2013 Reflections

One or two Weissbier may have been enjoyed before this pic

Spending nine months away from home including six months deployed overseas, 2013 was always going to be a little light on for Hobby achievements.  Nonetheless, there are many silver linings for the year to reflect on.

The most memorable and important ones are of course about people.  In addition to my usual and most enjoyable associations with fellow Man Caver Comrade James, Alan (aka Dux Hormunculorum) and I got together several times throughout the year in Sydney for gaming, the odd ale and a good feed.  I've really enjoyed your company this year mate and thanks for helping keep me sane during a domestically tough year.

With Alan we also met up a few times with Ian of War and Peace games (http://www.warandpeacegames.com.au/).  He ran a Bolt Action demo for us (in which I enjoyed my first ever Victory over the Dux!), and later on we visited his Aladdin's cave of a shed to play some Battlegroup Kursk (where Ian and I as crafty Jerries managed to double my win count against the Dux!).  Ian is a wonderful and very interesting guy  who incidentally shares my passion for Space Hulk!

Well dressed Man Cavers off to the Australian Blood Bowl Championships

Right Stuff and I both attended CanCon in January, where we played in the national tourney before he continued to play his Norse team Odinn's Champions in the local Blood Bowl League.

Otherwise my biggest gaming event is the 4th Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge which I am finding to be wonderful in getting my first painting done since January, and in which Alan, James and I are enjoying a bit of friendly rivalry.

Major hobby purchases this year were In Her Majesty's Name, Bolt Action and Battlegroup Kursk rules, and figs for these as well which I am attempting to complete as part of the painting challenge.  There were only some modest Kickstarter projects (the new Space 1889 and Achtung Cthulhu!, all in pdf) so perhaps going away for the year was good for my wallet.  SWMBO certainly thought so and gave me a generous stipend to splurge on gaming goodness to finish off the year- awesome!

The other thing of note this year has been my regular "Gamer Dad" column in the magazine The Campaigner (http://thecampaignermagazine.com/).  That has been a bit of fun and something I could do Hobbywise while away.  More of those to come in the future.

Predictions for 2014?  My long time gaming buddies Ken and Peter (with whom we did lots of Dark Ages campaigning a few years back when I lived in Melbourne) are coming up for CanCon in late Jan and I am hoping to twist the Dux's arm into making the drive too, so that will be an awesome time.  In February the next Blood Bowl league season will begin and Right Stuff and I will both be starting new teams in the Rookie Division - a bit exciting as its the first time I will have played my own team.

Project wise I am only going to put 28mm WW2 (Bolt Action or perhaps Chain of Command, which I'd like to try) and slowly building my Battlegroup armies in 15mm on the agenda.  I have to leave some space for whatever new shiny/hotness appears after all!

Sincere thanks to everyone for their support and well wishes throughout the year, which saw this humble blog get to 470 followers!  I'll have to do something special when we get to 500, hopefully in the coming year.

The Man Cave Gamers wish you a happy, healthy and prosperous 2014 to you all!

Off for a bit

I trust you all had a fantastic Christmas with your families.  As you know, there is no rest for the wicked: so Right Stuff and I are off today to attend the New Zealand Scout Jamboree.  We've been really looking forward to it all year.

So Dux will have a bit of time to extend his lead in the painting competition a little further.  I hope he feels guilty taking advantage of a man who volunteers his time in the community...  :-D

Anyway, this is what my painting area looks like a week and a half into the fray:

See you when we get back and in the meantime have a great New Year's Eve!

Merry Christmas 2013

Wishing you have a fantastic festive season with your loved ones

Splitfire

Resurrected from HJC's old OGRE website:

Splitfire

This is a technique discovered by self-aware OGREs. It allows the OGRE to take some of its ranged fire during its movement phase.

During its movement phase a splitfiring OGRE may declare any number of attacks (up to the limit of weapons that it has yet to fire this turn) in any sequence and how it will expend its next movement point.

The attacks are rolled and resolved in the declared sequence and then the OGRE is moved as declared. (This movement may not be aborted, as the shells are assumed to be "in flight" during the time the OGRE is moving.)

Example: an OGRE declares a first attack of a secondary battery shot and a second shot of a single AP gun against the same 3 point stack of adjacent infantry and a next move which takes the OGRE away from the infantry.

In this example, if the secondary battery misses, then the AP shot is wasted in a 1-3 and if the secondary Xs the infantry then the AP is also wasted into thin air, but if the secondary scores a D then the AP will roll a 1-2 against the two surviving squads.

Splitfiring OGREs can sequence multiple AP attacks against the same stack of infantry during a single turn, as long as the OGRE expends movement points between the attacks. (And uses different AP guns, naturally.)

Splitfiring OGREs still only get to fire each weapon once per turn (Outside of overruns), but they get to launch attacks with different weapons from different hexes.

Example: A Splitfiring OGRE with a movement of three, moving through clear terrain will have four points to declare and resolve attacks: Before its first move, before its second move, before its third move and a normal attack phase after movement.

Expending two or more movement points to enter a hex (Say a town or water hex) only counts as a single declared move for Splitfire.

An OGRE may declare that it is expending a single movement point (in any type of terrain) and staying in the same hex as part of a Splitfire attack.

Hell Hounds

10 points was added to my painting challenge total when I dug these out of my 'to do' pile this weekend.  I'll be using them as Hounds of Tindalos or similar in Strange Aeons.  28mm figs by Heresy Miniatures.

See my entry at the challenge website here

Curt has also posted the first Challenge Round entries in one mega post with some awesome contributions  all round from the Wild Bunch.  See them here:
http://analogue-hobbies-theme-rounds.blogspot.ca/2013/12/the-first-fortnight-theme-bonus-round.html

I've now got 130 points tallied and am in 9th place - 2 slots and 15 points above the Dux!

Week 1 Challenge Progress

So having submitted my Naval Landing Party this week, I'm slightly above my required "points per week" progress line to achieve my 500 point total (which equates to about 40 points per week of the challenge).  The next three weeks are going to be tough going though, with time away from the Cave bringing painting to a temporary halt.

In other news, Dux and I are neck and neck at 50 points each, with Comrade James still to get any runs on the board.  He is moving house though, so expect no significant progress from him until January.  No doubt Dux will capitalise on my absence after Christmas to streak ahead - the opportunistic cad!

I'm REALLY enjoying the challenge - its the first painting I've done all year and its awesome to see everyone's productivity!  Thanks so much for all the effort you are putting into it Curt.

Toe-to-Toe Nu'klr Combat Video Review

A new Dice Tower video review of this great, quick-to-play game by Victory Point Games.
I must admit I played it a bit this year while away and always really enjoy it!



Yee-Haw!

EDIT: And here is another:

Off the Mark!

My first painting competition points are on the board with these 10 stout chaps of the Royal Navy's Armoured Landing Party.

These 28mm are figs by Ironclad Miniatures (see here) and are part of my home grown "Hearts of Oak" Company for In Her Majesty's Name.
See the official entry at Curt's blog here

So with 50 points on the board I shall briefly enjoy being:

- 4th overall somehow...egad!  That certainly wont last :-D

- first off the mark between Dux, James and I: what are you doing slackers!!!

- completing 10% of my challenge total

I'm off to prepare their support conveyances!

The Hunters - released

Back in Jan (here) I pre-ordered Consim world's new solitaire U-Boat game "The Hunters" hoping it would arrive before I started my trip away.  Well it didn't and I understand that there were production issues at GMT so I sailed off and forgot all about it.  Until today that is, when I got an email to say it had been shipped!  Seems that rather than rush it out, the Consim/GMT guys rightly took the time to fix things properly in slower time and it was released earlier this month.

Mine just shipped so by the time it dodges the reindeer and crosses some oceans it will be January before I get it.  However,  the reviews from the US look excellent and the unboxing reviews below show some high quality components so it looks well worth the wait.

The rules have also been put online here





As you can see, there a lot of similarities with the classic games B-17 and Patton's Best which I'm very fond of.  I'm probably showing my age but I'd much rather have the excitement of rolling dice on a bunch of charts rather than play a PC sim game.

Can't wait to get started in 2014 - in fact, I've got my Kriegsmarine marches and Das Boot soundtrack loaded on the iPhone ready to go!
https://www.facebook.com/consimpress/
http://www.consimpress.com/

There and Back Again - in a day!

To celebrate the start of the Summer holidays and prepare for the release of The Desolation of Smaug, the Lad and Lass declared that must have a mega Tolkien movie marathon.  Using all lyper-extended versions and with minimal food preparation and comfort stops, the day went like this:

• 0810 started Fellowship of the Ring
• 1145 started The Two Towers
• 1540 started The Return of the King
• 2020 started The Hobbit
• 2321 Finished!

Phew! Didn't know you could get couch sores.  The last few hrs were a bit of a battle I must admit and made me think of this - which would have saved us some time :-)

Odinn's Champions wrap up Season 3

Odinn's Champions played the last game of their third season this week, facing off against the speedy Skaven of the Belleville Punching Club.  The rats were coached by gentleman extraordinaire Michel, the reining Australian champion.  His team is made up of Impact Fig models which are wonderfully dynamic, and sport Tri-Colour jerseys and strips.

Michel's lovely rats of the Belleville Punching Club

It was a fast paced game which saw lots of KOs on both sides but not many casualties leading into half time with scores level at 1 apiece.  The Skaven received in the second half for a quick score, followed by the Norse killing a rookie Skaven Blitzer and star runner Fafnir Bearclaw scoring an equalizer.  Quick as a flash the Skaven rushed another TD through, leaving just 3 turns to decide the game.

Norse runner Fafnir Bearclaw runs down the left side to score!

The Norse received and pushed hard down the right side but now a player or two down due to KOs, they got pushed up against the sideline by the more numerous Skaven and couldn't force their way through, spilling the ball to go down 3:2, while inflicting 3 cas (including 1 kill) all by star Berzerker Sven Forkbeard, while receiving none in return.

An amusing moment when the Yeti caught a loose ball on a 6 and then couldn't do anything with it!

This game completed Right Stuff's run with this team for awhile, and he finished in style with a 3 man gang foul KOing the prone Rat Ogre!  Tune in later to see what teams he and I will play in the next league season in 2014.  Overall the Champions finished 6th in the Division of 10 teams, had equal highest scoring player, and Sven Forkbeard was both equal third top killer and third highest casualty inflictor.  He now has a career total of 21 casualties including 5 kills!

Group Madeye

	Team	Race & Coach	team value	won tied lost	points	TD score	Cas score (kills)
	Khemri Crows	Khemri Andrew R	1,800k	5 3 1	134	12 - 8	32 - 20 (1-5)
	Belleville Punching Club	Skaven Michel	1,750k	5 2 2	128	18 - 14	10 - 34 (1-8)
	Carnivale Cultists	Dark Elf Anthony	1,570k	3 5 1	114	16 - 13	8 - 24 (0-1)
	Crimson Breweries	Dwarf Lelruthus	2,140k	5 0 3	112	11 - 7	26 - 13 (3-2)
	Pulp Horror United	Necromantic Luke	1,630k	4 2 2	108	15 - 12	19 - 19 (2-2)
	Odinn's Champions	Norse Right Stuff & Paul O´G	1,910k	3 0 6	84	13 - 15	24 - 31 (3-5)
	Chaos Madness	Chaos Andrew V	1,880k	2 3 3	82	11 - 10	38 - 24 (10-0)
	Chaos Theory	Chaos Pact Big Pete	1,830k	2 2 5	80	10 - 16	55 - 19 (10-3)
	Griffin's Terrible Drunks	Human Richard H	1,860k	2 2 5	80	12 - 18	9 - 33 (0-5)
	Beerz and Blood	Orc ModelWarrior	1,700k	1 3 2	58	7 - 8	8 - 12

Season's Top Scorers

list Nº	Player	type	team	TD
1	Fluffy	Khemri Blitz-Ra	Khemri Crows	9
-	Herky	Werewolf	ACT of Violence	9
-	Fafnir Bearclaw	Norse Runner	Odinn's Champions	9
4	Paul Errin	Human Catcher	River Stir Slayers	6
-	Knifink the Silent	Gutter Runner	Mutinrot Flesh-Cutters	6
6	Putin	Dark Elf Blitzer	Purple Haze	5
-	Replacement Thro-Ra 1	Khemri Thro-Ra	Turner Eternals	5
-	Skittythe of Darkness	Gutter Runner	Mutinrot Flesh-Cutters	5
-	Richard	Ghoul	ACT of Violence	5
-	Yig's Right Hand	Pestigor	Miskatonic U Avatars	5

Season's Top Killers

list Nº	Player	type	team	kills
1	Tomas Torgersen	Marauder	Chaos Theory	4
2	Gilim Orcbreaker	Troll Slayer	Crimson Breweries	3
-	Tygore Blackmane	Minotaur	Chaos Theory	3
-	Fallen Boon	Chaos Warrior	Chaos Madness	3
-	Halfling Shitter	Beastman	Chaos Madness	3
6	Mummy 1	Khemri Tomb Guardian	Turner Eternals	2
-	Mummy 4	Khemri Tomb Guardian	Turner Eternals	2
-	Dread Cthulu	Beast of Nurgle	Miskatonic U Avatars	2
-	Sven Forkbeard	Norse Berserker	Odinn's Champions	2
-	Cadby Nordre	Marauder	Chaos Theory	2

Season's Top Casualty inflicters

list Nº	Player	type	team	cas
1	Tomas Torgersen	Marauder	Chaos Theory	24
2	Cadby Nordre	Marauder	Chaos Theory	19
3	Sven Forkbeard	Norse Berserker	Odinn's Champions	13
4	Halfling Shitter	Beastman	Chaos Madness	12
5	Fallen Simon	Chaos Warrior	Chaos Madness	7
-	Fallen Boon	Chaos Warrior	Chaos Madness	7
-	Chirinrot Wring-wrench	Rat Ogre	Mutinrot Flesh-Cutters	7
-	Gilim Orcbreaker	Troll Slayer	Crimson Breweries	7
9	Mr T	Ogre (loner)	Griffin's Terrible Drunks	6
-	Angry Agnarr	Snow Troll	Odinn's Champions	6