Dropzone Commander

I got the starter set for Dropzone Commander in a games shop today, reduced down from £60 to £45. It was a bit of a spur of the moment purchase and not really in line with my 15mm hard sci-fi plans but at that price it's a good deal. There were a lot of DC games being played at Warfare last year and it looked like it has something going for it, despite the cost factor of the relatively expensive expansion sets. The sprog was keen to give it a try too, so I gave in!

M40 Ridgeway

A couple of years ago I bought a shed load of 15mm Aliens M577 APC's from Anteonciti's Workshop. These are no longer available but, as I have a full company worth of all of the variants, that's not a problem (they had a special offer...what can I say?). The models are really very good and will be used alongside GZG NAC infantry, which are as close as I could get to Colonial Marines.

Since then I've been searching for a decent tank model to use alongside the APC's but without much luck. I didn't like the M578 APC variant with its anti-tank rail gun style mounting otherwise I would have just used that, so instead I bought a trio of Rhino wheeled tanks from Brigade  Miniatures which look a lot like the M577's and match up very well.

However, I still really wanted a proper tracked heavy tank to stand in for the M22 Jackson or M40 Ridgeway, which feature in the Aliens Colonial Marines manual. These are both unusual designs with the turret mounted toward the rear of the hull, so it's been hard to find a matching or even vaguely similar model to use.

In the end, I've decided to go for the Warmonger heavy tank from Critical Mass Games, although it doesn't look at all like the designs in the book. It's a much more angular design with a conventional turret mounting but I think it will look good next to the M577's, which are similar in their general appearance. 

They also are available as a discounted platoon pack of three, which should keep the cost down a bit (as they're not cheap to start with!)

Rethinking 2016

It's been a very heavy start to the year work wise which has meant that wargaming has been pushed even further to the margins of my spare time. This has been frustrating but not entirely unexpected so I've decided to re-think my plans for this year in a fairly radical way. I now know that my opportunity to get involved with games at the club is very much limited, so much so that I've only had one game this year so far. As a result, I'm rapidly falling out of the loop as far as club games are concerned, meaning that projects tied down to other players at the club are really a bit of a non-starter.

So, I'm having to scale back and re-think what I'm doing this year, with a focus much more on my own solo projects that I can tinker away with in my own time, whenever I get the chance. I've decided to focus almost exclusively on 15mm Sci-Fi in 2016, which was one of the areas that I set out to tackle in the New Year. This has the advantage of being very scaleable and has no strings attached in terms of the rules that I use, the setting or the miniatures. It's also very much an 'imaginations' project and one which I will enjoy. It also means I can indulge my mdf habit with some new terrain!

Winter of '79

I quite like the look of this. A few years ago I did a VBCW project in 28mm and played a few games at the club using the Warhammer WW1 rules, which were good fun if a little on the small side. However, the whole VBCW thing was a bit kitsch and I think has drifted away from the original focus to become an excuse to do silly things like armed Morris dancers and maiden aunts with Lewis guns, which is all a bit ridiculous.

This new set of 'what if?' rules looks a lot more gritty and down to earth, at least as far as suspension of disbelief is concerned. I'm particularly interested in the dystopian political background and class war rationale, which seems not too far beyond the bounds of possibility, although taken with quite a large pinch of salt? Anyway, here's the blurb from the authors so you can make up your own mind:

VBCW this is not! No tea and hand grenades Vicar. But there is no reason you can't have colourful private armies, trade union and left-wing militias, local defence leagues, new military and paramilitary formations, each with their own identity defined by your choice of uniforms, camo, weapons, badges and personalities. So why 1979? Because it's a watershed. The Winter of Discontent, the collapse of the Callaghan government, the rise of Margaret Thatcher. In the years immediately before, we see the vested interests and right-wing gearing up for a 'battle to save civilization' as they knew it. A fear that Belfast could easily be replicated on the streets of Birmingham, Londonderry in Liverpool.

Aden Insurgency

 

I'm reading this at the moment, as part of my on-going interest in Britain's Small Wars, which I have had plans to skirmish game in 15mm. The original idea, which is as far as it got, was to do the Indonesian Confrontation but the need to model lots of jungle gave me the fear. A less daunting alternative is always worth investigating, so I've been reading up on Aden, Radfan and other potential post-colonial  hot spots of the 1960's. I still really like the idea of Borneo and Brunei but the desert would definitely be a lot easier to set up, even if I just did something semi-fictional. This would be using No End In Sight, FUBAR or Some Corner of a Foreign Field as the probable rules, although I'm sure there are lots of other possibilities.

That's my Train Again!

I followed a link on TMP yesterday and found this...some photos of a stunning Back of Beyond game at the Vapnartak show in York, featuring my scratch built Russian Civil War armoured train. I sold this a few years ago and it ended up in the heart of the Back of Beyond, where it has obviously been used for some splendid games. One of these days I'll get round to scratch building another one but it's nice to see that the original is still chuffing along!

http://willwarweb.blogspot.com.ar/2016/02/pictures-from-vapnartak-2016.html

Deepcut Studios Red Planet Terrain

The Deepcut Studios terrain mat arrived today and, as soon as I got home, I unpacked it, smoothed it out and started to play around with some 1/300 scale sci-fi armour to see what it looked like. Although the bases on the hover tanks aren't exactly the same shade, I think they look pretty good against the backdrop of the terrain cloth and won't need any re-painting to match up. I also realised that I hadn't thought of using X Wing models with the red planet cloth (muppet!) so unboxed the Millenium Falcon and plonked it on top. I think it looks great and will open up possibilities for  all sorts of low level X-Wing missions from ground attack, to stealth insertions and fighter interception. Brilliant!

Saga Allied Warbands?

I've been pondering how to go about representing allied contingents in Saga, in other words, mixed forces from two or more factions. The reason for this is that I'd like to field an allied Danish contingent in my Cornish warband, as this is historically valid for the early to mid ninth century. In 838AD the West Welsh joined forces with the Danes who had been raiding up and down the coast, to combine their strength against a mutual enemy, the West Saxons under King Ecgbert..

The first idea I had was to add a couple of units of hearthguard or one of warriors to the Cornish army, then just use the equivalent slots on the Welsh battle board to handle both the Welsh and the Danes. This would be the easiest option and would let me keep the numbers down, incorporating the Vikings into the Cornish army as a couple of points in a six point standard sized force. This would mean, however, that the Viking attributes wouldn't be represented, which seemed a bit of a shame.

I think a better approach would be to use two battle boards instead of just the one, with four points worth of Danes and four points worth of Welsh, under a unified Cornish warlord's command. This would be an easy way to keep the best of both worlds without having to do too many units or paint too many figures, especially if the Danes were entirely hirdmen, rather warriors or levy. This might limit their battle board options but it would be easily manageable and a little less flimsy.

There are rules for eight point a side battles in the Saga main rulebook as well, which gives the whole thing a sprinkle of legitimacy. I quite like the idea of fielding a composite eight unit allied warband, as it would really look impressive and should be interesting to play with, combining the Welsh skirmish and missile characteristics with the melee abilities of the Vikings. I think it would look good too. It's the Welsh / Cornish first though before I get carried away.

Iron Cow Inspiration

Here's some I made earlier...

I had a great idea this morning, which is a rarity at the best of times. I was thinking about potential uses for the red planet terrain cloth that I bought yesterday and realised that I have a project that would be a perfect fit. This is my 6mm Iron Cow sci-fi project that I started on a few years ago but then drifted away from, after completing a British ONESS armoured brigade of tanks, SPG's, AAA and APC's. The reason that it fizzled out was that I couldn't find an opposing force that I liked from the Brigade Models range, although the Chinese were a possible option.

Now, however, there is a superb selection of so-called mercenary AFV's including a very cool Sohei heavy tank with several variants. I already have some of the 15mm version of this model and I love its retro M60 styling complete with turret mounted missile pods. So, I thought it would be great to put together a force to go up against my completed ONESS armoured brigade, using the mercenary range of models to build a generic opposing army. These will be based on the same Renedra brown plastic bases that I used for the ONESS units, which also should be a good match for the red planet terrain.

I've ordered a couple of the company packs and some extra bits and will get started at some point in the next few months. I planned (and still intend) to do a 15mm sci-fi project this year, although it was going to be later and using my tundra cloth for a winter theme, but I might as well kill two birds with one stone and finish off the 6mm opposition for Iron Cow, or whatever set of 6mm sci-fi rules I eventually end up using. I wonder if I have some other rules that would work for this...I'll have to have a look?

Strontium Dog Fan Film

I don't know what the acting, production values or the plot are like but I think they've done a decent job on the casting, even if Johnny Alpha seems to have put on a bit of weight? No idea when this will be released but, as it is my all time favourite 2000AD strip by a mile, I'm looking forward to seeing the final version. It's been something I've wanted to skirmish game for years too...just need to right set of rules to do it justice!

http://www.strontiumdogfanfilm.com/