1775

1775 is an excellent low complexity wargame that is still full of strategy and history. The object of the game is to have control of more colonies than your opponent. There are a few scenarios for playing a shorter or different historical battle (Battle for Quebec).

The board is well illustrated. Green cubes are First Nations (neutral until friendly units are moved on top of them), American Colonists (Blue regulars and white militia), and British Forces (Red regulars and Yellow Loyalists). Setup is indicated by the cube illustrations in each region. Here is the board after the American setup.

After the British setup.

In combat, you roll one die for each cube of the color you have, to a maximum of three for irregular and two for regular troops. Defender rolls thier dice and applies the result first. Targets are hits, running men are flee results and blank die are command decision (may move the corresponding colored cube to an adjecent friendly region. Dice are rolled until one side has lost off of its cubes.

Turn order is done by randomly drawing a cube from the black bag. You must play one move card and as many event cards as you wish. The game can end sooner if the forces on one or both sides have played all of thier "Treaty of Paris" cards. Move cards indicate the number of armies that can move (some or all the cubes in a region) and how many spaces they can move. There is also ship and boat movement in the game.

Renforcments are placed during the beginning of your turn. Four cubes plus all of your fled units can be placed on any region your side controls that has a city, like Halifax above.

Here is the game after a few turns. There are French and Hessian allies that can join the fight through playing of cards.

I love the simple elegance of this game.

A Few Acres of Snow

A Few Acres of Snow is a historical boardgame from Treefrog Games.It is based on the French and Indian war of 1754-1763. It has a mechanic similar to the game Dominion where cards are selected/purchased and placed in the discard pile to be later shuffled to form the draw pile when it is exhausted.

Above is the game board set up. There are two ways of winning: collecting enough villages cubes and/or town disks through successful sieges and raids, or the British laying successful siege on Quebec or France laying a successful siege on Boston or New York.

The gameplay goes slow, with up to two actions per turn plus a free action, but each activity matters in the overall game. It lends itself to the feeling that large events are transpiring, planned from far away.

The cards themselves have a lot going on but are simple once you know what to look for. At the top you have the location. You get new location cards when you colonize to them or take them over. They are also important for setting up fortresses and expanding from a village to a town.

The next area has a list of places the colony is connected to and how to get there. At the bottom is a list of what else the card can be used for: ship, military, settlers or money. For instance, to settle Halifax, you could play this card (because it is connected to that place) and would then have to play a card with a ship (to get the colonists there). If the place to colonize has a settler icon then another card with a settler must be played.

During a siege, this card can be played for another point in the favour of the British.

For funds, this card can be played for three coins.

I have played this game a few times and it is enjoyable and exciting.

Battle for Proteus Prime - Objectives

The objectives are the same style as the recent ones made for Dystopian Wars and Firestorm Armada.

I just primed black and drybrushed silver, in order to keep them distinctive on the table top and non-factionalized.

Battle for Proteus Prime - Khitari Infantry

The Aquan Khitari Infantry are standard infantry. There were six different bases in each core set.

I primed black then used dollarstore Ivory paint to drybrush them and put a wash of red on top. From there I used silver paint on the equipment. The base was drybrushed with different shades of brown and the building ruins were done in shades of grey. Then the base was flocked.

Some of the figs can be removed. In the rules you can have some bases as command ones.

Battle for Proteus Prime - Sedna Heavy Skimmer

The Aquan Sedna heavy skimmer is a beast on the field. Its focusing beams can devestate the opponent at range.

I used the same technique as the medium skimmer.

I have the medium skimmer here for size comparison.

Battle for Proteus Prime - Imzani Small Skimmer

The Aquan Imzani small skimmer is a good and fast unit for sweeping around enemy advances.

For how I painted these, I followed the same technique as the medium skimmers.

Battle for Proteus Prime - Sirsir Support Skimmer

Here is the Sirsir support skimmer. It can be taken in Medium Skimmer squads and helps coordinate drop weapons, like the Votari Crystals and Stingray Anti-Air pods.

For how I painted this model, consult the Medium Skimmer post.

Battle for Proteus Prime - Votari Crystal Node

These crystal nodes can also be dropped from low orbit, like the stingray anti-air batteries. They came blue clear and were just drybrushed with dollarstore ivory.

Battle for Proteus Prime - Stingray Anti-Air Batteries

These Stingray Anti-Air pods can be dropped from low orbit to support units on the battlefield. They were painted using the same scheme as the Medium Skimmers.

Battle for Proteus Prime - Lamana Medium Skimmer

So late last year, a friend and I went in on two Planetfall "Battle for Proteus Prime" starters. He already plays Dindrenzi so I took the Aquans. I was interested in trying out a wave-looking wash pattern.

First up is the Medium Skimmer, the Lamana.

I started primed with Krylon black.

I then roughly drybrushed with dollar store Ivory and put on some GW Thraka Green wash.

Behold the power of washes! Then I applied two coats of GW Ashuruman Blue wash, drybrushed dollarstore purple on the bumpy vents, dollarstore metal on the pipes and some metal parts and finally on the focusing crystal, dollarstore light blue and drybrushed ivory.

The base was primed black, drybrushed dark brown and lightly drybrushed light brown. GW flock was applied to give it some depth.

I also had to use GW liquid greenstuff to attach the tank to the stand as it didn't fit well.

As I had two starters worth of these, I now have six medium skimmer tanks. I think they look pretty awesome.

LEMAX Christmas Hill

I'm always on the lookout for cheap terrain. When I saw this LEMAX Medium Village Display Platform on sale after Christmas, I had to have it. Now that i've opened it i've found the terrain is a little big.

Something to mitigate it would be scaffolding or a multi-stage ramp going up. That way it is less an obstacle and more of a scenario piece.

I can leave it in its snowy form but i'll probably repaint it for general use.

Its also made of injection foam. Makes me think I could create my own terrain using this materiel. We shall see.

Gottacon 2015

Gottacon 2015 took place in the same hotel as last year, the Victoria Conference Centre attached to the Fairmount Empress. I had a great time overall and bumped into a lot of gaming friends from near and far.

The good thing, regarding food, was that there was several food trucks this year nearby. The bad thing about the food trucks is that you couldn't bring the food purchased there into the convention space.

The dealers space was on the main floor of Crystal Gardens, across from the main convention centre. The board and miniature gaming was located on the upper level.

Included with the dealers were many local organizations, such as the SCA and Heroes Inc.

My first and only Friday event was a doubles tournament for Malifaux with short timed games and no more than three models and 25 soulstones per team member. Very fun and good to see the same players and a few new ones.

After Malifaux, since we ended early, I went to the Nerdesque show by Geekenders called Star Wars: A Nude Hope. For those of age, here is a trailer. They are hilarious and have some good acting chops. An excellent parody.

Saturday had myself and a friend demo a game called Guildball. We participated in the kickstarter and the final product is due to ship soon. We had many interested people asking about it but only one had the time for a demo. We also met someone in town who also participated in the kickstarter. The intention is to conduct more demos around town.

 

This fantastic Warmachine Cygnar Stormwall caught my eye. What a great and unique paint scheme!

I also played a boardgame called Kingsport Festival. It is a Lovecraft mythos themed game in which you are cult leaders trying to get the biggest and best cult by gaining power and expanding your influence.

AFter supper I played the Malifaux role playing game, Through the Breach. I really liked the character creation and we had a great bunch of roleplayers that made the experience even better. I might pick this one up.

On Sunday, the only event I participated in was the day's Malifaux Tournament. I had two great games. I won one and lost one. This is another reason why I like this game because if its still fun losing then you have a great thing on your hands. Here is the crew I lost against. Great paint job! I ran a Perdita crew.

Well, i'll be back next year. Great fun and great gaming friends. For a smattering of the costumes of Gottacon 2015, head to my normal life blog here.