Wrapping up the year

Despite the demands of holiday travel, I managed to cram a couple more games into 2012. Last Friday, a number of HAWKs gathered at one of members' abode for a traditional post-Christmas pre-New Year's game. This year it was Germans vs. British using Battles by G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T, a favorite set of Victorian Science Fiction rules, featuring a plethora of ponderous and less-than-reliable steam-powered vehicles. (Given that the year was 1910, I suppose it should technically be more like Edwardian Science Fiction, but for some reason that has less of a ring to it...)

German lancers, supported by the ill-fated Panzerkreuzschlüsselspaziergänger

British troops advance on the town.

Dreibeinigenkaffeedose overruns British field gun.

My poor spider-walker inched its way into position only to be blown up by a single shot from a massive British steam tank. When I brought my artillery up to retaliate, I thought I had exacted my revenge when the tank rolled a '20' on its save (a critical failure in G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T). Unfortunately, a roll on the results table determined that I merely set off the tank's main gun--not at all the intended effect! Despite the poor showing on my part the game ended as a draw, as the British only managed to capture one of their two objectives.

The second game of the Holiday Interstitial Period took place on Sunday, when four of my college friends came down for a game day. In between some bouts of Settlers of Catan and Cosmic Encounter, we set up a four-player Hordes of the Things game using some of my 20mm armies, with myself serving as gamemaster/mostly-impartial referee. (At least two of my players had some prior HotT experience, so I put them on opposite sides. Strangely, it was my "experienced" players who seemed to rack up the bulk of the casualties...)

One side took the Antediluvians and their usual foes the Dinotopians; the other side took the Mongols and a "Last Alliance of Elves & Men" mix of medievals with a small contingent of elvish archers. The Antediluvians and the Dinotopians were on the defense, and managed to hold off their opponents--though the Dinotopians had somewhat mixed luck against the medievals, the Antediluvian pikes proved more than a match for the Mongols' yakatheriums, as an attempted outflanking maneuver by the Mongols foundered for lack of command points.

Commanders consider their initial deployment.

Some early maneuvering.

 The knights pursued the retreating spinosaur... and were promptly destroyed.

Fall In! 2011

We made a very brief trip up to Fall In! today--the third (and smallest) of the three HMGS conventions, this year held at the Lancaster Host. Strangely enough, this is only the second Fall In! I have ever attended, as previous years I have been occupied with school.

Upon arriving at about 9:00 a.m. this morning, I dropped right into one of Chris Palmer's G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T games, leading a French expeditionary force through the steamy jungles of mist-shrouded Venus, where we met with an ambush. Fortunately, the brute strength and primitive cunning of the reptilian natives proved no match for our élan. (Not to mention our bolt-action rifles...)

The Legion, with one of its steam walkers.

As we approached this vine-tangled ruin, hideous cries echoed through the mist, and the native Parrotmen and Lizardmen burst forth from the jungle.

This monstrous beast managed to topple the lead steam walker, and it took several volleys of rifle fire to bring it down.

If they had managed to reach our lines, blades and fangs might have wrought havoc among the regulars, but our fire broke the force of their charge, and the few survivors faded back into the mists as suddenly as they had appeared.

After that, I had some time to look through the Flea Market and the Dealer's Hall, where I picked up a couple of things--most notably a box of the Italeri Mongol Command figures to add some excitement to the armies of the east.

However, the unseasonably cold weather led to our early departure--the forecast for Lancaster had called for 3-5 inches of snow, and lo! snow there was:

As Dad had some other plans for this evening, it was deemed prudent to depart before the roads became difficult--and thus ends the convention report, such as it was.

Painting has been slow this week--I am now four units behind schedule, and it is unlikely that I will catch up in the next two days, so it may be that this burst of productivity has trailed off for now. Still, I did manage to finish off a few more units:

 The orcish Warband has been sitting around half-painted for quite a while, so it is nice to have them finished off at last. And the second stand is a Knight General for Dargograd--more of the Orion Khazars. I was looking to pick up another box of these at Fall In!, but none were to be had, though there were plenty of the Pechenegs & Cumans.

I do have a couple of stands I hope to do up over the next couple of days, so perhaps I can end the month on a high note--I'd like to take a crack at those Mongols, but I've also got a few Behemoths who have been waiting for some larger (60x60mm) bases, which we now have...

Giant yaks with howdahs!