Phoenix Lakeland Wargames Exhibition 2017

Last Saturday I went once again to the Phoenix Lakeland Wargames Exhibition at the Rheged Centre at Penrith.  The show is now in it's second year and has grown since last year.  There were more traders this year, a bigger bring and buy and they've acquired a second hall to host the tournaments.  I'll apologize now, I forgot to nip upstairs and take some pictures of the tournaments.

Let's look at the display games first.

 This is some sort of world war two game.

 There was a big Warhammer 30,000 battle going on.

Beyond the Gates of Antares

A huge medieval game.

A big American Civil War game using the Black Powder rules.  This one was run by my old gaming group The Dumfries Wargamers.

Some of the traders

Chris the brainchild of the show.

My loot.  Ezekel and Shiva from the walking (I got me a tiger yeah).  I picked up another Kings of War army in the form of the Trident Realms and I got the new Kings of war summer campaign salamander figure, that I'm going to use in Dungeon saga.

Also my other half picked up her first wargaming figures in the form of a Poison Ivy gang for Batman. See

She also picked up a church from Dave's Wargames (check his stuff out, he does realy nice mdf kits).  Expect a couple of guest blogs.


All in all it was another great show.  I managed to spend all the money I made on the bring and buy too.  Will I go next year?  Of course, work permitting that is.

Heresy Miniatures - The Netherlord

I've been a long time buyer of Heresy miniatures, and this beastie is one of their oldest.  Heresy is a great wee company that makes a whole host of fantasy heroes and villains, which is great for populating dungeon.  When I discovered Heresy I was too late to get one of these, he was out of production.  However with a recent kickstarter they brought him back, this time in resin ( the original was all metal).

Do you want to see him?

He's pretty damn big.  Normal sized space marines look him in his knee caps.

Time for some close ups

The Netherlord's nether regions.


I think he's awesome.  I'm probably going to use him as a bloodthirster, so I've painted him up in the colours of my Harvest army.  I've decided that his loincloth is the hide from a Keeper of Secrets, hence the purple colour.  I've based him in the same way as my other daemons just so he fits in.

The Walking Dead - Lee and Clementine booster

I managed to get on of these event only sets during Mantic's last open day.  I totally wasn't sitting at my computer hammering refresh.  It payed of and I was one of the lucky few who got one on the first day.

Lee and Clementine are characters from  the Telltale game series, which I've never played, but I hear it's good.  I might have to rectify that.

Let's look at Lee first

He's one of my favorite posed characters in the game thus far.  He just looks like a boss.  He's actually pretty rock hard, not quite Negan level, but pretty bad ass regardless. 

Now Clementine

Clementine is unique in the game, she doesn't have a defined class.  You get to choose at the start of each game.

And finally the walker

You get a walker with every booster.  This one is a scout feeding on a deer.  I think it's cool.

The Walking Dead - Morgan Booster

Wave two of the kickstarter arrived so I thought I'd get my wave 1 retail exclusives out the way.  Enter the Morgan booster.  This set contains Morgan, his son Duane and his undead wife Jenny.

I've ran a blue theme through their clothing for no particular reason.

Morgan

Morgan is pretty decent in game.  He wont panic when Duane or Carl is within his kill zone.  Keep them alive and he's very reliable.

Duane

Duane on the other hand is pretty shit.  He only has 3 health, but at least he's cheap.

Jenny

Jenny is just a standard walker.  However if you're going down a narrative route you could make Morgan and Duane roll the black dice to see if they attack her.  This would represent their hesitation.
 

Lian Yu - Jungle Hut

I've finished my last building for my Lian Yu outpost, a taller jungle hut.  I wanted more variation in height.  Like the others this comes from Sarissa Precision.  It's the planked style village house from their Far east range.  I've added more of my shredded paper palm roofing to it.

My Lian Yu terrain is about 2/3 done.  I just need to finish basing my trees and build a couple of swamps.  I might get cracked on with that this week.

Batman - Calendar Man

Time for another villain.  And he's a bit of an unusual one, Calendar Man.

Why is Calenadar Man unusual?  Well that's because he's unique.  To simulate how he plans his crimes around holidays he has a different rule depending on what month it is.  For example in March he has Luck, whereas in October he has Undead.

So how is he used in game? His thing is meticulous planning, and that's reflected in his rules.  He has handyman so it doesn't cost him any counters to manipulate.  He has self discipline so he can't be controlled.  And he has mastermind so he adds in extra take the lead marker to your pool.  He also has assassin 5, which means he gains an extra 5 victory points for killing your opponent's leader.  If you catch your opponent's leader with one or two wounds I'd actually take the chance of shanking him.

Batman - Scarecrow and Militia

Sorry for the lack of updates recently, I've been busy beavering away on these guys.  Scarecrow and his Militia from Batman Arkham Knight. 

Let's look at Scarecrow first.

This version of Scarecrow, looks so much better than the Arkham Asylum version.  The dirty trench coat makes him look a lot more intimidating.  Given that fear is his whole jam that's a good thing.  He also got a massive upgrade in the Batman Arkham Knight campaign book.  His fear gas laboratory upgrade turns him from a bit mediocre to down right scary.  And he's at reasonably low rep for a leader.



Now for the militia.  I didn't like their red camouflage look from the game... so I changed it.  I tried a grey camo look for them, but it looked shit, so I went with green instead.

Knife guy.  I like to load him up with a titan dose and send him screaming at the enemy.  His main job is hunting henchmen and getting in the way.

Militia Commander.  His job is to advance with the likes of knife guy and buffing their offensive capabilities with his "Kill Them!" rule.  He also has expert marksman so he's quite good at taking pot shots with his gun.  He's also got a smoke grenade to help his boys advance unmolested.

Rocket Man.  His job is to babysit ammo crates and shoot at clumps of enemies and vehicles.  He can't move and fire, so he's best hanging back.  If he can get a good vantage point then he should be a good area denial piece.

Carbine guy.  This guy has a rare role in the game.  He moves and shoots.  Normally when you move and shoot your weapon's burst is reduced to one.  The carbine's burst however is reduced to 3, from 5. He also has the shooter roll, so he's pretty good at shooting people in cover.

Medic.  This guy's job is to follow other characters around and remove damage from them.  He's pretty squish though.  He could maybe hold his own against another henchman, mut a dedicated melee specialist will hurt him bad.

Melee brute.  He's big, he's tough and he's armoured.  The downside is he's slow and easy to hit.  I like to give him the camo vest upgrade to give him stealth.

Gatling brute.  This guy is a bit like the other, except he has a really big gun.  Against low defence character's and vehicles he's going to fuck up their day.  The downside is he's pretty pricey.  And you can't take both brutes unless you take the Arkham Knight.