Alien Squad Leader

I recently joined a gaming club, the Lincombe Barn Wargames Society, and the first game I played there was Alien Squad Leader, which is a popular S.F game at the club (the author of the rules, Alex Self is a club member) and I enjoyed it so much that I decided to create my own army for the game.

Luckily, I had a reasonably-sized lead mountain of GZG 15mm figures and vehicles to paint so, with the addition of a couple of heavy Main Battle Tanks, which I bought from GZG specifically for this army and some suitably-sized MDF bases I set about putting together enough toys for both a 150pt and a 200pt army of Human Imperials. I also painted up a couple of character figures, who will feature strongly in the next version of the rules, but who are optional extras in the current edition.

For me, Human Imperials are an ideal starting point, and not only because I had pretty much everything available. I think that they suit my style of play, being both shooty and featuring tanks. There are also options to field fighting droids of varying sizes. Happily, I had a GZG battle mecha model waiting to find a purpose, so it seemed only right to equip my forces with a big shooty battle droid. I shall look at smaller droids in the future and possibly also some kind of ground attack flyer.

Anyway, I have put together some basic infantry Stormtroopers, some Heavy Weapons support, a couple of command stands, some Space Marines, light AFVs (tracked and anti-grav) an armoured command vehicle and the aforementioned MBTs and Battle Mecha.

So, here are the pictures, starting with the Poor Bloody Infantry (plus an army High Command character);

Next, the Space Marines, equipped with jump packs (and a Hero of the Empire);

And then the armour. First, the light stuff. Two tracked AFVs, two anti-grav ones and an ACV;

And, finally, the heavies, the real sloggers;

I went for a desert/semi-arid planet camouflage style for this army so that the vehicles at least will fit in with my Quadrant 13 armies. I rather like the way that they have turned out and I am looking forward to seeing them on the table in the near future.

British Rifle platoon for Chain of Command

I posted my German infantry for CoC a little while ago and I then began work on some British infantry as opposition. I finished these last week and then forgot to write up a post about them, which I have now remedied.

These are, once again Peter Pig figures in 15mm, from their Late War British list. This platoon will be suitable for the Northwestern Europe theatre from D-Day until the end of the War.

So far, I've painted up the basic CoC platoon according to the Army Lists in the rules. I need to think what support options I will need and start planning those accordingly.

Anyway, here they are;

In CoC, the platoon is split into three sections, each with a Junior Leader with a Sten, a three-man Bren team and a six-man rifle team. The platoon HQ has a Senior Leader (lieutenant, in this case with a rifle and a pistol), Junior Leader (sergeant with a Sten) a two-man 2" mortar team and a 2-man PIAT team.

There are plenty of support options available, many of which I can fill from my existing tank and vehicle collection, but others will require additional purchases.

Planning my Syldavia and Borduria imagi-nations campaigns

The main reason I created this blog was to write about my 18th century imagi-nations wargaming project using the TooFatLardies Sharp Practice black powder period skirmish rules.

As regular viewers of this blog already know, I have written a lot of background material for these imaginary countries, as well as painting forces and buildings. The next phase was always going to be creating a narrative for the encounters between the two rival states. My intention was originally going to be a bespoke campaign generator with some mechanism for linking battles into a coherent single entity. To be honest, I knew that this was going to take a lot of time but, happily, I don't have to do this now.

Instead, I will be using the "Dawns & Departures" campaign handbook published a month or so ago by TooFatLardies to accompany the basic Sharp Practice rules. It is a PDF offering and gives lots of scope for all manner of campaigns.

One of the real joys of this system is that it allows your leaders to develop over the duration of the campaign, so once you have used the Character Generator in the rules to create your leaders they can then grow in fame, power, influence and wealth as they buckle their swashes across the tabletop battlefields that the campaign system will create. Alternately, they may well prove to be incompetent poltroons who lead their forces to defeat and find themselves treated with contempt and derision by their troops, not to mention incurring the wrath of their superiors. Truly useless leaders may find themselves court martialled, removed from command and dismissed from the service of their monarchs. Of course, a useless but wily leader might always try and brush his ignominious demise under the carpet ("I was undermined by jealous rivals and had devious but well-placed enemies at court") and sell his questionable services to the highest bidder or even build his own Free Company of equally desperate and questionable troops.

Constructing a campaign shouldn't take too long and I will write again about this, together with some potted biographies for my leaders.

Starting my Chain Of Command project

Yes, I have started yet another project. This time it is Chain of Command, the TooFatLardies platoon level skirmish game for WW2.

As with my other projects, I am working in 15mm, both for space reasons and also aesthetic ones. I just think that games look more realistic at this scale than at larger ones, unless you have a huge table to play on. It also has cost benefits.

Anyway, I could have reused my PSC armies that are based up for IABSM, but I decided that I wanted individually-based figures for CoC, not multiples. So, my first port of call was http://www.peterpig.co.uk/index.html, who produce lovely-looking 15mm figures.

I took the opportunity to buy some ready-made platoons from Peter Pig, plus some additional figures to give me everything to suit the platoon numbers in the rules. I bought sufficient figures to produce a selection of platoons for 1944-45 in Northwestern Europe. When finished there will be a German Infantry Zug, a Panzergrenadier Zug, a British Rifle platoon and a platoon of British Airborne troops.

Later on I could expand into the Eastern Front and put some Soviet forces together (with the opportunity to get some T-34s), or I might get some American types.

When I was at Crusade in Cardiff in January, I bought some small resin scenic items by Baueda, which I will use for Jump Off points.

I have plenty of vehicles already, so I am well-provided for tanks etc, but I will be buying some 15mm PSC Universal carriers, when they are released and probably some more SdKfz 250 half-tracks, because the ones I already have are the 20mm cannon version, and maybe the SdKfz 231 armoured cars too.

Anyway, what have I done so far?

Well, there are four Jump Off points;

I mounted these on 6cm round bases and I think that they have come out pretty nicely. The figures are there to show the scale.

I've also got my German infantry Zug finished;

and I have also painted up a four man Panzerknacker team (this is one of the support options in the German lists) and eight figures armed with Panzerfausts;

I don't think that I'll actually need all eight, but they were in the German platoon packs, so I painted them. What I'll probably do is include one figure (or two for the Panzergrenadiers) with a Panzerfaust in each section and then replace him with a rifle-armed figure once the 'Faust has been used.

Anyway, I think these look pretty good. 

Now, on to the British Rifle platoon.

Sci Fi hover tanks

Like my buildings, these were hanging around undercoated for ages until I finally got on and painted them.

These are resin models in 15mm from The Ion Age. On the website they are called Red Adder Combat Lifters. They are nice models, light tanks really, but the range also includes some variants with other weapons that I might find a use for in the future.

I wasn't sure which particular faction of my Sci Fi universe might have these, so I gave them a fairly generic camouflage finish, which will let me deploy them in different armies. Perhaps I can justify this by suggesting that they represent armoured vehicles supplied by a mercenary military corporation?

Anyway, here they are;

The last of my Syldavian and Bordurian buildings

Well, I finally finished off my buildings for my 15mm SP imagi-nations project and submitted them to the TFL Painting Challenge.

They are two small houses and a barn, all from Hovels, a company that produces lovely resin buildings at an incredibly reasonable price.

These are a better class of house than the peasant hovels that I started off my project with and are therefore more colourful and have brick chimneys.

So, that is the housing complete. I could have completed these a lot sooner, but the second half of last year provided me with many alternatives to painting.

More scenics

I've still got a few scenic pieces to finish off, and I bought even more odds and ends at Crusade in Penarth yesterday, but here are a few things that I completed last week.

First, here are two resin small cottages that I picked up last year at a show;

I can see these working in a number of settings but initially they are for my Syldavia and Borduria 18th century imaginations project. The figure is in the photo to show the scale and he is a Syldavian mounted officer.

Secondly, I have some field fortifications from Ironclad Miniatures. These will be useful for all sorts of games and I'll probably use them for dug-in artillery and in WW2 games mostly. Here, though, they are shown with some Syldavian Jägers taking advantage of the shelter provided.

While in Penarth, I took the opportunity to catch up with Richard and Nick from TooFatLardies and play a couple of games of their latest set of rules, which are for WW2 tank vs tank combat. Currently being play-tested, they are called "What A Tanker", although that could change I suppose, but I hope not. The game itself is fast and furious and is pretty much a fun game where encounters happen pretty quickly and the games don't take too long to complete. The game-play mechanisms are simple and you can pick them up really quickly.

Nick told me that there is still a bit of work to do, but that the rules should be available quite soon, all things being equal. In fact, he actually suggested that Easter might not be an unrealistic target date!