Missing a Friend

 Mike texted the gaming group on Sunday around noon with the terrible news of Wayne's passing. Wayne has been a gaming and friend fixture for five years around here. I knew he had some health problems but nothing life-threatening. He was just 57. 

Wayne served in the Army for years, primarily in the Middle East. He completed his Doctorate of Education degree a few years ago and was certainly the smartest person in my peer group! Wayne re-married in February 2022, his first wife having passed away from cancer many years before I met him. Karen was his safe person and turned him into a softie.

Wayne loved rolling the dice, understanding the history of whatever we were gaming and cutting up at the table. He will be missed. He's the dark-haired gent with the mustache and glasses in the game-day pictures below.

Dammit. He was good people.

A Few Models More

 I've been busy knocking out some more models and minis recently. I completed four more Saxon fighters to help protect the village, some 28mm fantasy orcs and a couple of 3d printed 1/72 scale Soviet AFVs.

Tooting their own horns... 40mm Sash and Saber sculpts.

Fifteen Oathmark orcs in heavy armor with two-handed weapons. These were fun builds and equally fun to paint up. I do have a banner I need to get on to that standard bearer. His goblin compatriots are also lacking banners and I've got a some for those fellas as well.

And finally a couple reinforcements for the Soviets. These were Etsy pickups. 1/72 scale single-piece models, perfect for the gaming table. easy to prep and paint up. 

A Month Later and a New Scale

 It's been a minute. Life's been busy and there hasn't been a tremendous amount to report on but now there is. Since reclaiming my painting area, I've been able to make solid progress on my latest unusual project. I started buying these models in late April and did a little work on them before the BIG SHUTDOWN. Now, I happily reveal my efforts: 40mm sized Vikings and Saxon villagers! The idea of a Viking raid game based on the Nightwatch system hit me a reasonable idea for a convention game. With a goal date of mid-September, I set to work. The Vikings would take the role of the "Heroes" in Nightwatch terms while the Saxon villagers would fulfill the role of "Monstrous Hordes." I picked up some Saxon warriors to take the roles of the nastier Monsters that are encountered later in the game. On with the show.

Eight Vikings:

The archers are Sash and Saber sculpts while the others are Etsy 3d printed resin models. Those 3d printed models are absolutely amazing. Everything is based on 2" wooden discs. Maybe they're a bit uniform for a Viking group, but I wanted to keep things very obvious on a game table.

Two Saxon Warriors:

These are also Sash and Saber sculpts. That spear is a 2-part thing. Ugh. Breaking my balls. There are four more in the painting queue that will join these fellas.

And of course, twenty villagers!

These were a hoot to work on. There are a couple of slings in the mix to keep the raiders on their toes.

And of course, you can't have a village raid without a village, so I picked up some buildings on Etsy and scratch-built an animal pen. The animal pen needs some grass clumps.

Basic hosue 1

Basic house 2

Advanced house

And the animal pen. It's not small. I need to get some sheep or goats as raid objectives. 

And there you are! I have been doing things but just not posting on the blog. David, Mike and I got in a game of Star Fleet Battles yesterday but that's another post... Be well!

Trench Crusadin' 101

 Zig and I got together last Saturday for a first go at Trench Crusade. If you're not familiar it's the very grim, very dark alt-history game set in the WW1 time frame. The back story is that crusaders did some dumb stuff back during the Crusades and opened a portal to hell in Jerusalem. Out comes all the badness contained within, plunging the world into a hell on Earth situation.

The rules are free, it is miniatures-agnostic and very friendly to get into for budget-minded gamers. Beware, the game art is gory as all get out and not for those of weak constitution. I bought two warbands on Etsy months ago and they've sat painted yet unblooded ever since. See here and here.  

I put together two basic forces for our first out. I used The Cult of the Black Grail nasties while Ziggy took command of the Antioch forces. We played a vanilla scenario with five pretty evenly-spaces objectives. It's a four-turn scenario and each side earns points for controlling objectives over time and from completing special feats. I was warned to use a terrain heavy tabletop so I did just that on a 36" x 36" mat.

Our setup:

In the early goings, I sent a couple a cannon-fodder Thralls forward to capture an "easy" objective location.

Shuffle shuffle. I piled up a ton us dudes behind the barn since Ziggy was heavy on the opposite corner and the Antioch guys are far more shooty than mine. 

One of my hounds was knocked down by an uppity Shocktrooper. I sent a Herald forward to assist poor doggie. The shotgun blast from Harry the Herald was ineffective against the Shocktrooper.

I also got to learn a lesson about the effectiveness of those snipers. They should be avoided! One of Corpse Guards becomes just a corpse in no time.

After a turn, we've both pushed forward. I was more aggressive in part because my troops a mostly melee and CQB types. See the hound I have sneaking up the far right!

Chomp-chomp, buddy. It turns out they were pretty evenly matched. The hound did do a brilliant job of gumming up that whole Antioch flank though! Ziggy dumped a lot of effort into dealing with the critter.

More pushing forward and snatching objectives! I think at the end of both turns 2 and 3 I controlled four of the five objectives on the table. That alone gave me enough of a score to win, but I wanted that sniper's head!

No action shot, but I finally got a Plague Knight into melee, of course with a Yeoman schlub but whatever. I magicked up a 12 (on 2d6) to hit, so that was a crit then rolled another 12 for the effect. That's one amazing first outing for that Plague Knight! One attack, one Yeoman, cleaved in twain.

The PK who was wasting time on the right side started to meander down to where the hound was doing all the work. He'd set those Antioch guys straight.

But alas, we were at the end of four turn, so it would have to wait until next time. Although I took many more casualties than Ziggy, I was very dominant in objective capture points and won the scenario handily.

The game itself plays quite nicely. Four turns doesn't sound like much, but it's a small unit skirmish and everyone gets to do something. The small battlefield keeps everything tight, a lot like Infinity and Batman Miniatures, the other two small unit skirmish games I've played a lot of. 

The game mechanics (primarily the dice system) is different but easy enough to pick up quickly. Like many of these games, the biggest slow down is referencing what all the skills and attributes do in game terms. Once you've got that either memorized or have everything on a handy document, things would flow more smoothly.

Trench Crusade... I'll give it two thumbs up. 

Black Sea Boats! - An Age of Deadnoughts AAR

 On Saturday, Mark, David and I kept our Memorial Day weekend gaming tradition alive, this time with Victory at Sea Age of Dreadnoughts. I brought out my original two fleets and put together a couple of straightforward opposing forces. Because there were only three of us  due to a couple of cancellations, I removed all of the destroyers and we only played with the capital ships. 

In the red corner we have the mighty Turkish Navy featuring:

The Barbarossa and the Torgud Reis - both Barbarossa-class pre-dreadnought Battleships

and the Midilli and the Medjidieh - two protected cruisers

And in the white corner, hailing from Sevastopol, the Russian Black Sea Fleet featuring:

The Patelimon and Tri Svyatitelya - two pre-dreadnoughts,

Pamiat Merkuria a better-than-typical protected cruiser and

The Almaz, a very early aviation cruiser, with no planes deployed.

Mark chose the Turkish Navy and David and I split the Russians with one battleship and one cruiser each. I captained the Pantelimon and the Almaz.

Mark, David and bits of the table. I think this was the first outing for those islands with I made years ago.

I sent the Almaz to the left, implying it was going to hook around the island to our front. Mark fell for the bait and sent a ship to cut it off.

The Almaz cut back to follow the rest of the Russians. That Turkish would be wasting time getting turned around. Meanwhile, all guns that could reach began hitting one of the Turkish cruisers, I think it was the Medjidieh.

The cruiser went under the waves in short order.

The two lead Turkish ships were getting turned around back towards the battle, allowing the Russians to engage another lone target, the Torgus Reis.

Things weren't all rosy for the Russians though, the Almaz gets hammered by the Reis and is sunk.

And as the ships closed, things just just got nastier. The Pantelimon hit the Barbarossa with a torpedo, wrecking then engine, causing it to stop, dead in the water. The Reis was hit with barrage after barrage, ultimately resulting in all weapons becoming ineffective. The other Turkish cruiser, Midilli, had also become crippled. The other Russian cruiser, Pamiat Merkuria joined the Almaz beneath the waves.

At the end, the Turks had two severely damaged ships, one that couldn't move and another that could not shoot. The Russians still had two very healthy battleships. A brutal engagement for sure but a fine time was had by all.

Victory at Sea doesn't make it on the table quite enough but is always a lot of fun. We need to get it out a bit more often. Until next time, be well and good gaming!

Checking In

 Not detailed reports, but it has been a month and life has been busy, strange and otherwise filled since my last post. I have gotten in gaming, just haven't written about it. A couple of weeks ago, Wayne and Mark came over for a day of What A Cowboy followed by Check Your 6 Jet Age.

 The Ski-Mark gang won that outing.. Wayne's dice just hated him and didn't want him to have a fighting chance.

 Up next was CY6JA. I set up an early Cold War scenario featuring MiG-15s facing off against some F-3 Demons. Again it was me and Mark against Wayne.

It was an entertaining encounter. The Demons have first-generation AIM-7 Sparrows and guns. Although we got a few lock-ons during the game, Mark and I never had a chance to fire a missile. We did well in the gunfighting department though, knocking out two while losing one with one more damaged. A fun day of gaming for sure.

Last weekend Ziggy came over for a round of old-school Battletech. We each ran two heavies. He had an Orion and a Black Knight while I used a Flashman and a Guillotine. 

Halfway through, my Flashman took back-to-back headshots from the Orion's AC10 and Medium Laser. That finished that mech off in one fell swoop.

I peeled off the whole left side of the Black Knight, then cackled as the engine went full Chernobyl. The Orion beat my Guillotine to a wreck for few turns then we called the game. Fun outing!

No painting recently. We've got my F-I-L staying with us for a bit so I don't have access to the room where I paint. I weep.
 

AAR: Eastern Front Action with Rate of Fire

 Mark and I got together on Saturday afternoon to let the 1/72 toys out for a spin. I set up a very simple "capture the crossroads" scenario and put together two force lists from my Soviet and German collections using the excellent Rate of Fire rules from Crusader Publishing. The Soviets started a bit closer to the crossroad so they felt a bit more like defenders, fitting given the 1942 date I assumed when I put it all together. 

Pregame... the junction sort of in the center is what we're both attempting to control at the end of 10 turns.

The blown out building near the crossroad became a target for me. It was bloody tough to shift those reds once they'd taken up a position in there!

Oh God... the KV moves to threaten my Panzer II!

I had my little tank pull back, but both the KV and BT-7 could both still see it! The BT's shot missed but the big 76mm shell from the KV got the tank's attention! The shot went wide and the German crew all thanked their lucky stars. The Panzer peppered the infantry in the central ruin, it's little guns unable to do much at that range against the green tanks.

Finally, some German reinforcements arrive, in the shape of a Panzer III. Still basically ineffective against the KV, but it could at least challenge the BT. Mark must've though it was more of a threat because the KV pulled back instead of forcing the issue.

I moved the Panzer II out again, trying to keep fire on the infantry in the middle, Mark's big tank peek around the building at it. Not this again! This time the tank found its mark but it was a glancing hit that only caused a morale test which I of course failed. Panzer II, suppressed. Not terrible though, it just is unable to advance towards visible anti-tank threats.

Now that's an anti-tank threat! Some REAL reinforcements arrive. I need to get this thing set up and hope it doesn't get wrecked while vulnerable.

The Panzer II continues harassing infantry, this time some SMG troops in the woods. At this point, Mark was violently cursing and spewing hate at the little tank that could. 

Time to put up or shut up! The halftrack drops the Flak36 and the crew start prepping it right away. The KV watches. It takes a shot.... weeeoooooooowwww.... boom. The shot sails over the 88, it was a bit high. Won't get that lucky next time!

The BT advances to trade more shots with my Panzer III using the woods for some protection. Our shots missed each other.

The BT bursts out of the woods, screaming towards the 88! My Panzer II took its opportunity fire shot and A HIT! Not a great hit, but it caused crew survival checks for the Russian crew... survey says, dead driver! Fantastic for me, the fast Russian tank was immobilized. Sucks for me that :

1) it has a fully functional gun 

2) it is perhaps seven meters in front of my tank

3) the rest of the crew is screaming for vengeance

The 88 and KV trade shots, both missing. Hmm. At least my 251 filled with infantry survived the quick dart across the gap! 

Yeah, there you go. Mark rolled a 12 to hit. That gun against that "armor" and Ze Schnellhund was done. At least the BT was now just a turret. Unfortunately it was in a really good spot to cover the middle of the table.

The dudes from the halftrack and the squad that had been in the woods to the right side of this picture crept towards the ruined building of death and destruction. The Panzergrenadiers had gotten pasted by mortar and small arms fire, thus the few troops you see here. 

My final spite attack. The Panzer III get in position to take a pot-shot at the KV. The 88 had just hit it and killed the commander. The Soviet mortar rained death on the 88 and killed four crew! My Panzer takes the shot which I really really really needed to hit the tracks. I forgot to aim the shot, but it's a good thing I didn't because I got the hit and hit the tracks anyway! If I had aimed, I'd have missed altogether. Just a "track damaged" result reducing the tank to Slow speed and forcing a morale test. It failed. Heh. Scram, Commie! That was 10 turns and we had ourselves a draw. We'd both been mauled, I think I took more of a beating, but that'll happen to an attacking force in this sort of engagement. Either way, it was a darn entertaining few hours of dice and toy soldiers. Thanks Mark!