Three elves in a fountain.

Hi Guys

Played a fun game of the GW Lord of the Rings skirmish game. I bought a shoe box full of 300+ figures for about €40 a few years back and they get taken out every once in a while to see the light of day. They havent gotten the attention they deserve, but I have hit a flat spot with 15mm ancients and painting the current batch is more a chore than pleasure, so I may set aside the Romans for a while and do LOTR stuff instead. All the models are still as they were when I got the box.  Some of the figures are quite well painted, just needing the base done, but would really profit from an ink wash & dry brush. Other figures look like they were painted by a colourblind chimp during a bad acid trip. I will probably alternate between these. I can get all of the elves to a quality I would happy with in one or two evenings, so it is tempting to do these first. The Goblins need more attention, possibly medical. I plan to lay out all the figures and work through the box race by race, Elves first , then Goblins and so on. I have about 7 Gandalfs and 5 Saurumans. Ed has suggested putting them together into an Istari cover band. I picked up the rule book second hand for €5, and made all the buildings myself, so this is frugal gaming in the extreme. The only proxy we did was we couldn't find the troll model so used Sauron instead. It is a lovely model and probably the only time it will get used, so I wasn't too worried.

An open urban set up

Multi level wizards house with viewing tower.

Searching the ruins

Goblins search the storehouse / outside toilet.

We didn't field any wizards, he just looked good there...

Chop !

The "Troll" does some smiting



We played a modified version of the rules and used a simple scenario . We were both looking for an unnammed treasure. Each building could be searched for it. On a 2D6 roll, a twelve would find the loot in the first turn, 11+ on subsequent attempts. Small buildings could be searched once, medium buildings and ruins twice and the big buildings three times. On a roll of double 1, a creature with the stat profile of a troll would be disturbed and attack the searchers.  No treasure was found and no trolls disturbed but a good laugh was had with some appaling dice rolls. Will have to play LOTR again soon.

Phil

Magazine rack

Hi guys

Here are a few pics of a recent game of Dystopian wars between Ed and myself. I took the FSA American fleet and Ed tried out his new Australian fleet. The Aussie fleet is a change from the normal Dystopian wars box sets. Usually a naval box set for DW contains 1 battleship, 3 cruisers, 9 frigates, 2 bombers and 10 fighter stands. Instead the Australian fleet is 2 pocket battleships, 4 gunboats (heavy cruisers), 9 frigates and 2 minisub tenders with 8 minisub stands, and no aerial forces at all. The minisubs are purely for boarding and have no ranged weapons. Most of the boxed sets are of roughly equal pointage and thats what we usually play for an evening game. It was only after the game we checked the points on the Aussies and realised I was seriously out-gunned..... I had roughly 700 points against over 1000 points on Eds' side. The Australian models are superb, incredibly detailed and crisp. They have a choice of turrets as there are two Aussie factions, one using energy turrets, the other using conventional guns. The larger ships have shields, with can be used to protect just the ship the shields are on, or extended to cover nearby vessels but at the expense of making the shielded ship more vulnerable. This is shown on the model by a sliding hatch over the shield generator, the hatch closed means the ship is protecting just itself, open means the shield are extended and the ship more vulnerable.

FSA cruisers

The FSA fleet

The Aussie fleet

 The Australians deploy their first squadron and then we each deploy one squadron in turn until everything is on the table. The Aussies take the initiative and their pocket battleships open up on a single American frigate, but miss the small target. There is a general advance on both sides. The FSA cruisers open up on an enemy Gunboat with long range rocket fire and scores a critical. American bombers then launch torpedoes at the same target and sink it.

 

Turn 2, the FSA win the initiative and their battleship opens up with everything on an enemy pocket battleship and scores a crit. Things are looking good for the Americans at this point. This is about to change. The surviving Aussie Gunboat opens up on the battleship with its monster gun. Is scores 27 hits (!) and two crits. The first crit isnt too exciting, the second roll is double 1, the first but not last Magazine explosion of the game. The resulting explosion, and it is a big one, takes out 3 nearby frigates and the smile from my face. Ed however is grinning like a medicated politician. My cruisers score a single point of damage on the gunboat. There is an exchange between frigate squadrons , sending an American ship to the bottom. The pocket battleships fire, presumably using special anti-rudder ammunition as they score stering lock crits on two cruisers and a bomber. An American frigate squadron fires to no effect. A gunboat opens up on the centre of the 3 FSA cruisers, again scoring a Magazine explosion crit and the blast scores a point of damage on both his squadron mates.

 Turn 3, Fsa wins the initiative and sends a flight of dive bombers in to attack a pocket battleship. They score a crit and get chaos and disarray, weakening its defences. A gunboat fires on the damaged FSA cruiser, scoring two crits and sinking her. A second flight of American dive bombers crit a gunboat . Americam bombers torpedo a submarine tender but only score 1 point of damage, while taking heavy damage from AA fire in the process. The last surviving FSA cruiser fiers at a Gunboat and scores the third ammo explosion crit of the game. This time the explosion takes out a nearby American frigate, the crippled American bomber and 7 Aussie minisubs. The last FSA cruiser is then mobbed by Australian frigates, takes 2 more crits and sinks, clearing the board of American units...

So America rules the sea floor, the Aussies own the top part. Then we added up the points. I was robbed !