Cold Wars

         I missed Fall In, so depressing. Coming off of Drill Weekend always blows.but this time I spill into a short week.Oh yes it is finally here!

          Completely stoked to be going. No wife, no kid, no body to ask me the same question 8 times, just war gaming craziness. I am leaving Tuesday night for Cold Wars in Lancaster, PA. An old friend is coming in early to do research in dad's library. It will be great to hang and BS for a night.

List of games here;

http://www.coldwars.org/2013%20PDF/Cold%20Wars%202013%20PEL.pdf

List of seminars here;

http://www.coldwars.org/2013%20PDF/Cold%20Wars%202013%20Seminars%281%29.pdf

Galloping Major's Ranger characters.

         More M&T painting. With the first 6 Indians finishing up. I have started on Galloping Major's Ranger personality pack, FIW PP1.  You get Rogers, his slave Jacob/Prince/Duke, and a JO.
          They are priced 3 dudes for 5 pounds, 20 cents more than steep ass foundry. They are much cheaper in unit pack.

           The Good;   Brilliant cast, very good detail. The cleaning process was a breeze. There are little to no flash or mold lines.
           The Bad;   The face on the JO is disappointing, all smashed and puffing looking. Also everyone has big ass hands. Why is Rogers only wearing one glove? Stock photos lift off Galloping Major's main site.

           I have Jacob and the JO stuck down on 25mm GW bases. Rogers is on a 30 mm ply for painting. I do this because the staples I used on the corks for my Romans were destroying the cork. The ply and plastic stick to the corks with "blue tac" alone petty solidly. In the end Rogers and Jacob will be based on a 40mm circle and the JO on a 30mm.

         Here everyone is "blue tac" and corked. I primed them with P3 white. I always prime 8" away in two light coats. Once dry, each was washed with Army painter dark tone ink. I do it to 28mm minis for 2 reasons. One it black lines the mini without making the colors dull. Two it brings out the all the smallest details and gets me excited to paint.

The ranger JO with a smashed face, thick fingers and really big hands. The picture and the JO does give an excellent example of the inking blackline effect. The mini is still very light and your colors will be more brilliant. As you block the base layer in be careful along the edges. I try to stay about 0.5 mm  away from any meeting point or color change. Do this and the details will pop.

WIP

         Another Conquest Indian, got hate doubles in your blisters. Same mini as the red shirted dude in the last post. Still a lot of left. Hopefully I can finish him up this week.








          There are holes in my Force on Force collection. I have a ton of minis to kit it out and have been chipping away at it while the paint dries on other projects. There are 2 contractors, 1 DEVGRP, and 2 insurgents.

           20mm are easy. Mainly cause I don't care that much about the look. They are strictly playing pieces to me. I block in the colors and dip them. These are waiting on the weather for the last step.

Stan Johansen

Sweet. I am now the example. My 20mm Jihads are on Stan's front page. Man I need to redo those bases!

Stan Johansen Miniatures

M&T Conquest Indians part II

At long last I sat down to finish the Conquest Indians. I can't remember the last time I painted a 28mm mini. It was truly enjoyable to blend highlights.
         The war paint was added last minute. I was influenced by the art work at Fort Ticonderoga over the weekend.

         The red shirted Indian came out muted after the matt spray was applied. I may go back and re-highlight his shirt. I had the trouble with his hair and feathers. His war paint came out balls on, love it.

          The green shirted Indian's war paint I am not impressed with. The red looks too much like his skin tone. I didn't want it to look cartoonish and under did it.
         I changed my normal basing. To represent the forest base without breaking the bank using a massive ton of tuffs. This time I used clump foliage. Normally it looks like crap. Some 80s train set bullshit. To get around the crap look, I ground it down into small bits no bigger than 3mm chunks. I believe I have achieved that morass forest floor that you would see in a primeval forest.

 

The white shirted Indian I am very happy with. He is the only one done mostly with P3 paints. For a more readily available paint that is cheaper, the results are pretty close to equal those done with foundry.

Thursday Night gaming

          It was a good night. Jimmy and Fred popped by. Also Jack the Marine was passing through and could make it. This was Jack was dive into Force on Force. After the first turn Jack was up to speed.

         After 8 turns. We delayed the US forces, but the contractors walked right through untouched. The contractors got off the board and US forces secured an blew the crash site on the last turn. We prevented Jimmy from gaining control of the pilots and wounded two full fire teams. Only one KIA

Jimmy and Fred = 15
Jack and Me = 11


          We played a convention demo I ripped from the net. Sorry I don't know the origin.

 •UN Contractors:
–Two 6-man squads with leader and 5 M4 equipped troops
–Quality-D10, Morale D10
•Each US Squad:
–Alpha Team: SL, TL, M203 gunner, SAW gunner, Rifleman
–Bravo Tm: TL, M203, SAW gunner, Rifleman
–Charlie Tm: RTO, TL, M203, SAW gunner, Rifleman
–Quality D8, Morale D10
•Bad Guys: Multiple groups plus reinforcements throughout game
–Initial Quality D6, Morale D10
–Some SAW and RPGs throughout the force
–Multiple Leaders
–Technicals may arrive on battle field
•8x Civilian Mobs: Initially neutral

Hot Spots determined randomly by players. None can be placed within 3" of the board edge or within 8" of each other. Civilian Mobs are placed in the center of the board.

Any civilians injured in LOS to Al Jazera arms the civilians mobs and doubles the number of mobs. Civilians move away from gun fire. Civilians move every turn in direction of a spun beer bottle.  If shot through they divide and run in opposite directions.

Victory Conditions
•UN Contractors: Get VIP to exit point; exfiltrate on foot. 5 points for each VIP
•US Squads: Move to crash site, secure and evacuate survivors 5 points , secure or destroy sensitive items 5 points
•Bad Guys: Do not allow UN VIP to exit board. 10 points Kill or capture. Use crash survivors as bait to ambush US troopers. 5 For each KIA or capture, 1 for each wounded.

Snowshoes part II