WIP: African Rebel Army

I needed something that was already primed and ready to go earlier this week to take to Monday night's paint and chat, and casting about I found the rest of the Modern African Militia from The Assault Group - I'd painted the first five a few weeks ago, and had another 12 primed and waiting their turn. In two hours' time on Monday, I finished all of their clothing and had painted the metal of their guns. Another two hours today and I got skin, hair, leather, wood and belt buckles finished as well. I also repainted the stocks on the first five's guns to be less yellow-looking. 

I'd bet that by the time I go to bed on Saturday I'll have these 12 finished, including flocked bases. 

What then? 

I admit I don't have much of a plan in mind. There'd been some thought when I purchased them as using them as local insurgents supported by Cobra in my GI Joe games, but not much beyond that. These have been a relaxing joy to paint and the Assault Group figures are very affordable; it's sorely tempting to get more and make a bigger project out of this. 

To that end, I bought a copy of Wars of Insurgency, written by Mike over at Lead Legionaries. It looks like a solid ruleset from a first read-through, and I think it should prove inspiring. Of course, I'll need one or two more forces...oh no...

Figures Acquired in 2025: 167

Figures Painted in 2025: 150

.45 Adventure Part 2 -This Time With An Opponent!

 Over the weekend I got a visit from Dave, a buddy of mine from Rochester (not to be confused with Dave, my 3D printing guy, here in Buffalo), who I've been running roleplaying games for for probably the better part of a decade. He's been incredibly generous with gifting me books over the years, and he expressed interest in trying out a skirmish wargame for the first time. He's got a taste for the old pulps, and actually played the Green Hornet in a Pulp Cthulhu game I put on some years back. So it was a no-brainer to get out my painted Green Hornet and Kato and use them for his first pulp wargaming experience. 

We played the same scenario I previously played solo, and played it twice, since the game went quick (though still a learning experience for both of us). The first game ended in a draw, with the Hornet and the DiMarco gang each taking one ledger off the board - and Kato being beaten to a pulp by gangster brick shithouse Fat Paulie! 

The Hornet goes through the pockets of knocked-out Perfect Tommy.

The second game went better, with the Hornet scoring a solid victory, claiming both Ledgers and having much, much, MUCH better rolls when firing his knockout gas gun at the gangsters. 

Dave had a great time with it, and even better, he felt inspired by it - he's struggled for years with both inspiration and fear of failure at the thought of running his own RPG games, but this gave him an immediate sense of "I can do this." He was kind enough to gift me a PDF copy of the second edition .45 Adventure rules, and even offered to have them printed and spiral bound for me. He also requested if it would be possible to play the Shadow in a future game, so this is not the end of our pulp gaming. 

Figures Acquired in 2025: 167

Figures Painted in 2025: 150

.45 Adventure - "Shootout in the Park!"

 It's been delayed a few days due to just having busy evenings, but I finally got the table cleared off tonight and set up to test drive Rattrap Productions' ".45 Adventure (1st edition) using one of the sample adventures in the book - "Shootout in the Park!"

In this thrilling installment, the Green Hornet and Kato are in hot pursuit of "Little" Bobby DiMarco and his henchmen, Perfect Tommy and Fat Paulie. Little Bobby was fleeing the Hornet with an armful of ledgers detailing bribes made to various public officials. As they crossed the park, the ledgers were fumbled - and now both the Hornet and DiMarco are trying to find them. 

It's a gritty '80s reboot of the Green Hornet, with Uzis instead of Tommy Guns.

The Hornet won initiative on the first round, and everyone began spreading out to investigate the six clue markers spread across the table (laid out after I took a picture of the setup!). Pretty soon, clue markers were flying off the table - two revealed police snipers that took ineffectual pot shots, two were duds, and Fat Paulie stumbled across one of the ledgers without realizing what it was.

Confronting Little Bobby, the Hornet fired a soporific shot from his gas gun, which the mobster backpedaled away from. 

Meanwhile, Perfect Tommy and Kato converged on the clue marker hiding the second ledger.

The Hornet dodged away from DiMarco's bullets, right into the ham-sized fists of Fat Paulie. With the Hornet distracted, DiMarco dashed after the ledger that Fat Paulie had overlooked. 

While the Hornet eventually managed to duck out of the way long enough to give Fat Paulie a faceful of knockout gas, and Kato pummeled Perfect Tommy into giving up and fleeing the battlefield, leaving the ledger behind. Unfortunately, it was enough time for DiMarco to flee with his half of the ledgers.

With only half the information needed to bring to DA Scanlon, the Hornet was forced to concede that this adventure had been...a draw!

***

I'm calling that a really successful test play. There were a few things I found myself having to adjudicate because they either just weren't covered in the rules or the text was unclear. All in all, I think the game only took about 45 minutes; I'm excited to put this on on Saturday for my friend Dave, who's a Green Hornet fan. 

Figures Acquired in 2025: 167

Figures Painted in 2025: 150

Getting Out of the Funk

 Two weeks without a post - I think that's the longest I've gone all year! Truth be told, I hit a bad slump in the aftermath of Wargames Among the Warplanes and I just had so much trouble even just sitting down at my hobby bench. Or I'd get there, get set up, and realize I'd been staring blankly at my miniatures for 15 minutes while paint dried on my palette. I'm not 100% sure what caused it, but I just didn't get the buoyed enjoyment/urge to hobby after this WATW that I'm used to having after a convention or show. 

I've spent a lot of that time thinking about what I'm missing, what might be bringing me down, and trying to figure out a way forward without going "Why sure, I'll buy a big bunch of miniatures for another new time period - that's sure to inspire me!"

Ultimately I had to remind myself that I'm painting for *me* - not for attention on social media, not for the purpose of putting on games for others (which has been a bit of a crapshoot this year, to be honest), but for my relaxation and peace of mind first and foremost. 

After that it was putting my butt on the stool and saying, "I'm going to sit and paint. Even if I only do one thing, that's something I wouldn't have gotten done otherwise. I'm just going to paint the hair on my Dracula's America figures and see how I feel once I've done that."

And I've got some stuff done.

First up, a group of five "African Militia" from The Assault Group - I had painted these in the immediate aftermath of Wargames Among the Warplanes, with a vague idea towards playing some Zona Alfa with the setting shifted from Eastern Europe to Central Africa. I don't remember exactly why I bought like five packs of TAG Modern Africa figures earlier this year, but I've got 'em and these were a fast, easy paint up - basically one session of painting plus a night to flock the bases.

Secondly, I finished* my initial six figures for Dracula's America - the beginnings of a campaign posse! 

OK, so not finished-finished, I need to do another coat of brown on the rim of the bases and flock them, but the painting figures part is finished! Most of these are from Northstar's official Dracula's America line, but I did include a Crow Warrior Woman from Clearco Miniatures, complete with elk-tooth dress, to mix things up a little. I'm really pleased with how they've turned out. 

What else, what else...

A buddy of mine loaned me a stack of rulebook from Rattrap Productions, covering their ".45 Adventures" pulp crimefighting skirmish and some of its supplements and spin-offs. The rulebooks are a little rough and could use another editorial pass or two (and this is apparently the first edition, not the current version) but I'm interested in giving them a try. 

The downside is they're making me go, "Oh, I should buy some 1920s Gangsters and rewatch 'The Untouchables!'"

I'll be doing a solo playtest this week, and on Saturday I have another friend coming into town to give it a go - he'll be playing the Green Hornet and Kato, I'll be some modern-ish gangsters using the figures I painted earlier this year for Fistful of Lead. 

So that's everything going on here. Time to update the tracker... Oh hey! I'm at 150 figures painted this year! Cool! 

Figures Acquired in 2025: 167

Figures Painted in 2025: 150

Go West, Young Monster

 I got an invite to join a group of gamers locally who are gearing up to start a fresh campaign of Osprey's Dracula's America - a western skirmish that can be played perfectly straight as a historical western game, or can be played as gothic horror in an 1870s America where Count Dracula has become President. Yes, you read that right. 

The game had been kind of vaguely on my radar, I knew I had friends (not local) who were fans, but I hadn't been interested in picking up a new period and a new ruleset. 

So naturally, having been invited to join a group who were playing it and loved it, I picked up a new period and a new ruleset, along with one of Northstar's prepackaged warbands. Or, I should say, my wife Gina picked it up for me - the two Wargames Among the Warplanes days excluded, 2025 hasn't been a great year for gaming, especially (non-solo) wargaming, for me. She was so excited that I'd been invited to join this group that she handed me her credit card and told me to buy whatever I needed. 

It arrived today:

And after dinner I set to work getting everyone cleaned up, flash trimmed and mold lines filed before gluing them to bases.

I also recalled I had another Native American figure in one of my project boxes - a Crow Warrior Woman from Clearco Miniatures, a very small (one-man) operation out of Spain that offers an eclectic mix of Native Americans, Neanderthals and modern zombie hunters. I'd received the figure as a complimentary inclusion in an order I'd placed with Mana Press last year and, not knowing what to do with it at the time, I dug her out and assembled her (her right hand, holding a rifle, is a separate piece), adding her to the collection; she might be subbed in for one of these figures, or be available as a future member of the posse. 

Tomorrow I'll get these 10 figures primed and then I can start painting. The current plan is to begin playing some time in October and I will not be caught with half-painted figures, I can tell you that! 

Figures Acquired in 2025: 167

Figures Painted in 2025: 139

Wargames Among the Warplanes Fall 2025

 Yesterday I spent a pleasant few hours at the National Warplanes Museum in Geneseo, NY, attending my second Wargames Among the Warplanes show (write-up of the first here). I was scheduled to run demos of "Perilous Tales," a solo/co-op game from Mike Hutchinson, the creator of Gaslands about heroes taking on supernatural threats and trying to fulfill objectives before time runs out. 

I'd optimistically hoped to squeeze three games into my time slot (9am to 1pm), but ultimately managed two; the first with three players, and the second with two (who stuck around from the first game). I did not take nearly enough photos.

The first match was against the Gargoyles, which in my experience have been a tricky villain to fight. The heroes had to Stop the Ritual, Rescue the Prisoner and Call for Help as their objectives. They opted to largely ignore the objectives and clear the board of enemies; by staying in groups and planning their actions carefully, they were able to eliminate both master Gargoyles and the various bat swarms flocking in their wake. With all enemies eliminated and time left on the countdown clock, they then easily rescued the prisoner and called for help. 

The second match was against the Wolf Man and his lycanthropic minions. This time, the objectives were Flip the Switches, Get the Evidence and Kill the Master. Again, the players focused on killing villains - to their own detriment, as they killed the Wolf Man before they could take a photo of him! The players tried to argue for taking photos of the Wolf Man's corpse, but I reminded them that upon dying he just turns back into a human and if they want trophy shots of that then the police are going to get involved. 

I once again didn't give myself time to play in anything, but I had a really nice chat with the guy running demos of Osprey's Zona Alfa on the next table over. He had an incredible set-up and like me he likes to furnish the insides of his model buildings. He'd shifted the setting from Eastern Europe to Zanzibar and listening to him pitch the game to players made me pull the rulebook down off my shelf when I got home and give it another look. 

I did a little bit of networking and got in touch with some local wargamers who aren't beholden to Games Workshop and the Warhammer juggernaut, which was very nice, and spent some time in conversation with an older gentleman who'd been wargaming locally since 1976 and he walked me through the history of wargaming clubs in the Buffalo-Rochester area and how they've largely disintegrated into small groups of guys meeting at home versus any sort of larger community. We do have new clubs that have formed - the Whiskey 7 Wargamers, the Greater Niagara Wargamers, etc - and events like this one suggest we're working our way back towards that larger community; he described a time when the clubs consisted of some 200 people between the two cities, with about 10% traveling from one to the other in any given week for game.

I had a really good conversation with the organizer for the event, and he made a point to thank me for running these smaller indie games, and showing players that there's more out there than just Games Workshop and Bolt Action. That really meant a lot and made me feel good; I'm thinking I might run a similar demo table of Perilous Tales at Running GAGG next year as well. Maybe finally pick up some winter terrain like I've been meaning to, since the convention's in February. 

All in all it was a really good day; I don't stay for the whole show because I hate being away from my wife for very long given her health issues, coupled with a 2 1/2 hour round trip drive. I do need to invest in some good inserts for my shoes for next time though; only six hours standing on a concrete floor and my feet were feeling it! 

Perilous Tales Refresher Game

 With me running Perilous Tales this coming weekend at Wargames Among the Warplanes, I thought it best I run myself through a refresher game to make sure I knew what I was doing! It's not an endlessly complex game but it never hurts to remind myself how it goes. It also gave me an opportunity to try out the character cards I made for the assortment of heroes I'd selected.

In Perilous Tales, figures are divided into two types: Leaders and Teammates, with the number of each appearing on the table being dependent on how many players are involved. Playing solo, you have one Leader and four Teammates; if two players are playing a co-op game, each of them has one Leader and one Teammate, while with three players everyone has two Teammates and no Leaders. I made eight character cards, each with both a Leader and Teammate version of each character.

My wife supplied the index cards out of her colorful stationary collection, saving me a trip out to the store. I also had her select five characters for me, and decide which one would be Leader. 

So we ended up with:

• Billy Ray, the Mechanic (Leader)
• Lisa, the Veterinarian (Teammate)
• Larry, the Lousy Bum (Teammate)
• Cliff, the Mailman (Teammate)
• Klaus, the Thug (Teammate)

I got the table set up, and selected my villains: the Gargoyles, who are a fun and unusual menace. They operate like the "Weeping Angels" in the modern incarnation of Doctor Who - if two heroes can draw line of sight to a Gargoyle (there's two in the villain roster), it's incapable of moving. If they manage to successfully hit a hero, it's an automatic kill, and they are accompanied by bat swarms that limit heroes' line of sight. The villain roster also includes "Darkness Falls," which once activated limits line of sight to 6" for the remainder of the game. 

The heroic objectives were to Kill the Masters, Flip the Switches and Call for Help. The environmental hazards were Putrid Stench, Utterly Horrible (everyone in 6" takes a Horror Check at reveal) and Earthquake (everyone within 6" falls down automatically at reveal). The Threat Markers (covering both the villains and the environmental hazards) were arranged in the "Aggressive" pattern as determined by a die roll. 

I'm going to cut to the chase.

This game did not go well for the heroes. 

FIVE of the eight Threat Markers revealed at once. Both Gargoyles, a Bat Swarm, "Utterly Horrible" and "Earthquake" all went off at once. 

"Go ahead, Klaus. Try flipping the switch."

Klaus and Billy Ray were taken down by Gargoyles almost immediately. Lisa, Larry and Cliff spent most of the remainder of the game getting swarmed by bats as the Gargoyles crept forward slowly but surely. Cliff, especially, kept getting swarmed by bats, failing Horror Checks, falling down because he was being swarmed, and then getting up, getting a new swarm of bats on him, failing another Horror Check, and falling down again. He was up at down like three times. All three of them were killed "death by a thousand cuts" style by endless bat attacks. 

The heroes were all wiped out and didn't score a single victory point. 

I haven't laughed this hard during a war game since last Wargames Among the Warplanes when the taco truck got weaponized. 

I do think I may have unwittingly penalized the heroes with the big moving truck in the middle of the board. The heroes might have been able to do more against the Gargoyles if that hadn't been protecting the villains from heroic line of sight. I may replace that with the taco truck or leave it off all together. 

All in all, the game took about 45 minutes so I may be able to squeeze in more games on Saturday than I'd originally planned. Or I can wrap up early and finally play that Biplanes vs. King Kong game! 

Figures Acquired in 2025: 158

Figures Painted in 2025: 139