Battle of Hoth Campaign 1

In late November, Bruce and I gave the first mini-campaign for the Battle of Hoth a go. This is one of two programmed tree campaigns that the game comes with. Including a brief instruction, we managed to get through three games in 70 minutes and had a dramatic finale (I suspect the campaign likely goes on one or two more steps but three games in a row was lots for one day).

Game one (above) was basically an encounter and introduction to unit types. The rebels won this one handily thanks to incredibly lucky dice.

Game 2 went to the imperials who quickly killed a rebel laser cannon and grabbed the key victory location.

Game 3 saw the rebels defending shield generators. The Imperials could win if they took out both generators. The rebels could win through attriting the attacker. 

Bruce thrust up the left flank and quickly destroyed the first generator and I figured the game was over. The Rebels were able to successfully defend the second generator long enough to attrit the Imperials. There was quite a lot of drama, much like you'd expect.

Overall, we thought this was a fun, light game that was more like the simplicity of Battle Cry than the more chromed up later CCA variants we've played. The campaign included primary and secondary victory conditions and just enough carry over effects to incentivize the players. Overall, this was good fun and emphasized movement and tactics. Super happy with this game.

Zorro and Dracula: A Fistful of Lead

Back in the fall, Bruce hosted a couple of games of Fistful of Lead using his Swashbuckler adaptation of the gladiator game (Arena of Death?). First up was Zorro.

Zorro and his (wo)men had to rescue their compatriot who was being hanged in the town square. If the hanged man got into the crowd and Zorro exited the left side of the board, Zorro would win! Zorro set up hidden and, until one of his hidden units was spotted neither the four guards at the gallows nor the four lancers at the stables could move.

As soon as Zorro was spotted, the lancers moved out, trying to thin out Zorro's henchman and also set up a blocking position to prevent his escape. They could dismount, but there was an advantage in combat to being mounted so they did not.

Zorro and broom guy beat one of the guards silly while others rush the gallows. The lovely Maria was one of the most effective agents of rebellion.

Meanwhile, behind the stone house, the lancers catch Zorro and tie him up.

The doomed man makes his escape but more lancers keep piling in on Zorro. He fights valiantly, thinning the ranks, but cannot sustain this level of wounds forever.

Finally, he succumbs to the pressure and draws his last breath. Or does he?

A few weeks later, Bruce hosted another horror game. The villagers must pass through town and destroy Dracula's castle. Dracula has lots of critters to help him defend and delay the townsfolk.

Bats assail the shooty group of villagers.

More damned bats.

And now rats assail the stabby group of villagers. Improbably discipline among the villagers (plus some pretty lucky rolling) allowed them to brush aside these annoyances one-by-one. Some additional time pressure would have made the game more challenging for them. The fast-moving fliers could also have used their faster movement to isolate and dog-pile some villagers to try and thin out the peasantry.

The forces of evil moved as blinds until spotted.

Here, Frau Blucher and some rando find themselves alone against a large number of rats.

Fortunately, good dice trump bad tactics every time and the villagers rush towards the castle.

In the end, Blucher and some guy with a mug of beer ran head-first into Dracula and put the boots to him (yay, box-cars!).

Overall, a very slick system for skirmish Bruce is working up a few more flavoured rules so more powerful characters can do more movie-like moves.

Rats!

I'm hosting a game one the holidays and needed to add a few swarms of rats to the table. These are some 3-D rings I found and represent some pretty giant rats!

I also took the opportunity to repaint the bases on my horror figures. These are some of the ones I re-did.

Above is Doc Frankenstein and friends; below are various baddies. I think all of these are Bob Murch figures.

Up next: Good question. Hopefully some gaming!

Forest terrain for smaller scales

Most of my gaming is on hexes these days and I needed some indicators for forested areas that were suitable for 3mm to 15mm figures. I looked at some commercial options but didn't want to pay the high price so I decided to just make some using stuff I mostly had laying around.

I cut some floor tiles into hexagons and then bisected them. I wanted a mixed of conifers and deciduous. The conifers are made from wavy pipe cleaners (in eye-searing Christmas green) that I glued to the base.

I then spray primed it black and hit it with some matt sage green. This dulled the pipe cleaners (mostly!) and matched the base to the rest of my terrain.

I then filled in the spaces with train foliage.

The result, seen from above and three feet away, looks fine and is hazy enough it can work in multiple scales. I didn't want to haul out a hex mat so I just pulled a single hex to photo-illustrate the finished effect. The hex can be fully filled with trees.

If there are units, they mostly fit with half of the hex open. A green felt hex laid underneath would allow removal of all the trees but still have the space marked as forest. So now I'm off to look through the bins for some dark green felt.

I have a small number of hex bases left that I didn't turn into forest. I'l; have to have a look through the rule book to see if there are other kinds of terrain I need to model.

Random painting

I have a pile of random figures on my paint table and this week I finished a few batches.

First up were five 28mm zombies that Chen gave me. These look better in person--the lighting is washing out the highlights on them.

I also bought some Star Wars Risk Clone Wars figures to see what the size was like (20mm maybe). The clone troopers aren't useful but the battle droids will supplement my 15mm army, which includes some other Star Wars droids plus some dog-like humanoid troopers and a bunch of mechs (also on the painting table).

In addition to the mechs, I have a bunch of fantasy figures and some terrain on the painting table.

Battle of Hoth

Jessica happily agreed to give my new Battle of Hoth game a test drive a few weeks back. This is basically a re-skin of Memoir '44 with a few sci-fi flourishes, separate activation decks, and a smaller playing area. Jess chose the Sith and we played the first three scenarios in the scenario book in about 80 minutes to get the hang of the rules and the units.

First up was a meeting engagement. Jessica won this handily, which meant that I could take the gloves off for the next two games! We added in the "character" cards (basically extra activation cards themed for three different characters on each side) that give the game some extra colour.

Game two introduced walkers and snow speeders and I used the speeder mobility to isolate and kill Jessica's snow trooper units while evading her AT-AT, which is pretty hard to destroy. 

It wasn't a romp by any means but it was a pretty clear win for the good guys.

The third scenario introduced more terrain and laser canons for the Rebels. This was a pretty hard-fought battle. The smaller map (7x10 hexes) means you are in contact almost immediately.

Jess managed to take out the laser cannon that was jamming up the valley for her but I kept re-occupying the hex before she could grab the victory markers. In the end, some savvy play that took advantage of some special cards gave me the win. 

Overall, this was a pretty fun Memoir adaptation. I am looking forward to the two linked campaigns that the game comes with. I would think there is an easy Endor expansion available if this one sells. Plus probably lots of Clone War possibilities.

Star Wars Risk Part 2

A few weeks back, I posted some pictures of the Rebel fighters I painted from the Star Wars Risk game, which recreates the Battle of Endor. I finished the rest of the minis in the game plus I replaced some counters with minis.

First up was a horde of Tie fighters. These just got a dark grey prime, white dry brush, and dark wash.

They are sightly smaller and less refined than the Tie fighters from the Star Wars Rebellion game (right).

I also needed a rebel fleet. 

The cruisers are just targets for the Death Star in the game but I had these ships, so why not?

The Falcon replaces a counter and is a 3-D print my buddy Dave made me. Paint job was mostly washes.

The Imperials needed an Executor and a partially assembled (but fully operational) Death Star. The throne room fight also needed Vader and Luke figures--these were old 25mm West End Games figures (or maybe Star Wars Monopoly?) that I had laying around. There are better figures but whatever.

I also needed a Rebel ground force and the Storm Troopers the imperial player can throw at it as road bumps. These are 18mm figures from Star Wars Rebellion.

This is the game set up from the instruction manual with unpainted figures and counters.

This is the game with painted minis.

The throne room duel is so-so.

The shield generator assault on Endor is better.

The space battle is sweet.

Hoping I can convince the kid to give this a whirl with me this week.