Another game of Carnevale

It was supposed to be a 4 player game to introduce Neil G and Thom to the rules. Unfortunately Thom had to give the club a miss, so it was just the 3 of us. Mitch once again took the Vatican, I had the Guild and Neil G gave the Strigoi a run out. So the three of us worked through the rules for a fun game. The highlight for me was my Capodecina managed to disengage from one combat, climb up a building, before running along the rooftop, jumping across a gap onto a veranda, before chain jumping onto a roof and using an attack of opportunity he dispatched one of the Vatican stalkers. 

The rest of the game seemed to revolve around various members of the Strigoi falling/jumping into canals and trying to drown each other. A few photos of the game. I got to use the new buildings and Mitch rought along his freshly painted boathouse.

The Guild

The Vatican

The Stigoi

Another view of the Strigoi

Our current layout with the Boathouse in the centre

The Capodecina eyeing up a Stalker

The Strigoi sneaking through the streets

The Baroni keeping watch

The Capodecina engaged against the Exorcist and Stalker

A Vampire considering its prey

Strigoi henchmen

Time for the Guild to get a move on

One of many squabbles in the canal

Street fight develops

Capodecina after dispatching the Stalker

A fun game and we will go again next week. Hopefully Thom will be able to make it. We still need more terrain, especially street clutter and floating debris. I need to work out how to get the best out of the Capodecina. He is very quick and lethal on the attack, but is very susceptible to taking damage. I need a second quick figure to keep up with him. He was often ganged up upon and isolated. I may also need to use the Black lamp to cancel some of the magical abilities of my opponents or I take a witch and fight magic with magic.

More buildings and Guild members

So with a 4 player game of Carnevale planned for this week, I spent some time building and painting three more buildings from TT combat. This is the Calle Trascurato set. I went for the same limited colours to get them quickly done and table ready.

Calle Trascurato

I've also added a couple of pieces of clutter, some tables and chairs to add to the table top. These are from the Wargames Atlantic sprue from their Barons War range.

Lastly there were 3 more figures for the Guild. These are all 3d prints from Mitch. A Baroni, Whaler and a Smuggler. I think the Baroni is my favourite figure so far. There was also a Capodecina, but I snapped the sword when I dropped him. Mitch is printing me another one.

Baroni, Whaler and Smuggler

I have further plans for this collection, Mitch is printing me a Harbour master proxy and a dog keeper with a couple of hounds. I've orders in for the Black lamp, a witch, the Prince of thieves and the Blood bartering boxed set. That should finish off the Guild and I can then expand the Rashaar.

A game of Carnevale

This week we tried a fuller game of Carnevale, 75 ducats a side. We also expanded to a 3ft x 3ft table. Mainly because we wanted to use all of our buildings, however we didn't have enough plaza for the table so I proxied in some dungeon floor tiles to help cover the table. The game was just a straight up fight for 5 turns between my Guild and the Vatican commanded by Mitch. Just a few photos from the game as it was mainly just another practice game.

The table layout

My Arbalast keeping watch from above

The forces of the Vatican move through the streets

A Vatican stalker takes up position on the rooftop

My Rialto assassin got up close and personal. We discovered he is best kept at a bit of a distance to be most effective

The Escort watches the battle unfold before eventually chain jumping across the canal

Miria spots the stalker

She chain jumps to a balcony and then on to the roof to eventually dispatch the stalker. She then ended up missing a jump and fell into the canal

The Escort engages the Vatican forces. The Deacon in the arch way proves a difficult opponent

Turn 5 and it ended in a draw

It was a fun game and definitely looked better with more buildings. I have another 3 to build so has Mitch as well as a Boathouse.  We will need a bit more street clutter to fill out the streets. We also need more areas of plaza. I've picked up some sheets of high density foam and ordered a cobblestone roller to try and have a go at making my own. Bet we will be trying a 4 player game to see how the rules handle multiple players. 

Streets of Venice

Mitch and I played through the 2 two starter scenarios to get the hang of the Carnevale rules. We did make a few mistakes and can rectify that for the game next week. One thing we definitely need more of is some buildings. I had two that were used but they needed painting. I did have one more to build but even that would not be enough so I ordered two more from TT Combat.

Mitch's lovely clock tower

I spent the weekend building and painting the models. I have deliberately gone for a very limited colour palette as I want the buildings to feel that they belong together. First up was Calle Svoltare, which is a modular building consisting of three buildings, which can be mixed and matched with other buildings in the range.

Calle Svoltare

The other two buildings I picked up were single pieces from the same 'Streets of Venice' range. Villeta Balcone Zaira and Casa Elena.

Villeta Balcone Zaira

Casa Elena

Buildings so far

I also finished 4 pieces of floating debris, these are a must for the game, allowing your figures to jump across canals. They were made taking some spare pares from the Wargames Atlantic scenery sprue and some left over coffee stirrers.

Floating debris

I've now got a few more figures to paint up for Thursday's game, I need to get my Guild gang up to 75 ducats.

Re-furbished dark age huts

With recently getting into Pillage and spending most of last year with Baron's War I had expanded my collection of dark age / early medieval buildings. To the point some old card and teddy bear fur buildings I made over 20 years ago had become redundant. A shame after all the use they give during games of WAB. I even offered them up to the club members but there were no takers. Now nostalgia kicked in, I didn't want to just throw them away. So 20 minutes later sitting in the garden I gave them a refresh. I had never really been happy with the colour of the thatching, so I gave the roof and wooden parts a quick dry-brush of grey followed by a sand colour, this is the same scheme I use on my newer buildings to help them match in.

The original building

Dark grey dry-brush

Sand dry-brush

The finished buildings

Hopefully these will get some use in future games and will save me from buying any more huts.

Carnevale

So I got tempted by this game a few weeks ago as I was looking for something a bit different but a small figure count. So I picked up one of the starter sets and a couple of additional figures I liked the look of. It all kind of reminds me of the Computer game Assasins Creed. So I've initially spent some time watching some games on Youtube and I like what I see. 

So after taking the plunge I had a chance conversation with Mitch after the Border Reiver show. He was hooked and ordered the other starter set. He has even signed up for the STLs so he'll be doing a lot of 3d printing. He has already dropped off 5 figures for one of the more unusual factions, the Rashaar.

The starter set comes with 8 figures, 4 for the Guild and 4 for the Rashaar. So I've gone for the Guild as my starting faction as the extra figures are also the Guild that I picked up. I've deliberately gone for a limited colour scheme.

The Pilferer, Gondolier, Arbalast and Fisherman from the starter set

Rialto assassin, Ebeneezer Chummage and Mira O'Shea 

I think I'll pick up a few more figures for this faction, quite fancy the witch for a bit of arcane magic and one of the Escorts for some added punch. In the meantime I can make some progress on the Rashaar as I've got a planned first game next week against Mitch.