Nexus Psi - Message Received

Finally, I got a game in, the long delayed fourth game in the Nexus Psi campaign for Deadzone.

I went into this game with two victories under my belt as opposed to one for the Plague.  The objectives are very clear in this game; stop the Plague from gaining control of four cubes (they are planting explosives to blow up the coms tower).  If I could hold out for four turns I win, otherwise the Plague does.

As usual we played on T'Other One's gorgeous terrain, and the set up with the tower was ideal for this particular game.  

The Enforcers ready to hold off the Plague...

While the Plague are raring to go.

I don't have a full write up, as its some time since we last played there was a lot of looking up rules, which was already slowing things down a bit, so I will just give a general impression.

The Enforcers began with snipers in the tower, trying to take down the advancing Plague.  As more and more of the mutated creatures appeared, the task seemed hopeless (I am always surprised at how many Plague there seem to be).  Early success at taking down a Stage 2 was mitigated by failing to finish off the teleporting plague Terraton (I would regret this many times later).  The Plague HMGs proved very nasty, suppressing three Enforcers who were hoping to take shots at the advancing horde.

The Plague had soon taken the nearest two target cubes and placed explosives in them.  It was time to withdraw and try to deny them the other two cubes.  But by this time many of the Enforcers were tied in melee, including by that abominable Terraton.  As the Enforcers fell one by one the Plague horde was thinning too.  Eventually the Peacekeeper Captain was holding the one remaining target cube, along with an Enforcer and a Specialist with missile launcher.  Fortunately, Enforcers are good at surviving, and several times I was able to withdraw them from melee and fire on their erstwhile opponents.  

At the end, the captain fell, but he had held of the plague long enough to secure victory.

Thanks to my opponent for a fun game played in a very friendly spirit.  Looking forward to the final game in the series.  

You can read about the last game here.

Plague Progress

There was a break in the weather so I was able to spray the Plague and I have just based them.

The 'General' and his specialist weapons (I used the mortar crew for the general, I think with his greatcoat and binoculars he looks much more important than any of the others).

Rank and file (rank in more ways than one)

Plague Dogs.

Painting was pretty much as standard.  I'm not completely happy with the skin tones, I don't like the official pink but I wanted to go for some sort of 'off flesh' colouration.  I played around with various combinations of flesh base coat and washes, then I hit the least garish one with Army Painter Softtone wash (the same colour as the lightest dip).  This pretty much gave me what I wanted, but meant that if I was using the softtone dip rather than strongtone I would have to wash some areas before the dip.

The dogs have different base coats, one is a light grey, the other bone white.

Clear bases again, and I had a few minor issues with smearing superglue.  I will see what can be done (very little I suspect), but they don't look too bad.

A Plague on this Weather

I'm part way through painting a Strike Force of Plague for Deadzone, unfortunately I am waiting for dry enough weather to spray the Antishine on them.  Grr...
When I get them done I will base them and get pictures up.

Meanwhile I have been building (yet more) cardstock terrain for the D&D campaign.  No pictures yet until a) its finished, and b) the players have seen it first.  Don't want to spoil the surprise.

I also gave a friend an introductory game of Kings of War.  He had joined in the epic Battle of the Stag, but this was his first go with a force of his own and an explanation of the rules.
As usual I found the system easy to teach and pick up, and he loved it.

Set up; Orcs to the left, cannon to the right.

From the other end.  The terrain is mostly GW, it always helps if a game looks good as well.

The battle nears its conclusion.  Near the wall lurk the orc skulks, which I failed to get rid of all battle.

In the end it was a hard fought draw.  A good result for a first game.