28mm cultists

I continued painting some 28mm GW cultists for Pulp Alley this week. I managed to get four guys moved off the painting table.

The first two are from the whips-and-chains brigade. Nice motion in these sculpts.

The other two are the BDSM game, complete with blazing hat and mobile gallows.

They will make a nice addition to my cultists--maybe for a Hallowe'en-themed game?

Boxer rebellion playtest

Bruce has been working on a new Boxer rebellion game, using Dragon Rampant as the basic engine and a NPC system from an old western game to operate the Boxers. The basic scenario is five colonial powers must hold off the hordes of Boxers trying to seize their embassies.

The rest of the details I'll leave off as it might spoil the fun for when Bruce brings this out to the club. Maybe needs one more playtest to make sure the play balance is right but I think it is close.

Lost of new terrain as Bruce has recreated the five besieged embassies. Also new figures for the most part.

We had pretty decent luck with the event cards not causing too many problems for us. I'd say that is unusual and problems should be expected! As it was, we had hordes of Boxers appearing. The Germans held many of them off (random entry).

There is also a supply mechanic that gives players the opportunity to interact with one another. Don't make fun of the German accent or you may find yourself short of ammunition!

We had some repeated bad luck trying to achieve an objective, getting caught twice outside the walls by the Chinese.

This lead to a subsequent shortage of manpower for the defenders.

There was also some damage to the fortifications that started to pile up. Fortunately, the Chinese entry points did not correspond to the damaged portions.

We also had some visitors!

By the end, things were getting a bit touch and go as we were running out of troops and had some late appearances by Boxers that were inconvenient.

Fortunately, we managed to run out the clock before the Boxers could capitalize upon the mounting casualties.

Overall, a pretty fun game and I enjoyed playing against the gaming system.

Tomb of Horus

We had four guys out at the cub on Tuesday, with Terry hosting Chen, Bruce and I in a game of Tomb of Horus. Basically, this is a smash a grab kind of game wit the winner having the most dosh at the end. The excitement comes from the random nature of the falling blocks (which creates a random end point).

Bruce handily won the first game, rushing in, grabbing the highest value treasure and then getting out while I wandered around with no real plan.

Game 2 was better and I ended up with the most treasure. We also saw Chen trapped inside the tomb when a block came down just as he was making his way out.

Overall, a fun game--thanks to Terry for hosting.

28mm cultists and new dice!

This week I finished up some more 28mm cultists from GW. First up was a bunch of guys who like to play with fire.

Then the BSDM crowd with clubs and shackles and what not. Nice figures but happy to be coming to the end of them.

A few weeks back at Red Claw I picked up some new eight-sided dice. These will replace the ones I had from D&D in the early 80s that are almost impossible to read. Thanks to everyone who has suffered through Pulp Alley using the old dice!

Up next: Cultists, some historic forts, and some 54mm AWI.

Guilford Courthouse at the club

We had five guys out on a lovely July evening this week. Daniel hosted Terry in a game of Mythic Battles which had some pretty cool minis and terrain pieces.

Chen and Craig played a game of Tricorne against me. We chose Guilford Courthouse and they elected to play the rebellious scoundrels in blue. Below I believe they are looking at unit stats and saying "this militia REALLY sucks". 

The opening turns saw the British advance and try to pick up some quick kills against the first line of militia. The game required 10 banners to win and the Americans started with 3 temporary banners that they retained as long as I did not occupy any of the hill hexes on their base line so I had ground to make up right off.

Chen made a series of amazing morale rolls and the battered militia ran for the hills meaning much of the damage I inflicted did not convert into destroyed units.

Eventually I managed to put together an attack on the right to rout the American troops and start to turn the line. This took some time and Craig and Chen used that time to shore up some battered units and reform their remaining two lines.

I then use the Highlanders to start pushing into their second line from the right side while the main force slowly lumbered forward into shooting distance. I barely managed to hold off a counter attack on my left before coming to grips with the militia and finally scoring some kills.

I think the final score was 10-6 for the Brits. This is a tough scenario for the US and the militia are ridiculously brittle. The tension is using them to attrit British units and then get them out of the way so the British can break themselves on the regulars on the final line.