The Gamer with a plan....

Oh, the plans of mice and men, well of a gamer at least! Choices, choices, choices!

Well, I am setting some target and goals on various projects and spending to curb my hobby spending and also acquire what I really want as well as sell off unused and unwanted stuff.

First up is the Warlord Games Bolt Action order which has been tough. I want so much and then again I have had to step back this week and think about what I have yet to finish and what I really need and will use instead of what is just cool and I would love to have. Yea, it is that woman in the shoe shop syndrome! So, here is the shopping list as of now:

SDKFZ 7 Half-track (need this to tow my artillery and anti-tank guns and transport men)

Heavy Mortar (it looks cool and is nasty if it hits, plus it drops smoke in the game)

251/16 Flammwagen (two flamethrowers, who cares if it is open topped and light armor!)

German Howling Cow Rocket Launcher

French Squad (need one more to have 3)

Medium Mortar (love mortars)

French 75mm Gun (just looks cool and I love howitzers)

Char B1 Tank (a cool tank, anti-tank and howitzer in one package)

Dead Farm Animals (always wanted this/fun for various games)

Next I am watching the Robotech Kickstarter that is going to crank up in April as they claim. I don’t plan to go crazy but I do want the rules and mecha to be able to play the game. I just hope it is a reasonable Kickstarter instead of these that are just insane in pricing where you are paying hundreds of bucks to get everything.

Another Kickstarter that is in the wings is Crossover Miniatures, they are waiting for some figures from the first run to return before they start their campaign as they want to be able to start the campaign and turn around quickly to drop the product to their supporters.

Bases….always need more. I figure I will be ordering another two bags of 80 soon from FRP games for $8 a pop, pretty much the best deal I can get on mass bases in bulk. I just had Brian at Darkside order two packs of the Titan bases for my Bolt Action use, really GW $9 shipping for two small packs of bases? WTF!

Speaking of GW, I am in a small way doing a quiet protest of their policy so I have slowed down buying items, sure I still will play the game and add stuff like the Tau Codex but I am not going to go nuts on purchases. I have still some pending Dark Angels stuff to buy but only once I am caught up further on my Dark Angels before I buy more. I do want the Tau codex to read and absorb before I purchase. With the high prices, GW has forced me to become more frugal in my old age.

Let’s talk more Bolt Action…there are a few odd items I have been keeping an eye on:

Crusader Miniatures: One of each blister of the SS Calvary, perhaps the French LMG blister and the German Paratrooper Anti-tank rifle and Mortar pack.

Offensive Miniatures: They have a Nerbelwerfer that is for the FJ army I have.

Company B Miniatures: A Stug 33B is in my future. Tank with a heavy howitzer!

 

Great Escape Games: Nazi Youth (plan to get a pack or two as they are the only company to make them now!)

Speaking of Great Escape they are making a new Old West game called Dead Man’s Hand complete with a deck of cards with the book. I’ve been in the mood to get a good mainstream old west game but so far Legends of the Old West is dead and Blackwater Gulch seems to be quiet. Time to look elsewhere!

Well, it is hard to play games without scenery so let’s talk that:

Knuckleduster has started to sell various Tri-City Laser buildings including a Saloon, General Store, Jail, Bank and a double outhouse (hey they have to have someplace to go!)

Another scenery block will be with Sarissa starting with a WW2 shop, then their new Corner Hotel, Water Tower, Livery Stable and School/Church kits. I want to have a nice town quickly for gaming!

4Ground has a few nice ruined buildings and a detached house package I will get to round out my WW2 scenery and they make a cool wagon I will get for my Old West Town project. What is nice about this is it is prepainted and ready to use once you assemble it!

What else? Batman! The new Knight Models Batman game has been very appealing. The models are nice looking (a bit pricey like GW), but the quality is there except some people don’t like the metal softness of the product. The rules are free and I figure what the hell, get Batman and the Penguin with crew to test the game out. If it pans out, I will grab Deathstroke, Green Arrow, Catwoman and Mr. Freeze to name a few from the line.

Last a member on Lead Adventure Forums sells these great looking suitcases/boxes set, wow this is great from anything from Old West, to WW2 or even Strange Aeons. I plan to get at least one set.

Track48 also makes a nice Panzerwerfer 42 but at a hefty price of $50 for a custom job of a vehicle nobody makes, nice but not sure if it is worth it. Let’s get the other stuff first and go from there. They do make some cool accessories like a pack with provisions and wine, another with medical supplies and more…figure a few of these are great for scenery and objectives.

Robotech Miniatures Game

I have my eye on this as there is a looming Kickstarter for this in the near future.

Nice looking stuff! This takes me back to my childhood, I would love to get the game and some of the minis to play around with. I just don't know if there is another Robotech fan that is a miniature gamer also where I live that would play this.

Old West Quick Draw Contest!

I have two unclaimed $16 gift codes for the first two lucky winners to post here! Two people never responded so it's time to give them away now that things have calmed down. Are you quickest to the draw? Post up even after the first two, if they go unclaimed your next! Keep an eye out for announcements here!

These gift codes are the price of one blister and shipping to most areas or it can be applied to a larger order including the Tri-City Laser buildings!

I hope to finally mail off the two other prizes as well as I have been busy at work and on Saturday that has made it hard to get to the Post Office. I have no forgotten my winners!

Bolt Action Sunday Aftermath

Well, we had our second gathering of Bolt Action for the area with some growth to the players including a new US and Japanese player. Sadly the Japanese player's order did not make it so he has to wait until next month before he can scream BANZI! Still, we had two German players including myself and a Soviet and another American player in the mix. We had a few no shows but that happens. What is the most important thing is we are growing slowly and steady each month...

On with the games!

Well, we built one table quickly with some rock/tree scenery and another table with some 4ground buildings that Mike brought along, we also found some roads, a river, some Hirst Arts bridges and building to go alongside the graveyard that Mike had with him also, it was a class A sharp table to want to play on!

First parings were Soviets vs. Germans and US vs. Germans. I won the dice off and was up against the American player on the city table. We both had 750 point armies...

US:

Tank (had a Howitzer on it)

2nd Lt with assistant

Air spotter and two assistants

Sniper Team

2 squads with BARs and rifles with a Tommy gun on the NCO.

Bazooka Team!

I had (from memory)

Puma

2 Squads of 6 with Assault Rifles

Engineer squad with flame thrower, 3 SMGs and 1 rifle

Air Spotter

2nd Lt with Assistant with Assault Rifles

Heavy Artillery

We rolled and got "Hold until Relieved" well I put the Artillery on the bridge in the center with a squad; everything was to be in on first turn. He deploys the HQ and squad in the graveyard, another squad by the Tank opposite by the other bridge, the tower held his sniper and spotter....

Well, the dice was against me from the start and he was rolling like a god, I told him to go buy a lottery ticket and I get 10% of the earnings with his luck! Hey worth a shot! Some of the worst stuff was rolling a 1 on the Air Strike I called in on his tank and he place it on my Puma, in theory when the plan token was set I should have been able to run the Puma behind the building to avoid LOS of the plane and avoided death, still because we could not get proof this was a correct the air strike killed my tank, the first air strike for him wiped my artillery and the second just punished me....there was little left by the end of the game but my Engineer squad and officers....in the end the officer managed to contest the bridge by hiding on the far side and avoiding being shot by most guns.

Americans push for the bridge.

The brave officer and his assistant holding the bridge at all costs! 

The second game we paired up the American and Soviets against the FJ and Heer German Armies....we rolled the kill point game and we setup running full tilt into this game. It was cat and mouse all the way to the end where we rolled to play another turn 7 where the squeaked out two other bonus points to win the game with last minute kills.

There was a lesson learned here after asking on the Warlord boards that you CAN split your gun crews up and send only one, two, etc...over to the gun instead of the entire team. We had a long debate about this that we ceded to the Allied players that was dead wrong per Rick Priestly. Oh well....

The humor of the game was lobbing the 150mm shell indirect at a building; I had hoped to kill the sniper inside. Instead it missed his floor and hit the bottom floor killing the US HQ! HAHAHHAH one more hit (rolled an 11) and would have had both!

First turn.

First turn again...

Soviets and Americans sneak in....

Das Americans called in a German plane by mistake! *DAKAKAKAKAKAKAKA*

Take cover, give them nothing!

Both games was a blast, yet fustrating due to some bad dice and some rules issues that are much clearer now! Looking forward to next month!

Kick Ass 2 Teaser!

Wow, I loved the first one and this one looks like it will be on par with the other one!

Happy Birthday Douglas Adams!

Happy Birthday Douglas! 

Born: March 11, 1952

Died: May 11, 2001

So long and thanks for all the fish! 

Review of Fantascape Historical Flat Bases (Part 1)

Well after a long weekend of gaming for the past three days I arrived back home to have waiting for me two lovely packages including a package from Fantascape.



http://www.fantascape.com/

I opened it with haste (after spending some time first with  my wife and basset hound) and found only one of two packages of bases within. Each package contains two bases of 90mm historical flat design.

After sending an email to the chap that runs the company to resolve the issue (thus the Part 1 of this review as I will follow up on their customer service) I examined what I did receive.

Quality: Good quality smooth grey resin, thin but very strong resin. I had concerns with this as sometimes companies use inferior resin methods as a cost saving means. The brand used by Fantascape is by far excellent, sure you could snap it if you put excessive pressure on it but let's be fair that is the nature of all our lovely miniatures in our hobby! I give the guys 5 STARS ***** for quality.

Shipping price was dead on. Sometimes you get a slightly higher price for "shipping & handling" that in one breath isn't unreasonable but sucks when you find your shipping price spiraling higher as you add items. The speed of the arrival from the UK to the US was also excellent and within reasonable wait with a dispatch email on Feb. 27th and arrived somewhere between the 8th or 9th this weekend (thus nobody checked the mail until I came home Sunday).  A two week window, bravo! I would give again 5 STARS here ***** for shipping.

Accuracy of my invoice....well you know the story here and now we move on to Customer Service to test a company here. To me this is the "make or break" part for me of giving me a lasting impression and inspires me to pass along word of mouth and promote something further. I am all about small business and helping the little guy (or gal) succeed and given every opportunity do so. Look for a follow up on this one!

Well, I know your are thinking "fine show us the damm bases with stuff on them!"....well,  here you go!

This is my 150mm artillery gun with crew from Die Waffenkammer and an extra crewman I got from a character pack from Black Tree Design. I didn't add the ammo crates to this as this is just a rough display only.

This is my FJ PAK40 gun. Again, I had to order some extra models to add an extra guy to the crew to be the official unit size for Bolt Action. I admit, I had a bit of concern with this one as the limber is long, but as you see it fit like a charm. Plus the base is a good profile that if you plan your scenery right this could be dropped into scenery with no issues to placement.

This is one of my storage boxes. This one is from Ikea and was like $3 each. I removed one divider and the base fits in line a champ! Add some foam and these two guns will be ready for deployment!

Weekend shopping.....this and that.

Black Tree Designs is having a 50% off sale of WW2 infantry and some other historical figs...check it out!

http://www.blacktreedesign.com/northamerica/home.php?xid=bfec7dc11e98c417a5df03310eae272e

I ordered from Black Tree Design some extra German stuff including:
Wehrmacht Character Set III
Wehrmacht with MP44 Rifles I
Wehrmacht with MP44 Rifles II
Wehrmacht Engineers
Fallschirmjager Characters

The Engineers are for me to be able to add some extra umph to the look of the Pioneer squad. The Character packs both have one figure that will join my FJ PAK40 team and my Wehrmacht 150mm Artillery crew as I need one more to make the model accurate for crew stats for the Bolt Action Rules. The rest will get used no doubt to be NCOs and other odd and end figures to fill in gaps. The MP44 rifles are for Grenadier (late war) squads. 

I also stopped by a comic and gaming store that I rarely make it near and picked up a loose batch of Heroclix figs...there wasn't much that was impressive but I got what I felt I could use and looked the best. Plus, I tossed in a nice 10 sided dice for Bolt Action as it makes a handy pin marker.

I got Starfire, both as a flyer and the cool hair she could make a great flyer that is on fire. The Solomon Grundy fits both Strange Aeons and as a bad guy strong arm for one of my other villain teams. A little rework and he will be good to go! The last is Anaconda, the model is perhaps the roughest of the three but she could be turned into a good female villain bruiser.

I also have that stuff to ship out for the contest winners still (life has had other things on my plate of late, such as taking the dog to the vet this morning) and if I recall only one code has been given out. The other two are unclaimed. So, I am going to work another just straight up drawing....not sure if it will be a "quick draw" (the first two posters get them) or just do a random lottery again. I will think about it tonight.