Battle Report - Team Yankee Oil Wars

Howdy folks,

Recently I had the chance to give Team Yankee Oil Wars a chance; pretty much a straight shot along with the gameplay of Team Yankee, but just a small change in setting from the European battlefields to the Middle East. For this go, Mike was fielding an Iranian force…I think a heavy collection of British kit (challenger tanks, Scorpion vehicles) and BTR riding grunts. Duncan and I were fielding an Iraqi or Egyptian tank heavy force with some rocket trucks, helos, and air defense SAMs.

If I remember correctly, the scenario was a meeting engagement with everyone having been considered moving in turn 1. Anyhow, it was good to get back to a game table and always good to get in some Team Yankee.

As always, Mike beats me to the punch, here’s his side of the table.

The game…

The Setup…Duncan and I are on the left side of the pic…built up area to our front to manage and move through, not the best terrain for heavy armour. Duncan is leading the T72 formation, and I’ve got the T55’s.

The balloon goes up and we hit the gas…hard!!! T55’s away and we are looking to skirt past and through the built industrial section. Which is clearly sound tactical doctrine, because we leave the rear objective wide open…

A variety of fabulous looking paint schemes, away we’re going…warehousing to our left…and at one point I was going to divert left through the centre of the area, but Mike popped some Cobra’s so I thought I’d deke to the right and close in to engage them with Dshk 12.7mm MG fire.

Duncan is pushing on our left to hit the objectives on Mike’s side…he is taking hits from long range gunnery, and without stabilizers, we can’t really do move & shoot well…1 ROF per hull gets somewhat stale.

Slow push past the warehouse, splash1 cobra…

Duncan keeps pushing and trading fire with Mike’s Challengers…he’s having some luck, but not easy to get the kills on these guys. I keep plugging away with 12.7mm fire…its ROF3 per tank, so a great volume of dice…

I’m able to get the gang in behind the warehouse and then I think I can get a good shot at some side shots on these damned Challengers…so splash another Cobra, and then Mike pops some Scorpion APCs behind me and I have to divert attention to these runts…

Duncan is still having a rough go…taking a pile of hits in the centre. 

At this point, I’m splitting my formation…1 company to deal with the pesky Cobra’s, and another company to deal with the damned runts…who have an insanely powerful 76mm main gun that raises havoc when they’re at your 6!!

So at this point, I manage to chip away the runts down to one vehicle…and then Mike gets more reserves an brings on 5 BTRs which we try to counter with a pair of Mi-24 Hinds…with some success…2 vehicles are brewed up and some passengers are able to get clear.

Having taken a few hard hits, Mike dismounts the rest of his grunts and then brings on the last of his reserves, a platoon of TOW mounted jeeps. You can see, I’m still having a hell of a go with Mike’s forces in this pocket…

At the same time, Duncan is equally having a hell of a go…the loses in the centre are mounting and then some…my pocket of fun is getting even more fun, my tanks are being pared down considerably and Mike still has some combat power on the field.

At the end of it all, Mike played a good holding action, not giving any ground and had some great rolls on the saves as well as reserves. He did a much better job of scaling his reserves than we did…we went tank heavy from the go, but could have done with some supporting arms to give us some maneuver room to make it a little harder on Mike. Good game to him!

Painting Update - Studio Miniatures

Howdy folks,

I hope all is well in your corner. Definitely a bit of a rainy day over here, so a perfect opportunity to drop a quick painting update. This time, I wanted to share a few pics of some Studio Miniatures movie inspired tough-guys. I’ve posted their figures before and am pretty happy with the sculpts and the results. 

The latest figs are Snake from Escape from New York, Doc Brown from Back to the Future, and I’ve tackled him before, John Wick. I had misplaced a few figures at one point and ended up reordering the figs…and of course found them right after the package arrived. We’ll call this fella John Wick the first movie, and this latest John…Wick 2. 

Like I said, this is a quick post. Enjoy the pics…and if you’re ever looking for figures of some of your favourite movie characters, then I would definitely head over to Studio Miniatures…they even have Monty Python!!

The latest trio…Doc Brown, Baba Wick, and a classic, Snake Plisskin…

Classic good guy wears black…and I thought I would give him some leather holsters to break up the pattern. As well, ended up using some green stuff to fill in the gaps in the base and then kinda went with a minimalist approach to the base, just enough to offset the black scheme.

This time I went with a much lighter suit colour as well as a different facial tone to make some subtle changes from my first take on Mr. Wick…trying to capture an Indigenous look…the base as well is just a quick minimalist take and break up of shapes…nothing specific, but again just shooting for some differences in appearance from Wick #1.

Definitely one of my favourite movies from the 80’s, Back to the Future, and Doc Brown’s character were a lot of fun. Pretty quick to paint up, I’m looking forward to finishing up Marty and they can tackle time travel together.

Painted

15mm               30 

28mm+             30, +3

 

Bought              25

Progress          +35

Painting Update - Basing Colours

Howdy Folks,

Happy end July to everyone...the month has surprisingly gone by very quickly, and definitely seen some interesting weather come through the province. The last week has been especially interesting given how much changing air pressure messes with my injuries...and last nights weather really was quite something to watch. Luckily all safe here, most of the really 'interesting' stuff developed south and east of us, and I hope all is safe where you are interneting.

For this post, I thought I would give a psuedo painting update and quick tutorial or guide on how I paint up my bases. The idea came for this came from a Reddit post I saw where someone was looking for some advice on getting more texture and colour out of their base painting. I've done this before in the past with some Cold War Infantry from Battlefront, as you will see at the link and below, I definitely have a system and standard-ish scheme that I like to use.

Hope this is of us...have a good one.

 

All figures are from Empress Miniatures and unless stated I'm using Vallejo, from left to right I have 3 different colours. Base colour is Burnt Umber, then dryish brush of Flat Earth, and then a dryer brush of Beige Brown.

 

I then had the idea of just putting the paint bottle behind the figure so you could see the name of the paint and the progress of the layers. So as above, left to right, with the inclusion of a standing sniper at the bottom of the pic. In this case, the base layer is still Burnt Umber and then dryish of Desert Yellow.

 

So you can see the next layer for each model, again left to right with Flat Earth for prone sniper, Beige Brown for green jacket, and Tan Earth for green toque.

 

Progressing the figs...I'm now adding Iraqi Sand for green toque, a fairly dry brush of that, I don't want it to overpower, just to lighten a little.

 

For my standing sniper, I thought I'd catch up...Desert Yellow was layer two, and then a dry brush of Iraqi Sand to make stuff pop...my next step will be to flock and overcoat...you'll see the finished figure on a follow-up post.

Just catching the other figures up...you can see Tan Earth for the prone dude, and Iraqi Sand now for green jacket.

 

For prone dude, I added some Army Painter Strong Tone to the base and I'm just hitting creases and areas that I want shadowed tone. Helps to break up the terrain from the figure and give some depths, especially to the improvised wall he has built up in front of him.

 

 

Overhead shot...just trying to capture the various tones and shades...

And in case anyone is curious on what I used for these bases, I do often use Citadel technical paints...I really do like the, they're pretty handy and makes some of the basework easier...especially when I am feeling lazy and don't want to break out my filler or sand.

Again, hope this is of help...Cheers!

Painting Update - Spectre Miniatures

Howdy folks,

I hope your summer is going well...we're getting a taste of the warm weather this past week and looking into the next, but up until now I can't really complain about the weather. As mentioned a few posts or so ago, I dipped my toe into Spectre Miniatures with a small purchase of a few models and most recently I also subscribed to their Patreon.

Prior to the Patreon decision, I was quite prepared to dislike their figures. On their website, the figures look great, the scenery is pretty nice, and they really compliment each other and makes it look quite attractive. So being cautiously curious, I bought a couple of metal figures and when I got them and took them out of the box (a literal small box for the figure) I was somewhat disappointed. The figures I bought were the GRU Spetsnaz LMG and an Insurgent MG - Bravo. I wasn't too happy with the thinness of the metal for the weapons and the fact the barrel of the LMG was wrapped around pointing back to the figure made me a little grumpy. It also looked like the figure was missing a portion of its bipod.

 

So with that as my first impression I packed them back in their box and left them aside for a few months.

In between that time, I however kept seeing battle reports and various posts of Spectre figures and when they announced their Patreon page, I became interested again. The main thing I was curious about with their Patreon was the offer of STL files. Thanks to my buddy Duncan, he has been kind enough to assist me with printing...and by assist, I mean I don't have a printer, he does...super appreciate his 'assist'.

Well, Duncan printed up a couple of figures for me and I took them home and painted them up...and to be super honest, they were a lot of fun to paint. They were resin printed, took the paint well, and there was a really good dynamic to their pose that I really liked. SO, I then took the metal figs that I had bought out of the penalty box, straightened the barrel and saw that all the detail was there (hooray for stowed bipod).

 

I painted them up last week and DAMN!! I have to retract my initial impression...not only did they paint up well, they look great painted and I'm super happy with how they turned out. I obviously was bitchy the day I took them out of the box, but have to say I am really happy with the figures...

 

So, I hope you enjoy the pics. Cheers.

 

The figs...Insurgent MG, STL CIA dude, GRU Spetsnaz LMG, STL CIA dude. I really like how these figures turned out. 

The Insurgent armed with an MG, pretty straight forward pose, tried out some different paint schemes for the headscarf...I actually don't think I've tried one before...

 

 

The GRU Spetsnaz with RPK LMG...I am really really happy with how this paintjob came up...I wasn't trying to model a specific pattern or anything, rather I just wanted to get some general similarity in colour with a few random patterns. Oh, and a nod to 1980s Soviet spec ops and airborne troops in Afghanistan, i chose to paint him up with blue tennie's.

 

 

The pair of metal figs...

And now the psuedo-looking ZZ Top operative...this STL was listed as a CIA operator, so I found a paintscheme in a Force on Force book for the Offensive Actions Detachment (I think?) and chose the black on grey scheme for Agent Lynch (thank you A-Team) on the right. The Dude on the left I tried painting up with just colours that seemed appropriate.

Painted

15mm               30

28mm+             27, +4

 

Bought              25, +2 (Spectre prints)

Progress          +32

 

Airmobile! The Nam battle report - Hot LZ scenario

Howdy folks,

I hope you are all well on this warm weekend, it has been an interesting summer thus far, and with the weather of the weekend folks are looking to the skies for any signs of weather. No better time to take a jump into The Nam; we had a flurry of painting and thoughts about getting into The Nam last year so it is good to start getting metal on the table.

For our first foray, Mike selected the “Hot LZ” mission from the Nam book. Big picture, the US forces (Duncan and I) deploy 1 unit on table within 12 inches of an objective placed in the general area of the table centre. A second objective is placed in any corner by the Nationalist player (Mike). The remainder of  the US forces are back at the Firebase gearing up and getting ready to board the Hueys. In this case, Nationalist forces are held in immediate scattered reserves waiting for the right time to deploy and close their trap. For this scenario the US forces are defending the objective they placed and can win by taking the objective in the table corner. The Nationalist’s are pushing hard for the centre.

Duncan and I had a US Airmobile Company with 1 x HQ element; 1 x medic team; 2 x combat platoons (riflemen with 2 x M60 teams); 4 x Hueys for transport (forces have to be airlifted into battle); and 2 x Aeroweapons platoons with 2 x Cobras.

Mike has already beaten me to the punch on this one, his battle report and propaganda piece is best read with the voice of Hanoi Hanna in your head. If I remember correctly, his force included a PAVN infantry battalion with 2 x infantry companies; HQ element; 1 x anti-air platoon; 1 x recoilless gun platoon; 3 x machine gun bunkers; and a K-3 Ironclad company of 5 x PT-76 amphibious tanks. I think the book doesn’t allow this type of support, but we made the forcelists up on the fly, and it was all good.

All in all, a frustratingly good game, some tense moments as we were trying to get a grip on handling the helos and their pros/cons. Hope you enjoy the pics…

Initial setup with both objectives in view, the centre with initial US chalk inserted and the second at the bottom right of the picture.

Mike does a pretty good job rolling for his immediate reserves and is able to deploy the bunkers and his first company (they deploy near the bottom objective). The bunkers do a good job of mucking up the line of approach between both objectives…and end up giving some pause to the helos trying to control the table.

Bigger view of the table…

We take a few hits from the bunkers, no big effects…we decided to spring the first Cobra flight behind the arcs of fire for the bunkers…and screen the Huey’s dropping our second platoon. We hit the objective and trees with a rocket salvo killing an infantry team.

Mike rolls again for reserves and brings on the anti-air platoon…the guerilla fighters rule gives Mike some latitude in deployment, the 12.7’s end up deploying across the river near a subtle hill. They quickly lay down some impressive fire and down a Cobra. The Huey’s dump the troops and get back to the staging base and the grunts start humping to the objective in line with M60’s in the front rank.

Mike brings in his K3 company and they put some main gun fire to the table centre, putting pressure on the first platoon. He also brings down the second Cobra that we had on table.

The second platoon get themselves ready to push the objective an start rushing the stream (looks much deeper than it was) and prepping for an assault. The platoon makes sure to leave clear firing lanes for the M60 teams to try to pin the NVA.

Between this pic and the one prior, I did not keep up…so the US forces launched and assault and successfully pushed the NVA off the objective. We brought in our second Cobra flight to help cover the second platoon. 

Of course, as you see in the top pic, Mike is able to down another Cobra. The second platoon rallies and preps for another assault across the stream. As the bottom pic shows, it was a very successful assault and heavily prepped by Cobra mg fire as well as clear lanes for the M60’s.

If I remember correctly, the second platoon wipes out the NVA company, and with the Born in the North to Die in the South rule, Mike successfully rolled to bring them back on as a new unit. Leading up to this assault, we also elected to split the fire of the second platoon to support both the assault and also bring the ant-air platoon under fire. M60 and rifle team fire successfully take out that unit.

Second platoon consolidating their gains.

Starting the turn with the objective in our possession, the US forces win the game. Given the losses it is a little bit of a hollow victory…and chances are that command is just going to bring the boys back to staging and Firebase. The one saving grace was that the first platoon was able to stay dug-in and gone to ground and weather the fire from the K3 company with very limited casualties.

So in the end, Mike scored 6 victory points for the downed Cobras and 2 units destroyed. The good guys ended up with 2 points for destroyed units. While we took and held the objective there was a cost.

QUICK THOUGHTS:

1. Frustrating at points because our deployment ended up hedging us into a bit of a corner with little room to move - at least not like we wanted to; 

2. The ‘buckshot’ rule is pretty damned handy on the defense. M16 rifle teams are armed with both M72s and M79 bloopers. The buckshot round fired by the blooper gives the equivalent of a +1 to the rate of fire for defensive fire…which is really handy when pinned;

3. Choppers are handy, but damned fragile;

4. The wounds rule for Free Forces does make it hard to kill infantry teams; and

5. I really like the victory points tally table, and it can give a bit of an interesting spin on wins/losses

Finally, we ended up enjoying the game much more than we thought…so the painting to date has not been for naught, lol…more to follow.

Hikers Guide to the Afropian Verse: Petoriastan

-- Hitchhiker astronaut with travel suitcase, by Dreamstime --

 

Welcome travelers!

 

From north to south, Petoriastan is a country that some have said that it simply has it all. The truth of that can certainly be debated, but there is no denying the beauty and variance in the country's topography. Comprising three provinces, the country has picturesque mountain peaks in the north, rolling foothills and grasslands in its midlands, and the south is punctuated by plains and shrub-lands. All in all, a little bit of something for any nature lover.

 

The Province of Stanistan

 

The northern province of Stanistan featuring the Crag Bluff mountain range is often considered to be the ancestral birthplace of Petoriastan and until the early 1920's was home to the nations capital. The rugged mountains of the Crag, part of the Afropian Highlands that stretch throughout the region, are a point of pride for the province and for many in the country. Rich in deposits, natural resources, and majestic mountain springs and streams, the province is an interesting compromise and at times competing mix of industrialization desires and ecological stewardship. The province's architecture certainly reflects its history; its landscape dotted with the traditional family and clan compounds, familiar throughout Petoriastan, however with greater representation in Stanistan. That is not to say that the province is void of contemporary or more modern architecture, the larger cities of the province as well as new infrastructure are reflective of international influences and tastes that have made their way to the country and this northern province.

 

The countries capital until the 1920's, the city of Natsoytic serves as the provincial capital and has since boasted a fairly robust tourism trade focused around the Crag and also as a showcase to the country's historical roots - architecture, markets, and a piece to Petoriastan's tribal and clan past, being home to Chieftain's Palace - often referred to as the 'Palace' or 'Castle'.

The Province of Middlepet

Defined by the Oria River, the province of Middlepet has hints of the Crag Bluff range on its western edge, but it is largely known for the foothills and grasslands that roll out from the range north of the Oria. The lands to the east roll towards the border with Mikaroon and neighbors the region often referred to as the French Basin. The rolling foothills continue south and transform into grasslands and wide open spaces. While the province of Stanistan is also known for its traditional family livestock farms and ranches, Middlepet is home to more modern and larger farming operations that include both livestock and crop-based ventures, not to mention its fishing communities along the nations coastline. Home to such diversity within the country, the farming tradition with the industrialist spirit along with the fisherman's love of the sea, the province seemingly is a land of many faces and identities.

Home to the nation's capital, the city of Constanara can trace its birth to the movement of the countries government centre to the province. Still met with disdain in some parts of the country, the movement of capital cities sparked a wider period of development for the province of Middlepet and is really the catalyst for Constanara's modern development and embrace with the modern world.

The Province of Salzland

Picking up where Middlepet's grasslands leave off, the province of Salzland features these same grasslands boasting rich farmland and transitions to plains and shrublands highlighted by low valleys and basin with regions that are a mix of wet and dry throughout the year. Noted for its water-work and irrigation projects, the province is perhaps the least populated and developed of the three. Although a look at the coastline communities and you might forget the harshness of Salzland's shrubland climate.

 

Come to Petoriastan - experience it for yourself - tell a friend

 

Customer Service Shout-out: 6 Squared Studios

Howdy everyone, 

I hope you are having an excellent Friday. I just wanted to throw out a quick post of thanks to the folks over at 6 Squared Studios and some really great service that I got from them recently. Just over a week ago I made an order with these folks to get some of their MDF bases...I seem to be running short and I recently snagged a bunch of figures from Empress Miniatures and am giving Spectre Miniatures a try.

Anyway, not only was I short of bases, I also needed a few different sizes to accommodate the various figures that I picked up. So, like I said I made my order just over a week ago, about 3-4 days later I got an email from them saying that the order was processed (200 round bases, 10 larger rounds, 10 rectangles). I looked up the service standards for Canada Post and was ready to have them show up in my mailbox by today (Friday 10 June)...

Much to my surprise, they showed up 3 days ago and they were issue-free. So again, I just wanted to give these folks a shout-out and thanks!.

 6 Squared Studios

2022 Lead Mountain Climb

Painted

15mm               30

28mm+             23

 

Bought              23, +13 (Empress and Spectre)

Progress          +30