Minicon 2014

Just back from Minicon 2014 in the heart of the shire's, a very small show but the closest to home for us Wyverners so always good to support fellow gamers and catch up with old friends even if the wargaming gods tried to keep us away with fallen trees and lashing rain.

We put on a Too Fat Lardies, Chain of Command game, with the French attempting to delay the German Onslaught, plenty of interest in the rules and a couple of potential new recruits to the TFL cause and our own club.

Our layout next to the chaps at Ainsty

During the break how could one resist the occasional purchase, I took a wander to our near neighbours and took the opportunity to add to the Starship Troopers project picking up the pumping stations set from the Ainsty guy's, along with various other odds and ends to modernise some of my existing terrain. More on that in future posts.

Ainsty have a great range of resin items for practically any period, all can be found here. http://ainstycastings.co.uk

Across from us were the chaps from Wargames Terrain Workshop, with a great range of Sci-fi terrain, I picked up the above alien nest, which I am sure will be worked into a scenario in the coming weeks.
You can find their stuff on the link below. well worth a visit.
http://wargamesterrainworkshop.co.uk/

Plenty here to keep me going for a few weeks.

Sunday night is zombie night

I always look forward to a zombie outing over at the Wyvern's Wargamers and this week was no exception, a simple game of lout the buildings and stay alive....
To opposing factions both on the look out for the last twinkie in town.....

The layout - Plenty of buildings to clear and each one bound to have extra "friends" in them

Things start badly for my family, sending my youngest daughter to clatter a zed was probably not best plan as she limps back holding here arm having been bitten in the first turn of the game.

Meanwhile at the other end of the table, the bikers hot wire a bin wagon and like a modern day pied piper drive round the rubbish strewn roads, making a right racket and flushing out plenty of zombies.

The bikers find themselves trapped in an alley, but a couple of pump actions and an AK make short work of the rotting opponents. Let's hope they have plenty of ammo.

Meanwhile I continue my shopping trip, let's hope the super marker still takes luncheon vounchers.

A great evenings fun, with some real tense moments as weapons break and guns run out of ammo and as for the kids, I am not sending them scavenging again, your tell them look for food and they come back with toys!!!!

Wargaming echoing reality?

Starship Troopers AAR #1 Welcome to Hell

The war against the alien menace of the Arachnid Empire is going badly for humanity and for the first time in history it looks like the entire species is heading for extinction. The only thing standing in the way of the advancing bug hordes are the brave men and women of the Mobile Infantry and Fleet.
An all out attack on our home world left tens of millions of citizens dead in the rubble of what was once the beautiful city of Buenos Aires, and now as we face our greatest threat, it is up to each and every one of us to stand fi rm and give no quarter, and put our faith and trust in the men and women of our armed forces.

Sky Marshal Dienes. Address to the Federation on the eve of the Klendathu drop

Klendathu surface.
D+0:15 Minutes
 

Echo Squad of the 173rd Invasion Company have landed badly on the planet surface of Klendathu and have become separated from the rest of the invasion force at Drop Zone Charlie. To compound matters their lieutenant has been killed during the drop and they are without a command structure. The squad is down its sergeant and now troopers on their very first drop into hostile territory must do what they can to survive until help arrives.

A platoon from Hanford Greys have picked up the distress signal sent out by Echo Squad and are on their way to help. Unfortunately for Echo Squad, bugs have antenna which can pick up and hone in on transmissions and their location has been detected. Now in a race against time Hanford's Greys must reach Echo Squad to escort them to the extraction point, before they are swamped by the approaching bugs massing on their perimeter.

Things go badly for the MI from the get go, hardly out of their deployment zone and a bug hole erupts in front of them. Many of the MI failed to react to the sudden appearance of the bugs and were unable to fire on the bugs before they closed with Hanford's Infantry.

Fortunately the lead units were experimental Exo-suits, their protective shells saved them from the razor sharp claws slashing at their suits, the bugs were put down by rapid Morita fire. Hanford breathed a sigh of relief. This was going to be one tough mission.

Meanwhile Echo squad faced off against a swarm of advancing Arachnids rushing towards their human prey. Echo squads rushed training had not prepared them for what they were facing (Rep 3) and they fired early and high.

Rescue force reorgansied throwing more troopers into the front line, to give them a clear fire zone.

The FedNet Reporter looked on giving a live stream of events back to Terra.

Hanford send first section forward to rescue Echo Squad, whilst a Javalin missile launcher collapses an approching Bug tunnel, before it can release it's deadly content.

1st section rush forward, on the look out for any approching Arachnids.

Menwhile echo squad were having a tough time of it, several bugs had been killed, but the bugs got ever closer, they just could not bring enough fire to bear, as the bugs closed, trooper Chang thought it was high time he would try out his M902F Frag grenade after all that's what they gave it to him for!!!

Chang unpins the grenade but drops the bloody thing at his feet, catching the full blast and making himself obviously dead, his fellow troopers duck back, for a few seconds the firing line is broken.

The bugs close with the still dazed troopers tearing a number of them limb from limb, 1st section moves fast in a frantic effort to support their beleagured colleagues, howver they soon had their own troubles as bugs appeared on either flank, mean while at the extraction zone, things are hotting up with a futher surge of bugs begins to press the defenders holding the line.

The Longbow Missile Launcher finds it's range and takes chunks of the advancing bugs.

After a number of frantic rounds whereby the MI finally won the activation round, the pressure was easing on the Federation, the remaining members of Echo squad had met up with, 1st Section and their combined firepower had driven off the waves of bugs sent against them, when suddenly the ground breaks open and another bug hole rips open. The bugs shrieked seeing the humans shoulder drop.

12 bugs pour out, many catching the troopers by surprise. the bugs faced with targets to their front and rear rush out in all directions which probably saved Echo Squad and it's rescuers from being wiped out to a man.

Man vs is Bug is no contest and several troopers are ripped apart, but the bug has one weakness it likes to dismember it's prey before seeking out it's next victim, the dead troopers brought their comrades valuable seconds to pour fire into the feasting bugs, now a bug vs a TW203a Morita Assault Rifle is a contest that the bug won't win....

The game draws to a close, the scarfice of many had aided the Mobile Infantry to win the day, that and a shed load of bullets, Missiles and Flame throwers.....

Hanford looked over the battefield and then at his watch, D+0:28 Minutes, less than 15 minutes had passed, this was nothing like boot camp.

This is the first in a number of linked campaign games following the exploits of Hanford's Grey's. I plan on using CR3 from Two Hour Wargames, with the traits and weapon detail from the Starship Troopers Miniatures game. 

As an initial play test it followed really well, after the second turn there was very little need to refer to the rule book, the bugs are tough the MI need to throw down alot of fire to slow their advance, support weopons such as the flame thrower and missile launcher are the key to keeping the bug at bay.

The tunnel generation rules need a little work to increase the random element and we increased the Missile fire power half way through to improve the MI lot a little.

All in all it was a lot of fun surprisingly there were only ever 24 bugs on the table at any one time, it felt like a lot more......

Klendathu Terrain

This was always intended to be a low cost project (apart from the figures) and as part of that I wanted to create suitable terrain to represent jagged rock formations depicted in the original movie.

I had some cork bark languishing in a draw, which with a quick spray and dry brush came up ok for low lying terrain but they did not feel hostile enough for the unwelcoming terrain of Klendathu.

Sunday I found myself in the local pet store I came across Mopani Root in the reptile section, it was on offer for £10 for two sections, but a few minutes with an axe and a lump hammer and I had enough for several rather large rock formations and several smaller ones, it breaks up in rather jagged pieces, giving the effect I was looking for and unlike cork it did not crumble.

For those with larger purchases in mind it can be purchased on the following website by the Kg.

www.rosewoodpet.com

 

I have decided to base mine,on plasticard to give them a firm footing,  a liberal quantity of No more Nails together with Milliput to give the larger peices some extra cold, followed by filler gave the base a completed feel, before a generous coating of PVA glue and sharp sand for a textured base.

A black under coat and a dry brusing using a couple of tester pots from the hardware store and all done ready for their first outing...

Starship Troopers - Power Suited Troopers

My plan behind the Starship Troopers Project is to try and use all those odds and ends that seem to be languishing at the foot of lead mountain.

Having finished the first batch of 1st Corp - Light Armoured Mobile Infantry, I thought I would compliment them with some Power Suited Troopers which have not seen the light of day for several years.

I envisage these to be used somewhere between the Mongoose CAP troopers and the larger Marauders (which are difficult to obtain these days.) or early protypes of the power suits?

I picked these up from Eureka several years ago, they have long since disappeared from the website, and I don't recall part of any particular range, they were one of those impulse purchases which I never really found a use for them, until now.

The castings themselves have few weapons, at best something akin to a flame thrower or Auto-Cannon, hardly enough to turn the Arachnid tide, but their design compliments the look and feel of the mobile Infantry and they could yet prove valuable in encounters on Klendathu.

Starship Troopers - Welcome to the Roughnecks

 It's an ugly planet, a Bug planet!

I have always had a hankering to game this movie, in particular the defence of Whiskey Outpost, it has touch of Zulu about it...

These have been languishing in the draw for a number of years, I thought it was high time they found their way to the table top espically given I failed to get even near them last year on the painting task list. Unfortunately I missed the boat with the miniatures game picking up a copy after Mongoose had discontinued the game and making back filling the required miniatures more difficult.

The box set contains the rulebook, card templates for vehicles and dropships (The card templates will need converting to miniatures in time); several d6 and d10 dice; 16 human Mobile Infantry troopers; and 20 alien Arachnid Warrior Bugs.

The human's MI are dressed in Power Armour inspired by the originally a novel by Robert Heinlein and the CGI cartoon series but my preference was for the live action movie of the early 90's.

I sold off the MI on ebay and purchased 1st Corp's Colonial Marines in 25mm perfect proxies for Raczak's Roughnecks in the movie and a little smaller to the "bugs" in the box which certainly makes them rather more intimidating on the table top.

I picked up all of the 1st Corps colonial packs, enough for 3 sections of Light Infantry and a couple of support weapons.

Radio Operator, Raczak and NCO.

"I only have one rule. Everyone fights. No one quits. You don't do your job, I'll shoot you myself."
 

 1st Section.

 "Come on you apes, you wanna live forever?"

2nd Section.

 "We must meet this threat with our valor, our blood, indeed with our very lives to ensure that human civilization, not insect, dominates this galaxy now and always!"

3rd Section.

 "I'm doing my part."

Heavy Weapon Section.

Javelin Missile Launcher, Inferno Support Flamer & Bugbroom Support Laser.

"Forget the insecticide, bring on the nukes!"

The Press.

"They're doing their part. Are you?
Join the Mobile Infantry and save the world. Service guarantees citizenship."

More than enough for a small scale outing on Planet P.

Painting Guide

Uniform - GW Codex Grey
Combat Vest - Vallejo 70995 German Grey
Back Pack - Foundry 11C Rawhide Light
Webbing - GW Abaddon Black
Weapons - GW Mithril Silver, Boltgun Metel, Vallejo 800 Gunmetal
Insignia - DdA 101 White
Flesh - GW Elf Flesh
Wash GW Agrax Earthshade
Basing - GW Rhinox Hide, Dry Brush Vallejo Desert Yellow, Iraqui Sand.

Next up Power Armour, bug holes and Klendathu terrain...

Redoubt Enterprises Ammunition Bearers - Yet more shock markers !!!!!

Given my earler posting about 2013 being the year of the marker base, how apt that the first real posting of 2014 is yet more shock bases for the RJW project.

I spotted these on the Redoubt Enterprises stand at Warfare back in November and whilst designed for the Zulu War a few minutes with the kraft knife and your pretty much have Russian Infantry...

The ammo boxes are also from Redoubt.

The surgeon is pretty period neutral, initially I thought about adding a operating table, but felt the floor creates a more front line feel.

 

The three completed marker bases, the third one could be used for shock or low ammo markers.

 

Heavy load, more ammo for the front to hold back the Japanese.

"A bloody day in the field"

"Soldiering on" 

All credit to Redoubt they have some of the most stylish designs in the market, the castings are showing a little wear and tear, but given the age hold up really well against more recent designs.

Next up real fighting units.... :-)