Monday Sneak Peak

Hey All!

First off, an apology.  I caught a rather nasty cold and was out much of last week because of it.  Not much to report on tabletop wise while I'm ill.  

So this week will probably be a pretty long update.  Got lots of new stuff in, a review of Armoured Clash to do, and painting updates.  Busy times.  Hope to hear from you all Wednesday!

Monday Sneak Peak

Hey All!

So, this week I'm going to be pretty skimpy on the Weekly Update, there's a lot happening around campus that makes it difficult to get things done.  I can tell you that there will be a review and some love towards another Spartan Games system, and that I'll be showing you some of my painting progress from this past week.  So, until then, here are a few pictures about what I will be reviewing!  Enjoy...

Weekly Update #4

Hey All!

Hope y'all have been having a good week so far!  So, lots to talk about and not very much time I'm afraid, so lets get started:

1)  This weekend I had the chance to play two excellent games of Uncharted Seas with the Spartan Vanguard in Georgia.  Both were 550 points, where I ran the starter box plus destroyers in one game, and then in the second replaced one of the cruisers with a heavy, and used a big glob of 4 frigates instead of 2 groups of 3.

The first game was against his Iron Dwarves, and was a crushing victory.  My Mages put a hard pounding on his fleet and took out everything but a single crippled cruiser, while I was left with my Battleship (undamaged) and a single frigate.  In the last turn, just to make one last jab, my frigate whizzed up the table and took a range band one shot on his - at the time - second crippled cruiser, and caused something like 14 hits on it.  It was too far away from anything to cause explosion damage, so we just removed it from the table.  One of the keep moments in the game was when I disabled his Battleship's steering and he ran into a hard island, knocking 2 hull points off his already wounded ship, bringing it up to 6 lost HP.  Good first game for the Shroud Mages!

Second game was against his Elves.  This game went by much quicker, as the shop was closing in an hour.  Same points values.  My Shroud Mages fared much worse against the Elves, but still managed to drag the game back to a draw - although he was 10 points ahead of me thanks to a frigate he managed to prize towards the middle of the game.  Probably the most exciting moment in that game was a pair of destroyers stern raking his battleship, only to get torched by his dragon after causing a single hull point of damage.  His dragon died valiantly on the last move of the game as it made an attack on my battleship - letting my entire fleet shoot at it as it attacked.  It managed to put a point on the battleship, but didn't kill it and win the game for him.  I was faced with a similar situation when my heavy cruiser and cruisers lined up full range band one broadsides on his already crippled battleship.  I rolled well, but I just couldn't manage to knock that last hull point off and win me the game.  An honorable draw after a fun and fast paced battle.

2)  I mentioned in the Monday sneak peak that I had some Firestorm Planetfall rumors and news.  It is supposed to play similar to Dystopian Wars Armored Clash, and they are pushing with Firestorm to eventually be able to go directly from Firestorm Armada to Planetfall in campaigns.  Now this is just rumor and I haven't seen any evidence, but thats what I know.

3)  I have an eBay problem.  I'll be the first to admit it.  I love eBay and think it is awesome.  So I have some new stuff coming down the pike for myself in the coming weeks.

A new fleet for me means demo games and more painting and just a fun time in general.  Variety is the key to happiness and I like variety.  So I bought some Bone Griffons.  The starter set and a blister of Destroyers to be exact.

These beauties to be exact.  Love these models and they are going to be a blast to paint.  I'm thinking kind of a ghostly Greek feel to them.  I'll have to do some research, but I think that would look really nice myself.

4)  Painting update is that I haven't had time to paint anything this week unfortunately.

5)  Finally I get to break out some Dreadball and some Fantasy again!  I have a friend that goes to the same college as I do, and he has literally been chomping at the bit to play Dreadball and he just ordered a lovely Brettonian Army that should be here this evening.  So my rats will get to taste fine Brettonian steel... and they get to eat plague magic.

Final thoughts for this week are that I will be inspecting his fantasy army tonight when he gets them in, so I might be posting picks later this week of them, plus we will be playing a starter box game of Uncharted because he just purchased a huge bundle of orcs this weekend at the store.  So, wish me luck, and until next time...

Monday sneak peak

Hey All!

Just a brief update on what you can expect from the weekly update on Wednesday.

1.  A couple of Uncharted Seas battles!
2.  Some info regarding Firestorm: Planetfall
3.  A look into some new things coming down the pike for myself
4.  Painting updates
5.  Dusting off some underused models.

Until then I do happen to have a picture for you:

Look at the size of that thing!  Its huge!!!

Well, that's really all I want to give you guys for the time being, so until next time, Tarum et clama dimit belli canes!

Weekly Update #3

Hey All!  (little late)

So this week has been slightly crazy - I apologize for not getting on here sooner.

This week has been an interesting couple days full of tabletop so far.  I have a few new goodies that will be here tomorrow for my Shroud Mages - a pair of Mk I Heavy Cruisers - that are awesome looking sculpts - and a Beacon class platform... it floats and does magic.  What more could I possibly desire?

Oh right, the Flagship... and more cruisers, destroyers, flyers, etc etc....  But thats not going to happen anytime soon.

In other news, I found the first tabletop enthusiast in my area.  Taught him some Uncharted Seas, were thinking about trying to get a Dreadball club started up with the university.  Will keep you updated on how that goes.

Other than that it has been pretty hobby sparse here.  New Marines came out, and I imagine we will be seeing a lot more bike heavy lists, as well as tank heavy lists.  That's just my two cents.

This weekend we are headed back over to Treefort Games to get some Uncharted Seas in and maybe a game of Firestorm, not sure.  Probably make one last purchase - the store does have a Shroud Mages flagship in stock that looks awesome.  But here are some pictures from the week:

As you can see, got some nice additions painted up for the fleet:  a pair of Darkness Cruisers.  Hopefully they will do awesome at the store this weekend, so that I can justify their somewhat crazy points cost.  But I am looking forward to using them even if they don't pull their own weight; they are just pretty models.

In other news, I did find a game that I would love to try.  It might be my first foray into the deeply unknown niche games of Europe....

AERONEF

A game published by a small company called Wessex Games.  It is a Victorian Scifi aerial combat game, involving models created by Brigade Models.  It uses 1/1200th scale ships to maneuver about the table and blast each other with their naval guns.  It is a similar concept to Spartan Games Dystopian Wars, but it is completely centered around aerial combat, and the models aren't quite as nice as Spartan's, but they are pretty for what they are.

Starter kits are about $50 and come with enough for two aerial flotillas.  Rules are based around ship size classes and the use of hex style bases to help with flight.  Games are designed to be teachable in 10 minutes and able to finish in under 3 hours, while using large numbers of models per side (half dozen +)

I am tempted to try this game out, seeing as I have a group that would be willing to try something like this out now.  Plus I really like some of the models - even if they might seem less than tabletop compared to a game like Dystopian Wars.  For a small game that is very niche the models are excellent. The rules are challenging and look like they would provide for some interesting scenarios.  Plus $50 for a two player starter box is fairly reasonable.  About on par with everything else.  Here are some photos for you to judge yourselves:

These are all examples taken from the awesome blog http://dampfpanzerwagon.blogspot.com/  

I highly recommend it if you'd like to take a peak at some inspiring scratch builds, like most of those pictures I have borrowed from his site just now.  

Finally - just for some kicks and drool fests - here is a photo battlereport of Aeronef:

http://www.brigademodels.co.uk/Blog/2013/02/aeronef-at-stoke-rochford-photo-report/

Anyway, enough rambling for tonight.  The short story for this whole post is that I painted up some more Shroud Mages, have some more coming in tomorrow, am going to play a few games Sunday so there will be battle reports and pictures galore hopefully.  Then theres Aeronef which looks really cool when it is all painted up and nice looking.  And then Gentleman Tony with his awesome blog and awesome scratch built models and table.  So, thats it for me, until next time Tarum et clama dimit belli canes! 

Sneak peak

So this week I've got a little sneak peak of tomorrow's blog for you... Enjoy!

Weekly Update #2

Hey All!

Been a busy week of tabletop thanks to the long weekend and not much homework.  Last Sunday I had the pleasure of going and meeting up with a local Spartan Vanguard at Treefort Games.

Before we met up, I taught a friend how to play Firestorm Armada with the RSN and Terran Starter boxes minus Battleships, which resulted in a bloody draw - but with the surrender of the Terrans to my mighty RSN after it came down to a pair of wounded RSN cruisers and a third crippled cruiser against a pair of Terran cruisers and a handful of frigates.  Good game overall but he wasn't sold on the space ships.

Then I broke out my resin colored Shroud Mages fleet and played a whooping 15 turn game against some elves where my frigates chased down a battleship and stern raked it for atleast 5 turns, my battleship unloaded broadside after broadside into cruisers that wouldn't die, and then finally Elves rammed wounded Cruisers and took Shroud Mage Cruisers as prizes.  In the end, I really enjoyed my first game of Uncharted Seas, and will definitely play again.  In fact I liked it so much I bought a Ripper sub, and then on Labor Day took 8 hours to paint my entire collection of Shroud Mages.

Of course my friend wanted to try a game of Uncharted - he used to play a Pirates Game - which he taught me.  But now he has his eyes set on some Imperial Humans to paint up and play (although he says IF he decides to play) We tried to whip through a game where he took over the Vanguard's Orc Fleet, but we just didn't have enough time to get through it before closing - although it started out with a trio of Shroud Mage Frigates steaming up to a cruiser and rolling a crit to knock 5 AD off of his Port Broadside....

All in all, Sunday's games were great fun, and the paint splurge that ensured on Monday was excellent.  I look forward to expanding my fleet and getting it to around 1500 points, which means the addition of something like 6 smalls, 6 mediums, and a flagship to my fleet, plus various upgrades to the fleet in addition to the models - this would also allow for some tactical flexibility in smaller games, and give me plenty of variety.

Anyway, thats pretty much all I have for this update, sorry for the lack of photos, hope you all enjoyed anyway!  Well until next time,  Tarum et clama dimit belli canes! 

Uncharted Progress

Hey All!

So, with this lovely Monday holiday, I thought that I might try and get some hardcore hobbying done after my adventure to Treefort Games.

First off, Treefort games was awesome.  Met up with a Spartan Vanguard after introducing a friend to tabletop gaming with a quick game of Firestorm Armada.  Thomas - the Vanguard - taught me how to play Uncharted Seas with my Shroud Mages against his Elves (which I lost after 15 turns of madness - we just had to keep going), and then begin a game of Uncharted Seas against my friend who had watched the previous game.

After all of that playing, I thought that my fleet really could use some awesome paint on it, so I decided to start painting today... 7 Hours and the rest of Season 1 of Boardwalk Empire later, I have finished painting my fledgling Shroud Mages fleet.

So, in total I have a Battleship, 3 cruisers, 6 frigates, 3 destroyers, and a Ripper Submarine completed for my fleet of Shroud Mages.  Next up hopefully will be some Darkness Cruisers, Heavy cruisers, or a Beacon platform :D until then, Tarum et clama dimit belli canes!