Reign in Jotunheim Campaign

 Ross and I played another game in our on-going Reign in Hell campaign, set in a frozen hellscape. This has been fun to play, giving me the opportunity to use various minis from my existing collection and the odd mini I've picked up here and there (often a 3d print that caught my eye).

This was the "Twins" scenario. There are two objects of power, but to release the power you must control one and destroy the other.

The battle gets underway, I split my warband and headed for both objectives, but Ross advanced his warband down the middle to avoid committing to either flank.

That allowed me to grab both objectives early.

But left my demons rather exposed.

In the next turn Ross struck on both flanks, charging with a spined demon...

...and ganging up on my little mephit.

Who didn't last long.

But his attack on the other flank was less successful. A rather bloody scrap ensued from this point.

A high point for me! My succubus used her Charming ability to make Ross's leader attack and kill his succubus, ironically before she could use her ability on one of my demons!

Our two corpulent demons slug it out, sort of a demonic sumo match!

A brave armoured demon attacks two of my warband, well not so brave, he has a magic gauntlet that converts any wounds he saves into hits on the attacker!

This mephet thought he was safe hiding on top of the tower, but my succubus can fly! She stabs him in the back (it was probably the only demon in play with an even lower combat ability than her)....

...then charms a spined demon to charge into his comrade, the armoured demon. If he hits the armoured demon suffers wounds, but if the armoured demon saves they are reflected back onto the spined demon. Win-win for me!

The two leaders go head to head.

My demon is the victor, crushing his opponent...

...then being cut down by the slaughter fiend (I suppose the clue's in the name!).

At the end of this turn (Turn 4) we called it a draw, as the game only ran for 5 turns. We each had possession of an objective, but were too far apart for them to make contact in a single turn, never mind fight and kill their opponent so that they could destroy the other object of power!

A great fun game, with a lot of laughs and a high casualty count. I lost my leader  and two other demons, Ross lost his leader, lieutenant (succubus) and 4 other demons. Three of the killing blows were struck by members of Ross's own warband, under the charm of the succubus (which meant I did not get the soul dice for a successful kill). I really must learn to use the succubus to weaken an opponent, then kill them with one of my demons, rather than the other way around. Fortunately for me, Ross's succubus died in turn 2 so he did not get a chance to use her charms on my warband.

Painting in July

 July has been a much more productive month, allowing be to get through a bunch of fantasy miniatures, mostly from the Wildspire Realm Reforged set.

First off a batch for a dungeon/urban setting. I'm putting a lot of my fantasy stuff on grey bases, especially if I do not have a specific use for them, on the basis that a grey base in an outdoor setting is less jarring than grass tufts and flowers in a dungeon!

These next ones are really bystanders for urban settings, the children would be quite out of place in a dungeon and the dwarf drummer is bound to attract unwanted attention!

I also pained up a bunch of creatures, mostly suitable for a woodland environment, again all Wildspire except for the mountain lion, which is a repainted D&D plastic mini.

I recently got the Midgard mini-campaign "The Iron Valley" and realised I could use a unit of bears, so I painted the rest of the batch.

A unit of Treemen, these are very old figures (1990s?) from the USA, a company called Fortress Figures.

Some old Grenadier minis, from the Fantasy Warriors range, Dwarven rangers (I think these are Nick Lund sculpts). They will also find use in our "The Iron Valley" campaign.

A couple of last minute bits that I've just finished in time.

A female Dwrarf fighter from the Wildspire set. She will be Prinzessin Adalheid in our upcoming "The Iron Valley" campaign.

And some terrain for a change, a pack of Stratified Rocks, 3d prints from Headbunny. I was tempted to pretty these up with some vegetation growing out of cracks and some tufts tucked into corners. But it occurred to me that to do so would restrict their potential use. As it is, they would fit in almost anywhere, the moors of  Middle Earth (or equally Northern Britain or the West Country), deserts, the snowy wastes of Jotunheim or even on the bottom of the sea! 

Belated Birthday Gaming Day....at a PUB!!!

 I decided to hold a Gaming Day for my birthday this year. Due to circumstances I wasn't able to run it on my actual birthday, so on the following Saturday a group of friends gathered. Once I had worked out who I wanted to invite, I realised that it would be too crowded in my gaming room at home, so I booked a space in a nearby pub, the Dog House. 

It's a Victorian pub, originally built for the railway, and downstairs they have a coffee shop that never reopened after Covid, so they hire it out for functions. A perfect location, just a few minutes from home, plenty of space for our gaming needs, private loos, a good sized car park and beer and food just upstairs!

                                      

                                      

After setting up, I started with a bite of lunch (and a cold cider), soon joined by Kirstie, Colin, Ian, Paul, Ross and Henry. I'd also invited Will and Mark, but Mark wouldn't make it and Will was working and would join us in the evening.

We started with a Pulp gunfight on the Canadian/US border involving gangsters, smugglers, cops and Mounties, all searching for a missing shipment of moonshine. It was a chaotic free for all, which quickly dissolved into a series of gun fights, it often seemed most of the players had forgotten their personal objectives (if they had read them at all!).

The quiet before the storm. In the centre of the table is the missing convoy of hooch.

A closer view of the (alledged) objectives.

First kill! Ian's Mounties put down one of Ross's moonshine smugglers.

 

On the other side of the table, Henry's smugglers decide to get in first and open up on Colin's patrol of Mounties.

After a frenzied exchange of gunfire their corner of the table was littered with dead and wounded.

Ross's smugglers were not content with exchanging shots with Ian's Mounties, but starts on Kirstie's Chicago cops as well!

As Ian's patrol move in on the trucks, they are startles to see a frozen severed arm lying in the road! In the meantime, one of Colin's patrol rushes up and climbs into the cab of rearmost vehicle.

A the Chicago cops and gangsters blast away at each other over the car, they notice that the driver is still seated in the vehicle, but missing his head!

As the Mounties start up the engine on the lorry, the noise obviously disturbs the sleep of a local resident, who unsurprisingly is somewhat put out! He takes a swipe at the nearest sumggler.

Unaware of the presence of sasquach, the Mounties clear the road behind...

....and start to back the truck up.

Sasquatch charges towards the closest of the noisy contraptions, taking shots from the Mounties as he does so. But the bullets seem to have no effect, except to annoy the creature even more!

Having taken out the last of the cops, Paul's gangsters hurriedly pile into the vehicles and franticly try to start the engines.

Just as Sasquatch closes in, the engines roar into life and the gangsters pull away, but their progess is slowed by the deep snow.

Ignoring the ruckus just across the border, Colin's Mountie safely exits the table.

As the other lorry moves towards the table edge, Henry's last smuggler runs to the back of the truck and pulls himself in. Realising they have a stowaway, two of Paul's men climb out of the cab, onto the roof of the truck, then swing down through the open back door and attack the startled smuggler. 

At this point Sasquatch catches up with the vehicle and, hanging onto the swinging door with one hand, reaches inside and grabs one of the gangsters.

A lucky die roll allows the gangster to evade Sasquatch's attack, just as the truck zooms off the table, leaving the irate monster clutching a torn jacket.

The final situation, with a lot of bodies left lying in the snow, the spreading blood staining the white to red.

At this point Henry plaintively asked why Paul's men were battering his smuggler, when according to the scenario notes their gangs were allies! Oops, Paul hadn't noticed that!

The final result was an overwhelming Victory to Tony "No Nose" Calzonne of Chicago (Paul) have escaped with a truck load of hootch and kept his boss alive.

Second place went to Sgt Smiths RCMP patrol (Colin), they secured a load of illicit booze, but failed to nab their target "Lumberjack" Watson.(who had been killed by Ian's Mounties, but he didn't any VPs for that!).

Everyone else was into minus numbers of VPs, as no one had achieved any of their personal objectives and had lost several of their characters, in fact all of them in the case of the Chicago PD (Kirstie).

Great fun and a lot of laughs.

As we only had an hour to go until we were eating, Ian produced a board game to fill the time.

It's Colt Express and rather silly Wild West game of robbing a train. Very cinematic, with outlaws climbing onto the roof and running alond the train, punching and shooting each other, whilst trying to avoid the marshal. A perfect time filler and once again a lot of laughs all round.

Ross and Henry had to leave at this point, swapping with Will who came straight from work, and Broni and Towse who were joining us to eat. After eating (I had a rather nice pizza, but others assured me that the burgers and the lasagne were of equal quality) we finished off with Will's board game, Aliens: Another Glorious day in the Corps.

Unfortunately I didn't take any photos.

Everything finished off around 10pm, when Broni came back to collect me and allt he boxes of gaming kit, as well as acting as taxi for Paul to get his train on time.

Thanks to everyone to took part, it was a really great day and a lot of fun.