(40k) Blue Moonz Waaagh!, Good Games Brisbane, Shadowfist, Flames of War

Apologies for the lack of updates over April - I've been gaming and painting fairly solidly but not reporting any of it. Slackness.

Blue Moonz Waaagh!
The side-project for April was to get a small 1000 point Ork force organised, built and painted (for me, that's a big job!). Having mostly completed the first two objectives Marc and I had a small 600 point battle in the garage; Orks versus Orks!

Orks need a 5 or better to hit their target when shooting, this image shows a lack thereof as rolled in the heat of battle :(

Blue Moonz Meganobz (progress; left to right) Blocked, Inked, Detailed.

Good Games Brisbane
Meanwhile a new game shop has opened two blocks away; Good Games Brisbane. This has become the new HQ for all of my gaming - it is central, well lit, comfortable and the owner/managers are wonderfully friendly. I do however feel a need to mention my good friends at Ace Comics in the city; I would game there but rental prices in the CBD prevent them from having a sufficiently spacious gaming area, which is understandable. Support Good Games, support Ace Comics - they are both local stores supporting the hobby. Soapbox over.

Good Games 22/04: Justin digs out some Chaos Terminators while Marc shakes his fist at me, presumably due to my criticism of his footwear. Marc and I have joined our Ork forces together; my bright blue Trukks advance aggressively with a Battlewagon full of Mega Armoured Nobz (led by no less than Ghazghkull Thrakka of course) while his black and red Boyz hold the right flank to deny a Chaos push into our rear.

The J-Dawg

Confusingly we have a second Justin who has joined the group with Tau (ordered from UK, not yet received). "The J-Dawg" sub-commanded some Blood Angels with a surprisingly inaccurate Las-predator and an objective seizing Razorback full of Red Thirst Assault Marines (who never needed to get out of their ride). He assures us he had fun despite the Dreadnoughts and Killa Kans stealing the spotlight for much of the game! Everyone is looking forward to seeing his Tau hit the table once they are delivered... and built... and painted...

Good Games 29/04: Putting the Blue Moonz aside I try my hand at a Blood Angels Drop Pod Assault, with satisfyingly results. My unpainted grey drop pods land behind Marc's advancing Orks and unload unpainted grey Furioso Dreadnoughts. His undercoated Orks are understandably surprised and begin to spin in furious circles of confusion.

Shadowfist
So, one of the many advantages of Good Games is that (too my surprise) the old Shadowfist gang who I know and love have chosen it as their preferred venue for games. Shadowfist is a collectable card game that I have had an on-again/off-again obsession with since it was released, fifteen years ago. Thursday nights is the (current) regular night for games and I've dusted off my old Architects of the Flesh deck for some abomination shenanigans. For variety I also put together a simple Seven Masters deck based on a design I was tweaking the last time I dropped out of the scene. Of course as I continue to modify both decks I will inevitably stuff them up!



Flames of War
As if all this wasn't enough Matthew has begun collecting Flames of War! Blowing even more dust off even more gaming bits I have consolidated my collection which had become spread across many storage boxes under piles of accumulated stuff. I still have my old Fallschirmjager (German Paratrooper) army and the various half-finished and unconstructed bits of a Panzergranadiers (German bad guys in halftracks or trucks) to field as Axis.

Of course no collection is complete without some Allies, so I have slowly added to my small set of Shermans (United States tanks) over the past few weeks with Armoured Rifles (US version of Panzergrenadiers) and M10 Tank Destroyers (ambush tanks with big guns).

Of course, this means more building... and more painting!

Friday night firefight

Tonight was our "World War 2 in miniature" gaming night; a War at Sea engagement with our new ships and a craft session for Flames of War to get the ball rolling for future mini-games.

~ War at Sea ~
The shipment of boosters ordered after Christmas arrived a few days ago and tonight we set out our combined collection on the table and drooled.

War at Sea: The collection

Sadly the allies pulled no battleships from our boosters (getting aircraft carriers instead) so we decided to leave battleships out of the axis roster in an effort to keep things fairer for the good guys.

Staying true to stereotype I chose to play the bad guys and after lengthy consideration settled on a Japanese carrier (the very impressive Akagi) and the German cruiser Graf Spee supported by some aircraft, a submarine and a tiny destroyer.

Marc went with the British Ajax, two British submarines, a US carrier and the cruiser USS Baltimore. Oh, and a whole mess of planes too.

War at Sea: Fleets face off against each other

Things went well for the axis at the start of the game. I used my aircraft defensively to protect my fleet while Graf Spee knocked out Ajax in the first exchange of fire! Driving Marc's fleet back I was able to seize an objective counter. The mid-game saw things begin to settle as the British submarines managed to endure depth charges and fling torpedoes around, slowly but surely whittling the axis down. By the end of the match the only surface ship remaining was Marc's carrier which was able to repeatedly fend off axis aircraft (lingering on the land base after Akagi went down) to grab another objective counter before falling prey to my Japanese sub. Deciding not to bother playing out a lengthy end with no surface ships and frustratingly blunt anti-submarine weapons we decided to call it; victory for the allies!

I would like to play more games of War at Sea. I enjoy it's simplicity and the rock-paper-scissors aspect of fleet building is pleasing. Marc loves torpedoes but I think I prefer very large gun and bomb rolls. We have a few singles coming in from eBay but I don't think we will need to spend any more money on the game ~ other than a battleship or two for the allies of course.


~ Flames of War: Mid-War Monsters ~
This morning I picked up a box of Soviet KV-5's for Marc. These are very large experimental tanks for use in the Flames of War expansion "Mid-war Monsters". The idea is that it allows players to use experimental tanks that were never actually fielded during the war, but which had been designed or proposed and could have seen production if circumstance had been different. Essentially, a "what if..." or "alternate history" scenario - models that cannot be used in usual games of Flames of War and certainly not at standard tournaments, but a bit of fun for casual games at home.

Marc jumped at the chance to field a platoon of three massive multi-turreted Soviet heavy tanks although we were both surprised to see just how big they were when we opened the box!

Construction: KV-5 vs Tiger I

As a player of Germans I'm used to having a small force of powerful troops or tanks... however looking down the barrels of three KV-5's I can see that my comfort zone is about to be rocked!

I picked up a halftrack for my unfinished Panzergrenadiers although they will need many more of these transports before they can deploy to tabletop (taking them in trucks just doesn't feel right, they need halftracks!). Much of my stuff for Flames of War is only partially constructed and the small amount that is painted could benefit from a little extra attention. I do have a ground-action Fallschirmjager force although I find them to be a little boring as they move so slowly across the table... ultimatley the 88's and Tiger taken as support choices do most of the work!

Given that we are suspending the usual army building rules so Marc can use KV-5's without needing to fork out extra cash I'll have to see what I can fudge into an 800 point force. I want to resist the urge to take nothing but anti-tank technology because it feels unsporting, but they are big tanks and I'll need big guns to stop them!