Christmas Tanks

I didn't get a whole lot of hobby stuff for Christmas but I did get these two nice 1/72 KVs. They're Pegasus models and come two in a box, which includes for KV-1 and KV-2 turrets! Also, Pegasus models tend to be easy builds and look great. Not much else to say, they're seriously strong early war Soviet tanks. 

 The insignia decals were pulled from aircraft red star sheets I have. East builds, easy painting. Looking forward to putting them on the tabletop. 

Completed Painting - Trench Crusade Minis

I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas! Mine was good, except that I've had a nasty head cold that's made me miserable.

This week I finished up the group of 3D printed Trench Crusade models I picked up a couple of months ago. Overall, I'm delighted with the results. They're dark, nasty and horrible - exactly what TC calls for. The particular "faction" in game terms is The Cult of the Black Grail. If you're familiar with the GW IP, not a far cry from Nurgle. If you're not familiar, they're minions of the devil Beelzebub and spread misery through disease and decay. The head cold I've been nursing has been ironically appropriate.  On with the pageant.

Front Row: Three Grail Thralls. They represent the actual shit end of the stick.

Back Row : An Amalgam and a Lord of Tumors. These are the high-end monsters. A walking wall of corpses and the bossman.

Hug me!

Bossman has a couple of unfortunate sods with him acting as weapon bearers.

Grail Thralls. The bullet-sponges of the crew.

Back Row: Three Heralds of Beelzebub

Front Row: Three Corpse Guards

Adding some color and weird to the gang! The iridescent wings are fun.

Working our way up the ranks!

The weird parasites on these fellows also have fun shiny wings.

Four Hounds of the Black Grail. Some speed and assorted weirdness.

The model in the leaping pose is nice.

There was a lot of base space to fill with these critters. I rather enjoyed that process.

And finally, three Plague Knights. 

These are the elite warriors of the group. I rather like their look. Kudos to the designer of these. Like the other things with wings, these are also iridescent but the photograph's angle doesn't really do it justice.

The kids have come a long way.

The bases were done up with putty, wooden bits snapped at random angles, wound wire, straws, gravel, skeletal bits from other kits, etc. Painting the models wasn't anything unusual. After basic painting, I applied a heavy but thinned black oil paint wash over the models. After 30-40 minutes of drying time, some cotton swabs are used to remove excess black, leaving the very heavy shading. Some highlighting here and there, picking out some colors in other spots and boom, job's done! Now, it looks like they could use an opponent...

It's a Battletech Christmas Game

 Ziggy and I got together for what's likely to be our last game of 2025. We pulled out the BT Alpha Strike toys and I quickly assembled a themed game to go along with the thematic scenery. 

Sitrep: One of Santa's Sledtech units was inadvertently shot down in the northern polar region of Bethlehem IV. The combatants on the planet (Fire Mandrill Clan and House Steiner) dispatched units to collect what gifts they could from the accident. Let's face it, these guys weren't exactly on the "good" list and desperate times call for desperate measures.

Ten gift tokens were placed on the battlefield, each with a different hidden value. Units could pick up one and only one gift and claim it. If the unit was destroyed, they'd drop the gift where they stood. We deployed in opposite corners.

I finally put my Elementals on the table. They're fun and interesting. I'd use them again with no hesitation.

My heaviest hitters, a Sun Cobra and a Pouncer held up my center.

My Griffin IIc keeps tabs on a distant enemy mech. Retaining loot is more important than knocking out enemy units, of course knocking out an enemy mech carrying loot is useful too!

An overhead shot of much of the table. An visit to Hobby Lobby earlier in the day was well worth it, I picked up 64 2-inch red, green and white trees for just over $20 (Christmas items were 60% off).

I had been hoping for some King-Konging and got it! My elementals ran off the filthy Steiner mech.

We ended the game after 6 turns or so. We each had snagged five tokens and magically only one point separated us at the end - my gift pile was slightly more valuable at 28 points to Zig's 27. A darn entertaining game and having the focus taken off just killing each other was a nice change for Battletech.

Merry Christmas and I hope your loot piles are wonderful! Peace and Love to all.

AAR: The Russian Revolution in Central Asia

My miniature voyage to the Transcaspian Oblast has finally arrived! Ziggy and I put Setting the East Ablaze on the tabletop yesterday afternoon for a first run. I've been collecting and painting 28mm minis for this project for most of 2025. It was nice to see it pay off with an enjoyable first outing. Of course, where the minis have gotten loads of attention, Transcaspian-specific terrain was less of a focus so I suppose that'll be a 2026 agenda item. 

The Reds (me) were defending a rail + road crossroads from Basmachi and British troops (Ziggy). The Russians started the battle with just an infantry squad and field gun on the table. All other resources would arrive later from reserves.

Basmachi infantry off to the far right and British Indian troops in the center.

More Basmachis on the left and a Godforsaken armored car. The A/C makes a risky move crossing the railroad tracks but didn't get stuck.

Ziggy chose to flank march the Bamachi cavalry which of course showed up immediately on my right flank. Well, the artillery was fun for about a second!

My infantry take a big chunk out of the Indians with a remarkable round of shooting, but that A/C fires back and suppresses the brave comrades.

The inevitable. Ah well, whatcha gonna do?

But when the right hand takes, the left hand gives. I get my first reserve unit, the FT. In an encounter like this, even the dink little FT can be the queen of battle!

The British car forces my brave soldiers to shift as the flip to the other side of the wall. The car gives my tank a wide berth. 

A truck carrying a machinegun team arrives. They set up overlooking the objective. Things really starting to look up!

Pepper gets some measure of revenge on the horsemen, blasting two of them!

And then another unit of Infantry arrives. Finally, a fair fight. The machine gun goes "Low Ammo" on it's first shot of the game. Dear God, did they really show up with just a 50-round drum?

Pepper's reign of terror continues, taking out four Basmachis. My initial squad is done and start heading home.

Heh heh. My cavalry arrives! My plan was to simply slow down the enemy cavalry and keep them from adding their weight to the firefight at the crossroad.

The first round of melee goes remarkably well for me, taking out two tribesmen to no losses! We're even now.

Yes. Three shots in and it's out of ammo. Maybe this whole Bolshevism thing has some unforeseen problems? 

My cavalry continues their remarkable success against the tribesmen!

While Pepper takes out another four enemy infantry.

But at the end of the day, the crossing had been lost and the Red troops had to fall back. Both my infantry squads were spent and I only had a tank and two horsemen left against the AC and at least 30 remaining infantry. 

Well that was a lot of fun! The game itself runs really smoothly and simply. There is pretty much no room for argument or confusion. The scenario worked really well to, considering my total lack of familiarity with the rules. I guess it says a lot about the rules that a real-world scenario can be planned out and happily played through with results that are not just insane. I need to pick up some reinforcements for both sides, both sides could use something capable of killing vehicles and the Russians wouldn't hate some additional troops and another leader-type.

Z and I are both ready for another go at this for sure and I know the other guys are as well. I'm not sure if I'll get any more games in before New Year, so if this is the last game of 2025 for me, at least it was a great one!

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!