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! 

Weekly Update #1

Hey All!

As promised, here is the very first weekly update I have for you!  I spent this morning enjoying a little quiet in my dorm and took advantage of that to get some hobby work done for this weekends festivities at Treefort Games in Fayetteville, GA.

Here are some shots of what I've completed so far:

 I purchased some Aegis R&Ds a while back, but never really got around to getting them ready with all of the college madness starting.  So here they are, all built and washed, ready for some priming and painting!  These are definitely high on the priority list because of this weekend, but not as high as my Cerberus...

I have wanted to build this thing since I ordered it in July!  I love the look almost as much as I like my RSN cruisers in general.  They are the powerhouses of my fleet, and I can't wait for this guy to get some paint on him and bring some pain to my opponents.  Hopefully anyway...

And then there is this lovely bunch.  I know that there has been a new wave of Shroud Mages released and that I have the Mk I box set for them, but I really like their look a lot.  I honestly cannot wait to try this system out and get stuck in with my Mages.  They were great to put together, and really my only complaint about any of the models - including the Destroyer blister I bought to add some punch to the frigates - are the frigate models and their lack of scale on the turrets.  They're huge for those little ships!  Aside from that though, everything is awesome looking on them.  I have to say that my favorite models of the bunch that I have so far are probably the destroyers.  I like their slightly higher prow rams and just their whole profile, although the Mk I battleship is awesome looking too.  So are the cruisers... Heck everything is good looking!

Cannot wait to go to Treefort this Sunday and get some games in for the first time in probably a month or so.  Bringing a friend along to try and introduce him to the world of Tabletop wargaming, so hopefully that goes well.  Also, I am thinking about ways to get a Dreadball group going within my group of friends here, seeing as Season 3 is about to come out and that game is always awesome looking.  Anywho, until next time, Tarum et clama dimit belli canes!

Intro to Weekly Updates

Hey All!

So, in an effort to keep this blog alive and kicking, and still have fresh material, I am going to try and make a commitment to post something once a week.  I have just started college at Auburn University, so it will probably take some adjusting, but rest assured faithful readers, that I will have something up every week - probably on Wednesdays from now on.

So, to start out this tradition, here is a brief update on everything that has been going on hobby wise for myself recently.

I ventured over to Fayetteville, Georgia, this past Sunday to get some insight into my "local" hobby store:  Treefort Games.  I have never been to a finer establishment, and would absolutely recommend it to anyone that is in the Atlanta area and has their models on them.  They are only open weekends during the fall and winter - college students are their main source of income - but they have a little bit of everything:  Spartan Games, Games-Workshop, MTG, Warlord Games, Privateer Press, and more.  Plus more board games than you could shake a stick at.  They have something like 15 tables to play on, personal booths for RPG groups, painting tables, hundreds of terrain pieces.  It is an excellent place to call your wargaming home, and I am more than willing to drive the hour and a half to get their from the prettiest village on the plains.

While I was there, I ran into not one but three Spartan Vanguards, and was swept up in a flurry of excitement.  So much so that I ended up agreeing to go back this coming Sunday and enjoy a few games of Firestorm Armada with the local player base.  And then this happened:

So I may have been so swept up into the flurry of Spartan Games rah-rah-rah that I purchased the old Shroud Mages starter box and a blister of Destroyers for them as well.  It was marked down a little, so it rounded up to about $40, so I was extremely happy.  So now I will have my mighty Shroud Mages in addition to the Terrans and RSN for Firestorm.  It is a good day for naval battle systems!

Also, on some rumors and announced awesomes from Spartan Games - Firestorm Armada and Planetfall are getting new rulebooks and new models for everyone!  We're talking a nice new rulebook, faction sourcebooks for the Zenian League and Kurak Alliance, and redone models for all the peoples!

On top of that, Firestorm Planetfall will also be getting a rulebook, alliance books, and models for all 6 core factions!  Thats enough to make me want to save some cash money back even!

And on the rumor mill, it is said from several gentlemen that Uncharted Seas is also due for a new rulebook and models to come out as well, which can only be good news now that my Dark Ironclads will be rolling into service this Wednesday probably.  Good times to be a Spartan Games supporter, as they prepare to launch themselves into a new whirlwind of releases!

On other games fronts, Space Marines are coming out next month, so we all get to see the ugly blue ducklings everywhere for the rest of the edition.

Other news from the fronts is pretty sparse.  New stuff everywhere for all games.  An awesome 2-player starter box for Dropzone Commander has been announced, but with Spartan Games Firestorm Planetfall inbound, it might be hard to break loyalty.  I'll have to compare prices for the games when the FS:P stuff comes out.

Warlord Games has dropped some new Hail Caesar kits and some new Bolt Action stuff, and that's pretty much everything I have for you today guys.  I will definitely get some pictures up of my Cerberus Heavy Cruiser and Terran R&D cruisers when I get them painted up - hopefully - on Wednesday.  And the Shroud Mages will definitely be getting put together on Wednesday as well.  Lots to do on Wednesday to get ready for Sunday!  And on top of everything I have classes (except Wednesdays) and a football game on Saturday!  So, until then, Tarum et clama dimit belli canes! 

Uncharted Seas

Hey All!

So, I figured that the next best game to talk to you all about would be Spartan Games Uncharted Seas.  This was their very first game released in 2008.  A game of fantasy naval combat, much like the old Games-Workshop product Man-O-War.  It is a game that introduced the Spartan Games rules that can be found in all of their main products: exploding dice, range bands, and MARs.  However, while this game is just as good as the other two naval based games that Spartan Games created - Firestorm Armada and Dystopian Wars - it is in the same genre as those two games, which divides the target audience up greatly.  This has resulted in the recent move of Uncharted Seas to direct order only.  Stores will no longer be carrying Uncharted Seas products in stock.

However, the silver lining is that the company is probably in the process of creating a new rulebook, as they have stated that "with the release of spartan scenics, we have also begun beta testing Uncharted Seas"..... But enough talk!  You want to see models!

The great thing about Uncharted Seas is that it is getting much cheaper to get into.  He starter kits are much cheaper then their other games, and the rules are completely free online.  $50 for the ,out expensive starter fleets on eBay, $25-$30 for cheaper boxes, or a "combat pack" with 2 fleets for between $60-80.  All in all pretty reasonable if you ask me.  So, heave too you salty dogs, and hoist the colors!  It's battles on the high seas with another great game from Spartan Games!!