HAPPY NEW YEAR

Wishing everybody a happy and prosperous 2023.

Best wishes for the coming year.

Kill Team - Tau Hunter Cadre Photo-Shoot

Bit of a photo op this time around as I have been playing about with the old camera to see if I could improve on my miniature photography skills a bit.

Mixed results and going to play about a lot more, mainly learning on how my camera works, but having fun in the learning.

My chosen topic this time around was with my Tau Hunter Cadre for Kill Team as these were readeily to hand as I've been mainly playing 2nd Ed Kill Team at the club recently, so they presented a ready subject to snap at.

Quite pleased with the photo results but more to play about with both in subject and technique and decide what I'm most happy with.

Think the photo results had a better turn out that the Hunter Cadre have had on the table top, but that's another story.

As my results on the table top with the current team set-up have been mixed at best, I'm going to change one of the fire teams for the Stealth Suits and see how that fares, and I will do a 'photo-shoot' of the team once the suits are painted up, hopefully over Christmas.

More on this anon.

Kill Team - Tau vs Orks Trials

This weeks game at the club was by way of a first trial of the new (well from last year but new to us) edition of the Kill Team Rules from GW.

Myself and Andy W set up the basic matched play game with no frills and Tac Ops choices to deal with, Andy going for Ork Kommando's and myself going for the baisic Tau Hunter Cadre lists.

Got to grips with the rules fairly quickly but as things were fairly new it took a fair few refering to rule books for stat confirms and ability effects, so for a quick play game it was fairly slow but to be expected for a first trial. 

Didn't get the game to a conclusion before running out of time, with half time score of 4:2, advantage to Andy, but with half the board in Tau control and with a slight numerical advantage, it was still anybody's game.

We both thoroughly enjoyed the game and will be giving it another go soon with a better understanding of the rules so hopefully get a conclusion next time maybe with a batrep to boot.

More anon.

WHFBs 6th Ed - Empire vs Orcs Bash

 

Managed to have a Warhammer Fantasy bash at the club this week. First WHFB's outing for my Empire chaps in over 8 years (which happened to be a 6th Ed game too) and around 5 since last outing at all with the troops, then with the 9th Age rules.

Had had a couple of chats over the interweb during Covid about looking out the old 6th Ed stuff and finally got around to arranging a game with Kev and his Orc Boyz and game was duly played this week.

Managed all the rules OK with memories providing most of the details and only a couple of look ups required for a couple of details so both pretty pleased with brain power here as we both expected to be struggling but all pretty much fell into place once we got going.

The game was most enjoyable and won't put down a blow by blow account of the action, but suffice to say being seriously outnumbered from the get go and a poor deployment sealed the Empire's fate for the result. Though it wasn't all one sided and managed to score a couple of minor victories it was a well deserved overall victory for the Orks. Only three Empire units left on the field at the end and them pretty badly mauled and the Orcs still having 6 or so largely intact units rampaging about.

I did do my usual with my artillery and the Great Cannon blew up on it's first shot Rd 1 to much merriment, pretty standard for my luck with artillery dice unfortuneately. Kev also had similar luck with his wizard on his 2nd spell with the Gobbo type's head exploding, also producing much laughter.

The game produced quite a bit of interest on the night and a couple of bods expressed interest in digging out their 6th Ed armies for a bash, so all good from that point of view.

So there's likely to be some more 6th Edition action coming up, hopefully in the near future, and I'll endeavour to put up a better showing with the chaps in black & yellow. (I feel a gun line coming up with no doubt an explosive result). Watch this space for the next exciting episode soon.

Scatter Terrain - Collapsed Columns

Wee bit of scatter terrain posting on this one, having recently painted up these plastic bits from GW AoS range for some fill in bits.

Took me a while to do as painted them up between painting other projects and took my time with multiple home made washes and them all but obliterated the nice grime build up and graduated staining with my high-lighting and the pigments which I added to soften the contrast on the shadows/cracks, but lesson learned.

Quite enjoyed the process and pleased enough with the outcome and intenting to add the pieces to three (or four) small scenic bases to bulk out the effect. More anon.

 

Claymore 2022

 

Had my first show outing this year to Edinburgh for the Claymore 2022 show held in the usual venue at Granton Campus Edinburgh College yesterday.

First proper outing hobby-wise since Covid and wanting to get out and about again which I duly did.

No intentions of buying anything as I've more than enough to be getting on with, with my buying not in the least curtailed by worldwide pandemics etc over the last year or two. But you never know if something might catch your eye.

Hadn't been to Claymore since 2018 as felt it was a bit flat on last attendance (but that might of just been me on the day) but this feeling didn't leave me this time and I think this is really down to the venue not being conducive to a up atmosphere and the main hall particularly (with a glass roof) being very warm, though not excessively busy. I did think generally the halls were a bit quiet but this may be a perception thing based on being there solely after 12 o'clock.

The venue is quite spread so you don't get any buzz from the two halls speading and the Bring & Buy is a bit of a distance away at the end of a hall, so it does feel a bit disjointed.

Iron Brigade ACW

Expecting the entrance fee to have gone up since last visit, but thought the door entrance of £5 a bit steep especially as there wasn't a handout or trading list available with it. Understand the Council have likely increased costs for hiring the venue since 2018.

Also no catering available but that was probably expected to be honest.

Border Wars Demo Game

Several nice games on and I've posted pics of the ones that particularly caught my eye, though in no particular order.

Korean War action with epic Terrain

Traders were a wee bit down in number I thought, but not excessively and all the regulars were there in their chosen spots.

Didn't pick up anything really as a bit late in the day for any choice stock probably, though I did linger on some terrain bits and bods and also on some painting and modelling accessories but ended up empty handed though enjoyed the browsing and managed to have a look at a couple of rule sets I had wanted to have a look at before buying, so that was very useful and enjoyed the leisurely browse.

Glasgows usual epic scale Ancients still impresses

G3's Sci-Fi Imaginarium racing Participation game

I was glad to get out and about and spoke to a fair few bods I hadn't met up with for ages and for this alone was worth the jaunt through to Edinburgh and did overall enjoy the outing.

Tynesides Battle of Bautzen

FDWC's colourful Mexican 19th Cent bash

Quite taken with Warbases Lochbhaile range of MDF laketown-esque kits.and thinking of a few uses for these with a bit of tarting up etc. Nearly bought a couple of kits but decided a bit of planning (and clearing the decks) was in order before embarking on another project. Nice though.

Warbases Lochbhaile range based Fantasy Perticipation game

Five Leagues from the Borderlands - Review

Recently picked up the third edition of the Modiphius rules set 'Five Leagues from the Borderlands' solo/co-op skirmish game.

Ordered on pre-release and arriving a couple of weeks ago the rules are now out on general release, and available at all your usual outlets (and from the publisher obviously).

Hadn't picked up on the previous versions of the fantasy rule set, which have been about for a number of years, though I believe these were reasonably well received but possibly lacking in various departments so, 'building on years of fan feedback' Modiphius have developed the latest version and upgraded to include full colour art, expanded options and cupdated the basic game system premise. I suspect new eyes and development team involvement with a new outlook on the development and writing of the rule set.

This 3rd Ed obviously addresses and expands on a lot of the previous editions and has been developed from their SciFi rules-engine and FLftB3's sister game 'Five Parsecs from Home' which the intro describes as having many shared concepts and mechanics.

The basic premise of the rule set is that is provides a framework to plat tabletop miniature based games on a principally solo basis (though easily adding in co-op play to the narrative) with the player developing and playing a warband in the classic skirmish game style and playing through a campaign, of a length decided by the player to suit their needs. Basically linked series of table top skirmish games with a narrative framework attached to give weight to the individual game outcomes.

The overall look of the 233 page rule book is very nice, clear and reasonably well laid out. The general fell of the layout is very reminiscant of the Osprey wargaming rule sets with similar if not identical typeface and the tables are much the same as say the Frostgrave rule sets and supplements.

The rules are split into the following sections;

Part 1; Setting Out

            * Introduction

            * Characters

            * Game Rules

Part 2; The Campaign 

            * Preparation

            * Adventures

            * Encounters

            * The Enemy

            * Resolution

            * Appendices

The Introduction section is self explanatory and explains the Rules background and basic methodology and basic premise of the rule set and a blurb on The World of Five Leagues (read Anyworld) and inspirations fueling the idea's behind the rules and the writers sources and even has a play list for background music for mood while playing the game.

Each Warband created generally follows the same set-up; A starting number number of Hero's (4) one of which is the Avatar (ie the player) and Followers (2) with the number in the warband increased or decreased to ease or make the campaign more or less difficult and the warband can and will be added to and have losses and things progress.

Next up is character creation and is a RPG-lite system for creating warband characters of varying races and professions. The races are from the writers world (Six Races) and cover the usual tropes with only the Preen (bird-like humanoids) being slightly unusual. The profession types are pretty basic but between the race types and profession types available, most of likely character type requirements can be produced, either by selection or by random generation, which ever way is preferred.Each character has it's own stats of four basic abilities and each race has basic abilities peculiar to each and these are back-up by professional and back-ground skills making each character and on-going play pretty varied. There are a reasonable number of tables available here and looking at the relative simple framework, easily expanded upon to incorporate your own preferences, milieu bias's and professions if desired.

The terminology is also added in here and as well as the Warband themselves, they have Friends (usually patrons or non-comatant allies) and Enemies both of whom are controlled by the game system.

The game system is next laid out in the proceeding chapter The Battle Round (or game turn), the Combat system, Movement and Enemy activation, Terrain and it's effects,Spell Casting, Proficienty Tests, Will Points, Story Points and Equipment.

The writers are unabashed about their sources of inspiration of their rule system and openly espouse borrowing idea's from Mordheim, LotR SBG, Necromunda, 5150 and Platoon Forward, so lots of the various mechanics will be familiar to most reading them and there isn't anything over-all new or innovative, but this disparet parts generally gel quite well and the system appears to be well playtested and streamlined.

The game uses D6 for combat, skill rolls etc, with D10 required for character generation and quite a few of the random table require D100. Occassional D20 required too. For the tabletop element yor generrally sticking to the trusty D6.

I won't go through the approx 40 pages of the basic game mechanic as these will be familiar(ish) to most with no real surprises in here but suffice to say all required elements are covered. Observations on though on the spell casting merit a comment; the basic GW 2D6 system is adopted with a couple of tweaks, mainly the introduction od 'strands' which are basically spell fuel and are available from various sorces and possible campaign routes present themselves here, and these strands are collected and kept by spell casters (max 3 at any one time) with a strand is expended if the spell is successfully cast (unless the spell is of 'simple' type or a natural 12 is rolled). This mechanic limits the spell casting on the the table as likely fairly small battles, max 3 spells is likely all the time for.

The other item noted on Spells is on the Spells themselves which are uniformly 'support types' in nature and of the 34 spells on the listed, none are direct or in-direct damage type though there are a few which remove particular skill abilities which may then lead to damage or death.

The meat of the rule set is in Part 2 of the rules with thne campaign system with the initial chaptor 'The Campaign Structure' setting out the idea the campaign turn which is broken into Preparation, Adventuring, Encounter and Resolution Stages.

Basically the rules take you through the steps to create a minor fantasy campaign which can be as simple or extended as desired but the creation of a map is a necessity for the system to work but this can be pretty basic and almost blank to start with as the map will be populated and details of the locale develop as the campaign plays through. The rules suggest a couple of ways to do this and personnally I like this as I enjoy doing maps anyway, both on paper and on computer with various software packages like Inkarnate or Wonderdraft

Once you have a starting map and created your Warband your ready to rock and the system runs on a random generated story. Each campaign turn starts with the warband in town, settlement or camp and this starts a narative depending on start point and there are random events which many add colour but can be scenario hooks but this can be ignored for Quick Play. Indeed many steps here are optional if you just want to generate a tabletop encounter and get to the meat, or you can go whole hog and flesh things out to create a full story to events.

This step is followed the finacial step which covers recovery, financial costs, healing recruitment and so on and the mundane stuff. You can also carryout campaign activities  including gambling foraging hunting and so on, all of which are fun if your into the RPG element of the game. There is research, and then the roll to see if locations or settlements are discovered and finally deciding on the adventure.

This is fairly varied too with options for how to spend the turn based on exploring a location, battling an enemy threat, riding a patrol, carrying out a contract, just resting or carrying out a quest. Once decided upon you can oufit your group for the coming adventure. All the options, ecept the resting one have many threads and forks and lots of potential variety.

The adventure once generated is explored through a series tables to generate the location enemy threat and and extents of the enemy and/or rewards for victory and defeat.

There can be encounters along the way both malign and friendly a a narrative can be woven through each campaign turn and the events leading up to the final tabletop barney through the use of linked tables so nothing silly is likely to occur though running through a few trials on this did produce some surprises, there's nothing there that a bit of intuition can't put a slant on to fit your story.

The number of Scenario's available is pretty varied to with a number of scenario types (Meeting Engagement/Defensive Battles/Camp Raid/Hideout Raid/Site BattleMonster Lair) all of which have sub-types, descisions and variable objectves not including the variety of enemy threats, encounters and the warband itself to keep things interesting.

The rules include stats for a reasonably large number of foes and generally each has a sliding/escalating scale for encounters so the warband can easily wage war with a particular enemy culminating after a season of encounters in finally facing down the Big Bad of the clan of Darklings, Undead Horde, Bandits & Deserters, or just the local Baron and his steadfast militia. There are plenty of your standard monster types too and all the usual types are included here.

On completion of your encounter for good or ill, there follows the resolution stage which anf gamer of Necromunda or Mordheim will recognise the premise and this is where you find out casualties, rewards, injuries and payments and any finds that will help the party in their next adventure and the all good loot table.

You also tally out the warband experience and skill up your characters here and the band develops and changes with each adventure.

A nice touch at the end here is the inclusion of a table for 'Enemy Plans' which may scupper the players options/plans which is a nice 

As said above, the rule set does create anything new here with all the systems being drawn together from various sources but there is an addition of pulling lots of disparate elements that do sit together well and the rules provide the player/s with a good mechanic to dress with your own take on and adventure. The rules can even be used to umpire a standard pvp table top game where there are NPC forces to be directed without any bias. Indeed, non-of the rules need to be used for a fully fantasy setting and could easyily be adopted for a more historical setting and substituting the fantasy elements for more mundane results.

Pretty much everything here can (and probably will be) added to by the target audience with extra encounter tables, player races and almost everything can be expanded to suit if the inclusions don't tickle a particular fancy, but the basic offering is well more than sufficient for your more than average player looking to have a solo or co-op campaign off the cuff or something more substantial without any alteration or addition or some time.

The Appendices cover the aspects of collecting miniatures and terrain etc for the tabletop games, aimed at new converts to tabletop gaming, and there is a section for converting characters from previous version of the game to new edition or vice versa along with game adjustments. The final app is the Designer notes which give a bit of insight into the thought process of the whole thing.

Generally, I am quite taken with the rule set and though haven't had time to properly explore here,I most certainly will run a solo campaign to see where it takes me and I've already generated a basic map to explore.

Obviously, this rule set is not for everybody, but there's probably something of use to all players within it's pages who are likely to playing campaigns of any kind be it skirmish or standard large scale tabletop.

Having gone through the rules and tried a few bits and bobs, I am quite tempted to check out the sister rule set from Modiphius, 'Five Parsec from home to see what this offers in the way of Sci-Fi skirmish possibilities.

Five Leagues from the Borderlands 3rd Edition gets an initial score of 8 out of 10 for content and potential. I will update this score once proper play tests have concluded and see if my thoughts improve or reduce my opinion here.