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Very nice battle report. I like the old ork models. Brings back some memories.

 Sigur wrote:
@wehrkind: Thanks!

@carlos13th: Yeah, Steel Fist stuff looks gorgeous, but they got this rather limited choice of models so I didn't want to bother with ordering from two sources. I just wrote an article with a general overview of models available for playing Ronin and made sure to mention Steel First. In fact it's a whole little series of articles on the game. Not sure when we launch the site but I'll make sure to let you know!

@Dr H: Thanks, much appreciated!

@Dysartes: Nope, they don't really come with bases. As carlos13th said, they (like all Perry figures) come with bases cast onto their feet which is a think I quite like. I glue them to pennies (still got more than enough of those from back when I lived in the UK) or 5 euro cents pieces.

@Sageheart: Painting them was quite disheartening at first. I cleaned and assembled them, put them on bases, took my brush and realized: I have no bloody clue what an Ashigaru or Samurai looks like. I mean I had this idea what they looked like but what their armour looks like in detail and such - i blanked completely. This was followed by lots and lots of research about a culture which seemed kind of alien to me. I still have only faint ideas about Samurai and such but I'm learning.


Second Buntai finished!






Hope you like them!

I still can't get over how good these are, just showed my mate and he's in awe.

 Sigur wrote:

Especially for youI took some pictures to better show the force axe:



What do you think, Sirs?

I am really thinking how i want to paint power weapons for my Ultramarine army. I have seen this style before and I would greatly appreciate a tutorial (Link) or any starting points. How hard would you rate the painting of the power-axe? If it helps here is a link to my dakkadakka blog. Needless to say, I think your power axe is exemplary.

@solar_lion: Cheers. I really love my old Orks.Means I can't have trukks unless I shed out a ton of money for the old battlewagons and if i want to have a battlewagon built something like a Brainsmasha or something but oh well.

@carlos13th: Thanks very much again! Those Samurai are a very, very different project. It doesn't happen too often in miniature painting that I'm as totally clueless as when I started painting those!

@hjfkupier: Thanks muchly. I really like the blue on this power axe. Other than some of the other power weapons (as on the Sanguinary Guard I did a few months ago), this one was freehanded. There really is no trick or "technique" behind that. You look at the cutting edge versus the "main body" of the blade (or in the case of swords the two cutting edges and so on. you basically identify every single differently-angled part of the blade). Then, if you do it primitively like I did on this axe, you just start with the edge (top or bottom) of the surface which due to its angle would reflect the most light. This is where you start with "white". The opposing end of the surface is "black" or dark. On any adjacent differently-angled part of the blade (in this case the cutting edge) you just inverse the black-white positions and layer the unholy wazoo out of the whole thing, then add some white highlights on the edges and where it makes sense and that's it pretty much. Hope that helped. Let me know if you ever want anything painted/built/converted/sculpted.

Well, I COULD show you the quasi-finished Nurgle fliers, but that's not too exciting. It's just some weathering added at this point. Bear with me until they're really finished.

Instead I will show you trees!





These are some very, very simple forests I made recently. I bought the bases pre-done at an art store (they're made of very sturdy cardboard, come in different sizes. 3mm thick, can be cut with a fine saw preferrably or a sharp knife, very useful), applied some texture, pebbles, paint grass, tufts, done. I also bought some new fir trees (those slightly radioactive-green-at-the-tips ones. I might have to give them a little drybrush). You can (barely) see the surprisingly well hidden Catachan model for scale. If you read my latest after-action report of the Flying Lead game you read that I wasn't happy with my forest bases (neither in number, nor in size). This is a pretty common problem with forests on the tabletop in general - tiny, tiny forests. Not only are trees excellent cover which can occur pretty much anywhere and if they do, there are lots of them. And, shown in these pictures above, there really isn't much to making forested areas. Granted, these I made here are very, very simple, but they will do the job. As always I glued the trees to washers, gave them texture and some paint, done. Okay, the trees aren't too pretty. I'll give you that. SOME DAY I will get proper ones (armatures, foilage, flock, all that jazz), but for now these here are alright. Main thing is I got some more trees to put on the table to block LOS, give some cover and so on.

In pictures of the Flying Lead game you will see my old tree terrain pieces. The taller green ones with the trees glued on. Not advised. keeping the trees removable saves so much time and trouble in storage and gaming. This time around I also didn't glue any magnets underneath the texture either. I did this with the three smaller forest bases I made a few months ago, and I didn't see much boon in it. The trees stood upright pretty well on their own anyway.

So yeah. Consider trees!

Love them. Have been considering doing something similar for my winter table (raided the stores after Christmas to pick up some snow-covered evergreens cheap).

@Gitsplitta: Oh yes, I've got a bag of showed-in trees as well. Never did anything with them so far, but maybe I get to do some snowy board some time soon. Never saw them being sold around here after that, so I have barely enough for a full table (even if it's just a tiny skirmishy table).


What's 'green' and smelly but isn't an Orc?

A Biogas Plant!






Yes, I finally got around to painting this big boy. It makes for a great objective: crazy scientist/evil organization uses the silo as a cover-up for nasty business they got going on inside (nastier than what you usually find in those!), the enemy tries to plant a bomb to blow up this plant. The explosion would release a poisonous gas into the atmosphere, contaminating a huge area (or sprinkling horrible insides over a large area), the enemy has already planted a timed bomb which needs to be diffused, Nurgle cultists chose this silo for a nasty ritual to summon a poopiedaemon, the silo is the only safe place from an acidic storm which is about to take place in a few minutes and there isn't enough space inside for both groups of beligerents to enter (or maybe they manage to agree on an uneasy truce until then?) and so on.

Or of course it's just a big, handy chunk of terrain which blocks LOS. Never a bad thing.


edit: Oh, this is where I got it: www.amazon.de/Kids-Globe-571920-Maßstab-passend/dp/B004ZWVRE2/ref=pd_sim_toy_4?ie=UTF8&refRID=0XJ7YWFHE4YAX34DQF1W
No idea why the url thing didn't work so you'll have to copy-paste. Or just search "Kids Globe Biogas Anlage"
It's incredibly cheap now. If I remember correctly I paid about twice as much, if not more. It's handy and fits for pretty much any sci-fi setting I'd say.

Okay, time for some actually interesting stuff for once!









Fire Raptor:







Hell Blade:






Hope you like them!


P.S.: Oh, one more thing!

Horse cart:


This is an MDF thing by 4Grounds. Great Escape Games (smashing company) sell this resin stowage chunk to fit this set. I added the little barrel and the green blanket. Just one of these little things you can add to so many tables to make them look a little more lively. This is a thing I realized yesterday: I've got a fair amount of terrain now, at least enough to fill a table for rural historical games/medieval games as well as some more modern stuff in a rural area. What I lack though is small little details things which make the areas look less sterile. You know, stuff which doesn't have much of a gameplay impact, but which just looks nice. A little well here, a haystack there, maybe a little shrine or some sorts, signposts, etc. This is a thing I decided to rectify now.

Really nice Siggy! that Forgefiend is simply brilliant work! that light goldish brass colour suits the darker reds perfectly and the spot of light flesh colour is exactly right and where it should be! I also quite like the teeth and rear hooves being that bone into black instead of a brown. very nice.....

@Nerdfest: Thanks very much. Glad you like him. Somehow this model always comes out looking really well.

Alright, yet another battle report! Today it's gettin experimental.


Pretty much ever since Chain of Command was released my regular gaming nemesis and I were throwing around ideas for how to apply these rules to Warhammer 40,000.



A while ago we took the plunge and decided to just throw around some dice and make up some rules for using the brilliant Chain of Command rules to represent the wacky kind of warfare the grim farness of the futuristic dark is so well known for.


Rules Amendments

As for the rules, we had a few basic ideas and decided to make up stuff as we played. The main problem of course is the insane superiority of Space Marines. Or rather the extreme differences between warriors in 40k (as it often is the character of fantasy settings). We decided to have each Blood Angel model to count for two in terms of morale effects of Shock.



The second big problem is armour saves. In the real world armour hasn't played a role for a long time and to this day in most cases it is of limited use in terms of immunising the wearer to military ammunition at close range (not to mention large-calibre missiles). We went for a simple solution by just using the armour saves as they are in Warhammer 40k.


The Forces and Special Rules:

Blood Angels

Now for the actual forces we used. The Blood Angels Force consisted of two Tactical Squads (Remigio and Alinardo) and were to be led by Veteran Sergeant Adelmo.



Space Marines tactical squads are comprised of 10 Marines (including a Sergeant [junior leader], a Corporal, a heavy weapon gunner and a special weapon gunner) who are trained to fight in two seperate fire teams/combat squads of five each. The Veteran Sergeant counts as a Senior Leader. All Space Marines are classed as Elites and get to roll six activation dice instead of five.

Space Marines are armed with Boltguns for which we used the Stg44 rules. Plasma Guns add another fire power die to the squad, Melta Guns work as Panzerfausts, Flamers work as flamers. Missile launchers' frag missiles roll 4 dice, we didn't get to use the krak missiles. Lascannons roll 9 dice against vehicles, 2 against infantry.


Space Orks



Looking as how the Space Marines as per the rules we made up would be tough as nails the Orks would have to make up for that in numbers. The Ork force consisted of Goff Boss Wazgrim acting as Senior Leader, three mobs of 10 Goff Orks each, a Goff Warbuggy (we used the rules for a Russian BA64 armoured car, no Junior Leader) and 10 Snakebites Boarboyz. The Boarboyz were not expected and to make it short we agreed to treat them as infantry who add two inches of movement to each D6 rolled for movement.

Ork mobs consist of 10 Orks (including a Nob and a heavy weapon gunner). Ork Boyz are armed with Boltguns (see above), their Heavy Bolters use the same rules as magazine-fed light MGs. Nobs are armed with some sort of close combat weapon and a Bolt Pistol (count as regular pistols).

All Orks are aggressive troops. Ork mobs are not trained to fight in separate fire teams, like the Soviets list from the Chain of Command rulebook. All Orks are classed as Regulars.



To Battle!

Our armies of course make for a classic pairing of beligerents, so the background of our battle was pretty easy to make up: 2nd War for Armageddon, Blood Angels raid Ork supply lines to hamper Ghazkulll's war effort and throw some sand into the engines of the mean, green war machine. The local Ork warboss dispatches a rapid response force of who ever is available and fast.



Scenario and Patrol Phase

The table was set up, scenario #1 from the Chain of Command rulebook was chosen and we went about the Patrol Phase. This time it felt more tactical than usual even. We ended up with the jump-off points being set up as such:



Force Morale on either side was 10, the objective of the game was to reduce enemy Force Morale to 3 or less, effectively forcing them to retreat.



First Activations

The Blood Angels got to go first, deploying tactical squad Alinardo to the far left flank. They brought a plasma gun and a missile launcher to the table. The combat squad with the plasma gun, led by Sergeant Alinardo himself, deployed in cover behind a slight slope. The combat squad with the missile launcher deployed a bit behind them for supporting fire.

My Activation rolls early on in the game were rather promising to say the least. A double 6 followed by a triple 6. If there was any moment to strike hard and fast it was now. Maybe I could do some serious damage to the first squad of Marines before the second one could even deploy. I revealed the first mob's position to be right in front of squad Alinardo.


Contact! The first mob reveals its position.

My boys opened fire at da red gitz, but due to their massive armour, Elite status and cover results were limited to a point or two of Shock.

Immediately another mob was sent forth to help soften up the Marines in their position, again to minimal effect. Same with the Warbuggy which rolled on the table and opened fire at the Marines. Still believing in Gork (or Mork) having planned for this moment to have the Orks deal a decisive blow to those meddling Beakies I sent in the cavalry.


Charge of the Pig Brigade


Waaaaagh!

Quite literally so as I sent the Boarboyz to charge the enemy.





We added up all the dice each side would accumulate for this clash. We didn't add any dice for being specifically armed for close combat beyond the Aggressive bonusses for the Orks. The Blood Angels Sergeant got an extra dice, We still need to work a bit on Close Combat I think. Due to their rapid firing weapons the Blood Angels took no damage to speak of whilst most of my brave cavalrymen were cut down on the charge. The three survivors had to retreat with more Shock markers than brain cells in tow.

The situation after the failed charge:



Combat Squad #1 of squad Alinardo was still standing but at least they were pinned due to all the Shock they had accumulated. The remaining Boarboyz were still in disorder whilst the two Ork mobs around the hill pushed and shoved for firing positions in cover. Boss Wazgrim showed up at the front line to oversee things himself from now on.

My third activation roll was rather unfortunate and it was the Blood Angels' turn. They immediately deployed Sergeant Remigio's tactical squad to lay down some more fire on Orky Hill.



What followed was a nasty and ever so slightly one-sided battle of attrition as my Boyz did their dearest to at least force Alinardo's forward combat squad to either retreat or give their lives for their great Warboss on Terra. They were pinned most of the time, but Veteran Sergeant Adelmo showed up at their position and helped keeping things together.


Veteran Sergeant Adelmo


Things get Sticky



The Orks on their hill were under severe pressure. One of the mobs got completely wiped out, so da Boss sent in the last mob he had kept as reserves so far. However, they did not do too much either. Elite Troops with a 3+ armour save are DEAD 'ARD.



When Remigio's Lascannon also blew up the Warbuggy (which hadn't gotten to do anything after the first phase it appeared. Maybe they wanted to get to the fight so fast they threw the ammunition over board) and Alinardo's forward squad in a moment of not being pinned killed the last remaining Boarboyz the Orks' Force Morale had decreased to 3. A clear victory for the Blood Angels.




Debriefing

This was the first time I actually played a game of Chain of Command with 28mm figures. A bit weird. I hope that we won't run into too much trouble in terms of space when we play some proper Chain of Command with our 28mm figures.

One thing I also noticed is how radically the mindset changes depending on the figures. When I play with my 15mm British my main objective is to keep my lads alive really. Granted, I did not quite know what I was up against with those Blood Angels. Boy, did we make Space Marines tough.

As I said before I'm not a huge fan of games with warriors of the two sides being all too different, especially in terms of how hard they are to kill. If you add to this this old trope of one side being many models and having to get into close combat with an opponent who is an elite force you very, very quickly might end up in very one-sided situations. Of course it would have been more clever to bring on some field gun and/or Lootaz, but after all that time I finally wanted to play my Boarboyz as what they are again, instead of slightly shifty Warbike-proxies.



Anyway, there are a lot of people who have applied Chain of Command (mainly the Patrol Phase and the activation mechanic) to their Warhammer 40k games. We went a slightly different route. I think it's workable. We would need to do a lot of fine-tuning now. Or we just wait for Chain of Command's Sci-Fi version to pop around. I think that one's going to be a bit more on the hard side of sci-fi but probably it will have stuff that lends itself to playing with 40k figures. Either way we put Chain of Command on our list of "games to play 40k with which are more fun than 40k".

I hope that you liked this little After Action Report! C&C welcome.



....and while I was editing pictures of this game and the TWO(!) others I had this week I built a little something. Remember when I complained about lacking little lively details on the table yesterday? Well, I built a signpost for Eastern Front WW2 things (28mm). Quick, easy, always handy:


(the exact direction the comrade here is looking is up to your own interpretation )

Loving these Chain of Command meets 40k batreps, Siggy - in some ways, it seems even more appealing than vanilla 40k (or perhaps it's just because of the newness factor). The problem with the Space Marines being too tough could be because you are trying to represent them too accurately! I've always found that the 40k lore portrays them as being the best of the best of the best (to the point where a single Space Marine could take on an entire Imperial Guard regiment), although it never seems quite like that in-game. Maybe you could try playing with fewer Marines next time?

Both armies are beautifully painted, too - thanks for sharing!

Thanks, Cosmic. To be honest, I wasn't too enthusiastic about the whole idea. I'm okay with using 40k figures to test stuff for which i don't have minis or for generic or sci-fi rulesets. And Space Marines are just problematic. I know, we could have toned them down, but it made more sense to start out with what seemed accurate. When making up house rules I usually try to stick as closely as possible to what is estiablished, otherwise things get messy. So we stuck very closely to Chain of Command rules and to Space Marines as they are in 40k pretty much. It really is just the 3+ saving throw. I think reducing that to 4+ might be an idea or use armour save modifiers as used in 2nd edition 40k.

The sci-fi variant of Chain of Command will be released some time in the near future and I'm sure there'll be a few nods to the more "wacky" sci-fi that is 40k and friends. Too Fat Lardies have a winner on their hands with Chain of Command. It's just a brilliant game, and they are making pretty good decisions now.

Fewer Marines might be another idea, yeah. However the question is how much fun the game is to the Marines player then if all he's got pretty much is say 15 tactical marines who stand and shoot stuff up? Also: Six command dice make little sense if all you've got is one section and one team of Marines plus senior leader. I like 40k and to some extent I always will I think, but I get my 40k dosage from painting commissioned figures and stuff. I guess we'll play regular Chain of Command for the forseeable future, but Chainsword of Command definately can and does work. Maybe we'll do some Fantasy stuff some time too. There are plans for playing Warhammer with Impetus rules. But I've got about 250 other projects I'll probably want to finish first. I really like the idea of Fantasy dungeoneering or really low-level fantasy warbands fighting it out. I don't know.

It was good getting this experiment done though and having a starting point for further ideas in this direction. I hope to get people interested in playing other rules sets with their existing collections of figures this way. It really bums me out when people don't play with their miniatures just because they don't like the way the latest rules work or stuff like that.

 Sigur wrote:
Chainsword of Command

Fantastic points raised Siggy, I can totally understand where you're coming from. The sci-fi edition seems exciting, I wonder if they'll focus purely on the rules or the rules together with a miniature range of some kind (be it their own or another company's).

I see what you mean when you say that it could become boring for the Space Marine player. I hope that you can work out a cool idea for a skirmish-level fantasy game, too. SAGA rules, perhaps?

Once again, the skirmish-level 40k is really cool. It just feels really nice to focus on individual models and their importance, rather than the overall meta of the game.

Judging from what the Lardies do Sci-Fi Chain of Command will be a gloriously generic set of rules, maybe with some suggestions for possible minis to use. Kinda like Tomorrow's War which has its own fluff, but you're free to ignore it. At this point in time I really don't like rules sets which are too closely connected to any miniatures range.

Hate to be the grinch hating popular things again , but I never really enjoyed Saga as much as other rule sets such as the great Dux Britanniarum or even Lion Rampant. I'll write a review of Saga for Skirmishwargaming.com in the near future so I'll make it short here: I acknowledge that Saga's rules system brought something fresh to the table and innovated and almost single-handedly made Dark Age warfare of all things super popular but it's not for me. It's a clever, fast, fun game, but it wasn't what I look for in such a game. But yeah, I do own the rulebook, Northern Fury, an Anglo-Saxon Warband and even the dice.

But yeah, I'll probably try any set of rules with 40k models at least once. There's too much great stuff around to be all too closed-minded about things like that. I absolutely agree with you in terms of making single models count, naming them and so on. I'd like to do something like warband-scale CSM-on-SM games. I could see that work really well.

As I said, I played three (!!) games last week. So bear with me as I post yet another After Action Report:

The first of said games (the Chain of Command with Orks versus Marines above was the second) was a test game of Operation Squad. I had the luck of getting to learn from someone who played several games and has a reputation of being the Operation Squad guru in his gaming group. Excellent.


The Table

We played on a slightly narrow table, so we decided to use the narrow edges to deploy. Good enough for a test game.






The Scenario

Well.... there was none. :-P


The Forces & Setup


Soviets

The Soviet squad was a regular Rifle squad as per the rulebook:
Sergeant (PPSh SMG)
DP Gunner (DP LMG)
DP Assistant (Mosin-Nagant rifle)
6 Riflemen (Mosin-Nagant rifle)
Maxim MMG Gunner (Maxim MMG)
2 Maxim Assistants (PPSh SMG)
Sniper (Mosin-Nagant rifle)






Germans

The Germans were based on the regular Grenadier squad from the rulebook.

Sergeant (MP40 SMG, Binoculars)
Corporal (MP40 SMG)
MG34 Gunner (MG34 LMG)
MG34 Assistant (Kar98k rifle)
Medic (Kar98k rifle)
4 Riflemen (Kar98k rifle)
Light Mortar Gunner
Light Mortar Assistant (Kar98k rifle)
Sniper (Kar98k rifle)



We set up our forces within our deployment zones. The Germans went for a wide formation with the Sergeant in an excellent position to mark targets for the light mortar team who were sitting behind a small hut.

True to German training the squad LMG was the centre of the deployment, with riflemen covering the flanks.

My own deployment of the Russians was quite different as I tried to ignore the right flank altogether and decided to swiftly advance along the left flank, covered by trees, and overpower the Corporal and riflemen there.

This was thwarted a bit by the enemy sniper.



Snipers deploy last and while I got to deploy my sniper first and got a very nice position, the German sniper sat on the right flank, posing a serious threat to anybody who tries to advance on the other side.


The Game

The Game started with a duel between our two snipers. After some back and forth the German sniper got wounded.



After this the Germans immediately sent out the two riflemen who were the left flank guard to support the wounded sniper (top) and the medic (in the left) started a sprint from his former position with the Corporal and riflemen at the Southern hut to go patch up the sniper.



Meanwhile my boys advanced to Comrade Sniper's position in the forest to set up a nice fire base while the Sergeant took three riflemen and dashed behind the hut.



The German Sergeant set them up as a target for the light mortar, the team got the order but had to realize that the target point was beyond the range of their light mortar.



The way light mortars work is quite funny and makes sense. Whenever the Sergeant is activated he may designate an enemy model as a target. For this he has to pass a spot check if the model is hidden. Then he has to communicate the order to fire a grenade to the mortar team which requires another check. If this one is passed the mortar team may fire a grenade at the target once they get activated (or of course as a reaction). The designated target marker stays as long as the targeted model stays in place.

In the following picture you can see my guys having set up position in the forest. Very hard to crack, but a single mortar shell could do tremendous damage.



In the small patch of wood across the road and the hedges you can see the German LMG team which posed quite a problem.


The Mid-Game Situation

My Sergeant, along with his riflemen pals were sitting behind the hut while one rifleman had advanced to the little ploughed field. He had to realize that the wounded sniper and his two buddies (the medic was still on his way) were too far off to throw a grenade at them.



The Soviet firebase was caought in a firefight with the German MG34 team who were laying down suppressing fire on our little forest and refused to take any damage. In the meantime the German Corporal and a rifleman hat secretly started advancing through the forest in the left (across the road from my own forest) towards my position.



The mortar team had packed up their launcher and advanced behind the MG34 team to get a shot at my fire base whilst my Sergeant and his pals started firing at the German Sniper and his riflemen buddies (to no great effect).


Late Game

Well, things at the right flank didn't go so well:



Granted, the models lying on the ground just are pinned, but not wounded. Still, the German MG had a nice field of fire on them and these pesky riflemen who were with the sniper just wouldn't die. One of them got pinned, but that's about it.

My firebase were still stuck in the forest:



At one point the mortar team even managed to fire a shell in their direction, but to my great relief it emerged to be a dud. (Given the density of my men in such a small space it wasn't unlikely that one of them would be hit on the head by the dud).



Eventually the German Corporal took a heart (or was overly eager to get himself an Iron Cross), came out through the forest and threw a hand grenade at my position which was just in range.



It barely deviated but to a stroke of luck it didn't do much damage at all. However, my LMG and Maxim gunners of all people had dived for cover and it would take a turn for them to get back in their positions.

At this point we had to call it a night because it had gotten late.


Debriefing

The game at this point still was kind of open, but I think that over time the Germans would have gotten the upper hand. To echo many a foe of the Wehrmacht: Damn those squad support MGs.
Other than that the light mortar of course is a good way to put some pressure on the enemy. It's not cheap at all points-wise, but it can be pretty handy and most of all adds an amusing additional element to the game.



Overall a good time was had. I of course had no idea what I was doing for the first two turns or so, but I got into things pretty fast and the action-reaction system proved to be really good and intuitive.

I hope that you enjoyed this battle report!


...and I promise that there'll be a proper update with a big and pretty forgeworld model tomorrow at the latest!




P.S.:
Yes, I guess I should explain the markers. I wrote the battle report right after writing a review of the game (article should be up on skirmishwargaming.com at some point in the future) in which I explained a few of the most important markers, so I guess in my head I thought that it was clear to readers what they would be about (which of course is bogus ). The thing is that the rules authors make the markers one of the incentives to buy the rulebook in the first place, so sadly there are no digital versions of the markers to download.

In this picture you can see the most important markers most models have with them for most of the game:


Hidden


There's the marker which looks like a ninja posing behind a shopping cart. That's a Hidden marker. All models start the game hidden and may spend one activation to hide again (if they are in cover) in case they lost the Hidden status along the way. A hidden model can only move cautiously without losing the Hidden marker and will lose the marker if it shoots or moves any faster than cautious movement (there are three modes of movement: Cautiously - 10cm, Move&Fire - 15cm, Run - 20cm). The cool thing if your guy is hidden is that he gets a bonus on the defence roll against getting hit AND if an enemy model wants to shoot at him they first have to spot them. If they fail that spot check they can't do anything else this turn. Hidden markers are good.


Turn Over


The most common marker is the Turn Over one. After a model is done with its action for the turn (players activate models alternatingly) it gets one of those so you remember that the guy's done for now. Operation Squad has a very intuitive action-reaction system, but with up to six models involved in one of those action-reaction sequences it can get a bit hard to remember what model's already acted and which hasn't. Even with each side only having like 12, 13 models on the table.


Run


If a model spends its activation Running, it can move up to 20cm, can't do anything else and gets a Run marker until the model acts again next turn. If an enemy model wants to shoot at the fellow he gets a bonus to his defence roll due to being a fast-moving target and thus harder to hit.

There are some more markers like the Ammo marker (with 4 bullets on it) designating miniatures who have to reload their main weapon, a very rarely appearing Designated Target marker which reminds us that a model has been designated and communicated as a target by an enemy Sergeant and a Wounded marker to designate wounded models.

There are four possible outcomes for your model if it's being shot at: The attacker missed, the model is Pinned (common sense, rather than bullets, hits and the fellow goes prone. In subsequent turns his only possible options are "Stand up", "Hide" or "Move Cautiously". Once he's stood up again he can act as normal), Wounded (As Pinned, but in addition the model is wounded and suffers mali on most actions for the rest of the game unless a medic comes around to help him), Killed (Dead). To designate models who are pinned we lay them on their side until the get up again.

So in the picture above you can see (from right to left) the guy behind the house had been shot at and got pinned. He also spent his action for this turn already, so he can only get up (or hide, or crawl back behind the house fully which might be his best bet) next turn. The guy standing adjacent to the little field finished his action. As he's got no other markers I assume he did a "move and shoot" action, because moving cautiously makes no sense if you don't have a Hidden marker and he has no Run marker. Or maybe he just reloaded his gun. The guy lying in the field also just got pinned. As he has a Hidden marker he probably spent his action on hiding instead of standing up again and presenting himself as a target. The other guy in the field has a Run marker and a Turn Over marker, so he ran across the field (with a -d6 movement due to moving though rough ground)

...and that's that. I hope that makes things a bit clearer to you.

Ork vs Blood Angels! the two armies I collect and paint :-) so good to read with such beauty pictured!

@nerdfeat09: Glad you like the report.


Okay, here's the promised WIP update of something very 40k:





Speaking of things of general interest: I wrote an article filled to the brim with OPINIONS on the Beasts of War 2014 Gaming Awards. Maybe interesting and stuff. Hopefully enjoyable to you. Or at least food for discussion.

Beautiful piece Sigur. Love the way the shades of red flow behind the gold.

The way you've done the red is lovely, its so smooth.

Excellent, Sigur, you can almost feel the ruinous red rippling across the ancient Chaos armour!

@Gitsplitta: Cheers.

@GiraffeX: Thanks muchly, sir!

@Cosmic: Well, it is a nasty little fella.

Here's what my lawyers said I shouldn't mention:
.) Me putting the model on my head and using it as a scalp massager and wearing it as a hat for fun.
.) Putting the model in my lap and posing as a bond villain with a chaos scorpion instead of a cat.
.) Recreating any facehugger scene from any Aliens film with this model.



ANYWAY, for something slightly different:
Finally it's up - here's my proper review of the Ronin rules set!




Okay, I know it's nothing special again, but I made two more of these "tiny terrain bits to make the table prettier" last night - wood piles!

How do you mange to make piles of wood look interesting,

I really like the washed out realistic look you have achived on the wood and ww2 stuff,

Great WW2 battle report. The rules seem to be very realistic and intuitive.

Brass Scorpion is amazing.

Thanks for the Ronin review, Siggy, it certainly looks great! You've quite piqued my interest in the feudal Japanese era.

@carlos13th: Thanks very much. I was fearing it looks a little too washed out, but that dark grey background of course adds to this quite a bit.

@Solar_lion: Thank you! Yeah, they aren't bad. Probably my WW2 squad-level rules of choice at the moment.

@Cosmic: Cheers. My review might be a bit long, but I hope I got the mechanics across so people could decide whether it's something they would like or not. There's a whole series of Ronin-themed articles coming up!

Absolutely loved the review of the Ronin rule set. It's very intriguing. A nice follow-up might be an article on finding or making appropriate buildings or scenery (I mention this knowing that you've already done so and probably have those references at hand).

Well, there's an article on miniatures coming up, a few battle reports and a review of one of 4Ground's feudal japanese houses. Funnily enough I find the terrain aspect of feudal japan almost more interesting than the miniatures. There are massive opportunities for prettiness. A friend of mine made amazing cherry blossom trees. Armatures, cherry blossom foilage, the full thing. Very pretty.

Has anyone of you tried the Plastcraft terrain? I heard not too convincing things about them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Update!

Well guys... the darndest thing happened last night. For our mostly regular gaming evening we decided to have a go at that Blood Bowl Team Manager card game. Not bad, not bad. Surely more fun with 3 or 4 players than it is with 2, but it was good enough for learning the ropes. We chatted about Blood Bowl of course along with playing the card game and as the Team Manager game didn't take too long to finish my gaming buddy broke out his proper Blood Bowl copy and we had a quick test game of that too as I'd never played before (except for the computer game once). Well, things went the way things sometimes go and I went home with the 3rd edition box plastic Orcs team, still on sprue.

Here's a still slightly WIP test mini for a colour scheme:



I think I'll keep the colour scheme this way, pants and boots will stay black I think. Maybe the boot laces will be blue as well. What do you think, Sirs?

Beautifully old-school. Two thumbs up.

@Gitsplitta: Cheers.

Here we got all the guys together as they are now. Goodnight.

Fantastic Sigur! I always think that green/orange is one of the best colour combinations - lovin' da old skool Orcs!