Beers with a new Buddy

This week the stars finally aligned and I got to meet up with Alan of Dux Homunculorum fame (infamy?). And where do gamers go to meet up and have at good chat? Somewhere with beer of course!  Beverages, burgers and discussions on everything from travel to favourite gaming periods and blogs all naturally ensued.   Sadly, no Brian Blesseds were in attendance on this occasion.

Image courtesy of Dux-Cam

The hours flew past pretty quickly but we have some definite plans in place to trade gaming tutorials - he to learn Incursion and me to learn SAGA.  From what he tells me it would be right up my alley - I already have the figs and no doubt the Lad will be beating me at that soon too!  He also got me thinking (again) about Arthurian gaming with his tales of being a clever chap studying Late Roman History in Britannia.  Great to meet you Alan - looking forward to the next session!

Progress with APEs

These is my US Army A.P.E. (Armoured Personal Exo-system) squad from the boxed starter set I bought last year and am finally getting around to finishing.  The painting and decals are finished and the basic basing is complete.  I now need to dirty them up a bit (currently too clean for me!) and detail the bases.

Here are the first three. Left to Right are HMG APE with .50 cal, Blazer APE with Flamethrower, and Grunt APE with drum fed Browning.30 cal MG

Next Three: Sarge APE (I still need to find a decal with some stripes/chevrons), "Slugger Murphy" with his .50cal pistol, and another Grunt APE with .30 Cal MG

These six APEs are all from the basic set.  There is also a Bazooka version from the SNAFU expansion, but I don't have that model.  Anyone got any good tips for reducing the shininess of the decals?

Doomsday Devices

No Cultists worth their salt are without a Doomsday device, and the Scions of the Eternal Tentacle are no exception!  Here is their newly completed Doomsday Device and its power supply, ready for deployment: Bwahahahah!

These are actually resin terrain pieces for the game Incursion, made by Fenris Games.  Fenris made a range of really awesome stuff, and I got them in Australia from Martin at Little Soldiers.  They are wonderfully detailed and were great fun to paint.

Day Out at NWA

The boys had a day out on Saturday to attend the Nunawading Wargames Association Open Day in Croydon.  We attended last year too (http://tasmancave.blogspot.com/2010/08/what-weekend.html) and again had some fun and enjoyed the trade stands.

It was as good as always to catch up with the effervescent Nic Robson from Eureka Miniatures, and I enjoyed an up close view of his mighty Flakosaurus (http://tasmancave.blogspot.com/2011/06/new-dinotruppen.html).  We also caught up with Mike from Battlefield Accessories (who made the trees I did earlier this year:  http://tasmancave.blogspot.com/2011/06/man-cave-revegetation-project.html) and Martin from Little Soldiers in Adelaide who again sold me more WWW2 stuff.  The Lad was sheepishly chuffed when Martin recognised him from the blog and greeted him with "this must be the famous Lad!".  Martin had lots of goodies as always and I particularly liked his unusually coloured Pazergaffe, shown above.

Also very eye catching was the SOTR demo table by Benny and TheHatGuy.  Their table and its wonderful detail was a source of wonder for many trying to find the various details (including Green Lantern Dr Who, Zombie Where's Wally, Predator, just to name a few).  Here are just a few glimpses of the awesomeness:

The Lad and I had a chance to play a Quick game of DBA, him with Egyptians and me with Hittites.  Here is the game...

Until those Egyptian chariots slammed into my flank, killed my General and the Lad was Victorious!

Other nice tables abounded, here are some I got pics of before my camera decided it had had enough for the day...

Shopping acquisitions included:

- Incursion SNAFU expansion book

- a boxed set of US A.P.E. figs for Incursion

- 7 Blood Bowl Dwarf figs

- A set of resin palisades for  my Dark Age village, from Battlefield Miniatures

- a set a Rendra plastic gravestones

- some trees and flock bits

- bits and bobs of spare bits for modelling projects, including the makings of the new "Man Cave Bowl" trophy!

- the Lad was thrilled to grab a GW Minotaur for his planned Chaos BB team

- went home with a lonely 50 cent piece in my wallet, so it must have been a good day!

I have updated by 2011 Purchases summary here:  http://tasmancave.blogspot.com/p/2010-purchases.html

Thanks to all at NWA for a fun day out!  You can see more pics of the day here:

http://www.nwa.org.au/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=302:games11&catid=63:past-open-details&Itemid=214

Incursion Expansion Pre-Order

SNAFU is is now available for Pre-Order!  Nice
Aussies - we go through Little Soldiers (cant see it there yet but it will be soon I'm sure)

The 64 page full color perfect bound SNAFU takes the game to the next level. It contains the following mayhem, madness, and badness:
- 19 new missions to add to the 7 infinitely replayable missions provided in the boxed game. These include solo play, expanded  two  player, and multi-player options . There are also    missions that utilize both sides of the board simultaneously...at last!
- Rules for a host of new (and old) models including MI-13, German SWD, and Lucky Seventh upgrades.
- Up to date FAQ
-  Extraordinary model imagery
- Loads of new fictional bits, background, and character: all the grittiness and thematic triumph you've come to expect from the Grindhouse.

Some nice new minis on the way too - check out the WIP pics at the Grindhouse site below 
http://www.grindhousegames.com/blogs/incursion-blog/2970962-bend-over-and
http://anatolisgameroom.blogspot.com/2011/04/snafu-incursion-expansion-pre-order.html

3D Incursion Board

Just stunning.  I'm envious as hell at Herrodadog's skill, patience and determination - Bravo!

http://thehistoricalminiaturist.blogspot.com/search/label/Incursion

Group North Historical Wargaming Society Open Day

Last Sunday was my gaming clubs Annual Open Day here in Adelaide. The primary aims were to showcase the games the clubs members play and to attract new members. The day was pretty successful in both regards, certainly helped in all endeavours by the various traders we had along as well. The club also ran its own second hand stall from items donated throughout the year by various members. Warhammer Ancient Battles King Arthur rules.... The pics below are from a playtest game using rules developed for these pre production figures by Eureka Miniatures.. The Trafalgar rules have proven pretty popular at the club...here the English Fleet are attempting to destroy the French Harbour..my arch nemesis Greg was commanding the French Fleet, and last I looked was recieving a right proper English spanking... A bit of Fields of Glory action, can't go past some Romans in 28mm now can you? Wings of War in action on a Hotz Game mat...how we marveled as they climbed, how we ooohed as they dove, how we applauded when one chap got cut in half by his own propellor... This War of the Ring display recreated a scene in the second Lords of the Ring movie when the Orcs are ambushed...apparently..I was just bamboozled by the number of (painted) models!! Finishing off with some Wierd WW2 and Incursion love...apologies for the out of focus pic....

Incursion reviews

Its becoming a bit of a review link fest here lately, but there is now Incursion game review posted here:
http://superflycircus.blogspot.com/2010/09/incursion-is-it-wrong-to-love-crushing.html

and a review of the models here:
http://wargameguru.weebly.com/review---incursion-models-from-grindhouse-games.html

I really enjoyed this game, and now you have no excuse not to go hunting Nazi zombies in the catacombs under Gibraltar too!

Game-fest!

What do you do when SWMBO and the Lass go interstate for the weekend, leaving the boys at home? Invite all your mates over for a weekend long games-fest of course!



Day 1: Owen and Ken arrived.  Lots of stooging about, some modelling and painting, general catching up, lots of coffee. Played Zombies with much hillarity.  Typically, the big boys stabbed each other in the back so much that the Lad won, but it really was anybody's game right to the end.

After that it was time for some Memoir 44, being a demo game of the Pegasus Bridge scenario for Ken who liked the ancients version of command and colours a few weeks back at Little Wars.

 




Day 2: Peter joined us, bringing 'Conquest of the Empire', which is very much like Shogun but in an Ancient Med theatre.  I was Mesopotamia and spent most of the game locked in a WW1 like war of attrition with Owen who held the Eastern Med.

I allied with Rome who expanded Westwards to historical effect, defeating the lad in Hispania by mid-game.  Egypt then swung round to smash into me with Owen and a ball was had ball all.  Roman Pete was declared Caesar of the known world by the end of a six hour game, with the alliances, back stabbing, execution of prisoners etc being an inevitable highlight!

Lesson - don't trust Pete and his 'it will only take an hour' games,but it was a real blast!

After Dinner, Space hulk, MissionV: Decoy.  I hadn't played this one before and Ken and I played Marines vs the Lad and Owen as the 'Stealers. Tightly fought game all the way and the Marines took 50% casualties to rackup 50 kills and get 5 marines off the board.  Stealers needed to roll a 6 to win, which the Lad promptly did!



After supper, Owen hosted an Infinity demo game for Ken and I which I really enjoyed but still haven't quite got my head around some of the mechanics yet.  Some beautiful figs and I'm very, very tempted to do a small high-tech unit with a small number of figures.



Day 3.  After watching the Lad play an early game of footy, we headed back for Incursion.  Played the intro scenario with Owen and I driving the APEs vs Reilly and Ken being the Zombie masters.  We won (barely) as the second one scampered off the board leaving one dead buddy behind and pursued by a horde of screaming Germanic undead (PS the only game I won all weekend!) Then it was time to packup and clean up before the girls got home.



As always, great times, great company and it was over far too quickly - too quickly to get any pics in fact!  Didnt watch any war movies (very unlike us), my background themed music for each games had really good effect, and Man Cave Brewery products flowed!  Owen calculated it as around 18hrs of tabletop time, not counting other time spent discussing gaming or modelling - Sweet!

Another Year Older!

Yes, it was my birthday yesterday.

I spent the day being spoiled by the kids (SWMBO is overseas with work) and lazing around.
I made some beer, played Ivanhoe and Incursion with the Lad, then watched some episodes of Enterprise and Godzilla vs MechGodzilla (my favorite kaiju movie- who couldn't love an 'absolute zero gun'?).

Got a few people coming over for brewery samplings this weekend, and then next week some lads coming for a gaming weekend (are you all packed yet Owen?) so the celeberations will continue!

Sadly, Spearpoint 43 hasnt arrived yet.  Guess that will be a ray of sunshine for another day!

Little Soldiers

There is now an Australian retailer for Incursion and Secrets of the Third Reich: Little Soldiers in South Australia. I met Martin from Little Soldiers recently at Little Wars- a great fellah who is planning on putting on a Demo game in Melbourne in August, which will be a hoot and I'm looking forward to it already of course!

So Aussies should drop by Litle Soldiers for all your SoTR and Incursion needs!
http://www.littlesoldiers.com.au/