Wagons, something we've not seen in the game before. Matt won out eventually by killing the weaker units spaced between the fortfied juggernauts.

No deciding battle conducted as time had ran out.
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Trench Foot

A Trench Assault scenario, acting as another refresher of the Great War rules, prior to Dave M kicking off his campaign some time in the near future. Played along the length of a 6' by 4' area, the trenches were the standard simple ones and not the enhanced entrenchments as described in 'Over the Top'

From Furness Wargamers in Trenches

Tel and Matt, each playing a company of Valiant Russians with support from artillery, were attempting to remove Tony's company of Germans from their dug in positions.

Going Postal

A bit of a strange game tonight as we do a mini-campaign based upon the book\film 'The Postman' - Putting the 'Post' into post apocalypse. Matt plays Kevin Costner, aided by Tel and Tony. Paul was the General ordering Dave M and Mark around.

From Furness Wargamers in the Future

Baby Blitz

Didn't feel like gaming at the club so watched a 6mm high level game of the German Blitzkrieg into Northern France in 1940. Hexed based with two players on each side, homebrew rules that had previously been used for Eastern front games.

The French inexplicably left their fortifications on their right and centre. The position was doomed but the voluntary vacation allowed the Germans to push forward quicker and prevented the slow moving French reinforcements (including Char B's) from reaching a defensible position.

On the French Left it was stalemate as the Germans continued to bounce off the defences that were constantly being repopulated by the French. To try and break the stand off, the Germans decided to push some units through a minefield as, too quote the German commander 'it's quicker', the results were as predictable as they were explosive.
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Dinos vs Aliens

A Mini-campaign, organised by Paul, inspired by the Comic (and potential film) Dinosaurs vs Aliens.

Six players each running a unique race of Aliens who happen to invade pre-historic Earth at the same time. They are not that unique as all races have the telepathic ability to control the native species of Dinosaurs. The Dinosaurs are also split into types, and sub divided by size. In any given encounter between Alien forces the type of Dinos available to a side is randomly determined.

DreadBall

Not taken part in any 'fantasy' sport boardgames since 1st edition Bloodbowl. Since it's the week before the Super Bowl, which seems to based in a fantasy world all of it's own, I decided to give it a try at the club.

I watched on for the first game, looking at the Crib Sheet and trying to work out what was going on.

I then took part in a tryout against Tristan. Being late in the night it was probably never going to get finished.

The games got a lot in common with Bloodbowl, in that they are both games where the competitors are trying to violently eliminate the opposition from the game.

Weather violent sports games will be en-vogue in the future could depend upon how the 'concussion scandal' plays out in the US and whether it spreads to over here to other contact sports like the two Rugby's.
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Great Hex War

The homebrew hex based micro-scale rules, that are currently being bashed around by the historical gamers at the club, now take their turn at representing World War One.

The British Expeditionary force takes on the Germans in some Early War action. Each unit represented an Infantry Battalion or equivalent, with around 16 units in a division\force including cavalry and artillery. The sides consisted of 2 forces each.

The Germans edged the battle through casualties inflicted, but on the field the position was fairly static as the forces got pushed back and forth between defensive positions, with alternating periods of offence and defense.

I'm not sure that the decision to switch certain units, infantry in particular, to a 6 to hit, rather than the formally universal 5+ from the WW2 games, was a good idea. It makes things rather labourious to try damage the enemy sufficiently so that the free 'regroup' replacement per turn does not automatically bring them back to full strength. The fact that the 'regrouped' unit can be placed immediately in the front line and then moved freely makes the casulty taken redundant.

The lack of casualties also make difficult to change the tactical situation on the field, and apply localised pressure on positions. This might be appropriate for the static mid-war actions but not really for the earlier period.

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When doing photographs of Great War based games I tend to tweak them to a Sepia tone to give them a faux period feel; Here is a link to someone who's achieving a similar effect but by a radical different method. Great War Greyscale
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