Carenvale: Taking a Dip

Nothing nicer on a boiling hot day than to take a dip in some cooling water. Unless of course that water is home to a couple of Sirena who are out to drown you. I finally got hold of these models at Attack last month and painted them up. I'm not sure they are the best choice and you are unlikely to want to run two but they are great models so I wanted to add them to the collection.

In a faction centred around magic and monsters these ladies tick both those boxes and also have an advantage when trying to make Drown actions. This advantage is hampered by their low Attack score so they probably won't be rolling many dice in a Drown action.

One instance when you could run two Sirena would be if you fielded an all magic wielding force with the henchman slots being filled by Aglaope. TT Combat sell these in a 3 pack so that would be enough to fill out all the henchman slots you'd need, you could add a slave or two as well/instead. So perhaps one for a future purchase.

I also recently got some extra bases so could finally base up my second Harpy for the Strigoi, here she is ready to take to the skies.

And the last bit of painting to show is two more Bardsung models, an Oni with his big sword and one of the the machines from the lost levels.

Short and sweet this week as I need to go lie down in a cool spot!

Napoleonic's: Sound of the Gun

It looks like the next game we start playing after the summer holidays have been taken is going to be Shakos & Bayonets by Studio Tomahawk. I'd decided it would be nice to have a cannon as an objective for the game so picked one up from Perry miniatures. The rules do cover artillery so it could be used in a game so I went for a Spanish crew who could fight on either side. 

The models are all metal and fit well with the Spanish I already have though these being regular troops they are in a uniform. The Spanish artillery wore a rather fetching blue with red facings uniform so they look rather dashing. If my memory isn't failing me then I think the artillery was the bravest/best arm of the Spanish army so these chaps would fight to the last man.

I also realised I didn't have a leader for my 5th Batt. 60th Regiment troops so I purchased a rifles command pack at the same time.

I painted up the bugler and two NCO's to add to the riflemen I already have which takes me up to fifteen riflemen in total. I'm not sure how good rifles are in the rules but with so many of them I should be able to field a decent contingent.

We also got a last game of Carnevale in with Mr T once more fielding the Strigoi and I had a go with The Guild. I think it's the first time I've played them and I went with a decent shooting group and then a good melee group.

The shooters proved to be pretty effective and they forced the Vampires into making charges they didn't want to take. This let the melee group pick off the Vampires and The Guild ran out winners.

Deadzone: GCPS Update

Painting and playing have been at a low ebb over the last couple of weeks as I suffered with and then recovered from my first plague infection. I have however worked through some extra options for my GCPS force for Deadzone. One thing the original force lacked was some models for close up work so I decided to add a couple of Riot Troopers to the force. I bought some shields and hammers from Anvil Industries and using some more of the Iron Core models put together a couple of serious looking troopers.

The Riot Troopers carry defender shields which increase their armour value by 1 (up to 2) and also the armour value of any size 1 or 2 models in the same cube by 1. With the general reduction in armour piercing in Deadzone v3, having a armour 2 model means they should be pretty durable. 

They have a useful range 4 gun and the Smash(1) rule means they always get an extra dice in melee (up from the base of 3), that all looks pretty good value for 18 points.

As I had some models left over I also put together some Recruit's which can be used to bulk out an force with cheap models. These recruit's are pretty poor at everything but they don't give your opponent any victory points when killed so can be handy as a throw-away unit.

I also built up a couple of grenade launcher users in case I wanted to drop the mortar at any point. I'm not sure that will happen very often as I really like the model I put together for the mortar team.

With the extra Riot Troopers needing to be incorporated into my Strike Team I went back to have a look at the Ranger based list I had originally drawn up an decided it would be best to replace the rangers with veterans instead. The basic ranger is 3 points more than their veteran counterpart so dropping down allowed me to fit the riot troopers in fairly easily.

In fact it allowed me to go from 12 models up to 13 and reduced the VP value of the team from 27 down to 20. Of course you do lose the ability to aerially deploy all the ranger models and 1 armour but it feels like a fair enough trade to me.

Mr T and I also managed our first game in a fair few weeks, and we opted to play some more Carnevale.

I went with the Rashaar and Mr T branched out into the Strigoi for the first time.

The battle was pretty quick and brutal with Mr T's first introduction into playing the Strigoi being a steep learning curve. They aren't an easy faction to play as you are generally short on command points and need to trade life for extra dice to roll.

The result was a lot of dead vampires as the Cult Enforcer and Demagogue dished out the pain.

I also picked up some new terrain from Warbases, the first of their full colour MDF terrain range. They do three different versions of the set and the option I chose came with 5 ponds in it. Some of them are quite small but the two large ones are good for Kings of War.

The colour printing is good quality and these can be used without any further work than popping them out of the frame. You could add some flock and gloss gel medium to further pimp them up if you wanted.

Carnevale: Bank Holiday Brawl

To welcome the long bank holiday weekend in style I was joined today my Stu from Cirencester and the very local Mr T for a game Carnevale. We went with a 1v1v1 brawl and the guests got to choose a pre-prepared force of around 80 ducats each.

I went with a Guild force as I'd not played then before led by the Capodecina which was designed to make the most of the Trade keyword.

Mr T went with the solid Harbourmaster and her nautical entourage which had good defence and the excellent Fishermen. 

Stu went with the Strigoi who had the some tough Vampires and a dependable Highborn Servant, the Vampires probably had the scariest damage output of the three groups.

We played a custom scenario with 3 agenda cards each, an immobile objective in the centre of the table and VP's for killing Heroes or Leaders. Any Henchmen who died could come back on the table in the next turn. I also changed the VP's for the objective to 1 VP at the end of each round to encourage a melee in the middle as early as possible.

The first turn saw a few long range shots being taken as all sides moved some troops over onto the central island in order to be in position to contest the objective. The Strigoi and Harbourmaster Guild also completed some jump based agendas to score 2 & 1 VP's respectively. 

At the start of the second turn the Harbourmaster climbed a building near the objective and immediately came under a fierce assault from the Strigoi. She managed to see the round out due to her excellent defence but was severely wounded. 

My Capodecina managed to leap down onto the Noble Strigoi and saw him off in one turn as he has weakened himself by using his Life as Will Points against a Mariner.

In the next turn the giant flying Strzyga killed the Harbourmaster but then itself fell prey to the Capodecina who scaled a wall to make the kill. A Fisherman had done most of the work which the Capodecina was happy to complete and thus gain a VP.

The objective was being contested so no one was able to score any VP's from it but it did do it's job of sucking the combatants into the area around it.

The combat stay pretty intense around the objective and my Guild force managed to complete all 3 Agendas that I had which took me up to 5 VP's with the Strigoi on 4 VP's and the Harbourmaster accruing only a 1 VP. 

So I managed to sneak a win, but it was a close and frantic game which I hope everyone enjoyed.