Wagon Train Game 28mm

This was a multiplayer 1:1 wild west skirmish game I played in over a year ago. Don't know what the rules were. But it was a lot of fun. 7 of us chose randomly a player card which had two characters on it (corresponding to miniatures on the board). As it happened I was the commanding officer Captain Ellis Cox. The player who was also the games master controlled the Indians.

Here was the scenario:

US Cavalry were escorting a wagon train of supplies from a town to an army fort. Against the advice of the sergeant, the Captain decided NOT to take the usual direct route west across the salt flats, but instead to take a leisurely route that roughly followed the Greasy River south until it turned west at the foot of the Black Hills (known Injun country) That way we could keep the horses well watered as we went.
To set the scene further:
It was late afternoon and the four wagons were moving at walking pace, with 4 cavalry troopers at the head of the column, and a scout and a trooper further ahead. I was in the lead wagon The 14 cavalry characters were a mix of veterans and some new untested recruits. We having cut the corner of the bend in the river were approaching it again as it cut east to west. I was told by the gamesmaster that I would not make the fort before nightfall but it was up to me if I wanted to carry on through the night. Oh additional information: dust had been seen directly behind us travelling in our direction.
I had never been in a "free" unstructured type of game like that before where you could do whatever you wanted. Everybody was looking at me to give some orders. I decided that we would not keep on travelling but find a suitable spot and camp near the foothills , away from the woods by the river but near enough to fetch water for the horses. I called a cavalry trooper back and gave him orders to gallop forward to pass the message to the scouts to find a suitable camp site. I also ordered my driver to speed up to a trot, as the horses would rest soon. Being the lead wagon the others would follow my pace.

(I immediately found that command and control was difficult: It took 3 turns for the messenger to reach the scouts, who had by then advanced quite a way and the whole wagon train had also moved forward. By the time the scouts got my message the column had already been attacked and the situation was changed.)

As my messenger set off the sergeant wheeled his horse back to report that he saw more smoke and dust to the North west. Accordingly I sent him and his partner to the rear as a rearguard . That only left one trooper forward in front of the lead wagon.

Ok over to the photos:

The 4 cavalry troopers at the lead before the game started

some of the wagons

The scouts Sorry not a good photo.

The head of the column after the rearguard and messenger have left. The wagon train has speeded up.

Injuns!! As soon as the rearguard got to the end of the train injuns popped up in the scrublands and also in the woods to the front, on both sides of the wagon train. One trooper driving the third wagon was hit and a shot just missed me. Here the warriors are about to rush the rearguard. They pull one trooper off his horse and kill him.

The scouts have came back to meet the wagon train. You can see the injuns in the woods by the river who fired at us. As we only had taken two casualties, at this point I was thinking of speeding up and keeping going. But the scouts and lead trooper now dismount on their own iniative to fire at new Indians who appear on the hills ahead of us. More appear behind.

Now something happened I did not plan for!! The player controlling the third wagon in the column (whos driver had been wounded) decided to jump out and take on the indians single-handed!! Here you see him surrounded on the ground. Amazingly he killed 3 braves before he was overwhelmed. The wagon, driverless, veered towards the river and came to a stop by the woods. Indians swarmed over it. However, due to the bravado of the player, the gamesmaster allowed him a surprise character. This was Grits, the grizzled cook who jumped out of the back of the wagon and started hand to hand with the braves. This wagon must have had the beans supply because, well, Grits fought like a fucking madman.

Lots happening here. I have stopped the train and everybody is dimounted. I find it difficult to give orders because I am busy firing at the injuns on the hills. They are scoring hits on us. Luckily the sergeant (surviving rearguard) orders the 4th wagonto close up and they form a perimeter to defend our rear. We can't do anything to help Grits in the isolated wagon

Here is the situation at the peak of the battle. My driver was been wounded and so has the scout. But we have managed to nullify the threat from the hills . The trooper in the foreground has remounted to rescue a wounded trooper out in the scrub. They both make it back. At the rear of the train the sergeant has just been seriously wounded. Don't think I am his favourite person at the moment. I am thinking we should have taken the salt flats.

Grits has been so successful fighting off the injuns that the wounded corperal shot in the first encounter has now recovered sufficiently to help the cook at the back of the wagon. Right after this the Gamesmaster decides that the Indians have had enough and they melt away. We win and the wagon trainis saved but with 2 troopers killed and 5 wounded. Oops.

It was a great fun game.

More Lancashire Romans

A few more pics for posterity.
A better view of one of the Auxiliary units . I only liked this one pose of those available so made them all the same. With Ancients and Napoleonics you can get away with that I feel.

A different unit of Auxilia. Same pose but I painted them a different skin colour and used Shield transfers on plain shields.
Sorry about the quality of the photos. Can't apologise for the bad painting though you will have to lump it !

My Lancashire Romans (old stuff)

Some 28mm Lancashire Romans I did years ago. Not the best quality figures but I was very fond of them because they were the first 28mm figures I actually got finished. They were old school gloss varnished.
Lancashire figures have quite varied poses.
These particular shields have an embossed design so easy to paint.
A unit of auxiliaries, hand painted shields again
All of them together. I sold them to a gamer in Australia.

VOR rulebook

RalPartha Europe has a few of the miniatures I want in stock. They also had the VOR core rules on offer down from tenner to £2.99. So I splashed out and ordered these to see if they are useful. And a few miniatures too.

my Sci Fi /Future War project- planning stage

These are my first thoughts:
The scenario that interests me is of two great powers on some planet in the far future. They have been fighting a war for a hundred years, both sides are now exhausted and the original cause of the conflict long forgotten. The civilian populations of both sides live mostly underground for safety. For the last decade the military forces of both sides are at a stalemate, having very little left in the way of heavy weapons , tanks and aircraft. They have technology, but no infrastructure or heavy industry to build it. The armies are basically reduced down to a technology level not much better than WWII, with the exception of a few armoured battlesuits, drones and robots used by the elite units.
(This allows me to use or adapt some WWII rules )
Peace would be the obvious option but both sides are committed to wiping the other off the face of the planet.
The surface of the planet is a wasteland, poisoned by nuclear and chemical weapons. In this terrible environment mutants roam, the pitiful twisted remains of both animals and men, soldiers who have stayed too long in the contaminated zone and can no longer be allowed back into civilization.
One side I will call Union , the other Rebels, until I think of something better.

The main military missions of both sides are raids to steal healthy civilian women (for breeding purposes) and take prisoners for Genetic experiments.

The contaminated No-Man's Land has forced both sides to try to find a way to wage war in these conditions.
The Union, which is richer and has more resouces in this area, has created a new breed of genetically engineered soldiers (Genetic Rangers) who are at home in the Wasteland and can operate independently. This has put the Rebels on the defensive.
In an effort to combat this threat The Rebel scientists have implanted robot controllers into the brains of mutants gathered from the wasteland. These are grouped into units under the control of a mutant handler. These units however are only an expedient adhoc solution, as they can be sometimes very effective but other times unstable.
The second solution by the Rebel scientists has been to genetically engineer Union prisoners into fearsome mutants known as Cyclops. These are also under the control of mutant handlers.
The third solution has been to feed and rearm the human mutants of the wasteland into military units with the promise of curing them . These units are of very low quality.

From time to time both sides have employed off-world mercenaries . The mercenary units employed by the Union are well equipped and well disciplined .
In contrast the less well off Rebels can only afford fortune hunters and ex-soldiers from all over the galaxy that vary widely in quality, like the rest of their army.

So much for the war.
The planet itself is quite rich in rare minerals such as lithium. This means to add to all its other problems, it gets raided quite regularly by Space Pirates.

Rules: no idea as yet.

Figures:
Space Pirates: Chiltern Miniatures and anything that will fit the look.
Union Troops: Ironwind Vor Union infantry
Drones : As above.
Union Genetic Rangers: Ironwind Special Forces, probably painted blue
Union Mercenaries: Pig Iron Heavy Infantry, with some vehicles and aircraft from Old Crow

Rebels: Pig Iron Kolony Militia
Rebel Elite Troops : Ironwind Neo Soviet Vanguard
Contaminated wasteland Militia : mix of Pig Iron Kolony Rebels and Kolony Ferals and Ironwind Neo Soviet Chemgrunts.
Mutant handler and mutants: Ironwind
Cyclops : Ironwind
Rebel Mercenaries: random Warzone miniatures that fit the bill, most I already have.

May 2011 New Start

A lot has happened since I blogged last 2 years ago. Eyes deteriorated so I could no longer do a good job of painting 20mm figures so I sold all this off last year, along with several hundred 28mm figures painted and unpainted, and some 15mm I was hanging on to. Bought my wife a nice gold eternity ring with half the money!

It feels good to have got rid of half my leadpile for the sake of my sanity.
I still have lots that I am holding back for now but could easily sell to raise cash if need be to fund other projects.
My gaming is stalled because I have lost touch with my gaming buddies a year ago.

I have decided to start again in 28mm only from now on, just painting and modelling some vehicles at my own pace.

There are a few projects I would like to get finished, and some new ones I would like to start eventually.

Just going to list the big ones here without explanation, to order my thoughts:

Chiltern Normandy British Skirmish
Chiltern Normandy German Skirmish
Gaslight (Victorian SciFi)
1920s Pulp British/ Indian
Vietnam Skirmish
Sci Fi future war
Napoleonic British

Norway 1940

Quite enough to be getting on with.

stugs assembled

The four stugs are assembled and one of the Panzer IIIN. I finished all of this before the weekend. The lower hulls of the stugs I have started painting already, I will finish all the lower hulls before I attach the skirt armour.

During the weekend I have been working on some other things;

adding zimmeritt to a die cast P anther and modifying some 20mm metal figs.

More pictures probably tomorrow.