Pulpy - Scenario Testing

 A couple of weekends ago I put my Pulp skirmish game on the table for the first time since March when we played it at Skirmish game con. It was a scenario test run to check objectives, terrain, etc. The testing went well and my playtesters, Ziggy and the Bride both enjoyed the game itself. I'm hoping to take Pulpy up to Southern Front in Raleigh in September and this is the scenario I've put together. Without going too deep into specifics, a few pictures.

I've decided on one fairly significant dice mechanic change to the rules to speed up play. One of those flashes of brilliance while I was doing something else. It helps me stay true to my preferred gaming tenet of ONE DICE ROLL = ONE RESULT. I'm pretty excited about that. I do need to set up a small game of Pulpy! to confirm that it works as expected but I'm pretty confident. Until next time, be well!

An Actual AAR: Dystopian Wars Necromancy!

 Ziggy suggested Dystopian Wars Fleet Action as a game selection for Saturday, and who am I to say no to that? I think the last time we played DW in any capacity was pre-pandemic. The follow up questions led us to a 1200-point land battle. Initially I thought French, but changed my mind to the Japanese Empire of the Blazing Sun since it really has been quite a long time and they were my first. Ziggy brought his Poles. Only in a Dystopian Wars - Japanese - Polish Venn diagram does this battle happen! 

See as though it's been four years (January 2020 was the last DW game I could find on my blog) we set up for a basic slugfest with no objectives other than re-learning the rules.

The big damn walking airfield finally made it on to the tabletop many many years after I put it together and painted it up. The Polish artillerymen Christened it the "Broad Side of a Barn-class Carrier." 

A view of my left flank. Some Polish tanks and artillery burn in the distance.

And one of my bombers meets a predicable fate. I was told the crew managed to stay safe, so that's nice.

With the Kagoshima taking it in the seat, I pushed it forward as quickly as I could to get some use out of it. It wasn't long though before the Zamiec airship was all over it, wrecking the magnificent machine.

Things were going pretty evenly across the battlefield, with a slight edge to the boys from Kyoto. The Japanese are very much a long-distance force with strong long-range capabilities while the Polish are point-blank specialists.

The Polish carrier had to go. My Taka Ashi heavy walker crab-walked on over and unloaded, along with the artillery. Boom goes the dynamite. 

Zig had a swarm of little tanks working their way around my right side and they appeared, giving my bombards a lot to think about.

Meanwhile, the forces I'd used to form a left flank had performed admirably and were now moving into the center to lend their rockets and shells to the fight!

The end drawing close, the last two big guys on the table converged. My walker was heavily damaged and the Perun landship was still factory-fresh. Not good for me at all.

Bring your marshmallows and long sticks. 

But let's look at something in the picture two up... those little rocket-launching walkers from hell were lined up perfectly for a massive 25-dice spite attack against the big Polish beast.

Setting up a coup-de-grace for my Chi-Ri medium tanks. How's that for a "Chi-Ri" on top? 

That was the end of turn four and we ended it there, a minor Japanese victory, although both sides had taken a massive beating.

We both had a great time and for a low-stress good old-fashioned smash-em-up, DWFA is always a great option. I have a feeling it won't be four years before our next outing!

Big Tank

It took seemingly forever, but finally my big steampunk tank is done. I picked it up many months ago - maybe as much as a year or more. I remember the purchase because it was heavily discounted - $18. It's a Dystopian Legions model, RIP Spartan Game. It's a nice heavy chunk of resin with a few metal bits and pieces. I put the two 32mm VASA Suppressors in there to give it some sense of scale.

One of these days I'll put a game together and put this sucker on the table, but until then, it's a just good buy that's finally out of the painting queue!

Well Dang!

Apparently Spartan Games is closing up shop. I've enjoyed Dystopian Wars for many years and Firestorm Armada / Planetfall more recently. Announcement Here.

It's sad, but this sort of thing happens. The original WarZone suffered a similar fate and really stung for me. FASA's Crimson Skies was a terrific airplane shoot-em-up that had a short run.

I'm sure Zig, Mike, David and I will continue to play. The games fit good niches and we've got enough stuff for a lifetime. That said, I did just order a Firestorm Armada box from Amazon - some ships I've had my eye on and just never picked up.

I'm feeling GREAT about having downloaded Firestorm Taskforce and Dystopian Wars Fleet Action, both faster-play rules for the flagship games, within the last few days. Having perused the rulebooks and Orbats, they're solid and will certainly get table time.

Farewell, Spartan. Your games were a blast, your models terrific and your customer service exemplary.

Recently Finished and The Next Project

I finished the last six Legionnaires from the Dystopian Legions box I bought early in the year. I'm quite happy with how they, and everything else DL, came out.

I didn't realize until I started assembling them that many of these are very different sculpts than the first squad I painted which have many rifle grenades, etc. I'm quite pleased with the variety.

My next big time sink with be these guys:

I found them for $29.99 each on Amazon last weekend. Each box normally sells for $70.00. With a $5 Amazon credit it was one terrific deal. There were a few other boxes of this, that and the other which Ziggy and David quickly snagged.

Back to Normal

Hurricane Matthew is now a memory and it's on to normality for a little while here. I got a bit of painting done Saturday, finishing up a couple of Steampunk characters. The first is Master Queeg, a Malifaux model who I thought would make a fine "Indiana Jones" type. The other is just a neat Reaper Aquanaut who I thought would be an interesting addition to the collection.

A couple of weekends ago David came by to help playtest Rubber and Lead, my destructive car racing game. Junior also joined in the automotive mayhem.

David is a miserable driver. Here he is clipping Junior moments after the race started.

A bit later, Junior serves up a bit of revenge by dropping some mines right in front of Dave's truck. My yellow car had just been taken out by David's side-mounted flamethrower.

 Race 2. I drew the blue milk truck. Junior got Copper Top and ran away with it.

Witness more suspect driving by David, whipping right in front of my truck. His car took a ton of damage from the ensuing wreck. Junior won the race easily as David and I couldn't get out of our own ways.

Race 3. I drew the Jack O Lantern. David was in the convertible. Junior again schooled us. David tried to drive fancy and got me all hemmed up.

There was much oil on the track in race 3. It made for a very aggravating race for we in the back.

The R&L playtest was very successful and well-received. I'm extremely happy with the way it works and it will definitely get playtime at Gnomecon in March.

Last evening, Zig and David came over for a big game of X-Wing. We each used 120-point forces. I used Imperials, Ziggy the Rebels and David was the Scum and Villainy group.

Our deployments.

 The Imperials.

The Rebels.

 

And the Crooks.

We had quite a brawl for a couple of turns but my ships zipped and crashed stupidly. But then my Punisher got it's act together and dropped this beauty of a Seismic Charge, clipping itself and the entire Rebel group. Kath Scarlett and Boba Fett dueled in their Firesprays.

A second very-well placed Seismic Charge hits four more targets on the next turn. David and Ziggy were officially sick to death of my bombs. Kath finished off Boba Fett's Slave 1. Huzzah!

And a turn or two later, Valen Rudor snaps off the last couple of hit points from Dash Rendar's YT-2400. The Imperials score a major win, woohoo! I'm still in love with the TIE Punisher. It's "The bomb."

Ten Tin Men

I completed the second batch of ten Dystopian Legions automatons during the week. They're remarkably fiddly to assemble and for such small figures, they take much longer to put together than to paint.

Nothing earth-shaking but they do look nice all in a row! I've only got six minis left (and the two objective markers) out of that box set. I can't believe I'm this close to being done with it!

PaK-ed Full of Gingerbread

I finished up an Airfix 1/72 PaK40 yesterday, purchased alongside the SU-122s in the prior post. I still have the prime mover on the paint table - its assembly was considerably more involved that the gun.

We hung out with our friends Dennis and Shelley last evening and played a couple of games. Shootin' Ladders proved quite entertaining.

It's a shoot-em-up involving homicidal gingerbread men "crumbling" eachother on the classis kid game Chutes and Ladders' layout. We played a simple free-for-all and I fared pretty well, collecting two body parts. My wife won, being the first to collect three body parts. As you may be able to tell from the sheets shown to the left, when a body part takes 6 points of damage it is torn from the sheet. My sheet was given some embellishments...

I've been working on these Dystopian Legions Automatons for the last week or so. They are the worst models ever, assembly-wise. Two arms, two legs, a body, a head sometimes a gun... Christ Almighty! I can't believe I finished the other ten months ago! I don't remember them being such a pain.