Looking back on 2012

We're feeling retrospective as 2012 comes to a close, so we felt like it might be a good idea to look back on a year of gaming in the Windy City.

The year began with the club ramping up our first concerted effort to produce a series of blog posts on a particular topic. In this case, it was 28mm on the Cheap, a series that aimed to dispel myths about the perceived expense of gaming in 28mm. It's our favorite scale, and we've got plenty of tips on how to avoid breaking your gaming budget. The series actually began in late 2011, but it really gathered steam in 2012. It was also an excuse for us to share some of our favorite makers and manufacturers of affordable minis! We also expanded it to talk about cheap, DIY terrain and vehicle conversions. It's now a regular feature on our blog.

In February, we got our hands on a playtest copy of Apocalypticum, a post-apocalyptic skirmish ruleset under development by Ganesha Games, publishers of the excellent Song of Blades & Heroes. If you follow this blog, you know that CSW has a soft spot for post-apoc gaming as well as Ganesha Games. We enjoyed the game and look forward to its eventual publication.

By April we were gearing up for our second appearance at Little Wars, an annual convention that takes place in suburban Chicago. In 2011 we ran a straightforward Song of Blades & Heroes scenario. This year, we aimed a little higher: post-apocalyptic highway carnage! Check out the battle report from the game to get an idea of how epic it was.

Later in the summer, we launched our first club campaign: The Iron Isle, a Song of Blades & Heroes fantasy epic! That link goes to a description of our campaign world, as well as battle reports from the 20-odd individual games we played over the course of the summer. It was a fantastic series of games, and the campaign really inspired us as a club to dig deep into the hobby. We painted miniatures and built terrain all summer long, buoyed by the fantastic games we were playing in the campaign.

It was around this time that our recruitment efforts began to pay off. We had regular gaming space available at Pat's house and Karl's house, and our small group soon grew to number 6 or 7 regular players. We're very excited to see new faces at CSW's regular game nights!

By September, we were beginning to talk about our winter campaign. The consensus was that we wanted to try out a full-blown post-apocalyptic campaign -- after all, we had the miniatures and we had the vehicles. Time to put 'em on the table! With this in mind, the terrain bug bit a few of us that fall. Pat started knocking out various post-apoc ruins and rubble bits. Karl converted a bag full of plastic farm buildings into a table's worth of industrial warehouses. He also snagged an architectural tabletop model at an auction and reconfigured it as an urban wargames table. Tim churned out a great collection of modular modern office buildings, as well as a batch of foamcore ruins and some plaster car wrecks.

We took a break from all this post-apoc prepping to host our second annual Halloween zombie game at Games Plus. Carnage in New Chicago, the sequel to 2011's Escape from New Chicago, allowed us to really one-up our previous game in a lot of ways. We had more terrain, more zombies and most importantly, more players!

We closed out 2012 by auditioning a number of rulesets for our upcoming post-apocalyptic campaign. We tried Neutron York 3000, In The Emperor's Name and This Is Not A Test, a work-in-progress ruleset that we are helping to playtest. We're leaning towards TNT, though our recent game raised enough questions that we decided to have another go at it in early January.

Thanks to all of our readers who took the time to post a question or comment -- and bonus points to everyone who came out to game with us in 2012. Watch this space as we head into 2013! We hope to share more photos, battle reports, tutorials and gaming fun with all of you.

-- The Players of Chicago Skirmish Wargames

Photo dump from last week's game night

While I was busy typing up some thoughts about This Is Not A Test, a new post-apocalyptic game we're playtesting, my inbox was overflowing with cool photos from the other games that took place during our regular game night. Karl and Josh both sent along a bevy of photos from two games of In The Emperor's Name (ITEN), which we're auditioning as a potential ruleset for our upcoming post-apocalyptic campaign.

Regrettably, I don't have much insight about these photos, except that they're fantastic and do a great job showcasing the wonderful conversions by club member Michael and others. The photo up top is a long shot showing all 3 tabletop battlefields as well as a few Chicago Skirmish Wargames regular (from left: Mike, Tim, Patrick and Jon).

The first ITEN game was a concerted effort to try out the vehicle rules. So we put a whole bunch of zany, post-apocalyptic (and Orky) vehicles on the table, along with a few squads of soldiers, and had a grand melee. Here's the battlefield from the perspective of the Ork encampment (scratchbuilt by Michael, along with both of those cool Ork vehicles).

In addition to Michael's Orks, the game featured Karl's Neo-Soviets and Tim's cyborgs. Here are some more photos from the game, in no particular order (though you can sort of tell how the game unfolded, what with all the overturned vehicles).

 

 

 

Across the table, another conflict was developing. This was a straight-up ITEN skirmish, featuring Jon's cyber-samurai warband vs. Mike's Guardsmen. Again, this was a run-through designed to get some practice with ITEN and figure out if we like it enough for long-term campaign play. Here's the one lone photo we ended up with from their table.

The players concluded that ITEN handles vehicles in a simple manner that doesn't seem to overpower them vs. trooper models. The vehicle units themselves were very easy to stat up using the ITEN vehicle creation rules.

-- Patrick, Chicago Skirmish Wargames club member

Playtesting "This Is Not A Test"

Last week we had our regular game night at Games Plus, a venerable gaming establishment in suburban Chicago. Tim and I were planning to try out This Is Not A Test, a forthcoming post-apocalyptic ruleset being developed by Joseph McGuire. (Full disclosure: I did a bit of contract editing work for Joey on this product -- mostly grammar and proofreading -- but of course it won't color my impressions one way or another.)

I was somewhat skeptical that This Is Not A Test (hereafter TINAT) would fit with Chicago Skirmish Wargames' club philosophy -- that is, we enjoy fast-play skirmish games that are lite on rules and heavy on imagination. Our TINAT playtest rulebook was a hefty thing, but luckily the core rules are only about 20 pages long and we mastered them after a few turns. The rest of the book is devoted to weapons, armor and equipment, as well as fluff, faction-specific army lists, and a well-developed campaign system.

For the game, Tim and I whipped up two warbands at the game's prescribed point value: 600 points.

Tim fielded his Neo-Soviets using the Peacekeepers' army list (sort of like frontier lawmen, but with K-9 units). Here they are on the edge of our skirmish battlefield.

I fielded my Kolony Ferals using the Tribals army list to reflect their primitive equipment. Here they are, in the ruins opposite Tim's Neo-Soviets.

In the interest of getting down to brass tacks ASAP, we intentionally compressed the battlefield a little bit. The game suggests at 4x6 playing surface (pretty much the standard for most games) but we downsized to a 4x4 table and didn't suffer any ill effects. We both ended up putting about 15 guys on the table for each of our factions.

In TINAT, every figure is an individual -- there are no squads or unit coherency to track. Personally, I like this, as I've always felt squad-based mechanics aren't a good fit for 28mm battlefields. Warbands are composed of models of various power levels, from "green" all the way up to "legendary," though the rulebook notes that it's unusual to see figures from both extremes on the table at the same time.

Each turn, players dice off for activation (TINAT uses d10s) and then take turns trying to activate figures one at a time. If you pass an activation test, that figure gets 2 action points to use immediately, then you continue activating more of your figures. If you fail, you get 1 action point to use, then play passes to your opponent, who then tries to activate some of his guys.

The turn continues like this until everybody's figures have activated. Because activation can pass back and forth several times, it wasn't uncommon for our turns to proceed like this: I activate 3 guys, then Tim activates 5 guys, then I activate 1 guy, then Tim activates 2 guys, then I activate 8 guys, then Tim activates 6 guys. When everyone has been activated, the turn is over and you roll initiative for the next turn.

We sort of seesawed back and forth each turn, activating different groups of figures (or not) which in turn drew our focus to different areas of the battlefield. The fact that I didn't get to activate all of my guys at the same time presented some very nifty tactical situations. Do I press my advantage on the flank where most of Tim's guys have already taken their actions, so they can't hit me back this turn? Or do I try to take the fight to his 'fresh' troopers who haven't yet taken an action, in order to force them to respond quickly to my aggression?

The terrain is all homemade: Tim built the foamcore buildings in the background, a fellow gamer in Kansas built the overgrown ruins, and I did the big ol' pipe sticking out of the ground.

By the middle of the game, we had a good handle on the rules. My tribals were all armed with blunderbusses, which had a range of only 6 inches, so I had to really get in close to do any damage to Tim's Neo-Soviets. His guys had assault rifles, which had range of 24 inches. Luckily I had given the tribals some metal armor, which was a bit heavier than the Neo-Soviets' armor and thus increased their survivability as they crept through the ruins.

The game handles shooting damage by making it mostly simultaneous -- that is, if you hit, you don't roll to wound immediately, but you put a little wound marker next to the victim and continue with your activation. Only when you fail an activation roll (and play passes to your opponent) do you resolve all those outstanding wound tokens. Thus it's possible for a guy to take hits from several enemy figures in a single turn. In our game, Tim shot one of my guys with two assault rifles and a flamethrower, just to be sure. We rolled for damage all at once for all 3 hits -- the guy died for sure. You can't always be certain that a single hit will knock out an enemy, so the game encourages you to really pour the fire onto important targets.

However, there is a downside to the simultaneous damage thing: We found that we needed a variety of colored markers to track the various conditions on the battlefield in a given turn. Check out the in-game photo below. The blue markers indicate a figure that has moved and shot during its activation (this is important because figures that have moved gain a defense bonus). The yellow markers indicate figures that have been hit by a flamethrower, but we haven't yet rolled for damage yet. The green markers note that the figure has made a ranged attack but didn't move. The black marker indicates that the figure has been hit by a blunderbuss but we haven't yet rolled for damage.

Remember, at the end of each turn there is a "cleanup phase" where you can remove all of these tokens. Tim and I didn't have a problem using markers to track these conditions, and they're not expressly mandated in the rules, but not everyone is a fan of lots of little markers on the tabletop.

Melee combat works a little differently because damage is applied immediately (melee being a much more decisive type of combat compared to shooting).

Beyond that, we had a lot of fun with the game. Interesting sidenote: Both Tim and I were accessing the playtest rulebook on electronic devices (him on a Kindle and me on a Samsung Galaxy S3 smart phone) and I've gotta say, this really enhanced our gameplay experience. Just the ability to use the "find term" function on a smartphone or tablet was a godsend and avoided lots of needless rulebook flipping (or finger swiping, since we're using touchscreen devices).

Coupled with the background material, factions and well-developed campaign framework, Tim and I agreed that TINAT seems to be on the right track. It's not a skirmish game, nor is it a combo-rific game like Warmachine, but it's also a tighter, more focused ruleset than something like Necromunda. Check back for more updates as we playtest this game again!

-- Patrick, Chicago Skirmish Wargames club member

Fully Painted: Void Junkers and Neo-Soviets

Last week I finished two groups of figures: a Neo-Soviet warband for our upcoming post-apocalyptic campaign and a huge batch of Void Junkers Legionnaires that will likely see use in may different games.

Neo-Soviets 

This project was initiated by my acquisition a couple weeks ago of 6 Soviet NKVD troopers from the 25 cent bin at Wolfcon. As with most of my impulse buys, I knew if I didn't get started on them it might be a while before they saw any paint, so I got right to work. The painting is my usual method: a quick spray with Rustoleum Camo Green, followed by base colors, a brush-dip of Minwax Polyshades Antique Walnut and a brush-on matte varnish.

The basing is just premixed wall plaster sculpted up to try and disguise the cast-on bases that are glued directly to the slotta. To their number I added a long-OOP Corporation Commander from Demonblade's now-defunct Shockforce game and a Neo-Soviet Rad Trooper figure from Vor: The Maelstrom

Here are some of the troopers.

They're NKVD figs from Black Tree Design and are apparently still available quite reasonably for less than $2 per figure.

These figures looked a bit small in the bin, but when I got them home, I found that they are 28mm to the eye. Their cast-on bases add a further bit of height, making them a good fit alongside more modern 28mm models that often stretch to 30mm.

They are stock except for backpacks that I ordered from Mega Minis. These are backpacks that normally come with their sci-fi trooper figures, but if you ask nicely they'll sell them separate.

Here is the commander figure and his enforcer/bodyguard/brute.

Though most Shockforce corporation figs have been re-released by Mega Miniatures as Frontier Defense Force, this Commander figure hasn't. I figure it's probably because the figure is so big -- he measures 33mm sole-to-eye without even counting his massive hat, making him significantly larger than most Shockforce troopers. Like most figures from the line, he's pretty clearly intended as a Games Workshop Imperial Guard proxy.

The Neo-Soviet Rad Trooper figure is still available from Iron Wind Metals. He's supposed to come with a backpack. Mine came in a random pile of loose lead, so he got one of same Mega Minis backpacks as the troopers.

These guys were finished in a week of spotty painting and will probably see the table next week as we continue to playtest In The Emperor's Name as our probable choice of rulsets for our upcoming post-apocalyptic campaign.

I'm especially happy with the effect that the Minwax Polyshades Tudor dip gives to their dark green uniforms.

Void Junkers 

I've been trying to finish these guys for the better part of a year now. I thought I'd get them done quickly by doing a batch of 47 figures at once, but that only made me enjoy the process less and procrastinate more. Anywho, they're done now!

Along with the basic troopers, there are 5 sergeants (guys without helmets), 1 chaingunner, 4 grenadiers, 5 flamethrowers and 2 figures with thermite lances that I'll be using as grenade launchers.

Fans of Void will note that these troopers are missing their shields. I've also noted their absence and somewhere in my house there's a bag of shields primed white and waiting for paint. I decided to paint the troopers anyway and deal with the shields when I find them. I think you'll agree that they don't look terrible sans shields.

They were painted with the same process as the Neo-Soviets, except they were primed with white gesso. The basing is simply sheetrock paint texture (finely crushed pumice) glued on, painted brown and dry-brushed.

I really rushed these guys, but they didn't turn out too bad. There are two figures with really bad pooling of the Minwax on the lower leg, but even that isn't very noticeable on the tabletop. So it's not my best work, but they do look quite impressive in a big group, which is how they'll likely be used. My Junker army now numbers more than 70 foot soldiers, a vehicle, 7 mounted cavalry and a couple other largish figures. Which means I'm a bit less than half finished!

As with the Neo-Soviets, I'm really liking the effect that the black pigmented Tudor shade has on miniatures. This was one of my first uses of it on lighter shaded figs (usually I use it for darker colors), and I'm very pleased. Here's a quick tip. After the Tudor dip has dried, if you find a few places where you missed, a bit of black paint mixed into matte medium gives you a nice thick-but-translucent mix that you can paint on to darken up the areas you missed.

The best news is that now my painting desk is cleared of in-progress projects, and I can start on my two next undertakings: a Squat army (yeah, you heard right...) and a post-apocalyptic salvage crew.

-- Karl, Chicago Skirmish Wargames club member

Terrain: From the Resale Shop to the Battlefield

The D-03 distillery began life as a patriotic decoration that I found at a resale shop for a couple bucks. Though the scale was wrong (it was roughly 54mm in the box), the piece had a nice shape and good surface detail. I knew it would be a great candidate for conversion

This product was meant to light up, make sound and put on a dazzling fireworks show via a mass of fiberoptics that both explode out of the back of the model. Needless to say, all that was removed.

After taking it apart (nearly everything was connected with screws, luckily) I removed the house from the base and reassembled it. I used some latex plaster to fill the holes left by all the shutters after I removed, and then I then set to detailing it.

Here's what I used for this conversion:

• One-sided corrugated cardboard sheeting
• Plastic toy silo from Target $1 section
• Circular cross-stitch mesh (granny grating) 
• Disposable plastic plate for raised grid texture and D-03 sign
• A few model railroad kit stickers 
• Random plastic toy bits for ladders and AC unit on roof 
• Pegasus Chemical Plant parts for tubes and small tank
• Some polystyrene plastic sheets and strips

I first began by creating more level surfaces to place figures. The sloped roofs on the top and rear of the building were removed and replaced with flat surfaces. I used my Dremel's cutting wheel to cut away several sections of the model.

For the front I replaced the sloped roof with a shallow incline and added a strip of styrene to help keep figures in place.

To bring the whole thing closer to 28mm scale, I took the fence pieces from the front yard, cut them down and used them to turn the porch into a raised loading dock. The remainder of the door and lower windows were covered with corrugated cardboard. A toy silo with the top removed was glued to the side of the building, and a piece of circular cross-stitch grating was glued about an inch from the top to make a concealed firing location.

A plastic dinner plate provided all the raised panels with square details as well as the D-03 sign. Other parts from the original structure also came in handy. I used the original window backings to make a flat surface on the side for attaching the silo, and the shutters make excellent vents as seen here on the roof

The AC unit is a random toy part from a resale shop bin. It's got some of the raised detail from the plastic plate added to cover up a few holes sides. I used a tiny bit cut from a GW tank accessory sprue to suggest that there might be machinery inside, though it's actually empty.

I can't recommend the Chemical Plant kit from Pegasus/Technolog highly enough. It's a gold mine of detail for adding industrial realism to your models. All the pipes on the model, as well as the small tank on the back, are from this kit.

Painting was really easy. 

• Spraypaint the whole thing black, using black gesso to reach where I missed
• Drybrush on main colors (orange, blue, grey, red, yellow, metalic silver, etc) 
• Add a few stickers from a model train kit
• A couple of heavy reddish brown washes
• Drybrush of metalic silver on the edges of some of the siding to suggest that it is made of metal

Jobs in the wasteland are worth fighting for!

So that's it. I'm very pleased with the way this one came out. It was an extremely lucky find and I wish I had another as there's so many different ways you can convert plastic buildings, especially ones with so much good detail already included. As always, comments and questions are appreciated!

-- Karl, Chicago Skirmish Wargames club member

Terrain: Homemade Plaster Car Wrecks

Tim continued his recent terrain assault by completing a batch of wrecked cars made from plaster poured into tinfoil molds. You might have spotted these nifty pieces in our recent Neutron York 3000 battle report!

Tim took inspiration from a pair of articles on Combat Zone Chronicles and Terragenesis. Here's what you'll need to complete the project.

• Toy cars (Tim used 1/43 scale toys)
• Tinfoil
• Plaster
• Box of sand
• Paints
• Washes and/or Minwax Polyshades (commonly referred to as 'dip')

 Follow these steps and you'll have a nice batch of cars for your battlefield!

1. Press tinfoil onto the cars. The mirrors cause the most problems, so be careful around them.

2. It is difficult to get the foil off and retain the shape of a car, so Tim added some creative dents here and there to make the tinfoil come off easier.

3. Put the foil in a tub of sand, so the sand supports the plaster and leaves a hollow tinfoil cup where you can pour in the liquid plaster.

4. Cast the plaster into the foil. Tim didn't use a releasing agent.

5. Remove the foil. Some sand and foil may stick to the car.

You may get a few cars that are too messed up to use as is. You can either toss them or try and carve them into a more desirable shape.

6. Glue together the individual cars to make stacks of wrecks, then base the stacked cars like you would for any other piece of scenery. Tim used wood glue.

7. Fill in the gaps between the cars with plaster, wall filler, or something like that.

8. Add sand to the bases.

9. Paint the cars. Tim decided to make them completely rusted out, so his palette included a mix of ocher, orange and rusty browns. The ground is light brown.

10. Paint bluish-gray for windows, wheel wells and other spots.

11. Paint silver for some chrome parts. Tim actually used a silver Sharpie marker for this step.

12. Drybrush. Tim used a tan color, cooled down with purple, to make the whole thing a bit less warm.

13. Brush on a coat of Minwax Polyshades Antique Walnut or Tudor. Give it at least 24 hours to dry.

14. Spray matte. You can color or base these wrecks however you might want. Tim chose to make them look very rusty and worn, but more color variety is fine also.

And here's a pic of the cars in action!