Ogre Miniature Variant

Remember the above from here. It's my unfinished sculpt of the Ogre Ninja. There are lots of reasons, some good, some pretty lame as to why this little beauty hasn't been finished.

One reason is that an official miniature is now available from SJG. The other is the amount of work required to finish it that I could spent doing other things

I've made a decision to finish it, but not as a Ninja, but as a Mark-2 Scout variant based on some stats from Henry Cobb's page here. Henry has to be one of the leading lights on Ogre stats, and has a lot of useful stuff on his web page. Check it out.

Anyway, to quote from here;

However if the Ninja was produced without the Missile Rack at first (until it was proven on the Mark-IV) and simply had the rest of its armament then it's load factor would be less than the Mark-V. And then you could assume that stealth was also in development until 2087 or so. The cost for this Ninja-Minus would only be 74 VPs (2 missiles in tubes, 1 MB, 2 SB, 8 AP, 5 treads per hex times 4 hexes of move) and it could have been seen as a scout replacement for the Mark-II until the stealth and rack technologies were available. Then when the Mark-IV was deployed, the Ninja was obsolete as a pure scout and so redeveloped with stealth and missile rack. 

So, that's what I'm going to do with this model, because it makes it unique.

Thinking about this has also made me start imagining a NAC Mark 1 variant that would stylistically be a better fit with the classic Winchell Chung designs, mostly down to the fact that I don't like the current Mark 1 & 2 models. By that I mean they're perfectly nice models, but they look more like Pan European mini-Fencers than precursors of the classic Mark 3 & 5 designs.

YMMV. More thoughts and pictures in due course.

Expanding My Ogre Combine Forces

It's been almost a year, a long time really, since I've looked to expand my Ogre/GEV forces. I've been having a bit of a sabbatical from my miniature wargaming this year having been working on writing three novels, which, if you should so desire, you can read about here?

Anyway,  The above picture shows my next stage of expansion of my forces. Last year I was very lucky to be able to purchase some more Combine miniatures from Daniel who was going over to Austin to be the new Ogre line developer. 

Hence the unpainted models waiting to be assembled in due course.

As you can see I did somehow managed to paint the first colour on the North American Combine miniatures I had squirreled away in my maturing box that were previously shown here, you will need to scroll down to the bottom of the page.

As a reminder I've had these models sitting around waiting for me to do something with them for a very long time indeed. How long? Twenty years, which is a bit embarrassing really, except I do have the excuse of going off to train to be a nurse... and working... and other stuff like that.

The obvious observation is that miniatures don't paint themselves, and it takes time to get an army together. I've been looking through my notes on the number of armour units and infantry one needs to be able to play GEV scenarios and have identified a shortfall of miniatures in a number of areas.

However, getting these as a MiB is proving problematical as they're Warehouse 23 specials, and not generally available product, which means I'm not going to be able to realistically have enough miniatures to run GEV scenarios this year at Dragonmeet.

Next year, fingers crossed this situation will have changed

Robot Fire Breathing Dragon

  

All it needs is frickin laser beams coming out of its eyes and the robot apocalypse can begin.

  

The Chains of Command

My copy of Chain of Command arrived earlier this week and has that lovely new book smell when I opened it to read.  Now some of you may well be asking why I bought a set of WW2 rules given that this is not one of periods that I play?  A good question indeed, and my answer is that I'm a rule junky.  I like to read wargame rules that challenge my preconceptions and stretch my imagination and Too Fat Lardies publish fascinating rule sets that do precisely that.

My intention is to use these rules for Inter War games say for the Spanish Civil War, which I do have an interest in, or adapting them for WW1 games, and even stealing the mechanisms for Vietnam era games.  Somewhere deep and dark I have an idea about using the command and control aspects of the game for a near future SF game involving power armour, drones and cybertanks etc.  Muwuhuhahaha!

Anyway, after reading these, watching some games being played and hanging around with disreputable people talking all things Lard, I recommend that you just go and order this set of rules today.  The book is just so chock full of ideas that it ought to have a waning label that says full of addictive fun rules that will make your head explode.
  

Conquering Mars

As you can see Curiosity, our favourite atomic powered cybertank, is now watching the skies of Mars.  I live the future vicariously through our robot friends who are fun to be with.

I'm currently processing the germs that I picked up at last weeks Nine Worlds GeekFest convention.

There's a reason that conventions generally only run for three days, and that is down to what is lovingly called con crud.

On a happier note I went and spent my Steve Jackson Games MiB points at Warehouse 23 today, and an order of Ogre miniatures is now being process and will be sent to me soon. I doubt that they will arive in time for me to paint them for Dragonmeet as I opted for the cheapest shipping option, which means they may be some time getting here.

For those of you who are interested in such things I ordered the following:

2   Ogre Mark I
2   Ogre Mark II
2   Ogre Vulcan Drone
2   Bigfoot Mobile Howitzer
8   Yankee Light Tank
4   Alamo Superheavy Tank
1   Doppelsoldner
1   Fencer Cybertank

So yes Dorothy. Ogre miniatures are back in stock at Warehouse 23. For the first time this year I actually feel interested in panting some more miniatures, and I'm looking forward to these arriving. 

Edit:  Convention review here.

Nine Worlds GeekFest 2013

 

Just a quick update that I'm attending Nine Worlds GeekFest 2013 this weekend, which is being held at The Raddison Edwardian and The Renaissance hotels at Heathrow. I'm attending as both a punter, a MIB demo agent, and as a panelist.

My original intention was just to go as a punter as I had supported the KickStarter way back when, but then Roger announced that the MIB were going and could I bring my Ogre miniatures so we could run demos?  

I said yes, with the proviso that as I had paid for a ticket I didn't want to be tied down all weekend on a table and not see anything.  

Now my friend John asked for a woman for a Friday evening panel talking about superheroes on the small screen; and so it begins.

I shall try and take photos and post a report after the event. 

NB: Late addition to this post. The report can be read here.
  

Giant Robo Danger Close

I went with my partner to see Pacific Rim this week on our usual Orange Wednesday 241 deal, which makes the whole cost of going out to see a movie far more palatable.  Went to a 2D showing, because I'm not all that impressed with most 3D, Avatar excepted, and the show timing was better for us.

This is not going to be a review as such.  I thought Pacific Rim was the best B movie I have seen this year.  I was rooting for the heroes, cheering them on and loved every minute of it.  However, this paean to the Japanese giant robo monster genre by Guillermo del Toro while visually stunning and hitting all the right notes and tropes left me feeling a bit hollow.

This is mostly down to the fact that my first love is real robo shows like Gundam Universal Century, Fang of the Sun Dougram and VOTOMS, where this is more emphasis on the pilots.  Even so Pacific Rim rocked my boat and like most anime fans I had fun spotting the shout outs.

As for playing games I might look at the HeroClix models that have just been released, but of course one could always adapt Monsterpocalypse CMG, or The Creature That Ate Sheboygan for playing games monster munching robo mayhem.
  

Ghost in the Blog

  

 

Been a while since I posted anything and you can blame it all on my current obsession with writing novels.  If you want to know more then go here.  My plan, muwahaha, is to write three first drafts of three novels and then go back and rewrite them as my way of ascending the learning curve that is becoming a novelist.

Anyway,  I thought I'd mention I've been watching Girls Und Panzers*, which for those of you who do not follow such things is a Japanese anime show about school girls learning the martial art of Panzerfahren (the sport of driving tanks).  It's every bit as zany, off the wall mad that one comes to expect from Japan, and is a hoot.  In fact I thought about playing games based on Girls Und Panzers using TooFat Lardies Chain of Command rules, if only for shits and giggles.

Good news for Henry, if he is reading this, is that I have now played enough games of Dropzone Commander that I feel confident in submitting my review to Miniature Wargames.  That should be winging its way by email any day now.  I like the game, but you'll have to wait to read the review in the magazine to know more.

*I know that the post title is an allusion to Ghost in the Shell and really doesn't have a direct like to Girls Und Panzers, but given you all might be thinking I'd given up the ghost on this blog I thought it apposite.

Dropzone Commander

 

Been a busy week writing, or should I say wresting words out of my skull and typing them one at a time onto a screen as I recount on my writing blog.  What I've been doing gaming wise is getting myself into Dropzone Commander from Hawk Wargames.  I'm currently writing a review for Henry at Miniature Wargames.  What I'll say is that the miniatures are sexy and that 10mm is the new 6.

It has been noticed by one of my readers that I've not posted anything about BattleTech recently, and where is the missing battle report.  I will try and find time to write up the notes I made from the last game sometime before the heat death of the universe.  I promise, okay.
  

Heavy Gear Blitzing

An overall picture of the table that we played two games of Heavy Gear over.  I think I might go back and re-do that river at some point.  Who am I kidding, I don't have the time, and if I did I need to finish off my other boards that are still to be done.

By the time you all read this I have played two games of Heavy Gear Blitz with my friend Roger, who has been most tolerant of my occasional brain freeze moments as I tried to get my head around a new game. We are both long time BattleTech players, and I have a lot invested both in time and emotional attachment to BattleTech that makes it hard for me to let go of it.

In a lot of ways BattleTech is too constrained by the assumptions inherent within the rules, and the fact that it has had way to much stuff added to what was, and still is fundamentally a Beer & Pretzel game of giant stompy robots.

We are using my Takara VOTOMS for this game. You can see Roger's three Diving Beetles to the right, my two Scope Dogs are to the left.  Fire surprisingly ineffective at this range, which was all of twelve inches or so.

   
Heavy Gear Blitz therefore feels very much like the new kid on the block, though truth be told it too has been around a while having first been released back in the early 1990s.

Unlike BattleTech, the Heavy Gear game has changed course a couple of times and the game today has taken new a direction by moving away form a hex based RPG combat system to becoming a miniatures based game called Heavy Gear Blitz. Dream Pod 9, unlike Catalyst Games Lab, sell miniatures, and one gets the impression that they make a fair amount of their money from selling same.

I've just taken out one of Roger's Diving Beetles here, which seemed to me to take forever.  Upside was we had gotten through a whole load of turns to get this far, so it's quick to play.

Let me start off by saying that if I were starting from a position of not knowing either game then without doubt I would choose to play Heavy Gear Blitz over BattleTech. I like the fact that the paperwork is is really streamlined down, and yet it stills manages to make one feel that one is controlling an awesome giant stompy robot.

Okay maybe not a humongous giant stompy robot, but still it works for me. However, I feel that it is unlikely that Heavy Gear Blitz, where Blitz truly does describe the lightening speed of the game, will become my number one robot war game. 

As you can see I've finally gotten my third Scope Dog into the fight just as I lost one.

The reasons for that are rather emotional.  I really found myself disliking the dice mechanics, which are based on opposed rolls that are added, or subtracted from the result rolled on a D6 to produce a margin of success, or failure.

I can see the maths, because Roger was kind enough to send me the odds for all the different margins. I can also see that at the end of the day that it represents a combined to hit and effect roll.

However, I just hated the feel of the mechanic. 

My turn to take the pain as the second of my three Scope Dogs is taken down by his Diving Beetles.

Yet there is so much to like about Heavy Gear Blitz game universe. The background setting is fresh and intriguing. The game play is fairly fast, and the range of available miniatures is good, if expensive. Quality is top notch though, and I'm not one to complain about paying for top quality, but quality doesn't come cheap.

This is where the game did a really good job of capturing the feel of VOTOMS as I weaved my Scope Dog back and forth trying toget the rear shot to improve my odds of getting a good margin of success role.  Roger's Diving Beetle goes down.

One of the other niggles I had with the game was the over complicated movement modifiers, which require a six sided dice to track models with an added interpretation for hull down versus stationary.

In my opinion, this really added very little extra value to the tactical feel of the game. And don't get me started on the jargon in the rule book, which drove me nuts. Also, in my opinion, some of the explanations of the rules obscured what was meant.

Last turn and by the skin of my teeth, I managed to channel Chiricoe Cuvie (VOTOMS Ace pilot) and take down the last of Roger's Diving Beetles.  Roger happily reversed this outcome for the next game, which seemed fair all things considered.

So, if I were starting from fresh, and had to chose a giant robot game, Heavy Gear Blitz would get a look in.  However,  I'm no longer a person who can tolerate jargon and complexity for the sake of increased immersion into a game system.  What I want is KISS: keep it simple stupid.

Your mileage may vary from mine, terms and conditions apply regarding tolerance of rule writing, and errors and omissions were no doubt made in playing this awesome game by myself and Roger.