Warlock of Firetop Mountain

Not that one

I had a cunning plan the other day. Holdenstein Jr. is terrible at reading, and really terrible at reading aloud to me. It's not that he's actually bad at reading, he's quite good, he just hates it. Then while trundling around blogs followed by blogs that I follow I came across an interesting genre. The Fighting Fantasy playthrough blog. Honestly I don't know who came up with the idea first, but it is both simultaneously genius and the saddest thing I have ever seen.

That gave me an idea: I have a box full of game books upstairs and a son who won't read to me, so I embarked on playing Warlock of Firetop Mountain with Holdenstein Jr. The rules were simple. No cheating (except in the annoying Maze of Zagor- and only then to ignore irritating repositions), re-roll on skill of 7 or 8, Holdenstein Jr. gets to roll the dice for us in combat, and every couple of entries we swap reading duties. I'll also make the map. Thus the project is both entertaining and informative. I make him add up his attack strength too- that's maths covered as well as English.

Finally some painting!

Those twin perils that stalk most wargamers over thirty have well and truly struck over the last couple of months. I speak of course of work and family. Still I managed to do a couple of things. Firstly get a little (with the emphasis on little) painting done and secondly I managed to meet up with my old school chums Dave and Duncan for a little bit of 40K at Dave's parents house (Yes we are all nearly 40 and none of us live any where near Dave's parents). I'm sorry to say that I had a few bad matchups, with my Nids taking on Space Wolves and Dark Eldar (which was utterly soul destroying) and my cleansing Flames marines (that's vanilla to you) taking on some Thousand Son's. Twinned with some poor tactics I got 3 losses. Still. The games the thing and everyone had a very good time.

So on with the pics.

 A Gimli painted by Holdenstein Jr

 A Trygon that's nearly done - any thoughts on basing well received

And a finished Heldenhammer. I might just love this model more than my children...

Back (in denim)

First post in a little while. I would like to say how I've been off doing very interesting things like going to the Arctic with Helen Skelligton off Blue Peter or been abducted by aliens but the truth is that I've been busy with work and Christmas and so haven't been gaming much and certainly haven't had any time to write. This isn't the only game that we played over this period. We payed at least a couple of games of Space Hulk, a bit of summoner Wars, Monopoly Deal (which is an excellent game for a fiver) and various other kids games. This is the first that I've had some time to blog about though.

The other day Holdenstein Jr asked if we could play a game of Warmachine, so I ventured out to the shed to get a board and some scenery and we did. Stryker vs Kreoss again, this time with Junior bagsying Stryker, so I took the partially painted Kreoss and got first turn. We set up across from each other and advanced.

Junior's Cygnar

My Menoth

In my second turn I misjudged some distances which left me in no-man's land with my melee jacks, but able to get first blood by setting Junior's Charger on fire

First Blood

Junior then returned the complement by charging his Ironclad and Lancer in and shooting the Charger at the Revenger. He also disrupted the with Stryker's gun. The Ironclad managed to get a bit of damage done before getting pushed away from the Revenger by its repulsor shield.

Stryker about to pounce

That was a bit of a pain, as it meant no boosting for my best 'jack even though it was in range. I just had to settle for meandering in and trying to hit the Lancer with the Crusader and the flail on the Repenter. Unsurprisingly not much damage was done. Kreoss advanced and set Stryker on fire with Immolation which was nice, although not for Stryker. I also forgot to use my feat, which at the time was a terrible thing.

Junior went for the kill this round. He put a point of focus on the Charger to move round and boost against Kreoss (with some success) put the Ironclad back into combat with the Revenger, and finally charged Kreoss with Stryker, popping Stryker's feat just in case. Junior should have done me then, but fluffed his last two hit rolls and left Kreoss on two wounds. This is where forgetting to use my feat on the previous turn was lucky. I knocked Stryker over and gave him the sort of pummelling that even +5 Arm can't help.

Ooops

So a win for me, but what did we learn? Well Junior prefers Warmachine to Space Hulk, because you can do almost anything, and I enjoyed myself and I think have worked out why I don't like Warmachine. Wait I hear you say, you just said you enjoyed yourself, what's all this about not enjoying Warmachine. That's correct. I enjoyed this game and I have enjoyed all the other games that I have played at this size. What I have never enjoyed is 25 to 35 point games. I think that it's a combination of ever increasing numbers of special rules, totally optimised lists and the Caster kill end to the game that do it. It's a lot of effort for a game that might last a turn and a half or five, and a small mistake or not understanding all of your opponents abilities can easily lead to the end of the game. I would rather have a game that lasts for a relatively predictable time, which Warmachine is at this level.

I hope to be updating the blog fairly regularly now, so check back soon!

Battle Boxing

Holdenstein jr. and I had a simple game of Warmachine yesterday, pitching Stryker's battle box against Kreoss'. I took Kreoss, which put me at two disadvantages. Firstly the Menoth box isn't painted yet and secondly I judge that Stryker's Battlebox is somewhat more effective in 'jack on 'jack action than Kreoss'.

My Revenger was taken out early on with some boosted shots from Junior's Charger, followed up by the Ironclad smashing it up. Subsequently, the Lancer was set on fire by the Repenter and broken up by the Crusader. I had lost the advantage, however and had to move Kreoss up as all my wrajqcks were either disrupted or had knocked out corteces. I set Stryker on fire and knocked off a half his damage, but a charge from Stryker with boosted attacks and damage killed Kreoss.

Junior got the basics down pretty easily, and some of the metal arithmetic was challenging, but I judge that to be a good thing. Junior's pretty good at maths and giving him something challenging that's relevant can be quite tricky. Overall, this was a success. As long as we stay away from things like soul token mechanics, small Warmachine games are a decent option.

What we've been painting

A bit of a family painting session here. I have been painting Tyranids and I am currently working on a magnetised Hive Tyrant. These are my last efforts...

Holdenstein Jr. fancied a go at a Moria goblin, and it worked pretty well..

And finally Holdenstein Mk III wanted a go too. For you Tommy, this war is over. This is what happens to the enemies of the Imperium.

MkIII is only four, so give him some slack

Good News

We are playing again, today going through the Mines of Moria missions once more. This time a complete clean sweep for Holdenstein jr. First two missions as discussed below. I was actually pretty impressed with the way that Holdenstein Jr. approached the first mission, using Gandalf, Boromir and Gimli, who are basically impervious to missile fire to shield the hobbits (who are most definitely not impervious to bow fire).

The initial move

Just about to get the win

The third mission was a bit of a free for all, involving everything apart from the Cave Troll. Lots of goblins at the start with most of the Fellowship apart from Aragorn. The Fellowship have to close two trap doors at either end on the board, with goblins coming in as reinforcements through the traps and Aragorn arriving on the roll of a 6 at the end of each turn. Trapdoors are closed by a member of the fellowship standing on them at the end of the turn.

I originally thought that Holdenstein Jr. had made a mistake. He went in both directions, and tried to thin the goblins out as soon as possible. I would have gone for one trap door and then the other. Fortune favoured the brave, however, and he was able to attack the goblins at each of the choke points. He was also lucky that Aragorn turned up at the end of the first turn and immediately set about the goblins with extreme prejudice.

Boromir is about to lock the final trap door

So it all worked out in the end despite me taking out two of the hobbits on the final turn, and failing to wound Legolas, which would have bought me and unlikely win.

I am afraid to say there was much gloating from the boy. I am currently gluing model railway ballast to the bases of the unpainted models in preparation for undercoating.

The Second Game

Woah there! What happened to the first game I hear you cry (I'm good me and I can receive messages from the future). Well the first game didn't go exactly to plan and there was a certain amount of bad temper after Holdenstein jr. lost the first game with both good and evil sides. Not ideal stuff for a blog post.

This went much better, and was at junior's suggestion. After a short renewal with the basic rules we were off with Scenario one from the Mines of Moria book, which only allows shooting in a mad dash to a doorway. I was pleasantly surprised by two things. Firstly Junior was able to remember most of the things he needed to, like movement distances, without any prompting, and despite losing both with good and evil again, wanted to play some more. He was particularly unlucky the second time too, with my Moria goblins just hitting and wounding constantly and killing Legolas. Junior is far to smart to allow me to throw the game too, in case you're wondering.

We racked the figures up again and played Scenario two, where Aragorn has to again make his way to the door, while getting through Moria goblins, this time only using his sword. Junior won using both forces this time. 

 Aragorn lays the smack down on Moria gobins

I was more impressed with the combat mechanic than the shooting one. Junior got the hang of them seamlessly and really got in the swing (and stab) of things. It really was impressive the way that heroes can take on one or two enemies with a high degree of confidence, but quickly find themselves at a disadvantage once they get surrounded, due to taking double strikes (wound rolls) when they can't retreat.

Overall this time: Great success

The Plan

My boy, henceforth known as Holdenstein jr. Has been bugging me to play and model with my toy soldiers for quite some time. We've been playing some of the more simple board games, such as Carcassonne and Summoner Wars for a little while and I've decided that it's time to take the plunge and introduce him to a little light war-gaming, which will have the added benefit of giving us a bit more quality time together.
As an introduction to wargaming, I had two main considerations; a suitable theme and a simple ruleset. So firstly an odd question: What is a suitable theme for a wargame?
This is a question that has puzzled war gamers for years. Wargaming is a simulation of killing people using toy soldiers. There's no getting away from that slightly uncomfortable fact. In fantasy settings people never existed and so therefore there's no problems over "real" morality getting in the way, but anything historical will have moral baggage coming along with it. Why are the forces fighting? Who is right? What happens if the bad guys win? Couldn't they just have talked it over and come to some arrangement? These are all good questions, and ones that I can't be bothered to answer, so I'm going to go for a fictional gaming setting to begin with (although I note that Holdenstein jr.s next school project is about Vikings so that might be a chance to try out some ancient wargaming)

So a fictional setting- great, I have a massive amount of 40K stuff and quite a bit of Warmachine. Well, straight away  we've hit a problem. That problem is that in their quest for a "mature" edgy seeding there's quite a bit in those settings, especially Warmachine's, that isn't really suitable for a young 'un. Both games have their sadomachochist faction, and a general grim dark mentality. Plus Warmachine has too much cleavage. I won't get into whether or not this approach is actually mature, or rather childish in it's own way, but suffice to say I won't be going there yet, and don't get me started on Malifaux. Plus their rules are too difficult to simplify. 

That leads me to where I am going: Lord of the Rings, the Strategy Battle Game. This is a new game to me. The imagery is uncontroversial, the rules are pretty simple and the bad guys are obviously bad, but not in a sadistic way. Hurray. I am actually in two minds about whether to stick with the rules as supplied, or go for the "Song of Blades and Heroes" rules, which are simple but effective. We will try both for a few games each and then make a decision. That's the plan anyway.