Fistful of Lead (or Zombies) Wednesday

The players only knew the dreaded Dry Gulch Gang were terrorizing the citizens of Lesterville. Even the sheriff was scared to venture from his office, but offered a considerable reward for bringing the infamous outlaws to Justice.
With that in mind, the 6 players deployed their own gangs in search of the Dry Gulch crew. All seemed normal until the outlaws in questions showed up. They were decidedly disheveled even for them, and walked with an awkward gate. Things got really weird when the first Dry Gulcher attacked a citizen, biting them!

Zombies!
We used the regular FfoL rules with a twist. When a black suit face card was played, players could move a zombie 8 inches however they wanted. One a red face, a group. A group consisted of any zombies an inch or closer together. The zombies only used an 8 sided dice, but the same zombie or group could be moved by multiple times, so swarms were a danger. Then, at the end of the turn, after all the players had moved, all the zombies were moved towards the closest non-zombie.

At first, the players used the zombies to attack each other or create more zombies. This tactic, however soon had most the citizens running around as drooling, blood crazed monsters. Soon, the players were just trying to survive.

Only a "kill" result would bring them down. Wounds and pins were ignored.
But, eventually the Dry Gulch gang was picked off, one by one. El Guappo and Johnny One-Leg were able to claim the reward.

Late xmas present from LUDstuff

I walked in last week and found some lovely presents sitting on my desk at work. Santa, I mean Warren of LUDstuff fame, made me some hex terrain to fit with all the Commands and Colors games we've been playing. If you follow the link to his site, you can see how he made it. I'll be taking the hills to my local Home Despot to match the paint, and then making a new terrain hex map to match (which I'll make a "How To" post about). You can kind of see my hex maker template in the background, above.

The rivers are especially nice. I can use them for more temperate climbs, too.

Warren's next project is a mammoth cave project. Can you say "Hollow Earth campaign"? How 'bout, "Dragon's den"?
Thanks again Mr. Lud....

Holiday Painting

Here's what painted over the break:

Lance Vortex, ace pilot and crack shot with a blaster. He'll be joining the ranks of Dash Dixon's Space Rangers.

Heroes and Villains for GASLIGHT. General Custer, hero of the Little Bighorn. Nigel Tuftnell, 4th Earl of Spindletap, stalwart chap and all around hero. Archduke Ladislas. on of the Czar's dandies, but a star with a rifle and the ladies. Finally Lucresia Fume, the Duchess D'Harme (boo, hiss).

Some fine ladies of the Empress's Own Elite Lady Hussars

And finally, I always try and get some more Landsknects done when I can. Here's what a unit looks like.

32 pikes and 6 shot. My fourth unit is almost done, then back to their enemies, the Swiss. Soon, my pets. Soon you shall taste blood.....

Holiday Gaming

Clanky goodness

Sixteen days off. No blogging time, but plenty of time to getting painting done (more on that next time) and even more time to game. Regular Thursday gaming has switched to Wednesday do to practice schedules.

Opening positions

The first night we worked some more on converting Commands and Colors to Fantasy. This was a play test to try out some of the tweaks. Again, worked great.

The elves and orcs were at it again. The elves had help from their centaur and Minotaur friends. The centaurs, at the opening, through great card selection were in the process of crushing the orc right. It looked like a quick game until the pointy ears luck ran out. All movement on that flank stopped, and the orcish counter attack was nasty. Combine with little movement on the Elvish right and a pounding from the orc heavies and it was over. Another green-skin victory. Like most of my C&C games it was a nail biter. Now, to paint some more troops!

The next Wednesday game happened between Christmas and New Years and I knew it would attract quite a crowd. Nothing pleases everyone like GASLIGHT.
That notorious nasty Professor Nightshade was at it again with his German and Russian flunkies. Only the brave forces of Britain, France and the United States stood in their way. The adventurous Sir Archibald Standpipe had captured the secret invasion plans from the League of Calamitous Intents's HQ, and was hiding in the village in the center of the board, awaiting rescue.

The very first turn began with the French Spyder blasting a big chunk on armor plating off the PN's Walking Monitor. Soon after, Russian forces invaded the town. Archduke Ladislaus found Standpipe and struggle ensued. It ended with bullet in the Arch Duke's heart.

Meanwhile, Rokkitruppen captured a fortified farmhouse to use as a forward fire base. Their short range repeaters proved useless to the firefight in the middle so they moved up.

The British, on the Allied right, couldn't get their Brute Class Land Ironclad started, but that didn't keep it from raining lead on the Professor's center. The U.S. forces on the left, spent most of their time cowering in the woods awaiting the Germans to their front. 

Under covering fire from the Tricycle Artillery, French forces routed the remaining Russians out of the town. French Marines killed off the exposed Rokkitruppen, but were slaughtered themselves by Nightshades clankers.

All in all, another great game. It was a slugfest the whole way through, and a marginal victory for the Allies with Standpipe escaping with the plans.

For another perspective, check out Lead Addict's view of the game.

Another note, look what Warren's making me!

The Holiday Paint table A-Z

The holidays have left me penniless. Combined with saving for a new house (with a new war room), I is broke. So, what a perfect time to make a dent in all those poor souls sitting half finished on my table. Here she is:

Could have taken a panoramic shot with my nifty camera but, eh?
a. Used and now useless brushes. Probably get recycled on the terrain side
b. Old plastic applesauce containers. They shall be wood mini Leonardo style tankettes.
c. Armorcast steam tank
d. The Boy's area
e. Barrels for terrain and resource locations
f. Landsknects mounted singularly for my Leonardo Tech game.
g. 15mm Dwarf flyer for Fantasy Commands and Colors
h. Ace Heroclix fig to be converted to Mammoth
i. Mage Knight Gatling gun off a to give my VSF Brits some extra fire power.
j. M.U.S.C.L.E. thing the Boy painted.
k. 7/8" washers I mount all my singles on.
l. a lamp post for something
m. Retro Sci Fi figs for my "Dash Dixon & the Galactic Rangers" games.
n. 10mm tank. Soon joining the ISA forces in a Crimson Skies land/air campaign
o. crossbow
p. Painted and based Viking. They haven't left the table because it's too cold to spray varnish on. They may         be here awhile.
q. Big lizard for GASLIGHT Venus game. Lizard's done. Just need to finish the coppola.
r. Old Foundry WW1 germans. Need a touch up to add to the RCW collection.
s. Flock containers
t. GW Knight getting a fresh life as a Leonardo Tech standard.
u. Old glue container that will make a fancy sci-fi thingy.
v. More Landsknects. These will end up on a group base for Renaissance battles.
w. Warmachine mechs. VSF
x. 15mm AK-47 figs for a game of the same name.
y. another Knight for the Song of Blades warbands.
z. where the paint goes
So many projects, so little time. But, as a wise man once told me "Remember, if you paint all your miniatures,...you'll die". So keep that lead pile high!

I'll be taking a break to game and paint over the next couple of weeks. Happy Holidays!

Aeronef Wednesday

I've had both the Aeronef miniatures by Brigade Models and the rules by Wessex games for a while, but never played the rules. They seems simple enough, but maybe a little too simple, so I always used a Full Thrust variant to play with sky-ships. Like a lot of wargamers, I fell in love with flying ships with "Sky Galleons of Mars" back in the late 80s. The rules were a bit cumbersome by today's standards but the idea of battleships tooling around the skies stuck.
A tipsy elf told me I'd be getting the Spartan Games "Dystopian Wars" mega-fleet in my stocking this year. I thought I'd give Aeronef a last chance before I dived into DW project.

The scenario involved a German Air Task Force making a bombing run on the English countryside in hopes of knocking out an X-Matter refining facility. Spies weren't share which town exactly, and German maps were sketchy, so best just to hit them all. The British fleet was there to stop them.
We struggled with both measuring (centimeters) as the ships crawled across the table, and the turn sequence. You do half your movement, then after everyone's gone, the other half.
The German bombing was abyssmal, but we managed to knock out 3 towns by the end. THe ero for the German side was the little Hamburg. That ship took a pounding and kept on flying. In the end she was boarded and had to surrender. The English dogs scuttled her.

The brits had there own stalwart, the Exeter. I made it my mission to pour as much lead as I could into her, but never went down. After the German fleet lost it's flagship, we headed home.
If we played again, we decided there needed to be some changes. Inches! Otherwise the ships went too slow. One move phase. With the added movement, you could drop it down. Boarding rules were weird too. Otherwise a fun game easy to use for cons.

Civil War Thursday

"Deploy behind that there wall, boys!"

I forgot how much I liked playing smaller scale Fire and Fury. As lovely as a table full of troops looks, being a able to finish a game in an evening is much more satisfying. This game, everyone commanded a division of three brigades, with some divisional artillery support and an extra cavalry unit for fun. The

Union side got some extra troops and canon to offset the Rebs combat bonuses.
It was a simple meeting engagement (a wargamers crutch, I know). My plan, on the Confederate side (we chose randomly, Kenny) was to use 2 brigades to pin down the Union on my left, take the town quickly to use as a strongpoint, then, throw most of our troops on the right and roll up.

Sweeping around the Right

Everything was going according to plan. The cavalry on the far right swept around the flank and managed to break up a couple of formations. The town was taken.

"Let's give them Blu-bellies a lickin'"

But then, an extremely obstinate Federal brigade on the Union far left (our right) refused to die. The earned the nickname "Iron Brigade". When they finally did break, the had managed to hold up the Confederate advance enough that my pinning units were destroyed, and they managed to re-deploy to counter any roll up the flank.

My poor brigades left defend the far left

In the end, it was decided the Rebs would consolidate in the town near nightfall, but ultimately fall back under cover of darkness.
We're getting ready to start an ACW campaign early next year using the "House Divided" boardgame for campaign moves and Fire and Fury for tabletop. We've done it before with great results.I've also picked up Ganesha Games "61-65" which looks great for small scale battles.