Happy Happy, Toys Toys!

So after a thorough spanking last Tuesday, in which the Predator and Razorback that I had spent so much time assembling were rendered useless in turn 1 - the guy I was playing was a veteran munchkin who, after hearing I was a marine player several years out of practice managed to fit a multitude of plasma guns and missile launchers, not to mention a Leman Russ tank, in his 500 point force - I was back up to Old Guard on Saturday. It was a sad day, as, though our old gaming group was finally assembled again to push figures around the tables of out newly renovated favorite hobby shop, we found out that one of the members of that group just got a job that is going to require him to be gone for months at a time - starting this Wednesday. To make things more depressing for me, is the fact that his first assignment won't end until after I have left the state for my new job. Hopefully we'll make regular attempts to cross paths at Origins and GenCon and the like in the future though.

In happier news, another of my friends brought along his AT-43 stuff and I really got a chance to experience the game. After blundering my way through my initial game making use of another friend's Therians, I came back with a vengeance in the second game chasing some Karmans off the table. The game is a quick and bloodthirsty affair, and my win in the second game was still nerve-wrackingly close. It was a lot of fun though, and after eyeing the figures on the wall for some time now, I walked away with the rulebook, the Red Blok army book, and these two little beauties.

This first one is actually the walker for a pair of named heroes, but fortunately it also has stats for use as a standard vehicle, the Hetman. Though Red Blok play dramatically differently than the Therians, with most weapons being terribly inaccurate and the army as a whole relying on massed, short range firepower, the Weird War II, retro sci-fi look of these walkers, which first drew me to them when I had no interest in AT-43, was too much to pass up.



This second pic is of the Hetman along with my second purchase, a Nakovalny. This is a lighter walker, the chassis of which is used for four differently armed variants. This particular one is an anti-infantry specialist, armed with a pair of light gauss machine guns. Because the same chassis is used repeatedly, the weapons plug into holes in the sides, which both make them poseable and prone to breakage, as you can see in the picture. It's not much of a concern however, as I am planning to mostly disassemble both before gluing them solid and repainting them.



These last two pictures are of my newest toys, found waiting for me on my mailbox when I got home today. For the game Heavy Gear, these packages contain a general purpose squad, two stripped-down Jagers, and a pair of Sidewinders for the Allied Southern Territories faction. When mixed together, this assortment of figures will make for two solid, if basic, general purpose units. I had been intending on waiting to expand my Heavy Gear collection, as I have an entire unassembled Peace River force that I acquired at the last GenCon, but a request by the owner of Old Guard to run a Heavy Gear demo or two for the store prompted me to action. Of course, Peace River, with their highly trained soldiers and cutting edge equipment, typically only get a single general purpose squad for every two of the southern equivalents, but the prospect of learning the game knowing that you are going to be outnumbered two to one might just make the game that much more exciting for all the budding Heavy Gear gamers involved.