Actual gaming

Got to play not one but TWO games yesterday.

The first was a large (but not really Apocalypse-scaled) 40k game - 4 players, 3000 points per player. Then to make it really interesting we diced for allies. I picked my Imperial Guard to use, sort of a "last hurrah" for their existing codex, as I don't expect to play with them again until then new Imperial Guard codex is released in May. I ended up paired with Jeff's Emperor's Children-themed Chaos Space Marine army, facing off against Mike's Tyranids and Chris's Orks.

So we have here two shooty-armies against two horde-style armies. Oh boy.

We played a 16'x4' set of tables, with four objectives. We set up baffles for blind deployment - a particular favorite of Jeff's. Predictably the Guard and Chaos armies were set up very quickly; the Horde took a long while, giving Jeff and I time to discuss some minor planned strategy over donuts.

Sadly we were under a time limit - our Tyranid player had to leave by 3:30, so we were only able to get in three turns. During that time, the horde forces surged us hard, but I felt that our guns had been able to hurt them pretty badly. With another turn or two, we might have been able to mount our planned counterattack and seize two of the four objectives pretty handily - but it was not to be and we lost 2-0 on objectives.

Some my army's highlights of the game were:

• My Lascannon weapon teams first blowing up a [freshly purchased] Ork Battlewagon, and then on the next turn killing the two surviving Meganobs.
• Four infantry squads AND a Leman Russ tank pouring fire on a Carnifex to finally kill it, mere inches from where it was going to crash into my lines.
• Those same infantry squads and a command section raining dealth into a unit of 15 Ork Bikers and finally routing the last three of them after deliviering an enormous hail of fire.

After everyone packed up and the Tyranid and Ork players departed, Jeff and I played a quick game of Warhammer.

It was my third outing with the Warriors of Chaos since the new book came out - so far I had one tie (against Wood Elves) and one loss (againt Dark Elves). Jeff played Dwarves - this time a really, really freaking shooty Dwarf army.

However my Chaos Warriors were not to be denied, ending in a handy win for me. Really the man of the match was my Chaos Sorceror, who cast Curse of the Leper onto the Hammerer unit containing Jeff's Thane - and the dwarves were completely unable to rid themselves of this spell. It ended up killing the entire unit - I managed to pick off some of the Hammerers in a long combat with one of my Chaos Warrior units, but overall the spell did them in. Jeff did manage to kill a lot of Warriors and Chaos Marauders with his two Flame Cannons and 40 Crossbows and 20 Thunderers (ow, ow, ow) but when my units made it into melee, it was just a slow grindfest where Chaos was bound and determined to win.

Good games, both.

Coming on Thursday: Urban War against Tim.

How It's Going

Played a game last Thursday - Dark Age; 750 points of my Brood army against Tim's new St. Johann army. Tim expected a massacre - it was his second time playing the game, ever, and his first game was a very brutal match against the Skarrd that might have left him with some scars.

It was a massacre, but in unexpected ways - my Brood were absolutely pulped. I am now deathly afraid of St. Johann himself, AND the terribly scary prowess of Strike squads that have been augmented and drugged. Terrifying!

My acquisitions are coming along. In the mail to me presently are a new Dragyri army for Dark Age, as well as a lot more Urban War Viridians and VASA troops - the VASA troops are largely for Tim. I'm waiting on a payment from a Bartertown sale to get myself a mess of Gladiator troops, which honestly was the start of all of my Bartertown finds in the first place. (funny how that works out)

On tap: a 4-player 40k game, 3000 points per player, on Feb 21st. Have not decided which army I am going to dust off yet. My last 40k foray wasn't pretty; so I really need to redeem myself.

Acqusitions, Inc

Sadly one of the things I love nearly as much as playing all of these various and sundry games is acquiring new games, and the stuff you use to play these games.  I am a collector, and I know that I enjoy the getting AND the having perhaps a bit too much.

Of late I've been in a heavy acquisition mode for more Urban War miniatures.  Oh, it wasn't enough that I couldn't play with my old VOID figures...no, I needed the latest and the greatest of shiny things.  

So I scoured the online stores, since Urban War has poor retail penetration.  Not great prices.  Ebay?  Poor selection.

Oh hey here's Bartertown!  I haven't visited Bartertown in years and years. I mean YEARS.  I think my last tranactions were on there when it was just being run by an Aussie college student whose name I can't recall.  It was constantly up and down, I think, because the college he was at didn't really like the traffic he was pulling. 

Anyway it appears that Bartertown is the answer to my Urban War yearnings.  Sadly mostly for cash, which has me selling other things on Ebay to buy Urban War collections.  It's a crazy cycle.

And speaking of cycle, I'm sure by the time I get copious amounts of Urban War models and am prepared for some serious Metropolis (the bigger scale Urban War game) Mercuriality will punch me like a fist to the jaw and I'll move on from this game; probably to a game that I need to start this deranged acquisiton mode all over again for.

 

Once more with feeling

And I'm doing a GREAT job of updating this with the frequency is rightfully deserves. Those of you expecting journeyman blogger writing levels are in for a painful shock.

Short drop, sudden stop.

Anyway I did some gaming this past Saturday; having something nearly akin to a convention of various games going on. I myself played 40k (lost), learned Alkemy (lost), taught Epic Armageddon (lost) and played Dark Age (and won, breaking the streak!).

Not bad for 7 hours.

The Swingularity needle is presently pointing to a trio of games, fueled in part by my friends and in part by my own inexplicable compass and it's constant teetering. Presently those games are:

Dark Age, where I have now only Brood; having traded my Skarrd to my friend Jeff. Of course no sooner do I do that than make efforts to acquire a nicely painted Dragyri force from Bartertown. I'm really enjoying this game despite its less-than-stellar level of support from its parent company.

Urban War. Largely the fault of Tim but I've dived in head first. We both had figures for Urban War when the game first came out, but somewhere along the way we lost interest in it. Around the end of last year the game sort of popped back on our radar and we have played a few games since. More imporantly has been the rapid acqusition of more models for the game - I've already added about 40 last month and am on track to add 60 or so more models to my collection this month. Madness.

Heavy Gear Blitz. SUCH a dark horse for me. I have always loved the world of Heavy Gear; it has been one of the best fleshed-out universes I've ever seen, and they made the anime conceit of Big Mecha Things work out very well in the canon. But I've never really enjoyed the game itself - I bought a good number of the miniatures a long time ago, got them painted, and then sat down to play with a friend...and found them hard to follow and even painful. Units had to practically standing next to one another to do damage. It just felt wrong and we pretty much boxed it up never to play again. However I've watched as HG: Blitz has come out...and the revised version, HG: Blitz Locked and Loaded, and I'm intrigued. I've been reading the rules and the army lists and trying to figure out what more I might need to make an army to try the game out with....