Gangster's action

I popped around to Bruce's last night and he put on two short Gangster games to try out some new rules on his new terrain.

First up was The Chicago Way, which is a card driven game. I enjoyed the random nature of activation and the multiple uses of the cards. Our dice rolls were rather extreme so it wa shard to judge the combat mechanism! Visually it was a bit messy on the table.

The FBI ran into a bad streak of luck as Violin Vinnie greased a guy, ran to his boss and then hosed the feb trying take down Mad Dog. Streaky dice!

We then tried Osprey's new Black Ops rules. This game ended poorly for the mob, in part due to a mix-up in rules understanding (cough, cough!). This is a bloodier game with some neat reinforcement, spotting and NPCish rules for guards. Hard to say if it was good or not--I died too quickly to do much more than walk forward, get spotted and be gunned down!

Up next: Some 1/72-scale models and some 15mm character figures. I'm also going to bring Dragon Rampant out to the club next week so I should get that together!

Memoir 44: Escobar

We had seven guys at the club on Tuesday, including newcomer John. Kevin and I played a game of Memoir 44, which allowed me to get my new German tanks plus a bunch of figures I got from Tim in Saskatoon on the board.

This was a German counter attack in the days following D-Day against a combined British airborne and tank group. A tough attack for the Germans, especially given the number of JABOs they faced!

Kevin fought valiantly but had a bad time with the dice. A very close game. A refight going the other way saw the Germans win in a last minute bit of lucky dice

Dave brought out a 6mm game of team Yankee. It looked bleak for the forces of capitalism as I was leaving.

Up next: I've got some more 1/72-scale models on the way. And a bunch of character figures for Dragon Rampant just arrived and will be primed this weekend. I am hopeful to bring a game out to the club in early July.

Some WW2 tanks

I finished up some 1/72-scale German tanks this weekend, just in time to run a game at the club tomorrow! I don't usually cut things that close and I'm happy to have these done.

These are kits I got about a year ago from Tim in Saskatoon. The Panther is a 1/76-scale Hasegawa kit. Lovely to build. The treads were slightly fiddly to mate and I ended up stapling them. Good thing is came with skirts! I added a little battle damage.

Tim also had two Panzer 3s from Revell. Love the hard plastic Revell treads! Nice enough kits even though the skirts (especially on the turrets) required some extra effort. I'm not crazy about the camo schemes. Oh well--done is done.

Up next: A game of Memoir and then a Russian SPG and a US half track. After that, who knows?

A few 15mm monsters

I've spent much of this week building some plastic kits (finally done and primed) so painting was minimal. I did knock off two monsters I found in one of my Battlelore boxes.

The guys above is a hill giant that I decided to make an ice giant with some blue paint. He's big! There was also a spider. I spent a lot of time on him but the end result was meh. Weird.

Up next: Next Tuesday is club night and I will likely bring a game of Memoir out. I have four 1/72-scale tanks primed so I will also being painting on them this weekend.

Last of the dwarves

A few days of rainy weather gave me enough time to finish off the last of the Battlelore dwarves that have been patiently waiting on a painting tray for months.

These are big dwarves for 15mm figures (probably close to 25mm dwarves). Above we have some skirmishers with swords and bucklers.

There were two different sculpts of the dwarves carrying either claymores or bastard swords (one left handed and one right handed. I'm not sure what they are supposed to represent (in terms of the difference). Again, south paws predominate.

The dwarves also came (every helpfully) with siege engines (or field artillery) and a crew. The ballistas will likely find themselves serving all sides.

There were also some axe men and a bunch of crossbow men.

Finally, there were four bear riders that I got in one of the expansions. I'd guess that the sculptor was different for this expansion. The figure is also much smaller than the rest of the dwarves and generally isn't that inspiring. But nice to have a cavalry option.

Up next: I have a 1/76-scale US half-track built and being painted. I also found two 15mm monsters (a giant and a spider) from Battlelore that I'm painting. Looking at what I have, I would think that I will be shifting back towards some WW2 modelling this summer. I've also been re-reading Dragon Rampant and may give that a go with Jess shortly.