The Oldest Tale in the English Langage

Disaster and Calamity!

You remember the Saxon Army I painted up over the summer? Here they all are in their great plastic mead hall:





The Saxon king built his mead hall on the great cliffs of Shelf. There were rumblings among some that the mead hall was far too perilously high, but the king scoffed claiming that the view from atop the Shelf was much better. Besides, were not all within the mead hall protected by the magical floor that held fast the warrior's metal boots? Surely nothing unfortunate could happen.

But perhaps the aelfe heard the king's confident speech and worked their mischief. For while the warriors were firmly rooted the floor of the mead hall, the hall itself was not immune to their charms.

With a crash, the mead hall tumbled from Shelf. The violent drop disrupted the magic floor and all were thrown into confusion. Those rushing to the warrior's aid threw open the door to find everyone in a tangled heap and at first glance, a fearful carnage was expected.

But it takes more than a fall from the Shelf to break a Saxon! Man after man was extracted from the pile miraculously unharmed. Even so, the great army of the Saxons was decimated. Ten and three warriors suffered limb-rending wounds, one or two unfortunates losing both arms in the great fall. Fortunately, almost all of the wounded were Ceorls or Gebburs -- lowly warriors of no great importance.

In fact, the only casualty of note, was the king himself -- his left arm sheared clean off. The price of his hubris.

But then, a cunning wizard (who, it must be admitted, first suggested the idea of putting the mead hall on the Shelf) arrived with his magical salves Zap-A-Gap and Zip-Kicker. With some patient work, all of the injured were soon made whole, the mead hall was put back into good order and, very carefully, placed in a less visually exciting, but much safer location.

Heed well the lessons of the unfortunate Saxons! For you may not have a friendly wizard to hand!
Tom

p.s. *sigh* The most action these guys have seen in a month.

More Green Army Guys

Hey,

Finished up the second platoon of US Army soldiers in 15mm for my modern-day games.





So the only thing left is the command squad (with company leaders, medic, radio guy and heavy machine guns). That should give me enough US forces to play the various Force on Force scenarios I have. I might round it out with a couple of specialists (sniper teams, bomb disposal, K9, etc.), but there's no pressing need for any at the moment.

I also need to kit out the Americans with a motor pool and I've already started work on that, but I'm gonna need a lot more. The US Army definitely represents Americans' love of cars.

later
Tom

Green Army Guys

Hey,

So more work with 15mm soldiers. I painted up a batch of insurgents a couple weeks ago and they'll need someone to go up against, so last week, I did up a bunch of American army guys:





Yeah, they're not painted in Middle East cammo, but I'm also hoping to do some "what if" WWIII scenarios so they're European green. It's a pretty nice set up -- four squads with leader, M40 grenade lancher, SAW and rifleman. The platoon leader has a couple of riflemen and two Javelin anti-tank guys to work with.

I've got a second platoon identical to this and then a command staff to paint up and that should be more than enough US forces for most games I have in mind. I will, however, need to pick up another big stash of insurgent forces to provide a meaningful opposition.

later
Tom

Little Dudes and Littler Dudes

Hey,

I painted some more minis this month and finally had a chance to photograph them for you.

So first up, last Spring I painted up a batch of WWII resistance fighters. I've always been fascinated with them and there was a good set out by Artizan. One of the guys I game with down at Hobby Bunker was also painting up a set and he had a few spare that he gave to me. So here they are:





There's a Femme Fatale, a grizzled vet, and an eager young man all out to stick it to Jerry. It's not super obvious in this photo but all three of them are carrying Molotov cocktails. So this brings my total resistance count to 27. They were a fun, fast paint.

Next up, a figure I've been dying to do for awhile. Gisbert, the Gnomish Barbarian. Reaper miniatures put out a Gnome Barbarian figure and it's a character I've been dying to play for a long time now. Recently, I got into a Pathfinder game so Gnomish Barbarian it was:





I am extremely pleased with the way Gisbert turned out. Again, the photo doesn't really do a good job of detail, but for my level of painting skill, he's one of the better ones I've done. With this iteration of miniatures, I've started painting the dip onto the mini vs. dipping the mini in the dip and shaking off the excess. This gives a little more control over where the shading dip goes and, more importantly, spares your arms and shoulders from the shaking process. Anyway, here it does an excellent job of defining Gisbert's mighty muscles.

Finally, I really want to do some modern-era gaming. Vietnam, African conflicts, American operations in the Middle East and some "what-if" WWIII gaming in Europe. For this, I want to use the Force on Force rule set by Osprey Publishing. It's a fun set of skirmish level rules. But that means I'm going to need some figures. Since there are source books for Iraq and Afghanistan, and since Rebel Minis was having a sale, I picked up a bunch of figures and I just finished the batch of Insurgent figures:





If they seem a little small, that's because they are. I'm trying to go with 15mm figures instead of 28mm whenever I can. These "littler dudes" should be a bit faster to paint up although they are very small and getting even rudimentary detail on them can be a pain. Of course, I know guys who can paint these things down to the whites of the eyes, but I'm more interested in the miniatures as gaming pieces vs. models. Sure, I'd like to have a bunch of museum-quality paint jobs but I'd rather play more than paint.

To give you some idea of how small these guys are, here's a photo of a resistance fighter, Gisbert and an Insurgent fighter:





Yeah.

But, I'm hoping I can crank out a lot of forces more quickly and storing them will be more efficient. Also, Gisbert, despite being a Gnome (and thus, hard-pressed to clear 4' in height) is bigger than the human fighter. Some of this is that fantasy figures are always a big "bigger than life" and some of it is that Gisbert would be singularly unimpressive (he'd only be a bit bigger than the 15mm figure if truly built to scale). Eh, I'll go with it. He was a great figure to paint.

So that's October. Next up, a batch of US troopers for our Insurgent friends to fight and then probably some more Insurgents (they usually arrive in pretty large groups and the 20 figures I have now, aren't enough).

later
Tom

[Saxon Muster] Field Exercises

Hi,

So you may remember I spent most of July/August painting up a bunch of Saxons for a campaign game being run by the Boston Trained Bands. Last weekend we had a test game so my guys got into action for the first time.

Right, so the rule set of choice for this game is Warhammer Ancient Battles (WAB). An interesting choice because the gamers in the group are extremely uninterested in most Warhammer products. Although, to be fair, WAB is barely kept in print by GW and you have to order it special from them and give the password and special wink. I’ve never played with it before and it’s been ages since I’ve done any straight-up Warhammer stuff so it was going to be a learning experience.

We broke up into two sides for a big battle. I took center stage with my Saxons. On my left I had a small but powerful Romano-British group and on my left and another batch on my right. Across the table we had (from left to right as I saw it): an unruly band of Scots, a small block of frenzied Vikings and…I believe some more Scots/Picts (the majority of which were represented by my figures…so I guess I win no matter what).

Here let me show you:





I’ve got a pair of warbands flanked by a couple of small groups of archers. The group on the right has my leader. The guy with the red stick is trying to work out how quickly he can run me over with his Vikings.





It’s not like I’ve got bolters, so we all start rumbling towards one another. That little block on the left coming towards me is a warband of Scots. But you’ll probably notice the group of horsemen bearing down towards me. Keep an eye on that.

Here are a couple of wider shots of the battlefield. On the center-right side:





You can see my valiant allies taking their sweet time getting around the village. My only saving grace is that the Picts who oppose him haven’t really gotten off their starting positions yet.

And now we pan to the left:





I’m not sure why the Scot split up his forces like this, but he decided to send his skirmishers after the guy with the cavalry and heavy infantry. It goes about as well as you’d expect.





Back to my guys. Yeah, that cavalry charge goes in on my hapless archers. Well…maybe. The archers took a snap shot as the horses rolled in. It was totally ineffectual so they took to their heels. They actually managed to outrun the cavalry’s charge and then managed to make their Leadership test so they spun around to take another shot at them.





And take a shot they did. Put down two of the pesky Picts.

Meanwhile, the Scots had advanced just close enough so I decided to rush ‘em:





I get lots of bonuses for charging in like that. However, this is my group without a leader and I’m facing off against the leader of the Scots. Also, I apparently can’t roll for crap. In one brutal exchange, I chip one guy out of his group, he peels away four of mine, and then proceeds to rout me and run me down.





Yeah. It was like that.

My archers didn’t survive a second round with the cavalry and the other group of archers, as you might be able to see above, were running for the hills and never rallied.

Well, when in doubt, attack. So I lined up on the Viking horde and rushed them with all I had left:





So, in a 500-point army, that block of 20 Vikings, with leader, musician and priest probably gobbles up 400 of them. By contrast, my group is about 200 points (and 75 of that is the leader). The Vikings are frenzied (so each guy who can fight gets to attack twice) and the priest makes them immune to all psychological effects (like the auto-rout warbands like mine cause). We had a pitched exchange, but I gave a little better than I got (surprisingly) and we stayed locked in combat. My hope is that my allies there would hit the flank and give us enough weight to grind them down.

Sadly, we started late and it was well past lunchtime so we called the game here. I was probably toast on a stick.

On the right side:





I don’t know what was going on here. Neither side came to grips. The enemy tried a bunch of piddling shots that never did anything. I have no idea where that cavalry is going. Perhaps he was going to send it after the Pictish cavalry that ran down my archers or maybe he wanted to swing them around to hit the Vikings, but it’s a bit of a mess on that side.

On the left, however:





Man, the Scots kept hanging in there, but they were just meat to the grinder. The Romano-British would’ve finished them up but who knows what they’d face as they cut across into the flanks of the enemy.

Oh hey, my other group of archers. Bye, guys!

So what did we learn? First, the Vikings are going to be a real hassle to take on so find some allies (preferably some guys with cavalry). Second, the archers need to be massed into a bigger block to be effective. They could probably also stand to have a champion or other leader figure who can boost their morale. The same could be true for the warbands though. The Thegns are a bit fragile without a leader type.

Also, I need to power up a dice charger because my rolls were just terrible this time around.

But hey, it was fun and my investment of time and effort has started to pay off.

Later
Tom

[Saxon Muster] He Led Soldiers

Hey,

So I finished up the last few guys. I got a small group of Viking mercenaries and 3 leader-types (well, two leader types and a spear-wielding Thegn who needed some superglue surgery).

Here's them:





So yeah, I started this around June 25th. In a little over a month-and-a-half, I've painted up 108 Saxons. Still, I never really considered how much work I'd gotten done until I put all the dudes in their storage case:





That's what 108 man strong, 1000 point Saxon army looks like. I glued down a magnetic sheet to the bottom of the plastic case and the washers the dudes sit on stick to the mat. So it'll be easy to tote these guys around. Anyway, I was a little gobsmacked to see all those guys lined up and ready to go.

Now I'm going to take a break from painting for a bit. I've got an idea for the next project and I've even got some figures together for it, but this time, I'll be painting in 15mm so...not little dudes so much as tiny dudes. Better give my eyes a rest.

Here's hoping these guys weren't painted in vain.

later
Tom

[Saxon Muster] Monkey Ceorl, Monkey Do

Hey,

So yesterday I finished up my second, 20-man unit of Ceorls. These are the cheap, not-quite-as-good soldiers I'm using to add mass to my units of Thegns.

I've pretty much got it down pat now so these guys came together rather quickly (I also had a couple double-days where I did one painting step in the morning and the second one in the evening so I think I had these completely finished in about 4 days total.

Anyway, here they are:





So, technically, I'm finished. I've got 1000 points worth of dudes and I'm ready to go to war. But I happen to have 8 more dudes left. Five of them are Viking mercenaries, the other three are leader types. So I'm going to do those guys up as well (and I'm hoping to be done early next week with those dudes as well). But for the record, I've painted up 100 Saxons in a little over one month. I'm kinda astonished at my productivity.

All I can say is, we'd better play this damn campaign and I'd better win a few games. :)

later
Tom

[Saxon Muster] I woud Thegn be finished

Hey,

So although I've been very remiss about posting the in-progress photos, I've been working on another batch of Thegns for the Viking game I'm playing this fall. This batch of 20 is armed with swords and axes, but they'll probably be treated as carrying spears and joining in with the big blocks of spears/shields that the previous Thegns will be heading up.

I've finished everything but the leather accessories, the fronts of the shields and, as always, the lovely dip:





Sorry these came out so dark. I've had to paint these in my bedroom because the lovely air-conditioning makes it possible. Anyway, I should get these guys squared away this week and hopefully I can roll into the last group of Ceorls and a small pack of miscellaneous guys.

later
Tom

[Saxon Muster] Getcher Gerburs

Hey,

So here are the Geburs, my unit of archers, all dipped and based and ready to go:





I now have the minimum amount needed to take the field this fall, but I'm going to try and fill out the other 40-odd guys I have (another batch of Thegns and Ceorls, plus a leader and a few Viking mercenaries). But the immediate pressure is off.

later
Tom

{Saxon Muster] They ain't Cupid, stupid

Hey,

One thing about it, as the troops get less and less sophisticated, painting them up becomes easier and easier. The Geburs here are the bow-wielding skirmishers. Not much in the way or armor or bulky equipment to worry about, no shields or other fiddly bits, just the clothes on their back and the bows in their hands. The hardest part for these guys was the quiver of arrows glued to their backs -- some arrangements of poses and quivers made it hard to get the paint in the right place. Luckily, tomorrow afternoon, they go in the dip and all my problems will be solves.





I'm really jazzed that these guys are almost finished. That's 60 out of the 100 figures painted and it's enough that if I didn't paint anything else, I could show up in the fall and start playing. Of course, now that I'm on a roll, I'll try and keep up the momentum and get the other 40-odd figures painted up so that I've got a full spread to battle with. But at least the nagging worry I wouldn't have anything done is covered for the time being.

Anyway, I expect that missile fire in Warhammer Ancient Battles isn't going to be very telling (certainly not for this period), but I'm hoping to be able to blunt the Viking charge a bit before it crashes down on my blocks of foot soldiers. I guess we'll see.

Later
Tom

[Saxon Muster] That's the Ceorls Then

Hey,

Once again, the dip did it's magic and my simply-painted minis look 1000% better (although with my half-assed photography, maybe that's not so apparent). Anyway, I dipped them, painted the bases, and sprayed them down with matte varnish to finish the unit off.





I've already got then next unit up on their cans and primed. This is a batch of Geburs -- low-ranking skirmishers who will be armed with bows and provide the missile fire for my army. Photos as they develop.

later
Tom

[Saxon Muster] Ready for their Bathtime

Hey,

So I missed an update so this picture adds a lot from the previous one. I did up the metal/wood bits, the leather belts/pouches and the shield colors. If the weather improves this afternoon, I should be able to get them dipped. Otherwise, it'll have to wait until tomorrow sometime.





later
Tom

[Saxon Muster] I Got Ambitious

Hey,

So I decided to take advantage of my day off and put in a double shift on my next unit of Saxons. This is a group of Ceorls, the Saxon equivalent of a medieval knight. They're professional warriors, but they don't actually hold land. Definitely second-stringers, but in game terms that means you can get lots of them cheap. The rules also say that as long as I'm leading a unit of warriors with my Thegns, the whole unit gets to benefit from the Thegns' superior morale.

What this means is that I'm using the Thegns as a base and then bulking them out with the cheaper Ceorls.

Also, because the models don't have chainmail, the whole thing goes a lot faster for painting. About half these guys have what looks like a quilted jerkin, so they've got a fairly plain color. The guys who couldn't even afford the padding get bright colors to strike fear into the enemy hearts.





So now all that's left is to paint up the metal/wood/leather bits, the shield, and then the lovely dip.


later
Tom

[Saxon Muster] A Little Dip'll Do You

Hey,

So the first unit of Saxons is finished. Twenty Saxon Thegns with spear and shield:





All the minis got "dipped", literally dipped into a pot of liquid that's very similar to wood stain. After getting a good coat, you shake the mini for a little bit and most of the stain flies off. What's left sticks to the nooks and crannies and the effect is heavy dark lines that make the rest of the color really pop. Then I painted the bases a forest green and went over all of it with a matte varnish (the dip leaves a shiny finish so this second coat dulls it down).

I'm amazed at how good my crappy paint job looks by dunking them in a stain. When I first heard about this technique it seemed the height of insanity, but I've used it on two projects now and it looks great.

A friend was over today and I showed them off. She gave me the highest compliment imaginable: "That's amazing, how do you paint all those little details?" That's pretty much my gob-smacked comment to all of my friends who can actually do good paint jobs so I'm rather chuffed by her appreciation.

Anyway, that's one unit down, another 2 to go before I've got the minimum to play and really another four to have a respectable force put together.

later
Tom

[Saxon Muster] They call it a Shieldwall

Hey,

More painting. But it only took about an hour rather than the two-hour sessions I've been running up until this point. Today I painted on the belts/pouches/scabbards and, more colorfully, the shields. The shields are all freehand and very loosely based off of Saxon designs. But shields are fun and colorful and you get to change it up with each one.

I *totally* forgot to put a happy little tree on one of them, but I'll make a point to do that next time:





Tomorrow I give everyone a dip (a short, easy process that will forgive all my painting sins). Then I have to paint up the bases, give it a matte varnish and that's it. I figure I'll have the unit finished by Sunday.

On Monday, I'll base up the next unit -- gotta keep up the momentum.

later
Tom

[Saxon Muster] Metal Bitz

Hey,

Got more painting done tonight on the first unit of Saxons. Tonight I colored in the armor, spear tips and other metal bits and I also filled in the wooden parts (spear shafts, backs of shields, etc.). I also went over the front of the shields in white again so they'll be better able to take the color I'll apply next session:





Next time, I'll do the belts/pouches and shield fronts. That will pretty be the majority of the painting (save the bases which are easy and go last after the dipping).

later
Tom

[Saxon Muster] A Colorful Crew

Hey,

Did more painting tonight. Got the pants and shirts on everyone as well as the hats for guys who aren't wearing helmets.





Won't be much longer and the first batch will be finished.

later
Tom

[Saxon Muster] Not as Pale as the Scots

Hey,

Got more work done on my first unit of Saxons. In a little under 2 hours I put on the flesh, hair and painted the foot gear.

Now they're looking like this:



The photo isn't very good so it's hard to see the improvements. The next shot should be a lot more colorful since I'll be painting up the leggings and tunics.

later
Tom

[Saxon Muster] Thegn of Fools

Hey,

So I've been playing various historical miniature games with a bunch of guys at the Hobby Bunker in Malden. The group has decided they want to put on a campaign game for the Fall. They've chosen to do a Dark Ages Viking game using Warhammer Ancient Battles and its Shieldwall supplement.

So members will kit up a group of Vikings, Saxons, Welsh, Picts and so on and we'll duke it out for several weekends. The Vikings got snapped up fairly quickly, but I was interested in working with the Saxons so that's what I went with. Now all I needed were some figures. Luckily, one of the other members bought up a lot of Saxon figures before deciding to switch to Welsh. So I got around 100 figures, assembled and mounted for cost. Pretty good deal.

Now I've just got to paint 100 figures.

I've got a lot of time and for the early rounds I only need about 60 figures put together to meet the 500 points minimum. However, I'm easily distracted, so I'm putting together a schedule to get through everything and I'm posting my progress here so that I've got my unfinished work staring at me.

So, first up, a unit of 20 Thegns, armored in chainmail, with a leader bearing the dragon standard.





I've mounted all the figures on film canisters using blue-tack. This gives me a handle to manipulate the figures and prevents hand cramp. Next, I based the figures in white jesso and then went back over the metal parts in black (this will make the metallic paint stand out better.

So early stages, but I'm making progress.

later
Tom

To Have and To HAVOC

So Friday/Saturday I went down to Shrewsbury for this year's HAVOC wargame convention. I played in three games and here's what I thought of them:

On Friday evening I sat down to a game of Check Your Six -- a WWII air combat game. In this scenario, a recon P-38 escorted by a batch of F4 Wildcats had to overfly a Japanese airfield and then beat feet before the Zeros in the area shot them up.

I was on the Japanese side, one half of a squadron that had just taken off from the airfield and was moving low and slow. Because the recon plane was worth a ton of victory points, we decided to circle wide, climb and hopefully catch the recon plane as it comes off its photo run -- though we'd have F4's sitting on our butts almost immediately.

We got lucky and the recon plane took a hit going over the airfield greatly reducing it's speed. It was also too big a temptation for us. Pretty much all the zeros rushed the recon plane and didn't give the F4's enough attention. In the event, through some hard jinking, the recon plane managed to sneak off the board while the rest of the zeros got shot up. Of my two planes, the experienced pilot got shot down while my rookie limped off the board with a damaged engine.

Check Your Six has a pretty simple movement system, you pick your maneuver off the chart, adjust speed and altitude as required and then see if you've got any targets to shoot. Moreso than most wargames, air combat is all about maneuver and second-guessing your opponent. There was a definite chess-like feel to the game. I still want something that puts a bit more 3-D in the fights, but that will ramp up the complexity -- I suppose some sort of computer-moderated system could alleviate that.

On Saturday morning, I got up way to early to drive in and to test out the "I Ain't Been Shot Mum" ruleset in a French Indo-China game. We had a group of French Foreign Legion and Algerian troops who were tasked with the job of clearing a road of mines. Somehow, today would be the day we'd be jumped by the Viet Minh.

So the big twist with this ruleset is that platoons of troops are represented by "blinds" until enemy units get close enough to spot you or you de-cloak for some reason. Of course, the Viet Minh had a number of dummy blinds and they pretty much papered the board with their blinds while we only had just as many blinds as we had troopers.

The other interesting detail with the rules is that each platoon is represented with a card and each turn, cards are drawn at random to determine what activates and what doesn't. The presence of some "end of turn" cards mean that a turn can end without a given platoon activating. Further, some platoons have "Big Men" attached to them, leaders or NCO's who get their own card and can force a partial activation of the platoon. So, if your Big Man card comes out early, do you go now at reduced effectiveness or hang on and hope to make the whole platoon go with a leader bonus and risk the turn ending before you get to do anything?

I've cleared my share of roads in Vietnam so I knew what the smart play was here -- you send infantry out along the sides of the road to roust the enemy and protect the mine-clearing convoy. Once you've beaten back the enemy, you can proceed down the road. There followed several turns of skulking in the tree line trying to spot the blinds and force them to drop. Finally, we decided we were just going to sit there forever so we pushed forward.

On the right, the Algerians encountered a batch of Viet Minh and got held up scraping them out. That all ended when the Algerians rushed the position -- close combat, when you team has a leader gives you a boat-load of dice and a convincing win against leaderless troops. So my Foreign Legion waded out on the left side, uncovered a group of Viet Minh on another hill and swept them right off, followed up back to a rice paddy and then discovered about half the enemy units waiting in a small farm.

Meanwhile, we'd tried to tentatively advance down the road, when a Recoiless Rifle blew out one of our armored cars. Our vehicles immediately went off-road. The other AC got shot up by the Rifle, but the tanks (when they managed to go) put down a punishing barrage on the right-hand side of the board, suppressing the machine gun teams that were chewing up our Algerians.

But breaking the left-hand side was grinding up the Foreign Legion and in the end, we ran out of time about halfway down the board.

I think the rule set was good, but the scenario was problematic (and yes, I lost so take this with a grain of salt). The biggest problem was that every platoon had a Big Man card, plus platoon leaders. So there were a ton of cards that could activate a platoon or squad and tracking which unit/sub-unit had already acted that turn was a pain. Further, the rules are explicit and say that not *every* unit gets a big man card, only a few of them. Reducing the number of Big Men cards would've made things go much faster and made the choice about activating the Big Man less interesting.

For my part, I didn't break up my support platoon and attach the various MGs and mortars to the rifle platoons. That would've given me much needed firepower as I moved up the side.

Still, I really did like the rules. The hidden movement was good, there were opposed rolls and the variable turn length/activation kept you in the game.

A quick lunch at Moe's and then back for a round of Ambush Alley. As you might guess, this is a game about fireteams sweeping dense, insurgent-filled urban areas. So Baghdad, Mogadishu, and like environs. The game has gotten some pretty good press and Osprey is publishing a polished upgrade of the rules that will cover both asymmetrical warfare and more conventional conflicts. So I wanted to give the rules a spin to see about picking up the full rules later this month.

I was on the side of the Marines in charge of a 4-man fire team. We had to cross the board taking out "hotspots" (i.e. insurgent spawn points) along the way while fending off waves of poorly armed, badly trained, but highly motivated troops.

The game bogged down for the US very early. One of our fireteams got caught out and chopped to pieces by the insurgents. So there was some stalling while we got a replacement team. Our one good piece of fortune (from the nefarious "Fog of War" deck that kept dishing out the pain), was the assistance of an M1 Abrams tank. One high-explosive round later and the insrugents who'd hit us were buried under rubble.

Once we got sorted, I moved my team and the tank towards the right-hand side of the board. The tank couldn't really move into the narrow streets but I'd use it to support my drive up the side where two hotspots were located. As I came up on the first hotspot, a car loaded with insurgents came speeding towards me. I promptly shot everyone out of the vehicle. Finally I took cover near the first hotspot. The rule is that you have to sit on it for a full turn to clear it. So I went into overwatch and promptly shredded several waves of insurgents trying to pick me off. Seriously, six guys would run up, unload, we'd be fine and then we'd wipe them out to a man. The tank also made a few telling shots, but a lucky RPG round wounded the tank commander and dinged our main gun (sadly a TV crew recorded the action in a propaganda coup for the bad guys). The tank had to drive off, but it had done it's job.

With one hotspot secured, we rushed down the side of the board, slipping past an angry mob into a courtyard where the next hotspot was located. When insurgent reinforcements were called up, our hotspot was the indicated spawn point. Luckily, it was just a single red shirt. We handily took him out and claimed the spot.

My job was finished. On the left-hand side of the board, another fireteam got hammered letting the third team secure a hotspot. However, the current score was still in the insurgents favor thanks to the injuries they inflicted on us. Our only hope was a mad dash to the back of the board to grab one more hotspot. They dashed up the street, failing to draw any fire and managed to sit tight on the hotspot, claiming it and winning the game.

The game was a little frustrating at first, it didn't seem like we'd be able to make any headway at all (that Fortunes of War deck was a real pain). But once we cracked through the stiff line of resistance we ran riot into the backfield and racked up the score. If the insurgents had a bit more defense in depth they might've slowed us up just enough. That said, it takes a lot of insurgents to generate the fire needed to bring down US regulars. Our first batch of casualties was just really poor dice rolling. On average we could shrug off just about everything that came our way.

One of the guys who'd played a few games earlier said it best -- "The regulars are godlike until they blow a roll and then they're toast". I really liked the set-up and it has me interested in the Ospery version of the ruleset coming out later this month. I got a chance to look at a pre-release copy of the book as well as the "Road to Baghdad" supplement that will be coming out. The supplement is interesting because in all the scenarios they include "historical outcomes" -- well, for the Iraq war the historical out come is "The US won decisively only suffering a couple of friendly fire casualties". Making the scenarios a more interesting game is going to be quite a challenge.

So that was the games. I also hit the dealer tables. I picked up a couple packs of 28mm WWII partisans and some ASL stuff.

There wasn't much I was interested in for the evening, so I joined my gaming friends and we went out to Coral Seafood in Marlborough. The food was pretty darn tasty and there was the usual post-con banter. I was slated to be in a game this morning, but I decided I'd rather be lazy today and sleep in so that's what I did.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with HAVOC. I played in three games using three different systems that I really wanted to try out. My win/loss record wasn't so great, but I had fun in all the games and that's what counts.

Sharkmen and Ironclads

Busy day today, but it started off with some gaming.

First up was some 15mm sci-fi skirmish and playtest of the Impact rule system. On one side we had a group of Space Sharks (replete with Self Contained Out-of-water Breathing Apparatus) backed up by a couple of squads of Andorrans, two shark guys in power armor and a group of Space Ogres. They'd landed on New Tennessee and taken over a small farm. Opposing them were Space Rednecks, their rag-tag collection of vehicles and a squad of Space Legionaries (no idea why they were there).

We set up (hiding some of our troopers) and they came at us. Probably the most interesting thing was one of the shark guys got into a car and rolled over a bunch of enemy troopers. In the end we lost because the space rednecks set fire to the things they were supposed to destroy but we didn't know what their objective was so it was hard to defend against.

The rule system was fast and simple and it used a card-activation system which I enjoy. The basic mechanic was roll 1 die for the quality of your troop (d4 to d8 depending) and the defender rolls their quality die plus another die for any cover. You compared each roll (from highest to lowest on both sides) and scored pins or kills. The problem was that the shooting was very ineffective compared to close-combat -- in shooting, the defender had the extra cover and there really wasn't any way for the attacker to add anything. The GM mentioned that there were rules for support weapons that added an extra die and that would probably be useful in the future. It was a shakedown of the rules and a fun time.

We finished up pretty quickly so I got into a one-on-one game of Hammerin' Iron a Civil War naval ruleset. We had the classic Monitor vs. Merrimack clash. I was in the Merrimack. I was slower and less maneuverable and less armored than my opponent, but I had a broadside that could peel open a fortress -- if I could bring it to bear. The system is kind of interesting, you put down these hexes that your ship "travels" on. This helps determine firing arcs and can be used to resolve rams and other bookkeeping efficiently. You have pseudo-random control over your ships in that you draw a hand of five cards from one of two decks (one more movement oriented, the other more firing oriented). Firing is resolved via a bucket of dice and it's cumulative critical hits that will win the day rather than actually doing enough damage to sink the enemy. My ship had over 2600 hull points so it wasn't going down easily. But every five damage points, another critical hit roll came up.

So I plodded after my nimble opponent. He kept plinking at me. I wasn't able to get a good broadside on him for awhile, but my front-mounted guns did start a couple of pesky fires that did some damage. Finally guessed right, put him on my broadside and hammered his ship causing a smokestack hit that reduced his speed. He returned the favor a couple rounds later and it devolve into a very slow fight until I made a bad critical hit roll and blew up.

So obviously I hate the game. :) No, it was interesting. It probably would be more fun with an extra ship or two on both sides. I think one-on-one fights are a little too small, but you want to be careful or it's going to get way too complex if you have a lot of boats.

So that's what I played today.

Pyrrhic Victory

So today I wandered down to the local hobby shop to participate in a little game of Battletech.

Battletech is one of the oldest "giant stompy robot" games and is probably the brand leader in that particular genre. I used to play it a bit back in the day and while I sat in on a demo game with a friend a couple years back, it's really been years since I've played.

The guy running the event has a nice batch of mechs and he's also got some great terrain set up. He (and his girlfriend apparently) spent a lot of time crafting GHQ Terrain Maker tiles so you could play a 3-D game without worrying about the measuring tape. There were eight of us (about three of whom had recent play experience) and the idea was that we'd pair off into groups of two and fight to the nuclear explosion. The survivor would then square off against the next guy to win his fight and so on until one stood supreme.

I was playing a heavily modified Huntsman which is a 50-ton run-and-gun mech. It was fairly speedy, had jump jets to fly around and had a couple of medium pulse lasers, an AC10 and a PPC -- so it could fly around and hit you with the lasers or it could stand still and hammer you with the PPC or it could fly around and shoot everything and then shut down from all the heat it generated. Pretty standard. My opponent was in a lighter mech who was even speedier and had fairly accurate medium lasers but no heavy punch (or at least no heavy punch that wouldn't force it to slow way down).

The basic problem revealed itself almost immediately: my opponent was just fast enough that win or lose initiative (and he usually won), he could control the range and if he won (forcing me to move first), I had to move carefully, or he'd jump in behind me and take shots at my vulnerable rear facing. His shooting was accurate but didn't do much damage whereas my shots were less accurate but could really put the hurt on if they connected.

So we spent a long time jumping around like fleas while taking pot shots at one another. He got a lot of hits, but he never hit the same spot twice so I was in halfway decent shape. I only hit him every now and then, but I kept scraping through his torso armor. We played pretty much the entire game scouring away at each other.

Then I screwed up a piloting roll, fell over, and snapped off my left arm. I was pretty sure that was about it, but I staggered to my feet and chased after him. Determined to end this one way or another, I charged in close, let fly with everything I had left and obliterated him. I won. I was a wreck, a one-armed, skeletal assembly shambling across the field, but I'd beaten my opponent. So now it was on to the next free guy.

It turns out the next free guy was the only one left. Me and my guy took so long to finish that everyone else was out except for the finalist. We both took a turn to cool off our engines. He was holed up in a castle (built strictly as a tourist attraction) and looked to be tough to winkle out. But he had taken on at least 3 other mechs and was in as bad a shape as I was.

There was only one thing to do -- go balls out and finish this.

So I moved into range and we traded shots. My salvo ripped him to shreds and his return fire returned the favor. We both went up in nuclear fireballs. So...a satisfying end? Well, it was fun and I got a story out of it. I think the only winner was the pilot who went unconscious and was declared eliminated since he at least woke up to find himself the loser rather than everyone else who just flat-out died. In any event, we packed up the game and retired for beer and lunch.

I still don't know about this game. It's all about the mechs to the exclusion of everything else and I feel like there's a few steps in the hit/damage process that could be consolidated to speed things up. But it is a well-supported game and has enough opponents that you could get a game together every so often.

I did really like the terrain the guy had set up. I was surprised to discover that the tiles were just that -- tiles and that you have to paint/flock them to be whatever terrain you want. Considering all the work you have to go through to get the tiles put together, I wonder why you wouldn't just go the distance and buy sheets of blue foam and cut them into hex shapes yourself. In any event, having a bunch of them put together could make for some really nice hex-based games (either hex games converted to minis or free-forms mini games on a hex grid).