Celebrating the 4th - Nerd Style!

Whew. Its been a couple weeks since I posted anything on this blog. I wish it was because I was busy with lots of models I was working on, but I was just a little burnt out and enjoying the start of the summer here in Seattle (which needs to be enjoyed before it vanishes!). I've ended up with a nice long weekend to celebrate the 4th of July (US Independence Day for my non-US readers) and I decided to do EVERYTHING nerdy apparently.

On Saturday, I played 5th Edition Dungeons & Dragons for the first time. I don't think I've actually played in, and not ran, a game of D&D since I was in grade school. My buddy Josh ran us through the first in what I hope is a series of adventures in his own setting and I don't think I've laughed and had such a good time in a long while. It was great fun to play and solve problems (or create them) and let a story evolve rather than plan and run a game. I'm playing a Dwarf Fighter, Ulf Rolfsson - who I'm vaguely patterning off Sean Connery's character in "The Untouchables." The bad impression is a lot of fun to do in game.

"Just like a goblin, brings a knife to a crossbow fight!"

Sunday, I set up a Napoleonics game and three friends came over to fight a critical made-up battle for supply depots during the War of the 5th Coalition. We managed to complete the game in about 3 hours and had a great time. Somehow, the Austrian Army managed to brutally savage the forces of the French Empire despite losing the initiative for 7 out of 9 turns.

I broke out the full 12'x4' set up for this battle.

French starting positions.

The Guard advances! Unfortunately, it still wasn't enough to carry the day.

After battling it out over the rolling fields of Bavaria, we switched gears and travelled to the far future of Warhammer 40,000. This was my first test drive of 8th edition. My Orks faced off against Necrons and got stomped pretty hard. I learned a ton about army organization and missions in this edition from just one game. I liked that it played pretty cleanly; and while my Orks had an uphill battle all game,  I felt like that was more about my own poor tactics rather than just having a bad set of army rules. I'm looking forward to playing some more games of 8th ed - and I'll share my thoughts on that at some point.

My Waaagh! advances across a desolate refinery world against the newly awakened Necron horde.

Even at 50 PL, its a lot of Orks!

Its also a LOT of Gauss weapons… 

These are my buddy Stuart's lovely models. 

Ohhhhhh! I so wanted this showdown to happen - unfortunately the 20 Warriors on the gantry had other ideas.

Paint-wise, I finished up a unit of 3 Killa Kans which brings my Ork army over 100 Power Level-things. I also finished up some more Shadow War scenery and I'm already eyeing up getting a little more. Because I am crazy, apparently. But for now, I am fully satiated on gaming after this weekend and my feet are sore from standing at gaming tables because I'm a million years old I guess!

Huey, Dewey and Louie are ready to rumble!

I had such a great time this holiday weekend and I'm really lucky to know such awesome people to game with!

Cheers!