Momos? Good Oh!

I took Snorkers! (Good Oh!) down to Chatham for KEGSCon this year, naval games being very light on the logistical burden and I wanted to promote it a little. I stayed Friday night at the Comfort Inn and while doing a route recce noticed that The Gurkha Restaurant was very close by. I didn't want to dine alone and Keith and his wife Tam volunteered to join me. It's tucked away in a rental hall on a small industrial road and needs better signage, but it's worth the adventure to find it. Service was very friendly and we shared a platter of steamed momos as an appetizer and then I had a positively gianormous bowl of shrimp biryani, which I took half of it back to my hotel for next day's lunch. The hostess was very nice and packed me some plum sauce to go with it, I guess that is a traditional way to eat it cold.

Saturday arrived bright and early and I set out a scenario from the Rising Sun Over Java far east early war supplement. I modified it for my Mediterranean fleets and used the standard card deck so new comers would have a better sense of the rules, but pointed out that modifying the card mix was a useful scenario building tool.

In the morning I ran it with 4 players. The Italians were trying to intercept a Malta convoy.

Italians moving from left. RN is pushing forward with destroyer flotillas.

Italian and British destroyers clash

First kill. HMS Kipling is lost to torpedoes.

HMS Kashmir from the same flotilla is limping off table with flooding damage, lower right corner. I had the player do some damage control checks and she eventually sank.

After getting heavily embroiled in the center and drawing off the RN Covering Force, but losing the Zara (she ate three torpedoes!), and a Condotierri CL, the Italian DE flotillas dash forward on either flank.

Convoy successfully attacked. All four targets sunk. 

So that was a rather pyrrhic RM victory. They lost the Zara (CA), the Luigi Cardorna (Condotierri class CL), and two DEs (Lupo and Sagittario). The RN lost two destroyers.

After my lunch of left over shrimp biryani I reset the table and had the RN attacking a convoy running from Sicily to North Africa.

RN advancing from the left. The RM still arriving from the upper right, although the Zara has pushed ahead to engage the British. She's going to keep all four RN cruisers busy until she goes down flaming.

RN destroyer flotillas breaking left and right to try and get to the convoy. RM units trying to cut them off.

Bottom of photo flotilla of J class DDs getting intercepted by the Condotierri CLs and some Navigatori DDs.

Js dieing bloody but putting a bit of hurt on the Italian CLs.

RN player remembers his objective and pushes forward on his left flank, eventually sinking all four transport ships.

A bitter victory for the RN. They successfully attacked the convoy but lost three DDs doing it. Although killing an Italian CA and seriously damaging a CL was perhaps a fair trade.

In both games the RN didn't lose a single CL.

I managed to do a quick survey of some other games. There was quite a variety.

Pillage

Midgard. I think the skulls are Keith's measuring sticks.1 spear throw x 2 spear throws. 

General d'Armee in 15mm

Xenos Rampant

The Full Nelson

something with pirates

Sharp Practice

I didn't get a pictures of some Check Your 6!, Chain of Command, and more Xenos Rampant. In total there were 15 games and 50 or so people.

After I packed up,  I headed home, giving Big Dave and Son a lift to London. Big Dave offered to buy me dinner and while talking food, and how much I enjoyed the momos the night before, he mentioned there was a place near his that he went to all the time. Fortunately, I was still full of shrimp biryani, so we eschewed highway rest stop burgers and pushed on to Hakka Momo House. I let Big Dave guide me and had a sumptuous meal of Malai Momos, Hakka Chow Mein Noodles washed down with Massala Lemonade. He insisted I take the large quantity of leftovers home to share with Mrs. Rabbitman for Sunday (and Monday's!) dinner.

Another picture of the really lovely 1:700 scale ships in The Full Nelson game.

A pretty good adventure all told. Hakka is my new favorite ethnic cuisine. 

Darktan Bloodclaw, Skaven Warlord, and More Rats

Pasha Dan issuing a challenge to take on my ratty hordes with his Chaos Dwarves has gotten some momentum going on painting all these Skaven. Of course, seeing what can be done with some fast block painting, dry brush, and then an ink wash helps make these figures a lot less intimidating too. 

On! On! Kill the Man-things! Yes! Yes!

Of course I'm going for decent table top standard, not Golden Daemon or suitable for print photographry as well. That helps a lot when you aren't trying to edge highlight every thing.

And people think Napoleonics are complicated? I guess it depends upon what you're used too.

So here's a unit of Stormvermin. One of the little wee buggers broke at the ankle because of the stupid pegs GW forces you to use. But some plastic cement and a judiciously placed piece of clump foliage and he's right as rain.

A unit of Clanrats.

I do like the little rats included at the feet or on the shoulders of some of them.

My math tells me I'll have a few figures left over, and I hate left over figures. So I made one with a particularly commanding pose into a minor hero and gave him a purple robe instead of the normal dingy grey. Because he's special. His name is either Klik, or Spam.

And the best for last, my Army Commander, Darktan Bloodclaw riding his Clawbeast, another horribly tortured beastie from the Skaven labs. He's so big, I naturally had to load him up: armour 4, legendary weapon, brutal, plus some missile fire ability (note the gatling pistol). Of course, if he dies, I lose 8 of my 16 Reputation. 

The name Darktan is from the Terry Pratchett Discworld novel, The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents. Several other of my Skaven characters are named from the same book.

The figure was very complicated to assemble. Fortunately there were clear instructions. But we're almost entering scale model building territory here. I get why some GW folks paint the parts on the sprue.

I hope his glaive looks suitable ancient, legendary, and magical. I used some washes over silver to try and get the effect.

I've got a freind at work printing some movement trays for me, designed by another friend on the Quar Discord Server. Dan and I might try a match up in a couple of weeks. Although I will have to conscript some enslaved goblins to make up the numbers. Downgrading Darktan to a level 3 just doesn't seem right.

Quar Clash of Rhyfles Chaos!

Had six of the gang over on Saturday night for a big game of Clash of Rhyfles. CoR breaks down at bigger ponts levels so I bascially ran a Convention game and set up three 1v1 patrol games and laid out a 6 foot table dividied into three boards. I then planned out six approximately 340 point patrols trying to get a few different things on the table to see how they work. The patrols were in teams, Royalist and Crusader. Each patrol on each team got to do the activations on their card. So if the Crusaders had a 4 card, then each Crusader Patrol got to do 4 actions.

Crusaders deployed along the left hand edge, the Royalists on the right hand edge.

Yellow dice on cloth edge marking the board edges, dividng the table into three 2 foot square zones. Although there was a bit of sniping into adjacent zones.

Gloam Hyyn had a Yawdryl, Milwer with Cryfen LMG, 5x rhyflers, 1x marksquar, a cook, a poacher with shotgun, and a trapper. 340 pts.

Coftyrans had a basic squad of Yawdryl, Milwer, Cryfen LMG, 7 rhyflers, a Caerten, and a Cook. 338 pts.

The PPCLI had a squad of Yawdryl with SMG, Milwer with SMG, 6 ryhflers, 2 grenadiers and Scatter Gunner. 332 pts.

The Tollyn-Maeryn had a Yawdryl, Milwer with SMG, 2 LMGs, 2 rhyfle grenadiers, 6 rhyflers, the Irrascable Lone Buck (infiltrate and Skill 13), and the Home Dyna. 340 pts.

The Crusaders had a basic squad of Yawdryl, Milwer, 4 rhyflers, 1 marksquar, 3 rhyflers with ryshis, an LMG and a loader. 338 pts. 

 

The Toulmorese being all Skill 13 were much more expensive. They had a Yawdryl, a Milwer,  4 rhyflers with bogens, 2 with ryshis and a mortarquar. 340 pts.

Coftyrans, commanded by your humble correspondent advance in the center.

PPCLI advance into the village 

Tollyn-Maeryn moving forward on the other side of the village 

Crusaders advance in the center opposite the Coftyrans 

Toulmorese in the jungle 

Gloam-Hyyn in the jungle too. The traps were interesting but not game changing. Next time I should try the Sarf-Cyn handler.

Weirdy-Beardy ran his Scatter Gunner over the bridge to enfilade the bulk of Scotty's squad deployed along the stream. BLAM! A grenade followed up, leaving most of Scotty's patrol OOA

The Rhyfle Grenadier in the yard has been tended to by Mumsy and takes a break from lobbing bombs across the stream to shoot the Scatter Gunner. 

The Irrascable Lone Buck has infiltrated behind the PPCLI to get into a fight with a Grenadier, eventually winning.

Another grenade lofted across the stream to take out the Rhyfle Grenadier behind the fence, but the grenade deviated onto Mumsy! The Home Dyna was knocked OOA and the offending PPCLI grenadier was Gobsmacked with shame. 

After more grenades and sniping, the Tolly-Maeryn Yawdryl charges out of the house with what was left of his squad and over the bridge. One of his team renders the Gobsmacked grenadier OOA. *thump with a rhyfle butt* "And THAT'S for hurting Mumsy!"

Gloam-Hyyn getting stymied in the brush

End game in the village. All of the PPCLI are OOA or actually dead. The Tollyn-Maeryn have 3 still standing on the PPCLI side of the board. 

End game in the middle. The Crusaders and Coftyrans have stalemated at the center line.

End game in the jungle. Between the ryshi and the mortar breaking up any attempt by the Gloam-Hyyn to do anything, and the Gloamers potting exposed Toullies, they are stalemated as well. 

"What's going on? Did I miss something?"

It was loud. It was crazy. It gave me a headache. I was essentially trying to play and GM 3 different games. It was kinda fun though. But we did a bunch of indirect fire and got a better handle on grenades and the mortar. I need to do some solo games to learn heavy weapons, blast weapons, and tractors so I can start putting those on the table next time. I also need to make some blast templates.

This was Game 32 of the year!