Thursday 12 December 2013

Sheffield Boardgamers Xmas Party 2013

It was a great turnout for the 2013 Xmas party of the Sheffield Boardgamers this year... around 30 gamers came - food was eaten, drinks were drunk, crackers pulled, party hats worn (by a few!)various games were played, and a good time was had by all!

Pulling names for PITCHCAR out of a hat...

2 Pitchcar tracks ready for the tournament...

Settlers of Catan Pizza!!

Getting ready for 9 player mega battle of King Of Tokyo (best to stick to 6 players really!!)

The Pitchcar Final - monster double track!

Winner and Runner-up of the Pitchcar Tournament open their prizes...



Thursday 7 November 2013

Lords of War - Templars vs Undead - now on KickStarter!

This is the kickstarter campaign I've been looking forward to most this year. I picked up a copy of the first Lords of War cardgame pack after playing a demo of it at this years UK Games Expo. I was really impressed. It is a 2 player strategy fantasy battle card game. It works really really well, the rules are easy to pick up - and it's really good fun. The artwork by the very talented Steve Cox is absolutely fantastic and appealing to folks of all ages and genders.



The game is very reasonably priced. There have been two double packs of cards released so far: Orcs vs Dwarves and Elves vs Lizard Men. These first two sets were self published by the makers (Black Box Games). All of the factions are playable against each other. For the third set: Templars vs Undead, they have decided to go down the Kickstarter route..... oh I so hope this reaches it's funding goal!!






The first 2 sets with their playing mats.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/388956994/lords-of-war-templars-versus-undead
 
 
 

Thursday 24 October 2013

X-83 Twintail Starfighter - Papercraft

This is another Star Wars papermodel that I found over at www.momirfarooq.com . I quite like the tail design - but I'm not that keen on it otherwise. There's not much detail on the ship - and I don't really like the shape. This is another Star Wars ship that I wasn't familiar with. According to Wookeepedia, it's only appearence has been in the "Star Wars Legacy" comic book series. I don't think I'll bother using this one in any X-Wing games.



Saturday 19 October 2013

Heroscape night!

A few years back I bought a copy of the Heroscape "Rise of the Valkyrie" master set at a carboot sale. York racecourse carboot I seem to remember... well it's been gathering dust on a top shelf ever since, the kids have been too small to play it, and although my wife likes to play boardgames - I got the game out once and set it up, my wife just looked at it and raised her eyebrows. It went back in the box.

I've been going semi-regularly to the Sheffield Boardgames Club for about a year and a half now, I broached the subject of Heroscape with some of the other regulars - no one had played it, but a few were interested. So I finally got round to organising a Heroscape night at my house this weekend.


4 players in 2 teams... troops deployed and ready for battle.
There were 4 of us in total, Karl, Dave, Kes and myself. We played 2 games from the pre-set scenarios that come in the rules, one as 4 individuals - and one as two teams of two.

In the first game Kes had Mimring the dragon - but left himself vulnerable and got completely trashed by Dave with his flying Valkyrie and grenade throwing army squad, whilst Karl and myself floundered around with slow moving troops not getting anywhere near the action fast enough....

In the team game, on one side Dave had the dragon and Karl had squads of vikings and men in black... whilst Kes had robot warriors & a Norse Warrior and I had a squad of alien Marro soldiers and an Army General. Dave's dragon was an easy target and was dead by the end of the first round... and then it didn't take us long to finish off Karl's squads...

The rules seemed pretty straight forward, easy to pick up - and good fun. I feel that now we've got the hang of it, we could get more into the tactics and play more games in a shorter time. Great stuff, I'm glad I finally got it out of the box.

Heroscape is no longer in print, after doing a little bit of research I found a load of information at http://www.heroscapers.com/community/blog.php?u=2  there is an online community there that produce homemade cards for various heroes (mainly using figures from Heroclix) which is quite interesting. Over the years there were 10 series of expansion sets for Heroscape - plus another couple of Big "master set" boxes. A search on ebay will find a load of this stuff.... and it is not cheap. I've got my eye on a copy of the 2nd master set "Swarm of the Marro" to add to this one.... maybe one day.....


Karl and Dave reflect on their defeat. Kes gloats and points out something tactical someone could have done.

 ...
The next morning.... the kids enjoying some modular fun!


 


Star Wars Assault Gunboat - Papercraft

Imperial Assault Gunboat - Papercraft.



Imperial Gunboat next to Rebel X-Wing.
 
Amongst the other pdfs of Starwars paper models I found over at http://www.momirfarooq.com/swstarfighter/imperials.htm was this Assault gunboat - I liked the look of it, but wasn't sure how it fits in to the Star Wars universe. So I looked over on Wookiepedia and found this info: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Assault_Gunboat
They are Imperial fighter ships with their own hyperdrive. Apparently they have only really appeared in the Star Wars X-Wing computer game. Anyhow - they look great, and after a quick google search I also found these images below on the boardgamegeek forums. Excellent.

I found the images below at this link:
http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/881477/extras-the-tie-fighter-expansion




Wednesday 16 October 2013

Tie Advanced - Papercraft

Tie advanced papercraft miniatures for StarWars X-Wing game.


Ties.

My Imperial papercraft force.

I think the "workstation" (kitchen) is in need of a tidy up!.... sorry Mrs.G!!

Papercraft PDFs of StarWars ships are available here: http://www.sw-xwing.com/t358-papercraft-BANQUE-PATRONS-PAPIER-pour-X-WING-psd.htm

The original designs are from this site (they have been re-sized by about 150%): http://www.momirfarooq.com/swstarfighter/index.htm


Saturday 21 September 2013

X-Wings... (correct wings this time!)...

Bits for four X-wings cut out and scored with a craft knife...

All folds and edges touched up with a grey felt pen so no white bits should show when finished.
I found it best to do it at this stage rather than at the end - as sometimes the glue acts as a barrier to the ink...

Starting to glue bits together...

I made sure I got the wings the right way round this time!


I use white PVA (or childrens gloopy craft/school glue) and a small paint brush to apply it.


The wing pieces are all done... I applied a couple of coats of PVA glue to the thin pointy parts.. when the PVA is dry it gives them quite a bit of extra strength.

The wings are on. Because of the shape of the bottom of the ships, I couldn't glue them directly to the stands, so I glued a couple of bits of thick card together, then cut out some small cubes and coloured them grey with the felt pen.

Grey cardboard cubes glued to the bottoms of the X-Wings.

Finished X-Wings on their stands.
PDFs from here: http://sw-xwing.xooit.fr/t358-papercraft-BANQUE-PATRONS-PAPIER-pour-X-WING-psd.htm

Stands from here: http://www.litko.net/products/Space-Fighter%2C-Deluxe-Flight-Stand.html

Card bases from STARWARS X-WING miniatures game - base set and X-Wing expansion sets from Fantasy Flight Games.

Next I'm going to attempt some more Ties... a Tie Bomber and a Tie Scout from http://www.momirfarooq.com/swstarfighter/index.htm

Sunday 15 September 2013

Papercraft Tie Fighters.....



5 papercraft Tie Fighters
 
Papercraft Tie next to Fantasy Flight Model....
 
 
 
 
These Tie Fighters were very easy to make in comparison to the X-Wings I did last week... so next I'm going to revisit the X-Wings - and get the wings the right way round this time!!!....
 
...I'm eagerly awaiting The Millenium Falcon which is going to arrive any day in the post now - (no I'm not going to attempt making a papercraft Falcon!!)

Monday 9 September 2013

Papercraft X-Wings....







My first attempt at 3 papercraft X-wings for use with the Star Wars X-Wing Miniatures game.... They were quite fiddly to do! And I made a serious mistake with the wings... doh!!

The PDF file I used was from: http://sw-xwing.xooit.fr/t358-papercraft-BANQUE-PATRONS-PAPIER-pour-X-WING-psd.htm

Plastic stands from http://www.litko.net/products/Space-Fighter%2C-Deluxe-Flight-Stand.html


.....more Tie fighters next.....