Critter Commandos – Mark A. Morin

HAVOC XXXIV Recap – Notes & Photos

Finding a gaming convention that is close by to my home has been somewhat frustrating for me over the last few years. Since I returned to the hobby, I have attended a few BARRAGE events in Maryland , but that’s it.

Imagine then that there was a con 15 miles from my home AND that they have been having it for 34 years (and I never knew!). The event was the three-day (Friday night, Saturday, and Sunday) HAVOC convention, run annually by Battlegroup Boston. This year was HAVOC XXXIV, and I learned of it through the New England Wargame Groups List page on FaceBook. It ran from April 6-8, and I am really glad that I could attend, but it was a last-minute decision. I was also hoping to let folks know about our group, The Mass Pikemen’s Gaming Club in Central Massachusetts.

Back in March, I went to the HAVOC web page, and I also saw that they were looking for game masters. I needed to wait to see if I could attend. Ultimately, I was able to not only attend the event, but to run two retro sci-fi games using the Combat Patrol™ system. The first game I ran was on Friday night. It was “Attack of the Warbots” using figures from the Archive Star Rovers line from the late 1970’s (Mark III Warbots, Star Ducks, Aphids, and Power-Armored Frinx) along with my Mark 1 Sphere tanks). There were also some Wargames Supply Dump Robo-Sentry guns acting as stationary defenses.

In this blog, first I’ll discuss the two games I ran, then share some photos and eye candy of some of the convention.

I managed to get 7 players for the game, which was great. I did not get as many pictures as I would have liked as I was running the game. The players really had a great time and there was a lot of action. No one had ever seen these figures before, and the mass of the Mark 1’s surprised them all! I used a number of Armorcast sci-fi structures as well on the board, and they worked great.

1 setup Attack of the Warbots — The Warbots make their assault. Their goal was to recapture a Mark 1 Sphere tank behind the building on the right center (which the Frinx were attempting to repair for their own use). A Robo-Sentry gun has been taken out by the Warbots and burns in the middle.

2 Robo sentry guns and Sphere tank burn — Frinx anti-tank fire from the factory’s 2nd floor knock out a Warbot Mark 1 Sphere tank between the slag mounds, and more Robo-Sentry guns burn. The remaining Mark 1 prepares to use its Death Ray on the Aphids on the left.

3 Aphid Platoon Leader attacks Sphere tank — The Mark 1’s attempt to fry the Aphids fails and its weapon malfunctions. Seizing the opportunity, the Aphid platoon leader leaps onto the tank from the second floor and attempts to destroy it with a satchel charge.

4 Warbots advance — The satchel charge attack failed to penetrate the Mark 1. Frinx bazookas then hit the tank while the platoon leader was on top of it. The Mark 1 was immobilized by this AT fire, but the Aphid platoon leader was killed by the same attack. Note the card on the tank – I use cards with pictures on them to denote casualties for infantry.

While all this was going on, the Warbots on the right closed with the Robo-Sentry guns and the Star Ducks defending the wall. In this game, I have the Warbots use the Japanese Combat Patrol™ deck, which has different morale results. A morale card result caused one Warbot team to make a Banzai charge at the last surviving Robo Sentry gun, which was jammed. This enabled the Star Ducks to hit the team with direct fire. When the Banzai charge was over, another morale check caused this same team to flee the game, stifling this assault. The Frinx just got their captured tank fixed as the game was out of time. Due to the casualties inflicted by the Warbots, I called the game a draw. The players all were highly excited by the game and loved the ease of use of the Combat Patrol™ decks for all aspects of the game.

Unbeknownst to me at the time, my game was nominated for the “Al Award”. From the HAVOC website, this is “presented for the game with the most stunning visual appeal. Our crack team of experts (expert team of cracks) will vote on the game that made us say “Wow!”.” I was honored to be nominated, but even more so to win! Thanks so much for this to Battlegroup Boston! A great con it was to be sure – and I felt very welcome here by all the club members.

11a award — A true honor! Thanks so much Battlegroup Boston!

The second game I ran was on Sunday, which was “GO FROGS RIBBIT – STOP THE BUGS”. It was a battle between the F.R.O.G. Commandos (with Star Duck reinforcements) and two Archive Star Rovers foes – the aforementioned Aphids and the Hurraku Space Phraints. So, basically, it was insectivores versus insects, albeit big bugs. The Frogs were defending a wooded area between two rivers and specifically their sacred pond. The insects’ objective was to seize the pond, and to dispatch as many amphibians as possible along the way with extreme prejudice.

8aa 04062018 HAVOC frogs phraints only — My game flyer for this game

I ended up with four players for this game – one for each attacking bug side on opposite sides of the board. Star Ducks would reinforce the Frogs as a special event card was pulled during the game. The Frogs would use the regular decks, while the bugs would use the Japanese decks. The Space Phraints also had a Sith. Here again, the players quickly adapted to the Combat Patrol™ deck. All were new to the game.

8a set up for FROGS with me — My set up – Aphids attack from the south, Space Phraints from the north. Terrain posed a challenge for the attacker because their long range weapons advantages were nullified.

8n me gming — The players listen as I brief – photo by Mike Paine

The Aphids got into the fray first with their Grav Cycles, while the Aphid infantry and the Space Phraints advanced.

8b Aphid Grav cycles start — Aphid Grav Cycles prepare to jet across the river

8d Grav Cycles attack — The Aphid Grav Cycles charge into the two 2nd squad Frog positions (two teams by the yellow dice). The Frogs prepare to respond with Frogbot’s chain guns, their assault rifles, and a flame thrower. The Aphids attacking on the right have begun to take heavy casualties.

8h Aphids taking flamethrower hits — Aphid attacks are torched. The leader of the one on the right lost all of his troops and ended up committing ritual suicide from a morale check card.

The Aphids however did effectively draw the Frogs to their attack, weakening the side facing the Hurraku Space Phraints. This would have consequences.

8e Phraints advance — The Frogs 1st Squad maneuvers towards the Hurraku

8f Phraints advance by hill — 1st Squad’s assault rifles inflict heavy damage on the advancing Hurraku Space Phraints. The red beads represent morale checks for the Hurraku

8g taking flamethrower Phraints advance by hill — Then the Frogs used their flamethrower on them…

At this point, the Hurraku gambled and turned the tide of battle. Linda (the Hurraku player) decided to take advantage of her Sith’s power of “Rage”. This ability causes a Banzai attack. This also removes all stun markers from her troops while they charge at the enemy and engage solely in hand-to-hand combat (or just melee as we are talking about bugs and Frogs). The Hurraku also all have the same activation number until the banzai charge ends, resulting in a true mass attack. Here (in melee) the Hurraku have an advantage as they are very tough fighters. They also move fast normally, and the “Rage” improves that movement by a factor of two.

8i BANZAI BUG ATTACK — BANZAI! TO THE POND!

8j BANZAI BUG ATTACK — The other flank is swarmed

8k BANZAI BUG ATTACK — The Frogs are devastated by the assault. Cards denote dead Frogs. Blue beads represent morale checks for the Frogs, which were mounting up quickly. During a Banzai charge, attackers do accrue morale checks, but are not stunned. They also activate all at the same time. The attackers would end their charge after a special card is pulled from the Action Deck – so it can go on for a while. In this game, it never ended.

At this point, a Star Duck squad jet packed in as reinforcements, but it was not enough. They jet-packed in to defend the pond.

8l Star Ducks arrive — Star Ducks reinforce Frogs for a last stand

8m BUGS WIN — A Hurraku Space Phraint reaches the sacred pond and wins the game

The players here had a good time and were good sports. The tide swung from one side to the other. In the end, the “Rage” Banzai charge was decisive.

I will now share some photos of the two games I played on Saturday morning and afternoon (I did not play Saturday night). I played a Bolt Action scenario run by Friedrich Helisch. The scenario was a 1941 German attack on a Russian-held village. David Shuster was on the Russian side, while Friedrich and I played the Germans. This was my first try at Bolt Action.

5 bolt action start — The battle begins as Germans move towards the village

5b David Shuster bolt action mid — David Shuster moves his Russians up

5c David Shuster bolt action mid advance — View from the Russians side

5d first building assault — Germans successfully storm the first building

5e second building seized — Germans successfully take the second building

This was a points-based game, and our taking of the second building allowed us to win by 1 point, so it was very close. As for the rules, I am on the fence, but more than willing to try them again at some point in the future.

The second game I played was a Gaslands scenario. I had heard this was an interesting game and thought I’d try it out. In this game you get so many points to choose and arm 2-3 vehicles (performance car, regular car, and pickup truck). The goal is to run over (3 points) or shoot (1 point) pedestrians (in homage to Death Race 2000) instead of the usual zombies on the game board. You can attack your opponents, but their destruction does not get you points (you do eliminate the competition). The movement is very much like X-Wing.

I played with two other players, who chose to max out two vehicles, while I did three lesser-armed vehicles. I chose to go after the competition and eventually had one of two vehicles to be the last on the tabletop. However, at this point the game masters deploy invulnerable Monster trucks to hunt you down and end the game. I just missed my last pedestrian which would have tied me for first. The game masters (Michael Eichner and Erich Eichner) did a nice job, and this was a fun game. The table looked great too.

7 Gaslight start — The game starts – I had the red cars

7a gaslight start — After using a flamethrower on a white car, I t-boned the orange one, but flipped over the structure

7b gaslight playing — Game play – photo by Mike Paine

I thought that I should share some photos of the rest of the con. I did not get to see as much as I would have liked, but there were a lot of very cool games. Kudos to all the folks at Battlegroup Boston, as well as the GM’s and players! Please share your thoughts in the comments section – thanks for reading this blog!

6 the HAVOC on Sat AM — A view of the con Saturday morning. There were two rooms.

9b 3d deathmatch from above — Tim Allen had a magnificent home game using Legos

9 3d deathmatch from above — The Deathmatch Arena 3D game

9a 3d deathmatch from above — Characters from Deathmatch Arena 3D

12 Lion Rampant — Lion Rampant game (big game!) run by Richard F. Wareing – photo by Mike Paine

13 Chain of Command Hurtgen forest — Thomas Ballou ran a Battle of the Hurgen Forest scenario – photo by Mike Paine

14 Silent Death Smash — Bruce Carson ran a Silent Death Smash game – photo by Mike Paine

10j hanghai game — Mike Paine’s immense game – spectacular! Eye candy for this below, some I borrowed from Mike Paine with permission

10c hanghai game — Game play – photo by Mike Paine

10d hanghai game — Nice sampan -photo by Mike Paine

10e hanghai game — Beautiful terrain, so complex – photo by Mike Paine

10g hanghai game — Game play – photo by Mike Paine

10h hanghai game — Chinese bombard – photo by Mike Paine

10i hanghai game — Nice American gunboat – photo by Mike Paine

F.R.O.G. Commandos Platoon

In the spirit of bringing more miniatures back from the commercial grave, I happily share with you my latest project – a F.R.O.G. Commandos platoon. This unit consists of 40 figures. All of them except 1 figure were made of metal. In the Critter Commandos universe, F.R.O.G. stands for “Federated Republics of GreenEarth”, one of several cartoon nations created by the Team Frog founder, Paul Arden Lidberg. None of these are currently available commercially.

The unit also includes a Frogbot (Crittertek). This project also enabled me to participate in a painting challenge “Squad March” put out by Azazel on his blog. This contest required a unit of at least 3 figures, and I am sure that this one qualifies! It did take up the month of March for sure.

I was able to do this because I managed to get another box of F.R.O.G. Commandos from Chris Palmer at BARRAGE in January. Originally, each box (a re-purposed VHS tape box no less) came with 8 figures and a d10. I had been slowly collecting many different figures from the line, but Chris’ addition of 8 frogs allowed me to create a platoon for Combat Patrol™.

I managed to successfully finish my project just in time for the end of March. I had come across figures from the Critter Commandos line, which was initially put out sometime between the late 1980’s and early 1990’s by the Team Frog Studios company. Later, the figures were also marketed by Nightshift Games. The figures are all creations of the late Steve Lortz, who also made the Star Ducks and other figures for Archive. I just love his stuff, they are a lot of fun. Also, when I was at West Point, I was in company F-4, whose mascot was a Frog (GO FROGS RIBBIT! was our cry). So I had another motivator here as well.

The photo below is what I had assembled for the project. On the top you see the Frogbot, but he was definitely not together as I will discuss later. The miniatures are around 28mm in scale.

So I needed a plan – I decided that I did not want more than 1 figure per fire team to be the same figure, but as you see above, I had a hodgepodge collection. I worked it out as follows – this unit consists of 40 figures:

Command section (2 each – platoon leader and platoon sergeant)
Three full squads (11 each) led by a squad leader each consisting of:
- Two teams of 5 (Team Leader and 4 F.R.O.G. Troopers)
1 Heavy Weapons/Recon section consisting of a Section Leader, 3 F.R.O.G. troopers, and a Frogbot.

It took a bit to clean and file all of these figures. They had some casting issues (mainly cracks) that I repaired with kneadatite (green stuff). I then moved on to the Frogbot, which was not a Lortz creation. I had bought it on eBay with a number of other Critter Commandos, and it deserves a few notes.

4a Frogbot pieces — All I had for the Frogbot

The kit was incomplete. There was no main gun, but there was a small hole in the front of the main body. Pinning was not possible because the legs were made of some kind of tubing., and the plastic “googly eyes” you see above would not meet my standards. Clearly, there needed to be some changes. First, I filed the main chassis down to remove as many casting crevices as possible. I then got a short bolt extender, and patiently reamed out the small hole to affix the extender as a main gun for the model.

5 mounting gun — The reamed out hole and bolt extender

Then I needed to make it look, well, froggy. The eyes were an issue, so I bought some cheap beads at Michael’s. Using some dollhouse hinge screws that I drilled into the Frogbot chassis as mounts, I affixed the beads as sensors/eyes after reaming them out slightly. Then I carefully glued the rest of the model together.

7 resurrected Frogbot — Assembled Frogbot

While I really was happy with the figure, the engineer in me thought that it was too structurally weak. So I used green stuff to reinforce the legs and chain guns, as well as to fill in around the eyes and create a mantlet for the gun.

8 resurrected Frogbot after green stuff — Structurally reinforced Frogbot

I was now ready to prime the lot. I used my airbrush to prime the figures. Without going into painting detail here, I will show the figures and the progression of the project. I list the paints I used at the end of this post for those interested.

First, the lot before mounting on 1¼” washers and priming

I decided to give each sub unit its own different amphibian skin color and color for accouterments, while keeping the majority of the uniforms the same. This was to help with tabletop identification.

Command group got greenish skin and red for accouterments
First squad got greenish blue skin and dark blue for accouterments
Second got yellowish green skin and yellow for accouterments
Third squad got bright green skin and purple for accouterments
Heavy Weapons/Recon Section got grayish green skin and orange for accouterments

10 mid stage first squad — 1st Squad base coated

14 2nd squad painted — Second Squad base coated

15 3rd squad painted — Third Squad base coated

Once the painting was complete, I used Army Painter “Quickshade” (strong tone) to shade the models, followed by a coat of Vallejo “Matte Varnish”. I then highlighted the models, and then added another coat of varnish with my airbrush. I used Army Painter tufts (Jungle, Swamp, Woodland, and Meadow Flowers) to further assist in tabletop differentiation.

17 heavy~recon section painted — Heavy Weapons/Recon Section before shading and warnishing

18 Platoon in a box — The entire platoon in the box awaiting transport

19 leaders together — The 4 leaders showing their different skin tones and accouterment colors

23 hvy wpns~recon section deployed — Heavy Weapons Section

There were 8 different poses plus the Frogbot, so here are some front and back poses. You can see some of the differentiating features here as well.

24 figure 1 Captain Frog — Figure 1 ” Captain Frog” with revolver and sword

25 figure 2 Staff Sergeant Splash — Figure 2 – “Staff Sergeant Splash” with flame thrower

26 figure 3 Corporal Dripp — Figure 3 – “Corporal Dripp” with flame thrower looking like a hair dryer

27 figure 4 Trooper Ribbet — Figure 4 – “Trooper Ribbet” with assault rifle

28 figure 5 Trooper Hopper — Figure 5 – “Trooper Hopper” with assault rifle and pineapple grenade

29 figure 6 Trooper Budd — Figure 6 – “Trooper Bud” with assault rifle

30 figure 7 Trooper Wyze — Figure 7 – “Trooper Wyze” with assault rifle and an antitank mine

31 figure 8 Trooper Wyze — Figure 8 – “Trooper Urr” with assault rifle

15 3 way Frogbot deployed — The Frogbot. Note the middle photo with the shout out to “F-4” on the back. The camouflage pattern is inspired by Japanese WWII tank patterns.

I am very happy with this project, and hope that you enjoyed it as well.

Thanks to:

My wife (for putting up with me during this project – again)
Chris Palmer – for the box and inspiration!
Buck Surdu – for the inspiration and some old paints from Polly S
Dave Wood – for starting me on this hobby back when we were roomies
All my readers – for inspiring me and sharing their feedback!!

PAINTS AND FLOCKING USED:

Vallejo “Surface Primer – White”
Vallejo “Camouflage Olive Green”
Vallejo Model Air “Aluminum”
Vallejo Mecha Color “Light Green”
Vallejo Mecha Color “Deep Green”
Vallejo Mecha Color “Yellow Fluorescent”
Vallejo Game Air “Sick Green”
Vallejo Game Air “Beastly Brown”
Vallejo Game Air “Black”
Vallejo “Dark Blue”
Vallejo “Neutral Gray”
Vallejo Model Air “Steel”
Polly S “Interior Green”
Vallejo Model Air “Black”
Citadel “Retributor Armour”
Vallejo Game Air “Sun Yellow”
Vallejo “US Dark Green”
Citadel “Yriel Yellow”
Vallejo “Red”
Citadel “Imperium Primer”
Vallejo “Glaze Medium”
Vallejo “Thinner medium”
Testors “Universal Acrylic Thinner”
Citadel “Waywatcher Green”
Citadel “Coelia Greenshade”
Citadel “Athonian Camoshade”
Citadel “‘Ardcoat”
Citadel “Fire Dragon Bright”
P3 “Sulfuric Yellow”
P3 “Red Ink”
Vallejo “Yellow Green”
Vallejo “Sunny Skin Tone”
Vallejo Game Air “Moon Yellow”
Vallejo Mecha Color “Purple”
Vallejo Game Air “Escorpena Green”
Vallejo Mecha Color “Green”
Vallejo Mecha Color “Purple”
Vallejo Mecha Color “Green”
Vallejo Mecha Color “Green Blue”
Vallejo Model Air “Copper”
Vallejo Model Air “Gun Metal”
Vallejo Model Air “Medium Gunship Gray”
Polly S “WWII German Armor Dark Brown”
Vallejo “Japanese Uniform WWII”
Citadel “Nuln Oil”
Polly S “Venetian Dull Red”
Vallejo Model Air “Wood”
Army Painter “Quickshade – Strong Shade”
Vallejo “Matt Varnish”
Citadel “Stirland Mud”
Citadel “Lustrian Undergrowth”
Polly S “British Brown Drab”
Army Painter “Woodland Tufts”
Army Painter “Swamp Tufts”
Army Painter “Jungle Tufts”
Army Painter “Meadow Flowers”

Thanks again – please share your thoughts in the comments section!

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