Tuesday and Wednesday Game Reports

Tuesday with Missme unavailable we switched to a 1 shot game. 5 people here.. what to play? An old classic this group has always wanted to play, but for whatever reason we never got to play.

AXIS AND ALLIES (2nd edition, Milton Bradley version.)

Myself and 9 Iron Nuke drew Japan and Germany out of the random pile, with Pico getting the UK, Magicdrew getting the USA, and the only other A&A veteran Starfury getting Russia. We used the balancing rule of Russia can't attack Germany on turn 1, but otherwise played it as written. (One of these days I need to DL and print the newer versions of the rules.) Overall it was a quick reread of certain rule sections, but otherwise we played through with little trouble.

It ended a good 3-4 hours later with Germany haven falling, and Japan's last ditch attempt to save Germany by taking the Russian capital failing due to some amazingly bad die rolls.

A&A still holds up fantastically. Its a very good game. We strategized and planned. Cool stuff happened. Overall it was a good time, though as usual we seemed to take the game ENTIRELY too seriously, something our group sometimes does to our detriment. A little competition is good, but too much sucks the fun out. We never got to that point, but we were seriously overthinking our strategies and actions.

Wednesday was another Sarge's trip. Warhammer 40K game report first. 4 players. 1500 points. 3 way startup, Tau vs Ork vs Witch Hunters, with Space Marines coming in on turn 2 via drop pods. My Tau got beat up, mostly due to some mediocre dice rolling. Well, that and the unstoppable Nobz mob lead by Mad Doc Grotsnik. 5+ Invulnerable saves, 4+ normal armor save, 4+ Feel No Pain. And there were a good TWENTY of them. I did some serious damage to that unit with my Hammerheads, but not enough. But nobody else could possibly hurt them. The Witch Hunters mostly assaulted the Orks, with a few things sent my way. Its the Drop Pod Space Marines that really made things a mess. They were a MASSIVE spoiler to everyone. None of us could really get a proper battle line going. It wasn't just a 2 front war. It was an ALL front war. A very interesting game to be sure. Was called for time, which flew by. It probably should have been a team game, but one player showed up just as we set up our last few units, so it was the best way to fit him in.

Purchases today involved 30 bucks for the Ork player's 2 remaining Chaos tanks. A fully painted classic Vindicator, and a base colored Predator Anhiliator. From no Chaos tanks since 1998, to 3 and maybe 4 if 9 Iron Nuke finds the Rhino he doesn't need within a month 10 years later.

The LOTR Miniatures front involved me getting the final 2 books Sarge's had. Best of White Dwarf Two Towers, and Best of White Dwarf Return of the King. The Two Towers book is mostly useful for scenarios, and little else. Its 128 pages, but much of it is pictures, battle reports, and other useless White Dwarf fluff. At the time of publish it would have been hugely useful with a big Fellowship of the Ring era FAQ, extra charts, and such. Now the rules clarifications are 3 rules revisions old, and battle reports in a paid for book is.. stupid. Its also got a couple minigames which look pretty dumb overall. The Return of the King book is half the size, has the few units from the previous book in it, and tons more, though most are ones you need to convert yourself. I'd recommend getting it if possible. I'll probably talk more about these books when I go into the LOTR minis game in depth sometime soon. For miniatures I grabbed 2 Avenger Bolt Throwers, a Goblin Drum, and 3 Fountain Court Guards.

With all my expansion books most everything in the buy 1 get 1 tub is usable now, except I can only get a little at a time.
Next week will be my final game prep purchases, most likely 2 packs of Hobbit Archers, 1 pack of Hobbit Militia, and the veteran Merry and Pippin models. After that I can generally just buy what I might like to own as opposed to building for a big game.

I have already begun serious preparation for the LOTR Minis training game too. The battlefield has been carefully set up and markers have been arrayed to show deployment zones. I decided to drop each player's army to 400 over my initial thought of 500 each. I will be reintroducing myself to the game, and Pico is the only one of our group to have played it before. Why make things complicated? Each army is mostly simple for this first game. No complicated heroes like the Ringwraiths or Frodo, and everything I tried to pick are relatively simple for this fight. It will be easier when I write up each player's army list. 5 of the 6 armies have been designed, leaving the final good force for next week. With my paperwork listing what I have and their points, building the forces was a snap. I should even have some of the forces set up by next week. They won't all be painted, but as I have mentioned, I hate painting, so what little I do is what little I do!