Red Ops 5: Asylum Part 2

Here we have the next two gangs I've assembled and painted.  There is no particular order in which I'm doing these: just the next two ziplock bags out of the box.

First up is the Mean Streets gang, so named on as yet unpublished update to Red Ops 5: Asylum.

I took these to be lab workers infected by the virus, so the guy on the left with the baseball bat is painted as a scientist in a white lab coat, and the lab dweeb uniform of Hushpuppies, and various tans for the rest of his clothes. He was painted in my usual block painting and brown wash, as were all of the rest. The next guy has to be an orderly large enough to handle crates, etc.

The third figure from the left is a lab supervisor, mindful of the lab dweeb colors.  He should have had a lead pipe, but I had just seen Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead, an Aussie zombie film on Netflix, so he got a nail gun like the "hero".  I would give it Range 4", Target 2, Impact 1. And last, I read as a security guard.  The figure has rank badges and and insignia on his Ike-type jacket.  I painted a dark stripe down the side of his pants, though it's not visible here.

Now we go to the Merc-Hunters gang, also mentioned in the above update. Before I got that, I termed them survivors.

The first figure is the greying self-proclaimed tough guy with two pistol, one held in a modified gansta grip. He has a knife point-upwards on his chest.  A really nice touch is that the straps on his holsters are separated by air from his hips.  I considered that a really nice touch.  The R-D on the back of his vest is from the movie Re-Kill.  Just can't get enough of zombie movies! My wife immediately called the nest guy, John Henry, the steel drivin' man! His arms were separate at the shoulders, and gave me a hard time connecting.  I finally pinned and filled the joints, but that was the 4th try! He's a very dynamic figure.

The escaped convict is next.  He's a really nice single-piece figure, and the chains are nicely cast. And finally, the modern gladiator(!). I figure he either collected the helmet and shoulder armor, or found them while looting. He then made up the rest of his armor as he found it, including motocross boots. I love his trash can lid shield.  He come with a number of weapons, but I liked the circular saw blade in the automobile part handle (at least that's how I saw it).

Coming up next: the chainsaw gang and the Franken gang!

Hell Hath No Fury Patrol #2

I got a couple of Pendraken M4A4's with the 76mm gun. (I have 8 more on order from the War Store).  I decided that I would have them go after a Tiger I.  There would be the regular 3 PEF's on the board so I wouldn't be sure where it was.  My plans change into a regular patrol quickly and you will see why!

Turn 1: In order to get the game going, the Shermans moved 12" on an invisible road, and the PEF's moved towards them, 1 at 8", and the other 2 at 4" each, as decided by the die rolls.

Turn 2:: US 3 Germans 4

All PEF's move 4" towards the Shermans.  The Shermans' attempts at PEF resolution resulted in them being resolved next turn with 3d6. Note that the Shermans have no LOS to each other, and so operate independently.

Turn 3: US 4 Germans 5

The first PEF to be resolved is the Tiger I.  Insights are US 3 & 1, Tiger 3.

 In the rules, in a tie the player decides who goes first.  Being no idiot, my Sherman #1 goes first with a flank shot and destroys the Tiger I.  Not much of a game!  So the second PEF is resolved as 1 Panzer IV-H.  The In Sights are once again ties.  Since Sherman 1 is unable to turn his turret (only once when active OR move), he Ducks Back.

Turn 4  US 3 Germans 6

Both Shermans move to where they can see the Pzkw IV-H, though Sherman #2 can only see his turret over the rocks.  The German passes more dice on the In Sight that either Sherman, and fires first at Sherman #1.  He misses, a double 6! Sherman #1 returns fire and explodes the Pzkw IV-H!

Turn 5 US 6 Germans 4

The US can't move and the PEF passes 0d6.

Turn 6: US 6 Germans 2

The PEF moves 4" in the village towards the Shermans.

Turn 7 US 3 Germans 5

The US advances to within LOS of the PEF and it turns out to be nothing!

Sherman #1 radios headquarters with the new that the village is clear of German vehicles.

This was a rather more satisfactory result than the previous sortie, posibly because I didn't make so many mistakes.

Now a word about the Pendraken tanks.  I have two M4A4 76mm Shermans and 2 M10's, also a Stug III. My total order is for 2 platoons of M4A4's and one of M10's.  I also have on order 4 Stug III's.War Store warns that he has limited quantities, and orders twice a month.  No problem.  

If you look at the picture of the tank on either website, you can see that the there is a mold registration problem on the turret and gun. This means that the turret and gun top and bottom are slightly off from one another. This requires a bit of work with jeweler's files.  The same hold true for the M10's turret, though it doesn't affect the gun..  I don't consider it too much of a problem, but now you know.

Shanty Town, my Shanty Town, where the lights are ... non-exisitent!

Been a while since my last post.  Real life, as usual.

In a moment of insanity, I decided that it was time to paint about 150 - 200 Peter Pig AK-47 republic figures I bought as a hodgepodge about 10 years ago.  Then somewhere in the past, when Cannon Fodder Miniatures was still selling them, I bought a pack of his African irregulars, recently added to with Rebel Minis' Bongolesia box set.  All of these are, of course, 15mm.

So far, I've only painted Rebel Minis African regulars, close to the picture on his site.

But the recent release of a Shantytown by Finger & Toe decided me to do buildings first.  Originally I reduced the 28mm buildings to 55%, but that made them too small, so I ended up reducing them to 73%, to match up to the ones I had generated in Model Builder at 1/87.

I had found a pack of 50 new, unused Budweiser beer coasters at an Antique store and decided to use them as bases.

Here are the nine bases I made up.  The ground texture is from Finger & Toe.  The roofs with round ventilators on them are from Finger & Toe, as is the two-story hovel.  The fences and the rest of the buildings are my designs.  Finger & Toe's buildings are from a more advanced shanty town than mine, since they have electricity.

This shot is obviously from a passing UN helicopter, but gives you a better idea of the cluster.

And here's a panoramic view featuring the outhouses on the left!

One like this, and one like that.

There is also a need for a more modern town, so I designed these 2 buildings with Model Builder, with signs from PrintMaster.

I'll design more, and place them on some floor tiles Chris Swearingen gave me.

The picture quality is not up to my usual because I didn't use a tripod as I was getting ready to go to Texas and needed to get the buildings off the dining room table!

Oh, though I mentioned AK-47 Republic rules, I won't be using them.  I'll look at Rebel Minis' Modern Havok and Bongolesia, and do what he does; modify something from Two Hour Wargames.

Bayou Wars XXI, June 7 - 9, 2013

Bayou Wars XXI was held a the Doubletree Hotel on Veterans Blvd in Kenner, LA.  It was a chance to run and play enjoyable games with old and new friends.  This is a very gentlemanly convention, with lots of welcoming gamers.

FRIDAY

On Friday, I ran a 5150 Star Army game in which Planetary Defense Force fire teams were pitted against marauding Lhurgg.  The players learned not to engage the Lhurgg in hand-to-hand combat.  Shoot and scoot, if possible!

Chris Swearingen and I ponder the likelihood of the PDF surviving, and completing their mission of clearing the table.  Due to being an early game, we didn't get started for about 30 minutes, waiting for players to join the con.

The lumber yard, from which a small group of Lhurgg attacked, and the PDF Lt. ran away, though all his troops thought little enough of his actions to remain.

Jeremy (center) and Josh Gremillion capably handled their fire teams, as did the young man nest to them.  The ultimate result was that the PDF cleared the ruined factory, but forgot about the lumber yard.  More time might have seen them succeed.  The Lhurgg were run as PDF's, played by Brian Simmons, who arrived late.

These are shots of a beautiful game that I didn't see.  Theresa took all the pictures.

And here we have Duane Rock and Rudy Nelson of Time Portal Hobbies at his dealer's table.

Next to my dealer's table and game table, Ken of All The King's Men ran 54mm ACW games throughout the convention.

Steve Wirth ran a dinosaur game in the other gaming room, and apparently all had fun getting eaten!

Larry Reeves gets a clarification from Steve Wirth.

JonnyCon 4.5 ran a what if game in which the Battle of New Orleans was fought in 1864.  I believe that the Rebels won.

And I tried my hand at the new Star Wars fighter game, and being loyal to the 501st, took a flight of tie fighters to their deaths, though my tie fighter was the last on the table, avoiding damage from a flight of X-wings, with very bad shooting rolls.  Thomas and I gave up both our flight to take out Wedge; an expensive accomplishment.

While we were eating dinner earlier, Elizabeth and Walt Bourgoyne stopped by.  It's always nice to see other gamers wives at the conventions.  Theresa is always there for moral support.

And the Jackson Gamers were getting silly as Jim Campbell puts horns on the svelt Jay Stribling and Phil does his best to ignore them.

SATURDAY

Saturday, of course, is always the big day at a convention.  In order to play in Mark Stevens "colonial" game, I moved my game up to 9am, unfortunately to the disappoint of Mark and Joshua Brown, who didn't arrive in time.

My game was a rip-off of Gunga Din and Mark Stevens' game of Bayou Wars XX.  He's an excellent painter and uses more expensive figures.  I use Ral Partha, being cheap!   I of course used Colonial Adventures 2, by Two Hour Wargames.

Here's the initial layout.

Cutter, Ballentine, and McChesney attempt to fix the the downed telegraph wires.  The buildings were some of the first I built from foamcore about 25 years ago.

Rick Doskey chose the telegraph repair unit and died gloriously to a man, the first unit on the table to do so.

I was quite happy to have Marc Stevens in the game, a dyed-in-the-wool Sword and The Flame man. Of course, he handled his troops well.

Jim Campbell stopped by to take pictures while Duane Guilbeau helped with setting up the Pathans!  Duane is another disciple of Two Hour Games, and active on the Yahoo group.

And we finally got to meet Duane's lovely wife, Theresa!  In the background in the green shirt is Mike Bobbe of Bobbe's Hobbies, Pensacola, FL, who is running Pelicon III on the 29th of June, a great one-day con near the Pensacola Air Museum (Yeah, they're both in Pensacola)

And, of course, I'm carrying the dispatches.  The Brits won the day; the Highlanders were the deciding factor.  Without them, the Indian troops might have been wiped out.  As it was, it was a neat thing.

I'd like to thank brother-in-law Ron Gros for running Saga in that helmet, making sure that I didn't have the silliest hat!

These are the pics Theresa took of Saga units.  Ron ran this all day long, teaching the rules.

Allie of +1 Gaming playing on the Portmouths Games table.  Lovely looking game that never seems to start when I'm available.

Marc Stevens game of Napoleon in Egypt.

The British commanders, Jim Pitts, Al Himmel, Richard, me (GOC) Larry Reeves son, and Larry himself.

Mark Brown and Martha Stevens, French commanders.

Our right flank crumpled as our cavalry was outnumbered 3 to 1.  The worst troops on the board, the Ottomans, led by Larry Reeves crumpled the French right flank, and my Guards brigade threw the French center back.  The French had to occupy the two buildings on the board.  They never seriously threatened the one on our left, and bypassed the one on our right without bothering to occupy it.

Chris Swearingen ran a great early France WWII game using NUTS! 2nd edition.  I took HQ, a squad, and the HMG detachment.  Brian Simmons bravely took the lead ahead of me and suffered for it.  Even the Stuka attack that should have landed on me deviated to Brian.  The Germans were PDF's run by Chris.

Brian and I get last minute instructions from GM Chris.

All of the PDF's have not yet revealed themselves.  A Stug IIIa appeared on the left and held us up, while a German squad with a MG34 did damage to the left until finally a Rep 4 activation allowed my HMG team to do away with them.  We won, but there were a lot of Adrian helmets to put atop rude crosses.

   

                                      

Here a couple of pics of a Star Wars game atop CorSec Engineering's beautiful Red Nova mat.

These are pics of games that I did not get to see.

SUNDAY

Of course, on Sunday many of our friends are checking out of the hotel, but I managed to gather 17 players for my Six Gun Sound: Blaze Of Glory (Two Hour Wargames) hillbilly game.

Yes, I know many GM's despair over playsheets on the table, but it's my Sunday Morning Brain Dead Game, and neatness doesn't count!  The Clampetts were angry because the Skaggs had killed one of Ellie Mae's racoon and made soup.  The Skraggs were in a foul mood because Jethro Bodine had impregnated Laurie Lee and never crossed the river again.

At the end of the game, the last Clampett blew up the kerosene tank behind the store (the only place to replace ammo), and the remaining Skraggs rolled off for the 'valuable' prize of a hillbilly dice bag.

Ron Francis' possum-eatin' grin!

Marshall and Mark Mod

Ashley Nicholls and Jeremy Gremillion

Rick Doskey wisely played Laurie Lee and survived the whole game, for once!  Allie sits in disbelief.

Angela played Ellie Mae and was unfortunately shot down before any of her critters could come to her aid.  The shock around the table as our Baton Rouge star bit the big one!

 The bloody bridge!  I painted it Sunday morning!

 I laugh as silly things happen to Ashley Nicholls and Josh Brown.

 Apparently the far end of the table was invaded by some alien who had no effect on the game.

 Rick Doskey gloats as Laurie Lee survives the slaughter.

And Allie of +One Gaming wins thd coveted dice bag!

Angela and Brian Simmons take their prize home!

The final gasp of JonnyCon 4.5

Duane Rock does all of this terrain.  The fences have plastic tubes inserted into the stryofoam that they fit into quite sturdily.

Well, as always it was a great con.  Special thanks go the the Board of Directors for keeping it going, and to all the GM's and players for making it so enjoyable.