Mortal Gods AAR - the daughter of Hades strikes!

I set up a game of Mortal Gods today, mostly just to put my newly painted scenery out. Craig bought me the Mediterranean farm set from Sarissa Precision for my birthday, and I've been happily whipping it into shape. The farmhouse is painted, although I have a lot of little details I plan to add to it, so  it is in no way finished, yet is in an OK state to be played with.
My eldest daughter has an interest in Greek mythology (thanks Rick Riordan) and I thought she might enjoy playing a game, so I roped her into it. This was actually my first non-solo game of MG.
We rolled dice for the set up and scenario, and it worked perfectly, with one side (the Athenians deploying in the centre of the board - in the farmhouse. The Spartans got the corners and chose to deploy in just two of them. The mission would see an objective pop up in turn three which might be in the farmhouse, or on either side of it. Cassie chose Athenians, because they're smart, which was a smart choice, as my Spartans weren't...

Initial set up. Please excuse the lighting - the garage windows are behind me as I took photos. Cassie deployed in the farm, with my lights in the closest corner and my heavies at the other end of the board.

Turn one was a disaster for the Spartans. The first omen card I drew saw my heroes take damage every time they activated, and they were seriously weakened by the time they made it into combat range. Cassie's Promachos killed my Promachos quickly and effectively. 

There he is, the poor old bugger. Got in one whole hit before it was lights out. 

By the end of turn two I had seriosusly weakened a unit of Periopoloi, but my Akontistai were in charge range, and about to have pain rained down on them. At about this stage my lochagos also departed this world. Too late I remembered about injuries for heroes, but we'd moved on too far by then...

Turn three and the objective turned up on the far side of the farmhouse, perfectly covered by the Athenian Toxotoi in the top room.

My Akontistai and Peripoloi fought a desperate action to absorb Cassie's inattention, but she moved her Akontistai to get them to the objective.

The situation in the final turn - my hoplites have come around the corner, but they can't reach the range to contest the objective.  Spartan defeat!

This was the first wargame Cassie has ever played with me, and she won. I'm hopeful that means that she will play again, as it was nice having an opponent, even if she did beat me. Then again, if I hadn't drawn that damn omen card..!

The Persians are all undercoated and ready to be painted for Mortal Gods, but I have a few things in the queue before them. I'm also waiting on Mortal Gods Mythic as I'm sure the daughter will be very keen on that.

Nate

A few games

I thought I'd try out the Post of Honour rules today with my Marlburians. These rules have been written by Keith Flint to provide a simpler alternative to Honours of War. They certainly are simpler, using d6s and having units which seem to have a little more survivability. I played out the St Ulrich scenario from the Honours of War rulebook as it only has a handful of units which suits how little I actually have painted at the moment.

The Confederates advancing in column

The Spanish defenders providing the rearguard for the bridge

The Confederates advance

The Spanish stand and wait, while the artillery on the hill across the river fires the first shot of the game.

The Confederates deploy out into lines, Starhemberg's regiment taking the lead.

Both sides are in combat range, with close in volleys that weaken the Austrians, and the English Horse losing their initial advantage over the Osuna Dragoons.

The end of this turn sees the cavalry both weakened and standing off staring at each other, while the Austrians give as good as they get with the Viejos Murados.

The last recorded image of the English General before an unfortunate collision between his head and a cannonball.

With no general to help rally, the English Horse are unable to charge again this game, the Austrians are broken, but in turn the Spanish are broken by the Rivers' and St Amant regiments.

 The upshot was a victory for the Confederate attackers, which was fairly predicatable considering their numerical advantage, but there were moments where the game was in the balance, which is what you want from a set of rules.

Here's some lose up of the new units completed this week:

Spanish artillery

A Spanish general. I figured the yellow coat was justified as the Spanish Horse in the Nine Years War sported the same colour.

English Artillery

That was a solo game this morning, and took just under an hour to play out. Then this afternoon Adam came around and we had a game of Warhammer 40K Killteam. This relatively simple skirmish game should have been quite quick to play, but we did our best to lengthen it out to two and a half hours by being rather incompetent. We eventually worked out everything that we were doing wrong, so we'll be ready for the next game.

The battlefield

The sides begin coming together.

The Ultramarines had a pretty happy day chopping up the Genestealer cult.

I've found that I never take many photos when I play opponents, probably the part of me that believes that spending time with a phone in your hand when you have company is actually rather rude. I realise that we are a declining species.

Anyway, the Ultramarines had a pretty solid victory and then we decided that we'd have ago at playing speed-freaks. Adam had brought these over to play, but we had spent so much time mucking up Kill Team that we only ended up with a small amount of time to play. Nevertheless I played enough to get a good feel for the game, and it is a lot of fun. Not to mention that the models are simply stunning.

Me ramming Adam - these models were works of art. I loved the corkboard roads on the bases.

We managed to lose all of the war bikes very early.

A busy day and it was great to play a few different games.

Nate

The shape of things to come

The last week or so I've been following the buzz centred around this upcoming game:

Unlike the Batman miniatures game that I just never got into, the Marvel Universe is my true home (and of course the NDC Universe, but that is another matter altogether). So this game really excites me. I'm hoping to see my two favourite groups, the X-Men and Fantastic Four, represented in this game, but I feel that it will be a bit like Pokemon in that I'll just have to catch them all.

With the impending annual reminder of my nativity, I've also determined to finally get Star Wars Legion underway as well. Clone Wars is coming out, and I was mightily tempted - Yoda and Obi-Wan are my favourite Star Wars characters - but I'm going to start off in the rebellion. So the core box set and some rebel pathfinders are in order, combined with a great deal where I just picked up 2 core sets worth of imperials!

It is a great time in the history of world to be a comics fan/star wars nut/ miniatures enthusiast!

Nate

Men with long pointy sticks and other stuff that should have been posted last month

Here is the first phalangite unit for Craig's Successor army. 32 figures, using Little Big Men decals. I've finally got the hang of getting these onto the shields, although decal softener may be an idea for future investment as they tend to get crinkles on the concave surface.

Lot's of sticks with pointy bits on the ends.

Despite the crinkles, the shields give a good effect.

Another shot just for the hell of it.

And facing their enemies - the legions of Roma.

The gregarious Greeks are not the only chaps to see the paintbrush in the last couple of weeks. A further Marlburian unit has been added to the slowly growing collection.

Starhemberg's Austrian regiment

The command figures for this unit come from Ebor miniatures.

Close-up of the hand-painted colours.

A couple of weeks ago I also completed the state troopers for the Bush Rangers project:

The troopers

Plain clothes police and/or civilian helpers

And this was followed by sorting some scenery for Aussie - notably using the Perry 'American' farmhouse and store. Perfect for Oz too.

The store with the OK corral used as part of the scenery.

The farmhouse with a resin thunderbox.

The full battlefield including sheep.

 I also started a Persian Sataba for Mortal Gods using the cards that have been published on the Footsore Website. My Warlord cavalry turned up early, so they were the first to get the paint. The infantry from Crusader Minis are currently on the painting tray.

So many colours, so much fun to paint!

Finally, and this goes back some way, the first unit of skeleton warriors for the fantasy project. The Undead will be the next army to feel the love of the paintbrush, but they will have to wait until next year as the Ancients and Marlburians are my current priority.

Shambling and decaying

But nevertheless quite animated!

Nate