Boardgame session: 20Feb2015

We visited my sister’s to look after Erin (age 13) for the day during half-term. We introduced her to Dungeon Petz, a current favourite of ours. This game has masses of theme but a lot of options and decisions, which we hoped Erin could cope with. No problems there! The first game ended in a tie between me and Erin (51 points each) and Elaine was close behind (49 points). This was probably the closest game we have ever played. We immediately played a second game, which I won fairly comfortably by focussing on single pets and growing them up. This is a great game for younger players; the character of the pets has great appeal and the choices are reasonably balanced. The one aspect of the game I feel I don’t concentrate enough on is tailoring my decisions based on knowledge of the future competitions and customers. I am still dithering about whether to get the expansion for the game; does it need further options?

Next we introduced the game of Blueprints. This is a nice ‘filler’ game that takes only 30 minutes and revolves around dice (which is always a hit with me). Erin quickly picked up both the rules and strategies, but not enough to prevent me from winning the first game. Elaine won the second game, which included my sister, Gillian. Again most players stuck to the blueprints they were dealt, but in the second game I went off-piste by building a 5 storey skyscraper. This could have won me the game if only I managed to get a 5-dice in the penultimate round, but I had to take a 6-dice instead which reduced my scoring.

Finally, we finished the session with a 4 player game of Carcassone. This classic game always delivers, but I do feel players sometimes take too long making tile laying decisions. Farmers proved decisive because the board generated a single, large field supplying multiple cities. Three players managed locate 2 farmers each in the field, so shared the points (I was one tile away for linking up a third farmer). It was getting late, but I think Erin won, narrowly beating her mum (which may be a bad move). We played the basic game with no expansions.

Overall, a very enjoyable day of gaming!

Off the Painting Table (Feb 2015)

A box of Warlord Games plastic 28mm Royalist Cavalry has been sitting on my ‘lead’ pile for a while now, in fact I cannot remember when I brought them. They are nice, simple figures to construct and the sprues allow a good degree of variation in heads, arms and weapons to be made. I have previously made the Parlimentary Cavalry box and I cannot see any differences; the figures/sprues seem the same! Why don’t Warlord Games simply market them both as a single, generic ECW cavalry set rather than suggesting they are different? Anyway I painted them using the Wargame Foundary 3-tone paint system, after priming with a light grey basecoat. All the figures have been painted with a buff coat, so no regimental coat colour was used. I also painted the sash a ‘neutral’ blue, rather than a red or orange which would align them to a specific side within the civil war.

Previously I discussed the profusion of spare parts from the Wargames Factory 17^th century figures I painted last month. I had constructed 2 drummer figures using cocktail sticks and milliput to make legs and lower torsos. I was pleased with the results, so I decided to attempt to construct some ECW pikemen in a similar manner. The C17^th cavalry set provided torsos wearing breastplates, plus heads wearing lobster-pot helmets (ideal for the ECW). The pikes were spare flagpoles with the tassels removed. The figures would be wearing gauntlets, so the wide cuffs of the C17^th arms would look the part when painted. The legs and trousers do look a bit ‘wooden’ (pun intended) but I think they are OK for pikemen at rest. I still have over 60 more upper torsos (courtesy of Wargames Factory) and I am scratching my head on how to use them. I am considering making some casualty markers, this time with bent knees etc. to give more dynamic poses.

 

Number	Scale	Period	Manufacturer	Notes:
97	15mm	War of the Roses	Peter Pig
16	15mm	Pony Wars	Peter Pig	Casualty markers
12	28mm	C17th British Cavalry	Wargames Factory
20	28mm	C17th British Infantry	Wargames Factory
12	28mm	ECW cavalry	Warlord Games
14	28mm	ECW pikemen	Wargames Factory	Conversions