Not Bored with a Board

Rainy Saturday's should be just right for hitting the gaming club, but with household chores in the morning (like taking the owner of the furry face above to the Vet) made that a non starter. So stuck in for the afternoon with it still raining should be signal for hobby shed action, but the table is covered in desirable goods released for the latest Hobby Shed sale [hint, hint :-) ] so another dead end.

Time to break out a board game. In this case the Dungeons and Dragons boardgame. I even managed to rope in the ArabianQueen for a rare game - it must have been rainy! We played the second adventure, although the first one was hardly fresh in our minds! But by half way through we all had the rules and mechanics mostly understood and it all went swimmingly. Nice way to spend part of the day together (even if it does seem to require Arabiansquire exclaiming "Hack and Slash" every few minutes).

Warmachine - Cygnar Black 13th

Glad to get these off my table. I hated painting these all the way until I hit that Sepia wash on them, then the end was in sight. Fiddly, small, indistinguishable detail on them put me off picking up a paint brush for a good couple of weeks, and in the end I just had to sit down with a drink and battle through my paint scheme.

Perseverance won through in the end, though, and they actually look OK on the deck. The light long coats give the figures a nice cowboy western duster coat feel.

I'm not going to forgive them though - I nearly reached for the hammer several times!

Introducing A New Convert?

Arabiansquire had a friend over for a "sleep-over" on Friday, returning on the Saturday. With the weather in-climate, and looking to drag the two boys away from the video games console I decided that a morning at our local wargaming club was a good idea. But with the friend's lack of tabletop gaming experience, what to play?

Simplicity, and fun were key (especially considering the lack of sleep the two lads had between them, so Monster Island (by Firefly Games) was pulled out. An introductory game with the 3 of us was played, with the new arrival winning in the end as his Godzilla slugged it out with Arabiansquire's giant spider.

Godzilla is entangled in the Spider's steel web

There was time for a second game with different monsters that the two lads played themselves (the game simplicity and Arabiansquire's experience making that possible).

The end result? Quote: "I would like to try wargaming again".

Simple fun game with friend was key, but I think that the setting also helped with the introduction. We have room to play games here at Arabiantowers, but the club environment adds to what would just be playing a game at home. Other club members coming up to see the game and introduce themselves and a variety of other games being played adds interest one a quick wander. It also helps that there is quite a young membership so it didn't seem like a Dad's club.

As a note to those interested, Firefly games have permanently put their Monster Island downloads are reduced to $1.99 US for core books and $0.99 US for supplements. As you can see from the pictures any toy figures can be used to play with, which can be an advantage.

Not Much To Write Home About

MacSver's Leader finds himself dwarfed (sic) by my latest beastman
(stats to follow)

It's been one of those weeks (or fortnights) in Arabiantowers where the hobbying has ground to a halt, by and large. Midweek gaming has been sporadic with the collapse of the RPGing and ill health (get well soon, Paul) my regular "school night" games have hit a blip. Also my painting had ground to a halt with my attempts to paint those infuriating fiddly trio Cygnar's "Black 13th".

With the one of our friends/foes unable to make it, I had a bounce match of "Songs Of Blades..." with MacSver, with mini-MacSver ably making up numbers again (and the young house cat Wookie in close attendance). Although we were using our standard warband types (MacSver: Dwarves;  myself:: Beastmen/Chaos) a one-off let us experiment with a couple of models were hadn't used and also just go hell-for-leather. It's very liberating not having to worry about the losses incurred for the next battle(s) and we all took advantage in a fun game (not that we ever have any other sort, happily)

And to add to the weeks good news I broke the back of the painters block, so should be back swing soon enough.