The Projectile Vomiting Family Fun Weekend and some gaming

I guess you can tell from the title of the post events have been kind of overtaken. I was so bad on Friday that after a bout of projectile vomiting and fluid passing through the other end that can only be described as passing boiling flaming acid with miniature razor blades. I actually managed to fall of the toilet and bang my head. Now Swimbo has something similar but not as bad so I am in the dog house.

So much for man flu. She has women flu. This is a conditions that causes a woman to complain about everything and act without thinking. This is a chronic condition. Unlike man flu which is over in a week, woman flu can (and frequently does) affect women fifty two weeks of the year. I was thinking I should set up a support group but then realised that this is called the pub around the corner.

THE IMPORTANT BIT

Yesterday I did manage to get some gaming stuff done and even eat some real food.

I spent the morning touching up some terrain that I have been working on. I managed to paint the posts for the mesh fences and cover some bits in flock to hide gaps in the paint work and turn some of the lumpy bits of sand into plants on the fences and wall sections.

I also added a few more shades of grey to the lamps posts and radar dishes that I picked up from Critical Mass at Phalanx. Almost done.

Then I went over to Martin's to play The Napoleonic Wars. I was never a fan of the concept of Napoleonic gaming until a few years ago but I have more than a passing interest in it now. This is what it looks like, I took a copy of an image from Boardgame Geek not the game we played.

Now boardgames with Martin and Spike (and usually Steve) and what I usually describe as shaft as shaft can. This game is unusual in that from the start the game is set up with Martin and Spike doing their best to stop me. Spike normally decides who he wants to win or plays a game so often by himself that he knows all the angles. This was always going to be an interesting game.

We played the 1812 scenario with me (un) ably assisted by the Prussians, Austrians and the plucky Danes and the big guy himself  attacking Russia and defending Spain to stop the British from invading through the Pyrenees. Spike played the British, assisted by the Spanish and the Swedes (I didn't realise that they even had an army) and Martin played the Russians.

I knew Martin didn't like his situation partly because he was on the defensive and he is never good on the defensive but mostly he kept offering me surrender terms. I suppose that because of the scenario Martin was always going to get a tattering. Spike just got on with it and used a few rules in interesting ways.

This is a game about playing for time or burning time (in the form of cards) depending on which side you are on and how well the war is going for you. As Napoleon you want as much time as you can muster until you have reached your objective then you want to get rid of the opponents time as quickly as possible.

We played one turn which is give or take two years in the war. I have to control a certain number of key points which includes holding on to Moscow or St Petersburg at some point. My original aim was to get to St Petersburg and knock out a few key areas on the way. I never got anywhere near as Moscow quickly became the obviously weaker target. Although I didn't knock out Russia by the end of the turn, I was actually close to St Petersburg as well as having control of Moscow and most of the key points. Russia would have been wiped out the following turn with little effort More of my interest would have had to have been focus on defending Paris which was starting to look a little vulnerable to a counter attack.

I gloss over what went on in Spain, which was a bit of a disaster but in terms of the scenario at least, the overall game was a victory and I did get some less than generous rolls in the Iberian Peninsular.

I really liked the game. I haven't played it before and now want to play the full game. The combat is fairly simple but interesting. The availability of cards makes the combat and the game turn in unexpected ways quickly. Possibly on the downside (although not for me) is that the game does take some time to play. We played one turn which took about four or five hours to play out. The Geeks say it lasts about 4 hours. I think that they lie. Maybe we over analyse stuff a bit.

We have talked about using this as a campaign system to run the whole Napoleonic War. I quite like this as a concept and happily acknowledge that this would probably take us into retirement to complete.

Martin did cook a fantastic curry which despite my condition the day before proved to be the cure I was looking for. Thanks Martin.