Starfleet Battles

Last Sunday I managed to get the time off to participate in the monthly SFB game. The scenario was the continuation of last months fighter game. It had the Orions trying to pick up their fighters as the Federation, Lyran, and Kzinti are closing in for revenge. I was playing the Federation which had a pretty powerful frigate. Mike was controlling a less powerful Kzinti frigate, and Bill was controling a Lyran frigate. On the other side Christian was controlling the Orion Salvage Cruiser and Alan was controlling an Orion Light Raider. Here are the pictures of the game.

My Federation frigate and Mike's Kzinti frigate at the start of the game.

The enemy Christian and Alan with their two ships close together. Bill's frigate can by seen in upper right corner. Unfortunately he had to use a substitute ship because of a broken stand.

The Lyran frigate and Orion Light Raider go at it. The orions got the better of this engagement.

Me and Mike Close on the Lyrans. I was following a swarm of drones Mike had launched. The Kzinti was not in a good position to support my attack as he wanted to take a few pot shots at the Lyrans.  

Bill frantically running away from a large group of drones.

The Kzinti and the light raider fighting it out, as the salvage cruiser tries to make a getaway.

In the end I was able to use some long range phaser shots to take out a third fighter thus giving our side a minor victory. Overall it was a fun game and I'm definitely planning to get back into SFB. On other news I started painting my pirate army a couple of weeks ago. It's been slow going, but they're starting to take shape.

One of the worst things to paint in this hobby is an irregular unit.

In Soviet Russia the miniatures play with YOU!

The day I made my last post Both my Last Square and Rebel Minis orders came in. I finally got the last bits I needed for my next Megablitz game. The last pieces I needed for the game was some NKVD troops. So now I got Russian units to shot my Russian units.

First Up, in the green hats, is the 72nd NKVD border regiment.

I used H&R early WWI British infantry for the troops and GHQ heavy weapons.

 Next Up, in the blue hats, is the 36th NKVD regiment. These are interior troops used for rear area security.

I also, expanded my Red Air Force a bit with another I-15 regiment and a regiment of Lagg-3 fighters.

The Lagg-3 is C&C, while the I-15 is H&R

Lastly I expanded the tank divisions in the 1st Mechanized Corps. While I was doing so I found out that the tanks in the 1st tank division were actually camouflage, so I went and painted them as such.

That's what I did last week. I hope to get to do the game soon. In other news the Rebel Minis order contained my new HOTT army, which I've gotten based and hope to start painting this week. I also want to start basing my modern microarmor.

Industral Areas and Airfields

As I stated in an earlier post, a couple of weeks ago I managed to get the DW industrial set. I also had bought the RAF airfield set from Picoarmor. I finished painting in the past few weeks and I planned to use them in future Megablitz games. First up are the industrial areas.

A group of warehouses and a factory

I decided to give the next few a more southern Europe look.

The detail on the DW stuff is great and my painting really doesn't do it Justice.

For the last of the industrial areas we have a pair of dock cranes.



Good for sea or river side cities.

Next up we have the airfields. The first pair is a medium airbase and a forward airstrip.

Next we have two more airstrips. I feel the top one would be good for Russia.

Finally we have a pair of desert airfields, one medium airbase and one small airstrip.

Those are the new built up areas. I've only used about half of the RAF buildings. I going to use the remainder to make a pair of large bomber bases. I'm not sure if one will be a desert bomber base. I almost ready for a game I'm just waiting for a few more things to come. I've already got confirmation that they are on their way so I should have them soon.

2014 Year in Review

Happy New Years everyone. Its been a busy year for me unfortunately I spent most of it working and didn't get to play as many games as I wanted. I did manage to do a few games this year though.

In February me and Christian played our first game of Megablitz, with 2 German Panzer divisions taking on 2 French Mechanized divisions. The game went well and I hope to do my next game soon.

 

In March I finally got to do my Russian vs. Japan Shipwreck scenario. Unfortunately I've haven't gotten the photos to load but you can see them at:
http://118fistersgame.blogspot.com/2014/03/shipwreck.html

March was also St Patrick's Day, with our annual parade.

April was Gnome Con. I wasn't able to play Shipwreck like I wanted but I was able to take part in Mike's Strike Legion game.

In July I manage to do two games! Earlier I had tried ordering ships from Shapeways and was eager to use them. So I came up with a lateral warfare scenario using both my new LCSs as well as my new container ship and missile tokens.

The following week I tried Check Your Six at Christian's house. It was F-4s vs Vietnamese MiG-21s.

August was the 100 year anniversary of the start of World War I and Morning Star was doing all sorts of WWI games. However in my never ending work cycle I wasn't able to take part in many of them. I was however able to catch a game of Great War that Mike was doing on the last weekend of the month. I hope to play some more of it this year.

In September I got to do another game of Shipwreck. This game was different from the other Shipwreck games I had done as it was an actual Historical scenario, the battle of Dong Hoi.

Finally in October I got to play HOTT with Christian using my new Dinosaur army. We played two games in the afternoon with the first being Romans vs. Dinos (pictured below). My Dinosaurs lost that game. But they managed to get revenge, beating up Christians Halloween army in the next game.

Anyway that was what little gaming I got done last year. For this year, I almost got everything ready for my next game of Megablitz and I hope to do more than one game this year. I also got some ideas for Shipwreck that should be interesting. For HOTT I've got a new army of sea dogs on the way and should start painting them soon. Finally I just got Fist Full of TOWs for Christmas and want to do a game with either that or Cold War Commander. How ever I still have figured out which battle I should start with Europe or Angola.

I not sure if I'll be hosting any games during Gnomecon. I have to have a better idea of the gaming schedule as last year they had the Flea market at the same time as the Shipwreck game I was going to do. I do plan to go to one of the other cons this year, either Seige of Augusta or Rapier. If I do I'll be sure to post a report.

For once again Happy New Year, hope you guys do lots of gaming

Flying Stand Experiment

First I'd like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas.

As I stated in my earlier post Red Air, I've decided to use magnets for mounting my aircraft. This has left me with a couple of problems. 1.) What to do with all my plastic Warhammer flying stands, I have a lot of them and don't want them to go to waste. 2.) Metal magnets are damn expensive! So I've decided to do some experiments with the following.

Magnetic Tape, much cheaper than the metal magnets.

 The problem with my Warhammer flying stands was solved easily by attaching 6/32 Lock nut to the top, as seen below.

I prefer the metal tops as opposed to another magnet. One, it saves me from having to buy two magnets and two, I don't have to worry which end of the magnet is positive and which is negative.

Now for the magnetic tape. I decided to test it out using one of my larger aircraft, a SM.79 medium bomber.

A nice thing about the magnetic tape is that it has it's own adhesive.

 The end result actually works fairly well. The bond isn't as strong as a metal magnet but it's serviceable for what I want to do.

I've spending my time painting more buildings for Megablitz. When I bought my village buildings I also got the RAF airfield set and I have started to make a number of airfields. Also recently Morning Star had a sale on their Dysiopian Wars stuff and I managed to get the Industrial terrain set at 40% off or about $14. I don't really play DW, but the buildings are about the right size for Megablitz.

After I get done with my Megablitz painting I'm planning to do some more Modern 6mm miniatures, but I don't know where to start Europe or Angola?

Red Steel-The 1st Mechanized Corps for Megablitz

I managed to do some painting this week and started on my newest Megablitz unit the Russian 1st Mechanized Corps. This will be the unit as it was organized in 1941 so it's going to be huge. I got most of it done last week. Here are some of the pictures.

 First we have  the 1st tank division with the 1st Recon Battalion, the 1st and 2nd Tank Regiments, 1st Motor Rifle Regiment, and 1st Howitzer Regiment.



All these miniatures except the gun crew where GHQ.

 The second unit in the Corps is the 3rd Tank division with the 3rd Recon battalion, 5th and 6th Tank regiments, 3rd Motor Rifle regiment, and 3rd Howitzer Regiment.

This unit is a mix of GHQ and H&R.

 The last combat unit in the Corps is the 163rd Mechanized Division with the 117th Recon battalion, 25th Tank regiment, 529th and 729th Motor rifle regiments, and the 241st Howitzer Regiment.

This unit is mostly H&R, with only the tank, gun, and tractor being GHQ.

Now the Corps support units this includes the Corps HQ, Combined engineer battalions, the 5th Motorcycle regiment, and the truck battalion.

Finally we have the new unit all together in it's new photo box.

And to think, this unit isn't finished yet.

As stated in the picture above the unit isn't quit finished yet. At first I was going to have each of the tank regiments represented by one tank model like in most Russian units. However, because of the size of this units tank forces, I've since decide to add two extra tanks to each tank division. One model for every 2 battalions. Mechanized division's tank regiment will remain the same having only 3 battalions.  I also need to add an armored car to the motorcycle regiment. Eventually this is what the unit will look like in Megablitz terms

1st Mechanized Corps
HQ 1st MC                      Car                           1
Engineer Battalions         Engineer/Truck        3, EP 3
5th Motorcycle Rgt         Motorcycle               r
                                        Motorcycle               r
                                        Motorcycle               r
                                        BA-32                      1R
Truck Battalion              Trucks                      Capacity 4

1st Tank Division
1st Recon Bn                   BA-32                      1R
1st Tank Regiment          T-28                         4
                                        BT-7                         3
2nd Tank Regiment        OT-26                       4
                                        BT-7                         3
1st Motor Rifle Rgt        Infanty/Truck            5
1st Howitzer Regiment  152mm Howitzer      2, 15km
                                       Tractor                      LOG 2

3rd Tank Division
3rd Recon Bn                 BA-32                      1R
5th Tank Regiment        T-28                          4
                                       BT-7                         3
6th Tank Regiment        T-26                          3
                                       BT-7                         3
3rd Howitzer regiment  152mm Howitzer      2, 15km
                                      Tractor                      LOG 2

163rd Mechanized Division
117th Recon Battalion  BA-FAI                    R
25th Tank Regiment     BT-7                         5
529th Motor Rifle Rgt  Infantry/Truck          5
729th Motor Rifle Rgt  Infantry/Truck          5
241st Motor How Rgt   122mm Howitzer     2, 19km
                                      Tractor                     LOG 2

As you can see it's going to be one big unit. On the other hand I might dump the recon battalions leaving only the motorcycle regiment for recon duty. I hoping to do some more painting this weekend and through Christmas. We'll see.

Towns, Villages, and Dumps

I'm continuing to build up for my next Megablitz game. One of the things that was sourly missing from the first game were some good built up areas. So I recently ordered some buildings from Picoarmor. These buildings are 1/900 scale or 2mm.

First up we have the towns. These are 2km by 2km in Megablitz scale and I can combined them to make larger cities, as seen here.

Next up we have the villages. These are 1.5km by 1.5km and act as small villages unless combined with other building stands.

Unlike regular Megablitz BUA, these villages would by themselves would not require a LOG point to attack. They could however give a single stand a defense bonus.

Finally I needed some supply dumps for game I'm working on so I made way more than I needed.

Just some various size boxes on stands.

That's what I've finished so far. My new infantry came in. Being after my birthday I decided to splurge and get some GHQ Russians. This will allow me to finish the last Russian units I need. I also got Pico's RAF airfield set so I'll be making some airfields too.