Weekender XLBS: What Makes For The Best Mega Gaming Battles?
February 7, 2016 by warzan
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Happy Sunday!
xlbs makes getting in from the night shift worthwhile. never stop the early uploads
happy sunday fellows!
The thing that jumped to my mind talking about the massive x wing game is to have one central table with say a Death Star type construct in the middle then 8 tables circling the main table each containing a shield generator. Each shield generator weakens the Death Star meaning if you won your table you could reinforce another table or try to hit the now weakened Death Star. I imagine it would be fun if you have taken down a few shields and have a number of players hitting the middle as others are frantically attacking/defending other active shields.
Sounds fun in my head anyway.
Justine hope this article helps 🙂 http://museonminis.com/baffos-sculpting-table-03-urban-bases/
Off to Vapnartak for some tournament action so gonna have to catch up with this one later!
@warzan thats why you have to carry around smoke pellets like a ninja, so you can escape awkward situations in style.
That is exactly what I need
Off to search eBay…
I have thought the same question as to the codex needed for a chapter of Marines that are current loyalist but not entirely touched by chaos, the Soul Drinkers. Their main issue is that the current 40k Imperium is not the dream of the Emperor. While being officially expunged from Imperial record, they strive to continue the fight to protect humanity and fight chaos all the while becoming the play things of the very forces they struggle against.
Lovely series by Ben Counter
dont you just love sundays 🙂
worth getting up for ….dont you just love sundays 🙂
Please please do more playthroughs or battle reports for board games, I know other people do it but you guys do it so much better. I loved your playthrough of dungeon saga and there is surge in popularity in board games at the moment.
the alpha legion paint job is done by painting them silver then using a tamiya clear blue colour over the top, confirmed by actual painter in the thread about the paint job on the alpha legion contemptor dreadnought thread.
Whats this all about its almost eight o’clock and I am the second person on here. Did I wet the bed or something. Is it me or am I missing something, after all a really good show with no kickstarters and a very decent discussion on huge games.
It is a Sunday.
Oh! yes its the seventh everyone has decided that going to Vapnatrak is a must. Whats Vapnatrak only the largest gaming show in the north! Really where is it?
Its at York racecourses main huge building over three stories of wargaming completeness.
How many suppliers are going to be there?
An absolute crap load of them.
How come I haven’t been to this show that is so easy to get to being at a national railway and transport hub?
Because you only go to a few a year and although nothing rivals Salute at Excel, you just think its too close to Christmas or Salute well that is the only reason why I can say/see.
Great show guy’s but going to another one shortly. (Don’t call me shortly!)
Good hunting
Chris G
Bolt Action theater book Empires in Flames has some city fighting rules that has a limited dice mechanic you might want to look into for some ideas towards your D-Day mega game. And would love to watch the BA option for mega game
Well I was when I first looked and started typing. LOL!
Happy Sunday,
We loved the Flash Harry and once again my husband educated me by telling me that Flash Harry is based on a character from a series of books by George MacDonald Fraser and the series is called “The Flashman Papers” they are a series of Comic Historical Novels based on the character called Harry Flashman which of course is copyrighted so they called this character Flash Harry. The miniature is sculpted to the character of Flashman depicted on the cover of the novels.
Great show as always!
Sir Harry Flashman, cavalry officer, was developed from the bully in “Tom Brown’s Schooldays” at Rugby School; since 1969 a series of novels and films have featured various reincarnations. Looking at the flyer depicted @55:45 I don’t think they have a problem using his full name.
Many derivatives have followed – for example Rik Mayall’s “Flasheart” from various BlackAdder series!
I love the paint job on those minis from Justin.
The painting quality really improved from the miniature ER? Series.
Nicely done Justin.
thanks for the kind words 🙂
@warzan: 2 thoughts for you:
Alpharius & Omegon don;t just impersonate each other- because they were incubated in the same chamber (unlike their brothers who had their own chambers) they are closure in stature to a regular Space Marine rather than the even more exagerated physiques of the other Primarchs. As a consequence the whole legion refers to themselves as Alpharius to outsiders and have had their facial features altered to resemble the twins, allowing the Primarchs to hide in plain sight (also, go read Legion. Fantastic book…)
And to your thought of Alpha Legion who have made extensive use of The Cabals alien tech – given how the legion supposedly broke down post-Heresy into roaming warbands (if I remember right a substantial portion took up residence in The Maelstrom, rather than heading to the Eye of Terror), coupled with their affinity for black-ops and infiltrating organisations, then it’s not outside the realms of possibility that some of them could have placed themselves under the auspices of this shadowy group, embracing alien technologies (shout out to the Rogue Trader days where Astartes carried Shuriken Catapults?)
Also there are a few hints in the background that Omegon becomes the first Grand Master of the Grey Knights. Currently in 40K it seems some have fallen to Chaos as there are Alpha Legion daemon princes (see Hunt for Voldorius). With some of the stories it looks as if Alpharius goes down the Chaos/heresy route and Omegon stays loyal so it’s likely in the future heresy novels that there will be major infighting.
From the hobby point of view it means you could do anything you want with the Alpha Legion, full mutated chaos, or use space marine chapter tactics and call them Alpha Legion.
@aekhold – I hadn’t heard the rumours about Omegon being involved with the Grey Knights… Where does that come from? Grey Knight books? Horus Heresy books? Which ones?
Very vague hints, in the Primachs there’s a short story of Omegon with two suits of power armour, one unmarked and grey like the Knights Errant. Janus (name of first grandmaster) was represented as a two faced god of beginnings and endings (eg alpha and omega) in Ancient Rome. Omegon has the ‘super gene-seed’ stolen from the Raven Guard in Deliverence Lost and the grey Knights gene seed is superior to all others and not from any legion. Finally in Mortarions Heart audiobook Mortarions says that he knew Janus and he was from a traitor legion and needed redemption.
As with everything associated with Alpha legion it’s all guesses!
Thanks @aekhold, that’s really cool.
Listening to Warren talking about the gym while eating a custard doughnut. I am ashamed
Happy Sunday!
I’m enjoying the Bolt Action Idea most. Think that could make the most fun from a visual and narrative point of view…specially with those modular boards you guys use, they are stunning.
Perhaps if such a big battle can be done in a well coordinated and timely way in the future when Dropfleet hits you could do one day orbital strike. Second day switch to Dropzone and play out the ground battles…It’s what I’m looking foreword to most about getting the KS in June…fingers crossed. Two very different theaters of conflict, one big weekend.
Happy Sunday a great way to start the day. To be honest guys I think this weekends shows have been above the norm. A real diverse content spread between Sat and Sun and interesting subject matter that has been good to watch.
At our gaming club we have run a few big games over the years. I understand what you guys are saying about the time constraints and the ability to have everyone do everything. A good method we found was actually giving the players themselves a command structure i.e. A supreme commander with a team of subordinates for each side. The General would start with a command meeting where the group would discuss the objectives to be achieved and then would assign forces to each player (models, pointage, etc.) to achieve the desired tasks they have. The whole team plays their turns simultaneously to add a degree of fog of war where you don’t know everything that’s gone on as we use reinforcements in our games and so want a level of risk/reward when splitting your force to assist another. In addition we set a very short timer for the request and and response, generally 30 seconds when asking for reinforcements. Often this is where the general comes in as he has been keeping an eye on everything or at least you hope so.
Each side is only briefed on their own objectives, after all you are likely to know the overall objective in the game but not everything and certainly not all of your opponents objectives although some you may guess. We also make sure there are extra objectives so once each subordinate has one there are still others in case they are finished within game time. During the game you can call for friendly reinforcements these initially normally come from a small reserve held by the General but can also come from other players.
We found a good method with things like players losing their whole force, especially in x wing is to reintroduce them into and individual craft rather than a pre established hero or a new force. Essentially we are now giving them the opportunity to make themselves a hero name. Often to help we will have a side table of skills found on the characters that are already out there and they will roll to generate a low level hero of their own like generating your own D and D character.
Its then this hero’s job to make as much an impact on the game as possible and normally we use them to gather the remains of almost destroyed units and lead them as a force. We found that made people reckless and put higher skilled players on the board who would throw themselves in so added a respawn limit and each time you spawn a new character you get one less roll on the table until by the end you just turn up as a basic model at which point they just take over any single model within someone’s force which keeps them rolling dice.
I really like the idea of the weekend gaming at BoW and it would also be great way to further the community.
Right enough rambling for me. I am off for a brew and a sausage butty. Happy gaming everyone.
I ran a 6 player BA game where each player had 1000th but only had 8 order dice to use. Any extra units could either be kept off table in reserve or, if you had more than 8 units on the table, you had to decide who not to activate that turn. It kept the turns manageable and introduced some different decisions to be made. If a unit was wiped out you still kept your 8 dice (as long as you still had 8 units) or if a unit became ineffective (one man standing or pinned out) you could just spend your dice elsewhere.
Had a go at a MEGA Warhammer 40k battle to work out how it’d play …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFPa3uXO1Pw
It was a lot of fun, but also it was a huge game. Helped to have a hobby area so could play a turn a night. As you can see the table was somewhat crowded, and just became a mess of carnage. Obviously nothing wrong with that, but it basically came down to a massive hammer meeting a massive anvil, and not that much in the way of tactics.
We keep saying we’ll take over our living room with a much bigger than 6 x 4 foot board. It’s a nice idea, but we haven’t worked out how we can get it working. Do you play a 12 x 4 foot table. Or a 6 x 8 foot table? How big is too big. If one end of the table can’t affect the other side (because it’s too big), that’s a bit dumb … and maybe just maybe that’s a hint you’d be better splitting into a number of smaller battles as part of a campaign.
Personally I would love the Halo: fall of reach in a boot camp stylee! I’m sure Spartan would be up for it. Mahoosive fleets knocking the heck out of each other. Think what you could do if they launch the ground battles this year combine the two, medium orbit carnage plus Spartans shredding covenant at landing sites. Awesome, all happening simultaneously, with a custom com’s deck to control if, when and how layers of command communicate.
Happy Sunday! Very happy as just got two Saga starter armies, rules etc.for my birthday!!
Wow Justin. Awesome colour scheme for the Scylla! Looking forward to seeing them based.
Now, if you’d only filled those gaps on the joins…
But you’ve come a long way since you first showed off your early attempts, good stuff!
Re Mega X-WIng… how about setting up as effectively a series of orbits about a planet. One side has to penetrate through to the surface through a series of scenarios (didnt someone want that lake battle from the new film?) The really big ships play in the outer rings deploying landing parties with escorts… and maybe the defenders have to get a VIP to escape the planet to live another day…
The other arena which lends itself to a mass battle would be WW1; pick a battle along a series of trenches and commemorate the 100th anniversay?
like the paint job Justin
happy sunday guys
@warzan next time you go to the gym, take a white stick and a Labrador with you whilst randomly giving a thumbs up and smiling. Either that or put a pair of underpants on your head and stick two pencils up your nose 😉 Seriously though mate, don’t let it worry you. Some people think we’re a bit weird for playing with plastic soldiers but it’s nothing compared to the clucked-up world they live in; you’re amongst friends here. 🙂
Or borrow Justin’s teampunk hat with built in scopes?
Happy sunday everybody.
For the big game week-end, wouldn’t a duo of Dropfleet/Dropzone Commander be interresting?
On one side, Dropfleet players try to get resources, man power, vehicles on land, and, on the other side of the room, it would influence the DZC games.
You could have reinforcements coming in on both sides, or not, different objectives complementing each other…
And I heard the Hawk people saying that the two games where kinda made to complement each other. So, maybe it could be interresting.
Anyways, have a good one all.
Would love to go to a Halo weekend, failing that Armada.
Games like x-wing and armada are not really suitable for big games due to alternate activation of models, and with Armada to much choice so time being wasted in making decisions after a lengthy discussion. Don’t like Ben’s idea as that then just breaks down into several small games, which most do TBH anyway if players have their own command and facing off an opponent, just means you have to wait for everybody to finish.
What worked really well for us in a HUGE LOTR game is that players do not have set commands but activate any units nearby. I think KoW will work great like this as it will give time for some the inactive players to get drink/toilet breaks and generally have a chin-wag or discuss tactics while the oppo is rolling dice reducing game down-time. The system is also quick to play.
Morning gents!
I’d be interested in Halo (Fall of Reach!!) but totally awesome would be Bolt Action 😎
I wouldn’t do Normandy for a big game tho, I would definitely go Western Desert/ Duel in the Sun!
– Easy terrain
– Lots of tanks
– Cheap plastic minis (Perry!) available (and I’m quite sure Alan and Michael would help BoW out as they are primarily crazy enthusiasts..)
– Really quick& easy to paint (I’m more than happy to provide speed painting tutorials for DAK and Desert Rats so people get their armies painted in time for the event)
– Specific articles on the desert war are on the website already (brilliant menu for scenarios!)
– Long Range Desert Group (do I need to say more??)
– Monty v Desert Fox 😎
You can’t get more iconic than that, can you?
@warzan
Btw..I’ve still got a Fallschirmjaeger army for ya mate!
Happy Sunday fellas!
Awesome job on those minis Justin, you did a really great job, those look really really good. I know your not crazy about basing but you guys always have amazing terrain so have you thought about using clear acrylic bases? I’ve seen some recently, and on good boards look really nice. You just have to be careful with the glue so they stay clear. I’ve seen them work really well with Frostgrave minis and I bet they would be good with your halflings.
For the Alpha legion Its Alpharius and Omegon, the Alien group was called the Cabal and there was Eldar in it but it wasn’t like all the eldar are part of it. Like Eldrad wasn’t, he tried to warn Fulgrim about Horus but it was to late, he was already under the effects of the daemon sword. They also weren’t working for the Cabal or using their tech, the Cabal just gave them the info and put it in their hand. Also while the Alpha legion weren’t chaos at the start of the Heresy they are now, between the warp and the long time they have been fighting and spreading heretical cults they have turned. Actually the Night Lords were the Longest to hold out against the influence of chaos, even now alot of them don’t follow chaos they are just renegades. But thats not to say you couldn’t make a Warband that was lost in the warp since the Heresy, they could have stayed loyal to the original mission or something like that. Game in the gaps!
Just checked the comments to see if someone mentioned the Eldar were a part of the Cabal and you had already, cool lol.
Definitely game in the gaps! The old “lost in the warp” mcguffin allows for great ideas. Kinda wish the background to the Alphas was written ages ago so that they were still as they were in 30K; I really like the mystery and intrigue they’ve written about them.
happy sunday really interesting show this week:-)
@warzan well large battles that can take a weekend well you like the idea of battleships, how about doingJutland? largest Naval battle ever and even easier than space as it is just a mass of sea…lol
i would be up for doing any large game with the exception of x-wing but that is my preference .
the BA idea seems cool it would give me an excuse to paint up my para’s
Happy Sunday
Great weekenders this week
On the big game others have banded the idea of x wing would be there for that. but has anyone thought of joining the campaign for infinity and a massed grasp for resources and all the battle reports could also be fed into the campaign two birds with one stone. Limited tokens/orders so would limit time scales with limited activations.
Morning
About the gym Warren, next time you go just tell them that your gay lol
Happy Sunday guys.
Would be a blast seeing the Bolt Action-D-Day-type-of-mega-game becoming reality. As stated above limiting the amount of dice per player would really help speeding up gameplay of an already fast system. And would by the way limit the amount of units (=minis) to be puhed around the board for each player.
Happy Sunday Beasts! What a great show!
@dignity rather than modeling cobblestone by yourself, you may find those bases of your friends from Micro Art Studio are the proper attempt to base your really beautifully painted miniatures: http://shop.microartstudio.com/cobblestone-bases-wround-30mm-5-p-1098.html Besides of that I would always paint them separately first, then glue the minis to it. It is much more comfortable, cause you’ve no need to model or paint around a mini wich is already finished. To ruin such a neat paint job with greenstuff in just a second could be very frustrating believe me. 😉
I’d also sacrifice those current bases and preserve the pins on the models’ feet. You can then drill into whatever bases you make/get and have them mounted solid!
i’ll have a look 🙂 Cheers Dude
Happy Sunday guys. Great show
Happy Sunday everybody!
Halo ALL the way or Dropfleet Commander.
x-wing meh… i would love to see Dropfleet Commander 😀
seconded… 🙂
I have all the Giants in miniature so far don’t know if I’ll ever paint them or just leave them boxed
Hobby time this week for me, I started my first ever humanoid sculpt! this might shock some of my followers 😛 Started a humanoid robot that I might put out with hard copies of my newly released album (see here for digital https://tachyoncrisistalon.bandcamp.com/album/eldritch-binary-in-technocraftian )
Warmachine has rules for this in the Colossals book. They call them Unbound games. They have rules to make sure no one is standing bored for long periods while their opponent activates, and cover objectives and points scoring.
As for terrain, WM wants 5-7 pieces of terrain per board, and they have to be a set distance apart as a minimum. It doesn’t like interactive terrain, so just walls, rough terrain, forests, hills, and impassable terrain (buildings or rocks). Too much terrain is a bad thing in WM, but you can fudge terrain if need be. I know its not as pretty, but its often more playable to use sheets of green felt as forests, and sandpaper as rough terrain. I know I find trees actually get in the way of moving models through, or even near a forest and I often remove them from the table while playing.
One of the masters of large multiperson games is Chesterfield Open Gaming Society (“COGS”). They are utting one on this morning at Vapnartak and will be at Hammerhead and also Salute later this year.
I participated in one that they ran for LotR SBG back in 2004 and if I remember correctly it worked out at 35k to 40k points per side for what reallyis a skirmish ruleset, yet it worked very well and was completed on the day. They now do them with KoW, which of course works easier for large games.
The scenarios and linkeages they came up with worked excellently.great fun Yith is they guy organising them, and his blog is at http://www.yith.co.uk
Pandemic Legacy rules are available online, no need to open the box.
http://www.zmangames.com/uploads/4/7/1/7/47170931/en-pandemic-legacy-rules_lr.pdf
Vallejo have a metal medium which I’ve mixed with Turqouise when painting my own Alpha legion.
Some Alpha Legion bits you’ve missed.
Everything about the fluff is at best conjecture, no one really knows anything about the motivations or goals of the Alpha legion.
Prior to the return of their primarch they were known in rumours as the Ghost Legion.
Their battle cry is “For the Emperor!” which might be a double double bluff, (or a triple triple triple bluff?).
All Alpha Legion marines claim “I am Alpharius”. Guilliman might have killed Alpharius, or was it Omegon?
They are more likely to be seen wearing Ultramarine (or any other chapter) armor than they are their own.
They were the second wave of reinforcements at Istavaan and would have supported the Raven guard, but they reinforced the traitors instead… Clearly Traitor.
They provoked the White Scars instead of recruiting them during the heresy, fought a delaying action, and then destroyed a comms jamming installation allowing Rogal Dorn to contact Jaghatai about the beytral of Horus… Clearly Loyal.
Prior to the Heresy, the Alpha Legion were equipped with Knives and Ammo perfect for killing Space Marines…
Oh! and there is no official colour scheme for the Alpha legion beyond a vague blue/green of some sort. Each engagement has a different variation or completely diverges altogether. So whatever you go for, even if that’s Hello Kitty Camo is totally legit.
They actually have hundreds of “official” colour schemes, just not their own…
Justin – great work on the hobbit mafia (definitely top of my Wolsung shopping list).
Also mega-Bolt Action please!
I’d love to watch both, X-wing or Halo. And I’d be tempted to show up to either 🙂
Happy sunday all.
Very nice big games, i love them, i only play Warh fantasy 8th en dystopian wars, but love feelding big armies, 10.000 vs 10.000 points in warhammer is realy fun (deploy not 24 apart but , 40 inch apart from start). That is probaly wy my collection of minis is grown so big ( over 400 dwarfs, 400 orc en goblins, 200 Brets, 200 TombKings, 100 Ogres) .
Hmm play weekend long game of bolt action? Yeah that one, setting it around D-day gives more than just band of brothers, you’ve got saving private ryan as a sunday afternoon objective, and you can rock out with a white wooly jumper and a winchester as Lord Lovat on sword beach…
I would watch if you did any of the space based games
So alpha legion a few things.
I have had a lot of success using an airbrush first spay silver than take a blue/ turquoise ghost or tint and you’ll get a very iridescent color.
Next betrayal at calth is a GREAT set to represent alpha legion as alphas are almost exclusively in mark IV thru mark VI armor.
Lastly to represent the fact they are very utilitarian in horus heresy before the game starts they get to choose one army wide special rule ranging from tank hunter to scout and even infiltrate. In conjunction with this if you take alpharius you can mess with your opponents reserves up to and including outright stealing one of his units
For other games you could go 40k provided there’s a rule that no one’s allowed to use Lords of War, you could also do Kings of War or Age of Sigmar.
If you go with Bolt Action please please please pleeeeease do something other than D-day, D-days been over done, try something new like Berlin or make something up 😀
Harry Fashman is from the George McDonald Faser books, being the exploits of Flashman (Tom Brown School Days) after he is kicked out of school and joins the military. A very good and funny read. Count me in for a Halo or Bolt Action weekend.
I also think Dropfleet / Dropzone commander would be the perfect game for this and here’s why
-One side is the defenders who would have an Admiral that would give the defending fleet their order once the attacking fleet turns up
-Defending players would have most of their fleet/space and planet base forces deployed before game including thing like space station/orbital defence positions,city orbital lasers
-Each player controls a fleet/space station/city/moon etc etc
Attacking players would already have been assigned their role ie fleet1 (player1) take and inserted special forces onto space station alpha, Battle group1 (player2)eliminate emery combats on space station alpha , fleet2 (player3)drop and surport troops onto three cities on planet delta,Battle groups 2,3,4 take cities on planet delta (separate tables of Dropzone commander to represent a city on the planet)
-Once Battle group commanders are deploy the amount of tokens successfully deployed equals the amount of points you have to play a Dropzone commander game on a separate table 1 token could equal 500pts also depending on how well the space and city battles are going it would be possible for both attacking and defending players to revive reinforcements by space or if another player wins their Dropzone commander on his table(city) they could train over to the closest table
-A few thoughts to finish are if someone was knock out they could always come back as a x amount points reserve fleet,battle group thus keeping everyone occupied in the weekend
– Before the game starts but after the deployment of the defenders you could have a scouting mission for the attacking fleet were they send in a small fleet of scout vessels to find out Intel on the system and play a cat and mouse style game were the attackers have to scan key locations without getting court by the defending players.
Just as a thought for X-wing you could use Battle of Jakku or Liberation of Kashyyyk as concepts for your xwing massive battle as both of those would lend themselves to have objectives,
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Battle_of_Jakku
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Liberation_of_Kashyyyk_(New_Republic)
Definitely a Bolt action mega battle, first thing Friday night Germans set up their defences (whilst allies at the pub), then the allies come in and plan the attack (Germans now at pub), like taking German HQ, taking out anti aircraft guns, controlling a cross roads, etc. Saturday morning Allies parachute in and the battle begins.
Would love to join in but probably have no money for it.
Guys please get some stuff going on the actual Horus Heresy with some people who know it a bit more. Theres lots about that Alpha Legion that you would really enjoy!
i’d have linked a pic to the Horus Heresy Alpha Legion bits I’ve toyed with but can’t on this comments haha
Halo
Wish I could come
Sorry forgot Happy Sunday even though its Monday here (time travel/)
and for brother Loyd ARMORED TRAINS !!!!!
Another great XLBS thanks guys. Justin that’s some very nice looking minis you have painted well done sir 🙂
Halo or Armada?
I’ll take a third choice – Dropfleet Commander
What a way to launch the game.
Great vid again by the way thanks
@dignity you will definitely have a better time removing the models before basing, just make sure to varnish them first to protect the paint. All those board floor bases on my Malifaux minis are press molds from http://www.happyseppuku.com. They have many many options.
@warzan X-Wing please and can I book my ticket now?
Justin! You’ve done a really fantastic job of painting those halflings and their friends! If I were you I wouldn’t worry about the one guy’s shirt looking dirty, it adds to the overall event if you ask me. I remember watching the videos where Romain was showing you how to rescue your old paint jobs, he’ll be so proud when he sees these! 😛
Might be cool to watch armada or halo but id rather play xwing.
A bridge too far would be super cool! With the armoured contingent trying to get to Arnhem and the Paratroopers on each table trying to secure their objectives to ensure the advance doesn’t stall. Really nice!
Would need this bridge though 😉 http://gcmini.mybigcommerce.com/a-bridge-too-far-28mm-version-huge/
Cheers,
Esspecially with the US and British paratroopers in the pipeline, maybe even Warlod will want to provide some support for such an event, if the timing matches their release.
lol the arobic water session
you can always ask if you can join in
because its normally for both male and female
@warzan your reaction to the pool instructor was spot on. It’s ridiculous that the first thought through people’s mind is that because you’re a man and were looking through the window that you were somehow perving on the people in the pool. I’ve encountered things like this before and the first thought through my mind was that most people at aquarobics classes are flattering themselves somewhat if they think that men watching them exercise are doing so lasciviously. Well done to you for treating her protest with the contempt it deserved.
You could have also wrinkled your face in disgust, shook your head and said “Eww”.
@warzan Ohhhh dear mate! That is a nightmare; a daydream of BoW that turned into a daymare at the swimming pool! There’s two options fight or flight. You chose the option in between – stay and make it worse lol. Find another gym bud or avoid that part of the gym as much as possible, grow a beard. Wear a fake beard. Maybe a beard will make you look worse. Run away from the hills, run away from the hills! Poor dude! 😀
@dignity Your minis look sweet mate, great job!
I noticed the mirror sculpted dwarf too, that’s really lazy for GW. I also don’t like how bland the new dwarf’s faces are, none of them have much character. While it is a tiny space in which to gave a dwarf with a big beard a proper face, they did manage to with the old metal sculpts. The detail and design is great but their mugs are boring.
And where the hell are the named characters?
If I could come down for a big game like that I would, it would be amazing, tonnes of fun. Tonnes of food and drink too lol I hope. 😀
@dignity for your Wolfsung bases you should take a look at the textured rolling pins by Greenstuff World. They’re a handy little tool that should save you some time. They also have steampunk items so double bonus. 🙂
http://www.greenstuffworld.com/en/textured-rolling-pins/135-Rolling-Pin-Hobby-Roller-Cobblestone.html
Bolt action D day sounds good for me please guys!! 😉
Good work with your painting Justin, they look good. 🙂
I also think a massive space battle would be better with the bigger ships so I’d go Halo over X-Wing, even though I love X-Wing and haven’t ever played Halo.
My votes for a Halo game.
love the idea of a normandy drop British marine to take a bridge hopefully held by British Gider born drop troops.
I envy you getting to play Pandemic Legacy for the first time, @warzan. Holidays and conflicting schedules meant we got our final session in last week. I’ll be updating the spoiler thread in the forums with whether we saved the world or left in civilisation in ruins. It takes about the same time to play a regular game of Pandemic as it does to play a game of Pandemic Legacy so if you have an hour free here and there then you can fit the games in. That said, and especially once things start taking off around March, you’ll be making time for a longer session. I could barely tear myself from the table. My one bit of non-spoiler advice is don’t get hung up on playing the same character over and over. Different ones are useful at different times and picking the right one at the right time goes a long way.
@dignity I make cobbled stone bases with this http://www.greenstuffworld.com/en/textured-rolling-pins/135-Rolling-Pin-Hobby-Roller-Cobblestone.html .
Great weekender.
On the subject of massed battles, how about waterloo type game. English / French mainline, with allies and French reinforcements coming across. Commanders have a character model. and command what they have in sight if a unit /commander is destroyed, can be allocated another unit. Objectives can be on card that has to be passed to another commander by hand i.e. we need to capture the farmhouse, send in the guard etc…
You could also get Warlord to help, or do it as a bootcamp.
Another idea would be a mix of dropfleet / dropzone. 50 / 50 space / land battles which can directly affect each other.
so many possibilities…..the mind boggles
Happy Sunday all wargamers!
.@dignity Great paint job on those Scylla!
I think HALO – Fleet Battles would be a great for your mega battle project. I think I’ve read (or heard) that the guys at Spartangames have played really big battles with hundreds of ships during play testing without the game breaking down.
@warzan Good job getting started on your weight loss! If you need any advice or even to hear others’ experience let me know. I lost 135 pounds when you started the original fit club! In fact it was the final nudge that got me started.
@dignity and @warzan – there are various other comments about the Alpha Legion in the comments already, but here is a bit of a summary, including some things I don’t think anyone has mentioned yet:
– the Cabal (which includes Eldar but it seems doesn’t represent the majority of the Eldar) approach Alpharius and Omegon and explain that if Horus wins, he will be consumed by guilt and will destroy humanity – and Chaos with it. That’s the key part. Humanity is the ultimate weapon in the hands of Chaos – corruptable and widespread and they will destroy everything, unless turned against Chaos.
– Although the twin primarchs seem to go along with this at first, later short stories show them working against each other. One of them (I forget which) leads a kill team of Alpha Legionaries against other Alpha Legionaries. It looks like at least one of the primarchs doesn’t like being used by the Cabal and doesn’t like the part humanity is being asked to play. So the twin primarchs are clearly not in agreement here. At one point one of them leaves a member of the cabal in the middle of space, trillions of light years from anywhere. He knows he can’t kill the guy, but there’s nothing stopping depositing him an awful long way from anyone or anything.
– Most of the Alpha legionaries are not let in on the plan. So when their primarchs are saying ‘we’re joining Chaos and Horus’ the legionaries go along with it. i.e. the primarchs are misleading their legion and as a result, know that they are bringing about the destruction of their legion. Presumably the reason many Alpha legionaries are Chaos today is because they were set off on the path of Chaos worship by their primarchs, and the plan to bring down Chaos along with humanity never came to pass and so the legionaries were never told what the real agenda was.
@warzan
The warcry of the Alpha Legion is ‘For the Emperor’. Although loyal marines consider this to be a mockery.
A single Alpha Legion marine managed to destroy the entire Crimson Consuls space marine chapter. Through sending false orders and reports as well as sabotage and hypno suggestion.
Definitely one of the more interesting of the Legions.
So, a few more thoughts…
Campaigns – i think nodal campaigns and map-based campaigns only work with smallish and disciplined groups. For anything larger you just need some mechanic which makes you feel that it matters where your game is taking place.
I think the answer is to have a dynamic system for recording wins/losses and converting those into shifting frontlines so that a) players get a sense that if they win, things will happen, and b) so that they get a sense of place. i.e. That if they want to attack the command / core areas of the opponent they’re going to have to go a long way round or punch a hole through the middle.
Having a series of shifting fronts would give you most of what a nodal campaign gives you – a sense of battles being located somewhere specific.
@warzan – On the subject of megagames, I think X-wing would be pretty dull to watch. There are a lot of cards, counters and intricacies in the game that wouldn’t look great on a video of the whole battlefield. I know you can zoom in, but you still want zoomed out photos to look interesting and understandable.
I would love to see Halo (I get the impression that the rules are fast enough that you’d see broad, sweeping changes on the table pretty easily), and if I could make it, I’d love to come and join in. I don’t have any, and am not planning on getting any as I never played any of the computer games and don’t know the setting, but the models look good, and I’m sure it’d be a fun weekend.
@dignity – really, really nice Scylla! A very long way indeed from needing Romain’s painting A&E!
If you went for x-wing you could get players who had finished games early to play out character missions with imperial assault, the winner getting some re-enforcements for a player on an adjacent board perhaps?
Great show guys I thing halo would be good to see no time/money so wont be their there is a good web site that may be good for 40K info @warzan will post link if when I find it.
http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Alpha_Legion
enjoy @warzan
Do it for Halo
I would love to come to a weekend long game of Bolt action! Would be great to use my Brit Paras in a proper parachute action!
Or X-wing… or Armada… Or hail Caesar.. or a number of other games haha!
Warren, take the bull by the horns and turn up to the Aqua exercise class in your Speedos and ask to join in as you were so impressed with their moves when you were watching them last week. Although you were a bit perturbed by the sexist attitude displayed by the instructor
Warren, take the bull by the horns and turn up to the Aqua exercise class in your Speedos and ask to join in as you were so impressed with their moves when you were watching them last week. Although you were a bit perturbed by the sexist attitude displayed by the instructor
Hey guys,
I’d really like to attend to a Halo Weekend, build on friday, hit the pub, play on saturday and sunday. It would be a great event, which I hope I can get in. Great idea.
For viewing at home it doesn’t matter for me, because I don’t play any of these rulesets so they’re all new to me. Maybe it would be cool to have some sort of live talkshow around that weekend with a narrator, commenter etc. So people at home can follow the battle realtime… Just an idea that pops into my mind 😀
Cheers
Can I order two tickets in advance for the Halo event? 😀
So I guess Warren won’t be bringing John’s Soviet night vision goggles to the gym anytime soon? 😛
Do a Halo space battle this year. And then next year you can do a linked Halo ground battle.
That would be fun to see.
I have also suffered an awkward moment due to day dreaming @warzan
Mine was at a hairdressers, I had grown my hair out and was tempted to make a change. The woman asked what I wanted done with it, so off I went picturing different ways it could be styled.
I must’ve been off in dream land a fair while because I didn’t notice the repeated “Ahem!”s until she moved her hand, to cover up the ample display of beauty peeking through a low cut top.
“Short back and sides thanks!” I blurted out.
The rest of the cut went on in dead silence.
@warzan Could have Armarda or X wing running on a grp of tables and perhaps Imperial Assault running on another grp of tables. Both sides are trying to escort carriers containing extra strike teams to either attack or defend a Rebel or Imperial facility after the initial waves make their breach. Each table in Imperial Assault could have allocated objectives. Like destroying the control system or even taking over a turbo laser control room that are giving free attacks on the space game tables to a particular side etc.
@warzan Could even make it so transport damage effects the number of models being deployed on Imperial Assault boards as casualties mount up from taking damage.
No hull point damage = 100% reinforcements
75% hull point damage upto 51% (rounding down) = 75% reinforcements
50% hull point damage upto 26% = 50% reinforcements
25% hull point damage upto 1% = 25% reinforcements
If the transport is destroyed there’s a chance a small team of say 10% of the total strike team model count (rounding down) made it off the ship in an escape pod or breaching pod. Say this could happen on a roll of a 6 on a d6. However let the opponent choose to deploy them somewhere on the board due to the totally chaotic situation they find themselves in.
With regards to narrative campaigns and submissions ect, we use a system for our Global Heresy Campaign (found on Aus30k.com) that, rather than only being able to move to adjacent nodes, you and your opponent select a location, play your game and upload your results to the website, the winner then contributes X amount of points for his faction in that location. Whichever faction has the most points in that location is considered to be “holding” it.
The idea is your forces are mobile enough to strike at or be involved across multiple theaters (or simply across large enough timeframes) that you can pick a location and try and get points for your faction in that location.
On the topic of Alpha legion and how they function within Heresy,
All the space marine legions within the heresy rulebook share a single “Army list” (Sort of like drawing from a specific codex, though one unique to heresy that applies to all the legions), on top of that, each legion has unique rules that layer on top of that army list, adding army wide rules (like more involved chapter tactics from Codex: Space marines), unique units, wargear ect, giving each legion a very distinct feel, despite sharing a lot of units with their comparatives.
No legions were really “chaos” during the heresy. While most of the traitor legions had some chaos based “manipulation” very few legions, and traitor marines in general, displayed the full effects of warp taint (mutations ect) until the very end of the heresy, or after.
Word Bearers however fell to chaos pretty much at the onset of the heresy (and largely inspired it to begin with), and deathguard were forced to accept the blessings of pappa nurgle early on too. Aside from that, the heresy was fought between marines of varying ideologies on the fate of the imperium, without the full knowledge of the dark machinations happening behind it all.
Alpha legion were arguably the only legion who were actively working towards an adgenda in full awareness of chaos in the background. Having been told about the possible fates by the Cabal (the alien coalition Justin mentions, which does indeed include eldar, but is more a secret organisation made of several species, including a pair of immortal Humans), they work towards an undisclosed goal and it’s heavily implied that the Twin Primarchs (Alpharius and Omegon) may even be working towards separate goals, if there is twin Primarchs at all (All alpha legion will refer to themselves as alpharius when queried by outsiders, and they all share very similar physical traits, Alpharius/Omegon being much smaller than the other Primarchs and blending perfectly in with his rank and file.)
If you ever want a Heresy lore correspondent…. 😛
^ Just want to pop a disclaimer that this is a very surface level summary, and doesn’t cover each individual point 100%.
Vote – X-Wing and X-Wing 😎
I wish Citadel still did electric blue paint.
I remember seeing a Klingon Destroyer painted electric blue – very cool
The mass game of Boltaction sounds like a great idea and might encourage me to collect a second force.
@warzan – Yep, it was a good project but I lost access to the gmail account for that and my IG blog Corbania Prime. Gutted really 🙁
On the nodes, let each player register their results on whichever node they want, regardless of connections. Instead, when a node becomes compliant (90% controlled), it gives an ingame bonus to that faction in that node and in connected nodes. This will drive the community to organise where they’re fighting, securing ground, and counter attacking on a faction level (faction only subforums perhaps?). This should allow for a dynamic campaign flow without the need for armies to actually move across the campaign map to meet in the middle mate.
Well, for Mega-Battles there was recently an article about Jutland in Wargames Illustrated, I recall seeing something on Warlords BA articles about up-scaling for a large battle, maybe track down and read.
@warzan – Another idea mate ….
If you want a node system where the armies move and take control of nodes, don’t start them at the edges. Start them all in the center, preferably around a central empty node. It’ll mean aggressive initial contact whilst providing nodes further out for armies to fallback into leaving the victors seizing the node being battled over. Obviously, this is geared more to small groups, but you guys should be able to scale it up.
I’d suggest count every result as individual, even if they were between two campaign members. Have each member register their faction to an allotted set of centralish nodes. When they battle, all losses count against their control of the node their in. Wins can be counted against any connected node or your own node to counter losses. You’ll have to work the numbers but a faction with a high percentage get to control a node, reversely, if your factions control gets too low, they have to retreat to an unoccupied node.
Think, faction secures node, sends out raids to adjacent nodes try to secure them, whilst at the same time, being attacked by other nodes. Big losses on your raids would run down your supplies/support, you’d need to start fighting a defensive action to ensue you didn’t loose the node and have to fallback and regroup. Big successes would mean you expand, well unless factions made alliances and all registered against you 😉
I reckon there’s plenty of community stuff in that model, everything from deciding where to register your victories, whether a concentrated expanse or a desperate defensive action. Add in the idea that factions could ally one turn and be betrayed in the next. Faction forums would be excellent because the faction that was most co-ordinated would win the campaign.
Fluff wise, everyone’s trying to seize whatever special thing is in the center, whilst securing the lands around it before expanding to dominate the island 🙂 😀
Thanks for your kind words mate 🙂
@warzan – Also …
Let players register wins in defence of any of their factions nodes they can draw a line to. Essentially, it’s secure movement, allows a faction to defend multiple nodes without leaving standing troops. Factions could expand of course but they’d only have the same amount of games with which to defend lots of nodes. The bigger you get, the more you’d need to recruit new players to your cause and help defend the newly acquired empire.
Also, co-ordinated counter attacks to break those safe supply lines by seizing a node could be possible, especially if two factions were to team up with the objective of a combined strike to isolate an area perhaps?
@warzan – Had a think over coffee ….
In the case of a faction not having an empty node to fall back to, they become fractioned and all further losses are discounted and they are located in an their factions admin node which can never be taken (and isn’t really on the map, it’s more for game mech). They can continue to register wins against any of the outlying nodes. So force becomes guerrilla action, raiding outer nodes, maybe a co-ordinate effort to seize a node and get back in the campaign a proper.
I figure that way, factions can get knocked out of the campaign but players can still play. Also, assuming they can recruit new player to their faction and co-ordinate a fight back.
Justin is putting Romain out of a job. That Wolsung gang is looking really nice!
Where are the days of the colorblind monstrosities of miniatures ER? 🙂
So it will be a Bolt Action mega battle then. That will make me a silent spectator, since I don’t play the game and have no intention to start. Too many other distractions waiting.
I hope you will do a mega battle for Dropfleet Commander when it is out. I went heavy into the kickstarter, so I will be able to bring quite a fleet. And if the Hawk team wants to join in again that would be even more awesome.
Just join backstage for the year, listened to Warren’s pool story, and realized that THAT alone was worth the price of admission *chortle*. I really don’t know who’s idea it is to put an observation window above the pool. Must be someone skinny. I don’t think I would even swim there, if I know that people would see my girth of sexiness lol.
Big campaign is a cool idea, I think I would lean toward Halo, because the Game hasn’t been given an overt amount of attention. You actually could do a squad type game, like Mercs or even Carnevale … Have objectives scattered around the terrain, options to ‘tag team’ in more team members … You could even do a portal machine that would transport teams to other areas of the campaign board. So many possibilities!
I had a good time with “Living in the cotidianne”.
Big Bolt action would be great, even just watching it.
why not make it so (its 40k) so that the normal FOC can only move and attack adjacent nodes, while for exampe a “deepstrike” army that can attack anywhere (?) might need a certain amount of fast attack while foregoing the heavy support?? Likewise cities can be fortified so if attacked they woul allow more havy support and perhaps the odd forification?? Viola, there you have 3 army types to choose from that will impact both your army composition and its movemennt… heck, they could even make for interesting player-player coordinations of fronts 😉
You know it’s a scary world we live in when innocent observation has turn to suspicious activity. Personally the gym instructor reacted inappropriately and your incident could’ve and should have been handled in a much more professional manner.
Love to see XWing but Armada would be cool and so would Halo