Captain Kiwi Issue #1: This man, this mulch

My apologies, but I haven't drawn a cover for Captain Kiwi #1 yet. It can have its own post at a later date. This issue was important because of the way the sub-plot influenced the game.
The scenario generated was a super-villain team up in the city involving a theft. I really wanted to see how the activation system would handle multiple opponents fighting against one, so put three Level 3 villains together - the Chef, Blood Deathkill and Compost. Captain Kiwi was not totally outnumbered, he had the help of a Level 1 police officer who was first on the scene. Compost was the only one who rolled a sub-plot, which was 'swap sides'. It only comes into effect if a Joker is drawn, so 1 in 27 odds, and then it is a 50% die roll to see if it happens.

The Chef (a psychopath that makes excellent meat pies from his victims), has hired assassin/mercenary Blood Deathkill and lumbering pile of decomposing plant matter, Compost, to help him to rob a bank. He isn't after cash, but a crate of unknown items from within the bank vault. If it was cash he was after, he'd just hire a hacker from Lithuania.

The villains turn up outside the bank. Suitcase civilian just stands there and watches (the whole game!).

Officer Bradbar turns up as first responder. he takes a shot but misses.

Captain Kiwi is on the scene and on his way!

Blood Deathkill lives up to his name and Bradbar is down. Captain Kiwi is too late to save his only ally! 

CK engages Compost in the middle of the street. Just as well the traffic isn't moving! The Chef emerges with his crate of goodies.

Blood Deathkill goes in to help Compost dispose of Captain Kiwi. The Chef uses the time to make his getaway. But... a Joker is drawn, the roll is a 4+ and Compost realises that he has been played, as the Chef runs away. Now he wants to get the Chef, but Blood Deathkill is in the way. Sides are changed!

Blood Deathkill is knocked back by Compost's attack, and Captain Kiwi finishes the Merc off.

Captain Kiwi captures the Chef and knocks him back. Compost is lumbering up past Blood Deathkill's prone body.

The Chef strikes back. CK was already wounded, and another blow fells him. The Chef has no time to carve the hero up, though, as he sees Compost lumbering towards him. He grabs the crate and makes his getaway. 

Captain Kiwi auto-healed thanks to his nano-tech self-repair system, but too late to catch the Chef, who was in the chef-mobile and away. Compost lurched off looking for some lawn clippings to add to his body and feeling sad, although by tomorrow he won't even remember why.

Again, the activation system worked well, and the sub-plot really brought out a cinematic run of events. On reflection, Captain Kiwi had an automatic ignore all hits courtesy of his healing factor that he should have used in the last round. That may have allowed him to take down the Chef himself, or held him up long enough for Compost to arrive. But either way, it was an enjoyable game a result that sets up the next issue well.

Nate

Super Wonder Issue #1: Ambush on Guavan 9

So I rolled up a game that featured a Super-Villain team up on another world where the antagonists were out for revenge. My 6 year old was wanting to play as well, so it was a no-brainer to take the hero (does anyone say heroine any more?) that she created. Hence Super-Wonder, which is her name (no sniggering in the corner) and sums her up well. She's the only truly cosmic superhero in the NDC universe at the moment, and her pink star powers enable her to fly, shoot power beams and shield herself with a force field. Again, these powers were at the 6 years old's request.

So who were the enemies going to be? Well as revenge was on the cards, her nemesis, Rock Queen had to be involved. Rock Queen is the creation of my 9 year old, and unfortunately I just couldn't fit in all the different powers that she was requested to have. Needless to say she taps into the universal power of music by playing a guitar loudly - power blasts, flight etc. She represents the dark power that music can have (so should probably have a drum machine and an auto-tuner).
Helping her was the Harbinger of Sokar, herald to the mighty Egyptian space god. More on all that at a later date.

No sub-plots were rolled and the result was a relatively quick game.

Rock Queen ambushes Super Wonder on Guavan 9 - and then quickly wishes she hadn't.

 A distress beacon from the 9th moon of Guavan is answered by Super Wonder, to find no-one there. All of sudden a blast of white noise from behind is only just blocked by SW's force field. Turning our hero engages the Rock Queen, unaware that behind her the Harbinger has arrived as well.

Total victory

The cards fall right for Super Wonder, and the dice roll low for Rock Queen. The first attacker is taken out before the Harbinger can even get into range. Taking time only to deliver a one-liner, SW turns to face her bird-faced opponent. The Harbinger draws an Ace, which would give him a chance to knock out his target, but he's out of range by 1".  Super Wonder is not so forgiving, and in a devastating power blast of pinkness, the Harbinger goes down. I'm not sure if my youngest daughter rigged the dice, but she says it was just because superheroes can't lose.

A quick game, but a good test of how the rules work with an outnumbered opponent. It could just as easily have gone the other way. Tomorrow Captain Kiwi will battle three opponents (the game's already played, but one is enough for now).

Nate

Warmonger joins the NDC universe

The latest chap to become part of the these superhero shenanigans is Warmonger, who is joined by 9 heavily armed henchmen. Warmonger is from an alternative Earth and is Warlord of Mississippi, which is in constant conflict with other failed libertarian states in what had once been the USA.  Technology has gone backwards in his world, but a chance visit by a traveller from another dimension allowed Warmonger to seize and begin to use his dimensional portal device to access other dimensions and raid them for weapons and tech.

The warlord with his shock-spear. He has superhuman strength, which enabled him to rise to become leader of the 'People's Resistance', which went on to establish the New State of Mississippi.

All the henchmen together

 At the same time I finally finished poor old Kangor. This is what happens when nutty scientists really get going. UFC champion Kang Li was kidnapped and had his arms grafted on, and brain transplanted into, a kangaroo by renegade scientist Dr Hawke. To be fair, Hawke also grafted wings onto himself, so he was pretty equal opportunity. Kangor was meant to be but the first of a number of hybrids that would aid Hawke in his plans, but upon awakening went slightly mad (as can be imagined). Sometimes his human side takes over, sometimes his marsupial. Sometimes they meet together. He isn't a baddie per se, but he can be a menace.

'I... am... Kan... gor!'

In other painting news, I've put the Chaos Marines away for a while - I'm waiting on some 30mm bases before I finish them off. In their place is a Khador Warjack that will belong to Baron Death, and 12 Anglo-Danish Hearthguard for SAGA. Hopefully I'll have them done fairly quickly. I'm also anticipating a superhero game getting played today.

Nate

Alliance of Awesomeness Issue #1: What moths wait in the woods?

I'm hoping there will be a lot of these posts this year. One of my goals for 2019 was to play around with the Clobberin' Time rules and come up with some add-ons, and a slightly altered activation system. Well, I have done drafts of both of these things, so now it is time to playtest.

The cover to issue #1

The idea is that every game represents an issue, complete with villain, sub-plot etc. For the first issue of the Alliance of Awesomeness, the scenario proved to be a Megalomaniac attempting a kidnap in the jungle somewhere. The initial roll for sub-plots resulted in 2 characters in the Alliance being affected. Tiger Girl rolled antipathy, which meant a dislike for a random team-mate, who turned out to be Leather Lass. Leather Lass herself rolled a sub-plot, which was unrequited love for a team-mate who was - you guessed it, Tiger Girl. Obviously Tiger Girl is less than enthusiastic about Leather Lass' crush on her. All sub-plots have an effect in game terms, but at the same time they are there to build on the characters and create their story as well.

On with out game. Somewhere in the Central American jungles of Los Nachos, President El Guano is travelling in a motorcade to his capital from an inspection of his poppy farms (ugh, so stereotypical). The villain Mothron, determined to set up a base for world conquest in Los Nachos decides to kidnap the President so that he can brainwash him into accepting his plans. The Alliance of Awesomeness, have been made aware of this by a tracker that they had placed on one of the Mothmen in a previous encounter, and have arrived in Los Nachos to uncover and foil the plot. Now read on...

The ambush is prepared. A fallen tree across the road - an oldie, but a goodie.

First on the scene is Tiger Girl, followed by Aphid and the Converter. A Mothman is dispatched to hold them up, but he misses Tiger Girl and is taken down by Aphid's bio-blast.

Tiger Girl rushes ahead to try to reach the motorcade. On the way she makes short work of a Mothman, sent to stop her.

Anbush sprung! The lead car is taken out and Mothron eyes the Presidential car.

Tiger Girl takes out another Mothman, but Mothron has managed to grab President El Guano. Will he escape?

As Mothron flies off with the President Converter and Aphid both try to take him down with power blasts.

ZAPP!!! Converter is successful. Mothron falls to the ground unconscious. The president is also knocked out.

Things aren't finished yet though. The ambitious Moth-captain makes a grab for the president's unconscious body. He is, however, surrounded. Will he be able to escape?

In the end he is caught by Leather Lass, who puts in a power punch. The president is saved!

A successful mission accomplished by the Alliance of Awesomeness!

Mothron was taken to prison in the US, along with his captured accomplices. But who knows how many other Mothmen there are in his organisation ready to carry on his work? 

President El Guano offered the Alliance a lifetime supply of tacos, which the Converter only too gladly accepted. 

This was a good game. The activation system worked well and the action flowed quite well. I was a bit worried at the beginning as Tiger Girl carved her way through the opposition by herself, but once the President was kidnapped and the action moved, the team came into its own.Lather Lass's sub-plot never came into use, but Tiger Girl's saw her reactivating a couple of times, which added to what she achieved in this game, screaming ahead of her team-mates to try and win the game on her own.

A New Year begins...

With a new project of course!
The first painting of 2019 welcomes the first unit of Roman Legionaries for my Caesarian army:

Painted simply, with washes and a highlight

The decals came with these Warlord Games figures and are quite nice.

No eyes! New Years resolution.

The plan is to build armies for Clash of Empires. I am a Warhammer Ancient Battles fan from way back, and I did think about building armies for those rules. But I picked up their successors, Clash of Empires from Great Escape Games and War and Conquest from Scarab Miniatures to do a comparison. I felt that War and Conquest was just a little too different, despite amazing numbers of army lists and online support. But Clash of Empires did everything I could want. It removed the 'hero-hammer' aspect of WAB so that the focus was more on historical units, and it also changed the order of hitting to: hit roll - armour save - wound; which makes far more sense than Warhammer's sequence. The downside is that although there are a number of army lists for CoE, they are not nearly as comprehensive as WAC. So I have based my two Marian armies on the Early Imperial Legions with some input from the Spartacus era lists. I have two 2500 point armies, one for Caesar and one for Pompey, and Craig has put together a Seleucid army which I will be painting for him so I don't always have to game this period solo.

End of 2019 gaming

Dan came over from Australia at Xmas, as noted in the previous post, and we played some games.
First up was and American Civil War Black Powder game:

Initial deployment had one brigade each on the table.

The combat for the bridge which was worth a victory point

Trouble at t'mill

Preparing to retake the bridge

Sorry these aren't full battle reports. It was a couple of weeks ago...

We then played Muskets and Tomahawks for the first time, and really enjoyed the game. No photos because the figures weren't painted, only undercoated in white, and looked like a bunch of ghosts chasing each other around the forest.

A couple of days later Dan rejoined us at the beach and we played a few more games. A game of The Great War (from PSC) which was really good. I'm planning on playing a lot more Commands and Colors games this year.

Then we broke out the Ancient Fantasy, complemented by Lego terrain:

Soldiers of the Eagle vs Crazy Celts. The Chieftain is already charging off by himself like a maniac!

Shieldwall!

The rest of the Celtic army is moping around down the back.

Really proud of my lego temple in the background there...

We played four games with various forces. Dan got the hang of it quickly and in the last game used the gladiator force against the Greeks. I think I killed a gladiator while he wiped me off the board...

2018 Wrap-up

Doing a tally of my painting from last year I've arrived at the following totals:
28mm = 278 infantry, 27 cavalry, 3 artillery, 11 vehicles (all Star Wars Legion)
15mm = 431 infantry, 69 cavalry, 14 artillery and 45 vehicles (mostly Team Yankee)
Other = 10 x 54mm infantry, 1 x 1/2400 ship, 5 x 1/300 ironclads

A good deal of the painting for myself was DBA, Team Yankee or American Civil War 15mm, although towards the end of the year I was starting to get through some of the 28mm Marlburians. For others, I painted the most for Craig - Team Yankee Soviets, Star Wars Legion - and some odds and sods for Geoff.
In terms of my goals for 2018, these were kept quite simple - a Russian 7 Years War army, the 1914 Austrian and Russian armies and the American Civil War. Well, I achieved the last one, but the Seven Years War collection made way for the chance to concentrate on Team Yankee, and the 1914 project is shelved (in fact boxed and in the attic).

I had 37 blog posts last year, my worst tally yet, but it has often been a trade off between actually doing the hobby and blogging about it as other aspects of life have become intrusive of hobby time (I'm looking at you Ministry of Education). It has also limited the amount of comments that I have made on blogs, as I tend to visit, skim and move on. Rest assured that if you're in my blogroll, I am  visiting your blog regularly, even if I'm not always commenting. Blogger needs a 'like' function...

2019 Plans

Looking ahead, what are my goals for this year? Again, I'll keep it simple and restricted to 2 large, 2 medium, and 2 mini projects.
1. 28mm Roman Civil War using the Clash of Empires rules.
2. 28mm War of Spanish Succession using Black Powder.
3. 28mm Vikings and Anglo-Danes for SAGA
4. 28mm Greeks for Mortal Gods
5. 28mm Chaos Marines for 40K Killteam
6. 28mm Napoleonics for Song of Drums and Shakos (skirmish)

Yes, all 28mm, and I'll be needing to get some terrain sorted for the Dark Ages in particular. Added to this is some 15mm Samurai for Samurai Battles, the Commands and Colors game set in the Sengoku Jidai.
In order to keep myself on track, Dan and I have come up with a challenge. Each week we'll set ourselves a painting goal, and if we achieve it, that will be one point. There's no specific amount that has to be painted, it could be a whole unit or it could be one figure - we'll judge by how busy we are and make it realistic. The idea is just to maintain some painting momentum, even when things get crazy.

All converted from the DBA armies. The basing has been altered since and represents the number of dice rolled and the movement abilities of the various troop types.

Finally, should I get any exttra time (which I'm sure I won't), there is this little project in the wings as well:

Viva la revolucion!

I also aim to get in some Bolt Action gaming with my Kiwis and Fallschirmjager, and some games of Commands and Colors in its various forms. I haven't played Bolt Action 2 yet, so it will be interesting to see how the game works.

Another plan for this year is to work on the Clobberin' Time rules. I've jotted down some ideas for a scenario generator and a side plot selector, and I've been giving more thought to the card activation and teams vs one powerful villain scenarios. I've got an idea in mind that just needs a playtest.

I would like to get closer to my previous 50-60 posts for this year, but it depends on how busy things get again. I've put in place an ambitious hobby programme for one year, and the blog will always be sacrificed for actual painting or gaming.

Nate

Christmas loot

So sitting here on Boxing Day I thought I'd share my wargaming haul. This has been courtesy of friends and family.

Dan came over from Oz and brought all of his first edition SAGA books to use. John and Mike both still have the first edition rules, so we'll stick with that. But alongside it he also brought two Norman starter armies that he picked up on sale, the Maximilian rules and 4 cars to go with them, and the Great War boardgame that uses the Commands and Colors system, which he figured he'd never get around to playing. I'm pretty blown away, I'd been planning on getting the Great War game at some stage, but then it went OOP waiting for the centenary edition (which is now out). Now I just need the tank and French expansions - expect to see them turn up here this year!

 From Craig I got two British snipers in ghillie suits for Bolt Action (on the left) and Glenn sent me Chancellor Palpatine and 2 Droids on STAPs for my Star Wars collection. All very much appreciated.

From the family I received Black Powder II, and after much thought this is going to be my main Marlburian ruleset. Something that others at the club have played and are familiar with. I also got some wargaming classics - Advanced Wargames and Solo Wargaming from Donald Featherstone, Charles GRant's the Wargame and a reprint made by Athena Books of Peter Young's Charge!. So a real mix of Old School and new school games.

Black Powder II is very pretty

I only have the PDF of Black Powder I, so a new hardback was well justified.

Dan stayed for a couple of days and we got some games played, (more on that later) but Christmas has had a bit of a shadow hanging over it because my octogenarian Dad had a fall and has been in hospital since the 22nd with brain bleeds. He seems to be pretty good, but has to be under observation. This has meant a rush trip to Auckland, and probably more coming up. So apologies to Glenn for not being in touch over the arrival of the figures, I'll be in touch in the New Year.

Otherwise I hope everyone else is having an enjoyable festive season and eating and drinking to their hearts content, with a few little goodies to add to the lead/plastic pile.

Nate

Finally getting back to it

The last few weeks I've been doing a bit of extra contract work, so had to hang up my paintbrushes. I managed to get them out again at the beginning of this week and paint some figures for Craig so that I could get them to him before Xmas.

These are the Warlord Games Last Levy

Really characterful figures

Which I enjoyed painting a lot.

And some additional elements for the DBA Carthaginians so that he has some options.

I'm using more washes in my painting of 28s, and I've finally given up on eyes. I've started my Marlburian collection with eyes, so I'm not sure if I'll continue with them, but my ancients project next year is starting from scratch and will be effectively blind. I'm not too sure if my brushes are just not good enough or if my hand-eye co-ordination is going, but my last few attempts at painting eyes have given the goggle-eyed terrors to my troops.

Nate