Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Desperation on a Red Line: First Necromunda Tournament Battle

I played my first game of Necromunda, as a gang in the undercity of a vast population hive.  In the grim darkness of the far future, there are battles to be fought and resources to take. We are playing this venerable miniatures game over Google Hangout, using Roll20.

We're playing this tournament style with 7 other gangs, and I'd like to come in First Place.  I am The Metalheads. So far, so good:

Word spread quickly that Starlax’s Girders had intercepted The Metalheads shipment of vat-grown Hot Fun Foodstuffs and replaced it with crappy Cold Fun Foodstuffs. As if that wasn't enough, they’d been making raids on the edges of our territories. On top of that, they had loudly proclaimed their dislike of our music. We’d all had enough.


We heard they’d be looking for shiny things in a certain place, and ran out to meet them. We ran the whole way there and didn't stop until we had control of an elevated firing position and our flanks were secure.


Brother Root started taking fire immediately, and I nearly bought it when I tried to run up to closer range, but we got lucky. Root ended up with a cool scar that all the girls like and the guys posted a video of me, literally catching a laserbeam in my teeth. We cut out the part where I ran screaming back to cover behind the wall.


Enisferum the sniper was in rare form, picking his shots and hitting his marks. Pretty soon there were three Girders down and the rest were high-tailing it back home. We caught a couple of the slower ones and voted to ransom them since they wouldn't join our awesome club. And we weren't all that hungry…


On the way back we swung past the Starlax’s Girders Drinking Hole to get our Hot Fun Foodstuffs back. The Girders had to leave when they saw us running up, so now that’s our bar too. We changed the colors and mounted a big metal head over the bar so everyone would know.


We got lucky and no doubt they’ll be back, but for now we are riding high and turning it up to 11.


Thursday, October 17, 2013

Malifaux Relic Hunters

I must be out of practice, although to be honest I've never been very good at assembling and painting models. It felt like these took forever to assemble, but they look pretty good. Waiting for some decent weather to prime them now, and then I can set about painting them.

And then I will USE them, to crush my enemies, see them driven before me, and hear the lamentations of their women.


Tuesday, October 8, 2013

The Battle for Obsidian Plateau: Malifaux Multiplayer

I had a chance to play Malifaux recently.  It's a fun, skirmish-level miniatures game set in a creepy world--gothic, steampunk and Victorian horror with a shot of Wild West-- with the most amazing models I've ever seen.  My photography doesn't do them justice, at all, but I'm working on that.

Below, you can see Bill's Guild troops advancing; the little guys under cover of the wall have enormous birds of prey on their arms that can attack indirectly and effectively.  The bold blue-hatted gents heading directly for my troops are deadly with their pistols; longer-ranged and more damaging than mine.



This is a wide-angle view of the battlefield showing my Outcasts, led by the Viktorias, as they quickly advance towards the basalt platform that was everyone's goal. One of my Ronin have already reached it and laid claim.  If you look around you can see Joe's powerful Arcanists led by Rasputina approaching from the top, using the arched building for cover; notice the enormous construct by the opening.  Mick's Resurrectionists led by Nicodem can be seen creeping up from the top right--one of them stands ready to clock opponents with a shovel.



Here we see the board from the opposite side, with a clearer picture of Mick's necromantic Resurrectionist forces approaching from the bottom left, while Joe's blue Arcanist creatures approach from the bottom right. They can also be seen tangling with Bill's other Guild troops, led by Witch Hunter Samuel Hopkins, in the top right of the picture.



It was a long, hard fight; I thought I had victory sealed up until I made a bad tactical move, pulling one of my strong Sister units from the middle of the platform (where she counted as 2 models) in a futile attack on Joe's huge construct.  Mick took the opportunity to move a strong unit into the center to win the round.  I was able to flood the platform with units but lost several when the construct exploded upon its destruction. The game was called in my favor, but it would have been a close thing, had we battled it out deeper into the evening.

I'm working on a band of Guild Relic Hunters because I want to play again, using my own warband.  Once I have it assembled and painted I'll post a few pictures.

http://www.malifaux.com/