Cars & Touchdowns - February Gaming

 

Been a while since I posted here, but then it's been a while since I did anything miniature-related.  I haven't played much or painted much recently - for the usual mixture of faintly pathetic reasons.  A winter bug that kept me off work and in bed a couple of days; work for my Justice League RPG reaching it's finale; a weekend away in Edinburgh visiting the Games Masters museum...

And some of you probably thought Warren Spector was only relevant to computer game nerds... but he also did some RPG work.

 I also managed to knacker my hand for a bit when, emerging from a pharmacy of all places, I slipped on an ice patch and fell backwards.  No serious injury - nothing broken, as I discovered after waiting in A&E - but it's still a little sensitive and I'm still struggling to carry anything heavy in just that hand.

God, I HATE slippidy slidy ice levels. both electronic and real life.

However this is the week to catch up, because I have taken a week off work with Sister Superior.  We aren't going anywhere, just having a lazy time in the house.... and 40K Dave, when he found about that, jumped at the chance to meet up and play some nerdy games with me of a Tuesday afternoon.

 So read on as I play two games for the first time: Dark Future and Dreadball Xtreme

Crazy Quail

"Hi, I'm Malfunctioning Eddie, and I'm malfunctioning so badly, I'm practically giving these cars away!!!"

 I don't need any more figures.  I mean, I don't "need" any figures in any real sense, but I have more than enough in the to-do list to keep me from needing to buy anything else so my hobby budget should be kept to paint and similar consumables with the occasional rulebook now and then.

Alas, that's not how it works in NerdWorld, and so I found myself purchasing something I've read about but never bought before - one of Mantic Games' Crazy Boxes.

Lots of toys, little control

An annual Christmas-ish tradition, Mantic put up Crazy Boxes which are basically lucky dips from their miniatures collection.  The box costs £25 this year but the random odds and ends one gets should make it worth about £75 in real terms - so as long as you find a use for some of them you're ahead and it's a ready source of bits for converting, swapping etc.

There's a certain thrill from a random purchase like this.  I used to pick up randomised CCG card packets and randomised pre-painted miniatures and I remember a non-nerdy friend of mine understanding it surprisingly quickly: "George, it's basically gambling". 

Although they do a general one that mixes sci-fi and fantasy figures, I plumped for the sci-fi version hoping that I'd get enough usable in both 40K and Dreadball to make it worth my while. My fantasy needs are more specific - Chaos Dwarf proxies or nothing - whereas I can find more value out of a mixture of sci-fi figures, or at least pass them onto chums who might use them in their own armies.

This was ordered back on Boxing Day but of course the Christmas rush to buy stuff and the days the mail was shut meant this took a while to get here.  Now it is here, though, let's bust this box open!

My 2015 Objectives

Last year I posted a list of objectives for 2014.  An examination will show I acheived very little - I got the start of a Chaos Dwarf army ready but it's not yet enough to use, and while I technically have a Horus Heresy-able Emperors Children army it's still a bit bare bones. 

What follows is another such list for 2015, very similar in places, showing what my agenda is for the upcoming year.  The following is a large list and completing them all is not likely but gives an idea of what I'm interested in and what my order of prioritisation is.

Of Polish Bits, Nottingham Games And Nineties Goths

Why did no-one tell teenage George about this film?  Why?

 

Saturday was Sister Superior's birthday so I took Friday off work and spent a long weekend mostly dedicated to her.  Her presents included The Craft, a 1996 movie she was very fond of as a young lady but I'd never seen myself.  

I just about managed to avoid mind-cheating on the girlfriend for..... thirty seconds at a time?  Maybe twenty seconds?  Fairuza Balk in particular made focusing on chaste thoughts difficult.....

 

We are the weirdos, mister."

 However, this post isn't just for me to talk about how I thought obscene thoughts about goth girls.  No, it's to talk about two packages which came in the mail for me on Thursday...

One big box delivered on Thursday morning, one little box I had to go to the post office to collect.

One Week of Nerdity

Look, ma! A music joke!

Good news, everyone!  I'm on holiday all this week, which means me and Sister Superior have a nice breather.  It's been pretty hectic at work so I'm glad for an escape, and of course it's always good to have time off for Halloween so I can nerd it up something rotten over the period.

Anyway, I've been up to a multitude of nerdy things in the past week - including, finally, getting back to work on the missile silo.  Pictures and comments follow!

Where Everybody Knows Your Name (And Armour Class)

The secret doorway to Glasweigan nerdity

The cooler amongst you might be more interested in tonight's football drubbing, but I had my own sportsball experience today - a game of Dreadball with my mate Stuart.

Stuart found himself with some time free - his family are away from the house so he asked if we could meet up for some sort of card or board game.  I suggested introducing him to Dreadball and we met at in the center of town at Geek Retreat.

Geek Retreat is a relatively modern part of Glasgow's nerd culture and, on the outside, looks rather unimpressive.  Especially when we already have so many comic book shops (three around the city centre alone) you may wonder quite what the point of another one is.  But then you go in the door, down the stairs and discover.....

Maybe I should have a "spot the nerd reference" game for this photo

... a coffee shop filled with geeky paraphernalia.  Cakes, hot chocolate and paninis sit alongside magic cards, comics and action figures.  There's regular meetings to play CCGs, computer games, board games, RPGs etc.  Geek Retreat has been a huge success - for a city as hard-drinking as Glasgow, a city centre social spot working without a drinks license is a big surprise - and it's really come into its own.

Anyway, into this building regular 40K opponent Stuart pulled up a chair, bought me a rocky road and learned the futuristic sports game.

One Week, Three Games: Dreadball

LET'S GET REAAAAAAADYYYYYYY TO RUMMMMMMMBLLLLLLLE

Sunday afternoon saw me meet up with Charles, a member of my regular RPG group and occasional Warhammer opponent, for two games of Dreadball.  I brought my Dreadball game and my case full o' miniatures to his house - he has a couple of teams himself and we had time for two games back to back.
First game, I made up a new Forge Father roster - the Ferrobeasts - and Charles brought out The Heralds, his Judwan team, for their first ever game.  Charles insists that I apologise because he's something of a painting perfectionist and his figures are in a somewhat erratic state as he experiments with paint schemes.

Take Me Out To The Dreadball Game...

One two three.... goooooooooo Omega!

Ailsa has been off work the past fortnight and I've been itching to use the time to play something with her.  Alas, she had sensible things that needed doing - revising for a course or  preparing for a job interview - which meant that my hoped-for game of Dreadball only occured on Sunday afternoon as she prepared to go back to work.

Ailsa chose her human team the Omega Raiders who have risen quite notably in strength: 4 coaching dice, 2 cards and five players at rank 2.  I would be once again taking Deimos Athletic and the Forge Fathers who are just under thirty mega-credits below the opposition but had a Keeper in their arsenal now - a muscley Guard who can also punt the ball down-field like a football goalkeeper. 

Starting layout showing Guards, Strikers, Jacks & the solitary Keeper.

 This matchup has occured twice before and The Streak has remained unbeaten - my strength may be better, but the Humans are faster.  Will things go different this time or will I once again slump off defeated?

Dreadball Battle Report: Alpha Sigma Squeakers vs The Daft Punks

How appropriate we should play this again on Superbowl night.

Another Dreadball game, another attempt to beat The Streak.  Ailsa and I have played six times now, using various combinations of five teams and yet I can't seem to get a win over her.  I've beaten Aaron and Charles - but Ailsa remains the hurdle. Can I win today?

In Sunday's game she's used the same Skaven Veer-Myn team as last time, though the team rating isn't actually that high - only 111 as much of her victory cash was lost regaining a player I killed last time.  My team are the Daft Punks, an Orx & Goblins team with a match under their belts but no advancements beyond the starting layout.  This gives me a team rating of 100, so I get a free random player to balance this out: Human Jack in hand, we dished out cards, tokens & dice before setting up.

Dreadball Battle Report: Alpha Sigma Squeakers vs Deimos Athletic

I got my first nerdy game of the new year in yesterday evening.  My girlfriend Ailsa and I sat down to a game of Dreadball, the science fiction sports game.  For those of you unfamiliar with it, Dreadball is oft likened to a science fiction Blood Bowl (or, if you prefer, a boardgame version of Speedball) though mechanically it plays quite different.  For those of you unfamiliar with me, I enjoy Dreadball but have yet to beat my girlfriend at a game of it.  In an entire year, every game against her has seen me lose.  Will 2014 be the year I beat the streak?

Dreadball differs from Blood Bowl in play in a rather vital way - the game doesn't restart with a new kick-off after every point is scored, but instead the ball simply shoots out in the middle of the pitch with players remaining where they are.  This means that marching your whole team down the table in a "cage" isn't a viable strategy since it leaves your own side defenseless.  Combine with less distance to travel to reach scoring locations and multiple scoring locations worth different points (so the more awkward a location you go for, the more points its worth) the game goes much faster.

Deimos Athletic (Forge Fathers, Brown) and Alpha Sigma Squeakers (Veer-Myn, Green) on first turn setup.  I've gone for harder punchy players up front, whereas she's kept her muscle in the middle and put faster, weaker ball-handlers on the half-way line.

Let's play ball!

My 2014 Objectives

The big point of this blog is to track my progress on my Hobby Goals for 2014.  So, the big question is: what are those goals?  The following is a large list and completing them all is not likely but gives an idea of what I'm interested in and what my order of prioritisation is.