Into Each Life some Rain Must Fall (according to The Ink Spots) which is my excuse for not painting more French Napoleonics

It's a Fallout in-joke

I'm being distracted from painting Napoleonic French because I watched the Fallout TV series on Prime. It was glorious and so inspired I dug out some Super Mutants to paint and then decided I needed some terrain and set the 3d printer running and...... my steel will to concentrate on Sharp Practice has shattered for the time being.

I've been working on a few Super Mutants, but I suspect the French may try and charge back onto the painting table soon as I umpired a game between two friends David and Rob and I could still very much feel the itch 

Not a lot has actually been done - probably the only miniatures I've finished are a Super Mutant Centaur, Hound, and a French Officer.

Centaur - cos "orrible slime spitting mutant " is too long a name I suppose

Pierre - Status 2 French Officer

I have however assembled another eight French Ligne Infantry which when painted (hopefully soon) will complete my first line unit. 

Aeronautica Imperialis - If it has wings I will give it a go

So I split the starter set with Paul and ................

Ok getting ahead of myself. On the assumption that some of the "History Guys" here may not have heard, Games Workshop have just released a new version of their Warhammer 40k dogfight game Aeronautica Imperialis in the usual ridiculous high production quality. Given my current love affair with Blood Red Skies, I thought it would be worth a look. Steve at the shop (Asgard Wargames, highly recommended purveyor of gaming stuff) had a demo copy and said it was a bit like BRS with hexes and Orks, and he usually has a good eye for games. Then again, he was trying to sell me it so err.......Doh! he caught me again - Kerching!!

So anyway I picked it up. Production quality is excellent. There are 4 Imperial and 5 Ork models in the box. These are plastic kits - very detailed and flexible. They're not in the same scale as the original AI models released a few years ago by Forge World in case you were wondering - they're quite a bit bigger and will match the scale of Adeptus Titanicus. The game tokens are good quality and map sheet is again good quality paper - but I suspect that will be the first thing most players will replace. The map sheet itself is a 2" hex grid which is used for movement. The rules are a starter version - so just the basics, but the accompanying hardback Rynns World source book contains ground attack and campaign rules, plus stats for a couple of more Ork and Imperial plane variants.

Assembled and painted Orks - and yes I was still in Korean War mode hence the Squig 15

So is it like BRS with Orks ? Here Steve was wide of the mark, but then again he is mainly a GW guy so doesn't have the historical background so I'll forgive him. The rules seem quite "traditional", in fact it is clearly a "homage" to such 80s classics as Blue Max, with pre plotting and hex movement. Blue Max players will be right at home. Planes are restricted to a selection of fixed manoeuvres, so for instance an Ork Fighterbommer can choose between options 1-4 whereas an Imperial Thunderbolt can choose 1-6. The manoeuvres are a bit more flexible than in Blue Max - I suspect this is partly to do with there being fewer manoeuvres available and the diagrams giving both port and starboard options on the same manoeuvre. The other change is the higher speeds mean there is no manoeuvres that are limited to certain speeds unlike in BM, and instead there is a minimum distance between direction changes. It all works, which is good, and the balance between the forces is interesting - Imperials want to fight at mid to long range to make best use of their better tech, but the Orcs like to get in close and nasty - it's a nice touch.

Blue Max 

Aeronautica Imperialis

Having had a couple of games this familiarity with Blue Max is causing me some problems. I'm sure once I can mentally replace the GW terms with something more familiar I will be able to handle the manoeuvre options better, but at the moment my planes are often ending up a bit random in their end positions because I don't connect "swoop" with wing-over (or whatever) . Other than that it seems very straightforward and simple. And quite a bit of fun.

Squig 15 FTW!

The real issue for me with AI is Blood Red Skies does the chaotic dogfight so much better. If I had not played BRS I would have been quite happy with AI. There is just a better feel to the split second decision making that dogfights should be about. AI seems too planned, like someone is ordering a battleship to steer a course, predicting where an opponent may end up in a couple of minutes time,  BRS is the seat of the pants reacting to the enemy on a moment by moment basis. Also there is no tailing as such - you cant get on the tail of an opponent and follow him, but you do get a free shot, which is something. As it is, the whole pre plotting thing seems a bit retro, like flares and mullet haircuts.

I think AI will of course do well, and that GW will continue to turn out some great models. I'm certain to pick up the Ork Heavy Bommer and if Tau happen I may grab those too - I always have a weakness for Commies.

So all in all if you like your 40K this is going to be popular, but maybe if you fancy something a bit more representative and more seat of the pants than pre planning, grab a copy of Blood Red Skies and give WW2 a go.

Incidentally, the two games are connected. Andy Chambers wrote the first 40K aircraft game "Bommerz over da Sulfur River", and he also wrote Blood Red Skies - interesting factoid.       

Work - Gaming Balance

Sorry for not posting for a while - work is interfering with games but cant be helped.

Some painting is still happening - see this couple of German Pioneers for our Stalingrad campaign.



I was quite happy and showed the wife - she smiled and said "ah nice Love - Ghost Busters". Something inside cried.

Speaking of Stalingrad, our campaign is back on hold as Andy, one of our Brave Soviets, has been put on night shifts for 9 weeks so we've had to reschedule. C'est la guerre I suppose.

So any new stuff?

Well, yes. Firstly Empress miniatures have released this set of German Ost Front veterans which I've ordered. I know Sevastopol isn't Stalingrad but I couldn't resist

Next up, if you follow "Geordies Big Battles" you will know he's been posting about a 15mm Gruntz game. Gruntz is 15mm Sci Fi, and jolly good fun. Anyway he has been posting what I have to say has been a very one sided and mostly fictitious reports but on one point he was spot on - My New Vistula Legion (Polish) are certainly a bit "light" on support. Not any more - well as soon as the next batch of toys arrive - watch this space

DropFleet Commander Battle Report Part 5 - Set Condition Brown!

End of Turn 2 - Scourge Frigates taking a beating......

Turn 3 -
Turn three saw a serious step up in the action. Both sides moved their squadrons forward, with the Southern Scourge Nickar Group homing in on a solitary PHR Strike Carrier, with the "Northern" group moving up to threaten the central objective.

The reprieve of the Scourge Troopship was short lived. The PHR Frigate squadron attacked, crippling the Troopship, and she was finished off by a wave of bombers even though the Scourge tried to bolster her point defence with a swarm of fighters. In return the Frigates were destroyed by a combination of fire from the advancing Scourge Carrier group and the Flagship, assisted by fire from the now active Station.

The Scourge Ifrit burned a hole in the PHR Troopship that was heading towards the central objective. At that moment there was a (insert sound effect) as the PHR Battleship unleashed its massive Dark Matter Cannon - the Ifrit staggered, and was ripped apart by crippling internal explosion - one shot, one kill! The Scourge Admiral went to "Condition Brown" :-)

Dropfleet Commander Battle Report Part 4 - Opening moves and first Casualties

Our first turn saw the Scourge bring on their Troopship group and a Nickar\Gargoyle Hunter\Killer (HK) group. The Trooper headed straight for the nearest Space Station, the Hunter Killers for the northernmost Communications node. The PHR brought a Frigate group and one of their Troopship groups and moved forward towards their nearest Space Station - everyone dropping to low orbit in preparation for the assault landings next turn. No-one had any viable targets due to scan ranges so there was no combat, and no Command Cards were played on turn one as we couldn't decide if the Fleet Commander had to be on table to do so. Something to look up later.

  Turn 2 Saw the arrival of the Scourge Admiral in his Shenlong class Heavy Cruiser and his escort in the centre, plus the second H\K Group south. The Troopship changed course a little to bring it into a position to assault either the Station or the ground cluster. In the North the H/K Nickars swung in at high speed towards the enemy in the centre and dropped into atmosphere. On the other side however there as an ominous sight of the Heracles lumbering on to the table with an escorting ECM Frigate, plus another Troop carrier group. The Frigates moved straight on to try and hit the Scourge Troopship with their burn-through lasers, one using the "Active Scan" order, however this didn't work as the Troopship used a command card to launch Chaff, temporarily reducing its signature to zero and dropping off scanners.

The Scourge also played a nasty "Abandon Hope" command card which caused the PHR to discard a command card at random. The two Scourge Charybdis Class Bombardment Frigates were forced to fight as standard warships, and suffered accordingly, with one Charybdis and one Harpy being destroyed in an exchange of fire with the PHR Frigates. At the end of Turn 2 it looked like the Scourge had a narrow advantage on the ground, having control of one Communications cluster and a Station but were in trouble in space.

Dropfleet Commander Battle Report Part 3 - The Scenario - where all the careful planning falls apart!

So with both sides set we now needed a scenario, and we picked Scenario 8 at random. Defence Relay - Oh Dear!

This is an attack on an interlinked Defence position, with a lot of potential ground fire PLUS the added complication of a pair of orbiting space stations - heavily armed ones at that. This threw a spanner into the works for me as my main landing group was configured to assault surface targets, NOT orbital ones. Even worse, this scenario uses a "Column" approach, where each player only has two battlegroups available on turn one, with the others arriving on turns 2 & 3. One effect of that staggered entry was that the players need to make a decision about their order of arrival - do you send in the light and fast units to try and grab objectives early or push the heavier units forward first and risk finding your opponent already hunkered down around the objectives?

Here is the table set up ready to go. Again we have not finished our Space Stations so a pair of old Ground Zero Games  stations from their excellent Full Thrust range were dusted off and pressed into service -  in need of a repaint and some new bases I fear. Here is the table laid out and ready for the game to start. I should add the star mat - or rather night city mat is from Deep-Cut Studios and is made from neoprene (mouse-mat) material that rolls up into a carrying tube - very nice and highly recommended.

The Communications clusters (red) are "Critical Locations" which score bonus Victory Points, as are the two stations (blue), but the Military "clusters" (green) have some serious defensive capability. This leaves the players with some interesting choices. Scourge are entering from the left, PHR from the right.

So next time, we actually start rolling dice :-)

Dropfleet Commander Part 2 - The PHR "Orca" Fleet

It seems my opponent Paul had also not quite caught up on his painting schedule, so his killer whale themed fleet still had some gaps. He was fielding his hugely impressive Heracles Class Battleship, but he didn't have any Corvettes, which put him at a severe disadvantage in atmosphere when faced with my Nickar Hunter Killer groups.

This is his list

--------------------------------------
pelagic - 1490pts
PHR - 8 launch assets

SR16 Flag battlegroup (322pts)
1 x Heracles - 285pts - S
   + Director (80pts, 4AV)
1 x Calypso - 37pts - L

SR20 Vanguard battlegroup (360pts)
1 x Bellerophon - 180pts - H
1 x Bellerophon - 180pts - H

SR12 Line battlegroup (315pts)
1 x Orion - 107pts - M
2 x Medea - 78pts - L
1 x Orpheus - 130pts - M

SR7 Line battlegroup (213pts)
1 x Ganymede - 135pts - M
2 x Medea - 78pts - L

SR4 Pathfinder battlegroup (200pts)
4 x Pandora - 200pts - L
---------


I'm no expert on PHR ships or their roles so I'll not speculate too much. It looked like I had a minor advantage in launch capacity, and a big one in atmospheric combat, but nothing that could remotely be expected to slug it out toe to toe with that Battleship.

As you can see, he was using the "drinking straw" method of Battlegroup identification, which I'm happy to go on record as saying is utter genius.

Dropfleet Commander Battle Report Part 1 - Scourge

Ok I don't usually do battle reports. Truth is I am both crap with a camera and would rather spend the time playing rather than taking pics, so what follows is a rarity....

We've sort of let Dropfleet slip down our agenda over the last few months. In truth this was partly because of the c*ck-up Hawk made of the Kickstarter delivery. Frankly we didn't fancy playing at clubs and shops when there was still a lot of folks waiting for their toys - didn't feel like having to field the questions to be honest, however since the KS has now finally ran it's course and everyone has their stuff, and because I enjoyed demo'ing it at Salute, we thought we would give it a try.

Between our last game and now the game has advanced (matured?) quite a bit, particularly with the introduction of Command Cards, Battleships, and at the other end of the scale, Corvettes. All three have or will alter the "meta" and the game is rather different with them. Sadly part of the lethargy has included not painting the substantial fleets I have, so having decided to play this evening I spent an hour or so rush painting my spiffing new Nickar class Hunter Killers using the methods I described back in the Sheet Metal Age here , and there was zero chance of getting my Scourge Battleship ready on time.

In the end here is the fleet I decided to take - incidentally this was generated by the excellent Dflist program available here - highly recommended!

--------------------------------------
May Day - 1498pts
Scourge - 11 launch assets

SR13 Vanguard battlegroup (319pts)
1 x Manticore - 190pts - H
3 x Djinn - 129pts - L

SR15 Vanguard battlegroup (280pts)
1 x Shenlong - 170pts - H
   + Fleet Overlord (100pts, 5AV)
1 x Ifrit - 110pts - M

SR12 Line battlegroup (344pts)
1 x Hydra - 140pts - M
1 x Hydra - 140pts - M
2 x Gargoyle - 64pts - L

SR9 Line battlegroup (259pts)
1 x Chimera - 105pts - M
2 x Charybdis - 70pts - L
2 x Harpy - 84pts - L

SR4 Pathfinder battlegroup (98pts)
3 x Nickar - 66pts - L
1 x Gargoyle - 32pts - L

SR4 Pathfinder battlegroup (98pts)
1 x Gargoyle - 32pts - L
3 x Nickar - 66pts - L
------------- dflist.com -------------

To quickly explain the two Vanguard Groups would perform slightly different functions. The Mantichore \ Djinn group is a close combat brawler and the other was (hopefully) going to allow the Ifrit to spike enemy ships for the Shenlong to target using a weapons free order . I like the Ifrit - as you can tell from this earlier post. The first Line Battlegroup is basically a pair of Hydra Class Carriers with two Gargoyle Strike Carriers (Light troopships) attached, with the intention being to leave the Hyrdas at the back of the fleet where they can reach out with their fighters, while the two Gargoyles operated independently to grab ground objectives. The second Line Battlegroup has the main troopship, plus a pair of Charybdis class Frigates. These are specialist ground bombardment units. A pair of Harpy class general role Frigates rounds off the group. The theory here being the combination of heavy troopship and bombardment would make taking larger ground objectives easier, and the Harpies could provide limited support and protection. The last two Battlegroups contained my newly painted Nickar Hunter Killers. These are specialist atmospheric attack ships who in theory would prey on enemy Strike Carriers trying to drop troops to the surface, which would leave the attached Gargoyle free to grab objectives - that was the plan anyway.

Here's a slightly blurred pic of the fleet before we kicked off. I'm using the clip on Battlegroup Indicators designed for Dropzone by  Dark Ops . They're really useful for Dropzone but I suspect I will be moving over to the "straws" option for Dropfleet.

Next time - the opposition - Space Whales!

Dropfleet Commander – Ifrit – the Scourge Stiletto

 I’m going to add a bit to the general level of speculation and jetwash about Dropfleet Commander tactics by taking a closer look at one of the Scourge Cruiser options – The Ifrit, and explain why I think this is a must have for Scourge Fleet Commanders, at all points levels.

 The Ifrit is one of the “recommended builds” in a Scourge starter fleet box, so most players probably have one. I’m also fairly sure it is one of the first to be “dropped” when the fleet expands  past Skirmish level, because on pure numbers other ships do it better – the Raiju in particular seems to do everything the Ifrit can, and much more. I think this is a mistake. Allow me to explain.

The Ifrit is something of an odd fish in the Scourge fleet. It falls squarely into the “Medium” cruiser bracket, a bit slower but more resilient that the Yokai and Strix Light Cruisers (which may be worthy of another post) and below the Raiju and ShenLong Heavy Cruisers which are the backbone of most Scourge Cruiser Battlegroups, with good reason as they both are serious bruisers with the added advantage of Stealth Tech. At 110 points it is not expensive, and has the bonus that it can be bought in singles, unlike the theoretically cheaper light Cruisers.

Looking at the basic stat line the Ifrit looks a little “meh”, quite fast and resilient as far as it goes, but under-armed. This is the first Scourge ship to mount a Furnace Cannon, but that takes up so much room there is only a single Oculus Beam, albeit with a good wide firing arc. The Close Action weapon suite is respectable, and the point defence is good, even if the armour is a little weak. Comparing the raw numbers to the other Scourge Cruisers at this point level the Ifrit seems something of a lightweight.

Scan	sig	thrust	hull	armour	pd
6”	8”	10	10	4+	6

	lock	att	dam	arc
Oculus Beams	3+	1	2	F
Scald
Furnace Cannons	4+	4	1	F(N)
Alt-1, Scald, Burnthrough(8)
Furnace Cannons	2+	1	1	F(N)
Alt-1, Scald, Burnthrough(4), Flash
Plasma Storm	3+	D6+2	1	F/S
Scald, Close Action

It is the Furnace Cannon that makes the Ifrit so useful, at least in its “Flash” mode. This is the Scourge “Burnthrough” weapon and unlike those of the other races it has two firing modes. The first is what at first looks like the main contender, a four attack dice and max 8 damage option. That makes it in theory the heaviest damage potential of any weapon mounted on a cruiser, enough to cripple a Battlecruiser. In reality however you are unlikely to make all eight of those hits count, and even if you do the limited chance of critical hits (which ignore armour) mean quite a lot of that damage will de deflected – particularly against hard targets like the PHR. In comparison the second mode looks less attractive, with only one attack and only four max damage, however on closer examination I think this is usually the better option. In this second mode it hits on 2+ and causes armour avoiding critical hits on 4+. Not enough to cripple a cruiser, but more than enough to cripple or kill a frigate sized target - like a Strike Carrier. Additionally, the Ifrit has sufficient thrust to time a run on turn 2 that can potentially catch Strike Carriers before they hit the safety of atmosphere, or even turn one if the Strike Carrier is rushing to get in drop range of a ground objective. Dropfleet is all about the Ground Objectives, so denying your opponent a Strike Carrier is worth a try, and few other ships can combine the speed and sufficient damage output to kill or cripple them in one attack.

And it is not just Strike Carriers that are vulnerable. Less immediately “game winning” but equally valuable targets are the point defence or sensor Frigates of the other factions. The UCM Lima and Jakarta Class Frigates are so damned useful they will soon be universal, but they are both easy kills for a well handled Ifrit.

Even against larger targets such as Troopships or Fleet Carriers the Ifrit has the power to cause significant damage, and the relatively high thrust rating allows some inventive tactics – such as driving through enemy formations to avoid the bulk of return fire and taking shots with your Oculus Beam or even rear shots with your Close Action Plasma Storm. Having only two main weapons systems makes you less reliant on “Weapons Free” orders to optimise damage output – a blessing as you need to manoeuvre to keep the narrow arc of the Furnace Cannon on target

All well and good in the skirmish game, but what about the higher points games? Here the Ifrit’s second string kicks in – as a designator for larger attackers. Pairing the Ifrit with a heavy hitter such as a Shenlong (or bigger) will allow you lead with the Ifrit and “Flash” targets(again in the second firing mode)  to make them more visible to the heavy hitters.

So that’s my thoughts on the Ifrit, one of the slightly unloved Scourge Cruisers. The game is constantly evolving and in a direction away from sheer firepower into much more specialist Battlegroup builds. As tactics evolve I can see an even greater role for this useful ship with a lot of potential.

Imperial Skies - First Clash over the Baltic

Our copies of the Imperial Skies rulebook arrived on Friday - and so as we had a free evening Saturday we decided to give the rules a try. Typically we had more enthusiasm than sense so niether of us had fully read the rules before we started. However we decided on a 400pts per side game and got down to choosing our fleets. Before going further I have to apologise for the quality of the pics in this report - I was using my phone rather than a real camera, and it shows :-(

As I have Russian models for Aeronef, and Paul has British, that part was easy. I went for a Borodino Class Battleship, supported by a Light Cruiser, Destroyer, and a squadron of 3 Novik class Torpedo boats. Russian ships seem to be a bit slow (the round hull forms can't help) but have a good balance of firepower across all three gun categories.

Paul went for a squadron of an Agincourt class Battleship and three Exeter class Cruisers - clearly he was on a long range patrol and my ships had sortied to intercept. The Battleship had marginally more heavy firepower and was slightly faster than it's Russian counterpart, but had less light and medium firepower. The Cruisers were faster than the Russian but had less firepower all round. 

Our mix of forces proved very fortuitous as it allowed us to try out the target priority rules - more later. 

The game went fast and fairly smooth - particularly considering the fact both of us had no real idea what we were doing and had to constantly refer to the rules, at least at first. Both squadrons turned on to parallel courses to allow maximum firepower to be brought to bear, and the Russian Torpedo boats headed off towards the British. The poker chips are being used to represent Command Points - these are used to issue orders that can allow special actions - increase speed, turn tighter, re-roll some shooting dice etc. This is not really a new system, but in Imperial Skies it is quite nuanced.

The Russian Torpedo boats closed on their target. The British were concentrating their fire on the leading Russian ship - a cruiser, but also the target priority rules prevented them from using their main armament on the little ships - we rationalised this by saying you wouldn't waste your main guns in big, slow traversing turrets trying to hit fast moving small targets. The Borodino managed to hit the nearest Exeter quite heavily, and it dropped out of formation to play no further part in the game.

The first torpedo shots missed, fired from too far out, but the little boats pressed on and managed to score a heavy hit on the Agincourt. Return fire was not very effective and it was clear what the British really needed as a fast Destroyer sized ship to mix it up with the Torpedo boats.

Meanwhile the Russian Cruiser suffered a series of heavy hits when trying to screen the Borodino. Remember those command points? - well you can spend then to use smaller vessels to screen the capital ships they are escorting, taking some damage for them if positioned correctly. This worked too well, and a lucky hit caused the cruiser to explode from a magazine explosion.

As the range was now down to "snotty" (very close) the ships were pounding each other relentlessly. The Russian Destroyer succumbed, followed by the Agincourt, but by that point the Borodino was in serious trouble and the Torpedo craft were out of torpedoes so only had their puny light guns - this wasn't enough and the Borodino soon joined the Agincourt as floating wreckage.

That ended the game. We had a lot of fun and are keen to try it again. The target priority rules in particular worked well, meaning we both quickly recognised you cannot just rely on your big ships, you have to take plenty of escorts to stop enemy torpedo craft getting too close - a nice reflection on the historical tactics.   Looking forward to another game, but this time ........

Imperial Skies - VSF Evolved?

I'm a big fan of Gruntz - the 15mm Sci Fi rules by Robin Fitton. They're very playable but flexible enough to allow you to play as any faction you can imagine. When I heard he was producing a set of Victorian Sci Fi rules dealing with airships and flying gunboats I thought it would be worth a look.

I've always been a fan of VSF - I particularly liked Space 1889 and it's expansion Ironclads & Ether Flyers, which incidentally made quite a reasonable set of real world Ironclad rules. The problem with Space 1889 was the models were either unavailable or ridiculously expensive, so it never went very far.  I tried Aeronef from Wessex Games. They were fast play but were clearly lacking in some elements - the damage system particularly meant very soon larger ships were condemned to moving in straight lines - not great to be honest. The core rules were solid enough, but there was still a lot of rough edges and the overall result was ok but not great. We did however buy a fair few ships (Nefs technically) from Tony at Brigade Models but these have on the whole gathered dust, which is a shame as they are nice models.

So along came Imperial Skies - announced as a Kickstarter last winter with an expected delivery date of April this year.

The Kickstarter was reassuringly simple - just the rules, with a few add ons and stretch goals, so hopefully not one of these that manages to kill itself by promising too much (I'm looking at you Baker Company and Prodos). The project was a joint effort with Brigade Models and would tie in with their Aeronef range, so I thought it was worth a punt. Of course like all Kickstarters, you have to take the expected shipping date with a pinch of salt, and this was no different, arriving in the first week of September, but it is finally here - so is it worth the wait?

I think so. Production quality is good, with lots of pretty pictures, diagrams explaining rules, an alternate history time line, some associated fiction and the now obligatory painting and modelling section. All well and good. The rules are brief but comprehensive, and well written. Those diagrams I mentioned earlier at first seemed to be a bit overdone as explanatory diagrams, however I soon realised they are actually an integral part of the rules rather than an attempt to explain the text elsewhere, and once I grasped that they were VERY clear and easy to understand. The basic rules bear a resemblance to Aeronef, but with some nice additions and much of the rough edges smoothed off, plus the addition of some very nice command and initiative rules, plus some optional stuff for a more in depth game, topped off with design and construction rules. They read and play fast.

The timeline \ history section is pretty standard stuff, but I was interested to note they had pushed the setting back to what would be WW1 - so I suppose that's Edwardian SF (ESF) rather than VSF. This is a good move, as it makes the inclusion of fixed wing machines much easier to understand and justify.

I do have some gripes - none of them major. The fiction sections are interspersed through the rules. They are not bad as far as they go,  but are not at first glance easily differentiated from the rules sections - ideally I prefer this sort of thing in obvious text boxes so they don't interfere with reading the core rules. More problematical is the data card section. Each ship has a corresponding data card, and they are all printed in the book. The problem is you can't copy them without folding the page all the way over, risking breaking the spine. Robin is working on a set of printed and pdf cards which will fix this. The quick play sheet is the same - it has everything (just about) you need, but you can't copy it without risking damaging the book - another pdf needed I suspect. Additionally the data cards don't get fully explained in one place, which is a bit strange as the following page appeared on the facebook page (I hope he doesn't mind me repeating it here - copyright Rob Fitton etc) but didn't make it into the rules, which is a shame because it helps explain stuff quite a bit. On the other hand once you do understand the layout the cards are very easy to read.

  However, all that aside these are an excellent set of rules with a lot of scope - I heartily recommend them.

Next post will be a quick battle report, so watch this space!  

Dropfleet Commander - a short update

Still twiddling thumbs waiting for DFC Kickstarter to ship. This is something of a problem. Anticipation is very high, but at the same time there is a dawning reality that when it does land I will have a metric sh*ttonne of ships to assemble.

In the meantime I have decided to try and get the painting technique down to something manageable.

I have had a bit of an experiment with the Seattle I built earlier from the sprue given away* at the "pre-launch" in Cardiff.

Firstly I undercoated the whole thing in GW white undercoat - I don't know the name and care less, but it did give rather a good covering. I suspect I may have to review my long held GW antipathy as at the moment they seem to be doing some nice stuff as far as paints etc goes. Still a long way from buying any Space Marines though :-)

Once the undercoat dried I painted a basecoat of Vallejo German Grey with my airbrush. With hindsight the airbrush is probably unnecessary. Once that dried I went for a generous wash with GW Null Oil - really generous,

Left that to dry, then a heavy drybrush with German Grey again. Then a couple of progressivly lighter drybrushes with Vallejo light greys. For these I pinched a trick from the painting tutorial they ran at Cardiff and used a soft make up brush which helped keep it light.

All the weapons and engines were picked out or drybrushed Vallejo Oily Steel - I've ran Null Oil over the engines and will probably drybrush them again with Oily Steel - just to see if its worth the effort.

The dorsal panels wer painted with Vallejo Off White followed by some real white in thin coats where possible, and some other details picked out.

I still need to do the flight deck \ hangar - with hindsight this would have been so much easier to do before sticking the damned thing together!

So here she is - still work in progress but looking quite nice I think

And here she is with the Frigates

* if you pre-ordered £75 worth of toys on the day!

Dropfleet Commander "We DO need those Stiinking Magnets"

My previous post was about building one of the new Dropfleet Commander ships, in that instance a Seattle class Carrier. There has been a lot of talk on line about the possibility of magnetising the new Dropfleet Commander models. After a bit of shameless begging I managed to get hold of a second sprue from my mate Paul who had also attended the pre launch event at Cardiff last weekend, so decided to try magnetising the model to allow building different versions. I thought about this quite a bit. I certainly don't intend to do this a lot, but there are a couple of UCM Cruisers - the San Fransico Class Troopship and the Madrid Class which is a specialised orbital bombardment vessel, that I dont think I will need often, but having the option would be nice. As you can see from the pics below, they share the same superstructure and general layout, except the ventral positions have a large troop compartment or the orbital bombardment turrets.

These are rare specialist ships so I don't think I will be using them regularly, so it would be useful to be able to have the model do double duty. There are two much more common Cruisers that share the same layout, the Berlin Class which has a burn-through laser, and the Rio, which has a pair of heavy turrets. The Berlin has been one of the stars of the demo games I have seen, everyone loves the burn-through laser and the ability to saw a target in half, but I suspect the Rio may well see plenty of table time as a good all round mid sized cruiser. All I would need to do would be to magnetise a burn through laser and a couple of heavy mass-driver turrets and do the same with the troop pod and bombardment turrets and I could in theory field any one of four versions from the same model - sounds good.

Firstly I needed some magnets. I had some 2mm x 1mm disk magnets I used for small turrets on Dropzone tanks so they seemed to be a good starting position. I assembled the troop pod and the two sides of the main hull, then drilled out some holes using a pin vice. One tip to pass on, the turrets sit on 3mm "plugs" so take a lot of care drilling your locating hole for the magnet as you only have half a mil each way. I used a 0.5mm drill bit to create a guide hole before opening it out with a 2mm bit. I found wood bits were preferable to metal ones - no idea why but they seemed to work better.

Once drilled I stuck the 2mm magnets in the holes being very careful to get the polarity right. Another tip is to use a wooden tooth pick or a non ferrous tool to position the magnets. Its bloody fiddly anyway.

After that it was plain sailing! Actually it wasnt. The turrets on the Rio and Madrid both fit the socket fine, but the troop pod and burn-through were designed to be glued over \ on to the now redundant turret rings. This created a gap between the two sets of magnets which meant the connection was not that strong. With hindsight I could have predicted this - in fact if may be possible to glue the magnets directly to the burn-through without drilling out a hole, but that may cause other problems with the magnet detaching. In this case I dealt with the problem by gluing a second magnet to the first ensuring a contact with the one in the hull. I suspect it may even be possible to do away with drilling on the Troop Pod altogether and surface mount a 3mm x 1mm in the sockets - but I don't have one at hand, but will pick some up to try it out when the Kickstarter delivers "soon".

Once the magnets were in I assembled the rest of the model and here are the results:

San Francisco

Madrid

Rio

Berlin

So is it worth the hassle? I think so. The magnets give a good attachment to the various components so I can run several different options with the same model. The last step would be to magnetise the dorsal cowling to allow you to build the Moscow \ St Petersburg type Heavy Cruisers, but that is I think a step too far.  

For the love of cake

As I explained a few posts ago I bought a Dreadball team.

There is a nice young lady called Jenny who has opened a tea shop in our town. Unlike all the other tea shops I know, in addition to 30 different varieties of tea, some very nice scones, and some truly amazing home made cakes that will give you a heart attack just by looking at them, Jenny sells boardgames and gaming accessories, and opens the shop late once a week for a games night.

Anyway, Jenny has decide to run a Dreadball League in her shop, and made a damned attractive offer of a team for a tenner to anyone who wanted to play in the league. Give this gives me a new gaming opportunity, minimum cost, and ready access to cake, I succumbed. We played our first game last week and won, rather more through luck than judgement. 

Well worth a visit to Tea@Hart and very civilised  here is the Facebook Page

Did I mention the cake?

I suppose the name should have warned me - Dropzone Commander Resistance Leviathan Hovercraft

Names are not a reliable indicator. Take this as an example

This is the Douglas TBD "Devastator" torpedo bomber of WW2 vintage. It was never really going to live up to the name - partly because US torpedos were generally awful at the time, but mostly because it was pretty crap. 41 attacked the Japanese fleet at Midway, only 6 survived and they achieved no hits. To be fair they were so easy to shoot down the Japanese fighters were all drawn down to the turkey shoot and the US dive-bombers got a free run in and changed the direction the war in the Pacific was heading. Incidentally the pic is of the cover of the Airix box - nostalgia strikes again :-)

So when I saw the Leviathan hovercraft from Hawk Wargames I was not immediately overawed. This is the stock shop pic and it doesn't give much of an impression of size

Sure it looks a bit bigger than this - the Kraken, which is the other hovercraft the Resistance use

Then I stuck one together, and frankly it is HUGE! Pictures say a thousand words etc so here is my latest addition after being stuck together, posed artistically with a Hannibal Heavy Tank, and a Kraken. I'll try and get a better lit shot later but this gives a reasonable impression of the size of the thing!

For such a big model it went together very well. The resin parts needed careful cleaning and trimming but the fit on the whole was pretty tight. I may use some Greenstuff on some of the joints, then again I may get away without it. Dry runs before assembly are the order of the day - particularly as if you want to have the ramps operate you need to fit one hinge, then the door, then the other hinge in that order as the ramp itself will not clip in (as I first thought). The lack of instructions is probably the only minor point against this model, and even then it is self evident what goes where just by looking at the box. There are 21 parts in the model - technically 25 as you get alternate weapon options of AA guns or rocket launchers and all of them were clean cast with no bubbles and minimal flash, but you do need to take care cleaning the areas where the pour hole or vent has been. Luckily the resin is easy to work with, a sharp knife and emery board (stolen from Mrs R) were enough. Detail is phenomenal, which is pretty much what we have come to expect from Hawk.

If there is a problem with the Leviathan, it's the price. as one will set you back £35 RRP, which is a reasonable chunk. I wouldn't get one if I were just starting out, but then again if you are starting out your Resistance army wont have either 24 Technicals or 12 Trucks to move around, so you wont need one. Actually that may be a fairly big restriction on the Leviathan, as most Resistance armies I have seen don't go for big truck or technical units, but rather prefer to use the more resilient ex military stuff.

Ok there is another problem too - at just about six inches wide you may find some streets too narrow to get the damned thing down! On the plus side the Leviathan offers Resistance players a great way to move a lot of otherwise vulnerable units at reasonable speed, and also comes with some pretty serious AA or artillery support functions too. Great model - can't wait to get it painted.

Show Report - Teesside Wargames Convention - New DZC layout & Buildings

Just returned from Teesside Wargames Convention. The organisers were aiming for a low key local affair and I think they got it just about right. It was fairly busy through the morning and tailed off after 3pm. I was there doing a demo of Dropzone Commander, and to be honest I was so busy I never got a chance to have a proper look at the rest of the demos (sorry guys) but the 1945 what if game from Redcar did catch my eye, as well as the Mantic and Spartan demos.

The Dropzone demo was on a new terrain layout which was put together to be used in Waugh Games new Gaming Centre. They're moving to a much bigger venue and so will have more space, so they are having a some semi permanent layouts to play on (and run demos), one of which will be Dropzone Commander.

I have to say it was a treat to see and play on. All the buildings are from Waugh Games new mdf buildings range and they are just about in the sweet spot for detail and price. Not sure if they are on the website yet but hopefully some time next week.

Only problem is the klutz with the camera (me) couldn't get the settings right and the light in the hall was a horrible yellow which has pretty much screwed up the pics, however here are some of the better ones.

 
The building designer (Jez Evans) has tried to copy some real life buildings and some of them are particularly good - the cinema for one

There is also a rather nice US style Town Hall shown in this sadly yellow pic

Here's another of the whole table

I'm hoping to get a chance to take some pics of the layout once it is installed in the new centre next week, so keep an eye on the Blog :-)