Preparations - Cangames was 2020 now 2021 - Let's Get Hitler

 Preparations: "Let's Kill Hitler" Scenario for Doctor Who the Miniatures Game

Update: April 3, 2020

Sadly due to the Covid-19 Virus (Coronavirus) Cangames 2020 has been cancelled and will not be held again until next year in May 2021.  I have been informed the theme of "Portals / Lets Get Hitler" will remain the same for Cangames 2010 so my scenario will also remain the same with a new target date for mid-May 2021.  On the bright side it gives me more time to work on the buildings.

Covid-19 Virus

 

Cangames 2020 - Let's Kill Hitler Game plans: March 16, 2020

My original plan for Cangames 2020 (May 15-17, 2020)  Doctor Who game,was to run a continuation of my game from the 2019 Convention where the Sea Devils captured the Naval base, this year the Human forces would attempt to retake  base from the  Sea Devils.  However my plans have changed, and I will join in with other members of the Ottawa Miniature Gamers Club to run a series of connected games with the themes "Get Hitler" and "Portal". 

The game will be very loosely based / inspired by the Doctor Who episode "Let's Kill Hitler" featuring the 11th Doctor, Amie, Rory, River Song  and Hitler.

Publicity shot for Doctor Who: Let's Kill Hitler

Happy St. Patrick's Day 2020

My collection of 28mm painted Leprechauns and Irish Banshees

 

Leprechauns by Reaper (1,2 + 4)  and Warlord (3)

I have always had a fascination with Leprechauns, it likely started in the latter half of the 1960s when I was around 6 to 8 years old and saw a film featuring them at a Drive-in theater

SAGA Age of Magic - Clash of Warlords - Norse versus Chaos Minotaurs

The Game that Almost Never Got Played

This was a 2 player SAGA AoM game played on Sunday afternoon March 8, 2020.  It almost never happened as my power went out on the Friday evening and did not come back on until Sunday morning.  It was not clear when the power was going to come back on (the outage was caused by a fire at a nearby substation) and I was thinking I might have to cancel the game.  But when the power came on Sunday morning I got to work prepping and after a lot of last minute rushing to get the game ready but we had to bump the start time back an hour.  This was a battle between Ted's newly painted Norse / Viking warband (Grate Kingdom faction) and the Chaos Minotaur / Beastman warband (Other World faction) I had prepared for my friend Bernhard to use last game. Since Bernhard was not available I decided to try out the Chaos Otherworld warband myself as I have never used this faction or the miniatures.

Initial deployment - overview

Adding doors, glass shelves and lights to Pine Cabinet - March 1, 2020

Subtitled: the Never Ending Cabinet project.

February 1, 2020 

My game / work room looks like it is under construction!  I have had to take a break from hosting games for the last few weeks first due to a flu bug then an ever growing construction project to add two new glass shelves to my pine cabinet. The project began in late January 2020, although I had purchased the shelves and doors around January 2019.  It is amazing how much time it takes and mess it creates to add new shelves, especially when a router is involved to shape the wood to hold the shelves.  I of course had to empty the cabinet and you can hardly see my game table as it is covered with the contents of the three shelves.  I now have five shelves, including the two new glass ones but the supports need staining, and finding a matching stain for a 30+ year old knotty pine cabinet is a challenge!   Next I plan to add on some Ikea Morliden glass doors while I have everything off the shelves.

Cabinet contents on my game table, you can see
 the cabinet shelves that have been installed on
 the unfinished supports in the background

Despite all this I did manage to get a game of SAGA Crusades on Sunday February 2nd at my local club (OMG) and will post a short AAR when I get the time.

Snow Storm February 27, 2020

Working from Home

Glad I was able to work from home today thanks to remote access via my lap top.  Ottawa was hit by what may be the biggest snow storm this year.   The predictions were for between 20 and 40cm of snow, but some of it came down as rain overnight.   It may look pretty but it is very wet and heavy making it a pain to shovel.  It put about half of Ottawa's new Light Rail Trains out of action making commuting an unpleasant task for those stuck taking public transit to work and those driving did not have a pleasant commute either.

My Lilac tree first thing this morning

Time saved on commuting can be put to use on putting figures back in my refurbished cabinet.

Godzilla

Godzilla circa 2004 by Playmates

While shopping at Walmart on February 25, 2020 to find some wire / cable clips for the LED lighting in the cabinet I am working on I came across this model of Godzilla from the 2004 movie.  It is large at 11" high.

Godzilla

SAGA Age of Magic - Battle Royale - 23 February 2020

Battle Royale:  4 player game - Sunday afternoon

This SAGA Age of Magic scenario "Battle Royale" was planned for 5 players (although designed for 3 to 4 players)  but as it turned out we had 4 players. Each player had a 6 point warband, the playing surface was a 4' x 6' mat on a table the same size.  We played the game upstairs in my living room rather than in my usual gamming room downstairs which meant  space was a little tighter, but the natural lighting was an added bonus. 

The Battle Royale scenarios calls for players (after terrain set-up) to take turns placing their units one after another until all are deployed, none can be within M (6") of an enemy.  The objective after 6 turns is to have the most points which are based on the value of your surviving units plus a point for each charge you conduct.

A scene from the battle

SAGA Crusades Game

This was my first SAGA Age of Crusaded game, it was held on February 2, 2020 at my local games club  the Ottawa Miniatures Gamers OMG).  As I am new to this time period I had to improvise to create an appropriate army so I used my 28mm Bretonian WFB collection of figures for the most part.  Hopefully I will have a purpose build / painted army next time.

My 6 point army was a Crusader Army from Western Europe. It consisted of:

1 warlord mounted,  
1 x 8 foot Hearthguards with heavy weapons / halberds, 
1 x 8 Warriors with bows, 
1 x 8 Warriors with spears
1 x 4 Hearthguards with spears & swords, 
2 x 4 Hearthguards with spears and swords 

My opponent had a Saracen army of mostly mounted figures which put me at a disadvantage in terms of mobility.  The victory conditions called for each side to nominate an enemy unit that would be worth double victory point if destroyed.

Initial set up in the Desert

Mars Attacks

Inspired by a friend's idea last December that Martian's might make a good "enemy" in my Christmas game versus Santa's forces I took a look on line to see what was available online. It would be too late for Christmas 2019 but it was worth looking into for Christmas 2020 or other games. As a result I  bought some Mars Attacks figures I found online, I now have 18 Martian figures (10 grunts, 5 Marines, and 3 Martian characters).  I enjoyed the movie and the figures look well detailed and accurate.  Even thought the Martian figures are made of box game type soft plastic I think they will paint up well based on pictures and videos I have seen on line.  They should make for a fun game versus opponents such as my: Copplestone Men in Black, modern U.S. Marines, modern British Marines or even UNIT troops.  Not sure why Mantic stopped producing the Mars Attacks game or if I will use their rules (which I found as a PDF online) or some other rules like: Pulp Alley, Gaslight, Future Wars, INEPTT or DWMG.

My collection so far.

SAGA AoM 5 January, 2020 Multi player game

Holiday Game

January 5th was the 12th day of Christmas so one last chance this season to use my Christmas themes figures.  This was a multi player game with 4 players, the scenario was called "Brother's in Arms"-  where two sides of two warbands face off against each other on a 4' x 6' playing area.  Like the last game the objective is to get as many of your units on the other sides half of the board while taking as few loses as possible and inflicting as may loses as possible on the enemy.  However this time I used an optional rule to give the game a little more "spice" by adding in 3 objective markers.

This was the main objective:

Santa's Sleigh on the hill

The other two objectives were Christmas drums about 10" away from the main objective on either side of it along the centre line. This time around I played  Jack Frost Warband.

A list of games to play in 2020

New Years is a time for lists so here is my wish list of 16 games to play in 2020 plus a long term plans for a siege game (#17). Some of the games are hold-overs from last year.  As usual I suspect I will be lucky to get half of them done, but at least I have something to strive for.  There is also  the possibility of a new game being added to the list (like SAGA Age of Magic) got added to my 2019 list) or an older game making a comeback like Sharpe Practice, War of 1812 or a Superhero game (#18).

1. SAGA Age of Magic and SAGA Historical 28mm

Part of an Undead Legion Warband

SAGA Trojan versus Greek game

SAGA AoM Multi player game

SAGA AoM Four player game, December 29, 2019:

Brother's in Arms Scenario

This was my first attempt at a SAGA Age of Magic (AoM) multi player game intended for 4 players, the scenario was called "Brother's in Arms"-  where two sides of two warbands face off against each other on a 4' x 6' playing area (my Frostgrave mat).  The objective is to get as many of your units on the other sides half of the board while taking as few loses as possible and inflicting as may loses as possible on the enemy.  

This was also the first time I got to use my new camera on my new cellphone, which produced much better pictures.

Overview of the Battlefield