GI Joe: Operation Long Road Home

 It has been a long while since I've played anything - June I played some Sons of Mars, and prior to that it was March for Majestic 13. However, I was talking with a buddy of mine here in town and he's A) very interested in my GI Joe wargaming efforts, and B) volunteered his time and 3D printer to help set me up with some vehicles. With that, I decided I should make the effort to clear off our dining room table (which is more a catch-all space than anywhere we actually eat) and get set up for a GI Joe game. 

Fortunately, the table is exactly 3 feet wide, meaning my battle mat covered the entire width of the table with no gap. I already had a mission in mind that I'd plotted a while back, so I got my table set up and printed my rosters.

Representing the GI Joes:

• Sgt. Slaughter (Leader; traits: Leader, Master of Melee, Veteran, Tough as Nails), armed with a drill sergeant's baton and pistol.
• Beachhead (Specialist; traits: Indomitable, Infiltrator) armed with a SMG.
• Gung-Ho (Regular; trait: Nerves of Steel) armed with a grenade launcher and pistol.
• Spirit (Regular; trait: Eagle-Eyed), armed with an automatic rifle.
• Clutch (Regular; trait: Dodge), armed with a pistol.

And the Cobra roster:

• The Baroness (Specialist; traits: Smart, Dodge), armed with a pistol.
• Xamot (Regular; trait: Observant), armed with a pistol
• Fred Broca (Regular; trait: Determined), armed with an automatic rifle.
• 4 Crimson Guardsmen (Regulars; trait: Loyal), armed with automatic rifles.

And the mission: 

Sgt. Slaughter and his handpicked team of Joes have successfully captured Tomax, one of the "Crimson Twins" and a major financier of the terrorist organization known as COBRA. Unfortunately, they ran him to ground in the heart of Springfield, USA - an entire city operating as a Cobra base. Racing to leave the city and reach the extraction point, their vehicle was disabled, forcing them to continue on foot with Tomax in tow. 

The deadly Baroness and Tomax's twin brother Xamot have arranged a lethal surprise for the Joes on the edge of Springfield's suburbs in the form of a squad of Crimson Guardsmen.

The Joes start at one end of the road that crosses the table from corner to corner, and have to reach the other end while Cobra forces fire on them from both sides, without losing control of Tomax - currently being dragged by Clutch. 

Beachhead enters the doughnut shop, quickly scaling to the roof and taking a shot at the Crimson Guard lining up a sniper's shot, but misses. The Guardsman fires off a shot from the hip, injuring Beachhead, before charging the wounded Joe with his bayonet. Meanwhile, another Guardsman unleashes a burst of gunfire towards the Joes on the ground - Slaughter and Gung-Ho are unscathed (though Slaughter's ducked for cover), but Spirit is put out of action. 

In response, Slaughter hurls himself bodily on to the roof of the doughnut shop, landing feet first in the Guardsman's ribs, putting the Cobra operative out of action, while Gung-Ho fires a grenade up into the second Guardsman's sniper nest, wounding him. 

Their courage bolstered by the early removal of Spirit and Beachhead's injuries, Fred, the other Crimson Guards, and Xamot emerge from cover, and Gung-Ho is injured by a shot from Fred. 

"Not on my watch, rat-breath!" Slaughter bellowed, hurling himself off the roof and on to Fred, sending him out of action before getting shot in turn by Xamot. Struggling to his feet, Beachhead squeezed off a shot at Xamot, causing both Xamot and Tomax to collapse to the ground, their twin-based psychic powers resulting in both of them taking a wound. Gung-Ho shook off the wound he'd taken, rising to his feet and sending a grenade into the midst of a pair of Guardsmen, injuring one of them. 

Small arms fire only serving to make Sgt Slaughter angrier, he rose to his feet and, seeing Xamot down and the Baroness in reach, went after the femme fatale.

"What are you doing, you idiot? The Geneva Convention-" she started but was cut off.

"Listen here, Missy, when it comes to you poison puking Cobra maggots, they ain't even Geneva Suggestions!" Slaughter roared before sending her flying with one bone-shattering punch.

Gung-Ho, Beachhead and Clutch exchanged fire with the Crimson Guardsmen; rising shakily to his feet, Xamot tried shooting Slaughter again and missed, before turning and firing on Clutch in a desperate attempt to free his brother. "Not on your life!" Slaughter bellowed, shooting Xamot down and putting him out of action. 

The remaining Crimson Guardsmen were quickly mopped up; Slaughter threw the unconscious Baroness and Xamot over his shoulders as well, ready to deliver all of them to the Joes' maximum security prison to await trial. 

***

That was something else. I was prepared for Sgt Slaughter to be a beast in melee - his "Veteran" trait means he rolls D12s instead of D10s for all rolls, and "Master of Melee" means in melee he rolls twice and takes the better result - but he took down five of the seven Cobra operatives on the board, almost totally by himself, often with a single punch. Beachhead, Clutch and Spirit could have stayed home.

There also wasn't a lot of movement across the board; I don't think any of the Joes actually reached the halfway point until after the last of the Cobra forces were taken down. Part of this I think came down to deploying Cobra on both sides of the road as a shooting gallery; if I were to rerun this scenario I'd start Cobra in one of the non-road corners to give the Joes a chance to move and seek cover as they go while forcing the Cobras to have to decide between movement and shooting instead of largely sitting in cover and waiting for the Joes to enter range. 

Overall, I'm happy with the mission, and I may offer to run it for some friends and let them play both sides while I referee. I should also get my Cobra Alley-Vipers painted and maybe substitute them in for the Crimson Guards. 

October Progress Report

 I'll be honest, I've slowed to a crawl with the goblins. I've painted 16 over the past month, but I'm kind of feeling burned out and maybe sludgey towards the orc and goblin project right now. Some of that is, I just painted 16 goblins and a giant and I'm ready to do something else for a bit. Some of it's that anything I paint is going right back into storage as soon as it's varnished because we're having trouble finding space in our house for me to put a display case and put my army up on display. It's a small house and other things have gotten prioritized; things we might have put downstairs in the basement otherwise have to be upstairs for my wife to be able to use them - her MS has left her with nerve damage in her legs that makes walking up and down stairs challenging for her. At this point, if I get a display case it will probably end up in the basement next to the laundry area. C'est la vie.

Goblins aren't much of anything to look at, but I am well pleased with how the giant (Bert from Old School Miniatures) has turned out:

And I've also painted the first two figures for wargaming with samurai:

The figure in the blue kimono is "Toshiro, Male Ronin" from Reaper Miniatures:

And his companion is an unnamed ronin from Bad Squiddo Games. Yes, her kimono is based on the Arizona Green Tea can.

They kind of have a "winter and spring" vibe that I think means I'm going to end up painting a "Summer" and "Autumn" ronin to go with them. 

Planning Ahead for 2025

 First things first...Goblins are still in progress.

With October being "Orctober," my immediate goal for October 2024 is to finish off the unit of 40 goblins, plus shaman and three "Lurking Skulkers" that, under more recent versions of Warhammer Fantasy Battles (and now Warhammer: The Old World), can hide in regular goblin regiments and leap out when melee begins to try and shank the front row of the enemy unit. I'm also aiming to have my 2002 Ruglud's Armored Orcs regiment completed by the end of the month.

Beyond that, I'm looking forward towards 2025 and giving myself a dedicated project to work on in the new year. My wife and I just watched the new FX adaptation of James Clavell's Shogun, and enjoyed it very much; between that and listening to the Yarkshire Wargamer podcast interview with Trevor Dixon of Dixon Miniatures, my thoughts have circled back towards a long-standing desire to paint samurai.

So I placed an order with North Star for a couple of skirmish rulebooks - Ronin, from Osprey Games, and Daisho, from the Ministry of Gentlemanly Warefare - two prepacked warbands for Ronin, and then another order with Badger Games here in the USA for a couple packs of Bad Squiddo Feudal Japan warrior women. 

These will get me started for samurai painting and wargaming; eventually I'll pick up "Test of Honour" as well and start expanding my forces and building terrain. I've also dug a few samurai I bought in 2016 out of my bits box - a couple from Reaper Miniatures and a pair of AEG "Clan Wars" samurai archers, long out of production, that I'd bought off someone on Facebook. From there I'll start adding Perry and Dixon Miniatures samurai and retainers to the mix. 

Progress Report

 The Fireworks Stand itself is completed; I've got Mark himself and a few resin bits I want to glue into the fireworks stand still to complete, but I might leave those for another day.

Correction: I am absolutely leaving those for another day. Why? Because Goblins, that's why. 

Right now, with having just bought a house and making arrangements for insurance, a snowplow service for our driveway for the winter, and a sudden leak in our ceiling that manifested during a thunderstorm last night, I am more or less on Hobby No-Buy for the foreseeable future. I'll replace paints as they run out/dry out and buy some supplies here and there, but no new miniatures or terrain pieces for a while. Fortunately, I have quite the ample "Closet of Opportunity" to pull from. And October is in view, and that means Orctober, meaning I paint some more greenskins for my ongoing Oldhammer Orc & Goblin army. 

And I am drastically short on painted goblins. 20 archers, 10 wolf riders, and a dozen infantry with hand weapons are all I've got to show of the smaller, weedier grots. I've been meaning to get the dozen foot-sloggers bolstered up to a much more robust regiment of 40, and I think now's a perfect time to get those done. 

Here's a shot of the 40-figure movement tray loaded up with painted and unpainted goblins alike to get a sense of the project at hand. Most of these are either Knightmare Miniatures or Black Tree Design/Harlequin, but two figures here are from Midlam Miniatures - and all 40 are from the talented hands of Kev "Goblinmaster" Adams. I even got to include a fun little easter egg to reward sharp-eyed viewers; one of the goblins in the last row has thrust his club through a belt loop and is taking the time to scarf down a meat pie - one that has a rat's tail hanging out of it. 

There is a painted figure in the back row of that photo; he's one of a handful of Black Tree goblins I painted back in 2018, when I first decided I wanted to try building an all-metal Orc & Goblin army, and was still figuring out color schemes and skin tones. I wound up stripping the paint off of all of those the other day and selecting a few to repaint and include in this unit - replacing the figures with spears in the above picture with ones holding clubs or scimitars. 

I also get an extra shaman figure back for use in my army; I'd especially never been happy with the paint job I'd given him back in 2018, so looking forward to doing a better job on him this time around. 

First Project on the New Workbench

 I've inherited my father's workbench when my parents moved out of the house and my wife and I moved in; he left a few tools and such behind on it that I'm still figuring out new homes for, but I was eager to make the workbench "mine."

Clearing some space, I unpacked one of the last things I bought before we moved - "Mark's Fireworks Stand," a prepainted MDF kit from Black Site Studios that tends to only be made available for a few days on either side of the July 4th holiday - the #1 fireworks-buying holiday here in the US of A. I set to work on Saturday, September 1st, working on it a little bit at a time and allowing glue to dry.

It's a fairly simple kit, being a rectangular prism with a few bits attached - the sign on the roof, a working doorway, an interior counter. The roof lifts off allowing interior playability. All that's left to do is the awning over the windows, but I want a bottle of superglue handy for that - so another trip to the store is in order in the next few days. 

The kit also comes with Mark himself, a resin figure of a one-armed gent smoking a cigarette (to better instill confidence in consumers). I've opted to add a few additional bits inside for a bit of environmental storytelling - there will be a battered radio on the counter, and a mattress on the floor behind the counter; turns out when you're a one-armed, chainsmoking fireworks salesman, you don't earn enough to afford a fireworks stand and an apartment. 

Moving House

 Haven't had much to post about here lately - haven't done much gaming and the oppressive heat and humidity has made painting extremely difficult. And to further complicate the gaming and painting, my wife and I are moving into a house at the end of the month, leaving behind the life of renting a one-bedroom apartment. All of my painted miniatures, hobby supplies, and most of my terrain (certainly everything easily breakable) have already been moved over and stored in the nice, cool basement of the house. There's three big plastic totes - two of unpainted miniatures, and one of unpainted 3D-printed terrain - that we'll leave for the movers to carry over. 

It certainly felt like this. 

The house is actually the one I grew up in; we're buying it from my parents, who have decided they're at an age where they don't want to deal with the hassle of household maintenance any more, and offered it to us at a sensible and uninflated price. Homeownership is within our grasp!

Sons of Mars - the Match!

 Just a brief post today because I didn't take many pictures and chronic insomnia has made my recollection of finer details fuzzy at the best of times.

Yesterday, I brought two teams of gladiators and a felt battle mat to my buddy Rick's house, and played my first in-person wargame against another player since February 2020. Between the pandemic, my wife becoming seriously ill, and my formerly-friendly local game store no longer being welcoming now that I need to mask in public to protect my immunocompromised spouse...it's been solo games only for the last four years. But Rick and the circle of friends he and I play D&D with are all taking precautions to protect immunocompromised loved ones, so while our wives went out for pedicures together, Rick and I opened up the ludi and met in the gladiatorial arena.

We played an initial 1 vs 1 match for Rick to learn the rules of the game and get a feel for it; taking the Blue team, he put a Murmillo in the arena; taking the Reds, I responded by selecting a Retiarius, armed with a trident and net, for a classic matchup. It was a close match for the first couple of rounds, with my Retiarius scoring some impressive hits against the heavily-armored Murmillo. But eventually he closed the gap and his gladius drank deeply of my gladiator's lifeblood. 

Following this, we decided to go for broke and do a 3 vs 3 match. Keeping his Murmillo, Rick selected the Unmitigated Gaul (a dual-wielding Dimachaerus) and Spartacus the Thracian for his team; I swapped out my Retiarius, and fielded a Provocatore (a heavily armored gladiator built for staying power), a Thracian, and a lightly-armored Velites.

This ended up being a brutal match; Sons of Mars matches have a time limit of eight rounds, and we went right to the bottom of the 8th. We had a long stretch where the two Thracians were clashing, while the other four gladiators were in one big knock-down brawl downfield; the Murmillo and Provocatore pressed each other, with the Velites and Dimachaerus bouncing off them.

At one point, the Provocatore had the entire blue team attacking him at once, and he not only held his own, but delivered some brutal and near-crippling blows to the Murmillo and Dimachaerus before finally succumbing to a million small cuts; my Thracian took down Spartacus, which caused the brawl to sort of begin to separate out; by the beginning of the 8th round my Thracian and Velites were both holding on with just a single point of Vitality each. It didn't take long for the Murmillo (who was himself at 1 point of Vitality) and the Unmitigated Gaul (at 3) to finish them off. 

This was no sterile chess match; Rick played the soundtrack to the Spartacus TV series, and there were a couple points where we were both on our feet cheering for our respective fighters. We'll definitely be doing another day of gladiatorial games some time soon, possibly introducing obstacles and animals into the arena.