GZG ECC Puzzling

Hopefully we are going to be back to the GZG ECC next year!  So, its time to plan...  ...I was thinking of a bunch of different games when a new batch of toys arrived in the mail.  It could be this lot needs painting soon-ish.  There's a guy on Etsy (Daniel33058) making some nice 'inspired by' VSF flying ships

 

So last night I dug out what I had and started puzzling.

 

The ships are well done, in decent size for 15mm tabletops, this one is the medium wind kite.  The figs are more of Mark's 15mm scifi, maybe Black Tree?

The kite is a nice size, especially as this one is the medium one.  I have enough Martian ships for a decent flotilla.

I don't have many British ships, so I got digging to see if I could find my other VSF kit, and I came across the Launch I made, its inspired by a WWII landing craft

Here it is packed with Naval Brigade troops ready to assault a Martian villa, recon is provided by the Aero-Bycicle Corps (there's only one as I've lost the rotor for the second, more digging to do)

I was inspired to keep digging, I found my mini-Leviathan, I was inspired to make this based off the old Major Tremorden web site.  Its a McDonald's toy with odds and ends from the bits box.

More land ships, these are from Black Tree (I think?) too.  Crew may be Peter Pig.

This is my Aether Lander, it started life a Disney Movie toy (Atlantis?), with added greeblies.  Here in flight

And fittingly, landed.

So. I'm thinking a VSF game may be fun, its been a few years since I've done one, however, Martin and Steve have run nice VSF ship games in the past, so I'm not 100% on doing this.  Got to do some more puzzling.

More Stompy-Bot Goodness

Been sorting out the basement playroom, and I came across a box I've had ages but don't play.  So I did.

GKR, Heavy Hitters, this was a kickstarter from Weta Workshop that just went crazy

Set-up for two forces, green vs yellow

Yellow's main mech

Green's main mech

The game is based in a corporate-world mech violence mixed with advertising/tv.  So the goal is to 'tag' buildings with Ads to gain sponsorship (extra perk cards), when the building is tagged enough it collapses.  The winner either collapses four buildings or takes out the opponents main mech.  Each force can be up to one main Mech plus three remotes, a shooter, a recon and a repair type.  these do not start on the board, they are deployed via the game mechanics

The game runs off cards, its a bit of a faff to set up

Once done, though, the game does seem to tick along well enough

Early game, green has been fanked by Yellow's Recon remote

Lter, buildings getting tagged

Yellow backs off to repair

Yellow on idle, yellow remotes doing allthe work so far, tagging still happening

Green pushes up on Yellow

Buildings start to collapse

Green is beating up yellow, Green has 'step-out' style missiles, yellow doesn't seems to be able to counter

Yellow starts getting th eupper hand by using Sponsor perks (from all the tagging)

Yellow collapses more buildings, ratings are swinging Yellow's way

Its turning into a colse range slug-fest

Yellow tries to jump Green

Green backs off seekign cover (Green has red-lights all over the system board)

Yellow just cannot finish Green off!

Yellow remostes jostle for position

Green and Yellow remotes trade Tags

Is this the End?

KaZAAAAAP!

 Yes, yes it is... 

 This match is over, time to roll the post-game show after these words from our sponsors...

The game comes with some really cool pre-painted mechs, Blue 

Orange (same as on the box art)

Green

And yellow

Each faction has the main mech plus the three types of suppot mechs

What was great boutt he kickstarter was that with all th addd-ons they really were add ons, they did not replace the box components

There was so much stuff the box was huge

And deep

Then with all the othe stuff they actually had to have two of them.  

If only my kids likes mechas as much as me...

Dad Camp

Every summer the Mini-Mes have a gap between camp ending and school starting.  A few years ago I started Dad-Camp, we spend a week doing fun stuff, usually outdoors.

This year was no different

We rode the Minuteman bikepath, 20 miles or so from Alewife station (Cambridge) to Bedford.  It goes through the towns of Arlington and Lexington (with excellent ice-cream)

We went hiking and orienteering.  They are both in the Scouts so its great practice

We went to play mini-golf, ride bumper boats and more at Kimbal Farm, with more excellent ice-cream

BB-blow up day is a good one.  We buy cheap soda and blow them up with BB-guns.  Mini-Me Minor is busy exploding some cans

More biking, we went to highland Mountain bike park

Both shredded all day, it was a blast

More of a stroll than a hike, even the Mrs OA came along

We saw a huge owl too.  

We were going to go do a high ropes course, but it poured with rain so instead we built lego and watched movies.  We did a bunch of other fun stuff too, we cooked dinned for the family, the boys were Chefs and I helped, we had a bit of a mini-photo contest, too.  In all another fun Dad-camp.

This week is Mom-Camp, I managed to have a day off and go riding...

 

I came across this super view of Boston from the top of a hill near our house.