Some Weekend Gaming

 On Sunday, most of the usual suspects got together at Wayne's office for some tabletop wargaming. I put Shipwreck on the table - it's been many years since those toys saw the light of day. Wayne put on a Classic Battletech game. Both were good fun.

My game - 1985 Gulf of Sidra. The Libyans vs the US Navy. At this point in the proceedings, the opposing forces have located each other and missiles have just been launched!

Left to right... Ziggy, Aaron, David Mark and Wayne.

Oh oh! Four Harpoons bearing down on one of Z's Nanuchkas!

Still, that's better than six SS-N-9s! 

Both ships actually remained afloat due to some rather effective close range defenses and fortunate damage rolls. Needless to say, neither boat was in fighting shape.

Of course this spelled doom for Wayne. David's boats picked up the USS Scott and let loose twelve missiles her way! 

Wayne did very well to account for 9 of the 12 incoming missiles. The remaining three all hit sending the stricken ship under the waves! Tragedy!

After a couple hours, we had all had a fine time and it was on to Battletech. 

It was a 3 v 3 engagement featuring Marik and Steiner forces. 

The fickle finger of fate! 

Not many pictures of BT, but a fun outing. The Marik side (me, Mark and Arron) got wrecked. Good job Steiner crew!

Thanks for hosting, Wayne. Zig, stay safe... he's off to Germany for a month-long NATO exercise.

Painted Mechs

 The house is finally gone! Two months and my mom's been moved, her house emptied and sold!I'm excited that things can get back to something more "normal." I got four of the metal Battletech minis Wayne gave me finished up over the weekend. The refurb and paint stripping process wasn't too terrible. They're fine additions to my fledgling Marik / Free Worlds League collection.

That an Albatross, Stealth, Huron Warrior and Gunslinger, left to right.

The Stealth is half regular paint, half blue/violet color shift paint... its either cloaking or de-cloaking. 

And the gang so far...

The Easter Egg company. Say whatever you want about the garish color scheme, as I've said on many occasions, as long as it's UNIFORM, it'll look fine.

Name That Mech!

 Wayne has handed off a lot of unloved Battletech minis to me for refurbishment and painting. My Mech Fu is weak and need help IDing these models. Some have become broken over the years but part of my job is to reassemble and make them gorgeous. 

All help is welcome and thank you in advance!

A Few Goblins More

 The next batch of ten Wargames Atlantic goblins made it through the queue over the weekend. They had some stiff competition from a few mechs Wayne gifted me and a major move. The move was that of my mother. She's moved into a retirement facility. Independent living, but downsized, manageable and more social for sure! For us kids that involved sweaty manual labor, sorting through millions of documents to separate the wheat from the chaff, organizing and running a garage sale and trying to sell the house. The stars aligned and everything came together, including finding a buyer for the house during the garage sale. Booya indeed. Pending an inspection, we should close within a month.

On to those gobbos!

Ten more in that box... now, do I just get them done or paint something else as a distraction?

Stragrave Campaign Game 5 - The Overgrown Factory

The Space Cadets + played the fifth game of our Stargrave series on Saturday. We put all six players on a single 4 x 4 table this go 'round. It's the first time we've tried it with everyone in a single game and it was a hoot. The scenario we played was "The Overgrown Factory." With six crews, the scenario special rules and some teleporter rules I cooked up, we ignored the wandering monster / attracting attention rules and played an even 10 turns. 

The table from the Oddfellows Local 151 starting edge. 

David, Ziggy, Mike, Mark and Wayne.

I didn't take my team long at all to be right on top of a couple of loot markers. One physical for Scoop the runner and Sweet Mama Stringbean and Katie Kaboom reached a data loot in no time. I let Katie Kaboom unlock the data since she's the Codenreaker and good at that sort of thing.

I had Sweet Mama Stringbean test out the teleporter rules. My die rule was a seven, allowing David (the player to my left) to place her at any destination teleporter marker. He of course put her in the one-door warehouse. Mike sent a guy through a teleporter as well and that guy also ended up in the same room as Stringbean!

Wayne places a "goalie" in my deployment zone, trying to prevent me from scoring the data loot. Katie Kaboom gave the Burner a blast from her shotgun. I had already managed to extract Scoop and his physical loot token. 

Wayne's Burner attracts a lot of attention from my group who were really looking for something to do. The Stun and Wound marker on the flamethrower guy kind of says it all.

Stringbean's adventure continues! She snagged the physical loot token and in order to exit the table from my start zone, needs to get lucky teleporting back. Bloop. No luck. On top of a tower with Ziggy's sniper lining up a shot! GAH! She took a solid hit but was OK. Mike of course had a dadgum robot saucer trooper up there too. 

So whaddaya do? Jump back through the teleporter! Miracle of miracles, I rolled a 1 and Stringbean appeared right back where I needed her! Now that's a hell of an adventure for one game of Stargrave. Meanwhile, Beverly Kills, my medic, managed to get herself killed while brawling with some of David's schlubs. Roy Christmas, my First Mate, took care of those bums to avenge her (left, fight the unpainted gray horde).

Oddfellows Assemble! The crew escort Stringbean off the battlefield.

For me, Ziggy and David it had been a terrific game. I scored two physical and one data loot, had a couple KO's, only lost one character and picked up some good loot items. Mike, Mark and Wayne didn't fare so well, but that's how dice games work. Mike's dice in particular were atrocious and he got completely mauled by Zig's crew. 

Regardless of individual success, we all had an enjoyable time - hey it's gaming, right? Game six is still up in the air; we didn't schedule a weekend initially and Mike's got a baby due towards the end of May so we may just kick it down the road a ways. We'll see. Have a great week and good gaming!

The Painting Table Butterfly

 This time it's 28mm Goblins! I picked up a box of Wargames Atlantic Goblins recently and have finished the first ten. Assembly was easy and painting was a pleasure. No Speed Paints on these models, it's all traditional painting, washes, drybrushing, etc. 

The next batch of ten is in the assembly queue now. They'll be armed with bows. My mixed bag collection of Orcs and Goblins is finally getting beefed up into something resembling a warband, it's a beautiful thing!

Sci Fi Painting

  I completed a few Fallout and Battletech minis recently. The Fallout models were rather inexpensive - I caught them on sale. I'm glad I didn't pay full price because they were a real bitch to assemble. Much of the trouble was the brittle resin/plastic material. One of the models was missing an arm, so he didn't get assembled at all. Another met a tragic end due to blunt force trauma. Still, three useful models for $8 is a decent price these days. Once assembled, they came out nicely. The Battletech minis, likewise, were procured on the cheap. I'd had the itch to paint up some mechs and $12 for four was the right price.

They'll work well for a variety of games including Insurgent Earth and Stargrave.

House Marik / Free Worlds League striker lance. Gotta love the Easter Egg colors. I feel there will be more Mechs on my painting table.

Caribbean Clash - Blood and Plunder

 Ziggy and I got together for a game of Blood and Plunder last weekend. It had been more than a few months for me and more than a couple years for him since the last game. That being the case, I felt it prudent to pass on the boats which have some rules I've never used. It would be a bit of a learning game for Z. I put together two forces, French and Spanish and we squared off.

We deployed in opposite corners, separated by a creek. There were three objective locations to control represented by two barrels and a chest.

I upgraded the bridge's mounting spikes since its last outing with some skull beads I got at Spirit Halloween store many months ago.

How many 28mm metal French can the bridge of doom support? Well, at least 9!

I pushed forward with my Lanceros to the central objective atop the hill. I had captured the chest location with a small group of Sailors. My Militia fumbled around in the back creating a reserve for my force.

I also had a group of Natives helping out; they skulked around to the right. They're quick through dense terrain so were a lot more mobile than other units on the table.

The Lanceros charge up the hill and an almighty scrum erupts between them and the French who had taken up residence! After this battle, the hill would be known as Cerro de Sangre.

My natives pile in atop the hill, looking to even things out. My sailors off the the left had been wiped out so I had the militia unit move in to take control over there.

But a few more minutes of fighting and the living men atop the hill are heavily outnumbered by the dead. My militia took a some fire by French troops in the woods and lost their nerve, hitting the jungle floor!

The battle ended and as happens all too often, nothing had been decided! It had been a well-fought skirmish for sure. Next time, we'll break out the boats. Be well and good gaming!

Weekend Painting - 'Rasslin

 Without going into the backstory deeply, I picked up some Rumbleslam fantasy wrestling miniatures last week and enjoyed painting them up over the weekend. The minis were a bit of a bear to assemble, being made of a plasticey resin that wasn't very excited about working with superglue. Patience, generous quantities of Isopropyl  Alcohol and Gorilla Glue finally did the trick. I also gave them models a bit of a bath in alcohol before priming so the primer would stick. Final results - three thumbs up!

The first group - Barbarians, Goatmen and a Minotaur. Speaking directly to my old GW heart. I was an old-school Chaos fan and the guys exemplify the aesthetic. 

And the other group is of course a pack of Halloween graveyard dwellers. The "Flair-Wolf" (see what I did there?) was a big ol' pain in the ass being a big model in a one-foot leaping pose. I drilled and pinned his foot to the base.

Off to see the Dungeons and Dragon movie this evening! Hooray for $6 Tuesdays at the local theater.