Thursday, 4 June 2015

X-Wing

I've been playing a fair bit of FFG's excellent X-Wing game lately and so tonight, we decided to do a 100pt game.

I took the Rebels, led by Luke Skywalker, and my erstwhile opponent Bob, took a swarm of TIEs led by Luke's father Darth Vader.



We set up, both taking a split force with two 'flanks' established.



As the Imperials advanced cautiously, they rolled out further onto the flanks, to look for openings.




The two forces advance on each other.



And my cunning plan begins, with my two flanks sweeping in on a crossover move.



On the left flank, the Y-Wings cut across the TIEs, target locking them.




On the right flank, Skywalker leads a rookie in towards Vader's ship on the other flank.



The Imperials move to meet the Rebel moves.  




And the grand sweep begins to go wrong.  As the ships engage, the Rebel pilots panick and lose focus, abandoning their sweeping move to try to mix it up with the more manoeuvrable TIEs.  A bad idea... 




The first casualty falls, hit from two directions and blasted to pieces.



Tied up and unable to get free of the TIE swarm, the Rebel pilots are stessed and have to push their ships to the limit to avoid lethal collisions...




All the while taking Imperial fire from every direction.  Its not long before the second Y-Wing bursts into a fireball.



Immediately followed by the rookie X-Wing pilot.



Oh dear... 



His comrades obliterated, Luke manages to break free of the melee unharmed, and K-Turns back into the fray, intent on destroying Vader.



Hope still burns in his heart and the first TIE is blown out of the black.



Vader marshalls his underlings to try to take down this Rebel scum.



Luke scythes through the swarm...but his shields are stripped off...






And then, Skywalker brings down the second TIE, before swepping back round for another attack run.



But Vader is just toying with the young pilot, and has arranged a lethal pursuit to flush the Rebel into Vader's sights.



And with a ruthless efficiency befitting a Dark Lord of the Sith, Lord Vader kills his son.



Another great game of X-Wing where I exhibited a woeful series of moves to get caught in the middle of a TIE swarm.


Great fun though and Bob won a well deserved victory.


Tuesday, 2 June 2015

Warband at Durham

For those of you in the north east of England on Saturday 13th June, i'll be at the Durham Wargames Group's open day running a Warband display game.

http://www.durhamwargames.co.uk/show/index.asp

Its a friendly little show and i'll be there so feel free to come along, watch a game in progress and ask me a few questions.




Warband
The rules and armies at Pendraken http://www.pendraken.co.uk/Warband-Fantasy-NEW-c36/

Rules pdf at Wargames Vault http://www.wargamevault.com/product_info.php?products_id=144517&site=&currency=GBP&products_id=144517

Pendraken support http://www.pendrakenforum.co.uk/index.php/board,83.0.html

Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/pages/Warband-Fantasy-Tabletop-Wargaming-Rules/794128950622942

Sunday, 31 May 2015

Warband unboxing video

This cropped up over on Facebook today, a short opening unboxing video showing the Pendraken Warband army packs.  


I shall be very interested to follow this chap's videos.  

Hopefully we'll see his views on Warband, and watch his armies as they're painted up.  


Friday, 8 May 2015

Warband: Red Mountain Hill Dwarves - Part 2

See part 1 here

It's been a while and I've been up to other things, other painting projects etc. lately, so my new Warband Hill Dwarves have been falling behind a bit.

However, I've completed the second unit; a unit of dwarf archers with the shieldwall special ability.


The king with his new archers.


Under the banner the Baron and his archer kin-folk.

Bad photo, but shows the gold livery of these bow-dwarves.
 I'm also doing the banners free-hand.  They're a little rough up clase, but look pretty good on the tabletop.



The King of the Red Mountain's personal banner, amid a bunch of other army standards.



So the army progresses slowly.  I'll try and make some better progress and get these done.

I'm keen to move on to the next army which will probably be a rather fun take on the goblins as 'fire goblins' or some such thing.

See part three here

Monday, 4 May 2015

Primal Skorne

Recently I was persuaded to try something a little different, mostly following a short campaign with the Iron Kongdoms roleplaying game.

And so I've put together a small force for the Hordes wargame.  

Mostly due to, well, nothing at all actually - just a random choice - I purchased a battle box, extra unit and extra leader for the Skorne faction.

I've not played yet so I have no idea if i'll like the game or be happy with the faction and force i've built, but it has been fun painting them.

Here's my chaps in all their glory (apologies for the poor photos).


Apparently I have:

Supreme Archdomina Makeda
Master Tormentor Morghoul
Titan Gladiator
2x Cyclops Savages
6x Paingiver Beasthandlers

The figures certainly weren't the easiest to assemble.  There was a TON of flash on them, and the metals in particularlry are very fragile.  Not only that, the parts are slender and therefore I couldn't pin them - so i suspect if they're dropped arms and bits will snap off easily.

I decided to go with the 'standard' paint shceme, that is the one in the Skorne book, and its a pleasing three-colour scheme which I painted as a darker red, black/charcoal, and brass.

Overall, I think the scheme works well.

The cyclops'



The Titan gladiator.  Shall I call him Russel?


The banner is of the Kurshon army, Paingivers decurium...apparently.
 This Morghoul chap appears to have a Freddie fetish.




And the warbossess Makeda.  



This minature was an absolute horror to assemble.  Nothing fit properly, and the pats were too slender to drill for pinning.  I'm pretty sure she's held together by the paint...

Minions.  Paingiver beast masters it would seem...