Shut It!! Style figures.

There is an interesting discussion going on over at the Guild. Talk of some new figures that might interest us in 79 land.

http://www.guildwargamers.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=314&t=25375&p=276741#p276741


Mike

Panic In Detroit Towers

Breaking news on all Cit-Vid channels................

The exclusive Wealth-Hab-Zone of Detroit Tower was the scene of carnage today as an armed jailbreaking mob of vicious convicted crim-perps shot their way out of the Crim Zone of Penal One.

The Crims storm across the bridge and head for the security gate

The Security booth is taken by "Smiling Al", the crim leader 

Armed with illegal zap pistols the mob overwhelmed the PSC guards manning the security booth and powered down the nano fence. The guards fought hard and numbers of the crims were shot off the bridge from the max sec perp pen. A thin line of PSC troopers was simply overun by a knife and pistol toting gang of liberty hungry thugs, followed up by hardened gangers with armed with burp guns

The crims flood into Detroit Towers

As the PSC caved in, the gangers flooded into the Hab Towers, innocent citizens fleeing by turbo lift and skimmer, carrying what they could. A few hardy citizens joined the remants of the PSC and tried to hold the streets but were shot down by the murderous crims.

Citizens flee as the last few PSC troopers hold off the crazed crims

Meta City is in a state of panic as military gyro copters loaded with Security Consultants are being lifted in to make an assault on Detroit Towers. Reports of vid delivery men being shot by nervous citizens have been denied by the Mayors Office.

Mayor Brumby of the majority Popular Liberal City for the People Party has promised a full investigation and a review of sentencing policy, "this can't happen again," he said on vid link from his apartment on Hab-Sybarite-2.

NEXT! GANG fights MERCS asTHE CITY strikes BACK!!

Thrill overload WARNING!!

Figs - GZG (perps painted by Major Mike), terrain, SWM minis map, rules W79 "Kill-o-Zap" back of a postcard. Inspiration, Dredd3D, 2000AD case files vol1. Inbound: 15mm.co.uk Law Officers plus bikes. Apologies its 2079 not 1979.

Cheers!
Maff



When in Rome

I had this vision for re-energising the story in Winter of '79.  A number of back to back games representing a co-ordinated series of raids by Special Branch and SO13 on suspected terrorist/rebel safe houses. Inspired in part by the dramatic scene in Patriot Games where Alun Armstrong leads an RUC raid on an IRA bomb factory. But equally no less inspired by the synchronisity brought to the table by the cut-out terrain tiles and accessories that came with HOF Fire Team from 15mm.co.uk.

Mr Benn's lodgers at 52 Festive Road

are likely to be behind in the rent this month

Put the two togther and a game emerged. It's worth noting at this point that whilst nominally 15mm, the tiles are perfect with 20mm and even less than heroic size 28mm figures. The tile sheets come with 2-D furniture to cut-out allowing you to create any combination of bathroom, living, sleeping and kitchen spaces. Believe me, whilst a little garish at times, and some of the bedsits I lived in in the eighties were just that garish, these tiles work surprisingly well.Whether it's a single bedsit or a two up, two down, urban terrace.

The other thing to bear in mind is that they are portable and just in case if you are wondering, this is where Rome comes into the picture. I packed HOF Fire Team, the tiles and a small box of unbased miniatures in my hand luggage and took them to Rome. Well, there's only so much L'ispettore Barnaby, "Mio Dio! il vicario è stato pugnalato di nuovo!" one can watch on the TV in the room whilst you partner gets ready for a night out. You are always guaranteed this downtime, so why not put it to some practical use!

During the wait in departures at Edinburgh airport I turned some vague ideas into short d6 tables in my pocket notebook and refined them further during the 3 hour flight over. Something to while away the journey. Using a die roll app on my phone, even I draw the line at taking dice on holiday, I could determine the number of raids in the operation and the background for each. Essentially, this boiled down to where it was taking place, type of property (no. of floors/rooms), numbers and type of security forces involved, deployment, expected targets, opposition, modified by quality of intelligence etc. I'll throw these tables up online by the end of the week as I'm running out of time and energy tonight. But you get the picture.

We'll run up a new security forces op. too, Operation Pantheon, in honour of Rome and then post the AARs shortly after. 

Cheers
Mark

Viva Roma!

Reaching a landmark does have some advantages. Heather arranged a 'surprise' birthday present and whisked me away to Rome to celebrate, and not just the big day, but life.

And what better place to savour the moment than Life restaurant in the Via della Vite, where I enjoyed one of the best meals I've ever eaten, in one of the most friendly, convivial restaurants we've had the pleasure of dining in.

There was plenty else to celebrate. Just before my birthday was the second anniversary of being informed I had five years left to live....eight if I'm "lucky". I don't think about it normally, but when the anniversary comes round it's like waking up in the early hours and staring at the clock to see how much time you have before the alarm goes off. But I'm here now and that's what's important.

If you remember, H. was made redundant earlier in the year and together we experienced the change curve. Not unnaturally, she needed time to reassess her life and what she did next. I'm glad to say it proved to be a hidden opportunity and she is now in a much better job and wondering what stopped her from moving on all these years.

And three days before my birthday, the electronic pay and personnel management project I've been leading finally launched. Built from the ground up, in just eleven months since I returned to work. The last couple of weeks before launch saw problems and delays dropping in like Russian paratroopers from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. Causing me tearing up the implementation plan on a daily basis as my timetable became ever more squeezed. However, in true CoD spirit I attacked the issues head on, my team stepped up to the mark and we delivered.

Those of you in similar fields will know it's like giving birth. A long drawn out pregnancy followed by effort, pain, tears and finally joy mixed with relief. Now the job is to smooth out the inevitable kinks, roll it out and implement the other modules.

An upside to all this, is that I've been asked to manage a second team and deliver another high profile pilot. Whilst Tuesday, I'm presenting my vision for bringing together the human factor with IT, BI and HR to create a single conjoined strategy to realise the goals of the business over the next 5 years. I'm sure being a wargamer and spending long hours pouring over SPI games in my youth are finally paying off.

I know you'll understand when I tell you that I've come home many evenings, opened up the blog and have simply been unable to string two words together. And wargaming itself has progressively taken more of a backseat as the weeks have passed. Though there's been days here and there where I've been able to catch quick text chats with Maff on the journey to or from work.

The bubble's burst at work. I am feeling great. My hobby is very much a part of life and everything to celebrate about it. I have a saying pinned up on my project noticeboard in the office "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!"  Makes a damn good strategy for life too.

Cheers
Mark

  

Industrial units

Picked up this OO gauge Hornby Factory Unit on eBay for £12. Some chain link fencing, a parking lot, piles of pipes, a skip or two, wayward pallets and it's an industrial estate in it's own right.

You can extend further with versaitle elements a Portakabin, stacked containers, and add a gatehouse. Knightwing offer plenty of accessories that can populate your scene and give it that grungy 'lived in and worked in' look.

Low relief  industrial buildings can be added to at least two sides to improve the aspect of your playing area whilst increasing it's size with judicial use of additional skips (recommend those from The Scene), piles of oil drums, industrial rubbish and the odd parked van, fork-lift etc.

I previously picked up a Hornby Compressor House that was going for a song at Model Zone. With or without the compressor tank it gives a 1970s look to any industrial estate and also ring the changes. On it's own it can become the centre piece of a Council depot with just a few additional sheds and scatter items from those listed above.Perfect for Winter of 79, Geezers and the odd Zombie apocalypse..


Cheers
Mark

28mm Pulp Action in Denmark

This is the BBC Home Service. Good evening. This evening’s “Radio Drama Hour” is set on the dark and forbidden shore of the Baltic and features Wilton Fulbright as Sven Svensonson and Derek Stilton as Gruber....

1938. The tiny island of Hendrinskaga off the Danish Coast is occupied one night by well armed Nazi sympathisers, led by one Hans Gruber.

The Police Chief on the larger neighbouring island, Sven Svensonson, arms the crew of the Danish trawler Mermaid, and leads them on a mission to place the Nazis under arrest.

Thought up on the train home tonight , the game was a rough and ready playtest of our new homebrew 'Pulp' rules. The rules themselves thought up and expanded via text whilst commuting on the train over the past week.

The game was a roaring success and at the end of the night, despite the poor crew of the Mermaid being handed the Herring end of the stick, we had honed our draft rules into a workable and fun little system. Fast play, bloody, with a heroic twist and strong Pulp feel.

That's it! My eyes refuse to stay open for much longer. Back to the Britain of 1979 in a week or two, where there's a bit of a Punk revolution going on.

Cheers
Mark

There are bad days.....

And there are very bad days! No matter how bad you might think you've had it in the office, spare a thought for Lieutenant Gorman and the Colonial Marines of B Company, 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit.

Maff wasn't up for a game tonight, so Heather obliged. In two blistering back to back games, she cleared the Wayland-Yutani base on LV-451 then I took control of the Marines and held off wave after wave of Aliens. Well, that was the plan.

Each Alien surge was met by massive firepower. The Marines were aided by the DIMOG armour suit that remained constantly in the thick of the action. As the Aliens melted away, the Marines moved within their perimeter to bring greater firepower to bear where needed. But they couldn't man all avenues of attack at once and as each Team succumbed to the Aliens, the gaps began to tell, allowing more and more Aliens to close-in.

The DIMOG was overwhelmed by one such surge of Aliens. The operator only managed to score a single hit against the oncoming hordes and the DIMOG was finally clawed to the ground and destroyed by massed Alien attacks.

That was an "Oh Shit!" moment for Hudson and Carmen of Alpha Team defending the South Lock. Meanwhile Gorman had retreated to the Control Tower and played little part in the action until the Aliens broke in and ripped Bravo Team to shreds.

 Summoning his reserves of courage Gorman turned into man of the match, taking down one clutch of Aliens after another. But numbers told in the end. Gorman also went down fighting against a forest of teeth and claws.

There was nothing in reserve, Hudson then Carmen faced down the bad guys but bad die roll piled on bad die roll. It was all over. For a few minutes there was static but then it was gone. The sub-ether waves went dead. Contact with LV-451 was lost again.

 The rules were a back of a postcard job, run up on the train home. Heather loves the Alien movies, especially ALIENS, second in the series. Once I had everything on the table she couldn't resist and by the third wave was fully into the swing of things. Figures are all from Khurasan and the 'Flame' Markers are from eBay seller Small Terrain whom I recommend very highly.

Two great games that proved to be a fun diversion and a welcome return to 15mm Sci Fi, albeit tongue in cheek. Heather enjoyed herself and despite the fact I was to put it bluntly, massacred, in the second game where I played the Colonal Marines, I had a craic!

Cheers
Mark