"So say we ALL!" (Skirmish Gaming in the BSG Universe--Part two)

Hello all!

I finally (almost) finished the OPFOR for the Colonial Marines. Of course I had to order more Cylons...20 didn't seem enough, so I doubled that!

The first 20!

The new 20!

There are some that I left with all of the detail on the head, those are the leaders of the five Centurion team. I figured that would be an easy way to differentiate them.

I cut and sanded all the detail off of the head of the bulk of the Centurion heads to allow for the red eye to be painted on the "face". These guys were real easy to paint! 

1. They are merely primed...
2. painted a base coat of Game Color Chainmail silver...
3. then Citadel black washed. 

Close up of one three-man fireteam for use with the GRUNTZ 15mm system...

These guys were all painted and based for an alien planet...the ground cloth I am going to use is the old felt from when we re-felted the pool table, its a maroon color and I have 8 feet of it!

All of the Colonials to face off against the Cylon forces...

This picture shows the size difference (which I believe to be accurate from the show) between the humans and the Centurions.

I'll post some pics when they are totally done!

Mounted police...

As some of you may know, last February I ran a Riot scenario for Ghengis con in Denver, CO.  (Mike from Rebel Minis put up a nice write up here.) It was a hit and I was asked to do it again this fall, but was unable to. I am excited to announce a return of this game in February 2014.

So, with all of the research I have been doing for this type of scenario, I discovered some things I had been missing from my law enforcement (LE) troops. Some departments have mounted crowd control forces. Things like this:


So I searched around for a suitable 15mm solution, and there were none to be found! Plan B involved me searching through my existing minis to see if I could find something close.  That's when my eye found some mounted men on horseback I bought from Rebel minis to use in my Red Dawn scenario in Ghenghis Con this past February.  I ended gaming the convoy ambush scene and didn't do the Hind helicopter chase scene, which was the original thought.

Think of this guy as an extra in "The Postman" with Kevin Costner.

I contacted Mike at Rebel, and he hooked me up with 20 horses and riders, and that is where I started. The horses are kitted out with a two front saddle pouches, two rear saddle bags, and a bedroll behind the saddle.  Most of those had to come off, as riot saddles are pretty simple.

These are the riders, the useful half (lower!) and the half I threw away (upper!).

I then removed the lower (from the waist down)  part of the riders...

giving me this!

I performed the delicate surgery on these riders using an x-acto razor saw as the nippers managed to mangle the first one and forcing me to putty it in order to look good!

After snipping the cops at the torso it was time for super glue!

The problem was that in all the pictures in which riot police are mounted, they do not carry shields (like roman cavalry or medieval knights) nor do they brandish firearms (so the shotgun and pistol toting officers in the pack were not useful for this purpose). I needed to repurpose some of my existing officers that I had already mounted in stands of three.  I tried to pick ones easier to replace, and some who were nearer the edge of the stand. While the picture below isn't super clear its easy to see the silver in the stands, those are from the new pack.

In the next installment....painted!

So say we all! Skirmish gaming in the BSG universe (Pt. 1)

 I really enjoyed the reboot of Battlestar Galactica (of course when I was in Junior HS, I enjoyed the original too!)  There were many great ground battles fought between the Colonial Marines and the new Cylon toasters (centurions). I would like to create a battle for some far flung listening outpost or some other excuse to fight...










My friends at Rebel Minis have some great figures that I feel would work wonderfully as Fleet Marines. They can be found here. I have only base-coated  these, more to come on those specifically. I think I need to order some more of these as I only have the one pack so far.

While at Historicon this year, I stopped by the Old Glory booth when I saw the magic word "sci-fi" minis...I found these Blue Moon figures to use as Cylons, with some slight modifications and painting wonderfulness...Here they are with only a base-coat and wash. They still need a gloss and highlights as well as an eye located somewhere on the chrome dome!

I still have some work to do (obviously) including the maps for the scenario and some scenery to fight over. Plus, if anyone knows of plans for a Raptor, that would be great...now off to watch some episodes to catch the flavor!  

More to come!

Tacticon 2013 (Denver, CO, USA)

Tacticon 2013 in Denver, CO

(Note: All of my games used the Force on Force ruleset, published by Ambush Alley Games.

Game 1: Blackhorse Riders

The first game I ran was on Friday night. It was a scenario based on a Philip Keith book called Blackhorse Riders.  The story was based on events of March 26th, 1970, when a company of soldiers were isolated and surrounded in War Zone C, near the Cambodian border. Another unit (Alpha Troop) was the only friendly unit even remotely close enough to assist the beleaguered company. The battle lasted hours (from 3p until 11pm) and we had the table surrounded my 7ft tall pipe and drape on three sides to encourage darkness. (My intent was to cover the top with black cloth and use LED lights as flares (flares were used historically to help the units fight their way back to friendly lines).

 There was a B-52 strike zone that the vehicles had to cross in the book. I was able to model this by using Pegasus Models craters that I found on Amazon.com and finished with Model Color paint, Citadel Sepia wash and their green flock. My friend Drew was nice enough to loan me his tree stands to use as jungle border.







 Unsuspecting Charlie Company as they recon their area...

The trap is sprung when the NVA player decides. (GM Note: Almost always the NVA player jumps the gun, but this is the soonest that anyone has done it.)  Note the two layers of bunkers, historically they were three or more deep.

The Charlie company player was very aggressive.  His name was Nathan, and he was a very savvy kid of 11 or 12.  He used his Sheridan tanks to destroy the bunkers, focusing on the ones with RPG stands. It didn't hurt that Nathan was rolling incredibly well!

Another bunker destroyed!

Charlie ended up fighting their way out, really not needing Alpha's (played by Nathan's dad Roger) help.

Game 2: ARVN in Trouble

In this game (played on Saturday morning) the ARVN stands were in trouble.  They had to hold on until relief forces of the 11th ACR rode in to rescue.

The NVA quickly hot spot jumped into the melee

ARVN not fairing well!

Here come the Cavalry, riding to the rescue!

They decided to close assault the NVA!

Tanks had to climb the hill in order to eliminate RPGs that were raining down on them.  The outcome was an NVA victory as the ARVN were wiped out to the last man.  Sad day for the ARVN Rangers.

Game 3: Knocking on Heaven's Door

 The NVA had set up a pair of mortars in Hill 223. They had been the ones harassing the 11th ACR in the last scenario!

The NVA sent reinforcements to protect them!

Third Marine Division was tasked to "take that hill" and they used their LVTP5s to do it.

T

Flanked by M48s, the Marines gave the NVA hell.

The NVA tried repeatedly to RPG or otherwise destroy the M48s.  The outcome was bad for the NVA.  The Marines rolled up the hill, killing all the way, and the NVA were unable to reinforce the team.  Marines eventually made it up to the mortars and rolled over the top; killing the NVA mortarmen!




I had a lot of fun this time running 3 games at this convention.  I am looking forward to the two conventions (Ghengis Con 2014 and Tacticon 2014) where I will focus on SCI-FI scenarios (with a riot game or two for good measure!)

Happy Wargaming!

M.

Vietnam-a-palooza

This group represents about a week's worth of work...

The top left group is Australians, top right is a bunch of NVA, and the main body is US Army soldiers. (Also in the picture is my cup from Rubios-their Tilapia tacos are amazing...and my ipad bag, aka "murse")

The Americans are a mix of Peter Pig, flashpoint, and some Battle Honors, I think. They cleaned up real nice!

Back view of a Peter Pig trooper.

NVA rocket man.

Close up of the NVA two man LMG team.

A not-so-great picture of an Aussie platoon commander.













So, I finally went out to Bass Pro Shop looking for some products for basing. I found a item called: Awesome 'possum natural nymph dubbing. It looks great as some ground clutter and is only $3.49 per pack and I only used a third of the small bag for all the guys you saw in the first pic.

I looked at the MIG weathering powder I am intending to use for my vehicles. There was one especially I purchased called Vietnam Earth. Its a reddish brown color that I was able to match fairly close to a Reaper paint color.



List of materials::

Woodlands Scenics Realistic Water
Reaper paints "oiled leather" base color
White glue (to affix the dubbing)
1/4" flat washers (bases)
Tube dispensed spackle (DAP Drydex ) which is used to fill in the washer around the base of the miniature.