A Quick Update

Hello everyone,
it has been a bit quiet in this corner of my hobby life...

My new job took a lot of energy from me (especially the late shifts till midnight) and I've had a lot of non-hobby-related stuff to do (as most of us, I guess).


So what IS going on?

I finished a 3-part review of the excellent Age of Tyrants for Bell of Lost Souls, which will be published over the next couple of days.
Additionally, I got a couple of their tanks to review, too, of which two are with a friend of mine who runs his own painting service to be made pretty.

 

A first glimpse at on of the Age of Tyrants tanks I got to review

 

Next I'll write my 2015 review (for BoLS, too), which means I am going and I  through all the posts on the Fix for this year - quite an effort!

Then there are multiple painting projects that need to be finished - foremost a bunch of Sigmarites I am painting as a commission, but I also started a vignette with modern soldiers, the 15mm diorama, and some bits and pieces for Frostgrave and DBA.

Spears to Blades - quite fiddly in 10mm :)

Talking about DBA - I did finish my army and played the tournament at the start of December, and I actually won! Well, it only had 5 players, but winning three out of four games was a very pleasant chnage from losing every match in my first two competitions. I guess it is true that miniatures painted by yourslef fight harder :)

I am still contemplating if I want to push to get a 1000 points Hungarian army for Bolt Action done in  the next 6 weeks to have them ready for an upcoming tournament - but I still haven't decided which infantry to use for conversions....

So, that was the short catch-up, I hope there will be more and better structured content soon.

Happy Holidays and see you in a bit!

Fulda Gap - Optional Rules: NBC Environment

A major conflict between NATO and the WarPac could have led to the deployment of nuclear, biological or chemical weapons. Even if not, a battlefield might be covered in smoke and fumes from burning chemical plants or refineries, or a nuclear power plant went critical during the chaos of the fighting.

NBC environments demand troops to wear specialized personal protection gear and gas masks, significantly affecting their ability to fight. Additionally, a “hot” battlefield put increased psychological pressure on the combatants.

I therefore wrote some rules to represent these circumstances which can be used if both players agree.

If a scenario takes place in a NBC environment, the following rules come into effect:

Decreased visibility

Billowing smoke and protection gear make it hard to see.

All weapon and command ranges are halved.

Strained Nerves

The increased threat of a horrible death makes even hardened veterans more cautious.

Every unit that received three or more pin markers in one turn must go down, or if that is not possible (for example because the unit already received an order in this turn), receive another D3 pin markers (only apply additional pin marker once, i.e. every time a third pin marker is given to a unit and it can't go down. Subsequent pin markers do not trigger the effect again unless the unit has recovered to less than three pin markers in the meantime).

High Mortality

Even a close miss that breaks the seal of a soldier's gear might prove fatal in such a hostile environment.

All attacks gain +1 on to wound rolls. This does not affect penetration against vehicles or structures.

HE weapons cause one additional hit for every die they roll, (D6+1, 2D6+2, ...)

Button Up

The additional protection of an armored carrier looks way more promising than the hell outside.

Infantry must pass a morale check to dismount armored transports. Armored transports must pass a morale check to allow infantry to mount.

I haven't tried these rules so far, but I think they will change the dynamics of the game towards a more "cat-and-mouse"-style.
They should also work quite fine in a "What-if" game of Bolt Action in which one side decided to use chemical weapons. For such a game ignore the "Button Up" rule because there are no armored transports.

Some of the phrasing about artillery might sound weird, but it will become clear once I've posted the updated artillery rules later this week. 

In other news, I almost gave up on the Team Yankee novel. Only 25 pages to go, but I haven't touched the book in days.

I hope the weather will be fine today and I can spray paint some of the 15mm miniatures.

Fulda Gap - Heavy Sniper and Designated Marksman

Hello,
sorry for the delay but I thought I'd get the Team Yankee book review done this weekend. Sadly the book turns out to be a much less exciting read than I expected and it will take a couple more days.

Therefore I thought I introduce two new rules Fulda Gap instead - heavy sniper teams and the designated marksman.

Heavy Sniper Teams

A heavy sniper team is armed with a large calibre anti-materiel rifle like the Barret M82 or the venerable PTRS-41. They function just like sniper teams, but have a Pen of +2.

Designated Marksman

The designated marksman (DM) is embedded in an infantry squad to supply accurate fire on enemy targets at ranges up to 550 yards (500 m) with a semi-automatic rifle equipped with a telescopic sight. Whenever a squad or fireteam with a designated marksman receives a Shoot or Ambush order, the designated marksman can decide to fire a single aimed shot. If this option is chosen, roll separately for this shot. The designated marksman gets a +1 bonus to hit. If he rolls a natural 6, the shot automatically causes exceptional damage.

 I hope you like these ideas. The Team Yankee review should be up in a couple of days.

Fulda Gap - Weapon Ranges

One of the biggest controversies in wargames is weapon ranges. Of course there is a need for abstraction, mainly because of limited space to play. A Rheinmetall 120 mm tank gun, as mounted on the M1A1 Abrams, Leopard 2 and Challenger 2, has a range of 4000m. In Micro Armour scale (1/285th) this translates still to over 14m, and in 1/56th you'd need a football field to get out of reach. 
Even the Beretta M9 9mm pistol, standard side arm of the US Army, has an effective firing range of 50m, or 89cm = 35" in 1/56th.

For Fulda Gap I chose this rule:

Ranges:
Even with the abstractions of time and distance in a wargame, modern weapons have ranges exceeding the usual size of a gaming table by far.

Therefore, all weapons have a theoretical unlimited range only restricted by Line-of-Sight. The ranges given for each weapon type indicate an optimal fighting distance. Up to this distance, shooting does not suffer penalties. If the target is further away, a -1 penalty applies for every time the optimal distance is exceeded. For example, a soldier with an Assault Rifle fires at an enemy squad 50" away. He suffers a penalty of -2, -1 for exceeding 24" and -1 for exceeding 48” (2x24").

Just for comparison: even under best conditions, a soldier won't be able to hit an enemy with an Assault Rifle at a distance of 97", roughly translating into 200 meters, while the official effective firing range for a real-life M16 at a point target is 550 meters.

This changes the dynamic of the game quite a bit - you can't stay out of range, you must stay out of sight.

It also allows to streamline more rules - for example, all anti-tank guns can use the same range (48") and will only differ in their PEN-value.

In reality, it allows to engage the enemy earlier in the game, but will even out during later turns. Cover, pin marker and other modifiers will limit effective firing ranges fast - a unit with two pin markers shooting at an enemy in soft cover is already down to an effective range of 24".

Fulda Gap - An Overview

One of the projects I like to work on from time to time is a Cold War-mod for Bolt Action. I call it "Fulda Gap", after the region in central Germany that would have been one of the most likely battlefields in a confrontation between NATO and the WarPac.

Here is my mission statement:

This supplement introduces Cold War technology into Bolt Action. It is focussed on the 80s and 90s of the last century. You will need the Bolt Action core rulebook to be able to use the army lists.

Included are lists for US Army, German Bundeswehr and British Army of the Rhine for NATO and Red Army, GDR Nationale Volksarmee and Czechoslovakian Forces for the WarPac.

These army lists are not 100% historically correct and not made for a specific year. Arms development was fast during this period and both new and upgraded equipment was constantly introduced on both sides. Additionally, a "hot" war would have most likely accelerated this process. On the other hand, obsolete equipment might be reactivated to fill gaps.

Furthermore, the lists are not based on a specific scenario. There were many potential ways to war (some are described in the “Close Call” boxes) and there is no intention to blame on side or the other.

The basic game mechanisms are mostly identical to the Bolt Action rules and several units like sniper teams work exactly the same. Those entries therefore refer to the Bolt Action core rulebook for stats and point costs.

In the end I hope to have a completely edited and ready to use pdf of all the rules and army lists, but this is still quite some time away. Nevertheless I would like to presents some of the new rules I have written in a series of articles on this blog. Just to give you a taste:
- Alternative weapon ranges
- Alternative platoon structure (see below)
- Armored Fighting Vehicles
- New squad options like fireteams and dedicated marksmen
- Off-board artillery
- ATGMs & SAMs

I also tried to streamline some of the rules and options. For example, squad size and options are mostly standardized, so there is no need for seperate entries for inexperienced, regular and veteran Rifle squads.

This is the (preliminary) structure of a platoon in Fulda Gap:

Compulsory:
1 Lieutnant
2 Squads

Optional:
0-1 Officer
0-1 FAC/FAO
0-4 additional Squads
0-1 MG Team
0-1 Mortar Team
0-1 Sniper Team
0-1 ATGM Team
0-1 SAM Team
0-1 Infantry Gun, AA Gun or AT Gun

0-2 Main Battle Tanks
0-3 Armored Carriers or Support Vehicles

0-1 Helicopter Gunship

0-1 Artillery Support

up to 1 transport per infantry unit

More vehicles, and more options to kill vehicles!

You might have noticed that I removed Medics:

Medics & Ambulances

The Red Cross, Red Crescent and Red Crystal emblems have special protection under the Geneva Convention. It was therefore decided to remove those units from the army lists to avoid the ethically questionable mechanic of attacking those units to deny the opponent a bonus.

I'll explain the other changes in the upcoming articles, but feel free to start commenting!

Frostgrave - Soothsayer Warband

I put together my first Frostgrave list. This is actually a little bit more complicated than in other games, mainly because you'll have to chose the spells for your wizard. Every wizard starts with 8 spells, three from its own school, one each from their aligned schools and two from any neutral school he is allowed to use.


  Soothsayer Wizard

• Dagger (5)
  

3 Soothsayer – Combat Awareness, Reveal Secret, Awareness
1 Thaumaturge - Shield
1 Chronomancer – Fast Act
1 Illusionist - Glow
2 Enchanter/Summoner/Necromancer/Elementalist/Sigilist – Enchant Weapon, Bone Dart

These spells give him a good mix of buffs like (Combat) Awareness, Fast Act and Glow, combined with Enchant Weapon against those pesky critters and Bone Dart to support alles from afar. And Reveal Secret allows him to place an additional treasure token in a convenient spot.

  Apprentice (200)

• Dagger (5)
  

An Apprentice can use the same spells as the wizard, but less effectively. They are kind of a back.up to give you a second chance to cast an important spell. Their stats are also directly dependent on those of your wizard, and when he becomes a better fighter, your apprentice does, too.
 
Marksman (100)

The Marksman comes with a crossbow, hand wepaon and mail armour, combined with good fighting and shooting skills. In my opinion the best soldier class in the game, able to deal with alomst anything.

Treasure Hunter (80)

The cheapest soldier with a fighting skill of +4, and fats enough to keep up with the Thieves.

2 Thief (2x20)

Thieves are faster than most other soldiers so they are best choice to go collecting treasures. Especially when backed up by a Treasure Hunter

3 Thugs (3x20)

Well, you should always have some expendable guys around to keep your opponent busy

Warhound (10)

Just because there were 10 points left.

Frostgrave - First Steps

One of my latest acquisitions was Frostgrave by North Star Military Figures and Osprey Publishing. Frostgrave is a Mordheim-style skirmish game. The background is pretty simple: a bunch of wizards hire some soldiers and go adventuring in the ruins of a long-lost legendary city.

Today, I'll just want to share some pictures of the miniatures for the game.

Up first, the Chronomancer and his apprentice. Chronomancy is the youngest of the magic schools and considered to be a short-cut to power. Of course, with great power comes great resp... eh, risk.
As masters of time their spells are all about slowing down and hastening. If they are really ambitious, they can even try to store some time for later use.

Next a pair of Soothsayer. They are specialists in awareness and mind control, revealing secrets and making their opponent forget spells.

Last, but not least, Witches. Curses, potions and controlling nature is their speciality, and if all goes downhill, they can shoot some poisoned Bone Darts at their enemies.

Wizard have access to a lot of different henchmen, called soldiers.

Thugs are the lowest in the food chain. They are just some rabble armed with hand weapons. I made two groups of Thugs from the plastic Soldier kit:

To make them a bit more distinguishable I arme one group with swords and one with axes. This is a purely cosmetic choice because weapons do not grant any special rules.

Thieves are faster than Thugs, but only armed with a dagger. I built two, and decided to make them twins:

Archers are the cheapest way to add some ranged attacks to your warband. They fight as well as Thungs in close combat, but also have leather armour:

Infantrymen have two-handed weapons and leather armour, making them better and more resilient fighters than Thugs. Their two-handed weapons give them a bonus on damage, too :

Men-at-Arms have leather armour and shields, giving them a very good armour value. They are armed with hand weapons:

I also received some metal miniatures as rewards for pre-ordering the game, i.e. a Knight and a Templar.

A knight is an excellent fighter and with shield and mail armour he has the highest armour value of all soldiers. But he also costs five times as much as a Thug.

 The Templar changes the shield for a two-handed weapon which makes them the best damage-dealers in close combat. Next to him a metal treasure marker:

Talking about treasure markers, the pre-order deal came with five generic and three special treasure markers, too:

The weapon rack is broken due to a bubble in the resin, but nothing that won't be easily fixed.

My first impression is very good. The miniatures are well designed, although the plastic Soldier kit has a distinct lack of useful left arms, making it necessary to use parts from the bit box or to have some repetition. This is a general problem of this box, for example three of the four Thugs with axes are converted in some way.
On the other hand, the set was designed to be compatible with Fireforge Games boxes, and mixing the Frostgrave soldiers with a box of Foot Sergeants will give you an excellent base to build you warband(s). Alternatively, Gripping Beast's Dark Age Warriors or Arab Foot Soldiers shoudl work fine.

My plan at the moment ist to build and paint two warbands (I always try to get two forces for each new game, it is much easier to get people to play that way ). One of them will have a black and red color scheme, the other one (most likely) white and blue.

Here is a WIP of the two Thieves:

The faces need some more work...