Busy weekend

After finishing a large run of shifts Saturday was games night. First off we tried a tiny game of bolt action just to give the rules a try. My friend had a German  lieutenant and a 10 man squad I had a British Para lieutenant and 2 5 man squads. We really liked the bolt action rules and they flow really well. Great fun can't wait to finish up our armies and have a full on battle.

Next up was a large game of x wing!

2 large squadrons were assembled. The empire had slave 1 and 4 tie aces the rebels had the millenium falcon, an E wing , b wing and an a wing.

The board was pretty crowded with ships. We started our game both sides speeding towards each other. A few shots were exchanged before unfortunately my little 1 year old got ill so had to call it a day and look after him all night. He seems much better today though. On Sunday I took a trip to a new gaming club that has opened up  Infamous Wargaming club based on oldbury at a community arts place. Here I met Jamie who set up and runs the club. He gave me a demo of bolt action (I know i had played a game the night before but I always find it good to have someone that has played a few times to show you). He had a german force and we played a scenario called envelopment. I lost the roll so Jamie picked the defender and I got the attacker. I had to get my forces across I to his deployment done and off the board.

My forces were in white as they haven't been painted yet just under coated  as you can see I suffered from a lack of cover where as the Germans were well dug in.

One of my squads (above pic) managed to get into opponents half and some brave charging and close quarter combat.  This squad did make it off the board.

My other squad did not fair so well as it had more open ground to cover. In bolt action (as I'm sure many of you are aware) you have pins this reflects squads receiving incoming fire.  I had made my own pin markers to look like little explosions. As you can see from the picture the squad had already acquired 2. Pins affect taking orders and shooting

They fought their way across the river but were wiped out. I lost the game but 2 victory points.
One of the other blokes at the club offered me a second game against Russians.  After set up I noticed there were a lot of Russians on the other side of the battle. This was a straight up meeting engagment where both sides run into the table.  This went fairly evenly but we ran out of time so didn't get to finish though to rub it In my artillery spotter at extreme long range and enemy in cover took 2 enemy out with his SMG with some lucky dice rolls. I love bolt action and can't wait to get my army sorted. Also Jamie was super kind and gave me a box of British soldiers which should be enough to make up another 2 squads of regular British Tommies.
The box is full of sprues and loads of choice!  Below is what I started this morning (wonderful children waking up before 7 am)

Have a great day!!

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Birthday funds depleted!!!

The post people have been busy delivering all my online orders that I've spent my birthday money on or as a present.
First up.

My family for me the star wars rebellion game. It's an absolute beast of a box 6 inches in depth. Inside is 150 plastic miniatures to represent fleets etc. Looks great can't wait to dive in.

E-Wing from my good friends! Can't wait to break out the new fighter and give it a fly.

My first bolt action miniatures are the British Airbourne HQ. After watching  the Pegasus bridge section of the Longest Day and A Bridge To Far for many years I've always loved the idea of having an airbourne force.

Next up I needed some anti tank (not many airbourne tanks .....well I believe there is one but not great in a tank fight so I'll aim to get that later ) I got a PIAT team and a light mortar team .

Obviously i need some troops!! This section gives me a squad with a mix of SMGs, OMG and rifles.
All the models look great and detailed I just hope I don't ruin them with my painting. On that note I've gotta but some more shadea of green!

Last of all (well apart from two books from the excellent series day by day Armageddon which haven't arrived yet.) Is my 14 pounder giving my Britannia force some much needed artillery and a nice anti-iron clad threat. The models looks great and comes with a base which was good as I thought I would have to buy one separate. In my last blog I mentioned that I was worried as prices were going up and stick diminishing. Well in the Spartan games blog they announced that dystopian legions is going strictly mail order from them to keep prices low and models still available. They have many games and I guess this isn't the most popular one. So at least I'll still be able to get models though depending on price may still use some proxies he he he
Now into assembling and painting!!!

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Birthday Treats!

Last Tuesday it was my birthday or as I'm getting on a bit I prefer level up (can't take the gamer out of me). My beautiful wife had bought me the star wars rebellion board game. Where you play the struggle for the galaxy one team rebels other the empire.  You build fleets and even death stars! to take over the galaxy. Once the post man brings it I'll post some pics. I also reciced the bolt action rule book so a while new game to learn! With some birthday money I've ordered a British para section and para command squad to start me off. Also with some money I bought a 14pdr field gun for my Dystopian legions forces. Though worryingly stock levels seem to be really low and prices are rising. Amazon starter sets that were £30 are going for £80 - £90 + now so is this a sign of legions being discontinued?? To bolster our forces my friend and I have agreed when playing each other to use some ranges from Warlords black powder range.  The British soldiers from the Anglo Zulu was range for ok  (the size will be a little off) my friend is trying to track down some Prussian soldiers.
Last but certainly not least my awesome friends who run a Kawaii  blog bought me an E wing for my rebel x wing fleet!!!

Can't wait to in pack this and add it to the fleet!
So now I'm eagerly awaiting the postman bringing me loads of parcels  😃

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It's oh so quiet

Not a lot has happened as I've been away on hols with the family and boys brigade and girls brigade me and the wife help out with. Had a fun but tiring week in Devon near Haytor Rock.
Got home to find

Waiting for me. Well technically I'd bought slave one the Friday before my holiday.
I have had a dystopian legions force for a while but never played and reading through the rules I got with the starter set I found new rules had been realised 😢free pdf though so not all bad but you know how I like a rulebook!! The pirate miniature for future pirate games want to try and base him on a ship's deck well so it looks like it so we will see how that goes. I'll put up a post about slave one soon.
Still waiting on some rubble bases which I think have been lost in the post first time this has happened to me when buying something over eBay.

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Millenium Falcon first battle

After our ATDE game we broke out the x wing game. Once again I had the rebels and my friend had the Imperials. My list was Han solo in the falcon and Luke Skywalker in an X wing. The imperials had 4 ace Tie Fighters. Now I'd been told that the list would struggle against the falcon but the points matched  (Tie fighters had various upgrades) and I told my friend about this but he insisted on playing the Imperials and I'm sure rebel scum was mentiined in the conversation!


The first few turns were the ships advancing forward each other.  The falcon was a test as it's a large model and is a tight squeeze between asteroids and ships.





There was lots of tight manouevring and the 360 degree arc falcon weapon really helped (what didn't was me forgetting skills all the time).




The falcon took some serious damage but Chewbacca my crew member was very handy at repairing and getting me a shield back. Like early on took some unlock hits which ment he had to do less moves so R2D2 could repair a shield. Slowly the rebels wore down the Tie Fighters and won the game.
What I learned was big ships require more concentration when picking a movement template.
I loved the 360 degree weapon but not the 1 agility!!




A brilliant game of X wing and was closer than we thought.
Have a great day folks



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X-Wing Miniatures Millenium Falcon

For fathers day the kids bought me a Millenium falcon to add to my rebel fleet. I was going to wait for the heroes of the resistance pack (milleniun falcon from the force awakens plus poe's black x wing T70) to come out  but its ages away yet and impatience over came.
Opening the box you get a leaflet with an extra scenario in and bits explaining extra rules for the big ship (X wing does this a lot with any new ships) and all the cards you will need.

The tokens and cards are great quality with excellent art work and have been popped out and sorted into my x wing storage.

The cards contain a mix of missiles crew cards and engine upgrades.
And last obvously you get a great detailed miniature Millenium Falcon.

Hopefully the Falcon will be in battle this Friday. I'll let you know how it goes!

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Been awhile oops!

Sorry it's been so long but I've been working a lot 6 12hr shifts really takes it out of you lol No modelling done this week though I have spent way to much time drooling over bolt action  (so expect an army bought at some point thanks to my weak will).
Fathers day has been and gone so happy fathers day to the dads out there. My kids bought me the Millenium falcon for x wing!

I'll try and get a post up with what's in the box. I've bought some stuff to attempt the urban tiles so hopefully they'll be a post up about that as well.
Have a great week!

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2nd X wing game

After our Across the Dead Earth battle my mate and I played a quick game of x wing. Once again my mate took control of 4 Tie fighters flew by aces with what skill cards I had avalible.  I had an x wing, a wing and y wing. Loaded up with some astro mechs and proton torpedoes. 

I spread my fighters out with the y wing in  the middle. I was hoping that it would attractvthe tie fighters and hold out while the x wing and a wing swung in behind. Well that was the plan but as they say no plan survives contact with the enemy.

One tie fighter inexplicably flew off the table the others battered the y wing stripping it of all shields and 3 hill points. Eventually the rebels
Had just one tie left to hunt down. After some hard manoeuvring the x wing caught the tie fighter with a long range shot and destroyed it.

Though I'm not an imperial fan I definatly need to get some more Imperial ships to give my mate a chance and more options instead of just 4 Tie fighters.
Once again another great game of x wing.

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X-Wing Asteroids

As I'm getting into X wing I thought I would try and make 3d asteroids instead of using the counters that come with the game.
I'd seen a YouTube video  with a tutorial of how to make them. This involved hacking chunks of polystyrene up . As this Is a very messy job and there is a strong possibility my wife would object to bits of polystyrene everywhere I started with some polystyrene egg shapes (wanted ball shapes but poundland was all out and only had these) from Poundland. On the video they use spray paint to under coat the polystyrene. As many of you will be aware spray painting polystyrene is never a good idea however some lightly the melting that occurs actually makes it look like the surface of an asteroid.

I put the egg  shapes on old flying model stands and sprayed away. As you can see in pic above I got the desired effect but not all over. So i left them to dry. I then applied superglue but nothing....a flash of genius (more likely stupidity ) came to me and i broke out that cigarette lighter you always have in that draw of odds and ends that you never use.  These have a brilliant effect and you could burn craters into the egg shapes. There were only a few little fires  (mainly the one or two I'd just tried superglue on).

Not the best photos I appreciate but I think you can see the effect.

First lot of brown paint on I might add a wash later.

And above are the asteroids in their first outing!!

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X-Wing Storage

I've been looking at ways to store my x wing stuff. The ships are fine as I like them on the geek shelves for the world to see how ever as some of you know there are a fair few tokens and cards!
After a quick Google of what other people do I found that there is a few different storage options made for x wing but people use other things as well. I found the most popular seemed to be a Stanley box with multiple sections that come out and are all  different sizes. Off I went to home base to see what I could find. They didn't have the exact one but had plenty similar.  Then I spied this case

Now it's not what I was looking for but it was £7 for 2 and they inter lock!  The compartments can be changed in size etc so I can fit everything in! And if (who am I kidding!!! When) I get more x wing stuff and the box get a full I can lock the other box into it.

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X-Wing Miniatures Game

Last night my friend came over and we played our first game of X wing. We decided to play a game with out upgrades etc so we could learn the basic rules first.  I used a squadron builder app to make two lists. I only had 4 Tie Fighters (2 from each core set) but because I'm a rebel fan I have 2 X Wings, an A wing, a Y wing  and a B wing. The Tie fighters were all packing ace pilots and the rebels brought to the fight 2 X Wings piloted by Poe Dameron and Biggs Darklighter. Backed up by a green Squadron piloted A wing.







We set up our battleground. We used my homemade asteroids and my friend very amazingly gave me some warhammer vortex templates  that can be used to represent planets.  Space terrain in place we deployed our forces.  I had control of the rebels and my friend had the Imperials. 
The basic game rules are really simple. Each ship has a manoeuvre dial and you secretly choose a manoeuvre template.  Then in a certan The order you and your opponent reveal your move.  This is a great little feature that really brings out the tactical side as you are having to guess  what your opponent might do. It really helped create the feel of a dog fight  Combat resolved through rolling special dice. The attacker dice has blank and hits on there. The defenders dice has blank and evades(each evade cancels a hit). There is a focus symbol on each dice as well (one action allows you to focus, you then can change a focus result on the dice to a bit of evade depending on circumstances). If hits get through you get a damage card (There are 2 types of damage card.  Straight damage and damage that has an effect on your ship as well)once you have the same amount of damage cards to your ships hull points Boom !! Your ship is destroyed.


The ships initial deployment

The first few turns involved the ships getting into position and then the action heated up with close quarter battling and flying.




Here you can see the manoeuvre template on my x wing

Here you can see my ship cards and the damage a couple have sustained





The first kill went to Poe Dameron  a long range shot taking out one of the tie fighters after that an A wing, another tie fighter and Biggs in his x wing were destroyed  (Biggs taking the hits for Poe like a hero).  That left 2 ties versus one X wing.  After one tie flew into a planet (you can't check the movement template when you choose it on your dial ) Poe took down the other tie fighter for the win. 


Once you have the rules down the game flows so easily. I can't wait to add upgrades and secondary weapons to the fray now!!!
I would recommend this to Any one who likes Tabletop games and star wars! Hell I'd reccomend this game to everyone. My friend that played was also blown away by it (even if he sides with the Empire. ... ).
That's all for today have a great day!



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