MINI WARGAMING: 28mm Robot Gang In The Works!

.TOP: A 28mm robot gang in the making.

Hi All,

I've been long wanting to create a 28mm sci-fi robot gang and my friend, Dick's plan to run a "Savage Worlds / Necromunda" 28mm sci-fi skirmish game this upcoming weekend has been the catalyst to help me get my "robot gang" project going. I've always loved robots from the shiny, chromed bots of the pulps to the tubey-appendaged bots of the 1950s to the latest CGI bots of Battlestar Galactica and the present. I've been collecting robot miniatures for ages waiting for a project to use them on.

This gang was originally planned for use with Star Mogul so there are a few support bots that might be less useful in "Savage-munda." We'll probably only need gangs of about eight, but I provided more bots to have a fuller roster. So, without too much more talk, here's the robo-gang I'm working on:

BOTTOM: The Brains of the Outfit - "Dr. Sinestro"...
And his two bodyguards, DCK-550 "Dick" & RCK-565 "Rick."

TOP: These figs are all recycled Heroclix collectible miniatures.

BOTTOM: Foot troop "Robo Enforcers":
LNY-15 "Lenny", BRC-55 "Bruce," & SQG-35 "Squiggy."TOP: These are all old Grenadier minis from the 80s Paranoia line.

BOTTOM: A second shot of the "Robo Enforcers."

TOP: I love these old sculpts, I had to repair the left one who came in two pieces.

BOTTOM: Sergeant Bots:
ROK-1525 "Sgt. Rock" & STF-1515 "Sgt. Stiffy."TOP: These are the newer Mongoose Paranoia sculpts.

BOTTOM: Lieutenant Bots:
VLD-116 "Lt. Vlad" & IGR-118 "Lt. Igor."TOP: The left guy is an ancient 1970s Star Guard sculpt from Reviresco and...
The right one is a mangled I-Kore sculpt that I found a right arm for...
And will need to find a left hand for...

BOTTOM: The General:
DGR-1000 "Old Digger"TOP: This is an OOP Global Games - Legions of Steel figure that I had to strip.
The old paint was plastered on like Tammy Baker's make-up.

BOTTOM: Master Sergeant Bot:
MGO-001 "Mongo"TOP: This is a Reaper fig, "Iron Golem" or something like that.
It was a gift from my buddy, Mikos. Thanks, Mikos!

BOTTOM: Support Robot:
SPKY-5000 "Sparky" (right), a mechanic bot.TOP: I have no idea where this sculpt came from (Wish I did!)...
I REALLY love its' funky retro-50s look.

BOTTOM: Support Robot:
BNS-911 "Bones" (left), a mechanized medic.TOP: The doc-bot is also a Mongoose Paranoia sculpt.

So, priming is on tomorrow's docket...

Have a good one!

Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.

WARGAMING: Saturday (4 March 2006) At Great Escape Games!

Hi Guys,

Well, yesterday, I mosey'ed (How do you spell mosey?) on over to Great Escape Games with two objectives in mind:

1. Possibly play a Battleground WWII minis game with Kurt, Mark and gang and/or...
2. Play some board games with the excellent Dave Story, Kimbo and anyone else around for boardgaming day...

I came out very well, indeed!

======

Dave and Kimbo beat Kurt and Mark to the store by a good margin so we all sat down to play one of Dave's latest acquisitions:

"Conquest of the Empire," the newer Eagle Games variant.

Here's a Board Game Geek (BGG) link:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/17710

And here's the BGG blurb:

This game is a remake of the 1984 classic that was part of Milton Bradley's Game Master Series. In this game you are one of many Roman generals vying for power in Imperial Rome, employing legions, cavalry, and catapults to reach your objectives.

This version of the game has two sets of rules, one set similiar to the original version (except that it has fixed the broken catapult rules) and an original set of rules based on Martin Wallace's Struggle of Empires.

Mike O'Brien and Charlie joined us so we had a full table of five.

Like most Eagle games, while it was rich in game components (...hundreds of little plastic gaming pieces and hordes of little cardboard counters), I found gameplay a little lacking.

I also suffered one of my all-too-regular curses... of playing opposite Mike O'Brien. Mike's a great guy and all, but we seem to have gameplay styles that conflict HEAVILY with one another! I ended up planted in the East with bases in Macedonia and Egypt. And, of course, Mike also ends up in Egypt and decides to make it his home base of operations... right where I wanted my home as well... ensue COMBAT!

I barely won, and only because I was persistent. And meantime, my chances for victory were utterly lost. It turns out that "Conquest" is as much a political game as a game of ancient warfare.

We ended early and Kimbo and Dave were the only two competitors. I had a good time and saved a whole ton of armies to give someone else a hard time. Poor Mike was nearly wiped out.

======

Meanwhile, Kurt and Mark showed up.

As usual, Mark showed up with some gorgeous new terrain that he SCRATCH-BUILT and a horde of 15mm WWII figures. Kurt showed up too in his trademark brown leather jacket with his trademark sense of well-honed sarcasm...

Kurt, Mark, Dick and I have been experimenting with Star Mogul from Alpha Forge Productions and have, well... been disappointed.

http://www.alphaforgegames.com/

Star Mogul has some balance issues and when Dick's forces were slaughtered in the last game, the guys decided to try and rewrite the Star Mogul rules a bit and in the meantime, find another skirmish game to play around with.

Well, it turned out that Mark liked Easy Eight's Battleground WWII (BGWWII) so... lo and behold, that'll be the next rule set!

Two links to BGWWII:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/20441

http://theminiaturespage.com/rules/ww2/bgww2.html

While, I didn't play I did observe the game and I liked it. Kurt played Russians and Mark, Germans. Mark, as usual, set up a scenario in which he was hard-pressed and Kurt's troops carried the day.

The game mechanics are good and flow well. I can't wait to play the game again.

And speaking of BGWWII, one of my friends who I played BGWWII with has recently moved (...studying in grad school) and has set up his own web site. I'm talking about Jon Compton, the editor of Fire & Movement magazine and one heck of a nice guy.

Here's a link to his new web site:

http://www.joncompton.com/bio.html

======

Meanwhile, Mike, Kimbo, Charlie and I decided to get one more game in before we headed home and somehow, we decided on Wellington from GMT Games.

BGG link to follow:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/11265

BGG blurb:

Adapted from the designer's "The Napoleonic Wars" covers the campaigns in Spain
and Portugual between 1812 and 1814.Simplified diplomacy as the four players
play in two teams (Spain & Britain vs France Nord & France Sud).

We each took the following roles:

The Good Guys (...because I played them!):
1. Me as the Spanish
2. Kimbo as mighty Wellington and the English

The French (...and Bad Guys!):
3. Charlie as France Nord
4. Mike O'Brien as France Sud

The game was an interesting historical scenario and I had a good time overall, but I wanted to mention that the event cards had some pretty confusing wording. If it wasn't that I was playing with an easy-going bunch, I could have foreseen games ending over such arguments. Rules lawyers would have loved those cards.

Well, pretty early on, it started getting ugly for French. After a few initial victories, my Spanish really started kicking Mike O'Brien around (See! I told you I end up opposite him just about every game... even when we're allies!). By the end of turn three, the French were almost entirely forced out of Southern Spain.

Charlie did a better job with France Nord until about turn two when Kimbo set out with a reinforced Wellington and started ripping holes in the French bulwarks in central Spain.

And, it just went downhill from there.

We fell into a pattern:

- The French threw everything they had at Wellington... who ran when necessary and...

- Meanwhile the Spanish cleaned up, claiming the open territories that the English created.

- Which oddly enough, are rather historically accurate results.

I won the game... allied victory that time.

======

And I also wanted to report that my friend, Tas'es new blog is going gangbusters:

http://pauljamesog.blogspot.com/

Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.

GAMING NEWS: The Shield Convention Report & More...

Hi Guys,

As many of you might know I attended The Shield gaming convention this past weekend and had a good time.

Here's a short encapsulation of the convention:

Hi Mike,

I attended (Saturday-only) and had a good time... definitely $10.00 USD worth, although not $20.00 USD worth.

I only played in two games:
1. Pirates Games hosted by Flagship Games guys.
2. DBA Tournament.

I felt that there was good vendor attendence for a smaller convention and ran into tons of friends that I've made over the years. I didn't see Ron's B-17 game (Avalon Hills B-17 Queen Of the Skies) although I did see him and his son.

One of the odder things I encountered was there being no registration when I arrived. I actually had to track down Manny (the convention director) to pay him!

If I had to capture the feel of The Shield, I would call it a slightly larger and more glorified MWS meeting... nothing fantastic, but there was plenty of good, clean and fun gaming.

I would go again.

=================

The big reason I attended the convention was to play in the DBA tournament with my friend Dick. Dick was kind enough to bring armies for both of us. He played a Roman army and I played an Indian army.

The DBA torunament rules can be found here at The Shield web site:

http://www.geocities.com/ancientconference2004/conference_002.htm

Northern California 15mm DBA Tournament
- (4) Rounds
- DBA Version 2.2
- Preset Terrain
- BUA's treated as bad going and all BUA rules ignored.
- No dismounting during the game by armies capable: must be dismounted at deployment.
- 2 Variations of army list may be used.
- Rounds will begin at 6pm on Sat.

I used the following Indian lists:

We were allowed two different variations of one list:

#1.
x1 Elephant general
x2 Elephants
x2 Chariots
x2 Cavalry
x5 Bow

#2.
x1 Elephant general
x2 Elephants
x2 Cavalry
x6 Bow
x1 Blade

I may be off a unit or two, but that's it or close to it off the top of my head.

The biggest news for me on a personal level was that I WON the torunament!

I really wasn't expecting to do well... let alone win.

I think I was out-maneauvered and out-strategized almost every match, but...

I wasn't out-fought!

Sometimes, that's enough...

==================

One of the bigger vendors there was Monday Knight Productions:

http://www.mondayknight.com/

I spent most of my "play money" with them and came out with quite a lot for my purchase... several stackable Battletech buildings, some small starfighters, some 6mm MAATAAC AFVs, a bunch of mini bases, and a 25mm resin vehicle.

The 25mm vehicle I ended up with was a big six-wheeled high-mobility affair. I couldn't find a link to it in 25mm, but I found its 6mm counterpart:

http://www.gtns.co.uk/store1....0.12070

It's product code and name are: DSM-115 STRIKER MMRAV rocket artillery vehicle (MRL)

The top hull comes in two pieces and I'll covert a flatbed cargo area for the rear of mine to take the place of the rocket launcher. I plan to make the rear flatbed module magnetic so that I can switch the rocket launcher and cargo module in and out.

I'll be using the 25mm vehicle as a "Salvage Dog" for the Star Mogul campaign that my friend Mark is running.

Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.

P.S.
I almost forgot to share a link for the Pirates Game from Flagship games:

http://www.flagshipgames.com/

http://www.flagshipgames.com/Pirates!.htm

WARGAMING: The Shield Gaming Conference & Starfleet Battles With Vince!

Hi Guys,

The apartment move is really coming along... most of my belongings are packed and the old aprtment is slowing being moved (scrubbing every surface, filling in holes with putty, repainting any off spots, etc.) although unpacking is nearly as daunting a task as the packing and shlepping itself! Ugh!

However, I am taking a break for most of this weekend and here are the plans:Tonight, my good friend Vince and I are heading down to Lodi (...about an hour or so away) to play Starfleet Battles with our friend Jeff. At least the last game he mentioned that he wanted to play was Starfleet Battles... who knows what we'll actually do when we reach destination. One things for sure though, I'm sure that we'll have a good time!

For those of you who don't recall Vince, he is an inveterate gamer and a great guy with a really varied interest in miniatures.

POLITICAL DISCLAIMER:
Be wary checking out Vince's site as he is decidedly NOT political correct. Warning given...

Here's a link to his web site:

http://www.recon-in-force.com/index.html

And since I know that there are a number of fans of Colonial and VSF games out there, here's a link to the VSF / Colonial section of Vince's site. As a side note, I've played in many of those games...

http://www.recon-in-force.com/Queen-and-Country/index.html

Eat your heart out, Tas and Vanvlak!

Tomorrow on Saturday, my friend Dick and I are heading down to The Shield Gaming Conference for the day. We'll be playing in the DBA tournament and generally having a good time.

Check out this link for more information about The Shield:

http://www.geocities.com/ancientconference2004/

And Sunday, Mark and Kurt as well as Dick have expressed an interest in playing a agme of Star Mogul. We are all three creating our salvage companies / Necromunda gangs and it should be fun!

I am organizing my company / gang around two combat squads and a third salvage team squad supported by some kind of truck for hauling the salvage. Dick had an old 28mm hover truck that I'll probably convert into a wheeled hauling truck for the campaign.

Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.

MINI WARGAMING: Star Mogul Strikes Again!

Hi Guys,

I'm in the middle of a move, which has cramped my gaming style, but nevertheless have gotten a game of Star Mogul in. Last Saturday (4 February 2006), Kurt, Kurt's stepson Stephen, Mark and I met at Great Escape Games and gave a Star Mogul its trial run. I was very glad to take the break from moving. I've already had it with cleaning, packing and schlepping!

Kurt took his all-girl Necromunda gang and Mark played his scrap gang who all have a fetish for German names... something like "Shlieman & Sons" with every other guy named Gunter or some odd name from a television show like the Simpsons. Mark has a weird but delightful sense of humor. Stephen watched and I took ahold of a rule set and did my best to referee the game. One thing we discovered very quickly was that Star Mogul was written with the inspiration of Phil Barker... meaning that the rules are very cluttered and more often than not, difficult to understand... and that was with the errata sheet!

Stephen and I set up an urban sqaure with buildings and rubble strewn acorss the field as well as six salvage caches. Mark and Kurt were playing a salvage mission in which one of them had to either haul away the majority of the salvage (4 of 6 markers) or eliminate their opponent. It wasn't hard to guess which of the two victory conditions that the guys would be choosing... elimination of their opponents of course!

Both Mark and Kurt started out on opposite sides of the city and started out trying to find salvage. Mark's gang quickly hit paydirt while Kurt's gang struggled to dig through the choice piles to find archaotech and other goodies. Star Mogul is a pretty simple system in many ways and reminds me alot of Necromunda. Salvage rolls were made with 2d6 with the players needing to roll under their slavage ability which was modfied by the number and skill of the salvage techs as well as some other factors. It seemed like it was hard to get better than a 6 score, which made Mark's better salvage teams effective at finding treasure about half the time, while Kurt's lesser-skilled scrap techs had lower scores and failed a number of rolls.

Once Mark's gang found treasure, they prepared to drag it back to their drop site when we read the rules on hauling treasure back... Uggh! Four or more gangers are required to drag each pile of treasure at an average rate of two inches a turn! We all agreed that the slow treasure haul rate would make the game tedious so we're going to write some house rules to solve that problem... otherwise the majority of a game would be spent finding and shlepping treasure back and forth. My move between apartments is more exciting than that! Mark wants to have automated haulers so that the gangs can rumble.

Eventually the gangs came into contact and shots were exchanged. Urah!

We quickly discovered that Mark's gangers had the advantage... he specialized his gang into two squads, an infantry combat-specialized squad with a medic and a scrap squad led by a robot with a gatling gun. Both had impressive abilties and yet were effective in combat. Poor Kurt's ganf had a good mix of skills, most of which were useless since pilting or driving skills are only good if you have a vehicle! Kurt also took the grenade skill and I think he probably realized that grenades were pretty lame... only an 8 inch range with a 1 inch radius of explosion. You'd be lucky to hit two opponents let alone a higher number.

Kurt's gang was slaughtered. It wasn't pretty.

Kurt also tried using the infantry cannon, which didn't seem all that impressive. The gatling gun on Mark's robot was far more impressive. The game could use some more weapon variety. I plan to check out the sniper rifle with my gang. Some of the heavy support weapons seems not so useful.

All in all, it was a good session and I'm looking forwaqrd to building my gang / scrap company. And thanks to Dafrca's many generous trades / donations, I have enough 28mm sci-fi figures to do that. My squad is a motely assortment of figures though... GW, Void, Grenadier Colonial Marines, Metal Magic sci-fi and a few figures that I have no idea who manufactured them.

Star Mogul is a good game, but not a great one. It needs to be playtested and have the kinks worked out of it. A good editor could do wonders for the layout of the rules as well... make them far easier to understand. I'm looking forward to starting my own scrap company and playing ina linked campaign. I can't wait to see what Dick comes up with... I can envision him bringing GW Orkz into the fray.

Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.

MINI WARGAMING: 28mm Fantasy Skirmish Using ARES!

Hi Guys,

Yesterday (30 January 2006) was a nice gaming get-together. Dick, Mark, Kurt and I got together to play fantasy skirmish game using the ARES rules set from MJ12 Games.

Mark has arranged a campaign in which a human empire has been trying to expand in an area full of hostile Ork and Dwarven kingdoms. all of the games are linked, which provides some continuity to add color to the games.

One of the first outings involved the great forge block of the dwarves, which had been kidnapped by the humans who were then ambushed by the dwarves trying to sneak the forge block back to the human castle / base of operations. In that action, Kurt played the dwarves and Dick and I split up the human force. The humans barely managed to hold onto the great forge block at great loss in forces including tha tragic slaying of the hero, Dax. Alas...

Yesterday, we found the humans beset by raiding forces again, this time a Ratling sorceror protected by Ork thugs and a few Ratling skirmishers. In a tough fight, the humans prevailed again, but at great cost. Luckily, the human's sole remaining ehro survived the skirmish... and just barely. He had one wound of five remaining! All of the Ratlings and Orks were butchered and cubed into feed for the local forest creatures! Poor Kurt has now lost two in a row.

The game mechanics for ARES are pretty good. It reminds me a lot of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay or Warhammer Fantasy Skirmish except... with a much less emphacised magic system. The close combat system uses opposed die rolls with different qualities of dice. Like most games, victory or loss is heavily dependent on rolling your dice well. ARES also uses playing cards for initiative, which works out very well. It's also a very quick-moving system. We have played ten and twelve-turn games ina bout a hour and a half a piece. Very smooth!

Here's a link to the makers of ARES:

http://www.mj12games.com/home.html

A link to the Board Game Geek (BGG) link for ARES:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/5513

The next game in line for the campaign was a HOTT game in which the human castle is besieged by Ork forces on the rampage. It was alsoa tough scenario in which the humans had only 16 points versus the Ork's 24! Dick took command of the humans and Kurt faced off against him with the Orks. Mark and I watched and cheered for the sides. The map was a horrendus little river valley with the human stronghold securely located behind a river, which made it hard to assault, but also cut off a good portion of the human defenders from aiding the main portion of their forces in the center of the map.

It was a hard fought battle in which both sides lost multiple units, but it came down to a battle between the opposing generals in which the Ork warlord was slain by the leader of the humans! Hurray for my side!

Here's a BGG link to the HOTT rules:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/5369

Afterwards, Dick pulled out his copy of "Command and Colors: Ancients" and Mark and I replayed the battle of Cannae in which the Romans were crushed by Hannibal and the mighty Carthaginians. I was cast as the well, take a guess, Romans in the historically losing role and I did my part to reconfirm history.

We started out on what looked like an equal footing, but that was quickly changed when in the very first exchange, almost the entire Roman center of medium infantry was utterly crushed by some incredible die rolls by Mark using Carthaginian light infantry. It looked really bad at that point! I was ready to press the reset button at that point, but I stuck it out because the guys wanted to see what would happen. Well, I almost had turned it around and on the very last turn, the game could have gone either way although the Cathaginians pulled it out! Mazel Tov, Mark!

I really like "Command and Colors: Ancients" and will definitely play it again as it has a huge following in my neck of the woods. It plays much like a DBA or HOTT game without the ambiguity of rules that those games have due to the "Barker Fart" of a rules set they have, which while it works very well, reads like it was written using inspiration from Hong Kong electronics manufacturers!

A link to GMT's page on "Command and Colors: Ancients":

http://www.gmtgames.com/cca/main.html

And the BGG page for "C&C:A":

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/14105

Additionally, Mark has discussed wanting to play some sci-fi skirmish games using the new Alpha Forge game rules: "Star Mogul!"

http://www.alphaforgegames.com/homepage.html

Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.