Not dead yet - and BatRep

Hi,

long time has gone since I wrote my last post because of real life calling... and Skyrim.
It always has a role in procrastination.
BUT... I'm still here and in these months I had some good gaming with my mates Affro, Mr BBocci (if you don't know his masterpieces, you should go to: http://www.artflakes.com/en/shop/matteo-bocci) and Yuri, so my patient girfriend will not hear me telling her about game rules for a while.
Maybe.
Btw: we fought a great scenario prepared by Yuri with the rules of THW CR3 using 15mm minis. The backgound and rules were GREAT, but we had very unlucky dies in our hands and in the end there were not much action.
The plot was about finding/neutralizing gunrunners with a stealth approach and then kick the buyer's a$$ as soon as they appeared... quite fun!
The scenario was full of Yuri's greatly painted 15mm civilians and since we are a bunch of good guys the engaging rules were focused on civilians preservation.

Here are some pics:

Our layout :). Next to us some friends were playing some boardgames.

First building, first room to clear. Paper maps are Yuri's and they may be from Cyberpunk -but not sure, I have to ask him again-.

ME:
"Where are the bad guys? Tell me!"
- roll d6
"I don't know"
"Oh."
- Guys, can I shoot him?
- No. Rules of Engagement. We are supposed to be the good guys.
- Damn.

Mr BBocci:
"Where? Tell me!"
- roll d6
"I don't know"
"Umf."
- Guys, can I shoot these two?
- No. Rules of Engagement. We are supposed to be the good guys.
- Damn.

Affro's team explores the tabletop trying to reveal a PEF

Affro's team gets miserably lost in the swamp

Some people look to Affro's team and think no one will go back home

Affro's team approaches the last shack.
No one from his team came back home (5 Sahadeens inside with a LMG).

However, in the next batrep I'll post you'll see Affro taking his revenge... against me.

Cheers
Andrea

NUTS in Italiano!

Dear all,

after a long absence I publish this post to announce that Ed Teixeira from THW will soon provide on the THW site an Italian translation of his wonderful WW2 game, NUTS!, which I've been honored to give my small contribution!
While I'm enthusiast for this decision that will hopefully bring Ed's wonderful games to more users, I decided henceforth to post comments in my blog in both English (in white) and Italian (in the below undefined colour -did I say I'm colorblind?).
Hope to be also able to post soon a review/batrep of NUTS (a batrep with probably a Sci-Fi twist -maybe taking advantage from the free zombie supplement?)!

Ciao a tutti,
dopo una lunga assenza pubblico questo post per comunicare che Ed Teixeira della Two Hour Wargames renderà disponibile a breve sul suo sito la traduzione italiana del suo pluripremiato gioco di schermaglie ambientato durante la 2nda Guerra Mondiale, NUTS!, alla quale ho avuto l'onore di dare un piccolo contributo.
Sono entusiasta della scelta di THW di venire incontro al pubblico italiano ed ho deciso che da ora in poi posterò anche nella mia lingua (in questo colore ragguardevole).
Spero di essere in grado di pubblicare presto una recensione di NUTS! ed un battle report (probabilmente con qualche adattamento che farà accapponare la pelle ai giocatori di wargames storici, come il supplemento con gli zombie nazisti disponibile gratuitamente...)

Cheers,
Andrea

BatRep: Battle at Monster&Co

Hi,

as promised here's my first batrep involving the terrifying Aberration Prime!
Unfortunately we made just a few pics, anyway, this was the situation:

An abandoned research site has been taken from a well armed group of rebels looking for a loot. They don't know about the experiments the Alliance was managing underground neither why the site has been abandoned... Before being locked down by AI systems, the site launched a desperade SOS request... Now a patrol has been send to investigate. But time is runnig out: the armour-plated doors connecting the undeground labs to the outside will not resist a long time against the frenzied Biological Weapons that are now crawling in the blood-stained corridors!

I played with 6 people (!) everyone having control of 3-4 troopers and divided between Attackers (the Alliance) and Defenders (the Rebels). The ruleset is CR3, with some material from CR2 and some draft tables and stats I made...






So... I think this will start a new adventure soon!
Stay tuned!

Cheers,
Andrea

Neverending Dilemma

Hi,

I'm into the average nerdy wargamer dilemma: what is the best scale to play with?
Ok- there's no one scale which is better than another... still, I'm promising myself to follow these guidelines that should allow me to use the TON of minis I collected in 28mm, 15mm and even 20mm:

-I will use the nice, inexpensive and space saving 15mm minis for large battles in "open" environments involving vehicles and buildings
-maybe I will sometimes use 20mm instead of 15mm (just for the pleasure of changing something!)
-My 28mm minis will be used for a slightly better personal feeling to adventures, and will be employed for dungeon crawlings as well as scenarios involving detailed characters instead of squads of grunts.

There are simply too many minis in the market -and in my house...- to give up with a scale.
Then, I found that CR3 system is perfectly able to manage all the level of details I'd like to try.
Add some features to grunts and Stars and you have a lite rpg.
Use more generic pieces and the game will run fast with more combatants involved.
Wow!

As I started my little blog with the idea of reducing posts without pictures to the lest possible (pictures are what I'm usually looking at on other's blog... and all the blogs I follow have plenty of VERY nice photos or images!) and in relation to what I said above about playing "detailed characters when in mood for 28mm", I post here a pic of the party I prepared some years ago for Inquisitor game (GW specialist game).

From left: Blood Angel Sgt, Space Wolf veteran, Inquisitor, Imperial Guard Sniper.

I played "Inquisitor" once but the rules were uber detailed for my/my friends taste... guess what ruleset I'm going to use, now? :)))

Cheers,
Andrea

BatRep: Battle at the Gym

Hi,

after the great satisfaction I had from playing CR3 intro game with Affro, I repeated yesterday the same "patrol" scenario (same forces involved but different terrain) with Paolo.
Paolo manages the gym I nonchalantly attend and he's a big fan of historical wargaming and a very pleasant person to play with.
We played in the tabletennis room close to the kickboxing training room (where some people were having their lesson!!!)

Please enjoy the... Battle at the Gym!


At this time a lot of very big people with boxing gloves were surrounding us to understand what we where doing... O_O

Two or three of the big guys were at this time quite interested in the battle going on...


After a very short time Paolo had a full understanding of CR3 rules...



and the battle lasted a couple of hours!

After the game Paolo was enthusiast of the rules and he asked me a copy I had on hand of an introduction to Ed Teixeira's system called MG42 (2nd world war scenario).
With the next games I'm planning to start a campaign, I still need to decide with the people involved if it will be in 15mm or 28mm!

Just a note... if we'll play in 15mm I will have to improve Sahadeen's Reputations as they were no match for our Kill Teams!!

Stay tuned!
Cheers,
Andrea

BatRep: Battle at Affro's

Hello,

I finally have had the opportunity to play the game I was planning!

Military patrol vs Insurgent PEFs, Sci Fi setting, Chain Reaction 3 rules: let me say that I've never found rules as good as these.

The mission: patrolling an abandoned area where Sahadeen scouts have been detected.

First of all: the table. Me and my friend Affro set up something that was between "Passable" and "OMG, that's horrible", with some well made pieces of scenary together with some crap:

As it was our first game we made some mistakes here and there, but everything has been quite smooth.

After determining the PEFs, our Recons (we played cooperatively) started patrolling the area close to the boat. A scout detached from our group found a Sahadeen presence (not a formerly determined PEF) in the Church area:

Then we kept on patrolling the other sections where we found a "false alarm" and then a "real" menace:

Then a lot of things happened! My Rocket Launcher trooper had a bad reaction to his Leader getting stunned and went away looking for cover... and became useless for the rest of the game as I sent noone to rally him (!), and we found the third PEF in the abandoned facility area, close to the Artillery Cannon:

But, despite all the resistance... at the end we won!

After this first battle I think I will have soon more... 15mm minis and THW rules are just the Holy Graal of miniature wargaming!!!!

Cheers,

Andrea

Sahadeen army: ready for tonight game!

Hi,

I finally succeded in painting all my Sahadeen insurgents from Rebel Minis!
The paint job is quite simple, still I think that's enough for 15mm minis.

I'm going to try out tonight Chain Reaction 3 introductive scenario with Affro (have a look on his nice blog here ).

We well play as a couple of squads of hard boiled Light Recon bada$$ (from CMG) patrolling an area where Sahadeens are supposed to have left some forces.
As you can see I painted the bases with different colors as suggested in THW yahoo group so it will be very easy to recognize every guy's Reputation (the main stat in Chain Reaction system).
Red=Rep 5, Black=Rep 4, Green=Rep 3, Yellow=Rep 2.

I will post soon the battle report,
Stay tuned!

Cheers,
Andrea

Maybe one day I will finally be able to PLAY!!!!

Hello,

I'm going a bit slowly with painting but I'd like to show you some wip.
Below are my Sahadeens, both soldiers and special weapons.
As soon as possible I will complete the force to use it as insurgents for Chain Reaction 3 "Patrol" scenary at the end of the book (you can find all the infos and download the rules for free here: http://www.angelfire.com/az3/twohourwargames/index.html ).
A very nice thing of this scenary -and of THW in general- is that you can play in cooperation with a friend and let "the game" handle the Possible Enemy Forces.

Then, as the background I'm planning involves marsh and savage environments, I was thinking to add some random threats... like bugs or some strange monsters.
Well... after years of collecting all kind of crap I have a lot of stuff that can be useful :)!
Some rubber spiders and old minis from Mage Knight would perfectly work:


And if you have any question about the size...

Hope to be able to post soon a batrep!!!!

Cheers,
Andrea

Marsh battle -terrain tryout

Hello,

instead of posting pics of the finished terrains I was working on -there might be some more work in order to make all the cardboard edges invisible...-, as they're all just quick-and-easy and not incredibly detailed if taken alone (I saw amazing terrain pieces on the blogs I'm following!), I opted for posting pics of the tabletop I'm trying to compose for the game to come (I have a lot of Sahadeen waiting for some painting...).

Here's my Light Recon patrolling an abandoned marsh area, assisted by an exo-armor support (a GW 28mm Tau model). At the moment their work is useless... I'm sure they'll find no Sahadeen warriors to riot with ;) .
I would like to add more and more vegetation to the final display.

Below is a closeup of the Light Recon and Exo support taking control of the area.
Still no Sahadeens on sight!

Below a third photo showing the nice Tau model I used for Exo Armor trooper. I like its aspect a bit similar to Hiroki Endo's Eden exo armors (I can't find pictures on the web, you can refer to Wikipedia for more info about: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eden:_It%27s_an_Endless_World! ).
Some 28mm minis work very well with 15mm troopers!

If you have any comment/suggestion just let me know!
Cheers,

Andrea

Rules that rule

Hi!

the main thing I've been thinking about when I started getting interested in 15mm (but it was the same with other scales too) has been to find good rules to play with.

I appreciate systems in which every mini has his own opportunity to be the hero of the game and all miniatures are based individually. Said that, I found the best resources are on the web.

I'm a fan of Ed's Two Hour Wargames rulesets (http://www.angelfire.com/az3/twohourwargames/index.html ), that are completely different from any system I had the opportunity to to try: in Ed's games every action your mini do corresponds to a reaction from the other side... and the result is really an "alive" table!

I playtested a bit Chain Reaction 3, free on THW website, and found it very versatile. I'm planning a battle with some friends using the the scenario proposed at the end of the rulebook... another innovative aspect is that you can also play same side!

About miniatures, the battle proposed as sample from CR3 is "regular troopers vs insurgents"... my Light Recon squads look forward to act as regulars... while I already ordered -with some help from my very patient girlfriend- the fantastic Sahadeen warriors from Rebel Minis (http://www.rebelminis.com/sahadeenarmy.html ) to take the role of insurgents!

I'll update about the project and post pics asap!

Cheers,
Andrea