Sculpting Intro

On Sunday we had an Intro to Sculpting workshop with Steve Jones of Captain General. It was fun and informative, and I managed to come up with some mods for my Mauryan war elephant.

More Billhooks at the Barn

 The other week we had a four player War of the Roses game using Never Mind the Billhooks. Unlike the previous game on the blog this was with 28mm figures.

On the left flank Kev's skirmishers were on top of us before we had even moved due to an event card.

I had hoped to occupy the nearby cover with my own skirmishers and fight from there but that wasn't an option any more. I decided to push into the centre of the table, out of their range.

I sent my longbowmen into the rough ground with one of my commanders further out to keep in command range of the advancing pikemen.

The enemy weren't slowed down by the bad going and charged my commander. As they were accompanied by a commander of their own I challenged him to single combat and lost. Meanwhile my pikemen charged the enemy archers and lost dismally, both to defensive fire and melee, failing to kill any of the enemy.

After killing my commander the enemy billmen charged the archers and eventually destroyed them.

The enemy knights crossed a hedge and charged the archers on our right side, routing them. Our billmen charged them back and were routed to.

My light cavalry were threatened by Kev's crossbows and handguns who were moving towards them. They would be better off in a fight than being whittled away by skirmishers who could evade them so I sent them up after my infantry.

My billmen routed some archers while the cavalry got into a fight with enemy billmen which they eventually lost being outnumbered. My commander challenged his and again lost. The enemy billmen than charged my own and destroyed them too. By now my whole half of the army was lost.

Our men at arms, despite disturbed by comrades fleeing past them now attacked the enemy knights and lost.

Most of our army was now dead, including two out of three commanders. A few troops routing were not capable of fighting the remaining enemy, so it was a decisive victory for the other side.

Cthulu in the Valley of the Kings

 This was a Call of Cthulu game with nine players at Lincombe Barn Wargames Society.

We arrived at a town near the Valley of the Kings by train but without our luggage, carrying only small items. Except for one aristocratic adventurer who had his own extensive luggage and servants.

 

We spent the night in a hotel and in the morning there was a commotion at the river where a hot air balloon was crash landing. This turned out to be another member of our party arriving. Venturing into the water we were attacked by a giant crocodile and one of the characters, a nurse, was eaten.

With some shooting and without any help from the local guards, posted nearby for that very purpose we scared it away, or perhaps it wanted to digest. 

 We spent a day at the American Archeological Society outpost doing research. It seemed there was a local cult was planning to summon some otherworldly creature and rumour had it the time was due. There was another cult with the opposite cause but it was believed to be extinct. We discovered that this cult had a spell book that had been broken up for security and we found the first part of it there and sanity was tested to read it.

 With a new character replacing the nurse, we hired some vehicles and some locals and set off towards the cult's area of activity. Caught in a sandstorm we were attacked by a bizarre creature confidently identified as a dinosaur (apparently museums would throw any old bones together to make a dubious skeleton).

One of the hireling ran away, one died, and another player needed medical attention after being jabbed with a poison barb. We moved on once the storm lifted and since it was late we prepared to make camp by a ruined building near a pyramid.

 

This turned out to be cultist HQ and we had a fight with them, losing more hired staff, after killing half of the cultists the rest ran away.

 

0Meanwhile one of our party had gone to investigate an oasis at the far end of the table on his motorbike, where he found more cultists, dressed in robes this time.

They chased him back to camp and as he arrived, falling of the motorcycle  a horrific creature was summoned.

Dynamite was used to destroy it with another causualty taken. 

The party now split with some of us guarding the camp. Searching the building we found a hidden basement. Entering the second room Carol's character triggered a magic spell, a monster appeared next to her which she shot to death. Mysteriously it disappeared and the body of her assistant lay there.Another page of the spellbook was found. Next they entered the pyramid by a hidden entrance and went in. Meanwhile another group of cultists attacked those of us above ground.

 

In the pyramid a monster that only Carol could see attacked the group who were alarmed by her shooting and shouting warnings.

Another piece of spell book was retrieved from a mummy's sarcophagus. Was the mummy real or a vision?

Becoming concerned we visited the pyramid to see if they needed help and could not find the opening, until it appeared as they were making their exit. We examined a Sphynx but only found a hidden chamber that had already been looted. We then followed the clues that led us to the Valley of the Kings.

 

We split into groups, with all our hired help we were still a large group.

I discovered a cultist who surrendered when I failed to shoot him by the narrowest margin. He said they were about to open a portal to allow their god to arrive. Securing the prisoner we entered a temple.

 

My group found a monster which made short work of someone. I asked the prisoner if this is what they were summoning or if there was something worse. We fired at it through the gaps between the columns.

The other group managed to open a huge door and released a creature so horrifying the camera couldn't bear to look at it clearly. It attacked them and threw them around like rag dolls. Still under the influence of a spell Carol's character couldn't see it. One player darted into the open door seizing a book from the throne within which was writhing with scorpions, the final part of the spell book.

 

A large group of cultists appeared in anther temple alarming the party members with the vehicles. We presumed they were about to start the summoning.

And now Cthulu himself appeared on the table (the model is from the Horrorclix game).

Everyone had to make a Sanity roll. Those who failed lost D100 Sanity points. I failed my sanity roll and lost 49 sanity points, from my balance of 23, and went mad. My character jumped to the ground and started eating the dirt. Craig's character went mad too and ran away.

The cultists in the temple were performing a ritual led by a mad looking priest. The party by the vehicles attacked them, throwing dynamite into the temple.

My deranged character, being a hardened mercenary hired to protect the group, decided he was quite capable of taking on a 50 foot tall elder god and began stalking Cthulu, moving from cover to cover to find the right spot.

As Cthulu advanced towards the party and the temple it occurred to them, or perhaps the GM suggested, that the cultists might be trying to oppose Cthulu, since their ritual only began after he arrived.

Gathering the spell book together the party read the spell that reversed the portal. At the same moment my mercenary character took his shot and Cthulu was gone.

The fighting with the cultists stopped as the misunderstanding became clear. My now insane character was  convinced that he had killed the creature with a single well aimed shot.

 We got all this done in one afternoon. The GM, John, kept things moving at a fast pace and we all had an excellent time.

Alien Squad Leader: Children of the Gods v Hive Mind

 Last Sunday my Children of the Gods army faced Kev's Hive Mind at the club. This was a 150 point game so I didn't have a summoned unit off table.

We rolled a Pitched Battle for the scenario and Kev was the defender so he set up the terrain. As attacker I was able to move one piece so I moved a built up area from the centre to my left corner, denying him cover.

Kev's troops started out of sight so I had to rely on orders to put my units on overwatch, however his tunnelling bugs and flyers were in my rear before I could do this.

When I got units in the rear on overwatch they still couldn't cover enough approaches to stop the flyers. My Light Transport was soon destroyed. The setup meant I had no incentive to transport troops so I just aimed to have it on overwatch but never got the chance. I was reluctant to be distracted from covering the expected mass advance from the front but I soon had to feed more and more units into the fight.

One unit of Robot Infantry, with one hit remaining survived about four turns of losing melee in a row, on their armour saves before they were lost. Four Beasts and three Close Flyers destroyed a large portion of my army on the right, taking hardly any damage themselves.

The brain spiders on the other flank now advanced against my left position, which had been depleted sending support to the other side.

My right flank collapsed and fight moved into the centre, spidery reinforcements started to move up. It was looking like they might win with half their army still hidden away in their starting positions.

As all the units in my centre became engaged the mass of spiders in the centre finally moved up and engulfed them. On the left my units were trapped between enemy so every time they lost a combat they recoiled into enemy and took another hit and became pinned.

My army reached it's break point at 8/16 units giving Kev a total victoy, we finished the turn and more of them died.

My losses were 110 points against only 26 against Kev.

My Power Armoured troops are from MJ figures, inspired by Star Gate, the Regular Infantry are from Corvus Belli, The Robot Infantry are converted from epic scale Eldar dreadnoughts, the Floaters are converted from Necron Destroyers from Games Workshop and the Light Transport is from Star Wars.

IPMS Show, Thornbury 2024

 On 4 August Lincombe Barn Wargames Society helped run the combined model and wargames show with the IPMS. There was a mixture of displays by modelling clubs, wargames and traders.

The show took place in three large halls with the painting competition in an upstairs room.

Lincombe Barn ran the bring and buy table. We had our own display table but I forgot to take a picture of it.

 

We also judged the competition for best game, awarding it to the Major Brothers' Sikh Wars game.

We ran a Star Wars game, using the Chain of Command ruleset.

There was a competition of Arte de' Geurr.

 This game used a set of mech rules called Lancer.

The snack bar was kept busy all day.