It’s been quiet on the blogging front for a few weeks now. While other lucky gamers around the world have been at Adepticon and Salute, I’ve been working on the room, which was all but complete by last Saturday, and had the electrician in again yesterday for the final touches (installing a second flouro light and some spotlights, as well as cabling the alarm and some other stuff). Now all that’s really left is a bit more clean-up, some blinds, and perhaps even a split system aircon/heater (at my awesome wife’s suggestion!)   So just shy of the lights being installed, some friends came over for a gaming night on Saturday. We started with a big game of KoW where I GMed/refereed the three players per side (I only remembered to take one pic, so no battle report unfortunately). Three of the six players had never played anything like this before, and so it was good to see just how easily non-wargamers could pick up the basics of the rules. They all had lots of RPG experience, so it wasn’t incredibly difficult.

The grand battle begins!

A 600-pt Pan-Elven force of Blood Elves (GW High Elves) and Dark Elves (GW) using the Twilight Kin list ally with 600 pts of Basileans (hastily assembled using Rackham Confrontation Lions pre-paints) and a small 300-pt contingent of Gondor/Kingdoms of Men infantry (GW) square off against 1200pts of Ogres (old GW & Mantic) and 300pts of “nature” (GW Wolves and GW Ent using the KoW Goblin rules for a Giant and Wolfriders). Through a combination of superior manoeuvre, the main ogre general being distracted the whole time, and some eagle-eyed sharpshooting and resilient defence from the Gondor contingent, the humand and elves carried the day in the end. The Ogre Warlord’s final devastating rampage through the Elven/Human lines not being enough to carry the day before he too was pulled down under weight of numbers. After that, we ate pizza and pasta, played a couple of games of SJG Frag!, and then finished up.   The following day, my 74-year old Mum came over for a visit. She ended up playing a game of KoW against my wife, while I once again refereed and offered advice to both sides.

The setup – Basileans vs Elves.

Allies just the previous night, the Elves and Basileans turned on one another and met across a green hilly field. My mum took the Basileans and my wife took on the Elves this time.

The armies clash!

Once again I forgot to take a lot of pictures, but the final outcome was a close one. It basically came down to a single (un?)lucky dice roll where the Elven Halberd (spear) phalanx survived a final round of shooting and magic from the Basileans, leaving the Elves with enough troops to declare the day victorious. If the Halberds had broken, it would have essentially been a drawn game. Which is not too shabby for a 74-year-old woman’s first wargaming experience. Once again, both sides enjoyed the game, which is what it’s all about for me. I also got all the bits of the “box” part of a light box sorted, so now I just need to pick up a (couple of) lamps tomorrow, and I’ll be good for photographing figures again – and at a higher quality (hopefully)!