AAR: Company Of Heroes: The Board Game: Second Games.

   It has been busy between work and commission works for me to post, but I assure you that Kalissa and I been playing games and such. These pictures are from the second round of games playing Company of Heroes: The Board Game. These two games we played at a local hobby shop: Hit Point Hobbies. The game gained a lot of attention from fellow wargamers. As you will notice from the last post, I have already started painting some terrain features. At this point in time that this post inbeing posted. I have painted half the Armies, so they will look better on the board. 

    In these games, Kalissa and I decided to test the advance rules with the Commander Cards. It was interesting on how the game seemed to change based on both the Commander Cards and the basic rules. The beginner rules have auto-hits involved with saves. The advanced ones care about facings and rolls to hit, as well. This resulted in some units lasting longer in the fight. My only complaint is that I run out of options after capping on the amount of pieces I can get on the table. Example: I am restricted to only two Panzer IV's when I could have had four of them. Plus, Infantry is expensive in comparison to tanks. That seems a little backwards. However Kalissa and I both won a game with brutal violence. And these games were both close games, as in one point Victory Point lead. Anyway, here are the photos. Enjoy!

 

 

Company of Heroes Board Game: Game Play and Somewhat of a Review.

 

   This last Saturday, Kalissa and I finally received our copy of Company of Heroes: the Board Game by Bad Crow Games. It really has been a wait, since it was supposed to shipped out to us in May of 2020. Obviously, there has been some delays. All good things come to those who wait, I guess! However, I have been looking forward to this game, since I play both the original Company of Heroes and Company of Heroes 2 video games. I have even designed maps for both games that people still play currently. I was actively play people online with the first version when I discovered Flames of War. So it was not too much of a push to join the Kickstarter. 

     So Kalissa and I jumped into it with no issues. We gained most of the offerings the Kickstarter provided with some unnecessary options, such as all metal figures or painted ones. I can do that! The scale is roughy 15mm. I was surprised that the figures were a solid resin plastic. All vehicles are full pieces, as in, they are not hallowed out to make them lighter. For someone who has a history of breaking plastic, this is great for survivability. We, also, opted for the 3-D terrain pieces, which looks much better than the cardboard cutouts. Of course, I am going to have to paint all of it, because I think it would do the game some justice, since the boards are in the same graphics at the Company of Heroes 2 game. 

   Game Play is similar to the game play of the Company of Heroes 2  video game. You capture points to gain victory points, fuel income, munitions income, and manpower. You pay for call-ins for different types of troops, builds, or upgrades. Movement is fairly flexible to a degree. In fact, for a hex-based board game, it has some closer tactical feel to a game of Chess with firearms. Kalissa found herself thinking on options on how to kill me and win. Now, we have only played two games, since we opened the game playing the bare basics of the game to get the feel of it. However, once you understand the rules, it is easy to see how you can move to "Advance" rules involving "experience" and "Commander Options" It is probably easier if you currently play the video game. Either way, it is a fun game!

   Below are some photos of the two games Kalissa and I have played. The first one was Americans versus Germans. As usual, in both games, I was the Germans. The first game took about three and half hours. It was a very involved game, though the game mentions that this games tend to be about two hours long. The second game where my Germans ran up against Kalissa's Soviets was a little less than two hours. I gained a very negative feeling about T-70's that game! Either way, enjoy!

Batman! The Dark Knight Rises at Our House!

   Just recently, Kalissa and I received our Batman game from a Kickstarter we did not too long ago. Nothing says "yes" to me like coming home to a rather large box that is filled with goodies. Even though, this is a massive board game with lots of missions and such, I still look forward to making a 3D board for this game. It is just my nature. The figures did not come painted, but I have found that with each mission I can pace myself fairly easy to finish the job. I think I did fairly well to start with.

In the first game, I felt that it is definitely worth the Kickstarter. This is especially, true when Batman barely survived the first game. We will see what happens with the next episode. 

AAR: Mystic Battles: Pantheon: Swamp Things

       This post is really one that should have been for September, since it was playing on the last day of that month. I, actually, forgot about the photographs of this game until this posting major picture upload from the recent wargaming convention Kalissa and I went to. Between some large amount of work from both commissions and regular work, we have not had as much game time. Most of you fellow wargamers experience this all of the time, because life goes on. If it was not for that, I might have read more into the board I pulled out for this report's Pantheon game.
       I had one day of in September where I just felt the need to paint. I still have about 300 figures of whatever to paint throughout the household. I might consider some random bring-along game for smaller conventions to give myself more motivation to paint some of these dust collectors. However, I managed to paint up about 30-something figures for Pantheon. We are still getting more from the Kickstarter's second round in the near future. And since the new painted figures were done, it was a good enough excuse to con William and Kalissa into a game on a Saturday evening.
      Now, for the board, I picked one from the Hera Expansion, because (get this!) it was pretty! We have our 3-D board, but the regular boards fit on our kitchen table better. If I had read into the symbols marked on the board, I would have discovered that it was a swamp board. Most of the figures talents made it hard to go through swamps. More importantly, it meant that monsters with the swim ability have a main advantage on this board. We have one painted: the Hydra! All of the others are in other expansions that we will be getting. The ones after this were the ones that could fly.
     In this game, Kalissa took the Titian: Atlantis! William stuck to his normal guns with Zeus! I decided for the second time ever of this game to betray Athena for another God. I went with Hades. In this game, there were alot more troops than normal. Kalissa seemed to run the least amount of figures, but with the most annoying capabilities toward William. I was not affected by any of hers in this game until the last round. This is probably why I won in the end. I, also lost very little in troops with exception to the Hell Hounds that came on the board to immediately exit to the tune of one bolt of lighting by Zeus! William loves that ability! Here are some more pictures!