1st Grav Bike Race

 This is my first trial race of the Grav Bike Rules. It features Vrkta'klak Kravnkvy on the black and grey bike, Garry Gleam on the white bike, and Shy Martin on the purple bike. It would be a 10 track section race.

The lights turn green and they are off. Vrkta'klak and Garry make the early pace as Shy moves to a higher level.

Vrkta'klak moves into the lead as Garry has to avoid a column blocking his path, allowing Shy to move past him on the outside.

Garry declares that he is going to shoot this turn, this will make any manoeuvres he makes much more difficult as he tries to line up a shot. Once he is in the same lane and height as Vrkta'klak he fires and automatically damages his bike.

The advantage of being at the back is you get to place the obstacles on the new section of track. Shy fails a drivers skill test while changing height, but fortunately not by enough to hit the roof. Garry and Vrkta'klak also both fail drivers skill tests and slam into the side walls, causing damage to their bikes.

Garry again fails a driver test, when trying to gain height to get over a low wall. He's not so lucky and slams into the ceiling and with no armour on top he's out of the race.

Vrkta'klak has had the luck with him and flies with the throttle wide open can anything stop him.

In a last ditch effort, Shy slows down, announces he will be shooting this turn and gets the shot which is enough to end Vrkta'klak's race.

For a first run through of the first set of rules I've tried writing, I think they went well with no big errors in them so far. A bit of tweaking need to reduce the number of clear track sections, in fact I'll probably get rid of them altogether other than the first section.

Grav Bike Racing Part One

 Who after seeing the grav bikes in Star Wars didn't want one to race around on? Well that's unlikely to happen for a few more years, so I decided to do the next best thing, which is to create a game of Grav Bike racing. It would have to be a fast play game to keep the feel of it right. The rules are just about finished and hopefully I'll get them played in the next week or so. Here are the bikes I have ready for the game so far, they are all from Ground Zero Games 15mm range.

These two are the Kra'Vak single seater bikes.

These two are the New Israeli single seater bikes.

These two are the Outrim Coalition single seater bikes.

And finally these two are ESU single seater bikes.

I'm looking at getting some paper tracks made over the weekend, and then should be all set to playtest the rules, which I will eventually make available on the blog.

What's been on the painting table 2021 Part 2

Here's the the latest lot of painting/modelling I've been up to. I decided to get some more terrain built for future sci-fi/cyberpunk games.

These are two fast food outlets for Albion City. On the left is the homecooked style of the Albion Liberty Kitchen and on the right, for the more adventurous, the flavours of Multicultural Albion. Each has there own followers, the Alkies and Ma's boys.

A lot of the power within the city is provided by hydrogen produced with solar power. Very clean and efficient, but does tend to go with a big bang when shot at.

Finally some more storage tanks, but with a more industrial feel.

It's surprising what you can do with some coffee cartridges, large screw on lids, cotton reels and a bit of paint.

 

What's been on the painting table 2021 Part 1

Well I still haven't got the first Rangers of Shadow Deep scenario posted. My camera decided it didn't want to focus, either that ot my eyesight makes everything look blurry anyway. It is coming.

In the mean time I thought I'd post a few of the things I'd been painting recently. This is a batch of sci-fi figures I have had for quite a while, so I've put some paint on them with no particular game in mind yet, though I am looking at trying out Hardwired soon, as well as the anticipated Stargrave. After reading Red Player 1's blog I may have to dig out Laserburn again.

These are a mix of Critical Mass figures, now through Ral ParthaUK, and Laserburn figures from Alternative Armies.

The building was quickly scratch built from a coffee jar lid and some packers, as well as a hatch and fans I have bought in the past.

Again these are a mix of, I think, all Alternative Armies figures.

These are all the EM4 Mechas, with a 15mm figure shown for scale. I'll maybe have to read Osprey's Gamma Wolves now, or use them as small mecha/robots in 15mm scale

Preparation for First Rangers of Shadowdeep Game

 To get ready for a game of Rangers of Shadowdeep I had a bit of preparation work to do, to get the figures and terrain ready. Well, I've had about a year getting ready, but seem to have had a spurt of activity over the past couple of months.

First up are the boards to play the game on. As I'm going to be playing the game in 15mm, I've decided to change the inch measurements to centimetres.

During one of the brief interludes between lockdowns I managed to go to the local scrapstore in Hull. They sell a variety of both new art equipment and end of line bits & pieces and general useful looking bits. I ended up buying 8 hardfoam boards, roughly 59cm x 49cm and 0.5cm thick. At £1 each they seem good value.

Here's what the bare boards looked like.

I then covered the board with a Javis landscape mat. Although I have now learnt to glue it on in small strips, as otherwise it does tend to bend. I ended up having to break the glue under half the mat, so it would lay flat. I intend to make more of these boards, at least two of each, so that I can have a variety of terrain and larger boards if required.

I have started on one using Fablon, the sticky back plastic, but that hasn't gone well so far 😭.

Next up came the buildings, these are all from Timeline's Dark Ages set.

With the larger huts, the one on the right is from Timeline and the other I built with my daughter when she was studying the Vikings. It's made from balsa wood and fake fur.

Next up came the objective markers and general small terrain. All of which are from Alternative Armies. The statues are from there 15mm range, but just looked a bit too large.

Next up came the monsters I would need. I already had some zombies, they are modern day ones, but that shouldn't matter, I'll just not use the obvious modern ones. The giant rats are from the Reaper Bones collection. The Giant Spiders and Flies are from a job of plastic bugs on Amazon.

Finally come the characters for the ranger and his companions. They are from various manufacturers, Demonworld from Ral Partha UK, Copplestone from North Star Miniatures and Alternative Armies.

Hopefully all that is left now is to play the game this weekend.

It's the Graveyard dash

 This was my second solo game of last year and used the Ganesha Games Fear and Faith rules. It was a simple get out of the graveyard before the zombies got you. Our intrepid heroes consisted of Jason and Freddie, two Quality 3+ Zombie Hunters, and Janet, Ricky and Ben, Three Quality 4+ Zombie Survivors.

The games began with D6 zombies outside each tomb, and every second turn a further D6 would emerge from one of the tombs. The Zombies were under group control for each spawning and would simply head towards the nearest, visible non-zombie and attack.

The initial set up.

Jason and Freddie seemed able to move fairly easy, but could not seem to activate the others, and with the F&F system if you fail two then initiative passes to the other side. The zombies seemed pretty good after moving if slowly with a lot of groaning.

Jason was the first to engage the zombies and after several misses eventually manged to put one down.

Jason then decided that it might be better to get away from the approaching zombies. All the rest were horrified by the zombies and rooted to the spot.

While Jason continued moving away, Freddie battled on taking out two more zombies. The other three still stood there.

Jason fought on valiantly, but eventually the weight of numbers brought him down, this seemed to give the others legs, as they ran away from the zombies finally. Rick and Ben headed one way, while Janet went the other.

It's looking like they might all make it.

Then Ricky decided he was going to stand still and see if the zombies would ignore him.

It didn't work.

Ben made it through the gate while Jason covered Janet as she ran through the two groups of zombies.

The game finished with three of them making it out. An enjoyable game and although the rules are not designed for solo play, they worked well with a simple zombie chase. In future for other types of monster I may write a simple chart for their actions. The only frustration was the activation of the lower quality figures, but this also added to the tension in the game.

The figures are a mix of Ground Zero Games and Rebel Minis. The terrain was all from Blotz, the tombstones and crypts from their 15mm ranges and the gates and fences from the 20mm. The vehicles were from Oxford Diecast.

Gunfight at Beggar's Gulch

Solo Western Action with Six Gun Sound

 It's amazing that given all the spare time I should have had with the lockdowns last year and not having to travel into work, that I only managed to play two solo wargames. Here's the first using Two Hour Wargames Six Gun Sound rules. I've played quite a bit of THW rules, mainly Rally Round The King and 5150. They are enjoyable to play with lots of reactions, rather than IGOUGO type rules.

On one side there was Butch, a Rep 5 Gunfighter, and Sid, a Rep 4 Gunfighter. On the other side were Dirk and Nancy, again Rep 5 and 4 Gunfighters.

The buildings were from Blotz and Empire At War and the figures from Blue Moon's 15mm western range.

Both sides started standing facing each other along the main street of Beggar's Gulch.

Butch drew first, missing Dirk, but causing him the fire back and again miss. Dirk then moved to cover, realising standing in the open was just plain stupid.

Nancy shot at Sid, but again missed. Sid returned fire and Nancy slumped to the ground. Sid too thought standing in the open and both he and Butch ran for cover.

Both Butch and Dirk thought the sneak around the back of the buildings, but Dirk proved to have the steadier nerve and soon Butch lay crumpled on the ground. Sid meanwhile was crossing open ground to get to where Dirk was, after hiding in the church.

Both found cover and a furious see if I can hit the barrel competition began, just as the sun came out and the colours sparkled in the camera lens. Eventually Dirk bored of the game and managed to hit Sid, who after three pirouettes and a last minute monologue, collapsed to the floor to breath his last.

Altogether a fun hours play, now just to get around to playing another game of it.

Very impressed with both the Blotz and Empire At War buildings. The Blotz buildings, the three stores, were much easier to put together and held in place while the glue dried. The Empire At War buildings, the stable and the church, were more complex and required some clamping and taping while the glue dried. Neither required painting, the Empire At War buildings arriving pre-painted and I was happy with the wood look on the Blotz ones.

Next up will be a battle report on my Fear and Faith game.