Society Meeting 14/05/2022

In addition to the Stargrave game previously reported, there were two other games run at this meeting, both using rulesets new to the Society from from Two Fat Lardies .

First up the 6mm Ancients players tried out the Strength and Honour rules with a couple of games involving Roman and Pontic armies.

Our members collections are primarily based for Field of Glory / DBM, so for this trial game Perspex bases were used to reflect the bases sizes in Strength & Honour.

The left of the Roman Battle Line
Pontics on the left, Romans on the right
Roman Legions form up
Pontic pike phalanxes
Pontic scythed chariot supported by cavalry and clibanarii
View from the Roman lines
Pontic phalanxes with skirmisher supports
Clash of cavalry, Pontic Clibanarii against lighter Roman cavalry
Infantry lines get into the fray

The first game was a narrow Pontic victory, the second was a Roman walkover.

Some members are also building some armies in 2mm for these rules on the regulation bases, here’s a Roman legion arrayed in the triplex acies:

Trial basing for 2mm figures.

The second game to feature a new ruleset was an early WW2 game using “O” Group rules. This featured a British advance on German positions, and ended in a German victory as the British failed to inflict enough damage on the Germans.

The battlefield in the lull before the storm
German officer giving orders
Two Matilda II tanks advance
German Pak 36
German Pak 36
British infantry advance
Matilda IIs with infantry support
Germans take cover behind the hedge.
British infantry also take cover
German heavy weapons, le.IG 18 75mm Infantry Support Gun in the forground. Pak 36 in the background

Finally, a few pictures from the Stargrave game that didn’t make the game report.

Tony’s crew advance
A cyber enhanced critter, the bane of Andy’s crew
Andy’s sniper takes position to cover the flank

Work In Progress Wednesday

A tad late today, sorry folks, but here’s the latest update on member’s painting.

First off, Stephen is painting up some sample packs to test the waters on a couple of projects he’s been umming and ahhing about for the last year or so.

Above you can see some 15mm ECW Scots from Peter Pig.

He’s also trying to find his WW2 mojo, he’s undecided on figure size, but wants to focus on infantry actions rather than tanks.

First off we have some Warlord Games 28mm Late war British infantry, a recent free sprue from one of the wargames magazines.

WW2 British

And changing size, some Russians based up for Crossfire, also from Peter Pig.

WW2 Russians, for Crossfire

Eric continues to work on some Games Workshop figures, a chaos marauder and cultist:

Chaos Marauder & Cultist.
Chaos Marauder & Cultist

Mark has been working on his 6mm Saxon 1809 army, Ist Corp division Generallieutenant Polentz, brigade Generalmajor Lecog, Prinze Celement, von Low and von Cerrini regiments. Basic uniform colour and regimental facings done, flesh, weapon, knapsack and bases to do, you can see the rest of the division in the background including some cuirassiers

Saxon 1st Corp, division Generallieutenant Polentz

That’s all folks, we’ll be back next week.

A Wretched Hive of Scum and Villainy

Tony F moves into real estate development.

Last year, as a bit of a lock-down#2 project, I decided to make a small desert village for 6mm sci-fi games. All of the components come from Brigade Models (quick disclaimer here – I’m one of the owners of said company) but the techniques would work with any other manufacturer’s buildings. The wall pieces were taken from the Town Walls range, while the buildings are mostly from the Desert Outlands set. The photos in this post are all thumbnails – click on them for larger versions.

The first decision to make was how large it was going to be; I decided that it would have to fit in a 4l Really Useful Box, which gave me a maximum of a 348x220mm footprint and a height limit of 68mm. I based it on a sheet of Foamex, which is great for terrain projects as it doesn’t warp like MDF or hardboard when you apply paint. This came in 300x200mm sheets, so one of those did the job nicely.

I spent a while laying out wall pieces until I had a configuration that I liked – I wanted to avoid a simple rectangular wall. I positioned a gateway and sanded down the base at that point so it sloped away, and added a pair of watchtower pieces to the walls. Once I was happy with this I glued them down with a clear glue (Uhu). I smeared some wall filler around the joins to fill in the odd gap, this has a similar texture to the wall pieces so blends in better. I then laid out the buildings – I wanted enough space around them to be able to position figures and vehicles, so didn’t cram them in too tightly. In the end there were nine altogether. Again I fixed them in place with clear glue.

Now that the main components were in place, I was able to texture the ground. Inside the walls I simply glued a layer of sand using PVA, with the odd small stone around the edges. Outside the walls I mixed up a batch of emulsion paint, sand and PVA and applied this with an old paintbrush. I mixed in some larger grades of sand and small stones (sold in homeware shops for basing candles) so that I achieved a much rougher texture than the inner area.

The next stage was to add lots of small details to the buildings. I used a few parts from the Brigade 2mm scenery range, there are bits of girder bridges, barns, support frames from an airship hangar, a Roman lighthouse (makes a good chimney) and an obelisk in the main square. There’s the odd roof-mounted water tank and aerial from the 15mm range. There’s also a radio antenna which is the broken off top of a much larger 3D (mis)printed mast. This part proved to be a nightmare as I kept knocking it off – in hindsight it would have been better to paint it separately and attached when everything else was finished, but I kept supergluing it back on.

I also fitted some supports for fabric canopies made from paperclips and wire staples – I drilled into the buildings, walls and base with a 1mm bit and superglued them in. I didn’t add the canopies themselves yet to make it easier to paint around them.

Everything was then sprayed in Halfords white primer, followed by a coat of Army Painter Skeleton Bone. The walls and buildings were them washed with GW Agrax Earthshade, while the ground was washed with Seraphim Sepia. This gave the buildings a distinctly different shade from the ground, even though they were painted with the same base colour. Walls, buildings are ground were all heavily drybrushed with bone or stone paints from the Citadel Dry range.

Other details were painted in – doors and windows, various roof accessories and so on, mostly using Citadel contrast paints which worked well over the pale bone base colour. With this done I was now able to make the canopies from small pieces of paper towel – the type of nasty, non-absorbent cheap towels that we used to get in school toilets! I soaked the pieces in dilute PVA and draped them across the supports, making sure that they drooped as naturally as possible in between. Once the glue dried they were pretty solid. I painted them in either dark red or dark brown using GW contrast paints.

The finished conurbation was christened Mos Arun; ‘Mos’ from the Star Wars Tatooine naming convention, and ‘Arun’ taken from the road name where I live. I’m planning a series of other small building bases to accompany it in the near future, which will also appear on this blog in due course. All being well, they should appear at the club’s Open Day later in the year.

Society Meeting 22nd January 2022

Back to the normal schedule, a short roundup of games at the last meeting…

Firstly, our second game of Barons War, this time a 1500 point a side affair with Jeremey & Stephen facing up to John & Andy

Opening positions.
John’s crossbows await the onslaught of Jeremey’s troops.
Stephen’s Lord all on his own.
Near the end.

One of our regular Field of Glory games, Italian Condotta vs Late Hungarian in 6mm.

The FOG battlefield
Serried ranks of Knights
Knights outflank Light Cavalry

Another 6mm game, Napoleonic Peninsula with a British, Portuguese and Spanish force attacking a French held town.

Allied forces approach the French positions. Where are the rest of the French?
View from the French lines
The Spanish prepare to advance
Battle in full swing
The Allies take the town
Close up of an Allied Brigade

And finally, Alan ran a Sudan game in 28mm using Sharp Practice.

The head of the British relief column enters the “empty” battlefield
The first of the British
Mhadist reserves await their turn.
Mahdist leader and escort
Mhadists outflank the cavalry

Society Meeting 11th December 2021

Andy rounds up the last meeting of the year.

Our last meeting of the year saw three “periods” in progress:

First up, our FOG contingent (John, Paul and Mark) ran a couple of games of Early Carthaginians vs Dominate Romans.

6mm Cavalry and Light Horse
The infantry get close
A bird’s eye view of the combat
Roman Legionaries
Africans and Romans standoff.
Carthaginian cavalry charge the Romans

Next up Alan ran a game of Fief, France 1429, a game of dynastic ambition. You can probably guess where and when it is set. Boardgames are not unknown at the Society, but they are not that commonly played either. Alan, Marcus, Dave, Chris, Peter and Mike were the contenders for the control of France.

Playing pieces
View from the North West
Player’s resource cards
Fief Playing pieces and cards

Alan and Peter formed an alliance and had a narrow lead at the end of the game, so they are claiming victory. Mike, Marcus, Dave & Chris wouldn’t necessarily agree with that assessment though

Finally, Tony & Phil combined their efforts to put on a 15mm Star Wars game, using slightly adapted Stargrave rules. Jeremey and Phil each took a squad of Stormtroopers, while Stephen and Andy had a squad of Rebels. Both sides were searching the village for a pair of droids who had concealed plans to a top secret Imperial Weapon System (the Death Star). Tony ran the unaligned Jawas and was in charge of resolving the players searches and random events.

The village, the lull before the storm
The Rebels disembark from their U-Wing assault ship
The Jawas minding their own business.
Jeremey’s Storm Trooper squad and their shuttle.
Andy’s Rebels find what cover they can
Rebels search a building
Stephen’s Rebels take up positions to fend off the Imperials
Phil’s Stormtroopers take cover behind a water extractor
Rebels have found the droids and try to get them back to the shuttle, The Jawas are not happy!
The droids and their surviving escort almost at the shuttle (and that’s as far as they got).
The remnants of Stephen’s squad form a last line of defence.
Jawas and Stormtroopers pursuing the Droids and Rebels
Andy’s Rebel squad (now deceased)

We will (hopefully) be back in the New Year.

Society Meeting 27 November 2021

Andy’s short roundup of games at this weekend’s meeting.

First up Stephen and I tried out Barons War rules for the first time. As it was our first outing we decided to go small, and had 500 point armies. We managed two games in around 5 hours, with much referring to the rules. All in all we thought the rules worked quite well.

Andy’s green bowmen thinning out Stephen’s Welsh Knights
Welsh archers draw bows to shoot Andy
English knights skulking around the back
Spearmen charge each other
Knights and sergeants urge the crossbows forward
Stephen’s Welsh Knights run from the field.
Andy’s spearmen force back Stephen’s archers

Meanwhile Jeremey and Tony were playing a War of the Roses game using Sword and Spear.

Elsewhere in the hall six of our Field of Glory players (John, Peter, Brett, Paul, Mark and Colin) fought out a tournament. Final results to be confirmed…

Yes, 6mm vs 15mm. But they all follow the same basing system.

Painting a 6mm English 100 Years War army

Mark J guides through his painting technique for 6mm HYW figures.

This article follows on from my first 6mm painting guide, “Painting 6mm Romans” which appeared on the Maidstone Wargames Society Blog in May 2020. So, it’s been a while since my last blog, but I’ve been busy painting more 6mm over the last 12 months or so. This article covers my English 100 Years War army. This is another FoG army, we still play 2nd edition at the club, however I have also built the army to use with MeG and you could use it with any rules system that doesn’t stipulate base sizes.

The army is loosely based on that which fought at Crécy, very loosely as I just wanted to pick a point in history to use, my army commander is painted as the Black Prince.

The figures are from Baccus, while they are listed as 6mm, they’re closer to 8mm. I really like them and there’s a wide range of periods available which continues to expand. The painting method I’m going to take you through is block painting, which begins with the application of a dark undercoat and then adding brighter colours to bring out detail, while retaining some of the dark undercoat to emphasise shadow.

Longbows

I use a black undercoat as I find it works well at this scale, however you need to be careful not to overuse the base colour otherwise your figures will look like dark blobs on the battlefield. The idea with block painting is to trick the eye; this is where the brighter colours come in, as you’ll see below, I’ve used quite vibrant colours on the longbowmen. This would look odd on a larger scale but is a must at 6mm.

So, start by washing your figures in warm soapy water and then gently dry them off with a tea towel or just leave them somewhere warm or in sunlight to dry; this will remove any casting residue which can interfere with the paint and stop an even coat forming. I then spray my figures black with an acrylic spray, I use a matt black spray from a national hardware chain, it’s cheap and works very well. Always wear a mask and ensure you’re in a ventilated room when doing this.

I’m going to start with a unit of longbowmen, there are 64 figures in each unit, I find I can paint one unit in a couple of hours, ready to base. Once the figures have dried I, begin by painting the main part of the body, in this case the tunic working with a strip of 4 figures I paint the front of the tunic remembering to leave some parts black, the belt, collar quiver, scabbard and under the arms. You don’t need to be really accurate here, paint your first strip and then look at the figures from about 3 feet away, if they look right then you have accomplished the first part of the ‘trick’.

Longbows and Command

Carry on painting each strip and then repeat the process on the other side of the tunic, you’ll notice that Baccus longbowmen are not all the same, some carry their arrows to the front others to the back, some have small shields. Just follow the principle of using the undercoat and leave these black for the moment. Remember to go bright, a general rule of thumb is to go 2-3 times brighter than you would at 28mm. You can see from the picture below how I’ve used a bright pale blue and yellow with one unit and an orange with the other. Both can be seen from the battlefield and don’t look out of place. They would look out of place at a larger scale for this period, but the rules of painting are different for 6mm, trick the eye with bright colours.

Once you’ve completed the tunic it’s now time to move onto the bow, quiver and scabbard. I use the same colour brown for these, again this would not work with a larger scale but is fine for 6mm. You can use differing colours, but they won’t really stand out and will take longer. I find a light yellowish brown works very well. Again, follow the front and then back method that I describe above, I find this gets me into a good rhythm, which gets me through a unit quickly but means I achieve the effect I’m looking for. This method also works well if you’re painting multiple units. I tend to do 3 at a time and can complete three units, fully based in around two evenings, 1 evening at a push.

Massed Longbows WIP

Once you’ve completed the bow and leatherwork it’s time to work on the metal parts, for the longbowmen this is their helms, shields if they have them and sword hilt, note that the sword hilt is optional, the figures will look fine without this. Again, apply to each strip front first and then back. With the helms it’s really important not to overdo things, too much silver and it will look like a huge silver blob, this is where your skill with a brush comes in and using the undercoat to provide shadow. I tend to use a semi dry brush when applying the silver, not as dry as I would when dry brushing, general rule of thumb is to apply enough paint to your brush to cover a couple of helms lightly.

Close up of the Longbows, showing the effect of leaving parts of the undercoat visible

It’s now time to move onto the flesh, I use a light pink flesh colour, those often used to highlight larger scale figures’ flesh. Again, front first then onto the back, you’ll see with the longbowmen that most of the work is covered from the front of the figure but it’s worth checking the back just to ensure that the flesh can be seen from all relevant angles. Paint the flesh in the same way you painted the silver, less is more. Try and keep a gap between the hands and cuffs and face and neck, this is where the dark undercoat really works well, this sounds hard, but it’s easily done with a little practice. Don’t worry if you don’t achieve this on every figure, remember you’re looking for an overall effect that will usually be viewed from the battlefield, tricking the eye with shadow and bright colours.

Once the flesh is done, then figures are complete, I usually quickly check each strip as you can miss some parts when painting large numbers of figures. Once dry, I then varnish the figures with a matt varnish. I spray my figures, if you do the same then make sure you’re not doing this in a cold room as the spray reacts to cooler temperatures and can fog, giving your figures a dusty look, which is a complete disaster at this scale as it obscures all your hard work. If this does happen, let the figures dry and then apply gloss varnish and another light coat of matt. I find a quick spray does the trick, again less is more. If it feels too cold don’t spray!

Basing next, I use a similar method to the Baccus basing, I apply a ready mixed earth texture paint first, make sure to apply up to the base not over it. Once this has been applied it is time to highlight. I use the Baccus 3 colour system, which starts with a dark beige colour moving up to an almost bone white, simply dry brush the bases. Once this is done it’s time to add some static grass, you’ll need the smaller grade, 3mm I believe. Apply some watered down PVA to the front and rear of the figures and where there are any gaps along the line. Once done sprinkle some static grass over the figure; what you’re looking for here is enough to hide any of the metal base while not covering the figure. The picture below shows how it should look.

Massed longbows, the bane of French Knights

OK so that’s how I paint 6mm longbowmen, for the men at arms use the same principles but when doing the armour ensure to use the undercoat well, leaving gaps works really well with armour. Use the same brown for any wood or leather and the same method for flesh. If you have any troops with padding, then apply this using the bright colour and shadow approach, you can see some mine below.

Billmen WIP

Finally, I painted the generals and camp using the same method, took a bit more time on some detail, but the same rules apply re tricking the eye. Up close they look a little messy, on the table they look the part.

The camp was done using a white undercoat and special contrast paints for the tents, the pigs, fires, well and baggage have a black undercoat with a block technique applied.

The Camp

The next few photos provide some completed units, in all there are 6 of longbow (8 bases each) and 6 of men at arms (4 bases each).

A selection of the retinue

Archers and their stakes

You’ll also notice some stakes placed in front of the longbowmen, these were scratch built using wire and Milliput. I cut the wire into 10mm long pieces, placed some Milliput onto a base and then added the wire to the Milliput at around a 30 to 40 degree angle. It was then a case of painting the stakes dark brown with bone white tips, and then basing using the same method described above. The stakes are bigger than they would have been relatively speaking but this is required to catch the eye and look right on the battlefield.

I hope this has been helpful, I hope to have another guide out soon covering my 6mm Spanish Napoleonic.

Salute 2021 Trophy and Society Meeting 13th November 2021

The Society has been busy this weekend jut passed, a small contingent ventured to ExCeL for the delayed Salute 2020 (or 2021?) whilst others attended the normal society meeting. First up, Salute. Andy’s thoughts with pictures by John, Mark and Andy.

Five of the membership, John, Brian, Mark, Marcus and Andy, attended Salute putting on Marcus’ Pulp participation game “Biggles and the Island at the Top of the World“.

The theme for the show was the Battle of Britain. The 2020 show was intended to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the battle. Centrally displayed in the hall were a replica Spitfire and Hurricane, with some RAF reenactors making an appearance after the photo was taken.

They say ExCeL looks like a hanger…

I got the impression that Salute hired more of ExCeL than usual, to space us out more, although I also understand there were fewer games and traders scheduled to attend than in “normal” years; and there were a few “no shows” in both categories.

Salute General view. More spaced out than usual, and perhaps fewer attendees?

In Marcus’ game Biggles is searching a lost Artic island for a missing Professor and the strange artefacts he was studying.

Biggle’s party deplane from their Walrus

His party discover a secret labyrinth, with ever changing chambers and passages.

The labyrinth awaits the explorers

However he was not alone, a party of Nazis with unworldly weapons were also trying to recover the Professor.

The German’s advanced submarine

The Russians had also sent an NKVD team to prevent the Nazis securing their objective.

The Soviet NKVD disembark from their Aerosan

And finally, a lost tribe of Vikings were hellbent on preventing anyone from leaving the island with the Ragnarok Stones, the phenomena the Professor had been studying.

The Vikings patrol the labyrinth

We ran several games throughout the day, with up to four members of the public taking control of one of the four parties.

A selection of photos from the games:

Vikings find the secret chamber
Biggles faces down the NKVD
The Germans find themselves boxed in

We are pleased to announce that the game won the Jim Clarke Memorial Award for the Best Science Fiction / Fantasy game at Salute.

The Jim Clark Memorial Award for the Best Science Fiction / Fantasy Game

Meanwhile, back at the regular Society meeting, other members were running a series of games. Photos courtesy of Mark J and Stephen.

First off Mark J and Pete ran a game of Fields of Glory, pitching Mark’s Hundred Years War English against Pete’s Hungarians.

FOG Ancients – HYW English vs Hungarians
FOG Ancients – HYW English vs Hungarians
FOG Ancients – HYW English vs Hungarians
FOG Ancients – HYW English vs Hungarians
FOG Ancients – HYW English vs Hungarians
FOG Ancients – HYW English vs Hungarians
FOG Ancients – HYW English vs Hungarians

The first battle was won by the English, the Hungarian Knights couldn’t cope with longbows and stakes. The Hungarians won the second battle by focusing on the men at arms and drawing the longbow fire away from the knights. So, honours even.

Alan ran a Star Wars X-Wing game.

Star Wars X-Wing
Star Wars X-Wing
Star Wars X-Wing

And finally Stephen ran a Stargrave game – A Hive of Scum and Villainy:

‘A Hive of Scum and Villainy’ – a Stargrave adventure
‘A Hive of Scum and Villainy’ – a Stargrave adventure
‘A Hive of Scum and Villainy’ – a Stargrave adventure

Club meeting 23rd October

A quick round up of the games at the recent club meeting, four scales, four periods.

First up, a 15mm War of the Roses game between Stephen & Tony (Lancastran) and Jeremey and Andy (Yorkist) using Sword and Spear second edition rules.

Jeremey added some flavour with some random event cards, one to be drawn by each player. The four used in this game were:

Jeremey’s random event cards

Jeremey will write up the game, so I won’t go into detail on how the cards were used here.

Andy’s Yorkist Archers and Crossbows occupy hill as the Lancastrians approach
Andy’s command.
Tony’s Border Horse take on Jeremey’s Men at Arms (with the banner)
The Yorkist line seen from the Lancastrian’s perspective

Next up Mark, David and Alan fought a battle in the War of the Spanish Succession using Mark’s 6mm collection and his own rules.

The battle lines are drawn
The Grand Alliance Lines
Alliance infantry and train.

Cavalry advance
Local firefight

Moving on several centuries, we come to 2004, Fallujah, using Force on Force rules. This 20mm collection was put together during the lockdown by Peter, this is its first outing at the club. Peter was joined by John, Brett, Colin and the other Mark.

Marines on the roof
Marines take casualties while advancing
Pilot’s eye view
Insurgents
The Ruins of Fallujah
Insurgents around a skip
Insurgents in the open

And finally we move into the near future, with an excursion into Zona Alfa. John (another one) took Eric through the rules with a series of short scenarios using his 28mm collection.

Stalkers encounter some mutant dogs
Hostiles approach
Zombies in the smoke
Close encounter of the gruesome mutant kind
Where did everybody go?
Start of the next mission, all seems quiet… too quiet!
Creeping through the undergrowth
Objective taken, but man down.
Anomalies abound

What A (Grav) Tanker! (Part 2)

Marcus gives us the next instalment of his Sci FI adaption of What a Tanker!

I have continued to develop my WA(G)T ideas since the first outing and this is the third time on the table. Well actually on the floor again, but I did at least get to use the table for game 2.

I have introduced some changes, and there are more ideas to come. Firstly, I went back to the original Lardy allocation for the dice orders. On reflection I didn’t feel much was gained by that change.

Secondly, this time I added in a command group each. I tried this in the first game but adjusted how they worked this time.  For simplicity I gave both command groups four dice. The idea behind these is that they can (apart from making nice objectives for the enemy maybe…) use their dice to cancel enemy orders or supplement their own units die rolls. I played it that the command units needed to roll at least one 6 to use as a comms/data link. At first it was too easy to disrupt enemy shooting by allowing any dice rolled by a command unit to cancel an enemy order dice. This time I went for the following options:

      1. Cancel one enemy move dice or substitute a friendly unit dice
      2. Cancel or add an acquisition dice
      3. Add/Improve aim
      4. Add a shoot dice
      5. Add a defensive dice
      6. Comms/data link

I also added in missiles in both games. However, in the first game they didn’t work satisfactorily. In the second, well, you’ll see.

I added in a wider selection of cards than in the original WAT game, to add some sci-fi flavour. Some were successful, although those relating to missiles need to be revised.

Finally, influenced by PSC’s “Red Alert” which I have written about previously, the biggest change in this iteration was the number of vehicles on the table (sorry, floor!) with a shift to multiple element units. Essentially these employed the same stats as used previously with a hit just removing one vehicle.

There were a few new or adjusted vehicles. The “attack boats” were a Callisto class boat, as seen in the previous game, but with a change to a missile launcher in place of the forward twin gun. It is a modular design (the turrets on the models are magnetised). The two smaller boats notionally have vertical launch cells under the bow cover. These still acted like one unit, although in retrospect I think I should have upped the defence value and/or the hits that could be taken, especially on the larger Ganymede.

Additional units:

Core Dice Max Attack Defence Movement
Attack Boats 6 Ganymede 8 missiles; Leda & Ersa 4 each 8 6
Pz 35 “Hornisse” 5 15 9 9
Command Units 4 0 8 7

The British started with 2 groups of 4 Chieftains, one of 4 Ferret’s and the naval group of Ganymede, Leda and Ersa plus the command group, see the header picture.

The NAU had 3 groups of 4 Wespe, 1 group of 4 Hornisse  and the command group.

The Hornisse models are envisaged as earlier models which have not been completely replaced by a later version, but are ideal for service in a riverine/swamp environment (maybe they should be better than grav vehicles over this kind of terrain. I always envisaged grav vehicles having more “mushy” responsiveness over wide stretches of water)

Ersa and Leda are also from GZG. The Hornisse is from the Osario from the Scotia range. As an objective I thought about both making this the command groups or taking the previous route; the British was to get the Callisto off the far river edge with the NAU needing to prevent this. In the end I went for just targeting the naval group and playing out a few turns.

Activation worked as previously, but I forgot about the “exploding 6’s” for hits. It seemed likely to be a more destructive game anyway…

Here is an “drone” shot of the initial set up:

With shots from the British perspective:

And the NAU positions:

Turn 1:

The NAU took the initiative moving the green Pz 37 unit up, seen at the bottom of the drone recce photo,  and the corresponding yellow unit to the top. The yellow unit benefited from a stealth card requiring an additional 2 acquisition dice. The British Ferrets activating next were unable to move, but prepped for future activation with the idea that they would designate targets for the missiles on the naval units if possible. The Ganymede group also moved up and were able to acquire and aim at the NAU yellow group having rolled three 6’s.

The cautious positioning continued since the British had no data link and the GBR yellow group were therefore unable to acquire the stealthed NAU yellows. No firing took place this turn.

Turn 2:

The NAU again gained the initiative (on exactly the same number of dice as the GBR), continuing a theme from the last game.

NAU command had rolled two 6 (one of which could be used as data link) and two “shoot” dice last turn. The dice rolled for the last turn continue to be available until a unit activates in the subsequent turn and rolls a new “hand” of dice.

The NAU orange “Hornisse” hover tanks moved forward in the centre, but were unable to find a target in line of sight. However, NAU blue had no such difficulty. Moving to acquire the naval group they launched a 15 dice attack. Despite the GBR side using a card for a D6 firer systems down, resulting in a reduction of only 1 attack dice to 14. A roll of 6655 didn’t seem too threatening, until the 8 defence dice yielded no blocks! A further desperate defensive systems card for the GBR took out one of the critical hits, but under the new rules either critical (6) or a double hit (55) would destroy a target. While the card saved the Ganymede the Ersa and Leda were destroyed.

In response the GBR yellow Chieftain unit moved out of cover and launch a retaliatory attack on the more exposed NAU yellow unit.  With 13 attack dice -1 for range attenuation, the Brits roll 666655. Despite playing an “All power to shields” card, the NAU rolls only a 65 against the incoming fire, seeing three of the four vehicles in the unit destroyed. The remaining vehicle rolled a test and stayed in the fight (D6 higher than the number of vehicles destroyed)

GBR orange Ferrets attack the “Hornisse” unit, having rolled 6543 (using the wild 6 as a 2 to acquire), but hits of 665 were all blocked . The Ganymede went into stealth mode with a card.

Both command units now activated successively and maintained comms/data links.

The turn concluded with a GBR Green Cheiftain attack on the exposed NAU yellow over the river with a 6555 on 13 dice. With only a defence of 4 the unit still blocked with 65 resulting in one tank destroyed.

Turn 3:

This proved to be the final round of a vicious confrontation.

The NAU maintained the initiative and their yellow unit used an extra command unit acquisition dice to make 3 allowing them to target the Ganymede in stealth mode. 15 dice resulted in a 66666. A defensive systems card d4 roll resulted in two of these being cancelled. The Ganymede’s defence dice only took out one of the remaining hits, resulting in a mighty explosion as the last two critical hits crashed home. BOOM!

The NAU red Hornisse unit rolls 65511. However, despite being unable to acquire or aim, using a “snapshot” card, they are able to make a reduced level attack. A ten dice attack results in an unlikely 66655. The green unit with all power switched to attack is unable to stop any of these critical hits, although a damage control card cancels the non-criticals.

NAU command rolls a 5321. Without a data link it cannot use any of these dice to support its units. NAU Green rolls 633322  continuing the paralysis on the NAU left flank as without a shoot order, they cannot get into the fight.

The GBR command group still has data link and the GBR yellow unit uses a command unit 2 to acquire NAU yellow. With a 13566 and the 2, the GBR unit can make two attacks using the wild 66 as 44 shoot orders.  A 66655 followed by 65555 leaves the NAU unit doomed, having only two for defence against each attack.

That effectively ended the action for the round and the game, with both sides more or less suffering equal damage and choosing to retire.

As alluded to earlier, the missile rules didn’t get tested and the cards need further development given the rule changes. Overall though, I like the changes; having the extra vehicles on the board “Red Alert” style and the command unit rules, although these could evolve further.  While the game was excessively destructive I think that was a function of the lack of defensive allocation and a need to restructure the cards  to reflect rule developments. The cards are a key thing to work on going forward.

However, missiles still need work. I am thinking of rolling one dice (probably a D6 but maybe others depending on missile characteristics) per missile and in the spirit of using the same dice in a different way, rolling the defence dice to block the specific number rolled (i.e. a defensive 6 would take out any attacking rolls of 6, a 2 would take out any attack rolls of 2 etc.)

I hope to develop the command group idea and use multiple groups (2/3 perhaps depending on the size of game).

I have an idea that I might do an Antarctic game going forward. I have a suitable shower curtain that I used as a mat for a club show game. However, I have no suitable vehicles or other terrain. In the interim I may break out my island terrain (a couple of pictures of which can be seen here) for the next game and hopefully some future blogs might cover painting vehicles (probably striping and re-painting old vehicles) in snow camo and creating some terrain.

Look out for further developments!