Games are our Jam! Club Meeting - 28 August

Do you wanna know something? I know that here on this blog where we expound the exploits of the TCOW faithful we have a tendency toward the extremes but something you cannot deny is photographic evidence.

Here we have a small group of Magic players just totally happy to be out and enjoying their hobby with other people who do the same. And do you know what, that is what being part of TCOW is all about. And that is why I still contend that we are the best Gaming club in Auckland. No drama, no hassles, you play what you want knowing that there'll be light-hearted ribbing and when its time to pack the tables up, we all have a laugh about it. Glorious!






So what did we play at our little slice of heaven this week? Well, stalwarts and new games alike we had a pretty reasonable cross section of goings on...

Flames of War carries on with Firestorm: Berlin moving into its second week of games. On the Eastern Front, masses of Soviet armour is still attempting to force its way into Berlin, desperately hampered by the remaining German defenses.

With their limited resources, the Germans are unable to stop the red tide washing through their lands though. 

On the Western Front, British Churchill tanks make their debut (for this campaign at least) in an attempt to push into the German northern flanks.

Supported by the nimble and agile Stuarts, their slow roll forward is only halted by the imminent threat of a V2 falling on them.....never fear though, the German targeting is not on its game today.

But the PaK 40's are....

And on the ground, the SS are also attempting to hold back the Brits as well. Stu and I played a game of Bolt Action which I forgot to get decent photos of....except this one..

There used to be a British infantry squad in that hole. British artillery is just really effective! My record of artillery being used against me stands with every single opponent having rolled a 1. 4-0 record!

We also saw the return of X-Wing to club which was great to see!

And Faizal and Andrew carried on their battles in the pits with some additions from Caesar's menagerie.

Rhinos....RHINOS!!!!

We finished off this week's meet with a 6 player game of Epic Spell Wars. This game is seriously funny and so quick to play. Definitely a great way to finish a great day!

Next club meeting will be 11 September and we're looking at making this a board games day so keep an eye on the Facebook  group for details.

And as always nerds....GAME ON!

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!

YAY, Sports! Club Meeting - 31 July

It was a wet and wild weekend weather-wise in Auckland (alliteration for the win!) so attendance at the GREATEST gaming club in Auckland was slightly down. Well, that and the slew of TCOW'ers representing at the beginners Malifaux tournament.

We still managed to get a few games going though, so it wasn't all a waste.

Darren and Daryl rocked out a game of Warmahordes using the new v3.0 rules. Daryl wanted to see whether or not his Cryx could still pull off a heap of shenanigans under the new regime.

Judging by the number of dead models that were accumulating at Darren's end of the table, I'd say they still can.

Stu and Callum get into some TANKS action (which I conveniently forgot to take photos of...) and realised that Ernst Barkmann is indeed as broken as his points value would suggest! Cant wait to get my copy of this in and potentially start some league play.

Finally, Jon and I went old school and played some Blood Bowl.

I cracked out my Chaos All-Stars which I got for my 15th birthday (you do the math) and Jon ran his High Elves, so straight away we sort of knew how this one was going to end up!

Some fantastic plays, huge hits and down-right dirty tactics saw the Elves run in 2 touchdowns to my 1...but at the expense of THREE bodies. I think at one point Jon was down to 6 active players on the board, which is hilarious but expected when you're playing against Chaos!

Just this one game has reignited my love for this game. Its so bloody simple and so much bloody fun! So much so that I'll be starting the inaugural TCOW Blood Bowl league! Watch this space for details!

Congrats to the TCOW'ers who placed and played at the latest Malifaux tourney as well. From what I hear, some of you were really high on the list....

So that was that, like I said, a smaller showing but by no means worthless! Cant wait for next club!

Game on nerds!!!

Gotta play 'em all! Club Meeting - 17 July 2016

Even with a bunch of regulars away at Panzerschreck* in Palmerston North, we still had a decent turnout this Sunday just gone. The weather was wild, so we shut the doors, cranked up the heat pumps and rolled some dice in relative comfort.

Because this is the world we live in, we soon discovered that the artwork outside the Sturges West Community House is also a gym in Pokemon Go. There aren't any Pokestops, but the gym is level 9. To help you find the gym, I've conveniently marked it on the Streetview screenshot below.

It wasn't all Zubats and Rattata. A bunch of games were played and we even had some new faces!

David and Saul fought it out in the Ardennes, with Saul's Allies getting caught out by David's "Operation Grieff" Germans - sneaky Germans dressed as US soldiers with German tanks modified to look like American vehicles.

While Warlord Games do sell Ersatz Panthers, David decided to make his own. It took a lot of work, but the end result looks on the tabletop.

Also on display was Dragon Rampant, a fantasy take on Osprey's Lion Rampant. In terms of scale, Rampant is smaller than Kings of War with armies consisting of only a few dozen models in units and a solo character or two.

This was a three way battle between Ogres, Undead, and Humans.

I didn't see much of the game, but it looks like armies are designed free-form, with units assigned one or more ratings that govern how they perform on the table. Special rules can also be added to account for things like Undead.

If you've got some fantasy figures in a box somewhere that haven't been permanently mounted to a movement tray for Kings of War, you might want to check this out.

Even though Faizel's Magic the Gathering league has come to an end, we're still getting steady numbers of people turning up for casual games. There were four this week tapping mana and... doing things that Magic players do.

Down the back we had what I think might be a first for T.C.O.W. - Blood Bowl!

Finally, there was my game of Frostgrave against Jonathan. We're both taking part in Molly's campaign, though it is fair to say Jonathan is having a much better time of it.

There was a 10 level difference between our respective Wizards' levels, and the scenario we played (The Keep) made things a lot more chaotic than usual, leading to all sorts of shenanigans. In the end it was a clean sweep in Jonathan's favour, with the members of my warband either taken out of action or fleeing off the edge of the table without even a single treasure token.

Later on in the day some X-Wing took place, with the Imperials and Rebels engaging in a fierce battle between between some asteroids. I wasn't able to get any pics, but am looking forward to breaking out my own ships in the near future for a game or three. I need to get some practice in before the Force Awakens era Millennium Falcon goes on sale later this year.

There was one wrinkle to the day's games - the weather. It's been a bit wild recently, and Sunday was no exception. Turns out the roof isn't very insulated and heavy rain can easily drown out most conversations.

At least our cars were clean(er) afterwards.

The rain meant the kids were forced inside. This normally isn't a bad thing, but this time there was one small(ish) difference.

Ruh-roh.

In the end it wasn't too bad. Especially when the kids realised they could spin the pokemon in the Pokemon Go app to check out a certain part of their anatomy.

And that's it. We'll be back in two weeks to do it all again. Here's hoping the weather's better next time.

* Firefox wants to auto-correct "Panzerschreck" to "Chimpanzee". Make of that what you will.

FULL HOUSE! Club Meeting - 19 June 2016

Mate! Sturges Road Community House was chocka-block on Sunday! You should have seen the place, it was jumpin'! If there was every any dispute (and to date there hasn't been, I'd just like to point out) that TCOW is THE GREATEST gaming club in Auckland, they've been well and truly dispelled!

We had games of all shapes, sizes, genres and colour. We had tanks. We had Wizards. We had dropships. We had cards. We had it all! Do you wanna see what we had? Sure you do, that's why you're here!

Frostgrave

Molly's Frostgrave campaign is well and truly underway with 2 tables of spooky looking terrain dominating the centre tables this week. Jon and Molly paired up while Bool and Martina walked their respective bands through their paces among the frozen streets.

Humans, Elves, Orcs (yeah, Orcs can be wizards too!) all vying for the best of the treasures and to get their spellbooks bolstered for the next time they ventured into the chilly surrounds of the frozen city.

Flames of War

Damo has done it! His completely unrealistic and historically inaccurate Japanese tank horde has taken shape and decided that it needed some competition! And what better way to introduce them to battle than against a German SS tank army, right?! I think we all know how this one is likely to end....

Damo managed to hold on here for quite some time, with his NGFS taking care of a single Panther while his air-wing failed to make any inroads into the far superior German armour. A hard-fought 5-2 to Darren. He really had to work for it!

Dropzone Commander

The Leprechaun's Tale continues with the Shaltari assaulting into the UCM through the building and monorails of Kobenhavn.

Monorail, monorail, monorail!

I'm unsure as to who won this one, but having played against the cheaty Shaltari before, I reckon it might have been them!

Bolt Action

Monkey and I decided to have a crack at some Bolt Action. Monkey brought his SAS and I brought my SS, so it was the battle of the S! He even had a tank on his side, which didn't make me feel so bad about bringing one!

The thing about Veteran units is that they're pretty small, so this one was a blood-fest! Lots of dead elite troops on both sides by the end of it! Monkey had to hold the objective in the centre to win. I just had to kill him....and I got so damned close! Last turn of the game, all the SAS are off the boxes and he runs a FREAKING OBSERVER in as his last action! Bastard!!! Such a fun game though!

Magic

Despite the TCOW Commander league being concluded the previous meeting, our group of card-floppers couldn't help but walk the Planes for a little while.

I believe the next organised play will be the next Conspiracy set, so watch this space!

But there you have it! Another TCOW in the books, and a successful one at that! If you're interested in Gaming in Auckland, why not come and join us. Details of meetings are on our Facebook page.

Next meeting is on the 3rd of July, so we hope to see you there!