Danube Blues - To The Strongest! AAR

This past weekend was the monthly South Jersey Gamers Assocation meetup. Having no game to run myself, I took part in two games. The first was run by Bill, and was a good old Romans v. Germans bashing using the To The Strongest! ruleset.

While I have a copy of To The Strongest! as a pdf, I picked it up on a whim and never did much with it, mostly because the Ancients/Medieval game of choice in the local area has been ADLG. I decided to use this game as an opportunity to see how the rules worked. 

The commands deployed around their camps, with the Roman and German forces looking exactly like you'd expect - Legionaries on one side, Warbands on the other, with a smattering of cavalry and skirmishes to taste.

A large hill and a stream helped to separate the battlefield into three sections, meaning each command was going to remain unsupported as long as there were enemies to the front.

Thanks to some poor command chit draws on the German side, the Romans had the initiative for most of the game, quickly moving across the table and looking to engage.

As the only Roman commander with cavalry units, I decided to move even faster, getting around the flank of the opposing German forces and pinning them down.

While disorder tokens were being exchanged back and forth, my cavalry were the first to rout an enemy warband, putting the German's rightmost command into peril with Roman cavalry in their rear.

It seemed as though fortune favored the Romans as the German commands kept drawing low on their chits and cards, failing activations and losing combats.

Ultimately, the almost-complete loss of the German right command, along with casualties from their center and left, was enough to break their resolve. The barbarians fled, leaving the Romans in command of the field and with a solid victory.

It turns out I'm a big fan of how To The Strongest! plays. One of the biggest complaints I have about ADLG and other games like it is how fiddly movement is, and how players can get away with some pretty heinous looking shenanigans if they muddle their commands and start sliding units left and right. TTS! does away with this completely using its grid-based movement. And as you can see from the pictures, the game still looks like an Ancients battles, with lines of infantry clashing, light troops skirmishing, and cavalry flanking.

It would likely be a longer term project, but I may be a convert...

A Year in Gaming - 2018

As is now tradition at the end of the year, here's a look back at all the games I played and featured on the blog in 2018.

So what games did I end up playing this year?

• ADLG - 4
• Arena Rex - 1
• Blood Bowl - 11
• DBA - 8
• Empire of the Dead - 2
• Fistful of Lead - 1
• Gangs of Rome - 5
• Gaslands - 1
• Gates of Antares - 2
• Kill Team - 12
• Konflikt 47 - 13
• Mordheim - 1
• Muskets & Tomahawks - 1
• Red Book of the Elf King - 2
• Rumbleslam - 1
• Saga - 2
• Shatterlands - 2
• Test of Honour - 12
• Triumph! - 6
• Warhammer Underworlds - 9
• Warmaster Revolution - 3
• What a Tanker! - 1

100 games in total, and that's not counting the board games that I played over the course of the year. Maybe that's something to track in 2019?

I also decided to keep track of what I painted during the year:

• 10mm Artillery - 1
• 10mm Infantry - 158
• 10mm Monster - 1
• 15mm Artillery - 1
• 15mm Cavalry - 33
• 15mm Chariots - 4
• 15mm Elephants - 7
• 15mm Infantry - 186
• 15mm Misc - 2
• 28mm Artillery - 1
• 28mm Infantry - 211
• 28mm Monster - 2
• 28mm Vehicles - 3

Not a bad tally, I think!

Here's a look at all the games featured on the blog in the past year.

L'Art de la Guerre

Arena Rex

Blood Bowl

De Bellis Antiquitatis 3.0

Empire of the Dead

Fistful of Lead

Gangs of Rome

Gaslands

Beyond the Gates of Antares

Konflikt 47

Muskets & Tomahawks

Red Book of the Elf King

Rumbleslam

Saga

Shatterlands

Test of Honour

Triumph!

Warhammer Underworlds

Warmaster Revolution

What a Tanker!

Here's to another year of gaming in 2019!

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.

2018 6x6 Challenge - Retrospective

I hope everyone's been enjoying the holidays!

Since I did one of these last year, I though I'd follow up with another look at how how my 2018 6x6 Challenge went.

While Alan over at the Stronghold Rebuilt didn't run the event, I still liked the idea of picking six games to try and focus on over the course of the year.

So, the games for 2018 were:

1. Arena Rex - 1
2. DBA - Completed
3. Muskets & Tomahawks - 1
4. Test of Honour - Completed
5. Warmaster Revolution - 3
6. WWII - 5

Like last year, I'm not wholly satisfied with the results, but not entirely unhappy with them either. While I only completed two of the six games (where, last year, I managed to complete three), I played each of the games at least once. 

So, let's break it down, game by game.

Arena Rex

Yet again, I'm disappointed by my ability to get Arena Rex out on the table. It's a fun, fast game with a ruleset that's easy to learn but has some surprising depth. To be fair, I'm the only one with models to it and it's an extremely boutique game with expensive, fragile models. 

Maybe I can work on getting another faction for the game in the next year. The Helleniki look pretty cool...

DBA

This year was a my big foray into DBA, and I don't regret it. They make for quick, vicious games in a small area that can look pretty good with the right terrain. I'm looking forward to playing more if I can, and I've got a couple Dark Ages armies that need to be worked on.

Muskets & Tomahawks

Another game that I only played once, and because I signed up for a game at Fall In! 2018. I've got forces for the game (although I need to finish the British Regulars I've got sitting in a foam tray), and the necessary terrain for it. But other games took precedence over the past year. 

Test of Honour

Test of Honour started off as fairly popular at the beginning of the year, which is why I was able to rack up so many games and complete this part of the challenge. However, with Half Day Studio closing, interest in the game quickly fell off. I've also cooled on the rules. They're alright, but very shallow. And because it's a pool-success based game, players can go for activation after activation with nothing happening. 

Maybe in 2019 I can explore different rulesets to use these miniatures with. 

Warmaster Revolution

Let's be honest here - I only managed to sneak any games of this in because of the tournament at Fall In! 2018. However, they still count!

I enjoyed learning the Warmaster rules, and my outing with the Ogre Kingdoms was fun. There was a decent amount of interest at the convention, with attendees stopping by and happily recognizing the rules and minis (apart from my Ogres). It looks like there's going to be another tournament at Cold Wars 2019, and I've got a Dogs of War army that I'm planning to use.

WWII

So, this category was supposed to be an attempt to find a new ruleset to use my 15mm miniatures with, since interest in Flames of War is basically at an all time low. What it (mostly) ended up being was a bunch of Konflikt 47, with a single game of What a Tanker! thrown in for good measure.

That's alright, but it meant that I ended up buying a bunch of miniatures for another of Warlord's rulesets. They're fun and I mostly enjoy them, but I think I burned out playing against Keith's British over and over again. Maybe I'll get it to the table in 2019, maybe not. 

So that's the 2018 Challenge, but there's not going to be a 2019 follow up. Instead, I'm taking a different approach, with a post that will be coming out in the new year.

By the way, this blog's birthday just passed. It's now six years old! 

A World of Tanks - What a Tanker! AAR

This past weekend was the monthly meeting of the South Jersey Gamers Assocation. Unfortunately, a scheduling conflict meant that the planned game of Dracula's America wasn't going to happen, and a call went out for a replacement game. 

While Ted had his French and Indian War game of Share Practice planned, I took the oppurtunity to pick up a digital copy of What a Tanker!, the WWII tank skirmish game also from TooFatLardies. I'd been meaning to get the rules at some point, since I've been searching for a ruleset that will get my 15mm collection back out on the table. 

The scenario was pretty simple - a head-to-head clash of armor. Red Team had Panzer Mk IVs, while Blue Team had a combination of Shermans M4s and Cromwell Mk IVs. While the Germans had better firepower, Blue Team had the advantage of the Cromwell's higher armor and Fast attribute which would allow them to stay on the move even with a bad roll of the dice.

With two players on either side, I cut number of tanks to four on each team.

The first turn basically saw both sides getting to grips with the command dice rolls, and moving into position.

The table was laid out to have two major play areas. The teams could go into the hills, which blocked line of sight and were impassible. This was better for fast maneuvering, where spotting a tank would be easy, but getting shot back at in return was a risk. The other option was to go through the hedgerows, which were minor obstacles. It would take more effort to move through and spot the enemy, but it also made for a better defensive position.

The first casualty of the game was one of Blue Team's Shermans, who took a side shot from a Panzer hugging the side of the table.

The Panzer running up the side of the table managed to sneak in another kill, knocking out the Blue Team's second Sherman.

Sam, in the mean time, had used his Cromwell's superior speed to rush across the board and get behind the Red Team's line.

Sam used the oppurtunity to get a couple hits in the rear of one of the Panzers, who needed to use its command dice to swing its turret around to get a shot - which missed.

As Blue Team was getting hit pretty hard, I decided to bring the last Sherman in as a reinforcement. The eager tank crew came in along the road, fired one shot that missed, and were subsequently blown up by the waiting Panzer.

So far, the Shermans had failed to impress against the Panzers.

Now Blue Team had their backs against the wall, with four Panzers chasing after the two shermans.

However, Sam managed to get a well-aimed shot through the rear armor of a wounded Panzer, which resulted in the tank's destruction.

The rest of the battle took place in the village, with the teams jockeying for advantage. Sam took a risky maneuver that placed him in the rear of each of the Red Teams' Panzers.

The risk paid off when Sam was able to destroy another German tank - but then his Cromwell blew up in return when another of Red Teams' tanks spun around and put a round into his side armor.

With only a single damaged tank left, Blue Team decided to run up the white flag.

The game was pretty well recieved, although there was some hesitation about the command dice. It can be somewhat frustrating when you can't seem to roll what you need, leaving your tank stranded in the open or unable to fire at a target right in front of you. I'll chalk that up to it being a Lardies ruleset - they seem to be rules that players either love or hate.

That said, I had fun running and playing the game, so I'm looking forward to playing it again. Maybe in 28mm?