Sunday 25 January 2015

Cancon visit and some board gaming

Well, it is Cancon this weekend. So I went out to see what was there and chat to my friends who were playing.

The miniatures gaming seemed to be quite large. Many different types. The Warhammer fantasy battle tournament seemed to be larger than the 40k tournaments, but that could have been because the 40k was broken up into different groupings, full tournament, friendly tournament and an apocalypse tournament.

Met up with some people from work and checked out the trade stands as well. Saw a few faces that I know I will see at Arc coming up so I hope that they have a good weekend and the trip is worthwhile for them.

My only purchase for the visit (well, unless I go back later as I am thinking about a few things still) were both core sets for Shadows over Brimstone. Sigh. Not cheap either. But then I did get them before my friends who backed the kickstarter. They were not impressed with me, however I did go over and we spent some time assembling my copy and even got a game in.

What can I say? The game is pretty much Warhammer Quest with a Deadlands theme. There are some nice extras over Warhammer Quest, more skills, and as it is a Flying Frog game, there was a soundtrack CD for atmosphere. The game played well and I will play another game of it soon.

However for the cost of the game, I am a little dissapointed. Only 26 Miniatures, of solid boardgame quality, so not really high detail, but very playable. There were no instructions for assembly of the miniatures in the box which lead to me unassembling things a few times. Yes, there were a lot of boards and counters and cards, which were really nicely made and produced. Overall, the miniatures were not in too many pieces, and assembly, sleaving and punching out of all of the components of the game too two of us around 2 hours to complete.

The rulebook was very clear and easily understood, which was great. The game played well and we completed the intro adventure. Made up our characters and will be taking them into a further adventure shortly. We had Rambling Rose the Saloon Girl; El Detenator the Bandido; Mr Brimingham the Gunslinger; and Marshal Wood the US Marshal. The intro game took around 90 minutes to play for us, after we did a quick rule book read through.

Overall with so many positives, why am I a little dissapointed with the game? Mostly I think it is because the cost seems quite high for the amount of content. 26 miniatures is not that many and isn't sufficient to fill some of the draws that you can make from the decks. I am guessing that this is so that in future expansion packs of critters can be sold to expand on the base game.

Also for the cost, the quality of the miniatures was average. For the cost of the game (almost as much as Space Hulk) the miniatures are not that detailed and the assembly for someone who wants it as a board game might be a little much. Well, it is better than Super Dungeon Explore at least.

Both core sets do come with a sountrack CD, however they are both the same CD. As the core sets have different themes, I was hoping that they would have slightly different music, but that is a small thing really.

Overall, I will be playing this again. Will probably eventually get around to painting it as well, and it is filling the Warhammer Quest shaped hole in my gamining life at the moment. But the cost? Yikes. There were a lot of people looking at it at Cancon, but in my time there I was the only one who I saw who made the plunge and purchased it.

Next post - Back to miniatures and painting - hopefully. :)

Cheers!



Sunday 18 January 2015

The road to Arc

Well, not a lot of actual painting has happened recently. I assembled and undercoated the rippers, and that is where they stayed. Not really inspired to paint them at the moment. Oh well. I started to assemble a Carnifex, and that didn't even make it that far. I think that I am a little over painting white. I was looking at things and as I believe that I have commented before, most of my recent projects have involved large areas of white. The Tyranids, Sedition Wars and the Eldar. Time for a different colour I think.

I am attending Arcanacon in a couple of weeks. Army lists were due a little while ago and I got mine in. So I thought that I would post about what I am taking.

I am taking a Space Marine army, of the Ultramarine variety. How did this come about? Last year I was devesting myself of several never to be finished projects which went well. Part of this was a small amount of Forgeworld 30k miniatures. They were going to a new home, however it didn't work out and a friend offered to put a basic paint job on them for me.

Long story short, this turned into a project for an army. Sigh. Will I never learn? Ha. Probably not.

So the 323rd Ultramarine Expedition force was born.

Arcanacon is 1350 points. So I am taking along the following:

  • Captain with power weapon
  • Command Squad - Standard Bearer, Medic, Veteran with sammer / shield and Veterans with shields / bolters in a Rhino
  • 5 Assault Terminators, 3 with hammer / shields
  • Tactical Squad with melta in a Rhino
  • Tactical Squad with flamer / plasma in a Rhino
  • Assault Squad w flamers
  • Devastator Squad with lascannon / missile launchers.
Pretty similar to the Howling Griffins that I have taken previously. I am looking forward to seeing how the Terminators and the Command squad do.

I have a practice game lined up the day before Arcanacon, so that will be good.

I was going to upload some pics, but I am encountering some issues so these will have to wait.

I have also started painting my copy of MYTH the boardgame. Following a different school of painting for that though, which is a basecolour wash method. More on that in a later post.

Cheers.

Thursday 1 January 2015

Blogger ate 2 posts...

Which was odd, so now you get them all in one giant post.

I finished the models to get the basic Tyranid army playable as a battle forged force. So the HQ, and 3 troop choices. Excellent.


 
I also got the remainder of the Warrior squad done, as well as the stand in new Prime.
Double Excellent.



Then I assembled the last remaining models from my first battle force box for them, being the Rippers.


However since then, the painting has fallen off a little. Reasons? Doing things around the house (very little). Getting EVE online (Oh my.. where did my time go - Steam says almost 100 hours in two weeks!). Going back to work tomorrow. All these things have reduced my painting once again. However this is not the end.

I got my game in with the complete force, which was just shy of 550 points. By victory points, I had a good win (6 - 3 in my favour) However I had only a squad of Hormagaunts left and the shooting warriors. He had a Herald on a Junkernaught and about three Grots remaining when the game ended on turn 5.

If it had gone on another turn, I am pretty sure that I would have at best tied the game. His Herald would have monstered the warriors and the gaunts were out of synapse range, so were about to revert to their instinctive behaviour. Hopefully next time we play I will also remember my Camera to take some photos.

I did enjoy my first outing of 7th edition and hope to get a couple more games in before Arcanacon. Maybe even with a Marine army, as that is what I will be taking.

Preparation? Practice? Ha! Those is for the weak!

Cheers.