Scheduled Game #2: Kingdon of Men vs. Salamanders

Met up with my friend Salibaba and our kids to play our game.  Good vs. Evil, Man vs. Lizard.  It was a great game. 

We set up to play Invade.  Salibaba and I set up the map, rolled off for side, deployment and going first.  I was lucky enough to get the first go!

 Terrain set up.  We followed the new Camp-PAIN rules.

 Deployment.  I wasn't very happy with mine, made a couple mistake, BUT I did like the hill I got.

Reverse angle.

 Turn 1 I FORGOT to move!  I was so scared of my buddy's dragon, I just shot at it.  I couldn't reach with my Volley Gun, but I shot at it with my rifles.  Didn't do much.  BUT, on turn 2, I charged it with my regiment of knights!  

 

 Close up of the brave knights fighting the scary looking overgrown lizard.  

 With the dragon defeated, I was able to advance fwd 6"!!!  Out of the way of the regiment of little lizards waiting for a flank charge.

 As the battle raged on, it was back and forth for a while.  I was able to take out his unit of flyers with my mounted scouts and their rifle fire, and the dragon fell to the knights.  Then,

 This is where the game got nutty.  My unit of Footguard charged hard left and the House guard allied follow suite, clearing the pole arm troop engaged with the over grown geckoes!  Result was the charge below on turn 3. The pol arm troop was holding the opposing unit while the two elite units of Man were fighting a HORDE of salamanders.  Unfortunately, the 24 rolls to hit between the 2 units DID NOT produce good results, and they were able to stand their ground. 

 Salibaba took the opportunity to return the favor and knock out my entire center! First, the troop of pole arms fell, then the House Guard.  Salibaba rolled high and they ran for the hills!

 The foot guard stuck around a bit, just to get flank charged by the regiment of little lizards and a front charge front he horde. 

 Salibaba's hero flew in with a breath 10 attack he had rolled for, for winning his last game (house ruled of the Camp-Pain) and whipped out my volley gun.  He had the his blow gun to put some shots into my standard banner. 

 As the heroic foot guard stood their ground for one last turn, they finally broke and ran, but the mounted scouts were close by shooting the salamanders to try and avenge the Foot guard.

 With the entire center and right flank of the human army gone, that left the heavy lifting to the regiment of knights.  They had done a good job in taking out 190 points of dragon, but they were going to need help.  As they tried to swing around, the horde saw them coming and did an about face, to prevent a rear charge.  A rear charge would have put, 32 attacked into that horde.  With the wounds it had suffered already, that would have been a great finally.  BUT, Salibaba is no fool, he is a veteran strategist and was ready with his slimy lizards. 

 The knights smashed into the Salamanders, bringing their wounds to 10, BUT they could NOT get them to break! 

Unfortunetly, there are no more photos of the battle on my end.  For some reason, I thought I had saved them all, but I had actually not.  The rest were deleted my mistake. 

You can find the rest on Salibaba's site at:

http://paintingtheleadpile.blogspot.com/2017/03/kings-of-war-round-2.html

 

After the above photo was take, The mounted scouts took out the refinement of salamanders and my knights, after 4 combats took out the horde!  It was brutal.  Both of us suffered from bad rolling and luck.  But the horde's luck finally ran out.  BUT, Salibaba had killed my standard bearer and headed for the middle.  He was about to charge my flank on the knights at end of turn 6 and I foolishly opted to move fwd with the knights out of his flyer's arch.  This left the center unguarded and 130 points of Salamander Hero was there to win the game!  What a game.  All the fighting and blood shed to let a little lizard that was flying around on another lizard with the game! 

 

It was a fun game and we both enjoyed it.  So far I have lost 1 scheduled game, 1 draw for my scheduled game against Scott and 2 losses playing unscheduled games.  This camp-pain isn't looking so good for me.  But I much say, this new list I have I am actually happy with.  I am happy from my performance, mostly, and I know that I could have won or drawn that one IF I had not moved fwd that turn!!!!  Good times. 

 

 

Before we got this game in, Salibaba showed my boys how to play Frost grave.  Sal LOVES Frostgrave.  His son and he played with my boys.  Salibaba played with Nick, and his son played with Constantine.  It looks like they liked it and we will start playing it soon.  Might need one more lesson.  Here are some photos.

 Salibaba made it very fair, having the same exact war bands with the same exact magic.  Kids picked it up pretty quickly. 

 



Game Mats: UrbanMatz

My buddy Salibaba introduced me to this idea of playing table top games on a pre printed image of terrain on a neoprene mat or similar.  I was like "WHAT?  THAT'S BLASPHEMY!" 

Fast forward a bit, and I am hooked.  It started with playing X-Wing on a 3x3 vinyl matt and now I have a small collection of neoprene mats.  The thing is though, I only have Urbanmatz mats.  Nothing else.  For an excellent comparative review, please see my friend Salibaba's blog at: http://paintingtheleadpile.blogspot.com/2017/02/comparative-mat-review.html

My review here will be on UrbanMatZ products, their customer service and my experience with them and their product. 

What drew me to their products was that they included the carry bag into their price AND removed the entire VAT for American (non-EU) customers.  I was torn between their product and Deepcutstudio's products.  Deepcut does not remove the full value of the VAT and you have to purchase the bag separately.  More on Deepcut another time though, this is about Urbanmatz (UMZ). 

UMZ has a selection of nice mats.  They offer them in 4x4, 4x6, 3x3, 3x6 and they are all neoprene.  Their website is https://www.urbanmatz.com/.  The neoprene (mousepad material) it great.  The mat is heavy enough to lay flat (most of the times) and light enough to put away or carry and not hurt yourself with some heavy bag (hahaha).  The print quality is very good and as I mentioned, they offer a number of different types of "terrain" patterns. 

My first order was the 4x4 grassland, the 4x6 Dirty Roads mat and  4x4 cobblestone with NO blood stains mat.  My second order was the 6x3 space mat, the 4x4 dirty roads mat and the 3x3 space mat.

All of them were good and came quickly, after all, you are paying top dollar for air freight shipping.  They arrive in protective tubes.  I did have a problem with my 3x3 space matt though and minor issues with some others.  It was badly wrinkled, could not stay flat and the 4x4 dirty roads carry bag was damaged.  I took photos and emailed them to UMZ.  Within 1 hour, I had a response from UMZ (Martin) and he was very helpful.  He asked me to confirm my address and that he would send me a new mat and a replacement 4x4 bag to take care of the damaged bag.  He also asked me to check my other products to make sure they were ok.  I did.  The 6x3 space matt was NOT perfect, BUT it wasn't that bad.  I didn't want to be that critical.  I could live with the minor wrinkles.  You can see them in the photos. 

Within a week I had my replacement items.  The funny part was I got a 3x3 mat and a 3x3 bag, NOT a 4x4 bag, BUT....that's ok.  Martin was very helpful, and very on top of the issue until completion.  Even emailing me later to make sure I received my replacements.  I felt silly telling him of the error.  I made the damaged bag work.  So no harm after all. 

Here are some photos of the mats.  Some pics I have thrown some models on top to show them in scale. 

Grassland.  I am going to buy a 6x4 as well.   

Here is a photo from a recent Kings Of War game using the UMZ Grassland mat.  The river is not part of it. 

 4x4 Dirty Roads.  This is perfect for Bolt Action, Mordehim or any other 28mm miniature game that you can set up a city or town. 

 AS you can see, this one had a fold at the end that did not want to stay flat.  I rolled it the other way and it was somewhat corrected. 

 Some models for effect. 

 Cobblestone Mat.  One of my favorites. 

 Details

 4x4 mat and carry bag.

 Name tag for easy identification.

 Just for scale and effect.  I plan on making a nice Mordheim type town soon. 

 6x3 space mat for X-Wing Epic.

 Waves...annoying, but not end of the world.

 Rebel Scum!

 Evil Empire on the move. 

 You can see the wrinkles here.  The pattern is very nice.  Just plain ol' space.  No distractions. 

 6x4 Dirty Roads.  I liked this pattern so much, I bough both the 4x4 and 6x4.

 Close Up.

Here is the 4x4 Dirty Roads with a bunch of terrain on it to look like a realistic scene.  Items are unfinished (hedgerows, and trees) but you get the idea.  Great for any WW2 skirmish game, Modheim or fantasy or other skirmish game that will take advantage of this type of terrain. 

 

Easy storage under the gaming tables (IKEA).

 

In conclusion, I highly recommend UrbanMatZ.  They have a very nice product, very nice looking patterns to choose from, all the standard sizes and their customer service is TOP NOTCH.  I was SO satisfied with them, I placed my THIRD order for a 4x4 Desert mat.  I just hope that UMZ comes out with some more patterns. They are due for some new ones.  They also have some pre-painted terrain now.  Def worth the time and money.  So, order up! 

 

*UMZ did not pay me or supply free samples to me at any time to date of the posting of this review.  I purchased all these on my own. 

 



Imperial Assault: Painting Fantasy Flight Game Figures

For Christmas, my mom got my boys (per my influence, hahaha) the game Imperial Assault by Fantasy Flight.  These are the guys that make Descent and X-Wing.  Both GREAT games.  Since we are all Star Wars fans, except my wife, she can care less and thinks we are all geeks, I figured this game would be fantastic for us to all to play. 

When I opened the box, I found a TON of goodies, and especially the figures.  WOW, great sculpts. As soon as I saw them, I KNEW I had to paint them....yes I know, my wife is correct, I AM a geek. 

So before my boys got the box for Xmas, I figured I would paint for them Luke Skywalker and his dad, Darth Vader.  I think they came out great!  Wasn't hard and being there are a ton of reference photos out there, it was easy painting. 

   

 Father and Son.  After this, I repainted the bases a darker grey.  No flock or anything....so liberating!

 Royal Guard Champion

 Royal Guard.  The red on the base means "elite" unit version. 

 Group of 4 Royal Guard

 IG-88.  He was a separate purchase.

 Imperial Officers.  Their ranks are legit!  The grey haired gy, is the highest rank and will be my "elite" model. He is also wearing black gloves (which you cant see in this photo)

 Han Solo.  Separate purchase

 Light Grey primer and then I used a diluted wash on him to "pre shade" a bit. 

He is a Hero character, I forget his name. 

That's it so far.  I have A LOT more models to paint.  Pretty easy so far, and funny enough, the Storm Troopers are the hardest being all white!!!

 

This was the first Fantasy Flight model I painted from their Descent game.  An Ettin.  I painted the base to look like a dungeon floor.