24 February 2018

Eastern Irregulars Saga session

So today I ventured across town, well 45 mins drive to the other side of the city to meet up at the newly formed Eastern Irregulars club to learn to play Saga. I believe this was the second club meeting. Held in Spell Bound games in Pakuranga. An interesting little place, a huge floor space, with war gaming, board games and card games stuff strewn around the place, along with a role playing group, Magic and other card gamers.

I've had the rules for Saga for a year or so and plenty of Vikings, but never got around to playing, and now of course the 2nd edition rules are out.(Friggin Typical) I could come up with some excuse about not reading the rules this week, but I cant, I was just a slack arse this week. So it was trial by fire in a four point four way game. Will, Jason, Lee and myself. After 7 rounds and adding up the points, I came in last... no surprise, but I got a good look at the mechanics and how things worked.

My Vikings expand out as my Saga dice played nice for me



Lee's Welsh started doing sneaky things.


Jason's Norma's thundered across the table at the Welsh


Will play's conservatively a bit like his paint scheme.



 My hearth guard and Warlord toasted some of Will's warriors before coming to a brutal end

Jason's Norman's got to feel Lee's trickery and pointy sticks.



Second game was a doubles game of Lee's concoction, as he tryied to play ref since there was 5 of us left for the afternoon. This was where I got to feel the wraith of the Jomsvikings, which by a bit of luck didn't end to badly, as I lost all my guys except for 4 levies and my Warlord, at the same time wiping out most of the Joms' . My viking partner (Brent I think.. fist time I meet him) took the win for us by getting to Will's Warlord in a one on one.





So for my first two real games of Saga I had alot of fun, and thus ordered the new rules books.
Looking forward to more games out east with the Irregulars.


17 February 2018

Jet ski's and castles

Jet ski's and castles, yep, absolutely nothing to do with each other, but that's what I did today.
Went out to the beach and for a few hours and shot a few photos of the guys and girls at the Yamaha Free ride competition.  I couldn't handle the jandle and stay the whole day as my back has been playing up, but still had enough time to get some nice shots.







Then I worked on my Castles, yes plural. One I'm scratch building and the other mammoth beast, is a Warlords games one, with a stupid amount of parts ... but it looks awesome, even at this stage of undress.

Soooooo many sprues... so many parts.

Once built and ready, Mark and I plan to do a mass Hail Caesar battle including the castle which will be a huge 1000 point battle.


11 February 2018

Hail Caesar

Yesterday was the monthly South Auckland gaming club day. With Hail Cesar the flavor of the month. With only nine of us being there, I ended up using my Greek and Pyrrhic armies together to face off two opposing 300 point armies.

First game up I was running at Mark with his Romans and Glen with his Seleucid's. We played on a 8 foot by 4 foot table with a few bits of terrain.  My Greeks taking the bottom left hand position in this photo.

 With Pyrrhic on the right, but unfortunately for me, my heavy Cavalry ended up facing glen's Seleucid Pike blocks.. not a good start,


 Kevin and Saul facing off, on Saul's awesome new Deep Cut Studios gaming mat. If you haven't seen one, they are "F'ing" awesome. They make a thick mouse pad style ones as well as thinner PVC ones. The mouse pad ones a really great, thick and heavy, they don't move or slide around on the table and with a small amount of cushioning if you knock over your precious models, they are more likely not to chip. Not to mention that the mats look great. I've got three of them now, and will probably end up with more in the future.


Saul's first game with his Britons versus Kevin's Imperial Romans.


Steven borrowed some of Mark's Roman's to run over Bryan with this Hittie's is only his second game I think. Nice one Bryan, I think Steven is hooked... (which army will he go for that's the real question)





 The beginning of my epic battle against Mark and Glen.


Oh yeah, my very unpainted Heavy Cav and some Pike getting there butt's kicked to start with and then I started to pull things back as Glen's dice turned on him



Below mark's Romans finally start to move after a couple of turns.



For the first time since I've been playing Hail Ceasar I actually shattered a unit in one turn. epic dice roll on my side and Super EPIC fail on Glen's dice.


Things got dicey in the middle as my Greeks got into the Roman's butt couldn't quite break them 




Well past lunch time we called the game, probably only half way through actual game. I was looking good, but as I had 5 divisions vs 4 and I had lost one, I had to concede as a loss .,,, dam it.

 After lunch I again played 600 points, this time against Glen and Cavan. I actually didn't take any photos as I was so engrossed in the game and trying to run a new army and 600 points was a task and a half. I made them grind it out until the end, where my army broke. A really close EPIC level game, in which I made a few real cockups with not knowing the rules.. but still an awesome day but exhausting gaming day. 

Next month is more of the same, so should have more paint on my Pyrrhic army by then and will have read the rules a bit more. Hopefully I wont have to run 600 points next month, and will be able to concentrate more on using the cavalry better. Which will also allow me to run a slightly different list than the one I did yesterday. (Which is below)



Then to add salt to the wound, I lost a game of Suburbia to my wife by 1 point that night as well. 


A fun day of losses :-)


06 February 2018

Plastic fumes and Spartans

So today in NZ is a public holiday, and I managed to get 40 Spartan's prepped ready for undercoating and also got some more paint onto my elephants. With a few extra models from my previous boxes, this gives me 3 units to do up as Spartans.

The weird weather going from rain to blistering sun to zero wind in the space of a few hours meant that the usual light breeze wasn't about to flush my new man cave free of the plastic cement fumes, Which got a bit high, and with a damn summer cold I never noticed until the headache turned up ... queue afternoon snooze.

 With the elephants starting to look the part now, I've now got to figure out what scheme to paint all the crew and then the massive task of all the pikemen.



The Pyrrhic side of the army has alot of painting to go, but it will be nice to paint something other than Greek. It's at least ready to run out on the table should I need an extra army for the club day.


My 300 points of Greeks are all painted, just some basing to finish off on the skirmishers, and then finish up the generals.


05 February 2018

Greeks, Spartans and Pyrrhic of Eprius

A new year, a new look blog, a newer and bigger man cave and of course new toys.
(my final decision on the new blog look is still out, so may change it a bit in the future weeks)

I’m not doing the usual new year resolution thing .. since its Feb already and who am I kidding, I’m just gonna do whatever I feel like. The one thing I am going to stick to is no new games this year, with 4 armies for Hail Caesar as well as starting a British Napoleonic army, I’ve got more than enough to keep me busy.

The new man cave, is just me moving into the larger spare room in the house. Only been in the house 13 years, so thought its time I dissevered an upgrade.

With a short trip to Aussie for an Air show in May and a trip in June to Norway later in the year that’s gonna keep the pocket hurting for quite some time. So it’s well past the day I opened that cupboard of collected unboxed/unpainted things and start making a dent in it.  To that end I have discovered a Warlord Games box of Spartan’s hiding in the depths of boxes so that’s first up to be assemble, along with finishing off my other Greeks.

A few of my Greek hoplites

The unit coming together - shields and basing to finish off

Also had to start on my Successor Starter box, couldn't leave the elephant in the box. The plan is to add my Greeks and the Successor starter box together so I can do a army of Pyrrhic of Eprius.


By the end of it, I will be able to do a huge 650 point game. Which is the plan to square off against Mark's Romans. Now looking forward to the weekend and some games of Hail Caesar at the club.