Snow Terrain - Step By Step

A quick read through my old pictures and battle reports, and anyone can see that I prefer desert and urban environments in my wargames. I decided it was time for a change! The fictional universe where I've been playing (most of) my 15mm games - the Conquest System - has around twenty planets and moons that were terraformed by the lowest bidder. As such, I've decided each world has a fairly harsh environment; most are too hot, some are too cold. Which means any struggle for resources in the Conquest System will involve some snow planets. I needed enough snow terrain to fight these battles upon.

I tried a few new techniques for my snow, building on skills I've learned doing grassy and desert hills over the years. Since these will be used predominately by 15mm miniatures, I went with 1/2" styrofoam as the basis. The pieces I used in this set were packing material from my toddler's play kitchen - low density, but exactly the thickness I wanted. And easily handled by my trusty old Wonder Cutter.

Then it was a matter of cutting them to the exact shape I need. My favorite commercially-made foam hills are the Acute Hill Pack from War-Zone terrain (3/4 of the way down this page) - well worth the money if you don't to take the time or deal with the mess of making your own. And War-Zone uses good blue insulation foam, so it's quite a bit more durable than the stuff I make. But since I only get four or five small games in a month, these should last a little while. For my initial snow terrain set (which will be a 2' x 2' skirmish board), I cut four acute hills (one with two levels), rough triangles with a bit of a waviness to the cuts.

Nothing pretty, but it works for a quick snow hill. Once the hill is cut it just needs to be painted and textured. I use very inexpensive Wal-Mart craft paints for most of my terrain. I covered the entire hill with (thinned) Folk Art Medium Gray, then painted the entire top with flat white. To add a little bit of depth to it, I drybrushed the "wavy' edges of the hills with the same white.

The next part was really where I had to learn a new technique. For green flocking and desert sand, all I had done at this step was paint 50/50 white glue/water over the top surface, use a dollar-store shaker to apply the texture material, shake away the excess, and seal it when dry. But the Woodland Scenics snow that I bought is far too light, and it floated right off of the mixture. So I ended up pre-mixing it into a paste - it was equal parts snow texture, white glue, and water. It had the consistency of a dry, sugary frosting, and was applied very roughly with an old brush.

I'm fairly pleased with the result. The brush gave the mix a bit of a deeper texture - the end result is very different from simply applying sand and painting it white. I think these will survive just long enough for me to see if I like playing games on snow terrain. If I like it when these start to crumble, I'll probably replace them with the War-Zone stuff (just as I did with my grasslands stuff a few years ago).

And now for the gaming surface itself. I've been playing my recent desert games on 12" x 12" vinyl floor tiles. I figured this should work pretty well for snow terrain. I bought four of these today. The next step will be to give them a very light spray of white paint, and then lightly apply some of the snow terrain. Some of the beige and gray texture should look good peeking through the snow, so I'm not going to go quite as heavy or thick as I did on the hills.

So it's almost ready. A little more work, and I'll have a 2' x 2' snow table with a small assortment of rocky hills. When I expand snow games to a larger table, this set will serve alongside the Critical Mass Games Otillium Refinery set (all of which will have snow bases). A table like that will do a great job repeating some of the fossil fuel battles fought in the Conquest System.

I hope to have a USE ME battle report on the finished mini-table very soon!

Chris

More Rules Fun Pt. 2 - USE ME 15mm Sci-Fi System

15mm.co.uk released USE ME (Ultra Simple Engine for Miniature Engagements) this month, for the very tasty price of £3.50 (about $5.50 US). It promised to be an all-encompassing system - battle rules, army lists, off-table support, campaign setup, and solo play, all in 32 pages. I was quite skeptical, but for that price, I figured it was certainly worth a read. I've had it for two weeks now, and am not disappointed at all in this system.

In fact, I am extremely pleased.

Here is a breakdown of the game system:

GAME SCALE AND SIZE

This game is specifically designed for 15mm miniatures, in terms of movement and weapon ranges. I'm sure it could be scaled up or down with some simple halving or doubling of ranges and distances, but I already have plenty of 28mm rules. In terms of the size of games you can play... I've only played three smallish games so far (up to the "starter" scenario of 20 light troops and five vehicles vs 30 heavy troops), but it appears USE ME will handle much larger engagements with absolute ease.

MECHANICS

First and foremost, I am pleased to report that USE ME uses nothing but ordinary six-sided dice (and a few basic counters) for all of its mechanics. That means you have no need to purchase a bunch of funny shapes just to play a basic game... it's ready to go with something I'm sure you already have. The gameplay itself follows a pretty straightforward initiative-activations-resolution sequence but with a twist - the Elan rating. Despite it's funny name (it sounds like something Acura Motors would sell!), it's a pretty clever stat that governs most aspects of combat and initiative. Thinking of it as "troop qualiity" would help compare it to some other systems.

While many other initiative-activation games allow you to select any unit, USE ME activates units based on their Elan ratings - high Elan troops take their activations before low Elan troops. The only mechanic I can compare this to is the Initiative stat in the 40k Assault phase. It works extremely well! It makes sense to me that the most trained and skilled units will be more decisive and take quicker battlefield action than inexperienced troops.

Combat itself is pretty straightforward - roll to hit, then roll weapon penetration vs target defense. Units hit their targets by scoring 4+ on a D6 roll (after some pretty simple modifiers). Penetration vs defense is a D6 roll off between the firer and his target (again, with some simple modifiers). Close combat is handled by simply removing the To Hit roll and rolling penetration vs defense.

Targets are either winged, struck, or killed outright. These effects last the rest of the game, but are handled with simple counters. There isn't much bookkeeping required outside of the counters, which is what makes me think this game will scale up to company-size engagements without bogging down. There are only four tables you will ever have to look at to play a game of USE ME, which means there isn't much page-flipping in game. In fact, I've already seen a complete quick reference sheet that prints on half a page... exactly what "quick reference" should be!

FORCE LISTS

There is a two-page guide to creating forces - complete with points costs. Rather than saying this mini is a Muster Private armed with a Moth Rifle, you would select an Elan 3, Movement 4 Infantry with a Standard Rifle. This game is a bit like Alien Squad Leader in this way... it abstracts troops, weapons, and vehicles to put them in a few simple categories. While this may lack a little bit of distinct flavor among different armies, it's a great way to make sure forces are fairly well balanced in the game.

ADVANCED RULES, CAMPAIGNS, SOLO PLAY

A great deal of the book is dedicated to rules such as off-table long-range artillery or supporting spacecraft fire, arrival of reinforcements and drop troops, linking games together (which can even keep some troops in a "winged" status from game to game), and how to govern opposing forces in solo games. Again, it's amazing how much is packed into such a small book! I've now run the solo rules against a defensive and an invading force, and they worked perfectly with such a "one track minded" opponent. I'm going to come up with a neutral objective scenario to really put them to the test!

GRIPES AND COMPLAINTS

No system will ever be immune to gripes and complaints. USE ME is clearly designed to be a shooting game. The weapons table has categories to cover every type of firearm, energy blaster, missile, or mortar you could imagine... but no close combat weapons at all. That means you won't be able to use these rules effectively against "bug" armies, like the Starship Troopers movie or Aliens-inspired games. In fact, the lack of close combat detail makes for some interesting situations in the game. The same penetration table is used in close combat as in shooting... which means an autocannon or mortar crew actually scores higher against dedicated assault troops.

Something else that must be considered when preparing for battle is the resilience of heavy vehicles. Infantry with heavy weapons will need nothing short of a dice miracle to even scratch a heavy vehicle, and cannot destroy them outright. If you are going to run vehicles, make sure there are vehicles on both sides of the game if any are to be Heavy or Super Heavy. Otherwise, just make your tanks into Light Vehicles with Armor, or it will be a very lopsided game!

CONCLUSION

USE ME is designed to be a fast-play set of rules for which you will need minimal preparation, bookkeeping, or special rules. As such, it makes for a great basic wargame. It will never go into extreme science fiction details like net-centric warfare, battlefield intelligence grids, fighting in very extraterrestrial environments, etc... if you want a game with that much detail, you will probably be in the mood for something like Tomorrow's War or 5150. But if you want a quick pickup game to play in an hour, this is exactly what you want - it holds its own extremely well against Forge of War and Mutants and Death Ray Guns, and is far more approachable than Fast and Dirty or Chain Reaction. USE ME is, by far, the most complete one-book game system I've seen in my eighteen years of tabletop wargaming.

FINAL SCORE: 8 out of 10, would jump to a 9 out of 10 if a close combat fix could be added.

Chris

PS: There is an alternate review at The Orky 15mm Blog, if you want another opinion!

Some 15mm Paint Tests

As a follow-up post to the 15mm showcase, I thought I'd share some of the color schemes I've come up with for my other in-progress forces.

First up we have some Felids from Khurasan Miniatures. In my Conquest System setting, these miniatures are playing the part of one of the first races mankind made contact with outside of Earth, and has enjoyed a long-lasting peaceful relationship. However, the Sulians have been in space longer than mankind, and are very aware of some of the greater threats to the galaxy. While the current Earth government has turned a deaf ear, many of the Conquest System's independent corporations are listening to their warnings.

Their paint scheme is pretty basic... Citadel Foundation Astronomican Grey uniforms with Mordian Blue armor segments. The heads and tails are painted with Macharius Solar Orange and Deneb Stone "spots."

I've been going back and forth on the idea of playing 40k in 15mm ever since I crossed over to the "one true scale." The decision I made is that I should make a few small 40k-like forces... nothing that absolutely MUST be 40k, but something that would do in a pinch. The Universalist infantry from Blue Moon Manufacturing are something that can be an Eldar proxy without actually needing to be Eldar. I went with a basic Biel-tan scheme to match my Epic Eldar force. While I haven't decided how to use these forces in the Conquest System yet, they are still useful for one-off games.

After a year in the scale, I finally added some of the 15mm models that caught my eye in the first place. Critical Mass Games' Arc Fleet Light Infantry are one of my favorite lines in any scale, let alone 15mm. I decided to use a 40k Dark Angels color scheme for my Arc Fleet troops. The light infantry, other than the helmets, appear to be wearing what 40k would call carapace armor. So I used my DA scout paint scheme - bleached bone and DA green. A question to everyone - is the left or the right a better tabletop mini? The Critical Mass models are absolutely covered in detail. The left example simply uses a wash over most of the Bleached Bone, leaving the details unpainted. I can put these on a table very quickly. On the right model I picked out more of the straps/pouches/armor plates with the DA green. While I think it looks a little better, I'm not convinced it's worth the extra time spent on each model.

I've really struggled to find a scheme I like for the Critical Mass Protolene Khanate miniatures. I knew immediately that these were going to be my Roghan forces for the Conquest System - a race from a snow-covered world that has been hunted nearly to the point of extinction by a vastly superior alien empire. So until the day they arrived, my intention was to paint their heads in a sort of Siberian Husky or Malamute color scheme. But the problem, as I realized when I started to paint, was that there was no convincing way to do snow armor and a snow carnivore body on the same mini. So I chose a brown fairly similar to a grizzly bear for their heads, and a color scheme centered around Fenris Gray for the uniforms. The rifle I repainted four times... black, steel, bronze, and finally white. I'm still not happy with the result for the weapon, but I think the rest of the mini turned out pretty well.

I'm also happy with my snow-world terrain piece, and hope to have an entire table of these in the next few weeks.

To reward myself for finishing so many miniatures over the past few months, I grabbed a pack of Astagar Fighters from Critical Mass Games. These were nothing but a just-for-fun set of minis, but I actually think they will find use in some of the filthy spaceport settings I've developed around the Conquest System. I also think they may be useful in some Space Hulk-style shipboard games, but that will be covered in a later post.

As always, feedback is welcome!

Chris

15mm Army Showcase

A few months back I posted an entry reviewing Rebel Minis' 15mm Titan Marine infantry, with a few pics of the painted results. I thought it would be fun to show how that army is coming together.

One of the things I love most about 15mm sci-fi is the ability to mix and match figures and vehicles from different manufacturers. I went out of my way to accomplish just that with this force. In my own gaming universe (the Conquest System), this army is the corporate military force of the Conquest Development Corporation. CDC forces (usually called Storm Troopers) exist for two reasons... the first is to develop and test CDC weapons technology (which is in turn sold to both Earth and to some alien governments). Their second purpose is to serve as an available military force. Originally these military duties were limited to security for CDC's vast facilities, but eventually this grew into a force that could be purchased when necessary. Earth has found that CDC Storm Troopers accomplish some missions far more quickly than its own military forces, and contracts them when lightning attacks are required.

The force itself, obviously, is centered around Rebel Minis' Titan Marines infantry. One of the minis received a head swap from the Ground Zero Games head sprues. I still need to add some heavy weapons to the mix, but I have enough to play a basic games. I'm also thinking I would like to add some power armor, but I haven't selected the correct miniatures to represent them. Ground Zero Games has some good options, but none really match the Titan Marines' aesthetic.

Speaking of GZG... I used their Cyclops Battlesuits as a mobile recon/strike unit. With the jump packs and weapons load, these are ideal for sabotage missions, direct assaults on protected targets, or supporting infantry in terrain-heavy environments. I also envision these as having the absolute best in battlefield sensors and communications. Anyone who has read the grid warfare section in Tomorrow's War knows exactly what I'm talking about.

For the open battlefield, I wanted an armored force that looked fast, deadly, and advanced. I bought a grav-option Gladius from Old Crow as my first option. I love the appearance, the cleanness of the sculpt, and how well it painted... but I'm not sure it's an aesthetic match for the Cyclops battlesuits or last night's addition (see below). So before I buy an entire armored company from Old Crow, I need to browse through all of the grav tank options once again to make sure there aren't any closer matches.

Since the CDC Storm Troopers are a quick strike force, it makes perfect sense to me that they would utilize dropships as their primary infantry transport. Force XXI used to make my favorite dropship, but he went on hiatus before I could pick any up. I like the Old Crow and GZG units, but neither matched my vision of the CDC forces. So I went back to Rebel Minis and looked in their Earthforce Marines aircraft... they were exactly what i wanted. I think they match the overall aesthetic of the Titan Marines and Cyclops Suits pretty well. I have an army in progress using the Earthforce Marines, but since it is going to be Earth's government forces in my world, I figured it would have a slightly less advanced dropship/gunship option. I think I'll use the Old Crow models with those troops. Though I must admit... Combat Wombat's upcoming ship also looks pretty darn good.

So what's next for this army? I certainly need to buy some heavy weapon infantry and add it along with a Saber Gunship (which I already own but need to paint). And like I said... I want to take one more look around the world at the grav tank options to see if there is a better fit. Assuming there isn't, I'll order two more Gladius tanks in the same configuration I already used, a third with the missile turret, and a fourth with the new support turret option. I may add some Glaive APCs for those missions where a dropship isn't practical. I'm also thinking that I want to add some kind of robot or drone to each infantry squad, but haven't remotely settled on one yet.

I'm open to criticism and suggestions!

Chris

FUBAR Battle Report - Clear the desert!

After an extremely productive weekend of painting and making hills, I decided that t

oday I should play a quick game of FUBAR as a reward. I still haven't finished assembling my 15mm forces to their completion, but that's hardly an excuse not to play, is it?

BACKGROUND - The Copper Moon,
five clicks south of the Bronze Harbor starport

A local ore hauler informed the Bronze Harbor Police Force that a hostile group of alien thugs had been raiding their shipments. A quick flyover by a spy drone revealed that the aliens were hiding out in a few desert shacks just outside of the starport. A few pictures were taken, and it was clear that there were around eighteen of them, all well-armed.

A patrol was quickly dispatched to handle the situation. The patrol sent included one heavy patrol car (armed with three tribarrel autoguns), an assault team (consisting of two shield/baton troops, two baton-armed canine handlers, and two canines) and a support team (consisting of two grenade launchers and two assault rifles). Normally the assault and support teams would be mounted in armored troop carriers, but their commander hadn't requisitioned them yet (I need to place an order with Ground Zero Games!).

THE BATTLE

The patrol car hit the alien encampment with complete surprise. They found that six of the aliens were patrolling the camp, and opened fire upon them right away. The alien leader then sent a second group of six over the ridge to attempt a crossfire against the invader. They fired, but were unable to damage the patrol car's armor. The alien leader snapped the power claw onto his arm and moved to deal with the situation himself, only to be faced by the assault and support teams.

The battle was quick and brutal. The alien leader engaged the police teams right away, but the canines and power batons, supported by the grenade launchers and assault rifles, were too much. But one dog, his handler, and a riot troop were killed in the assault. One of the alien teams broke away from the patrol car to seek revenge, while the other team killed the three gunners in the patrol car. The police teams tried to stand and fight, but their marksmanship and fighting ability wasn't sufficient against so many aliens. At the end of the melee, four of the aliens were still alive, and both police teams were slaughtered. The damaged and unarmed patrol car limped back to Bronze Harbor to report that the mission had failed.

AFTER ACTION

The more that I look at other rules systems, the more convinced I am that FUBAR is my primary game. This fight took about 30 minutes to play out, but it didn't feel like I was missing any level of detail, nuance of fighting conditions, or make me miss another game system. It was a bit of a fun scenario, one I will definitely run again as I expand these two forces.

Chris