Song of Blades and Heroes Bash

Skeletal undead prepare to slay the living

We had a party and later in the evening an impromptu Song of Blades and Heroes game broke out. Terrain was thrown down quickly, random warbands hit the table and the soon the classic scenario "just kill everybody else" was under way.

We had five warbands:

• Vampire with wolves and ghouls
• Wraith with skeletons and wights
• Alchemist with frankenstein monsters
• Dwarf Orcslayer with cavalry and scouts
• Cleric with undead hunters

A ghoul and wolves screen their vampire lord

Dwarven cavalry race to intercept their enemies

Alchemical golems batter their way through the woods

I could detail the shifting alliances, brokered power deals, backstabbing and double crosses, but I don't think even I kept it straight. 

A three sided battle breaking out, dwarves facing down golem and skeletons on the left,
with holy undead hunters fending off a wraith atop the hill

The wraith takes on the currently allied dwarves and undead hunters.

Wolves charge the newly allied undead hunters and golems after they slew the wraith

Essentially three groups ganged up on the dwarves, but when the table realized the vampire was hanging back. the melee cluster gradually worked its way towards him to make sure he couldn't simply pick off the wounded winners of the grand melee. Which he did anyway. 

The vampire lord wades into a battle, his ghouls having broken through the Allies' front line.

Still, fun game, easy to teach, and great to play when food and drink are flowing liberally. 

I Think I Might Be a Reptile

Like much of the country, the Washington DC area has been crushed by icy weather delivered directly from the arctic this winter. Bundling up and shivering all day distracted me from anything but the most minimal progress on hobby projects. A few days ago Jack Frost failed his morale check and we got a break in the chill, reaching a delightful "several" degrees above freezing. Like a snake warmed by the summer sun, I've finally shaken off my torpor and gotten back to painting and gaming.

I've got a number of projects underway. I'm about halfway through Henry Hyde's "Wargaming Compendium " and he's as cheerful and enthusiastic in writing as he was on the "View from the Veranda" podcast (R.I.P.).

Building off my SAGA Norman warband, I'm expanding the cavalry with the hopes of eventually having a full Norman 1st Crusade or Italo-Norman army. I might have to press them into service as Riders of Rohan or something before the army is finished though just to get them on the table. The horses have their oil coat drying which will take a few days, so it's on to the riders next.

I also finally dug into my Dwarven Forge dungeon kickstarter. Holy Smokes! So many pieces, much quality, wow. This stuff is great. I've only unpacked a third of my order, but it was enough for my son and I to play Dungeon Crawl Junior for several hours. I've ordered the Pokorny Paints to avoid any frustrations with tackiness or mixing custom colors, and I'm looking forward to getting these painted up.

We're also having friends stay with us next week, and my wife has already planned a game day with them to celebrate their arrival. Not sure what we'll get on the table, but I have a feeling there will be lots of miniatures and dice at some point.

Reaper Bones Kobolds

I polished off a dozen kobolds from the first Reaper Bones kickstarter. Their small size made their details feel even shallower than some of the other Bones figures I've painted up, but the wash helped pull out their features. I still felt like I was guessing when picking out things like their teeth, but they should be serviceable as dungeon chumps for the players to cut down.

I glued them to washers and extended the dungeon floring they were standing on with some milliput sculpted to look like flagstones. I suppose they turned out ok, but I looking forward to getting back to some metal or plastic historicals next.

Easing back into painting with Reaper Bones Beetles

We're moved in, the holidays have wrapped up, but I'm still unpacking and setting up our new house. Happily, I managed to get a bit of painting done: a pair of Reaper Bones beetles. Not too impressive, but it's nice to be able to get back to the hobby finally.

George and Ringo

Happy New Years! Let's invade Russia!

Smash Up! Fun, but
5-year olds get
analysis paralysis

So are "games for New Year's Eve" a new tradition or something I've just aged into? My son insisted on a game of Smash Up after I got home from work on the 31st (pretty fun game, although I haven't figured out the trick to getting the Wizards to be useful yet). After we wrapped up, we piled into the car and went to a family party (kids downstairs, 'rents upstairs) where various party games were broken out. After we returned home to put our boy to sleep, my wife and I broke out "Command and Colors: Ancients" for its inaugural game, finishing up just before the ball dropped.

The next day I joined my buddies for our 2nd annual Axis & Allies game. Checking my various social media feeds after getting home I saw tons of game playing across the board, even by people who aren't "gamers" per se. Even a bunch of coworkers broke out Catan and Cards Against Humanity for the New Year. Is this a trend, or is everyone I know just old and ditching the drinking (and subsequent hangovers) for quieter pursuits?

Wrapping up 2013

It's the end of the year. Time to wrap up what I managed to accomplish in 2013 and make some plans for 2014.

I'll need to find time to polish off this monster in 2014 too!

Painting Totals for 2013 

28mm foot: 111, 28mm mounted: 17 which is about half of what I knocked out last year. It was an eventful year with a move to a new house and a new job which didn't leave a lot of time for painting. Hoping to get back to 2012 totals in 2014.

I failed to get up to 6 divisions per side for Hail Caesar, but I did manage to get a pair of basic forces for SAGA completed, and I made a dent on my Reaper Bones. I also managed to resist adding new periods to the lead pile which is good, and with a mountain if lead already on hand I think I'm going to focus on getting it painted up.

Games Played: 6 
One fewer than last year! Again, I spent 5 months in temporary housing with no room for wargaming. That said, we did play quite a bit of King of Tokyo and Pandemic. I'm quite eager to push some lead around in the new year.

Conventions: 1 
Urgh! Scheduling this year really put a crimp in convention attendance (we moved into our new house during Fall In), but I did manage to get a few new friends to join us for Historicon and they're already making plans to attend again this summer. So overall I count that as a win :)

Games to Play in 2014 

SAGA
I finally have enough painted figures to give SAGA a try. It's long been my back burner side project, and I would have preferred to get some dark ages battles before the game line had wrapped up it's entire run. Still, I've heard lots of good things about SAGA, and the demos I've played at cons have been fun, so I'm looking forward to take a deeper dive into the rules.

Fireball Forward
I've really enjoyed every game of Fireball Forward I've played at cons, and my buddy Mike and I are jonesing to get it on the table. My soviets are ready to go, and Mike's Germans are nearly so. We just need to get them finished up and a few of the markers and flags necessary for the game and we can give an infantry game a whirl. I'd like to get some tanks on the table too (something I think Fireball Forward does well), so hoping I can get both some panzers and T-34's put together and painted up quickly too.

Hail Caesar 
We have a good handle on the rules, but Mike and I have been talking about making a few adjustments. I think we're both ready to move beyond straight up slugging matches, but our first attempts at scenarios pulled from the old Tabletop Teasers weren't quite satisfying. We're also thinking of trying a fantasy version of Hail Caesar as well.

Command and Colors: Ancients 
I picked up the board game this summer, hoping to get my ancients fix while in temporary housing awaiting the completion of our home. Only got as far as getting the stickers applied, but I'm hoping to get in a few games, albeit with a full hex marked table and 28mm figures rather than the blocks and board.

Dungeon Delves 
I've got quite a few of the Reaper Bones figures painted (and many, many more to go) plus an unopened box of Dwarven Forge terrain. Looking forward to doing some orc bashing with my son, and I'm pretty sure my regular game group will want a few sessions of dungeoneering as well. Not sure if we'll use Song of Blades and Heroes, an expanded version of
Dungeon Crawl Junior, or good ol' DnD.

Battleship 
I don't mean the one with the white and red pegs. I played a pretty fun WWII naval game at the last Historicon, and I've quite suddenly gotten the urge to do some spaceship gaming too. I like the idea of a simple felt cloth and a handful of vessels duking it out, but I'm not quite sure what period or theme I'd like to tackle yet.

Dungeon Crawl Junior

We're finally getting settled into our new home and with our Christmas shopping and parties wrapped up I managed to get some minis on the table. My son and I have messed about with a variety of D&D type games, but no matter how simple I tried to tweak the rules, they always still felt too complicated. I did some on-the-fly game creation this afternoon that stripped them down to the bare minimum and had two hours of fun with the boy today. He was able to internalize the rules quickly and ran a dungeon crawl for me for over an hour. Details on dungeon crawling for kindergartners after the jump.