Black Powder ACW game

So,
Last Sunday, 5/26/2013, a bunch of us got together to throw down an epic game of Black Powder American Civil War at Crusaders Retreat. The players were Robert B, Mike W and myself taking control of the Confederates while Tom O, Tom F, Dave C and Al R took the Union. The battle Field was a massive 12'x6' table that Robert, Tom and myself provide terrain for. Also quite impressive was the number of figures seen on the table, about 800, all painted (which is something sadly not seen very often in game stores now).

Robert has done a full report on the game found here so I will not re-tell the sad story of how the Confederates lost. The only thing I will say is that my Brigade Commander is very good at sitting by the river in the shade sipping on Sweet Tea! Commanding a brigade is tough work, but not for me apparently! So here are the pictures I took during the game.

The Table with Mike looking on in awe!

Here is the Camp that Saguaro painting Service did for Tom O

Here is the Perry Church built and painted by SPS

on the left, two Arnica buildings, while on the right Perry buildings

Perry Home

Arnica buildings in the back with a Perry Store in front

Confederates take the Camp

 

Confederates move the cannon into position on the road

Confederates prepare to get their feet wet

The Tigers go on the move

The only time Dave's Cannon would be on the table

Union forces are everywhere!

Light Blue is such a pretty color for fighting in!

A view to kill atop the hill

Union Leadership

The Tigers prepare to cross at the ford

The Union made it to the camp first

Some of the Union Generals

Who said 4 Brigades to 3 was fair?

My Brigade sitting in the shade down by the river!

No, the water is too cold, we will stay on this side!

Over the fence and through the river

The town is now under Union control

The union line on the left flank

Union vs Confederates prepare to charge!

Union soldiers hiding behind a picket fence

Wait a minute, what happened to the left flank?

There is too many sir!

Shoot them!

General Brightwell of the South!

The Union side

They are everywhere!

Overall the game was a blast and we will be doing this again, thanks to Dav at Crusaders Retreat and for all the Generals!

TK

Bolt Action Weekend!

So,

This was a good week for gaming Bolt Action, I got in three games this week. First up Mike W came over Thursday night and we threw down a 1000 point game. This was Mike's first full 1000 point game and the first time I think he actually played a official scenario (Envelopment). In order for Mike to play 1000 points, he had to take all Veterans for his American force. My list was as follows and I took it from the Defense of Italy list in the German :

Veteran 1st Lieutenant with 2 additional veterans - 116

10 Veteran Heer Grenadier with 2 SMG and 1 LMG - 156

10 Veteran Heer Grenadier with 1 SMG and 1 LMG - 153

10 Regular Heer Grenadier with 2 SMG and 1 LMG - 126

2 Regular Medium Machine Guns - 100

1 Regular PaK38 - 75

1 Regular Panzer IV G  - 235

Total points = 961

1000 point Heer Grenadier army

Needless to say, I did not do so well, in fact I lost to Mike's all Veteran American list. It seems that you can take all Veterans if you choose your list out of the main rulebook. We did a few things wrong, but it was a great game.

Well today Rob came over and we played not one game, but two games of Bolt Action. I took the easy way out and took the above list from Thursday night. Rob took a Regular American Infantry force which had 11 units to my 8. Game 1 was Demolition and neither one of us were able to destroy the others objective. So since we did not blow anything up, the game came down to a Draw (Woo Hoo, not a loss). It was a very close game and Rob's Americans were pretty beat up. I felt pretty good about what I had done but I made a huge mistake in turn 3 by not pushing a flank for his objective. This would come back to haunt me since by turn 7 I was still 12" from his objective. If I had been a bit more aggressive I could have possibly won the game.

Searching for a target

After a quick lunch break, we re-set the terrain and played our 2nd game (Maximum Attrition). We each used the same forces from the previous game and things were looking like they were going my way for the first few turns. Then things went horribly wrong for me. Rob's dice got hot and he started pushing my right flank, he blew up my Panzer IV and moved out of sight of the PaK 38. By turn 5 I pretty much knew the game was lost and to make matters worse, we went to turn 7 (variable turn after turn 6). After we played the last turn we looked at the Victory conditions, we both thought it was how many points we each destroyed, but it was one point for each unit destroyed. In order to win you had to do two more points than your opponent. Well Rob destroyed my Regular Heer squad, the Panzer IV, one Veteran Heer squad and a Mg team for 4 points. I destroyed 3 of his units. So since he did not kill one more unit, it was 4 to 3 and not enough for a win, just a draw! (Woo Hoo!) It was a strange game and we both thought Rob had won, but no, it was only a Draw.

So after three games this wee, I had 0 Wins, 2 Draws and 1 Loss. Not bad since the two Draws were not loss'. It was nice to get Bolt Action on the table and even though some things still feel weird, it looks like we will be playing more games and also Rob and I are talking about doing some games of Bolt Action for the Crete Invasion. So stay tuned...

TK

Extra Extra, Pulp Alley has arrived!!

Okay,

As some know, I am a huge fan of Pulp games, I guess it must come from watching all the Indiana Jones Movies when I was younger (Yes I saw them in a movie theater and on opening night!) Also it must come from my time while working at Disneyland on the Jungle Cruise and Indiana Jones and the Temple of the Forbidden Eye.

Anyway, like most gamers that have been inspired, I wanted to re create these on the table top. For a few years my buddy Mike and I have been looking for a good set of Pulp rules. We tried a few of them and even used a conversion of the Lord of the Rings/Legends rules. Each one had it's plus' and minus' but nothing really ever felt right.

Well about a month ago while surfing the Lead Adventures Forum I came across a Father and Daughter team (Dave Phipps and Mila) that were working on a set of rules. So I dug a bit deeper and found that they had released their own set of rules called Pulp Alley. So after reading a few AAR reports on LAF and getting a reply from Dave himself on the forums, I decided to go ahead and purchase the rules.

Here they are in all their glory!

 I opted to go for the Combo pack which included a PDF, the Printed rules and a Fortune Deck. The rulebook is slim and looks like a Pulp Comic book, in fact it came in a comic book slip cover with a cardboard backing that was signed by Dave and Mila, a nice little touch!

Signed by the Authors!

 Here is a brief description from Dave on how the rules play:

The Turn Sequence is pretty simple --

Start of Turn
1. DRAW — Draw one Fortune card.

Action Sequence
2. DIRECT — The player with Initiative decides who will activate the next character.
3. ACT — The activated character may move, perform an action, or attack.
     Repeat steps 2 & 3 until all characters have activated.

End of Turn
4. RECOVER — Injured characters may recover.

"Control of the Initiative" -- Unlike checkers, players do not take turns moving models. Instead, the player who currently controls the Initiative can decide which player has to activate a character. In this way, they have a little more control over the flow of the game... but only for as long as they can hold on to it. Be assured, other players will be trying to take the Initiative.

"Hey, they shoot back!" -- When a character attacks another character they best be prepared for the other guy to fight back - immediately. In this way, combat can actually be simultaneously dangerous for both characters. And while we're talking about fighting, here's a little example ---

Let's say you have your character shoot at an enemy. Based on their profiles and any modifiers, both character will roll 3d8 ---

Your guy rolls a 5, 6, and 8
The enemy rolls a 3 (miss), 5, and 6

I should mention that the target number in Pulp Alley is always a 4+. So, in this case your guy rolled 3 hits, and the enemy rolled 2 hits. As the 'attacker' you actually have some control of how this fight plays out --

Option #1 — You could choose to match two of your dice, like your 5 and 6 against their 5 and  6. In this case you only inflict 1 hit, but you do not take any hits. Or maybe you would not play it so safe…

Option #2 — You could match one of your successes, like your 6 against their 6. In which case, you inflict 2 hits but suffer 1 hit in return. Or would you press your luck...

Option #3 — You could go all-out, choosing not to match any dice. You inflict 3 hits but also suffer 2 hits in exchange.

These options represent the split-second tactics fighters use. Is your guy playing it safe or going for blood?

"THE CARDS" -- The cards serve two purposes. The top half of each card describes an unexpected event or situation brought about by luck or skillful planning. The bottom half of each card outlines an important or dangerous challenge. Most often, this relates directly to encountering Perils and Plot Points.

"PLOT POINTS" -- You can think of these simply as 'objectives'. Every scenario is built around the idea of completing/capturing/holding these points. Within the context of the rules, plot points are very important. In addition to giving the scenario more meaning and background, plot points provide you with the means to....

Control the Initiative.
Earn scenario bonuses.
Earn post-scenario resources.
Earn experience for your league.
Develop your league’s reputation.
Determine victory.

So there you go, a short brief from the author himself. You can see more on the LAF forum under the Pulp Section. Once again, the rulebook is slender (45 pages) compared to some, but after reading through them, you really do not need much more rules. As I get older, I want a fun set of rules and I do not need 400+ pages of stuff, give me the rules so I can play.

The front Cover and the Fortune Deck.

The inside of the book is well laid out and easy to read. Graphics and pictures are well done and after reading through the rules I had very few things that I had to look up. Dave & Mila did a great job getting to the point so you can get playing quickly. I like that in rules,give me the nitty gritty and leave the fluff for others. I want to get playing as soon as possible, something that some current rules do not do anymore.

Well laid out rules and nice graphics.

One other thing that drew me to these rules is that this is a Father and Daughter project. it seems that Dave has passed on the gaming gene to his daughter which is awesome. Besides sharing his love of gaming, he was able to work on these rules with his daughter, which is priceless! To be able to share your hobby with your kids is great, especially in this age of X-box, PS3 and Cell phones is awesome. Good job Dave!

So if your looking for a fun set of Pulp rules, than look no further, Pulp Alley is for you! I look forward to getting a game of this on the table next week sometime, so stay tuned for some Pulp Alley reports on the near future!

Shruken Ned gives Pulp Alley two thumbs up, thats if he had thumbs!

Here is a bonus picture for you, yours truly at the helm of one of the Infamous Jungle Cruise boats back in the day! Yes folks that's me, your cruise directer for the next 4days and 6 nights! No I don't shoot the breeze, I shoot the Hippos! Move it up Skip!

Jungle Cruise Skipper Tim! Late 80's early 90's!

TK

A Strange Day

So,

Today was a strange day, you see Rob and I were going to throw down a game of Bolt Action today. He rolled over here around 10:00 this morning with his stuff and I had cleared the table off to play. But our discussion was not about Bolt Action, but of our up coming Black Powder ACW game. We talked for about an hour or so and it was all about the ACW game. I then told him that I wanted to play Bolt Action, but would rather be playing Black Powder.

It seems that the Bolt Action game is just.. well just okay. Both of us agree that it is a good game, but it has us both feeling like we are missing something from the game. I mean it just doesn't really have anything that sort of grabs you and wants to make you play. I don't know, I want to be excited about this game, but it is just not doing it. Now when I played Battelground, Arc of Fire and some others, those games made me want to play more games. But Bolt Action has me feeling like there should be more, sort of like drinking a flat soda, it taste the same, but is flat and therefore not the same.

So instead of playing a game, we did an early lunch and hit up two local shops, Crusaders Retreat and Imperial Outpost Games. Rob picked up a Wargames Factory box set of Vikings and I did not find anything even though I had money to spend.

Also tonight seems to be a bit strange as well, for the first time in a while I am able to work on a few things for myself instead of for others (the next commission was primed and drying). So I decided to work on a little surprise belated Christmas/Birthday gift for my brother. Way back when, I used to play AD&D and we had a nice small little group of players. Well as a prerequisite for our AD&D games, I had the players buy miniatures of the characters. Well that was a long time ago and I just recently (last year) found the old metal figures. So I decided last year that I would re-paint them up and give them to my brother as a gift. Well I got busy and it never happened.

But about a month ago I figured I should try again to get this little diorama completed for my brothers birthday on June 26th. So here is a little shot of what got done tonight as well as what I have planned. First up is the overall diorama, it is mounted on a Gailforce 9 60mm base and has five figures on it, representing four characters coming down a spiral staircase and one monster ready to pounce on them (as it always seemed to happen in games).

To Boldly Go

First up is the spiral stairway that my friend John over at Plastic Legions did up for me out of Hirst Arts castings. I e-mailed John the week before Adepticon to see if he had anything like this lying around. Luckily for me he did and he packed it up and sent it out to me, thanks John!!

Got to have stairs!

Next up is my buddy Don Gow's character, Dijion Boarhog, a fighter that seemed to carry everything he ever found with him on his character sheet. This model is an old Citadel miniature thief model from the mid 1980's. The model used to be mounted on a old Hex base and once I took it off the base, I noticed just how small the figure was next to the old Ral Partha models. So I cut his boots off at the knee and added to boots from an old Bretonnia archer and pinned them onto the Dijon here, could not have the fighter being smaller than the elves!

Dijon Boarhog with some new shoes!

Next up came my brothers character, Krrf Oakleaf who was a thief.(Krrf is the name of a drug from the story Thieves World). This is an old Ral Partha model from the mid 1980's as well. Krrf did not need anything but to be removed from his cast on metal base. Oh and you will notice that I have already stripped the models some what because the paint jobs were terrible. I should have taken pictures of them before I stripped them, but that was done last year, trust me, they were bad!

Krrf in all his glory

Next up is Pathos the Cleric, This was another character that my buddy Don ran along with Dijon. In the game, he was the healer and pack mule since that was how Don played him. Got extra stuff, give it to Pathos, he did not care, heck his deity was Boccob, known as the Uncaring. It was funny, when Don would ask me (the DM) by having Pathos pray to his god, I would always give him vague answers since he did not care! This model was from the Ral Partha 3 stage pack and I still have the other two figures from the pack.

Pathos, the great uncaring pack mule!

Lastly we have Blackmoor, a dark elf Fighter/Magic user played by my buddy Jeff Ott. This is another old Ral Partha figure and Jeff wanted to play something different, so he asked if he could play a dark elf. I think he started playing this character right before the Forgotten Realms books came out about Drizzt, I can't remember now. This is another one of the Ral Partha 3 stage models as well.

Blackmoor being all magical!

Last figure on this little diorama is an old Grenadier Beholder out of box 2012 Dwellers Below set. It is one of the first monster miniatures I used in a game and looks perfect hiding under the stairs, plus it fit under there as well. I picked this model up in the mid 1980's as well and it is an oldie but a goodie.

I see you!

So there you go, you get to see what I am working on for myself right now, stay tuned as I will be posting pictures up along the way of the painting and finished diorama. I just hope I can get it done by June 26th...

TK

Searching for...A Common Goal?

So,

I have been in a weird mood of late towards my gaming, not sure why just feel like I want to do something more. In fact today, I entertained the idea of taking my game table down and replace it with a Model Railroad layout (something I always wanted to do). But after talking with Robert and thinking about it all day I knew that was a bad idea. But it did make me wonder why I entertained the idea and I may have figured it out.

You see about 16 years ago I was a big time Model Railroader and was part of the Orange County Modular Railroaders, in fact I was President of the club for two years. My goal while I was the President was to improve the quality of our scenery and I was able to inspire most of the club members to join in (which it seems is still a main focus of the group today). There was something about all of us coming together for a common goal.

Prior to leaving Southern California, I started playing Warhammer Fantasy with some friends from work. We would get together and play all day starting at 8:00am and going until 8:00pm. My good friend (Ed Kastler) would host these WFB days and besides playing and having it at his place, he would also BBQ lunch and dinner for us (as well as make Breakfast). There was four of us and we were all working on building our armies together. In fact, one stipulation was that you had to have at least one unit completed each month. Since we all worked together, we all did lunch together and talk was of course about WFB and what we were working on. In fact at lunch we would make trips out to Brookhurst Hobbies to purchase new models (one advantage to having an hour for lunch and only being 15 minutes away from Brookhurst). Good times were had by all and we actually had almost all the armies covered by the time I came out to Phoenix. Once again it was the camaraderie of all of us working on a common goal.

We now move forward a few years and as some know, Gathering in the Desert started and once again I was trying to inspire folks around me to build 600 point armies for Lord of the Rings. I would say it was a success and many folks from around the country participated in the events over a 5 year period. My goal was to run the best looking and best run event that I could do and from what friends have said, I was a huge success. But once again it was all about bringing a community together for a common cause or event. (See a pattern here?)

So to take this back to the top, it is the camaraderie of doing a large project that I am missing or to put it another way, the common goal. So that is what I am looking for, something big to be a part of. I have tried with a few friends to get them involved in some big plans, but it never panned out. Either we all wanted different things, or just had no interest.  I often wonder if I am the only one that feels that way because most of my friends seem to have gamer ADD and bounce off to other projects. I too have a bit of gamer ADD, but not as bad as some I know (you know who you are!).

I look at groups of gamers like the guys over at The Guns of April  and wonder how do they get everyone all on the same page. I know most of these guys (Both Dave's, Jamie, Merle) and they too have some gamer ADD in them, but they have found common ground and have for a second year been able to put on a good game (well the second game will be this weekend at Adepticon). Does it take something like a major event to get people excited and too participate? It happened for Gathering in the Desert, so maybe that is it, I don't know.

One thing I do know is that I am still looking for that next big thing or common goal. I may have found it with ACW Black Powder game that I played in a few months back with friends. It seems that we are going to get together again in May to play another game. While talking to Robert tonight, I decided that I will build a Brigade of Confederates to hopefully play in the game, so in a way, I may have found that common goal. I know that another buddy of mine (Dave C) is going to join in as well as he has been working on some ACW stuff lately.

So to come full circle, that is what has gotten me in a weird mood, it is the lack of a common goal, I believe I may have found it and I hope it inspires other folks. If not, oh well, it will be just Robert and I plugging away at it.

TK

US Paratroops are on the ground!

So, a few months ago, myself, Jerry and Mike set out on a little paint challenge called the Tale of Three, you can see the rules here.

Well, I got the first installment done with now problem but once that was complete, real life got involved and I missed the next two installments. Well a few weeks ago I had a window of time open and I busted out the missed installments as well as the rest of the army!

Yeah, I know, this may be seen as cheating, but when you have a busy paint business that you run, you do not get much time to paint for yourself, so I just slammed it home. Here are the pictures of the finished project.

The Whole Airborne Force!

Stick 1

Stick 2

Stick 3

Stick 4

 Yes, that is 4 sticks (or Squads) of 12men each giving me 48 paratroopers, more than I will ever use but hey, I love these figures!

Bazooka Teams

81mm Mortar

Now, below is a conversion that I did for the para sniper. I had bought a blister of Warlord US Paras, but 2 of the figures that were kneeling had the gun barrels broke off at the end. Well I contacted Warlord and they sent me the replacements. But As I waited, I had an idea to use some of the Plastic Warlord parts to convert a sniper. So I cut of the cast on hands and cut away the gun as close as I could and replaced it with the plastic Sniper rifle and a set of plastic hands from the Warlord US plastic box set. After about an hour of work, this is what I got! I am pretty happy with it and it is a great figure for my paras.

Sniper Team

.30 cal teams

Command Squad

75mm Howitzer

75mm Howitzer

57mm Anti tank gun

57mm again

Back of 57mm

Close up of army

Close up again

Last close up

So there you go, my US Airborne troops are done and now I have an American force for Bolt Action. I am glad to get these figures painted, they have been sitting for about 6 years awaiting paint, so I feel good about finely getting paint on them.

Next up will be some Dark Age stuff (man that stuff is huge!) and I just played my first game of Saga this weekend and had a blast. I will be getting out my Viking Army to rob figures for a Viking warband for Saga, oh heck who am I kidding, I want some new Vikings!!!

TK