Author Archive
Darryl and Alex played the Rebels against Phil and Mike. Interesting game. The Rebels were quite successful in creating anarchy and disrupting the supply lines of the Empire. A notable success being the Rebellion and overthrow in the only Imperial Star Destroyer building system which hampered them for most of the game. Then when they did build any they were destroyed by missions whilst on the build crew! Princess Leia proved a great thorn in the side with C3PO aiding her Diplomacy missions especially, but she also did well with insurrections and other mayhem.
Notice how for a long time all the Character Action and subsequent military action revolved around one system.
The Imperials for their part concentrated initially on missions to capture Rebels or build projects. Thus they held prisoner one general almost all game despite many rescue attempts and they built two Super Star Destroyers in time for the final showdown. So the Imperials were relatively militaristically weak compared to our other games in terms of Stormtroopers and systems held. However they did have a fairly strong fleet of super star destroyers on the way to allow them to strike back later.
Using the information from the Prisoner the Imperials were able to destroy the Rebels Secret Death Star Plans and they were reasonably quickly able to identify the Rebel Base using a Long Range Probe. This forced the Rebels to relocate of course and by then the Imperials had a reasonable idea of where that would be. So they began moving the death star and the super star destroyers to the new base straight away. The Imperials then caught the Rebel Fleet in a Trap using a single troop transport as a decoy and then trapping them with the No retreat action card.
With time running out for the evening the final assault could not happen but with no fleet to stop the Imperials and the Death Star on its way armed with a superlaser ready as well it looked very bad for the Rebels indeed. So a Victory was awarded to the Imperials. This was mainly due to the successful interrogation of the prisoner and the long range probe plus the invincible Super Star Destroyers arriving to smash the very powerful Rebel Fleet.
Mike brought over his latest expansion for Mansions. It involves a Murder Mystery Dinner Investigation with a Cthulhu twist of course. Phil, Bruce, Alex and Darryl also took part. Needless to say the scary mansion made everyone soon low on Sanity. Mike, Darryl and Bruce lost theirs before the end.
Fortunately the Investigators were able to follow the clues and defeat the Evil menace before the end. Unfortunately for Bruce and Darryl they did not meet their New Insane Victory Conditions but overall this was a Cthulhu type Victory for the Investigators. Well done!
Mike was Sauron, Phil Saruman, DARRYL was Rohan and Alex played his first ever game as Gondor. All the expansions were in play using second edition rules. We had never seen so many play on the table cads in play at once. The new factions certainly had an influence. Saruman stole all the muster dice bringing Isengard and the Dunlendings into play.
The free people’s brought the ends and the eagles on but their utility was delayed due to a on nobody’s side card. However they did put the fear into Saruman who had to leave a garrison at orthanc.
Early on the fellowship travelled far staying hidden all the way to fangorn with smeagols incredible help drawing three tiles. They went to fangorn to bypass the closed gates of Maria and to release strider from the entwood so he could summon the army of the dead.
For their part the evil team attacked Rohan with a force of dunleendings and isengard elites smashing across the fords and into helms deep then endorses before Rohan could muster. Meanwhile sauron had built up some strong forces to attack Gondar with . Eventually they did so and quickly took mines tirith and pelargir. The south eons mustered at umbra awaiting the great fleet but were slow to move to war. However it seemed likely they would be required to reinforce the army besieging the city of dol amrRoth at the end of our game.
With dol amRoth besieged this would put the evil players on eight vp should it fall. The companions and fellowship were strong with just strider and Legolas away. Lots of cards on the table plus some good blue tiles in play. However there were red cards to balance them and no safe places to heal up corruption nearer than Lorien. Also the party were on about five corruption though both sides had cards to influence this. Thus with the hour late victory was awarded to sauron and Saruman.
Using my new super glue instant hardener have fixed together these newly released figures from Forgeworld. They are quite fiddly but I suppose that does give more options for different poses and weapon configurations. Have also put together some Iron Hill Dwarven Command figures.
The Ballista kit was quite tricky to fix together being resin. The rope snapped in one place whilst I was struggling to get it all into position. I have bought some new instant hardener for super glue which would have helped. Overall though it is quite evocative of the movies and the captain pose is quite good too.
Mike, Alex, Phil, Darryl and Bruce played some of Mike’s games.
First up was Cosmic Encounter. Mike’s yellow Pacifists worked their way to Galactic Domination. They managed to be victorious in every encounter it seemed. Darryl took an early lead and everyone tried to stop him. Phil foolishly invited Mike to help him against Darryl who was close to victory. This then allowed Mike to make an unstoppable attack against Alex and claim victory.
Next we played a few rounds of Deception which was fun and then Love Letter. Darryl proved victorious rapidly reaching 4 tokens whilst everyone but Mike had one and Mike had none despite being chosen as the one most likely to win a round twice!
The models have been painted with metal colour and then faces painted with dwarf flesh then a face wash applied. The bases coloured with codex grey and dark brown. Next a dark tone strong wash applied to the base. Spear shafts painted black.
They were quite tricky to put together but hopefully will be worth it.
Mike, Alex, Phil and Darryl played some SHORTER Christmas games. First up was Nations the dice game. Mike won but it was actually closer than expected with Darryl just behind and Phil just behind him. After all that it came down to just one VP.
Next up was a few rounds of Deception. Again Mike proved the only murderer to get away through clever unexpected use of Hotel cutlery.
Finally we played a couple of games of Lord of the Rings journey to Mordor the dice game. Phil won the advanced game with just one half of a Nazgul free Mordor box remaining.
Lots of fun and Happy Christmas to all.
wargamesdiary 