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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