Upgrading My Game

 I plan to take my destructive car racing game Rubber and Lead to Southern Front next month. I haven't run it at a convention since 2018. The one and only problem with the game, which is otherwise gaming perfection, is that the track boards I made many years age are 24" x 48" 1/4 inch MDF and both heavy and clumsy. A few years ago I bought some lighter alternatives but never did anything with them. Well, toting the game five hours to Raleigh is just the inspiration this guy needed to finish the project. Ingredients:

2020 / 2021?

3" X 3" postit notes

I sketched out track designs on the sticky notes in such a way that they'd match up in many combinations of four allowing for a polymorphic track.

In June of 2021 I found the perfect items to use for the track boards.

I sketched the track shapes on the boards in pencil, basically copying what I'd done on the postit notes. Then I let the boards age for fours years as a "project of lower priority."

After agreeing to host R&L in Raleigh, I decided it was high time I get on that track 3.0 project. Step 1 - basic green & black.

Rather unappealing for sure but you get the gist. The board with white lines across the track are "start" and "fire line" track sections.

A bit more effort and now I have boards like these

The white goo is glossy Mod Podge, ultimately resulting in these

I made two boards with fire lines because, why not? The line can be ignored easily enough if the board isn't in the #2 position. This should allow for fifty board configurations, I think. Either way, it's a bunch. They'll get their first next Sunday when I take it over to a Labor Day gaming get-together with the gang.

Frostgrave Campaign Game 4 - The Orb

 After a four-month hiatus, David, Ziggy and I got together for the next installment of our Frostgrave series. I selected the scenario "The Orb" mainly because I had short notice and it doesn't require special terrain. I spent my previously-earned gold on upgrading my Thug to a Barbarian - a premium close-combat specialist. David spent a ton of gold he'd been camping on hiring three Rangers turning his group into a ranged-combat nightmare.

My deployment corner.

The Orb and Imps

David's group (near in the woods) and Ziggy's in the far corner.

Turn one was the usual slow rollout.  A Frost Wraith wandering monster did appear near my group right off the bat.

Not to mention two imps headed my direction and a blasted Fire Panther (or Snow Leopard) wandered in a turn later.

Imps are pretty weak so I felt confident charging into one of them with my Apprentice, Sweet Dee. I rolled a 1. Ziggy, rolling for the imp, rolled a 20, a crit. Dee out. Damn.

I did make an agreement with David to let me break the Orb, worth 25 XP, if I agreed not to prevent him from taking the treasure. My barbarian and and infantryman ran up to the Orb and smashed it! David and I had been on each other's case since the get-go, so this was a nice temporary reprieve, mid-game.

Miao Yin, my bard, handled the imps pretty easily, allowing my thief and another infantryman (Meat Cheetah and Sand Panther) who were lugging treasures easy passage to the exit.

So what happens? Of course a wandering monster zombie appears right there! Blast.

My wizard, Billy Thorpe, quickly summoned a floating skull to keep the zombie occupied. It worked really well and the zombie was pinned and pushed away!

David's sneaky wizard teleported in to grab the middle treasure, the teleported out a turn later. What a snake.

The outing was a success for my group, the Children of the Sun. We earned 200 gold and found a magic Sword that grants +2 Will. I earned 270 XP total, worth three level-ups. I upped FIGHT by +1 and improved both Raise Zombie and Heal to make them easier to cast. I also fired the reliable thief and replaced her with a more competent Treasure Hunter. The Treasure Hunter was given the new magic sword. Although my Apprentice and Javelineer were knocked out during the game, both made full recoveries. As always, looking forward to the next outing!

Newly Painted Things

 I finished up a handful of miniatures this weekend. They'd been in progress for weeks, I've just been going slowly. 

First up, some Battletech minis. This is the Recon Lance box. I've kept them in the same Marik livery as the last few I did. 

Those are a Firestarter, Javelin, Spector and Ostscout. More light mech goodness, and quickly becoming my preferred class. 

Next is a Brigade Game 28mm Red Russian machine gun for the Revolution. 

I don't think I ever posted a picture of the Red infantry that I painted first. Here they are. 

And finally, I also completed the next group of 20 Basmachi fighters to oppose the Bolsheviks.

Those models and the Russians are Wargames Atlantic plastics. Excellent models as always. 

New Rules Playtesting

 Good Morning! I should have a boatload of newly painted miniatures coming up later this week. I'm very close on a second lot of Afghans and some other things. But while I wait for mother nature to get a bit more cooperative from a humidity standpoint, my mind and the dice have been active. I've been thinking about taking a couple of games to Southern Front in Raleigh, NC in September. I've already signed up to take my modern What A cowboy conversion but am considering a second. I came up with some fairly simple 3rd World combat rules to re-purpose my AK47 collection. Nothing wrong with AK47R, for sure, but it's not conducive to a multi-player convention game.

Ziggy came by yesterday afternoon for a test of version 1.0 of the rules. It was a very productive couple of hours.

No real AAR to speak of, although my government forces were soundly thumped by Zig's rebel fighters. A handful of rules were altered, tweaked or otherwise re-created during and after the session. The game is now to point where it's a solid set of rules on it's own. I just might take it to Raleigh! Be well everyone.
 

More Painted Things - Horses and Riders

 I've been a busy boy at the paint table for the last few weeks. In addition to the gangs and cops, I finished up some Bolshevik cavalry for my Revolution project. The 28mm models are from Brigade games. The bases were donated from some Oathmark wolves. I'm quite happy with the way these came out.

 Next up in this project are a Russian machine gun and the other twenty Afghan warriors. After that, I need to spend a bit of cash on some British infantry, I think. 

Bad Boys Bad Boys

 Whatcha gonna do?

I've been itching to put together a modern gang & law enforcement game for over a year now and made the plunge on a bunch of 3d printed 28mm minis. I shopped it out on Etsy from a variety of vendors and now have a nice collection of urban toughs. I organized the gangs into four stereotypical groups to make it easier for players to keep track of who's who.

First up, the boys in blue.

And here we have some feds in civvies. I have fixed the lady in red's base with the red sloppies...

And now with the rogues' gallery..  First up the Biker gang. Jeans and leather jackets of course. 

And of course the Russian mobsters. Got to have some track suits!

Next up, the Mexican cartel group. The guy with the Molotov is just special. I love the luchador mask.

And finally the Bloods. I enjoyed the more uniform look on these guys with the red gang colors and of course the Lakers gear.

These models were quite enjoyable to paint up. All are based on 25mm rounds, Gorilla Glued to 25mm washers to make them very bottom heavy. I only had three breaks separating models from 3d print frames, two of which were fairly easy repairs, the third I simply ignored since it was pretty minor. Overall, a fun dive into an "all 3d printed army." Now, to get them shooting at each other!

Recent Games

 I've gotten a couple games in over the last week, as well as a bit of painting. No painting pics, but a few from the games. Last Sunday, David and I got in a game of Battletech Alpha Strike. We played the Reconnaissance scenario from the MRB. David used a 6-mech force of mid-cost mechs, ranged in the 30-42 point area: Battlemaster, 2 X Shadowhawk 2H, Guillotine 3N, Catapult K2, and Crab 20. I put the list together for him using my collection and he approved it. My preferred force was a much lighter affair, built for speed, agility and swarming. I had eight mechs : 3 X Wolfhound, Jenner, Locust 1M, Mercury 99, Raven 4x, Uziel. I was the defender in the scenario and set up 13 marked buildings across the center of the battlefield. David needed to locate SIX of the buildings I had chosen in secret, then evacuate a unit off the table to report the information back to HQ.

David deployed in a cluster on my left, while I had very much spread out.

My poor Locust gets dusted by the Battlemaster.

A measure of revenge against the Guillotine.

After a few hours of playing and a lot of blown up mechs, David located the last objective and RAN with the Catapult, his last 'Mech. A Wolfhound caught it with a headshot and, well, that'll do it! Minor victory for my Marik forces. This was a tense, drawn-out game of movement and sporadic damage. It was ridiculously enjoyable.

Then yesterday I drove up to Statesboro for a big D-Day Bolt Action game. I took my Canadians and helped storm the beaches! The game was hosted by the Statesboro Warhammer Club. A co-worker of mine, Landon is a member and invited me a few weeks ago.

There were three Axis players and five or six Allies. In fact, all three of the guys in this picture are the Axis players. As you can imagine, especially if you have every played a D-Day game, there was a bit of a logjam on the beach in no time.

I got all three of my infantry squads onto the beach / surf on turn 1. Well, one squad had to wade in, their boat having hit a sand bar. 

A real motley crew! The table was about 8' wide and 5-6' deep. We Allies were supposed to capture roads at the far end to ensure victory.

After a turn of shooting, my troops on the beach disappeared. Yes, some players were using their personal collections as proxies, thus the "Japanese" defenders.

I did manage to take out a bunker!

And we got a flank attack of three tanks. My Firefly VC cooked the StuG. 

But by 4:00, with so many players and units, we hadn't gotten far and the game was officially called. Minor Axis victory, they'd lost the beach entirely. I had a really good time and the Statesboro crew are a good group of guys.

Afghans 1

 The Reds needed an Opfor and the Central Asia / Transcaspian area was rather appealing from a "something different" standpoint. I picked up some Wargames Atlantic Afghan Warriors that'll work quite well as Basmachis or any other group from that part of the world. It's been a slow painting situation here recently with visitors in the house, but the first 20 are complete. They were a joy to assemble and paint up.

Sharp-eyed visitors might notice a handful of Russian weapons in the mix. The WA box which generously provides 40 warriors does not include enough Martini-Henri rifles for all. I used a handful of muskets to fill in as well as leftover Mosin Nagants from the Russian box. The long sleeves of the Russian arms work well enough with the Afghan bodies.

Next up on the painting table are some 28mm modern law enforcement minis and Russian Cavalry for the Revolution. I have to mix things up so I don't get burned painting the same thing over and over.