New Miniature!

Ten months ago, I commissioned a one-of-a-kind miniature, and it just arrived last night...

Something tells me things are going to slow down here at War In a Box.

Foam Core Cruisers

Turns out those deodorant bottles are frigates, and we're moving on to assembling the cruisers and battleships.  At least that's the terminology for Full Thrust.

The first attempt at the bigger class ships didn't go so well.  The plan was to fill odd shaped shampoo bottles with Great Stuff foam, wait for that to harden to give the bottles more internal stability, and start slapping on bits from there.  After 24-hours, the foam inside the bottles were no closer to hardening than they were after one hour.  So those got put into the circular file, and Plan B put into action.  

Plan B for this project is basically the same as Plan B for every wargame project of mine - foam core.  Lots and lots of foamcore.  A big sheet of foamcore provided enough material for the skeletons of three cruisers and one fleet carrier.  Here's an example of the skeleton side by side with a detailed ship ready for painting.

We're looking at all sorts of bits and bobs there.  The most recognizable are the Schick disposable razor handles, bamboo skewers, the top of a 25-cent ball for a dome, and a toothpaste tube cap for the thruster.  It'll look way better painted up.

Big Thrust

Well over a year ago, I posted a teaser for a miniature wargame project using all sorts of household odds and ends.  With a wargamer's birthday coming up in a little over a month and a half, it's time to put this plan into action.  The plan is to host a big game of Full Thrust, and I mean big in more than one sense of the word.  We're looking at engagements of roughly 40 ships total, and ships that are too big to fit on a table.

In less than an hour and a half, I was able to throw together eight small cruisers using empty deodorant sticks  for a base.  They all have slight variations, and yes the design is pretty minimal.  We don't have a lot of time, so we're just looking to break up the profile a bit.  The paintjob is going to really sell these as small spaceships (I hope).

When all is said and done this fleet (the human fleet) will have 8 frigates, 5 cruisers, a battleship, and a fleet carrier.  The alien fleet will use an entirely different construction method, and will have an entirely different look to it.  Instead of the harder edges, it should look much more organic (think phalon or 'nid), and the best part is that it will be even easier to build and detail than this fleet.  Watch this space for more details.

Three Bridges

Put some color on three bridges for Notromunda this week, and they sure are bright.  Starting to worry that my pulp sci-fi urban terrain might wind up being downright garish. I think that the red pearl stickers help bring these together, even if the primary colors I'm using clash at times.   Here they are in isolation, but really, I'm probably going to break out the full table and see how things look when put together so far.  And if it ain't working, then I've still got seven buildings left to paint, so there's time to salvage the table if it winds up too four color comic book.

Long and thin and exposed.

Shorter, fatter, and no exposure.

Longest, thinnest, and plenty of cover and plenty of sniper hideouts.

Tomorrow's War: Scenario Unit Cards

The next name on my dance card is Tigers by the Tail, featuring the hot tank-on-tank action of 5 DPRG Chonma Ho's escaping from a pair of M70 Perkins.  This is the second scenario included in the main rulebook of Tomorrow's War, and to expedite the game I've made up the following unit cards.  Print out one for each tank, and you've got a handy way of tracking whether the commander is buttoned up, which crew members are dead, as well as each tanks special attributes.  Sort of.  I've left off the ones that are already factored in to the tank's stat lines.

The photos aren't mine.  I shamelessly grabbed them off Google Image Search and shamefully forgot to track who is responsible for them.

Tomorrow's War: Odds and Ends

Got a couple of points to add to yesterday's Tomorrow's War post.  They didn't make the final cut because the AAR was getting a bit long.  Neither is enough to justify a full blog post, but they are each perhaps worth a brief mention.

The Shroom House

You might have noticed the little red number serving as a farm house.  It's the new style for my Pocketmunda terrain, bright white with bright colors.  While painting, the swooping red trim looked sharp.  When done, my son though it looked like a large mushroom.  Not the intended purpose, but we artists have to put our work out into the world and let people form their own interpretations.  The red dots are small opalescent beads picked up cheap at the craft store.  They'll be a regular feature on these paper-mache houses and should help tie the urban board together.

Fog of War Deck

Also mentioned and shown, but not discussed in yesterday's post is this lovely little Fog of War Deck.  It's printed off the pdf (available from the publisher here) onto thick parchment cardstock and trimmed as neat as possible.Simple, elegant, and evocative, I enjoy these cards way out of proportion the effect they've had on the games we've played.

Lost & Found, A Tomorrow's War AAR

The boy has been pestering me to buy and paint a full unit of Rebel Mini's slick new Sons of Thunder alien dwarves.  He's a bit jaded on the skirmish level gaming after seeing four of his Mangalorc gang killed in action and his leader captured by his sister's all girl gang.  He's ready for some one-offs, and you can't really blame him.  His enthusiasm was infectious, resulting in me cracking open the Tomorrow's War and boning up enough to run through the introductory scenario, Lost and Found.

I'd read a few after action reports (AAR) on this scenario, like this one, this one, and this one.  That helped resolve a few questions before they'd even arisen, and meant that I knew what to expect out of the game...or did I?  We'll get back to that, but first, and interlude:

One of the cool things about Tomorrow's War is that it is scenario driven, and not points driven.  That means that most everybody is going to cut their teeth on the game by playing the scenarios detailed in the main rulebook.  It's a minor point, but it's worth mentioning that it does help you feel like part of a community when you play the same game as others, even if those games are separated by 1,000 miles and two years.

With that out of the way, let's jump right into the action.

Here's the table setup at the start of the game.  You've got the Ladies In Blue (the USMC for those of you following along at home), a small high-tech squad of well motivated and well trained professional soldiers attempting to move north to make contact and rescue the famous movie star, Wally (a downed pilot per the rules as written).  Shown here, the ladies are represented by three fire teams whose movement and fire is shown in yellow.  They are represented by a mix of Rebel Mini Black Widow mercs and Laserburn Law Officers.

Opposing them is a mixed force of alien mercenaries (by GZG) and yellow suited aliens (by Rebel Minis) broken up into four fire teams shown in bright green.  The rules list these as the DPRG, a larger force of motivated, but not nearly as well equipped or trained regular troops who want to keep that robot on the table through Turn 8, and rack up as many kills and POWs as possible while doing so.

In turn one, the ladies send Fireteam Alpha sprinting north while Fireteams Bravo and Charlie take up flanking positions.  The Allied Forces lurk in the woods for the turn, waiting for a more opportune moment to light up the battlefield.  That moment presents itself moments later...

The two flanking units exchange first fire.  This would set the pattern for the bulk of the game.  Meanwhile, Fireteam Alpha slowly approaches Wally, trying to stay under cover for just one turn to make a safe dash for the pilot in the following turn.

But before they could make that dash, the Allies triggered an old booby-trap of their very own, set in the eastern woods during a previous engagement - likely the one that turned a set of ruins to the north into a giant crater.  The net effect of the Fog of War card was...one less bomb for the UXO boys to have to collect later.

Meanwhile, in the center, the Ladies were ready to score the first victory points of the day by making contact and answering the age old question of, "Where's Wally?"  As the flankers continued to trade blows to no real effect, Allied Fireteam Three lit up the Ladies Fireteam Alpha like a Christmas tree.  A brutal exchange of fire left the Allies unhurt and the Ladies pinned, which allowing the Allied Fireteam Four to rush right up to the old farmhouse, where they psyched themselves up for...

...the big grapple.  With the ladies in the center depleted and demoralized by the previous turn, the still fresh Allied Fireteam was able to hold them off and found themselves...

...dead or captured.  This photo is blurry to represent the bitter tears of anger and frustration your humble editor felt and the pain and humiliation of losing two brave ladies KIA and seeing another paraded around Allied-ville, to say nothing of the secrets pried out of the most adorable trash compacting robot ever to grace the silver screen.

All hope was not lost, however.  If Fireteam Charlie could make a solid blow on the right flank and a quick push for Wally, the day could be salvaged...

Yeah, this doesn't help.  Technically, this is the start of Turn 5.  After tallying up the Allied VPs gained through POW, KIA, and heavy casualties inflicted the score stood at 11-0.  With no way of scoring more than 10 VP (3 for contacting Wally, 7 for getting off board by game's end, and all this with only 4 remaining combat effectives), I conceded the game.

Post Game Wrapup

The major turning point actually came in the second turn when the USMC/Ladies lost the initiative never to recover it.  That was a real backbreaker in that it  forced the USMC/Ladies to keep reacting to events rather than driving them.  The total inability of the USMC/Ladies to win a Reaction contest wasn't helpful either.  Again, the well trained force just didn't have the drive or motivation, and paid dearly for it.

Before playing this scenario, it seemed like the general consensus around the internet was that this scenario is overly balanced in favor of the USMC/Ladies, but now that I need links to those reports, all I can find are reports that it's a close game and evenly balanced.  Go figure.  At any rate, we didn't find the game overly balanced.  A few dice breaks either way could easily have turned the tide of the game.  While it's hard to tell after just one game, it also seems like the Ladies/USMC could have benefited from a more aggressive strategy as well.  We will be punching up the terrain a bit and playing this again next chance we get.

Oh, and hey, the crunch in this report is pretty light, but if you can think of anything we might have done wrong here or rolls we might have missed, feel free to let me know.  This was only our second game, and while it went faster than the first, it still feels like we're missing something fundamental in our play.