Over the weekend I managed to get in a fair amount of hobby related awesomeness. The annual show here in Edinburgh, Claymore, was on and whilst there was a fairly good amount of games on show, there was two in particular that caught my interest…

Mars Attacks

Mantic games came along to the show and were showing off their latest offering, Mars Attacks. The models on show were fantastic, with some truly exceptional paint jobs and really make me regret not getting anything else from the kickstarter other than the Dreadball team.

Being a backer did net me a digital copy of the rulebook however and I’ve been slowly digesting it. I’ve found the easiest way to describe it is as Deadzones weird little brother. It’s much simpler than Deadzone but shares a lot of the same mechanics. It’s the character of the game itself that set’s it apart, taking a much more light hearted approach than most wargames. It’s not uncommon for a herd of flaming cattle to rampage randomly around the board for instance :D. The models were great to get a look at as they are cast in PVC, something Mantic have said they will be using much more often in the future(both Xtreme and Dungeon Saga will be using this material). They look really well detailed and dynamic considering they come as one piece, and I think the painted figures really show that this material does the job.

Firestorm: Planetfall

The second game to catch my eye was the upcoming Firestorm: Planetfall from Spartan Games which see’s massive ground forces fighting it out in the Firestorm universe.

This really caught my eye due to the scale of the fights and the scale of the miniatures. I’ve missed massive battles since dropping 40k and this looks like it would be a perfect replacement for many reasons. The scale is much better suited for the size of the battles, the models are great (especially the leviathans) and the cost seems to be about the same as the rest of Spartans range so not silly money. Now to keep an eye on news about when this bad boy will be released 🙂

Axis & Allies

To follow up one the fun had at Claymore I headed round to a mates for my first ever game of Axis & Allies. Wow. I really enjoyed the game as it’s basically Risk Advanced and really look forward to getting more games of this on the go. It’s fun just because of the alternate history aspect that comes into play. For instance playing as Japan I managed to invade much of the USA, where as the Russians nearly wiped the Germans of the map.

Deadzone

To finish of a great weekend I got a game of Deadzone on the go. I’ve not played in a couple of months so my opponent and I were a little rusty but a good time was had. Inevitably my Rebs lost yet another battle to the plague(I really hate mortars), but it et me try out the Kraaw and weapons team that I had yet to field and chat to a couple of new players who I’ll be playing soon. It also inspired me to get to work on my own Plague, which so far have had a few trial schemes but nothing solid. Now I’ve got a scheme down I’ll be getting stuck into them good and proper 😀