Exeter Legionary

As regular readers know, there’s nothing I like better than getting in a car and driving up a dual carriageway for an hour to spend all day in a cattle shed with like-minded gentlemen before driving home again.  This weekend was no exception as I journeyed to the frozen north (Exeter) to participate in, and bring a bit of class to, the Legionary 2011 wargames event.


In fact, before we go too far, don't forget you can still win a copy of the latest Unseen Lerker magazine featuring my own article on Frugal Gaming, see the last post for details.  But hurry, you only have a few days left!

Anyway, this was the third year that I’ve visited Legionary, and it’s the third venue in that time.  There were a few criticisms of the layout last year for gamers (I didn’t participate in the tournament so I couldn’t say) but this year the venue was pretty good.  It was in an agricultural auction house on the outskirts of the city, though was nowhere as bad as you may imagine.  The large open space meant that all the gamers were in with the traders which created a good atmosphere and lots of people were wandering over from the trade stands to watch the games being played.

As with previous tournaments, I met plenty of people.  This included two of my Exeter twitter chums; Domonet and Wartrader (both well worth following) who turned out to nice guys rather than murderous psychopaths, which is always the risk of social networking.  Domonet and Wartrader were running a demonstration game of Infinity which looked very interesting, but I’m currently afraid of taking up another game system as I’d probably end up selling a kidney to fund my ridiculous gaming addiction.  But if you’re on the lookout for a new game then check it out and let me know what you think.  Of course I would be remiss to not give a big plug to Wartrader’s business; so have a look at that as well.

I also met James, who had made the epic journey from Surrey to compete in the competition (for my American readers; Surrey is a separate state, east of London Island, two timezones East of here.  Everyone there speaks like our Queen Elizabeth and drives around in Rolls Royces Automobiles).  It also happens that James’s wife had to travel to Exeter that weekend for work, but I’m sure that's just a coincidence.  James mentioned that he reads this blog (Hello) so I knew he was a man of taste.  As it turned out he also a great looking Warriors of Chaos force, which was one of the nicest painted armies I’m ever seen with my own eyes.  I’m sure that my pictures don’t do it justice, so take my word for it that his ‘Amy Winehouse’ champion conversion was superb. 

"They tried to make me go to the Realm of Chaos, I said 'No no no...'"

The bring and buy stall was well stocked and most things seemed to be reasonably, priced apart from the obligatory £100 copy of Space Hulk.  As it turns out, I did end up buying an original copy of the 40k Rogue Trader rulebook.  This was a bargain and was bought purely for nostalgic reasons, it was the first gaming product I ever saw and it opened up a whole new world to me!  Looking back over the badly rendered Space Marine drawings and crudely painted miniatures would have brought a tear to my eye if it wasn’t for the fact that I'd just sold my soul to Satan to learn to paint like James.

The bring and buy also featured this amazing 5ft long spaceship for £30.  File it under ‘Looks cool, but I’ve no reason or space for it’.

As for my games of Warhammer; I got beaten like an incontinent puppy at a carpet factory.  I did take a few of the enemy down, racking up a few hundred victory points from each game.  My overall ranking was the same as at my last tournament (second from last) but I feel that my game has improved massively in the last few months and I’ll be expecting a win or two next year.

Yeah, next year.  I’ll definitely be back to Legionary 2012 for more, a lot of the guys from the Cross Swords club agreed that it was a great tournament and we’ll be back next year.  Well done to all those who took part in the tournament and a great big ‘THANK YOU’ to all who organised and ran the event.

Happy Gaming.

PAW 2011 - Plymouth Wargames Show

The fantastic participation game presented by Cross Swords gaming club.

As you may have guessed from my incoherent ramblings on this blog, I’m not the best Warhammer player in the world.  However, I do enjoy the game so I decided to enter the local tournament which ran last weekend; the Plymouth Association of Wargamers annual show, (also known as PAW 2011).

After writing and submitting my 1000pt Army list a few weeks ago, I tried it out against Lawrence's Skaven and proceeded to lose at every opportunity, I wasn't filled with confidence.  We decided to take a trip to the Cross Swords gaming club to meet a few other gamers from the area and so that I'd recognise a few faces at the tournament.  Everyone at the club was friendly and we had a great night, we'll definately be going back for some more.

Goblin on Goblin action (mine are the ones being flanked)

Feeling a bit more positive about the whole thing, I went along to the tournament.  To cut a long story, slightly less long, I played all six of the scenarios from the rulebook over the weekend, reporting the result of each game in my twitter feed. 

Shortly before the army was eaten by a dragon.

Of all those games, I only won one; by crushing my opponents Chaos Sorcerer General in the first turn of the game with my Rocklobber (it was the Blood and Glory Scenario, so I instantly won!).  I’d had the first turn so my opponent didn’t even get a turn.  He didn’t look mightly impressed, but I got him a cup of tea, and we chalked it up to experience.  We wrote up our scores and then carried on the game as if it was a normal pitched battle.  Which he proceeded to win.

Goblins about to get eaten, again.

Alongside the gaming, there were a large number of traders present, as well as the bring and buy stall.  Obviously I did my best not to spend too much money, though a couple of small purchases were made, which I'll tell you about in future posts.  By far the most impressive sight of the day was the participation game put on by Cross Swords, which involved a huge castle being assaulted.  The photos don't do justice to the scale of the model and I'll direct you all to some better photographs as they become available.

This castle was huge!  Constructed from Hirst Arts blocks, it must have taken months to complete.

Overall it was a great weekend, I saw some great armies and met some great gamers.  From a Frugal perspective, it was also a success.  For £15 I had two days of gaming against a range of opponents as well as the opportunity to talk about the hobby and discuss painting and strategies with the others who were there.

Oh, just in case you were wondering, I came came 23rd out of 24 players.  Better than I expected.

Happy Gaming.

Oh My Gob!

I feel that I've passed a milestone this last week or so.  As many of you know I’ve been working on my Goblin army for Warhammer for over a year now, and progress has at times been slow.  However, over Christmas I made a big push to get it all finished and I’m now pretty much there.  I’ve got 2400pts worth of greenskins, about 95% of which are painted to some degree.
Now I’m not making any great claims to my painting or modelling skills, but there are a couple of bits and pieces that I’m quite happy with.

Night Goblin Big Boss on Gigantic Spider

Squig (Maggot) Hoppers

Fanatics

Squig Herd

Rock Lobber Crew

Rock Lobber

There's still a few little bits to get finished, like basing and a couple of coats of matt varnish.  But, like the semifinals of a TV talent show, the pain and suffering is almost over.

When I started assembling the army, my intention was to build a full Night Goblin Army.  I didn’t do this for a couple of reasons, the first was that in the job lot of gobbos I bought there were a load of orcs that needed using.  Secondly, after getting spanked numerous times, the addition of a few bigger meaner warriors couldn’t hurt.  I’m still losing games, but at least I’m taking a few of the enemy with me.

I’ve played about a dozen games with my army and found it to be fantastic fun.  Magic is pretty powerful; the greenskins have their own miscast table, and the infamous 'Staff of Sneaky Stealin' which adds one of your opponents power dice to your dispel pool.  The animosity rule does mean that units can go running off on their own or just plain refuse to do what you ask which can be like herding cats, but then I like cats, so that’s okay.

From a Frugal point of view, I think I've managed to put together a good, fun army for a reasonable price (about £100 in total).  I've already had a year's worth of fun painting and modelling it and I'm sure I'll have many more years of entertainment (and disappointment) playing the army.  Well worth the investment.

Happy Gaming (and don't forget to follow me on twitter)

Some updates...

Just a quick update to let you all know that I'm experimenting with a twitter feed.  If you're a twitter user you can follow me and get updates on all the nonsense I've been up to.  If you don't use twitter, you can read my latest tweets using the box on the right.  If you've never heard of twitter and think 'we're all going to hell in a handcart' then get off the interweb Granddad, leave it to the kids...

In other news, you've probably noticed the change to the format of the blog, there's still a few changes that need making (such as the pixellated picture) so please bear with me!

All the best

Dave