Carnevale: Dock of the Bay

Along with the release of the Blood on the Water expansion book TT Combat released some new models to go along with the new lore. The first of these that I ordered is the Dock Workers set which gives new leader and henchmen options for The Guild. These are a good addition to a Guild force as whilst they had options for street & rooftop combat they did lack in the water based side of the game.

In the box you get the Harbourmaster, a Fisherman, a Shipwright, and two Mariners.

The Harbourmaster is the Leader model and she is much more tanky than the Capodecina who is the other Guild leader I have. Her command ability to give herself and nearby models Expert Protection (3) which allows you to re-roll up to 3 Protection dice and her native Parry (2) which forces your opponent to re-roll up to 2 Attack dice, means she can weather any storm for several rounds. Her speed in water and a good combination of range and melee weapons mean she will be a force to be reckoned with on the streets (and canals) of Venice.

The other new models in the box are all Henchmen (and women), the first of which is the Shipwright. I only have one other Guild model not on a 30mm base (the card is wrong) so this chap is a bit of a rarity. The larger base will make him better at grappling and drowning opponents so he adds something extra that way. His big selling point is his offensive ability, being able to re-roll 2 Attack dice via Expert Offence and having +2 Damage on his attacks means he can pack a reliable punch. In the game we played last night Mr T cast Blood Lust on the Shipwright that gave him +3 Attack dice, so 6 Attack dice, re-rolling 2 of those and then adding +2 damage on, that hurt!

The Mariners are less exciting than the Shipwright though they do have the Boat Crew rule which means you can crew and use the new boats featured in Blood on the Water. I've not looked at those rules very closely yet but it seemed like the boat can be moved from one spot to another along the canal without needing to pass through the intervening space. I will need to look more closely at those rules.

The last model is an additional Fisherman who I made up with the harpoon gun, I now have three in total, two with the harpoon and one with the spear. As with the others he's a good combatant who thanks to his Hunter special rule likes to take on models on larger bases.

Here's the entire Guild force I now have. Now that I have two leaders we could do a Guild vs Guild fight so that may be coming up very soon.

We also go a game in last night with us playing the Plant the Seeds scenario, This saw VP's awarded for killing opposition Henchmen models and also completing Agendas. The game started with the Baroni and  Karcharos killing each other and the Magi-Rashaar using Baba-Yaga's Kraken's Breath against some tightly packed Guild members.

The Guild managed to complete 2 Agendas and kill a henchman model (lesser Ugdru) and I could have won in the last gasp but I failed to complete a diving Agenda with my Urchin so the Guild ran away worthy winners.

Carnevale: Secure The Arms

We got back to gaming after a few weeks break when Mr T came around for some more Carnevale, I've also completed a couple of models whilst waiting for the new faction boxes and rules to arrive.

Using a model gifted to me I've painted up a second Highborn Servant just in case I want to field two in a force. They are I think an excellent utility hero with a decent ranged and melee attack and unusually for the Strigoi the ability to spend Will Points rather than Life for extra dice. The Bankroll special also encourages the use of the more expensive equipment options.

The Poison equipment is 5 points which is quite a lot for a one use item, but for something you can use once a turn, as long as the Highborn Servant is alive, it's great value. The extra damage isn't a certainty but a 60% chance to do extra damage is good and as it goes directly onto the Life Points your opponent doesn't get a save.

I also completed a second gondola, this time the funeral version. It seemed like a good addition for the Strigoi forces though they may just see it as a people carrier.

For the game we played the Secure the Arms scenario which sees 6 static objectives that must be held at the end of the game to score VP's. Each side also draws 5 Agenda cards and must complete at least 1 in order to score any VP's.

I got the El Gato down from her shelf to add onto the battlefield and no doubt we can imagine that the arms have just been off loaded from her cargo hold. We didn't actually end up fighting on her decks so I may need to see if there is a scenario that can have her placed in the centre of the table.

In order to get ourselves into the action a bit quicker we dropped the table size down to 24" * 30" and the game size down to 100 Ducats to make the rounds a bit quicker.

I went with the Noble Strigoi, 2 Common Strigoi, 1 Highborn Servant, 2 Thralls, and 1 Seer for magic support. The Seer is good at buffing friends and de-duffing enemies but you need to get the timing right so it's done in an effective manner, it's certainly something I failed to do properly so will take some practice.

The Guild went with the Capodecina, 1 Baroni, 1 Fisherman, 1 Gondolier, 2 Citizens and Baba-Yaga for magic support. Baba-Yaga is practised in Blood Magic which makes her a bit more direct in her use so she's easier to get your Ducat's worth back on.

Starting closer together meant we got into the action more quickly though The Guild spent most of their first turn completing an Agenda to fall into water so they got off the mark very early on. The Strigoi on the other hand didn't manage to complete their Agenda until almost the last turn of the game so they came very close to not scoring any VP's at all. 

The game rather revolved around the opposing leaders with the Capodecina killing off a Thrall and a Common Strigoi and allowing the Guild forces to dominate the dockside area and take both the objectives on that side. The Noble Strigoi killed the Fisherman in one turn and then badly mauled Baba-Yaga who was finished off by the Highborn Servant which allowed the Strigoi to take the two inland objectives.

The game came down to the last activation in the end (which I didn't get a picture of) which saw the Noble Strigoi bound across the board using a move and then a chain-jump to throw a Citizen out of claiming range of an objective, this allowed the Strigoi to sneak an unlikely win.

Deadzone: Veer-Myn

A little while back I signed myself up for my first ever wargames competition, the UK Deadzone Masters taking place at Mantic HQ in September. Whilst this is still a fair while off I'd been giving some thought to what faction I'd like to take and what sort of list would cover all the bases. As I had the models from the new 2 player starter set unbuilt I thought it would be good to make use of some of them for this project. After some thought and the purchase of a few extra models I came up with the list below.

One unit that didn't make the cut was the Pack Leader who was the command model in the box, whilst the model itself looks great I'm not in love with the stats so decided to go with a different leader.

The list I drew up was this:

1 * Master Creeper with Smoke Grenade

5 * Stalker

2 * Nightmare with Twin Combat Drills

1 * Night Terror with Spitter

2 * Malignus with Heavy Ray Gun

1 * Malignus with Chem Spitter

2 * Creeper

This gives 14 units at 19 VP's at 200 points. 14 units is on the higher side for Deadzone though pure spam units will have more and 19 VP's is pretty average.

For my Leader I went with the Master Creeper and I wanted to have a good looking model to lead the pack so I've used the Birthing Daughter from Kings of War to represent it. The style of the Ratkin and Veer-Myn is very similar so models can easily been swapped between the two armies.

With a Recon of 3+ you stand a good chance of winning the recon phase of a game and thus deciding which deployment zone they want, if you want to move first or not, and rolls on the recon table, so three good reasons to win it if you can. The leader special is also quite nice and gives some ability to knock enemies off objectives and pin them. Attacking a pinned enemy gives a bonus in melee so the close up fighters in the strike team can certainly make use of this.

If you are fighting several games in a competition you are very likely to come up against Walkers or other heavily armoured models so you need a way to deal with them. One way is to bring some high AP with you and if that is on a fast tough platform then so much the better. 

I think the Rampage rule (which can see you lose control of a wounded model for 1 round on an unlucky roll) will put some people off the Night Terror. But for a low cost of only 22 points you get Range 5, AP3 on a speed 2-3 model with 4 HP, that's a lot for not a lot in my view.

I wanted to be able to cover all the bases with the Strike Team so I've included a couple of Nightmare's for their melee potential. Fighting and Saving on a 4+ with 3 HP and 1 Armour means they will be hard to kill and they get Frenzy (2) with the twin drills (can re-roll 2 misses in melee) so they will make the most of the dice they generate. 

In an ideal world they will be charging into pinned opponents to generate the extra dice and then make mince-meat of what ever they just hit.

When I was playing against Mr T's Forge Fathers with my Asterians I realised who much they hated Dismantle. This rules means that when a model with that keyword causes damage to a vehicle, walker, or construct it automatically does a bonus point of damage. I suspect that Asterians may be quite popular and walker units certainly will be so these chaps could be quite handy. The Hacker & Engineer specials could also be useful if the scenarios include interactive terrain. 

Longer range support is going to be provided by the Malignus units, their job will be to lay some fire down whilst the melee troops get in close to try and finish the enemy off. These units both have decent AP and Hacker as a bonus.

Lastly we have the Stalker units, these are cheap and fast but also Fight on a 4+ so no easy push-over if they get the charge off. Their probably fate will be to rush up the board and try to tie up enemy shooters whilst the more expensive units do the real damage.

And here's the whole gang, I need to get some games in to see how well this all works and if any changes need to be made to the team.

Carnevale: Demo Game

I've started the long weekend off by welcoming Stu over from Cirencester and introducing him to Carnevale. We played 100 Ducats on a 24" table to keep the game nice and quick. VP's where earned by holding a mobile objective (2VP's) or completing up to three Agendas (1 VP each).

The gangs where designed to give a feel for the game without throwing too many rules around, so no magic or water based monsters.

Stu took command of The Guild:

1 * Capodecina

1 * Baroni

2 * Fisherman

2 * Citizen

1 * Gondolier

I took control of the Strigoi:

1 * Noble Strigoi

1 * Hulking Moroi

1 * Highborn Servant

2 * Common Strigoi

2 * Thrall

As we started close together we managed to get into combat on the first turn with two separate combats breaking out. The first was on the roof top by the Strigoi starting area with the Capodecina making a couple of long ranged jumps and then scaling a wall to traverse around half the table to make it into combat.

The second was a street level and centred around the mobile objective that one of the Thrall's had picked up. The Guild scored 1 VP by completing an Agenda for making multiple 4"+ jumps in one turn.

On the roof the Hulking Moroi was taken out by a combination of the Capodecina and a Fisherman but not before it had reduced the Capodecina to 1 Life Point and scored 1 VP by causing 8+ damage in one activation. 

At ground level the Thrall ran away with the objective and whilst the Highborn Servant was lost on the Strigoi side so was the Gondolier.

The Strigoi then started to clean up on the roof and below you can see the Noble Vampire just before he chained together four 4"+ jumps to complete another Agenda for 1 VP. The Guild had also managed to complete an Agenda by throwing one of the Strigoi into base-to-base contact so going into the end game it was all down to the holder of the mobile objective.

In the end it was a close run thing but the Common Strigoi managed to hold onto the objective to secure the win.

Starting closer certainly meant we got into the fight sooner so I think our regular Friday games will be on a 24" board rather than the 36" we've been playing recently.