Deathwatch RPG - A weekend of fun..

Well, I had two games of Deathwatch this weekend just past. The first I was playing in, was run by a friend of mine Steve. Our brave party of space marines attempted to recover a strange and odd ancient war device/doomsday type weapon from under the clutches of the Tau.
It was the adventure from the GMs Screen booklet. Or at least part of it. Had some very interesting moments.

The second game was run by me, on the sunday. Was a good game. The players seemed to enjoy it. It was mostly a laying down on plot and info and a warm up mission to get the players thinking and working to gather.

They successfully infiltrated some ruins that the Tau were showing significant interest in and located an old biologis research facility. They avoided letting loose some specimens. And though they were ordered not to engage, or give away their presence, they did wind up capturing a Tau Etherial caste member and getting away with it.
The second part to the game, didn't quite go as smoothly as the one marine got a bit impulsive due to his hatred of Tau and their carefully planned assault on a comms relay position, was more brute force and bolter-shell affair.

The Tau Commander did manage to get a salvo of rockets away before the marines gunned him down. Unfortunately the rockets did near kill one of the marines. The permanent spending of a fate point, leaving him alive but with a severe injury.

Thank fully the tide of battle was in the marines favour and despite the injuries they were able to destroy their target before the Tau, mysteriously started bombarding their own position with long range plasma munitions.

Deathwatch is an interesting game. As starting characters, the simple fact you are playing Astarte's means the characters are quite formidable. And players can literally scythe their way through hordes of xenos at times. We are not using the errata'ed weapon rules. Something will have to look at for future times maybe if it looks too easy for them.

But if you want a RPG system where even basic characters are pretty tough, try Deathwatch.

Serious Painting Skill..

Every now and then I come across a website or photos etc of some serious modelling talent. Painting skills that just make me seeth with envy.

And these are some of the best.. have alook and feast your eyes on the attention to detail. I love dioramas, when they are done well. When there is a nice sence of story and drama.

From: http://www.fullrepent.fr/spip.php?article113

From: http://www.fullrepent.fr/spip.php?article113

Click on the links to see some more and mean. MORE! stunning work. Seriously impressive. Unfortunately the poor chap has passed on. But what talent he had.

Stoke Challenge Photos : 15th July 2012

Firstly, apologies to my followers for a long break in posts.. have been lacking in time to get things written up.. so in a bit of a reverse order, here is the write up for the Stoke Challenge.. show.

http://stoke-challenge.blogspot.co.uk/

We hadn't made it last year, but have been before and so the weekend after Gauntlet, and running our own club show, we took a trip down to stoke for  a look and see.

The stoke challenge is a smallish show with tournaments and a few traders. The bring and buy alas this year was a little dead.. infact it did not manage to fill more than about a single table.. but that said, the rest of the show was busy.. so just one of those oddity.. I did pick up some nice 20mm modern figures for club mates..

The tournaments were in full swing and there were some lovely demo games.
Here are some photos from the day..

The hall in the morning.

Nice info board on one demo game.

A large game. Some lovely figures too.

Will and Steve failign to avoid the camera!

Probably my favourite game of the event. Looked stunning.

Very atmospheric.

Always happy to donate. The gaming table and figures were lovely.

I liked the mix of elements.. infantry, trains, boats and planes.

"ok, so who is in charge here??"

The town..

Gun laying in wait.

Aircraft over the massing hordes

Dug in troops trying to fend off the cavalry.

A relief force getting ambushed.

Nice tents.

A view from above.

Another wave of infantry on the attack.

Casualties..

Sharp shooters in the hills.. taking their toll.

Hmmm.. I think someone should have garrisoned those hills..

Steve Helens Spartans, VBCW game table. Very nice indeed.

Nice clean feel to the table and nice figures.

There were a fair few vehicles on the board.

Not a period/game i have much interest in, but did appreciate the efforts and work gone into it. Looked great.

The buildings are foam board with printed vaneers added. Made by a chap from the Spartans, and does them to order too.

Artillary laying in wait.

The business card is for the chap who makes the scenery.

"Run the giants are coming".. :)

At every show there is always an ass! ;)

I loved the signage.

Lucky there is no air power.. cramped confined streets, plus bombs equals a mess.

Ironclad figures. Some lovely sculpts. 



Iroclad Miniatures - Very nice.  

Desert WW2 20mm game. Looked lovely. I believe using Rapid Fire.

Quite a strong defencive position.

A nice napoleonics game, in smaller scale. Looked interesting.

From the other end.

More nice figures.

WW2 desert 20mm game.

Not looking good for the british.

Yes, defenitely not good.

Semovante 90.. was said to be better than the 88mm flak used by the germans. A real Anti-tank beast.

The italians holding their ground.

Good mix of units in the game.

Forgot to ask who was actually winning, before I left.

A bit fussy, but the hall from the far end.

SAGA.. looks interesting but yet to try it.

Did like the figures mind.

Looked very nice.

So this will be the diplomatic party then!

Saga, a game I will have to try at some point in the future.

So we wandered about and had  good look at things. A nice friendly show. The tournaments were interesting and seemed to be going well. Apart from the slight issue of the bring and by, it was a nice morning..

We shot home shortly after 1, as had things to do. Looking forward to next year now.