Instead, they manage an orderly, strategic retreat! The DMC – that is the Dwarven Mining Consortium – was thrown into some disarray when the Space Elf Raiders pulled an orbital drop (with bombardment!) on a remote DMC facility. In short, I was able to play some Xenos Rampant a few nights ago.
To celebrate the New Year, we rolled out our first game of Xenos Rampant. We used the standard 24 pts, with a 6′ by 4′ table, and random rolled the Orbital Drop scenario. My Dwarf Mining Consortium was the Defender.
From the start, it did not go well for the DMC. We lost an entire Recon unit, and nearly half of another Heavy Infantry unit to Space Elf orbital bombardment, and from there, it went pretty poorly from there. Almost comically, as the Space Elfs Raiders relentlessly advanced on the Command Post, and after about 7 rounds, the few remaining DMC withdrew to plan an new tactical offensive.
It may be digital, but a new grudge was added to the Book … er, the Dataslate of Grudges.
On the game side of things, I enjoyed the Xenos Rampant rules. Definitely need to give it a deeper reading, and a more thoughtful approach to building my detachment. It did not fare as expected, which frankly is a good thing for learning a new system.
On the roleplaying game front, I’ve been facilitating a Star Trek Adventures campaign (via Discord). The campaign is set roughly at the end of Strange New Worlds season 2, and before Kirk’s turn at the Enterprise, so very classic (as parsed via SNW to be fair … and some early Starfleet Technical Manual, and maybe some Star Fleet Battles).
The campaign is centered around the crew of the USS Anubis, a Hermes-class starship recently retrofitted and upgraded to a Saladin-class destroyer. Posted to the frontier, with Starbase 11 being their local Starfleet lifeline.
It’s been a ton of fun – we’re really enjoying the system and setting. I keep an updated listing of the “episodes”, and think the listing sort of looks like what you’d find in an old-style TV guide listing.
Episode Listing: “Frontier Diplomacy Blues” (Pilot; Sessions 1-3): The newly refit USS Anubis rescues a kidnapped Federation Ambassador. “Collisions” (Session 4) : The Anubis intercepts a comet threatening Starbase 11, and makes First Contact with an alien race. “Ghost Town” (Session 5) : A team of officers from the Anubis crews the USS Longshot, and responds to a colonial distress call to find an Extinction-level event. “Vent Quin Rend Fou / The Wind That Drives One Mad” (Sessions 6-7): While dealing with Tarkalian flu outbreak, the Anubis finds the lost USS Aeolus drifting in space. “Transport Burst” (Sessions 8-9): The radiation burst from a supernova causes the Captain and Chief Tactical Officer to disappear during transport. The crew races to restore ship systems and their missing command staff while facing down a damaged but still dangerous Klingon D-6. “Fire From The Titans” (Sessions 10-12): An exploration of an ancient power source puts the crew of the Anubis in conflict with the development of two pre-warp civilizations. The crew races to save an alien species from themselves and their long-dead ancestors.
Good gaming, and may you all live long and prosper!
I recently discovered Father and Son Gaming, a small company making Bolt Action and related MDF terrain and such. I placed a small order for a pair of storage trays (and a lid) and a pair of Quonset huts. They arrived yesterday, and went together easily, and I was so impressed that I wanted to share.
I’d been looking for some nice Quonset hut models for my gaming boards, and these fit the bill perfectly. And at $12US for a pair of them (plus shipping), I think they are pretty affordable.
The storage trays can be ordered with various inserts. I went with 25mm rounds, and the tray accommodates 48 of them – shown here holding my Enemy Spotted Studios InCountry minis. The trays have a nice viewing window as well, although I haven’t glued in the included piece of clear acrylic yet.
With the affordable pricing and great pieces, I definitely recommend checking out Father and Son Gaming. They have few very nifty set pieces that I think will add to WWII through modern boards, including some small trawlers and a small airstrip.
I also love their story about father and son working on woodwork and gaming and business together.
Osprey’s The Doomed is one of the shiny new wargaming things, and I got myself a copy the other week. It’s fun DIY-heavy skirmish wargame for small warbands of 8 or less models each. It’s strongly narrative, so hardcore competitive points costing not so much, which suits me fine.
A cooperative/solo friendly game, The Doomed is a ‘bring what you’ve got’ modelers dream. The four factions are designed to cover a lot of ground, so if you have fantasy minis you can use those right alongside sci-fi ones. It’s the end of the world, so everyone gets to party, skirmishly-speaking. Another nifty thing about The Doomed is that in addition to fighting your warband against your opponent, you’re both trying to eliminate a Horror of some type or another. The Horror is another opportunity to bring some fun, old, or scratch build monster models to the table.
I chose this nifty Orcus model (painted by my good friend and horror author Ben Monroe) for the “Devourer” Horror, and some creepy crow flocks to serve as the Minions. Each Horror usually comes with Minions, as well as 3 Nexus Points that need to be defeated before the Horror can be taken out.
The rules proper are light, and take about 10 pages. The rest is warband design, and a nice pile of Horrors and Conflicts, and supporting campaign material. Thus far, I’ve only played a few games against the first Horror with no Conflict, and it’s been challenging. I’m 1/1 so far.
So far, really pleased with The Doomed. It scales for a 2×2 or 3×3 table, presents a nice, colorful, fun book to read, and fun game to play on the table. Looking forward to some more games.
I was looking for some interesting terrain – specifically something oil rig-like in 28mm, and ordered myself one of Death Ray Design Refinery kits. It arrived the other day, and I got right into it. TLDR: Amazing kit, quickly assembled (I got through it and painted it yesterday in a few easy hours), and looks great on the table.
One arrival, it looks like the usual stack of MDF sheets. DRD has clear instructions posted on their website. The pieces were all well laser cut, and came out of the sprue without challenge. Clean fits for assembly as well.
The central column of the hubs and tower took a bit of patience, but fit together nicely, and once glued, felt sturdy. The rest of the kits walls and buttresses were easily added per instructions. I was frankly surprised with how quickly the kit came together, which fed my interest in getting it done.
It settled for a basic battle-worthy paint job. First a good primer layer of black – I used Rusteolium 2x flat black primer, which DRD recommends anyway. From there, I did a sort of zenithal spray of GW Lead Belcher, and called it done.
With drop in walls, bridges and ladders, the set is quite configurable. Just this set nicely dominates a 2×2 or 2×3 space (or even centers a 3×3). I think it’s got great value for the cost, and would make an easy center piece or eye catching display for a board. If you’re looking to promote your game, demo, store or club’s sci-fi minis gaming, this would make an excellent piece to get some attention, especially with the main tower standing about 13″ tall.
One of the indie skirmish games I’ve been enjoying this year has been InCountry, from Enemy Spotted Studios. This was a surprising one for me, but in hindsight, after binging on Seal Team last year, I could have seen it coming. InCountry is a small scale (1-2 teams on a 2×2 board as a default) skirmish game of modern combat – think any of the endless conflicts (or cinema based on the same) from 2000 on. Stat line is minimal, and there’s a lot of action/reaction in addition to alternating unit activation. In 2023, InCountry (INX) has topped my play chart actually, and most solo. Most games run 30 minutes, if that.
Yesterday I set up and played through the first mission of the (free) Deniable Operations mission. As the HVT is data in a server room, I added a little sketched map for the server building objective. Less than 30 minutes later, scenario was over with a BlueFor win.
Game play with InCountry is pretty smooth in my experience. There’s not too many moves (Measures or Reactive Measures), and there’s not a ton of numerical detail to weapons, systems, etc. It’s very streamlined for play. I find it feels like a good episode of Seal TV, and delivers a fast, cinematic experience.
The digital version of the rules are free, along with some supplements (like the Deniable Operations pack) and the more competitive-based InCountry Recon. The default rules are non-points based, so coming up with scenarios and forces is easy as long as you don’t have a desperate need to have “points balance” (in which case, Recon may be your speed).
I’ll talk more about the ESS minis for InCountry and KillWager (their near sci-fi setting and game) in a separate post.
One of the things that’s really surprised and delighted me about miniatures wargaming over the past several years has been the availability of so many great terrain kits and options. Between 3D prints and MDF kits, it’s never been easier to get a home table looking really nice. I’ve taken the opportunity over the past couple years to get into MDF kits especially. I’m not the best modeler, but I find as long as I choose a difficulty within my range (extra bonus points to TT Combat, who mark their kits with difficulty and time icons). One kit I thoroughly enjoyed assembling was Black Site Studio’s “The Kabuki Hotel”, from their Zaibatsu line. After assembling last night and letting it dry, I just had to share the results of this awesome kit build.
Three levels plus roof (all removable), painted, and with some nifty die cut acrylic for the hotel neon signs, this turned out to make a really cool model. I didn’t prep it with any great results, so you can see some of that in the model … I’m all about good being the enemy of done these days, so good enough for me! The kit went together fairly easily – probably not the first kit someone wants to do, but if you’ve done a few kits, this should be achievable (plus the instructions are on line).
At first, of course, it looks like nothing more than a pile of MDF sheets, but after a couple hours … wow!
The Kabuki Hotel currently retails (direct) $49 US, and I feel I got my money’s worth on it. I’ll look forward to getting a few more in the line. Maybe that nifty Medical Center …
When I had the itch to start pushing some of my WH40K models around the table a few months ago, I found myself looking for some alternate rules options and learned about One Page Rules. They make their own versions of grimdark sci-fi and fantasy rules, in unit and skirmish flavors. After reading the rules, I liked what I read well enough to give them a try … and really liked the results. OPR just released their version 3.0 of the rule sets, which I just downloaded and look forward to getting into.
Grimdark Firefight is the skirmish version (small warband / fireteam) and Grimdark Future is their unit-based wargame (think WH40K or Xenos Rampant). OPR has an Age of Fantasy line for regiment, unit and skirmish flavors, and a spaceship combat game as well.
OPR offers the basic rules for free, which will get you a fine skirmish game. It’s with the paid rulebooks that they fold in more options and optional rules – several of which are my preferred home rules/adjustments. Random unit activation, patrol phase, more actions/options, and such. All d6 based, and minis agnostic. If you have some six-sliders, you can pretty much be playing OPR at no cost and have a fun time.
OPR has the advanced rulebooks for each game at ~ $5/each. If you really like what you see, I’d recommend considering the $5 Patreon option. It provides all of the advanced rulebooks as part of monthly $5 fee, along with some discounts for 3D models (printed or STL), monthly mission downloads and other perks. There’s a $10 Patreon level with all the same perks + STLs of all sorts (and it’s an amazing amount of them). If you’re 3D printer enabled, I think it’s worth a look.
OPR also features some free intro/starter kits, which include 3D print STLs
I think another fantastic feature of the One Page Rules offering is their online army builder. Browser-based, it provides a very easy ability to put together an army list and output to cards or listings for easy use. Most of the WH40K factions have analogs, along with some additional science-fiction favorites like Imperial … er, Human Defense Stormtroopers, plucky rebels and such. Patreon supporters also get access to create their own units for use with the army builder, which is functionality I’ve only begun to play with. But if you wanted to model up your own forces using Wargames Atlantic’s range, for example, you could build units to make that line, your own interpretation, etc. It really is a top quality army builder, and at the free level, I think with the rules makes an incredible package.
I’ve been a PDF-level Patreon backer for the past few months – since WH40K 10th edition release, more or less – and in that time, I’ve enjoyed more play with my Space Marine and Ork models than I had prior.
I recently discovered the Heroes of Adventure rpg, thanks to the fine folks at the Mr. Mean Speaks community. Heroes of Adventure (or HoA for the rest of the post) is a free, minimal(ish) fantasy rpg by The Nameless Designer. They’ve put out three core books (64 pages each, which makes my old school heart warm) – the basic trinity of Players Handbook, Referees Guide, and Monster Book.
They’ve also released a series of four supplements, including an introductory module (The Lair of the Mutant) and a sandbox (Fortress on the Wild Frontier).
The rules strike me as a clean unified mechanic (a d20 plus a d4, d6, d8, d10, or d12 for things a PC has abilities/talents/skills in) vs. a target number from 5 – 30. I found the presentation to be clean – almost a bullet journal style of delivery – and it really clicked with me. The rules are pretty present in the PHB, and the GM book is mostly a wide ranging resource set of tables and support.
I ran the Lair of the Mutant for a group of 4 earlier, and really enjoyed the experience. Having only downloaded the rules a few days earlier, I nonetheless felt I had a good handle on the rules, as well as the nicely outlined and presented adventure. The game in play felt D&Dish without being just a D&D retroclone (not that I don’t like me a good retroclone).
With a $0 price tag and generous Creative Commons license, Heroes of Adventure might make an excellent choice for budget minded players or club play. For introductory purposes, I’d recommend included some references for GMing – HoA doesn’t spend much time introducing the chops (and there’s enough resources out there that I don’t think it’s a capital crime).
As promised, I started pushing my newly painted Harlem Hellfighters and German WWI soldiers (both from Gaddis Gaming) around the gaming table. Nothing fancy – this was a quick and easy test run using my new copy of THW’s Nuts Weird War 2! Rules. Both sides had basic bolt action rifles, and that was about the extent of the needed rules adjustments for the most part. I’ll give a quick summary, with some THW margin notes …:
In a dusty, far off land, a team of Harlem Hellfighters enters a strange and seemingly ancient, ruined haunted valley. In the distance, odd noises and, according to patrol notes, some likely enemy soldiers. As they advance down the road, the Hellfighters find a pair of odd, skull-themed pillars alongside the old pathway.
Managing to push on past (I ran a team Fear check, a rule added with the new Weird Wars ruleset), the Hellfighters scouted about. One potential encounter turned out to be just the wind … and the chanting of some strange figure by an ancient well. The Hellfighters ducked back rather than risk a fight (“We’re here for recon, people, recon!”). They successfully did so (THW “In Sight Tests” allow you to actually retreat from LOS if you can do it with the 2″ bonus move), but then were ambushed by some rogue German soldiers.
… which turned out to be a terrible idea, as the Harlem Hellfighters won the Reaction Test and pouring on the rifle fire. The Germans were taken out, except for a single cowardly officer who ducked back and ran.
With several possible enemy squads closing and, and the chanting figure doing something (casting a Defend spell), the Harlem Hellfighters wisely fell back to report their findings. A future mission awaits!
House of the Jade Lantern 
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