Classic Wargame - An experiment in 24" of wargaming!

[Lost Egg]

Thanks DivisMal! I must admit after several sort outs it's quite pleasing to have everything much more streamlined...of course I have a fair few bits still to sell...that might take a while.

Now, let's find out a wee bit more about Alesia...

The Shepherds of Alesia
One of the most common roles taken on by the retired guard, or Cog Lovers as the natives call them, is that of shepherd to the harvesters. One of the most pernicious threats to these giant machines are the lowly scrats; small, fluffy, long-tailed creatures not much bigger than a fist.

In the wild, scrats live in communities and burrow themselves into the thick skin of the Bub-Bub trees, hiding from predators. But, unless their numbers can be kept in check the scrats will gladly burrow themselves into the harvesters; being so small they can go unnoticed and cause considerable damage, bringing these immense machines to a halt. So, it is the shepherd’s job to keep these pests under control, regularly checking the harvesters that roam across their land and culling these troublesome creatures with juralix, a native breed of domesticated hunting cat.

Here you can see spot with its owners Mrs & Mr Balkin, shepherds from Hut 314.

A guard's home is their fortress.
Mrs. Katryn Balkin, Serg. (Ret. with hons)

Spot was fun to paint but damn, the shepherds were a drain...I think it's because the models themselves were a pain to put together...she's converted from a BSF cultist and the modern GW style of building minis is awkward to convert, while he was easy enough to convert but with parts from different Catachan kits all seemingly at different scales. Considering GW sell themselves as making the best minis in the world I think its a poor show. Anyway enough of my mumblings...

...a year or so ago I picked up some Stargrave sprues off eBay to play around with and then they sat in a drawer for aaages. I could never quite muster the enthusiasm to play about with them. The other day I found myself sighing at the thought of painting the shepherds again (I hadn't finished them at that point) and finally started to have a crack to see if I could build some new shepherds I'd be happier with. Do you know what...it was fun, I'd forgotten how rewarding kitbashing could be. Within a day or so I'd built a few minis, as you can see.

The first chap is an attempt to build an Imperial Guard (RT inspired), then its Mrs Balkin mk2 & 1, Mr B Mk2 & 1 then an attempt at an Ork and finally just an armed civilian. I'm not sure yet if I'll actually replace the Balkins or use the mk2s for something else. I think for now I'll focus on playing through the 4 basic scenarios in the Classic Wargame book.

Since building these guys and gals I've ordered a couple of Oathmark sprues and have lots of ideas for conversions. I think I much prefer the size of weapons, the GW ones are massive in comparison, and the fact that Stargrave, Frostgrave and Oathmark minis can be kitbashed together so easily means there is plenty of scope. I think you can assume you'll be seeing much more of these minis in the future!

[tikitang]

This is very inspirational, Lost Egg! I really like what you're doing. I'm glad to see you're getting into the 2' x 2' side of things, which I heartily approve of! I too have struggled for years to get anywhere with this hobby, but I think things are starting to turn a corner now at last, and seeing projects like this come to life are really encouraging to me.

[Gibby]

Excellent stuff. There is something comforting about seeing those classic alien cacti with the red spikes.

[bluewillow]

Great stuff, loving the vehicles too, for me a Amtrak Wars feel about it

Cheers
Matt

[Lost Egg]

 Thanks all! 

Last week I was going to play through the 2nd scenario...but I just felt soo disorganised. As I'm mostly solo gaming at the mo I much prefer to do it when there is no one else in the house (less distracting) so that leaves me maybe a couple of hours on a Thursday afternoon. It all felt so rushed so in the end I packed everything back up again.

Over this past week I've been prepping so I put together a Play Sheet (Quick Reference Sheet), laminated some scenario cards and tidied up some force lists. Feeling much more organised I decided to start again, playing through the scenarios, loosely linking them into my mini Alesia campaign...not in any direct way, more just kinda exploring the events of the setting...if that makes sense...

Well...that was quite brutal for the civilians, but things won't always go the Arbites way as in the next game the civilians will be getting some re-enforcements...a seer!

[Lost Egg]

It's been a couple of weeks but I've not been idle...

My shuttle and her pilot. The shuttle is the Hornet from Mantic but after fluffing the legs (I was never really happy with them anyway) I decided to just leave them off and add some landing skids. I also left off the gun and added something from my bits box instead. As its a terrain piece I decided to do a fairly grubby paint job which I think works well.

I wasn't planning on making a pilot, the thought never occurred but I've been having fun playing about with the Stargrave kits so I decided to build one. The only real change here is the pistol as I'm not convinced by the ones in the kits. This one is from the Confrontation Hand Weapons sprue by GW; the pistol seemed a bit butch to me so I trimmed it down a touch and I think it looks much better.

I'm hoping to play the second scenario tomorrow but after that I'm not sure...I might build some Spacewolves...or I might work on some fantasy minis...

[Lost Egg]

Wow, two posts in two days! That's gotta be a first...anyway...

So...that was a bit one sided. The poor Arbites rolls were as unlucky as the civilians rolls were lucky!  That's was my third sci-fi game I think and it worked well on the whole. It was the first outing for the seer and he did a cracking job Binding that trooper and then bursting his head all in the same turn. Powerful but then he'd have spent the rest of the game legging it across the battlefield if the Arbites had lasted longer.

One benefit of such a compact board size is the action kicks off faster. While this does reduce the manoeuvring game a bit this can be catered for in the scenario and game set up...of course the scenarios I'm playing through at the moment are just basic ones, I have plenty of ideas for more narrative scenarios once I've got more games under the systems belt.

[tikitang]

Amazing! I love this project. Keep 'em coming!

[Lost Egg]

Ask and you shall receive

So...I got a bit distracted from sci-fi as I fancied a change. Once I've played through my planned series of games I'd like to do some fantasy so I thought I'd make a start on some humans; first a shot of my 100pt Human Warband...

On the left is a Hero leading a couple of spearmen, then a veteran leading a couple of archers and finally another veteran leading three spears. Got a bit carried away and have built a few more than I need as I plan to paint them up in units of 5...

I will be adding some veterans to accompany the hero as well as a seer / wizard with some bodyguards. I also have a classic plastic HeroQuest ogre I've converted up.

Plus...once I started to paint the spearmen I started thinking they'd look good as a unit on a movement tray so I ordered a few...

That's what inspired me to convert up the standard bearer and sculpt a horn hanging from the belt of one of the spearmen. In my Classic Wargame rules units are 3-5 minis so this is beyond the scope of this project really...not that it stopped me from jotting down notes and coming up with ideas 

And...finally I was going to play the next sci-fi game before the half term but I started thinking it'd be cool to have the two forces searching for a VIP holed up in the city, then I thought it'd be cool if they were an Ad-Mech specialist as the civilians REALLY hate them right now. While I have Ad-Mech models they are too big and too busy for my tastes (will off load them at some point) so I looked through my Stargrave sprues and built this young(ish) lady...

I like the rifles on the Stargrave sprues but the pistols seem a bit wimpy-looking so first off I grabbed a sprue of Rogue Trader hand weapons, made for Confrontation, but most of them were still a bit too big (even though the weapons were on the same sprue they look like they were sculpted to slightly different scales). For my pilot (a few posts above) I trimmed one of the weapons down which looked much better but this time I thought I'd have a go at sculpting my own...you can see my progress above so far. This is the first gun I've sculpted and I think I've still got a way to go as its quite chunky. My aim was to make it an 'inspired-by' laspistol...but it seems to be heading in a different direction...

[zemjw]

Good luck with the las-pistol. My few attempts to sculpt weapons have been unmitigated disasters

You could try Anvil and Hasslefree (to name but two), as there are plenty of folk out there making weapons.

Personally, I prefer the smaller weapons, rather than pistols that scale up to over two feet long And don't get me started on rifles that are taller than the people carrying them

Anyway, mini-rant aside, this is progressing nicely

[warlord frod]

Wow Steller work at a scale I am leaning into myself. A 2 to 3 foot square playing surface is more than enough room for a good game.

Look forward to seeing what more you have to share.

[Lost Egg]

Thanks Warlord Frog, my thoughts exactly.

Progress has continued to be slow but I am now finally happy with my pistol sculpt. Here are both sculpts alongside some classic Rogue Trader weapons...

This is the hand weapon sprue made for Confrontation; the weapons to the side are a plasma pistol from the sprue with a copy of my first attempt below it, top right is a Stargrave pistol then below that is a classic RT laspistol.

You can see it a bit better in the next pic...

As I said I'm much happier with the new sculpt which is thinner and smaller than the first. In fact, it's actually the same dimensions as the Stargrave pistol but looks a little chunkier and so fits better with the Stargrave futuristic rifle. Hopefully today I can copy it with bluestuff and fit the copy to my Ad Mech operative then I can finally paint her and get cracking with game 3...hopefully...

[Lost Egg]

Quite a few weeks later than intended I finally finished my Ad Mech operative and played the 4th scenario, 3rd game of this mini-campaign. First up, Ad Mech...

This young lady is built from the body of a Frostgrave Wizard 2 with the saddle bags trimmed off and replaced with gubbins from SG sprues. The arms and head came from SG sprues too while the pistol I sculpted myself. Now it's on the mini I do think it's a bit chunkier than I'd like...though I'm not sure if that's because it didn't copy well with the blue-stuff and milliput. I'll likely go back and have a third go as I'd like to use these pistols again, and sculpt more parts so it's all good practice.

This afternoon I played the next game...

So, that's 2 wins for the Arbites and 1 for the civilians, with one more scenario to play through before the big game.

I'm still happy with how the game played, though I do keep forgetting to make use of smoke grenades  I plan on using an MSU (Mechanised Support Unit) in the next game so we'll see how that goes...

[Lost Egg]

It's taken a wee bit longer than I'd have liked but I finished my second unit of spearmen...

As you can see the Veteran leading this unit is carrying a banner, though it offers no benefit in Classic Wargame I thought it'd be fun to do. Blimey the colours in the pic have come out a bit flat...maybe I shouldn't have rushed taking the pic...never enough time.

I also took a pic of the spearmen together on a movement tray...

Not really sure why as units are 3-5 minis in Classic Wargame but part of me fancies adapting things for slightly larger games at some point...maybe...

This afternoon I undercoated my archer unit and a skirmishing tray for them. I've also been working on something a bit bigger...but more on that soonish. Hopefully.

I'm also hoping to get a game in tomorrow, the final scenario from my Classic Wargame where I plan on fielding an MSU (Mechanised Support Unit) for the first time so we'll see how that goes.

[tikitang]

Looking great! Really like that Ad-Mech op!