Continuing on with my 28mm GI Joe project, here are the first five members of the Joes proper: Duke, Scarlett, Rock-n-Roll, Shipwreck and Lifeline.
All in all, a solid bunch to paint with plenty of variety, and great practice with the light box as well. Looking forward to getting them on the table for Fistful of Lead.
So I've been kicking around a project for a bit. I want to challenge myself, and an idea I hit on is to assemble and paint everything I would need to put on a big, flashy convention wargame demo. That means all the figures, terrain, and put together a scenario that could handle up to six players.
For me, the obvious choice was to use Wiley Games' Fistful of Lead. There's no ruleset I like better or want to see more people playing than that. But what to do with that ruleset?
The idea I hit on was a GI Joe game, with squads of Joes squaring off against gangs of Cobra troopers. Get a couple vehicles on the table, and it'll all be very eye-catching with (for gamers of a certain age) familiar characters on the table.
Funnily enough, I'm not a gamer of a certain age - being born in 1987, I missed out on GI Joe, He-Man etc., during their peak; I remember Christmas 1992 was a GI Joe-heavy one (including the very big electronic GI Joe base released that year), though, and my wife and I became fans of the Sunbow animated series from the 1980s a few years back through Netflix (though she loses interest as soon as Sgt. Slaughter gets introduced to the show).
I've got a couple pieces of MDF terrain from Sarissa Precision so far to build (a guard-house, a helicopter pad and a radar station) that I think will come into play, and leads on 3D-printable Joe and Cobra vehicles. I've sourced some figures as well, and painted my first gang for proof of concept - the Cobra-affiliated militarized biker gang known as the Dreadnoks, and their sinister leader Zartan.
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| Also, I have a light box now for photography. Woo! |
It's January, and I'm once more painting orcs for the Old World Army Challenge. I'm off to a solid start, with 15 Orc Big'uns (mostly Citadel figures released between 1985-1993) and a Shaman:
New Year, new After-Action Report! I had two gangs ready to go, and received both my hard copy of Wiley Games' "Wasteland Warriors" and a Gale Force 9 "Battlefield in a Box" Toxic River yesterday, so it was a great time to clear off the dining room table and set up a 3' x 3' battlefield. I used a slightly modified version of the scenario "The Escape" from the Wasteland Warriors book:
Annette's Gang, laden down with loot scavenged from a buried tech-vault, take a short-cut through territory held by the Soviet Occupying Army (though since the Fall, there's no longer any Soviet Union; despite claiming to continue to follow the last orders given before the Big One, they're just another scavenging gang), following a toxic river to where a boat has been cached. The sound of shots fired and whooping war cries signal the arrival of Olga, Tigress of the Cossacks and her ragtag commie followers.
THE CREWS
ANNETTE'S GANG (Crew Trait: Loyal)
SOVIET OCCUPYING ARMY (Crew Trait: Ranger)
The first few turns of this game were fairly quiet; Olga's gang moved into position, with Luchenko climbing into the ruined building to find a sniper's nest while Ivanov moved towards the bridge to cut off access; Annette's gang are starting on the opposite side of the river from where their boat has been cached. Meanwhile, Annette's gang moved down the board, mostly keeping to the river and moving from cover point to cover point. Stalker and Croak crossed the river to the opposite bank near the starting point instead of waiting to reach the bridge 3/4ths of the way down the board.
Olga tried to position herself to shoot at Annette, but got shot by Nine-Yards Nora for her trouble instead; Luchenko fired at Nora in response, initiating something of a sniper's duel; both figures being equipped with long-range weapons and the Ranged Fighter Trait, they continued to fire back and forth as Nora tried to move downriver. Croak and Stalker got shot at by Grunts; Croak went down, Wounded, but then stood back up as his mutated lizard-flesh reknit itself.
Around Turn 6 is when things went absolutely wild. Croak started bashing the grunts with his club while Stalker moved to finish off Olga - but the Tigress of the Cossacks managed to bring him down despite being wounded and prone herself, resulting in the two wrestling on the ground in their own mingling blood. One of the grunts ran over and tried to save Olga from Stalker, putting a second Wound on him; Croak managed to rescue Stalker, bashing the grunt's head in as Olga died from her wounds.
Meanwhile, a Joker was played, triggering a storm - reducing LOS to 12" and giving everyone a -1 to Shooting rolls. Mysha blasted Nora with a Sonic Scream, putting a Shock token on her; but Nora rallied and squeezed the trigger, sending the bat-winged mutant Out of Action. Bandit was Wounded and crawled along the riverbank for two turns before recovering enough to stand up and stagger towards the bridge and waiting boat. Ivanov, waiting on the bridge, got shot by Nora but struggled back to his feet.
Ivanov shot at Annette, putting a Shock token on her, which she shrugged off; trying to return fire, however, resulted in a "1" - Out of Ammo! And in Wasteland Warriors, since she's not carrying extra ammo, she's Out of Ammo for the remainder of the game. Undeterred, she proceeded to beat Ivanov's ass with the butt of her shotgun.
Luchenko, exhausted and wounded, tried to retreat deeper into cover, but another Joker played caused him to stumble into a booby trap; discovering a hidden explosive the hard way. As the bits of Luchenko rained down, Annette's gang collected the badly wounded Stalker, boarded their boat and sailed down the river to relative safety...
END RESULTS
Annette's Gang made it off the table without losing anyone and with five bags of loot, gaining 3 Renown. Bandit was "just winged" and will be able to play in the next game, should this become a solo campaign; Stalker needs more attention and will have to miss the next game, and will begin play with one Wound already on him the following game.
Sorting through their finds from the tech-vault they raided, Annette determines that they've obtained a Bayonet, some Extra Ammo, a powered exoskeleton, a futuristic helmet, and a Beamer (Laser) Pistol (needs a power pack). Because the Beamer is a Tech Level III weapon, someone's going to have to figure out how it works before anybody can use it. The exoskeleton, likewise, will need some study before it's useful.
On Olga's side, everyone was ultimately taken Out of Action which...this won't be good.
AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR
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)
E-CORPS SECURITY TEAM (Crew Trait: Advanced Comms)
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!
Last figures for the year; I'm packing up my painting desk (i.e., the back half of our dining room table) tonight and leaving it be until after New Year's.
Wiley Games' Post-Apocalyptic variant, "Wasteland Warriors," is one I'd like to do more with in the new year; it's very influenced by the likes of Gamma World, Thundarr the Barbarian and Kamandi: Last Boy on Earth, which is a lot more fun than some of the other post-apocalypses out there.
Digging into my box of primed but unpainted figures, I pulled out some Mark Copplestone-sculpted Future Warriors, originally from Grenadier but now produced by Forlorn Hope Games. I supplemented these with a Female Mercenary from Mark Copplestone's own Future Wars line (effectively an extension of the older Grenadier line) and a Reaper Troglodyte from their Bones line. Just like that, I've got a gang of wasteland warriors!
These are very quick and dirty paint-jobs, mostly just basecoat and wash with a minimum of highlighting, but they're effective and get the job done. I went a little bit more in-depth with the Troglodyte - gave him the full Reaper Triad of Stormy/Cloudy/Misty Gray, then glazed his back with GW Guilliman Blue and his throat and gills with GW Bloodletter. I'd just like to add that he was a bit of a bitch to get the mold-lines off, and some remain in place because I was shaving off scales trying to remove the mold-lines.
All in all, about two nights' work that I'm pretty happy with. And finally, since it is Christmas Eve...
This is a Scibor Miniatures' "Christmas Snowman Slayer" Dwarf, which was gifted to me as part of a painting group I'm in; it is the first resin figure I've ever assembled and painted, and it gave me some challenges - I realized just now I'd glued the ice-skate blade to his halberd on upside down, and the spike on the back shattered trying to remove it from its sprue. I decided to go for a grubbier, less-pleasant Santa vibe; more "Billy Bob Thornton in BAD SANTA" than anything else. Hence the alcohol-induced rosacea on his nose and cheeks, and I used GW Seraphim Sepia to stain his fingers and beard as if from heavy nicotine use. Not sure how much comes through in the photo, but I'm pleased enough with how he turned out.
So that's it for me for 2021. Happiest of holidays, whichever you may celebrate, and may 2022 bring you games and painting time aplenty.
They're veterans of Sigmar alone knows how many skirmishes against the forces of Averland for control of the Black Fire Pass. Hulking greenskins, their low cunning has somehow granted them a glimmering of insight - their own howling mobs having broken and been repulsed by the Imperial pike formations over and over again, these orcs have begun to crudely imitate a pike block themselves. They've also begun dressing in uniforms stripped from Averland's casualties; it remains hotly debated whether this is a simple case of imitation, or if the orcs are dressing in these uniforms as an act of psychological warfare.
As a corollary to the Old World Army Challenge, a bunch of us in the OWAC Facebook group did a 10-figure side challenge this year from October 15th through December 15th. I took the opportunity to paint ten of the Mercenary Orc Spearmen I'd primed for this past OWAC but hadn't gotten around to during the Challenge. These figures are from Warmonger Miniatures.
I'd specified in the fluff I'd written about the WHFB Orc and Goblin army I painted for the OWAC that they originated in the Black Fire Pass of the Old World, linking the Imperial Province of Averland to Tilea, the remaining Dwarf strongholds, and the Border Princes. Averland is my favorite province of the Empire in Warhammer (and a good buddy of mine has been talking about building an old school Averland army for a while now), so my Orc army is peppered with little nods to the province - a dead Averlander under a troll's foot, another in the chuck wagon awaiting his turn in the stew pot, etc.
It was a no-brainer, then, to paint these Landsknecht-style orcs in Averland's colors of yellow and black, and Da Black Fire Boyz were born. Red sashes and feathers provide a unifying third color across the figures.
The standard bearer was originally a halberdier; I cut away his weapon, drilled out his hand and inserted a 4" steel pike from North Star Military Figures to serve as a banner pole. I considered a lot of different designs for the obnoxiously-large banner (2.5" square) including a traditional "Evil Sunz" design, and a very-ambitious "Gork and Mork breaking the two-tailed comet of Sigmar like a Thanksgiving wishbone" idea. Ultimately I traced a heraldic boar head on to both sides of the banner and painted it in the yellow-black-red scheme and I think that worked out best.
The bugler is also converted; he was originally holding a musket in his right hand, which I trimmed away, drilled out and replaced with a plastic spear I had laying around from I think Fire Forge Games.
