General Update - 6.29.2015

On a bit of a roll catching up on blog posts in the last few days.  I've been busy at work building 4Ground buildings and British vehicles for the Hell's Highway scenario.  I'm focusing my time on the Hell's Highway scenario, but I have several other projects continuing along thanks to the efforts of the commission painters I use ... these projects are:

• 28mm ACW - 4 new 30 figure units of Confederates are complete and heading my way shortly.
• 1/300 Renaissance Naval - the most excellent Thomas Foss is working hard on my fleets for his Galleys, Guns & Glory! game - 42 ships in total covering Venetians, Knights of Malta, Spanish, Papal States and Turks.  You can see pictures of the game Thomas ran at KublaCon here.  Thomas also just recently finish the model for the most excellent Venetian Galleass (picture below ... more on his blog here).  The rules for this game should be published soon and I believe Thomas should have the ship models up for ordering from his website shortly as well.

Venetian Galleass
Image Credit:  Thomas Foss, Skull & Crown
Painted By:  Thomas Foss
(more pictures here)

• Robotech RPG Tactics - you've seen the first wave that Eric painted but there is a second wave of Zentraedi in the pipeline to be completed (2 x Officer Pods, 12 x Battle Pods and 6 x Artillery Pods).
• Hell's Highway, 28mm Bolt Action - I'm making lots of progress here ... building buildings and assembling tanks ... much more to do but more on this below.

I've managed to pull all the stuff for Hell's Highway together on my table.  Pictures and captions below provide an update/overview on progress.

Lots of stuff to do ... but considering all this was in boxes
not that long ago I've made some good progress here.

The British vehicles ready for painting.  I'm short two
universal carriers due to a parts mix up with Warlord Games,
but the needed parts should be arriving this week.  The 6pdr
will be used when "towing" the gun (already have the
dismounted gun team done).  These vehicles add to my
existing British vehicles to fill out the scenario OOB.

Going with some new vehicles for the Germans,
using the Rubicon models.  Looking forward to
assembling these next.  You can see the BergPanther
ARV at the bottom.

The 4Ground La Haye Sainte model - wow, this kit
was involved but a lot of fun to build.  I have a bunch
of roofing tiles to do here and I'll be painting the exposed
sides (need to order roofing tiles, don't have enough!).

The "Chateau" which will have a little yard and enclosure
around it when I'm done.  The 2 story corner ship will be
positioned near the bridge in the scenario.  Roofing
tiles and paint needed on both.

The remaining 4Ground buildings awaiting assembly
along with more telegraph poles. 

I'm looking to hopefully do the first play test of Hell's Highway on July 18th so I'll be pushing hard to get things into a playable state by then.  I'll of course post pictures of the game and any adjustments to the scenario.  That's about it for now - I have this week off due to a shutdown at work (do this each year) so I'm looking to use the time wisely to make progress.

Some Corner Of A Foreign Field - Modern Afghanistan AAR

At KublaCon we played Skirmish Sangin but found the rules played at a level of detail/simulation that was not in line with what our group was looking for - so we kept searching for a good set of rules for modern irregular combat.

Dan Kerrick came across "Some Corner of a Foreign Field" - a set of rules that are essentially put down on two pages.  Despite being only two pages, the rules are essentially written "rule reference" style and provide the right level of detail for me and our group while still being a great squad level game of irregular combat.

Dan and I got together today to play through a first game.  Dan just picked up the rules recently, brought them over and we played a game in 5 hours - that includes setup, clean up, reading the rules for the first time, deploying and playing 5 turns of the game.  Impressive.

British infantry section advances onto the board.

I played the British - using a section of infantry consisting of:

• 1st Squad
• Corporal with SA80
• Private with SA80 and under slung grenade launcher
• Private with SAW
• Private with SA80
• 2nd Squad
• Lance Corporal with SA80
• Private with SA80 and under slung grenade launcher
• Private with SAW
• Private with SA80

Dan played the tribal militia consisting of:

• Group 1
• Leader with AK47
• Fighter with PKM
• Fighter with RPG
• Fighter with AK47
• Fighter with AK47
• Fighter with AK47
• Group 2
• Leader with AK47
• Fighter with PKM
• Fighter with RPG
• Fighter with AK47
• Fighter with AK47
• Fighter with AK47

The British needed to secure a downed Apache helicopter and blow it up to prevent the tribal militia from plundering the bodies of the pilots and other sensitive equipment.  The two British squads advanced on the board.  The first squad moved to provide cover and fire while the second squad advanced to the downed helicopter.

We played five turns at which time the British had suffered 2 KIA and 1 seriously wounded.  The tribal militia suffered 4 KIA and 2 lightly wounded.  The British had two arrive at the helicopter with decent cover while the tribal militia swarmed in that direction.

Pictures below.

Apache down and smoking!

1st group of tribal militia.

2nd group of tribal militia.

2nd British squad advances quickly to the Apache.

The tribal militia leader makes a
run to the area of the helicopter, but lacks support.

The British consolidate to move out of the area.

The tribal militia swarm towards the British - but it is to late.

So there you have it - we've found our set of modern rules.  I look forward to more games in the future.

Dead Man's Hand - Three New Gangs Painted

I actually painted up these three gangs for KublaCon this past May but just get around to taking pictures and doing the post until now.  I added three gangs to my collection:  Pinkertons, US Cavalry and Outlaws (already have Desperados and Lawmen).  Some of you may recall me posting the step-by-step painting guide for one of the US Cavalry models.

I'm really happy with how they came out ... yes, I exaggerate the eyes as it looks nice (to me) when on the tabletop (but looks very odd/overdone in the pictures).

So ... on to the pictures ...

Pinkertons

These guys fill out my good guy gangs and are great for stage coach or bank robbery scenarios.  I used a unique coloured scarf or tie for each model so I can tell them apart.

Painting:  Jay White (me)

Outlaws

These guys fill out my bad guy gangs.

Painting: Jay White (me)

US Cavalry

More good guys here.  I know the scarfs are not historically all yellow - but I like uniformity and it makes me happier to have them this way.

Painting:  Jay White (me)

There you have it ... three new gangs to add to the pile.  I do have more to paint here but have prioritized other projects for the moment.  Looking forward to playing more Dead Man's Hand over the summer.