More smoking armour - Hell Hath No Fury play-test 3

Another visit to Arabianknight’s bunker, saw us lining up tanks for our third play-test of the Hell Hath No Fury rules from Two Hour Wargames. Previously we’d practised manoeuvring, gunnery and the reaction system, initially with a couple of tanks apiece and then in slightly larger platoons or groups. For this session we added in the final ingredient - applying personal attributes to our lead tank commander and his crew.

Wrath of the Jomsvikings

Jomsvikings fighting in a hail storm at the Battle of Hjörungavágr.

It’s official. I hate the Jomsvikings. Icelandic mercenaries as notorious as their Scandinavian cousins. Their tactics and abilities are suspiciously close to Dark Arts as far as I’m concerned.

I can’t be the first Saga player to have faced the Jomsvikings and their unique Wrath system for the first time, experiencing a look of total ‘WTF?!’ after being on the receiving end of withering Wrath-boosted abilities such as Jomsborg! Holmgang, Hammer of Thor, Dance of Steel or the frankly supercilious We are Legends?

Fightin Fungi - rules playtest #1

"Why was the mushroom happy? Because he was a fun-gi!"

With both Arabianknight and I backing Ganesha Games Kickstarter for the SoBH game, Fightin Fungi, we were keen to play test the new rules available to backers. So down at Arabianknight’s Gaming Emporium we both deployed a quickly assembled 350 point warband for a simple Capture the Shard of Power, (or something like that!), scenario.

As this was a rules play test, our rosters – certainly mine anyway – were created primarily towards testing out some of the expanded array of abilities (traits), the new weapon/armour rules and the Reaction system. We both forewent the long list of new Magic abilities for this time, leaving that for another playtest.

Board games are like buses...

And another board game incoming! The Plastic Soldier Company, from whom I recently purchased a set of Tiger 1 tanks, have announced a Kickstarter for a Great War Strategy board game. 

It's definitely something that interests me, so it's my second KS backing of the year - and its only February! Details below...

The King Is Dead!

As my reader knows, I'm not adverse to a bit of board gaming. Indeed I have accumulated a reasonable collection that fights its own corner, literally, in the Battleshed. Even over at my local club board games are regularly represented such as the likes of Firefly, Battlestar Galactica and the club's home-grown game, NUMA: The Affinity Chronicles. Of course, having the availability of multiple players ensures much hilarity, devious skulduggery and adds to the fun.

So its intriguing that the venerable Osprey Publishing, who will be familiar to many, are embarking on their very first board game, The King Is Dead. It surprised me that it was their first! Details are a wee bit sketchy currently, but as their article below says, 'Watch this space!...'

Vapnartak 2015

Vapnartak! The annual trade show organised by York Wargames Society. For the second year running my brother-in-law, JGL, and I made the trip south of the Scottish Border to the historical city of York. We were keen to repeat the successful gamer's road trip from last year, so once again I found myself in JGLs car, casually flicking through the latest Miniature Wargames magazine and wondering why JGL’s iPod defaulted to Abba’s Dancing Queen…

Like last year, we decided to make it a leisurely trip. An excuse for a long weekend of table top gaming culture and beer. A wonderful combination and highly recommended! There are a number of similarly great shows in Scotland but sometimes you just need an excuse for a ‘boys’ weekend. We travelled down on Saturday 31^st January after the morning’s four-way game of Saga at Livingston Battleground, arriving at the Holgate Bridge B&B in the early evening. The accommodation was perfect for this trip – very reasonably priced and within easy walking distance of York city centre and the racecourse where Vapnartak was being held.

A Dark Age foursome

At my local club, Livingston Battleground, there was a most welcome return to the Dark Ages with my Scots Saga warband all dressed up and ready for a fight. I’d arranged a game with one of my regular Saga opponents, who’d also had a bit of a Saga hiatus recently, so we were both keen for a refresher. I’d also been chatting to one of the other club members who’d expressed an interest in a demonstration game. So a hastily arranged three-way scenario was on the cards. Upon arrival at the club however, yet another one of our Saga regulars had his troops with him, so the three way game turned into a very agreeable four-way ‘King of the Hill’ scenario!

Tiger on patrol

As mentioned in my prelude our second test game of Hell Hath No Fury, Return to Fury, I’d made an abortive attempt to quickly assemble and deploy a German Tiger 1 tank from The Plastic Soldier Company. So, lesson learned, I scheduled some dedicated modeling time and set about the three remaining tanks.