Fistful of Lead: "Death From Above!"

Tonight I went out to my local game store and met up with a guy for a game of Fistful of Lead, using the Galactic Heroes sci-fi variant. This was my first time playing a full-sized game against an opponent (not counting the demos I ran last month) since before the pandemic! I brought out my Space Orks, and he had what I think were classic 90s Necromunda gangers of some flavor.

We used a scenario I bought off the Wiley Games website, "Death From Above," for our game tonight; our crews were fighting over possession of the controls for an ancient orbital railgun, which happened to be in the heart of a monster's lair! The monster would appear when a Joker was played, and attack the closest figure (regardless of crew) until it was either slain or another Joker was played.

I brought the monster on the board fairly early, and it ravaged his side for a bit before being dispelled by another Joker, and then a fresh, uninjured one came back on the board later that same turn, at which point it killed my heavy weapons specialist. 

My Ork Warboss arrived at the controls for the orbital weapon fairly quickly, and spent three turns trying to figure out how to activate it. He spent the rest of the game hunched over the controls, firing over and over again and never hitting anything because the template representing the blast radius of each shot kept drifting. 

Honestly, I thought I had the game in the bag towards the end - I had three figures left on the table, he had one, and two of my guys were in close combat with him. Stunningly, he turned it around - he swiftly took care of the two guys on him, reloaded his man-portable heavy laser cannon, closed the distance and sniped my Ork Warboss through a gap in the ruins, killing him instantly with a headshot! 

That's one of the things I love best about Fistful of Lead - you never can tell quite how things are going to turn out, and I was just as happy to be surprised and lose like that as I would have been in victory. 

We'll be meeting up again soon for another game, and we had a few curious onlookers we spoke to who might be interested in joining in the future. Fingers crossed on that front, it would be great to get a few more people playing. 

Galactic Heroes: "Bodyguard Work"

 I couldn't have a long weekend without a solo game, and so I got the table cleared off and set up a 3' x 3' battlefield this afternoon. I decided to give the new Galactic Heroes 2nd Edition from Wiley Games a go through, and opted to give the Rebels of Krankor IV another battle.

To recap, in previous games, the Rebels (ex-slave laborers mutated by the toxic working conditions on Krankor IV) failed to kidnap the planetary governor, Baron Hadimir Vlarkonnen, but managed to fight off a team of mercenaries sent by the Baron to capture a set of data crystals detailing the location of other rebel cells. In today's game, the Rebels needed to protect a sympathetic pilot carrying a data recorder from a group of mercenary assassins sent by the Baron. The standoff took place around a ruined factory on Krankor IV. 

THE CREWS

 THE REBELS (Crew Trait: Ranger)

•  Lursa (Leader; Encouraging, Impervious, Deadeye; Mutations: Life Leech), armed with a Blaster Pistol and Chameleon Cloak
• B'etor (Specialist; Killer, Deft; Mutations: Extra Arms), armed with Pistols and light armor
  
•  The Maw (Regular; Bloodthirsty; Mutations: Gaping Maw), armed with an Autorifle and Chainsword 
• Torso Jones (Regular; Thundering Charge; Mutations: Iron Hide), armed with an Autopistol and Buzzsaw-Axe 
• Manta Claws (Regular; Steady; Mutations: Fangs and Claws), armed with a Blaster Rifle and light armor
  

ASSASSINS (Crew Trait: Eagle-Eyed) 

• Steve Austen (Leader; Veteran, Impervious, Encouraging), equipped with light armor, an Autopistol, and Optical Sights, granting him the Deadeye trait as a bonus
• Miller (Specialist; Ranged Fighter, Quick), equipped with light armor, an Autopistol, and a Medi-Pack
• Flynn (Regular; Steady), equipped with light armor and an Autopistol
• Dirk (Regular; Dodge), equipped with light armor and an Autopistol
• Blue Commandos (Grunt Group; Killer), equipped with Autorifles

The Assassins deployed on the landing pad in the left-hand corner of the board; the Rebels deployed in cover, scattered around a ruined factory. 

The assassins quickly began to spread out and take pot-shots at the Rebels - and the first two Shooting attacks of the game, by Flynn and Dirk, both came up "1," sending both assassins Out of Ammo. Torso Jones rushed to engage Dirk in melee combat, and got shot in the back by Steve Austen for his troubles.

Jones kept trying to fight Dirk, but wound up getting curb-stomped by the assassin. Shortly thereafter, the Maw took a bunch of Shock tokens in quick succession and decided he'd had enough and routed off the table.

The assassins worked their way down from the landing platform to the ground, keeping a constant barrage of pistol fire on the rebels, who darted from cover to cover. From there, it became a tense running gun fight, with the rebels retreating deeper into the ruined factory, the assassins advancing, getting shot at, retreating, and the rebels cautiously stalking forward. 

 

The tide really turned when B'etor unleashed a blaze of autofire from her three pistols, killing Flynn and one of the Blue Commandos and wounding Steve Austen. Miller raced to use the Medi-Pack on Austen, and Manta Claws took out Dirk with a shot from his blaster rifle. B'etor was wounded, by pulled a Queen of Hearts card when she activated, allowing her to heal and stand back up - and using Burst Fire again to take out Miller and the last remaining Blue Commando. 

Cornered and stunned, Steve Austen kept fighting to the last, but eventually he was laid low, and the pilot carrying the crucial data recorder was free to escape off Krankor IV. 

***

Great game, I had a ton of fun. This game ran for a staggering nine rounds; usually my solo games run about six. The light armor made a surprising amount of difference; figures wearing it could reduce the severity of a wound by rolling 8+ on a D10, and the assassins rolled a lot of 8+s. It definitely kept them all in the game much longer than they would have stayed otherwise; the grunt group of Blue Commandos was impressively useless, with two dying and one routing off the table to a failed Recovery roll fairly early in the game, and other than putting two Shock markers on the Maw, failed to accomplish much. 

If you're interested, Wiley Games is running a sale through tomorrow for Memorial Day weekend; I ordered some more Wound and Shock tokens (because I would like to get some larger games going). Most of the miniatures on the table today are from Diehard Miniatures, who currently have a Kickstarter going that I've pledged to.

Galactic Heroes: Caught in a Tight Spot

 One last AAR for the year; following up on the previous game, after escaping from Lursa's rebels, the Baron contracted with an E-Corp Security Team to launch a retaliation strike. Mission objectives: Kill the rebels and retrieve a series of data crystals containing plans for future raids and the locations/identities of other rebel cells. 

THE CREWS

LURSA'S RAIDERS (Crew Trait: Ranger) 

•  Lursa (Leader; Encouraging, Impervious, Deadeye; Mutations: Life Leech), armed with a Blaster Pistol 
• B'etor (Specialist; Killer, Deft; Mutations: Extra Arms), armed with Pistols 
•  The Maw (Regular; Bloodthirsty; Mutations: Gaping Maw), armed with an Autorifle and Chainsword 
• Torso Jones (Regular; Thundering Charge; Mutations: Iron Hide), armed with a Blaster Rifle and Buzzsaw-Axe 
• Manta Claws (Regular; Steady; Mutations: Fangs and Claws), armed with a Blaster Rifle

E-CORPS SECURITY TEAM (Crew Trait: Advanced Comms) 

• Captain Hudson (Leader; Two Guns, Veteran, Encouraging), armed with Pistols
• Sgt Hicks (Specialist; Ranged Fighter, Deadeye), armed with a Sniper Rifle
• Barry Hercules (Regular; Killer), armed with a Shotgun
• Shiro Hagen (Regular; Observant), armed with an Autorifle
• Wally the Warbot (not pictured; Regular; Soulless), armed with Titanium Fists 

Scenario was "Caught in a Tight Spot" from the Wasteland Warriors rulebook, with the E-Corps team cornering Lursa's Raiders in their camp; Betor and Manta Claws began the game deployed at the center of the table with the four data crystals (Loot tokens by any other name), and the remainder of the gang entering the table as they activated.Night had fallen, reducing visibility to 12" and giving everyone a -1 to Shooting rolls.

Things got off to a quick and bloody start, with Captain Hudson swiftly moving into position and unleashing Burst fire with his two pistols on Betor and Manta Claws, wounding both. Betor struggled to her feet, returning fire before getting a shotgun blast in the back from Barry Hercules that put her out of action and put another wound on Manta. Torso Jones and the Maw entered the table, taking up positions and returning fire once they were within range, and Sgt. Hicks getting into a covered position and taking aim with his sniper rifle. 

 

This very quickly became a knock-down, vicious fight, with figures moving from cover to cover, getting wounded, knocked down, crawling to the next bit of cover, standing up, shaking off shock, firing again...at one point I think a total of five figures on the table were prone with wounds. Both Manta and Shiro Hagen got wounded, crawled a short distance, and then succumbed to their wounds while trying to stand up. E-Corp figures would move in, grab a data crystal, and promptly get shot, dropping it as they fell prone. The Maw was taken out of action by a second Burst of fire from Captain Hudson, with Lursa being wounded in the same burst. 

With Betor, Manta and the Maw all going Out of Action in the span of two rounds, it looked like it was going to be E-Corps' game; but Torso Jones charged out of cover and beheaded Sgt Hicks with a single wild swing of his buzzsaw axe. Lursa shot and wounded Captain Hudson in a phenomenal shot (she needed a 9+ on a D10 and got it) and then Torso jumped on the prone man, finishing him off before catapulting himself at Wally the Warbot and demolishing the 'bot as well.

At the end of the game, Barry Hercules escaped off table with a single data crystal, Lursa had a wound  on her and Torso Jones was standing victorious. Everyone else was Out of Action. But the rebels maintained possession of 3 data crystals, giving them the victory. 

So now the Baron possesses a data crystal full of plans and the locations of other cells...I smell a rematch!

Galactic Heroes: "Labor Negotiations"

 On the planet Krankor IV, a toxic industrial hellworld, exposure to the planet's radioactive reserve of Nydynium has caused most of the (slave miner) population to develop horrible mutations. When planetary governor Baron Hadimir Vlarkonnen decides to personally inspect a minor outpost, a band of rebel ex-miners decide it's a perfect opportunity to kidnap the Baron and "negotiate" better rights for the populace. 

THE CREWS:

 

LURSA'S RAIDERS (Crew Trait: Ranger)

• Lursa (Leader; Encouraging, Impervious, Deadeye; Mutations: Life Leech), armed with a Blaster Pistol
• B'etor (Specialist; Killer, Deft; Mutations: Extra Arms), armed with Pistols
• The Maw (Regular; Bloodthirsty; Mutations: Gaping Maw), armed with an Autorifle and Chainsword
• Torso Jones (Regular; Thundering Charge; Mutations: Iron Hide), armed with a Blaster Rifle and Buzzsaw-Axe
• Manta Claws (Regular; Steady; Mutations: Fangs and Claws), armed with a Blaster Rifle

 

THE BARON'S ENTOURAGE (Crew Trait: Deadeye)

• Administrix Mugo Citlax (Leader; Slippery, Smart, Amphibious), armed with an Electro-Mace
• X-10-1 (Specialist; Ranged Fighter, Soulless), armed with an Autorifle
• Butch (Regular; Coolheaded), armed with an Autorifle
• Coop (Regular; Deft), armed with an Autorifle
• Moe (Regular; Killer), armed with an Autorifle

Special: Baron Hadimir Vlarkonnen (D8s for all rolls, Dodge), Unarmed 

The Baron's Entourage started play in the middle of the table, with Lursa's Raiders entering from a randomly-determined corner. If the Baron's entourage could escort the Baron to the landing pad and call the orbiting shuttle, it would be a win for the Baron; if Lursa could stop the Baron from going off-table, it would be a win for her and her rebel band.

Things got off to an explosive start; advancing towards the rebels, X-10-1 was charged by the Maw and promptly swallowed whole! The rest of the entourage had to save versus Shock, with almost the entire crew taking Shock tokens at the sight of the Baron's assassin droid-bodyguard being swallowed whole by this fang-faced mutant. 

Things looked like they'd end poorly for the governor, as the Maw and Torso Jones tore through his security team. Baron Vlarkonnen himself panicked and almost ran off the opposite table edge from the waiting landing pad before rallying and, with three Shock tokens on him, activating on a Queen of Spades card that removed all three of them. Newly invigorated, the Baron rejoined his administrative assistant Citlax and made his way towards the landing pad, ducking into a grove of purple flora to avoid being shot at.

With the three-armed B'etor guarding the entrance to the landing pad and Torso Jones and the Maw advancing on their position, Baron Vlarkonnen made a mad dash for the door and knocked B'etor flat with one punch from a beefy, ring-bedecked hand. Administrix Citlax was taken out the Maw and a well-aimed blaster shot from Lursa, while the Baron narrowly avoided a blaster shot from Manta Claws before making his way up the elevator to the waiting shuttle. The Baron has escaped, leaving Lursa's raiders to lick their wounds and await retaliation.

I don't have a ship model currently. Pretend it's cloaked.

This was a great game of Galactic Heroes and one that I think shows off one of the primary appeals of the game; with the card-based activation system and certain cards having special effects tied to them (such as the Queen of Spades allowing the Baron to shed a LOT of Shock tokens that were weighing him down), even when it seems like the game's a foregone conclusion - it isn't. I was fully expecting Lursa and her gang to corner the Baron on the far corner of the table from where he needed to be; instead, he made it to safety while sacrificing all of his underlings in the process, like any good self-serving galactic autocrat would.

So funny story. I had everything I needed ready to play this game last night, I unrolled my battle mat on the table, put that first piece of terrain down...and the power went out! High winds knocked out the power and took down a number of trees around our apartment complex, and we were without power for 13 hours. This evening, once my wife and I had taken care of replacing the contents of our refrigerator and the domestic stuff, I started to set up the table again. "You're tempting fate," she told me. "If the power goes out again because you started setting up a game, don't say I didn't tell you."

Lursa's Raiders

Here we have a merry band of Chaos Cultists/Mutants from Diehard Miniatures, from their most recent Kickstarter. These will be a gang for games of Fistful of Lead using the scifi (Galactic Heroes) rules or the Post-Apocalyptic (Wasteland Warriors) variant.

Lursa and her sister B'etor, the brains behind this operation

The Maw, always hungry for violence

Manta Claws, ready in a pinch

Torso Jones, looking to get ahead

Diehard Sci-fi Troopers and an AAR

 I'd hit a bit of a painting slump again - I'd start projects but feel no sense of passion towards them or desire to finish, but finally got myself motivated and finished off a couple figures this weekend while watching Reaper Miniatures' virtual convention.  They won't win any awards but I'm pleased with them nonetheless.  

 These are "E-Corps" Sci-fi troopers from a recent Diehard Miniatures' Kickstarter - I've got a fifth figure with a rocket launcher but I didn't want to put two special weapons figures into a squad for Fistful of Lead: Galactic Heroes, so I stuck with the sniper.  I've got a Warbot on the way from Diehard which will be painted in these colors and added to their squad.  

I also got motivated enough to clear off the dining room table, set up some scenery and hold a solo game of Galactic Heroes.  I decided on a simple scenario: A corporate spy carrying a hard drive full of secrets has crashed and hidden out in an abandoned, overgrown colony town.  The E-Corps asset recovery team has been sent in to retrieve him and the hard drive (I pulled an old Grenadier robot I'd previously painted to stand in for E-Corps' Warbot).  Unfortunately, a gang of Space Orks had also seen the ship crash, and were looking for the spy...for lunch.  

 

I decided that any time a figure spent an action searching a building, I'd roll a D10, adding 1 for each building that had previously been searched.  On a modified roll of 10+, the spy had been found; if I didn't get a 10 before the last building, he'd be there.  For added mayhem, I decided a natural "1" on the D10 roll would mean that an Alien Monster had been lairing in that building, and had been awoken.  

Naturally, a "1" was rolled on the very first building checked, and suddenly the Orks had a Ravenous Bug-Blatter Beast on their hands:

"Davy," the Ork in the coonskin cap, managed to hold the Bug-Blatter Beast up in a draw, locked claw to bayonet, until "Cap'n," the Ork in the officer's cap, managed to run up and kill the Beast instantaneously! "We ain't got time for dat nonsense!" says Cap'n!

Meanwhile, Pvt. Sit-Down leveled his shotgun at the Ork Boss and...click! Out of Ammo! Seeing this, "Bomba," the Ork in the bomber cap, raised his SMG and...click! Out of Ammo! "Tanka," the Ork in the tanker cap, charged Pvt. Blaze and obliterated him in a single go.  

The Ork Boss charged at Sit-Down, chainsword raised, and got clocked right between the eyes with Sit-Down's shotgun butt for a solid Wound! Taking advantage of the situation, Captain Ando of E-Corps advanced to the edge of the roof he was on and took a long shot with his autopistol - which paid off in spades when the Ork Boss collapsed to the ground stone dead!

Tanka then charged Sit-Down and, much to his surprise (and Sit-Down's), got hit in the chin with the shotgun butt hard enough to lift him off the ground and send him sprawling, out of action.  Why Sit-Down even bothers loading that shotgun is now a mystery, given what an unstoppable weapon the butt of it is. 

Davy, though shaken by a sniper bullet, wasn't about to accept Sit-Down's battlefield supremacy, charged in and headbutted the shotgun into metallic splinters.  He and Sit-Down began shoving back and forth, neither gaining a clear advantage but Sit-Down definitely beginning to weaken.  

Meanwhile, Captain Ando found himself dueling Cap'n on the roof of one building, Sgt. Clutch the E-Corps Sniper took out Bomba with a well-placed shot, and Wally the Warbot climbed the tower that Baldy, the Ork heavy weapons specialist, had holed up in and began punching him with metal fists.  

Sit-Down finally fell, out of action, but by that time Davy was the last Ork left on the field.  He turned and half-staggered, half-charged Sgt. Clutch - and was knocked out by one swing of the rifle butt.  

Exhausted, with two men out of action and Wally spilling oil from a hole blown in his side, E-Corps grabbed the corporate spy and called it a day.  They had completed their mission. 

MORE DAKKA, BOYZ!

 As of this evening, work is officially done on my Ork Boyz from the last post.  Not much more to say here, other than that I'm really pleased with how they turned out.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ERE WE GO!

 I needed a bit of a break from Egyptians - I finished my Asar Spearmen, I'll post pictures shortly - so last night I pulled out some Space Orks I'd primed months ago and never started work on, and began painting them up as a crew for Wiley Games' Galactic Heroes and Wasteland Warriors rulesets.  The figure with the heavy machine-gun is a Games Workshop metal figure from Warhammer 40K, the rest are from Knightmare Games and I think sculpted by Kev Adams.  

Group shot of the squad

I managed to do skintones and then most of the cloth - trousers, padded tunics, the ratty shirt worn by the heavy weapons guy last night.  Metallic bits, leathers (they all have backpacks and an assortment of belt pouches) and details will get done today I think.  

Saluting, or trying to see where that errant shot went?

I think I really nailed the skintones here - over black primer, I laid down a basecoat of Reaper "Driftwood Brown," and once that was dry gave it a heavy wash of GW "Agrax Earthshade" to accentuate all the creases and wrinkles in their ugly faces.  Finally I lightly built up highlights of Vallejo "Dead Flesh" which is a wonderful yellow-green.  The end result to me reads as a very organic, natural green instead of the more cartoony colors favored by Games Workshop these days.  

The Boss and the lone GW figure.  I like the cigar hanging out of his mouth.

The Knightmare sculpts have a ton of personality to them that is a joy to paint and some charming details - I like how each one has a different hat on, and the fact that they're carrying stick grenades on their belts.  The boss has a giant stogie clenched in his teeth and most of them having earrings or nose rings.  

They look so happy to be causing mayhem!

I'm looking forward to getting them done and on the table - maybe I'll play a quick solo game of Galactic Heroes this weekend to pit them against Captain Crash Carter and his Space Rangers. 

Galactic Heroes: Attack on the Force Field Generator

My friend Tom and I got in a game of Galactic Heroes last night and had an excellent time of it.  He borrowed Crash Carter and the Space Rangers, while I broke out the Invading Saucermen.  We decided on a slightly modified scenario from the main book.

The Space Rangers have caught news that the Saucermen are building a new, ultra-destructive battlestation: a Doom Moon! To protect the Doom Moon while it's under construction, a force field is being projected around the station from a generator on a nearby moon, populated by bronze-wielding primitives.  Captain Crash Carter, Doc Libra and a handpicked team of Rangers arrive on the moon with a mission: to deliver a Nova Bomb that will destroy the force field generator, so that the Ranger fleet in orbit can destroy the Doom Moon before it becomes fully operational.  

Lacking forest terrain, we set up a small outpost consisting of a number of prefab buildings placed around a transmission tower, with a few cargo loads of fuel tanks and generator parts for scatter and some ruined buildings to round things out.  As a special rule for this scenario, any time a Joker was played (Galactic Heroes uses a deck of playing cards for initiative purposes), a squad of natives (counting as Grunts, meaning they have one wound and only roll a D8, instead of a D10, for combat and task resolution) arrives to help the attackers. 

The game began fairly cautiously, with the Rangers advancing slowly and the Saucermen spreading out to meet them, with everyone hugging pretty closely to cover.  In Turn 2, however, things got wild; one of the Saucermen vaporized Crash Carter with a well-placed blaster shot, and then both jokers got played, meaning two groups of three native grunts arrived on the scene, ready to help the Rangers drive the Saucermen off their moon. 

On Turn 3, the Great Intelligence, leader of the Saucermen, unleashed his psychic powers on the natives, throwing them around like rag dolls.  They regrouped, storming the transmission tower, but the Great Intelligence proved an able match for them in melee as well, throwing the blue-skinned humanoids out every window he could.  Commandant Garkon, his second in command, fared less well, swiftly butchered by natives blades. 

With the Saucermen forced to split their fire between the Rangers and the fanatical hordes of natives, they were quickly overwhelmed, and the Great Intelligence eventually succumbed to the waves of natives charging up into the tower control room.  With the Saucerman garrison obliterated, the surviving Rangers placed and set the Nova Bomb and got off-moon as quickly as possible, returning to the waiting Ranger fleet. The Doom Moon would soon be no more. 

All in all, the game took us about an hour from set-up to breakdown, and was an enjoyable, leisurely evening for the both of us.  Tom it turns out has been a fan of the Fistful of Lead family of rules for years, ever since it was just a Western shoot-out game, and when I'd mentioned Galactic Heroes he'd gotten really excited to break out this system again.  I'm having a blast and I have other friends interested in trying the game out who couldn't make this game, so I'm looking forward to more play reports to come.