Sergeant Crunch's Miniature Madness

RL Strikes Again

2012-01-19T22:40:00.000-06:00

Not much going to happen hobby wise this weekend, and probably next weekend. RL is rearing one of it's more ugly heads in my realm and I'm having to make an emergency trip to my hometown. I'd take some stuff to work on, but I know won't do anything with it and I probably won't have a lot of time to do so. So instead I'm downloading a business leadership book to my Nook and topping off the charge on the netbook.

In an unrelated note, been afflicted with the desire to scratchbuild or kitbash a dropship for 15mm, despite only having played a few small games. Reading on Inso's World his similar affliction has not been helping. Right now I'm thinking of some kind of unholy combination of a C-130 fuselage, the cockpit canopy from an Mi-24 Hind, and rotating engine nacelles to hang off the C-130 wing roots. Still trying to figure out how exactly to make this work.

As If I Don't Have Enough To Do Already

2012-01-17T19:27:00.000-06:00

Got my most recent order in the mail today. A hair over 30 Rebel Minis Earth Force figures and a Merka V tank. Got these taking advantage of Rebel's 20% off sale just before it ended. Then to top it off, my loving wife of 16 years (our anniversary was yesterday) ordered a Khurasan Dictator and a Siler tank.

The Earth Force figures are going to be used for my mid-tech republic force along with the Merka V and the Siler. They'll be getting a simple khaki and green paint job similar to what Terran CAVs were done in. The Dictator will go with my Mekanoids and receive the same blue-gray-silver scheme, though now I'm starting to debate doing the blue and gray in a dazzle scheme. Definitely need to get the airbrush fixed before I tackle that beast.

In the meantime I really need to finish that stupid Warmachine Charger that has been impatiently waiting.

Day One Campaign, First Game

2012-01-15T10:29:00.000-06:00

We played the first game of the Day One campaign included in the Klingon Armada rulebook. For the first game the victory conditions are to destroy 400 points of the opposing fleet. We used the movements rules posted in the Majestic XII forum that will be the movement system in the upcoming new version of Starmada.
We also instituted a house rule that allows a ship to repair a shield facing by taking a point of damage to an adjacent facing. (The Chief Engineer diverting power from one to the other)

Zachary and Michael, playing the Federation, chose their Division 1 (CA, NCL, 2x FF) and split them up. Zachary took the cruisers and Michael took the frigates. Remembering how the C8 was destroyed by light cruisers and frigates I kind of went overboard and took the Klingon Division 3 (C8, 2x D6). This gave me around a 300 pt advantage over the boys, but means the next couple games are going to be closer affairs as I'll be at a points disadvantage. I figured though that by over powering them in this game I can make up the difference in points for the final game if I lose the next couple. When I use the Klingon Division 1 (2x D7 and a D6) I'm going to be at a disadvantage, but I play it right I think I can make a good showing.

So we set up the models, the Feds put their ships in the center of their edge with Zachary putting his cruisers on their port flank CA on the outer edge. I tried to establish a refused flank by putting my squadron on starboard side of my edge. This would allow me to fly across the back edge of my side of the board and take pot shots with disruptors. This also good for the C8 because it Phaser-1s are strongest in it's broadside arcs.

In the first turn, the Feds cautiously advanced while I turned to port. The Feds were out of range while I was at extreme range for my disruptors and got a few hits on the NCL. If I could take out the NCL and CA that would be the game. I was hoping to get some lucky hull hits. I held onto my drones, while Michael launched both his and Zachary launched the one on the NCL. Zachary is getting better at holding onto his drone for defense when playing the Feds, but Michael still launches them first turn.

In the second turn the Feds continued a slow advance, with the NCL pulling slightly ahead. Well placed disruptor shots took about half the NCLs hull and seriously depleted the shields. I managed to mostly stay out of the Fed's range but a lucky Phaser-1 hit got through to one of the D6s.

In the third turn Michael decided to do a full burn across the table with his frigates to engage the lightly damaged D6. Zachary, seeing his NCL losing shields and weapons, decided to turn back to allow the damage control parties to make repairs and let the CA take the lead. Michael's drones got close enough for me to swat down one flight and reduce the other to 1 die. The C8 opened up with Phaser-1s and four distruptors on a frigate and it quickly became an expanding cloud of gas and debris. It also took a couple pot shots at the CA and took down it's front shield arc. I was hoping to take out some torpedo tubes, but shield damage makes it easier to get later hits in. One D6 was busy shooting down drones and the other nearly destoyed the remaining frigate. One D6 launched two flights of drones at the frigate figuring it would take it out and let the cruiser focus on the larger ships with its guns.

Zachary had his NCL come about as he had some good repair rolls and had gotten his forward shield arcs back up and his weapons on-line. I moved the damaged D6 forward outside of the CA's photon torpedoes arc of fire, planning to use disruptors on the NCL and the side facing Phaser-2s on the CA. The ploy worked, but as I expected I lost the D6. In return though, combined with the other ship's efforts, the CA was left heavily wounded with it's forward shield arcs down and the NCL with its shield completely down but by some providence with little additional hull damage. The C8 took a single overloaded photon torpedo hit that damaged the engines and a single weapon. I decided that the range was close enough for a mass drone launch and launched four flights from the C8 toward the CA and one flight from the D6 toward the NCL.

In what would be the final turn the CA only came forward enough to get in medium range of its main weapons and Zachary advanced his NCL. I moved the remaining D6 forward in the same manner as the previous one, thinking that if the drones didn't destroy the CA they would at least hurt it enough that it would survive and I wanted to try to get both ships out in this turn so I could claim the full point value of their squadron for this game. The drones took out the CA, meaning it wouldn't get to lend its firepower during the combat phase. The single flight against the NCL removed the shields that had been repaired in the previous turn's damage control check. Despite all my best efforts, enough hits had been made to destroy the NCL, but not enough resulted in hull hits. At the end of the turn the NCL had two hull points left but few weapons and no shields. The D6 lost a fair number of weapons, but was still in good fighting form and the C8 was relatively unscathed.

So the first game was a resounding victory for the Klingons, but given the point values that is really only to be expected. The next couple games will be much more closely won affairs.

Day One Campaign Set Up

2012-01-07T13:04:00.000-06:00

After playing last week's game of Klingon Armada I decided that a campaign would be fun now that the boys are getting the hang of the game. So, rather than coming up with something convoluted I opted for the simple Day One campaign that is included in the KA book. The Day One campaign is a series of four games with the last game being a battlestation assault that is set on the first day of the General War from the Star Fleet Universe setting. For those of you not up on your SFU history, the Klingons started the General War with a series of surprise attacks on the Federation which grew to include all of the known races.

In this campaign the Klingons and Federation each create a 3000 point fleet then split that fleet up into three divisions of 800 to 1200 points each. For each of the first three games each side secretly selects a division for each game without reusing a division. So, it's possible for one side to have an 800 pt fleet and the other a 1200 pt fleet. The games have a set number of victory points (the point value of enemy ships destroyed) that rises each game. The first game's victory condition is 400 vp, the second 500 vp, and the third 600 vp. In the final game the Klingons assault a Federation battlestation with the point values allocated to each side dependent upon the results of the previous games. So, if the Klingons do well in the early games then they get more ships for the assault, if the Feds do well, they can better defend their station. That's how it works in nutshell.

So I set about setting up the fleets using the miniatures I have available and painted (no counters for this) and came up with these

Federation
Division I (819 pts)
Heavy Cruiser
New Light Cruiser
2x Frigate

Division II (1007 pts)
2x Heavy Cruiser
New Light Cruiser
Old Light Cruiser

Division III (1170 pts)
Command Cruiser
Heavy Cruiser
New Light Cruiser
Old Light Cruiser
Frigate

Yes, I know, the New Light Cruiser didn't exist on Day One, but I wanted some variety and wanted to get a new toy on the table. Next time I do this my Battlecruiser and Dreadnought will be ready for the Feds to use.

Klingon
Division I (821 pts)
2x D7 Battlecruiser
D6 Heavy Cruiser

Division II (1040 pts)
D7C Command Cruiser
2x D7 Battlecruiser
F5 Frigate

Division III (1125 pts)
C8 Dreadnought
2x D6 Heavy Cruiser

Too be honest, the division with the C8 worries me a little. It's point value means that it's loss means losing that battle immediately, and after the last game where it was taken out by light cruisers and frigates I'm concerned for its well-being.

I'm looking forward to this as I think it will be a lot of fun, especially that last game. I'm actually kind of hoping that Zachary will pick the Feds as I want to try my hand at taking down a battlestation.

Klingon Armada BatRep

2012-01-03T21:22:00.001-06:00

Since it was my last day of vacation I decided to set up a Klingon Armada game to play with the boys before going back to work. Also gave me an excuse to use the C8 and Fed NCL. The scenario was that a Federation patrol consisting of light cruisers and frigates encountered a Klingon dreadnought and its escorts as it was en route to reinforce a squadron about to engage in a planetary assault. We used Klingon Armada using the simple movement and damage control optional rules.

Here's the starting positions:

I controlled the Klingon group with the C8 and two F5 frigates for escorts. Zachary had a New Light Cruiser, to Old Light Cruisers, and two Frigates. Zachary had about a 30 point advantage. Victory conditions for the Federation were to destroy the C8 and for the Klingons to exit the C8 off the opposing edge.

In the opening turn the Federation squadron split into three, with an old Light Cruiser and a Frigate on each flank and the NCL coming up the middle. I moved to the side in an effort to move forward maximize the number of weapons bearing on the NCL as I saw it to be the biggest threat. That and I was hoping to take out a couple torpedo tubes before making my run.

Combat for this turn involved the NCL connecting with a single long range phaser-1 shot, and a couple shield hits on the NCL from the C8. Zachary launched a couple shuttles targeting the C8, but I held onto my drones waiting to get a little closer to keep him from having a chance to shoot them down.

Both sides moved forward in the second turn.

This turn Zachary managed to score some really good hits on the C8, but what really did me in over the course of the game was that he learned his lesson about concentrating fire. The NCL was taken down to about half of its hull, but the torpedo launchers remained unharmed. During the fighter launch phase I launched what amounts to a Macross Mega Missile attack at the NCL. Zachary launched two drone flights targeting the C8.

These are the ships after movement in turn three but prior to the fighter phase.

Now, this is were I'm still getting the hang of flying the F5s. I had intended to use them to screen the dreadnought from drones/shuttles, however, after movement the drones were too close and I couldn't engage them before they impacted on the C8. Most of the drone hits were absorbed by the shields, but a couple got through and created openings in the shields. With all the drones that hit the NCL it was destroyed, but it took almost all of the drones to do so.

In the combat phase Zachary very nearly destroyed the C8, leaving only two hull boxes left. I destroyed both the old light cruiser and frigates on the side I was advancing.

The next turn ended up with the F5s flying by the remainig Federation ships which had finally closed to medium range and the C8 trying to advance further. Unfortunately the C8 was destroyed by an overloaded photon torpedo.

So, in light of the fact that the C8 was destroyed but all that remained of the Federation squadron was an old Light Cruiser and a Frigate we called the game a slight victory for the Federation.

Starmada still continues to provide extremely close games at roughly equal point values. I could have played it a little different, possibly trying to position the C8 between the limited arcs of the photon torpedoes. I don't think that would've worked though because we were using the simple movement optional rule. With an engine rating of 4 the C8 wouldn't have moved far enough forward to get out of the forward arcs of all those torpedo tubes. I'm starting to think that it's time to teach Zachary the standard movement rules for Starmada. He's starting to get the hang of thinking tactically.

I'm thinking the starmat is going to stay out, that was a fun game and I'm feeling another Klingon/Federation battle is in order.

2011 Wrap Up

2012-01-01T17:11:00.001-06:00

Here we are, another year down and another annual wrap-up post. Been a few changes around the blog this year, first and foremost a major jump in followers and subscribers. This was mostly because I started spreading the word a little more and getting added to a few blog rolls, I've enjoyed the comments that have been left and hope next year to get some more followers, though to be honest with accumulators I have no idea what the actual number of people reading my little corner of the Web is. This year also saw the addition of a few pages to isolate the pictures, because sometimes people are just looking for eye candy or to see how somebody else painted the mini they're working on.

RL provided a number of distractors that kept the total low for the year. I was still deployed in Iraq at the beginning of the year, had a hard time getting back into the swing of things after returning, then we moved back to Texas, and lately my current position has demanded a lot of my time. The next year is looking good though and I hope to put a major dent in the To-Do List.

2011 saw a total of 43 miniatures getting painted. Here's the list (click the link for the post with pics of the individual model(s)):

2 Cold Navy Mauridian Ven'Tara carriers
8 Khurasan Parasachnid Bioweapons
8 Khurasan Mekanoid Grenadier
10 Khurasan Felid Warriors
3 Cold Navy Mauridian Ba'Rada frigates
1 GZG Advance Heavy Grav Tank
1 Basestar (Ravenstar Studios)
1 Candy, Anime Heroine (Chronoscope)
1 Klingon C8 Dreadnought (ADB)
4 GZG UNSC infantry
1 Lancer warjack (Privateer Press)
1 pStryker (Privateer Press)
1 Ironclad (Privateer Press)
1 Fed New Light Cruiser (ADB)

(click for a larger image)

What's odd is that almost everything that I bought in 2011 was painted in 2011. My main goals for 2012 is to finish what 15mm figures and starship models that I already have and to game more often. There's a group of Rebel Minis Earth Force figures on there way to me courtesy of Rebel's Christmas 20% off sale. The Charger is that last of the Warmachine figures I need and will be done hopefully next week, leading to my start in that game. I think most of this years purchases will be either expansions for rules I have, terrain pieces, or supplies. One of the things I'm looking at doing is switching over to artist's acrylics for most of my workhorse colors rather than hobby paints. I still enjoy using Reaper's paints, but it's much easier for me to hop over to Hobby Lobby than it is to wait for the mail. I'll still be using the hobby paints for some specialist applications though, especially skin tones as Reaper's MSP skin tones can't be beat as far as I'm concerned. Finally, I plan to finish my background setting that will become the basis for my Tomorrow's War and Starmada games. Hopefully Hestia become a living, vibrant place in which many glorious battles will be fought.

On the gaming front I seem to have settled down to four (maybe five) games. The kids have been enjoying a set of one page fantasy skirmish rules I found. We've also been playing Starmada and Klingon Armada from Majestic 12 Games. The 15mm has been settled on Tomorrow's War from Ambush Alley Games, just need to get my forces rounded out a little more to really get started on that game. Then there's Warmachine, which a co-worker talked me into. The "maybe" is Silent Death. I've had this game sitting around for a couple years now and have only tried it out once using the Star Wars conversion. I really want to get this one out sometime soon. Who knows, maybe my Macross conversion to that system might finally see the day of light. Going to need to order lots of gashapon for that though.

CAV has sadly fallen by the wayside, though as a game system it still occupies the bulk of my collection. I'll still get a game of CAV2 in here or there, but I doubt I'll be actively seeking to convert players or play CAV:SO if that actually sees the day of light. I think this is the first year that I have not painted a CAV minis since I started playing that game. It's a shame really, I still love the models, it's just hard to justify painting them if I'm not actively playing it. A number of them will probably get put into 15mm games, but that may result in repainting some of them to match the 15mm forces.

All that said, good luck to all in the New Year!

Last Minis for 2011

2012-01-01T16:12:00.000-06:00

Finished these up on the 30th, was too busy getting ready for company on New Year's Eve to get pics. Speaking of pics, my trusty old Panasonic camera died on me today after seven or eight years of service. I think the cheap blister pack cameras we got the kids for Christmas this year had a better megapixel rating than this one but I kept it around because I liked the optics. It seems to be a firmware error, but I need to research it to see if it is salvageable. In the mean time I'm using my wife's Coolpix and it is taking some adjusting to. For one thing I have no idea where the sweet spot is for the macro mode. So I apologize for the pics until I get a better feel for this camera.

So, enough on that. I did manage to get the Ironclad done, but not the Charger. I may go back over the shoulders a little bit, but for now I'm calling it done.

This next piece had been sitting on my table for some time as something I'd work on while waiting for paint to dry on other models. It was close enough for me to quickly add the last details and be done with it. It is a Federation New Light Cruiser from Amarillo Design Bureau. If I get any mini in the new line of ships it will be this one when it becomes available because the mold is just shot on this one. I'll deal with it being larger than the rest of my fleet. In the meantime, I'm looking forward to using it in games, the stats are just a bit less than the traditional Heavy Cruiser so I'm looking to try a scenario with a patrol group consisting of this NCL, two oCLs, and two FFs encountering either a Klingon C8 dreadnought or a pair of D7 battlecruisers.

Not anticipating getting any painting done today. I'm in the process of setting things up for the End of Year Wrap-Up post for 2011, which will be going up later.

Sprint to the Finish

2011-12-29T13:12:00.000-06:00

Very close to finishing the Ironclad. Hoping that today and tomorrow I can get the Charger from fit to finish. Then I can include them in the End of Year wrap up that is coming due soon. I'll be finishing the Ironclad today between helping kids with model cars they received for Christmas and will have pictures tonight. Or I could work on one of the 1/2400 Enterprise models I have (NCC-1701, 1701 Refit, and 1701B for which I've been looking for some 1/2400 opponents that won't break the bank for some 1/2400 scale Trek gaming).

Oh, also finally got around to playing that fantasy game with the kids. For some reason Phillip decided that it would be better to run from my contingent for five of the six turns. Something about being scared of the giant. No pictures but we had a good time. Phil says he wants to play with the Star Trek game next time so guess I need to get some of those ships on the table too.

Dramatic Slow Down

2011-12-12T23:16:00.000-06:00

Since finishing Stryker I have made very little progress in the realm of painting...or playing for that matter. Blah blah Real Life blah blah blah.

Hoping that this weekend I can finish off the Ironclad. It currently has the metallics base coated and one leg has the blue applied. The Charger still needs to be prepped, primed, and painted. I have some time off for Christmas so hope to get many things accomplished. (Like finishing last years Christmas gifts!)

In the meantime, the boys and I have a four-way fantasy skirmish set up. This time they're playing with their own miniatures! Though Zachary does have one stand in for the wizard in the game. Michael is playing with an assortment of Heroscape figures, Zachary with his 1/72 plastic vikings, Phillip with his MegaMiniatures skeletons, and I with an assortment of Reaper Warlord and DHL figures. There are a number of unpainted figures and partially painted figs. Not a big deal really as I'm more interested in having a good time with the kids and they just want to play miniatures with Dad.

pStryker Finished

2011-11-26T20:46:00.000-06:00

So the day after Thanksgiving, rather than braving the crowds I spent the day painting, or at least a good part of it. I had intended to stop after finishing the basecoat, but I kept doing "just one more thing" and at around midnight he was done. Spent about 10 or 12 hours on him and I have to say that this is the best mini I've painted since returning from deployment. Unfortunately I still haven't figured how to get my camera to photograph a figure so heavily covered in metallic paints. The cloak doesn't actually glow like it seems to in the picture. Oh, and I still hate painting eyes.

Progress

2011-11-25T18:52:00.000-06:00

pStryker is now basecoated with the exception of the base. I'll get that last. Painted a bit more of his armor blue than is usually depicted. Thanks to my....meticulous...method of painting he's taken pretty much all afternoon to basecoat. Though a few spots got redone in a different color after realizing that two of my paints are very similar in shade.

Cygnar Lancer

2011-11-20T17:04:00.000-06:00

Finished the Lancer today. Not my best work by a long shot, but more than suitable for gaming purposes.I think that next time around I'll base in the lighter blue and wash with with deepwater blue rather than base coat with deepwater then paint over with the lighter blue. Overall though I'm pretty happy with how it came out. For a light 'jack it's pretty bad ass lookin. Unfortunately, all the metallic paint made it hard to get decent pictures

Progress

2011-11-13T19:51:00.000-06:00

Got two of the three basecoat colors down on the Lancer. Also have the better part of the Ironclad prepped, though I've decided that from this point forward it'll be paint, then assemble for these models. Too many finicky parts that fit too closely together.

Had some primer issues with pStryker. Whatever you do, do not use Rustoleum auto primer for miniatures, it'll leave a nasty texture all over your figure. Thankfully a few hours in some simple green and a good scrubbing got the offending primer off and allowed me use my normal primer (duplicolor sandable primer).

I'd show some WIP pics, but the blue is very dark right at the moment and wouldn't show up very well.

Airplane! Reference?

2011-11-10T08:01:00.000-06:00

My Cygnar battlebox arrived yesterday. Commander Stryker is already assembled and after I clean up the base a little bit ready for primer.

Wasn't the main character in Airplane! Commander Stryker during the Vietnam flashback sequence. You know, the guy with the drinking problem.

CAV Game from a Couple Weeks Ago

2011-11-06T12:45:00.000-06:00

A couple weeks ago Aprile expressed an interest playing a game of CAV. So I threw some stuff on the table, figured up a couple forces, and came up with a scenario. During the Terran invastion of Vega, they dispacted a flanking force to draw Rach defenders in the city of Kreogh's Landing. The Terrans sent of a force consisting of a Thunderbird, Ronin, Starhawk VI, and a Puma. In an effort to blunt their advance, the Rach cobbled together a force with an Emperor, two Despots, and a full section of AT-23 armed light infantry. The Rach planned to stay within the edge of the city moving from cover to fire then return to cover with the infantry taking up positions in the woods to fire at the incoming CAVs with their missile launchers. This was working well, until Aprile realized that the Emperor has something of a glass jaw. She ended up winning and the Terrans proceeded to harass the flanks of the Rach defenders deeper in the city.

Warmachine and 200 Posts

2011-11-05T08:43:00.000-05:00

First, this is my 200th post. and earlier I had 10,000 hits. This blog has been around since January 2008, so almost four years now. Not bad in my mind since I didn't really announce the existence of the blog other than as a link in my forum signature blocks until late last year and earlier this year. Thanks to all my readers out there!

So, remember earlier how I was thinking about getting back into 40k in order to play with a co-worker? This has transformed into Warmachine. Warmachine (WM for brevity's sake) is a game that I've been dancing around for some time. The 'jacks look cool, the mechanics interesting, but being a fantasy game and not knowing anyone local to me that played was always what kept me from jumping. Turns out my co-worker has been infected with some kind of WM fever. I'm more inclined to try out WM rather than 40k, even if it doesn't involve anything remotely sci-fi, the big stompy Warjacks make up for that. So, on Thursday I ordered a Cygnar battlebox from Amazon (saved a lot on that, $38 instead of the listed retail of almost $50).

For the 15mm, starship, and CAV readers don't be dismayed. I'm not abandoning those, just looking for a game that will actually get played with somebody besides my kids.

10,000 Page Views!

2011-11-02T21:32:00.001-05:00

Terrain Project Idea

2011-10-30T01:25:00.000-05:00

Just what I need, another project, but this has been bouncing around my head for a few days now. Reconstructing Blood Gulch for 15mm. Figure I'd make it a 2'x4' board, insulation foam around the outer parts at least three layers high to allow for the sniper ridges. Use round electrical boxes for the bases. Get some GZG New Israeli figures, about five per side and paint them red and blue (though slight variations, to include one lightish red model for the red team). For what I intend I don't think Tomorrow's War would work so well, so would probably either use 5150 (not a first choice), Frag! (not all that familiar with it), or work on something myself (unlikely to be actually finished).

Feel free to borrow the idea, though I seriously doubt I'm the first to think of it.

More Starmada With the Kids

2011-10-22T21:27:00.000-05:00

OK, I lied, I thought I had pics of the C8. I don't. I humbly ask forgiveness and hope you accept these pictures of a Starmada game in lieu.

This game was a three-way meeting engagement between myself (the blue/orange Mauridians), Michael (the grey/green GZG NSL), and Zachary (tan/scarlet GZG FSE). The boys actually had an advantage in that their designs were coherent, while I didn't realize earlier that somehow I had managed to mix together two separate sets of stats for the Mauridians and that the stats for the Mauridian dreadnought made no sense at all with regards for the weapons arcs. Yet in the end it came down to Michael and myself and was fairly close. He held back until Zachary was almost out of the game, then started advancing towards me. In the end though I had the dice on my side for one, especially with those one-shot supergun frigates.

Was a good, if long game. If I hadn't needed to help them with firing each turn the game would've been half as long as it was. It's not bad with only a couple ships per side, but this represented about 1500 points per side. My oldest son seems to have the hardest time grasping the combat phase. I think the stats I gave the GZG ships are fairly good, but need a little tweaking, especially for anti-fighter defense. The Mauridian carriers ended up being ridiculous, so weren't used and also need reworking. The "singularity missiles" I adapted from the original stats Xtreme Hobbies gave the Mauridians were insane. At one point in the game one hit from the weapon generated 21 damage and pretty much eviscerated Zachary's battleship. Another thing I think I need to do is boost the shield values overall.

Next week is Tomorrow's War, painted figures or not...

It's Here!!!!

2011-10-22T20:55:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow's War showed up today, along with some birthday presents for my second son, who's birthday is a few days away. I've yet to delve into it deeply, but I have to say I'm impressed and that I feel for the quality of material alone I got my money's worth. Going to have to try a game tomorrow after church.

Back in a little bit with pictures from last weeks game and the finished C8 dread.

Just When You Thought It Was Safe...

2011-10-18T20:03:00.000-05:00

The upside is that I've found a fellow wargamer at work. The part I'm not entirely certain about is that it looks like I'll be getting back into 40k. I don't think it'll be in a big way. I still don't really like GW as a company. Not out of any kind of hatred for them trying to make money, but the way they go about it. That and their assumption that they own the wargaming hobby. Anyway, for the time being I'll be looking for used figures on eBay. Haven't fully decided which forces, but right now I'm thinking Kult of Speed Orks or Tau. I always thought the Tau looked cool and Orks for the fun of it. The interesting part is that I haven't played since 4th Ed and it sounds like there were several changes from 4th to 5th as well as new Codices. If nothing else, it'll be good to get some games in.

The other upside is that I can use the figures for Tomorrow's War, which according to UPS will be on my doorstep in five days.

Now With Gallery Pages

2011-10-13T22:12:00.004-05:00

Thought I'd play around with the site design layout a bit and added some page tabs across the top. Each tab is a collection of photos of miniatures related to the title of the table. So 15mm has....wait for it....pictures of 15mm figures. I'll just need to take some time and link all the pictures from my Photobucket account.

Next Up

2011-10-10T22:02:00.000-05:00

Finish the Klingon C8 dreadnought, and have started painting a Federation New Light Cruiser. Also got the beginnings of the GZG UNSC infantry prepped and a handful based and ready for priming. The UNSC are going to be the Terran Expeditionary Force in my own little background for Tomorrow's War, which I need to do some more work on. The TEF will be using primarily grav vehicles like the one I finished earlier.

Speaking of which, I'll need to buy at least three more platoon's worth of figures for my primary protagonists in the same setting. One is a mid-to-high tech corporate army, the second a mid-tech republic, and the third a low-to-mid tech socialist dictatorship. I wish the Pig Iron Productions heavy troopers were available in 15mm as they'd be perfect for the republic forces, though I think I'm going to either use Khurasan Federal Army figures or Rebel Miniatures Earth Force Marines, with tracked vehicles (most likely Rebel or Combat Wombat). The corporate force will be most likely be Micropanzer British SAS (with helmets). I haven't settled on figures for the socialists yet, but I'm leaning towards the New Vistula Legion troops from PicoArmor.com. There will also be a smattering of mercenary forces making appearances like the Felids and others. Critical Mass games will probably see a few packets ordered from me after I get the primaries done.

The Mighty Hood Goes Down

2011-10-04T20:04:00.001-05:00

Here are the pictures from "The Mighty Hood Goes Down." I think I could've held out for the full 10 turns if I hadn't started to get bored and charged in to try to take out Zachary's D6.

The short version is that I spent the first few turns repairing lucky long range disruptor hits, got bored in turn five (it was getting late too) turned in so I could fire some overloaded torpedoes in an attempt to take out the D6 (which I did) fully expecting to be taken out as well (which I did).

Adapting FC Scenarios to KA

2011-10-01T23:35:00.000-05:00

So, looking for something more than just line up the Feds against the Klinks and letting the phasers fly when playing Klingon Armada, I went to the Federation Commander webpage and went looking through their scenarios. I opted for "The Mighty Hood Goes Down." (It gave me an excuse to pull out one of the planets I had made a couple years ago.)

I basically just swapped the rules, leaving the ships and victory conditions as is and played a game with the boys tonight, with each one of the older three controlling a Klingon Empire ship apiece and my youngest rolling dice for me controlling the USS Hood. I think that to use it with a reasonable outcome for the Federation player the number of turns needs to be halved, making it five turns rather than 10. This isn't too far out of the realm of feasibility as it seems that a Klingon Armada turn seems to account for about twice the time a Federation Commander turn does (as evidenced by photon torpedoes being able to fire normally each turn rather than every other turn). Our game lasted five turns and resulted in the destruction of the Hood, though that is really rather inevitable, but wouldn't have lasted that long if one of the Klingons hadn't committed a navigation error and left the board in turn two. (No, I didn't let him go back and change his movement orders, won't learn otherwise.)

Even if using only five turns, I think a standard CA would have a tough go of things against three cruisers. It seems that the best option would be to hang out at long range until the drones are depleted and try to cherry pick a D6. Only problem with this is that Disruptors are longer ranged than Photon Torpedoes and Phaser-Is. I was lucky in that drones did not do much damage, and the suicide shuttles never made it to my vessel. I was surviving fairly well using the repair team special rules until I decided to turn in and engage with torpedoes. Ships die much more easily in KA than FC, so I'm also considering swapping the CA for a CC to give it a better weapons loadout. Though a BC would be interesting too. Swapping in a Fed DN would be entertaining as well. Overall though I think using the FC scenario for KA play worked out reasonably well, and will be better by shortening the turn limit. Other than that I don't think that there's really any other tweaking that needs to be done. In this scenario in particular, the Hood is going to be destroyed, it's just a matter of whether or not it can hold out for the transports to escape and if it can take a ship or more with it.

Might get some pictures posted tomorrow.

Oh, and though I lost my ship, it took a D6 with it.

Candy, By Your Command

2011-09-30T19:21:00.000-05:00

Pictures as promised. The picture of Candy isn't all that great, which is probably a good thing since the painting isn't either. The Basestar is a little more blue than in the picture, but the metallic paint made it difficult to get the exact color.

Another Couple Down

2011-09-29T00:14:00.000-05:00

Finished up Candy, though it just rained so sealing her will have to wait. I also finished the Basestar/Battlestation. I have pictures of both, but don't feel like editing them at the moment. I will say this, I'm not entirely happy with Candy. While I realize that it's been a looong time since I painted a figure showing any amount of skin (or a 28mm figure at all), I have several examples sitting on my display shelf showing that I'm a better painter than what I accomplish with her. I did finally get her face to not look entirely like a racoon's, but it is not my best work. The upside is that the cloth turned out reasonably well.

Hopefully tomorrow I'll get around to editing and posting pictures, but no promises.

Out of Practice

2011-09-20T06:50:00.000-05:00

No pictures yet, but I did some work on Candy last night. I've determined that I'm horribly out of practice when it comes to skin tones on 28mm figures. Bad enough that I'm considering stripping the paint and starting from scratch. Everything else is ok, but I managed to screw up the skin, which is a large portion of the model in question.

Nothing to See Here

2011-09-18T17:59:00.000-05:00

Haven't made much progress on the painting front, but did run across this amusing photo...

Grav Tank Done and Other Progress

2011-09-10T22:03:00.001-05:00

Finished the grav tank this weekend as well as some decent progress on Candy. Still not entirely happy about how the wash came out on the tank, but it gives it a real gritty appearance if nothing else. The colors are spot on for how I want to paint the infanty and spider drones though.

I also got the base coat down on Candy. I've learned that Reaper ProPaint Scarlet Red would make for a great hair color, though here I'll be using it as the shade color. Keep in mind that the base coat is going to be the shadow colors for the mini so it's a bit darker than the finished product. That said, I think the exposure was a bit long for this one as I think the camera was trying to make the Reaper Master Series Ghost White a true white.

On other fronts, cut out a couple hills from some scrap blue insulation board leftover from a prior home improvement project (of which I still have the better part of an 8x4 board *grin*) and looking to play a game of some sort with Aprile tomorrow, probably CAV.

Grrr

2011-09-06T07:07:00.000-05:00

Well, I could call the grav tank done, but I wouldn't be happy with it. What I intended to be a wash did exactly the opposite and after conferring with a friend it would seem over thinning of the paint is probably the cause. So I need to go back and fix some spots and do a more painstaking darklining of panel lines and joints. Right now it just looks dirty and flat. So learn from my mistakes, thin your paint, but don't over thin it.

However, getting frustrated with that I did get quite a bit done around house, to include washing and polishing the motorcycle. Something about all that gleaming chrome begs for a ride...

Klingon Incursion

2011-08-30T20:22:00.000-05:00

Sunday the boys and I played a game of Klingon Armada. I'm really liking this rules variant for the SFU setting, though I am a bit biased as I also enjoy Starmada: Admiralty Edition which KA is based on.

The game was a Federation vs. Klingon 1000pt game (I don't have any of my other SFU ships painted yet..it's only been about four years now). On the Fed side I had a Command Cruiser (CC) represented by the USS Constitution (I know, the Connie isn't a CC, but I don't have a proper CC and the other heavy cruiser doesn't have decals on it so it was the easiest way to distinguish), an as of yet to be named Heavy Cruiser (CA) that we'll imagine for now to be a certain ship that isn't to be named in the SFU, and two Old Light Cruisers (oCL). For the Klingons there were two of the iconic antagonists to the CA...the ever present D7 battlecruiser and two F5 frigates.

RAdm Micheal commanded the CC and an oCL and Capt Zachary commanded the CA and the other oCL. I commanded a D7 and an F5, whilst Phillip commanded the other pair. The first turn was closing and long range phaser-1 shots that amounted to minimal damage, though the CA did lose a number of weapons. Michael advanced his oCL while moving his CC only one hex forward. Zachary was a little more ambitious, moving forward as much as his ships would allow. Phillip, embracing his inner Klingon charged forward while I maneuvered around the edge for a little saber dancing. Phillip fired four drones and I added another one all targeted at the CC.

In the second turn Phillip charged head long into the oncoming cruisers which led to his brothers focusing fire on him. This led to one of the challenging aspects of playing with younger children who haven't developed a sense of sportsmanship yet. He got upset and stormed out because his brothers were obviously being unfair. Though to be honest, they weren't being very sportsmanlike either. This was addressed over the course of the next half hour before we could continue play.Michael advanced each of his ships one hex forward while Zachary cautiously advanced to within overload range. I continued to advance around the edge coming within overloaded disruptor range of Zachary's CA since he had already taken some damage. The drones were a few hexes outside of reaching the CC this turn. Phillip concentrated on Zachary's closer CA and I finished it off (despite some abysmal dice rolls on my part). Michael destroyed Phillip's F5 and put a hurt on his D7. My D7 weathered a few pot shots, but the F5 remained unscathed. In the end phase a new wave of was launched targeting Zachary's CA.

Turn three saw the continued rush of Phillip's D7, which didn't survive the turn. The The drones caused an amount of damage to be expected for five flights against an undamaged CC, though they did a good job of reducing the forward shields. The oCls continued to be pretty much ignored as killing the larger cruisers were sufficient to remove a player from the game from a victory condition point of view (destroy half or more of a player's total point value).

In turn four, I turned to get the CC into a broadside arc and Michael obliged by turning into a head on course to my ships, effectively crossing his own T...with severly depleted forward shields (they were at 1, meaning as long as I rolled a hit it was fairly certain to cause damage). The second wave of drones were spectacularly ineffective, and poor rolling on my part only barely destroyed the CC. However, it was a Pyrrhic victory as overloaded torpedoes rendered my D7 into so much space debris. Had we continued with the oCL and F5, the game would've gone to Michael as the F5 had lost too many weapons to cause any significant damage to the light cruiser. But victory conditions what they were, we called it a tie. (No photo, my chief of photography again ran off, I may need to request another person to fill the billet...)

Even using the simplified movement I think Starmada may be a bit overwhelming for the boys, especially Phillip, but they had fun. I think next time will be a three-way NSL vs FSE vs Mauridians in an effort to use some less complicated shielding rules. Or who knows, I might play a first game of Silent Death, having had that on the shelf for about two and half years now. One thing I do know is that I need to get some F6 Frignaughts and get my D5W done and on the table. Stinking F5s just irritate the heck out of me with their shorter ranged disruptors and laughable phaser-1 array. Speaking of Silent Death, I need to get some X-Wing and TIE Fighter models to use the Star Wars variant of those rules. I've pretty much given up on the idea of finding suitable Zentraedi fighters to do a Macross battle.

I've gotten a little bit of painting done on the GZG High Tech Grav Tank. The turret and top half of the hull are base coated.

Here's a look at the rest of table with a few projects in progress and a few waiting to enter spacedock.

Started

2011-08-28T21:01:00.000-05:00

OK, so I started on the GZG grav tank...and some color testing on the Basestar. I know, it wasn't one of the two, but it's just a little something to toy around with while waiting for paint to dry. As for the tank, the turret is mostly base coated. Having a hard time deciding on a second color, but that's because I was trying to stick to my pro-paints, however, there are several of my MSPs that will probably work.

And the votes are in

2011-08-27T07:30:00.000-05:00

All two of them. The up side to that is that I've already got the GZG grav tank prepped and ready for painting and I doubt it'll take me long to get Candy ready to go. So the bonus here is that I'll work on both!

The grav tank is going to be for my UNSC figures, which will be light tan cloth and off white armor. So right now what I'm thinking for the tank is off white with light tan fleck camo. Should be pretty easy to pull off, especially if I use the airbrush to paint the off white base coat.

For Candy I'm thinking along the lines of A-Ko.

Well That Didn't Go As Planned

2011-08-20T14:10:00.000-05:00

Hmm, apparently adding a poll is beyond my abilities.

So instead, look at the To Do List over here------>
and leave a comment on what you'd like to see next.

What Now?

2011-08-18T22:25:00.000-05:00

Sometimes after actually finishing a project I feel at a bit of a loss as to what to work on next. As you can tell by the "To Do List" in the sidebar I have no shortage of things to work on. So I thought I'd run a poll to see what my dear readers thought. I'm going to leave it up through next Friday (26 August) and go from there. Heck, I might even to a bit of a step by step journal of it if there's interest.

Speaking of readers, Monday saw the second largest spike in page views (74) that I can recall (though I think the first had some bots involved). I'm sure that it's nothing compared to the more popular blogs out there, but it made me happy. I suppose that if I posted more regularly I'd get more hits, but on the other hand I'm still amazed that people actually Google my little corner of the WWW.

Finished Mauridian Squadron

2011-08-15T22:13:00.000-05:00

I finally finished the Mauridian squadron from Ravenstar Studio's Cold Navy line. First, props to my favorite mini designer John Bear Ross. I really love the aesthetic of these ships. They have a very anime style to them and they'd feel right at home in a Macross fleet.

I'm really glad that I started with the big boys, as by the time I got to the smaller ones, my painting chops had degraded fairly following the deployment and subsequent PCS. If the battleship had turned out like the Ba'Rada frigates I'd have been really pissed at myself. In the end though, they are Done and at tabletop distance still look decent.

CAV2 With the Kids

2011-08-15T22:03:00.000-05:00

Set up a game of CAV2 to play with SWMBO on Saturday night to play Sunday afternoon. She decided to bake cookies instead (like I'm going to argue with homemade chocolate chip cookies) so I asked the boys to play. They were all rather excited.

The simplistic scenario was that a Ritterlich strike group had orders to plant demolition charges on a Terran helipad and a communications building as part of a larger operation. This was accomplished by spending two total actions by an infantry team. The trick was that the helipad and commo building were in a guarded outpost. The outpost was guarded by an armor section, a mechanized infantry section, a flight of Kikyus, and six stationary turrets. The Ritterlich force consisted of an armor section, a mechanized infantry section, and a specialist section. It worked out to just shy of 3000 points per side, though I did not count the turrets against the turrets so they had a bit of an advantage point wise.

Ritterlich strike group

Armor
2x Tiger
1x Jaguar
1x Puma

Mechanized Infantry
2x Hedgehog
6x Rifle Infantry

Specialist
2x Wolverine
2x Conqueror

Terran defenders

Armor
1x Ronin
2x Starhawk VI
1x Regent

Mechanized Infantry
2x Centipede
4x Rifle Infantry w/ AT-23 upgrade

Flight
2x Kikyu

Turrets
6x Odin turrets

Don't ask about the legality of the structures, I didn't pay real close attention to how many points were faction specific models. We're weren't using faction abilities anyway just to keep things simple.

Here's the initial set up:

As you can see, the raiders had a fair amount of open ground to cross. I really wish I had some fencing to use for such a scenario. I'll have to add that to the "one of these days" project list. The Ritterlich faction ability that grants Assault to all it's models would've been helpful, maybe next time.

My assistant die roller cheering from the sidelines (age 5) and assistant model mover (age 7)

I took the Ritterlich force while my two older boys Michael and Zachary spit the Terrans. Zachary ran the turrets and Michael the CAVs and infantry. On the first turn the raiders advanced and took some heavy fire from the turrets. Michael moved a few CAVs to clearer lines of fire, but took some damage to a Starhawk for the trouble.

I was using the Wolverines to hold my right flank and the CAVs to draw attention away from the Hedgehogs as they made their run to the buildings. It almost worked except that Zachary kept an eagle eye on those transports. Second turn saw the further advance of my CAVs and the heavy damaging of one Tiger, the Wolverines taking position across the river to engage turrets, one Hedgehog unloading its infantry into contact with the helipad and placing one action on it while engaging the enemy infantry. No heavy casualties as of yet, but not for lack of trying. One Tiger and one Starhawk VI were very close to biting it.

Third turn saw the destruction of the helipad, the Tiger and Starhawk going down and the Ronin moving forward and starting to lay into a Wolverine. The second transport unloaded infantry into base to base contact with the Regent and combined with covering fire from the Hedgehog inflicted four points of damage. Unfortunately my photographer and assistant model mover got bored by this point and ran off with the camera taking pictures of everything but the game.

The fourth turn was it as the first infantry team engaged the comms building and achieving the scenario goal. I didn't throw the game, though I'd occasionally ask if they really wanted to do something, then explain potential outcomes and why. Granted I wasn't playing cut throat, but I didn't do anything I wouldn't do against another opponent. Sometimes Michael and Zachary would inadvertently work against each other, like in the second turn, Michael parked a Starhawk right in front of a turret, blocking LOS. Played the rules mostly by ear as I still remember most of them, but I do admit to making a mistake in my favor, I misread the turrets' data card and thought they only had one ranged attack rather than two. Though I will say that if the scenario called for the exit of the raiders by the same edge they entered, the game most likely would've gone to the boys. If I run this one again, first, the turrets will get their full attacks, faction doctrines will be in play (though I'll probably have to remind the boys about them), probably swap the Ronin for tanks, and up the number of actions required to "destroy" a building.

Even with all the hullaballoo about CAV:SO, it was nice to get the BSRs out and smash things with the rules I like so much. I think I'm going to have to sit down one of these days and work out the house rules I want to use borrowing from Mil-Net's discussions along those lines. They boys had fun, though Zachary said he preferred the starship game (Starmada).

Mr. Fix-It

2011-08-09T18:45:00.000-05:00

Took a little time to repair a few minis that did not fare so well in the move. Namely the NSL battle cruiser, the FSE battleship, a FSE heavy destroyer, and Biker Chick Sophie. Debating if I feel like modeling or gaming tonight after dinner.

Well, So Much For That Idea

2011-08-08T06:57:00.000-05:00

The only painting I did over the weeken was priming Zachary's 1:72 plastic WWII Germans and Phillip's skeleton's (MegaMiniatures). I had intended to finish that last Mauridian frigate, but due to other obligations, a house project, etc that didn't happen.

What I did learn is that electric go-karts, while still fun and probably much easier to maintain are nowhere near as exciting as old school gas karts. However, teaching Alexander (our five year old) the finer points of drifting was well worth it. Though when he got on the kiddie karts he blocking his second cousin from passing like a pro. Must've been the endless hours of watching "Cars".

He Paints!

2011-07-31T14:09:00.000-05:00

Finished off two of the three Ba'Rada frigates last night. Let's just say that you'd think I forgot how to paint as they are not anywhere near the same level of quality as the other Mauridian ships. I've got one more primed and ready for paint. May try to knock it out tonight. Once that one is done I'll post pics of all three and the completed squadron (though really, is any fleet ever "complete").

Waiting

2011-07-11T17:47:00.000-05:00

So, we've moved into the house but am waiting to get my pretties. They'll be here tomorrow, but beds will need to be assembled, furniture placed in its spot, etc before I can resume any hobby activities. Once I do, I believe it will be time for the airbrush to come out and get some serious base coating done on a variety of miniatures. Though there will be some prep work involved for a number of things. More to follow as things progress.

Finished Felids and Other Notes

2011-06-19T20:52:00.000-05:00

Realized that I had a picture of my Khurasan Felid Battle Circle that I had completed before I had to start preparing for the move to Texas. Not the best picture, but it gets the point across.

After I make some progress on the backlog I'll order some more Felids to round out about a platoon's worth with GZG wheeled vehicles.

In related gaming news, having all my minis, terrain, and most of my rule sets (some are PDFs on my Nook Color) in storage while I await closing on our house I was going through gaming withdrawal. So I went out and bought the Wrath of Ashardalon D&D board game. It gives a pretty good game, but the rules provide for a more dangerous dungeon environment than any DM I've ever played with (and they were pretty devious). Today I painted one of the character models. Turned out pretty well for a quickie, but the detail (especially the face) leaves something to be desired. In all though it looks better than flat blue soft plastic. I figure over the course of the next week I can at least finish the remaining hero figures. They won't be contest winners by a long shot, but will be at least more visually interesting. Pics later.

Oh, one more thing, I haven't been linking related items in my posts recently because I've been posting either from my phone or on a horribly slow connection on my netbook. No promises, but I intend to go back once I get a proper connection and insert links.

We're Not In Kansas Anymore TK429

2011-05-28T23:57:00.001-05:00

Well, the last week included me packing all of my little pewter, plastic, and resin lovelies; watching them be loaded into a moving truck; and driving from Kansas to West Texas. I'm glad to be back in San Angelo, I did not enjoy my time in Kansas and am looking forward to my future here.

What does all this mean regarding miniatures? Well, I'm currently without a house, so all my lovelies are inaccessible in storage. As time and family allows I want to continue developing back story for my sci-fi universe.

AS for what I've been doing in the meantime? Mostly I've been reading books on my Nook Color. If you have some form of ereader you need to visit the Baen Free Library. They allow free downloads of a number of their books as enticement to buy the rest of their books. In the last three weeks I've read "With the Lightnings", "Lt. Leary Commanding", "Hymn Before Battle" and am working my way through "Gust Front." Before I started he move I downloaded 23 books from authors I've been wanting to try out but hadn't gotten around to. So reading, and that moving thing, have been occupying my time.

'Verse Building

2011-05-08T10:21:00.000-05:00

Now that I've got a small collection of 15mm figures I wanted to come up with some kind of back story to give context to the games. This should prove interesting as it will be including two main human powers, at least three planetary factions, and aliens. The action will be centered on the planet Hestia, originally a mining colony that ended up on the border between two sides of an interstellar civil war. Things are fairly vague right now and painted with broad strokes as I want to keep it fairly open right now. I can make things more specific later on. Eventually I'd like to flesh this out and use it as a background for my other games, particularly Starmada.

So here's the first installment:

Mankind Spreads It’s Wings
In the late 22nd Century mankind discovered that it is possible to travel faster than the speed of light. Using an adaptation of the theory a method of FTL communication was also discovered. Soon countries formed economic coalitions to be able to afford to build the first interstellar probes to explore previously detected exoplanets. The initial results, while exciting for scientists, yielded no planets suitable for establishing human outposts. Most, even if they were capable of being terraformed, were too close or too far from the primary star to sustain human life without constant fear of a breach in a colony wall. The first manned missions were scientific in nature and of limited durations.

Eventually though, planets were found that could sustain human life with little problems. Due to the range limitations of the FTL drives, stations were established on the quickest routes to these habitable planets and became important trade hubs and way stations. Often times mining operations would be established within the systems containing these stations to harvest the mineral wealth of the uninhabitable planets and asteroids. As time went on, more and more habitable worlds were found and colonized. Some turning into wealthy population centers, others remaining little more than mining outposts.

Due to the gravitational effects of the FTL drives jumps are performed far enough away to not interfere with the gravitational fields of the stars or planets in system. Eddies created by the interaction of planetary gravity fields with the stellar gravity fields do allow for jumps closer in system. Because they are always in motion they are considered unsafe for routine use. The eddies are have been used in emergencies and invasions, but minor miscalculations in their position lead to the destruction of the inbound vessels and in some cases environmental effects on nearby objects due to the disruption of the gravity field.

During this time, Earth had become more homogeneous, both racially and geopolitically. Eventually Earth fell under a worldwide government that was known as the Terran Confederacy. The different countries were represented equally, but the colony worlds and way-stations each only had one representative each as Earth still felt the colonies were possessions rather separate entities. There was occasional agitation for equal representation by the colonies and sometimes even independence. But the economy was stable which fostered a desire to not shake things up and on the question of independence, most of the outer worlds were still quite dependent on Terra and the older wealthier colonies.

Moving Time

2011-05-04T18:52:00.000-05:00

Well, it's not like I've been real active with my miniatures lately, but another move for my family looming at the end of the month. So, I'm starting to look down the barrel of packing up my pretties and moving them to back to Texas. Long story short, there's not going to be a lot of gaming related activity here until I get settled. Might throw out a few tidbits here and there, but nothing regular or major.

Usama Bin Laden Dead

2011-05-01T23:03:00.001-05:00

If you've been a regular follower of my blog you'll know that I do my best to keep it on the topic of miniatures and wargaming. This news warrants breaking that.

As a member of the U.S. military for over 17 years the news of UBL's death is of great importance to me. Not only that, but the news was made public on the second anniversary of the death of SGT James Pirtle, a former student of mine when I was serving as a technical school instructor. So you'll excuse me if I'm somewhat exuberant in the death of a murderer of innocents and a generally evil man (though I hesitate to use the term "man" in his case). There is evil in the world, and it is not wrong to celebrate the elimination of even the smallest part of it.

Now, there will be at least attempts at retaliation. The war will not be over with his death. There is still a lot of work to be done. But our military and those of our allies (whom we must not forget to thank for their support and the lives of their young men and women as they've stood shoulder to shoulder with us throughout these times) will see that the work will be done.

Painting Recession

2011-04-20T19:57:00.000-05:00

Well, I seem to be experiencing a painting recession. Just haven't had the motivation to do much painting, which is bad becuase like most everyone else I have a lot of stuff that needs pigmentation. Thankfully I haven't been expanding the lead mountain either.

That being said, I finally did the last little bits on the Felid squad last weekend and got base coats on two of the three Mauridian frigates.

I'll post pictures eventually, just not real sure when...

Back From Vacation

2011-03-27T15:40:00.000-05:00

or Holiday as our European friends may call it. Had a good week-long trip to Wyoming to visit the in-laws. Nothing much miniature wise to report from the last week other than I cleaned mold lines on all but two escorts of the Japanese ships. I had grand plans of doing the same for all my remaining Trek ships and one of my Ravenstar Studios space stations, but as usual my exuberance was outweighed by reality. On a vacation related note, they should make containers that fit to standard luggage racks which are appropriately sized to place a teenager in during long road-trips.

While I was out, my latest order of GZG figures arrived. I placed the order in mid-February-ish so he must be getting closer to being caught up with back orders. Hopefully the new website goes up without a hitch for him. Will most likely post a review of them before I start painting them. I have a few minor quibbles with the grav tank.

What Happened to Conservation of Momentum?

2011-03-19T15:01:00.002-05:00

I had been painting at a pretty good clip and then, bam, total loss of momentum. A number of factors have contributed to this, which I won't bore you with. However, a few things I've learned in the mean time:
- MegaMini's skeletons are well cast, with a few exceptions
- Mustang motorcycle seats are worth more than their cost
- It is hard to not take over painting your kid's minis
- My copy of Fallout 3 refuses to run on any of my computers
- The latest iteration of Colonization runs just fine :)
- Alexander thinks I'm so old that water didn't exist when I was in elementary school (he's 4 yrs old)
- Allergies + head cold is miserable
- The previous line while taking vacation days compounds the misery
- There are dental hygienists that don't ask questions when their hands are in your mouth
Though today I have cleaned up the mess that has managed to gather on the game table and the paint table. Since I had the painting table cleaned off I went ahead and put a drop cloth over it and put away some tools I haven't used in a while. It's scary, the table is organized. It doesn't happen often, but it does happen about once a year or so.
Now, about painting...we'll see if I get around to it.

Interesting...

2011-02-26T19:29:00.000-06:00

So, a couple weeks ago I was curious as to how many hits this little blog o' mine was getting and I went to the stats tab. Something that I hadn't done up to that point. What a mistake. You can't give a page with four tabs of stats to analyst. It doesn't end well.

Anyway, one of the interesting things I've been noticing is that I get a lot hits on the post I made about a year or so about an idea I had for a cyberpunk genre miniatures game. About once a day I get a hit or two on that post, and seemingly from a Google search on "cyberpunk game." Maybe I'm on to something with that, or there's one guy out there somewhere who's really interested in my idea and looking to see if there's been any progress.

Progress on the Felids

2011-02-25T08:40:00.001-06:00

Have the armor base coated on all the Felids as of last night. Tried to take a picture, but the camera didn't want to play well with others, so I stopped bothering to get a WIP shot. The armor is Reaper MSP Pale Lichen, the fur will be Reaper ProPaint Fireball Orange (I think that's the name), and details in appropriate colors. I think the orange will be a nice contrast to the light green. Though the more I think about it, Pale Lichen is pretty close to the color of my service uniform shirts...

Another Bug Hunt

2011-02-23T00:10:00.000-06:00

Yes, I know it's one of the most over-used phrases amongst sci-fi gamers, but well, it works. :)

Used the brushed-on variant of the Minwax Dip last night on the remainder of my Khurasan Parasachnid Bioweapons (or bugs for short). Used the lighter of the two olive drabs I had used on the previous two bugs and highlighted with a more yellowish green. I know I wanted them lighter, but before I applied the Minwax Antique Walnut I was concerned that I had gone too bright. I applied the stain (a bit too heavily at first, required siphoning some off with the brush) and the color muted nicely. For those painting along at home, I'm using disposable brushes from the hardware store bargain bin and applying the stain in big happy strokes.

Still figuring my around using the stain. On the upside, I'm not about to run out of it any time soon. Though next time I think I'm going to either need to thin out just a little bit (though I'm concerned about what affect this will have on the acrylic paint underneath) or let the can sit in the warmer part of the house for a few hours before applying in order to help it flow better. My game room is half underground so even with the heat on, it's still a little chilly in here. I am getting better at estimating how much to apply, but it is still a learning process.

Enough babbling, on with the pictures:

Group shot

Comparison shots with one of the test minis

And if you remember from the post with the finished Mekanoids, here the tin-cans get their come-uppance:

I know, I said the Felids were next, but these guys kind of barged their way through my painting queue by virtue of the fact that two of them were already finished. Kitties are next, promise.

Drop Cloth Quest

2011-02-20T17:32:00.000-06:00

No, it's not a cloth that's dropped from orbit into a combat zone. :) What I'm referring to is a cloth to paint on while protecting the surface underneath, very important if you're a coffee table or dining room table painter. Way back when [queue flashback]

I first started miniature wargaming as a hobby I picked up a drop cloth at the local Michael's in Augusta, GA (where I was stationed at the time) while purchasing my first paints and supplies for my Space Marines and Dark Eldar. (craptacular paint jobs found here) I forget how much I paid for it, but it came two to the package and was cloth on one side and plastic on the other. Little did I realize just how useful that was. I could use it to dry my brushes, removing excess paint for dry brushing, and even spill full cups of water/coffee/etc without it leaking through. Highly important as I didn't have a hobby space yet and was painting on the dinner table or coffee table. You can see a picture of it here after having used it for a couple years.

As you can see, even after just a couple years it was well used. By the time we moved to Kansas it has pretty much met it's life expectancy and could barely fold because there was so much built up paint. Not to mention the few times it had been attacked by kids with scissors. I attempted to find a similar drop cloth, but to no avail. :(

[end flashback]

I had pretty much consigned myself to not finding a suitable replacement as I have a dedicated painting table now and protecting it wasn't much of a concern. Though it was nice to have a surface I could dab the extra paint off of a brush. Now my kids are painting miniatures and sharing the little 2'x4' table (same one in the picture above) isn't going to cut it with four people trying to paint (when one wants to paint or they see me painting they all want to paint). So, it's back to the dinner table for painting time. It's a nice table, 53" square, so plenty of space but I don't want marks from the inevitable accidents.

So I started looking into finding a replacement drop cloth. I went to the local Hobby Lobby and they didn't have anything to serve as a drop cloth (though I did pick up a couple small cardboard boxes to use as 15mm buildings...more on that later), let alone a plastic backed drop cloth. Undeterred, I thought to myself, "Self, they sell drop cloths at hardware stores. Why not check there." So we did, and they wanted $19.99 for an 8'x12' double-sided drop cloth not too dissimilar to the one I previously had. Feeling that was more than what I wanted to pay we went to Wal-Mart, figuring they might have drop cloths. They did. This one for just under $7.

Obviously, 8'x12' is bit excessive for a 53" square table. So I rolled it out and cut off 56" worth of material. However, when I went to cut that to fit the table, I had a slight surprise...a standing seam in the middle of the cloth. So rather than trying to cut along the seam or pull the seam apart I just left it folding so that I have two layers of plastic between the tabletop and so I can just flip it over when one side gets so covered it's not useful.

Here's a shot of a corner turned up to show the plastic backing.

A couple notes on this drop cloth, the absorbent side is more like a rough paper towel rather than the cloth which is ok though I would've preferred cloth. I haven't check the absorbency on it yet, though I'm sure that will happen sooner or later. It's a little itchy to rest your arm on, but not enough to prevent you from doing so. I'll probably end up cutting off a piece to use on my 2'x4' painting table in the game room, but that would require cleaning it.

Resistance Is Futile

2011-02-19T12:29:00.000-06:00

Well, I 've gone and done it now. I've been enjoying painting those 15mm figures so I went to Ground Zero Games and ordered more. This time two packs of UNSC infantry and a pack of UNSC SAW gunners, a pack of Spider Drones, and a High Tech Grav Tank. I really like the look of the UNSC figures, even though they don't have infantry with support weapons yet. But that's OK, because I'm envisioning them as a Tech Level 3 force in Tomorrow's War using drones to carry the big guns and grav vehicles. The "High Tech" version of GZGs grav vehicles seem a good aesthetic fit with the UNSC infantry.

I think the Felids, for now, will be augmented with the Mekanoid Grenadiers and will be a TL2 force using wheeled light vehicles and tracked main battle tanks. Though the AT-43 walkers will be available for the Mekanoids if they want to fight on their own.

Mekanoid Pictures...and Yet Another Project

2011-02-17T19:21:00.000-06:00

Here is the group shot of the Mekanoids as promised a couple days ago...

And here they are engaging a pair of Parasachnid Bioweapons...

And a couple comparison shots with different scales. In the first are a couple of typical 28mm figures, a CAV Dictator (1/160th), CAV infantry (1/160th), and 6mm/Epic Space Marines. The second picture is with a CAV Wolverine and a CAV Wolf (both 1/160th).

And for my final photo tonight, a couple weeks ago I had to take the bottom off of our couch in order to find the cable remote (it was important, there were some History Channel shows I DVR'd and couldn't watch!) and found this Matchbox car. I looked at it and instantly thought...Chupathingy! So, figuring the car had been in the couch for an undetermined period of time and hadn't been missed by any of the four boys, I declared Parental Eminent Domain for use as a conversion.

The axles are bent (as with every other Matchbox car my kids have) so that'll be addressed. I think the red things sticking out of the back are supposed to be exhausts, those are going to be trimmed off to make room for the gun pedestal. What, you didn't think i was going to leave it unarmed did you? :) The doors are going to be reworked with plastic card stock. Then painting it in a suitably sci-fi military paint scheme. First thing, is going to be drilling out the rivet in the bottom to make it easier to work on the separate parts as well as save the windshield. Depending on how this goes, I may have to see if I can score more of the same vehicle on eBay.

I'm going to need to find a driver figure for it as well, probably GZG for that as well as whatever type of support weapon I throw on it, probably a heavy machine gun or big laser type. Firing missiles over the top of an unprotected driver's compartment doesn't seem like a good idea, might mess up the rich Corinthian leather.

Up and Coming Miniature Producer

2011-02-16T21:51:00.001-06:00

ArtCrime Productions has been previewing renders of several 15mm figures and vehicles they will be producing in the near (I hope) future. I'm really looking forward to this line as the designer of the figure, James Burrell, designed some of my favorite CAV models. I've met him at ReaperCon the couple times I attended and wish him luck with this new venture.

Oh, and I never got around to taking those pictures. I was watching TV with one of my sons who isn't feeling well.

Grenadiers Done

2011-02-15T23:49:00.001-06:00

The remaining seven Mekanoids are done, will take pictures tomorrow as it is getting late. The more I look at them, the Mekanoid Dictator (yet to be released), and those AT-43 walkers, I'm starting to think the walkers would fit well with the Dictator stylistically and provide the 'bots with a good mid-level weapon platform so it's not just infantry with a giant death crab thingy. And on a side note, to keep things rolling along, I primed the remaining bugs.

Mekanoid Grenadier Done

2011-02-14T23:42:00.000-06:00

Finished the first of the Khurasan Mekanoid Grenadiers today. Have the other seven almost done, just need to finish up the bases and seal those. Opted for a utilitarian gray over a blue-black base coat with silver highlights on the gun arm. I figure that way I can use them as part of a robotic army or as augmentees to living squads without jarring the eye too much with extremely different color schemes.

If can keep painting at this pace during the week, I may well have enough figures ready for the long weekend to get my first game of Tomorrow's War in. Next up will be the Felid Warriors as the remaining six Parasachnids aren't primed yet.

Khurasan Parasachnid Bioweapon Test Paints

2011-02-13T09:28:00.000-06:00

Finished these up last weekend, though had to wait for the weather to warm before I could seal them. They are Khurasan Parasachnid Bioweapons, or as I call them, bugs, based on fender washers. I think they turned out well, but think the colors are darker than what I want. I think I'm going to go with a lightish brown washed with dark dark green on the remainder and see how that works.

Snow Day! or Gaming With the Kids

2011-02-10T23:27:00.002-06:00

Had a snow day yesterday, but instead of painting or assembling anything from the Shelf of Shame and dug out an assortment of my fantasy miniatures and my oldest son's Heroscape figures for a game. We were using a set of one-page free fantasy rules I had found on freewargamesrules. It's a simple game that even Phillip (6 years old) could understand with little trouble (he won as a matter of fact). I need to fiddle around with unit stats for the game to find a good balance, but I'm thinking this game doesn't lend well to mirrored forces as the differences in the magic abilities can really offset the inherent balance of using mirrored forces (which helps prevent cries of "unfair!" from the kids). The game really slowed down at the end because we just couldn't get the rolls and because of the randomly selected abilities, it just dragged on and on, until finally the dice worked out. Here are some of the pictures that came out better than the others.

And from towards the end of the game..."Are we done yet???"

In related news, Zachary (who ganged up with Phil against me, so much for respecting your elders!) finished painting these Strelets 1/72nd plastic Vikings while I was deployed. The picture doesn't show it very well, but for first time paint jobs on over 40 miniatures, they turned out pretty well.

After the game, we put all these on 3/4" fender washers and put them in a box I lined with some strip magnets. This weekend we'll flock them, but I think he's more interested in playing another game than gluing stuff to the bases.

I think I've managed to create monsters though, Zachary now wants 28mm WWII U.S. Army, Phillip wants skeletons, and Michael (my oldest, 13) wants more figures of a type to be determined. The boys had a blast, I had a blast, and this could even provide some added incentive to actually paint the fantasy miniatures I have. I learned two things, don't let Phil play with multipart models (I have two repair projects now) and my children will gang up on me at the drop of a hat.

Ven'Tara Carriers Complete

2011-02-06T12:30:00.000-06:00

I actually finished these a couple weeks ago, just now getting a picture of them. These are Ravenstar's Cold Navy Mauridian Ven'Tara carriers. They are resin like the rest of Ravenstar's miniatures and the quality is the same high level of the rest of the pieces I've ordered from him. They were already base coated before I deployed so they only needed the darklining, highlighting, and details but that was more than enough to remind me that it has been a while since I painted anything.

Recent Acquisitions

2011-02-06T12:14:00.000-06:00

Bought these last month while I was out with my wife on our anniversary weekend trip to Kansas City. (Yep, I know she loves me because we went to a game store on our anniversary!)

The river and bridge are JR Miniatures in 15mm scale, the quonset hut is an IMEX HO scale building (found at a local model / train shop) and the walkers are AT-43 models that were 75% off. The walkers are going to be repainted and used for my upcoming 15mm games. Just need to find an army that matches them thematically. Was thinking Rebel's Titan Marines might be a decent match. Though, being in the Army, I'll have to rename them :).

A quick word about Tabletop Game and Hobby in Overland Park. It's a nice store, plenty of selection (though no 15mm sci-fi which bummed me out a little), clean, and courteous staff. If you're ever in the Kansas City area I recommend you check them out.

Annual Recap

2011-02-03T22:37:00.000-06:00

Ok, I know I'm 34 days behind on this, but on New Year's Day I was still in Iraq. At any rate, here is the picture of everything I managed to accomplish in 2010, well four months of it at least. These were all painted in the period from January to April, which is when I stopped hobby projects in order to make sure I had everything ready to deploy. 21 miniatures isn't bad I guess given my previous rates and that my hand was in a splint for most of them.

Not the steadiest of photos, I know, but it gets the point across. Of note in this lot are a couple of firsts. First resin pieces (the Mauridians) and my first dipped figure (the Warlord Mercenary Warrior). I'll be further exploring the dip later this year as I intend to attempt to finish a good number of forces that have been sitting around a while, namely Warlord. Don't know that I'll take up regular gaming with those rules, but would just like to have the figures done.

I also have some stuff to add to the To-Do List with Christmas additions, and will probably be reorganizing the list some. I don't play Federation Commander, preferring the Klingon Armada rules for my Trek fix. 28mm figures will get lumped by genre rather than game as I don't see myself doing much with 28mm in the future other than painting figures that catch my fancy. 6mm will probably stay as is, though I doubt I'll be playing FWC, in favor of Tomorrow's War.

While I was gone, I've pretty much come to the conclusion that I'm done with newer versions of CAV and will be diverting to 15mm sci-fi. I'll still play CAV2 around the house and finish the minis I do have, but doubt I'll be buying anymore CAV products. It looks like my gaming is settling around 15mm and starship gaming. Though I did download Hordes of the Things to see if the boys liked it. (They want their own armies now having completed some miniatures in my absence.) Who knows, by playing Tomorrow's War and Starmada, I might be able to find other players when I leave the house!

So, fare thee well 2010, and wishes for lots of painting and gaming for 2011!

OK, That Didn't Happen

2011-01-27T02:46:00.001-06:00

Dead batteries meant no pictures, too much going on in Real Life meant no painting, but I did get the remaining Mauridian frigates assembled and two of them primed as well as basing and priming 10 Felids, 8 Mekanoids, and 2 bugs I can't remember the proper name for (all Khurasan 15mm sci-fi).

Tomorrow...

2011-01-25T01:41:00.001-06:00

pictures, priming, and maybe even some painting.

I Painted Something!

2011-01-20T22:05:00.000-06:00

And even finished it, less the matte sealer. Granted I had started the Mauridian carriers before I deployed, but a W is a W, right?

Now the question is, do I finish the fleet with the last three frigates...or do some 15mm figs. I'm leaning towards finishing the fleet so they're done. But those Khurasan figs are tempting...

Home!

2011-01-13T03:12:00.000-06:00

I returned home from my deployment last night! Don't have much to add to that other than I'm really happy to be home.

On the miniature front, I'm probably going to do my annual wrap-up post with what I painted in 2010 here in a few days, but no promises on that. Going to have to dig through and see what I actually painted since I haven't painted anything in seven or eight months.

Plans for this year are to finish my starships, of which I have a good collection now, try to finish my CAV minis, finish off a WIP dragon I started in 2009, and get some 15mm forces painted. This is combined with actually getting some games in and moving in June.

Been a Long Time

2010-12-28T09:56:00.000-06:00

OK, so deployment time is almost over. Still have a couple weeks before I get back, but expect some updates to start flowing again by late January/early February. Most likely games and pics of some miniatures my kids have painted while I'm gone. Probably won't start painting again until February, though from the sound of it, I have new lead waiting for me. :)

Layout Changes

2010-08-29T05:19:00.001-05:00

I've made some changes to the ol' blog today. First off, I've had it added to the Tabletop Gaming News Blog Network. You'll see the image in the sidebar, it's also a link to the TGN Blog Network page itself. TGN is a great resource for what's up in the world of miniature gaming.

I've rearranged some of the content widgets to something that makes a little more sense to me. The RSS feed subscription buttons are now in the side bar so new readers don't have to scroll all the way to the bottom of 10 (sometimes lengthy) posts to find the subscription buttons. My profile pic and description is now at the top, and some shuffling of other items.

And what I hope proves to be most useful is the addition of buttons to each post for sharing my mini madness with your friends on your favorite social networking site.

I'm debating putting ads in the blog, but it's not like it's costing me anything to put this up other than my time. So no ads for now.

Khurasan 15mm Sci-Fi

2010-08-26T11:51:00.003-05:00

Got my order of Khurasan 15mm figures in a while ago. I ordered the the Felid Light Battle Circle (T1300), Mechanoid Grenadier Infantrybots (T1600), and Parasachnid BioWeapons (T1204). Thanks to the schedule I work though so far I've only gotten a couple prepped. Unfortunately a severe shortage of basing material has made it difficult to build a desire to actually finish them. However, I will say that I am quite impressed with the casting quality of the miniatures. They are very clean, few noticeable mold lines, and minimal flash. Detail is excellent and I can't wait to get back to the States to paint them.

In the meantime, while I slowly prepare the figures, I've been making some progress on the Beer & Pretzels 15mm sci-fi rules. The introductory pages, initiative, and most of the movement sections are done. I have notes on how combat will work, but not in any kind of narrative form that makes sense outside of my warped consciousness. I'm really enjoying the prospects that the endless bound system promises for a different way to play, though it has made writing the descriptions of various mechanics in a clear and concise way challenging. Throw in the fact that what makes sense in my head may not make sense to the reader. I've a feeling that several gameplay examples will be required, maybe even a few videos on YouTube once I get home to my gaming supplies.

On the subject of rules, anyone know of a good open source publication/layout program that is easy to use and can output watermarked PDF files? Compatibility with Open Office is preferred. I'm thinking that if these rules work out that I may offer them for sale at a reasonable price in PDF and print-on-demand.

One other thing, while not remotely related to miniatures or wargaming but a game nonetheless, I recently received a cribbage board from www.cribbagesupply.com . My Dad and I used to play cribbage when I was a teenager and decided to order my own board to help pass the time over here in Iraq and teach my family when I get home. Cribbage Supply has a good selection and is run (if I understand the website correctly) by a disabled veteran. Shipping prices seem a bit excessive, but delivery was prompt, even in light of the fact that my order had to negotiate the perils of the U.S. military postal distribution system.

Still Kickin'

2010-07-17T20:22:00.002-05:00

It's been a while since I posted anything, been busy being deployed and all. Have some Khurasan 15mm figs on their way to me, really want to see how they are. Haven't done much with the rules, but have still been kicking ideas around in the noggin. 'Bout it for now.

Getting Settled

2010-05-31T05:59:00.002-05:00

Well, I've been in-country for about a week and a half now and am mostly settled in. It's een go-go-go since I stepped off the C-130. I've done the outline for my 15mm rules and written a few sections, but have yet to get to the meat of it yet. Maybe ordering a couple of packs of minis might help, like a pack of Rebel Minis infantry and a pack of some Splintered Light or GZG infantry...

On a slightly amusing note, I've been looking for the book to the Hammer's Slammers series for quite some time (I know, I could've gotten it on Amazon, but I like book stores). I get here and go to the PX to see what they have and what I'll need to have my wife send me and what do they have, not only the first book but three! Yet they're out of headsets to use with voice chat and computer mice....

Hiatus

2010-05-14T14:44:00.003-05:00

Alright yall. I'm deploying Sunday so it's going to be a while before I post much of anything here. I may post some ramblings here and there, but there won't be anything painting wise until next year. I've started working on some rules to use with 15mm stuff. I should be able to at least finish writing the rules while I'm "Over There" and will provide copies to anyone interested in play testing. May even order a few things to playtest with, though they'll remain unpainted. So, until then, push some minis, roll some dice, and enjoy yourselves.

I've gone an done it now

2010-05-12T22:52:00.004-05:00

OK, so I've started taking down some ideas for the 15mm Beer&Pretzels rules. I'm going to try the "endless bounds" from Crossfire as well as possibly a modification of the ranged combat rules. Though I think what's starting to emerge isn't quite similar to what I had in mind for the 6mm game. Which is fine. I wanted the 6mm game to be about a brigade combat team or more and the 15mm game to be a battalion sized slice of a BCT or so.

Hmmmm

2010-05-11T00:24:00.002-05:00

Long time followers may remember my abortive attempt at writing a set of rules for 6mm sci-fi, which was put on hold when I purchased Future War Commander. I was just perusing what little of it I had written and thinking that I could crib it into a quick playing 15mm game without much effort, mostly converting ground scale and weapon ranges from 1/300 to 1/100. Interesting side effect of this would be that on 4x4 table just about everything except probably pistols would be in range since my base assumption was that the standard firearm had a range of 300m so 3m in scale, making terrain quite important. Actually, a 4x4 table would be about half the range of the standard firearm, I could call anything withing 20" (just a hair over 50m actual distance) short range. Pistols and certain support weapons would be shorter ranged than this and would have appropriate modifiers. This will probably give some people apoplexy, but I can't stand it when I can throw a stone further than what is represented by weapon ranges in most games.

I'd I have to redo the morale section. I was "borrowing" the suppression counter mechanic from Epic putting my twist on it. I think I'll go with the usual percentage of casualties seen in most skirmish games.

I think my problem with rules lately is that I want something that has plenty of options as far as what models can do, but without overly complex mechanics. Maybe I should do a whole series of Beer&Pretzel games.

Time for a shift?

2010-05-09T11:37:00.004-05:00

You know, I was posting on Tactical Command and I started thinking that maybe this is the final push I needed to go into 15mm Sci-Fi. My CAV models could do as short guys in a pinch...

Somebody Alert the Game Police

2010-05-08T20:51:00.003-05:00

OK, now I'm starting to get a little more upset with these changes. One of the things that really drew me into CAV, especially CAV2, was the speed of play. There was little paperwork to do and that was mostly pre-game. All you had to do during the game was track each models damage, done easily with dice displaying how much damage has been inflicted. You could use multiples of the same model and use only one datacard as the damage was tracked on the dice next to the model. This announcement introduces two concepts that are making me cringe: ammunition tracking and individual skill rating for each model. That vitriol is starting to rise...

Back in the day I was big Battletech fan. Well, as much as one could be growing up in the middle of a corn field in northwest Ohio. Didn't have miniatures, but my friend Joshua (Hi Josh!) and I had some epic battles. On a few instances we had all-nighter games that were one-on-one duels and we would end up trying to present our backs to the other 'Mech as that was the only location with a point or two of armor left. Loved the game, especially the Phoenix Hawk and Warhammer (which I later learned came from this show called Robotech...which I then later learned was really from a show called Super Dimension Fortress Macross...and then I became an anime fan). However, I wanted to play BIG games, especially after I joined the Army and really understood how big a company, battalion, etc were and how they operate. I didn't see how this could be done without taking up an entire weekend (not an option after becoming Married With Children). I ended up losing interest in the game as it became difficult to find people I could play with without violating fraternization policies.

Fast forward a couple years to my second tour in South Korea. I stumbled across these mechs on The Warstore called CAVs and they looked Awesome (yes, with a capital A). Downloaded the demo and loved it, no heat tracking, no damage locations, degrading stats as models took damage, and several other things. Unfortunately I only had a couple weeks before returning to the U.S.A. though and couldn't convince anyone to try it in our local group. Though having a guy show up with an awesome Battletech layout didn't help either. Now this was also about the time that CAV started what I call The Long Darkness. CAV2 was supposed to be released "Soon." (Please note that I am using the word in historical context and mean no offense in it's use.) "Soon" ended up being almost three, sometimes rather bitter, years. I may be off on the actual time, but I don't feel like going back and researching the actual length of time, just let it be known that it was a long time for something that was supposed to be right around the corner. When it did finally arrive it had a couple warts (the close combat system before the 2008 errata was crazy stupid, almost a mini game in itself). But overall it was (is) a great game that plays very quickly once you get the hang of it. Three sections (comparable to a platoon) on each side can easily be played in about two hours. Bigger games obviously take longer, but a battalion sized game could probably be done in about six(ish) hours, much faster than Battletech. Not only that, but vehicles and infantry have a purpose other than being a target for the mecha in CAV, something that Battletech never used to be all that good at. Needless to say I've been hooked on CAV2.

With the introduction of ammunition tracking on each model and individual skill levels for each model, it introduces more bookkeeping and apparently a step in the game where you have to compare the firing model's skill to the target model's skill which determines a modifier. CAV2 and the RAGE system are all about streamlined rules that don't allow the rules to get in the way of the game (with a few exceptions, but there will always be difficult cases to deal with). So what we have to look forward to is having to have a datacard for every model instead of every type of model, tracking ammunition for each model, and each model's individual skill level. To quote Mr. Horse, "No sir, I don't like it." While I can see and understand the merits of tracking ammunition and skill levels, they just aren't part of CAV in the interest of fast gameplay.

Now I will say that the introduction of construction rules does lend some favor to the game. I have a couple kitbashes that I've always wanted to see statted up in CAV. This was something I alway felt kind of held CAV2 back, but I can understand Reaper's desire to keep their point formula a secret. I am trying to keep an open mind and waiting to see what's what before passing judgment, but that post on Reaper's board is making me think that I'll be playing CAV2 until somebody calls the Game Police to come and take all my backup copies away. (Note to self, put a copy where no one would think to look...)

updated the post below with links

2010-05-08T12:18:00.000-05:00

Yeah, what the title says.

CAV to undergo changes....again

2010-05-08T00:59:00.003-05:00

Like I said over on Reaper's message board I'm fed up with being fed up with CAV. It's a great game, the miniatures are awesome IMNSHO, and I enjoyed the community of players around the game. That's what really suckered me into hanging out in Reaper's little online community. Now that there's been an announcement of Things To Come Soon I'm frustrated with Reaper, but on the other hand I'm glad to some interest from the company again, and again it's been so long since I've been able to play it and they've done anything with the game I can't help but to feel a bit ambivalent as well. (Yeah, they used the "s" word. Folks that have been around CAV for a while will know what I mean.) In short I'm somewhat of a conflicted geek on the subject.

First, I realize that CAV has been nothing like a cash cow for Reaper. Quite the opposite, they're probably losing money every time they pour a CAV mold. It was obvious that they couldn't keep up a line just because a die hard few occasionally bought miniatures. But with certain things it seems like a slash and burn approach is being taken with the game. The time line is getting a total reset and even certain facts established in the original version of CAV are being "tweaked." The miniatures are being reduced (more on this later) and it sounds like some core mechanics are being monkeyed with (this could be good, could be bad). What I'm really afraid of though is that the game will be more about CAVs being the most powerful thing in the game and everything else on the board are merely targets there to warm up the Gauss Cannons.

On the issue of the resizing. Tin has become rather expensive, got it. 8mm seems like an odd scale. I know his reasoning is that most other companies have creeped up to 8mm with their 6mm ranges. That may be the case, if so, just call yours 6mm so you don't confuse people not familiar with the line if they are looking for "6mm compatible" figures. The odd scale size (for wargaming anyway) has always been stumbling block for CAV. At N scale (1:160) they were too big to use with 6mm and too small for 15mm. 10mm would work with them if you squint. Calling the models 8mm may end up causing them a self-inflicted gunshot wound to their locomotive appendages. I hope not, I don't wish ill will on them, I like the folks at Reaper. I'm just callin' it like I see it.

The retcon of the background has me irked for some reason. I usually don't get wrapped around the axle about background stories, but I liked the GW2 as a backdrop. Liked it better than mercenaries fighting proxy wars for the UCORs. It may just be the human nature to resist change, but I'm not excited about this part of it.

It's no secret that CAV2 needed some more work. Chrome and crew over at Mil-Net had been doing a bang up job with CAV2. I wish they had had more capital available to them when Reaper offered them CAV. I understand why they turned it down. Any good business person would've done the same thing if in their circumstances when the offer was made. And also from the business side of things, their license lapsed some time ago and I suppose it wasn't feasible to renew it. But I digress, the biggest issue was "the huddle." While I haven't seen what Chrome was going to do, he had made statements that the huddle effect around the ECM/ESM models wouldn't be so prevalent. I believe him, have no reason to not as I liked what he did with the Rage Chronicle supplements for CAV. Indirect Fire attacks still continues to be a part of the confusion today. If this can be streamlined then fine.

The retcon. I don't know why, but this rubs me the wrong way. Guess I'm just going to have to wait and see.

Keeping CAV feeling like CAV is what is worrying me. I don't want this to devolve into Battletech by another name. I don't want vehicles and infantry there just to be there but to serve a purpose.

I find myself wanting to be more vitriolic than I really am, and even now, my heart isn't into it due to the aforementioned ambivalence. And like I said earlier, I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired.

P.S. I know I said I'd provide links, but I'm feeling tired. All of this information can be found on Reaper's site. I'll update this with links tomorrow sometime.

Update: I added some links to the pertinent items.

Little Bit of Progress

2010-05-03T00:40:00.004-05:00

Did some work on the Mauridian carriers. Fully basecoated and mostly lined, just need to take some brown liner to the orange bits, highlight, and pick out the detail bits. Remembered to use the original darker gray as well, it looks better after the highlighting.

Also did the base on the Black Lighting Dictator '60. This is a project that's been on the back burner for some time now. Nothing fancy, same basing scheme as the rest of my Rach force, sand and rock desert. (there's been more added since this really old picture, should really take a new "family photo") Should be ready for primer tomorrow, we'll see how much the paste sinks into the base. I know it would make the miniautres cost more, but sometimes I wish the plate on the bottom of the CAVs feet fully filled the recess in the hex base, it's a pain making sure that whatever you're using gets under the feet and around the edge, then when it dries it sunk making it look like there's a mini sink hole in front of your CAV. Anyway, I've already got the paint scheme in my head, just want to finish these ships first.

Speaking of ships. I received my latest order from Ravenstar Studios. The Basestar and Starbase mentioned in an earlier post. Not sure when I'm going to get to them, but I would at least like to get them cleaned up and assembled, if not even into primer.

Some Finished Mauridians

2010-04-25T23:02:00.004-05:00

OK, I know I said I'd be scarce, but I did finish the Mauridian Gal'Ethon battleship and the two Val'Naveg cruisers from Ravenstar Studios. I ended up changing paints with the cruisers. Reaper's Master Series Paints are great paints, especially if you're doing a lot of blending on a miniature. However, when you need two coat coverage it just isn't going to happen. So I switched to Reaper's Pro Paints which have better coverage. This resulted in the cruisers being noticeably darker, but I don't mind it too terribly. As more ships get painted, the ones painted with MSPs will be the minority.

Most of these pictures include the original metal frigates I bought when Xtreme Hobbies was still making these. I've said it before and I'll say it again, the difference in detail in the resin ships blows these away. I'm going to have a hard time going back to metals after these.

Oh, yeah, the battleship is missing the aft ventral fin/wing/thingy. It came off while I was painting at some point today and I'll be darned if I can find the thing.

Lack of Activity

2010-04-13T07:57:00.003-05:00

I haven't been doing much gaming related lately. This is because I'm getting ready to deploy. I don't have an exact date yet, but sometime in the next 3~4 weeks I'll be on my way to Iraq. So most of my time has been spent with my family rather than sitting by myself working on minis. Though I have played a few games of Heroscape with the kids.

Once I get settled in over there I'm going to try my hand at playing Starmada using Vassal and getting serious about learning how to use Blender.

Scooped?

2010-04-03T11:34:00.003-05:00

I may have been scooped on my idea to create a game that allows for the use of any and all miniatures available. Unified Theory Games have a game they call Vortex that supposes that there is a nexus of sorts where all possible realities exist thereby allowing free reign for what is brought to the table. I'm going to look into it, maybe even kick the tires, but I think I'll still work on my cyber-hacking game. While Vortex allows all miniatures, it isn't the cyberpunk network attack setting that I'm more interested in. For my game, the use of all miniatures is merely a side effect, not the reason. And no, I haven't done much else with my game.

Couldn't Help Myself

2010-04-02T08:55:00.003-05:00

I was going to order some more Sabol trays to increase my miniature:safe moving capacity ratio, but then I saw that Ravenstar Studios is having another 3 day sale. I missed out on the last two he had and wanted to jump on it. I was split between getting a good core group for a Terran fleet and fleshing it out later or getting a space station to use for more scenario oriented play. I opted for space stations. I ended up getting a space station (#6 in the photo) that looks something like a Starfleet Starbase from the movies. I also ordered a Cylon Basestar from the original series. I always thought they looked more like space stations than space ships and intend to use it as a battle station. With the discount I was able to get both right at my monthly budget instead of having to spread them over two purchases. Don't expect to see them painted anytime soon though.

Slackin'

2010-03-26T06:18:00.003-05:00

Yeah, I know I haven't posted much this week. Couple a desire to do nothing after dealing with BS all day with your favorite MMO and you have a recipe for no painting/gaming progress.

2,000 Words (and a few more)

2010-03-22T01:46:00.005-05:00

OK, the VSD is from Studio Bergstrom and is mounted on Ninja Magic magnetic flight stand adapters and Litko Aerosystems clear acrylic flight stand. The battleship is from Ravenstar Studios. You won't find it on his website, but you can email him for a quote.

Here's where I go into a mini rant. Ravenstar Studios has had the license to produce the Cold Navy ships for some time and his website shows no way in which to order them. If you don't know somebody who knows how to get them or don't check Starship Combat News (excellent source for starship gaming BTW) you'd never be able to get these beauties. I was very hesitant about just sending off money to somebody I didn't know from Adam. I glad I did, because the ships are outstanding in resin. Much crisper detail than the metal versions. He could be doing so much more business if he would get his site updated. Apparently he has a total facelift in the works, but has apparently gotten somebody rather unreliable to get it done. At any rate, he could be making so much more if he had an updated site with pictures of these wonderful pieces.

Mr. Ross, if you're reading this, the Mauridians are the ships I wanted for a long time. Sleek but deadly looking, detailed without being covered in stuff just to be covered in stuff, and a cool anime style.

A Question For My Loyal Followers

2010-03-21T21:14:00.002-05:00

First, thanks for following along and your comments. For a while there I felt like I was screaming into the void. While that can be therapeutic, it does make you wonder why you're blogging. Would it be helpful to yall (all 8 of you :) ) if I took a little more time and provided links to things I mention in my post? Like a link to the manufacturer of the mini I'm working on or such. I know yall are capable of using Google to find things on your own, but sometimes I'll click on a link if I'm mildly interested, but not interested to search for it myself (although with Firefox it's only a matter of highlighting and a right click).

Painting and A New Distraction

2010-03-21T21:05:00.002-05:00

First, I did manage to get the adapters prepped and attached to their bases. I forgot to take pics and I apologize for that. The Victory Star Destroyer looks frickin' awesome on it. Especially since it makes it a bit taller than the other ships on the same shelf in the cabinet. Today I got the base coat and engine "glow" done on the Mauridian BB and it looks quite promising. Next up is mixing a lighter blue and a lighter orange (without going too yellow) for some of the panels, some highlighting, and darklining. While it doesn't have a lot of panel lines and greeblies compared to most CAVs or GZG starships it does have enough to make it a time consuming proposition. At least with the GZG ships I can wash them, drybrush them and call it a day. These Mauridians look so good that they deserve more than that.

And the distraction, I bought Star Trek Online. If you happen to run into Captain Aaron H. Perry in the Alpha Quadrant open a hailing frequency and send your complements. Still flying the noob ship, a Miranda, the U.S.S. Athena though it shouldn't be too much longer until I can pick up a more modern Cruiser.

They're HEEEErrrrre!

2010-03-16T21:28:00.003-05:00

The Ninja Magic adapters showed up today. I ordered 12 total, 10 to put on Litko Aerosystems clear acrylic flight stands and two to use for painting stands. I'll take some pictures tomorrow and show how they work. I'd prep them tonight (just a little bit of venting excess) but I'm not really in the mood to deal with little things at the moment. Since the Star Destroyer is already done I'll throw it on one first.

Travel to Distant Lands, Meet New People,...

2010-03-14T20:43:00.004-05:00

...and subjugate them to the will of the Emperor.

Had this one primed and alternated working on it and the Mauridians. Naturally, I'm waiting on those adapters to mount it. I plan on getting at least one more of these and an Imperial Star Destroyer and their complement of TIE fighters.

Now, to figure out some stats that make sense in Starmada.

The Next Fleet

2010-03-14T16:33:00.004-05:00

I can't really say anything the picture won't except that these were designed by my favorite sculptor, John Bear Ross, for the Cold Navy line. They are available from Ravenstar Studios, though you have to email him as these aren't up on his website.

FSE Fleet and a side project

2010-03-12T22:09:00.003-06:00

Here's the group shot:

And this is one of the side projects. A tray to help keep the dice from going all over the place. The dice tower I made a while back fits nicely in this as well. The felt isn't cut quite perfectly, but well enough to get the job done.

And the FSE fleet is done

2010-03-08T01:19:00.003-06:00

In a final sprint I've finished the FSE battleship and battlecruiser. I think that from here on out I'm going to start with the larger vessels when I have the option. I seem to care more at the beginning of a fleet. I'll seal these last two tomorrow and mount them on their flight stands. Next up for painting are the VSD and the Mauridians. Though I need to wait for some Ninja Magic magnetic adapters to show up before I can start on the Mauridians. In the meantime I can work on the VSD and a couple side projects I have going. Nice thing about the Mauridians is that I already have a paint scheme for them from the first two frigates I bought a couple years ago. It's a bright scheme, but I like it. Hopefully it paints quick.

Four More

2010-03-07T10:34:00.003-06:00

Finished up the three FSE corvettes and final escort cruiser this morning. Just need to seal and mount them. All that remains for that fleet is the battlecruiser and battleship. Thinking about priming the Star Destroyer.

More Stuff

2010-03-05T07:59:00.002-06:00

Added more stuff to the "To Do List." Namely the rest of the Mauridian battlegroup (still need fighters though) and a Victory Star Destroyer from Studio Bergstrom. I'm very happy with the details and quality of both orders. Just need to get my Ninja Magic adapters in now. Hopefully this weekend I can finish the FSE corvettes and remaining escort cruiser. Doubt I'll get the battlecruiser and battleship done, those always seem to take longer than I think they will.

More FSE Done!

2010-02-28T23:26:00.005-06:00

Did these up from primer to sealer today, two FSE heavy destroyers and one escort cruiser. I also got one base color and a wash down on the other escort cruiser and the three corvettes as well as primed the battlecruiser and battleship. I think I finally managed to get a wash I like, it's a mix of ProPaint Chestnut Brown and MSP Brown Liner. These have already been based and are in the cabinet, but I apparently couldn't wait to take a pic. (click for bigger pic)

Some Progress on the Cyberpunk Rules

2010-02-27T02:11:00.002-06:00

I've had a bunch of idle time the past couple days so I was jotting down some ideas for the cyberpunk game I was ranting about the other day. Still haven't come up with a cool name for it yet. I'm open to suggestions.

Anyway, in no particular order:

combat will be opposed roll, 1d10+attack vs. 1d10+passive defense+active defense with a chance for critical hits
System Status damage will make it increasingly harder to perform actions as damage increases, though it is possible to restore system status
came up with some abilities, will post the list later
can have multiple instances of the same program up to the memory limit
if a program is destroyed it can be re-rezzed, though I may create an ability that damages the stored copy of a program preventing it from being executed again in the game
the point system will be used to create the avatar, but not the programs, they are covered by the stats of the deck
there will be a separate design system for programs that increases their size and memory requirement the more capable the program is, the deck limits what can be run though
the point system will be exponential, not additive
a player can control multiple avatars if there are enough points

That's all I can think of right now, I left my notes downstairs and don't feel like getting them at the moment.

Starmada With the Boyz

2010-02-27T01:47:00.004-06:00

Played a game of Starmada with Michael (12 going on 13 in a little over a week) and Zachary (10) last night. This was their first time with the game. It started out as a Klingon Armada game between Michael and I, but Zachary came down to the Man Cave and wanted in on the action. I didn't have any of the ships printed for the Kzinti so I grabbed some of the sample ships from the core rules for him. You'd think he'd be the one to lose not having any of the fancy bells and whistles, but in fact, he almost won! So, for ships, I had a C8 dreadnought, Michael had a Federation heavy cruiser (CA) and two frigates (FF), and Zachary had the sample battleship (BB) and a CA. We used the D1 (basic movement) optional rules to simplify things for them. Michael and I used Federation Commander counters for our vessels while Zachary got to use the NSL BB and an escort cruiser for his CA.

Michael had my usual luck with the dice, he just could roll a hit for anything. He kept going after Zachary's BB since it was over half his point wrapped up in it, but it's high shields deflected all but three points of damage from Michael. Zachary on the other hand, started out with insanely lucky rolls. He wiped out Michael's CA in the first turn and a FF in the second, putting Michael out of the game.

I knew that the difference between how KA faceted shields and regular shields worked wasn't going to work out well for me unless I could damage that BB some before closing the range. So for the first three turns I danced around at long range for my distruptors taking pot shots at Zachary then turned in once he turned to deal with me. I caused some minor damage this way, dropped his shields to four. What really helped was following two waves of drones when I closed the range. The first wave took out a bunch of weapons, the second knocked his shields to 1. After that it was just a matter of taking out the last few boxes of damage. Unfortunately my C8 did not come through this unscathed. The BB and CA opened a hole in my forward port shields, which (admittedly, with a little coaching from myself) Zachary exploited in turn 5 by maneuvering his CA into position just off my bow. At the end of turn 5 his BB was gone, meaning I'd accomplished the victory condition, but I only had 1 hull point remaining. If we had played the next turn or he had rolled one more odd number for damage, that C8 would've been gone.

It was fun teaching them how to play. They were having some problems with the plotted movement, but were starting to get the hang of it by the end. Next time though, if I mix 'regular' Starmada and Klingon Armada ships the KA ships will use the standard faceted shields rule rather than the KA version. Hopefully that will make them last a little longer. The only reason the C8 lasted long enough for a second turn of intense fire was that it had comparatively much more hull than the other ships, but it's shields were flimsy. I have a feeling I'm going to get several requests to play again today.

Cyberpunk Gaming

2010-02-24T18:05:00.002-06:00

First off, I just want to preface this with some background. I have been a big fan of anything cyberpunk ever since I read Neuromancer in junior high. William Gibson was my crack of choice for several years. It was always the console cowboys and the descriptions of their exploits in the 'Net that grabbed my interest. Back when I played RPGs our group played Shadowrun on alternating sessions. Naturally I wanted to play a decker. I was quickly dissatisfied with the experience as the things my character was good at were glossed over to keep the mission going or the rest of the party was left waiting while my character hacked a system. I tried to remedy this when I started GMing Shadowrun, but the same problems arose. It got to the point where nobody played a decker, which I felt was a huge shame.

Fast forward to the future and my obsession with miniature wargaming. I have always been interested in a good cyberpunk game. Rezolution had interest, but a good number of the models just didn't do anything for me. But again, most of the games seem to gloss over the decking/hacking aspect. So I've been thinking on and off again about how to do a game that was about the hacking. The other day I was looking at some posts about Warmachine (another game that looks fun but the models don't do anything for me) and an idea came to me. I could use a mechanic similar to the Focus of the warcaster to represent the Decker controlling his various programs and utilities.

Essentially both sides would have an avatar, which would be the virtual representation of the decker. (BTW, I'll using the terms 'decker' and 'decking' as I prefer them to 'hacker/hacking' and don't want to constantly type console cowboy.) Depending on the size of the game or the scenario a player can control two or more avatars. The avatars would then 'rez' programs which are also miniatures on the table. In a minimalist game, that could theoretically be all the terrain needed. Say two deckers dueling in a featureless network node. Terrain would be of two types, decorative and interactive. Terrain will block movement and LOS. Interactive terrain would be representative of data contstructs like say a personnel database could be a computer, a bunch of file cabinets, or maybe digital models of the people arranged by the section they are assigned. Of course, being a virtual environment it could be anything. I've been toying with the idea of going totally 80's sci-fi art with this and having neon-edged black buildings with billboards sporting images of Max Headroom. Maybe a raid on a Japanese Megacorp would be a traditional Japanese garden. Just watch out for the attack programs that look like stuck gas pedals!

The same goes for the models, being virtual the representation of the program could be anything. Maybe your attack program is a charging viking while a defensive app would be a guard dog. A suite of linked applications could follow a similar theme.

Unfortunately this opens ups whole new possibilities to buy miniatures I never thought I'd have a use for. I foresee myself ordering some Infinity hackers in the future....

As far as how the game would work, it's mostly centered around the decker and his deck (computer). Stats for the avatar are for both him and his deck. For the decker you have Attack and Active Defense. For the deck you have Processor Rating, Memory, Storage, and Passive Defense. Attack is the decker's skill at exploiting security loopholes, finding ways to destabilize the target's data integrity, and otherwise knowing how to take out another system. Active Defense is the decker's use of things like scanning incoming data streams, monitoring system status, and other ways of actively protecting his system. Processor Rating is a relative comparison of the power of deck processors. I'm not even going to try to define what 1 PR actually is. It is sufficient to know that 1 PR is worse than 2 PR. PR is used to rez programs, maintain rezzed programs, and activate abilities for both avatars and programs to include movement. Memory is essentially RAM. It is the limit on how many programs you can have active at any time. Storage is permanent storage (think hard drive). It is the limit to the number of programs available to the decker. Passive defense is the approximation of things like firewalls, shutting down ports, etc. Another item that will be tracked is System Stability, which will be measured in 10% increments. Once a deck reaches 0% stability the deck is fried and the avatar derezzes (taken off the table).

Programs are actually more like expert systems than the applications we're familiar with. While not able to make decisions on their own, they're pretty darned close to being primitive artificial intelligences (which may be something I toy around with as an in-game element). They're essential stats will be Rez, Size, Memory Requirement, Attack, Defense, and Data Integrity. Attack and Defense are fairly self-explanatory and Data Integrity is essentially hit points. Rez will be two numbers with a '/' between them. The first is the PR requirement to start the program and the second the PR required to maintain the program in memory. Size is how much storage space is required on the deck to use the program, and Memory Requirement is how much Memory the program uses when it is active.

Both Avatars and Programs will have abilities that are activated by using PR points. Basically, everything that is done on the 'Net requires the deck's processor. This includes movement. The decker, through the Avatar, spends his PR points to perform actions, rez programs, maintain programs, and otherwise achieve his goals.

I'm still deciding on a dice mechanic. I know it'll be d10-based. I like the d10. I'm waffling between opposed rolled and rolling against a fixed number. I'm leaning towards opposed rolls though I generally don't like them. However, I do think that an opposed roll is probably the best way to represent a duel between two opposing deckers. Once I settle on a mechanic I'll be able to toss around some numbers for stats.

I'd like this to be more scenario driven rather than just thrown down on the table and go. Cyberpunk, like pulp, is story-driven. Some scenarios that come to mind at first are data raids, shutting down systems prior to your meat team mates infiltrating a facility, and a grudge match between deckers. I'm going to have to spend some time on Amazon and get the books that I borrowed from the library in my younger years. (Thank God for libraries. I would never have been able to afford all the books I read back then.) I'm sure that'll give me some more scenario ideas. Another idea I had was 'virtual games.' These would basically be video games for deckers. You could do things like racing or capture the flag. You could probably go on and on for that.

And of course, being a cyberpunk game, it has to have a cool name. Style over substance in this case.

To be honest, I don't know if I'll ever actually play this. I have a habit of coming up with things just to see whether or not I can do it. But to be honest, the idea has me amped. Been thinking about it all day. Though it hasn't damped any of my recent excitment for starship gaming. I need a clone to go to work for me so I can actually do all the gaming things I want to. Though, given my personality it would probably end up like Multiplicity rather quickly.

I'm looking forward to having Samurai-themed programs engaging a group of mecha-themed programs in some incongruous setting.