Cannon Fodder Females From Wargames Atlantic

 OK, so life went sideways for a couple of months. I've been working on a little of that, a little bit of the other thing... but nothing has really been particularly finished.

Anyways, I have completed the first five of my "Cannon Fodder Females" from Wargames Atlantic. They are reasonable kits, I found it difficult to figure out which right and left arms pair up but otherwise they assemble smoothly. I tried attaching the backpacks directly to the square nub on the back, but found it looked better to remove the nub. They paint up quickly, there is not mounds of annoying or distracting detail such as is found on GW kits. Speaking of GW, I have included an Adeptus Sororitas model in the third picture strictly for review purposes. As you can see, the Cannon Fodder match up pretty well in size.

I will be using the entire box (24 models) for Xenos Rampant, and the five depicted here for 5150 Star Army, Galactic Heroes, Kill Sample Process, and whatever other sci-fi skirmish game I manage to get myself involved with.

Cannon Fodder Females and many other plastic kits may be purchased directly from Wargames Atlantic

The Last War Campaign Begins...

 OK, so today I hosted my good friend Kurt for another game of "Forbidden Psalm: The Last War." Since the last time we played we were still mostly learning the rules, we considered that just a playtest game. But this time we decided to play "for real" and kick off a bit of a campaign. And with the experience of our last game under our collective belts, we both created our Scavenger Crews with the aim of surviving through several games instead of just one.

The Crew: Gunther, Glut, Klink, Ludwig, Fritz

The start of the game from my point of view

My Crew (named Kruger's Crooks during the course of the game) consisted of five members. First off, I chose a Specialist; I made her a Witch because it seemed really cool that I can have a bit of a spellcaster in a WWI-themed skirmish game. Then came Klink armed with a pistol, and Fritz who also had a pistol, Gunther with his one grenade, and Ludwig with only a bayonet. Everyone had bayonets! I had a little confusion about how some of the equipment worked, and when I had Kurt proofread my roster he spotted a few errors but we got them all figured out before the game.

The end of the first Turn

Klink and Ludwig attack the Loyalist

We replayed the same scenario we did last time, as it seemed a good idea now that we had purpose-built Crews and knew the rules a bit. Which means we were not only facing each other, but also five enemy Loyalists, poor souls not realizing the war was over and still guarding their supply crates. Based on my experience from last game, my plan was to split my Crew into two small teams that would go after a Loyalist each, and then the three who did not loot their crates would meet up in the middle to attack a third Loyalist. We knew that a random Hostile (or Hostiles!) would spawn in Turn 3, and we rolled "The Thing In The Mist" as a battlefield condition so on Turn 5 we could expect a Martian war machine to enter the battle area as well.

Fritz, Gunther, and Glut attack the Loyalist Who Would Not Die

The end of Turn 2; Klink is already out of the game with his Loot.

Things went well enough for Klink and Ludwig, they overpowered their target Loyalist with little difficulty and Klink then left the battle area with the Loot. The other three were having a tougher time with their Loyalist, who was wearing metal plate armor and was very difficult to injure. Glut the Witch cast Let The Blood Flow which caused the Loyalist at least one point of damage per turn. And both Fritz and Gunther were able to cause at least one point each time they hit with their bayonets; it is the bayonet ability to always cause a minimum of one damage regardless of the opponent's armor. But it took four game turns to kill him!

Why won't he die? WHY?

Some of Bowker's Trench Raiders facing off against a Loyalist

During Turn 3 things went Sideways. Two Ghosts spawned in the battle area, corrupted cannibals intent on picking off our Crews for some quick food. Fortunately for me, the random nature of the spawning meant that they would be more of a problem for Kurt than for me. During this time Ludwig went looting a couple of the corpses littering the battlefield, before being shot down by one of Kurt's guys who had looted an automatic rifle. I used a special once-per-game rule to remove Ludwig from the battle area with no death roll necessary. He disappeared having acquired a rifle and a trench club.

Oh, snap! The Martian war machine has arrived!

We finally killed that Loyalist, now to get out before the Martian notices us...

On the other side, Kurt was holding his own against the Loyalists and Ghosts; one of the spawned Ghosts attacked a Loyalist that had previously been shooting at one of his guys, so that gave Kurt a little breathing space. But at the end, the Martian war machine entered the table on Turn 5. I grabbed what I had looted with the trio on my left flank and left the game, getting away with another Loot crate and a suit of metal armor. Kurt was not so fortunate. He had a crate he had not grabbed and his Lieutenant was stuck in melee combat with both a Loyalist and a Ghost. In the end, the Martian war machine claimed both the Loyalist and the Lieutenant, leaving Kurt's Crew short a member as the game ended.

Kurt is having a bit more difficulty over on his side of things

The good news is that there is some Loyalist vs. Ghost action going on, leaving the Loot free to take

I always enjoy the post-game sequence during a campaign. We had to look up a few rules, but everyone was able to heal their wounds taken during the battle. I managed to accumulate 8 experience points for the Crew, and after all was said and done we had 70 Resources from the Loot. I had more Resources than Kurt, and no casualties, so I am calling this a Win for me even though it was really just a case of me doing better than him. I don't think anyone ever really "wins" in this game. I redistributed some of the existing gear amongst the Crew, bought Klink an Anti-tank rifle from the Quartermaster, got some ammo for Ludwig's rifle and Klinks big gun, and added a Bengal Cat as a Crew member. That wiped out all 70 Resources. But I have a Big Gun and a Cat! I then used five of the eight Experience points to add one to Klink's Strength ability so he can adequately wield that big gun of his. I also equipped him with the plate armor. I'll need to build a new model for him, I found a nice 'kinight in armor" from Reaper Miniatures that I can chop the arms off of to add in the Anti-tank rifle. It will make a fun conversion and add a little flavor to my Crew. Oh, and the looted Trench club? That's sitting back in the Crew's Bunker, waiting for someone else to join up that can use it well.

The Martian advances on Bowker's Trench Raiders...

This game can be purchased at Forbidden Psalm: The Last War

My Generous Wife

 OK, so my wife has a kitten. We can affectionately call this baby "Psycho Death Kitty" to ensure a partial understanding of the damage she can create in even the most mundane of circumstances. In this particular case, she had decided that she enjoyed, for whatever reason, enjoyed drinking the rinse water from my miniatures painting. All of my paints are supposedly non-toxic, but maybe that's just for humans. And I don't want our precious ball of claws and fangs to get sick.

Psycho Death Kitty in her new enclosed kitty bed

The problem is, Psycho Death Kitty is really smart. She is the 12th cat to intersect my life, and is by far the smartest so far. I have tried putting things on top of the rinse water bin, put it under other things, cover it with a towel... she always figures out where it is and how to get to the water in it.

My wife is no happier about Psycho Death Kitty drinking the rinse water than I am. And so, she generously donated one of her plastic kitchen containers with a snap-on lid so that we can keep the water away from the kitten. And it mostly works! She hasn't figured out how to get the lid off, even if she has figured out how to steal the whole container.

The new rinse water bin with its stylish blue snap-on lid

Many thanks to my wonderful and amazing wife for protecting both Psycho Death Kitty and my rinse water!

Fantastic Medieval Campaigns

 Hi there!

Just a short note this time...

On my sidebar, there is a link to the OD&D Discussion Forum. It's a really friendly place that indulges in being pedantic without any vitriol. And the way the discussions twist and turn is amazing. There has been a project under development  by one Marcia B. for quite a while over there, and it seems to be finally completed. The "Fantastic Medieval Campaigns" book is available for free as a PDF and at cost through Lulu, both linked at the Traverse Fantasy website.

I'm just trying to boost the signal for this one. Someone pissed me off with their negative and inaccurate reactions to her promotions of it on social media, so I felt like sharing the product with anyone who stumbles their way here.

Just don't be Surprised.

Gaming Today!

 OK, so today I went over to my good buddy Kurt's place to play some "Forbidden Psalm: The Last War," a Weird World War I skirmish game of small groups of survivors trying to eke out an existence on the abandoned Western Front amongst the horrors of mutants, monsters, and the occasional Martian War Machine.

Kurt preparing for the game

We randomly generated our squads, which led to some pretty weird combinations of gear versus abilities. For instance, I had a guy with an anti-tank rifle who wasn't strong enough to use it properly, meaning I could only hit on a roll of 19 or 20 on a d20 under the best of circumstances. But he also had Bad Luck, requiring the re-roll of any 20. So, he could only hit on a 19. Crazy stuff, man. Just crazy. But one of the nice results of all of this incongruity is that when we assemble our warbands for "real" games, we already know some of the pitfalls to avoid.

The German forces I was playing, from Kurt's collection. He has spectacularly bad lighting for pictures.

We played a scenario that was basically just trying to scavenge loot crates that were protected by crazy Loyalists from Britain who didn't quite know the war was over. And I used the "succeed at any test" and "inflict maximum damage" special cards to kill one of them Very Dead with the anti-tank rifle.

The battleground from my perspective.

I've killed the Loyalist and have stolen the Loot Crate.

In the end, the game devolved into multiple melees in the bombed-out building in the center of the board. A couple of Kurt's guys died, a couple of my guys survived, and I even managed to kill the Mud Ghoul that spawned during Turn 3.

Our first player vs player melee, determining the fate of another Loot Crate.

Multiple melees regarding that Loot Crate.

I managed to sneak out a close victory of 90 loot points to Kurt's 30 loot points. It's been the first time I have won a game in quite a while. Very satisfying! In any case, this game hits all the right beats for me. Small model count, random weirdness, not what-you-see-is-what-you-get (although not even Games Workshop is adamant about that any more,) and a solid campaign system, as well as having high solo-play compatibiity.

My three guys tag-teaming the Mud Ghoul.

Truthfully, we played a few rules wrong and forgot about a few others. For example, we should have spawned three Mud Ghouls on Turn 3 instead of just one; we were looking at the solo rules instead of the multi-player rules. But I really liked it. I give it a 9 out of 10, and highly recommend it. It can be purchased at Forbidden Psalm: The Last War

Welcome One And All!

 Well, hello there, weary web traveller!

Over the years, I have had a few separate blog pages to cater to my various gaming and hobby pursuits. And then I kind of stopped, and started putting a lot of content up on my Facebook page instead. Gradually, I began to hate Facebook and now I am hardly ever there. 

But, really now, I don't do enough of any one thing in particular to maintain any themed or focused pages. So, here's the new plan: I am just going to put this stuff together as it comes along, whether it's gaming with my buddies or painting miniatures or setting up a solo scenario at home or building model airplanes or whatever.

Anyway, that's me with my wife's kitten. Because every blog post needs a picture to satisfy the search algorithms.

And here's some Sisters Of Battle from Games Workshop.

And just like that, we've had our first new blog entry!

TTFN!