Historicon 2012 After Action Report Part 1

Hi Kids,  Wow, This report is late.  But then again, no one is coughing up some rightous cash to get all the info quickly.....  And, as always, you'll get your money's worth! :)  I'm going to skip over all the brouhaha regarding "location, location, location" as they say in real estate and just dive right in with some pictures of the games.

 Here we have a 25mm Nappie game using Carnage and Glory, put on by the world famous Dr. Bob.  Yes, there really are two of them. The NC crowd had half a room devoted to them all weekend long, as they ran game after game on the same tables.  You lads oughta go to Raleigh more often!

 15mm French Foreign Legion, defending the fort as per usual.  Its still early in the match, and in The Sword & The Flame the natives start hidden.  That's why there are so few in this pic.  Not sure who the giant holding the flag is either.

 Spartan Games was well represented, here are two shots of Firestorm Armada.

 Another 25mm Nappie game.  Don't we all think we're Napoleon?  That reminds me of a joke:
I'm glad I wasn't born in France.  I don't speak the language!!!  Badum bum!

 You raced in the Great Circus?  You betcha!  The race goes on, Judea Ben Hurr!!!!!

 Mecha combat!  I've had this as a back burner project for about 20 years.  Some day......

Looks like not everyone thinks they're Napoleon!  The model of the Hinterland Mini's Female Hussars, no doubt!

 Here we have quite a few snaps of Bob's Spectacular Anglo-Zanzibar Game!  25mm, all custom built terrain and ships!  The land portion was about 6 x 10 feet, with accurate models of the actual buildings!  I was a Brit commander in this game (I was the one who kept saying, "This game sucks" everytime I blew a roll).  Which was a lot.

 The British gunboats and cruisers open fire on the port.  Each turn had a naval and ground segment.  Oh yeah baby!  ALL naval games should be in 25mm!  No question!  Bob, I salute you!

 The Pride of the Imperial Fleet cranks up the ammo hoists and gives the Zanzibari's something to think about!  INCOMING!!!!!

My poor little gunboat, hard as it may seem to believe I blew rolls so comprehensively that the pirates managed to approach in a rowboat, board her, win the combat, and then the crew surrendered!  Yes, I'm going to be hung from a yardarm at dawn.  And the only consolation is the dice will die with me.

 The Pride of The Fleet is surprised by a Zanzibar pirate vessel!  Crush Them!  Smight Them Down!

 My foot troops approach the fortress!

 Two shots of the 25mm Crimean table all the way from jolly olde England!  You might have seen it in Wargames Illustrated!  Guys were using it all weekend long for assorted games, inculding 1/48 WW2!

 54mm American Rev! Otherwise known as "The Bigs".  Look how proper and polite the English lads are!  Such pretty lines!

 The main fortified building takes a pounding as only the Royal Navy can deliver!

 My brave lads proceed down the main street, hoping the fort garrison doesn't risk leaning out for a shot! Too bad the cannon at the end of the road didn't need to lean anything out.

 20mm Modern African combat!  It was a free-for-all for about 4 different factions fighting for diamonds, rubies, chow, kaht, Government of the Week, you name it!  Looks like a mismash of T55, M36, BTR's and even some Land Rovers!

Some of their opponents!  M48, T62, Saladin, M3 halftracks and God Knows What Else.

 Johnny the wop goes over the top!  I guess that should be wog!  The natives are revolting, and so excited they just can't stay in the fort, but come charging out to teach the Brits a little about hand to hand combat.  Needless to say, it did not end well for the natives, since about 6 Brit units had line of sight to these guys.

Oh, the shame of it all.  HMS Sparrow getting boarded.  Nelson is doing 360's in his grave right now.

 A return to the Crimea boards, looks like the Charge of The Light Brigade.  Good luck lads!

Did I mention this table was about 25 feet long?

 15mm Market Garden,  A Bridge Too Far!  Here some a nazi counterattack!

 Blackhawk Up!  The 25mm lads return to Mogadishu again with their awesome Miniature Building Authority buildings!

 And the 25mm Castle was not far away!

20mm WW2 action.  Got T-34?  This was about 1/3 of the armour on the table.

 Remember what I said about 25mm for ships?  Why should fighting sail be any different?

 25mm American Civil War.  Or as they say around here, the War of Northern Agression.  I used to think they were joking when they said that.  Now I'm not so sure.

ACW too tame?  Try some Zombies!  Looks like the chopper has been discovered.  Get to de choppa!

 Soccer game?  It's only considered war in some countries.

 the Charge of the Lt. Brigade continues into the teeth of the Russian cav backing up their guns.

 25mm Mexican-American war.  Somewhere in the southwest Villa is stiring up trouble.

More ACW action.  Gee whiz that's a bucket of corn.  Farmer Brown is gonna be pissed!

 Dieppe in 15mm!  Hit the heavily fortified beach with the Commandos!

 The long view.

25mm Colonials.  If it's Friday, this must be Egypt!

 Now here's a real biggy.  25mm Nappie, the Battle of Borodino.  I think they did it 1:1.  There were additional table but I couldn't get everything in the picture.  This is why we mortals show up at the cons!

As we called it in the 1970's, Cattlecar Gizmactica!  Looks like they're boarding the international space station.  There goes the neighborhood.

Well kids, that's it for this installmentof Historicon action.  Stay tuned for another bucket o' pictures in the not-too-distant future!

Get The Girl, Kill The Baddies Warband

I have been following Andy Hoare's Blog here and his home grown set of Sword and Sorcery rules called Get the Girl and Kill the Baddies. The rules are free to download here. Many people have started building warbands and posting them up. I sorted the the figure back log and pulled out a few to use in my own warband.

 I pulled some figures I thought would look good in a Frank Franzetta painting and not really an optimized group for the game. Starting in the front is a Celtos Gael Danu Priestess. She has a knife and about half of a chain  mail bikini. to her left is a Celtos Cliodan Axe Woman. She has a slightly larger chain mail bikini and a big axe, who doesn' like a barbarian chick with a big axe. In the back is the Barbarian from games workshop's Talisman game. He is slightly converted by having the sword handle extended. The original handle was a regular size to the very long sword and looked odd to me. Now the sword looks like it is ready to give a a good two handed chop to the sorcerer summoned unnameable creature from beyond. the last figure is a wizards of the coast female Human barbarian figure from their D&D line of figures. She also has a two handed sword and light armor.
I am still thinking about whether the Priestess will be a magic user or just a scantily clad thief type. A sorceress is about a quarter of the starting points for a group so it will not be much larger than this.

Another model I though to add was an archer and that reminded me of this one, The Kislev Ranger hireling from Mordheim. Anther model I picked up but was unable to use before the Mordheim league broke up. She might be seeing the table after all. 

Last, A model I think I might pick up to use, Amiri from Reaper's Pathfinder line. I really dig the figure and Get the Girl and Kill the baddies will give me a reason to pick her up.

ColKG

Sisters of Battle Exorcist progress

I have started working on my second Sisters of Battle Exorcist. The 40k League has started back up after a break for everyone to get used to the 6th edition 40k rules. We have also jumped up to 1250 points. The big thing about the points jump is, I will be able to field two Exorcists and be under the league 25% point limit to any force org slot other than troops.

I picked up the bits for the Exorcist from Aaron R and dropped them in the simple green to clean them up. The one bad thing is the bits just don't fit together that good and I have been busy with green stuff and contour putty trying to get it where it doesn't look too gapped up. 

The bits came minus the rhino, but after a raid into the Closet of Woe, I come out with a chaos space marine rhino ready to be brought back to the light. I have a couple days till the next League Game day, I might not get it painted but it will be ready for the table.

ColKG

Necromunda Escher Gangers allies

 While looking for something else I found by box of Necromunda Gangers. I was building a Hive gang militia army using the 3rd edition 40k Codex: Armageddon and started collecting up a bunch of the Necromunda figures. I managed to gather a bunch of the figures but the Imperial guard codex was redone. Such is the way of Games workshop's cool armies. I wanted to field a couple Escher ganger Militia squads and wondered if I had enough to field a current Imperial Guard Infantry platoon. I though it would be cool to field an all female Imperial guard ally force to go with my Sisters of Battle army. 

   

I sorted through them and pulled enough with the appropriate weapons for a platoon command squad and two infantry squad. I decided to use the heavy plasma gunners as regular plasma rifles, two gang leaders with power weapons as sergeants, one leader with a boltgun for the lieutenant and a handful of lasgun and autogun armed Eschers as the troopers.  I started thinking about converting a couple of the extras to give them some heavy weapon options when I remembered my Last Chancer models. I found their box and pulled out Warrior Woman and Rocket girl to add a female missile launcher team to the platoon.

So the platoon is
Platoon Command squad
Officer with bolter
2 plasma guns
1 Missile launcher team

Two infantry squads identically equipped with
Sergeant with power weapon
1 Plasma Gun

Here is the rest of the Escher gangers in a Box O' Eschers. Other than a few odds and ends, the majority are equipped with las pistol/ Auto pistols and hand weapons. If the rumors about chaos cultists in the new Chaos Space Marine codex pans out they might just see the table again.

ColKG

American Armor Museum in LA

Hi Kids,  Just got back from LA and found a new tank museum east of downtown!  Heard about it on TMP, of course!  Had to go check it out, and the company store for In & Out Burger is only a few miles away too! It's a win-win!  How many exclaimation points is that anyway!!!!

The first bad boy is possibly the most rare as well, except it ain't what it looks like!  This Japanese tank is actually a M5 High Speed Tractor with the superstructure added, I think it has a Chevy 327 V8.  It appeared in "Windtalkers" and possibly other movies as well.

 What is this thing anyway? Can't remember.

 French 25mm ATG sans tires.

German "Doorknocker" ATG, before they realized other armies had tanks, too.

 A Carrier, painted up like an Aussie.

 A Korean M48, complete with Tiger jaws and eyes.

M2-ish I think, this was used in an episode of Briscoe County Jr.

 This M5 Stuart also has a film history, Windtalkers for one.

 M7 Priest. One of 2 they had.

M8 Greyhound Armored Car.

 Here's a honkin' huge arty, a M12 but with a 8 inch gun!  Yowza!

 M48/60.  Cold Warrior!

Another M48/60, sorry, but from these angles I can't see the hull front very well.

 Big Honkin' Arty.  Thinking Korean or early 60's.

 Ontos sans 6 106mm Recoiless Rifles.  Got any extras?

 T72 mock up for assorted films.  On a Chevy Van chassis.  No engine.  Bummer, I know.

The World's Second Most Interesting Man.

Well, there were a bunch more stuff out there, but the camera mem was full.  Don't blame me, it was borrowed! I think the phone cam pix turned out pretty good.  Lots of guns, trucks, bombs, torpedoes, LARC's, even a Huey copter.  If you're between Highways 60 and I-10 in South El Monte, check 'em out!  Chino airport is about 30 minutes away (I'm guessing) so you can get your aviation freak on too, with Planes of Fame and Yanks Air Museum.  Bore the wife and kids unconscience!