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!

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!

15mm Moongrunt Project from GZG

Well this is what I've been up to hobby-wise, instead of painting Plains warriors and Seventh Cavalry troopers. But now I'm done this and can get back to the Little Bighorn project. But let me talk a bit about this one first.

I posted a couple weeks ago about how visiting the Museum of Brands in London, England got me onto Space:1999 and the Eagle spacecraft, and how buying one of those got me back into 15mm astronaut combat, and this post is the culmination of all of that. I wrote about how I'd bought and painted some astronauts in EVA suits from Ground Zero Games, but together with that order came two "armies" from GZG's "Moongrunt" range - a Chinese PLA space force and some British that will stand in for NASA astronauts - I just liked the look of the British models and their suits better than the GZG Americans. The NASA gang I've painted from the GZG British is shown in these photos.

The GZG models are sold in packs of six, and I wanted a decent platoon on each side, so I ordered four packs, in this case three packs of "riflemen" and one heavy weapons pack. These I divided up into three sections of seven models each (fve riflemen and two with rocket launchers), and a platoon command section comprised of the platoon commander and two flunkies.

The models were painted pretty simply, with heavy overbrushes of Celestra Grey, Corax White, pure white, Nuln Oil wash, then pure white again. Guns were Leadbelcher with Nuln wash, and I painted a red armband on the platoon commander and blue ones on the squad leaders.

I also built and painted a vehicle and passengers for the force. This is a pretty cool little 8-wheeled buggy that carries driver, squad leader, and six passengers. 

I used some Lunar "NASA" decals on the vehicle.

You can remove the passengers. I superglued them together in groups of three (one on each side of the compartment) to make that easier.

I also added some weathering on the vehicle hull. I suppose that dust and tiny micrometeoroids would weather stuff on the moon.

Here is the opfor - the Chinese People's Liberation Army Space Force.

I organized the force the same way as the other one, but the Chinese have more heavy weapons, so they get four in each squad of seven men. I know that eight is an even luckier number in Chinese culture so I might either reorganize the force or just buy another pack of these guys.

First squad. The leader has a red stripe on his helmet. I first heavily brushed the models with Celestra Grey, then painted the suits Mephiston Red and Evil Suns Scarlet, then finished the helmet, boots and gloves with Corax White and pure white. Guns are Leadbelcher with Nuln Oil.

Second squad, contains two heavy rifles and two rocket launchers.

Here's the transport - a rocket-powered hovering sled. I made a base for it using magnets on the support post and underneath the vehicle.

So when the vehicle lands, you just take it off the flying stand.

Of course the passengers are removable (they are all superglued to the central seating construct) and the vehicle can be used as a cargo transporter!

I did a rough job on some cargo for the bed.

Well that's this project finished for now! This will let me get back to the Little Bighorn and I'm trying to motivate myself with some new reading - "Hokahey - A Good Day to Die" by Richard Hardorff, that chronicles the Plains warrior casualties of the LBH battle.

Anyway the next thing to do with these models is have a game of some kind. I also have to get a larger terrain mat, probably 4x4 feet. If you have any suggestions please put it in the comments!  

Space: 1999 Eagle and GZG 15mm EVA Suited Astronauts

OK so there’s a bit of a backstory behind this one, bear with me…

On my recent trip to the UK I stayed in Notting Hill at a place that just happened to be up the street from the Museum of Brands, a very cool little museum of… retail brands, that had some very cool stuff in it, including lots of old board games and toys. Here are some of my favourites:

If you say "it's popular," it's popular!

Not exactly Formula De I'm thinking

Frightening

"Hey who's up for a game of Sanctions?"

Well whoever decorated Goering got his armband on the wrong arm, for starters...

My absolute favourite. Mum is obviously drunk

Anyway the other very cool thing I saw at the MoB was their special exhibition featuring toys and collectibles related to two Gerry Anderson properties: Thunderbirds and Space: 1999. All the stuff in the exhibition reminded me how awesome a ship the Eagle was!

So I thought to myself, I should get an Eagle model to game with - it would fit great into the Lunar game! A few years ago a company called Round 2 designed a 1:48 scale Eagle (22 inches long!) that I figured would be great for Lunar. So I sought out and found a built and painted example on eBay. Unfortunately when it arrived it was definitely not the 1:48 Eagle as it was advertised to be - it was ancient MPC model, purportedly 1:72 but actually closer to 1:96 scale.

After getting a substantial refund from the seller, I pondered what to do. Hmmm, I thought, this Eagle is pretty close to "15mm scale"… I wonder if anybody makes 15mm astronauts? Well it turns out that Ground Zero Games makes lots, and I promptly ordered a bunch. These are the first of them - astronauts in heavy EVA suits. They look good with the Eagle don’t they!

Pretty simple paintjobs on these models. They were "overbrushed" with Celestra Grey to begin with, then Corax White. I used Agrax Earthshade to tint some specific parts of the suits, and then highlighted the white parts with a heavy drybrush of pure white.

 

I also painted six armed EVA-suited astronauts. Ironically after painting these models I started looking through a bag of 15mm SF stuff I had been holding onto for years... and found these same two packs of models. No harm though as they are easy to paint and I can always use more of these guys.

Paint style was similar to the other astronauts, I used Coelia Greenshade on these suits and I like the look.

I really like the look of the Eagle with these models and it'll be great "terrain" for 15mm lunar gaming. Of course the Lunar rules themselves are a bit too involved for larger games but I did find a mod for Bolt Action on the Internet that might be worth a try. And if we have a game with 20 or 25 models a side maybe we use Kill Team, Necromunda, Rogue Trader, or even good ol' Lord of the Rings as a basis for the game. Of course there needs to be some specific mods for low-G and suit penetration but that can be figured out.

I also bought a ton of GZG's Moongrunt models to paint up for a larger game, and am pondering what kind of 15mm "structures" to buy for lunar terrain. As you can see here I've already got a bunch of craters so that's covered, but some little domes or industrial structures would look good in a game as well. Suggestions in the comments please. Also I'm still on the lookout for a 1:48 Eagle or 3D printed model in that scale. I still think it would be awesome to see on a Lunar game table!