October Games

We got in a few games this month. Unlike previous months - and previous Octobers - all the games seem to be clusetered around weekends - or on Hallowe'en....



There are a couple reasons for this. One is that we - as a family - are doing waaaaaaaay too much other stuff (mostly on Weekday evenings)... Sunday The Girl has Irish Dance Classes. Monday she had swimming and Amanda and I are taking a ballroom dancing class. Tuesday The Girl has Lyrical and Jazz dance classes. I have my Irish dance class, and Finnegan plays D&D every other Tuesday. Wednesday both kids have violin lessons, The Girl has Ballet and Finnegan plays in a Star Wars Role-playing game and Amanda leads a Yin yoga class. Thursday Finnegan plays in another D&D campaign, and both kids have Improv classes at Persephone Theatre school (but at different times!? Luckily it's very close by!). Friday is the one day we don't have much going on... Oh, except my cello lessons, every other Friday... Saturday The Girl has Tap classes and volunteers with the Spirit Fliers and Amanda leads two more yoga classes... Uggggghhhh.... it's maddening... On top of all this Amanda decided we should get an annual pass for the local climbing gym - and so, in theory, we're supposed to work in some time to go climbing so that money doesn't all go to waste.

(and amongst all that, Amanda's expecting me to find time to renovate the basement before the end of the year...)

Also, this fall, Finnegan has started a new sort of schooling. He's still schooling at home, but is doing an online curriculum - which is a LOT more work that what we used to do! And the curriculum is all set, so there's not working games into the curriculum and no spare time to just have a fun afternoon game...

So... weekends...

The first weekend of October was the Thanksgiving day weekend her in Canada. I already did a post about the games we played that weekend...

Long Weekend Games

The next weekend was ToonCon! Again, I've already written a post about that weekend...

ToonCon 2018

So... what did we do for the REST of the weekends in October?


Monday, 15 October 2018

Okay... technically this WASN'T a weekend... but we'd had so much fun playing games all weekend and we wanted to keep the momentum going and The Girl wasn't able to go to swimming for some reason and Amanda was in Florida dodging a hurricane so I played hooky from Ballroom dance class and we played some more games. It was glorious. Not that ToonCon wasn't fun. But it was really just great for the three of us to sit down and play a couple games together.



First we played Kingdom Builder. In previous years we've usually played Kingdom Builder at ToonCon - but this year it was on Sunday and I was playing the COIN game, The Girl was playing Castles of Burgundy, and Finnegan was playing TI4.... So we decided to play Kingdom Builder this evening...

I made no note of which victory conditions we were playing with... I'm  pretty sure one was points for each settlement in the longest horizontal line... and the others...? One might have been points for each separate clusters of settlements...? And the other might have been points for each settlement surrounding a castle...? I ended up with 67 points, The Girl had 53 and Finnegan had 44... but, more importantly, everyone had fun playing a game we haven't had a chance to play in a while!



Next we tried out a new game I got in the ToonCon game auction; Marrying Mr. Darcy! I remember seeing this when it was originally a Kickstarter and had thought of backing it... but didn't at the time. I'd also seen a copy at King Me Boardgamery about a year, or so, ago... but didn't pick it up then... So I was pretty excited to pick it up, along with the Emma and Undead expansions!

In our first game I got to play Elizabeth Bennet, Finnegan played Caroline Bingley, and The Girl played Kitty Bennet. There are two phases to the game - Courtship and Proposals. Through the courtship phase you take turns drawing and playing event cards - usually the event cards allow you to pick up and play Character cards, which generally add to your character points in one of your five traits (Beauty, Wit, Friendliness, Reputation, and Cunning), but sometimes the Event Cards have some other effect! Once all the Event Cards are played, we move on to the Proposal stage where, in order of cunning, the players all try to get various suitors to propose to them. Who potentially proposes depends on their particular standards and your characters traits (for example Mr. Bingley will only propose to someone with 5+ Friendliness or 5+ Beauty. Mr. Darcy, on the other hand, will only propose to someone with 5+ Wit) If a particular suitor is already married, he obviously will not propose to you (hence the need for cunning - to go first in the proposal round). Once everyone is (hopefully) married off points are tallied - this includes you character points (Beauty, Wit, Friendliness, and Reputation - but NOT Cunning) and your marriage points - each suitor has a marriage point value for each character (for example, Kitty Bennet gets 12 points if she marries Mr. Deny, 10 points if she marries either Mr. Wikham, Mr. Bingley or Col. Fitzwilliam, 9 points if she marries Mr. Darcy, and 6 points if she marries Mr. Collins....).

One of the Highlights of the game was when Finnegan, who was playing Caroline Bingley, drew an event card that involved reading a letter from an aunt or something where she discovered her "true nature"...? (Or something like that...?) I think he had to discard the top cards of each type - though it was early in the game and he only ended up being able to discard two - and then draw four and immediately play them. ALL FOUR cards that he drew were friendliness cards... for Caroline Bingley - who says right on her card; "Mr. Bingley's sister is well to do, and not terribly pleasant..."! That's quite the reversal of character! The Girl pointed out that she had enough friendliness to marry Mr. Bingley at which point Finnegan exclaimed "I CAN'T MARRY MY BROTHER! THIS IS PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, NOT GAME OF THRONES!"



I had a number of Suitors, but was plagued by a scandal - and Event Card I had drawn earlier in the game which gave me a -1 to all proposal rolls! I ended up marrying Col. Fitzwilliam for a total of 22 points. Finnegan, playing Caroline Bingley married Mr. Denny for a total of 24 points, and The Girl, playing Kitty Bennet, married Mr. Wikham for only 21 points.

I thought the game was marvellous - light,  good fun, and pretty quick - a good filler game when you have half an hour to kill.

Amanda returned from Florida later that evening and the following morning we hit the ground running and didn't play anymore games until the following weekend...


Friday, 19 October 2018



We finally played Castles of Burgundy. The Girl had played this at ToonCon two years ago and had loved it so much, that she'd asked for it for her birthday or Xmas...? and someone got it for her...? I said we'd play it with her when she read the rules and could teach it to us all... and so it sat... Last year she played dit again and there was another bout of wanting to play it... but... it didn't happen... Again, she played it at ToonCon this year and had desperately wanted to play it on Monday, but we just couldn't find it!? We spent HOURS turned the house upside down and inside out trying to find it - it's a boxed board game - how hard could that be to find!? Pretty hard actually! Eventually I gave up, but noticed it was only $40 on Amazon and said "Eff it! How much longer are we going to search for this thing?! What is our time worth!?" I honestly couldn't believe it's actually in the house anymore - though I can't think of any reason it would have left!? So I just ordered another one and it arrived on Friday.

The Girl read the rules and explained it to us all and we finally all played it together. It was fun. Don't ask me to explain how it plays... I'm sure if I sat down to play it, it would all come back to me, but at this exact moment, I don't remember much about how it plays... other than rolling some dice and somehow gaining little hexagonal tiles and placing them and getting points and stuff...



Apparently I got the most points and won!

I do remember feeling like it was a pretty slick game and understood why it's been on the Board Game Geek Top 100 (Currently #11) for so long.


Saturday, 20 October 2018



This evening we introduced Amanda to Marrying Mr. Darcy! Once again I played Elizabeth Bennet, Amanda played my elder, prettier sister, Jane Bennet, Finnegan played our younger sister Lydia Bennet, and The Girl played Georgiana Darcy!

At one point, Amanda drew the "Elopement" card and eloped with Mr. Wickham losing all her reputation! She gained back enough reputation to get rid of him later, but was only able to attract Mr. Collins as a suitor.



I managed to marry Mr. Darcy this time around and won the game with 27 points! Finnegan wasn't far behind, marrying Mr. Denny had gained him 25 points. The Girl married off Georgiana Darcy to Colonel Fitzwillaim for a total of 19 points. The earlier elopement had tarnished poor Jane Bennet so much she was only able to attract Mr. Collins, so Amanda ended the game with only 17 points...

Fun and laughs were had.


Sunday, 21 October 2018



Finnegan and I set up and played a game of Space Hulk while the Amanda was out taking The Girl to her Irish dance lesson. There is a full report of that action elsewhere on this blog:

Space Hulk: Exterminate!


Friday, 26 October 2018

This past Friday we started a Kill Team Campaign



Amanda's Drukhari took on The Girl's Harlequins in the Deathworld Forest Kill Zone.



Finnegan's Orks took on Bruce's Genestealers in the Sector Munitorum Kill Zone.

There is a full report of those action, and a bit of a background to the campaign elsewhere on this blog:

Campaign on Xoxigar


Saturday, 27 October 2018



While Amanda was out teaching yoga and The Girl was at her dance classes, our friend Laura joined Finnegan and me for a game of Arkham Horror! Finnegan and I played two characters each - partly because I think the game goes a bit better with more characters - but also The Girl was very disappointed that she might miss getting to play this so we each took and extra character so that if The Girl and Amanda got home early enough they could easily join us take over our spare characters!



I played Dexter Drake (magician) and Gloria Goldberg (author), Finnegan played Michael McGlenn (tough guy) and Jenny Barnes (dilettante), and Laura played Kate Winthrop (scientist or researcher?). In this game we were fighting the Ithaqua! Ithatqua is awful (they're all awful) with the coming of Ithaqua an unseasonable winter storm descends on Arkham and anyone caught in the streets at the end of a turn suffers one stamina from the cold!

In the end Ithaqua was awaked by too many gates open and we eventually lost when all characters were devoured - but we knocked 7 or 8 marker off the doom track fighting!

In the end Amanda and The Girl ended up running some errands and didn't get back in time...


Wednesday, 31 October 2018

Not a weekend...

The Girl's ballet class was cancelled. Sometimes this happens, as they figure most kids won't show up anyway because they all go out trick-or-treating... So we planned to play GAMES!!

Finnegan still went out to play in his Star Wars role-playing game, so I played a few games with his sister, DEATH...



First we played a few rounds of Retro Loonacy, I won the first three rounds... but eventually Death gets you...



Then we played Cthulhu Fluxx. I haven't played Cthulhu Fluxx in a long time. I'd gotten kind of tired of Fluxx game for a while, but I actually had a lot of fun playing this one!



WE totally lost... because... CTHULHU!!! If it hadn't been for the Ungoal that beat us both coming out, I would have won on the next round as there was a play three rule in effect and another rule that said you could still win if you had an investigator keeper in play - and I would have been able to play Randolph Carter (an investigator), The Cultist, and the At Home with the Whateleys - a goal requiring The Cultists and the Farm (which I'd already stollen from Death a few turns before...).



When Finnegan got home we set up another game of Arkham Horror - and this time we decided to try out the Kingsport Expansion. I'd picked up the expansion a few years ago, but we've never played it because I always felt we'd never really played the base game enough to really feel like we knew what was going on enough to add MORE to the game. That's part of the reason why I added it to our 25/30x5 list for the year.



This time I played Tony Morgan. I had the kids pick out and character for me - and they wanted to all play characters from the new expansion. Finnegan played Rex Murphy and The Girl played Lily Chen. This time around we were fighting Y'golonac.

After 3 hours we kind of just gave up. Everyone was getting pretty tired... I feel like if maybe I just played 4-5 more times, I might have a better clue how to play... but when the games take 3+ hours... I don't know... It feels like a LOT of potentially dissatisfying game play to try and get good at a game that I'm starting to wonder if it will EVER get that good - especially when there are SO MANY other shorter games that I really, really enjoy and almost always have a lot of fun playing! (like Marrying Mr. Darcy! Though maybe with enough plays it will get boring...).

I mean I DO like me a good long game that you can really sink your teeth into and plays out to tell an epic story of... something...? This is starting to feel like an epic exercise in frustration!?

One thing that kind of bugs me about this game is the skill sliders - I mean I get that if you increase your speed, you decrease your stealth - that makes real world sense... but I don't get the inverse relationship between fighting ability and willpower...?! Part of me feels like I should set them at median levels, so you have SOMETHING in every skill, but it at the same time it feels like just about everything has a negative modifier of some sort, so if you only have median numbers, you'll still effectively have nothing... The answer seems to be to crank them over to the highest level of whatever you're best at and HOPE that when you draw an encounter card it requires the skill you have and not the one you suck at... Which brings me to my other gripe: I feel like there is a bit TOO MUCH random in this game....

I almost felt this evening like maybe it's time to get rid of this game - except I think a new edition was just released - so there will be tonnes of people getting rid of theirs... Maybe it's just because I was super tired and had a HUGE headache... Maybe we'll try again next Hallowe'en...


25/30x5

We did manage to knock a few games off our 25/30x5 list...



With only two months to go and 80+ games still to play... I think this is going to be a bust... I do hope we'll get a few more lines completed - and play all of the games on the list AT LEAST ONCE - I mean, that was the point of the list - to make sure we got to play some games that we really wanted to play - the secondary goal of the list was to play some games we really wanted to learn better and played them enough times that we DID feel like we knew the games better. I think that's worked well enough for most of the games we've played five times already... Next year maybe we'll just stick with a 10x10 challenge ten games we really want to play a lot more of (ten times!) and maybe we'll have a side list of another 10 or so bigger games we want to make sure we get on the table SOMETIME in the year...



Coming Soon to Tim's Miniature Wargaming Blog:

More of the Campaign on Xoxigar...? We were planning to play on Friday... but now we've committed to going out to an art show beginning at 5pm... sure, we could be back by 6pm... but then Amanda has to run out and teach a Yoga class at 8pm - which she's volunteered to do every Friday for the month of November to try and help raise money for Diabetes (as it is Diabetes awareness month).

Painting... I'm just about finished up a few final additions to my Mechanicus Kill Team - I have a Tech-Priest, a Tech-Priest Dominus, and four more Sicarians (a second Infiltrator, and Infiltrator Princeps and two Ruststalkers), then that team will be DONE!

I have some Orcs for Shadespire on the workbench as well, along with the Imperial Knight I started so long ago. The Girl has been reminding me that I promised I would help her paint all the Mice & Mystics miniatures once ToonCon was over... and now it's over... so... 

June 2017 Boardgame Round-Up

3 June 2017 – Arkham Horror

The first weekend of June was the first weekend we had free of dance classes for The Girl. Amanda had to attend a conference over the weekend, however… 

My Friend Jasper joined the kids and I for a game of Arkham Horror. I have not played Arkham Horror since last year sometime, and I have not seen Japer since… maybe when we played  A Game of Thrones back in February…?

For this game Jasper chose Yig to battle. Yig has a shorter doom track – which means less time before the end game – but Yig also doesn’t have magical or physical resistance or immunity and only 10 doom tokens – so it almost seems like it could potentially be defeated in a climactic end-game-battle. We totally DIDN’T, but, y’know, compared to some of the others it seems like it COULD be possible.

The Girl played Caroline Fern – the Psychologist, Finnegan played Vincent Lee – The Doctor, Jasper played Kate Winthrop – the Scientist, and I played Dexter Drake – the magician. We had each sealed one gate – for a total of four – Caroline Fern may have been able to seal a fifth, had we not killed two cultists (which added tokens to the doom track), because she still had a pile of clue tokens… but it would have been difficult for us to seal a sixth one as we would have all been fresh out of clue tokens…

Fighting Yig we did managed to remove SIX of the ten doom tokens before we were all utterly devoured.

I wish I could get this one on the table a bit more often. I don’t think we’ve even faced all the Elder Gods in the base set – let along cracked any of the expansions I’ve picked up for this. I had been thinking I might make October “Arkham Horror” month – we could play it each weekend in October, each with a different expansion… of course we’d probably have to play the base set in September at least once to remember how to play before adding in expansions… and then there’s Eldritch Horror and Elder Sign (and  A Study in Emerald (Second Edition) and countless other Cthulhu Mytohos/Horror games that I don’t get to play often enough…)

10 June 2017 – Pax Renaissance/7Wonders

I didn’t plan any more games until the following Saturday when Brent and Bruce stopped by to play Pax Renaissance. We played twice. That’s pretty much all I remember.

Oh, and I won a game… maybe…? And I think I actually won with something OTHER THAN an Imperial Victory – which is what EVERY OTHER GAME has been won with.

Yeah. I think I took this picture to remind me what the heck I won with… Maybe it was a Globilization Victory – I have a lot of Discovery Prestige there…? I did have the Law Prestige to try and set myself up for a Renaissance Victory (with Republics) but that didn’t’ happen. I can’t remember if it was this game or the earlier one that almost ended with a Holy Victory…?

I really enjoy this game. Wish I could have gotten it on the table another time in June. I’ll have to brow beat some players into playing it a few times in July (and August… and September… as I’ll be running it at ToonCon!)

Later that evening I played a game of 7 Wonders with the family. This was yet another game where Amanda complained throughout the game that she just wasn’t getting the cards she needed and wasn’t going to do very well and then crushed us all by a landslide.

The next week was pretty busy with rehearsals for the Queen Maeve School of Irish Dance final recital (both me and the kids take dance classes with the school – in separate groups, though) and other stuff. On Tuesday I started having weird dizzy spells – which have been coming and going for the last two and a half weeks!! (partly why I haven’t been doing much gaming or painting of miniatures).

16 June 2017 - Retro Loonacy

Finnegan and I played about ten games of Retro Loonacy while waiting in the dressing room backstage the night of our performance. 

No games on Saturday that week – we did get over the Dragon’s Den Games for Free RPG Day. The kids picked up some stuff (Pelegrane Press adventure and Runequest Quickstart) and I picked up a miniature they were giving away. A couple days later I got an emails saying I’d won one of the draws – a free copy of the Timewatch RPG Core Rules. The kids were pretty excited about that! Me, I’ve got all the role-Playing Games I want – and I’m looking to play simpler, homebrew rules anyway.

The following week we had our meeting with the Home Education Coordinator – after which we have a tradition of stopping by the Dragon’s Den to pick out a new game. Finnegan got The Guardians of the Galaxy Expansion for Legendary. The Girl got a game called Bear Valley.

21 June 2017 – Legendary/Guardians of the Galaxy

We did get to play Legendary with the Guardians of the Galaxy expansion that week… but that was about it.

27 June 2017 – Flash Point: Fire Rescue

The final week of June, my folks came over for supper one night and brought with them a new game my mom had picked up – Flash Point: Fire Rescue. It is a co-op game where all the players are Fire Rescue Peoples running about a burning building trying to put out fires, find people in the building and get them out before it’s completely engulfed in flames and collapses (or too many people burn up in the flames).

I got home late from an appointment with a physiotherapist and Finnegan had already read the rules and the game was well underway.

I joined in at the very end and we managed to get all the people (and a cat and a dog!) out safely. Whew! We just played the basic game. Hopefully we’ll get a chance to try it out again and try out some of the advanced rules.

And that’s it… Hopefully July will be a little less busy and we’ll get some more games in! (as of today we’ve already gotten in games of Kingdomino. We're planning to play Dominion tomorrow and Brent, Kurtis and John are coming over on Monday to play Angola. I'd really like to get in a game of The Pikeman’s Lament this week or next week as well as some more Pax Renaissance! Not sure what else we'll get up to in July.

With June done we're halfway through the year and if things were progressing as they should I would have played 25 of the games on my 2017 List of Games to Play... but so far I've only managed to play slightly less than a quarter of them... 

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

JET BIKES!!! Having finally finished up Rick’s Robot (which I swore to myself I would finally FINISH before I allowed myself to build any more Jet Bikes) I’ve started working on more Jet Bikes!!! I assembled two for my friend John and have a third underway – so stay tuned for those!

I also have a unit of Shot that I’ve been working on from time to time over the last week or so for The Pikeman’s Lament, as well as some Highland dwarves for Dragon Rampant, and some miniatures from Mike Bravo Miniatures that I helped crowdfund a year ago finally arrived… so there are a lot of thing clogging up the workbench at the moment and any of those could end up being posted in the weeks to come. 

Halloween Horror Skirmish Special

As Halloween fell on a Saturday and Saturday at our place is Skirmish Saturday I planned Halloween Horror Skirmish Special. I’ve been wanting to get all these English Civil War figures I’ve been painting lately on the table, so the scenario used a mash-up of Fear and Faith  and Flashing Steel. I was partly inspired to do this after I found a movie at my local library called A Field in England. I didn’t love the film (I’m not saying it sucked or anything… I just didn’t love it… I’m not a huge fan of horror…) but it did provide some inspiration – the idea of blending some History and Horror!

I originally planned for up to seven players (plus me gamemastering and running the Vampire, should he appear)… alas no one I invited (beyond my immediate family) showed up.   So I just played with my family.

It's awesome that I have a family that will play games with me... in geeky costumes... 

Yeah... we know how to party on Halloween. 

1 July 1644, North Yorkshire

SITUATION

Dusk approaches on the evening of 1 July 1644, English and Scottish armies gather around York. Prince Rupert has lead an army to York to aid the Marquess of Newcastle who has been besieged in York by Covanenteer and Parliamentarian armies under Lord Fairfax, The Earl of Manchester, and Earl of Leven. Tomorrow there will be a battle on Marston Moor – a meadow to the west of town… but this evening… an army must be fed!

SCENARIO

Each of the sides had different briefing but more or less the same objectives and victory conditions (get the sheep!)

Covananeteer and Royalists

You have been tasked with procuring supplies for your army from nearby villages and farmsteads. Your party has spied a flock of sheep moving through a nearby pasture – they would make a find meal for your regiment. But be careful villagers have been forming local defence “clubs” and some defend their stock viciously. There may also be foragers from the opposing army about…

As you approach the pasture your band also takes note of a small stone watch tower. Rather than a crumbling ruin – like most you have seen – this seems in fairly good condition and has a very sturdy looking door. Clearly there must be something worthwhile inside to need a door like that!

The Shepherdess

You were out tending to your flock in the dark pasture beyond the Ravenblack Water. The pasture is safe enough during the day… but at night… Unfortunately you fell asleep and just as the sun was dipping towards the horizon. You and your dog Wilbur quickly gathered up the flock and have been herding them back to the ford under the shadow of the Ravenblack Tower.

Village Clubmen

Three armies are marching through the region ravaging the land as they pass through. A local defence league has been mobilized to defend their lands and stock from marauding soldiers looking for supplies. All has been quiet today, but that blasted shepherdess Fern hasn’t returned. She probably fell asleep in the pasture again… A group has been organized to go fetch her and bring her back before any foragers from the armies find them – or worse – he’s caught on the far side of the Ravenblack Water when the sun goes down…

The Dark Secret

The village has a dark secret. Across a small creek known as the Ravenblack Water resides an ancient evil in an old stone watchtower. For longer than anyone dares guess the evil and the villagers have maintained a live and let live policy. The villagers stay on their side of the water after dark and pay no heed to tales of travelers that disappear at night on that lonely road across the water that passes by the dark tower.

Victory

Each side gets

+1 victory point for each sheep they take off their side of the table

-1 Victory point for each of their own side that is injured

-2 victory points for each of their own side that is killed.

+2 points for each model that spends a turn and two activations inside the tower (searching for and gathering up loot!) – This was a bit of a Red Herring – I wasn’t actually expecting anyone to succeed in this just put it there to make people think there’s something “good” in the tower and consider trying to get in…

Special rules

The Shepherdess – if the shepherdess is in contact with the flock she may spend activations to move the entire flock 1 Short in the direction of her choice.

The Dog – If the dog and the Shepherdess are in contact with the flock of sheep at the beginning of their activation the dog provides the Shepherd with one free activation to move the flock (i.e. the shepherd only rolls one or two dice to activate plus the one free activation).

The Sheep – the flock always moves as a self activated group and will always try to remain in base contact with each other. The Sheep always move after the Shepherdess (regardless of the number of successes or failures – i.e. if the Shepherdess rolled a turn-over, the sheep still activate on their own). The Sheep will always attempt to activate on three dice less the number of successful moves the Shepherd made them do on his activation. Their Quality is 5+ and for each success the flock move one short in a random direction – unless there has been shooting of firearms within 1 Long of the flock then the sheep will move directly away from the nearest model that shot a firearm since the sheep’s last activation.

To steal a sheep from the flock a model must be in contact with one of the sheep in the flock spend an activation to grab one and then further activations may be spent to move with the sheep, but movement is reduced to Short. If engaged in close combat a model will release any sheep they are holding and the sheep will immediately move 1 short towards the flock – they will then activate individually during the sheep activation and will always try to move directly back to the flock.

Nighttime – once four turn-overs have been rolled night falls.

Vampire! Once Night arrives the vampire comes out to eat. He exit the door and will move towards the nearest model and kill it and eat it. if it is ever outnumbered in combat it will us an action to become immaterial or turn into a bat and escape combat.

The Tower – I never got to making up rules on how to break in… I figured if anyone actually tried I’d just make something up on the spot that was more or less impossible (give the equipment they had on hand)

FORCES

Royalist Foragers – played by The Boy

Officer & Gentleman

Q 3+, C 3, Leader, Rapier

5x Pikemen

Q 4+, C 3, Pike, Sword

Sergeant

Q 3+, C 3, Leader, Sword, Musket

5x Musketeers

Q 4+, C 2, Sword, Musket

Scots Covanenteer Foragers – played by Amanda – who, despite her costume, isn't really that much of a Star Trek nerd… (that's not a vulcan Salute, love...) 

(Actually what's even sadder was she was trying to be "ironic" and do a Nanoo-Nanoo like Mork for Ork... but couldn't even remember how to do that... I'm not sure what that gesture ended up being, but it doesn't look polite!?)  

Sergeant

Q 3+, C 3, Leader, Halberd

5x Pikemen

Q 4+, C 3, Pike, Sword

Mosser

Q 3+, C 3, Leader, Sword, Musket

5x Musketeers

Q 4+, C 2, Sword, Musket

The Villagers – played by The Girl

The Squire

Q 3+, C 3, Leader, Rapier, Pistol

The Forester

Q 3+, C 3, Forester, Leader, Musket

Villagers with Muskets

Q 5+, C 2, Musket

Villagers with Pikes

Q 5+, C 2, Pike

Villagers with Assorted Improvised Weapons

Q 5+, C 2, Improvised Weapon

The Shepherdess and her Flock - nominally on the side of the villagers, I generally did their movement when their card came up 

Shepherdess

Q 4+, C 1, Shepherd

Wilbur the dog

Q 4+, C 2, Long Move

Sheep

Q 5+, C 0, Sheep


The Vampire of Ravenblack Tower - played by myself

Ancient Vampire 

Q 3+, C 4, Bat Form, Clinging, Danger Sense, Very Fearful, Immaterial, Vampire, Rapier

THE GAME

Right into the action!

(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)

End of Turn One

I think the Shepherdess went first and rolled three successes and charged the flock over halfway across the table!

The villagers went next and this one of their most active turns in the whole game! Both leaders activated and issued group move orders sending the mob across the river to defend their stock.

The Royalists went last the musketeers surged forward and brought fire upon the Scots and villagers. I think for the most part all they managed to do was push a few back (making them duck and dodge and musket balls whizzed past ineffectively). I think they knocked down the village preacher who was wading across the water with his pike. The Royalist Pike marched forward, but didn’t get far.

I think the Scots went last and the musketeers charged forth and grabbed sheepies while the pikemen maneuvered to block the flock’s path and separate them from the villagers surging across the Ravenblack Water.

On turn two some of the villagers armed with Muskets fired on the Scots blocking the path of the sheep. Their fire was entirely ineffective, but the Squire took a shot with his pistol and knocked down one of the Scots Pikemen.

The Shepherdess only managed to move the sheep once, so the sheep got to attempt an activation on their own and when they succeeded the villagers shots drove them away from the ford and directly towards the Royalists!

Then… NIGHT FELL…

The Vampire was the first to activate one the first turn of full night – he flew out of the top of the tower in bat form and materialized in combat with the Royalist Sergeant – who was the closest to the building.

I totally forgot to make him do a fright check… doh… Like he wouldn’t have been crapping his pants at that point!

The Officer leading the Royalist pike saw an opportunity and gave his men the sort of stirring speech that only a Noblemen selflessly devoted to God, King, and Country can and set them off after the sheep (group activation, three successes!)

The Royalists then shot at the dismounted Scots Mosser – who had been leading the musketeers – taking him out of action. This caused all the musketeers drop their sheep and flee!

A cascading series of morale tests saw the Scots Pike also flee, but when they activated later in the turn they quickly snatched up the sheep the musketeers had dropped.

The Shepherdess was not having much luck controlling the Sheep they moved on their own away from the Royalist shooting (which, conveniently, drove them directly towards the ford!)

Three Royalist pikemen made off with sheep, while two of their number fought off Villagers that had swarmed them.

The Royalist Officer charged one of the Scots pikemen that was struggling to get away with a small lamb.

The Scots Pikeman spun around and whapped the officer on the side of the head with his pike and knocked his ass out cold…

The loss of the officer caused panic among the Royalists and a cascading series of morale tests saw a bunch of them off. One was taken out by villagers as they got a Free Hack when he tried to flee!

The Sergeant broke away from combat with the vampire long enough for the musketeers to all fire on him… with zero effect… they couldn’t even knock him down!

The Vampire then leapt upon the sergeant knocking him down.

He then took him out of action and sucked on his blood for a bit. This set the rest of the Royalists to flight! I think all but one fled the table at this point.

The Shepherdess got off the table with part of her flock!

The Scots Sergeant and a pikeman finally made if off the table with two more sheep (two others had previously dragged sheep off).

Having finished off the Royalist sergeant the Vampire looks about for more prey…

He swooped in on a village pikeman (who somehow stood his ground and found off the vampire for a turn or two – again I forgot fright checks…)

The remaining Royalist pikeman dashed out from his hiding spot on the far side of the tower and, despite the downed villager that he’d been previously fighting still lying on the ground just asking to be finished off… the cool-headed pikeman remembered his orders and grabbed one of the sheep!

Fat villager with a pike holds off the Vampire while the rest of the villagers and sheep make their way to the ford.

Royalist pikeman made off with his solitary sheepie.

The villager with the pike was eventually taken down and devoured, but the rest made it to (relative) safety!

In all the Villagers actually got most of their sheep back to the village – NINE of them! – and suffered only two casualties One that had been taken out by a Royalist Pikeman and crawled away and slipped into the creek and swam across to freedom. The other was the Fat Villager with the Pike… we said he was killed by the vampire and was never seen again… So The Girl won the day (or… night…?).

The Scots made off with three sheep and suffered only one casualty – the dismounted Mosser who had been shot by a Royalist musketeer. He too managed to crawl away in the dark and was eventually rescued by his men and patched up… only to die the following afternoon at Marston Moor…

Only got one of the sheep. They’d lost three in action – the Officer who had been taken down by a Scots pikeman, a pikeman who had been stabbed as he tried to flee two villagers he was in combat with when the panic ensued following the loss of their officer, and the Musketeer Sergeant who was taken out by the vampire. We said the officer eventually regained consciousness and crawled away in the darkness, as did the Pikeman. The Sergeant, as with the Fat Villager, was never seen again. The royalists made up a story to tell the rest of their company about a whole TROOP of Scots horse they encountered at the village to explain their losses and solemnly swore to never speak of the events they witnesses that night in the dark pasture by Ravenblack Tower lest they all be labeled madmen!

All in all good fun!

Earlier in the day, while Amanda and The Girl were out at dance classes, my friend Darrin stopped by and played a game of Arkham Horror with me and The boy.



We battled against the Cult of Cthulhu and, eventually, won! The Great Old One remained in his slumber beneath the sunken city of R’lyeh.

Coming soon on Tim’s Miniature Wargaming Blog:

I have a few more English Civil War figures I’m trying to finish up… hopefully I’ll get to that and post some pictures later this week. I’d also like to get a game in with the big battle ECW troops using either DBA Extension for 1500 – 1900AD/HOTT or One-Hour Wargames some time this week. next weekend I’m hoping to kick off my new A Song of Blades and Heroes campaign.