Random Updates: Bookcases and Betrayal!

I was planning on getting in some gaming this weekend as the family was away but I got caught up cleaning.  Not normally the best of things but in this case its helping get out games squared away so I'm okay with it.  Behold the wall of games!

Nothing as fancy as Ikea but they aren't bad for knockoffs.  We purchased one of these shortly after we moved but quickly learned that there can't only be one!  After some shipping fiascos we finally have the second one and all of our games can have a happy home.  Huzzah!

Even with all the cleaning I did still manage to get a little bit of progress made with the Heroclix I'd picked up for Betrayal at the House on the Hill, namely removing all those gigantic bases.

These are an assortment of some of the more generic figures (as in not super heroes) that you can from the DC and Marvel ranges.  They aren't stellar minis but they will do for replacing some of the cardboard from the game.  The six in the front are also alternate investigators as the mix of characters from the original game is just kind of creepy.  I can understand the jock, the gypsy, and the professor, but why are the little girl and boy there with them too?  It's something that always bothered my daughter in particular as the story of it just didn't make sense to her, plus this gives me some more figures to use in other games as well.  I'm not even sure if I'm going to repaint them to be honest.  The paint jobs are your typical pre-painted stuff but for some figures that I can just grab and throw on the table, they should work just fine.  Now I just need to get some more of the things that go bump in the night.

Quick Review: Mars Attacks! by Mantic Games

Over the weekend I decided it was time to break out the Mars Attacks game that I'd ordered months ago and give it a push around.  I'd liked the reviews that I read before I purchased the game so it only seemed right that I should finally get it to the table even as a solo play.

The overall mechanics are really straightforward.  The stats and rolls are pretty intuitive with some special rules that add some flavor to how each of the minis plays.  In fact that was something that I realized I was doing wrong as I forgot that the Martian troops all have the armor special rule.  Kind of explains why they were dying so fast...

The Martian invasion begins!

The game also has a card mechanic is also a really interesting twist that I haven't seen used effectively in a minis game before. During a round, each player can activate two minis or one mini and play a card.  The cards have various different effects from calling in air support to increasing a model's accuracy for a shot, not to mention a number of crazy special effects that introduce battlefield effects.  During my play through there were civilians running around the battle field, two herds of flaming cattle stampeding, and a mutant bug showed up as well!  All of this adds to the chaos of the game but in a good way as it keeps you on your toes.

Watch out for the flaming cows!!!

Is it an incredibly deep tactical game?  No, but it does feel like a nice and quick beer and pretzels game.  It also doesn't seem like a game that will take hours to get through.  The base game is played on a 2' x 2' board with a grid already laid out so not only are you right in each others faces right from the start, plus there is no measuring so you just count your squares and shoot.

And I thought the mosquitos were bad this year!

All of this said it does make me wonder if its out of print.  It doesn't seem like Mantic did a lot to support this game once it was released and they had even announced that it would no longer be available a couple of months ago.  Right now the base game is not available on their site but most of the expansions are, including Mars Attacks: World War which is all of the core rules plus some extra stuff as well so it looks like most of the product line is still available, just not the boxed game.  Unfortunately this means that you can still get into the game but at a much higher price tag since the base game offered a substantial savings. Personally I wouldn't buy into it piecemeal like that due to the price you'll wind up paying but if you can find the base game for cheap it might be worth checking out.

Random Updates: Warlord Clearance Sale and a Bit of Hobby Time to Boot!

Just wanted to pass along that Warlord Games is having their summer clearance sale right now!  In fact, just this morning I flushed out my Concord ranks with four more sprues of Strike Troops (five troopers and one light drone on each) plus I grabbed a Ghar bomber sprue and four Ghar assault suit sprues for under $20.  Personally things have been tight for us financially lately so I've been holding off any purchases but this was just too good a deal to miss out on.  In addition to the sprues, I also picked up some targetter drones for both my Algoryn and Concord forces, plus the female NuHu Mandarin for my Concord.  I want to pick up some support options (weapon teams and the like) but this gives me a solid core for both of my armies plus I have a good start on the Ghar as well.

As for my own hobby, I've assembled my third squad of AI troops but I still have to get some paint on them.  I also decided to mod the squad leader and gave him a plasma carbine left over from my C3 minis.  I'd love to do this with more of them so I could field a full command squad but Algoryn hands are noticeably larger which makes some of the weapon swaps a little more complicated.

I also dug out a bunch of different minis that I can throw in for Freeborn mercenaries and between my old Skinnie soldiers from Starship Troopers and some assorted scum minis from Imperial Assault, I've actually got enough to be able to field a small force of them.  As with my other armies they are lacking in support options for now but they give me a solid core to work with.

Finally, I think I have a pretty good concept in my head for the Concord world of Bastion but I'm still working on my Algoryn colony world.  I've got some general ideas but I want to build its history a bit more, not to mention I still need to figure out its name.  I happened to stumble on some random world generators though so I'm going to see what I can pull together.

Gates of Antares Battle Report: Strike on K'ara Nine scenario one and two

This past weekend I had some free time so I set up a half table and tried out the first couple of scenarios from the Strike on Kar'A Nine set.  I'm already familiar with Bolt Action and Konflikt 47 but I decided to try the starter scenarios to get the feel for it from the ground up.

The first scenario (appropriately enough called Escape and Evade) has three C3 strike troopers trying to get across the board while two teams of AI troops are trying to stop them.  As its one of the intro scenarios, only some of the rules are used.  No pinning, no hand to hand, no command checks... just movement and shooting.  One of the Algoryn teams was able to quickly take down one of the strike troops but the other team didn't fare so well as the two remaining strike troopers teamed up and gunned them down.  With no one to stop them, they literally just ran across the table to rejoin the other members of the C3 force.

This was a good introduction to the mechanics but there were a couple of instances where pinning and command checks could have come into play.  I do think that this would be a good start for someone unfamiliar with the basics of the Bolt Action activation system and since the first scenario went so quickly I decided to play the second one as well.

The Algoryn AI open fire on C3 Strike Troopers as they move through open ground

This scenario (called Weakness?) features two three man C3 units facing off against two five man AI units, with all of the units getting spotter drones.  The AI objective for this mission is to eliminate the C3 units, while the C3 supposed to either get one of the units onto the AI side of the board or destroy one of the AI units as they are trying to determine the overall strength of the Algoryn force.  Now the first time I played this, I missed the second part of the C3 objectives so it instantly devolved into a firefight with the AI troops in cover and the C3 troops getting mowed down as they tried to cross the board.  I was kind of disappointed by the end of the game but decided to try it again using the full rules to see how they would change the feel.  It was at that point that I reread the objectives and realized that I'd made a pretty serious blunder there.

C3 forces from Bastion take cover from the Algoryn AI.

Whoops!  It turns out that using all of the objectives instead of just half of them added more to the game as it wasn't just the C3 walking into a flurry of mag fire.  It was cool to see pull in the command and pinning rules as well as they definitely add another dimension to the game play.

Next I need to assemble my third squad of AI troopers so I can give the third scenario a try.

Random Update: Terrain and Inspiration for the Freeborn

Things have been busy again so I haven't been able to make a lot of headway with my troops but there has still be some progress!  I've done some research on the more common types of plant life in more tropical regions and come up with some cool ideas that I'm looking forward to trying.  Thinking a couple of large mangrove style trees with giant root structures.  In looking around I actually have a lot more terrain than I'd thought I had so at this point anything else will just be more like accent pieces to give the table more of a jungle/swamp feel.

I've also picked some very inexpensive terrain in the form of one of the scenery packs for Infinity. Sci-fi style structures are one of the only things that I don't have much of and while these are fairly basic, they give me some quick and easy elements that can go onto the table.

Here are a couple of the buildings with some minis for scale

I've never done much with card board terrain but these went together fairly easily.  The larger structure was a little fiddly but considering the whole set was less than $10 before shipping, I'm okay with it.  The set contains a total of four of the larger structures, six of the smaller square structures, and two bridges which you can move around and have going to any of the buildings in the set.  This particular set is called Kurage Station but there are at least half a dozen different sets, each with a different skin plus they all come with a paper poster mat that ties in with the buildings.

While I really like the three dimensional look of fancier terrain, these sets are a great way to get a good amount of 3d terrain onto the table for less than $1 per piece.  Definitely not a bad option in my book.

My final paint scheme... at least for now anyway.

I've also gotten more done with my Algoryn.  I was really trying not to go with the red... but I just couldn't resist.  It a good combination with the green and I was actually surprised at how many things I was finding in looking up floral in rain forests and swamps that are red.  I also decided to go with the more tribal style stripes as I'm imagining a their world has an old human colony from a previous age and the remnants are little more than savages now.  Not only does that open up more ideas for terrain, it also give me a possible theme for a Freeborn contingent if I decided to go that way.

Speaking of Freeborn, I was also struck with a great idea for expanding my miniature options without needing to buy anything.  I currently only own the K'ara Nine starter and was saving up for the full Xilos set but life has reared its ugly head so I can't really justify spending that much cash on plastic soldiers.  Hobby is important but bills must come first.  Unfortunately this left me short on the C3 army as I don't have enough force selections to field even a 500 point army because I only have two tactical units.  Thankfully I was able to find a solution in the Battle for Xilos expansion which gives rules for mercenary units.

Years ago I did demos of the Starship Troops mini game for Mongoose Publishing.  Unfortunately that game went the way of the dodo but I still have a ton of miniatures for it, including a good sized force of Skinnies.  There are several references that I've seen for Antares that imply there are a number of alien races that have been encountered so combining that tidbit with the Freeborn mercenary list means that I can flush out my C3 army with a unit of alien mercs!  This will tide me for the time being and really says something about the versatility of the game.  Sure there are the established races in the setting but they have left a door open for people that want to use other minis to fill out the ranks or field as an army.  I don't plan on having them replace any of my actual Antares armies but its nice to have that option.

The next step is to run through the game a couple times to make sure I have my head around the rules then I'll see if I can find or convert some players locally.  40k is the most common game around here but there is a strong Bolt Action following as well so maybe I can convince some people to give it a try.  Here's hoping!