Megablox Carrier

Back at the beginning go the pandemic, I picked up an old Megablox aircraft carrier set (the USS Kitty Hawk). It had some 1700 pieces and I finally got around to building it this weekend. The final model is about three-feet long and is maybe 1/450 scale?

This was a bear of a model to put together and Megablox are almost, but not quite, as good as Lego.

There were several places where the instructions included this icon (below). Which appears to be Brick for "this next step looks slick on the CAD rendering, but sucks shit in real life, sorry bro".

I had to call in reinforcements at one point because I was just out of gas and my hands were sore.

The decals on the model had been applied but then pulled loose (instead of being cut cleanly) when the model was disassembled. Some decals were okay (around the edges of the elevators) but the flight deck decals were a mess. I eventually stripped them, masked, and painted replacements.

This kit really took me back to high school gaming with old Tente sets. We'd play 7th fleet confrontations. My teacher had two carriers (which were out of my price range!) so I played the Soviet side. And we lost and lost and lost. The US would always find us first and then pummel us with their air strikes until we'd finally spot them and send a ragged volley of missiles from what was left.

Until I noticed the US plan was always the same and used it to predict their search path and their location. We managed to get off two volleys before they found us. We brought glory to the Soviet empire that day, sinking one carrier while a second and an aegis cruiser had to be towed to port. Hope the flyboys enjoyed ditching their tomcats and hornets! That was also the last time we played, I think.

Anyhow, a fun throw back. Not sure what I'm going to so with this now though.

Up next: More Russians for the Crimea.

Christmas Eve Terror

The guys at the club let me run a winter-themed game for our last session of the year.  I always wanted to use the huge lego ship my daughter got for a birthday present and I figured it looked enough like the HMS Terror that it would do.

The scenario was basically capture the treasure-chest lost for generations aboard the ice-bound HMS Terror. For Team Buffy, it contains the Book of Sorrow, for Team Vader it contained the location of the rebel base, Team Hogwarts was after a Horocrux and Team Santa wanted the deed for mineral rights under the pole (since toy manufacturing was booming untenable).

The boat was surrounded by frozen zombie crew (who thawed out as the game progressed) and was in the hands of four terrifying villains: President Cheeto, the Grinch, Henry Ford and Marie Osmond. The ice was thawing (we placed blue water cards each turn that interrupted movement). I made provision for a five player game but with only four, we ran the villains as NPCs.

The first two turns saw some movement (zzzz...) and some fighting between Santa and the little witches. Due to the darkness, figures could only see three card lengths ahead of them.

Suddenly, Buffy was up on the poop deck grabbing for the chest! This galvanize the rest of the players to dog pile on Terry. The card mechanic in Tribal means that even unsuccessful attacks can cost an inactivated figure its turn and Buffy spent a lot of time fending off attacks! The blue cards are growing areas of water as the ice cap melts.

Team Vader wisely stayed out of the fray and let the rest of us duke it out. The stormtroopers were shooter gangs (so largely useless) but Vader was a very powerful figure.

There was much combat on the ship: below Buffy fights off Mrs. Weasley.

The Yeti dusted Trump and everyone cheered. Terry was given a time out for puns.

Intermittent fighting between Hogwarts and Santa continued with Hermoine putting the boots to a jolly old elf (so much for elf liberation).

Eventually Vader got ready and jumped up on the ship...

 ...and proceeded to cut through every other character like a hot lightsaber through padawan. With no one left to fight him, Vader made off with the chest and was declare the winner. Some cagey play by Scott. terrain was good. I'm not sure the scenario was all that interesting But there was lots of fun with the placement of water cards.

Mike and Chen played some Crossfire, with a British attack being beaten back (I think) in the hedgerows of Normandy.

Up next: Some more 15mm WW2.

Hallowe'en Pulp Alley at the Rocky Cove Cemetery

We had eight guys out at the club this week. There was a game of Commands & Colors Napoleonics and I ran a Hallowe'en-themed game of Pulp Alley using some not-Lego figures I've collected.

The premise was that an all-night rave in the Rocky Cove cemetery has gone (predictably) wrong with four groups of zombies chasing 20 costumed party goers across the table (4 of whom are actually horrifying henchmen and minor plot points). The major plot appears when all four henchmen have been unmasked.

Enter four groups of adventurers who have all been brought to the cemetery on slightly different missions.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Big Bad has come to Rocky Cove and you’ve tracked him to an all-night rave in the local cemetery. But packs of zombies are terrifying the young party-goers! Your mission:

• Kill the Big Bad (5 points, Big Bad appears after 4 hidden servants are revealed)
• Giles debunks “ghost busting” (2 points, contact ghostbuster, win cunning check)
• Kill a zombie (1 point each; zombies melee as 1d6 characters but no shooting)

Scooby-Doo Gang: Daphne has been kidnapped by Old Man Corker! You’ve tracked her to an all-night rave in the Rocky Cove cemetery. But packs of zombies are terrifying the young party-goers! Your mission:

• Rescue Daphne (5 points, Old Man Corker appears after 4 hidden henchmen are revealed)
• Fred get Buffy to go with him (2 points, contact her and win cunning check, if successful, Buffy paralyzed for one turn)
• Save a teen (1 point each, contact teen, they join your character, if character knocked down at end of game, teens don’t count)

Ghostbusters: Gozer is set to appear at an all-night rave in the Rocky Cove cemetery. But packs of zombies are terrifying the young party-goers! Your mission:

• Kill Gozer (5 points, Gozer appears after 4 hidden key bearers are revealed)
• Recruit Sheldon to join Ghostbusters (2 points, contact him and win cunning check, if successful, Sheldon joins your team)
• Kill a zombie (1 point each; zombies melee as 1d6 characters but no shooting)

Big Bang Theory: Wolowitz has been kidnapped by Adolf Hitler! You’ve tracked them to an all-night rave in the Rocky Cove cemetery. But packs of zombies are terrifying the young party-goers! Your mission:

• Rescue Wolowitz (5 points, Hitler appears after 4 hidden henchmen are revealed)
• Sheldon debunks “Scooby-Snacks” (2 points, contact Scooby and win cunning check, if successful, Scooby’s health drops one level)
• Save a teen (1 point each, contact teen, they join your character, if character knocked down at end of game, teens don’t count).

Things opened a bit chaotically with the Big Bang Theory (BBT) discovering a defeating one of the four henchmen right out of the gate. The zombies shuffled about, chasing this costumed Trump impersonator into the hands of the BBT.

Meanwhile, the Scooby-Doo Gang (SDG) entered the board and tried to rescue some teens and find some fiends. Roikes! Ghostbusters (GB) and Buffy the Vampire Slayer (BVS) were doing like-wise.

The four areas of perilous terrain gave everyone fits throughout the game. Above, we see Xander (BVS) trapped in the cemetery trying to rescue a costumed red-coat from a horde of Zeds.  In the end, the teen and Xander bite it, but Buffy returned to kick butt.

The BBT whisked the Trump teen away but left poor Sheldon to face down a horde by himself. He had amazingly lucky dodge and health check rolls and survived the game. Not like poor Raj... .

I didn't get a picture of it, but Giles (BVS) managed to debunk ghostbusting for two points. Both BVS and GBs spent a lot of time farming zombies for points (which opened up the board).

The SDG had lots of trouble taking down the fiendish cop as Scooby got scared (and Fred and Shaggy were useless). A Scooby snack eventually got him back in the game.

At about this point, there was one fiend left to find and most of the teens had been rescued. The unmasking of the fourth fiendish henchman saw the appearance of the the major plot point as Hitler/Gozer/BigBad/Old Man Corker stepped out of statue, revealing both Daphne and Wolowitz tied to a bomb.

Then the race was on to with kill Hitler or rescue the hostages. Hitler's goal was to get off board but his own movement was slowed by his tiny legs (Stump-troopen, quipped Terry). Fortunately a motorcycle was dispatched to snatch him up.

Unfortunately for Hitler (something I never thought I'd write), Buffy stuck a stick in the spokes and the motorcycle crashed. She then returned to laying a beating on the Gorgon. Meanwhile, Freddy snuck up behind her and successfully asked her out (winning a cunning roll), stunning her for a turn.

Back at Deadman's Curve, Hitler is fending off various shooting attacks. As the dice would have it, he was slowly being driven back towards the board edge he needed to exit off of.

In the end, the SDG was able to pass the major plot point and rescued Daphne from the ticking bomb just as Hitler exited the board. This ended the game, about 20 minutes ahead of the 2-hour limit I had imposed.

The teams counted up victory points and Terry (SDG) won with nine points. I think Bruce (GB) was next with 8 and Dan (BVS) was third with 7. Richard (BBT) came fourth (don't recall his total). Thanks Chen for stepping in to run the bad guys.

Overall, better than past pulp alley games. Smaller teams and a smaller board helped (as did whipping the players to keep the game moving). There was too much terrain (especially linear terrain) and not enough opportunity for the players to interact. But live and learn (or not, if you're Raj or Xander...).

Mixed bag of troops and terrain

No gaming this week, sadly. Staying in theme, I have a ghoulish collection of miscellaneous pieces painted up.

First up are four old West End Games 25mm stormtroopers that I somehow missed in my massive rebasing efforts a year or so ago.

I have picked up a few pieces from Red Claw from the WizKids pre-primed sets. This includes two doors and a bunch of treasure chests.

I also bought some oxen and then struggled to paint them. Not happy with result but tired of looking at them so I finished the bases.

The postman delivered some more ghoulish not-Lego figures. No idea where they are from or when I ordered them. I presume an impulse buy during a terrible faculty council meeting.

Up next: Probably some more 54mm troops.

Zomtober: Roh, Roh... Lego Zombies

For the past few years, my buddy Terry has participated in the "Zomtober" painting challenge (which seems to boil down to painting some zombies in October). I have some underway but thought I'd get in on week 1 with some not-Lego zombies I picked up awhile back.

There are basically six poses that I tried to vary by swapping heads, hair and accessories. The nice thing about the minifigures is that the zombie heads can be swapped in with virtually any body to create zombie version of that figure.

Our conclusion was that the brown thing some of them are holding is a cupcake or muffin, not poop. YMMV.

And, of course, if you have zombies, you gotta have some zombie fighters. Enter the real Scooby gang. Also not-Lego. These seem to be based on the recent movie, rather than the old TV show.

Up next: More zombies, this time from the Zombicide game.

Not-Lego pirates

This summer, I passed the time during an excruciating work phone meeting on eBay and I ran across a bunch of not-Lego mini figures. 

While I have no real interest in pirates, I do have an idea for a Christmas game of Pulp Alley involving a sailing ship.

These guys helped me flesh out the crew of said ship at a very low cost.

As I mull what to do with them, I have a Hallowe'en game to plan for the third week of October.

Here's hoping my not-Lego haunted house arrives in time.

Who you gonna call?

I picked a few more not-Lego figures for gaming this week. First up were some Ghostbusters. These were a bear to assemble as the complicated backpacks had no instructions. Fortunately, google was a big help.

I also picked up some Big Bang minis. Below is Howard, Bernadette, Raj and Stuart.

And Sheldon, Amy, Leonard and Penny.

Up next: Likely some more 15mm Battlelore figures.