We're a 40k club now: Club Meeting - 23 April

Emprah be praised! Around 1am last night the warp storms cleared just long enough for the geniuses in Nottingham to get us a message bearing miraculous news. A new edition of Warhammer 40,000 is coming. An edition said to be the best edition of the game yet. One with not one, nor two, but THREE different ways to play the game. Plus the rules are free. True, there was no mention of the current price disparity in this corner of the world, but we're sure they'll address that soon.

On the back of this news, it has been decided that henceforth T.C.O.W. shall be renamed That 40k Club Out West (T.40k.C.O.W.). No other games will be played. It's all 40k, all the time now. This rule will kick in just as soon as somebody spends NZ$83 on the new 200 page Shadow War: Armageddon rulebook. So, yeah, not any time soon.

Anyway, back to your regularly scheduled club meeting update.

It was a bit of a quiet one this week. We're in the middle of the school holidays and I guess most were making the most of decent weather. I'm sure camping is fun and all, but they missed out on some great gaming.

We had a great selection of gaming going on. X-Wing, Malifaux, Test of Honour, and Kings of War. Ogres fought Undead, the Neverborn fought Gremlins, some X-Wings and a stolen TIE Fighter took on the Empire, and two groups of Samurai and their attendant Ashigaru had a big ol' scrap somewhere in Japan.

As I spent most of my time playing Test of Honour wishing my dice would roll better, I didn't actually get any photos or have a good look at what else was going on, but everyone appeared to be having a good time.

Oh, and I managed to be just sneaky enough to pull out a win in Test of Honour. Turns out all you need to take down a Samurai Hero is a sacrificial Samurai and enough arrows.

That's all for this week. We hope to see you at the club on 7 May. We'll see then if we're any closer to renaming the club.

Ich bin ein Berliner - Club Meeting 14.08.2016

And there were quite a few people trying to force their way into Berlin at the last club meeting! It was the start of the latest Flames of War campaign, this time Mike has decided that we need to finish the war and finish it by the end of the year....Firestorm: Endgame is underway!

Unlike your typical Firestorm campaign where you may end up getting extra troops by virtue of the location you're defending or attacking, we're simply taking standard points into each match-up.

And to simulate the special nature of the orders issued by Hitler in the final days and weeks of the Reich, Mike has come up with an ingenious little set of cards called Fuhrer's Orders by which the German players must abide. These will simulate such things as Panzer reserves not being available or fuel shortages or any one of the petty foibles which Hitler plagued his generals with in the dying throes of the battle for the German capital. Great touch Mike!






And with that, we determined some match-ups and went to it. Keep an eye out over on Mike's blog for all the details (mostly because I didnt get them all this time around) but the first rounds looked something like:

- Pablo vs. Jon in the grudge match. This one was an Airborne assault with both Brit glider troops and Yank paras.
- Darren vs. Gav in the battle for the Eastern advances toward Berlin.
- Mike and I hit some tank on tank action down toward Strasbourg, and
- Andrew and Darrin also had tank on tank but this one was actually using TANKS!

Apparently Darren didn't have his artillery on...

But of course, this is TCOW! The GREATEST Wargaming club in Auckland (and to date, no dispute has been registered with the disputes committee) so we didn't just have Flames of War being played! Oh no sir!


Faizal and Andrew got in a game of Arena Rex, a game of battles in the arena, blood-soaked sand and all....

I must say, the models here look FREAKING SWEET and you can definitely see that you're getting what you're paying for!

The game, as I understand from a very quick explanation from Andrew, is very simple to come to grips with and plays very quick and easy. I believe that Faiz is looking at a campaign-style thing for this as well...

Molly and Martina also got some Malifaux action in as well.

And finally, because we had some time left, Andrew H broke out a copy of Epic Spell Wars of the Battle Wizards for us to have a laugh at! You play a Battle Wizard and each turn, play a spell from the cards you've drawn randomly from the draw deck in an attempt to destroy your foes. It's seriously fun!

And that's how it finished...

Do you want to come and play games with us? You should! The next club meeting is 28 August and I think we'll see some Flames, Blood Bowl and more! Come on down and meet the team!

GAME ON!

Alternate club day gaming

When the news from the glorious leader arrived that there would be no club on the 22nd May there were some people who accepted it, some got angry, some broke down in to tears but a few of us decided no, we will not go quietly in to the next week, we are not cancelling the apocalypse, dice will be rolled in anger!

On the Saturday we held the first games of -

This is set up as a narrative driven escalation campaign set up to bring players who are just starting out to near full sized games.

You can find the primer document here which sets out the start of the story, how to participate, how to sign up and how to submit results.

The first day 3 starter box games were played. These represent the UCM Expeditionary Force arriving on New Asgard and dropping in to a cauldron of fighting with no allies on the ground. Communication has yet to be established with local Resistance forces with the Scourge fully entrenched on the planet, PHR pulling the strings and Shaltari arriving and throwing themselves in to the fray.

GAME 1

Damian's Resistance "Warriors of Týr" vs Greg's UCM "Force Fair Dinkum"

Rapiers deploy to cover the Bear APCs and infantry heading to the objective building,

    

                   Resistance tanks move in on the Rapiers           

Kraken and Gun Wagons join the fray.                       They do a mighty job clearing the skies.

20 Resistance troopers with their homemade RPGs focus fire on one Sabre MBT and score a kill.

         

Bear APCs having lost their ride are                   The Rapiers cover the Bears beautifully allowing 

driving an objective off the table with                                   them to escape the battlefield             

Resistance in hot pursuit                                                                                         

Final score 4-2 to the Resistance with the UCM taking heavy air losses but still strong on the ground force.

Resistance survivors of the first encounter with these strange vehicles of unknown design.

GAME 2

Faizal's Resistance "Odin's sons" vs David's Shaltari "Clan Aiur"

What starts as a calm city block.

Ends up with a bloody mess in the large centre building as every infantry model in the battle take part in one almighty CQB with the Shaltari Braves coming out on top.

Final score 1-0 to Clan Aiur. 

Note: David will have a video report of this available at a later time and I will link that in to this.

GAME 3

Greg's UCM "Force Fair Dinkum" vs David's Shaltari "Clan Aiur"

UCM Rapier spot the lighter armoured Tomahawk MBT and start to unleash countless rounds over a couple of turns overwhelming the Shaltari shields and winning the exchange.

With David having one objective off the table and Greg holding another the game looks all but done, until Greg unleashes everything in to the building housing the Shaltari infantry, crushing them as the building collapses around them and shattering the Haven gates using it as cover.

Final score 2-1 to Clan Aiur. 

Note: David will have a video report of this available at a later time and I will link that in to this.


On Sunday 23rd games of Malifaux were also played, below are some pics posted in the TCOW Facebook page by Martina and from the NZ Malifaux page which you can find here.

The crew all set up and ready to cheat, legally of course.

Desert mash.

Bayou bash.

As always amazing terrain by the Malifaux crowd.

So even with the club day rug pulled out from under us games were had and plastic/metal men and women were destroyed in a multitude of savage ways. 

The games must go on.