28mm gaming on the cheap

Since 28mm is the scale of choice for large, expensive games like Warhammer 40,000 and WarMachine — as well as smaller boutique games that are still rather expensive on a per-figure basis, such as Malifaux and Mercs — some gamers naturally gravitate toward scales that purport to offer more bang for the buck. That's why 15mm seems to be all the rage; fantasy, sci-fi and historical gamers want to stretch their dollar and still end up with a nice tabletop army for their game of choice.

Well, here at Chicago Skirmish Wargames we play almost exclusively 28mm at our club nights — and we do it on the cheap. I'm not talking about saving 20% by shopping at the right online retailers. I'm talking about scouring flea markets, making your own terrain and generally getting your per-figure cost down to $1 or less.

What follows is a broad roundup of tips gleaned from our club members about exactly how to maximize your enjoyment of 28mm figures — which, as we all know, are an absolute joy to paint up. Nothing says "hey, come over here and check out this game" quite like a couple of well-painted 28mm armies slugging it out on a pretty battlefield.

We'll try to expand on these topics with individual posts where possible. (Curious about the above photo? There's a description of everything in it at the bottom of this post.)

• Play skirmish games that don't require specific miniatures — This topic is listed first, as it may prove to be insurmountable for some game groups. For us, it was an easy sell. Why enjoy games from companies that base their business model on ever-escalating new releases, each having some new, potent impact on the game? Rather, we seek out clever rulesets that encourage the use of different miniatures — even if the publisher happens to sell an "official" line of figures for the game! Our favorites are Song of Blades & Heroes, Tomorrow's War, WarEngine and Full Thrust.
  
  
• Plastic is your friend — Plastic figures, often sold in boxes of a dozen soldiers or more, can often supply everything you need to play a typical skirmish-level game. Moreover, the secondary market for plastic figures is often very affordable, even for Games Workshop models.
  
  
• Buy as a group to save money — This is pretty self-explanatory. Split a couple boxes of Mantic's new Warpath game (someone gets the space dwarves, someone gets the orx), for example, and you'll find that the price becomes pretty reasonable even with shipping to the U.S. factored in.
  
  
• Check out flea markets and discount bins — Once you've decided that you can play a game without using any sort of "official" models, a whole new world opens up to you: the discount shelf. Our club routinely acquires and paints up miniatures from older, defunct game lines like Hundred Kingdoms, Void, Celtos, Warzone, Legions of Steel, Grenadier and Crucible. Oftentimes we can buy these items for just a couple bucks per figure, or less! Many regional gaming conventions have dealer halls with big boxes of dusty blister packs, just ready for you to paw through.
  
  
• Collectible miniatures games can provide warbeasts, vehicles and more — We keep an eye on cool-looking figures and vehicles from Heroclix, Star Wars CMG, Mechwarrior, MageKnight and D&D Minis. Sometimes they need a repaint, but other times we use 'em as-is for our skirmish games.
  
  
• Look at cheap model kits from mainstream manufacturers - Revell or Tamiya kits in 1/35 or 1/48 scale make great starting points for vehicle conversions, and they're frequently on sale. HO-scale railroad stuff is a bit more expensive, but some shops sell broken or opened items for a discount.
  
  
• Make your own terrain — Not everyone has the tools or skills for this, but you'd be surprised what you can whip together using a few small plastic desk organizers, a can of spray paint and a drybrush. 28mm has an advantage because everyday items like cardboard boxes and kids toys can be pressed into use as terrain. More on this to come.
  
  
• Make your own miniatures — Again, a niche hobby, but if you have the skills to make vehicles or spaceships, go for it!
  
  
• Keep an eye on closing sales or going-out-of-business announcements — Liquidation sales are a good opportunity to stock up, often at very good prices. We've done a bit of this here and there, with fantastic results. The business owners involved are always quite grateful for the help.
  
  

Check back regularly, because we're hoping to expand on this topic with a series of articles. If you're curious about what's in photo at the top of this post, here's the breakdown: that buggy is a converted GI Joe vehicle, with Necromunda plastic figures on board, along with a Star Wars CMG droid walker thing in the background. The quonset hut on the right is from a plastic army men toy set, and the rocky desert terrain and waterfall in the background are Playmobil items covered in textured paint and then drybrushed.

— PatrickWR, Chicago Skirmish Wargames club member

Vintage Warhammer 40k 2nd edition

As well as the Tomorrow's War game mentioned in the previous post, last week's club game night also featured a game of 2nd edition Warhammer 40,000 at Games Plus in Mt. Prospect, Illinois. Those who know our club's game tendencies may be asking themselves, "What were you doing playing Warhammer 40k, and why 2nd edition?"

I assure you that I had three very good reasons. First of all, it was a chance for me to indulge in a bit of nostalgia for the version of 40k that was one of the first wargames I ever played. Second, it was a chance to get my 40k armies on the table again. Lastly, I was interested to see how the older, more granular 2nd edition rules would work for small skirmish actions.

The following restrictions and guidelines were in effect.

• 750 point armies
• Max 25% characters (from your list or allies)
• No vehicles
• No wargear cards
• No using the Dark Millenium supplement.
• No special characters -WYSIWYG (except for grenades of course)
• Half-squads were allowed for units where the required number of minis is 10+

I brought terrain and enough miniatures for 4 armies (two Space Marine and two Imperial Guard). Due to a few no-shows, only one game took place. See the pic below for the gorgeous setup that was on hand for the players who didn't show.


First-time-attendee Don (not to be confused with the other Don who has played with us for a while) and I played a Blood Angel Space Marine assault force consisting of three squads of five marines and a captain. All marines had jump packs and mostly close combat weapons and pistols. Across the table, Mike had a full platoon of 30 guardsmen, 10 ratling snipers and two five-man command squads.



The terrain was provided by Mike M., a Games Plus staff member who also took part in the Tomorrow's War game across the room. We used the mission cards from the 40k 2nd edition boxed set and hid the objectives from the other team. As it turned out, Mike's objective was get units across the entire board and ours was to hold a central objective.

Mike did a great job setting up fire lanes and using overwatch to decimate more than half the marines before they got into close combat. He had some great dice rolls also, but it was definitely a case of sound tactics taking the day.


By the time they reached the guardsmen, there weren't enough marines left to tear through Mike's lines, and the game ended with a massacre of every single marine despite their superior stats and armor.



I had a good time with the game. Here are some observations after this nostalgia-fueled exploration of Warhammer 40k 2nd edition.

• 2nd edition 40k is more granular than the current edition and much, much moreso than any games our club regularly plays. 40k squad members have nine (9!) stats per miniature plus weapon stats, which seems like a lot after playing Song of Blades & Heroes or WarEngine, which have less than half as many.
• It takes a while to play. We resolved the game in just over two hours. Two hours for 750 points isn't bad, but if we were using larger armies, psychics, vehicles or special characters I could easily see it stretching three or four hours. That's just too much.
• 2nd edition is written like a skirmish game rather than a squad-based game, yet it requires players to organize their models into squads and enforces squad coherency. Many things such as scattered landing of jump troops and close combat are worked out on a time-consuming individual basis rather than by squad.
• 2nd edition has the capacity to be a more tactical and "realistic" (if such a rule can be applied to any Warhammer editions). The inclusion of Overwatch and a movement stat adds a tactical element not seen in the current edition.

In conclusion, it might be fun to play again with forces that are more balanced (marines with fewer jump packs and more ranged weapons perhaps?) but it will probably be a while before we play this again. I had a hard time thinking of ways that 2nd edition 40k is better than my preferred sci-fantasy game of WarEngine, which would produce an equal-or-more-enjoyable exprience with a fraction of the rules and stats in 30-50 percent less time.

Still, it's fun to dip into the grimdark world of Warhammer 40K now and then, and for small size games I'd prefer 2nd edition 40K to the current 5th (soon to be 6th in 2012...) edition, which is superior for large games, but (IMHO) too streamlined for small engagements.

Most importantly, preparing for this game has got me excited about Citadel/GW miniatures again. Hopefully someday I'll find the time to properly flock and dip my large collection of block-painted Blood Angels. I've also been picking up a fair number of Rogue Trader-era miniatures so be looking for some of them to appear (possibly) by late 2012.

— Karl, Chicago Skirmish Wargames club member

Tomorrow's War report: Operation Scrub Down

Operation Scrub Down
Colony World: Elysium Prime
Area: Cronid South Timber Sector

Rural pacification efforts continue apace on Elysium Prime, with the Terran Heavy Infantry establishing forward fire bases to guard against a local insurrection funded and armed by the Neo-Soviet Empire.

In the Cronid South sector, rebels lurking in the heavily forested hills claimed an early victory after they knocked out a medium battle tank using a roadside bomb. Within the hour, word of this loss reached the Terran commander in the area. Hard pressed by simultaneous counterattacks on his flanks, the commander was able to dispatch one infantry platoon to the area. Its orders were to reach the disabled tank and sanitize its computer core to prevent sensitive information falling into the rebels’ hands. Recovering the tank crew, if they were still alive, was a secondary objective.

As the first rays of sunlight filtered through the wooded ridgeline, the Terran troopers deployed into the combat zone...

This week we played our second game of Tomorrow's War. This time I set up a scenario to make use of the asymmetric warfare rules. A small, elite force of Terran Heavy Infantry were tasked with infiltrating a forest and "sanitizing" a disabled battle tank. The rebel insurgents, for their part, were trying to capture or kill as many Terrans as they could.

The game began with the battle tank in flames in the center of the table. It was immobile but the three-man crew had a chance to get the guns working during the game. The tank was an Ironstorm resin model from Pig Iron Productions, and it drew plenty of comments from players and spectators.

The rebels started with three squads on the table, but they received a random bunch of reinforcements at the beginning of each turn. This meant that scrappy fighters were constantly filtering onto the board to oppose the Terrans, who themselves had three fireteams for a grand total of just 12 dudes on the table. These are converted plastic Warzone troopers, with Pig Iron heads.


Despite all that, the Terrans had one piece of equipment that helped them win the game: body armor. The rebels had none, so they got shot to pieces whenever they tried to advance on the disabled tank. As the game unfolded, the casualties mounted on the rebels' side.

At one point the rebels rolled well for reinforcements and an AGR-815 agricultural walker showed up, ready to tear into the disabled tank with its cutting torch. Unfortunately the Terran squad nearby was able to shred the walker with concentrated chaingun fire. The rebels are Pig Iron Kolony Ferals figures, and the walker is from the Star Wars collectible miniatures game.




Plenty of rebels arrived over the course of the six-turn game, drawn by the desperate struggle around the disabled tank. The random nature of the reinforcements meant that sometimes just two or three guys toting assault rifles would show up at a particular hotspot. Since they were classified as irregulars, they had a hard time activating without having a leader nearby. Ultimately the hodgepodge rebel groups couldn't mobilize fast enough to stop the Terrans troops and their awesome body armor.

In fact, only a single Terran soldier died during the raid, though two more received serious wounds. On the rebels side, more than half of the fighters on the table by the end of the game had taken a wound of some sort. Check out this photo...the little red blood splatters near the figure bases indicate wounds.


I was surprised how many "walking wounded" casualties we had. The rebels took a ton of casualties but suffered no KIAs. I was so surprised that I took my question to the Ambush Alley Games forums. So many casualties, so few kills — had we been playing it wrong? Turns out that combat in Tomorrow's War is designed to produce far more casualties than KIAs, which models advances in first aid and lifesaving technology that are even now being observed in modern-day battlefields.

All in all, it was a solid victory for the Terrans — but the insurgency was far from quelled, as this photo makes clear. No fewer than 20 fighters lurked in the woods, ready to continue the rebellion to dislodge the fragile Terran toehold in the Cronid South sector.

And here's the battlefield at the end of the game, showing the Terrans retreating to their board edge having safely sanitized the tank and rescued its three crew members.

— PatrickWR, Chicago Skirmish Wargames club member

Coming up this weekend: Legends in the Fall in Mundelein, Illinois

Several of us here at Chicago Skirmish Wargames are planning to trek up to Mundelein, Illinois this weekend for Legends in the Fall, a game convention organized by Skip Peterson. We'll be there on Sunday, Nov. 20 for the War Chest flea market and to (hopefully) meet Jim Roots of Ambush Alley Games. If all goes well, we'll be able to get in a demo of Tomorrow's War with Jim.

If you're planning on being at Legends in the Fall on Sunday, post a comment here. We'd love to say hello!

The Valley of No Return: A Supersystem 2 report

(Editor's note: Inspired by reports of the new Blasters & Bulkheads title that takes the Goalsystem into space, CSW member Don shared photos and a writeup from a game he ran last year using Supersystem 2.)

"The Valley of No Return" was a three-player 28mm cooperative game where three of the world's most famous hunters (Alan Quartermain, Kraven the Hunter, and Ka-Zar the Savage) were sent to a valley to hunt some big game. Although they were working together, each player had some secret objectives.


During the game, the group was beset upon by a host of creatures including renegade Chinese troops, a giant spider, and King Kong (or is that Mighty Joe Young?)! Then for the final curve ball, a Predator was secretly hunting all three during the game which led to a truly pulpy (and by that I mean bloody) climax. As with all my games, a prize was given out to the overall winner (a Predator DVD) which was Kraven the Hunter I believe.



Supersystem 2 worked really well for all these disparate elements, and my players — who are not hard core gamers — picked it up quite fast. There is a a lot of dice rolling, but it goes pretty fast, so all players are engaged. It also helps to have each player pursuing secret goals unknown to the other players, which leads to great backstabbing. Stats for the characters can be generated fairly quickly, as there are ample examples for a balanced game, and if you do some google-fu you can find various other creatures that only need a bit of tweaking.

One complaint about the Goalsystem games are that fights can take a long time. This was supposedly addressed in the Victorian Horror game Chaos in Carpathia and I will report once I run a trial game.

— Don, CSW club member

November painting pledge: The club goes to work

Some of us at Chicago Skirmish Wargames decided to take a painting pledge this month to bolster our creative initiative. As part of that effort, we each took photos of our respective heaps of unpainted lead and then pledged to finish painting the lots in November.

The photos speak for themselves! We'll post shots of the finished products at month's end.

Tim's Pledge - a collection of fun monsters, dragons and beasties (or as he put it, "This is what I'm working on.")




Jon's Pledge - a Japanese-themed sci-fi warband.




Pat's Pledge - a handful of small terrain pieces, plus 2 mounted warriors and 2 fantasy monsters.




Karl's Pledge - a squad of Void Junkers, some assorted fantasy miniatures and a 28mm mech pilot.

Escape from New Chicago: All Things Zombie report

This week's game night was our much anticipated post-Halloween zombie game. We'd been talking as a club for a while about trying out a zombie apocalypse game, and this scenario hit all the high points: survivors, random encounters, loot, cars and of course zombies. Tim decided to run the game using All Things Zombie from Two Hour Wargames, which proved to be an excellent decision.


In preparation for the game, we assembled a huge pile of modern-looking zombies from our respective collections. Tim prepared extensive notes on the scenario and served as the gamemaster for the zombies. The other 5 players ran one survivor each, though we allowed players to quickly re-join the game if their survivor was killed. There was very little downtime, as we were all keeping a close watch on the undead horde that was slowly building on the tabletop.


In All Things Zombie, you have only marginal control over your character. You can send him running around the table, but he will react to everything he sees (mainly zombies in this case) and sometimes those reactions won't be exactly what you had in mind. As part of the game, zombies were drawn to noise: gunshots, car engines starting, doors slamming, etc. As the survivors bumbled around the map, looting cars and searching buildings, a steady stream of undead started appearing in the bleak urban cityscape. Our attempts to greet them with firepower only resulted in more zombies!


Virtually everything you can see on the tabletop had a random zombie/loot table associated with it. Players could send their survivors into the individual floors of the two largest buildings to search for supplies, though we learned the hard way that large buildings are full of proportionately large numbers of zombies.

Indeed, zombies were appearing faster than we could slay them. At one point, Jon's overwhelmed survivor character rolled a grenade into a mob of approaching zombies, but he misjudged the blast radius and was incinerated — along with 2 other survivors and a half-dozen zombies. Only Burt the shotgun-wielding biker survived, owing to his "Tough as Nails" trait which allowed him to shrug off his first "killed" result. Here's a picture of him standing tall amid the smoking carnage of the grenade blast.


Tim played the zombies and had great fun with them. When survivors died, the zombies would pause and feast on the fallen heroes. The zeds weren't particularly smart, and in several cases they bunched up on the wrong side of a chainlink fence, attracted to the sound of our gunfire but unable to climb the fence.

Our game lasted for about 3 hours. We could have played longer, but the game shop was closing up. On the fly, we invented a nice, logical endgame for the scenario: Our SWAT-lookin' cop survivor found a set of keys for a nearby police truck. It had room for 12 passengers, so our game quickly turned into "scoop everyone up and get the hell out of here."


This bright idea couldn't have come at a better time. The zombies were swarming through the street at this point, and the survivors were scattered all over the map. Brian's trio of survivors (he started with one guy and found 2 more allies in a nearby building) provided cover fire while the rest of the stragglers clambered aboard the police truck.


Survivors that were already aboard the armored vehicle aided their fellows by firing out the windows at the horde. Burt, maniac that he is, stood atop the vehicle and kept the zeds at bay.


The SWAT truck zoomed off the board and we called the game. Then, of course, we put everyone's zombies on the table and staged with glorious parting photo: the SWAT truck, with Burt perched on the roof, escaping to safety while the zombie horde advances inexorably. Good game!

Naval Thunder at Rock-Con

The scenario I ran at Rock-Con, an annual convention in Rockford, Illinois, was one I created myself using historical ORBATs from several late-war battles in the Pacific during WWII. The rules used were Naval Thunder: Battleship Row, which I found to be a great and easy-to-use naval ruleset.

The goal for the Japanese was to do significant damage to an American island base without losing their important cruisers and battleships. The Americans had to defend their base and hopefully sink or seriously damage Japanese ships.


There were 20 American ships and 16 Japanese ships on the table by the time the US reinforcements showed up divided into several divisions. At the start of the game, the Americans had three battleships — Tennessee, California, and Pennsylvania — on the board, as well as two light cruisers, Omaha and Milwaukee. Six destroyers made up the remainder of their fleet, divided into two division of three ships each.

The Japanese entered the board with the powerful battleships Yamato, Musashi, and Nagato leading their fleet. They also had 7 heavy cruisers: Kumano, Suzuya, Chikuma, and Tone in one division, and Takao, Haguro, and Myoko in another. Finally they had 6 destroyers spread out in front of their heavy ships as a scouting force.


Turn 1 - The Japanese entered the table in the corner opposite the US base and immediately their battleships turned to bring all their guns to bear on the base. The cruisers continued ahead with their destroyers to put themselves in front of the valuable battleships. The American destroyers charged at the enemy line while the American heavy ships turned to bring all their guns to bear as well. One American destroyer was sunk by Japanese cruisers during the shooting phase.


Turn 2 - The Japanese battleships blasted the island again and were rewarded with something blowing up. The battleships all missed each other as did the cruisers. The destroyer skirmish was inconclusive as well. All players were confused as to why they were getting virtually no hits. At the end of the turn more American ships came onto the board.

By the Japanese appeared the large cruiser Alaska leading the cruisers Baltimore and Canberra onto the board. Next to the island 6 American ships appeared. The battleships Indiana and North Carolina are a close match for the Japanese super-ships, while the cruisers Wichita, Minneapolis, Vincennes, and San Francisco are additional welcome relief to the beleaguered Americans.


Turn 3 - The Japanese were slowly moving toward the island while their cruisers and destroyers moved toward the American ships to screen their battleships. This turn the shooting was a lot more exciting. Kumano got hammered by Alaska and lost several turrets. Myoko started flooding. Yamato and Musashi used their secondary turrets to blow several destroyers out of the water, but they had already launched their torpedoes. Omaha and Milwaukee ganged up and sunk a Japanese destroyer. Suzuya was sunk by torpedo but the American destroyers were out of torpedoes at this point.


Turn 4 - The Japanese turned to escape, feeling that their mission was complete. The Americans didn't try fancy maneuvering, they simply charged the Japanese. Several ships were damaged in the new exchange of gunfire, including the last surviving American destroyer. The American battleship commander wished he could actually do some real damage to the Japanese as his older battleships couldn't even penetrate the armor of Yamato and Musashi if he hits.


Turn 5 - The last turn of the game. The American cruisers continued to accomplish little, and Baltimore barely avoided being torpedoed. Alaska finally sank Kumano after hammering it all game. Two more Japanese cruisers sank to gunfire from the older American battleships, while North Carolina finally hit Musashi and, amazingly, took out all three main battery turrets with three hits. All players were amazed by this and wondered if main battery hits should be more rare.

After this turn the victory points were tallied. The Americans sunk three Japanese cruisers for three victory points and destroyed the main turrets on Musashi for another three points, bringing them to six. But the Japanese destroyed the island's airfield, the tarmac, one ammo dump, both fuel storage farms, and one set of barracks. They get eleven victory points and score a victory, having met their objectives.

All the players enjoyed the game and had suggestions on how to make the scenario work better. If I run this one again, there will be fewer ships involved and they will be closer together at the beginning so some hits can actually be made. Nothing really happened for the first three turns until finally some real fighting took place. I might try to make my next scenario a knife fight in a phone booth in the dark, just for giggles and the sheer violence of it all.

— Mike, Chicago Skirmish Wargames club member