Click on the picture to go to a slideshow on Picasa, which I swear I will never use again as it has got to be the most unintuitive, clunky way of handling pictures ever devised by evil imps bent on the destruction of human mental health.  Just when you think Google is poised to run everything, they prove that they too can SUCK at something!

Warhammer 8th edition: 15,000 points

And it seems equally clear that I need to figure out how to turn off WordPress.com’s automatically generated, possibly related posts, which are faff.

Goblin wolfriders keen to get onto a new Litko plywood base.

I am really impressed with them — they are laser cut, so they are absolutely straight and square. Well, they are rectangular, but the corners are square.  From purchase to arrival in at my home in Canada was just under a month, though I picked the slow, cheap shipping option.

These will be the sabots upon which I mount more Warmaster figs for use in Impetus and Basic Impetus Fantasticus.

Happy Gaming,

Dan

Though I am half expecting it to arise from the dead and stalk Dad’s machine forever.

The basic scam is it tells you you have a bunch of viruses. You don’t actually, but then you phone them and they try to talk you into paying for your tech to ‘fix’ your machine… for $400 in this case. VERY HARD SELL, too.

So I tried “Housecall” and lo and behold… not a single virus.

Looking through the complaints from several years ago, it appears CyberDefender was near impossible to remove from your machine. I can only assume that the Indian police were paying too much attention, as CyberDefender seems to have toned that part of their “service” down.

Of course, it may still be lurking on Dad’s machine, waiting to get even with me.

- Dan

Off to do a Basic Baroque game tonight, armed with two bottles of Sea Dog.

Happy Gaming,

Dan

This message was posted on the Yahoo group recently:

Just like to say a big ‘Thank you’ Lorenzo, from all at our group who appreciate the time and effort you put into answering the questions on this forum – and answering so quickly! It must be particularly taxing for you when answering questions that would be easily answered with a closer read of the rules by the questioner. We,ve also noticed (and discussed at club) that you never put the questioner down. Not sure if my patience would be that good!

Your enthusiasm remains an inspiration. Hope we get the chance to meet you at Derby.

Please keep up the good work.
Richard

I have to say, I wholeheartedly agree!

- Dan

“War doesn’t determine who is right. It determines who is left.”

The middle of a massive firefight.

The picture shows the end of the second turn for the Americans. How to sum it up? A blazing firefight that resulted in tons of lightly wounded Republican Guard and fedayeen who kept bouncing back. All the Iraqi tanks were damaged, but none knocked out.  The highlight of the game was a suicide bomber repeatedly charging the American column, being machine gunned and stopped, but turning out to be just lightly wounded and trying again, only to be machine gunned and lightly wounded. Could probably have gone on all game.

All in all, it was a lot of fun, though it didn’t strike me as requiring much skill. Hopefully that will come as we get more familiar with the rules.

Happy Gaming,

Dan

Warmaster and Impetus Fantasticus miniatures on my workbench.

This picture shows Warmaster and Battle of Five Armies units. In the front are 3 Warmaster Troll Slayers, based for Impetus. I’ve left them on the Warmaster stands, but glued them to a sabot. The sabot is 80mm x 40 mm, plastic sheet from a modelling store. I think it is 1.8 mm thick — thick enough not to be floppy, but thin enough to cut with a paper guillotine. I’ve just used Crazy glue to attach, since I can easily pop the stands off if/when I go back to Warmaster. Each sabot holds four Warmaster stands.

Note that I’ve based my Trollslayers with a single strip per stand for Warmaster. I used to think it was blasphemous, but played against some guys who based their missile troops with just a single line per stand. It actually looks way better! And your dollar goes twice as far, an important consideration when dealing with the filthy moneygrubbers behind Games Workshop. Missile troops, special troops and light infantry look good this way. Heavy infantry and mobs look better with two strips (12 figs) per stand in Warmaster.

Behind the Troll Slayers are BoFA goblins and Warg Riders, as well as a unit of Wolf Riders from Warmaster. All are still based for BoFa and Warmaster.

Happy Gaming,

Dan

As always, Franaine put together an incredible table. And, as always, my camera skills just don’t do it justice:

Somewhere in Mogadishu, I think.

The scenario starts with two wounded contractors (of the Halliburton or Blackwater variety, not Mike Holmes) hunkered down next to their broken-down pickup. Hard to see them in the photo, but you can see the pick up.  Two fireteams of Marines are sent to extricate them and tons of local militia think otherwise.

Ambush Alley is a neat game, I have to say. Very fluid, lots of shooting, quite cinematic. My PDF of Force on Force is 155 pages, somehow. But the game is pretty straightforward once you get into it.

One of the neat concepts is ‘Out of Contact Movement’, which lets unseen groups of bad guys move anywhere on the table until they are in line of sight of the good guys.

Here we have Somalis sneaking up behind the Marines:

We'll show you who owns Mogadishu!

How’d the game go?  Well, frustrating for me. Combined with a lack of sleep, the frustration made Dan a less than ideal opponent. “Bitchy” might be a good word. My troops were soon surrounded and seemed unable to cause many casualties, while Franaine’s Somalis kept pouring onto the table. So much so that we ran out of Somalis to bring on.

It was only in reviewing the rules that I discovered the problem: I wasn’t returning fire in reaction to attacks by the Somali irregulars — little wonder I was being so thoroughly outgunned!  I’d started off doing it right, but then we somehow lost track.

Nice to know the problem was me, not the game.  I’m now quite looking forward to trying it again.

This week’s beer was another Phillips product — Springbok. Lighter than the Double Barrel and not so much to my taste. Not bad, but not my new fave either.

Great play on words, Lorenzo!