October 2018 – Mark A. Morin

Roos from Spaaaaaace!

Back in 2016, I had finally completed an original Ral Partha “Rooman War Party” (#01-044) from 1977. This effort culminated in my building a 21-figure phalanx of pike-armed anthropomorphic kangaroos, replete with Australian 7-pointed stars on their shields.

At that time, I also began to see that others, like the wonderfully named Imperial Rebel Ork (IRO for short) were doing amazing “kit-bashes” and conversions with different models. Of course, IRO uses plastic, and I’m more of an old school metal guy. I also was getting more into retro sci-fi figures and using them for skirmish games. I was inspired by IRO and Azazel (both Aussies) to push myself to do my own conversion. So, I combined two figures – a Ral Partha Rooman (25 mm scale) and a Reaper #80010, “Nova Corp Sergeant” (28 mm scale), made a mold, and cast a bunch of “Space Roomans” (in metal of course). You can read about that somewhat massive project here. Getting around to painting these took a bit longer, and even my good friend Buck Surdu painted some that I gave him much quicker than I did.

15 Rooman after star — Ral Partha Rooman

1 Space Roomans pickup from ebay — The Reaper figure (circled) that I used was in a bunch of figures I got on eBay

Azazel is kind enough to run a monthly community painting challenge – and October’s was “Unit-ed October”, and focused on units. So, I took this opportunity to get these done. Of course, this effort was slightly affected by some gaming and the Red Sox winning the 2018 World Series (YES!), but I got them (the Space Roos that is) done by October 31st, 2018. I will use them in Combat Patrol™ games.

I decided to paint the Roos similar to the way I did the Roomans, except that I wanted a more dusty and dirty look to them, as they are intrepid infantrymen (infantryroos?). I also wanted to convert a couple of figures per squad (yes, a conversion of a conversion) to carry different weapons. In this case, I used a grenade launcher sprue from RBJ miniatures to make two Roos into grenadiers, and a different RPG sprue from RBJ to make two other Roos into anti-tank troopers. So my 28-figure platoon would consist of:

Platoon Leader
Platoon Sergeant
2 Space Roo Squads consisting of:
- 1 Squad Leader in each squad
- 2 teams of:
  - 1 TL per team
  - 4 Space Roos with assault rifles/blasters per team
  - 1 Space Roo per team with either a grenade launcher or anti-tank weapon

Two squads make a light platoon, but I think that they will be a potent elite fighting force on the tabletop. Also, these Roos are equipped with body armor on their torsos, and importantly, jet packs! I will also give them a higher rate of movement similar to what I did for the Space Phraints (1½ cards of movement). I cleaned and filed the models, and prepared them for conversion and priming by mounting them on 1″ steel washers.

1 Cleaned and mounted — The two squads behind their platoon leader and platoon sergeant. The weapons for conversion are on the left.

I had a tough time reorienting the arms of the RPG-armed Roos, and I needed to break them and use green stuff to create a proper pose. Pinning was not feasible unfortunately. I also used green stuff to mount the grenadiers’ launchers and to give them bandoleers of grenades. The grenadiers looked fine enough for the tabletop, but I was unhappy with the RPG Roos, as they looked “Popeye” like in their arms. As the Space Roos body armor gives them an angular body look, I decided to use a series of very small 2 mm polystyrene chips to create an “armored look” over the arms by affixing them with Gorilla glue.

2 conversions — The green stuff conversions – note the bulbous arms that needed attention on the AT Roos.

3 up armor — My fix for the arms. You can see that my casts varied in terms of “crispness”. Clearly, I was going to need the brushwork to make these work.

I ended up double priming these figures, as I knew that I would need to fix much with brushwork and painting. For example, there was a large indentation on the Roos’ left feet (paws?) that I needed to paint over. I thought that a thinned brush priming followed by a thinned airbrush priming would help. I think it did.

For their base colors, I went with a yellowy/sandy look for their armor, which I thought would reflect a desert or dusty deployment.

5 base coat sand yellow — I airbrushed the armor with a yellowish/sand color. The idea was to use washes to bring out details (and allow me to obscure casting abnormalities). This would give me a nice camouflaged look at the end.

6 eyes, hands feet — Outlining the eyes, ears, feet, and gloves in black. I went with a red kangaroo coloring for the Roo parts .

7 mid stage — Moving on to fur painting. Inks and washes gave more depth to this later on.

9 painted not washed — The bottom torso on the left has been painted with additional inks for depth.

10 drybrush guns — Comparison of the weapons – before (left) and after (right) dry brushing. The blue is indicative of the 1st Squad.

One of the issues I really want to focus on when I build a platoon is to make it easy for the players (some of us with “experienced” eyes) to see and identify a figure’s squad and team. I got some steel punches, and some jewelry stamps to make 1/4″ and 5/16″ placards that I could mount on the figures’ bases.

11 punches and stamps — My 1/4″ punch and the two jewelry stamps next to the polystyrene placards. I did use 5/16″ placards for the platoon leader and platoon sergeant.

12 painted placards — The placards, stamped and painted. I used a wash to fill out the letters and numbers.

13 placard close up — Placard close up shot

Next, I washed the figures twice with Citadel “Agrax Earthshade”. I then mounted the RPG’s with Gorilla glue.

Lastly, I used a whole bottle of Citadel “Armageddon Dunes” to fill and shape around the bases and let them dry and harden. The placards were mounted into this paint. Then I gave the bases a wash with “Agrax Earthshade” and two different dry brush applications (Polly Scale “WWII German Armor Light Tan” and Vallejo “Light Brown”). Then I gave everything two coats of matte varnish.

15 platoon initial bases — After filling the bases

16 pl and psg need bases washed — The platoon leader and platoon sergeant almost ready!

17 bases done! — Nice close up of the bases. The shading gave the body armor the dirty effect that I wanted.

18 AT and ldrs done — The four conversions of conversions, front…

After adding some tufts from Shadows Edge Miniatures for even better identification, the platoon was finally done (I LOVE their tufts). I am happy with it, given the work and effort it took to bring it to life. So, now, appropriately, I will share with you some eye candy!

19 Platoon HQ — The platoon HQ, frontal view…

19a Platoon HQ Back — and rear view, with a good view of the jet packs, red placards, and tufts.

20 First Squad — 1st Squad with blue placards

21 Second Squad — 2nd Squad with green placards and green tufts on the leaders.

22 conversions — The AT and grenadier Roos

23 meet ancestors — The Space Roos meet their ancestors, the Roomans!

24 box o Roomans — My box of Roos and Roomen

25 holding off warbots — The Space Roos’ 1st Squad holds off the Warbots

26 holding off warbots 2nd squad — The 2nd Squad close Assaults Juggerbot

I am looking forward to seeing these guys in action soon. I appreciate your looking and hope that you enjoyed this post. I always read your feedback, so please let me know what you think in the comments section at the bottom of this post.

I dedicate this post to all my Aussie friends!

PAINTS, INKS, GLAZES, WASHES, AND FLOCKING USED:

Citadel “Imperium Primer”
Vallejo “Surface Primer – White”
Vallejo “Flow Improver”
Vallejo “Airbrush Thinner”
Testors “Universal Acrylic Thinner”
Vallejo Mecha Color “Sand Yellow”
Vallejo Game Air “Red Terracotta”
Citadel “Flayed One Flesh”
Americana “Bleached Sand”
Americana “Black Tie – Satin”
Vallejo “Black”
Vallejo “US Dark Green”
Tamiya “Copper XF-6”
Tamiya “X-20A Thinner”
Tamiya “XF-49 Khaki”
Vallejo Game Air “Weiss”
Tamiya “Gun Metal X-10”
Vallejo Game Air “Steel”
Vallejo Game Air “Beasty Brown”
Vallejo Mecha Color “Light Steel”
Vallejo Mecha Color “Dark Steel”
Vallejo Mecha Color “Metallic Blue”
Vallejo Game Air “Electric Blue”
Vallejo Mecha Color “Metallic Green”
Citadel “Hexwraith Flame”
Vallejo Mecha Color “SZ Red”
Secret Weapons Washes “Just Red” (ink)
P3 “Brown” (ink)
Secret Weapons Washes “Armor Wash” (wash)
Citadel “Nuln Oil Gloss” (wash)
Citadel “Agrax Earthshade” (wash)
Gorilla Glue
Citadel “Armageddon Dunes”
Polly Scale WWII “German Armor Light Tan”
Vallejo “Light Brown”
Vallejo Mecha Varnish “Matt Varnish”
Shadows Edge Miniatures 6 mm “Dark Forest Red” (tufts)
Shadows Edge Miniatures 6 mm “Dark Blue” (tufts)
Shadows Edge Miniatures 12 mm “Wild Tufts” (tufts)

Thanks again for looking and for your feedback! ESPECIALLY AUSSIES!

Fort Devens Game Day Recap

On October 20th, there was a Devens game day at the former Ft. Devens in Massachusetts. I was interested in attending for a couple of reasons. First, I am trying to get to more gaming events in the area. Second, I was stationed at Fort Devens while I was a member of the 39th Engineer Battalion (Combat) from 1989-1992, so I was intrigued to see the post again in its new configuration. Fort Devens was closed as an active duty US Army post in the 1990’s, and Massachusetts has redeveloped the post by bringing in a lot of industry. Still, some of the post is used by the reserves. In fact my old battalion area seems to have been saved and redeveloped for the reserves. That area is all fenced off now and I did not want to photograph the area and draw unwanted attention to doing so! Other buildings and barracks areas are untouched since closure, with actual trees growing out of the edifices yielding an apocalyptic/Walking Dead look. This blog post is a bit late, but I did get wrapped up in the baseball ALCS and the World Series, which were both won by the great Boston Red Sox!

The actual game sessions were held at the Fort Devens Museum. There were three games there – a WWI game, a naval game, and a pulp game. I did not get any pictures of the naval game but you can read about in an excellent post here. I focused on playing a WWI game (given that it is close to the centenary of the end of that conflict). The board is entirely scratch built, and I believe the rules were “Trench Warfare”, but I am not sure. The game master, Bill, did an excellent job, and I wanted to share his board as it was excellent. The event clearly tried to recruit younger gamers, which was admirable for growing our hobby.

1 WWI — Starting side for the Allies. From far to near, the attackers were US Marines, British, and French. It was a bit ahistorical but a fun game.

2 WWI — While I commanded the French, I had two British tanks – a Mark IV and a Whippet.

3 WWI — Another view of the Allies starting positions.

4 WWI — A truly beautiful scratch built table. Bill (the game master) is pictured here standing. He did a nice job creating a trench works system with 2′ x 2′ modular sections.

5 WWI — Some of the German forces – they were to engage the USMC is a series of bloody hand-to-hand battles.

7 WWI — An engaged group. Bill kept the game moving (unlike the actual WWI)!

8 WWI — The Germans move up, and get hit by very lucky hits by my French 75mm artillery.

10 WWI — Taking out the forward observation posts and then getting torched by a German flamethrower

11 WWI — German artillery disables my Mark IV

The game ended in a draw, but I enjoyed it a lot.

There was also a pulp game that I did not play in, but that looked interesting.

13 Pulp Alley — Druids and Nazis? And Stonehenge?

Lastly, I looked around the museum and looked for anything related to my old unit. The only thing I saw was a donation from a former lieutenant from the 1977 time frame. I do think I could find a few things myself. Interestingly, I am a local, and the 39th had members who for the most part live in other parts of the country. I do commend the museum for trying to resurrect the posts history from WWI until closure.

15 39th pic — The only mention of the 39th

My thanks to the folks who set up this event and to the folks at the museum!

Nice interview with Buck Surdu at BARRAGE!

Many of you who follow my blog have read about Buck Surdu, my good friend and author of multiple wargaming rules systems. Of course, he is a fellow West Pointer so that’s in his favor! He is a major shaker and mover in the H.A.W.K.’s (Harford County Weekly Kriegspielers) in Maryland, and has been involved with BARRAGE for years.

Little Wars TV interviewed Buck, and I thought some of you would find this interesting.

Ral Partha Kickstarter has 3 more days

I fell in love with the Ral Partha fantasy offerings many years ago. Iron Wind Metals has a 3rd Kickstarter going and it’s worth looking at, especially if you are into Dryads/Ents or Fae.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1050509756/ral-parthas-chaos-wars-wave-3?ref=nav_search&result=project&term=chaos%20wars

Art Imitating Life Imitating Art

This will be a very short blog post – but for those of you who love the old Archive Star Rovers figures, this will touch your heart! As many of you know, I have been collecting and painting Duck Wader, Star Ducks, Power-Armored Frinx, and a number of other Archive gems. I use them in Combat Patrol™ retro-sci-fi games – many of which my daughter Ellen Morin and her fiance Chris Smedile have played in and enjoyed.

Ellen’s birthday is in September, as is mine, but we did not get around to celebrating until the first Saturday in October. She got me a couple of very cool gifts. One was an awesome Boston Bruins sweater (cannot have too much Bruins gear by the way). The other was a painting of Duck Wader and some Frinx breaching a wall, with Star Ducks jet-packing through the air above! She used photos from my blog to sketch and ultimately paint the scene. I think it was an awesome gift! Here is the painting below:

I’m a lucky Dad! Thanks Ellen, love ya!

My BARRAGE XXII Recap, September 2018

The H.A.W.K.’s held their BARRAGE convention in Havre de Grace, Maryland at the end of September 2018. They had over 70 gaming events, and it had been on my “hoping to attend” list for most of 2018. Also on my wish list was to be able to run my “Attack of the Warbots” game using the Combat Patrol™ card-based system. I was hoping to attend but was unsure (for several reasons) up to a week beforehand as to whether I was going to be able to go or not. In the end, the stars aligned, and I also got to run my game! Box checked!

There was a lot going on here – and I saw a lot of great games. The following is just a snippet, through my eyes, of the experiences that I had. The games and the game masters that I saw did an incredible job. Truly impressive. Certainly, the H.A.W.K.’s put on a great gaming convention and my kudos to all of them and the other game masters.

I started on Friday with running my latest iteration of “Attack of the Warbots” with my Archive, Mega Miniatures, and Wargames Supply Dump figures, all of which are OOP. I had seven players, with three on the Warbot side, and four on the defending side. Of note, I was lucky to have had as players both Buck Surdu (my old West Point buddy and the author of the Combat Patrol™ rules) and Dave Wood (my old West Point roommate who introduced me to tabletop gaming in 1982). I also had the good fortune to have Greg Priebe playing alongside Buck – and Greg wrote the Star Wars supplement for Combat Patrol™. Buck is very fond of ducks (in a good way of course), and was in command of Duck Wader and some Star Ducks, while Dave was on the Warbot side with a couple of Mark 1 Sphere tanks. Greg commanded the Aphids and the Frinx. A few other players were there but I did not get their names (sorry). The Warbots needed to recapture a lost Mark 1 before the defenders could repair it and get it off the board.

09282018 BARRAGE Attack of the Warbots — My flyer for the “Attack of the Warbots”

1 Barrage my game set up — Game set up from the attacking Warbot side. I got set up early, which is why there seems to be an empty hall, but it filled up quickly.

2 inital casualties — Early action – the defenders gained the initiative and the Red Warbot squad on the left of the photo took casualties from effective Star Duck and Aphid fire. The Warbots smartly maneuvered a Mark 1 tank to attempt to breach the rusty steel wall defenses.

3 initial casualties — Closer view of previous action showing Aphids in a bad place.

4 warbot explodes — Aphids strike back! They get a critical hit on a Red Warbot’s power plant, triggering a catastrophic explosion (smoke plume), which damaged several of its nearby comrades. This made this fire team have to make multiple morale checks (as shown by the red beads). One of these pinned the team in place for the remainder of the game. As the critical hit catastrophically destroyed the smoky Warbot, that plume would restrict line of sight for that pinned team as well!

5 wall about to go... — Dave Wood prepares to destroy the wall with his Mark 1’s Death Ray, and…

6 wall is breached — …the wall is breached, frying a few defending Star Ducks.

7 duck casualties mount — Roberker moves towards the breach.

8 Duck Wader atttacks — Meanwhile, on the other flank, Duck Wader used a Force Leap to engage the Green Warbots in melee. He was able to give the Aphids on that side a brief respite. Wader got initiative again before the Warbots, and was able to Force Leap back to safety after damaging several Warbots with his light saber.

9 tank stopped — Back on the right, the Warbots get one of their two Mark 1’s within a few inches of the building where the captured tank was being repaired. SSG Canvasback (yes, he has a name!), the 2nd Squad Leader, fires his Quackers Repeating Blaster and got a lucky hit, knocking out the tank’s left auto cannon sponson. This allowed enough suppressive fire cover for the Star Duck Squad led by SSG Gadwall to close assault the tank with satchel charges…

10 duck close assault — …and successfully knock out the Mark 1!! Roberker, a giant flame-throwing robot was following closely behind, but another critical hit from Greg Priebe’s Frinx immobilized the giant robot, stalling the attack.

11 stopping the Warbots — At the same time on the left flank, Duck Wader again Force-leaped over the wall into the midst of the Green Warbots, and launched a Force-Blast attack. This sent waves of destructive energy through the closely-crowded Warbots. Many were damaged, and one even had a power plant explosion, which caused even further damage to that team and multiple morale checks due to a second explosion. These morale checks eventually disrupted the attack as the Green Warbots either ran off the table, or got into a massive traffic jam at the breach. Here, you see Duck Wader after he had dispatched the Warbots. He was wounded, but had wreaked havoc on the Warbots.

12 happy defenders — At this point, the other Warbot tank was immobilized, and the game was called as a defenders’ victory. It was a near-run thing as the defenders were unlucky in rapidly repairing their captured Mark 1, but they would have been able to complete the repairs. Here are some of the happy defenders – Rob Dean, Buck Surdu, Jim Stutzman, and Greg Priebe.

I then turned into a player, and decided to try a Lion Rampant game ably run by Philip Jones. We were the Vikings who had seized prelates, monks, and treasure in a raid, and were trying to escape to their longship, while being pursued and blocked by Welsh troops.

13 Lion Rampant — “Llandaff is in flames, the bishop and his monks carried off- but the men of Glywysing have the Vikings trapped between two forces as they try to get back to their ships. Will they break through or will Bishop Cyfeilliog be rescued?”

15 Lion Rampant Vikings move out — Our initial deployment – Welsh would block us and harry us from the rear.

16 Lion Rampant Dave Wood prepares — The Welsh harry from the rear and Dave Wood prepares for battle.

17 Lion Rampant running — Vikings moving out.

18 Lion Rampant running — Crossing the river and all looks good…

19 Lion Rampant traffic jam — …until Welsh forces combine to slow and stop us.

20 Lion Rampant monk escapes — A monk escapes!

Our casualties mounted! The game points were tallied, and rightly called for the Welsh. I did find the system fun, and Philip ran the game in a very fun way.

After this, I was walking around, and was recruited for a “What a Tanker” game run by Brian Lipscomb. It was set in North Africa, 15mm scale, with the British set against the Germans and Italians. Brian asked if I wanted to have a German or Italian tank. Being a sucker for a challenge, I of course said Italian. I was given a Fiat M13/40 tank.

21 What a Tanker start — My M13/40 tank sheet. Brian did a nice job with using magnets for managing data on the sheets.

22 What a Tanker M13 chasing the Honey — I am pursuing a rear shot on a British Stuart “Honey”. He slipped away, for the moment…

23 What a Tanker M13 goodby Crusader 2 — Don Hogge pursued me in his Crusader II to take the pressure off the Honey. Don shot at me and missed. I rotated, fired, and smoked his tank.

24 What a Tanker M13 goodby Honey — This allowed me to renew my approach on the Honey. I got hit with minor damage to my running gear. I returned fire, and got the Honey with my first shot. That’s two tanks! Later, I finished off a Matilda II for my third kill (on the deep left) – and all this with an Italian M13/40!

Needless to say, I really enjoyed this game and the mechanics. Brian is a superb GM. More on that in a bit…but this was a fun way to end Friday!

On Saturday, I had really looked forward to playing Buck’s Sea Lion game. There weren’t enough players, so it was called, BUT I wanted to share the unbelievably beautiful game set up. Buck will run this game at Fall In and you can read about a play test of the game here.

27 Sea Lion women — Some Women’s Land Army troops

28 Sea Lion beach — Great scenery – these are the Germans assaulting the beach.

29 Sea Lion beach — Another view of the beach and wharves. Landing craft in front held two 35(t) tanks, and a Panzer III.

30 Sea Lion shops — Nice bars with British sailors and folks hanging out…or are they?

So again, I wandered around, and saw another Brian Lipscomb “What a Tanker” game, this time set on the Eastern Front. After Friday, I was happy to give it another go. I was teamed with two others who had not previously played the game. We had a certain number of points, so I volunteered to take a lesser tank (a T-70 light tank) so that they could have better ones – in this case a T-34 and an SU-76.

31 What a Tanker T70 — Love what he did with these data sheets and the magnets! This is for the T-70.

32 What a Tanker T70 kill — I maneuvered alongside the T-34 and put the killing round into a Panzer IV. Kill #4 for the weekend.

At this point, Don Hogge and Buck Surdu visited the table put up a dollar each for anyone to kill me! Talk about motivation! We were being outmaneuvered by the Germans at this point, so I moved back and used my kill points to upgrade my T-70 to an SU-85.

33 What a Tanker SU85 upgrade — My upgrade to an SU-85.

The scenario that Brian devised also had infantry (controlled by him as the GM and using a random events chart) – with the town as an objective. I used the SU-85 to hammer the German infantry as Soviet infantry was arriving. I killed four stands and got a bunch of kill points. I reminded my teammates that I had started off as a T-70, and they gave me one extra kill point, which allowed me to get a monster ISU-152. At the same time, the Germans were reinforced with a Jagdpanther and a Sturmgeschutz III.

34 What a Tanker ISU152 upgrade — My last upgrade – the ISU-152.

Immediately I maneuvered the ISU-152 to hit more infantry. The Germans decided to try to get me with their Jagdpanther and the Sturmgeschutz III. I moved my tank destroyer next to a building to face the Jagdpanther down the main street. He fired.

He missed!

I returned fire and destroyed the German tank destroyer.

35 What a Tanker ISU152 takes out jagdpanzer IV — My ISU-152 nails the Jagdpanther. Kill #5 for the weekend.

36 What a Tanker ISU152 takes out jagdpanzer IV burning — Jagdpanther burns.

At this point, the Sturmgeschutz III was maneuvering to get a flank or rear shot on me. As the ISU-152 is very heavy and slow, I was only able to spin to face the Sturmgeschutz III. It was a question of initiative – and I got it, hit the German assault gun, and got kill #6 for the weekend (and the $2 bounty on me!).

37 What a Tanker ISU152 takes out sturmgeschutz burning — Kill #6!

I then participated in a play test for a near future warfare scenario using cyber warfare with the Look Sarge No Charts system. It was run by Dave Wood and was interesting to do.

38 LSNC near future play test — Dave explaining the system.

39 LSNC near future play test — Assault on the hill.

Every BARRAGE there is a pickup WWI air combat game that is a hoot. I’ve never managed to get a kill in the game before, but I did this year as a German. Eventually, I got shot up and had to glide home.

40 Aerodrome game — WWI fighter game – I had the red plane in the center.

The last tabletop game that I played in was a First Boer War Combat Patrol™ game. I was on the Boer side and we had to defend our wagon from being seized by the British. The game was fun, but there was a low point. We had a couple of players from New Jersey who vanished mid-game without so much as a notice that they were leaving. I think they hated defending. Anyways, we struggled on and ended up winning the game. The other players were great sports, and were great company.

41 Combat Patrol Boer War — Boer War game

After this game at the end of the con, I got to play in the traditional LARP pirate game. I had a nerf crossbow (treated by the GM as a musket) that took out Buck with a shot to the glutes. My weapon later misfired, and the resultant damage took me out. That LARP is always a fun game though!

The flea market presented many vendors and items for sale. I grabbed a Verdun game that I had last played with a gaming club in Monterey, CA in 1985! I’m not sure when I will get to play it, or with whom, but it was OOP in 1985, so a nice find! Buck and I visited the Verdun battlefield in 1987 or so, so it was nice to get this game here.

I must congratulate again the H.A.W.K.’s on a well-run con. Little Wars TV attended and filmed so you can see more of the convention here.

Thanks for looking and as always, I love any feedback!

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