WH40K game on Friday, 25JAN12

Here are some photos of a friends of mine who played Dark Angels vs. Imperial Guard yesterday evening at Game Nite in St. Louis, MO. 

                                         Scott McCoy's Dark Angels

                                         Ahmo's Imperial Guard.

                                         Dark Angel's rush the center.

 

 

                                          Dark Angel assault marines and Imperial Guard in melee.

                                         Dark Angels attack repulsed.
 

Small gaming project for 2013-14

Curtis Turner (Hostile Contact) gave me a copy of Ambush Valley to read.  I've gone through and digested it.  I've made some decisions about starting a new gaming project.  I want to play Vietnam.  I originally thought about doing it in 15mm with Battlefront's FOW figures.  My eyes rebelled.  The latest pair of glasses are now bifocals.  So I moved up scale to 28mm figures.  I'm looking at platoon level actions.  I'd originally wanted to do NVA.  I moved onto VC. 

I looked at different 28mm figures ranges.  Eureka Miniatures, The Assault Group, and Jungle Rot miniatures come to mind.  I'm going with Jungle Rot and Eureka Miniatures USA.  I thought I'd do half a platoon of US Marines with 2 M113's.  I thought I'd need about 50 VC to balance that force out.  I'd also get some civilians, too.  But this doesn't include 28mm Vietnamese buildings or palm trees and jungle.  Those are things I'll need to buy later. 
 
Ambush Valley is scenario driven.  I have ideas for different scenarios.  There are premade scenarios in the rule book.  I think I've got all the painting guides I need except for US Marines in Vietnam.  I'm hoping I could do some painting on them later this year and be ready to run a 28mm Vietnam game in the middle of 2014.  That at least is the goal...

Priming 25mm European Buildings

I finally finished up priming 25mm European buildings this evening.  They are now drying on my painting table.  I won't get around to them until I finish painting up my 28mm 1870 Prussian infantry.  I wanted to get the 25mm Hovel buildings primed so I could work on them later.  I should have used the good weather to seal my 28mm 1870 Prussian cuirassiers and 1870 French Chasseurs d'Afrique regiment.  The only mounted troops I have to paint now are mounted infantry command for the French and Bavarian forces.  That's good.  Cavalry seem to take more time to paint than they are worth. 

I'm wondering how much of Sunday I'll be able to dedicate to painting.  Or at least assembling models.  My 28mm 1870 forces are based.  My WH40K armies are boxed up right now.  And my 25mm Trojan War figures are still in bags in a large Priority shipping box.  I don't have enough paints to work on the buildings.  I'll need to buy some large paint bottles in February 2013 and get some painting supplies.  I guess that leaves me to work on 28mm 1870 Prussian infantry...

28mm 1882 Egyptian Campaign AAR

I ran a 28mm 1882 Egyptian Campaign game today using The Sword and The Flame.  Kevin Joyce helped me push a company of 1882 British regulars against a company of 1882 Egyptian Guard troops controled by Curtis Turner (Hostile Contact) and Don Cox. 

True to form, the artillery eliminated each other at the beginning of the battle.  The rest became a shoot out.  I got luck with some of my firing.  But Don and I then proceeded to miss each other.  Don's infantry platoon then became routed and eventually rallied.  Kevin's British infantry held.  So did my own platoon of British red coats.  Curtis was able to put some hurt on me.  But another fire phase destroyed Don's remaining Egyptian Guard unit.  Curtis was able to pass his own morale test for his basic unit.  But he failed army morale for the company of Egyptians.  We then called game at that point.  Only one hour had passed since we'd started playing.  It was a quick British colonial game today at Game Nite...

WIP, 28mm 1870 Prussian Infantry

Here are some 28mm 1870 Prussian Infantry, WIP.  All the base coats are done.  The rest is touch up and detail work.  I figure approximate completion time to be the end of February 2013:

                                          28mm 1870 Prussian Infantry Brigade

                                          28mm 1870 Prussian Infantry Regiment

AAR of 28mm Modern Afghanistan Game or...

I ran a 28mm Modern Afghanistan game using Ambush Alley-Contracting Trouble today at Wargamers Cave in Granite City, IL.  I only had one player, Don Cox.  Steve Hood (Combat Colours) showed up later.  But he didn't want to play.  I ran the Taliban.  Don run several fire teams of US Marines and a Humvee with a 50 cal.  My insurgents couldn't hit the broadside of a barn.  Don's Marines proceed to waste Taliban positions.  By turn 5, the game was over.  The Marines had won.  There was no more Taliban left on the board.  So much for Afghani training (or lack there of)...

Steve and I talked for a while.  Then Don and I left for St. Louis.  The heavens opened up and it rained.  The temperature dropped about 10 degrees F on our ride back home.  It's supposed be freezing rain and ice tonight around midnight.  I've seen the temperature go from 70 F to 20 F with snow in the space of 24 hours.  It's another reason I don't like St. Louis, MO.

Aside from that, I looked at the new GW Dark Angel products.  I looked.  But I didn't buy.  My 25mm Trojan War figures arrived last week from Old Glory Miniatures.  I now have most of purchases for the year.  There are some small figure purchases I'd like to make.  I need 28mm FPW Foundry Bavarian Infantry Command.  I also want to buy about 100 Foundry Masai Warriors.  I'd also like  purchase 50 28mm Viet Cong from Eureka Miniatures and 15 US Vietnam era Marines and a M113 from Jungle Rot Miniatures.  The 28mm Bavarian command can wait until summer.  I'll try and get the 28mm VC in April 2013.  The rest of the figures I'll purchase in November 2013.  There are also figure cases and Battle Foam to purchase later, too.  But I'm not buying any GW product until 2014.  It's part of my pledge not to support GW for a year.  I doubt if it will make any difference.  But I am doing it because I believe it's the right thing to do.  I have enough unpainted GW stuff to assemble, prime, and paint to keep me busy for at least 4 months after I get done with my 28mm FPW armies!  Hence, I can actually save money for a change...

WIP, 28mm 1870 Prussian Infantry

This week was the first time in 10 days I'd done any painting.  I finished the majority of the base coats a 28mm 1870 Prussian infantry brigade last night.  I'm now working on the musicians for each battalion.  I hope have this done this morning.  I'll then move onto repainting individual battalions next Sunday.  That project should take about 4-6 weeks.  I'm in no rush with these figures.  I'll get done with them when I get around it.  There is still two more infantry brigades to paint in order to finish my 28mm 1870 French and German armies.  I'm thinking I'll be done with this by summer.  At least that is my goal...

Gaming "Hard" Sci-Fi

Part of me likes science-fiction.  I've read an incredible amount of hard sci-fi over the years.  Though I've gamed a lot of WH40K over the years, too.  I haven't messed around with gaming hard sci-fi.  The closest I've come is Full Thrust.  I never ran a combined space and land campaign, either.  My science-fiction tastes have grown "harder" recently.  I'm liking more science in my science fiction.  In fact, it's probably why I've had a hard time reading the GW Horus Heresy novel, Fear to Tread.

There is a group of gamers who love hard military sci-fi.  They are in the minority.  Most people play GW space marines.  There are also legions of Star Wars and Star Trek fans.  When I write science-fiction, I base it on what I know.  I use the latest information about planets in our solar system or exo-planets in other star systems.  When you confine your writing to reality, it makes the science-fiction "harder" or grittier.

Part of the problem is how you deal with the speed of light.  If you assume there is no light barrier, then you can move military forces with the greatest of ease.  The problem with that is the vastness of the universe.  It took the Voyager space probes a dozen years to reach Neptune when they were launched in 1977.  They were the fastest vehicles humanity ever launched.  A space probe called Deep Horizons was launched back in the mid 2000's to go to Pluto.  Pluto is five billion kilometers from earth.  Deep Horizons won't reach its objective until 2015!  It'll have taken nearly ten years traveling in deep space to get to Pluto.  Unless there is a quantum leap in space travel technology like ion engines, it will take a human manned expedition 13 months just to reach Mars.  The Moon is still 3 days away.  And it is our closest neighbor at 225,000 mile distant.  Mars is 40 million miles away from earth. 

If you allow for ion engine or old fashioned massive drive technology to shorten your trips around Sol to weeks or months instead of years or decades, then you're confined to the borders of the solar system.  To make the technological leap to interstellar travel requires several things.  One, it requires Faster-Than-Light technology via a energy source like a naked singularity powered worm-hole.  Or it requires suspended animation or cryogenic hibernation for sublight travel.  The distances of our nearest neighbor, Alpha Centauri is over 4.3 light years.  It literally takes light 4.3 years just to travel to the nearest star system from Sol.  If we had the technology to reach 10% the speed of light (3.0 x10 6 km/sec), it would still take about 50 years to reach Alpha Centauri.  Any military expedition to a nearby star system would have to be self-contained with its own marines, vehicles, and logistics. 

Though it's theoretically possible to travel FTF with naked singularity technology.  I highly doubt we've ever developed it because of the all the possible drawbacks when it comes to using it.  I think future human interstellar colonization missions will be done with some sort of hyper-sleep technology and sublight space travel.  The ideas of interstellar empires ruled a God-like emperor and his imperial space marines are mere fantasy.  So much for gaming a "hard" sublight sci-fi setting!