Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Continuing growth in plastic figure releases

This graph has just appeared on Plastic Soldier Review




This growth in releases of new sets of 1/72 figures is astounding. PSR notes this also in the context of the current economic downturn. Check out the article:

http://www.plasticsoldierreview.com/ShowFeature.aspx?id=27

Saturday, December 5, 2009

HotT Carnage.. what a day!!

Today saw four local HotT (Hordes of the Things) players playing for the Emperor Dragon Trophy at the annual Carnage tournament. The tournament is a Fantasy 'gaming tournament at which the predominant game is WH Fantasy. The four of us were to play three games each, once against each other player (obviously???..LOL). That was the morning. In the afternoon we then went on to swap armies, or to try different armies (there were a few spare armies available, although the official playing rounds had been completed. Below you'll find two photo after action reports of two of the games I played. The first was one of the official rounds played in the morning, the second with was one fog the mix 'em up games from the afternoon.

The players and and their army lists were:

Nick G:
Skeletons
1 x Mag Gen
1 x Hero
2 x Knights
2 x Riders
8 x Hordes

Nick S:
Mountain Indian 1 Hero
1 Magician
1 Behemoth (General)
3 Beasts
3 Riders

Gordon P
Dwarf
1xKnight General
1xHero
2xBehemoth
1xFlyer
2xShooters
1xRider
1xBeasts

Robin S

Spiders 1 x Hero General
1 xBehemoth
1 x God
10 x Hordes
2 x Lurkers

This first report is my game against Gordon's Dwarves seen here deployed against me. I advanced cautiously, trying not to get too far away from my baseline (those hordes like to come on close to friends).







Gordon threatened my left with his two behemoths... and pretty threatening they were too, I can tell you. You can see them here advancing against my behemoth and hero.







We began to mix it up.. while I am still hoping for my Spiderman God to appear... he didn't have a good record before this tournament.



Gordon managed to destroy my behemoth, but if you look at the bottom of the photo you can see his Hero, confronting two of my resurrected hordes. What you don't see if the third horde lurking behind (these are Spiders after all..)



The result was a very dead Hero.. mumble grumble .. that was the Dwarves mumbling and grumbling by the way ....



Finally my God appeared.. go Spiderman.. I trapped Gordon's first behemoth, and then managed to squish his general against the second of his behemoths.



This was the second game: I took my Lost Worlds army, against my Chaos army used by Nick G.








The God (King Kong I presume??) appeared relatively early on, as did Nick's TWO dragons.



The dragons took it to my flyer.. ouch...



And this brought the God over.. this looked interesting..



In the meantime the Lost Worlds war band made a breakthrough against the Chaos blades.




and the Ape God drove off one of the Chaos dragons.. what could possibly go wrong??


and then turned on the Chaos General, who was squished against his own dragon... MESSY!!!!




It all looked even better when the war band trapped the Chaos Hero like this:



But.. they don't call them Heroes for nothing!!! He valiantly drove of this attack, and then...



drove hoe the advantage by pressing forward against the lone unsupported war band.. it was enough.... game over for the Lost Worlds forces... but what a fantastic game. Actually what a fantastic series of games and a brilliant tournament.



Oh, in the excitement of the write up, I nearly forgot...

Nick G and I were level pegging at the end, but I won over Nick on a count back of army points lost... thanks to everyone for a great series of games with many memorable moments.

Friday, December 4, 2009

Bergen 1759

Friday night, and more Lace Wars action, as Adrian and I refought Bergen 1759. A Hessian and Hanoverian army (commanded by me) was trying to eject a French army (commanded by Adrian) from Bergen and its dominating heights. Here are just four photos from the action. The figures are once again 15mm from Adrian's collection.

It was a nail biting game, finely balanced throughout. I nearly did it, but my final attempts to shift Adrian's French from the commanding heights, using the last of my cavalry to dislodge his teetering forces, fell short. It was one heck of a game though.




Monday, November 23, 2009

Seeing the light?

I played in a team game of WHF last Saturday with three boys in the College 'gaming group, a two a side game. We paired up my Dwarves with Nick's Wood Elves, and played Peter's Dark Elves, and Elliot's Chaos. An odd thing happened: I began to see them making mistakes.

I was even able to see some of their possibilities, that is, what they could do to defeat us. It was a little more difficult to see our own possibilities, because I know even less about Wood Elves than I do about my own Dwarves, although my Dwarves were tenaciously holding the flank, with the help of an organ gun, and some miners.

Does that mean that I might be starting to see how to play the game? Back to the painting.. a few figures to pad out my Warriors, crew for the artillery, and a unit of Rangers. Then.. dah daaah, there's the Gyrocopter... he! he!

Friday, November 20, 2009

Seven Years War Volley and Bayonet

I'm never afraid to say that Frank Chadwick's 'Volley and Bayonet' rules are my all time favourite 'gaming rules, so when good friend Adrian suggested that we needed to push some of his 15mm metal around the table in a 7 Years War game I could hardly say no.

His figures are 15mm Essex, beautifully painted as always. The game saw Prussians assaulting defending Russians, trying to capture a series of bridges sitting on the table edge. The scenario was originally a napoleonic battle, adapted for 7YW. This is not so much a photo after action report as an excuse to show off some of Adrian's fantastic figures. Enjoy the photos. We had an exciting game, with the Prussians finally winning the day.







While I'm not giving a blow by blow account, this was one of those photographic moments in the battle. Prussian Cuirassier attack Russian infantry that are disordered, giving the cavalry 'shock' i.e. they hit on 5's and 6's. What did I throw? You guessed it: 4 dice and 4 ones. We still managed to win the fight though.






Monday, November 16, 2009

Three projects ahead...

Yep, ok.. I'm really no different from any other 'gamer out there: my brain is at least 3 projects ahead of my painting plan, dreaming about another project.

On the books for quite some time has been a Victorian Science Fiction army for my HotT collection, and the British riflemen have sat undercoated for at least 6 months awaiting my dexterous touch. I have been pondering a behemoth, and have even posted quite some time ago on what I might use. At the recent Conquest tournament I spotted a group of guys playing 'Warmachine', and amongst their 'kit' were steam powered robots... well, what more could I say!!



(The photo is courtesy of the Privateer Press website.)

This goes against my basic HotT philosophy" fantasy 'gaming doesn't need to be hugely expensive. I've mostly tried to create armies from relatively cheap materials. But it's pretty cool.... and there is quite a collectoin of possibilities out there.

This might well be that Behemoth I have been considering... sigh.. too many choices, too many projects.

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Hankerings for WW2 Spearhead again...

With life returning to something more balanced than it has been for a while, my Modern Spearhead game last week has resuscitated my long time interest in WW2 as well, and more specifically WW2 Spearhead games. I've started to tinker with lists for Keith McNelly's Scenario Generation System, and of course I just had to get out some of the toys.. nothing quite like the tactile experience..... when the stands came out, I just had to grab the camera as well. Here are a few photos from the late war British list, based around a tank battalion equipped with Cromwells, and a mechanised infantry battalion.