Shiny Things

At this rate there is no way the Anima Tactics figures in my queue are ever going to get done.

Mmmm.... rich 6 millimeter goodness. The USMC gets some wheels and wings.

Ah, just noticed, this is post #250 for me. What a silly post!

Home-Brewed Goodness

My spaceship game is coming along nicely and I have fleshed out enough of the rules for a thorough playtest. We played two games Saturday evening - primarily intended to be a mechanical test of movement and combat which is the point of all wargames, right? I know I wrote the rules, but am damn pleased with how things went. We found a couple things that could use adjusting but the two games proved that the system is A) very much playable and B) worth continuing to work on.

Some design goals:
    Speed of play. I want players to be able to manage fleets of a respectable size (15-20 ships) without getting too bogged down in bookkeeping and minutia.

     Simplicity of mechanics. Anyone should be able to pick up the basics of movement and combat within 5 minutes. No turn templates!

     Deadly combat. Two ships of the same size class should be able to ruin one another with a full volley and destroy eachother with two or three volleys. Luck of course will play its part, but I'm not interested in two battleships engaged in a 12-round slugfest.

     Get away from 6-sided dice. I went with the unloved 8-sider.

On with the AARs!

The first scenario was supposed to be a two-player simple kill-the-other-guy game but Junior wanted to control his own faction so it turned into a three-player kill-the-other-guy game. Ziggy and I each had two destroyers and four frigates. Junior had four frigate-class ships and two medium cruisers because I forgot how strong his ships were. Good thing his ships were a long way off at the start of the game! There were two gravity wells in play so I could test those rules out.

My forces (orange) and Ziggy's (red) get into it right from the start. Junior has a long slog ahead of him, threading the needle between two gravity wells.

My ships have a nice range advantage over Ziggy's and arranged my frigates to keep the range extended. While doing so, one gets snagged by one of the gravity wells. Feh. I fully expected my kid to screw that up first.

Zig's leading elements finish off one of my destroyers. The rest of my ships group together and prepare to blow up some Reds. As it turned out, the frigate managed to escape the gravity well and continue fighting.

 Now you see 'em, now you don't! I take out a frigate and a destroyer. Actually, the crew of the destroyer failed a morale test after their ship had gotten sufficiently damaged.

Just as I'm really working over Ziggy's forces, the damned third wheel shows up.

Knowing we don't stand a chance individually, we make a quick pact against the party crashers. Junior's ships are just plain "better" than ours and we're in big trouble.

I get a gunline set up for the cruisers while Zig's superior short-range firepower is responsible for the heavy interceptors flying through our formation.

And that's a wrap! Junior trashes our combined "fleet" and we call the game there.

We quickly set the table up for game two. It's a bigger scenario this time with some bigger ships for Zig and I.

I've got a convoy trying to get through the area. My goal is to exit ships from the far table edge. Zig and Junior are trying to kill as much of my stuff as they can. Zig controlled the Reds again, while Junior took four Privateer Cutters. The yellow arrow indicates my actual flight path. The asteroid field dominating the center of the board would be too dangerous for me to barrel through.

The pirates, ehrm, privateers wait in ambush just inside the asteroid field.

The vanguard of my fleet heads down the right corridor.

A blurry shot of my rear elements turning about to slow down the pursuers.

The destroyer is lost in short order.

The main part of my fleet sets upon the Privateers and gives them a good thrashing. I should have just kept moving at full speed after working them over.

But I can't resist unloading the big guns of my cruiser into the filthy Red swine chasing my fleet!

Not a great idea as it turns out because it takes a while to spin about and get going the proper direction again, and the Reds destroy my cruiser in short order.

The remains of my fleet hit the gas pedal! the four lead frigates would make it off the board easily.

But the destroyer is caught, one move away from the edge and finished off!

Ziggy's forces were pretty screwed in the second game by having next to nothing on the right side to block my path but it turned out pretty well for him anyway. I'm happy with the way the special equipment and terrain rules worked. 

The game is very good. Granted, I wrote the book, but Christian and Ziggy didn't and they were not asking questions after the first turn. Once I make the few adjustments we talked about I'll have to unleash this thing on the rest of my gaming crew.

HOTT in the Cold

So, it was cold in Savannah yesterday. Yup, we had a "snow" day but without the snow. Having just finished up a few bases of things for HOTT, I managed to play a game of it with Junior. He used his WWII Soviets and I used my Narnians.

Our lists, for those who are curious:

Junior's Russians
1 Yak-9                 Airboat    3
1 KV-1              Behemoth    4
2 Light Tanks         Riders    4
1 Spetznaz        Magicians    4
3 Infantry          Warbands    6
1 Artillery            Artillery    3
The Spetznaz is the General.

My Narnians
3  Eagles                   Flyers    6
3  Dogs                     Beasts    6
2  Faun Spearmen    Spears    4
1  Peter                       Hero    4
2  Faun Swords       Blades    4
King Peter is the General

Junior would defend and set the table up thusly

I got the board edge I wanted. The river he was so keen on screwed him royally.

His rather well-done army.

I pushed hard to my right, sights set on the Stronghold. He had one Behemoth, an Airboat and two Riders to contest me with.

The KV-1 mashes up some valiant hounds and a Stuart pushes back one of my eagles.

Peter, seeing that the eagles were in real trouble, breaks off and wipes out the light tanks. Another of my dogs is destroyed by the treads of the KV. My last stand of dogs stays between the KV and the rest of my army as a wall. Man's best friend, no doubt!

The airboat gets a move on towards the stronghold. I have one stand of eagles just beside the stronghold and Peter is on his way!

The Soviet artillery and air force try their best to affect the outcome but just can't make it in time. Peter and the eagles capture the stronghold and it's a win for the Narnians!

It's been forever since we played HOTT last and I really enjoyed it. Things seemed to flow well. I'm sure we did a few things wrong, but it was fun regardless. I know it wasn't very nice to abuse the river like I did, but I think junior learned a lesson about terrain.

Be well and good gaming!

Russians, Romans and Rats!

I've been churning through the lead pile at a good clip lately and have a few more things finished up and ready for show.

First off, the other half of the Russian Black Sea Fleet:

Twelve destroyers and what would have been seven seaplane carriers. I marked five of the carriers as generic transports which will be more useful for gaming.

Next up are some 15mm Roman Auxilia from Rebel Minis. They were a gift from my sister for Christmas and a fine start to a HOTT army. Ancients are not something I normally paint so I pretty much "winged" the colors after a cursory Google Image search. The flash on the camera really made the brown wash on the shields stand out a lot more than it does to the nekkid eye.

Lastly are some of the oldest models I had in the pile - some Reaper Bones Rats. I bought them about a year and a half ago, intending them for my wife's HOTT army of Halloween creepies. They (six of them anyway) finally got their final coat of paint and varnish.

We're having a "snow" day in Savannah today. In reality it is more of a cold, rainy day. The charlatan weather guessers predicted Snowmageddon and schools and many offices, including mine, shut down for the day because of the potentially dangerous driving conditions. I'm going to try to get in some sort of gaming to take advantage of the surprise day off.

Black Sea Fleet part 1

No gaming this weekend. Didn't do much painting either, but I did finish off the first group of Russian ships. The others will get finished up this week easily enough. Hopefully next Saturday they'll make it to the table for a game of Age of Dreadnoughts. It'll be AoD or my home-spun spaceship game which is very ready for a good playtest session.

Quick pic of the Russians...

Russians!

While the voyage didn't take quite as long as that of the Russian fleet leading up to the battle of Tsushima, it was pretty close. The Black Sea fleet finally got here!

I've wasted no time getting them mounted to magnetic backing, ready for priming.

 Loads of destroyers and a handful of plane carriers. 

 

Lovely old battleships!

I've been good this week, getting lots more painting done without buying more toys. I'll post pics of the other stuff when it is 100% done.

Sunday X-Wing

A group of us met at Morningstar on Sunday afternoon for some X-Wing. We've played a few games recently and enjoyed the heck out of it. David and I took the Rebels, the Imperials were handled by our two kids, Junior and Anson as well as Ziggy who hadn't played before.

Our deployments and the field of battle. Each side was 150 points. For what it's worth, asteroids are a pain in the ass. Those are my asteroid minis I made a few months ago, set on top of the templates that come with the game. TIE interceptors were a popular choice, as were the eponymous X-Wings.

Some action shots of the cluster-cluck. As it turns out, Dave and I cannot drive, nor can we shoot straight. My X-Wing driven by Biggs Darklighter was the first to go boom. My A-Wing followed him to Force-heaven shortly thereafter by taking his chances with an asteroid.

Dave lost both his X-Wings after a couple more turns, although Wedge Antilles did manage to take out the top Imperial ace, Soontir Fel. Our last ship, the HWK-290 was set upon by the balance of the Imperials and blasted into dust.

It was a terribly one-sides affair but David and I had a good time anyway. When the chance cubes are screwing you as bad as they were Sunday, you have no choice but to laugh it off. Anson's TIE Bomber was a complete beast and did most of the damage - the other TIEs cleaning up the scraps. It was not a good day for the Rebels and we're looking forward to some revenge!

Even more recently painted stuff!

I finished the mortars, HMGs and "Recoilless Rifles" for AK47 yesterday and some small rocket-launching walkers for Dystopian Wars the day before. Man have I been productive lately! Some pics...

The recycled Flames of War stuff turned out nicely enough. I do like my Frankenstein 57mm guns. I couldn't come up with any good MG assistants, so the HMGs are a little bare, but I'm fine with them how they are.