Second Tour of Duty

I've been digging through my disused miniatures collection looking for bits that can be re-used for AK47 Republic. AK47 is pretty loose and fast with materiel so I started dredging through the infamous US Paratroop heap and unused vehicle bits and put together four HMGs, four mortars and two ATGs which will  be used as Recoilless Rifles. I couldn't locate the proper wheels for one of the guns, so it got the Frankenstein treatment. I'm happy with the dig - that's 10 stands of support weapons that were paid for four or five years ago!

Thank you, two-wheeled one-horse cart for your donation! 

Gotta find some crews for these mortars and maybe some MG assistants. I have some that I just need to dig out of storage.

Mid Week Update

Hi all. I've gotten another batch of 15mm guys for AK47 done. They aren't based yet, I'll wait until the next block of 30 are painted before I base them. The models are Command Decision Vietnam-era US troops with floppy hats. They a decidedly un-American camo job and look pretty good as loyalists to the Litumsian dictator. I also got and finished up some armored cars, painted in the traditional Litumsian livery of black-brown and bright green.

And the next block of 30 troops. More loyalists, with some scrounged bazookas thrown in.

I need to get some tanks for the MCC (rebels) who are being supported by the Soviets. Ziggy has some unused T-34/85s that I should be able to snag - they'll work well.

Painted Dystopian War Stuff

Hi all and Happy New Year. I've gotten a few big models knocked out early this year - my Blazing Suns Carrier and Gyro Squid! I also did some Corvettes a few weeks ago that I never took pictures of so they're here too.

The whole group

With and without the flash. I normally don't paint stuff like I did on the deck - I think it came out rather nicely. It's certainly flashy!

The air wing. Quite different from my other Tiny Fliers.

Papa Grande with and without the flash. The top cone section is held on with magnets. Storage and transportation is going to be a pain in the neck.

Alrighty y'all, take it easy and good gaming!

Dystopian War - Burma Burns!

Ziggy and I got our DW land forces out on Saturday afternoon for some shoot-'em-up. Since Z is just starting his land force collection, he bummed some Prussians as proxies. We put together 1000-point forces and decided to play until one side had reached its 50% break point. We also ignore the weird rule about indirect fire and that it is only allowed when firing at Capital models.

The Blazing Suns
1 Taka Ashi big-honkin' walker
3+3 Chi-Ri medium tanks
3+2 Myobu light tanks
3 Ho-I bombards
5 Ke-Ho light tanks
2 Inari gyros
2 X dive bombers

The Britannians
1 Sovereign big-honkin' tank
3+3 Mk II medium tanks
3+3 Cromwell bombards
3+3 Terrier small tanks
2 Hawk rotors
1 X dive bombers
1 X fighters

So, what we had was Kingdom forces trying to encircle a small town in Burma and stumbling into an Empire task force that was just preparing to move north in search of British army units operating in the area.

My set up. I've gone heavy on my right. I've played this game too much to want to watch another monster fight. My Taka-Ashi is better used as a killer of smaller things. I'd just have to concede the left flank and two units over there.

The stuff not in the big picture. Ziggy also went heavy right. The tiny fliers on this side are fighters. His DBs are on the other side of the board.

My gyro tanks speed forward to engage the enemy fliers. Their aim is true and one of the warbirds is damaged heavily.

The British artillery strikes back and explodes one of the swift tanks.

Revenge is swift as Crab squadron creeps forward and blasts the flying machine from the sky.

Back on the other side of the battlefield, two Myobu streak across the river and take some shots at the Terriers, damaging one.

The propaganda minister didn't get a picture at the time, but the Gyros and Ho-I bombards destroyed one of the British bombards in the back and damaged a medium tank crossing the ford.

Turn 2

The British artillery takes some anger out on another of the scout tanks.

The Inaris finish off the damaged Mk. II and Terrier.

The Japanese forces on the left push through the ford and fire all available weapons the the Mk. IIs, but manage only a crit on one of them. The return fire wasn't too terrible but those troops are badly outnumbered and the writing is on  the wall for them.

A group of the Terriers pushed forward and destroyed one of the Ke-Hos. The Chi-Ris destroy one stand and damage another in reply. The Ke-Ho squadron advanced and shot one of the dive bombers from the sky.

The dive bombers, sensing that it was now or never, pounce on the Chi-Ris and make a mess of them.

Turn 3

Most of the battlefield.

Shit gets "real" for Crab squadron. They were wiped out in short order.

Revenge came in the form of my Gyros blasting one of the Cromwells and capturing the other.

Zigs two Mk. IIs on my right went back into the ford and my Ke-Hos blasted away. And blast they did. a critical hit and an explosion. You can see that my small tanks are withing the 4" BOOM ZONE. I lost one of my small tanks in the explosion. The remaining Ke-Hos attempted to board the other Mk II but failed miserably.

Stampi-san made his presence felt, wading forward and finishing off the last Mk II and a stand of Terriers. Yeah baby.

Turn 4

Things were very close now so it was just a matter of kill all you can. The Hawk descended upon the Ho-Is damaging one and capturing another. The Cromwells finished off my bombards by killing the damaged one.

My Gyros killed one more stand of Terriers and captured the other. We ended the battle there. Both sides retreated to lick their wounds.

Final score was 650 to 637 in favor of the EoBS, so a tie for all practical purposes since we both went way over our break points on turn 4. The game was a hell of a lot of fun for both of us. My dice were hot to start and cooled off after turn 2. Ziggy's dice warmed up on turn 3 once our armies really got stuck in. I really do like the DW land game and I think Zig is sold on it too. He's going to pick up some bombards and the Brunell + Lysander box. Already looking forward to the re-match. My HoverSquid should be done my then.

Early Happy New Year!

2013 Yearly Review

I'm looking back at where I was last year and what's been done. Last year's end-of-year wrap featured some Urban War and Infinity stuff. While both were enjoyable to paint up, both games were found lacking. Infinity may have the worst basic game mechanics ever. Gorgeous models, shabby game.

I did not jump into Arab-Israeli War stuff for MSH, although I did put together two UMSC battalions. This decision had a lot to do with $ > game time. I'd love to put together armies and play MSH, but it doesn't come up often.

I did manage to sell off one of my remaining FoW armies. That leaves me with the Rangers, which are certainly on the trading block but in no rush to leave.

I did do a little work on those FoW Paratroopers, but not much and they are still in much the same shape they were a year ago. Wow, has it really been a year?

I did pick up a little more Shipwreck stuff - Frenchies and aircraft. I enjoy the heck of of painting those tiny ships and planes but having a gigantic collection doesn't make tremendous sense for me.

So, what has changed in the last year? I've been playing with different people more and have been playing a different selection of games - that's the biggest change in the last 12 months. 2013 has been a very good year and I hope 2014 is even better!

Balancing Act!

As model builders, we've all been there. Assembling some cockamamie-action-pose heroic model that looks awesome on the packaging and manufacturer's website. Then, with three fingers super-glued together, you are contemplating either:
1) Pitching the damn thing across the room
or
2) Using the bits as base decorations for other models

The other thing going through your mind, or perhaps out of your mouth is "why is superglue so damn good at bonding fingers instantly but utterly refuses to stick this %&!#@ wing to the shoulder of the pegasus?"

After a few score of these situations, you begin looking for new solutions.

I treated myself to some more Anima Tactics minis, this time Black Sun baddies. One of the models is a winged undead thing which eventually should look like this:

It comes in four pieces. A base, a tail, a torso / legs and a chest / head / wings. Here, look at the next picture

The red lines indicate where the bits are joined. I started from the bottom and went up which left me sticking the chest / head / wings to the rest of it this morning. All I have to say is hooray for Duplo and Gorilla Glue+Loctite.

Those are arcade game tokens under it on the base to add weight to the bottom of the model. I think I'm going to let it sit like this for at least another hour or two.

The rest of the gang was much simpler to assemble

Onward to spackling the bases!

Post-Christmas Post

Ah. Working on December 26. No doctors working today until after lunch, and then there is only one coming in so it should be pretty quiet at the old salt mines. I hope everyone had a nice Christmas. I certainly did - a Christmas Eve get together at my brother-in-law's house with my wife side of the family. It was a cacophonic orgy of greed and booze, but it was a lot of fun. Christmas Day was much quieter and we just hung out with my mom and dad in the morning and evening.

I got some toy soldiers, among other things. My sister hooked me up with some 15mm ancient Romans and my kids set me up with some Dystopian Wars beasties! Oh, and my bro-in-law Chris picked up Cthulhu Fluxx for me.

I've been wanting to paint up "something different" and lil' sis came through. Now I have a nice starting point for a HOTT army and a collection of gladiators to try out Kaptain Kobold's Munera Sine Missione game.

We'll give that a go soon. Some of the guys were going to play up at the store Sunday - maybe we'll join them. 
Be well and have a great rest of the week.

Chain of Command

Ziggy and I got to play a game of Chain of Command on Saturday. It's been a while since we played but since CoC is a great and simple rule system, it was easy enough to pick right up where we left off. We played scenario 6 - Attack on an Objective. I ended up as the attacker. I used a Regular Soviet Infantry platoon and Z used a Regular German Grenadier Platoon.

For support I took a 50mm mortar, a Matilda tank (used Valentine stats) and a Scout Squad. Zig took a minefield and a Panzerschreck team.

Here's the board from my edge.

The white markers are my jump-off points.

Another view. The small building in the back with the howitzer in it is my objective.

The early going. I've managed to get a squad deployed in the woods, the mortar team set up in the field and a Recon team making its way around the right side. Green yarn indicates that a squad is "going tactical" - being careful and using all available cover. Ziggy is deploying a Grenadier squad in the large ruined building - an MG42 covering the doorway opposite my squad.

The two squads begin trading fire. This would be a recurring theme for the game.

A second German squad is revealed within the tree line! Red squad is taking a beating from the MG42.

The mortar kicks up a lot of noise and branches around the newly revealed squad, but they suffer only a shock point.

The Matilda appears on my left flank. Red squad takes cover to try to reduce the effect of the blasted machinegun.

The Germans continue to pile on, getting within Assault range and adding another point of shock to my squad.

But then, the Soviets finally get their act together and throw another squad into the fray, firming up the center.

I then emptied the Chain of Command pool and used an "Interrupt" while the Germans in the woods were preparing to fire, resulting in a kill and four shock. The Germans went tactical. The Matilda lent the weight of its machinegun to the fray.

I ended up with a magical activation roll - 1,2,4,6,6 which allowed me to deploy all of my remaining troops and take a second phase immediately afterwards. I deployed the other half of the Recon squad, Yellow squad (on my right) and the Senior Leader. During my follow-up phase, the Recon squad and Blue squad decimated the Germans in the center, leaving just four of the Huns.

Moments later a rocket flashed out from the woods edging the road and stuck the tank square, brewing it up almost instantly.

The first turn ended. The fight for the woods was over.

The Germans continued to pound on Red squad until I backed them out of sight. I also shifted Blue squad out of sight.

A few moments later, the Germans burst from the building and deployed in a firing line which seemed suicidal. I went to fire my Recon team but was Interrupted! The German marksmanship was completely off the mark and failed to achieve anything. The return fire by the two Soviet squads was on the other hand, devastating, resulting in four KIAs and nine shock points.

We called the game there - Ziggy only had one functional squad to my three (Yellow, Blue and Recon) plus my mortar.

The fight in the woods was very tense and really could have gone either way. Only the fortunate appearance of additional squads and my Senior at just the right time kept me in the game. I learned that Panzerschrecks are just nasty - especially against out-of-date pine boxes. We enjoyed playing with additional toys and trying out the new goodies. Maybe next time Z will be able to put the StuG on the table. If you haven't tried it, Chain of Command is a fantastic game and it is well worth the price of admission.

This is probably my last post until Christmas, so Merry Christmas! I hope you and your families have a wonderful day. I'm getting a new lead and resin pile so I'll be busy for quite some time.