Dispatches from the front XVIII - Cracking open the War Chest.

Blimey this coming out of lockdown is tiring, some many things to do before we even get into proper gaming, But plenty of pub garden planning to get the juices following as we enter into the summer months. 

The recent sell off of older projects has given me a war chest for gaming.... just don't tell the boss.

First up after a good chat with Fred at Two Shed's Fred, about some purpose built 6mm paddy fields and roads for the Red Phoenix Project for Korea and who knows maybe a dabble into Vietnam..... 

Great communication and service from Fred and Emily, well worth checking them out.

These were the first mock up's of the paddy fields, just what I had in mind high banks and a mix of water filled and planted. I can't wait to see these in the flesh in the coming weeks.

Custom orders is becoming quite a thing, as the Infamy and Sharp Practice games get larger I wanted to expand the Big Men in games. The guys at Blotz already had 1-10 but not some of the additional counters needed for Too Fat Lardies games. They have now created generic flags and an end of turn counter.

These are available on the Blotz Website

Meanwhile the prep for the Plains Wars continues apace, I did consider painting them on their sprues but in the end opted for mounting them on their bases adding in the filler and sand to allow me paint them in situ. My thinking was that the basing and dry brushing was likely to have landed on the painted figures... With over 100 stands, it looks rather daunting, but should be ok if I break them down into the sub units as tackling all in one go would be madness......   

With a change in the Covid regulations and being allowed to meet in each others gardens plans are underway to restart the LOTR campaign. It's been several months since any dice have been rolled, let's hope the hiatus results in some better results for the good guys as the forces of Mordor have had it their own way for the opening rounds.

If all of this was not enough a couple of extra's dropped on the mat to top up the painting queue. A few extra's from Warlord and Warbases for the Kings of Bronze and the Water Margin projects.

Meanwhile a couple of items coming up on the radar - The Stargrave Nickstarter was successful prompted plenty of interest in the gaming community with starter sets and freebee's. I only opted for the rules but have a couple of ideas.

Could it see a resurgence in the following... which have been off the table for more years than I care to remember.

Meanwhile one to keep an eye on in the days ahead, I have always be tempted by the French Foreign Legion and the latest 1898 Miniatures release looks very nice.

Initially six groups, 2 Command, others marching, skirmishing and firing,  I have the terrain but need to see what they have planned for the Arabs, I could cannibalise some of the Ottoman forces from the Napoleonic games, but really want to see what is planned and if they mix with other ranges on the market.

You can see more here. (20+) 1898 Miniaturas | Facebook

Lots to keep me occupied in the weeks ahead.

Hammerhead 2018 - Flash Gordon

Back from Hammerhead what is perhaps the best show on the circuit.

We opted for something a little easier to pick up and play largely due to the boot being filled with stuff for the table sale.

A simple four way fight between Flash, Vultan, Ming and the Aborians....

Having been moved back to the 28th April due to the snow. The show seemed really busy this year. For the first time we moved out of the main hall to the Gamers Lounge across the car park. It did not seem to effect footfall despite having to risk getting a soaking on the way over.

We had the benefit of carpet and proper sitting and a bar...

  

The show seems to hold peoples attention for far longer than most shows there was still plenty of activity past 3.00pm, I can only assume this is due to the amount of people that come to play or the chance to win £75 worth of gaming goodies with a raffle ticket issue for every game you play.

Great to see so many kids and families getting involved with gamers engaging with everyone who stopped by.

 

The game was well recieved by those who took a seat to play, with each session taking no more than 30-40 minutes it was fast and bloody. We were using the playtest version of the Star Eagle rules by Ganesha Games

They are somewhat behind on the launch date as they are releasing their own range of ships but the rules work for any range including Flash Gordon....

The War Rocket ships look great and with the rules having a simple rule mechanism we could rattle through the games pretty quickly holding peoples attention for each outing even when they did not know the rules.

Vultan and his Hawkmen pilots came out on top by the close of play due largely due to 'Rebecca' the fighter ace who beat us all soundly in every game.
Knocking up an impressive 5 kills.

A fun days gaming with plans afoot for next year.
Will Ming be back?

Saturday morning round up.

Somewhat late in posting I thought I would kick off the Saturday morning update with the Salute Loot. Rather restrained this year, but there seemed little point in adding to the lead pile when painting time has been so thin lately, however some good additions to the terrian stock first of which are some new palm trees from from the guys at  http://emperortoadsemporium.com/

All hand made, I do need to file down or cover the underside as the mountings are not quite flush with the base in some cases. But they give a far better feel for the desert table and will cross over into any of the jungle settings which seems to be creeping into the projects of late.

I picked up a couple of swamps and Marshes from Magneticdisplays.co.uk

They need some extra flock to compliment the ones I have already enhanced and will help fill out the games table for Ghost Archipelago.

Not technically a Salute purchase but when I aged another year the kids brought me the Shrine Pack from. www.adrianswalls.com

A great addition to the Russo-Japanese or Water Margin Project, over time I will base it up to match the existing collection.

On the figures front I picked up some additional cavalry for the the Haiti project together with a 4 Pdr for the French or Free Army with a few head swaps. Together with a company of Regulars, when I will get to these who knows?

I was pleased to hear that there are plans afoot to increase the range for Haiti with a pack of slaves with pike's, Spanish command packs and some Haitian personalities. No details on when but it sounds promising.

 

Hammerhead next weekend and the Wyverns are putting on a Flash Gordon game using the forthcoming Star Eagles rules from Ganesha Games, a kickerstarter project now several months behind. A quick and simple ruleset using the SOBH rule mechanism, as a backer of the project I have a draft rule set and they should be perfect for a number of short 45 minute games.

If you are around next Saturday stop by for a natter and stop Ming and his evil plans.

Asteroids.... On the cheap....

With Hammerhead less than a week away, the Wyverns will once again be on display...

This year we will be venturing back to the time of vintage sci-fi and Flash Gordon.

The Star Eagle Rules finally landed yesterday, several months late... But just in time to be able to be printed, read and the templates created.

Time for everyone to take a squadron of Rocket Ships and fight for Mongo!!!

To break up the playing area. I wanted to put a asteriod field together, but Galeforce Nine's offering was simply not cost effective - £24 for 5 floating asteroids... You would need to spend over £200 to get a reasonable feel. So it was suggested larva rock for BBQ's might do the trick.

£10.99 gets you around 3KG of rubble in a bag....  

You will need to sort the more rounder chunks from the others which can only be described as house bricks, but in my case at least 2 thirds of the bag was suitable for my needs. 

They will need soaking and cleaning up to remove the dust and I will probably give them a dry brush and a varnish over time.

I ordered some Hawk flight stands came to about £15.00 for 16 stands. Which should be stable enough to hold the asteroids.

Many of the 'Rocks' come with holes deep enough to add the stands, but I shall probably look to drill them and glue the stands in to give them some stability adding in some extra's around the base to give the idea of mass.

When you compare them to the War Rocket Class Rocketships you get a reasonable idea of the size of each piece of floating space rock.

All together this comes to around £30.00, which feels far more suitable.
Lets just hope they don't fall to bits when I drill the holes, still worse case I guess they can always go back on the BBQ should we every get a dry day again....

Star Eagles - Playtest 2.

A little behind on the posts but finally a few minutes to report back on the recent Star Eagles run through. A simple affair with the newly commissioned War Ricket Ajax sent off on a mission to attack the the capital of Frigia, the Ice kingdom ruled by Queen Fria.

Flash and his allies set off to intercept it.

For this encounter added in a couple new skills for pilots and I increased the quality scores, which in retrospect I should have kept at Q4 for your average pilot by moving to Q3 there were very few misses on the night.

Ajax and it's escort move towards the Frigian Capital.

The lightly armed Frigian fighters move to intercept the Imperial forces with Flash in support.

The Frigian craft are swept aside. Flash sends out a transmission for help.

The Hawkmen Squadron enters the table and make their prescence felt, destroying an Imperial fighter.

After some very unluckly dice for Ming where he manages to roll early double fails two turns in a row, Flash evades the imperial fighters and tails the Imperial bomber firing his blasters at short range. The turrets of Ajax inflict minimal damage in return.

In true Saturday morning TV style, Flash brings down Ajax with less than a minute or two to spare just as it was lining up for it's bombing run.

It's been quite a gap in between games but Star Eagles is quick to pick up and the game has some very subtle rules that keeps players interested along the way, unlike other Songs of Blades rules, once activated a ship can perform its move without the need to use an action, actions are only required to perform special moves such as firing or special moves.

When tailing and with aimed fire you find yourself pretty much out of the fight very quickly but long range and side fighters stick around for a while before they are back in the box. Watch out for flying through unactivated enemy ships who take pot shots at you as cross their arc that can be annoying.

There are a couple of areas which need some clarity or perhaps a deeper understanding of the rules.

In particular ships with multiple weapon systems and whether once action allows you to fire all guns?

The question of height given the over and under taking between Flash and the War Rocket at the end and does the enemy get a free shot when you leave his arc rather than simply passing through?

But all in all a good game, I plan on pulling together reference cards for each fighter and introducing a few more weapon variables together with introducing player strategy cards in the next game to see how they change the dog fights.

A fun nights gaming and plenty of action. 

You should be Flash and Star Eagles making an appearance at Hammerhead in March let's hope the Kickstarter is not to delayed.

War Rocket Ajax

With a club outing this evening I wanted to try and see how a larger Crusier type would fair.
From the first play test, fighters were mighty fast so how would a larger craft be handled under the rules?

Another casting from the chaps at Hydra and their War Rocket range and perfect to represent War Rocket Ajax from the Flash Gordon movie of the 80's.

It is a beast 4x the size of the other ships with 3 turrets and 2 front facing lasers. Full AAR to follow.

Star Eagles Latest News

This Kickstarter is a little on the late side but I was heartened to received the following update for Star Eagles.
 

Sorry for the slow rate of updates.  I know it has been frustrating for you all waiting for some news on the project.   Not wanting to make excuses, but my day job decided I was not working hard enough and has been sending me all over Asia for the past few months to deal with manufacturing problems. Things have final returned to normal and I can get back to focusing on finishing this project.  Normaly I am very responsive on my KS projects and I am sorry for the lack of more frequent updates. 

Production of the minis will begin this month, I have finalized the scaling of most of the ships and will be sending them off for production later this week. Based on where I am now, I expect the revised timeline is to have the KS shipping in later part of December.   

I am also working with Litko to have the move templates and counters made of Acrylic rather than cardboard. This will be a perk for the delay in the project.  Hopefully can show off some of these in a few weeks. 

In regards to the rules, I have received a lot of playtest comments and it seems the inititaive aspect of the game is causing a lot of confusion.   I have been rework the initiative mechanics to enhance the flow of the game and make it easier to understand.   I estimate I need about another two weeks to finish the rules and then I’ll be ready to release the most current version for all to see.  I will then wait for another round of feedback before passing it off to Andrea for formatting.   I think the revisions improve the game a lot and make it evn better than before. The feeling of a dogfight will be even more intense.

This does give me the opportunity to paint up a couple of items hanging around the paint table, I would much prefer to have a refined product than rushed out with holes in the rules and poor finishing to the production.

Carrying on the Alex Raymond - Flash Gordon theme, I thought I would paint up these War Rocket Mini's as Vultan's Fighters, Hawkmen on their own are not enough to protect Sky City from Ming's War Rocket's, although how they they got into the cockpit with their wings is one for me to think about...

I opted for a couple of shades of gold with white strips for effect, they blend with the mini's I painted several years ago which have been in storage for several years and looking at some of the older pic's could do wth a make a make over as my painting style then was rather flat.
Perhaps one day they will get a repaint but for now the new fighters will be gracing the table on Sunday.

Gordon's alive

And hiding out in Hay on Wye....

 

A few days away in Hay on Wye or the "Town of Books" as it is known to bibliophiles. Whilst it is all to easy to jump on to Amazon and within a couple of clicks you have a full basket, there is something quite satisfying about hunting down titles a little more off the beaten track. 

The Internet has certainly taken it's toll on Hay and there are far fewer book shops than I remember as a kid, there are still around 12 books shops many housing extensive military sections many of which include a number of titles never seen on a google search engine. 

As the rain beats down (it is Wales) what better way to spend a sunday.

Apart from several new purchases on Egypt and Haiti which I have slipped on to the bookshelf, I spotted these tucked away in one of the less occupied areas of one of the book shops. The complete works of Alex Raymond's -Flash Gordon what a find and perfect timing.

On my return home the chaps at Hydra Miniatures had delivered my latest purchases from their War Rocket Range, which I shall be using the Star Eagle Rules.

After the last brusing encounter I figured I needed something a little more bulky for Ming's forces to defend and the Class 4 War Rocket will do just the job to represent Ajax.

I also picked up some Pirate fighters which look very slick perfect for whizzing round the table.

Settling down to read the opening episodes the first story line involves an attack by Gyro's on the Capital. - Looks like another faction in the offing.

Star Eagles Play Test - Flash Gordon Style

Having recently backed Star Eagles the latest offering from Ganesha Games I was pleased to receive a copy of the beta rules to run through while the real deal arrives in September.

Star Eagles is a science fiction action game of futuristic space fighter combat. The rules are designed for players to control a squadron of 4-12 ships. Great because that is my entire Flash Gordon collection.

These have been in cold storage for several years.

The rule are mechanics are very comfortable for those of you familar with the Songs of Blades and Heroes rule stable. Each ship has a minimum move, with succesful rolls allowing you to carry out special moves or firing. Too many special moves and you find yourself quickly running out of actions as the nippy fighters wizz round the back of you....

In our first game I drew up some basic stats for Flash, 3 Frigian Fighters - fast and lightly armoured and some slower but heavier armed Arborian Medium Fighters vs Ming's fighters and medium attack craft.

Mings Medium attack craft had a longer range then the rest but were slower. However even long range laser fire can inflict damage and the Arborians took a hit on round one - A sign of things to come.

You have the option to use sustained fire but it does leave you vunerable as it takes an action to recharge.

Flash and his rebel forces rush to engage Mings fighters, players have the option of  "evading" which can help with your defence rolls.

Ming plays a blinder moving up fast and switching to evade mode which results in many of the opening rebel salvo missing. The formations start to break up as fighters look to get in on the tail of the enemy as this gives you a substantial bonus. 

Flash gets into real trouble with enemy craft to his front and rear, but able to take 4 hits and a good quality pilot he manages to hold off a number of laser blasts.

Hits start to mount up, one of the great things about the rules is that fighters stick around without them going straight back in the box. they are fast and we had a number of instances where they would sweep in fire a blast and be out of arc before the larger ships could react.... Just what I wanted for a rule set.

 

Two hours in and it was all over 2 of Mings ships were lost to 5 of the rebels, Mongo would have to be liberated another day.

Flash limps home....

A great addition to the SBH family, simple mechanics and within the first turn we had the rules largely committed to memory... Given this was our first outing the rules handled over 20 ships and we acheived a conclusion in two hours.

There is plenty of scope to make the pilots and ships your own with separate traits and characteristics.

A great new rule set - but watch your six...

Ganesha Games - Star Eagle Kickstarter

Ever since picking up some of War Rockets space fighters several years ago I have been on the lookout for a decent set of Space Combat rules - Well Ganesha Games latest offering on Kickstarter just might do the trick.

Star Eagles is a science fiction action game of futuristic space fighter combat that allows you to play out the battles from your favourite books, movies, and TV shows. In a standard game, each player controls a squadron of 4-12 ships competing in exciting, objective-based missions in space, on moons, and in the atmosphere of planets. The game is easy to learn, yet tactically rich with many options that provide variety without bogging down the pace. 

Players build their squadron from a variety of small craft ranging from nimble, yet fragile, light fighters all the way up to larger gunboats and corvettes.

With what appears to be a standalone ship building element I should be able to draw up stats for the Flash Gordon Fleets, although Ganesha will be producing two full sets of miniatures representing the two main adversaries, the mysterious and technologically advanced S’Sekai, and the loosely aligned Confederate Stars, made up of former earth colonies and a few independent alien homeworlds. 

The Kickstarter campaign is already fully funded and has a planned shipping date of September 2017. You can back it Here.

Ming's Fighter Squadrons.

Class II War Rockets

Flash Gordon and Fighters from Frigia

Arborian Fighters