Cancer sucks

I've done some gaming and a fair amount of painting over the last two months. I haven't been posting very often though. There's a reason for this. I find it takes a fair amount of time to review pictures and create a post. I found in the last couple of months I don't have the energy to do either. It's far simpler to go to a gaming session or blob out in front of the TV and apply paint.

My wife was diagnosed with DCIS (ductal carcinoma in situ) a couple of months ago. We're extremely lucky that it was caught early. And the reason the doctors caught it early was all of the health problems she had earlier in the year. She's had the lumpectomy done (FWIW lumpectomy and partial mastectomy are one and the same operation) and now she's about to start radiation therapy. All of this has left the both of us drained emotionally and physically.

In terms of this blog, I've had neither the energy or will to post anything. But I am starting to come around again. I've finished my Warlord Germans and starting to feel the need to spotlight them. Painting 55 28mm figures is an accomplishment and I feel the urge to document it.

And I still don't have a complete group photo of my Soviets. I have a full company of them plus plenty of supports. That's worthy of a post or two as well.

UPDATE: I've just learned that my father has a small tumor in his bladder. He's going to have an operation to remove it in a couple of days. I guess we'll learn more about it when they do a biopsy on it.

Full Thrust: Convoy Escort

Back in August, we gathered at Stephen's house for some Full Thrust action. Stephen had laid out his star cloth and placed a large number of dust clouds. I arrived latest so I got command of the convoy and a few light escort ships. Here's the opening layout with my ships circled:

In the scenario, we knew that we were being pursued by a large force. We figured that we would also need to fight our way across the board. Most of our gunnery is forward facing so being aggressive seemed the best plan.

Our admiral had done a wonderful job of setting things up. The convoy could run at high speed and also avoid most of the dust clouds. We just needed them to make one turn. The dust clouds would start doing damage to any ships that go faster than 6. Because the convoy's course avoided the dust clouds, I gave them a healthy 12 initial speed.

Being experienced with Stephen's ways of running scenarios, I figured something was up. I scanned ahead and got a result. There was something on that large asteroid ahead. I didn't, however, roll well enough to identify and fire on that something until it fired a couple of very heavy beams. Being NAC, we immediately retaliated with missiles. (red dotted line is the convoy's track)

The thing about the missiles is that in Full Thrust, you plop the missile targets first, move, resolve the missiles, and then resolve other fire. Stephen had designed the scenario with a nasty base. Then just before the game, he decided to make it even nastier. I think he went from 40 points to 60 or something like that. He didn't think, though, that we would hammer it with our missiles. And missiles are the absolute best weapon to use against bases because they don't move. 

Meanwhile, the enemy finally showed up. I was delighted to see that they were behind us and on both flanks. We sent some missiles in their direction as well.

Our missiles devastated the base. It wasn't quite dead so we used the fire phase to finish it off. Our missiles also took out a couple of pursuing ships and a couple of ships to the right. It wasn't a one-sided fight as I lost a light cruiser and the biggest ship in our rear guard blew up.

The convoy continued its run past the destroyed base and we continued to send missiles at the enemy to the right. 

But we were running out of missiles and also losing ships. Most of our ships were NAC and the problem is that they are garbage once they've shot off all their missiles. Most importantly, the convoy was getting away.

Here, I've taken the pictures from the opposite side. The convoy is making the only turn it needs to make. A couple of smaller enemy ships are harassing it, though. The rest of our escorts are taking a pounding and are beginning to get severely outnumbered. 

But victory is ours as the convoy leaves the board. The sacrifice of most of the escorts is not in vain because the convoy lost only one cargo hold in total.

Sails of Non-Glory

A couple of weeks ago, David hosted our first go at Sails of Glory. Much like its brother products, you have a miniature, a deck of cards to control movement, and a set of chits to dish out damage. The big clunky bases I had seen were not as bad in real life as I had imagined from the product photos.

The first game was more of a practice with me in a British 38 gun frigate vs Ray in an 20 gun sloop and Derek in a 30 gun frigate.

Naturally enough, I went after Ray first. In a portend of things to come, I took 9 points of damage and lost a mast to a measly 4 points or so to Ray. This despite me outgunning him 2 to 1.

And it only went downhill from there for me.

In the second game, I teamed up with David. Having concluded my ship was cursed, I flipped the card and took a different frigate. Once again, Ray and Derek were the French and they took two frigates.

After a miss-step in which I oversteered and David understeered into a collision, we resumed out plan of attack to steer down on Ray, who was in the aft ship. Once again, I came out the worse in the exchange.


Despite drawing 8 chits, Ray managed to get 6 no damage chits. I took more and was once again dismasted. My ship was rapidly pounded into striking while Ray and Derek largely managed to avoid crooked numbers in damage. David was a bit too late in coming to my rescue and was not able to reduce the numbers against him.

Thoughts: Dropzone Commander

At Hold The Line, I bought some raffle tickets. Unusually, I won something. Specifically, a copy of the Dropzone Commander rules and a box of figures for the rules.

This isn't really a review because I haven't played the game yet. So what we are dealing with is basically a set of first impressions. My first thought was to sell the two to make some money to buy something that I really wanted.

Now that I've read the rules (how could I not when I actually have a copy in my possession?), I'm more inclined to keep them, but I realize that it means that I need to spend money too.

Anyway, so you get the book and there's about 10 pages or so of background fluff that I still haven't read (and probably won't). Then there's about 14 pages of rules. The rules engine is basically IGOYGO but it's by group instead of the whole side. Units move and shoot or shoot and move. The wrinkle is that all shooting occurs at the same time and you have to designate targets before shooting. The emphasis is on movement, but the real key is on using the dropships and troop carriers to do the movement.

The combat is very deadly. Stuff dies quickly and easily. Especially, it looks like, infantry. Yet infantry are crucial because they are basically the only units that can enter buildings. So you are forced to protect them, even at the point of sacrificing other units.

After the rules, there are a healthy number of scenarios. Most are quick with only 6 turns or so. The focus is typically on grabbing an objective. You can win even though you lose 90% of your force and your opponent loses nothing. Basically, killing your opponent is a secondary thing used to break victory point ties.

The final part of the book is a reference with lots of pictures and stats.

Overall, it's a decent package. The rules are pretty straight forward and there isn't many of them. I still haven't made up my mind about them but they are at least under consideration.

Big Chain of Command: Russians vs Germans

This is David's report of the game:

Last Friday we had 5 people (Ian, Stephen,John,Ray and myself) chewing up the tundra in Mother Russia using Chain of Command. 

Stephen, Ian and I were trying to end the evil machinations of the Nazis but with mixed success.  We were the attackers and had 6 squads of inf, 1 T34 tank, 1 team of anti-tank inf, 1 sniper while they had 3 squads of inf, a Herzer tank, an anti-tank rifle team, a minefield and a stretch of barbed wire.

It started well with a Russian arty barrage having an impact on the arrival of die Krauten although they did get more people on table faster than the  Germans did the last time we played this. Stephen's right flank inf platoon moved ahead as did my left flank platoon while Ian had the tank, sniper and anti-tank team.  My leftmost squad had terrible movement rolls leaving them in the open for Nazi fire to hit.  My other two teams got to a hill where they could shoot down at  the Germans.  

Stephen moved a squad into a field and eventually used a CoC die to relocate a jump-off point to beyond the barbwire.  He then brought on a squad which inflicted casualties on the Nazis over there but they stabilized the situation with their tank. My rightmost squad inflicted damage before they took a pummeling from the Bosch and had to pull back into the woods and down a slope.  My left somehow held on under the withering fire of 2 squads (one in a building) for most of the night before they had to retire during the last phase.  

Our tank rolled along in a big circle on the right and back towards the centre where it poured HE into a machine gun nest in the building until an anti-tank rifle team appeared beside the house and scored a lucky hit on it.  Tank gone!  Stephen's forces in the field inflicted damage on the Krauts and my centre team dealt out some hurt to a machine gun and others.  

All the while, morale was dropping and the Germans were getting so close to getting to roll only 4 dice per phase.  12:30 came so we packed it in but it could have gone either way.  It would be the Russian turn if we continued and we just needed a couple of kills on one almost gone German team and on the anti-tank gunner and that probably would have been it (thanks for a number of German leader casualties).  However, the Stephen's morale status was almost as bad and mine was a bit better so it could have gone either way.  Thanks to Ian for running this.

Second Thoughts: Warlord's Panzergrenadiers (30 figures and 3 vehicles) and Late War Germans (25 figures)

While I was initially impressed by these boxes, now that I've been assembling them, I'm feeling let down, especially when compared to the Soviet box.

There are a number of problems:

• There are only 5 poses so I now have 11 of each.
• Warlord compounds the above problem by repeating three sets of arms. 
• There is no prone figure so you have no choice but to make the LMG gunners into Rambo.
• The right hands of the rifle arms don't hold the weapon well, unlike the Soviet figures.
• The arms don't integrate very well with the bodies. The shoulders stick out far too much and you don't get a nice joint. Each shoulder requires some knife work to make them far more seamless.
• The one accessory that I expected was some MG ammo belts to add to the figures. The late war Germans, especially Panzergrenediers, are notorious for lugging belts of ammo around with them, but none are included. There's sort of an ammo box but it seems awfully thin. Belts would have been far more useful.

And on top of that, I cannot even borrow the extra Soviet arms I have. The Russian arms are significantly bigger.

It's my understanding that the Soviet box is a later product. The experience that Warlord gained from these inferior German figures shows up.

Bocage

I have created some test bocage. I' rather pleased with the randomness and bulk of them so I plan to go into production of them (about 3 feet worth at a minimum) after Hold the Line next month.

Yes, there's a rather lost Soviet officer but he's the only fully painted figure I have for scale.