Holiday games

 We managed to play a few games over the past week.

First off, instead of our usual D&D session, Arthur set up a Fistful of Lead game, set somewhere between Russian and British controlled territory in Afghanistan.   Arthur set it up as a three-way battle, with his intent being that the Russians and British would fight each other for the village, while the Afghans would snipe at both sides.  As it turned out, things happened a bit different from Arthur's original plan!

Here is the village that the troops will battle for.

Each of the imperial forces had an officer (veteran, d12) and 4 riflemen (d10).  The Afghans had no veterans, but they did each get a couple groups of 3 grunts (d8) each.

British force carefully advances into the village.

Meanwhile, the Russians enter the village from the other side.

The first British soldier enters the orchard, and is immediately ambushed and cut down by a group of Afghan warriors.

Remaining British are more cautious and shoot at the Afghans rather than risk hand to hand combat.

Russians were carefully checking each location, but found no Afghans.  Arthur eventually figured out that Oliver had set up all of his Afghans to attack his father's British soldiers.

British soldiers carry on fighting the Afghans.  Smoke clouds represent shock on the affected models.

Russians continue their careful advance.

The skirmish between the British and Afghans continues.

Meanwhile the Russians move in behind the skirmishing warriors.

After the Afghans and British battled to a standstill, the Russians came in and cleaned up.

Today, Arthur and I played a couple of scenarios for our Mad Dogs With Guns campaign.  

In the first game, my Dockworkers gang conducted a raid against the Rum Room, a speakeasy on the South Side of Chicago.  As we don't actually have any big city terrain, Chicago's South Side ended up looking a bit less urban.

Lucius and his gangsters move to the front door.

Meanwhile at the rear of the building, Crazy Ivan and Modest Mike climb up the back stairs.

A defender of the speakeasy looks out the window at Crazy Ivan and his friend move up.

My tommygunner Chun Lee opens up into the main room of the speakeasy but ends up jamming his submachinegun for the rest of the game.

Upstairs, Crazy Ivan and Mike beat up the Southsiders.

On the ground floor, Lucius and Sam were too slow to intervene, and the blonde southsider managed to call for support.

Not shown in the photos, a car with 6 low-level gangsters showed up (summoned by the blonde's phone call) and slowed the Dockworkers efforts to take over the Rum Room.

Meanwhile, two jokers were drawn from the deck, signalling outrage and a police response!

All the gangsters dashed for the exits.  Most of the Dockworkers escaped, but Modest Mike was cornered by the police and was arrested.

Final result for the Dockworkers.  The raid failed, Crazy Ivan suffered a gruesome death, and Sam the Shovel was knocked out and arrested.

We next played out an ambush as Arthur's corrupt Mounties tried to hijack an NPC truck.  Here is the truck coming along the road, with a driver, hoodlum co-driver and an enforcer with a tommygun in the back of the truck.

The truck comes around the corner, spots the roadblock and slams on the breaks.  As the driver puts the truck into reverse, Arthur recognises that he didn't consider that the truck might not stay still and allow it to be taken!

The Mounties open fire on the truck, as their mooks rush forward to seize the truck.  The BAR gunner in particular is quite indifferent about risk, and fired while his friend Inigo Montoya was nearby.  Inigo had to dive for cover to escape his own friend's fire!

The BAR gunner knocks out the tires, and the brakes, and damages the motor.  The truck crashes and is immobilised for the rest of the game.

The truckers return fire, killing and wounding some of their attackers.

But it's too little, too late.  The Mounties' BAR gunner keeps shooting, until a bullet hits the fuel tank and starts a fire.  The vehicle explodes, killing the truckers as well as one of the Mounties.

Final result, the truckers were all killed, the truck exploded, and for the Mounties, they lost two of their gang killed and two wounded.

Eat the Rich

I found a gingerbread recipe that I like, and have been making loads of gingerbread to share but mostly to eat all by myself :).  I even helped Arthur to make a batch to take to his classmates!

I had an idea to make a gingerbread Bailey bridge, but that plan changed after chatting with my friend Barry, who sent me on a different path.  Playing into the zeitgeist of the times, here is my take on a Christmas guillotine.  

It's really an example of 'Nailed It' where people show off how their attempts at baking fall far short of the intent!  But nonetheless, it was yummy :) and my next effort at gingerbread architecture will end up being better!

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Pulp Figures Sci-Fi Spacers

 Bob Murch of Pulp Figures has started a new line of figures based on the Golden Age of Science Fiction storytelling.  I resisted for a while, but then I decided to jump on the bandwagon for the pre-order deal.  Well, the figures have arrived and here are the first of them!

I'm not sure exactly where I will go with these.  My thoughts are along the lines of Firefly/Serenity or The Expanse, or Traveller for that matter, where independent spacers struggle to keep flying alongside more powerful entities, such as governments and large corporations.

Also, after years of painting dull colours for 20th Century or colonial warfare, I'm taking a different approach for these figures.  My theory is that in space, out in the Black, spacers place a big emphasis on being as visible as possible.  If a spacer gets separated from their ship, they want to be as easy to find as possible because otherwise they risk being lost forever in the darkness of space.  When I described this to Arthur, he made another point:  with their faces covered by their helmets, the spacers will be pretty anonymous, so they will also look to personalising their suits in order to be distinct from each other.

That said, here are the first four spacers.

These include my first attempts at using Vallejo fluorescent paints.  Not too bad for a start, I am learning about through trial and error.  First up, I need to get a similar colour as a base, then paint the appropriate fluorescent over it to get the right effect!

Johnny Law

As our gangster campaign proceeds, public outrage grows.  That means that there will be a call for the City Police to intervene!  Fortunately, fresh off the painting table, here come the boys (and one lady!) in blue!

Cops with nightsticks, walking the beat.

These three have pulled their sidearms to investigate some suspicious activity. 

As things get more serious, they can call in support from colleagues armed with rifle and tommygun.

Back at the precinct, the sergeant supervises as old Mike the town drunk gets booked, while Matron keeps an eye on sweet-talkin' Sally.

The cops came with a fire hydrant and an old-timey police call box (notably different from the UK version favoured by time- and space- travelling timelords).

And here are a few shots against a lighter background.

A few comments.  I was going to paint the Matron to match Queen Latifah from Chicago, but that didn't end up happening.  

The police uniforms have red stripes on the trousers and red cap bands.  This is more of a Canadian police thing than American, but I like it as it gives a touch of colour to the otherwise monochrome uniforms.  Similarly, white shirts offer a better contrast than dark blue shirts!

Sally was inspired by Anita from West Side Story.  I didn't have the mauve required for Rita Morena's version in the 1961 movie, so instead I went with a yellow dress based on the 2021 version.

Wolf Cull

 I hosted a game at last week's last meeting of the Trumpeters for 2024.  I called it 'The Wolf Cull', with two of the players taking on the role of northern trappers, seeking to cull the wolves they held responsible for stripping their trap lines.  The other two players got to be the beasties of the woods who fought back against the trappers.  I must confess that I didn't put as much thought into the scenario as I should have.  It was (deliberately) biased towards the critters, so wasn't as much fun for the trappers.  My apologies to Craig and Walter, and thanks to them for being good sports!  And thanks also to Fletch and Legion who played the beasties.

Inspiration for the scenario came from a few sources.  The most recent Wargames Soldiers and Strategies has a beer and pretzels boar hunt game, with medieaval nobles on a boar hunt.  I considered just playing that, but the game seemed a bit too simple, even for me!  I was also eager to put my new beasties and critters on the table, so I looked to move the setting from Europe to the Yukon.  

Here's the setting, somewhere in the North.  A small beaver colony is present in a marsh beside the creek, and there are woods in each quadrant of the table.

A small pack of wolves are spotted in the woods, as a cute little bunny tries to remain inconspicuous.

Trapper Calamity Jane moves up and shoots one of the wolves,

And then the rest of the pack attacks and ravages her!

It was at this point that the trappers found out that the wolf pack included werewolves.

A sharpshooter trapper tried to shoot one of the werewolves, but ended up out of ammo at a crucial moment!

Meanwhile at the other end of the table, a big moose charged the other group of trappers.

And was then coldcocked, a la Mongo from Blazing Saddles, to the great amusement of all.

Wolves and werewolves battle the trappers.

Is this bear baiting?  Dog pack harasses a bear.

Bigfoot tentatively enters the fray but is discouraged (as per the shock marker), as the wolf pack battles the trappers.  The trappers managed to knock one of the werewolves out of the fight but were ultimately defeated.

Four shock markers and a wound marker on the bear as the dogs wear him down.

Having finished off the first group of trappers, the werewolves push to the other side of the table to challenge the other trappers.

Bigfoot stalks Beardie MacBeardface.

Wolves finish off the dog pack.  Beardie, finding himself the last trapper on the table, decides to exercise the better part of valour and retreats.

I was pretty careless in how I set up the scenario.  A few lessons to remember for next time will include:

- The trappers are stronger at shooting, while the critters work best in close combat.  However, with all the cover and also the fast movement, the trappers barely had a chance to get a shot off before getting swarmed.  I'll need to make sure there is at least a chance for the trappers to use their weapons.  For starters, there will need to be more open corridors between cover to allow the trappers to get a chance to shoot.  

- I'd like a better way for the critters to start out hidden. The trappers will need to find them, which allows for ambushes.  This contradicts the point I just made above about giving the trappers a chance to engage from a distance!  So I'll have to also figure out how to balance those ideas.  

- The trappers were really overpowered.  It would be better to have both groups of trappers together, to take on the single pack of werewolves, and then keep the fourth group (bigfoot, bear and moose) as a slightly random group that could show up to swing the balance one way or the other.

- I had an idea of including some leghold traps.  The idea would be that any figure (beast or trapper) moving near the trap marker (say, 3") would be "attacked". If the trap 'wins' the roll, it rolls to 'wound' with a -1.  No matter what, the figure is immobilised, and will have a shock or wound in addition depending on the wound roll.  Once immobilised, the figure can try to roll off against the trap each turn.  If the trap rolls higher, the figure remains immobile.  If the figure wins, it can then act as normal in the following turn. 

So I will give this some thought and hopefully get a chance to present an improved version of this scenario again before too long.