Friday 26 February 2010

I've done it now.

I have just ordered a Combined Army starter set for Infinity. I don't know why. I think I hadn't woke up properly or something. I don't know when I'll get time to start playing with everything going on at the club.
I also boosted my MonPoc forces as well with a few more units. I also need to get into playing game. Why do I want to play all these different systems? Life was certainly more simple before I started attending Charing Cross Gaming Club.

Thursday 25 February 2010

Another game, another loss, another round of run!

Despite my first game of Necromunda in well over a decade ending in a rather bad loss, I had fun reliving the past. I was amazed that I remembered anything from that time at all and didn’t need much help remembering certain rules.

I turned up at the club, which was quite busy as all of the table were booked, all excited like my old teenage self. I put my coat and bag down and got my self a pint of bitter (I was a little early). I got to talking to another gamer who is selling pretty much all of his models (he is leaving the country soon). We had arranged for me to buy some Necrons from him (this little lot takes my army total to nearly 6000). Once I bagged my purchase, I watched some of the other Necromunda games being played. I actually missed my opponent playing his first game, but I caught his post game (rolling for injuries, generating income, etc). Once Dezul (real name Chris) had finished, he called me over to begin play.
Now Bill (the guy who dropped out of the campaign) had forgot to leave his Ratskins behind. This meant that I had to use a handful of zombie models to use as proxies to add to the few models that I had received from evilBay. Once I established which model was which ganger (the zombie with the bone club has a lasgun while the zombie with the green trousers has a shotgun), we got down to setting up. I had challenged Dezul and his Eschers to a Loot and Pillage scenario. This meant that he had to set up just a few of his gang (the remainder coming on as reinforcements) and set up the loot tokens which I would be after. I then set up my large gang (14 members) in 4 smaller groups in the hope that if one was hurt, their buddies could still carry on the fight.
To start off, the only thing I could do was to race towards the lovely loot. Then Dezul took a pot-shot with his leader (she was on overwatch) and took out my leader straight away. He also failed his reinforcements roll.
The next turn saw more running on my part. Those Ratskins that were under fire had frozen and pinned by enemy fire, couldn’t shoot back because they were mostly carrying muskets and blunderbusses (very short range weapons). This time Dezul managed to get some reinforcements to come on. They came on behind on behind my leaders’ group and toasted them with a Flamer! Just one Ratskin was left standing from that group, amazed that he survived. The amazement didn’t last long as he was taken out by the flamers’ buddy. Dezul’s Wyrd took shot at the Ratskins on the other side of the table and missed. His leader did much better and took out another scout.
I raced forward some more and grabbed some loot. Dezul’s turn saw some more reinforcements enter play. This brought another flamer, which in turn brought some pain to a couple more of my gang.
One of my braves then raced forward to grab some more loot, while two of my guys took out the newly arrived flamer and pal. This time Dezul’s Wyrd performed a little better and used his telepathic power to knock out one of my guys. Then the Escher leader had the best shot of the game where she shot one of my guys at long range. While this only caused a flesh wound, it was enough to make him fall two stories onto another one of my gang (thankfully he wasn’t hurt).
I spent the next turn trying to retreat back to my table edge in order to regroup. My shooting was ineffective. Dezul then led a charge with his Eschers. The first hand-to-hand combat of the game ended with a draw.
With the vast majority of my gang either down or out of action, I decided to tactically ‘bottle it’. It was clear that I wasn’t going to get anything more from the game.
So we both did our end of game stuff. I had a bit of bad rolling on the Serious injuries chart with two Dead results, one Capture and a couple of Head Wounds. With everything updated, my gang (Bill’s gang) were looking a little shell-shocked. There were unlucky to have a flamer sneak up behind them, but it didn’t retract from the fun. I later learned the Ratskins are resilient. This means that they can re-roll on the serious injuries chart. I can actually save my dead Ratskins and maybe get rid of the head wounds. One thing that I’ve agreed not to re-roll is the captured result as Dezul and I had already resolved the issue (he gave me back the brave in return for the loot I took). Any changes to this would prove slightly chaotic for Dezul in his next game.
But still, it was great to get back into the game. It has been a long time, but the wait was worth it. One good thing about this campaign is that the players can add some back story to it. So everyone has been writing some fluff for the narrative. I wrote a piece for the game against Dezul. I think I will centre my writing on two of the gangers (they are twins) rather than the exploits of the leader. The first piece was of fluff was about harmony within the warband and how it is disrupted by other gangs in the underhive. It has also shown a disruption in the harmony between the two brothers. Hopefully I can keep the fluff going in order to enhance my gaming experience.

Tuesday 23 February 2010

Necromunda! I'm back!!!

Tonight’s the night for reliving my teenage years. I get to play Necromunda after such a long, long time. This time it will be in a pub basement with other grown men. It won’t be on a large slab of MDF supported by two trestle tables in my best friends room.

When Necromunda first came out, we played practically non-stop. We played with the Orlocks and Goliaths from the box. We didn’t know any other gamers and, most of the time, couldn’t be bothered to go to a Games Workshop to play. So we played each other, over and over again. We would usually disband our gangs from time to time and start again. This kept things a little fresh. In the end, we both brought ourselves a new gang each. I plumped for Van Saar while The Dude bought Cawdor (he also got a Delaque gang too). This saw the rising of my Reservoir Frogs and The Dude’s Witch’s’ End Receptionists. As per usual with the other games that we played (it’s also true today), I was mostly on the losing end. Mr Brown could not get his Van Saars to hurt the likes of Beelzebub and Barabbas in a truly bad way. In fact, Barabbas became a one-man gang in the end. He was a highly skilled machine just loaded with weapons (including a Mono-sighted Missile launcher)! The Dude’s tactic was usually sit back with everyone except for Barabbas, who would race forward and severely bruise my jump-suited wimps.
But tonight, it will be like starting over again. It’ll be like opening the box to reveal the cardboard scenery and those static-looking Orlocks and Goliaths with anticipation of this new game. Except that beer would be involved this time. There’s about a dozen players, including myself, in this campaign. I’m having to take over from another player who will be away for the next couple of months. I’ll will be using his Ratskins which should be fun as I’ve never played with an Outlaw gang before. It shouldn’t be so different, but this will be someone else’s miniatures. They will have a little character already as they have gone through a couple of preliminary missions. They will most likely have been painted already. As mentioned in the previous post, I will be getting my own Ratskins so that I may carry on with them after I give them back to Bill.
But still, the next couple of months might give me the impetus to bring the Reservoir Frogs name out of retirement. Hopefully this time, they can actually do the bruising.

A flurry of activity.

After some absence from gaming, I'm back. But I find myself troubled.

My gaming brain has been led astray by the many gaming systems I wish to involve myself in. This year, I’m starting off with Necromunda as there is a bit of a campaign going on at the club. I was fortunate to be part of it as I started while I was away on my honeymoon. But then someone dropped out. A fellow gamer, Marcus, immediately put my name forward as a replacement. The organisers said yes, but only if I took over the Ratskin gang of the guy who dropped out. I accepted, but was disappointed not to be able to use my Van Saars. So now I’m playing with a totally new gang (but having said that, even if I used my Van Saars’, it would be like playing with a new gang because I haven’t played Necromunda for over a decade). But then the idea struck me, that when the campaign is over I would have to give the gang back to their rightful owner. I would have a small gap in my heart without them. So I did something bad. I went to evilBay and scored myself a lot of Ratskins! This means that I can replace the gang with my own models (maybe change the names) and keep the gang alive. I hope this isn’t a foolish thing to do. At the same time, I am also thinking about beefing up my Van Saars. I am most likely going to add some reinforcements.
Next on the list, is Monsterpocalypse. I have been building up my Terrasaurs and Empire of the Apes forces at a very steady rate. I now have more monsters to choose from (including a lot of Mega forms and Quantum King Kondo!!!) and a fairly flexible amount of units. I am hoping to get some games in down at the club soon. I now have made the conscious decision to not spend anything on MonPoc until Series 5 is released in a couple of months time. This is because I would like to get back into Warmachine.
Recently I purchase the Warmachine MKII rulebook and Menoth MKII card deck. All I need now to carry on the momentum would be a new warjack or unit. This would be ideal when the Necromunda campaign finishes. But then, this will be undermined by yet another gaming system. Infinity.
I have seen a few games of Infinity being played at the club recently and it looks to be a slightly more tactical game. I’ve been looking at the models for the various forces and have been taken in by either the Combined Army or the Yu Jing (most likely Yu Jing). This would mean getting a starter box and possibly the rulebook (I may just keep with a pdf that I printed). But starting with a new gaming system, means less time for 40K.
I will be adding some Destroyers and Warriors to my already large Necron force. This would be really great, as I like playing with an armada of Destroyers. They can really cause some problems during some games. While on the subject of 40K, I am still waiting for the Dark Angels to get a new lease of life in the shape of a new Codex (hopefully). Until then, I have quite foolishly entertained and old idea to have a small force of Deamonhunters. There have been a couple of deals recently (one at the club and one on evilBay) that I just missed out on, that really could have started this off. So now this idea goes back onto the shelf in the back of my mind. With all of these gaming paths to follow, I almost forgot about Warhammer Fantasy.
At the end of last year, I bought a load of Dwarfs that will make my own small force (heh) into a much larger (and legal) throng. I even bought the rule book as well. Who knows when I‘m going to get the time to learn how to play this amongst other games.

As a result, I just have no idea how this year is going to pan out. I think I have worked out a priority list of what I want to do, but that might be thrown out the window fairly quickly. One thing is for sure, the year will start with Necromunda.