Spectre Runthrough

A test game of Spectre Ops

     I'm a big fan of modern/near future games and Spectre miniatures has a set of rules, Spectre Ops, that we gave a test play of.  The Spectre minis are comparable to Eureka and Empress.  The poses and various factions are great and would be a great addition to anyone's modern forces.  Very fine casting (yep, separate NVG to glue!) and well thought out equipment loads.  The Spectre Ops rules feel like a mix of Skirmish Sangin and Black Ops, enough detail for rivet counters but not so much that large force battles bog down to a stop.  Weapons are grouped by class and the thing I like most, ranges are long and damage is lethal.  Being hit is a bad thing, no hit points to absorb point-blank shotgun hits.  The game we played had two SF teams infiltrating a militia camp in Lbotu (my African imag-nation).  Their goals were to kill/capture the militia leader, rescue a doctor and nurse, rescue the chief's daughter from the guerrillas, and kill the guerrilla leader.  This was not meant to be a balanced game for points and it was unlikely the SF groups would get all the objectives, it was just  to see how the rules work, what we didn't understand, and get an overall feel for it.  Terrain is important in the game since ranges are long and when hit the effects are harsh.

  The board at the start.  The SF teams will come from the left and bottom.  The fur area is dense jungle and the Any area of scattered foliage is concealing terrain.

    One group of bad guys, guerrillas in the barracks.  They are unalert.

    Rebel army troops on stand-by near the supply dump.

   HVT in the form of a rebel leader, and bodyguarrds.

 The doc and his nurse, and militia overseer.  One SF team came in from the far left of the pic.

 HVT militia leader and local chief's daughter are in this 2-story house.  A gathering of militia troops are also present.

 Another view of the camp.

 A collection of tango casualties.  Sorry no in-game pics, too busy making sure we weren't doing something really wacky with the rules.  It is less than half of the total enemy force on the table.

     Some game notes:  high quality troops are better than low quality, and you'll notice it.  We played a narrative style game where I played the bad guys and Chuck & Bill played the SF teams.  I like this style play instead of point games as it allows for unknown tango reactions and hidden forces.  The tangos play as I've got it scripted in my head and "what would they really do", and I don't care if the SF team wins or not, just that we have fun.  With that said, I don't fudge dice or just walk into mg fire either, but if they are equipped with AK47's that's what they're getting, not restricted to a total point value.  Explosives can kill outright if you're in direct contact with them ("are hit") and also do damage to those in a radius.  The hit results are harsh compared to some games, lots of chances to be down and bleeding out.  Terrain therefore is vital to the game because of the range increments. and the hit results. That's not a problem for me since I like to make, and have a lot of terrain bits.  We didn't use snipers or have any fixed mg positions, we also didn't use IEDs or vehicles (those were just obstacles).  Overall I really like this game and the players had fun.  It plays quick but not in a way that it feels like just a roll off of dice.  

Back after a break

Buying, and painting, and more painting!

     It's been a while but the fall of 2017 was pretty busy when it came to gaming related hobbies.  I picked up some new tools and started scooping up Matchbox cars for Gaslands.  Instead of reading it all I'll just start with pics and descriptions.

I had to get some items from GameCraftMinis.  This is one of his mdf compound kits I got (the roofs for the rooms aren't pictured) along with a couple more tank transporter boxes and the templates he makes for the spacecraft interior rooms.  Those are scaled down 2d pieces that will help you determine what you can match and how, along with how big it will be (you multiply your length by a set number depending on size, 20mm or 28mm).  After building the compound I covered edges with wood putty, put small rectangles in the corners (see upper left room) and then gave it a coat of non-skid paint, paint with sand in it.  Instead of having the roofs built into the kit I closed up their assembly holes and trimmed off the locater tabs.  It just needs a drybrush and some light weathering and it'll be ready for doors.

 

Soviet defendeers, Mig-21s and SU-24s

    For Little Wars 2018 I'm going to run an Invasion of Monster Island game using ufos, 1/285 Soviet aircraft, an alien mothership (to be built) and of course giant monsters.  The ufos come from ebay and were  one of eight styles in a package of  144.  I think they are for a boardgame.  I painted them up and put magnets in the bottom so the CorSec flightstands will work for all my air units.

1/1200 Japanese planes

  Aircraft in Naval Thunder  can be abstracted with d6s but I like modelling so I had to add some planes.  These are 1/1200 Japanese planes with which to harry any allied ships.  They are mounted on 18x18mm basswood bases using a thin brass rod.  Yes, I put propellers on them!  I do this for my 1/285 planes and I have the small punches to make them so why not?  At tabletop distance it doesn't add anything but I like it.  I have Betty's, Zeros, Vals, Kates, and a ton of seaplanes (including 15 individually mounted Jakes for my  IJJN).  In the future I may get some allied planes just to paint up.  In the background are 1/2400 French battleships waiting for their planes and labels to be done.

Jakes in progress.

     After poking around and reading some painting forums I figured I had to upgrade my paint shaking.  I have a Robart and it works fine but they can break (I'm on my 3rd).  I picked up this one from Amazon and it does a great job.  It has a setting so that it's off until you push down a paint bottle to mix and shuts off automatically.  Not super cheap but if you amortize it over the years of painting to do, it's a good investment.  

     We've been having painting challenges each month to motivate ourselves and this was the output from one of them, Panzerschiffe sinking merchant ships and some scratchbuilt barricades.  No labels needed on the merchants since they're more for dramatic effect than actual game objectives.  

Construction continuing

Buildings: 

Note on building the buildings:   The method I use to make my buildings is that used by Viv on Youtube "RubbbishinRubbishout.  The windows start at 15mm from the base and the top is 40mm from base.  The walls are 60mm.  There is a much better tutorial series on his method in "Part 1 - City Fight - how to make cheap, easy terrain" at City Fight tutorials.  His videos are easy to follow, easy to watch, and are full of good ideas and methods from someone who makes very nice terrain.  With a bit of extra effort the buildings you make using this method could be very jazzed up.  I'm trying to just get stuff on the table so I'm not going all "modelly" on them.  I had the basic concepts but it never seemed to come together right, the videos straightened me out.

   The weather has been decent so painting on the imagination Africa buildings continues.  I managed to finish two larger buildings that will play the role of a hospital or barracks and I'm almost done with 5 buildings that can be smaller barracks or POW buildings. Here's a smaller building after extras were added, spackled, and then brushed with anti-skid paint (paint with sand in it).

One of my favorite tools is "The Chopper" from NWSL (NorthWest Short Line) at NWSL site.  They deal in model railroads but have a bunch of really cool tools for anyone making things in small scales.  It uses a single sided razor so replacing the blade is no problem and it comes with guides for 30,60,90, and 45 degree cuts.  There's some youtube videos on it and there are some in depth reviews. I would say if you're going to be building any kind of terrain or furniture (models, games, dollhouses, RR) check out their products.

   The end of the barracks building.  The doors look a little "gamey" to me but they serve their purpose and it's a game piece, not a model. Practice makes perfect though so the more I make the better.  The paint I used was a base dark brown that I got in a quart from the local hardware store.  I picked a swatch that looked good, had them mix it, and now have enough for many, many projects.  I also picked up quarts of white, medium gray, and a dark green.  They aren't figure paints but they are perfect for big projects like terrain and buildings.  The roof is cardboard covered with a piece of old towel.  I used to soak the towel in glue, squeeze out excess, and put on but sometimes it would warp the cardboard.  This was just attached with Modge Podge and then primed black.  A couple of primer coats were needed but not so bad and it kept its shape this time.

  An interior shot of the hospital.  The interiors were painted with a cream color spray paint I also picked up at the hardware store.  I painted the inside first so the brush painting of the outside would cover up any overspray.  I didn't spend time cleaning up the tops of the walls since they're going to be covered; I should do that in the future to make everything clean. The side room is for operations and what not.

  This is the barracks interior.  Pretty wide open but I figure they would put bunks in and call it a day and not give much thought to personal privacy in the Army of Lbotu.

  These are the new housing units for the army, or some of their guests.  The same basic style of building as  but I was able to do metal roofs.  The material is from a food tray that Chuck had.  They cut easily with scissors and exacto blades.  I took a shot at edging the roof (don't know the tech term) using basswood, I even had to think about angles!  Same base painting as the others but a pint of cream paint for the exterior and Tamiya acrylic for the green was used this time. The roof was painted with Hobby Lobby "hammered nickel" which is a nice "steel" color that's not too shiny like silver.  For the roof I just eyeballed and traced things.  I made the peak 2cm higher than the wall, centered.  Then connected the dots.  When the walls were done I traced the peak onto a piece of cardboard which I used as the template to make supports out of foamboard scraps  To get the roof angle I taped two pieces of cardboard along the long edge, laid it on the roof so the tape was on the inside and acted like a hinge, and then applied tape to the outside.  The braces were glued inside and it's allowed to dry with blocks to help keep it at the right angle.  It's good enough for miniatures, just don't build you real home extension by it.

  For the interiors I went with a medium blue for some color.  It was sprayed with Testors French Blue but I had an issue trying to do touch-ups.  The bottle version of the paint, an enamel, was very thick and didn't cover well, it was like painting PVA. I've had this on some of their acrylics also, all new bottles, so maybe a formula change?  I used to use Testors a lot in the past and never had this problem, or I did and just forgot about it?  The end result is that I overpainted it using some craft paint that was close to the same shade.  The doors are still being worked on but the shell of the building is complete.  I was able to make 5 of these buildings so the base camp is shaping up nicely.  You can see on the left that I still haven't gotten around to putting the base material on my ships.  Maybe today's project? 

The heat of summer

 Summertime in the city

This summer is seeing hot and humid weather come and go so my normal terrain building binge is smaller this year, I normally use spray cans for terrain and spray outside. But in the heat I managed to hit the Iron Maiden concert at Tinley Park, with Ghost opening.  An awesome show!
We had another painting challenge and even though my output this month is less, I predict a big pile of completed items next month.  Here's what was accomplished this month:
 I completed 6 1/600 non-combatants from PT Dockyard.  They were based up like my other ships and I just used boring names like "750tn coaster" instead of coming up with actual names, more generic that way?   I also tried out some soldering on the masts.  I've had bad luck with pieces breaking off my minis, after they were painted and done, and it's a drag.  So instead of using the supplied rod I took thin brass and knocked together some sturdier ones.  My soldering skills are very rough but hopefully with more practice it'll get better.

The rest of the new stuff.  We have 7 French 1/2400 GHQ destroyers (labels are on them now) for Naval Thunder; battleships are next for the French.  I also finished some 6mm sci-fi tanks from Adler/Darkest Star that I've had in bags for about 7 years.  There are 3 pieces of 6mm modern UK microarmor that were done.  These were bought in 1986 at GenCon and I've painted them 3 times already.  This is their final strip and repaint and will show up in some what-if Cold War games.  The garbage cans are resin from Scenic Express and will be used for scatter terrain, nothing fancy but useful.

 I finally got decals on my Timmee 1/48 AC130.  I found an old set of Microscale gunship decals among my modelling stuff and threw them on.  They aren't "historically accurate" for this particular bird but the bird is a plastic army plane with imaginary guns.  I think it dresses it up nicely.

I put the "Ghost Rider" nose art on it.  The big seam line is pretty pronounced on this toy and since the plastic is flexible it doesn't go away easily.  I could have gone all out on it but it's a game piece and if I put in that amount of time it'd never see time in a game.  

In progress...

  Here's what's in the pipeline so far.  My wife challenged me to build buildings for my imagi-nation modern Africa so work begins.  These are 2 foamcore buildings I started.  They'll get time in my 28mm games and will be generic enough to possibly fit into colonial games as well.  They need some paint and extras (doors, awnings, etc) but a few more of these and I'll have a nice base for commandos to raid.

While working on the buildings I thought I'd knock together some brick buildings for it, but realized I needed a few more.  Casting time!  And since I was messing around with my Hirst arts molds why not order his new brick sets and some sci-fi ones?  I don't like scribing brickwork but also don't want to always have to buy brick buildings.  These fit that middle ground nicely.  Shipping from Hirst was fast, I know there's more to order.

An MDF ruin that was sitting on my shelf for years came out of storage and was constructed.  Some rubble was glued on and I'll add a bit more of detail.  

The last 2 sections of my Hudson & Allen castle awaiting some dry brushing.  They were washed along with some homemade scatter terrain and an O scale RR building.  

The corral for 28mm western games.  It's mdf fencing from Gamecraft minis.  

More stripped down micro armor primed and ready for paint.  The 6mm pile is slowly going down.

A closer shot of one of the African buildings.  The roof is towel glued to a cardboard frame and is removable.  

Another challenge completed!!!!

 Picture time!

We had another painting challenge for the month and I cranked through some more bits and pieces that have been sitting on the desk.  Some minis even got a final coat of paint and basing after 30 years!
     Here's part of the finished items for the month (missing are the 30+ UFOs painted and magnets on, and some planes).  The gaming table is currently cluttered with my reorganization of storage containers, so this was an open and flat space available.  By the way, the blue box is a photo album "container" that Michael's sells. They are about 3" tall and 15x15 inches, and they usually go on sale for a couple of dollars each.  They don't have interior dividers but if your minis don't travel far they work out pretty well, and they stack.

In the pic are (top left and clockwise): 4 1/300 mi-24a's, some extra 1/1200 zeros (3 others are on a base ready for a game along with a Betty), 1/300 resin church, a bunch of 1/2400 ships, and the black-metallic thing is my observation chamber/death ray housing for the secret base.  It was part of the 1/32 plastic toy soldier space set.
      Now some close ups.  These are the mi-24s.  I have magnets on the bottom so these stands are temporary, some CorSec Engineering ones are coming that are my usual game stands (powerful magnets and multiple base sizes).  The rotors were cut from a thick plastic tray we had at work for printer toner.  They were in a bundle of 20 and were getting tossed, so home they came.  It was thick enough to use the circle cutter on since the center point didn't drift like it does with thing plastic  The tail rotor was punched out.  The windows look a bit "modelly" but they look like windows and that's what I need.  The red stars on the side are from I-94 and the numbers (green for these, on the tail boom) came from MSD, they have a good selection of plane decals.  

  In the background is the resin church I've had stashed, originally bought from ODGW when they discontinued their resin terrain line.  I picked up a damaged and undamaged version of it and some other buildings.  The front right has a GHQ 1/2400 Tarantul and on the left is a 1/2400 Juliet.  I picked those up in Norfolk, VA back in '89 while visiting a friend stationed there; I was at MCAS New River.  Harpoon was the game they were intended for but as many owners of Harpoon can attest to, it's not always easy to find opponents for a quick game.  So they sat and sat.  I based them in the same manner as the 1/2400 WWII ships we use for Naval Thunder, 1cm wider and 1cm longer than the mini.  The labels were printed on some label sheets and affixed to plastic strip.  I think this will be their final paint job.

    Some more 1/2400 ships, this time French WWII destroyers. 

   The last update is that I received my Bones III kickstarter order from Reaper!  I got the core set along with some bigger pieces (giants, giant maw, nyarlathotep, stonehenge type shrine).  A lot of minis that were definitely a bargain.  A lot of RPG types were in the set but I can use those for warband games like Frostrgrave, Blood Eagle, etc.  I have a nice Lizardman group and of course the giants will be seeing combat against vikings.  It's a lot of minis so I don't think I'll get into another Bones until or unless I make some serious headway on these. 

Upcoming:  

   I hope to start up another painting challenge to keep churning out the pieces.  There are 6 1/600 freighters in progress now and I'm toying with the idea of picking up some photo-etch for the next batch of 1/600 boats.  They could add some nice detail to the models but they could also be an exercise in frustration.  There are only a handful of aftermarket sets for 1/600 and it will be good practice before I start up on 1/700 ships.  

Odds and Ends part 2....

Some work in progress (wip) pics of pieces and minis I worked on over the winter are next to be covered.  I've read a lot of how-to articles that used electrical boxes (plastic ones for outlets) to make buildings, equipment, and other game pieces that use a lot of 90 degree corners.  I picked up 5 at our local hardware store (Menard's) and after sitting for a few months started work on them.  I'm a 6mm and 28mm gamer so these first ones are for my secret underground base, that covers WWII to sci-fi, to act as power plants and other much needed machinery.  Years ago I picked up a Waldron punch set, pricey but very useful, for my 1/35 modelling but never had much use for it until now.  I also grabbed a punch set from Amazon that handles bigger circles (very nice for my 1/300 WWII plane props).  Scrap plastic, some old wiring bits, and various plastic pieces helped flesh out the boxes.  Here are the wip shots:

Some model pieces jazz up the top and you can make out some of the punched plastic (hex and circle).

The bottom piece is part of an X-Wing counter sheet and the big gray piece is the back-end of a soviet brdm kit by Dragon.

More model pieces and scrap plastic to jazz up the other side.

Bits of wire, some old model pieces and punched plastic make the "control" end of the generator.  The whole thing gets a coat of primer (I use the same hardware store, Menard's, brand of primer/paint) and then i worked on it with my airbrush.  Pics to follow.

For a Christmas present I ordered from Europe.  In addition to an order from Greenstuffworld I grabbed up some goodies from Puppets War.  

The whole haul!