Afropia...Wasn't That a Thing?

Hey Folks,

So yeah...Afropia...looking for some posting love...kinda feeling like this right now:

So yeah, I was getting pretty pumped and excited with this fictional region, and while it certainly hasn't died, I have to be honest and admit it has at best stalled. I have a lot of great ideas swirling in the brainpan and for Petoriastan I actually have about 100+ years of history loosely mapped out but with enough flex to be able to do some free-gaming throughout their history. But I haven’t gotten past that brainstorm setting.

Being honest, I think it is as a fairly small snag that just sapped my momentum and kept me from moving forward. It sounds super silly, but collided hard with the OCD...and I think it comes down to not having the ability to create a digital map to suit my vision. I have a map of the region in mind, and from that I started a narrative description of Petoriastan, and from there I wanted to translate that into a functional map.

So really, the next step that I need to commit to is getting a map out...whether it is a hand-draulically created one or I find an app (this hasn't worked yet, sigh/lol) or I jury-rig powerpoint or something like that. And maybe most importantly, K-I-S-S…keeping it simple.

All of this to say, I have some great ideas for Petoriastan, their rocky relationship with Aponwana and Alarus...so yes, Bueller is present, thank you for asking Ben Stein. Did I mention, I have a flag?!?

Have a great new year folks...stay safe, and all the best.

 

Northern...umm Red Dawn...a Question of Weather(ing)

Hello everyone,

Here's hoping you're enjoying some winter weather and keeping cool. While I'm sitting here waiting for my Red Dawn book to arrive, I thought I'd burn some 1's and 0's googling my way through 1985. Specifically, out of sheer curiosity and a little stroll down memory lane, I thought I’d take a look at some historical weather data (thank you Environment Canada) and see what the weather situation was back in the day to see how weather would have affected the Sov's had this whole 'would-have' been…been.

So thanks to my screenshot from the great review video from Miniature Landscape Hobbies, I have an invasion map to look at, and we can check out the northern axis of attack through Western Canada. 

Starting with an airborne drop on 12 November, the Battlefront plan show us a variety of hooks and jabs as the Sov’s employ air assault, motor rifle, and heavy tank formations moving  eastward and south pushing through Edmonton, Calgary, and points South and East up until 30 November down into southern Alberta and Saskatchewan and near Great Falls and Malta in Montana. Looking at the map above and the table below you can see my stations of interest:

Of note, all temperatures are in Celsius; daytime high/overnight low

Station	12 Nov	15 Nov	17 Nov	23 Nov	25 Nov	30 Nov
Prince Rupert	+2/-6; no snow on ground	+4/0; no snow	0/-7; 2 cm snow	-3/-13; 2 cm snow on ground	-9/-17; 2 cm on ground	0/-14; 2 cm on ground
Kitimat	-2/-8; no snow	+5/+1; rain and snow	-1/-5; no snow on ground	-9/-14; no snow	-13/-20; no snow	-6/-11; no snow
Prince George	-10/-21; 40cm snow on ground	0/-10; snow and rain, 42cm snow on ground	-17/-26; 40cm on ground	-18/-28; trace snow, 30cm on ground	-27/-34; 30cm on ground	-17/-29; 30cm on ground
Edmonton	+1/-15; 7cm snow on ground	+6/-3; 4cm on ground	-19/-21; snow, 4cm on ground	-14/-24; snow, 9cm on ground	-28/-32; 10cm on ground	-18/-24; 12cm on ground
Cold Lake	-7/-17; snow and rain, 14cm snow on ground	+1/-15; 16cm on ground	-10/-18; 15cm on ground	+3/-3; 11cm on ground	Not observed	Not observed
Red Deer	+1/-19; 7cm snow on ground	+7/-7; 4cm on ground	-15/-19; snow and rain, 4cm on ground	-11/-25; snow and rain, 8cm on ground	-26/-31; 10cm on ground	-20/-32; 10cm on ground
Calgary	+3/-19; 8cm snow on ground	+11/-1; trace	-12/-19; 2cm on ground	-10/-21; 2cm on ground	-23/-31; 3cm on ground	-19/-30; 5cm on ground
Wainwright	-4/-19; no snow on ground	+6/-10; no snow	-18/-22; no snow	-19/-27; no snow	Missing data	Missing data
Suffield (Medicine Hat)	-9/-20; 1cm snow on ground	+6/-4; trace	-12/-17; 3cm on ground	-12/-23; 4cm on ground	-24/-35; 4cm on ground	-23/-25; 4cm on ground
Fort Macleod	-1/-24; 14cm snow on ground	+6/0; 5cm on ground	-14/-18; 3cm on ground	-12/-29; 3cm on ground	-25/-25; 6cm on ground	-18/-24; 8 cm on ground
Swift Current	-7/-19; 37cm on ground	+5/-5; 43cm on ground	-8/-18; 35cm on ground	-17/-30; 37cm on ground	-24/-26; 31cm on ground	-24/-27; 31cm on ground

As you can see, the weather situation would have been a rather interesting variable to manage...and certainly true to form, Alberta and the Prairies keep you on your toes...Afterall, if  you don't like the weather, just wait a few minutes and it will change.

I would like to say I remember the weather well, just like it was yesterday, but really, I vaguely remember some warm and cold temps. I do remember being in Army Cadets at the time and doing fieldwork in October/November just before the snow hit and I vaguely remember snow on the ground for Remembrance Day that year and thankful that the temps weren't too cold. As the table shows, we had some pretty cold temps near the end of the month and while it didn't necessarily snow a lot, the temps and winds would've been more than enough to give some pause. And then you have Southern Saskatchewan adding some spice with a foot or two of snow. Overall you can see the temperature swings of 20+ degree temperature changes, which aren't uncommon nor extreme, but this would've meant some pretty good winds and potential Chinook conditions in Southern Alberta that could have made any potential ops interesting.

The push past Prince George would’ve been slowed somewhat by the foot or so of snow, not to mention the rain and freezing temps keeping the troops cold. The swing southwards from Edmonton would’ve benefitted from the long stretch of Highway 2 but winds and temps again would’ve kept heads inside vehicles. The transition from Alberta to Saskatchewan would’ve been a bit of a shock with the much increased levels of snow on the ground, and again you could reasonably expect some pretty high winds moving to Swift Current. All in all, some interesting weather variances.

I hope you get a kick out of what could've been or at least what meteorologically was..and if you're gaming any Red or Northern Dawn moments, maybe you add in some additional stressors or weather events to your gaming - maybe digging in is a higher skill roll, not available at all, or just runs like normal. Anywho, hope you enjoy.

Cheers folks. And yeah, this...is not getting old anytime soon.

More Spectre Mini's

Howdy folks,

I hope you are all doing well on your respective fronts. I thought I'd drop a quick post to show some progress I've been making on building up my selection of modern figures and those offered from Spectre Miniatures. I've been part of their Patreon for the past few months and have been getting a couple of files every month or so from them.

The figures are pretty sharp and paint up really quickly...and they're a good reason to try out some new techniques and paint schemes. This batch gave me a chance to try out a couple different patterns and I also took the opportunity to use the multi-cam tutorial from the Spectre website. I've been having such a good time with these figs that I finally pulled the trigger on the main rule book for Spectre...so going to read through that and see how all of this can go together...although I will have to step up my terrain game and get a battlefield or two together.

Have a good one.

Painted

15mm           30

28mm+         91, +5 (Spectre operatives)

Bought          34

Progress      +87

RED DAWN!! North??

Hey folks,

I hope all is well on your respective side...and I really hope that someone out there is actually getting some winter weather to enjoy. Yes, we are bouncing around 0 Celsius plus or minus 5-8 degree, but I sure do miss my -5 to -10 and snow...we had a buttload of rain the other night, but I could do with some snow.

Anyhow, as the title says...Red Dawn, baby! And not that 2012 version, we're talking the full-on commie hating, pre-dirty dancing, fairly anti-war, Powers Boothe swearing 1984 masterpiece...and the folks over at Battlefront are bringing the pain via their latest book...aptly titled Red Dawn.

-- taken from Battlefronts Team Yankee site --

I have been looking forward to this for some time now, I think it was announced in the last 2 years and well with Covid running amok with BF's manufacturing there have been some understandable delays. The best part is that there has been a bunch of videos popping up on YouTube giving out some intel and details leading up to the release date. So to help prep myself, I took a look at these channels as their links were posted on the Team Yankee site:

Miniature Landscape Hobbies

Fog of War

Breakthrough Assault

Lack of Foresight Gaming

The different reviews were interesting to take in, they each took their time to showcase some of the new kits, and for the Breakthrough Assault crew, they had the chance to livestream a chat session with the Battlefront team. My favourite parts from each of these videos is always the chance to see what new kits are coming, but I have to say, the maps!! I've always enjoyed maps, love the view, love the info...and in this case, was a great way to prime me even further. Afterall, the 2 prong attack into North America involves taking a right turn at Canada...so yeah, lets bring on the NORTHERN DAWN...or maybe ARCTIC DAWN?? Either way you slice it, it looks promising and being a product of the 80s, it has a nostalgia feel along with being in my literal backyard.

The Northern Front - just over 2 weeks to get from Prince Rupert to Southern Alberta…with stops in Kitimat,Prince George, Jasper, and Red Deer (not Red Deep as the map says) before swinging hard south into Montana along a Medicine Hat/Suffield and Swift Current front. I think I’m going to have to look up the weather records from that time just out of curiosity to see what was hitting the West. As I recall, not a lot of snow that year, but some really cool temps…so yeah, for s’s and g’s, I’ll have to do the research.

— thanks Miniature Landscape Hobbies, screenshots are from his video —

It was really great, because the Breakthrough Assault folks made a point of showing this on their blog post following the live stream…it really opens up some possibilities for some Cougars an Grizzlies…oh my…maybe a 1Canadian Brigade Group counter or blunting attack…with some southern support…and of course some Norther Wolverines…or Badgers…Buffalo maybe?

The Southern axis of the attack…bring on the Cuban advisors…

So yeah, maybe we’ll see some Cougars and Grizzlies in our future...the book has rules for airdrop along with new Chinook models, so maybe some Canadian Airborne Regiment/ Special Service Force and Chinook deployments...the Canadian Air Force still had their Chinooks at this time (before we sold them to the Dutch in the 90's only to buy more in the 2000's) not to mention the HQ for the SSF was in Edmonton with 1 CBM being headquartered in Calgary. So lots of potential here and I’m really looking forward to it.

I think in the near future I’ll have to get some weather research done and maybe take a look at where the Canadian military was in 1985…and I guess have some thought as to where they would be concurrent to supporting ops in Europe. So much to compulse over.

Anywho, this is where my head is at these days…looking forward to getting back to Team Yankee…and with that…

Painting Update - More Fallout

Hello folks,

Hope all is well on your side. Keeping with the theme of some of my recent posts, I thought I’d post up the latest bit of my Fallout progress. Again my buddy Duncan came through and gave me a Corvega that he had printed up a while back, the resin printer did a great job and after a lot of thought, I came up with a plan for how to approach it - plenty of derelict cars in the Fallout verse so I went really heavy on the rust work on this one.

Along with the ‘Vega, I also finished up the box of Wasteland vermin that I picked up a little while ago, some rad roaches and mole rats. These guys painted up really quickly and were a lot of fun to paint. I tried to go with a mix of colour patterns for the roaches and jazzed up one of the mole rats with some white and fluorescent green highlights.

And I finally got around to painting up the Mysterious Stranger figure that I bought over 2 years ago, not an overly complicated figure to paint up, but was a lot of fun nonetheless. The 1950’s gumshoe or gray stranger look was really great to paint up…and didn’t take that long to finish up. The base for the figure has a really cool circular arc around the Stranger, so you could either treat it as the classic beam of light from a street lamp above or as a pattern in the concrete. I didn’t want to get too caught up in OSL so I elected to go with a lighter shade inside the arc and darker outside…I like how it turned out, pretty happy overall.

Enjoy the pics.  

Group shot of everything…

The mole rats…

A herd of rad roaches, various colours, really love the fluorescents…

The Mysterious Stranger

Painted

15mm           30

28mm+         86, +11 (Fallout stuff) 

Bought          34

Progress      +82 

Marvel Crisis Protocol - Starter Box wheels

Hello everyone,

As the season of change is upon us and for those who may be ‘enjoying’ the white stuff…I hope all is well on your end. On the corner of my workbench I have a collection of starter boxes, some collecting dust, others not…but all vying for time under the brush. Nonetheless, after having completed the core characters from the MCP starter, I have slowly been moving onto the terrain pieces that came with this box. 

I started the cars a little while ago…actually not long after I finished the 3d printed consoles from my buddy Duncan. Anywho, the cars were a lot of fun to paint up…I think these may have been a couple of the larger models that I’ve tackled…and they gave me a chance to try out a couple of new paints (Warcolours…I found them quite challenging to work with) and try out my rust and weathering techniques. To help guide me through I also had Sorastro’s fabulous NYC Truck pdf guide to help me, and yes it is available from his website for free.

Hope you enjoy the pics.

Painted

15mm           30

28mm+         75, +2 (MCP starter box cars) 

Bought          34

Progress      +71

Painting Update - 3d prints

Howdy folks,

I hope all is well on your side of the internets. I thought I’d just post a quick update with a few pieces I just painted up. I was a lucky enough to get these pieces from my buddy Duncan a little while back and took some time to get to them. Nonetheless they painted up fairly quickly and gave me an opportunity to try out some paint chip and rust techniques.

Perfect for a few settings, from Chernobyl to Fallout Wasteland Warfare to modern…just a few pics, hope you enjoy.

Cheers.

Painted

15mm           30

28mm+         73, +3 (3d terrain) 

Bought          34

Progress      +69

Terrain Update - Some Scratchbuilt Fallout Stuff

Howdy folks,

I hope all is well on your fronts and you had an enjoyable Halloween. For this post, I thought that I would tag onto my my most recent which was a summary battle report and first impressions of Fallout Wasteland Warfare. And by impressions, I do mean my evaluation of my horrible performance as a survivor in the wasteland.

As I said, it definitely wet the Fallout whistle and makes me want to game up some more. To that end, I think I need to increase my terrain collection for this setting...which is rather okay as it can certainly fit into Zona Alfa or any post-apocalyptic setting. Now I had just completed these pieces the night before I had my proper introduction into Fallout and I think 1 or 2 of them may have hit the table.

Regardless, a few more pieces to improve the selection of terrain. These pieces are scratch builds by myself...and I even tried to recreate some of the basic settlement fortifications that you see in the video game (Fallout 4 that is...its the only one that I've played).

 

As for paints, I mostly used Vallejo...black primer, vallejo game and model, some Army Painter wash, some Citadel also...the wood for the fortifications was contrast paint over vallejo shades. One of the fortifications was the same light shade with contrast overtop.

Quick post, but I hope you enjoy the pics.

Painted

15mm           30

28mm+         70, +4 (scratch terrain)

Bought          34

Progress      +66

Fallout Wasteland Warfare - first kick on the battle table

Howdy folks,

 

I hope all is well in your respective corners of the internets. If you've been following for any length of time or checked out any of my 'Fallout' or 'Modiphius' labels you will see that I've tried my hand at painting up some of this gaming line. I've completed the starter box, a few expansions, and created some scratchbuilt terrain for when the time is right (the scratch terrain could probably work in any post-apocalyptic setting).

 

This past week I finally had the chance to move from having 'painted' Fallout to now having gamed Fallout...on the tabletop. I met up with Mike and Duncan and we ended up trying a couple of scenarios from the latest pack...and if I'm totally honest...

 

I presently SUCK at Fallout...I mean...damn! I took a thumping, lol. As usual, Mike has beaten me to the punch on posting (Mike's version of events), and I think he is much kinder on my performance in his report than I...but yeah, the quality of my play enabled us to get in 3 rounds of Fallout over 2 different scenarios.

First kick impressions up front...there is alot to the game. I think the mechanics are pretty straight forward and move well, but there is an awful lot of 'paperwork' (insert appropriate Hot Fuzz mental image) to keep track of, and if you go 'full' Fallout, there is a lot to choose from. So while there is a steep learning curve, and it can feel like you're drinking from the firehose, I think you can take a scaled approach to this as well. Cause afterall, as much as I sucked, I really like the setting, the flow, I even like all of the extras...I just need to better prep myself and I think trying out the core scenarios (in order) will help me alot. So yeah, I see more Fallout in my future and am looking forward to it.

Okay, now the pics and random commentary...hope you enjoy.

 

The table setup for all rounds...building ruins and scatter terrain of barriers and ruined wall sections. In hindsight, given the first scenario, I would probably have tried to put up alot more walls and objects to block line of sight...

I ended up playing as Nora (the survivor) and first scenario was all about getting out of the vault and start foraging for equipment. The scenario setup was to have 6 possible items with 5 searchable locations/crates. The items were a mix of weapons, wearables, and uselessness.

 

For the first round, I started at the left side of the table, nearer the large wrecked building on the 'south' edge looking at the above picture. I get to make 2 actions and in this case I use both for movement and get squared away behind a barrier with a searchable not too far away.

A bit of a larger overview of the field...you can see the large ruined building on the right of the picture.

Venturing out from the barrier after I searched the location (netted me a very cool vault suit...I think it boosted my radiation and electricity protection) and started to make my way to the next location. At this time Mike deploys one of his Raiders...the scenario dictated a phased intro of forces for Mike, so 1 figure per turn...his Psycho moves pretty fast, much faster than Nora, so in no time is able to close the gap.

As you can see, 3 turns have passed by this point, so Mike has all Raiders on table, and Nora is in contact with his Psycho after Nora searches the area and pulls up a fairly cool melee weapon...some sort of machete if I recall.

I ended up getting caught up in melee combat with Mike's Psycho, and one of his other Raiders just kept firing into the mix...if I recall, at one point I end up killing his Psycho but his ranged Raider ended up taking me before I could do anything with that victory.

Round #2, same scenario...this time I end up starting at the 'south' end of the table (first picture) and in the large bit of ruined terrain...artsy type pic...fairly decent Fallout feel taking the picture through the window of the ruin.

Nora pushes to the barrier and the first searchable...again pulling the vault suit...which in this case (again) is not necessarily helpful against armor cracking Raiders.

Nora pushes back and to the left to get to another searchable...in this case I think I got a combat shotgun and you can see there are 3 Raiders on the table...so 3 turns have passed until this point.

Another artsy photo moment...and you can see a well equipped Raider in view...a turn event provided a random figure with an upgrade in armour and capability. In this case, the Raider that was on the second floor of the building received some snazzy power armour...Nora is very happy...and proceeds to die fairly quickly from ranged attacks.

Round 3, second scenario...and we have a Heroic version of one of the original scenarios...but this time, Dogmeat is already free from the trap and we have some serious looking Super Mutants milling about the area.

If I recall correctly, the intent of this scenario was to get to a couple of searchables, try to not die (at all...), and maybe try to take a mutant or 2 down. Without looking at their capability, I elected to move Nora as my first go, leaving Dogmeat in place...Mike moved his sledgehammer Super Mutant who literally pummeled Dogmeat to death and that results in failure (mine) and victory condition for Mike. 

At this point, I called it out of respect for the dead...we had played 3 rounds in pretty quick fashion. Again my main takeaway from this, the age old "time on recce is never wasted"...I was fighting a pretty steep learning curve and was moving blind without considering the abilities of the Raiders or Sup Mutants on the table. I do look forward to my next turn at the wasteland...and I am painting up some wasteland vermin to help me get primed.

So with the Vermin, that means:

Painted

15mm           30

28mm+         66

Bought          34, +9 (wasteland vermin)

Progress      +62