Industrial Showdown - Dredd

First of all, sorry for the lack of posting lately. It's been a difficult and busy time of year, what with moving houses and attending an interview for the next level of my university (which I've thankfully passed). I'll be off to Cornwall on the 3rd of June for holiday, which is a few days after the next club meeting, so content may continue to be a bit sparse until I'm back. I haven't given up on the blog however, so do watch this space!

So, as mentioned in the previous post a few games of Dredd were played throughout the afternoon of the last club meet. David brought along some lovely modular terrain that was themed around industrial walkways and towers. Certainly set the theme as a pair of Judges, one a street judge and the other a rookie judge, descend into the smog filled industrial zone of the city to investigate a disturbance...

Below are some pictures I managed to snatch during the game. The terrain is yet to be painted, but you can imagine how it will look when the decaying metal is painted upon it.

Two gang members sneak under the tower

looking to flank the street judge

Out of all games played, I think I was the only player who managed to win as the gang. The judges have brutal weaponry including execution and explosive rounds. With high armour saves they're no push overs. In the end however, I managed to kill both judges with my stub gun, which hasn't got a great chance of hitting but when it does you know all about it as it launches the target back 1d6 inches and inflicts impact damage.

Some more shots from the game

Stealth is the way forward!

The street judge is blown back by

the stub gunner, pictured 

below with heavy gun

Stub gunner MVP!

It was an enjoyable game. I found the balancing a little odd. Having watched Adam play the gang against David's judges, and seeing them be destroyed by turn 3, though they did take out the rookie judge. However when I played, having split my gang up in two directions, it felt that the judges were very hard pressed to win. The rules state that a judge must try to arrest a criminal before they can open fire. If the target fails the will save against the arrest, then they are taken off as a casualty, to spend their lives in the terrible confines of the megacity correctional facilities. If they resist the arrest, the judge's action is wasted but they can then kill that criminal. And this is where the balancing felt a bit odd.

Once they had permission to open fire, the judges execution or explosive rounds made short work of the gang members who only had knives or antique revolvers...
But when the gang split up and went down the sides and the judges can only attempt so many arrests per turn, I managed to effectively get into close range with many combatants before the judges could do much about it. Of course I don't think this is terribly unbalanced, it is true to the lore of Dredd and for that I'm thankful and it was a thoroughly enjoyable game, so thanks to David for hosting and Adam for playing the judges against me!

So what's next?
Well, I'm still to start on LOTR painting, with real life getting in the way (boo!) But I do have a bit of spare time today and I'm eyeing up the minis... The club meet on the 1st, so I have that to look forward to, with a game of WFB arranged with me controlling some Greenskins forces. I'll also take my Lotr down for battle companies or matched play, as well as the next scenario in our FOTR journey book campaign. So at the very least I'll have those to post!

Thanks for reading, I'll see you next time!

Bolt Action Fun

On the 4th, as mentioned in the previous post, I had a Bolt Action game with Adam.

I had played first addition a long time ago, but only 7-8 games. Surprisingly I remembered the rules pretty well, and having read the second edition rulebook quite extensively recently, we decided on a nice 750 points straight forward battle to ease into the rules.

I took Brits, with no real theme just yet. Once I've got the paint needed for my units which I shall be ordering in the next few days, I'll be creating an army themed on Operation Market Garden, with "A Bridge Too Far" being my favourite film, and a Brother's In Arms game I used to play a lot also being set in that operation.

A Bridge Too Far

fantastic film!

For this small game I opted for:
First Lt with pistol
2 riflemen

Free forward artillery observer

Regular rifle squad of 10 men with Bren gun and Thompson for NCO
Veteran Commando's squad with 2 Thompson, Bren gun and 7 rifles

Regular medium mortar team with spotter

Regular Cromwell.
Nothing too crazy, but the force allows me to try out vehicles (with one of my favourite tanks of WW2!) veteran infantry and regular, and how various artillery works via mortar and artillery observer.

Not too familiar with German units, but roughly Adam took
Regular 2nd Lt with 2 men, all with assault rifles

Regular medium mortar team with spotter

Medium mmg team

Regular Puma
Regular half track of some kind with auto cannons

2 x regular infantry squads with all sorts of nasty weapons

I'm pretty sure that's it.

We set up the game with a multitude of terrain with no real theme, to allow me to learn just how useful the differing cover, and the hindering of certain terrains slot into the game. We had fields, plantations, orchards, ruins, hills, craters and even a marsh!

Below are a few photos of the game, but again as it was a demo I didn't take enough to qualify for a full battle report. This is something I intend to do with games when I have a fully painted and based force for it (or at least as much as possible) and a handle on the rules, so that I do not slow down the game even further.

The Brits, opposing the Jerry!

(We couldn't find a green mat, and since time was pressing on

we opted to use the black gaming mat. It turned up just as we were 

putting the scenery away!)

Having taken a few losses, the British show

the Nazi's what for, and take out 4 in a single

barrage of rifle fire!

The Puma, keeping the flank of the

Nazi Mmg team secure, until...

The Cromwell puts it out of action!

Around half way into the game, the Puma having been taken out by the Cromwell, we were informed that Barry's birthday cake had been cut. It couldn't have been better timing, and with cake and tea on my side as any good British commander should have, I pressed on and managed to all but eliminate the half track and an infantry squad. My infantry squad in the orchard (see picture 2) was reduced to 3 men.

And at that we called it. Excellent I thought, I'd managed to somehow win my first game! It was hard fought, and without an objective a lot of the game was spent sniping from behind heavy cover. This did make for a drawn out game but it was fun and didn't feel like it had overstayed it's welcome.
I picked up many tips and tricks along the way and after the performance of the Cromwell, which managed to pin an infantry squad repeatedly throughout the game, and destroy the Puma, I definitely want to add another for higher points games.

Off to research Operation Marker Garden now then, to ensure I theme my force around it accurately(ish)!

In my next post I'll be going over the Dredd game I had with Adam and David, which was very enjoyable and a blast from the past.

Until next time!

May the 4th be with you

May the 4th arrives, which just so happens to be a club day! I'd arranged a game of Bolt Action with Adam, having obtained a Cromwell from a charity shop, built in a not too bad condition for £3, and a box of British infantry, commando unit and a medium mortar team from Warlord Games. I was racing to put together the infantry even at 1am on the day of the club meet! But this had me thinking. I'm not a massive Starwars fan. Sure, I've watched most of the films, played many of the games and I would consider myself to be a fan, but I'll still be hard pressed to remember some of the lesser characters names, or where certain events took place planet wise etc. But it was May the 4th, I couldn't pass the opportunity to play one of the many Starwars table top systems! so with that in mind, I contacted member Andy, and set up a demo of Legion.

We played a small game, and the rules were easy enough to pick up after a few turns of playing. It seemed to be a mix of Bolt Action's initiative, Infinite's actions system, and a few other systems. I didn't take too many photos as I tried to learn, and didn't want to miss anything Andy was teaching.

I chose to play as the Rebel Alliance, and had Luke Skywalker leading a few squads of rebel troopers and a walker. Andy was left controlling Darth Vader, some storm troopers (who were surprisingly accurate compared to the films) and two speeder bikes.

The objective was simple, for every army leader and squad leader within movement 1 of the objective at the end of turn 3, 5 and so on, would receive 2 Vps (Victory Points).

Below are the pictures I did mange to take

Rebel Alliance troopers advance

on a holocron left by spies.

On turn one, I advanced my trooper squad into the crater which counted as hard cover, before opening fire on a storm trooper squad. I was shown just how deadly shooting can be as I left the squad with 2 men, giving me a very early advantage.

Battle is met as Luke chargers Vader

the Rebel troopers hunker down behind cover

Luke is felled! as Imperial Speed Bikes charge

the squad in the crater...

Ending positions, with my squad leader within 1 movement

of the objective holocron...

The game was called around turn 5, by which I'd lost Luke and a squad, but downed Vader, Speed bikes, and all but one storm trooper squads. A very fun game it was! And a well fought victory for the Rebels! And it's easy to see, with all the various upgrade cards you can put on your squads and heroes, that it can definitely be in depth and tactical. This concerns me in terms of my interest slightly. I tried X-wing a few years ago with work friends, and found that it quickly became who could stack the best combos and remember the best cards for their ships etc, and it definitely became a more elitist community in my local area. I hope that Legion isn't the same. We will see, as I plan on attending a few events to see how games are played in a more competitive scene shortly.

As for the rest of the day, I played my Bolt Action game with Adam, and then a small skirmish of Dredd, hosted by David. I'll post both of them in a later post!

I've also found myself really busy lately, and have had very little time to do any painting unfortunately, and it looks set to get even busier as May the 22nd approaches, a time close to me and my partner as we spend the week in Manchester, and away from minis (Though I'll be heading into Warhammer there for sure!). This does mean however that I have both time to accumulate the rest of the paints needed for the Fellowship, paints needed for Bolt Action Brits, and a new determination to actually paint what I have! So that's the plan;
Bide my time, gain what I need, and try to curb the mounting lead pile of unpainted quickly before it has time to grow!

We'll see how long we stick to this plan...

As always, thanks for reading!
Until next time, dear reader.