Painting Update - Warmaster, Gangs of Rome, Konflikt 47, Test of Honour, Kill Team

Let's take a look at the last bunch of painted minaitures I've finished during the year. 

First off is a big project that I've been working on for some time now - a 10mm Ogres Kingdom army for Warmaster Revolution.

These miniatures come from Black Gate Miniatures, which I got over the course of two kickstarters.

The bulk of the army consists of a mass of Bull Ogres and Ironguts. They're the workhorses of the Ogre Kingdoms; no fancy rules, but good stats for relatively decent points cost.

The second kickstarter helped flesh out the range. While the Leadbelchers in the back were from the first crowdfunder, the Yhetees, Gorgers, Gnoblars, Rhinox Riders, Scrap Launcher, and Giant were all produced from the second. The same goes for most of the commanders.

I also finished a bunch of extra miniatures from a few games that had been sitting on my table while I worked on other projects. This includes two more fighters and two Incola for Gangs of Rome, a German Heavy Infantry command squad for Konflikt 47, and the last of the ninjas for Test of Honour.

(I realized after taking the picture that I hadn't shown the other ninjas, but they're pretty easy to imagine - a bunch of guys in black clothing with various sneaky-looking weapons.)

Continuing with Test of Honour, I painted up the Bandits and Brigands boxset.

These are pretty well made miniatures, but they're huge in comparision to Warlords other Test of Honour miniatures, and the Perry miniatures I use. Not to the point of being unusable in the game, but it looks odd if I want them alongside other miniatures in the same warband.

One game that never got included in the blog this year, but that I've been playing, has been Kill Team. It's fun enough - although I think I enjoyed Shadow War more as it's campaign system was more detailed - and I got roped into buying some Thousand Sons. However, I looked at the miniatures and though, There's no way I'm going to take the time to paint all these details.

The solution was to take the "Ghosts of the Warp" squad quirk to the logical extreme and paint all the miniatures as ghosts! And I just so happened to have a bottle of Hexwraith Flame sitting there...

Since Games Workshop doesn't like to give options that aren't in their plastic boxes, the Thousand Sons and Tzaangor boxes were enough to make a full killteam.

And that's it for 2018. Luckily I've got plenty more to paint next year.

A Bad Day for Dates - Gangs of Rome AAR

Recently, I travelled back up to Pennsylvania for a game day with my old group. Gary, Carl and I met up at 7th Dimension Games for a multiplayer game of Gangs of Rome. 

Carl's a huge fan of the period and the rules, so he's been busily working away at creating terrain to play on, as well as amassing and painting mobs and fighters for multiple people to use.

We were playing the "Careless Is As Careless Dies" scenario. My Dominus, Senator Lucius Salvius Rufus, was out in the city on his way to the market, accompanied by the (in)famous Tisiphone and her gang of Palatine wolves. 

Lucius wasn't without his enemies, however, and it was on this day that they decided to strike against him. Gary and Carl would have two smaller gangs that needed to remove Lucius from Rome for some time.

However, the opposing fighters weren't exactly allied. While both wanted Lucius gone, whoever struck the final blow would be declared the ultimate victor.

Carl's fighters were less able than Gary's, but that allowed him to take some equipment, while Gary had none.

The game began with Tisiphone summoning a Gladiator Ally, who was used to escort Lucius across the city. While slower than any other fighter in the gang, it freed up Tisiphone and the other gang members to fight off the approaching enemies.

Three of my fighters skirmished with Gary's gang at range, while Tisiphone led Lucius away from the fighting.

Carl's fighters sprinted from their starting positions to head off the fleeing group.

Bloodied by spears, arrows, and a panicking mob of civilians, Gary's fighters continued to rush to try and reach the Senator.

For a brief moment, it seemed like victory was mine, to be savored like an urn of Falernum wine. My fighters were holding off both Gary's and Carl's gangs, and I just needed one more activation to walk Lucius and his gladiator escort off the table.

And then everything fell apart. Tisiphone was retired from the table, cut down by one of Carl's fighters. Seeing his employer - and source of income - was no longer around, the gladiator quickly made himself scarce, leaving Lucius alone and unguarded.

One by one, my fighters were picked off, previously suffered wounds coming back to haunt them and Orcus cursed their defense rolls. Eventually, I was left with only two fighters.

What little strength I could muster wasn't enough, however, and Lucius fell from multiple bludgeon and stab wounds. While Gary's gang had been critical in diverting half my numbers - and the MVP of the match was the zombie who wouldn't die, as Gary kept rolling the 5+ save to keep him at 1 Flesh - Carl's fighters were the ones to strike the final blow, and so he was the winner of the scenario.

Carl's work on the terrain really brought this game to life, and it was a lot of fun. Gangs of Rome continues to be a fantastic ruleset that's not too rules heavy, but has a lot of interesting aspects. We still like the variety and flavor of the randomly generated fighters, and it sort of creates a feeling of ownership comparing your gang fighters to those of other players.

I'm looking forward to seeing more from Warbanner, like named Gangs, new equipment, and campaign rules.

Painting Update - Gangs of Rome, Konflikt 47

We're back again with a look at what I've finished painting recently.

Gangs of Rome is a new skirmish game that's both easy to pick up and fun to play. There are a couple aspects that are a little gimmicky - your gang members are randomly generated and you get a card in each fighter pack you buy, along with four randomly distributed equipment coins and their associated cards - that gave me pause before picking the game up.

But the game has been enjoyable to play, the fighter cards aren't overpowered by themselves, and there's a decent balance between a fighter having better overall states (which increases their point cost) and having less points to spend on equipment to use in the game.

There are also some non-random miniatures used in the game. The two on the left are Agente and Gladiator, which are equipment that become models at the start of the game. The center model is a dominus, who acts as a representation of the player and objective in certain scenarios. And the two models on the right are Barca and Tisiphone, named characters with non-random skills and attributes that players can include in their gangs.

I can also put a check mark next to my Konflikt 47 Germans, since I've got enough to field a 1250 list with some options. There's 20 zombies, a sniper team, a mortar team, and a kubelwagen.

Pillars of the Community - Gangs of Rome AAR

Last week, Bill and I had a chance to get our first regular game of Gangs of Rome. 

We played the Three Wise Men scenario, where both sides had to reach objectives located in the middle of the three tables edges other than their starting location - a representation of locals who would accept bribes to calm the angry populace of Rome. The first to do so, and not be in close combat with the opposing gang, would win.

We played a 100 points game, with four fighter per side. My fighter were universally lower in cost than Bill's, which meant that while their stats on the cards were objectively worst, I could take more Denarii. 

Bill's fighters managed to reach one objective and pass off their Bribe, preventing from touching it on the first turn.

Both sides managed to reach the other objective, while one of Bill's fighter split off and sprinted down the center of the table to try and reach the third objective.

I had brought Tisiphone (a named character in Gangs of Rome) to lead my gang, and I used her special ability to move off the table edge and re-appear somewhere else next turn. Meanwhile, my gladiator attempted to distract Bill's fighter - rather unsuccessfully, however.

On the other side of the table, just one of Bill's fighters was enough to halt both of my gang members.

The remaining fighter in Bill's ganged continued moving towards the remaining objective. I had to stop him to keep Bill from winning.

With the gladiator dispatched, Bill's fighter could only watch as his doppelganger moved to the far objective. Unfortunately, I had chosen my slowest fighter to use in a desperate attempt to reach the other side of the table.

Tisiphone reappeared, halting the opposing fighter's progress. But even her reputation in Rome's underworld didn't phase Bill's gang member, who gave Tisiphone a bloody wound for her trouble. Bill's two gangers on the right were busy mopping up the remnants of my gang. It was looking rather bad for me.

Bill's fighter managed to strike Tisiphone down, and moved into contact with the last objective. A simple breakaway from another of Bill's gang members meant that he met the conditions for victory, and secured a win. It seems as though it'll be some time before my gang can show their faces in this part of Rome again!

I'm glad I finally got a chance to play a full-sized game of Gangs of Rome. Denarii choice really opens up at this point, and Bill's terrain setup looks great. The only thing missing at the moment are more mobs, since they really seem to bring the table to life.

A Walk in the Market - Gangs of Rome AAR

Bill, Keith and I gathered to play Gangs of Rome last Friday night at Half Day Studio. 

We decided to play the "Careless Is as Careless Dies..." scenario, which works well with three players. Bill's objective was to escort his Dominus off one of two board edges, past the other players. Keith and I were technically allied, but only one of us could win in the end, depending on who brought down the Dominus. 

Bill loosely deployed his fighters in the center of the table, surrounded by mobs. Keith and I set up our fighters to block the open table edges that Bill's Dominus could escape from.

The gangs that Keith and I took were relatively restricted due to the scenario. We each had to have three fighters and 65 points. This meant that Keith's gang, which met the points limit exactly, couldn't take any Denarii. My gang costed 63 points, so I was able to take a Throwing Blade and a Thrown Javelin.

During the first turn, Bill chose my side as the one he planned to escape from. He moved his gang towards me, while Keith hurried to keep his gang members close. I was able to launch a couple mobs into Bill's gang, and even manage to do two damage to the Dominus (who, with only six Flesh and no defenses, was extremely easy to target and wound...)

Keith's fighters threw themselves into the fight, forcing Bill to defend his flank. Bill also sent out a fighter to try and stop one of my gang members from using her Throwing Blade.

Despite Bill's efforts, I was able to use the Thrown Javelin's range and the Dominus' lack of defense to strike the old man down, technically ending the game.

However, we did continue the turn to see how it would end. Keith lost all three of his models in fights with Bill's gang. And Bill lost a fighter when not one, but two mobs went into a rage and tore the poor woman limb from limb!

It was an interesting game, although Bill was at a slight disadvantage as we were using one less mob and one less defending gang member than the scenario required. It also seemed a little too easy for attacking gang members to hit and wound the Dominus with ranged attacks.