Battle Report - Saga Age of Crusades

Busy week!

This past Sunday I got together with Duncan to play some Saga in the crusading times. I decided to try the Teutonic knights again with lots of levy this time, and would be facing the muslim fanatics. (Real reaction names to hard to spell)

Mission wise I decided it would be good to try out ambush. Basically there are 3 baggage that are neutral moving across the board. You have to murder them to get an objective  then keep it, plus survive.

Also everything starts off board and you only get 5 turns.

Fanatics move on, no saga dice so you just have to maneuver

Knights move in. Every turn you roll to see if the baggage moves, we have camels, horses, and pigs behind the forest.

Some eastern horse men ride in like crazy and kill 75% of a hearth guard unit. Just terrifying! Some spearmen assault a baggage but just bounce off.

Time to strike back. The Teutonic knights have a very helpful ability that let's ever unit move 4" with out counting as an activation, so I use that to get my dirty peasant bowman in range and they hammer the Eastren horsemen. Then the brother knights charge the pigs and take the objective. Showing the fanatics how it's done!

Guess I missed a picture so 2 turns for this one. The fanatics tried to strike back sending some camels into my bowman. But a handy saga abilities let me kill 1 to allow them to shoot in response, this killed half the camels. They also made a very good attempt to kill a baggage getting 7 hits, but crazily I made 6 saves!

On my turn I killed the rest of the camels, and more horsemen with shooting, moved my loot holding guys back and sent the lone knight up to get in the way.

The fanatics kill that knight pretty easily, then kill a baggage with their warlord.

Final turn for me I try to collect the last baggage. A charge with knights get 3 fatigues on it, then my warlord finished it off. Finally kill the last horseman with archers.

In the end I had 2 of the objectives vs 1 for the fanatics, and a bit of a lead in survival points so it was a win for the Teutons.

I wasnt to keen on this board previously, but with the 2 units of bow it actually feels great to play! Crusades are a good time.

I also liked the mission, although it wasnt a great one for the fanatics it was pretty interesting.

Thanks;
Mike

Battle Report - By Fire and Sword -Samurai

Hello All,

This past Friday we had our club day. The main game was English Civil War which I'm not that interested in, so I decided to try and set up a side  game. Settled in trying a Samurai game with By Fire and a Sword rules.

Note that my stuff is based on 100mm widecstands not 40mm, so we just counted each stand as 2, no big deal. Also made up some quick stats:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1H4saDZ0tdUbyi1ihaGGSzUA8rFxoEZiCRsqIV6vKcHA/htmlview

So I had 2 armies 1 if warrior monks and some Ikko-Ikki and one with Samurai. Monks had a few more units and more guns, Samurai had mounted so Korean maneuverability. I took the monks and gave Steve the Samurai.

Never did points so no idea if that was fair, also skipped recon and other pregame bits. Basically we were playing fast and loose with the rules.

Game 1: Forage

Since I dont really know who the stronger player is I picked 3 scenarios that 8 hadcterra8n fir and let Steve choose, forage was the winner.

Here is the set up, using 2 villages as forage tokens, which is not allowed but like I said, treating the rules as more of a guideline!

First turn the Samurai deploy into a line for a full frontal attack, no time to waste. I fire a few shots but it's long range so mostly scattered. But the mounted Samurai are disrupted.

Turn 2 they recover and charge, but some Warrior monks send them back. On the left I have few peasants trying to flank while the monks hang out by the village. In the center the bow Samurai are going tow to tiw with the monks.

Next round sees the big unit of mounted Samurai broken. On the  right they get in range of the town.

Big action ln the next go. Both units charge on the right, but Steve rolls really crap and my unit mostly holds, while the Samurai break! Peasants and Ashigaru charge each other on the left but draw. In the center thr slog continues. The bow had gotten out of easy to order range.

Next turn is a bit if recovery getting ready for the last push. I tried to flank with my Warriors on the right but never quite made it.

In the final turn the Samurai are able to recover and charge my exposed unit, really curshing them. Points wise we were about even on murder, but no loot for the Samurai so a win for the monks. Hopefully Steve's dice improve fir round two!

Game 2: Patrol

Since we are professionals we got done long before the other game so decided on another game. This time patrol. Peter joined in commanding my right flank.

All my foot press forward slowly, while the mounted Samurai rocket up to look around. The 3 recon objectives are the w rice paddies and grove

Next turn more moving up and a little shooting. The Samurai have all 3 recon so we are under stress to get the last.

Next turn the peasants try to charge, I was assuming the Ashigaru would as well ti try and block us. Instead they shot so my charge failed and many farmers died... But they past morale so I could check out the field, worth it! On the right the lines ready for battle.

My monja charge through the grove and break the Samurai! The peasants route, butvtheur job is done. In the right the final arrangements are made.

Next turn I turn my unit 90 degrees to flank the ashigaru Teppo-Tai squad, which turns out awkward with these units. On the right everyone charges, but still no luck for the Samurai so they loose. The mounted Samurai do really thou which may be bad.

Final turn, Steve takes the initiative and goes out big. All the units of mounted Samurai converge on my unit milling about in the center and crush it totally. In the right Peter's monks really send the foot Samurai a lesson, breaking them.

This time pints wise we both got the scenario, sonit was d8wn to murder! We took about 30% casualties and the Samurai were just over 50%, so tactical victory for the monks!

Maybe now the pesky Samurai will leave us alone!

Finally heres a shot of England. Lots of great units, bit of a flat land thou.

I thought the Samurai version went very well and was allot of fun. Will have to do more for sure, tempted to get some Koreans! Seems like the lads had fun with the ECW as well so looks like this isza pretty easily adaptable rule set.




Thanks;
Mike

Battle Report - Star Wars X-Wing

Hello All,

Time for the return of Wednesday wargaming! This week more Star Wars.

Seems that the scum are up to their old tricks and it is up to the heroes of the empire to put them down.

Heres the set up. I took the big decimator, with 2 tie advanced and a tie fighter. Facing off against a bunch of villains.

First turn everyone charges up at full speed!

Next turn thing get delicate. I took a risk and did a flip with a tie advance, but my target ended up right behind him. Otherwkse went ok.

Next turn was bad times. On the right the tie got right behind his target but rolled bad. The scum destroyed my crazy tie in short order, turns out the6 have a ship that can get 5 dice in close, not good. I'm getting a few hits thou.

Next turn brings the decimator face to face with the edge! Was trying to avoid the asteroids. But he is not much able to use his double turret.

Missed a turn of pictures. But the decimator has taken a holy pounding, only 1 hit left! On the good side I killed the star fish, so getting something done.

Next turn the big decimator explodes, shock waves blur the picture!

3 on 2 not looking great.

 
But I kill a second ship. Have a chance again maybe, but my ships are damage and the scum are fresh.

Sadly they kill the tie advance and i bottle.

So a win for the scum! Was fun thou and a bit close so not bad.

Thanks;
Mike

Battle Reort - Batman Miniatures Game

Hello All,

Time for the first report of 2020!

Over the Christmas break we hit together for a gaming day, I was able to do 4 small armies and we had 4 people, so we played the Shifting Allegiances scenario that was done on an old blog, Crits Kill People.

Basically you roll dice every turn to determine turn order, if people tie the6 become temporary team mates.

Fir objectives we just did 1 each based on what I had. I listed them with the armies below.

Armies were:

Police - SWAT Team - Contraband
The riddler plus some pals - riddles
Bane with a couple of mercs - Osito
Batman, Robin, and Batgirl - Barrels

My army was Batman.

Here is the set up. Riddler top left, cops to right, bane bottom right, and batman left.

Not to much action turn 1, as its always night in Gotham. But Commissioner Gordon used a helicopter to spotlight the riddler and a SWAT guy blasted a henchman into the afterlife.

Batman goes up high to survey all the criminals.

Turn 2 most people head to objectives or generally the middle to start trouble. The riddler solved his own riddle, and declared himself very smart. Bane moved into the middle like a boss so batman floated down and started punching.

Next turn saw bane rolling poorly for initiative so Batman got the drop and knocked him out. Otherwise pretty much general mayhem.

Next turn Batgirl got in on the fun and beat up another bad guy, meanwhile the cops shot everyone and the Riddler used a sewer to move near the next riddle.

Unfortunately bane woke up and was not best pleased! All the big guys were out for bats it seems. But Robin was trying to score a barrel and Batgirl found someone else to beat up.

Towards the end of the game it's looking pretty close honestly and anyone could win if they beat up the right guy. The cops had a great plan to arrest bane! But were a bit to far away.

On the last turn we rolled for initiative, Bane, the Riddler, and the cops ended up allies! So it was Batman vs an angry city. With that being the case everyone ended up bat clawing up to the roof.

Since everyone was on the same turn fir the last round! No if the others could catch up to the riddler in points, so the men in green were the clear winners!

In the end we found the batman game to be pretty fun. The basic rules are pretty simple but with lots of choices. Only bad part is there are allot of special rules to remember.

Working on some new terrain now, hoping to get another few games in the short term.


Thanks;
Mike

2019 Year End Review

Hello Folks,

Bit late getting around to it, due to laziness, but I still feel like doing a yearly review.As usual going to start things off by seeing how the goals for last year went:

1. Paint everything some Newfoundland themed pirate or Avalon Peninsula at Cangames.
2. Paint a couple of small Warmaster armies.
3. Paint a couple of new Lord of the Rings armies.
4. Finish the Game of Thrones stuff

Well I did the Newfoundland themed game, and lots of Lord of the Rings stuff. Didn't finish al of the Game of Thrones guys, but I did a bunch of them. So I guess thats three and a half out of 4 not bad at all!

The other thing is to see how things went painting wise overall:

Pledge Status, 2019:

Bought: 257
Painted: 348
Total: -91

Historic Results:

2019: 348 Painted

2018: 342 Painted

2017: 441 Painted

2016: 484 Painted

2015: 216 Painted
2014: 140 Painted

Looks like a pretty good result, did about average with painting amounts, but bought a bit less stuff. Hard to believe that I have already been doing this for 6 years!

As standard here are a few shots of projects throughout the year that stand out to me:

Islands and Big Ships

Accidental French

Old Eldar

Space Ships

Gondor

Lots of Heavy Gear

Of Course Ending with Batman

SO lots of variety last year.Seems like less historical stuff last year then normal which is interesting. Might have to try and do more of that stuff this year who knows.

Anyway here are a few goals to get going for this year:

1. Paint some Black Seas ships
2. Paint some stuff to run a scenario at Cangames, probably Lord of the Rings
3. Paint a few High Elves for Warhammer Fantasy
4. Do a new 6mm Sci-fi army

That should be plenty to get things going!

Thanks;

Mike

Painting Update - last bits of 2019

Hello Folks,

Thought i would do 1 last painting post to show the last few models I got done last year. More Batman stuff as that is the project of the moment.

Bane:

First up big bane all roided out on super drugs. Love this model.

Bane Mercenaries:

Barnes henchman from the bane overdrive box. Variety of Mercs with swords axes grenade launchers all the fun stuff. Sadly I forgot to bring home the bases I want to use so they are temporarily on the regular ones, I can swap them later.

Batman:

Need to have the caped crusader of course. I went with the modern age batman, but they have lots to choose from. I might try to get Adam west as well fir fun. Also got Robin finished but that was yesterday so technically 2020.

Terrain:

Lastly a few bits of street furniture. I think the barriers and cans were 3d printed by Duncan but not sure.

Pictures seem a bit dark, but I dont have a great set up on vacation sadly.  So best I can do. Got most of the Batman stuff done now only a half a dozen or so guys left, hoping to get another game in before I go back.

We did try it out but I mostly forgot to get pictures:

Was pretty fun!

Pledge Status, 2019:

Bought: 262
Painted: 363
Total: -101

Thanks;

Mike