Evil Empire

Here are those Ruskies

Models are QRF - a bag of Post-War Soviet Motorized Rifle Infantry and a BTR-152.

Friday Night Posting

I finished up those 15 mil Soviets this evening. I need to hit them with some clear coat. I'll put pics up tomorrow. Hell, they may even see the table tomorrow if Z or My Bride is in the mood for a game of Flying Lead. That's assuming I can't get that game of MSH going. Ah, we'll see. Still awaiting the T-55 that was out of stock when I ordered. I'm sure it'll be a few weeks yet, it was coming from old Blighty. 

I ordered some 15mm Elves today from Splintered Light. Can't go a payday without ordering something... I'm sure you know the curse. I'm going to do them up for Song of Blades. I haven't painted any fantasy minis recently - I'm looking forward to 'em. 

Y'all have a good weekend! Roll some dice and enjoy a game!

Mid-Weekery

Been doing a little painting this week - Junior tasked me with his Infinity troupe Sunday - so I've been working slowly on those, plus some 15mm early Cold War Soviets that I picked up for Flying Lead. Ziggy finally got around to ordering some guys for Infinity, so we should be able to get back on that one of these days.

I put together an MSH scenario this week. I'd like to give it a go Saturday, but I'll have to wait to see if there will be time. I went a whole new direction for the scenario. I'd been in a point-buy style FoW / 40K mode with MSH and although the games have been fun, it has lacked a certain something. So, I pinched a bit from here and there and set up more of a story-driven scenario. I very purposefully ignored the Scenario Generation System's points values and instead just selected units. Many of the battalions are not full strength and are a bit more of a rag-tag affair than usual. I've played enough MSH to know what is good and what is "meh," so the points system, although nice, I think will get retired posthaste.

I do have a Shipwreck game set up for Sunday with James. I think it's going to be 1960's affair with some low-tech bathtubs slugging it out, but I'm not certain.

Until Next Time!

Urban War - Sci Fi Skirmish

Ziggy and I got to try out Urban War on Saturday afternoon. I've known Z since 1995 and he always uses good guys in games so I just sort of handed the VASA guys off to him for the run-through. Ziggy does not do aliens. He certainly doesn't do snakes with big-ass claws. Very well, I'd drive the Koralon. Since this was out first go at UW, we kept it a simple "kill the other team" scenario to see how the mechanics work. We used the forces out of the starter box sets.

The set up. Enough terrain to make it interesting.

 I put my two heavy hitters on my right side

And the four schlub-snakes on the left

Zig's deployment. Keeping the squad together.

The banana twins slither forward

Whilst the blue section moves out on their side of the board

Classic new-to-the-game mistake. Zig jumps the Archangel down to pummel the lone creeper in the middle only to realize she's not really kitted out for close-combat. The two models kill eachother in the ensuing combat. Hahaha!

This dope with the riot shield and baton counter-charges one of my warriors. Neither could manage to land a killing blow.

Mister Spikey crashes through one melee Suppressor on the right flank and uses a follow-up move to engage the next. Two claws. Two hits!

Too bad - two ones. The damn Suppressor lives.

I send the snake in charge in to sort things out. Again, the blessed human survives a round of combat while being terribly outclassed.

A turn later, sanity is restored and the Suppressor is suppressed. A final follow-up move results in an ambushed sniper being rent in twain.

But his buddy has no trouble putting a hole through the monster's head with a shot from a Gauss rifle.

A moment later, the Sergeant (the girl with the pigtails) ran over and put my Phazon (my boss critter with the staff) on ice with a shot from her pistol. Gah! I was down to one grunt.

That grunt had been engaged in close combat with that same Suppressor for three turns. It had been an epic, evenly matched combat until that troublesome wench ran over with her nightstick from hell and ended the game. 

Well, for fumbling through the rules and just getting things together, that was a lot of fun! I certainly need to put this on the table again some time soon.

Good Gaming!

Mid Week - Urban War Minis

I finished up Junior's Urban War minis from Christmas. He was never going to finish them. We'll try to put them on the game table this weekend. My bride's going to be out of town so we'll have a chance to clutter up the kitchen as much as we want.
Here are the snakey aliens (Koralon Starter Box)...

The gang

Grunt and Grunt leader

A special, very pointy fellow

The Boss

Two more Grunts

I stuck with his choice of colors and just prettied them up. They were nice models to paint and if the game is worth a toot, I wouldn't mind painting up some more.

Shipwreck Scenario Playtest

Hi all. I had a chance to put my Gnomecon Shipwreck scenario through its paces Saturday evening with the help of Dennis, Ziggy, James and Mike. Long story short, I need to fix a few things. Short story long.... keep reading.

The setup

Alternative Spring 1986. A Soviet transport ship carrying military hardware is on its way to Libya during the height of Khadafi's adventures in terrorism. NATO intelligence has learned of this shipment and sends some ships to intercept. 

The players

NATO - Two US ships; a Kidd-class DDG and a Perry-class FFG, an Italian Lupo-class FFG and a German DD. These three nations all have a bone to pick with Libya over the recent bombings in Rome and Berlin. Ziggy took the US ships and James captained the Europeans.

USSR - Three ships including an Udaloy-class DDG, an updgraded Kashin FFG and a state-owned transport ship. Mike would take charge of the Reds.

Libya - Three ships - the Dat Assawari FF and two Nanuchka Missile boats. The Libs also have four Su-22s armed with two AS-7 each. Dennis got to play the part of the Libyan C-in-C.

The game gets underway. The "good guys" had to get photographic evidence of the missile onboard the transport before they could open fire. The Soviets are simply not allowed to start firing. The Libyans are most interested in seeing the transport arrive in Benghazi.

US helicopters buzz the Russian "peace convoy."

A KA-27 and AB212 face off while running recon for their forces.

And the gloves come off! The American's start things off by launching six Harpoons at the Soviets. The Soviet FFG responds by loosing its four Styx. The Libyans release a full salvo from their Nanuchkas and frigate - that's an ungodly 16 from them. The Italian and German ships get in on the action by adding some Otomats and Exocets to the mix! Oh, and the four Su-22s have just arrived in the lower-left corner of the map (just out of frame).

First blood goes to the Libyans for knocking down the Italian helicopter.

The Libyan missiles quickly sniff out the Saggitario whose defenses aren't quite up to the task. The Italian missiles impact on the lead Nanuchka, with similar dramatic results. 

Moments later the German ship Bayern is hit and destroyed by Otomat missiles from the Libyan frigate. The other Nanuchka also sinks after at least one Exocet hits it. The Soviet air defences prove to be quite stout and knock down all six of the initial US salvo. The US defenses struggle to cope with ten incoming missiles and two planes. 

The American ships do well to knock down eight incoming missiles but two of the big rockets from one of the Libyan missile boats plow into the USS Scott and cripple her. The Su-22s loose their missiles but all fail to find their mark. The US gets a bit of solace when one Harpoon runs the gauntlet and smacks into the Soviet cargo ship. The Traktorsky is crippled. Just what the Americans wanted!

With the planes and missiles cleared, we moved onto turn 6. Ziggy rolled his repair die for the Scott - no repair this turn so he's still dead in the water. Mike rolled a repair die for the cargo ship.

And that "10" will send it straight to the bottom!

We all had a good laugh at that.

So, NATO accomplishes its goal by stopping the shipment but takes major losses in the process. Libya comes out OK - sure they lost the shipment and two missile boats but they have caused major embarrassment for the West. The Soviets lost a 30-year old transport ship and some factory-seconds SA-7s but score some major pride points with their terrific defensive showing.

From a scenario perspective, I need to check the AA defenses on the Lupo - James thinks the missile launcher's ROF is gimped. I trust his judgement. Even with that change, I may swap the Kidd out with a Ticonderoga. That Libyan salvo is just ridiculous - Ziggy and James really had a bad time with it. I also found some misprints on my hand-outs and other minor quibbles so I'm really glad I did this - forking out for pizza is a small price to pay for a working scenario.

Mid Week Update

No model painting this week. The lead pile is low - not that there is nothing to paint, just nothing I want to paint right now. I did take the jigsaw to some MDF earlier this evening to make some more appropriately-scaled hills for MSH. They'll also make fine islands for DW and Shipwreck. My work so far...

Before and after spraying... some flock and job's done! I've got enough board to make 3 or 4 more small to mid-sized ones. My hand and ears were getting tired.

Jackpot! (Off-Topic)

Rummaging through old hard drives on my desk at work today to see what is trash and what can be recycled I stumbled across one that used to reside in one of our doctor's PCs with a massive MP3 collection. Here's some of what I found...

OK, so I already had a lot of individual songs but this kicks ass from a "filling in the gaps" perspective. Oh, and no - I refuse to use Pandora or whatever other service. I like having the mp3s.

DW Prussian Battleship

Finished off my kid's Dystopian Wars Battleship. I'm shocked that I finished it so quickly (considering it's a large model and me at the brush). Of course this leaves me with a pretty thin pile of stuff to paint. I could always work on those damned Paratroopers.

With all the gun turrets mounted

And showing off the different generators

Some Ships

Here are those ships I did yesterday. 1/3000 Skytrex / Davco. Some Italians, a West German, Soviets and Americans.

Braaaaaains

We horsed around with a slightly modified MDRG on Saturday evening. Dennis and I had BRAAAAAIN-stormed a zombie scenario and we finally got a chance to test it. Long story short, it needs some changes. Short story longer, it was pretty good and certainly has legs. Here are a few photos. Dennis apologizes for his unpainted zombies and half-painted bio-hazard suit guys.

 The gang. From the left that's Dennis, Junior and Ziggy. Dennis is assembling a second horde.

 I've added a major bonfire to block one of the pathways. Seemed like too large of a funnel on that side of the board. Dennis drove the FEMA guys, Zig handled the National Guard and I ran the zombies. The tank and jeeps are just scenery. My kids couldn't find any of the scores of Hot Wheels cars that they own for us to use as street litter.

The lay of the land.

I manage to get a quick-moving zombie dog close. The guardsman's shot is true though and stops the hound.

My sneakey zombie makes it interesting but he is swiftly dispatched.

My last zombie makes it into combat! He is quickly swarmed by FEMA agents and taken out.

So, that was brutal - especially for me. It was really just an exercise is shooting for D and Z. We decided quickly that the zombies should get to either move a "short" stick automatically without having to roll any activation dice or roll the dice normally. That way, at least the horde can stay coherent and move forward together. As it was, the survivors just picked off my boys one at a time, as they revealed themselves. Making the hordes (at least for this scenario) larger may not be a bad idea either.

I'll probably post some ship picture later today. Need to paint wakes on them and they'll be done.