Battle Report - Double Feature Lion Rampant and Frostgrave

Hello Folks,

So this past weekend Stan Duncan and I got together to play some games, and have a bit of a chat about Cangames. We are going to run a frostgrave event, and Duncan is considering a crusades game so we wanted to try some ideas out, and have an excuse for some gaming.

Lion Rampant:

The first game to try out is Lion Rampant. The idea being that because this game is very simple it is a better candidate for a large convention game then Saga which is a bit complicated and there are allot of questions, which will be ongoing for the full game.

So we set up to play a 24 Point Crusade game, Duncan had 24 points of ah Arabs and Stan and I split the Crusaders so I had 10 points of Heroic Teutonic Knights, and he had 14 points of dirty Crusaders. For fun we decided to roll randomly to see whos leader would be in charge every turn and they had different Traits as follows (you roll on a table):

Teutonic Commander: Braveheart (easier to win challenges)
Crusaders: Commanding (easier to give orders)
Arabs: Commanding

We just played the blood lust (forget the exact name) scenario but basically kill the bad people. The game also has boasts (bets) you make to get extra points and have a bit of a laugh. I boasted that I would kill more Arabs then Stan and also kill the enemy commander, the Arabs vowed to kill more people with bows, and the Crusaders would out kill the Teutonics. So some rivalry going on, but can't feel good for the Arabs with so many people betting on how many they will kill!

So here we are at the start, didn't have super suitable terrain but you use what you got. Teutonics in the fore ground, Crusaders to the right, Arabs across the way.

First turn there were no trouble with orders so everyone just moved up to get ready to kill.

Second turn the Arabs moved up and tried some bow shots, but the Crusader armor was mostly to good. On our turn the Crusaders took over command, so my Bishop of Battle was not able to issue a challenge, but Knights are impetuous so they were at least able to charge and beat up the enemy commanders units without having to listen to any up-jumped peasants. Most other stuff moved up and I think the cross bows fired.

Next turn the Arab camels tried charging the Teutonic foot, but then discovered they were better at shooting, and thus didn't accomplish much except dieing. I think this is also about the time that morale started to go bad for the Arabs. My Bishop finally got to issue a challenge and I think a few units fell back due to that, so pressure was on. My Knights charge another unit and did some damage, but the failed a morale. This game has all units acting really well until you start to loose to many guys. Eventually you become less effective and start failing tests.

But anyway the crossbows pretty much murdered the camels.

With the Teutonics starting to be less interested in battle the crusaders continued to press and we got a few more kills. Then decided to call the game. The christian side killed more units so got 5 points to start. Boast wise I didn't kill the enemy commander (he technically ran away), and Stan killed more units then me so -2 points leaving me with 5. Thus the Crusaders accomplished their boast and had 6. Finally the Arabs did manage to kill more people with arrows then swords, which was a 2 point boast so they ended with 2 gloy is what you call points in this game.

I found it to be a pretty fun game actually, nice and simple and fast so good for a convention, but still a bit of a laugh in there. But it is not a super deep game either so I can't imagine we will be playing it dozens of times.

Frostgrave:

So on to Frostgrave. We decided to try out the first scenario in the hunt for the Golem campaign thing. We had 2 Necromancers, one with an apprentice which was Stan's warband, and mine without, and then Duncan had ah I forget actually?

I didn't end up with that many pictures of this, so hopefully one of the other guys puts up a better narrative. But the idea is that there are 15 corpses spread around, some are treasure some are zombies, and one has the golem plans.

So we set up in a oddly walled section of the city and went to work searching corpse, and trying to annoy the other guys and steal all the treasure. I moved on from the bottom, stan from the top, and Duncan on the left. My plan was to have the ranger in the tower, take the corpses close by, and sneak my barbarian to the gate for a surprise attack. First turn I summoned a zombie to try and prove I was the best necromancer.

Turn two we are starting to see that the bulk of the treasure is all along Stans edge! But I keep on with my plan hopign to get what I can. My ranger is in the tower to start taking shots, and my Cleric (infantryman) has 1 treasure in hand.

Next turn the action heats up. As Stan runs off with all the treasure I start to fight it out with Duncan. My Necromancer moved up into the alley and fired a Bone Dart off, which actually put his wizard out of action! Meanwhile my treasure hunts got on a treasure.

There ended up being quite a scrum for that treasure, my hunter was easiley murdered by some enemy treasurer hunters and a captain. But I sent in some Infantrymen and then summoned a demon to help out! Meanwhile my other guys ran off with some treasurer and  my Barbarian and Theif ran in and got themselves put out of action.

Duncan managed to snag the Golem plans which is the big blue ball by the wall, and after getting over half the treasure the remains of Stans guys tried to get in the battle. My ranger continue to fire arrows but did nothing.

Well that was all my pictures. But in the end Duncan made off with 2 treasures and the plans, Stand got 500 treasures, and I got 2 treasures. But I killed a wizard, and the Ranger killed an apprentice. So I was feeling significantly smug about things. We rolled for stuff, no one important died or got any interesting wounds. I set up a base in an Inn and learned a new spell. Hopefully we will carry on to mission 2 of the Golem with the same wizards sometime soon.

I think everyone had a good laugh with Frostgrave. It's a bit random so you just have to go with it at the end of the day hah. I think my plan to not have an apprentice and have better soldiers was a big failure thou but oh well.

Thanks;
Mike

Painting - Dungeon Saga and Bruce Lee (Boards don't hit back)

Hello Folks,

So over the last week, and allot on Saturday which was pretty much a painting day, I got the rest of the Infernal Crypts (Demons) expansion for Dungeon Saga painted, and also painted Bruce Lee which is pretty sweet.

Bruce Lee

So way back in November of 2014! I joined a kickstarter for Dragon Tides, a Kung-Fu action movie board game. Really the main reason I did was because they were including a Bruce Lee model, but I really like Kung-Fu movies as well so I thought it might be fun, and they had some other cool models. So last week the base game showed up (they are still working on all the extra stuff I guess. I was super excited to paint this guy so I went ahead with that on Saturday, and watched Enter the Dragon, hence the quote above).

The scale is 32mm so it's a bit bigger then normal, and the details in some areas, particularly the face, are not as deep as you may prefer. But they have nice dynamic poses, and each one has a cool unique base. So I think they are very nice overall.

So there is that, 7 more models to come eventually, of course this is exactly the kind of distraction project I don't need right now!


So on to the Dungeon Saga Stuff.

Lesser Abyssals:

The last of the minor demons.

Drech'Nok the Destroyer:

Then I have the Demon Prince Drech'Nok the destroyer, boss of all these guys. This is a pretty nice model. The one thing I thought was funny is that they didn't give him fangs, so the mouth kind of makes him look like an old man with no teeth a bit.

Morlochs:

Then finally there are the Morlochs, the ogre sized Demons. Had to burn a bit of the midnight oil to get these done yesterday, but I was excited to have this expansion finished off.

Group Shot:

As usual here is a couple of shots of the full group together. I forgot to put in the 2 heroes for this one, but you have seen them before so no big deal I think.

Furniture:

I also got a few of the furniture items that were included on the side.

So with another expansion complete here is a shot of everything that is left to go, not that much really.

Dragon, Undead-Demon, God/Sprit guy, last 3 heroes, 5 Resin Heroes, and a bit more furniture. There is a bag of doors as well but I dunno about painting that we will see I guess. Actually there are 2 complete sets of the doors and furniture, but plan is to leave one in the box unpainted so it is easy to carry, and paint one for other war gaming.

Let me know what you think.

Edit: Forgot the numbers

Pledge Status 2016:
Bought: 9 
Painted: 22 
Total: +13 

Thanks;
Mike

Battle Report - Team Yankee 50 Pts

Hello Folks,

So finally got a chance to test out a game of Team Yankee, the new game from Battlefront for cold war gone hot. We both had out starter sets painted, turns out that the Russian box comes to 49 points so we decided to go for a 50 point game, this meant I had to drop on tank which made me 47 points. So that is 5 M1s (commander and 2 platoons of 2) with 2 Cobras vs 10 Russian T72s (Commander 1 platoon of 3 and one of 6) and 2 Hinds.

We just went with the first mission to try things out, so that was Free for All. Very similar to the Flames of War version, but there is no roll to see who goes first the attack just does.

Also we found a few questions in the rules that we were one sure of, and surely made a few mistakes. I noticed some of them later, but I will just put that discussion at the end.

Under the new rules both plays choose if they want to attack of defend, and have a roll off if they both choose the same. We both wanted to attack so there was a roll and Serge one so got to choose sides deploy the first unit and take the first turn, but everything counted as moving due to meeting engagement.

So here is the starting set up, I have 2 Abrams tanks in a vineyard covering one objective, two and a commander covering the one on the far corner of the crop fields, and 2 Cobra helicopters taking cover behind a wood. The Russians have the small platoon behind a hill with one objective, and the rest massed around the forest.

We are kind of still testing the waters at this point so no one really wants to make any big moves to start. The Russians move the Hinds in to try and shoot down the Cobras with their chain guns, while the small platoon goes into overwatch hull down along the hill, and the rest advance cautiously. The tanks were not effective as mine where in cover and gone to ground so a 6 was needed, the ones on the hill could see into the field so just got unlucky.

The helicopter fight we assumed would be very decisive, but this turned out to be wrong. Their guns don't have dedicated AA so are only getting one shot each. I got to fire AA with 3 of my tanks and the Cobras first to no effect, and the the hinds similarly no effective. Also feels a bit strange that the range is so short being only 8".

On my turns I moved the 3 tanks up to the edge of the crop field and took some shots, but not much effect, and the tanks and helicopters both tried to shoot the hull down platoon but no effect. This meant just 1 tanks was down so far. Things were looking allot harder to kill the we thought!

Next turn the Russians kept up the advance on that objective bringing their tanks down off the hill. This concentrated fire got them a kill and a bail. I passed my morale test to avoid retreating with the bailed tank, but he failed the 2+ to remount! But I advanced with my platoon in the vineyard, no one bogged thankfully, and killed the platoon of 3, so starting to fight back.

The Russians moved in to take the objective and finished off the bailed out tank. Meanwhile the hinds moved to the corner of the table to attacks my other platoon but missed their shots. This was one of the rules mistakes by the way.

On my turn I moved the commander within 4" of the objective to contest, and the advanced my tanks to fire on the T72s, This got me another kill, but in retrospect it may have been better to go for the open Russian objective behind the hill! My Cobras shot their missiles at the Hinds thinking the couldn't fire on the tanks but no effect. Helicopters are hard to shoot down it seems. Actually the odds and very much the same as shooting the tanks in the front, and the Hinds missile is a bit more dangerous so trying that sometimes seemed smart anyway.

Of course the T72s moved up to murder my commander and secure the objective, no luck for the Hinds again.

On my turn I moved my remaining Abrams forward but was to far to contest, so now I had to try and kill all the tanks. My Abrams got 2 of them, and thinking the Cobras couldn't shot I fired on the Hinds but was still not able to kill them. This left the Russians without a unit in good spirits so they had to take a morale test before the could win, which they passed easiler (I think another 2+ or maybe 3+), so a win for the Russians, but it was pretty close and came down to the wire.

So first up rule mistakes that I noticed afterwards, probably there are more. Firstly the missile on the Hind can only shoot 20" so they are not able to move around and avoid all AA fire like we were doing, so they should have taken at least 1 shoot each time as the tanks have an AA gun that also has a 20" range. Lastly we thought the Cobras couldn't shoot the tanks assuming they must be out of the arc of fire. But actually this game has no concept of arcs at all so they could have turned and shot without moving. But neither of those were a big deal.

In terms of the game I found it to be quite fun, better then I was expecting I really. The tanks seemed quite tough but that may have been a matter of dice rolling, and the helicopters were hard to shoot down but no real AA at this point.

They have taken allot of the fine points out of the flames of war game, so there is allot less room to have arguments, and things flow a bit better. The terrain rules are also allot more clear, but less about true line of sight.

The only thing I didn't like was that the Cobras oddly can't move and shoot their missile. This means it's kind of best for them to just sit in one place and fire away, so they don't feel like a helicopter at all. The Russian ones thou don't even have a halted rate of fire so they are always moving around taking shots and it feels much better. It may be that with dedicated AA units the Cobras fare allot better as their rules will help deal with that better maybe, they can get cover and their missile can out range them. But we shall see, I still won't like being stuck in one place.

It is tempting to drop the Cobras for the other tank, will have to think about that.

So there you have the new game, maybe Serge can put his thoughts on it in the comments so we can have both of our thoughts about it.

I already ordered a bunch of new stuff, but half of it came up on back order which is disappointing.

Thanks;
Mike

Painting - Dungeon Saga

So with the first part of my Team Yankee army finished I thought it was time to get back to painting Dungeon Saga, I am getting closer to having all this stuff completed so I really want to get it done now. But as I thought might happen having a big multiple week break in the middle of a project is really not great for keeping the enthusiasm high. A big part of me just wanted to continue on with painting tanks so it was a bit of a challenge.

So in the end I decided to paint a couple of the kickstarter extras, I thought they might be a bit more interesting so it would be easier to cut in that way, as opposed to just going right back to the Abyssal Demons.

Tyrant King Blaine:

I decided to do this crazy predator type guy first. Not really sure what he is meant to be but I gather he is a character from Kings of War, you can even get him riding a Dinosaur. I now feel that I need that. He also has some kind of Imorten Joe face mask thing going on.

I actually think this guy is kind of cool.

Logan:

Then I was thinking about using the heroes from this set to make a frostgrave army. So I painted up a halfling warrior to use as a thug or something. Also he was small and wearing a bunch of chainmail so I thought it would be easy, that didn't hurt. Allot of sword for a little guy but I think it works out ok.

Lower Abbyssals:

After those guys my plan had worked and I was back into the flow with painting more Dungeon Saga stuff. So I went back to finishing off the Demons for the Infernal Crypts expansion and got another pair of the lesser demons done.

I also got a good start on the Demon Lord. So with these guys finished I just have 4 more lower abbyssals, 2 ogre sized guys and the demon lord left to go for that expansion. Then I would just ahve 2 more expansions and the rest of the extras, but the other expansions are smaller and only have 3-4 models and in one case a big dragon. Hopefully I can get that done soon and move back to Team Yankee. There are allot of projects that need to get completed by Cangames so I can't be doing this stuff forever!

Pledge Status 2016:
Bought: 9 
Painted: 14 
Total: +5 

Thanks;
Mike

Painting - Team Yankee US (Cold War US)

Hello Folks,

So over the weekend I managed to finish off my starter box for Team Yankee. So now I am ready for some action!

Well I just had to finish the helicopters and a couple of objectives, so it wasn't a huge amount of stuff.

Cobra Attack Helicopters:

They look pretty good I think, kind of a pain thou if I am honest. There are allot of long thing parts, so keeping everything as square as you want during assembly is not very easy, and they there are problems with magnets, which can be an annoyance. Both in terms of polarity, and them ripping off the plastic if you don't have a good job done of gluing as they are strong magnets. I used an old Vietnam cobra painting video to do the painting which is super easy, mainly they are just painted brown violet. Then I did the transfers, including the teeth, mat spray, and the painted just the windows with gloss varnish as suggested by the video. I might go back and to the bases as well, fill in the dice whole which is not need and glue sand over the bottom ect.. Depends on how lazy I am later on.

Objectives:

The set also came with an objective, the one on the right, which is some kind of command station. I thought it would be best to have 2 painted in a similar way so I also did one from Kerr and King that I have had unpainted for a long time. The objective in the set is actually resin despite the all plastic sticker on the box, but I don't hold that against them.


Group Shots:

Finally here are a few shots of the whole group together for the Bannons Boys set.

So there you go first phase of this project done!

I actually picked up a second base set so that I could have more tanks (you really need 4 more to have a real army), and the cobras really want to be in a group of 4 as well. The Abrams set on it's own is not being released for some months, so it makes allot of sense to me. That would give a command section and 2 units of 4 tanks, and a unit of 4 cobras. I think the missile, AA, and M113 boxes are out now so I will get some of those whenever they show up at Fandom, or FDB or whatever.

Originally this was meant to be a small project but now I like it and want everything!

Let me know what you think in the comments. Also I got a new photo taking booth for Christmas so let me know if the pictures seems better.

Pledge Status 2016:
Bought: 9 (Second starter set)
Painted: 10 
Total: +1 

Thanks;
Mike

Battle Report - Warhammer 40k & Star Wars X-Wing

Ok so I have decided to group up a couple of battle reports. Over the Christmas holiday I played a game of 40k with some of the guys back home, but I didn't get that many pictures so I thought it was a bit weak to be it's own article. But this past weekend I played some games of X-Wing so I thought I can get away with tossing a picture from that in the mix.

Warhammer 40K:

So for my basically yearly game of 40k we decided to play a big multiplayer game this time around. We had Chaos, Eldar, Black Templars, and Grey Knights. So we put the 2 Space Marine players together, and I teamed up my Eldar with the Chaos. These 2 armies are what is called 'Come the Apocalypse' armies so there are allot of extra restrictions that come into play. Basically no units can start within 24" of an enemy, and if you start a turn within 6" you might have to spend it keeping an eye on them (ie doing nothing).

We played a mission where you draw cards every turn to see what your objective is and draw 1 more every turn up to the turn number. The deployment set up was 'Hamburger' as my buddy calls it, which has the deployment zones on short edges instead of long (Hot Dog).

Here is the inital set up, we had to be far apart, so the Chaos forces were rammed in one corner and mine were forward in the other. The Space Marines didn't set up to much as most of it would be dropping in from Space, as you would. My forces was based on 3 formations, one was a Seer Council of psykers, and then 2 formations of Aspect Warriors who are all spread around. Some in the ruins in the fore ground to hold and objective marker, some to sneak towards the forest, some to warp in ect..

So here is the situation after turn one. our card was to get a unit in the enemey deployment zone, so I zoomed my jet bikes way down there, most other stuff advanced. I used my psychic stuff to cast invisibility hoping that my guy would not die, it protects them from 95% of shooting type stuff. The chaos force surged forward looking for some close assaults.

The Marines card was to take the objective near my ruins, so they dropped in a dreadnought, and a unit of purifiers. It turns out the purifiers have a psychic power that ignores invisibility, so allot of my guys died there. They also killed my jet bikes.

And here we are after the second turn. I think our cards this time were to cast 3 psychic powers, which I easily did, and capture the objective in the far ruins where a cannon is. For our action I moved up my Howling Banshees and wiped out half of the purifiers in a close assault, and the chaos easily killed the other half. My psykers casted a bunch of powers, and my Striking Scorpions moved out from the woods and killed some Marines that were on the bridge. I tried to drop some Warp Spiders to kill the artillery gun and take the objective but they had a mishap and the enemy placed them in a far corner.

The Marines used the dreadnought plus maybe some other stuff to murder my Banshees, and a captain killed my guys on the bridge. Meanwhile some terminators wrapped in and the last of my psykers were killed off. I don't remember the marine cards but they got both of them probably.

And here is the last picture I took, I used my second unit of Warp Spiders to jump in a kill the cannon and take that objective. But by now we were loosing on points and after this turn most of our stuff had died. So we decided to call it a loss. Was a pretty fun game thou, good to go back to the classic every now and then.

After this we played all of the Warlord of Galahir (Orcs expansion) of Duneon Saga, but no pictures. A couple of days later we played a second game and then all of the basic Dungeon Saga set (which took 9 hours hah) but again no pictures.

X-Wing:

With the new Star Wars movie out my friends that I play Magic and DnD with sometimes decided to get into the X-Wing miniatures game. So I decided to pick up a few Imperial Ships and have some games with them. To start I just grabbed some stuff they happened to have at Fandom which was a Tie Bomber, 2 Interceptors, and a Fighter. Then we played a couple of 3 player games with Imperials, and Scum on a cool death star map.

In the first game I was able to keep my 3 fighter together and be lucky so killed a few ships and ended up the last alive. Here we have the Bobba Fett ships trying to run away from Poe Damron ina  new X-Wing and an A-Wing, in the back ground my fighters chase down some fancy ship and a B-Wing.

In game 2 things went much less well for me, and I somehow got into a traffic jam in space. All my ships got shot down eventually and the Scum was the final victor. But my Tie Fight went down swinging and last a few turns against the final 3 Scum Ships.

This game is pretty fun so I ordered a few more ships, why not. I had to get a Tie Defender from the old Tie Fighter video game as that is my favorite one.

Thanks;
Mike

Painting - Team Yankee US Tanks

So first bit of painting done for 2016! Well started before the new year but finished now at least. I wanted to get on top of the painting for Team Yankee so I didn't end up in the same situation as the WW1 stuff. But tanks are far quicker and easier to paint so that shouldn't be a problem really. But I am eager to try out a game as well to see how the changes to the system work out. Hopefully I should be able to get the Helicopters done as well.

Anyway here are the tanks:

Painted in the Merdc camo I found instructions for it on google somewhere. I think they turned out pretty good, they are a nice kit. The only 2 problems I had were that the barrels can easily look a bit droopy if you are not careful, and the rear fender on the port side doesn't fit over the wheel sprocket dealy very well so it sticks off to the side. I read online that they had allot of problems with that so some people tended to field modify to the other fender which doesn't have the sprocket thing covered, this part fits much better, so I used that as an excuse to put that one instead. I don't find it to be very noticeable.


Since I am going to need to remember the paints for the camo for the next batch of tanks here they are:

US Field Drab (Val)
US Dark Green (Val)
Khaki (Val)
Chaos Black (GW)

Tracks are dry brushed boltgun metal, and then have dry rust and rust effect added on.

Be sure to let me know what you think. I guess this is a bit of stuff where we are starting to have people that were there so don't be to harsh hah.

Pledge Status 2016:
Bought: 0 (will change soon enough I am sure hah)
Painted: 6 
Total: +6 (hoping to keep it positive for the whole year this time!)

Thanks;
Mike