Old World Army Challenge 2

The Old World Army Challenge is back for a 2nd year. The premise remains the same, paint a 1000 point army in 6 months, 200 points a month. You can take one month off.

There are 39 challengers this year.

The first time I did Chaos. My point total in 4th Edition rules is 1375pts. I really need to get a better picture of them.

For OWAC2, I'm doing Dark Elves. Last summer I picked up an unpainted DE army pretty cheap. There is at least 2000 points of unpainted DE. but I'll paint about 1200-1300 points for this challenge.

Here we go. 2 War machines, 4 infantry units, 2 mounted, and 3 characters.

Weighted Bases, I do that for all my figures.

 Glued on metal base stands. Storage and movement tray will have magnetic sheets.

 Magnets on the bottom of base for Cauldron of Blood

 The Witch Elves handlers for the the Cauldron will stay on the base.

Cauldron of Blood

 Repeating Bolt Thrower

 Cauldron of Blood

The Black Guard

 Cauldron Again

 Coarsairs

Repeating Crossbows

 Dark Riders and Cold One Knights

Sorceress

Witch Elves




I'm late with this post. The first month January is already done and can be seen on the OWAC website.

I'll post up my January submission in a day or so.

Cheers Xin

Battletech New Box Set

A new box set of Battletech just launched from Catalyst Games.

I haven't played Battletech in 25 years, but I always loved the setting of the 4th Succession War. That was some of the first tabletop gaming I did apart from D&D, back in the late 80s. There is also a starter box. I've thinking about getting back into Battletech for at least a year now.

I picked up the full box set, and then went rummaging around my basement for another box set I had from years ago. I found the box from 1992, completely intact. I thought it would be fun to do a unboxing past and present.

Mechwarrior 2 was a hella-good game back in the day.

 I love the new artwork.

 The new maps are very nice. Double sided. And a good selection of terrain types.

The updated sheets are very well done. They do have Mech specific sheets included which I really like. I hope they produce sheets for all the mechs.

The detail on the old plastics is really soft.

Nice new Sculpts with crisp detail.

Easy to see the difference

I wonder if they are still taking applications?


Xin

Playing Middle-Earth Strategy Battle Game, Battle Companies. Game 2

My Friend Lou and I started a Battle Companies campaign. If your not familiar with it, BC allows you to play out linked battles, grow your warband over time, using the Middle-Earth Strategy Battle Game rules.

"An expansion for the Middle-earth Strategy Battle Game, this 80-page hardback allows you to assemble a small warband and, over the course of many linked games, watch as its members gain experience, learn skills and become battle-hardened." 

I went with a Lothlorien force and Lou chose Uruk-Hai. I had 3 Galadhrim Warriors and 3 Wood Elves, 2 of which had bows. Lou had 7 scouts 2 of which had bow.

 We had one battle already that I won, but can't find the pics to do a Battle Report. So this is our 2nd battle. Each of us had small upgrades to our Warriors. 

We rolled on the Scenario chart and came up with - Rescue. One side sets up 3 figures in the center of the table (Defender) and the other side sets up 6 inches away (Attacker). The Attacker has to kill a specific model. The Defender has to reduce the other side to 50%. The balance of the Defenders forces come on at the end of turn one. Lou was the Defender and I was the Attacker. 

 Overall Board

 Ready for action

 Here we go.

  I get priority as per the scenario. I charge 2 guys into my target with support.

 Lou responded by adding 2 guys into the fight to peal off the support. I won all 3 combats, but only killed one, not my target.

 Next round he flees towards his reinforcements

 I pursue.

 I catch up but the Uruk-Hai quickly bring up support.

 My Target is on the right, out of combat. I gang up on one guy.

 His support comes up and again splits off my support. I lose badly, 2 dead.

 My Archers pick off one of his Archers.

 I retreat back towards my Archers so I don't get ganged up on.

 We pull back again, so I can get some shooting in, but no luck.

 If I lose priority he will be on me.

 And I lose priority, so we clash. My target is off the left, he doesn't want to risk him in combat.

 I kill one.

 He has priority again, our lines get mixed. He commits his guy I need to kill to the fray.

 No one dies and we are back at it. 4 individual combats.

 If I lose 1 guy I go below 50% which is his victory condition. If his one Uruk dies that I have to kill, that is my victory condition. So we are all in!

I lose one, and fail to kill my target(lower right Uruk) and so I lose the game! 

It was a fun game back and forth. After the game you figure out advances and effects of wounds. I rolled very badly on the "recovery" chart. The effect is Lost in Battle, meaning I left a man behind. So the next battle I play with my warband is Secure the Area, with my wounded guy in the middle of the board. So I'm down a guy going in, and have to rescue him. 

Some of the Recovery effects add character to the game. The Uruk-Hai's leader has a leg wound so he is minus one move. My Galadhrim Archer who is lost had got a free might point in shooting in the first battle, so he is the last guy I want to lose. 

We are gonna try to get some more guys in the campaign so we can mix up the armies. Failing that we will just start new Warbands and randomly roll to see who fights that night. 

Cheers, Xin

Marauder Dwarf MM10/3

I have a good amount of old Warhammer figures lying around. One of the plans for 2019 is do single figure painting alongside big projects. So slowly the pile of shame goes down and I get painted figures? Win, win!

First up, is this Marauder Dwarf MM10/3

I want figures painted to a decent standard that I can play with. So no Golden Demon Award attempts here.

 

One down, 34,783 to go...

Cheers, Xin

Rangers of Shadow Deep

The author who wrote Frostgrave, Joseph McCullough,  has written another ruleset, called The Rangers of Shadow Deep. This is a self published title that is available from RPGNow. You can get Print on Demand or PDF. I got both. 

Using roughly the same rules from Frostgrave, for a cooperative or solo game, this looks to be alot of fun. You play a Ranger and his companions that have to explore the strange area known as The Shadow Deep. A dark Evil is consuming the land swallowing up villages and kingdoms in it's Black Clouds. Sort of a cross between Lord of the Rings and X-files. 

The play is solo or cooperative based. I've never done a solo wargame, so I am looking forward to it. I needed a Ranger and companions to start my missions. I looked through my basement of unpainted figures and found a newly purchased box of Human Warriors from Northstar's upcoming game, Oathmark. I thought these would do nicely.

I came up with the concept of a Capt leading a small band of Soldiers, as opposed to a Strider type Ranger. So I pulled out 5 Plastic figures and one metal Champion. This would be the base of the warband. As they are supposed to be part of the same unit/army I picked a common color scheme that I would use across all 6. While painting them I came up with the name of the unit, The Alladore Grey's. Alladore being the Kingdom where the game is set.

Here is Captain Vallador and his men. 

 

The rules allow the main character, the Ranger, to add or subtract companions(Red Shirts) as needed. I will paint up some addition soldiers types for the Warband, and eventually paint enough Alladore Grey's to make a Unit or 2 for Oathmark.

My first painted figures of 2019! More to come.

Xin

2019 and goals

So I normally hate "new years resolutions", but sometimes they do work. I'd rather think of them as goals.

So my goals for 2019 are pretty simple, in concept, but harder in execution. And they are most likely goals that most of us share. So here they are.

1. Game more. I spend more time reading about others gaming then anything else. I need to get on the table with my lead, and have fun with friends.

2. Paint more. My pile of shame is growing and it has to stop. Buy less, paint more.

3. Blog more. I do enjoy blogging. It's a nice record of where I've been with Gaming. I just need to do more of it.

That's it, simple, right?

To that end I have 3 immediate projects going in 2019.
    - The Old World Army Challenge
    - Refurbish and update one of our convention boards, The Battle of Rivoli
    - Add more detail to my Frostgrave Ghost Archipelago board.

Expect more posts on those 3 items and other gaming and painting projects.

Have a good New Year!!!

Xin/Jeff

Cool tool I found

I saw this tool while watching videos on Youtube, the Amenitee Universal Angularizer Ruler

Immediately the video caught my eye as something I can use for terrain building. Here's the video:

It's now on it's way to me from the good folks at Amazon. I like to give local businesses a chance, even big box stores, but Home Depot didn't have it. So Amazon it is. 

AMAZON LINK

Cheers, Xin