Painting in March

 This was another productive month (at least by my standards). So far ,posting a monthly result is certainly encouraging me to pick up a brush when time is available.

I had planned a 3-4 player Zombie Stagecoach game for the later part of the month, so that occupied a lot of my painting time.

But not all, some more Martian Fighting machines of various sizes.

A mob of Wild West zombies (or is it a horde? a plague? an infestation? What do you call a group of zombies?)

A mutated coyote thing, from the Zombicide Undead or Alive boxed set, very nasty.

An even nastier (and hungrier) big mutated critter!

 

Fast zombies and an undead mariachi player.

Middle Earth Elves defend the crossings from the Orcish host

 Having a bit of time on my hands I decided to try out a Midgard scenario I'd put together as a solo game, before inflicting it on others. Inspired by the excellent Crossings of the Eyewash scenario by David Hunter, a small force of Noldor Elves are defending two river crossings against a larger force of Orcs. The orcs need to break through quickly as Elvish reinforcements will arrive as the game progresses.

Led by a hero, a unit of spears, supported by a unit of archers defend the northern crossing. The archers peppered the approaching foe, damaging the lead unit of orcs and forcing them back, delaying the orc advance.

Unfortunately this made space for a unit of trolls to take the lead and the elf arrows just bounced off their hide.

The other ford is guarded by a hero with a unit of 2-handed swords and axes, backed up by a unit of spears.

Without archery cover, the orcs start massing on the far bank.

The elves brace themselves for the onslaught, but the orcs waver (the lead unit failed their test to make a second move!).

At the other ford the trolls charge across the river, crashing into the elf spears causing serious losses.

The elf hero moves up to join the melee whilst the archers force the orcs behind the trolls to retreat. The elves are hurting the trolls, but their losses are greater.

Seeing how things are going at the northern ford, the elves to the south decide to charge across the  rivers, catching the orcs off guard.

The elves gain the upper hand and the orcs fall back, into the masses crowding up behind them,

Things are looking bad for the elves to the north, but in the nick of time the first elf reinforcements arrive, a unit of heavy cavalry.

They rush to the aid of their hard pressed kin.

Just in time as the trolls keep up the momentum pushing the spears out of the ford, clearing the way for more orcs to cross the river.

I neglected to take any more photos of the closing moves. The elf spear at the north crossing broke, leaving the hero standing solo to face down the trolls. But the elf cavalry came to the rescue, getting a flank charge in and wiped the big beasts out (they were already a half strength after the prolonged melee at the ford). 

At the southern ford the lead unit of orcs was destroyed, after retreating into the unit behind and trampling some of them as well! Supported by the elf spears, the elf axemen went on to charge the next orc unit and lucky dice routed that as well. 

At the end of turn five more elf archers arrived, but as the orc Reputation was down to minus 1 to the elf plus 4 they were just spectators really. I was quite pleased with how the game went, it seemed an easy victory for the elves, but lucky shooting dice kept the orcs from following up the successful trolls. Plus the elf cavalry arriving within easy reach of the northern ford helped. If they had turned up further away I'm not sure how things would have gone for the lone elf hero.

Midgard Dwarves against Elves (and a Dragon!)

 Colin and I dug out some fantasy armies to try out spells and monstrous creatures, namely Colin's Dragon!

Colin set up his elves in a single line, interposing spear and bow units along the line. he put his bolt shooter on one flank and his dragon on the other. I matched his battle line and put my skirmishers facing down the bolt shooter. With a dwarf army I  needed to get into contact as quickly as possible and avoid too many casualties on the way in. There is no point trying to be subtle with dwarves, so a headlong change was my main tactic.

Turn One

Not much happened, the dwarves trudged forward and the elves sat back and lobed a couple of arrows, that did no real damage. The bolt shooter also failed to do any harm, but did succeed in knocking one of my axe units back out of the line. The dwarf wizard had attempted to shield some units using a magical mist, but failed (costing me a reputation point!).

Turn Two

The Dwarves move closer and their wizard conjures up a misty veil to cover the advance of my heavy hitters, the dwarf king and his hearth guard and a unit of ogres.

In the defender's phase, much to my surprise, Colin charged forward with his spearmen and the dragon, while his archers stood and shot. Despite the elves having the advantage of charging, the melees were mostly drawn or won by the dwarves (due to the dwarves' heavier armour), except over on the flank, where the unit fighting against both spears and a dragon were wiped out, along with the champion leading them. Things were looking bad for the dwarves, the elves reputation had been boosted by their heroes leading charges, whereas the dwarf losses had taken by 5 points!

Turn Three

In this turn things moved in favour of the dwarves. In the brutal melee combat along most of the battle line, the dwarves superior armour started to swing the melees in their favour (assisted by Colin's utterly abysmal dice rolling for his dragon).

I moved my skirmishers into close range of the bolt shooter and showered them with arrows, inflicting a kill on the crew. 

Elsewhere the dwarves not yet in combat, charged forward and a brutal melee ranged up and down the line.

On the opposite flank the dragon charged up the hill, accompanied by a beastmaster hero, which i though would be the end of the unit awaiting them. but the dwarves rallied and actually won the melee, pushing the fiery lizard back! Also wounding the elvish hero in the process. On the other end of the hill the dwarves destroy the spear unit in front of them as the second elf units repositions themselves on the dwarven flank.

In the centre the dwarves pushed the opponents back almost universally along the line, except for the ogres who destroyed the spearmen in front of them.

The melees continued in the defender's phase and the poor elves started to melt away.

The artillery's response to the skirmishers was fairly ineffective once again.

This is the centre on the battlefield at the end of turn three, the elvish battle has disappeared, leaving isolated units struggling to hold on.

Turn Four

On the hill the dwarves manage to turn towards the elves before they can be caught in the flank. The dragon and their foes are both in the game, but have effectively fought each other to a bloody standstill. Over in the centre, another elf unit disappeared, along with their hero, as the dwarf juggernaut keeps moving forward.

At the end of turn four the elves are down to minus 3 reputation, whilst the dwarves are still on plus 5. Dwarf victory!

A quick and bloody game. I'd expected the elf archery to be more effective (to be honest, so had Colin😁) and the bolt shooter was a damp squib. It wasn't helped that the bows only got two shots in and the heavy dwarf armour avoided too many casualties in that short time. The dragon was also a disappointment, his fire breath weapon was ineffective and he couldn't manoeuvre any better that the dwarf foot. I suggested Colin lose the breath weapon, it's more effective in melee, so why waste time breathing on the enemy. Use the points to give the dragon the Flying ability, which would have allowed it to sweep around the flanks  and potentially catch a unit in the rear, or else force me to break up my line and pull units back to counter the dragon.

Zombie Stagecoach 4

 Kirstie and I played through our next game of Zombie Stagecoach. this was a new scenario I'd created, as we had worked our way through Wild West versions of the original scenarios in Zombie RV.

We were investigating a small town, which appeared to be deserted at first glance. I have added in the requirement to find food supplies in order for the survivors to operate at full effect in the subsequent scenarios, and renamed "Supplies" in the original rules as "Something Useful", which allows the reroll of 1 die roll. The survivors require 1 food per PC, anyone who is not fed will start the next game with 1 wound.

Here is the table layout. No zombies in sight, but that won't be the case for long! We decided to run down the street and start with the buildings furthest away, on the assumption that if we needed to retreat, we could outrun the zombies back to the stage.

Turn 1 and already some undead have wandered along.

What should Jill do here? Just take aim with her shotgun...

...BOOM

!

More zombies appear, these have a nasty (tough) zombie in their midst.

The gang got lucky with the first two buildings, both had food, 1 had Something useful as well and, most importantly, no zombies inside. Jill is now checking out the undertaker. hope there are no customers left inside!

Another building with no zombies, and a quick search found more food.

In the meantime Ol'Pete and Jack are keeping the zombies busy in the main street.

A bunch of the undead seem to be outflanking the guys. But see that flash of blue at the window?

Having searched the building and found a bottle of rotgut whiskey (Molotov cocktail), Jenny has moved up to the window with her trusty Winchester.

In the meantime Pete lets rip with his shotgun. Both barrels clear the street pretty effectively. The jenny bags the nasty zombie from her vantage point.

With 3 food in the bag, Jill moves on to search another building, while the rest conduct a fighting retreat.

Just as well she had rolled an extra action this turn, opening the door reveals two zombies. A blast from her shotgun kills one and knocks the other to the ground.  She steps into the office.

Hurry up, it's getting a mite busy outside. The zombie climbs back on its feet, but fails to hit Jill, who crushes it's skull with her shotgun butt. Search the office finds another food and a stick of dynamite. That will come in useful!

As more and more zombies swarm forward our gang of heroes? run back to the stagecoach and make their escape.

This scenario seemed almost too easy, the dice gods were definitely smiling on us. We didn't find any zombies inside building until the last one we searched, and the first three buildings all yielded food supplies, which made things really easy. It allowed us to avoid contact with zombies for most of the game and scoot back to the stage before they could overrun us with superior numbers.

When we tried the scenario again, just to make sure, we left one survivor dead and just escaped with two of the others wounded!

A Great Weekend of Gaming

 My younger mate Mark came over to stay for an annual gaming weekend this week.  We have been doing this for a few years now, Mark and his wife Kate, have two young daughters (now 5 and 7) and this provides an escape for gaming and adult company. To be fair, we have started a similar weekend escape for Kate. She is a history buff and enthusiastic about steam engineering. My sister Broni volunteers for our local heritage railway, so last year Kate came over for a couple of nights of drinking cocktails, then a day on the railway where Broni wangled her a private visit to the signal bow and a ride on the footplate of a steam locomotive.

Back to gaming, I had a packed schedule planned. 

Friday: Mark arrived, had a beer and settled in, followed by dinner, then beer and a game of Frostgrave.

Saturday: am Frostgrave, then Ian joined us for lunch, followed by more beer and a game of Zombie Stagecoach (wild west Zombie RV).

Sunday: More Frostgrave followed by lunch at a Turkish restaurant, before Mark headed home.

Great fun and a lot of laughs was had by all. Here are some photos of the games in no particular order.

Frostgrave first.

Mark's wizard channelling an ACW General. "Watch out for that crossbowman Master!". "Pah! he couldn't hit an elephant at that distance!"

Twang! Thunk! Ugh!

Three of Mark's warband close in on one of mine trying to collect a treasure.

But picking up the chest alerted the Giant Worm lurking beneath the surface. Guess who was closest?

Yep! That one's the starter!

and this one's the main course!

The Zombie Stagecoach. Mark and Ian each had a gang of survivors and I GM'ed the zombie.

The town looked quiet, too quiet!

It looks like Emily's in trouble!

Now is not the time for the shotgun to run out of ammo!

The melee just got bigger!

The reason there are noise markers next to the shed is that 3 of Ian's gang are hiding inside. "Shhh. Be vewy vewy quiet, we ain't hunting wabbits". 

They were hoping the zombies would follow little Timmy, who was running across the street screaming, after being startled out of his hiding place when one of Mark's gang searched the barn.

And it worked!

Ian's character Ol' George attracting the zombies attention before heroically leading them on a merry dance, allowing the rest of his gang to sneak up and search the last two buildings.

An excellent weekend. We are already planning the next one!