Man Cave – Humble Beginnings

Setting up the man cave has been progressing slowly but surely.  Things have been hampered by the fact that at some point my shed was paid a visit by these little ahem “nibblers”.

They have gotten into almost everything and there are little black mouse turds every-fucking-where.  So every box has to have every item checked for damage, de-turded and then sorted into piles so it can be unpacked or taken to the tip.  Initially I was in shock at how much damage they’ve managed to do but it quickly turned to rage.  I haven’t seen one yet and I honestly think they’ve moved, even my cat hasn’t paid any attention to the open shed.  But I swear to God that if I see one freaking little whisker then I’m going to seek retribution Incredible Hulk style.

I should be able to get the shed completely emptied tomorrow and then all the shelves, cupboards and other storage can be moved in.  Once I’ve decided on a layout then I can start putting stuff away.

On a happy note though, I’ve come across heaps of stuff I’d either forgotten about or that I simply couldn’t find.  Some of it has been promptly squirreled away where I can find it again later and some of it such as a small Clan War army has been put up on the WargamerAU Buy/Swap/Sell forums for trade.  By 9am this morning I had offer to trade them for a small collection of Games Workshop’s Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle game.

I’ve been wanting to get into this game for a while but the prohibitive cost of GW minis has put me off, $20 for a single character is just plain crazy.  This trade will land me a various sets of the Fellowship, 48 elves and some elf heroes/personalities, 24 human warriors, 12 riders of Rohan, 5 Ring Wraiths, 12 Moria Goblins and the Fellowship and Two Towers rulebooks.  I probably won’t do too much with these until after I’ve finished all the Incursion stuff (which all shipped today so I should have them here in about two weeks – woohoo!).

So hopefully tomorrow I’ll be able to post some photos of “Man Cave mk 1”.

Zombies from the Maelstrom

Sadly I missed out on getting the extra zombies for Incursion and six zombies in the German starter just won’t be enough.  I don’t mind using proxies or even card standees occasionally but if I’m going to play a zombie miniatures boardgame then I want zombie miniatures.

So once again Tas from The Man Cave kindly guided (misguided*) me to have a look at Maelstrom Games in the UK where I ordered these:

Got them for about $30 and they offer FREE INTERNATIONAL POSTAGE to any order over £10.  Now that’s such a ridiculously low threshold that any order should just get free postage.

I’ll be able to use these guys for other games like All Things Zombie, Hell on Earth or even Fear and Faith.  When they get here that is, oh the wait is killing me.

* Legal disclaimer required by Wife Law.

Stupid Good Incursion Deal

Well you’ve gone and done it now Tas… you just waltz in and blog about Incursion without a care of the impact it will have on the rest of us.  But I held fast and I resisted the temptation…

Until now that is.

Damn Grindhouse Games have a Stupid Good Deal going where you get the game and one each of the Allied and German starter packs for $100US.  Postage was a shock at $44US but I guess these things are heavy.  It’s crazy but it still works out cheaper than buying them locally, $300AUS retail and on sale for $240 AUS at MilSims without postage.

First 25 orders also get an additional 6 Sturmzombies and a pair of Bomberzombies, I so hope I was quick eneough.

I was tempted to pick up some of their resin terrain pieces but I figured I could make them myself and I’d already spent enough.  I may be their kind of stupid but I’m still smart enough to know I’ll have to explain this purchase to my wife.

The Game Itself

According to www.incursiongame.com the game contains:

• Rigid two piece box covered in art
• Glossy 28 page rulebook
• Card rules summary/playsheet
• 4 sheets of two-sided heavy-duty die cut pieces (132 total) including counters, doors and stand-ups for all models that might potentially be used in the game.
• Super Heavy duty two-sided six-fold game board
• 86 cards including the full deck of battle and all model cards in multiples where appropriate.
• 3 black dice
• 36 black plastic stand-up holders for doors and “models”
• Vac-formed plastic holding tray
• More fun than you can shake a stick at!

Now on to the really cool bits, the US APE suits.

Allied Starter Pack

 

German Starter Pack

Ilsa Von X, Gretel Von X, Hans, and the Blitzhund.

6 Sturmzombies

 

2 Bomberzombies

I just have to wait for it to arrive now.  So while I’m waiting anyone have a good idea on how I tell my wife?  Any suggestions at all, guys… guys?

*sigh*

If you don’t hear from me for a while send help.

Project: Man Cave

It’s school holidays once again and I've got two weeks off to look after the Younglings.  As with any extended period of time at home I have some handyman (and I use this term loosely) projects I need to finish.  These holidays are no exception but I also have a *queue dramatic music* new project.

We built our house almost three years ago now and at the time we got power run to the shed.  The plan was to get lights and power points put in and make it a quasi storage workshop.  Well we’ve managed the storage part of the plan, albeit poorly done.

So the shed needs a clean out, a clean up and sorting out.  All before Monday…

Quickly thinking of as many excuses as I could not to do this when my wife mentioned that once it was cleaned up I could move all my gaming stuff (she used a different word) out there.  I was about to object when the thought hit me: man cave.

Now I know she’s only dangling the “gaming shed” as a proverbial carrot in the hopes that I’ll actually start and finish a project in the same holiday period.  And damn her she’s right, I’ll work alright.

There’s a huge chunk of my youth hidden away in the last photo:

• all my novels, books and comics
• a 2,000+ CD collection
• a sizable collection of old-school RPG’s
• a lounge suite
• a couple of tables
• every gaming console known to man
• an 80cm flat screen TV

What a good start for the man cave.

Of course this will be a great incentive to finish off the arcade cabinet I’ve been building for the last 5 or 6 years.

Tusk-en: Raiders, Jawas or Ewoks

I'm still (im)patiently waiting for the rest of my Star Wars beasts to arrive and I really want to play Tusk so I've got to make a decision and rather than go through my usual procrastination process I've decided to put it to a vote:

Should I...

1. Wait for the "Reeks" to arrive and play Tusk-en.
2. Use Jawas and go hunting for droids.
3. Use Ewoks and go hunting for some of the beasts I already have (hmmmm Scout Troopers?).

So I ask you my fellow gamers, what should I do?

Ee Chee Wa Maa!

Two more parcels of Star Wars miniatures arrived today, woo hoo!!!

The first lot was from a trade on Wargamer AU, mostly droids and a few droid tanks but it also contained a few beasties.  Notably were the rat and cat like creatures in front of the walker like droid.  I think they’ll do for “dog” replacements in Tusk-en.

The second parcel was a combination of two eBay hauls.  A mixed lot of pretty much every era and faction.  What was really surprising was the size of the beasties… they’re huge! And these are only considered their mid range sized miniatures - the Reek is bigger.  I think we’re going to need a bigger boat!

A better shot to show how big these things are, the Rebel trooper and his little furry friend stand no chance.

 

I’ve got enough to play Tusk-en now, and with the last couple purchases I should also have enough to field a platoon or three each of Clone Troopers and Droids so I expect something to start happening with Star Wars Commander soon too.

Flying Lead

I’m still waiting for my Star Wars beasties to arrive from eBay and trades.  Sadly I’ve only managed to get one Reek for the Tusken Raiders to hunt, so I’ll have to just buy some more after the credit card to settles down.  I did manage to score a handful of smaller beasties though so Tusk-en will get played at some point soon.  In one of the trades I managed to pick up a crab droid, some Corporate Alliance Tank Droids and a Commerce Guild Homing Spider Droid.  They’ll add some punch to the droid forces and help to even things out when the Jedi are on the table.

In the mean time I’ve been playing some games of Fantastic Worlds with the Star Wars minis I do have.  The game is very good but the one area that is frustrating me is the amount of time it takes to convert the stats over from the Star Wars Miniatures system.  Now to be fair it’s my fault as there are just so many wonderful options in Fantastic Worlds that it seems a shame to do just a basic conversion.  The combat system also slows down with 20-30 miniatures on the table.

So I finally gave in and picked up a copy of Flying Lead from Ganesha Games.

Flying Lead is based on the Song of Blades and Heroes (SoBH) system which I’ve had plenty of fun with and we’ve also started playing their Naopleonic rules Song of Drums and Shakos.  What attracted me to Flying Lead is that is builds on the simplicity of SoBH and adds in rules for modern weapons, vehicles and morale (among others).  They also provide some online weapon, vehicle and squad builders which make converting the Star Wars statistics an absolute breeze.

So with after going through the rulebook and spending an hour or two with the squad builders I was able to come up with this:

I’ll play a few games this weekend and post some battle reports.  I’ll also post the stats for the miniatures once I’m happy with them.