Merry July 4th

It's Independence Day, woo hoo! A day off in the middle of the week is kind of ridiculous really but hey, a day off is a day off. Any excuse to burn burgers and have a brew is a good one.

I've actually done a fair amount of gaming the last couple of weekend, it's gone undocumented here but I'm about to rectify that. The day after Zig and I played Firestorm a couple of weeks ago, I met David up at Morningstar Games for a Dystopian Wars Fleet Action battle.

I used a fun pairing of Prussians and Eclipse Company mercenaries. David brought along his Blazing Sun Japanese.

So the general setup was that I was defending a channel and the EBS forces were trying to clear me out and capture the large building in the center (next to the robot).

By turn two, it seemed that David wasn't moving quickly enough towards the objective building. I was fine with this.

My swarm of little boats and subs drew a massive amount attention and really helped the Prussian cause. While David was expending considerable resources killing the hard-to-hit little guys, I was knocking on his larger, more threatening units.

Ol' Stampy gets up close and personal with the Blazing Sun sky fortress. Sadly, I completely botched the attack and did not crush the thing mercilessly.

In the end, it was a solid Prussian victory. My aggressive defense paid off - I took the battle to the enemy a long way from their objective. It felt great to put the DW toys back on the table. They really are a lot of fun.

Last Sunday, Dave and I met again at Morningstar, this time for some X-Wing. David flew a by-the-book TIE swarm - 8 x 12-poit TIES, while I used a Rebel mix including Poe Dameron, and ARC170 and a new Resistance Bomber.

Early into the proceedings I just could make anything happen and I wasn't feeling good about it at all.

The shot of the week - Poe gathers the attention of seven TIEs. Poor shooting by the Imperials meant that Poe's luck held out.

The TIEs at the bottom had finished of the ARC170 while I'd managed to bump off three of the Imperials. Things were starting to fall into place for me.

An example of David's fine driving skills. Keeping it on the table like no one's business!

The final result. Poe kills yet another TIE - he turned out to be quite the killing machine - and the Bomber hangs on to its final two hull points. I had managed to kill seven TIE fighters and only lost the ARC170. The Bomber is very nice and a good pickup for the collection. I've been eyeing the Ghost for a while, but I'm glad I went with this ship.

I've been painting a bit recently and have finished up a few things.

Here's a fun little well / fountain with some creepy crawlies in it.

Another good pickup at Morningstar...

 I can't believe Jeff had one of these on the shelf. A very nice pickup for my Red Fleet for StarDust.

And they got painted up quickly. I haven't touched the fighters yet.

And lastly, some Malifaux minis.

 This is the "No Shelter Here" box set.

Creepy little girl and zombie baby

Three ghosts and a poltergeist

One of these days I'll put Malifaux on the table and try to learn the system, but until then, I just really love painting the models. Happy Fourth and stay safe!