Friday, April 27, 2018

Commission Mission Success: Part One of Scarif


     I would like to say that I was slightly disappointed when a client of mine decided to change his mind on a project for making a board for Endor for the new Star Wars: Legion rules. I had one of the those wonderful terrain dreams. It was a "Commission Mission" dream, so to speak. I tend to have quite a few of these in the early morning hours, since I am more of a night owl. Within a week, I had figured out the exact materials I was going to use for making terrain pieces for the Endor forrect, my color scheme, the plastic plants I was going to use for the nearly never ending ferns for the forest floor and etc... I had the whole nine yards planned, since I have been a big Star War geek. Then, the plan was scraped for a project for Scarif from the Star Wars: Rogue One movie. At first, this was a bit of a let down. However...........
      So in one of the previous posts back in the day, I had quite a few convention project ideas. Soe of these have been on the scary side. I managed to choose a Sicily 1943 project using Bolt Action rules for a game in Historicon 2017. One my say that it was smashing success. It does not seem to sound the same out loud as an American using "Smashing." However, before that decided project, I had listed the idea for running a WWII Pacific Threatre game for the Battle of Peleliu. My mind was not completely set for this project, but the honest truth, I have been having fun with the challenge of making interesting, unique convention games. This board for Scarif has answered quite a few questions for my Pacific Idea. I would also like to say that those fantastic gentlemen that came up with Blood and Plunder also helped with ideas. After talking to them at their booth at Siege of Augusta, I thought about coming up with board ideas for a tropical island that leads from water grass flats into mangrove swamps. Yes, I have a plan for mangrove trees I want to try!
  Either way, I just wanted to showcase the first part of the Scarif board I have for a nice guy in California. I have the second section to do later in the week. I might not make much money in making this, but I look at it as expanding to a new template of what I can do. I always like to remind people that everything I do can be made by "You", the reader of this blog. Most of my goal is to inspire people, if I can. Anyway, here is the some more shots of the board. There are some Star Wars Miniatures that I have not completely painted that come from our Imperial Assault game. They are going to be a little smaller that the Star Wars: Legion figures.







Wednesday, April 18, 2018

AAR: What a Tanker: Taking Some New Rules On A Spin!


    As the running joke goes amongst our gaming friends, we have a tank problem. Well, it is a shared problem between my wife and I, but she tends to have a little more tanks. Despite this, when our friend, Hugh informed us about Too Fat Lardies upcoming rules "What A Tanker", we did not jump on board. Part of this stems on my wife's thoughts on their rules Chain of Command. She just does not like them. I have a little more mixed opinion about those rules. So with that in mind, What a Tanker did not seem as appealing.
    This last weekend, Hugh brought over his copy in a PDF form of the rules in question. Somehow, it seemed pretty strait forward. It still has a COC feel for a game, but somehow does not have the same problems that we may not like about COC. Plus, it is just tanks. There are no rules for infantry or other issues. You can strait out play this with just one tank each. And they set these rules up to play in a campaign form so you can make your crew into an ace in their particular tank or upgrade to bigger and better things. Pretty niffy to me!
   So to play this game, all we needed were a board with terrain and a tank each. Kalissa took a Cromwell, Hugh had a Sherman, and I had a Stug III G. Bill showed up later to take a Panzer IV H. Needless to say, we had some interesting epic shots. I destroyed one of my wife's tanks only to have her crew escape to get another tank. Hugh lost a Sherman to Bill after he arrived. They had a pretty good exchange of fire. Hugh knocked my Stug III bad enough to nearly destroy my drive train. The picture of my Stug facing off my wife's Cromwell was pretty epic considering I could barely move. What I do know in the end is that I will have to pick up a set of these rules. Below are the rest of the photos of our game. Enjoy!
   



















Sunday, April 8, 2018

AAR: This Hallowed Ground: Routed Rebels!


     She shot my guys in the back! Of course, this was to be expected in Wife versus Husband fair play. We decided to play some American Civil War on a lazy Sunday. The odds were more in Kalissa's favor based on numbers. That and the fact that I have not finished off the large amount of troops I have painted. So I foolishly attacked with my Confederates.
   At first, I was rolling rather well. It was by mid-game where things began to fall apart. The advance in the center was crushed after a Confederate charge. After that failed, the same regiment got shot up while retreated. Then, I started to have some bad dice rolls. My wife's only improved. The results where 96 casualties to my 110. However, my troops failed in morale to leave the engagement. Here were the photos of the game. Enjoy!



















Thursday, April 5, 2018

Easter Weekend Board Gaming


     Since this Spring has started, I have not played as many games as normal. Really, it has been busy. With quite a few commission projects, I have been limited in the amount of space to do things. However, that does not leave the realm of board games out of reach. This last weekend had us playing the kitchen with our tabletop miniature/board games. Most notable was the first time used of Kalissa and I's Rising Sun copy. You may have seen the first game we played previously. We liked the game so much that we decided to get a copy of our own. And we got it fairly cheap considering that the reason for the person letting it go for such a cost was only doing this, because his gaming group had another copy. This was the most interesting reason I had ever heard. I guess no one ever moves or dies in that gaming group. Either way, it is a gain in our favor.
    We played a three player game on Friday with our trusty friend, William. In the end, I think he did not like the game too much. I think the phase used was that is was "too back-stabbing" for his taste. I think the game would have worked a little better with more players. However, I did manage to win despite loosing an awful large amount of units. It happens!
   

   The next day for Saturday, our friends, Hugh and Bill came out to play! Sounds like they were some puppies wanting to play with a ball! Maybe, so! Kalissa and I were not sure whether anyone would come over for the Easter weekend. Bill, had been missing in action for quite a while. My wife was not sure if she was going to recognize him after so long of an absence. Either case, Hugh was nice enough to bring over his new copy of Zombicide: Orc Horde. Yet another expansion, this one has Orc Zombies that are harder to kill than the human counter parts. However, it can be used in combination with the Zombicide: Black Plague. For a cooperative game, it does peak my interest. I am not too much into zombies, but I believe it is the various shows that mess it up by being about human drama. I like the goals and kill zombies effort in the game. It can diffidently be used for future convention ideas. Either way, despite doing fairly well, it was just not good enough. We ended up failing the mission. Either way, the weekend was great times. Here were some photos.