Games Games Games

It's been a while since I did a bit of a Boardgame Round Up. The last one I did was for the first week or so of February. The Following week the only games we played were Shadow War: Armageddon, and I did full game reports for those...

Monday, 12 February 2018



The first was my Tallarn Veterans against Amanda and her Tau. You can read the full report here:

Shadow War: Armageddon Again


Thursday, 15 February 2018



The next one was my Tallarn against The Girl's Harlequins. You can read that Game Report here:

Shadow War: The Raid


Friday/Saturday, 16-17 February 2018



Over Friday Night and Saturday I hosted a Shadow War: Armageddon campaign for 8 players (including myself!). Full reports and loads of pictures of the ensuing shenanigans can be found here:

Shadow War: Brind's World Campaign Weekend (Part One) 

Shadow War: Brind's World Campaign Weekend (Part Two) 

Shadow War: Brind's World Campaign Weekend (Part Three) 


Sunday, 18 February 2018

It was the Family Day Long Weekend in Saskatchewan and so all activities were cancelled for the weekend so we had a day-o-gaming with my friend Paul - who had come from Winnipeg for the Shadow War campaign and stuck around another day to play a few more games.



First he and I played a game of The Pikeman's Lament. A full report of that game can be found here:

Pikeman's Lament: The Battle of Blackdunny Water



Next the family joined us for a game of Firefly: the Game. Paul said he had the game, but has never played. So we did the "First Time in the Captain's Chair" scenario.

I love playing this game, but I'm terrible at... y'know... actually doing well in it! I have a hard time keeping and "eye on the prize" (remembering the victory conditions... or... that there ARE victory conditions!). I just have so much fun puttering around with my spaceship, collecting up crew and ship upgrades and equipment and doing jobs.... and then Amanda wins... And I always feel really... irritated! Not that she won and I didn't, it's that she ended the game before I could collect up an entire crew! I mean she had $8000 before I even got to pull a Crazy Ivan!?

We should seriously just set up the game and say; "Hey, let's play all day and whoever has the most money at bedtime 'wins'!"



This was my ship at the end of the game.

I should have taken a picture of Amanda's it was super impressive. She had Nandi (my favourite captain!) - who can hire crew for free. She collected up a full crew of six and then never paid them for jobs - disgruntling them, and then sending them on shore leave to make loads of money... Despite the fact that I ended up with Malcolm and the Serenity, SHE had the Serenity's crew! She had Simon and River Tam, Jayne, and... I think Zoe and maybe Reverend Book...? It was crazy...



After that we played A Study in Emerald (Second Edition). I was a Loyalist (as ALWAYS) and I was pretty sure The Girl was one two (as ALWAYS!) and Amanda was a Restorationist. I totally read Paul and Finnegan wrong. I had though Paul was a Loyalist and Finnegan a Restorationist for most of the game - largely because Paul kept collecting up powerful Loyalist cards, and Finnegan had grabbed a few with bonuses for Restorationists. I know the Loyalists won, but I can't remember who had the most VP in the end...


Monday, 19 February 2018

It was a stat holiday Monday and Amanda has the day off so we just stayed home, most of the day, and played games. Well, ONE game, multiple times. (We did take a break to go out and see Black Panther!)



We played a few more games of Harry Potter: Hogwart's Battle. We've been playing through the campaign - I've been playing Ron Weasley, Finnegan has been playing Neville Longbottom, the Girl has been playing Hermione Granger and Amanda has been playing the golden Boy himself: Harry Potter. We have been stuck on Game Four for a bit, though. I think we've lost it, like, three times...?



Well today we FINALLY beat it!!! And there was much rejoicing! Huzzah!



So then we tried Game Five. I think this is the first one where He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named shows up.



It was pretty close we actually got to the point where He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named was revealed - and so we were facing FOUR villains simultaneaously and it totally looked like it was all over for us... It looks like we were down to the last spot on the Location Card (you lose when three location cards have been taken over - they are taken over when all the spots are filled with markers... or maybe that was just the second card....? Anyway, it looked bleak...



But somehow we pulled it out of the fire and beat down Lord Voldemort™(the kids think it's hilarious that all the main characters have ™by all their names...)

After going out to see Black Panther we were feeling cocky and had a go at Game Six!

Yeah, we totally lost that one...


Tuesday, 20 February 2018

On Tuesday Amanda was back to work and the kids and I had the week off of activities. I had planned on having a Week-O-Gaming - playing games all day, every day... well... at least one every afternoon and one every evening. We didn't quite get to playing a game in the afternoon as I spent much of it organizing pictures from the weekend and writing game reports...



We did convince Amanda to sit down and play a game of Viticulture with us in the evening. This was the first time we sat down to play it as a family with the copy that The Girl got for Xmas. I've played it with friends over at John's, and Amanda and the kids tried it out last fall at ToonCon. The Girl loved it so much she asked her grandma to get it for her for xmas!?

I think I might have won this game. I tried a tactic I'd seen Brent use in one of the game I'd played - selling off fields on the first turn to make money to buy all the things needed - trellises, irrigation, and larger cellars - and got a victory point doing it (being the first one to buy/sell on the turn - since no one else considered it!) I even bought my fields back later in the game when I got visitor cards that gave me a pile of cash (which ALSO gained a few victory points!).

This will probably be the first and only game I will ever win of this game, now that Amanda has figured it out...


Wednesday, 21 February 2018

The kids got tired of waiting for me to play games with them and set some up themselves. (I was also experiencing debilitating headache/head pressure and dizzy spells at this time - and all week, so it wasn't that I was just ignoring them...)



Finnegan sat down and finally figured out Sewer Pirats and taught it to The Girl. A fellow we met at ToonCon had won it in the raffle and figured he wouldn't ever play it, so he just gave it to us. Seems like they had fun...



The Girl also set up and figured out a game of her own - and played it solo! This is Ninja All-Stars. We got it for her for her birthday last year and this is the first time she cracked it. I figure if it's your game (either you bought it or it was given to you as a gift) it's up to YOU to learn the rules and teach it to others. This has not been The Girl's favourite thing to do in the past, but she's finally getting to realize that it's the only way she's going to get to play these games that she has! I'm looking forward to trying this out with her when she's fully got it figured out - it LOOKS fun... but maybe it's just that all the miniatures are so cute...


Friday, 23 February 2018

So much for a WEEK-O-GAMING.... Friday afternoon I did crawl out of bed and sit down to play a game with the kids...



We played Sentinels of the Multiverse. Finnegan loves this game. LOVES! I think he has just about all the expansions for it. He'll solo games all the time, spreading it all out on the floor of his bedroom. I have to admit, I don't love the game at the best of times, and when my head was pounding and I couldn't focus, it was trying to get through it.

I don't hate the game. I just don't care for it. It feels like it COULD be interesting - but I'd have to play it a LOT more to get all the card interactions and understand what each hero does and how their cards work with each other and with the other heroes and what advantages they have against which villains and how each villain works and so on... but I'm just not engaged enough by the theme to want to spend the time to DO that...

I played Ra in this game, and Finnegan played Tempest and The Girl played Nightmist. We were battling against Infinitor in the Realm of Discord. it seemed a total miss-match and we lost the game very quickly. VERY quickly. I think it was the shortest game we've EVER played - and, on this particular day, I was thankful for that at least...

In the evening we played a game of Dominion, which we haven't done in a long time!



After our game of Sentinels I set the kids to designing a set of cards to play with. The love putting together thematic sets - based on the NAMES of the cards - not what they actually do in the game. They usually turn out fine. This was an interesting set, which included a few we haven't played with before. The called it "Low Troubles in the High Court". In included Pawn, Great Hall, Baron, Tribute and Nobles from Intrigue, Chancellor, Feast and Throne Room from the base game, Scheme from Hinterlands and Herald from Guilds.



There were a few interesting interactions and card combos... but I can't really remember what they were... I seem to recall I had a few Barons and Heralds. Nobles and Great Halls were popular. It was a close game in the end. I think I had 43, Amanda and The Girl both had 38 and Finnegan had 37.


Saturday, 24 February 2018

Saturday Amanda came down with something and was feeling even worse than me, so I took The Girl to her Saturday dance classes. In the afternoon Amanda was feeling a little more like a human again so we propped her up at the table and played a few more games.



We started with Viticulture. Amanda won. She ended the game with 23. I had 19.



Often when I take these pictures I'll take a few hoping one will turn out. Often I will say something goofy, but somewhat related to the game like; "okay give me your Galactic Overlord look" after playing a 4X game. I thin I must have said "Look like you're drunk on wine" or something similar... It was too funny not to post...

 

Later in the evening we played Railways of Great Britain. It was a quick game. Everything is so close in Railways of Great Britain, it always feels a bit like a knife fight in a phone booth. No one did any new industries so... it ended quite quickly as cities got emptied out. Amanda won. Again.


Sunday, 25 February 2018

My Birthday. I can't remember what else we did this day. I think after playing Railways of Great Britain we stayed up stupid late watching a movie and so we slept in late. Then Amanda took the kids to activities. Afterwards we met up at my folks for supper. When we got home, we played a few games...



... of Splendor!



I seem to win this one a lot. Everyone else seems to want to try and save up for the yellow and blue cards right away and leave the cheap green cards for me... which I pick up loads of and then grab patrons (or whatever they're called) and by the time I have two of everything I hardly have to pick up gem chips on my turn, I just pick up whichever cards I can...

 

Amanda and The Girl wanted to play again, but Finnegan had had enough...



and I kind of won again...

That's it for February... we didn't get any more games in.


Friday, 2 March 2018

Friday evening was supposed to be Rogue Trader night, but I didn't have anything prepared. It's been difficult focusing well enough to read and come up with ideas for an RPG lately... so I cancelled that. But Bruce came over anyway and we played a boardgame instead.



ANOTHER game of Viticulture! It was fun to play with five, because that opens up the third spot for workers to go on at each location. But by the end of the game it meant there were another six workers taking up spaces!



We played five rounds. Amanda (blue) was at 15 at the start of the round and announced it would be the last one... she scored 7 point in the summer with two yellow (summer visitor) cards! And then scored another five filling one last contract for a total of 27!!! For a brief moment in the fall I had bought up to her at 22 - filling a contract and playing a blue (fall visitor) card that got me a few points... then she filled that last contract. The kids did a lot better this game. I think Finnegan's highest score to date had been about five (he was green)... Bruce (Purple) did amazingly well for his first game, I think I scored five the first time I played.

So it seems Amanda has groked the game and I will never win again. I'm not that concerned, I just have fun playing it. What will be disappointing is when she starts winning before I've made a single bottle of wine!!



Here's our tracking card for the 25/30x5 challenge for the year. 25 board games and 5 miniature games we want to play at least five games of through the year. that makes a total of 150 games so we need to be playing, on average three games a week. As we're just finishing up the ninth week, we should have played twenty seven games by now to be "on schedule". We've played twenty-eight. So far, so good. Mind you, we've played a lot of the EASIER games... We haven't even started in on the COIN games... And we've actually played a lot more than twenty-eight games. We've played a few games that aren't on the list (A Study in Emerald). And some of those games on the list we've played a lot more than five of - Harry Potter: Hogwart's Battle and Shadow War: Armageddon. I'm sure we'll be playing more of Harry Potter (to finish the campaign!) and Splendor this year - even though we've already played the five required for the challenge...


Coming Soon to Tim's Miniature Wargaming Blog:

Tallarn. Lots of Tallarn. I've gone and signed up not only for the spring league (I signed up for the winter league, but never actually played a league game), but I've also signed up for a TOURNAMENT on the 24th of March! Those that have known me for a long time will no doubt be utterly shocked by this. For the longest time, that whole style of play was anathema for me. To be honest, I still don't love the idea, I'm more about fluff and narrative than competition. But I thought it might be a good opportunity to actually get out and meet some of these guys in the league and see who else is into fluff and narrative...

It's only 1000 points - and I easily have 1500 points of my Guaiacan Commandoes... and I could probably even cobble together a 1000 point battalion detachment of the Tallarn I have already... But I got this daft idea that it would be fun to field a brigade detachment of the Tallarn for under 1000 points... and for that I need to get a few more things painted... like three more squads of Infantry... and another Sentinel... and a couple officers and command squads... and another Leman Russ... and another Mortar Squad... all in the next three weeks! You might think that whatever is causing these headaches I have is clearly causing some brain damage... but I've always had stupid megalomaniacal plans like this... sometimes I even pull them off!!

Shadow War: Brind's World Campaign Weekend (Part Three)

This is the third and final instalment of my report on the Shadow War: Armageddon campaign I hosted last weekend. If you missed the first two, you can find them here:

Shadow War: Brind's World Campaign Weekend (Part One)
Shadow War: Brind's World Campaign Weekend (Part Two)

After lunch John and Christian were back and we continued play...

SATURDAY AFTERNOON - ROUND FIVE

My next game was against Other Tim's Orks..



It seemed only hours after Kassab and the others made it back to friendly lines that they were once more thrown into the fray! This city wasn't going to clear itself. Once again 2nd Platoon was tasked with Sector 43B and once again Sergeant Kassab's squad found itself on the right flank clearing the exact same block... 

(Because we apparently couldn't be bothered to switch up the buildings...).

AGAIN we rolled Kill Team Fight for our scenario and I rolled a "Hidden Cache" (winner gets a bonus 100 points to spend for recruitment or rearming during the resupply phase) and Other Tim rolled "Vital Mission" (winner can re-roll number of caches received for winning).



This felt a little like deja vu... 

ROUND ONE - Orks



Auspex readings indicated Orks approaching up the same avenues... but this time a much LARGER hoard! They were cunning Orks, though, advancing unseen and under cover.

ROUND ONE - Astra Militarum



Corporal Talal lead the left flank again and ran forward with Private Hamid, taking cover behind a building. 



Sergeant Kassab moved up the centre with Lance Corporal Nazim and his Plasmagun. 



Grenadier Yakub and Private Wajdi clambered through the rubble of a destroyed building while Privates Muktar and Nassar ran for cover behind the well - which was now riddled with pockmarks from the previous firefight. 


ROUND TWO - Orks

The Orks moved up... mostly behind cover... mostly...


ROUND TWO - Astra Militarum



A terrifyingly HUGE Ork with a giant claw grafted onto it's arm lumbered into sight.

"BACK!" Shouted Talal to Hamid, "I'll Cover you!"

Hamid dashed back and flung himself over the stone wall while Talal fired on the huge Ork. Hamid also joined in firing upon the Ork. The shots seemed to annoy it and slowed it's advance, but were utterly useless at causing it harm! All were starting to wonder if the information about the Orks in the Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer was accurate at all!?


ROUND THREE - ORKS

The Orks continued their sneaky advance... Except the Warboss, he was pinned.


ROUND THREE - Astra Militarum



More Orks came rushing around the corner! They were getting too close for Cpl Talal's liking so he fell back to join Hamid behind the low wall, tossing a grenade to cover his retreat. The blast sent the Orks sprawling to the ground - but only temporarily. 



Sergeant Kassab and Nazim had maneuvered to the left flank to help Cpl Talal. Nazim was pinned by fire and grenades hurled by the Orks. Sergeant Kassab returned fire pinning a few of the Orks. 

Wajdi, form his position of cover in the ruined building on the right flank, could also see the Orks firing on Kassab and Nazim and as no Orks were advancing down the street he was covering decided to help out. 



Unfortunately his shot hit the Sergeant in the back sending him sprawling into the dirt!?

(Whoops)


ROUND FOUR - Orks



The Orks seized the opportunity to rush Nazim and Kassab! 



The great Ork lumbered forward, seemingly impervious to lasguns and grenades!



Kassab and Nazim fought desperately for the lives! 



Muktar and Nassar found themselves receiving fire from Orks in two different directions. 



Bullets whizzed by and they hugged the little cover they had... 



but were eventually cut down in the crossfire... 



WAAAAAAGGGGH!!!



Nazim was taken out of action by the Orks, but Sergeant Kassab held on... 


ROUND FOUR - Astra Militarum



The writing was on the wall - Sergeant Kassab decided to pull his men out before their position was again completely overrun. 

POST GAME

Thanks to the glorious advanced technology of the Medicae, all recovered swiftly from their injuries - and Nassar learned a thing or two in the action about laying down down effective covering fire (rolled "What Doesn't Kill You" on the Serious Injury Table and gained the Fast Fire skill)

The Squad managed to secure another cache as they retreated. The Orks were already at nine caches so they gained their tenth, putting them in a position to win the campaign.

Sergeant Kassab gained the Survivor skill (may re-roll results on the Serious Injury Table) and Wajdi finally finished his third game without injuries and became a full-fledged Veteran Trooper!


Elsewhere on Brind's World During Round Five... 




Paul's Grey Knights fought Finnegan's Orks and Amanda's Tau fought Christian's Eldar in the twisting caverns below the surface of Brind's World.



Amanda and christian played another Kill Team Fight.



Despite rushing to finish all those Guardians, Christian never used one of them. I think he played the entire campaign with four or five Dire Avengers...



Tau moving up to flank the Eldar.



Despite their superior numbers, the Tau faced yet another defeat...

Seriously, the Tau are pretty weak. The Strength 5 Pulse carbines are useless if you can't HIT anything. All the penalties for cover make it nearly impossible for the Tau - with their Weapon Skill of 3 to hit anything. They can take marker lights - which means they can ignore the cover penalties, but one Tau has to not fire to use the marker light and they can only light up one target (per tau not firing and lighting up targets)... which then means they now have a 50% chance of hitting - worse even than the Veterans of the Astra Militarum. I'd be curious to know if anyone else out there has played Tau in this game with any amount of success and how exactly they did that!?



Paul and Finnegan played the Scavengers scenario.



DAKKA! DAKKA! DAKKA!



Racing to secure loot counters.



Is that the Terminator again!?



WAAAAAAGGGGH!!



I'm not sure what I was taking a picture of here - I think it was a particularly bad dice roll for... something...? Can't have been THAT bad, I see a 4 there which probably caused on hit or wound for those Grey Knights...



More Action shots of the Bad Ass Grey Knights.



I can't remember if this was a Psycannon or a Psilencer, but it was Brutal. 2-3 sustained fire dice at 4 or 7 strength... Ugh...



The Grey Knights won in the end.



John's Skitarii faced the undefeated Harlequins in the jungle ruins.



They played the Scavengers scenario.



...and the harlequins remained undefeated...

...and the Skitarri remained unable to win...

The standings after Round Five were:

The Girl - Harlequins - 10 Caches - 5-0
Other Tim - Moar Orks - 10 Caches - 3-2
Paul - Grey Knights - 6 Caches - 3-1

Finnegan - Orks - 6 Caches - 2-2
Amanda - 5 Caches - 1-4

Myself - Tallarn - 5 Caches - 1-3
John - Skitarii - 4 Caches - 0-3
Christian - Eldar - 3 Cache - 1-1

SATURDAY AFTERNOON - ROUND SIX

My final game of the weekend was against Paul and his Grey Knights. This was pretty much a "for fun" game as The Girl's Harlequins and Other Tim's Moar Orks both had 10 caches and were facing each other to determine the winner of the campaign.

Paul blew there caches to bring all three of his Special Operatives - just to try them out. Not that he needed them. I'm quite certain the Grey Knights would have beat down my Tallarn all on their own.

I decided to try out a couple Special Operatives myself - TWO commissars! I suppose I could have brought in an Ogryn or two (or three!?) but I figured that would just drag out the game...

The scenario... can you guess...? yup, ANOTHER Kill Team Fight!

I rolled "Vital Mission" for my subplot (winner may re-roll the number of caches they receive) and Paul rolled "Lighting Strike" (which allowed him to voluntarily Bottle on any turn after a single enemy has been taken out of action).



After weeks of fighting in the deserted desert city, the higher-ups decided it was untenable. The Ork infestation was too extensive and the 5th Company was pulled out and the entire site was obliterated from orbit.

As the 415th Tallarn regiment pushed south in the following weeks they eventually came to the edges of the equatorial jungle region. This was an entirely unfamiliar environment for the Tallarn. 

Scout Sentinels returned from a reconnaissance mission with vital information about a new enemy encountered in the jungle. Intelligence cogitators determined this to be some new form of Necron with psychic abilities. The 5th Company was ordered forward to make contact with this new threat. 2nd platoon spearheaded the advance. Out front of the platoon was Sergeant Kassab's squad of veteran troopers. 

A pair of commissars were assigned to the squad to steady their morale in the face of this new, terrifying enemy. 



Commissar Brighton accompanied Sergeant Kassab into the deep jungle. The Tallarn used to fighting in vast open spaces (or caverns... or built up areas...) found the dense jungle where, at times, they could see only a metre in front of them, claustrophobic. The sounds and colours were so intense it was utterly overwhelming. 



Commissar Lawrence accompanied Corporal Talal. They were the first to encounter the vast ruins of the ancient civilization that lived here millennia ago. 


ROUND ONE - Grey Knights

Amid the sounds of the assorted fauna, which never ceased, the squad heard faint hints of mechanical movements. Through gaps in the jungle they occasionally spotted flashes of light, as though reflected of a highly polished metallic surface - the enemy was on the move! 


ROUND ONE - Astra Militarum



Commissar Lawrence lead Talal and his men through the overgrown ruins. 



Kassab and his men struggled through the dense jungle. 



The enemy was out there somewhere, but they couldn't quite get a fix on their location... 


ROUND TWO - Grey Knights



Kassab and his men were startled when the jungle erupted with sudden extreme violence - they started taking fire from up ahead, but could not directly see their assailants!


ROUND TWO - Astra Militarum



The Sergeants team blindly returned fire at the Xenos Psyker scum! 


ROUND THREE - Grey Knights



Huge mechanical beasts were briefly spotted in the jungle ahead. An unearthly blue fire erupted from the enemy's position, roasting the commissar and scorching the Sergeant! 



Private Daoud broke and ran - there was no surviving against such an enemy that could unleash the powers of the warp and kill a Commissar!


ROUND THREE - Astra Militarum



Commissar Lawrence had been leading Talals team through the ruins. HE broke from cover to make a dash for the cover of the trees in an overgrown courtyard... 



...and was gunned down by some devious enemy that laying in wait for them. 



It had been a carefully constructed ambush prepared by a calculating and malicious foe. 



Others were pinned as they tried to take cover. 

Nazin found cover behind a wall and let loose a torrent of supercharged energy particles from his plasma gun at one of the ambushers - taking it down!

Elsewhere Yakub, who had held firm as the sergeant and commissar had been laid low, loaded Krak Grenades and fired on one of the shiny metallic monsters that were emerging from the jungle. His shot was true and the sharp blast knocked the hulking brute down. 


ROUND FOUR - Grey Knights



The metallic monsters swarmed the sergeants position! Another gout of unclean fire took down Wajdi. Yakub and Nassar both suffered grievous injuries to their body and soul at the hands of the warp-corrupted psykers. 


ROUND FOUR - Astra Militarum



Talal's team continued to exchange fire with their ambushers - still secreted in their covered positions. 



Sergeant Kassab reigned his feet, if not his wits, and charged one of the hulking automatons. His blow struck true, but the teeth of his chainsword only showered the jungle with sparks - barely scoring the heavy armour of the vile psyker-droid. 


ROUND FIVE - Grey Knights



An even larger mechanical monstrosity joined the melee. The Sergeant deftly dodged their attacks and landed blow after blow on them - and even managed to damage the larger one as it roared out in pain! 

Wait... pain...? 


ROUND FIVE - Astra Militarum

Then one of his attackers said something to him; "Seargeant! Stand down!" 

It was then that Kassab first took notice of his foes profile... it was not that of a necron, but of warrior of the Adeptus Astartes! An elite Space Marine of the Grey Knight chapter! Kassab had read of them - and seen vids of them in training!

He threw down his weapons and called out to the surviving member of his squad to do this same - they had made a terrible mistake! 

(I saw it not-so-much as "bottling", as a sudden dawning upon them that they weren't really fighting the enemy... ).

POST GAME

Luckily the members of Kassab's squad all lived to tell the tale... Yakub seemed to grow even tougher through the experience (rolled another "What Doesn't Kill You" on the Serious Injury Table and Yakub gained +1 Toughness - which would have been handier earlier in the campaign!). I decided to give Lance Corporal Nazim - who had taken down one of the Grey Knight with his plasmagun - and advance and he gained the Ambush skill.


Elsewhere on Brind's World During Round Six... 



John's Skitarii and Christian's Eldar had it out in a deserted desert city.



They played ANOTHER Scavengers scenario.



I think Christian's Eldar won - finally dragging enough token back to his side, under withering fire from the Skitarii.

Amanda and Finnegan decided to sit this round out - they'd had enough. Finnegan was happy to just move between games and watch the action.



Finally, Other Tim's Moar Orks faced The Girl's Harlequins for a second time this weekend to determine the winner of the campaign!



They played a straight up Kill Team Fight scenario.



there was an initial exchange of fire as they Harlequins advanced.



But with their Priamatic Blur ability the Harlequins are as hard to hit when running in the open as they are to hit in cover.



And with the 4+ invulnerable save, they are nigh impossible to take out, show the lucky hit actually wound them.



Then the Harlequins fell upon the Orks and the engagement turned into a protracted vicious melee.



It was a bit of a slog - the Orks swarmed the Harlequins, who would slice and dice them in melee - taking one or two out, here and there - which caused other to panic and flee (temporarily) before they recovered their wits and charged back in.



Broken Orks cowering from the terrifying Harlequins.



The Warboss faced off against the Troupe Master.



spectators gathering as other games finished.



Eventually the Harlequins whittled the Orks down enough that they finally bottled and The Girl was proclaimed league champion!

Afterwards we all went out for supper at Nosh Eatery and Tap.

I had a pretty fun time playing in the campaign - weaving a bit of a narrative for my squad of grunts. I think everyone else had a pretty good time as well.

Do I LOVE Shadow War: Armageddon? Well... I wouldn't say "love"... it's okay.

Would I run another weekend campaign of it. No, but I should clarify - It's largely because there are SO MANY other games I would love to run as a weekend campaign, and I only seem to get to do these once year (or every other year...?). If I didn't have other campaigns I wanted to play I'd probably run it again, but I might do some things differently.

Would I play in an extended campaign with local people?  Maybe... If Amanda and the kids were interested and we could rope in Aaron and his boys and we could find the time to get together one afternoon a week... I could get behind that. But considering how busy we all are with so many other things, I can't imagine it happening any time soon.

It seemed a lot of Kill Team Fights and Scavengers scenarios were played (along with a couple of Ambushes and one Hit and Tun). If I were to do it all over again, rather than rolling for scenarios I could have assigned specific scenarios for each round. I had thought of that before, but then was concerned that I wouldn't have enough specific counters or terrain bits for scenarios requiring loot tokens or similar. Perhaps I would come up with a couple of other scenarios where the focus isn't just annihilating the other team.

I found the whole system a little... unbalanced. The Tau were awful - and I felt really sorry for Amanda having to play them (though it was her choice - she chose without knowing anything about the game or what was available to the team - her choice was used purely on 40K background fluff...). I'm not complaining about not winning games here, but I think the Astra Militarum have a pretty hard go of it as well. Harlequins and Grey Knights were pretty bad ass.

I'm not sure why Orks get to have 20 where most others only get 10. I get that the teams are somewhat based on the standard squad size in 40K and that Orks generally are fielded in larger mobs. And when trying to balance them against marines who have a higher Ballistic Skill and Strength 4 (or higher weapons) you probably do need more numbers than the marines so you can survive their fire long enough to get into melee... but the Guard? Why do they only have 10? Sure standard squad size in 40K and all that... but in 40K the guard will have MORE SQUADS in a "balanced" game...

Some forces definitely had better Special Operatives. Some Special operatives... seem pretty weak. I did have an Etherial the Tau could have used... but WHY? It has the same crap stats as the rest of the Tau, if your opponent kills it they get a bonus "Bounty" and the only effect it has is to allow all pathfinders in line-of-sight to automatically recover from being pinned...?

Not that anyone seemed to use any Special Operatives them in our campaign. Playing a short campaign is a bit of a rush to collect 10 caches. Those caches are precious... Paul was the only one that used Special Operatives. I'm not entirely sure he needed to as the Grey Knights seemed pretty bad ass as they were - and I wonder if perhaps it might have been him battling The Girl for the championship if he hadn't...?


Coming Soon to Tim's Miniature Wargaming Blog: 

One more battle report from the weekend to finish up - my game of The Pikeman's Lament with Paul on Sunday...

After that...? not really sure. I've been so focused on this game weekend for so long I haven't really considered what was next...? Back to work on the Tallarn, I guess...? maybe some stuff for the Rogue Trader campaign...?