LCG's and Modelling

So not really so much board games as card games, LCG's, that's living card games as opposed to CCG's, collectable card games, like Magic the Gathering. LCG's are marketed by selling a starter set that has fixed cards and then extra fixed content supplemental packs are sold on a regular schedule. In this manner the purchaser knows exactly what they are buying and can make decks as they want while a CCG's marketing model is to sell random packs so you cannot be sure what you are buying. Every pack is a surprise. I prefer the LCG model but everyone likes something different.

It seems like I have played quite a few LCG's since the last post. All the games are from Fantasy Flight Games. Netrunner, Warhammer Invasion, Star Wars, Call of Cthulhu and Lord of the Rings. The games of Star Wars, Netrunner and CoC were all learning games and I enjoyed them though I lost all. With one game of each played I would rank them in order of Netrunner, Star Wars and CoC. Netrunner has a good depth of play and a well executed theme, while Star Wars seemed to be missing something though I would like to give it another play before I make a final call, it's Star Wars after all, and while I liked CoC something about having mytho creatures seemingly fighting alongside human factions just seemed wrong.
 
I played a game of Warhammer Invasion LCG as well. It has been quite some time since I played it so it was almost like learning again but I do enjoy the game and will have to get it out more often. Again another loss if I remember right.

I also have played The Lord of the Rings LCG 3 or 4 times solitaire trying to beat the second scenario to no avail. I will continue on the quest though and after reading on the forums I have switched to playing 2 decks even for a solo game, basically playing a 2 player game but controlling both hands of cards. I did this the last game I played and came closest to winning until a bad run of threat cards overwhelmed me.

I also ran another game of pathfinder using the Roll20 program. This time I had 4 players and the system seemed to work fine. There were a few glitches getting the 2 new players in but for the most part it worked quite well and I think everyone had a good time. One of the players is chronicling the adventure on another blog for those interested though it may be a week or so before he updates after the current game session. You can find the blog here.

I have also finished off my 15mm USMC forces by Elhiem Figures, after realizing I had unpainted figures I needed for the next scenario. I still have to finish off the last AAV-7 but I need to get some black paint to spray the camouflage pattern.

The complete USMC. Elhiem figures. Dragon vehicles. The AAV-7 on the right needs to be finished.

Command team.

One of the 2 squads.

Javelin team and SMAW

Sniper team.

Insurgents by Caesar. Techicals by S&S miniatures

US Army. Caesar figures. Dragon Bradley IFV.

Insurgents again.

 

Force on Force Battle Report

The Crown Jewel; Az Zubayr pumping station March 21,2003

This scenario was taken from the Road to Baghdad scenario book from Ambush Alley Games. We played the first scenario called The Crown Jewel and depicts a small group of US Marines  trying to capture an oil pumping station before the Iraqi forces can destroy it.

The Forces:

USMC: 1 squad(12men) and a squad leader with an AAVTP-7(amtrack)
             A Cobra Helicopter is available on turn 3+

Iraqi:     Fedayeen death squad(6 men) and a Ba'ath Party Official with a SUV
            Iraqi Army Section(9 men) and a leader

The miniatures are mostly by Elhiem Figures with the AAVTP-7 by Dragon Models.

Before we started we clarified a few things like when the helicopter would be available and how to breach the fencing around the perimeter. 

This was the setup. Here the Iraqi defenders are being placed. The large building is the administration building while the 2 smaller ones are the pump houses.

We usually play on a slightly bigger board than the book suggest. This is a 3' by 3' as opposed to the 2' by 2' suggested in the book. We do this strictly for the looks as sometimes the 20mm figures and vehicles can get a little cramped on the smaller area. To compensate for this I increased the turns available to complete the mission from 6 to 9. This was suggested to me on the Ambush Alley Game forums by one of the game designers when increasing the table size.

The Iraqi forces in waiting. The ones in the Admin building are hidden and hard to spot until they take some action.

Turn 1. The USMC comes on inside the amtrack avoiding the main road and crushing the fence while the Iraqi troops in the admin building adjust their positions to cover the rear.

And then a sand storm blew in reducing visibility though this did not have a big effect on the game

The amtrack continues to the corner of the building.

And the first team debusses.

USMC fire causes 1 casualty in the pump house.

The Iraqi view.

The other 2 teams head into the admin building.

Taking up positions to fire unto the pump house. The other team is going to head up stairs to the roof.

The team by the amtrack takes 2 serious and 1 light wound and the friction of war starts to build up against the USMC.

The state of things, the Iraqi forces have only taken 1 light wound so far.

The Iraqis get some help.

And they quickly take up positions overlooking one of the USMC teams firing on them, 2 down.

The situation so far. Both USMC and Iraqis occupy the admin buildings while surprisingly accurate Iraqi fire has halted the USMC advance.

Finally the Cobra comes on. It wasn't called in earlier because it was not allowed engage targets in the pump houses and until the Iraqi SF team opened fire the units in the admin building were still hidden.

The Cobra opens fire on the admin building causing little damage and then getting called away next turn.

The USMC clears out the first pump house with the help of a sniper team that lended a hand. But the team on the roof is taken out by the Iraqi SF team. One of the guns jams up on the amtrack!

The admin building completely held by the Iraqis and the USMC do not have enough of a force to continue the engagement.

 We called it at this point two turns early. The Iraqi side had caused too many USMC serious wounds for them to recover enough VP's to win. The game was fast and furious though and lots of fun to play. We had 4 Fog of War cards that came up that really added some twists to the game making things, for the most part, more difficult for the USMC.

We are planning on playing the next scenario, Umm Qasr, so I have started to assemble a DragonModel AVVTP-7 to have two.

20mm Modern USMC Paint Tutorial

A reader asked if I could explain the pretty quick method I used to paint my 20mm Modern USMC by Elhiem Figures so here it goes. This is a little different than my usual post so I hope it is understandable.

It just so happened that I just received another batch of figures that needed painting up so I thought I would grab a bag, paint up the figures and snap a few pictures as I went along step by step.

First off I'd like to say that the basic colours and techniques are taken from the Enduring Freedom book by Ambush Alley Games. Piers Brand wrote  how he had painted the figures for the book and I mostly followed that changing some colours and techniques to match colours I had in my collection. 

The first thing to do is pick out the figures to paint and clean them up before glueing them on bases and priming them.

The selection I had to pick from

The figs as they came out of the package. Note the bent guns and various metal flash & vents. 

I straightened out the guns, careful not to bend them more than necessary and cut off any flash and scraped down a few mold lines, all with the knife.

Next they are glued on bases with super glue. In this case I used pennies.

Then I took them outside to prime them with a spray primer(GW Chaos Black) being careful to try to get the figs pretty well covered.

I brushed on some black paint to get into areas the spray could not get into.

That is the prep done which did not take very long. Now to get into the painting.

These are the colours I use for the main uniform. Vallejo 873 US Field Drab, 819 Iraqi Sand and 837 Pale Sand.

The main uniform area in 873. This doesn't have to be tidy.

All 4 done. I will only show one figure for each step though I am doing 4 at a time.

A heavy dry brush with 819.

I put this on brushing from various directions to cover most of the darker base coat except in deep folds. After it drys I do it again to make the Iraqi Sand more solid.

I then dry brush on a lighter coat of 837 Pale Sand.

I then put on a wash of GW Devlan Mud thinned down with equal parts water and mat medium to blend the colours together while adding some shade.

 

For the webbing, gear and boots I used 921 English Uniform and 988 Khaki.

Webbing, gear and boots painted 921 English Uniform. From here on you have to paint carefully to make sure you don't get any on the main uniform.

I then applied the same wash I used on the main uniform.

 

I then dry brushed with Khaki.(I've also used British Uniform with some white added)

The team finished with the details painted. Skin, guns, sunglasses and the mounting bracket on the helmets.

After that it's time to do the bases and take them to the table.

Hope this helps and excuse the photography, it really doesn't show the colours very well.

Thanks for reading,

Rob

Painting and a Fight in the Sewers

Despite a car accident (which is still being sorted out though we know the car is a write off) and a family wide sickness which took all 4 of us out of action for the better part of a week I did get some gaming and modeling in.

On the modeling front I finished off my first batch of Elhiem miniatures, the USMC 2009+. I will be using these in conjunction with  Ambush Alley Games Force on Force rules. I painted up a squad to play out the first scenario in the Road to Baghdad book. Yes I know the scenario takes place in 2003 and the Marines are wearing the armour plates of a few years on but I am going to let this pass as I am sure these fellows are going to make their way to Afghanistan as well.

I also managed to get in a game of Malifaux at A Few Glued Men meet up vs. my usual opponent, Shawn. This was are first game using the Terra Clips terrain. Shawn had used two Sewers of Malifaux sets to come up with the board and it was pretty cool to play on. It makes some nice 3D terrain but the clips that hold it together do stand out quite a bit and the squares make range estimating easier though I found this didn't make a big difference in play. The game was my Perdita crew vs. Shawn's Leviticus crew. We had shared Contain Power which is hard to pull off against Leviticus and Shawn received an early 2pts by fulfilling Kill Protegee against Taelor which I had wanted to use to cleave through his minions. After that I started to hold back to try to get two points from my unannounced schemes, Hold Out and Stake a Claim. We both pulled out some good and bad luck during card draws and neither of us could fulfill the shared strategy. The game ended in a draw which I thought was good for Perdita after being down 2 points early on. It was a fun game, looked good on the Terra Clips board and was a fairly tense second half of the game.

Elhiem miniatures USMC 2009+

The Lt.

One of the Riflemen

Taelor on the left just before Leviticus killed her. Nino in position.

Sewer level view.

Perdita holding the bridge.

Perdita and Leviticus stare each other down.