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.

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.