Trailer: The Thing

I've had in mind gaming John Carpenter's 1982 film "The Thing" for some time.  I only saw the movie for the first time earlier this year and really enjoyed it.  Great 1980s gory creature effects and an electronic score from Ennio Morricone.

I found a great metal model of The Thing from Sally 4th.  An eight-part model plus Kurt Russell's character, the helicopter pilot R J MacReady.  Not cheap but it's a lot of lead!

I painted it with various shades of lurid pink and some fluorescent green/yellow.

But this is the final creature of the movie, so I needed to create a number of others.  The first threat in the movie is Lars the Norwegian who arrives by helicopter but with some artistic licence, I decided to use this sled and driver from Copplestone Castings.

The pack came with five huskies so I kept two back.  I painted one up normally to reflect the apparently harmless dog that Lars is chasing at the beginning of the movie, and then filed one down a second dog model to remove the hair and then painted and gloss-varnished to make it look appropriately gory.

I made a Spider Thing from the head of an old figure with legs and eyes on stalks created with soldering wire.  For the creature representing the infected Bennings, I drilled a small hole in the torso of one of my mountaineers.  The hole is hidden in the shadow beneath his binoculars allowing me to temporarily insert some pink tendrils again made from soldering wire.

Outpost 31 doesn't look that interesting in the film and I wanted a bit more colour on the gaming table so I modified a cargo container image by adding doors, windows and logos, and printed them out on card.

R J MacReady is supported by a set of Polar Adventurers, again from Copplestone Castings.

Finally, here's the short video I put together to trail my game of The Thing.

Calico

I bought a game for Louise.  It's called Calico and combines two of her favourite things: cats and quilting.  Please put your initial reaction aside and keep reading...

This is a tile-laying game with multiple ways of scoring points.  The box contains player game boards, loads of tiles with six colours and six patterns, goal tokens, buttons, and cats.

There are 10 cats with preferences for different size and shapes of quilts, from which three are selected for each game along with a random pair of patterns they prefer.

Whenever you make a set of tiles the cat likes, a small cat tile is placed on the quilt.  Similarly, if you place three tiles adjacent of the same colour, you get a button of that colour placed on the quilt.  Lastly, and most cunningly, there are 6 goal tokens of which 3 are placed on the player board for each game.  These earn further points by satisfying the condition in the six tiles around the hex e.g. six different patterns or colours, or AAA-BB-C (three of the same pattern or colour, plus two different, plus another different).  So each player can score from a combination of achieving goals, attracting cats, and sewing on buttons.

A completed quilt looks like this:

So it looks beautiful and has a fun theme, but is it any good?

Absolutely.  This game has been in high demand since its Kickstarter.  English language versions are all sold out and the second edition isn't available yet.  I couldn't wait any longer so I bought the German version and downloaded the English rules, since there is no language-specific text on any of the game elements to worry about.

With a number of different ways to score, each player has to optimise and balance the different approaches based on the tiles that are coming up, and Louise and I really enjoyed playing it.

The game mechanism could have been skinned with a range of different themes but I really like the fact that they've gone with a theme far from the usual content of board games.  It may not have been a typical Rivals purchase but the challenge and optimisation in the game makes me think it would be good Wednesday night game too.

Mars Attacks

I recently heard about the Mars Attacks miniatures game which was published back in 2014 by Mantic Games (not that you'd know from their current website).  This is based on the 1960s trading cards and 1996 film of the same name (almost, the movie added an exclamation mark).

Someone had staged a Perilous Tale using a neoprene street scene gaming mat which was one of the Kickstarter bonuses and what originally caught me eye.  The pair of mats were available on eBay for just a little more money, I could get the whole game - with even more extras.

I won the auction earlier this week and a big box arrived today.  This includes the original rules and cards plus solo rules with AI cards for the Martians.  The rulebook is substantial but includes lots of biographies and stats on the characters, plus ten scenarios across a campaign, so the actual rules aren't too complex.  As you'd expect from the theme, this is very much a fun playable game.

Miniatures (about the same scale as 25/28mm) include General Tor and loads of Martians:

What surprised me was the number of different poses - ten unique Martian figures with 2 or 3 of each.  Earth is defended by 9 human heroes and 10 US troopers, all unique figures.

Another of the kickstarter extras were civilians, casualties and a flaming herd of cows, replacing in part, some of the cardboard figures also included in the game.

Other creatures are represented by cardboard figures and the set includes a range of counters and D8.

The Martians are invading having already destroyed the town so the set includes lots of detailed ruined walls and shop fronts that can be variously clicked together...

...plus a range of rubble, barricades and street furniture to hide behind:

Last but definitely not least are the pair of 2'x2' rubber mats with street and pavements, which will be perfect for other games like Ghostbusters or Dad's Army.

Ideally I shouldn't get too excited before I've actually read the rules and playtested it... but it's too late for that.  But frankly, even if I don't get on with the rules this is such a great collection of scenery and the miniatures could easily be used with other rulesets.  So if the rules are good, that's a bonus!

There are plenty of pictures of what the figures look like painted up and several tutorials on YouTube for painting the Martians, so I will add the miniatures and scenery to my painting list.  But I will certainly try the rules before starting the painting.

Mongol Conquest and Yuan Chinese DBA Armies

Back in 2003, Andy and I fielded a Burmese army at Anderida.  The army had an ally in the form of the Yuan Mongols.

This 16 element command was drawn from the Yuan Chinese DBM army list but didn't have the right elements to form either a Yuan Chinese or a Mongol Conquest army for DBA.  So I painted up the extras needed so that I could field either DBA army.  I also rebased everything as my basing technique has advanced beyond my earlier "style" of painting everything green and just dry-brushing with sand.

Common to both armies are six cavalry elements including the General:

The Mongol Conquest army is completed with six light horse elements:

And the Yuan Chinese army has blades, crossbow, archers and a light horse:

Both armies can swap out a light horse for a stone thrower.  These were specified as rope-pull stone throwers in the Mongol list and I found the perfect model from Ancient & Modern Miniatures with four men pulling on the ropes.  Pulling hard is strongly incentivised to avoid the stone falling onto their own heads!

Episode 206: The Fate of the Lost Legion

The Legio IX Hispana (Ninth Legion) also known as "The Lost Legion" were stationed in Britain following the Roman invasion in 43 AD.  The legion disappears from surviving Roman records after c. AD 120 and there is no extant account of what happened to it.

One theory was that the legion was wiped out in action in northern Britain soon after 108, the date of the latest datable inscription of the Ninth found in Britain, perhaps during a rising of northern tribes against Roman rule.

Or perhaps there is a more lycanthropic explanation?

I set up the gaming area to represent woods somewhere north of Hadrian's Wall.  The location perils were those of Sentinel Hill in the rules and the villains had the stats from the Wolfman list.  

The Romans were given names of Legio IX soldiers and suitable traits for the episode.

With a corridor arrangement of threat markers and no ranged weapons, I imagined the Legion would be lost pretty rapidly.  Wolves appeared promptly and attacked.

Quickly despatching the canis lupis, the Romans continued their patrol and were ambushed by the Wolfman and the Young Werewolf.

Fortuna smiled on the Romans.  The werewolves and wolves rolled several misfortunes and although they killed a couple of soldiers, they were all eventually defeated, and the Romans were victorious.

Somewhat disappointed I played it again as this was the first episode where I was actually cheering on the villains.  Incredibly the Romans had another strong victory.  Both were fun games but next time I might increase the villains stats a little and then perhaps then I can finally reveal the story behind the lost legion...

Episode 205: Raise the Stakes!

 First outing for the Vampyres (described in an earlier blog):

They were quite a tough group with the special abilities of Dracula in the Perilous Tales rules distributed across the three main vampyres.

They were being hunted by Mum's Army (also described in an earlier blog):

The setup was a church graveyard including my recently completed mausoleum:

Objectives were Kill The Master, Hunt the Fiends, and Escape!  Perils were Bats!, Open Grave and Van Helsing as The Captain.

The ladies entered the graveyard and Mrs Mainwaring revealed Bats!, a permanent peril affecting a 6" radius area rather awkwardly positioned quite centrally.

Mrs Mainwaring and the Godfrey sisters took seven wounds between them as they moved to the left away from the cloud of bats.  On the other flank Mrs Pike and Mrs Fox revealed Van Helsing who attacked them.

Mrs Fox attempted to parley with Van Helsing but her charms failed to influence him.  Fortunately, Mrs Pike had more luck and the Professor joined their team.

Dolly Godfrey healed her sister Cissy whilst Mrs Mainwaring stumbled across Count Dracula.

Dracula inflicted six wounds on Mrs Mainwaring before flitting off to the other side of the graveyard to reappear alongside Van Helsing.  The Professor and Mrs Pike inflicted three wounds on Dracula before the Count gave the same number to Van Helsing.

With Eyes Peeled, Cissy covered Mrs Mainwaring as she revealed Count Ruthven.

Ruthven took a single wound before inflicting five wounds on Mrs Mainwaring, taking her to eleven where one more would take her out of action.  The threat level continued to rise but the whole team held their nerve.

Making a tactical retreat, Mrs Mainwaring escaped the clutches of Ruthven, called Dolly Godfrey over to heal her, and shot the vampyre with her last action, causing three wounds.  Crack shot Cissy Godfrey then finished him off.

Dracula stayed with Van Helsing who was then successful in vanquishing him.  Mrs Fox discovered Renfield but ran away as the sole person who failed the next horror check (since she was already in contact with a villain, she should have been Knocked Down rather than run away - I usually get at least one rule wrong each game!).  Renfield moved towards Mrs Pike but luckily for her, he got a misfortune roll when he attacked.

The following turn, Mrs Fox returned to the action damaging Renfield who was then finished off by Mrs Pike.  Van Helsing pressed on into the graveyard.  Dolly attempted to heal more of Mrs Mainwaring's wounds but also got a misfortune.  Mrs Mainwaring used the Spot Hidden action to check the nearest peril marker - the Countess - and Cissy proceeded to formally reveal her, confident it wasn't the remaining peril Open Grave.  

All passed the next horror check but the Countess caused three wounds on Cissy, and Count Orlok (who had appeared on Van Helsing as the threat check caused the marker to move into range) gave two wounds to Van Helsing.

Cissy escaped from combat with the Countess enabling her to use her superior shooting ability to kill her from a distance.  Mrs Mainwaring moved across the graveyard until she was in range to shoot Orlok and cause a couple of wounds.  The next threat check gave a From The Shadows result which brings another minion to attack the most isolated hero.  A random roll brought the Countess back to life to attack Dolly.  Half the team failed their horror checks and retreated a little way.  The Countess pursued Dolly but failed to injure her, and then was downed in a hail of bullets from Cissy and Mrs Mainwaring.

Mrs Fox killed Count Orlok leaving the graveyard free of villains but the heroes still had to escape the board from the far side.  They made some progress but another From The Shadows result saw Orlok back in action to inflict the final wound on Van Helsing and take him out of action.

Elizabeth shot Orlok dead but then the next threat check resulted in The Trap Is Sprung.  The remaining peril marker closed on Dolly and she fell into an Open Grave, taking seven wounds with just one to spare.  And Renfield appeared again to attack Mrs Pike.  He was shot dead by Mrs Mainwaring and the group then escaped with the threat level at nine.  Although they lost Van Helsing and both Dolly and Mrs Fox were one wound away from death, they achieved all their objectives for "a truly heroic performance".

The heroines of the hour: