The Incursion Begins

Played the first two missions of Incursion on Saturday night.  The mechanics are simple but have a subtle layer of complexity added by the cards and command points mechanic.
Mission one had two APE’s facing off against a horde of zombies that kept growing by six zombies per turn.  I went with the Allies and Brendan took the SWG.  I made a big mistake by standing and firing at the zombies.  Big mistake.  You need to keep moving and keep shooting.  Also as far as the Allies are concerned, corridors=good, intersections=bad.  You do not want zombies to start surrounding you as their hand to hand attacks increase in power when hitting the same target.  By the time I had worked out what to do there were around 20+ zombies on the table and most of them between me and my exit point.
Dark times.
 
The second mission gave us more resource points and I was able to field two grunts, a HMG and Sarge.  The SWG brought along some sturmzombies, two bomberzombies, Hans Von X and a werewolf.

Splitting me men into two teams and taking great advantage of reaction fire allowed the APEs an easy victory for this mission.  That and the fact I was rolling three dice for reaction fire instead of only two meant that I was hitting way more often than I should have.  But it also meant that I was rolling doubles more often too and doubles cancels reaction fire for that player that turn.
Other than that play went smoothly and fun was had by all.  The first game took close to an hour to play but there were a lot of interruptions and we were referring to the rulebook a bit.  The second game was done in maybe 30-40 minutes and I don’t think we touched the rulebook much.
Can’t wait to get this onto the table again.

Painting the Incursion Miniatures – Day 2

Well technically it’s day three but I didn’t do much yesterday so it doesn’t count.  I’ve finished painting Hans the Hunter.  But he is the coolest looking.

I’ve also finished the zombies for now.  There’s plenty of little details I haven’t gotten to yet but I’ve already spent so much time on these guys and there’s other miniatures that need finishing before Saturday night.

They look good enough for use on the table but some close ups here show that things like the buttons, pouches, belts and so on all need to be done.

They will get finished off and given a coat of matt varnish, this weekend hopefully, but right now I need sleep and then tomorrow I’m finishing these guys.

And I still need to re-read the rules and get the current FAQ.  Sigh, maybe I don’t need sleep after all.

Painting the Incursion Miniatures – Day 1

I managed to get all the Incursion miniatures based last night and today I took an RDO and started painting.

Sorry there’s no close up photos as the lighting in the family room is pretty bad this time of the night and I’m too tired to set up elsewhere.  I spent most of the time on the zombies but I have managed to also get base coats on the Apes and Von-X’s.  The werewolf is the only one without any paint, but I still have two nights before they hit the table.  It’s been a while since I’ve done any serious painting and I’m pretty happy with the amount of paint I was able to slap down today: 37 minis has to be a new record for me.  I’ll be even more impressed if I can get them done before Saturday but so far I think I’m on track.

Incursion is Here!

I got a phone call after lunch telling me that my parcel from the US had arrived.  Incursion was here!  Waiting until 5 (not a heck of a lot of work got done) was arduous.  Eventually I got home and found these waiting for me.

Here’s the contents of the German starter (left) and Allied starter (right).  Not the best photos I’m sorry but I’ll get better ones up when I put these together (starting tonight).

As for the game itself the box is a lot heavier than I imagined it to be.  Opening the box explains why, the top inch or so of the box is all gameboard and card counters. 

I won’t go into the details of the box contents yet but I will post something soon, right now I need to start painting.

Incursion Zombies

I came home to find some zombies in the meter box.  Usually I just hate that, but these were the ones I ordered from Maelstrom.

The amount of duplicate miniatures in the package isn’t too bad considering the amount that you get.  A bit of creative painting and the “Seperate Head System” that Westwind use should make it easy to create some unique looking zombies.

The quality of the scuplts are impressive with some very classic “zombie” like poses.  The casting process has left a fair bit of flash that needs trimming.  Most of it should be easily rubbed off with a blade with only a few miniatures needing a cut and file.  The heads look like they’ve got decent sized necks to join them to the bodies so a bit of superglue should be all that is needed to stick them on.  Pinning them would probably be overkill and very time consuming.  These are the first miniatures I’ve bought that have the rolled shoulder type bases and I have to say that I love them!

I tried them on the Black Tree stuff and they look incredible.  For a while I’ve had the feeling these miniatures were missing “something” but I just couldn’t put my finger on it.  So off I went to eM4’s website and placed an order for 100 of the 30mm and 10 each of the 40mm and 50mm rolled shoulder bases.  Best of all is that the washer bases I’ve used for the miniatures fit nicely into the recess on the bases so rebasing them should just be a case of a drop or two of glue.  The metal washer bases won’t have been wasted though as I plan to get some small (4-5mm) cube magnets and paint them to be used as status markers for the various rule sets.

Standardising the bases of all my WW2 minis (28mm at least) should allow me to use the zombies in games like Hell on Earth or All Things Zombie, and likewise I should be able to use the Germans/British/US in games like Secrets of the Third Reich.  What’s that you say?  I don’t own Secrets of the Third Reich?  Well no, not yet I don’t :)

Since the rest of the Incursion stuff is likely to be arriving any day now I really should get cracking and start painting these zombies.

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.

This is Not Your Father's Incursion

Damn you Tas... Damn you to Heck!

I almost bought this:

Which would have inevitably led me to buying lots of these:

 

But I didn't... haven't... yet.  Well let me explain.  I would have bought the game except for two things:

1. Firstly money, the game + miniatures = lots of money.  AND MY WIFE WOULD NOT APPROVE.
2. Secondly you can download the game for free... legally I might add.  Grindhouse Games have found it in their hearts to offer a print and play version of the game available here.

"Meh" I initially thought, too much effort it won't look as good as the shop bought version.  Then I saw these (on Boardgame Geek):

 

 

 

Ok... now I'm interested.  Methinks to myself "I can make that... and better to boot!"

So now the plan is as follows (in no particular order):

1. To make a board and the components.
2. Buy the miniatures (shhh do NOT tell my wife about this bit)
3. Play the game.

Parts one and three should be pretty easy... part two has me worried.

P.S.
Tas: I didn't really mean what I said before.  Admittedly you are a bad influence but your blog still rocks.