Rapiercon 2019 - Saturday Frostgrave

After a terrible night of not enough sleep, we convened for breakfast then headed over to the game hall for Frostgrave.

I used my Pink Ladies party. I had taken two with me since David hadn't time to get one together. He chose my Orks. I didn't have much preference either way and was quite happy with the way the Pink Ladies operated.

David's Orks. Lee (one of Mike's Waycross buddies) set up the table and scenario.Nominally, it was a "Well of Dreams and Sorrows" scenario, but with a ton of wandering monsters to keep us occupied.

The 3x3 play area way completely dominated by the enormous table. We all agreed the humongous "gutter" around the play area was the best thing ever since we had copious space for the gaming accoutrements that normally end up on the floor, another nearby table, etc.

In the early going, I sent half my group after a nearby Uruk. We needed some breathing room!

Meanwhile, Daphne and some others went right to deal with another Uruk. Daphne is the group's Wizard (an Enchanter, in pink).

My apprentice threw a Wizard Eye out next to the well-defended-well. I had hoped to start lobbing Grenade spells from it!

The obligatory selfie group shot.

As it turned out, thus Uruk seemed to be Darth Maul in disguise because it took five of my gang to get a hit on him! The player to our left was in charge of rolling "monster" dice against us. I felt pretty good about having Mike and his traditionally truculent dice to my left. As it turns out, the man only rolls seventeens and higher when he's representing the side of evil!

Eventually, we were able to smite the foul creature and concentrate on gathering loot.

My kills. I also got out with two treasures. David was the big winner. He scored three treasures (maybe four?) and was the only one of us whose wizard made it to the pool for a drink!

Frostgrave was a nice, low-stress game to kick off the day. We had lunch/beer then got ready for Star Fleet Battles.

Of course while we were doing our thing, there was plenty of other activity including this nice looking game of Gangs of Rome:

There was also an impressive table of Battletech stuff being assembled:

The real shame of that was that it was scheduled to start at 9:00am. The disorganizer didn't even show up until around 9:30 and wasn't done putting it all together until perhaps 11:00! He had a handful of very patient players, but while I was setting up SFB around 1:30, they'd only completed a single turn of movement and had broken for lunch. Then, crime of crimes, they had a lot of unpainted mechs on the table! I joked that they were fighting for control of a paint factory. I felt very good about playing FG and not Battletech as I had initially planned.

SFB will be in the next post. It was without a doubt one of the best/most entertaining games I've ever witnessed. It was Star Trek 2, Mad Max: Fury Road, and Blazing Saddles all rolled into one.

Rapiercon 2019 - Friday

Last weekend I made the short trek south to Jacksonville for the 2019 iteration of Rapier game convention. All said, it was a terrific two days of gaming and hanging out with friends.

Your truly and Mark J (driving) on Friday morning. There's a lot to be said for driving to a game convention on a Friday morning and not being at work!

My plans for the weekend were pretty loose - only two commitments - a Blood and Plunder tournament on Friday afternoon and running a Star Fleet Battles game on Saturday afternoon.

Interesting development... the Firelock Games folks are working on a Great War skirmish game that uses some of the B&P mechanics. I'd keep any eye out for this if it's your cuppa... the company is top-notch and I'm very impressed with their product thusfar.

An interesting swashbuckling affair with a very nice layout.

My favorite layout of the weekend was this darkest Africa table. Forty-eight square feet of AWESOME! Sadly, they were playing during my B&P games so I couldn't join.

Blood and Plunder began at 2:00pm. There were only four of us playing which made for a really tidy three-game tournament! My first game was with Mark.

Belloq makes his tabletop debut! 

This dice roll neatly sums up the game. It was a one-sided slaughter in favor of me. We both learned a bit and it was on to the next round!

I didn't take many pictures of my second game. I played against a fellow named Joe who did nothing but complain about how unbalanced my chosen army was and that he was doomed and complain complain complain. I made the foolish mistake of electing to attack in a scenario that forces the attacker to rush across the battle field. As it was, we both dealt significant casualties to eachother's force and I failed to pass nearly every morale test I was required to take. In the end, I lost a close affair. The melee in the "Corral with No Gate" was a highlight.

Game three's opponent was Damien who was running a Canadian Milita force. We played a Control The Field scenario. The primary goal was to take possession of two of the three objectives to score points. One was in the plaza of the hacienda.

The Green Macaw boys went over the wall and were met by a hail of shot. It was as ugly as you think. We fought a bit more for a few turns. Eventually my Hovitos quit the field since failing morale tests was just what I was doing Friday afternoon!

Some of the fellas. Complaining Joe is wearing the red shirt behind Mark. All said and done, I came in third out of four... not great but it was a great way to kick off the con for me!

Meanwhile, Mike ponders his next move in the ACW game he was involved with across the room.

An impressive amount of lead is piled upon a table for a big Napoleonic battle.

A bit later, the other half arrived and it was quite a battle!

Some gorgeous 40mm FIW. They were playing Musket and Tomahawk using Sash and Saber Minis.

Mark had gotten involved with that during the evening session.

While Mark was skirmishing in the 18th century, Mike and I took to the skies over England for some Blood Red Skies!

Mike's been playing the game in Waycross for a few weeks and got me sufficiently educated to play a proper bombing run. I ran the evil Germans while Mike defended. I apologize for the unpainted plastic, but it was a new game, fresh out of the box! 

A Spitfire claims one of my bomb trucks.

It wasn't long before the RAF had taken out another. A Pyrrhic victory for the Brits! I actually did a remarkable job killing Spitfires. We did a few things wrong since multi-engine planes behave differently that single-engine ones, but had a great time either way. The game is very peculiar but I enjoyed it and it elegantly delivers the difficult-to-achieve goal of being able to manage a full squadron of planes without having to "manage" things.

It was about 11:30PM so we all went off to catch some sleep to be ready for gaming in the morning!

Two Boats and Rapier Teaser

I obviously haven't posted any Rapier Con stuff yet. I haven't had the time to sit down and put it all together. Maybe today or tomorrow... In the meantime though, I painted up a couple of Blood and Plunder ship's boats last evening.

Nothing terribly fancy, but they'll be a fun addition to the B&P games for sure!

And when I do get around to posting about Rapier, these questions and others will be answered!

Why is this man so focused and unhappy looking?

Why is is ork so dadgummed tough?

The Bell-oq of the Ball

He's a wrap! The relatively low resolution print created a lot of striping on the model, but from 2 feet away, he's gorgeous!

He'll be a fun addition to the tribe!

Belloq... in 3D!

OK, so step two of the 3D printing adventure is complete. My brother in law fought with it a bit because apparently printing extended arms and such are a bit challenging for the technology. He gave me all the scraps which was was able to Frankenstein together into this!

So the model on the right is the finished product and will work very nicely. Certainly not the highest-res print, but, oh wow, yes! I'll take it!

He's scaled perfectly with the Blood and Plunder minis. He's about to get a quick cleaning and then a blast of primer.

Gaming Con! *Rapier 2019*

     February 8th and 9th I'll be heading down to Jacksonville, Florida for Rapier 2019. It's a fun little gaming con that I've been attending for a few years now. I'll be heading down early on Friday to play in the Blood and Plunder tournament Friday afternoon and will be hosting a Star Fleet Battles game Saturday afternoon.

     For B&P I'll use my South Americans (Hovitos). There's a lot to be said for simplicity and the way I set them up, they'll be easy for my old brain to manage in a tournament situation. I tend to put tournament X-Wing lists together in a similar fashion. The less I have to remember, the better off I am. Either way, it should be fun!

     The SFB scenario will be one I came up with a few years ago that we played in December of 2015. It's low-powered and doesn't require a lot of game experience so casual players won't have too much difficulty joining in.

     We may also play Frostgrave on Saturday morning if we can find a spot. If that doesn't pan out, it'll be Battletech for me!

My brother in law is printing this Belloq miniature for me. The Hovitos will have a proper leader!

Gotham By Night - Batman Miniatures AAR

It was a quiet Saturday night in Gotham... quiet for Gotham City anyway. Rose and Digger had just found what they were after in the Mercy Pharmaceuticals building when the alarm sirens started blaring. That could only mean that the cops weren't far behind.

It WAS a quiet Saturday night...

Ravager and Captain Boomerang had to get out of the building, past the SWAT team. The SWAT team had to stop them.

Four GCPD are in.

.

Boomerang knocks down the SWAT guy with a lucky hit! He's down but not out though.

Rose Wilson darts around the corner and gets the drop on officer Rob.

They didn't train for boomerangs in Riot Shield 101!

Ravager is having a very tough time with Rob in the hallway.

Bill surprises Boomerang with a blast from his shotgun! a lot of drywall is wrecked but the Captain is unhit!

He takes the opportunity.

Meanwhile, Jose has caught up with Rob and Ravager.

Bill is in hot pursuit!

Rose finally lands a telling blow. Officer Down!

Digger's got nine lives!

Ravager starts to live up to her reputation and deals a nasty injury to Jose.

Boomerang darts through the door to the sound of the shotgun clicking on empty.

Rose, realizing how much time's been wasted, makes a run for it.

Only to run into a very irritated Officer Bill!

Jose catches back up with the sociopath.

And quickly regrets his action. As he starts to fade out, he can hear more sirens outside.

That was a damn fine game. Capn'n B got away and Rose is in for a bad time. Maybe we should follow this up with a mission to bust her out?

Next time, on Gotham By Night....