Another Glorious Day in the Corps!

"Watch those corners.."

A trip to Canberra this week saw me catch up with buddy Dave and his gaming cadré who, after lunch at a favourite brewery, kindly hosted me to a game of GF9's Another Glorious Day in the Corps! Wonderfully themed to the epic movie "Aliens", this is a co-op survival game in the tradition of Space Hulk and I had a total blast!

"Lets Rock!!!!"

With the movie soundtrack in the background and near constant movie quotes around the table it was a wonderfully intense and focusing game. I played Private Frost with an M240 incinerator unit and my goodness it was effective! You gotta get up close and personal with it but when you do you can really burn away those Alien drones. And when you do, its waaaaay better than "using Harsh Language". All the characters have different skills and traits, reflecting their specialties.

"Man, I'm telling you, I got a bad feeling about this drop"

Our Mission was to find Newt and of course she was at the far end of the Hadley's Hope complex which made it a really tough mission. Even better, the gaming group also play RPGs together so they quickly got well into character for a wonderfully immersive and narrative experience.

Hudson on the firing line: "Come on and die you bastards! You too! Oh, you want some of this?"

The escalating game system made for growing intensity and complexity, which was fabulous. The game's group resource management through a shared card deck is particularly clever and while it seems simple enough, as the game progresses it become clear that managing it together is vital. As a result, Lt Gorman's leadership skills and collaboration between the characters brings a real feeling of small unit teamwork. 

"lay down a suppressing fire with the incinerators and fall back by squads"

It also generated a real group dilemma of trying to build unit speed and momentum to achieve the mission, vs resting to regenerate the card deck to enable firing and other actions. Great mechanic that needs to be dynamically balanced across the game.

"I guess she don't like the corn bread either"

Fabulous game for one of my all time favourite movies- can't believe I haven't played it before, and even better with some beautifully painted models.

Covering Ripley collecting Newt, Cpl Hicks makes the ultimate sacrifice with a grenade (Gorman style) to clear a path for the ladies behind him.
Colonial Marines Silver Star awarded posthumously

But untimely, it didn't end well for our heroes...

Thanks indeed to Dave, Tom, Scott and Charles for the great hospitality, great game and awesome company. Unit next time gents!

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/256852/aliens-another-glorious-day-in-the-corps

New Acquisitions

 A few birthday treats for myself today!

 

    Raiders of the Deep: a WW1 submarine game I've been looking at for over a year (based on Gregory Smith's excellent Hunter's and , ) the U-Boat War of the Great War period was quite a different beast, especially in the early days.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/227995/raiders-of-the-deep-u-boats-of-the-great-war-1914

 Storm of Steel: another Stuka Game, this one focusing on running a staffel and specifically focused during Barbarossa. It will be interesting to see if I can get some fusion and cross-over between this and Stuka Ace, possibly playing both in tandem.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/368088/storm-of-steel-ju-87-stuka-eastern-front

Now its true that I had been planning to get some new boardgames while in the US (and avoid international shipping) but these are also a bit of substitute for a lack of local table top gaming action thus far. Of course, I've left the vast majority of my models some 5,000 miles/8,000kms behind, which is constraining!  Considering the new edition of Kill Team maybe.

Less new but recent are these two related titles- 'Devilry Afoot" is a wonderfully thematic (and beautifully produced) skirmish game playing Witch hunters in an alternate 15th Century where Witches, Werewolves, Imps and Devils are real. And Solomon Kane for a bit of inspiration!

Inspiring "Vaporware": Imperial Earth

To the age old question of "How important is the fluff/lore in a wargame?" *

Alas, I was completely sold with the term "Papal Attack Fleet"!!!

Well I these advertisements from 1980s game magazines describe an utterly ridiculous game that I really want to play! I mean, who doesn't want to play a Vice Admiral-Inquisitor in the Papal Attack Fleet???

Advertisement from Dragon #118 (February 1987) and Different Worlds #45 (March/April 1987)

Turns out the directors at "K Society" gam company spent all their money on advertising and capital investment (allegedly those fancy new Xerox machines!) BEFORE they had made the game and had to sack the few writers they had on staff! 

Ahhh, the heady days before Kickstarter when the public didn't lose their money. Still would have been a cool game though!

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* Anybody who knows me understands that I am a complete sucker for a shiny looking new game with a cool theme!

Rendezvous in the Western Approaches

"Little Creatures" - the must stop brewery in Fremantle

This week Comrade James and I were independently on the West coast of Australia for our respective employers, far flung from our usual haunts.  What was to be be done? Pizza, Beers, Hobby shopping and games of course!

A pilgrimage to the famous Hobby Shop "Tactics" in Perth - a great selection of goodness. Hobby dollars were spent without remorse, including some great pickups for our growing Aeronautica Imperialis collection.

After a pizza and a few pints, it was down to buisness, starting with an old favourite game of ours: Flying Circus. This a WW1 version of GMT's Down in Flames series which we have played to death over the decades, and it never fails to entertain (especially with Spotify playing WW1 trench songs in the background)

And then it was time for something completely different: Steam Torpedo which despite its confusing rules explanations, turned into quite an absorbing game of sub v sub combat in a Dieselpunk theme (with Hunt for Red Octiber themes in the background of course)

Overall, a fab way to spend a day far from home with a mate you've been gaming with for 30 years!

BrisCon 24

I happened to be in Brisbane for work while this was being held; it would have been rude not to drop in!

British foot troops advance - war of 1812

The show was modest in size, had the usual AoS/Bolt Action/Team Yankee/Conquest (no 40k?) games going and while the contingents were smaller (12-18ish) they were having a great time. Being May the Fourth there was a large contingent of Star Wars Legion and Armada on the day.

Great to see a sizeable 6 table BattleTech tourney going too!

This great 6mm Napoleonic table that was unfortunately tucked away from the general traffic and didn't seem to get the attention it deserved

And as ever, the Infinity tables demonstrated some lovely non-grimdark techno futuristic terrain - inspiring for our forthcoming 5 Parsecs from Home project

Trader wise it was particularly good to see Fjord Serpent designer and maker Luke showing off his great game. 

The ship components for the Snekkja (medium size ship)

The 10mm Ships and crews looked spectacular on the table and he spoke to us about the next expansions - the first of which is focused on the current game, and then the next takes your Viking battles ashore! Sorely tempted...   https://fjordserpents.com/fjord-serpents/

And the bring and buy? Well, that Gallic/Celt Army I wasn't planning on building to oppose my Caesarian Army is now well on the way...

Achilles Rampant! Farewell to the Lad

Reilly is leaving home very shortly and moving to the Australian State of Queensland (thats 2000kms away) so the club fellahs got together for a big bash game last weekend.  In keeping with his favourite genre it was Trojan War, and 10 mates fought it out before the gates of Troy.  

The 15 foot table was graced with some 30 chariots, 27 horse and 540 foot troops, all in 28mm - looked very impressive

My Trojan line, led by Hector, gets ready to defend their beloved Polis

Oh mighty Apollo- give us your blessings this day!

The game was setup with a large swirling chariot and cavalry action on one flank, a broadly open plain for an infantry battle in the centre, and a broken area on the other flank on the banks of the Scamander River.  Here are a selection of pics from the phrenetic, loud and exceptional fun that followed!

The Lad in the centre -playing Achilles naturally! (Yes, I had Hector!)

Crafty Odysseus and his men capture the golden fleece!

Achilles and the Myrmidon seek Hector at the Temple of Apollo

Patroclus advances, seeking his Glory

Paris is Slain by the Greeks, who defile the body 

Achilles flanks the main Trojan line

Hector find Patroclus in the centre of the battlefield and challenges him to a duel

...and takes him down!

...followed by an enraged Achilles challenging Hector

Here is the live action of the Duel (5&6s hit- highest wins)

Achilles defeats Hector - Historical Outcome!

What is it with all this defilement by Chariot today!

So with Hector fallen, the Greeks won the day in the end - thanks very much indeed to the guys for coming along to farewell Reilly. He had a blast and we went home to watch the movie Troy (over a few beers of course)!

The Lads (on the Greek side) having fun!

Rules notes

We used Lion Rampant rules with a few significant modifications, to make the game flow better with so many platers and 60 odd units (!) on the table;.

- Everyone had 6 units, and while they were slightly different to one another, the 5 pairs of players facing one another had identical forces

- Units activation was by "Chit pull" with the Umpire (aka Gav aka Zeus) randomly pulling from 6 Trojan and 6 Greek tokens from a bag Bolt Action style, with everyone on the side indicated attempting to activate a unit of their choice, keeping everyone involved in the action.

- Each Player had a major Hero from the Odyssey: Menolaus faced Paris, Ajax faced Sarpedon, Odysseus faced Aeneas... and Reilly played Achilles facing off against me with Hector, naturally. Each character led a 12 man Foot Companion unit and added their Hero dice to the attack score of their units (eg Odysseus 3 dice, Hector 5 etc)

    For extra authenticity, Achilles was a Level 4 hero, unless Patroclus had been slain - at which time he became a 6!

- VP wise each pair of players had a terrain objective to control at game end worth 3 VPs, and each major unit (not skirmishers) was worth 1 unit if destroyed. Heroes were worth another 1-2 VPs.

- To reflect the fickle influence of the Gods, each player had rerolls equal to d6: 1=zero, 2-5= 1, 6 = 2... +1. So everyone had between 1 and 3 rerolls, to be used anytime during the game.