Mech Attack Battle Report from Little Wars

Last month, the club put on a game of Mech Attack at the Little Wars convention in suburban Chicago. As with last year's game, we again invited players to witness the spectacle of giant 28mm scale mechs stomping across the table blasting each other to pieces.

We made a few changes for this year's game. First, the new scenario focused not on destroying the enemy mechs (though there was plenty of that) but rather on destroying or defending key objectives. Also, we removed the 28mm infantry component, added more mechs, and included some new models.

This year's scenario was a continuation of last year's game. In the year 2166, with the Unified Colonies nearly driven from Melk 3, they again turned their wrath on St. Martin's Parish, a small outpost that had first blunted the UC's expeditionary elements in 2165.

With planetary occupation no longer feasible, this punitive raid of revenge sent an armored wedge of mechs and vehicles into combat along an urban industrial corridor.

This was a four-player team game, with each player controlling three or four units. The grey units represented the Melk Defense Command (MDC). The green units represented the Unified Colonies (UC) punitive expeditionary attackers.

Objectives 

• UC Attackers - Score 150 points by destroying defender's pillboxes 
• MDC Defenders - Keep the attackers from scoring 150 points within the two-hour allotted game time 

Each pillbox was able to take 30 points of damage before being destroyed.

The picture below shows the layout of the terrain from the defender's position. Note the four pillboxes -- each was secretly assigned a value by the defenders before the game started. They were:

• Command Center (100 Points) 
• 2 Ammo Dumps (50 points each) - When destroyed, they deliver a medium missile hit to a blast area determined by a d10 roll. 
• Comms Center (50 Points) - When destroyed, the attacker gets a free standard move for all of his units to represent them taking advantage of the defender's lack of coordination 

Defenders were also allowed to place their mechs anywhere in the city.

The UC set up on the opposite table edge. They were allowed to keep units off the board as reserves, though no one took advantage of this rule.

The UC controlling the slightly-lower-tech Conscript mech squad, shown below, deployed slightly deeper into the industrial corridor.

Here's a look at the start of the game (minus the Conscripts, which arrived moments later).

After a bit of rules explanation, we were off! Several players were returning veterans from last year's Mech Attack game, and they proved invaluable in helping the new players get up to speed quickly.

On turn one, the UC attackers advanced up the left flank.

A small UC contingent held the center of the table to discourage flanking by the defenders.

The MDC defenders were able to stymie any advance by the attackers in the center by committing just a few units to that area.

It wasn't long before a UC Centurion succumbed to enemy fire.

On the other side of the board, however, the UC pressed their attack with some success.

The lead conscript rounded an office building and brought his weapons to bear on the first pillbox.

His comrades soon joined in and destroyed the pillbox, which turned out to be an ammo dump (worth 50 points). The explosion did only minimal damage to a few nearby mechs, and they continued their advance.

To counter this advance, the UC swept toward their right flank into the city, attempting to flank the attackers...

...and in some places they succeeded.

It wasn't enough, though. The UC pressed their advantage and directed intense firepower on a second pillbox.

The second pillbox exploded, and it turned out to be the Command Center (100 points) giving the UC players 150 points and the victory with just 10 minutes left in the game.

We were very happy with the way the game turned out. Had the Command Center been in a different pillbox, the defenders could well have held off the attack long enough to win the day. Also, the removal of infantry from the game resulted in a much faster scenario. For a game night, I'd probably put them back for more variety, but for a convention game this was definitely the right choice.

Once again, Mech Attack proved to be a fast playing and engaging ruleset that gives all of what you need and love about battlemech combat with none of what you don't. Most importantly, the players were able to quickly learn the rules and really enjoyed the game. All in all, it was a very successful morning.

Many thanks to the Little Wars organizers, HMGS, the players who participated and Armor Grid Games, which gave free copies of Mech Attack to the winners. And extra special thanks to the members of Chicago Skirmish Wargames, who took spent many hours leading up to the event playtesting this scenario and painting mechs. This year's game featured seven new mechs!

I'll leave you with a headshot of one such unit as painted by Mattias. Yep, that's a freehand pinup on a patch of armor smaller than a quarter!

Karl's Thoughts on Little Wars
This year Little Wars was slightly less than last year by most metrics. There were fewer attendees (at least as far as I could tell), vendors (about a third less) and flea market participants. Also, this year's convention lacked a paint-and-take booth, which is always a lot of fun and a great way to kill time between events. Still, it was a good time. I found some good stuff in the flea market, both for myself and to re-sell online to help fund my hobby. As with last time, we didn't have any empty seats at our game. I'll likely return next year with Mech Attack! We now have enough mechs, terrain, and experience that this is a pretty easy game to run at a convention.

Pat's Thoughts on Little Wars
I attended with Karl and the rest of the club and helped run the Mech Attack game.Each year I am surprised that Little Wars never seems to introduce a "Shopper" badge that lets people stroll through the vendor area and just spend money. It would cost them literally nothing and would be a great marketing bit to throw at potential vendors. "We let shoppers in for free, you'll be up to your elbows in grognards and cash-mad dads!"

Consider what happened to me: As a GM, I arrived late and had to haul stuff in the side doors at the last minute. Consequently I never got a badge -- and I didn't notice until our game was over and I was headed to the vendor area. I got stopped by a LW volunteer who told me I had to go register. I got a guest badge (because at that point I had about 45 left before I had to leave), but a guest badge doesn't officially allow you to shop in the vendor area. My wallet would have been $80 - $100 lighter if I had the opportunity to just buy some stuff on a guest badge. Again, why not? Open the floodgates to casual shoppers! Promote this on the web! I don't see how this can by anything but a master stroke for all involved.

I think there is a fundamental disconnect between the perceived customer base at Little Wars. Organizers believe that everyone who walks through the door is a player and should share the responsibility for planning and running Little Wars, not to mention renting out the DuPage Expo Center for the weekend. The vendors pay only for their table space. However, this calculus leaves no room for new blood -- casual gamers and suburban dads who might wander in after hearing about this "toy soldier show" taking place in town and think it might be a great place to take their 11-year-old sons for a few hours. These are the very elements that HMGS needs to attract if it is to remain relevant.

I'm not privy to the internal economics of Little Wars, and of course I'm grateful to the all-volunteer crew that puts it together. We're looking forward to next year's Little Wars -- just make it a little easier for us to buy stuff, please!

-- Karl and Pat, Chicago Skirmish Wargames club members
-- Photos by Josh, Chicago Skirmish Wargames club member

CSW's first (annual?) swap meet

A few weeks ago we were talking about maybe having a swap meet, where the club folks get together an hour or so before our regular game night, bring a box of minis or bits or projects you'll never get around to, and swap with other players in an attempt to go home with more useful stuff.

Well, we pulled it off! Last week, actually, before a marathon campaign game session (more on that in a later post). Jon, Karl, Tim and Mike met at Pat's house and the swap meet went down. Figures were traded. Deals were struck. Pledges were made! (Example: "You can dig through my Mechwarrior clix box sometime later in exchange for this knight and that demon, OK?")

As you can see from the photo above, a fun time was had by all.

Look for one more post from Chicago Skirmish Wargames this week, then we're off to GenCon. Well, one of us, anyway -- your faithful webmaster Pat. If you enjoy this blog and might want to say "Hi" at GenCon, leave a comment and we'll try to coordinate something. Game on!

Where you'll find us this weekend

This coming weekend is the Games Plus spring auction, an annual event that draws gamers to suburban Chicago for 10 straight hours of auction fun. It's a great place to find deals on rare, OOP or just plain weird miniatures and gaming paraphernalia.

The event runs for four days, capping off the excitement with the miniatures auction on Sunday. It'll start at 10 a.m. this year and will probably wrap up around 8 p.m. A contingent of folks from Chicago Skirmish Wargames — including your intrepid blog editor — will be at Games Plus for most if not all of the Sunday auction.

Are you planning to come out? It's well worth the drive for folks in Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin. Post a comment here and we'll be sure to say "hi!"

Miniatures you've never seen: High Command sci-fi

Here at Chicago Skirmish Wargames, we're big proponents of 28mm scale tabletop wargaming — on a budget. As well as buying from affordable outlets like Mega Minis, EM4 and Denizen, we also acquire lots of figures from companies or model lines that are now out of production. This occasional series of posts will dig deeper into the great lines of OOP miniatures that we've discovered in bargain bins, swap meets, auctions, and the other seedy locales where miniatures are traded.

Today's miniatures you've never seen: High Command sci-fi from Folio Works

This shrink-card of miniatures was offered to me by a friend at Bartertown who knows of my fondness for odd sci-fi minis. These are High Command HC 3/2 Protectorate Officers.


It's marked at DM14.90, which I assume is Deutschmarks. This pack has been on quite a journey over the past 20 years — from England, to Germany and the USA! The rear of the card has neat pictorial instructions on how to attach the weapons to their miniatures, as well as details about the date (1991) and country of origin (England).


From what I've been able to gather, Folio Works was a relatively short-lived company started by two ex-Games Workshop employees. Birthed in the early 90s, it was gone before Rogue Trader gave way to 2nd edition Warhammer 40,000. They produced a Fantasy Warlord fantasy line and a High Command sci-fi line.

Though short-lived, the figures compare well to similar early-90s miniatures and were notable for including separate metal weapons for each pack of figures, a feature that wasn't very common those days. The High Command line had figures similar to GW's Space Marines and Imperial Guard, as well as sci-fi Ratmen and Lizardmen. Some of the fantasy figures are still rumored to be produced today by other companies. Click here for more information about Folio Works and their figure lines. (EDIT: Just a few hours after this post went live, we received word that UK-based Kennington Figures still produces most of the fantasy and sci-fi figures from this line! Thanks Mike!)

As mentioned above the figures themselves compare favorably to their contemporaries. These
Protectorate Officers seem like pretty blatant compatible-with-GW-figures aimed at the 40k market.


Clearly the two figures on the right are exactly the same figure with a coat sculpted over the one on the far right. This adding or subtracting of detail to make one sculpt go further was a fairly common practice in the past, as anyone who has collected Necromunda figures will attest.


They scale fairly well with current Games Workshop offerings. When the soles of the feet are aligned, the swordsman is the same height as the GW plastic Cadian Imperial Guardsman (converted with a Pig Iron head), and the other is slightly shorter. Of course, the sculpting isn't quite up to the standards of today's generation of miniatures.


The gun sprue is nice, featuring some pretty clear copies of a GW laspistol and autopistol, along with a third gun that is somewhere between an SMG and a bolter. I imagine that hobbyists wishing to use these figures for GW games might toss out the weapons sprue altogether and just use GW weapons.


All in all, I'm pretty pleased with these figs. They'll probably be painted up as commissars when I get around to completing my Imperial Guard platoon composed entirely of Demonblade Shockforce Troopers (now sold by MegaMinis).

Coincidentally, researching these figs led to the discovery of the origin of a couple of sci-fi Ratmen that I had recieved a while back. Apparently the critters below are Ratten from High Command, though I can't tell which pack they belong to.




So there you have it: Folio Works' High Command miniatures, a long-lost line of figures from the golden-olden days of Rogue Trader. Good luck and good hunting for these figs — and if anyone has a few more Protectorate or Ratten figures they don't need, I may be willing to take them off your hands...

— Karl, Chicago Skirmish Wargames club member

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

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!