Rod must have offended the Gods!!!!

A game of Warhammer Ancient Battles using approximately 2200 points.  I was Romans, and Rod was Barbarians.

The poor Romans were stuck in fields and then crossing a stream, all the while being shot at by skirmishers.  They should have been decimated.  Or worse!!!!  But such was not the outcome!

1.  Rod's Noble Cavalry charged the Roman Equites.  Rod's cavalry had better fighting skill and better morale.  His charging unit was backed up by a second unit.

2.  Rod's cavalry won, but only just.  The Roman cavalry had to make a morale test, which they passed.

3.  The second round of combat was a tie.

4.  The third round of combat was won by the Barbarian cavalry -- but only just.  The Romans had to take another morale test, and passed.

5.  The fourth round of combat was won by the Romans -- this was against the odds.  The Barbarian cavalry had to take a morale check, rolled box cars, and broke.

6.  The supporting cavalry had to take a panic test for seeing a rout, rolled box cars, and broke.

7.  Four supporting infantry hordes had to take panic tests.  Two rolled box cars, and broke.

8.  The pursuing Roman cavalry caught the Barbarian cavalry that was routing and destroyed them.

At this point the barbarian army had been gutted -- and they hadn't even got into combat yet!  Rod conceded and we went and played X-Wing!

The Barbarian horde advances

Some Romans get across the stream

The barbarian center runs away!

Rod got his revenge in X-Wing though.  Hans and Luke and some nobody blew through my imperial Tie fighters like they were made of plastic!

HOGS

I went to HOGS.  Played a couple of games -- Guildhall, and then Concordia.  We called concordia early, but it was a very interesting game!!!

Guildhall

Imperial Assault

I went to the Imperial Assault game day at Area 52.  Only 1 other person showed up!!!!  But we played a skirmish game -- somewhere on Tatooine, Luke, C3P0, and three wookies were fighting the empire.  The empire won -- but it was close -- the wookies walked through stormtroopers like a hot knife through butter.  But a cannon on a vehicle knocked the wookies down, and a flurry of blaster bolts felled Luke.  With only C3P0 remaining I conceded.

The game was a blast!!!  An absolute blast!!!!   I now have to paint more of my troops!!!!

The wookies charge in!

Luke goes down in a blaze of glory!

Pandemic legacy -- April (1) --- Aaaaaargh!!!!!!!!!!

It is now apparent that Pandemic Legacy was toying with us for the first few games.  It has now become seriously hard!!!!!

We lost our first attempt at April.  We were close -- we had cured two of the three diseases, and were just a move or two away from victory, but we got a chain reaction outbreak in Asia that pushed us over the edge into defeat.  And we had to win, because the situation in South America is out of control!!!!

At the end of the second epidemic, things got seriously bad!!!

An explosion of the Red disease -- 4 epidemics in one go!

Dogs of War 2016 -- Day 2

After being crushed twice on Day 1 of the Dogs tournament, I came back with two wins to finish in the middle of the pack.

Game 3 was against Rusty.  It was Hasty Attack.  I managed to kill all of his advancing forces for a 5:2 victory.  Rusty was terribly unlucky, but this was a fantastic gentleman's game.  

Game 4 was against Smithy.  He had German infantry in a 'Dust Up'.  Smithy should have won -- he was incredibly unlucky with my aircraft coming on repeatedly, whereas his planes almost never showed up.  And I managed to make my morale checks when I needed them.

Final result was:

1st Place - Leigh, with a perfect score.

2nd Place - Griggsy

3rd Place - Pat and Smithy

Ben rolling for victory

Smithy vs Lowell.  This was going to be a 6-1 one way or the other.  Smithy managed to gain the victory, but it was actually close.

Pat deep in thought

My game vs Rusty.

A tense game -- Rob vs Pat.  Lots of spectators.

Can Rob gain the victory?  It was close, but Pat managed to pull out the win,

Dogs of War 2016 - Day 1

Crushed I was -- absolutely crushed!!!!!

My first game against Griggsy.  It was close, but he managed to get his rangers to an objective.

Pat wasnt going to play -- but at the last minute managed to get free.  Which was great, because Jim had to drop out.

Leigh's horde of RV South Africans vs Rod.

Lowell's army -- 4 Tiger I's

My round 2 battle against Leigh.  I misplayed, and Leigh played perfectly.  I just couldnt get to grips with 16 25pounder guns!!!!

Americans in flames

Smithy dropped in from Army Reserve training to play a game.

Lowell's tigers just couldnt make it against Pat's Grenadiers (with pioneers and Stuka's)

In the Jungle

Crossfire in the Pacific.  Japanese vs Marines.

Our first crossfire game was a nail biting affair.  This was far more pedestrian.  Both Rob and I discussed it, and we werent sure if it was the scenario or the jungle terrain.  Anyway, my Marines methodically destroyed Japanese units, and the poor Japanese had very little they could do

Both Japanese bunkers destroyed

The look of despair -- Rod had almost nothing left!!!

We then went and played a Wild West game using Rod's CV system.  It was very cinematic, but my outlaw gang was blown away quickly!!!!

The Town.  The 4Ground Wild West buildings are fantastic!!!

My Posse moves into town

Shooting starts

My Posse just before the dead bodies started to mound up!!!!

Modder Fokkers

See the write up at http://campcromwell.blogspot.com.au/2016/03/modder-fokkers.html


Some more pictures though:

The hole in the plane for the dowel wasnt big enough!

Ed overlooks the situation, as the two groups get close

There is a LOT of thinking in Modder Fokker!!!!

Nick closing in for the kill on Steve's plane

Trying to gain height to take on Ed's Albatross

Ed's plane running for home!

Pandemic Legacy -- March

I was in Sydney.  The write up from Matty was:

"Well, Pandemic is much easier when we don’t have Nick and Dave playing. I only got two turns and we cured three diseases, two of which we eradicated and we only had one outbreak. We spent longer determining which characters to play than we spent playing the game."

Zombie Queen

A game of 'Betrayal at the House on the Hill' broke out.  It was myself, Steve, and Steve's friend Nicola.

We were split up when I was transported by the mystical elevator to the basement.  As we each explored, Nicola managed to get most of the items.  Finally, Nicola found the vault, which was full of items, and also revealed the Haunt.

It turns out Nicola was the zombie lord, luring us into the house to increase the size of her zombie army.  The zombies could only be killed by magic weapons, and Nicola had all of the stuff we had found.

With some frantic searching, I found a magic spear.  Steve was eaten by the zombies, and became a zombie.  With my magic spear I started killing zombies, and also killed zombiefied Steve.  Then I came up against Nicola.  It was an even up fight, but every time she hit me I dropped in ability, whereas Nicola stayed strong until the final moment.  After a few rounds on fighting I was killed and turned into a zombie.

Flying Circus

A quick game of Wing of Glory at the club.

Nick (Germans, with an Albatross and a Fokker DR.I) vs Lowell (with a Bristol and a Hanriot)

A swirling melee developed.  

The Fokker DR.I was spinning around all over the place spitting lead, but a shot by the Britol rear MG gunner caused an explosion, and the plane was down in seconds!

The Albatross ran for home, but the Bristol got on its tail and shot it down as well

Lowell Rickenabaker celebrates his victory

Meanwhile, on an adjacent table, the Taliban and some Rangers were going toe to toe!

Double header at Rod's

We played two games.  The first was a playtest of Rod's homemade skirmish system, CV.  This is a really cool system, where there is one stat -- your figure's CV (for combat / cohesion / casualty / <insert C word> value.  If you roll your CV or under, you do an action.  It turns out CV 5 is dramatically better than CV4, which is better than CV 3, etc.  As you take wounds, you lose CV.

The scenario was 6 rangers attacking a village to free a hostage.  !2 Taliban defended the village.

The table, before deployment

The rangers come on.  There are a couple of sentries, but otherwise all is quiet (and hidden)

The rangers got to the top of the small building, and killed a Taliban machine gunner.  Sentries opened fire -- two hits on each ranger!!!  This could have been bad.  But each ranger shrugged off the hit (they used cover well)

The Taliban sniper!!!!  He was dangerous!!!  Until the rangers opened up on him with their support weapon!!!!  Scratch one sniper!!!

A minor shootout started, with the rangers methodically removing any hostiles that appeared.

Then the dangerous stuff started -- clearing the village room by room.  The rangers were lucky -- the Taliban kept getting hits, but the Rangers skill (and hence use of cover) was enough to save them.  The Ranger leader did actually get hit, but he was saved by his body armour!  Pretty soon the rangers found the hostage and evacuated.

We decided to have a second game -- Dux Bellorum.  A straight up Saxons (Rod) vs Vikings (Nick)

Rod kept rolling bad dice, especially for movement, and the Vikings managed to crush a flank and scrape a win.