Skuffle Wammer: The universe's smallest wargame

 Well, here is something comical to view.

While scrolling through Wargames Vault for some solo play suited games, I came across this little thing.

It's Pay what you want, so you can grab it for free, and written by Seth Kenlon.  Labelled as the worlds smallest wargame, it is actually that: two figures, a few dice, and you play it while for example making coffee.  The creator states it's a great thing to put in your backpocket at a convention and have that fast encounter with someone on the side of a table or such.

The play area is your desk or wherever, the scenery is the clutter lying around, and the game system consist of three simple rules.

So instead of just doing a short write-up that might take longer then the whole rules, let's take out two of the Tin Soldiers of Antwerp Crisis figures from past ages (that way, they come out as well for once) and have a game of Skuffle Wammer!

 

Just some innocent fun indeed, so head over to Wargames Vault and have a download of this little ball of fun!

TSA Escalation League 2025: Cornelius the Hedgemage, Jade Wizard

 So I signed up for the 2025 Escalation League at the Tin Soldiers of Antwerp, a league where over the course of 10 months you build up towards a painted 2000 pts force.

And I decided to go for an infantry heavy Empire of Man force, based on Marienburg.

In the first month you play with 500 points, and then everytime you get a fixed amount of points + bonus points for completed painting, and a monthly battle you play, as well as a few other factors going up to a maximum of 90 pts bonus.

My initial force will be lead by a level 2 Jade wizard using the Elementalism school, as that fits his theme the best I think.  He carries a Wizard's Staff, a Dispel Scroll and the Shroud of Iron, netting me 140 points out of the initial 500.

 

 

Of course, as it will be a League, there will have to be some backstory through the whole ordeal, and for that reason I'll be naming my characters and some odds and ends during the journey.  So for starting out, the leader of the force will be named Cornelius, a hedgemage that comes to the aid of a professional force of troops.  He does this out of love, though no-one knows if it is for love of his country, or love for gold to do his magical research.

The rest will be made up of units, but those shall be presented in due time if I get parts finished for the first small force, and then of course a battle report will follow of the first encounter in january.

Tribes of Europa

 Time for some german post-apocalyptic sci-fi curtesy of Netflix... 

The year is 2074, and Europe has disintegrated after an apocalypse, the survivors now living together in tribes.

One of these tribes are the Originees, who chose to live in the woods rejecting the remaining technology.  Three siblings, Liv, Elja and Kiano, are out hunting when they see a Atlantian aircraft crash nearby.  The youngest, Elja, finds a strange cube and the dying pilot, and pockets the cube as another stronger warband, the Crows, arrive.  They attack the village and wipe it out in their search for the cube, but the siblings, while getting seperated, escape.

Elja meets a scavenger, Moses, who saves him from a Crow party as they set off with the cube to find it's origins, and as such the mythical land of Atlantis.  Liv is taken in by the Crimson, a military tribe that wants to return the ideal of a unified Europa.  Kiano in turn is taken to Brathok, the fortified city that was once Berlin, to work as a slave.  

In order to free her family, Liv makes a deal with local commander David to extract the entrance details to Brathok from her, setting up a fake escape to do so.  Moses and Elja, together with an aquintance of him, manage to restart the cube, as Kiano is taken to Varvara, a Crow leader who takes him as a pleasuring slave.  Liv and David want to do an illegal raid on Brathok to get her family, but the plan is foiled and David put in prison.  At an electronics broker, Bracker's, Elja and Moses are betrayed as he wants the cube for himself.  Kiano challenges Varvara, but is humiliated in the resulting duel instead.  

As a Crow party arrives at Bracker's, killing most of them present, the cube suddenly transforms in a weapon in Elja's hand, allowing him and Moses to escape.  Liv joins General Cameron and the Crimson on a mission to make peace with the Crows, but the meeting is interrupted by snipers, and it turns in a bloodbath.  Kiano is forced to fight his father, killing him, in order to become a full Crow for Varvara.  Liv is found by a Femen party as Moses and Elja arrive at the location the cube guided them.  Throwing it in the water, the ark emerges and allows them to board, before submerging again.

And there it ends, with the series cancelled and no season 2 on the schedule anymore as such.  So what we end with is three siblings, now seperated and each following their own path, without the knowledge if they ever re-unite, or in what way.

This wasn't a bad series actually, but the ways of Netflix are often uncomprehensible, but it probably came down to viewing numbers as the second series was all written out and ready to go.  Still, give it a watch, it's enjoyable!

Warhammer Underworlds Battlereport: Skaeth's Wild Hunt vs Fomoroid Crusher - Besieged

 Soooo, as I (finally) continue this series, the second edition of Underworlds is underway, and makes due with the faction and universal decks.

So what to do with all those cards?  Well, in a sort of "wave off", I'm going to put EVERY warband that I have the decks off (some still need painting so that will take a while) through the ordeal of the Fomeroid Crusher.

That will also give a sort of slowly going out nostalgia feel as an additional bonus for the game...

And once they faced the three scenarios of A Crushing Terror, the cards will be stocked away in a cardbox somewhere in a cabinet...

But first, the last valiant stand of Skaeth's Wild Hunt against an enraged Fomoroid Crusher, who is bound to inspire no matter what on his first activation!

Moving towards an objective, which he crushes and then hurls at Skaeth but without hitting, the beast inspires, going to 12 hit points AND having an innate smash success now on it's attacks.

Looking at my opening hand, this looks like trouble...

Skaeth gallops of using a ploy, in an effort to block the exit for the beast.  The victory condition for the Fomoroid Crusher is to stand on the exit hex when he activates, so your best bet is to put someone on there all the time and buy time, hopefully felling the big monster.

Sheoch and Lighaen approach cautiously...

Althaen fires her bow at the beast, wounding it and allowing her to get the second shot upgrade.  In this scenario, as there is no glory, you receive an upgrade if possible after your activation.

But the beast lumbers forward, and throws a hit against Skaeth.

Karthean tries a healing breeze, even if that would take the wound of the Crusher as well, but fails...

The spellcaster charges in himself then, wounding the large monster for a further 2 and gaining Vicious Darts.

But moments later the autohitting 3 damage of the Crusher puts the wizard down unfortunatly.

Sheoch now comes to the rescue of his leader, and another two wounds are cut of from the beastial adversary.

This leaves the brave Kurnothi having only wounded the beast 5 times out of his 12 after the first game round, and the Crusher being very close to the exit...

Sheoch inspires, gaining an extra dice and cleave, so he suddenly becomes the best weapon in the fight.

The new hand of power cards however don't look like they be much of a help though.

Skaeth is taken down by the Crusher as he breaks the centaur's back in a mighty swoop.

I salvaged cards in the hopes of getting better tools, but unfortunatly it isn't to be.

Sheoch strikes again, doing a further two wounds on the monster, and receives the Hale Charm which means he will survive a single Breaker action.

Which follows soon!

Using Strike in Concert, Lighaen charges the beast, but his attack is blocked critically and what would have been 2 damage is prevented.

The beast then smacks down the little battlecat, and this would turn out to cost dearly...

Althean comes in, loosening two volleys but only a single one wounds the enemy, leaving it still standing.

She does inspire though as a result of her charge.

Cards are replenished and we go into the final round of the game.

Here, Althean is the first to fall against the ferocious might of the Breaker attack.

Sheoch manages to do two more wounds though in his final moments...

... as he is also knocked down.  Had Lighaen managed to hit, the beast would have been down....

But the Fomoroid Crusher makes good his escape, two wounds still remaining on the big beast!

Of the three scenarios, this is by far the hardest.  The Fomoroid Crusher will autoinspire in the first activation it takes, due to the Crusher reaction, and his innate smash and extra wounds make it a true beast.  And you need to block off and keep sacrificing models on the exit counter, knowing they will be taking three damage time and again without any chance of defence...

Well, let's see in the future which warband will get his version 1 wave-off next... and how they will fare against the monster.  Still, this remains great fun for short, half an hour solo games, which will become more nostalgic as time goes on!

On the Painting Desk 305: the Escalation League is a go

 You will read more about it in the coming year, but for 2025 I have signed up for an The Old World Escalation League, think the system of a Tale of Four Gamers roughly.

And I picked to paint an infantry heavy, Marienburg based Empire of Man army to participate.

So for the initial 500 points to kick the League of with in january, I have no less then a hefty 45 models to paint up, that will be a lot of beige / red / blue to do.  For now the force is led by a Jade wizard, and it consists for the rest out of 4 small basic infantry regiments, build now and ready to go.  While the wizard was already painted between this and last week's episode, so you'll see him soon on the blog and channel...

And somewhere in between, I should be able to work on side-projects as well...

The Haul Report 408: it is like a sort of thrifting I guess

 Well, getting a heap of stuff at a small expense is always great fun, and this is about everything that I shopped this time round.

 

And it was aimed mostly at filling up some gaps and making use of promotions as I have been spending in the past weeks.

 

 

Another shipment arrived from TokyoCatch, though these will be for my trading pages I guess, they where easy to grab opportunities.

 

 Next, I obtained the Gorechosen of Dromm through my local dealer PromoKings to fill out another gap in the Underworlds collection. 

 

 

Another pre-order I made through the GW site, was the Stormcoven.  Which we all know of course by their "true" name, Domitan's Stormcoven.   Now that you no longer need to buy the cards, as all becomes digital in edition 2 for their stats, they where pick up able without need of getting the whole Wyrdhollow box.

 

Both the above items weren't even for my personal collections, but for the price support of tournaments I will be running in 2025, one for Underworlds version 2 and one for Spearhead, so watch T3 or this blog in due time for more information.

 

I have also been doing some cheapskate shopping on Vinted, picking up some older rulebooks dirt cheap for that occasional review and home game.  The first, shown above, was the 2nd edition Kings of War book which I got for 2.50 euro.

From another vendor, I got the Moonstone playdeck and both the older Conquest rulebooks for a grand total of 9.00 euro.  Unfortunatly the Rules of Engagement turned out to be the italian version, oh well, I should have asked before buying.

Talking being cheapskate and rulebooks, I did some Malifaux purchasing on Wayland Games when they ran their -40% promotion, the 2nd edition rulebook costing me 2.50 euro and the figures another 11.00.

 

 

I also picked up another rulebook from Vinted, the good old classic DBA.  Building an army for this is dirtcheap, and who knows I might actually get to some event for that.  At least it will help reducing the pile of 15mm historicals a bit that still linger in the garage. 

 

 

Now back to being able of blocking in style with these Chaos Dwarf inspired Blood Bowl dice, I can only hope to fare better in my next match!

But, we started with cheap stuff, so we'll end this overview with some actual free stuff.  While sorting through the next 9 bags (yep, still from the mother-in-law's theatre company) of books, I found two more right down my alley.

 

Oh, and I started a new collection... I already wanted to do this during the summer holidays, but now I bit the bullet and began collecting the Efteling sets by LuVille.  Some have music and lights, and I'll be, overtime, creating a diorama in the living room cabinets.

So, a big and impressive haul report this time round, yet all in all it was pretty cheap!