As I mentioned in a previous post I've found myself quite energised about Team Yankee after FlamesCon 2018. One of the outcomes of this is a desire to paint an expansion pack for my Canadians. Right now I have a solid 100 point Force but looking through some of my options about how to expand it I found a wealth of options that I have previously discarded, but now with a little game time I find quite desirable.
So what's has me wanting to pull out the brushes? Infantry I really enjoyed how my single platoon performed in-game so adding a second platoon, and therefore a second Formation, is looking really good as a tactical choice. In fact a lot of my painting requirements stem from this. I have the Formation commander painted already, so this just means adding 4 M113s and the full strength infantry platoon. SP Mortars and an OP Adding a cheap battery of M125s are a no-brainer as far as I am concerned. They count for the Formation morale, have smoke, and best of all I have two painted already (for some unknown reason).
The OP is as much about the hobby opportunity as anything. I figured I guy either crouching on top of the M113, or high up in the commanders station with some maps on front of him would be fun. TOW Launchers The ADATS is great (with a capital G) but also quite expensive. An infantry Formation can pack a lot of M150 TOWs and they are fairly cheap, but quite lethal vs most enemy tanks. Plus I get to shoe horn a few more M113s into my army. Leopard 2 tanks? The Canadians didn't get Leopard 2s till fairly recently but that is not to say they wouldn't have acquired a platoon somehow during a hypothetical WWIII. If I painted 5 I could run them as an allied Formation.... Tornados I have four F-18 Hornets at home assembled and ready to paint, along with some period correct (more or less) Canadian decals. Plus Hornets are cool. More ADATS and Blowpipes? Not on the list, but very tempted to fill out the platoons. After-all if I am going to paint this many things, what is another 5. There you have it, I just want to paint another 35-40 things to round out the Army... hmm, lets hope my newfound energy lasts long enough to even build all this stuff!
Not long before FlamesCon 2018 (9 hours before if I am being precise) I finished my Canadians Force for Team Yankee. I am really pleased with how the army turned out, especially since I experienced a few "speed-wobbles" during the painting where I thought that the Leopards were going to be way to dark and boring. Luckily a combination of a little remedial dry brushing and a decent matt varnish pulled them back.
Scroll down past the images to find out why I say "Finished?" in the title.
The HQ Platoon (minus 1 Leopard 1)
There are another 16 more Leopard 1 tanks, all looking like this... so many tanks!
The Company Commander with the "39" tank.
Some of the M113 APCs
Canadian flag on the front, vehicle numbers on the side in low-vis black and high-vis white on the rear
M150 TOW Platoon
And a look at some of their markings
Crowd favourite, the ADATS
Blowpipes, for a little extra AA support
Two units of Recce Lynx
And a closeup of their markings.
And some of the infantry (as used in Free Nations)
So why did I say "Finished?" A couple of reasons really.
Firstly, I found that even though I applied fresh gloss varnish under my decals, and then put two coats of DecalSol on them I still got quite a bit of silvering. I did a little experiment where I used a very sharp blade to pop a few small holes in the decals, as well as cutting them along panel lines, then reapplying DecalSol and this seems to have helped. 4 vehicles down, now I just need to do the other thirty-something.
Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, I really enjoyed running this army at FlamesCon and so now I found myself wanting to add a bit more to the force, just to round it it. Stay tuned for more on this topic.
Battlestar Galactica (or BSG) was one of my favourite TV shows growing up as a kid. When it returned to the small screen in 2004 I was pretty excited - I can still remember watching the Pilot whilst my nephew fell asleep on me (he was a pretty small toddler at the time). The combination of outstanding story lines, brilliant "WW2 gun camera" style space cinematography and deep characters made it a must-see each week for me. Fast forward some years and the FFG Board Game came along and it was equally brilliant. I've played many games, lost more than I have won, and been excited to play it each and every time.
Now we get a chance to scratch that BSG itch again with a new spaceship game (from Ares Games) that promises a lot! Best of all I've managed to get hold of a copy thanks to some friends that went along to Essen SPIEL last month..
The box.... it is just a box.
Lifting the lid we find... some amazing ships (more on this at the end), flight dials and stands
The flight dials are pretty cool and give a little heads up on the complexity of the game
Next up we find the rule book, scenario book and ship ID tokens
A quick look at the Index. I've got some early thoughts to share (in a later post) about the rules
Tokens and templates. I wondered why the Asteroids were on a thinner cardboard stock. Presume it is because of the movement mechanics?
The bottom layer is filled with movement cards, pilot and ship cards and upgrades. Not a single square piece of paper in sight...
And now what you have really been waiting for.... The Raider: A surprisingly impressive paint job. I expected much less detail if I am being blunt.
Apollo's Viper: Apollo's ship looks nicely battered and weathered. I didn't even see some of the detail till I took these photos and looked at it at 400% size on my screen.
A bit blurry... sorry.
Hardball's Viper: Hardball's ship is much cleaner, but no less detailed.
Viper Comparison: A top down view of the two ships to see the major differences.
Thinking about the components (excluding the ships) they are nicely printed, stored in some useful vac trays, with really high quality pieces. You can see why the game has a higher RRP than X-Wing. The ships however are where the game truly shines, and shines brightly for that matter. They are absolutely fantastic. I don't mean that in a "oh these are mass produced so how high a quality can you expect" kind of way. I mean it in a "these are painted better than I would paint them" kind of way. By comparison they are as good, or better than ANY FFG X-Wing model. I guess I should have expected this high level of quality given their Wings of War aircraft, but I was still blown away. Now for the rules.... stay tuned. I've read them once, didn't quite "get" them and watched a couple of the GENCON videos to help.
Well another FlamesCon has come and gone... and this one has left me really buzzing! The Turnout: This year was (I think) the beginning of a resurgence for Flames Of War in New Zealand. Going back a few years we could comfortably count on 45-50 attendees to a FlamesCon, but as V3 became more convoluted and bogged down with contextual rules and clarifications the numbers began to drop.
The release of V4 certainly saw the event (last year) take another hit, much like other events around the world as there just wasn't enough Mid War lists to make the period interesting. This year the organisers decided to run Late War, with (hopefully) an eye towards Mid War next year. It was really heartening to see so many players coming out of the woodwork to see what V4 was like. Best of all, everyone had good things to say about the new version. The numbers were still down on the days of old (with about 30 players across Flames Of War and Team Yankee) but I finished the weekend with a good feeling about the turnout for FlamesCon 2019. The Gaming:
Team Yankee is taking its own good time to build up momentum in New Zealand (looking forward to Panzerschreck 2019!) as there are plenty of people with armies but not as many coming out to play. One positive of this was that with an 8 player event, I got to play everyone except the eventual winner, Andrew Duncan. It was quite nice to face off against almost everyone over the course of the event. I can say without shadow of a doubt it was also one of the most enjoyable events from a gaming perspective. I really enjoyed all my games, felt like I had a chance of winning, felt like I had a chance of losing, and thoroughly enjoyed hanging out with my opponents. I cannot recall the last time where I finished an event and could honestly say that. Two thumbs up! The Army:
"I starting building my Canadians before they were cool" was my catchphrase for the weekend. Long before Free Nations was on a writers schedule, I was planning to build the army. Sadly, is an indictment on how long it takes me to finish an army these days that I was doing the final painting and varnishing at 11.30pm on the Friday before the tournament. My list was simple (click the image for a bigger version) and built around a lot of Leopard 1 tanks, some infantry and anti-tank assets. It was a blast to run! The Leopard 1 tanks were awesome at killing things and burnt so brightly when they got lit up by anything (Carl Gustavs, Milans, 120mm AP rounds, as well as the odd HESH round from a Scorpions 76mm gun). The ADATS was fun, but tended to be targeted quickly once people realised how good it was! My star performers were probably the infantry, mainly because;
I like how they turned out (paint job wise),
they are fairly useful on the table,
and they are great for taking (and holding) ground when the Leopards couldn't brave the enemy RPGs and Charlie G's!
The Final Word:
Great event, great opponents, middling result (5th, I think, out of 8), but with a Best Painted award! Believe me when I say that has been a topic of much good-natured abuse around the office. Roll on FlamesCon 2019 I say! If you want to check out my photo dumps from the event, including army shots click the links below. Team Yankee Armies... Flames Of War Armies... Day One Gaming Shots...
Team Yankee has really captured my gaming imagination over the past couple of years and
whilst I started with World War II and Napoleonics, the passion for WWIII has always
lurked just under the surface (much like a Los Angeles submarine hunting
its prey) waiting for a chance to burst out.
I have a few armies on
the painting table and for the past few months I've been slowly putting
together a plan to add a Czechoslovak force to that list. I cannot really explain
why this particular force has captured my eye other than perhaps a
strange liking of the Vz.61 Skorpion thanks to playing Twilight 2000 all
those years ago?
The Czechoslovak People’s Army in Team Yankee is much like the other Warsaw Pact nations in that they have 2nd line tanks with the T-72M and T-55AM2, along with a few other (super cool looking) locally built vehicles like the DANA SP Artillery and OT-64 APC. They lack the really first line gear that the Soviets have but make up for by just being cool.
Other than gear, where the Czechoslovakians differ from their allies is their Courage and Skill ratings. They have a base Courage of 5+, whereas the East Germans have a 4+. This represents a little less commitment to the cause than their allies and some long memories going back to 1968. They also have a slightly lower Counterattack (1 point less). This means that for a company of T-72Ms you are paying 1 point less at the bottom end with 3 for 6 points vs 7 points (for the East Germans) and 27 points for 10 tanks, vs 35 points. When it comes to T-55AM2 Companies it is a similar story with 5 tanks costing 1 point less and 10 tanks being 3 points cheaper (at a total of 13 points). My current plan is to finish building two T-55A2 Companies, each of 16 tanks. These would be supported with integral (min strength) infantry Companies in OT-64 armoured personnel carriers, small scout platoons with BRDM-2 and perhaps (depending on points) some AA in the form of some SA-9 Gaskins. Each of these companies come in at 28 points (or less depending on how I support the infantry).
They would form the aggressive core of the force, pushing forward to get up close with the enemy and hopefully causing some casualties to the enemy support elements or even their tanks if I can hit the flanks. To give the Force a little more punch I'd add some T-72M tanks. Ten of these backed up with some infantry in BMP-2 APCs and BMP-1 Scouts are 35 points. In a 100 point game this doesn't leave me with much left over for support units, however I can either chose to play a bigger game, or drop a Tank Company (either the T-72Ms or T-55AM2s) or merge them by swapping the 3rd platoon in the T-55AM2 Companies with some T-72Ms. Assuming I get everything built and painted I'll have plenty of options to choose from! To support the Force, I have a wealth of very nice options.
Hinds - yes please.
DANA SP 152mm guns - wait till you see what they look like.
RM-70 Rocket Launchers - oh why not!
Spandrels - because I can.
SU-25 Frogfoots - it would be rude not too as the Czechoslovakian Air Force was one of the few (in addition to the Soviets) that used them.
Hinds helicopters are problem solvers in my opinion. Their Spiral AT missiles are more than capable of knocking out enemy tanks whilst their save means they have a good chance of ignoring enemy ground fire.
Because they are airborne they can move around the table with far more freedom than my ground based anti-armour assets and unlike all other helicopters they can move and shoot their missiles.
Plus, they look cool, and there are specific Czechoslovakian Hind decals!
Next up are the DANA Self-propelled 152mm guns. As Leeloo said, "Big Badda Boom!" These look phenomenal and pack some fairly serious firepower with AT 4 vs top armour and 2+ Firepower. They also have the Autoloader rule which means you reduce the score to hit teams under the template by 1.
Oh, and did I mention the words Smoke Bombardment? Just another tool in their arsenal.
RM-70 Rocket Launchers are what you get when you take a Hail (or Grad) rocket system and put it on a much better-looking truck.
Thanks to their nice large Salvo template they should provide a useful option for taking on British Milan teams. The addition of some Spandrels to the Force is a bit of a no-brainer to me as they come in at a very affordable 2 points for 3 vehicles and their AT 21 missiles are quite potent on the battlefield. Plus, they have wheels and in this force anything with wheels gets a look in.
Last, but certainly not least is the crowd favourite, the SU-25 Frogfoot. Much like the Hind, they benefit from the ability to target models that think themselves safe hiding behind terrain. Their Kh-25 missiles are deadly with a capital D thanks to AT 27, Firepower 2+, and just to finish it off, Brutal, Guided and HEAT.
They will find you, and they will kill you. Of course, they only turn up half the time so a bad series of dice rolls could result in 21 points and 6 Frogfoots never turning up... so don't roll badly! With so many projects that I want to work on I had better start planning my Christmas holidays!
Long-time readers will remember that many years ago (when it first came out even) I dived into Dystopian Wars by Spartan Games. In the designers words... The year is 1870.
The World is at War. The world of Dystopian Wars is similar to our own but subtly
different. The year is 1870 and the Industrial Revolution occurred
decades earlier than in our own world. Technology is far advanced, and
in many cases, unrecognisable, which has led to the development of
fantastic naval vessels, hulking land ships and terror from the skies in
the form of airships and war balloons.
Let's recap
Ships
Cool Technology
Really Big Ships
War Balloons?
Needless to say, it ticked many boxes for me and in no time had I picked up a small pile of ships and even painted up a decent chunk of them. The story gets a little less happy from here.... over the years the designers kept making outstandingly cool models, which I of course kept buying and stashing away. Unfortunately, I never played enough games to really bed the fundamental mechanics in my head and over the course of a relatively small number of years we saw V1, then V1.1, then V2 and subsequently V2.5 of the rules published. So, with a small number of games and so many improvements to the rules happening I ended up just putting the game (and the models) on the shelf. As I said I still kept picking up models along the way (very happy to have the Ice Maiden! above right) but without a whole lot of desire to do much more. Unfortunately the story gets even worse here as a little over a year ago Spartan Games ceased trading. I was fortunate enough over the years to have traded a number of emails with the folks at Spartan and found them to be a great bunch of passionate people. Seeing the company close the doors was an obvious loss to those of us in the community as well of course to the staff that had poured their heart and soul into the business. So this is where the worm turns a little. Warcradle Studios (a subsidiary of Wayland Games) bought the rights to Dystopian Wars along with some of the other Spartan Games properties. On a personal level this was great as it meant that the game would continue to live on but I still had very limited reasons to play or paint my models. And now the happy ending... (for me that is). Recently an old colleague, and once again colleague, Victor, dusted off his old ships and challenged me to a game. Armed with the "new" 2.5 edition of the rules and the Fleet Action 'fast play' version we sat down to a game one evening. The Fleet Action rules are... ...the new fast play game engine set in the world of Dystopian Wars,
which will allow you to take your existing forces and, with no change
to what you already own, play a faster, leaner, deadlier game of the
world's leading Victorian Super Science Fiction Wargame.
I'd sayit is 90% of the best bits of the game, with only 10% of the complexity. Within 90 minutes we managed to fumble our way through a small game, but we got to use our ships for the first time in probably five years. Even though the rules abstracted a number of the ship details compared with the full game, they were all different enough that the flavour of the full game seemed to still be there and most importantly, we got to use our ships! Time to dust off the old ships and perhaps start painted up some of the backlog?
