Getting A Few Games In

While it might all seem to have been about the challenge in the dark winter months, as we emerge into spring I have managed a few games in recently. First AdeD of Wyvern ran a group of us through some games of Dead Man's Hand one club night, which seems to be the go to ruleset for wild west gaming. I dug out my small group of painted lawmen (on the bevelled bases) and faced BobC's outlaws across three scenarios. It was a wee while back, so I'll skip the AAR and commentary and just show you the goodies...


With an upstanding citizen down, Not-The-Man-With-No-Name fires wildly at the mexican in pajamas

My Depudee heads off in pursuit of a ner'do'well

A Lawman using bystanders as cover - not sporting but otherwise he'd have been toast from those Mexicans!

Bustling street shot - Bob supplied plenty of civilians to witness the carnage

Scenario three ends with a gunfight outside the dressmaker's, of all places. 

There was a lot to enjoy about Dead Man's Hand - it has good production values and I enjoyed the variety and flavour that were added by the dual activation/action cards. I liked that it isn't IGO-UGO with the card-driven initiative, though it was a bit faffy moving the little cards around all of the time. But, I wasn't convinced that the scenarios were balanced as the lawmen seemed to struggle and thought some of the mechanics, like the 'quick draw' card for initiative were gimmicky. Also, with a campaign system to be added soon, I was surprised at the size of the starter gangs - I'm not sure the card-driven initiative will scale upwards much as gangs grow without becoming tiresome. Still, as an occasional pick up game it is entirely playable and has much more flavour and 'story' written in to it compared to say Legends of the Old West. Happily, I've already got a handful of lawmen painted so should be able to throw down games every now and then. But I'm surprised to report that IO'm not particualrly tempted to rush out and bu the ruleset and play loads of games. Given how many people enjoy it, perhaps I have very high thresholds these days!



A couple of weeks later and I was back at Wyvern for a quite lovely Starship Troopers game hosted by Stu of Dust, Tears and Dice. Stu wants to run an SST campaign that lets players drop in and out while keeping the campaign running - perfect for a fortnightly club like Wyvern. Each time, the players will take Mobile Infantry squads and Stu will steamroller them with hordes of bugs. The best MI commander over the campaign gets Though he was clearly going easy on us for Game 1. Out mission - converge on a suspected bugs nest and collapse it with our heavy support. Stu's writeup is here.

Move out. My squad nicknamed 'Lucky Devils' and supporting Chickenhawk make steady time down from the landing zone

Ambush! AdeD's squad are surprised by first contact.

Things start getting hairy for Paul and Ade's squads either side of mine as bugs start swarming

The Fleet's view of the engagement - MI firepower starts to tell

Fire in the hole! *Pssssht* Bug hole down

Tanker bug!

Yes, that's my squad that he's bearing down on.

At which point, Acting Skymarshal AdeD got a lot of abuse for not bothering to invest in any Fleet support assets for this engagement.


Paul's squad, Baldwin's B*stards take casualties to scything claws and swooping fliers. Even the vid-corder crew are taking hits!

After two rounds with no initiative, the tanker final succumbs to my infantry and Chickenhawk. 

It went down to my last missile though - after which it would have had the chance to char-grill the lot of them!

*Geronimo - bug nest down, repeat bug nest down*

With the last throw of the dice, I complete our objective - moments before being overrun by the swarm that just forced Paul's squad to withdraw. 

Between the bug holes, tanker bug and a handful of trooper bugs, I staked a fair claim towards the rank of Skymarshal. Stu had dreadful luck on activations - I got two whole rounds of firing at the Tanker before it could have activated. Just enough to take it down. Just. 

A really fun game very ably hosted by Stu. The minis and terrain are all his and rather excellent the game looked too. The rules were Chain Reaction - entirely serviceable and fun to play though they do commit that cardinal sin (in my view) of changing the roll to succeed from roll high to roll low!

I also managed a game of Chain of Command, ably hosted by Bob from Wyvern. British against Germans and I took something of a pasting from my reluctance to withdraw an exposed unit exacerbated by some poor command dice rolls at inopportune times. I didn't really take any photos except this one - to the left my beleaguered, pinned section about to be gunned down by the Germans flooding from a building. My section to the right is attempting to get into position to assist, hampered by a lack of windows in the right places.

The buildings are the new laser cut wood prepainted ones from Crescent Root Studio in the US and are very nice, sizable pieces and seem well-designed. I liked that they are nicely weathered from the box, come textured and apparently dissemble to 'flat pack' again.

Thanks to all who have hosted me these recent weeks - I look forward to more games of each and to returning the favour once the Sudan collection is ready for an outing (more on that later...)

Feldpolizei: Now with Checkpoint

You've seen these two chaps recently, but on return from holiday and not having picked up a brush for nearly a month, I fancied easing back in by painting a few quick bits from the pile. So here we have a checkpoint for my German feldpolizei, a little piece of terrain or fun objective. This is a simple little 4Ground kit.


Halt!

Hopefully I'll bring you some more sizeable updates once I get back to full painting speed.

Also, Ian at The Blog With No Name is having a 500 posts/second blogaversary giveaway, so swing over and check it out if you're interested in such things.

Wehrmacht: Now with Grubby Cuffs

Longtime followers will have seen these before, but the other day I picked up one of the small box files I'm storing models in and got a distressing clunk of metal on metal. Ah yes. It was my greatcoated Germans' temporary home until I got around to weathering and varnishing them.

Thankfully, almost no damage was done by my carelessness, but it was a reminder to finish them off and put them in more permanent storage. I was original holding out to pick up some different weathering powders to test out, particularly a dried mud shade, but I keep forgetting to hunt them down at a show or online. So I just went with what I've got.


Much better now they have grubby greatcoats, hiding my painstakingly crisp highlights!

I really like the checkpoint, I even picked up a 4Ground barrier and hut for them.

Of course, getting them finished has little to do with the current enthusiasm for the Lardies' Chain of Command. Honest. But this is halfway to a full platoon and I've already got a similar number of British Commandos, maybe one day I'll expand them out as CoC sounds like an intriguing system I might like to try. In the meantime of course I have Operation Squad to play.


A better view of the groundwork.

While about town I spotted this, which I thought some of you might be interested in. The introductory offer of £1.99 seemed a very reasonable price for a fairly sizeable, detailed Enterprise model. Even the usual price of £5.99 seems fair and if I had much interest in space combat or Star Trek, I'd have been tempted to pick a few up to push around in an X-wing type of game. Though I suppose there are plenty of other options available!

Operation Squad AAR: Reconnaissance

I had the pleasure of Samulus' company on Saturday afternoon for a couple of games. This included another game of Operation Squad, this time with larger forces. I ignored the points-based squad builder and just threw together something that looked balanced based on the goodies I have painted. They were something like this:

12 British commandos

Officer, Sergeant with Sten, Bren, Vickers GO Machinegun, 2" mortar, Sniper, 6 riflemen

15 German Infantry

Officer, Sergeant with MP40, Corporal with MP40, MG34 and loader, 2 Riflemen with G43, 8 with Kar98k (two also carrying Panzerfausts). 

The officers were armed with pistols and were there as scenario fodder.  I also knocked up a reconnaissance scenario, with points awarded for the officers spotting enemy troop numbers, taking the field (being closest to the crossroads at the table centre and for killing the enemy officer. The Vickers counted as an MG34. We made up some rules for the Panzerfausts, grenades with twice the range and that reduced cover by one dice.

Turn one, the Germans advance.

An early sniper kill and the Vickers also being opposite led me to hastily rethink and head to the right of the building.

Disaster! German officer wounded by a long-range shot by the Bren gunner.

Still, it isnt all looking bad...is it?

Moments later, a British mortar shell took out the advance pair on the right. The British were still unscathed: things were now looking very bad. 

Second disaster! The deadly Bren gunner also wounds the German MG34

Endgame - Commandos take the field, having suffered just a single wound. I was utterly trounced, partly by not having a solid game plan, further changing it as I went on, leaving men exposed out of cover, not supporting can other and not getting the MG34 into a useful position. Ah well, perhaps next time!

I think this size is the extend that Operation Squad deals with smoothly, the first couple of turns were a bit slow. I was a too heavy on the special weapons, especially for the Commandos. The sniper, mortar and Vickers dominated, though  good play by Samulus and bad by me were also to blame for that. I think the Germans were out-pointed, next time I'll at least roughly tot it up to ensure some balance!

After we'd finished, I remembered I had some t errain bits that would have come in useful, so spent Easter knocking them together. First to be finished are these rather spiffing telegraph poles. Laser cut wood, from 'Arcane Scenery' on eBay for £3. Unexpectedly, the sprues were marked  Sarissa Precision, but they don't seem to sell them on their webstore. I wonder if they were an early prototype. 

Fairly basic pieces, I'm a bit worried they may snap, though they bend so may be more survivable than they look. Oddly the holes in three of the bases were off-centre, so I re-drilled those. Being wood, the assembled poles were incredibly light and the merest breath would send them all wobbling. To solve that, I stuck the wood bases to 2p pieces to add some weight. Re double-bases are why the bases look a bit mound-esque, but that feels like the lesser of two evils. I'm fairly happy with them as table litter, useful for all sorts of eras. 

Samulus also provided another game, 20mm modern fireteams for Force on Force. More on that next time!

Analogue Hobbies Challenge: Coming to a Close

With a sigh of relief, the Painting Ronin can lay aside their brushes. Three months of some quite amazing work in the name of points, sharing, camaraderie and prizes.

First up, my deepest appreciation for our host and guide, Curt. To make so much time to run this competition is a gesture of great kindness, it truly must have been a Herculean effort. But rest assured, it is deeply appreciated by me, the rest of the Ronin and the rest of our hobby blogosphere who could watch the fun unfold. Curt, I salute you as the jolly nice chap that you are. Hopefully, 50-odd colourful (and greyscale) Samurai will be reward enough, in the end.

On my performance, I managed a miserable 365 points, well below my 500 last year and 550 target. I just ran out of steam in the end and was too distracted by othre commitments. But I'm pleased with what I did finish. My focus was on Pulp and WWII, with a smattering of other genres . My entries over the past month are below. First up, a second batch of Artizan Greatcoated Germans. While they need a little grubbying up, I'm pleased with how they came out, a few lessons learned from the first batch.



Just the one camo smock in an autumnal scheme

The whole bunch together

Next, a few French Foreign Legion in khaki, to make an appearance in a North African Pulp games. Artizan Designs once again, I think these were a 'useful somday' bargain bin or eBay find.

A pair of ladies, one Pulp adventurer from Hasslefree and one armed Victorian lady from Mutineer. I actually had three ladies on my final entry, The third was the one I was most pleased with, but painting her went right to the wire so I will add a couple of finishing touches before posting her up here.

So now the dust has settled, there is voting and prizegiving to be done. One prize is awarded for the 'People's Choice', so do head on over to Analogue Hobbies to vote on your favourite entry.

Finally, a quick shout out for another Easter giveaway at Sippin' on Paint Water - head over there if you want a chance at some mysterious goodies!

Challenge Entries; The Final Straight

Another motley collection of Challenge Entries for you. First up, two Willys jeeps from West Wind. The will serve as transport for my commandos or objectives for WWII skirmish games. I based them on plastic bases leftover from Perry boxes, as they are a bit small. The bases raise them up a bit and stop you putting troops too close, hopefully making them look like they scale better.

Next up, my entry fee, Ronin #33, a particularly colourful samurai. I tried a new yellow recipe around Vallejo Flat Yellow (in preparation for the stalled Dragoons project). It came out really well but is very unforgiving of mistakes. Not ideal when doing a freehand design! But he came out well and I hope he has good service with Curt's other Ronin.

Last up, some artillery support for my Napoleonic Spanish. I was pleased with how the gun came out, but the gunners are a bit chunky.

Apologies that I've not posted much up recently, I've not had much time to blog as well as paint and even the painting is going pretty slowly. I'm on to the final straight of Curt's challenge, which finishes in just over two weeks. I'm just over halfway to my points target, which I'm almost certain to miss. I also have a few AARs for Pulp Alley to post from a couple of weeks back.

I also recently went to the Cavalier show in Tonbridge, with Samulus keeping me company. Cavalier is a small show but a nice primer for the year. I didn't buy much, just a few bits and pieces as well as the vehicles expansion for Operation Squad (it was reasonably priced!). I think I need a few more games before I'm ready to use them though. Seeing some other bloggers' pics of the show, I think I missed a whole room of it somehow!

One final note: Dux Homonculorum is running a great giveaway, worth swinging by.

Challenge entries five and six: the KRRC, Commandos and Pulp

Entry numbers five and six were both small, the result of finally getting around to watching Danish series 'The Killing' (with its mighty fineSarah Lund jumpers). Although quite excellent, it eats into painting time as it is subtitled, so requires my full attention. I went off piste by making up some woods and rough ground, which set me back. 

Here's a firing line of King's Royal Rifle Corps for my dalliance with Colonial Sudan. I think I'm in a 'grey phase' at the moment, it certainly seems to be a feature of most of my entries. I had issues with them, I ended up re-doing the grey as it didn't match my first batch. It still isn't right but is closer, the chap on the left of the second photo was part of batch one, you can see that he already had grubby trousers whereas the rest are clean as a whistle (for now!). Perry sculpts - what else?

Next up, the first of the Blackwater Gulch characters, this one 'The Norwegian', I'm reliably informed he is an homage to the TV show 'Hell on Wheels'. Heaven knows what use I'll find for him other than BWG, perhaps a slightly unbalanced hitman with a penchant for antique firearms and bullwhips in a Pulp game? The flash of white among a head of very black hair is inspired by a chap I know.

Why so serious?

And a daring female adventurer for Pulp, ready to take on the world. A cracking Artizan sculpt. The blue comes out very pale in the photos, the second image is closest the the actual colour. 

Clearly a lady that won't need rescuing

Entry number six was just four models that I turned around in a few days: Artizan Designs British Commandos. One last pack I had in stock, I've 20 or so done but mostly wanted the mortar and PIAT finished. They will come in handy, offering some punch in games of Operation Squad. I drilled out the PIAT and added a wire to the radioman (since dubbed Mr Hendrix), both if which came out really well.

With these, I'm sitting at 195 points, barely over a third to my 550 target. In a week we'll be two-thirds of the way through the challenge. Eek!