Curiosities for the discerning

A quick assortment of oddments for you today involving Demon Possessed Dwarfs and Halflings, a Victorian era specialist in Mythobiology and a 21^st century behemoth's trouble with chariots.

Dwarf Invasion

Like Ben Nevis recently, my Dwarfy Lead Mountain has just got a bit higher.

The Hammer and Forge Kickstarter order has arrived!

The Fighting Pit

Da da dah! I'm back. I've never really been away though. Just a wee blogging hiatus whilst I concentrated on a number of other interests and commitments that crop up from time to time. The gaming has continued as regular as ever. Just without any commentary.

Since the Prestonpans show I've played SAGA, Sails of Glory, Wings of War and produced a demo of Advanced Songs of Blades and Heroes at my local gaming club. Oh, and moaned a lot about my painting mountain.

Heavybraids' Lads

Rampaging Beastmen are back. And once gain it was the resolute Dwarves in the front line, readying axe and maul to stop the brutes from their bestial tyranny. Or more importantly, getting their paws on a sizeable hoard of gold and trinkets. 

With the long - too long - awaited final release of the Hammer and Forge Dwarf supplement and the Advanced rules from Ganesha Games, it was an evocative step back into the Battleshed's numerous encounters and campaigns in the world of Songs of Blades and Heroes.

An axe to the kneecaps always levels a fight

Valgen's Lads - my veteran Songs of Blades and Heroes Dwarf warband - enjoyed a good bit of blade work today. They were up against a new Barbarian warband, Wulfs's Warriors, controlled by a member of my local club who wanted a re-introduction to the delights of this most elegant game.

Of course, I was delighted to assist, SoBH being my favourite fantasy skirmish system. As my opponent was looking for a refresher, we played the Standard Rules (400 points) but included the Reaction system from the recently published Advanced SoBH.

Really Fightin' Fungi

A whole bunch of mushrooms were pushed through my letterbox recently.

No, not some illicit dealings in fungi narcotics, this was the culmination of Ganesha game's recently successful 'Fightin' Fungi' Kickstarter.

The Advanced fantasy skirmish rules and miniatures based on Songs of Blades and Heroes.

 

Carronade 2015

Carronade 2015, the annual wargaming show organised by Falkirk & District Wargames club, opened its doors promptly at 10am at the Graeme High school, Falkirk on Saturday. Being relatively local - its only a 30 minutes or so drive - it's become a permanent fixture on my wargaming calendar. Indeed, it was the very first show I ever attended. As always the organisers had done a fantastic job, with no less than 5 halls hosting 43 games and 44 traders.

Ratty rumble - Fightin Fungi rules playest #2

It's been a long few weeks without any gaming due to work commitments, however I finally managed to get my fix with more SoBH rule play-testing with my regular gaming buddy, Arabianknight. Indeed, soon after my return from working away I had the paints back out and quickly resumed with my In Her Majesty's Name production line, with nine miniatures completed already for Lord Curr's Q Division - Extraordinary Affairs. It's all coming along nicely and I hope to get the first pictures up in the new few weeks.

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.

Fightin' Fungi!

As my follower knows, I'm a big fan of Ganesha Game's popular Song of Blades and Heroes, so it was no surprise to see their first Kickstarter, Fightin' Fungi, being quickly backed. 

Not only do we have a very entertaining new range of beguiling characters to play with, we'll be getting the much anticipated new rule expansion for Magic, new attributes tables such as individual weaponry and most intriguingly, a Reaction system! 

The play test rules are available to backers. SoBH just gets better and better!

The First Law's last stand

Galan and his elf retinue, the Woodland Guardians, have been commissioned by a very shady business-man from the Gurkish Empire to acquire potential 'human resources' from an number of small, weakly defended locations - including Ostenlet. Thankfully for the townsfolk, The First Law crew are billeted in the town and are certainly not about to let themselves and the poor wee townsfolk be snatched. However, the frightened peasants will fiercely fight off any attempts to enslave them but unfortunately, due to their panic, might also resist any assistance from their would-be rescuers!

After they failed to rescue Frederik dan Ferengis's caravan from both the Ogre attack and Galan's scheming elves, the First Law warband made a slow and dissonant trek back from The Wilds to Ostenlet, where the crew were planning to disband the expedition and depart on their separate ways. Unfortunately, The Wilds lived up to its name. A poorly concealed hunter's trap whilst they were negotiating a thick patch of wooded undergrowth, seriously wounded an unusually distracted Ferro Maljinn. It was likely to be back to the mud for the ex-slave from the arid Gurkish south. However, Bayaz was curiously instant she recovered and resolved to get her back to Ostenlet.

Caravan of Forlorn Hope

Happy New Year!

It's been a few weeks since my last post, what with all the annual holiday festivity malarkey creating the usual distractions. Now normal service is slowly resuming, with the long, dark wintry Scottish winter well into its stride and limiting me to mostly indoor activities, I can look forward to embarking on my hugely over-ambitious gaming projects for 2015. Some of which will no doubt be encouraged by my first trade convention visit of the year to York (Vapnartak), down in Englandshire, at the end of this month.

The first After Action Report of 2015 is actually from the last tabletop rumble of the old year - battle 10 of our long running Songs of Blades and Heroes campaign between my 'First Law' humans and Arabianknight's Guardian elves. This scenario, The Lost Caravan, was taken from Hour11's excellent scenario conversions  The scoring was 1VP for killing an Ogre and 1 VP for every 20 points of the opposing warband taken out. Most VPs wins...

The Thief was robbed?!

Songs of Blades and Heroes campaign game 9, ‘The Heist’, was a fitting title as Bayaz and his lads "wuz robbed!"

Liquid Courage, a Buxom Barmaid, a drink spilled...

Bayaz, First of the Magi, suspecting mutinous thoughts amongst his weary warband, leads them to an infamous drinking establishment hoping to re-tie the bonds that have led them thus far on their adventure. As he enters the forecourt and sights the huge Ogre bouncer brooding next to the entrance, with snatches of laughter, pipe music and a curious mix of odours emanating from inside, he halts the warriors. "The Blue Oyster Bar: You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. We must be cautious."  With that warning, the warriors gleefully head inside...

Mid October round-up: The Rim, The Forlorn Hope and a right Saga!

It's all been a bit quiet on the gaming front over last few weeks due to one thing or another. Too many commitments, too little time. Same old story!

Anyway,  I did manage to join some of my buddies over at Livingston Battleground last weekend for  another game of the excellent Firefly board game. It was great to see the latest expansion in play, Blue Sun.

This includes a map expansion which adds two new tiles to the board. These align with the left edge of the old board, completing the Murphy system and mapping out Rim Space with a new system (Blue Sun) and a new Supply Planet, Meridian. It also includes new supply cards, nav cards and contacts.

I'm still not sure how the goal card we used, however, can quote '2 hours' to play - unless that was the time required to pack up all the cards and tokens afterwards!

I also 'endured' game 7 of our continuing SoBH campaign recently, where my First Law warband, now officially given the title 'Falorn Hope', were at the receiving end of yet another drubbing at the hands of the dastardly elves. Unless the batteworn and reduced human warband can get off the ropes it'll be all over for them by battle 10.  

Unfortunately, I forgot to take my usual camera and was so wrapped up in how Bayaz, First of the Magi, (and possibly the last given this battle!), attempted to extricate his warband from a deadly situation, I neglected to take any BatRep notes. Luckily for me (or not!), my opponent, ArabianKnight has posted up all the gruesome detail over at Wee Blokes.

Finally, I also demonstrated Saga for my brother-in-law, who is no stranger to the Battleshed, usually with a new board game or card deck to try. He's a regular FoW and WHF player too, as I've been at the receiving end of his Vampire Counts and German heavy armour on  numerous occasions! 

I used a similar set-up to the demo with ArabianKnight previously. Basic battle, 6 points, using some of my Empire Warhammer miniatures to act as the Viking warband facing the Scots.I failed to convince John, however, that the mounted Scots Hearthguard weren't some devious plot to include uber-warriors on my side.

In my defence - their only 'advantage' is the long move (and are disadvantaged when being shot at and lose cover bonuses); as Jamie can attest over at Livingston Battleground, having a full group of charging mounted Hearthguard does not mean they still can't be stopped and decimated by a group of indifferent warriors lounging on a hill! :s

So a quiet few weeks, but that's the way it goes sometimes. Over the next few months I plan to revisit Warhammer Fantasy again, as my brother-in-law is ever so keen to let his Vampire army have a go at my semi-retired Empire troops - can't think why ;) Dead Man's Hand and In HerMajesty's Name are also pencilled-in and my next 'big' project will be to build a Carthaginian army for Hail Caesar.

Not so merrily down the river

After a long summer hiatus, our SoBH campaign game between arabianknight's Woodland Realm elves and my First Law humans resumed with an unusual challenge - a spot of river rafting! This scenario, The Haunted Wreck. 

The warbands have heard of the wreck of a treasure ship which was broken up by a violent storm. Only one sailor, by the name of McGuffin, survived and he was driven mad by his ordeal. He keeps saying, "their dead hands reached for me. They were dead I tell you! They reached for me..."

Both warbands seemingly commissioned the same carpenter to provide a couple of basic but hopefully sturdy rafts, so it was on a fresh autumn day the two parties found themselves anxiously standing on riverside beaches and arguing amongst themselves who would be the raft pilots. For the First Law crew, Black Dow was volunteered as he was still nursing an injury and new recruit 'Red Hat', wanting to impress, volunteered to pilot the second. Threetrees was recovering from his previous injuries and stayed ashore, although the others thought this was probably for the best as the muscle-mountain might sink the raft!

So it was that the first raft got awkwardly underway, with Red Hat, Logan, Ferro and Jezal on board. The remaining warriors followed on the second raft, with Black Dow grumbling at the helm, Bayaz unsuccessfully attempting to appear resolute and Curnden Craw shouting jibes to his compatriot, Red Hat in the lead raft. After a very nervous hour of crashing into banks, almost capsizing and a couple of crew overboard incidents, the bedraggled human warband headed down-river.

The humans eventually spot the elves ahead on their rafts - heading straight towards a large wreck beached on one of the rivers numerous islands. Game on! Bayaz watched the elves come alongside the wreck whilst letting one of their crew nimbly spring aboard. Almost immediately there is a loud pop, the air appearing to momentarily shimmer. A figure appears near the bow of the wreck in the garb of a pirate captain! The ethereal captain raises his sword and gives a rictus grin. More 'pops' and 'shimmers' follow; a nightmare crew of ghostly skeletal warriors and archers form up alongside the pirate captain.

Bayaz quickly recovers from his surprise and shouts orders for this rafts to steer clear of the wreck for now, hoping the elves and the mysterious pirate crew will be so pre-occupied with each other it'll allow his warband to take advantage of the situation. 

The elves board and quickly engage enemy skeleton warrior and archers. A hard fight ensues, with the elves valiantly skirmishing on the deck against the skeletal warriors, with supporting fire from their archers on the rafts. The skeletal archers return fire, with arrows grazing armour and shields on both sides. The elves eventually manage to get a couple of their warriors behind the pirate captain and, after overcoming their Fear, they attack. The pirate captain screeches and desperately attempts to counter the skilful and focused attack from the elves.

But it was too late, the elves rain blows  and with a deafening 'crack' which momentarily stuns all the combatants, the pirate captain quickly leeches out of existence. The skeletal warriors all stop fighting and as one run to the wrecks sides and jump overboard, following their captain into oblivion , their dry bones sending up an acrid smelling, hissing steam cloud wherever they hit the water.

The meantime humans eventually come alongside and try to take out the rearguard of elves still on ship (transfix from Bayaz, Curnden fluffs his boarding). Opportunistic? Och Aye!

Whilst the elves regrouped and uncouple from the wreck. Red Hat, quickly mastering his piloting skills , manoeuvres his raft against the current and blocks the elves. The elves, still battle high, take the initiative and board first. Melee ensues. A very hard fight, with blades and arrows flying. Ferro, Logan fall. Jezal is pushed overboard but comes up on downstream island. Red Hat sizes up the situation - being alone, outnumbered and still holding onto the tiller, abandons ship and ends up on same island as Red Hat.

The humans are all but in rout, so the elves confident and treasure-laden, but typically merciless...sent an arrow Red hat's way whilst semi-drowned and beached. It was all Bayaz could do but order his raft to divert to the other side of the island  to pick up Jezal and the injured Red Hat.

Bugger! Another CP lost. The First Law crew still weary after the last two rough encounters. However, with the tower of Threetrees and  the exuberant Nicomo Cosca back in action, the crew are seriously wanting to recover pride.. and treasure.

In the intertest of balance... the elves point of view.