Home and Wargaming: Thoughts About Our First House and Such.

Who wouldn't want a dragon in their army!

     For my wife and I, it has been a fairly long month of double bills and getting use to the idea of larger surroundings and home ownership. And even after a month, it still seems surreal that we went from a one-bedroom apartment to a three-bedroom house with a fairly nice sized yard. What makes such a dramatic upgrade is that we have room for the stuff we did not think we had so much of. It never occurred to Kalissa and I that our wargaming hobby was that big until we really moved all of it out of the apartment. Before, we were storing a bunch of terrain in our Jeep Liberty as we traveled about. Every-so-often, we would surprise friends of ours when we had actually emptied out our vehicle for people to actually sit in, as if the back seats were some myth or legend. They were there the whole time. Trust me!
    We also had two closets, a shelf or two, one table I worked on, and a partial invasion of the kitchen while living in one small apartment. Now, that we have space, and we only take up a closet, a small section of the shed, and have a dedicated wargaming room where we store other terrain. It is a dramatic set up compared to the apartment. And there is the bonus of playing at home at anytime. We also have more space to just leave tables set up, so we do not have to live around everything. This is turning out really nice.
    But as I reflect over this month, we have had way more visitors than we had ever before. Apart from various members of the Cape Fear Miniature Wargamers, I had one of my fraternity brothers from Pi Kappa Phi down stopping by on his way with his family to Myrtle Beach.  My Mother-In-Law had been up for a week. We have had our friends, William, Lori, Shannon, Ryan, and Caroline over. And as for wargaming friends of Caper Fear Miniature Wargamers, we have had a couple of Saturdays wargaming. We have had our friends, Joe, Danny, Tim, Nicole, Bill, Hugh, and Andre, so far rolling the dice in games. So, in a way, we could actually use the word "Entertain" for what we do for visitors. This was something I used to here for those house hunting shows. "Here is a room that is great for entertaining!" I never thought it would apply, but it does!
      As it stands for Fayetteville, NC, until the local hobby stores get their gaming rooms together and under control, it seems our wargaming room is the place to be. I, sincerely, hope that places like The Hobbit will get their gaming rooms back. In all honesty, it has nothing to do with being invaded on a Saturday for gaming. We do enjoy that! It would just be nice to meet more gamers, because it was in the game halls we have been lucky to meet our friends we dice against that come over.
    Another nice thing about our new home and wargaming is that, since we do not have to take things down, we also do not have to play. Yesterday's game was a rather larger Kings of War game between Tim and Bill. I don't remember the exact points, but it was at least an ungodly 3,000 on both sides between an army of the Undead versus a Goblin Horde. Pretty much, I decided not to play anything, because I had played two Iron Cross games earlier this week based on the post before this one. But I did want to see the dragon Tim had in action. I thought that this game was it's first time one the table, but there was a game it was used in before. I might not be that much into fantasy games, but I do like dragons. This might be a branch off of a love for Godzilla! So below and everywhere in this post in pictures was that game. The Undead soundly beat the Goblins. The dragon did have some BBQ. I just could not tell you the whole order of things.
   In conclusion, we will have way more memories to come. I am sure this will just be one of those never-ending blogs of wargaming goodness. At least, that is the plan. Now, we will just have to see what other game systems we can get ourselves into!

First Impressions: Kings Of War

    The other day, I played my first game of Kings of War, which had taken up some interests amongst several wargaming friends of ours. Every since the Warhammer Fantasy has been vaporized, there seems to be a gaming power vacum for Fantasy rules sets. And as it so happens to be that the Kings of War took off. But since most of you readers are mostly aware with this, we will go to my first impressions.
    In honesty, I am not that big into fantasy in the sense of everything. This is part of the reason I never really took hold of Warhammer. This is not to say I won't play it. And when I say everything, I mean rhino riding Orcs fighting Space Elves, Mushroom troops versus weird robots, and for whatever reason, magic. I am aware that this might not even be a possibly. For whatever reason, I like fantasy to make more sense. Sure, there can be magic in a game, but I want more simplicity like Medieval fighting. I think that it's what made books like Lord of the Rings really good to me, because there was not that much magic, despite the capability of it. Also, I would prefer a themed fantasy game, which I nearly have never seen in a game room other than conventions. That maybe also be the turn off for me is that no one really makes anything terrain-wise or even a battlefield to give their well-painted troops a story to fight in.
   So about King of War. This is a fairly strait forward rules set. It you want a fairly simple game, this game has that going for it. You can just have a killfest throwing down lots of dice. It also has the advantage of using fantasy figures you already may have from previous gaming systems such as Warhammer Fantasy. So this can be an easy modify to your miniatures to this game. Also, it would not cost too much to get into if you have nothing for it, unless you are like me and want the terrain to be awesome and match the troops. The only thing I found that I am not a fan of is the movement trays and the disorder markers. I, personally, never cared for movement trays despite their use even in Neopoleanic games, though they are useful. As for the disordered markers, in King of War can be confusing if you are used to historical gaming, since King of War has disordered meaning your troops formation is unified after a melee clash with the enemy, where as, in the historic games, being about the same, it is more focused towards unit morale.
     So my first play test, I burrowed an army of Dwarfs which had some fairly decent armor and one rather large unit. This was up against a goblin forces which had chariots, trolls, and some giant crossbows. The rest of the goblins had they units of bowmen and two units of spears. I cannot really remember all of the details to want abilities I had. Honestly, I did not care, since I was only trying out the mechanics. Again, these rules were strait forward as a UGO IGO system. There is movement, shooting, melee. You role morale after receiving damage. This is simply calculated by adding your casualties to what you roll against your unit value with two dice. If it exceeds the unit value, they are done. There is are simple ways to flank, which doubles dice and rear hits that triple. Needless to say, there is a lot dice throwing in this game.
   After several turns in our test game, the Dwarfs lost three units, where as, the Goblins lost everyone. 13 full units killed in action! A bloodfest if that is what you are looking for. I may play some more of Kings of War before I am completely sold. Anyway, here are some shots of the game in no particular order. Enjoy!