Bloodbowl - the new Season begins

We picked up our big box of fun today, including the Deathzone expansion.  Nice hefty weight to it!
The components are great - there are plenty of reviews around on the inter web, sufficient to say that its very cool, even to Blood Bowl veterans.

The happy Lad with his new shiny...

The same lad 5 1/2 years ago beating me for the first time :-)

Hmmm...that new game smell!

The pitch and dugouts are double sided - traditional grassy on one side and  Orky on the other

We had no time to loose, not even to make up the new players.  Out came some old favourites - Reilly's Da Smashing Pumpkinz (which he made up out of Warhammer Orc figures) and my trusty Skaven for a quick test drive.  We were rather rusty to start with but it all came back rather quickly.

I'd forgotten what a good job he had done on these guys and their basing matches the new pitch perfectly

The new pitch has some lovely detail

And yes, Reilly smashed my rats flat!

3 KOs and 3 Casualties in a single half.  Oh yes, I remember how playing Skaven goes again now...

And as a result of the return of "Right Stuff" Reilly, he is now signed up to AHPC VII to get some paint onto those nice new models.  And thus, we have the first ever Dad vs Lad side challenge!

By Crom, its a new Club Venue and a Painting Challenge!

Last night the lads of the Odin's Night Gaming Club christened a new Wed night venue in the function room above a pub.  Not only is it spacious, it has access to a full bar and bistro below - a winning combination in anyone's book!

The new Hall of Heroes - now with Adult Beverages!

To christen this new Hall of Heroes, Dave brought along his newly delivered Conan boardgames. Yes, the one from that long, long delayed Kickstarter.  And a fittingly mighty box it was too.

Its a co-op game with one player taking the role of evil overlord and running the minions trying the thwart the characters' mission.  I got first pic of the characters so I naturally chose the closest broad shouldered Cimmerian with a notoriously short temper and brooding eyes.  He was a bit of a beast in action with his broad bladed battle-axe, and it gave me lots of chance to do movie quotes in a very bad Arnie accent.  Compulsory really.

"What is Best in Life?"

Overall, I was quite impressed with the game mechanics and the resource management aspects are quite elegant.  Looking forward to playing some more.

Dave described this as "my pic where Conan slays the snake...picks up the princess... and in true story book fashion... carries her to safety at the very last minute before the pict horde arrives.... of course can't remember the bit in the stories when all his friends are left on the village to be slaughtered..."

Our exclusive bar - now known as The Hobbit's Armpit

The Dux engrossed in his book over a post game pint

Finally, its time for the AHPC gain - go here to sign up:
The Seventh Annual Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge

And if in doubt, take no heed at all of Dux's declaration last night (click to play)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bxd3rhwHuBthSE5Yc3JMaHRub2M/view

Back to some Blood Bowl!

The lad and I were walking through town today and thought that we should drop into the GW store to see when the new Blood Bowl will be out.  Turns out that the release is next week and all the merchandise is now in store, along with a preview set of the game.

We played a quick drive with the lovely new figures.  As the Human team coach I won the toss, elected to receive, drove hard down the left side of the pitch and fired a long pass to attacker in the end zone.  Touchdown!!!

Some of the new plastic figs - really nice

Old rivals face off once again...

The new plastic tokens are very gucci

TD baby - oh yeah, we're back!

We had a bit of fun and remembered how much we love this game.  Reilly even said he would like to try painting the human team, which is a great development, and we are looking forward to picking up our pre-ordered copy at the release next week.

https://www.games-workshop.com/en-US/Blood-Bowl-2016-ENG
http://www.thenaf.net/2016/11/bb2016-preview/

Family Saga gangup!

The happy Viking about to unleash hell upon his foes!

Last night the Man Cave boys threw down to play some Father and Son 2v2 SAGA action at the games club!

In my first game for 2 or so years, I played Anglo-Danes while my ally Reilly Paulsson commanded a Viking horde in his second game ever.  Together we took on two massed Welsh warbands in the Clash of the Warlords scenario.

One of my lone surviving Hearthguard taunts the enemy levy after his unit wiped out a unit of those pesky Welsh ponies

Welsh can be really hard to get to grips with - so I took 3 Hearthguard (1 with Dane Axes) and 2 Units of Warriors (thanks for the loan Aled).  Reilly Paulsson took 2 Hearthguard (1 as Berzerkers), 2 Warriors and a unit of Levy to give him some long range missile fire, all kindly loaned by the Dux.

 2 v 2 Action on the cigar battlefield mat

We advanced directly against our foes.  I started grinding the welsh in front of me, making maximum advantage of the Ango-Danes' ability to inflict fatigue on the enemy and then take advantage of it.  Reilly sagely kept his distance from the trees in which his Welsh opponent was hiding, preventing them from ambushing him with their javelin attacks.

Reilly's boar snout formation

Taking advantage of the church which divided the field, Reilly slid his army laterally so we could focus on the Welsh in front of me.   He took some casualties as his opponent pressed his left flank but I managed to clear a path into which he unleashed his intact Berzerker unit onto the enemy Warlord in front on me.

The tension mounting...

...as the Welsh begin to crumble as the numbers against them start to tell

Focusing his SAGA dice into a range of death dealing melee effects, Reilly Paulsson unleashed a massive 21 attack dice (re-rolling misses) to annihilate the enemy .  And with that the Man Cave boys claimed Victory on the field of battle - Odin be praised!

My hearth guard clear the way for Reilly to fight the decisive engagement

Reilly's Bezerkers swarm onto the enemy Warlord and dispatch him to Valhalla!

A fun and enjoyable game - I had forgotten how much I enjoy SAGA.  And the lad was most interested when he heard of the impending Arthurian expansion - I think I'll be painting up at least two armies for that now - Sub Roman Brits for the lad, perhaps Picts for me

And so to the spoils of Victory - my Freyja delivered this Beer Advent calendar to celebrate the impending Christian festival. Excellent!

New Terrain

The last couple of weeks I have been getting focused for the upcoming Painting Challenge.  I usually waste a fair bit of my hobby time during the challenge prepping figures.  This time I have a better plan so I am trying to get my figs cleaned up, on bases and undercoated early. However, that does get rather tiresome, so I decided to also progress some terrain pieces (noting that terrain items are not part of the painting challenge anyway).

First up is the Warlord Ruined Farmhouse set, which I did as two different buildings for flexibility.  Its a really nice plastic model with really lovely detail including the remnants of a second floor.  I also added a few extra beams to the roof along the way.

I also decided to ditch the chimney section - its very nice on the outward side but it has been sculpted hollow so that no matter where you place it you can see inside it from the holes in the wall. Rather frustrating really.

The second, smaller building was originally intended to be brighter with coloured, plastered walls. Unfortunately that turned out rather horribly.  So instead I scrubbed the majority of that off, back to the black undercoat but was careful to leave some still there when I bust up the grey dry brushing effect and added some smoke effects.  I like the realistic splashes of colour it leaves, which are vivid on the table, and which suggest the houses's former condition.

I also completed the ruined walls and debris set that I picked up at MOAB last month - painted in a month, a new record!

I went with a black undercoat, followed by far too many layers of drybrushing in ever lighter colours of grey.  That, inevitably, looked way too uniform and boring.  So I dug out my weathering chalks to add some splashed of colour.  That added a nice, dusty look but the terrain lost a lot of depth.  I added a dark ink for shadows, which washed the chalk away - ugh.  We eventually got somewhere near where we wanted to be but it was a love/hate relationship with them.

After fighting for days in the ruins of Arnhem, this para realises he might need some more clever hat camouflage 

Sadly, this terrain project saw a significant loss, forcing a morale check: I dropped and broke my paint water jar of 20 years.  In fact, it was one of my daughter's first solid food jars.  With all that history and colour splodges from old projects, it was like loosing an old friend :-(

Luckily, it has been the Oktoberfest season.  This gave me a +1 sauerkraut re-roll, which I passed easily to push on!