Modern Rules Playtest

A long time ago, I can't even remember which post, I proposed playing a series of test games to see which of the many rules I have now accumulated I wanted to use for my modern games. I set up at least the sides before I left for Christmas vacation, but I am still on the road (daughter's tennis tournament). I figured for a final post for this year, I'd at least show a preview.

First rules to test: Tank Wreck! by Martin Bourne

Why Tank Wreck!? I wanted something not overly complex, and I don't have to field large armies due to the size of the table I'm gong to use. Tank Wreck! fits the bill. I've read them over three or four times, so I think I'm fairly familiar with them.

I am going to keep a number of things constant for all of these games.

Rules: As far as the rules go, I am only going to test out movement and combat with armor and infantry. I am leaving out artillery because I am keeping the number of units down, which I will show in a moment, and artillery might be too devastating.

Opposing sides:
There isn't any real unit organization, but for this game, we will pretend that one tank and one infantry stand equals a platoon.

Green Army

The Greens are armed with M48A5 tanks with 105mm guns. There are five tanks per company.

The Green's infantry rides in M113s. There are three infantry platoons, one heavy weapons platoon, a platoon armed with a 106mm recoilless rife, and a M113 FSV that has a AML-90 turret on it. Each infantry platoon is armed with a LAW for anti-tank defense. Tank Wreck! does not distinguish between types of LAWs.

Tan Army

The Tan army has fewer tanks (T-55) per company, so there are two BDRM-1 with AT-2 Swatter  ATGMs to supplement the firepower.

The Tan infantry consists of four platoons for infantry, one of which is a heavy weapons unit. They ride in style in BMP-2 IVFs armed with an AT-5 Spandrel ATGM. The Swatters and the Spandrels get limited ammo. 

I haven't decided on terrain, but I am only using a 2' x 4' coffee table. I want it to be fairly simple. 

The Moose is Loose

Another Copplestone Casting 15mm barbarian.

I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out. 2/3rds of the way through, I thought about swapping out the puny axe with something a little longer and more fantasy-oriented. As someone said on the 15mm fantasy miniature Facebook page, he's more likely to hurt himself or his steed with that axe than an opponent. However, I was too far along and decided not to.

Crisis at Tipping Point!

Again, ignore the date of the paper:

Ominous Weather Ahead

A little out of date, but war is on the horizon:

Moe, Larry, and Curly; and the Sensitive Pit Fighter Dude

I've been all over the place project-wise for the last two months. As a result, I have not had time to update my blog. I'm trying to expand and finish up my 15mm barbarian army. Way back in May, I posted on Copplestone Picts that I painted up. I just finish these guys below and am now working on a bunch of Demonworld barbarian humans. Then, I will start the Copplestone ones.

Copplestone Snow Trolls

Moe

Larry

Curly

These guys were a little daunting, but once I got going on them, they took off. I wasn't feeling all that original, so the overall paint scheme of hair and skin is pretty much like what is shown on the Copplestone website.

Sensitive Pit Fighter Dude

This guy is from Battle Valor Games. I think I got him as a bonus figure. I had a hard time figuring out what was going on between his armor shoulder pads and his "kilt." I finally decided that he was bare chested and painted accordingly.  His sword is a little thicker than I'd like it to be, but I'm pretty happy with him. 

Why a pit fighter; i.e., gladiator? I chalk that up to his light armor and brandishing two weapons. Why is he a sensitive dude? His beard and hair style reminds me of a fashion that's going on among men between the ages of 21-30. My colleagues and I coined it the "sensitive dude" style. I know, I'm mean. It probably sour grapes because I'm 57 years old and am loosing my hair.

Here below is an encounter between the pit fighter the awesome threesome:

Aircraft Maneuver Ratings

I've been wanting to do this for quite some time, but Jim, over at Jim's Wargames Workbench has spurred me on. I am compiling ratings on all the aircraft that I use for my games. By ratings, I mean the numbers used in various rules for undergoing maneuvers. Then, I am figuring out the ratings for the two rules that I plan on using, Target Locked On, and Wings At War.

To me, maneuvering is the most esoteric of the various abilities that need to be modeled for a particular set of rules. Some rules use Thrust/Weight ratios, some use Wing Area/Weight ratios known as wing loading, and for others, I have no clue. The data is not as easy to come by as one thinks. There is a web site that has T/W for a number of aircraft, but when I do the calculations for some of the planes, they don't agree. So what I have done is to compile the ratings for maneuvering for a number of rules and then see what the consensus is among them. For example, Saab JAS-39 Gripen has a T/W = 0.93, Wingload = 532, and is rated at maximum maneuverability by both AirWar: C21 and Missile Threat. Therefore, I give the Gripen a maneuver rating of 5 for Target Locked On.

Wings At War is a different story as it uses power ratings, but I am trying to figure that one out too.

The really big challenge in this is for aircraft that are not found in any rules. For example, ratings for  the joint Chinese/Pakistan JF-17 Thunder is not found in any of the rule set I have. For these cases, I just have to compare T/W and wingload for those planes that are listed and estimate from these.

1/600 Paper Building

I've been trying to make some quick and dirty building for my 1/600 moderns. Here is a paper building I made recently. It is a "proof-of-concept" prototype model to see how I can make them with an arcade. Its pretty simplistic, but I am pretty happy with it and can easily scale it up to 1/300. I have access to Adobe Illustrator, so I can make modifications pretty quickly. The arched openings of the arcade would probably be smoother if I had one of those computer stencil cutters, but for such a small scale, I am not going to be too picky.

Initial build before I added the roof and base.An
Oddzial Osmy BTR-60 is parked outside.

Roof and base added, then quickly painted. The
windows were inked in with a Sharpie pen.

Here is what it looks like next to a 1/285 building, which is a
Mediterranean villa from Gamecraft Miniatures

A Warm Post Over at Irishserb's Miniature Adventrures

I've been following Irishserb's blog for quite some time. He has an engaging ImagiNation campaign going on between two fictional African nations. In addition to that, he has some other gaming activities that he shares that are also good reads.

Recently, he decided to use 1/300 scale minis to play out some bigger battles between his two African nations. In a recent post, he pulls out some rather old model buildings that represent his home town of Steubenville, Ohio. It is one man's walk down memory lane. Not only are the buildings well done, but his narrative really really reflects a love and appreciation for where he grew up.  It is not often do I feel a connection with another gamer's blog post beyond the hobby itself, but this one did and you and I who read it are better for it.

Thanks Irish Serb for sharing with us.

Not What I Expected Part 2 Update

Justice prevails! I guess I'm being a little melodramatic. I got an email this morning from Shapeways who said they were sorry about the mix up and they will print off the 1/600 APCs and send them to me, free of charge. They said nothing about the 40K weapons, so I will keep them. I asked my friend Will who is a major GW fan if he wanted them, but he wasn't interested.

Good show Shapeways for being a good merchant!

Not What I Expected Part 2

Yesterday, I received a much anticipated package from Shapeways. I had ordered some 1/600 aircraft and vehicles. Yes, Shapeway stuff is more expensive than traditional minis, but they make things that others don't, and by others, I mean O8 because they are the only company that makes ground vehicles, particularly modern. So one of the orders was for the South African APCish vehicle, the RG-31 Nyala. Besides the fact that O8 has yet to make them, it was a pretty good deal at about $9 for 12 vehicles.

I got the package and instead of the Nyalas, I got these:

They are some sort of 40K vibroblade thingies with a hand conveniently attached to them. Both the invoice and the label on the plastic bag that they came in said Nyalas. I contacted Shapeways about this, but have not heard back. I have no desire to spend the time nor especially the money to send these things back.

Somewhere out there, there is 40K fanatic straining his eyes to figure out what he got instead of his vibroblades.

Can You Identify Me?

Long story as short as possible. I was rooting around in my big storage box for some 15mm Dark Ages heavy cavalry and came across this guy and seven of his identical brothers:

No horses seem to be associated with them. I would like to get more, but I have no idea who makes or made them. The spear and the softness of the metal screams Essex, but the chainmail does not. Besides Essex, I've looked at Chariot Miniatures and Gladiator Miniatures and have come up empty. If not Essex, my money is on Chariot. It might be a discontinued line. If anyone happens to know, let me know.

Lavonian Air Force

Left to right: Mirage III (Tumbling Dice), Mirage F1 (Tumbling Dice), Saab 37 Viggen (Oddzal Osmy), Dassault-Dornier Alpha Jet (Tumbling Dice).

They might get Mirage 2000 and Saab JAS 39 Gripen, but this is the lineup for now.

The color scheme is Krylon Camouflage Army Green spray, followed by Vallejo Flat Green for the camo pattern. The speckles are done with Vallejo Golden Olive. The canopies are a light blue. 

The red middle of the roundels is supposed to have a yellow cross. Until I can figure out to to make it that small, it will stay blank. IT seems that I made them a little bigger than the Bovatopian and Northern Calupistan MIG 21's. Those were test runs. Freehand roundels seems to look better than I thought, especially for 1/600 scale.

Not What I Expected

Once again, I am compelled to say why I have not posted in awhile. Believe it or not, I have had a little more time to work on hobby stuff, but taking pictures and posting for me takes longer than I think it will. I'm this close (putting two fingers together) to starting the campaign between Bovatopia and Lavonia. The armies are build and I am finishing up slapping together terrain.

The main topic of this post is to briefly mention my latest purchases. I've hit a few duds recently. I am so disappointed that the first two don't even get a photo included in this post. I suppose the phrase, "buyer beware" applies, but I still think that I am not 100% to blame.

1. British Battleships of the Victorian Era by Norman Friedman
You may or may not be familiar with Mr. Friedman's work on various warships. The ones I have are really good references, and for folks like me who are crazy about deck plans and line drawings of warship and are incredibly useful for building models of them, they are chocked full of them. Photos just don't do it compared to a good side view and top view of a ship. I bought his British Cruisers of the Victorian Era and was pretty happy with it. So, I expected this to be the same with this one...WRONG! There are just two line drawings in the whole book. There are lots of the original deck plans included, many are fold outs, but to me, these are a pain in the ass to figure out what is going with them. Plus, these are photos of the originals....time is never kind to illustrations like these. Was Friedman in a rush to publish this book? Was A. D. Baker not available (is he still alive)? If not, there are a now a gazillion illustrators who could have done the work for pennies. He just had to go onto something like Deviantart.com to find someone. I do have Baker's British Battleships, 1889-1904, so I have a good reference of illustrations.

2. Bug Hunts: Surviving and Combating the Alien Menace (Dark Osprey) by Mark Latham
OK, I guess this one is my fault for not carefully reading description of this book. For some reason, I thought this was a rulebook with a lot of background fluff. The reviews of it seem to point that way. Nope. I am not sure what its supposed to be exactly. It rips off the Aliens and Starship Trooper franchises to describe a future history of various alien bugs and the human fight against them. Its nicely illustrated being an Osprey book. Had I known that it wasn't a set of rules, I wouldn't have gotten it. To this day, I still kick myself for not getting 2-Hour Wargames' Bug Hunt back in the day. It was cheap and probably worth the price.

3. Hail Caesar by Rick Priestley
This one is probably the best of the three. I kept hearing about how great these rules were, so I thought I'd get them and see if I can modify them for fantasy.  Being that I grew up on WRG ancient rules, I am all OK about stats being somewhat generic. If Greek hoplites want to fight dark age Vikings, I'm OK with that.

The rules aren't bad, just sort of "meh," particularly for the price. There wasn't anything in the mechanics that really stood out as new or interesting. Give me good rules over pretty pictures anytime. I also ordered the army list supplement for late antiquity to early medieval. That made up for it a little. I'm not sure if I will keep them or put them up for sale on Facebook.

Let There be Light!

While I was in Chicago for two weeks, my daughter dragged me to JoAnn's Fabrics. Ott Lights were a whopping 50% off! Not only couldn't I resist, but I bought one for my daughter, too. This one is a big step from my old one because it has a larger light. The goose neck will mean I have more flexibility lighting positions and hopefully will hold up longer. My last one's arm became all droopy early on and I had to prop up the arm with a bottle of craft paint.

Also, I got a hold of Bob Cordrey's latest rules. This time on naval wargames:

This is a printed and expanded compilation of some of his rules that he has up on his website. I mentioned them in a old post. I've played his pre-dreadnought rules solo a couple of times and really like them. Of the three rule books of his that I now own, I think I like this one the best.

Still Without Good Lighting

Its USTA Juniors tennis finals season, so my days have been on the road. My daughter did pretty well at the Tennessee state finals. Because of that, she was seeded for the upcoming regional games. What does that mean for gaming? Not much other than we leave Saturday rather than tomorrow. This lowered my blood pressure somewhat. I was rushing all day today trying to get ready, and then I got the news. So I managed to sneak in a little painting between packing and all the other crap I have to do to get ready to go. Packing and be completed tomorrow.

I think I solved my problem with O8 3mm infantry. They are cast in some very hard metal and the infantry come in strips.  It has been next to impossible to separate the tiny dudes without either sending one into orbit or snapping them off at the knees. So, I powered up my old Dremel tool and bought some thin cut-off disks. That did the trick! I ground down the bases between each infantry man enough to easily cut them off with a metal cutter, and they don't go flying off into the unknown!

I am still without good lighting. I borrowed a goose neck lamp from my daughter. Its a small one so it doesn't cover much area in terms of light. Also, it uses an old daylight bulb so its a sickly yellow glow. My local craft store USED to carry lights for craft purposes, but not any longer. I guess all that frew-frew junk is more important. I guess I need to order one, but I am too crazy about shipping charges. Well, with all the upcoming trips this June, I will not be really needing it until maybe July.

RIP Ott Lamp

Last Thursday night, as I was in the process of finishing up some Cobblestone Castings 15mm Picts, my Ott desk lamb blew up! It didn't really blow up, more like a big belch and then death. The previous two nights it was doing odd power surge things. The light would brighten then dim, then go back to normal. Thursday it continued, then there was a big BURP! sound that came from the power switch box, then nothing. I don't think it was the bulb. That looked fine. I had to finish up the Picts in rather dim light.

I've always had problems painting large areas of exposed skin. I am never really happy with the results. This time, I used a sort of Dallimore method of painting, which I am not too crazy about. To me, they always look like a color-by-numbers painting where the shadows and highlights do not blend much. My guess it that at a certain distance, the eye is tricked into blending the shades together.  Here is the results of my experiment:

The Fury of the Picts!

What I used:

Skin
Base coat: 1 part Army Painter Barbarian Flesh : 1 part Michaels Craftsmart Brown
Middle coat: Army Painter Barbarian Flesh
Highlights: 2 parts AP Barbarian Flesh : 1 part Vallejo Basic Skin tone

Hair
Black, highlighted gray
Very light gray with a black wash

Weapons
Wooden shafts and handles: Burnt Umber
Leather straps: various leather paints that I have
Chert spear points and axe heads: various colors of turquoise, red, and gray. Then either a dry brush highlight and/or black wash, depending on the size and amount of relief on the stone.

Fur Loincloth
Orange-brown craft paint and then black wash

Skulls
Some of them were carrying a skull at their sides. Maybe a bonus for excellence in savagery? Parchment White craft paint and then black wash

Unlike other figures, I was deliberately skimpy on the black wash. I restricted it to the above. I thought about washing them with a final coat of skin tone shade or a mixture of burnt sienna and clear floor wax to make them more tanned. But I decided against it.

Its too bad that Cobblestone didn't do more of his line of Barbarica 15mm figures. I wish he had put out a command pack for these Picts. It would have been nice to have some chieftains and shamans to spur the tribes on.

Bovatopian Mig-21 Fighters

I painted these Tumbling Dice MIG-21 fighters awhile ago and used them to test some air combat rules. Yesterday, I inducted them into the Bovatopian Air Force.

There was no way I was going to manage making the roundels the way I do for my 1/300 scale aircraft, so I took a very fine point drawing marker, made the best circle I could and then filled it in with paint. Its a hit-or-miss method, but it works for me.

Remote-Controlled Air Defense Artillery, Part 2

If at first you don't succeed, try, try again!

If your remember from last time, I built an MANPADS that was a behemoth and way out of proportion. I decided to give it another go. I used the ASRAD short-ranged missile launcher that is on the German Weisel 2 as a basis:

Source: http://armoredphotos.blogspot.sg/2011/09/leflasys_02.html

This time I very consciously tried to make the weapon system as small as possible to have size exaggeration.

Here is the result:



I made the missile tubes by cutting the styrene rods and then heating up a metal base with a candle. I then lightly pushed the ends against the hot plate. It widen them to look like the ends flare out. I made about eight of them and then picked the best four.

It is still a little bigger than I wanted, but not too bad. My main beef is that the launcher tubes are too far apart from each other on either side. I think that is what makes it look large. I also built a radar vehicle. Here are some shots of them painted.

It was a nice day, so after I had sprayed them a flat clear, I thought I'd take the pictures outside. Pictures show the radar dish as gray.

The missiles are deliberately generic. They can be pretty much any MANPAD.

Lavonian Fire Support Vehicles

I ordered some really nice but very fragile FSV version of the Polish RTO Rosomak infantry fighting vehicles in 1/600 scale from Shapeways. They weren't cheap, but I thought I'd take a chance and see what they were like.

Sorry for the bad picture, but here is how they come. You get 10 mounted on sprues:

The plastic used really shows the details, BUT its very brittle. While painting on the primer, a wheel broke off of one. I am very weary about the guns holding up especially when gaming.

Here is what they look like painted up:

The top picture is a comparison with Pico Armor's Rosomak IFV (on left). The Shapeways model is a litttle bigger and the side skirt armor is more extensive.

I messed up a little on the color mixture. I didn't want to spray them Army Green as I was worried the paint would melt the models, even with the acrylic primer.

Nice models, I just hope they don't break.

Lavonian Flag and Roundel

Because I have nothing better to do 15 minutes before I teach class:

Battle with a 6 Year Old

Almost seven years ago, I had game with my daughter, who was six. Today, I had a battle with my 6-year old son. To keep the tradition going, I dusted off my 15mm science fiction miniatures. It was a battle between the gray corporate troopers and the shiny sliver cyborgs with their pet red xenomorphs. The cyborgs had the advantage in numbers, so to even things up, the Corporates had a large, missile armed mecha thing. I was too lazy to find my sci-fi terrain, so we just put some brik-a-brac in the middle of the table.

Rules
I used the same rules as the original game back in 2011, but I added a few extra updates:

Movement:
To speed things up:
Humans & Cyborgs: 4"
Xenomorphs and mecha: 6"

Running is still 1D6 added to movement, but xenos can fight after movement.

Shooting:
Same ranges as before.
Mecha's rockets are same range as RPG but gets bast radius of 3"
The mecha gets to shoot twice.

Saving throws:
I added saving throws to the rules.
Cyborgs get a saving throw of a 1 or 2 if hit.
Mecha gets a saving throw of 1, 2, or 3 if hit

Mecha damage:
My son thought this up and I tweaked it:
All mechas have 6 points of damage.
If it fails above saving throw, roll a D6:
1-3 takes 1 point of general damage
4, missile launcher knocked out, in addition to 1 point  of damage
5, a gun is knocked out, in addition to 1 point of damage
6, cockpit is hit, pilot wounded, mecha can't move or fire next turn; 1 point of damage
When damage reaches 6, mecha is destroyed.

Xenomorph control:
These rules don't really have any morale checks, but later in the game, I imposed some for my troops. There was a pre-game "discussion" with my son about the xenomorphs. According to my son, the cyborgs have control over the xenos. I respectfully disagreed. I came up with this rule for control of the xenomorphs, but it was never used.
 During each cyborg turn, roll a D6:
1-5, Xenomorphs obey cyborg orders.
6, Cyborgs loose control.

The bugs will: 1-2, do nothing; 3-4, continue to attack the opposition; 5-6, turn on the cyborgs.

The cyborgs can only regain control on the next turn with a roll of a 6.

The Battle

My opponent holding some of his troops and getting his game face on. T-shirt seems to be apropos for this game:

Starting positions:

Objectives:
There really weren't much. Mine was to recapture the plastic bead storage facility. The cyborgs were to just kill all the humans. The corporate troops split up into two squads that were to go around the storage facility. The mecha was to engage the cyborgs on top of the facility.

Most of the cyborgs were arrayed on top of the plastic bead storage facility:

Cyborg general making his moves:

First squad engages with cyborgs who have a large missile-armed robot with them:

Second squad is attacked by fast-moving xenos. They managed to knock off a few at longer range before being overwhelmed:

Hand to tongue combat begins...

...*nom, nom, nom*...

Not looking good here, either:

Two surviving corporate troops decide its time to scram:

The mecha covers their retreat:

Cyborg general looking pleased. Couldn't quite knock out the mecha despite a hit to the cockpit and the missile rack, but game clearly goes to the bad guys: