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So, I am on holiday for a week (not going anywhere - just lounging at home and looking after the kids) but I have had time and occasion to wander into my games room and despair both at a) the piles of unpainted figures that will likely never see paint in my lifetime at my current rate of progress and b) the piles of specialist games that I have lying around and haven't got around to playing for one reason or another. I am a bit of a hoarder; over the past few years, I have built up a sizeable collection of both GW/40K as well as all those long OOP games. Some I remember fondly from my youth, some I never got around to playing in the first place. I was quite curious as to whether the expectation matches up to the reality; we often praise 'long ago GW' for upholding the values we long to see from current GW - namely, good games, clever game design and producing games that suck the player into the world. So do the Specialist Games deliver on this or are we all looking back with rose-tinted glasses? Anyway, I thought I would have an initial play of these systems and see what matches up. This blog is an attempt to force me to damn well do so! At least I can no longer be accused of having unplayed games lying around!

First up - Man O' War:

I never actually owned this first time around and only ever played it once, briefly, with the starter boats that came with the box set, although that is as much as my hazy memory permits me to remember, so I was very interested to give this one a whirl, especially as many people were so disappointed in Dreadfleet not being a reboot of Man O' War. Thanks to my miniature squirrel-mania, I have an Imperial Fleet, a Dwarf Fleet, an Elf Fleet and a Dark Elf fleet, including a Black Ark of Naggaroth, which is a model I fondly remember seeing in old issues of WD (although missing the plastic masts, which apparently are like gold dust to the modern Man O' War collector). Since this is my first game, I took it easy on myself and had a very brief game featuring an Imperial Great Ship versus a Dwarf Dreadnought and some Nautiluses. Here is a pic of the action (I did have more but my iPad has decided to arbitrarily rotate them):





The more observant amongst you may have noticed I have appropriated the sea mat and some scenery from Dreadfleet. Whilst not completely in scale (Dreadfleet is bigger), some of the pieces work well enough. In this particular game, the Great Ship was mullered by the Dwarfs and didn't really manage to do much of anything, although it must be said, I wasn't using all the rules, didn't ram or board, basically just floated around shooting.

Thoughts? Well, having played Dreadfleet, I was surprised at just how uncomplicated the rules were - no fannying about with damage cards and changing the wind all the time like in Dreadfleet (the wind in Man O War only changes if both players roll the same number as their initiative roll) so things aren't as random. The game moved along at a fair old clip; shooting and damage attacks are easy and simple to work out and it was quite an enjoyable game, I thought. I can certainly see the potential; my next game will involve bigger fleets, some of the specialist rules that I left out (like the Dwarf torpedoes, for example, and the wizards etc.) and perhaps involve some different races too. I will certainly be playing this one again.

I should also point out at this juncture that the reason these games are sitting around not being played is not because I don't want to but more a combination of lack of time, motivation and a certain intimidation at having to trawl through vast reams of rules. I'm not a fresh-faced youth any more and have difficulty remembering rules minutiae these days, so the prospect of spending hours flicking through a rulebook trying to work out a rule or some-such can be a bit off-putting, hence why these games have sat around; it is easier to fall back on what you know (40K) and satiate the gaming fix that way rather than step over the proverbial cliff edge and move into the unknown. The same is true for my Warmachine collection which is accruing dust, having had the briefest of outings.

Anyway, hopefully you have enjoyed this touch of nostalgia and perhaps got some motivation to try your own Specialist Games or a blast from the past that you remember.

Next up on my table (today hopefully!) is a game of Dark Future - just flicking through the rules now.

I started painting the Khorne Detachment for my Chaos Epic last night after assembling my daemon horde and some terminators. Not sure if I'm going to get a chance to play or not but it's a nice change of pace from my standard model painting.

 Hulksmash wrote:
I started painting the Khorne Detachment for my Chaos Epic last night after assembling my daemon horde and some terminators. Not sure if I'm going to get a chance to play or not but it's a nice change of pace from my standard model painting.

Yes, Manus' thread here is shaming me into getting some of my Epic stuff painted up. I did have a fully painted Ork army years ago but it was donated to a charity shop by my grandmother when I was away at University and had drifted away from wargaming.

Epic is on my list of games to play this week, actually, I might do it next. Had a game of Dark Future earlier today - pics uploading and post to follow shortly....


Automatically Appended Next Post:
So, on to today's game, Dark Future

A bit of a blast from way back when, this one pre-dated my involvement in the GW hobby and arrived (and was gone!) before I started gaming with Epic. But I distantly remembered this game from a few articles and photos in old White Dwarves - the sort showing customisation of cars, flash paintjobs, rules for pedestrians, that sort of thing. When I restarted gaming again in the early 2000's, this was on the list of ones to pick up when the opportunity arose. I finally managed to get hold of a box set on Ebay for about £30 a couple opf years ago and when it arrived, I was pleasantly surprised to find it was more like the contents of two box sets in one so I have double the amount of vehicles etc.

So today, I decided to run the introductory 'quick play' scenario, which is basically a race from one end of a straight road to the other between two cars, the wrinkle being that said cars can shoot at one another and drop mines. Opening gambits:





The yellow car has raced into an early lead and sneakily dropped a mine that the blue car triggers, taking some damage. Midpoint:





Yellow still managing to stay ahead but is taking damage from the blue car's machine gun. Cars can only be equipped with passive rear facing weapons so you can only have smoke bombs, mines, oil slicks etc dropping behind you, no rear firing guns it would seem |(unless they are a roof mounted turret which can fire in 360 degrees, I think, but I haven't got to that bit yet!). You can see in the photo the black circle which is a yet-to-be triggered mine. It could be live, it could be a dummy. The blue car can swerve to avoid it but swerving at speed carries it's own risks of losing control of the car etc so it is a tactical choice as to whether to risk running over the potential mine or to swerve and potentially crash. Endgame:





Yellow is out of mines but is now well ahead and at the limit of blue's guns so blue isn't able to damage yellow before he crosses the finish line.

How did it play? As with most quick start rules, easy enough to pick up and run with. The scenario could do with being a bit jazzed up - a straight road is a bit boring. I am interested in playing further and adding in the rest of the rules. There is much more complexity involved once you use the 'actual' rules book; hazards are dependant not just on the manoeuvre you are carrying out but also the speed you are going and whether you are on a bend etc, so there is a fair bit of tactical nuance involved. I liked the way the game is broken into phases for each speed category - faster cars effectively end up with more actions than a car going slower but the trade-off is that the driver might not be skilled enough to carry them out and crash. There is a lot more to the game than just going full pelt and guns blazing.

I was annoyed to find my track pieces have warped, probably from where they have been stored in the cupboard with a rather heavy BFG box on top but now I have shifted the box into my gaming room, I can straighten them out easily. An interesting game, although I can see why it doesn't quite fit the aesthetic that GW were looking to cultivate in the late 80's - reading through the rulebook, the artwork is heavily stylized and very reminiscent of Judge Dredd drawings. I think GW quietly dropped this one once they realized that it wouldn't really provide the impetus for ongoing model sales; you can easily buy and convert Matchbox type cars to substitute (and in fact, there are several online blogs where people have done just that). They did add further support for bikes, pedestrians, trucks and stuff like that as a series of WD articles, back when WD actually had supplementary gaming material, but effectively the game was stillborn; I think it featured in one form or another in 10 or so WD and then wasn't heard from again.

Anyway, tomorrow's game will be BFG as I have my space mat out and then probably a game of Epic following that.

Cool blog bro!

I would be itnterested in seeing more Man O' War action. That is a game you don't see everyday.

Great thread. Top banana Filbert!

I played but was never that fussed by Man O War way back when but Dark Future was right up my highway. I loved the idea of painting matchbox cars and sticking chainguns to them but it always fell down trying to paint over glossy paintjobs.

To b fair to GW I seem to remember the rulebook having repainted matchbox car photo'd in the rulebook. Still top fun, I'll dig my copy out tonight and remiss.

Thread subbed!

 Easy E wrote:
Cool blog bro!

I would be itnterested in seeing more Man O' War action. That is a game you don't see everyday.

I agree. It is a game I have had sitting around for a couple of years now since I picked up the bits off Ebay and the Swap Shop but I have had a lot of trepidation about playing it; mainly because I felt it would be complicated and difficult to get to grips with but in reality, I found it to be the exact opposite - pretty simple and straightforward rules and above all, logical - so a rule behaves in the way you would expect it to do so. Obviously, I wasn't playing using all the rules but I enjoyed the very brief taste I have had of it and will play it again in the future.

This is compared to Dreadfleet, where the wife and I suffered through the first scenario for 2 hours before giving up as neither could sink the other's ship nor manoeuvre in a satisfying manner since the wind kept changing in an illogical and random manner. Dreadfleet has since been cannibalised for the mat and scenery and confined to the cupboard - in contrast, Man O War is in my gaming room and is simple and fun enough to the extent that I might actually consider playing a game with the wife - my wife being the acid test; she only plays games on sufferance, so if she (grudgingly) admits enjoyment of a game, then you know it is good.

If it sounds like I am eulogising or pining for the old days, then in a way, I kind of am in that I remember many of these 'Specialist' games from my youth, back when they weren't specialist and I remember them being easy to pick up and a blast to play, in a way that I haven't felt from modern GW games/rules (with the exception of the re-released Space Hulk). Even 40K, a game which has been a constant in my wargaming life, has felt like a chore to play in recent times/editions.

Part of this blog, as well as forcing myself to play more, is to really see if my expectations and memory actually match up to my reality. So far, I have been pleasantly surprised!

Today's post - Battlefleet Gothic

Actually, since today is GTA V day (if the postman fulfils his side of the bargain anyway) I ended up playing a game of BFG last night. Its another of those games that I never got around to owning or playing when it was first released. I was aware of it but for various reasons, never got in on it. After subsequently getting back into wargaming and slowly increasing the games and systems that I play, I ended up buying a couple of half complete box sets from Ebay so I had a full set and the plastic ships that came with the set as the basis to my initial fleets. Since then, through the Swap Shop and Ebay, I have ended up with a sizeable Imperial/Space Marine fleet and opposing Chaos fleet, including a Blackstone Fortress model but they have been sadly languishing on my gaming shelves awaiting their turn.

Anyway, on to the game - I decided to play the basic Cruiser Clash scenario, effectively two ships facing off against one another, using a Chaos Despoiler battleship (I think that is what it is called) and a Space Marine Battle barge. I used Army Builder to print out some stat sheets a while ago when I was counting fleet point costs so I used those but I'm not sure if I configured the weaponry correctly. More on that later. Opening shots:





I have some base coated Asteroids that I made from BBQ lava coals and a Hotz mat that handily doubles for X-wing duty. Once initial manoeuvring is done, opening salvos are fired. The Chaos cruiser is first to inflict a couple of points of damage as it has lances equipped.





Midgame: As the range closes, the Space Marine barge starts getting its own back, however one issue I found was with only one ship per side, I could just about knock the shields down every turn but didn't have enough firepower to inflict damage. Obviously, next turn, the ships move and shields come back up. Clearly, BFG works better with more than one ship and with synergy between attacking forces.







Endgame: The battle barge closes astern and manages to unleash torpedoes for the first time as it is now within range. Torpedoes ignore shields so are a good way to inflict some much needed damage.





It's curtains for the Chaos ship now - a couple of critical hits have damaged the thrusters and the bridge so the Battlebarge closes in for the final kill



I enjoyed my first ever game of BFG on the whole, despite some frustrations with damage. The ships generally just pounded away trading blows without really managing to damage one another so it definitely highlights the fact that you need several ships per side to have a balanced force. Or maybe I hadn't configured the ships properly in Army Builder? I don't know. In the early stages, I thought it would be over quickly as the Chaos ship's lance was devastating and in reply, the Battlebarge only had largely ineffective weapons batteries as the torpedoes were out of range. However, once the distance closed and the Battle barge positioned itself correctly, the torpedoes made the difference along with a couple of lucky critical hits.

Will definitely play again but make sure I bring more ships!

Next game up will be 2nd Ed Epic, maybe today, maybe tomorrow, we shall see!

Using the fighter bays on both ships might have helped as well. The ships are pretty close in point values if I remmeber right (400 each?).

The hardest thing about a 1v1 in BFG is that it's hard to get to use your broadsides well. And your mostly relying on prow and dorsal weaponry.

Are turrets effective against torpedoes? I don't recall.

Turrets help, but when you;re talking about a St9 torpedo salvo and only have 3-4 turrets it's not nearly enough.

Looking forward to seeing you play more of these games they were all excellent I remember when Dark Future came out.

Hope you have a copy of Rogue Trooper I used to love that game.

hmm now you've given me the urge to try and pick up a couple of Man O War fleets a truly great game.

I'll be watching for future updates

Great blog!

BFG is much more fun with more ships, especially a good mix of types and sizes.

I find Imperials versus Chaos works the best. Other fleet types are not as satisfying, though I do like a ramshackle Ork fleet.

 GiraffeX wrote:
Looking forward to seeing you play more of these games they were all excellent I remember when Dark Future came out.

Hope you have a copy of Rogue Trooper I used to love that game.

hmm now you've given me the urge to try and pick up a couple of Man O War fleets a truly great game.

I'll be watching for future updates

No Rogue Trader, sadly, although I will add it to the list of things 'to do', providing I can source a cheap enough copy!

Next post will be Epic and will be coming shortly - I have been distracted somewhat by all things GTA V but I will get myself in gear soon.

Nice blog, it seems you are a British clone of myself....married, probably in your 30's, kids, hoarding miniatures and old GW games, wife is mostly annoyed with the collecting/gaming obsession, but will reluctantly join in on a game when asked nicely. I never did get Dark Future, but I had a game by Milton Bradly called Thunder Road. Concept was similar except it was dumbed down a bit and the scale was a little smaller...and if I remember correctly you could play with up to 3 or 4 players. I have heard about another game, made more recently, that uses match-box scale cars with guns and armor stuck on them...not sure what its called, or if it's any good.

Right now I'm more focused on GW's great specialist games as well. Necromunda and BFG most recently, in fact a friend of mine and I set up a few big BFG games at KublaCon last May and plan to run an organized scenario/event there next year. We will take along Necromunda as well, so it should be a blast. I have a few fleets for Man O War and a few smallish armies for epic that need dusting off as well (I think we will use the NetEpic rules though), and your blog has kindled a bit of a spark in me to make that happen sooner than later. Warhammer Quest is another long term project I've been working on on the side for the past 10 years or so...trying to collect and paint all of the monsters from the random monster tables in the Roleplay book...it backfired on me though, as now I have decent sized armies each for Vampire Counts, O&G, Skaven, and Ogre Kingdoms....mostly unpainted of course!

I've decided not to buy GTA V as I know I wont have time to play it...I barely have time enough for my hobby. Anyway, looking forward to seeing more.

I'm looking forward to seeing more.

Just a quick post as I am off to play golf in half an hour....

2nd Ed Epic

My gaming room is somewhat....bijou....being as it is the smallest bedroom in the house so there are certain constraints I have to work under regarding storage and if I want to play a different game with slightly different gameboard or what have you, it involves some lifting and shifting. So with that out the way, my board is now prepped and ready to go. I chose two 4000pt forces for this battle, Eldar vs Space Marines; the usual force organisation constraints were thrown out the window for this game, I just picked whatever I felt like using. AS for the game itself - no objectives or themes; just a straight out slug-out to the finish and we'll see who is left standing. The forces:





For those that haven't played or seen Epic before, it involves an awful lot of cards and tokens! Forces are chosen from the cards and normally you can only choose a certain limit of Company, Special and Support detachments but for the purposes of this battle, I ignored all that!

Initial set up:





The two Titans look to be shaping up to dook it out in the centre of the battlefield. The Land Raider company aim to secure the flank while the Terminators are lurking in the ruins to the left, supported by a Devastator detachment lurking in some ruins.







In contrast, the Eldar have a bit more bang for their buck. A harlequin and war walker detachment are facing off against the Terminators in the ruins, supported by some Scouts, whilst on the Eldar left flank, a Spirit Host and Wind Rider company aim to deal with the Land Raiders and friends. In the centre, an Eldar Warhost square off in direct competition to the Space Marine Company.

Anyway, golf calls but I will be back to fight the battle and report later this afternoon!

Yeah, 2nd edition Epic. The best. Not played it years but I'd jump at the chance.

You definitely need more tall terrain down the middle of the table.

Filbert!

I loved the BFG post and yes.... you need bigger fleets. I found 1000 to 1500 points made for an excellent game. Watch out for the Eldar ships who are waaaay freaking maneuverable. If you were not in England I would challenge you with my Necron fleet next week!

- J

Are you playing these games against yourself?

Looking forward to the batrep.

Fango wrote:Nice blog, it seems you are a British clone of myself....married, probably in your 30's, kids, hoarding miniatures and old GW games, wife is mostly annoyed with the collecting/gaming obsession, but will reluctantly join in on a game when asked nicely. ...

Yep, pretty much spot on. I can't really describe myself as a gamer since I don't really game much these days (and partly the driving force behind this blog is to play more!) and my painting speed could only charitably be described as glacial so I'm certainly not a painter. I have to confess having a compulsion to be a bit of a hoarder, or a 100% completist, as I like to term it. If/when I get a system, I like to get all the forces and armies for it - I don't like feeling I am missing something. So I have at least 3000pt armies for every race/faction in 40K, a number of Fantasy armies, at least 10K points of every race in Epic including Tyranids, 4 or 5 Man O war/BFG fleets etc etc.

zedmeister wrote:Yeah, 2nd edition Epic. The best. Not played it years but I'd jump at the chance.

You definitely need more tall terrain down the middle of the table.

Yes, agreed. I really only threw the table and scenery together with what I had to hand in my room. I have all the card buildings that came with the Space Marine box set and the Titan Legions box but they are stored in a drawer elsewhere and I couldn't be bothered to dig them out.

Fango wrote:Are you playing these games against yourself?

For the time being, yes. I have (or at least had, we haven't had a game in a while) a regular gaming buddy. Part of the motivation for this blog is to test drive some of the old games I remember and some I never got round to playing to see if any stand up to the modern litmus test and if any are fun enough to consider supplanting 40K as our regular game. I know it's not a true test playing oneself but it is handy as a sort of 'sandbox' environment where I don;t have to worry about getting the rules right or messing something up.

GiraffeX wrote:Looking forward to the batrep.

Yes, must apologise for my tardiness. A combination of late-running golf game and irritable children meant I didn't get to finish yesterday. But I am complete now so without further ado....

2nd Ed Epic

So, having deployed as above, I moved into the first orders phase. A note on this - one of the tactical nuances of Epic is that orders counters are placed face down and then revealed later meaning you have to guess at what your opponent might be planning and judge accordingly. Being as I am playing myself, it makes this bit kind of redundant so I have to forgo a little bit of tactical flexibility that I might otherwise have. Anyway, onto the game:

Both armies advance on each other, the Land Raider company hoping to hit the Wind Rider host hard on the left flank and the Terminators and Harlequins moving into the ruined city on the right. In the middle, the Space Marine company advance in their Rhinos and the Eldar Warhost are mounted in their Falcons.

One of the things that takes some getting used to in Epic is that troops in transports don't disembark if their transport is destroyed; they get killed along with it which gives the choice of mounting troops in transports some consideration. Another wrinkle is that Space Marines (and in fact, pretty much all troop types) are pretty fragile - they don't have a saving throw so generally, you are relying on getting them in cover (they don't get a cover save either but cover does offer modifiers to hit, meaning troops in cover are harder to hit and therefore kill). This was immediately proven by the Eldar doomweavers who managed to drop their templates on the Rhinos without scatter and kill a few transports.



Next to go was a biggie - the Warlord titan managed to hit the Eldar Phantom Titan but couldn't get passed the holofields (they give the Phantom an unmodifiable 3+ save if it was on advance orders). In return, the Phantom unloaded on the Warlord, downed all of its 6 void shields with a lucky Pulsar shot and then proceeded to not only hit the plasma reactor without scatter but then to roll a 6 on the damage table. Result = 1 vaporised titan which took out some nearby Dreadnoughts with it.



In return, the Warhound titans, seeing the destruction of their bigger brother, unloaded on the Phantom but couldn't get past the holofields either. To make things worse, their plasma blastguns would now need to recharge next turn. To compound the turn for the Space Marine side, the Land Raiders were caught in a maelstrom of fire from the Wind Host and lost half their number whilst only destroying a couple of stands in return.



The next turn continued in much the same vein - the Avatar charged into the remnants of the Space Marine tactical company and destroyed a couple of stands in close combat. The doomweavers again managed to accurately fire on their target too whilst on the left flank, the Land Raiders were being whittled away. The remaining Warhound titans and Phantom titan traded shots but neither were able to cause any damage, although one Warhound lost both it's void shields (it managed to repair one in the End phase)





Continuing, the Avatar and friends finished the job on the Tactical Company to secure the centre. Over on the right side, the Terminators and Harlequins clashed with the Terminators emerging victorious but it was the only bright side for the Space Marines as the Land Raider company were goners on the left.



Game is pretty much a done deal at this point. The Phantom titan destroys one Warhound and cripples the other with a precise shot to the head.



Things are a little bit brighter in the city as the Terminators and Devastators hold ground but they are being encircled by the Eldar forces closing in.



At this point, I have to confess that Space Marine/Epic/Titan Legions (whichever version you are familiar with) was the game that got me into GW stuff in a big way, so there was no way I wasn't going to enjoy this one. I have fond memories of my old Ork force; I remember toiling away at my summer job to afford a Great Gargant from mail order. I have, however, forgotten a lot of the game, especially when one compares it to 40K. It is surprising how squishy Space Marines are but then again, you are playing at the macro level here. As the name implies, it is all about Epic scales and battles - losing some Space Marine stands is all part of the greater effort.

I probably do need some tactical pointers - whilst pointing opposing forces at one another and racing forward is fun, it doesn't offer much in the way of tactical finesse but that will come in time and on repeat plays. In this particular game, the Eldar benefited from some extremely lucky dice rolls; the Doomweavers shooting only scattered once in the entire game, likewise, the Eldar Phantom titan only failed its holofield save once - and that was largely irrelevant since the damage was saved.

The next game I play, I think I will dust off the Tyranids. They have a slightly different manner of organisation that was introduced in the Hive War supplement and they are basically all interconnected (like a hive!) to the Dominatrix model at the centre. It's a little difficult to explain, but the army cards are hexagonal and must join to the side of another card. So you start with the Dominatrix and work outwards but it does mean you are limited in size if you only have one dominatrix model. It will be interesting to pit them against my Chaos force, which has had a recent arrival in the form of a Lord of Battle which I have been after for some time. Finding one on Ebay for a reasonable price is an exercise in patience.

But that's for another day. Next game up on the board will be Legends of the Old West, for a change of pace I think. Unless anyone has any suggestions they want to raise?

Definitely need objectives and buckets of terrain. Objectives tend to make you do more than sit on first fire blasting away most of the game. If you don't like the take and hold style, get a copy of WD196 with the alternative objectives or WD172 for alternative battle types. Finally there's the assault scenarios in WD144 (or Space Marine Battles) that are huge amounts of fun (Check my site out for an inventory of Epic rules, WD articles, etc)


Never liked playing as marines myself as they'd be whittled away as you describe. Though a devastator company, terminator company, Thunderhawks and some bikers chucked in always worked for me. Phantom Titans are tough as nails to kill. You think "Ah no sheilds" and watch as they make save after save. Warlords need to be hull down to protect that 2+ save plasma reactor. I've even seen one game were a grot stand managed to down one (though it got consumed when the Titan went nuclear, though I don't think the ork player minded much).


As for Gargants - they were always my favourite target. You could just unload on them and they'd still take it, blasted apart the weapons, puncturing the hull, warp missiles annihilating the ammo box, etc and still they lumber on!


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 filbert wrote:

Fango wrote:Nice blog, it seems you are a British clone of myself....married, probably in your 30's, kids, hoarding miniatures and old GW games, wife is mostly annoyed with the collecting/gaming obsession, but will reluctantly join in on a game when asked nicely. ...

Yep, pretty much spot on. I can't really describe myself as a gamer since I don't really game much these days (and partly the driving force behind this blog is to play more!) and my painting speed could only charitably be described as glacial so I'm certainly not a painter. I have to confess having a compulsion to be a bit of a hoarder, or a 100% completist, as I like to term it. If/when I get a system, I like to get all the forces and armies for it - I don't like feeling I am missing something. So I have at least 3000pt armies for every race/faction in 40K, a number of Fantasy armies, at least 10K points of every race in Epic including Tyranids, 4 or 5 Man O war/BFG fleets etc etc.

Same here. Hoarding my Epic, collecting Man O'War, Rogue Trader minis, Realm of Chaos goodies and so on. Check out http://forum.oldhammer.org.uk/ if you have the implication - pretty much an entire bunch of us mid-30's gamers loving the older stuff.

I look forward to your Old West entry. Technically not a Specialist game as it is Warhammer Historical, but I will take it! Do you happen to have the WH Gladiator book?

I'm actually pretty excited about the Legends of the Old West game

Gives me a chance to look at my books and see how a game is played.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
As an added question, what figures will you be using for your Old West game?

Easy E wrote:I look forward to your Old West entry. Technically not a Specialist game as it is Warhammer Historical, but I will take it! Do you happen to have the WH Gladiator book?

Yep, I concede that it isn't technically part of the SG range but it fits in this sub-forum more than anywhere else given that Warhammer Historical are now defunct so I'm not going to split hairs! Unfortunately, I don't have the Gladiator book but owning and playing Legends of the Old West has made me take another look at the WH rulesets.

Alfndrate wrote:I'm actually pretty excited about the Legends of the Old West game

Gives me a chance to look at my books and see how a game is played.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
As an added question, what figures will you be using for your Old West game?

I hope to have a post up soon - the board is set up and ready to go, I just need to pinch a couple of hours to play it!

My figures are entirely from the Black Scorpion Tombstone range here:

http://www.blackscorpionminiatures.com/index.php?cPath=28&osCsid=qu3q6cg593tr5f5rgo9sh7ldt5

I own the Outlaws set, a generic Tombstone 'Lawmen' set and a Mexican set. Since getting the Blood on the Plains and Alamo expansions, I plan to get hold of some mounted figures and some Indians too.

I've been looking at Black Scorpion, their figures are good, and the price is right about spot on for what I'm looking to invest in. Even the conversion to USD it's still like a $1.50 a mini.

2nd Edition Epic (Space Marine/Titan Legions?) is my favorite GW game EVER.

EXALTED!

 Alpharius wrote:
2nd Edition Epic (Space Marine/Titan Legions?) is my favorite GW game EVER.

EXALTED!

I have been lax with the blog - a thousand apologies. The Legends of the Old West game is set up and ready to go, I just need to find the time in between work and looking after small children to play it!

After the Wild West, next game up will probably be another Epic battle since I still have the table set up plus I want to give my Tyranids an outing!

This is awesome, filbert! Point potential gaming buddies to it so they know what they're currently missing!

Finally got around to playing the Legends of The Old West (LoTOW) game last night - and had a blast!.

I was playing a variation on the high noon scenario - basically, two gangs face off against one another at opposite ends of a small town; the only nuance I added was rather than starting the gangs facing one another and going ahead all guns blazing, I chose to start the gangs at diagonals and advance into the middle. The buildings are from Battleflag who do an excellent line of buildings designed for Blackwater Gulch but obviously, they work well for all 28mm Western games. As per normal, mine are unpainted and probably will remain so until such time as I find the desire, motivation, time and willpower to get them painted, hence the name of my generic Western town being 'Chip board City'. The miniatures are from Black Scorpion's Tombstone range, with a set of the Outlaws led by Billy the Kid doubling as my baddies, The Regulators, and a set of Tombstone generic civilians led by Pat Garrett, standing in as the heroes of my scenario, The Lawmen. Here's how the gangs opposed one another:





The Lawmen were split into groups of three who would advance in a pincer like movement - the Outlaws chose to follow a similar path with one set advancing at the bottom of the main street and the other advancing halfway up near to the Bordello.

Opening turns consisted mainly of movement until figures were in line of sight and range. LoTOW has deliberately short ranges for weapons - if scaled correctly, guns/rifle would be able to shoot across the whole board so the designer has deliberately scaled down the shooting ranges so that gunfights tend to be short range, brutal affairs (as would prove to be the case later!)





Gangs finally catch sight of one another and quickly rush to take cover or get favourable positioning:



One of The Regulators nips around the back of the Bordello to try and outflank the Lawmen hiding behind the barrels by going down a nearby alley and surprising them:



Opening shots - 'Brushfire' Daniels nails one of the Regulators with a well placed rifle shot. However, the rifle is a slow reload weapon so he must spend his next turn reloading. The other three Lawmen get a hustle on trying to get around the back of the stores in order to engage the Regulators. One of the Lawmen jumps up onto the General Store roof in order to get a shot in. However, his climb roll only allows him to climb up and not advance any further this turn.



Battle is joined. Billy the Kid is pinned down by combination rifle and sixgun fire and is unable to wound in return whilst another Regulator is caught by sixgun fire from the Lawman on the roof. Around the corner, the Lawmen and Regulators blaze away at one another without managing to do much. The Regulators fan their sixguns but manage to hit bugger all.



The Regulators get the drop this turn (initiative) and manage to make it count. The Regulator sneaking up through the alley appears and hits one of the Lawmen hiding behind the barrels with a well-placed shot. Billy the Kid shoots and kills the chap on the roof. Unbelievably, the Lawmen and Regulators at the bottom continue to blaze away at each other without managing to kill anyone. A couple of shots hit but don't cause wounds and the resulting pluck tests are passed.



It's not much of a reprieve, however, as the Regulators ping another Lawmen. As the Lawmen have lost more than half their gang numbers, they must take an immediate 'Head for the Hills' test, which they fail and promptly scarper, deciding that discretion is the better part of valour! The Regulators win but at a cost; two of their number are goners.



What did I think of it? Well, I have played a few games of LoTOW now and each time it manages to be a fast paced and quick game - this one was done inside an hour. Once the gangs get to grips with one another, gunfights are short and deadly (generally speaking - my gangs blazing away at each other at point blank range was a bit odd!). There is a temptation to open up at one another by fanning the six guns but my rolls were poo and I kept missing more often than not. LoTOW is a bit like playing fantasy but in the Wild West which is not surprising, since the rules are pretty much cribbed from WHFB with a few adaptations. It is nice to see that the designer has added in full support for complete '3D' movement so you can climb jump etc etc to your heart's content. Indeed, one of the examples in the rulebook is of a character jumping from roof to roof across a closely packed alley to get to an advantageous position.

The pluck tests are a nice touch too. Pluck is essentially morale, so if your characters are hit but not killed, they have to take an immediate pluck test. If they fail, they jump/run to the nearest cover to get their head down! Unfortunately, you didn't see any of this in my game as I kept passing the pluck tests! The other rule that adds some nice character to the game is testing for initiative (called 'getting the drop') every turn, meaning there are some interesting tactical, and indeed random, elements that can happen due to one player wresting the drop from the other.

I need to do a bit more to my set-up. I want to get some more terrain to clutter the place up a bit; more barrels, crates, carts, that sort of thing to give players room to hide, take cover etc. Plus, of course, paint it all but that goes without saying! LoTOW is one of the few games my wife has played with me without complaining, so it gets the spousal 'Tacit Seal of Approval' too.

I'm not sure why LoTOW didn't get more support from GW, rather than being relegated to Warhammer Historical and being caught up in it's demise. Yes, Wild West gaming is a bit niche but even on a single playthrough, it is obvious that LoTOW is a fun and frenetic ruleset and the supplements released and models being produced by other manufacturers have demonstrated there is plenty of scope for expansion and further sales but I guess LoTOW sist uncomfortable with the mainstream GW range. Anyway, if you can pick up a copy of this game for a reasonable price, I would highly recommend you do so.

Next up on the blog will be another Epic battle, involving Tyranids and a.n.other, possibly Chaos or Orks, I'll flip a coin! As you can see from the photos, I still have the green board set up, so I may as well take advantage.