Recent Games

 I've gotten a couple games in over the last week, as well as a bit of painting. No painting pics, but a few from the games. Last Sunday, David and I got in a game of Battletech Alpha Strike. We played the Reconnaissance scenario from the MRB. David used a 6-mech force of mid-cost mechs, ranged in the 30-42 point area: Battlemaster, 2 X Shadowhawk 2H, Guillotine 3N, Catapult K2, and Crab 20. I put the list together for him using my collection and he approved it. My preferred force was a much lighter affair, built for speed, agility and swarming. I had eight mechs : 3 X Wolfhound, Jenner, Locust 1M, Mercury 99, Raven 4x, Uziel. I was the defender in the scenario and set up 13 marked buildings across the center of the battlefield. David needed to locate SIX of the buildings I had chosen in secret, then evacuate a unit off the table to report the information back to HQ.

David deployed in a cluster on my left, while I had very much spread out.

My poor Locust gets dusted by the Battlemaster.

A measure of revenge against the Guillotine.

After a few hours of playing and a lot of blown up mechs, David located the last objective and RAN with the Catapult, his last 'Mech. A Wolfhound caught it with a headshot and, well, that'll do it! Minor victory for my Marik forces. This was a tense, drawn-out game of movement and sporadic damage. It was ridiculously enjoyable.

Then yesterday I drove up to Statesboro for a big D-Day Bolt Action game. I took my Canadians and helped storm the beaches! The game was hosted by the Statesboro Warhammer Club. A co-worker of mine, Landon is a member and invited me a few weeks ago.

There were three Axis players and five or six Allies. In fact, all three of the guys in this picture are the Axis players. As you can imagine, especially if you have every played a D-Day game, there was a bit of a logjam on the beach in no time.

I got all three of my infantry squads onto the beach / surf on turn 1. Well, one squad had to wade in, their boat having hit a sand bar. 

A real motley crew! The table was about 8' wide and 5-6' deep. We Allies were supposed to capture roads at the far end to ensure victory.

After a turn of shooting, my troops on the beach disappeared. Yes, some players were using their personal collections as proxies, thus the "Japanese" defenders.

I did manage to take out a bunker!

And we got a flank attack of three tanks. My Firefly VC cooked the StuG. 

But by 4:00, with so many players and units, we hadn't gotten far and the game was officially called. Minor Axis victory, they'd lost the beach entirely. I had a really good time and the Statesboro crew are a good group of guys.

It's a Tank!

 Or self-propelled gun anyway... I finished up the Semovente 75/18 that game with the Bolt Action Italians box set this week. It's was a frustrating build and enjoyable paint. I don't understand why a tabletop gaming company bothers with multi-part model kits these days. Resin chunks and 3D printed models are so much easier to deal with and does anyone really care about engine and transmission components on a game table? Good grief.... nice try Warlord. 

I like how she turned out!

I really must get her on the table with the rest of the BA minis. Be well y'all!

That's Italian!

 Hello hello, I hope everyone's had a good start to 2025. Mine's been fine so far, with just a major work go-live looming ahead on January 21st. I must have faith in the talent of the team.... I must have faith in the talent of the team.

Enough of that, on with the hobby stuff! So, those Bolt Action Italians that I got at the end of 2024 are table-ready! Two weeks, 40 infantry, 3 support weapons and one armored car. Not bad, especially for me. I still have to put the Semovente 75 together and paint it, but I'll get there. It would have been a distraction from painting infantry. To recap, this is two squads of 10 regular army infantry and two squads of 8 Blackshirts, along with HQ-types, platoon commander, medic, medic and assistant. I've also got an 81mm mortar, an HMG and a 47mm ATG. The AB41 armored car is a resin 3d print picked up for $20 on Etsy.

I mounted the HMG on the tripod backwards and because of the fragile nature of the model, there was no reasonable way to fix it. Oh well. Overall I'm happy with the look of the group and look forward to putting them on a tabletop to duke it out with my Canadian force. 

Travels and New Armies

Happy New Year all and I hope you had a fine Christmas.

 The wife and I had a terrific time up in Washington and Oregon. We needed a get-away after a 2024 filled with headaches and drama.

THE Coast of Washington. Windy, rainy and  just gorgeous.

A fine house porter at the Astoria Brewing Company.

We parked here to tour the Flavel House Museum. I immediately recognized the black Jeep from Goonies. Moments later I realized that the building is the jail that Jake Fratelli breaks out of at the beginning of the movie. 

BULLET HOLES!

I love the colored glass on this fixture.

And the detail on the central element.

Certainly looks haunted, right?

We of course visited the Goonies house the following morning. You cannot go in, but it's fun to visit such an iconic location from my childhood memories.

A 3-hour drive to Seattle for some more touristing. The Space Needle of Course!

While waiting to go up, there are a couple of scale models showing stages of construction. Appears to be about 1/100 scale judging by the people. Need to get this model into a game somehow. 

The views from up top are impressive. The weather was even starting to clear!

The trip was fantastic and aside from wrecking my right knee walking back to the parking garage on Sunday after the Space Needle visit, everything was easy and pleasant. There's a lot to be said for travelling without an agenda.

And awesomely, I had a new pile of minis waiting for me when I got back home. They were ordered just before we left on our trip.

Bolt Action Italians. Huzzah! An opfor for the Canadians for sure. I just couldn't do another German army. I painted a bunch for FOW, pre-blog days, painted plenty of 1/72s and just wanted something different. Canadians and Italians fought plenty in Sicily. The AB41 armored car is a 3d print ordered from XPForge via Etsy. Very nice model. 

The infantry are being organized as two 10-man squads of regular infantry and two 8-man squads of Blackshirts along with regular army support elements (mortar, MMG and ATG). 

Otter of My Own Fate

 Still no Battletech AAR. Motivation has been hard to come by. I did however paint up an armored car / recon car for the Bolt Action Canadians. I picked it up on Etsy a couple weeks ago and it arrived last Saturday. Well, one chunky solid easy-to-paint model later (and a week off work) and job's done! Rather than leaving it boring solid OD Green, I gave it a basic camo pattern of OD and medium brown. I like the final look and it's a fun and welcome addition to the collection. 

I need to order decals. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Clearing the Queue

 By no means done with the plastic mountain, but I've made some good progress knocking stuff out recently. First us, some drones / hover bots that came with the troopers I painted up a month and a half ago. Models are Warlord Gates of Antares range. They're kind of neat and I like how the came out, especially next to their two-legged kin.

It's always tempting to add a lot of oddball stuff to bases so I think just doing two shows a lot of restraint. 😁

"You take the low road, unit D-121 and I will take the high... brzzztt. Over."

And the other model I cranked out in the last few days was this beauty. It's a 1/56 (28mmish) Sherman VC Firefly for the zero of you who don't know. I got it from Mike a few weeks back when we were playing Blood & Plunder. It's a 2-part resin print (hull + turret) from Tina's Tiny Tanks. Mike sells them on his webstore here : Gator Games. I'm sure the markings are wrong, but it looks  close enough and that's all I'm concerned with. British tank + bigass tankslayer gun. 

Obligatory B&W photo of the WW2 vehicle. 

AAR: Bolt Action - Canadians' First Outing

 I met Wayne on Sunday afternoon for an intro game of Bolt Action with my recently completed Canadian infantry. He used a Fallschirmjager platoon, better quality troops for sure, but not as many of them. 

We very simply used the terrain as printed on the game mat he had set up. We played in "late summer" so the fields were dense and provided cover. We each placed an objective for the other guy to capture. Wayne of course buried his deep in a field on his side of the table. I placed the German objective on the crossroad since it was an obvious location of interest and value. 

Most of my force was deployed in the woods in the center with one squad and the Bren carrier off to the right flank.

The first shooting of the game... my mortar team's spotter calls one in on the Puma right next to an FJ squad.

Miraculously, it's on target. Even more miraculously, the Puma catches fire and the crew bail out and run! The Puma was out on shot #1 and all of a sudden this was an entirely different situation. The Fallschirmjager squad also took a hit and received some pin markers. Wow.

I worked the Bren carrier and rightmost squad forward. The mortar kept a steady stream of bombs falling on the German infantry while the UC's machineguns kept constant fire at the hard-pressed paratroopers.

Over on the left, Wayne left me an opportunity to move out of the woods which I did. Again, some miraculous dice and miserable German rolls saw that FJ squad run for it! The halftrack was to be another story. I had a PIAT nearby and was trying to get that set up for an easy kill.

The infantry on the right assault Wayne's command section, easily winning that combat.

But back on the left I messed up and announced an Advance order when I should have said Run. That poor squad was shot to bits by the FJs which had rallied and the 251's machinegun. My lousy PIAT was still struggling to get a rocket on target.

But on the right, things were still rosy - my infantry section wiped out the remaining Fallschirmjagers in a brutal assault, capturing the objective in the process. 

While those assaults were going on, I relocated the spotter to a new vantage point. The mortar's incredible steak of murder and despair continued, smashing rounds down on the German infantry on the left and even briefly rattling the halftrack which suffered no permanent damage. 

But it wasn't enough and the last of Left Section was cut down. 

We called the game there. A solid Canadian victory, 5-1. The mortar's ruthless hot streak made 100% of the difference. Killing the pricey armored car right out of the gates was huge. All of a sudden, my Bren Carrier was the nastiest thing on the table with two LMGs, whereas I'd started the game assuming it would be running for its life for as long as it lasted! My dice were well-behaved when necessary, whereas Wayne's betrayed him at a few key moments. I also had a 2:1 order dice advantage for much of the game which allowed me to what I wanted, whenever I wanted. 

It's tough to learn lessons from a very successful game, but I made a couple mistakes that I'll not make again. For starters, I placed an immobile MMG in a position in which it couldn't fire at any enemy all game. Also also mishandled the section on the left and was punished for that error. All in all though, Wayne was a gracious host and opponent and I'm sure he'll run me ragged next time we face off! 

Be well and good gaming!