First Game in Ages - Reentering the Hobby

[DalyDR]

After some years of being almost completely out of the whole miniatures thing I finally started painting stuff again, and recruited my three boys into having a game.  We used a simplified version of Stargrunt II and played a scenario where an allied force of three varied squads stage a raid on an enemy base with the aim of destroying a couple of gun emplacements and a power generator. 

The three attacking squads were comprised of GW Tau in Stealth Suits (1st gen. figures), Pig Iron System Troopers, and a trio of Pig Iron War Droids.  The defenders were old Metal Magic Phagon Battle-Clones (PBCs).  All of them were simply painted, as sci-fi isn’t my primary interest in miniatures and I figured a quick job would do for these guys.  The War Droids were just primed black and blocked-in with a color named “Tin”, that’s it.  The PBCs were just painted black, didn’t even bother with highlights, with bits picked out in silver.  The Tau were painted many (15 or so?) years ago and have sat in a box since then.  The System Troopers were painted by one of my sons in the day or so prior to our game; he’s a total novice at the miniature painting thing, I think he did a credible job.

Ultimately the scenario resulted in victory for the PBCs, with only one of the three objectives being destroyed.  It was a fairly lethal game with heavy losses on both sides at the end.  Only a reduced War Droid squad was left on the field for the attackers, and two of the original five PBC squads.

Here’s a couple of snapshots from the game.


Tau Stealth troopers take up firing positions overlooking a Phagon Battle-Clone squad in the distance.




A Phagon Battle-Clone takes cover in a doorway.




War Droids tromp forward.




System Troopers (with an old Metal Magic “Bunker Breaker” as squad leader) advance through a village.




War Droids on the attack.




System Troopers rush into combat.




The Tau advance down an alley way.




Phagon Battle-Clones behind sandbags and barbed wire nervously await the attack.




Terrain was a combination of GF 9 Star Wars-esque desert sci-fi buildings and big guns, some laser cut buildings I got from an Australian (?) company, bits from the Star Wars Legion game, quickly painted sandbag emplacements and barbed wire from cheap plastic army man sets, and a few other things cobbled together from junk.

We had fun, figured out a few things to tweak with our version of the SG II rules, and plan to do it again.  I’ve uncovered my ancient Grenadier Traveller miniatures and a few other batches of dusty old sci-fi pieces and hope to have them see the tabletop soon.  Thanks for looking!

[War Monkey]

All of the figures paint work looks great and the game sounds great.

[Bravo Six]

Daly, that's pretty great paintwork on those. 

I LOVE the Pig Iron stuff and really should get some painted at some point. Also, congrats on coming back to the table after your hiatus.

[fred]

Great that you have got the figures back on the table, and had a good fun game!

I like the look of the Tau figures.

[has.been]

Welcome back & thanks for posting.
Looks like you had fun, which is a
good thing.

[Chief Lackey Rich]

Looks like a fun game with a neat mix of figures.  How'd your lads like modified Stargrunt?

Wish I'd picked up a bunch of those 1st gen stealth suits back when they were available.  The new ones are nice too but they're so big they look out of place with a lot of figs.  Plus having both styles available would have added variety.

[DalyDR]

Looks like a fun game with a neat mix of figures.  How'd your lads like modified Stargrunt?

It went over pretty well.  At least a couple of them had some trouble with the idea of unit integrity, they're used to roleplaying games with individual miniatures running off in all directions and doing whatever they want.  We placed a bit more emphasis on individual figures for shooting purposes to try and ease the transition a bit.  All of them found the suppression thing annoying at first, even though it had been toned down somewhat.  Overall though they enjoyed it.

[BillK]

Cool.

[majorsmith]

Nice setup! Love those droids