FallCon 2019

This past weekend, I went on my annual visit to Calgary for the FallCon gaming convention. This was the third year that they've had the convention at SAIT, and I've gotten used to the new location and parking opportunities.

On Friday night, I went to the Calgary DBA players' hosted event. This was a refight of the battle of Telamon, between Romans and Gauls. There were several tables depicting the same battle in different scales.

I played the 2 mm version of the battle. The miniatures were near invisible, but they provided a good sense of scale. I lost the battle as the Romans from some pretty unlucky dice, but it was a lot of fun.

On Saturday morning, I ran a game of Imperial Skies with my newly painted aircraft miniatures. The scenario called for a Royal Navy aethership fleet to chase down an Irish pirate ship and locate its hidden base.

When the game started, the British ships were in hot pursuit of their target, the Fenian Ram, and managed to damage it rather badly.

The Fenian Ram deployed its fighters to harass the pursuing British destroyers while it made its escape.

With the British ships distracted by the fighters, the Fenian Ram was able to damage, then destroy, several of them.

Here, a light cruiser went down in flames.

 A destroyer was also shot down.

Eventually, the British fleet closed in on the pirate base, but we ran out of time and had to call the game. Unfortunately, I didn't design the scenario objectives quite right, and the Fenian players simply flew their ship around without landing in the base, which didn't give the British players enough opportunity to locate it before time ran out. This probably made it too difficult for them.

Later on Saturday, I participated in the annual Alberta DBA Open tournament. The dice were not with me that day, and along with some bad decision-making, I lost quite badly. I did play against some nicely painted armies though.

This weekend turned out to be quite cold in Calgary, and it was snowing most of the time. On Sunday morning, the streets looked like this.

I played in Dennis' Flames of War introductory game, with a scenario set in the African desert between the British and the Germans.

Due to the game's rather ahistorical rules, our side, the British players, started the game aggressively close to the German tanks in the middle of the table. This allowed us to take out some Panzer IVs early on, which made the game easier later.

In the end, our side took a lot of tank losses, but managed to destroy enough German units to make them reach a breaking point and lose the game. This was my second time playing this game, but it gave me the same impression that I had the first time - it's a good game, but not that historically accurate or realistic.

All in all, this was another great weekend spent on gaming.

Preparation for FallCon

This weekend, I'll be going to the annual FallCon gaming convention in Calgary. For the Victorian Science Fiction air combat game that I'm going to run, I painted some extra miniatures for the scenario. All of the miniatures are from Brigade Models for their Imperial Skies/Aeronef line.

Some British heavy bombers. I think these have an excellent "retro" look with their twin-body designs.

Some light fighters. These are so small that I had trouble painting their emblems, but from a distance they look fine.

Some mediums sized fighters that I use as generic pirate/smuggler units with no national insignia.

A size comparison between an aeronef ship and the medium fighters. These things are quite small.

With these done, I'm getting ready to go to Calgary tomorrow.

More Fantasy Painting Updates

I actually finished my dwarf army for the Kings of War tournament at Mayday. However, I didn't fully finish basing the second half of the army. So I recently took some time to do that and complete the rest of my force.

The unit of bear riders that I use as proxy for a regiment of badgers. 240 pts.

Regular earth elementals. 130 pts each for two units.

Dwarf muskets regiment with brew of keen-eyeness.  155 + 30 = 185 pts.

Two organ guns. 85 pts each.

A stone priest with bane chant. 105 + 15 = 120 pts.

Also along the way, I painted these two Reaper Bones hellhounds. I can just use them in whatever fantasy game I need as generic monsters.

Kings of War Painting Update

After approximately one month of painting miniatures for the upcoming Kings of War tournament, I've completed exactly 750 pts. I haven't been able to spend too much time on this, but I think the pace is just enough to finish the army by then.

The first unit of Dwarf Ironclad with mastiff - 120 pts.

The second unit, same as above - 120 pts.

 The first unit of Dwarf crossbows - 135 pts.

 The second unit of crossbows - 135 pts.

The Dwarf bear-rider hero - 240 pts.

I'll be continuing on to the rest of the army this month.

Painting for Kings of War

In order to build an army for a Kings of War tournament at this year's Mayday, I'm starting to paint a bunch of units in the coming two months. Most of these are EM-4 dwarves (old Grenadier plastics), many with conversions.

 A crossbow regiment at 135 pts.

Another crossbow regiment at the same points value.

An ironclad regiment with throwing mastiffs at 110+10 pts.

Another regiment at the same points value.

A regiment of riflemen with Brew of Keen-eyeness at 155+30 pts.

A stone priest with bane chant at 105+15 pts.

A brock-rider regiment with Aegis of the Elohi (210+25pts) - however, I'm using a smaller number of bear-riders to represent the same unit. I'm using the unique model on the right to represent Sveri Egilax, a named brock-rider hero. (240 pts)

I'll be posting painted photos as I get through these.

Various Fantasy

For the upcoming Frostgrave campaign, I started to dabble in 28 mm fantasy miniatures again. By far, the easiest (on the wallet) option is Reaper Bones these days, although the D&D unpainted line of miniatures is also giving them a run for the money. My miniatures are mostly a mix of these two product lines.

For my Frostgrave warband, I decided on a dwarf-themed group, with a core of dwarves along with other hired "helpers".

My wizard is an enchanter, along with his rather buxom apprentice. Both of these are Reaper Bones miniatures.

In Frostgrave, the enchanter can create constructs, obedient machines animated using magic. In this case, I have small, medium, and large constructs that are supposed to be rock-like creatures. The small and large constructs in the foreground are from the World of Warcraft boardgame, while the medium construct is Reaper Bones.

For some shootiness, I have a couple of crossbowmen. One of them is a dwarf ranger figure, and the other is a derro (i.e. "dark dwarf"). Both are Reaper Bones again.

For cannon-fodder, I mean, more valuable members of the group, here are two more Reaper Bones derros used as thugs.

For sneaking around, these are a couple of halfing thieves. These are D&D unpainted miniatures, which are much slimmer in build compared to Reaper.

Some more extra characters. In this case, they can fill in as a man-at-arms, a templar, and a treasure hunter, respectively, as needed. All of these are again Reaper Bones.

For both Frostgrave and other fantasy games, I also painted up some trolls, in case they are needed. These are actually 1/72 scale fantasy figures, but they are big enough that they can pass as 28 mm trolls.

Here is a size comparison with a 28 mm figure. These 1/72 trolls are still big enough to be a threat to a human-sized 28 mm figure.

I also painted up a Reaper giant worm, just because I like the model. This is a gorgeous piece of sculpting to paint.

The first Frostgrave game is coming up right away on Sunday, and I can't wait.