So, this is how my organization of the Legion, using the Dirtside II rules, is going so far. I am, more or less setting it up as per what I can glean from the book shown above. I hope to have the vehicles painted up this week and I have already painted up their opponents vehicles. I also have 150 proxy enemy figures on the painting table and I will soon place an order for the Legions troops.
Well, last year was the worst year so far as posting goes, a meager 15 posts for the entire year, and nothing since August, simply unforgivable!
Please forgive me, oh wait...
Last year I hit a major down turn in interest and motivation in gaming and in blogging. The only gaming that I really did was board gaming and that only because a friend regularly visited me and 'made' me play games. Oh, I enjoyed the games, but left to my own devices I most likely would have played nothing.
I did start up a miniature campaign, Pulp Alley China Station, and that went well for a while but an illness throughout October and that same low level of motivation saw that campaign grind to a halt. Perhaps it will resume, but experience does say that when you have a long interruption it just is not that likely that it will start again. We shall see.
On the plus side my new drugs seem to be working better and my malaise seems to be dissipating! Happiness has returned (drug induced but so what) and I have finally started to produce things for the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge. The challenge started on December 21st 2023 and it took me until January 13th 2024 to put up my first post 24 days into the challenge. Hell it took me until today to update this blog, archiving last years data and updating titles to indicate 2024.
All this being said I note that this is the 4th post that I have made this year vs 15 for all of last year. Some may not realize it but I have 5 other blogs plus the Itinerant Gamers blog. For the most part those blogs have limited activity being meant to focus on specific aspects of my hobby life. The League site has some activity, but really only myself and one other person ever posts on it. The painting & building blog site has at times had a lot of activity, nothing much lately, but soon to see more posts. The other sites will only ever have sporadic posting (though I really need to up date the cat & dog companion blog)
This has been a rather long winded rambling, the gist of it is that I plan to post more often and more regularly than in any previous year (fingers crossed)
So, for no special reason I seem to have embarked on a mass purchase and thankfully mass production of 15mm Sc-fi figures. So far I have been sourcing the figures from three companies; Ground Zero Games, Brigade Models and Alternative Armies. There has been a recent binge buying on my part that has seen the acquisition of a few hundred infantry and 50+ vehicles. All these augment the preexisting (and largely ignored) forces that I already have.
The plan, such as it is (and subject to change) is to be able to field 7 different forces. Each army will have from 12 to 28 vehicles (a mix of APCs and AFVs) as well as 75+ infantry. The tech level of each army will vary quite a bit from low tech track/wheeled vehicles to full repulsor lift high tech vehicles. One army will be the exception in that they are very low tech troops with few if any vehicles but armed with captured weapons and arms given to them by an alien race that is keen to disrupt the status quo.
The rule set, Dirtside II, is intended for micro scale figures but I am adapting it to a larger scale figure. I am keeping the basing a multiple figures on a base, using Flames of War size bases, but I am including some personality figures to add something extra to the game. So far I have been fielding 'native' armies 3 to a base and plan to have 4 to a base for the more regular army/marine type forces.
A few years back a fellow gamer took the chit drawing system that Dirtside employs for combat damage resolution and converted it to a D10 system. I have adjusted this system slightly to reduce the frequency of 'BOOM' hits that automatically take out a vehicle, but otherwise the system remains intact. So far I have been thinking through other changes but I have yet to record any of them.
To date I have painted up 20 Hammers Slammers vehicles, and 91 Ikwen native freedom fighters. I have drawn inspiration from the three Fifth Foreign Legion books and to some extent the Hammers Slammer stories.
Some photos; The Hammers Slammers, vehicles only so far
So, on a dare and a whim we decided to play this game. We probably should not have tried this game without at least one of us having at least glanced at the rules... Well neither of us had played this before nor even opened the rule book so it was a slow slog of a game. First was the challenge of going through the rule book, then quite a lot of prep work to set up the game, then the actual trying to figure out what we should be doing with our faction. It took some time.
There are a lot of options in this game and a lot of variables, enough to wreak havoc on any plans that you might make. The dice determine what actions you can do. Each turn you role a certain amount of dice, the Good side starts with 4 while the Evil side has up to 7 dice but you are allowed to allocate dice towards the hunt (for the one ring) Each dice face has a unique action associated with it but the rub is that you may not always get the results you need right now. The dice actions are resolved one at a time and in alternating order. So even when resolving the dice actions there is a certain amount of strategy as you may want to delay some actions until you see what your opponent has done, but then again hesitate and they may do something that directly impacts on your side. Choices, choices.
Each player also draws 2 event cards each turn. These cards can trigger events, or allow you to recruit more forces or effect the game in some way. They also can be used in combat, the bottom part of the card grants a bonus to your forces when engaged with the enemy. So do you use the card for a special event or save it for battle? Between the cards and the dice we were presented with a wide array of options every turn.
So it was a slow game as we carefully negotiated our way through the rules and tried to figure out a game plan. We set a time limit for the game (thankfully) as the time just rapidly ticked away. (We also interrupted play for dinner) In the end we called it a game around 12:30 AM. At that point we had a pretty good grasp of the rules and what we wanted to accomplish.
So, I have said that it was a slow slog but, it was a fun slog too! This game has a very high replay factor going for it. It was always interesting always challenging and always fun!
Check out THIS review by Shut Up & Sit Down for more details, and opinions that I agree with, I think they covered it very well!
The second game sees us at Dunkirk where the Germans are presented with many ship targets to fulfill their victory condition; they must sink 4 of the 6 ships. It was a tight game with the Germans eking out a victory despite being down to just one stuka.
Some pictures from the first game:
