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Been a while since anything new has come on to the site but that doesn’t mean there has not been a lot going on in my Wargaming world! Since becoming President of the West coast Southwest chapter of HMGS/PSW much of my time that would have been devoted to updating or just adding to this site has been used for HMGS/PSW business and getting ready for the up coming convention. My main Wargaming buddy Steve Gausche and I did after a long absence get out our 20mm WWII stuff and have a battle! For many years we have used rules that were written by myself and others based off of Steve Lorenz’s Panzer War. They were/are quite good, fun, and give good historically believable results. They are fairly detailed and large games can lead to 5 hour games….. Something we are not as comfortable with now as when we were younger and had more time to spare. Also not playing WWII as frequently as we used to leads to us having to spend a lot of time looking stuff up (yes writing the rules does not mean you know them by heart) and that was not much fun. So this coupled with the fact that I had for a long time wanted to find a simpler rule set that would allow me to game WWII at conventions and at our local club (the Bengal Club) like I used to faster with less fuss. Convention games NEED to be simple and fast to be fun for participants!

I have many sets of WWII rules sitting on my shelf, some read, some played, and others just there! One of the rule sets is Crossfire a small by WWII standards set of rules that I had played over 10 years ago at a convention and hated! Of course I did not understand the concept, and the guy running it did not help much outside of letting me know is was being wiped out. So the rules sat on the shelf…. Most rules have about a 2 year life where they are “the in thing” and then replaced unless they are really good and then 5 years or so. Well it had been over 10 years and I was still hearing about them and searching the web I found lots of really devoted players and the same basic rules were still in effect! This made me decide to give them a try on my own table.

Steve and I set up a small battle of a company of German regulars with support from a mortar and PZ IV-H defended a small French town of 6 buildings some larger light industrial builds among them. We laid down plenty of terrain per the rules and Steve set up his defense. My forces consisted of a reinforced platoon of American regulars, 4 squads, HMG, mortar, and M-36 tank destroyer. Not a lot in my opinion for the attack.

I deployed out of site of Steve’s forces and having the initiative moved out using cover I pushed two squads forward and one of them came into his troops line of sight (LOS) and he used reactive fire to suppress them losing me the initiative. The initiative passing to Steve he proceeded to use group firing to nearly wipe out my platoon in the woods. Quite a wake up for me but when you think about it, it worked. I was silly enough to move the entire unit up into the area where he could bring several units to bear on me and he rolled well, my troops were pinned, suppressed, could not return effective fire and then killed. Now killed is a subjective term, many would argue that the results of two whole squads killed that quick (how quick??? There is no time scale so the fire fight might have been 2 minutes or 22 minutes) but “killed” in the game as I see it means really reduced in combat effectiveness to a point they no longer play a part in the action due to wounds, morale, exhaustion, and actual KIA’s. Works for me and it was fast in game time!

Steve then used the rest of his initiative to move a squad into a flank position to my left and then passed initiative to me. I pulled my troops back and swung my M-36 around the edge of the field where it could engage some of his firing troops that had just caused so much damage. My tank suppressed his one squad allowing my two other platoons to move up into position with out taking reactive fire. So far these rules were allowing the same type of maneuver and producing believable results like our own rules but with much less work and much faster! Steve then advanced his Mark IV onto the road hoping to engage my platoon now starting to engage his most forward squads, and my M-36 called reactive fire, scratch one German tank.

I used two of my mortar 3 fire missions to lay smoke into a gap in cover allowing my right flank platoons and M-36 to move around his flank and form up behind some woods. My M-36 then poked his head out around the factory building to support my 2 squads move into the factory.

 Bad move! A Panzer Faust from one of the nearby buildings stopped the M-36 dead, a heap of flaming wreckage. Steve then pulled back his platoon that had take up the blocking position on my left flank in order to counter the threat I was massing on his other flank. This was somewhat of a mistake as it allowed me to move into his position and engage another squad at near even odds. The dice went in my favor there and I moved up again so that now I had 3 platoons attacking his last bunker building containing his CC, 1^st Platoon and HMG. While my one squad on the left with my CC, 2^nd platoon, and my HMG, held and threatened his center I launched my attack with the other two platoons in the Factory complex. Slightly better die roles on my part and the fact that I could switch my firing from one platoon to the other undamaged platoon was telling on Steve’s defenders. His HMG was positioned to cover his front where my 2^nd platoon, CC, and HMG were waiting behind a building for the right moment and could not move with out provoking relative fire from me. Several good shots from me suppressed 2 out of his three squads and after rolling off my “pinned” results moved my 1^st squad into close combat! Assaulting the building. This was too much for Steve’s Suppressed squads although his Company Commander went down fighting causing a “kill” on of my assaulting squads. This ended the battle as his last platoon pulled back out of his position in the woods and the town belonged to the GI’s.

We played this battle in about four plus hours, but that was using rules and concepts that were in the beginning totally alien to us! The basic rules were learned in just a short time and we spent the rest of the bulk of the time digging around through the rest of the vehicle, building, close combat, indirect rules, and other stuff. We have a good handle on the rules after just one game and I think another replay of the same scenario could be done in 2 hours. We both liked the rules, simple, elegant, and get you to the same conclusions without all the work. This leaves a lot more time to concentrate on maneuver and fighting the battle! I can’t wait to try these again!

It's been a while since my last update and part of that is because I have taken on the post of President of HMGS/PSW (Historical Miniatures Gaming Society Pacific southwest) and have been busy with re building the organization. I also started to play "Warcraft" again and it was such a time waster! Its like quitting cigarettes! (laugh!) Well I quit again! Ok now for the meat!

In keeping with our pledge to get “new blood”, “Old friends” and give HMGS/PSW a larger presence in the South West we have begun an outreach program of taking HMGS/PSW sponsored games to new and old venues. This weekend Steve Gausche and I took “Wings of War” to the Strategicon convention held Presidents weekend at the Radisson LAX hotel in Los Angeles. We ran the game almost continuously from 10 am to 11 pm that evening! The game was a complete success with at least 15 or more new players cycling through during the day. Some would come, play, and then return to play again. At one time during the evening session we had 7 or eight planes in the sky! With different players and lots of onlookers. One family came over and played Mother, Father, and “Sully” great little 7 year old who picked up the game so quick that he shot me out of the sky by the second game! A future HMGS/PSW member there! I know I’ll get questions on the “Matt” used so here’s the answer “I made it or Air brushed it the night before the convention in about an hour and a half” It’s not done as the airbrush clogged up a 11pm and I was to tired to clean it!

Plenty of flyers for the HMGS/PSW Spring convention were handed out and we actually picked up two new members and heard rumors of several “old” members planning to return to the fold at the next convention. I had great conversations with Mark Parker and Allen Hughes to great past Presidents of HMGS/PSW as well as with Rocky of the “Last Grenadier” and Steve of “The War House”. Both Rocky and Steve informed that the 10% HMGS/PSW discount is still in place to paid, card carrying HMGS/PSW members at their shops. Ray Gonzalez and Mike Reuier of the Art of War Terrain fame were their and have committed to come our convention as dealers! I know many of you buy terrain from them off “ebay” save the shipping and hit them up at the convention!

We used some "home Brew" rules to run clouds in several games.

The evening "patrol" at the con. The case with the planes is a "converted" wine bottle box. Most of the planes are the metal skytrex type.

It was quite a busy day for me and I wish I could have spent two days there but my “anniversary” is the 14^th and you all know how well that would go over! I did manage to squeeze in a conversation with Janice Sellers from Stategicon about helping us to encourage a bigger presence at their convention and I think it will bear fruit…. There were at least 3-4 HMGS member games there this time and at least 5 at the last Airport convention so we are a presence there.

One thing I did notice was that just having our convention flyers laying out some where for people to possibly find and pick up is no good, not enough! People are busy at the cons and distracted by many things, seeing a flyer on a table much less reading or picking it up is rarely done. We need to actively give them out to every player or passerby at our games! I did this at my table and was pleasantly surprised at the great reactions from people who otherwise would never have known! I also walked over to several other non HMGS events and handed them out. I think the word is really getting out on this next convention and I hope we have the games to play for these new attendee’s! This is going to be a big step towards a future bigger con or even a third convention but we need to hook these new people with a bunch of great games for them to play in… lets get those event written up and info, table reservations, and time off to Alex Webster ASAP! We need the Preliminary Events List up SOON!

"Sully's" mom would drag him off to play some kids game during the day but he returned every few hours to fly with us!

We picked up some new planes for the HMGS/PSW “Wings of War” set and some for the home set. Steve also picked up the new WWII version of the game along with some planes and we will give that one a try soon! It to may be a game to add to the HMGS/PSW stash.

All in all it was a great time and worth the putting up with the small inconveniences of “Airport” cons.

Above; Robert Boyens ran his huge American Revolution Game! With two past HMGS/PSW presidents Allen Huges (white t-shirt seated) and Mark Parker (Blue shirt 2nd from right)

ABOVE; Dave M. ran his beautiful American Civil War game "Wheatfield" on Saturday, very nice and well attended. HMGS/PSW member Steve Gausche looks on, "no Steve don't even think of going from 15's to 28mm I'm not doing it!"

A close up of the action in the "Wheatfield"

Happy New Year to all!

I thought I would write up a short report with a few pictures of the first battle I played in 2010! Don King, Kevin Rounsaville, Mike Kennedy, Kevan Thomas, and Tim? (Sorry you didn’t sign the sheet and my memory stinks for names!) had met through the Asianwar yahoo group and I found that they were playing BAW (battles in the age of War) Samurai rules. The group invited me down for a January 2 battle and I loaded my troops up and headed off. It is always good to play games with groups outside your own as you find out many things about rules sets that you had been doing wrong, never knew, or found that the other group had a completely different take on it, you also find that other groups struggle in much the same way in interpating the rules as you do…LOL! Such was this game; I learned a lot and even think I brought a little knowledge to them as well.

With 6 players we decided that one big game with a 1000 points a side we be best as we could all work on the rules together. The most knowledgeable players were split up and we had at it. Don, Kevin R, and I being on the attacking side and Mike, Kevan T, and Tim, defending or so we thought! BAW has a typical “Peter Pig” / RFCM pregame setup where players spend “Koku” or money in the form of dice rolled to gain points that are then spent to influence the coming battle. This influence for a samurai battle is in the very historical form of Treachery, Family, Weather, Ninjas, Battle preparation, sieges, and more. This has a very nice effect of creating a battle other than a straight up head bang. With our game it put Tim’s side on the defense with a lot of his troops being late to the battle due to bribery I think it was. Tim compensated with a bold plan of taking the initiative and attacking us! That sort of threw us of balance for the whole game and allowed his follow on troops some time to arrive.

On my flank I was lucky to have some good early generalship rolls and my troops surged forward to occupy the vacant hills were Tim's “missing” troops should have been. I should have kept going! (hindsight) and tore into his on ashigaru teppo (gun) unit but since the other side of the battle was not going as planned I thought I would hold the hills (my orders) for a bit and see what happened.

 I figured I could shoot up the opposing troops but again Tim beat me to the punch hit my gunners first causing disorder that several bad rolls on my part could not remedy! At this point the center and far wings under Kevin and Don were a see saw battle with no clear winner.

I thought about switching sides with typical Daimyo logic but as Tim's troops were arriving and he looked like the kind of general that upon swearing loyalty to might ask me to prove it by committing Seppuku! I sent in my smaller Samurai unit to engage his Ashigaru gunners. A fierce struggle issued with neither of us winning at first. At this point I just cared about running out the clock on the battle; it did with the victory going to Tim, Mike, and Kevan T’s side getting “A good Win”

Several of us are trying to organize a group to play Samurai Battles a various spot in the Southland and if you have an army or would like to start playing please contact me so we can ad you to the player list!

Thanks to all and we’ll be back! Bill Witthans

A similar account of this battle with more pictures can be found at www.HMGSPSW.org

HMGS/PSW "Fall Campaign!"

Well The Historical Miniatures Gaming Society / Pacific South West Fall Campaign has come and gone! Phewww! That’s a long title how about just, HMGS/PSW fall con! The Convention was great and better attended than any in recent memory, the level and amount of games run was also very good! Hats off and thanks to all!

Doug Kendrick and I put on a Siege of the Forigen Legations Boxer Rebellion peroid game called "Oh Dear is that a Boxer in the yard?"

FOR MORE OF THE HMGS CON! LOTS OF PICTURES, may take a bit to load!

LAX AIRPORT CONVENTION

"GATEWAY 2009"

Most of you who know me know of my dislike of the "Airport" conventions and my basic boycott of them due to the way they were run and certain thing that were going on their. I have been going to these cons for 20+ years and have seen many Great cons but about 6-7 years ago they slid down hill! Many other So Cal gamers feel the same way. Well since their has been a change of ownership I decided to go and see what was what before I continued to speak harshly about them. I went to the LAX convention over the weekend and had a pretty good time! There was a fair amount of Historical games there and met some old and new friends. The con is still fraught with problems but it seems that the new ownership is truly interested in making it work. Had some discussions with the owners and some of the miniature “overlords” and they were all very attentive and hopeful that many of the problems would be addressed in the near future.

Sunday I took my Full thrust setup and ran several games (well one game that essentially had two sections with some change in players. There were about 6-7 people and even though I used the “advanced ships” with “core systems”, “damage control”  parties, plasma torpedoes, asteroids, and several other “optional rules” they were all playing and basically running it themselves in the first hour with only a couple of questions and me checking the book occasionally. I even left them to hit the dealer’s room for a last look round lasting ten minutes! No problems. Everyone seemed to love the game and I had at least a dozen people come by and ask what the rules were or say they had played before and were going to start again!

FT lasted about 4 hours (2 games) and then Robert (?) and his son Jesse (long time familiar faces at HMGS) asked me to play a game of the newly released SPACE HULK! Robert in a real historical gamer and I was a bit stunned when he walked back from the dealer’s room with a new copy. We opened the box and spent the next hour assembling the pieces… I was not real keen on playing but was just enjoying the camaraderie so joined in. WOW, what a fun, FAST, game! We did 2 games in less time than it took to open the box and get it set up! Basically Space marines entering a drifting abandoned spaceship to complete a mission and tons of aliens trying to stop them…lol! All in All I ended up having a good time at the con and a real trip down memory lane.

After the Full Thrust game was fought and packed away several of us were just talking and the night was still young Robert (?) and his son Jesse (long time familiar faces at HMGS) asked me to play a game of the newly released SPACE HULK! Robert is a real historical gamer and I was a bit stunned when he walked back from the dealer’s room with a new copy. We opened the box and spent the next hour assembling the pieces… I was not real keen on playing but was just enjoying the camaraderie so joined in. WOW, what a fun, FAST, game! We did 2 games in less time than it took to open the box and get it set up! Basically Space marines entering a drifting abandoned spaceship to complete a mission and tons of aliens trying to stop them…lol! All in All I ended up having a good time at the con and a real trip down memory lane.

My "new" opinion is that HMGS should give The "Strategicon" conventions our full support so as to help them and in doing so help ourselves. Many new contacts were started there as well as HMGS convention flyers handed out!

The HMGS convention is coming up Oct 16^th, 17^th, and 18^th. I will be doing FT on Friday night as well as the Boxer game Saturday night with Doug K. It would be nice to see a larger Southern California closet gamer’s presence there to support miniature gaming in general…come on! time for you guys to get out of the closet!

PS. A little shameless plug! I am running (offering my services) for HMGS/PSW President this coming election. I want to change the slow decline in membership and general gaming in So Cal!

8/02/09

Full Thrust

Fleet action Space combat

Despite its somewhat lurid name "FT" is not the latest offering from the Adult entertainment industry! but a highly enjoyable Space battle game. Check out the link to my first "Full Thrust" play test page.

7/5/09

Thanks to all who were a part of the "First" monthly Age of Eagles Napoleonic battle last Friday! I had a great time, Steve G too! It was nice to dust off the Napy's and fight a game. Many thanks to Chris who showed up early and despite threats of leaving stuck to his post as "Club Batman" IE: head bartender, and kept us all well supplied with delicious libations which in turn kept discussions of points of rules questions down to a “ohh whatever, is there a chance of another, Please!” Also Doug who despite “not yet sold on these rules” did a yeomen’s job of helping us all through them!

As to the rules I think we did a credible job of working through them to a conclusion in what 4 hours? Discounting time spent eating, drinking, telling stories, ect….. I know its hard to wrap ones mind around the scale of the battles and the fact that things normally “seen” on the battlefield are many times hidden as an overall effect in the rules. Many of us have played more Battalion level Napy’s and this is very different. I think that this set solves the problem we all faced with the other smaller level games in that we all wanted to do BIGGER scale battles with them. This set is played at CORP level using DIVISIONS built of BRIGADES as your weapons of maneuver. At least that’s what I gather. Bottom line is I liked them, they are still broadly played across the US, well supported via email and the Yahoo groups, and it’s not terribly different from the "fire and fury" ACW rules we use so easy to learn and remember from battle to battle.

We were going to do a straight meeting engagement for a learning game but after I looked at what troops I had based more or less correctly for the game I decided to spice it up a bit and had us do a French attack on a Russian blocking force whose mission was to slow or prevent the French access to the bridge while the main Russian Army retreats and regroups. The French had a numerical advantage in stands with more infantry and much more cavalry than the Russians. I also put some terrain in the form of a small hill and allowed the Russians to form a Grand Battery on it.

The French had 3 infantry Divisions and a Heavy and light division of cav, commanded by Steve G, Dow A, and Jerry. 2 Russian divisions and the grand battery were handled by Doug K and Mike E.  Matt D, Chris M, Paul P, and I worked the rule book, took pictures, and helped as we could. I did not remember to take pictures until about halfway into the battle as I was quite busy with rules research so I will not give a blow by blow report, just an overview with some highlights. Since the weather had been so balmy we had a Southern Barbeque Buffet out on the south lawn of the Bengal Club's estate after which "Jeeve's cleared the table, mixed the drinks, and laid out the troops! From left to right, Steve G, Dow A, Jerry, Chris, Matt, Mike E, and Doug K. for me just look to the top of the page.

For those of you who follow this sort of thing the "Pink Drinks" are a "Saint Charles", Gin & Tonics with a bit of bitters,  in them Perfect for the summertime "South lawn" games! You can also check out our new  "Libation" rating system on the official Bengal Club website

The French spread out across the board in what looked like a broad attack meant to overwhelm the defender and find a weak spot. Steve G. on the Russian left dove in right away and engaged the forces at the bridge commanded by Doug. These included Patlov’s Grenadiers. Dow’s forces in the center were intimidated by the guns of the grand battery and slowly advanced staying out of range of the guns. Jerry’s forces made no moves and appeared content to just “Tie” Mikes forces down in a waiting game.

 Dow and Steve advanced, Dow cleverly drawing the fire of the Grand battery while Steve advanced to engage the Russians directly covering the bridge. Telling fire forced Dow to retire out of the Russians guns range. Steve drove in with his infantry and also managed to include his Lancer Cavalry. Great die rolling by Steve followed by poor rolling by Doug  led to a "Driven back" result that the Russians would never really recover from! This battle see sawed back and forth until the end with the French cavalry holding its own against the Russian infantries repeated attempts to reform and counter attack, keeping them off balance and steadily losing forces.

French Lancers manage to hold off a counter attack by the Pavlov Grenadiers

 Steve's infantry wheeled into the flank of the now unprotected left flank of the "Grand battery" Gun crew after gun crew fell to the bayonets of the French line infantry! Despite point blank canister fired into their ranks the French continued to take Russian batteries one by one. This relieved the pressure on the French center from the fire of the Russian Grand Battery. Just a note if you see units that are not correctly painted or uniformed its because we used substitutes until we paint them.

The French (Dow) in the center now gathered their own artillery into a large battery and proceeded to take on the Russian Hill batteries and again out "die rolled" them! The Russian right flank was now being engaged by Jerry who had be holding back. Just as a historical footnote Dow asked over 27 philosophical questions over the course of the game a new record for him as well as the Bengal Club, it actually could have been more as he was still asking them as most of the players got into their cars and left for home....

At left playing "the Little Corporal"  and wondering if his "die" has soaked long enough....Jerry!

Russian right flank receives the brunt of the French Cavalry and infantry in the closing stages of the game

I really had few reports from that flank but as the victory objective was essentially gained on the left (the Bridge) and there appeared the Russians left could never retake it, the game was ended and called a minor French victory.

French Hussars lead French Cuirassier into a gap in the Russians lines!

One tactic used of particular note was the attempt by Jerry to impart some of the "luck of the Dice" enjoyed by Steve and Dow into his dice by "soaking" his dice in Dow's cocktail! Jury is still out on whether this works or not but any other groups who try this are encouraged to send results to me for the Bengal Clubs research project. Actually one of Jerry's rolls bounced into Dow's drink, next time I looked the glass was empty but I never saw Dow remove the Die, hmmm?

I will be building More Russians for the game as well as French for now. I will base and rebase some troops for this system as we see how it goes. I suggest that any of you who are going to play in these games at least buy the rules and read them. 

7/1/09

Over the last ten weeks I have been participating in the "Lead Adventure Forum" Lead Painters League. Its a loose painting competition that combines Painting, photography, layout, presentation, and more into a competition to paint 10 "new" entries of 5 or more figures over a ten week period. I have had some success and quite a bit of failure depending on how you look at it! Its fun and get quite a bit of that lead mountain painted! this is my 2nd weeks entry, they won.

SAMURAI! "Ii" Red Devils 15mm based for Killer Katanas II

We have recently revived an interest in Samurai battles and have been playing the new Peter Pig "Battles in the Age of War" rules. I took this picture to compare with the army after it has been rebased for the new rules that we quite like!

The 3 hills and the 2 rice paddies are also "new" being built for the game.

Past Post

5/16/09

This is what happens when a boy has a father who wargames and asked Dad to help him and his buddy to help with a school "history" project.... "Dad, Nick and I need some help with our Castle project"

My son Paul is on the left his friend Nick stands next to him. We spent about 12 hours on the project with the boys doing much of the work, really!

This next month is dedicated to one of my best friends who passed away at the tender age of 5. "Spencer" was my dog, a Golden retriever who laid patiently at my feet for years while I painted many, many, miniatures. he was always there to welcome gamers to my house and made sure our games were never disturbed by burglars, Mormons, or Fuller brush men! I did a lot of fishing and camping with him and will miss him.

Well the HMGS/PSW convention has come and gone. Attendance was a bit off this year but better than expected and there were plenty of good games to please those who did come. I didn’t take many pictures of any of the games as I was busy playing in the “On to Constantinople” put on by Tim Daun and the “Dogs of War” gaming club. The game starts with the winning and breakthrough at Gallipoli by the allies and the Central powers (mostly Turkish) forces trying to assemble a blocking force to stop the drive on Constantinople. I and several other members of the “Bengal club” played the Turkish side and the British/French/Aussie force never had a chance!

I ran a Starship Troopers game later on that was enjoyed by all. I started prepping for the game in December building terrain and “bugs”, by the March con I had a fair setup ready to go! Mobile infantry was landed on Seti Alpha 7 where they had two repair objectives to complete their mission. The Bugs mission was simple kill the humans! 3 squads of Mobil infantry with command, Heavy weapon team, and a “Brumbar” Assault gun equipped with 2 rounds of Pee Wee tactical nuke ammo. The Bug players had 60 warriors, 6 Hoppers, 1 Tanker Bug, and some tunneling Assets! The game was pretty well balanced with both side giving a getting a beating.

Bug players, Mike, Mike, and William on the left and Mobil infantry Jesse, and Steve to the right!

A tunneling Tanker Bug surfaces and lays the heat to a Mobil Infantry squad!

Bugs make their appearance!

MI artillery tries to collapse the "bug" holes with Pee Wee nukes.

The game ended with draw both sides running out of steam before completing the objectives. I had 5 players and everyone had a good time during the 4 hour game.

2/19/2009

Well as usual I have too many periods of interest and this leads to way more than I can ever paint! I really liked the Starship Troopers movie, great Sci Fi action. I know its not a great movie by any means but taken at what it is supposed to be and not judged against other movies it is fine entertainment and gives a great platform for gaming. Hordes of nearly mindless alien bugs tearing into small out numbered Mobile Infantry units ala "Zulu" is a treat for the eyes. Real "Beer and Pretzels" type gaming. I had purchased a bunch of the plastic models with the intent of building them and using them for games with my son and his friends as a way to entice younger gamers into the hobby. As usual the models went up on the shelf and laid there for a couple of years!

I have now pulled them out and have made it a mission to paint up and play these things come hell or high water! Painting them is fun but I'm not taking a lot of time with them I have even tried a little "airbrush work" in an effort to speed up the process. I have taken quite a bit of time in putting the "bugs" together with cutting, pinning, and epoxy them into more dynamic poses.

Steve uses every trick he can think of to slow down my horde of bugs! Good thing he could not find a reference to the number of "D6" Home Defense gets, so the attack did nothing!

The rules are well thought out, that is the mechanics are, however the layout and organization in the book is very poor as far as I'm concerned. It has a lot of "fluff" like most GW game books and tons of interesting but un-needed story and history. Un-need is perhaps the wrong word, misplaced is better, the story and fluff should be in its own section separate from the game information and mechanics. Mongoose Publishing who put out the game has since dropped it but the rules and minis can be found on Ebay and other spots on the net.

Well all that aside several of us got together and did finally give the rule a try!

Steve Gausche, Doug Kendrick, and I met at the Bismarck Room for some private "testing" of SST before hopefully springing it on the unsuspecting members of the Bengal Club on a future date.

I scraped together what "other worldly" terrain I had (not much considering I mostly do WWII northwest Europe and Darkest Afrika) and set up a loose game.

Two 8 man squads of Mobile Infantry along with their fearless leader Lt. Dan's command group (Lt. Dan, 1st Sergeant Forrest, Radioman Pfc Tunein, Pvt Flamer (he has hvy flame weapon) and the Heavy support team Cpl Crime and Pvt Punishment carrying Javelin Missile launcher were ordered out on patrol. Their mission was to patrol (and clean brush away from!)  a stretch along one of the planets (Seti Alpha 7) 1000 mile long power generating "tubes"

The Troopers had been doing this same mission for months now and it had become very routine and boring as the planet had had its "bug" infestation eliminated over 2 years ago and nary a cockroach had been seen since. They patrol was about 12 clicks out, hot, tired, and dusty when Pfc Tuneinn's handheld BD17-c "sonar sweeper" started to pick up a signal.

"Dam it corporal" said Lt Dan "cant you get that thing to work right!, I'm tired of hearing that beeping racket"

"Well sir it acts sorta like its picking up a bug tunnel Lieutenant"

"Nonsense! corporal, it's just the liquid heavy matter moving though the generating tube here, we have had that problem before, recalibrate and sweep the area again!" barked Lt Dan.

Before the Lieutenant can berate the corporal further he is distracted by a all to familiar buzzing sound and the rising of planetary dust to the front of his squads...... "BUGS!" shout several troopers as they raise their Morita Assault rifles....

A deafening buzzing sound is heard overhead as troopers scan all around for the flying death brought by a squad of "Hopper" bugs charging down out of the sky!

We used quite a large force I think for our first game with learning and trying to find rules, but I think the game came off pretty well and we all had fun! The game lasted about 3 hours or so and would have been a 3rd of that if we had the rules down.

I ran the "Bugs" just like the Russians! Urrahh! and into the fray. I soon discovered that the bugs also die like Russians on the Eastern front! I gave the Mobile infantry quite a few upgrades to their weapons and those 8 man squads can put out a lot of fire power. My first flights of hoppers fell out of the sky like leaves under the MI's combined firepower! I soon realized that a massed attack to close with the MI were the bugs advantage in close  combat was my only chance.

I poured my troops out of the tunnel and also brought out my "ace" in the hole, "Tanker bug!" When that massive bug showed up the MI (and Doug and Steve) had second thought on this so far "walk in the park"

With the help of my massive tanker bug and the reappearance of what was left of the hoppers I managed to start putting some hurt on the MI and close at last into Close combat with my scads of warrior bugs!

At right we see Doug Kendrick take a shot at the last Hopper bug using the MI's super secret F27-a Bengal Club "Bug" smasher!

Things looked desperate for the MI for a bit but with some excellent dice rolling by Steve and Doug and my tanker bug getting a turn or two of indigestion (no shot) my Warriors were blown to pieces taking only a few MI with them. The MI used their special jump jet move, moving out of the tanker bugs range. Tanker bug started taking all the fire and was badly wounded, crawling away and disappearing down the "bug hole". The game ended with the MI retreating homeward leaving 11 of their 24 men dead on the field. The last Hopper making an unsuccessful attack before disappearing also.

All in all I liked the game very much and think the rules while tough to sort through create a very dynamic and believable simulation of battles as in the movie. We will all surly give this a  go many more time. Now Mongoose start re releasing the minis!

2/1/09 GREEN STUFF!!!!

The last couple of weeks has found me fooling around with Gladiators and enjoying it enormously! I was however disappointed in one thing, the lack of diversity in the Foundry line of Gladiators. Now don't get me wrong they are the best sculpts around and there are plenty of them with great poses and detail (sculpted by Mark Copplestone!), but they all seem to fall into a few types and that's all, Mirmillones, Samnites, Retiarii, Hoplomachi (same as Samnite) Thracian, Secutores, and a few  Dimachaeri. Ok well I guess they have all the regular types but since they have ten times the amount of figs in their range as anyone else I thought they might have some of the other types not just repeats.  I guess the theory is for a variety so players have a choice and don't have to use look alike gladiators. There are no Bestiarii, Equites (Horse mounted), Laquerii (like a Retiarii but with a lasso instead of net), Scissores, Velites, and the fully armored Andabatae (cataphracti). Other manufactures have some of these types and I will probably get some of the mounted types from them but I have had a roll of sculpting putty laying around for years and always wanted to try sculpting! Sculpting is I think the pinnacle of the hobby, the creation step, it always fascinated and scared the hell out of me. Well this was the perfect opportunity to try my hand at it in a small way. I took a Foundry figure that had already a fair amount of armor and decided to try and ad to it to turn it into a Cataphracti Gladiator. Green stuff is a two part epoxy somewhat like hard chewing gum. I have been collecting sculpting tools for years so with everything in place I took a deep breath and plunged in! It isn't easy by any means and if you are all thumbs, nervous, or don't like fiddly little jobs forget it...

I started with the chest piece and it required removing some lead (belts and other raised portions) with and exacto knife so there would be room for a thin layer of "Green Stuff". I've read a lot about sculpting but all of this is a new learning process for me and the first thing I found is its tough to modify a figure like this, trying to cover the original sculpt leaves little room for the "GS" with out looking bulky. I kept removing small bits (less than the head of a pin!) with a very sharp exacto knife and got it to what I thought is a very acceptable look. The "chain mail" arm is a bit thick but as it would be bulky and hanging anyway, so its ok. The idea for a Heavy armored Gladiator anyway was massive protection at the expense of mobility and dexterity. He will have a large shield in that hand and much of that side will not be easily seen. I will dremel away lead from the next figure I convert. As it is on that arm some of the "GS" is so thin that the lead shows through! This conversion took me about 4+ hours, not bad for a first time! I will let it "cure" and then paint it up!

1/22/09   GLADIATORS!

Well over the Holidays I spent a lot of time painting my mound of Foundry's Darkest Africa figures. I have almost 2/3rds of the figures produced in that range! While looking through the different boxes I found that I had also purchased the ENTIRE Gladiator range as well! Further looking found the Gladiator arena produced by Gladiator Games, and 7 already painted figures purchased off EBAY years ago. I guess after seeing Russell Crowe in Gladiator I must have had one of those frequent "gamer" breakdowns and decided to get into the period. Funny how it took 3 years to get into it for real! I had several rules sets already and after reading them and searching the internet I decided on "Morituri te Salutant" originally produced by Gladiator Games and now owned by Black hat Miniatures.

My good Friend Steve Gausche and I decided to forgo our usual Friday evening at the "Bengal Club" since they were doing a hundred years war game and we just are not interested in "Men in Pantaloons". We would try a game of Gladiator in the bar area of my "Bismarck Room". I painted up the center section of the arena and re-based the EBAY figures on hexes that would match the painted arena. The game played well, quite well for a first time run through! I have done a full on article here that will be expanded as we play on.

One thing I like about Gladiator combat is it is very contained and easy to setup! One can start with just 2 miniatures, dice, rules, and the proper size hex paper. The item on the left is not another arena but a 35mm film tin. With some black cloth in the bottom they make great dice trays!

Combat is fast despite the rules having enough detail to make playing realistic and interesting!

Regards,                

Bill Witthans

1/2/09

New games played! and figures painted! Holidays were good for Gaming! The guys I game with really like to immerse themselves in their gaming! Mike E. and Matt D. are discussing our latest "Darkest Africa" game, "The Saffron Returns" The first battle, the battle of "Watahta Point" can be seen here.

12/12/08

NEW GASLIGHT VEHICLE ADDED!

12/4/08

Getting more and more into the old "Miniatures" groove again! I have been painting quite a bit for my schedule.  Dead and dying cows / horses for our 20mm WWII Normandy battles. Also finished up a Stone bridge that will also be used for Normandy.

11/18/08

Well all is well! Not playing Warcrack just PAINTING! and playing! I am trying to list and get pictures of the new stuff but its so great painting and playing that I do not want to take the time to do it! Some new stuff in the "Workbench" area and the links have a small update as well as the "combat photographer"

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