League Ideas

Here's a basic run down on the idea I'd like to kick out to the group for consideration. Like I said, I want to encourage phunky gaming, not hard-core competitive gaming, so Campaigns are inherently more interesting to me than Leagues or Tournaments. However, I don't think anybody is chomping at the bit to handle all the paper work for a year-long 24 player mega campaign or anything like that. So, how do we get a little color and encourage wierdness and participation without getting all competitive or doing a lot of homework?

Battle Front have really made this easy on us, if we'd just use the materials they have provided and that most of us have already bought. So far, I've yet to see any one play any of the missions or scenarios published in any of the Late War Army/Campaign/Battle Books, or whatever the hell you wanna call 'em. They are there, why not use 'em?

Anyone else want to play WWII? As in, all of it? In order?

Basically what I suggest is that we take each monthly event and play one or two missions from a given Battle as published by Battle Front. Each event we'd move along to the next book -- more or less, it wouldn't really work out 1 to 1 where we could use one book per event or anything, but we could figure something out, maybe use bits from one or two books on a given day, maybe stretch another book out over two, depending on what each book has and what we want to do.
WHAT THIS IS NOT:This is not going to be a campaign. There will be NO book keeping of any kind. The results of one day's fighting will in no way influence the fighting of any other day. Each event day will be its own self-contained bubble.

Here's a quick summary of the playable situations from each published book. For now, I'm not interested in on line material because we don't need it and they haven’t really put out any good missions, just campaigns. Also, for clarity, in the language of the Kiwi a "mission," is a generic battle layout devoid of specific force lists. Hold the Line and Free for All are missions. A "scenario" gives a stylized setup for a particular battle with specific force lists, typically using a given mission for its special rules. These are often unbalanced, meaning 1700 points attacking 1000 points or whatever, and may or may not be useful for what we're trying to do. If we do use them, they will require extra planning, but might be worth it. It might be interesting, for instance, to tell a German player ahead of time to bring a 1000 or 2000 point defensive list, and match him up against two Allied players who were told to bring 1000 point lists. Anyway, here's the summary:

D-1

Seize and Hold (MISSION): paratroopers drop from the sky. Described as D-Day, but could be any air drop. If we go with this idea, you better believe the 101st will be dropping on the first game of the first day or I'm taking my ball and going home.

D-Day

Beach Assault Rules

Hit the Beach (MISSION): D-Day style beach assault rulesUtah Beach (SCENARIO): Hit the Beach with American flavor, fought at 1750 vs 1000.Queen Red (SCENARIO): Hit the Beach with British flavor, fought at 2100 vs. 1200Bocage Rules: While they don't give a specific mission for Bocage fighting in this book, if we go with this general idea we'd be fools not to have at least one good day of Hedge Row Hell.
Bloody OmahaEasy Green (SCENARIO): Hit the Beach with American flavor and heavy German Fortifications fought at 1750 vs 1000 points.Point du Hoc (SCENARIO): very specific Beach Assault for Rangers
Villers-BocagWittman's Wild Ride (SCENARIO): 1 Tiger kills all. Lame.Point 213 (SCENARIO): Uses Bocage Fighting rules, and while a scenario it is fought at 1 to 1 points, so we could use it as a Mission. Villers-Bocag: (SCENARIO) A really big mega fight as written, we could fight it 1/1 points with up to 4 players.
Now, some of these books contain bits of campaign material. Forget about all that unless you want to be the one to run it. All I'm talking about is using these Missions and maybe some of the Scenarios to generally theme our events to fight along the course of the war. I'm not sure how long we could keep that going before we overtook the stuff coming from Battle Front, so maybe we do this only some times? I dunno. But I really want to stress that this ain't a campaign. I'm just suggesting that we fight our way through the war in roughly historical order.
It also does not matter a whit if we've got ahistorical match ups, like Soviets launching a beach assault against British defenders or something. Who cares, I just like this idea better than trying to come up with yet another way to make Hold the Line not just Hold the Line again. But I think it would be hella mega cool if we could swing at least one table per event that actually looked like the battle in question, with reasonably accurate terrain and similar forces. For instance, if we had 8 beach assaults going on one day, it would be a damn shame if one of them wasn't Americans attacking Germans.
Also, since this isn't really competitive in nature we could doctor the matchups a bit more before hand without any one getting cheated. On the first day, for instance, German players would know they'd be defending and could tailor their forces accordingly with as much emphasis on the historical as that player felt like.
Here's a sample outline of how we might do this for the first few event days. I guess I should mention at some point that I'm seeing this as more of a one-big-game per day sort of thing, but it would also work just fine to play it as smaller games -- do the most proper historical thing on the first game, then make everything random on the second game or something.
EVENT DAY ONE: D-Day* At least one table playing Seize and Hold, more if we have more paratrooper players ACTUALLY PLAYING. * I know I said books only, but if someone has some Brit Paras ready, we could let them use the OnLine scenario to take Pegasus Bridge* At least one table playing Hit the Beach.* If we KNOW we're gonna have a Ranger player, we can find a way for them to take Point du Hoc.* Set up one or two basic French tables for people who just fucking hate beach assaults, and make 'em deal with Hedge Rows a month early.
EVENT DAY TWO: Hedge Row Hell* Unless some game has a good reason not two, all tables will have Hedge Rows in effect.* If someone wants to play with a shit load of Tigers, they could play the Wittman stuff.* A few tables could play Point 213* If we like the mega-battle idea, we could lay out a nice fat village and have 4 plays fight out Villers Bocag.
EVENT DAY THREE: Normandy Break OutSince the next book ain't out yet, I don't know how we'd really use it, but I'm assuming we could use it and generic stuff to theme something for the end of the Normandy campaign. The sadist in me likes the idea of seeing how many Germans we could kill in an hour and calling it Falaise.
Anyway, that's way long enough to express my idea and get some notes in place. Now, discuss -- if everyone thinks this idea sucks balls, I'll let it drop, but this is sort of how I'd like to see things pan out. It would take a bit more brain power to set up for the day, but no book work between events and since (at least in my little brain) we're not being competitive the Organizer could actually play on the day. If folks like prizes and stuff, we could still do that, either just for playing or by game wins or whatever, I don't really care about that part. Y'all know I only show up for the painting prize.

CHEAP BEACH TERRAIN:Also, just so I've got the note someplace handy, here's an idea I had for beach assault terrain so cheap one day's use would be worth it:1. Get a blue plastic tarp. Cut it into strips to fit the tables at legion and give just enough water for the scenario rules.2. Get some kind of sand-lookin' fabric -- yellow felt, burlap, canvas, whatever. Cut it into strips just like the tarp, and hot glue the sand strip to the water strip.3. Lay beach strip over table under/over/besides grass mat or terrain tiles or whatever the hell else you were gonna play with.
If everyone falls in love with this idea and heralds it as the brilliant suggestion it obviously is, I'll take it upon myself to find a proper image, resize and reproduce it so that everyone will have nice 2-D flat templates for beach landing craft, ready to use and dispose of on D-Day.
Jesus, that was way longer than I expected it to be. What do y’all think?

Shifting Gears

Here at the WorkShop, we're shifting gears. It’s been damn near nothing but paint for months now. And ya, you've gotta paint the stuff, but seriously, my love is truly for the modeling end of things. I love the little nicks in the finger tips, crust of superglue under the finger nail, and dust dust dust as I grind away metal and resin. Ah, modeling time....

Not that there hasn't been some painting work done, and there will be pics to prove it soon enough. In fact, I got a fancy new camera for Christmas, some nuefangled 8 mega pixel digital thing from Cannon with a button labeled, "Super Macro," so the picture quality around here should improve sharply. Anyway, I've got three platoons from Easy Company fully, 100% painted. Not finished -- they still need flock and show, which will happen to the whole army all at once at the end -- but fully painted. I've also get the entire company "Base Painted." That's my own term for it, but basically all the big parts of the miniatures have their basic color on them (boots are brown, pants are green, skin is light brown, etc.) with no shading or details at all. This has become my own personal minimum standard to put a model on the table. I won't field basic primer, but I won't wait for a finished model either. I just really wanted to plow through and get the force playable before I started doing anything else.

And I will now be doing something else. Like I said, its time to get the super glue and xacto blades back out, and I've got plenty to work on. How about a nice new Sherman tank company? Three full platoons of Shermans, plus Sherman 105s, Tank Destroyers, Cavalry Recon, and a few other odd bits, like Sherman Flail tanks. Ya, I know, technically they are British not American, but how else are we Yanks to stop the rising tide of the undead? It’s a US Anti-Zombie platoon, and that's final!

I've also got all the parts for a big Late-War expansion of my German forces. StuG IVs, Panzer IVHs, two platoons of Pumas, and a bunch of Tigers are the order of the day, though a few of these units still have one or two vehicles waiting on the FLGS to get them in for me. And I finally got around to buying some artillery, so Jerry can go boom-boom from far away, which should be nice.

So there you have it -- despite the fact that all I've written about on this blog is modeling stuff, most of that work is about 6 months old, and its been nothing but painting since late Summer or so. Some of that stuff -- Chinese army, SciFi Germans, etc. -- is already up on here, and some will be getting all gussied up for the camera soon. But I'm shifting to modeling, which probably feels like a bigger shift for me than it looks like it would from reading this goofy blog.

I even got in a game of Warmaster Ancients over the weekend, so the Chinamen have actually seen the table. Of course, I forgot my new camera, but thankfully Caesar was there with a pic I could pilfer:

Watchya paintin', Utini?

Actually, its been a little bit of this, and a little bit of that since finishing up the Chinese hoard, but here's the basic rundown:

Back on the Paratroopers with a vengence -- I just finished my basic 105mm artillery battery, and have the mortars and MGs also 100% painted. All they need is flock and snow, which will happen to the entire army all at once at the end. At this point, I've decided that I really really really really really wanna play with these guys, so I'm going through all the platoons and laying down a base coat on everything, which basically means extra dark uniforms, skin, boots, helmets, and metalic rifles with no highlighting or details at all. Its better than primer, and will at least let me put them on the table with a clear concince.

Also, I just might be able to base coat everything before the need to work with glue and tools over takes me, and I start modeling all those Shermans I've been buying. Eventually I'm gonna go back to Germany and model up the PzIV platoon, Pumas, Tigers, and other random stuff I've been pickup up for them.

Some day, I may even go back and finish painting all my mid-war Brits: the last army I decided to just base coat and get back to eventually.

All this is, of course, dependent on me getting off work in a normal, human type way at any point in the forseable future. I'm an IT goon working on contract, which means lots and lots of hours spent watching servers reboot, rather than painting. This may also have influenced the decision to just base coat the paras.

Also, there will be more photos soon -- the big ticket item for xMass this year looks to be a fancy new digital camera, in the 8 megapixel range. So no more of this 800 x 600 shot-with-a-camcorder nonsense! Should be fun.

US Paratroopers Army Update 0: Officers Lead from the Front

Finally, we come to the last article on the modeling and converting of Easy Company -- the Officers and hero characters for the unit. Obviously this group had some of the most evocative images to draw upon from the Band of Brothers miniseries, and several of them screamed for justice. I really had a lot of fun making the independent teams for my paratrooper company, and had such a hard time deciding which scene to represent for some characters that I just went ahead and made two for a few of them.

In game terms, I could never use all of these at the same time. For instance, aside from the multiple pieces based on certain characters, I've got several teams that could be used for the Company Commander, depending on who one wanted to be in command or what time frame one wanted to represent. I left out Lt. Mehan and Cpt. Somebodyorother and instead made models for all the guys we actually see leading Easy Company for any appreciable length of time: Cpt. Sobol, Cpt. Winters, Lt. Dike, and Cpt. Speers. I also made a few other interesting folks.

Starting with their first commanding officer while in training, the scene with Sobol and the barbed wire fence just jumped off the screen when I started looking for moments that I could represent in miniature. I mean, in this scene, you've got three guys standing in a loose triangle in close proximity -- how is that NOT a command team?



To get the older style uniforms and the pose right, none of these figures started out as paratroopers. Green stuff was used to add pack straps and cargo pockets, as well as the lapels of Sobol's jacket. Their poses were slightly adjusted, but nothing crazy. The fence along the back of the base was made from plastic fence posts from an old west settlement model kit strung with copper wire.



Who could ever forget Lt. Dike? While by no means heroic, his antics are at least memorable. With this piece I wanted to at least suggest the presence of the hay stack without actually modeling the whole thing. While the two enlisted men are stock Battle Front castings, Dike is a modified Old Glory miniature, adjusted to make him look as pathetic as possible.



Every body loves Speers. But what scene do you make? His heroic arrival at Bastogne? His cold treatment of prisoners? His storming the last gun alone on D-Day? Or maybe just Speers walking around intimidating people? How do you choose? If you are me, you take your two favorites and make them both. I was always struck by the stories about Speers shooting prisoners after giving them cigarettes, so I've got this little three-man number featuring Battlefront seated Germans and a green stuff cigarette pack.



With three men on the base, it would work OK as a command team if I ever want to field the boys under Speers' direct command, but that's not really the battlefield scene people think of for him. Since he ran into Bastogne alone, I decided to make another piece of the moment when an 88cm gun started firing at him personally.



The base itself is simple, plane even, with a small twist of wire coming up from the ground and fitting into a small hole in the miniature's right foot. The explosion is made in the same manner as my burning tank markers -- stretched stuffing out of my dog's stuffed-animal style chew toys.



The figure is a modified Battle Front casting. I started with a new release NCO with a Thompson and repositioned the other arm and the legs to make him look more like he's leaping through the air. A head swap with an old style BF paratrooper gave me a properly smooth helmet, and a little green stuff added in a distinctive bag Speers was carrying on the day, as well as hiding an ugly seam where I'd pried up the arm. When it’s all together, you can't see the wire at all and the figure seems to be leaping from the explosion. Now, THAT'S a hero model!



Moving up the chain of command, I wanted to have the officers on hand for higher-level formations. Hence, Colonel Sink.



Two stock BF castings provide his support staff, while the colonel himself was heavily modified with green stuff to move his arm and add cargo pockets and a wide jacket collar. I also gave him a very small green stuff rank pin on the front of his helmet.



I've got teams made up for pure Battalion Commander and Battalion 2iC teams, as well. The battalion command team features Winters, Nixon, and a runner. If you recall the scene, the little green stuff fire is OK, because they are in a dell. Other changes were minor, just body position changes with pliers and a bit of green stuff.



The battalion 2iC team is based on a scene between Nixon and Welsh. Hay, it was a decent scene, and it gave me something to do with the cast log that came with the new company boxed set. The figures are stock.



As inspiring as some of the officers were, it was always the NCOs that held Easy together, none more so than Sgt. Lipton. I was in the mode of doing single hero pieces, so I figure this one could serve as a hero, perhaps, as well as serving as a 2iC. And then I put him in shallow hole. When watching the mini series, the shelling Easy took in the Bua Jauc was impressive and terrifying and it really needed to be highlighted in my force. Granted, second platoon was based primarily on the scenes just before and after the shelling, but I still wanted something set in the thick of it. Lipton, as the narrator of that episode, seemed the natural choice. I started with one of the machine gunners, to get a pose that was very low to the ground, and cleaned up the marks made from removing the MG with green stuff. I also gave him little helmet chin straps. His base features a fox hole just like all the others, only a fraction as deep -- I think I only used a single layer of cardboard to make the hole nice and shallow. And then I buried him under a plastic tree branch.



A few other independent teams round out the company HQ slots. Up first is Shifty Powers, my main sniper.



There really wasn't much to this one, just a stock instance of the kneeling rifleman from the new paratrooper line on a base with a tall, removable tree. He looks better with the tree, I think, but there will be times when I don't want it - hiding behind the only tree left standing in Berlin might not be good sniper tactics, ya know?



The other sniper is also based on, or rather in, a tree. Hay, Lipton did it in one episode, so I can do it here, even if I'm not calling him Lipton! In this case, the tree is removable just for storage purposes.



The casting is the same one I used for Shifty, with its entire base tab removed and his legs bent to make him look like he just might be holding himself in the tree without the use of glue.



From the very beginning I wanted a paratrooper with a mohawk. Further research revealed that, in fact, very few paratroopers ever actually shaved their heads like this, but there is just enough debate over who in fact did that I feel like I can get away with doing this on my pathfinder.



The casting itself required a weapons swap to give the kneeling figure a Thompson -- not that I had to do this, I just wanted to. The bald head was swapped in from the first run of BF paratroopers with the helmet shaved and filed down. The mohawk and ears were added with greenstuff.



The rest of him is pretty standard for this army project -- a rock on the base with the casting removed from its base tab and pinned into place, with plastic rod cut up for shell cases and the beacon added to the side of the base for flair.



I've got an idea for one more sniper, but I'm still looking for a model of a 1920s type truck in the proper scale that is hollow enough to put a sniper in. Filling out the rest of the HQ slots, I've got a few bazooka men:



And since I can't do more than two stock models in a row, one of them had to have a custom sculpted bazooka ammo bag:



Since I was knocking out all these HQ types, I had a few official Battlefront hero models lying around and decided to just kick 'me on out now. Using stock figures, the little fence casting in the company box, and a bit of match stick, here's my Turnbull:



I based Darby up to match the Glider Intel & Recon platoon, just for fun.



And Commando Kelly is basically stock with a few extra Old Glory dead Germans on the base:



Using left over troops of various types, preferably castings that I could get into a submissive pose, I made up a few bailed-out vehicle tokens. Here I've mixed together a few official bailed out tanker castings from Battlefront, along with some artillery boys and unarmed machine gunners (with a tank wheel to cover up the ugly hole from the MG), together with some Old Glory figures that also lacked weapons. I may not get much usage out of them with this force, but I'm sure they will come in handy eventually.







And finally, I used the craptastical collectable prepaints from Wizards of the Coast, sold under the Axis and Allies brand, to make my pinned markers, which will probably see far more action than the bailed out markers. Since the plastic is so soft, these are really easy to make -- when I want to bend them I warm them up in hot water, when I want to cut them I cool them down with cold water, than smash them down on a penny and glue them in place. You can really turn any of these into casualty figures -- since they will end up face down in the mud you can bend any limb you can hack loose into an uncomfortable position. I even got away with shaving off arms that were laid across the chest in contact with the entire body, and just twisted them so that the ugly parts were against the ground.







Well, that about covers it. I don't think I made anything else really note worthy for this army. I mean, I've covered everything and everyone, haven't I?

OK, lame joke, and no one's going to fall for it. I've still got to show you Winters. Ya, you've already seen the three-man command team I made that includes the good Major, but I also made a hero model for him. I just kind of had too. Based on the scene in Holland, (then Captain) Winters stands alone on an embankment, firing from the hip:



This model was not as straight forward as it might look. To get the wide-legged pose I had to remove one foot from the base tab and carefully reposition the legs. To get the rifle up to the shoulder like that I stared off by removing another weapon -- I think it was a Thompson, which Winters never carried -- and replacing the rifle and forearms with those cut from another piece. The head was swapped on from one of the older paratroopers, and a bayonet was added to the end of the rifle. But I still wasn't done. After puttying up the joints in the arms, I decided to go nuts and try and make the face of the miniature look more like the actor from the miniseries, so I added a small bit of green stuff to lengthen the model's chin.



Then I put him up on his embankment, which was made by just stacking up strips of card board and smoothing it all over with epoxy paste before putting on the coffee.



OK. Finally. We're done. Everything for the army is built and modeled. Oh, sure, I'm not done collecting Americans -- we'll need proper armored support if we're going to get the job done right. But my humble rendition of Easy Company, 506 Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division is assembled and ready.

Now all I gotta do is paint 'em...

Qin Army - FINISHED

It’s been a brief season of completion around here -- my 10mm Ancient Chinese army is finished. As in, 100% totally done with everything I'm ever gonna do to them. How often do ADD wargamers get to say that? They are cleaned, primered, painted, varnished, based, textured, and flocked. All 1400 or so of 'em. I even went back and painted little Chinese characters for "soldier," "horse," "arrow," "art," and "war," onto the banners. Especially gratifying was that Robert saw one of the stands, and just started talking about what those words might have meant -- he just took the characters for granted, which is nice, considering I had to look them up on the internet and wasn't 100% sure they were right!

Before posting this, I'd thought I'd posted about the army at least once between now and the time I finished dry brushing them, but the truth is the baseing went so fast that I was done with it by the time I got around to posting anything. So I'll just post this, and go back with gallery shots later after I get around to taking beauty shots of the army.



The basing was done in pretty much my normal way, except that I didn't paint anything. When the figures were glued down to the metal plates I used for bases, extra glue on the stand was soaked up with sand. At times I would add little puddles of super glue just to get the sand piles. Then I mixed up some of my standard issue coffee paste and smeared it over all the bases, trying to get semi-clean feet lines and nice blends with the sand, without covering it all. Then I'd sprinkle just a bit of sand over the while thing while the coffee paste was wet, giving me darks and highlights without needing to paint them or anything.



Then I went back over them all, placing small spotchy patches of watered-down white glue. Into these patches were placed tufts of static grass, rather than flock, giving the army the look of walking through knee high grass. These pics are from just before I added the fake grass.



I'm pretty happy with the way this army turned out.



Granted, hell will at least be in danger of freezing before I do another project in 10mm, but now that they are done they do look pretty damn good all arrayed in ranks for battle. Honestly, I just hope I like playing Ancients! It will suck if I did all that work, actually completed an army -- not just a unit, but an entire army! -- only to find out I don't like the game. But hay, I've got some fancy chinamen!

Green Sash Testing

Saturday, Nov. 17, 2007


Itypically refrain from bogging any personal life type stuff on here. I'd really rather keep things on topic, and we're here to talk about toy soldiers, not real life, right? That said, there has just come to pass an event in my life that I feel worthy of remembrance -- I have completed the test to be recognized as a Student of the Physical Forms in Shen Lung Kung Fu.

That means I'm a certified Bad Ass. No, actually what that means is that I've completed the student program in Shen Lung. Sure, there's more, but its all either orientated towards becoming a Sifu, or very self-motivated and self-directed. But the basic program is done, and our journey along the pre-defined student path is complete. Finishing the path with me were Luke Anthony, Will Hooper, and Robert Britton. Observing and judging the test were some of the most distinguished martial artist in central Alabama, including Sensei Grant Nichols, Morris "Magic" Polion (he's fighting in London soon), Master Chris Worrel, and Master Harry Lawson. A bunch of the guys from Shen Lung were there to help out and throw hands, as well. My mom and brother were there, too.

The test itself was one of the most physically and, I dare say, spiritually demanding acts I've ever attempted. Here's a run down, with my scores as far as I remember them:


Feats of Strength and Movement:
Rope Climb: I'm not sure how high I got, but it wasn't much above a "passing." The rope started untwisting and I started spinning, my hands started slipping, and I got all acrophobic, and it was just time to get the hell down off of that rope.
Swimming - 200 meters: Just for completion, not for time.
40-Yard Dash: I think I did it in 5.57 seconds.
Standing Long Jump: 7'7" jump (three tries, all came to 7'7")
Bench Press: 215 lbs
Sit Ups: 50ish
Push Ups: 32, then my shoulders started twitching and gave out. I've never felt them do that before, but they just crapped out on me.
Running - 2 miles: 17:12 time, which kinda sucked -- I can usually run it in 16:50 at home, and was hoping to better that on the day. But then, I was normally clocking my rested time. From what I understand, Sifu was looking at the stop watch and shaking his head, saying that I wasn't going to make it, when I crested the small hill and came running in to the sounds of much cheering. God, it felt at the time like I just didn't have shit else to give.


Feats of Combat:
Knife Fight: Against one of Master Worrel's folks. He got a knife, I didn't, and man did I get cut up. I had a few good moves in there, and got a chuckle out of Worrel at one point. It was fun, and I don't think I embarrassed myself, but this wasn't one to brag about.

Grappeling: I went up against Jerre for this one, who outweighs me by, what, 50 or 60 pounds? Also, according to others, Robert had put him down hard and fast on the match before this one, so he came into our fight pissed and ready to go hard. So, he squished me. Literally, he pretty much got on top of me and squished my neck. My mother, apparently, really didn't like watching this one, and it made Celeste mad. Again, I didn't get embarrassed, but I got well schooled and beaten.

Boxing: I started to come into my element during this fight with David Hayes, who opened things by reminding me that his first round of boxing ever was with me. Well, he's done a bit of practicing at boxing since then... With him coming into the fight fresh, I resolved to get on him, stay on him, and make him react to me -- I wasn't about to let him set the pace of things. I'd also resolved the night before that I wasn't coming out there to teach any body anything, and that I was going to press shit home, keep the advantage, and not let up until someone calls hold, sportsmanship be damned. And that's what I did. I do recall one particularly clean hook I put upside his head, but other than that my memory of the match is all a blur of combos, ring work, putting him into the "ropes" (really just the crowd) and keeping him there. He did get in once nice clean shot to my mouth, but I was already moving back into the attack when Sifu called a hold on it. Then back in again! I really felt like I'd owned this one, until...

Kick Boxing: Came right after boxing, and I wanted to just dominate this fight. Of all the things we did this day, this was the one that should have been my strongest event, where I should have really been able to make up some of the points and pride that other events had cost me. I was going to kick ass and chew bubble gum! I drew circle mate Ben Kid for this round, and god, I just broke him. For the first minute he was playing along, throwing some shots back at me and at least making me pay attention. I just threw lots of combos with kicks in between them, and ate him alive. By the second minute, he was just standing there taking it. By the third, I was looking to Master Lawson to be sure he didn't think I was being a dick of beating up on the little guy. Really, the only downside of this round was that it was too easy -- Ben quit fighting, and I would have liked to have had more to work with.

Escrima Fight: I was paired up with Will for this one, and we both got all suited up for a stick fight. This was a lot of fun. We both got some good work in, but I was faster to remember that I have feet, and I block a bit better than Will, so I think I carried the round. It was a lot of fun when the stick fight degenerated into knees and head-butts, though.

Katana Fight: Will and I went at it again with the fabric-padded boffer Katanas. This one was just fun. We were playing with my toys (literally) not his, so this was kinda my round, but Will always keeps you on your toes. I got good mileage out of using the gim cone defenses with the Katana, and used my footwork to exploit the way Will was fighting -- he was treating the tools like there were double-edged blades, not singles, and a few times I was able to step between him and his blade where it was safe enough to really set in some nice slow cuts.


And that was about it. It may not seem like that much on the page, but it certainly made for a full day. We didn't do several of the things we were prepared to do, either because of time, or they weren't that important, or Sifu had already seen us do them, like all the forms, the speed bag and heavy bag work, throwing weapons (javelin for the guys, sling for me.) and some of the demos sifu had dreamed up, like my little trick with a katana and a cantaloupe.

Ranks were awarded on the spot, but there were to be only three green sashes. Sifu let that one kind of hang like a fart in the air at flower convention, but then he followed up with the day's zinger -- Robert hadn't been testing for his green sash, he'd been testing for a Black Sash, Instructor of the Physical Forms of Shen Lung Kung Fu. No, Robert didn't know that. And no, there was nary a dry eye in the house.

And so there you have it -- half of 16th Circle has green sashes, and Shen Lung has a new Sifu. Now we gotta get the rest of 16th up to that level, if they wish it, and figure out what's next for our own training.

That, and chill the hell out for a little while.

After Action Report - Oct. 27, Legion Games, Birmingham AL

One of these days, I'm going to settle down and actually learn to read the rule book. The quick summation: I won one and lost two, and I think half the reason I won the one I did was operating in such a spastic manner that I just threw the other guy off his rocker. So here's the run down, illustrated with pictures shamelessly stolen from Caesar.

The basic setup: a few of us showed up the night before and set up tables. I brought out my standard modular stuff, configured for maximum nightmare potential since it was haloween. In other words, one massive mountain, dead center of the table.



I also rolled out the Urban Table Mat for its first outing, public or private, and I was fairly pleased with the results. I still need more buildings to give it that proper claustrophobic feeling, but since those take either time or money it will have to wait until I've got either. But the collection is slowly growing -- I picked up two more of the ruined foundations just for this event.



Caesar ran a great event, in his own inimitable style. Any rules he doesn't like go more or less out the window, as a good Games Master should. What that meant for us on the day was no army histories, bonus points for actual victory, and a costume contest to mark the holiday season. The mug shot:



Ya, I'm dressed up as a cop. That's the thing with costumes -- if you aren't a chick, you've got to dress counter to type. Nothing is further from me than a cop, so there. Anyway, we had folks from all over, a few different towns in Georgia and a cat from Mississippi, so it was all regional and stuff. So, on to the games.

But first, a few more table shots:

Kritikalfialure's Russian Thaw table:



and his scene of urban blight:



Shaun's Frenchy-French village:



And some of Caesar' s layouts, using his stuff, the stores stuff, and some of my stuff. Anything in these pics that looks like a refugee from a Warhammer game is probably mine, the hills are from Legion, and everything else, more or less, is Caesar:





GAME 1

Game 1 was against Wes and his Soviet amour, fought on my own nightmare mountain. Both sides pretty much just spun around the hill, coming for each other on opposite flanks. I didn't realize until it was too late how much my StuGs were making him nervous...



...if I had, my Pioneers would have been on the move a turn or two sooner, and would have been on my other objective soon enough to let the Panzer IVs have a decent shot at pealing his tanks off it.



Hell, two more inches and I could have hit him with my Goliath! As it were, it was a quick win, without too much blood on either side. One platoon down for each of us, for a 5-2 to him.


GAME 2

For Game 2 I faced off against Barry and more Soviet tanks on my city table. This time it was me and Barry, and by this point the coffee had started getting to me. I was getting so generally hyper that I had to give my gun to KritikalFailure so I wouldn't soot anybody.
This game was me defending in Hold the Line, and I actually set out a plan and stuck to it -- dig in, make him come to me, and use ambushing AT guns and reserve tanks to deal with his threats as they materialize. Also, make him go through the crappy part of town to get at you.



The mine field I threw in his path really seemed to give him the heeby-jeebies, and served to tunnel almost all his force into a single lane of advance, easily covered once he went for it. I think, between my annoying tactics and table-side antics (the coffee was really getting to me) I just broke his spirit. He was ready to just surrender at one point, but I talked him into at least trying to bloody my nose. Which he promptly did by trashing 3 Panzer IVs in a single volley. There weren't the 6-1, but a 5-2 will still carry the day. I did get to use my goliath in this one, but he shot it to bits with defensive fire.


GAME 3

Game 3 was me and Erin, and for some reason this one just got on my nerves. I made a stupid mistake right at the beginning, and paid for it until the end of the game. DO NOT rush your StuGs out in between two platoons of Shermans and Stuarts. They will all die, and you will spend the rest of the game on your heels reacting to what he does.



In this game we realized Goliaths do get a 0/0/0 amour save, but to no avail, as I again failed to get the little bugger within range. About all I managed to do was kill a platoon of Shermans, thereby denying my dastardly opponent the glory of a 6-1. He walked away with a 5-2, instead.

In all, I don't think I like playing Grenadiers very much. Sure, you save some points on halftracks, but you're just so damned slow! It unnerves me to sit and wait, I can't seem to do it without leaving my dick in the wind. I took what felt like a hobbled list, for two reasons -- I wanted to play with my wounded company of grenadiers, where everyone's a casualty, in honor of the holiday. I also wanted to give someone else a chance to win the painting prize. I mean, hell, these guys are all base coated, and the tanks had airbrushed camo, but only one platoon was 100% finished. Everything else was half done. And yet still I walk away with a painting prize. Which I guess is a compliment.

It was a good event and I had a great time. I just need to play the game more and learn to loose less.