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