Dick Garrison Rapid Launch

Just released from Steve Blease at Wessex Games, is a new set of skirmish rules for gaming in a pulp/retro sci-fi setting. As Steve has kindly used a few of my painted figure shots in the rules, I thought it only fair to mention them

I own a large amount of figures that fit in nicely with this setting, figures from Wargames Supply Dump, Killer-B Games & Space Vixens. Last year I co-hosted a demo game the Colours show in Newbury using such a setting. Here are a few pictures to tempt you to give the setting a try

They are available as a PDF download via Wargames Vault

7TV: The Lost Highway

This was a game that we played at the Wells club last week and our first outing using Crooked Dice's 7ombieTV rules. Even though the rules are designed for mainly a 1v1 style game we threw caution to the wind and had 7 players running characters with myself & Steve Jones handling the hordes of the dead

The game was a very slightly modified version of the Gas Run scenario form the rulebook, we made the road bend round the board to give the players the choice of cross country or the longer but faster road

All of the characters are based on the two Left4Dead computer games, as I discussed in an earlier post. They are a mixture of makes including Reaper & Hasslefree. The zombies come from various manufacturers, Cold War, Copplestone, Hasslefree, Tengu to name a few to get you started

The Lost Highway

The aim: get to the gas station across the board to collect fuel for the van, return to the van and leave the board


Here is the initial board layout, it's roughly 3-4 foot square with the van on the right and the gas station on the left (a model from Litko) with some suitable scatter around

Our heroes start along the road, cautious of any nearby scenery that might contain a nasty surprise. Nick stays to guard the van and cover the return if required (he was an umpire played character that would be called upon if needed)

As the characters move along the road a horde of the undead shamble into view causing concern to all the players. Francis rushes forward, "I hate zombies", to deal with the nearest targets, taking down several zombies in following rounds but getting wounded himself

Rochelle moves to his side and successfully heals his wounds to allow the group to keep moving. Whilst this happens, Bill decides that cross country is a good idea. He heads off road but is immediately surrounded by a group of the hungry dead. Is this the end for Bill? Could he once again be sacrificing himself for the rest of the heroes??

No! Instead he hurls a propane tank he was carrying into the midst of the undead and promptly drops back to a safe distance to watch the results. BOOOMMM! Zombies fly all directions from the blast and stuns a large group of them

At the gas station, Coach unfortunately gets distracted by the chocolate machine and it's left to Ellis to grab a can of fuel he finds in the garage

The return trip is just as dangerous (Coach is still distracted by his chocolate) but, with a sizeable number of the undead already dealt with, a lot easier. Finally the van is reached, refuelled and the heroes make their escape!

Aftermath: Considering there was so many people playing the first outing of the game, it ran very smoothly. Yes, we made a few mistakes with the rules (way too much luck for the characters) but it seemed fitting that all of the heroes should survive this first game

Gruntz: Judge Dredd

Having spent most of yesterday visiting the UK Games Expo show in Birmingham (well worth a visit if you play any board or card games by the way) I need to catch up on some miniature painting this weekend

So I finished off this figure group this morning. He is the figure that will ultimately be my commander in my justice department force for Gruntz. This, of course, is Judge Dredd himself

click picture to enlarge

No conversion work this time. He is a sentinel law officer (123) from 15mm.co.uk based on a 2p coin next to a law bike (102a)

Next up, maybe some bikes?

Gruntz: Judge Anderson

My small order of odds & ends arrived from 15mm.co.uk over the last weekend and it included some figures to allow me to build some command & specialist bases for my Gruntz justice department force

My main commander, will of course, be Judge Dredd himself. He will be suitably based next to his Lawmaster bike, but that will be for a few days time. As an alternative or maybe a specialist I thought I would try and create a figure to represent Psi Judge Anderson who has to be the most iconic Judge after Dredd himself

There isn't a figure in the 15mm.co.uk range that is a straight copy of her so I have had to do a bit of conversion work to get a suitable result. Luckily they do have a female sentinel law officer figure (124 on the left below) but she is wearing a helmet which Anderson rarely does. So searching I found a female heroine figure (104 on the right below) in the adventurer section that could donate her head

It was a simple case to snip off the two heads and then pin the new one onto the law officer. The figure was then based on a 2p coin & painted the same colour scheme as the rest of the force but now with her iconic blond hair. When I spec her using the new version of the Gruntz rules, I shall of course be giving her the telepathy perk

click picture to enlarge

7TV: The Bureau Episode 1

I was hoping to have some more painted Gruntz figures for this update but I have somehow contracted an infection in my hand that means painting isn't possible right now

So instead, here is a report of a 7TV game that we played at Wells last week. The plot was developed by Steve Jones with myself adding support & figures. The figures used were a mixture of official 7TV ones from Crooked Dice & others from Killer-B's Geezers range

The Bureau, Episode 1

'Something Wicked This Way Comes'

Top operatives Steed Noble and Tamara King are sent by The Bureau on a routine mission to interview local journalist, Jed Archer about mysterious crop circles in the Wiltshire countryside. But all is not what it seems and what they learn leads to a frantic race to avoid catastrophe!

The scene: a sleepy English village 

Our heroes, together with their loyal driver arrive and meet with the journalist at the local inn. They are informed of the mysterious crop circles found on the land of one farmer and go to investigate his farmhouse to learn more

The farmhouse seems quite, but why is the farmer asleep on the table?

Once they enter the house they discover the unconscious farmer's wife and farmer Giles who is paralysed. At this point a mysterious stranger with a briefcase makes a break out of the door and across the fields

The stranger is aided by a burly henchman who joins Arthur Binks, the operatives driver, in the ancient English art of fisticuffs

Meanwhile, the stranger summons, from the cornfield, an animated scarecrow to intercept our heroes. The journalist is grabbed but Noble repels the beast with his miniature flamethrower mounted in his tie

 

This is enough of a delay to enable the stranger to escape whilst leaving a chilling warning 'I know you Steed Noble!'

The heroes recover their injured colleagues and lead the captured henchman away for questioning. Roll end credits....

Gruntz: Justice Department Vehicles

I spent a few hours over the weekend cleaning and assembling the vehicles that my Gruntz force will be using.

I wanted APCs with big fat tyres to fit in with the imagery from the Judge Dredd comics. Scanning about the 'net I decided upon the Bulldog troop transporters from Ground Zero Games. They are big and imposing enough to suit the justice department plus they do several versions which will be useful.

So, ready for painting in the near future, here are a pair of transports plus an open top version that will have a plasma cannon and crew mounted.

 click picture to enlarge

They assemble nicely but needed a bit of work to clean up some mould lines (the worse being the ones that run around the tyres and through the treads) I assembled them using Zap-a-Gap superglue as it fills any open joints. The antennae are simply lengths of paperclips cut to size.

Gruntz: Riot Judges

Another quick update, I managed to finish a unit of riot judges over the bank holiday weekend. They are more heavily armoured with extra padded vests & shields plus have two heavy weapon attachments.

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Figures are once again, from 15mm.co.uk, the movement trays from Warbases will be textured later on. You might notice that the additional 2 figure attachment bases have arrived.

Castle Ravenloft

At the Wells club, we play boardgames reasonably regularly to have a break from miniatures gaming. One game that has been played a number of times is Castle Ravenloft from Wizards of the Coast. 

It is your usual dungeon delve game but has the nice touch that it is co-op all players against the game without needing anyone to run the monsters. It's quite tricky getting the balance right, you have to explore the dungeon to find the mission target but when you do it reveals new monsters to fight & possible bad things happening. You can't just sit still either as the bad things will happen then!

The game comes with a pile of plastic figures, it's unlikely I'll ever paint them but I have made the effort and painted the adventurers. They aren't bad, the detail is good although the plastic is a little bendy on the slender swords.

So here are my efforts for the party.

click picture to enlarge

 

Gruntz

Gruntz is a set of squad based fast play sci-fi rules specifically designed for 15mm figures. I'm building a force for use at Wells, based on the Judge Dredd setting

Most of the figures are from the old Laserburn range, now sold by 15mm.co.uk as they need very little work. The initial force contains two units of street judges, complete with support weapon attachments, a med judge with robot and Hammerstein who will act as a mecha. He is from Foundry's 28mm range but is suitably imposing with the 15mm figures

click picture to enlarge

I'll be adding some heavy judges in riot armour, judges on Lawmaster bikes plus some vehicles in the near future

The movement trays are from Warbases and will be textured later. I don't really need them but it will make squad moving easier. I need to get a few extras just to cover the remaining figures...