wargamesdiary   A diary of war games and board games

Quatermaster General- Allies won each time so one for each time

Star Wars Outer Rim – Phil won by VP through jobs and cargoes.

The Game- Team nearly won this time

Red 7.  Lots of fun.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  Somehow the Heroes defeated the Mayor.

Gloomhaven.   Beast Tyrant, Vermling Mindthief and Tinkerer were able to defeat the cultists in the Temple of the Elements and Recover the Artefact.

We played a few games over the last few weeks.

Lords of Waterdeep was fun, with all the expansions.  Alex liked the corruption too much and lost many from this VP at the end.  Mike and Michael did quite well but Phil came first thanks to his secret Lord who gained lots of VP per Piety quest he had amassed.

Mythic Battles was next with Phil and Darryl learning the rules and playing out the first campaign.  Phil won the first scenario but regretted finishing too quickly and not releasing his monsters who turned up weakened for the second scenario. This allowed Darryl to grab the most gems and so honours are even at 5 each going into the final.

This week Phil, Alex, Mike, Bruce, Michael and Darryl played Battle Star Galactica Daybreak with the search for earth and home.  The players made it to 7 distance at the sleeper phase when the mutineer arrived and was given to Darryl.  However Mike and Darryl had in fact been Cylons from the start.  Our heroes jumped out of a big battle straight into another it seemed.   Mike declared as a Cylon at this point.

Phil’s Lee Adama held off hundreds of attacks in his Assault Raptor but in the end the journey home proved too costly in terms of fuel.  The President even chose to spend fuel at one point early on.  The Mutineer took the Admiral card right before the jump and spent even more fuel.  Down to 1.  Then Phil turned over a card that allowed the admiral to choose to spend fuel or not.  Of course Admiral Darryl chose to burn that final fuel and our human players had lost.  No one had even spent a miracle token as it turned sour so fast.  Well done Mike and Darryl.

Next time we might try to tackle Caprica again.  Obviously the humans will lose once more!

Phil, Darryl, Mike and Alex played Whitehall.  This is quite a tricky Hunt game.  First up was Mike as Jack.  He found the first 3 murder sites with ease doubling back and tricking the detectives.  However Alex cornered him (using his once per gamer power) as he tried to exit after crossing the Thames on his way to the final destination.

Next up was Darryl.  The detectives kept close to him until the final chase when he cleverly disappeared.  Phil lost heart fearing they would never catch him but actually they were quite close.  However he was able to use a back alley to close in on the final murder scene and then win.

We played this excellent new game with five players:  The Final Five.

Aragorn, Legolas, Beravor, Gimli and Ellena. Captain, Hunter, Pathfinder, Guardian and Musician.

We explored the map fully and solved nearly all the tokens.  However we only found the hide out on the final turn and even with Legolas scoring a mighty four search the game said that we had lost the element of surprise.

Bursting into the hideout we rushed our foes.  Aragorn and Beravor took heavy strikes from the Leader having found his lair and taunting him out but Gimli and Legolas sooon arrived to join the fray.  Gimli was nearly defeated but survived his Last Stand and then dealt the finishing blow.  Ellena kept the heroes going through her Songs.  This time we were clearly victorious having taken down the leader just as reinforcements were arriving.

Was a good game and now our heroes are ready for the next adventure having rested and upgraded their skills.

Varnished.  Then based with Diorama swamp water with leaves and green tufts added.

Two four player games of Shadows.  First one the Traitor won by falsely accusing another Knight to turn over the last seventh black sword.

Next one was tougher for the Traitor.  Heroes had seven white but could just not reach the end before the unmasked Traitor could conspire to place twelve catapults.  This happened when the single final knight remaining drew the Picts card.

Next the Army painter dark tone is applied.  Shields finished in red.  I chose red to complete the uniform look and tie in with the red on the cloth and to limit the palette to tie the unit together as a snake men force, the Red Shields perhaps or the Red Legion.  Red goes well with green I think and evokes Aztec ruins and deadly snake men.  Finally I added a thraka green wash to the bronze to add a verdi gris effect to simulate weapons kept in damp swamp conditions and/ or coated in green venom.  Bronze retains its strength and sharpness even when verdi gris effects it unlike iron which simply rusts.

Final stages will be touching up and highlighting the skin areas and basing to follow.  Have a new swamp base effect to try out.

So having assembled the figures and spray painting green it was time to block paint. I used various browns added to granite brown or bestial brown neat for the leather harness which covers a lot of the figure.  Again I used bronze for the weapons and armour.  Red for the palate and bone white for the teeth.  Dark brown for the wood and base.  They always look very basic at this point.

We learnt the rules and unboxed this game after all this time!  Turns out other people are Greek Myths fans too!

The learning scenarios went well and were lots of fun.  We seemed to have grasped the concepts now.  Ares won out on the night over Zeus but Heracles got to through some ruined columns.  The learning scenarios are more down to luck perhaps over the timing of the ampholos gathering but this game clearly has promise.  Enthused I have unboxed my expansion figures and put everything out in the large storage box in readiness for more Greek Themed Skirmish gaming.  The campaigns look like fun challenges.

Darryl, Phil and Alex (Mind Thief, Beastmaster and Tinkerer played out a new scenario to further our gloomhaven campaign.  This time using the water breathing power they entered the ancient cistern.

Beastmaster tried a new angle, bringing along two summons in the first room (bear and tattered wolf) whilst Mind thief and Tinkerer raced forward.  As usual the oozes doubled up on their first card but the Tinkerer used his net which helped keep the now 4 oozes distracted.  Mindthief took on the regular Living Corpse.  The elite hit the tinkerer heavily and also the bear took a whole lot of damage (10 in one hit) from it and its regular co-monster.  The Tattered wolf died in one 2x hit from the regular just 1 turn after spawning which was incredibly frustrating for the beast master who was busy healing the bear at the time.  A nasty first room though was soon dealt with and after a rest onto the corridor quite quickly.  The brave Tinkerer opened the door and held the choke point against the night demons.  The bear and mindthief then rushed past and into the fray when they could.  Then the demons were dealt with but their disadvantage power coupled with the curses proved awkward.  With the Tinkerer securing the Treasure yet again it was onto the final room.

The party was quite tired by now and down to their last few cards.  They needed to get close to the pumps and use their bottom cards (which my 5 year old found hilarious as a concept) to stop the imps spawning and finish the scenario.  Here the beast masters ability to switch places really helped, allowing him to get his switch pressed just before running out of cards.  The monsters tried to block the choke point but the boots of jumping allowed the mind thief to get through whilst the bear just battered its way through clearing a route for the Tinkerer.   With barely one turn left each all three pumps were switched off and our heroes were victorious.

This was a level 2 scenario and the Tinkerer had collected some coins in the process and a nice item.  Back in the City our heroes stopped a bar brawl and donated to the sanctuary.  Not too much in the shop they want or can afford (Beast Master never moves so is quite penniless) but the card improvement bonuses our still some way out of their price league.

A good evening’s game.