Galactic Heroes: Solo Play

I just played a quick solo game of Wiley Games' "Fistful of Lead: Galactic Heroes," to familiarize myself with the rules ahead of trying to demonstrate the game for other people at my FLGS next week.  I actually used the mission charts in Osprey Games' "Rogue Stars" rules to generate a mission, and then played everything out with Galactic Heroes.

The set up was simple: A gang of smugglers, led by the flamboyant, electro-whip-wielding Lillith, had to move three parcels of "Frigian Ice Jewels" across a snowy, ruin-dotted plain while evading Captain Crash Carter, his trusty assistant Doc Libra, and a squad of Stellar Legionaries.  Complicating matters, a snowstorm reduced all visibility to 12".  The smugglers were deployed in the middle of one table edge, while Carter and Libra deployed on one adjoining edge and the Legionaries deployed on the other.

During the first turn, Lillith used her jetpack to dart at Captain Carter and Doc Libra, hoping to distract them from the three troopers carrying bundles of precious gems.  Carter tried to take a pot shot at her, but rolled a 1 - Out of Ammo! Doc Libra pointed his Photon Wand at her and pressed the firing stud, catching her in a roiling cone of radiation, leaving her Shaken.  Meanwhile, her second-in-command, the cyborg Steve Austen, led the three jewel-toting regulars on a mad race across the tundra to safety, while the Stellar Legionaries fanned out and took up firing positions.

On the second turn, Crash unjammed his blaster pistol, and before she could react, Doc fired his Photon Wand again, reducing Lillith to a smear on the ice.

The rest of the smugglers quickly found themselves pinned down between two ruined buildings.  One of the Legionaries, Private Altax, took a bullet in the stomach from Dirk, a smuggler, quickly rolling over and succumbing to his injuries.  Before Dirk could celebrate, however, Crash threw himself over a ruined wall and shot the smuggler in the back, killing him instantly.

Flynn, one of the other smugglers, turned and fired point-blank at Carter with his auto-pistol despite being already injured by blasterfire, and successfully put two wounds on the Captain, knocking him flat on his back in the snow.

Doc raced over to try and perform first aid on the Captain (despite Doc not having the "Medic" trait, I decided on the fly that on an 8+ roll he could still negate one wound) while the Legionaries mopped up the remaining smugglers.  As Crash staggered to his feet, the Frigian Ice Jewels were recovered.

All in all, from set-up to breakdown took about an hour and I really enjoyed myself.  The game had a couple of great swings I wasn't expecting, both when Lillith unexpectedly bit the dust and when Crash almost followed her into the great beyond.

I did have a couple things I recognized as needing fixing - Crash's team had a distinct advantage in that while visibility was reduced to 12", that was still within short range for the Legionaries' blaster rifles, while the smugglers were all armed with auto-pistols - which had a long range of 12".  So a Legionary at the maximum extent of visibility could hit a smuggler on a 5+, but that smuggler would need an 8+ to shoot back.

Also, I definitely need to pick up a new deck of cards.  The one I've got, the cards are very cheap, very thin plastic and don't shuffle nicely at all.

The Kroglogg Delegates Have Arrived

I've been slowly puttering away at the figures I got from Lead Adventure Miniatures' first Astropolis Kickstarter, and have finally finished two of them; the hammerheaded aliens known as "Krogloggs." The Astropolis II Kickstarter, which I was foolish enough not to back, added a number of additional Kroglogg packs to the line, some of which are hopefully on their way to me right now.  These two were the figures that enticed me to back the Kickstarter in the first place, as I loved how much character had been packed into what are genuinely simple sculpts. 

Looking at them, I felt like the texture on their skin could be interpreted as either fur or just elephant-like wrinkles, and I opted to treat them as the latter.  Over a black undercoat I dryrbushed Reaper "Highland Moss," followed by a lighter drybrush of "Pale Lichen" going a little heavier on the high point of the round belly, the tail, and the details of the face on each figure. 

The metallic gear they're wearing was picked out in "True Silver" and "Coppery Orange," with cables being detailed in "Carrottop Orange" highlighted with, well, "Highlight Orange." The shoulder-pads on the one and the mechanical claw on the other were done in "Fresh Blood" highlighted with "Phoenix Red," which was also used to basecoat their eyes (and then highlighted with "Fire Orange" for the pupils).  Finally I picked out the claws and hooves in "Stained Ivory" and the buttons on their gear using GW Technical paints - "Waystone Green," "Soulstone Blue," and "Spiritstone Red." The coppery tubes were washed with GW "Nuln Oil" to bring the shine down a bit. 

Their bases were done using baking soda - I applied superglue over the bases prior to priming, and sprinkled baking soda over that for a finer grain texture.  The baking soda and super glue react to cause the glue to harden instantly.  After priming black, the bases were drybrushed with Reaper "Cloudy Gray" and "Misty Gray."

I'm very happy with how these came out, and once I have a few more I'm hoping to field a Kroglogg hunting party in skirmish games like Rogue Stars or Galactic Heroes - the latter being a game I was made aware of by Thomas Foss' post regarding his Krogloggs over at Skull and Crown. 

What's Ahead in 2017?

So I've been thinking a lot lately about what I want to see happen in the next year of miniature painting.  In the last year, I didn't really have any sort of solid plan to my purchasing and painting; for 2017 I'd like to have dedicated projects I'm working towards.  I want to focus on just a couple things and try to really accomplish something with them.  My list, in order of importance, is as follows:

Frostgrave

My game tonight didn't end up taking place, as Tom was feeling under the weather, but this is the big one.  I have three finished warbands (Summoner, Necromancer and Elementalist), two that are assembled and primed, but unpainted (Witch and Sigilist), and have purchased a couple figures towards two more (Illusionist and Thaumaturge).  I'm thinking about trying to encourage some sort of league-play at Just Games; we've got a number of people who've bought the book and shown interest and I'd like to see more of those people at the table, pushing figures around.

I may eventually finish building warbands for every school of magic in Frostgrave, but seven might be enough for now.  I want to finish assembling and painting the four warbands that I have that are unfinished and build more terrain for the tabletop.

I'm also looking towards building up a bestiary of monsters for Frostgrave's wandering monster rules, for which I think Reaper Bones are probably the best suited.

Lion/Dragon Rampant

I've had the rulebook for this game for almost a year.  I've thought about building generic medieval forces out of 1/72 scale plastics, but I'm starting to reconsider; 28mm seems to be the scale gamers locally go for, and I think my chances of getting someone to play against will go up in 28mm.  I'm still probably going to end up building two armies for this.  I think it's probably worthwhile to pick a conflict to model on a small scale with Lion Rampant and do just the belligerents of that conflict.

I've always liked the look of the Knights of the Teutonic Order, so maybe the Baltic Crusades are in order.  Fireforge has some really beautiful Teutonic Order plastic sets, and they recently released a line of Medieval Russians, who would provide a nice splash of color against the monochrome of the Germans.

EDIT: Adam reminded me that a fantasy version, Dragon Rampant, exists, which might be an easier sell at the local gaming store than a strictly historical game.  For fantasy races, I think I'd look first to Mantic Games' Kings of War line, especially their Orcs and "Abyssal Dwarves."

Rogue Stars

This is kind of the lowest priority for the moment, especially as the book isn't actually out yet, but I like what I'm reading about this sci-fi skirmish game from Osprey.  I have a couple alien figures from Reaper's Chronoscope line to use as the beginning of a sci-fi gang; I may pick up some packs from Copplestone's "Future Wars" line for use with this at some point.

Terrain will also be something to look at with Rogue Stars, and for that I'm looking at Pegasus Hobbies' "Hexagon" snap-together terrain pieces.

So this is where I think my wish-list stands:

• Reaper 02459 "Ava, Female Templar"
• Reaper 02390 "Templar Standard"
• Reaper 02330 "Templar Knight"
• Reaper 02513 "Templar Knight"
• Reaper 02339 "Templar Knight"
• Reaper 02433 "Omar Al-Kafour"
• Reaper 02497 "Jasmine Silverveil"
• Reaper 02447 "Sallah, Arabian Hero"
• Reaper 02749 "Jade, Dancing Girl"
• Reaper 02501 "Mirari the Seductress"
• Reaper Bones monsters
• Pegasus Hobbies' Gothic Scenery
• Pegasus Hobbies' "Hexagon" scenery
• Fireforge Teutonic Knights
• Fireforge Teutonic Infantry
• Mantic Games' Orcs or Abyssal Dwarves

I should note that I am taking part in Ian's annual "Secret Santa" exchange this year, and so this list isn't *strictly* for my own use.  I have a pretty good idea what I'm getting for my target wargamer, and I'm pretty excited to be a part of this.