Category: Science Fiction

Black Ops – Into The Junkyard

Stephen gives an unredacted report on a Black Ops mission…

Thought I would have a game of Black Ops.

It’s been a while since I played it and having enjoyed it before I decided to have another go.

I decided not to use the stealth rules and have a simple encounter game – just to refresh myself with the rules and because I just wanted a simple face-to-face scrap.

Each side had 75 points. On one side was a group of droids and on the other a section of special forces troops. The game was simple enough – seven turns to see who can cause the most amount of damage. Both sides comprised a leader, a heavy weapon, and 5 troopers.

I used my smaller (3’x2’) board and set it up as a huge junkyard/recycling plant with loads of cover. The humans deployed in 3 groups (two lots of 2, and one lot of 3) and the droids deployed in 2 groups (one lot of 3 and one lot of 4).

Into The Parking Lot

Due to the amount of terrain both sides managed a couple of activations before shots were fired. The humans, deployed on a wider front, managed to get some troops around the flanks, forcing the smaller droid unit with the Leader into the middle. However, the large droid unit had deployed on a different flank and their numbers looked strong against the 2 man human team facing them.

The Droid Leader Commands

The humans came up through the parking lot and took fire from the droids. No casualties this time – the blasts struck the assorted junk and barricades. Locking and loading, they took up their positions and returned the gesture – one of the droids went down so it was first blood (Ed: oil?) to the humans.

Ctrl-Alt-Del

The droid leader had found himself in a difficult position. With two of the droid troopers (one of which went down under fire) he was taking crossfire as one human team took up position behind a large piece of junk and another team edged around behind some trashed vehicles. Then, bang! Down went the droid leader.

Droid Down!

And then in the following round, down went a couple more of the droids. I wasn’t convinced this was going to last 7 rounds. That said, the droids had managed to squeeze themselves into a good position and it was hard to see how the humans could advance on them without taking casualties. So a firefight ensured with both sides digging in.

The Droids Dig In

This firefight didn’t last long though. One the human teams took a casualty, and then so did another.

Man Down!

With the human position suddenly weakened the droids were able to move up and advance on the humans, despite having taken more casualties and losing their leader.

Working Around The Flanks

The game was starting to change. The droids managed to hit another human and down he went as well. On one of the flanks the humans had made good headway, but they now needed to fall back and consolidate or they would be picked off. The human leader ordered his men to take cover behind some barrels and crates. The droids moved on them, and a lucky shot took out the human leader! Just two troopers left.

Droids Bypass the Bodies

Then crafty shot from one of the human troopers dropped a droid and he rushed round, to outflank the final droid. As he did, his colleague put in a fresh clip and with gun at his hip, let rip and down went the last droid.

Game Over

Victory went to the humans. Just.

Black Ops is a great game. Once the shooting starts it can be quite deadly. A modelling project for early 2021 is to make some sci fi themed objective markers.

Slam! Dreadball: Kalimarin Ancients Versus Z’zor

Christmas Special!

Marcus reports on a Dreadball game with some teams he prepared earlier …

Recently you may have seen that I have been painting up some new Dreadball teams. I am a notoriously slow painter (this is partly because I don’t have a dedicated painting/modelling area), but I did promise a report on the game, so while the second coat of varnish is drying on the Nemion Oceanics, I broke out two teams I painted a while back: The Kalimarin Ancients (alien crustacea) and  the Z’zor (alien insectoids) for a game with Son Tzu.

A bit of background. Dreadball is a sci-fi sports game from Mantic games. I envision it as a bit of a cross between American football, there is a lot of rough stuff, notably slamming, and basketball.  As can be seen from the picture above, the game is played on a broadly rectangular pitch composed of hexagons. In fact the pitch actually looks more like one hexagon that has been stretched lengthwise. There are three strike zones in each half with the target hex at the furthest extremity from the centre. The two closest to the centre line can generate scores of one point from any hex except the furthest from the target, from which two points can be scored. Similarly, with the remaining zone, the hexes are worth three and four respectively.

A typical team has three types of player; Guards, who don’t hand the ball but are good at blocking and tackling; Strikers are good at stealing, passing and scoring; Jacks, do a bit of both. However, not all the teams have all the players.

In common with many games, each player has a stat-line. The stat line features values for movement, strength, skill, armour and speed.  The stat line values give a target figure for a success on a D6. A number of manoeuvres are available to the player, some of which may depend on a test against these values with a varying number of dice depending on circumstances. These include shooting, passing and slamming; a kind of tackle that you can do on opponents whether they have the ball or not. Often, if you double the target number, or for opposed rolls like a slam, double the opponents successes, you gain a positive result. These include a free move for a double on picking up the ball, additional fan checks on scoring (which may yield extra coaching dice) and temporarily or permanently removing an opponent from the field. Coaching dice are one use dice which may be added into any test at the players discretion, but are then lost.

Each player turn is called a rush in which the active player gets five actions. Players can add actions through the use of cards, which opponents might also use to interrupt the rush. Cards can also introduce random events. None more frustrating when having orchestrated a four point shot, you find that your opponent lays “The ball shatters” just when you are about to shoot! Finally, there are a number of special rules relating to individual players or teams.

In this game the Kalimarin Ancients have two types of guard; one good at holding opponents to make slams even nastier. They don’t have any jacks and are probably one of the better teams. The Z’zor have the usual mix, although both teams have a special MVP (Most Valuable Player, of star quality)

The set up varies at the players discretion but six players is the maximum legal number of players on the pitch. Note the word legal, it is not uncommon to sneak on extra players and if you can get away with it…

Scoring works on a net basis. If one team scores a 3 pointer and the other team replies with a 2 in their next rush, the net score will be +1 to the first team. Play continues in the manner of a tug of war in an attempt to either reach +7, when a team wins outright, or to have the best score after 14 rushes.

It was the Z’zor rush first (rush is a term from American football for your “turn” or series of plays during which you retain the ball). A striker picked up the ball launched down the centreline easily, but lost the ball on having to evade around an opponent twice. Unfortunately for the Z’zor, losing the ball so unexpectedly ended their first rush. Son Tzu, who thinks of himself as something of a genius, picked up the ball with a throw of 555, resulting in an extra action for the player in possession (three successes against his skill stat. Only a double is required to give an extra action).

Moving down pitch, with his second normal action he moved another player with a sprint action (double move value but each facing change also counts as against the move total as well as hexes moved). A 6 hex pass to the sprinting player, passing the throw and catch skill checks, and the Ancients are in the near three point zone, and score, (the 4 point hex being currently blocked).  He picks up some fan checks. (Three can be traded in for coaching dice)

On the third rush the Z’zor pick up the ball which scattered into the Ancients half.  A sprint up the field by a guard results in a slam on the second action in an attempt to clear the 4 point strike hex.

With a 5 dice check at 3+, surely the way ahead can be opened up? The 5 dice yield a paltry success, against the defenders roll, with the two guards squaring off. In the meantime the Z’zor take an action to slam a pesky striker in their own strike zone; but this time a glorious 5 successes is answered by the Ancients 4, so the striker is only pushed back. Unfortunately however, this left the defender out of position…But at the other end the Z’zor striker goes for a 3 pointer, scoring easily with 2 successes. He picks up a fan check for the extra success too. It’s all square!

Rush four, and the Ancients gain possession again, slicing down field into the now undefended 4 point zone. An Ancients guard attempts to put a put a Z’Zor out of the game, but falls over in the process. However, using a card from his hand for an extra action, the Ancients are able to move up and make a point strike, with two successes on a 551, and gains fan checks for that double.

At 4-0 to the Ancients, it’s not looking too healthy for the Z’zor, but a single strike in the 4 point zone can level things up. Having picked up the ball again, he Z’zor look to open up the 4 point zone, but 6 successes (any 6 rolled “explodes” to add an extra roll) are met by an opponent slam-back and another 6!  Foiled. The Z’zor MV, Ludwig, uses a card to get into the zone and go for the 3 point strike, but requiring 4 misses on a single dice with a 3! The ball scatters off the strike zone…

…from where the Ancient’s pick up the ball deep in their own half. A scything move of a sprint followed by a throw and a catch with just one success by a striker sets up a chance. The striker evades successfully and makes it to the zone, but loses a dice for moving and shooting in the same action, making a 3 point attempt; Good enough for a sudden death victory, on 3 dice with a success on 4+.

Rolling a 621 the Ancient’s just manage a score for the win.

So another lucky win for Sun Tzu, confirming his own opinion that he is the greatest. My dismal performance at this game continues. Surely I can do better? Will the newly painted Nemion Oceanics or the anarchic (read cheating; maybe that is the right style for me?) monkey team that we have named the Golden Banana’s prove my salvation? The Oceanics are now painted despite my glacially slow painting skills. The Banana’s are well on the way…or maybe I should just break out Red Alert again?

In the meantime here is an action picture of the completed Oceanics posed with a robot team; the Chromium Chargers including MVP DBR7 “Firewall”.

Petrified Forest

Jeremey adds more ‘real’ trees to make a Petrified Forest.

After building my large spooky dead tree , well I say building but it was more like nature built it and I just based it. I also took a dozen or so other cuttings from the dead bush to use as trees in a Dead or Petrified Forest.

Additional dead branches to act as trees

I started by basing these in exactly the same way as the large tree I did. A round wooden base appropriate to the size of the stick with a metal washer stuck on top to provide some weight. I’ve started to add weight to a lot of my terrain projects. It helps to stop taller pieces from being constantly knocked over during games.

Using the hot glue gun I then stuck a piece of the dead bush to each base and covered the whole base with the coloured bathroom sealant mix. If you saw my other post about the large tree you will remember I mixed far too much of the sealant, so it was useful to have these additional trees to base.

Just a bit of dry brushing and some flock

Once the base material had dried I dry brushed it with two other lighter brown colours to give some contrast. While I had the paint brushes out I also used a watered down solution of brown ink wash to go over all the freshly snapped of parts to make the wood look like it had been broken for a long while. The appearance of fresh sap wood is a dead give away, just ask any experienced tracker … ahem I then added a bit of flock and a few grass tuffs for good measure.

The cheapest dead forest you will see this year

Here is a wider shot of the whole forest complete with a unit on patrol. I’ve put them on my lighter desert mat but they go just as well on the grass one and I have some darker brown mat pieces to put the trees on to define an area of forest in games. Although I will also put these on my swamp mat as they look just the part for those areas you see in fantasy films were rising water as killed the trees, sort of the forest of doom or swamp of despair.

Work in Progress Wednesday

It was troopers and gaming aids for this Wednesday.

Steve finally managed to get around to rebasing some troopers, as Steve himself says “A while ago I decided to strip and re-paint some EM4 plastic colonial marines. I also cut away the old guns and bought some replacements.

EM4 Plastic Troopers with Weapon Swaps

John L has also been painting troopers in the form of a group of Spetsnaz he actually won in a Zona Alfa competition.

Footsore America Spetsnaz

And finally this week Tony F has created for himself some stat trackers for Lord of the Rings.

Lord of the Rings Stat Trackers

Tony explains these far better than I could: “I’ve made some gaming aids for Lord of the Rings games; these are stats trackers to record the special abilities of heroes and commanders using small D6. The original was 3D printed and then I’ve made moulds and cast them up in resin. The lettering and army badges are raised to make them easy to paint. I’ve painted some in appropriate colours for each army, and I’ve painted the ‘W’ for Wounds in red to differentiate it from the ‘W’ for Will (the other stats are Might and Fate).”

It will be interesting to see how these work. Tony is still looking at how to add the heroes name to the tracker.

Painting 6mm Armour using Contrast Paints

The latest innovation in hobby paints has been Citadel’s new Contrast Paints. These are fairly dilute acrylic paints, like a thick wash in consistency but with more pigment than a wash. The idea is to speed up the painting of armies by getting your shading and highlighting in one coat. Having tried them out I’ve been impressed so far, although they do need to be used on areas of heavy detail – they don’t really work on large flat areas when they can result in a very patchy finish.

I thought I’d give them a try on some 6mm AFVs to see how they worked and if they did speed things up. I’m using some Brigade Models 6mm Hammer’s Slammers vehicles to try them out on – nine Prosperity National Army tanks and APCs. These have plenty of surface detail so should be ideal.

All of the models were cleaned up, assembled and then given a good solid base coat of Halfords white car primer.

Stage 1 – Base Colour

The first colour I used was an overall coat of Agaros Dunes (desert sand, essentially). With the Contrast paints you need to take care that the paint goes into all of the nooks, crannies and panel lines – if not, when it dries you can be left with unsightly white spots. So make sure you brush along the direction of the panel lines, not across them. Try not to let the paint pool too much in one place either.

Stage 2 – Camouflage Coat

When dry, I followed this up with a camouflage coat of Militarum Green in irregular stripes across the hull, 3-4 stripes per vehicle. This needs to be reasonably thick, too thin and the colour doesn’t stand out enough.

Stage 3 – Tracks

I then used Gore-Grunta Fur (an orangey-brown) on the tracks – I painted one track on each vehicle, then went back and did the second track – it just gives the first one a chance to dry a bit and reduces the chance of finger smudges.

Stage 4 – Weapons

The only other painting on these models was to pick out some of the guns in silver, followed by a Nuln Oil (black) wash.

And that’s it – battle ready 6mm vehicles using just five paints (plus primer and varnish). I did consider giving them an overall drybrush of a pale stone colour (Citadel Terminatus Stone would be ideal) but they really are fine as they are. Excluding drying time, these took less than an hour so it’s a great way to paint large forces quickly.

She’s Got It Where It Counts

Stephen realises his childhood dream…

There comes a point in every sci-fi gamer’s career that his mind turns to only one thought: I want a spaceship.

I too, wanted a spaceship.

A spaceship on the table could be used for many things – perhaps an objective, perhaps just a bit of scenery.

I thought about scratch building. But it just seemed too ambitious. And I also thought the model may be too fragile as well. I rather like the ‘boiler plate’ aesthetic of Star Wars and to achieve that requires a lot of bits and pieces. I have some, but not enough for a whole spaceship. Then my mind turned to what injection plastic kits may already be available, but there’s not many in the appropriate scale and what there is can be quite expensive.

So I turned to Amazon.

I thought there would be more options than there were. Plenty of Star Wars stuff, with franchise prices. Then I found what I was looking for – a generic kid’s toy spaceship. Dimensions seemed about right, and at about a tenner, the price was worth taking a punt on.

When it arrived I was initially disappointed. Not because of the colour (it was always going to get a new paint job), nor the size (which was spot on). It was the material it was made from. I had hoped it would be made from hard plastic but it wasn’t. It was made from that same soft plastic that Airfix soldiers are made from.

Bummer.

My problem with this material is one of adhesion. I did intend on adding a few detailing bits but finding a glue that grips that plastic is hard. Ditto when it comes to paint. The walls of the model were quite thin and flexible and would easily bend and fling paint.

I was just going to forget about it and chalk it down to experience and be thankful I hadn’t wasted more than a tenner. So it languished in a cupboard for a few weeks.

Then I had an idea – expanding foam! I thought that if I fill the underside with expanding foam that may offer a bit of resistance to the flexibility and prevent any paint loss. So that’s what I did – fill the underside and cavities with expanding foam.

Once that had cured I cut it all flush and glued down the compartments. As I looked at it I thought it probably didn’t need any more details added or else it would look fussy, but I did want to add some better looking engine boosters. A couple of suitable looking bottle caps were found and they were superglued in place. The whole thing was then given a complete covering of khaki spray.

And so on to the painting. I decided to do it white. The khaki would provide a good base colour for depth and shade. Then came the dry-brushing. Lots of dry-brushing.

I went with a pale beige all over. Two coats of this. Then the white. The first going over with the white was all over, and the second layer was just on raised areas. This is so some of the beige and off-white showed through, making it look used and grubby.

An accent colour was then needed to give some contrast. It was between blue or red. I went with the Star Wars red.

Screens were painted black and then made to shine with a royal blue which was then picked out with a couple of lighter shades.

Finishing touches were to add a couple of spare decals.

I wanted the finished model to look generic. I didn’t want it looking overtly military (hence why no external guns and weapons were added – I can always argue they are on retractable mounts), but neither did I want it to look too civilian. As it is it can be used as a shuttle or as a freighter. Whatever is needed for the game at hand.

I’m glad I decided to slap some paint on it in the end, rather than give up on it. Looking at the finished piece I think I was right – it didn’t need any more detailing. The foam has certainly made the sides more rigid so time will tell if the paint comes off too easily or not.

I now have my spaceship.

 

Downscaling

Andy tackles some 15mm armour.

I’ve done a fair bit of 28mm figures and models recently, finishing off my French in Mexico collection. So, I thought a change of scale and subject was required.

Last year I picked up some 15mm Sci-Fi vehicles and figures. The figures and a couple of small vehicles ware intended for some Rogue Stars games but I also came into possession of a tank. I haven’t painted the figures yet, but have finished the vehicles and tank. Paints are mostly Vallejo or Army Painter (AP).

First up is the tank. This is a Brigade Models Rapier MBT, it comes as a 9-piece resin and metal kit:

After cleaning up any mould lines and vents, and checking the fit of the resin pieces the parts were washed in soapy water to remove any dust or mould release agent.

Once the hull and track units were assembled a little filler was required for a small gap between the hull and tracks, nothing too severe. The main gun also needed a little filing to fit the turret.

Once the turret was assembled the hull and turret were primed with Halfords grey primer and then base coated with a couple of coats of AP Soviet Green, touched up with WW2 Russian Uniform (which is almost an exact match). I then added some camouflage of German Camouflage Beige Brown. These were then washed with AP Military Shader and Soft Tone wash respectively. Tracks were painted with MiG Rubber & Tyres, hull gatling Gun Metal, brake lights Red and head lights Matt Black. The gatling, hull vents and fans, and what appear to be cooling fins on the turret were heavily washed with AP Dark Tone wash.

The model was given a couple of coats of matt varnish (Titans Hobby), once thoroughly dry I gloss varnished the panels where I planned to add the tank ID number, then applied these (from Brigade’s Vehicle Markings range) and then reapplied matt varnish over the top.

In Brigade’s range these tanks are used by Ander’s Legion; so, if I decide to field a full force of these (and Brigade release appropriate unit decals) I may have to do a little more work on the tank.
One of the smaller vehicles is also from the Brigade range, a Javelot Scout car. The Javelot has a resin body with metal wheels, hatch and gun turret.

I wanted to use this a Police or Paramilitary vehicle, so went with a Dark Blue Grey paint job, with AP dark tone wash. Tyres are MiG Rubber & Tyres. The model has windows at the sides, I tried layering shades of blue from light at the bottom to darker at the top to give the illusion of reflected sky. Headlights were painted Silver, indicators Fluorescent Orange and brake lights Red.

I added a couple of vehicle ID numbers, using the same gloss / matt varnish technique as used on the Rapier tank. If I ever find my box of transfers, I’ll have a rummage and see if I can find some Police or Gendarmerie decals.

The other is from GZG, a light hover truck. This is a two-part metal kit, upper body and hover skirt, with a choice of two drivers, one in helmet and one in fatigue cap. I haven’t painted the drivers yet.

I chose Olive Green for the main body, with Dark Grey for the skirt and seats in the cab. The cab and load bay floor were painted Gunmetal Grey as were some panels on the sides of the truck. Headlights, brake lights and indicators as the Javelot. I used some spare 1:300 scale Dutch Neutrality aircraft markings from Dom’s Decals on the front and sides of the truck.

Plague Bearers

Mark2 has been working on some Death Guard; he insists they aren’t based on what he sees out of his window while painting…

Just before lockdown the club were starting to organise games for the open day. When I saw Eric was going to run a Kill Team game, there were two things I had to do. 1. participate in Eric’s game (can’t do that at the moment), 2. finish painting my Death Guard Kill Team, now that I can do, and so I did!

The figures are painted using Citadel paints, including some of their technical range, which I used to produce the rust and grime. I had thought about including some of the Death Guard’s original pre-heresy colour, which is bone white, but decided go for the classic putrid green look. I’ve purposely used light fogging here as it helps to produce the grime and general dirty aged look of the figures. There are loads of excellent examples of painted death guard out there, better than mine but I find most are too clean. These guys are supposed to be stinking rusting hulks surrounded by flies, foul gases and smoke.

They’re based on the Pallid Hand sect, part of the second company of the Death Guard, which specialise in armoured attack. My brief back story for the team is they’re part of armoured recon and specialise in operating behind enemy lines, gathering intel and taking out key enemy personnel, but also pack enough punch to take out light vehicles and strong points if required.

The sergeant (Nex Morbus) is armed with a power fist, plasma gun and plague blade; he carries most of the heavy weapons to take out any strong points but can also mix it up hand to hand. The rest of the team are armed with early pattern bolters and carry plague knives, blight grenades and melta bombs. I’m currently adding to the team, working on some poxwalkers to use as cannon fodder for larger Kill Team games.

Can’t wait to see how they do, the Death Guard are tough but slow, so tactics against more mobile but heavily armed units will be a challenge. Going to try them out against my son’s imperial guard using my 40K city terrain, will send this in for another blog at some point.

Rubber Nightmares

Dave Sime makes some fiddly robots, and dedicates them to Jeremey!

Back a few years ago at a SELWG show I relieved Jeremey of the burden of taking back home his 9 box collection of VOTOMS Vol.02 Mechs, that had failed to sell in the Bring & Buy. As I recall, Jeremy did not have the time to carefully assemble them.

VOTOMS Mechs feature in a Japan anime series from the mid 1980’s. The series did not gain any traction outside of Japan. While a number of larger plastic models were produced during the series run, Takara Micro World produced a range of 1/144 scale models, probably in 2007.

At first glance in their box trays, just separate heads, trunks, arms, legs & weapons, pre-formed and painted, you think this is going to be a doddle. Alas NOT. They are made of some sort of soft ‘rubbery feel’ plastic which, even using my range of tweezers, were hard to grasp/control. They did not all fit together correctly, which required painstakingly slow micro surgery using the sharpest blades to correct. Even then some parts, especially the legs, would not stay in the correct position. The only adhesive that worked was rubber glue for the body parts, even then I had to wait for each part to set before continuing, and epoxy resin to adhere to the 2p coin bases. It actually took over two weeks to assemble them. When I had finished I thought never again !

They are 27mm in height, for representative scale purposes the first photograph includes a GZG 15mm figure I am currently painting, which is actually 17mm high and one of the crewmen for the mechs which are 14mm in height. In the anime each VOTOMS has a human operator who sits in the trunk. Depending on how Chris and I intend to use them, we can use them as mechs in Sci Fi games from 6mm to 15mm, possibly even at 28mm ? Crewed or not.

It was intended that they would have their debut at the Open Day end of June, but alas that’s not to be.

Virtually Meeting

Last Saturday, at Stephen’s suggestion, some club members held a ‘virtual’ club meeting; some played solo games or with family members at home, and three even managed to play a board game over Zoom. Here’s a round up of what went on.

Mark H, Mark J and Seán – Nightfighter
Mark H ran a three-player game over Zoom – he’s written it up fully in a separate report.

Marcus – Air Combat in the Gulf War
Marcus played a solo game of modern air combat using Wings at War; this will also be getting its own write-up soon.

Phil – Space Hulk
Phil broke out the new (ish) re-issue of Games Workshop’s Space Hulk with his eldest son; unpainted figures, really!

Stephen – Full Thrust
Stephen, whose idea this all was, went for some solo Full Thrust. Which just sounds all wrong…

Mark J – Kobolds and Cobblestones
Mark.2 played out a Fantasy rumble at the docks.

Tony F – Lord of the Rings
And finally, the webmaster played out a simple Lord of the Rings scenario (the one where Sean Bean/Boromir gets shot full of arrows defending Merry and Pippin).