Hearts of Tin Project - More Progress

I recently bought metal figures for the generals and artillery for our Hearts of Tin project.  I didn't like the plastic artillery, and I got figures from Musket Miniatures.  So, here are all the figures I currently have done.  Two Union units, that showed up previously, 2 Union and 2 Confederate artillery, and 4 Union and 4 Confederate generals.  Now we just need to paint up more infantry.  I have two units of Confederate infantry on bases, still needing their final touches.

The Union infantry did something I have not seen in years.  I sprayed them with Dullcote, and they frosted a little bit.  Oh well, so it goes.

And for absolutely no reason, a picture of my cat with my dulcimer, which I need to start playing again.

That was taken a few years ago.  That cat is now about 20 years old.  She still hates my wife, and has for 14 years, for no reason except that she invaded our space.  You would think she would get over it by now.

PMC 2640 Science Fiction rules First Look

I had ordered this set of rules when it was published.  I ordered it from the US distributor,Pico Armor.  It took quite a while getting here, apparently it was shipped from Poland by surface mail.  Anyway, it arrived today and as my wife was taking a nap, I read most of it.

http://assaultpublishing.com/

The rulebook is 110 pages, black and white artwork and easily readable black text on a white background.  (Do NOT get me started on the tendancy of rules publishers to print their rules on colored paper.  They obviously do not want anyone over 40 playing their rules)  While it does not have the eye candy of some recently published rules, it is very well presented, and has obviously been proofread.  I did not find any typos or editing problems.  The rules are designed for individually based 15mm or 28mm figures, although there are optional rules for multifigure bases.  (you just keep track of casualties)  As multiple casualties are caused by exceeding the defence number of a unit, you do not have the problem of figures being too close together and taking extra casualties from blast weapons when they are on multi figure bases.

The breakdown is:
Intro, History, etc.  pages 1-22
Rules                      pages 22-36
Preparing for battle pages 39-40
Terrain generator    page   41
Scenarios                pages 42-52
Standard units         pages 56-80
Campaign system    pages 82-83

The rest is more information on aircraft and vehicles, some alien bug forces, solitaire scenarios (6 of them) and some optional rules.

Noticeably missing, a Quick Reference Sheet.  I looked on the website and did not find one in the downloads section.  Being as there are 13 firing modifiers, and several tables, a QRS is pretty much essential.  I hope they do one soon.

The basic idea of this game is that you do not use WYSIWYG.  Instead, they have various standard units.  A "rifle" unit is pretty much the same for all troops, whether you are armed with a flechette rifle, laser rifle, or assault rifle.  There are what is called tiers of troops.  Higher tier troops of the same type will typically have a higher firepower number, assault number and a little higher defence.

They do have many different types of troops, including light and heavy support weapons, mortars, etc.  One odd omission that jumped out at me is that nothing seems to have an area effect.  This seems to be deliberate.  The firing mechanism is that you take the firepower of the unit, add various modifiers and a 10 sided die, and if the total beats the defense factor of the target, you cause one casualty for each point over the defense factor.  This is obviously going to go quickly.  You roll a 6 sided die for each casualty.  You either cause no damage, suppression, or a kill.

There is no mechanism for attaching a support weapon to an infantry unit.  They are always separate units.

Activation alternates back and forth between the players.  If one side has twice the number of units the other does, they get to activate two units to each one for the other side.  You cannot activate a unit to do nothing.  If you have no units you want to perform actions with, the other side gets to do the rest of their units.

There are vehicle and aircraft rules.  I have not read them in detail, but the combat works the same as the infantry, except that instead of suppression vehicles take damage points.  When it has more damage points than its structure number, is knocked out.

There is a lot of information on scenarios, a campaign system, and a long list of standard units.

My overall impression is that it will move quickly, with the addition of a QRS.  My group plays a lot of different rules, and we always need reminders of how things work.  There are very few sets of rules that I have played in my 45 years of gaming that I can remember without referring to some aid during the game.

That being said, it looks like it might work well for us.  We play on weeknights, and have limited time.  I think this game will move quickly.  There is some chrome to the game.  There are two pages of Unit Special Rules.  There are command units that can affect other units and allow activating more than one unit at a time.  A unit with the hacking ability can redirect enemy drones to attack their owners.  Some units can mark enemy units for indirect fire.

I am going to suggest that we try the rules, and when we do a playtest I will post again.

Hearts of Tin ACW project

Recently I have gotten interested in more "old school" wargaming.  I have been reading Ross McFarlane's Battle Game of the Month blog.  http://gameofmonth.blogspot.com/

I decided I wanted to try Hearts of Tin, his old school, but ever moving target set of rules.  :)  (seriously, I like that you keep improving them, but they do change quickly)

Robb of The Army Collector and I have been painting IMEX 1/72nd scale figures for this project.  They are pretty cheap, not too bad, and paint up quickly.  (at least the way I paint)

So, I finished the first two units.

I have quite a few more figures on the way.  Usually you buy IMEX ACW figures in a box with 2 sprues of either Union or Confederate for about $9.  I found that Hobby Lobby has them in hanging bags with cardboard headers that have 2 Union and 2 Confederate sprues for $10.

I have ordered some artillery and generals from Musket Miniatures.  I didn't like the IMEX guns.

More VSF Tanks

Since my first little tank made from the toy bulldozer, I decided I wanted to make a couple more with gatling guns instead of a cannon.  My problem was where to find a gatling gun? 

I was walking around Target, and found this in the toy section:

Its hard to see, but it had a double gatling, two more gatlings, and a little thing that will probably find its way into a 15mm science fiction building.  They are customizing parts for toy cars.  I went to the website, which is badly organized and I never could find a listing of all they had available.

Anyway, I cut up the double gatling and put that on the tanks, as you can see above.

I now have a rather nice little force for GASLIGHT.

In addtion to the the tanks, I have a small unit of mechanical men.

Two units of infantry.

And a couple of little gatling armed spider walkers I got at a convention.

On seeing these pictures my wife expressed her displeasure at the trashed out work table background, and said we are going to make a background specifically for taking pictures of toys.  How any of us survive without women I will never understand.

France 1940

I have  been off work for 2 weeks recovering from knee surgery.  I had high hopes of getting a lot of painting and terrain done.  I have gotten some done, but its more difficult than I expected.

I did finish up a couple of things today.  The first is some French figures, the Bolt Action Miniatures Defenders of France box and a Hotchkiss machine gun and crew.

I like the figures.  They painted up pretty well, given my limited painting ability.  My group does Victory Decision for WWII gaming.  I don't think the French supplement is out for that yet.  I still have a French light tank to paint, and will probably get more infantry as well.

And They Shall Beat Their Bulldozers into Tanks

I recently found some small construction toys for children, called Construction Buddies.  Two of them were trucks, a dump truck and a cement truck.  The other one was a bulldozer.

Original bulldozer

I bought one, and it turned out to be put together totally with screws, so you can disassemble it easily.

After taking out all the windup parts and taking off the blade, I started the conversion.  I cut off the top of the  smokestack, and added a longer straight one.  I put a cannon in the front, after covering up the hole left by the mechanism for the blade.  I finished it off by adding small googly-eye rivets and painting.

I put a 28mm WWII French infantryman by it for scale, but this is going to be in my GASLIGHT force.  I also bought two more, at about $3 each.  If I can find a suitable gatling gun, one of them is destined to be more of  an infantry support tank.

Plastic figures

I recently have been working up forces for two sides for VSF using GASLIGHT.  I have two units of Russians, and decided to try some plastic figures for the British.

So I bought a box of the Warlord British Line Infantry figures.  How I feel about these is mixed.

Pros:

Price:  You get 20 plastic and 4 metal command figures for around $30.  Not bad.
Detail:  The detail is very nice.  Its crisp, and because you assemble them the detail is present in areas you don't normally see it in metal figures

Cons:

Fiddly:  Seriously, assembling these is a chore.  It took me about 3 days coming back to it each evening to get them done.
Light:  I fixed this with using metal fender washers to base them.  I am using them for skirmishes, and I think they would tend to be too light if they weren't based this way.
Kneeling figures:  I am not a fan of kneeling figures.  Each sprue has 4 figures.  Two are standing, and 2 are kneeling

These are ok.  I guess I would still tend to buy metal figures.  I am 60 years old, have been gaming for over 40 years, and it probably has something to do with being more comfortable with plastic figures.

All in all, they are nice figures.  It just won't be my first choice in the future.