A great gaming Week End in Metz !

OK folks, so like last year, I attended a gaming WE in the city of Metz last week. It was the occasion for me to meet good gaming buddies and to play some games I don't get to play often enough, using stuff I had painted and not used yet !
We were hosted by Nico and his gaming club and enjoy the wonderful activities he had prepared for us !

Now let's take a look at the games played, take a good seat and the beverage of your choice, there's quite a few photos if you don't mind. ;)

Space hulk

Although we arrived quite late, there was no option than to honour Nico's board on the first evening !
Our first game then was a special mission of Space Hulk implying 2 marine players and 2 stealer players.
The scenario was actually derived from the very first suicide mission but with twice more players.

I was playing the marines with another buddy so we both made our forces progress towards the room to burn...

Of course the stealers had other plans in mind, plans involving wiping the floor with our faces so it got personnal and physical quite early !

We tried to access the rooms we had to burn from both directions, spreading our forces a little too thin...

Despite having played (and won it) in the past, I made stupid mistake and failed to protect myspecial weapon thus ruining any chance of victory... ^^

For good measures, we decided to swap forces and I took the reins of the aliens while my buddy Charles was taking his ultramarines to the fight ! He had selected different models and had some more exotic weapons like thunder hammers and lightning claws !
I got to pick quite fancy blips like the magus !

How and picking the aberrant !

Now of course I utterly lost again even with the stealers, the marine players were real good players and the combat weapons proved deadly but that's all the charm of this game really, the tension and feel of survival, it's a very fun game.

Necromunda

Now on Saturday, we knew we wanted a healthy dose of Necromunda and Adrien had set a fantastic table using his absolutely gorgeous table with a good deal of my own stuff to make the table longer and more diverse with one half industrial and the other the boredring ash wastes settlement.

The table was full of little "scenes" of life which could all be interacted with (when they didn't interact with you in the first place).

I was really glad to see my Fogou Hardknox fort (go check the KS) used in game and to see what a formidable versatile set it is. It became the barricade use by the local scavengers to defend the factory from any intrusion.

Inside the factory, it was business as usual, people trying to work, critters attacking workers, unionists trying to recruit, just a regular friday...

I was leading my Dustfarers who were trying to bring their cargo to the factory after crossing the wastes...

The quietness was quite rapidly ruined by a gang of Goliaths who splendidly failed at making complete sentences to explain their reason to be here, leading to a lightning fast escalation of violence...

You could hear the rawkus from in side the factory so a group of squats quickly moved with a secret agenda while some peculiar three armed workers rushed to the strategic places...

There's a lot to be said about the grumpiness of the squats and this time they didn't fail to earn their reputation for bad temper when they met the Vansaars around.

The Dustfarers arrived at the gates and were asked to stop at the entrance of the gate, words were exchanged, some unbearable displays of racial discrimination left little choice to the Dustfarers who were after all just here to deliver goods.

Meanwhile, a servo-ogryn was just doing his servo-ogryn stuff, servo-ogryning like any other day...

The delicate trigger on of my dustfarer's gun might have been a little delicate and made a barrel of fuel thus damaging the door, I just can't believe how people see that as a form of aggression, people lose their temper so easily these days !

Meanwhile, the van saars were playing the best game of lasergame of their life facing the squats who were struggling running over long distances...

A secon barrel of fuel was all it took to get rid of the gates, the dustfarers were good to move agin and enter teh factory !

One squat had his own agenda, tryingt o salvage as much ammo and loot as he could (only to open an explosive trap later)...

At some point, one of my gangers felt a strong pressure on his mind and a surprisng urge to kill one of his own. He resisted the urge though and his nearest companion ended the threat which seemed to be coming form a giant flaoting testicle...

The servo-ogryn engaged its self defense protocol when the Goliaths stupidly attacked it (and one of the dustfarers' bullet accidentally hit it, maybe) and it stopped the wagon right here from going any further in...

Just when things couldn't get any messier than that, an enforcer vehicle arrived at full speed and manage to drift its way to the entrance, delivering a group of bad tempered arbites who had had to stop their daughnut break...

The reaction from some of the gangs around was ... underwhelming.

The dustfarers on the other end were quite stuck in with the servo ogryn stubbornly refusing to die and the enforcers webbing my gangers !
The Goliaths ended up being the luckiest of all since they managed to pick a lot of protein (in teh form of rats and dead squats. They had gathered enough to make protein shakes for days !

The game lasted a long time with 6 people around but it was fun and light hearted, with plenty of interaction around and all the usual silly stuff I was exactly in the kind of games I like and Necromunda is proving to be a great tool for that once again.

Back from the wastes, I was keen on playing some more Space Hulk and we had a six player game with 4 marines (controlling 2 marines each) and 2 stealer players.

The objective was to retrieve data from the central data bank (or maybe just delete cookies)

I had a sergeant with power sword and a captain on break

Thanks to good comman point rolls, the sergeant quickly reached the data room and we all thougt it would be over soon...

But that's just not how Space Hulk works right ?, blips quickly moved their way depite the alls of fire set to slow them down...

The sergeant and his side kick did get to the room but they were not alone

Some hybrids took the big guns out and started to shoot in the back !

With his sergeant dead, my second marine had to fight his way to the computer !
He was heroic moving to the objective and he managed to retrieve the data thus wining the game !

Now we all felt we could just not leave things like that and despite the very small odd of success we decided to make the marine fall back and exit the space Hulk !
With most of the terminators dead and little ammo left that was a challenge...

Sepdning his last ammo to block some stealers, the flamer marine used his own boady as a shield to let his comrade flee back to the shuttle, thus making the marines win a complete victory !

Kingdom Death

Now Audrey had been nice enough to bring her Kingdom Death Monster set for initiation games so I took this oportunity to test a game that's been fascinating me for some time.
I have to say it did deliver everything I expected and now the will to get one is even stronger than before !

Although we had to play with super dungeon explore chibi ninjas the immersion was here and the feeling of survival and threat totally exciting !

We had enough time to play to games and fight two lions, therefore getting to do some of the fun side activities like crafting, making babies and so on. If I knew I had a regular player I'd totally get a box and some expansions...

Epic

Last game we had on Sunday morning was a game of Epic, now I've painted a bit of it and I still hadn't played a single game. My buddy Charles was kind enough to let me try despite none of us really knowing how to play !
He had brought a superb force of marines so that helped us play all sorts of units from troopers to titans and super heavies. Nico had been super kind to lend us elements for a table so we had everything !

Turn one was quite laborious but with time passing we quickly caught the hang of it and by turn 3 we were good with the rules (although in hindsight we did get a couple of things wrong).

I was albsolutely chuffed to play this game and enjoyed it a lot esepcially since it got me to try my models and with a gaming buddy I'm fond of. It did deliver exactly what I was hoping from it so this felt really rewarding !

Overall, I had a blast of a WE and despite sleeping very little , getting soaked under the rain and travelling a lot this was a fantastci WE I wish everyone to have !

Eagle eyed readers might spot miniatures that have yet to be blogged here but rest assured, more about that later ;)