Xin's Lair

2012-01-15T23:49:00.001-05:00

Pledge update

January
Purchased: 0
Painted :
- 10 15mm Haystacks
-10 28mm Spiders

The Pledge

2012-01-02T23:15:00.002-05:00

Happy New Year everyone. I hope you had a good New Years.

It's now 2012 and I have to stop wasting time with my Hobby. I spend a ridiculous amount of money on stuff that never gets painted or played with. This year I'm gonna start making a dent in that pile of unpainted lead/plastic/resin.

I'm taking "the pledge". The pledge is a New Year's Resolution or a commitment to paint more figures than you buy. Some people are very aggressive about it, like painting 10 for everyone they buy. Or more casual about it say 2 for 1. I don't want to go crazy here, and over commit, but I pledge to paint in total more figures than I buy.

Just achieving that goal will be an improvement over 2011. I have some other New Year's resolutions better manage my time/eat healthy/exercise/ lose weight, but who doesn't have a few of those.

So lets start a tally:

January 2012
Bought: 0 (thankfully my last minute purchases in Dec made it in before New Years :P )
Painted: 10 Resin 15mm haystacks. (Really only counts as 1, they are very easy)

Cheers, Xin

Some D&D Terrain

2011-10-26T22:41:00.005-05:00

I am dipping my toe back into the Dungeons and Dragons pond after about a 20 year break. I'm trying 4 edition. It's a big change from 2nd ed when I last played, but I like it. I've been wargaming since I last played D&D and one thing that held me back from D&D was going back to drawing terrain on an erasable mat.

I love making terrain and the modeling aspect of wargaming almost as much as wargaming. So I didn't want to give up playing on nice looking tabletops. At first I tried a few skirmishes using no battlemat. Just replaced squares with inches. It works to a degree that you can make a go of it but not without issues. But I was gonna also try using the battlemat.

Last night I was putting together an adventure for my friends and I thought I'd print out some Dungeon tiles or something. I couldn't find anything I liked and was about to toss in the towel when inspiration struck. I could scratch out a grid on pink foam board, slap on some gray paint and I would be in business. Shouldn't take any time at all.....

Well it was much easier than I thought, looked much better than I hoped, but that led to....Mission Creep. Once I got going, my project kept getting more elaborate and elaborate. I didn't make my 12 midnight bed time, but 2 is not bad, right? Sigh. Well the results are below.

This is the entrance to the dead Wizards Lair that has been taken over by forces unknown. The stalwart PC's have been hired to clean it out. We are just going thru an adventure to learn the mechanics with minimal roleplay. 4e is a lot to learn. This is the ledge on the side of a cliff entrance to the wizards lair. Next week I will build interior boards.

Cheers, Xin

The Mighty Eighth Airforce

2011-05-26T23:38:00.011-05:00

This past April for spring break I drove the family to Florida. We've done this before and I've seen this huge B-47 Bomber right off 95 in Savanah GA. I always wanted to stop but you know it's a long drive from NJ to FL. Anyway we were making really good time, so I saw the bomber and pulled off.

That's when I found the 8th Airforce Museum, and what a great find! Outside in the parking lot they had an F-4 Phantom and a Mig-17

I parked and went in since we had the time. I said to my kids, who groaned a bit, "It's Daddy's vacation too, sometimes we will do boring stuff".
This place is great and well worth the stop. The front section has lots of displays about the lead up to the war and our entry into the war. Once past that you get to the "airfield". They have the main room sort of like a airfield from Britain. Concret floor with oil stains, tire marks. Walls painted with scenes of the airfield. There's a quasent hut for the flight brief which is actually the begining of a Multimedia Flight exprience, From brief to bomb run and back to England.

Also in the big room is a B-17 that is being restored. I think it's about 85% done. This thing is big and awesome.
Lots of other cool stuff in the room. There's this huge diorama of an Airfield. This thing is cool and big. About 20x30 feet.Another diorama on a bomb run.
There's a lot of other things here, but we ran out of time, and a reason to go back. If you have the time, please stop, you won't regret it.

Here's all the pictures I took, enjoy.

Cheers, Xin

Historicon 2010 Day 0

2010-07-08T00:32:00.009-05:00

It's late(almost 2am) and everyone is asleep, but me. I thought I'd share some of Day 0, (convention starts tomorrow, Thursday).

First Impression:
The Radisson is ok. Some would say a step up from the host, but not a big step, but up, none the less. Waiting for the elevators is annoying, 1 of the 3 seems out of order.

Parking I think will be an issue as the lot doesn't seem big. Maybe there is a side lot I haven't seen yet.

The pool, while nice, is not as good as the Host. It is sort of in the middle of a parking lot. It has a fence around it, but not as integral to the hotel as the host is.

The other hotel is the Scanticon(odd name) and I haven't seen a room but was told they were decent.

In both hotels/convention center. the A/C is struggling to compete with the heat. If you were looking for better A/C than the host, I haven't seen it. But I free admit it is hot as hell outside and any A/C would be hard pressed to keep up. In my room I have it cranked and its nice, but I will not be spending much time here.

Food, expensive hotel food only so far. I assume there will be food vendors about, but not sure. Went to Chili's, not cheap either.

The convention center is under the Scanticon, 1st floor down is a cavernous open area where there will be tournament and regular gaming. It's a really big room.

Registration was a pain in the ass. I did not pre-register but am scheduled to run a game. At 7pm they had Pre-Reg/ GameMasters/ Walkup Registration windows open. Kudos to them for that. Lots of people on these lines very crowded for a "night before". That's when the party ends.

I asked 2 different "staff" before I got on line at the GameMasters Desk, could I get a flea market table, and badges for my kids at the GM desk. Both said yes. Waited in line, and when I got to the counter, of course they couldn't do that. I would have to go back on line to the Walk up window. Very annoying, I could have been on that line already. If your standing there to direct people, know what you are talking about or don't guess.

So I get on that line and it took about an hour to process the 12 people in front of me. Unacceptable. I don't fault the workers, it was their system. Why do they have computers if it slows the process down. It was maddening. Their registration system has to go. It is un-usable in it's current state if it takes 10-15 minutes to process one person.

All in all, it was a very unpleasant experience. I really can't say enough bad things about the whole process. They need to fix this.

Ok, enough about that, how about some pictures. Click on pictures for bigger views.

The Radisson

The Scanticon and convention center.

Right side of main hall, I think Flames of War tables.
Back Right of main hall. Ancients I think.
Back left of hall. There seems to be regulare event tables to the front of the hall and front right side.View towards the front. Registration is on the otherside of that white wall/flag. Below the flag is stairs going down the the Vendor level.

Board game Warlords of Europe, our pre-convention entertainment. Great game, bad choice for a wed night. Takes way too long to play. Was fun though.
I hope this shed some light on Historicon for those of you who could not make it. I am optimistic about this been a good convention.

Cheers, Xin

Hunter Killer Pics

2010-01-18T00:03:00.009-05:00

There was a request on TMP for a pic of the Hunter Killer with other figures for scale. Here ya go. Click on pics for larger images.

Left to right: New Revell Republic Gunship, Hunter Killer, GW Valkyrie.
Figures are Star Wars Prepaints, New Space Hulk Termmie, Wargames Factory Germans(thank you free Fall In give aways) and SST Mobile Infantry.
Same figures, lower angle.

My Pirate ships have been pirated.

2009-12-14T00:23:00.007-05:00

I was kit bashing some toy pirate ships for gaming use awhile back. I took a break and was letting the glue set on some parts when I came back my ships were gone. Then over in the gaming area I find my little 12 year old pirates had nicked my ships and taken on a new crew.
Not only had they found my ships, they found my recent ebay purchase of about 100 clone troopers. Pirate ships and clone troopers, what could be better together?
The good guys lead by Ahsano and Lando against...
Ventress and Mara Jade. They had a lot of fun. I'm not sure who won as usually when they play together it's more of a story than a wargame. But they do like to gang up on Daddy.

Cheers, Xin

Undead Warband for SBH, Part 1

2009-12-09T01:21:00.005-05:00

This is the start of my undead Warband for playing Song of Blades and Heroes. I picked up an Undead Giant at Fall In 08 from Iron Wind Metals. He was in their "junk" bin I guess you would call it. Only saw one and he's been on my painting table for over a year. I finally got around to finishing him off.

He is supposed to have a sword in his lower hand but when I bought it I didn't know that. He just had empty hands. I was going to paint him as is, but my wife suggested giving him a weapon of some sort. So I came up with a stone ball on a chain.

The ball is Green Stuff. And the chain was I think from a hobby store, ship building supplies. Also this is the first time I tried using static grass. I had know idea how to use it but I found this site: Easy Static Grass. It worked very well.

Not Golden Demon standard, but I think he came out well, and look forward to giving him some mates to play with. My daughters have been painting their own warbands, I will have to get pics up of the Ice Witch Warband and the Pumpkin Witch Warband.

Cheers, Xin

One book to Bind them

2009-12-06T02:00:00.005-05:00

I am planning to play some more Song of Blades and Heroes with my kids soon, so I thought I'd get a couple of supplements. I bought the PDF's of Song of Gold & Darkness and Song of Wind & Water. Since I needed to print out copies I had the idea to make one big rule book.

Staples has a Printing Service (Link: HERE) that is very reasonably priced. You can email them your documents and pick up the printed rule book in a day or so. I didn't know if they could combine the different PDF's but it turns out they can.

So I had SBH/SGD/SWW printed in that order in one book along with a color cover for $13. I think that is a good deal. I got the the coil binding which I think works best for wargames rules.

I should have bought Song of Arthur and Merlin as well, but I forgot. But the 3 I have are more than enough for my kids and I. Here are some pics of the printed book.

Color Cover

Song of Gold and Darkness
Song of Wind and Water

Cheers, Xin

Space Hulk Arrived~

2009-08-31T22:03:00.011-05:00

There was a package for me when I got home from work today. I knew exactly what it was. It seems, Games Workshop, was not supposed to ship them til Sept 5th, but the gobbos in the shipping dept didn't get the memo, or ate the memo. Either way, my box slipped out the door before the gate slammed shut.

So risking the wrath of the wife, I ignored the call "dinner's ready". And dove into exploring the box. The box is heavy and jam packed. Five large sprues and one small sprue, terrain tiles, markers, doors, dice, empty plastic bags(storage?), egg timer, rulebook and Mission book.

It was I think $107 after taxes. That's a lot for a game, but I think there is a lot of value here. The figures are gorgeous and the terrain tiles are very solid. Like I said in another post, easily twice as thick as previous editions. They also are "embossed" I think was the term. It gives them a little texture.

I would have loved to started a game tonight, but figures will need work. They are such nice figures it would be a shame not to paint them. I never did finish my Gene Stealers from 1st edition, which sadly got sold in a period of low finances. All my other projects just got pushed to the back burner and I will start on these ASAP.

Here's a link to all the pictures of whats in the box.

Space Hulk Photobucket

Cheers, Xin

First game of Forge of War

2009-08-13T21:29:00.013-05:00

I saw this game mentioned on TMP so I joined this Yahoo Group and downloaded the rules. After a read through they seemed worth a playtest.

I threw together a quick scenario just to get a feel for the rules and invited my friend over for a battle.

The Setup: Rebels seize a relay station on a small backwater colony,and were filling the air with their brand of propaganda, as opposed to the official brand of propaganda. A unit of Presidential Guard was sent to recapture the station. The forces:
Rebels: 1 Command Squad, 1 Mortar team(both ex-military) and 3 squads of Militia
Presidential Guard:1 Command Squad(special forces), 3 squads and a mortar team(veteran commandos)

The number of troops was equal, but since the rebels were defending, I made the PG better trained.

Scenario rule: The rebels deployed around the Relay Station with hidden counters. The rebs put down 10 counters, and only 5 were real squads.

The Battle:
The PG Squads surrounded the station. I brought in a squad from each corner of the table the mortar section just to get the whole station in range. The rebs didn't move since they didn't want to give away their positions.

So I advanced again till my command squad moved up to the building with the Radar Dish. The reb command squad popped up(reaction fire to nearby enemy) and fired on my squad, but the hasty shot missed. At this point the reb mortar team on the 2 story building opened up and dropped a shell right on my command squad. He got 2 kills or D-Markers. I took the d-markers on my command squad. I returned fire but missed.

Now in FoW D-Markers represent disorder, damage, demoralization. You can choose to take D-markers instead of casualties, but each d-marker is a minus in morale, shooting, and fighting. You can also take d-markers from terrain effects like moving full speed through difficult terrain. If you spend a turn resting, you can try to roll off your D-markers.

The rest of the turn I moved my other squads closer and my mortar section started some counter-battery fire but I missed. The rebs had my command squad out in the open, so they fired again, missing. He also revealed another squad and sent it into the woods to get my mortar. My command squad pulled back and to the side to cut off this attack

On the other side of the field I advanced towards the station, using what cover I could find. Eventually revealing another roof top emplacement. They engaged my squad and caused 2 hits, but I took the d-markers. I returned fire, but with the d-markers and the cover the rebs had, I missed.

The 5th and final reb squad appeared over by the radar dish, and moved into a covering position for the squad advancing into the woods. My command squad came out of the woods took the reaction fire (cover+ armor, no hits) and put 2 hits on the squad in the open. The rebs then dropped a morter round on my mortar, giving it 2 d-markers.

Here is where I think the game turned against the rebs. He had 3 squads and the mortar focusing on my one command squad and mortar team. That left one squad to cover the rest of the station and defend against 3 of my squads.

I had 2 squads fire on the remaining roof top reb emplacement Causing 3 hits(2 d-markers and one kill). My 3rd squad slipped into the base and starting shooting at the rear(no cover) of the rebs across the compound causing more hits and kills.

At this point the rebel commander realized he could not hold out any longer and detonated the demo charges on the radar dish killing himself and his command squad. Tactical victory for the Presidential Guard, Moral victory for the rebels. I will point out, that my troop quality was a big factor in the win. The quality was more inportant than the defending positions the rebs had.

In summary the game flowed pretty well and most of the rules and game play were easy to follow after only one read through of the rules. There are 2 things I really like about the rules. The first is the D-marker concept. It simulates fatigue, ammo loss, non lethal injuries and stress, all rolled into one. Most game systems at this level only deal with kill/no kill situations. I really feel this is the heart of the system. One thing I failed to mention, units based on their training have a maximum level of d-markers they can take before guys are just killed outright. So kills do happen.

The 2nd thing I liked was unit activation. I didn't mention it above, but each unit has to activate based on it's training and tactical situation. D-Markers play a factor here. We did have some stuff not activate, and when you fail to activate, the initiative passes to your opponent. It creates an ebb and flo, a lot like Song of Blades and Heroes.

As for things I didn't like, not many there. One thing I and my opponent had trouble wrapping my head around was the "no save" roll. The math for shooting at and killing someone is all wrapped together. My mind knows that having a "save" or lower chance on a single shoot/kill roll can be the equal, but the gamer in me missed the "save roll".

The only other thing I felt needed work was the rules layout, one or two things need a little better explaining.

All and all, a decent set of rules, well worth the cost(free) and worth a 2nd playtest. In case anyone was wondering the buildings were inspired by Inari7 from TMP and his post here.

Cheers, Xin

First game of Song of Blades and Heroes

2009-01-16T00:24:00.015-05:00

Stompy! Click on pics for bigger images.

So my good friend Lou and I wanted to play anything since we haven't played a game in quite awhile. I suggested Song of Blades and Heroes. He agreed and it was on!

Now I will admit up front I did not have high hopes for this system, but was just looking for something easy to play a quick game. I bought the very cheap PDF when the game was released. I had a nice print out from my wife who was kind enough to donate her work printer(lol). I read the rules and it just didn't seem like a good game with all the activations and such.

For those that don't know how to play, everytime you want to move a figure, you have to roll to activate. So to move/shoot/ cast a spell you need to roll your activation. You can choose to role 1, 2 or 3 dice. Each time you role at or over your Quality rating you get an action. But if you fail 2 rolls, you lose your turn. For example, I had a Cleric, his Quality was a 3. I would roll 3 dice, and get 3, 1, 4. So I got 2 actions that turn for the Cleric. Now troops with lesser quality, you would roll less dice, so you didn't lose your turn. Example, I had 2 Hunters. Quality was 4, I only rolled 1 dice each turn for them, so even if you didn't activate, you didn't lose your turn. I could have rolled 3 dice if I wanted too, but the worse quality, the higher the chance of ending your turn.

Now onto the battle. I set up a little village in a 3 foot by 3 foot table section. It had a stone church with some small farm buildings around it. We went with stock troops out of the back of the book. My warband, was a Cleric, Earth Elemental, a Thief, 2 Militia and 2 Hunters. I sort of had in mind my friend Lou raiding my village and the Cleric and Militia with a "summoned" elemental defend the village. In the rules, the Cleric can't summon anything, I just paid the points for Stompy and the rest was fluff. Lou's warband consisted of an Elf Hero, 3 Wood Elf Archers and one Wood Elf Warrior.

I randomly scatter my warband around town. The Elves emereged from the woods on one side in a line. They head towards my Earth Elemental, Stompy. My Thief slips around the back of the farmhouse and the barn. My Militia and Archers slowly move forward and Stompy heads towards the elves.

Most of the Elves attention was on Stompy. They went at him hard. The Elven Hero didn't waste any time coming for him. Much to his dismay. I squished him very early in the fight. I did get knocked down a couple of times, even wounded.

While I'm waiting for my militia and archers to come up, The elves continued their assault on Stompy. Next up was the naked elf with a bow. She attracted Stompy's attention by knocking him down with her bow. If you beat someone in combat/shooting, but don't double(kill) you knock them down if you rolled even, knock them back if you roll odd. Well Stompy had a quality of 3, so I would roll 3 dice every time. I got 3 activations, I stood up, walked over to the naked elf and stomped her.

I thought my Thief which had stealth was safe sneaking along the barn wall. Turns out he can't be shot at, but naked Elven chicks with spears can walk right up and run him through.

The elves responded by charging the Wood Elf Warrior over to Stompy. I eventually got my militia and archers up. One by one I surrounded the naked elf with the spear. They were crappy in combat alone, but each additional person in combat is a -1 to the enemy's combat score. So I got a knock down result and killed her. 2 knock downs= a kill. Four big bullies to kill one little elf, my friend gave me lots of grief.

Stompy kills the Elf Warrior. Now the only thing that is left is one Elf Archer. Stompy starts to move out. The problem with Stompy is he's been wounded by now. If you have the "Tough" attribute, anything that "kills" you is treated as a wound. Wounds hurt your quality rating. I started at a 3, by the time I killed the Warrior, I was at a 5, your dead at 7. So now I'm rolling less dice and not activating as much. I can't close with the Archer before he knocks me down, and kills me. I tried to get my Cleric over to heal Stompy but I would roll 3 dice and get 2 failures and end my turn. The tide was turning.

I finally realize that my cleric had the same Combat skill as the Archer, a 3. Up until now I was hiding him. So I activate my cleric and bring him forward. I left my militia and archers behind as I thought I had this wrapped up, and it was getting late, and they were crappy troops. I confidently engaged the archer. We had a very epic battle going back and forth. Just when one of us thought we were going to win, we would roll 2 failures and end our turn. This went back and forth for about 10 minutes. Finally after knock downs/ knock backs, and such. The archer who had been knocked back the turn before, drilled an arrow into the Cleric's chest and it was over.

I still had 4 more crappy guys, but it was late and over. Since Lou had to drive home I claimed a moral victory in that I held the "field".

It was a fun game. Much more fun than I thought it would be. The way the activation plays out can be fun and make the game's outcome twist and turn. I have to say I might buy some of the additions that have come out since it was first released. I also see some house rules I'd like to add, which the simplicity of the system makes it very easy to add to. I'm sure we did some things wrong but it was still fun and that's the point, and I got to use that very cool D&D Mini Elemental I bought off Ebay.

Cheers, Xin

My Lizardman Temple

2008-08-01T20:32:00.010-05:00

As previously mentioned in my blog, I hit Garage Sales almost every weekend. Over a year ago I found a piece that just screamed "make terrain out of me". After feigning mild indifference to the nice lady running the garage sale, I made an offer of 5 bucks. The bargain was struck and I was the proud owner of the T-Wrecks Hot Wheels Playset.
When I got home I ripped T-Wrecks head off, saved a few small bits, but threw most of it away. I really just wanted the head. I put the head on a shelf till I had a good idea what to do. It sat for over a year till I came up with my idea, A Lizardman Temple. Or just the entrance part. I must confess at this point that I was very lax in taking pictures of the WIP. I'm kicking myself now.

I'll just briefly go over what I did with pics of the Temple thrown in. I took a 2x4 sheet of MDF board and cut an irregular pattern on one side. I left other side untouched as it's meant to be a board edge piece of terrain.

Then I spent a few nights gluing down pink foam insulation board building up the cliff. It might be over kill but I used Liquid Nails cause I like how fast it drys. I used a Woodland Scenics Foam cutter to shape the pink board.

Once I had all the pink board down, I needed to fill in cracks. I tried 3 different things. First I tried Woodland Scenics Foam Putty. Very odd stuff. It looks like it would be good for different things but it took days to dry. Then I bought some Spackle in a tube, for wall touch-ups, too hard to squeeze out of the tube. Last I went to tried and true Elmers Wood Putty. works like a champ.

Ok the boards are cut and glued, cracks filled in. Now to the paint. I know some paints can "melt" the foam board so I "seal" the board with plain white Latex house paint. I had a lot of stone surface to do so I bought a small can of model spray paint, dark gray. Dry brush on 2 lighter shades of grey and the stone is done.

My "grass" method is very simple. I just paint the grass areas with a generous amount of Green paint and pour a ton of flocking onto it till it drys. Shake off the excess and dump it back into my grassing bin. I go back with different colors and put those down with a white glue spray. This helps self the grass and adds different shades to avoid the "golf course" look.

Now I go and add more vegetation with a hot glue gun. Some is Woodland Scenics Foliage, and some Walmart Plastic plants, cut up and painted. I add some "creeping vines" with dark flock and a hot glue gun. And that's it.

Oh I forgot to mention and you can't see from the pics, the mouth opening is a passage that goes thru to the back of the piece. I toyed with adding a 2nd board with the temple proper, but our dreams are large and our free time is limited. Hope you enjoyed the pics.

Ciao for now, Xin

Storm Troopers vs Starship Troopers

2008-03-30T22:33:00.014-05:00

A friend of mine, Troy wanted to try out a game he wants to put on at a local con, NJCON. He's been collecting tons of Star Wars Miniatures and wanted to game with them. He put together an Imperial force to attack a Rebel base. Pretty straight forward at first look, but the out gunned rebels called in some allies from SICON. In the form of a Starship Troopers detachment.

The rules are mostly Starship Troopers with a few modifications for things like Jedi. Everything else can be squeezed into SST existing weapons/troop types. We had a lot of fun.

Here's the battle:

The Rebels were set up on the table in defensive postions and the Imperials had to advance onto the table. In the forward zone we had militia in bunkers, rebel troops behind hard cover. and 3 automated Pillboxes. The rear zone had 4 Cougar Exo-suits, a Chas, a Marauder, 2 Powersuit squads and 2 squads of Jedi. This was a test run, so the final game will change a few things. Like the Jedi, Initially they were in squads, but that will most likely change.

The Imperials deployed about a foot deep along the short side of the table, in a high grassy area. They had 3 AT-STs, LOTS of STORM TROOPERs and a few Dark Jedi. For support(random roll to call in) they could have an AT-AT, or Orbital Artillery Strikes.Early on not much happened, the Imperials cautiously advanced. Our Pillboxes were the only thing that had the range at first, so we plinked away at the AT-ST's. The Imperials I think on the 2nd or 3rd turn rolled for support and got big momma to come on the table.Once that hit the table, my personal strategy switched from just kill all Imperials to bring that bad mother down. I have to say it was a bit chaotic as a play test game, since my friend brought his son and daughter to play, and I had my 2 girls to play as well. This chaos caused the death of many Jedi. One of the kids had one squad of Jedi all together when the Imp's got a support roll, and the orbiting Star Destroyer landed a direct hit on them.

Meanwhile our rear zone defenders moved up to play aggressive defense.
We brought one of the AT-ST's down on the right flank, but Big Momma was still unhurt. She moved up and started tossing buckets of dice at our defending Militia and Rebel Troopers. It was ugly. But by now I had my Exo-suits up and the Chas. So we started throwing buckets of dice back. There was a woods on the right, 2 Imperial squads and a heavy weapon moved up through those. I met them with a Chas and a Powersuit squad. Plus they had to advance past a Pillbox. Lets just say they didnt make it out of the woods.

Around this time we lost a Powersuit squad to a combination of Big Momma and another Orbital strike. My Exosuits were down to one guy. The Marauder was gone. It was looking very grim for the Rebels, but the Imperials were not taking advantage of the situation. They didn't push forward fast enough.

The GM seeing the Rebel Situation gave us some reinforcements, in the form of 3 more Exo-suits and another Powersuit squad. Which I promptly lost 2 Exo's to bad placement during an Orbital Strike. We lost 2 Rebel Generals when they went off to watch the Kids Choice Award's on Nickelodeon. I guess to 10 year old girls, the KCA was more exciting.

We still had a Jedi Squad working up the left flank, I had a lone Exo coming up the middle, and a Powersuit squad on the right with 2 Missile launchers. Oh and still 3 functional Automated Pillboxes. I had been concentrating on killing the Storm Troopers supporting Big Momma so I could get the Jedi in close, and it was starting to work.
We had a scary moment when an Orbital strike landed on the Jedi again, but we only lost one. So my daughter was pushing them forward, we lost 3 more to Big Momma's massive firepower. But we got 3 up on a cliff next to Big Momma. My Daughter came up with such a cool plan that the GM gave it a chance to work. She wanted to leap on top of the remaining AT-ST, then leap to the top of Big Momma and kill it from the top. I forgot to take pictures at this point :(

The Jedi have Jump powers just like the Powersuits in StarShip Troopers game. 2 of them leap to the top of the AT-ST and make successful attacks and kill it. The GM says that they cut open the hatch and turned the drivers into goo with their light sabers. The important thing is that the AT-ST is left Standing, next to Big Momma. The third remaining Jedi(Padawan or Lvl 1 Jedi) went to chop at the legs of Big Momma. But Missed.

Big Momma can take 8 hits, 5 makes her stop walking. The Imperials were smart enough to move Big Momma away from the AT-ST so ended my daughter's cool plan, but that had the unintended effect of moving closer to my troops and farther from his support. They tried to shoot the 2 Jedi Masters off the top of the AT-ST, but missed. The last thing they did was run Darth Maul toward our Jedi to protect Big Momma.

We had one Jedi jump down to fight Darth Maul, and the other Jedi to go after Big Momma's legs.
Darth Maul was just ripped to shreads by my Daughter. She got 4 hits on him, and he failed 3 Dodge rolls(he only needed a 2+ on a d6), TOAST! Meanwhile by now we had 3 pillboxes, 3 Missile launchers, 2 Jedi, and an Exo-Suit attacking Big Momma.

There was not much Big Momma could do. She tried to stomp the Jedi Master, and hit, but only got 2 out of 3 wounds. 2 Dark Acolytes (lvl 2 Jedi) ran up to our Jedi Master that had killed Darth Maul and landed 1 hit. A crowd of Storm Troopers gathered to watch the 2 on 1 fight as they could not shoot into the melee.
During the last turn our Jedi Master landed a hit on each Acolyte and everyone else shot Big Momma. We got 6 hits, which froze the legs. She was not within range of our base so in essence it was over. They didn't have any big guns left to pound our base. They still had a lot of forces left, and we had been ripped to shreds, but they just didn't have enough firepower to take the base.

It was a ripping good time and a very cinematic ending. The Starship Troopers rules worked pretty well for almost all of the elements of the scenario, and Troy did a super job at tweaking other stuff into them, and should be a great great game at NJCON.

May the force be with you!

AAR - Stones River Warm Up

2007-08-13T10:11:00.001-05:00

Here’s a quick After Action report of the Fire & Fury game I ran Saturday.

As I posted before this was a “get reacquainted” with the rules game. I’m looking to run Stones River at Fall In so I used that as a scenario generator.

The Background:
In the real battle Gen Rosecrans’s Army of the Cumberland was having supply problems as Rebel Cavalry ran around it and destroyed/captured supply trains. So in this battle, Rosecrans sends McCooks Corps too seize a vital crossroads. He reinforces McCooks corps with a deteched division from Thomas’s corps. The Confederates having better cavalry detect this move and respond. General Braxton Bragg, sends a corps to intercept this Union attack. Maj Gen William Hardee races his corps to the crossroads. While a brigade of Wheelers Cavalry tries to hold on till they get help.

The setup:

Rebel Cavalry Brigade(Wharton) starts on the table Union arriving on 3 roads, from the south and west Confederates arriving on 2 roads from the north Players can spend a turn off board and deploy their divisions and come on in the 2nd turn.
The Battle:

Attacking from the west, Gen Rosseau encounters Dismounted cavalry. (Click on pics for bigger versions)

In the background you can see Davis and Sheridan's divisions forming up. Cleburn's Division is just coming out of the woods on the left of the pic(center of the table). In the upper right woods, Johnson's Division is visible heading towards Rebels under Breckingridge(upper left).

Davis and Sheridan's Divisions press the center. After the calvary was brushed aside.

Update on Garage Sales

2007-06-21T14:03:00.000-05:00

Just a quick update on my garage sale purchases.

The Simba King's Castle is structurally intact. Meaning all the walls and towers are there. What is missing is a catapult and the soldiers. No big deal as I would use it for 28mm anyway. I think it will work well for 28mm with a few minor tweaks. Other than that, it's good to go.

I'm almost done building the lego Walker. Man this is a long process. So far (about 75% done) no missing pieces. I'm fairly certain that they are all there.

Will post pics when done.

Cheers, Xin

Bugs on a Train

2007-06-18T15:42:00.001-05:00

Here is a Starship Troopers battle we did Saturday night. It was all based around a toy I found at a garage sale last year. It's a Power Rangers Train. I made a simple track for the train out of Foam Core, Balsa Wood and cheap Wally World spray paint.

The Scenario is Bugs ambushing a Grav Train on my world, Omicron 4. On the train are 3 squads of Mobile Infantry, a Chickenhawk and Lt Jackson. As the bugs attack, they call for reinforcements. First to respond is a Fleet landing party in an unarmed Fleet Shuttle(arrive turn 2). The other unit is a QRF Squad of Grizzlies that was in orbit(drop on the board turn 3).

The Bugs are attacking with 4 swarms(squads) of Warriors, a swarm of Tiger Warriors, 2 Hopper Flights, one Tanker bug and a Brain Bug. There are 3 tunnel entrances on the ground, one being hidden. One cave in trap, and 2 tunnel markers. The bugs start with tiger warriors and the tanker tunneling.

We rolled dice to randomize where the train stopped. Unfortunatley for the MI, it pretty much stopped dead in the center of all the bug units. It was going to be a hard day for the MI. The train moved up and the MI disembark. One action to exit. Some shots were taken at visible, but in cover bugs, no kills.

Bug Turn, warriors advance, one warrior unit goes underground as the Tigers come up. Tunneling Tanker moves closer. Hoppers do a 6 inch move, Ready, then 3rd action(From Brain Bug) Hover to attack the MI. One kill and then they dart back behind the train to avoid reaction fire. We made a mistake here, the MI should have gone Ready as a reaction, even though they couldn't see the Hoppers. The other Hopper unit waited. I think the brain bug did a Rupture attack on the Chickenhawk, and lost, it took 5 hits.

MI Turn 2, Fleet Lander arrives. I didn't read the air rules, as I wanted to keep the game fairly simple. So the Fleet Lander could move onto the board, 12"/action. Landing was free. The troops inside could exit for one action. Then move normally. The lander came on and landed near some hoppers hiding behind a ridge. The disembarked and took a shoot action, killing one hopper. Fire from a squad on the train killed the other 2 hoppers. One squad jumped to the top of the train. One Squad jumped to a Plateau near the train, and finished off the bug Swarm up there. The last squad jumped to a ridge line across from the train. The MI player just completely blanked out on that last jump, as he jumped right next to a tunnel entrance with a swarm of bugs down below.

Bug Turn 2, bugs came out of the hole to attack the MI next to the Tunnel Entrance, 2 or 3 kills. The brain bug gave that bug unit a 3rd action and they charged again. Finishing off the MI and Lt Jackson. The hoppers popped up and did a Fly by on the MI on top of the train, no kills, then flew back out of reaction range. The tanker came up and moved up the train. For reference the train is a lvl 4 terrain, the front and back are sloped and can be walked right up, the sides of the train would need to be climbed. The tanker walked up the front of the train and spit at the MI up there, 3 died and one was on fire. The brain put up shield this time, then Did Rupture on the Chickenhawk, causing one hit.

MI Turn 3. The Exosuits drop onto the table, well sort of. Again I didn't read or use the air rules. I just used a GW scatter dice and 2d10 for deviation from a nominated landing spot. One action to land, and one action left. The MI player wanted to bring his Grizzlies down near the Brain Bug, but not so close as to cause a reaction. The problem is, the Brain bug was near a table edge, and had a big hill in front of it. So the Exo's had to land to the side, near the table edge. If they deviated off the table I would ruled they could come on next turn. The Exo's missed the table by 1 inch. That pretty much was the game for the MI. At this point the only thing left was the Chickenhawk, and 2 squads that were pretty beaten up. The MI player fired all at the Tanker, causing only one wound.

Bug Turn 3. Tanker spits at Chickenhawk and melts it. Hoppers fly over to the plateau to attack a squad there, one survivor. At this point the fleet guys would run back to the lander and blast off, leaving the 3 surviving MI to there fate. We pretty much called it here.

Battle debriefing:
The MI really had an uphill battle from the gitgo. Almost 500 points off the table at the start of the game. The exo's are 325 points, and didn't show till turn 3. The MI's train needed more variance as to where it would stop. The bugs really got to concentrate in a small area. 2 mistakes that really hurt the MI, me(the GM) missing the MI reacting to the Hoppers, and 2nd, the MI player jumping next to the bug unit. I will go back and read the Air rules as this could drastically change the scenario. The MI player felt that the MI didn't have enough firepower to deal with the Tanker. Goldwyrm(bug player) suggested giving the MI turrets on top of the Train, which is a really cool idea, both for the scenario and modeling aspect. He also suggested using the fleet lander as a Skyhook dropship. Or allowing the MI to have a UAV.

All in all I think it was a fun battle. I will tweak the scenario some and maybe run it again. I would also consider running it at Historicon, if I can figure a way to get all the terrain there. Big sheets of foam board and Honda Civic's don't mix well.

All game pics here.

Cheers, Xin.

It was a good day at the Garage Sale

2007-06-16T15:14:00.000-05:00

With my wife and 2 kids we go out to garage sales almost every weekend. I scour for toys and hobby related items. My wife just likes to look at everything. And the kids, well, they fight me for the toys. Good thing I control their allowance.

Anyway some weeks are better than others. Last week, I didn't buy a thing. This week we scored big. My kids are 10 and out growing their bikes. We hit this Church Rummage sale. We found 2 very nice bikes for $18, for BOTH! One of the bikes is like a $400 mountain bike. Both in great condition.

Now to the good stuff. First I scored a Star Wars Lego AT-AT. I got it for $4 bucks. I think all the pieces are there but won't know until I put it together.

While I was drooling over the Walker, my lovely wife picked up this huge box and shoved it in my face. It was a Simba Castle Playset. I don't have time to set it up as I'm getting ready for an SST game tonight. But for $4 bucks, how can you go wrong?

So we go around to some more sales and we hit another Church Rummage sale. This one had this cool huge Death Star like plastic toy set. I don't know what it was for, but it's gonna be a drop pod or Science outpost or Power Station on my battle table. Here's some pics with figures in for scale. Figs are all SST figures. From left to right, Arachnid Warrior, Chickenhawk, MI Cap Trooper, ExoSuit, Tanker Bug. Click on pics for bigger versions.

Update: Many people have identified this as Techno-drome from Ninja Turtles back in the late 80's early 90's.

Edit: Forgot to mention the huge price tag of this item....$1

More pics here.

Ciao for now, Xin

Terraforming Omicron 4

2007-06-11T17:01:00.000-05:00

I have a pretty good wargaming set up in my basement. Plenty of room for a table and storage. My table is 5x8, and flocked various sades of green. I hate that golf course look you see on a lot of tables. It's a good surface for most games, but a little lacking for sci-fi. More specifically Starship Troopers which I have been playing a lot lately. We lean towards more scenario driven games, than the tourney style that a lot of SST'ers play, so I need a setting for our games. I came up with Omicron 4, a distant mining colony/ outpost. I've been collecting items to make terrain out for awhile. So I will be adding things like a military outpost, and a mining outpost among other things.

So it was time to build a sci-fi setting for my games. My wargaming buddy across the street had 7 or 8 2x8 sheets of pink foam insulation. I'm sure we bought them years ago for some project and never got around to it. Anyway so I had that to use. 4 sheets were trimmed down to 2x5 and that gave me a base.

Once the base was down. I took the left over scraps and the other full boards and started cutting up hills. I wanted a lot of hills, so we (friends came over to help) didn't go for very elaborate hills. Simple ones carved out of pink board. Very little sculpting, but enough. We made big and small hills, multi-layer hills and rock spires. That pink foam is a godsend for wargamers. The different layers glued down with Liquid Nails. Now to the painting.

I painted the underside with some random old paint. The reason I did this was to counteract any curling the topside paint might cause as it drys. I don't know if it works or not, just something I do. I hate train that starts curling up. The top layer and base color is a craft paint, Americana Light Cinnamon. This is the color of my MI's bases, so I figured it would make a good overall base color for my terrain. I painted a small Index card with the color and went to Home Depot and had then color match it and give me a quart of it.

Once I had the paint, it was simple to just pour it on the boards and roll it out. The ton of hills I made was a much longer process. So I slapped in a DVD, Black Hawk Down I think, and off I went.

With the base color done, I took a sponge, to add light and dark spots to break up the uniform color. Like Faux Painting for walls. I just dabbed on a dark shade of the brown, then mixed up a lighter shade and dabbed that on. I think I didn't make the color contrast great enough, as the shading and highlighting doesn't stand out very well. I may go back and do it again.

I took a paint brush to highlight the edges of the hills, with a lighter shade of the base color. Again, nothing fancy, the point was to get the job done and play. I tend to over do projects trying to get them to be perfect and nothing gets done.

Anyway, that's it. It took about 2 weeks working on and off. Fairly simple terrain, but it's done and we are gaming, not talking about gaming, which goes on a lot. Here's a pick of the first battle. No other terrain yet, but over time I will add small pieces to spruce up the table, like plants, rock/crystal formations. I might go and add some textured paint. I really need to break up the uniform brown. Thanks for stopping by.

Ciao for now, Xin

Welcome to my Blog

2007-06-10T17:06:00.000-05:00

Welcome one and all. This blog will be about Wargaming. I'm an avid wargamer of all periods. Is Sci-fi a period? Perhaps I should say genre. I will game almost anything, from Ancients to ACW to WWII to Modern to Fantasy and Sci-Fi. I've always said, that if 2 guys are throwing rocks at each other, I would play it.

My wargaming history started like a lot of others I would think. When I was in high school(late 70's), my brother came home for Thanksgiving from college. He brought with him a game calledDungeons and Dragons. We played one game and I was hooked. Christmas brought D&D presents and I was off down the road to TGWAG (The Greater World of Adventure Gaming)

No need to bore you with the details so I'll speed it up. Huge D&D campaigns lead to the need for a system for Armies to battle. As we explored integrating Army battles into our D&Ding, we came across a magazine called The Courier. In it we found an ad for a gaming convention called Cold Wars. I think this was 1989 or 1990. Two friends and I went out for the day on Sunday and were just blown away by what we saw. We didn't even get in on a game. But it was enough to hook us in.

My friend Matt who was a rabid Siege of Jerusalem player found some Romans for sale in the flea market. He did some elaborate bargaining and bought them. Awful condition, painted poorly, some not painted at all, but they were awesome to us at the time. I think we also picked up WRG 7th. We moved out of RPG'ing and into Wargaming full time.

We did the WRG Tourney scene hardcore for I think 2 years. Went to tourney's up and down the East Coast, even went to Denver for the Nationals one year. After reaching my breaking point with WRG( I show up with Melee armies and just get paired up with Skirmish/shooter armies), it was time for a change. So we dabbled into ACW, Nappy, SYW, Rogue Trader and 40k, and WHFB. So that brings us up to the present.

My current areas of interest are:
Starship Troopers
Warhammer Fantasy Battle 7th
note: this means currently painting for, I will game anything anyone wants to play/paint

Ciao for Now
Xin