Mayday 2013 Events

On this Saturday, I attended Mayday, our annual local gaming convention.  This year, we had quite a turn out, and there were more games than last year.

Various hosts ran individual games, and there were also two big tournaments, for Warhammer 40k and Warmachine.

I ran a Tomorrow's War scenario, where a hi-tech security company has to escort a convoy of important cargo through an area controlled by insurgents.  The asymmetrical game setup of the Ambush Alley game engine allowed an excellent game to be played.

The convoy started at one end of the table and had to reach the other side against opposition.  The enemy could pop up in various hotspots around the table, and outnumbered the smaller but higher-quality security teams.

However, the game went badly for the convoy from the very beginning - one of the vehicles was immobilized, and the other had its weapon destroyed.  From then on, the convoy had serious problems going through the town.

The vehicle that still could move tried to forge ahead, but was demolished by a large IED.  Only the foot security teams could protect the convoy now.

 

The men pushed on though, and managed to cause some casualties to the insurgents due to their high quality.  However, eventually they got beaten back and were overwhelmed by superior numbers.  Here, a shot of one of the last turns had one of the security teams all wounded and captured by the insurgents, while the other one was pinned with casualties.

The game ended with a major victory for the insurgents, and the scenario might need some more balancing.  I'll probably add a sniper team for the security company, to add some firepower and coordinate the beyond line-of-sight fire capability of the vehicles.

There were quite a few other games going at the same time.

Dave C ran an El Cid game using I believe War and Conquest rules.  It sure looked great with crusaders painted up in all their glory.

There was a Victorian Sci-fi game run by the guys from Calgary, and it looked quite fun.  I saw a funny looking steam tank, a dinosaur, and some sort of summoning of a giant spider.

There was of course the 40k tournament, which provided a lot of opportunities for nicely painted models to get shown.

There was also a nicely done WWII game, Command Decision I think.

Later in the day, I played in the DBA tournament, where all of us used armies that were historical enemies of Rome.  I had the ancient Spanish.

The first game, I faced off against the Seleukid army of Don from Calgary.  This was a slow game where we both maneuvered for position most of the time.  We only started engaging near the end of the time limit, and I eked out a win by killing his general from some lucky rolls.

The second game was against Dave's ancient Britons, and I was not so lucky.  The fairly open terrain didn't suit my army, and I deployed poorly, allowing his chariots to smash against a weak flank.  Add some unlucky rolls to that and I suffered several units destroyed, losing the game.

The third game was against Stu's version of the ancient Britons army, and I did better.  I managed to hang onto edges of steeps hills and attacked his army from a location of advantage.   This ended in a win for me.

I think Mark won the tournament at the end, winning all three of his games.

In the evening I played in a 15 mm sci-fi game using the Gruntz rules.  I played aliens trying to attack some human colonists protected by marines.

The aliens started in a power plant and had to attack humans on the other side of the board.

I eventually overwhelmed the marines through relentless alien attacks.  Here is a shot of the aliens breaking into the human settlement.

Gruntz is an interesting game system, where you roll two D6s for each figure, in order to beat a target number to hit and wound the enemy.  It played quite quickly even with a fairly large number of models, so it can be another rule set for me to try out.

All in all, this year's Mayday was a great success, and we all had a lot of fun.

1/72 Sci-fi Infantry

Finally, here's the infantry component for the Mayday game.  They are Caesar's modern special forces miniatures that I've painted in an urban camouflage pattern, and they are meant to represent soldiers working for a security company guarding cargo in my science fiction game.

Since these are regulars in an Ambush Alley/Tomorrow's War game, there are only a few of them, and they'll be facing much lower quality opposition.  Basically there are two teams of four, plus some specialists.  I mostly painted Caesar miniatures just as they are, with only a few conversions.

The miniature in the middle is the original Caesar pose, and I like that it has a very sci-fi appearance, with the night-vision goggle in one eye.  I converted the same pose by adding different legs to produce the other two poses.

For this leader figure, I did a bit more work.  I gave him a beret head from the Caesar WWII partisans set, and a cybernetic eye piece over his left eye made from a styrene rod.

This one is painted as is for use as an electronic warfare specialist.  He is from a Caesar modern American set and has some sort of tablet in his hand.

I also made some markers for bombs and IEDs.  These represent medium-sized bombs that can destroy armoured vehicles.

These are small IEDs made from mortar shells.  They will be a pain for the regulars.

More 1/72 Sci-fi

Finally, I'm back on 1/72 scale miniatures!  For this year's Mayday, I'll be hosting another Ambush Alley/Tomorrow's War game, and I've completed a few vehicle models for it.

These are the left and right sides of a Revell Fennek reconnaissance vehicle.  Like a lot of ultramodern vehicles, it looks very sci-fi, and I'm using it as an advanced scout vehicle in the game.  I've painted an urban camouflage pattern similar to others I've seen online.

Here is a 1/72 scale Caesar modern special forces soldier for size comparison.

To accompany it, I've built this old ESCI Morris Quad tractor.  For a WWII vehicle, it sure looks futuristic when it's painted in an appropriate camouflage and has bits added to it.

The same Caesar soldier showing the size of the truck.  It's a good size for a Humvee-style utility transport.

Finally, I've painted the mechanical mules shown previously.  They can act as fairly large transport robots for 1/72 scale miniatures.

I've got more stuff coming too, some infantry and various terrain and markers, so stay tuned!

Mayday Game

On Saturday, I hosted an Ambush Alley: Force on Force sci-fi scenario for Mayday, a local gaming convention here in Edmonton. I mainly used the Force on Force rules, but with an adapted original Ambush Alley scenario, "Sweep and Clear".

The scenario, set in my sci-fi campaign universe, now consists of regulars from the San Carlos Colonial Legion, with a human command section and two units of alien Fir (GZG 15mm Ixx) warriors, trying to clear a town held by Anarchist partisans.

The map is based on the original "Sweep and Clear".
Because of a change in the objective to neutralizing all the hot spots instead of three of five, I allowed the regulars to draw an asset card at the beginning of the game. The three regular players (I let the four players go three vs. one) got really lucky and drew an armoured car, which greatly increased their options.
The regular units at the starting line. Each alien Fir (Ixx) unit had five warriors, with one heavy weapon. The human command section had four men with one SAW.
The regular players went for a plan of sweeping one side of the table with all their infantry units supporting each other, while the armoured car blocked any partisan attacks from the other side. The partisan player placed most of his hot spots inside buildings for the cover bonus. However, since all of the said buildings were in line of sight, this turned out to not be a good idea.
The armoured car engaging a partisan unit.
The start of the sweep, with a Fir unit moving behind cover and firing, then eliminating the partisan unit behind the building cluster.
And the command section moved up to support them.
The regulars then moved forward some more, while the armoured car covered their flank.
A Fir unit moved up and fired into the partisan unit guarding one of the hot spots. The regular players were extremely lucky with their reaction rolls. They managed to beat the partisans and fire first almost every single time, with very bad results for the partisan units.
One interesting moment occurred when a partisan unit from a nearby building fired on the armoured car and hit the unbuttoned commander. However, on the medical roll the regular player rolled a 6 and he was okay!
The partisan player also did badly with his reinforcement rolls. He rolled 6 twice and didn't get any reinforcements, then he rolled a SAW gunner only a couple of other times. He was never able to build a good enough force to whittle down the regulars. He also had very poor luck with getting anti-tank weapons, and had a lot of trouble handling the armoured car. The above was one of the rare times when he did have a nice shot. He had an RPG gunner with a good line of fire, but only got a "ping" result against the front of the vehicle.
In the end, the regulars swept through all the hot spots, eliminating most of the partisan units along the way. Here a Fir unit moved in to finish off a shaken partisan unit.

The game ended up being an overwhelming victory for the regulars, with the partisan player complaining that the scenario was rather unbalanced against the partisans. However, when we playtested the game the partisans won easily. A lot of bad luck was involved this time.

A unit of partisans hiding behind a building.
Partisans gathering around a hot spot.

All in all, it was a great game. I'm thinking of balancing out the chance appearance of armoured vehicles by giving the irregulars some sort of anti-tank unit bonus for their reinforcement rolls. That may make things a bit better.

Painted Resin

Well, I managed to paint the resin vehicles to a gaming level pretty quickly. The resin material seems to have taken Gesso (which I use to prime) and paint fairly well.
Here is the AMX-10RC from its left, rear, and right. I used the same camouflage pattern as the Sagaies and the APCs. The vehicle is a very solid piece of resin, quite a bit heavier than plastic kits. I hope the paint job will hold up well against bumps and bruises. The vehicle is in 20mm (1/76) scale, but looks fine enough compared to the 1/72 plastic kits, and is suitably intimidating.
Here are the VBLs. I painted the windows a dark blue colour to represent the glass, since this is what I've seen other people do for solid resin vehicles. The effect seems fine enough.
Here's a close-up of one of the VBLs. The kit is quite functional, probably with less detail than a plastic kit would have, but it's good enough for me and builds up a lot faster. Hopefully it will also turn out to be more durable in gaming.

Overall, this is has been a very positive experience for me. I'll definitely be getting more resin vehicles for gaming.

Into the Unknown

Frustrated with plastic kits that have too many parts, I recently purchased some resin vehicle miniatures from S&S models. These are designed for wargaming and have very few pieces. Although marketed as 20mm (1/76) scale, they seem close enough to fit well with 1/72s too. Since I've never worked with or painted resin models before, I'm in unknown territory.

These resin models have flash and excess bits that need to be trimmed, but because of the very few parts, the overall preparation time was far less than plastic models.

I bought 2 VBL models. As you can see, these are a combination of resin and metal, but they do seem to take super glue well enough. I'm thinking of making removable upper torsos of crewmen for all my vehicles to indicate buttoned/unbuttoned status in Ambush Alley games.

This is an uparmoured AMX-10RC, and it will be the heavy hitter in my games. It's got the same resin/metal combination as the VBLs. I'll have to see how well these materials take paint.

Well, on to priming.

Even More Partisans and Some Terrain

I've been doing more painting and building in the last while, mainly for the upcoming Mayday Ambush Alley game I'll be running. I've done up more partisans and some terrain.

I've painted up some more partisans from Caesar's first WWII partisans box. This set has a different group of poses, including an interesting man with an explosive detonator. In addition, I painted some more Caesar modern insurgents, for the RPG and SAW support.

Another interesting figure is an Orion modern Chechen fighter I painted up, for use as a Person of Interest in games. The Orion sets are not as detailed as Caesar, but match up fairly well in size, as can be seen in this comparison with the Caesar nun.
I've also made some simple mud walls from styrofoam. These are just strips of foam with drywall compound texture and a simple painting scheme. They are low walls that offer cover.
Also, I painted some Liberation Miniatures DShK heavy machine guns. These are generic enough that I can use them for several settings. Here, some partisans are reloading theirs.

I finally managed to base the GZG Ixx miniatures properly, and now they look quite a bit better. I'm getting to like them more and more, since they fit so well with 1/72s.