Last weekend I finally got up to the Mad Padre's for one of our irregularly scheduled
Operation Thundering Dice weekends of gaming.
We started out pitting his Space Kitties against my MMC in the epic battle for control of the arid mining colony
Litterbox 4. His kitties were suitably aggressive, pouncing into close combat several times.
He had me outnumbered in AFVs and I had him outnumbered in troops, so I concentrated on taking down his fast moving armour. But my power armoured Fleet Recon fireteams got pasted. The game shifted in my favour when a random event resulted in a piece of debris hitting a major concentration of Mike's kitties and one of their IFVs.
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| Martian Marines advance |
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| Space Kitties zoom in |
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| Space Kitties have loads of zoomy shooty things |
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| MMC Fleet Recon take up positions in the colony |
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| Kitties on fast moving, high firepower zero armour jet bikes! Meow! |
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| MMC rifles take up positions |
We then gave the Games Workshop big battle rules
War of the Ring a try with a very unbalanced game. It is very figure intensive. Companies of 8, and a formation needs at least 3 companies to have a chance. Also the basing is very critical, a point against IMO.
My trolls proved very hard to kill and stopped the Rohirrim cavalry dead.
The magic was interesting though and I liked the Might Points allowing heroes to go do heroic stuff. So I might steal some ideas for my own games.
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| Armies deploy overseen by Smoochie, Plush Dragon of Mordor |
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| Theoden leads a huge cavalry charge against my right wing. We didn't get to fight over Mike's groovy new Rohirrim fort, but it looked good on the side lines. |
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| Nazgul leads wolf riders to envelope Mike's right |
Sunday after breakfast it was time for some
Dragon Rampant and a bit of Evil vs. Evil as Mordor and Isengard got into a disagreement over some hobbits.
Mike was having terrible dice luck. He kept trying to use Saruman to cast befuddle on my troops before attacking. So my Nazgul said "Good idea!" Except my activation rolls were better and my trolls charged downhill into magically befuddled troops sending Saruman running back to his tower.
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| Mordor |
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| Deployment supervised by Stanley the Fuzzy |
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| Isengard |
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| Some Warg on Wolf action |
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| Wargs smash into my goblins |
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| Action in the center |
This weekend being a long weekend it was hard to get anyone together. But Sunday night Dick came over to help me play some of
The Chicago Way. I did up two roughly equal gangs and we were able to run through two games in about 5 hours, which included a break for pie.
We played a "Raid" scenario with my gang attacking his gang in the warehouse, then after some apple pie that Mrs. Rabbitman had made, we tried the "Running the Gauntlet" with Dick's hootch convoy getting ambushed by my gang in the dangerous streets of Pottersville.
I mainly wanted to learn the mechanics better and try my dual Tommy Gun armed figure from Steve Barber. He blazed away like Frank Castle in
The Punisher, but he wasn't over powering either.
My gunsels burst in the back doors, causing lead to fly. Big Tony Canolli and a couple of heavies rained lead down from the mezzanine level. Meanwhile I'd sent my hit man around to the front door to get behind them. Dick's punk guarding the office fired through the door at him and my heavy shooter blasted a volley back. A hood with a Tommy Gun moved to the foot of the stairs and blasted Big Tony before Mad Dog gave him both guns. The fight ended with a lot of very close range blazing away around boxes.
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| Bullets fly in the warehouse |
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| Machine gun fire rains down from mezzanine |
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| "Knock! Knock!" My hit man goes in the front door to get behind them. |
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| Pie break! |
In the second game I wanted to learn car rules better. Dick got cautious and dismounted most of his gang to clear the street before bringing his vehicles down. Since he wasn't going to drive into my kill zone, I moved the kill zone to him and a big shoot out erupted at the corner by the deli complete with a bullet riddled car crashing into a light post. My Boss did a very dramatic walk up the street and plugged Mad Dog with a single shot. My hit man then strode through the carnage outside the deli to take down Big Tony at close range. Dick had tried to outflank me by sending two hoods through the warehouse but he effectively removed their firepower from the fight at the intersection when it mattered.
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| Laying in wait |
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| Blood in the streets |
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| The driver is gunned down |
Pretty exciting. Very cinematic action. Lots of laughs too.
On the painting bench I've done this legion of Foundry Late Imperial Romans for a friend (which have been in the queue 4 years or so), and whilst waiting for more
Peter Pig Russians to arrive I decided to get some paint on these 2 battalions of 15mm Old Glory SYW Prussian fusiliers and 1 battalion of grenadiers because Scott tells me he's doing 15mm SYW Austrians next. Scott never does things by halves, so I figure I need the reinforcement.
Besides , they've only been sitting primed and waiting for 20 years or more!
