Eclipse and Robotech

There's a guy who comes into the local shop every saturday with eclipse and some extra house rules which add a battleship, hives that constantly make more aliens, and a slight economic boost at the beginning among other things. It was just my luck that my small, two solar system empire would immediately uncover an alien hive but by the end of the game i was dealt with and i ahd carved out quite an empire for myself. 

After our game of Eclipse i busted out the Robotech models i had finished for a game. The forces for the Zentraedi were 6 Regults, a Quel-Regult, a Quel-Gulnau, and a Glaug all vs my 2 Valkyries and my Tomahawk which was disguised as a Mad Dog. 

The ammo Dump in the picture below was the objective of the game so my Valkyries flew around each side of the rock formation while my Tomahawk burned command points to haul ass across the table. Unfortunately this didn't leave enough command points for my Valkyrie on the right side of the rocks to dodge. At least the VF-1J killed the Gluag with two bursts from his GU-11.

Once the Tomahawk was in position the VF-1j went into battleoid mode and threw out covering fire from the rocks while the Tomahawk laid down the hurt with his big guns. All the Zentraedi we're eliminated but they didn't go down without a fight. I lost 1 VF-1A and the VF-1J only had one structure point left while the Tomahawk was down to 5. If the Zentaedi had won the initiative i would have been toast.

French 75mm RCL

My French and Viet Minh 75mm teams arrived in the mail yesterday and i am super excited. Feels like I've been waiting forever and a day for them to arrive. I decided I wanted to build the French firing team first so thats what i opened.

Pretty simple, i usually hate trying to put together weapons like this but the assembly was rather smooth and clean up had been easy so no complaints there. Paul Hicks has done a great job sculpting this range, so much so I have to constantly resist the strong urge to throw money at Redstar Miniatures for more figures. Good looking sculpts that paint up rather nicely, here's my finished team, I didn't do a step by step painting guide for them but i might for the other teams.

From excitement to disappointment

Got this big ol' box of stuff today full of Robotech miniatures. After opening the box and seeing the haul pictured below i was pretty damn excited.

There's quite a few pieces in there so that one could build their models in a variety of poses and armaments except the instructions look like this,

Seriously palladium? You got 1.5 million from your backers but it was to much to detail the instructions a little better? Not only are these instructions woefully inadequate but they didn't bother to label ANY of the parts. It's a total crapshoot putting these together. So after about four frustrating hours here is my progress,

To add on to the above problems the parts still don't fit together well with gaps in notable places and damage from shipping. I'm pretty disappointed in the quality palladium has put out but damnit it's now a test of wills for me to finish these models, I'm not going to let them ruin tomcats in space.

Wargaming some alternate history part 1

For anyone who is into alternate history a friend of mine is writing a series of books where the south won the Civil War the first of which you can find here. Right now he's working on the second book for the Spanish-Confederate war but has planned out the series through WWII which is where we will pick up. We decided we would play Axis & Allies but with a home drawn map to represent the world of his books.

This is how the world of 1940 looks. The French empire owns half of Canada while the Russians own the other half. The USA is has armed to the teeth to prepare for war on all fronts while the CSA has numerous infantry divisions but nothing much heavier and the tiny Empire of Mexico sits in the south just being Mexico.

The game lasted for 2 turns which is equivalent to 1 years time in game. By the end of that first year the USA will have occupied Ontario and liberated Ohio from the CSA twice while the French forces build up in Quebec and the rest of the CSA's reserve forces move up to the front lines along with what few units Mexico can offer. Russia managed to pull of a brilliant move and captured both Seattle and the surrounding state eliminating the what few forces the USA could bring to bear.  

Jack Base, this is Jack Twelve...

Thought I'd work on something a little different today and saw the primed Mad Dog on my shelf. Its Not finished yet but things are looking good.

A dark and stormy night

In my local area we were expecting quite a storm with strong winds, rain, hail, possible tornadoes, the whole nine yards and so I did what any sensible person would do a night like such. Sling paint. I find theres nothing like sitting in the house and listening to rain and thunder while painting miniatures so I seized on the moment and worked on the 20 or so Viet Minh that aren't complete yet. Pretty happy with my progress and how they're turning out so far.

Ambushing GM100

The sun beat down the small armored column as it continued along the road and the troops began to roast in their halftracks. There would be no stopping though, Dien Bien Phu had fallen and their unit was falling back from their positions hard. Everyone knew the war was over, they just had to survive long enough to reach friendly lines but first, someone had to scout ahead of the column.

The Lieutenant climbed into the pulpit for the halftrack's .50 cal to get a better look at the area ahead and saw the outskirts of the first village they were supposed to search.

Two rockets exploded the ground near the bren carrier at the head of the column. The Lieutenant watched has his M5 pulled off the road to charge the rocket teams head on. Machine guns blazing the tank took them by surprise and cleared the way for the column, but this was bad, if they were using artillery this heavy there had to be more nearby.

Just as he had that thought that distinct sound which could only be mortars could be heard over the dying echoes of the tank.

Forward! Get this column to the village, we have to get into the cover of the buildings!

And suddenly the surrounding area exploded with VM troops waiting in ambush. The Lieutenant watched as his Legionnaires in the lead halftrack leaped out to fight a desperate melee to keep them from destroying their vehicle. When the dust settled only two men remained backed against the halftrack with white knuckled hands clenched on their SMGs.

The Lieutenant swore, already more VM were charging out to try and push home the advantage but his vehicle driver was on the ball and pulled the vehicle around to provide cover and dismount more Legionnaires to join the fray.

It wasn't long before the Legionnaires began to drop like flies under the VM onslaught, they were everywhere swarming from every direction on top of every vehicle.  

The Lieutenant looked at his radio man. Get on the horn to the Captain, tell him we have VM units in company strength or greater and need reinforcements. His radio man jumped to the task but the Lieutenant feared they would all be dead before help ever arrived. He began to have a little more hope as he heard his flamethrower team finally get into action.

It was too little, too late the VM sprinted past the squad  as a supporting VM squad gunned them down from behind and ran up to the Lieutenants track. This was it, his platoon was decimated and the tank had been immobilized and the Lieutenant knew he was going to die, but if he was going to go down he was going down swingin. He looked at his radio man, who had fixed his bayonet to his rifle and together they lept out to face the horde head on.

The VM looked upon the smoking wrecks and pressed on, eager to close on the Western Imperialists and finally drive them from their homeland. When they found the last of the French forces, they would not be kind.