My Little Dudes Go to War

Hey,

So you may remember, I had a guy paint up a nice set of 15mm sci-fi troops.  This weekend, I finally got a chance to get them on the table.  Unfortunately, I forgot my iPad so I could only take photos with my camera phone...which isn't the best, frankly.  However, some of the picture came out OK.

So our rule set is Tomorrow's War by Ambush Games which is their sci-fi version of Force on Force -- a rule set I really like for modern warfare games.  Our scenario came straight out of the book.  We set up the table:




So the scenario has a downed pilot taking cover in the building in the center of the photo (you can also see his crashed vehicle nearby).  That brown strip is a river (a very muddy river) with only two fords across it.  A rescue squad of 3 teams of space marines will be entering from the top of the photo.  They're trying to reach the pilot, and get them off the board before the end of Turn 8.  Opposing them will be some squads of the local border legion (my guys).  They aren't quite as high-tech as the rescue squads but there are a few more of them and they do begin play in concealment (marked as small chits of paper).  Reading it over, we weren't quite sure if this was going to be much of a fight.  The rescue forces are very, very good and even outnumbered, they've still got a lot of advantages.

So we get started.  The rescue teams move onto the board and most of legion units open up...to very little effect.  However, one rescue team is overly-eager.  They dash forward, across the bridge and are immediately gunned down... 




Now, the trick with this rule set is that once a guy goes down you don't know if they're really dead or not.  You have to have an active figure go over and check on them.  One of the other rescue teams broke from cover and bolted towards the downed team in an attempt to assess their situation and see if they couldn't get people back on their feet.  Again, they suffered miserably after crossing the river, but two guys remained standing:




A quick check on their comrades and it turned out that no one was dead, but several troopers were too injured to continue the fight.  Meanwhile, although the house with the pilot had been occupied by an enemy squad, several rounds of fire against the house had pretty much eliminated the foe.  The third squad had made it's way cautiously along the edge of the board, moving from cover to cover and eventually rushed the house where it meat up with the pilot and the remnants of the other two rescue teams:




With the third squad covering their retreat, the pilot and a two-man escort tried to race off the board, but time had run out.  The pilot was still on-board at the end of the 8th turn and thus the game went to the all-but-wiped-out Legionaries.

In the end, we were surprised at how close the game had been.  The low tech side died and died and died, but they delayed long enough to eke out a win.  I am pleased to discover that my professionally painted guys appear to have escaped the "too pretty to win" curse that often afflicts well-done miniatures.

Among my various gaming projects for the new year, I want to paint up a few more 15mm Sci-fi forces so my guys have something to fight against.  Specifically some alien armies to deal with.  Should make for games that feel a bit more sci-fi.

later
Tom

Riding in Style with the Red Army

Hey,

  So I've had these finished for a few weeks now and in a fit of "playing with little dudes", I'm just now getting around to showing them off.  You may recall that earlier I picked up a batch of "modern-day" Soviet troops in 15mm.  I finished painting them up but the Soviet Union is a big place and it would take forever for those guys to walk everywhere.  So...




  My Soviet motor pool.  We have 3 BMP-2s (the tracked vehicles on the left), 3 BTR-80s (the 8-wheeled guys on the right) and 1 BRDM-2 scout car (center-top).  More than enough vehicles to transport my troops and even a scout car to check things out.  I should have enough gear to play out some of the "what-if" WWIII scenarios I have for Force-on-Force now.

  I'm not quite sure what's up next.  I think it's going to be 28mm WWII troops.  The guys I play with seem to have settled on Bolt Action as their "go-to" WWII skirmish game so I'll probably put together some guys for that (probably Soviets as well.  I'd like to do some odd-ball groups (Greek, Hungarian or Romanian troops), but the army lists for those won't be out until the end of the year so I'll pick one of the major combatants to have something to play with -- in the demo game I discovered the partisans aren't much good.

  The other thing I'd really like to do (well...get someone to do for me), is a group of WWII US Marines.  However I'd have them painted with Hawaiian shirts, the LT has a fruity drink in his hand, the machine gun team has their surfboards set up behind them, their amtrak all done up and so on.  I want a "McHale's Navy" unit of Marines.  Plus, win or lose, I'm sure it'd always be fun to play with them.

later
Tom

Hey,

 So a company called Khurasan Miniatures produces an excellent miniatures including a bewildering array of 15mm sci-fi ranges. In particular, their Nova Republik range is very well-rounded with infantry, tanks, APCs, and other equipment. I've been wanting to put together a full set of gear to form the core of my 15mm sci-fi collection.

Because the minis are so good, I was also determined that they should get a worthy paint job. A guy named Rich working at a company called Hobby Services regularly sells 15mm sci-fi groups on eBay. They usually get snapped up within a few hours of his posting them for sale. His work is great and he's been tapped by Osprey and Ground Zero Games to do the paint jobs for GZG's upcoming line of miniatures for Tomorrow's War (Osprey's sci-fi variant of Force on Force). So the guy has his chops down.

I got in touch with him and he agreed to take on the job. Earlier this week they showed up. So here's some little dudes I didn't paint, but I'm really happy I got someone else to paint for me.

Actually, his photos are better than what I normally do, so all these photos are by Rich as well. First up, the infantry:


There are about three squads worth of guys here, plus a couple of snipers and command staff figures. I wanted to go with a blue, urban-cammo kind of deal because, hey, it's me and I like blue. Let's get a close-up on these guys:


I think this really shows how good Rich's work it. The little details like the night-vision optics, black-line work and stuff really make these guys pop. Of course, these guys will want some back-up:


These are the heavy weapon teams. Plasma gunners, smart missile and smart mortar launchers all ready for action. In the front is a command base with holo-projector and staff runner. The holo-projector comes with a small square of acetate with a map on it. When you stick it in the slot, it looks like the projector is really causing the map to show up. It's a nice little touch.

Here's who you don't want to see standing next to that projector:


In the official range, this guy is listed as a political officer or commissar. My plan is to re-purpose the figures as a mercenary group called Thompson Security Products. So you're looking at the VP of Sales and Marketing for this sector. Too often, the long suffering company commander is just trying to run his operation when the VP shows up. At least the commissar would just shoot you for non-performance.

But how will we cart all these guys around?


With Hedgehog APCs of course. One for each squad. The photo doesn't show the small turret but you can see the spot where they go. So the Hedgehogs can provide some fire support.

When you need a bit more fire support, you can call these guys:


A platoon of Red Eagle tanks. Incidentally, the cammo pattern was adapted from zebra camouflage used on Allied ships during WWII. The tanks were a little bumpy for a straight zebra pattern, but I think he did a good job. It may seem like poor camouflage, but my idea is that this is the "rest pattern" of the vehicle's Cuttlefish Active Camouflage System. When in motion, the vehicle's color is constantly adapting to what's around it. It's some of the most advanced tech the company possesses and it lets me do fun things like this.

So that's pretty good. What about some artillery?


The Little Darling Semi-Autonomous Artillery Drone (SAD) platoon. As you can see, there are a variety of swap-out turrets for direct fire, indirect rocket barrage and anti-aircraft missions. It was probably a little bit of overkill fitting out all the turrets, but I was indulging myself a little bit and they look sweet.

 Last, but not least, what's a sci-fi army without some power armor?


A 2-man squad of Python power armor. These stand about twice the height of a man and provide heavy firepower in places the tracked armor can't get to. Again, a great looking batch of minis and I love the paint job.

So that's my group of professionals. They look even better in person than in the photos and I'm really jazzed at how well they came out. Now I just need to find some opponents and get them on to the table. Of course, the general rule of thumb is that the better a group of minis look, the worse they do when you play with them. Well, die in style I suppose.

Hey,

This weekend I ran a game of Force On Force for my usual gaming group down at Hobby Bunker. The scenario came out of the Enduring Freedom source book and was supposed to represent the fighting that took place in the early days of Operation Anaconda in March of 2002. That operation was marked by a number of snafus and screw-ups that could've spelled disaster for the Americans and it was only the bravery and determination of troops on the ground that got them home safe again.

In our game, the Americans were all out of luck.

Here's the initial set-up of the game:



You can see the Americans are all clustered together. They've basically just stormed off their Chinook helicopters unaware that the hills around them are swarming with Taliban.


This is a broader shot from the "south" end of the board. You can see the line of hills on either edge of the board and the compound that the Americans are supposed to take.


And finally, here's a high-angle shot from the "north" looking down over the compound and back to the American's LZ.

Here's what I thought was going to happen -- the Americans would take a pasting for two turns (by scenario rules, the Taliban go first on the first two turns), but their body armor and advanced medical skills would keep their guys in the fight. By turn 3 they'd have a chance to gain the initiative and rush the compound. On turn 4 the Apache helicopter air support shows up and after that the Americans would start to clear the board. Final point totals would be close.

 The Americans never made it out of their deployment zone.


This is the end of Turn 1. The enemy mortar team is rolling really well and causing casualties among the Americans. The only unharmed squad has had to break up and move among the fallen squad so that at the start of the next turn, they can make casualty checks to determine the status of all the troops.

At the start of Turn 2, almost all the Americans stand back up, only to be pounded back into the dirt by the Taliban forces ringing the valley (again, just phenomenally high rolls on lots of dice by the attackers that the Americans couldn't defend against).

 On Turn 3, almost all of the remaining Americans stand up, but they lose the initiative and they all fall back down again. The Taliban send out a couple of squads to try and finish them off.


Start of Turn 4. The only American still standing is the TAC officer. If he can survive the turn, he can call in an airstrike and possibly turn the tide of this fight. But again, the Americans lose initiative and the Taliban blow him off his feet.

With all the Americans down, there's no one left to apply first aid. The Americans are helpless and the Taliban swoop in:


Obviously that was the end of the game. By the end of Turn 3, the Taliban had racked up so many points in kills/serious injury that even if the Americans had accomplished all of their objectives, the Taliban still would've won.

It was an incredibly lop-sided affair. I know a large part of this was the monster die rolls the Taliban were getting, but the scenario gave a lot of bonuses to them as well and the Americans just couldn't get initiative or air support fast enough.

I apologized about the one-sided-ness of the game, but everyone did seem to have a pretty good time and they're interested in trying other scenarios so I guess that's a win. It's too bad, I was hoping to use this scenario later in August for the club's game day, but I might have to change it to something else. I really need to get more terrain put together. Being out in the open like that is killer, especially between two evenly matched opponents and most scenarios are a little more urban in nature.

Ah well, chalk one up for experience.
Tom

In Soviet Russia, Little Dudes Paint YOU!

Hey,

So I started in on the small mountain of 15mm modern-day Soviet figures I picked up at HAVOC this year. Here's the first platoon:


These are from Irregular Miniatures and while they're not the best castings in the world (and had a ton of flash to get rid of), they did actually paint up pretty well. The only problem is that the packs came with 9 guys with light machine guns, but only 8 guys with RPG launchers. So our of the 9 squads, one of them came up short on RPGs. This particular platoon has the shorted squad. Annoying, but probably not the end of the world.

But, like I say, it's a whole mess of troops (and the pack includes HMGs, Mortars, Snipers and Anti-Air missile troops) so once I finish painting up all the guys I got, I'll have a respectable Soviet force for some "what-if" WWIII games.

later
Tom

Hey,

I painted up some more little dudes...and a building. So this is another boxed set from RAFM's Shadows and Steel line produced in the early 80's. This time out, we have The Wizard's Adventuring Party. Here's their group shot for their marketing collateral:


A steady bunch. First we'll meet with the leader:


This is (Rock me) Amadeus, the Wizard in "Wizard's Adventuring Party". How bad-ass is this guy? This guy is so bad-ass he's got a monster to ferry him around. Monster's name is Ross and while he can bring the pain, he's mostly just there to carry Amadeus around in style. Seriously, Adjo would've loved this.


Desirei here serves as the group's on-call ranged attacker but she's also got a magic shortsword and is proficient in a wide range of small arms. So I figure she hangs back with Amadeus and acts as the meat-shield of last resort. A fun little figure and a female adventurer who actually looks like she's about to go adventuring so full marks for that.


Puc the Pious is the spiritual adviser and moral lynchpin of the group...or they put up with him because he's got magical healing spells. No, probably the former. Puc has a +1 mace and the ability to Speak With Dead. So he tends to bash first and ask questions later.


Icewolf. Because every adventuring party needs a Viking. Not to be confused with Airwolf but there's little chance of that I'm afraid.


Maximylon of Gloreon. Because every adventuring party needs some elf with a convoluted back-story no one cares about. Maximylon has loads of magic doo-dads, but is not, technically, a sword-mage so there are some small mercies.


Gomer Thief the Half-Gnoll. Well, he's probably not a half-gnoll, he's just that ugly. He's also less of a thief and more of a 4th level fighter if his stat block is to be believed...which I don't I think it's a typo. But he sneaks around looking for problems and runs away when he finds it.

You'll notice that I've actually textured the bases of these figures ("flocked" them is the jargon). This is something I don't usually do because it's a complete pain in the ass. This time around...it was a pain in the ass but it seems to have worked out.

Finally, I also put this little beauty together:


This is a 15mm Afghan Compound put out by GameCraft Miniatures. I need one for the game I'm running at the end of the month and I've been interested in their range of products and wanted to give it a try.

The model is made from thin pieces of laser-cut MDF board. So it's light but sturdy. The whole thing went together pretty easily but I wish there had been a one-page assembly diagram. I had to refer back to the catalog photo to make sure I was assembling the pieces correctly. I'm also trying to figure out how to best cover up the tabs/slots/joints. You can see them in the photo even after some heavy base-coating and painting. I don't really want to have to spackle the whole thing though.

However -- I really like the way the model looks, it wasn't a pain to assemble and compared to the resin-cast stuff I've worked with before, it's as good or better in most categories. So I may be doing a few more of these. I'm hoping that next year is mostly a "make terrain" year for me. We'll see.

So getting the building done means I'm all set for my game later this month. The Wizard's Adventuring Party was just a fun bunch of guys to paint up. Next on the block are a batch of 15mm Soviet troops. I was looking them over this morning...these are some of the most poorly cast minis I've ever seen so I'm a little dubious over how they'll turn out, but having some cheap WARPAC fodder on hand will get my WWIII games jumpstarted.

later
Tom

The Iron Brotherhood

Hey, So at HAVOC this year, I picked up some old RAFM boxed sets of fantasy figures. I painted up the first batch. Say hello to the Iron Brotherhood:



It's a group of morally flexible bruisers between 5th-7th level who are ready to throw down. Let's meet them shall we?



First up, we've got the leader of the group Zakasar Doomvelt -- he's the guy riding the lion. He's a bit on the short side, but he's totally a bad-ass. Lion's name is Tamurlane and he never turns into Cringer. Dude next to him is Galgulum who carries the group's standard. He also sends messages over that drum he's got. And the drumstick? Magical +1 club. He'll beat out a tune for you.



Next up the guys who do most of the front-line fighting. Drakar Doubledeath has a question he'd like to "axe" you. Actually, he's got two questions he wants to "axe" you. After he "axes" you his questions, there won't be any more questions. Trerok Toungefire on the other had keeps both hands on his magic sword and just carves you like a Thanksgiving turkey in a wood-chipper. Great pair of guys. Workaholics though.



So, the guy's name is Beatrice...odd name for a guy. It's also weird that he's a 5th level Fighter and not a Ranger since you'd expect anyone calling themselves the Beast Master would be a ranger. Then again, no stupid ferrets. So yeah, Beatrice's weapon specialization is in attack beasts and his weapon of choice today is Armadillicus, who is no slouch in the mess you up department. He's got a claw/claw/bite of d8/d8/d10 and an AC of 1 so he's a pretty tough customer. Certainly a distraction you can't ignore.



You'll note that these guys don't go in for that "balanced party" crap. No thief, no cleric (I assume they just glare each other better if they get hurt), but in a world of Dungeons and Drag -- I mean Shadows and Steel you're gonna need just a pinch of magic mummy dust. U-Huri Simak, Necromancer who has no necromantic spells but does have Fireball is the odd man out (well, the odd class out). He's got a rockin mask and staff, he's neutral evil, and his primary goal in life is to hook up with the Hand and Eye of Vecna (man after my own undead heart). Probably hates this gig, but his student loans are just ridiculous and he needs the GPs.

 So that's it. The whole sorry lot. The names are classic D&D though and I need to remember to be a bit more loopy when naming my PCs in the future. These were a fun bunch of guys to paint up and a fair bit more colorful than the usual modern-day guys I've been doing. I've got another box set from the series, a group headed up by a wizard. Hasn't been promoted to "old guy at the tavern who gives you a mission", he's still got to go into the field. But he's got an oddball group of misfits to help him out. Photos when they're finished.

later
Tom

Little Vehicles for Little Dudes

Hi, I finished up another round of painting. This time, it's a bunch of vehicles.

So first up, we've got a couple of technicals -- civilian pick-up trucks with heavy weapons installed. No spinning rims, no thumping base, no under-body neon, just a guarantee that no one will cut you off:



I'm not super-happy with these. The models are by Peter Pig and they're great, but gluing on the wheels was a bit of a pain. The real problem is that I picked fairly light body colors and when I brushed on the "dip", it made them look really dirty/muddy. Maybe it'll be ok on the table when viewed from a distance, but I should've found a lighter shade of dip for these. Ah well, at least the Insurgents have some mobile firepower now.

Too bad we've also bulked out the US forces with a pair of Humvees:


Again, these are 15mm models by Peter Pig. The turrets are interchangeable and they sell the turrets separately. So in this shot I've got one .50 cal. machine gun turret and a TOW launcher turret and I've got another turret of each type so I can mix and match as I see fit. I also have two leftover HMG turrets so I might get another pair of TOW hummers in the future and have a nice set.

 The US also get one of my favorite vehicles:


The LAV-25 is, in my personal opinion, one of the sexiest military vehicles out there. Fast troop transport capability, good firepower, amphibious, comes in numerous variants, what's not to love? So now I've got one. This one is by QRF minis and I hope to get some more in the future. A pretty easy model to put together and paint, the only issue is that the gun barrel broke off and I had to putty it back on. Oh well. It's nice to have on hand.

Finally, the first of my WWIII models:


Soviet T-80 tanks, the pride and joy of the Red Army and still in use today. These were also from QRF and were kind of a bitch to assemble. There were a ton of extra "bits" and no instructions on where they'd go (Internet research didn't help). Those two drums on the back of the tanks were very poorly designed and took a lot of work to get stuck on there. Still, they painted up pretty well and it's a good start.

So that's all the vehicles. I was planning to move on to some 28mm fantasy figures I picked up at HAVOC, but I need to order/build/paint a building for an Afghanistan Force on Force game I'm running at the end of June. The building should be a pretty fast job, but I want to make sure it's done before committing to other stuff.

later Tom

Boom! Headshot!

Hey,

Another batch of painting finished (I'm really making progress).



So here we have some Insurgent Heavy Weapon Teams and a brace of snipers. All of these minis are 15mm Peter Pig products. So there's 8 snipers, 3 mortars with two crew and 3 recoiless rifles with three crew. I had a left-over crew guy so I painted him up as a spare leader.

This particular round put me smack up against the "hot dogs vs. hot dog buns" problem. The mortar and recoiless rifles come six to a pack and buying enough crew figures to properly man all of them would've been exorbitant. So now I've got some spare heavy weapons. Luckily, I'll probably roll them into the WarPac forces when I get around to painting them later this year.

I also had a great bit of customer service. When I ordered the figures from Brookhurst Hobbies, the packs containing the crew figures were mis-labled so I got the wrong two packs of Insurgents with LMGs. It was an honest mistake and not the store's fault at all, but they told me to keep the packs and rush shipped me the correct figures. So that was good of them -- I don't really need the extra 16 dudes, but maybe I can trade them away or some other project will come up.

Next up -- Vehicles...lots of vehicles.

later
Tom

One shot, one kill...we're gonna need a lot of shots...

Hi,

So I finished painting up another batch of little dudes.

So here's what we've got:



It's another pack of minis from Rebel Minis. Again, not the most detailed in the world, but I really needed to get a bunch of foot soldiers and you can get a big pack of them for cheap. In the front, I also picked up Rebel Minis's US Sniper teams. The only thing the US foot troops really need now are crew-served weapons, but those don't come up much in most of my scenarios. I'd rather find a couple more Forward Observer types.

So now I'm painting up a few Insurgent snipers and crew-served weapons. After that, I've got a few vehicles to put together (Hummers and Technicals) and then I'll be pretty well squared away for most of the US/Insurgent scenarios I've got to hand.

later
Tom

Free Market Forces

Hey,

So the last of my 2011 Mountain of Lead was finally painted up yesterday.



These are Thompson Security Products's finest. Thompson Security Products is a private military contractor (PMC) providing high-quality protection for facilities and personnel in parts of the world where the local security situation may be sub-optimal. They can also arrange for kinetic extractions when necessary. They're a pricey outfit but every Security Associate is an ex-Special Forces member (SEALs, SAS, GSC 9, etc.) so it's well worth the money.

Anyway, I really liked painting up these guys. The figures are from Rebel Minis and they include a hostage and two businessmen so we've got someone to rescue/protect.

So yeah, the 2011 mountain is gone. Now the 2012 mountain is rolling in. I've got that Soviet army pack and 25mm fantasy figures I picked up at HAVOC and I've got more insurgent stuff coming in. Going over the scenario books I have, I need another batch of insurgent foot troops and a few heavy weapon teams (mortars, snipers, etc.). The Americans are getting some Hummers and sniper teams. Once this portion of the mountain is finished I've got about 30 scenarios I can just pull guys and go play. The US/Insurgent forces will be complete for all practical purposes and then I can focus on painting up stuff for WWIII scenarios.

later
Tom

Raising a little HAVOC

Hey,

So this weekend I went to HAVOC, a wargaming convention put on by Boston Battlegroup every year in late March/early April. It's a fun time and a chance to try a bunch of new stuff, do a little shopping and I've been going pretty steadily for the past few years. Also, this year a number of games were being run by the guys at Boston Trained Bands who I usually game with on Saturday monrings. I didn't run any games or help the guys with theirs, although I did help them playtest stuff they were doing.

So what did I do?

On Friday night, I played in Hill 112 -- a WWII game centering on the tank fight in Normandy for the titular hill. I took on the Germans with another player and we faced off against a team of three guys commanding the Brits. I picked this game because of the ruleset it was using called Panzer by James M. Day. It's gone through several iterations as a boardgame, a miniatures game and GMT will be republishing it in boardgame form soon. I'm on the pre-order list for the GMT version and the rules seemed a little...complex. As you might guess from the name, the game focuses on tank battles in WWII where each tank model is one tank and each stand of infantry is a squad of guys. The focus on individual tanks means that every kind of tank is modeled with different armor in different places and there are a fair number of charts and modifiers and stuff. So I figured I'd try the game to see if it was actually worth picking up.

The short version is -- I think so. Once you work out the modifiers for a given shot, it probably won't change a great deal unless both you and your opponent radically change you positions relative to each other. So you look up on the chart what percentile you need to roll under to hit. If you hit, there are a number of follow-on d10s to roll to determine where and what you hit and if there's any extra "oomph" to your shot. So what you do is roll a handful of d10s of different colors each time you fire. It's soon very easy to tell if your percentile dice obviously hit or obviously miss and only in a few situations will you have to actually fiddle with the chart to determine the precise to-hit number. If you have hit, the follow-on dice have already been rolled and you're good to go.

So the system is good, how was the game? We had four Panzer IVs and three Tigers. Some PaK 40 artillery pieces and a few infantry squads. We also had a bunch of dummy tanks and troops to keep the Brits guessing and two lines of dense smoke laid down by off-board artillery to make shooting us tougher (although it worked against us as well). Facing us were about 12-16 Sherman tanks and trucks/halftracks loaded down with infantry. We were wildly outnumbered. I was also saddled with a co-commander who was more interested in his iPhone than the game and constantly suggested rushing out of our prepared defensive positions and down the hill into the teeth of the enemy.

Despite this, he could roll low when it counted and we soon turned the plains of Normandy into a Sherman tank junkyard. The Shermans were basically built to help out infantry and not duel other tanks. They certainly weren't ready to take on late-war German panzers and tigers. Every time we got a hit, a vehicle died. Their shots kept going wild and even when they hit, our heavy armor, prepared positions and uphill location meant the shots never did anything. They did get one lucky shot with an up-gunned Sherman firefly that knocked out a Tiger and their artillery managed to take out a Panzer IV, but those were our only real losses. We destroyed or severely damaged about 10 of their tanks and the assault ground to a halt. The game got called on account of time, but it was clear we had the upper hand.

In "real life" of course, the Brits would just retreat and show up the next day with another 20 Shermans to make a run at us. The Germans wouldn't be replacing their losses and eventually Hill 112 would fall to the Allies.

The next morning, I was in a homebrew game by the Two Ed's involving Lithuanian partisans fighting the hated Soviet occupiers in the late 1940's. Apparently Lithuania was a lot like Chechnya -- guerrilla actions against the Soviets trying to free their (formerly) independent state. Their rebellion eventually came to a close in the mid-50's when they were out of guns and an amnesty was announced.

This game used an interesting command and control mechanism. There were a number of pawns on the board. During any phase of the game, if you had a guy within 4" of a pawn who hadn't already acted that turn, you could take the action on that phase (supressive fire, movement, grenades, etc.) and then mark him as having acted. Some units were leaders capable of activating themselves and 1-3 other guys (even guys who had already acted that turn). So you could chain leaders together to get large groups moving and firing. At the end of a turn, you could move the pawns up to 12". So you would string together a line of pawns because if you ran a bunch of your guys forward where none of your pawns were, then the rest of the guys were stuck and unable to do anything. Of course, the total number of pawns was limited and there were three guys to a side so you need to be careful about where you put the pawns and how you moved them so that everyone would be able to do stuff. Fun system. Took a little getting used to and some guys were still thrown by it.

So, I was on the Lithuanian side. We had lots of objectives. We were raiding a bio-mass electrical plant that supplied Lithuania with what little electricity they had. The plant was being visited by a party official (kill or capture), guarded by a Lithuanian police garrison (traitors! kill them!), grab any cool Soviet weapons we come across, raise the official Lithuanian flag over the police HQ. We had a lot of stuff. The more we accomplished, the better we were doing.

"That's a bio-mass reactor?" I asked.
"Yeah," said Ed, "they create methane gas and store it in that huge tank there. Then they burn it for electricity."
"OK," I said. "Anything else?"
"Yeah, you guys have a panzerfaust to use on any armored cars the Soviets have."

So. I've got a shoulder-launched anti-tank rocket that pierces armor and blows up.

There's a huge tank of methane gas that generates the electricity.

I'm supposed to take out the electric power station.

Dear Reader, what would you have done?

So yeah, concentrate on the side closest to the power plant and dash in. Our group on the right flank got pinned down by Soviet troops in the center and we had a bit of a tussle from a machine gun as we got into the plant, but we got into position, I pulled out the panzerfaust and pulled the trigger.

Apparently, neither of the Eds had considered the possibility that someone might be crazy enough to try this. A quick conference and I rolled 3d10. It came up 9-9-9 -- so a 28" blast radius that set off the smaller benzene tank, destroyed the power plant and injured just about everyone inside. The only fatality, however, was the Lithuanian hero who fired the panzerfaust and blew up the plant. Luckily the Lithuanian medic survived and was able to quickly get just about everyone back into the fight within a turn or two.

It was all over but the shouting. The troops in the center barricade we couldn't quite root out although we were slowly whittling them away. The local Soviet official, we did manage to kill off and we terrified a Soviet film crew who sadly lost all footage of our glorious assault in the fire that burned down the guard tower they were in. We also managed to eliminate the NKVD officer who was limping away from the flaming destruction. While we hadn't really hammered the police barracks or raised our national flag, we had pretty convincingly achieved most of our victory conditions and in spectacular style.

At the end of the game I got "player of the game" so I got a free bonus button/bade from HAVOC. It was fun.

Finally, in the afternoon I played "The Bear went over the Mountain" a Force on Force game set during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Since I was on a roll, I figured I'd keep playing the insurgent force even though I knew it was going to be an uphill slog.

The thing I like about Force on Force is that when you're done, both sides feel like they've been through the wringer. From our standpoint, the insurgents aren't as well trained as the Soviets and our guys just died and died and died. "Victory" consists solely of how many Soviets we can take out before they kill us all. The Soviet player just has to deal with wave after wave of insurgents and he's always outnumbered and always taking fire and every time one of his guys dies, it really hurts his performance.

So in the event, we died and died and died and traded 6-8 of our guys for every one of theirs. They had a Hind attack helicopter strafe us a couple of times, but then a random event card caused that same helicopter to accidentally hit their own guys killing a couple more and grounding the chopper. My troops were pretty well protected and we caused a couple of casualties, but my crowning achievement was popping up and hitting the Soviet's BMP with my RPG and wrecking it. Shortly after that it was just my guys left on the board and we slipped away into the night.

Final tally, we lost 20-25 guys, the Soviets lost 6-7 and one BMP. So we totally won. It was a good time. Force on Force is a fun ruleset and I'm looking forward to doing more games at Hobby Bunker.

I also replenished my mountain of lead. I picked up an army pack of 100 modern Soviet troops that I can use for Afghanistan and WWIII games. It was a good deal and while I don't have total control over what I got, I definitely have enough to form the core of a Russian army and it should be easy to round it out with other stuff to get a good fighting force up quickly. I also picked up some old RAFM boxed sets. These are "adventuring party" sets from the early- to mid-80's and they've got a lot of that Old-School D&D flavor to them. They should be fun to paint up. They also appear to be "true" 25mm so they probably won't be much larger than the gnomish barbarian I have. It'll be interesting to work in such a "large scale" when I get to it.

Anyway. That was HAVOC and it was fun.

later
Tom

Now that we've taken over, we're the professional soldiers

Hey,

More mini painting...

Here we have a batch of African Army regulars by Rebel Minis. It's 27 guys in uniform, beret and AK47:



The real problem here is that I don't have any guys with RPGs or light machine guns. It's possible that they're better trained than the militia I recently painted up but they may not have the firepower to beat them.

I'm pleased to announce that my "Mountain of Lead" has become something of a molehill. I've got one last batch of infantry to paint up -- some Private Military Contractors, plus a couple of civilian/hostage figures. And that's all my infantry. I'll still have one or two tanks but basically I'll have worked through the pile. I need to start thinking about what's next for me. I know I need to flesh out the motor pool for both the US and Insurgent forces (Hummers and Technicals). Beyond that, I'm not quite sure what will be needed. I also want to get started on the Cold War Russian troops so I can play my what-if WWIII games. And then there's the sci-fi stuff to consider.

Anyway, I've just about cleared my decks and I've actually played a game with the forces I painted up so I'm pretty happy.

later
Tom

How about I actually run a game?

Hey,

So you know how I've been painting up a bunch of little dudes? The whole point is to run some games with them. And this weekend, that's what I did.

I hang out with a group called Boston Trained Bands and they run regular Saturday morning games out of the Hobby Bunker in Malden MA. So since I had the rules and the troopers and they had some terrain to loan me, I ran a game for them.

This particular game used the Force on Force ruleset form Ambush Games (published by Osprey) and this particular scenario came from their Road to Baghdad sourcebook. From the scenario description:

Umm Qasr, Iraq March 22, 2003

Elements of the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit (Special Operations Capable) entered the port city of Umm Qasr to secure the port facilities. On March 22, at an administration building near the harbor, a patrol got into a small firefight that quickly became an intense gun battle as Marines sought to surround and eliminate the enemy threat.

In this particular game, the American players have to clear out the Iraqi players from the various buildings around the port. They gain points for each group of Iraqis eliminated and for being in complete control of the board by turn 8. On the other side, the Iraqis get points for each American trooper they wound/kill, managing to remain on the board for 8 turns, and points if the Americans accidentally destroy port infrastructure.

So here's the set-up



The Americans enter from the bottom of the photo. The Iraqis are scattered throughout the various buildings and are considered hidden until the Americans spot them or the Iraqi shoots at the Americans. That large building near the top with the elaborate front is the Admin building.

Things got hairy very quickly:



The Americans sent a squad to the northernmost building to clear it out and form a flanking fire base. The thing is, Force on Force isn't just "i go, you go", when your opponent is moving, you have to opportunity to declare that you'll take a shot at him while he's in the open (or shoot before he shoots you or run away before he can shoot you, etc.). The American player had an advantage in the .50 machine gun team he'd set up on Overwatch. Overwatch lets you interrupt an opponent's interrupt. It sounds a little complicated but it actually worked out pretty smoothly.

In any event, the machine gun team didn't react in time and the Iraqis managed to inflict a couple of casualties. Then the machine gun team ripped into them. However, the Iraqis are pretty highly motivated and held fast.

The other thing to note is that while the Americans suffered two casualties, when their status was checked at the start of the next turn, it was discovered that one was perfectly fine and the other had only a minor wound that didn't impair his ability to fight. The Americans have body armor and their superior training lets them roll d8's vs. the d6's that the Iraqis roll. What this all means is that it's very hard for the Iraqis to hurt the Americans which is why they get so many points for individual American troopers while the Americans have to wipe out whole squads of Iraqis before they score.

Meanwhile, on the southern half of the board, a line of Americans advanced on a building, anxious to determine if there was someone hidden in the building directly in front of them. Sadly, it was just a decoy, but they didn't learn that before a nearby high-rise lit up:



This particular high-rise contained the Iraqi's heavy machine gun team and they let rip into the Americans. The result was several seriously wounded soldiers that had to be evacuated back to the starting line for CASEVAC. The group in the high-rise also managed to shut down the American's .50 cal weapon team and was becoming a right nuisance.

One of the American fireteams decided to throw caution to the wind and rush the building in front of them to get more cover:



Now they had a protected spot to shoot at the Iraqis in the high-rise. You can also see that the Iraqi teams in the Admin building have finally been wiped out by steady fire from the Americans and now they're advancing on it to close the pincer. You can also see the Iraqi team on the lower right that had also been giving the Americans problems but compared to the heavy machine gun, they were the lesser of two evils.



At the start of Turn Four, an M1A1 Abrams showed up to help. It arrived sporting some battle damage (I dropped the turret when I put the model on the table -- eeek!). However, it didn't really do too much. They fired a round into the high-rise in an attempt to drop the building, but it plowed into the basement and didn't really affect it. Meanwhile, the Americans had closed in and a round of volleys from all the fireteams quickly cleared the high-rise. After that, there was only a little mopping up to do and the Iraqis were driven from the board.

By the end of Turn 4 the game was over. All that was left was to tally up the scores. The Americans achieved all their objectives. However, they'd suffered quite a few casualties (two dead and five seriously wounded). Beyond that, the Americans had been a little careless with their fire and had destroyed some of the Port's facilities (strangely, it was the MP40 grenades and not the tank rounds that did most of the damage). That all added up and the Iraqis won a Pyrrhic victory 19 to 15.

It was a tough fight all around I continue to be pleased with the Force on Force ruleset. There were a few rule goofs here and there. The important ones for me to remember for next time are:

• You can't combine units to form larger fireteams. This isn't as attractive when you remember that...
  
• ...you can't have more than 10 dice in your attacking firepower pool. The large Iraqi cells could generate a pool of 14 dice easy, but that just means you can keep your firepower high despite the inevitable casualties you're going to take.
  
• Insurgents check for casualties just like regular army guys do. I was just eliminating them. Some of them could've stayed in the fight a bit longer.

There were probably some other things I screwed up, but those were the most notable. Anyway, everyone seemed to have a good time and were interested in trying it again, so we'll see what we can do. Maybe something later in May or June.

So that was fun
Tom

The Rabble Roused

Hey,

I finished up more little dudes.

So first up, I needed to flesh out the heavy firepower for my Arab Insurgent forces. Peter Pig to the rescue:





So here we've got 8 guys armed with RPGs, another 8 with machine guns and up front there's three heavy machine guns and their crew.

I gotta say, Peter Pig continues to be some of the nicest 15mm miniatures I've worked with. Nice chunky detail, a variety of poses and little or no flash to clean off. My only big mistake is that I glued the HMG and the crew into place and then painted them all on one base. I should've painted them separately and assembled them when I was done. Ah well. I think they turned out well enough and now I've got plenty of guys for the Force on Force scenario early next month.

So with the minis painted up for my game, it was time to attack the mountain of lead and prep for some other projects. African conflicts have also been really interesting to me and I've got a bunch of African forces by Rebel Minis. This is the first batch, some African Militia:





So Rebel Minis are pretty hit or miss. Most of the Insurgents and US Army guys turned out ok and the price offset the fact that the Peter Pig stuff is clearly better. This group? Kinda terrible. The legs/feet are kinda blobby and melt into the base. The detail just isn't very good and the models are all based off of three stock types and aren't very differentiated.

But it's good practice and large mobs can cover a lot of sins. But I'm pretty sure that I'm going to be sticking with Peter Pig figures for troops from here on out. Well...after I finish painting my remaining stocks of Rebel Minis that I picked up on sale.

I just wish someone made good Warsaw Pact figures in 15mm.

I also need to pick up a pin vice to get some vehicles assembled and some terrain pieces should be rolling off the line in the next couple of days.

Anyway, that's what I've been up to. I hope this game in March goes over well.

later
Tom

Take me to your leaders

Hey,

So at the tail end of 2011, I finished up some more little dudes, so here are the photos:

All of these are 15mm modern-era dudes I'm painting up for a game of Force on Force that I'll be running in early March.

First up, I finished off the Command Platoon for the US Army guys:





There's a command squad with the platoon leader and sergeant, a radio guy, a medic, and two riflemen. There's a standard fireteam and a pair of Javelin-equipped tank hunter teams. Up front, you can see the platoon's heavy firepower in the form of five heavy machine gun teams.

This combined with the vehicles should take care of most of my needs for US forces.

Vehicles? Yeah:





That's a pair of M1 Abrams tanks for those pesky fortifications and a brace of Bradley APCs to help transport all my soldiers to the fight.

These were the first vehicles I've ever painted up and they went really quickly. Which is good because the US motor pool still needs some filling out. I need a batch of Hummers (with various armament load outs), a Stryker or two, a couple of Amtrac AAV's, some LAV-25's, and some M113s (for Vietnam/80's Cold War scenarios). Expect to see a few more projects along these lines in 2012

That's a lot of stuff for the American's. How about beefing up the insurgent forces? Not a problem:





So these are 15mm minis from Peter Pig's line of Arab/PLO fighters. I picked them to provide a little variety to the forces and because the range includes some specialists types that the Rebel minis didn't have. In particular, they have dedicated commander figures and heavy weapon teams. This batch of 24 is mostly grunts armed with AK47's and a small group of leaders and a couple of radiomen.

Although I really like the bandit-masked gunmen from the Rebel Minis set, there was a lot more variety and interest in the Peter Pig figures and they look a little less rag-tag which means they could substitute as Iraqi regular forces.

Anyway, I've got one more batch of Irregulars on the way (heavy weapon teams with RPGs and MGs of various sorts). Then I've got enough guys to run the scenario I've got in mind for March. I could stand to have another batch of the Rebel Minis put together (in Force on Force games the insurgents usually show up in droves and die just as fast). They could also stand to have a few vehicles -- very likely pickup trucks with guns mounted on them, which are good for African conflicts as well. They could also stand to have a couple sniper teams, maybe a mortar or two, and some civilian mobs.

However, after this next batch of Insurgents, I've got a small mountain of lead to plow through. There's a group of "security contractors" and a batch of African militia/military troopers. I've also got a few more vehicles to put together and then we can turn to new stuff. Finally, there's a nice line of science-fiction troopers being put out by Khurasan minis that I might commission someone more talented than me to paint up. We'll see.

The summary by the way:

• 113 25mm Plastic Saxons (Dark-Ages)
  
• 23 25mm WWII Partisans
  
• 1 25mm Gnomish Barbarian
  
• 44 15mm Insurgents
  
• 63 15mm US Infantry
  
• 2 M1 Tanks
  
• 5 Bradley APCs
  

Which is pretty much the most painting I've ever done in a year.

later
Tom