15mm mechas

At some point last year, I bought some 15mm sci-fi figures off of Scott. One of the three armies still needed some painting and I have been chipping away at it since, mostly daunted by not having much experience painting mechs.

I finally decided to suck it up and just do the 12 smaller mechs. There were six with some kind of blast weapon (above) and six with what looked more like gatling guns (below).

Overall, they turned out fine (or, at least good enough for me!). I then tried to make the bases a bit more uniform in terms of colours and posed them with some of the wolf/dog infantry and the battledroids with which I supplemented them.

I still have three large mechs to paint (not sure if they should be done as a unit or done with individual paint jobs). Then I can turn my attention to the huge amount of terrain with which they came.

Terrain painting

Terry kindly gifted me some 3-D prints over the holidays and I quickly painted up three of them over the holidays.

First up is this large stone outcropping. A pretty slap-dash paint job (two dry brushes over black then some green and a wash) yielded a great result.

I used a similar process on this wood pile and it looks fantastic.

And finally there was there was this set of mysterious doors. It could lead to a cellar, a mine, or a crypt.

Super fun painting of super useful terrain items. Thanks Terry!

Scooby and Buffy vs Movie Monsters

Over the winter holidays, I had some friends over and I finally got my horror figures out on the table. We played a two-scenario game of the Scooby gang and the other Scooby gang against various Hammer Horror monsters. The rules were an adaptation of Fistful of Lead's Arena of Death rules that Bruce put together.

Scenario 1 saw the Scoobi approach a graveyard. Inside were Igor, digging around in some graves and The Monster walking slowly towards a little girl while giving the nearby fountain a thoughtful stare. Being no dummies, the original Scooby gang figured that. whatever Igor was doing (fetching a brain, as it turned out), they definitely did not want to let him succeed at and a big barney took place around the open grave.

On the other side of the table, the new Scooby gang mixed it up with The Monster and various lesser baddies and managed to save the girl from being dunked.

A clear win for the Scoobi, aided greatly by some pretty lucky rolling. The girl helpfully told them that there were more monsters in the crypt and we adjourned to the basement, where I had a second table set up.

The good guys started on the far side of the crypt and all of the monsters were off table. Each time the monsters got an activation card, they rolled to see if one appeared. If so, it could appear anywhere and then move normally the next turn,

There were also some traps. Some, like this stone ball than smashed Velma's glasses, were proximity triggered. The bigger trap is being sprung in the photo below: offering the players a choice of two paths which caused them to split up their party. And that was really the story of the second half.

Here we have the new Scooby, gang, going on a walk about and setting off lesser traps.

Meanwhile, the original Scooby gang, which was much less suited to fighting, would up in the soup, battling all sorts of baddies.

More wandering around.

Ruh-roh, here comes Bridezilla, and she is pi-iiiiissed.

Due to some incredibly bad dice rolling, it took the baddies forever to finish off the Scooby gang and The Monster somehow got KIAed in the process. This must have gone down very much like an actual cartoon fight. Yiokes!

As the new Scooby gang finally made their way into the fight, the baddies were able to catch them at a pinch point,

In the end, it came down to Willow versus Dracula and The Bride and the Monsters rolled boxcars for a convincing win.

Overall, a pretty fun game and thanks to everyone being a good sport about it.

Random fantasy painting

With some colder weather, I've spent more time at the painting table these past few weeks and a mixed bag of figures have been finished up.

First up is this beauty. It is a huge figure and, despite my best efforts, turned out darker than expected.

I also made some progress on these five cultists from a box of fantasy that Chen kindly traded me ages ago. I still have a bunch to go but stalled out on these guys for some reason. Hopefully, I'm back on track.

In prepping for a holiday game (maybe that is next week's post?), I needed some flying creatures. Bats would have worked (and I may still get some) but I quite liked these crows (3-D prints).

These were dead simply to paint: black primer, drybrush (blue, brown and grey respectively), then yellow detail and wash.

 Up next: Probably a holiday battle report.

Battle of Hoth Campaign 1

In late November, Bruce and I gave the first mini-campaign for the Battle of Hoth a go. This is one of two programmed tree campaigns that the game comes with. Including a brief instruction, we managed to get through three games in 70 minutes and had a dramatic finale (I suspect the campaign likely goes on one or two more steps but three games in a row was lots for one day).

Game one (above) was basically an encounter and introduction to unit types. The rebels won this one handily thanks to incredibly lucky dice.

Game 2 went to the imperials who quickly killed a rebel laser cannon and grabbed the key victory location.

Game 3 saw the rebels defending shield generators. The Imperials could win if they took out both generators. The rebels could win through attriting the attacker. 

Bruce thrust up the left flank and quickly destroyed the first generator and I figured the game was over. The Rebels were able to successfully defend the second generator long enough to attrit the Imperials. There was quite a lot of drama, much like you'd expect.

Overall, we thought this was a fun, light game that was more like the simplicity of Battle Cry than the more chromed up later CCA variants we've played. The campaign included primary and secondary victory conditions and just enough carry over effects to incentivize the players. Overall, this was good fun and emphasized movement and tactics. Super happy with this game.

Zorro and Dracula: A Fistful of Lead

Back in the fall, Bruce hosted a couple of games of Fistful of Lead using his Swashbuckler adaptation of the gladiator game (Arena of Death?). First up was Zorro.

Zorro and his (wo)men had to rescue their compatriot who was being hanged in the town square. If the hanged man got into the crowd and Zorro exited the left side of the board, Zorro would win! Zorro set up hidden and, until one of his hidden units was spotted neither the four guards at the gallows nor the four lancers at the stables could move.

As soon as Zorro was spotted, the lancers moved out, trying to thin out Zorro's henchman and also set up a blocking position to prevent his escape. They could dismount, but there was an advantage in combat to being mounted so they did not.

Zorro and broom guy beat one of the guards silly while others rush the gallows. The lovely Maria was one of the most effective agents of rebellion.

Meanwhile, behind the stone house, the lancers catch Zorro and tie him up.

The doomed man makes his escape but more lancers keep piling in on Zorro. He fights valiantly, thinning the ranks, but cannot sustain this level of wounds forever.

Finally, he succumbs to the pressure and draws his last breath. Or does he?

A few weeks later, Bruce hosted another horror game. The villagers must pass through town and destroy Dracula's castle. Dracula has lots of critters to help him defend and delay the townsfolk.

Bats assail the shooty group of villagers.

More damned bats.

And now rats assail the stabby group of villagers. Improbably discipline among the villagers (plus some pretty lucky rolling) allowed them to brush aside these annoyances one-by-one. Some additional time pressure would have made the game more challenging for them. The fast-moving fliers could also have used their faster movement to isolate and dog-pile some villagers to try and thin out the peasantry.

The forces of evil moved as blinds until spotted.

Here, Frau Blucher and some rando find themselves alone against a large number of rats.

Fortunately, good dice trump bad tactics every time and the villagers rush towards the castle.

In the end, Blucher and some guy with a mug of beer ran head-first into Dracula and put the boots to him (yay, box-cars!).

Overall, a very slick system for skirmish Bruce is working up a few more flavoured rules so more powerful characters can do more movie-like moves.

Rats!

I'm hosting a game one the holidays and needed to add a few swarms of rats to the table. These are some 3-D rings I found and represent some pretty giant rats!

I also took the opportunity to repaint the bases on my horror figures. These are some of the ones I re-did.

Above is Doc Frankenstein and friends; below are various baddies. I think all of these are Bob Murch figures.

Up next: Good question. Hopefully some gaming!