Just a quick shot of my painted SAS.
Not entirely happy with the DPM, but acceptable I think.
Thursday, October 30, 2014
New SAS Painted
EDIT Nov. 08: Available now in the shop, proper release announcement will follow when the other sets are painted up, meanwhile they´ll already be available to my regular blog visitors ;)
Just a quick shot of my painted SAS.
Not entirely happy with the DPM, but acceptable I think.
Just a quick shot of my painted SAS.
Not entirely happy with the DPM, but acceptable I think.
Tuesday, October 28, 2014
Upcoming Enfilade Figures - Preview
EDIT Nov. 08: These are available now in the shop, though only with these preview-pics for most of the sets as I didn´t (and won´t) have any time to paint them all up properly. US Infantry will get a second fireteam + squadleader, so this set is a preliminary release and will be expanded into a full squad with the next batch of casts.
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Getting home today I found a nice little package in my letterbox... New casts!
So after basing and giving them a little pre-shading with black and grey primer, here we are with a small preview:
US Infantry in IOTV
SAS with SLR
Taliban Small Cell with Leader
Eastern European Insurgents with AK.
An together with those last four, Babai and his Crew will also be released as a second pack. I got no photos of him as he´s already half-painted, but here´s an old pic to refresh your memory:
All the new figures are slightly larger than the previous minis I made, as I got several comments on their size being a little bit smaller than other 20mm minis. So these should be a better fit!
-------------------------------------------------------------
Getting home today I found a nice little package in my letterbox... New casts!
So after basing and giving them a little pre-shading with black and grey primer, here we are with a small preview:
US Infantry in IOTV
SAS with SLR
Taliban Small Cell with Leader
Eastern European Insurgents with AK.
An together with those last four, Babai and his Crew will also be released as a second pack. I got no photos of him as he´s already half-painted, but here´s an old pic to refresh your memory:
All the new figures are slightly larger than the previous minis I made, as I got several comments on their size being a little bit smaller than other 20mm minis. So these should be a better fit!
Monday, October 27, 2014
Hunting Abu al Kabris - A mini-Batrep
Last saturday we had another demo-battle for our new modern warfare rules, so I´m giving you a very very condensed version of the events that transpired.
I brought to lists, pitching USMC with Cobra Air Support against a mixed bag of Insurgents, featuring Hardcore Foreign Fighters (the best of the best), regular Taliban and a small group of Local Militia hired to support the hardened troops.
The task at hand was to hunt down and kill Abu al Kabris, a high ranking leader in the Insurgent hierarchy who was believed to have a safehouse in a small industrial complex in the mountains.
The Insurgents started the game by rolling an extraordinary success on their command roll, which enabled them to move the HVT into the central industrial complex closer to their troops. Even after doing that they had enough activations left to bring their troops into position and cover the road.
The USMC moved in slowly, covered the hills on the north-eastern part of the battlefield which overlooked a good part of the map.
Soon, a firefight erupted on the eastern flank as US Marines moved in, surprising the PKM-Team that where in an exposed position without cover.
The American killed three of four Taliban, the return fire caused a single casualty on the American side who turned out to be lightly wounded.
After seeing three of his mates go down the PKM-gunner decided to retreat into the nearby bushes but got shot during his retreat and didn´t get up again...
The nearby RPG-Team then unleashed a volley, scored a direct hit on an American Fireteam and caused two more casualties, one of which was a serious wound.
The US answer was swift, a fireteam unleashed hell on the RPG-team, the Forward Air Controller called in support from the Cobra Helicopter and though the request was successful, the strike would be delayed due to the RoE and Clearing procedures, giving the Taliban enough time to evacuate the position.
However, the infantry fire did kill most of the cell before the Taliban moved away.
The Taliban then consolidated their groups on the eastern flank and moved towards the buildings to avoid (or at least delay) further Airstrikes, leaving the left US flank relatively open.
Instead, they focussed on defending the western flank and tried to call in more reinforcements, who arrived in the form of two small cells in the back area of the US. One of those was quickly spotted and dispatched before they could mount a devastating rear attack from their ambush position, but the other team appearing out of a compound forced the US Marine players to divert a full Fireteam to guard the exit of the compound.
The game was finally decided when the US Marines tried to push on the right flank and ran into very determined resistance from a Syrian LMG-Team and an Afghan RPG-Team of Hardcore Taliban. Though the US where able to deal with the Afghan Team and initially pinned down the Syrians, they soon found themselves under a barrage of RPK-fire.
The final, incredibly lucky series of rolls was the US attacking the Syrian LMG team, firing first with four firepower successes. All four where saved by the Syrians, who counter-attacked with 5 Firepower dice, rolling ALL successes and had the US blundering by failing ALL 5 saving rolls against a 4+
Three KIA where the result, bringing the Taliban up the Taliban victory score close to auto-win. They now needed to roll a 2+ to win the game (trying once each turn) and thus we had a Taliban victory, as the US where far from killing the HVT.
Decisive Taliban Victory!
Everyone had great fun and loved the game, so I´m looking forward to playing some more demo-games, we seem to be on the right track. Some small balancing tweaks and finishing the writeup on the basic rules and we can enter the public playtesting stage!
I brought to lists, pitching USMC with Cobra Air Support against a mixed bag of Insurgents, featuring Hardcore Foreign Fighters (the best of the best), regular Taliban and a small group of Local Militia hired to support the hardened troops.
The task at hand was to hunt down and kill Abu al Kabris, a high ranking leader in the Insurgent hierarchy who was believed to have a safehouse in a small industrial complex in the mountains.
 |
| The Target: Abu al Kabris |
 |
| The Battleground |
The USMC moved in slowly, covered the hills on the north-eastern part of the battlefield which overlooked a good part of the map.
Soon, a firefight erupted on the eastern flank as US Marines moved in, surprising the PKM-Team that where in an exposed position without cover.
The American killed three of four Taliban, the return fire caused a single casualty on the American side who turned out to be lightly wounded.
After seeing three of his mates go down the PKM-gunner decided to retreat into the nearby bushes but got shot during his retreat and didn´t get up again...
The nearby RPG-Team then unleashed a volley, scored a direct hit on an American Fireteam and caused two more casualties, one of which was a serious wound.
The US answer was swift, a fireteam unleashed hell on the RPG-team, the Forward Air Controller called in support from the Cobra Helicopter and though the request was successful, the strike would be delayed due to the RoE and Clearing procedures, giving the Taliban enough time to evacuate the position.
However, the infantry fire did kill most of the cell before the Taliban moved away.
The Taliban then consolidated their groups on the eastern flank and moved towards the buildings to avoid (or at least delay) further Airstrikes, leaving the left US flank relatively open.
Instead, they focussed on defending the western flank and tried to call in more reinforcements, who arrived in the form of two small cells in the back area of the US. One of those was quickly spotted and dispatched before they could mount a devastating rear attack from their ambush position, but the other team appearing out of a compound forced the US Marine players to divert a full Fireteam to guard the exit of the compound.
The game was finally decided when the US Marines tried to push on the right flank and ran into very determined resistance from a Syrian LMG-Team and an Afghan RPG-Team of Hardcore Taliban. Though the US where able to deal with the Afghan Team and initially pinned down the Syrians, they soon found themselves under a barrage of RPK-fire.
 |
| The Syrian LMG Team - the Game Changer |
The final, incredibly lucky series of rolls was the US attacking the Syrian LMG team, firing first with four firepower successes. All four where saved by the Syrians, who counter-attacked with 5 Firepower dice, rolling ALL successes and had the US blundering by failing ALL 5 saving rolls against a 4+
Three KIA where the result, bringing the Taliban up the Taliban victory score close to auto-win. They now needed to roll a 2+ to win the game (trying once each turn) and thus we had a Taliban victory, as the US where far from killing the HVT.
Decisive Taliban Victory!
Everyone had great fun and loved the game, so I´m looking forward to playing some more demo-games, we seem to be on the right track. Some small balancing tweaks and finishing the writeup on the basic rules and we can enter the public playtesting stage!
Sunday, October 26, 2014
Code Red - Dev Diary 5: Dice, Cover and Conceilment
Today we´re talking about dice.
Those of you who played Force on Force will remember the multitude of dice used to display different quality levels. The charm about that solution is that you can set a flat target number (like 4+) as a success threshold and don´t bother about modifiers for different troop quality levels or profiles with differing success numbers.
A problem I encountered after inserting my saving roll into the infantry firefight was that I suddenly had two thresholds for successes - 5+ for saves on a D10 (always a D10, no matter the troop quality) and 4+ on Troop quality dice on all other aspects.
You can probably see the problems that created - suddenly it was no longer clear which dice you should use, you had two different target numbers and no coherent ruling.
I also found that people mistook the different dies (especially D8 and D10) and grabbed the wrong ones, a problem not uncommon with players new to Force on Force.
So one day I wondered if it was worth sticking to the dice and principles inherited from FoF and came to the conclusion that I could simply switch to a single die type: my beloved D10.
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| Source. clker.com |
Those of you who played Force on Force will remember the multitude of dice used to display different quality levels. The charm about that solution is that you can set a flat target number (like 4+) as a success threshold and don´t bother about modifiers for different troop quality levels or profiles with differing success numbers.
A problem I encountered after inserting my saving roll into the infantry firefight was that I suddenly had two thresholds for successes - 5+ for saves on a D10 (always a D10, no matter the troop quality) and 4+ on Troop quality dice on all other aspects.
You can probably see the problems that created - suddenly it was no longer clear which dice you should use, you had two different target numbers and no coherent ruling.
I also found that people mistook the different dies (especially D8 and D10) and grabbed the wrong ones, a problem not uncommon with players new to Force on Force.
So one day I wondered if it was worth sticking to the dice and principles inherited from FoF and came to the conclusion that I could simply switch to a single die type: my beloved D10.
Friday, October 24, 2014
The Russians are coming!
Hey folks,
with the next batch being processed by the caster (scheduled to arrive sometime next week, release soon after) I initially started working on the second US Fireteam to complete my squad, when an unexpected opportunity presented itself.
A german customer looking to build up a modern Russian Force agreed to fund the creation of a full squad of Russians - modern Russians with "Ratnik" Combat suit. As these where somewhere down on my list of things to build sooner or later I was able to offer a very favourable commission fee and we set in motion the creation of 7 poses for Modern Russians.
So I suspended my work on the Americans and started doing Russians :)
(The figure on the left is still work in progress, the others are pretty much finished)
Some more pics from earlier stages:
with the next batch being processed by the caster (scheduled to arrive sometime next week, release soon after) I initially started working on the second US Fireteam to complete my squad, when an unexpected opportunity presented itself.
 |
| Russians in "Ratnik" Suits - Image Source: RIA Novosti |
A german customer looking to build up a modern Russian Force agreed to fund the creation of a full squad of Russians - modern Russians with "Ratnik" Combat suit. As these where somewhere down on my list of things to build sooner or later I was able to offer a very favourable commission fee and we set in motion the creation of 7 poses for Modern Russians.
So I suspended my work on the Americans and started doing Russians :)
(The figure on the left is still work in progress, the others are pretty much finished)
Some more pics from earlier stages:
Wednesday, October 22, 2014
More US Infantry
The start of a new Fireteam and the missing Squad leader...
The M249-SAW is being built right now, forgot to take a WIP-pic though.
Here´s the back side of the two guys:
The M249-SAW is being built right now, forgot to take a WIP-pic though.
Here´s the back side of the two guys:
Tuesday, October 21, 2014
Taliban Small Cell
Life is colorful!
No, I haven´t been experimenting with drugs, but ordered some more colors of sculpting putty. I grew tired of always using grey and it´s sometimes hard sculpting with it when the light is not strong enough. So with winter approaching I ordered some bright orange and some blue to experiment with new colors.
Orange is quite cool, provides a good contrast and makes it easier to see crevasses and depths on the figure. Blue is fine when the sun is shining outside, for darker environments I´ll try mixing it with white to get a lighter shade of blue.
And as you can see, orange is much easier to photograph!
No, I haven´t been experimenting with drugs, but ordered some more colors of sculpting putty. I grew tired of always using grey and it´s sometimes hard sculpting with it when the light is not strong enough. So with winter approaching I ordered some bright orange and some blue to experiment with new colors.
Orange is quite cool, provides a good contrast and makes it easier to see crevasses and depths on the figure. Blue is fine when the sun is shining outside, for darker environments I´ll try mixing it with white to get a lighter shade of blue.
And as you can see, orange is much easier to photograph!
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