Game4It

Tuesday, 28 August 2018

Building buildings

To start:

Earlier this I picked up a copy of Spectre Operations, I had been playing with the idea of buying it for quite a while and after reading some battle reports of the game I went for it.

Reviewing the game could be for another post but after reading the rules it looks awesome. I have yet to play a game.

So this is where I start, all my terrain is 15mm, spectre is for 28mm so rather than spending a small fortune on buying buildings I decided I would build some.

Materials

To start I gathered up all the modelling stuff I have buying over the years but never get round to using,

-craft knife

-metal ruler

-glue gun

-5mm foam board

-cork granules (or sand/small pebbles)

-PVA glue

-pen/pencil
-fine grade sandpaper

-polyfiller

-lollipop sticks (or the coffee stirring one's Costa let you have free, although do get the odd look when they think your stirring your latte with 30 odd sticks)

-really thin MDF (had to buy this one)

And the most important bit,

-imagination

To get a building design either doodle one down of go on Google images, once you have something you like then your set to start building.

But, my method is to look at Google images and find something close to what I want and doodle down the changes, But then add and change things as I'm building it.

Building it

Firstly I made the outer walls, they are 70mm high, doors are 40mm high and 30mm wide.

Windows between 20mm and 40mm in height but width can be anything you choose (forgot how wide I done mine).

Then glued them on with the glue gun.

Interior walls are 45mm high.

Then I cut out a roof section (access hole 20x20mm) and glued in lollipop sticks on the inside of the exterior walls level with the interior walls. This creates a lip for the roof to rest on.

Then mixed water, PVA and polyfiller into a paste and coated all the edges where the foam is exposed, filled in unwanted gaps and gave the exterior walls a thin coating.

Let this dry and give it a light sand down.

Brickwork note! Slice off the card exposing the foam and using a pen/pencil draw a brickwork pattern and push into it as you draw.

Roof note! The flat roofs tend to warp when you paint them, so I glued some lollipop sticks to the bottom for extra strength.

Then covoured the floor in PVA and sprinkled in the cork, plus a few chunks of foam board to add texture.

Once dry I then painted the whole building in a PVA and water mix. This bonds it all together.

Then I sprayed it with a black undercoat, This is where you find out if you have any exposed foam as the aerosol tends to melt it.

Painting it!

I gave all the outside walls a coat of heavy ochre 72.150.

floors got a coat of German camo beige ww2 70.821

inside walls had a coat of field blue 70.964

brick areas had ochre brown 70.856

Once dry I gave all surfaces a second coat,

inside walls dark blue grey 70.904

outside walls dark sand 70.847

And give floor a second coat.

To make areas look mucky I added some Agrax earthshade.

paint bricks stone grey 70.884

I then highlighted all walls with stone grey 70.884.

lastly add varnish.

And there you have a nice building to hide in/storm and blow up.

Saturday, 4 August 2018

First Game of NSIS

Backdrop:

The world of Emerald has become subject to an uprising, insurgent forces are trying to overthrow the government and gain independence from the Tyreen Commonwealth that Emerald is part of.

The Jolen Vale is held firmly by insurgent forces and the Army has sent the 2nd Battalion in to reclaim he area.

The Vale has a good railway network and the Army want to use it to get armour into the vale quickly, hoping that heavy armour will crush the insurgents and break their will to fight.

As part of the operation it fell to 4th Company, 3rd Platoon commanded by lieutenant Hildermann to capture a small rail depot.

The Mission:

A Routine priority mission on the railway to capture the rail depot, being a routine mission there was no roll for supporting forces.

Hildermann has entered the AO on foot and had spent the best parts of the early hours slowly and quietly advancing his platoon through the woods towards the depot.

Observation drone surveys the AO.

Platoon ready to advance.

Western blocking squad.

Reserve squad in the building, eastern blocking squad up the road.

Squad Anders breaks cover from the tree line in two fire teams leapfrogging and putting down some heavy fire on the western squad, Squad Young sprints from cover towards the raised shed followed by Niles. Squad Rush and the command team quickly mave down the rail lines.

The Rocket squad do little, while the western squad returns fire. The eastern squad and reserve squad start moving to support their fellow rebels.

Lead starts to fly.

Reinforcements inbound.

The Rebel Command team break from the small building and open fire on Squad Young putting one rifleman down, Eastern squad, Reserve squad and the rocket squad do little but manoeuvre while the western squad continues its firefight with Anders Squad. Anders keeps pushing forward suppressing the enemy until his fireteam came into close range, they quickly put three rebels down and some drop their guns and run.

Squad Young take another casualty but keep pushing forward, their fire being really effective as they gun down two members of the rebel command team. Behind them Niles treats the wounded.

The Rocket team once again stand around as reserve squad and the eastern squad finally close in and start putting down some sporadic fire and take down Sergeant Anders.

Hildermanns team flank the rebel command and gun down one of its members, this proves too much for the rebel commander who drops his gun and runs for his life.

Rebel rienforcements arrive and gun down anders.

Hildermann flanks and destroys the rebel command.

Ander Squad pushes into the pipes area that the now decimated western squad were occupying and start laying down fire on the newly arrived eastern squad while Squad Young close assault the reserve squad causing heavy casualties and alot of desertions, with whats left of the rebel forces being surrounded and taking heavy casualties the remaining rebels run.

Drone view at the battles end

Aftermath:

3rd platoon definitely achieved their objective as the rebel forces were crushed, the platoon took three casualties, two riflemen and Sergeant Anders. Rolling for their status resulted in one rifleman and Anders in medical care meaning they miss the next game. The other rifleman is too injured and sent off for long term recovery and no replacement is immediately available.

Sergeant Young gained a medal for holding his squad together under heavy fire and casualties before close assaulting the middle of rebel forces and breaking them.

Master Sergeant Korwen sat on the roof of the troop carriage, the train had arrived four hours after they had taken the depot, so far no counter attack had come, the train arrived carrying 2nd platoon, IFV's and some recon tanks plus alot of support elements, all of who were busying themselves around the depot, but it was none of this he was looking at.

On the horizon, the sun was setting and twilight was starting to set in, the sky was an amazing colour of purple silhouetting the tree's on the horizon, the sky was broken by five plumes of smoke that were slowly spilling up. The smoke came from the destroyed vehicles of the 1st Recon platoon who had advanced deep into the Vale and had been ambushed in the town of Harlock, he had received the reports a few hours ago.

Even though he knew the smoke was a sign of their defeat and men had died, the sky was a beautiful sight.

Friday, 20 July 2018

Crew Activities

Once again the crew must perform their activities, so . .

-Rafflesnap: Ventures out to see the sights, gets a few drinks but nothing useful.

-Abraham: Goes out trading and returns with an Instruction manual.

-Zia: Decides to train, she also uses the instruction manual Abraham acquired but learns nothing new.

-Simon: Goes out recruiting but find no willing members.

-'Betty': Guards the ship.

Simon stumbles upon a rumour while out trying to recruit, and Zia is feeling restless, she is growing tired of Florax.

They decide to get back on with the quest.

(Here i decide to start using travel times)

The UNITY post is 6 hours, 2 hours in an event occurs and get . . . making good time, so they reach the post in 4 hours.

Stealing from Golg

'Betty', Simon and two henchmen had been sent by Rafflesnap to the Golg's camp, hopefully the alien merc's had something of value they could steal.

The Golgs Camp

Simon and 'Betty' plan their attack

'Betty' took a henchman around the large pipe stack while Simon advanced through the tree's with the other crewman, they opened up with their shotguns but failed to hit the target. The Golg quickly took cover and returned fire and knocked Simon's henchman over.

'Betty' trips out and runs from cover wildly as Simon lays down a barrage of fire panicking one of the aliens, his henchman regains his feet and joins in the shooting wounding a Golg.

The shooting starts!

The firefight rages between the two groups, the henchman hiding behind the pipes looses his nerve and backs off, Simon manages to gun down the wounded Golg, the panicked Golg keeps running and leaves the area.

Things are getting serious.

Simon and his henchman advance on the last alien laying down a steady rate of fire, their shots hit and wound the creature. 'Betty' sprints forward eager to close the range and the aliens return fire misses everyone.

Simon moves into an excellent firing position as 'Betty' flips out once again, running in circles and screaming,

The last wounded Golg decides to live to fight another day and hastily retreats from the area.

I'm getting out of here . . .

With no more Golg in the area they start unpacking the crates to find . . . Novelty stuffed animals!

Simon swears about this little raid being a frakking useless mission but still decide to take them back to the Staramus.

Friday, 1 June 2018

Thursday, 31 May 2018

No Stars In Sight!

A little while ago i picked up a copy of No Stars in sight, and after reading it i quite like the looks of it and tagged it as a, future game . . . Along with everything else that is still waiting to be done.
But with Assult Publishing's sale i purchased alot of miniatures and thought they would be ideal for No Stars In Sight.

Now, the cool thing about NSIS is that it has a Solo play rule section, which is really handy as my long term gaming partner has vanished still due to girlfriend (starting to think she has kidnapped him) and trying to run a campaign at my gaming club is chaotic at best with all the other games and campaigns going on.

NSIS has a good set of tables that allow you to generate wars, missions, forces, assets, etc. But Seeing as i had insurgents and military guys i just decided the war reason would be an Uprising.
The insurgents were an obvious force type of irregular fighters, for the military i decided to roll on the force table and got 'Line Infantry'.

Although not essential, i decided to choose forces using the points system and went with 300pts per side.

Line inf. Force.
4 man Command team.
-lieutenant Hilderman: integrated commander, platoon leader.
-master sergent Korwen: platoon NCO, x2 smoke grenades
-soldier: squad automatic

6 man inf. Team
-Sergent: squad leader, x2 smoke grenades
-2 soldiers: squad automatic

#sergents are called Rush, Anders and Young

Medic Niles: self motivated, medic

Now seeing as the story will be following these guys i rolled on the relationships and personality tables for officers and NCO's, so randomly rolling pairs and then their personality this is what resulted.

Lieutenant Hilderman
He is a long term soldier who joined to escape his family bussiness, is a very charismatic leader but is very malicious towards his opponents.

-has a professional relationship with-

Master Sergent Korwen
From a farming background, he has quickly risen through the ranks and is very ambitious to reach officer ranks.
He leads by example making him popular with the grunts.

Medic Niles
Has been in the military most of his life, he has a strong sense of duty and is a desceet individual.

-has a professional relationship with-

Sergent Anders
Also another lifer, leads with strong discipline and has a number of idealogical views and a conceited individual.

Sergent Rush
Tired of working the production lines in a factory he joined for Adventure, he is a very 'by the book' leader and is quite picky.

-has mutual respect with-

Sergent Young
Was a well known musician which makes him quite pompous but his close relationship with his squad means they work as a close knit team.

The last thing i looked as was the support assets chart, and decided it needed some tweaking, so . . .

-18-20= Non-standard infantry
Roll D6
-1=Drop troops
-2-3= Military police
-4-5= Engineers
-6= Spec Ops
-26-32= Specialist
Roll D4
-1=Drone Operator
-2=Hacker
-3=Medic
-4=Sniper
-33-37= Command element
Roll D6
-1-3=Platoon CnC
-4-5=Company CnC
-6=Battallion CnC
-45-47= APC
Roll D6
-1-4=Light APC
-5-6=Heavy APC
-69-76= Light support vehicle
Roll D6
-1-2=AAA
-3-4=Missile support vehicle
-5-6=Mobile arty
-95-97= Specialist Vehicle
Roll D6
-1=Mobile Command Post
-2-3=Engineering vehicle
-4-5=Field Ambulance
-6=Radar vehicle

I am currently working on the support assets chart for the insurgent forces and have just started to paint the military force.

Saturday, 31 March 2018

Upcoming Salute

Like all other wargamers i'm getting pretty excited about Salute 2018.
With my recent foray into the crucible i am keen to pick up some more forces.

So far my forces have had strong infantry but am really wanting an armoured engagement, with bits and bobs i have lying around i have 2/3 of a force of Podeles Lions.
I am currently working on a Federal Mechanised infantry detachment.

Have plans for building Oltenian mercs to fight on Cecach then build a Molt force.

Also very tempted to do the Kalan war, i have some Hiroseki and Stewart infantry lying around but no vehicles.

So much to do!!!

Loving the new stuff from brigade . . . Hmm maybe fosters mercs . . .

http://www.brigademodels.co.uk/Blog/2018/03/salute-starts-here/

http://www.brigademodels.co.uk/Blog/2018/03/viking-thunderbolt/