ArmiesArmy Pegasus VTOL for Gruntz 15mm

I try to resist project creep but it's futile. Once I'd discovered ArmiesArmy's Pegasus VTOL I had to have one...

ArmiesArmy shop: V-212 Pegasus VTOL

The parts are cleanly moulded and fit together well. The only parts I had to trim to fit were the closed-position under-carriage doors. Alternatively there are parts for having the under-carriage down.

The parts were quickly assembled with superglue.

I thought the resin might be difficult to drill for the flight stand but it was easy.

In flight. Just need a base to put it on.

Reading Warfare - scenery grab and Bloody Big Battles! game

I had a very productive day at Reading Warfare last Saturday. I spent the morning accumulating scatter scenery for my Gruntz 15mm Sci-Fi skirmish project and some 10mm houses suitable for my Chinese Warlord Era Red Actions project. In the afternoon I was privileged to participate in a game of Bloody Big Battles! organised by its author Chris Pringle and his comrades from the Oxford Wargames Society.

Scatter scenery. I regret that I didn't note the names of the suppliers.

I'll write in more detail about my Gruntz scenery plans another time, but this shows the sort of thing I'm collecting or making for my grungy, post-Apocalyptic environment. Scatter scenery will be either low enough to provide cover or high enough to block line of sight.

10mm Far Eastern houses.

The houses come from two sources. The painted ones are Epsilon buildings from Pendraken while the remainder are from the Timecast Vietnam range. The Epsilon buildings are a slightly larger interpretation of 10mm but I think they will work well enough together. I was a bit unsure whether Vietnamese buildings would do for China, but I did a lot of Googling and am satisfied that similar buildings could be found in China.

The fallback position of the Bavarian I Korps at Loigny.

I arrived at Oxford's Bloody Big Battles! table at about 2pm, just as their second game of the Loigny/Poupry 1870 scenario was about to start. I was keen to play with the experts and was delighted to be given command of the I Bavarian Korps on the German right.

I was tempted to take advantage of the towns near the enemy edge of the table, but this forward defence was overwhelmed by the superior French numbers. I then fell back in line with the objective I was defending (Loigny). Hanging on to this was very touch-and-go the whole afternoon, but I just managed to do so. I was a bit rusty on the rules but got a lot of guidance, including tactical advice. After a while I began to make my own decisions, not that these always proved to be a good idea.

I didn't have much chance to take in what was happening on the German left or centre but did witness the final German assault on the left wing which, in the last (tenth) turn of the scenario, regained Poupry. This was very exciting to see and put all three objectives firmly in German hands. The game was over by 5pm, so it had taken four plus people nearly three hours of playing. Once again I felt I had relived history or an alternative history.

I also had a chat with Chris about doing the Urabi Revolt (Tel-el-Kebir) with BBB. I have been thinking about that for quite a long time because of an ancestral connection (British side) but Chris pointed out that it was a bit of a walkover and I realised that it wouldn't make for a very balanced game. I am thus able to cross something off my to-do list!

 I really enjoyed the afternoon and must make the effort to play BBB more. I will probably send off for some sample Baccus 6mm Franco-Prussian War figures, decide how I am actually going to base them and then put in a full order.

Flight and other bases for Gruntz 15mm

I usually base figures on a combination of steel and MDF, the former for storage and transportation in magnetic-lined boxes and the latter for thickness so that players are encouraged to handle the bases rather than the figures.

With individual figures and models it is inevitable that players will pick them up by the figure/model rather than by the  base, but this isn't too much of a problem with the Sci-Fi figures as they are generally quite robust and don't have fragile bits like bayonets and flag poles. Accordingly, there isn't much point in doing thick bases so I'm just putting the infantry on coins and the vehicles directly onto steel.

Following the use of the coins I decided to use round bases for the mecha and grav vehicles, and rectangular bases omly for tracked and wheeled vehicles. In all cases these will be of minimum size and unobtrusive.

The grav bikes, drones, VTOLs and grav AFVs presented the most novel challenge as they are not like anything I've had to cope with before. Grav vehicles need to be off the ground but no more than necessary.

Gruntz 15mm: The first two factions

I've now collected two factions for my near-future forces for Gruntz 15mm.

The first is a hi-tech interventionist force  ('The Coallition'). They are almost all GZG and will be sand-coloured like the Gulf War allies. Some assets such as the power-armoured squad will be finished in blue-grey or some other neutral colour so they can fight for any faction if that's the way I want to use them.

The Sand faction: Grav IFVs, Grav MBT, Grav Command vehicle, Gruntz squads including squad leaders, SAWs and LAWs, Grav bikes. All models are GZG.

Grav drones, Sand commander, Spider droids, Power-Armour squad. All models are GZG except for the Power-Armour squad which is Brigade Miniatures.

The Gruntz are GZG's UNSC Light Infantry. Command vehicles provide command and control benefits additional to the powers of the Commanders. I'd like to organise the grav drones and probably the grav bikes and spider droids as if they were Gruntz squads rather than having to track them as individual units. This was discussed on the Gruntz Forum but requires further research with regard to costing etc.

The second is a mostly mid-tech force ('RussFed') and will be finished in green.  They are mainly ArmiesArmy Insurgents and represent a near-future version of the Russian forces which have been operating in the Eastern Ukraine. While technically not as advanced they will be rated as more experienced.

Tracked IFVs, tracked MBT, tracked Command vehicle, HMG, Commander, Gruntz including Squad leaders, LAWS, and SAWs, VTOL gunship, and Mecha. The last two are GZG. The rest are all ArmiesArmy.

Constructing the Mecha so that it stood in an animated stance was quite fun. The AA vehicles are part resin which makes them substantially lighter than the GZG ones. They also required less cleaning up. Almost everything was assembled with superglue apart from the arms of the Brigade Models figures which required epoxy resin.

The GZG and ArmiesArmy infantry are a good scale match for each other.

Gruntz 15mm: Sci-Fi skirmish

Although I spend half my time thinking I should focus on a few key games, I spend the other half musing about expanding into new 'periods'. My current fad is 15mm Sci-Fi skirmish, something that has been gnawing away at me since April. Despite the plethora of 15mm SF stuff at the Salute show, it was only when surfing the web a  few days later that I actually got bitten. That was, I admit, very bad timing.

Anyway, a review of the rules options led me to Gruntz 15mm which seemed to be  the most attractive and promising. I've studied the rules and I've read reviews and explanations, but I haven't actually played them. I expect they're fine, but what has captured my imagination is the army-building aspect.

Although Gruntz offers its own very wide universe and backstory, it is a completely flexible system which allows you to plug in any models you want. Although the armies I'd like to create would have SF technology like power armour, mechs and grav tanks, my current interests are based around near-future terrestrial factions rather than extra-terrestrials.

I have three in mind: a mid-tech 'RussFed' army  using ArmiesArmy models, a hi-tech 'US Marine' army using mainly GZG models, and maybe a lo-tech 'Caliphate' army using Khurasan figures. There are other possibilities, but I don't want to over-extend before I even start.

Gruntz has the advantage of being playable on quite a compact table (say 4' x 4') and requires only a modest collection of figures and vehicles for each army (say 300 points in game terms). I've been thinking about a number of scenery options - a ruined city, oil refinery or shanty town - but my current favourite is a recycling plant and scrap yard which will provide plenty of loose clutter.

As I don't seem able to shake this fad off and with the SELWG show coming up shortly, I am highly likely to go into purchase mode.