Fistful of Lead Bigger Battles on the Eastern Front

Last night, Lisa invited Arthur and me to try another game in her WWI Eastern Front scenarios featuing Lt Cdr Locker-Lampson and the RNAS armoured section during the Kerensky Offensive.  Write up for game one is here. 

This scenario featured a scramble between Locker-Lampson's armoured cars, two sotnias of Cossacks and a zug of königlich und kaiserlich Austro-Hungarian infantry to control the village of Kozova in Galicia in what is now Ukraine, but was still part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at the start of WWI.  In this scenario, the three forces enter the village from different sides and seek to control the town.  Points were given for each enemy unit wiped out.  In the historic battle, the Cossacks turned on the local Jewish population.  Lisa simulated this that when the ammo dump exploded, Cossack units were required to attack the nearest group of civilians unless the RNAS were within 8" to stop them.

Here is an overview of Kozova.  It was fun to have a chance to get the UmBum buildings and the Bolsheviks and Russian civilians onto the table!  

Bolshevik agitators march past a collection of Orthodox and Roman Catholic clergy.

Two sotnias of Cossack cavalry move onto the table.

Russian casualties being escorted to the train station for evacuation.

Cossacks and RNAS move into Kozova.

And the KuK troops (proxied by Germans in this case) enter at the other end of the village.

Arthur's veteran Cossacks attack and destroy a squad of KuK troops.

KuK infantry face down Cossacks advancing along the railway.

KuK MG manages to take out one of the RNAS armoured cars.

Finally on turn 7, the ammo dump explodes!  We tested each round - this was the trigger for the Cossacks to turn on the local civilians.

As so they did, wiping out the Bolshevik agitators first!

In the end, each side took significant casualties, each force lost two full units, but the Russian/RNAS side were penalised for the attack on the civilians.  As a result, the KuK force squeaked out a win by one point.  Thanks, Lisa, for inviting us to try out this scenario, and we are looking forward to seeing the further adventures of the RNAS armoured cars on the eastern front!

Characters

 Here are a few character models that I've just finished up.

First up are a couple of French resistance fighters from Wargames Atlantic Digital, printed by Only Games.  Officially these are WWII French Resistance, but I anticipate they will show up in gangster and other games.  

The one on the right reminds me of a certain sight gag from the movie, Top Secret!

This bloke was fun to paint up.  He's a Reaper Miniatures model that Doug gave us.  His headgear reminds me of Tim the Enchanter from Monty Python and the Holy Grail!

Starship Boarding Action including more Xolk terrain

 A few weeks ago I was able to host my spaceship boarding action at the local tabletop gaming convention, Trumpeter Salute.  There were six crews battling for control of the ship including two ship's crew - the bridge crew and the engineering team - and 4 teams of boarders.

Action was fast and furious.  The defenders started out in the main cargo hold, and the boarders needed to enter through the side doors.  The engineering team ran straight to the engine room while the boarders focussed on the bridge crew. 

A fierce firefight took place in the hold, with a bridge crewman (crew-alien?) distracting the boarders as his colleagues dashed to the bridge.  The poor fellow was thoroughly suppressed, as shown by the plethora of shock markers!

Left to their own devices, the engineering team easily made it to the engine room to start the engines.

The battle moved to the corridor outside the bridge.  Post-it tabs have replaced the smoke markers to indicate shock.

Finally realising that their teammates are strong enough to capture the bridge, the remaining boarders decide to storm the engine room.  Many of them fell (literally!) for my little ruse, as they ignored the 'Slipper Floor' sign and fell to the ground.  No injuries, except to pride, but shock markers and delays in their advance.

Ultimately, the engineers held the boarders from capturing the engine room, but to no avail as the boarders captured the bridge and thus managed to keep the ship from escaping.

In the photos above you can see the extra Xolk containers in the cargo hold.  My mail order arrived a few days before the convention, enough time to assemble them and prime them - good enough for the table but I found some time after the con to splash a bit of paint on them.

The collection now includes eight containers in two styles, 2 larger cisterns and a bevvy of smaller crates.

Two styles of containers.  These can be stacked, adding to their versatility.

The cisterns are fun - the kit provides a frame.  The cistern itself is an empty 355 mL pop tin which fits inside the frame.

The cisterns are slightly larger than the containers.

As a bonus, the cistern kit includes a bunch of smaller crates.  Instead of making them deliberately sci-fi, I painted them in a basic wood brown so they can be used for a variety of eras.

Medieval clergy, cargo containers and a mock vargr

 Arthur and I visited Imperial Hobbies last week, so of course I made some impulse purchases.  First up, I picked up a pack of early medieval clergy from Bob Murch's 1066 line.  Although they are intended for 1066, I will take advantage of the timelessness of their garb to use them in more modern settings, whenever a monk or nun would fit in.

I slightly modified the Mother Superior - she has a greenstuff veil added on top of her wimple (hopefully I got those terms correct!).

My other purchase was a pair of MDF containers from Canadian company Xolk.  I liked them so much I sent in an order to the company for more!  They go together very quickly and paint up easily.  They will do nicely as scatter terrain in the cargo hold for starship boarding actions.

Our recently started Traveller RPG campaign includes a vargr NPC, so I decided to convert one of Fletch's 3d printed werewolves to represent him.  This is clearly not an accurate representation, as vargr are typically shorter then humans, with an average height of only 1.6 m.  So this is a particularly jacked vargr, as he is notably taller and bulkier than Captain Handsome!

Conversion was minor, I replaced his arms with a flamer and a left hand from the bits box.

3D printed resin is regrettably a bit brittle.  You can see that this poor vargr was dropped and his ears were chipped!

As you can see, the Xolk containers have nice detail on the ends.  They can be built with the doors open, but I chose to keep them closed.

 Next week is Trumpeter Salute - I'll hopefully fit in lots of gaming :)

Spaceship scatter terrain plus train crew

 I'm still assembling terrain for spaceship boarding actions.  Cory from Trumpeters generously gave me a whole bunch of 3D printed consoles, cargo pallets and more, and I've also painted up some pieces from Terrain Crate, AK Wargame Series and others.

These doors are from AK Series.  They are not free standing like the Terrain Crate doors, so will need to be attached to the walls.

These are bits from the Terrain Crate Quicki-Mart set.  Not quite futuristic but can still fit into my spaceship.

Cory's 3D printed cargo pallets.

These are 1/35 hand trucks from MiniArt - those handles are very delicate and are certain to snap off right away!

3D printed cargo boxes from Cory.

Consoles:  the three on the left from Cory, and the one on the right from AK Series.

More consoles.  Three on the left from Cory and the one on the right is an AK ATM!

These are the last of the Pulp Figures human spacers - I still have a set of Martians to paint once I decide on their theme.

I also found time to paint up these Pulp Figures' railwaymen.  The chap on the left is a Eureka Miniatures VSF crewman who has been sitting in my lead mountain for about two decades!

And finally a raven that Doug gave us.

Gangsters and WWI games

On Friday evening, Lisa, Arthur and I had our first playtest of Fistful of Lead Bigger Battles.  The game was inspired by Lisa's research into the Kerensky Offensive on the Eastern Front in 1917, where a squadron of Royal Navy Air Service armoured cars reinforced the Russian Army.

The battle featured the Russians and their British allies attacking German trenches.

Lisa included a few special rules, most importantly that when a joker was dealt, one of the Russian infantry units would gain a 1d6 red markers, representing Bolshevik propaganda.  The idea was that any unit that ended up with more markers than troops would be persuaded by the propaganda and leave the battlefield.  As it happened, none of the Russian units reached that break point, but it was fun to pile those markers onto units.

German forces man the trenches.  There was a pre-game bombardment that ended up wiping out the German light machine guns (a Lewis gun team and a MG-08 gun team), and left most of the other units with some shock.

RNAS armoured cars prep for battle: 3 Rolls Royce and 1 Lanchester.

Russian Maxim Gun moves onto the table.

Russian cavalry advances, supported by infantry following up behind.

Russians used this cover to good effect to close with the German infantry.

Russian cavalry charge the German trench.

And then clear the trench!  We used smoke markers to represent shock - as you can see, there is more shock than surviving Germans.  The Germans routed the next time their card came up.

Elsewhere on the line, German defenders attempt an unsuccessful close assault on a RNAS Roller.

However, their assault failed, and then the Germans routed.

In the end, the Russians captured the German trenches.

The verdict is that Bigger Battles gives a good, fun, fast-paced game.  Complexity is similar to a Dan Mersey Rampant-style game.  I had thought that morale might have been an issue, but it wasn't.  Due to the way shock works in this game, a unit that is battered is most likely to fall back and eventually rout off the table.

And then on Sunday, we had our monthly gangsters gaming day.  I got to represent the South Side gang as Moe's Diamondbacks attempted to cut through their territory.  Moe rolled to see how many South Siders were on the street, and ended up with 17 various gangsters ready to stop his single red truck transporting 6 Diamondbacks.

Southsiders open fire on the truck.

They blew out a tire, causing the truck to careen into a nanny pushing a pram.  Morale outrage was assured!

The Diamondbacks, in trench coats, abandon their truck and set off on foot, pursued by angry Southsiders.

After gunning down a Southsider, the Diamondbacks hijack another truck.

But they don't get far - the Southsiders shoot up the hijacked truck and swarm the Diamondbacks as they pile out.

At this point, we pulled the dreaded back-to-back jokers, which is the trigger for the cops to arrive.  Only two of the Diamondbacks clear the table in time, the remainder are arrested.  Most likely, being arrested saved them from rough justice at the hands of the outraged Southsiders!

As a result of this battle, there weren't enough Diamondbacks left to raid my Docksiders' gin joint.  This left me free to bully another business in my neighbourhood into accepting my 'protection'!