ALBAtwo Warblog
Hendrids Wargaming Blog
Monday, 2 January 2023
Monday, 19 December 2022
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.
Saturday, 22 October 2022
Kill Team - Tau vs Orks Trials
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.
Wednesday, 5 October 2022
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.
Monday, 8 August 2022
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.
Sunday, 7 August 2022
Claymore 2022
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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.
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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.
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Glasgows usual epic scale Ancients still impresses |
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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.
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Tynesides Battle of Bautzen |
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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.
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Warbases Lochbhaile range based Fantasy Perticipation game |
Saturday, 2 July 2022
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.
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.
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.
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.