June 6 club night

We had a dozen guys out to the club this week, which was a goo turn out. Chatter was about a change in venue in the fall due to a rent increase (new venue TBD).

There was couple of games of 28mm sci-fi skirmish (Armageddon?) as well as some Memoir 44.

There was a lovely looking game of Star Wars Armada. Oh, I wish I could convince myself that this is worth the money. Beautiful models.

Scott, Terry and I played some CCA Spartans v Athenians. I haven't played many of the scenarios in the sixth expansion and this one had a fun mechanic.

Above is the set-up. Below the Athenian ambush has been sprung (to the doom of the Spartans in both plays). A fun game with a hoplite rule as well.

Up next: Either some 54mm AWI or some 25mm Romulans. And maybe gaming with Bruce.

Club Night September 6

We had a great turn out for our first club night of the autumn with (I think) 16 guys playing at one point. Dave hosted a WW2 Crete game that began with a flaming British plane. Reports were sketchy but the German paratroops spent some time looking for their weapons pods... .

I managed to snap a reasonable panorama shot as everyone was setting up.

I played a game of Muskets & Tomahawks using Stephen's beautifully painted 28mm Imaginations troops. The rules played nicely, with card drive activation to add in some C&C issues.

It was a straight forward encounter to break point with pretty similar forces.

Here I am with everyone in order and looking good.

Things are more complex here with my cavalry charging towards the top of the frame, trying to get around his main body of infantry on the right while avoiding his cavalry and skirmishers. In the meantime, I'm working my skirmishers around on the right (you can just see the smoke from their volley).

And then this happened. It was close for awhile after that but eventually my cavalry disintegrated (really being more dragoons than cavalry). A very fun and pretty game.

There was also some CC (Zama, I think).

Dennis and Chen were getting some DBA practice in in anticipation of the Fallcon tourney.

And Kevin ran another well attended and very beautiful game of Silver Tower.

Up next: Hard to see; my time is pretty tight these days.

April 18 club night

We had a dozen guys out a the club on Tuesday and four games ran. Chen, Scott and Terry joined me in a Roman Civil War scenario (Thapsus) from CCA. Game 1 saw Team Caesar (in red) ahead for much of the game.

Then, suddenly, Team Pompeii crushed some heavy units in the centre and that was that.

We switched sides and it looked like another win for Team Pompeii. I was so confident, I was mocking Julius leading from the rear. Then suddenly there was a cavalry attack on the left flank and a three banner swing in favour of Team Caesar! Arrrgh.

There were also two games of Kings of War. The artillery piece was the subject of a 75-dice attack!

And there was some X-wing as well!

Up next: Some more 15mm fantasy figures are drying. Then I'm not sure.

Epic CCA at the club

We had a pretty good turn out at the club on Tuesday for the last games night of the year. Karl and Brad played some 28mm Napoleonics. Not sure what rules they used.

Kevin, Dave, Scott, Chen and I played a game of CCA epic (Alexander at Gaugamela). Below is a moodily lit set up from the Persia side.

Kevin and Dave won the first game using Alexander's strategy of refusing their left and breaking the Persians using the companions on the right.  The highlight for the Persians was stomping a ridiculous number of Macedonian pike with rampaging elephants. Man, we got lucky with the elephants.

Bruce and Terry played some chain reaction gangsters with Bruce's new buildings.

There was also some Warhammer 30k.

And a 28mm game of LaSalle,

The second game of CCA featured Chen jumping in to replace an ailing Kevin. This was a much closer game despite the Persian elephants having little effect.

Below was the beginning of the end. Dave and Chen are strategizing about how to win the split over the two games (we tied over two games).

Up next: Some 1/72-scale WW2 Russian cavalry and then maybe some more gaming?

Gaming: DBA 3.0

We had a pretty good turn out on Tuesday at the club with four games going. First up were the seemingly head corpses of Wiley and Neal duking it our with CCA.

Scott and Terry ran several guys through their MayDay Martian game.

The highlight of the evening was the first appearance of Scott's giant ironclad. It is huge!

Dave and I played some DBA 3.0. Boy, starting position really matters!

Another shot of the Martian advance. This was still one turn one when I left!

Elliot and Kevin had a go at Star Wars Armada. Funny listening to two experience gamers play the game while reading the rules aloud. Overall, another very diverse evening of gaming.

Up next: I have some 1/72-scale WW2 French to get painted and then onto the Germans.

January 6 EWG Club Night

We had 14 guys and six games running last night at the club, which was an awesome turn out given the cold and it being the first week back after the holidays. There were three games of Warmachine underway, which was nice to see. 

Scott and I managed to get in six games of Commands & Colors Ancients. We started with Telamon, which sees a Gaul army (green) trapped between two Roman armies (red). Both games saw swirling cavalry fights on the right to contest the hills. The Gauls in the middle got crunched.

The second game was Clastidium, which pits a force of Roman lights and horse against Gaulish auxilia, lights and warband. Both games saw the Romans win with a mixture of shooting and cavalry charges. Scott's time as Roman commander was particularly devastating as he came around the right flank and wrapped things up in about 12 minutes!

Finally, we played Arausio. This is a straight-up fight. In the first game, the Romans had some lucky cards and moved their battle line up to pound the Germanic tribes. In the second game (below), the Germans advanced, chewed the edges of the Romans and then the Roman centre had some lousy dice and folded up. I think I'm good on CCA for awhile!

Dave hosted Chen and Phil in a 6mm modern game using the epic rules. Russian hordes crossed the border and swarmed a NATO battle group. There were some unlucky moments for NATO!

And finally Bruce hosted a game of Look Sarge, No Charts Napoleonics. Below you can see Bruce's left flank (top of photo) has fallen back to his baseline. I think that pretty much tells the tale.

Up next: I am working on some 54mm Indian Allies. Hopefully they will be done this weekend!

CCA and Red November

Bruce swung by today for some gaming. I hauled out Clusium (225BC), which is the first scenario from the Rome and the Barbarians CCA expansion. I think I ran a big battle version of this at the club last year.

The camps play a central role in the scenario. The first game saw the Gallic cavalry in the camps die on Roman spears. The Romans then pushed up the middle to win. The second game saw different strategies on both sides. The Gallic cavalry slide to the right...and died on Roman spears while medium foot clashed in the middle.

There were some lucky dice (above) but control of the centre went back and forth with both sides being within a banner of winning twice. Eventually Gallic luck triumphed (as they did historically).

Bruce then brought out Red November, a cooperative game which includes a troubled submarine, a drunken crew and a kraken. The game was fairly fun--basically the crew has manage problems until they are rescued while a variety of things go very wrong.

You can fix stuff (and you do better if you drink grog... but then you character is drunk) but the opportunity cost makes it a close run game. Below you can see we were facing flooding, fires, jammed hatches and (unpictured) a variety of system failures. Fortunately we avoided the Kraken and managed to hold on until rescued. A fun party game.

Up next: The first post of 2014 will be some more 54mm AWI. I've started on the British but have some Americans still in queue. And the club meets Tuesday. I'm going to bring out Telemon (the next CCA Rome and the Barbarians scenario).

Some 15mm WW2 tanks

Over the weekend, I made some progress on a large 15mm US armoured commission I took on. The tanks came assembled and mostly base coated so I decided to finish those first.

I ran into a recurring issue with minis that arrive with paint on them: matching the colour. The Sherman's above include two I painted with "historically accurate OD green" flanking a 105mm Sherman the owner painted with "historically accurate OD green.

His can was slightly darker. Not really an issue (as the tanks would have been a grab-bag of runners at this point and he wanted a beat-up look) but the darker OD creates some challenges (see below).

The rest of the tanks include two Easy Eights and a Jumbo Sherman (above) along with four tank destroyers (below). I think these are with 76mm guns (can't recall the name), not the 90mm Jacksons. Sorry the picture is so blurry!

There were also three groups of halftracks. The first unit painted up just fine.

I was asked to paint the second unit with a black and green pattern to visually distinguish it from the first unit. While you can see the pattern (below) under studio lights, in regular gaming lighting there is inadequate contrast between the green and the black (the black just disappears). So I used star decals without the circle on the hood to differentiate them.

There was also a group of mortar halftracks.

And a pair of jeeps (I see I need to do their bases yet).

In exciting news, after waiting almost two years, GMT has reprinted the second and third CCA expansions and my copy arrived this afternoon! 

Up next: I'm working on a bunch of 15mm artillery pieces and troops to go with the tanks. There were detailed instructions on uniforms so I am carefully following them! And the club meets for the last time in 2014 on Tuesday.