All Quiet On The Martian Front, getting the game to work at last.

Club night again, the last for the year and pizza was provided with the extra funds we build throughout the year.

It was a small night with no 40K but Magic the Gathering made an appearance but I failed to do the photo shoot.

X-Wing 1st edition and Wings of Glory had a run on the table but you will note a nice bit of Christmas cheer on the WOG table.

Clubs a pretty clever in that just because the rules change as the company needs to stay afloat it does not mean there are people that wont play the old edition. X-Wing is a case in point and our club played 5th edition of 40K until the new 8th edition picked up the quality and turned it back to a good game.

Now a game we have had a bash at on 3-4 separate occasions was All Quiet on the Martian Front. This time around the martians from Mars have invaded America in the years just prior to WWI. Some nifty steam tanks and good old US manufacturing technology means that the martians wont have it easy. Or that was the initial story line and hope. But alas when we battled away over separate games with different players we always had the martians winning by a long long way. To play the humans was accepting defeat from the first throw of the dice. tonight it was different. We used the rules properly with ambush ability for the humans, command tokens to keep fleeing units on the table and I saw how wittling away at the Tripods was going to knock them out. So the humans won tonight, a much tighter game. Was it due to two human players versus the one martian or was it actually using the rules properly? I think the latter but it did help having two brains to work on the one task.

We played it at around 1400points and as the game was in 15mm I decided to bring on His Majesties own Royal Gloucester Fusiliers. A purely fictitious force of infantry and advisors that had the core elements and commanders still in it from the first Martian Invasion from the late 1800s. See if you can spot them on the table.

pic time

Evil Martians capable of who knows what?

Setting out the human forces

Small American town with odd British allies assisting.

Mark II tanks, nice paint job but not mush chop, the Mark III are much better.

WOG at Christmas

Yes you see correctly, first exchange of fire and Snoopy and the Red Baron knock each other out of the sky.

Such a fun game and when played on the smaller table it is so fast and furious.

See you in January

It is now April, oh dear I am not really following up on the club now am I?

Life as they say gets in the way of playing, or in my case blogging on behalf of the club. Yet at last I am to attempt a small update. We have had a few good nights and the odd quieter one. 40k is undergoing a real resurgence. The guys are pulling out all stops to keep the minis coming and there are some great little battles that keep happening. The game seems to work well for all 1000-2000 point games which is nice. I am still a little miffed that the Dark Angels book came out so soon after Index Imperium 1 I still have not even used this $40.00 tome of delight. Can't justify the purchase of the next one yet.

X-wing has been the game of choice for the last couple of nights and I had the chance to try out the 8 rookie tie fighters for 100 points combo. Well not really a combo but it plays well as 2 squads of 4 tie fighters. I use micromachine Ties from a few years back as these are the ones I used at school with the kids and I just do not have 8 real tie fighters. I am pleased to say that 8 Tie Fighters has been successful in two games. Woot. I seem to not win often with the Empire unless with other more talented Imperial players but this time success!

40K Nids vs Guard and Others

Ghost vs 8 ties (Ghost ended up ghosted)

 Slave 1 vs 7 Ties, yes ghost actually got 1 (Slave 1 yes you guessed it)

 

Starting to even up a little now but the Scum and Villainy failed to impress the powers of the Empire.

A rather small project i have been working on.

6mm WWII on a Pin Board.

Tuesday at the Club. X-Wing 40k and MTG

21 people, yep back up to the numbers from before winter and a couple of new chaps. It is nice when an old chum returns to the fold, even better when 2 appear, perfect when they bring mates and future little gamers with that unbeatable luck that under 5s have. Thus the evening was spent throwing dice and having fun.

Picture time.

Last club night in August Saga and 40K, and introducing X-wing at school

At last another game of Saga and this time we played one of the scenarios properly. As I looked across at the mere 3 units in the waiting houses I thought easy peasy, this will be a cake walk. I was needless to say some what shocked when I realised at turn 4 I was unlikely to win with taking on each house and its resident Scots. Slowly victory fell to the Normans but it was a much closer game than I would have thought. I love it when this occurs as we all go home happy.

Normans closing in on the hidden Scots

My Scot opponent carefully considering how best to stay safe and out of harms way with 50% less than what I had.

40K has garnered interest again as the streamlining of the rules has brought some players back to the game. I have not had the pleasure yet but will soon. Some are very happy with the changes but out Blood Angels player felt a little ripped off when his usual heroes did not do what was expected of them.

Blood Angels not quite what they used to be?

Nice Necron force to cause mischief

Forgot to bring the other desert mat

Infinity at a club members house

The other table outside on a mild winters day, gotta love gaming in Australia

My Gorgos that has been more a hit than  a miss I have to say, not to bad in the game at all.

Note the micro-machines and pumice asteroids. This was an intro to X-wing that hopefully will see a few kids at school join the club and then play with the real toys.

Remember peoples that we play every 2nd and 4th Tuesdays of the Month.

All quiet on the martian front and all the usual down at the club

Well we got to try out All Quiet on the Martian Front, for a second time. I like the system very much, elegant in its simplicity but all too easy to forget rules again. No fault of the rules, just fading brains filled with too many other sets. But more details to follow.

Well we messed up the rules, humans in cover get a few advantages, in our game the black dust launcher caused a lot of damage as they got, you guessed it no advantage.

Each game I have played saw the Aliens lose a tripod nice and early and this sends a chill down your......spineless cephalo thorax????

Gotta love the tanks, steam powered WWI or earlier prototypes.

The Aliens win. Not much left of the human force from 1800 points. But I think we are missing something with the humans it seemed to easy in both games to win as the Aliens. Must read the rules a little better me thinks.

Baz's Kill the Strachen bomber....game 1 London 1 and Germany 0

Kill the Strachen game 2 London 2 Germany 0 sounds like a football match.

Usual X-wing and seemed a good close game. My Empire ships got blown from the sky yet again even though I was not in command.

This last item is a little highlight from my time at Cancon Earlier this year. I had the chance to play in the Infinity tournament and had a ball needless to say. All my opponents were great and most had brilliantly painted miniatures. I did not get to play against Greg Milsop the owner of the above minis alas. But I want you to look carefully at the minis to the left and right of the big TAG in the middle. Yep they are clear......he molds and then casts them in clear resin to act as his units that are in TO camo. TO camo is basically invisible.......who would have guessed. I hope Corvus Belli the manufacturers of Infinity do something similar. I'd buy them.

April 2017 club nights for the last couple of months

One of the club guys kindly pointed out that I had failed to update this blog for a little while and thus it is about time to do so. Well we still continue, and new games and old have been played. X-Wing and 40K have been in evidence along with Wings of Glory and Magic the Gathering, these of course are the older games that we play. But Armada has taken it toll and we have given this a go too. So Picture show is needed to keep the audience of 2 happy.

2 games of 40k with the guys on the right of the image both winning I believe.

How to teach x-wing to all and sundry, if you note the odd micro machines import it is because when you get 12 plus players wanting to learn and your own collection is somewhat smaller than this then you have to improvise.

More X-Wing and I am bewildered by the green planet near the asteroid.

More guys playing and teaching

Aleph model by Brendan our resident painter, I must get a second job and pay this man to be my slave to paint

More Aleph on the way, again by Brendan.

The year is well on its way and games are being played at the club

This has been the early February efforts of club members so I will just let the images tell the story mainly.

Infinity with my daughter and one of the other club girls

I could not get the bikes to work

40K, our general on the left secured his first victory against the dreaded orks

X-wing, so many games so little time

Cheating here, as this was an earlier game with my son showing off his lovely Space Wolves.

They won again but it was much closer this time

Oh no new toys. Will we fall prey of Armarda?

Can The Bounty Hunters Collect their Prey, X-Wing at the club

Decent turn out at the club with a new face to join the miniature gamers and a few new faces for Magic the Gathering. Sadly year 11 and 12 exams are either on or about to start so the Roleplayers were not to be seen but a nice game of "Hunt the Gotha" or Wings of Glory to you and me was happening with 3 players. But the highlight was a characterful game of X-Wing.

Scum and Villainy bounty hunters were attempting to knock out the Lamda Shuttle transporting and extremely valuable cargo of .............. no doubt some rebel scum with a price on his head........encased in carbonite or such like.  The Lamda had to fly to within range of the tractor beam of the Death Star to be declared safe. Did the Imperials get their way or was it Cash time for the Bounty Hunters?

Four Ties and a Shuttle with few modifications attempt to avoid each other and the asteroids in the first couple of moves. The death star is in the bottom left side out of camera shot.

Scum and Villainy with souped up tricked out flyers but pilot skill was a little lower than I had expected, still around 100 points per side.

I missed the next couple of turns but took this as the Lamda has lost all its shields but the Tie Fighters were there to the rescue.

At the moment it was three fighter ships each but what you don't see is that the Ties have a point or so left but the Scum really wanted the Lamda so the shots that could have finished the escort off was used to take the Lamda closer to the edge.

 

 

Almost there, you can see the Micro Machines half built Death Star near the table edge. We elected to say that the shuttle had to get to within 2 hexes of the Death Star to be in Tractor range and therefore Bounty Hunter fighters would be at risk of capture.

End battle, with no fighters shot out of space but the Lamda critically close to the Death Star.

 

Made it this turn.

Gotha hits the table edge to then turn around and fly back the other way. It was shot down leading to a British Victory.

 

You can just make out the MTG gamers at the back, a nice crowd for Batemans Bay hopefully we see them again as they are all welcome.