RECRUITS AAR

We had another successful weekend at RECRUITS, both as a vendor and as a GM.

I ran two Fistful of Lead Wild West games Friday night. Both times El Guano escaped with Baby Faced Fenster in tow, but each was a nail biter to the end.

Then, Saturday morning were two Fistful of Lead games for the Viva Revolucion! supplement, the Battle of Casas Grande. The first battle the Federal garrison was overrun, but the second game they managed to hold out.

The final game Saturday evening was a Fistful of Lead game used as Pulp SciFi game starring Dash Dixon, hero of the Spaceways. This was another place test of arts for an upcoming title, possibly a Kickstarter. Dash had to get a captured Imperial robot across the crowded backwater spaceport to his waiting ship. There robot had half of Emperor Xorg-Khan's plans for his latest terror weapon: the Murder Moon! The other half of the plans were stored on another robot wandering around the spaceport.
I included a joker in the deck to give some random events. The first one activated the Spaceport Security to be used by the player playing the joker.
The second Joker randomly moved all the wandering Robots, while third Joker played gave the player the use of Vanz Glortho, intergalactic villain.
In the end, the Robot Legion nabbed the robot from Dash, who was knocked out early on. Don't worry folks, it was only a flesh wound.
Just by coincidence, there was another GM running a Fistful of Lead Magnificent Seven game. Wish I'd have taken a picture. It looked great.

But the highlight, as usual, was the great looking and fun game hosted by Cluck Amok. His 54mm French and Indian War game using Fistful of Lead: Horse & Musket through a lot of sales our way. I was busy hosting my own games but there was a lot of hoops and hollers coming from the table.
Thanks to everyone who played, and the great folks at RECRUITS.

Episode 23: Dash Dixon and the Robot Master

Kronos, High Tech Priest of the Robot Legion, has been captured on the planet Helios V by Emperor Xorg-Khan's forces. That villain, Xorg-Khan must think that by holding Kronos, he will gain control of the vaunted Robot Legions.
Our Hero, Dash Dixon has been alerted to the kidnapping, and with help from the Robot Legion is attempting to intercept them. Meanwhile, the native miners have surfaced to see what all the ruckus is about. And did that rock move...?

The action started with Xorg-khan's elite Azullian Shocktroopers dragging Kronos from his temple of the Mighty Cog and towards the awaiting Imperial corvette. Dash and his gang moved in from one side while the leaderless robots moved in the from opposite. The robots tried to engage the Imperial Navy troops but got three, count 'em, three "Out of Ammo" results in a row. Must be the targeting computers are off without their master.

Amid the blazing laser fire, our Hero, Dash Dixon went down along with Lance Vortex. Dash wounded, Lance pinned.
Somewhere during the first turn, a Joker was played. I put one in the deck as an activation system for encounters. They function like the lowest value Ace for the player, but trigger game effects. For the first Joker, the miners moved. But what is their purpose....?
The next turn, Dash tried to get up. He didn't. If fact, he expired from his wounds. The Galaxy shuddered at the prospect. But wait, that isn't blood! It's hydraulic oil. It's a robot-clone! Somewhere, Dash is still alive!
But back to the action.

Imperial forces were making their way across the battlefield to the corvette while laying down blistering fire from blasters and mazers.
The miners were making a beeline for a damaged bot. Only Groth, hairy companion to Lance Vortex, remained of Dash's original crew. He fought valiantly, tossing Xorg-Khan's troops around with abandon. That was, until the second Joker activated the Grunk!

A precision shot from Robot 323B dropped Kronos's captor and freed him to race towards the Robot Legion. He didn't make it far. An Azullian Shocktrooper grabbed him and put a mazer to his head.
That's when Groth, fighting both the rock elemental and Azullians knocked the trooper holding Kronos into the next solar system.
The third joker "released" the corvette's crew to attack Robots, but it was too late. Kronos escaped, no doubt plotting his revenge against Xorg-Khan.

I wanted to reset play tests of Wasteland Warriors from the start. It was getting too cumbersome and losing some of the things that make FfoL great. So I really stripped it down to essentially Fistful of Lead.
The Robots got the Robot rule (duh). They have no sense of self preservation so can be targeted with ranged attacks at +1, but they ignore Pin results on the Wound roll.
Laser rifles and pistols, for this game, were just rifles and pistols. Although I gave the makers (essentially microwave guns) shorter range but can ignore partial cover.
Dash got the "Lucky" trait as well as Veteran. It didn't help. Lance Vortex had "Two Gun Terror". If he uses both actions to shoot, he rolls 3 dice and picks the best 2 results. It didn't help.
Stella Starfaie got a Sonic Boomerang that was basically a reusable grenade. She blew herself up.
Xander Zan got a bonus in Close Combat with his Stun Baton. He never got to use it. And finally, Groth was "Large" making him an easy target but more powerful in Close Combat. Because they had all the extras I balanced in with arming them with shorter range weapons.
All in all a good start and most of all fun. The miners kept everyone guessing until they rolled up on an injured model and fixed it. They just wanted to help the injured...
Wish the pics were better, but I was full of Azullian Ale.

Episode XXIII: Dash Dixon vs the Gorthian Blood Worm!

Emperor Xorgon, an attempt to kill Our Hero Dash Dixon, blew up Moon 6. He realized too late that that not only had Dash made a last minute escape, but Moon 6 was full of Unobtainium.
Chunks of the precious mineral have now fallen to the planet Gorth. Emperor Xorgon and elements of the Imperial Navy have landed to grab as much as possible. Little does the vile villain know that Dash and a group of ragtag survivors of Moon 6 have the same plan!
There were five spots where the Unobtainium had landed. They were scttered around the ancient carcass of giant Gorthian god.
There were 4, count 'em 4 players on each side and the Boy acting as the Gorthian Natives for a nine player game of Fistful of Lead.

 Azullian Shock troops armed Mazers.

 The Imperial Navy

 Groth, Lance Vorex, Stella Starfire, Xandar Zarn and our hero, Dash Dixon

The Robot Legion

The Natives seemed to sense the evil intentions of the Imperial Navy and attacked them first. They were soon repelled my blaster and Mazer fire with heavy losses.
Dash, with help from the Robot Legion and the Subterrans of Moon 6 grabbed two chunks right away and delivered them to his ship the Dauntless.
The Robots swept aside Xorgon's mercenary pirates and was closing on the Navy ship, where they two had two chunks stored away.

In the middle, the native's were down to one. They had already released a rock monster on scene, but it was dispatched quickly by the duel laser pistols of Lance Vortex. But they had one last trick, the Gorthian Blood Worm!
It ripped through the surface devouring the fair Steela Starfire whole! Even her sonic boomerang was no match for the tough hide of the Worm.
It was only through the combined fire of the heroes that brought it down. Dash quickly cut the beast open to free Stella.
The Imperial Navy was driven back. In only 2 1/2 hours the battle was done. Dash and his crew the victors!
This was another successful play test of FfoL: Wastleland Warriors, and shows the versatility of the rules. We had robots, giant monsters and a variety of weapons. It went smoothly. Thanks to everybody that came out. Last night's pairing included a lovely beer from St Louis.

More painted minis, more Longstreet

Up first, some retro Sci-Fi miniatures for a top secret project in the works. Emperor Xorg's Imperial Navy. I wanted these guys to have a Naval Landing troop color scheme/vibe.

After that, more 10mm goodness for Maurice/Might & Reason. The Elite Swiss Guard of the Arch-Duchy of Volborg.

Finally, battle one of the year 1863 for Longstreet. This is the midpoint of the war. The Union is getting more troops. Units are getting more experience and training, but in some cases, also getting battered. One Union regiment went to the field with 3 stands!

The scenario was #8: the Cornfields. (I gotta work on my fields) The standing crops didn't prove much of a barrier to either side. The Rebs started out aggressive, but quickly began to fight a holding action. LS favors the the side that engages in combat the most. The most an attacker takes in a charge is one stand loss. So when possible ATTACK!
The fight ended as a draw, but I think maybe the Union took the most losses. That's OK, they can afford it.

Join the Imperial Army & see the Galaxy

Emperor Xorg is always looking for new recruits for his vast Galactic army. Here's some new troops.

These fellas are from the Dick Garrison line of Wargames Supply Dump. I decided to go the full on 1980s Flash Gordon route. Thus the gold guns and helmets.

Painting and thinking

I did just little painting this weekend where I actually finished something. Mostly repaints of existing stuff between coats of paint on those Dick Garrison troops I received a few weeks ago.

A repaint of Star Wars mini Yazzum. He will be Groth, companion to Lance Vortex, in my Retro SciFi game.

A Wood Golem repaint from Mage Knight. Suitable for Fantasy 15 or 25mm.

The rest of the time was spent digging out troops I've mounted and remounted. Pike and Shotte got me back into army builder mode. Two armies that sit unfinished are my Italian Wars and ECW/TYW troops. One of my few finished projects that we game with occasionally is my War of the Roses armies which generally gets used in our Campaign for the Kingdom battles. What I like about that army is the common basing. Each unit is a single 60 x 60mm square stuffed with what looks right. Pikes have 8-10 figs, billmen 8, and archers 6. If need be, they can be added together to form bigger units like Hail Caesar.
Thus, when it came to base up my Pike and Shotte era troops, it just made sense to do the same, even though these two armies will never meet on the battlefield. However, I come to two possibilities.
1- Some members of the group actually have minis for this period based another way. As I posted before, this basing takes up alot of space and not sure I want to go that way.
2- I have been very inspired by the work of Olicanalad. He's using a different size all together, 45mm frontage.
I took some pics to illustrate possibilities.

Gives the sense of mass for 24 figs.

Original 60mm basing. More figs and more dense for double the fig count.

and from above

Any thoughts/opinions from the blogosphere? I've decided most other non pike units will be 3 stands, so somewhere between 9-18 minis a unit. 

Look what came in the mail

These guys showed up less than a week after ordering them from across the pond. I point this out because I still haven't received my Pike and Shotte book after a month!
Any way, these fine fellows are from Wargames Supply Dump. They're great. Sculpting's nice. No clean up or flash removal needed. They will be joining Emperor Xorg's forces in his insane conquest of the galaxy.