July Update

What a crazy month it has been.  Amongst a range of work and work related travel, I managed to sneak in a week of holidays, travelling down to Melbourne with the Lad.  While there we caught up with long time gaming buddies Pete and Ken.  While at Ken's awesome Man Pad we sat down with the big box game Fortune and Glory.

Fortune and Glory is quite a fun game of classic pulp action: Indiana Jones, The Mummy, The Phantom etc.  We played a competitive version of the game (think Indiana Jones vs the French archeologist Belloch in Raiders of the Lost Arc) though there are rules for playing cooperatively to find the Secret Nazi base and other cool stuff like that

Naturally, cheesy quotes were a must on every turn (and every time sometime discovered a Nazi enemy, there were naturally obligated to say "Nazis. I hate these guys")

A fun game- not complex and with lots of great components in the massive box.  Because of its different modes and the way that different cards get put together to form the quests, it has a lot of deployability.

Highly recommended if you like Pulp action and this is the sort of game you can play for a few hours while chatting and enjoying a few adult beverages.  I understand there are a few expansions too, but I haven't seen those.

More detail here:
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/95103/fortune-and-glory-cliffhanger-game

New Gladiators

While a match of Jugula requires precisely four Gladiators on each team, in the campaign setting a Ludus may have up to six Gladiators, allowing for recuperation from wounds between matches and some armature/type diversity in the stables.  My Ludus Caeruleus (Blue School) already boasts a Thraex, Retiarius, Murmillo and Provocatur (see here) but I wanted additional redundancy.  So behold the latest additions to my retinue, fresh from the painting table.

First up is Nemo the Secutor, a heavy class sometimes known as the Contra-Retiarius (Foundry figure).  I cursed Alan constantly as I expended an inordinate amount of time hand painting the shield, but such is the standard of our gaming group - use decals to your eternal shame!

Second is the Dimarchearius Rufus Fortis (Foundry figure) who hails from northern Gaul and wields two blades for maximum offence. And with that red flowing beard he is clearly a favourite of the Patrician ladies...

And for a bit of a change here is a casualty figure.  I decided not to tempt fate by painting him in the colours of Ludus Caeruleus and instead left him generic.  Jugula doesn't use casualty figures, but we want to try adding them as additional obstacles as Gladiators fall (and no attacking them, this is an honourable and glorious contest you know!)

While the campaign with Alan is continuing, thats probably going to do me for this Ludus.
I'm keen to go with a different mix of types in a new Ludus, and with a new colour scheme too!

The familia of Ludus Caeruleus pause from training to pose for a publicity lithograph

KONFLIKT ‘47

I've been trying to limit my posts this year to reflect my own games and modelling, but this forthcoming Warlord release has me excited to get back to my WWW2 gaming.  Sounds like its more science based vice occult elements, but you can get your trusty Nazi Zombies into the fray!

Being based on the popular Bolt Action rules, it might also be a good catalyst to get some new blood into the Weird WW2 genre.  It available for pre-order now for an August release- see here

EDIT: Warlord have now also posted a Designer's Commentary here

A good week of gaming

Delighted to report that this has been a good week or so of hobby time for me. It started with a Dragon Rampart game between Slowpainter John's fantastic Chronopia Orcs and Dux's Saracens, now sporting a beautiful set of flying carpets and a kickass Djinn throwing spells everywhere.

I hadn't seen this game in action but quite liked the tweaks made to Lion Rampant to give it the fantasy twist without overdoing it.  If you aren'tt aware of it, there is a good online review here.

I oohed and ached over John's Saracen orcs sufficiently frequently that Dux invited me and the Orcs to go get a room.  The visuals that brought forth means that I will be taking out a civil action against that miscreant for gameplace bullying.

John's Orcs ganging up on Dux's Djinn

Then on Wed night at the Club we started our SAGA campaign.  Slow painter John's Anglo Saxons held off his Anglo-Dane enemy for a draw while taking quite a chunk out of the enemy retinue.

John again rolling a statistically unfeasible number of sixes to slay more hearth guard with...the supply cart!

Dux and I were both defending this turn and avoided any undue attention, so we took the opportunity to play Match 3 of our Jugula campaign.  Having only been in illegal arenas thus far, it was good this time to make an appearance in a Provincial arena and have a good purse up for grabs.  With my prized Provocator out with an injury from the last match, I took on a rookies Scissor into my Ludus Caeruleus to boost numbers.  Dux's Lupi Invicti sported his usual retinue, including the juggernaught Crupellarius.

The fight is on! The crowd go wild!

I managed to wound Dux's Murmillo and Secutor quickly but he rapidly struck back equally hard against my Thraex and Murmillo.  Shortly thereafter we finished off a wounded opponent each - the next gladiator to drop an opponent would claim victory.

This pic of my Thraex falling to Dux's Crupillarious is blurry because I was crying

I was then fortunate to pull a series of attacks which battered through the defences of Dux's wounded Secutor and thus I claimed the win and a very decent amount of coin.  As an interesting sidetone, it appears rather rare to have a combatant die in Jugula - the emphasis is on entertainment, not killing.  After 3 games we have yet to see a death.

A fun game and much quicker than our last bout too - we set ourselves a 1 hr time limit and finished with about a minute to go, so it worked well.

Dux's secutor falls to my Murmillo's blade - Victory to Ludus Caeruleus!

Last weekend also I finally got some pigment onto my FIW Ranger units (I bought the Northstar British Wilderness Force at Fall In last year).  I am happy with how they are coming along and hope to have them finished soon - pics to follow