Another boardgame night Small World & Sentinels of the Mulitiverse

 

So, we pulled out Small World, a game that neither of has played in quite a few years (decade+?) I cannot understand why this game has not seen much action. We also played a couple of games of Sentinels of the Multiverse.

Fantastic Battles Dwarf vs Goblin April 21 2024

 

Rematch Goblins vs Dwarves

So, with the battlefield still set up, we thought we would have time to play FB and still get in a game of Pulp Ally. However we were delayed in starting the game and just did not have time or the energy for two games. 

This was another stab at a Dwarf army defending against a horde of fast moving Goblins. I acted as ref for the game as neither player was all that familiar with the rules. The armies were 1000 points each and each army had 5 captains, 3 wizards and a Warlord. The dwarven army was made up of my FB purpose based Roman Dwarves (with a couple of WH based hand-gunner units) while the Goblins, for the most part, were on my homemade movement trays.

Most recent board game night, Sentinels (again) and Space Hulk Death Angel card game

 

So, we tried out yet another new to us game, Death Angel. It is another cooperative game, we seem to play a lot of these, that pitted our group of eight space marines against hordes of Genestealers. Neither of us had played this before so we were playing with little knowledge of the game. 

OMG Sunday library meeting

 

Another Venice adventure.

This time around we played a modified China Station scenario, no creeping fog but still some horrific Deep ones. Also made the plot points mobile just to keep the players on their toes. For one of the players they were their own worst enemy as they kept faling any random challenge that came their way. The other player, new to the game, ultimately decided to just stay out of the way and let his opponent self destruct. By the end of the game one league was down to one character, holding 1 plot point and his opponent had 3 minor plot points.

By the way, with this post I have now exceeded the post that I made all of last year, so an improvement.

Another board game night Sentinels of the Multi verse & Darkest Night

 

So another board game night, another disappointing evening, well maybe just not that great... We played Sentinels of the Multiverse and Darkest Night. The Sentinels game worked out to be another slow slag as the villain git some lucky card draws that stymied our attempts to defeat her. However we are nutters and kept playing even though it was going nowhere very slowly. Ultimately we called it a day after 3 out of the four heroes were knocked out of the game. 

For no good reason we selected Darkest Night (1st ed) for our second game. Never having played this before there was a learning curve involved not aided by the rule book. The rule book is a mess and much of the rules and the enemy counters are not really all that intuitive. The game is for 1 to 4 players. Regardless of the number of players you always use four characters. We each selected our two hero characters, selected our powers, placed our standees in the starting space (the monastery) and settled back for what worked out to be a painfully slow death. 

The game has simple mechanics and apparently lots of optional powers for your characters (I only got one power boost for one of my characters but I did have two decks that promised more powers) So I went through the game pretty much as I started. There is a lot of dice rolling in this game, a lot, rarely for good reasons, usually to avoid death. These dice rolls have a target number which all too often is 4 or 5 (many 5+) Often you will find yourself rolling only 1 die which all too often will result in a failure. Each turn you will encounter a random event (which is usually bad) Then you get one & only one action. With this action you can move one space, search, attack, rest etc. Then your turn ends. This worked out not to be all that satisfying. Each turn the evil necromancer tries to track you down to attack you. He also places random nasty encounters like vampires and spies. The pressure is on the players and we never felt that we had a chance to defeat the evil. 

In the end we failed. The necromancer placed four encounter tokens in the monastery and mercifully the game ground to an end. 

I had heard good things about this game, but in further review it seems it is a good game if you have the add-ons. Well it is not a good thing that the base game is so bad that the only way it is fun to play is by spending more money. 

Apparently there is a second edition that includes all the expansions and while it fixes a lot of problems I think I will give it a pass.

Space cadets away mission boardgame

 

So, a couple of days ago we sat down to play our usual board game, Sentinels of the Multiverse but we also took out and played Space Cadets away missions!

Fantastic Battles April 04 2024

Deployment after mishap roles. Not much impact on either army, one Dwarf unit suffered -2 Resolve & one wolf rider unit rushed ahead 4BW.

 

Yet another classic match up Dwarf vs Goblin, was played today. This was a game originally planned for last November, but had to be postponed. Thankfully Craig was able to attend this game despite the resurgence of winter! 

Hotlead, a good trip to Stratford Ontario

 

So lots of fun stuff at Hotlead this year! Beyond some really excellent looking games the big thing for me, as always, is the bring and buy. It is often an expensive weekend as I often find plenty of must have items and this year was no exception.

Pulp Alley at OMG

So we went to Venice once again. It has been awhile since I last dug out these buildings, but I think they still work. Three players with me as the facilitator passed a few hours watching three leagues struggle against each other and some nefarious cultists. Everyone trying to locate the mysterious Device 1138! 

A happy find at a flea market

 

Just the thing for a winter Pulp Alley game! This is a Matchbox Models of Yesterday. It is a 1922 Scandinavian postal truck but I feel it should be right at home in more arctic conditions. 

In all my journeys in many many flea markets I have never seen this vehicle, so it was kind of a given that I would have to buy it. So far I have not attempted to paint or weather it, but I will soon.

Pulp Alley game at the OMG meeting at the Centrepointe library

 

So, this past Sunday the Ottawa Miniature Gamers (OMG) held a meeting at the Ottawa Public Library at the Centrepointe location. While it is a chance to play some games it is really a chance to expose the general public to the club and the type of games that we play. 

Three games were on display, Space Hulk, ADLG and Pulp Alley. Pulp Alley was my contribution to the game day. The game started up with two players, one a rookie the other had played a few games. By the second or third turn we were joined by a couple of young people who we paired off with the two existing players.

My hats off to the two older players who rose to the occasion and coached the two new players and let them take control of the leagues. We also had a few other people drop by to look at all of the games. Much interest in our activities and many conversations were had. Who knows maybe some of these people will become  OMG members or at very least get bit by the miniature gaming bug!

I look forward to the next library meeting at the end of March.