Try something new : Dropzone Commander

Whilst I have continued to focus on Operation Sealion and other projects one of the benefits of having different people come to the Dungeon is I get to play a whole range of different games. John probably has the largest collection of games of anybody I know so every now and then we get something different out and give it a go. This time he brought along Dropzone Commander.

I've seen the game several times at shows but never really taken a second glance so it was good to give a run out. With the starter box you get a lot of stuff and the terrain buildings is really quite good for cardboard. You get two basic starter armies which are just enough to get a battle going although by the end of the session we felt we needed a bit more stuff to really get the most out of the system. The rules are pretty easy to pick up and quite enjoyable. The minis are nice although I did think my hover ships should have little 'hover' stands.

We played two mor three little scenarios, dropping off infantry to capture objectives and manoeuvring out ground based tanks to hold various sectors of the city. All in all not a bad little game and has made thing about my Aeronautica collection which hasn't seen the light of day for a while.

A couple more shots of our battle, that slug shaped thing is a troop carrier !

The terrain is straight out of the box apart from the palm trees which happened to be close by....

Next time I am at a show I might have a closer look at a demo game if there is one 😀 but in the meantime I have some Thracian infantry to finish off.

More 40 k The Heresy Begins and the Tau invade

In amongst the other games we have played a couple more 40k battles the first of these was a "blue on blue" space marine battle. Small forces as we became reacquainted with the rules. We didn't worry too much about having the exact same points. My 'Red' guys played as standard marines.  In the two quick battles we had the terminators seemed decisive. Dominant in the first battle but easy prey for a devastator squad in the second.

 With relatively small armies we managed to play a couple of games. With a victory to each side.

In the second outing I dug out a few Tau.....one of my favourite armies. Couldn't remember at all the special rules they have and only have the old codex....they did shoot a lot of space marines though ! as they fought it out over an industrial complex on one of the nameless planets in the 41st Century.

Terminators come running up the bridge, the hail of gunfire slows them but can't get through their armour.

It was a scenario form the battle book and was a minor victory to the Marines when the battle unexpectedly finished after turn five.

The morale of all this is I really quite like 40k and if I didn't get constantly sidetracked into other games I would play more. I like the background and fluff, it also provides for limitless scenario and campaign options. I just don't want to keep buying new rulesets and army books so need to fix our gaming in time.😀 back to WW2 this evening.

The Descent of Angels : 40k battle report

The reason never to sell any Wargame stuff is things just come round again. So having not played 40k for a couple of years there is a bit of a buzz back in the dungeon playing 40k. Games at the moment are very much refreshing the rules which have been upgraded from 5th when we played last. Having tested the Basic Space Marines the next battle saw my partially completed Blood Angel army take on the Tyranids. Sticking with 1500 points the Blood Angels are a bit more aggressive and combat focused. So much so that in the first game they fair slaughtered the xenos with barely a blink of an eye (some uncharacteristic lucky rolling from me 😀)

 

Also gave a chance to try my new desert cloth

With the game finishing fairly quickly we reset with a second mission. This proved a harder proposition for the Angels with the Tyranids gaining a  victory and making off with the "relic" just at the end of the battle.

 

The relic is in the centre of the table but what the Tyranids will do with an antique Bolter gun I don't know ?

 

Geanstealers attack from the flank but are mown down by concentrated Bolter fire.

 

And it was going so well till these multicoloured flying things killed my Captain !!

Fun battle and some more to come form the 41 millennium. I might just do some painting on the army ........

Grunts and Martians : trying something new

Every now and then it is good to try something different so a mate brought round two new games/systems to try out. Stargrunts is apparently quite big in America it has been around for a while with I think the original rules being written in the 90's or before. Based on roughly 28mm scale figures it is a near future/Scifi squad/skirmish game. It has a feel of 40K but without the aliens, at least we didn't play with Aliens and I don't remember seeing them in the rule book.

We have played a couple of taster games to get the hang of the rules. The interesting and novel (well for me anyway) bit in the rules is the use of a range of different dice D4, D6, D8, D10 and D12 to provide the modifiers and the element of chance. Once you get your head around it, it is quite a neat idea but i have no idea if it is mathematically sound ? So the idea is if your armour save is say D8 but you are in cover you roll a D10 and if you are lying down a D12.

The game is squad based but includes vehicles as well although we have only experimented with these. Apparently you can still buy the stuff and the figures are quite good.

We have also had a couple of games of Martian Attack this is the newly released Martian invasion game by Mantic having played Deadzone a few times it is easy to pick up as the basic rules are the same. Quite fun and not a bad little game...

Home made board (obviously)