Checking In

 Not detailed reports, but it has been a month and life has been busy, strange and otherwise filled since my last post. I have gotten in gaming, just haven't written about it. A couple of weeks ago, Wayne and Mark came over for a day of What A Cowboy followed by Check Your 6 Jet Age.

 The Ski-Mark gang won that outing.. Wayne's dice just hated him and didn't want him to have a fighting chance.

 Up next was CY6JA. I set up an early Cold War scenario featuring MiG-15s facing off against some F-3 Demons. Again it was me and Mark against Wayne.

It was an entertaining encounter. The Demons have first-generation AIM-7 Sparrows and guns. Although we got a few lock-ons during the game, Mark and I never had a chance to fire a missile. We did well in the gunfighting department though, knocking out two while losing one with one more damaged. A fun day of gaming for sure.

Last weekend Ziggy came over for a round of old-school Battletech. We each ran two heavies. He had an Orion and a Black Knight while I used a Flashman and a Guillotine. 

Halfway through, my Flashman took back-to-back headshots from the Orion's AC10 and Medium Laser. That finished that mech off in one fell swoop.

I peeled off the whole left side of the Black Knight, then cackled as the engine went full Chernobyl. The Orion beat my Guillotine to a wreck for few turns then we called the game. Fun outing!

No painting recently. We've got my F-I-L staying with us for a bit so I don't have access to the room where I paint. I weep.
 

AAR: Junkyard Pickin'

 Mark, Wayne and I got together at Roll the Bones game store in Savannah on Sunday afternoon for a game of Shakedown, my modern What A Cowboy variant. I put the scenario together earlier in the week and came up with the following.

The guys running the questionably legal towing business in town towed a car to their junkyard a yesterday that belonged to a weed dealer. They didn't know whose vehicle it was when they towed it. The Clanton family heard about and knew the vehicle was owned by that dealer. They decided to break into the junkyard, find the drugs which are likely still in the vehicle, and make a nice score! Of course the Clantons tripped an alarm on their way in so the local police are on the scene to respond. The police also have long suspected the scumbags running the "towing" operation of also running a chop shop so this would give them a good opportunity to get into the office and look for evidence.

Mark took the Clantons, Wayne took the Towhook Gang and I got to run the boys in blue. 

Our 36 x 36 game area. Twelve cars to search. The Clantons are in the back, circled in yellow. They just popped a section of fence. The Towhooks are in the double-wide office (just made this week!). My police are nearest the bottom of the photo.

In no time at all, Little Dale of the Towhooks had located the wannabe thieves. He gave his MAC-10 a long pull on the trigger and gave Uncle Cy a hell of a spray. One of the bullets hit Cy in the head and he was out of action right away!

Since the other guys started the fight straight away at the other end of the yard, I had a long slog ahead of me!

And then it happened. The godforsaken junkyard dog rushed Officer Murtaugh. Roger was rattled but otherwise OK.

And it wasn't long before the JYD was on top of Earl Clanton! Poor Earl got a bit of a bite during his run-in.

"You OK, man? Was that a dog that got you?"

Meanwhile, Officer Callahan had gotten into the office. He was expecting company and was in position to cover the door. When Cale came in after him, "Dirty" Harry was waiting and with a Bonanza token,  knocked Cale down a peg. Cale was taken out of action a turn later.

The summanabatching dog reappeared and took a bit out of Officer Hannah's ass.

Earl's worked his way over to the other row of cars. I worked Murtaugh up to the shotgun fight between Ricky and Booger Clanton because a third shotgun is always fun!

After Harry had enough evidence on the Towhooks, he rejoined the fight was was pinned by Ricky and his sawed-off 12-gauge. Roger took the opportunity to join the shotgun fight and took Ricky down at close range.

Boom, done.

Meanwhile on the other side of the lot, Earl and Booger were making good progress looking for the dope. Surprise surprise, they found it in the Hippy Van! Earl had hit the jackpot.

Callahan moves up to finish off Darrell, the last of the Towhooks. Of course, their trusty dog was right there, screwing things up! I still managed to get a shot off at Darrell forcing him to fall back pinned.

A minute later Harry slapped the cuffs on him. A nice day's work!

But while that was going on, "Fast Earl" had found his calling and made his way out of the lot with the loot! 

So we called the game there. Wayne's group had taken a beating with three KO'ed and one arrested. The cops had plenty of evidence on the Towhook Gang to shut that operation down but failed to stop the break-in and couldn't round up the drugs. The Clanton's lost two of their group and had two make it out intact. My cops performed well, Clancy Wiggums was knocked out, but the others were OK, except for needing rabies shots. That dog was just the worst!

A darn fun game for sure! When Mark chose to enter the junkyard so close to the office, the game turned into a high-intensity firefight right away. Mark did well to extract two guys and continue searching for the loot while Wayne's guys were busy with me. We all enjoyed things and I'm here to tell you, the addition of the dog (a last minute idea thanks to my wife) was just hugely entertaining. The dog would appear instantly and attack any cop or Clanton that rolled triples on any of his activation dice. So you rolled three sixes, great! Fight this dog first though, sucker! Wayne's idea of being able to summon the dog and sic it on someone for its first appearance is pretty strong and I'll remember that the next time it's appropriate. 

Painting and Planes

 A bit of recent painting made its way through the queue this week. First up are agents Scully and Mulder, from X-Files of course. These are 28mm 3d prints purchased via Etsy. I hated the models. Heads are cast separately from the bodies, as are the hands. The way the right hands are attached to the sprues is miserable. Both of mine broke. I had to use less interesting alternatives donated by other minis. Frustrating.

They painted up nicely and will fun characters to add to my modern What a Cowboy games.

 The other painting I did during the week was on some 1/600 aircraft. The pictures are off-the cuff but get the point across.

Swedish J35s, F-105s and MiG-15s.

And then some F9F Panthers and more MiG-15s.

I've also spent a few hours in the last couple weeks re-basing the other planes in my collection, getting rid of the magnets. I'm very close to being done! I also put together a couple of Check Your 6 Jet Age scenarios for the next time the group gets together for a game.

New Models for the New Year!

 Happy 2026 everyone!. My cold symptoms are on the mend, I'm real happy about that. All that coughing and congestion was just the worst. After finishing up those KVs int he previous post, I got to work on some 28mm moderns for my WAC variant. These models are from Spectre Miniatures. Resin 3D prints, very good quality. A tad pricey, but that's everything these days, plus a Christmas discount at GCminis helped!

First up... the Trailer Park Defense Force. Where I live, these could be west Chatham, Effingham, Bryan or Liberty counties' primary residents. 😁

Two melee folks with a baseball bat and a broken beer bottle. Two with ARs, a shotgun and one with an SKS. Very crystal meth. 

I'm not good at tattoos on my minis but this crew demanded it. There really should be a lot more. A fun gang for sure! Loads or character.

And the last two - a couple of Feds. An FBI agent and a plain clothes agent for whatever agency seems appropriate.

Should have some WW2 Check Your 6 on the schedule tomorrow to ring in the new year!

Tanksgiving 2025

 Last Sunday, November 23rd, the Space Cadets and some of the Savannah area HMGS members got together at Savannah Lions game store for a Tanksgiving game day. The group hosted games of Bolt Action, Team Yankee, Battletech Alpha Strike and What A Cowboy!I played in the Alpha Strike game while hosting / GMing the WAC scenario.

Wayne hosted the AS game. David and I took command of Clan Hell's Horses units and were tasked with keeping a Steiner force at bay. 

Our tabletop and deployment:

That's James, Ziggy and Wayne, left to right. David commanded the Stone Rhino and I think it was a Gargoyle. I had two squadrons of three very heavy tanks, each composed of two MBTs and the third vehicle being a multi-role AAA / Artillery vehicle. We needed to keep the IS forces away from the buildings circled in red.

I smoked one of Ziggy's Atlases early by simply combining a lot of fire on it. Three to go! Ugh... that won't be quite as easy next time.

I wasn't taking a lot of pictures. By the time I killed a second Atlas (and the Archer in the center), I had lost a whole squadron. David was working the artillery and other vehicles on the left.

There's David. Stomp that tank! Stomp that tank!

I ended up getting tabled but we did a fine job of keeping the enemy away from their objective. Not a bad job at all!

The other Tanksgiving table.

Say hi, Mark!

Next up was What a Cowboy. I set the game up for 5 players each with three characters.

Our game area. 3' x 4' is plenty for WAC. My water tank by the train tracks checks the "Tank" box. Each crew had an objective, three were trying to secure the lady int he center of town (Millie Mae) and two had to get to the cemetery and locate hidden loot.

Millie Mae was a slippery one. There was a lot of shooting each other from behind in this encounter. Just mean and nasty!

Just look at that! 

Mark's leader locates the treasure! Now, four inches to the edge of town and get the win!

James caught up with him before he made it away and the scenario ended with the loot being unsecured and Millie Mae sneaking off unattended. Mark and Wayne both made the most progress to victory so they shared a positive result. 

After playing the scenario, I should have started it with Millie already with the group her pappy sent to find her and they should have been closer to the train station. That gang had the most difficult objective and I should have given them some advantage by some other means.

Everyone had a good time and it was a great afternoon of toy soldiers. Be well and good gaming!

Wow - Some Finished Painting!

 I has time and space to get some additions to the What A Cowboy collection finished up this week. I've volunteered to run a game at our annual TanksGiving get together the Sunday before Thanksgiving so I had to make it fit. Mike has been increasingly bothersome about tanks being featured in the games. Now I like a tank game, but there can only be so many. I told him I'd run WAC and feature a water tank / tower on the table. He wasn't entirely pleased but it'll break up the WW2 tank monotony, of which there are already 2 games planned. 

Of course that meant I had to get a water tower and some railroad track. I also put together a paper train station platform for the game. In an effort to pretty-up the table I also got some cheap decorative cacti on Amazon to break up the tan and brown theme. 

So what did I do? Well first I completed some Mexicans I had picked up from Old Glory as new additions to the collection. 

Five fightin' women.

And ten tough hombres.

Next up, the water tower. It was a 3d print I picked up on Etsy. The vendor was Guardian Hobbies. Very quick shipping and very competitive pricing.

It painted up easily and adds a lot of character to a game table.

And finally, the cacti. The pieces are colored hard acrylic and I felt they were OK to use as-is without fiddling about with painting them. I just based them up for stability and to create "cover areas."

I didn't take a picture of the train platform but it is Finger and Toes models Lincoln, NM Train Station. You'll see it in the bat rep in a just over a week. Feels good to be productive again!