Xenos Rampant WW2 AAR

Bruce and I played two games of Xenos Rampant recently. He hosted a 28mm Vietnam game (for which I cannot find the pictures) set in an urban location. Charlie carried the day. I then put on a 1/72-scale WW2 Sicily game (mostly to get a bunch of figures on the board for the first time). I've no idea why this paragraph in centred (stupid Blogger bug).

This was a 50-point game with two commands for each side. Axis were split German and Italian while the Allies were split infantry and tanks. Three hidden value objectives were placed (town, hill on left, hill on right) and deployment side by die roll (we ended up coming in perpendicular to one another).

The Axis used their superior position and auto movement to grab all three objectives quickly. Above the Italians approach the Brits. Below, the Allies sent infantry against the closest objective (left hill) and the tanks to hook right to move on the centre objective. Bruce positioned his 88 on a hill with good fire lanes, which partly drove the Allied strategy.

A bit of tank jam. I will thrilled to get these model on the table final (some are for Tim in Saskatoon; others a built; a mix of plastics and metals).

The allies also set up their Grant on overwatch support the infantry advance.

This Panzer 3 (sitting atop an objectives) took a real pasting all game long and just kept shaking the hits off. Bruce proposed an alternative hit mechanism where every hit above the armour value adds an additional hit (official rules are every multiple of the armour adds a hit). This would allow for a tank to get a quick kill on a luck set of dice. We'll try that the next time we bring Xenos out.

Below we see the battle taking shape. The Italians are on the hill to the left but are taking casualties from British indirect fire (mortar teams). The Germans are in town and on the hill on the right, with the British tanks cowering behind the hill from the 88.

The Italians were eventually routed and the Allies captured the left hill, which swung the battle (only one German command versus two British).

As the game moves into overtime (rolling each turn for dusk), the British tanks advance up the hill, finally KOing the Panzer 3. In the end, the middle objective is contested and the British eek out a narrow win on points (the British infantry took a beating and most of the Germans lived to fight another day).

Overall, a pretty fun game. I could spend some time further differentiating the tanks a bit. It felt like WW2 in the Mediterranean and we were forced to use historical tactics. Plus, I was thrilled to get these troops out onto the table (I started out with 1/72 figures 45-odd years ago) after years of having them ready and tucked away in a drawer.

One-off building

I spent much of early November renovating my gaming room so painting has been slow.

I did finish this single railway building. It has kind of haunted house or mad scientist vibe.

Up next: Not sure. Maybe some fantasy!

Pulp terrain

I finished another of the rehabbed HO-scale buildings I got at the spring model train swap meet. I missed this fall's swap meet but, honestly, do I need more buildings?

This model was really beaten up when I go it. It needs some decals to pop, probably signage in the windows. I don't have nay rub on decals left but maybe I could print out some reversed text (white on black) and glue it into the panes? Some posters hung on the walls might also help. That might be a winter project.

Up next: Maybe a Star Wars figure for Xenos Rampant?

HO-scale buildings

Today, I finished some of the beat-up HO-scale buildings I got at the model railway swap meet in April. 

These required some significant work to salvage and, I see now, that I should have taken them apart entirely to adjust the joins. Oh well. A box of buildings for $10 means you get what you get.

Up next: Some 28mm furnishings and 15mm mounted.

HO-scale pulp buildings

In the spring, I picked up a bunch of model buildings at the railway swap meet. One box was 10 or 12 badly beat up buildings for like $10. I fixed up four of them.

Three I painted using full strength colours over a black primer. The fourth (the orange one) I primed back, dry brushed white, and washed. They got similar detailing. Honestly, there isn't much to choose between approaches.

The buildings required a lot of rehab, including being disassembled entirely in two cases. They all needed roofs, and window glass. I also had to fabricate a front door (and then hide the fabrication with an awning). 

For like $5, this was a helluva a deal! I have no shortage off buildings but more is always better. They could use some decaling when I get a chance.

Up next: I'm going to take August off from posting to enjoy the summer. I'll be back in September with some more 15mm medievals and HO-scale buildings.

Firehall

Back in April, I picked up this firehall at the model railway swap meet. I think I paid $10?

It needed a bit of TLC, so I touched up the paint, fixed some broken pieces, and gave it a wash and gravelled the roof (which was a wreck of broken off pieces). Then I pulled out some Pulp Figures monsters to do a double date and here we are.

I'm pretty happy with this. I might add some graffiti decals if I get ambitious (and run across the water slides).

Up next: Some 15mm medievals.

Hawkins Ford

Bruce popped over for a game this week. I was keen to get my War of 1812 plastics out for a spin so I dusted off Rebels and Patriots (part of the Osprey Rampant series). It looks like we'd last played these rules in 2019 with the Battles of Pork Rind and Baby Duck Ridge. I decided to play Hawkins Ford, which is a bit of a cheesie race scenario as the British defend a key river crossing against a superior American force.

The Americans had three line units, two half-sized skirmishers, a light cannon, some dragoons, and a leader. They started in the top left (by the white dice) and needs to capture Hawkins Ford (mid-board on the right. 

The British had two units of militia dug into hard cover by the ford plus two units of line and one of Indian allies that started bottom left (by the red dice). The river was impassable except to the Indians and the dismounted dragoons. Points-wise, this was 3-2 for the Americans.

Bruce advanced the Americans up the road, swinging his line units towards the river's edge and his cavalry and skirmishers to the other flank. This was the reverse of the approach I'd taken in my playtest but didn't seem make a big difference in the end.

The British managed to advance their line units towards the ford to reinforce it but kept crapping out on command rolls for everyone else. Based on our 2019 experiences, we amended the rules such that a failed unit activation caused initiative to switch (more in keeping with the rest of the Rampant series). The game was to end when turns plus 1d6 =16.

The Americans formed up into close order to assault. I missed getting a picture of the dragoons approaching and getting absolutely murdered by a lucky British fire. Meanwhile, command blunders stymied the British. Eventually, I got the Indians moving towards the flanks of the formed up Americans.

A nasty fire-fire and set of charges sea-sawed at the ford. Bruce had terrible combat rolls. Meanwhile, the Indians plowed into the rear of the American advance, with devastating effect.

One unit of American line was routed by the Indians while a second was damaged by fire and forced to retreat. This was enough for Bruce to call off the attack. A couple of thoughts. First, having initiative switching on failed command rolls made the game more interesting (because the sequence of activations now was a more consequential decision) but still not super interesting.

Second, having played Xenos Rampant, really what the game needs is to bolt-on the newer Xenos mechanics to create more differentiated units and more interesting choices and caused units to fight more like they did historically. So I think that's what I'm going to work on next. It should be a pretty easy adaptation. That also streamlines the kind of clunky morale tracking, I think.

Last of the Gotham buildings

And this is the last of the model train buildings I picked up in April (or March?). It is a small engineering firm with cool elements on the roof.

I spent a fair bit of time adding highlights and details to the buildings, but I'm not sure it really made any difference! I guess it is a bit dirtier and has better shadows and highlights than when it arrived.

Again, I picked this one up mainly because of the roof details adding visual interest (you spend a lot of time looking down on building roofs when gaming). 

I spent a lot of time trying to figure out if this was small HO-scale or, indeed, was N-scale. In the end, I think it is HO (based on the doors), but is is small building and maybe is slightly under-scale. 

More Gotham buildings

I finished off another of the buildings I got at the model train swap. 

This is some kind of power station, I think. It came sans paint and with a bit of damage.

I primed and painted it in a drab scheme that fit the rest of the buildings I have.

Nothing fancy, but for $5 or $10, it was a good priced piece of terrain.

More Gotham buildings and trees

Happy Canada Day! Continuing on with the model train swap meet finds, one of my favourite HO-scale buildings is this one. It is just three-story walk-up apartment. You can build it a couple of ways and I was happy to find another one. The cost of the kit is nuts, so to get one for $10 already built was a deal.

This one needed paint and, more importantly, dark glass in the windows. No glass or clear glass creates an obviously hollow building which is visually jarring because you can see light through it (it lacks, weight if you get my meaning). Fitting glass into this building after the fact was a big hassle because of the way the interior is structured. There was much swearing.

In the end, it turned out alright and is suitably grimy for the residents of Gotham. I have three of these now and are each a bit different. One, bizarrely, has the fire escape on the front, where it conflicts with the entry way (honestly, model railroaders... did you even look at the instructions?).

I also picked up 10 cheap trees ($1 each) to add to my forest collection. I based these on wooden discs from the dollar store and each tree cost about $1.20.

These are not the best fir trees that I own, but they will do to fill out a forest scene. I have a couple of more industrial buildings to finish up repainting but they may be awhile.

Some new buildings for Gotham

Back in April, Bruce and I took in the spring model railway swap meet. bruce tree to talk me into buying a garden train but I declined, since there was no sleeper car and tat is where I would be living if I brought home a garden train. Anyhoo...

It was a much bigger swap meet than past years (maybe twice the number of tables) and I bought few new HO-scale buildings to add to my Gotham layout. I think I paid $15.

The best find was this building, which could be a bank or office buildings or swanky apartment complex. I drybrushed and washed it and clipped off the sidewalk. The result was very good for minimal effort.

It had an interesting roof (always a plus since we look down on models so much).

I added a small graffiti decal to the back. I'm not entirely sold on the royal blue trim but it would have been to much of a pain in the ass to paint it out.

A building that needed a lot more work was this one. The price was right thought (maybe $5?). Problems included a busted roof, no glass in the windows and no window frame on the back.

I peele the decal off and primed it black This I added a bunch of paint and a wash. I was able to fix one of the windows. 

The door and the other window I ended up covering with corrugated plastic card and some graffiti.

There wasn't much I could do about the back. I added in some glass but there was no way I was making that many window frames by hand. I boarded up the main floor windows like it was abandoned.

For $5, this was an interesting project and adds a seedier building to my layout. 

Scatter terrain

Sadly, no Hallowe'en gaming this year. But I did finish off some scatter terrain in the hope of gaming in the future!

These are a bunch of HO-scale track clutter pieces in metal that came with an old train village set I bought, maybe 10 years ago? I'm working hard to clear up lingering painting project this winter. 

They go fine with the HO-scale Gotham buildings I have. They show a bit greyer in these pictures than they actually are. Excepting the wooden fence, they are all too small to really work as LOS blocks but they could function as objective markers.

Up next: Hard to say. I have been working on some 54mm AWI figures but they take such a long time to paint! I also have some 28mm generic army guys that Scott dropped off underway.