Gnomecon - Day 1 (Friday)

Hi all! I had a fantastic time at Gnomecon this year. As usual, the Sunday of Gnomecon is a packed personal schedule and I won't be there today.

Friday afternoon, I met Mark and we set up his Alamo game. He's had the whole thing ready for a battle for a couple years and just has never had a good opportunity to run it. Fittingly, we played just a few days short of the 181st anniversary.

The Alamo. Given that we couldn't easily plant it in the center of the table and surround it, one wall was defended by the board edge.

I commanded the Mexican forces and arrayed them like so - heavy on the left and right, mostly because there was no table edge to stack extra bodies on the edge closest to me.

15mm Peter Pig and Blue Moon minis by Mark. I could never paint that many fancy uniforms.

The wave approaches!

And in no time, we were against the wall!

In general, I targeted a couple of wall sections with my cannons. The wall was easier to hit and eventually would result in a breach.

 My elites rushed the cannon at the front gate and took the position.

Huzzah!

The ladders start going up!

And over on the right, I get a regiment over the palisade. Colonel Travis is overrun.

And now there's something to exploit!

Followed quickly by a second something to exploit. Bwahahaha.

My cavalry makes an appearance. More bwahahaha!

Many of the defenders fall back into a defensive position.

The breach on the left is thoroughly exploited.

Mark's spirits are up, even though the situation is dire!

The right side is almost completely overrun - the only Texans left are the few atop the barracks.

Some schlubs (the game group who took out Travis) surprise the defenders via the building to their left.

Davy Crockett sees them off without much trouble, although my boys did a perfect job of disrupting the defender, preventing them from moving down the cavalry that was about to charge from the right.

This unnamed hero atop the wall had just finished finished off a stand of elites by himself and was ready for more!

Davy Crockett's last stand. He killed a couple stands on his way out.

The final Texan at the mission dies. We dubbed him Elvis, with his fine white jacket and red hat.

A historical result, to be sure, but a bloody fun game! That much lead on the table is a rarity for me and a treat to push around.

Out of my forces, I had lost what looks like 48 stands of troops, easily half of my attackers had been killed. Mark was unfortunate to not get more early kills on the front and right side - my groups on those two sides reached the walls almost unscathed and then it was just a matter of rolling dice. The left side hung a lot more in the balance until I brought down that wall section - my battalions were really getting shot up badly over there.

After dinner (Mexican of course!) Mark and I played a quick game of Wings of Glory.

I had a FW190 and a BF109. Mark piloted to Spitfires. I had a terrible game.

Witness. This is my damage pull for the game. One zero. ONE ZERO. If you've ever played, you know exactly how unlikely this is. Revenge for the Alamo, I suppose. Good fun anyway.

The family and I watched Odd Lot later in the evening - a comedy improv group along the lines of Whose Line is it Anyway?

Day one was a hoot. How could day two ever match up?!?!

Recent Painting

I put together some sandbag defenses earlier this week. The sandbags were courtesy of Pegasus models and look perfect for 15 or 20 mm. I was careful to make sure a medium and small StarDust base would fit together in each.

They're mounted on scrap bits of balsa and turned out nicely for the minimal effort required...

I also managed to finish this German Opel Blitz that's been in the queue for many months. At one point one of the wheels had been broken off and it had gold paint splattered on it. It came in the same kit as the PaK40 I put together. Yeah, August. It's been a while.

All it's missing is Doctor Jones hanging from it...

Be well. Gnomecon begins tomorrow. I'll be there. Rubber and Lead Saturday afternoon and StarDust Ground Saturday evening.

Oh... that was post #600 and I'm terrifically close to page view # 100,000. Woohoo! Six years, six hundred posts.

StarDust Ground - Minor Update

As a result of last evening's game, I've made a couple of tweaks to StarDust Ground. I am not completely re-publishing the rules, but if you've already paid for  a copy, email me at stardustgame (at) outlook.com and I'll send an updated "rules only" PDF and QRS.

AAR - StarDust Ground Scenario Test

Zig and I got together Saturday evening for a game of StarDust Ground, my 15mm Sci Fi game. The scenario was a playtest for what I'll be running at Gnomecon next Saturday night.

It's a fairly typical meeting encounter with both sides getting only half of their units to start the game and the rest coming in as reinforcements. Ziggy drew the Dawgs and I was happy to use the Robot army.

There are two objectives and either side can win by taking control of both, or by reducing the enemy to being combat ineffective. As opposed to earlier games, this one is set in a thick jungle with restricted lines of sight.

My starting forces early into turn 2. I put that missile launcher up on the hill to the left to get good coverage over most of the battlefield.

First shot of the game - a 'bot heavy blaster scratches the paint on a Dawg Bruiser heavy tank.

And then things that slipping out from under my feet as a Bruiser rolls up into the compound and takes out one of by BigBots.

Followed shortly by the arrival of the Seer attack VTOL's arrival. Luckily for me, the humid jungle air seemed to be wreaking havoc on the missiles' targeting systems because the flier never landed a single hit!

 Turn 5 and my beleaguered bots finally get some reserves. You can see a squad of Warbots by the river.

The were followed quickly by two large tanks, gliding down the river and disgorging two swarms of small hover bots.

The battle is into turn 6 now. The Red Claws who came in as reserves (circled in red) assaulted and wiped out a squad of shut down Warbots. The Dawgs' Predator walkers had shot those Warbots up pretty badly just prior. I've got some Hovers moving into the woods just past the bridge. My tanks' shots at the Bruisers in the compound missed badly.

The Predators unleash a hail of cannon fire at my remaining BigBot, felling it. My anti-armor capabilities are rapidly diminishing.

That Red Claw squad assaults my Rocket Launcher squad and easily takes them out.

I move my quick hover tanks up next to the Bruisers (I had forced one to flee) but the armor of the heavy tanks again proves to be up to the challenge and I still am unable to cause significant damage!

The Preds make a jump-pack move, pouncing on one of my tanks and they tear it to bits. 😕

 My bots get involved with what they do worst! Ziggy's premier close combat squad assaulted a garbage squad of Hoverbots and rolls badly - my stupid bots win the combat! Sensing some sort of opportunity, I dump every robot within a hundred feet into the melee and eventually wipe them out! This was a classic "peasants versus samurai" situation where the weight of numbers eventually won out over quality.

Small victories.

While that was going on, the Predators were working on my other hover tank. My insane RepairBot, which had been doing a great job all game of keeping me in the game, assaulted one of the Predators and although it didn't destroy the filthy thing, it still won the combat at loaded it up with pin markers!

At the end of nine turns, I conceded. I had nothing left in the tank and Ziggy's forces still had a few cans of ass-whup left for me.

In retrospect, I need to smash my dice and buy new ones. My big walkers and the heavy tanks have equivalent guns and front armor. I repeatedly penetrated the front armor only to do minor "pin marker" damage rather than HOT EXPLODING DEATH. Ziggy on the other hand had a hell of a time connecting with shots, but when he did, the results were dramatic. Between taking out one of my heavy walkers early and Zig getting reinforcements right off the bat, I was on the back foot and it really seemed like an uphill challenge all game.

We agreed that the 'Bots should start with three BigBots instead of two and may add a sniper to the 'Bots force list as well.

Looking forward to the next running Saturday night at Gnomecon!

New Stuff

If you know me at all, you know I don't espouse very many "glossy corporate" games with the notable exception of X-Wing. You could also lump Dystopian Wars in with that I suppose. So the other evening while perusing the clearance section of one of my favorite online stores I came across this for a mere $28.

It was in production for about a minute a year or so ago. I figured that the minis alone made it a "reasonably sane" purchase - there was certainly no intention of actually using the rules in the box.

And then my nine-year-old saw it. He was rather impressed and began asking questions. WOO HOO! After a quick trip through the rules, it looks easy enough for him to wrap his head around and I can't wait to give it a try with him. All of you gamer dads out there know exactly what I'm talking about. We've played some other games from time to time over the years but it's always been a one-off sort of thing. Maybe this one will stick or kindle some stronger interest.

And if it doesn't, the minis are very worth it - 10 endoskeletons and 17 resistance fighters.

The Landing Pad

I was perilously close to buying a 15mm VTOL landing platform this morning when I talked my self out of the purchase and into making one myself. It may not be quite as fancy, but it'll work just fine.

Step 1 - the assembly. 4" X 4" balsa with a textured plastic sheet glued on. 1/4" balsa to lift it off the ground a bit.

Step 2 involved spraying it black.I found a cup with a nearly 4-inch diameter which conveniently helped me stamp a yellow circle on the platform. Oh, I also slapped together a ramp from some leftover scraps.

Step 3 - I did a light drybrush of some metallic shade and a heavy wash of dirty brown that doesn't show up well under flash photography. I also added some algae / fungus growing on the corner - suitable for it's jungle home. The Critical Mass Games VTOL looks perfect on it. I'm quite happy with the result.