Warhammer 40,000: Kill Team - Session Report

Over the recent break we had a chance to play a small, three-player, fifty-point game of Warhammer 40,000: Kill Team.  There was a Nurgle force, a Chaos Space Marine force, and I played a Necron force.  The Nurgle force was comprised of all Nurgle Marines, the Chaos Space Marines included three Chaos Marines and two cultists (one with a Heavy Stubber who stayed back all game), and the Necrons included just three Immortals.

The game featured a high-elevation objective, which awarded ten points per turn that it was held unchallenged. 

There were a number of avenues to approach the objective, and Nurgle made a mad dash to the objective, while the Necrons and Chaos Marines tried to shoot them from afar (with little effect).

By mid-game, every force had all assembled near the center objective, and the game turned into a massive, multi-team melee.

In the end, the massive melee turned into a boring roll-fest.  The three forces were so strong on defense and so weak on offense that the rolling went on several turns without one casualty.

The Nurgle force eventually dominated close combat (thanks to their extreme durability and plague weapons) and won the game by defeating a few Chaos Marines, thereby reaching fifty points to achieve victory.

Although a fun learning game, we decided that next game we would likely change the objective placement and win conditions.  We also decided that each team would have benefited from bringing a few more special and heavy weapons into the battle.

We look forward to future battles using our Kill Team forces!

Merry Christmas!

Best holiday wishes to you and yours....

Games Workshop's Blitz Bowl - A Review

Over the last few weeks we have been been painting up models for Blitz Bowl, while also getting more than a few plays of it in.  We have all found Blitz Bowl to be a great two-player game - very different from Blood Bowl, but enjoyable in a very unique way.

It is fast to play, provides a ton of strategy and choices, and the game provides additional team cards (apart from the Humans and Orcs) that allow you to use additional teams.  This was a great choice by Games Workshop and makes the game extensible with additional models, providing much more variety in match-ups.

The Challenge Cards are what make the game shine; they provide randomness and enhance the flavor of the game by taking some of the focus off of just scoring touchdowns.

We have models for most of the teams now and it seems that they are all mostly balanced for our style of play.  If we had to pick a weaker team, it would appear to be the Elves.  Although good at passing, they have a really poor armor stat and are not as fast as the Skaven.  This could just be our own experience because we haven't seen a lot of passing in our games.  All of the other teams seem to have useful benefits that make them more or less competitive.

I've only fully painted up one full team so far (my female Dwarfs), but I'm hoping to paint up the Humans soon.  We are also hoping to get a few more games in, (including some four-player games using a custom pitch I created).

If you are interested, there is additional information about the game on the Warhammer Community website, including a Watch It Played video explaining the rules.

Blitz Bowl is available only from Barnes and Noble and is well worth its price of $44.95.

Gaslands - Five Player Saturday Night Live

Over the weekend I hosted a twelve-hour game day at my place.  For our Gaslands game, we played Saturday Night Live (demolition derby) and we each took one of five different vehicles (around 20 cans each):

• Ballbreaker (Truck)
• Dinoblaster (Truck)
• Hell Camino (Car)
• Knightrunner (Performance Car)
• The Buggy (Buggy)

This time we didn't place a turret in the middle of the board like our last game as we wanted to encourage more interaction in the center.

I played Ballbreaker, a truck with front facing ram and two loadouts of grenades.  I took a ton of damage early from Hell Camino, but got my revenge with a Hard turn where I rammed it head-on.  We both took a ton of damage from the ram.  I was destroyed the next turn and exploded, (which worked out well as I was hosting and needed to head out to grab dinner).

While I was gone, Dinoblaster survived to the end to once again be crowned champion....  With two victories in a row now, Juice's experience playing X-Wing must be translating well to Gaslands....

Gaslands - A Very Griswold Saturday Night Live

In our first game of Gaslands, we played Death Race, so this time we decided on playing Saturday Night Live, (which is more a demolition derby style of game).  In the middle of the board, we placed The Griswold as the turret, which seemed appropriate as we started the holiday season....

The game was much more dynamic than our first game, with a ton of maneuvering and different types of attacks being made each turn.  The buggy was the first to be defeated, and soon after my car, Flameblaster, was destroyed by some rockets fired from Juice's truck, Dinoblaster. 

It felt like we finally got down the mechanics of the game this time, and it made the game go much faster.  We are looking forward to trying Gaslands a few more times over the upcoming holidays.