Third BOYL for a bloody lucky french !!!

Back at home after a few weeks on holidays and plenty of nice stuff done and people met. Like a couple of time before, those holidays ended with the Oldhammer Grand reunion : Bring Out Your Lead aka BOYL.

It's funny how after a couple of previous editions, everything seemed so familiar this time, people, the place, it felt like home in a way.

Like for the previous years, I was determined to making the best of it again so tried to squeeze as many games in as I could.

Let's have a quick look at the games played :

The eternal champions gathering

What would happen if many of the different incarnations of the eternal champion were to gather to fight chaos ? Ever wondered ? Well Colin decided to get an answer to that by gathering no less than 8 of them !

And as many incarnations of the eternal companion for good measures.

The am would be simple at first : get rid of as many chaotics as possible...

So that's how this improbable crew marched on towards the enemy...

According to their nature, some incarnations went for combat as soon as possible while some others tried to take advantage of the distance.

The heroes had the ability to summon elementals to help them in their quest...

The first embodiment of the eternal champion to fall was surprinsingly Corum, despite the powerful blows of the hand of Kwll.

Leaving Elric and Jahry in a very difficult position.

Meanwhile, a dark sorcerer was preparing an incantation that was gradually darkening the whole area as it went on.

Elric summoned a air elemental to lift him right to the summoning altar to end this right away.

But being taken down, it was down to Erekose to try and save the fabric of reality and the world with it.

Never have I seen a game ending with just 3 models standing. This was a very hard fought battle, definitely not the cake walk you see in movies, the tension of failing always threatening. Well done !

The Helsreach Jet Bike race !

Now time to move to Aidan and Curtis' incredible (a rue understatement) table for a jet bike race in the middle of Helsreach :

Now here are the contestants in line for the start !

The track was a figure 8 leaving town and getting back in through the gates of the city.

My Bullock jet cycle managed to get a good start right away which was a formidable advantage for future turns.

A Space wolf did try to take the lead but not for long and my rider passed him in front of the slaver's guild giant walker.

I was closely followed by Chris' light bike as the end was closing in...

With half the race done, I felt in a good position to get the prize !

But I did get passed by Chris so decided to take a bit more risks at the end to end the race with no regrets !

Only to crash right at the finish line, second of the race...

While some got crashed even before the end... ;)

Chris was a worthy winner, cleverly taking advantage of his formidable skills in maths while helping everyone with the rules he had fully mastered in a couple of turns. You formidable you Chris.

I would really like to congratulate Aidan and Curtis for a formidable table and set of rules, they were easy to understand and quick despite the many players and felt just right. Hats off you gents !

The Giant Slaying game !

Now here's a peculiar game. Never has a name for a game been so wrong. Why is that ? Wy shouldn't it be called this way when the aim is to throw as many giant slayers as you can in a pit with giants ?

Casualties.

First game I played, I decided to pick the nearest giant and go at him with another dwarf.

I had the fortune to pick a boinus card for the game but as you can see, the bonus wasn't exactly overwhelming...

All the dwarves died in the game as in the first 3 before. You read that well, not a single giant had been slain after 4 games and all dwarves had died in a vast array of horrible manners...

Time to drink a potion of resurrection and get back in the pit !

This time I felt WAAAYY more confident in my ability to take a giant down... MWHAHAHAHA !

Carefully picking a lonely target, my dwarf went for his prey...

But Shane's dwarf had picked the same target... No time for second toughts, time to charge !

Well, as could be expected, all the dwarves died again...

The Grox Herding annual challenge !

BOYL for me is all about playing those game you'd never play anywhere else. This one was no exception ! Jon had prepared a whole ranch with Grox packs for our herders to lead into the pens.

Like the others, my herder tried to lead his flock towards the objective as fast as he could.

Problem being that groxen are stupid and stubborn creatures which make them a particularly annoying species to herd despite their natural resilience and tasty flesh.

Despite owing his success to flukes more than to talent and the many dirty tricks we drowned him under, Paul did manage to achieve his objective, thus winning the challenge.

The game was splendidly simple and fun, worked perfectly and Jon like always had made sure this would be the most enjoyable experience possible, even gracing us with a tiny grox coming out of an egg model at the end, magnificent him !
See, this is the embodiment of someone dedicated to people feeling well, I can't express how much brolove I have for you mec. ;)

The eternal war - Rogue Trader pushed to 11

On sunday morning, after a splendidly hilarious but exhausting saturday evening, a bunch of us gathered to play a laid back game of our core favourite : Rogue trader.

A few bits thrown onto a table, a few civilians for good measures, 2 sides organized and here we were with a classic good Vs Bad game with a good tongue in cheek take.

Some poor civilians just didn't know what was about to happen in the neighbourhood. ^^

The orks had managed to get hold of the giant Walker from the slaver's guild in Helreach and they were fully determined to test it on those petty hoomanz.

Meanwhile, my scavvies had joined forces with the skaven to scavenge as much as they could from the mess about to happen.

Of course, no good RT game could be without random encounters !

The mercs and pirates were gaining ground rapidly whereas the Imperial guard seemed to keep its area pretty well secured...

One merc did manage a bull's eye on the space shuttle which crashed... right onto my scavvies... Oh the pain and anger...

Hen combat arose, we decided to use the giant tables to run the big walker in the most stupidly fun fashion possible.
That's how fun happens, you've got to invite it, not just wait for it to ring at the door.

The mercs were getting in town despite losing their naked leader early in the battle, the poor guy was just 2 raids from retiring...

From Downtown ! The last eldar remaining, managed to shoot the walker with his lascannon and made it explode !

With most models gone, the mercs did manage to win the game but just barely. It was really fun to see how such an improvised game (no points, no lists) ended in such a tight result.

The great Armadas : Space Fleet

At the end of the WE, on sunday afternoon, I finally got to play Space Fleet with Steve and Paul who were very kind and patient to play with me after getting confused with the timetable.

Since this would be a unique occasion, we threw most of what we had at hand into the biggest board possible.

Paul would lead the eldar, Steve the Nids and yours truly would have the chance to lead the imperial fleet.

Now it seems we got confused about who'd fight who and while Paul had in mind it was Eldar+Imperium Vs Nids, Steve and I were getting ready for a 3 way !

Once the initial surprise of me shooting Paul's hunters, the game quickly moved on.

I hadn't played in 14 years and it did show, thanks again to my partners for their patience ! Despite engaging in a ridiculously too big multiplayer game, I find the pace was pretty quick with a single turn (3 players) taking a bit less than 30 minutes which given the number of models and special rules involved was more than OK.

This has really got me even more excited about playing more reasonably sized games in the future. I'm eager to play a few 1Vs1 and get real confident with the rules to make our next super big game even more enjoyable !

For a first, this was definitely a good looking and fun one !

The ever wonderful cabinets at the Foundry

Like for previous years, the Foundry staff had got even more gorgeous models out of their collection and it was such a treat to see models we've all known for 30 years out !

The added bonus being when Nigel Stillman himself got a few babies out, models scratchbuilt for a Madmax inspired game that never saw the light of day.

The tables at BOYL were once again even better than previous years. It's impressive to see how the level rises every time and how people work in an even better synergy every new edition. Definitely not something you see every day. Teamwork is vastly superior to everything in our field.

But the main point of all this to me is beyond anything to get to meet the people I love to work with online. Those kind you've never shaken thehand of or hugged but which you consider like friends.

Yep, even the rude ones !

Now a good BOYL event wouldn't be without a special model and this time like last year, it was actually 2 of them thanks to the generosity of many members !

Now, although coming back home felt a bit bitter, unpacking the various models I had got over the WE (some for friends in case you're wondering about the BB and AoS stuff). I felt spoilt since I have only paid 2 of them, the others being presents or rewards I got from winning the "big things" category in the painting competition with my Dragon of Law.

I even scored this brilliant original illustration by Tony Yates which I'm very happy with !

What can I say apart that this was by far the best BOYL experience I've had despite the absence of some who were very close in my heart throughout the whole WE.

It all makes sense and works because people all pull in the same direction, trying to make others have as much fun as possible.

Many of the games we played where fun because we were losing and dying, the less competitive games I've ever seen ! 

I really mean thank you for all those who spent time, money and energy into making this what it was.

Love you all.