Southern Front 2026

 I went up to Raleigh North Carolina last weekend for the Southern Front game convention. As usual, it was a wonderful get together with a group of terrific guys and gals. Mark from Savannah also made the journey - he's also become quite taken with the con.

The first game I'd signed up for was a LOTR War of the Ring game. The host, Mike, wasn't as up on the rules as I'd have liked and there was a lot of time spent poring through the rule book. That was a bit frustrating. The models and table top were top notch though and we all still had a good time pushing minis around on a Friday afternoon!

I got to command the Riders of Rohan and Gandalf on the far right flank.

A view further down the table.

Ugh. An unkillable monster.

And an unkillable troll. 

That did make for an easy excuse to start drinking early. Friday evening I hosted my game of Viking-flavored Nightwatch.

I had six players - one for each Viking and two guys shared the Saxon defenders.

Heck, the Saxons actually won the second scenario!

There are the two Saxon players!

The Vikings narrowly held on to win the third scenario, ultimately finishing ahead on the night, 2 to 1.

Saturday morning, Mark and I got into a game of Blood and Plunder.

There's our dead sexy table

My Frenchies skulking about in the sugarcane.

Although Mark's nasty pirates nabbed the prisoner and hurried him away, I got the better of the pirates in the fight that followed, nearly wiping them out! My teammates fared similarly - although the pirates won their objectives, the French won a sound military victory.

After lunch, the WW2 desert war game I'd signed up had been cancelled so I got in on a game of Test of Honor. I was sandwiched between two youngsters, 13 and 10. They were terrific. Sadly I didn't get any full table photos.

My Samurai leader charged into a group of monk archers. The rest of the monks sorted him out in no time. Grrr.

But my ronin with the big hammer and sweet leopard print trousers was an absolute wrecking machine. It was a very enjoyable game, but maybe too fiddly for a 6-player convention game. It just has a lot of mechanics that need to be explained. In a smaller situation, it'd be excellent.

After dinner, it was on to The Texas Incident. 1890's Pre-Dreadnoughts duking it out in the Philippines. My teammate and I commanded the Japanese contingent. I'd actually played this game, a creation of GM Bruce, a few years back and captained the same ship in that game.

There she is. Across the table are the two Americans, left and center and a Brit, right. The American mission was to reach the stricken Texas, board and make off with her. The mission, secretly assigned to us, was to sink the Texas - a very tall order indeed.

My teammate and the lead British ship manage to collide. Crimminy.

What a mess. Having the smallest ship, my tactic was to keep a low profile and let the big boys blast away at each other. I did get in quite a few nice hits on the USS Indiana and the Russian Potemkin.

Being a turn-template game, many years of experience with Dystopian Wars and X-Wing has served me well. I can drive. The others, not so much. 

Some shots of the players...

Another great weekend of dice and toy soldiers. Already getting prepared for 2027!

Orks, Meet the Y

 Two projects for this update. First, a follow up from last weekend's post. The YMCA sign is done and came out nicely IMHO.

and the other thing... I finished up the other half of the Oathmark Orcs box set, joining the fifteen I finished up in July.

They certainly look the part. Rough and ready and thoroughly dirty. Ready to bash some elf heads!

Viking Terrain Bits

Since the playtesting lest weekend, I've been steadily working on a couple of bits of scenery for the games at Southern Front. I started these fence sections some months ago, but bending the cross-members was frustrating and I stopped for a while. I went back a couple weeks ago and got them knocked out. They turned out quite nicely I think.

And then there's this... Mark thought a bundle of scenarios called "The Pillage People" should include a YMCA sign. Always happy to oblige, Mark.

It'll be ready soon enough! 

 

More Elves with Sharp Sticks

 I put the wraps on additional 28mm Oathmark elf infantry yesterday. I did some archers and sword-armed infantry many months ago and this lot completes that box set. Nice models and enjoyable painting for sure.

Twelve heavy infantry with big poke sticks.

And two extra archers to pad the unit of eight up to ten.

And here they are with their new squadmates.

I need to arrange a game for these models one of these days. Maybe this weekend, I've got time, it's Labor Day!

Nightwatch on Its Head - Viking Raid AAR

 Earlier this year I got the itch (no, not that itch!) to paint up some larger miniatures and ended up going in with some 40mm scale Vikings and Saxons. I always like seeing larger models on the tabletop at gaming conventions and thought I needed some of my own. Yesterday (Saturday) most of the Space Cadets +1 put these on the table for their first battles.

I decided early on that Nightwatch would be a nice set of rules to use for these models, focusing on a small group of very capable fighters against a large number of lower-quality opponents. Nightwatch scenarios have strong, clear objectives, meaning obvious winning conditions for a convention-type group of random players. 

 The players in attendance were some of the usuals - David, Ziggy and Mark and we were joined by Mark's 12-year old nephew Luke, who is just starting his miniatures gaming journey. Numerically this was perfect - one Viking per player and I would GM the Saxons per the standard automatic behavior rules. 

That's Mark and Luke there... The first scenario required the Viking to burn the large house and make a break for it.

The Vikings made it to the target easily and the first waves of Saxons arrived in manageable locations.

The end of the game, turns 6 and 7 were a bit tense, with useful arrivals but the Vikings had no trouble completing their objective.

The second mission was to find a steal sheep from the Saxons! This was essentially a find and rescue mission.

We rearranged the tabletop and marked four possible locations that needed to be searched by the Vikings while they searched for the sheep. The locations were the three buildings and the livestock pen. The Vikings enter the tabletop between those hedges. The Saxon entry points were also placed in more useful locations - two were totally useless in the previous game as it was coming to a close.

 

Ziggy's spearman locates the herd. Now, to get out of there - activate SHEPHERD MODE!

 

Things quickly turned to shite for the Vikes as the Saxons immediately began appearing at the most useful spawn points and my Defense rolls were absolutely magnificent.

 

YESSS. The impartial GM loves the chaos as the Vikings completely fall apart. They all try to free Ziggy's spearman so he can get away with the sheep. My dice were hot, making it a tall order for sure.

Turn 7. The shepherd gets SO so close to the goal, a two-inch strip at the edge of the board. A Saxon slinger and an archer are in hot pursuit! A rare Saxon victory! In all fairness, my dice were on fire and the players' dice were hot trash for that game.

There are David and Ziggy!

Next game... this time the Vikings would have to protect their flock from dem teevin' Saxons. A quick re-arrange of the scenery and voila!

The livestock pen was the Saxon objective. They had to break it up to let the sheep loose. The Vikings had to protect it. The Vikings selected two archers for this scenario figuring it would be more useful in a defensive situation.

Not many photos of this game. The dice gods corrected the lines of fate and the Vikings had a tremendous amount of success this time, easily dealing with the early arrivals and being able to stay tight for the impending rush. The last couple of turns were tense but easily managed. I did get a few villagers into contact with the pen but didn't have time to tear it down. Ah well, better that the players win anyway. 

What a blast! A very worth playtest before I take these guys up to Southern Front next month. I'll make some adjustments to spawn locations in the first scenario but otherwise things worked very nicely. The guys were happy with how things worked which is all that really matters.

Good Gaming and Be Well!

Recent Painting - Mechs

 I painted up some Battletech Mechs recently. Just had the itch and I do enjoy painting them for sure! First up is a Lance of Kurita Mechs.

Three of the models are very Kurita and are very stylized. The Grand Dragon (second from right) is a very traditional Kurita design.

The next group is a Clan Mercenary Star, painted up in memory of Wayne who got our group into playing Battletech and Alpha Strike.

Just something different there. I enjoyed the bold, bright red color scheme and the white accents really pop. There's nothing subtle about these guys! The off-color leg is for Wayne. 

Ziggy, David and I also got in a game of Alpha Strike a couple weekends ago. No AAR, but here are a couple of pics.

I'm supposed to be testing out my Vikings & Saxons in a flipped game of Nightwatch on Saturday - a playtest for Southern Front.

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.