tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26685770414259255342024-03-16T18:52:48.851+00:00The Axis Of NaughtinessBeing an account of a middle-aged wargamer, long lost in the wilderness, returning to the hobby he used to love. And stuff.Dr Vesuviushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05255420207375021875noreply@blogger.comBlogger194125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2668577041425925534.post-50914293737203964142023-10-23T20:59:00.002+01:002023-10-23T20:59:08.636+01:00You say po-tay-toe and I say po-tah-toe...<p> Wargaming isn't a single hobby.</p><p>You could launch many different articles from that one sentence. It would be easy to show the many disparate elements - figure painting, research, rules design etc etc. You could easily differentiate between recreational wargaming and professional wargaming for study of real-world conflicts and strategic planning... but let's assume since I mentioned it as a hobby, we're purely focussed on the recreational side.</p><p>One point of differentiation that people often fall back on is the difference between Historical and... let's call it Fantastical wargaming, so as to allow for both sword & sorcery and science fiction. That's... almost what I'm talking about, but not quite. If you talk about Modern and Old School wargaming, you're equally close, but coming around from another direction.</p><p>I tend to think of it as the Commercial hobby and the Independent hobby.</p><p>I'm of an age where my introduction to the concept of playing with toy soldiers using rules and dice came from the golden age old guard of post WW2 gamers whose books crept their way onto the local library shelves. My "first" was "Battle: Practical Wargaming" by Charles Grant (no initial) found on the children's library shelf, but having devoured that starter and hungering for more I'd soon gotten permission from a sympathetic librarian to venture into the big, scary Grown Ups (tm) library where I found and quickly devoured a treasure trove of Featherstone, Wise, and Lawford & Young. This was a hobby of folks who put together their own games by repurposing toy or model soldiers (and vehicles) and wrote their own rules. For years this was the hobby for me, albeit one viewed from afar in isolation.</p><p>When as a teenager I finally discovered the existence of my local wargames club and connected with the wargaming world as it was (rather than my rose-tinted vision of it from books written in the 60s and 70s), wargaming was on the cusp of a change. The biggest companies producing wargame material were at the cottage industry level at most, with most still being 1 or 2 person operations. The closest thing to an 800lb gorilla in the UK marketplace was Wargames Research Group, whose 6th Edition ancients rules along with their contemporary Horse & Musket and Modern rulesets were the de-facto standards at the club.</p><p>To be honest, I didn't adapt well to this new paradigm. Mr Barkers rules with their endless tables and calculations seemed a world away from the older rules in those hardback library books. My heart still belonged to those old Independent wargamers.</p><p>But every couple of meetings, these two guys would show up with a bunch of elves and orcs and play Warhammer. 2nd Edition Warhammer Fantasy Battles as it was then. While I felt more at home with the way that game seemed to play compared to WRG 6th, ironically it would bring about the birth of the Commercial wargame hobby, that would leave me feeling more estranged than ever.</p><p>So we all know what happened, Games Workshop exploded in popularity, largely on the back of the science-fantasy game Warhammer 40k. Production quality shot through the roof, with full colour hardback rulebooks replacing typeset foldover A5 bookets with the ubiquitous coloured card reference sheet. They also introduced the commercial concept of producing a range of figures hand in hand with a ruleset. For a while you could reasonably consider the "Games Workshop Hobby" as constituting 99.99% of the Fantastical wargaming hobby, as compared to the Historical wargaming hobby, but that would soon blur. Games like Flames of War, the Warhammer Historicals and Bolt Action would start applying the GW commercial model to historical periods, with high production glossy rulebooks and multiple supplemts for different armies and theatres of war. To anyone coming to the hobby this century, *this* is what wargaming was, invented by Games Workshop with the advent of Warhammer 40k 4th edition. Before there was nothing but a fuzzy prehistory... something about H.G. Wells wasn't it?</p><p>Today we have the Commercial wargame hobby as the default. A wargame is produced, usually with an accompanying range of figures which if the company is particularly grabby will be a slightly different scale to the last game covering the same subject so you have to buy new figures for it. It will have a lifecycle, being heavily promoted initially, having a series of supplemental releases over a fixed period of time until either sales start to waver or the game runs out of subject matter to cover, at which point it will be quietly dropped and become a "dead game" that for some reason nobody wants to play. If you're lucky it might get a 2nd edition but otherwise it'll be onto the new hot game and either way the whole cycle starts again.</p><p>Luckily we still have a streak of independence keeping the other hobby alive. From those wacky boffins at Wargames Developments with their cardboard box tanks and their "What if we modelled the Fall of the Roman Empire using tiddleywinks as the primary mechanic?" games... to the growing trend for miniatures agnostic small-press games. Look at the meteoric success of One Page Rules, who started off on the very shaky legal ground of One Page 40k, a homebrew streamlined reimagining of that game. Now they have better legal advice, a range of miniatures agnostic games with their own original settings and figures (even if most will want to use them with existing 40k figure collections)</p><p>My heart still belongs unapologetically to the Independent wargaming hobby. And with the advent of 3d printing, we can become our own figure manufacturers, just like those old veterans in the 60s and 70s casting their own lead figures in rubber molds. </p><p>At the very least we're in a new Guilded-age of the Indie wargaming hobby. And I'm here for it.</p><p>(Note: I had been planning to discuss the rules I've been looking at and the games I'm interested in playing, but what started out as a necessary introduction turned into a longer philosophical piece I had to get off my chest. Maybe next time.)</p>Dr Vesuviushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05255420207375021875noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2668577041425925534.post-66831729130910809352023-08-28T21:44:00.000+01:002023-08-28T21:44:54.163+01:00Short People Got... No Reason<p>The Great Work continues apace, though it's still firmly in the "gets worse before it gets better" phase. The wargames table is still piled high with junk, but now it's junk that's neatly sorted and categorised into Really Useful Boxes of various sizes. While I'm still a way off being able to lay down a battlefield of any size and throw dice it still feels like progress is being made. I find myself at the mercy of our local council's bin collections</p><p>One lesson I would pass on to anyone facing a similar situation is the importance of transparent or open storage boxes. I'd stored a lot of my figures and terrain in repurposed cardboard boxes which, while economical, meant the only way to see the contents was to open the box. Out of sight quickly becomes out of mind. Part of my reorganising process has included finding all such boxes and transferring the contents to either 32l folding crates for large terrain items, or various smaller sizes of Really Useful Boxes for smaller items. Being able to see all the things you have at your disposal is very inspirational and motivational.</p><p>In that vein I've been looking at the various piles of miniatures I have in various states of gameworthiness. The genesis of my current gaming revival has been the advent of 3d printing and initially I had a strong temptation to just put all my old, mostly white metal miniatures aside and focus on what I can print anew. But over the last few weeks I've come to realize that's wasting a lot of gaming resources and there are a lot of new games that I'm interested in that could be served by my existing minis collection.</p><p>And so, the audit...</p><p><b>Complete Project<br /><span> </span>28mm Hillbillies</b></p><p>Ah this was a labour of love, and something I can draw a line under as done and dusted. The Hillbilly collection was made up of suitable redneck minis from a variety of manufacturers brought together originally for a Big Birthday Bash multiplayer game, but have seen light a couple of times since including a couple of crossover Zombie games. The full setup has laminated character cards for every figure using the Flying Lead rules and if I ever need a quick, lighthearted game to entertain a non-wargamer, everything I need for it sits in just a couple of crates.</p><p><b>32mm<br /><span> </span>Heroclix</b></p><p>If you've never heard of them, they're licensed superhero minis from DC, Marvel and others that were sold as "collectibles" in blind lucky-dip boxes. I've hoovered up a few job lots over the years for use with the Mutants and Masterminds RPG I used to run. I've got a couple of big boxes full of unmodified figures, and a couple of dozen that were actually modified to represent characters in the game campaign. For now I'm happy to stick them in a corner for storage, in case superhero gaming ever raises its head again.</p><p><b>28mm<br /><span> </span>Grimdark Future/40K</b></p><p>Now these are entirely a child of the new Revival, brought about entirely by the advent of 3d printing. I'd grown interested in the lore of 40k rather than the actual game itself and got caught up in the current movement of gamers who rather than pay GW's exorbitant prices have started printing their own miniatures at a fraction of the price. Since I was finding 3d printing a useful form of therapy I quickly amassed about a dozen RUBs of figures and some great plans. This is definitely a topic that deserves a future post, but suffice it to say this project is ongoing and will have a very different focus and overall character to the game that GW produces.</p><p><span style="white-space: normal;"><b>28mm<br /><span> </span>Blake's Seven</b></span></p><p><span style="white-space: normal;"><span> This was a very small project from the very start of the Pandemic that went no-where. Crooked Dice's range of minis representing the crew of the 80s cult TV show sparked an idea for a game mixing a small skirmish on a planet combined with the Liberator fighting off Federation patrol craft in orbit. A cunning idea which promptly got packed into a storage box and forgotten. A candidate for selling on to make space except... it's only a small box and a really cool game idea.</span><br /></span></p><p><b><span style="white-space: normal;">28mm<br /></span><span> </span>Post-Apocalypse / Sci Fi</b></p><p><span> At least a KR Multicase full, mostly passably painted. I'm definitely interested in doing some generic sci-fi and post-apoc skirmishing - 5 Parsecs from Home, 5 Klicks from the Zone, Fallout Wasteland Warfare etc. Definitely going to see some use in the future, no pun intended.</span><br /></p><p><span style="white-space: normal;"><b>28mm<br /><span> </span>Zombies</b></span></p><p><span style="white-space: normal;">Everything is better with zombies. Everything. The figures I have could be combined with any other 28mm collection for a little bit of survival horror. I've maybe got 10-15% painted , enough for a typical skirmish game. If I hit the paint table and brought the rest up to code there'd be enough for some respectable World War Z level games.</span></p><p><b>28mm<br /><span> </span>Modern/Imagi-Nation/Gang War etc</b></p><p>A bit of a catch-all for "modern" figures from a wide selection of ranges such as Vietnam, Ultramodern, Spy-fi, gang warfare etc all bought and some painted for my old modern Imagi-Nation of San Paradiso, which veterans of the Axis may remember was my to explore modern insurgency conflicts without risking upsetting anyone sensitive about real world events. While once again there's a healthy volume of unpainted metal in these boxes, there's enough core figures painted and table ready </p><p><b>28mm<br /><span> </span>Pulp</b></p><p>I have a small number of figures, mostly unpainted, bought mainly as cousins to the VSF collection, plus a few die-cast Matchbox & Lledo "Days Gone" vehicles that didn't quite mesh with the more primitive VSF horseless carriages. But one of the games I'm increasingly interested in is Pulp Alley and while I could play the rules just with Modern or pre-pulp Victorian figures, I've got just enough stuff that I could probably put together a decent pulp-era (1920s-40s) game, so I'm not ruling it out.</p><p><b><span style="white-space: normal;">28mm<br /></span><span> </span>England Invaded / Edwardian SF / WW1</b></p><p>These were gifted to me entirely by another gamer doing his own clearout They're mostly painted and VSF-adjacent, but they're different enough to deserve their own category. Definitely room for expansion</p><p><b><span style="white-space: normal;">28mm<br /></span><span> </span>19th Century (including VSF/Wild West/Colonial)</b></p><p>This is probably the "period" I have the most table ready for, with loads more sitting at the primer stage or unpainted. I could do a wide variety of games in this era, from western gunfights to full pitched battles featuring landships and strange contraptions. Definitely leaning towards the fanciful rather than historical 19th C.</p><p><b>28mm<br /><span> </span>Elizabethan / Border Reiver</b></p><p>Now this is a classic example of a failed project, bought into big time, that went nowhere. Two full foam cases of figures from the Elizabethan swashbuckling and border reivers era. None of it painted, none of it seen the light of day in over 15 years.</p><p><b><span>28mm<br /></span><span> </span>Various D&D / Fantasy</b></p><p>These are really two different collection - old metal figs collected over 40 years including a sizeable dump from a friend who was making room for a baby, and the new collection of resin printed and plastics that I started putting together for the Ultimate D&D setup right at the start of the Pandemic. I have several rulesets that I want to play with these - Age of Fantasy, Dragon Rampant, Song of Blades and Heroes.</p><p><br /></p><p>Which neatly leads us on to the land of the Little People...</p><p><b>15mm<br /><span> </span>Laserburn Scifi<br /><span> </span>Modern / Zombies<br /><span> </span>WW1<br /><span> </span>19th Century/Colonial</b></p><p>I am going to group these together because I'm coming round to a fundamental change in how I view this scale. I used to be a big fan of 15mm figures as a straight alternative to 28mms. Singly based for skirmish gaming, if there was a game designed for 28mm figures that measured in inches, I'd use 15mm figures and measure in cm. My first wargame, Laserburn, was 15mm, and I have a sizeable collection of minis in various states of paint and disrepair. When I started doing colonial wargaming, then strictly historical with no VSF elements albeit in the fictional continent of Olistan, while The Sword and The Flame were written for 28mm, I did it all in 15mm. When 9/11 happened and I started feeling a little uncomfortable playing jokey games about westerners vs Islamic middle-easterners, my first forays into VSF with GASLIGHT were done in 15mm. </p><p>But when I was starting to look at working on the San Paradiso project, I took a long time deciding on the scale. 15mm would be relatively cheap, have a good selection of vehicles and frontline troops available, and play in a more compact area. But it would be lacking in characterful figures for skirmish games, which was part of what I wanted to do. 20mm/1:72 is another natural scale for modern games as you have a great availability of figures and vehicles, plus OO model rail scenery. But 28mm had a major advantage in that I already had crates full of terrain in that scale, many of which could pull double or triple duty in different periods or theatres. I had a full city layout for GASLIGHT. Some of those buildings combined with newer style buildings could represent a more modern city. Mix in some more buildings in a particular style and some distinctive vegetation and you've got a city on a tropical island.</p><p>I figured rationalising on a single scale for all battle and skirmish games would let me synergise and mx & match in that way. I seriously considered the other scales, but the fact that I already had a head start in 28mm tipped the balance. But not before I'd pre-emptively acquired a kilo or so of zombies and various modern troops and gangsters in 15mm, which were duly bagged, boxed and forgotten.</p><p>Now, these would make prime candidates for disposal except... I've long been a massive fan of the ultra-compact, fast-play wargame, such as DBA, HOTT or the Portable Wargame. Something that can play in a tiny area but feels like a big battle. I'd dabbled with the Portable Wargame in the past on this blog and while it didn't satisfy every gaming itch, it definitely had potential for scratching some that were beyond 28mm. </p><p>Sooooo as a side project I'm going to earmark the 15mm Victorians and WW1 figs for stripping repainting and rebasing as multi-figure elements, something I've shield away from doing in the past. I've a mind to completely re-envision these as turn-of-the-century Imagi-Nations on a casual basis for whenever I have a two-foot square of empty table space and a desire to roll dice. The scifi, modern and zombies will be similarly earmarked for group basing, all sized compatibly, to potentially scratch that same itch. There's no point in maintaining two different parallel collections in different scales to play games with the same feel, but I think this would work.</p><p>Now we're getting to the teeny-tiny folk.</p><p><b>6mm<br /><span> </span>Scifi<br /><span> </span>Modern<br /><span> </span>ECW<br /><span> </span>Samurai</b></p><p>The sci-fi and modern were collected largely as odds and sods over the years , including bits and lots from Bring n Buys. They were never cohesive armies and are honestly candidates for disposal (including a selection of vintage Battlemechs) The exception is that as part of the San Paradiso project I did discover a game called 5-Core Brigade Commander by Nordic Weasel, which used 1 stand = 1 company to play out larger operational level battles. I'd got as far as permanently basing two brigades for San Paradiso and their fun-loving communist neighbours Culo Raton. I can definitely see a future where I do more armies in this format, even with new 3d printed vehicles.</p><p>(I've also got a decent collection of 1:300 aircraft I'll want to hang on to and use, for the skies over San Paradiso and beyond)</p><p>The ECW and Samurai armies were one time projects that just went no-where. Honestly I don't know if they're even worth anything to anyone in their current state, but honestly I don't have the eyesight or the patience to do anything more than the simplest impressionistic paint job on 6mm, so one way or another out they go.</p><p><b>1/600<br /><span> </span>ACW Ironclads</b></p><p>A bring and buy bargain I've never done anything with, but want to. Maybe a dozen ships in total, and I happen to know there are loads of ships available to print as STLs making a cheap path for expansion if I felt like it. I've played ironclad era wargames before and it was always good fun, so this is definitely something I want to revisit.</p><p><b>1/2400 <br /><span> </span>Ironclads</b></p><p>Not ACW these, but based mainly around the battle of Lissa. I think I might want to get rid of these to a new owner willing to give them the loving restoration they deserve and instead focus on...</p><p><b>1/3000<br /><span> Ironclads<br /></span></b><span><b> Pre-Dreadnoughts<br /><span> WW1</span></b><br /></span></p><p><span><span>Bought originally to synergize with the colonial games in Olistan and mainly played using GDW's Ironclads & Ether Flyers originally published as a supplement to the Space 1889 RPG along with the Soldier's Companion for ground battles. With the VSF elements stripped out, both served as quite robust historical wargames. I had a small fraction of the ships that I'd bought painted and table ready, but this is one I'd love to revisit and maybe with different rules expand into WW1 proper and maybe even WWII. 1/3000 seems to be the one-true-scale of post-sail era naval gaming and the one to rationalise on.</span></span></p><p>There are a couple of other outliers in my toy cupboards. Many boxes of diecast cars in the Hotwheels/Matchbox scale, to be fitted with tiny guns and rockets and armour plates to become death machines for games like Gaslands and Car Wars. Honestly I see them as more as crafting projects than gaming material so there's no thought of getting rid of them</p><p><span><span>Then there's an eclectic mix of metal spaceships, some dating back to the earliest of vintages, plus a small box of Star Trek micromachines. Despite the great sentimental value I think I want to dispose of the metal ships and if I ever need spaceships for a future game, print them in much lighter, flying base friendly resin. The ST ships can stay and if I ever wand to expand on them, again there are loads of freely available STLs to print</span></span></p><p><span><span><br /></span></span></p><p><span><span>Looking back on those, the common theme is that for much of my gaming life I never knuckled down to collecting and painting complete armies. It was always odds & sods, here and there, totally without focus. It wasn't until the 2000s that I made a decent effort to have whole armies table ready, with minor success in the early 00s with Olistan and much greater success in the later 00s with the G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T. VSF collection.</span></span></p><p><span><span>I'm finding this sort of auditing helpful for me, as it helps my to prioritise and make decisions about what needs to be done next. I've done a similar audit for the various terrain items and sets I've got. I think the next post I make to this blog will be to look at the various wargame rules that I want to try and combined with these audits, try to get an idea of what my new wargaming hobby will look like.</span></span></p><p><br /></p><p><span style="white-space: normal; white-space: pre;"> </span></p><p> </p>Dr Vesuviushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05255420207375021875noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2668577041425925534.post-56648106991455561982023-08-16T21:51:00.000+01:002023-08-16T21:51:01.848+01:00I just keep moving, can't stop, won't stop grooving...<p> This is going to be a bunch of introspective naval-gazing and philosophy. Brace yourself or avoid as needed....</p><p>Coming back to a hobby can almost be harder than starting entirely from scratch. Do you wipe the slate clean as if starting anew, or do you try to leverage what you'd done before to get a head start, but at the risk of finding yourself stuck in a stale loop going nowhere. And what if the context of the hobby has changed since you were last doing it. Heaven forbid, what if *you*'ve changed.<br /></p><p>So picture the scene: I have a man-cave of gaming stuff - terrain, figures, mismatched junk that I'll find a use for "one day". That's fallen into chaos and looking like a disaster site, through virtue of being the room that stuff gets piled into "Just for now, till I can find a proper place". Add a spare room to that which is only marginally better. Marinade this in a sauce of five+ years of clinical depression and.... look I'm not a horder, OK? The house may look like one of those you see on the TV in those documentaries, but it's not like I'm keeping 50 years of the TV guide and jars full of empty crisp packets or anything like that.<br /></p><p>I'm reasonably sure there are no dead and mummified cats buried under piles of unwashed laun...... just a moment....</p><p>(sound of footsteps departing)</p><p>...</p><p>(sound of footsteps returning)</p><p>Yes, definitely no dead cats. Where was I?</p><p>But the truth is I'm not at a place where I can just grab a couple of armies, throw a green cloth and terrain down over a table and have a wargame. I've got a lovely 8x5' table still setup, but it's gradually been repurposed as a painting station, workbench and general place-to-dump-piles-of-stuff-onto. Boxes of figures, painted and unpainted, aren't easily accessible and the same goes for terrain. Long story short, there's a whole load of tidying, reorganizing and general Marie Kondo-ing that needs to be done.<br /><br />Added to that, I've changed both physically and in terms of tastes. Having a wargame table downstairs and all my figure, scenery storage etc upstairs wasn't an issue when climbing up and down stairs was a trivial factor. And packing dozens of crates of terrain into the car to take to a club to run a big multi-player game is... so, so not a thing likely to ever happen again. Suffice it to say since before the pandemic my mobility has been significantly reduced to the point where a journey to the end of the driveway to put the bins out is an achievement to celebrate.</p><p>That pandemic though has definitely been a double-edged sword. Solo gaming has enjoyed a renaissance with a whole slew of games published specifically designed for solo play. I've been gradually collecting a slew of them that I want to try - Five Parsecs From Home, Rangers of Shadowdeep, Space Station Zero. They do trend towards the science fiction or fantasy skirmish genres playable on small tables, and that seems like a good modest goal to start with.</p><p>So that's sorted then. Tidy everything up and organise it. Start playing small solo games. End post....</p><p>Heh! As if!</p><p>Things are complicated a bit by the fact that I've developed a liking for creating and crafting things, like terrain. And worse, I have embraced the 3d printing revolution wholeheartedly. The thing is, I've found the act of creativity and the tactile processes involved have been great for my mental health. It started with building and preparing for a hypothetical return to face-to-face RPGs and a desire to put together the ultimate Dungeons and Dragons setup, with monsters and dungeon tiles and everything you could ever want. That kinda segued into a growing fascination with the background lore to a certain megalithic space-fantasy wargame (Don't judge me! There's a whole epic post needed to explain that one) and that resulted in about a dozen Really Useful Boxes full of mostly unpainted resin that has only served to exacerbate the existing storage/organizing/space problem.</p><p>The problem is that when you have a new technology like 3D printing that opens up the possibility to do... well pretty much anything, you quickly find yourself wanting to do pretty much everything. I'm finding it a challenge not to get carried away with enthusiasm for the endless possibilities. And yet... it's exactly that enthusiasm that we need more than anything in our hobby. To make us happy and to keep us sane. Clearly a balance needs to be struck. <br /></p><p>I'm still wrestling with exactly where that balance point will be, but I'm continuing to work slowly but steadily on the sensible practical stuff that NEEDs to be done, which is the tidying and organising, while still allowing myself a restricted field of things I might WANT to do. For the moment that's restricted to making terrain and minis for a potential run of Space Station Zero games. I could be sensible and insist I should be able to play the game with figures and terrain I already have painted and ready. That would be absolutely true, but missing the point rather. It's purely an excuse to allow some outlet for the crafting/creative urges, satisfying the WANT without impacting the NEED stuff too badly. SSZ is a game on a sub 3ft board with a handful of minis per side, so it's not going to add more than a couple of Really Useful Boxes to the storage issue.<br /></p><p>I guess the point I'm fumbling around here is this: Find out what things in your hobby make you happy, then allow yourself to do that thing. Even if that thing isn't the core act of the hobby (i.e. moving little toy soldiers around a table rolling dice). Maybe it's <strike>hoarding</strike> collecting figures, or worse the digital STL files that might bet turned into figures by a 3D printer. Maybe it's painting, or modelling terrain, or writing erotic fanfic about your space marines. </p><p>And just keep moving. Even if it's a bit slower these days.</p><p><br /></p>Dr Vesuviushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05255420207375021875noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2668577041425925534.post-65679152441331514162023-07-17T18:15:00.002+01:002023-07-17T18:15:20.314+01:00In a Brave New World... With just a handful of men... We'll start all over again.<p> This is a story of Redemption.</p><p>At least I hope it is... will be.</p><p>So...</p><p>Where to start? The beginning is a dull, safe option but I can't bring myself to go that far back in time, so read the About This Blog box for the summary.</p><p>Oh and as the kids today say, Content Warning: Mental health, suicidal ideation, general bad stuff.</p><p>Ready?</p><p>Here we go then...</p><p>So in my last post seven years ago I may have hinted that not all was well in my gaming circle. A combination of people moving on with their lives, moving away, having their own problems that might have made them less fun to be around. Combined with a new job that turned out not to be as promised that was wearing me down and wearing me out. I had less and less time for gaming, except for a little bit of D&D played remotely over a Virtual Table Top. I was wilfully ignoring the trauma built up from my parents' passing and pushing myself more and more towards trying to make something positive out of the work situation. </p><p>Meanwhile the Black Dog stalked in the background biding its time.</p><p>Things fell apart in February 2020, a combination of physical health and what felt like betrayal at work. The Black Dog pounced.<br /></p><p>I was 49 years old with what felt like no hope. Plans were made. I did not intend to ever be 50 years old.<br /></p><p>Luckily, that was when the world decided to end.<br /></p><span><a name='more'></a></span><p>I do like to say that the global Covid 19 pandemic saved my life, and there's more than a little truth to it. The lockdown isolation didn't affect me as much as others, since I was already in isolatioin when it hit. I don't want to go into details about my planned method of exit from this world, but the changed circumstances made it impossible for me to carry out. Coughing and gasping for breath from Covid was not a suitable alternative way to go in my mind so my mood gradually shifted from despair to sheer bloody mindedness. The world.. changed.<br /></p><p>So now it's three years later. I've changed. There are meds. There's therapy. There's still the Black Dog lurking in the background but I'm learning where he comes from and how to house train him. I'm still in the unhappy job but I'm now a permanent home worker, and accepting that this is just to pay the bills and will never be a source of satisfaction.</p><p>I am, for various reasons, now pretty much housebound. Maybe circumstances will change and I'll once again feel up to going out into the world. But if not, I am content. I have changed.</p><p>I am also alone. Partly through necessity, partly by choice. The guy who desperately wanted to put on big spectacular participation games so that his circle of gaming friends and acquaintances would like him, he's gone. External Validation vs Internal Validation, as the therapists say. My hobbying, in whatever form it takes, is now for my benefit and enjoyment alone. I'm lucky that my remote D&D gaming has blessed me with a group who I find myself 100% in simpatico and I cherish them greatly, but for tabletop wargaming I am now committed by deliberate choice to the path of the Solo Wargamer. </p><p>"Alone is an unfortunate predicament. Lone is an aesthetic choice." - Batmanuel, The Tick</p><span><!--more--></span><p>So what's the plan for this blog? This is for me. It's entirely possible that someone from my previous life in the Before Times still had the Axis in their RSS feed and have made it this far without hitting delete. And there may be some who've stumbled onto this blog (though god knows how, I didn't even know if blogs were still a thing!) For all of you, Greetings! My name's Chris though online I go by Doctor Vesuvius or just DocV. I'm a greybeard gamer of 53 summers. I'm going to use this blog as a journal to help collate my thoughts on gaming and to try to help bring myself up out of one of the deepest pits a human soul can find themselves in back into a new age of wargaming. Read... or don't read. Comment, or don't. This blog is 100% for me but know that you are welcome here. It will be all about making things and rolling dice and pushing toy soldiers around a tabletop full of those made things, but in a way that works for me now. There'll be only passing references to mental health and hopefully they'll be much more positive than this.<br /></p>Dr Vesuviushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05255420207375021875noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2668577041425925534.post-20427906166529143222016-09-25T14:19:00.000+01:002016-09-25T14:19:23.882+01:00Guess who's back, back again? Doc V's back, tell a friend!Well that didn't quite go according to plan now, did it?<br />
<br />
Where oh where to begin?<br />
<br />
2016 saw an <i>almost </i>catastrophic collapse of my gaming hobby due to a variety of factors. My primary gaming oppo and <i>hermano de otra madre</i> Jonesy has had a lot less free time due to family commitments (which I can't fault in the slightest) resulting in the end of the old Sunday game crafting day and more planned game nights being cancelled than played. He's also sadly turned into a crotchety old git on the subject of game rules (or rather even more of a crotchety old git than he normally is) and is unwilling to tolerate rule sets that don't meet his ideals. At the end of an unpleasant game of Bolt Action Modern a couple of months back he announced that the very worst of the rules' many sins was that it used different ranges for different weapons. Unfortunately that criteria rules out about 75% of the wargames rules I play or own, including my beloved G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T.<br />
<br />
I think I mentioned that I was starting a new job in January and that not only cut down on the free time for hobby matters but also brought to light an ongoing medical problem I'd been bumbling along with. After being told I was falling asleep at work, I was diagnosed with Severe Obstructive Sleep Apnea. Go Google it! But if you don't have time, basically while asleep I stop breathing about 87 times a minute meaning I'd not had a refreshing night's sleep since 2012. This results in a massive lack of energy and motivation, daytime sleepiness and can contribute to depression and other fun symptoms. This meant that a lot of potential hobby time on evenings and weekends was lost either due to not having the energy to do anything or just simply falling asleep after meals and waking, five hours later, still feeling exhausted. Skipping ahead in the narrative, I've just started treatment for this, which promises to cure the symptoms and restore energy levels to normal, which is actually one of the reasons I'm posting this today.<br />
<br />
Anyway the overall result of this is that gaming activity dwindled to almost zero during the first half of 2016. On the rare occasion I could whip up the enthusiasm I kept doing little bits of work on terrain and figures for the San Paradiso project, but much less than last year. And that's why I stopped posting updates to this blog.. Honestly I had nothing to talk about. (I also stopped most of my PC gaming activities, including my YouTube channel, which is similarly on hiatus)<br />
<br />
So over the last couple of months I've tried a couple of strategies to get some wargames happening. Over the last year a small group of friends had started coming by on a Monday night, ostensibly to play Imperial Assault but in practice between cancellations and people turning up but not feeling like playing anything most nights turned into "YouTube and chill" sessions. So a couple of months back I cleared off the Big Table and basically bullied them into doing some actual miniature wargaming. We had a couple of really enjoyable games of Bolt Action Modern (this was prior to the revelation detailed above), after which it was decided we'd do a couple of sessions of RPGs, alternating between the two game types for variety. (Incidently that was 2 months ago and we're still waiting for the second RPG session to happen. See above re: cancellations, not feeling like playing etc)<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTX52RDVQL29fHZm8F0wniduqsVLDqhUnAwf5Izpc8RFRR2-gYJOLxVKzLHaSjFxbl9udRwd_sqPT_1L73ml5OvalI6SMentiXuMNMWzRfl6HBFg9reQ0PZzhD2Rgl9_BX0TyRjNWi40CT/s1600/P8060041.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTX52RDVQL29fHZm8F0wniduqsVLDqhUnAwf5Izpc8RFRR2-gYJOLxVKzLHaSjFxbl9udRwd_sqPT_1L73ml5OvalI6SMentiXuMNMWzRfl6HBFg9reQ0PZzhD2Rgl9_BX0TyRjNWi40CT/s400/P8060041.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Culo Raton MI-2s carrying airborne commandos attempt to flank the <br />airfield's defensive positions. Moments later one helo touched down but<br />the other was hit by San Paradiso gunfire and crashed.. right on top of<br />the landed helo!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
In spite of this, in my own mind at least, the San Paradiso "campaign" continued to develop, with the this year's Big Birthday Bash (actually a modest 4 player affair) being the attempt by a joint rebel/Culo Raton force to capture the airfield Los Anilcamino. Had they succeeded, I'd decided that would have ended the current phase of the campaign including the Culo Raton intervention, with a UN mediated cease-fire granting unspecified concessions to Culo Raton and the rebel farmers getting financial aid packages and limited autonomy in the region.<br />
<br />
Unfortunately it was not to be, as the dug-in San Paradisan defenders managed to blunt the insurgents' assault and after some fierce close-quarter fighting around the terminal building still held the ground.<br />
<br />
In terms of campaign continuity (remember <b style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;"><a href="http://axisofnaughtiness.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/little-boxes-made-out-of-ticky-tacky.html" target="_blank">DrV's Slightly Derivative Universal Mapless Campaign Rules</a>?"</b> The rebel farmers/Culo Raton had won the previous two battles and taken the initiative making this game a Raid and giving them a greater chance of capturing this particular resource if they won the battle. Since San Paradiso won, they get to attempt to shift a resource as normal. I decided they were going to use this airfield to launch a series of interdiction strikes to try to cut off support from Culo Raton, or in rules terms make their "Secure supply of food and materiel" Resouce Uncontrolled. Unfortunately I rolled a 1 for them (needing 3+) meaning the resources remain unchanged as follows.<br />
<br />
Farmers - Control of the Foothills of Monto Blanko. The Bridge at El Humber. The Goodwill Of The People, Secure supply of food and materiel.<br />
Army - Secure base of operations at Verdaville. The Airfield at Los Anillcamino. The Sunrise Corp Processing Plant<br />
Uncontrolled - Foreign media interest. The fertile Piso River valley. Support from the Church.<br />
<br />
It doesn't end there...<br />
<br />
In my quixotic quest to model all aspects of modern warfare and include it in the San Paradiso campaign results, I've been looking for an ultra-simple, Beer & Pretzels level air-combat game to be played as a possible adjunct to land wargames. It was in this search that I came across "<a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/4646/bommerz-over-da-sulphur-river" target="_blank">Bommaz over da Sulphur River</a>", an old Games Workshop game in their Warhammer 40K setting, which portrayed an airstrike by Orkish "fighta-bommaz" against an Imperial position. It used to be available as a free download on GW's Specialist Games website (alas no more) and I'd read somewhere about someone re-skinning the game to a Cold War setting, with Harriers attacking vs Mig-21 defenders. So last Monday when the planned RPG session didn't happen (again!), I decided to whip this out and try re-skinning it on the fly to the San Paradiso setting.<br />
<br />
The Orks became Culo Ratonese Shenyang F-6s and the defending Imperial Interceptors became San Paradisan F5e Tigers. The gameboard represented a pass through the Monto Blonko mountain ranges with Flak and Rock Spire hazards remaining unchanged and the Laser Cannon morphed into a SAM battery. The two other players present, CrazyEddy and Amy took the attackers and I ran the defences.<br />
<br />
"Bommaz" is a ridiculously simple ruleset verging on a single page, with movement from space to space on the board and combats generally being opposed D6 rolls. But there's enough subtlety built in to make it worth further investigation and although we were actually getting a couple of fundamental rules wrong for much of the game, and everyone enjoyed it. In the end a lone bomma... ahem sorry a lone F6 from the first attack wave managed to take out both targets successfully, for a Culo Raton major victory. I'm going to develop this game a little further, with rules for different aircraft from the San Paradisan theatre of war and maybe some different but still simple combat mechanics.<br />
<br />
So what does that do to the campaign. Yes, I'm going to include the results of a semi-improvised pickup beer & pretzels game into the campaign narrative. Sue me already!.<br />
<br />
Well the Culo Raton Ariale Patrole's sorties up the Monto Blanko valley against San Paradisan positions were designed to undermine the "Secure base of operations at Verdaville". But the dice gods laughed as I rolled yet another 1 (again needing a 3+) so the campaign situation remains unchanged..<br />
<br />
That's it for this update. I'm going to try to get back to regular posting here, with both the ongoing efforts to administer CPR to my wargaming hobby and catch-ups on the little bits and pieces I've been managing over the past 9 months.<br />
<br />
Tell a friend!Dr Vesuviushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05255420207375021875noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2668577041425925534.post-41590050132396260252015-12-27T10:28:00.002+00:002015-12-27T10:28:34.062+00:00And so this is Christmas, and what have you done? Another year over...First off, let me say I hope everyone has had a happy and safe Xmas holiday with their loved ones.<br />
<br />
It's only natural at this time of year to look back at the past year and look forward to the next. On the personal front this has been a very difficult year for me, dominated by an inability to get back into full time employment and the associated financial difficulties that entails. I know there are many folks who are far, far worse off than me: I have a roof over my head and food on the table, and with a little help from my friends we've managed to keep the wolves from the door.<br />
<br />
But this is almost certainly going to change for the better. At the time of writing I have a provisional job offer starting in January, pending completion of the usual pre-employment checks (references, criminal records etc) which seem to have fallen foul of the Xmas slowdown. But barring some unforseen problems, this time next month I should be looking forward to my first paycheque in a while.<br />
<br />
On the gaming front, 2015 has been a mixed bag. I've managed to pull off a couple of decent "event" games (The Big Birthday Bash and the Hillbilly Halloween Special) and done quite a few small games - 5Core Brigade Commander, Air War C21, Pulp Alley and 7TV, but it's been a long way from the glory days of my youth when every second Sunday I'd be off to Manchester Area Wargames Society for a game of something. And my blogging here has been pitiful, compared to the first couple of years.<br />
<br />
On the plus side, we've finally turned the Imagi-Nation of Paradiso, first mentioned in the very early days of this blog, into some sort of gaming reality, with a collection of suitable figures and vehicles painted and the first few games in that setting completed.<br />
<br />
In terms of wargames terrain, I think I've reached the stage where I've got everything I need. Between the Victorian city project from a few years back, and the more modern Plasticville & TTCombat buildings bought for Paradiso, I think I can fill an 8'x5' table with a built up area suitable for the 19th to 21st centuries, from the grim streets of Northern England to the sunny Caribbean shores of Paradiso, adding flavour with assorted scatter terrain. And I have a couple of boxes of Plasticville buildings left to restore, so although there are several MDF building manufacturers who have really taken off in the last year, I'm going to be good and not buy any more large items until all the buildings I have are table-ready. The same goes for rural terrain, I have trees and hills and rivers and roads aplenty. There are a couple of projects currently in a half completed limbo (like the suspension bridge and rural village buildings for Paradiso) but once they're done I'll have everything need.<br />
<br />
In fact if there's a theme to my musings, it's that I have everything I need in my lead/resin/plastic/MDF mountain to keep my hobby going for the forseeable future. I've got figures for at least three full VSF/Steampunk armies stashed away, plus several units to expand existing forces. So that leads to the first New Year Resolution for 2016<br />
<br />
1) NO BUYING NEW STUFF UNTIL THE LEAD/RESIN/PLASTIC/MDF MOUNTAIN IS MINED OUT<br />
<br />
There are two important exceptions to this rule: firstly I've long promised myself that I'd treat myself to a 28mm monorail set from the MadMechaGuy as soon as I started work again, and that still stands. The other exception is in the case where I need to fill in a gap to make figures that I've already got usable. For example, I know that I've got a load of 15mm modern figures from the likes of Rebel Minis, QRF and Peter Pig, and have been thinking about basing them up for 5Core Company Commander or War In The Age Of Madness. But if for example I find I need to buy some extra heavy weapon team packs to make a balanced force, then that would be an acceptable purchase.<br />
<br />
Another thing I've noticed about this last year: I've been spending too much time doing preparation for games and not enough simply playing. Part of this has been a natural side effect of tackling the lead/resin/plastic/MDF mountain. But I think I have a need for Resolution #2<br />
<br />
2) MAKE WARGAMING A MORE REGULAR ACTIVITY USING THE TOYS THAT ARE READY TO PLAY.<br />
<br />
Put another way, I just need to play a lot more games in order to get a return on the investment of time and money I've put into the figures and terrain.<br />
<br />
All this navel-gazing has led to another revelation about myself and my gaming habits While I've long accepted that my tastes lie way outside the mainstream of the wargaming hobby - I can't stand tournament style competitive play and I shy away from glossy, commercial and popular games in favour of more obscure rules and periods - I've realised that his has led me to become incredibly insular in my hobby. I have a pool of maybe a dozen gaming friends who I've played with in the last few years, and only irregularly at that. However many of them are scattered across the country and we can only get together on limited occasions. Plus there's no channel for bringing new blood into the gaming circle. It's like I've been so afraid of the sort of bad gaming experiences that were so common back in the old days, I've withdrawn like a turtle into a "safe" shell. On reflection, I don't think that's entirely healthy, which leads to the slightly fuzzy Resolution #3<br />
<br />
3) MAKE AN EFFORT TO EXPAND YOUR GAMING CIRCLE AND RECONNECT WITH THE REST OF THE GAMING HOBBY WORLD<br />
<br />
I'm thinking primarily this means I should start going back to MAWS again and see if there's anyone there open to non-tournament play these days. And of course there are the various wargame shows that I once again failed to go to in 2015. But this resolution could also include more blogging, networking with other bloggers and I've even been considering doing some YouTube videos on my particular style of wargaming, in contrast to the ALL WARHAMMER! ALL THE TIME! videos that seem to dominate the medium. <br />
<br />
There's also the culture of gaming in your Friendly Local Gaming Store, something which has always been alien to me since my only personal experience of it was a Games Workshop store full of screaming pre-teens. But I know of at least one recently opened, dedicated Wargames shop within reasonable driving distance, so I wonder whether a visit is in order.<br />
<br />
I think those three resolutions pretty neatly sum up my hobby goals for the year ahead. I could maybe add a fourth one..<br />
<br />
4) AIM TO FINISH THOSE HALF COMPLETED PROJECTS<br />
<br />
...for example the industrial terrain layout was at the point where it was quite usable, however a lot of it was still incomplete, undetailed, the pipework was unpainted and just loosely wedged into the platforms. Or the Plasticville suburban houses and motel buildings, which were unbased and unweathered.<br />
<br />
Anyway, expect to see much more frequent updates on this blog in the new year.Dr Vesuviushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05255420207375021875noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2668577041425925534.post-37644378676050021382015-12-11T20:24:00.001+00:002015-12-11T20:24:33.534+00:00Run for the shadows in these golden yearsNot much to report, truth be told, no newly completed figures or terrain project so no eye-candy pics in this post I'm afraid. But I had a thought the other day that I'd like to pose to you as a question...<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Are we in a new "Golden Age" of wargaming?</span><br />
<br />
Now I consider myself well outside the mainstream of wargaming, dominated by the glossy hardback rulebooks and "big box" games that Games Workshop pioneered back when they set themselves apart from wargaming as "The Games Workshop Hobby". (Yes I'm still bitter!) I mainly play oddball periods and subgenres with cheap indie (or free) rules that work for me.<br />
<br />
But if I was the sort of gamer who liked glossy, commercial games, look at the choices I've got available. Historical gamers now have quite a selection of high production value games to cover most periods. I'm thinking about games like Hail Caesar, Black Powder and Bolt Action, three glossy games that cover the iconic three periods always covered by the early Featherstone-era books that got me into the hobby. Osprey, an established historical publisher, are now producing more and more wargame rules after their success with Force On Force. After leading the way bringing GW-style production values to historical games with WW2's Flames Of War, Battlefront are now doing the same for "Cold War Gone Hot" with Team Yankee.<br />
<br />
And while SF & Fantasy has always been well served by the commercial hobby industry, we're starting to see a number of non-GW game emerging with some actual longevity, rather than games that are fashionably popular for a year or two before being dropped like a stone in favour of the new hotness. For example, Infinity is well into its third edition and shows no signs of losing steam. Spy-Fi/Pulp TV emulator 7TV is just getting a second edition as well.<br />
<br />
And not only do we once again have access to classic wargaming books from the likes of Featherstone, Morchauser and Grant thanks to John Curry's History Of Wargaming project, we also have new authors like Neil Thomas producing a new generation of introductory texts, available as hardback or softback from mainstream marketplaces like Amazon.<br />
<br />
The days when most wargames rules were poorly printed A5 stapled booklets are a thing of the past.<br />
<br />
Yet while the mainstream gamer has all these great options available to him, the flipside "independent" side of the hobby is still thriving too. We're seeing great and innovative rulesets from outfits like Nordic Weasel thanks to electronic distribution via services like Wargames Vault.<br />
<br />
And on the shiny toys front, we have the wonders of 3D printing, MDF laser cutting and a healthy cottage industry of miniature micro-manufacturers. It's now entirely possible for a hobbyist with a modest disposable income to commission his own, original figures and have them cast by a third party and sold via the internet to recover the costs.<br />
<br />
So much choice.<br />
<br />
Are we not living in a new Golden Age of our hobby?Dr Vesuviushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05255420207375021875noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2668577041425925534.post-90132975888753192812015-11-15T15:46:00.001+00:002015-11-15T15:46:54.570+00:00I don't want to set the world on fire...If you have any awareness of current computer games, and haven't been frozen in cryosleep for the last couple of weeks, you'll be aware that this week saw the release of Fallout 4, the latest installment in the massively successful post-apocalyptic adventure series. Now to say <i>Mi Hermano Apocalyptico</i> Jonesy is a Fallout fan would be something of an understatement. Let's just say that with the game due for release on Monday, he'd booked the entire week off to play it.<br />
<br />
Me on the other hand, well I like the game well enough, but being poor I had to content myself with loading up the last game, Fallout-New Vegas and installing a ton of player-created mods to vastly improve the old game.<br />
<br />
Anyway, all through our recent work on Paradiso and the Hillbilly/Vampire game, whenever Jonesy has looked at certain Plasticville or MDF kit buildings, a feverish look has crossed his brow, and he's been saying things like "You know this would make a great piece for a Fallout game." For the uninitated, the Fallout setting has a very distinct visual style with elements of Art Deco and 1950s Americana. But although a lot of the buildings and terrain I've sourced for the Paradiso project is in a similar style, that setting requires them to be relatively well maintained, whereas for a post-apocalyptic setting, you really need to dial the weathering effects up to 11. Because of this and not wanting to lose focus on the Paradiso project, Jonesy's always resisted my suggestions that we do a Fallout/Post Apocalyptic side project.<br />
<br />
So a few weeks back Jonesy did me a massive solid when my car battery packed up and I couldn't afford to get it replaced. I couldn't afford to buy him anything to properly say thank-you, but one resource I did have a lot of was Time. Time, a bitz-box full of junk and a room full of crafting supplies. Thus was born Super Sekrit Mystery Crafting Projekt X, to create a basic wasteland terrain set mostly from scrap and spare materials at hand, which started immediately after the Halloween game.<br />
<br />
This Friday, while watching Jonesy play Fallout 4 via Steam's game livestreaming feature, I was putting the finishing touches to this....<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqRXvF-p9m3iYj27Zd5OWbsiAEs_Q5RmI2upkMeioohocGxKAbcLHgxGalrwK-F1hgil4MVota8O0NBoB6yOLdCytEWamaFpIlsiWxHIzrbjxNaUXIW-eExqF1P0ru6FGP2kGH6CCk9rqr/s1600/PB140009.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqRXvF-p9m3iYj27Zd5OWbsiAEs_Q5RmI2upkMeioohocGxKAbcLHgxGalrwK-F1hgil4MVota8O0NBoB6yOLdCytEWamaFpIlsiWxHIzrbjxNaUXIW-eExqF1P0ru6FGP2kGH6CCk9rqr/s640/PB140009.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
For a base cloth, I had a sheet of "Teddy-bear Brown" felt that I'd bought years ago when I was living in the flat. It was when I was looking at gaming exclusively on my large coffee table and measures about 3 foot by 4 foot. Unfortunately it was a little to dark to work as a desert basecloth and had never really been used, so I could happily donate it to this project. The colour was still wrong though, so I pegged it up outside and went at it with assorted cans of spray paint, lightly dusting it to break up the solid colour and make it a little "dirtier". It's still not perfect, and we may revisit it later to dirty it up some more, but for now it's perfectly adequate.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS8E9_kvzbO8OpPUXnoWXnFe3NDO6gFlTmN-EbJ_oLUMv0xarmW4sDZo6SI8RWY-j4XsE0SnyGlOknpaifTnjKG5dcNBAPDTb4xweEq-VD9besHJLbyK9gxxCyQPzyGF7hOr4fY80TPZMR/s1600/PB140013.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS8E9_kvzbO8OpPUXnoWXnFe3NDO6gFlTmN-EbJ_oLUMv0xarmW4sDZo6SI8RWY-j4XsE0SnyGlOknpaifTnjKG5dcNBAPDTb4xweEq-VD9besHJLbyK9gxxCyQPzyGF7hOr4fY80TPZMR/s320/PB140013.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
For a basic set of hills, it seemed poetic to mainly use the polystyrene packaging that came with the new car battery, which came in the form of several inch-thick sheets. Where these had been broken in the process of removing the battery for installation, these breaks became impassable rocky "cliff" faces, while the other sides were sculpted with a hot-wire cutter into climbable slopes. This gave us seven relatively narrow "ridge" type hills and to round off the set I used some other spare polystyrene sheets to make three larger hills that the smaller ones could sit on top of to make double elevations.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBEAviGCO54eMwXkY-iWLQgvSYxaZMabGoWGj9PlmH4V_crTM6TOr7yWaU2X-9keyv_3e7geHVHs97OBuSiEnxCBpGRZQJYv8ab6cnlZAs6lj0qSuB0cUh-06pCTHmT5zH_BqLEMPRnbBe/s1600/PB140014.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBEAviGCO54eMwXkY-iWLQgvSYxaZMabGoWGj9PlmH4V_crTM6TOr7yWaU2X-9keyv_3e7geHVHs97OBuSiEnxCBpGRZQJYv8ab6cnlZAs6lj0qSuB0cUh-06pCTHmT5zH_BqLEMPRnbBe/s400/PB140014.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
Pretty much every terrain builder you see in forums, blogs or YouTube videos these days decries the use of white expanded polystyrene (the one with the bubbly texture that's everywhere) in favour of the denser, pink or blue extruded polystyrene which is easier to sculpt and less messy. But the truth is that expanded polystyrene is still a very usable terrain material, which happens to have the side benefit of being so commonplace it's almost free.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB7n8IkTqTJmejVNadXSRotEHfRt6pifvwDhysCoMjEjS2M9AnmkK0adKov8YGn7B4Lw9PU3fHfF14RoAlqzXdxaG3rAxnUgS3PbJmbenU-KREQqPNjpt617_y6TkcfiHKxeqz9LTHj7jU/s1600/PB140019.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB7n8IkTqTJmejVNadXSRotEHfRt6pifvwDhysCoMjEjS2M9AnmkK0adKov8YGn7B4Lw9PU3fHfF14RoAlqzXdxaG3rAxnUgS3PbJmbenU-KREQqPNjpt617_y6TkcfiHKxeqz9LTHj7jU/s320/PB140019.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
Since this is a post-apocalyptic wasteland, I made these hills a little differently to my usual greenfield hills. The first layer was a coat of PVA onto which sand was scattered. I used two different grades of sand to give some variations in texture, the "budgie grit" I use for regular figure basing, which is very fine but has bits and pieces of shell and tiny gravel mixed in with it, was used to create small patches on the top of the hills, while 90% of the surface was made up of the much larger grained "reptile" sand. I didn't put any sand on the "cliff faces" at all, instead caking them in a filler/PVA mix to enhance the rocky texure. Once the sand and the filler were dry, I gave everything a coating of black textured exterior masonry paint, which sealed in the loose sand and gave the hills a good solid protective shell. Then I gave the sand covered parts a heavy drybrushed coat of light brown (almost a solid coat, but still with enough black showing through to break things up). The final coat was a lighter drybrushing of mid-to-light grey to pick out the sand texture.<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipZXVgewvjFjQ6tJRTOWwqlnAmBSaDLRymlHyM0tajblmVDvs-SG3tjAe7HX9YftjCnScc-sR7LpGETRGXgIfxMpl3fhUlL0QcXieB5XNvXMFgTO_9eWSkGctcxzCuW9C-Nwp64KRM2ylC/s1600/PB140020.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipZXVgewvjFjQ6tJRTOWwqlnAmBSaDLRymlHyM0tajblmVDvs-SG3tjAe7HX9YftjCnScc-sR7LpGETRGXgIfxMpl3fhUlL0QcXieB5XNvXMFgTO_9eWSkGctcxzCuW9C-Nwp64KRM2ylC/s320/PB140020.JPG" width="320" /></a><br />
The cliff faces still felt a little vulnerable to damage, so I gave each an extra coat of PVA to reinforce it, followed by progressively lighter drybrush coats of progressively lighter shades of grey (so the darkest grey covered almost all the rocks, leaving spots of black showing, the mid grey covered about half the rocks and the lightest grey just picked out the highlights).<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_q3GmThuFYc-yOhCh66L4hyphenhyphenhng7wVXRJu2d3OQ-sVL3Q5A5UtkYJ6115mTAsKPE0Ya_NBoaxXCZc6np-M-AToKZidQnvWTR548S1Xk9QaTBLfinBdadJsgrdHoaCzR4_Bzxf05UGw2vmn/s1600/PB140011.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_q3GmThuFYc-yOhCh66L4hyphenhyphenhng7wVXRJu2d3OQ-sVL3Q5A5UtkYJ6115mTAsKPE0Ya_NBoaxXCZc6np-M-AToKZidQnvWTR548S1Xk9QaTBLfinBdadJsgrdHoaCzR4_Bzxf05UGw2vmn/s320/PB140011.JPG" width="320" /></a>Many years ago, I'd bought one of those Woodland Scenics tree kits, which included dozens of premade wireframe skeletons and a couple of bags of clump foliage. The trees I'd originally made with them were horribly prone to foliage falling off, so I recently revisited them using up most of the deciduous clump foliage on only half the deciduous wireframes. This left 20 or so wireframes unused so instead of buying more clump foliage to finish these off, I decided they'd make perfect defoliated dead trees. The wireframes were assembled as normal and attached to 2p bases that were textured exactly the same as the hills. Instead of adding foliage though, the trees were spray painted black then dry brushed with light grey. Quick, easy and very effective.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGAYOGGMOZ2XpsxTM-HSPvHwFTJhrTXmnpiZ5jPf9WmJUw1Ds50jkGpmmnbOAYsZMx6uJzfTO062GoEEdXOWKHUm0jH_U_-J3niiDDOJutq3L9TWbyElGSgMEhTx6BvDXNReK94SErhJNq/s1600/PB140021.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGAYOGGMOZ2XpsxTM-HSPvHwFTJhrTXmnpiZ5jPf9WmJUw1Ds50jkGpmmnbOAYsZMx6uJzfTO062GoEEdXOWKHUm0jH_U_-J3niiDDOJutq3L9TWbyElGSgMEhTx6BvDXNReK94SErhJNq/s320/PB140021.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This turret is actually from a 1/32 scale kit. While overscale<br />for 28mm it works fine as random wreckage. Another piece has<br />the burned out remains of a 1/72 WWII Panzer, totally underscale<br />but since it's unrecognizable except as the remains of some sort<br />of tracked vehicle, that works fine too. Yet another piece has a part<br />of a 1/24 car...</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Next was the really fun part of the project: The rubble scatter terrain. I had a number of pre-cut MDF bases from Wargames Tournaments left over from the Paradiso Jungle terrain project, a raid of the bits box for assorted bits and pieces easily produced ten bases of assorted wreckage, junk and rubble. A little bit of filler and sand added the base wasteland ground texture, which was then painted the same way as the hills, and the assorted bits were roughly drybrushed., usually with touches of a base colour to show remnants of original paint, then silver to pick out metallic parts and a little brown and grey to dirty things up. Depending on how long ago your apocalypse was, you could paint things as anything from "almost new, but abandoned" to "solid rust and dirt". I wanted a middle ground, not only so I could have some spots of colour to "pop" from the grey-brown waste background, but also so at a pinch we can occasionally use non-apocalypsed buildings without them looking too out of place.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0T6dALwPOuDTa6CrUxF1YMd9H3fzlVK6RvYPb-GgfvucQYpKupAqpa4ISMNZM9hOFdUjdMmXDfp-AtNk-lnIadIOm4tRcUaHu7mFnjCX6JsKp4CnVY_6Qz3e4R3C8c4kgHcAh3AkkSEod/s1600/PB140018.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0T6dALwPOuDTa6CrUxF1YMd9H3fzlVK6RvYPb-GgfvucQYpKupAqpa4ISMNZM9hOFdUjdMmXDfp-AtNk-lnIadIOm4tRcUaHu7mFnjCX6JsKp4CnVY_6Qz3e4R3C8c4kgHcAh3AkkSEod/s320/PB140018.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This was originally the cockpit of a toy Mad Cat battlemech,<br />but the curved styling fits perfectly with Fallout's Neo-Fifties<br />design aesthetic</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The final part of the terrain set was the one thing I had to actually buy. For the price of a couple of posh coffees, I got six bags of Javis brown lichen (not pictured). If you want to do a post-apocalyptic game but don't want to do any genre-specific modelling, you can get a lot of mileage simply by dressing up a regular urban or city wargame terrain with a ton of lichen, trees and plants. The idea that the trappings of civilisation have been abandoned and nature has reclaimed the land is a powerful post-apocalyptic vision, and for an eye-opening view of how quickly this can happen, try and track down a TV series called Life After People, which used CGI show how this process might happen at various cities around the world.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzGjIR2CWYMowoF_ie7ERonLcbFcq8EUI-pJXe54BwORZqpNUeyH07ENdwrK-Ahg-aM2QyPY3tF5lJBlUppGe2BnGiCjmjsTItW79PS758pa5rDgT7mmvKo9hdh9zVUEFwAj13UrrtwcBB/s1600/PB140016.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzGjIR2CWYMowoF_ie7ERonLcbFcq8EUI-pJXe54BwORZqpNUeyH07ENdwrK-Ahg-aM2QyPY3tF5lJBlUppGe2BnGiCjmjsTItW79PS758pa5rDgT7mmvKo9hdh9zVUEFwAj13UrrtwcBB/s320/PB140016.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I'm particularly pleased with this one. The wet mud effect wasn't<br />an expensive water effect product, it was just a coat of Army<br />Painter Quickshade, with the glossy finish left intact.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
But for a Fallout themed terrain, Nature hasn't quite recovered enough for the lush green vegetation of regular green lichen and wargame trees to be appropriate - plants in the video game tend to be brown or blackened and generally stunted, so brown lichen is perfect to represent the sort of rough, hardy scrub plants that would be the first to recover in a post-nuclear wasteland.<br />
<br />
And that's it. The whole set fits into one big plastic storage box and makes a good starter post-apoc terrain set. There's plenty that can be added to it - buildings obviously or at least some ruined wall sections, more small pieces of scatter terrain like telegraph poles or lampposts, maybe some road signs or billboards. Roads in Fallout New Vegas tend to be the broken and blackened remains of pre-war highways and would make a fun modellng project. But there's enough here to lay out a 3x3 table with enough terrain items for an interesting game, and that's what a starter set is for.<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhE4Y2cimLqj4fWPqEfXIYBSWn7R8eE7Uy_kLTHXfZcdgrlwzIWW_4Gt9YFn7A7FEj99jHXCDp6DNgZiiWhVJm-mF-uAARf_RCIXhjh3vuGiiLNGr35mT_mLac6fhytW0n5ECePT_NXUNRK/s1600/PB140017.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhE4Y2cimLqj4fWPqEfXIYBSWn7R8eE7Uy_kLTHXfZcdgrlwzIWW_4Gt9YFn7A7FEj99jHXCDp6DNgZiiWhVJm-mF-uAARf_RCIXhjh3vuGiiLNGr35mT_mLac6fhytW0n5ECePT_NXUNRK/s320/PB140017.JPG" width="320" /></a><br />
It remains to be seen whether this set is going to be enough to tip Jonesy over the edge into doing some actual Fallout-inspired gaming, or if it's even going to hit the mark as the thank-you present it was intended to be. But it was a fun project to work on over the last couple of weeks, even if I did have to keep it Super Sekrit.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, another friend CrazyEddy saw me playing Fallout New Vegas on Steam this week and took pity on this poor boy. I now have a shiny-new copy of Fallout 4 that he's sent me as an early Xmas present. It's good to have friends.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
Dr Vesuviushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05255420207375021875noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2668577041425925534.post-28805548020771892392015-11-04T13:41:00.000+00:002015-11-04T13:41:48.088+00:00Go ahead you can laugh all you want, but I got My Philosophy.The Halloween game had been a great success. It's fair to say that it was, by its nature, towards the less serious end of the wargaming spectrum.<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Let's think about that for a moment.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Some gamers, many in fact, might call it "silly" and argue that it wasn't *real* wargaming at all. To an extent, I'd have to agree with them. We're not reproducing any real historical or hypothetical future conflict. We weren't trying to gain a greater understanding of the dynamics of vampire on Hillbilly violence by running a detailed simulation. Many of the rules were written to be played for laughs, like the ability of some Elder hill-folk to make a pinning attack against younger enemies by verbally berating them at length and in detail for their shoddy, dissolute ways. Or the fact that the deadliest sniper in the game was a teenage girl whose teddy bear acted as her spotter.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Put in terms used for other forms of entertainment like books & TV, it was clearly a Comedy. Or at least a comedy-drama (never a Dramedy - that word is an abomination and must never be allowed to make it into the dictionary!). But a comedic novel is still a novel. A comedy TV show is still a TV show.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
We can be all worthy and intellectual and spend our TV viewing on nothing but Serious Dramas where everyone looks constipated, with maybe a few documentaries on obscure European monarchs or 17th century pottery. But every now and then, everybody wants and needs an entertainment that doesn't tax the brain too much and makes you laugh, or at least smile wrily.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Thus I would argue that the Comedy Wargame has its place in the hobby. While my general wargaming tastes to tend towards the lighter end of the spectrum, I wouldn't want ALL my gaming to be as off-the-wall as the Hillbilly games. Other games I do, like the Paradiso modern day stuff, may have light-hearted details like a rebel leader nicknamed "The Green Pig", or a neighbouring nation named, appoximately "Rat's Ass". But on the whole the core of the games are played straight, and are my small way of exploring modern combat, whether between semi-modern militaries, against insurent rebels, or street level violence between criminals and law enforcement.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
(The VSF gaming is also spread out along this comedy-drama spectrum. The more outrageous elements are obviously quite silly, like the SpringenPanzer, bouncing across the battlefield on its four pogo-stick legs. But on the whole I'm a lot less whimsical than most other VSF players, and the games I play seem to be comparable to those of the Very British Civil War crowd, fundamentally grounded in real-world technology and tactics, with a little light-hearted nonsense as seasoning.)</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The reason I'm discussing this is that the wargaming media channel The Beasts Of War are running a series of articles on gaming the current conflict in Ukraine. Needless to say there's a certain amount of backlash, with some commenters arguing that the author shouldn't be gaming a war that's only just (hopefully) coming to a close. Personally I think it's a valid and interesting subject, which can be approached in different ways.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The author of the articles advocates a serious, respectful and scholarly approach, using the game and associated research as a way of increasing general awareness of the real-life conflict. I'd agree and support this approach wholeheartedly. But does that mean that the wargamer isn't allowed to have "fun" gaming such a conflict.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The other, slightly more dangerous approach, would be to go down the "black comedy" route. One of the way we as human beings process and deal with the most horrible aspects of life is through comedy. Done right, it's not so much about making light of the horrible situation, but instead picking out the ridiculous and absurd elements so that we can use them to help rationalise what's happening and understand it. While I would never run a Ukraine game with the same outright comedic tone as the Hillbilly games, the situation there has some obviously black comedic elements that could be picked out - the myriad of small paramilitary groups, some of whom may be at odds with others on their "side", the non-existent Russian troops in the conflict (The BOW articles' author mentioned that Vladimir Putin recently awarded a battle honour to a Russian Army unit for a Ukrainian battle that Russia officially denies any involvement in!)</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Of course, you can have your cake and eat it if you shift the setting of the conflict to an Imagination. Simply changing the names and filing off the serial numbers seems to take a lot of controversy out of modern gaming. Or you can take situations and elements from the real-world headlines and transplant them to a totally different setting to disguise the source. Paradiso might have a province that is largely culturally Spanish (where many of the people feel closer to Culo Raton, for some reason). Some planned move toward Anglicizing the country further might prompt local separatist paramilitaries to declare independence. Culo Raton might respond by NOT sending a couple of brigades of non-existent troops who totally don't wear any insignia, while numerous paramilitary units formup on both sides of the brewing conflict, using a mixture of modern and obsolete equipment.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Would such a game still be morally questionable to those who object to a "straight" gaming of the Ukraine? If not why not?</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
========================</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/A1RXVkBZNtL.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/A1RXVkBZNtL.jpg" height="400" width="277" /></a></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
All this is actually a major digression from what I did want to post about - on Monday night Jonesy and our friend Andy came round for what's turned into a regular monday night gathering and we gave Neil Thomas's "One Hour Wargames" a try out. I'd picked up a copy a couple of months ago thinking it might be useful as a source of scenarios, and when I showed it to Jonesy the other day, it piqued his interest and he promptly bought the eBook version. To try out the rules, he produced a number of card cut-out counters to represent the units, which helpfully had the relevent game stats printed on them (dice to roll in combat, movement distance etc)</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
We did a couple of battles with the Horse and Musket rules. The first pitted myself against Andy in a hill defence scenario. I was able to concentrate my massed infantry fire on his troops defending the hill, wiping them away in the first few turns, then managed to hold the position when his re-inforcements arrived. The second battle, between Andy and Jonesy, saw identical forces on each side battling over a hill and a crossroads, both of which had to be captured and/or defended. That turned into a real grindfest, a battle of attrition where Andy won by effectively shielding a couple of units for the first few turns so that they came to the attrition phase of the game undamaged, where their opponents had already taken 4-5 points each from other units.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjK2tcyeDqJALZkbDUrSdqzDa6CnZTmMjhFBjPiUO3XGKOYQR6BE7lk8BrrNr41OySCRujmPTQrFhM3qAojjhKPSDLoXbHUgKvshjIj-BUBibkc9GGJfKdQ0SLV-HrM3zKuVThdbefZNHGn/s1600/PB020005.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjK2tcyeDqJALZkbDUrSdqzDa6CnZTmMjhFBjPiUO3XGKOYQR6BE7lk8BrrNr41OySCRujmPTQrFhM3qAojjhKPSDLoXbHUgKvshjIj-BUBibkc9GGJfKdQ0SLV-HrM3zKuVThdbefZNHGn/s320/PB020005.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I have fairly mixed feelings about One-Hour Wargames as a whole. I'm generally a big fan of short simple rulesets (in the book each period's rules is spread over three pages, but printing out from the eBook version managed to reduce that down to two sides) and fast-play games. Play felt at times very much like early DBA/Hordes Of The Things, where tactics consisted of putting your units into positions to spoil enemy units manoeuvring and concentrating your attacking power. There's lots of stuff that's a little vague and while one gaming group might assume it clearly means one thing, I can imagine a different group interpreting it a different way. For example, units turn by rotating about the centre at the start and end of movement. But since you can't pass through other units (unless you're a skirmisher), does that mean that if you have two units directly next to eachother in side to side contact, does that mean that neither can turn, because doing so would "clip" a corner through another unit. Jonesy ruled that yes that was exactly what it meant, and we went with it, but I can easily see another group interpreting the rule as only prohibiting major interpenetrations and handwaving away any minor clipping. The strict interpretation could lead to the risk of micro-measuring, with one side arguing unit X can't move because it was pass through unit Y by half a millimeter or so (yes I heard such arguments in the early days of DBA). Like most one-page rulesets, I think both sides need to have an easy-going, loosey-goosey approach to the rules in order for it to be a fun game.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I love that you can produce two armies for the game at a relatively low price that would then allow you to fight every scenario in the book. It's something that I long wanted to do for the Charles Grant scenario books, going as far as buying several boxes of plastic napoleonic figures (which are currently lost somewhere in storage). The rules themselves are obviously simple and generally did a good job, though I felt there were a couple of instances where one side ought to have been given some advantage but weren't, such as an infantry unit firing into the flank or rear of another. I greatly admire the way Neil Thomas took on the rules design challenge of limiting himself to four troop types per era, but I don't think that does a terribly good job of representing some of the periods covered.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
On the whole, I think if I was looking for a compact, short-rules wargame I'd rather play Bob Cordery's Portable Wargame or a DBx variant, though I do want to try out a couple of other periods and maybe play with some actual toy soldiers on the table rather than card counters.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
===</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The most interesting thing that came out of the One Hour Wargames playtest was that Andy didn't enjoy the evening's gamng. He started out by saying "I'm just not a wargamer" which didn't make much sense given that over the years I've seen him play many, many wargames.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
This led to a very useful discussion on what it was that he enjoys in games, what exactly he gets out of the experience. I've said it before on this blog, as I've grown older I've become a great believer in finding out what it is that you enjoy doing, and then doing that thing a lot. It seems like stating the bleeding obvious, but I look back over a lifetime of gaming and a lot of that was spent in unsatisfactory games because I was just going with the flow of what I thought the games had to be like. The 1HW test was so minimalist it became a matter of pure tactics and game mechanics, which are both very jonesy, while neither are things that Andy enjoys. There was no context to the battle, no natty uniforms on either side, no characterisation... and then Andy said the magic word when he said he couldn't get the <b>story</b> of the game. It turns out Andy is looking for the same thing I am from a gaming experience, to tell an interesting and exiting story of the battle.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
We talked a bit more about other wargames he'd enjoyed and those he hadn't, and eventually decided that next week we'd have a game with the Hillbilly figures, slightly smaller than the Big Game but with a more light-hearted, story-driven tone that I think Andy will appreciate.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I can't repeat this often enough: Find the things you enjoy doing the most. Then go do those things. Your gaming will be all the better for it.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
Dr Vesuviushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05255420207375021875noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2668577041425925534.post-70335149183391939542015-11-01T17:57:00.000+00:002015-11-01T17:57:58.755+00:00We Did The Monster Mash! It Was a Graveyard Smash!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
It was a dark and stormy night at Chez Vesuvius. Well actually it was an overcast and slightly soggy morning, but somehow that doesn't sound right for a Halloween Big Game.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Our regular monthly RPG group had agreed to forgo our usual Mutants And Masterminds game in favour of doing something more seasonal on the big wargame table. As I mentioned in the last post here, the game was going to be Hillbillies vs Dracula, and that prompted a whole week of frantic last minute crafting to get some of the necessary terrain pieces ready. </div>
<br />
Having bought an absolute ton of second hand Plasticville buildings from the US last year (and a handful of new kits) for the Paradiso project, I had many that work equally well for a mainland US setting as for the Carribean holiday resort/warzone. But a few are just too 1950s Americana to work anywhere else and get put aside for games like this. That was the box I delved into the find the Plasticville church that formed the centrepiece of the table.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitwb9H-wv3YDc_8DwC9Lo7FBFgnWB7xJbbfLeq3nH8FdLRRAaOfdy7X4tN34bV2xXV0Keeim06l6SxtS_xjkNhSOEA4Th7qd2jR8VUAFx6C0M3bP8t3t9t1gMfi_A0OX28o4bmXTq0UBSK/s1600/PA310003.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitwb9H-wv3YDc_8DwC9Lo7FBFgnWB7xJbbfLeq3nH8FdLRRAaOfdy7X4tN34bV2xXV0Keeim06l6SxtS_xjkNhSOEA4Th7qd2jR8VUAFx6C0M3bP8t3t9t1gMfi_A0OX28o4bmXTq0UBSK/s320/PA310003.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
Surrounding the church was an extensive graveyard mainly made up of a mix of Ainsty Castings and Renedra gravestones. Again I'd acquired a surprisingly large collection over the past few years, of which I'd only painted and assembled a small handful. Since the graveyard was going to be a much more important location for this game, it seemed a good opportunity to get the rest put together.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIBgE4iUCEclYiuFCqVxu_kNn3M1VIdrChARXBlz38qSx5qaeJv1q7ypr-2V_Ck-NJzn15NSULb3Vjk1AwGzMeGAMRgVHLrwogCfZ5iDhViie4mf76ac7l6A5-lNjsmW3gnWujarf4kx9_/s1600/KAT02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="176" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIBgE4iUCEclYiuFCqVxu_kNn3M1VIdrChARXBlz38qSx5qaeJv1q7ypr-2V_Ck-NJzn15NSULb3Vjk1AwGzMeGAMRgVHLrwogCfZ5iDhViie4mf76ac7l6A5-lNjsmW3gnWujarf4kx9_/s320/KAT02.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
I dug out the farm buildings, the diner and the old gas station from the previous Hillbilly game. The farm had a few chickens painted and based, plus of course the Demon Goat (that had actually killed one of the players' leader in the last game), but I wanted to add to the livestock on the farm. I'd been buying these Teamsterz farm trucks (around £4 each) for Paradiso to serve as transport for the Rebel forces (and a couple of which were turned into heavy Technicals/Gun Trucks) but each truck had come with a cow, a ram and a pig. The cows are a bit small for 28mm, and I wasn't sure a flock of rams looked right, but the pigs were just about right, and got added to the speedpainting table, along with a couple of Heroclix figures that would serve as objective markers during the game.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0ujnJmWCRyPC4V9oc3qocSBrI0xqW9zZTWcB4OeGZs38sXdXBVY_TyUVo9DpeK4jyv92fp8ZYNOc00C_Cd6zXL8CPPuZJdyZa7NpeRc7NGLvLM1Q3uvQDW4rtIiD1WAUhzopucjEy0anw/s1600/KAT01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0ujnJmWCRyPC4V9oc3qocSBrI0xqW9zZTWcB4OeGZs38sXdXBVY_TyUVo9DpeK4jyv92fp8ZYNOc00C_Cd6zXL8CPPuZJdyZa7NpeRc7NGLvLM1Q3uvQDW4rtIiD1WAUhzopucjEy0anw/s320/KAT01.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
The Plasticville trailer park kit was already on the workbench for use in Paradiso, but despite only being partly primed, we temporarily threw it together for the game. Even in this simple state they looked pretty effective and I think all they need to finish them off will be a little weathering to bring them into line with the motorhome.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEic9YFCsqGIQYDD-QRSYzPRSWReVPyAKeNSVIc_1wX-d5ncVkfMyoEO7NIdlS5Zfqw9EYj133cduzlUXcDebxuZpM__2dLx-Y8XpVi_QSR13aIN0VPXgX7YefaUSYlga6d_KgrE_1d5qcFr/s1600/PA310001.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEic9YFCsqGIQYDD-QRSYzPRSWReVPyAKeNSVIc_1wX-d5ncVkfMyoEO7NIdlS5Zfqw9EYj133cduzlUXcDebxuZpM__2dLx-Y8XpVi_QSR13aIN0VPXgX7YefaUSYlga6d_KgrE_1d5qcFr/s320/PA310001.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
The main part of town was going to be a mix of Plasticville, K-Line and the TTCombat apartment building. This latter I repainted from its original planned grey (in line with my Sarissa GASLIGHT buildings) to a much more American looking red. The result was pretty effective, I think.<br />
<br />
I also wanted to use the Mad Mecha Guy's monorail cargo depot crane, along with some of the many, many cargo containers we've assembled recently. And right in the centre of the above pic, you can see one of the custom "temporary office" containers that Joseph produced for Jonesy and me. Simple boxes with just enough detail, but very effective. If he ever decides to sell these to the public I highly recommend them as useful utility clutter for urban/industrial terrain.<br />
<br />
Looking for still more excuses to dig into the lead/plastic/MDF/Resin mountain, I decided that the town park ought to have a bandstand, and the Sarissa Precision Gaslamp Alley bandstand would do just fine for that. It's a really nice kit, and while a little fiddley to assemble with lots of tiny curlicue pieces that need poking out, it's not too hard to assemble. This is one of those kits that benefits from forward planning and spray painting the separate parts before assembly.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgNuXe0TG2o0NySXxSktMsZ-LJuytdRGdbRnva_5gOiB-gdnhG7XD0uU0QPybuAcM-JC91fUWSxeXWVADwGXg_eI9-VRY1ghugiqHGh6nlGclDzUh1gZjQMo-hTKqtAHZpGyxAczABKVsy/s1600/PA310013.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgNuXe0TG2o0NySXxSktMsZ-LJuytdRGdbRnva_5gOiB-gdnhG7XD0uU0QPybuAcM-JC91fUWSxeXWVADwGXg_eI9-VRY1ghugiqHGh6nlGclDzUh1gZjQMo-hTKqtAHZpGyxAczABKVsy/s320/PA310013.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
The Blotz gas station, a much more modern looking building than the Plasticville offerings, still had a bit of work needed to finish painting the pillars and pumps, but since this detail was hidden in shadow under the impressive canopy I figured I could get away with leaving it. One thing which did become apparent was the need for a number of "baseplates" to represent areas of concrete for urban areas. Luckily I had a few pieces of 3mm MDF that had originally been cut and primed grey for use as bases for other Plasticville buildings, which worked well as the garage forecourt.<br />
<br />
There were a few other new bits of clutter terrain, bus stops and vending machines from TTCombat which also got assembled and painted in the week running up to the game. This game also saw the debut of the separate pavement/sidewalk pieces from TTCombat and Sarissa Precision, which I felt worked really well.<br />
<br />
On the figure front, while I had the Hillbillys covered I was sadly lacking for supernatural opposition, and so my good friend MarvinTheARVN agreed to lend me his Gothic Horror and Zombie figures for the game. On the Friday he arrived with the figures, and although the zombies were well painted and his Werewolves (which we'd used before) were fine, all his vampires were unpainted and still primed black. I needed at least one master vampire figure to be the main villain and I needed it ready for the following day. This led to the fastest speed-painting job I think I've ever pulled off.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2C73tyIs9ND8rFZb1s4DhwqZ_YLac6V7RtRsBesLzFLn4zRLUkx2sXrMwdmoLyZc6gRLwypbZQEHDDU43BFa_oSI2js0-WPu68huOIBseSgH22di_AZ80CEIGXJuiNr72V71bDOO5MoiQ/s1600/PB010004.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2C73tyIs9ND8rFZb1s4DhwqZ_YLac6V7RtRsBesLzFLn4zRLUkx2sXrMwdmoLyZc6gRLwypbZQEHDDU43BFa_oSI2js0-WPu68huOIBseSgH22di_AZ80CEIGXJuiNr72V71bDOO5MoiQ/s320/PB010004.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
A few months ago, Carl from the "Solo Wargaming in the UK" blog sent me a selection of Victorian/Gothic Horror figures that he no longer needed. (and I'm painfully aware that until now I haven't credited or thanked him properly for this kind gift.) Most of the figures were from the Blue Moon "Chaos in Carpathia" boxed set, which included a master vampire and three "Brides of Dracula" types. In anticipation of needing them as a possible backup plan for this game, I'd put them in a jar of Dettol to strip the existing partial paintwork at the start of the week. Minutes after Marvin had left, I was fishing them out to find that the magic liquid hadn't quite had enough time to do the job, and while one of the ladies was down to bare metal and Dracula was about 80% there, the other two were still mostly covered in paint.<br />
<br />
Emergency measures were required, so I dug out some acetone-free nail varnish remover that I'd bought previously to remove tampo decals from die-cast cars. Having previously only used the tiniest amounts on the end of a cotton wool swab, I knew a relatively small dribble over each figure would be enough to strip the remaining paint off the figures. But my god! That stuff was pungent! Ladies, I don't know how you stand to put that stuff on your fingertips, but even the tiny amount I was using stank to high heaven, and I use the term "high" advisedly!<br />
<br />
Once down to bare metal, I was able to skip a step from my usual figure preparation process. The Blue Moon figures all have large round bases with appropriately sculpted detail. They about match the size of the penny bases I use for GASLIGHT figures, and while I could have mounted them on slottabases to match the Hillbillies and modern figures, I thought I could get away without it.<br />
<br />
From there, the figures went back outside for spray priming with Army Painter, black for him, white for the Brides. Then straight back in to the painting table, where the girls simply got a skin tone (Porcelein Flesh) and a hair colour (red, black or Blonde). Dracula got a little more attention, grey skin, waistcoat painted white then red (to brighten the colour) and a little drybrushing in progressively lighter shades of grey to bring out the details of his suit and cape/wings. Then finally a coat of Army Painter Dark Tone Quickshade dip was painted on to work its magic.<br />
<br />
Estimated time from coming out of the Dettol jar to closing up the Quickshade tin was about 90 minutes. While I'm the first to admit that the results are at best a low "tabletop" standard paintjob, I'm more than happy with them given the time taken.<br />
<br />
So onto the day of the game, and there was a gap on the table by the railway track that looked like it was just crying out for a railway station. Although I hadn't planned to use it, and had done exactly zero restoration work on it, I dug out a Plasticville railway station from the "not Paradiso" box again and plonked it down. The fact that it looked so good on the tabletop makes me question somewhat why I'm spending so much time and effort basing, repainting and restoring the Plasticville buildings and why don't I just throw them on the tabletop and play with them as-is?<br />
<br />
So onto the game itself. The scenario was simple - Dracula had taken over the tiny Appalachian town, killing or turning all its inhabitants. Members of four nearby mountain-folk families had been caught up in the slaughter, and after a couple of weeks, the four families had come to town in search of their missing kinfolk. The churchyard formed the centre of the table, surrounded by six seperate zones: The Farm, The Highway Rest Stop, The Trailer Park, The Cargo Depot, The Town Park and the Town. In each zone was a clue, a figure or terrain piece that the Hillbillies could discover that would weaken Dracula's powers when they finally faced him down in the Churchyard. Meanwhile Dracula would be sending his legions of zombies, wolves and werewolves out to slow them down. <br />
<br />
The rules were Flying Lead from Ganesha Games, with a slight tweak to the turn sequence. In the original rules, each players attempts to activate all of his or her figures before handing over to the next player. While fine for simple 2 player games, in the previous Hillbilly game we found that this left people twiddling their thumbs for too long. This time, each player attempted one figure activation at a time before handing over to the next player. If they failed two activations then any figures they hadn't activated in that "grand cycle" would forfeit their move until the next cycle. I also had each Wolf and Werewolf pack activating as a single entity rather than individuals, and instead of being controlled normally, the zombies all acted in a seperate phase at the end of each grand cycle, getting one medium move stick towards the nearest human and if that brought them into contact with, one attack. It worked very well, the wolves working as packs and the zombies being relatively slow and more of a hazard than a threat (though they did manage to take out a couple of stragglers during the game).<br />
<br />
Oh and finally, the players (CrazyEddy, KayDee, MarvinTheARVN and T'uther Chris) were told that they were still feuding with the other families, and any "victory points" would be modified by the number of kinfolk each family had left, so it was in their interest to "thin the rival herds" a little bit.<br />
<br />
The game itself was pretty memorable. Here are some highlights<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigs96jW0eRqXa2SJKfi4f5YPsa0C7ie19_OhEwN1_dw812dNBcrlSjh34-kwo6fiXs4PFOOdLSmMr-rQoONTWxJnmuvrWJIXOoxXe7cn0HkjVSOSJjE-q01fBz-tn-sXG396H2FMEgmi3I/s1600/PA310018.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigs96jW0eRqXa2SJKfi4f5YPsa0C7ie19_OhEwN1_dw812dNBcrlSjh34-kwo6fiXs4PFOOdLSmMr-rQoONTWxJnmuvrWJIXOoxXe7cn0HkjVSOSJjE-q01fBz-tn-sXG396H2FMEgmi3I/s320/PA310018.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
The "CrazyEddy" family (yellow) had gotten stalled in the Cargo Depot thanks to Crapping Out on several early game turns. Meanwhile, the Dee Clan (red) had stormed through the Farm and the Trailer park picking up their clues and only having to deal with a handful of zombies. Seeing a werewolf about to pounce onto the Eddys' truck, the Dees decided to "help" their neighbours by ramming the beast. Unfortunately the agile lycan dodged out of the way and... well the brakes on those old jalopies ain't all they ought to be.<br />
<br />
This lead to a... .ahem... misunderstanding between the two families and harsh words and buckshot were exchanged between the two. But any misundersanding was soon ironed out when the Dees backed their jalopy away from the Eddys... then shifted back into forward and rammed them a second time, this time clearly aiming for one of the Eddys' kinfolk.<br />
<br />
The situation..... escalated.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0JC6wF2Cy_afPdRaRIVa8brnHPjFKoHuVDNqLmg2xbFgNvKCwCta7t_VfLg25f1DBpb43Xa5YG-s8xwngTN05urlfw0YT8nvEBVWgjAON09VArcOM8t4R3yRvNBDb6ysiqng3owejzUF2/s1600/KAT03.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0JC6wF2Cy_afPdRaRIVa8brnHPjFKoHuVDNqLmg2xbFgNvKCwCta7t_VfLg25f1DBpb43Xa5YG-s8xwngTN05urlfw0YT8nvEBVWgjAON09VArcOM8t4R3yRvNBDb6ysiqng3owejzUF2/s320/KAT03.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
Meanwhile, the Tuther clan (run by T'uther Chris) went into town and rescued young Lucy Westonra from the town's radio station. Showing remarkable forsight, for his next activation after finding her, T'uther Chris had Granny clamber to the back of the Jalopy to check their new friend for injuries, only to find those two telltale puncture wounds at the neck and assorted other arterial points.<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_tgq26FtwCz2GVg-UCIHRGsNx7zE4EzRl2SzZtd7nzOrseyoXf_MfAHTBpay0TTZycbTMNhfLb-lXIsuRZUJJxl2Ptir0myWqaMN9_QXfyyROddn_r-T5akxnqE9HxhfK4w1aqIgf5OQW/s1600/PA310026.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_tgq26FtwCz2GVg-UCIHRGsNx7zE4EzRl2SzZtd7nzOrseyoXf_MfAHTBpay0TTZycbTMNhfLb-lXIsuRZUJJxl2Ptir0myWqaMN9_QXfyyROddn_r-T5akxnqE9HxhfK4w1aqIgf5OQW/s320/PA310026.JPG" width="320" /></a><br />
A scuffle ensued, ending when Lofty shoved the muzzle of his hunting rifle under Lucy's chin and scored a Gory Kill result, blowing her head clean off. The scene was so entertaining and to reward the player's foresight, I gave him a second, bonus clue.<br />
<br />
From that point on , the Tuthers were reluctant to leave their jalopy, using it as a rather effective sniping platform for Lofty and Minnie-Jo. (Minnie-Jo is the little girl with the teddy bear and huge rifle. Mr Fluffles is her spotter and gives her the equivalent of the Marksman and Hit-Man abilities, making her an absolutely deadly sniper.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5MH1_rqrlr_Ja6-UZEA8P_pme-s70rubvcySVJ9Cw975FzhL3fevZ21J1tGjvd3ieg4DNtPB4iQZ5_xVCUCiKGsTYxmq6TiJOcjiouhvSxPz1lUGogChB46uSIiyh-7A_h-URTNu1Wcqy/s1600/PA310019.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5MH1_rqrlr_Ja6-UZEA8P_pme-s70rubvcySVJ9Cw975FzhL3fevZ21J1tGjvd3ieg4DNtPB4iQZ5_xVCUCiKGsTYxmq6TiJOcjiouhvSxPz1lUGogChB46uSIiyh-7A_h-URTNu1Wcqy/s320/PA310019.JPG" width="320" /></a>The Arvn clan had found a clue at the rest stop but disturbed a large nest of zombies. With the zeds and a pack of wolves bearing down on them, they were forced to leave Old Abe to his fate. Moving into the park, Li'l Billy-Bob ran ahead to the bandstand to talk to the strange wheelchair-bound professor who told him scary tales about vampires and werewolves.<br />
<br />
With the clue secured, Li'l Billy Bob just had to evade the zombies staggering towards the bandstand and get back to the truck.<br />
<br />
"I push his wheelchair down the steps towards the zombies as a distraction."<br />
<br />
Sometimes I fear my players.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjP_dna_qllxg6aDvW4tCToPNgLa4db1aMyL36qbgl4ZSAMqs-CwBga56JLjTGJzLibN7nPI7Y45a898i8ISpp_N1yIkWEDuBGB91iAWdI5PD7ZWPLCNmVxWYDNLgTuIZlGZWUFeQQXZV9r/s1600/KAT4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjP_dna_qllxg6aDvW4tCToPNgLa4db1aMyL36qbgl4ZSAMqs-CwBga56JLjTGJzLibN7nPI7Y45a898i8ISpp_N1yIkWEDuBGB91iAWdI5PD7ZWPLCNmVxWYDNLgTuIZlGZWUFeQQXZV9r/s320/KAT4.jpg" width="180" /></a>At the end, The Dee's had been completely wiped out, taking all but three of the Eddys with them. Two of them were fast enough to leg it down the road in search of transport. But a huge swarm of zombies had been raised in the churchyard and by mutual agreement of three of the players, all headed towards the loudest noise, namely the exploding and burning trucks.<br />
<br />
Poor Bubba. Poor old drunk Bubba.<br />
<br />
Of all the Hillbilly figures, he's the least violent. Unarmed, except for his jug of moonshine, which he'll happily offer to share with fallen kinfolk to help revive their spirits. His pitiful drunken state had been known to drive other womenfolk to berate him mercilessly, (basically his only "attack" forced hostile womenfolk to skip actions berating his drunkenness.)<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6ek9Uk1Xu3mP05O2Bl4B7ooq0IAYjmL8iEW4h7QyY-mVbtgtRrMppQPRXPL4zZ3_KoB0uQ_2hBaaUCp_6gJFMfT-bgJeGAV51FRGvJNn91n68SIowzBo83qwbe_LUFuLjOhc5B8c0b0AV/s1600/PA310030.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6ek9Uk1Xu3mP05O2Bl4B7ooq0IAYjmL8iEW4h7QyY-mVbtgtRrMppQPRXPL4zZ3_KoB0uQ_2hBaaUCp_6gJFMfT-bgJeGAV51FRGvJNn91n68SIowzBo83qwbe_LUFuLjOhc5B8c0b0AV/s320/PA310030.JPG" width="320" /></a>Poor Bubba didn't make it.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
On the other side of the churchyard, a conference had taken place between Clan Arvn and Clan Tuther, who agreed to unite their clans to deal with the threat from "that thar fancy-pants furriner"/ With most of the zombies drawn off to the explosions, that left Dracula, his three Brides and a couple of zombie/ghouls left.<br />
<br />
Because they agreed to share the clues they'd found, the Tuthers and Arvns had four clues between them. Each clue negated one of Dracula's abilities, which brought him down from being an unstoppable killing machine to about the level of one of the tougher Hillbilly fighters.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7diexY9C4ujPdF4A27NPBKIiDrfN5ZKzBKDst-uqlJXXlJeAvGPGrZzwHZk6c8xHq0uLS_N9etTyOXf5xakf1foMw4fvCgw8uOrLnezYb5JKy4MUvpJbJmxG_KzQvsw6MZ9os9OrfSedo/s1600/PA310031.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7diexY9C4ujPdF4A27NPBKIiDrfN5ZKzBKDst-uqlJXXlJeAvGPGrZzwHZk6c8xHq0uLS_N9etTyOXf5xakf1foMw4fvCgw8uOrLnezYb5JKy4MUvpJbJmxG_KzQvsw6MZ9os9OrfSedo/s320/PA310031.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
Sniper fire from Minni-Jo accounted for two of the Brides, though not after they'd fanged poor Cousin George. Granny Tuther tried to chastise one of the brides for being such a shameless hussy, walking around in her slip like that, showing her ankles and she'll catch her death of cold one night and.... sadly the Brides, being a couple of centuries older than Granny herself, were immune to her Berate power.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPpm8bXyC4JgdVNtkOfvqdauGxEQyZc5vcX_33264MhQNtFqqSGEvK4TwzzezwdiR7966ibrS2Y8KaWShbCQ6ueGqZWyWqg4cYiQapkgG_LWu8ZYqdQeexpZSVoKpYWygBqorx2K7JiW0F/s1600/KAT5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPpm8bXyC4JgdVNtkOfvqdauGxEQyZc5vcX_33264MhQNtFqqSGEvK4TwzzezwdiR7966ibrS2Y8KaWShbCQ6ueGqZWyWqg4cYiQapkgG_LWu8ZYqdQeexpZSVoKpYWygBqorx2K7JiW0F/s320/KAT5.jpg" style="cursor: move;" width="180" /></a>(As an aside, Berate was an ability I'd given some of the Elder figures, especially the unarmed ones, which allowed them to pin enemy non-elders with a stern tongue-lashing, similar to using magic to pin figures in Song Of Blades And Heroes. That power had worked wonders against the Werewolves, several of which had fallen foul of elders' stern words and disapproving tone of voice)<br />
<br />
When the third Bride fell to fire from the Arvn clan, Dracula made his move, pouncing out and wafting his cape magnificently. Uncle-Daddy Tuther, patriarch of the clan, charged him with his pitchfork but found himself ganged up on by Drac and a couple of his ghouls. The fight went back and forth, until Uncle-Daddy finally succumbed to a ghoul bite. <br />
<br />
Minnie-Jo listened to Mr Fluffles' voice in her head one last time, took careful aim and put a .50 cal round right between Dracula's eyes, ending the terror for good.<br />
<br />
A heck of a good fun game.<br />
<br />
MarvintheARVN has already suggested the subject of the next big game, when he noticed my "not quite Nelson's Column" terrain piece, complete with lions.<br />
<h2 style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hillbillies 3; Hillbillies in Old London Town</span></h2>
Should I be worried that I think I've already got most of the figures and terrain I need to make that happen?<br />
<br />
<br />Dr Vesuviushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05255420207375021875noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2668577041425925534.post-61372023494525165912015-10-26T14:42:00.000+00:002015-10-26T14:42:04.310+00:00We're busy doing nothing, working the whole day through..Two months since the last post! Geez how did that happen?<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
There's been lots of little bits of work done over the last two months, though nothing major completed. Most of the focus has been on terrain for Paradiso, though with the usual goldfish attention spa... oh look here's another cool widget to work on.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
We have some bits to finish off the Industrial terrain, including some custom made MDF blockhouses produced for us by the wonderful Mad Mecha Guy. Though rightly best known for his fantastic 15mm Sci Fi terrain, these days Joseph seems to be producing just as much for 28mm, including several bits that will work for the modern era. We had a load of his shipping containers, and when we asked him if he could modify the design to turn them into the sort of temporary office or blockhouse buildings you see on industrial or building sites, he was happy to oblige. While not-quite table ready, they are coming together splendidly and are exactly what we wanted.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Another Mad Mecha Guy production I have actually completed is the Monorail Cargo Depot, a birthday present from <i>Mi Hermano di Regalo</i>, Jonesy. Leaving out the monorail part itself for now, it works just fine with the infamous Poundland train track. It's certainly a lot more complex to build than the container boxes, quite the engineering marvel in fact, the way the crane can slide around. I'm sure some enterprising soul would be able to make the crane actually raise up and down with a little effort, but I'm happy with it as-is. I'm planning on using this in the Halloween game, so expect pictures soon.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Much as I admire the Mad Mecha Guy's stuff, I've fallen in love with the mdf buildings and accessories sold on eBay by TheTrollTrader under the TTCombat brand. They use 3mm MDF almost exclusively, which means their designs are a bit chunkier than other MDF manufacturers, but their prices are absolute bargains. I picked up the basic Apartment Building kit, which is currently selling for £13.95. Although it lacks any interior, it's half the price of the equivalently sized City Block Residential building from Sarissa Precision. They definitely seem pitched towards giving you the most bang for your buck, producing large, externallly impressive buildings at low prices by sacrificing the interior detail. They also produce several large "skyscraper" type buildings, aimed primarily at players of the Batman miniatures game (and any other Superhero games, I imagine). But they also produce a number of small accessory packs as cheap as £3.95 that are excellent for building up the amount of clutter terrain on your tabletop. Again, photos will be coming when I've got something table-ready.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
After the Industrial terrain is finished off, the next phase of the Paradiso project is to produce some more run-down looking buildings for the more rural settlements. One of the sources of inspiration I'm using for Paradiso is the original Just Cause computer game, which has rural villages looking something like this...</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzjnRRelHAzHEKV2covFOgDPgFH-7f8IrtIYX06LIsLhgt2mhRzYZALfjCippo6ubkn_GP8PqqIXuBYYRpCUUCJWCHpy_yputAYlZv-6fjdivR9JHmIe8ok24l_c6shAdb6ibsWtBhcE6h/s1600/2015-07-15_00021.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzjnRRelHAzHEKV2covFOgDPgFH-7f8IrtIYX06LIsLhgt2mhRzYZALfjCippo6ubkn_GP8PqqIXuBYYRpCUUCJWCHpy_yputAYlZv-6fjdivR9JHmIe8ok24l_c6shAdb6ibsWtBhcE6h/s400/2015-07-15_00021.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvhCYiEJZXQq5xvalOR6rq7WMWtG1p0Qh1Mx5Nu1NJXSQk6LR_aoEMSe6TkS2blFBkEzMCeEl82PwN84X2whRQHMW7Xug5vjZgtdlu2xL4imxWkiveA2SrSszKEgjmhJjDzzDwam4XY08t/s1600/2015-07-15_00063.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvhCYiEJZXQq5xvalOR6rq7WMWtG1p0Qh1Mx5Nu1NJXSQk6LR_aoEMSe6TkS2blFBkEzMCeEl82PwN84X2whRQHMW7Xug5vjZgtdlu2xL4imxWkiveA2SrSszKEgjmhJjDzzDwam4XY08t/s400/2015-07-15_00063.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYXhFU8W1moGwfffxXYnngBlUQ8qMQ81wFWwQUvI50R_Tm_Tkx1zqTNym0fdgxprgewIeHTt01K1pZVBGNH6UsKl_R6lM7ohxvkzwaGN6xn7SWw67MBNNqDQuiYUonD2XhYq7cpzdAqsMv/s1600/2015-07-15_00046.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYXhFU8W1moGwfffxXYnngBlUQ8qMQ81wFWwQUvI50R_Tm_Tkx1zqTNym0fdgxprgewIeHTt01K1pZVBGNH6UsKl_R6lM7ohxvkzwaGN6xn7SWw67MBNNqDQuiYUonD2XhYq7cpzdAqsMv/s400/2015-07-15_00046.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhn2RImCf4R2z00K0v3O4tNDDAaiWxOMtvy2wSyIzyis84CjYHRhC_SwvQ6MlcfaNlh8yoV_wDkO6HSoxcQgun0PtR-zvERRhjw1sBiwMGRX578pQVTfXt_wZrp40pqBjUhrBoUnm2BUTtk/s1600/2015-07-15_00057.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhn2RImCf4R2z00K0v3O4tNDDAaiWxOMtvy2wSyIzyis84CjYHRhC_SwvQ6MlcfaNlh8yoV_wDkO6HSoxcQgun0PtR-zvERRhjw1sBiwMGRX578pQVTfXt_wZrp40pqBjUhrBoUnm2BUTtk/s400/2015-07-15_00057.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<div>
You can see, they cover quite a range, from one room wooden huts to maybe two or three roomed plastered bungalows. I rather like the overall eclectic effect and I'm looking to copy it for villages for Paradiso. I've knocked up a few scratchbuilt huts from Balsa to get a feel for the lower end of the spectrum, the slighly better quality houses will probably be similar simple box builds with foamcore. For the town market I've got some excellent market stalls from TTCombat (again at £3.95 for two stalls, it's hard to say no) and the larger public buildings like the police station will probably be Plasticville conversions. A spare gas station is well on the way to being converted to a run-down village general store and I have a couple of other kits earmarked for this stage of the project. Meanwhile Jonesy has been working on the Trailer park kit (ironically, the trailers are actually several times bigger than the smallest hovel huts, pushing them towards the "luxury home" end of the rural spectrum)</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Way back last year when we first started mooting the Paradiso project, Jonesy bought me the Sarissa Precision Mission Church kit, which will be the centerpiece of many rural village layouts. I've assembled this, and like everything else in this project it's currently about 90% done.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Let's not even talk about the old built up and broken Frosty Bar that I've restored on a whim. Again... yes you've guessed it, it's about 90% done, just needs some finishing touches.... Hmmm maybe there's a pattern forming here?</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Anyway, since our regular monthly RPG session happens to fall Halloween night, I've persuaded my regular players to forgo the regular superhero RPG in favour of a tabletop game on the big wargame table. This serves as an excellent encouragement for me to have to clear it up from the junk-cluttered workbench it always seems to turn into between games, and make the gaming room fit for gaming in.</div>
<div>
I'm going to try and use a few of the new terrain pieces in this game, maybe use the game as motivation to finish off some of those last 10%s.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Of course, since the game's going to be Hillbillys Vs (xxxx), neither my old European style church nor the new Mission church will be entirely appropriate for the "classic Americana" scenery. I'm sure there was a church or two in the box of Plasticville buildings awaiting restoration..... Hmmm I think I feel another new (and urgent) project coming on!</div>
Dr Vesuviushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05255420207375021875noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2668577041425925534.post-48291109091399873822015-08-20T03:28:00.001+01:002015-08-20T03:28:53.772+01:00Metal under tensionA quickie update.<br />
<br />
This past weekend <i>Mi Hermano Chofer</i> Jonesy and I popped over the Pennines into the Land of Mordor for a day of gaming with an assorted band of reprobates, including T'uther Chris, Marvin the Arvn and No-Nickname Tony. In addition to assorted card/board games, I persuaded the guys to have a go at AirWar C21.<br />
<br />
The scenario was an obvious continuation of the last Paradiso game - with both sides stalemated on the ground, both sides sent ground attack aircraft with fighter escorts to try to break the deadlock. A beermat-sized target area was placed in the centre of the table, and any damage points caused by ground attacks made in that zone counted as victory points. Culo Raton sent four Shenyang F6s loaded for ground strikes with rocket pods, with an escort of four Mig-21s, while the Paradisan Air Force rolled up with their four Super Tucanos escorted by a flight of four F5E Tiger IIs.<br />
<br />
To reflect the relatively small numbers of aircraft available to third-world/developing airforces, I ruled that the loss of any jet aircraft would equate to -5 victory points - in a situation where a single aircraft might represent 10% or more of a nation's air force, it makes sense to encourage players to conserve their forces and avoid "banzai attacks". Because they are much cheaper and easily replaced, I ruled that the Super Tucano turboprops only cost -1 victory point if lost (which I thought slightly compensated for their slower speed and inferior air-to-air combat capability.<br />
<br />
It's always interesting to watch other people play a game for the first time and form their own opinions about how to do things. The Paradiso players both decided to try out Special Manoeuvres in the second turn of the game before the opposing sides had made contact. Unfortunately a bad run of dice rolls meant that all the F5Es failed. Two immediately went into stalls which took several turns to recover from, and one of the other two presented its tailpipe to an oncoming Culo Raton Mig-21, who took advantage of the situation and scored the first kill of the game.<br />
<br />
As expected a large cluster of airplanes converged on the target area, but it was at this point that the Culo Raton players revealed their fiendish strategy. They chose to forgo ground attacks with their Shenyang F6s which instead used their guns to join in the air-to-air combat. The Tucanos all managed to reach the target area and unload their rockets, but two of them fell to the combined gunfire of the Culo Raton planes. Ironically, the remaining two Tucanos had a Mig-21 fly right in front of them and even with their puny .30 cal machine guns were able to cripple the jet, which limped home.<br />
<br />
The battle devolved into a big hairy furball, but the Paradisans never quite got back into the game and withdrew once the Tiger IIEs had expended their Sidewinders. This left the Culo Raton aircraft free to bombard the target area unopposed. Having splashed one Tiger and two Tucanos at the cost of only one Mig21 damaged, they were easily the clear victors.<br />
<br />
Everyone had a good time, except possibly No-Nickname Tony, whose lower lip may have been wobbling a bit on losing his F5E so early on. Being only the first proper game we'd played with the rules, we got a few key points wrong - we had planes doing Special Manoeuvres at Low Altitude and making attacks while doing "Break Turn" manoeuvres, both of which are no-nos. The consensus of the other players was that Special Manoeuvres were on the whole a waste of time, a conclusion they reached after the disasterous Paradisan second turn. Personally I'm inclined to disagree: I think a successful manoeuvre can win you a killing shot, just as a failed manoeuvre at the wrong time can leave you stranded in someone's sights. Jonesy favoured doing nothing but Break Turns (a relatively easy move which let you make 75 degree turns instead of 45 degree ones, without too excessive a penalty for failure) but that was before we realised that you couldn't use weapons in the phase you did a Break Turn.<br />
<br />
Everyone agreed that the Paradisan's had brought a knife to a gun fight with their Super Tucanos. While they may be great counter-insurgency ground attack craft, they were a positive liability in an air-combat environment. The sooner that Paradiso takes delivery of those ex-Israeli A4 Skyhawks, the better!<br />
<br />
We also agreed that the ex-Soviet gear seemed to have all the advantages - The Mig-21bis carries four missiles compared to the F5E's two (according to the standard load), just as the F6s carried twice as many rockets as the Tucano. I'd tried to equip all sides with weapons dating from around the mid-80s, and in the case of the Paradisan Sidewinders I'd made them the export-model Sidewinder-Ps rather than the much more powerful domestic Sidewinder-Ms available in that era. I'd done so deliberately because I wanted both sides to be using rear-180 aspect missiles. I'm going to have to go back to the airplane stats and do a bit more balancing work in setting up furture scenarios.<br />
<br />
One last thing that I found strange - during my solo games I'd used a pair of set-squares (visible in the photos in the last post) for measuring angles - the angles you most need to use are 30, 45 and 60 degrees, all represented by corners on the set-squares, while a high-mobility Break Turn can be measured by putting a 45 degree and 30 degree corner next to eachother. For the game this Sunday I went to the trouble of printing off copies of the turning circle from the rules.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBGBj6yjJ_JiLgF77ayhyphenhyphen5FGPd9fLs_gkhOEjw1l-GkdgP4BfwHJ61cyZ3r9sAM6k6Xw43I-cd7nKZrauGr8OEsuZgDaW8L2xLA_PCZ_FefKi9-Ir0K_JnyVTQ1njeuBkKuJOw0klU8piy/s1600/TurnCircle.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBGBj6yjJ_JiLgF77ayhyphenhyphen5FGPd9fLs_gkhOEjw1l-GkdgP4BfwHJ61cyZ3r9sAM6k6Xw43I-cd7nKZrauGr8OEsuZgDaW8L2xLA_PCZ_FefKi9-Ir0K_JnyVTQ1njeuBkKuJOw0klU8piy/s320/TurnCircle.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
For some reason though, the players did not get along with these at all. And we're talking a relatively clever bunch of people here. But despite it being as simple as "High mobility planes normally turn H, if doing a Break Turn they turn HBT", the turn circles fell by the wayside to be replaced by some truly dubious "eyeballing" of turns. Then someone hit upon the idea of using a square D6 as a sort of 45 degree turn indicator (if you line it up with the flat front of the flying base, then the corners are pointing 45 degrees) I'm beginning to think that I might be better off picking up half a dozen cheap "back to school" geometry sets for use with this game.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Applying the Culo Raton victory (on behalf of the Farmers' Revolt) to our ongoing campaign rules, I think the capture of the fuel depot from the previous land battle will give them control of a Secure Supply of Food and Materiel. That leaves the campaign status as follows.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
Farmers - Control of the Foothills of Monto Blanko. The Bridge at El Humber. The Goodwill Of The People, Secure supply of food and materiel.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
Army - Secure base of operations at Verdaville. The Airfield at Los Anillcamino. The Sunrise Corp Processing Plant</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
Uncontrolled - Foreign media interest. The fertile Piso River valley. Support from the Church. </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
I think I'm going to fight this particular campaign thread until one side has just twice as many resources as their opponent, before having a UN enforced ceasefire reset the situation. Now that Culo Raton has become involved I don't want things to escalate into all-out war too quickly!</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
Anyhoo, this post has taken far longer than I'd planned, and I've not even managed to mention the care package I received from Carl of SoloWargamingInTheUK. More of that in a future post.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
Dr Vesuviushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05255420207375021875noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2668577041425925534.post-32878820705729691972015-08-13T14:07:00.001+01:002015-08-13T14:07:42.576+01:00Gonna take a ride into the danger zone.With the escalation of tensions between the Caribbean island nations of San Paradiso and Culo Raton, both nations have placed their respective Air Forces on high states of alert.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhboEPmeEycGXiB7TG9Ydt7mtxncUETP-rCUDmEMhsnNqB_5UKEsNFyQeu7cwkMm0yzSPC8gQ3tWl3JPRRokw6Gt_UTJao2VEMqTrRKuf1A_TmbEV4wEcAxYH3ztt0lWquax-Q61FLI2j0t/s1600/P1010007.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhboEPmeEycGXiB7TG9Ydt7mtxncUETP-rCUDmEMhsnNqB_5UKEsNFyQeu7cwkMm0yzSPC8gQ3tWl3JPRRokw6Gt_UTJao2VEMqTrRKuf1A_TmbEV4wEcAxYH3ztt0lWquax-Q61FLI2j0t/s400/P1010007.JPG" width="400" /></a>The Fuerza Ariale de Republico Paradiso is small and poorly equipped by western military standards, however compared to other Caribbean nations it represents a significant force to be reckoned with. For its primary air-superiority fighter, Paradiso operates a dozen or so of the venerable Northrop F5E Tiger II, a 50 year old design which thanks to a series of avionics upgrades and modernisation refits remains a capable and credible threat well into the 21st century. Although normally utilised as an interceptor/air superiority fighter, the Tiger II can be equipped with Paveway II and Mk82 bombs for a ground attack role.<br />
<br />
Regular ground attack, counter insurgency and border patrol duties normally fall upon the Embraer EMB314 Super Tucanos. The Brazilian turboprop trainer/light attack aircraft excels at close ground support, with it's acrobatic agility and long loiter times compared to jet fighters. They may be no match for jet fighters in air-to-air combat, but since they are mostly employed against local insurgents and narco-traffickers.<br />
<br />
Bringing up the rear of the formation are four A4 Skyhawks, recently purchased from Israel and not yeat operational. Another veteran airframe that's still effective on today's battlefield, the A4s will represent a significant improvement in Paradiso's surface attack capabilities (including anti-shipping strikes) in an aircraft that can actually hold its own in a dogfight.<br />
<br />
As a whole, the Paradiso air forces are in dire need of modernisation. Countermeasures like chaff and flares are not universally fitted, and the standard air-to-air missile is the older, less capable AIM-9P model. Ground attack weapons are mostly unguideded bombs and rockets, with a handful of laser-guided Paveway bombs available for the F5Es. And of course, the small size of the air force means that any aircraft losses are felt keenly. The loss of two airframes might represent 10% or more of the available fleet.<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLcgb5KdriudEUC2QrA7Kk6LxxR1DHrNLuuMElFxqLadmiq0FLAxSRHfhyfqAlfkwrF4MsrPRU-bNPHiSCQlKxemsGCv6VxcQYjR2sikO-uXP4udZOXdx2_fDJiZMoJyr8wbz68xzhibC4/s1600/P1010010.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLcgb5KdriudEUC2QrA7Kk6LxxR1DHrNLuuMElFxqLadmiq0FLAxSRHfhyfqAlfkwrF4MsrPRU-bNPHiSCQlKxemsGCv6VxcQYjR2sikO-uXP4udZOXdx2_fDJiZMoJyr8wbz68xzhibC4/s400/P1010010.JPG" width="400" /></a><br />
Meanwhile the forces of the Culo Raton Ariale Patrole are equally ready to repel their Imperialist neighbours.<br />
<br />
Like any good Communist dictatorship, Culo Raton operates mostly ex-Warsaw Pact or Chinese built equipment, often buying third or fourth-hand hand-me-downs from former Soviet client states. Their fleet of MiG-21s have been extensively modernised and brought up to the MiG-21bis standard. Primarily used as interceptors and air-superiority fighters, they can be equipped with an austere ground-attack capability.<br />
<br />
The air force also has a handful of ancient Sukhoi SU-7 Fitter fighter/bombers. Considered hopelessly obsolete everywhere else in the world, they still offer Culo Raton a significant ground-strike capability.<br />
<br />
The Chinese built Shenyang F6, extensively modernised copies of the MiG-19, make up Culo Raton's primary ground attack capabilities. Munitions are limited to unguided rockets and bombs, but a nation under as many arms embargos as Culu Raton has to make do with what it can acquire. In a pinch, the F6 can be equipped for air-to-air combat, but would most likely be outclassed in that role.<br />
<br />
So those are the aerial forces I've assembled for the modern Imagi-Nation action between San Paradiso and Culo Raton. I've deliberately gone in most cases for out of date kit nearing the end of its operational lifetime (apart from the Super Tucanos, which are modern but inexpensive) but apart from the SU-7s I believe all these aircraft are still in active service with at least one nation in the real world. Mig21 workhorses are still everywhere, Argentina is getting its fleet of A4s a brand new refit from Lockheed with avionics lifted from the F16, while the F5E remains the primary aircraft of the Swiss air force.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoPPVXAJrsBvYkLcdyj1_vCFUlJcDr2RJ7dX_wZdkaNyUKNlLcyMgoCyCs4kUJp-rMTHhVKgB2wCFWAKM_7peFWTCxEHWPr7-8NSqO3HHo-cbs-prOCAVD922m4q_K3wJFVKNc5I_rFEjD/s1600/P1010014.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoPPVXAJrsBvYkLcdyj1_vCFUlJcDr2RJ7dX_wZdkaNyUKNlLcyMgoCyCs4kUJp-rMTHhVKgB2wCFWAKM_7peFWTCxEHWPr7-8NSqO3HHo-cbs-prOCAVD922m4q_K3wJFVKNc5I_rFEjD/s320/P1010014.JPG" width="320" /></a>After looking at some of the options available, the rules I'm leaning towards are Air War C21 by Wessex Games (available as PDF from Wargame Vault). I've had a couple of solitaire games and the rules look very good, doing a good job of abstracting the third dimension. In a dogfight, you have the choice between moving normally, which is a simple half-move/turn/half move/turn based on your aircraft's manoeuvrability rating. Alternatively you can attempt a Special Manoeuvre, pushing the flight envelope and theoretically involving the third dimension and either a loss or gain in speed. For example an Immelman manoeuvre, which in real life resolves a half loop upwards followed by a roll to bring the aircraft upright again, in AW:C21 this allows you to make a half move then turn to face any direction, with a drop in speed. The downside is that these manoeuvres require a roll to complete successfully and a failure can result in unexpected movement, greater than normal speed gains/losses and place you at a disadvantage against incoming fire. If the results of a manoeuvre, success or fail, takes you over your airframe's maximum speed you take damage as the plane tears itself apart. If you drop below the minimum speed, you go into a stall and are no longer flying, but fighting to recover control of your aircraft as you plummet towards the ground. At best this makes you easy prey to enemy aircraft, at worst you run the risk of fireballing into the ground.<br />
<br />
The Special Manoeuvres are definitely the game winners/losers. You can fly around doing normal moves in perfect safety and will probably find it quite difficult to get into firing position against your enemy. Or you can take a chance on a Special Manoeuvre which might put you on your enemy's six, or if you fail leave you hanging in his gunsights. Energy Management, a key feature of Air Combat Manoeuvering (or "dogfighting" to you and me) is also represented as you need to carefully manage the speed gains and losses from manoeuvring in order to keep within the flight envelope. Too many fancy manoeuvres might leave you slow and energy-deficient just at the time you need to manoeuvre to avoid incoming fire.<br />
<br />
In summary of all the air combat games I've played over the years, this one comes the closest to feeling like real flight, without tracking the third dimension. I'm looking forward to trying out the rules on a live human opponent .<br />
<br />
Meanwhile work on the air forces' 1/72 counterparts continues apace. While I just about managed to hand-paint roundels and flags on the 1/300th aircraft, I think I'm going to try making some decals for the 1/72 aircraft. I've also settled on a flight stand design that I'm very happy with, and as I'd expected, the 1/72 aircraft look absolutely fine flying over 28mm troops on the ground. Pictures and more reports to follow.Dr Vesuviushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05255420207375021875noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2668577041425925534.post-18694097763209662712015-08-11T09:27:00.000+01:002015-08-11T09:27:16.812+01:00Welcome to my secret lair on Skullcrusher Mountain<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
So three years back, I was experimenting with making <a href="http://axisofnaughtiness.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/big-time-im-on-my-way-im-making-it.html" target="_blank">high, rocky hills</a> with limited paths across them. I only completed a couple, but I've found them useful for representing significant, impassable hill terrain.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Around the same time, I came into possession of a number of Mega-Bloks pirate playsets, cheap £5 things containing maybe a rowboat and a small island, each of which came in its own clamshell case with the front shaped like a pirate skull.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
I had to find a way to use one of those skulls, they were just too good to pass up.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Starting with one skull, I sawed the top off flat. Fixing it to some scrap MDF, I then built up a hill shape around it using scrap polystyrene. The hill was made partially hollow, with a cave behind the skull face and a raised floor to allow figures to take up firing positions at the eysockets. To allow troops to climb onto the top of the piece, I added a winding path around the back of the hill, similar to that on the earlier rocky hills.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
The hill was glued, pinned with cocktail sticks, and shoved in a cupboard to dry.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Three years later...</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Yes, I said three years later. I got distracted by Real Life (tm) and forgot about this until about a month ago when I ventured into the outside cupboard and found it again. This week I decided to finally finish it off.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
To start with, there was a major gap between the left top of the skull and the polystyrene "cap" above it, due to my rough cutting job being uneven. I built this up with greenstuff to the skull had a flat, relatively even rim. I then coated all the polystyrene in filler to give it a rocky texture. Then I gave the filler a coat of diluted PVA to reinforce it, before giving the whole lot a coating of black textured masonry paint. I use this as a basecoat on all my polystyrene hills, as it toughens them and adds a little texture. After that it was just a matter of drybrushing various shades of grey, adding sand for the paths and flocking for grass and moss.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihn7dNtLfnunk1oz-KesuWmn43sAFSphb1MZClyDThNBoBVd78vLl21B878DMQgtetAlwRgFuywCPUhqDmsgAy40twun6SFKP6-zLeQFJOjXB_pEznxGcHa1qoKPYW6ndX4FvXx0e2D91i/s1600/P1010035.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihn7dNtLfnunk1oz-KesuWmn43sAFSphb1MZClyDThNBoBVd78vLl21B878DMQgtetAlwRgFuywCPUhqDmsgAy40twun6SFKP6-zLeQFJOjXB_pEznxGcHa1qoKPYW6ndX4FvXx0e2D91i/s640/P1010035.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFe3k8q4A3SgHl5ye6VuvUlyszexTa1Z3GwtRBJzCIhhwoMiaouvmWWIRgxDHlMcRvBm9HkzP6ncXKso0awQZsgbjNFT2Xr_KyxwsFQvq_zj37y03cAmUJYt9ZnZCaQR2rWjqX_l5j0fk-/s1600/P1010036.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFe3k8q4A3SgHl5ye6VuvUlyszexTa1Z3GwtRBJzCIhhwoMiaouvmWWIRgxDHlMcRvBm9HkzP6ncXKso0awQZsgbjNFT2Xr_KyxwsFQvq_zj37y03cAmUJYt9ZnZCaQR2rWjqX_l5j0fk-/s320/P1010036.JPG" width="320" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiyKLPHyoPfVcwxhRfZrrsV34VRv1VkOAji8t6fiYPX1Ac0LyVEiCArYZ8RuqtlY7c1B1D1UwtwTntmzTb72scMp9QjtIi0mPdHXRlPxyo7j14qYKe9ZBSsi_8LcNPN9V69ZDtTdXCiBXz/s1600/P1010034.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiyKLPHyoPfVcwxhRfZrrsV34VRv1VkOAji8t6fiYPX1Ac0LyVEiCArYZ8RuqtlY7c1B1D1UwtwTntmzTb72scMp9QjtIi0mPdHXRlPxyo7j14qYKe9ZBSsi_8LcNPN9V69ZDtTdXCiBXz/s320/P1010034.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<div>
I'm really pleased with how this has come out. Obviously it's more suited for fantasy, pirate or pulp games, acting as a scenario objective point rather than generic terrain, so it's only ever going to see limited use. But I'm sure somewhere on Paradiso here's a "Skull Cave" tourist attraction just waiting to be fought over. After making so much basic and "practical" terrain, it was nice to work on a totally whimsical piece like this. Every wargamer shold treat themselves to a "Skull Cave" once in a while.</div>
Dr Vesuviushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05255420207375021875noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2668577041425925534.post-1766427878658061062015-08-04T15:38:00.000+01:002015-08-04T15:38:26.034+01:00I was born in a crossfire hurricaneSo this weekend was the forty-fifth anniversary of my being dragged, kicking and screaming into this world. Attempts to organise a true Big Birthday Bash fell apart as one friend after another made their excuses until we were left with an expected attendance of just four of us. So on the day I decided to just throw down the green sheet, lay out a Paradiso terrain and just have at it with the new toys I'd been collecting over the past two years using the FUBAR one-page rules.<br />
<br />
The result looked a little something like this..<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCSrfWmLZ5UoEbuiS9QcuaO_BdTkoHwXe64r0NrcTy8zAXAhb0LjvKbfZklrJJW1eYozGZoSaVkVpux9q0IQ1Gug_ifdwfCaMj1HYCbQ0GauFtco1YPBEy7aN_f8Qu2slOh_i4oSli0OKj/s1600/P1010035.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCSrfWmLZ5UoEbuiS9QcuaO_BdTkoHwXe64r0NrcTy8zAXAhb0LjvKbfZklrJJW1eYozGZoSaVkVpux9q0IQ1Gug_ifdwfCaMj1HYCbQ0GauFtco1YPBEy7aN_f8Qu2slOh_i4oSli0OKj/s400/P1010035.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
The scenario was a relatively simple one - Driven by their recent failures, the Paradisan Revolutionary Farmers had taken control of a fuel supply depot. The local Army commander had decided to make a show of force and sent in a full platoon in APCs to clear them out. Unfortunately El Capitan was in for a surprise. In addition to their ramshackle technicals, one with a 50 cal, one with a recoilless rifle, the guerillas had managed to acquire a battered old T55 along with a crew of "advisors" to drive it.<br />
<br />
The second surprise, and a major escalation of the situation in Paradiso, was that the leaders of neighbouring commnist state Culo Raton had decided to support the rebel farmers and had sent an infantry platoon reinforced with two more T55s across the border to take advantage of the confusion and secure the fuel depot for themselves. In turn, the Paradisan Army was able to call for reinforcements in the form of a couple of M60 tanks.<br />
<br />
Due to the jungle terrain being largely impassable to vehicles, most of the action was focussed along the road on one side of the field. The rebels kicked things off with an ambush on one of the Paradisan APCs that knocked out its 30mm cannon. But sadly due to a failed activation roll they were unable to pull back and relocate before the infantry piled out and assaulted the ambush position, killing the whole squad.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile the other two army APCs entered the small built-up area (well... there was a diner and a garage, at least) and the remaining infantry debussed and cleared the area, setting up a command post in the diner. The army plan was for a "hammer and anvil", with one squad engaging the rebels from one side while the other two squads swept in from the flank. It was a great plan, except the "anvil" was delayed by the ambush just described, while the "hammer" just managed to get the buildings secured when they found themselves outflanked by the arriving Culo Raton APCs.<br />
<br />
Things got a little confusing from there. The guerillas' T55 trundled into action but had its weapons knocked out by cannon fire from an APC. They then made good use of the weaponless hulk by parking it across the road, blocking the advance of the army's M60s. The arriving Culo Raton forces took out one of the Paradisan APCs with a shot to the rear, debussed their own infantry, then spent several turns brassing up the diner with their cannons, turning it into a smoking ruin and driving the occupants out. The "hammer" suddenly found themselves under serious threat from the rear and started pulling back towards the facility (ironcally retreating *towards* their original objective.).<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFfmUE4ANzhyvJND2LKRj_lFIMIUYrj6pQwp236TifgstoJLBX8y7ZV8FiOBmUlzHis4iGN4WSUM2rjaO5I0RQ4jedxqAJpBJ0VXJJCGH4BiVcBXLymMSu59rFCL9ZIiebDqGt2Gc-yxap/s1600/P1010037.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFfmUE4ANzhyvJND2LKRj_lFIMIUYrj6pQwp236TifgstoJLBX8y7ZV8FiOBmUlzHis4iGN4WSUM2rjaO5I0RQ4jedxqAJpBJ0VXJJCGH4BiVcBXLymMSu59rFCL9ZIiebDqGt2Gc-yxap/s400/P1010037.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
By the end of the game, the original rebel farmers had pretty much been wiped out apart from one technical that fled after scoring a mobility kill on one of the M60s. The Culo Raton forces had gotten one squad to the edge of the fuel depot, along with one T55 that had managed to find a path through the jungle. The Paradisan Army had managed to get a squad and a half of infantry to the edge of the depot, but its armoured support was cut off and unable to reach them and the rest of the platoon was falling back in disarray.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdwWJ8BmQmNxKBC6_nTYWnEV9NfINVGwk3Z4O6zZwQm3T187kbfAd6P2LikaMviEY3NUPjJG94G1iUOnTG0iWGNcYP2pApVVo73ntQxWnnIpltVs0iXVT81aZ_rDs3U4f7noZjNIh9hGCx/s1600/P1010042.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdwWJ8BmQmNxKBC6_nTYWnEV9NfINVGwk3Z4O6zZwQm3T187kbfAd6P2LikaMviEY3NUPjJG94G1iUOnTG0iWGNcYP2pApVVo73ntQxWnnIpltVs0iXVT81aZ_rDs3U4f7noZjNIh9hGCx/s400/P1010042.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
So let's see, Here we have the guerilla's T55 (a chinese die cast - £6.99 from Ebay) blocking the road for a Paradisan APC (an Old Crow sci-fi model, pretending to be an M113 like real-world APC) and two M60s (Academy 1/48 kits). Side by side with the T55, the Academy kits are all way overscale, being closer to 1/41, but on the table they don't look too bad. Since Paradiso is an imaginary nation, I have no qualms about using toys or fictional sci-fi wheeled and tracked vehicles to represent "real world" vehicles, as long as they look the part.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvCm9wJHiv_gt5LveCh9uosK1MlKToNwa19rORv4zkBHjB52dJ5iocyrOF6pzWcfBxctYnQq7XhycOk7wSzD9UsKcYId0Hh-k3ws7cKn-OKB1k453K-zyijCWJLcVTZ65aw25Rqn-D5-Ek/s1600/P1010043.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvCm9wJHiv_gt5LveCh9uosK1MlKToNwa19rORv4zkBHjB52dJ5iocyrOF6pzWcfBxctYnQq7XhycOk7wSzD9UsKcYId0Hh-k3ws7cKn-OKB1k453K-zyijCWJLcVTZ65aw25Rqn-D5-Ek/s400/P1010043.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
The Culo Raton APCs are the old Marbeth Designs "Hann'Mag" SF APCS that I bought about 20 years ago and have *finally* gotten on the wargames table :-). They're lacking in details, but they were cheap at the time and do for a sort of BMP/BTR hybrid. The turrets were an interesting find - on Amazon.co.uk I saw a "Combat Mission" set of 8 vehicle kits and 30 toy soldiers for the princely sum of £2.80. When I bought one just to see what it was like, the soldiers turned out to be the worst examples of "green army men" I'd ever seen, and the vehicle kits turned out to be tiny cartoonish "pull back and go" toys, the sort of thing you might get with a Happy Meal. But the turrets! The turrets for the "M1 tank" kit were perfect for the Hann-Mags, and even buying six whole sets and just using the one turret from each, it still worked out cheaper than getting a similar turret sculpted and 3d printed by Shapeways. Plus the rest of those kits make great Bits Box fodder (I've already got plans to use some of the other turrets on other APC models I have)<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqPy-hF2yb05iIvpucnPcbiGzLnKmspMuVhCYXtzEFckRuaiKSCxU0fZ95ltsgMPnOusUjM2yHn2Dx6pmMas7i9R9zQmnW3lWAgWdz7VNIkvzQ09VQuHYjg_LHBan3Zhzm1578oP_M2FYv/s1600/P1010036.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqPy-hF2yb05iIvpucnPcbiGzLnKmspMuVhCYXtzEFckRuaiKSCxU0fZ95ltsgMPnOusUjM2yHn2Dx6pmMas7i9R9zQmnW3lWAgWdz7VNIkvzQ09VQuHYjg_LHBan3Zhzm1578oP_M2FYv/s320/P1010036.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdgBMimCgAoR4j26-J-LIFDE-smzWvmpDCeUIpCJDeDquZdDGCBp4l3y13xNYMzj7COQEIDw5-wOs5eMZD8NlH0Pvg_HDSiOAyMbK4908V9TTbOIzTTduQAihgDsm6OlMjTQ7sAL3ksrjC/s1600/P1010047.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdgBMimCgAoR4j26-J-LIFDE-smzWvmpDCeUIpCJDeDquZdDGCBp4l3y13xNYMzj7COQEIDw5-wOs5eMZD8NlH0Pvg_HDSiOAyMbK4908V9TTbOIzTTduQAihgDsm6OlMjTQ7sAL3ksrjC/s320/P1010047.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
This was the debut for the Culo Raton army, which I originally bought a couple of years ago. Looking for a fairly generic set of figures with Warsaw Pact equipment, I went for the Iraqi army from the Assault Group. As I explained to the other players, I'd grown up on a steady diet of WWII movies, so naturally in my mind, bad guys wear grey uniforms. So it was a natural choice when I came to paint my "OPFOR" for Paradiso.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwUWyU81RKscTj3hy34B_rxMtjBgP5b9evN08R0St1xWIr1AjchztbnclmPvzLHMNKFDtMqeWCMWEpxS24WuOVPCLaDrWFaM5rzRtYZVKC509uCAGe-3dEzOCHO2AwxA6oHG8Hq3D5oUIQ/s1600/P1010038.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwUWyU81RKscTj3hy34B_rxMtjBgP5b9evN08R0St1xWIr1AjchztbnclmPvzLHMNKFDtMqeWCMWEpxS24WuOVPCLaDrWFaM5rzRtYZVKC509uCAGe-3dEzOCHO2AwxA6oHG8Hq3D5oUIQ/s400/P1010038.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
All in all I was very happy with the look of the game. As I've said before on an individual basis nothing is particularly well painted or modelled, but put together as a whole the effect is quite attractive and "realistic". I think I've even won over <i>Mi Hermano Philestino Jonesy,</i> who has been known to argue at length against wargaming aesthetics in favour of pure practicality. I like to think we're walking a sensible middle ground and still managing to end up with an attractive looking tabletop.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Ruleswise, FUBAR worked incredibly well. Apart from the farmers who were largely wiped out, there were very few casualties in the game, but overall things felt right. It was noted that concentration of fire was required to overload a units capacity for suppressions in order to cause significant casualties. Simply trading fire between two squads/fireteams would likely just result in suppressions on both sides and a stalemate. As an aside, we also found it best to break the 9 man Paradisan squads (modelled after US Army) into 2 fireteams for activations, while keeping the 6 man Culo Raton squads (modelled after Warsaw Pact) as single units. I think that reflects the differences between Western and ex-Soviet infantry doctrines quite well. You could argue that splitting the 9 man squad into two seperate units allows them to absorb twice as many suppressions as if they were a single unit, but I think things balance out overall.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
The vehicle rules, always a bit of an afterthought for a primarily infantry based game like FUBAR, were OK but felt a little lacking. I'm looking at some of the many FUBAR variants for inspiration, and we're either going to wind up adopting one of them, or otherwise simply lifting out the vehicle combat rules from another wargame to give us the right flavour.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
This was basically the sort of wargame I've been wanting to play for a long time - modernish equipment, lots of toys on the tabletop and a fun battle game with a nod to realism but not excessively constrained by it. The Flying Lead/Pulp Alley/7TV "warband" type skirmish games are all good fun, but sometimes a chap has a need to command more men than he has fingers (and toes), sending armoured columns swooshing up the table, and occasionally stretching to reach a far corner of the tabletop.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
As for the final result of the battle.... weeeeeeeeeel everyone on the day agreed that the point where we were forced to finish the game would almost make a good start for another wargame, with both sides having troops arriving adjacent to the objective. But although the sides are still relatively equal, looking at the table in the cold light of day the Culo Raton forces are much better positioned for an attack on the depot from two sides, while the Paradisans don't have a solid defensive position and will be struggling to bring their supporting tanks to bear on the enemy. So reluctantly, as I was the commander of the Paradisan "Anvil", I'd have to call this battle a victory for Culo Raton (if not the rebel farmers).</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Putting this into the perspective of the ongoing mini campaign that I've documented on this blog previously, the Culo Raton intervention has threatened the Army's control of Secure supply of food and materiel. A role of 5 on D6 means that campaign resource is sent back to the "uncontrolled" pool, leaving the campaign status as follows.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<b>Farmers</b> - Control of the Foothills of Monto Blanko. The Bridge at El Humber. The Goodwill Of The People.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<b>Army</b> - Secure base of operations at Verdaville. The Airfield at Los Anillcamino. The Sunrise Corp Processing Plant</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<b>Uncontrolled</b> - Foreign media interest. The fertile Piso River valley. Support from the Church. Secure supply of food and materiel.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;">
Since this breaks the Army's winning streak, they've lost the ability to declare a raid on a specific campaign target. So the next battle is totally up for grabs. I have an idea to try something very different for a change. </div>
Dr Vesuviushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05255420207375021875noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2668577041425925534.post-65172094220841002692015-07-20T11:34:00.000+01:002015-07-20T11:34:34.818+01:00Come fly with me, let's fly let's fly away.While I'm in this blogging state of mind/frenzy, I wanted to share a heretical decision I've made with you.<br />
<br />
I'm using 1/72 aircraft with 28mm figures.<br />
<br />
I know they're hopelessly underscale, and a better option would be 1/48 scale (which would be more consistent with my land vehicles which range from 1:55 to 1:43). But I've reached this decision after a lot of thought and for the following reasons.<br />
<br />
1) When "flying" over the battlefield, the discrepancy in scale is less noticeable.<br />
<br />
In fact it works well, because mounted on a flying stand 12-18" above the tabletop it gives a sense of false perspective. That plane's not small, it's just really far away! Real-world movie makers have been doing this for years, passing off footage of 1/4 scale models as the real thing without anyone batting an eyelid.<br />
<br />
2) On the ground, is it a playing piece or a piece of terrain?<br />
<br />
Most wargamers understand that the ground scale used by most rules is usually a lot smaller than the figure scale. So a vehicle model that's in scale with the figures, might be the size of a large house when compared to the ground scale. As a result, a lot of wargame terrain pieces are smaller than the true figure scale would suggest. Aircraft on the ground are more likely to be acting as terrain pieces than actually being in play the way figures and vehicles are, so it's not inappropriate for them to be scaled closer to the ground scale than the figure scale.<br />
<br />
3) Aircraft are still pretty big<br />
<br />
Even something tiny like the Kaydet I used in last year's Hillbilly game is the size of a small 1/43 van. If you're going to have anything larger on the table, it's going to start taking up an awful lot of ground space. A 1/72 Dakota, a must for any brushfire wargame, is going to have a 40cm wingspan. It's still pretty manageable at 60cm for 1/48, but anything larger than that is going to start becoming too big to be practical.<br />
<br />
But the key thing is that pretty much any 1/72 aircraft on the table at first glance is going to look BIG compared to 28mm figures. It's only when you start looking closely at details like doorways and windows that you realise that the aircraft is underscale for the miniature.<br />
<br />
4) 1/72 aircraft are cheaper and on the whole more widely available.<br />
<br />
Because it's always been one of the most popular aircraft modelling scales, the range of 1/72 kits is much wider than their 1/48 cousins. And while you can find some quite expensive 1/72 kits if you're looking at rare or unusual aircraft subjects, on the whole they tend to be cheaper. You can get a 1/72 BAe Hawk for as little as £7, whereas in 1/48 you're looking at £18-20<br />
<br />
Add it all up, and it makes a compelling argument for using under-scale 1/72 aircraft in 28mm games.<br />
<br />
In case you hadn't figured out, I'm not only looking at this from the perspective of using models for on-table air support in large wargames, but also in the context of a future airport/airfield terrain layout. This latter was prompted by the discovery of this toy on Amazon.co.uk<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6x9SRBuWebCf6Rm4XofUvp7RK4eP1tbhTPPPyutb60DRWE6ch8ED-xaBQzdGRe0siXlNgDPJ9-L2fZ7g3AiAIKXwvHo0UumZtczVsLzfNVHuJXV_8UmW8LdGUZyUDzUdQmcxV5bhzjl0-/s1600/ToyAirbus.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6x9SRBuWebCf6Rm4XofUvp7RK4eP1tbhTPPPyutb60DRWE6ch8ED-xaBQzdGRe0siXlNgDPJ9-L2fZ7g3AiAIKXwvHo0UumZtczVsLzfNVHuJXV_8UmW8LdGUZyUDzUdQmcxV5bhzjl0-/s320/ToyAirbus.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
It's a "bump and go" floor toy, which is supposed to trundle along the ground, flashing lights and changing direction when it hits a wall or obstacle. As an actual Airbus 380 model it's pretty awful, and its scale is... questionable to say the least. But with a little work, filling and repainting, plus replacing the hideous yellow drive wheels at the back with something a little more realistic looking, I think we could wind up with something that'll pass as a "generic airliner". The alternative would be a 1/72 "garage kit" of a Boeing 737, which will set you back about £80 on Ebay, and give you a model of a similar size. Whereas this "bump and go" toy can be had for about a fiver.<br />
<br />
Scale model purists may despair, but if you're looking for a practical wargaming terrain piece it's pretty hard to argue with. You don't want a perfectly accurate but fragile scale model that's going to break every time you take it to the gaming club, you want something that was designed to stand up to the uses and abuses of your typical 5 year old! I have two. (the toy planes, not 5 year olds)<br />
<br />
The other toy plane I'm looking at is to recreate that classic hangar scene that crops up in pretty much every action and adventure TV show. You know the one where the rich bad guy is about to leave the country in his private jet, and they're boarding it in THAT EXACT SAME HANGAR IN EVERY SHOW when the good guys turn up to stop them? This is one case where 1/72 lets us down a little. For starters... try finding models of that sort of business jet in any scale. 1/72 supports historical and military aviation subjects pretty well, but there's precious little in the way of modern civilian aircraft in that scale. Secondly, if you'r reproducing this scene in a skirmish wargame, this is one instance where the figures will be closely interacting with the aircraft and the scale discrepancy will really stand out. It's one instance where I think a larger scale aircraft is more appropriate.<br />
<br />
Pixar and Disney come to our rescue with their "Cars" movie tie-in toy range. I've heard several people recommending the Cars die-cast toys as being suitable for conversion to 28mm gaming. I've never seen the films, but the toy range includes a couple of aircraft, including "Siddeley the Spy Jet" which basically looks like it's modelled on a Gulfstream bizjet.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe width="320" height="266" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/lSIptGlNo-A/0.jpg" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/lSIptGlNo-A?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
Judging by this video I found on YouTube, Siddeley looks like he'd be a decent match for 28mm figures. Sold new on Amazon it looks like he'll set you back £40 and up, but a trawl of Ebay reveals some slightly lower prices, plus several playworn veterans for much cheaper prices. I've just found one for about a tenner that's just missing its tail ramp - easily replaced with a little plasticard.<br />
<br />
Finally, though I can't justify the purchase myself, I've just noticed that the other big plane toy in the Cars range, "Cabbie McHale the Transporter" is on Amazon.co.uk for just £20. He's a pretty good representation of a C119 "Flying Boxcar", and I've seen someone on Lead Adventure do a pretty good job of repainting him for use with 28mm figures.Dr Vesuviushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05255420207375021875noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2668577041425925534.post-12715242240005877052015-07-19T20:26:00.001+01:002015-07-19T20:26:38.634+01:00Run for the sun, little one...Yes two updates in one month.... try to remain calm. I'm really trying to get back into the swing of blogging :-)<br />
<br />
I've been having a lot of fun doing research for Paradiso.<br />
<br />
(I keep adding and removing the San- prefix at random as the fancy takes me. I think I might officially add it if only to differentiate between this and the official (planet) Paradiso campaign for the Infinity wargame)<br />
<br />
How might you do research for a place that doesn't exist?<br />
<br />
Well it's absolutely the best kind of research, as anything goes. I can look at people and places and things that are a bit like my imaginary setting and if I like them, I can include them. If I don't, I'm free to change them to suit my needs.<br />
<br />
For example, as a tropical island holiday destination that shares an island with a failed state, it's not much of a secret that I'm taking a lot of inspiration for Paradiso from the Dominican Republic. So time spent studying the real-life Dominican Republic armed forces yields a lot of useful material for Paradiso. The DR has the second largest armed forces in the Carribbean (presumably after Cuba), with six infantry brigades, one Airmobile and two support brigades. That's interesting and useful, but I want to use some tanks in my Paradiso games, so two of those Infantry brigades become Mechanised with Armoured support.<br />
<br />
Looking at Wikipedia and various other sources, I can see the equipment used by the DR - a real mish-mash with a lot of it donated by the Americans. That works too, since I'm using Vietnam-era US infantry for my Paradiso army, along with whatever toys I can scrounge up cheaply enough. So while the DR might not have Panhard VBLs, it's the sort of vehicle they might have a few of, and so they're good for Paradiso.<br />
<br />
Looking at one briefing page showing pictures of parading DR soldiers, I'm struck by several of the non-army paramilitary units that seem to be tied to various government ministries. The Ministry of Public Works and Communication, the Specialised Port Security Corp, the Specialist Airport Security Corp, The Tourist Safety Corp, the National Environmental Protection Corp.... At this point I know very little about each of these units, however the fact that they exist is itself great inspiration. We now have a Paradiso where various branches of the Government raise their own troops for whatever reason, which has the potential for much hilarity in a coup-d'etat scenario. Imagine an army plot being foiled by the Cuerpo Especial de Postale y Telefonica Securidad? It's like something out of the Very British Civil War, but with palm trees.<br />
<br />
A quick note about language and the way I'm mangling it. One of the inspirations for Paradiso, believe it or not, was the "Channel 9" sketches from the comedy series The Fast Show. I loved the nonsensical "foreign language" they used for that, mixed up with the occasional English loan-word that leapt out at you, which did a great job of parodying how English-only speakers hear foreign media. To approximate that, while the official government language of Paradiso is English (a hold-over from their colonial past and the recent US occupation), 99% of the population's daily speech is in Spanglaise, a creole mix of English, French, Spanish and any other language I feel like throwing into the mix, all of it improperly conjugated :-)<br />
<br />
Back to the DR armed forces, and those parade pictures reveal an elite unit of Cazadores in green berets, and a Presidential Guard in very unusual orange berets. Both are so splendid, they're transplanted straight into Paradiso wholesale right away. How they'll be represented on the tabletop is another matter - I have some spare boonie-hatted chaps left over that can be pressganged into the Cazadores, but the Presidential Guard are going to require a special purchase somewhere down the line. I already think I know how to do them - Empress Miniatures US Army troops, headswapped with some British Para beret heads that I've already got.<br />
<br />
Then we look at the air force, and it makes us sad. The DR has virtually nothing in the combat aircraft field apart from a few Super Tucano counter-insurgency aircraft. That's no good! We want to do some air-to-air gaming at some point. OK let's look elsewhere.... and a bit more googling reveals information about the US's policy of equipping lesser allies with older but still capable aircraft. The Paradiso Air Force therefore gains a modest number of F5E Tiger fighters, with a few aging A4 Skyhawk attack jets to supplement the Tucanos. Further down the line, they're bound to be trying to get hold of some BAe Hawk jets to modernise their inventory, but that's another story. As it stands, that gives us a Paradiso Air Force that can provide an entertaining game if pitched against the Mig-21s and Shenyang F6s from their unruly neighbours in Culo Raton.<br />
<br />
Yes the joys of obsolete kit in an Imagi-Nation setting. Cutting edge modern gaming does occasionally have a tendency to be very one-sided, depending on who's performance stats you believe. But older, less technologically advanced equipment tends to smooth out that imbalance.<br />
<br />
If this seems implausible to you, here's a mind bullet for you: The real-life, real world Dominican Republic army is still operating a number of M3 half-tracks. Yes, World War II vintage US Army equipment is still in active service there.<br />
<br />
And so the process of building up a picture of the military of Paradiso (and of Culo Raton) continues, an unholy mixture of what I can learn from the real world (which may drive future modelling or purchasing decisions) and what toys I already have or can lay my hands on cheaply (Like the Panhards)<br />
<br />
It's all part of the fun of building an Imagi-Nation, and while it's something that you can't do when building strictly historical forces, ironically enough these days you can't do it with most Science Fiction or Fantasy games either. The modern trend is for games with their own, tightly defined background and "official" miniatures ranges. They don't leave much room for imagination or original creations any more, Which I find a crying shame.<br />
<br />
Moving on, here's a glimpse of my WIP map of Paradiso<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHfmY1hcb7l4BRBtNXj71CcskNmpINE7ysO-PaaAT6ThEHeLPg6Cx1NolHym5v6h9p1qDVMQtrNlAd47jvYuOjshyphenhyphenEGZ_uiEXcaU6plT7AFJ8romhDlBiLW8UY39WdzuHf0-4rrS-TWlq9/s1600/Paradiso+Map.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="221" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHfmY1hcb7l4BRBtNXj71CcskNmpINE7ysO-PaaAT6ThEHeLPg6Cx1NolHym5v6h9p1qDVMQtrNlAd47jvYuOjshyphenhyphenEGZ_uiEXcaU6plT7AFJ8romhDlBiLW8UY39WdzuHf0-4rrS-TWlq9/s320/Paradiso+Map.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
You'll notice a distinct lack of detail at this stage, and that's entirely deliberate. Once something is pinned down an written on the map, it becomes fixed and limits future options. I want the flexibility to throw whatever things I need to into this setting in order to produce fun games, rather than being limited by what I've already fixed in place. For example, if I want to do a battle set in a petrochemical port facility, right now I'm free to locate that facility anywhere I want on the map, then that in turn will suggest further details that we can add (like road and rail links). If instead I'd fully mapped out the country before doing any games, I'd have to hunt around the map for a suitable battle location, and if I hadn't already added a petrochemical port or left plausible room for one I'd be SOL.<br />
<br />
The games add to the map, rather than the map inhibiting the games. As we do more games, so the detail on the map will grow.<br />
<br />
As it stands I've added the locations referred to in the Farmers' insurgency proto-campaign that I've talked about previously in this blog. I've decided to add the results of our recent game on the Industrial scenery to the campaign, in which the Guerillas were prevented from taking control of or damaging the Sunrise Corp facility. The Army will use that defeat as an opportunity to move in and take control of it themselves - as it's a currently uncontrolled asset they succeed automatically.<br />
<br />
The campaign status is as follows...<br />
<br />
Farmers - Control of the Foothills of Monto Blanko, The Bridge at El Humber, The Goodwill Of The People.<br />
<br />
Army - Secure base of operations at Verdaville. Secure supply of food and supplies, The Airfield at Los Anillcamino, The Sunrise Corp Processing Plant<br />
<br />
Uncontrolled - Foreign media interest. The fertile Piso River valley. Support from the Church.<br />
<br />
<br />
This has led me to consider some changes to the campaign rules discussed previously. As it stands the rules are great for reflecting an overall result for a number of otherwise random unconnected games, but they don't allow players to exercise much strategic thought. I think we need some option to allow one side or the other to "take the initiative" and have some say in dictating the course of the campaign.<br />
<br />
So how about this....<br />
<br />
<br />
=====<br />
<br />
Campaign Rule - Raids<br />
<br />
If one side wins two consecutive campaign battles they may "take the initiative" and declare one of their opponent's campaign resources as a specific target for the next battle. All participants must then agree on a scenario and game setup to accurately reflect the attackers offensive against that campaign resource, for example through appropriate terrain setup or victory conditions. Once everyone is happy with the setup, the battle is fought as normal.<br />
<br />
If the defending player (not taking the initiative) wins, they may attempt to gain control of other campaign resources as per the normal rules.<br />
<br />
If the attacking player (who did take the initiative) wins, they may either automatically render the target resource uncontrolled, or atttempt to take control of it for themselves requiring a roll of 3+ on D6 (basically one step easier than normal) They may then keep the initiative and declare another raid target for the next battle, and so on.<br />
<br />
=====<br />
<br />
If we introduce this option to our campaign rules, I think the next battle will see the Army launching an offensive to secure the vital Bridge at El Humber. Hmmmm I sense a modelling challenge coming on.Dr Vesuviushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05255420207375021875noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2668577041425925534.post-83538218663154401602015-07-16T15:29:00.000+01:002015-07-16T15:29:03.841+01:00Oh Danny Boy, the pipes, the pipes are callin'Ok so it's a quarterly blog update. Sue me. :-)<br />
<br />
For months now, probably since the start of the year, Mi Hermano Collaboratore Jonesy and I have been working on a terrain concept. Progress has been slow, almost ground to a halt at times, since we only routinely worked on it every Sunday afternoon, and even that suffered many cancellations due to ill health, other gaming events and sundry distractions.<br />
<br />
Last year, before the money ran out, I treated myself to multiple sets of the <a href="http://www.wargamestournaments.com/acatalog/28mm_Industrial_Terrain_.html" target="_blank">Industrial Terrain set from Wargames Tournaments</a>. Well basically I bought one, liked it but decided I needed a bit more, then won an auction for a triple-sized set.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.wargamestournaments.com/acatalog/One%20Set%20built%20figures%20web%20small%20450.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://www.wargamestournaments.com/acatalog/One%20Set%20built%20figures%20web%20small%20450.jpg" height="187" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">One Industrial Terrain set</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Veteran gamers might find something familiar about this product, and yes indeed it was designed to emulate and be compatible with the old cardboard scenery from GW's Necromunda.<br />
<br />
Now we decided that though the platforms themselves were quite nice, to make this look like any sort of plausible real-world industrial complex, we needed a lot more solid Stuff(tm). Pipes, tanks, buildings - Stuff in and around the platforms to make it look like things are being stored, transported and or processed around the site.<br />
<br />
Six months later...<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiZcAsZ4b5uMKmish6AlY9SzaPlqRxknb6-jPoU3KGlYQSSQBwHBD36RH_v-_ioG2g387LsbNyNTIhOqWU2cuBR9ch_Tb1tnMZLDe3ESj1pTYWbDgWyC6hOFHzlDiCwR1L5avfD9pFib4h/s1600/P1010013.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiZcAsZ4b5uMKmish6AlY9SzaPlqRxknb6-jPoU3KGlYQSSQBwHBD36RH_v-_ioG2g387LsbNyNTIhOqWU2cuBR9ch_Tb1tnMZLDe3ESj1pTYWbDgWyC6hOFHzlDiCwR1L5avfD9pFib4h/s640/P1010013.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
I couldn't find a camera angle that took it all in. Apologies for the crappy photography, but I'm rather out of practice!<br />
<br />
Let's see, we have assorted drinks cans and pringles tubes, domestic 40mm PVC piping, gasometers made from biscuit tins, shipping containers from Mad Mecha Guy and Demo's Lasercut Designs and tons more. Oh and a converted £10 kids toy construction crane. It easily fills most of my 8'x6' table, leaving a 1' margin on two sides (used here for a road and a railway)<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIgzqTtm7lJNv_n4lmUIk1pjI3IlmZz40haZfnZTRkzSsfSrD-GTFh166rxXMNDMMhgx9xTn_TzaVEpgAdm68aWdWckLGqa1ajhLZ8__PngPXzDVCaqpGWrjQ7nDXEY_80vnecdXi0F6Sk/s1600/P1010015.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIgzqTtm7lJNv_n4lmUIk1pjI3IlmZz40haZfnZTRkzSsfSrD-GTFh166rxXMNDMMhgx9xTn_TzaVEpgAdm68aWdWckLGqa1ajhLZ8__PngPXzDVCaqpGWrjQ7nDXEY_80vnecdXi0F6Sk/s320/P1010015.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
None of it is world-class modelling material, and it doesn't really bear too close an inspection. But as the old Soviet saying goes, "quantity has a quality all its own."<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKbs4_hlwq7i5ehxeagyrSUsub7ozx9lRNsAC0gu7U1LD1TPXkrPWY7jnxLC82s5N3s2Un2DfmoYFjN9JeQd4tzYlXNPm1WL7GHNWpt-gFWcqEUg3e6DG_W1rsh7sJbli0mV1YPJYJHCkz/s1600/P1010002.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKbs4_hlwq7i5ehxeagyrSUsub7ozx9lRNsAC0gu7U1LD1TPXkrPWY7jnxLC82s5N3s2Un2DfmoYFjN9JeQd4tzYlXNPm1WL7GHNWpt-gFWcqEUg3e6DG_W1rsh7sJbli0mV1YPJYJHCkz/s320/P1010002.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
The scene's really brought to life by some of the 1/43 die-cast vehicles I've been collecting over the years. Most are out and out toys, like this Teamsterz "Load & Go" delivery truck. The blacktop main road is a commercial product made by someone on eBay, the lighter grey sections are a WIP, made with sandpaper stuck to cheap vinyl tiles.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiS3ir0307zdRGLSc5jFyoEYME0BoRRwKpBaDVv-nQSgE6qeaa0V6pxwNPCu5EpKQAWMnzmZ9zfhgME-290Xo9obp8q3x_hYh7wpUaznnTVgPyw5SCQt-wWS8VPYtSl_givyLinpIQERNvU/s1600/P1010008.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiS3ir0307zdRGLSc5jFyoEYME0BoRRwKpBaDVv-nQSgE6qeaa0V6pxwNPCu5EpKQAWMnzmZ9zfhgME-290Xo9obp8q3x_hYh7wpUaznnTVgPyw5SCQt-wWS8VPYtSl_givyLinpIQERNvU/s320/P1010008.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
I recently discovered a vendor called www.carmodel.com, an outfit based in Italy who sell all scales of collectible die-cast cars. What drew me to them was they had a category labelled "Cheap 1/43 cars", which includes a whole load of Russian/East European vehicles for as little as 3.99 Euros. These are absolutely fantastic for giving a non-US or Western Europe vibe, and are exactly the sort of vehicle you might expect to see crop up in a third world country. One thing we do still need is more actual buildings, but for now we have the Plasticville(?) gatehouse and that's about it.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1NYQ3znjMmjDdJ-hkuOWlcOGRlKm2byevCm1TNvrX9dOznbHtaeXlvDFwDqaIAtEKThSLLOrKI8VxnPrNwOPjq-5ZSGH3sfSvn_AnkWSsk4EuqKXmWKRUagsNKivWcDRl-opz6K3nIoc_/s1600/P1010021.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1NYQ3znjMmjDdJ-hkuOWlcOGRlKm2byevCm1TNvrX9dOznbHtaeXlvDFwDqaIAtEKThSLLOrKI8VxnPrNwOPjq-5ZSGH3sfSvn_AnkWSsk4EuqKXmWKRUagsNKivWcDRl-opz6K3nIoc_/s320/P1010021.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
In Paradiso, the biggest industrial complexes are often operated by the Sunrise Corporation, with their signature yellow-boilersuited workforce. These armed technicians from Ainsty were painted to represent the classic 60s spy-fi minions.... any similarity to any other yellow minions is entirely coincidental.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsH1ZYirccwgoQl6uyqJ_HjXogo3bJJ8BUiIoUKAY1QjowKflL3kGwgMgadI0QTClLCO26hSjCxIrJMsU4WMzsCNEG-5a759jf-g5Xb1FONx9es3W7c_6oWeejkw3A65Znw8I0w4xsQi5N/s1600/P1010019.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsH1ZYirccwgoQl6uyqJ_HjXogo3bJJ8BUiIoUKAY1QjowKflL3kGwgMgadI0QTClLCO26hSjCxIrJMsU4WMzsCNEG-5a759jf-g5Xb1FONx9es3W7c_6oWeejkw3A65Znw8I0w4xsQi5N/s320/P1010019.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
One feature I'm quite pleased with is the "bits box factory machinery" bases. They are, exactly as the name suggests, random bits from the bits box hotglued together to a suitable base. Having been thrown hastily together and sprayed black last December for the "ruined factory" table, I finally got around to painting them. I went with a very crude rough base colour drybrush for everything, with a lighter more selective silver drybrush on top. Again literally 5 minutes work, but the overall result is quite effective at giving the impression of dirty, used machinery.</div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtHbK1hhqPbsiTb78lt5XT6wt3z692FIEzyfdgBsEu1Q2CrmGN05s2zuZ-BJaMJjifzxxrIpaEXGzMbkPRPs_7lJ5zeVw2LMbdxs3ej6O4lm6lqDSZWC9u3tYbCxEtDZ4yXpbLyBiG7Bb1/s1600/P1010024.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtHbK1hhqPbsiTb78lt5XT6wt3z692FIEzyfdgBsEu1Q2CrmGN05s2zuZ-BJaMJjifzxxrIpaEXGzMbkPRPs_7lJ5zeVw2LMbdxs3ej6O4lm6lqDSZWC9u3tYbCxEtDZ4yXpbLyBiG7Bb1/s320/P1010024.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
In addition to just throwing out some pipes and spraypainted tin cans onto the table, we've tried to do a couple of more complex pieces, like this wossname, doohickey type thing. Don't ask me what exactly it's meant to represent. But it's a Nesquick plastic tub smooshed together with the WT platforms and the machinery from a toy police tow-truck bunged on top. </div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgprGbEcIOVCn4OcvHEta3FVFnwAvgg8gMTedKkOroSDNDfr-EQs2tM3TKxmXyu2uCRxqFWCxG0bSFKZAln_KjXS9GwtEfOjKj0329ecwVjYycg_QsqOAF9O3vlNfT3YoMVQUxOYlf6iKqu/s1600/P1010030.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgprGbEcIOVCn4OcvHEta3FVFnwAvgg8gMTedKkOroSDNDfr-EQs2tM3TKxmXyu2uCRxqFWCxG0bSFKZAln_KjXS9GwtEfOjKj0329ecwVjYycg_QsqOAF9O3vlNfT3YoMVQUxOYlf6iKqu/s320/P1010030.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
To all this we added a ton of scatter. My friend Dave had gifted us with a load of oil drums which helped massively with the industrial feel. Streetlamps, dumpsters, gas and liquid tanks from Ainsty and Ramshackle and planters from Antenocitis. Basically anything that could break up line of sight or provide cover.<br />
<br />
There's tons more I could show or talk about - I've not even touched on the gasometers or the crane or the converted container lorries or... you get the drift. Six months of work, remember? And still we're a long way from "finished" with this terrain. As I mentioned, we want more actual buildings for figures to be able to move into and around, the pipework needs painting and expanding somewhat (we have some narrower gauge pipe to complement the 40mm stuff), and I really want a chain link fence to surround the whole facility(or at least on two sides).<br />
<br />
But it's 75% there and 75% is good enough to play on, especially since it's been "in development" for so long. So far we've played two games on this setup - The first a Flying Lead battle pitching the Paradiso farmers Guerilla army against the Sunrise Corp security. Despite early successes breaching the gate and the perimeter, the guerillas were quickly contained and pinned down by the defenders, fighting from superior positions in the walkways (and out the back of one container truck!).<br />
<br />
The other game we've played was a test run of the new 7TV 2nd edition Beta rules. To the uninitiated, 7TV from <a href="http://www.crooked-dice.co.uk/wp/" target="_blank">Crooked Dice</a> is designed to let players recreate action and adventure shows from the 60s and 70s. The supporting ranges of figures would be only two familiar to anyone who'd watched British TV in the last 50 years, Jonesy and I had been planning to try out the 1st edition for a while, but never gotten around to it. Since we're not collecting their figures, and the Spy-fi figures I have aren't painted yet, instead we went for an "80s private detective show" theme, with a little warband I've put together called the Redd Foxx Detective Agency (more on them in a future blog post) infiltrating.. yes you've guessed it, a Sunrise Corp. industrial complex.<br />
<br />
The 7TV 2nd Ed rules are greatly streamlined from 1st ed, and in my opinion do a better job of emulating a TV show's format. There's a nifty card-based countdown mechanic to limit the length of the game, with the cards doubling up as Chance cards for random happenings (all couched in TV terms like "Casting Call" or "Continuity Error"). There's an activation mechanic, which means you can't necessarily do everything with your entire force every turn, and each side has access to a pool of one-shot "Gadgets" to help them.<br />
<br />
Our first impression is very favourable. We played a small band of a Star & 4 Co-stars (the Detectives) against three times as many Extras with one Co-star leader. The game felt very balanced - stars and co-stars are more competent and get more activations, but putting any of them out of action gives the opposition both bonus activations and victory points. Meanwhile Extras need to be clumped together under leaders in order to be activated as groups, but you have to kill a lot more of them to get their side to the morale break-point (or "Axed", in 7TV parlance) and then they don't count towards victory points.<br />
<br />
The game felt very even throughout until the very end, but on counting up the victory points was a massive win for the Sunrise Corps at 8-1, mainly due to taking out my Co-stars. The rules writing seemed pretty tight, as you'd expect from a 2nd edition, with very few headscratching moments if any. As a Beta set, the rules included none of the background fluff from the "official" 7TV series casts (i.e. factions) and no campaign rules.<br />
<br />
The one negative I have is that you're supposed to select your cast from a selection of pre-generated archetypes, stats for which are provided on attractive character cards. But I found those archetypes very limiting in their options. There are some quite elegant and simple rules for customising Stars and Co-stars in a limited way, but you may not find yourself able to create any imaginable character within the rules.<br />
<br />
All in all, I'm filing 7TV as a useful set of rules suitable for light-hearted pulpy action, along with Pulp Alley. The Beta set is so tight and fluff-free that I can see us carrying on playing from these beta booklets even after the full game is released. Like Pulp Alley though, it's not so suitable for general military combat, or gritty urban crime. Flying Lead from <a href="http://www.ganeshagames.net/" target="_blank">Ganesha Games</a> remains my favourite go-to ruleset for generic modern firearm combat, with the state of 2HW's Chain Reaction currently hanging in the balance after it proved unpopular with Jonesy and a couple of others in my gaming circles.<br />
<br />
I am however currently looking closely at FiveCore from <a href="http://fivemennormandy.blogspot.co.uk/" target="_blank">Nordic Weasel Games</a>, after enjoying he Brigade Commander version so much. I rather like the idea of being able to fight a five-man skirmish, a company level action and a brigade level action using essentially the same game mechanics. The main stumbling block is whether some of the game's key assumptions will sit well with some players.<br />
<br />
I'm still looking for a good modern "Toy Soldiers" game i.e. one where having a fun game takes precedence over strict realism. I generally describe this concept as "40K Modern", where I can field several tanks and APCs along with 28mm infantry support and have a fun game on an 8'x5' table (despite "realistically" those distances being ridiculously tight and close for those forces.) FUBAR is one possible option for this, but I'm also hoping to try out Mongoose's defunct Battlefield Evolution rules (available as PDF at Wargame Vault)<br />
<br />
On the Company level, I also find myself intrigued by <a href="http://www.warfareintheageofmadness.com/" target="_blank">Warfare In The Age Of Madness</a>, which looks like it's pitched at the same sort of game as 5Core Company Commander (about 12 elements, single vehicles and squad elements, smallish playing area) and also straddles the divide between real-world modern and sci-fi/post apocalyptic eras. But although the rules have been out for a while, I've yet to find anyone on the web reporting having actually played a game of it, and although they're very reasonably priced at Wargames Vault, I've currently hit my spending limit for the month so they'll have to wait.<br />
<br />
On the other hand, I'm waiting for the boys at <a href="http://winterof79.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/operation-compound-fracture.html" target="_blank">WinterOf79 </a>to get their act together and release their In Development game "Lock Stock and Two Smoking Sterlings." so I can throw my money at them. After all, how can you not love a game that categorises its troop quality levels "Hard", "Blokes", "Lads" and "Tossers"?Dr Vesuviushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05255420207375021875noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2668577041425925534.post-30009546413026573982015-04-30T01:11:00.002+01:002015-04-30T01:11:28.646+01:00All the small things..Someone mentioned to me the other day, rather pointedly, that it was about time for my bi-annual blog post.<br />
<br />
Funny guy, I thought. Then I checked the date of the last post and... well... fair cop.<br />
<br />
So Point No. 1: Not dead yet.<br />
<br />
The planned continuation of San Paradiso wargaming got derailed a little when during a tryout game of the latest "final" edition of Two Hour Wargaming's Chain Reaction, it emerged that some of my regular wargaming collaborators just plumb don't like Chain Reaction. It was one of those awkward rules discussions where it became clear that the participants were operating on completely different assumptions. I've always seen Chain Reaction and the other 2HW rules as more gritty and "realistic" in terms of limiting what figures can do and how little you can control them. I think that comes from my experience with some of the very earliest 2HW sets like Wasteland Warriors, or the original Six Gun Sound, before Ed started introducing more "roleplaying" elements making the leading characters "Larger Than Life".<br />
<br />
By contrast, one of the other players I think was expecting a much more "pulpy" fun game, possibly having been swayed by our recent successful introduction to Pulp Alley. For him, Chain Reaction was a failure, because he couldn't do crazy, heroic charges without being cut down mercilessly. Human nature being what it is, once we set our minds that something is "bad", it's very difficult for us to adjust our criteria and perceptions in order to see it as "good" instead.<br />
<br />
The rules discussion that followed was... well let's say "robust", and leave it at that. I've since found out that at least one other of our gaming circle doesn't like the 2HW rules, which means Chain Reaction looks like it's going to be retired as a possible ruleset for future games.<br />
<br />
One thing I want from my hobby of wargaming is to be able to play different styles and tones of games, depending on the circumstances, how I'm feeling, who the other players are etc. I don't believe there's a "One True Way" that all gaming has to conform to. For example, I love Flying Lead from Ganesha Games, as a kind of default, fairly light firearms skirmish ruleset for up to a dozen figures a side. But sometimes, I might be in the mood for something more pulpy or action-movie-ish, in which case Pulp Alley might fit the bill. On the other hand, if I wanted a more "serious" skirmish game, which rewards more tactically minded play, previously I would have gone to Chain Reaction, which in my experience when you remove the "Larger Than Life" elements does just that.<br />
<br />
So with CR out of the picture, I'm looking for a skirmish game that fills that gap. There are a couple of possible candidates out there - the 5Core rules from "5 Men In Normandy" looks like a possible candidate, provided it can handle games a bit larger than the original 5 figures per side. Another interesting possiblity is Infinity, the science-fiction skirmish rules from Corvus Belli. Although written for a far-future setting, at the end of the day an assault rifle is an assault rifle, and the rules are at heart a firearms skirmish game. They also share 2HW's assumption of "overwatch by default", in which the active moving player is just as likely to provoke a deadly response from the opposition by acting as it is to kill the enemy. Although it's sold as a very expensive hardback book (£60!!!!!!), Corvus Belli have published the PDF version absolutely free on their website, along with all the army lists, weapon lists and campaign scenarios that are designed for tournament play. I've watched many Infinity games played out on YouTube (mainly from MiniWargaming) and am playing around with a modern conversion which along with the game's "quick introduction to the rules" should be enough to get a friendly game going sometime.<br />
<br />
I'm also looking for a ruleset for slightly larger games, maybe up to a couple of platoons a side, leaning more towards the "fun toy soldiers" end of the spectrum. I've been adding bits and pieces to the collection over the past few months, and itch to see my full wargame table laid out with a San Paradiso game that looks more like something from the good old Tarr and Featherstone era. Something that plays a little like a modern version of Warhammer 40K, but with perhaps a few more concessions to reality. Rulesets I'm looking at include the defunct Battlefield Evolution from Mongoose Publishing, and FUBAR. We've played FUBAR in the past and found it basically enjoyable, but I'm looking at some of the many variants that people have come up with to tweak the basic rules.<br />
<br />
Should we ever want to game even larger operations, we already have a winner. One game that I have played a little bit recently was 5Core Brigade Commander. This uses stands representing companies, with individual vehicles representing platoon-level attachments. This means that you can put a Soviet style motor-rifle regiment on the table using less than a couple of dozen vehicle miniatures (assuming two per stand). The game plays really well, giving a good feel of commanding at the higher level, unlike other micro-armour games I've played. A group of us have used Nordic Weasel's brushfire war supplement to generate a bunch of ex-Soviet-bloc Imagi-Nations and are planning a bit of a casual mini-campaign in the near future.<br />
<br />
But the main ongoing project has been the industrial terrain, based on the MDF platform sets from Wargames Tournaments. This has been dragging on a bit as in recent months the regular weekly crafting session has had a lot of disruption. However following the usual mantras of "just one thing at a time" and "a little as often as possible", the terrain is starting to take shape. We have various lengths and gauges of PVC pipeworks, including one type that was originally designed to make a set of kids football goalposts (Thanks Dave for donating that find to the project!) We have a couple of minor conversion jobs adding tin cans and pringles tubes to the MDF platforms, we have one fairly spectacular converted toy and lots of appropriate scatter terrain. After a lot of sessions given over to planning and brainstorming and generally unproductive preparations, the test layout currently sitting on the wargame table is starting to look like something that might one-day be playable on.<br />
<br />
I can just about make out the light at the end of the tunnel.<br />
<br />
The current plan is to initially use the industrial terrain to try out the 7TV rules from Crooked Dice, a set that <i>Mi Hermano Collaboratore</i> Jonesy as been keen to try for a long time. On the painting table we have a bunch of armed technicians from Ainsty (I'm too stingy to afford the Crooked Dice minis) and various agents, spies and villains drawn mainly from the Copplestone and Artisan "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" ranges<br />
<br />
...<br />
<br />
Of course me being a typical wargamer, I'm already planning, inspired by and indeed buying toys for the next big terrain project AFTER the industrial one is done. *DOH*Dr Vesuviushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05255420207375021875noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2668577041425925534.post-39099053278579591872014-12-16T21:20:00.000+00:002014-12-16T21:20:15.178+00:00This must be just like livin' in Paradise.<span style="font-size: x-large;">GOTCHA!</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">REBEL LEADER CAPTURED IN FIERCE GUN BATTLE WITH GOVERNMENT TROOPS</span><br />
RUINED FACTORY SCENE OF CONTINUAL FIGHTING<br />
<br />
<i>The ongoing unrest in the Western Foothills spilled over into the industrial district of Puerto Brum. Earlier in the week, the ruined and abandoned Milk Duds factory was the scene of clashes between the Policia Municipale and assorted gang members and foreign mercenaries in a chaotic four-way gun battle. Unfortunately the brave men of the Policia were driven off and the site left in the hands of the criminals and anarchists.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Yesterday however, the Army sent in a squad of troops to clear and secure the site. They quickly encountered a sizeable force of the rebel farmers led by the notorious revolutionary El Porco Verde. In a long gun battle, two soldiers were killed and several wounded, however our brave boys in green finally managed to capture the rebel leader and several of his henchmen.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>A spokesman for El Presidente has stated "We believe that the rebels were at the site to pick up a supply shipment of arms, smuggled to them by one of the city's criminal gangs. In smashing this operation, we've dealt a crippling blow to this illegal revolt against our just rule."</i><br />
<br />
Thus is the tale of two wargames recently fought in my Imagi-Nation of San Paradiso.<br />
<br />
The first was a quickly thrown together game of Pulp Alley for the Old Farts gaming evening, who graced me with their presence last week. Since I don't have any proper pulp-era figures painted, it was a toss-up between digging out the Victoriana/Steampunk figures, or going for a modern "Action Movie" style game. In the end we had the Police, the biker gang, the "urban" gang and "The Z-Team" all clashing over a table representing a ruined factory complex.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_QaLK25OacrYZ92mzZvU5XG7F7P9gXycHogntX9Qe0Uu3ktRiZTX-tc8s_exe1oCY8JSItsqxQGcjWNvumYvGOajnryrAKVBzq24Wb5Qs22PcccYQCDeVoYoyOdyRWHZ1en6_4xBqKq-F/s1600/P9270018.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_QaLK25OacrYZ92mzZvU5XG7F7P9gXycHogntX9Qe0Uu3ktRiZTX-tc8s_exe1oCY8JSItsqxQGcjWNvumYvGOajnryrAKVBzq24Wb5Qs22PcccYQCDeVoYoyOdyRWHZ1en6_4xBqKq-F/s1600/P9270018.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
As a fun game, I can't praise Pulp Alley highly enough. It's designed to reproduce the feel of dashing pulp serials, with lots of back and forth and a fairly low body count. The rules could work without modification for pretty much any period from early gunpowder to sci-fi. However you'll always have that highly cinematic feel, which might not suit the tone of game you're aiming for. Personally I'm happy to add Pulp Alley to my "toolbox" of rulesets, as the go-to rules for "fun" multiplayer skirmish games, alongside Flying Lead and Chain Reaction (in increasing order of seriousness).<br />
<br />
Anyway the multiplayer Pulp Alley game proved inconclusive, with the Police the only clear losers (the other three sides each had secured one "Plot point", and while the Bikers looked about to gain the upper hand, we basically ran out of time). So I left the terrain set up on the table and today decided to send in an Army squad to clear the area, using Two Hour Wargames' Chain Reaction in a solo game. It was the first time I'd used the current PEF rules (Possible Enemy Forces), and I was looking forward to seeing how they'd work for an impromptu solo game.<br />
<br />
It was an exciting battle. The squad entered at the front gate and after ensuring the gatehouse was empty, split into two fireteams. Alpha team, accompanied by the squad leader, peeled to the right, towards one PEF, while Bravo team peeled to the right, toward two PEFs.<br />
<br />
Bravo encountered the enemy first, revealing a rebel foot patrol. It was here I ran into the first and only real headscratcher of the game. In Chain Reaction, PEFs are resolved as either nothing, or a number of troops relative to the player's "Group". While the rules seem to be written with the assumption of a single player group, it wasn't clear what happens in the case of a squad split into two tactical groups operating independantly, like the two fireteams. Do you base the number of troop in the PEF on the number of troops in the fireteam encountering them, or on the number in the whole squad? At first I assumed the latter, but seeing the overwhelming odds that produced, switched to the former (basing the numbers on the encountering groups). I think this aspect of the game bears tinkering with, maybe using the subgroup size, but increasing the number of PEFs on table based on the number of subgroups in play.<br />
<br />
Anyway Bravo team ran headlong into that patrol (which eventually had four members) and paid for it with the loss of the fireteam leader. The survivors deployed into the ruined buildings for cover, revealing the second PEF which fortunately turned out to be a false alarm. The SAW gunner managed to take out the rebel patrol's leader and a second rebel, sending the two survivors diving for cover.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile Alpha team had similarly spread out and encountered the third PEF, which turned out to be the main rebel force of 8 men, including their leader El Porco Verde (from the jungle ambush game). An exchange of fire between the REP 5 squad leader and the REP 5 rebel left the soldier sprawling in the dust, having rapidly burned through his "Star Power" points in an attempt to cancel his injuries. The two sides settled down for what looked like it would be an extended firefight of attrition.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_ddg6ksVzech-Lb4R63QC62lBmxiXbZWz61Ezd-l9226fN1XSp33CqHDO26dL492j4Fe_PcPbDT8wRx1T2d1fPYiznhyblT3qdFkp0Nx0_2JOAiYuSkSO8DGemFFPvMmXurZitO1_Y3FS/s1600/PA010030.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_ddg6ksVzech-Lb4R63QC62lBmxiXbZWz61Ezd-l9226fN1XSp33CqHDO26dL492j4Fe_PcPbDT8wRx1T2d1fPYiznhyblT3qdFkp0Nx0_2JOAiYuSkSO8DGemFFPvMmXurZitO1_Y3FS/s1600/PA010030.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
Bravo team lost a second man but managed to take out the rest of the patrol facing them. They then quickly moved towards the sound of gunfire, hoping to catch the main rebel force in the flank.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3__RzNX__E69nkn6BGAQxErQkmKqQQoS_b8g-1LGrImy1KEsx73rCVNmLegP2NTSZ5cLjVciKMm0ZcFCq7E1boTIhNQfJHW8Exlodk89JISV1aaNdou3qA24A3bv1_f-hryY7IviKvQWB/s1600/PA010032.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3__RzNX__E69nkn6BGAQxErQkmKqQQoS_b8g-1LGrImy1KEsx73rCVNmLegP2NTSZ5cLjVciKMm0ZcFCq7E1boTIhNQfJHW8Exlodk89JISV1aaNdou3qA24A3bv1_f-hryY7IviKvQWB/s1600/PA010032.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
It was at this point that I made a mistake, or perhaps got a little greedy with the Rebel actions. The initiative dice came up Gov 6, Reb 2, which meant that though the Government troops nominally won, they could only activate units with a REP 6 or higher (of which they had none), while the rebels could activate anything with a REP 2 or higher. I tried to send two men in a mad dash across the open towards a flanking position on Alpha team. Although they were spotted as soon as they reached the open, I was banking on winning the resulting In Sight Test, using El Porco's REP of 5 vs the leaderless soldiers' 4.<br />
<br />
In a statistically unlikely but not impossible result, the Soldiers rolled more successes and were able to shoot first, gaining a few easy kills. The following turn saw Bravo team arrive at a flanking position and pour fire into the rebels. El Porco was gunned down, surviving through Star Power, while the rest of his group were whittled away until only he remained, at which point I called an end to the scenario.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIgsOXLcbLr8qhjt2pnXtLn5RshdjMzbUIA8cCpT39ZN6m9XtpU1wJ-y4Goe_sTAZPxlyvvljyUUHbY2At3nl8ITcRyCqmKI34TYw8ESE49D6SA5wnKubHbK3lZTRG4OXAJFUoLTy1iNLl/s1600/PA010035.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIgsOXLcbLr8qhjt2pnXtLn5RshdjMzbUIA8cCpT39ZN6m9XtpU1wJ-y4Goe_sTAZPxlyvvljyUUHbY2At3nl8ITcRyCqmKI34TYw8ESE49D6SA5wnKubHbK3lZTRG4OXAJFUoLTy1iNLl/s1600/PA010035.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
It really had felt like the rebels had the upper hand, up until the arrival of Bravo on the flank. Had the rebels taken an extra turn to properly suppress Alpha team (with Duckbacks) before attempting the dash across open ground, things might have gone differently.. then again Bravo team might have arrived before they'd been able to capitalise on that. But all in all it was just a really fun little solo game.<br />
<br />
From a campaign perspective: linking the rebels to the hardcore criminal gangs served to undermine their popularity amongst the more conservative elements. Thus the following Sunday, more than one church pulpit saw a sermon condemning the farm rebels as "traitors against society, San Paradiso and the Will of God". (i.e. Attempt to undermine "Support from the Church", requires 3+, rolled 3)<br />
<br />
This leaves the campaign status as follows.<br />
<br />Farmers - Control of the Foothills of Monto Blanko, The Bridge at El Humber, The Goodwill Of The People. <br /><br />Army - Secure base of operations at Verdaville. Secure supply of food and supplies, The Airfield at Los Anillcamino<br /><br />Uncontrolled - Foreign media interest. The fertile Piso River valley. The Sunrise Corp Processing Plant, Support from the Church.Dr Vesuviushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05255420207375021875noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2668577041425925534.post-10546729402674813092014-11-18T23:05:00.000+00:002014-11-18T23:05:43.758+00:00In the Jungle, the Quiet Jungle...<i>Memo to Self: When wanting to post pictures to the blog, remember that the camera card reader will only be found immediately after you've written it off as lost and ordered its replacement from Amazon.</i><br />
<br />
Ladies and Gentlemen, the Lesser Spotted Paradisan Turkey-Vulture has landed.<br />
<br />
Or put another way, we have finally fought the inaugural wargame in the San Paradiso imagi-nation setting. Talking to <i>mi hermano disponible</i> Jonesy during our regular Sunday terrain crafting & mini painting session, it transpired that his regular Monday D&D session would be cancelled. So I suggested he and any other loose players might come over here for a coffee-table skirmish game to actually <b>use</b> some of the stuff we'd been working on these last few months.<br />
<br />
I came up with a scenario that just happened to be the opening shots of the Paradiso farmer's revolt campaign I outlined in the last blog post, and so we settled down to a very enjoyable evening trying to get to grips with the latest iteration of Two Hour Wargames' "Chain Reaction".<br />
<br />
I've been a fan of 2HW for years. In fact back in the day I ran a very successful demo for Amazon Miniatures back when Chain Reaction was branded "Guns & Girls" to tie in with their range of figures inspired by the gun-fetish porn site of the same name. (For the record, this was not the demo game that got Amazon and MAWS perma-banned from the Partizan wargames show for miniature nudity. I meticulously greenstuffed little bikinis, crop tops and hot pants onto every figure, much to the bemusement of the AM staff, and ran a scenario with them fighting off against the faceless corporation of "the Man". My figures may still have been slutty, but by the gods they were Empowered Sluts!)<br />
<br />
Anyway Chain Reaction and the 2HW mechanics have gone through several iterations since I last played them so I was looking forward to seeing if they still kept the same back & forth firefight feel as the earlier editions (Spoiler alert: They do).<br />
<br />
The terrain was my living room coffee table, which is just a shade smaller than 4ft by 3ft. Since the urban terrain is still nearing completion on the workbench I decided to use the trees & jungle vegetation scenery that I've been working on in parallel.<br />
<br />
The Scenario:<br />
<br />
The Free Farmers' Collective have so far been limiting their actions to civil disobedience and peaceful protest. They have however procured a supply of automatic weapons and other material necessary to escalate their campaign to a full armed revolt. Word has reached the ear of El Jefe De Policidad in Verdaville that the rebels are picking up a supply drop located at a remote roadside stop up in the heavily forested foothills of Monto Blanko. El Jefe immediately rushes out with three of his most loyal constables to go and interrupt those naughty rascals. Despite his utter confidence in his own abilities and the ultimate authority of Law & Order which he represents, El Jefe is persuaded to pause at the local army barracks and bring along some regular army troops in support.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYmGDhoyLl4tn5cKAp4KiyNjS6_t3YiYs1Wi1IZwjjsLHXq4INABCaV2eukijw58B3HFRK0ysSmBPtvuZaFIR9qwkIlk7ktvGTEzNOp5LEIjboSoKle728pXFKPWvTTlUmYxayXLflD_Zw/s1600/P9030013.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYmGDhoyLl4tn5cKAp4KiyNjS6_t3YiYs1Wi1IZwjjsLHXq4INABCaV2eukijw58B3HFRK0ysSmBPtvuZaFIR9qwkIlk7ktvGTEzNOp5LEIjboSoKle728pXFKPWvTTlUmYxayXLflD_Zw/s1600/P9030013.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
Government Forces<br />
El Jefe - REP 5 Star, Shotgun<br />
Three Constabulos Municipales - REP 3, one with shotgun, two with pistols<br />
<br />
Four soldiers - REP 4, Squad leader and rifleman with M16s, grenadier with M203 and gunner with SAW.<br />
<br />
Rebel Forces<br />
Rebel Leader El Porco Verde - REP 5 Star, Assault Rifle<br />
Seven rebels - REP 3, One with a SAW, the rest with Assault Rifles.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSQCRpJ3JHD903q7iSiHxbJ2Ao2ikcSSmheOwy7YzjIq7E3vlDvS2U5mFBLdO_hEzOYmr_Q16seGFPkAN49MAE1HKcPqBh6rUb7fCFiYQvkxsgw4MiG8W9U-kPKPNYxq4lVxtj_GK7R_GM/s1600/P9030014.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSQCRpJ3JHD903q7iSiHxbJ2Ao2ikcSSmheOwy7YzjIq7E3vlDvS2U5mFBLdO_hEzOYmr_Q16seGFPkAN49MAE1HKcPqBh6rUb7fCFiYQvkxsgw4MiG8W9U-kPKPNYxq4lVxtj_GK7R_GM/s1600/P9030014.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
The terrain was mainly thick vegetation, with a road running roughly diagonally across the table. At the centre is the roadside stop (maybe a rural bus stop or possibly a roadside food stall?) where the Rebel's truck is being loaded up. The rebels could setup two figures up to 18 inches away from the truck as sentries, the rest would have to be within 4" in the middle of loading up.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMe6M6DLN3Gzd_sQa-0gRuNp_-vdHiJrve5s7jMJzhjvP_FXYYUq8HDlslqMLrDO5Bu4RYPhfwCO5Vl1EGnHUb35CWuxKdBxrJs1SRYbS0sONWmbGHZdMnztV1LezBmXZ6ImNnnmuxRaPo/s1600/P9030007.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMe6M6DLN3Gzd_sQa-0gRuNp_-vdHiJrve5s7jMJzhjvP_FXYYUq8HDlslqMLrDO5Bu4RYPhfwCO5Vl1EGnHUb35CWuxKdBxrJs1SRYbS0sONWmbGHZdMnztV1LezBmXZ6ImNnnmuxRaPo/s1600/P9030007.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
The Government forces had a choice on how they entered - they could drive in hard and fast and pile out of their vehicles guns blazing, or park up some way up the road out of sight and proceed in on foot with a little more stealth. (in the end, I wound up playing El Jefe, so I wound up dicing for it, resulting in the police skidding to a halt at close range, Sweeney style).<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQpchzEFv5Tg-gD0AADr1QmagNofCYjhEBXu4FwHmBuMSvVyrb0veH720Nu9eX7kr_vqLqw0cRqxTSGQrGWBAsZWVku3dB15ocdIYuW6Xu8CGHLpQ1a1TurFAoGPIdP3avnN2Dz1SY9iEP/s1600/P9030002.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQpchzEFv5Tg-gD0AADr1QmagNofCYjhEBXu4FwHmBuMSvVyrb0veH720Nu9eX7kr_vqLqw0cRqxTSGQrGWBAsZWVku3dB15ocdIYuW6Xu8CGHLpQ1a1TurFAoGPIdP3avnN2Dz1SY9iEP/s1600/P9030002.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
The police car had barely skidded to a halt when one of the alert rebel sentries opened fire on it from the bushes, putting one of the constables out of the fight right away. A couple more rebels brassed up the car, leaving it rather the worse for wear and suppressing the occupants (i.e. duckback results), while the rest of the rebels scrambled for their weapons and cover.<br />
<br />
El Jefe and the Constabulos crawled out of the riddled patrol car on the side away from the rebels and tried returning fire. El Jefe's shotgun succeeded in taking out one rebel, but the poor constables found themselves totally outgunned by the rebels' AKs. Meanwhile the fireteam of soldiers moved into the woods and started trying to move up the road to a flanking position. They came under fire from across the road, and in diving to cover almost stumbled over another rebel hiding in the vegetation, who they gunned down in a vicious close-range fight.<br />
<br />
While the army traded shots across the road, El Porco Verde led half his men in an almost mirroring manoeuvre, successfully flanking the police behind the car. The two constables scurried round the back of the car seeking cover, while El Jefe successfully fended off El Porco Verde while he dived for the nearby bushes.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7EpSVA5bcIygC8oi-GS7dCP1d0eNfs6WE4uubAaSA95sj9JgS6MhWephFkVO6PMixHQSNj0eZFcbjwXulPnPo_0eCHlYExzGZU4AgfgFcioB305F6ruC01tj_yws_El4YBm70A92HDul8/s1600/P9030008.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7EpSVA5bcIygC8oi-GS7dCP1d0eNfs6WE4uubAaSA95sj9JgS6MhWephFkVO6PMixHQSNj0eZFcbjwXulPnPo_0eCHlYExzGZU4AgfgFcioB305F6ruC01tj_yws_El4YBm70A92HDul8/s1600/P9030008.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
In the end however, El Porco Verde used his men's fire to pin down El Jefe (duckback) before charging in himself to finish off the Government Pig. It was a vicious, drag-em-down-in-the-mud fight, but eventually the filfy rebel scum beat the valiant police hero to death with his rifle butt.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioTJ2pcNLtM8DlchI9-EbCKLg0kC_s-elG-c5zZyC3wXzvmwlb4QQPRXh4Y-E-_y6p43nP1qFAckvmde6vcI4ZU_S6DcziAYmdtIwfc9276n9Rjm8iKD7uodSh5lcTt6O8tfydYBwWg7_e/s1600/P9030005.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioTJ2pcNLtM8DlchI9-EbCKLg0kC_s-elG-c5zZyC3wXzvmwlb4QQPRXh4Y-E-_y6p43nP1qFAckvmde6vcI4ZU_S6DcziAYmdtIwfc9276n9Rjm8iKD7uodSh5lcTt6O8tfydYBwWg7_e/s1600/P9030005.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
(It was actually at this point where we struggled with the rules. Technically it's debateable whether El Porco would have been able to make a charge, since El Jefe had suffered a Knocked Down result and was presumably out of sight. However common sense suggested that he ought to be able to, so I handwaved it. Then we carried out the Charge Into Melee test. The results were that the defender (El Jefe) could fire and the charger (El Porco) could melee, no reaction tests. But the rules weren't clear on what that meant or the exact order of events. We resolved El Jefe's fire and got a Knocked Down result. Did the "No Reaction Tests" mean that El Porco shouldn't take the usual Recovery Test? If I'd not scored a hit, would it have meant he didn't take the usual Under Fire test (I'd assume yes to the latter, not sure about the former). And most importantly, did the fire take place before the melee, and did the Knocked Down result prevent El Porco from getting his planned melee attack?<br />
<br />
My assumption was that the fire happened as the charger was moving up, and a result from that should stop the melee from happening. However my esteemed opponent didn't share that assumption and so we went on to resolve the melee with the egregious results for law and order.<br />
<br />
I should point out however that had the charger been a normal figure, El Jefe's shotgun blast would have cut him in half, since El Porco had used the Star Power rules to reduce the damage down from a double-kill to a mere knockdown. The Star Power rules actually worked very well I felt, much better than I'd expected them to. Both El Jefe and El Porco took otherwise lethal hits prior to the melee and<br />
were able to barter them down with Star Power points. It struck the right balance of keeping heroic characters alive without them becoming unstoppable killing machines.<br />
<br />
So anyway the honours went to the Rebels, and putting my campaign-managers hat back on, I'm going to say that they used their success to take control of the uncontrolled "Goodwill of the People" resource. The ordinary people of the foothills of Monto Blanko and the Piso valley are buoyed by news of the rebels success, and are beginning to believe they have a chance of success. In mechanics terms, with 4 resources to the Government's 3, it means any hope the government had of quickly suppressing the revolt is now gone.<br />
<br />
The next game can now be anything that follows on logically from the first. It could be another skirmish like this, or it could be a larger scale battle, maybe fought in 15mm using AK47 rules. Or if you have a game with suitable air-to-ground rules, you could play out a fairly one-sided game of an airstrike on a rebel stronghold (The government would at most have light attack aircraft like the Super Tucano, the AH-6 Little Bird helicopter or an obsolete MiG, the rebels won't have any aircraft, but could conceivably have some man-portable SAMs just to keep things interesting.. hmm I'm tempted to dig out Mercenary Air Squadron and see if that couldn't handle that scenario as a neat little solitaire game.)<br />
<br />
In narrative terms, the fall of the vainglorious El Jefe means that the local Commandante will now take full control of the situation and be prepared to commit regular army forces to the suppression of the farmers revolt which now has to be taken seriously...<br />
====<br />
<br />
The jungle terrain is largely made up of that old familiar standby - aquarium plants, mounted on CDs or irregularly cut MDF bases (bought from Wargames Tournaments). The smaller, light green trees are actually from a Toys R Us dinosaur bucket. I've had them for ages, but basing them properly really gave them a new lease of life. The taller trees are from eBay, from one of the many Chinese importers selling plastic doodads on there (Possibly Everest Models, though I can't be sure). So far I've used about a quarter of the plants & trees I'd collected over the years, but judging by the way what I've got covered a 3'x4' table, I think just doubling what I've got ought to be enough for most purposes.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5K4w11ihrpf66OdgDtNuJCI9s-ZZ3f8JcaE7A3QkVTbnPTPcZQhOGa1jFC5Y0JuW5ma9gu-hv6-eUY2CtyyUrbj19kRvOlMehklnkXde_QQhNNuy8rkCzfe661meDZomnPHytRLcFh9-T/s1600/P9030017.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5K4w11ihrpf66OdgDtNuJCI9s-ZZ3f8JcaE7A3QkVTbnPTPcZQhOGa1jFC5Y0JuW5ma9gu-hv6-eUY2CtyyUrbj19kRvOlMehklnkXde_QQhNNuy8rkCzfe661meDZomnPHytRLcFh9-T/s1600/P9030017.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
And lastly, a fun piece. With all those Plasticville buldings I acquired three of the Plasticville cars. They're very primitive, just a plastic bodyshell and clip-on wheels (like the very cheapest plastic toys) and a shade smaller than the 1/43 scale I use for cars with 28mm. Since they would not be usable as cars, I copied something I'd seen a couple of times on the internet and turned one into an abandoned, overgrown and rusted wreck.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqkXvbiLnVZkwSHj4iO_CqLaPRj3Aq045WKFDuGtYiJsFfqZovFPb9B5g10S5z5ZZv4-kKztWk48HkSVdnOinRuBjhceanIneqKumBVq7NTlmwp_rR0lKNVRTuZiMYxhl-nPfJDwhENilh/s1600/P9030016.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqkXvbiLnVZkwSHj4iO_CqLaPRj3Aq045WKFDuGtYiJsFfqZovFPb9B5g10S5z5ZZv4-kKztWk48HkSVdnOinRuBjhceanIneqKumBVq7NTlmwp_rR0lKNVRTuZiMYxhl-nPfJDwhENilh/s1600/P9030016.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Dr Vesuviushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05255420207375021875noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2668577041425925534.post-18612548054693657112014-11-09T10:27:00.000+00:002014-11-09T10:27:17.623+00:00Little Boxes Made Out Of Ticky Tacky<i>Memo to self</i><br />
<i>1 Update the blog on a more regular basis</i><br />
<i>2 Once a year is not regular</i><br />
<br />
Work on the not so snappily titled "Modern Imagi-Nation Project" has been proceeding apace, albeit a lot slower than I'd hoped. To recap, a couple of months back we looked at that table full of Plasticville buildings, picked out about a dozen of them, picked out a handful of figures for each of three factions (motorcycle gangers, "hip-hop" gangstas and police) and decided to prepare these for a smallish skirmish scenario to act as a starting point for San Paradiso.<br />
<br />
To be fair, Mi Hermano Constructor, Jonesy has been joining me pretty much every Sunday for a few hours crafting session and while he's been doing the bulk of the work on most of the Plasticville buildings, I've found myself distractedly working on a hundred and one other minor terrain details, such as palm trees, scatter terrain and signage. This could be why progress has been slower than anticipated, however I think we are going to wind up with a more attractive scenery when the buildings are completed. We've even had one visit from our friend Crazy Eddy, who started painting all of the bikers and gangstas (thus making finishing them his job)<br />
<br />
We've also discovered another source for a couple of small but interesting buildings. In Japan, the "Tomica City" range of toys allows you to create a very impressive cityscape of buildings, roads and railways in 1/64 scale. While only a very limited subset of the range is available in the UK, several useful items have been on sale recently on Amazon..<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/81kojsuVW7L._SL1500_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/81kojsuVW7L._SL1500_.jpg" height="203" width="400" /></a></div>
The buildings are all basically "little boxes" like this pizza shop. Being scaled for the inch-high toy figures as seen in this photo, they're visually a very good fit for 28mm figures, although the building footprints are a bit on the small side. However compared to the Plasticville commercial buildings, these make quite acceptable "mini-units". And let's face it, the pizza-delivery trike is worth the box price on its own!<br />
<br />
Anyway outside of the project's assigned Sunday sessions, I've taken to painting figures while (half-)watching films and TV shows in the evenings. I've found I can get through quite a lot of figures this way (not to mention quite a lot of video). For highly individual figures, like the gangers, I can easily manage between six and ten figures in an evening. For more uniform figures, like soldiers or boiler-suited minion guards, the bulk of the figures' paint job comes from the Army Painter colour primer and all I need to do is pick out necessary details (flesh, boots, weapon, belts and any other details that are appropriate). These I've found I can rattle through at an alarming rate - one evening I think I managed over forty such figures in one, admittedly long sitting.<br />
<br />
As a result, when the original planned project terrain and figures are completed, we'll immediately have a wide selection of other figures ready to play out a range of conflict types, from further urban gang violence on the streets of Port-au-Nice, to rebel farmers in armed revolt in San Paradiso's interior, all the way up to an outbreak of hostilities with Paradiso's belligerent neighbour (whose troops' uniform and equipment may or may not bear an uncanny resemblance to the Iraqi Army.)<br />
<br />
At the moment though, the project is all about the journey, not the destination. I'm hoping we'll be past that stage and in a place to roll dice and play with all these new toys before the end of the year.<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
While the overall plan is for San Paradiso to be a campaign backdrop for an ongoing narrative, I was thinking it would be nice to have some form of campaign mechanics, if only to give some structure to any sub-campaigns that might arise. Take the farmers' revolt mentioned above. We could simply play out a number of skirmish games, arbitrarily evaluating how individual game results affect the overall flow of the conflict.<br />
<br />
But one night of insomnia-driven web surfing later, and I think I've found the perfect Universal Mapless Campaign system. It's a synthesis of Rick Priestly's Warmaster Ancients campaign system, and the political system used by Kaptain Kobold in his <a href="http://hordesofthethings.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/campaign-for-alto-peru-rules.html" target="_blank">Alto Peru campaign rules.</a> Having shamelessly stolen, mangled, mutilated, folded and regurgitated these ideas, I present them below for your amusement and edification.<br />
<br />
<b>Dr V's Slightly Derivative Universal Mapless Campaign Rules.</b><br />
<br />
Each battle in the campaign is fought between full "armies" balanced according to the scenario (so for an encounter battle, the forces should be roughly even, for an attack/defence the points/numbers might go up to 2:1 or even 3:1)<br />
<br />
Success or failure in the campaign is measured by the acquisition and loss of Resources. A Resource can be absolutely anything, appropriate to the scale of the campaign. It could be something substantial like control of a territorial region or access to a supply of some commodity, or it could be an entirely abstract thing, like political support from a particular group, or entirely nebulous like "The Goodwill Of The People". The campaign mechanics can work with entirely generic, unnamed Resources, but naming them does add considerable colour and will help build the campaign's narrative.<br />
<br />
Each force in the campaign starts with a number (suggested 3) Resources. In addition, a pool of resources start's the campaign Uncontrolled.<br />
<br />
After every game where there is a clear winner, they may do one of the following.<br />
<br />
1) Take control of an Uncontrolled Resource. This is automatically successful.<br />
2) Attempt to steal control of a Resource controlled by the defeated enemy. This is successful on a roll of 5+ on D6<br />
3) Undermine the enemy's control of one of their Resources, making it Uncontrolled. This is successful on a roll of 3+ on D6<br />
<br />
The campaign continues until...<br />
a) one side is left with no controlled resources<br />
b) one side has three times the number of resources held by their opponent<br />
c) an agreed number of games have been played<br />
d) everyone involved is bored.<br />
<br />
The winner is the side holding the most resources at the end of the campaign.<br />
<br />
<br />
Using this system, you have complete freedom when it comes to the individual battles. One game might be a 28mm skirmish using Flying Lead or Chain Reaction, another might be a larger scale operation played in 6mm using micro-armour rules. Yet another might be an air-to-air battle using C21 or Check Your Six. Whatever games the participants feel like playing and can be worked into the campaign narrative.<br />
<br />
<b>Example setup - Farmers' Revolt</b><br />
<br />
A small number of landholders in the Western Foothills region of San Paradiso have been protesting against what they say are unfairly high levies against their crop production. What began as a civil disobedience campaign has escalated into a minor insurrection, with bands of armed farmers clashing with patrols from the San Paradiso Army sent to maintain the peace.<br />
<br />
<i>Resources</i><br />
<br />
Farmers - Control of the Foothills of Monto Blanko, The Bridge at El Humber, Support from the Church<br />
<br />
Army - Secure base of operations at Verdaville. Secure supply of food and supplies, The Airfield at Los Anillcamino<br />
<br />
Uncontrolled - Foreign media interest. The fertile Piso River valley. The Goodwill Of The People. The Sunrise Corp Processing Plant.<br />
<br />
<br />
As you can see, that's quite a mix of traditional territories and abstract concepts, all of which can be seen as contributing to victory or defeat by either side. For an urban street-crime mini-campaign, Resources might be control of individual streets or buildings, support from a corrupt cop or a supplier of contraband goods. For a galaxy-spanning sci-fi campaign, Resources might be whole worlds, Support from an Alien Race, or The Force.<br />
<br />
The rules would work exactly the same if you simply said<br />
<br />
Farmers - 2 Resources<br />
Army - 2 Resources<br />
Uncontrolled - 4 Resources<br />
<br />
... but actually giving each resource point an in-world identifier is much more colourful. <br />
<br />
There you have it. Not entirely original, but an amalgamation of a couple of good ideas by clever people that I think would work quite well. |I can already think of some variations and optional rules that would add variety at the cost of the system's current extreme simplicity, but this is where the idea stands for now.<br />
<br />
Thoughts anyone?<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Dr Vesuviushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05255420207375021875noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2668577041425925534.post-16561924337385765612014-10-01T02:58:00.000+01:002014-10-01T02:58:52.305+01:00I'm Super! Thanks for asking. All things considered I couldn't be better I must say!I've been nagged again, not without justification, to update this blog again. I'd been intending to do so ever since the Big Birthday Bash some... (ack!) two months ago. But whenever I sat down to do so, I found myself choosing between spending a couple of hours writing about wargaming, or instead actually doing something wargame related. For better or worse, "Do" won out over "Write" every time.<br />
<br />
So last time we were here, preperations had just been completed for the Big Birthday Bash Hillbilly weekend. The whole affair went off splendidly. Crazy Eddy brought round a fresh batch of raspberry moonshine that was suitably... stimulating. The cuisine was a mixed success - everyone said they enjoyed their barbecued squirrel and rabbit, however I found myself so busy in the kitchen doing grits and fries that by the time I came to collect my portions, there were only the toughest leathery pieces left that were barely edible. (It didn't help that I'd neglected to marinade the meat properly due to uncertainty over what day the weather would allow us to barbecue - remember kids, always marinade your squirrel and rabbit for at least a day for the best results)<br />
<br />
As to the game - well it was chaos and mayhem, mostly in a good way.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4jzEU7_rtrMUHEnAQVJsWeSn7lp0QJ95RO7tRAbWbZqEKCbLFZGPVo2FzgcQRGCJIQMU19rPCI0xFbZrWp8ex3Oo7mlo4RSAowPnZc2PUG-EYCDvO-y5Vh_06uVw2xwYKh4-Ae3t6dN-f/s1600/P5180011.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4jzEU7_rtrMUHEnAQVJsWeSn7lp0QJ95RO7tRAbWbZqEKCbLFZGPVo2FzgcQRGCJIQMU19rPCI0xFbZrWp8ex3Oo7mlo4RSAowPnZc2PUG-EYCDvO-y5Vh_06uVw2xwYKh4-Ae3t6dN-f/s1600/P5180011.JPG" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
The buildings, in answer to ImpCommander's query to the last post (sorry for the delay!) were all part of the Plasticville collections I'd acquired from eBay - although the particular farmhouse and barn buildings we used in this game may actually be K-Line. They're O gauge/S gauge model railroad buildings and are perfect for wargaming - more on them later.<br />
<br />
The rules we used were Flying Lead from Ganesha Games. They generally worked well, except for some complaints that the nature of the initiative/activation system (each player attempts to activate all their figures in turn) meant that sometimes players felt they were stuck waiting for a long period for their turn to come around.<br />
<br />
The setup for the game was simple. Each player had one "Patriarch" figure, representing the head of their clan. They then randomly drew cards for the rest of their figures (You can't choose your family!). By a hilarious coincidence, Kat our one female gamer on the day picked the one Matriarch figure, then randomly drew an almost all female clan (except for Lil' Billy, the kid). Each clan started on the table edge and had the mission to lay claim to the farm and farmland of the late lamented Widow McDonald.<br />
<br />
Highlights of the game? Kat deciding that since her womenfolk weren't likely to capture the farm or any stills, she may as well kidnap fallen opponents ("Lookee here, Mi Maw, I dun found me a husban'!"): Bruce, on discovering that the motorhome wasn't a Breaking Bad meth lab but a red herring, decided to steal it anyway, after capturing another player's jalopy he wound up with a three-vehicle convoy. Marvin the ARVN, whose patriarch was the first into the McDonald farmyard, coming face to face with the Devil-Goat who was the true ruler of the farm.<br />
<br />
And then there was Crazy Eddy's bombing run with the Hillbilly Air Force.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB_Z0FzbGKEfZcnDkQsApyM3FbI_sqjqoRVdIpIVmW_JmQsW3YIiXwcTcviYYGy-Y-Rd7gQp_F0uuUAfB70li_Dw9DkCSwGHmF-1hOke9fL7_TuNZ6RwztL7tNlYCxRbYjLjP6F-fkoYX1/s1600/P5180007.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB_Z0FzbGKEfZcnDkQsApyM3FbI_sqjqoRVdIpIVmW_JmQsW3YIiXwcTcviYYGy-Y-Rd7gQp_F0uuUAfB70li_Dw9DkCSwGHmF-1hOke9fL7_TuNZ6RwztL7tNlYCxRbYjLjP6F-fkoYX1/s1600/P5180007.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
This was the Sekrit Weppun XXXX I've been talking about on the blog for some time, a Boeing Stearman Kaydet trainer, converted for crop-spraying duties. They were the standard US training aircraft around the end of WWI, hundreds of them were sold on to civilian owners where they helped drive civil aviation in the 20s and 30s.<br />
<br />
The model is 1/72 scale. Popular opinion seems to be to match 1/48 models with 28mm figures, a practice I've followed with ground vehicles and terrain (even using vehicles as large as 1/43 scale). However, for aircraft, there are numerous advantages to using the underscaled 1/72 models. Price is one of them - the Kaydet in 1/72 cost half what it would in 1/48.<br />
<br />
In terms of appearance, on the ground with figures stood next to it, the 1/72 looks slightly too small, but not ridiculously so. A 1/48 aircraft would use up a lot more space on the ground too, requiring wider and longer taxiways & runways if you want to represent them. And personally I feel 1/48 and larger look a little too big (which mathematically they are) On flight stands, 25cm or 50cm above the tabletop, the 1/72 looks absolutely fine, and it's easier to make the smaller aircraft stable.<br />
<br />
For a "jokey" and somewhat cartoony game like the Hillbilly Rampage, differences in scale are less important. The figures mixed true 25mms from Ground Zero Games, with 28mm from Black Hat and some "Heroic" 28mms from Mega Minis. The Plasticville buildings are notorious for being "flexibly scaled", having some doors that are too large and some too small, sometimes on the same building. The "Jalopies" used in the game were converted from Atlantis toys, designed for 40mm high action figures (but compared to the real-world vehicles they were based on look closer to 1/35) and buried underneath a tarpaulin in the barn, the hill folk found a 1/43 Dodge Challenger. So the whole game was a smorgasbord of scales from 1/72 to 1/35, yet because of the subject matter, everything hung together rather well.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg15A_7T5vdK9jiCQSWvEHDhL4cvKFjUTWF6LzjIZIwL3QjpSJGFyiGen6q8-IMny-NZRIxDc81VgVmmBO4xdPcJy1mX9U55Q71NM0xiwwXZhM31CbZRtmJd9a9xE13qNIyNHpfNwk7hANc/s1600/P5180012.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg15A_7T5vdK9jiCQSWvEHDhL4cvKFjUTWF6LzjIZIwL3QjpSJGFyiGen6q8-IMny-NZRIxDc81VgVmmBO4xdPcJy1mX9U55Q71NM0xiwwXZhM31CbZRtmJd9a9xE13qNIyNHpfNwk7hANc/s1600/P5180012.JPG" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBynSBEzxRyaEM0_RJzJqKkn8Bz6usovbIgkjclzagOki47yCR4q3hw3-dG3mLUQW0KovpVD7q53Xgps__eSykoKUB_aCuBnCFG2AEuGdaFnigPPCWk_agcgHMTdE6g_3TcdqC2B7wuyrT/s1600/P5180013.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBynSBEzxRyaEM0_RJzJqKkn8Bz6usovbIgkjclzagOki47yCR4q3hw3-dG3mLUQW0KovpVD7q53Xgps__eSykoKUB_aCuBnCFG2AEuGdaFnigPPCWk_agcgHMTdE6g_3TcdqC2B7wuyrT/s1600/P5180013.JPG" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0vpe4sf5e2hT7bz_a6204zAoBEp0TNZNjOdAvtoN8szWUZoQbABYDpnU0Ehq5-kN4Bw1A82gc-Snd2H1punHKJ8MIEBk8V_YM1Vw36x1j5hpdg1RT-G8L4t5wAqGWoD5JKSVrXpNORYeB/s1600/P5180022.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0vpe4sf5e2hT7bz_a6204zAoBEp0TNZNjOdAvtoN8szWUZoQbABYDpnU0Ehq5-kN4Bw1A82gc-Snd2H1punHKJ8MIEBk8V_YM1Vw36x1j5hpdg1RT-G8L4t5wAqGWoD5JKSVrXpNORYeB/s1600/P5180022.JPG" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Everyone proclaimed to have enjoyed the game, even if Marvin bitched about the Devil Goat and there was some dispute over who had won by the scenario's victory conditions (as if I was even counting!).<br />
<br />
About a week or so later, we had the opportunity to re-run the game with some different players, for the weekly "Old Farts" group. We had Jonesy, Bruce and Crazy Eddy back again, and were joined by Dave and Paul. This time we changed the activation sequence to only have players activate one figure in turn before passing to the next player. On the surface this worked OK, however the game quickly split into two subgames, one of three players, one of two, with each group of players working out their initiative amongst themselves and out of sequence to the other group. While some might argue that this tends to happen in large multi-player games anyway, once it started I feel it became a self-fulfilling prophecy, i.e. it discouraged any players who might otherwise want to from "crossing over" and affecting the other sub-game.<br />
<br />
This prompted a lot of deep thinking about turn sequences and activation for future games. I've come to the conclusion that for larger multi-player games, it's hard to beat the randomised card draw from GASLIGHT (or similar mechanisms). Ironically, it's that self-same activation sequence that I've been keen to move away from for the purposes of more "routine" games.<br />
<br />
Anyway, to draw a line under the Big Birthday Bash, I now have an extended clan of 42+ hillbillies painted up and ready to play, along with suitable scenery and vehickles. That's part of what running events like the BBB are about for me - in addition to spending time with friends and near-family. It's a motivator to dig into the lead mountain and get things ready to play. If I ever need a pickup game at short notice, the Hillbilly gear is there ready and usable for the sort of regular small-skirmish game Flying Lead was designed for.<br />
<br />
So as mentioned previously, as part of the prep for the Hillbilly game I kinda went a bit mental on eBay and bought rather a lot of Plasticville buildings. A couple of weeks after the BBB, Marvin and Jonesy came around one Sunday and we decided to layout everything I had to see what was what.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6UW-lJRoQFgvJWMe9IOOdUOEYJSdXsW4ZPjrVrX6gnZ05uHeu5icFp3Ud103fvZpE3EtjIHSZggkIE3mWRBqaCAERO8yEhu3OHkjt7qgMhJHRh0kD_hmCBwqaMkSqvhOpKwVkIX-rv1t-/s1600/P6090026.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6UW-lJRoQFgvJWMe9IOOdUOEYJSdXsW4ZPjrVrX6gnZ05uHeu5icFp3Ud103fvZpE3EtjIHSZggkIE3mWRBqaCAERO8yEhu3OHkjt7qgMhJHRh0kD_hmCBwqaMkSqvhOpKwVkIX-rv1t-/s1600/P6090026.JPG" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
This was.... most of the buildings, not including those still in kit form awaiting assembly (and about five more buildings still winging their way across the Atlantic. As you can see there's enough here to easily fill a 7ft by 6ft table, without much room for roads or open spaces.<br />
<br />
These buildings are great for wargaming. The scales, as mentioned before, are way off. features on the buildings range from 1/72 to 1/48, and the ground area covered by most is much smaller than they would be in real life. They do, however, look the part perfectly and while many of these 2nd hand buildings are glued together, I've generally been able to remove the roofs on most of them so far, allowing figures to be placed inside them.<br />
<br />
Looking at this table full of plastic, the three of us discussed what we were going to do with them. If you're not fussy, the buildings are usable as-is, but having painted and enhanced the buildings used in the BBB, I wanted to bring these buildings up to the same standard at least. While the Plasticville buildings are pretty much pure 1950s Americana, I'd singled out some of the buildings as being an ideal basis for my Caribbean Imagi-Nation of Paradiso - the subject of the second ever post on this blog several years ago. I explained the idea to the guys, and in order to get things started we decided to replicate what we'd done for the BBB - i.e. come up with a modest scenario, pick a modest subset of figures and a half a dozen or so buildings and aim to have them ready to play for a certain date. Then lather, rinse repeat with a new set of figures/buildings.<br />
<br />
So that's basically what we've been working on every Sunday for the past few weeks. Hopefully in a few weeks time we'll have a three or four-way skirmish with 4-8 figures a side playable on a 3ft square table that gives a fair impression of being part of a modern city in the tropics. While we've been making progress towards the planned scenario, I've also been doing a number of terrain mini-side-projects that will serve the setting overall, like tropical vegetation bases with palm trees and the ubiquitous aquarium plants (more of them in a future post)<br />
<br />
In researching terrain and modelling inspiration, I have come to realise that Paradiso is an absolute fantasy. It will bear very little similarity to any real-world Caribbean nation. It's far too westernised, its military far too developed. I realised that I was taking a lot of inspiration from cold-war era Latin America with its stereotypical endless coups and juntas.<br />
<br />
And I'm OK with that.<br />
<br />
At the end of the day Paradiso is going to serve as a setting to support the sort of games I want to play, and for that the fictionalisation is a bonus, not a disadvantage. I'd like to play stand up battles between hard-pressed police and well armed criminal cartels. But the savagery and atrocities of the real-world Mexican and Latin American cartels makes trying to reproduce them on the tabletop seem extremely tasteless. Tired of counter-insurgency games pitting the USA against goat farmers in Iraq & Afghanistan? How about pitting the slightly less well-equipped Paradiso Army against its own goat-farming rebels in the mountains? Or a more conventional fight against Paradiso's Russian trained & equipped neighbours.<br />
<br />
While remaining firmly grounded in the real world (at least until the Zombie Apocalypse breaks out) Paradiso is a fantasy island where I can play any real-world modern/near future type game I might want to play, from gang warfare and cops & robbers, up to platoon-level skirmishes in 28mm, and beyond into 15mm AK47 or micro-armour games, or 1/300 air-to-air battles against hostile neighbours. The game setting bends to what I want it to be, rather than dictating what games I can play. Which to me is how gaming should be.<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
There's more.<br />
<br />
Between 2003 and 2007 I ran an epic superhero roleplaying campaign using the Mutants and Masterminds rules. Not only was it possibly the highlight of my gaming "career", I found it also helped give my life in general an anchor point - playing host every couple of weeks meant I couldn't let the flat I was living in at the time get too messy or disorganised, it would require a certain amount of preparation and planning to exercise the mind, and it was of course simply something to look forward to. While sat chilling out on the Sunday of the BBB, the other players were all highly nostalgic for the old game and I'd recently found myself inspired by the current glut of superhero movies and the "Arrow" TV series. Despite the fact that two of the four potential players live several hours drive away enthusiasm for a revival was high and I decided for my own part it would be a good therapy to help keep that damn black dog at bay.<br />
<br />
Thus it was that this weekend just past I played host to that same group and we kicked off the new campaign. It's going to be monthly, not fortnightly, due to the travel requirements of some of the players. We're using the Mutants & Masterminds 3rd Edition rules this time - which are in some ways streamlined and in other ways far more complex than the original. For the setting, I gave the players the choice of three cities. Redwood, CA in the Pacific Northwest, Millar, PA (a Gothamesque industrial city) or Paradise City, FL (a gulf coast metropolis resembling TV Miami, where the real world Panama City, FL is located) They picked Paradise City.... (can you guess where this is going to end up?)<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih1PrUwBgk8WgZbV-RyNnRlBBkjowzwMQ34wrxICpcaofhp-Fx1Mn8NhzmmAuLLW2WryPkdes0A9J_j6e1OhY6QyEmaDrdjV-PtUiJ5kqq0KRLjs5-_9fh0pGgpK5Eiu2Cb66vu1kXQ75U/s1600/Paradise.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih1PrUwBgk8WgZbV-RyNnRlBBkjowzwMQ34wrxICpcaofhp-Fx1Mn8NhzmmAuLLW2WryPkdes0A9J_j6e1OhY6QyEmaDrdjV-PtUiJ5kqq0KRLjs5-_9fh0pGgpK5Eiu2Cb66vu1kXQ75U/s1600/Paradise.jpg" height="316" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
Now for the last campaign I had become the master of the paper fold-up figure. I still maintain they are in many ways better for roleplaying games than metal or plastic figures. You can carry hundreds in a very small space, plus you can inexpensively print EXACTLY the figures you need for any given scenario, no proxying required. However, on the Friday before we were due to play my friend and many-time benefactor Dave called round offering the loan of his collection of rebased Heroclix figures.<br />
<br />
Now if you're not familiar with it, Heroclix is a collectible miniature game that uses an innovative dial based to keep track of figure abilities and damage. Stripped from those clunky dials, they basically become a very inexpensive source of 28mm plastic superhero figures. Marvel, DC and many independent superhero characters are represented and they take conversion and repainting rather well.<br />
<br />
So on the night before the game was due to start, I couldn't sleep for all the elements swirling together in my brain. The internal dialogue went something like this.<br />
<br />
"Hey you know how you're working on all that wargaming terrain with Jonesy?"<br />
"Err yes. What about it?"<br />
"It's tropical urban stuff, isn't it?"<br />
"Yup. Say now you mention it, this game we're running tomorrow is going to be a tropical urban setting."<br />
"Yeah. I mean look at all the work you're putting into it. Wouldn't it be good if you could use it for other things."<br />
"Like the RPG?"<br />
"Maaaaaaaybe."<br />
"But it's a bit overkill if we're just going to be using paper stand-up figures for it."<br />
"Mind you, those Heroclix figures were rather nice, weren't they?"<br />
"They were. And I bet if we looked on Ebay or at an upcoming wargames show we could find someone selling off the cheap common figures in bulk at low prices."<br />
"Say, didn't we use a Marvel Kingpin Heroclix figure as the basis for your Dr Vesuvius mini-me?"<br />
"We did that. I suppose now we're better with greenstuff and paint we could convert figures to look exactly like the PCs and NPCs, just like with the paperfigures."<br />
"I bet we could. Subconscious high-five!"<br />
<slap><br />
<br />
Which is why I woke up the morning of the game, went on eBay and found someone selling batches of Heroclix figures 50 for £18.99. I ordered a few to get us started, then when the players had gathered, told them that I'd decided we'd be using figures for this campaign, about the £18.99 batches on eBay and suggested that their next paydays, should they have the odd £20 to spare, they might like to buy a batch of figures to contribute to the game.<br />
<br />
Instead they literally threw money at me.<br />
<br />
Did I mention I have awesome friends :-)<br />
<br />
So I now have two (semi-) regular gaming threads - the monthly M&M supers game, and the now slighly fuzzier scheduled miniatures games, both of which will be able to use a lot of the same figures, vehicles and terrain. So any work put into one will probably be useful to the other, which is an efficiency that appeals to me greatly.<br />
<br />
As a final coda to this... increasingly epic blog post... I read up on the history of Panama City, Florida where my fictional Paradise City lies. Panama City got its name because it was a popular port for sea traffic to the other Panama City, around the time that the eponymous canal was being built. One can only assume then that Paradise City got its name similarly from its transport links with a certain Caribbean island nation.<br />
<br />
Coming soon - more frequent (I promise) posts about the progress of the Paradiso project, the terrain the figures etc. and some more thoughts on the background of the setting and its inspirations.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi39xMU1ZsxrC7Lhctc_OgmI8DqNIbsiMZDAtTF9SlHoaMlflutMw1Py9pOu4EXoeXdxGIxg9b8wvQX1W2q6FEgG4Jgm7D6u8aI34vLi3RjGuNOtGQyyzqxWsXSSNzmK9gZ43FZI6BdzOv3/s1600/Paradiso+Flag.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi39xMU1ZsxrC7Lhctc_OgmI8DqNIbsiMZDAtTF9SlHoaMlflutMw1Py9pOu4EXoeXdxGIxg9b8wvQX1W2q6FEgG4Jgm7D6u8aI34vLi3RjGuNOtGQyyzqxWsXSSNzmK9gZ43FZI6BdzOv3/s1600/Paradiso+Flag.jpg" height="200" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />Dr Vesuviushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05255420207375021875noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2668577041425925534.post-55795622674684388712014-07-29T14:14:00.001+01:002014-07-29T14:17:27.876+01:00Some folk'll nevah eat a skunk, but then agin some folk'll...With the work on the game more or less complete, I can now reveal that the full title of the Big Birthday Bash is....<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvs5yfrvbcU_Rw_qOgis4nRYPYIvNAWf-rtFSUuI7Gv4Rc-tPd5HmA46PNHFfiNi9cbG5YVXaS0zTTes7JraM6L9fF2GdS3qu7ZHZ2TgF9GzJn2S157WnGuvY-DMwL35gzmINB5vKBHr4O/s1600/P7290070.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvs5yfrvbcU_Rw_qOgis4nRYPYIvNAWf-rtFSUuI7Gv4Rc-tPd5HmA46PNHFfiNi9cbG5YVXaS0zTTes7JraM6L9fF2GdS3qu7ZHZ2TgF9GzJn2S157WnGuvY-DMwL35gzmINB5vKBHr4O/s1600/P7290070.JPG" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<h2 style="text-align: center;">
THE 2014 HILLBILLY BIG BIRTHDAY BASH</h2>
<div>
Yes, once more the Axis of Naughtiness explores serious, completely historical wargaming, treating it with all the scholarly respect it deserves. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The origin of this game was the purchase a few years ago of the two Hillbilly boxed sets by Blue Moon Manufacturing, the Hardfelts and the McCluckeys. I'd bought their Victorian/Gothic Horror sets for GASLIGHT, and picking up the hillbillies was purely an impulsive whim. Over the following year or so, I tried to pick up any other hillbilly or redneck sets I could find from various manufacturers. I know there are some Ground Zero Games 25mm figures in there (shimmed up with extra thick bases to compensate), and some from Mega Minis (that look somewhat orky)</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The next piece of the puzzle came when my friend Dave gave me some old Atlantis toy vehicles over the course of a couple of years. Now I'd already used a couple of trucks from that toy range for the GASLIGHT "Royal Horseless Artillery" self-propelled guns, and I was never quite happy with them. They just looked too "modern" for my vision of Victorian Science Fiction gaming, and were a bit large for 28mm figures (although they're not scale models, I suspect they're close to 1/35 - 1/32 compared to the real world vehicles they're based on. They would never be compatible with any other vehicles scaled for use with 28mm figures (which tend to range from 1/43 to 1/64 depending on taste) It did, however, occur to me that if you weren't too fussy, with a little conversion they might be usable as obsolete larger lorries/trucks, provided there weren't any similar styled vehicles to compare them with.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
And so it came to pass that I decided I wanted to gather my friends for a big game for my birthday this year, and when I sent out the invite, pitching the usual GASLIGHT VSF game, I got at least one response back suggesting other games we could play. It was a ... senu-reasonable response. It's true that the big gatherings have all tended to be GASLIGHT games in the past. Of course we hadn't actually done so in over two years so I'm not convinced there was a desperate need to try something different, but since the point of the weekend was for everyone to have as much fun as possible, I figured we could look at some alternatives.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
So I went back to the lead mountain and looked at what games I could put together, with two months of not to strenuous work. Compatibility with all the terrain I had for GASLIGHT meant it would be 28mm, so in the end I pitched the ideas of (1) a GASLIGHT game (never say die!) (2) Modern gang combat (using Foundry Street Violence & similar figures) (3) a Zombie Apocalypse game (I was planning to make this a Victorian period game, so all that would be needed would be to paint up the zeds) Almost as a whim, I added on "Feudin' Hillbilly Game" as option (4)</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The revised responses came back. Most were "Whatever you want to play, we're happy". One was in favour of the Zombie Apocalypse, but I knew that one of the other players doesn't like the zombie genre. Finally a vote came in for the Hillbilly Game. As the discussion continued, another potential player said "that would have been my second choice." Followed shortly after by a "Me too" from a third player. It became clear that option (4) was the best overall compromise.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The idea took on a life of its own. Naturally fancy dress would be de rigeur for the day. One of our group who dabbles with his own still (purely for personal use) offered to make us a batch of moonshine. The birthday meal was always going to be a barbecue, but instead of the usual burgers, someone suggested more hillbilly meats, which is why I have a freezer full of squirrels and an order of wild rabbits on the way and I've been practising preparing some other staples of southern US quisine (grits, cornmeal muffins, biscuits and sausage gravy) Finally I'm told "Tucker & Dale vs Evil" is a must-watch for the evening movie entertainment.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I'll post more pics of the finished game components as the week goes on. and discuss some of the issues this game has brought up. While it's definitely not a serious game, it's generated a lot of interesting thoughts and ideas that I think can be applied to the wider wargaming world. I'll leave you with a few close-up pics of the hillfolk. While you know I make no claims as a figure painter and rely on a "daub & dip" technique using Army Painter Quickshade to get figures to an acceptable tabletop standard, I'm really happy with how this technique has brought out a lot of the character in these sculpts.<br />
<br />
Now if you'll excuse me, I have a squirrel marinading in Budweiser & Old Bay that ain't gonna barbecue hi'self. Y'all come right back now, d'ye hear?</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZOwk988mrsEYTgJS0KtZJt9qCE7yztcjF11JbUzls8ARgWc4VUZht7AB_5z_aPtNED-TUsN07NgWkiaz97WVMkrKHf-1MjpTNVv1L53qn_2-pziT7nLh3hqtzDL70zYDGRU6RSRIXWjXz/s1600/P7290051.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZOwk988mrsEYTgJS0KtZJt9qCE7yztcjF11JbUzls8ARgWc4VUZht7AB_5z_aPtNED-TUsN07NgWkiaz97WVMkrKHf-1MjpTNVv1L53qn_2-pziT7nLh3hqtzDL70zYDGRU6RSRIXWjXz/s1600/P7290051.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4tTJPvlR0zx5wSGGwqhEqmcnfTmyfRtBwug1FtSPfzQfQ1LRJ6cQs_XJ7fvFZXx4BuIAMKbTi5-KZxgSsYTIGNN5XTjNcqIPT5rgs7rgWT8HzTpwH3aA2yybENKJgOXZ7n4mnEYaHLHTT/s1600/P7290054.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4tTJPvlR0zx5wSGGwqhEqmcnfTmyfRtBwug1FtSPfzQfQ1LRJ6cQs_XJ7fvFZXx4BuIAMKbTi5-KZxgSsYTIGNN5XTjNcqIPT5rgs7rgWT8HzTpwH3aA2yybENKJgOXZ7n4mnEYaHLHTT/s1600/P7290054.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmdoN8FKGgrZgAunopeFepRd8J-1_s_RhEm6cJWcnI8afCwiHYyUvyFKqQjK_54CIeA5e_6eKRX3D3w8TBxM-5fptHdm6etDeNzm4iT2O4jZpovFMWmWRDMf7kxXWhGpMrd-z_unl6ooTp/s1600/P7290065.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmdoN8FKGgrZgAunopeFepRd8J-1_s_RhEm6cJWcnI8afCwiHYyUvyFKqQjK_54CIeA5e_6eKRX3D3w8TBxM-5fptHdm6etDeNzm4iT2O4jZpovFMWmWRDMf7kxXWhGpMrd-z_unl6ooTp/s1600/P7290065.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmXcB-Ca-8knZe9JhIsbdMtcLVPUm70GbhRUnDleH_pfBCphMSM6EG0nbvKi7ZrxUtIGLxUX8DSmt6rCBaCZKlaAZ_oMUTz_0AFFAAMNCM4FOl5x77HNFoLDzdL9zqKfVMMJvx_3pR1fZ4/s1600/P7290067.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmXcB-Ca-8knZe9JhIsbdMtcLVPUm70GbhRUnDleH_pfBCphMSM6EG0nbvKi7ZrxUtIGLxUX8DSmt6rCBaCZKlaAZ_oMUTz_0AFFAAMNCM4FOl5x77HNFoLDzdL9zqKfVMMJvx_3pR1fZ4/s1600/P7290067.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXypAhW3JFCRz345wf00WIYK2tUez_AZwuneftbLHkj1fhfNDcOYWwquaMt-mi6_vEk5coIIXxMokGGzV6VQ5bytrfrzOvFz2zUOTzg9DzO7krHPmsanQ3C9DVbHO6dtLL6_6fvS0g34Hq/s1600/P7290068.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXypAhW3JFCRz345wf00WIYK2tUez_AZwuneftbLHkj1fhfNDcOYWwquaMt-mi6_vEk5coIIXxMokGGzV6VQ5bytrfrzOvFz2zUOTzg9DzO7krHPmsanQ3C9DVbHO6dtLL6_6fvS0g34Hq/s1600/P7290068.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsqW4WPHHoObIGZFXsZ9N5ClNSHf98SMguPSncfzrgxxXaAiI3teY6oKZgCdmveanc2RHRTzY6lhyxEr5wyIMQ2rrM2nNSVZn7pZdAj6Pfb0c4YTrMebHbJyr0EtgrkyWmBP7Kncsc9o3o/s1600/P7290033.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsqW4WPHHoObIGZFXsZ9N5ClNSHf98SMguPSncfzrgxxXaAiI3teY6oKZgCdmveanc2RHRTzY6lhyxEr5wyIMQ2rrM2nNSVZn7pZdAj6Pfb0c4YTrMebHbJyr0EtgrkyWmBP7Kncsc9o3o/s1600/P7290033.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
Dr Vesuviushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05255420207375021875noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2668577041425925534.post-8105216706020386592014-07-14T14:52:00.000+01:002014-07-14T14:52:28.549+01:00Little boxes made of ticky-tackyAs the results of my recent eBaying storm dies down, I find myself the proud owner of around sixty O gauge plastic buildings, a mix of Plasticville, K-Line and others, in varying states of disrepair. Four of these are on the worktable being prepared specifically for the BBB, restoring and refurbishing the rest will probably keep me busy well into 2016 :-)<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Work on the BBB game is nearing completion, those four buildings are in fact the only things left to be done. I'm going to keep the nature of the game a secret until everything is complete and I can take some decent photos of all the terrain, vehicles and figures. However to tease you further with what it could possibly be, for the accompanying barbecue dinner my freezer is now full with an order from http://www.exoticmeats.co.uk/, and I've been experimenting with a certain sort of American cuisine, including biscuits, sausage gravy and grits.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
In the comments to the last post, R1ckatkinson (who I should point out is a non-wargamer) posed an interesting question..</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I'm curious, how much does detail play in your enjoyment of the hobby? If you had generic building shapes where you could print out slip-in wall decals as required, would you still feel like they were good enough to play with?</blockquote>
The answer is, it depends on the game, who and where I'm playing, and indeed why. Back in the day, my preferred terrain for sci-fi games was mid-to-large polystyrene packaging, simply painted grey or black, and assembled into a sci-fi cityscape. These "buildings" had no detailing whatsoever, yet the overall effect was good enough.<br />
<br />
Nowadays I think I prefer something that's a little more pleasing to the eye, yet I always balance that with major concessions to practicality. For example, I've often assembled buildings without chimneys, since they're an extrusion that can easily be knocked and broken in use and transport, and make it harder to stack buildings together for storage. I don't add the fine detail that some talented modellers do, like guttering and drainpipes, though little touches like those really bring a scene to life.<br />
<br />
There are a couple of absolute baselines for me - figures must be painted. I used to happily game with unpainted miniatures, but now I find it spoils my immersion in the game. (they don't have to be painted particularly well, see my constant references to "daub and dip") Everything must at least roughly resemble the thing they're representing. While I've no problem using various wheeled and tracked sci-fi vehicles from Old Crow, ex GZG or Marbeth as proxies for real-world generic vehicles in Paradiso, I couldn't bring myself to use a model bus to represent a tank, for example, as it would just break the illusion of the game for me.<br />
<br />
A lot of wargamers favour fully sculpted terrain boards, by that I mean a thick polystyrene base that can be modelled into ditches, trenches, river and streambeds. They look superb, but I'm sticking with my traditional "green sheet" base tabletop with all terrain being placed on top of that flat plane. It means that things like river banks are actually raised above the surrounding land rather than being sunk down, but that can be worked around and for me the advantages in flexibiity and practicality far outweigh the aesthetic cost.<br />
<br />
That's for 28mm games, where generally 1 figure is representing 1 man or woman on the battlefield. Games with smaller scale figures that portray larger battles tend to be more abstracted, and for those I'm happier with a more abstracted terrain. When I was playing Bob Cordery's Portable Wargame, in which I had one stand of 3-4 figures representing a company of men, for built up areas I was using a little wooden toy village like <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00062RTP6" target="_blank">this</a>, which if anything was much smaller in scale. The abstraction works somehow, giving a different aesthetic to the 28mm games, but that's still pleasing to the eye.<br />
<br />
For 1/300 micro-armour I have used (and would again) houses and hotels from a Monopoly set scattered on a piece of grey card to represent a built-up area, rather than trying to model actual streets and terrain. Putting myself in the role of the battle group commander, I don't really care about the exact layout of the streets and buildings, I just know that if I order my troops to take up positions in a built up area, they should gain a defensive advantage. How to exactly position the troops and vehicles to maximise that advantage is for the platoon commanders on the ground to sort out. The wargame terrain just has to support that, any extra detail that gets in the way of that starts to become a negative.<br />
<br />
Finally, there's the when and why. Let's come back full circle to those boxes of slightly grubby and tatty Plasticville buildings sitting in my front room. If I wanted to play a solitaire game, or if one of my wargaming friends dropped by and we wanted to have a quick-fun game, I'd be quite happy throwing down the green cloth and laying out a selection of those buildings as-is for a fun few hours of bantering and rolling dice. They would be perfectly good enough.<br />
<br />
On the other hand, for things like the Big Birthday Bash, where I'm inviting people who are having to re-arrange their schedules and then travel, in some cases hundreds of miles to participate, I really feel I owe them a slightly higher level of aesthetic quality, so I'd plan to put in a couple of hours on each building restoring, repainting and weathering them. I'm not a world-class modeller, painter or crafter and I know I'm never going to approach the diorama-like level of detail that some can manage. I want people to look at the game in progress and find it visually appealing as a whole, even if a closer inspection would reveal that those little boxes are indeed just hollow shells made out of ticky-tacky.<br />
<br />
Does that answer the question? And to any other wargamers, what levels of visual detail do you want/need in your games, and where do you sit on the spectrum between practicality and aesthetics?Dr Vesuviushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05255420207375021875noreply@blogger.com2