Friday Night Under the Lights!

A new game shop opened in East Atlanta recently. They're primarily focused on card games, like Magic and Pokemon, but they also have space for miniatures gaming.

It is significantly closer to me than any of the other places I've gamed - 10 minute drive and actually in the city vs 40-60 minutes and out in the burbs (Atlanta traffic is no joke - so those times only go up if there's traffic). Like several area game stores, they have a Discord server and when I saw someone post on Wednesday about setting up an OPR game, I jumped on the chance.

When I mentioned the only 2000 point army I can field at the moment is a fantasy lizard army he offered to run his space orks as fantasy orcs. However, both Grimdark Future and Age of Fantasy are virtually identical rules-wise and I had seen game reports of sci-fi vs fantasy OPR games on YouTube and suggested that. So we played Space Orks vs Fantasy Lizardfolk outside the shop under the lights, on Friday night!

I didn't get many photos - I was too busy getting my butt handed to me!

This is my favorite picture.

That gator hero had been sitting primed for months. 20 minutes of heavily thinned acrylic to fake contrast painting over the primer, with a light dry brush after, for the win.

My biggest issue, that wasn't my absurdly bad dice rolling in the 2nd and 3rd turn (such as rolling 20+ dice to defend against attacks and only succeeding on four or so of those dice), was not being familiar with my units' abilities. I should have studied my roster better. Still, I had a great time and came home inspired to finish up the Goblin Green rebasing project and to get my Blessed Sisters up to 2000 ASAP (ordered a 3D-print Immolator proxy - it's the same base as my Rhino but with a dual flamer turret).

My standout unit was a unit of Gators (technically, my Egyptian crocodile unit) lead by a Gator hero (the Egyptian mamma-croc - also finished quickly, on Thursday night). Had I known their attack strength (4 figures, 9 attack dice with armor penetration), I would have had them in the middle but instead had them on the right flank and basically away from the action for most of the game. When they finally got into the mix, they destroyed one of the ork trucks with ease.

We're talking about another game sometime in May. That will give me time to finish the Goblin Green basing and maybe review my roster more closely!

Plague Marines! Boar Boyz! Goblin Green Bases, Oh My!

Although I had not planned to do it, I ended up completely repainting my old school metal Plague Marines to match their much larger plastic brethren.  You can view the old paint job on this post.

More tufts arrived, so I can finally finish all of the bases.

The color change doesn't make them any taller, but I like that they blend in better.

I managed to finish assembling and painting all of the Boar Boyz I got myself for Christmas (the Plague Marines were also self Christmas gift). Two of them just needed to be glued to their boars, but the rest were in various states of disrepair. 

I haven't taken a picture of them yet because I'm just starting in on basing.

And I started with the seven Boar Boys I picked up previously (painted by their previous owner). 

I decided that I want to approximate the old Goblin Green basing common for Citadel/GW figures way back when (Not having been a wargamer back then, I have no nostalgia for it, I just love the way it looks).

So, using a recipe I found here: https://www.goonhammer.com/how-to-base-everything-goblin-green-bases/

I tried and ...
 

I love the way it came out! I could probably dry brush a little more yellow on top but I think it looks good enough.

The picture below shows my two fantasy armies lined up for no other reason than I wanted to. This was taken *before* I did the bases above, so any green you see, came already painted on the bases.

I get giddy just looking at this! The bases are 5" x 2.5", ostensibly for One Hour Wargames Dark Ages.

Although there are round-bases pictured above - all of the lizards have been rebased to squares, just like the Black Orcs on the far left. I decided I just like it better. The difference is that most of the lizards have integral bases, and I haven't decided if I'll make an effort to smooth the transition or just say "who cares?"and leave them on little hills.

Because, when I think about it, I really don't care if the are on little hills. 

After watching copies come and go at prices I could not justify, a reasonably priced copy of, Warhammer 40K, Second edition, came along. And for reasons I can't fathom  Blogger refuses to post the picture without rotating it. So, no picture, I guess.

I also acquired a copy of the Wargear book (literally a book dedicated to the variety of weapons and their abilities), which is generally available at throw away prices. No picture of this because I haven't taken one.

I have PDFs of both, found online, but I like being able to flip through the pages. The artwork in the books is perfect. I have a regularly expressed preference for Moldvay B/X D&D, the rules and its artwork, and this era of 40K feels like it's in the same lineage.

Finally, here's what's currently on my painting table:

The second figure from the left in the front row, on a "rock" (foam core), is an old metal Adepta Sororitas Hospitaller. She is so tiny. So so tiny. I think this figure was undersized compared to its contemporaries even.

I ordered it at the tail end of 2025 (so she doesn't count towards my purchase tracking), but it just arrived this past week. I bought it because I had read Faith & Fire (which features Hospitaller Verity as an important secondary character, and I have now also completed Hammer & Anvil, and she's in that, too. More on those books in another post).

You can't see it, but there's a mutant Chaos Cultist in the rear left, in front of the bright green crocodile. I picked up the cultist because of Faith & Fire, as well. Not because there are cultists in the novel, but because I want to use the figure as a psyker for Space Weirdos games. This figure looked way more like how I imagine psykers than any figure, "official" or otherwise, I found.

All of the lizards are Reaper Dark Heaven. The in-progress red lizards will let me round out two of my existing units - the red lizard warriors and the red lizard archers. I haven't decided how I'll paint the unprimed lizards. I am thinking of going with the spider-man lizard They'll act as a guard for the frog shaman.

The Tyranids are the first figures I'm working on from the large 9th ed. 40K starter set I picked up last year on ebay for a song. Eventually the 20 in the box will join the 20 I already have. I have no idea where or when I'd *need* 40 termagants, but painting them is easy and I can just pop on the Golden Girls or Bob's Burgers and listen while I paint.

 

FUBAR 40K : Adepta Sororitas vs Necrons : Part 2

When we last left the story, Canoness Valoria and the Battle Sisters in her command were pressing in on the escaping Necrons and their trophy.

The "x" markers remind me they need to check if the figure can return to the game or not. The green bead tells me the figure is suppressed.

Valoria gripped the hilt on her eviscerator and threw herself into the enemy - the whirring blade catching living metal in its teeth. In the ensuing chaos, the Untouchable broke free of his captors and took off for the nearest ruin.

It will forever drive me crazy that the corner piece is on it's side and i didn't notice until I looked at the pictures after!

Two Battle Sisters descended on the running Untouchable and brought him into their custody. But, the second squad of Necrons charged into the ranks of the Sisters and a massive scrum ensued.

It got a little messy here.

The Battle Sisters gave better than they got initially, but the fallen Necrons kept reforming, and Sisters soon began to fall. With no small risk of being overrun, Valoria took personal command of the prisoner and ordered her Sisters to fall back, firing as they went. 

That swarm never stood a chance against 13 dice of shooting.

With their Sisters safely away with the target, the remnants of Sister Angelique's squad dropped back as Sister Caterina's squad provided covering fire.

Reduced to a fraction of their starting force, the Necrons simply disappeared without trace. Moments later Valoria summoned the shuttle for extraction.

They had lost two squad leaders and five Battle Sisters but, costly though it was, it was victory for the Adepta Sororitas.

***

Some Thoughts on FUBAR

I've played many games of FUBAR and I like the rules, so nothing that follows is a deal breaker for me, just some thoughts on suitability for new players.. 

I started down this road because I ran into a situation I hadn't encountered in previous FUBAR games.

The game is a unit vs unit game - activation is by unit and all members of the unit must take the same action. However, while the assumption is multi-figure units, it supports single-figure units, like my Canoness. Some supplements even add rules for Heroes that give some single-figure units special abilities.

Now here's what I found to be a bit of wrench in the works: 

My Canoness charges a unit of Necrons and makes base-to-base contact with one of them. As written, it sounds to me that the whole Necron unit is now in close combat. And per the rules, they may move up unengaged figures that are within 3" of an attacking enemy figure.

1. How many Necrons in the unit can be moved into contact with the Canoness? That his, how many figures can attack one figure.
2. What about those figures who are not engaged or are outside of the 3" range? Can they shoot? Can they move? 
3. Can figures who are within that range, but can't make contact with a model be moved into contact in a subsequent round if a friendly figure is removed? 

The rules don't answer any of these explicitly. The players must decide for themselves.

If you have experience wargaming, you probably have some preferred way of handling the number of figures that can attack a single figure in melee. In my case, I allow three figures to contact one, but only if all other figures in the assaulting unit have been engaged by at least one enemy. 

But, what if you're new to wargaming? 

The second and third questions aren't as straightforward, in my opinion.

We know units can only take one action on their activation, different actions can't be taken by different figures in the unit - so shooting seems unlikely to be allowed. 

Fair enough, although this might strain the ol' noggin' as it seems to be unrealistic and especially so if your brain is telling you the figures are individuals even though you know it's a unit vs unit game.

But what if that unit was attacked before it activated? Can those figures still get their activation? (probably not for most of us, but someone might decide otherwise)

Even potentially more confusing, it implies a single figure can tie up an entire unit. This is useful for the side with the single-figure unit but is that what was intended?

Intended or not I like that, but again, players have to decide. 

It worked well for the Necrons - a scarab swarm was able to screen the main body of warriors as they made their exit. It worked well too for the Sisters, when, as in my example, Valoria charged the Necrons - she was able to freeze them in position at the table's edge. She's a heroic individual doing heroic things, so narratively speaking it made sense.

Per the rules,  "The combat continues at the beginning of each subsequent turn. The units involved automatically activate at that point. They cannot subsequently activate in that turn."

What does that mean for non-engaged models? Certainly, they can't shoot. The whole unit has to take the same action after all and they've been forced to activate automatically at the start of the turn.

Can those figures move if it involves moving into the close combat their unit is engaged in? If they were within 3" but couldn't make contact initially can they fill in for the fallen? 

It's not explicitly stated that non-engaged models can move up to fill openings as others of their side fall. Common sense tell us they should be able to, but the rules are silent and again, if you're new to wargaming, you might wonder if allowing it is in keeping with the designer's intent.

If you liberally interpret "Then the opponent can move up any unengaged figures that are within 3”/8cm of an assaulting enemy figure." as applying in subsequent rounds of close combat,  you can at least reason your way to supporting the conclusion if they are within that 3" range, they could move to fill in for a fallen comrade.

What about figures that were outside the 3" when the assault began? Can they move into the combat? Or do they just hold their position? 

Once again, the players need to decide. 

Again, none of this is a slam against FUBAR. Lots of sets of rules have issues like this. It does mean that I wouldn't make FUBAR my top recommendation for totally new players without guidance from an experienced gamer. 

"For my money" (they're free, so ...), they are better suited for people who have experience to draw on and fill in the gaps.  As I'm not new to wargaming by any means, I'll be returning to them undoubtedly, but for now I've got my eyes set on trying Warhammer 40k's 2nd edition rules. 

FUBAR 40K : Adepta Sororitas vs Necrons : Part 1

The Necrons learned of the presence of an Untouchable on an Imperial planet, Nilia 9C6, and dispatched a force there to find and retrieve him for research purposes. Hidden away by the Inquisition in the ruins of a town far from the any active settlement, the Untouchable is unaware of any danger. Cannoness Valoria has been ordered to retrieve the Untouchable or prevent him from falling into their hands, alive.

A drop ship deposited the Cannoness and two of her Battle Sisters squads just South of the town. 

Sister Caterina's squad is in the foreground, Sister Angelique is behind the wall in the back.

To the North, two squads of Necrons accompanied by three Canoptek Scarab Swarms fanned out to search for their quarry.

Necrons advance us

Table before the first moves (pictured above)

The Warriors sent the swarms ahead, their beating wings carrying them above any obstacle. In the shadow of a decrepit storage tank, one swarm found the prize.

Moments later, Necron Warrriors moved in to capture him.

With the enemy already in possession of the objective and retreating to their extraction point, Sister Angelique raced her squad across the ruins, hoping to gain a clear line of sight to the enemy, but swarms of robotic beetles hampered their advance. 

To the right of that fray, the Battle Sisters of Sister Caterina's squad, driven by holy zeal, stormed over the wall

If you look closely in the upper left, you'll see I've marked a swarm as suppressed (green bead). This was a mistake. There is no suppression in close combat. It should have been marked down (see special rules for Necrons below)

directly into the line of sight of an approaching Necron squad.

For a moment it looked like the Necrons would escape with their prisoner and extract a high price from the oncoming Adepta Sororitas. But the faith of the Sisters never wavered, knowing with certainty in their hearts, the Emperor protects.

As if in a state of confusion, both squads of Necron Warriors stopped in place - neither advancing to contact nor moving to extract their prisoner. 

A heretic might say the Necrons suffered glitches in their communication matrix due to atmospheric interference, common on Nilia 9C6, but the Sisters of the Adepta Sororitas knew it was the light of the Emperor's will that shone grace upon them.

The Necron Warriors with the prisoner failed their activation rule several turns in a row, as did the other squad. This allowed the Battle Sisters to stay in the fight.

The Sisters pressed forward, but clouds of flying, living metal swarmed on them, their metallic mandibles seeking any weakness in the Sororitas' Ceramite armor, buying the Necrons time to escape with their prize.

Or so it seemed.  Still the Necron Warriors stood in place.

Seizing the moment, Cannoness Valoria sprinted across the battlefield. Glowing green bolts of searing energy from Necron Gauss guns tore through the air exploding clods of earth at her heels as she sprang behind ruined walls. 

A short space of open ground separated her from her quarry.

The Necron with the green bead is suppressed, the one with the black triangle with the red X is actually down. I realized shortly after that I should in fact, lay the figure on its side, with the marker (to remind me they need to make a repair roll).

Stay tuned for Part 2!

***

Background:

This week, I decided I wanted to try out FUBAR take on Warhammer 40K. They are a supplement, rather than a variant of, the FUBAR wargame rules for modern/sci-fi small unit combat. Instead of presenting the rules entirely as the variants do, such as Medieval or VSF, they cover converting the Warhammer 40K units and weapons into FUBAR units and weapons.

The recommendation for balance is to use the points from 40K (I assume the 3rd Edition in the name of the one document refers to the 40K version, but it may refer to the FUBAR version it was meant to supplement). I am very interested in 2e 40K of late, and so I used those point values and found I have around equal points of Adepta Sororitas and Necrons. 

The scenario idea came from the 3rd ed.  Codex : Witch Hunters (can be found online - Adepta Sororitas had their own codex as the end of second edition, and they are included in Witch Hunters in 3rd. I share this because I only just learned this recently).

The Forces:

Adepta Sororitas 

Cannoness Valoria: Elite, bolt pistol (2 FP), power armor (Save on 3+)

Battle Sister Squad 1 (Veteran, power armor (Save on 3+)):

• Sister Superior Angelique:bolt pistol (2 FP) 
• 4 Sisters with Bolt Rifles (3 FP each)
• 1 Sister with Melta (3 FP)
• 1 Sister with HMG (4 FP) 

 Battle Sister Squad 2 (Veteran, power armor (Save on 3+)):

• Sister Superior Caterina: Bolt  Pistol (2FP) 
• 4 Sisters with Bolt Rifles (3 FP each)
• 1 Sister with Flamer (3 FP)
• 1 Sister with Heavy Flamer (4 FP) 

 Necrons 

Squad 1

•  5 Necron Warriors: Veteran (1 FP, Save on 3+)

Squad 2 

•  5 Necron Warriors: Veteran (1 FP, Save on 3+)

Canoptek Scarab Swarms: 

• 3 Canoptek Swarms : Seasoned (0 FP, CC only, Save on 5+ , capable of a leap of 16" over intervening terrain). Each swarm acts independently.

The Necrons are not covered by the FUBAR supplements. No worries!

All Necrons have the following special rules (from "W40K 2nd Ed Battle Bible 1.7.2" - available online):

Self-Repair: "Necrons cannot be removed as casualties. Instead, mark them or place them on their side." At the start of each turn, before the automatic close combat round, for each Necron on its side, roll 1d6:

• 1 - destroyed, remove as casualty
• 2-5 still trying to repair
• 6 Repaired and immediately returned to fight. "

Isolation :  "A Necron warrior which repairs itself may find itself outside of normal coherency to the rest of its squad. Necrons in such a condition are said to be isolated. An isolated Necro cannot shoot, although it fights as normal in all other respects. It must move to join a unit of the same type."

Morale : "If the entire Necron force is reduced to 25% or less of its original number at the start of any Necron turn, then the whole army  will mysteriously vanish; the Necrons are assumed to have been driven away. Necrons which have fallen down but not yet removed can’t be counted as part of the remaining force, so a Necron army can be defeated if enough models are knocked down even if they are not permanently destroyed." 

The emphasis there is mine - I did not remember that when I was running the game and that played a part in the game's length for sure!

The Untouchable Rules

Untouchables are individuals immune to Pyskkers, or something like that. In any case, I had 3 blinds on the table one real, two dummies.

Swarms can check the blinds but cannot capture the Untouchable if found or escort him off the table. 

Once revealed, the Untouchable, Green with no armor, activates once per turn. And being Green, odds are high they'll fail their activation roll.

• If he is not currently captured or rescued and he activates successfully, he moves 1d6" in a random direction (roll 1d12, read like a clock direction). 
• Once captured or rescued, he becomes temporarily part of that unit and moves with them but still activates each turn in order to try and escape. 
• To escape (he doesn't want to be captured and in the confusion of the moment, doesn't want to be rescued either), he must attack his guard, and the guard must fail in their attack against him. If successful, the Untouchable immediately moves 1d6" in a random direction as above.

If the unit with the Untouchable is attacked, and there are any unsaved hits (using the unit's save value), the Untouchable is hit and killed on a 1 on a 1d6.

Once captured or rescued, the unit with the Untouchable can only move a max of 6" per turn.

As for FUBAR itself, there were some house rules added on the fly to address some grey areas, but more on that next time.

Painting Continues to the Surprise of All!

Somehow, I've already managed to get some painting done in 2026! Most of this post is works-in-progress but in an effort to keep my momentum, I thought I'd take some photos to share where I'm at. Plus, I have to document completed figures vs purchased figures for my one and only goal for the year.

First up, four battle sisters (to be fair they were started in December):

Their completion brings me up to two 7-figure squads - which was my target (decided upon after reviewing PDFs of the 2nd ed. 40K Sisters of Battle codex, 2nd ed. Codex Imperialis, and 3rd ed. Codex: Witchhunters, as well as FUBAR 40K 3rd Edition, and FUBAR 40K Boarding Actions - Boarding Parties)

I have four of my Christmas gift Orc Boar Boyz in progress: 

The fellow on the left is closest to done - although I see I missed the wrappings on his shield arm - his shield is in-progress. The others have been base coated only, with no touch-ups or highlights.

For their skin color, I wanted something to blend in with the others I have that were painted by a previous owner. To that end, I'm using Delta Ceramcoat Medium Foliage Green as the base coat, and picking out raised bits/edges with Delta Ceramcoat Leaf Green. While it's no Goblin Green of yore, I think it has a nice cartoonish look, which was my objective.

Most of the boars have lost their tails,  which is typical for these older figures. Unfortunately, the few that did have tails, also are now without them due to my not so nimble fingers. I wonder if the more recently produced boars have this problem. It's OK, I may make tails for all of them from wire later, or I may just call it a badge of honor for these veteran sculpts. 

Finally, I started in on my other Christmas present, seven old school (90's sculpt, metal) Plague Marines:

As a reminder these were painted by the previous owner - but somewhat sloppily. 

I've begun putting base coats on bits they had left as primer or that have been worn down to bare lead again and on the weapons (I don't think they should be the same color as the rest of the figure). The previous owner used a fairly glossy and thick varnish, making blacking out the weapons more annoying than it needed to be, but I don't want to strip the figures either. I know I want to keep some of the coppery colored state, but there are definitely details I want to pick out in non-metallic paint! 

In any case, the biggest thing that needed addressing was the basing. The figures came mounted on their original 25mm slotta bases. That size base doesn't fit in with the rest of my science fiction/40K collection.

On top of that, the figures are tiny compared to the modern Primaris-era figures.

 To make up a bit of the height difference, I followed advice I'd seen elsewhere and:

1. Clip them free of their old 25mm slotta bases
2. Clip the tab (that goes in the slotta base) off the mini (thereby depreciating the figure on the collector's market. Fortunately, I'm not a reseller.) 
3. Use cork or other basing material to give some height to the figure. 

I don't have any cork, but I have plenty of foamcore sheets available. So, I peeled off the paper from each side, which left me with just the foam. I then broke and tore the foam into roughly rock-like shapes and glued them to new 32mm bases (3d printed, cheaply available on eBay and Etsy). 

 

Here the weapon-size difference might cause some to balk at fielding both on the same table, but that doesn't bother me as someone who fields 1/30,1/32,1/35 figures with 1/37,1/43,1/48, 1/50, and 1/56 vehicles on the same table regularly. I will keep them in separate units however.

The foam stones were primed with Delta Ceramcoat Raw Sienna, then a light coat of Folk Art Desert Sand, followed by a wash of Citadel's Aggrax Earthshade. Once dry, they were given a 1st highlight with very watered down Folk Art Desert Sand. I will undoubtedly apply another layer of the Desert Sand, less watered down, on the flat bits and edges.

Tufts and such will be added, but I'm currently out of them. 

I think Nurgle bases need a little Nurgle's rot on them, but I prefer to spend my money on other things than a very limited use Citadel technical paint. Previously, for my Nurgle's Rotters Blitz Bowl team and my modern Plague Marine figures, I mixed my own, but was way off the mark with the end result. This was my third attempt and it by far my most successful in terms of matching the vision in my head. 

It's still not a great match for Nurgle's rot, but it works for me. For now. And I've painted over my existing Plague Marine bases with it (see above size comparison photos)

I really should do a better job documenting my steps, in case anyone else finds themselves in the same boat. While I don't have specific ratios, what I can say is, I found a YouTube video that was inspirational and showed me my previous attempts were off because I relied only on green paints. Yellow appears to be key.

So for this mix, I started with Apple Barrel Lime Sherbert and Delta Ceramcoat Pale Yellow in roughly equal parts, and a huge glob of PVA to make a viscous puddle. The result was pleasing, a bit like pastel Easter candy, which is not at all like any kind of rot. Unless you count the tooth decay that follows eating too much candy and not practicing good oral hygiene.

Enter Reaper Pale Saffron. 

This color is very close to yellow mustard (like the kind you may have in your fridge) and it pushed the mix into green slime territory, which was good enough for me! How much Pale Saffron? I have no idea. That's the part I wish I had documented.

The rot was then coated with gloss varnish to give it a wet look.

Finally, just for fun, I've officially "converted" my white Solido Pz IV  to an Adepta Sororitas tank with some spare decals:

 It's been a busy two weeks!

 

November Review

This is kind of  a long one, so best to pour a cup of your favorite beverage, hot or cold.

November saw an explosion of gaming activity - but not a single drop of paint applied to anything.

Unfortunately, although I took photos, i didn't really document anything, so the photos below are of various games without much of a narrative. 

That said, I set out to try a variety of rules/options and I include my thoughts at the end of each section.

Fantasy

All of my fantasy games were of the same One Hour Wargames scenario, #4. 

 

One Hour Wargames 'Dark Ages' with 3" Squares inspired by Morschauser

 

I kept all of the ranges as written, despite units being half as wide as the maximum recommended width.

 

My rationale was that Morschauser's ranges are significantly greater and he suggests up to 3" squares.

 

Something is in focus in this picture, just not anything that makes it easy to look at.

G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T

 

This required some adjustment, as G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T. assumes 10-figure infantry and cavalry units. 

 

However, it's easy enough to allow for any number of figures in a unit, provided that number corresponds to either the number of sides of a die or half the number of sides of a die (assuming you have a set of polyhedral dice available, and I have more than my fair share. So, a d6 works for 3 figure units, and a d10 works for 5 figure units).

 

The markers indicate the unit lost a figure this round. In G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T., when a unit loses a figure, it must check morale the next time its card comes up.

These vintage metal Boar Boyz were an eBay score and painted by the previous owner. Most of the boars are missing their tails - someday I may get around to making them out of Green Stuff.

One Hour Wargames, 'Dark Ages' with Single Figures

 

This is basically the same as rules-as-written, without a base, as I did for my previous WWI post.

 

Sneaky goblins.

The hill is clearly the objective here.

I just love this scene. Pteranodons are straight up Dark Ages cavalry, whereas the Boar Boyz have +2.

One Hour Wargames, 'Dark Ages' with 6" x 3" bases

 

Standard OHW basing really. Actually, it's two 3"x3" bases side-by-side. Which, while I did not do it here, has the advantage of allowing a column for road travel. 

 

Orc Boar Boyz followed by their Beastfolk allies - since I don't have enough orcs to make six units.

What is not pictured above is Age of Fantasy, which I did play as well. 

I am more certain than ever that One Page Rules are fun for playing against others, but not so fun for solo games. For me, there are far too many special rules (nearly every unit has them) to remember for two sides.

G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T. worked surprisingly well in a game that featured melee over shooting. To balance smaller units vs larger, I gave the smaller units saves for all the members of the unit rather than just main characters. It wasn't a perfect solution, but it still gave a satisfying game.

That said, One Hour Wargames for the win. 

Whether 3" squares, 6" x 3", or individual figures (but no figure removal), the games were fun, and "felt right". I am not a huge fan of the "one unit remaining" end to games, so I will start adding in my preferred modifications: dicing for # of units to be activated per turn, morale tests, and leaders with rallying ability.

For Dark Ages OHW, the lizard units, other than the archers (which I treat as Ancients archers, as the Dark Ages rules do not account for archers) and the cavalry (dinosaurs and Pteranodons), are all warband (inspired by Neil Thomas's suggestion for a Viking army). 

The orcs are somewhat up in the air but I'm intent on building them to a cavalry dominant force (a la Neil Thomas's suggestion for a Frankish force, with a +2 bonus when attacking, and swapping cavalry with shield wall when generating a force), supplemented by shield wall (Black Orcs), warband (Savage Orcs), and skirmishers (Goblins). 

Science Fiction

 

G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T.

 

Arguably, this is what G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T. is intended for, although not the grim dark future. To keep tanks from dominating the battlefield - because I gave them MMGs and artillery options, in order to shoot at infantry units, they would have to make an acquisition roll first (an idea I borrowed from Disposable Heroes/Coffin for Seven Brothers) - which was just a roll vs their Shoot score. It worked as hoped.

 

Sisters advance, tasked with breaking through the Plague Marine position.

Plasma weapons function as anti-tank weapons. Too bad he missed and was then gunned down by the tank's MG shortly after.

A nice top-down pic of the winter-scheme Pz IV by Solido.

The Sisters would eventually drive off the Plague Marines and break through with minimal losses.

G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T. Again

 

The above game was actually the 2nd game with G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T. For the third game, I made some additional tweaks (explained below).

 

The Plague Marines had the Churchill tank. It was knocked out of the fight about mid-way through the game by a Sister with a Melta.

Sisters capture the objective.

If you're unfamiliar, G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T. can handle what amounts to a platoon with an independent leader figure and some kind of support (vehicle/mech/etc.) and avoid dragging down the game. Battles by G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T. can go larger - in large part (or entirely?)  due to rolling one morale result for an entire unit rather than for each figure in the unit - I have Battles as part of the G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T. Compendium, but I hate dealing with that massive PDF.

I tweaked some things each game and by game 3, I had something that I think works really well. My goal is to have 5-figure units for all foot. Neither side in this game can field more than one such unit at this time, so, 3-figure units for the Plague Marines and 4-figure units for the Sisters. Guess I better get painting!

Weapons were as much as possible mapped to existing G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T. weapons.

To mimic the differences in armor - which, to me, is a big part of the grim dark setting that needs to be addressed - all figures have an Armor Save, based on their One Page Rules Defense score and any additional special abilities in OPR that impact that roll.

It's very similar to how G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T.  handles vehicle armor. The difference is that I ignored the Save Roll Modifier for weapons when attacking infantry except for Plasma and Melta guns.

Speaking of, Flamers and Melta guns are brutal in G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T. All area-effect weapons are, but I like it so I'm keeping it.

Main Characters also have the standard G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T. save if they fail their Armor Save. 

I know I've converted One Hour Skirmish Wargames to work for me for the grim dark future setting, but that tops out around 13-15 models per side. I do at some point hope to field my complete Space Marine and Tyranid forces on the table (when painted) and that will be much larger than OHSW can handle and just about perfect for G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T.

Purchases

With Christmas coming, and being responsible for my own gifts, I ordered a job-lot of ten mostly vintage Boar Boyz. Most are missing shields, so I ordered some shields too. The Boar Boyz have arrived but as thy are a Christmas present, I have to refrain from starting on them until then.

 

Although I am not gifting myself any wargames books per se, I ordered two old Adepta Sororitas titles, Faith & Fire and Hammer & Anvil.

 

I'm tempted to buy one of the omnibuses but we'll see.  

RPGs

The party played through "Goblin Gully", a one-page dungeon, with nary a scratch - which makes sense as its really intended to be a challenge for 1st and maybe 2nd level characters, not 2nd and 3rd level characters. However, as part of it, they found a map that ties to another adventure location and to my surprise, that's where they want to go next.

I say to my surprise, because it's a mini-campaign - if the regular episodic adventures are like TV episodes, then this is the made-for-TV movie special.

It's also going to require some prep on my part before they can dive into it. One player expressed a desire for more role-play opportunities (it's mostly a hack and slash campaign so far). So I'm adding in lots of layers upon layers, like an ogre (Shrek joke for you fans out there). 

I started in on it at the end of the month and made some decent progress on setting up some NPC personalities and relationships. (Not going overboard since you never know what players will latch onto or ignore)

December Preview 

I'm not running a Christmas game this year, although I am helping out the GM. Possibly making scenery and painting figures as needed.

 

Mostly, I intend to play more fantasy games with OHW and some more G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T. in the grim dark future with different forces to make sure my adjustments work across factions. And Blitz Bowl. I haven't gotten in a single game yet.

 

Oddly, I have been feeling like painting lately, so that may be a thing. Who knows? 

 

And of course, I will be filling out the material needed for the first session of the next RPG adventure as described above. It's time for practical things like the first level of the map, stats, etc.

See you next month! (or sooner. I think I'm tired of these monthly wrap ups and may go back to posting on a whim)

July in Review

I spent most of July away from home but yet I managed a good bit of gaming.

The month kicked off with my One Hour Wargames modification for fantasy gaming before I headed out on the road:

Skeletons, giant and ordinary, held up the orc advance.

While I tried a variety of other rules, I kept coming back to these and for now, they'll be used when I finally get around to kicking off a fantasy campaign.

I spent a week working in Florida, but brought figures and some low-effort cardstock terrain for One Page Rules Grimdark Future: Firefight:

The game was played in a VERY small area - around 18" a side if I recall. Definitely fun to be had in small spaces. The figures are all 15mm from Khurasan purchased in the early 2010s.

Everything needed for the games (I played several times) fit into but a portion of my pack:

And just for giggles, here's the view from the balcony of the condo we stayed in:

We came home for a day and then my son and I drove to Western New York to visit family and friends. On this trip, I brought my Games Workshop figures and the full size terrain:

I only had a chance to play once while there, using my mom's kitchen table. We also had a family round of Life, which admittedly, isn't particularly deep, but there was a lot of laughter which is pretty much what I hope for from a family game night.

Once back, I got it in my head to play a tournament of sorts using Grimdark Future: Firefight. The playing space I decided on was 36" x 24".

Game 1 and 2 ...

Alien Hive/Robot Legions vs Plague Brothers. It was a close game  but the Plague Brothers won on the last turn

Battle Brothers vs Blessed Sisters. The Battle Brothers crushed the Sisters, outscoring on objectives and eliminating all but one of them!

Game 3 featured Alien Hive/Robot Legions vs Blessed Sisters:

One of my favorite moments form the game. The game was a draw.

Game 4 - the title bout if you will - was a battle between Battle Brothers and Plague Brothers:

Battle Bros. deploy their squad on the left.

Plague Bros. deploy on the right.

A view from the Plague Bros. end. They won the roll to deploy first and were able to claim multiple objectives and take a defensive posture in turn 1.

End of Turn 1. The Battle Bros. have covered a lot of ground, in part due to their leader having Advanced Tactics which lets him move three units 6" if they are within 12" of him at the start of his activation.

End of turn 2. Both sides hold one objective. The third (upper right) is moved to "contested" status with the Battle Bros within the 3" distance to lay claim to it.

Turn 3. The Battle Bros. concentrate on hurling themselves at the contested objective - not without cost.

Turn 4 ended with the last objective still contested. Each side captured one objective and the game ended in a draw. In terms of losses, the Battle Brothers lost more units, but that's not how scoring is done in the basic rules.

Painting was sacrificed in July - I didn't want to bring paints with me.

Still, I did manage to complete the first four Saurian Starhost figures when I was home:

I will make three more as close combat specialists, but I need to buy more oat milk. Trust me, it makes sense!

August will see a return to gaming with others - this coming weekend hopefully will be either Firefight or maybe the Age of Fantasy: Skirmish rules at a local-ish game store. Then in two weeks, our family and friends BFRPG campaign is slated to continue with and admin session and short adventure.

With any luck, I might even get some paint applied to figures.

See you next month!