15mm Skirmish Box Playtest

Last weekend saw the inaugural play test of the "Songs of..." 15mm Skirmish box (and in fact the first 15mm game I'd ever played!). It was a 3-way straight battle between MacSver, Ironman John and myself.

Painted Bow Ties Are Cool!

Now that the Woodelves have finally galloped into the woods I can move forward on my projects. First up was Tweedy Mattison from Crooked Dice. Despite sometrouble with the face (still too out of practice!) I'm pretty happy from the gaming standard "arm's length" range. Especially as it's my first attempt at painting a tweed effect jacket!

Back in the X-Wing

After what seems like an eternity ( a few weeks in reality) I was back up at MacSver's for a quick game of X-Wing.

The sides had an unfamiliar feel about them as my host had dropped any A-Wings or 'Falcon combo for an X-wing and B-Wing force.

I had Vader and a new Empire Ace Interceptor under my vague control with the Backstabber Tie - for once outnumbered.

The battle took place amidst some asteroids. This not only had you wondering just how far you lazy left 3 turn went, but also cut down the options available, bringing an even great sense of cat and mouse play at times.

The interceptor was nice and quick, and with an engine upgrade boost was more manouverable round the flying rocks.

The Ace's head on attack quickly ends in doom.

However, still being a Tie fighter meant it had no shields, and one good shot from an X-Wing blew it from the starscape!

The B-Wing was looking good. A stack of xShields was on it and it can loop over at slow speeds which was hand in a dog fight! In the end though the extra jinking from the remains Ties (and some dice luck) saw the Empire victorious, but the rebels certainly have something to tweek for next battle...

15mm Skirmish Box - Set Up Video

You asked for it (well Tristan did!) and here it is: a quick video of the terrain out the box. Looking at it, the sound is a bit quiet, so remember to turn down the volume after viewing if you don't want your neighbours to know when you get new emails!!

Carronade 2014

The Carronade show hosted by Falkirk Wargames club was on again this year, and another great, busy show it was as well. Loads of great tables and more Public Participation games this year than I can remember for a while so lots of choice for a game. All the usual types of games were there but it number of Bolt-Action games set up was noticable.

After a peruse of a couple of the halls ArabianSquire joined in with a well done Pacific Rim game (held by Greenock Wargames Club I think). A game of energy resource allocation and huge monster bashing which everyone playing was enjoying. One of the things I love about these shows is the number of kids that get to play good different games - it's not all older men playing huge historical battles (not that there is anything wrong with that).

My Delaque gang push onwards through
the under hive ruins.

Another wander and blether with a few friendly faces was punctuated with a great game of Necromunda set up by Dumbarton Wargames club. These "Sons Of The Rock" had set up a 12 turn race to the top of a central spire, where an evacuation vehicle was waiting.

ArabainSquire ponders howmany of his force will go
for the Spire and how many will hammer his Dad's Delaques.

Four games were involved, with Arabiansquire controlling a Van Saar wargand and myself with a Delaque gang and the others being Orlock and Cawdor. Generally it was carnage as everyone pushed towards the ground level of the Central Spire, all except the young lad who managed to push a couple of gang members to their objective whilst the rest supported them taking out their neighbouring gangs and dodging bullets.

Arabiansquire's Van Saar gangers near
their objective.

So ArabianSquire's gang won well. Amazingly he also took no casualties where every other gang only had 1 or 2 members left. He modestly put this down to his excellent tactical play. Given the result it was difficult to argue. All that was left was a last look round the stalls, some well deserved chips and then to stumble out into the fresh air!

As ever, a wargame report would not be complete without a final "what I bought" paragraph. I'm afraid it was all pretty constrained. No real bargains were had at the Flea Market but I had a small pre-show order of some additional 28mm plastic trenches from the Kallistra stall and visited the Ainsty Castings stall for some tyre stacks to make some urban barricades with. I suppose the one unplanned purchase was from Ainsty - a Tardis central control column.

As every, thank you and well done to all those who put so much time and energy into the show and the games.

15mm Skirmish Box - WIP 2

With a bit of a delay due to having a weeks training, the terrain part of the (prototype) Skirmish box is complete. 4 collapsible buildings and a series of walls. Put out like above there does seem to be alot of space, but I'll do a few test plays before building another couple.

For an example of scale I've put in a couple of my newly arrived 15mm Barbarians from 15mm.co.uk (so new they haven't even been glued to their bases yet!). I've left the walls unglued. I did glue 2 lengths together, but the unglued option seems to be more flexible.

The buildings flat fold with a bit of minor kit-bashing. The end apex is cut from the building wall and attached onto the roof with an inward fold. This allows the roof to be folded "shut".

The building walls are just glued together with some base tabs and an internal card floor piece is dropped in (unglued) when they are needed to keep them in a square shape. After a bit of experimentation I've also added a couple of card flaps to sit behind the roof\wall apexes to help keep the roof in place.

With the terrain done I can now look at the warbands that have just dropped through the door...