Milleniumcon 2014, Part 1

A couple of months back, I got to attend Milleniumcon in Round Rock, Texas. It's my second time around and I got to see some cool games. Mainly, I hung out with Grindhouse Games crew running demos of Incursion using their studio painted minis on my 3D boards. Lots of fun was had by all!

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Excellent art work captured in their banners. Middle banner was also produced as a poster -
alas the others were not :(

  

The Von X twins (studio painted no less) 

An odd assortment of SturmZombies

The Brit Commandos of MI13

The Yanks of the Lucky Seven

My 3D board

Let the games begin...

HMG APE in Reaction Fire

Grunt APE backing up Slugger

"C'mon out, you ZomBags!!!"

Next up: The Games of MilleniumCon

Re-purposing with a Purpose

The other day, Willie came over and introduced me to Heroes of Normandie. Basically a boardgame and we supersized it with my Flames of War minis. This is another instance where we take a perfectly good game and add another dimension to it by using minis. Heroes of Normandie is a nice game with great graphics on quality materials. The caricatures of iconic WW2 movie roles is another nice touch. Check it out. 

Playing the basic scenario for my intro to this cool game

Flames of War unit stands fit nicely as well as the vehicles 

Black Scorpion Pirates, Part 2

Continuing...

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Excuse the lack of focus...

On their slotted bases...

On excellent Wood Deck Bases from Fenris Games

WIP: Soviet and German Armored Cars, Part 5: SdKfz 222 and SdKfz 231 (8-Rad) DONE

Oh boy! I finally finished my German armored cars and can't wait to get them on my table. 

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More fun with my armored cars.

Zombies supporting my armored car are from my Incursion collection.   

I decided to stay with Panzer Grey for better weathering and
highlighting effects as opposed to Dunkelgelb (Armor Dark Yellow).

Here they go tangling with some APEs also from Incursion.

"Steppe This Way..." Another Saga Battle

With the advent of the new Saga expansion: Steppe Tribes, I once again got excited. This would give me a chance to dust off my Mongol miniatures and re-purpose (read: proxy) them. Although, the miniatures I used are not really far off: Pechenegs from Old Glory to supplement the Mongol rank and file horse archers. 

Pechenegs

You could read all about the make-up of my Mongol army from an earlier post http://thehistoricalminiaturist.blogspot.com/2010/11/mongols-of-golden-horde.html

It's great when I don't have to buy and paint new figures to play another game. Speaking of which, both Mikey and I have been dying to try out the Horse (mounted troops) rules. He brought out his Normans to fight my Steppe Tribes as we played the 'Battle of the Ford' scenario from Saga.

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'Battle of the Ford' map ending with minimal terrain placement

A flat featureless plain simulating the Central Asian Steppes

Norman, is that you?

Black Scorpion Pirates, Part 1

Jumping ship to do Pirates this time around. Finally getting around to prepping up some super, excellent Black Scorpion figures that I acquired from the closing of Little Wars, here in Houston a few years back. This is a mix of Pirate Crews, Rogues and Privateers.

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Love the action poses! These will paint up really nice.

A smattering of cargo crates, bundles, etc. to supplement my Pirates

Scale Differences: Time Cast vs GHQ, Part 1

There's a definite scale difference between two 6mm (micro armor 1/285th or 1/300) manufacturers: Time Cast and GHQ. I prefer Time Cast because of it's truer scale proportions comparable to real buildings. GHQ makes great micro armor scale vehicles but tend to compress the scale when doing buildings IMHO.

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L-R: Lvov Town Houses and Orthodox Church by Timecast,
Country Manor and Town Homes by GHQ
In the foreground are GHQ infantry mounted on pennies

L-R: Orthodox Church by Timecast, Country Manor and Town Homes by GHQ.
Notice how the GHQ Town Homes are severely out of scale and proportion

Numerous Timecast Euro farm houses

Ditto

Numerous Timecast Eastern Front hovels and cottages

Ditto

Another Era Deviation: Skirmishing Black Powder

Back to some more wacky gaming, just to shake things up a bit. If truth be told, I'm just A.D.D. and easily distracted. 

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If dogs can be Saints then Dug from the movie UP
would be my patron saint of A.D.D. personalities (read: gamer)

So we decided to try skirmishing different eras with the toys we already have. 

First up: Black Powder era match-ups. After a recent Saga battle (3 way battle between Normans, Vikings and Steppe Tribes - which I'll be featuring in another post) we decided to use the terrain already set up. Willy brought out his Heroscape pre-painted minis: American colonials vs British Red Coats. I'm happy to report that the Patriots were able to successfully outflank the Red Coats and take them down like the invading dogs that they were!

A British patrol gets sniped on by some Colonials

Then some modern skirmishing amongst some recently acquired, excellent crates and barrels from War Torn Worlds (they come prepainted so what's not to like?).

Pitting my modern Soviet Paras (right) versus my Al Qaeda Fedayeen (left)

RPD and RPG gunners supporting the para with an AK47 AKM variant
taking cover among some ultra modern sci-fi crates

My Fedayeen around wooden crates and chests