Tuesday Night’s Game

Lee and I got together at House of Heroes last Tuesday night to play a game of Flying Lead, something that had been pushed to the back burner for quite awhile due to playtesting Lee’s Fear and Faith scenario for OshCon and the introduction of Zombie Dice, which will push a lot of things to the back burner (like eating and sleeping). We were planning on 600 point squads on a standard 3×3 foot board. We got everything set up and got started after some after-work chatting and a quick nosh.

No, it's not hiding, it's strategy

We used a lot of terrain, as one does with skirmish games like Flying Lead, and then positioned our teams. Lee won the roll for first turn (which never happens) and started moving his men up. Upon my turn, I did the same. We traded shots for a bit back and forth, and then… first blood. I dropped one of Lee’s soldiers and then used a few other figures in my squad to finally mop him up.

Shortly after that, things went poorly for me. Lee got a lucky shot off on my leader and I rolled really badly for his defense, and he was knocked Out of Action. This caused me many problems, the worst of them being that a Leader-type being killed or knocked Out of Action causes an automatic Morale check. One of my regular soldiers ran off as did my Medic character, which really hurt my chances. Without a Medic character, my Out of Action leader couldn’t be revived, so he was effectively dead. Did I mention that my leader also had the Sniper skill? So in one shot (and a few lousy Morale checks) my squad had been relieved of its leader, medic, a foot-slogger and my only character with Sniper.

They call him Mister Heavy Weapon Guy

However, Morale can work both ways. I had soon worked my last remaining personality, a figure with the Hero special ability and a really big gun, into a firing position and messed up a few of Lee’s men. Then, in the next turn or two I was able (with a pretty lucky roll) to knock Lee’s leader Out of Action. This caused him to make Morale checks, and it turns out that most of his remaining figures were actually big girl’s blouses. After all the running and crying and soiling of body armor, Lee had one lone figure left. And then eventually that guy was killed.

By the way, the scenario was to collect the most of the three items on the board, but in our group, the games rarely end that way.

The important thing we both learned that night was that Morale can be a real son of a gun and if your leader isn’t completely hidden in cover, then you should not put figures you want to keep too close to the table’s edge in case they end up R-U-N-N-O-F-T.

Half-Day Game Day VII

So this past Saturday I spent 12 of my 24 Saturday hours at my local comics and games shop, House of Heroes in beautiful downtown Oshkosh. It was the seventh Half-Day Game Day and there were a good amount of people there all day long playing games and having fun.

Lots of people at the Half-Day Game Day

I played Give Me the Brain (Cheapass Games) and Infernal Contraption (Privateer Press), BANG! (daVinci Games) and prepared to run some Song of Blades and Heroes (Ganesha Games), but the situation never properly presented itself, unfortunately, so I was unable to get my minis on.

There were a bunch of other games that were played and as usual, the later evening consisted of Zombie Rally (Snarling Badger Games) and other zombie-related games. This is becoming a tradition, it seems, and I’m okay with that.

A Quick and Dirty Game

So, as part of my 2010 resolutions, I planned to play more miniatures games. Since it’s still January and the wheels haven’t come off of this whole ‘resolution’ thing just yet, Lee and I got together to play a small game of Mutants and Death Ray Guns from Ganesha Games.

We got together at House of Heroes on Saturday afternoon and set up a small 3-foot square map with some simple terrain I had brought from home. We modified the rules a bit and didn’t randomly create our squads.  We had four squad members each: a leader, two riflemen with assault rifles and we each had a specialist. I had a sharpshooter and he had a grenadier. The teams looked pretty equal to us (the MDRG rules don’t have a traditional ‘points’ system for making stats… the building rules should be coming out soon in a free supplement) and then we started playing.

Measuring range in Mutants and Death Ray Guns

The game mechanics are quick and elegant so things were moving fast. We were trading shots from cover, knocking each other down a few times, and then eventually there was a first kill. I think it was one of Lee’s troops, but I don’t remember completely. I really need to start taking better notes if I’m going to do more after action reports.

Lee kept playing aggressively and moving his units up. He killed one of my units and then started lobbing his grenades. My sharpshooter (easily my MVP of the battle)  scored a gruesome kill on one of his riflemen and caused a morale check. His soldiers were made of stone I guess, because only one of them ran for cover a little bit.

His grenadier ran up and lobbed an excellently placed grenade that could have killed one of my riflemen and my leader, but due to my excellent defensive rolling (for once) they were just both knocked down. Had this gone poorly, the game would have been really short.

Soon after, my sharpshooter killed Lee’s leader, causing another morale check. On this check, his remaining two units completely stood firm. I have to assume that they didn’t like that guy anyway, and were glad to see him dead.

Then my leader died, and it was just my sharpshooter versus two of Lee’s troopers, a rifleman and the grenadier, who was now out of grenades and only had a pistol. The pistol didn’t save him, as my valiant sharpshooter was able to get the drop on him and shoot him when he was knocked down, killing him. Unfortunately, the plucky sharpshooter’s luck had run out, and Lee’s last rifleman got the drop on him.

We had a really good time and felt that the squads were pretty evenly matched. Lee played pretty aggressively, which I’m pretty sure helped him in the end. I think we’re both interested in playing again soon, maybe with squads of five.

Excuses and Resolutions

So we’ll start with the excuses: you may notice that my last post was way back in September. This is ridiculous, and should get me thrown in jail. Luckily, our legal system doesn’t work that way, so I’m out, free as a bird and able to commit other crimes in the future like jaywalking and aggravated buggery.

An OshCon 2009 "action" shot

However, I do have reasons for my silence, however weak they may be: in early October, I ran OshCon 2009: a gaming convention here in Oshkosh, WI. This year was our biggest yet, with 233 attendees over the two days. Hey look, pictures! Obviously, a gaming convention doesn’t prepare for itself, so I was very busily crossing “i”s and dotting “t”s for weeks beforehand, including the date of my last post to this blog, meaning I did actually take time out of my busy preparations to give you a lame and phoned-in post. You’re welcome.

After OshCon, I attended RockCon in northern Illinois. That was really fun and I met some really cool people and found out that my hotel room didn’t give me a disease, so it was really win-win. I did accidentally (nearly) kill a guy, so it wasn’t all roses.

Then, let’s say work was pretty busy. Sure.

Then it was Thanksgiving, then St. Nick’s Day, then probably Presidents Day or something, then I started a tabletop miniatures gaming and hobby group, then built a web site and forum for said group, then Christmas. Everything is just a blur, frankly. Eventually, I found myself on the 2010 side of New Year’s, and now here we are. I did do a bunch of stuff during the time that this blog was dark, but I will post those things later, and make it look like new content. Aren’t you lucky?

Speaking of New Year’s, now is the time when I talk about my New Year’s resolutions. This year, I’m going to aim for an hour of painting and modeling per day. You read that correctly. Now, if I can’t paint on a Tuesday due to other commitments or something, then I just need to paint for two hours on Wednesday, and so on. Certainly, this may cause me to have to do a lot of catching up on weekends, but what the hell are weekends for, I might ask? Exactly. So an hour a day is the goal.

Another resolution: I am going to paint more, and buy less. Actually, the plan is to not buy any minis and just paint all the primed minis on my shelves and the un-primed and un-constructed minis in my storage boxes, but something awesome might come up, and I’m not made of stone, for Pete’s sake. However, I am going to stop surfing eBay and picking up things I don’t need just because they’re cheap. Do you know how many Necrons I ended up with doing that? A gaggle. A gaggle of Necrons. Or perhaps it’s a drudge.

I’m also resolving to get more terrain finished. I have half a dozen unfinished projects on and around my desk, and I have a brand spanking new Realm of Battle board sitting in my closet, waiting to be primed and painted. I really have to wait until spring and warmer weather to tackle that project, but I can work on several other terrain projects in the mean time, and I mean to.

Here come the Warjacks

Lastly, I resolve to play more. I have so many games, and I’m interested in many more. I’ve started a miniatures gaming club, so there should be plenty of opportunities to play. I’ve been playing Star Wars Miniatures most Tuesdays at the House of Heroes, but I really want to play more Warmachine (probably staying with the old Prime Remix rules instead of moving to the new Mk II rules) and AT-43 and Song of Blades and Heroes and Mutants and Death Ray Guns. Plus, there should be more playtesting of the rules that Peter and I are working on. Oh yeah, and I bought a copy of the new release of Space Hulk when it came out, so there’s that as well.

Anyway, enough rambling, I need to catch up on my painting for the week. It is a Saturday, after all.

I Am a Bad Man

I know, I’ve been mainly absent from updating this blog lately, but it’s not because I’ve not been gaming and doing game-related activities. I’ve actually been doing a lot of them, including work on the upcoming OshCon 2009 tabletop gaming convention on October 10-11, a Half-Day Game Day at House of Heroes a few weeks back, and working on starting a new miniatures wargaming club here in the area. I’ve also being painting zombies and RoboRally miniatures for an event at OshCon, I’ve been working on my modular urban terrain system, and I received my copy of the new Space Hulk, and those terminators and genestealers aren’t gonna put themselves together, no matter how much I wish they would. So I’ve been doing stuff.

Anyway, I’ll post some images of my urban terrain system in its starting phases this weekend, I believe. Plus, I have another terrain project that I need to get finished for OshCon, so I have photos of that process soon enough. Stay tuned.

Half Day Game Day V

I’m posting this from House of Heroes, here in beautiful downtown Oshkosh. Today is Half Day Game Day V, from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Earlier I played Space Hulk (Games Workshop) as the genestealers. I stopped the dreaded, imperialist Space Marines from destroying my homeland (the floating, ancient starship) by killing them all and stabbibg their faces, as is the way of my ‘people’ (such as they are).

The evil Space Marines about to fall

There are a bunch of other people here, playing a bunch of boardgames and card games. We run this event three times a year here at House of Heroes. It’s kind of a cross promotion for both the House and for OshCon, plus it’s a good excuse to spend a Saturday playing a bunch of games and meeting new people, which is also fun.

It is actually a Small World, after all

I’ve been seeing a lot of different games going on right now. Currently, I’m seeing Agricola (Z-man Games), Fjords (Rio Grande Games), and a Star Wars Miniatures (Wizards of the Coast) mini-tourney happening within 10 feet of me. I think there’s some Pokemon (Nintendo) going on over there, too. We’ll be doing it again in July or August, I suspect, so keep an eye out here at the blog and I’ll announce the next date when it’s determined.