Warfleets of the Far Side

 Past sunday saw a long awaited moment in our club's, the Tin Soldiers of Antwerp, history!

 

The return, after almost 20 years, of the "Far Side of the Galaxy"!

  

This was a nickname our gaming clique had when we played almost 3 years of spaceship games in the farthest corner of the clubhouse, and now we decided (or at least, the remainders of the people of that time) to bring those fleets out of the motballs and travel the spacelanes with a battleday, using the One Page Rules Warfleets ruleset.

 

The reason for this was simple, that way fleets of all sorts could be taken, wether it was Babylon 5 (the game we played for years), Star Wars Armada, Battlefleet Gothic or a heap of other stuff.  I wrote up a pack of 5 linked scenario's (we played 4, more on that later) to form a story, paired everyone with opponents for the whole day, and off we went.  The event was attended by 9 players, and here is a little clip of the participating fleets, I'll put a section at the end of the video with all the vessels on display.

 

Terrain was made from scratchbuilds (see my earlier CD terrain thing for example), including nebula's with coulourchanging tealights, and apart from a "real" spacemat from Deep Cut, we bought some cheap tablecloths with starprint from Temu for the event, whom where about 4 euro a piece.

  

And with everything set up, it was time to get the FTL drives fires up, and warp to the system to seek out just what happened there. Me and my co-organiser Andy would alternate as the "reserve player" as we where as mentioned above with 9 people, so that meant 4 games would be run per scenario.

 

The story

 

On stardate -296645.4337899543 the ruling body lost contact with a very important freighter.  On this vessel, covert tests where made with a highly unstable and experimental energy type, which can be of great use for both civilian and military goals should they manage to control it.

The dangers where all around though, not only due to the fact of a catastrophic failure.  Other factions might develop an unhealthy intrest in the project, and try to obtain your research.

Your command has been dispatched to check if everything is still in order.  Your small task force plots a course to the small starsystem Al-Qadim 17b, which houses a dwarf star called Athas, and the M-class planet only known on the charts as Djoef.

Good luck admiral, and bring back our secrets, no matter the cost!

 

So that is the setting for the narrative storyline of today, so let's have a look at the fleets that participated in the battleday.

 

 

Both Andy and Mike brought along a fleet of Battle Brothers (represented respectively by Babylon 5 ISA models and Full thrust Israeli models).  Myself and Ignace had a fleet of the Human Defence Force (respectively Babylon 5 Earth Alliance and Battlefleet Gothic Imperials).  The Robot Legion had also sent forth two fleets, commanded by Patrick (using Firestorm Armada models) and David (using Battlefleet Valkyrie models).  Ian had brought an overal generic list (using Star Wars Armada figures), Timothy brought the High Elf fleet (Battlefleet Gothic Eldar) and Sven brought a fleet of Ork Marauders (totally scratchbuild).

 

Let the dicerolling begin!

 

Scenario 1: First Contact is Made

 

Arriving at the system, the long range scans are detecting strange signals.  Analyses quickly learns that it involves another fleet, and the call to arms alarm is raised.  These surely can't be here by accident, so confrontation is unavoidable!

  

The first of the scenario's I wrote was a pretty basic affair, so everyone could have a hang of the rules.  The only 'twist' was in the deployment, as vessels kept warping in to reinforce their side.  Light vessels and squadrons deployed de facto.  In turn 1, Medium vessels could appear on 3+, 2+ in turn 2 and automatically in turn 3.  Heavy vessels could appear in turn 2 on a 6+, a 4+ in turn 3 and automatically in turn 4. The game would last a maximum of 8 turns, and points would be scored for destroyed enemy vessels.

 

 

After a round of jumping in and guns blazing, the games ended with the following results:

 

Andy defeated Mike with 300 - 290 in a Battle Brothers grudge match

The Robot Legion of David lost 60 to 80 against the High Elves of Timothy

Ignace's Human Defence Force overpowered the Ork Marauders of Sven with 160-90

Patrick's Robot Legion brought down Ian's Generic fleet with 130-90

 

Scenario 2: The Derelict

 

So you aren't alone in the system, and that explains why contact might have been lost with the research vessel.  When you reach the coordinates, this proves to be the case as no life signs are detected and the vessel is heavily damaged.  This requires further investigation, but you are not alone...

  

The second scenario placed a derelict vessel in the center that the forces needed to try and scanm which could be done by either Light vessels on a 5+, mediums on a 4+ of heavies on a 3+ if they would be within 6" of the stem by the end of the turn.  If a vessel had been fired upon and hit, it would have a -1 penalty to scanning as the crew was occupied otherwise.  Squadrons can't scan as they lack dedicated sensor suites for this.  The scenario lasts 6 turns, and the player with the most scanning points at the end would be the winner.

  

I was outscanned with my Human Defence Force by the High Elves of Timothy with 5-6

David's Robot Legion sensors proved more effective then Sven's cobbled together arrays with 3-2

A lone blip by Ian's Generic fleet proved to much for the Human Defence Force of Ignace with 1-0

Patrck's Robot Legion didn't bring enough science equipment compared to Mike's Battle Brothers and it ended in 3-5.

 

Scenario 3: The Belt

 

The scans have shown that the research has been transferred to the planet Djoef, the M-class planet in the habitable zone of the system.  However, to reach this, the dangerous area known only as The Belt has to be passed.  Welcome to the death race!

  

This scenario was made to add some light hearted fun.  After the first 24" of the map, a 12" wide asteroid belt was formed.  For every inch a vessel travelled through this, it would get 1 damage on a 5+, 6+ for light vessels and squadrons.  But to add some more to it, players deployed NEXT to each other, so they could either go full speed through the belt, or try to hang back and disable enough vessels of the opponent to get there.  The game lasts 8 turns, and points are scored for the value of each of your ships that got of the other side of the table.

 

And while some adopted a totally crazy all speed ahead and risk the full 12 dice at once, some preferred to engage the enemy to delay them and sneak some small vessels off in the meantime.

  

Andy's Battle Brothers where defeated by Ian's Generic fleet by 100 to 200

David's Robot Legion kept bumping into the rocks as Mike's Ballte Brothers took a 0 - 120 win

Ignace and his Human Defence Force was outsped by Timothy's High Elves for a 0 - 90 result

Patrick's Robot Legions blinked succesfully, outspeeding Sven's Ork Marauders 150 - 120

  

And that brought us to the final scenario.  Now originally, a fifth would be held being either a straight up simple battle, or a multiplayer with smaller fleets.  But as we all took sheer time to play our games and didn't want to put on a pressuring timetable, we decided to drop that final one, and would round out the day after the following round.  Which was de facto the "finale" scenario anyways.

 

Scenario 4: The Anomaly

 

The fleet has reached Djoef... only to find that the planet is no longer there!  In it's place, a raging energy storm... it seems a cataclysmic accident occured during the research!  Eliminate the enemy, to prevent the events that transpired to leak to the universe, and be able to cover it all up.  But make sure you don't get caught in the pull of the anomaly!

 

In the center of the table is a raging energy anomaly, with a gravity field of 12" from it's exact center.  Vessels enering this zone, will be pulled towards it.  They will be pivoted 45 degrees towards it with the closest facing, and pulled 6" towards it's center.  The moment a vessel touches the anomaly, it is immediatly destroyed!  The scenario lasts for 6 turns, and points will be scored in 3 ways: full poits for every enemy vessel destroyed, half points for every enemy vessel damaged and half points for everyone of your vessels that survives.

 

And some indeed ended up in the energy storm...

  

At the end of the round, the following results where noted down in the dataslates:

 

My Humand Defence Fleet defeated the Ork Marauders with 405 - 90

David's Robot Legion took down Ian's Generic fleet with 400 - 160

Ignace's Human Defence Force took down Mike's Battle Brothers but I forgot to note the score

And finally Patrick's Robot Legion was overpowered by the High Elves fleet of Timothy by 105 - 375

  

And so the story of the Djoef Research Project came to an end.  After 8 hours of playing games, the crowd seemed pleased.  It was a simple yet fun enough gamesystem, it allowed for old models to be brought out and played again, and no-one went home with a headache as can be the case after playing tournaments or complicated rulesets for 8 hours.

 

The general conscencus: yes, I wil, organise a second edition around this time next year again.  But there is more, the charm of One Page Rules has been discovered, and we will be looking at some other systems of theirs to organise some more of these scenario driven battledays at the clubhouse, both for Fantasy and Sci-fi games.  But rest assured, under all that, the fire has been lit again, and expect to see some more spaceship games played at the club in the coming months!

 

I would say... mission succesfully accomplished!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blood Bowl match report: Only Fangs versus Ithildin Avengers

 So, after a 5 week hiatus due to spring break, it was time to get the ball rolling again on the pitch.

 

And this time, we are facing the Wood Elves, meaning bar Treemen, my Claws are useless.  Tackle however...

 

 The Wood Elf team has been near the top of the League in the rankings, while I still remained in 3rd place after the break, so all is okay.  The fact this will be my 7th game versus his 12th also means he has quite some skilled players already.  Team Value wise though, my 1600 outweighed his 

 

The plan would be simple, use my Tackle players to take down his key elements of War Dancers and Catchers as soon as possible, while Sabrina Sabok and the warrior blockers would aim to deplete his stock of linemen. I already was the underdog by a measly 5k, but as he bought two kegs from his treasury, I could spend some more.  I took a Team Mascot, a Keg and three Prayers to Nuffle, the rolls resulting in Fan Interaction, Treacherous Trapdoor and Bad Habits on 3 of his linemen.

 

I new he would be dodging around all the time, and escape probably a lot of the time, but if I could pull this game off even while losing without suffering casualties myself, but be able to "level up" the two unskilled Chaos Warriors Val Steele and Proxy Paige, plus scoring the bonus point for 3+ casualties caused, it would be good enough for me.

 

The teams set up, Only Fangs chosing to receive.  The first half didn't have that much of thing going on though, as a lot of pushing and bowling over was done, but bar knocking out a single lineman I didn't manage to cause any harm to his lines.  As expected, he started dodging away and shifting play from left to right over the field, while infiltrating with single or maximum double players into my half.

 

However, we had managed to secure the ball, and had began to drive up near the right side when his elves started tickling in to recover the ball.

 

 

And when they managed to push my ball carrier, Katty West, over, of course the ball scattered due to strip ball right in the hands of his lineman and the only one around that could have picked it up... and that was after it had been kicked in the field from the crowd by 11 squares.

  

In the meantime, my minotaur Sabrina Sabok had a horrible match day.  While she managed to keep his treeman mostly downed during the game, she also managed to roll an incredible amount of 1's today on her Unchanneled Fury, which would amount to no less then 9 (!!!!) failures over the course of the game.  That way, I won't be getting those casualties for the bonus point I fear...

 

All this resulted in one of his linemen making off with the ball, putting the 0-1 lead for the Wood Elves on the board.

  

Both teams took to the line of scrimmage again, but it kept going the same way: a lot of pushing away and breaking armour at times, but not getting anything better then stunned results except for that same lineman being KO'd again.  Seems that bloke didn't want to be around for this game.

  

Raven Black went to pick up the ball near my end zone, looking for a hole to make the drive.

 

Protected by two of her companions in a threesome she started to move towards the midline, as a lone wardancer was marked by Kleio Valentien.

 

But the elf dodged and jumped away, and managed to push Raven Black over, helped by the other wardancer that appeared seemingly out of nowhere.  

  

In order to get one of the dancers down, one of the tackle skilled beastly women blitzed in... only to go down herself by a roll of double skulls. 

  

And this left the road wide open for the elves to score the 2-0 right before half time unfortunatly.  We set up for one more round of blocks, before the half time whistle blew.

 

For the second half, and knowing we wouldn't be winning today, I decided to switch to the pure violence style again, and as such the patented FemDom deployment was taken up again by the ladies, out to inflict as much injuries as possible in hopefully an orgy of blocks for the second half.  The ball had scattered of the pitch, so his thrower started with it in his possession.

 

 Oh yes, and Sabrina Sabok kept rolling these ones on her Unchanneled Fury, not getting up to blitz the now isolated treeman on the front line after a push over in his first turn...

 

A huge brawl was erupting around the stiff piece of wood, as the tacklers of the team did their best to keep shadowing his catchers around the field.  At least we had scored our first casualty for today, as a lineman was carried off badly hurt after a block by Tanya Virago.

  

As the treeman was down, Sabien DeMonia went in for a foul with a big amount of assists... only to roll double one on the armour.  Followed by a 1 for using the Bribe we had gotten from the kick-off.  Followed by a 1 from the Argue the Call... and to the showers she went.

 

The thrower, still in possession of the ball, was hanging out in his back field protected by the other elves, but Proxy Paige took down one of his wardancers after he found himself in the crowd through the trapdoor.  And thanks to the Fan Interaction, scored points for it as well (we read it over a few times, the Trapdoor causes an injury exactly as a Pushed into the Crowd, and Fan Interaction grants SPP if it is caused by a Pushed into the Crowd injury roll).

 

The elves started to shift their line a bit more to the center, as Sabrina kept the treeman still in check while the girls tried to take out his key players and keep the line closed.

  

But as the minotaur kept standing out of the fight moaning loudly at erotic looking clouds, the elves couldn't find a safe passage as the girls kept boxing them in, but not getting any of the lightly armoured elves removed unfortunatly.

  

His thrower managed to make a completion to a wardancer that had snuck behind the lines,  Sofi VonDoom just missing the interception on a 5.  Abella Danger smashed a lineman so hard he had -1 passing from now on, while Val Steele badly hurt another one.  At least the casualties started to mount now, but to little to late for that, and my final effort to stop his scorer resulted in another double skull roll just like in the first half...

 

This made his wardancer to run in and score the 3-0 for the Wood Elves,  and only two turns remaining to try and do some more damage unfortunatly.

  

The elves opted to pull everything bar some linemen back on their end zone, and after the kick off Sofi VonDoom fouled another lineman into the badly hurt box.

 

The final action of the game saw Veronica Rose go pick up the ball, and throw a pass to one of her teammates to sneak in that one star player point as a result, but the game was done for.

  

So, those woke elves proved to be just to much to try and grab, not helped by the fact that my minotaur was just flashing herself at the crowd over half the game, taking out my Mighty Blow chances for extra casualties.  Add to that two times a roll of double skulls when going for the lone escapee to prevent a goal, and the casualties really starting to happen only late in the second half, and you have a result that is to be expected.

 

Most Viewed Pornstar

 

After the match, the Only Fangs paid subscribers elected Proxy Paige for the trophy, her action of shuffling a wardancer through a trapdoor into their perverted hands swinging the vote into her favour! 

 

Still, even with all that, I managed to get all my goals reached: both my Chaos Warriors got the wanted Block skill, I didn't suffer any injuries and at least got that bonus point as such.  The team dropped from 3rd to 4th place in the rankings after the game, and the treasury is well filled, even though I don't have anything to really spend it on at the moment as my CTV is way above most teams in the league and I don't want to give them more chances for star players to be fielded against me.

 

Now there will be once more about a month before my next game, which will be against a team of Chaos Dwarfs, at least that is an opponent where all my claws can be of use once again.  As he is playing almost weekly though, I hope his CTV rises during those games, as he will have more played games then me at that point, and hopefully a small difference as a result.

 

But first, time to take the girls to the spa to recuperate from a frustrating game of rolling 1's and double skulls at critical times... 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Tour to the Frituur 23: Friture-Eethuis 't Plein in Maastricht

 So, a while ago I was in Maastricht to play in the Warhammer Open, and during the second evening, after a long day of gaming, we went to a close by frituur.

 

Located at 10 minutes from the university, in a calm neighbourhood, Frituur 't Plein can be found. 

 

It's one of those typical cosy little frituur places, with some seating spots for eating in.  Ran by a very friendly asian lady, they have a big selection of snacks, as well as grilled burgers.  The later seemed to be their speciality, but I didn't try them out this time, I didn't want to stuff myself TO full considering how late it already was after the event.

 

My Order

 

I was there with Nico, another player at the event, and I opted for a large fries with mayonaise, a bockworst (which turned out to be something completely different then what we know here in Antwerp) and a meatball of the house.  Nico had a medium fries with mayonaise, and a sate with curry.  And two softdrinks to go with it.

 

The order arrived pretty swiftly and brought to the table, and I must say I was impressed by those sate's.  Less with my bockworst, but that had nothing to do with the quality, just here it is a smoked, thick sausage while there it is like a long hot dog sausage.

 

It was all baked according to the art, nothing fancy or exceptional (and of course, the mayo was the sweeter dutch variety).  The price was okay, we paid 29.60 for the whole order together.

 

Conclusion

 

It wasn't a bad place at all, though not something that makes it stand out from previous places I visited.  So we are scoring it our baseline of 6.5, nothing to complain about, nothing to remember.  

 

Maybe I should have tried their burgers?

 

 

Yoroi Shin Den Samurai Troopers

 One of the most iconic shonen anime's is back after 35 years, with a new series of Samurai Troopers!

 

And it isn't a reboot, it's an actual continuation!!!

 

Though also in the series, 35 years have passed by, but there are references and returning characters from the original (as well as Ryo's original voice actor taking up the role again).  The demon infestation was never fully resolved, the original Samurai Troopers had it contained though, and since then the government has been running a program to form next generations.

 

Which initially turned out to be a fraud, when faced with a human boy that was possessed and now returned from the demon realm, Gai, and who becomes the new Samurai of the Fire Element.  Ryuusei is one of the previous generation and leader and mentor, but sacrifices himself during battle, passing the baton to his friend and former collegue Shion.  Yamato, Kaito and Musashi are the new troopers, drawn into the battle by fate... or weren't they. 

 

The series follows the growth of this team of Samurai Troopers, who, if you don't count the imposter posterboys from the beginning, are the third generation.  The first where of course the original heroes, while the second team, which contained Ryusei and Shion, fell when they entered the demon realm to free the originals.  But they learn that Ryo, the original fire samurai, is being held as the host body of the Emperor and go out to set him free.

 

This succeeds, but as the Emperor still has power, the original team is freed and this allows Ryo to summon the original Armour of the Emperor and nearly defeating him, before the newer generation manages to finish him off, though at the ultimate sacrifice of Gai.  Or wasn't it...

 

A great fun series, and like Saint Seiya Omega did years ago, pays a great tribute to the original Troopers, while at the same time passing the torch to the newer generation.  I can't wait for the next season to air for sure!

Space game objective markers on a budget

 So, we build and painted the final three objective markers "on a budget" for the Warfleets day the 10th of May.

 

And "on a budget" is basically totaly free on the materials levels.

 

All where made using old compact discs, whom at fleamarkets often end up in the boxes "take away free" neat the end of those.  For the rest, nothing more was used then sand, grinded stone and pebbles, all from the garden and park roads.

 

To that end, they where glued on the compact discs, and all painted with, apart from a light drybrush on the top layer, with cheap acryll paints from the dollar store, in my case Amsterdam paints from Talens. 

 

And so, after a paint job taking about two days, most of the time paint drying, we have a solar flare, a dust cloud and an ice asteroid field to put on the table.

 

Now let's get ready for the battleday, and check back for the report around the 12th! 

The Old Guard 2

 Okay, so I found the original film of a bunch of immortal mercenary warriors actually enjoyable, so when Netflix released the sequel, me and Noshi sat down to have a look.

 

After all, brainless entertainment was welcome at the end of the holiday season and to many busy evenings...

 

And it begins with the introduction of Quyhn, another immortal and seemingly love intrest of Andromache.  Who, like every lover after 500 years, kind off forgot about her and just moved on instead of combing the seabed.  And Booker is also brought back, keeping up our Belgian pride.  Even more immortals join the fray, with Tuah, a sage and who saved Andromache when Quyhn was tossed into the sea.  Inside an Iron Maiden just to keep her down.

 

But of course, the lover has an issue with Andy now, and decided to work together with Discord.  A mortal now, it turns out that Nile can remove people's immortality when wounding them, and that is what happened to Andy.  Luckily, another seemingly can pass his immortality willingly to another immortal, and Booker does this.  Which gives me a loop issue: if when Nile wounds someone, which Booker tried out, and so removes their immortality, then how can he pass it to Andromache a short while later while his wounds don't heal????

 

When they go to stop Discord in a nuclear plant, Booker, now a mortal, sacrifices himself for Andy, who finds an injured Quyhn after a fight with Nile.  Nile and others have been captured by Discord, who wants to reinstate her immortality through Nile's powers, while Andy and her lover reconsile and set out to free them...

 

... and there it ends.  No third movie so far has been confirmed (luckily Matthias is busy getting his driver's license back, bit of a celebrity scandal here in Belgium as he drove without a permit, and Booker is dead now), so no idea if we ever going to learn if they succeed.

 

Was it fun brainless entertainment?  Definitly!  Was it as fun as the first one?  Definitly not! 

The Haul Report 435

 Time for another report of the additions to the collection, and we begin with a real "swag box".

 

These boxes where included in the 50 euro ticket for Warhammer Underworlds's Grand Clash in Maastricht, and contain some goodies.

 

Now honestly, I'm keeping of course the voucher, as well as the d6, but all the rest will be tossed on my trade pile...

 

But that is not all that I got, as I finally got the hard copy of Frostgrave 2nd edition.  Nice and cheap on Bol, it was herereally swift after ordering.

 

More Frostgrave material arrived with this blister of Giant Frogs from the DnD range, found cheaply on Vinted. 

 

As well as some more cheap figures from the WizKids ranges for making the Random Encouter table a reality. 

 

And we got some more Efteling pins for our ever-expanding collection as well. 

 

Now, all that loot of course requires strengthening of the inner person, so we're a happy camper that our Frontaal subscription box arrived again.

 

So there we have it, a nice pile of stuff once again for the collection, check back in a few weeks for more goodies!