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.

August 4 Club Night

We had 15 guys out last night and actually ran short of games! I hosted a game of Memoir '40, presenting the Battle of Hannut-Merdorp (May 13, 1940).

We were able to play this scenario twice, with the wiley Germans winning both times. The French could not get a card or a die roll to save their souls.

The German win means that they will have an opportunity to add a tank during their next reinforcement role when I sort out the orbats for Resistance in Gembloux.

There were lots of other games going.

 Dan hosted a lot of guys in a game of Xwing including newcomers Adam and Steven.

Jonathan and Scott played some Impetus.

Dave and Dennis played DBA 3.

Up next: I bought/swapped a huge WW2 collection so I am sorting that out right now. Next up should be some more 1/72-scale WW2!

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.

Star Wars: Armada

We had 13 or 14 guys out to the club last night with five games going, including some sort of sand-in-your-loincloth dealie Scott was running, some medievals, some DBA and some Warmachine.

Wiley and played a game of Star Wars: Armada against the rebel scum... errr... Neal and Dan. This was my our first time out with the game so we kept the Imperial ships together but likely over-extended our fighter cover.

Eventually the two Star Destroyers contacted the two Nebulon B frigates. My ship (on the right) took a pounding (including some damage from ramming) but we managed to pop one of the frigates.

And then the second frigate ended up in a spot we might charitable call "a good place to shoot from" and got double-teamed with predictable results. We also managed to get a handle on our fighters and kept the X-wings off the capital ships.

Unfortunately for the Empire, my ship was so damaged that an attack run by a corvette destroyed it! We called the game at that point with an expectation that Grand Moff Wiley could clean up the remainder of the rebels.

Overall a fun game. Not sure I want to drop this kind of coin, though. But damned happy that Dan did!

DBA 3.0

Bruce picked up the new DBA 3.0 rules awhile back and offered to run a game. We started with French v English and Bruce managed to win both games!

The first game looked good for me, bagging his general early on. But somehow I managed to get pounded in a swirling cavalry engagement. I did like the new terrain set-up mechanisms, though.

Game two looks good for me in the beginning (the right side especially). But then I discovered that  bow really don't need a quick kill against knights--just some reasonable rolls makes enough of a mess.

We then switched to Roman v Carthaginians. I managed a win as the Romans, cleaning up a littoral landing before managing to engage his main line using the new support rules. I do like how fast the units move to contact.

One my turn with the Carthaginians, I also tried a littoral landing (no terrain to make this so we just measured out a coastal zone) and promptly got myself into trouble. I was forced to send in the cavalry to try and avoid total disaster. And didn't... (a 1vs a 6 is bad news in any edition of DBA!).

Overall, some nice changes that seem to get away from tho gimmicky geometric strategies. Match-up still matter, although less definitively. Not sure I liked it enough to buy a copy, but I liked it enough to play again!

February 17 club night

We had about 18 players out at the club last night with lots of variety. In addition to two games of Warmachine, Scott put on a game of Bolt action WW2. 

Scott was on about the "VD launcher" several times--some sort of French daly war melee weapon? There was DBA 3 plus some more zombie fun.

Justin and Wiley joined me for some 1812: The Invasion of Canada. We got three games in and the good guys only won the last game.

Some interesting new strategies emerged, with the British striking south to bag Albany and some last-minute land grabs on the Niagara peninsula.

Up next: Some more 54mm British regulars.

Club Night Feb 3

We had about 17 guys out at the club this week with a huge variety of games. Neil and Dan played Tide of Iron (which I haven't seen out in a couple of years--I think).

There was also a game of DBA 3.0.

We had a pair of Warmachiners.

Terry hosted an ill-fated Zombie Game in the Depths of Winter.

Bruce brought out World at War, with the Canadians facing down the Soviet onslaught. Newcomer Comrade Taylor didn't exactly make any friends by kicking the hell out of the Canadians pretty much from the get go. (He gets the Fallcon dice next time!)

A double pulse by the Soviet armour the first turn combined with lousy dice on our side meant the Canadian left folded up. We were making some progress blunting the Soviet's advance by the end of the game (when we finally started to get average results out of the dice!) but I'd say it was a pretty clear win for our new Communist Overlords. A tough last night at the club for Andy who is off to the far east for a few years.

Up next: I have some more 54mm guy ready to show off and I am working my way through a bunch of British Grenadiers.

Another record-breaking club night

Despite terrible, terrible traffic woes across the city, we had another record-breaking night with (at one point) 25 guys out to game. Terry hosted Dead of Winter (zombies + traitor = fun) and did a good job of refereeing while learning the game. Newbie tip: shotguns are good.

There were so many guys out it was hard to get a good shot. Trevor hosted a game of DropZone Commander while Dave and Dennis played some DBA.

Bruce brought out Look Sarge, No Charts WW2. A double impulse was credited with turning back to Allied invasion.

And there were three games of Warmachine. Again so crowded was hard to get a decent picture!

Up next: Some more 54mm AWI plus maybe some 15mm WW2 vehicles.

Gangsters at the Club

We had more than a dozen guys out at the club on Tuesday night. There was a game of Bolt Action (no pics!) and a game of DBA going on.

I played in Bruce's gangster's game with Terry, Steve and Larry. I was the coppers and was pretty careful about my victory conditions. Below, you can see the sleepy streets of Chicago as the game got under way.

Since Bruce is going to run this at Fallcon, I won't spoil it for those who are playing by revealing too much. Below you can see some of my coppers hanging out by a statute of General Lee. These fellows will long be remembered for pushing my point total over the top with their noble sacrifice.

With Chain Reaction, there is usually a fair bit of stupidity that happens during the game, as things run out of control. One of Terry's fellows jumped in a truck, gunned it, got shot and then the truck went to of control crashing into the police station. At the same time, an FBI guy got carried away in a roadster (stupid febbies...), tried to crash through the doors of the firehall and instead piled into the wall. Despite my troops fleeing the board, the coppers won on points in the end (which was rather vindicating).

Up next: Likely some 1/72-scale French WW2 infantry.