Club Apocalypse 28th December 2009

On the 28th we gathered for a 40k apocalypse game. Rick and Mike took Imperial Guard, joined by Jim with his Space Wolves and Ken with his Grey Knights. Against them was Steve H with his Shadow Marines, Colin with his Dark Eldar, and me with my Eldar.

We deployed Steve with his marines to defend our deployment zone, while the enemy deployment zone was crammed with Imperial armoured vehicles.

Ahead of the Imperial forces dropped the Space Wolves. I committed some Jet Bikes and was stunned by their success against the Grey Hunters, at least while it lasted...

I then used our flank march stratagem to follow the Grey Knights onto the table with my Court of the Young King, including my brand new converted Shining Spears, who of course, died swiftly. Ambushed as I arrived I took heavy casualties, but still made major in-roads against the enemy

The enemy then turned a large portion of their armour to face me and I started to remove figures in large quantities! However I had made enough of a contribution by detracting from the front line. We managed a draw with both sides holding 3 objectives, including their vital objective. This was a close game and lots of fun, and I look forward to the next big game, and hopefully will not have to side with the hated Dark Eldar.

Club Night 4th December 2009

After the black powder day, I decided to run a game at the club. Only Steve K was available, so we got his ACW and played the Hangmans creek scenario from the rulebook.

After an initial success against the Confederate centre, I suddenly found my right flank engaged. The on-table unit was defeated and the reserves arrived in column facing a deployed and ready Rebel force that destroyed it in detail.

In the centre I had been driven back out of the town, but managed to get my forces out of the camp and deployed along the road. After some slight success in stemming the southern advance, the turned the Union right flank and started rolling up then line, a decisive Confederate victory, but a highly enjoyable game that played really well.

This is also the last post until after Xmas as I have my 30th birthday party, and Christmas meals. A busy time of year!

Black Powder Open Day

Instead of heading up the club on the 27th I drove up to Mike's to spend the weekend, and head with him over to Maelstrom games for the Warlord games black powder open day hosted by the authors, Rick Priestly and Jervis Johnson, and the infamous Perry twins lending their figures and running a huge (and very impressive) Napoleonic

Mike and I joined some other visitors and John Stallard and Paul Sawayer on another table, playing the N'tombi scenario from the rulebook. In the first game I played on the British side, with Mike on the Zulu side.

As the Zulus advanced (above) we deployed on the ridge line and opened fire. My Naval machine gun opened up and caused a huge number of hits destroying the Zulus (below). WE then launched our lancers and rampaged through the Zulus beating them thoroughly.

After a short break we resumed, swapping sides and joined by talented artist Peter Dennis. As Zulu C-in-C I sent my forces rushing forward. Mike then co-operated by jamming the Gatling and getting the Naval brigade destroyed. With some unfortunate dice rolling from Peter, losing the lancers, we then had free rein to destroy the rest of the British auxiliaries, leaving just the British line holding off the Zulus. Another victory for me! To read more about this, and for some alternative critiques of Mikes dice rolling, see the warlords review here.

Club Night 20th November 2009

On the 20th, after an eventful shift, Luke finally managed to join us and we played a mid war Italy flames of war game. Luke and Steve K took an infantry based British force against me and Rick with a German reconnaissance force.

With a large ridge between the forces we moved quickly to occupy it, and swept the armoured cars and half tracks round the British left flank. Our decisive force though was our aircraft, with no AA, they attacked as they pleased and pinned down a large part of the enemy forces.

Their 6pdr portees where effective on the other flank, but by leaving them on the ridge, they exposed them to return fire. The Germans managed a slight victory and I really liked the recce forces style of play.

Show game terrain

Luke and I took a few days off to work on the show terrain, We built the base boards and roughed out the terrain layout.

We then took a router to the board and cut the rivers and marsh in, and added the hill to be occupied by the king.

At Reading we then purchased the buildings so we have made some really good progress on the terrain.

Club Night 6th November 2009

Ok, I have been very poor at this. I am going to catch up and try and get back to updating this regularly. So we start by going back to 6th Novemeber when we dusted off the club terrain from a few years ago and got out our DBM armies, paired up bases and replayed the battle of Arsuf with the Impetus rules.

Above is the Crusader forces aligned along the coast line. I commanded the Knightly orders in the vanguard and the rear guard while Steve H took the role of Richard and commanded the centre and the wagons.

Above we can see Ian relaxing behind the Saracen lines on the hills above the Crusaders. They then begun to descend off the hills, as the Crusaders tried to turn their lines to meet them, while keeping their impetuous knights under control.

The Saracens descended on the centre and in one place broke through and destroyed one of the wagons, but the rest were saved.

At the rear I let my knightly orders go and they rampaged through the Saracens, breaking unit after unit under their hooves as they crashed through their lightly armed adversaries. However they then got undone, the lightly armed horse archers surrounded them and shot them (or more likely, their horses) down, destroying the isolated knights. A similar situation occurred at the vanguard. With the destruction of the rear guard and the vanguard, and another break through in the centre, the crusader army was broken and the Saracens victorious.

Considering only 2 of the 5 players had experience of the rules, the game ran very smoothly with the size of forces we used. It ran quickly and smoothly and I am now confident that the rules will produce an playable game for the show game.

WOFF 15

After Arsuf was over, I drove down to Pompey for WOFF 15. I took 1999 points of Kislev, and it did not go well. I lost every game! I could not pass a Leadership test, make a save or get any luck. My closest games where against Luke's Orcs and Goblins and Dave P Dark Elves, which surprised me a little, as I usually struggle against Dave as he is a vary astute player.

My worse game by far was against Darren's High Elves. Always a tough opponent, I knew exactly what I wanted to do, but Darren got the first turn, destroyed two units of horse archers with his bolt shooters, causing panic amongst my other archers, and removing half my army from the table before it had even moved. Defeat shortly followed! To add insult to injury, the game was over so quickly, Darren and I swapped sides, and with my Kislev army, got the first turn and proved that my plan was sound, but thoroughly thrashing the High Elves under my command.

Among the better looking items I saw was the painted version of the battle standard I had converted Rik when I stayed down for a couple of days after Luke's Birthday. This is Wolfric's body, with arms and heads from the warriors and the knights box sets. Simple but effective.

The other good looking army was Ryan's Roman Empire army. Built from Warlord games plastics it looked beautiful and the tortoise counting as a steam tank was very clever. He also did quite well with them!

Club Night 30th October

A quick entry as I try to catch up! Luke and I played a practice game against each other in preparation for WOFF 15. 1750 points of Goblins faced off against my Kislev army and I won, but not until after a few hairy moments!

The following weekend I assembled the rest of the Kislev figures I needed (Empire knights had been standing in!) and finished two bases of Teutonic Knights for the show game. Now I just need to get all the rest painted!

Club Night 23rd October

I'm not gone! After the warhammer tournament there was a week away from gaming for Luke's birthday. A group of us took a trip to warfighters, a combat weekend unlike any other. A little weary, we returned home and the following Friday I played three games with Duncan

First up was a Helldorado, using the basic boxed sets of Westerners against Saracens. I won, but narrowly. As this was the first proper game of this I have played we missed loads of things, but was fun and has wetted my appetite for more.

Next was a couple of mangled metal against tooth and claw, Hordes vs. Warmachine games. Its been while since I did any hordes, but was again good fun, even if I lost both games. Warcasters seem to be quite a bit tougher than your average Warlock, so may need to refine my tactics, or get some more Warbeasts!

Warlords Double Tournemant 11th October

On Sunday I headed down to the new shop in Brighton, Wargames Heaven, for Brighton warlords annual doubles tournament. This will be my third year attending, but the first year it has been held in the shop. Located in the Imperial Arcade where many years ago a toy shop used to be. It has a varied stock of products, mostly GW and FOW, but also some Perry and Warlords games as well as other bits and pieces. They also have the full range of Vallejo paints, including model air which I will be getting from there in the future. But this Sunday it was up in the gaming area with Matt as my partner and ready to play some Warhammer.

Our army is pictured here, from left to right, 20 High Elf spearmen, 10 High Elf archers, 5 Dragon Knights, an elven noble with battle standard, Warrior Priest of Sigmar, 5 Empire Knight, 15 Greatswords with detachments of 5 archers and 6 halberdiers, 10 Empire swordsman, 10 handgunners.

Game 1 matched against Grant and Vaughan with Chaos and Dark Elves. This army was a proper tournament list, with the main elements being a frenzied Khornate lord on a massive jugger with the helm of many eyes and the blasphemous amulet, a dark elf noble on a chariot with a 1+ save and the crimson death and a war hydra. And we lost! My knight charged the hydra and won, but it passed its break test and then eat the survivors, the dragon knights charged the chaos knights and the Khornate hero. Despite my use of Van hostmens speculum with my Warrior priest I was slain and our Battle Banner only added 1 to our combat resolution, so we broke and where run down. After that it was just a matter of time. 126vps vs 2497vp meant we were massacred.

Game 2 was against Rik and Jamie with their double chaos army (spotting a chaos theme here, was definitely the army that featured most, followed by dark elves). It stated bad from the off-set, they got the 11 roll on the eye of the gods for their chosen, upped to 12, giving them a 4+ Ward save going up to 3+ with their mark of Tzeentch. By the time the war shrine had given them +1 attack in addition to their banner of rage meant this was an awesome unit we wre going to struggle to take. Under that is exactly what we did, after the dragon princes had fled from a terror causing unit they where trying to charge, and my knights bounced from the uber chosen of doom it was just a case of adding up points. 192vps to 2497vps and we had been massacred again.

Game 3 followed a lunch break where Matt and I reconsidered our plans! We came up against Steve with a pure Orc army, not a gobbo in sight! He was paired with his brother Tony using a beast army made up of Fimir models. This army was quite unique looking and a really beautiful idea. This time Matt and I continued with our usual plan of the infantry in the centre and the cavalry on the flanks, but placed both our heroes in the greatswords to make a really tough unit. And it worked, my knights took out the minotaurs and a herd. Although the dragon knights got caught by the chariot after killing the bestigors, the spearmen behind them took it out, while the greatswords and the heroes munched their way through the Orcs in the centre. With 2395vps scored against 468vps we had finally managed not only to not get massacred, but to inflict one of our own.

Game 4 was against Dan with High elves and Chris with Wood elves. White lines of chrace and a tree man where going to cause us some problems, but again our heroes joined the greatswords and we began our advance. The Dragon knights gain where not successful, but they draw a great deal of bow fire that could have been directed elsewhere. My knights took out the dryads and overran them. In the centre the hochland long rifle and my archers kept a continual fire in the general direction of the elf mage and kept her ducking for cover. A slight mistake from Chris' tree signing moved the wood with its white lion contents to a position where we could charge ti in the flank with our greatswords which after a few turns against the stubborn lions finally broke them. To finish off the game despite the use of two dispel scrolls to stop my prayers of sigmar int he final turn i got off my first and only prayer of the day and used soulfire on the wood elf archers. After the best game of the day we totted up the point and we had narrowly lost and had so much fun I didn't write down the scores!

Although Matt and I didn't place as we expected after our first two games we had a good day and where the only one of our three teams not to win a prize. Rik and Jamie got best army
and Chris and Pete look very disinterested as they only place 3rd!

Club Night 2nd October

One of my earliest memories as a 'proper' wargamer is a DB-something game on Steve K's dining table, pitting Romans against Carthaginians. So this week we got out the vanishing creature of the wargames world, the steel tool box, and extracted the Romans and Carthaginains and set them up in little groups of four and I introduced Steve to Impetus with a couple of games of Basic Impetus.

The fist games saw Steve as the defender commanding the Romans and me attacking with the Carthaginians. I choose the Elephant options as I could not resist using them, while Steve stuck with the standard Polybian Roman list. Steve set up a line of hills, which I then removed one of, and deployed his legion atop them. The velites deployed in front of this line with the cavalry on the left. I deployed my Numidians on either flank, with the Gaulic tribesmen and some skirmishers inside them on my left , the Elephants and some skirmishers on the right, with the centre held by my main infantry, with my general and his cavalry behind them.

A general advance saw me contact the velites with my Elephants but I managed to disperse them and then begin to make good progress against the cavalry with my own light cavalry attacking them from multiple directions.

However as has usually been the case with Impetus games involving Romans, to break them you need to kill, and so engage, the legion, who are a tough nut to crack. On my left the Gaulic infantry charged and initially looked to be doing well, but then where pushed back and beaten, while in the centre the legion charged off the hill into my advancing spearmen, taking the opportunity to overwhelm with with both quality and quantity, destroying the spearmen and breaking my army.

We then took a short recess while we watched the flames of war game in progress between Mike and Rick. They where playing one of the other scenarios from the rulebook and it looked like a proper WW2 game and seemed to be creating some really interesting and challenging choices for them to complete their missions, while maintaining the ease of play that has already attracted me to FOW. If there are more games like this I may have to consider getting an army...

Fortunately before I could get too caught up Steve and I returned to our own table and swapped sides. Steve again stuck with the basic army, while I again tinkered, by removing some cavalry and taking some Italian allies to act as auxillias. But it started going wrong right from the start. I had hoped to defend, but somehow managed to end up attacking, despite being heavily outnumbered in cavalry so again Steve had a hill to put his main heavy infantry on. With his infantry on the hill I had to advance my legion, with skirmishers and cavalry protecting one flank and light infantry the other.

Steve contacted both my flank guards and with shocking cohesion tests my flanks evaporated. I know just had my legion to take the fight to the enemy. As I pushed forward and tried to contact his heavy infantry to swing the battle back in my favour, but it was not to be. The Gauls attacked the legion on my left and managed to push them back, then charge again and sweep them away under the force of their charge, breaking my army while Steve Carthaginians where still quite someway from being broken.

This was another fantastci two games, I am really enjoying the Imeptus rules and Stev was very taken with them. Enought that his has signed up for our Arsuf refight at the start of next month reusing the terrain from our show game a few yeaars ago. It shoudl be quite fun.

matakishi's tea house

This is another great little site/blog with some really nice scratch built terrain on, which I am always a fan on. recently he posted a review of colours and featured some really nice pics of out game. Take a look a here: http://www.matakishi.com/news.htm

03 Oct Link fixed, Sorry!

Club Night 25th September

On Friday Steve K and I set up a Modern Naval using the Shipwreck rules. Steve took command of the Americans, with USS Cochrane, Farragut and Pharris escorting USS Detroit, a Sacramento class AOE to rendezvous with a carrier group. Satellite Intel had tipped off the soviets and they dispatched a Sovremenny class and a Charlie II to intercept. Both fleets started out as counters steaming toward each other until detection was achieved. As the Soviets where expecting the Americans they started with a helo up with its search radar on. Unfortunately this was detected by the American group and they turned south to avoid it. Meanwhile the Charlie was carefully closing the range, and despite one brief contact achieved by sonar staying undetected.

Having closed to medium range the Charlie came to stop and started searching out precise contacts to find its target. It detected the fleet and let loose with 6 of its 8 missiles, saving 2 for anything that came after it. The sudden appearance of these missiles caused panic among the Americans as they swung to unmask their AA weapons and released Chaff. The missiles swept over USS Farragut and onto USS Detroit. Only two of the salvo beat the AA fire and the chaff, and one of these hit. Unfortunately for the Soviet sub commander it hit right at the back of the supply vessel and only succeeded in heavy damaging it and destroying its helo pad.

Having been forced to switch on their radars the Americans now had a firm contact on the Soviet helo they knew had been buzzing around just outside detection range. As they knew it probably had a passive bearing on them they released a missile and blew it out of the sky. In response the Sovremenny turned South and illuminated its own radar. Almost simultaneously Cochrane and the Soviet vessel detected each other. The Americans quickly shared the data over their advanced systems and let fly salvos of S1MER and Harpoon missiles. The Sovremenny had hoped to hold off firing until it had detected the primary target, but now decided to fire at its attackers to ensure if it was lost it would not be without retaliation. The heavy Soviet missiles beat the US AA screen and homed on on Cochrane hitting her square amidships and sinking her. The fire from the Americans is shown below.

Six Missile in-bound with only CIWS and chaff to defeat them...

...which they fail to do...

While this had been going on the Charlie had been attempting to penetrate the screen and attack Detroit again with torpedoes. Despite intermittent contacts the US could not pin down the contact, until they finally got a bit of luck and located her with the helo from Pharris, which promptly dropped a pair of Mk46's on her. Despite her captains best efforts she could not escape the guided torpedoes and they impacted and broke the sub, the in rushing water dragging her to the bottom

Despite the loss of Cochrane the US had destroyed a Soviet destroyer, and successfully prosecuted and eliminated an enemy sub, and USS Detroit had managed to get most of her systems back on line and could move at three-quarters speed, so it was a clear US victory.

This was a great fun game, and after a few false starts I really like the way suns work in shipwreck, abstracted but it has a nice feel, without the need to do complex map movement, which is a real boon for an easy club night game. Maybe next time I'll have a Los Angeles class try and take out Moskova, Kirov or Kiev. Tat could be a challenge...

Space Hulk 22 September

As Luke managed to get off work earlier than he expected we decided I would pop round to his, meet the new puppy, and play some Space Hulk. As I have said earlier, I was never a great fan of this game, and had only played it a couple of times, but bought the new edition solely on the strength of the Blood Angels to add to my Sons of Sanguinius. and how glad am I that I got this game!

Luke and I played the first two missions from both sides and it was fantastic. The rules are so simple, but the timer for the Marines mean you really have to think quickly and act fast. Once we start to manage two squads it will be a real challenge.

Mission 1 was a good learning mission, not too complex, but enough of a challenge. Luke played the Marines first and really looked like he was going to succeed until he jammed at an inopportune moment and the Marine was dragged down by a 'stealer. This opened up his forces and I killed another marine and the flamer carrier, ending with victory. All I needed to win Mission 1 was to have 3 marines alive when I lost the flamer and I was doing better than Luke. I adopted a less deliberate and quicker approach and it looked like it was working until, much like for Luke, a bolter jammed and a marine went down and all your careful fields of fire count for nought! But by using the flamer to cover one approach by burning zones, and the Sergeant fighting through the other I managed to get the show into the objective room and win the mission.

Mission 2 starts with the forces much more scatted and involves the marines closing off the entrances, or just killing all the genestealers. Again Luke took the marines first, and I proceeded to through 'stealers at the assault cannon. They may have died in droves, but they made him chew through his limited ammo. As he quickly closed the other entrances, I added more and more stealers to the mix until he ran out of ammo and started falling back, his comrades dragged down by weight of numbers. But then I can across the sergeant with his Thunder hammer and Storm shield and he held a door way and heroically killed all my remaining 'stealers. Victory for the marines. Roles then reversed, and I tried for a similar approach to Luke in closing off one entrance quickly and killing the stelaers at the other. But Luke was wise to this, and took down the Sergeant. Although on guard, he was cleverly attacked from alternating sides, forcing him to turn when he won rather than kill, and he was eventually dragged down as my luck ran out. At the other entrance I was holding on ok, until, yet again, a jammed bolter let a 'stealer in and that was it. As the hordes attacked it was just a matter of time, and when the assault cannon blew up on its last shot taking its user with it, you knew my marines were not going to get out!

So a mission each, bring on mission 3, and 10 marines to control!

Club Night 18th September

Another multiple post coming. At least I have an excuse this time. I have been busy finishing off the assembly and basing of the figures for next years show game and starting work on the army list.
Last week, Steve K and I fought for King and Country against the Parliamentarians under Steve H, Bob and Scott. For some of the game we were joined by Finn and his friends. These are some young lads who been up a couple of time with their parents and although they can't stay all evening it is great to see some new young blood and I find their enthusiasm quite invigorating.
Which is more than can be said for the game! Using Steve K's rules based on Fire and Fury with a clever name I can't remember we defended basing house. I took the right and immediately attacked with my Cavalry and enjoyed early success.

However it did not last, some dodgy dice rolling and astute maneouvering on Bob's part turne the table on me and I quickly found most of my Cavalry almost on my own table edge. Fortunately Duncan had arrived and taken over the infantry and was putting up a sterling fight in the centre. Unable to hot anything with missile fire, his pikemen where performing brilliantly.

It is only as Duncan managed to stall Scott's infantry in the centre we realised what had happened on our right flank, as until now we had been too busy worrying about our own fights. Steve K appeared to have put Steve H to flight and a unit of finest Royalist cavalry swept into the disordered infantry in the centre, winning a fine Royalist victory!

Colours 2009 - 12th September

Last Saturday the club headed off to Newbury for Colours in the grandstand at the Racecourse. I really like this venue, although moving stuff in to the multiple floors can be a bit of a pain, the glass side makes it a really nice airy location compared to some.

We ran three games during the day and everyone seemed to really enjoy them, coming back for more games if they could. I think I let the photos speak for themselves.

My favourite moment is below, as an Israeli and Arab ran across the main road to cover completely ignoring each other as they tried to avoid the incoming fire. You can also see the working lights in this picture!

As far as trade went I didn't see anything particularly exciting, and certainly nothing that tempted me to part with my money, but then I am in the midst of doing the Teutons and Poles so I have enough for now!

Club Night 4th September

I have been a bit slack in keeping up to date. I will have to try to be better! Last club meeting Mike, Luke and I tried out Impetus again, this time using my 6mm Samurai. Inevitable both armies where fairly similar, but Mike and Luke went for a Charismatic commander, while I bought some defences to deploy my missile troops behind. However I ended up as the attacker, but Luke and Mike where decent enough to advance on me so my defences where not wasted!

After a general advance by my opponents I moved my Cavalry forward to break up their attack and try to maintain some of the initiative. Despite getting my Cavalry in a complete mess as their cavalry moved round the words and arrived behind them I had a very fortunate stroke of luck. One exposed unit of mounted Samurai where charged by the enemies foot Samurai, as this gave them the edge. Although lost the combat and retreated Mike rolled a 6 for his cohesion test, and the Samurai unit contained the Charismatic C-in-C, who I promptly captured as I withdrew causing chaos in the enemy ranks as the news of the loss shook every unit in the opposing army.

Despite this Luke's infantry had advanced rapidly and where moving round my flank while I was stationary behind my defences. I launched a small counter-attack, but it was eventually snuffed out, but not before I had shaken the enemies right. My Cavalry was broken, so I hurried my centre command towards Mike, where with the loss of the commander, they were not advancing quickly and I needed to take advantage of this. I inflicted some losses and pushed the command towards breaking, before they returned the earlier favour, and captured my C-in-C. But as they did this I pushed their army past break point, but the loses I took to do this broke my army too. A very bloody, close, and highly enjoyable draw. More Impetus beckons!

Club Night 26th and 28th August

On Wednesday Luke, Duncan and I gathered for a game of the Doom boardgame that had provided us with the rules for our club show game. Although I had played the very similar fantasy game, Descent, this was the first time I had played Doom. And very fun it was too. Duncan and I managed to complete mission 1 with only a couple of deaths each! By the end of the game I had found a BFG, but seemed to be unable to hit anything with it, but if I used a trusty chainsaw I could carve through anyting Luke threw at us!

On Friday, Duncan and I dusted off Advanced Heroquest and had a little game. Other than Duncans quite appalling luck againnst my repeated critical hits it was not hugley memorable, but was a hell of a lot of fun. So much we are going to try and start off a campaign by doing one game a month on our tuesday nights. Lets hope we can actually keep it going.

And on a final note, I have finally buckled! I am not a massive fan of Space Hulk and was only mildly interested when it was announced, but those Blood angels figures are GORGEOUS! So I will be adding two more Terminator squads to my blood Angels army when it arrives later this week!

Club Night 22nd August

I set up another Warhammer, this time against Simon and his Empire. I thought I would stick with what I know and take my Beastmen. A Wargor, Battle Standard Bearer, a Shaman, 3 Herds, some hounds, 2 units of Bestigors and 3 Chariots should give me enough to take on whatever simon laid down.
As it turned out Simon had some Knights, swordsman, spearman, crossbows, handgunners, flagellants, a volley gun and the essential cannon, all lead by a captain, with a warrior priest and a wizard on attendance. I won the roll for first turn and made the Empire go first as I was out of range of most of their shooting. The crossbowmen felled a couple of Ungors, while the cannon misfired and would be unable to shoot next turn.
I advanced across the table to meet him. Another turn of fire was weathered, and then I started making mistakes! While the chariots all crashed into the flagellants, I forgot to charge the swordsman with the herd on my left, and forgot about the dark heart so did not declare a charge with my Slaanigors against the knights. I tried to use the Wild Hunt from the Staff of Darkoth, but it met a dispel scroll. Although I had cut through a number of the teh craxed fanatics, my core unit if bestigors with my general was in front of the knights, and too close to even consider fleeing from the charge. The small ray of light was my Slaanesh spell I usually cast on y own troops to frenzy them, but instead I frenzied the handgunners so instead of firing they charged my other bestigors and got themselves killed!

On my left the Empire Captain on his Warhorse and the swordsman crashed into the herd containing my battle standard bearer, beat it and ran it down. The only advantage was the Empire general was now along way from where the rest of the fighting was going on. In the centre the knights charged and broke my bestigors, but luck was now on my side and they out ran their pursuers.

I rallied my Bestigors ready to face another charge from the knight and my ambushers arrived. The ambushers found the Empire artillery turned around and blew them away, but in the centre this time my Bestigors held and then turned the combat back against the knight and broke them and they fled, not to rally in the game. This was really the turning point, in the centre I had overrun into the volley gun crew, the Chariots had detroyed everything on my right flank, and my centre was turning to the Empire right.

The next couple of turns saw me break the remaining Empire units, the cannon destroy the volley gun by firing over its target unit and bouncing into the war machine, whose unlucky crew where being beaten by my herd. By the end of the game I had managed to pull back what looked like potentially a defeat to a victory as my forces closed in on the sole remaining Empire troops, the gun crew.

Away from the club I have finally finished building the BF110 for Colours, now I just need to get this mammoth model painted!

Club Night 18th August

Luke and I decided to try one of the other scenarios from Future War Commander. We decided Luke would take the Imperial Guard covering the evacuation of the civilians before the Eldar assault arrived. As I had twice the points Luke did I chose to take three Titans to put him under some serious pressure. Unfortunately that was only the plan! My command rolls where a bit poor and my force arrived in very disjointed groups.
And Luke's command rolls where not bad! With one of my infantry commands refusing to turn up, the other one came under orbital bombardment. The first salvo suppressed most of them, the second was perfectly on target and was a pin-point strike, destroying my entire command. In the centre my assault troops debussed and then I failed my command roll so they stayed in the open, while again Luke rolled fantastic command rolls and had about 5 successive turns of fire , destroying them.By the time he had bought down one of my titans, it was all over for the Eldar assault. Luke's luck and the effectiveness of Imperial Guard heavy weapon troops when they are already deployed had been my downfall.

Club Night 14th August

Friday Duncan and I did a little Warhammer, matching Slaaneshi Daemons against the forces of the Empire. After we had a good laugh about the fact that even using Army Builder I failed to pick a correct army by forgetting to add my Furies in completely. After some furious scribbling we did out first game, and suffice to say I lost!
We then set up again and tried a second game. Below you can see the Daemons advancing on the Empire centre. You will notice on the left of the Empire line the unit that gave me all the problems, a Steam Tank! I just had nothing in my Army that could counter it, and once it had contacted a unit it was just a matter of time before it destroyed them.Unlike the first game I managed to contact the big spearmen unit led by a Warrior Priest and finally break it. Despite the casualties I inflicted that Steam tank had done enough to edge it on victory points for the Empire.
If I decide to take this army to WOFF I will need to think how I'll cope with big gribbles. The Steam Tank is the worst, but I will need to be able to take down tree-men, giants and the like. Back to the drawing board...

Club Night 11th August

Hi There! Been a bit lazy about updating, so you are going to get bombarded with posts tonight. First up is last Tuesday game with Ryan. We finally got round to doing our much postponed and delayed 40k of Orks against Blood Angels. We decided to make it 1,500 points and to do a Planet Strike to top it all off! Ryan took the role of the Orks and defenders and set up the board, two defensive lines occupied adjacent corners with an automated lascannon in each, in the other two corners two bastions as part of more defensive lines. Then in the very centre a huge bastion with a quad-autocannon, protected by aVoid Shield (cunnin' Orky know-wots!).
Despite using scorched skies to increase the effectiveness of my fire storm, with the bastion in the centre impervious I only succeeded in destroying the two automated lascannons. The Sons of Sanguinius then leapt into the battle field. Three assault squads flew in on their jump packs, supported by a dreadnought in a drop pod. Their initial fire was ineffective, and they had dropped too far from the bastion to assault it that turn. Their the Ork reinforcements started to turn up led by a bike squad. Fire from the bastions (we had replaced all the heavy bolters with more Orky big shootas) began to take their toll. But then the Death Company arrived and swept the Bikes away with a terrifying number of attacks. A well place melta bomb finally bought down the central bastion and forced the gigantic 30 strong mob out into the open. Proving they can have even more attacks they assaulted one of the Assault squads and annihilated them, before the Death Company retaliated destroying the boyz before they fell under the counter attack of the Nobz and their Warboss. My tactical squad had arrived by now and opened fire, only to be assualted by the Warboss.

By the time the dust settled over 35 Orks had died and over a dozen Marines and their Chaplain. All that was left was one very angry (and slightly lonely) Warboss! Away from this one Assault squad of Marines was single-handedly taking the other half of the battlefield. They destroyed a mob of Orks who had deployed from a trukk to stop them, jumped across to put an end to the Deathkopters, then jumped back to occupy the empty bunker. Unfortunately this is where they took their losses. Down to 3 from their starting 5 through the victorious assaults, they took a pot shot at the trukk(now quite useless as it had lost its big shoota) with their plasma pistol. It proceeded to be destroyed, roll on the trukk damage table, before shooting off out of control directly towards the marines, and exploding, leaving a bemused Sergeant alone. And alone he was as he was the last surviving Marine. The Orks still held this world and another attempt would have to be made to wrench it form them.

Club Night 31st July

Friday night saw myself, Luke and Ian, joined by Mark, to try out our first full game with the Impetus rules. Using the 10mm figures we have for POW/Vis Bellica, based on 60mm wide bases, we pitted Sarmatians against Romans. We mostly followed the army lists but freely ignored them to fit the figures we currently have.

Luke and Mark set up as the defenders with the Romans, securing their left flank with a river, and their large Cavalry command, consisting of a number of units of Cataphractii, no doubt manned by renegade Sarmatians. In in the centre there was an allied Warband command, and then two commands of legionaries with auxilla and artillery support. Against them Ian and I deployed the Sarmatians with our infantry levy on the centre, the young nobles and some nobles on our right, the majority of the nobles under our charismatic C-in-C on the left, with some light cavalry and skirmishers on the far left.

The game began by a general advance by both sides as we go to grips with the intricacies of movement, disorder and discipline, especially with the impetuous Sarmatian noble cavalry.

On our right Ian's Cavalry careered across the dry river bed in various degrees of order and swept away the first lines of Roman light cavalry, but the the rogue heavy cavalry began to get into action and it became a lot tighter. With both the opposing centre commands rolling double 1's for initiative they lost a level of ability and two poor commanders uncertainly glared at each other but did little else.

On the left flank I manoeuvred the light cavalry and skirmishers through the woods to try and turn the Roman line, while my Impetuous nobles headed off for the Roman legionaries. Coming under bow and artillery did not deter me and I crashed into the lines, destroying the artillery and chasing off the archers. Unfortunately this bought me into contact with the second line of the Roman commands, which was the legionaries proper. With the heavy darts (treated like Pilums) and their long spears negating my charge bonuses, I bounced, rather unsurprisingly, and was swept away as the famed legion advanced.

Meanwhile on the left, despite some jammy dice rolling from Luke, Ian was beginning to swing it back in the Sarmatian favour again, after having looked a lost cause. Getting round the flanks of some of the Roman heavy cavalry with the nobles from the infantry command was proving to be decisive.

Meanwhile in the centre the Warband finally burst into life against the Sarmatian centre. Although they creaked, they did not break, while one of the large war band units fell under hails of Javelin as they charged and then some sturdy dice rolling. This bought the turn to an end and time to tot up some loses. The Sarmatian general had fallen, braking his command, as was the other cavalry command on the right. In addition all out units took 1 loss to represent the impact of the loss of our dynamic commander. However Ian had done enough (all I had done was lose our C-in-C), by breaking the Roman Cavalry and Warband. All these losses and subsequent routs of command, meant that both armies had broken at the same time. The Sarmatian invasion of the Roman provinces falling back, while the battered force sent out to block them retreated to its forts.

We all really enjoyed this game. Although we found as we played we missed little nuances fo the rules, this is not unusual on a first run through, but the basics where quickly grasped, and above all were fun.

This will be my last blog for a bit as I am off to a wedding which will interfere with gaming!! However I am working on a Bf-110 for the Skirmish Wargames game at colours and once it is more than an indistinguishable pile of green plastic I wil post some photos.