Poldercon 2017

Just got back from Poldercon 2017. And wow.

This year, you had the choice to try out 29 different games. 29! From sci-fi to ancients, large armies or skirmishes, home made rules and commercial ones.

I went for a game of Gaslands, Rapid Fire and a workshop in making trees for the wargames table. I did not use the 4th slot as I would just overextend myself energy wise (and my wife wanted me to pick up the kids asap which is a long drive from Poldercon to my parents and home again).

Earth is a burned out shell since the cold war went hot… 4 drivers race for the chance to earn a ticket to Mars and have a future again. The rules of the race are simple. Get across the finish line 1st. Cars,fuel, guns and ammo are provided for by your sponsor. You will finish first or die trying..
This demo gives you a chance to select a car from 1 of 6 sponsored teams. Each with their own strengths and quirks to race against 3 other drivers. Finish 1st! 2nd place don’t count …but even when you are out of the race you you ‘ll get to play the audience and deploy traps ..
A game by Mike Hutchinson. Full rules allow custom build combat vehicles. Everything from a bike to a massive battle rig ,a tank or even a helicopter. Fancy a bus full of firebomb throwing anarchists? You can build it, want to ride the last of the interceptors? Go ahead. Campaign rules allow you to build and develop gangs of all types of roadwarriors Participate February 12 and claim bragging rights. When this game is published by Osprey in the near future you were part of the Beta test. More about this game on gaslands.com (currently unavailable at the posting of this Blogpost)
Start your engines, arm your guns … 3… 2…..1…GO!

 (All logic aside....racing for a ticket to Mars? Why would anyone sponsor you to get off Earth, would they not want to get offplanet themselves? Also, it's been in Beta for 2 years now?)

I love it. This is exactly the game I have been gathering Matchbox cars for all along, but never found the game I wanted. I have now.

 Simple board, some rocks, some scrappiles, some shacks and a.....baby Thunderdome?  Stat wise, we used identical cars for the demo. We just followed a loose track in a 8 shape, first to finish wins, no shooting until we pass the first marker. Everyone starts in 1st gear. Depending on the type of vehicle you can 2-6 dice (but you don't have to). Choose a template that fits with your speed, check the bonus/penalty and perhaps roll the dice to see if you can change them in your favour. No premeasuring! As you can see in this picture, my opponent misjudged the length of his template anc clipped the rock for 1 damage and some stress tokens (they are not called stress tokens but I forgot their name). After this he spun out of control and I just shifted up and sped away across the finish line.

For the next game I chose to be much more agressive, After I spun out of control your opponent on your left chooses the facing of your car. He put me in such a way that I barely made the turn but went full throttle anyway, while he had a bad luck of the dice and slammed into a hut, bouncing back onto the course, spun out of control and I set him up facing the Thunderdome in 1st gear. As the turn for 1st gear had already passed and I was in my 3rd I got 2 moves then made me make the turn quite nicely and slam into his side. Then rolling some dice I managed to shift 2 more gears up to ram him even harder and the hit flung his carcass on the Thunderdome. (I removed all of his hitpoints) But I then drove through a pool of fire and explosive bits from his wreck and losing my remaining hitpoints in the process as well. Such is life in the post apocalypse!

Everything is fully customisable. From cars to bikes to helicopters, tanks and warrigs, anything goes. Tons of weapons too (though I don't think we fired a shot all game, we were too busy setting up rams) While the template and dice and card system from X-wing doesn't do it for me, the dice and template system from Gaslands (plus the setting) do do it for me. As it used Matchbox cars, this should be a great game for kids too.

Our host gave each of us a set of stickers so we could convert 6 dice into the dice needed for the game, but sadly I somehow managed to lsoe that sheet though I was pretty sure I put it in my box, but I've just emptied it and there was no sticker sheet in it :( Crap, better send him a PM.

Next up I did the Build your own tree - workshop.

Wow. Some beautiful examples there. 

Quick, to the point, with plenty of examples and show of skill. What to do and what not to do. Really clever stuff. 

Real wood, wire trees, dead shrubs for a base. Rubbereised horsehair, home made coarse flock, everything passed the revue. I even made my won tree base.

Now to use woodglue and greenstuff to give it shape. Dead simple really, it just takes some effort. I've set my mind on making 20 dead/winter trees first to see if I can manage it. If you want to have a go, look at one of his tutorials >> Bennosfiguresforum Tutorial

Then it was lunchtime, excellent catering (the salad did suck a bit though) and then some rummaging in the 2 shops. I'd told myself to only go through the bargain bin and get models with as much use as possible, if any. Well.....

FGV502 Armour Rack & Lectern (8 euros) and FGV503 Lich Lord Treasure Tokens (5 euros) will work fine for any type of Dungeon or Cultist game (past, modern or future). FGX002 Bear (8 euros) and FGV311 White Gorilla (8 euros) are just additional monsters for the collection that work for many, many periods. All on sale at 5 euros per blister. I skipped the infantry and wizards etc for the above reason > multi usability.

My third slot was a 1940 Zeeland French vs Germans using Rapid Fire.....which I had not played in over 6-7 years now?

Lovely table. Marc will be taking this game to conventions for the rest of the year. Rapid Fire plays very differently from Battlegroup, you get to use all of your units and weapons ranges are short....I just did not like it. I did ram my panzers up the French throat who were all cowering behind the dyke and we got halfway. I think it was a draw by the time I had taken out 2 French tanks and he had no infantry capable of hurting me, but he did have 2 25mm AT guns deployed which I had planned to run over but apparently in Rapid Fire you can snap fire in your opponents turn and his shot damaged/detroyed my tank. I'm used to Battlegroup were you have to spend a order to put a unit on reserve fire else no such luck, so I was  bit miffed when that happend cause it was a new rule to me anyway. I should challenge Marc to play a game of Battlegroup with the same forces someday.

And that was the end of my day at Poldercon. I talked to a few friends, missed a few, saw some lovely tables and had a good time. 3 hours of driving later to pick up my kids I was home again, and wasted. Here are some more photo's of a table I really liked, to enjoy :)

Malebogia's beautiful table. So much detail and thought was put into it.

Another shot of his table. I'm playing Gaslands on the top left table.

Great day, can't wait for next year :)

Edit: More pictures on Pijlie's Blog. Pijlieblog

7th picture down is my slim figure as seen from the back :D Patrick, my fellow Dutch Wargames Trading FB page mod is standing next to me (Yes, I've become a mod on 2 FB groups now....the Dutch Wargames Trading site and I'm helping Piers out with the Battlegroup FB page)  and we are watching Peter Schuleins table. The house comes apart in multiple levels, and with a cellar etc....it's a work of art.

Orlick's Cockroach - The scenario

Right, let's first have a look at the scenario. It's on page 47 of the Blitzkrieg book, and a scenario in the standard 1 page Battlegroup format, with a listing of the forces, a minimap, a situation report (and if there are any, scenario special rules).

This scenario is about Polish Lt Roman Orlik and his 20mm armed TKS tankette. It takes place on September 18th during a patrol in the Kampinoska forest, leading 2 other MG armed TKS tankettes. In this engament he spots a patrol of 1 Panzer IVB and 2 Panzer 35(t)s and ambushes them. He first takes out the lead 35(t) and the return fire from the Germans in unable to hit him. He then flanks the Panzer IVB, hitting it in the side and setting it on fire, and after reloading finishes off the 2nd 35(t) as it tries to get into cover.

He then sets off to rescue the crew of the burning Panzer IV, which happens to be commanded by Prince Viktor Ratibor (whom later dies of his wounds). >> The-Prince-and-the-Roman

Anyhoo, this scenario has some special rules:

• TKS Ace - Orlik gets a +1 to hit when using Aimed Fire
• Cockroach - Germans suffer -1 to spot TKS when in cover
• Difficult terrain - Germans suffer -1D6 movement when moving offroad in the woods
• (optional) - remove the nr 5 counters from the pot.

The TKS Tankette in Battlegroup can be taken as a Tank unit of 3 tankettes costing 30pts and 3 BR. You may upgrade the unit with up to 2 TKS tankettes at +10pts and 1 BR each. You may upgrade up to 2 TKS per platoon with FK-20mm guns at +2pts per tanks, but this is a Restricted choice.

The TKS Tankette can also be taken as a Reconnaissance Support unit of 1 tanks, gaining the Scout special rule, at a cost of 15pts and 1 BR. If you select the FK-20mm version you pay 17 pts and 1 BR instead, but this is a Restricted choice.  The third way to get a TKS tankette in your Polish army list is as a Platoon Support option for the Cavalry Platoon. This is the MG variant only at 10 pts and 1 BR.
With O armour all round, and a max movement of 8"off road and 12"on road  it's not much different then many other period tanks. The FK-20mm has 10 shots, fires AP only and to penetrate the Panzer IVB from the front it would need to roll a 9+ within 20 inches or a 10+ up to 50 inches...but there are always modifiers :) Side shots would be a more reasonable 7+ within 20 inches or 8+ withing 50 inches. Return fire from the 75mm L24 would only need a 5+ within 20 inches, but assuming the TKS's stay in the forest they are a 3+ to spot for obscured vehicle (firing), but with the special rule they become a 4+ to spot. Actually hitting each other will be hard, assuming both sides move and the TKS's stay in cover you are looking at a -3 to your dice roll, so rolling 6's when shooting is key. The MG armed TKS's have a ROF of 3. Area Fire has no effect on a enclosed AFV so is pointless, Aimed Fire....is also pointless cause MG's don't case closed AFV's to take pinning tests! Yikes, this changes things :D Oh well, good training mission to learn what does and what does not work when fighting tanks I guess, so makes a good introductory mission, even if the replay value is a bit low.

No artillery, no aircraft, no infantry. Shoot to supress or shoot to hit, and autocannons. The Polish get D6+1 actions per turn, the Germans get D6. A game should/will last 30-45 minutes including a basic explanation and use of the QRF sheet?

Scenery wise I have enough roads, but I'm lacking in trees. To help me out on that, I've selected the Tree Building workshop at the next Poldercon so I can gets hand on teachings from a experienced builder in making some (and yes Erik, I know you can do it too, but I'll pester you for that later). With some, I mean a lot. While I do have a nice collection of pines that needs rebasing, decicious trees are severly lacking.

Next posts I will be taking a look at both sides vehicles and the kits I will be using.....can't do much else properly while my finger is healing. (Funny (or disgusting) fact......at first I thought it had sliced a U shaped cut into my finger, but after cleaning the bandaid for the second time it looks like the blade was so sharp and fast it cut all the way through and the flap resealed itself with such precision that even my fingerprint is intact, just a bit frayed at the edges. Never had that happen, usually the top part dries up and falls off but it appears so deep that it just stuck back on again.)

On a side note, Piers pointed me towards AB figures (again) and they make a lovely 20mm French Tank Crew set that would work for Polish tanks too. AB is very expensive though (but worth it). And he's asked me to make 2 Crocodile conversions for him using the Airfix Crocodile and the PSC Churchill kit to keep everything nice and uniform. And about actually making the artillery you bought in game to put on the side table. Aargh, too many ideas.

Heavenly bodies

Modhail first brought up the idea of Battlefleet Gothic (BFG), oh I don't know, 1-2 months ago? He had started playing Battlefleet Gothic: Armada and his enthusiasm rubbed off. During packing everything up I had seen a large of cruiser hulls and a few escorts from my own fleet and the fleets I purchased off people who gave up the game almost 10 years ago. It took me some time, but I found the box in the stash. A box full of memories, I had always enjoyed BFG as I really like naval/space battle encounters, so I never got rid of mine.

The ships in the box are battered though. It contains 10 Imperial cruisers, in various states of disrepair, and 24 Chaos cruisers which seem to be in a slightly better condition. But only 1 light cruiser, a Dauntless, and a handful of Chaos and Imperial Escorts. Also some interesting cargo transport conversions made with bad metal recasts, which I will try to salvage and finish as fast as possible. But I felt some hunting for spares would be in order. But the sheer cost of it all....just have a look at Ebay and it will tell you these ships are not cheap! But I like a challenge.....

First, I found 4 Imperial Lunar cruisers at Impact's Bring and Buy. Original bases, basecoated black with 1 missing the ramspike and another just one antenna, they were a bargain so bought them without hesitation. The next 4, Imperials again, came when I was trading for a old 3D template and there were some cruisers in the background. We negotiated a very good deal, these 4 came in at half price of the ones at Impact. And from there the ball started to roll and pick up speed. I made request posts at various forums and FB groups and before you knew it, through trading, swapping and a little money, I ended up with this:

My original shoe box full of ships

What I traded online and found at Impact and Marktplaats

What I bought off the local FB group - 4 fleets (2 original, 2 scratchbuilt). The scratchbuilt Ork fleet has been traded for a full Eldar fleet. I have another Eldar Cruiser in the mail and a friend has offered some Eldar Transports in exchange for services. Now I just made that sound like a bad thing......

I'll spare you the numbers. This is a lot of ships. But it seems that when making the individual fleets everybody made the same choiches, so certain ships are very common. In a way I regret selling the BFG cruisers on the sprue 6 months ago, but they went for 10 pounds each and I would not be able to afford that now. To be honest, for most of what you see I paid a lot less then 10 pounds per ship. Most for a mere quarter of that. Odd, when you see fleets of 8 cruisers, 6 escorts and maybe 1 battleship go for 200 quid on EbayUK. With those kind of prices you are looking at over a 1000 quid of stuff in the drawers, which is mental. It pays to shop around or to call in favours from friends or plain old trades for stuff you no longer need.

Anyway, back to the basics. Erik would like to do a campaign, fair enough. I have not yet found the box with all of my counters and dice, but in one of the lots I traded was a large pile of blastmakers and fighter/bombers. The turn dial and markers I can just print off and laminate if needs be. Whether the campaign will be a game of 2 people remains to be seen, We've invited some friends that we played Gothic with when it first came out and I have a ton of spare ships now so they can use those as stand ins. What has been lost in the 4 moves since the game came out is my box with Celestial Phenomena. Planets, asteroids etc. Which is great as it lets me start over again with those. I particularly like the planets and moons that have half shadows so it is instantly clear what side is the sun side. Handy for your local Eldar and some special events. I still had some styrofoam balls that i picked up at the goodwill store just for space games, so I cut those in half (or 1/3rd in once case), sanded the undersides smooth and dabbed filler on the undersides and on the halves themselves (the underside cause it makes it harder and is easier to sand smooth the bad cuts I made). 1 smaller one had a hole in it so I decided that it would be a prime candidate for a cartered moon. Haven't chosen a scheme yet for any of them, just WIP's

Balls....

I also picked the first 2 ships that I want to paint. They are, of course, the mainstay and workhorse of every fleet, 2 Lunar class cruisers. The Lord Baychimo is a standard Lunar (torpedo variant) while the Eurydice is a Nova Cannon armed ship. I've started to fill in her torpedo tubes.

Now what scheme to paint them, I am still clueless! I've got a few that tickle my fancy:

Bone and Red/Gold prow

Traditional Green and white/gold prow

More of a battleship grey with a white/gold prow.

...but sofar I'm undecided. No rush.

To end todays post, a pic of some bits of background material for the TNT table at Poldercon 2017.

I (finally) picked up a Fallout 4 Bobblehead for a lot less then what they go for on Ebay and the 2 bottles I picked up from a local for free a few weeks ago. Those will be stripped of their labels and I will add new, weathered labels to then so they can stand on the table and look nice.

An eventful week

Quite the week this was! Having listed the contents of my storage box last week, I found that on monday no one had even bothered to ask for information or make a bid, so I called the local goodwill store ifn they wanted to pick up the lot. And that they did. What could have been a nice figure in cash was taken for free, and I'm quite happy about it. Waiting for bids could have taken weeks, and now it is all empty besides a few more boxes of stuff I that I will pick up the next time. I also cancelled the lease, so I have to vacate it by April 18th. That is another 60 eros saved each month.

All that is left

 

I also filed my tax report and we are in for a small but welcome sum of money which will be usefull to cover the period that I'm out of work.

Starting next week (ok, I made a headstart) I will work to clear out my current hobby room and disassemble everything, storing everything in the attic. I have 16 days time untill my folks pick up our kids for a long week. I want to use that week to repaint their new room, so everything has to be gone by then. No ifs, buts and whens, it has to be done by then, so we can surprise them with a freshly painted new room when they get back. When that is finished I can rebuild my hobby room from scratch in the old kids room (won't bother with fixing that up as my cabinets will cover any damage done by the kids) and refill it with the stuff that I set aside to be returned. Then, and only then, will I start taking stuff down from the attic, 1 crate at a time, and going over the contents yet again to see what can be sold and what can stay. All of my hobby funds will have to come from that so some tough decosions will have to be made....again.

But what else happend this week?

Well, I had a testpiece made of the gift I want to give all who take my TNT demo at Poldercon.

It helps to know people who can lasercut and are willing to work for stuff I have surplus....in this case I'm getting 22 more of these done in exchange for 3 binbags of foam I had been told to throw in the trash by my dear Kim anyway. Neat, ey? I've been a fan ever since I saw Ash from Guerilla Miniatures use them, so this was the next logical step. Well, in my train of thought anyway :)

While clearing boxes I found tons of kits I had forgrotten about, including these 2:

I had been looking in my parts boxes for suitable 28mm wheels to make a few Caravan carts from, and failed to spot any, so these will be the donor kits for that and I can use the remains of the cars to make wrecks of. They won't mix with the Cars cars but will do fine with the Marx cars.

I'm in for a busy weekend, not much time for the hobby, but plenty for my little girls as my niece is having her birthday this weekend and she and her sister love spoiling my kids.

Nikki and Emma....or is it Emma and Nikki? Even I have trouble telling them apart at times. About to enter daycare this morning. Sometimes they kick and scream at each other, and the next minute they are the best of friends. Loving it. :)

Random other things:

• I'll spraypaint the Space Marine statue gold again, then matte varnish it. The last time I failed to realise it was so smooth, so the Oxide wash had nothing to hold on to to. Also, the Oxide was way too thick.. 
• Over at the Guild., a new Group Build has started; fortified, dug in and defence. I've been reading up on Iran-Iraq war scenario's and battles and have found several scenario's in which Iraqi tanks start dug in and cannot move during the game. Rather then make sandbag emplacements to slot around the bases, I will make a master of sandbag defences (in scale!) and a mould out of that, so that I can put my greenstuff tanks into the positions and add more sandbags to that. 
• Friends have asked me to focus on TNT for Poldercon, maybe only do 3 demos instead of 4, and skip CY6! I'm still thinking about it.
• Sgt Screams payment for the statues arrived today, 2 more 1st Edition plastic Terminators, plus some very nice RT Orks and a single RT...ehm space man? Guard? I'm not sure what he is actually. I've been so busy this week I completely failed to post his models, so when I finish tonights Blogpost I'll pack and label it, ready for shipping tomorrow.
• I've traded a blister of metal Spirit host for some bits. These will be for Mordheim/Frostgrave and my undead collection for the graveyard.
• I've found a limited collectors edition Marco Colombo in a unopend pack. If you know someone who can use that, feel free to pass on that information. I'm looking for 12 pounds excluding shipping or a swap for RT era Space Marines.
• I've traded quite a bit of stuff over the last few weeks just to get a small stash of RT era Marines (plastic and metal) as well as 2 Calth dreads to go with them. I want to use those for my own RT games when the city is finished. If you have any RT era Marines, let me know, I'd like to trade.
• I picked up a half styrofoam ball to make a planet from for space games. Just because I felt like it.
• My purchase of the week is not a miniature, but something extremely usefull for the hobby. It's a 2nd hand heavy office comb binding machine that I picked up at the 2nd hand shop that is old but fully functional. Just what I needed to make booklets for the TNT demo and to bind any rulessets I print off in the future. I'm trolling Marktplaats right now to find some used lots of binders ( Fun fact: I actually owned a box full of them during Uni, when I would strip them off old thesisis and reports that had to disposed off as waste paper, and then reused them when running a copying and binding service for my fellow class mates. I've always been a small fry enterpreneur. )

Poldercon TNT scenario - Tanks for nothing - test game 1

Right, first test game in the pocket and it is safe to say Erik and I are hooked.

From the start, including set up of scenery, to the final roll of the dice took us less then 90 minutes. We are both experienced gamers and the game isn't complex so the basics were in our system before the first turn had ended. We really like the unpredicatbility of never knowing you will get to activate someone again. Erik was rolling 20''s like they were free (we had brought the wrong dice by accident, so the 20's were actually 10's of course) in the first half of the game. Later on, not so much. But more about that later.

First, the set up. Basically all we have right now that is suitable.

Nothing too open, but not too built up either. My mat is a Desert Hotz mat with airbrushed rocks, works well for now.

My band of Peacekeepers (actually Necromunda Cawdor), pretty much WYSIWYG apart from the juve with a knife and pistol...he had no pistol. The leaders bolter counted as a submachine gun (well, a very big one)

Eriks band of Mutants (converted plastic IG mini's forma long time ago), also pretty much WYSIWYG apart from having no double head :)

The game had some very tense moments. I rolled terribly for my activations so didn't get very far at first, but then Erik started to fail a few and I killed one of his mutants with a mid range shot. I then managed to move my men up and my knife guy actually made it to the water heater and in his next turn managed to spike it for 1 AP. My boss then joined up and he spiked the remaining 1 AP. I then took a casualty as my shotgun was taken out of action and then the Mutant flamer made a bold move and managed to hose my knife guy and my leader. Knife guy died, the leader was miraculously missed. He then moved his leader 1 inch away from mine and hosed me with his assault rifle....and missed (thank God!). My leader switched to his light weapon and returned the favour by charging him and was greeted with a electric shock....that didn't hit. He managed to score one wound on the mutant leader that then rolled a 1 for his morale test and he was gone. My assault gunner then moved up and shot down the mutant flamer by hosing him with rapid fire (with 1 measly hit), only to be killed in the next round by a Mutant shooting from high up cover. My leader then moved back to the water heater and filled his jug. My rifleman was taking pot shots across the table with the mutant on high ground in cover and didn't manage to hit anything, so I had hoped to move him towards the water heater for another jug of water but a tring of activation failures meant he never made it there and my leader left the table with the water. Eriks men retreated too, even after passing his 50% and 25% bottle tests, but they just decided they would have none of it.

So, a win for the victorious Peacekeepers.

And a loss for the remaining mutants....or was it?

Purely on VP's I scored 7 vs Erik's 3....a win. But playing this game is half the fun. the other half is seeing who lives and dies and then the exploration phase.

So, Erik's leader had a Close Call, and his flamer and submachine guy were both Banged Up.

I on the other hand had a Dead shotgun guy, a Lucky Break for knife guy and a Close Call for the assault gunner.

Experience wise we had the following:

Erik's Mutants

• Leader +2 xp
• Flamer +3 xp
• Submachine +2 xp
• MP +4 xp
• Rifle +2xp

My Peacekeepers

•  Leader +6 xp
• Shotgun - DEAD
• Knife - 2xp
• Assault Gun - 5xp 
• Rifle - 2xp

So, a win on XP as well.

Then we went exploring.

 Oh FFS...not only does he have more people that can explore, he finds way more bottlecaps and he pulled a face card (Ace of Hertas - you find a offline Depend-o-bot) and he passes the test!

Erik's Mutants earn 51 Bottlecaps and a free robot! He must spend 10 BC for his upkeep.
My team collects 36 Bottlecaps, and I must spend 6 BC for my upkeep, but I will need to rehire another guy.

....if this would have been a real game :)

So, all in all, easy to learn, deadly, no endless dice rolling or that GW "tons-a-dice" crap and the leveling and exploring is just the cherry on top. I think this introgame can be played in 60 minutes if I give the players the following:

• Quick reference sheet
• Weapons stats sheet (on the back of the QRF)
• Character cards for the players with a picture of who they represent
• The right dice :)
• A copy of the scenario

Which then leaves 30 minutes for discussing the game and showing how the experience goes and how much fun that part is.

All in all quite happy. Still plenty of time to get the scenery sorted out, custom pieces made (the central 4x4 inch (or bigger) ruined building with the water heater) and lot's more scatter scenery. Pat's pallets worked really well scattered on the board.

Poldercon TNT scenario - Tanks for nothing - planning stage

The scenario I have selected was released in a demo pack a few weeks ago  It contains the rules, a QRF sheet, cut outs for markers and miniatures and of course a introductory scenario for 2 or more players called "Tanks for nothing". In this scenario the goal of the players is to tap water from old water heater (and not get killed) and either have it in your possession by the end of the game or make your way off the board with it.

What I need for this game is the following:

• A central ruin of 4 inches in diameter or bigger that houses the water heater.
• Enough scenery to fill the rest of the 90x90 or 120x120 board and have plenty of line of sight breakers. 
• A minimum of 2 players.
• Miniatures or cut-outs for 2 or more premade warbands.
• Markers and dice.
• A water heater.

I've laminated and bound the entire pack, prepped the cut out miniatures by glueing it to thin card, laminated all of the markers and that was as far as I could go for now. Until Erik mentioned to me that he had read through the pack and wanted to have a go at playing the game this friday. Just after lunch today I grabbed some bits from my bits box, a bit of wire, a base and some superglue later I had a sort-of water heater, a quick paintjob later I had a finished sort-of water heater and after applying 2 coats of varnish and some papers on the base I have a really finished sort-of water heater.

 In situ it looks the part. Sure, the base colour is different but such is life with washes...and the building (still) isn't finished yet.

The water heater was made from a 1/24 truck bit, with brass wire and pipe, a Zinge industries valve and some pinheads. Paintjob using foam stipling and several light washes.

Erik will bring some Mordheim scenery to fill out the table, so we will see how the game goes. Plenty of time to make adjustments if the need arises.

The rest of the scenery should be done by November as I have a deadline for the Crisis show for a Rogue Trader game.

Poldercon CY6! scenario - Old Crow - planning stage

The scenario I have selected for the Poldercon CY6! mission is "Old Crow". This is from the original rulebook. It desribes a mission by the 363rd Fighter squadron flying P-51B's, escorting B-17G's on a bombing run to Leipzig, being attacked by Bf-109's and Fw-190's. Things like spotting, visibility, sun side etc will not be used for the demo game, this is purely for flying and shooting.

What I need for this game is the following:

Germans:
2x Bf 109G-6
2xFw 190-A8

Americans:
4x P-51B
6x B-17G

After checking my extensive collection I find that the Germans are not the problem, they are easily covered. The Ameican side however is a problem. I only own 4 B-17G's, and 1 of those has the underside and top turrets filed down (what was I thinking??) so that is useless. I'll need to order 2 packs of those (ISA 280b at 2.80 Pounds per 2). Strangely, I also do not own any Mustang B's ( I could have sworn I had a few) so those will need to be ordered as well (ISA 283a at 2.00 Pounds per 6) but 1 pack of those will suffice.

After checking tons of planes I noticed that quite a few of them already had magnets drilled and glued in place, but worryingly half a dozen or so had shattered magnets, where the outer layer had peeled off and the magnet itself seems to have disintegrated? A few aircraft had small nailheads in the underside, which might be a safer bet as replacing a shatterd magnet from inside a painted aircraft is a nightmare, where the magnets from the flightstands are easily replaced. The nailhead would also help with hooking on the smoke trail for an engine fire. I'll go have a look for a box of small nails at the DIY tomorrow, can't be too expensive at the Hornbach in Tilburg where I have to be tomorrow to get started on clearing out the garage.

Painting wise I will start with the 2 German sets, see if I'm not missing any suitable decals and if so, order those along with the American planes when and if I have the money. I will paint them the same way as I'm used to, in pairs with the same scheme, but different numbering and/or prop colour. Old Crow and friends are easy, tons of info on that scheme for any particular date to be found, including D-Day schemes (always nice).

Which ia great scheme for the first flight, and to diversify I'd like to use another Fighter aquadron (486th) and go with this scheme:

Easy to see which group is which.

For the 109G-6's I think I will go with this, easy scheme for later war as well even if this one is missing the nose bulges.

Fw190's...Pips machine is pretty iconic. Also grey camouflage suitable for later war.

Poldercon 2017 - planning ahead

Poldercon 2017

That is a long way off, I know.

In my head, one way to do the games I like, is to do demos. I did this in the past and enjoyed it a lot. I hope (assume?) the ones receiving the demo had the same feeling! Anyway, I think it is time to give something back and I want to do some demos at the next Poldercon. I've selected 2, namely This is not a Test and Check Your Six!. Why 2? Well, remember my attention span? When I did demos in the past you could be busy one hour and have nothing to do for the next hour, and repeat. Plenty of rest in between so no troubles there.

Then comes Poldercon. 4x 90 minutes of gaming and one long break. Looking at something new for such a long time turns out to be more then I can handle comfortably. Something that I'm comfortable with can easily extend that, including friendly banter. But what about the 2 games? Well, I don't know what will interest people. Will a Post Apocalyptic 28mm game be more interesting then a 1/600 air battle or vice versa? Depends on the people attending, doesn't it? So if I plan 2 games of each, it will be quickly apparent which one is more popular then the other and I can always go 3 for one game and 1 for the other. Or 4 of the one and none of the other. But let's compare the 2.


This is not a Test (TNT)

• Post Apocalyptic
• 28mm
• 90-120 cm square battlefield
• 2 players

Check Your Six! (CY6!)

• Historical (WW2 or Modern)
• 1/600 (but can be played right up to 1/144)
• 120 x 180 battlefield
• 2-4 players plus GM controlled bombers when apllicable

This will attract 2 very different players (or my clones). I'm assuming the smaller scale stuff will be less popular but I can entertain more players per game.

So, what do I need to do to host these games? As it turns out, not that much!

TNT released a demo/starter scenario a few weeks back, I went over it with a fine tooth comb and printed a full pack with all of the paper minis, markers and references, laminated the entire scenario and asked Erik to bind it for me in Tilburg (as there is no shop that does that here). So that part is sorted, I just need to glue the mini's onto cardboard and prep them. The game calls for 1 house to have a heater with drinkable (well, sort of) water that your gang has to tap and get off the table. By keeping things simple (and TNT isn't that complex) 90 minutes for a short game plus explaining it on the fly does not seem as a impossible task. Scenery wise I'm building stuff for Crisis this year anyway so that is sorted too. Making a wargames heater is a piece of cake for me so no problem there either. I should have more then enough time to get it all done plus experience cause Erik read the entire rules and scenario pack and he is dying to try it out.

C6! is a different ball game. It would be a WW2 game (to avoid having to teach about radar homing and infrared missiles as well) I'm eyeing either the Bombing the river Bug scenario from Mustangs converted to CY6!, giving the Germans tons of options (which may not be so smart) or go simple 1944 and have the players attacking a GM controlled B-17 force that is defended by the other players.
Aircraft wise not a problem as I have loads (shop like levels of lead to be honest) and they are easy to paint well. A dozen B-17's and 4 fighters on each side (2 per player) should do it. (exactly 20 bases, which is not a coincidence at all....no really), for the Bug scenario I actually have the Russians painted and would only need to invest in parts for the Ju-287 as that isn't made and I need to convert it...something I relish doing. I already have a hex mat suitable for the game, bases are on the way, scenery is not needed (well, I could add a laminated target to put on the table but as the focus is to down the bombers I think I will pass on that). I have no idea if I can coax Erik or any of the other Frostgrave players into this, just for a few games to try out if my teaching skills still add up.

Both games will need no to little investment of money (which is pretty vital right now!), some investment of time and some planning to get everything sorted. Sofar I have no plans to take it to other conventions, as Impact is next month already, at Figz I will give a foamboard demo and at Crisis I expect to be working again for PSC (but that is never a certainty) and those are all the shows I know of. There is Ducosim too but I don't know the dates for that, being a mostly boardgame oriented venue. Of course, I can always take them to other shows in 2017.

3mm takes flight

As I sat here waiting for a reply to my order at Fighting 15's I grabbed some boxes from the cabinet to find my other few packs of 3mm vehicles and found a bag of 3mm aircraft instead. A big bag. I also found all of my Thud Ridge items that I used to demo at shows. In the corner of my eye, at the top of the cabinet, is a collection of Check Your Six! rule and scenario books that I collected a couple of years ago. I want to get back into that, and what better way to push myself is to plan a demo at the next Poldercon? Gives me plenty of time to get things done, find a good convention scenario, paint up the nescessary planes and laminate everything needed. I might even be able to build some scenery, or be able to afford some. Check out this >> Brigade Models
Just 1 slight problem. The bases I have are just for Thud Ridge. Big square ones with a perspex rod coming out of it at various heights, which made it very impractical to pack and store properly. CY6! uses hexes (though the aircraft stand does not neccesarely be that, round is ok too). Back in the day I played a few games using Lego stands, with a die next to it for speed.

Now, I have this thing, I don't know if anyone else has it too, but I don't like dice on the table. Their place is in a dice rolling box that I have, with big walls so that they don't jump out. Dice on the table inevitably get stuck somewhere, hit scenery or miniatures or roll off the table. Seeing aircraft flying around lugging a dice behind them is also not great to look at. But if you want to do this as a demo you will need some kind of marker that is instantly visible to all players. So....in comes Lego.

This is what some people use, as did I:

As found on this Blogpost: flight-stands-for-1600-aircraft

You can use as is, and add 1 altitude die and 1 speed die. Or just a speed die and add cylinders for each level of height (which is what I am going to do). I'm going to leave out the dice all together as I have come up with a cunning (and cheap-ish) plan.

I have a account over at Bricklink, where you can buy every bit of Lego ever made (for a price). This is because I helped out a creditcard less friend back in 2010 who wanted some Lego and I used it late 2013 when I needed Lego parts to make boxes for moulding Oyumaru. If you select the sellers from your country only AND focus on used items you cut back on the (shipping) costs, so I did just that. And then I went searching for transparant cylinders. These sell for 11-15 eurocents per pop. While this looks nice, it does make it harder to see the altitude, so why not use black - transparant - black etc? Used black ones go for 4 cents each. I then thought to myself, in CY6! you have 4 levels of pilot skill (green, trained, experienced and ace), why not give these a colour and use that colout for the first (and third, and fifth etc) cylinder so players instantly see what level pilot what plane is. As it turns out, red (ace), yellow(green) and blue(experienced) set me back 40-60 cents each for sets of 20. I picked up enough white and black ones to make 20 stands of just those, plus 20 neon green discs at 3 cents a piece. (why neon green? Because they were the cheapest) I plan to glue them down onto Warbases.co.uk 30mm casualty markers and cover them with filler and then either flock for Europe or paint them sand for Iran-Iraq and Israel vs Everybody else. 30mm round base fits nicely inside the hex mats that I have. The casualty marker then becomes my speed indicator, it goes from 1-12 which is way more then I need so that will suffice.

So, I now have a easy to work with flight base, relatively inexpensive, made from easily available materials. In the future I can always swap out the multi colour flight levels for transparant ones if people know the rules better, but for the purpose of teaching they are brilliant.

As soon as the casualty markers arrive, I will prep and paint them so you can see what I mean. I also added 20 pcs 1x1 round studs to my order that I can sink a magnet into so it is easy to mount and dismount the aircraft, like in the old system. I'll do 10 of them European woody style and the other 10 with a sandy desert base. If I need/want more, Warbases will be at Crisis and they have a show order pick up discount, so I can wait till then....it is not like I will be attacking maases of B-17's over Europe anytime soon. 10 aircraft in a game with 2 players is more than enough to keep us busy I think and for a demo 2 aircraft per player sounds about right. The vehicles I'm working on now can become juicy targets for jet age and by then I think I will have found something for WW2 as well.

Now, 3mm scenery. Brigade sells it, some very nice stuff too, but just a few villages add up quickly so that is unfeasible for now. That leaves hills, forrests, lakes and swamps etc. Dead easy to make, I once made 2 green hills for Thud Ridge and that was just some flock covered foam. I will enjoy scratchbuilding that. Of course, the senics for 3mm landwar need to be bigger than the 3mm air war targets, but that is no problem.

But all of this can wait. I'm on my last week at work and starting next week I will spend a lot of time cleaning out my storage space at my old flat, I'll most likely bin a lot but save as many miniatures as I can, and cancel the lease asap. That will be 60 euros a month better spent somewhere else. After that I will get cracking on switching the hobby and kids room. I made a head start by cleaning out the 2 cabinets of Kim and I shifted all of her books to the attic....must have been 250 kilos of books alone! (and she never reads hem!). I'll try to move the cabinets to the attic later this week but my knee might not agree with that. Speaking of which, X-rays showed nothing, next up is a MRI at the end of March and the results will be in early April, and then I'll know what the prognosis is. The company doctor today signed me a paper that I'll be leaving work sick. That means the company gets a fine, but that's not my problem. I've got other things to worry about.

More news in a few days time :)