First Analogue Hobbies Challenge entry

These were actually completed just prior to Christmas as I was keen to ensure I had made a start before we went a travelling around the relatives.

Firstly I have an important looking Indian Gentleman, possibly linked to an ancient Kali Cult or perhaps just an armed merchant. Who knows but you can be sure he'll turn up in an adventure or two.

Second up is a great towering thug of a man, painted up perhaps as the perfect example of Aryan strength for my pulp Germans, either way he's mean and ready to be a real challenge should our heroes encounter him.

I've some more Pulp pretty much finished but the Challenge rules state Curt gets first sight of the pictures so you lot will all have to wait till I've sent them to him and they've been published.

Brink of Battle After Action Reports

Over the Christmas period my brother and I managed to squeeze in 3 Brink of Battle games, which was pretty much on plan, I had 1 spare scenario but I can keep that for later.

The games went pretty well and as I spectacularly failed to take any photos of the first couple so I'll leave it to my brother to do complete write ups over at his blog here:

http://infrequentwargamer.blogspot.co.uk/

Whilst he is doing that I'll cover the 3 scenarios we played and ruminate on the rules.

Game 1

The first game we played was the assault on the gate of the German Facility, Phil has filled out the background a little more in his report and I'll not repeat it here. The scenario itself was a simple take and hold the British forces had 12 turns to cover around 3' of board to the gate and must hold the gate. For each turn the gate is held the Brits would gain an advantage in the next game. The forces were an even 700 points each.

We tried a few variants on the rules, the Germans deployed under markers and I allowed some dice rolls for the Brits to represent Intel on the area. The Brits rolled badly and only revealed 1 marker. The mechanic worked OK but it didn't really add a huge amount to the game and did slow it down quite a bit. 

The Germans also only received half orders to represent the static nature of the sentry forces. This worked fine and they gained full orders once half the tokens were revealed.

Overall the scenario worked well until we got in a firefight in the center of the board, this took several turns to resolve as both sides were in cover and difficult to kill. Phil lost a little too much time and too many men and the game appeared to be unwinnable and the Brits retreated.

I suspect the sides were in balanced with the scenario, perhaps the Germans should have had a couple of hundred less which may have evened up their chances as little.

The British Advanced force makes it's approach to the Facility Entrance

Panzershrek action, taking out the Giant Claymore Wielding Scotsman

Some Guard Dogs very effectively taking out one of the British Soldiers in the wheatfield.

Game 2 

The second game was a counter attack from the German forces and allowed me to try some of the weird forces I have, the Germans had to destroy a British Steel Suit charging station at the Allied base of operations. Again this was an even 700 points as side.

This played out pretty quickly and ended in German defeat due to losses. 

The stats for the battle suits worked well, they were a little difficult to damage and took multiple hits to down, a good invention but not unkillable. 

Once again I feel the defender should have had less points. as I hardly got more than a few inches closer than in the shot below before my force broke.

2 PanzerKampfSoldats approach the British defenses under heavy fire. 

Game 3
The 3rd game was more of a dungeon crawl, a 2'x2' board over multiple levels leading to 3 objective rooms which the Brits must destroy. Blighted by poor customer service and Christmas postage my Westwind Cloning Tanks didn't arrive in time for this scenario so I had to adlib a little and the 3 objectives were the ammunition stores, the pumping station and the generator room.

Whilst the game worked well  the firefights descended into back and forth fire with few casualties, meaning that the Brits didn't get particularly far into the facility before they had lost too many men.

Initial Board Set Up

The British Steelsuits lead the fight into the Complex.

2 German Abomination are incinerated by one of the Steelsuits

The PanzerShrek armed PanzerkampfSoldat makes short work of a British Steel Suit

Conclusion...

After discussions with my Brother our main concern is the stagnant firefights and non-result of shocking an activated model. We've kicked around a couple of ideas around stacking shock, you get shocked once fine lose your action token, you get shocked again then you may fall back, shocked a 3rd time and you're removed from play, either dead or combat ineffective. Not sure how this will play out in practice. 

We also discussed dropping the Con of everything by 1, we already have a lot of armour in the game and this compounds the effect. Dropping the Con may mean casualties pile up quicker. 

It was a good fun set of games, we're going to continue the fight in February when we get together again at my house. We'll probably cover level 2 of the complex, the cloning rooms and then some fights with really weird abominations. So for now that's our Brink of Battle gaming. 

Brink of Battle Force

Just a quick posting of the final images of my Brink of Battle force and the stat lines I've come up with.

Going back to the scenarios mentioned a few weeks back game 1 was to be an Allied assault on the Entrance to the secret German facility.

I decided a Standard Force would suffice and I would keep the weirdness down a little as these troops would be outside patrolling and generally being seen.

The Gate defense force would also be split for the first scenario with a number of models off board to enter on patrol routes, and the rest deployed as possible enemy positions. The old Colonel charged with defending the Gate is Col. Klinkerhoffen, once a lead fighting hero, now older, more rotund war weary veteran. His right hand man in this game would be Lieutenant Smitt who very much reminds the Colonel of his younger self, agile and a strong leader Smitt is rarely in one place for long, he leads from the front and is always found in the thick of battle with his men.

A small group of German infantry will defend the gate with some fire support from a couple of armoured Panzergrenadiers, there'll be a dog patrol and lurking somewhere in the woods one of the German WolvenSoldats, a crossbred supersoldier that stalks the area around the base. The force comes to a little over 700 points if you allow for the themed army bonus and stands at 11 models:

Colonel Klinkerhoffen	CBT	CMD		CON	Weapons	Cost:
Commander	4	7		5	Automatic Pistol, Knife, Grenades	108 SPs
Traits:  Commander Old Soldier (Additional Break) Stormtrooper (May fire at any point during move)			Equipment:

Lieutenant Smitt	CBT	CMD		CON	Weapons	Cost:
Veteran	4	6		4	SMG, Knife	77 SPs
Traits:  Commander Hunter (Shoot at full ROF when mobile Shooting)			Equipment:

3x German Army Infantry	CBT	CMD		CON	Weapons	Cost:
Trooper	4	4		4	Knife, Grenades, Rifle or SMG	100 SPs
Traits:			Equipment:

German Army Dog Handler	CBT	CMD		CON	Weapons	Cost:
Trooper	4	4		4	Knife, Grenades, Rifle or SMG	55 SPs
Traits:  Beast Handler			Equipment:  None

2x Guard Dog	CBT	CMD		CON	Weapons	Cost:
Trooper	4	1		4	Bite 0/C/0	50 SPs
Traits:  Beast Bravado (immune from panic if outnumberbed) Ferocious Charge (+1 weapon reach on charge and if hits target gets entangled) Heightened Senses (dbt CBT rating for spotting ambush)			Equipment:  None

PanzerGrenadier w Assault Rifle	CBT	CMD		CON	Weapons	Cost:
Trooper	5	5		4	Assault Rifle, Knife	76 SPs
Traits:			Equipment:Light Armour

PanzerGrenadier w Rocket Launcher	CBT	CMD		CON	Weapons	Cost:
Trooper	5	5		4	Rocket Launcher, Knife	151 SPs
Traits:			Equipment:Light Armour

Wolven Soldat	CBT	CMD		CON	Weapons	Cost:
Trooper	5	3		4	Claws	50 SPs
Traits:  Beserker			Equipment:Camouflage

The Weird and Wonderful..

My final couple of figures for our upcoming Weird WW2 game were finished earlier tonight. I'm really chuffed with the progress I've made of the past few weeks and hope I can keep up this level of productiveness throughout the 3 months of the painting competition.

Even with the Doom Trooper, Wolvensoldat and FeuerSoldat I felt there wasn't quite enough weirdness in my German force so I've added the following:

PanzerKampfSoldat

These armoured battle suits are the pinnacle of German engineering, each one piloted by an elite German soldier they are capable of dishing out tremendous firepower with their duel sub-machine guns or wading into close combat with their boosted strengh. Each suit can sustain a tremendous amount damage before becoming inoperative and  their rocket powered pack helps them move the heavy suits around the field of battle quickly. 

The suits are actually American suits from Dust Tactics, I really liked the shape and with a traditional Panzer Grey colour scheme and a few decals the seem to really look the part. I do have a 3rd suit but it's running and I didn't like the pose too much, I also only had 2 of these 40mm bases so I left him out for the moment.

And finally there are the experimental Kampfdrohnes, bio-mechanical horrors from deep within the laboratory  these barely living creatures shamble forwards following their pre-conditioned orders and are able to take damage that would normally destroy the human body. They feel little pain and often return to the front quickly even driven off.

The miniatures are Scrap Thralls from Warmachine, no modifications just a more Germanic paint job, I tried to echo the colours my Brother painted on the jackets of my early war Germans.

And that pretty much it for this project, I'm still hoping that Wayland Games pulls it's finger out and gets me the Cloning Tanks from Westwind before Christmas as I may just get them done in time but I hold little hope of that now. So far I'm not impressed with Wayland's Customer service, they sat on my order since the 2nd December without informing me that they no longer had the item in stock and I only found out when I followed up my order with them. I always got much better service at Malestrom Games so I will miss that going forwards. 

Next up I've a load of 1930s figures I've just found in a box which need cleaning up, basing and undercoating prior to the Painting Competition so far I've over 150 points ready to paint, I'm pretty shure Christmas will provide some more and there's the SAGA minis I'm so desperately ignoring following the incident with the undercoat as I suspect many will need replacing. 

Thats if for now, I may have another update on boards and terrain in the next week but since I'm away from Friday that is looking unlikely. 

Have a good Christmas all and I hope it is filled with miniature goodness. 

Yet More Progress

What a week, I'm getting a good run on finishing left over projects and managed to kick out a monstrously large creature tonight in under 2 hours.

First up are some Westwind Armoured Panzer Grenadiers, I'm not totally happy with the shade of gray for these but as I'm in a hurry I'm going to leave them as is for the moment whilst I finish off a number of other projects. The Squad includes a couple of flame throwers and a lovely anti-mech panzershrek. This'll make my brother think twice about fielding armoured suits.

Next up we have a Wolvensoldat, originally painted for modern horror the camo isn't quite right for WW2 but I don't think it looks too off. I was aiming for the darker skin colouring of films like underworld, not sure how well it works as there is very little difference from shade to highlight. Again I may revisit this when I have more time. 

Finally I have the Doomtrooper, a genetically engineered super beast, in real life he's a lot less green than this picture makes out, I'm quite impressed that I managed this beast in around 2 hours. For anyone who's spotted it it's actually a warmachine Trollblood miniature, I spent a long long time sanding off all the spikes on his back and rebuilding the muscles. I'm pretty happy with the final result.

Next up I've some Battlesuits, other bio mechanical monstrosities  a couple of specials and some guard dogs. Then it's back to terrain if the parts arrive in time.

Oh and I ordered the wrong bleeding Jarvis mat which has left me a little peeved, got a spring one rather than a summer mix so it doesn't match any of my bases. New order placed for the right one this time.

First batch of Weird WW2 Scenics Completed

The terrain made from bitz box rummaging was finished earlier today, I feel that's not bad for a weeks work considering that I've probably had under 10 hours hobby time.

Firstly a quick group shot of the finished bits.

Which break down to the following rooms:

The Chemical Pump Room
These huge pipes and pumping equipment shift the vast quantities of chemicals round the facility required for use in the mutagenic experiments of the DoomTrooper Project.

The Generator Room
Providing power to the both the underground facility and the guard station upstairs, the generator room is a prime target for any attack. I'm still waiting on the actual generator to arrive but it should be here in a week or so.

The Experimental Lab
The main target for the attack, the lab has produced a great number of monstrosities as part of the DoomTrooper project. Again I'm waiting on some clone tanks from West Wind Productions to finish this room off.

I've also enough crates already in the collection to make weapons storage room. Though I'm not sure I'll need it as I'm trying to keep the board to just 2'x2'.

Next up I've some WWW2 troops to finish, some new stuff to start and then I better start assembling miniatures for the Analogue Hobbies Painting Competition.

Progress so far

Well it has been a couple of days and in my meagre hobby time I've managed to assemble about 10 scenic items from nowt but stuff in my bits box.

Essentially these are the following:

• Generator room switch
• Random pipework
• Large pipework
• Pumping gubbins
• Computer bank (a little out on era but with a retro paintjob it should do)
• More generator room gubbins
• A fuel tank
• Secure facility door.
• Going to get them sprayed up tonight and paint em over the weekend.

So now to get it all sprayed up and hopefully finish painting it by the end of the weekend allowing my to concentrate on getting some minis painted over the next few weeks and await the arrival of the rest of the terrain.

Blinked and missed 2012

Well 2012 has sped past an unimaginable speeds.

My daughter was born on the 13th Jan this year and is a delight, unfortunately my hobby time appears to have dramatically diminished and outside playing a few games here and there I have painted practically nothing in 12 months. For reports on the action you should check out my brothers blog over here:
http://infrequentwargamer.blogspot.co.uk/

My only success was 12 more Napoleonic French Line Infantry for Sharpe Practice.

So what inspired this sudden blog post I hear you cry????

Well this weekend my Brother was up, I'd not really planned anything but decided to run him through a few games of Angels 20 from Axis and Allies miniatures, I've introduced a few new gamers to it over this last year and I do believe it's one of the better WW2 air warfare games out there. It's also all pre-painted which is a definite win in my eyes these days.

The variable flight stands are one of my few hobby successes this year, I found some telescopic rods in Tesco for £1 each, after sanding off the bottom and cutting away the end I found I could fit them onto the Angels 20 mini bases and still be able to use the status maneuvers needed as part of the mechanics (read placing planes at jaunty angles for in game perks)

So after a few games of this my brother and I sat down to discuss what our next project will be, we'll be getting together in a months time for Christmas and New Year so it would have to be something we already had miniatures for as nether of us have much time at the moment. It would also have to be something I contributed most of the bulky terrain for as my Phil would be on the train so space would also be a premium.

We've played a lot of 1930s pulp over the past few years and as part of that we also appear to have a few WW2 miniatures in our collections, I've about 10 Germans used mainly for pulp villains and we both have some Weird WW2 miniatures from an abortive project a few years back so we decided to dust them off and run a couple of scenario driven games around Weird WW2. But what rules would we use, clearly they had to be a small games about 10-12 miniatures a side and a smaller battle field would be a perk as it would mean transporting less.

Brink of Battle raised it's head again, we've pushed a few minis around to it earlier in the year and it appeared to be a reasonable set of rules. After a couple of discussions we agreed to tweak a couple of rules, firstly we'd replicate the activation system from Sharpes Practice as we felt it worked well there and I was keen to use blinds to represent unknown enemy positions. We also discussed adding multiple wounds to better represent some of the weird stuff such as battle suits and great honking monsters. 

So it appears we had a game, after mulling it over for 20 mins of so I had a couple of scenarios in mind and with out further ado I'll introduce them:

It's late 1944, the Allied forces across Europe are pushing back the Germans and it would appear all is not going well for the 3rd Reich, Dr Willhem Von X, disillusioned by the way the war is being fought has recently defected and ended up in the Britain. He has provided a wealth of information on a super secret project code named SS Doomtrooper. Deep in an under ground laboratory it would appear t hat German scientists are trying to create the ultimate battlefield warrior, mixing ground breaking science with their technological advances it may be the last hope for the 3rd Reich's survival. 

A small covert force lead by a notorious British Major will be dropped in the area and a two stage mission will follow. 

Mission 1; Capture the Facility Entry, It would appear to maintain the secrecy of the project the facility has been designed with only a single entrance, this entrance it lightly guarded to help it remain undetected. The major will take a small force and attack the entrance at dusk, once secured additional forces will be dropped under cover of darkness to reinforce the major and provide some heavier firepower for the fighting that will take place inside the complex. Should the Major fail to capture the entrance this larger force will be required a the area may soon by crawling with additional Axis forces. 

Mission 2; The Major will lead a team inside the facility with several objectives, they must plant timed explosive devices in 3 of the critical areas of the Lab complex. The Main Growth lab where the scientists are known to have a number of Doomtrooper specimens in progress, The Generator Room, The Chemical Treatment Plant or the Armoury. Destruction of a number of these areas should lead the lab to be inoperable and should ensure the program is shut down. 

So we've a plan forming, I've suitable terrain to do both a general above ground board and some terrain used for underground pulp games which would suffice for the lab. A quick plan shows I need the following extra bits:

Specimen Tanks and medical equipment

Some pipework and pumps

A generator and random electrics

A secret entrance

Defenses such as barbed wire and tank traps

So far I've rummaged in my bits boxes and can make much of the above:

I'm sure you are dying to see what I  can turn this random collection of stuff into so keep watching this space,  there will be some WIP pictures up later this week.