WarCry

Stephen has decreed that the Sherwood, Hucknall and Ilkeston Team shall all play the new skirmish flavour de nos jours: WarCry
Stephen doesn't like skirmish games (such as WarCry)
Stephen doesn't like the Age of Sigmar setting (where WarCry is set)
Nor does Stephen like the use of cards (such as those in WarCry)
Turns out he also doesn't like having these apparent contradictions pointed out.

So anyway we decided to play.
I haven't got any soldiers because unlike Stephen I refuse to compromise my implacable and entirely reasonable hatred of all things Age of Sigmar.
So he lent me some Green Fighty Men. I wondered why, as they were so obviously Khorne they weren't red.
General Ballroom cheated and took some Age of Sigmar Ghosts.
They look like this:

According to Stephen all the WarCry forces are nicely balanced, then the game has been ruined before it began by including broken Age of Sigmar forces such as Ghosts.

Then we played and it looked like this

I won.
Which was nice.
Its alright. Funny little skirmish game.

However Stephen and General B have trapped me by purchasing the Cool Crow dudes for the game as a birthday present. I had foolishly said I liked the models. So now I'll have to play it some more. I think, as I didn't actually buy the models myself this is OK and doesn't contradict my implacable and entirely reasonable hatred of all things Age of Sigmar.

Warlord Plastic Americans for Chain of Command

I recently bought a copy of Wargames illustrated as it had a free sprue of Warlord Games Americans on the cover. 6 models for £5.25 and a free magazine thrown in.

My collection of Americans for WW2 began with Warlord plastics many moons ago. These are a newer set of sculpts.
They're still a little caricatured, as is the Warlord style, but they're nicer and not as cartoonish as the older ones. They also went together a lot better.

I just assembled them with a mix of basic kit - I need a few extra riflemen for my crewed weapons.
A really nice set - very happy with them for the price.
Martin has now gifted me another sprue, so I'll shortly do a few more

Lord of the Rings painting

Inspired by a recent game with my friend and his son of the LotR SBG I polished off a pair of models that had sat part finished for many moons.
First up Cirion, Lieutenant of Amon Barad

And then a lowly bowman of Minas Tirith

I'd really like to play through the scenarios from A Shadow in the East (which these are both for).
Next up, Murin and Drar (possibly)

Chain of Command Jump Off Points

I picked these up from Ironclad Miniatures at the Partizan back in August.
And have turned them around surprisingly quickly by my standards.

Sold as "Supply Dumps" they're ideal for Jump Off Points for use in Chain of Command games.

Base-ic instinct

I ran out of 2ps with any sort of magnetic effect.
Now I could have tried to find an open post office or bank and got some change but I'd get old and die trying.
Fortunately Wilkos is doing 'pick your mix' (presumably Pic-n-Mix is copyright or something) on steel washers.
They come in two sizes - 25mm (close enough to 2p) and 30mm (ideal for heroes, leaders and the like)

So for under £3 I got a mighty bag full.

I'm sure £3 would have got me many more 2ps but steel is more magnetic, not all the 2ps would have been magnetic (and I'm not sure any PO would have been happy to let me stand there and test) and I get 30mm as well.

Of Gods and Mortals at ChillCon Derby

James, Martin and I took our Greek Of Gods and Mortals games to ChillCon in Derby.
Th ChillCon team had seen us at Partizan earlier in the year and as they were having a bit of a Greek theme asked if we'd be able to come along.
As Derby is just down the road from Nottingham we decided to give it a go.
In contrast to our more usual approach we decided this would be a laid back affair, using existing models and without a specific scenario or anything new made for the game.
James bought his folding tale and one of his terrain cloths and all three of us bought soldiers and various terrain bits and bobs.
And then we played games and chatted for most of the day with people.
In the morning we ran several participation games, mostly with younger gamers and in the afternoon when the rush had calmed down James and Martin played through a big full battle.

The scene of battle. We had a small table on the left intended for participation with a larger space intended for a three player game on the right.
In the end we were too busy to really get three players going, so James and Martin played out a regular game.

Notice lurking Kraken - it was a big favourite of the young players to summon him from the depths.

 Gigantic metal man versus gigantic squid. Who will win?

 Zeus takes his brother from behind!

 GW Ungor make good Satyrs

 Some shady Shades

 Athena gets ready to rumble.


The battle was for the sacred grove (or temple in this case)

In the end Hekate managed to banish Athena who then failed to return for the final turn.

Despite the best efforts of Herakles and his one eyed chum the shadowy goddess held on for the win.

Overall ChillCon was a great little show with a good buzz about it. It had a heavy sci-fi/Fantasy vibe to it, along with a board game presence, all of which seemed to attract a younger crowd and more families.
And with an added bonus of being less than half an hour away!

We enjoyed ourselves a lot - hopefully we'll be back.