VENGEANCE!

This is not a post about revenge. It’s a post about the largest Guild Ball event I’ve been to, and possibly the largest in the UK. As such, this is a long post about Guild Ball – you’re warned! This year marked the third anniversary of the event and I finally overcame my social anxiety and concerns for my ability at the game to go along for the weekend extravaganza of Guild Ball and gaming. jumping in a hire van with five other Surrey Spartans, we began our literal Road to Vengeance after weeks of “planning” and “preparation”.

Barry’s Birthday Bonanza Snake Draft

Fellow Surrey Spartan and good friend of mine Barry (of Roll Better Podcast fame) turn another year older – only his 27th, I’m assured by ‘sources’ from said podcast – and since he, like many of my gaming club, are keen Guildball players local pundit John Parish (also of Roll Better fame) kindly organised a snake draft as part of his celebration.

The Massive Mass Effect Race – Part I

                I have not been a very good writer this weekend, and nor was I very stringent on my diet or exercise regime. What I did do was spend two and a quarter days shut in a house with six friends racing through the Mass Effect trilogy – Andromeda was excluded only because it’s not part of the Shepard story line, and we were aware we may not have the time to do all four games. And so I’m doing a three part blog post about the adventures and exploits of Titan Shepard, Earthborn war hero of the Alliance Infiltrator Corps!

Surrey Spartan’s Cabbage Punt

The Surrey Spartans have recently held their first ever Guildball Tournament! This was, of course, named the Cabbage Punt because really grown adults quite laughing at immature jokes – I mean, er, after Bushel’s ability and in honour of the Farmer’s release. Definitely. Whatever our ineffable reasoning, we hosted it

A Return to Space (Games)

Time for a lighter blog entry this week – as predicted, after my Drop Fleet Commander game on Wednesday evening my enjoyment and excitement for the game returned. The initial rekindling of my enthusiasm for the game came after flat-mate Matt took his UCM to table against PHR player Laurence from our group. The brief after-action report I got from Matt energised me for a game of my own, so I got in touch with Laurence and arranged one!

Space Battle! [Drops Fleet]

When I threw down the gauntlet to Steely Dan, our local Scourge player (alien parasites like a more invasive and domineering version of the Goa’uld from Star Gate) to the biggest game we could manage I was wholly surprised when he turned up and said, “Do you want to just have a big space battle?”. But I was up for it.

Surrey Spartans Big Bad Escalation League – Month 1 List & Review.

I’ve chosen a heavy metal theme because when I eventually finish converting up my chariots and cavalry they’ll have a Mad Max theme going on, based of all the wonderful things from that full and thought provoking film series. And also it gives them a bad ass element that Undying Dynasties channel well. Metal and Undeath have that sort of timeless bond that is so rarely found in fiction. It makes both aesthetic and thematic sense while also appealing to my personal sense of awesome. Whether or not I can keep it up we’ll see, but I have plenty of source material.

Surrey Spartans Smackdown 2016

And so the Spartans Smackdown has finally come around! It was a great two days of gaming with a large number of great people. My normal trepidation about the character of people who play Warhammer/9th Age and their unnecessary pedantic ism was swiftly banished and I thoroughly enjoyed the entire event.

Building Dread Elves, Not Dead Elves Part IV – The Scent of Cheese and a Ringing Bell

My fourth practice game in September was against Mike’s Vermin Swarm, as mentioned previously. Having already played Mike I was confident I could beat him. He had changed his list, adding in even more ranged firepower and somehow shuffling points about to get not one but two war platforms. He’d used this new list to beat John P, a regular tournament attendee and very good player, so perhaps I should have had slightly less bravado about going into this game. Mike was also the one who clarified how powerful the Magic Resist rules are to me, so again I should have gone in with a fairly sharp mind.

Building Dread Elves, Not Dead Elves – Part III

While I cursed DJ and prayed to the Dice Gods to set his beard a light in his sleep, I also got to play Matt “The Stampede”’s Beast Herds tournament list and got another game against Mike’s redesigned Vermin Swarm list. Both games held some concerns beforehand for me, and both held some surprises too. I’d like to thank both of them for some very fun and very educational games – I definitely learned a lot about my army and tactically!