Red Alert! I'm back!

Red Alert! I'm back! I'm back? You didn't notice I hadn't posted for a couple of months? Well, the Red Alert isn't for me. . . more on me at the end of this post. First, the gaming content.

Richard Borg and PSC games launched a Kickstarter for a new space fleet game, and I'm all in: Red Alert. It uses the tried and true Commands and Colors board game system that started with the American Civil War, then moved into WW2, Ancients, Napoleonics, WW1 and now to what would seem an unlikely genre, space fleet combat. I am a fan of
Commands and Colors: Ancients from GMT Games and have played a lot of games using 15mm miniatures. I also own and play Commands and Colors: Samurai Battles by Zvezda.

So, does this system work for "space combat?" The kickstarter actually posts the complete rules for download. 

I really like the "fleet" aspect and emphasis on "positional" warfare as opposed to "dogfighting in space" like WW2 airplanes. My plan will be to exchange the multiple miniatures per unit to track losses with the individual 1/2500-scale Star Trek miniatures, tracking losses with "shield" markers instead of additional ship miniatures. That will mean about 12 ships (plus fighters) per side. The game ships in March 2019, which should be enough time to build the models, but we'll see!

Here are a few images from the Kickstarter. Hurry, if you're interested, it closes in about 40 hours.

So where have I been? Getting new knees. Or, at least getting the first of two partial knee replacements. Hereditary osteoarthritis and years of martial arts training finally made the replacements essential, at least if I want to be able to walk for more than 15 minutes at a time! Surgery, rehab exercises and a full-time-plus job is cutting into hobby time. Plan is to get the second knee done in the fall.

I decided NOT to leave you with a Cluck-Amok-style selfie featuring my new scar : )

 

Lord Kha-Ris battles The Army From Heck

Two Undead armies clashed at Castle FusterCluck this past weekend in a Big Battle of D3H2 (DBA 3.0 with HOTT additions). We tried to play the rules as straight up as we could, since Bruce and I were coaching Aaron and Steve in their very first game.

Each army totaled 72 points divided into 3 commands. Lord Kha-Ris (MY Undead) fielded a large command of mainly Replaceable Hordes and Behemoths. Aaron led a mounted right wing command of Knights, Beasts and Heroes. I also led a third smaller command of Aerials, an Aerial Hero (Cruella, of course) supported by 4 Flyers.

 

Bruce's Army of Heck was more balanced, Heroes supported by Spears, Shooters, Cavalry and Behemoths, with two small groups of Aerials integrated into the two wing commands. Steve commanded the left wing, so the New Guys faced each other.

The Army of Heck Defended, so chose terrain - Ploughed Felds, Gentle Hills and one patch of Scrub, so terrain played little part in the game - and took first bound. . . a general advance.

Kha-Ris responded in similar fashion. . . two masses of Undead trundling forward toward potential mutual destruction . .

When Bruce advanced his right wing Aerial Hero and Flyers, Cruella pounced, killing a Flyer and drawing first blood (presumably "true death" AND some kind of blood was involved). Cruella was then promptly set upon by the Heckish Aerial Hero and destroyed! 

Another Heckish Flyer was eliminated as the melee continued. . . until the Aerial Hero noticed another more enticing target . . . Kha-Ris, all by himself, on his zombie dragon mount.

Meanwhile the center commands embraced, and on the opposite flank, Kha-Ris' Beasts and the Heckish Flyers were at a stand-off.

 
Then the Heckish Aerial Hero pounced on Kha-Ris and the battle took a dramatic turn! The dice were rolled, and Kha-Ris lost by a single point! Death had come to Kha-Ris, the C-in-C of his army.

But wait! I remembered a rule in DBA Big Battle which entitles the C-in-C of each army to re-roll one die-roll per game after the results have been calculated. Only a re-roll of 6 would save Kha-Ris by causing a tie-score! 

"What?!" exclaimed Bruce, suspiciously. "Let's look that up." It is not unusual for us to check the rules several times a game, always in the spirit of fair play, so in we went. Turns out I was wrong. The rule actually states that the C-in-C can add +1 to his die-roll after the results have been calculated. . . so Kha-Ris gets an automatic draw instead of chancing a re-roll, as I wrongly "remembered" it. Thanks, Bruce! Kha-Ris survives another bound.

On my next bound, I got enough command PIPs to surround the Heckish Aerial Hero and send it back to Heck! Just in the nick of time, as Heckish archery sent another of my Flyers to its doom, breaking and demoralizing the Aerial command.

In the center, the relentless combination of Hordes, Behemoths and Knights, though sustaining its own losses, inflicted even more on the Heckish troops. On the right flank, the Beasts swept past the PIP-starved Heckish Flyers to fall on the flanks of the Heckish center.

While the Heckish right flank troops bore down on Kha-Ris, their center finally broke. A couple bounds later, the Heckish army reached its breakpoint (half its total element points) and fled the field. 

 Victory to Kha-Ris and his Undead. . . and to good sports, including the New Guys who said they'd be willing to play again.

Wilderness Terrain "Tree Point Oh!"

I've played enough games on this terrain now to think I need a "final" set of "evolutions" to improve the overall playing and aesthetic experience. It's kind of a disease, actually. . . nothing is ever finished with me (huge eyeroll).

To improve ease of play, I'm making two changes. First, I'm replacing the grassy gradual slopes that cause my model soldiers to continually tip over with "terraced" hills. I haven't actually completed any yet but am actually just taking the concept of the cork "woods" tiles and covering them with fur "grass," a la:

Second, I'm changing the slopes, including the "woods" slopes, from 4 levels to 3, to make it easier to fit the bases of the models onto the terraces. Here are examples of the new tiles:

I'm guessing you already noticed the aesthetic changes. . . I added some green mossy texture and masses of "leaves" collecting along the edges of the terraces. Even without the usual logs, rocks and assorted scatter terrain, the following photos show how the new terrain starts to give the impression of mature old wood forest floors with the addition of a few "trees." And we still have plenty of flat tabletop for our model soldiers to fight over!

 Looking forward to some gaming!

Still Boldly Going. . .

This is my new 1/2500-scale Enterprise NX-01. I bought the new AMT/Polar Lights kit of all the Enterprise versions just to get this new little model - and more importantly, the new nearly-full-coverage decals - even though I have all the individual kits already. Guess AMT knew its audience. . .

The "Aztec" decals just rock, and really bring the models to life. Here's a shot of the NX-01 alongside the AMT model Reliant, a later "movie-era" Federation starship in the same 1/2500 scale, photographed on my Cor-Sec game mat.

Note: if interested, you can see how I am adapting the 1/2500-scale models to the Star Trek: Attack Wing game system in some of my earlier posts labeled Star Trek.

Of all the Star Trek franchises to date, I find the Enterprise series the most enjoyable to re-watch. I like the way most all of the traditional foes were handled, including the Vulcans - who were foes as often as friends - in the early heady days of warp-capable human space venturing. The humans were refreshingly human, too; a little dirty and more complicated. So it would figure that my flirtation with Attack Wing starts in the Enterprise-era. Eaglemoss is helpful, here, as well, as some of their models are close enough to 1/2500 scale to be used. For example, here's a shot of the Eaglemoss Andorian Kumari and the Vulcan Ni'Var.

 Here's the Romulan Bird-of-Prey Praetus with the NX-01 again.

And finally, here's a shot of the Enterprise-era 1/2500-scale starships with their actual Attack Wing counterparts, to show the difference in size and relative scale between the models.

Now the reason for the "Blah Blah Blah" tag. . . 

I come to Star Trek first and foremost because of the starship design, and I want to play games with cool models. Even though I am not a physicist, I still had to get over the whole "immensity of outer space" scale thing (check out my earlier post about being in different cities with our little 1/2500-scale models, still in phaser range). Battles will/may be fought from hundreds of thousands of miles apart and at computer-calculation speed. Then there's the whole debate about weapons use at warp speed. Not much fun on the table-top and maybe not even fun on a computer screen! So I rationalize our table-top game as the way a computer might visually simulate the battle, with the relative scale and positions of the combatants altered for the participating humans to make the few necessary critical (and cinematic) decisions. At least until humans themselves become altered by space travel into something altogether different than our current versions. . .

Next up, French and Indian War terrain: Woods 3.0!

See ya!

 

The Baron Speaks!

BaronVonJ was recently featured in a podcast by The Veteran Wargamer. You can check it out here. You will learn about The Baron and his game development company, Wiley Games, and even more about his flagship skirmish rules, Fistful of Lead.

And if you make it to the last ten minutes of the podcast, you'll hear a shout-out to yours truly. Thanks, Baron!

Book Like and Little Julie

And so we return to our regularly-scheduled programming. . .

I just finished Hodges' Scout, described thus on Amazon:

In September 1756, fifty American soldiers set off on a routine reconnaissance near Lake George, determined to safeguard the upper reaches of the New York colony. Caught in a devastating ambush by French and native warriors, only a handful of colonials made it back alive. Toward the end of the French and Indian War, another group of survivors, long feared dead, returned home, having endured years of grim captivity among the native and French inhabitants of Canada.

Pieced together from archival records, period correspondence, and official reports, Hodges’ Scout relates the riveting tale of young colonists who were tragically caught up in a war they barely understood. Len Travers brings history to life by describing the variety of motives that led men to enlist in the campaign and the methods and means they used to do battle. He also reveals what the soldiers wore, the illnesses they experienced, the terror and confusion of combat, and the bitter hardships of captivity in alien lands. His remarkable research brings human experiences alive, giving us a rare, full-color view of the French and Indian War―the first true world war.

Mr. Travers accounts for nearly every member of the 50-man company ambushed on that September day more than 250 years ago. The stories of Indian captivity endured were harrowing, but I had no idea that there was a system of virtual slavery in place in Canada for captured Anglo soldiers. Many of them were shipped overseas and exchanged for French POW's held in England, so ended up thousands of miles from home with little means and even less hope of returning to America.

Staying with the F&IW theme, here is a recent release from John Jenkins Designs, "Little Julie." 

 

A pretty little girl. . . but something doesn't seem quite right. . .

 

Ahhh. . . little Julie has lived on the frontier all her life and knows how to handle those pesky War Parties. . .

 

Happy Valentine's Day, Mom

WARNING: This post contains no wargaming content. I trust you'll be patient with me.

Instead, I am using my first post of 2018 to send a slightly-belated Valentine's Day wish to my mom. It seems appropriate that I send this wish out into the aether of the interweb. . .

Mom died on January 2nd after contracting influenza. She went into the hospital on Christmas Eve morning - a young 79-year-old - and was gone in a matter of days. I still feel shocked by the profound suddenness of her death. 

My mother, Fran, was loving, funny and fun-loving, and dedicated to our family. Growing up, Mom "parented" me when I needed it, guided me when I asked for it, and was fun to be around most of the rest of the time. I haven't lived in the same state as my mother for more than 20 years, but I miss her every day in so many different little ways. 

This is one of my favorite photos of Mom. Of course I didn't know the person in this photo - she is very young - but I feel her spirit in the smile, and the strong way she loves her dog, holding it close but getting it to do what she wants it to do - look at the camera.

I love you, Mom.

We now return you to your regularly-scheduled programming. . . thanks for your patience.