A quick update. …

Sorry it’s been a quiet month on Tales From The Mancave….the girls have been excitedly preparing for Christmas and I’ve been kept busy with shopping, wrapping, chopping, cooking and playing games that sadly aren’t the kind I’d usually post about. So I’m going to give a quick update to keep your all advised of what’s been going down.  Let’s keep this simple. ….

I managed to grab three Star Trek Attack Wing Reinforcement Blind Booster Bricks for the forthcoming Temporal Cold War OP Series. I’ll be trying to post about each vessel and stick some pictures up as soon as I can.

Sticking with a space theme I’ll move next onto Star Wars.  I managed to grab a viewing of The Force Awakens on opening day and was like a child in a sweetshop with Daddy’s credit card!  Lol. Gaming wise I managed to pick up the last remaining ship I required to complete my Star Wars X-Wing collection. …the Tantive 4. Now onto Wave 8.  Being a massive Imperial fan I also wanted to get my dirty hands on the impressive Gozanti class Imperial Assault Carrier to swell the ranks of my Imperial Fleet.  I grabbed one for a very good deal of £39.67 (including P&P) from boardgameprices.co.uk which I was very happy about!

Sticking with Star Wars Christmas was very kind to me and I managed to get a whole heap of Star Wars Imperial Assault goodies from my girls.  I received Dengar to add to my wretched hive of scum in IG-88 & Boba Fett. I’m aiming to put together the whole line up of Bounty Hunters from The Empire Strikes Back. …so I need 4-Lom, Zuckuss and Bossk.  Then I’ll have then go toe to toe with my other games worth of hunters….the Predators from Prodos’ AvP.  I also got a copy of the latest expansion for SW:IA Return to Hoth. Finally I was given a load of Villain and Ally packs to build my SW:IA forces; – a Royal Guard Champion,  Kayn Samos, Chewbacca, Han Solo, R2-D2 & C-3PO and Princess Leia. So I can now assemble the whole gang from the films.  Happy gamer!

I did post a while ago about me returning to the Judge Dredd fold at NAGA to have some games with Brent Jay and Co. Well I was watching some very good deals on EBay and add luck would have it I did manage to scoop up the whole lot for a very decent price of £37 (including P&P). I ended up winning auctions for gangs for Judge Cals Personal Retinue, Justice Dept. Mega City Judges and Specialist Judges. So they’ll go onto the gaming table for use at some point in January against Brent.

The Hairy Gamers (me and Tris) took a little road trip to Dragonmeet in London during December to collect our AvP Wave 2 pledges and boy was there a whole load to struggle through a busy convention with.  I now have 3x Alien Warriors, 2x Alien Queens, 2x Royal Guards, 2x Alien Crushers, 2x Predaliens, 2x Alien Eggs, 2x Berserker Predators, 2x Predator HellHounds, 2x USCM Powerloaders and 1x each set of Dice (USCM, Aliens & Predators). I also bought an extra two boxes of Alien Warriors from Asylum Wargames Online Shop for a great price of £10 each. You can grab some too by visiting them on http://asylumwargaming.tictail.com/ . These guys have great deals on all sorts of goodies residual if you’re interested in Macrocosm or AvP.

This takes me neatly onto Macrocosm. Despite the awesome Chris Nicholls being very busy with his adventure into fatherhood for the second time he managed to go above and beyond to send out my Macrocosm Malignancy pledge.  Once the chaos of Christmas has subdued I’ll try to take some pictures and post more about this! Thanks Chris.  If you too are interested in Macrocosm then you can find more details on the website at http://www.macrocosm.co.uk/

Whilst we were on our road trip I managed to teach Tris the rules for The Devils Run and we even managed to grab a couple of demo games on the stand the Word Forge Games team were using.  Both of us are mad keen for this game and with any luck I’ll be able to help Mark Rapson with some more play testing and reviewing of the game in the build up to shipping.  With so many ideas for this game, with me posting regular bat-reps and reviews and with Mad Max Fury Road available on Blu-Ray and DVD it was inevitable that others would be drawn into the TDR:R666 game. Recently Tris and I expanded the Hairy Gamers family by inviting Gareth Mosley and James Hall to join our ranks. Both have the R666 bug and are busy trash-bashing and scheming for when R666 drops.  James has been busy using any and all HotWheels and Matchbox cars he can get his busy hands on to bash together some cars to use.  I myself am waiting until my pledge drops to see what gaps I have in my collection before getting too busy with trash-bashing. My ideas are mainly for scenery and game tiles based on British Roads rather than the American ones in the game.

Guildball now. ….as some of my regular readers will recall I play in a local Guildhall league at Black Dragon Games in Hinckley. Sadlt this has not been going to we’ll for my Fishermen who have lost their opening two encounters against Craigs Mort-Union team (12-8) & Andy T’s murderous Butchers (12-4). This week I have a double header of games planned against David Mustin and Mark Southerd in store on Tuesday so watch this space for that.  I’ve gone in half’s on a Union Starter with David to get me a copy of Avarisse and Greede to add to my Union Starter of Blackheath, Decimate and Gutter. I also added a Harry “The Hat” Hallahan to my Union line-up this month as well as hopefully getting the miniatures I’m owed by Jay Finnegan in the form of Fangtooth and Hemlocke. At some point I’ll have to grab me a copy of Coin,  the Union Mascot, so I can play Union too. I’ll do a “Gaming on a Budget” post later to cover my Guildball activities.  Having seen a couple of demo’s at Dragonmeet and spoken to one of the brains behind Guildball, Rich, Hairy Gamer Tris had also picked up a great deal on a Masons team for Guildball so we’ll probably throw down at some point even if it’s just to teach him the rules.

Lastly im going to talk about Frostgrave. Not the game or any bat-reps or warband stuff but mostly terrain.  I managed to grab myself two of the old Games Workshop Mighty Fortress plastic kits from EBay as a starter for my planned scenery. I wanted to build the walls of Felstadt. I also picked up 84 Lemax Snow Covered Wintery Pine Trees, a Garden of Morr kit from GW and some rather large Amera plastic moulded kits for their F204 Large Hill Top Ruin (Fantasy Realms page) & Z236 Corner Ruined Building  (Future Zone page). You can take a closer look at thier range on the link below;-

http://www.amera.co.uk/product.php?range=f

Once I get the chance to do anything with any of the above I’ll post something.

Merry Christmas and a Happy and Prosperous New Year to you all!

Gaming on a budget – The Challenge (Month 4 – Part 9)

Just a short update today as last night saw my second game of Guildball.  I had Andy T over to the Mancave for some medieval low fantasy football as his tried and tested Butchers took on my rejigged Fishermen.  Previously I had a game against Mark Southerd at NAGA where my Fishermen beat his Alchemists/Union 12-2.  Last night I changed my team knowing that they’d face a far tougher prospect in the Butchers.  I couldnt afford to give away easy kills with some of the squishier members of my team so I swapped out Angel for Sakana.

Here’s a bit of a report of the game as it went:-

Well that was painful.

Four takedown and a goal versus a goal from me. Ouch! Fishermens team was Shark, Salt, Jac, Sakana, Siren and Kraken.

So I had only my second game tonight against a very tanky Butchers team managed by Andy Thomas.

Shark, Salt, Jac, Sakana, Kraken and Siren vs Ox, Princess, Tenderiser, Brisket, Boar and Shank.

I received and secured the ball first activation with Shark who passed to Siren generating momentum and my team swept from the right flank down across my goal towards the left flank. The Butchers were brutally taking down my guys removing three (Kraken, Shark and Sakana) before I could score. Shark was first being soundly ganged up upon and beaten by three Butchers including Boar, Shank and Brisket.  Butchers 2-0 Fishermen 6-0

I managed to bring Shark back who came back close to Jac and Salt, who was now carrying the ball, on the left wing.  In the melee in the middle both Sakana and Kraken were beaten by Ox and Boar allowing my other teama members to use the pitch and keep out of trouble. Now with Shark back and in striking distance I loaded Shark with influence.   Running to about 9 inches out he then used his Tidal Surge Character play for 3 INF to dodge rather than Advance into Tenderisers area of influence to stop him getting his free charge. Shark shoots with a clear line of sight, Shark scores before spending some influence to dodge back out of the arc. Butchers 6-4 Fishermen.

The ball was kicked off and Andy dropped it dead centre of the pitch with all of his Butchers between my team and the ball.  Very quickly after kick-off the Butchers secured the ball with Brisket whilst Sakana and Kraken were off field.

Jac and Salt were doing good work on the wing supported by Shark and Siren.   Brisket dodged away, ran, set-up the supershot and scored before Sakana could drop the Smoke bomb to hide the goal. Sakana and Kraken just returning to play behind thier goal. 10-4

The ball was kicked off and I was hoping for some luck.  I tried to kick it into an area that I could hope to recover quickly.  Whilst not the greatest kick distance wise it was close enough to Jac and Salt that one of them might be able to recover.  Siren was very close to getting removed so attacked Shank to generate a dodge and left his melee area.  Spending he last INF to run she moved around the back of Jac and Salt and come back into the centre of the field and attempt to get to the ball. Following kick-off the ball ended up with Jac who didn’t have the range to pass to Shark on the wing so punted the ball to open field for Shark to grab it he then spent his remaining INF attempting to Goad Ox into moving towards him rather than charging Shark. He whiffed his roll and failed. Before Shark could activate and fire off his legendary play Ox charged him and brutally chopped Shark up over 3 attacks doing just enough damage again resulting in a take down, Sharks second of the game. One less damage or a successful Goad roll and things may have appeared closer in terms of final score but alas it was not to be

Final score12-4 to the Butchers.

I think I have a handle on getting around Tenderiser. I wasn’t that impressed with Sakana and I certainly missed the goal threat of Angel but in terms of survivability Sakana was better than Angel and did a fair amount of damage to Ox.  My difficult choice is which one from three to use…..Sakana, Angel or Greyscales.  Based on his Unpredictable Movement, Where’d he Go? and Ball Gone! Character plays he may be a better option.  I lose the Supershot of Angel but gain a slower, tougher, harder hitter with a bigger melee area to boot.  So in terms of controlling the pitch and taking the ball Greyscales may be the best option for me.

I didn’t get to take any pictures as Andy T was playing photographer and commentator via his phone.  I’ll ask him to share his pics with me.

**EDIT – here is a gallery of T’s pictures from last night. **