Space Hulk Arrived~

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

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

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

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

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

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

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