Battle Gaming One Seattle Visit -- Meeples Games

Hi everyone,

We are in Seattle for the 2014 Thanksgiving Holiday - and after looking for a fun game store to visit, we stumbled upon Meeples - a game store where you can eat food and play games!

Here is the store link:  http://meeplesgames.com/

One cool thing is that Meeples Games is up on the 2nd floor - so the store is quite large.  Lots of space for selling games, playing games and playing while eating.  (For us 40K fans, there is a whole back room with tables ready for terrain!)

Meeples Games has the whole 2nd floor of this building.  Ton of space!

We took the plunge and bought the D&D Attack Wing.  We'll have to wait for a battle of X-wings or TIE fighters against dragons until we get home - but while in Seattle we can practice with the dragons.

Meeples turned out to be great.  We love our game stores at home - but it was really cool to find a game store where we could order up lunch while we played a game of X-wing (using one of the store's many in-store boxes).

Here we are getting ready to play X-wing - the counter and kitchen are in the background!

We played a quick game with Luke's X-wing against a Black Squadron Pilot and an Academy Pilot.  The deck was stacked pretty heavily in Luke's favor - but we were OK with that, since we were mainly trying to explain the basics of the game to our honored family member(s) who had joined :)

Sure enough it was fun to play while eating lunch.  Everybody was happy - veggie things for the older ones of us; sandwiches (even gluten free options) for the younger ones of us.

Luke made short order of the two underpowered TIE fighters.  (To be expected, but was still fun.)

"Help - this is Imperial Cadet YK-431.  Need back-up!!  X-wing has me in its sights!  Aaaagh!!!"

After playing X-wing over lunch we chatted with the store owner about several other games which sound interesting....

- King of Tokyo.  The Meeples team suggested that this would be a really fun and quick game to play over lunch.  We went with X-wing - but very glad to know about a game which is quick and fun.  Sounds like in this one you get to play monsters attacking buildings ??

Meeples Games store copy of King of Tokyo

- Golem Arcana.  We got to see what was inside the demo box.  Very cool figures, maps and cards.  Sounds like you play with a "reader pen" which you use to determine how the game goes -- and you use an iPhone or iPad App to keep the game flowing.  (Almost as if the iPad takes the place of a Game Master, maybe?)

The starter box for Golem Arcana

- Marvel Dice Masters.  We chatted about this as well.  It looks very fun - lots of fun colored dice.  From Meeples' website can see that they have tournaments of this quite often....

Update:

Our top-secret Seattle informant just sent us this photo from the Seattle Times about Meeples Games (we're not the only ones who liked it)....

 

Warhammer 40K -- Old School Warhammer Models (Blood Angels)

Hi everyone,

Yesterday we got a bunch of cool "old school" Warhammer 40K things from Mrs. D off craigslist.  (Mrs. D sold them for a friend whose son was no longer into Warhammer 40K.)  Was a bit of a long drive to get them - but lots of fun (the drive and playing with the new things).

Here was the craigslist post image from Mrs. D

Getting the Blood Angels - and the single squad of Ork Boyz out of their boxes kept the trip home lively.  When we stopped (for lunch) we set up some quick battle scenarios on the back deck of the car...

Battle set up on the back deck of the car

A few things we noticed as we pawed through our new army additions....

1) "In the old days" the paint names were great (very good for beginning people like us).  No questions about which model gets painted "Ultramarines Blue".

Paints with straightforward names like Skull White, Blood Red, Dark Angels Green, etc... 

Blood red spray paint!

2) The boxes were pretty cool.  They had inner boxes - with outer shells.  Unlike today, can imagine keeping your finished models inside (in case they needed to sit in the closet or garage for a bit.)Also noticed that the names of things have changed a bit over time.  "Space Orks" has been shortened to "Orks".

Here's an old Blood Angels Box - with inner lining box

And, a Space Ork Boyz "Battle Squad" box.  (We did get some barrels - maybe they came with the Space Ork Boyz....)

And, the box set - maybe this is where the metal models came from?

3) Mrs. D's friend's son has posters.  Here's a picture of a great one with Predator tanks and their internal construction.  This one is going up on the wall!

Predator tank poster

4) The metal figures feel REALLY substantial.  It was a fun puzzle figuring out which arms and backpacks had gone with which models.  And, we had to donate a few extras from our pile of bits.  But, we got everyone back into working shape!

The tactical squad models are metal - a little bit of battlefield first aid required to get the unit back into fighting shape....

5) Blood Angels are super colorful.  Wonder if this bright red fades on people - and if we're lucky that these were sitting in a garage somewhere.  Regardless, they are bright red right now.

Super bright Blood Angels, Tank and Land Speeder

6) It's cool to have gotten a box set with some scenery in it - this will likely get us motivated.

Here's the inside of the box-set.  We haven't resurrected the trees yet - that'll be our next challenge.

7) The Space Marines at our house now grossly outnumber the Orks (especially the Pink Orks).  Going to make things tough for the Orks!!

The single squad of Ork Boyz is ready to take on the Blood Angels and their battle brother Ultramarines!

Close up view of the battle....

One more view of the battle.... 

 

We're now pretty inspired after seeing these Blood Angels to work on decals for the Ultramarines we've already gotten.  Watched a few videos on Youtube - and saw that there is stuff to put under the decal.  Wondering if this is what helps prevent the puckering of the decal?

D&D Attack Wing -- Watched demo play -- looked fun

Hi everyone,

While at Game Kastle in Fremont this Wednesday we watched a couple of people there playing D&D Attack Wing (their first game).

http://wizkidsgames.com/dnd/

A few things were pretty striking....

#1 - it's a LOT like X-wing (which makes sense since it uses the same system - just as the Star Trek game does)

#2 - the dragon models are really cool looking

#3 - the points look pretty similar to X-wing points

This all has us thinking - wouldn't it be fun to figure out some way to play with Star Wars fighters and D&D dragons at the same time.

Might be a bit crazy - but also might be fun to try.  (We were thinking that this might be even more cool if we played it with a Warhammer 40K terrain or table-top.)

Pretty sure we'll discuss this more and then maybe try it out :)

Warhammer 40K -- League Play Week 3 [How to remember things!!!]

Hi everyone,

We've just wrapped up week #3 of our league play.  Week #3 of the progressive scheme - 1500 points - actually took us 2 weeks of playing.

Battle #1 was against Mr. M's Space Marines -- super close, but we lost.

Battle #2 was against Mr. Z's Eldar -- not as close, and we lost.

In particular, Battle #2 left us wondering:  What we can do to make sure we remember things!!!
- We had Grot Riggers in our vehicles -- forgot to use them each and every time
- Completely forgot to have our Ork Boyz assault once
- Completely forgot to have our Morkanaut move and shoot once
Arrrrgh!  I'm sure this happens to all Ork Bosses - and wonder how much they feel frustration when it does....

Ideas for Remembering:

- Mr. Z had a very cool suggestion to put a VERY BRIGHTLY COLORED Grot onto each vehicle which has Grot riggers.  This would be easy to implement, and just might do the trick

- Also wonder about making a checklist....  We could put down the timing for each thing we tend for forget.  (Grot riggers aren't the only thing we forget.  Forget to think about calling a Waaagh! as well.)

- Thinking about it -- the old Checklist idea is one which worked pretty well for us in Battletech.  We created a visual way to keep track of turns by marking different colors (one per turn) on the 'Mech sheets.  [Here's a link to that Blog posting.]  Seems that many people have good luck using dice for this sort of thing.  But, maybe for us, it's the old Clipboard and Checklist ??

Here's an example checklist with many of the things we tend for forget....

 

 

Battle #1 - Space Marine Civil War!  [Against Mr. M's Space Marines]

 

In this battle we used a 1500 point Space Marine list.  Three tank vehicles, bikes, 2 squads of scouts, veterans, librarian and captain HQs.

 

We knew we were in trouble when the Land Raider blew up turn #1.  But, we were able to fight back. 

 

Here's our initial line-up -- with Mr. M's drop-pod landing near our lines!  (And, bummer - there's a Dreadnought inside.)

 

The scouts perched on top of a building did a great job.  Especially the ones with sniper rifles.  Also very cool was the Thunderfire Cannon we snuck into the basement.  Probably one of these gets the MVP for our side.

 

Here are our Scouts on the roof; Thunderfire Cannon in the basement

 

Our Dreadnaught did a good job in close combat.

 

 

Here is our Dreadnought in close combat with Mr. M's Warlord.

 

And, in the end, the battle hinged on the fact that Mr. M had 1 stealthy Marine on our side of the 12 inch line for a Line Breaker point!

 

Battle #2 - Fighting the Mr. Z's Eldar Titan

 

Aside from the grumbling earlier about (one of us) failing to remember stuff - we did successfully try several new things in this battle:

 

- We used the Great Waaagh! Detachment and had the Tellyporta "Deep" Strike for several of our units.  Amazingly the Morkanaut and the Battlewagon had the rolls of "6" needed!!!

 

- We went heavy on Nobs instead of Boyz in this battle.  Not sure we would do that again.  Ghazghkull Thraka with Boyz is pretty sweet.

 

Here are our Killli-Kans making their way past the cool scenery!

 

Regretfully we didn't make it into close-combat with very many units in this battle.  Mr. Z was very clever moving his forces around to prevent that.

 

A photo of what was probably our best moment is below.  GT and his crew took out Mr. Z's tank - and then moved on to take out one squad of his troops along with his Warlord.

 

Our best moment - Ghazghkull Thraka in close combat!

 

We did get Linebreaker points thanks to the Trukk whose Boyz lived through the battle.  (Though if GT could have gotten to them he probably would have shot them himself for forgetting to charge the Titan when they had the chance!!)

 

Here is the Pink Orky's Trukk - charging up the right side of the battlefield...

 

In the end, things came down to the Morkanaut fighting Mr. Z's Titan.  Maybe things could have gone differently with different dice rolls.  The "Mork" still had plenty of fight in it when the game ended at the end of Turn 5.

 

 

The big battle at the end!  The Morkanaut was immobilized - very cool of Mr. Z to jump his Titan over and fight "hand-to-hand"!!

 

Thanks to Mr. M and Mr. Z for the very fun battles!



 

Warhammer 40K -- Dakka Chugga Update

Hi everyone,

The Dakka Chugga is making steady progress.  Here are the big steps forward....

[Here is a link to our "fluff fuction Chapta 1 - of the Pink Orks finding the hulk of the Dakka Chugga:  http://battlegaming1.blogspot.com/p/warhammer-40k.html]

1) Decided (with some amount of back and forth) which Lionel steam engine and tender combination to chop up and have the Pink Orks "loot."

Here were our options for the Dakka Chugga.  We made one look rusty (the one the Pink Orks "discovered" - and we're looting another one).

Here's the selected Dakka Chugga - ready to start work!

2) Created a "shop plan."  Turns out that the Pink Orkys had a Big Mek helping them out - and he had several ideas of what should be done.

A Tyranid is trying out the Tenda.  Coal is removed.  We'll make a box to hold the 'Nid Bits - and the set up an Ork Boy or Grot to chuck the 'Nid Bits into the Burna.

3) Some very helpful responses on Dakka Dakka helped us have more Orky Bits for the looting process.

4) Tyranids....  We decided that the "fluff" of the story would be that a group of Tyranids attacked the Pink Orkys just as they discovered the Dakka Chugga's rusting hulk.  A battle ensued -- with the Pink Orks triumphant in their pink armor glory.  Then, came the bright idea to burn the Tyranids as fuel in the Dakka Chugga!  All good - but we needed some Tyranids that we could pile up in the tender.  Bought a bunch of quite broken ones from eBay (didn't seem right to chop up perfectly good Tyranids).  So, we have them painted and in rough working order to stage the battle (going to try today)!!  Then, YES - we will CHOP 'EM UP and STUFF 'EM IN DA TENDA!

 Here are the Tyranids we got from eBay.  Here we've primed them - but haven't gotten limbs back on yet.

 

Here are our Tyranids pieced back together and painted.  We had to used some arms to fashion legs - but it's not too obvious in this picture (is it??).  We tried out air-brushing to paint them quickly.  The Pink Orky's Deff Dread in the background....

5) Lighting electronics.  We have the lighting board for LEDs to make the fire-box light up (with the burning 'Nids).  Had really nice conversations with Chris who runs this company - great guy - board works EXTREMELY well.  One change - the Big Mek didn't know just how full the Dakka Chugga is with hardware.  He was thinking to put the lighting board and battery into the Chugga itself.  Instead, going to mount those in the Tenda and run wiring back to the Chugga.  (Here's a link to Powered Play Gaming.)

Here our lighting package - really easy to use :)

6) Sound electronics.  Still need to get the sound board.  Thinking to get this one.  Then can play Ozzie "Crazy Train" and other good Ork music as the Dakka Chugga steams (charges) forward into battle!  (Here is a link to the Voodoo Fx board we are planning to use.)

7) Looting!!  We have a turret built for the Dakka Chugga.  It's fashioned out of Orky Bits, Bomb parts and some random tank parts we had accumulated.  Have a Trukk driver type guy in the turret.  Fashioned a gun sight for him (not that he needs it with his Ballistic Skill of 2!!)

Some of our first work "Looting" the Dakka Chugga - lots more to do.  Needs far more points, spikes and Ork Teknology on it!

Anyway - it's coming along - appreciated all of the support when we first thought about this.  Goal is to have this running by Winter Holiday time.  After all - it will run on Lionel Track!!  So, yes, indeed we can have a Pink Ork Waaagh! around the Christmas Tree :)

Warhammer 40K -- All of the Ghazghkull Rules

Hi everyone,

After playing last week, we were struck by the number of rules sending us back and forth in the Ork Codex for Ghazghkull Thraka.  So, decided to make a bit of a "cheat sheet" to help us remember everything.

Well - then we started reading the GT supplement and it really started getting deep.

[And, it seemed like a really good idea to know all of the rules - because even though he's 225 points, we seem to have pretty good luck with Ghazghkull.]

Please let us know if you see errors in our thinking (pretty sure there are lots of them)....  [For example, we can't figure out what a Waaagh Banner is - and where the rules are for points for one.]

Wargear:

• Cybork body (pg 98)
• Means Feels No Pain 6+
• (But if we use our Dok, then this is a Feels no Pain 5+)
• Mega armour (pg 99)
• Means 2+ Armor save, Bulky and Slow and Purposeful
• Means no running (except for in a Waaagh)
• Big shoota (pg 96)
• Standard Big Shoota
• Power klaw (pg 93)
• Standard Power klaw
• Bosspole (pg 98)
• Means We have re-rolls on the Mob Rule
• Stikkbombs (pg 98)
• Standard Skikkbombs

Special Rules:

• ‘Ere we go (pg 92)
• Eternal Warrior
• Means Instant Death drops to 1 Wounds vs. 0 Wounds
• Furious Charge
• Means Adds +1 to Strength until end of Assault phase
• Only if an “Orderly Charge”
• Independent Character
• Mob Rule (pg 92)
• Waaagh!

Warlord Trait:

• Prophet of the Waaagh! (pg 92)
• When calling Waaagh, since has Waaagh special rule – he and all friendly units with ‘Ere We Go are Fearless until start of next turn
• Prophet of Gork and Mork
• If GT is your warlord, when he calls a Waaagh! then
• Means GT gains 2+ Inv save until start of next turn
• Means GT and others in mega armour can ru

Runts and Squigs

• These seems like a great way (for only a few points) to extend what GT can do.  A re-roll of a critical shot or attack....
• Maybe even more vital is adding these to our Dok ??

 One wound down, but still charging forward at the end of our last battle....

PS:  Are the rules for GT having a strong head and its bonuses still valid?  Or were those from an older Codex?  (We're guessing older Codex - but we just watched a sequence about this on Youtube.) 
 

Warhammer 40K -- League Play Week 2

Hi everyone,

Here is a quick write-up on the events in our Warhammer 40K League -- week #2.

Quick summary:
- We played 1000 points this time.
- We brought the "Pink Orkys" and "Yellow Orkys" Ork Army again.
- Had two battle sessions.  Played the League Leader - Mr. L; Played Mr. M one more time.
- Through an assortment of helpful teaching by Mr. L and Mr. M; very good luck at the right moments rolling dice; and by a little bit more experience and good decision making on our part - we actually won both battles.

Our Army:
We added the following in to get to 1000 points:
 - Added the Pink Orkys' Trukk.  Plan was to put the Gretchins inside to see if they could do some damage before dying.
- Added a set of Meganobs
- Added a Big Mek with Shokk Attak Gun
- Added a few more Boyz to Ghazghkull Thraka's (GT's) crew

Key notes:
- Figuring out all of the rules and bonuses for Ghazghkull is a challenge.  Reading and reading afterwards, we missed several.  Thinking of making a little cheat-sheet with the page numbers for each of them for next week.  Wondering if anyone has already made such a list.
- Seems like we should have bought a few Runts and Squiggs to augment Ghazghkull.  He's already 225 points.  What is 3 more to give him a roll of the dice when in a very bad way at the end.
- The Warbikers had a rough go of it.  Died quickly both times.
- Power Klaws are terrific.  Very much worth the 25 points each.

Battle #1 - Playing Mr. L's Tau Army
- This was the first time we had ever played against Tau.  Mr. L explained to us that they were sort of like Eldar.  Pretty fast - lots of long range shooting - but not too strong if we could get up close.  So, we did our best to charge in close.

Here is a photo of our deployment.  Our idea was to run the Trukk with Gretchins up the right side - hoping to do some useful shooting.  Then send the Meganobs and the Killikans up the center.  Ghazghkull and his Boyz coming up the left center.  And, the Warbikers up the left flank.

 

 

Here you can see Mr. L's deployment of Tau.  He had a squad of Pathfinders hidden in the trees.  And, he had a Riptide with drones and some suit thingies.  He kept his warlord and more suit thingies in reserve.  You can't quite see his missile launching hover craft in the photo - that is way in the bottom right corner.

 



 

 

Here you can see Ghazghkull and his Boyz along with the KilliKans almost reaching Mr. L's forces.  By this time the Meganobs are dead - wiped out by all of the long range firing.

Here we are finally reaching Mr. L's forces.  Ghazghkull:  "Me an da boyz killd da heck out of da big tank thingy."

The game got really exciting when it we had a close combat and the Riptide challenged Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka.  (One of us was nervous - one of us wasn't.)  Anyway, Ghazghkull won - and we did a pretty good job in close combat.

 

At the very end, Ghazghkull was finally worn down - but the Pain Boy and the remaining Pink Ork Boyz won the day.  (And, once again, Mr. L was super nice - helping at many points.)

 

[A very funny note was his sort of sly bad advice at the very end of the game - trying to get us to attack the wrong thing.  But, we could read his sneaky intentions on his face - and "We stay'd wi' da plan!"]

 

Battle #2 - Playing Mr. M's Space Marine Army

- We used the same army as against Mr. L.  And, this was the second time we played against Mr. M.  In the first match he used a Librarian against us.  (Here's a link to that write-up.)  In this battle he brought more tanks - and lots of bikers.  In fact, his warlord was with his biker unit - on a bike.

We forgot to take a photo of the deployment - but you can see how things looked after turn #1.  A Space Marine Drop Pod landed in our backyard.  And, shot the Trukk - ruining it's big shootah.  With no weapons left, we decided to ram the Drop Pod - which wasn't super good for the Trukk, but we did hurt the Drop Pod.

A big moment in the game was when the Meganobs took out the Bikers.  This shifted things a bit -
and gave us a chance to bring GT up the middle.

At the end, Mr. M held more objectives - but we were able to charge with Ghazghkull and the Pink Boyz and knock him off that one just as the game ended.  It was a mathematical win - but not sure we would have won if we had needed to take out the remaining tank forces.

Once again, Mr. M was super nice and helpful - really appreciated his help figuring out some strategies and rules!  (But, did overhear him saying that he was bringing the big fire-power next week!!)

 

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