August Projects

 During August I worked on completing the remaining 25mm Science Fiction items that had not been done.  These included assembling the buildings I got from PaperTerrain.  I also purchased some aliens as noted in the previous blog post and found a tank and an infantry carrier at Wargame Vault.  I needed different vehicles for the forces opposing the Federation.  

The vehicles are made by Tomoko's paper miniatures.  He also has 2d 28mm soldiers.  However, the vehicles are definitely not 28mm.  Fortunately I was able to use Paintshop Pro to enlarge them to 143% of their original size which made them compatible with my 25/28mm figures.  The PDF file has several different camo schemes.  All of them in shades of grey except for the one I chose to use.  The infantry carrier appears to be an M113 APC.  I haven't checked it against the actual vehicle to verify if it is an exact copy or not.   I added the original sized turret from the tank model to convert it into an IFV.  Instead of using the paper tube mounting system for the turrets I again went with thumbtacks glued to the inside of the turret with a strip of cardstock glued across the top of the thumbtack and to the turret floor to keep the thumbtack in place.  The only other modification was to cut the bottom of the track assembly as a wider straight edge instead of the jagged pattern making them easier to assemble.  The files include detailed assembly diagrams unlike the free ones that I made for the Federation.

The buildings from PaperTerrain were also PDF files and include detailed assembly instructions and diagrams.   The number of buttresses, bays, windows, and door openings can be customized as desired.  

The following photos show the buildings and vehicles.  The miniatures are from Grenadier Models, Inc.  They are the licensed Traveler Imperial Marines Imperial Marines.  They are being used as the Pantharii Impeium Marines.  I believe Magister Militum  has the molds, but has not recast them as of this time.   In addition to the marines I also bought a set of the adventurer figures back when they were released.  In addition to the sets of marines, I recently purchased some additional figures that were not part of a complete set that I found on Ebay.  |Fortunately no one else bid against me and I was able to get them for about $2 per figure.  Otherwise, there were a few complete boxed sets being offered at $120 to $160 per set.  I now have about three dozen of them for a complete platoon.

Again these will be used for Wiley Games Galactic Heroes and Bigger Battles.

The four IFV's, one of the tanks, and some of the Pantharii Imperium Marines.

Comparison of the Pantharii and Federation IFV's

Two of the PaperTerrain buildings.  The one on the left will be a bank.  The one on the right will be the town administration building.

The casino complex

Market building on the left and two others.

Alien Invaders

 I had been looking for some figures to use for the aliens who are harassing the rift frontiers (right edge of the map of human space in an earlier post) of the Pantharii, Domain, and Federation.  I had looked at the Ralnai and Klackon ranges for Starguard, but decided against them.  Last week, I was browsing through Khurasan Miniatures 15mm sci fi range and found what I was looking for.  These were the Soriog.  

They are slightly shorter than the 28mm sci fi figures.  I placed the order on Monday and they arrived on the Saturday.  Kudos to Khurasan for speedy delivery.    For their environmental suits, I painted them light khaki, and used a medium brown for their weapons.  They were given a bright blue skin color for their faces and other parts of their warlock (a psionic).   The humans refer to them as the "blue meenees".  They have a prehensile tail, hands with a thumb and two fingers, and a raptor talon on their legs.

Wiley games printed a book of various sci fi races and I chose the Aeldarin for their characteristics.  These are based on not-space elves.  

The figures are organized into four squads of ten.  Consisting of a squad leader, seven other laser rifle armed infantry, a heavy laser, and a flamer.  There is four figure command team consisting of the commander, a warlock, and two junior officers.

The four squads with the command team in front.

The command team.  From left to right a junior officer, the warlock, the commander, and the other junior officer.

Repair Bots, buildings, and scatter terrain

spent last week assembling some more 28mm science fiction items.   These are free items from the website mentioned in previous posts. 

I added five more buildings to the previous two that I made.   They come in three different sidings - brick, planks, and panels and a variety of colors.   The panels consist of six with windows, two with ventilators/chimneys, and six solid that can be arranged in any order desired of twelve panels.  They also have a doorway and up to three dormers that can be added.  I made the two buildings with panels into a combined structure by adding the extra part provided for joining buildings together.  I left the bottom of the buildings open so that I can stack them and save storage space.

Now I am waiting for an order of business signs from Iliada Game Studio that I will be adding to various buildings that I have already made and some additional ones that I will be making that I just purchased from PaperTerrain.   These were announced back in March and are available already printed or in PDF format.  One of the sets includes three buildings that can be joined together or used separately.   He also has a wall and gate set and a set of storage containers.  The picture is from his website.  I purchased the tower, the two story building next to it,  the three stall market building next that and the three building combination in the lower ;right, along with the gate and wall set.  The tower and the individual buildings occupy about a six in square area as to the three modules in the combination set.  Except for the tower, each set includes exterior wall panels, buttresses, doors and bays that can be placed as desired or left off.  It appears that one of the wall sections has been shortened next to the gate in the lower right of the picture.  The sets look to be easy and quick to assemble.

The last picture is of the repair vehicles and bots, a pair of forklifts, and a couple of accumulators.  The vehicles and bots can be printed in different color sets if desired.   I chose to use the yellow set.  The repair vehicles consist of a control vehicle, two tool chests and an open trailer.

Federation armed forces.

I decided to spend some time working on another project, having spent the last couple of months painting 28mm fantasy figures.  I am still doing some painting, but I am not spending as much time doing so as I previously had.

For the past week and a half I have been assembling some tanks and IFV's for my 28mm science fiction figures.  These are from the free website that I previously mentioned.  free items   I had to use Paintshop Pro and import the camo scheme from ones that I previously made.  This took a couple of days to complete.

The models are better than the other one I had made, but the directions could use a couple of additional diagrams to help with assembling them.  They include a variety of detail parts and choice of weapons for the IFV and secondary armament for the tank.  I chose to use the smaller remote controlled turret for the IFV and chose the auto-cannon for it.  The tank also has a remote controlled turret, but I decided to not use it due to its large size.  I also added thumbtacks to the turrets to allow them to be rotated. and also made some other minor modifications to the locations of items on the tank turret and the IFV turret location.

I did post a picture of some of the figures in a previous post. See previous post They are from Anvil Industries.   These were available in a set called the Martian Orbital Fusiliers under their regiments range.  I purchased three of the 10 figure sets along with a six man heavy weapons set and a five man command set in order to get the free shipping.  Purchasing the two additional sets of 10 figures reduced the cost per set by four UK pounds.

This set of figures is no longer listed,, but all the parts to make the figures are still listed on their site.  These include the Gothic Void helmet, and torsos (the specialist weapon guy has the plain back and the rest have the standard back), armored legs and arms, and the Tesla disintegrator under the rifles with stocks range.

After priming them with white spray primer, I painted the figures with a rough wash of a bluish grey color to give them a similar camo pattern to the vehicles.  The wash left different parts of the figures with dark, medium, and light patches.

 The complete force.  Three tanks, four IFV's, one command squad with 11 figures and four ten man squads.   The ten man squads have a two man ATGM team, two team leaders with rifles, and six riflemen.  The command squad has 11 men armed with rifles.  This gives me 15 units and a commander for Wiley Games Bigger Battles rules.  These are for the Federation armed forces.  One of several factions of the Human Space setting which also includes the Panthari Imperium and the Domain.

  The tank. 150mm main gun with co-axial machinegun.

 IFV with ten man squad.  50mm main gun.

Close-up of the ten man squad.  The missile team is in the top right corner,  The heavy weapons man is just to the left of the figure at the top center. One of the two team leaders is at left center and the other is cut off at the right center.  The multi-part figures allow a variety of poses.  While there are some similar poses in the four squads they are all have minor differences.

28mm Science Fiction Buildings and Vehicles

I recently found out about a website with free science fiction buildings and vehicles that can be printed.   They have  a variety of items available.   So far I have assembled some trucks, cargo items and several buildings.



The trucks are one of the vehicles available.  They can be printed in four different colors and  each has a choice of four different loads - Water, Fuel, Open, and Covered.   The chassis are all the same consisting of the main frame, cab cover, four re-enforcements, six interior wheel parts, and two additional parts.   The different payloads can be the same color as the chassis or can be different.   The open truck is carrying most of the boxes.

There are a lot of other vehicles, including drop ships, and a freight hauling spaceship. The buildings I have assembled so far are the water tower, wind powered generator, solar panel, a pair of storage tanks, a landing pad, a greenhouse, a storage shed, and two of the habitats.   The habitats have three different types of sidings and each type is available in four or five colors with a total of seven different colors.   The farm set has an additional habitat in one of the siding types with a different color pattern.  This gives a total of fourteen different color and siding combinations.  I left the bottoms off of the habitats so that they can be stacked.   Each habitat is assembled with twelve panels has six solid side panels, six window side panels, and two chimney panels to choose from.   These can be arranged in any order.   Additional items that can be added are the door, up to three dormers, and if desired a part to connect multiple habitats together.

The prefab habitats.  The one on the left has a dormer added above the doorway.

Landing pad, greenhouse, shed and large pallet of boxes.

Water tower, wind powered generator, solar panel, and two storage tanks.

I still have five of the habitats to assemble, ten service droids with four small parts vehicles, and a few additional items from the farm set.   There are some other vehicles I am thinking of printing and assembling and am still undecided about making the cargo spaceship.  There are eleven different versions of the spaceship to choose from and the model has a total of 42 pages of parts to print.

All the items that I have printed and assembled so far are fairly easy to assemble and fit together very well.  While not any particular brand the cargo trucks and some of the vehicles could be used for present day 28mm skirmish games.  The link to the free items is Free items

Pacificon

Made it to Pacificon on Saturday.  There did not appear to be as many miniature or board games as last. year.   Nor did there seem to be as many people participating either.   There were quite a few Command and Colors games at the convention this year covering ancients, Napoleonics, ACW, and WW2

My first game may have been too early in the day as  no one signed up to play.  Fortunately the same set up was being used for the second game which had a full complement of players.  There were several other early games that had one or maybe two players where the gamemaster had to step in and play.

Below are some pictures of other games at the convention.   I was not able to get pictures of all of them.

Retreat From Moscow 1812 with 54mm figures.

Battle of Anzio in 15mm using Battleground rules.

Battle for Hoth using modified Bolt Action rules.  28mm

WW2 escape from Falise in 15mm using Fireteam

Western gunfight using Desparado rules.

This was the smuggler scenario with four factions.   The smugglers whose objective was to meet with a local gang at the tavern and deliver the contraband to them.   The third group was a rival gang who were trying to intercept the contraband for their own purposes.  The fourth group was the local law enforcement.   I used teams from the Galactic Heroes companion book.  The smugglers were the Kreng, the Ornks were the gang they were making the delivery to, the rebels were the other group and empire were the local law.

East Moss Landing.  Spaceport in background.  Ornks entered along main road just to the right.  Law enforcement entered along the road just to the left of the trees.

The Kreng ran into trouble early as the rebels opened fir on them putting wounds and/or shock markers on three of the five Kreng. Meanwhile the Ornks advanced through the town to the tavern.   They also came under fire from the rebels.   One of them went berserk  and charged the closest rebel.   The Ornk gang leader snuck into the tavern and waited for the contraband to arrive.   The wounded Kreng recovered and was so enraged by being wounded and seeing another team member killed that he tore the closest rebel apart in close combat,  He then attacked the next rebel and after a couple of rounds of combat tore him to pieces also.   The next turn he charged another rebel and did the same to him.   Mean while the Ornk had killed the rebel he had been fighting.

Another view of the town.  Rebels entered on the road between the lab (two story building) and the container yard.  Tavern is near the center of the picture to the left of the lab.

While all this was going on the law enforcement team had been slowly advancing towards the center of town.   One of them took out the last rebel with a long range shot.   They then headed for the tavern where they broke down the door and proceeded to open fire on the Ornk leader wounding him.  They would continue to fire at the Ornk leader for  several turns causing additional wounds and shock markers.   The Ornk leader finally succumbed to his wounds while making a recovery attempt.
The law enforcement team was plagued with faulty ammunition.   Throughout the game they would take shots at the Kreng, rebels and Ornks with almost half their shots resulting in out of ammo rolls.

While this was happening the Kreng were able to deliver the contraband to the Ornk specialist behind the tavern.    The Ornks then headed for the outskirts of town with the contraband and the Kreng returned to their ship to join the one team ember who had fled to it earlier following a failed shock recovery attempt.

Final results were victories for the Kreng and Ornks.   A total loss for the rebels with all of their team members dead with bits and pieces of most of them scattered about.   The law enforcement team claimed a political victory with one gang wiped out and the leader of the Ornks killed and all of their team members surviving.

The third game was set in a different location.   R. E. Howard, Inc and H. Beam Piper, Ltd.  had established a  joint mining operation n a barren moon.  Eventually they had a falling out and H. Beam Piper, Ltd had taken control of the mining operation.   R. E. Howard, Inc hired a group of mercenaries, Conan's Barbarians, to sized the mining facility.   The mercenaries had two squads of two four man fire teams each riding in an Infantry fighting vehicle equipped with a rail gun.   This was treated as a heavy laser in the rules.   The IFV's had heavy armor.   Both the mercenaries and the security force defending the mining base had light armor.

The security force had five four man teams.  Two of the teams had an Anti-tank rocket launcher and three riflemen, one team had a heavy blaster and three rifle men, and the other two teams only had four riflemen.   Both sides were armed with blaster rifles.

The mercenaries would win by eliminating the security force and/or capturing the power plant.  There was a road going through the mining base from the spaceport to the mines.  Vehicles could drive along it with no problem, but if the attempted to move off road there was a chance they could break through the ground surface and become stuck.   Infantry could move cross country without any problems.

The mercenaries dismounted outside of town and advanced on foot supported by the IFV's   They soon came under fire from the security force.  One IFV was disabled immediately after it put a round through the nearest building in an attempt to take out the guy who had fired on it.  It was eventually knocked out  The other used its railgun to support its team killing a couple of men on the security team.   Though several mercenaries were wounded or shaken, they eventually overcame the security force.   With half the security force dead and several others incapacitated due to wounds and shock hits the surviving members of the security team surrendered.

The mining facility.  Security force fire teams  

another view of the mining facility.   Conan's Barbarians in upper center of picture.

 

The mercenaries advance.  Security teams are actually inside the building.  The figures were moved to the roof after combat began to make it easier to keep track of who had acted.   One mercenary IFV has been disabled.  One squad is advancing along the road while the other is outside the picture on the left.  By the end of the game all the guys in the building were either out of action or wounded.

Catching up on the past few months

The past couple of months have been a bit busy.   I am finally getting around to posting on the blog.   There was a Laser and the Flame game at the South Bay game Club, a What a Tanker Game at the Miniature Wargaming Society of Sacramento, and an All Quiet on the Martian Front game at Fresno..

 I was on the Russian side for the What a Tanker game.   My T34 took out a couple of German tanks before being destroyed.   I then received an ISU152.   It had a very powerful gun in the rules, but unfortunately my die rolling was horrible and I couldn't cause enough damage to the Tiger I.  We traded shots at short range for several turns with the Tiger making almost all the saving throws, before finally causing enough damage to destroy the ISU.  

The Laser and the Flame game is a variant of the Sword and the Flame/  The [players had to recover control of the spaceship before it crashed into the home world.   The ship was infested with creatures that we had to eliminate as we worked our way through the ship trying to get to the bridge to regain control.   We captured the bridge only to find out that the power was off leaving us no choice but to work our way to engineering at the other end of the ship.   We were able to restore power and control by the final turn.   We each started with ten cyborgs.  Three of us were down to two at the end and the fourth player had four left.

Forward part of the ship.  Bridge on left, then computer room then main flight deck, and medical bay at bottom right.

Middle of the ship.  Flight deck on left, airlock at bottom, crew quarters at top, and hydroponics on the right.

Engineering room on the right.   We finally found the disconnected plug to the power supply after a hard fight and regained control of the ship.

For the Fresno Game I commanded an American battalion of two tank companies and an armored infantry company with an attached Hellcat platoon.   Our mission was to drive the Germans out of the town.   The Germans were caught in the middle when the Martian Tripods started attacking from their rear and flank.  By the end of the game the Germans had been wiped out.   They destroyed five of the eighteen tripods in exchange.   Our battalion had made it to the river when I ordered a halt and had us seek cover and go hull down.   It took the entire fire power of each tank company to kill a tripod.   Ron's company got one and I got another.   We also knocked out one with an airstrike and another with an artillery barrage.   At this point the game was called with the Martians having to regroup in the town.   We destroyed one more as they fell back  This allowed us to withdraw after losing the anti-tank gun platoon, some infantry and half a dozen tanks.   Final score was five kills each for the Germans and the Americans with the Martians in control of the battlefield.

The town we had to capture.

Our forces arrive.   Ron on the right flank, me on the left and Jesse following with the infantry company.

Tripods rampaging through the town.   The German tanks got too close to a Tripod when they destroyed it and lost five of their tanks in the explosion.


I have also painted some of my 28mm Scifi and fantasy figures.   The Scifi infantry are from Khurasan miniatures and will be Domain regular infantry.   The fantasy cavalry will be for the Dark One's army.


I have also finished painting and basing the 6mm Seven Years War cavalry and I am in the process of finishing the artillery and generals.   When the Heroics and Ros order arrives I will be able to finish the infantry by adding the last few grenadier units.  After that I am going to be painting a batch of Heroics and Ros 8mm Franco-Prussian War figures.

The following is from a set of Corps level army rules

Incident Near Al Shain

Al Shain is a city in Monokeros near the border with Kaelum and Musca.  Along the border there are several small forts and villages.  The following game took place near one of them.

The8.5x11 inch political map for the Vela campaign that I ran years ago.   There is a more detailed two foot by three foot hex map of the region.

I invited some friends over for a game day and bar-b-que on May 25th.  The first game used the Fistful of Lead rules and was a diplomatic mission..  An emissary was travelling from Kaelum to Monokeros with an important message.  He and his escort were trying to reach the safety of the border fort.   Agents from Musca were attempting to intercept them before they reached the fort as they passed near a local village.   A group of Dwarves from the nearby mountains were on a mission to retrieve a pair of gems that had been taken from them and used to adorn a statue in the village square.  There was also a group of bandits from the Ancha desert out for loot and hostages to ransom.  The scenario is intended for about six players, though it can be played with as few as three.   The villagers could also send for assistance from the fort garrison.   Gary Bitters commanded the villagers and the diplomatic Escort.   Mike O'Brien had the desert raiders and dwarves,  While I had the rangers from Musca.

 The calm before the storm  Over view of the table from the north on the evening before the game

 View from the west

 The local fort.   The buildings and fort are from the Desert village and Desert fort sets on Wargame Vault

View from the south

 View from the east.  The village militia asleep in their homes.

 The raiders arrive at the edge of the village.

The rangers and the escort spot each other

The rangers block the path in front of the diplomat and his escort.   I was able to take down their escort leader and wound the second in command with bow fire.  One of the village militia attempted to take out the hero with the rangers by sneaking up and attacking her from the flank only to be knocked dead by a backhand slap.  (rolled a twelve to hit on a d12 for a +2 to the wound roll added to the hero's additional two +1 to wound traits and a high die roll on the wound table)

The dwarves (top center) advance gets bogged down in an exchange of missile fire with a village archer

 Fighting near the town square.  Two of the raiders have been taken down to the left of center by bow fire from the elf..  Mike's raiders and dwarves eliminated most of the village militia.   Leaving only the village chieftain, his henchman, the wounded elf, and one or two of the militia grunts still alive.

 Another view of the action between the rangers and escort.

 The dwarves reach the edge of town.  One of them would get into the building to the left, then climb to the roof where he slew the archer.   He would then exit from the front of the building to attack the elven archer from behind.  The other dwarves at the center of the picture fighting the villager.   This combat went a number of rounds with the villager (who was a grunt) being able to hold off the dwarf hero and clan leader in hand-to-hand combat.  The melee ended when the elf shot at the group with her bow killing the villager and putting shock markers on the three dwarves.  The Dwarf crossbowmen are busy reloading after missing the archer on the building roof to the left.

Dwarf on the building roof on the left. the elven archer between the building and market stall facing the angry dwarves after shooting at them.  Several of the raiders are down with wounds.  Their hero has reached the statue and was able to pry one of the jeweled eyes loose.  We ended the game after this turn with Mike being declared the victor.  The archer laying on his side on the right indicates that he is inside the building.   The green markers indicate figures that have acted during the turn.

After lunch we played a game of Red Alert.   Mike jumped out to an early lead in the game mauling several of our fleet units.   We were playing scenario three from the rule book..  Gary and I took out his heavy battleship squadron and led for a brief time.   Mike regained the lead as he continued to heavily damage our units with great use of his combat and command cards.   Gary and I were finally able to win after being able to use our cards to advance our four center units over the course of two turns and take out Mikes fleet commander.   Two of our four units were eliminated in the process.  We all made a few mistakes as we haven't memorized all the rules yet.

Thanks to both Mike and Gary for a fun day of food and gaming.