DAY OF GAMES: DEAD MAN'S HAND. PART 3.

The final scene, 'We Will Be Waitin' saw the Outlaws confronting the Sheriff and the Marshal with the other Lawmen diverted elsewhere..

 The two Lawmen were automatically activated as if they had drawn Aces ( high in the game).

 The Sheriff made good use of his activation to move behind the jail. The Marshal moved behind the building at the end of the street. The Outlaws followed, concentrating on the Marshal.

 The Sheriff evened the odds by putting a dude out of action.

 The deputies and upstanding citizens react to the gunfire and come to their comrades' aid.

 The Gunslinger takes out a deputy.

 Meanwhile, the Sheriff takes down a varmint. Just visible in the window of the building beside the jail is one of the Lawmen who stayed behind. He will play a big part later in the game!

 A deputy strikes lucky, putting the Gunslinger out of action.

 Two views of the battle. The lower picture showing the gunbattle between two upstanding citizens and the Boss and two dudes. The Outlaws also came under fire from the two buildings on the right where the Lawmen had taken position.

The Lawmen now had the upper hand and closed in on the remaining Outlaws. One citizen paid the price, but two more Outlaws went down. At this point, the Outlaws failed a big nerve test and 'got out of Dodge'.

The three games were completed in a little under four hours. It may be possible to play one or two scenes in a normal games night, but not all three. The rules are fairly straight forward, with the cards driving most things. After the first game, the modifiers for firing had been memorised and play speeded up.

The need to declare all actions when activating a figure was a good touch. Several times threatening situations were avoided by the timely playing of a card interupting and stopping the intended action.

The one downside is that the board can get cluttered with cards when there are more than a few figures per side. One potential solution is to use tiles from the Play 5 game, which are Scrabble sized tiles with card suits and numbers on them.

All in all a good start to the gaming day. Fast and furious with clear results in quite short order. I think we will play this game again.

DAY OF GAMES: DEAD MAN'S HAND. PART 2.

The second scene was 'The Town Ain't Big Enough' and saw the Outlaws ambushing the spread out groups of Lawmen and Upstanding Citizens. The Lawmen set up first, splitting into equal groups, one of which had to be in a building. The Outlaw's boss was holed up in another building, waiting for his minions to take down the Lawmen. Hopefully he wouldn't be needed! 

 The first group of Outlaws, The Gunslinger and a varmint, encounter a deputy and two upstanding citizens in the main street. The Outlaws win by putting three Lawmen out of action, the Lawmen win by putting two Outlaws out of action.

 The Outlaws get off to a great start when the varmint rushes forward and fills an upstanding citizen full of lead (rolled a 19, out of action).

 The, now unescorted, Gunslinger is taken down by a deputy, who rushes out of a building and gives him both barrels of a shotgun, putting him out of action.

Further down the street, a dude and a varmint (right) engage two Lawmen. The markers show actions taken by activated figures and the effects of fire taken.

Another view of the action. The Sheriff has emerged from the building and leads the fightback against the

The  replacement Marshal and a deputy (top left) combine to put a dude out of action which brought victory to the Lawmen and a measure of justice (or revenge) for their fallen comrade.

The last scene will be 'We'll Be Waitin' where the Outlaws try to overwhelm the forces of law and take over the town. The Lawmen will have the benfit of an extra card in their hand.

DAY OF GAMES: DEAD MAN'S HAND, PART 1.

Saturday 1st February saw one of our irregular games days. The idea is that we play games that normally would take too long to play in a normal evening. Each participant hosts a game and we move between venues. This time Aidan was otherwise engaged so Rick offered to host two games.

 

I had decided to try out Dead Man's Hand. I had seen it played at shows and had acquired some figures and buildings.

I intended to play a linked series of three  scenes (scenarios) from the book. These would be from The Good, The Lead And The Ugly storyline. The scenes start small and escalate to a final confrontation.

The first scene was 'The Stranger' and saw three Outlaws testing the mettle of a visiting Marshal. The game is driven by the card decks. These show the order that figures activate and also have effects which the player can use on their own or opponents figures. In game terms the three Outlaws were 'drunk and complacent' which meant they could only take two actions per activation rather than the normal three.

The Outlaws activated first and impetuously moved forward and shot at the Marshal, who returned fire. When activated, a figure can take (mostly) three actions. They have to state what actions they are taking, so the opponent has a chance to play a card in response. Despite putting some under fire markers on his assailants, he was driven back. 

Firing is done using a D20, modified by various factors. 11+ gives a varying amount of under fire markers and nerve tests. Failure of a nerve test means another under fire marker. 19 and 20 put the figure out of action. Most figures can take four markers with more experienced characters taking five or six. Here the Outlaws managed to put the marshal out of action, meaning he would not be able to take part in the next scene. The Outlaws would get an extra card in their playing hand.

CARCASSONNE: WINTER EDITION.

This Wednesday we had a go at the latest edition of Carcassonne: Winter Edition. This differs from the original game in that it has 12 extra tiles, and all the tiles are, of course, covered in snow. The River expansion, which became part of the basic game in later editions is dispensed with. Instead there is the Gingerbread Man expansion. 

The Gingerbread Man begins the game in the castle section of the starting tile. When one of the six tiles with a Gingerbread Man icon is laid (all castle tiles) he is moved to that tile. When he leaves an incomplete castle, each player with a meeple in the castle scores 1pt per tile. When a Gingerbread tile completes a castle there is an extra scoring step before the castle is scored.

   Photos from the two games we managed.

The art on the tiles is great. Keep your eyes open for some nice little scenes. If I had a better camera, I would have shown you some.

I managed to win the first game, with a bit of farming nous.

The second game was dominated by lots of castles.

Del won the second game, scoring most of the nice big castles, with assistance from the Gingerbread Man!

All in all this is a bit of a refresh for this great old game.

AIRFIX TOY SOLDIERS AND ME: THE BEGINNING.

My first two packs of Airfix soldiers were the old style German Infantry and 8th Army.

These were gifts from my gran and my dad. Over the years, a pattern developed that when my gran was looking after me, when my parents went out at the weekend, I got a kit or a box of soldiers to see me through the weekend. Needless to say, these were great days.

The first 'toy soldier' games that I played involved these. I remember my friend Iain  and I would set up the opposing sides in his lobby using wooden farm buildings built by his grandad. We would then set about each others forces by rolling marbles or firing matches from Iain's Dinky field gun.

I still have fond memories of those games. They really locked me in to a lifelong passion for gaming with toy soldiers.

Below are links to let you see the basic style of the contents.

http://www.plasticsoldierreview.com/Review.aspx?id=54
http://www.plasticsoldierreview.com/Review.aspx?id=55

MY FIRST AIRFIX KIT.

My father came home from work one Friday evening in late 1968 with something new: An Airfix kit!

My first kit was the Hawker Typhoon. In those days my father also worked as a nightclub doorman on Friday and Saturday nights. He would spend some time with me before going out. He bought the kit to allow us to do something together. With his help with the pilot and undercarriage (it went on the stand, so wheels up) I managed to complete the kit. The first colour scheme was gluey fingerprints and opaque canopy!

And so it began!

THURSDAY GAME: PURSUIT INTO KLINGON SPACE.

This past Thursday, I put on a game of Star Trek: Attack Wing. Although not running a campaign, the scenario for each game is influenced by the outcome of the previous scenario.

 

With the Klingons having taken DS9 in the last game, they are agressively patroling the surrounding space. At the same time, A Romulan Science vessel came across a concentration of Dominion ships in the region of Cardassia Prime. A pursuit force has been dispatched and they catch up with the ship just as it enters Klingon space.

 

After some early manoeuvering, the Dominion and Klingon ships began to engage each other.

This allowed the Romulans to slip through unmolested.

The Klingon commander was so confused that he took a wrong turn and headed away from combat.

This left the two Vor'Cha class to take on the two Breen and one Jem' Hadar ship.

Breen battlecruiser and Jem'Hadar patrol ship almost come together.

The other Breen battlecruiser manages to overhaul the Romulan ship and destroy it

The Dominion forces, having achieved their objective, bug out of Klingon space, but not before the triumphant Breen battlecruiser is destroyed.

This was the first outing for the Breen and the Jem'Hadar ships. They were a bit brittle compared to the Klingon ships, but I am sure that if  Rick's attack rolls had been better, the Klingons would have suffered more damage as their shields are disabled whilst cloaked, though they roll four extra defence dice. I did make a big mistake with my Nekh'Var class ship, choosing the wrong arrow on the dial, sending my commander in the wrong direction. He did redeem himself later, by using one of his upgrades to take an extra manouver and heavily damage a Dominion ship.

The next scenario is taking shape as I write this. Klingon raid as they consider the Dominion ships weak or the bringing forward of the Dominion attack as it has been compromised? Watch this space.