We Done Gone Played Relics

So, Tuesday night, club night, what to do...? LET'S PLAY RELICS! My opponent tonight got into Relics at the same time as I (towards the end of last year, 2012 for all you people reading this in a museum) but we hadn't actually played each other at it, what's more neither of us had faced each others faction before... and so it was agreed that at around 7pm on Tuesday 05/02/13 the noble and downtrodden Nuem would face off against the savage might of the Orcnar, there could be only one victor (unless it was a draw) and this auspicious night would decide who had won at Relics that week. So, with 312pts a side (the maximum I can make with my Nuem) we deployed.....

 

The mission, chosen last minute, was 'Capture and Destroy', the Orcnar were gunning (or fisting...?) to destroy the altar of Mordheim (right of the central ruin in this pic) while capturing the fabled Chimney of Despair (just behind the Nuem force). The Nuem would be try their damnedest to stop the Orncar. Why? Who knows, they're just mysterious that way I suppose.

Turn 1

As you can imagine, turn one was a rollercoaster ride of various things moving forward, although the Specialis Pueri started handing out Blessed counters to the Nuem... and I think the Beorn howled and moved something. EXCITING! Although it was the turn I realised he'd deployed two Docga on my left, which was a bit of a concern! Curiously, he did not go face-first for the altar (as I would have done), in fact most of his force seemed to be moving to my left flank. This clearly meant he had a plan, something I'd suspected could happen, but hadn't actually made any account for. I just played it cool and kept my stuff spread out in case of some unforseen 'Orcnar Bomb'. Anyway, it looked rather a lot like this at the end of the turn.

Turn 2

Now the tension started to heat up, someone was going to charge this turn and we were both utterly convinced it would be ourselves. We spent the beginning of the turn moving our 'safe' units around, the Paennitentium (did I spell that correctly?) continued to edge towards guarding the altar, but the distinct lack of Orcnar on that flank raised an eyebrow. It got to the point where something had to move on the left flank.... the Unmann moved closer, taunting the Dedicatus with gutteral cries of 'Ha ha! Nice shoes, no feet!'.... the Dedicatus's blood did boil. Luckily, the Unmann were now in range of the Sagittarius and two of them were promptly blown to smithereens, whilst handing out a pain token, huzzah! The Beorn then appeared from nowhere and howled at the Docga to move closer - ah crap. So, the Dedicatus are now potentially in charge range of the Unmann, but that would put them well within Docga charge range. Be sensible and hang back, or go for the kill? Fuck it! Charge!!!!!!............ so I don't roll high enough for the charge and my Dedicatus end up standing around like a pair of armoured plums, awaiting death by Orcnar-dog. Obviously the Docga charge but surprisingly, thanks to 'Hardened 4', only cause one wound. Huzzah! However, I strongly suspected they would meet their death next turn.

Turn 3

Now things are really heating up! The Docga continue to munch at the Dedicatus, and what's more the Beorn gets stuck in! Testament to Nuem engineering though, only one Dedicatus falls - damn, those creepy wee bastards are tough! The Sagittarius continue to plug away at the Unmann while the Tormentas and Spatga finally get some action, exchanging shots at each other but to no great effect. An Eotan appears in the building in the center (my opponent, let's call him G-Force, seems remarkably adept at placing models out of sight, knowing I'll forget about it if it's not right in front of me, the cunning Orcnar bastard) and smashes the earth in an attempt to knock down the Paenittentiam (right this time?) and Specialis Pueri but fails miserably on both counts and gets some Paenitentium (?) in the face. The big Brute's hard though, and doesn't fall just yet.

Turn 4

Although I seemed to have the upper hand, I didn't feel particularly safe this turn with Docga, an Eotan and the Beorn all up in my grill.... not too good! But, what can you do - get stuck in! Luckily, the combat was generally a bit of a stale-mate. The Paenitentium (I'm sticking with this spelling) sliced the Eotan up good and proper before he could smash his, frankly, outrageously large fists into them. Both the Pueri combined their efforts and healed the Dedicatus back up to a full unit (G-Force didn't like that very much). The Grymann finally appeared, but didn't do much aside from dodging some bullets from the Sagittarii. The Tormentas took out a Spatga, the single surviving Umann went mental and charged into the Paenitentium, nailing two of the slicey wee shits.

Turn 5

The combined efforts of the Paenitentium and Dedicatus was enough to hold up and/or kill the remaining Orcnar... the Pueri Healed the Paenitentium back up to full.... the Grymann grinned and looked like Gremlins....the Beorn roared in anger...... the Nuem had won.

End of turn 5......

...and so the game was ended. Verily it was a hard fought ordeal. The might of the Orcnar is not to be underestimated, unfortunately for them, nor is Nuem reslilience. GO TEAM NUEM!

Seriously though, G-Force's dice were bbaaaaadd. If his Eotan had managed to deck the Paenitentium then it's likely the Docga and Beorn would have punched through and made it to the objective. I admired his tactics though, Orcnar are pretty fast and he managed to redeploy rather quickly, leaving my Tormentas hanging about doing fuck all. If it hadn't been for the crazy rolls I was getting for the Dedicatus' hardened save too it would have gone a lot differently. Speaking of which, men of the match are....... the Dedicatus!

Defence 1, Hardened 4, Combat 4 ............. nae messin' wae these guys! They are, however, disturbingly cute.

So, that was my first ever photo battle report. I took some other shots, but couldn't be bothered sorting them all out. I do regret not snapping pics of the forces, G-Force done his Dmoder proud with those Orcnar. I hope you had more fun reading it than I did writing it. If you'd like to know what the blazes I was talking about with all those crazy words, head on over to www.torgaming.co.uk and get some of that down your face. 2013 - RELICS WILL RISE.

It's Over....

..Salute is over. This makes me very unhappy and do you know why? Why is because it was AMAZING! More than I ever thought it could be and the funny thing is......I'm not sure why it was so good.

Maybe it was all the amazing displays, maybe it was the opportunity to meet the creators of the games I love so much, maybe it was because for once I didn't have to think twice about blowing £400 on toy soldiers in a matter of hours (hell, that part's almost mandatory!). Whatever it was, it was a magical experience. Disney World can ram it. For those of you who are even reasonably interested, here's what I bought at Salute:

- INFINITY! Getting back into some hardcore ARO action with those lovely mutated deviants from Bakunin, courtesy of Simple Miniatures (buy 3 get one free offer) and Mr Andy B. Bakunin Starter, Morlock box set (good god they're sexual), Cassandra Kusinagi, Rev. Custodier, a Prowler and a Sin Eater w/HMG for Burst 4 ARO shenanigans.... heh heh heh.........

- PULP CITY! One of my main plans for Salute was to stock up on Polish superhero goodness and I did go a bit mad fer it! Dr Red & Howler box, Doom Train & Night Fright box, Green Serpent & Ninjas box, Tanuki & Shadow Mask box and finally................ a monster! RARR! Got the monster for £35 quid due to a 'miscast' (one half of a toe is missing, I can deal with that!) Soon Cthulhu will be smashing puny Giant Hadron into atoms!

This is the monster kit, it is very large. (about 7" tall)

- EDEN! I was only planning on getting a few things from Taban, until I saw these guys were available.........

............ and by golly if I didn't just geek-gasm right there on the spot! (no pics of the mini's unfortunately). So after an impromptu pants change I wiped myself off and went ahead and bought each box for these guys (which include assorted gribblies, which I wanted to get at some point anyway) as well as the stuff I intended to buy and threw in a dominant lycal and some bases while I was at it! Another £100 down, totally worth it.

Next to Taban was an unassuming little stand, with one guy sitting quietly behind it. Not much to see really, until I glimpsed their display case and instantly fell in love with Ammon Miniatures check them out. DO IT NAOW! I'll wait...........

........ ain't they cool :D I got the Cyber Monkey with the intention of using him as an ARC (Ape Revolution Commitee) minion for Pulp City. I also bought the wee scientist big-head guy because he was cool. - £16.

BUSHIDO! - Sadly, GCT didn't have any advance stuff on sale but I did get the last two waves for Savage Wave and Cult (minus the Oni Slaver because, frankly, I can't be dicked painting another one) - £30

MERCS! - I wanted to get a new game at Salute, and since a few buddies of mine already have Mercs stuff it seemed like the obvious choice. USCR box and the (lovely) rulebook - £70

That's about it aside from quite a lot of resin bases from various companies. Looking at it all now, it really doesn't look like £400 worth but hey......... who gives  fuck! TOYS! HUNNERS OF TOYS!!!!!!!

I'll be back to Salute next year for sure, but this time I'll make sure to bring some money so I'm not limited to my maximum withdrawal! MWAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!

Anyway, in other news....... I broke my oath (see previous posts). I broke it within a week of Salute. The worst part.......... I broke it buying Games Workshop products! THE SHAME! THE HUMANITY! THE UTTER BALLS THAT IS 'FINECAST'! I am quite deeply remorseful about this, so I won't go on any longer.

There was other stuff at Salute, but I completely neglected to photograph any of it. Andy did though so pop on over to his blog here for pics the 10mm rapid-prototyped resin load-inducing sexuality that is Dropzone Commander!

I'm bored now and need to go stick dinner on, so I'm going. BYE!

Elementary Notions - Why I Really Like Eden

Eden is a character driven skirmish game set in the world of not-Malifaux and has been around for ages. I've been eyeing it up as long but no one really seemed to give much of a hoot about it, so it stayed in my 'covet' pile for a while. A couple of months ago, my good friend Andy messaged me saying 'Them noo Eden moduls are ded prutty, wanna gie it a shot?'....... a week later I had two factions without even having played a game! Word got out, the popularity of the game snowballed and soon enough we had at least one player for every faction.... now that's progress!

Anyway, had a couple of games so far with my good friend Dave and these are my thoughts.....

IT'S FUCKING AWESOME.

Let's start with the models. As we all know (well, some of you won't) but as shallow as it may sound if the game don't look purty that's half the battle lost. Eden is produced by a company named Taban, who are French and as we all know the French tend to make some of the best models currently available. I believe some of their sculptors have worked for Asmodee in the past, creating the frankly stunning minis for Hell Dorado and that level of skill is evident in the Eden sculpts. THEY ARE REALLY FUCKING NICE. Here are some that made me wet my pants in excitement:

Yeah.... hell yeah in fact.

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On to the game itself....... yikes! There's a lot of resource management in the game, and I mean a lot. It works off of an ever-popular 'AP' system (that's Action Point for all you losers reading this), but with a bit of a twist as you'll use those same AP's to activate during your opponents turn as well. I say activate.... it's more about opening up your options in melee. During your turn, each model gets 3 'standard' AP (some may have more, to my knowledge no model has less thus far)... as you may expect these are used to move, attack, interact, etc.... however, when you're attacked in melee you can spend any remaining AP's to try and dodge or riposte... and that's one of the reasons I love the game so much. If you run out of AP's before the chainsaw wielding thug in front of you attacks, you're boned. However do you want to try and get rid of him first? Do you want to save some AP's for defence or do you want to spend them elsewhere and just hope for the best.... it adds a lot of depth to the activation system....

But wait, there's more! At the beginning of the game, you calculate a number of 'SP' (that's Strategy points) and you will use these for myriad reasons. To activate a lot of special actions you need to spend SP, to play from a hand of cards you chose at the beginning of the game (that can affect the game in many varied ways) you need to spend SP. Hell, you can even use them to bid for initiative for that turn that you just *need* to go first.

It sounds like a lot of micro-managing, but it actually comes very naturally. The actual mechanics of the game are very simple, so I've never found myself getting overly confused (well, no more than usual). I'm not going to bother going into the actual mechanics, as you're probably panting to learn more already, so I'll just point you towards http://www.taban-miniatures.com/ where you can go and download the rules, and all necessary stat, tactic and mission cards to play.

I've actually found myself likening it to Warmahordes in terms of gameplay, the mechanics are rather different but if has that same'super-tactical' feel to it. However, where in Warmahordes I find the rules take over the narrative of the game too much, Eden manages to balance it by being very characterful. So the games still feel like watching a story unfold - which I prize as about the most important thing any game can accomplish.

Now, it's not all fun and games, it has it's issues....most of which are to do with translation. Some of the missions/tactics/special actions make absolutely no sense whatsoever, which is obviously a problem. However, any issues I've had I've posted on the forum and the ever-charming Berf has calmed my confusions post-haste. It is a well supported game and clearly loved by the staff at Taban. Some of the translation problems can lead to some charming results though, from now on 'basics' shall be known to me as 'Elementary Notions', isn't that sweet?

Another, quite major issue is the lack of a rulebook....... that's right, you get the rules in the starters (or you can download them for free) but it's just the rules.... no fluff, no pretty pictures......this is bad. The game stands as itself as a great feat of gaming engineering but without any fluff (that's stories to you losers out there) it's quite hard to piece together the weird, post-apocalyptic world the game is set in.... why are drug-riddled clowns fighting giant Japanese robots? Why are there, for want of a better term, bondage nuns running about...... you may know more if you speak French as there is some french fluff up on the site but that doesn't help us ignorant English speakers now do it? Personally, I can stand not having a rulebook but it confuses me that there isn't one.... gamers like shiny books and the game would rocket in popularity if we had access to some super-sexy book filled with all the information us gamers desire to immerse ourselves in any world that isn't this one.

So, in short. Play Eden, just try it. You'll love it.

The Oath

So, as part of my new year's resolution I decided to try and NOT BUY ANY NEW TOYS until last April, 2012, when I shall be heading to scary London to visit Salute 2012..... think a big hall full of big men dribbling over tiny metal men. The reason for this 'oath' was so I can work through my backlog of things to paint, the plan is to have everything done by Salute, so I can spend more of my free time with my lovely lady (or playing computer games, reading comics and eating sandwiches) I found it hard at first, especially after selling a bunch of stuff which loaded my paypal right up. Managed to hold off so far, and it is getting a lot easier as the days go by........ but hot damn them if them new Morlocks for Infinity ain't just too pretty! (see below)

No New Toys Until Salute.... sigh.....

Welcome.....

So then..... I decided to write a blog. Nothing fancy or about anything in particular, it will exist purely at my whim and will likely get ignored quite often. Still, I can give you a brief estimation of what to expect, should anyone actually end up reading it.......

- TOYS! And by 'toys' I mean, of course....... miniature wargaming! Yes, another geek has found yet another reason to never leave the safety of their living room! The internet is a wonderful boon to all of us sallow-skinned, overweight, dice wielding evolutionary apexes. I'll mostly be writing about the games I play, why I like them, what I don't like about them etc. I'm also a fairly avid painter, so expect to see some right shoddy photos of some nicely painted miniatures in the future :D

For 2012 I intend to be playing lots of: Malifaux, Eden, Pulp City, Carnevale and Bushido - so stay tuned for existing news in regards to my forays into these games. Huzzah!

- COMICS! I'm not talking superheroes here.... those spandex wearing gimps can all piss right off. I don't really know what genre I consider myself to like..... Horror? Crime? Who knows.....

- TELLY! I loves me some telly :D Sadly, Telly ain't what it used to be so expect a lot of ranting.....

- FILMS! As telly....

- ARSEHOLES... of the people variety of course. Anyone pisses me off, you're damn right my handful of readers will be hearing about it so watch out....

..... and I reckon that's about it for now. I'm sure there shall be other things, but until they happen who knows what they will be.

Bye now.