First games of 2015

So today was the fist gaming day for 2015 for me and the lads. Rob was away and will was going to be a little late so Phil and i threw down a game of x-wing.  I  love x-wing, it's such an easy game to pick up after a long time of not playing and for someone like me with too many rule sets and a poor memory that's always a blessing.

So Phil and i did 95 points a side.  I did the rebels and took 2 B-Wings and a YT-1300 piloted by Han Solo with the gunnery upgrade card.  Phil took 4 Tie fighters (some named but i cant remember which ones at the moment.) and a Tie Advanced (Not piloted by Darth Vader thankfully!)

we set up and our ships quickly moved into range of each other and the shooting began. A lot happened in the game and i don't remember all the details.

Phil's Ties split up quickly, he had numbers on is side but i had shields - the question was whether or not i could reduce his numbers before my shields ran out!  

I managed to take out a Tie that was next to the YT-1300 with a solid set of point blank shooting. The B-wing and on the left also took out a Tie at point blank range with a good round of shooting  which left the other Tie on the far left in a very bad place as it wasn't in a position to fire back.. 

Phil did an odd choice of maneuver and turned in front of my B-wing. I think he thought i was going to do a big sweeping maneuver but i only did a move one straight ahead. This put me in the best position to destroy his tie. (point blank range so 4 dice to damage!)  

As you can see the results were fantastic with Phil failing to avoid any of the hits.

Meanwhile on the other side of the table the YT-1300 had moved slowly forward. This was messy with 3 ships touching each other, many shots were aimed at the YT-1300 but Han skillfully avoided all the shots.

In the next turn the B-wing did a 2 move role over putting it in a great position to shoot up the Tie advanced that had tried to get past the YT-1300 which had again only moved forward 1. The Tie Advanced Pilot failed to move past the YT-1300 and was so concerned with not crashing he failed to avoid the B-wings shots and lost his shields.

Next turn the Tie Advanced moved off as fast as he could with both B-wings in pursuit. The Tie did a sharp turning maneuver hoping to shoot at the B-wing as it chased the Tie Advanced. Unfortunately for Phil i did the same maneuver in the YT-1300 which unleashed a devastating round of shooting vaporizing the Tie before it could shoot at the B-Wing.    

At the same time the Other B-wing did some long range shots. Great rolls on my part but Phil also rolled well and just avoided death by one hit. The Pilots days were numbered.  

Another turn of maneuvers and the Tie Advanced thought he was safe. 

2 more quick turns pass and the poor Tie Advanced pilot is in serious trouble but Phil wanted to go out fighting!

I appear to have not taken a photo of the final shots fired but it didn't turn out well for Phil!

So with the first game under our belts and with Will arriving with a big Ship we played a bigger game and a proper mission. i will leave the telling of that tale to will on his blog: www.willsramblingsnz.blogspot.co.nz

I enjoyed writing a report of the game. I think for 2015 i will try and do a battle report at least once every 2 weeks.

Till next weekend may your die always come up 6's.

Mark
:)

2014 year in review

What was going to be my last post of 2014 has turned into my first post for 2015 as i ended up spending the night with my family watching movies. A nice was to see out the year.

before i do the usual year in review i thought i would show off 2 things i have been working on. The first is the latest unit for my SAGA force.

This gives me 9 points of troops that i now have painted for my SAGA force.  The second thing i have been working on is my Republican Romans for Kings of war and Hail Caesar.

The little big men studios transfers and Vitrix square bases work really well and i think the army is going to turn out really good when its all done.

Now to the year in review.  Well what can i say its been a good year overall.

From a work perspective - I got a promotion after only 4 months in a new job and have been doing well in the new role since getting it. Its a good job and for the most part i enjoy it.  My new work mates are great and i got a great surprise on my birthday!

Pimped up birthday desk.

From a personal perspective - it was a year of lots of change and that can sometimes be hard but for the most part it wasn't a bad year. The kids are getting older and dealing with them has been challenging (any parent here will appreciate this). Health wise 9 months of perfect health followed by 3 winter months of being sick... a lot (a first for me and a sign im getting older i guess!).
 I replaced my trusty old Suzuki Swift with a new car that i have wanted for a long time my Nissian 350Z. (sports car before 40 - achievement unlocked!).

The Z.

   
From a gaming perspective - What can i say we started playing three or four new games this year Bolt Action and SAGA, Xwing and Kinds of War. All have been a lot of fun to play and to paint. Overall SAGA and Bolt Action were the stand out winners and got alot of gaming time. I added some scenery for bolt action to my collection and so have a reasonable amount of french township buildings for us to fight our 28mm WW2 battles over. I finished my army for bolt action and im happy with how it turned out.  My SAGA army is also complete and ready for many games in the new year.

The first (of many) saga forces.

New terrain.

Bolt action British - now i feel i need a German force)

 This year i also finished a Bushido force (still a game we have yet to play - maybe 2015 will be the one!) as well as a couple of forces for Legends of the old west.

Temple of Ro-Kan.

Lawmen.

Outlaws.

 I also finished my warrior monks for Ronin and Legends of the rising sun (which is going to be my project of 2015) I have a lot of terrain and figures to paint up for this one so i can get the Lads to play.

 Late 2013 and early 2014 i had been working on lots of my lord of the rings figures. I finished up a massive group of Uruk Berserkers in Jan/feb and had a few awesome games with them.

 For some reason i seem to have no pictures of my kinds of war skeleton army readily available but i painted almost 2000 points of skeletons in Red/white livery.
 We had several very large games over the year. A massive LOTR game with almost every LOTR figure i own (and that's alot!). We had several big 4 player Bolt action games. There was much talk of a large xwing game that never happened but we are planning on it for early 2015.
 I know a lot more stuff was painted and many many games have been had but these are the things that stick out for me at the moment.  

Resolutions for 2015 - I hate doing this part as it invariably never goes to plan. I have few goals for this year. I want to do some work on the house and redo our back year and add a Pagola so we can sit outside in summer and still game. I want to work on my Asian themed terrain and do up some nice gaming boards as well as paint up 2 more forces and get the lads playing legends of the rising sun and Ronin (as i love the period) - this may happen through Japanese SAGA. Other than that i will continue to work on my Republican Romans for the big April game of Hail Caesar that is planned (who knows if i can get enough done in 4 months!!!). That's about it. No interest in adding in more games to the mix (ive said this before, but i really don't need new games. I just want to focus on playing what we have already.) But im sure new forces for existing games will be part of the year to come.     I have been using Facebook more and more for posting pictures of my work as it is some much easier than blogging. I need to see if there is a way to blog easier so there is more stuff for you guys to look at.

Anyways that's enough from me. Its summer and i have a day off and the beach is calling me.

Hope everyone has a happy new year.