Here’s what I used:

• Thor’s Mighty Chariot
• The Mighty Thor
• Thor
• Heimdall
• Balder
• Hogun
• Fandral
• Sif
• Spider-Man (Thor version)
• Valkyrie (on foot)
• Enchantress
• Beta Ray Bill

My first game was against a guy named Rich. He was also playing an Asgardian team. I don’t know if it was my slow playing, from lack of understanding of the rules or what, but he killed Beta Ray Bill while I killed an Asgardian Warrior. He won that one.

The second game was against Charles, who apparently didn’t have enough models for 2,000 points and only played 873 points. His first opponent played his full 2,000 points against him and won pretty easily. I decided to make it more fair and reduce my list down to his point level. I ran Thor’s Mighty Chariot, Balder, Enchantress and Fandral. He had Thor’s Mighty chariot, Ragnarok Surtur and Fenris Wolf. I ended up winning that one by killing everyone on his team. It didn’t help that in two consecutive turns the Surtur rolled a critical failure.

The third game was against Mark(?), who was running the tournament. He ran The Specter and Hela. It was definitely an uphill battle for me. I did end up losing, but I felt pretty good about damaging the Specter a couple of times and killing Hela outright with Heimdall and Balder.

In the end, I walked out with a new map and a Runaways team ability card. Everyone there was really cool and playing the game was a ton of fun. Yeah, it’s a ‘clix’ game, which a lot of serious mini gamers look down on, but it is still a decent fun game. I look forward to playing in future tournaments at lower point levels, where I can use all my own minis.

The nice thing about this year as opposed to previous years is that I had some company for the drive and some help with parking and gas costs. Fred was that company, and what great company it was. I had a blast having him ride with me.

We began the con with Wednesday night as Fred needed to get his passes for the weekend. I got to see a few people that evening and even had time to set up the Pulp City boards for early the next morning. Brian was more than glad to help me and I was more than glad to accept. We hung around with Joel as well while Fred was down at the Event Registration booth getting tickets for the things he wanted to do. We ended up leaving around 9 or so, if I remember correctly.

Thursday began bright and early at 8 am with Pulp City demos. Brian and I ran two sessions one hour each serving four people. That’s eight players. The nice thing was that a couple of people who had purchased the actual tickets didn’t show, but we had plenty of people with generics to fill in; one of which was even a local! After the demos, I made my way as fast as possible down to the dealer hall with JR, Brian and some other folks. Brian and his wife had the kids with them, so they had to break off a little early. One of my first stops had to be the Wyrd booth to pick up the Malifaux book and a Fate Deck. Maciej hooked me up with some swag for running demos. I worked a shift in the Pulp Monsters booth from 2pm to 6pm that afternoon doing demos of Pulp City. I got to hang out with the guys from Darkson Designs as well, which was pretty cool. I may need to check out their games. I left the booth at about 5:55 hoping to make it over to the FFG booth to pick up their new Living Card Game (LCG), Warhammer Invasion. I got there and the the tower of boxes was reduced to a mere footstool. I asked one of the booth guys if this was all they had and they told me yes. So, I picked it up. Afterwards, the Wyrd guys were doing demos upstairs in the same room where I’d previously held Pulp City demos for TableTop Gamers (TTG). It was full enough that I didn’t get a demo though. In themeantime Tim and I opened the box and sorted through the rules for Warhammer Invasion. We played a quick 2-player game of Dwarfs vs. Chaos. We found a misprint and had some issues to look up, but it went fairly smoothly. Later, Fred showed up with his Thor on a chariot and we threw down a 3-player game. Some folks at another table were asking us questions as if we were experts, which was pretty cool. Fred’s Empire deck ended up running out of cards the turn after Tim had made two of my sections of my capitol burn to the ground. It was a really fun game even though I normally hate 3-player games.

Friday was again a pretty busy morning with Pulp City demos. Brian again was ahuge help by being there super early and having everything already set up and ready to go. The demos were just as full as the previous day. I spent much of the day just trekking around the dealer hall looking for stuff to blow cash on. I even finally decided on a second crew for Malifaux after asking around about the ones that most interested me aesthetically: Pandora. I was told she was the more “cerebral and annoying” crew, so I was sold right there. Later in the afternoon I met up with Tim, Joel, JR, Morgan and some other folks and we went down to Currito for some lunch. Afterward, Tim walked his bud Kevin and I through the Lord of the Rings skirmish game. I ended up winning the game through making his army break before he made mine break as he had quickly grabbed objectives with Wargs I couldn’t catch up with. Later on Fred showed up with an old school card game called Star Trek: Trading Card Game Second Edition. He said he’d gotten a demo on a whim and that it was a lot of fun. He picked up a starter/booster box for cheap and had been messing around with decks. We played a quick 3-player game with Bryan before he had to start setting up for Ambush Alley. Brian called and said he wouldn’t be coming back to the convention center after running errands due to traffic from the Colts game that evening. I don’t know why they insist on scheduling these things at the same time! Fred ended up going to try to watch Plan 9 From Outer Space, so I tried again to get a demo of Malifaux. I did end up getting to play a game with one of their Henchmen, but he must have been demoed out since he didn’t speak much or help me out with the rules. He did preoceed to beat up Seamus with Lilith and told me that sometimes you have to lose to learn a game. I disagree with this notion, but whatever. Later, I watched a game between Maurice and a guy I’ve met from St. Louis (I hate that I don’t remember his name!). The latter was playing the Pandora crew I’d just bought and Maurice was playing the Zoraida box. I think I learned more from watching this game than the “demo” I’d played earlier. After that I goofed arouns while thinking Fred was at the movie. I found him outside the room sorting through cards, so we headed out.

Saturday morning began with a sigh as no one showed up for the 8 am Pulp City demos. We did, however, have a full set for the 9 am session. It was nice to finally pack up all that stuff and take it to the car. I picked up a few Outcast and Resurrectionist models for Malifaux to supplement the boxes I’d already bought and I bought a box of starters/boosters for the Star Trek CCG to play with Fred. Brian and I did some goofing around and then I had to do another session in the Pulp Monsters booth from 2pm-4pm. Again, it was pretty cool, but a bit exhausting. I then met up with Tim, JR, John, Dan, Brian and Morgan for our big 3,000 point per side War of the Ring battle. Tim brought both of his Mumakils and JR brought the Balrog. The good guys had Aragorn, Boromir, Glorfindel, Galadriel and my first use of the Galadhrim cavalry. Midway through turn 2 I think it was, there was a fire alarm and we had to leave the building. We came back in about 30 minutes (rumor had it the problem was caused by an overcooked pizza in the food court) to finish the game. We didn’t finish until a bit after midnight. That was 6 hours worth of War of the Ring! I ended up in a bit of trouble with the wife as I hadn’t called before 12 like I said I would. Fred finished up at a tournament and then we were on our way home.

As always, Sunday was a bit of a sad day. First of all, Fred and I ran into the biathalon on our way in, which held us up by about 45 minutes or so. To keep from getting too distressed, we went through decks and packs of Star Trek that I’d purchased the day before. Then when we got there, lots of people were vacating the premises. That part is always pretty sad. We tooled around the dealer hall for a while and Fred and I split a box of Star Trek boosters since they were so cheap. We then went back upstairs and sorted through some of the cards. In talking about CCGs, I got my mind set on getting some boxes of the old WARS CCG, which is a bit like Star Wars, but only about $8 per box. I didn’t really buy too much this day, but I did hang out with Bryan, Fred and Joel. We waited around a bit for Tim since he said he’d be around for us to go through the Malifaux rules, but he never showed up. He did say something earlier about having to do some RPG stuff with his wife, so that’s probably where he was. Around 4:30pm, we left the convention center and made for home.

I then spent the evening and all the next day with my awesome wife who never once made a big deal out of me spending money at the convention or spending so much time away from her. How kick ass is that?!

All in all, this Gen Con was one of the best. It was a good mix of hanging out with friends from all over and “working” the convention. Next year will be even better!!

Loot:

• Malifaux: Pandora box
• Malifaux: Killjoy
• Malifaux: Samurai Punk Zombies
• Malifaux: Convict Gunslinger
• Malifaux: Rulebook
• Malifaux: Fate Deck
• Pulp City: Boreas/Seabolt
• Pulp City: Sgt. Bale/Stoner Hawk
• Pulp City: Chronin/Dr. Mercury
• Pulp City: Dr. Red/Howler
• Pulp City: Sister Bedlam/Tangent
• Pulp City: June Summers
• Pulp City: Herald
• Magic: The Gathering: 12 Alara Block packs (4x for $9)
• Dark Age Groundwerks Bases: 2x blisters 30mm, 1x 50mm
• HellDorado: Corvus Tormentors
• WARS: Incursion Starters
• WARS: Incursion Boosters
• WARS: Nowhere to Hide Boosters
• Star Trek CCG: Call To Arms Booster/Starters
• Star Trek CCG: Strange New Worlds Boosters
• Warhammer Invasion Box
• Lord of the Rings: Golfimbul mounted and foot (proxy for Gothmog)
• Armorcast: Dumpsters
• Armorcast: Vending Machines

Thanks to having worked some time for Pulp City and having sold off some minis prior to the convention, the total cost of the weekend was pretty minimal, which is surprising as I’d pretty much purchaed about everything I would have normally gotten.

A few things to note that I wasn’t sure where they fit in chronologically: Apparently, Maciej and some other folks knew what company/individual had picked up Helldorado and were very excited about the continuance of the game. I went by the Alkemy booth to check out the wvae 5 stuff in hopes that I might be interested enough in the game to update the collection. Unfortunately I was not.

My only real regrets were not getting to see off a few friends.

I think that just about covers it!

Oh! As I was talking to Brett, he mentioned the possibility of having an extra Goblinette Hog Whisperer after the con that he’d hook me up with. Later in the afternoon he called and told me he’d be shipping me one when he got home! Sweet!! Not sure if that’ll lead to another crew for Malifaux or just a fun model to paint.

His team:

• Hellsmith w/Hell Hammer
• Guerilla w/Tracker & Ammo Feed
• Chimp Chi w/Corrupted Cops
• Agenda: Rob the Bank

My team:

• Six Feet Under w/Pulp City Cops & Pulse Emitter
• Red Riding Hoodoo w/Zombie Wolf
• Ace of Wraiths w/Hellstromm and The Hangman
• Agenda: Eliminate This One – Hellsmith

We used the same deployment on the 2′ x 2′ board as we usually do where the base of the model has to be touching the edge. I arranged the 5 Citizens around the center of the board since the board is smaller than what really works for the Citizen rules.

I won the starting roll and moved 3 Citizens toward my team, meaning to trick Brian into thinking I had the Agenda to save the Citizens. He moved Guerilla up and killed the Citizen that I moved, but was closest to him. I then ran Six Feet Under (6FU) up to a light pole and threw it at him. Unfortunately, I was unable to Power Up. Guerilla then pumped 7 points of damage into 6FU. Hellsmith moved up and tried to smoke a Citizen, but failed since the Citizen rolled a 6 for Defense. Ace of Wraiths moved up a bit and pumped some lead into Hellsmith, putting 7 damage on him. Hellsmith subsequently moved closer to Ace and did Cleave Earth, putting 4 or so damage on him. The Zombie Wolf moved in on Hellsmith and did a Bite, inflicting some damage. In the meantime, 6FU moved up and threw a car at Guerilla and did little damage, though he did get a Power Up this time. Guerilla then returned the favor and did damage to 6FU, nearly killing him. Next round, Guerilla did Dakka Boom to finish him off. Ace of Wraiths pumped more lead into Hellsmith who then killed off the Zombie Wolf, but died when Hellsmith Soul Shotted the demi-god. Guerilla managed to finish off Red Riding Hoodoo, who most of the game had done very little due to my spending most of my AP on Ace and 6FU’s Power Ups and attacks. Chimp Chi and Ace went toe-to-toe for a little while making each of them have only one damage point left. It all came down to whether Ace should Power Up and Soul Shot the little bugger or just Strike him. Ace opted for the Way of the Gun, which Chimp Chi dodged and then finished the pistolier. That was game over.

The VP totals went in Brian’s favor due to his killing off my whole team. However, I was only 1 point behind since I did complete my Agenda.

I really like the Agenda system and I plan on using them in the demos I run at Gen Con. Likely it will be the “Eliminate This One” or the “Rescue/Kill the Citizens” ones.

Here’s the list I used:

• Rifle/MG Platoon (3 sections)
• Rifle/MG Platoon (3 sections)
• HMG Platoon (2 sections)
• Mortar Platoon (2 sections)
• Universal Carrier Patrol
• Wasp Carrier Patrol
• Churchill Crocodiles
• M10C 17pdr Platoon (1 section)
• 6 pdr anti-tank Platoon (2 sections)

I put the Wasps, the 6 pdr’s, and the HMG Platoon in Delayed Reserves, per the mission rules.  I placed the objectives in the two opposite corners of the available area so one is closest to my deployed force and the other is near where the Reserves will arrive.

The Nightfighting rules were both a boon and a curse. The limited movement kinda sucked, the rolling for distance a platoon can see was annoying when I rolled low (per the usual), and having all his units Concealed was pretty bad for me. On the up side, he had to roll for distance as well.

I started out moving my units around and through Recon move and normal movement, was able to get the Universal Carriers in range of an enemy Rifle platoon. I fired all the shots and killed no one. I tried firing the M10 17pdr’s at the Shermans, but failed to do any damage at all. The PIAT from a Rifle platoon fired at the Shermans as well, but failed to do any damage either. I then fired smoke from the mortars at the Shermans. I now know that one has to fire smoke first if any smoke is to be fired at all. On Joel’s turn, he moved the Rifle platoon in danger from the Universal Carriers back toward the objective. He also moved the Shermans in that direction as well. Some shooting happened, but nothing too devastating.

The next turn, I moved the M10s closer to the Shermans, moved the Universal Carriers and the Crocs nearer to the Rifle platoon, and moved my Rifle platoons around. The M10s again fired at the Shermans and did nothing, the UCs fired into the Rifle platoon killing maybe 1. The Crocs fired their .50 cals into the same platoon and did minimal damage. This seemed to be the theme of my game; either I’d roll badly for distance or my attack rolls would do poorly.

I kinda get fuzzy about the middle part of this game. I finally got my Reserves with the MMGs showing up first, followed by the Wasp Carriers the following turn. The turn the MMGs showed up, they decimated the Rifle platoon Joel was using to hold the objective. In the meantime, the Crocs tried to deal with his 6pdrs in the woods and failed to ever do any damage. I lost a good portion of a Rifle platoon to his own MMGs and another good portion of the other Rifle platoon to his artillery. The Wasps wiped out half of another Rifle platoon he was using to hold the second objective. I failed to do enough to make the unit test, however. The Crocs worked on the other half of the platoon and eventually wiped them out. He moved his Shermans closer to that objective to contest it. His 6pdrs were able to destroy one Croc and Bail another. His reserves that finally showed up managed to wipe out a Rifle platoon as well.

Now, here is my big mistake in this game. I decided to have the MMG platoon disembark from their Carriers as I thought they were vulnerable inside them. As it turns out, I was wrong. He ended up using his artillery and Shermans to wipe out that unit, making me give up control of it.

Due to time, we called the game at this point. I believe Joel would have won this game given another turn. I made a couple of big mistakes that screwed things up a bit. As I already pointed out, I should have left the MMG platoon inside their carriers and held the objective. I also should have let the Crocs move alongside a Rifle platoon and act as support. I also should have used one of the flamers from the Crocs to work on the 6pdr unit.

The game could have gone better for me, but the best thing is I think I’m catching onto the rules. I didn’t have too many basic questions and I think I played a pretty decent game. I know I’ll get better over time and I might actually play in a tournament one day. I’ll probably challenge someone else at the store to a game or two, just to broaden my Flames of War experience too.

Primered all my assembled War of the Ring minis. (24 High Elf Warriors, 24 High Elf Archers, 24 High Elf Spearmen, 24 Wood Elves, Glorfindel, Ent and a number of characters)

Made bases for my Flames of War Churchill Crocodiles since when I pinned the trailers on, the joint seemed finda flimsy.

Painted two Flames of War British M10C SP (17 pdr) tanks. Man, FoW stuff paints up super-quick!

Painted my two HQ stands for my Flames of War British army. They only need dullcoated now.

Applied a basecoat of Trollblood Highlight on my Ent. My sexy/awesome and honest critic wife commented that she wasn’t sure about the base color, but I think some washes will make it look more like a tree.

Worked some more on Nuke and Hellsmith. The toxic glow effect still needs work according to the amazing critic-wife, “It looks like a bunch of green worms on top of yellow goop”.

All in all, a lot of progress made.

I made sure to bring all my stuff with me this time so Brian could play Six Feet Under as he requested. I went with the ARC guys, which were all new to me.

Brian’s Team:

• Six Feet Under (Pulse Emitter & Pulp City Cops)
• Red Riding Hoodoo (Zombie Wolf)
• Ace of Wraiths (Hellstromm & Hangman)

My Team:

• Virus (The Glove)
• Apebot
• Guerrilla (Tracker & Ammo Feed)

The board I built is only 2′ x 2′, so we deployed with the bases of our models touching the edge. Of course, with Red Riding Hoodoo’s Mind stat being so high, Brian won most of the Starting Rolls.

I just moved Apebot up behind a car in preperation for throwing it and Virus moved up to the left of the car. Guerrilla moved along the right edge of the board advancing toward Ace. Brian had Ace move up as well as 6FU and everything else. I realized that I really would have liked to have Virus closer to Apebot since his Fix action to increase Apebot’s AP is only a RNG 1. Apebot decided to just throw the car anyway. Unfortunately, due to distance, he couldn’t hit 6FU with it, so he targeted the squishy Red Riding Hoodoo. Ace moved closer to Guerrilla and did Soul Shot doing some damage. Guerrilla returned the favor with some repeated Dakka Boom, which finally killed Ace later in the game. 6FU moved in on Apebot and dropped the Pulse Emitter, doing damage to Apebot and keeping him from doing anything. 6FU then proceeded to pummel Apebot and Apebot couldn’t retaliate due to an AP of 1 and 6FU’s Reach 1. Virus healed Apebot  and then later got attacked and killed by 6FU. Apebot was then taken out by 6FU.  After having killed Ace, Guerrilla moved in on 6FU and finished him off with his favorite action, Dakka Boom. It all came down to Red Riding Hoodoo, the Zombie Wolf, a couple of Cops and Guerrilla. The Zombie Wolf and Red Riding Hoodoo got Guerrilla down to one damage left, and in a last-ditch effort, he dropped a car on Hoodoo’s head, finishing the game.

Man, the more I play this game, the more I love it. Next time around, though, we’re using Agendas and Citizens. I think Brian’s Cops would have been a bigger influence had we done that last night.

[singlepic id=150 w=320 h=240 float=] [singlepic id=151 w=320 h=240 float=] ]]> http://www.dertotengraber.com/2009/06/19/pulp-city-level-5-game-heroes-vs-arc/feed/ 0 http://www.dertotengraber.com/2009/06/18/flames-of-war-1500-points-late-war-british-infantry-vs-british-air-landing/ http://www.dertotengraber.com/2009/06/18/flames-of-war-1500-points-late-war-british-infantry-vs-british-air-landing/#comments Thu, 18 Jun 2009 12:57:16 +0000 Totengraber http://www.dertotengraber.com/?p=785 Since the Star Wars RPG didn’t happen, Joel and I played a game of Flames of War instead. He had recently finished painting a large chunk of my army, so I was eager to get them on the table and play.  He’d also built me a custom objective marker using the extra pieces from my Tom Stanley box and some extra models he had lying around. The army looks really good on the table. The only problem I had with my models was identifying which stands went with which platoon. I fixed that just this morning by putting a stripe of color on the back of the base. I used some primary and somewhat bright colors so that they are easily idenifiable from just about anywhere on the table.

Here’s my army list:

• HQ
• Rifle Platoon (3 sections, PIAT, light mortar)
• Rifle Platoon (3 sections, PIAT, light mortar)
• Machine Gun Platoon (2 sections in MMG Carriers)
• Mortar Platoon (2 sections, 2 Observer teams)
• Universal Carrier Patrol (3 UCs)
• Wasp Carrier Patrol (3 Wasps)
• M10 17pdr SP (1 section)
• Churchill Crocodiles (3 tanks with trailers)
• Anti-Tank Guns (2 sections of 6pdrs)

I am honestly not sure what Joel’s army list consists of.

We ended up playing the Free For All mission and I was the attacker. Being my first “real” game, I don’t remember everything that happened, but we went through just about every aspect of the game. Some of the more interesting things that happened were that the Wasps got smoked by Shermans right off the bat, we each had a Rifle/MG platoon assault each other but neither were wiped out, he destroyed a few of my MMG carriers and some HMG teams, the Crocodiles used their flamethrowers on a Rifle/MG platoon and then assaulted them wiping them out. When we called the game, it was the top of turn 3, I believe and I believe I was going to probably lose the game. While I was trying to win, I was also trying to figure out how to play the game. I really enjoy this game mostly for the sheer number of models that can be put on the board at 15mm. I look forward to my next game.

I have a few more modeling and painting things to do with this army. First, I need to clear coat the models I got back from Joel. I’ve already noticed a few places where the paint is chipped or rubbing off. No big deal on these minis since it’s just block painting and an ink wash. When I get the turret for the M10 that was broken, I’ll need to paint those. I need to get a Heavy Mortar platoon to get the army up to 1,750 points which I understand is the “norm” for FoW at least in Late War. I also need to paint up my HW stands. Luckily it’s only two stands, so it shouldn’t take but maybe a couple of hours.

I also did some assebly work on a couple of M10 17pdr for Flames of War as well, but that was like a 30-minute venture.

I did however, get some work done on the first 2′ x 2′ board for Pulp City demos at Gen Con done. I used some Rustoleum textured darkgrey/black paint for the streets on the board. It came out pretty well perfect in color and texture. I have some work left to do on the board, but I’m feeling pretty good about what’s done with it so far (gluing down cork for sidewalks and a coat of grey primer).

This week I plan on getting Hellsmith, Nuke and Zombie Wolf done so I can count the Pulp City figures as complete.

Speaking of Flames of War, it is one of the biggest games played at Games to Die For. A while back, Joel talked me into giving it another try (after the debacle when a bunch of our group switched over a couple of years ago). People are playing Late war a lot now, and I decided to go with the British for two reasons: Universal Carriers and Churchill Crocodiles. Both of thos emodels really caught my eye. I bought and painted a couple of units (MG Platoon, Rifle Platoon and some Universal Carriers), since then, Joel has been painting my models for me as the painting of the same colors over and over was getting to me. I have almost 1500 points now after my purchase of some M10s last night. I look forward to playing this game again once I have all my stuff painted. The guys who play at the store seem like pretty cool guys and they don’t seem to be like what I imagined historical gamers to be.

Looks like some cool stuff is on the horizon. Now I just need to et caught up on the current releases (Rook, Francis Gator, Father Oak, Acorn, Trail and Blood Rose).