Games and Christmas Preparations

Christmas season is approaching and it is getting time to plan the annual Christmas game that Tristan and I usually wage. In the past we have always played a large Lord of the Rings miniature game but we might mix it up this year and play a series of connected scenarios of a different skirmish game possibly Malifaux or Dust Tactics. 

I have been able to get some hobby in, working on some terrain and figures. I have started to paint up some Malifaux figures for a friend of mine and plan on finishing those this week. I also started working on about 7' of river sections which I have made wide enough that it should be usable in all the scales I use from 15mm to 28mm. Of course I will have to build different bridges which I will make as I need them.

I also got in a number of games. At A Few Glued Men(Superstore group) I played a game of Warmachine using my Cygnar Battlebox set and a 600pt game of Flames of War. I pulled out a win with both these games. The Flames of War game was more of a refresher game as I haven't played in quite some time but it came back to me fairly quickly. We are planning on trying the Infantry Aces campaign once we gather enough interested parties and to this end one of the guys and I are going to run through a shortened version to try it out first.

At Shawn's place four of us got in a game of Ravenloft which was fun as this was the first time I have played the game with more than two players before and we were victorious defeating the Dracolich.

I also played a solo game of Force on Force to refresh the rules in my head and to play the intro scenario again before I get the game group together to give it another go. The first time we played we had interpreted a number of the rules wrong. The game played fast enough and this time instead of changing the measurements to match the 20mm scale (which we had done last time) I increased the number of turns and kept all measurements the same while playing on a slightly larger board than that given in the book. I liked this method better as there was no measurement conversion. I also used the Fog of War events deck removing any cards related to vehicles and air assets.

The beginning of the river sections. They are 6" wide and 2' long. I have marked 1" along each side for the river banks. I also primed them to reduce warping when I add the river banks and paint.

The river banks getting built up.

The end of turn 1. The US army has moved into the lower buildings before pushing into town. The burning HMMWV's are terrain pieces only.

Turn 2. The first US sections move up under cover of the other 2 sections. The US has already taken a KIA due to some lucky shots on one of the overwatch teams. (which were not very alert)

An Iraqi sniper wounds 2 Americans. This entire team became lightly wounded with one KIA.

 

The US are still pushing forward though the amount of fire is slowing the advance.

A look up the street to the objective building on the left.

The end of the battle. The US advance was held up short of the objective and some very lucky last turn fire takes down a US section(lower left) while concentrated fire also downed the US section in the upper triangular building with the 2nd section trying to get to them to apply some 1st Aid. Note: the Iraqi soldiers in the upper right are actually dead soldiers I removed from the building to reduce clutter.