Wednesday, April 30, 2014

More Flea Market Finds

On Mondays the market just round the corner from my work has several stalls selling toys and stuff as well as second hand books.  It's been a great source of wargames purchases over the years but this week was particularly good.  Three Altaya tanks at £3.50 each!

The M60A3 is in Egyptian Army colours.  It'll get repainted to join the NATO forces in Andreivia.



The Panther is described as an Ausf A.  I haven't checked it against my Panther book yet.  I may leave it in its current paint scheme.



And finally, I picked up a C1 Ariete for Richard Phillips who is now doomed to build Italians for the next Andreivia game.


The Altaya models aren't as well-made and beautifully detailed as the Dragon ready-mades but at these prices I wasn't going to look a gift Panzer in the mantlet.

Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Atlantean Escape

I played a solo game of Pulp Alley the other evening just to try out one of my new Leagues.

I used the "Dangerous Delivery" scenario to represent a party of explorers trying to escape from a partially ruined Atlantean city with my Atlantean Guards league trying to stop them.

The guards consist of Polemarchos (leader) and ten (follower) guardsmen, five with tridents and five with flameguns.

Polemarchos and his guards emerge from the jungle. 

Up against them was a hastily assembled exploring party theoretically under the leadership of Professor Protherroe but in fact led by the American explorer Rock O'Connor.

Front row (l to r) Rock O'Connor, Don Luis and Javier
Rear row (l to r) Juan, Jose, Sarah Protheroe, Professor Protheroe
Juan, Jose and Javier were all followers.  Sarah was a sidekick and the Prof and Don Luis were allies.

The terrain was intended to cover the edge of the ruined city and the start of the jungle beyond.  The Protheroe party were to enter bottom right and leave top left:


O'Connor started with control of the Major Plot Point (the Atlantean Princess) and Javier was leading the second (a mule-load of treasure).

As Javier leads forward the mule, Don Luis goes down
under flame-gun fire.
Don Luis fails a Health roll and drops below 1d6 Health
The Guards advance!

A little singed, Don Luis climbs to his feet and takes aim at the
Guardsman who targeted him.
End of Turn One - Don Luis makes his recovery roll
Turn Two saw the exchange of fire at long range with Followers going down on both sides.

Looking round from the recalcitrant mule, Javier
locked eyes with an advancing guard.  Moments later
a ball of flame slammed into his chest and the
Mexican fell to the floor and lay motionless.
Javier fails a Dodge check and then a Health check. 

Jose is also lost whilst Don Luis fights with a Guard.
Don Luis defeats his latest opponent whilst Rock and the Princess
take control of the mule.
Distracted by a cry of delighted discovery from the Prof, O'Connor feels
the razor-sharp steel of a guardman's trident bite into the flesh of his thigh.
Don Luis went down again to long distance shot.  This allowed
another guardsman to charge Rock O'Connor. Despite rolling 3d10
to his opponent's 1d6, Rock loses and the initiative switches to the
Atlanteans (having just swung the other way after the Prof discovered
the secret of the Bronze Spear).
Turn Four focussed on a confused melee in the centre of the board.

Polemarchos moves in between altar and firepit to
ensure that Professor Protheroe will take the secret
of the Bronze Spear to his grave.
Got the girl, got the treasure - Rock O'Connor runs!
Turns five through seven (Rock used a reward card to extend the scenario) saw Don Luis recover again but the Prof go down and out having failed too many Health checks.  Rock, the Princess and the treasure disappeared through the rock arch with Sarah just behind them.  Rock will have some explaining to do and will doubtless be persuaded to go back and rescue the Prof.


O'Connor, I'm coming for you!
Overall I was pleased with how the scenario went but it brought home how relatively difficult it is to play Pulp Alley solo.  You have to keep track of Fortune Cards and special abilities across multiple characters on both sides and that's not always easy to do.

Monday, April 21, 2014

New shops, new toys

The family decamped to Wirral this Easter to stay with my Mum for a couple of days.  This gave me to chance to visit a couple of new shops in Merseyside.  Both were very much fantasy-focussed so I didn't spend as much as if they'd been selling historical models but I did make a couple of buys:


The Scythe and Teacup is a gamer cafe just outside the city centre of Liverpool.  Tucked away behind an anonymous doorway on a backstreet, it's part greasy spoon cafe, part shop, part games club.  There was an interesting range of Euro games and card games, some miniatures (the usual Malifaux and Dystopian Wars stuff plus some more unusual figures) and a tiny amount of Ral Partha resin terrain.  I was tempted by the latter as I'm always on the look-out for items to use in Song of Blades and Heroes or Pulp Alley games but on this occasion nothing caught my eye that I didn't already own.

I did pick up a Ral Partha scorpion-man though.  He joins the lead-pile and and will eventually see action in Gloranthan SOBH games.

On Saturday afternoon I combined a trip to the local tip with some garden waste with a visit to the Miniaturium in Wallasey.   This is an interesting little shop, only open for a few hours on a Saturday, that sells Malifaux, Bushido and Dystopian Legions miniatures whist doubling as a workshop and outlet for the owner's large scale sculptures.  Sadly none of those games are my style - I prefer my wargaming a bit less dystopian - but I did pick up a couple of chained coffins from Malifaux manufacturer Wyrd Games.  They do nicely as scenery or plot points in SOBH or Pulp Alley.

Monday, April 14, 2014

More of Crisis Point III

Just some pics of game:

George starts moving JS-3s through the city

The city, looking south east.

A MiG-27 flies across the airport

It was a big table and took some walking around

Some Type-61s approach an narrow street on the edge of the Turkish Quarter.
Surely Richard P wouldn't send them, unsupported, against enemy infantry?
He did.  It wasn't pretty.

The French move to capture The Old Fort

A view over Tcherbevan looking north.
One of Mark Kniveton's lovely Landrovers -
the Brits arrived on Sunday as NATO's second wave.
The Warrior was nice too - I must get mine painted.

Battle for Tcherbevan, the cast and crew list


The Battle Tcherbevan

An SOTCW/Crisis Point Production

Cast in order of appearance

Russian Commander
Jamie Crawley

Andreivian Government Commander 
Richard Phillips 

Salem bin Hakem (day one) 
Gordon Malcolm 

Andreivian Turk Regional 
Commander Russ Phillips 

Shavo Maladjian 
Rob Connolly 

Lieutenant Ostravilli 
George Ashmore 

NATO Commander 
Mark Kniveton 

Salem bin Hakem (day two) 
Jamie Crawley 

Andreivian Armenian Reinforcement Commander 
Pete Jones 

AMX-10RC Driver 
Arthur Woodward 

T-55 gunner 
Josh James 


Crew

Scenario Design
Richard Crawley

Vice-Presidents in Charge of Cakes      
Rob Connolly, Richard Phillips,
Stella Crawley and Millie Crawley

Head of Logistics
Mark Preston

Terrain
Richard Crawley and Richard Phillips

Forces provided by
Mark Kniveton, Pete Jones, Richard Phillips, and Richard Crawley 

The Crisis Point team are powered by beer and pies from 
The Royal Hotel, Dungworth

Rules Used - Tac Skirmish: Arc of Fire by Scott Fisher and Chris Pringle

Rules Consultant
Mike Reese

Game played entirely on location at Dungworth Green Hall, Sheffield, S6 . The producers wish to thank the staff of the Bradfield Dungworth School and the Dungworth Village Hall Committee for their assistance.

Copyright in The Battle for Tcherbevan is protected by the laws of the Republic of Andreivia. No reproduction without express permission of the Minister of Culture, Culture Ministry, Ministry of Culture Building, Culture Ministry Boulevard, Tcherbevan, Andreivia. The characters and events in this game are fictitious. Any resemblance between them and real events or people is entirely deliberate.

Saturday, April 12, 2014

Battle for Tcherbevan - Day One

Despite being a couple of players down on the ideal number we managed to get in a good game today. I reckon we got through six or seven game turns despite spending an hour setting up and another having lunch at the pub.  By the end, everyone had pretty much got the hang of the rules and we were bowling along nicely.

The table, just one really big one this time, looked quite spectacular with Richard's municipal buildings being particularly fine.

Gordon (Mujaheddin comander, in the background) looks on as George
(Government airborne troops, right) advances out of the Old Fort.
The late cancellations left us with a larger table than we really needed and tomorrow I intend to close down the sector north of the river leaving the Russians in charge of the airport.

As it was, Jamie did a good job of patrolling the airport and managed to find so partially burned documents (intelligence coup) and the pedestrian tunnel under the runway whilst only taking one man wounded.  So a win to the Russians.

A MiG-27 makes a slow-speed pass over the runway.
Richard and George managed to get Bubi Three, the Andreivian entry to this year's Eurovision Song Contest, out of town after agreeing a non-aggression pact with the Russians.  So a win to the Government.

Government Type 61 tanks prepare to move into the Turkish Quarter.
They would soon learn that it's not a great idea for tanks to move
unsupported though built up areas!
Gordon, as the Mujaheddin, managed to take a building from the Government and didn't lose any men at all.  So a win to the Islamists too!

An Andreivian Turk recce plane over the Turkish Quarter.
Andreivian Armenian Rob lost some buildings and gained some others but lost a fair number of men in the process.  I'm having difficulty convincing myself that we can call him a winner at this point.

Likewise Russ who, as the Turks did OK but didn't manage to get the Mujaheddin to do all his fighting for him.

I report some more and add to the photos tomorrow.




Friday, April 11, 2014

D-Day

These things never go according to plan and last night I learned that we've lost one of our players for at least half of the first day due to a medical emergency.  So I was up at 4:45 this morning rejigging the scenario.  There are still spaces if anyone in the Sheffield area fancies playing some Andreivian Turk militia!

The early start did allow me to repair a damaged mast on the Andreivian Freighter (the Mari-Elenn Karta out of Tcherbevan) seen here in her recently-cobbled-together glory.



 

D-Day minus one

I'm off to Barnsley on business this morning and then it's off to the village hall to collect the tables for Crisis Point III.

Here's a random pic from a previous Crisis Point:


Tuesday, April 8, 2014

Getting Ready

I took an afternoon off work yesterday to get myself sorted for the weekend's Crisis Point game.  The spare bedroom is now somewhat full of terrain and box-files full of vehicles :


and of boxes of figures:



Monday, April 7, 2014

A Week to Go

With just a week to go before Crisis Point III, I took advantage of part of the family being away to set up a practice game of Arc of Fire on the kitchen table.  I decided to set up an assault on a militia-held farm complex by some Andreivian Government paratroopers.


I played the assault through solo at first and it was useful to learn that, set up as they were with three five-man squads the para platoon is too vulnerable to losses, despite having Morale 5.  I'll have to reorganise them into fewer, larger squads.

Andreivian Armenian militia mortar team in a pigsty
Later on, Mark Preston came round to try out the rules - his first ever go at wargaming.  He had a go at throwing some paras at the barn and quickly learned that SMGs in the open are no match for assault rifles in cover!

Andreivian paras in the woods

Arc of Fire fun - the Armenian militia squad leader is attacked
by a rabid dog...
...more AoF fiun - the dog rolls a five (no effect) whilst the squad
leader fires his SMG for three eights (kill, kill, kill)! 
The paras go in with mortar fire support.

Wednesday, April 2, 2014

Penkridge Painting Progress

Somewhat unusually, I've made pretty good progress on painting my purchases from January's Penkridge tabletop sale.


Latest finished is the laser-cut Koenigsstrasse building from Commission Figurines.  I've not painted a lot of the details - I just wanted to give the general idea of a burned out shell.


Then there's the Sharkmen, who are now deemed to be Atlanteans for my Pulp Alley games.  I've now varnished them and provided them with a leader.


And then there are the Host Alpha aliens.  I can't claim responsibility for these as they are Millie's paint job.


And finally the T-34s.  These only needed taking out of their display cases but one of them's had a green repaint.


So three months after that shopping trip I have only eight cataphracts and five aliens left to paint!  Oh and some vacc formed scenery I might tart up a bit.