Paintings

 This'll probably be my last update for the year. Between Christmas then a trip to the Northwest right afterwards, not much room for hobbying. There's been a bit of conversation about possibly playing Forstgrave with some of my gaming buddies so that got me in the mood to paint up some Pathfinder and other minis Wayne dumped on me many months ago. Also in the mix is a 3d printed Yoda my niece needed some paint on. 

The gang

3D printed this miniature is. fairly low resolution so the uneven surface makes for frustrating painting.

A rogue or assassin and a woodlands witch. I need to paint that crescent thing on the witch's forehead that showed up like a lightbulb in the photograph when I cropped it.

.hctiw dna eugoR

Evil Smurfette and a warrior woman.

Heroes.

Heroes backs.

And something for the new year... Mmmm, bases. 

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and Safe Travels!

Donnybrook AAR: Goblins and Halflings, FINALLY!

 It's been a long time coming, but the pair of 28mm fantasy armies I've been collecting finally got a chance to slug it out last evening While the Assad regime fell and Georgia fought hard to win the SEC. I picked up the Donnybrook rules in early 2023 and after a quick read-through realized they'd probably be excellent for what I was hoping to do with these forces. So there we are, two new armies, a new set of rules.... let's see what this is all about.

Ziggy chose the Halflings and selected his four units - Drilled Pikes and Archers, Recruit Cavalry and Elite Highlanders. He also had a mounted Commander. For my Goblins I chose Recruit Spears, Archers and Cavlary and Drilled Orc Warriors to accompany my Mounted Commander. I set up the tabletop as a farmstead with some nearby woods. We just played a basic "kill em all" scenario to familiarize ourselves with the rules.

A full view of the 4x4 battlefield. Granted, that picture was taken after a turn or two of movement, but you get the point.

The Halfling Highlanders take possession of the chicken pen and coop! Minis and MDF buildings courtesy TTCombat.

GRRRR! My Orcs charge in. "It'll be eggs for dinner boys!"

But as luck would have it, the 'Fling pikes were in position to react quickly, throwing the Orcs back and saving the poultry!

Feh. I only accounted for three of 'em.

It wasn't all bad news though, my archers and spears did manage to account for the Halfling archers in the field. This interaction was not well-documented in photos.

Meanwhile, over on the right flank, the Wolf-riders and Goat-riders prepared to do battle.

Things were very evenly-matched and first-round results were a tie. Both our commanders were involved in the engagement so the stakes were high!

My archers and spears lined up, ready to take the chicken pen. The archers peppered the pikes reducing them to just two troops. Surely eleven goblins could take down three halfling nutters, right?

Before that question could be answered, the goat-riding stunties on the right had a terrific second round of combat. One failed morale test later, my wolf-riders and commander were off the table. The rest of my forces slunk back from whence they came. Curses! Just when things were looking quite doable. 

Damn fine game, we had a great time and it was worth the sporadic painting and collecting effort of 20 months. 

Thoughts - Donnybrook is really good. I was curious how the card activation and random turn length would work out and I got my answer. As with all things random, the law of averages takes hold and everyone gets a fair shake by the end. Dice and other mechanics are simple and effective. Troops die really quickly if they don't have armor or cover, much like Blood and Plunder. We didn't think about using cover heavily given the rank & block nature of the forces but lesson learned! Unarmored troops die like dogs in melee, just ask the halfling archers.

I want to add a few extra units to each side in the next game and start playing around with magic and magic-users. There aren't any magic rules in Donnybrooks but after playing a game, I feel confident that I could put something together with little trouble. I also need to look at applying the different faction traits to my forces - Donnybrook includes faction army-build information that I ignored but those faction rules could easily be applied to halfling and goblins. I just need to see what looks like some that would be appropriate.

I did paint this scatter terrain up yesterday before the game. I've had them since Skirmish game con last March. 3D prints. Always useful!

Battletech Alpha Strike - Fun in the Sun and Surf!

 The usual "TANKSgiving" battle get-together didn't happen this year due to two illnesses, but those of us who were feeling well got together for a grand game of Battletech AS. I'd put together a 7-player scenario, Clan vs IS and had six players show up which worked out well considering. We played at Roll The Bones game store in Savannah, a relatively new establishment I'd been to a couple times but never gamed in. It's far more popular with the CCG and RPG players. In fact, the day we played there must've been 60 people in the store playing games of various descriptions. 

On to us. The scenario was simple, Steel Viper Clan mechs are advancing into the coastal area through the shallows. Free Worlds League and Draconis Combine forces are set up defending but are separated by a lot of tabletop. There are three objective locations set up. Kills are worth 1 point each and possessing an objective at the end of the game is worth an additional 3 points. The Clan forces had three Stars and the IS forces were made up of four Lances. I was also debuting my most recent gaming mat, purchased specifically for Check Your Six, but whatever, it's pretty!

Our 6 x 4 battlefield. Objectives are circled in red. Ziggy's Marik forces are upper right. David and James shared the Kurita forces, upper left. Mark, Chris H and myself were the three Clan Star Commanders arrayed more or less in that order from left to right along the bottom edge.

Early goings. The Steel Vipers move out and try to get some advantageous positioning. 

The Sphere forces doing much the same.

There are our players!

Kurita mechs showing some armored courage. I've got a brutal Marik gunline staring at me.

The Steel Viper gang looking tentative.

To really the get the action going, I sent my Dasher into their backfield. Some bad intelligence resulted in the poor dear immediately being backdoored by two mechs David still hadn't moved. Mark dropped an Eyrie in back there to cheer me on. 

Some good activity this turn and some positive results for the Clan. My Dasher disappeared quickly. That wasn't the good part. Chris nailed James' Atlas with a Stone Rhino and damaged it heavily. That was followed but a lucky crit from Mark's Eyrie headshotting the Atlas, killing it instantly. Damn. Chris' Ice Ferret was playing "sneaky feet / ninja feet" with the Marik forces while in full view of the Kurita Krew.

A turn later and the basically untouched Marik force really starts to descend on my side of the battlefield. I was feeling a bit overwhelmed. Chris' Ice Ferret ran out to distract While my Man O War and Stormcrow tried to find targets. I send my Vixen to backdoor the Highlander but it was in turn flanked by the Black Knight. James sent his Shadowhawk and Cronos across the center to help the Ziggy. Ugh!

A high TMM meets poor dice-rolling. The Ferret completely evades a wall of gunfire! (My Vixen also dodged death)

Ziggy gets a nasty firing squad pointed at one of Chris' Stone Rhinos.

It's like the Yalta Conference.

Just "The War Room" area of the game store. The place was hoppin'! Those D&D players took the big table in the back that's I had been eyeing.

James' Cronos becomes the center of attention as it tries to take one of our objectives back at the end of eight turns. Many missed shots later, we did manage to kill it, securing the victory. It turned out to be crucial because the final score was 17-11 and that 3-point swing if they'd nabbed the objective would have made it 14-14 and a bloody useless tie.

A fun game and everyone enjoyed themselves, or at least they told me they did. We had two insta-kill headshots, so that's fun! The Atlas and a Marik Marauder both got blinked. I'm always happy with Clan mechs and Vixens, Stormcrows and Goshawks make it easy! The Man O War was solid and although the Dasher was pruned before it could have very much fun, I look forward to giving it another chance. 

Hoping everyone had a good Thanksgiving!

Force Lists:

Marik

Spatha

Blackjack

Marauder

Gunslinger

Highlander

Exterminator

Sentinel 3lb

Black Knight 18

Kurita

Hachiwara

Cronus 3M

Shadowhawk 5R

Atlas 7D

Crab 20

Lancelot 25-04

Penetrator 4D

Atlas 7D

Clan Steel Viper

Timberwolf

Ice Ferret

Viper

Eyrie

Nova (Prime)

Dasher

Incubus

Vapor Eagle

Man O War

Stormcrow

Stone Rhino 2

Stone Rhino

Ice Ferret

Lobo

Viper

Otter of My Own Fate

 Still no Battletech AAR. Motivation has been hard to come by. I did however paint up an armored car / recon car for the Bolt Action Canadians. I picked it up on Etsy a couple weeks ago and it arrived last Saturday. Well, one chunky solid easy-to-paint model later (and a week off work) and job's done! Rather than leaving it boring solid OD Green, I gave it a basic camo pattern of OD and medium brown. I like the final look and it's a fun and welcome addition to the collection. 

I need to order decals. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Down on the Farm

 I picked up a TT Combat MDF kit a few weeks ago to improve the variety of 28mm options I've got. This little farm accessories kit turned out really cute. I didn't build the quonset hut style structures but probably will at some point.

I'm off this week so I'll certainly get some painting in. In fact I've got an Otter armored car drying the garage and have some other WWII minis to get started on. The Battletech game on Saturday was a blast. Had a great turnout and the scenario worked well. I'll work on the AAR some time this week.

A Few Good 'Mechs

 Because I can't help myself, I've added some reinforcements to my Battletech Kurita forces. Similarly to what I did with the last batch of Marik mechs, I changed up the colors, this time opting for a much more traditional Draconis Combine red + gray. Basing was mixed up a bit too, mainly just to play around with colors and pigments.

Some of these will be featured in a big game tomorrow. Looking forward to that for sure!

So that's a (from left to right) Mongoose, Penetrator, Hatchetman, Guillotine and Lancelot.

and a Crockett, Crab, Atlas, Enforcer and Flashman.

This represents the contents of the Hansen's Roughriders box and the Comstar Battle Level II box.

An Actual Game!

 After what seems like forever, I finally got to push toy soldiers around and throw dice on Saturday night. My nephew is in town so he joined Ziggy and I for a game of Lion Rampant. Jason's in his early 20s and enjoys boardgames. It took no convincing for him to join Ziggy and me. I set up the same scenario I played back in July with Mark and Mike - Scenario 8, Sausages with Mustard, Spain vs Venice. Jason and I shared command of the Spanish attackers while Ziggy's Venetians defended. Forces are 45 points each, there are a total of four commands, two per side. 

Our battlefield. Besides killing Italians, we were tasked with setting the three buildings aflame.

Early turn 1... Ziggy's mercenary Greatswords move out.

The first of many failures of mine. My light cavalry fail to evade Italian heavy cavalry. Los Jinetes are very quicky a memory. Yeah, failing an Evade is painful.

After a few turns, the battle lines form up in the center. Jason immediately gets to work trying to burn the buildings. We're also in the difficult position of pikes vs pikes and similar where it's really hard to get an advantage.

Thanks to a less than fortunate couter-charge, the Greatswords and Jason's heavy cavalry inadvertently meet in the woods and an ugly melee results in both units breaking. I'm not sure a failed counter-charge would have been worse. Is what it is.

Ah, a proper fight. Heavy cav vs. top-shelf halberdiers led by El Capitan con Corazon de Leon. Both units suffered mightily and ran away from each other.

After at least an hour of trying (and I did look at the metadata on the photographs to see how long it look), we finally get the flame to take on the library! 

Into the home stretch... My commander and his halberdiers searching for that lost shaker of salt... Italian cavalry doing the same. 

After more failure, finally the orphanage catches fire and burns on its own!

The game's conclusion... Jason's halberds ran off the greatswords who would never recover. The long-quiet Venetian crossbowmen shot up Jason's pikemen and ran them off. Ultimately, we failed our army morale check and retreated, but not before also forcing Ziggy's Italians to take a morale test as well! We'd managed to inflict some real damage late in the game. Not really sure how we made it a competitive battle because it felt like we just stood there and accepted a complete beatdown by the Italians the whole evening. I'll take it! We all had a good time and as always, looking forward to another game soon,. Be well!