Category: Wargaming

A few months ago we were playing a GASLIGHT fantasy game, run by Dave Wood.  He had some tremendous figures that we all coveted.  They were orcs riding on dinosaur-looking creatures.  Dave had the stock number from an old Ral Partha catalog on the bottom of the bases.  We found that Iron Wind has all the old Ral Partha molds.  After a little work and a little luck, Jim Fox, the current owner of the molds, agreed to make a bunch of Death Jaws for us.  Most of us didn’t want the orcs.  I wanted mine for VSF games.  Anyway, Iron Wind made a bunch of them for us, and we were able to get our hands on a bunch of them at Historicon this Summer.

The figure came in five pieces:  central body, left body, right body, a bag of stuff, and the reins.  The bits went together, but green putty was needed to fill in some gaps.

Below is a picture of a Death Jaw after the first coat of paint.

They look even better after the second coat of dry brushing.

I plan to use them in a Mars or desert-based Victorian science fiction game, so I wanted them to have an orange hue to them.

The Death Jaws have skulls hanging from the back of the beast.  While they looked okay with orcs riding them, I didn’t think that my lady hussars would travel with skulls on their mounts.

To cover the hanging skulls, I made some boxes and bags from Fimo.  I molded them around the skulls and then carefully pealed them off.  After cooking, I primed and painted them.

Hinterland sells the mounted female hussars with or without horses.  I ordered a unit mounted on horses and another set without horses, specifically to mount on these Death Jaws.

At the same time I was painting two units of mounted female hussars, I painted a few dismounted ones to go with them.  I really like these figures.  They look like women without being pornographic.

A GASLIGHT unit consists of 10 figures.  This picture shows just four of them, but I have a full ten-man (or woman) unit.  I can’t wait to put them on the table.  They will be quite an imposing sight.

I highly recommend both the Death Jaw figure and the entire line of figures from Hinterland.

Yesterday, Chris, Dave, and I ran our first play test of Look, Sarge, No Charts: Fantasy, Ancients, and Medieval (LSNC: FAM) rules.  We were assisted by Tommy.  As this was our first test of the rules, we hadn’t even had time to affix the data labels to the bases.

I built a point system for the game.  We don’t intend these for tournament play; however, fantasy is so broad that we felt a point system was needed in order to give game masters a first-order approximation of the “value” of forces in order to help design interesting scenarios.  For this game, we basically just used the point system to total the points for the forces we have painted.  It turns out that a good player’s worth of figures was about 1000 points.  The play test helped us refine the point system a bit, but considering that this was our first game and the first use of the point system, the forces were surprisingly well balanced, and the scenario turned out to be very even.

Most of my forces are from two Games Workshop Battle of Five Armies sets.  Those two sets allow you to create a lot of units of Eagles.  I added a set of Eureka Miniatures elves riding on eagles.  It turned out to be a formidable force.  We are going to increase the point cost for flying units.  Despite their very light armor, and the fact that skeletons have better protection against edged weapons (like eagle talons), my eagles were able to defeat the skeletons after several turns of fighting.

For this first play test, we kept the group small.  This allowed us to stop and make changes along the way.  It worked well enough that we think our next game can be at a club meeting.  In early play tests in which you are making changes on the fly, it is counterproductive to have a large group.  Four players were the right amount.

We were happy with the overall look of the battle.  This picture is from near the beginning of the game.  While most of my figures are Battle of Five Armies, you can see my “tree trolls” from Eureka Miniatures in the foreground of this picture.  Eureka has some nice 10mm fantasy figures.

This picture is from late in the game when Tommy’s high elf cavalry had worked its way around the flank of the evil forces and were preparing to fall on their rear.

I am still working on getting the Napoleonic rules written and off to the publisher.  I have to be careful not to get too distracted by this new project.  I hope to have the Napoleonic book written by the end of September so they can be released in time for the HMGS East Fall In convention.  That means we’ll probably be ready to start public play tests of LSNC: FAM by Cold Wars in March 2013.  Keep your eyes out for them!

 

 

The HAWKs will host their annual gaming day, Barrage, on 15 September.

 

We’ve added even more games to an already packed event schedule for Barrage on 15 September. See link for details.

In past years, Barrage has been a tremendous one-day gaming event. This year promises to be even better with a larger venue, more games, and even a Flames of War tournament.

Come early. Stay all day. Bring some buddies.

Buck Surdu

I didn’t get much hobby work done this weekend, but I did manage to finish a handful of Hinterland figures.

I thought they would look good with blue skirts.  Many of the WWI uniform pictures I say had blue tunics but white trousers.  Then I found this picture of a WWII German sailor.

With the dry brushing, the blue on the females got too light.  I guess these women have been on active service too long, and their uniforms have faded.

I can’t wait for this unit to see action in an upcoming game.

This weekend was Historicon 2012.  This year Historicon was held in Fredericksburg, VA.  This was the first time in the new venue.  While there were good and bad points to the new venue, in general, I think it was fine.

I ran seven games at the convention:

• Northwest Frontier by GASLIGHT (Thursday evening)
• Austrians vs. French using LSNC: Napoleonic Wars (Friday morning)
• HAWKs kids’ army giveaway game (Friday evening)
• Mars by GASLIGHT 20 player extravaganza (Saturday morning)
• Prussians vs. French using LSNC: Napoleonic Wars (Saturday afternoon)
• Russians vs. French using LSNC: Napoleonic Wars (Saturday evening)
• Blood and Swash pirate tavern fight (Sunday morning)

I was generally happy with the way all the games played.

In the Northwest Frontier game, the British were trying to rescue Wee Willie Winkie from the Pathans in an open-field battle.  The Pathans, however, were only holding her to lure the brigadier into the open so they could kill him.  The game ended up being very close.  The climactic action occurred on top of a rocky outcropping, where control of Winkie changed hands four times.  In the end, it was the Sikh cannon crew which had no targets due to the ongoing melee, that captured Winkie for the last time and secured a victory for the British players.

The Mars GASLIGHT game had 21 contingents / forces with various objectives.  The scenario was a mashup of Verne, Bourroughs, Wells, and others.

A funny incident occurred when a Russian tank was blown up.  It was hit by a cannon from the Prussians, who rolled a critical hit on the tank.  One of the female hussars’ helicopters was in the burst radius of the exploding tank.  The helicopter also rolled a critical hit and exploded.  Several of the female hussars were killed in the explosion as well.

In the end, several players accomplished their missions.  The game was set up so that many players had competing objectives.  It was a wild and crazy game.

Keeping a 21 player GASLIGHT game moving takes some energy.  Chris and I were constantly yelling the names of units from the game deck.  Each player had three or four units, vehicles, and/or main characters.  This kept the game moving and ensured that no one had to wait too long before they could activate again.  I think the game was a big success.  We had one player fail his player morale and leave.  One other player didn’t get into the game until late, because we had altered the board from the map to make the table fit in the room we had at the convention, creating a bottleneck on a key bridge.

Greg Priebe ran a very successful GASLIGHT zombie game set in the American Revolution.

I ran three LSNC: Napoleonic Wars games.  They all went well.  I ran some “stock” convention scenarios, so I could concentrate on the rules.  All of the games filled, so I think there is interest in rules that offer something new for the period.  Hopefully these rules offer something new.

With Napoleonic Wars, there are a lot of “experts” who have preconceived notions and generally cannot be pleased.  It’s hard to create, but easy to critique.  I was worried about a couple of the folks who played in the games, because they kept trying to map LSNC onto other rules instead of taking them on their own right.  With the plethora of rules out there, I suppose this is inevitable, but it can be frustrating.

Every time I run the game, I find one or two needed tweaks.  They are getting smaller and fewer, so I’m getting pretty confident.  I’m still not completely happy with the successful roll to stand die for artillery.  Also, I have a few lingered doubts about the skirmish fight.

Tank built this abstracted train for a Blood and Swash cowboy fight.  The cars also have removable roofs, so there were times when people were running across them.  This was a tremendous game.

Finally, I ran a tavern fight using Blood and Swash.  These are always fun.  Because they are simple rules and straight-forward games, they make a great way to finish the convention on Sunday mornings.

As usual, the convention was a time to renew acquaintances and play with toys for a weekend.  I had an enjoyable time.

As Candy and the kids are in Florida with her mom this weekend, I had a relaxing Fathers’ Day of painting.  Actually, I fiddled on the computer and took naps on and off until noon.  Then I got up and began to paint.

Sergeant Major Miniatures has a set of figures called “The Crew,” which are the crew from Firefly.  Since I have my figure for Historicon all painted, I decided to paint these today for fun.

In high school I used to run a Traveller game loosely based on Alien and The Awful Green Things from Outer Space.  The alien creature on the ship went through several stages of metamorphsis.  In each stage, the alien was more or less susceptible to different types of weapons.  In The Awful Green Things, you randomly determine the kinds of damage that cans of zgwortz, ray pistols, etc. do to the aliens.  This works the same way; however, the players have to figure it out again each time the alien changes.

I’ll do this as a game for a HAWKs night, but if it is even half as fun as my high school game, I’ll take it to a convention.  Of course, instead of using Traveller, I’ll use G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T.

Since my wife and kids are out of town for a few days visiting her mom, I went to War Horse Farm for “FusonCon,” a gaming day with some of the folks from the Frederick, MD, and Gettysburg area.    We played Chris’ Look, Sarge, WWII game in the morning and a Pulp, GASLIGHT game in the afternoon.

The scenario involves two German infantry battalions crossing a river in rafts in Russia 1941, while an armored battalion and a recon battalion cross at a small bridge and a ford.  The bridge so rickety that only one platoon can cross per activation.  When the game starts, one company of tanks is already across.  The Russians are trying to stop the Germans from seizing the town and three surrounding hills.  Chris has run this game several times, but in this iteration, the Germans came closest to meeting their objectives.

All the players had a good time.  There was a lot of maneuver.  Nearly all the players were new, many recruited by Sam from his unit.

The Russian infantry battalion that started on the board pushed forward to delay the Germans while they awaited the arrival or a Russian tank battalion and an infantry battalion.

The German infantry pushed across the river with little difficulty.  The Russian infantry guarding the crossing initially inflicted a number of casualties on the Germans, but eventually numbers — and artillery — prevailed.  The infantry then pushed steadily forward.  One battalion was heavily engaged on one of the surrounding hills with a reinforcing Russian infantry battalion, while the other German battalion mopped up the initial Russian defenders and moved toward the town.

By this time the town was fully occupied by armored cars and Russian tanks, but there was no Russian infantry in the town.

The German armor pushed up the road toward the town.  The lost several platoons from an anti-tank gun and a bunker had blunted the German advance.  The Russians also had some infantry in the woods along the road.  At this point the German armored battalion command left the road, pushed through a wheat field and moved to the outskirts of the town.  Neither side had any infantry near the town, so the fight became a slugging match between tanks.  The town only provided modest cover, since it was only made of wooden structures.

When we quit, the Germans were on the outskirts of the town — in fact they had one platoon of halftracks in the town.  They were battling the Russians for control of one of the surrounding hills and were poised to assault a second one.  It was time to quit and start the second game, but with another half hour of play, I think the Germans would have won.

The HAWKs have been working on a zombie club project.  Many of us have painted zombies.  Our next phase is to build a shopping mall.  Each of us will create one or two stores which will be assembled into a mall.  I’m making a clothing store and a gaming store.  Inside the gaming store are going to be some gamers when the zombies attack.  Most are from Victory Force.

These two are from Victory Force.  The game in the Charlie Brown shirt is from a Reaper miniatures pack, called “geeks.”

These two figures are part of that same Reaper “geeks” pack.

These a part of the gamers from Victory Force.

These old timers are also from Victory Force.  While not “gamers,” these are going to be useful in the mall.

While waiting for colors to dry, I also worked on these 10mm Eureka beast men, including a couple bases of skirmishers.  These are for Look, Sarge, No Charts: Fantasy, Ancients, and Mediaeval.