Thin Pink Line

Campoon reaches the end of year 4.

The Thin Pink Line of Nurgledom continues to be hard pressed but still has a number of strong armies to populate the forts.

Not much activity on my part. Brief skirmish with Dave S, played out with the battle cards\tables. A draw so only minor casulties on both sides. I continued to burn a couple more villages.

Mark has almost withdrawn completly off the main land. Only his city by the sea left. Jim seems to of quit again.

The Money:
Matt - 24 gold
Mark - 25 gold
Tel - 19 Gold
Paul - 33 Gold
Nurgle - 10 Gold
Dave - 22 Gold
Jim - 20 Gold

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After the Campoon moves it was back to more of Paul's Mecha, as he continues to tweak his downloaded rules to suit his style more. i.e. Total Chaos.

From Furness Wargamers

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Three Thirds

Another Battrick season comes to a close and somehow I've managed to finish all three leagues in 3rd place despite not even having an average team in all three.

First Class
In the final First Class match of the season I managed to grab the points needed to keep third place despite an heavy loss to one of the pre-season favourites who managed to lose their first three matches but still bounced back to take second.

This was the first season of the new look FC leagues and I think the new shorter season and re-alignment of the leagues are a big success. Things are now much more even between the teams but without the massive relegation trapdoor that could previously end an FC season before it even starts.

One Day
The One Day league was also a shock as I somehow avoided the relegation dogfight to finish a comfortable third in my division 4 league, and winning 9 out of 14 games along the way. The two auto-relegation spots had long been decided, but the playoff spots went down to the wire with three teams entering the final round on the same points. Our camping friend is again champion but this time in an auto-promote spot and so will be leaving my league. If the guys in the forums have got things right with the team coming down from division 3 then it looks like I'm going to be facing an old rival next season, one I competed with but always lost too when in division 5.

20-20
I think most of the people were throwing matches in the 20-20 league as that could be the only explanation for me finishing so highly against what were mostly better teams despite me not really trying. Despite it's real life success 20-20 does seem to be the unwanted relative of the other leagues. This is despite of the new international league structure that saw me face off against a number of suposedly quality Aussie sides.

Also of note is that John's team has finally bitten the dust after he got feed up with the game. That just leaves Ray and me as the remains of the four bar-flies who joined up within a couple of months of each other at the start of 06.
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Board Again

With the Campoon Battle going on elsewhere in the hall instead played a couple of boardgames. A game of Metro and a few games of Sequence brought to the club by John in one of his irregular visits.

Martin was confident of winning Metro as 'beginners luck' should of favoured him, unfortunately he failed to take into account that there was another beginner involved to steal his Mojo and win the game. Martin trailed in badly in last place.

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The Campoon battle as expected turned out to be one-sided.

From Campoon 3

Mark ended up on the wrong side of a bad beating from Paul, losing around 1000pts of troops and it could of been worse if Paul had had some cavalry present. For someone who hates the Warhammer Ancients rules Paul always seems to do OK.

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There is a bit of a Magic the Gathering renaissance going on at the club as a top level player has moved into the area and is getting some of the 40Kers\Fantasy mob involved. And after a few mass battle games of Magic Phil got out his Pit Fighter stuff.

Hopefully a full house for Campoon next week as Jim is back in action.
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Burn Time

A late post about last Tuesday. Two players missing (Jim and Martin) so we went ahead with Campoon anyway. The dormant empires were played as if Independents, i.e. Each Village\Fort\City had a garrison so people could not just walk in and grab land.

In the conclusion of the winter phase I finally get to build my long sort after Fort at the peninsula's choke point.

Year 4 commences.

Matt continues to expand unhindered making up for the territories that were cut off at the end of last year as his lackeys, Dave S and Mark, continue to buffoon around.

Mark and Paul finally confront each other with Nurgle Jam in between. The battle to be fought next week looks like it will be one sided in favour of Paul.

From Campoon 3

The activity near my borders plus the new found strength of Jim's villages caused me to quickly rethink things and change targets. First I burnt down a couple of my own villages to act as a firebreak between my armies and Dave S's whose main army had just lost its baggage in its failed initial assault on one of Jim's villages. Then I moved into Dave's territory proper, also burning along the way.

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After the map moves the remaining players staying got to play with Paul's Mechs using some rules he picked up on the Net. Humans vs 30ft tall Aliens.

From Furness Wargamers

Paul was comended in being albe to get everything into a single bag, the buildings beinging stackable.



A very random game with cards being fired around left, right and centre,
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Rules (of) the Waves

A game of the recently released Trafalgar rules from Warhammer Historical, a supposed quick play Napoleonic Naval game.(and probably Warhammer Historical's last ever release since they are being folded into Forge World.)

Post Trafalgar scenario with the Brits hunting down the French in the Caribbean. A single French line trying to escape from two smaller British lines catching them up.

The starting positions

From Furness Wargamers

Given the starting positions my line was lucky to reach the last french ship at all. We received a bit of fire from it but were pretty much untouched during the rest of the game.

My three ships


My lead ship managed to get a bow rake in but that put the ship in a position where it could never catch up. Even after taking the risk of going to full sail it was a stretch to reach them.

Chasing the French


The tailender final struck his flag just as my other ships were lining up. And this is where the game came to a close.

Can't say what the rules are like as already house rules are being used before I've had a chance to play the originals. Firing arc changes and the need to confirm Criticals. Also a lot of discussion about the wind template and how you can sail at almost full speed into the wind. I dislike the critical house rule as damage from crits are not of the usual roll 6 and explode that you might expect so didn't really need tweaking.

Despite being quick play I could not describe them as fun, unlike Uncharted Seas, the fantasy naval game, which was also being played on another table. They managed to get two eventful games finished in the time it took for ours to fade out. Trafalgar is sort of an halfway house rules set, the Navy buffs at the club commended the book for its historic details but not for the way they were implemented.

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Uncharted Seas is generating quite a bit of interest in the club, even from the 40Kers and RPGers. Graeme has currently got three fleets worth and is trying to tempt people into playing. If a few more jump into the game then I would seriously consider getting a fleet myself.

The Elven Fleet


The Dwarfs Engage


Colin managed to win both games with some killer combo cards to make up for his two hammerings last week.
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Year 3 Ends

EMail update from Dave M based on the final turn and the off season events of year 3 as played out on Tuesday.

Ladies and Untermenschen Nurgles,
Scores on the doors for end of year 3 on the sunny island of campoon.
After a year of high drama, famine, plagues and long walks home, this is what everyone has left

Matt, 'King of the Catamites'
3002 Army Points, 10GP to spend
Mark, 'Lord of the Fraggles'
4519 Army Points 25 GP to spend
Tel, 'Lord of Places No-one Wants'
2450 Army Points 20GP to spend
Martin, 'The Nurgle of Itchee Bottom'
3422 Army Points 19GP to spend
King Jim, 'Keeper of the Holy Ruler'
4506 Army Points, 22GP to spend
Paul, 'Lord of the Cunning Plans'
4297 Army Points, 26GP to spend
Dave, ex-Catamite
4127 Army Points, 14GP to spend

Dave has now taken over Dave's position as Dave will be away for a month, and Dave's former lands have turned barbarian depite him being a (now former) vassel of Matt. So I didn't attack into Dave's lands in the final turn as he's not in control: Dave is! Clear?

During the Winter phase I've lost a large army due to a plague hitting my capital; but at least I have a reasonable amount of money. Matt has lost troops and income due to Dave cutting off a limb of his Empire, but this has not stopped both of them sneaking into a corner to discuss next turn, something Matt also did with Mark. Don't think any other alliance blocks exist just yet, but if they do happen then I can see a World War occuring.
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Bazaar Bolton

The inaugural Warrior Bazaar show, held on Sunday at the Holiday Inn, Bolton. Martin and I cadged a lift off Graeme, listening to a CD of an adaption of 'Shadows over Innsmouth' on the way down.

Located near the centre of Bolton we did a few laps of the road system before finding a car park. Apparently the place had an underground one available but we couldn't find it but found a free car park next to the spot anyway.

Venue is a nice place, the convention\wedding reception area being a converted church. The event itself was split between a number of rooms on the ground floor and in two separate sections with traders scattered across rooms with an unfortunate few being stuck in secluded locations.

Not exactly over-crowded with customers but the usual ignorant backpack swingers tried to make up for it. The ailes were actually quite narrow so not sure what it would of been like if it had been busy.

The Helms Deep demo was impressive (even if it was advertised in the program as Doctor Who; I didn't see the Tardis there so I'm guessing the game was a replacement!). Also the Colonial game in the side room looked good, but other than that the other demos were pretty scarce and low key.

The Sci-Fi and ACW re-enactors seem to enjoy themselves, with a couple of stormtroopers guarding the entrance and a couple of musket wavers as backup.

So in total we spent a couple of hours there, and ended up agreeing that it was an enjoyable little show and a useful addition to the calendar this side of the Peninnes. Whether the show gains enough traction to be repeated next year is another matter. A couple of bigger names amongst the traders could help; No Kallistra, Essex, or even Lancashire Games! And very few boardgame sellers other than second-hand stalls.

Also in the program was an advert for 'Warboot by-the-sea' being held in Morecambe in July, Warboots being old fashioned bring-and-buys dedicated to gamers, especially useful now that eBay has jumped the shark in term of fees; and that convention based bring and buys are getting an increasingly bad reputation.
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