Star Wars Reinforcement; Probe Droids, Speeder Bikes, Zero G Troopers

 A bit late for May the Fourth, but I hadn't even been working on these for that reason. So....serendipity. Probe droids and the bikers are some found stls printed out. I had a couple of rounds of resizing to try and make them match my other figs (it's hard to size sitting folks and comparing them to slightly hunched rifle firing ones). 

The zero - G troops are some old sculpts from Ground Zero Games. I *think* NAC but could be mistaken. They are definitely the previous generation of sculpt and have languished in my pile o lead for a LONG time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

15mm Star Wars: Rebel naval troops

I've had a slow burn (VERY SLOW) project to get some 15mm figs on the table for star wars action. These folks are meant to be rebel naval troops.....the poor shmucks who get dismantled in the 1st movie ever produced. 

They are a bit....under geared in the movie. I imagine that they are acting as a diplomatic honor guard more so than doing a hard assault. Naval troops I imagine are both for ship board security (and while at dock/port), but also form scratch forces of infantry when the full army (such that it is for the rebels) isn't nearby. Perfect setting for small scale gaming. 

6MMRPC: Week 24 GZG Space Contractors

These guys have been on the side of my paint table for the last 2 weeks. I find a lot of my figs I progress on in fits and starts as I agonize about colour choices. Historicals being a key exception because, hey, there are definite colors that should be used.







This crew of space laborers (from GZG) received high visibility suits, and I had been reading 'Outland' (the movie starring Sean Connery) early in the year and the workers were color coded to different jobs. I thought it a cool idea.

I got held up for a while hoping to figure out how to make some super cool gold like visor reflective effects.....but eventually just wanted to finish them off.

6MMRPC - week 1: lightbox & spiderbots

Despite joining up a bit late this week to 'the pledge' I had already managed to get in some productive hours. After a post on dropship horizon about light boxes (and previously on an oldhammer blog) I was interested in improving my photography and went through the (admittedly small) hassle of creating a light box.

A bit of cardboard recycling dumpster diving, and 3 bucks in dollar store purchases and I was done.


Armed with a variety of lamps from around the house, and took some pictures. The blue form was a printout of a background from the interweb. The first few pics didn't use it, but I was having trouble with the pics and wanted to see if it'd help.







My test bed is some GZG spiderbots I had, admittedly, finished a week or more ago. I still intend to paint a symbol on the top, but I'm undecided what to use for a force.

I wasn't super happy with the large shots. It's obvious that I need more light (MORE LIGHT IGOR!!). The speckles are loose flocking material from this weeks work....

What I have done this week is create bases for them. Steel washers, Elmer's walnut coloured wood filler, and some woodland scenic turf blend (lifted from Doug as he uses for his 28mm napoleonics). A bit different from my normal bases, so I'm deciding if I like them or not.

I'd like to figure out some sort of more urban or sci fi corridor base.....but i need to be able to do it on integral bases which most 15mm figs come with. Which likely means a putty or spread, and it won't be conducive to 'stamping' with some of the new fangled terrain stamps/impressions.


 Upon printing out the blue background I tried to take some more photos. I'm using a samsung nexus phone here, so nothing too amazing (besides the amazingness inherent in all smart phones).

It appears that if I tighten up A LOT on the model I can capture enough light for a decent shot. I may need to futz around with photo editing (sigh) in the future, but I'm going to look for some 'light solutions' first.

My last shot here is in my typical photo style. Close to the brightest light in the house, balanced in one hand.


15mm photography is pretty unforgiving and really makes you appreciate more the mad skillz of some of the other folks involved in the 6MMRPC

Gruntz! First game NAC vs Crusties

Troops not in game position....

I managed to meet up with a gamer via the gruntz yahoo group to try this rule set I've owned for perhaps a year, but not yet had a chance to play. Dan, who is in town for a short while from the East coast, jokingly suggested this may be the 3rd game ever played in Canada. Players seem a bit lean for sure.

Sideboard on my terrain storage boxes

We took a fair amount of time to get rolling, as we hadn't chosen armies and needed to print out some play cards. Once underway we played a 250 point game (mid sized) in about 4 hours. This included much chit chat, lots of rules look up, and playing with random activation which I think probably slows things a bit, but is way more interesting and fun. I expect that with practice the game would substantially speed up. Also helpful would be a bit more table space and the ability to have your cards on a sideboard or nearest edge, it'd be faster than turning over to consult your stats all the time (or indeed if you knew your army better).


On to the game!


Remember that all pics will be bigger if you click on them.

 Bottom of turn 1. All forces moved onto the board from the long edges. NAC humans start on the top, with 2 siler heavy tanks, 3 squads with full automatic weapon squad attachments, 2 mortars, and 2 heavy weapon teams.

The crusties are on the bottoms with 2 bare bones squads, 1 tall command mecha (on the left) and 5 smaller scout mecha in the centre and right. The crusties all were quite difficult to hit with high guard ratings.

 A better look at the NAC advancing with the Silers through the badlands on the edge of town.

 Bottom of turn 2. Both sides continue to advance at maximum speed. Ranges are quite short for effective fire combined with a decent ratio of terrain meant we could close quickly and relatively safely.

The humans have taken cover in the corn field on the right with their 2 heavy weapons and a gruntz squad. The crusties scout mech have all swung this way to focus on them.

The crusties mecha in winter white camo (cough cough) bouncing through the crate area by the tech park. A nano tech ruined building (complete blog lies/fluff) lies between them and their enemy. 

 Left flank we see the other crusty squad hiding in the hut agricultural area. In the distance the swarms of humans and tanks can be seen.

 Bottom of turn 3. On the left the infantry have largely avoided gunfire and continue to manuever towards each other. A siler and the command mecha have gone into hull down positions and are showering each other with gunfire. The mecha is avoiding most of the shots, and the siler is simply tanking all the hits.

On the right the scout mechs bound forward and find their weapon loadout is overkill for gruntz, but effective on the heavy weapon teams. The other siler shows up to demonstrate one hit, one kill shooting technique.

 The crusties have gotten 3 squads close to the humans lurking in front of the power plant. They/I intend to assault them (if only to learn the rules). I've lost a pic here but 2 squads were in within charge range (in the open) and had botched throwing grenades at the hunkered down human squad.

 Bottom of turn 4. More pressure on the humans on the right. Gunfire battles with the tanks and mecha continue.

The big swing in the game happened with some highly effective shooting from all the human squads before the crusties could activate their grunt squads. This is the wonder of random activation.....nothing is totally certain. The large amount of red in the centre of the board is all my lost troops; one squad annihilated, 1 halved.

 Another look at the trailing crustie squad moving up. Also in the distance we see the siler that is busy racking up scout mecha kills whenever it actually manages to hit them.

 The crusties move up and are within range of assaulting for the next turn.

 Turn 5. The pressure on the right has seen all the support weapons destroyed. The silar has moved back to protect it's flank and rear. We are down to 2 scout mecha, 1 of which is heavily damaged.

On the left the silar tank explodes in an exciting fashion but all the infantry are sufficietly far away. The command mecha is carrying a number of critical hits, reducing it's speed and armour/soak but is still a threat.

The crustie infantry squads on this flank are basically eliminated and survivors are retreating rapidly. The NAC are pursuing aggresively.

 Turn 6.
The crusties and humans on the right have seriously damaged one another in hand to hand combat. The crusties continue, over 3 activations, to make their mental rolls, and eventually outfight the humans (who fail their roll) and run away in condition brown. They flee off the table in their own activation.

Another scout mecha is destroyed, leaving 1 heavily damaged mecha.

The command mech on the left redeploys to the centre to fire at the silar, missing it (like most of the mecha shooting this turn). The silar, however, destroys the command mecha in return, and another exciting explosion almost kills the remnants of the crustie squad lurking at it's feet.

To the left we see the 2 scout mecha driving back the silar moments before one of them is destroyed by the silar secondary weapon system.

The humans are moments away from breaking.








Resolution
At the end of the game we assessed the table and I felt for sure the crusties had lost. When we calculated VP we found it was 8-7 with the humans squeaking out a win. Dan did note that it felt like a very close game. The lopsided nature of the last turn had coloured my vision a bit, and I agreed it could have gone either way for many turns. I think another turn would have swept the crusties away, but that's what time limits are for.

Thoughts
I'm hoping to get in another game soon, it's an interesting rule set that plays quite nicely. There were a few vague items in the rules, but nothing game stopping, and apparently there is some extensive notes/faqing that I haven't looked up which probably answers a lot of it.

Firing ranges seem a bit short, but that is an advantage as it encourages maneuvering rather than sitting and shooting. You can fire at double the rated range as well, but the penalty means you better be shooting at something big and slow (like a silar) or just plain lucky.

It seems fairly obvious that you can abuse the points building system, but I think as long as you are even handed and not min-maxing it shouldn't be an issue. It helps using other peoples thematic builds in this! For our game we just used a bunch of pre done cards hosted on the gruntomatic site. The card method with all stats on a single card is very useful as well. I expect warmachine players have known this for a long time.

GZG xmas 2012 order

This year, as in the last two, I managed to sneak in a GZG order right near the end of the offer. It was actually me 2 years ago which prompted Jon to clarify the offer expires at midnight GMT. I had some challenges making an order right before I was leaving the country and it ended up being pre midnight pacific but post midnight in the UK. Jon very kindly honoured the order....and clarified the position for the following year.

As always, most of the fun for the xmas orders is the goodie bag that you receive. Based on what you order (and how much) you get some freebies from Jon/GZG that help complement what you ordered.

This year I ordered up some of the pre-fab buildings, a bunch of shipping packages and containers to use for scatter terrain, and an air raft (I have recently picked up a copy of the mongoose traveller and have hopes of running this at some point. I figure air rafts have such utility that they are likely ubiquitous for explorer types).

For my surprise gifts I received:
1/. another air raft (sweet!)
2/. some additional scatter terrain (a bunch of barrels and more conical power/liquid containers plus one large crate)
3/. a set of heads to customize figs
4/. The cleverest addition: a ground mount of missles to help defend the base. I'm imagining these would be anti air missiles no doubt tied into the data generated from the large dish pre-fab. Another pre fab has an automated turret, for short range anti aircraft and anti missile (HARM missiles perhaps?) defense.

I'm hoping to get this cleaned and assembled shortly, although they may end up fairly far back on the painting queue. The queue tends to reshuffle often, so they might get lucky!

Here is the picture as lifted from the GZG site itself.