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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.

 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....


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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.

 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!

 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.

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!

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?

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.


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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.

 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!

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.

 RiTides wrote:
Your old west buildings are awesome! I'm guessing you have those to work with Blackwater Gulch too, right?

Yep - I bought them for Blackwater Gulch initially. I only picked up LoTOW fairly recently as I spied a copy of it for a cheap price whereas all the ones I had seen before were for obscene amounts. Glad I did get it as it is a fantastic little game. Both BWG and LoTOW are 28mm (in fact, I think you can probably use whatever scale you want really but 28mm is the most common). The Black Scorpion figures are 28mm 'heroic', meaning they are a smidge bigger than normal so bear that in mind if buying/using them with buildings. Fortunately, the Battleflag buildings are designed with 28mm heroic in mind so are slightly bigger too, I believe.

In other news, forces have been planned for the upcoming Epic battle. Decided to go with Chaos in opposition to the Tyranids. As before, I have been a little bit flexible with regards to the rules in order to a) fit my collection and b) enable me to field and showcase some cool models. My Chaos collection is a bit hodge-podge and cobbled together from leftover Space Marine stands - the lesser daemons, Minotuars, Beastmen, Cultists etc etc are quite difficult to get hold of these days for reasonable sums so I don't really have any of them so I am somewhat limited as to what I can pick. I think they only made the lesser daemons in metal (at least, I haven't seen any plastic ones) - which make them very expensive when they crop up. Add to that the 'Epic Tax' which means anything Epic on Ebay automatically gets a stupid premium added to it by most sellers because it's OOP and the costs are soon ridiculous. It seems a bit self defeating to me; I'm not sure any reasonable person would pay the prices that stuff is listed at so it makes you wonder how these sellers actually sell the stuff. Some of the Tyranid stuff is astronomical.

Chaos force:



Tyranids are organised a bit differently, in order to represent the swarm and synapse creatures. They are arranged in a hexagonal fashion around a Dominatrix. What it does mean is that if a synapse link is killed it can have a knock on effect to the creatures/broods that are connected so it adds a nice bit of tactical nuance to the game. As I have two Dominatrixes, I arranged my force into 2 separate swarms (although they don't have to stick as distinct swarms on the table).

Set-up is complete - waiting for the kids to go to bed and then I can (hopefully) complete this battle. Objectives aren't placed yet but will do so shortly. These photos pretty much encapsulate my relationship with the wargaming hobby in a nutshell. You can see I have good intentions; I mean to base all the buildings properly and paint the bases etc. etc. Unfortunately, like many things, I start on it but never quite get around to finishing. I wish I could be called a hobby butterfly but I can only aspire to that at the moment! At least a hobby butterfly eventually finishes something after flitting from project to project! I just start projects and then flit to another! Anyway, I mean to get at least one Epic army complete by the end of the year - that shouldn't be too hard, the beauty of 6mm was always the ease of painting.









Anyway, the battle prologue:

Praxis IV has suffered greatly, firstly emerging from the cauldron of the Heresy having fallen into Chaos hands and now coming into contact with the outliers of a Tyranid Hive Fleet. The capital city lies half ruined and shell-pocked whilst the few surviving civilian population have long since fled. The Tyranid collective has deemed this world suitable for consumption and are going all out to secure it's mineral resources. However, the occupying Chaos forces have discovered a rich source of Promethium and are unwilling to give up so easily. Mortarion, Angron and Magnus have all deemed it strategically important enough for them to personally face down the xenos menace and have each brought their accompanying Chaos Space Marine warbands to get the job done.

 Alfndrate wrote:
Filbert, that was an awesome little batrep for Legends of the Old West.

How do you like the Black Scorpion Miniatures? I've been looking for decent, yet cheap Western minis. Blackwater Gulch isn't too bad, and Reaper has some decent figs from Chronoscope, but nothing in the oh so cheap bones line. Black Scorpion has like 5 models for like 15 bucks which is 3 dollars a mini! Can't beat that price. And they look stellar. Thoughts on them? and slightly off topic, have you checked out their modern milita figs?

I really like the Black Scorpion models. They are UK based so shipping costs are kept down and the prices are very reasonable. The Outlaws gang and Billy The Kid that I got are in resin and required a small amount of clean-up with minor flash but nothing bad. The quality, sculpting and detail are very good. The Lawmen and Pat Garret are in metal and were more or less good to go without and prep. Likewise, very good sculpts. I believe the Black Scorpion models are 28mm heroic so are slightly larger than other 28mm ranges. This may prove an issue if mixing and matching but I plan to stick with Black Scorpion for my Wild West needs - they do a line of Native Americans and mounted figures and that is all I require for the foreseeable future.

As for their modern lines, I am very tempted especially as I play Force on Force with 28mm figures. At the moment, I use minis from Empress so I would be keen to see how they compare - if the scale difference isn't too wildly apparent, I may go for some in the future.

 GiraffeX wrote:
Well I couldn't resist and picked up a few Man O War ships for the start of a Skaven fleet

Nice! Did you get a good price? I want to do a Skaven fleet but ebay prices put me off + I still need to find the Sea of blood rulebook (I have all the cards and templates just not the book)

 Alfndrate wrote:
Not keep going back to LotOW, but how did you do the rosters for your posses?

I just used the section in the main rulebook that describes it then chose some generic cowboys and deputies from the samples listed.

Finally finished the Tyranid/Chaos Epic fight this afternoon - apologies for the delay! I had an absolute blast playing it although I did think it would be over very quickly; the Nids got a real pasting in the first turn as you will soon see but as it went on and things evened out, it turned into a very enjoyable fight. I have never fought with Nids in Epic before and fell into the trap of initially thinking they were close combat orientated at the expense of everything but that really isn't true - they can pump out some real firepower too. Anyway on with the fight (50 Victory Points need to win by the way).

Turn 1:

Nothing special in the movement phase, both armies trundled towards one another. The bulk of the Tyranid army moved on charge orders attempting to close the gap. The combat phase proved to be a bit of an eye opener. The main casualty was the Heirophant bio titan which took a pasting from the Banelord titan suffering 6 wounds. One of those wounds caused a critical hit on the head and the subsequent roll on the damage table caused a further 4 wounds, causing the Bio-Titan to fall over. To add to the disappointment, in the End phase an exceedingly craptacular regeneration roll meant the bio titan expired without having fired a shot - some 700 points and 7 VPs gone in a flash. On the right flank, the Cannon of Khorne attempted to fire at the advancing Tyranid warrior brood - one cannon misfired and exploded, one scattered off target but the third found it's mark and killed a stand. On the left flank, the Hormagaunt brood at the front of the advance took casualties from the Land Raider detachment and having broke, went onto instinctive orders.





VPs

Nids - 15
Chaos - 29

Turn 2:

Turn 2 continued in much the same vein as the first with the bulk of the Tyranids advancing as fast as possible. With the loss of the Heirophant, it fell to the smaller brother the Heirodule to engage the threat from the Banelord and Lord of Battle. Meanwhile, the Firelord zoomed over the advancing termagants and dropped bombs on them, killing half the brood.



Moving into the meat of the turn, things were looking up for the Nids on the right hand side where a combination of fire from Exocrines and assault from Lictors managed to break the detachment of Land Raiders who promptly managed to fail their 2+ morale test. The Heirodule sheltering in the ruins drew fire from the Titans and took some wounds as well as damage to it's Bio cannon which I failed to regenerate in the end phase so it would be out of action the next turn. A nearby Dominatrix managed to inflict some damage on the Lord of Battle by blowing its cannon arm off.



VPs

Nids - 21
Chaos - 33

Turn 3:

The Tyranids started to step up their game. The Harriden was flying around in the rear of the Chaos army, causing casualties and picking off objectives. Whilst the Tyranids gain no victory points from holding objectives, they can take VPs away from the opposing army and this proved to be the case here. Throughout the battle, the Harriden helped to steal 10-15 VPs away from the Chaos army. On the left flank, a combination approach of Tyranid Warriors, Hive Tyrants and a Dominatrix opened up on the Thousand Sons and Magnus - who was only prevented from dying by sacrificing Chaos cards.



On the right, the Dominatrix fired at the Lord of Battle again and this time damaged the left wheel, meaning it would be unable to turn left. The Heirodule continued to hold firm - it had regenerated it's wounds (aside from the damaged weapon) but fired it's spine clusters at the Banelord and took down 4 void shields.



VPs

Nids - 27
Chaos - 34

Turn 4:

Battle is joined as the Dominatrix and friends crash into Magnus. Magnus turns out to be equally adept at close combat as the Dominatrix and inflicts several wounds on it with none in return.



In the centre, Angron fancies some action and ploughs into the Heirodule. He easily defeats it in combat and inflicts a critical hit on the Bio Titan's head plus yet more wounds. The Lord of Battle and Dominatrix have a barney but neither is able to get the upper hand. On the right hand side, Mortarion uses his plague wind ability to wipe out a brood of termagants. The accompanying Death Guard battle in close assault with the Lictors and come off a bit worse for wear - even more surprising given the Lictors were outnumbered but some good close combat rolls ensured only one Lictor stand was killed in reply to 6 Death Guard stands - this was enough casualties to break the Death Guard regiment.



VPs

Nids - 32
Chaos - 37

Turn 5:

Into the endgame now - most units are tied up in close assault. On the left flank, whilst Magnus is holding his own with the Dominatrix, his Thousand Sons legion take heavy casualties from flanking Tyranid warriors and is broken.



Over on the other side, the Heirodule continues to take a pounding but remains standing, largely due to some fortuitous regen rolls in the end phase. The Lord of Battle crushes the Dominatrix in close assault and the beat can only regen 1 wound which wasn't enough to save it. Mortartion and friends finish off the Lictors and hold the flank, aside from a solitary Hive Tyrant in front of them. The Harriden continues to buzz around in the rear, despite being targeted by the cannon of Khorne who can only take 1 wound from it.



At this point, I had to go and cook dinner - totting up the VPs meant that the Chaos army were 2 shy of victory so I decided to award them a narrow victory. There was probably more than enough Chaos left on the table to mop up the remaining Tyranid forces and I think they had just about shaded it but it was a close run thing.

VPs

Nids - 42
Chaos - 48

I really enjoyed using my Tyranids for the first time and it made a nice change having some different army mechanics to get used to. It really is a bit of a shame that the Hive War supplement came out when it did, late in the 2nd Ed cycle as I think there was some real possibilities there. As it stands now, the models are incredibly expensive, at least on Ebay anyway, purely by dint of fact the so few people played and bought them so the supply is low. Even my army is cobbled together from original 2nd Ed Nids and later models that used the long 'strip' style bases. The Bio Titans (or I should say, Bio Titan since the Heirophant bit the big one in turn 1) was a real beast - really hard to put down. In the Hive War book, it does mention on several occasions that players choose to pump more shots into them, even when they have exceeded the total wounds, purely to cope with the regeneration. The Heirodule did very well; I managed to regenerate nearly 6 wounds every turn which kept it plugging away.

On the Chaos side of things, I love being able to field the Primarchs and their legions. The Chaos army has a number of Chaos cards dealt out at the start of the game; you can either play them and calculate whatever effects are described on the card or you can hold on to them and use them to negate any wounds suffered by a Primarch. Magnus would have died several times over but I used the Chaos cards to keep him alive. As expected, Angron was a beast in combat and Mortarion's Plague Wind wiped out several broods at a stroke. It's probably a bit cheesy taking all 3 of them in one go but hey, I'm not in competition or anything. It does raise an interesting question about balance; I'm not sure how well or balanced Epic is - I seem to remember my Orks would be consistently pounded by my Mates marines + Imperator and there was little I could do in return but that could just as much be because I am crap at the game rather than any balance issue. I think the two armies here stacked up well against one another and despite a shaky first turn or so for the Tyranids, it really could have gone either way at the end.

The only downside was the amount of flicking through books and cross-referencing I had to do. In part, this is because I am old and forget rules/stats easily so have to keep looking them up, partly because with a new army like the Tyranids there are a bunch of special rules that are unique and I have never seen before and partly because GW games of this era thrived on cards, tables, stats and so on. It seemed to be a product of the age or a trend in GW game design; I seem to remember 2nd Ed 40K came with a gamut of wargear cards and so forth; 2nd Ed Epic is no exception and the expansions just add more cards to it all. The other thing to note is you need a bit of space to keep track of all the casualties, Hive Minds, detachments etc. and space is at a premium in my room so it is all a squeeze.


Anyway, it was a hard fought battle that took me about 3 or 4 hours over several evenings but it was good fun - Epic like I remember from the old days. I remember Epic games that were the most fun I have ever had playing wargames and after playing it again recently, I can see why; it isn't just me wearing rose-tinted glasses, it really is an excellent game. In fact, I would go as far as to say it ranks right up there in the pantheon of great GW games, perhaps not number one but certainly top 5.


Next on the agenda, I fancy a change of pace and something quicker so I think I might have a game or two of Blood Bowl. Unlike practically every other game system I won, I have more or less every Blood Bowl team and they are almost all completely painted - I had a spurt of motivation about a year ago and completed a load of teams in couple of feverish months.

 GiraffeX wrote:
That was a great battle my main EPIC army used to be Chaos I must have been really bad I never won a game literally not one against my mate

I've not seen Tyranids before they came out after I stopped playing wargames, they look very interesting.

Yea for Blood Bowl love that game I even have the pc version as I loved it so much. Please don't make want to start collecting teams again....I keep looking at the minis by Willy Miniatures every now and then, they are amazing but expensive.

The Renegades supplement is a bit odd, at least with regard to Chaos, as it feels a bit unfinished inasmuch as the Chaos list effectively feels like you are playing naughty marines - ie. regular Space Marines but with a few added bells and whistles. So you get to use all the standard Imperial stuff with some extra Chaos units like daemons and Minotaurs/Beastmen. Which is fine but the book is missing the colour of the unique and weird and wonderful Chaos machines. The Renegades book has a couple of Khorne daemon engines but that is about it; it was left to a few issues of White Dwarf to expand on the Chaos force by adding in rules for Silver Towers of Tzeentch, Plague Towers and the Firelord/Doomlord that I used in my battle here. So really, you need the Renegades book and the additional White Dwarf material to get the most out of the Chaos forces.

I never saw the Tyranids either as they came out after I had left the Epic/GW fold but when I started collecting my Epic forces once more a few years ago, I saw them crop up and was interested. I managed to get both a copy of Hive War and a small Tyranid force for a good price and have slowly built it up over some time - part of my buying ethos is to remain patient and wait for a bargain so I have been unswayed by the high prices. It is much harder to find them cheaply but every once in a while, they crop up.

Blood Bowl on the other hand, is much easier to collect given that the game you buy from GW's site now is essentially the same (3rd ed?) Blood Bowl box set that I bought some 20 years ago (with a few minor differences - back then, Deathzone was a separate supplement but now it has been subsumed into the main rules). The advantage to this is that there are tonnes of miniatures available so you can pick up a team relatively inexpensively.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Squeezed in a quick game of Blood Bowl this afternoon - I am going to be playing a few games as each game is relatively quick to play so I am planning a sort of winner stays on format. First up was the Lustrian Croakers versus the Zhar-Naggrund Ziggurats. Here's the line-up:





The Chaos Dwarves are going for a tactic of packing the middle. They win the roll and opt to receive. The game continues with an early breakaway by a skink down the left side but he is caught and tackled by a covering hobgoblin.



The Chaos Dwarves retrieve the ball and immediately counter-drive. The Lizardmen are unable to stop the attack and the Hobgoblin crosses the line at the end of the 7th turn!



In the second half, the Lizardmen receive the kick off and get a good bounce. They start to press down the sidelines again.



At this point, it looks like a score is inevitable but before he manages to cross the line, a covering Hobgoblin manages to dodge out of a tackle zone and bring him down. The ball scatters but no-one picks it up.



The game ends with a scrap in the back field between several players. Eventually, the Lizardmen get the upper-hand and a skink nips over the line to level the score.



End of the 7th turn and the game goes to sudden death overtime - it ends somewhat anti-climatically when the receiving Hobgoblin fumbles the ball, gets crumped by a tackle and the Lizardmen score a game winning TD.

rohansoldier wrote:That looks like a great game of blood bowl, and a good looking pitch setup too.

I have orc, human and dark elf teams and this has really inspired me to get them out again.

Do you have necromunda? That is another top class specialist game which I was sorry to see dropped by GW.

I don't have Necromunda - it came and went in the interim period when I wasn't wargaming but I may visit it at some point in the future. I also have plans to start Mordheim since I have a small (3x3 or thereabouts) Fantasy village board that would be perfect for Mordheim.

Easy E wrote:Blood Bowl is good fun, and as teams advance can lead to a lot of interesting tactical decisions. It is one of my favorite GW games, and is very replayable.

Do you plan on revisiting Aeronautia Imperialis, or is that one too recent?

Never played Aeronautica Imperialis - the problem being that as it is FW, picking up the relevant bits is somewhat expensive.


Anyway, squeezed another brief game of Blood Bowl between my victorious Lustrian Croakers team and the Dwarven Giants. It all ended up as a bit of a skirmish in the middle really, neither side managed to break out too much until the last part of the second half when an untimely fumble allowed the Dwarves to score the only TD of the game. I may and try and play one more game today, time depending or I might move on to another game. Photo highlights below:

The teams line up beforehand.



The game turns into a slog in the centre of the pitch



Action building up to the match winning TD



Thoughts on Blood Bowl? Well, I think Blood Bowl as it is today is truly an example of what can be achieved when GW actually listen to the people that play their games. The BB box set that you buy from GW today is a product of 10 years or more of listening to fan feedback and incorporating changes the community have made in the Living Rulebook into the 'official' rules, the upshot being a game that is infinitely playable, enjoyable, easy to pick and easy to learn. I guess my only criticism of Blood Bowl is that games can still get bogged down in block battles in the middle of the park but that can just as much be players not focussing on the objective of scoring and more focussing on injuring their opponent! Blood Bowl is still as fresh and as fun to play today as it has always been and that can only be testament to a great rule-set. It's not the most complicated game in the world but then again, it doesn't pretend to be; this harkens back to the days when GW's criteria for releasing a game was whether it was fun or not, not whether it could drive sales or tie into a movie or what have you.

Anyway, next up will either be a Man O War or BFG battle, this time with expanded forces. Any preferences as to which?

OK well Man O War it is. I think I will give my Dark Elf fleet a shot against their Elf cousins

Gives me a chance to use my Black Ark of Naggaroth which I have always rated as an excellent mini - for some reason, I really like it!

I'll tally up the fleets later on this evening and get things set up.

Setting up tonight but I probably won't get a chance to start playing until tomorrow at the earliest.

I actually have 6 Doomreavers but I have had to drop 3 for this fight - annoyingly, I only seem to have cards for 3....



Yet more unpainted miniatures to join the serried ranks of the grey/metal hordes. It's enough to make one depressed...



The forces should be roughly equivalent, although with the loss of three Doomreavers, the Dark Elf force is probably slightly weaker than the Elf one but we shall see.

It's all stored under the table mostly, with liberal use of shelving units. It is a bit of a squeeze, especially in my gaming room, which is tiny, but I just about manage.

The Epic buildings in that photo are all from different editions of the game. The grey card buildings with the plastic roofs are from the 2nd Ed Space Marine box set, the bluish card buildings in the middle are from the Titan Legions box set and the plastic gothic ruined buildings in the background are from the Epic Armageddon box set.

Somewhat predictably, real life gets in the way of my gaming ambitions and delayed the anticipated start of my Man O' War battle but I managed to get half of it done today so here is a brief write up for your consumption:

Opening shots

The Black Ark heads straight down the middle whilst the Elf ships use their superior seamanship to quickly get up to speed and manoeuvre themselves ready for action. No shooting this turn as ships are all slightly out of range.



Ships close to engage. The Black Ark seems to take the worst of it initially as it gets hammered by shots from the Dragonship and Eagleships. The smaller Hawkships use their sharp turning ability to fire off shots at the Doomreavers and then scraper out of range. In reply, the Death Fortresses impart some damage to the lead Eagleship. The Dragonship takes some hits in reply from the Black Ark, but nothing too serious at this stage.





Some unfortunate shot placement and subsequent lucky rolls on the critical hit table means the Black Ark takes 5 below the waterline hits already at this early stage. Things aren't looking too hot - or rather, they are looking a bit hot as several fires break out and spread too...



Movement and counter-movement. The Black Ark is dead in the water at the moment, at least if it wants to move under magic power anyway - the below the water hits it has taken reduce its speed to 1" - it desperately spins around and tries to catch the Dragonship but to no avail.



The three Eagleships sense a weakness and fire their weapons at the Black Ark rather than the closing Death Fortresses. One of the rolls causes a critical hit that in turn causes a roll on the Captain chart - the roll is a 6 which is the Mutiny! result and this ends up with 5 crew counters abandoning the ship, leaving it with 1 crew left. On the other flank, the Doomreavers catch up to the Hawkships and ram them and engage in boarding. One of the Doomreavers is killed but in return, 2 of the Hawkships are sunk and the third is scuttled after it's crew are killed. The Death Fortresses continue to fire at the Eagleships and cause some more damage but not enough to sink any. The lead Eagleship is the worst of, losing 2 of it's 3 broadside batteries.



The game is at a temporary halt at the moment until I can finish it but it is very finely balanced. Thoughts so far? Well, based on my first game, I thought it would be more fun with more ships and so it has proven. The Elf ships are interesting to play with, being as they can move twice in one turn. I haven't used them fully to their abilities yet; I foolishly allowed the Hawkships to get caught by the Doomreavers rather than stay out of range plugging away and I have been sucked into the trap of trying to sink the Black Ark when in reality, it is the 3 Death Fortresses that are inflicting all the damage. They are monsters, so have no turn restrictions making them ultra-manoeuvrable and they have 360 degree firing reaper catapults meaning the 3 of them can pump out up to 18 shots per turn which is quite a weight of fire. It will be interesting to see how this one pans out.

They are OK for Man O' War - a little out of scale but workable. I freely admit to buying Dreadfleet but in my defence, I bought it cheap off Ebay and mainly for the mat and scenery.

As you can see, I am a world-class undercoater. If they gave out Golden Daemons for undercoating, I would be right up there with the best of them...

Part two of my Man O' War battle:

Endgame

Things finished a bit quicker than I thought. The Dragonship broke away from the Black Ark in an attempt to engage the lone Doomreavers but missed its shots, got too close and was subsequently counter-rammed. The below the waterline save was failed and since it only had 1 damage point left, promptly sunk.



The Black Ark at this stage was irrelevant; it had no reaper batteries left at all , was largely on fire and since I had 1 crew counter left, I didn't dare risk it in any sort of ramming or boarding action. This left the 3 remaining Death Fortresses to harry the Eagleships and continue to inflict damage on them. In return, a combination of lacking fire-power due to damage and poor dice rolls meant the Eagleships weren't inflicting any damage in return other than the odd wound here and there.



The damage is creeping up on the Eagleships. At this point, since the game was effectively over, I decided the Eagleships had fled off the board to fight another day and the Dark Elf fleet had carried the day.



It wasn't all one way traffic - you can see how close the Black Ark came to sinking and in fact, with a little more luck and on a different day, it could have sunk more or less right at the start of the battle.



Thoughts

Definitely better with more ships. I am still feeling my way into the rules and perhaps could and should have used the two fleets in a different manner but that is a learning process for another day. The Elf ships are less of a glass cannon than you would think; they can pump out some fire-power but the Dragonblades on the Dragonship practically cry out for a ram attack so it's not all stand off and shoot.

Ironically, given its star billing, the Black Ark did more or less nothing, other than soaking up a bunch of shots that might otherwise have gone elsewhere but maybe that is the point? In retrospect, the Elf fleet would have been better concentrating on the Death Fortresses first, given how deadly they turned out to be. Other than the Black Ark, which is more or less a conventional ship, the other ships in the Dark Elf fleet are monsters and don't take damage in the same way as ships. It is perfectly plausible for a single shot to hit the right area, fail a saving throw and the monster 'sinks' and on another day, this might have happened. As it turned out in this game, the Elf shots landed on the monster or non-critical parts and caused wounds rather than causing the monster to flee or 'sink'.

Where to go next? Well, at the moment, I have 4 complete and roughly equivalent fleets - Imperial, Dwarf, Elf and Dark Elf. I would like to expand on them and add more races; I have all the rules and cards from all the supplements, but Man O' War suffers greatly from the 'Ebay Epic Tax', that is to say, whenever you see something on Ebay, it is invariably priced at a ludicrous mark-up. It's a phenomenon first observed with 2nd Ed Epic stuff but it extends to other Specialist Games too. I need to do some digging around and see if I can source some alternative ship models. The other thing I would eventually like to add to, is to have some decent terrain, like coastal pieces, forts, lighthouses, that sort of jazz. You get a load of card terrain in the Man O' War box and while it will do at a pinch, I would rather have some decent made stuff. I generally try to buy terrain pre-made; I have no aptitude for making it myself but obviously, specialist Man O' War terrain makers tend to be thin on the ground.

Next up, some more BFG, this time applying the same reasoning from Man O' War; more ships means more fun.

It's a different scale, I believe. Man O' War stuff is 1/1200 or thereabouts. The Spartan Stuff is considerably bigger, I am led to believe.

Apparently, the best place to get alternative Empire and Bretonnian 'counts as', are from here:

http://www.rodlangton.com/

Unfortunately, there are very little photos on that web-site so it is difficult to know what to buy and from what sub-section.

Spent a relatively productive hour or so last night prepping my miniatures ready for my upcoming BFG battle. The pressure is on; I have a gaming buddy coming over at the weekend for an Epic battle so I need to have the BFG battle over and done with beforehand so I can set the table.

Like I guess pretty much every BFG player, my fleets (and my Chaos fleet in particular) suffer from that perennial bane, the snapped crappy GW flight stand. As much (in fact, all!) of my BFG stuff were ebay rescues, a great number of ships arrived with flight bases that had been glued and had subsequently snapped, meaning the holes need to be drilled out both in the ship and sometimes in the stand itself where the peg snaps off in the base. For a number of ships, I have eschewed replacing them with new flight stands and have instead gone for metal rod - this provides much more stability and security but it doesn't work for every ship and I have to use a power drill to drill out the ships and bases which can be very frustrating - the drill bit slips or the flight stand hole is in a particularly inaccessible location. Quite often, you have to be very careful not to drill right through the ship. Anyway, after much toils and tribulations, I finally have both fleets on stands as nature intended. This brought into stark focus another problem - with both fleets on the battle mat things were looking a little cramped. My mat is only 4'x3' rather than 6'x4' (I originally bought it for X-Wind) so with both fleets on the table, it looks a smidge too small. I might have to scale back my plans to fight a battle with both full fleets and perhaps half the forces on both sides so there is room to play. Both fleets in full come to approx 3000 points so I think 1500 points will be adequate enough to have a fun battle.

Pics and report to follow - maybe not tonight as there is a World Cup qualifier on but hopefully within the next couple of days.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Just to show - this is the full 3000 points per side so I think I need to scale back a little or get a bigger mat!

Well, I would ideally like to play a battle with the full 3000 points per side but realistically, it isn't going to work on that size mat so I will probably end up getting a bigger space mat in the future.

Seeing as it is only my second BFG battle and I am still easing myself somewhat into the rules, 1500 points and less ships per side is a bit more of a manageable task.

So far, I have played 1 turn of the battle - hopefully, I can get the rest of the fight finished today and get a report up.

Managed to get the battle done, well, finished to my satisfaction anyway! Report:

Opening Shots

The first turns started off much as expected, with both sides trading fire and inflicting moderate damage. The Space Marine Battlebarge started a trend that would continue for most of the battle by failing its command check to go onto special orders - lock on. Bit of a nuisance, as most of the strike cruisers and the Cobra escorts loosed off their torpedoes and then found themselves unable to reload because the command check kept being failed in subsequent turns!



The Imperials drew first blood with the destruction of an Infidel escort from massed torpedo fire.



Midgame

Moving on, as the sides closed, things hotted up. All the capital ships started taking hits of some description. The Gladius escorts on the left flank too ka beating an 2 were destroyed. Meanwhile, the Battlebarge continued its tradition of failing Lock On command checks, thus denying the rest of the Imperial fleet the chance to use special orders to manoeuvre or reload. This had an effect on the escorts primarily who were reduced to taking pot-shots with their rather puny weapon batteries instead of firing torpedoes.



The battle lines mingle and shots are traded between the capital ships.



Over on the right flank, the Chaos fleet started to gain the upper hand through sheer resilience and firepower, destroying a strike cruiser, a Cobra cruiser and several Gladius class escorts. The remaining Nova escorts and Strike Cruiser fared poorly in trying to fire back - although the lances on the Nova escorts were useful.



For the first time in the game, the Battlebarge gains Lock On and gives the Desolater and Murder class cruiser a broadside each from close range, scoring something like 8 hits on the Chaos battleship, crippling it as well as crippling the cruiser.



The strike cruisers continue plugging away at the Infidels but do little damage. The Cobra escorts manage to reload and then contrive to completely miss with all their torpedoes against a nearby cruiser...



Endgame

The Chaos battleship is almost out of it, crippled and drifting in the wrong direction. It can do little except prod the nearby Strike Cruisers. On the next turn it is finally taken down by a combination of fire from the Battlebarge and the Strike Cruisers.



On the other side of the table, the other Chaos battleship and cruiser finish off the job and destroy the Nova escort and Strike Cruiser



At this point, the battle is more or less done. Both sides have taken a pounding and my time has run out. The Chaos side have possibly shaded it but if so, it's a pyrrhic victory. The Imperials have inflicted severe damage in return and the Battlebarge escaped with barely a scratch. However, it must be said, most of the Imperial fleet is gone, bar a couple of Strike Cruisers and a Cobra escort. The Chaos fleet has perhaps a bit more left in the tank with some Infidel escorts and a couple of cruisers left - one is crippled though.



Thoughts

Well, much like my Man O' War battle the other day, BFG is definitely much more interesting with more ships and different types of ship. They complement each other and I can definitely see a synergy involved in a combined arms approach - its not all about whaling on the largest ship with your biggest ship. Book-keeping is a pain - I dislike having dice or wound markers on the table as I find it clutters the playing are and looks messy, however, I am paying for my lack of painting speed here. If I had a fully painted force (and one day I hope to do so!), my intention is to have all ships named. I would then have a pen and paper to one side to keep track of stuff that way. As it is, I have a print out roster from Army Builder with ship classes on it and it is sometimes difficult to keep track of which Strike Cruiser is which, hence the wound dice.

Not sure if it is just me, but I thought the Strike Cruisers were pretty 'meh' in terms of their performance. They have 1 shield and 6 damage points so can absorb a fair bit of damage but their bombardment cannon and weapon batteries are severely low firepower, I felt. They struggled to do much damage, even at close range, and if you are at close enough range to shift left on the gunnery table, chances are you have taken hits getting there. Maybe I am using them wrong? I didn't get too much chance to launch torpedoes or attack craft, purely because I kept failing the damn command check for the Battlebarge. The game may well have been different if I had passed more command checks for both sides - the Battlebarge did a shocking amount of damage in the one turn that it was on Lock On orders.

The Chaos fleet probably should have focussed a bit more on the Battlebarge in hindsight. They instead spent time taking out the various escorts and Strike Cruisers, which, as it turned out, didn't do much damage in return so they could have comfortable eaten that damage whilst pounding away at the Battlebarge.

Anyway, a lot of fun - a lot of effort and a lot of rules to learn for sure, but I think I am getting there. Perhaps in the future, I might try and get hold of an Ork fleet and an Eldar fleet just to add in some variety. Oh, and a bigger space mat too!

Next up, Mordheim - although there will probably be a bit of a hiatus whilst I gather the relevant material and miniatures.

 prime12357 wrote:
Really fantastic battle report, great fun to read

How did you find the performance of the escorts on both sides? I've always found them to be underwhelming, but perhaps I'm using them wrong?

Anyways, now to rope a buddy into some BFG....

Looking forward to more!

The escorts were rather craptastic on both sides, to be honest. I think they are mainly just there to provide a minor distraction and to soak up some fire - certainly, on both sides, the escorts didn't last very long and didn't do much damage in return. When you only have a low firepower weapon battery, firing abeam, even with a column shift, you might be lucky to get 2 D6 to try and roll a 5+ or a 6+ - not very good odds. Most of the time, they didn't inflict much damage. On the flip side, they only have one shield and 1 damage point so aren't especially durable. This was also compounded during the battle above by my command roll failures. All the Space Marine escorts fired torps on the first turn and then had to go 3 or 4 turns without a reload.

I found the Nova class escorts to be the best for me - they have a 2 firepower lance (if I can remember the stat line from here at work!) which provides a slightly better opportunity of hitting than a weapon battery. A squadron of 3 can dish out some damage. Not sure how the Gladius escorts perform as 5 of the 6 I started with got wiped out almost straight away before doing much.

On the Chaos side, I only have Infidel class escorts and they were a nuisance, nothing more. 4 of them managed to take down a Strike Cruiser that had 1 damage point left - that's about as good as it got.

Edit: Actually, thinking about it, if I had been able to pass command checks a bit better, a squadron of escorts with Lock On orders might actually be capable of doing some damage - say 4 ships firing at a cruiser, that might give you 8 d6 rolls (with rerolls) to roll 5+ which is slightly better odds. Of course, with Lock On orders you sacrifice your mobility so you would need to get into position unscathed beforehand...

Set up my game table ready for my first ever Mordheim battle - although there won't be any actual fighting done tonight as Borussia Dortmund play Arsenal!

I was forced to raid my rather paltry stash of Fantasy miniatures in order to round up some ropey old 6th Ed starter set Empire soldiers to double as my Reikland warband. They will be going up against a Mantic-composed Undead warband with an early Mantic metal mini Necromancer and a stand-in metal Mantic Elf price thingy which was the closest thing I could find that looks vaguely like a Vampire! But it'll suffice until such time as I can get some more appropriate models.

The battlefield:







Mordheim is a game that I am really looking forward to playing being as I missed it first time around (along with Necromunda which I hope to visit soon in the not too distant future as part of this blog). Mordheim is one of those games that you hear much about, with people eulogising how it plays and lamenting the lack of support it got, but strangely enough, you very rarely see or hear of it being played, even here in the Specialist Games forum so I am keen to examine just why that is.