Tusk-en: Raiders, Jawas or Ewoks

I'm still (im)patiently waiting for the rest of my Star Wars beasts to arrive and I really want to play Tusk so I've got to make a decision and rather than go through my usual procrastination process I've decided to put it to a vote:

Should I...

1. Wait for the "Reeks" to arrive and play Tusk-en.
2. Use Jawas and go hunting for droids.
3. Use Ewoks and go hunting for some of the beasts I already have (hmmmm Scout Troopers?).

So I ask you my fellow gamers, what should I do?

Ee Chee Wa Maa!

Two more parcels of Star Wars miniatures arrived today, woo hoo!!!

The first lot was from a trade on Wargamer AU, mostly droids and a few droid tanks but it also contained a few beasties.  Notably were the rat and cat like creatures in front of the walker like droid.  I think they’ll do for “dog” replacements in Tusk-en.

The second parcel was a combination of two eBay hauls.  A mixed lot of pretty much every era and faction.  What was really surprising was the size of the beasties… they’re huge! And these are only considered their mid range sized miniatures - the Reek is bigger.  I think we’re going to need a bigger boat!

A better shot to show how big these things are, the Rebel trooper and his little furry friend stand no chance.

 

I’ve got enough to play Tusk-en now, and with the last couple purchases I should also have enough to field a platoon or three each of Clone Troopers and Droids so I expect something to start happening with Star Wars Commander soon too.

Flying Lead

I’m still waiting for my Star Wars beasties to arrive from eBay and trades.  Sadly I’ve only managed to get one Reek for the Tusken Raiders to hunt, so I’ll have to just buy some more after the credit card to settles down.  I did manage to score a handful of smaller beasties though so Tusk-en will get played at some point soon.  In one of the trades I managed to pick up a crab droid, some Corporate Alliance Tank Droids and a Commerce Guild Homing Spider Droid.  They’ll add some punch to the droid forces and help to even things out when the Jedi are on the table.

In the mean time I’ve been playing some games of Fantastic Worlds with the Star Wars minis I do have.  The game is very good but the one area that is frustrating me is the amount of time it takes to convert the stats over from the Star Wars Miniatures system.  Now to be fair it’s my fault as there are just so many wonderful options in Fantastic Worlds that it seems a shame to do just a basic conversion.  The combat system also slows down with 20-30 miniatures on the table.

So I finally gave in and picked up a copy of Flying Lead from Ganesha Games.

Flying Lead is based on the Song of Blades and Heroes (SoBH) system which I’ve had plenty of fun with and we’ve also started playing their Naopleonic rules Song of Drums and Shakos.  What attracted me to Flying Lead is that is builds on the simplicity of SoBH and adds in rules for modern weapons, vehicles and morale (among others).  They also provide some online weapon, vehicle and squad builders which make converting the Star Wars statistics an absolute breeze.

So with after going through the rulebook and spending an hour or two with the squad builders I was able to come up with this:

I’ll play a few games this weekend and post some battle reports.  I’ll also post the stats for the miniatures once I’m happy with them.

Tusk…en

I picked up a copy of Wessex Game’s Tusk today with the idea of playing it in a galaxy far far away.

My idea is to use the Victorian science fiction variant of the game to recreate Tusken Raider hunts.  I’ve got more than I need of these guys for skirmishing and a couple of these guys below would make fantastic replacements for the mammoths and dinosaurs found in the rules.

 

I’ll have a look online in all the usual places and in the meantime the kids have a few dinosaur and elephant toys the Tusken raiders can hunt until something more appropriate turns up.

Sshhh… more Star Wars Miniatures.

I noticed that my last few blog entries didn’t contain many, if any photos.  So I’ve decided to rectify that with a quick show and tell of another box of 99 cent Star Wars deals that arrived from eBay today.

They’re pretty much you trooper/warrior mix and for the first time in a while I’m happy enough with their paintjobs.  Some of the Star Wars stuff honestly look like they’ve been painted by my cat, but these look like someone has actually taken care to colour in between the lines.

But I do have to say that I was little disappointed with the Ewoks, their axes are just too big.  And the Jawa’s are either too tall or too skinny (both?). 

The real surprise of the batch were the Imperial Dignitaries.  The photo here don’t show the subtle shading on the gowns and the faces, but it’s there and it works.

Normally I wouldn’t bid on miniatures like these dignitaries as they wouldn’t have a lot of value in a traditional wargame, but a pulp game is a different thing all together and interesting characters can create interesting scenarios.

Looking for some Pulp – We Can Be Heroes

I
I will be king
And you
You will be queen
Though nothing…

Sorry, just couldn’t help myself.

For a while now I’ve been looking for some good skirmish rules for my Star Wars minis but haven’t really found anything that “felt right”.  I think where I was going wrong is that I was looking for some sci-fi rules and while that might fit the period it doesn’t suit the flavour of the Star Wars universe.  What I really need is some pulp rules, and so the search begins…

I’m no good at writing reviews so I won’t try, instead I’ll just list some pros and cons of each of the systems.

I started by picking up a copy of We Can Be Heroes II by TFP Games.  70 pages inc covers, around $12.95US but currently on sale at Wargame Vault for $8.62US.

Pros

• It uses a card based activation system which is something I really like in a game.
• The system isn’t genre specific and comes with a huge range of examples of weapons and armour for different genres.
• Each character in the game are either a Hero, Sidekick, Superior Troops or Inferior Troops (oddly enough there are no “standard troops”).  Each of these types have a fixed set of stats, so all Jedi are the same as all Sith who are the same as all Bounty hunters.  This does make for a lot less record sheet checking and even my kids can pick this up pretty easily.
• Redshirts/droids/troopers: the game has got this trope covered.  A single Jedi can easily take on a squad of battle droids and win in a few turns.  Yes there’s still a little risk the dice won’t be kind and you’ll get hurt but the odds are stacked in the Jedi’s favour.
• A random amount of Hero points are available each turn that we also use as Jedi power points for things like deflecting blaster fire, force push, throwing light sabers and so on.  This allows for cool powers but keeps them in check too.  Yep Obi-Wan can use force push to knock over that unit of droids but there’s six of them and that’ll use up all the Hero points for this turn… you sure you want to do that… there’ll be none left for Anakin to use this turn?

Cons

• Each character in the game are either a Hero, Sidekick…  I know I listed this as a Pro but it also takes away from the game.  My kids won’t care that Anakin Skywalker has the same stats as Yoda or Darth Maul but I do.  This will affect long term playability for me but I’m happy to wear that as this is a game I can play with my kids.
• Skills, these should be a pro but they feel tacked on and really don’t add much to the game.  Reference is made as to how the First Aid skill helps to heal a character but nothing is said in the Combat or skill sections of the Strong, Very Strong or Super Human Strength skills when surely they would have some effect.  A missed opportunity I think.
• It doesn’t really affect play at all but the layout of the book consists of the rules being presented as speech bubbles, see here: Just like that… for the whole book.  It’s not unreadable and it’s doesn’t get in the way but it doesn’t sit right with me for some reason.  The same goes with all the pictures of the miniatures, there’s just too many of them.  At least on for each speech bubble, obviously as it would just look silly having a speech bubble full of rules floating on an empty page.  If they cut the speech bubbles and reduced the number of photos they could easily reduce the size of the book to 35-40 pages.  But like I said earlier this doesn’t affect the fun you’ll have at the table as I haven’t had to refer to the rulebook once during play.

Overall

I’ll definitely be playing these rules with my kids.  There’s a cheap magic supplement available too which makes it a little easier to work out force powers and could easily be used for any form of magic, psionics, voodoo or whatever.

Since the the rules are so simple (not always a bad thing) it won’t take much effort to convert the Star Wars characters into the WCBH rules.

These are the sort of rules you look at and think “I could have made this up myself” well that’s true but TFP have saved you the trouble and the time.  A solid set of rules that are fun to play, and like a true pulp game no one ever really dies.  Which is another plus when the Jedi your five year old is playing takes on two Droidekas and rolls badly… very badly.  The force was not with him that day…

So the search is still on for a set of rules for me.

Next time I’ll have a look at Fantastic Worlds by Ratrap Productions, other rules I’ve got lined up are Larger than Life by Two Hour Wargames and Flying Lead by Ganesha Games.

 

Any suggestions about other pulp rules I should have a look would be greatly welcomed as well.

Storing All The Star Wars Minis

My week at home with the kids has kicked off to a great start.  Finally managed to get some plants planted in the garden we've been working on for far too long, and I've actually been able to spend some time doing some actual wargaming, woo hoo!!

I've been busy with a few things, first is I've been able to get a spot playtesting a new game from Ganesha Games called Songs of ShadowSea.  It's a stand alone supplement based on their Song of Blades and Heroes system and is being written by Dragonblood Miniatures for use with their range of miniatures produced by Cavalcade Wargames.  Played a few games so far and I'm pretty impressed with the system, especially the way they've tweaked the rules to manage magic and artifacts.  I've been using proxy miniatures for my games (hence no photos or AAR's) but I think I'll have to pick up a couple of their Dark Mariners miniatures, wow they look nice.

On the Star Wars front I've finally managed to get all the miniatures sorted, boxed up and packed away.

No seriously look here they all are all packed away in boxes labelled by faction and troop type.  A lot of mucking around but it's a lot easier to find that damned Jawa box when I need it now.

And speaking of storage, here's a shot of the shelves my wife managed to win in an auction for me.  Most of my stuff all in the one spot and in an orderly fashion too boot.

I'm hoping to get a few more Star Wars Commander bases made up this week and with a little luck I'll see if I can wrangle someone into coming over and giving the current rules a run through.

Droids, Clone Troopers and... Grubs?

Ebay delivered some more Star Wars minis today.  Mostly droids and Clone Troopers, I have another 20 Clone Troopers on the way too so I think I've got just about enough of them.  Wouldn't mind a few more droids though, especially those nasty droidekas.

More droids with some of the cool rocket battles droids and two of the crack shot battle droid assassins.  Also some super battle droids, you can never have too many super battle droids.

To help even things up a little there's some heavy duty firepower for the clone troopers.  Some heavy clone troopers and some clone trooper grenadiers.  Note the later period clone troopers in the back left.

I never knew clone troopers rode grubs.  And now that I do know I still don't understand why.  But the mini is pretty cool looking even if somewhat strange.

A very nice looking chameleon droid.

To lead the clone troopers who else could I turn to but Aayla Secura.  Need to sort the light saber out.  Just have to remember to keep the clone troopers in front of her at all times.  Order 66... nasty business.

And to lead the bad guys I just had to have Darth Sidius

Like I mentioned earlier I have another lot of clone troopers coming as well as these scum:

Don't know how they'll fit into Star Wars Commander games but they're so cool I'll just have to find a way.

Echo Base, this is Rogue Two. I've found them. Repeat, I've found them.

The Star Wars minis arrived from Hong Kong, which is suprising since they were the last of about three orders I placed and they're the only ones that have arrived so far.  I'm so bad at waiting for international orders.

The minisatures themselves are basically what I expected: great sculpts and posing with very average paintjobs.  I had to touch up a couple minis, Wedge had a huge black spot on his nose which just had to go.  I almost started touching up other parts of the minis but resisted... for now.

I'm a little annoyed that the Tauntaun riders have different sized bases.  They'ye both Rebels riding the same beast and yet a everyman Rebel trooper has a bigger base than Luke Skywalker?  I may even rebase them one day but for now they'll do as they are.

With a bit of luck I'll get some more bases done this weekend and maybe even start playtesting Star Wars Commander.

Artoo Says That The Chances of Survival are 725 to 1

But he has been known to be wrong... from time to time...

Hoth terrain it is... sort of, well more like Hoth inspired terrain.  Going for snow and glaciers would look nice on the table (easy to make too) but I'd just end up with a lot of terrain that I probably won't use for anything else.  Snowy, icy, muddy, rocky terrain still fits in with the theme of a Snowtrooper and would be very welcome on any game that had a Western European theater of conflict.

I managed to nab quite a few items on e-bay last night, mainly troopers and a few semi-famous characters.  Who knew that some chick called Arica was actually Mara Jade in disguise?  I sure didn't. 

The prizes of my haul:

• Ewok Shaman Logray
• Luke on Tauntaun
• Rebel trooper on Tauntan
• Leia Organa
• Han and Chewie in their Hoth gear

My eldest son looked over the list and nodded, "Oh cool, but you still haven't got a Threepio though".

My work is never done.

Many Bothans Died To Bring Us This Information...

I've almost settled on a basing scheme I'm happy with... almost.  I'll give it a few games and make my mind up after I get some feedback.  Besides the materials have cost almost nothing so far ($1.15 by my rough calculations).

The bigger and more immediate problem at hand is, as it is for all wargamers, is storage.  My SW minis are currently in boxes scattered between the study, the shed and Gork know where.  As luck would have it there were some boxes being thrown out at work, boxes of boxes actually, that would fit a couple platoons of miniatures each, I'll have those thankyou very much.  So I've started to the long process of finding, sorting and storing.

The bases got their coat of sand tonight and once the glue dries a little I'll give them a wash of brown ink and they should be ready for drybrushing and flocking tomorrow night.

It's too cold to make more bases tonight so I'll start tidying up the bases of the Clone Troopers.  I'm making a huge effort not to start touching up the paintwork on these minis.  I will do it, eventually, but right now I have better things to spend my time on than what shade of white looks best on a Snowtrooper helmet.

Huge dilemma: which era and location to game in first?  Clone Wars era troopers vs droids or go classic era and somehow decide between Endor and Hoth?

*sigh*

Too many choices, too many cool minis.  Ain't it grand being a gamer :)

I Have A Good Feeling About This...

I've been wanting to do a Star Wars mass combat game for a while now (see here) and last night I had an epiphany while painting some Warmaster minis.  I was thinking about Tim over at Tim's Miniature Wargaming Blog and how he plays Hordes of the Things (HoTT) in 28mm when it suddenly struck me that I could use Blitzkrieg Commander to play Star Wars in 28mm.

My current theory is to use the late war army lists as a reference point to start working out the stats.  Jedi/Sith and other major characters will be CO/HQ/Recce units and will have the ability to use force powers in the command phase.  I've started to make some notes and once I've roughed them out a little more I'll post them here.

One thing I'll need though is stands for the miniatures.  I've decided on 100x60mm bases for the infantry and special HQ/CO bases will have 2-3 slots for the characters.  Idea is to cut two pieces of 3mm MDF to size and then drill five 25mm holes into one piece (the top) and glue it to the other (the bottom) creating a base with recesses for the miniatures to be slotted into.  This is a *lot* of fiddy work but it means that I can make 20-25 bases and then use them with whatever figure I have.  Unused figures can simply be stored in ice cream containers rather than needing valuable shelf space.

3mm MDF, toos and the plans.

I did that the width of the cutting blade into consideration when measuring the cuts but I did everything freehand as it was faster and as long as the bases are roughly the same size the affect on the game is minimal.

End of part one, the bases cut.  Now onto the holes.

All ready to go.

The bases cut and base holes done.

A couple shots of the bases all glued and minis slotted into place.  30 or so minutes from first cut to gluing isn't too bad, another hour or two this weekend should give me all I need.

Next step is to add sand and flock to the bases and do likewise the minis.  I'm pretty excited about this as I'm sure it's going to look fantastic on the table.  May even get these on the table this weekend for a few test games.

More Star Wars Miniatures

I picked up some more Star Wars minis today and I'm pretty happy with it too. A kind of "Troopers-All-Sorts" you might say, well ok maybe you wouldn't say that. I didn't get any cards with the minis but Card Vault has all the stats anyway so it's not a big deal. Although it does mean I don't have to worry about sorting and then storing them.

If you look very carefully at the photo below you might be able to make out where I stopped meticulously sorting the minis and took a less organised approach.



I think I've got enough now to get some nice sized games going. A few more Battle Droids wouldn't hurt, and eventually an AT-AT or two, but for now I've got pleanty to keep me going.

Here's a breakdown of all the minis, I've left out a few of the singles unless they're of note (ie they look cool).

Rise of the Empire
10 Super Battle Droids
22 Battle Droids
1 Hailfire Droid

2 ARC Troopers
3 Utapau Troopers
1 Raxus Prime Trooper
5 Saleucami Troopers
17 Clone Troopers
3 Elite Clone Troopers
1 Kashyyyk Trooper

Rebellion Era
4 Imperial Officers
2 Imperial Pilots
4 Death Star Troopers
21 Stormtroopers
5 Sandtroopers
5 Scout Troopers
13 Snowtroopers
4 Dark Troopers (Phases I-III)

7 Rebel Pilots
8 Rebel Commandos
20 Rebel Troopers
25 Hoth Troopers
1 Snow Speeder

New Republic
6 New Republic Troopers

Look... Droids Sir!
3 R5 Astromech Droids
2 Gonk Power Droids

Gonk droids, you just gotta love 'em.


A shot of the Dark Troopers, these guys are big!

Speaking of big, one thing I like about these minis, the Dreamblade minis too, is that they may not always be to scale but they still are big.

URoRRoR'R'R

A quick update to show the first test of the Star Wars Minis base detailing. I've glued sand/gravel onto something like 150 of them so far but I wanted to do some paint tests before I got too carried away.

Here's some Tusken Raiders and Jawa's I've given a base coat to. Once this dries I'll hit it with a dry brush and they'll be done.

My initial thoughts were to do them all with a dirt/grass combo but it just wouldn't look right for the Tattooine creates, let alone the snow creatures. So I've decided to honour their locations so that the Wampa will get a sleet/snow base, Jawas sand, Ewoks forest floor and so on.

Then again anything I come up with just has to look better than a blank black base.

The only concern I have right now is do I rebase the newer minis? I really don't like the square bases at all. I have a metric ton of 25mm GW round bases here but it's going to be a lot of work rebasing them all.

A Long Time Ago...

Not so long ago a friend of mine asked me if I knew of any good rules that could be used with the Star Wars miniatures put out by Wizards of the Coast. There's nothing wrong with the official rules per se but they play more like a boardgame than a wargame. Again, there's nothing wrong with that either: I love Bloodbowl and that's a boardgame no matter how you try to dress it up.

Well at the time I mentioned that Two Hour Wargames have 5150 and their free rules Chain Reaction either of which could do the job if he was willing to put in a little time converting stats and attributes.

More recently however I'm thinking that something like Troops, Weapons and Tactics could work just as equally well. The stats don't even really have to be changed that much, a rifle becomes a blaster an e-web blaster is an MG42 and so on. Jedi and Sith become "Big Men" and it shouldn't be too hard to make up some rules for Jedi powers.

Not that I need another project on the go right now but I think this could be a quick one to get on the table. The minis are for the most part painted to a table ready level, a bit of work on the bases and they're done. throw down some 28mm terrain and we're away.

This could be the start of something quite fun.