Slugfest Playtest

Hi all, I’m here with something a bit unusual. Scott Pyle, the creator of my favourite superhero minis games, Super Mission Force, has a new superhero game in the works called Slugfest! This is a bit of a departure from his previous efforts in that it’s built from the ground up to be a solo play experience reminiscent of Rangers of Shadowdeep. It’s also a D20 system, which brings its own wrinkles to the mix.

Cover art for Slugfest by Jay Piscopo.

Scott was keen to get extra sets of eyes on the game before it was released, so I offered to put it through its paces. I love building characters, so I put together a team from Invincible to give the game a test run. Team creation involves selecting one character to be your Headline Hero, who is the star of the story, and a group of teammates to accompany them.

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The Teen Team is together again! Atom Eve, Invincible, Robot, and Rex Splode.

One of the first things I will say is that the game strikes a nice balance between a traditional tabletop minis game and a narrative role playing experience. I played the first game of one the campaigns, The Heist, which represented a group of villains attempting to steal an important device from a bank as part of a larger plot. Slugfest is single player or cooperative, and the super foes are controlled by a simple AI system, which is supplemented by a card-driven event system which is unique for each scenario.

Here are some of the highlights of the game. Note that the game I played was using the unreleased playtest version, so some changes may be implemented in the final release.

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The villains of the piece, Titan (Brick), Klaw (Blaster) and Quicksilver (Speedster). They start off the board and inside the bank, and will come out to play when the event deck dictates it. In the meantime, a group of Deathbots are also on the table to give them support.

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Chaos at First National Bank, as the villains begin their attack, knocking out half a dozen police as they searched for the widget. Civilians mill around, in danger of being taken hostage, which would allow the villains to escape with impunity, so encouraging them to flee was the team’s first priority.

Intrepid reporter April O’Neill is also on the scene, knocked unconscious, but Robot uses the speed of his jet bike to get her to safety.

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Invincible gets a little overconfident as he speeds towards the Deathbots. Klaw reveals himself from a nearby building, and the trio blasts Invincible into unconsciousness with some extremely lucky rolls. Thankfully, Invincible passes his Surival check to stay on his feet with a single hit point.

He makes a strategic withdrawal to the safety of Atom Eve’s force field, and Eve manages to neutralise Klaw.

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Quicksilver emerges from the bank with the widget in his hands. It’s now a race against time as he prepares to make off for the table edge. Once per game, speedsters can make an extremely long move, so Invincible needs to act quickly to tie him up. The ensuing combat is swift and decisive, with Quicksilver taken out in short order.

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Reinforcements arrive in the form of another Deathbot, who knocks out Rex Splode, and Titan, who attempts to engage Invincible and regain the dropped widget. Invincible lives up to his name this time and manages to defeat Titan, as Atom Eve moves to secure the widget, and another Deathbot arrives on the scene…

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Panic, as Atom Eve is blasted into unconsciousness by the Deathbot, but she manages to pass her Survival check. Invincible ranges out to deal with the new threat as Robot exchanges metallic blows with another Deathbot. The widget is secure and it’s all over bar the punching.

So in the end, the heroes are successful in defending the bank and saving the civilians and police officers. It was a true slugfest in the end, with combats swinging each way.

My closing thoughts are that I really enjoyed the narrative aspect of the game. The deck incorporates negative effects as well as a couple of positive boosts which gave characters a second wind, and these added a lot of tension to the proceedings. The bad guys hit pretty hard and there was little respite for the heroes as one thing after another kept them on their toes.

One of the big takeaways from a character creation stance is not to neglect the Fight stat. Initially, I had thought this wasn’t useful for ranged characters and so I focused on improving their Blast stat, but this was a big mistake, as Fight is used offensively in close combat but defensively against ranged attacks. This made it an interesting mix of attack and dodge.

The D20 system lent itself to some predictable swings in fortunes, but I really liked the Fate ability, which allowed the Headline Hero to swap their dice roll with an opponent’s once per game. Invincible got swamped pretty quickly and I needed to use his Fate ability early, so that left things very tense for the rest of the game, as he was on death’s door for much of it. Luckily, Fate can be purchased multiple times in character creation, so I would take it again next time and try to incorporate a little more healing into the group.

The other thing I really liked was the power system. Each power has an ongoing or standard effect, and a once per game ability which allowed some kind of power stunt or feat. I think this is a great way to balance the system, especially with Speedsters, for instance, who have very respectable movement normally, but can only make ludicrously long moves once per game. It also allowed Blasters to have one shot per game which was really effective.

Lastly, the skill system was also great, as it gave characters opportunities to interact with the environment and scenario and influence things in ways other than combat. Trying to revive the unconscious police was tricky, but telling civilians to get out of here before they were in serious danger was much easier! Early in the scenario, there wasn’t a lot of combat so this gave the characters much more to do in the early stages. This gave the action a real comic book feel, with the heroes arriving on the scene, assessing the situation and prioritising getting bystanders to safety versus attacking villains.

I hope that future releases incorporate more scenarios like this. At the time of printing, the rulebook includes two linked campaigns and a standalone scenario, as well as guidelines on creating your own stories. I will definitely be spending more time painting up villains and bystanders, as these have been notably missing from my collection until now.

So keep an eye out for Slugfest if you are looking for a narrative solo play experience. It should be available on Drive Thru RPG in the next month or so.

Happy Gaming!

Grimdark Future Battle Report

As my first post in almost a year, I’d like to showcase a game that I’ve recently been interested in from the fine creators at http://www.onepagerules.com. The game in question is Grimdark Future (aka GDF), formerly known as onepage40K. As you’d imagine, this is a simplified version of Warhammer 40,000 designed to be fast and easy to pick up, and most rules fit onto (you guessed it) one page.

I know what you might be thinking – how can a game that fits its rules on one page be tactically deep and interesting to play? Here are a few advantages of the system:

1. The game captures the essence of 40k without an endless number of rules and datatslates from a variety of sources.
2. GDF features alternating activation, adding a layer of tactical complexity and avoiding the alpha strike issue that plagues 40k.
3. There is a points calculator available through onepagerules’ Patreon, which allows players to create their own units or tweak existing ones.

This last point is the absolute jewel in the crown, as far as I’m concerned. How many times have you, as a wargamer, seen a cool model and thought “That looks amazing, but what army would that fit into?” or “How could I use this on the tabletop without clumsy “counts-as” trickery?”. With the points calculator, you can create the unit that fits the look and theme you’re going for. For someone like me, who enjoys creating themed armies based on pop culture, this is a godsend, as you’ll see in the Battle Report.

A short word on my own experience with 40K – I played for 20 years or so between 1991 and the early 2010s, but haven’t played since 5th edition. With “New 40k” (aka 9th edition) dropping soon, I’m not keen on having to invest a lot into making my fairly esoteric armies into something that would work in this new environment, and I’m not sure I would enjoy the game anymore. Since quitting 40k, I’ve played games like Star Wars Legion and Bolt Action, which feature alternating activation, so a traditional IGOUGO system like 40k has lost its appeal. I’ve still kept a lot of my old 40k armies though, so Grimdark Future is a great way to breathe new life into old figues.

So, for my first game of Grimdark Future, I had planned to play against a friend who was unable to make it due to sickness. Rather than waste the opportunity, I decided to play a solo game, taking control of both forces to see how the game works.

First, the armies. My first force is a Stargate themed army of Jaffa under the command of a Goa’uld System Lord. This was an army I started around 15 years ago and I used to play them as Necrons, with their regeneration/resurrection protocols representing the healing properties of carrying a Goa’uld symbiote (told you I was a fluff monkey!). In GDF, this translated over fairly well, but I was able to tweak the rules somewhat. I used the Robot Legions list (aka Necrons), but removed the Fearless and Slow rules. This resulted in units that are average speed, but very tough to take down.

Next is an army I’ve been working on for about a year incorporating models from Beyond the Gates of Antares and Mantic’s Warpath/Deadzone games. With the preponderance of drones in BtGoA, I thought a Tau army would suit my collection, so I based this on the TAO Coalition list. Again, I tweaked the list, creating a flying transport (the Intruder) and stats for the Enforcer Jetbikes, which I envisioned as fast moving gun platfoms, somewhere between Tau Battlesuits and regular Jetbikes. I also couldn’t resist adding in a unit of Fremen Commandos from an old Dune army project. I created these as a close assault/close fire support unit which would ride around in the flying transport (think of it as an Ornithopter, I guess!).

 

Each army was 1500pts in total. The rules suggest 750pts for an intro game, but I wanted to see what a bigger variety of units would be capable of, and test the unit creation rules as well.

So, to battle. 5 objectives were placed around the battlefield. The aim was to capture more than your opponent, but you could capture and then move away from the objective, which I found an interesting wrinkle to the standard way these games go.

Here are the initial force deployments, followed by some highlights of the action.

 

Opening moves – Jaffa take the closest objective as Enforcer Jetbikes secure the Stargate.

On the opposing flank, Enforcer Jetbikes catch the Jaffa Hoverbikes in the open, and decimate them before they can become a threat.

Employing Goa’uld Transporter Rings, the Eternals rapidly redeploy to the bridge and catch a group of Tao Grunts in the open, cutting down half the unit.

The other unit of Tao Grunts, led by the Army Commander, take up position in the woods and start to lay down fire on the bridge.

The Intruder zooms onto the central objective, disgorging the elite Fremen Commandos, crysknives thirsty for Jaffa blood.

Despite their ferocity, the Fremen are rebuffed by the staunch defense of the Eternals and cut down by their return fire. The left flank is held well by a unit of Jaffa Warriors on a wooded hill.

The lone survivor of the Hoverbikes makes a run for the bottom right objective. The left flank starts to weaken for the Jaffa as the Jetbikes close in. Meanwhile, the Eternals stand strong on the bridge, brushing off fire from the Tao Grunts. 

The final disposition at the end of Turn 4: The Bridge is secured by the Eternals, whilst the fast elements of the Tao force contest 2 of the objectives in the Jaffa’s half of the board. Final result, Tao 2 – Jaffa 1.

So, my closing thoughts on the game. The Fremen were a unit I created which I expected to do a little better, so I think they need to have a bit more bite, perhaps with some special close combat weaponry on the unit leader. The Tao Enforcer Jetbikes performed as expected though, a nice combination of the Battlesuit and Jetbike roles. A lesson learned would be to always take Spotter drones – the units without them had issues with consistently hitting targets in cover, which was quite a waste on some heavy-hitting shooters.

On the other side of the table, the Jaffa were tougher than expected, making some amazing Regen rolls. However, the Hoverbikes were quite lacklustre, having been caught out of position so early in the game, so next time I will need to be more careful with deployment.

As for the game, I’m completely sold. I love the ability to use standard 40k models and armies without any effort, or have the ability to create exactly the type of unit I need for my theme. How many games can do that?! The alternating activation is also a fantastic addition to the system that really gives each turn a lot more tactical  options.

So, do yourself a favour and give it a look.

Happy Gaming!

 

Mass Effect Miniatures

2 posts in a week?! This must be some sort of record!

As I mentioned in my last post, I have been playing a bit of Star Saga from Mantic Games, and so I have finally managed to get the pieces I needed to convert a squad from my favourite video game, Mass Effect. I used mainly Mantic parts, but the real impetus behind this was the availability of 28mm scale alien heads from Admiralty Miniatures. I was finally able to create characters that I’ve wanted to have in miniature form for many years. So without further ado, the pictures!

The parts for the miniatures were as follows:

• Shepard: Erika Dulinsky from Star Saga (Mantic) – no conversion necessary.
• Garrus: Algoryn Infantry from Beyond the Gates of Antares (Warlord) – Admiralty Minis head.
• Grunt: Kur Keela from Star Saga (Mantic) – Admiralty Minis head.
• Liara: Female alien from Tiger Corps set – Mars Attacks (Mantic) – head tentacles sculpted with green stuff as the Admiralty Minis head was too big for this mini.
• Mordin: Judwan medic from Deadzone (Mantic) – Admiralty Minis head.
• Legion: Wyn Grethski from Dreadball (Mantic) with new arms donated from a GW Necron. Gun is kitbashed with Gates of Antares Mag Rifle bits.

As with my Voltron team, I also made some Star Saga characters cards for the Normandy crew. I can see myself adding a few more miniatures to represent some other alien races using the Mantic Tiger Corps box, and then I may use the expanded crew in Deadzone or something similar.

Hope you all enjoy the pictures. Happy Gaming!

Voltron Legendary Defender Miniatures

 

It’s been a while since my last post but I haven’t been dormant in my hobbying. I thought I’d share my latest project, a small scale conversion to represent the main characters from the latest iteration of Voltron – Netflix’s Voltron: Legendary Defender. The show has been on for a few years (and an impressive 8 seasons, though some are shorter than others), but since I saw the first episodes, I’ve wanted to convert some minis to represent the Paladins. I liked the original series from my childhood as much as the next 80s kid, but this latest version really knocked it out of the park, and the idea of a strike team of Paladins carrying out missions on the tabletop really appealed to me.

I had planned to use these in 7TV, but the project sat on the backburner for a while as I could never quite settle on the best way to approach them in terms of models, especially with such a size difference between characters like Pidge and Hunk, for instance.

I got a bit more motivation recently as I acquired a copy of Mantic’s Star Saga boardgame. It’s a really fun, easy to learn sci-fi dungeon crawler that has rules for custom characters. As I played my first intro game, I realised that this would be the perfect setting for a Voltron team.

So, I set about searching for miniatures again, and settled on a mixture of Mantic Enforcers, Pathfinders, and GCPS heads. I’ve included some notes below on what went into the build.

 

• Hunk was the most straightforward build, as he was simply an Enforcer with a GCPS headswap. I also filed down his legs a bit to make them a bit more anime in style.
• The torsos of all of the rest of the characters are Mantic Pathfinders, which were filed a bit to allow room for their chest insignia.
• The female characters had arms from Pathfinders (with green stuff shoulder pads), while the male characters were standard Enforcer arms.
• The legs for Keith, Lance, Allura and Shiro were from some spare Dreamforge Eisenkern Stormtroopers I had leftover from my Star Wars Clone army. Again, these were filed down to make them a bit less bulky.
• Pidge was the trickiest in terms of getting the right height – I used a pair of legs from a Gates of Antares Concord Strike Trooper, which I cut off at the hips and the knees and removed some height from the legs.
• Allura’s energy whip was a piece of thin plastic rod shaped and glued into position.
• Keith’s shield was made from 2 tokens from the Gates of Antares template set glued together.
• The bases are from Sedition Wars.

Of course, I couldn’t leave it there. I had to create some custom cards to represent the team in Star Saga, so here are the results.

 

Overall, I’m pretty happy with how they’ve turned out and it’s a great feeling to finally have something tangible in hand after the idea’s inception 3 years ago. Star Saga has also motivated me to do some work on a Mass Effect team as well, so expect a post about that in the near future.

Happy Gaming!

7TV TMNT Battle Report

I finally got a chance to get my Ninja Turtles on the table in a game of 7TV by Crooked Dice. 7TV is a great little system that allows a lot of flexibility and they just happened to release a TMNT Programme Guide a couple of years ago but it has taken a while to give them a whirl. Having assembled forces for the Turtles and their enemy, the Foot Clan, I assembled a couple of small 30 Rating forces (the 4 Turtles vs 3 groups of 3 Foot Ninja, led by a Foot Ninja Leader and of course, Shredder). A quick word on balance – 7TV was errata’d to try to take some of the power away from forces which focus on Co-Stars and Stars, so a requirement of 1/3 of the force to be Extras was introduced. I was a bit disappointed by this change, and speaking to the game designers, they suggested a fix of adding 2 points to the cost of each Co-Star, and 4 points to Stars if the 1/3 requirement was not followed, so that’s what I did here.

The scenario we played was a standard Fight on a 3 foot square table. I bodged up some objectives using old counters from Tannhauser and a green bead to represent mutagen. I imagined that the area had recently suffered some localised seismic activity, and the Turtles went out to investigate, against the wishes of Splinter. Having reached the site of the quakes, the discover the damaged buildings and a number of mutagen canisters, along with dark hooded Ninja, intent on recovering the ooze for their own nefarious purposes. I imagined this as a first initial encounter between the turtles and Shredder’s forces.

What follows is a collection of highlights of the game. The models are largely repainted Heroclix figures. You can find more info on the collection in this post.

A group of Foot Ninja deploy  on the roof of a bus, dropping down from the rooftops, their shapes silhouetted against the moonlight. 

Michelangelo, the lone Turtle who does not have the Spy trait, deploys on his own in front of a mutagen cache.

The rest of the brothers deploy using their Spy trait and make a move towards the Mutagen and the opposition.

The Foot move towards the centre.

The Foot close in on the Turtles, after freezing them in their tracks in the initial turn thanks to the Countdown deck.

Donatello charges a Foot Leader as Raphael tries to fend off another unit on his own.

Michelangelo, having taken some damage from shuriken, attempts to hold off a group of Ninja, but is brought down by weight of numbers.

Donatello takes out a few Ninja, but Leonardo is not so lucky as Shredder charges in to take him down.

Donatello and Raphael find themselves surrounded as things take a turn for the worse.

Raphael falls and Donatello follows soon after, leaving the Foot in command of the board.

So in the end it was a fairly one-sided affair, as the sheer number of Foot Ninja took its toll on the Turtles. It was a fun game and the Countdown deck, as always, added some flavour to the proceedings. For my next outing, I’m keen to get Splinter in the mix, as he is a full-on Action Hero, so it’ll be cool to see a classic showdown between Oroku Saki and Hamato Yoshi.

I’ll take this opportunity to give a shout-out to the IDW TMNT comic series – if you like the Turtles even a little bit, you owe it to yourself to check out the series. It’s a fantastic amalgam of a lot of what has come before and a unique take on the Turtles mythos (and the art, largely by Mateus Santolouco, is outstanding).

Until next time, Happy Gaming!

 

Star Wars Clone Army

Star Wars. Just the name is enough to evoke nostalgia in even the most jaded gamer and with Star Wars Legion now released, the gaming world is going crazy over all things Original Trilogy. Now, say what you will about the prequels, but I’ve always had a liking for the Grand Army of the Republic and the Clone Wars animated series was a lot of fun. Ever since seeing Attack of the Clones, I’ve wanted to field an army of Clones on the tabletop and I’m pleased to say I’ve finally realised this dream some 16 years later.

This project owes a debt to Agis Neugebauer, whose idea to use Dreamforge Eisenkern Stormtrooper bodies with plastic WotC Clone heads showed me that the idea was achievable and I’ve mixed in some Imperial Assault minis as well as some elements from Sedition Wars’ Vanguard range. I’ve been quietly acquiring elements of the army over the last few years and the release of Star Wars Legion has inspired me to put paint to brush and get the army done. Here are the results (so far!):

The Grand Army of the Republic.

Jedi heroes (Privateer Press and Hasslefree Miniatures) with a gun drone from the Sedition Wars range.

A Clone Commander and specialists to bolster the ranks.

Clone Squad with some Imperial Assault Snowtroopers masquerading as Galactic Marines.

ISP Speeder from the WotC range. I replaced the bendy plastic gun barrels and gave it some washes and highlights.

Republic Gunship – 1/72 Revell EasyKit prepainted model which has been varnished and washed to bring out the details.

There are some more plans on the horizon for the force including some heavy weapon troops and Scouts with sniper rifles to round out the infantry, as well as a selection of Jedi to add to the command. I also will be adding in some Speeder Bikes from Star Wars Legion, as well as AT-RTs. Converting the drivers will be a challenge but it should be possible using old WotC Clones as a base.

As for which game systems I will be using this in, there are a number of possibilities. Obviously Star Wars Legion is one option, and I would use them as Imperials, or as a Clone Army using custom cards made by Stephen Thorpe on the Star Wars: Legion Facebook group. The bases are a little small, so I have some 27mm MDF bases coming which I can temporarily mount the figures on.

Another system I’ve had my eye on for a while is Mantic’s Warpath: Firefight, which requires a force of around this size and has rules for Flyers that would suit the Gunship nicely. The rules look like a nice blend of old school 40k and some more modern command and control and suppression elements that I think should be mandatory in wargames these days. I’ll be using these as Enforcers, with possibly some Asterian allies to represent the Jedi.

I will keep the blog updated with additions to the force but until then, Happy Gaming!

Star Breach Battle Report: Fight to the Centre

I managed to get Elijah Kellogg’s Star Breach Tabletop Game on the table again recently. I was lucky enough to be given a preview copy of a new Warband Roster (v1.1) so I decided to try out one of the new additions to the lists, the new version of The Path.

In the first version of The Path, the warband was basically a Jedi analogue, but I encouraged Elijah to add in some troopers to represent Clones and thankfully, he obliged. I have always wanted to create an army of Clones since seeing them hit the screen in Star Wars Episode II, and I have been working on some conversions for the last few years so it was good to finally get them on the table.

For this mission, I set up a remote outpost on a lush green world as the backdrop for our game. My opponent, Scott, decided to field some Nomad Raiders using Tallarn Imperial Guard. This warband is an interesting one, as not only do you get a free Sergeant (like every warband), you also get a free First Mate, who is basically a second Sergeant. Not to mention, the majority of troopers have Initiative of 4, which allows them to take extra actions each turn, which Scott took full advantage of.

The mission was “Fight to the Centre” and the shuttle was the objective of the game, with bonus points granted for having your soldiers closer than the enemy. Here are some highlights from a close-fought battle.

Turn One opening moves. The Clones attempt to flank the right side of the board but immediately encounter stiff opposition from the Nomads. Meanwhile, the Jedi master and his faithful Padawan on the left start approaching the central objective, careful not to expose themselves to enemy fire.

Clone specialists set up in position to engage the Nomad mech and a rather scary Rocket Launcher trooper.

Nomads establish a solid firebase as the Clones approach the objective.

The Clones’ flanking maneuver starts to encounter opposition from Nomads. One lone trooper in the forest starts taking fire but keeps his head down (for now)…

The Jedi cautiously approach the enemy, and start making use of their array of Psychic powers, stripping the enemy of their most deadly weapons before they can become a threat.

Having dealt with the Clone flank, the Nomads look to be in strong position and head for the central objective.

 

A Nomad specialist makes it to the objective and starts to threaten the Jedi as they approach the building.

The Jedi and Padawan start taking grenades from on high, but the Padawan proves invaluable in healing his master.

The Jedi takes aim at the Nomad specialist on top of the building and hurls his lightsaber towards him, cutting him in two with a spectacular roll!

Inspired by his master, the Padawan replicates his skill with a thrown lightsaber and takes out the Nomad sergeant with double 6s!

The Padawan and his Master are the only troops left standing for The Path, but they make all the difference.

The Nomads started strong and were able to whittle down the Clone Troopers before the Jedi could assert themselves, but once engaged, the Jedi proved to be formidable fighters. Their psychic abilities complemented the warband well, Dismantling enemy weapons and Healing each other, meaning they could survive much more punishment than expected. In the end, the Jedi cut a swathe through the Nomads and consolidated their position close to the objective when time was called.

All in all this was a really interesting game and it was nice to try out some different terrain pieces, some of which were provided by Scott thanks to his 3D printer. The Clone army will feature again in a future blog post as I expand the force past Skirmish level with an eye towards using them in the newly released Star Wars Legion. They won’t be used in tournament play, but they should prove a fun alternative to the Stormtroopers which will be flooding gaming tables in the near future.

For our next Star Breach game, I plan to use another of the new warbands, Hunters! This is an elite warband with a very low model count, but each warrior is a deadly foe who can more than hold their own. Can’t wait, but until then, here’s a sneak preview of what I have in mind.

Until next time,
Happy Gaming!

Star Breach

A slight change of tack with this post as I introduce you to a new skirmish wargame system designed by Elijah Kellogg named Star Breach.

The concept of the game is an open-ended sci-fi game which will accommodate a number of different universes (and most importantly, miniature manufacturers). Elijah initially posted the rules for free on Facebook but has since upgraded to a website where you can download the rules for free!

STAR BREACH RULES

The game is intended for small scale skirmishes of around 10-12 figures and utilises a dice draw order mechanic reminiscent of Bolt Action. I’m a big fan of this kind of activation system so I was immediately interested in giving the game a try. The game also includes rules for 17(!) different factions, each with their own unique flavour. Each faction has some suggestions for what armies from various universes the lists could be used to represent, which was very helpful.

Another interesting mechanic is the opposed shooting mechanic, which also combines damage and hitting in one roll. This takes a bit of getting used to, but streamlines things pretty well once you get going. The basic concept for shooting is as follows:

Attacker rolls 2D6 and adds their Initiative +/- any other modifiers for moving, etc.             Defender rolls 2D6 and adds their own Initiative +/- their own modifiers.
If the attacker rolls higher, they have hit, and the 2D6 roll is used to determine                     damage (+ damage modifier from the weapon and minus the target’s armour).

This results in an interesting situation, where a highly armoured target will need a high roll to hit, as well as to cause damage. This results in some instances where a good hit roll can remove a basic soldier pretty quickly, but a low hit roll will most likely not cause sufficient damage even if it does hit the target. It’s an interesting system and works better in practice than I had imagined.

Another interesting twist on the Bolt Action rules is that elite troops (those with Initiative 4 or more) get to take an extra Special Action at the end of the round. This gives some advantage to smaller, more elite squads and somewhat offsets the swarm tactics of more numerous warbands.

There are a few hazy areas of the rules in terms of how different weapons interact with cover, etc, but on the whole, it’s a solid first draft of the game which will be getting feedback from the community as things progress. I have always liked Bolt Action, and this seems like a great variation of that system as well as an opportunity to use some of the many sci-fi figures in my collection that haven’t had much love lately. It gets a thumbs up from me so far!

I managed to have a short game recently to trial the rules. I took my Appleseed/Ghost in the Shell inspired troops using the Continuum Syndicate rules, whilst my opponent took a Concord force from Beyond the Gates of Antares using the Legion of Mankind rules. Here are some of the highlights of the game:

Section 9 of ESWAT.

The initial turn was spent getting troops into position. Deployment zones are only 3″ long, and climbing ladders precludes shooting, so the first couple of turns were spent trying to navigate the board and gain lines of sight.

Concord forces line up and start heading for the high ground.

Some of Section 9’s elite troops set up to get lines of sight, but suffer a huge blow from an opposing Rocket Launcher, leaving Major Kusanagi reeling from the impact, but still in the game.

Concord troops take advantage of their excellent leader to coordinate their attacks, forming a formidable firing line on the gantry.

A game-defining moment. Briareos and two of his lackeys are taken out by a single Plasma Grenade!

After sustaining heavy losses initially, Section 9 starts to regain some footing and begins to pour on the fire on the Concord, with slow but steady results.

The Concord lose their mech support, and eventually start losing foot soldiers. Their formidable armour of 6 kept them ticking far longer than basic troopers had any right to!

Section 9’s Landmate eyes up the opposition, and begins laying down fire using its Ion Cannon. This has the effect of reducing movement and initiative in its target, so is a great way to soften up hard to hit foes for the rest of the squad.

Despite taking a beating, Kusanagi’s stealth suit keeps her in the game, and her faithful Tachikoma claims vital real estate in the centre of the table.

The game scenario was “Secure the Sectors”, which involved occupying areas of the board and denying the enemy. We only had time to play 4 of the 6 turns and it ended in a Narrow Advantage Win for Section 9, but it was definitely touch and go!

It was an enjoyable game but we were slowed down a bit as this was our first game with a new ruleset. I’m sure we’ll be able to play much quicker in future, and I’m looking forward to trying out some alternate warbands. There is a warband called The Path, which will be a good fit for a Star Wars Clone Wars era force of Jedi and Clone Troopers.

Until next time,

Happy Gaming!

 

 

 

Year in Review 2017

Hi all,

It’s been a while since my last blog post. A change in personal circumstances has kept me pretty busy lately but I have managed to find some time to devote to my hobbies. I thought I would write a more reflective post to end this, my first year of the blog.

Here are all the miniatures I painted in 2017. There are 117 minis from four major projects, some of which I have blogged about before, others which may be new to readers.

The year started with finishing my Imperial Assault Rebels. I would love to use all these minis in a full-scale wargame like Bolt Action or Beyond the Gates of Antares, so there are just enough figures to do that. I’m interested to see what comes of Star Wars Legion, but I don’t see myself buying and painting all the same figures in 35mm scale. If I can get away with using these (and the many other IA figures I already have), I will. I have also been playing a bit of the Imperial Assault campaign solo thanks to the new app which takes the role of the Imperial player. It’s given my collection a new lease on life so I highly recommend it.

The next project I worked on was of course my Ninja Turtles for 7TV. I have blogged about these before, but I have a project I am working on at the moment which has connections with this one (more on that later).

Following that, I got back into superhero gaming with my Heroclix repaints for Super Mission Force. I devoted a lot of time to creating stat cards for my heroes, and these are the minis I painted this year to go with my old repaints. I’ve had  few games of this system so far and really enjoy the flexibility of character creation and the dice pool mechanic.

Finally, a project I started in March was a force for Test of Honour by Warord Games. I was seduced by its low price point but I didn’t get much further than assembling the plastics (which was quite time consuming). At the time, I also ordered some Samurai and Ninja minis from Perry Miniatures and set them aside for future use. The release of the new Ninjas of Iga set from Warlord really reignited this project for me just before Christmas, and so I spent a marathon painting session painting 2 forces for ToH – an all-Ninja force and a more traditional mix of commoners and Samurai. I need to finish off painting the Samurai for this force, but they are currently half finished on my painting table so shouldn’t be hard to do.

The Test of Honour project has its roots in the TMNT project, as the force is based on the Foot Clan! I’m really enjoying the IDW TMNT comic series, and the Secret History of the Foot Clan mini-series gave a lot of backstory for the Foot Clan’s origins in Feudal Japan. I have taken some of the concepts and done my own take on this using what I had available and I am pretty pleased with how they have turned out. I can mix and match the commoners with the Ninja, or separate them into two forces. I have some lanterns coming from Warlord Games to finish this set off (they’re a vital component of night missions and they look great, too).

So, all in all it has been a challenging year for me personally and professionally, but my hobbies have continued to give me a much needed creative outlet. I have been pleased with what I have been able to achieve considering how busy I have been, but now that I have so many projects done, I will be trying to shift focus onto more gaming! I’m keen to get Test of Honour on the table as soon as possible and I have a selection of Japanese terrain that I will be using. I will be sure to keep the blog updated with the results of these games.

I also wanted to take the time to acknowledge the readers of this blog, as the feedback has been really encouraging. I started this as a way to document my hobby projects, as restricted time to play meant that I couldn’t share my hobby work very easily. This blog has given me another outlet and so I’m grateful for the support and encouragement I’ve received. Thanks, everyone!

Hope you all have had a great hobby year and that you achieve everything you set out to do in the New Year!

Happy Gaming!

Super Mission Force Game Report: Find the Infinity Gems!

I’ve had a bit of time away from the gaming table so it was good to get a game in with my friend Iain. We decided to play the Seek and Find mission, and we were on the hunt for Infinity Gems, which had been scattered throughout the area. There are 7 structures on the board which potentially contain one of 5 gems. The team which recovers and carries the most gems off the board will be the winner. It was a fun game with a lot of back and forth in spite of finding the gems pretty early.

Iain took his trusty Guardians of the Galaxy, with a couple of changes. Mantis made her first appearance, and Iron Man joined forces to give the team a bit more mobility. Iain dubbed the team ‘Date Night’.

Meanwhile, I fielded a team of X-Men to try some characters I hadn’t fielded yet. Deadpool is actually a figure from the Infinity range named Señor Massacre I had painted a while ago. Banshee is a conversion of the original Heroclix figure minus the disco collar and with a new screaming head to represent the Jim Lee era blue and gold Banshee (which was when I first encountered the character).

Here are some of the game’s highlights!

The X-Men examine their first structure and Banshee finds a gem thanks to his Enhanced Senses.

Iron Man finds a gem of his own and starts exchanging fire with Deadpool, who has set up in the opposing building.

Star Lord (legendary outlaw) searches for a gem, but the malignant influence of the artefact results in some nasty psychic backlash.

Gamora and Mantis advance on the X-Men. Mantis’ mind control powers will prove extremely useful in this scenario.

Beast locates a gem, but Iron Man swoops in and starts firing on him.

Star Lord uses his jump boots to investigate Deadpool’s building, and manages to secure a gem at last.

Banshee throws caution to the wind in an attempt to Sonic Blast the already injured Star Lord, but the outlaw proves too resilient.

The ladies close in on the enemy and Mantis starts using mind control to move Beast closer to their clutches.Beast is eliminated by Iron Man, dropping two gems, which Tony scoops up as he makes a run for it with three gems in hand.

Iron Man pulls a classic Tony Stark move and runs for the board edge, abandoning his team.

In a stunning turn of events, Deadpool makes a massive Teleport roll, catching up with the fleeing Iron Man, and unleashes a blaze of fire which takes the billionaire genius philanthropist playboy down!

Star Lord proves that two can play at that game and leaps over to Deadpool, scooping up the three dropped gems before scampering off the board to go shopping for an Infinity Gauntlet!

So all in all, it was a really fun game with lots more back and forth than we would have expected given how the early game played out. Teleport and Leaping are both very useful abilities to cross large distances, which gave each side a chance to reverse their fortunes at various points. Mind Control was again a very decisive ability (I think I will be bringing Jean Grey along next time!) and the objective really added a lot of interest and balance to the game.

Until next time: Truth, Justice and Gaming!