VBCW and Xenos Rampant

Finished Xenos Rampant. I must say, after 40K it's pretty refreshing to have simpler mechanisms. I'm still a bit iffy about the activation rolls (having tried a round of The Men Who Would Be Kings where neither side did anything for turns on end), but it seems to have been modified, in the sense that the roll is now on 2d6 rather than 1d6. Having units be more abstract is a little tricky, too, especially since I may try this with beginners at work. The zombie rules in particular would be useful for a Halloween-themed game.

My first step is to experiment with Very British Civil War. If I stick with what I bought on the first day at Recon, this will be on a very small scale. The standard army is 24 points.

Mountie command - Light Infantry, Reduced Model Unit, 1 point.

Mountie rifles - Light Infantry, 1 point.

Left, Mounties with rifles. Right, the Inspector,
a grizzled Sergeant, and Scotty the wolfhound.

Welsh Guards with bayonets - Heavy Infantry, Assault Doctrine, 4 points.

Summer Sailors - Light Infantry, 1 point.

Vs.

Winter Sailor Command - Light Infantry, 1 point.

Winter Sailors - Light Infantry, 1 point.

Winter Sailors with Lewis gun - Light Infantry, Heavy Weapon, 3 points.

Winter Sailors with SMGs and Molotov cocktails - Light Infantry, Area Effect, Close Quarters Doctrine, 1 point.

This is six points for the sailors, and seven for the other lot. I could add to the boys in blue:

Open-topped truck with added Vickers gun - Soft-skin vehicle, Single Model Unit, Technical, 3 points.

The sailors steal a civilian vehicle and bolt on a Vickers gun
from the ship's armory before setting out for their objective.

And upgrade the RCMP units to Recon for 2 points. Given their red coats, this may not fit, as Recon are supposed to be Hard to Target! Perhaps it could be attributed to their open-order skirmishing?

That would be nine points a side. Cover the field in pine trees, add a cabin and maybe a stream, and we're set for a (very small) action in the backwoods.

Another possibility for more points would be to count all units as Heavy, making them more effective, and/or perhaps count the Guard section as Increased Squad Size to improve their hit points and combat scores. But I think I'll stick to the simpler versions for now. And I won't use commander traits, either, which are a little too random for my taste anyway.

On a larger scale, ALL of the above could be added to an armored car or two for a full 24-point army, which would face off against the 8th-Army types with their tank and transports. Possibly for a remote game, once I have the rules internalized.

So with lists ready, next post - unless I have a painting or work post instead - will be an experimental battle report.

Second Blogaversary

Two years of blogging. Still a bit surprised I've kept this up, but then again it may have been the blog that kept me going.

Not nearly so much gaming played as read about, but that's typical for me. Here's the wargaming goals I set myself a year ago:

• Finish my solo '45 campaign.
• Done, with help but in style. Thank you, George.
• Start a solo colonial campaign using The Sword in Africa.
• Nope. Did get to play a game at Recon, though.
• Run some more of Over the Hills and Far Away.
• Nope.
• Run some more of Glory:1861.
• Nope.
• Play some more Portable Wargames.
• Nope. This is looking bad, isn't it?
• Go to a convention!
• Now that I did, and got a whole four blogposts out of it into the bargain. It was an enjoyable experience and I'm happy I pushed myself to do it.

Whether I get to the next one depends on whether I'm still here. I'm looking for jobs not in Florida, at the moment. So one goal for the next year is to get off my butt and:

• Run Picacho Pass, soon. Now that I have some appropriate terrain and useful rules, I just have to, er, learn the rules. Maybe in the next couple months.
• Get started with VBCW. Now I've got some appropriate minis and the Xenos Rampant rules, I can do some solo playtesting.
• Another solo thing - the Mike Lambo English Civil War rules. I should be able to use my Memoir '44 board and tiles to recreate the hexgrids in his scenarios.
• Playing the solo Charles Grant scenarios, with 18th-century imagi-nations. Rules are up in the air here, kinda like the '45 campaign. I want to do the Junior General Leuthen scenario one of these days, but don't QUITE have enough minis yet. A couple packs of the 18mm Wofuns may cover it, but then the 10mm Wofuns are also on the way... we'll see.
• Run a historical game at work. Juneteenth and 4th of July are coming up, I really ought to be able to fit one in. And that model of Battery Wagner is still sitting by my desk... not in great condition but the kids won't care.
• Do The Sword In Africa thing. Possible, maybe if I can get anyone at the club to come in on a Sunday. Remote games might work too - any takers?
• Something Northwest Frontierish, just because I've never gotten to play anything in that particular period/niche. Not sure how. There are a few semi-solo campaigns for the genre out there; the one in Grant's Programmed Scenarios might suit. I want to run it with Bob Cordery's Bundok and Bayonet, which might assuage my guilt over not doing much with Portable Wargames.

The RPG types Over the Hills and Glory: 1861 fell by the wayside, mostly because they aren't really playable solo. I'm sorry about that, because the creation/design phase of gaming appeals most to me. I enjoy those pencil-and-paper RPGs, too, which start out with some worldbuilding, setting up what the group wants to play. If I thought I could get my local group (or my teens) to do them on a regular basis, maybe I'll try again.

Hmm, maybe if I have the teens build a map to play on? I've seen another librarian on Facebook do it...

As usual, I'm a butterfly. Too many ideas, too little time. But then, that's half the reason I started this blog in the first place - talking and writing about games is more than half the fun! Thanks for following me on the journey, whether you're lurking or replying - every little bit helps.

Storing, Packing and VBCW thoughts

Went to the gun shop again today, and picked up two metal cash boxes for my new historicals. The 8th Army figures already had magnetic bases, and when I showed a couple to the staff they were flabbergasted by the detail. I think they have a better idea now of why I'm using their wares to keep my collection - though they still didn't have the harder customizable foam, just the wavy type that doesn't really hold small models in place. I got a little of it anyway, to help secure vehicles.

Sisters of Battle vehicles.

WWII era vehicles. This box is too shallow for a layer
of proper foam under the models.

8th Army infantry. Or Mobile Division, if we revert to 1938.

I bought a roll of magnetic tape and adhered it to the VBCW types:

Haven't quite figured out how to get the plastic
bill retainers off, but there's plenty of room for what's there.

I received a copy of Xenos Rampant today; with its modular, generic army-building rules it's popular with the VBCW crowd. I found a discussion group on Discord which will be having a chat tomorrow on the topic. For the moment, with just a few pages read, here's what I have in mind to begin with:

A reduced-model Mountie command, Mountie squad,
sailors in summer uniform, and British infantry.

Eighteen sailors in winter uniform, including a couple
submachine guns, Molotov cocktails, and a Lewis gun.

The scenario involving all of these will be set in the Canadian wilderness somewhere on the coast, with Mounties, sailors and Guard protecting Albert's daughters in a hidden cabin, while a kidnapping team of opposing sailors tries to get past them. The Edwardian sailors are in winter uniform because their ship was sent from south of the Equator.

My new Rohan hut may work for the cabin. We shall say it was built by an immigrant from the Shetlands or Faroes:

(One of the few things I pride myself on is being able to scrape together a story from a selection of random elements. Comes of doing children's storytimes on short notice for sixteen years. Handy for running roleplaying games, too.)

Speaking of work, the last photo is of prep for the summer reading kickoff:

Three dozen Warhammer Alliance minis, undercoated
and almost ready for paint-and-take.

I may have the teen interns go over these and touch up their lower regions with the undercoat color, but I have less than two more weeks to prepare. Some of the minis in the kit are fiddly, particularly the fantasy ones, which are armed with thin, breakable spears, so there are only three dozen instead of four dozen models here... good thing they're free!

Nuns With Guns

 I brought a lot of minis to work this week, using the tech lab's light box to photograph them. Wednesday was the turn of my new, but nicely-painted Sisters of Battle army.

I got a couple teens to help me set up the field of battle:

Assorted rocky outcrops surrounded a ruined shrine, which would be the objective for the game. Each side got three squads and one vehicle. The players varied over the course of the hour-plus we played, some dropping out and others turning up.

The rules were Third Edition, using the army lists in the main rulebook. I made two mistakes - I gave the Sisters better ballistic skill, and forgot that the Immolator tank's weapon had a special quality.

A new player ponders his first move.

Another learns to measure moves.

In the first turn, the two sides simply moved; nothing was in range to shoot. The side with the blue Sisters made its first mistake - it advanced the squad over the hill, and rolled poorly on its difficult terrain checks for the rest of the game.                                       

STEM requirements of the program were met when one of the teens started taking some fairly good pictures.

A transported squad.

In the second turn the mounted squads - a command unit and heavy weapons squad - dismounted from their transports and fire was exchanged, to little effect.

I explain how to disembark figures - placed near the hatches.

Explaining how Tank Shock and Death or Glory work.

Jump-pack Seraphim tackle heavily-armed Retributors...

... as the Immolator tank flames an oncoming infantry squad.

Sadly, I counted the Immolator's weapon as a regular heavy flamer; in practice it should have been an Inferno cannon which automatically breaks its target. Given that the blue squad also on the Immolator's side never got into action, this would have made a difference to the result, as that side was thus badly outnumbered in the center of the field.

Sisters advance upon Sisters. This is where a different army
would have come in handy. I'll have to paint the base edges.

The game ended at 5:30pm, four or five turns in, after an internecine combat between assault and heavy-weapons squads over the shrine. The heavy-weapons sisters eventually broke and fled. The assault side, at this point, had only one unit on the shrine - its Rhino transport. Victory to them. The players of the other side learned a lesson about not isolating half their infantry (still standing on the corner hill and plinking storm-bolter shots across the board). I learned a lesson about learning rules better before demoing a game - or at least making clear unit cards so I didn't have to keep checking the army list. Such instructions were extremely useful for new players in many of the games during the convention, and I'll take them into account in future.

Ultimately a good game, and I had about a dozen players or observers in the course of it. Next week we'll go back to DnD. But STEAMFest is coming up in less than a month, so I have to build and prime the Games Workshop freebies before then...

Shopping spree

Some of which is probably going to end up in my Closet of Shame, but whaddya gonna do?

The rest of the haul from vendors and a brief but intense flea market (lots of people in line to get in):

• About fifteen six-siders from the Rebels and Patriots game (the entire collection had belonged to a friend of the GM, who was distributing some of his stuff). I rolled well throughout the game, so maybe they're lucky!
• A Lockheed Electra toy, which will come in handy for Women's History and Aviation Month displays. Would have come in handy if I hadn't discovered after getting home that the wings weren't in the box. They're on the way.
• Some painted 28 mm models I can use for VBCW - naval shore party, Mounties, Chinese warlord troops in reasonably British uniform, and two armed vehicles. 
  

  

  
  
  
  
• 18 naval troops, including Lewis guns and Molotov Cocktails.
  

  

  
  

  
• A couple primed tanks and trucks that may work for VBCW too.
• A binder of Fistful of Lead rules, including some cards, status markers, etc. Think I'll definitely use this for Picacho Pass now!
• A box of Armies in Plastic Rogers' Rangers.
• A Sisters of Battle t-shirt to go with...
• An entire smallish army of well-painted classic Sisters - about fifty figures and three vehicles. 3rd Edition 40K, here I come! They'll catch the teens' attention, too - see next post.
  

  

  
  
  
• To play against them, a not so well-painted batch of Thousand Sons. Not as smart a purchase, but much cheaper.
• An entire smallish army of WWII British for the desert war - fifty figs, two trucks, armored car and tank, which could be an entire army for most VBCW rulesets.
  

  

  
• Some spare 40K sprues of ruined buildings, Orks, Horus Heresy Marines and 3rd ed. Dark Eldar. For build-and-takes, or maybe Gorkamorka.
• 3rd edition 40K Ork and Dark Eldar codexes to go with the sprues.
• A starter set of Wings of War WWI.
• Some metalled roads, useful for 40K or VBCW alike.
• Some 15mm-scale prickly pear (getting pumped about Picacho Pass now!), hedges and stone walls (for my 18th-century Wofuns).
• A couple painted 3d-printed 28mm-scale Rohirrim buildings for Minceheim. 
  
• A few more books - a history of the USAAF in WWII, one about the Tet Offensive, and the First Bull Run volume of Knight's Battles for Wargamers.