Painting Rivet Wars: The Blight

I've finally finished the rest of the bunch! Now the game is fully operational at last :D

With no further introduction needed, let me show you the Blightun infantry:

 

Again, there aren't two of them identical

The Blight have two infantry special characters:

 

Baron Gaston Tankken, with his dread weapon

And Jager Erwin Konig, skillful sniper

When it comes into vehicles, they count on these mobile machine guns, the MG08 Schlitten:

 

Thought of painting them more like Uhlans, but they finally ended this way

As well as these lovely Monowheel Dragoons:

 

I do love these

The star unit for them is, of course, the Sturmpanzer:

 

Option 1, with Der Cyclops turret

Option 2, General E. Romler on board

 

So this is the other side of the core box. You saw that the game is fun and easy, but now with painted minis, it can only turn for the better!! We need to try it again!!

Painting Rivet Wars: Allies

April. I had this pending since April. I'd try to make up an excuse, but let's face it, there is none. My mate got the Rivet Wars game and we managed to play a game back in April. Virtually a year later I finally have come to paint the minis. Is 'familiarity breeds contempt' the phrase for this? OK, man, I owe you some beers!!

If you remember the game (if you don't, just click the link above), Rivet Wars is some kind of low Weird War I in an almost chibi aesthetics -or maybe I should say 8bit better? The starter pack my mate got on the Kickstarter covers the Eastern Front, so we have Allies and the Blight here: Today let me show the former. First of all, the reliable infantry:

 

I tried to make everyone different!

The infantry special character is the M2 'Wolverine' armour:

 

Oh, c'mon, it was asking for it!

Though I've seen some pics on the internet as a full 'Capt'n America' in blue, I opted for the green armour, implying it's only a prototype that will not be fully developed until some years later ;)

The cavalry special character is Captain Parman:

 

War Horse. Not the Spielberg one

Ugh. I can't but notice that these pics look way too plain. In the flesh, greens are quite more dull and subtle, and the same goes for browns. Damn...

Anyway, the artillery is made up of these two pieces:

 

Boom shaka shaka boom boom

We also have the rocketcycles:

 

Vroom vrooom, weeee!

Finally, here we have the MT-1 'Ostrich':

 

Option 1, the gunnery cockpit

Option 2, General Patson!

These bobbleheads are sweet to paint, a refreshing choice among all the grimdark stuff I've been doing lately. The other side, the blight, is almost ready and I hope I'll be able to show the minis quite soon...

Playing 'Blue Max'

Different stuff today again. Gaming day at last! It had been long enough since my last game to -well, anything. What do we have today? Airplanes in World War I, Blue Max:

 

Re-edition of the original 1983 game

 

Blue Max is a board game in which we will use cards and tokens depicting WWI airplanes. Each plane is different, of course, and can maneouver and fight in their own unique way. For this game I played the British and my mate Pablo the Germans:

 

The contenders

 

First of all you have to fill in the data sheet. That will allow you to control the damage received and the manoeuvres you will be taking each turn:

 

Looks complicated but trust me, no big deal

 

You can see each aircraft has different hull points, and the same applies for the wings, tail and motor. A separate reference sheet tells you the manoeuvres you are allowed to do. That will mostly depend on your speed during previous turn. Besides, each manoeuvre will spend different amounts of fuel, so at some point you will end with your fuel tank empty and you will only be able to glide, oops. But this is getting too abstract, let's see a battle!

 

Green European fields (France most likely, but not sure about that)

The planes begin to approach

 

The two markers you see at the plane's tail are related to the height (one tells you the effective altitude and the other one is to show if you are going up, down or staying at the same height level). Here in the upper part of last pic you can see the German Fokker is in three hexagons range to shoot the British Bristol. The attacker will roll a different number of dice depending on such factors as distance to the target, being higher than the rival or shooting short or long bursts (taking the risk of jamming the machine gun).

 

Alea iacta est. I mean, literally

 

Let's ignore the numbres for the moment. The colour is what matters. If you get a blue/red mark, you withdraw a card of the damaged area and take as many points as depicted by the card for that colour. If you get no colour (as above) that means the attacker failed the shot.

 

This turn no one shot anyone

But now the German Halberstadt opens fire on the British Sopwith

 

That's right, if your plane has a rear machine gun, you can also shoot your enemy and surprise him. You can see the shooting arc is marked through black signs on the hexagon.

 

Ouch! Seven hull points in a row!

 

But next turn... Oh, retaliation! The incredible manoeuvrability of the Sopwith allowed the plane to face the Halberstadt and...

 

Ratatatat. Lots of special damage!

 

 The observer was injured and a machine gun destroyed. But on the other side of the battlefield...

 

The Bristol hits the Fokker with its tail gun

 
 So things had changed quite quickly! The Sopwith tried again on the Halberstadt, but the German plane decresased altitude. If there is more than one 'height level' difference between the two planes, they cannot be reached.

 

I miss you. I mean, in that other sense. Like... I don't hit you

 
However, next turn had some... ehhh... new experiences for us. The Sopwith went down, the Halberstadt went up, they were in the same hexagon... ehrm... They collided!

 

Dramatization. No actual token was harmed during the game

Both planes received some damage, but kept flying. Phew!

So the battle kept going on, struggling our own dogfights. I guess we weren't too conservative, we actually looked for every opportunity to engage, regardless our own security. So spectacular manoeuvres were totally in order and some real hard fights happened on the air.

Smile! We are on the air!

I guess I have no many reasons to smile

 

 With the Bristol destroyed, the tactical situation was quite different indeed! The remains of the plane would keep on flying, lower every turn, until it eventually crashed into the ground (I believe the plane is considered destroyed and taken out of the board, but this looked nice for us).

 

This isn't how I planed ton visit France...

 

The other two planes kept on fighting. By the way, I am giving you some info that rivals shouldn't get to know, like altitude, how much damage each plane has received and so, but woah, this AAR is supposed to serve as a tutorial and what the hell, we play gentlemanly!

 

Things getting messy

 

The Fokker is getting altitude again in order to engage...

 Again. We did it again (not on purpose, I promise!). The Sopwith collided with the Fokker

 

Seriously, guys? You have all the sky and everybody comes here?

 

 Things were getting difficult for the British:

 

I believe I heard something like a 'crack' on that wing. I believe we shouldn't build these out of wood and cloth...

Disengaging against all odds

Aaaand engaging again. Ratatatatat

Rudder destroyed!

 

 OK, this was it. The plane from on now is considered to be destroyed. But we simply couldn't resist to a last move for the epic apocalyptic end of the game...

 

Can't you see where this is leading to...?

OK, OK, this time it was on purpose...

 We couldn't resist that, it was for the show... (BTW, the other two planes resulted also destroyed by that hit; but that didn't count for game purposes...)

The game resulted totally fun. It is a reedition of the original one from thirty years ago, so the dynamics are quite contrasted! It works really fine, you get into the skin of those aces of the air and how they felt flying those amazing machines at that time. The rules are easy to learn and the game easy and quick to play. So seriously, go play it!

Playing Rivet Wars

Last weekend I played a new game! Rivet Wars this time. If you never heard about it before, how to explain...

Well, a pic will do my job better than any words:

 

Weird World War I in cartoons

 

My mate recently got the game and the silly, cartoony aspect of it totally made it worth of a view! The minis are not exactly chibi style, but quite toy-ish, remind me of videogames of old.

 

Tiny, adorable enemies

Quite steampunk too

This WWI parody faces the Allies and the Blight through trenches all over Rivet World. Our first introductory game made us familiar with the basic rules:

 

Tiny war

The turn sequence is quite easy, you deploy, fight with your units, then move the survivors. Depending on the profiles of each unit, you attack with a number of dice. You hit the enemy on a 5+. That simple.

 

Die! Die by my die!

 

This is a bloody massacre!

As you can see, the game has quite a flavour to tiny oldschool videogames, with units advancing and getting stuck in the trenches.

 

Hold the line! Hold the line!

 

The profiles are quite easy to apprehend, so it is all just a matter of properly deploying your units and having good luck with your dice. Allied infantrymen are quite balanced soldiers, while Blight Panzerfausten (is that spelled right?) are more anti-tank oriented, but Blight vehicles are more anti-infantry designed where Allies have heavy mortars, for example. Both armies have specialised units for each role, so the game is fun and balanced.

Once we got the basics, we decided to play a full game. The difference is that you draw some special cards at the beginning of each turn. You have two decks for that, one for secret missions (so you have to accomplish them without the enemy knowing a thing about that) and one for special actions, allowing you determined features for your units. The rest of the turn is just the same.

We chose the 'Death from above!' scenario. Let me transcribe the introduction:

A gallant young officer of the Allies has formulated a daring plan, using the new dirigibles to drop men behind the enemy lines and take them by surprise! The senior staff reviewed the plans in their subterranean command bunker and agreed that it's worth the risk.

So, under this premise, we deployed our troops. Blight can deploy up to 6 points (each kind of unit costs a determined number of points) and Allies can deploy up to 4 points, but can additionally deploy 3 riflemen in any grid (but beware! They will scatter a little...)

 

Ooops! Were we supposed to land here...?

 

Allies managed to deploy their special character, the M2 'Wolverine' armour (on the left of the pic), an infantry meat grinder

 

I'm a mix of Mr. Potato, Iron Man and Captain America

Blight deployed their special character, Jager Erwin Konig, a dreadful sniper, and managed to hold the position:

 

They keep comin', we keep shootin'!

Mr. Potato Murder-o-Matic 1900's series

 

Luck plays quite a role in this game, one turn the Allies were taking over the enemy positions, the next one Blight smashed Allies and regained the positions.

 

They killed Kenny! The sniper has killed Mr. Potato!

 

So it was quite a balanced battle, getting new reinforcements each turn, wave after wave.

 

Static frontline. It's WWI after all

We also were having a draw with victory points!

 

 Then the Blight Empire decided to deploy their truly killer machine...

 

...the Sturmpanzer!

 

Here you have an example of what I was saying before:

 

One minute the Allies have their ranks depleted...

...the next one they have the trench crowded again...

...just to get killed again another minute later.

 

The sniper was finally taken down

But victory was in the Blight's hands by now

 

So this was the game, I hope it helps you to make an idea of it! I actually enjoyed it a lot, the dynamics are quite simple (funny thing, this is the first game where I've seen that you shoot first and move later on), there is a lot of action (a lot!) as there is a terrible number of losses every turn which get replaced by the next wave (just imagine the guy with the whistle calling for the reinforcements) and you get a lot of fun, really!
The aesthetics can be an issue for some people, I know, but I believe the design is just part of the appeal of this game, I find it really funny!

Of course I know what you are about to say... I played with unpainted minis! Sob, sob, I just can't keep the rhythm, but I promise I'm not idle! These minis will get onto my workbench as soon as I have the chance...