Recent Games

 I've gotten a couple games in over the last week, as well as a bit of painting. No painting pics, but a few from the games. Last Sunday, David and I got in a game of Battletech Alpha Strike. We played the Reconnaissance scenario from the MRB. David used a 6-mech force of mid-cost mechs, ranged in the 30-42 point area: Battlemaster, 2 X Shadowhawk 2H, Guillotine 3N, Catapult K2, and Crab 20. I put the list together for him using my collection and he approved it. My preferred force was a much lighter affair, built for speed, agility and swarming. I had eight mechs : 3 X Wolfhound, Jenner, Locust 1M, Mercury 99, Raven 4x, Uziel. I was the defender in the scenario and set up 13 marked buildings across the center of the battlefield. David needed to locate SIX of the buildings I had chosen in secret, then evacuate a unit off the table to report the information back to HQ.

David deployed in a cluster on my left, while I had very much spread out.

My poor Locust gets dusted by the Battlemaster.

A measure of revenge against the Guillotine.

After a few hours of playing and a lot of blown up mechs, David located the last objective and RAN with the Catapult, his last 'Mech. A Wolfhound caught it with a headshot and, well, that'll do it! Minor victory for my Marik forces. This was a tense, drawn-out game of movement and sporadic damage. It was ridiculously enjoyable.

Then yesterday I drove up to Statesboro for a big D-Day Bolt Action game. I took my Canadians and helped storm the beaches! The game was hosted by the Statesboro Warhammer Club. A co-worker of mine, Landon is a member and invited me a few weeks ago.

There were three Axis players and five or six Allies. In fact, all three of the guys in this picture are the Axis players. As you can imagine, especially if you have every played a D-Day game, there was a bit of a logjam on the beach in no time.

I got all three of my infantry squads onto the beach / surf on turn 1. Well, one squad had to wade in, their boat having hit a sand bar. 

A real motley crew! The table was about 8' wide and 5-6' deep. We Allies were supposed to capture roads at the far end to ensure victory.

After a turn of shooting, my troops on the beach disappeared. Yes, some players were using their personal collections as proxies, thus the "Japanese" defenders.

I did manage to take out a bunker!

And we got a flank attack of three tanks. My Firefly VC cooked the StuG. 

But by 4:00, with so many players and units, we hadn't gotten far and the game was officially called. Minor Axis victory, they'd lost the beach entirely. I had a really good time and the Statesboro crew are a good group of guys.

Afghans 1

 The Reds needed an Opfor and the Central Asia / Transcaspian area was rather appealing from a "something different" standpoint. I picked up some Wargames Atlantic Afghan Warriors that'll work quite well as Basmachis or any other group from that part of the world. It's been a slow painting situation here recently with visitors in the house, but the first 20 are complete. They were a joy to assemble and paint up.

Sharp-eyed visitors might notice a handful of Russian weapons in the mix. The WA box which generously provides 40 warriors does not include enough Martini-Henri rifles for all. I used a handful of muskets to fill in as well as leftover Mosin Nagants from the Russian box. The long sleeves of the Russian arms work well enough with the Afghan bodies.

Next up on the painting table are some 28mm modern law enforcement minis and Russian Cavalry for the Revolution. I have to mix things up so I don't get burned painting the same thing over and over.

Recent Happenings

Hi all, I just haven't had the motivation to put up proper postings lately. A few pictures and progress of current goings on. For Memorial Day, a group of us played Alpha Strike then a large game of Check Your Six.

David and I barely hung on to a win with Clan Wolf preventing the Steiner forces from exiting enough units from the left edge of the battlefield. CY6 was a Battle of Britain scenario - He111s with escorts trying to get past Spitfires and Hurricanes.

It was a lot of stuff on the table, for sure!

Towards the end of the encounter, I had a Spitfire being pursued by what felt like the entire Luftwaffe!

But I bagged the bomber before getting shot down!
 

I finished up a handful of RCW Reds (Wargames Atlantic models) and some Etsy-sourced 3d printed vehicles. Afghans and other Russians are in the assembly and painting queue.

And the summer concert season has begun. The wife and seventeen-year-old accompanied me to Charlotte, NC for the Metallica M72 concert on Saturday. It was fantastic. Next concert is Ghost in July.

AAR: Dystopian Wars Returns!

 Ziggy and I pulled out the Dystopian Wars models last evening for what's become "retro gaming" for us. Some of the earliest posts on this blog from 13 years ago were of Dystopian Wars! The Fleet Action rules that were published just as Spartan Games was closing its doors are the example of the game at its finest. Those are the rules we use. Our game was a 1200-point naval engagement, Republic of France vs Kingdom of Britannia. I made a comment about using the Statue of Liberty model that had never gotten any game time and Zig gave it a thumbs up. I painted that monster nine years ago!

I put together a naval-only force of French vessels; I think it's the first time I've ever played DW without using ANY fliers at all! Zig had an assortment of surface and aerial vessels.

My tiny fleet. Madame Liberte eats up a lot of build points.

That way, mes amis!

It wasn't long before some Orion-class destroyers located a target, one of my two battlecruisers. A quick torpedo volley and she was in pieces at the bottom of the sea.

On my right, my Alma-class skimming destroyers were mauled and three of the four were taken out easily by Zig's flying machines.

A view from my left.

I didn't get pictures of the sinking of my carrier, but Ziggy killed it and my fourth Alma-class. My graveyard was looking grim.

Revenge was swift though. my other battlecruiser and Madame L were right on top of the British fleet and caused a considerable number of casualties in short order

Finally, some results! A cruiser, battlecruiser, four frigates and two destroyers accounted for!

But it wasn't to last, Zig killed the other Cherbourg then unloaded on the statue.

The old girl only has two hull point left!

Clearly, the play is to ram the British carrier, right? With a massive cacophony, both mighty vessels form the basis of a new reef. My French were done. All I had left were two cruisers. Zig still had all his aerial assets.

Well, I'm here to tell ya, the Robot-Deadnought was awesome. Loads of fun to push around and wreck stuff. Glad to finally get it on the tabletop for sure! The game itself was a blast and hopefully it will be less than a year before we pull it back out. Be well and good gaming!

That's What I Was Up To

 I've completed the commission work for Wayne. A boatload of Epic Eldar requested in Yme Loc craftworld colors. It's taken me 3-4 weeks to work through the lot and that includes a one week pause when I "hit the wall" of not knowing what to do. A quick change of technique and turning it into an assembly line helped a lot. 

So, a total of fifty models. Quite an unusual palette but they look as neat as a pin. The purple alien grass is an awesome offset to the orange and gray. Goes to show that any uniform looks nice if you keep things uniform! I hope Wayne likes them.

What Have I Been Up To?

Commission work for Wayne... I'll post plenty of picture of the Eldar when they're done. 

An Epic Saturday (Weekend)

 Preface - I changed job. I still work in the same office but have change company affiliation. Still an "IT Director" and still in healthcare. The new company gave me a nice "welcome to the family" this weekend with box seats to a Billy Strings concert at the Enmarket Arena and Savannah Bananas hoity-doity section tickets Sunday afternoon. So, not a bad weekend at all, but then I got to play a game of NetEpic on Saturday with the guys. NetEpic is a revived edition of old Epic Space Marine - what was GW's 6mm large-scale battle game. Wayne supplied the models and scenario and there were five of us players. 

We broke out into two teams, David took the Iyanden Eldar and Mike partnered with him running a Saim-Hann windhost. Ziggy took the Imperial Guard group and Mark and I split the Blood Angel Space Marine force. The Eldar were hunting for two McGuffins while the Imperial forces attempted to prevent them from finding their objectives. 

Ziggy planted his Leman Russ company forward in the center, just a big middle finger to the Eldar who entered the table from the left and right edges from this view. The Imperial plan was to put more military units at the far end, meaning the Eldar would have to move away from the objectives to fight us. Made sense to me and my teammates when I proposed it.

The Leman Russ tanks absorbed a terrific amount of firepower from the two Eldar forces and lost only a single stand! Faith in heavy armor was well-placed. The Space Marines flanked the Eldar quite viciously - see my Land Raiders entering the table behind them at the far end of the table.

And after eating a full course of the Emperor's wrath, Blood Angel bikers smashed into the remaining Iyanden Falcons and Wraithguard. That unit was effectively neutered in short order.

Mike brings some big guns in to even things up with the Leman Russ unit. The armor of the Imperial Guard tanks was again up to the task! You can see my Land Raiders in the back pursuing the battered Eldar.

There's a closer shot of the CORNER OF DOOM.

Finally, a good view of the whole table. Ziggy has some Basilisk artillery on our baseline and a large company of IG in the buildings around the airfield. The yellow markers are areas the Eldar need to explore.

David's walkers get a move on down the right flank.

The Wraithlords did manage to locate one of the objectives, but then I dropped in a Blood Angel Death Company on them. It was a brutal melee in which the Wraithlords were eventually wiped out and the  single surviving Death Company stand sought cover in a building for the remainder of the game.

The Saim-Hann Windriders arrive in our backfield and raise a little Khaine. I dropped in my last troops on them, a Blood Angels tactical company. Apparently my Marines didn't get the memo because they got their asses kicked, six ways to Sunday. I lost found stands while only killing two. My Marines backed away. 

David got sweet revenge on my Land Raiders with an Avatar. They summoned two of the Emperor-forsaken things during the game.

As I move around the table taking pictures from other angles. The Blood Angel Whirlwinds blast the Web artillery but cause more panic than injury.

The Windriders again prove to be absolutely outrageous, easily killing off Ziggy';s Ogryns in melee! Mike's dice had really found a groove while Zig's, mine and Mark's had cooled off.

The Eldar artillery tries to grab the final objective but too many Eldar had been eliminated. The battle ended before the Eldar could claim it. The Imperial forces hang on for the win!

An enjoyable game for sure. There was a bit of confusion about deployment areas and Space Marine entrance areas. The made the Eldar players grumpy and I really don't blame them. Somehow, they very nearly got the win, despite being on their back foot for much of the battle. Z, Mark and I were rather fortunate that the game timed out when it did. I think everyone want to play again so there might be some more in the pipeline.

A coupleodd pictures from the weekend.

Billy Strings. Psychedelic Bluegrass music. Remarkably good. Would go again for sure and I would pay for tickets.

Me and the opposing team mascot. I managed to snag a foul ball.