Hullo!
And huzzah for Fridays, eh?
Just thought I'd share: last week I played the gentlemanly Fallen 73rd online using the superb Vassal 40k and the wonderful first scenario from UK WD353: Evacuation.
Here's the scene of carnage at the end:
(You'll note that my commander had to escape using a stolen Eldar Falcon, as there isn't yet a valkyrie model available).
73rd crated a great 'table' to play on, representing the jungled ruins in the WD battle, and we used the floor plan on the right to locate the troops on different levels. All the buildings counted as 4+ ruins with line of sight bounded by reason and gentlemanly agreement (thanks, 73rd!) and we used the forces as outlined in the WD battle report (see below).
Despite a fairly disastrous start the brave boys of the Imperial Guard managed to fight through enough of the evil deathbots to allow the flyboys to land and begin the evacuation. The real champions of the match were the special weapons squad who - with two immaculately lobbed demo charges - destroyed 8 necrons from a squad of 10, thus clearing a landing space for the valks on the West face of the ruins (you can just make out the scrap metal the 'crons left behind). Hooray for demo charges, eh?
73rd was - of course - very sporting throughout and the game was great fun. It's worth noting that it was good fun to try different units out, and playing a scenario rather than a balanced scrap is just so much fun!
I was going to note the forces involved, but I'm knackered and I've a house guest downstairs whose birthday it is today too...so I ought really to go and speak to him. Was this batrep in the latest US White Dwarf? If not, I can provide more details on request...
- Drax.
Sounds like a fun game! And I really need to check out this Vassel 40k thing.
ReplyDeleteI thought I'd get a comment in early as I have a tendancy of killing the entire conversation just by commenting haha...
ReplyDeleteThanks for another great game Drax, as usual you were a great opponent. I'm still laughing at the little tag lines we added for the Valkyries *cough* Eldar thievings. You can just make it out in the pic above lol
Scenarios really are great - they're much more evocative than "line up and blast" games.
ReplyDeleteI really need to figure out how to use Vassal - I did the normal bloke thing of not lookingfor/reading any instructions - so ended up looking at a blank screen wondering what the hell I was supposed to do now - then got distracted by something shiny...
Looks like a load of fun there Drax and 73rd! I've never actually used vassal for anything other than Mathhammer and battle reports. How long does a normal 1500pts game usually take you?
ReplyDeleteThanks, Guys,
ReplyDeleteVassal is simply brilliant - not least as I'm isolated out in the country with no network of gaming friends locally.
To respond to the various lines of thought: 73rd talked me through downloading it, as I'm not very technical, but once you've done that it's really stupidly easy (and 'intuitive', as they say).
Battles (for us at least) seem to take quite a long time, but it's worth noting four things:
1) I'm a slow player anyway;
2) A lot of time goes on communicating (mostly pratting around) via the simple msn-style message boxes. I'm sure chatting on 'skype' or somesuch would be far, far quicker, but that's not an option for me at the moment.
3) I play guard and therefore have a lot of bodies to move around;
4) We often use it to try new ideas out, so there's more checking of rules, cross referencing etc.
I ought to point out: I've seen some really annoying, infantile and unsporting approaches to using Vassal when observing others' games, and that would be a rubbish experience, but with a sporting opponent and not taking it too seriously it's great fun!
Cheers,
- Drax.
Looks like it was fun, I can't wait to try it out myself. My brother only has two squads of Necron Warriors though.. may have to adapt the forces or use proxy models. I already have lots of jungle terrain and the perfect model for last stands... the Alamo! Just waiting on those Valkyries! (ordered today)
ReplyDelete