Oldhammer WE Debriefing by a lucky (bloody) french...

Hey all, 

Let me sum up for you what my Oldhammer Week End experience consisted of… (very long post ahead, you've been warned).

Games I played :

The first game I played on Saturday morning was a Rogue Trader game organized by :

• Colin Murray from the Leadpile playing a gang of space mercenaries looking to retrieve their loot
• Cheetor/Shoebox from Sho3box playing a gang of Space Ork pirates trying to rob them.

I was kindly asked to play the third party which meant I got to control the local Law Enforcers and a pair of annoyingly curious journalists looking for some tasty leads…

The game was set on Ferrograd, a penal system renowned for its harsh climate and even harsher inhabitants. The number of lawbreakers and nasty people in Ferrograd is famous for being twice higher than the number of stars in the sky of a cloudless night.

The orks infiltrated in Ferrograd...

…and they encountered the mercenaries who were meaning to keep all their treasures for themselves …

… while Jenny Tong and her bulletproof Cameraman were interviewing the mercs in the middle of the fights for the sake of freedom of speech and information at all cost.

"you're not going to cause any trouble with those weapons I hope?
Errr, no no Mr Officer…" 

The local law enforcers got somehow overwhelmed by the events and lies of the mercs (and passed cool tests)…

 But the mercs managed to retrieve part of their loot and  secure it in their escape shuttle…

…until some of the Space ork pirates came with strong arguments (namely a power fist and a point blank shot of bolter) and got away with the treasures...

The second game I played on Saturday afternoon was a "Use Me" game with :

• JellyRovers

It was an absolute revelation and we got to use old Asgard references which allowed me to play with the original space marines. The very straightforward rules enabled us to turn a sic-fi game into a sort of WW1 Vs Vietnam Uchronia and my very enthusiastic partner was absolutely nice !

The third game I played on Saturday afternoon was a Necromundish game with :

• Colin Murray from the Leadpile 
• Cheetor/Shoebox from Sho3box 
• Antipixi from antipixi's hobby blog
• The ottovonbismark
• Richard Legg
• JellyRovers

The game was called "The quickening" and was inspired from the famous movie "Highalnder" and its sequel "Highlander 2" (leaving the others in the void of space) and saw what is so far th biggest reunion of Rogue trader sensei so far. Seven Sensei were actually involved in this game along their henchmen (2 each) and they all fought to death for you all know "there can be only one".

Have 7 sensei already gathered this way before? I doubt it...

 The game was quick and silly and meant that way from the start. All participants had the same stats but got to pick upgrades when they could kill another character or pray on the "Holy Ground".

The rules and scenario have been brilliantly designed (and even playtested) by Cheetor/Shoebox from Sho3box and I built 2 sets of Oldhammer combat cards for the game. First deck was based on the old combat cards to decide turns since we had 7 players and the second deck was for all the upgrades.

The game was an excellent opportunity to silly impersonations and weird scottish/french/spanish accents and it was also the occasion to whitness truly stunning special effects (take that ILM)...

The photo above is obscured by the smoke from Ramirez' quickening but his might has left the surroundings wrecked and burning…

Antipixi's Lady Nkiruka after a first quickening

And finaly antipixi 's Lady Nkiruka beheaded her last opponent and won the price all immortals crave : peace (with a fair bunch of added bonus powers) .

The fourth game I played on Sunday Morning was a Gorkamorka game with :

• Colin Murray from the Leadpile 
• Cheetor/Shoebox from Sho3box 
• Antipixi from antipixi's hobby blog
• The ottovonbismark
• Axiom from Magpie and Old Lead

You may have seen the earlier report of the squat Heavy industrialist Union so you may have understood that this game was one of these totally insane and funny games where all efforts to make anything work fail and where every attempt of heroism is rewarded by an extremely silly and funny outcome. the perfect kind of game to wake up and have a good lough really.

All the contestants lined up for battle…

And once hands have been shaken, the nasty stuff began with stunning pursuits and big explosions everywhere !

We owe a lot to Cheetor/Shoebox from Sho3box (Yes, again ! ) and to Captain Crooks who apart from being an excellent DnD DM is also the kind of guy who prepares data cards and models for a game at the opposite of the globe for players he'll never meet in the flesh. Just dare tell me this is not the definition of awesomeness made australian now…

The fifth (and last) game I played on Sunday afternoon was a confonrtation game with :

• Colin Murray from the Leadpile 
• Antipixi from antipixi's hobby blog
• Axiom from Magpie and Old Lead

I will come back later on this game because I feel a review is mandatory here. I GMed the game and I had the chance to have really excellent players to compensate for some lacks in my preparation.

I thanks them a lot for this and I will soon take the time to write a post dedicated to this game and particularly what I learnt from it to make the rules convenient for Roleplayed skirmish in a sci-fi setting.

Models I got :

Curtis from Ramshackle Games had kindly brought miscast from his steampunk line and let us have some freebies so here are pics of what I gathered :

Oh maybe if I organized them a bit you get the ideas that are starting to bloom in my head no?

Perfect bits to make terrain the way I see it…

And there I was planning on buying a Taurus thingee…

I could just glue those together and I would have a wonderful little Ash waste tank…

Yep, What you see is what you think it is. 20 Oldhammer goblins by Kev Adams that the Foundry kindly let me have to distribute for the coming french Oldhammer event in Lyon (more to come about that).

I'm really glad that old hammer enthusiasts from many places will be able to have those wonderful little models !

While I was there, I took the opportunity to buy those 2 fishmen which were cruelly missing from my Rogue trader collection. The problem is fixed now and I was also offered a pinch of lovely tiny models on top of that...

I managed to get my hands on 2 chaos terminators which allowed me to get some of the parts I was still missing (Autocannon and double charger storm bolter).

A magnificent Zoat with heavy weapon. This one will go bulk up the ranks of my eldars …

Another Jes Goodwin wonder AKA the LE fimir, a wonderful model which was offered to me by a no less wonderful person… (I have the feeling I might have to store that one apart from the others)

A chaos warrior very kindly offered to me by The ottovonbismark along with heads for some very strange bounty hunters (more to come on that front…). Another Jes Goodwin wonder which I have been looking for for ages and now I have the sculpt in hands I have a very strong will to paint it ASAP.

Aaaaaaaand another Jes Goodwin sculpt, a wood elf sorceress which will be used for a little project I've had in mind for quite a while now…

A handful of broken or damaged chaos models kindly offered by Citadel Collector and Axiom. As I 've lately been fixing quite a lot of old chaos models, these will come in just in time to help me finish a nice unit.

And some absolutely lovely winged cats by Beastface miniatures (sculpted by the excellent John Pickford).

And some absolutely lovely winged cats by ulpted by the excellent John Pickford).

What impressed me :

The first notable game of the WE is undoubtfully the humongous Siege game that lasted all the event. I've never seen that much players around the same table neither have I seen so much excellent models displayed at once.

Though I would be terrified to get stuck in such a demanding game myself, I am absolutely admirative of those who put on this show ! Impressive sight guys !

What I'll keep in mind is that after waiting for ages to know what a sphincter beast would look like, I actually got to see a whole flock of them (and they're 15mm scaled which makes me reconsider my earlier comments about the crudeness of the sculpt) :

The EPIC big table on Sunday was simply…well…EPIC :

But what really struck me was how everyone was friendly and nice. I even thought some people had put extasy pills in our drinks and food because everyone was so relaxed and easy going it almost didn't feel like a gaming convention.

A noticable thing is that even at the end of the WE, people still smelled OK and that has to count for something.

I've seen people leaving bags and boxes of spares on display, I've seen people paying attention and being careful about other people's stuff and I even found my camera on Sunday morning at the exact same place it was when I left in on Saturday evening. I've seen that and I hope it makes you feel how special that event was and how special we must preserve it so we can enjoy it for as long as we can…

I've been to a gaming convention where no player had any opponent but only partners and where respect and fun are the best motives for the people involved. Let's keep things this way shall we?

Everybody can use a place outside the real world where selfishness can be left aside. You think the forums, the blogs or the Facebook groups are cool? Think again, they're only second after all the guys you can meet to shake hands, play games and laugh (and they smell nicer than anywhere else)...

On a more personal note I have to express my most sincere thanks to Gaj/Weazil who generously hosted me and drove me up to Stoke Hall with him while coping with my poor accent and my chicken nugget craving…

Oh and he also is a major reason why all of this happened and was actually this good.

So thanks to him, thanks to the Foundry and thanks to all players and hobbyists around for making things so nice…