More Canucks

 I've been hard at work on the next batch of Frenchies and English for my New England/Canada battles. My most recent order included more militia for both as well as command figures. I finished up the French yesterday - it went much more quickly than I anticipated but waking up at a stupidly early hour will help! The English are still "in progress" seeing as though their uniforms need to actually be uniform.

Ta da! Nothing that fancy, but a useful addition to the collection for sure.

Xenos Rampant AAR: First Outing

 After a long long wait, Xenos Rampant was released earlier in the week, the latest in the series from Osprey Games. XR is the sci-fi variant of Lion Rampant. I've been pretty excited about it for months now. I wasted no time putting together a couple of 28mm armies together from my collection. Ziggy came by Saturday evening for a first game.

Our 4' x 4' battlefield.

My forces were composed of cultist infantry, demonic necrobeasts (one might calls them ghouls) and a big demon (the purple flying beast off to the left there)

They were opposed by a very steampunk force of automata and elite infantry as well as an armored transport vehicle.

Oh, I also had a Support Infantry unit in the guise of a small tracked vehicle.

The necrobeasts were on top of their enemies in no time. Being able to to move once before the game starts and a healthy 12" move allowance will do that!

A second large group of automata disembarks from the tank. My big demon takes a prominent position and prepares to pounce!

The vehicle continues forward to engage my demonic horde.

The necrobeasts on the left / center are pounded on by mechanical men and a small group of elite infantry.

The big girl finally gets her act together and assaults the vehicle! Both took a bit of a beating to our mutual frustration.

My primary brain functions start kicking in and I start taking advantage of some neat ticks. The cultist infantry on the left acts as spotters for the support bot further back. This gives the support unit a "to hit" bonus which pays off, resulting in a dead elite trooper, even with their heavy cover!

A shot of the battlefield. The tank had fled from big purple, but big purple was three hits down and at reduced effectiveness, hovering in front of a mighty gunline!

On the fun side, the necrobeast's frenzy and hatred of the mechanical monster led to the tank's demise in short order. Good job fellas!

That was of course followed up by big purple's defeat at the mechanical hands of the automata. Feh.

Things pretty well devolved into a general retreat and more mayhem than can be allowed in a demonic cult army for me.

Witness the numerous Supressions and fleeing units!

My last necrobeast at least gave a good accounting of itself  smashing one last mechanical man before falling.

Alrighty then... that was an entertaining first outing for sure. There were a couple of mistakes for sure, mainly mine but I don't know how much effect they'd have had on the outcome. I think the worst was that my Support Bot had the Mechanoid trait meaning I could have moved it forward in the early going and fired its weapons  without having the rolls to activate it. It's nothing that playing the game more often and using the same troops wouldn't sort right out.

As far as Xenos Rampant goes, it's a winner. Enough tweaks have been made to keep things moving  and happening, which is very important in a sci-fi skirmish game. Units typically have at least one "Free" action they can perform which succeeds without the normal activation roll. This means that melee troops can reliably move towards the enemy and gun-heavy troops can always be relied upon to shoot those guns. Vehicles are allowed to take a shoot action (with a penalty) after moving, because DUH. XR's a welcome addition to the collection for sure!

Hard at Work... But not This Week!

 It's been a really nice week off work the last few days. Loads of gaming and even finished up part 1 of the Dark Elf re-base project.

So, in a post a couple of weeks ago I mentioned the virtues of acetone in loosening CA / super glue. I buckled down and pulled the rest loose and the order from Litko arrived late last week. I spray-colored fifty of the bases and got to gluing! After perhaps two and half hours of effort, voila! An army that occupies only 60% of the space of its predecessor. It looks tighter and the square bases are a good bit more compatible with a variety of game systems.

I think I actually have another bag of lizard riders. I probably should re-do the Dwarves first though.

On Monday morning, Mark J came by because what else would you do on a vacation week Monday morning? We played a couple games of Command and Colors, primarily because even though Mark is 12 million years old, he's never played C&C. First game was Ancients, followed by the more complex Jacobite Uprising.

I won the first and Mark snatched the second from me after getting slapped around for 90% of the game. 

After C&C, we put Marvel United on the table. It's a co-op board game, superheroes vs. the table. Mark's collected a ton of it and never played so I sort of insisted upon it.

 

Quite enjoyable and I'd love to play through a multi-encounter campaign some time.

Last evening I went waaay off the reservation. My brother in law's D&D group was getting together for a one-shot high-level scenario and asked if I wanted to join. Of course! I put together a Gnome Sorcerer on D&D Beyond and we got together at Cerberus Legion Games in Richmond Hill. We started playing around 6:00pm and wrapped up at midnight. Our sixteenth-level characters handily dealt with three giants, an ice troll and two hellhounds before ending up in the lair of the ancient red dragon "ol something-or-other." 

If you haven't played D&D in a while, 5th Edition takes full advantage of today's technology. There's a brief adjustment period, but having a very powerful electronic character sheet to track EVERYTHING is remarkably handy, particularly for a spellcaster with a limited number of spell slots and many many options.

At one point, the monk, cleric and monk/barbarian were all on the great wyrm's back! 

After a brief early run-in with the beast, my character Beebs, suffered PTSD which limited my effectiveness during the battle since I was unable to get closer to the dragon. It managed to extend the range from most of my more useful spells. Eventually we weakened it to the point where it fled. We'd managed to destroy the scrying device she was using to command her armies so that was enough to satisfy our mission objectives. Our band of Expendables saved the kingdom!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Eat some ham and turkey and taters and dressing and greens and sleep it off... it's feastin' season!

A Halftrack with Skills

 I picked up this Italeri 1/72 sd kfz 251/7 Panzer Pioneer halftrack last week. The kit went together easily enough although the tracks were a real hassle. I knew the assault bridge was going to be important from a scenario and gameplay standpoint so I left it loose. 

So there you go, a pretty standard AFV, every gamer has one. But this one's got a party trick...

Nothing up my sleeve...

And presto! A custom fording point made to fit my 1 inch narrow streams. I mounted four short pegs made from a paperclip at just the right points to place the bridge when needed. 

A fun little build for the weekend. Now, to find something else on the lead mountain.

AAR: The Crunge*, A Barbarossa Skirmish

 * Apologies to Led Zeppelin

 Ziggy and I got together for a game of Rate of Fire on Saturday evening. It's been a while since it's been on the table but it's always a good time. My early war Barbarossa vehicles haven't made it on the table yet so this was to be their rookie outing. 

The Germans (Ziggy) had to advance down the road and secure the bridge while the Soviets (me) had to prevent its capture. The Russians started with three infantry squads and an AT rifle while the Germans started with two infantry squads and a light infantry gun towed by a truck.

In the early couple of turns we both just advanced into position as safely as possible. The truck towing the gun made haste up the road and the gun was deployed quickly.

A good view of the early going. I needed to get the AT rifle into a better spot.

One of my reinforcement units showed up in the early goings, a BT-7.

But it was not alone, a Pz38t also made an appearance.

It wasn't long before the German tank shot up the wooden farmhouse I had run a squad into! Eight of the ten guys were knocked out in no time!

Elsewhere on the table, our infantry groups exchanged fire and generally speaking I came off better, nickel and diming the invaders with one kill here and there.

A general downturn in mood for the Soviets as a second Panzer arrives. Not pictured: a halftrack with an additional infantry squad also arrived.

The BT is going to have to make a mark.

Like knights in a tournament, the tanks square off.

My shot sails past the near Panzer while both return shots connect, exploding the BT!

It doesn't improve much when the German squad in the woods and trailing Pz38 get some quality hits on my squad in the back. They immediate bolt! On the plus side though, the AT rifle gets a good hit on the tank, killing the driver!

Finally I get the rest of my reinforcements, a second tank and assault engineers. I probably should have brought the engineers in sooner since they have demo changes and could have blown up the bridge. as it was, they would be doing a lot of late-game running!

I had to contest the bridge, so the nearest squad threw caution to the wind and moved close. The Germans had a pile of infantry on the other side!

A good view of the battlefield. Not many Russians left!

They're all kicking it over here in the Dead and Injured box.

German accuracy is on point and the infantry gun and one of the tanks makes quick work of my squad by the bridge.

The BT actually hits the Czech tank but it does no damage and the crew's morale remains steady. The AT rifle gets a good hit too, bu ti also fails to damage! The Panzer's shot however brews up the second BT. Curses!

After nine turns, all I had left was the assault engineer squad and they were content to leave the same way they arrived. The battle was a solid victory for the German side.

That was enjoyable evening's gaming. Win or lose, it was a lot of fun. I really should have pulled the assault squad as my first reinforcement, they might have been able to pop the bridge. As it was, I was lured by the promise of armor and guns and it did not pay off. For my other two reinforcements to arrive so late in the game was a real killer for me. Ziggy played well and I don't think he made any mistakes that mattered. Looking forward to the next for sure. Be well and good gaming!

A Quick One

 A few pictures and signs of life from down here. David, Wayne and I played Check Your 6 Jet Age last weekend. We used the Korean War minis that Wayne recently picked up and I decaled. Wayne was kind enough to let me drive FOUR F-86s against four MiG-15s that he and David split 2 and 2. Piloting four planes well in CY6 is challenging. Hell, I often struggle to pilot one plane well.

I put the planes into two wings so I'd only have to plot movement for the two leads in the early going.

The spirit of Chuck Yeager was with me because it was as though I was reading their thoughts. Every time we'd move I was getting into favorable positions. This never happens when I'm driving!

David and Wayne visibly concerned about my prescience and flying ability.

I was able to score plenty of hits but those .50 cals don't pack much of a punch and all I did was pile on damage. The damage was telling though as Wayne loses a plane to ill-advised extreme maneuvers after sustaining airframe damage. Scratch one Commie!

ACK ACK ACK ACK! One more MiG into the ground below!

I got a nice solid hit on one of David's two remaining MiGs but his plane was up to the task with a fantastic robustness test of a twelve! We called the game at that point. My planes were untouched, though one was out of ammo. Both of Wayne's were destroyed and both of David's were damaged. A solid USAF victory and a rare win for me in CY6!

Mike showed up and the three of them played a game of Perry Miniatures' TravelBattle. I watched for about 45 minutes.

It was cute but not my cuppa.

This week I did make some painting progress. I finished up 24 knights for my 1/72s. Nothing amazing but it felt good to wrap up a large unit and officially add them to the collection.

On to the next painting job, right? I've got a 1/72 SdKfz 251/7 Pioneer halftrack under construction right now and a bit of a backlog of other things - 15mm aliens and RCMP, Malifaux Day of the Dead, 28mm French and British reinforcements for the colonials and a couple other things in the mail! I think this weekend it'll be some good old fashioned eastern front using Rate of Fire. It's been a while.