June: End of Month update and Welcome to followers

Wargaming is a question of scale

Welcome to new visitors.
Grigork: A nice blog where you have really tons of photos about games. And very nice one by the way.
Morikun: He is holding a small temple of heaven in the blogosphere, talking minis and other cool subjects that should be more talked about in temples and churches in my own opinion. Worth a visit, or like, a weekly pilgrimage
Sanguinius:  He is hosting a Manchester Area game blog. He has good tips on how to create your own (otherwise) expensive GW units.
Nobody667: If you like zombie games or great stories, this is the blog to go. Now, he is twisting scenarios and set them in very new places. And he is able to convert a pink Barbie house into a convincing rundown building.


This is the end of the Month and what have I done so far?

Bolt Action standard British FOO?

Look like Press to me

Well, I went to UK and brought back few good stuff to increase my (already) huge Partisan army, Late German Levy in a nutshell. These are going to be very great addition to my current campaign, and with the Dad's Army (warlord again), it will be fantastic!

My Partisan have a die hard leader and his trusted bodyguard

I also increased the number of Artizan models I had with the German Sentries and 2 blisters of partisans. Never too late.

We are also building a big Operation, using Bolt Action, to represent the second day of the Battle of Selow Heights in April 1945. That would be played at the wargame society in early July. Stay tuned if you want to know if Zhukov 2014 will be able to break through the defence and run for Berlin, like in 1945, living a sizeable German force behind him. That force will be too far from Berlin with the supply they had and only few were able to break through the Russian lines, to end up mostly in Berlin during the final battle.

The plan will be to play Bolt Action on 3 tables, 2 using 28mm minis, 1 table using 20mm minis and more tanks/AT guns.

German Army in 20mm

War in 20mm, Airfix resin buildings

I also finished my SOTR APE, that make 10 of them. All in metal. The weirdest part of it, is that with Incursion Kickstarter to come, that will be a very huge APE platoon to come. They are painted as French Foreign Legionnaires, to increase my small French army for SOTR.



Talking about the French, they are reinforced by the great looking Panhard 178, a recce vehicle used by the French Army in 1940. (note the marking are missing on purpose, so I can use it for Bolt Action and SOTR).


Finally, I finished painting my Gurkhas given for my birthday (As you will ask, I am 30, and I have been celebrating my 30th birthdays many years now, so I am becoming an expert in 30th birthday if you need one)


I also painted more minis for my Fallout game. Not being happy with another run on the rules, I decided to move to the mystic "Rogue Trader", the wargame from Games Workshop that started W40k.
I painted more retainer, got a box of Marauder from Mantic (great looking Mutants!) and a Knight that is primarily a Grey Knight Terminator.

I played 2 games of Bolt Action recently, with the Partisan and the German army. Partisan was a win, German a loss, but both games rocked.
Here are some pix of the Partisan game

Partisan overriding a Flak.

Of course, there is also Man o' war that got me recently and that was on another post.

Old Memories back - Games Workshop Man O' War

Not so long ago I was wandering on FRP and found that some of the Valient range (1/1200 and 1/2000 ships) were going OOP. Like any gamer, this rang a bell of urgency and sign up for the last ships and look at them with sparkle in the eyes when they arrived. My Precious!



Yes, I have to admit, I was and still am, a big big fan of Man o' war or MOW or Manowar. I bought the game back at its release time. The good old times when you buy a White Dwarf, read the reports and looked at the photos. Manowar was appealing because it was cheap and easy to start. In these days, I used mostly the mail and order, these were the days before World Wide Web was available to all. A full game was about 2 hours and no more than 10 ships. That was a bargain. The only issue was that the miniatures were on sale for a very short time.

We resorted with my brothers to use cork sheets and toothpick to build up massive fleet of Imperial, Bretonnian and Dwarves, in addition to the 7 original ships we owned.

We played massive games during Summer and it was fun.

For some years, prices were keeping me out, and the fact that there is a limited quantity of ships on sale, mostly on ebay, mostly expensive.

The new Bretonnian fleet

So I bought new ranges on FRP as count-as and here is what it look like. Scale is totally off, so I think I will have to play without the original and lock them in a safe.

Valient, Games Workshop and Spartan scale comparison

More ships for Imperial fleet

The Reich of the Thousand Deads: S2E4 Into Enemy Hands (AAR)

Turn 1 (6,2), Turn 2    (2,1)

They had brought the body of the British Major. She was in a very bad state with bruises, wounds and burns all over the body.
"What the Hell is wrong with these people? Torturing women! If I wasn't restrained" He forced on the chains and felt the joints were giving up.

Hearing footsteps

Approaching footsteps

"Come on, come on..." he was pulling as much as he could on the chains, but he had not freed yet.
 

The person on the other side started to open the lock when the chains gave up. Mallory had just time to hide.


Turn 3    (1,5)

"Herr Amerikaner, I beliefe you hafe a lot of things to tell me... Vhere are youl?"

The SWD officer saw Mallory was gone. Mallory attacked him before he could raise the alarm. Still, he was too weak and not as fast as he wanted. The German dodged the attack. The German backed off. Mallory was about to give the coup de grace when he became dizzy and tumbled.
The SWD moved closer. Mallory was out of breath, trying a half punch that was no threat.
"You are too veak. You stand no chanze."
"Gimme a minute... and I will show you"
"I am sorry Herr Amerikaner. I hafe no time for play."
Mallory 's vision blurred and darkened. He felt on the floor.

The SWD matched Mallory initiative. Mallory lost the fight and was knocked down. Well, that was a good start....

Turn 4    (4,6)

"Lalala..Tam tam TAAM!"

The SWD scientist was singing some Wagnerian music, preparing his tools. Mallory was still inconscious.

Failed recover test for Mallory that he passed only 1d6.

Turn 5    (1,6)

Mallory's mind emerged from darkness

He had with a terrible headache, and he was not drunk. He saw the German scientist singing and looking at a bloodied knife with a large smile. Next to Mallory were the bodies of the 2 Templars.
"Guys, seems you are too much on sharing" he whispered at the mutilated bodies who were missing important features like limbs and other organs.


 He tested the bond and they were loose.

He swiftly freed one hand and silently released himself from the bed.

I gave a test with minimum 3 successes to free himself. He rolled 5 dices and had 3 successes, so Mallory could move again.

Turn 6    (3,5), Turn 7    (2,4), Turn 8    (4,1)

The mad doctor was still singing and showing his back to Mallory. Mallory silently approached him and was about to hit him when a rat jumped on a shelf and pushed a bottle that crashed on the floor with a loud sound.
 
Mallory and the doctor looked at the rat who get away. Then the doctor looked at Mallory and raised his knife.
"Vhat..."

He never finished, Mallory jumped on him and tried to take control of the knife. The mad doctor lost control and they fell on the ground. Mallory pushed the knife toward the neck of the doctor. For few seconds they were locked on this position then the knife plunged deeply in the doctor's body.
Mallory stood up, knife in hands as the doctor tried to gasp some air drowning himself in his own blood.

"I am pretty sure you can claim a work accident."

Turn 9    (6,6) - ER raised to 3

The fight had taken too long. Mallory felt the longer he stayed, the less he would be to leave the place without much trouble.

I used a different mechanism for the random event. Instead of generating one, I was to check if I generated a PEF. Base ER was 2, as the base is not on alert. If pass 2d6, a PEF would be generated. If pass 1d6, ER would raise, increasing chances of PEF and 0d6 would do nothing.

Turn 10    (4,2), Turn 11    (4,1), Turn 12    (6,5), Turn 13    (3,3)

Mallory has no idea what way is the best way

Mallory opened the door and saw a long tunnel in front of him. He had a rough idea of where some places were. He remembered them when they brought him after the fire fight at the camp. The corridors were empty, for now.

Every new area discovered would give chances for a PEF. I rolled 1d6, and if the dice was higher than the ER, nothing happened. If lower, then a PEF would be generated on one of the discovered segment.

Mallory moved toward the jail, if the British Major still lived, he would not leave her here. As he approached the room, he heard noise in there. He had to be careful. He had only a knife with him.



Turn 14    (3,1), Turn 15    (1,6)

He then remembered he forgot to search the lab for better weapon. Maybe there was a luger or something more punchy. He moved back to the lab and after a quick search, he assumed that there was only mutilated corpses there, and rats.

Turn 16    (2,6), Turn 17    (2,5),  Turn 18    (3,3) - Nothing
 
 He moved as fast as he could to the room, he had wasted enough time now. He stopped in front of the door and took a deep breath
 





Turn 19    (1,6), Turn 20    (1,1)- Nothing,  Turn 21    (4,6), Turn 22    (1,4),  Turn 23    (3,6),
Turn 24    (5,4), Turn 25    (2,1), Turn 26    (4,1), Turn 27    (6,6) - Nothing, Turn 28    (2,1)
 
He opened the door and was too surprise by what he saw. A living SWD was controlling a zombie with some kind of remote controller.

"What is this?" Mallory said

The German saw him.
"Goot. I can try my new toy."

He sent the controlled zombie to attack Mallory. Just on time, Mallory recovered from his amazement but only knocked down the zombie.

He feared this would raise the alarm. He moved fast and hit the controller with the knife grazing him. The zombie slowly stood up and moved toward Mallory. Mallory finished the controller and turned to the zombie, crushing his skull.


"What the Hell? Playing with zombies? What is the SWD up to?"

The fight took him too long, once more. He searched the body of the SWD and found a pistol.
"Good that he didn't use it, and preferred his undead friend. Necrophilia will kill SWD one day."
Looking around he found some blue prints about the controller.
"That would be a nice Christmas present for the Allied."

Turn 29    (3,2), Turn 30    (1,6), Turn 31    (5,5) - Nothing, Turn 32    (4,6), Turn 33    (1,2),
Turn 34    (4,6), Turn 35    (3,2), Turn 36    (6,1)
 
Mallory tried to find his way and was concerned he had taken the right turns. He ended up in an empty room. Not many SWD, that was good. He hoped his luck would keep it this way but somehow he felt that time was running short.

Turn 37    (2,2), Turn 38    (6,6)

ER raised to 4
ER raised to 5

 
Turn 39    (3,2), Turn 40    (4,3), Turn 41    (5,1), Turn 42    (3,2), Turn 43    (3,1), Turn 44    (4,6),
Turn 45    (4,3)

 
He reached another room. He opened the door and found another zombie controller.
"Really? How many of you?" The SWD sent again the zombie and Mallory dispatched it in a single move.


Getting at the living German, his knife was deflected by the remote control. The German fell on the floor and used the remote control as a shield.
Mallory was feeling the time pressure and as he hurried he opened his guard for the German to stab Mallory.

Really?

Mallory grinned. The German had aimed for the heart but the blade slipped on the ribs. Mallory knew that this soldier was good. They were locked in the fight for a long time, until finally Mallory plunged the blade through the German heart.


Mallory rubbed his ribs. "You guys never know when to stop"


 

The SWD won one fight despite Mallory rolling tons of dice more (better REP, SWD prone) and resulted in OOF on Mallory that was reduced to Carry on with Star Power. Mallory had 3 Star Power left out of 5

Mallory searched the room and found more ammo and food.

Turn 46    (3,3), Turn 47    (3,3)

He put the ammo in his pockets and heard many sounds coming from where he was supposed to go. He drew the luger.
"I think that this is over for Silent Bob. Let's meet Aimy Gun."

PEF (3) generated. PEF (4) generated

 Turn 48    (6,2), Turn 49    (2,6),  Turn 50    (5,3)

The noise moved away in what sounded like a room

 That was his opportunity. He opened the door and saw a very long corridor with a dead end. On the other side of the corridor there was a sentry glaring at him.


The German aimed with shaky hands at him and shot. The bullets ended everywhere but Mallory. He raised the luger aimed and shot the German dead.



"Great, now, I believe everybody knows I am on the loose"

Mallory ran to pick up the SMG. From the room people were coming to investigate the gunshots.


Turn 51    (1,6), Turn 52    (3,2), Turn 53    (6,6) - ER raised to 6, Turn 54    (5,2), Turn 55    (4,5)



Mallory took the SMG and tried to ambush the newcomers. Two SWD officers arrived and the first was fastest than Mallory. He sprayed Mallory with lead and only luck made Mallory survived with only superficial wounds. Mallory shot back and killed him while the other officer was stunned.
 
Despite better initiative for Mallory, the first SWD reacted faster and shot him OD. Mallory used the remaining Star Power. Mallory would have no more extra chances.
 

He shot once more at the SWD officer who finally passed away. Mallory was sure it was over and spotted too last a trooper. Mallory fired first but the clip was empty.

"Ho, come on!"

He was standing in front of the German who shot him. Mallory fell on the ground, stunned.

Turn 56    (4,2), Turn 57    (3,1), Turn 58    (2,3), Turn 59    (6,3)

The German approached Mallory and pushed away the MP 40 with his boot. He saw the luger and threw it away.
"Ve are going to hafe a funny game, Amerikaner. "



Mallory recovered and took his knife hitting the helmet of the SWD who fell on the floor.
"This vill be efen funnier."
Mallory jumped on the German and they both tried to stab the other one. The SWD was not giving up easily but Mallory finally won. Mallory was bleeding and limping but he was victorious.
"Let's go in Germany she said, it will be fun...."

 

Turn 60    (2,4), Turn 61    (4,4), PEF (6) generated near Radio station, Turn 62    (5,4)

"Let's save the Major now"

He ran toward the cell, hoping to see the British major still alive. He opened the door and found her more dead than alive.

 
"Major, can you hear me?"
She opened the eyes and looked at him. "Yes" Her voice was weak.
"Can you walk Major?"
"We need to radio..."
"What? We have to leave now. I don't know when somebody will come to investigate the shooting."
"We have to warn our guys"
He shook his head.
"They are dead, I saw the bodies"
She stood up. "No, not the guys from our commando. Our troops in Occupied Europe. I am sorry. I was too weak and I spoke. I told them everything about our commandos trying to destroy the SWD. I sold them!... " Her voice broke and she started crying.
"We can't. You are too weak to fight and there is no telling if we can reach the radio station. We will leave this place and find the safe house. From there we can radio HQ and they can warn our boys. Now follow me. We will get away from this hellish place."
She tried to say something, but no sound came out. She gave up and followed Mallory.



Mallory had 2 choices: Going to the radio or going to the exit. Mallory won the PEOPLE test against the Major, going for the exit.

Turn 63    (5,2), Turn 64    (4,1), Turn 65    (5,4), Turn 66    (3,2)

Mallory heard sound coming from behind. It was far enough to not be an immediate threat but he knew there was only a question of time before they found the bodies.


Turn 67    (1,6), Turn 68    (3,5), Turn 69    (3,1)


Mallory and the Major arrived in the room and with a deep breath Mallory opened the door. He was surprised to see the exit. He believe the exit was further. His joy was shortened by a glimpse of an ambushed SWD. The soldier shot and missed. Mallory came for his pistol.
"Damned! I forgot to take a weapon."
A SWD trooper had taken away all his weapon when he was stunned.
"But I always have few inches of steel" He rushed with his knife and killed the German.

Lucky draw. The exit is closer than expected! That was a good card at the good moment.

Turn 70    (4,3)

Mallory took the rifle of the soldier and searched his body before exiting. Suddenly the alarm broke.

Turn 71    (5,5) PEF generated, Turn 72    (2,3)



Three SWD troopers opened the exit door. The time their eyes get used to the darkness, Mallory charged with the advantages of his experience and the drawn knife. He grazed the most dangerous looking soldier and turned to attack the next one. The soldier saw Mallory's coming and grabbed his hand holding the knife.

Behind Mallory, the third soldier hesitated to shoot. As Mallory and his comrade were tied, he decided to attack Mallory in the back.

Mallory did not see the blade ripping through his carotid. Mallory fell on the ground. He heard the gunshots as the SWD troopers shot the Major at point blank. Mallory was dead seconds after.

The SWD delivered a terrible blow to the Allied hopes....

Summary:
What a scenario. The game went terribly wrong at the beginning with Mallory not able to untie himself. Then, he lost against lower REP, less equipped soldiers.
There was also this miserable triple "1" on the SMG shot. Fate wanted to show me what side she had taken.
To be honest I tried 3 times the last round of close combat, trying to cheat a little. So close of the exit, having a PEF made me cheating with myself. But every time, the dice delivered the same result (like they were possessed) against all odds. Only then I decided to let go Mallory and paint a new set of heroes.

The Dirty Half-Dozen