With your shield, or on it !

Tuesday evening was the continuation of our "Gears of War" campaign. Ross,Peter, Gareth and myself prepared to defeat the locust horde... except it didn't work out that way.
Game one was close, very very close. Peter actually managed to get his mitts on the WMD we needed to take out the beserker but we were over-run before he could use it.

For the second game we set up the "Horde" scenario, the players must survive wave after wave of enemy attacks.

In a dazzling display of ineptitude, we crashed out in only a couple of turns. Shooting did not work and in melee we just got splattered. It was over in minutes. Time to call it a night!

Which brings me back to the title of this post, we definately came back "on", rather than "with" our shields.  While I still enjoy this game, I wonder how many game nights players can continue to struggle through the same scenarios. We have limited opportunities to play and lots more scenarios (and other games) to get through.

So when do we give up on this one?  Perhaps skip this scenario or take a break and try a different game for a while?   

Come on COGs whats your opinion? 

Horde mode.

Tuesday nights meeting had to be cancelled due to illness (Get well soon Ross).
So, Glynn (eldest sprog) and myself attempted the "Horde" scenario for "Gears of War".
This scenario throws wave after wave of Locust attackers against the COG defenders.
Playing on the easiest difficulty setting, the game was still very much a "touch and go" situation for
most of the scenario. A couple of lucky weapon finds kept us in with a chance.
We just managed to win.
The game took 3 hours to play (its a big scenario), and was pretty exciting for the duration.
Cannot wait to try the next difficulty setting! Still have lots of the basic story scenarios still to play.

Wave six, lots of baddies!
As you can see, the figures have had a paintjob. Base colours and a coat of "Army Painter", great result for very little effort.

Victory and defeat in one evening.

At around 8pm Ross, Peter and Gareth, three of my imaginary buddies, turned up at the gaming garage.
Ready to kick ass and take names, we threw down the "Gears of War" boardgame and prepared to tackle the first scenario "Emergence".
The plan is to advance through locust territory to find and seal a spawn point, the "Emergence" hole in the title.
 Armed with a plan, an attitude and some big guns, the four of us ripped through the enemy positions and closed in on the objective. Except for Ross who playing as "Cole Train" had expended his ammo early and spent the rest of the battle sneaking around the rear taking potshots with a pistol. Gareth provided cover fire while Peter and I charged the objective guns blazing and grenades blasting.
One accurate and lucky grenade toss later and the emergence hole was sealed.
The locust then launched a vicious counterattack. A wave of enemy knocked down "Baird" (me) and went after the other COGs. Last thing I remember was Peter "Roadie running" into the distance!
But the three guys managed to ride out the attack and eventually killed the last of the locust.
Well deserved victory in the first round.

We decided to try "China Shop" the second scenario.  This has the COG players being chased by a huge beserker. Blind, it charges towards the sound of the players weapons and smashes anything in its path. The scenario requires you to "guide" the beserker and use it to smash through blocked areas of the map.
We started well enough but not having played this scenario before, we did not have a plan. This very quickly left us spread out and unable to support each other. The game ended with all COGs bleeding out, swarmed with locust and squished beneath the beserker.

Back to the drawing board.
We plan to play again next week.

Tonights game

The Locust horde have mounted an offensive all along the Western boundries.
4 elite COG troopers are going to counterattack and attempt to seal an "Emergence" hole.

This game has been hitting the table a lot. Based on the popular videogames, this is a full-on slaughterfest. Report to follow.