Contamination!

I received my ( with my name in the front and signed as well) copy of Contamination plus some apocalypse survivors and zombies to play the game with.

Front cover

The book is hard back and really nice quality. The art work is really great and is done in a graphic novel style. There is a nice bit of fluff to set the scene at the start of the book. There are three factions (some fanactical people, possibly crazy medical scientists and peace keepers) mentioned in the book with a brief history of how they came about. The rules look really simple to get your head round and the book runs you though what to do in a well explained way. There is also a great explanation on the open world aspect. The book gives you guidelines on what tests to take depending on what kind of action you want to do.

Crew formation is next. Your crew gets a boss  plus a number of survivors and newbies depending on what  Req you spend. (Similar to Across the Dead pts and Necromunda credits of they still exist in New version ). Every character has a perk and flaw. These can be picked or rolled at random.  This gives an interesting twist to every character.

Now you get to equip your survivors for the apocalypse.  There's a range of weapons and again some advice on how to add your own (costs, special rules etc). Once your crew is made your ready to play!
There are 6 scenarios including 1 solo play scenario in the book. They seem simple to play and will give you a good few different options to start.

If you start a campaign up, your crew will need a base. So certain resources collected will affect your base. You need so many comfort and food items (places to sleep etc) to have a certain number in your crew.

The Resource deck for Contamination

The resource deck gives many different resources. Some for your base,  others for your characters.
Well that's it  for now. Gotta assemble some apocalypse survivor's after I've finished my Tommies

Games Night!

Friday's game night we were playing Chosen Men. Not historically accurate but it was my British vs my friends Irish rebels in a meeting engagement at a bridge in an abandoned village.

The battlefield

We were learning the rules so we were probably going to get a few things wrong. We deployed our forces on the table edge.

My British are in the bottom of the picture, the Irish rebels in the top

My British

The Irish Rebels

I won the first intiative roll  and started the battle. Each unit has a TAC value this is how many actions your unit can do (different actions cost different TAC, Fire is 1, on the double move 2 etc ).

British Light Infantry advancing

My light infantry advanced across the open field area.
The Irish Cavalry trotted out from their deployment area.  Next up were my line infantry.

Line Infantry form up

They formed a line formation ( to take advantage of 2 rank fire rule) and set off toward the bridge.
My Rifles on the right flank moved forward to the side of the light infantry.
The Irish cavalry moved towards the bridge having the same idea as the British.

Irish advance

My right flank squad of rifles fired taking out the officer in charge of a unit (normally you can't do this but Rifles have crackshot which means you can). The Light Infantry are charged by the Irish cavalry!

Caught in the open!!

Desperate fight!

The survivors of the charge flee but are cut down

Now I thought I could weather a charge with a 10 man unit. .....turns out I was wrong! !  Cavalry in Chosen Men are devastating in a charge!!! They charged my light infantry and after a brief fight my infantry lost the battle and fled. Unfortunately the cavalry ran the infantry unit down!
In the centre ground my line infantry made ready to launch a volley into the side of the advancing Cavalry as they went over the bridge .

Make ready!!

My rifle squad on the left flank sneaked around an abandoned house and engaged some irish troops on the other side of the river

Sneaking around the building

The Irish cavalry come across the bridge and the line infantry loose a volley of musket fire

The Irish cavalry charged across the bridge and through a hail of musket fire and slammed into my colonel and his aide de camps.

My colonel is in trouble!

The charge took out the aide de camps leaving the colonel!

The cavalry crashed into my colonel killing his aide de camps leaving him to fight alone. Unfortunately he lost and fled where he was ran down.
Back on the right flank the surviving cavalry charged the riflemen.

A swirling melee!

Again the cavalry's devastating charge against infantry ment the destruction of my riflemen. The initiative wasn't mine so the cavalry that had destroyed my colonel managed to charge line infantry while they were in line formation!!! (Check out the episdoe Sharpes Waterloo for why this is bad ha ha ha) my unit immediately became broken which means their melee value drops to 1 which is not good.

Cavalry charge into my line infantry!

The cavalry won the melee and my unit leaving a few survivors.

The survivors fight back

My surviving models fought back but could not do anything and fled but crucially this time they put ran the cavalry! In the recovery phase they ralliedand turned and faced the cavalry.

They could only to rally and make a last stand

Using the TAC value of my surviving captain I managed to fire at the cavalry bringing them all down to one wound and put my troops in hold which means they can fire at moving enemy or charging enemy.

But the Irish cavalry were wise to this and held back and fired with their carbines causing a casualty. Next turn came round they charged. Their initial blows left just the captain standing who with his melee weapons potentially could take the fight with some very good rolls as all the cavalry were on 1 wound but alas no he took one down but was forced to flee and was run down.

All this happened in the final turn. I was only left with my rifles on the left flank who were covered from the cavalry by an building and had been dueling with some irish soldiers on the other side of the river.

The rifles in the shadows

The game ended with a decisive Irish Victory. Had the game continued I could have holed my rifles up in the house and forced the Irish to flush me out but it would still be a loss . What I failed to mention (mainly as I couldn't remember the exact details) was how well my rifles performed at taking out enemy leaders. Their crack shot skill negates the normal procedure that ncos and officer die last and if your independent officer is within 6" of another un it he can't be targeted but the stars of the battle were the cavalry by far. Their charge was utterly devastating.  They have  a skill called devastating charge which adds D6 hits to their total before you even add their own stats and they always strike first so leave units utterly shattered before they can hit back.  Counters to this. Well my own cavalry is the easiest option but make better use of terrain and pay more attention to who has initiative the next turn so I can get my hits in first. 
Great game overall !

Amera Plastic Waterfall

Last week I finished up the Amera plastic waterfall and river sections I had bought (pick yours up here ) during the Easter break.

Ready for priming

All sprayed ready for painting

After a wash in warm soapy water they were ready and primed as you can see above. 

Next up was to do the rocks surrounding the waterfall. This I applied a technique I learned a long time ago from Likes APS ( click  here for video). It's basically doing dark grey and then  dry brushing on progressively light greys and finishing with a touch of white to finish.

Got a basic paint on now

The sites of the river sections had sand glued to it before painting green. Also painted the river but blue. I didn't plan on using a water effect as I'm not so confident at using it.
Once the paint dried the blue  appeared to start to flake and break up.

Ahhh!!!!!

After seeking advice on Lukes APS terrain group it seemed I would have to scrape off the blue and start again and instead of using kids craft paint I should try acrylic paint. Luckily I had some blue acrylic paint left over from painting my sons room (animals on the wall). Now I'm an impatient painter so I thought instead of scraping off the blue I would try first to paint the acrylic over the flakeing paint. I did peel the worst bits off before hand. 

This seemed to work and the bumps caused by the flakeing added to the water feel. Now I needed to add an effect to the waterfall to give the impression of flowing water.
I checked the Amera plastic website as next to the products they put examples of those same products painted. The waterfall example had white dry brushed it looked like onto the blue to give the impression of flowing water. So I tried to replicate it, I hope you think so to

I think it looks ok

Last of all was to add a gloss to the water to give it a bit of a shine.

I think it looks good. Can't wait to try them on the battle field.

Have a great day folks