BOYL 2018 Review !

Well well well ! It's this time of year again ! I just got back from BOYL and need to tell you all about it ! Of course, Bulldog Lopez has already covered the most important points but there are still a couple of lousy details that may be of interest to some !
As usual, this post will be packed with pictures so take a good seat and a fresh drink (damn heat...) and let's go on !

As usual, I took the ferry to cross the channel, I quite like going slow, as BOYL is usually an entirely other space-time for me. It does usually mean very early wake ups...

What a Tanker !

 Our first game on Saturday morning was run by Colin and was an introduction for most to What a tanker by Toofatlardies. With about 10 of us anyone could have expected some mess and long boring pauses between turns but the system is so simple and fast it easily managed this many players !

With many people arond the table, we decided to make two teams and I proposed to split vehicles by colour since half of them were red... I was on the good side obviously.

I'll be honest, I have n military knowledge about tanks and I haven't even played worl of tanks or anything related to tanks but I was pretty certain open field wouldn't be a noce thing for a small tank like mine...

My Metal Slug (counting as a Pz38) quickly secured a safe position to target victims from, starting with Grover's colossal pizza tank.

 I must have hit it 3 times, making it retreat every time but never managed to damage more than its pride...

Meanwhile, Jon's Tapetank learnt the importance of cover the hard way after being targetted and shot by half of the opposing team. The red team had more tanks and the pressure was clearly on us (not to mention, they had the Drakenator with them (he won every single game he played over 3 days).

The situation got very unpleasant fro the good guys side... (for some reason the smoke comingout of the destroyed tanks weirdly took the shape of toilet paper...)

It was only a matter of turns before Paul and Garth got destroyed as well but with everyone smiling and having had a great lough the whole game.  

Dracula's America in Space !

Our next game (after a lunch break) was Dracula's America in Space (DAiS), a home version of Osprey's excellent Dracula's America but with a futuristic twist. Jon/Axiom was running this game and this time there were about 10 of us as well divided into 2 teams.

We only started with a model each with the reinforcements coming later (or never...). If I had known I'd have to wait for the last turn to finally get some fresh fighters, I would have not picked my veteran but anyway...

The aim of the game was to capture and secure 3 objectives and to score personal goals (mine was to get fresh corpses to revive later). Everyone quickly moved to their positions.

We all went straight to the objective and I placed my sniper in a position where hewould hopefully be able to take down threats. So did Graham's assassin.

 And opportunities arose quickly.

One very tense and therefore great action happened between the 2 Pauls and therefore their miniatures making the alternate activation system especially fun since the shooting between both sides was uncertain.

In the final turn, my reinforcements (part of) finally came and we managed to get the last objective, making it a crushing victory !!! (I had the Drakenator on my side this time)

A quick pause and here I was enjoying the awesome tables, chats with buddies, great miniatur... WAIT WAIT WAIT, OH MY GOD JOHN BLANCHE IS HERE !!!!

Once I gathered my sense and Chris wingmaned me, I went to chat with John Blanche to show him my Venator and get an autograph after a nice conversation about confrontation !

I know there's a bit of a fanboy in me but his reaction to the model and the conversation were nice so I was a happy guy after that really.

Did I mention the awesome models ? Well it's my fourth time at BOYL and this time again there were new beauties in the cabinets ! Even got to get a little chat about them with my friend Paul and the excellent Tammy from Tears of Envy.

Venari Vidi Venator !

For the end of the day, we had a good game of bounty hunting run by Jon/Axiom again ! 

The game was using a simplified version of the new Necromunda and wes great fun. Plenty of NPCs all around, some of them perps, some of them honest, some with huge bounties, some worth a couple of creds...

Of course, Jon the bloody hero made us special dice with Venator heads... I was in heaven really, some of the best guys around, all the nice models from Jon's from the past years, a bit of booze and venators...

I took this seriously and tried to select my targets with care, trying to remember who's who from the blogposts they had featured in !

Kissy Snake didn't stop saying offensive things I won't repeat here...

We often had to fight for the same target which added a bit of fun !

 I think I didn't do bad in the end !

It really was a fun game, relaxed and laid back but with just the right tension to be thrilling !

Raiders of the last Orc ! Mordheim

After quite an epic saturday evening/early sunday morning, we actually managed to make it to Newark again to play a game of Mordheim I had prepared. I had divided players in two teams which were randomly placed on the table but fate somehow decided players of each side would be on the same side of the table... Weird, didn't feel like fighting fate on a sunday morning with a hungover.

For the occasion, my undead was teaming with Garth's and Curis's Possessed !

The good guys (Chaos and undead) had to take treasures and powerful items from the bad guys alliance (empire, dwarves, Carnival of Chaos and Skaven). I had designed the items to make the models holding them crazy with silly outcome (the higher the leadership the better).

We also had special strategic cards that could be used once a game to spice things up.

I expected more lateral fights from a random placing of players but the ranked fight it had become made everyone gather at the center of the table !

The empire and dwarves were unsurprisingly annoying with all their shooting...

And the Skaven quickly intercepted Wankenstein's undead forces on the west...

My main opponent for the game were Paul's Circus of Corruption which proved extremely annoying and resilient !

With the three of us attacking the four of them, we finally ended up with all the forces of good (Undead and chaos) bottling, leaving the treasures to the bad guys... Oh, and they had the Drakenator with them of course.

 Amongst other things, I had a bit of presentation of Man O'war, this game is seemingly coming back big time amongst the players I like and this was the final nail in my resolve's coffin. I'm totes getting on board (see what I did here ?)...

Like I said, I love how out of space and time BOYL is, it's the place where you see plenty of cool stuff like steel masters for the mighty fortress !!!

Of course The special miniature this year is absolutely magnificent ! I grabbed a few to give away during our french event this year and I'm eager to paint mine !

I didn't come back with a stupid amount of models like last year but I did get 2 of the new releases which are composed of early Citadel fighters :

Now all good things have an end and once again, we all had a little blues leaving great friends but that WE brought a smile upon my face and warmed my heart. We're all full of ideas and enthusiasm for great projects and we have 52 weeks to make them a reality !

Thanks to all I had the pleasure to see, play with, chat with and more, all the people making it possible, it really is a special WE.