Rings Around the Moon - Battle Report

In a development that may be unprecedented in modern times, we had consecutive Thursday games. Conscript Dave V. ran an excellent Star Wars game last week and this past Thursday, I hosted the first game with my new 15mm lunar combat forces. 

My first quandary when setting up the game was what rules to use. I had originally thought about Bolt Action, and found an article with some thoughts and mods for fighting battles on the Moon. But the forces I could field are kind of small for a Bolt Action game - only 24 infantry and one vehicle per side. So something a bit more granular and individual-model (rather than unit) based would be better.

Enter the Conscripts' perennial favourite, the Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game from good ol' GW. It's a pretty basic skirmish ruleset but everybody understand how it works and it's very amenable to period- and genre-specific modifications. We've used LotR for everything from Dark Ages skirmishes, to World War I, to zombies and modern/Cold War combat. It really does it all.

So I did a bit of work on rules mods, inspired by David Burden's article. The main point to address was the low-gravity environment - easier to move fast, but this carries the potential for faceplants and wipeouts which can be hazardous given the regolith and lack of atmosphere. I addressed this by allowing models that didn't shoot to move a random distance in the Shoot phase, but with a chance of falling down or even puncturing their own suit and going out of action. David made an excellent point that smoke and dust, once raised, will not drift away or dissipate easily, so hits from the rocket launchers create permanent LOS-blocking smoke. Shooting and HTH are deadlier with no atmo so wounding rolls are at +1, which made combat very deadly and cover essential. I also had to create rules for the vehicles. 

I also came up with a new stat - Training (T). Courage is great in the LotR ruleset but there needs to be a stat that reflects a model's general proficiency, so T it is. Also as you can see I've called the rules "Moongrunt" for now (with apologies to Jon Tuffley of GZG) but I think I'd better come up with something original. Suggestions in the comments please, right now I'm leaning towards "World War Moon" or "Moonfront".

Anyway with that work done and the record sheets printed, I was ready to lay out the terrain and set up a scenario. The structures are from Brigade (I just did a post about them), craters are 3D prints from various places, and the very nice new mat is mousepad material from Deep Cut Studio. Somewhat confusingly, it's called the "Asteroid v2." "Ya got Asteroids?" "No, but my dad does. Cain't even sit on the toilet some days."

Like I said, we had 24 models a side and one transport. The Chinese had more special weapons and a fast sled, while NASA had fewer special weapons and a buggy, but both sides had three squads of seven men and a command section with the lieutenant and two assistants. It worked great to have seven-man squads because the transports accommodate seven men and a driver/pilot.

I set up a pretty standard three objectives game, with the winner being the side that held the most. To hold an objective you had to have an infantry model within 1" of it with no enemy infantry around. The objectives were spread evenly across the middle of the table - I was scrambling to find suitable objective models (ended up using some the standard crates and barrels) until Conscript John noted that the fuel waste containers on my Dinky Toys Space:1999 Eagle Freighter on my coffee table would make perfect objectives. So we made that happen, you'll see them in some of the photos.

 

Both sides sent a squad to each objective. NASA sent their buggy to their left and the Chinese rocket sled went to the middle one.

The Chinese (Conscripts Brian and Rob) got a bit out in front and were hot-rolling in their shooting, which was a bit demoralizing for NASA Conscripts Hugh and Frederick.

But NASA started to get their own back and the game really see-sawed back and forth.

Then PLA Space Force Lieutenant Chung jumped in a crater with his two assistants and drew a lot of fire, finally being killed after using his Fate, Will, and making a LOT of cover saving throws. As Brian noted, he will be awarded the Moon Medal for his part.

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Although the squad it was carrying was wiped out the rocket sled still made a nuisance of itself. Note the lone NASA astronaut holding the objective.

 

Over on the NASA left the last taikonaut was killed, leaving the objective to the Americans. The Chinese had killed the driver of the NASA buggy after it tried to run them over!

On the Chinese left flank the taikonauts had control of the radioactive waste barrels (!)

And that was how the game ended, NASA holding two objectives and the Chinese, one. Both sides had lost over half of their number as the game neared its end, with a couple of taikonauts failing their Courage checks and fleeing the table. That wasn't great for the Chinese as these were the soldiers giving support with rocket launchers, but that's what happens when you stay close to your own table edge. 

Although there was plenty of running in the Shooting phase there weren't a lot of accidents or faceplants, and nobody died, which is good I guess, but next time maybe we'll reduce the Training scores to make that stuff a little riskier. Of course Training represents how skilled a soldier is in moving around in a spacesuit, in low-G. So dodging a buggy trying to run you over should be hard. As you can see from the sheets, there was also +1 to the wounding dice for shooting and close combat, but I think that can be eliminated as it wasn't really necessary to the game. I also need to expand the vehicle rules a little bit - can passengers shoot from a sled or buggy? (I said no). What happens when a buggy tries to run over a taikonaut? (Taikonaut makes a Training check and if passed, jumps out of the way. If failed, takes a hit of some kind - everybody passed their checks so no need to figure that out this time). I gave the transports three wounds, but I also want shooting to have a chance to "one-shot" them. In this game I ruled that each wound has a 1-in-6 cumulative chance to destroy the vehicle, but I might also have the AP rocket cause d3 wounds, that would also work. I really like the "persistent smoke" rule for rocket hits too.

Anyway we had a pretty fun game with the new toys and I think it looked pretty cool too. Jon Tuffley of GZG says that crew-served heavy weapons are coming in the next while and I can't wait. In the meantime maybe I should get some more astro/taikonauts and buggies/sleds. But that's for future Dallas to worry about!

Thirty Years War Dragoons & Guns

Dragoon unit (mounted & dismounted) from Warlord Games' "Epic Pike & Shotte" range.

I will borrow Mike F's recent and perfectly expressed sentiment - this is another "Dereliction of (Posting) Duty" post...I have been absent from blog posting for months owing to a series of work projects and a change of computer. I don't know what it is about getting a new computer, but each time I get a new machine it is harder and harder to get the access to the blog. Life getting in the way doesn't help, but, well, that's life, right? There just hasn't been time to sort the posting stuff out.

Judging by the blog posts, it would seem my brushes went still at the end of the last Painting Challenge and have stayed that way since. Not so! I have been painting. My mental health tends to stress when I can't paint, after all. But my painting has been really scattered - even by my own already scattered standards. There has been no constructive focus on a single project. Rather, it has been a couple figures for one project here, a stand of figures for another project there...nothing is really accumulating. Between demands of work, a lot of travel and other life things it has been tough to find the time to really power through and focus. My painting has instead been just a few minutes at the end of the day...finishing part of on 28mm figure, or three or four 10mm figures or whatever...

Anyway, there are a few things that progressed sufficiently to count as "finished" - among them are these additions to 30 Years War project. Here we have a unit of Dragoons and a group of light guns. These are all plastic from Warlord Games' "Epic" Pike & Shotte range. 

Dragoons

Officer and ensign. I think that is an Imperialist flag?

In the "Pike & Shotte" games the dragoons rate as lighter cavalry, but ah, not only can they skedaddle around the battlefield, they can dismount and fight as infantry! Thus Warlord Games provides sufficient figures to represent the unit mounted or dismounted. 

Rear detail on the sculpts - not too bad, they manage to keep a lot of character on the cavalry, and the poses look fine from an arms-length away.

There are fewer mounted figures than in the usual horse units, to convey the lighter/thinner aspect of the dragoons compared to the other mounted units while in the saddle. 

The sculpts look best "from the side", as you can see there are some challenging "cuts" (I think that is the right term?) on some of them, especially those carrying the muskets, but overall I still like the look. They get the job done. 

The small flag is meant to represent an Imperialist unit, but I couldn't tell you anything about the flag, and if you told me "well, actually, that is a Protestant unit" I could not prove you wrong :) I mostly just want to ensure I use the ensigns where I can to add some character to the unit. 

Dismounted dragoons, ready to hold some ground...

I like the mix of poses in the group....some firing, others grappling with getting those old-timey muskets loaded and ready to go!

The flexibility inherent in the idea of "mounted infantry" is a tempting thing for gamers...but it never seems to have been a major factor in large battles? I'm so used to the whole "oh, the dragoons are actually just used like other cavalry" thing common in many later horse & musket historical settings that I don't know what I would actually hope to accomplish with the whole mounted infantry aspect of these troops in a pike & shotte engagement...but it would be fun to try!

Light Guns

Light gun battery, ready for action!

These three guns would/could represent a single battery of lighter guns for the 30 Years War period. Again, I am in the process of painting up an Imperialist force, so I suppose these are Imperialist/Catholic guns, but really nothing about them in terms of their colouring marks them as one side or another. 

So much red cloth on that one crew...the officers will need to keep an eye on that lot!

They are ready to open fire on whoever they are told to by those paying them, or promising to pay them!

So that's all for this post...I hope I can regain some discipline/focus both in painting and in posting photos on the blog! I have to say, seeing photos of the chaps all set up does give a little boost of motivation, so I'm hoping that will help a bit as we go through the summer. 

Moongrunt Terrain from Brigade Models

 

So with the completion* of two 15mm forces for "Moongrunt" (Chinese PLSF taikonauts and United States NASA astronauts) the next thing was whip up a bit of terrain for battlefield dressing. Rocks and craters are great but a couple of structures would be ideal. Enter Brigade Models (UK).

These little structures are excellent. They're one-piece resin castings (the dish on the larger building is a separate metal part) and practically no cleanup is needed before painting.

 

I primed this Storage Dome with matt white spraypaint and painted in the grey panels (Mechanicus Standard Grey), then applied some oversized decals I'd had made for my Hammer's Slammers project in 2012!

The other building (Utility Dome) was primed grey and that was an error I won't repeat. The panels took a million coats of white paint to get smooth. Ugh.

I built this structure with the comms dish. I got two metal comms dishes from Brigade in a small baggie - but unfortunately they didn't include any parts to mount the dish to the port on top of the structure. So I had to scratch build that out of scrap plastic sprue. Annoying but not a major problem.

I also got a couple of large fuel or oxygen tanks with cool little keypads. I really shoulda taken some closeups of these eh!

 
The structures are great and will be useful when we set up a game. Service from Brigade was great, shipping was expensive as it always is from the UK. Easy to paint of course and nice to get this out of the way and back to the Little Bighorn project...

*I said "completion" but the project likely isn't complete... I had an email exchange with GZG's Jon Tuffley who said that he's got some crew-served heavy weapons for Moongrunt coming down the pike in the next few months... I can't wait!

Dereliction of (Posting) Duty

 Wow! I really fell off the posting. This will be a photo heavy post as I’m doing this on my phone and can’t bang out a huge amount of text. These have been printed for a while. Before PrairieCon actually! The two squads of sci-fi troopers are for my fallout Brotherhood of Steel army. The models are from Northstar Miniatures Stargrave troopers. They’re excellent wargaming miniatures that come with just the right amount of detail. Very easy to paint. The only drawback is the shoulders look a little bare compared with the rest of the body armour. That was a simple fix with an order to anvil industry for some shoulder pads.

 These guys I took to Prairiecon for The Doomed. All 3 are from Knightmare Miniatures and are metal! I forgot to add a model for scale, but they’re large monster sized 28mm on 40mm bases.

This last model is a kitbash for The Doomed. He was extremely overpowered in the game and 12 year old Con attendee Xavier used him with ruthless efficiency!

I also have some more models for The Tyrant’s Legion which I have yet to photograph. I should get on that.

Thanks for visiting!

Milestone: Five Million Pageviews

 

Confession time - I tend to be a "milestone marker." That's not to say that I sit by the Interstate with a "Mile 35" sign in my hands, but I do like to recognize milestones when they come up. For example, I've been wanting to do a Little Bighorn game for quite a few years and since this year is the sesquicentennial of the battle I've used that as motivation for the project. Hopefully it comes to fruition despite (numerous) distractions!!

So when you look way down to the bottom of the page you'll see a milestone. By the time you read this post our blog will have had well over five million pageviews. I think that's pretty cool - not that we're famous or anything, but this number (as well as appearing in the pages of no less august a publication than Wargames Illustrated, a few years ago) gives us a bit of visibility, and I hope credibility, in the hobby.

Thank yous are in order, first to my fellow posters on this blog, but mostly to the readers (including hopefully not too many Russian bots) that generate all those pageviews. As I've said before, if you keep on reading, we'll keep on writing, and please leave comments, we love to hear what you think.

Dallas 

 

"Seven Days to the River Rhine" Cold War Battle Report!

                                         

On the occasion of a recent visit by Conscript Greg I hosted a game of Seven Days to the River Rhine, a Cold War game that Greg has taken a shine to (our usual go-to rules for the period is Team Yankee and I was curious to see how these compare). And when I say "I hosted" that's what I mean - Greg supplied the scenario, ran the rules, and brought his lovely Canadian and Soviet forces here all the way from Toronto!

We set up a table located "somewhere in West Germany"... there's a secondary highway and railway lie running across it and a Shell service station (at top) and an Aldi convenience store (at bottom) along with several abandoned cars and trucks. We had to include the big electrical pylons too of course! Anyway the Soviets entered from the short table edge at right and had to push through and off the opposite short edge. The Canadians deployed within 12" of that short edge and had to stop the Soviets. Easy-peasy!

 

Conscripts Bill, Frederick, and I played on the Canadian side. We had four Leopard C1s, five M113s filled with infantrymen, two M113 TOWs and two Lynx recce vehicles. We split these assets pretty evenly across our zone, taking care not to occupy the open ground along the highway, as we were warned by Greg that vehicle weapon ranges are unlimited and "if you can see it, you can kill it." Duly noted!

The Soviets had a platoon of T-80s, a bunch of BMP-2s full of infantry, and a BRDM recce vehicle. They lined up across from us ready to come at the Canucks.

Here is the Canadian left flank.

                                        

And here's the right side.

                                        

Soviet deployment across their start line.

The Soviets moved some of their BMPs and their BRDM up the middle with the tanks coming up their left flank. You can see some of their vehicles on the road.

 

The T-80s hooked around beside the Aldi... you can see a flaming Leopard in the Shell parking lot... this is the result of an aggressive move by yours truly... I pushed one of the tanks up to put some pressure on the Soviet right and knocked out a light vehicle or two, but I wasn't mindful enough of the "dismounts"... one of whom knocked out the tank with an RPG :-(

While the T-80s seemed fairly impervious to our 105mm guns and TOWs, the Tornado airstrike did the trick!

Here's Bill surveying the scene. While the Soviets made a late push with the T-80s and the Canadians lost a couple M113s, a Lynx, and one or two Leopards (can't recall), as Greg predicted it came down to army break points. In SDttRR each model taken out contributes to army morale loss, basically the owning player rolls a die and the result is subtracted from your army morale . If your army morale total gores below 40, your force bugs out and you lose the game. On (what turned out to be) the last turn, we had some order tokens left and I decided to unload everyone within LOS on a Soviet infantry squad cowering in the Aldi parking lot. We ended up destroying the squad, which was the only loss on either side that turn. The Soviets rolled for the morale loss and it came up big, taking their army morale below 40 and losing them the game. We were lucky we hadn't lost anything that turn as our army morale was only at 42! It is entirely possible for both sides to lose, of course...!  

Here's the gang of combatants, L to R me (and Keke), Dave V., Bill, Mike F., Hugh, Greg and Frederick. A great time was had by all, both in the game and in generally catching up. My thanks to Greg for running the game and supplying the models, it all looked very good indeed and the game was great fun!