Belated Battle Report - Imperial Guard Reports Harmonious New Years Success

Captain Tewl of Lazy Company, the 869th Cadian Timeservers, part of the Toxo IV defence force, reported overwhelming success on the defence lines against yet another attack which ocurred on New Years Day and involved military forces who at first appeared to be servants of the Chaos God Nurgle, but were in fact over-active teenagers wearing green who had consumed too much "Toxo Special" the night before.

Renegade forces cower in their trenches - they should have stayed there...

Intervention of a Ravenwing Space Marine force proved completely unnecessary, but at least sped up the destruction of the fake Chaos forces, which included bogus Terminators, "Chaos Space Marines" wearing armour made of cardboard and showing no sign of the endurance typically conferred to the followers of Nurgle, a Chaos dreadnought which appeared in hindsight to be a green erector set with mud stuck on it, a "Predator" and a couple of "Rhinos".

Imperial Guard troops sit tight and take pot shots at the Renegades, chewing up vehicles and troops

All imposters were destroyed at minimal loss for the heroic Imperial force. There was, however, no sign of the fake "Typhus" persona who had been causing false alarms in the sector last year.

Mike F's Space Marines roll out to kick the enemy while they were down

Thanks again to Dallas for hosting a New Years game, not to mention forgetting about the cheesy special rules that apply to Nurgle Marines! Mike F's Marines looked great, and so did Dallas' renegades (at least until Mike and Cam blew them away). Hopefully Dallas can add a couple of more pictures - the slaughter of the "Nurgle" side being so complete that were barely able to capture images of them...

Another Bit of Junk from the Basement

From the annals of "How Not To Store Your Miniatures", I bring you this example, fresh from the hoard in my basement:



That's an Empire Army for Warmaster, stored rather inelegantly to say the least. I painted these about 10 years ago? I can't remember when Warmaster first came out, but whenever it was I promptly collected an Empire Army, and painted it using my process of that time (i.e. ASAP), which was to start with white primer (?!?), use a base coat of green or blue, and cover the whole thing in a brown ink wash that was then available from Citadel (unlike the excellent washes they have today, it was a very thick, heavy ink, and of course I was too lazy to thin it out) and then dab some silver on the metal bits. So these figures look like little blobs for the most part, with the exception of some character models, and have no groundwork on the bases even (who bothered with stuff like that back then when you could just paint the bases green?)

I stumbled across this box in the midst of a recent project. Consistent with a semi-official new years resolution to try and focus more on the pile in my basemnet, I am going to try and "reclaim" these, popping them off the bases, touching up the paint, and re-basing them with sound groundwork, static grass, etc. And with the prices for "Specialist Games" today, this is way cheaper than doing another army over again.

Plus, I might try and store them properly when I'm done...

New toy for Epic Orks

It's always nice to dig through the hoard of unpainted minis in my basement (known euphemistically as "pending projects") and find a nice surprise, still in its box. Many, many years ago I purchased an Ork Gargant for Epic 40k from the shelf at Campaign Outfitters. It cost approx $20 Canadian.

Who knows how long it had been sitting there? It then sat more years in my basement. During my Epic re-basing project, I found it in the basement, put it together and painted it. So, better late than never, I guess.

Here is a pic of the model next to the larger, scarier "Great Gargant", which I acquired from Fawcett member Sean M. years ago. It gives a sense of the relative size - I think the Gargant fits into the line at about the same position as the Imperial Reaver Titan - scary, but not the scariest thing.



Now to stomp some humiez! Should make for a good dust-up with the Imperial Guard and a few Titans.

For fun, I checked the GW site for how much it would cost to acquire one today. Only $42 US for a Gargant! Needless to say, much better to find one in the basement.

While I was visiting the GW Web site, I thought I would check the other Epic 40k models, and was floored by just how much the Epic 40k stuff is starting to cost. The Gargant is a great deal compared to the criminal price of $23.75 US for TWO, count em', that's TWO, Wave Serpents. So putting your detachment of eight Eldar units into Wave Serpents for Epic 40k can be done for just about $50 US! What a GREAT DEAL.

It is actually cheaper to order the resin Epic models from Forge World!!

No wonder nobody plays Epic anymore...

Fun with Epic

It's been a nice holiday vacation - time with family, some new gifts, and time to paint and work on projects. Over the holidays, I focused on a particular project - rebasing my Epic 40k collection.

Inspired by a conversation with Curt in which we pondered ideal basing system for Epic (in which we agreed to the "strip" bases were not ideal), I explored the idea of basing on 30mm squares (1.5mm thick). I decided to stark with my Ork forces, which I had previously based on 35mm round bases (which didn't look great, and as a result the Orks were the only ones based this way and so saw limited action on the table because their basing was not similar to anyone else) See below for the results.





I was pleased with the look, so I rebased all of the Orks and and a substantial chunk of my Imperial Guardsmen using the new system. Smaller vehicles and things like Sentinels and "Killa Kans" were placed on smaller 25mm square bases, while larger things like Baneblades, or even just odd models, such as the Ork "Scorcha", were placed on 40mm x 30mm bases. Command bases were placed on 30mm round bases so they would stand out a little bit.

I was able to generate a good bit of momentum from the project, so I painted a bunch of extra stuff, including the Siegemaster infantry pack and some Chimeras and other vehicles Dallas had picked up for me at a Comics America sale some months back. Here is a quick pic of the unit.



In all, I rebased almost 150 inidividual 5-man units and vehicles, and painted up another 25 bases of infantry and 30 or so vehicles (gotta love 6mm - paints SO fast). I also found an un-opened Ork Gargant in my mini pile, so I put that together too.

Unfortunately I ran out of bases, but I put in for more from the good folks at Litko. Once the next round of re-basing is done, I hope to have a game using the new bases sometime early in February.

Wings of War night

Last night I hosted a Wings of War evening. Wings of War is a miniatures based air combat game, with a dedicated fan following. We used their 1/144 scale pre-painted WWI biplane models for the games. Currently, their are 36 different models, with a new set involving observation balloons and more planes coming out in the new year.

In the photo below, Alaric, Frederick and Dallas contemplate German tactics.


Most of the players had never played the game before, but this didn't turn out to be a problem. Game play is very simple and elegant:

Each model comes with its own set of maneuver cards specifically designed for it, with large arrows on them. The player controlling a plane plans his turn, choosing three cards in sequence and putting them face down on the gaming mat. All players reveal at the same time the first card for the turn, put it in front of the plane and move the latter so that the little arrowhead on the rear of its clear flight stand matches the arrow in front of the maneuver. Planes thus "fly" on the tabletop. This is repeated for each of the subsequent phases, for each turn.

A ruler (provided in the game) is used to see if a plane has enemy planes in its field(s) of fire; if so, the player may choose a target. The target plane's player must draw a damage card with a random amount of points (optional rules cover special damages, too). Short range fire (up to one-half ruler distance) means two damage cards drawn instead of one. Maneuvers available, firepower, and amount of damage sustained before being eliminated all depend on the specific airplane chosen.

Below, Kevin and Brian observe the results of the Allies' cunning plan.


After a short while, the players weren't thinking a lot about the game mechanics any more. Rather, they were concentrating on anticipating their enemies' moves, and on how to best utilize their own plane's advantages.

We were able to get in a half a dozen games, trading planes and sides throughout the evening. Some battles were just straight shoot 'em ups. The last couple were bombing scenarios, where a force comprised of a two-seater escorted by some fighters was opposed by a flight of enemy fighter planes.

Highlights included:

• My DH-4 being blown out of the sky by Frederick's multi-coloured Albatross D.III, just shy of my target

• Alaric's Roland C-II was on fire, but he still was able to drop its bombs on target - just before being shot down by the combined fire of Kevin's Sopwith Camel and my Nieuport 17
  


• After all other planes on both sides were shot down or fled, Alaric's all-red Albatross D.III was left alone on the table, a menacing presence to be sure
  

Thanks to Alaric, Brian, Dallas, DaveO, Frederick and Kevin for taking part in the festivities.

Happy gaming, and have a safe and happy New Year!

Trucks for the Truck Stop and a mini-batrep

Note: click on the photos for larger images.

When playing Warhammer 40K, I very much like playing objective-based scenarios, like the ones written for the Astronomi-con tournament series. One of my favourites is "Truck Stop". The model trucks Christian, Mike and Keith use for Astro were custom built by some generous folks in Ontario. I wanted to be able to run the scenario on my own table, so I purchased a half dozen "Rebel" light utility trucks from Old Crow Models. Also, such vehicles will be useful for any number of scenarios for 40K, Stargrunt II, Gunschwarm, Zombieland and the other sci-fi games we play.

These Rebels are very sweet model kits. Old Crow cleans up the models before they post them out. In addition, the resin they use is of very fine quality, with no bubbles or pitting. The six trucks went together in about the same time as just one 15mm scale T-60 light tank from the Flames of War line (examples are seen to the right in the above picture). Mold lines, mold mis-keys, and thin lead gun barrels that need to be replaced with wire all contribute to the slow progress on my Soviet "Tankovy" battalion. On one truck I added a plastic 40K machine gun from my spares box, mounted on a searchlight stand.

I finished the basic painting on some Rebels in time for a fun game with Duncan on Tuesday (I'll have to go back and weather those trucks at some point...).

***

Duncan rolled with a Thousand Sons Chaos space marines army, and I went with my usual mechanized Eldar. That is, skimmer tanks (with some mechanized infantry), jump troops, and jetbike mounted HQ - very, very fast. As the game started, trucks scattered all over the table. Both sides' Reserve rolls were sub-par; the Eldar forces came on piecemeal, and the Chaos forces only received their Vindicator assault tank late in the game.

Some game highlights:

• The Eldar Farseer accidentally blowing up a truck and its contents (oops!)
  
• The Farseer single-handedly holding up an entire Raptor squad of jump troops for multiple turns (yay!), before finally falling (boo!)
  
• Eldar Warp Spiders trying to keep a truck and its cargo out of Chaos hands but failing to destroy it like they wanted to (rats!), whereupon the Raptors attacked the Spiders and clubbed them down like baby seals (sigh)
• Half the Eldar Fire Dragons being consumed by the explosion of their target, the Vindicator tank (funny!)
  
• Two entire squads of Thousand Sons marines, including a Chaos Sorcerer, brought low by massed gunfire, plus the energy blades of the surviving Howling Banshees (ouch!)
  

At the end of the game, each side had one prize in their hands. A slight advantage was granted to the Eldar due to secondary game objectives - control of more table quarters and having more scoring units alive at the end of the game

In after-game discussion, we discussed how one of the Thousand Sons squads spent valuable time trying to chase on foot after a truck, instead of helping support the other scoring unit. This allowed the Eldar to use their skimmer tanks to keep those squads separated and subsequently defeat them in detail. Mutual support is important in objective-based games. A squad can be doing its job merely by staying alive.

In the picture below, Corporal Parnell's gunner/mechanic, Lance, decides that discretion is the better part of valour after the destruction of the Thousand Sons.

Edited to add Jan. 3, 2010:
Added some light weathering with Country Grey, Burnt Sienna and Skin Tone Base acrylic paints:

2009: The Year in Gaming

Being that this is the last day of the year, I thought it would be enlightening to look back at the year of gaming that was 2009. I have tried to keep track through the year (on a mini-calendar on my office desk, no less) of what we, the Conscripts, got up to week-to-week.

Statistically, the most popular scale was definitely 28mm with 17 games played. The type of game most often played was - no surprise - Spacekrieg! (we played that 4 times) - followed closely by Star Wars miniatures and WWII, each played thrice. 6mm was a well-represented scale this year with 4 games. It was the most played scale after 28mm. We played 3 games in 15mm scale too.

Aircraft gaming was popular, we played 2 games of Aeronautica Imperialis and one of Airwar C21: Korea. We also played Check Your Six! twice and last night, Dave V. put on some very cool Wings of War games.

We also played in 40mm scale with a great "Three Musketeers" game staged by Curt, and a 40mm modern skirmish game. We gamed with Gladiators, killer cars in a Dark Future, Warhammer 40K and Fantasy, and Formula De. Even snuck in a couple of zombie games, and three painting nights for good measure!

Anyway, I thought you might be interested in these stats. Also, I wanted to take the opportunity to thank all of you for coming to my house to play with toy soldiers, and for inviting me to your house to do the same. I really don't think that there is a better bunch of gamers or friends around, and I feel fortunate to know and game with all of you, and count you as my friends.

Cheers, and best wishes for the New Year.

Dallas

ps see you for 40K on New Years Day!! d.