Miniature Musings - Hobby Done Cheap with Foam Sheet Units

Last month, the Behind Enemy Lines podcast discussed Mantic's Kings of War rules. KoW is a ruleset that I've always been interested in, having wet my toes with Warhammer Fantasy Battles 8th Edition when it first came out and found it not to my liking. 

However, I don't think I'll be collecting a fantasy army anytime soon, with the necessary investment in time and money to buy, put together and paint the miniatures. However, during the podcast, there was a suggestion that one could use cardboard or paper cutouts. Since KoW is an element based game - with no single-figure removal like in Warhammer Fantasy - all one needs is a square or rectangle large enough to be an accurate representation of a unit's size. 

So I thought, why do I need miniatures? (Apart from the whole philosophical questions regarding miniatures and miniature wargaming. We're trying to be cheap here.)

So I ran out to a local craft and hobby shop and looked for some supplies. And I happened to find the above - foam sheets that were 99 cents apiece. They're perfect - thick enough to have some weight to them, but pliable and able to be written on with a sharpie marker. They came in a variety of colors, so I grabbed green and blue. 

I've got a double-sided sharpie that has both a thick marker and a small, pen-like nib that I used to outline the units. An orc force of nearly 1,200 points took up about two-thirds of the sheet. 

I cut everything out (easy enough with a standard pair of scissors) and labelled them with the thick marker. This took about a half hour, with a little time to trim a few strange measurements that somehow sneaked through. The best part is, I still have 2 and 1/3 sheets left - plenty of material to work with if I ever want larger games. 

I did the same with the dwarven force using the blue sheets. I also added small dots to both the dwarven and orc units to mark both the unit's front and center (for use with line-of-sight and other features of the rules).

So for about $2 I now have starter armies for a game I'd like to try without having to devote money and time into a demo game. 

This also works for plenty of other games that use large, element-based units. I'm considering using this for Black Powder, with red and blue units representing the British and Colonial forces in the American War of Independence. 

Miniature Musings - Balance and Variety in All Quiet

After my All Quiet AAR was posted last week, SinSynn (of House of Paincakes fame) commented and asked about a few aspects of the game:

SinSynn wrote:
"I've been curious about this game for a hot minute now....but it was pretty obvious right from deployment who was gonna win that one!
Do the Martians not have troops? Can they only run the Tripods?

This looked like a bunch of 40k Imperial Knights going up against some random Guardsmens with a single Leman Russ and a few chimeras. Really lopsided. Also had a bit of 'gunline versus assault army' feel, since the poor humans could only win by gunning down the Tripods before they hit their lines.

There's certainly a bunch of potential for coolness with War of the Worlds kinda stuff happening here, but that Martian army looks like the most optimized thing available, while the more interesting, balanced force just got stomped the heck out. The outcome was never in doubt...

Game balance is definitely one of my top priorities when I'm interested in a new system. Too many years of playing 40k just broke me. I'm always on the lookout for a cool new thing. One batrep obviously won't tell me everything, so I'd certainly like to hear more 'bout this game...It does look cool, but I hope there's more variety on the Martian side of things...
Thanks fer the batrep!"

When I realized how long my reply had gotten, I thought, 'Why not just turn this into a blog post? I'm lazy enough to do that.' Lo and behold, this week's update:

My reply:

"Actually, according to the guys I was playing with (who've played the game 2-3 times already) this was the first Martian victory they've seen!

Martians can field 'Lobototons,' basically human zombies controlled by Slaver tripods, but for the most part tripods are the mainstay of the alien invaders. As for Martian variety, you have your Assault tripods (and the rarer Veteran Assault), which are the core of a Martian force. Scout tripods have lighter weapons, but can move faster. Grenadier tripods act a long range artillery. Slavers can control Lobototons (which can either be ranged or close combat) or Drones (of which there are four varieties. Regular Drones, close combat Drones, artillery Drones, and anti-tank drones). There are also three types of Tripod yet to be released, which are the Slaver, Dominator, and Overseer.

However, for all the shininess of the tripods, they have some major weaknesses. While they have very strong armor, they're easy to hit, and once they're hit they become easier to deal damage to thanks to the following damage chart (available and essentially unchanged from the Kickstarter draft rules):

-1-5. The Tripod is damaged. The Tripod’s Amour stat is reduced by 1.
- 6. The Tripod is damaged and crippled. The Tripod’s Armor stat is reduced by 1. In addition, every time the Tripod wishes to move, both players roll a die, and the highest scoring player can move the Tripod up to the score rolled number of inches. If both players roll the same the Tripod does not move.
- 7. The Tripod is damaged and its weapons disabled. The Tripod’s Armor stat is reduced by 1. In addition, every time the Tripod attempts to shoot both players roll a die, and the highest scoring player selects the target up to a maximum range of double the score rolled number of inches. The target must lie within range and line of sight of the Tripod, but otherwise any unit from either side can be selected as the target. If both players roll the same the Tripod does not shoot.
- 8. The Tripod is badly damaged. The Tripod’s armor stat is reduced by the score of a D10. If the Tripod’s armor stat is reduced to zero or less as a result it is destroyed as 9 below.
- 9. The Tripod is destroyed and crumples to the ground in a heap of tangled metal!
- 10+ The Tripod is destroyed and explodes in a spectacular fashion! If there are any other units within 6” of the destroyed Tripod, whether Human or Martian, then these are all caught in the explosion. Each unit suffers 3 attacks with a Power level of +2.

Since the turn sequence for the game is move-shoot/assault-move, human tanks can easily scurry out of cover, fire, and retreat. And human infantry starts the game hidden and dug in, which means not only do the Martians need to get close to 'see' them, but they're also harder to hit. And while rifles might not do much, they do have grenades that can hurt tripods in close combat, and massed machine gun fire can chink off enough armor to make a Martian commander worry. In fact, I probably would have lost more than a single tripod in the woods if the Scout hadn't exploded. They're aren't that great in close combat, preferring to fire they're weapons where the humans can get too close. 

Also, this scenario encouraged - demanded, really - that the Martians get in close. In others, the Martians are actually the defenders, which I kind of want to see. 

As for the humans, they can get some pretty cool stuff - different varieties of infantry (thanks to some free PDFs that are coming out) and tanks, including the Land Ironclad - a monster miniature that looks to be about the same size of a Baneblade, but in a 18mm scale game! The British are also being released, and they have different vehicles, like the oddly shaped Monotank, and Tesla Cannons. The Germans and French are also slated to release in the future, and as this is still WW1 period Earth, I'd expect to see some human tensions escalating into full-on war. Also, we should be seeing Venusians in the neat future, and Underdwellers (basically Morlocks) later on. So the variety in game-play should be increased exponentially."

So those are my thoughts. But, if you've played All Quiet at all, feel free to leave your own impressions and thoughts on the game in the comments. The game has definitely gotten its hooks into me, and I'm interested to play more. 

The Martians March on Memphis! - All Quiet on the Martian Front AAR

June 7, 1915.

Captain George Patton listened from atop his command Monitor tank as the lieutenant gestured and spoke frantically from the ground below. If the reports were right, a large force of Martian tripods were heading straight for his section of the line, apparently intent on forcing a breakthrough. He chewed at an unlit cigar as the younger junior officer continued to talk. The Martians couldn't have picked a worst place to attack - the Mississippi was at its shallowest and thinnest here, and wouldn't present much trouble for the gangly, metallic monsters. 

"Goddamned three-legged bastards," Patton muttered, half to himself. The lieutenant stopped, unsure if he should continue at the risk of interrupting his commanding officer. Patton saved him the trouble. "Is the infantry in position?" he asked.

"Yes, sir," the lieutenant replied. "Tucked up against the river banks and dug in as far as they can go."

"We'll just have to hope it's enough," Patton said, watching a column of armored infantry march past his vehicle and into the woods. Patton pointed at the lieutenant. "Get back to your post, son. We probably don't have much longer." 

The lieutenant nodded and saluted, then ran off to join the infantry in the dense trees and underbrush. 

Patton looked up at the distant roar of motorcycle engines, and could see the scouting squad of Rough Riders returning. They were coming back early, which meant the Martians wouldn't be far behind...

And Memphis had run out of time. 

***

I recently had the opportunity to try out a game of All Quiet on the Martian Front. I didn't have the opportunity to participate in the Kickstarter, and no one I know plays locally, but thanks to Dennis and company at On Military Matters I finally got the chance to see how the game works. 

The scenario was an attack by the Martians, who started on one table edge and had to pass to the other to score points. In their way was a combination of U.S. infantry and steam tanks.

 

While many of the human infantry units started the game hidden, those on the front line who weren't were instead heavily dug in. They lined the river, knowing that it would impede the tripods' progress for at least a turn.

The human's also had a great deal of armor ready to respond against the Martian assault, with squads of steam tanks, mobile artillery, and Captain Patton in a Monitor (that huge tank with all the guns). My favorite models for the humans were probably the Rough Riders, especially the guy with the machine gun laid across the handlebars of his motorcycle.

 

The Martians consisted of six Assault tripods, three Scouts, and a Slaver with three Drones. 

Dennis said that all the paint jobs for the miniatures had been done by one of the guys at Architects of War, and they were fantastic! 

 

The Martians were split into three groups - as there were three Martian commanders - and planned to come at the humans in a single wave.

As the Martians approached the Mississippi, the humans opened fire. The Martian's heavily armored tripods withstood the attack and pressed on, revealing some of the hiding infantry.

  

The tripods under my command moved up along the right flank, pushing into the densely forested area, aiming to take out the human command post. 

 

The other two groups of Martians advanced against the other group of dug-in infantry, who managed to destroy a tripod. The result explosion pinged against the armor of the tripods in range, but the damage was insignificant.

 

Once they were through, the Martians wasted no time and focused on the greatest threat - the Monitor! Patton was forced to make a run for the rear after a heat ray swept through his tank, destroying it.

My tripods advanced further into the woods, taking fire from machine guns, rifles and grenades. Waves of armored infantry tried to hold the tripods back, but both sides were equally ineffectual in close quarters.

The infantry hidden by the fork of the river, supported by one of the steam tanks, had a better time of it, destroying the approaching scout tripod.

A lucky strike from the armored doughboys destroyed the other scout tripod. Unfortunately, the resulting explosion wiped out every human unit in the woods!

On the other flank, the humans were having a better time, with three tripods down and another so severely damaged that its Martian pilot was fighting against its controls. The humans took heavy losses as well, losing much of their infantry and the unit of Rough Riders.

The remaining two tripods destroyed the unit of tanks in the orchard, forcing the artillery to fall back. The last of the steam tanks rolled up against the hedgerow and started to fire on the Martians.

I decided to swing my Martians into the flanks of the steam tank platoon. They pushed through the hedgerow and spun around, but with both sides deep in foliage, hits were few and far between. 

One more tripod fell, but at this point the humans conceded - there was no way the remaining humans were going to stop all the Tripods before being wiped out. And with that, the breakthrough was complete, and the Martians strode onward as klaxons began to blare in Memphis.

All Quiet on the Martian Front turned out to be a fantastic game, and I found it both easy to pick up and deep enough to want to try it again. If there's one bad thing I can say about the game, it's that I know want to buy the starter set!

Painting Update - SAGA

I've been continuing to work on my SAGA project, which involves completing six point warbands for the four factions in the original rulebook. The Vikings and Anglo-Danes have been completed, and I've got a couple more points of cavalry to finish for the Normans. I recently completed the Welsh warband I had assembled.

 

The Warlord is a great model, with plenty of motion and character.

I painted the muscular cuirass as though it were leather, which offsets nicely with the silver, green and red of the rest of the miniature.

Two points of the warband are made up of Hearthguard. I decided I wanted to have a unifying theme around the elites in this warband, and so I painted each of their cloaks/capes red.

You might also notice that they're lacking in shields. This is a visual indication of the weaker armor saves that javelin-armed units have.

Half of the warband is made up of Warrior units. Alex demonstrated in our games how deadly twelve-strong units can be in a Welsh warband, so I thought I'd try to have enough warriors to fill out two units of twelve.

Again, may of the models in these units lack shields, indicating their javelin-influenced armor saves. These shields are also lacking in ornamentation, which is what several sources led me to believe Welsh shields were actually painted like.

You might also notice that the hafts of the javelins are painted a different color than those of the spears in other factions. Again, this is a visual indicator that these are actually javelins and not spears, in case the shorter length isn't clear.

The last unit in the warband is a group of bow-armed levy. It may have been a better idea to have them equipped with javelins - especially since the Welsh Battleboard abilities center around the 'shoot-and-scoot' mentality of the faction - but I thought a half-decent stand off unit might be good to have.

And that's the Welsh! Hopefully I can complete the Normans soon. They're actually going to be a little over the goal of six points. I picked up a couple extra cavalry units, so they'll be eight points when I finish.

A Skirmish in Normandy - Flames of War AAR

The last time time Curt and I played Flame of War was all the way back in July, 2013. Deciding it's been too long since our miniatures saw the table, Curt asked if we could play a game, and I agreed, especially since I wanted a chance to use the buildings I recently bought from Mk IV Miniatures. 

The table set up saw a large crop field and hedgerows on one side, and a forest on the other. A large stream flowed across the width of the table, and a small farming village was placed in the middle of the table. Kudos to Curt for putting out the terrain. 

Curt brought his trusty paratroopers:

Fallschirmjägerkompanie HQ

Fallschirmjäger Platoon

Fallschirmjäger Platoon

Fallschirmjäger Anti-tank Gun Platoon (PaK40s)

Fallschirmjäger Mortar Platoon

Heavy Tank Platoon (Tigers)

While I brought out my British rifles:

Rifle Company HQ

CSM Stan Hollis, VC 

Rifle Platoon

Rifle Platoon

Carrier Platoon 

Anti-tank Platoon (6 pdr)

Mortar Platoon 

Machine-gun Platoon 

Independent Armoured Platoon 

Independent Armoured Platoon 

I deployed my British in a line across the table, with an infantry platoon and both HQ elements in front of the one German objective, and the 6 pdrs covering the others. On the far flank, I planned to have my one tank platoon move through the woods, while the other tank and infantry platoon were on the other flank and ready to advance through the fields. My mortars sat back in a hedgerow corner (in what I thought was relative safety), next to my machine gun platoon. The more observant of you will probably realize that I completely forgot to deploy my Carrier Platoon. D'oh!

Curt deployed his PaK40s to cover the forest approach, while his two big platoons of paratroopers made ready to dash towards the farm buildings. His mortars deployed much like mine, safe behind the hedgerows, with their observer next to the anti-tank guns on Curt's left. His Tiger tanks - always the scariest part of Curt's lists, especially for my British - idled behind the infantry. 

We decided not to establish a time limit, and to just go until one side had won. 

One the first turn, Curt advanced his tigers and infantry towards the village. On the left, I double-timed one of the tank platoons, pushing them almost all the way through the fields. An infantry platoon followed them in, while the machine guns moved in to hug the hedgerow. One of the mortar observer teams hopped over the hedgerow to get a better line-of-sight. 

My infantry and anti-tank guns stayed put on the right, waiting for the advancing Germans. 

My other tank platoon began to move through the forest on the far right. While I needed to roll Bog Checks to see if they would stop moving, I was confident that I could keep myself from rolling poorly. 

Said confidence was quickly shattered when the platoon commander was the first to bog down, meaning my tank platoon quickly stopped its advance!

Our tanks began to play a game of 'cat and mouse' (I'll let you guess which platoons are which). My hope was that my tanks could at least machine-gun the mortars to pieces before being popped by the Tigers, since their shells were raining down and decimating my own mortars and machine guns. In fact, my Mortars were the only platoon to retreat off the table, thanks to their German counterparts. 

Curt's paratroopers moved forward as his anti-tank guns waited, listening to the British tank commander cursing his bad luck. 

My plan actually worked, with the Shermans rolling up to the hedgerows and starting to shoot at the Mortars, who lost two guns. The Tigers fire back, but the cover and range means Curt has to roll 6's to hit. 

Knowing I needed to get my tanks moving again, I had my platoon commander move from the bogged tank to a mobile one. The Firefly managed to move to the edge of the woods, but the new platoon commander's tank went and bogged down again! A certain driver was going to get a stern lecture after the fight. 

Curt's infantry finally moved through the town and into rifle range. My dug-infantry proved difficult to dislodge, however. 

My platoon commander managed to un-bog his tank, but then was forced to bail out by incoming Pak40 rounds. The other two tanks retaliated, blowing up one of the anti-tank guns. 

The two tank platoons continued to trade volleys with one another as the British infantry prepared to go up and over the hedgerow, led by Hollis. 

Unable to get enough hits with which to pin my infantry platoon, my own rifles chased off one of Curt's paratrooper platoons. 

Finally, Curt's Tigers blew up on of the Shermans. Deciding that they had waited long enough, the British infantry move out into the field, running towards the Tigers. 

The only remaining part of the anti-tank platoon was the command team, who passed the necessary morale checks and moved to stop the British from capturing the objective for at least another turn. 

The British infantry were finally pinned, but Curt's assault was held off for another turn by some lucky dice rolls. 

And in the next turn, the British had the objective in hand, winning 5-2. 

It was a fun game, although Curt and I had to knock some cobwebs out of our heads to remember the rules. I'll probably go over the rule book a couple more times, since we did have a few questionable calls (firing in and out of woods, for example).