Majestic 13: Operation Wildfire

"Load up, kids," the Lieutenant said, passing out ammunition. "We've got special ammo for this mission. Something the eggheads cooked up - cadmium rounds. The same stuff they use in control rods for nuclear fission. Why, you might ask, are we being issued cadmium rounds?"

 "Because we're going after something radioactive?" Sarah-Jane hazarded a guess.

"Close enough! We're hunting a 'Cannonade' today - superheated plasma with a bad attitude. The good news is these suckers aren't particularly smart and can't take a lot of punishment compared to some of the other monsters in FORCE's menagerie. The bad news is they can dish out a lot of heat, and at fairly long range. This ammo should cool the monster's fire. Spread out, stick to cover, and I'll take you all out for ice cream after this is over."

*** 

Playing games of Majestic 13 always makes me want to play the next game of Majestic 13, which I think is the mark of a good campaign system. We ended on a fairly grim note last time, and hopefully this mission will give the Last Liners a much-needed morale boost.

 Due to a bureaucratic mixup, the Last Liners arrived via the northwest corner of the table instead of being able to deploy as they pleased. The Cannonade deployed opposite them on the large hill to the northeast, and the secondary mission, "Gear Collection," saw two weapons caches deployed - one right in front of the Liners, and one next to the monster.

 

The Cannonade activated first, spotting the Lieutenant and firing a blast of energy at him, only to miss! The scorching ray went wide, and the crew rolled out, with the Lieutenant leaping over the pickup truck and tagging the first gear cache. He opened fire on the monster, followed by Hank doing the same. 

 The cadmium rounds hissed and crackled as they froze the creature's plasma. Becky took off running, eager to take up a position where she could seize the second cache once the monster moved away from it, while Maria darted into a copse of trees - and disturbed a wasps' nest, getting stung for her trouble. She ignored the pain of the stings and fired at the creature as well. 

 The Cannonade floated down between Maria and Becky, hitting both of them with an energy wave - not dealing a lot of damage, but the actinic burst blinded Maria.

 Seeing her chance, Sarah-Jane squeezed off a round from her new sniper rifle, sending the cadmium bullet deep into what passed for the creature's torso. She winced as the creature roared and the blast of retaliatory fire off it swept over both Maria and Becky again. 

The creature darted for cover behind the old stone bridge, and the Lieutenant took the opportunity the spring forward and apply first aid to Maria. "Be careful!" he growled. 

 

"Or else what?" Maria blinked the blindness away and grinned. "I'll get cloned again?" She turned and ran across the woods, firing off another shot into the monster. Meanwhile, Becky made a mad dash for the gear cache, seizing it and completing the team's secondary objective.

 The Cannonade slithered forward, eyes blazing. Hank was in range, and it belched white-hot energy at him... and rolled a critical hit! Once damage was totaled, Hank was out of action.

 Maria, Sarah-Jane and the Lieutenant continued to fire on the monster, moving from cover point to cover point. Becky, her hands shaking too much to line up a shot, clicked the safety on the rifle Sarah-Jane had given her. The Cannonade saw her, almost seemed to sneer as it sprayed fire at her. It washed over her, burning hair and clothing, her skin blistering. It didn't matter; she stayed standing. 

That shot took her from full health down to just 2 HP!

 

She was stronger than it was. The whole secret war had seemed so overwhelming, too much for her. She was scared shitless. But right now, in this moment, she was still alive.

She knew what to do. The message was already keyed into the burner phone. Her thumb hovered over the "send" button, then pressed it.

The drone screamed across the sky.

"Everybody get back!" The Lieutenant shouted. "This thing'll explode! Keep going, keep going, run, run RUN RUNRUNRUNRUN-"

 

A spray of cadmium-tipped missiles erupted from the nose of the drone. The Cannonade screeched, it's alien voice something only heard in the hearts of stars. 

And then the whole world went white. 

 ***

The heat faded, and the Lieutenant pushed himself off the ground, shedding ash that had been trees before the blast. Everyone was caked in gray, coughing and spitting as they rose to their knees, then their feet. The creek had boiled away. Trees reduced to oversized burnt match heads. A few charred timbers remained of the cabin. The only trace remaining of the monster was its shadow burned into the ground. The Lieutenant pulled out a cigarette and a lighter. Slowly, he lit the cigarette.

Sarah-Jane coughed and tried to rub ash off her face with ash-covered hands. "30 seconds earlier and you could have skipped the lighter," she said weakly. 

"30 seconds ago I didn't need the cigarette," he replied gruffly. "Hey Becks, what was that place you were talking about last week, with the chocolate shell pinata filled with ice cream? You earned it." 

***

 That was a great game, and the kind of win (and morale boost) the Last Liners sorely needed. Playing smart did a lot to keep most of my team safe, along with taking opportunities for first aid wherever I could. The sniper rifle is not a huge boost in firepower compared to the regular rifle but being able to ignore cover is nice, and the damage does increase if the user doesn't move before shooting. I did play Maria more aggressively and Becky more cautiously based on the post-game results of last game, and I'm really pleased that the dice rolls and the decisions I made throughout the game led to a moment where Becky got to be a big damn hero without needing to make ability score checks and incur the penalty to her rolls that she'd garnered last game. 

Speaking of post-game processes, let's dive into this round.

Hank survived being toasted, but is now traumatized - he gains the -2 to all ability score rolls right as Becky is losing her penalty. 

The Last Liners have successfully requisitioned another kit of body armor, which will be going to Maria. Efforts to gain a Sighting HUD failed, but they did call in a few favors and gained access to Emergency Medical Facilities for their home base - which may be simply them getting to call on some of Sarah-Jane's veterinary associates for stitching and horse-tranquilizers with no questions asked. 

We did get some XP this game, and everyone got to raise an ability score. The Lieutenant began clawing back the Dexterity he lost, while Hank, Maria and Sarah-Jane boosted their Acuity scores. Becky added 1 point to her Combat score.  

All in all, a great game and a great end to my long weekend.  

Majestic 13: Special Mission #2, "Urban Assault!"

 "Keep sharp, kids, we got another live one today. Goddamn, I hate when FORCE drops their pet monsters off in the city like this! How the hell are we supposed to maintain OPSEC when there's a goddamn acid-spitting space octopus hanging around the pawn shop?" The Lieutenant continued to curse and grumble as he brought the van to a halt and threw it in park.

"Oh, shit..." Maria breathed, and pointed.

Shimmering into view were a number of figures in glittering, iridescent carapace armor, marching in unison, rifles at the ready. FORCE troopers were back. And with them...

 "Oh god, oh fuck, what is that?" Becky said, gagging. Behind the FORCE troopers shambled a pair of hulking monstrosities, gangly arms nearly dragging on the pavement, rudimentary heads lolling, featureless except for a pair of unseeing eyes and a lipless mouth lined with chisel teeth.

 The Lieutenant cursed again. 

"FORCE brought some backup. Higher ups call those 'shock troopers' for lack of a better name. Dumb as shit but savage in hand-to-hand combat. Keep back and keep your guns up."

*** 

 I haven't gotten any games in this month, so it was time to get moving - especially since I've got a long weekend this weekend. And it's been more than two months since my last game of Majestic 13, which is frankly unacceptable. So I got the table cleared off and set up for my next mission - a Special Mission, since my team had reached a rating of 6. This time we're back in an urban environment (the Last Liners' forte), facing off against five FORCE Troopers and two FORCE Shock Troopers - which I've chosen to interpret as 'roided up, maybe genetically altered FORCE aliens, with reduced mental capacities but boundless aggression and sharp claws to match. They don't have the armor that the stat block lists, but maybe it's sub-dermal implants? Either way, I'm using old RAFM "Ghasts" from their "Call of Cthulhu" line to serve as them. 

 

As always, Special Missions have their terrain and deployment predetermined. I realized I was doing it wrong previously by not rolling up a secondary mission - this time around it's "Gear Collection," with two tokens in the centers of the enemy side board quadrants, each of which give the figure picking them up +1 damage for the rest of the game. 

 For the first turn, the FORCE troopers had an initiative penalty, allowing all five of the Last Liners to act before them, spending the first turn spreading out into cover - and Maria reached the first of the gear caches. Unfortunately, once the aliens activated, things went to hell quickly. 

 As FORCE spread out, Hank, Becky and the Lieutenant all got shot with their plasmonic rifles, with Hank taking a critical hit. The Shock Troopers then pounced on Becky and Hank, eviscerating both of them almost immediately. 

 The Lieutenant took a pot shot at the Shock Trooper that had mauled Hank, then fell back to another cover point. Meanwhile, Maria called in a drone strike on the FORCE soldiers, and Sarah-Jane, sniping from cover, took a shot at the Shock Trooper standing over Becky's body. The FORCE troopers began to spread out, moving into positions to better gun down the Last Liners. 

 The two Shock Troopers converged on the Lieutenant, but failed to land any hits on him! He ducked and darted to another cover point, applying first aid to himself. Maria got out of the FORCE troopers' line of fire and Sarah-Jane kept sniping; staying in cover spared them both a few hits from the plasmonic guns.

 One Shock Trooper spotted and followed the Lieutenant, while the other wandered off, into Maria's field of fire. She squeezed off two shots at it before it took notice and charged her.

 Astonishingly, both the Lieutenant and Maria managed to kill their Shock Troopers - only to be knocked out of action by the post-mortem shockwave that FORCE's troops release! 

 Sarah-Jane continued to snipe at the FORCE Troopers from cover, and between the damage they took from the drone strike on turn 2 and her rifle, she managed to take out three of the five troopers before the clock ran out.

 Moving into the post-game phase... Ouch. Four agents put out of action means four rolls for survival. While Hank got the All Clear, the Lieutenant, Maria and Becky were not so lucky. 

The Lieutenant came out with a traumatic brain injury, reducing his Dexterity from 16 to 10.

Maria II lost her left arm at the elbow. She's stuck using only pistols going forward.

Becky has PTSD, and will have a -2 modifier to all rolls for the next game. 

On the plus side, the Last Liners successfully requisitioned a high-powered sniper rifle for Sarah-Jane. Sarah-Jane's current hunting rifle is being given to Becky to give her a little more firepower, and Becky's pistol is going into the team's storage unit. 

***

Hank wheeled the Lieutenant's wheelchair into the room. The old man looked smaller and grayer than he'd ever looked before, the side of his head shaved to allow the doctors to suture the wound FORCE had given him. The rest of the team was already there; Becky's hands shook as she lit a cigarette, and Maria contemplated the thin jointed steel prosthetic where her left arm had been. 

"Hey Becks, light me one if you don't mind." The Lieutenant's voice was thin and weak. 

"Smoke 'em if you got 'em, right?" Maria laughed bitterly. 

Sarah-Jane said nothing, just looked out the window, one hand resting on the first aid kit she never went anywhere without. She'd been a veterinarian before all this - a healer. Now her days were spent dealing death and hiding from retribution.

"How much is Majestic gonna take out of us?" Hank asked, shoulders slumping. "I mean hell...I've died, Maria's died, we've all been shot, stabbed, clawed, sprayed, injected... When have we given enough to this fight?"

"How much is Majestic gonna take?" The Lieutenant took the cigarette from Becky gratefully. "How much you got for them to take, kid? Because it's everything we have and then some until FORCE is kicked off the fuckin' planet."

"You know, meeting you might have been the worst thing that's ever happened to me," Maria said suddenly. 

"I get that a lot," the Lieutenant replied somberly. "Hell...for what it's worth, I'm sorry you kids have been dragged into this. None of us deserve this shit."

Maria contemplated the prosthetic silently for a moment. 

"They'll clone me again if I die, right?" she asked.

"Sure, as long as they can get a viable clone." 

"My next clone won't be missing an arm, right?"

"I don't like where you're going with this, Maria." Hank interjected.

 "Somebody give me a gun," Maria said with a grim smile. 

"How about we don't traumatize each other further, yeah?" Hank said. "Don't do FORCE's work for them. Make those fuckers earn every drop of blood we spill." 

Finally, some real progress!

 I've had a baker's dozen of figures on my table, slowly chipping away at them one step at a time, one hour of painting time a night (if that). No reason for me to rush anything, so I chose to savor the process and really take my time and try to push myself a little bit on some of these. And as of last night, they're finished! I got them varnished this morning and now here they are.

First things first, here are the three Samurai from North Star that came packaged with the ashigaru I finished earlier in the month. Together, these nine figures make a 200-point warband, or buntai, for the Osprey game "Ronin." These are again painted as Takeda clan, and I used a fancier version of the clan emblem decals for the banners they're wearing. The armor got a little more attention plus the lacing picked out in different colors.

 Next up, a set of eight figures packaged as a set from Grey For Now Games for their samurai game "Test of Honour" - these are the Rogues and Ruffians, who can be played together as a thematic gang of bandits, or hired off individually into warbands to provide color and some unique abilities.

 Of these, my favorite is "The Witch" in the first picture, wearing the black kimono with the white sash and kabuki facepaint. She gains differing abilities in game depending whether she's wearing her mask or not, which is pretty cool. The kanji on her kimono reads "DEATH" if I drew it correctly. I decided, as a witch with an enchanted mask, she could afford to be a little extra flamboyant in her personal style. 

I also tried my hand at OSL on the lantern bearer in the last picture. I haven't done it in years, and with varying degrees of success at the best of times. I think this turned out solid, if not perfect. 

Next up, the "Ronin, Shojo" from Bad Squiddo Games. According to the description on their site, Shojo randomly arrives at inns, challenges everyone inside to a drinking contest, and by the time anybody wakes up the next morning, she's gone as if she'd never been in the first place.

 I think she's one of my favorites of this bunch - everything just worked right on her in terms of colors and placement. She's wearing more neutrals and desaturated colors compared to the Takeda samurai above, befitting her lower social standing, the the face half-hidden by the hat is a very neat "woman of mystery" effect. 

And lastly, my big favorite of this bunch. This is an "Ogre Mage" from Reaper Miniatures, but very clearly based on a Japanese Oni demon in appearance. I've had my eye on this figure for a very long time, and finally the time was right to paint him. I really tried to push myself to make him the best figure I've ever painted; I chickened out a little bit at the thought of painting a pattern onto his pants, but overall I'm really pleased with how he turned out, and was well worth 20+ hours at the painting desk to bring out every detail of the sculpt.

 To give an idea of size, he's on a 60mm x 40mm oval base - his pose made him overhang a 50mm round base by just a little too much for my liking! I'm really pleased with the depth of color I got on the shell of the kappa clinging to his basket. These little water goblins have a depression on their head filled with water; if this water is spilled, they're paralyzed until it's refilled. They're nasty little critters with a taste for human intestines but unfailingly polite - if you bow to one, it will automatically bow back, spilling its water. 

So that's 13 figures added to the "Painted" side of the tracker, 14 if we say the Oni is large enough to qualify as two. In fact, let's do that.

 

Miniatures Acquired: 135

Miniatures Painted: 112

Terrain Acquired: 4

Terrain Painted: 5

Scatter Acquired: 0

Scatter Painted: 4

 

The Hounds of...Maybe Not War, Exactly, But...

 Two more figures off the workbench - a pair of Pugs from Dunkeldorf, sculpted by the Pugmeister himself, Jason Wiebe. These were fast, easy and amusing to paint. I could see using these in a scenario where a VIP must not only be protected/captured, but their precious dogs as well. Having these move randomly across the board with player characters in pursuit...sounds like fun to me. 

 I've got a baker's dozen of other figures - samurai, bandits, the oni - moving along towards completion, slowly but surely. I'm only getting about an hour's time per night to work and I'm at the stage where I'm doing more of the detail work versus broad brush strokes. 

I've also had some terrain come in to work on: Three sets of Feudal Japanese terrain from Things From The Basement here in the USA, which will be combined into a single terrain tile. I've got a Buddhist temple, a Torii gate, and a set of prayer wheels that will all be attached to a 12" square MDF tile that will be textured and painted and flocked and probably have a copse of trees as well.

 

 Base colors for these will all be laid down with spray paint on sub-assemblies before weathering, and it should go pretty quickly and look decent on the table. I've never done a terrain tile before, always just had loose buildings so I can arrange them as I please. But I think it makes sense to combine these into one tile, since they'll always been fielded as a group on the tabletop. And since they're going to be combined, I'm treating them as a single terrain piece for the purposes of my tracker (already counted below).

 

 

Miniatures Acquired: 135

Miniatures Painted: 98

Terrain Acquired: 4

Terrain Painted: 5

Scatter Acquired: 0

Scatter Painted: 4

Ashigaru - Takeda Clan

 I've continued to make progress, slowly but steadily, on some Feudal Japan figures, rotating back and forth between different groups of figures as needed while paint or washes dry. And I'm very please to report that I've finished the first batch.

 These are the ashigaru (peasant light infantry) from North Star's "Bushi Buntai" box set, one of several that were released in support of Osprey's "Ronin" skirmish ruleset. The three samurai that were also in the box may be the next figures I finish, sometime in the next few days. The sashimono back banners were completed with decals from Battle Flag, marking these men as serving the Takeda Clan. Both Perry Miniatures and Grey For Now Games offer miniatures of Takeda Shingen, lord of the clan during the height of the Sengoku Period, and I think eventually I'll have a small Takeda army. 

 Beneath the red armor, they're a little motley - shirts are either a dark blue-gray (basecoat Reaper "Midnight Blue," washed with AP Soft Tone, then highlighted with Reaper "Twilight Blue") or a desaturated green (basecoat Reaper "Jungle Moss," washed with AP Soft Tone, highlighted with "Highland Moss"), while pants are base-coated with either Reaper "Uniform Brown," "Shield Brown" or "Cloudy Gray," washed with AP Soft Tone, then highlighted back with the base color. 

I'm still really pleased with the winter bases. I'm looking forward to incorporating that look into some terrain pieces. 

Yesterday morning, my wife handed me her credit card and told me to buy myself some terrain to go with my samurai as a birthday present, and I ordered a few pieces from Things From The Basement that will be combined into a 12" by 12" board with some trees and scatter that can be placed on a larger tabletop.  

So let's update that tracker:

 

Miniatures Acquired: 135

Miniatures Painted: 96

Terrain Acquired: 4

Terrain Painted: 5

Scatter Acquired: 0

Scatter Painted: 4

 

Ninja Attack!

 I'm pleased to report that I seem to have refound my painting groove and have a project going that I feel good about, I'm motivated, I'm enjoying the process. 

Back in 2024, I bought a handful of Feudal Japanese miniatures with an idea towards making that my big project for 2025, which ended up not happening beyond a few test figures. Having grabbed a few vintage figures for AEG's "Clan Wars" miniature game, I felt my interest in samurai gaming rekindle. As an added bonus, my home convention (Running GAGG in SUNY Geneseo) has announced the theme for the 2027 show as "Pirates Vs. Ninjas" and now I feel like I have a defined goal to work towards - put on a game with some ninjas in it! And it just so happens I already owned a couple of ninjas that were primed and ready to paint!

These are the "Shinobi Sisters" from Bad Squiddo Games. I've got a few more of their Feudal Japan figures waiting in the wings, and am looking forward to buying more because they're great characterful sculpts.

Rather than just going with black clothing with maybe a gray dry brush, I went with some darker colors that would actually blend into the shadows better - a very dark, drab brown (Reaper "Woodstain Brown," washed with Agrax Earthshade, then drybrushed with Reaper "Powderburn Brown") and a dark blue (Reaper "Coal Black," which is actually an extremely dark teal, drybrushed with "Midnight Blue"). One of them I'd glued to a Renedra Cobblestone-patterned base; you'll see more of these as I continue through the collection of primed figures I've got for this project. I'm using them a lot for figures who are on tabs instead of puddle bases. I'm continuing the winter basing theme I started with the ghost samurai last week. 

What's next? Well, I've got some Northstar figures, designed to accompany the Osprey game "Ronin," half-painted that I'm hoping to finish by early next week. And I've started work on an Ogre Mage (inspired by the Japanese "Oni" demon) from Reaper Miniatures that I've wanted to paint for...a very long time. I think I must have seen it on their site when I first discovered Reaper 20 years ago and at the time I always passed on it in favor of getting multiple human-sized figures instead. Over the years I always had something else taking priority, but I finally bought him in 2024. Now I'm not just painting him, but giving him the absolute best damn paint job I can. Here's a WIP shot:

The fur vest he's got on is going to be painted as a tiger skin.

I was a little bad, though, and bought more figures today at Harlequin Hobby. I knew they had some Warlord Games samurai stuff on the little historical shelf they've got (which is mostly Bolt Action and a little bit of Victrix Dark Age plastics) and I decided to take a look. Along with boxes of plastic samurai and ashigaru (which, if I was a plastic figure kind of guy, I'd probably order Fireforge's sets instead), they had three boxes of metal figures, all branded for Warlord's "Warlords of Erewhon" fantasy game that I think has largely flopped. Two of the boxes were plain olive drab with the Warlord Games logo, with only a sticker describing what was inside. The third box was "Bandits & Brigands," with a characterful assortment of ten figures. This last one came home with me today.

Having opened it, it looks like the figures fit well size-wise alongside the figures I've already got. There's some bent swords that I'm hoping I can straighten without breaking, and some of the figures have separate arms to glue on. I'm looking forward to mixing them with the Grey For Now Games "Rogues & Ruffians" I have primed and awaiting my attention. 

Miniatures Acquired: 135

Miniatures Painted: 90

Terrain Acquired: 3

Terrain Painted: 5

Scatter Acquired: 0

Scatter Painted: 4

Breaking the Rut

 So I've been in a painting rut for most of the month. Either I've struggled to find enough enthusiasm to even pick up, much less paint a given thing on my workbench (the Mesoamerican buildings, the handful of Maya awaiting paint), or it's a frustrating painting experience (I've got a Wargames AEgyptus chariot mostly assembled and painted, but something went funny with the primer and even the most careful handling is causing paint to flake off, necessitating seemingly endless touch ups). I needed something fast and easy to break me out of feeling like I'm just not accomplishing anything during the time I'm sitting at my painting bench.

Casting about, I found this "Skeletal Samurai" from Reaper Miniatures that I'd mostly primed last fall; I'd sprayed one side of it white, I think a sudden change in the weather stopped me from priming the other side. Either way, I took advantage of the nice weather to finish priming, and then set to work.

Rather than paint him as a corporeal animated skeleton, I opted to paint him as a ghost to make things simpler on myself. A nice coat of GW "Nilakh Oxide" was allowed to settle into the various crevices, creating a very nice "Force Ghost" look - painting ghosts is actually the entire reason I bought a pot of this paint in the first place! 

Once that was dry, I painted the base with my usual brown, and flocked with my regular "dirt" flock from Woodland Scenics. Rather than go with my usual grass patches, I applied a few dry-looking tufts, splodged (technical term) some more PVA on and dipped it in some Army Painter snow flock. 

While I was at it, I touched up the primer on some samurai I've had sitting in a box since 2024, as well as primed a few additional ones, including a set of "Rogues and Ruffians" from Grey For Now Games that my wife bought me last time I got the bug to do some samurai wargaming. I've been seeing some really nice samurai figures on social media lately and been starting to feel that flutter of excitement for a new project again. Thankfully, I have all the unpainted figures from the last time I got the flutter for this particular project, so I can dabble without spending more money. 

Naturally, I ordered the rulebook for "Test of Honor" today anyways. 

Miniatures Acquired: 125

Miniatures Painted: 88

Terrain Acquired: 3

Terrain Painted: 5

Scatter Acquired: 0

Scatter Painted: 4