30 November 2015

Plastic invasion

Yes, so the plastic invasion begins. The problem of buying lost of boxes of new toy soldiers, is you then have to put them all together. With Mark painting like possessed demon at the moment, I'm going to need to crank out all these boys for him to paint rather quickly. Which now I think about it, it's probably good for me to spend less time looking at screens and more time on my hobby.


I also started pulling out the board games at home tonight and actually managed to win a game of Carrcassonne against my wife. I'm certain that my wife will not let that stand for long.

27 November 2015

Buy more ... Live Forever


Ok, so I've been super slack at blogging this year, and "Maestro Mark Hazell" is outdoing me, which isn't difficult at the moment. So I'm going to endeavour to get back into the blogging side of things again as of today.

So with the Black Friday sales going nuts, and our local supplier "Mighty Ape" having an awesome sale on wargames factory models, I dropped a touch of cash on a small horde , some 238 models which came out at a whopping $0.68 per model, damn impossible to pass on those sort of deals.

So I now have a bunch of Viking Huscarls and Bondi to start a SAGA army with, a game I managed to avoid last year. Then a horde of Zombie Vixens ... you never no when a Zombie outbreak may occur.

And to round it off I got a few boxes for American War of Independence, some Continentals and Militia, along with a box of Woodland Indians. Which will work well with AWI and also add to my Indian gang for Hero's of the Old West.



God knows when I'm going to get time to paint them, think they will make the back shelf for a future project. As currently I have Mark painting my ACW models since I've been so busy at work. .. and haven't had the energy or mojo to do any painting myself.


I'm gonna live forever as there no way I can die anytime soon with that horde stilling on the shelf, cant die until everything is painted as they say.

16 November 2015

Judge Dredd and the Crispy Department

Life goes on, as does work.
Gaming this year has been a bit slower than previous years and having alot of other distractions and large amounts of work hasn't helped. But with summer well on its way I hoping that it will bring back some enthusiasm along with the warm weather.

Judge Dread has been played at the club for the last few months and this month was the final campaign day. So cheating a little bit, I'm using Bryan's write up ... and added some details from my games as well, along with some photos I shot of my games.

November 2015 meeting saw the conclusion of our Judge Dredd campaign which we have been playing for the last 3 months.

Not too many games played at the November  club meeting with both Arthur and Harry missing in action this month, and although Mark showed up he didn’t play any games because zombies can’t climb L, so he was still a bit sad about that.

Jason’s Angel Gang took on Bryan’s Apes in a kill the leader scenario. The Apes put up a gallant fight with their heavy spit guns pouring out death, taking out one of just three in the Angel Gang, but Mean Machine dialled himself up and took care of business in the end.

Kevin continued his meteoric rise up the leader board, taking on Bryan’s Apes in a Turf War and completely wiping the simians out. Most of the Apes came back though (minions) and their leader Gaz only got a scratch!

Glenn’s Judda also took on the Angel Gang later in the day in another Turf War, but came unstuck when he failed to take out Mean Machine after several opportunities, then ran out of Judda to hold the required table quarters so Jason’s Angel Gang claimed their second win of the day.

Glenn's Judda dealt out the burning heat on my Judge's with cruel efficiency, and a last ditch effort of my Physic was foiled by the teleporting trickery of the Judda. Thankfully all my Judges survived that battle, all feeling a little barbecued and several now sporting with some new bionic arms and legs. 

I really hate fire weapons, my Judges seem to just attract anything that sets them on fire. Flame grilled and crispy Judges never seem to be able to roll dice very well. 

The fire department weren't much help as they  ended up in a pile up and didnt even put out my Judges as they got flame grilled.


A few cheap toy vehicles made for a fun addition to my terrain, and for some extra fun we had them randomly moving down the roads as the gangs slugged it out. We had intersection pile ups in both games and a crazy loon driving on the wrong side of the road with a caravan in tow.








After that Cavan’s Kleggs were going tooth and claw(and heavy spit guns) against my Justice Department. With the points difference, I hied a couple of Video reporters to try and boost my financial status, since I'd spent most of my credits repairing and replacing lost limbs of my crew.
I got plastered quite well with spit gun shots as Cavan's die rolling was just to good. I did manage to out shoot one Klegg with my Sniper Judge and a few tricks. But that didnt save one of my Video reporters from being eaten. In the end Cavan pushed me back enough to take the scenario win.

In the final wash-up the campaign winner was Kevin, with a clear lead on the rest of the field. 

After the day’s play the  final rankings in the campaign were:


JUDGE DREDD RANKINGS
Placing
Player
Gang
Credits
1
Kevin
East-Meg Invasion Force
5675
2
Cavan
Klegg Invasion Force
2010
3
Glenn
The Judda
1975
4
Rob
The Justice Department
1940
5
Bryan
The Ape Gang
1669
6
Jason
The Angel Gang
1631
7
Arthur
Judge Cal’s Personal Retinue
1040
8
Harry
The Justice Department
925

9
Mark
Zombie Horde
700


Awesome fun all round.

11 October 2015

Judge Dredd

Well I'm still alive and kicking, Blogging has dropped off my list of must do's in recent times. The usual work, family and general life getting in the way. Along with holidays and getting rather side tracked with other hobbies.

On Saturday, we had our usual monthly South Auckland gaming club meeting. Judge Dredd was the game of the day. With a bit of a campaign going we rolled out three games over the course of the day.

Brian had picked up this awesome Infinity rubber mat when he was in Melbourne, which suited Judge Dredd rather well.


No surprise, Brian's Ape gang were looking pretty slick, but not slick enough as I took them down in our "Check Point" scenario. Which I felt was rather one sided for my Judges as I managed to easily arrest half his gang in the first two rounds. A rematch of this scenario would be good as I think both of us would play it quite differently.








Getting up close to any of the Angel Gang is a very, very bad idea, as I found out in my game against Jason. Mean Machine gets his name for a reason.


Overall I really like the game, the theme of course is awesome, the models are great. The artwork on the book is pretty cool,  The rule book is .. the worst laid out rule book I own. I mean seriously, it's down right crap.. the layout that is, the index and referencing has mistakes in it as well, there is gang stats all over the place, mixed into rules sections ... well actually there is no sections, as things are all over the place. Basically trying to learn the game means your flicking back and forth all through the book trying to find the rules. Don't get me wrong, it's a great game and has some fantastic flavour from the Judge Dredd realm, and the rules themselves for the most are are pretty good. It's just the simple stuff.. layout, index and referencing that is terrible .. frustrating as hell and slows game play right down when your just learning the game. It definitely needs to be redone.

Anyway enough on that, as we are playing a campaign, the part I have really enjoyed is levelling up the survivors from each game. Making them more dangerous, harder and tougher and of course sneakier. It's been alot of fun and reminds me of the days when I played D&D. 

As usual its always a good days gaming at the club and I'm looking forward to arresting some more prep's next club day.  

08 August 2015

I'm Back

Jeepers it been a while since I've done a blog post. Life's just been so busy this year.

 So the usual suspects have been gaming, mainly Bolt Action and a few other games creeping in there. I'd missed a few sessions with getting sick and to much work. But things are getting back on track. I really need to get back to painting as I have way to much stuff without paint.

Started playing Pike and Shot again, with Mark starting to get enthused about it, and hes gotten really stuck into painting his models, I'm going to have to find my mojo again otherwise he will beat me to finishing his army first.

So with no Club meeting this month, due to most of the guys playing in the Lord of the Rings Tournament at Kings Collage. I popped in for a brief visit to check out the action. Here's a few pics.










After that I got in a game of Bolt Action with Will. In my totally disorganized manor, we played a scenario out of the Ostfront book. I throw together a list from the easy army builder and setup on the table. With absolutely no thought to the list, other than trying out a few new things. I then slowly and surly got the crap beaten out of me as I failed to wound anything. I think I killed four or five models the whole game until the last turn.



German Troops advancing along with the Tiger

My Heavy Howitzer doing very little all game.

Damn! Hitting the Tiger wasn't hard..doing damage to it was ... FAIL!

Holding the hills at the start of the game

Seconds before my tanks gets neutered

 The last shot with my heavy howitzer actually hits a squad and I finally gets some points.

So Will wins with 5 points to 1 and the main objective still in contention, although if we played out the full eight turns I'd be luck to have any models on the table. Still it was a fun game and really nice to play a different scenario, so I think we will need to play a few more out of the expansion books.

While Will and I were playing our game, Mark was busy cleaning up his storage for all his armies and working on a new teddy bear fur matt. (Flames and all)


Next week bring about a bit of a campaign for us,going back to the good old Wild West.

17 June 2015

Judge Dredd

Just a quick update on my progress on my Judge Dredd figures. I've finished six for my starter box and now working on my two Lawmasters

Judge DreddJudge Dredd

Judge DreddJudge Dredd



Judge Dredd


14 June 2015

Resistance is Futile

Junes South Auckland Club meeting rolled around yesterday with the huge game of Star Trek Attack Wing scheduled in. Thanks to Arthur’s slight Star Trek addiction.. Yes, that’s correct, all the ships on the table are Arthurs.

Kavan joined me to take up the Borg ships against Arthur and Kevin who were running the Federation and Klingon empire. Mark turned up late and picked up running a couple of Klingon ships from Kevin  fleet.

Star Trek Attack Wing 001After lots of trash talking and setting up we got underway with the forces starting at the far end of each each table end.

The Borg had 10 ships, including the awesome huge cube.

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Meanwhile the Federation and Klingon had about 14 with a total points of 600 per side.

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The first two turns were the Borg racing straight forward while the Federation and Klingon adjusted and attempted to intimated us. Then came the first shots of the game and the big Cube took a few hits  to the shields. Then I managed to pull out the rug from under poor old Kevin, who had lined up one of is upgrade cards on the closet ship to cause me major problems, but Resistance if Futile and hiding behind cloaking didn't save him. First kill to the Borg

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Then on the following turns everyone was getting up into it. With a few ships getting tangled but nothing else getting destroyed

Star Trek Attack Wing 019 Star Trek Attack Wing 021 Star Trek Attack Wing 024 Star Trek Attack Wing 026 

The Borg ship concentrated fire on one or two ships at a time making easy work of them and assimilating a few Photo torpedo's and upgrade cards as we went.

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The Borg tactical cubes started taking a pounding so we mixed it up with our flight paths and with perfect precision .. e.g. god damn fluke never ran into my own ships.

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Kevin poured all his firepower into the huge Borg cube and with the final help from Mark’s lone surviving ship took it out of the game. But it wasn't enough, with only four of the Borg ships destroy we simply over powered them.

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It was a great game, and lots of trash talking as you can expect. We rolled it out in about 5 hours. One of which was probably taken up by insults and then the subsequent laughter and banter. Then a few beers at the pub. Awesome day gaming.

Yes Kevin,

Resistance was and still is Futile

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Star Trek Attack Wing 041

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