Full Thrust at the club

Bruce hosted a game of Full Thrust at the club this week. He used the newer Full Thrust rules which streamlined a few things and we started off using hidden movement.

The first few turns saw red team's light ships take a pounding from the white team. The two carriers moved towards the planet (out of frame to the right) that was the victory objective.

Scott rolled a life-time of six's flying the white team's light ships.

By mid-game, the carriers were about to engage by the planet while the rest of team red was in some serious trouble. Team white had launched a salvo of missiles (blue markers just barely visible below).

The carrier battle was blood (for the fighters) but not super damaging.

Team red's carrier then moved into orbit around the plant, chased by team whites lights.

While I didn't snap a shot, team red's carrier looped around the planet just as team red's missile salvo finally caught up with it and that was basically the game. A pretty fun space game with more balanced fighter rules than the original.

As summer has arrived, I will be moving to one post per week (likely Saturday's) from two.

Dragon Rampant at the club

Tuesday was club night and we had there games running. Chen and Scott played some Dropfleet Commander. The minis were impressive, but not as impressive as Scott's cursing!

Bruce hosted some Pulp Alley using his wild-west set up with Terry and Richard playing.

I ran of game of Dragon Rampant using one 15mm-ish Battledore troops. The scenario was "run like hell" where one side must move troops from the lefts side of the table to the right, while being ambushed from the top and bottom. The table set-up was simple.

I brought enough troops for four player but, in the end, Taylor and I each played with five units. The dwarves rolled low and were the ambushes. Here their highland cattle and bear cavalry ride forth...

...and meet some hungry trolls and their goblin allies. A crazy melee ensued with trolls chasing cavalry and things looking super bad for the dwarves.

Then the dice came around it was an even game. A bad move by the dwarves saw a unit of pike pop while attacking into the woods. Eventually, the troll was able to grind down the dwarf crossbowmen and that was that.

We switched sides and against the dwarves had a tough go. The goblins greased two units on the north side of the board: some cattle and some spears.

The dwarves then began pushing the southern edge, hoping to even things up while the goblins got re-organized and manoeuvred.

Here, some tough bear cavalry pushes hard against a troll, who would eventually run.

A grinding war of attrition eventually saw a retreating group of goblin fanatics as the last unit on the table as some dwarves spectacularly failed a command roll and fled.

That gave me a few minutes to watch some cowboy action.

Back home, Jess and I played two games of Pandemic: Reign of Cthulhu. I finished a collection of Lovecraft stories last week so was keen to see how the game incorporated the thematic elements.

We had one sharp loss (total nightmare) and then barely won the second game.

June 6 club night

We had a dozen guys out to the club this week, which was a goo turn out. Chatter was about a change in venue in the fall due to a rent increase (new venue TBD).

There was couple of games of 28mm sci-fi skirmish (Armageddon?) as well as some Memoir 44.

There was a lovely looking game of Star Wars Armada. Oh, I wish I could convince myself that this is worth the money. Beautiful models.

Scott, Terry and I played some CCA Spartans v Athenians. I haven't played many of the scenarios in the sixth expansion and this one had a fun mechanic.

Above is the set-up. Below the Athenian ambush has been sprung (to the doom of the Spartans in both plays). A fun game with a hoplite rule as well.

Up next: Either some 54mm AWI or some 25mm Romulans. And maybe gaming with Bruce.

Pulp Alley at Club Night

We had 11 guys out at the club on Tuesday. Bruce hosted a game of Pulp Alley.

It was escort Mr. Big, with the cops and some supers having to tangle with the gangsters. Terry and I both got whittled down pretty quickly.

Craig spent much of the game collecting plot points in order to slow Mr. Big. He then boogied across the board to interrupt the last few moves of Mr. Big.

 This was pretty much the end game with Mr. Big stalled a fe winches short of the board edge. Great game.

Dave and Scott played a Norman-Saxon game (no idea of the rules).

Elliot and Kevin played what Kevin described as the worst game of Drop Ship Commander ever (Elliot was enjoying himself, though).

And Chen and Dan played a VSF steam punk game I missed the name of. Very cool toys, though.

Up next: Maybe some more 54mm toy soldiers.

Club night: August 2

We had nine guys out at the club this week, including newcomer Bob. Justin hosted Bob and Chen in a wild west (?) game.

Bruce brought out some new space rules from Sam Mustafa called Free Jumper.

We played an abbreviated campaign of three games, which gave us a taste of ship building and some of the strategies available to us.

Dave and Scott played a WW2 game (French v German paratroops).

Up next: Some painting, although the ear;y harvest season is cutting into my table time.

Gaming: DBA 3.0

We had a pretty good turn out on Tuesday at the club with four games going. First up were the seemingly head corpses of Wiley and Neal duking it our with CCA.

Scott and Terry ran several guys through their MayDay Martian game.

The highlight of the evening was the first appearance of Scott's giant ironclad. It is huge!

Dave and I played some DBA 3.0. Boy, starting position really matters!

Another shot of the Martian advance. This was still one turn one when I left!

Elliot and Kevin had a go at Star Wars Armada. Funny listening to two experience gamers play the game while reading the rules aloud. Overall, another very diverse evening of gaming.

Up next: I have some 1/72-scale WW2 French to get painted and then onto the Germans.

Star Wars: Armada

We had 13 or 14 guys out to the club last night with five games going, including some sort of sand-in-your-loincloth dealie Scott was running, some medievals, some DBA and some Warmachine.

Wiley and played a game of Star Wars: Armada against the rebel scum... errr... Neal and Dan. This was my our first time out with the game so we kept the Imperial ships together but likely over-extended our fighter cover.

Eventually the two Star Destroyers contacted the two Nebulon B frigates. My ship (on the right) took a pounding (including some damage from ramming) but we managed to pop one of the frigates.

And then the second frigate ended up in a spot we might charitable call "a good place to shoot from" and got double-teamed with predictable results. We also managed to get a handle on our fighters and kept the X-wings off the capital ships.

Unfortunately for the Empire, my ship was so damaged that an attack run by a corvette destroyed it! We called the game at that point with an expectation that Grand Moff Wiley could clean up the remainder of the rebels.

Overall a fun game. Not sure I want to drop this kind of coin, though. But damned happy that Dan did!

5150 Space Combat

Bruce hosted a game of 5150 (by Two Hour Wargames) last night wherein the brave defenders of Earth (below) had to hold off an invasion force. Alas, the Earthling's commander appears to have been selected for his good looks, rather than his tactical abilities..

The invasion force was of higher class, but lower quality, ships and the basically steamrollered the defenders. Things started badly when I launched my fighters prematurely. Bruce then cleaned out most of my fighters and missile ships before they got in range. The subsequent gunfire was a bit one-sided.

A neat mechanic for moving asteroids and nebula. And towards the end we started to see some interesting things with the damage tables (ships losing morale and bugging out). But it was a lot of dice rolling. Overall, a decent game but Full Thrust is more engaging--more complex movement decisions and slicker combat mechanics. Below you can see the Earthlings fleeing to regroup.

Up next: Some 1/72 Indians elephants are almost finished basing. And I have a rush job on some 15mm  Panthers for a FoW tourney next weekend! Plus we have club on Tuesday night.