Figures April 2023

Some photos of figures I've been working on lately.

Bought a bunch of 30 Years War miniatures, maybe six years ago.  Maybe longer.  Finally started painting them.

Above is a base of pikemen in progress.  I'm leaving the center vacant in order to be able to swap out different standards.  To the left is a base of two standard bearers.

Here a stand of pike with standards of the Bavarian army.

Also been working on figures for Zona Alfa.  Think the video games S.T.A.L.K.E.R., mixed with the miniatures game Frostgrave.  You're venturing into the "exclusion zone" to find artifacts.

The rules don't specify where or what the exclusion zone is, but clearly it's Chernobyl.  But what's really neat is you can make it whatever you want.

These are Empress SAS figures.  I love their big backpacks.  Not so crazy about the big rectangular stands they're on though.

Here's a bunch that are finished.  The guys in the MOPP gear my buddy Joe gave to me to paint.  They're 80's era Soviets.  The others are other figures from Empress, including some from their Chechnya range.
 

Greek vs Greek

 

Started up the full campaign game of Peloponnesian War, GMT's solitaire game of the conflict between Athens and Sparta.

Played the initial scenario awhile ago, but made a lot of mistakes.  Quick refresher, in this game you basically play as both sides.  Sort of.  As in, it's possible that you will play as both sides.  You start off as Athens, and depending on how things go, you may switch over and play as Sparta.

To sum up the basic mechanic of the game, whichever side you're playing as, the game rewards you less points for good things than it does bad things. As in, you win a battle as the active side, you get 10 victory points.  You lose a battle as the active player, you lose 15 victory points.

Athens' First Objective

Anyway, Pericles starts the game in Athens as your first general (you randomly draw them as the game progresses).  I dispatched him with some ships and hoplites to Cyllere.  

Ravaging the Peloponnese

The game awards victory points for ravaging the enemy's territory, as you can see above.  Historical.

Meanwhile, Archidamus II rolls into Attica.  Typical.  But hey, his heart wasn't in it.

Meanwhile, I'm feeling really frosty, and I send Cleon to Corinth with a bunch of triremes.  Honestly, I knew (after checking the rules) that I couldn't capture Corinth, or even besiege it, but I'm thinking that in a naval battle where Athens has a slight edge in numbers, I can hopefully win a deceive victory.

At this point, Sparta could not mount another expedition since they lacked the manpower, and Athens had practically depleted its treasury.  Up next, I resolve the battles and sieges. 

Marvel Crisis Protocol

Nuff said.

 

Offensive Miniatures Germans

Offensive Miniatures Volksgrenadiers.  Got these at Cold Wars 2020 I think?  Anyway, I like their figures.  Relatively inexpensive metal figures with nice poses.

Rumbleslam

Rumbleslam figures from the starter set.

These are the "Deadly Divas," which I bought after getting the starter.

Bought this several years ago when it first came out.  Added several other of the "teams."  Had them all painted up but had only played once.

Some friends of mine recently picked it up so I've finally been able to play several times.

Pretty fun game.  I got beat pretty bad, but I usually lose when playing games.

 

Stonewall's Sword Part 2

This is the overall situation for the introductory scenario.  Without getting too much into the "crunch" of the rules, basically, the Confederate victory objectives are in the top half of the map, and the Union ones are at the bottom.

The scenario's rules allow the Union player to select a brigade that basically begins the game activated.  I selected Crawford's brigade, seen below, to be activated.

My thought was, they could push the rebels back and try to capture the victory objectives located on the Confederate left flank.

Beyond that, I figured the Union army would more or less steamroll down the map.  Never having played the game before, this playthrough was mainly an exercise in learning the game.

Well, all I can say is, the Union doesn't really have a steamroller at this battle.

Stonewall's Sword

Stonewall's Sword, published by Revolution Games, is a tactical recreation of the Battle of Cedar Mountain from the American Civil War.  It is the first game in the "Blind Swords" system, a relatively light, chit-draw activation set of games where the basic units you control are regiments.  The game system implements events to simulate the "fog of war" as well.

Stonewall's Sword is, I believe, the smallest of the games that have been released so far.  I bought it back in 2017 or so at a gaming convention.  It's just taken me years of procrastination and a pandemic to finally get me to punch and clip the counters, read the rules, and attempt a solo play.

When I describe it as being relatively light, I'm relating it directly to The Gamers' Civil War Brigade Series system (as an aside, recently I messaged a friend of mine who lives in New Mexico that we should play something PBEM, and he suggested ITQF 2.  Admittedly I was drunk at the time and had no idea what he was talking about, so I said "Sure!"  The next day he sent me the links to the rules and VASSAL module, and at some point I wound up telling some other friends of mine who were talking about how complex Vital Lacerda's games were and I was like "Uh, I just read six pages on how to issue orders in this Civil War game I'm playing!").

If you've never played a chit-draw game before, basically this it how it works.  You have a cup filled with a bunch of counters representing the various commands.  In this system, there are chits for the divisional commanders (Ewell for example), which, when drawn, allow you to activate one of that division's brigades (such as Early's).  Along with the divisional commands there are chits for the commanders-in-chiefs (Jackson and Banks) and a multitude of events, which can either help you or hinder your opponent.

At first, I thought that maybe there were too many events.  Maybe the game was too chaotic.  But after several turns the game is really delivering a great "feel" of what I imagine a Civil War battle would be.  Some of the complexity with this game comes in just when you can play an event that you've drawn.

One thing I really like about the game is its combat results table.  It's based purely on strength points (SP), as in you count up how many SP you have and do some column shifts and you're done!  Personally, I dislike having to do ratios in games.  The only time you have to do that with these rules is when determining column shifts in close combat; and that is limited to 3:2, 2:1, and 3:1 only.  Admittedly at first I thought that maybe this was too light, but once I played a few turns I started to see how the designer had worked in a good simulation of plausible results while not overtaxing the player. 

One of the best things about this game and this series is the beautiful artwork by Rick Barber, arguably the best map artist in wargames.

Next post, I will delve deeper into the game and my first solo playthrough.