Cangames - Random Stuff

Howdy folks,

I hope your May is going as desired. As you can see by the title of today's post, it is/was that time of year again when folk collect to Ottawa for CanGames!! While I made sure to register in advance, I was not as diligent with my game registrations…so I had to play that one from the hip…but more on games played in another post.

I thought I would post a selection of pictures I took of some random tables and games happening around me…admittedly I missed a number of tables, but here goes nonetheless.

Chris’s Force on Force, 20mm,  US Army and Iraqi insurgents 

The Walking Dead, 28mm

Star Wars Legion (?)…not sure if it was themed with different ruleset or not…forgot to ask.

Cangames standard…Rubberboots game and I think they used Silver Bayonet.

Mike’s SAGA Game

And Mike’s Dead Man’s Hand game…

Hello There 20-24

Hey everyone,

Winter is finally upon us…we made it until the second week of January before we saw any snow to follow-up our original snowfall back in mid November. Depending on where you are in Canada right now you are potentially feeling some -40 to -50 Celsius weather, and in some areas that very rarely get any subzero temps…so stay warm Canada.

So, with the dawning of the new year, I guess its time for the mandatory review and some forward thought…last year, my plan was fairly straight forward (I think): paint up more figures, focus on 15mm, get some more gaming in, try some new games, and work through the pile of lead (shame). By year’s end, I was sitting around 133 x 15mm figs painted (vehicle and troops) and 62 x 28mm figs…not my best output, and certainly not my worst output. I worked through a bunch of moderns and Team Yankee figs and I was happy that I started to get into some old starter/expansion boxes that I had laying about.

I didn’t game as much as I wanted to, but I was really happy that I got to give Marvel Crisis Protocol a shot and really enjoyed the game and mechanics. It was pretty cool, finally seeing some figs on the table. 

I had intended on working towards some set projects, but admittedly, I just couldn’t muster the focus. I put plenty of thought towards Afropia, but most of it stayed in the brain pan…although, I did work through some 15mm Team Yankee Red Dawn Insurgents/Militia that will fit in nicely. Funny enough, in the last week before end-year, I ended up looking through some of my terrain collection, put some thoughts towards potential actions, and am thinking that I may need to do a re-think and sync on the project.

So, that leads into the soothsaying and what will the next year hold. Painting more is an ongoing objective, I have plenty in the pile to work through, and some great looking MCP characters to bring to life. So that will continue to be a thing. With the release of NATO Forces, I have some Canadian Airborne Regiment and Special Service Force troops to put together for a continental Canada force. I had started a Cold War scenario some time ago, so I will continue developing that. I have been painting up a good amount of moderns over the last 2 years, so I would like to see them get to the table.

I think I will try to focus my efforts around the following projects and see how it goes:

1. Work on a proper Red/Northern Dawn scenario, ideally 2 of them, and that includes the terrain to get it to the table. So, I would like to work through the VDV starter box, and fill out my Cdn Abn Regt;

2. Work on a 15mm scenario inspired by some of the Bush War actions, I think this will be a good kickstart for me to push som progress on the greater Afropia idea - and really work on some of the wider mechanics and construct of that verse; 

3. I’d like to get some moderns to the table, so thinking of either Danger Close, Spectre Ops, or Force on Force, but moreso a limited small action scenario; and

4. Continue with MCP…and get my Hoth force for Star Wars Legion moving.

I think that covers enough variance over genre…and approaches more of the lead pile. So, we’ll see how we go over the next few months and start getting onto the verse’s.

Take care folks.

Legion BattRep - Empire vs. Trade Federation

Hey folks,

I hope you and yours are doing well in these fluid times. All the best to those who need it the most! Gotta say, the idea of gaming today was a very welcome distraction, and dealing with the imaginary evils in the Star Wars universe certainly felt a much better way to go.

We had attempted to set this up a week or two ago and ridiculous reality along with a migraine got in the way of that one, so it was good to get together with Mike and Duncan. Leading up to this we had settled on 800 points per side (Empire and Trade Federation), with Mike as the Federation and Duncan and I tag teaming to lead the...good guys???

Now as I'm actually only now getting into the whole gameplay of Legion, I can't say if we busted any 'rules' on our force/formation build, but m'eh, we went with what we had at hand. I can't remember all of Mike's forces...I know he had Cad Bane, Darth Dooku (sp?), some Roger Rogers (2 sections), some commandos, a section of larger droids, a couple of droidekas, and a spiderbot...I think. And I definitely don't know what equipment or tactics cards he had!!

Duncan and I:

 

The Emporer

Boba Fett - stims and hunter cards

Royal Guards - don't know if they took anything extra

Stormtrooper (Reds) - stims, frag grenades, extra trooper, HH zooka

Stormtrooper (Blues) - stims, impact grenades, extra trooper, DL sci-fi looking mg42 thing

Death Troopers - stims, impact grenades, E11 config card, extra troop with DL sci-fi looking mg42 thing on steroids, and hunter

Speederbikes - straight up, no cards

I can't remember the actual scenario process steps, but we ended up with setup on long edge in the corners (opposite) with 4 objectives for recovery and carry to table edge. Cad Bane and the Fett man both had the ability to put a bounty on an enemy unit, so we ended up putting bounties on our bounty hunters...the rub being that the bounty hunter has to get the thrill of the kill to get the payoff.

The table was already setup by Duncan, a desert-y looking environment with low-tech low development community. As well, we had set up about 16 barriers for cover and LOS.

Overview of the setup...Mike is at the bottom of the shot, Duncan and I are at the top with all the rocky outcrops...

 

Close up on the Empire side...Stormtroopers (Reds) on a low ridge, Death Troopers near a structure behind cover, Boba Fett on the rocks, along with speederbikes, the Emperor and his guard, and another section of Stormtroopers (Blues) on the other side of the structure.

 

Turn 1

 

Initial moves across the board...Mike brings up his droids from the left side of the shot. He also lays down a few 'stealth' tokens for Cad Bane. 1 of them are Bane, and Mike can reveal him when he wants. As well, a unit that gets within 'range 1' of a token will also reveal it, in this case, the Blues (stormtroopers) initially pushed towards the line of barriers on the top part of the pic and revealed a sci-fi IED...I think they lost 2 troops to the blast. With their 2nd action they pushed behind the structure to chill...the Reds take a suppression from Mikes commando bots...long range snipe shot...no kill, just suppression.

The Fett man makes a dramatic jetpack launch to the rooftop of the structure to get a survey of the land. The Death troops do something...I think they shot at some droids, took some points away from his shield, I think...

Turn 2

The troops take a real liking to the droid section moving forward...lots of blaster and even the zooka gets involved.

 

 

Mike keeps moving up from the left, hello spider bot...Bane joins the action and reveals near an objective. The droid troop near him is all that remains from a round of shooting prior. During this turn, there was definitely a concerted effort to target Bane...Fett man jumps closer into the mix, hits him with rocket pack, carbine, and wrist rockets. I think even the Reds and Death troops may have joined the mix...oh yeah, the Death troops got the kill, so no bounty for Boba.

Turn 3-ish

Spider bot keeps on moving and hits the Reds with some flamethrower action...they take a bunch of suppression, they stay the field because the Emperor threatens them but end up taking way to much and quit the field.

The droidekas pace up as well, the speederbikes move in from the right, lots of blaster fire...i think one of the droidekas goes down hard. I think Fett man and the Guard took the droideka and the speederbikes put some pressure on the spider bot.

Turn 4-ish

 

As this turn opened, we ended up losing a bike to blast fire...I think it was either the droideka or the commando bots, but one bike down and the other is feeling some damage.

 

 

 The Guard move up and get closer to the droideka...I think they took care of it this turn. The spider bot takes a shot at the Death troops and they pretty much love the fireblast, all good on their end. The Emperor keeps on shuffling forward, movement 1 each turn...

If I recall correctly, the DT's and the Fett man put some more pressure on the spider bot and take it out...funny thing, it has a self-destruct blast when it malfunctions or gets damaged bad enough...so yeah, we had that to look forward to. Boba shrugs it off and says heyo was that the wind...the DT's lose a troop and keep on grinding.

Turn 5-ish

So at this point, Mike pulls a fast one and actually reveals that he has been paying attention this whole time and Duncan and I see that he has systematically pulled 3 of the 4 objectives towards his table edge...the Guard continue to move forward, nearing the corner of the structure and getting in range of the Count...the bigger bots take their objective back towards their lines and the distance between the Fett man and DT's keeps getting larger...i think we were good range-wise, but LOS was another issue and there was no way we were going to retrieve and move those objectives.

So yeah, end result...had a great time leaving bits of plastic and robot parts all over the field, only lost a few troopers, but did not get any objectives...so a victory for Mike.

Star Wars Legion - Barriers

Hey folks,

I hope all is well on your respective fronts. The times are certainly a little crazy out there, so…smoke ‘‘em if you got ‘em, enjoy your hobbies, connect with your buddies, and toast to being on the right side of the dirt.

Now if you’ve been reading through my posts from the beginning or midpoint of this blog thing, you’ll know that I like to have projects on the go…and little by little things do eventually get done. While I won’t claim to be complete the SW Legion core box, I have nonetheless gotten around to painting the barriers.

They took much longer to get to than the actual painting process…I wanted to keep a rather simple process to the pieces do they could be at home in almost any battlespace. I’m pretty happy with the result, please enjoy the pics.

Take care.

2022 Lead Mountain Climb

Painted

15mm               8 

28mm+             14, +8 (barriers) 

 

Bought              0

 

Progress          +22

Leaving 2021 Behind...in style?

Hey folks,

 

As I see the end of the year looming closer and closer, I also wanted to get ahead of any end-year/new year malaise and make my final post for 2021.

2021...Oh what a year. A few parts of brilliance, a few more of WTF, with heavy splashes of m'eh and whatever...at the end of the day, this year too will end. I will give brief acknowledgement to Covid as it definitely fits into each part of the year. And has a share in the very mild woe's (certainly in relation to the bigger picture) that plague my hobby progress

To be honest, working from home has been quite brilliant. That too has brought a few WTF and are you kidding me moments. And I have to admit, my painting has gone through the range of brilliance and m'eh. My output is definitely not shattering records...although I am happy to be in the triple digits (largely in part to my return to 15mm). I am really happy with how my Marvel figures are turning out, admittedly they do give my OCD a run for its money and some of them have taken a crazy amount of time to finish, but the figures really are great.

If I had to capture the years most brilliant painting moments it would have to be the competitions that I was able to enter in...and was quite successful! So, yeah me...and it also brought some considerable WTF moments as this venture took a large amount of my overall painting time, and some of my biggest f$#k ups...dropping and breaking one large scale sculpture at the 50% completion point, and giving a 3d printed Mandalorian a prep wash - and then forgetting about it to the point where the bust...well, busted out. So some success and some hard lessons.

My quick thought for looming projects brings me to more Team Yankee, the Nam, and things 15mm: perhaps an inspired region of the world of my own design and historiography so I can move away from set army lists and just get some figures on the table (maybe using FoF or maybe AK47 rules). As well, given the success of our recent Star Wars Legion game, I am thinking scenarios and more games are needed...so I'm looking forward to that. In terms of other painting and terrain goals...I may have to give the new Sanctum Sanctorum model a shot; some 28mm-ish terrain ala Blade Runner keeps popping around in my head; and of course terrain to support my fantasia planning and our The Nam Ace campaign.

So, lots to think about.

Anyhow, I hope the next year finds you safe, healthy, and better than the last. And of course, with the though of leaving in style, please see some pics of my recent scatter terrain painting thanks to Modiphius Fallout Wasteland Warfare and some 3d printed pieces from my buddy Duncan...these pieces turned out great and will work for a wide variety of settings!

TAKE CARE...and Happy New Year.

 

Some 3d printed pieces...the fridge and toolbox are from Modiphius's Fallout sampler (it is free!!!). The cargo boxes come from Legion Terrain from their scatter bundle.

The fridge was a great exercise in painted heavily weathered white...it came up very quick and was actually quite enjoyable.

These barriers are physical models from Modiphius. These ones also came up quite quickly and I enjoyed working out a rusting/weather technique for them.

Lead Mountain 2021 FINAL TALLY

Painted:

 

Large scale              3

28mm                     35, +10

15mm                   102

Bought                  30, +6 (the barriers were bought this summer from a LGS)

Progress               +110 (just over the 3 digit mark, but I'll take it)

Bring on the Wars - Star Wars Legion!

Howdy everyone,

 

So after literal years of painting Legion figures, I finally got up the motivation to get a game in…a big thanks to Mike and Duncan for the push to try it out. Now with the first game down, I have the bug to get some more painting done AND get some more of these games under the ole belt. 

 

For our first foray, we decided to go relatively light on the force structure and card allocations...keep it a little simple and just work on the overall mechanics and flow.

 

With that, Mike had some Trade Federation bots being led by General Grievous; Duncan and I had the Empire under the shuffling slipper heals of the Emperor (he does move a little slow). We each had roughly 3 grunt sections each, the Empire had some fast-moving combat support with a duo of speeder bikes and the Federation took a couple of card upgrades to even the points (I think we went with 400? Maybe Mike or Duncan can sort me out on that)...

It is a little long and there are a few pics to look at, but as always, enjoy...and of course, if you want to see the incorrect side of the story, Mike beat me to the posting punch:

Mike's Trade Federation LIES

Table setup...pretty basic, we went to our sides, threw a bunch of random scatter terrain and pieces down to block line of sight and movement. These are some excellent looking pieces that Duncan printed up over the past week, can't wait to paint them up. BTW, good guys on the left, Mike on the right...

Pretty relaxed deployment, from the edge within 2 range sticks. 2 x Stormtrooper sections deployed on our left and right, 1 x Snowtrooper section in the middle, Speeder bikes at the back, the Emperor at the rear..and oh yeah, totally forgot about his guard, they were just in front of the boss.

Troopers move forward, get behind whatever terrain they can...old bunker walls in the main portion of the table, random cargo on the right side. Mike had deployed a bunch of walls/barriers as well, so there were those options too.

View on the Empire right / Mike's left flank...bots moving up...standard 'Roger Rogers' and super bots...

Mike's right flank, more Roger Rogers led by a Tactical Droid, and a couple of Droidekas

The harly's of the Empire moving up on the left flank, taking their time...within range of some Roger Rogers...a buttload of firepower gets thrown out, spare parts and plastic scattered among the field (I think we took out 3 or 4 of them)...

I can't remember exactly when, but this happened a turn or two later...Grievous moving up, Droidekas rolling with things, and a couple of Roger Rogers walking amongst the spare parts...still moving forward.

The metal line moving forward on Mike's left...

 

Droidekas surging forward...

Stormtroopers on the Imperial left, engaging droids to their 12...

Speeders slowly moving forward...putting some more hurt on the Roger Rogers...I think they may have tried blunting the Droidekas as well...

 

 Snowtroopers facing their own elephant on the left...

 

Stormtroopers on the right move forward, blasting through doorways and working the angles...

 

Grievous and the Droidekas not impressed with the Snowtroopers...

The speederbikes dishing out pain and taking a hit or two...down one bike...

The Emperor lets loose with his Crimson warriors...they engage with Grievous in melee...

 

Battledroids on Mike's left take the Empire down a peg or two...decimate the second Stormtrooper section with ease.

and they start sizing up their right flank...

 

Meanwhile, a flurry of dicing action continues between Grievous and the Crimson Guards

 

...and the Emperor really where he likes it best, hanging with his best homies waiting to lay on some massive hate, regardless of the electric bill! The Emperor can intentionally take damage to inflict lightning pain on his targets. I think Duncan gave almost half his hit points to the electric company and unleashed severe pain, he was pretty happy to melt a section of Roger Rogers...

 

Conclusion - the Trade Federation were able to take the Emperor down and win the field, but it was a big cost on both sides of the battle. 

Conclusion for the 3 of us - Please Sir, we would like some more....