Loot & Pillage!

Hello All,

"Loot and Pillage" was a catch phrase of a friend of mine who passed away a few years ago. He used it when our gaming group would head out to a game store or at a convention when we would descend en-mass to the vendor hall. What usually followed was spending frenzy that left wallets aching for weeks!

My wife and I decided to hit the Chantilly Game Parlor before they close their doors forever. This weeks everything is at 45% off. Next week 55%. They close their doors the day before thanksgiving. Anything not sold is going on eBay. I have been going to the Game Parlor since the mid 90's so I am a little sad to see it go away but I must admit that I have not spent as much time there as I have in years past especially since the Woodbridge location closed  a few years ago. 

While there we picked up a ton of stuff much of which we would never have bought if it was not on sale. I grabbed stuff I remember looking at 15 years ago. "Just cause" 

Here are some pictures

81 miniatures in total 

Yep that's Golfags Ogres  box you see there. That thing sat there so long it sun faded. I remember looking at it years ago (2007 or 2008) and deciding 80.00 was way too expensive for 5 out of date (even back then) ogres! But at 45% off I could do it.

My wife picked up some vintage RPG books Part 1

Part 2

I snagged a few books myself.

The Dark Eldar book was the store copy so they sold it for 15.00 and I managed to snag a copy of the new Terminator miniatures rule book.

In all we took three shopping bags out of there full to the top with stuff.  

Boxley would be proud 

================In other News=========

Frostgrave

I snagged some Iron Golems for Frostgrave and decided to repaint them 

They were prepaints from the old D&D miniatures line.

OK but I thought they could use some help

Here are some before and after side by sides for comparison 

Not a huge difference but a little weathering and base work can go a long way.

Later

RGH

Frostgrave- Next Game

Hello All,

Recently got a chance to play a game of Frostgrave. This time I decided to try the Witch as my caster. Good Choice as I pulled off a win. I used my old Malifaux crew as the core of this force. Here is my list

The Old Crone- Witch w/Staff
Sheers- Apprentice w/Hand weapon
Bard- Archer
Blades- Treasurer Hunter
Bravd- Treasurer Hunter
Leopold- Infantryman
Weasel- Thief
Pirate- Thug

Using a precast I was able to summon an Animal companion- I went with the Bear! Unfortunately a random encounter with a small construct saw the bear killed (Sometimes a natural 20 is a bitch)

I managed to grab 2 treasures quickly and was able to capitalize on a failed cast by my opponent allowing me to take out his apprentice and eventually gang up on his wizard. I won the game 4 treasures to two.

The Table layout

Treasures await the brave!

The crew advances

A Bear

Enemy Thug and bound Lesser Demon

Enemy Wizard advances

Keep to the shadows

My crew advances on the Demon and Thug

After the Demon and Thug are dispatched a thief attacks from the shadows

And is quickly dealt with and soon after the apprentice

The Weasel is making ground removing treasure

The Enemy moving in for the final show down.




It was a lot of fun but I am still working out the randomness of the systems D20 base. It can be brutal and adds a little bit of realism to the game that often fails to get captured by other games of this type. The optional critical  rules are particularly nasty! They are really cool but can be unsettling until you get used to them.

 

Till Next time.

 

RGH



Halloween Gaming!

Hello all,

This past Sunday I got a chance to play Bolt Action at the TGS monthly get together. They decided to go with a Halloween theme so that meant the supernatural. Specifically Zombies! The forces were US Airborne vs. Nazis with French partisans and of course herds of Zombies. The standard Bolt Action rules were modified to allow a role playing feel and one of the TGS members took the role of GM and ran all the encounters (and the Undead.)  I was given command of three support US medium machine gun (MMG) squads as well as my squad leader representative miniature. 

That's my team in the front by the river.

My boys don't like bridges. They are too easy to destroy.

The Game ran for 4 hours and our mission (or at least mine as several of the players had different “objectives” to attain) was to stop the airplane located at the other end of the board from taking off. Others had the mission to take the town. None of us were expecting Zombies (ok all of us knew Zombies were going to be there but that is the whole role playing thing.) Things were going fine until we got closed to the town having only encountered 1 Zombie and losing a couple of guys to bites. We soon learned that once bitten a model converts to Zombie status within 2 turns.  Soon things got crazy when we realized that the Germans had been ravaged by the starting Zombies and now the Herds were more like hordes. Worse they were really hard to kill!  The Zombies had several unique rules that made them very much like modern depictions of the undead.

Covering ground field by field

Moving up the trucks

About the point where things got weird

Things seem normal... A little too normal

My team again. Notice my rep is laying down on the job.

As for my squads we pushed forward with our mission even ignoring requests for aid from other squad leaders.  Did I mention that I was directly under the command of the overall CO for our side and did not fall under anyone else’s structure. I am also convinced that my squads and “The Major” were Army Intelligence and not main stream . There is that roleplaying again. :)

We started taking sniper fire from the marked building.

Our first encounter with the undead did not go so well

TAKE OUT THAT SNIPER!

Drop a mortar round on the building?...

BOOM!

No more Sniper.

While the rest of our force pushed into the town  (or at least tried to) I (Squad leader) commandeered the heavy truck with a 50Cal. and opened up on the plane that was preparing to taxi and leave (ending the game I think) My shooting was ineffectual and while doing this the MMG support squads were attacked by former US paratroopers now Zombies. One of my squads were bitten several times before defeating the attackers.

Zombies are attracted by noise

he GM makes a call

We changed out the "explosion" marker (a wadded up paper bag) with a smoke marker

A zombie herd moving across a field

Advance to the town.

More zombies in town

Oh Crap...

About to snag me a ride

Super Zombie!!! (kind of like Resident Evil)

Plane is about to taxi. Shoot it!

My squads after facing their former allies (note the red bitten markers)

The Major is on the far right and is about to take action!

The next turn the Major rushed forward with his Sub-machine gun and was able to do what the 50 could not. He took down the plane (let’s just say an amazing amount of 6’s were rolled) and prevented it from escaping. As it was after 5PM we called the game there. Lots of other stuff happened but I would like to leave the details to others who survived the encounter.

In the end the Super Zombie escaped and the Major ordered the rest of the town cleared and all witnesses (including anyone not under direct command of the Major eliminated. I would assume the town was torched and all evidence destroyed.

Over all the game was amazing. Bolt action is a lot of fun though I did find the machine gun rules a little underwhelming. I will definitely play it again. Thanks to the TGS (you know who you are) for putting this on.

Also...

I forgot to mention that we had food. lots of food.

Mmmm Pie

Later

RGH