The Army gathers

My army of Ghar have slowly gathered more paint over the week as they ready for battle on Sunday.

Only a couple more units to finish.

Gharrrr

Oh yes ... I'm weak ... just like the Ghar from Gates of Antares.

After 4 full games now, I'm pretty hooked on Gates of Antares. Having a major break for gaming last year was a good thing. My enthusiasm is back and I've been really enjoying modeling and painting again. With almost 1000 points fully painted already. My painting skills aren't great and are very rusty, but I enjoying it and that's what counts.

My Ghar army has grown quickly in the month and a few Boromites turned up at my door step as well....Gotta hate that (NOT)

Sunday saw me crash Mark and his Concord in our first scenario game, and then I got mauled by Faizal with his brand new Boromite force which only turned up a few days before ( hence the shinny sliver look)

Both fun games, and the rules are sinking slowly into the brain.I'm now looking at changing up my list and trying something other than the Brick to the Face tactic which I love.

The New Year

The new year is underway, and I'm back at work tomorrow, the holidays gone in on the summer winds. Looking back at the year that was 2016 ... Think I'll claim it back on the insurance... it was a bit of a write off, gaming was at an all time low and the passing of a family member was pretty horrible. So moving on from that 2017 can only get better.

So my Christmas loot involved a new game, a new smart watch and a Gundam model. So, yep another game to add to the long list. The Gates of Antares starter box was the beginning, which I scored rather cheaply. From the box I gave Mark the Concorn models as a Christmas gift so i'd have someone to play against.

We rolled out a game on Wednesday to get a fell for it, and it's looking like it will be alot of fun. Bolt action on steroids. I managed to get my two squads of Ghar painted up and Mark had his Concord almost all done. We got the basics down as we slowly went through the rules, the final results were one unit of Ghar destroyed and the other fled after taking too many pins and failing there command roll.

After working out the points in the starter box, I added a couple of more units so I could match Mark's Concord. It was a little strange that the starter box was well out on the points for the Concord versus the Ghar. But as it happened Warlord Games had a sale on sprues for the Ghar so problem easy solved.

I couldn't go past the Ghar High Commander Karg crawler, which I've almost finished.

On the modeling front, I've always wanted to try out Gundam model, so with a little cash from a Christmas gift I finally got this Gundam model.  Ordered online, it turned up in a box about twice the size I was expecting, It's going to be an interesting build. With the build manual all in Japaneses I have already had to jump online to decipher what the symbols mean.

My wife got me a new smart watch, since I have destroyed three Fitbit's in as many years and my watch of 10 years was on the blink. The Garmin Fenix should hopefully be "Me" proof.... only time will tell on that front.

 It's got a bunch of functions, heart rate, step counting and GPS. All of course in an endeavor to help get fit, since my days of being a desk jockey are taking a toll on my wast line.So the competition with the wife is well under way.



I'm looking forward to a year of lots of gaming and painting.

Annual Napoleonic Clash: South Auckland Gaming Club

Ok, so it's been months since I posted anything and its been months since I've done any gaming. With holidays, cracked ribs and family stuff the year has just gone.

But with summer here bringing some much needed nice weather, it's reinvigorating my gaming mood.

A bit of a change up at the club this month, with Bryan not making the club meeting next January  they moved the yearly Napoleonic battle up a month. So that's what got beaten out today.

After some horrific Auckland traffic I managed to get there just as the table had been setup and sides were being decided. I ended up with some French troops.

With 8 of us there the sides decided and the pre-battle banter began

With the usual French and a Spanish attachment up against the Russian, Bulgarians and British  (Don't quote me on that, but I think that's what they had) on a roughly 16 foot by 4 foot table. The guys decided to start out closer together this year to get a fast game.

This year the teams were Leo, Bryan, Arthur and Phil with the Russian and Bulgarians, British. Myself, Glen, Kevin and Cavan with the French and Spanish.

Another addition this year was the objects, five spread down the table length. The side controlling the most at the end of the game would win.

Objects decided

Deployment begins

Troops start moving

Kevin's Spanish going for the Farm house objectives

Leo's troops start to take the vineyard objective.

Cowering Spanish hide behind the farmhouse ..(Good tactic for Kevin)

Well outnumbered I charge forward and hope for the best.

Phil and Kevin start the battle for the farmhouse.

Oh crap! 

The onslaught begins.

Leo and Glen start getting into through the vineyard.

Move bodies in the farmyard

The church battle begins between Cavan and Bryan

The bridge battle is all go.

I send Arthur's Russians packing and leave the hill objective free for the taking

And then get slaughtered losing the hill objective.

Glen mops up Leo's troops as the game ends.

I lost the hill objective, Glen and Cavan take the Vineyard and bridge objectives, while Cavan and Kevin ground out a draw over the church and farmhouse objectives.

The French and Spanish win 2-1.

A fun day, even with the mind boggling WRG rules.

Maybe one day I'll actually get some Nap figures myself to paint ... maybe.

Frostgrave

Having originally come from the world of Dungeons and Dragons as a teenager before I got into tabletop gaming, Frostgrave caught my eye from its release, with its spell casting and character creation. So with my holiday coming up and a long flight, I thought I'd pickup the rule book for some holiday reading.

I've already figure out I can I use a mixture of models from my Warmachine and Hordes collections.

So for my first warband, the Witch I'm going to use my Satyxis Sea Witch and then use the Nyss Shepard for my apprentice. Followed up with the Croe's Cutthroats as the soldiers,so I don't need to buy any more models. I also should be able to create a nice looking Necromancer warband from my Cryx models.

This and that

It's been all quite on the gaming front for the past month or more, with our regular gaming sessions having dropped off due to Mark moving to the other side of the moon and life getting in the way. But the usual once a month South Auckland Gaming club meetings have been about it.

Speaking of which, the last club meeting earlier this month was a mass 6000 point Kings of War bash. With Glen, Brian and myself taking the evil Abyssal's and Kin up against Caven, Arthur and Kevin with Ogre's and Dwarfs.

My main opponent during the game was Kevin with Ogres, who dealt out alot of damage and had me on the back foot from the start. Then as my units started falling one by one my hero's ran around fire balling and flaming everything in site.

It was a massive blood bath of six or seven turns (cant remember), with the game swinging back and forth. The end result was the Evil Abyssals and Kin came out some 75 points more left on the table. So a epic draw...although the Evil team claim victory of course :-)

Just goes to show just how well the rule set works. It's probably my favorite game of all time. It just works and it doesn't hurt the brain to play.

Next month at the club brings about the Saga campaign, a game I haven't actually played myself. Although I've had the rules for quite some time and seen a couple of games played.

I've started on the war band / army of Vikings. I'm actually making it up so I can use them as my second Hail Caesar army and even put together a human army for Kings of War. With my paint skills having slumped with lack of use, I'm slowly building them up keeping it simple and basic.

I also picked up the new Konflict '47 rule book, with the intention of using my Dust walkers along with all the Russian models I have from both Dust and Bolt action. Should mean I don't need to buy any models for the game. A quick flick through the book last nigh reveled the number of walkers on first release is quite low, so hopefully they will release more with the faction books in the near future.

On the board game side of things,been getting is a few games here and there, with Pandemic at the top of the play list at the moment.

Most of all I'm hanging out for my holiday ... heading overseas to Hawaii ... bring on the warmth.

Saga -WIP

The Saga begins... yep, the saga of me trying to pull the clear top layer off the shield transfer sheet ..ahhhrrrr...   My first 16 Vikings almost done.

Impending doom

Having gotten the board game buzz back again, the wife and I busted out Elder Signs, with the Unseen Forces expansion added in. The impending doom  immediately setting in as the howling wind and rain came through battering the house....very appropriate for the game.

I had forgotten how brutal the game can be, the first game took all of 10 mins to kill my first character and other 10 minutes after that to devour us completely. Game two we a lot more successful after removing the master level ethos cards from the deck and having remembered the rules and flow of the game. We managed to survive long enough to actually win . The Blessed and Cursed die addition from the Unseen Forces expansion making a really nice twist, which assisted no end in us beating the Old one.

I'm now look forward to trying out the new adventure of Omens of Ice, which I got given for my birthday.