Author: Buck

Some months back, I discovered Pig Iron and their terrific line of science fiction figures and vehicles.  I had planned to build a platoon of these figures once the first few arrived and I painted them.  THEN, Pig Iron announced they were going out of business.  I ordered a bunch of their figures, only to find out that they were out of stock of many of those I needed and would not be producing more.  THEN, Pig Iron announced that they were being sold and that the figures would be available again.  They were made available again about two months ago.   I finished the last ten figures this evening and completed my platoon.

I have organized my platoon into three ten-figure squads, divided into two teams.  Each team has a heavy weapon, not unlike a BAR in a US WWII platoon.  In addition to the three squads, there is also a weapon squad and a platoon headquarters.

I just posted a free optional rules supplement on the Web page for Combat Patrol(TM):  http://www.bucksurdu.com/Buck_Surdu/Combat_Patrol.html .  Like all the supplements to date, this supplement is <b>free</b>.

So what is in the optional rules supplement?  It includes some rules that I didn’t have time to fully play test before releasing the rule book some months ago.  It also includes some clarifications as well as an alternative set of rules for spotting hidden enemies.  Examples include cavalry (on horses), night fighting, body armor, expansion on rules for firing small arms and machine-guns at light vehicles, etc.

So head over the the Combat Patrol(TM) Web page and get your copy of the supplement today.  While you are there, download some of the other free goodies that I have posted there.  If you have not tried Combat Patrol (TM) yet, you are missing out on a very enjoyable gaming experience.  Also take a look at some of the <b>how to videos</b> that explain how this unique set of rules works.  More free videos are in production.

The theme for Fall In 2016 in November is Poland.  I have always enjoyed the early WWII campaigns, including Poland.  I have quite a few 20mm / 1:72 scale figures, but I have been slowly duplicating my 20mm WWII collection with 28mm figures, which I like better.  I signed up to run a very large 10mm Look, Sarge, No Charts: World War II game, the battle of Lvov in Poland in 1939, and two 28mm skirmish games with Combat Patrol (TM).  Since I didn’t have 28mm Polish, I needed to get a platoon painted up quickly.

To assemble a platoon of Poles to run my Combat Patrol (TM) games at Fall In, immediately upon returning from Historicon in July, I ordered a platoon of Poles in 28mm from Warlord.  It took several weeks to file, prime, base, and paint these 60 figures, but I finished them this weekend.

I block painted the figures and then dipped them in the lighter brown shade from Army Painter.  This is the first time I tried to completely dip figures with Army Painter rather than brushing it on the figures.  I am pleased with the effect.  I don’t see myself using this technique on 18th century figures, where I will want the brighter colors, but I am pleased with the speed and effect on WWII figures.

Polish squads could be quite large, as large as 18 men, including two leaders and a  version of the Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR) produced under license in Poland.  My squads are a little smaller than that, at 16 figures.

Warlord, one of the few — perhaps the only — manufacturers of 28mm Polish infantry, also makes a 75mm gun and a 37mm gun.  I didn’t quite get the color right on the guns, but they are passable.  Neither gun would be organic to a platoon, or even a company, but again, they will mike nice attached support weapons for specific scenarios.

The platoon HQ should be five men, including the two-man anti-tank rifle team.  The machine-gun would not be organic to the platoon, but might be assigned by from battalion or company for specific missions.

There is nothing like committing to run games at a convention, when you don’t have all the figures to run the games, to provide the necessary impetus to get painting done.  I am very satisfied with the platoon and will be quite happy to field them on a gaming table soon.

 

Or is that Roo-men?  Sometime in ancient history, Ral Partha made a single pack of figures, called Rooman War Party, which had Roomans in two poses, but all armed with pikes or spears.  They are no longer available.  Over the years, I collected dozens of the originals, but they have become quite rare, even on Ebay.  Recently, my buddy Ma’k contacted Iron Wind Metals about these figures, but the molds are lost to time.  So, Ma’k made a mold of the Roomans, and I added crossbows and swords.

I had a little time this weekend to paint up these figures.  These re-casts have slightly less relief than the originals, so my dry brushing didn’t turn out all that well, but I am happy with the results.  No my phalanx of Rooman pikemen will have support from some crossbows.

I also had a chance to add some science fiction weapons to a few of them.  The weapons are from War-games Supply Dump in their Dirk Garrison range.  These were not the kinds of conversions that win figure contests, but they will work well in my science fiction games.

The event list for Barrage is beginning to fill up.  This is our first time running Barrage as a two-day event.  At this point, we have nearly as many events as last year, with a heavy schedule for Friday.  And we are still several weeks away, so I anticipate a very full schedule.

Here is the Friday schedule as it stands today:

Here is the Saturday schedule as it stands today.

Note the games designated as “kid friendly” in purple.  I know of at least two more that will be added soon.  Bring your young gamers to Barrage 2016!

GMs are submitting games a couple a day to the schedule for Barrage 2016 (see www.hawks-barrage.org).  Today we added two games specifically targeted at younger gamers.  One features the Panzer Kids rules by Peter Schweighofer.  The HAWKs have a reputation for being kid friendly, so you can count on there being more games suitable (or designed for) younger gamers.  Bring your kids to Barrage 2016!

The Web page for Barrage 2016 has been live since Historicon (http://www.hawks-barrage.org).  Through that portal, attendees and GMs can create accounts, register for the convention, sign up to run games, and sign up to play in games.  GMs have been registering games.  I have laid them out in a tentative schedule for both Friday and Saturday, as shown below.

Friday

Saturday

There is a lot of room for additional GMs!  In the past we have filled Friday, and I have had to turn away game masters.  If you are interested in running a game, visit the portal soon and register.

The Webmaster also recently linked old pictures from previous Barrage conventions to the Barrage portal.  You can see them under the “past conventions” menu item.

We look forward to seeing everyone at Barrage, a terrific regions gaming event.

This weekend I completed a unit of alien-looking fighters from War-games Supply Dump.  This is part of my ongoing build up of forces for using Combat Patrol for science fiction games, both hard science fiction and pulp science fiction.

I like the way these figures came out.  I primed them in white, because I had thought I might paint them in traditional white space suits, but I decided I wanted something a little more colorful to go with those nice green faces.

I completed the Sally 4th Norman church this weekend.  The kit was in some ways more involved and in some ways less difficult than the corner shops I described in an earlier blog post.  A challenge I have with kit building is a distinct lack of patience.  The Sally 4th kits have clear, step-by-step instructions, but I still made a couple of rookie mistakes by jumping ahead and not being patient.  The final result, I think, is quite nice.

From this shot you can see that the windows are translucent stained glass printed on plastic and ready to cut out and glue to the windows.  These are made even more attractive by the glazing and the brick framing.  Also, you can see that all the building comes with doors.  In this case, I made hinges from masking tape.

I like the buttresses along the older section of wall.  These buildings take less time to construct and overlay the photorealistic sheets of paper than to assemble and paint a traditional MDF building.  Even this buildings that come “pre painted” don’t look nearly as good as these when completed.

You can see the main entrance to the church from the tower.  With this one I had a little trouble getting to roof to fit.  It was a little too snug, but I was able to address this with a little bit of sanding on one end of the roof.  No difficulty!

The kit even comes with photorealistic appliqués for the entire inside of the church.  I really like the look of the brick floor.  I typically don’t bother to paint the interiors of my buildings, but with the photorealistic appliqués, making the inside look nice was a snap.

One of the attractive features for me is the fact that the church comes with three different tops for the tower to represent three different historical periods.

As with the other photorealistic Sally 4th buildings, there are no exposed tabs.  This helps them look terrific on the table.

In summary, I think the kit is a terrific value.  The final result of assembly and gluing the photorealistic appliqués was better than any other MDF building I have constructed.  It looks better than pre-painted buildings, and it took less time to get ready for gaming than if I had had to paint the building myself.  I enjoy painting terrain pieces, but this is a very easy way to get a terrific effect on the gaming table, and I can divert my limited painting time to figures, while still creating a nice looking table.

Last weekend several HAWKs joined me in a combined Colonial and Napoleonic play test day for Combat Patrol(TM) supplements.  Dave has been working on a Boer and Zulu supplement for Combat Patrol(TM), but because of his busy schedule we had been unable to test some of his ideas.  In particular, Dave has been concerned that there are no formal leaders at lower echelons during this time period.  In the British Army, for instance, the lowest level corporal would be in control of 25 or 30 infantrymen.  This span of control was probably sufficient when units fought in lines, but is not suited for small skirmishes.  My feeling is that three or more soldiers is a formation and someone would be designated as being in charge.  Anyway, Dave has developed an interesting concept for leader in the game that provided a different flavor.  I think there are some ambiguities and second-order effects that have to be identified and resolved, but it worked fine.

The purpose of the day was more about the rules than the scenarios, but we were also looking to have some fun.  In order to test as much as possible, we had Boers and Zulus against the British.  The Boers were on the side of the creek in the foreground, and the Zulus were on the far side of the creek.  The game very quickly turned into two separate games with little interaction.  I commanded the British on the far side of the creek facing Chris’ and Dave’s Zulus.  Duncan controlled the British on the near side of the creek, facing Mike’s Boers.

The situation for the British on both sides of the creek were in a difficult situation, with the enemy on both sides.  Against the Zulus I was facing superior numbers with most of my men scattered and in the open.  The scenario began with a single section of British infantry in a hasty defensive position, but the rest of my forces were strung out along the road.

Chris had a few riflemen,  but he had his typical luck, and most of his rifles went out of ammunition early.  In this scenario, Dave determined that an out of ammunition result would be permanent.  Chris then quickly charged out of the scrub and toward my forces.  I tried to seek cover behind the wall you see along the right.  That helped a little, but there was nothing to stop three units of Zulus from circling around my flanks and overwhelming that section of British infantry.

I was busy on the Zulu side, so I didn’t get to see much of what was happening on the Boer side.  I was very pleased with the way the rules seemed to work for the Zulus.  When I had British in hasty positions, the Zulus had difficulty.  Where my infantry was caught in the open, the Zulus were able to circle around my flanks and overwhelm me.  This felt right.

At one point, Dave was throwing units at my British in the defensive positions.  The section in the foreground is about half strength.  They began in the open and had to fight their way to the defensive position.  Once there, the Zulus were unable to dislodge them.  Even when they had 2:1 odds in the hand to hand, the defensive position provide enough benefit that I was often able to push them  back.  You can see the white rubber bands on several of the Zulu figures.  Each band represents a wound.  When wounds are greater than or equal to the figure’s Endurance attribute (typically 3), the figure is killed.  You can also see some black rubber bands.  These indicate stuns.  When a figure is wounded, it is also stunned.  It is not allowed to take any actions until it takes an action to remove the stun marker.

Dave brought more Zulu units to bear, and threatened to destroy this section and my sergeant within the defensive position.

This shot is about mid game.  You can see the British section in the foreground still trying to make it to cover.  You can also see the British on the left beginning to circle around my British section at the wall while other Zulu units are advancing toward my Gatling gun at the top of the image.  I never did get the Gatling gun into operation before the Zulus overran it.

It took several turns, and I was able to inflict some casualties, but this Section of infantry, caught in the open, died to the last man.

I quite enjoyed the game, and I felt the rules worked pretty well for the period with Dave’s tweaks.  Some of us are still not convinced of the needed for the added complexity Dave has introduced for leaders and command, but it worked fine.  It will be included in the supplement as an optional rule.  This play test also gave us a chance to make sure that we were being completely consistent between Dave’s supplement and Duncan’s Napoleonic supplement.  We need a couple more play tests, but in general I think the supplement is shaping up.