Dog Day Afternoon - 3rd Post-apocalyptic Game

Green Dragons take cover in the ruined city block, watching the approach of the Blood Brotherhood

I had decided to do an urban scenario for my third game with my Sunday night gaming group. For the last several months, I've been furiously painting ruined buildings, street sections, and scatter terrain. After the latest batch, I crossed my fingers and set out a 5'x3' board using my "concrete" floor tiles and my cork road sections. I cluttered up the streets with my burnt out vehicles and vegetation scatter, and placed my ruined buildings atop the floor tiles that I use as sidewalks for my Mean Streets games. Tossing in my 28mm graveyard on one 12"x12" tile, my terrain filled up the table nicely!

    My Green Dragons begin to spread out, hunkering down behind walls and burnt out vehicles

I was worried that I'd come up short and have to paint up more ruined buildings. Thankfully, that did not happen. Critiquing the setup, I think my mottled gray floor tiles are just too uniform looking. I will be brainstorming some way to make sections look more realistic with a mixture of asphalt, earth, and sparse grass. Originally, I was thinking of creating irregular shaped pieces of styrene flocked appropriately to place here and there. However, now I am thinking of simply making a 12"x12" piece to either lay over the tile or replace it. I do have some foot square cork sections left over from my streets. I could try it out with them and see what it looks like. Of course, that means storing more 12" square terrain tiles, though!

    The Bucknuts stalk stealthily through the rubble of blasted buildings -- too close to me for comfort!

Anyway, stay tuned to see what I come up with. I had five players coming that night, so that meant my Green Dragon gang was tapped to make an even number. Four gangs would deploy within 6" of each corner, and the remaining two opposite each other at the midpoint of the long table. When my players arrived Sunday night, I had the starting locations set up with dice, tape measures, quick reference sheets for the Fistful of Lead Core Rules we use, and markers to denote which figures have already acted that turn. I let the players pick out which four members of their gang they would use tonight and select their starting locations. I took the remaining spot on the board.

    To the Dragon's right, Keith's Nightstalkers arrive on table and immediately enter the graveyard

The table was five feet wide with a 12" width street running across most of the center of the board. The final foot had a ruined church in the center, flanked by a graveyard on one side and dilapidated playground on the other. I used my new 6"x12" street sections to break up the four feet of city block, two sections per side. I did my best to evenly distribute cover so that no player had a disadvantage in their starting position. I also wanted to break up the sight lines of the streets and gaps between buildings as much as possible. Finally, across the center of the table, I evenly spaced out five pieces of urban scatter with a crate on it. The crate represents the chance to find some medical equipment or food. Even though the opposing players are "objectives" in themselves in my games, I also like to place physical things for them to scavenge for. 

    The menacing, red-robed forms of the Blood Brotherhood are never a welcome sight across the table

My Green Dragons "luckily" drew the center point of one board edge and deployed behind a burnt out vehicle and the shattered remains of a couple buildings. To our right, in the graveyard, were the Nightstalkers run by Keith. To the Green Dragons' left were the Bucknuts, run by Mike S. "Greeeaat," I thought! My two sniper friends are on either side of me! Chen was sent off to the left to grab some hard cover and keep an eye on the Bucknuts. Mike S is an aggressive player and enjoys attacking his rival players openly and forcefully. On my left it as no better. In Keith's previous game, he grabbed firing positions and blazed away happily all game long at enemy gangs. And across from me was the Blood Brotherhood -- Jenny's gang. They were the current leader in Renown Points after two scenarios. Jenny loves to mix it up on the tabletop, too! Yikes -- my Green Dragons were in for a hot night, it appeared.

    F Troop, our nemesis last scenario, was back -- but likely too far away for us to inflict some payback

To the Brotherhood's left, and deployed in the dilapidated playground was Joel's F Troop gang. Joel tends to be a little less aggressive, but incidentally, his was also the gang who the Dragons wanted "payback" against. We would receive bonus points for knocking any of their gang members out of action (they took out one of ours in the last game, "I Smell a Rat!"). As it was, we never got close enough to them to take any shots at F Troop. To the Brotherhood's right was Joel's brother Allen and his Followers of the Dark Prophet. That meant Jenny was tonight's designated "Sams-wich" -- something I have experienced more than once in the past. Allen's wife always admonishes the brothers not to kill each other every week, so being stuck between them can be a bad thing!

Followers of the Dark Prophet move out into the streets, hoping to scavenge some food or equipment

On our first turn, the Green Dragons four members moved out. Chen was sent to keep an eye on the Bucknuts. He took a position in heavy cover and watched as the other gang moved up stealthily. Quon and Ting darted forward and crouched behind a burnt out sports car, while Feng raced up to the window of a crumbling stone building overlooking the wide street. From all corners of the board, the rival gangs moved up. To our left, three of the Nightstalkers lined a wall overlooking the ruined church. Specialist Cypher raced to the corner of the wall and focused his optics on a crate semi-hidden amidst the ruins of the church. It looked promising, and on the next turn, he darted out towards it. He was able to recover some medical supplies stashed inside. Meanwhile, his teammates scanned the ruins beyond him, ready to pour in covering fire at the first sign of trouble.

    White investigating a crate, Jackie of the Bucknuts dispatches a feral dog that raced to attack her

The Bucknuts sent Jackie racing forward to a investigate a crate next to an abandoned van. Before she could get a chance to check it out, furious barking made her freeze in her tracks. A feral dog had sprung from beneath a nearby burnt out pickup truck and was charging towards her. With remarkable coolness, she spun and fired a single shot into its skull. The huge dog slid into the crate and lay motionless. I created a new mechanic this time to encourage players to venture into the wide street area to investigate the crates. When a player first takes an action to solve the task of scavenging equipment in one of the crates, they are given control of a feral dog and an additional card to activate it. It is placed immediately anywhere on the board outside of 5" from a player character. The player can either use that card to activate the dog or any other in its hand. Allen's Followers of the Dark Prophet had beaten Mike S's Bucknuts to the roll, and investigated their own crate. Allen placed the dog in the burnt out pickup and used his next card to send it charging in to attack Jackie. Alas for Allen (and the dog), he rolled poorly for the pooch and it was quickly put out of action in melee.

    A bullet flies in from somewhere and Chen is struck. Was the shooter aiming at him or the dog?

Shortly thereafter, Jenny's Blood Brotherhood also made a task roll on a crate (although failing). She placed a second feral dog in the exact same spot. Unfortunately, she chose to send it racing to attack my Chen, who thought he had done a good job of hiding. Chen jabbed the butt of his rifle into the feral dog's jaw, eliciting a yelp. The beast shook it off, though, and stayed in place, growling furiously. One of the Bucknuts saw the struggle taking place and fired a shot. Was he aiming for the feral dog or Chen? The shot struck Chen, who dropped to the pavement, bleeding and out of action. When firing into a melee, Fistful of Lead rules dictate a random roll to see who is targeted. My Green Dragons weren't actually having a lot of luck tonight, and Chen's misfortune was symptomatic of how things would go for my gang.

    While Jackie checks to make sure the dog is dead, Efron races up and snatches away the supplies!

Meanwhile, Allen was being fairly bold with his advance. Two Followers of the Dark Prophet moved towards the van where Jackie had paused after downing the dog. One raced up and snatched up the crate, rolling successfully to loot some valuable equipment. He smiled at Jackie as he did so. This allowed Allen to place yet another feral dog. This one was in another pickup truck within striking distance of Mike's Bucknuts. Annoyed at losing the equipment, Coach Coop (the Bucknuts leader) sighted along his sniper scope and squeezed off a single shot. The bulldog fell to the asphalt with a whimper. If I thought my Green Dragons were having a tough night, the dogs were truly have a dog day afternoon. Every single shot fired at them took one out of action. What's more, despite being +1 in melee over the characters they engaged, they also lost every melee.

    When the machines send a Scout Bot to investigate the gunfire, the Bucknuts blast away, disabling it

With three total casualties so far, that triggered the arrival of a Scout Bot at the end of turn 2. Since I'd lost Chen, I was given control of it. I placed it in the corner the Bucknuts had arrived ontable from, hoping to distract them and give them something to think about. I looked at my four cards (which dictate the order of activation), and sighed. Nothing above a five! Apparently, this Scout Bot rolled ontable through a pile of rubbish, clearly announcing its arrival. The Bucknuts turned at the noise, and one of them fired a burst from their automatic weapon. Sparks and chunks flew from the glass, plastic, and metal. The Scout Bot crashed into a pillar, its sole wheel spinning wildly. Mike was definitely making up for my poor rolling. In his four rolls to wound this game, he had rolled ALL 9's or 10's on a ten-sided die. Everything he shot seemed to go out of action -- don't mess with the Bucknuts!!

Brave Quon spies a crate, aware that four Blood Brotherhood members are also advancing towards it

In my sector, Quon had crept up to within a move of where two members of the Blood Brotherhood were poring over a crate in the center of the street. Shots rang out, and both of the hooded cult members fell to the ground writhing in pain. Quon judged his time was right and sprinted to the crate. He quickly figured out how to open it and snatched up the supplies that had been hidden inside. I had tried to do this as cleverly as possibly. I moved Quon up on my last activation card, and planned to move him back on my first one on the next turn. Once again, my cards were terrible, though. My highest was a six! Jenny's cultists recovered and fired at Quon, hitting him and knocking him out of action. The Green Dragons were definitely having "dog luck!" Everyone who hit one of my figures rolled a 9-10 on 1d10, too, taking them out!

    The Nightstalkers man the graveyard wall, pouring covering fire into F Troop for Spec. Cypher

Back on my right, F Troop had reached the playground wall and saw Specialist Cypher standing with the supplies in his hand. They poured fire into him, giving him several shock markers but no wounds. Luckily for Cypher, one of Keith's activation cards was a special one allowing the figure activated to clear all shock for free. Cypher sprinted away through the ruins and dove over the graveyard wall, not stopping until he plummeted into a grave that had been dug, but not filled. Cypher checked himself over, found he was unhurt, and rose to his knees waving the supplies at his fellow Nightstalkers. The soldiers let out a cheer for their brave specialist. Keith was having a "Bucknuts" kind of night, too. His return fire on F Troop also took out one of their soldiers.

    Drawn by the heavy gunfire, a military bot clanks forward to investigate, spotting the Nightstalkers

Keith's luck was about to change, though (or was it?). I totaled up the figures that had been taken out, and the carnage tripped us up to the third level. This meant we skipped the Sentry Bot arrival stage and went straight to a Military Bot. Joel was given this card to control and he placed it in the street next to the graveyard. The Nightstalkers heard the ominous metal clanking at the giant, man-like robot strode purposefully towards the wall. Unlike me, Joel had pulled a King (or Ace), which allowed him to act first. Keith's troopers were helpfully bunched close together, which allowed Joel to target three of them with burst fire from its machine gun. His wound rolls were not nearly as deadly and resulted in a miss, shock, and a wound on the three Nightstalkers. On his turn, though, Keith was able to have three of his guys vault the wall and escape off-table. The fourth ducked behind the wall and prayed, but was also able to escape on the following turn.

    With both cultists down and bleeding, Ting creeps forward, eyes on the supplies won and lost

Meanwhile, the Blood Brotherhood was feeling the ill effects of being out in the middle of the street. Both the Green Dragons and Followers of the Dark Prophet poured fire into their exposed position. One hooded cultist fell dead while another was wounded. This encouraged my leader Ting to try to regain the supplies that brave Quon had paid the ultimate price for scavenging. He raced to the cover of some scrub growing out of the split pavement. Unfortunately, the round ended and once again my cards were all low, meaning I would not activate until later in the turn. Another Military Bot stomped onto the table, though, and I was awarded control of it. I brought it in on the edge of the center street, hidden by a wall from the Bucknuts.

    Grand Master of the Blood Brotherhood finds a good firing position in the burnt out pickup truck

Jenny's leader had taken cover in the bed of a burned out pickup. Grand Master blazed away at Ting, once again hitting and scoring a 9-10! Luckily (finally?), I had the foresight to give leaders in my campaign the "9 Lives" trait. This reduces the first "Out of Action" result on the figure to a wound. Another cultist fired at Ting and he received a second wound. My guys just could not win for losing, tonight!

    Jenny's cultists just won't stay down! Despite their wounds, they gun down Ting hiding in the bushes

Meanwhile, with both F Troop and the Nightstalkers scattering for the board edge, the military bot began to march back towards the center of the table. The new bot rounded the corner and fired burst fire from his machine gun. Three of the four Bucknuts were inside the "blast radius." I rolled and, in true Hollywood fashion, the bad guy machine missed all of the heroes. Knowing enough was enough, Mike had all of his troopers sprint off table. He'd garnered enough points, he figured. In addition, Brutus and Jackie had removed portions of the Sentry Bot, taking valuable optics and ammunition with them off-table.

    Ting limps off-table, heavily wounded and rethinking the commands he'd given this day

At this point, all six factions were heading for the table edges. Two military bots were roaming the table, blasting away on full auto at anything that moved. I was actually very happy with how my post-apocalyptic games were ending. As more and more bots arrive, the surviving gang members decide it is time to run and live to fight for another day. It gives a very cinematic and almost realistic feel. Four of the gangs had taken casualties in this scenario, though, with my Green Dragons taking two. Only the Bucknuts and Nightstalkers got off the table unscathed. 

    Just before escaping off-table in a hail of bot machine gunfire, Jackie and Brutus pry off some parts from the Scout Bot they'd downed

Despite my bad luck, it was a good time. I felt the game flowed well and terrain on the table looked nice. Now, it is time to figure out what Scenario 4 will be! Hopefully, with my school year ending soon, it won't take as long to get this one played. Stay tuned!

New Road Sections & More Vehicles for Post-Apoc

    Two of the four 6"x12" road sections I made from cork tiles with some wrecked & burnt vehicles

I am planning my next post-apocalyptic game to be on an urban tabletop. So, I continue to work on vehicles to put on the roads to break up the sight lines in the game. In addition, I decided to make some new asphalt road pieces. My previous ones were created with 12" square cork tiles. These would be smaller side streets, cutting each square into two 6"x12" pieces.

    Two of the road sections without cars on them - note beveled edges & center line stripe

I wanted to make sure everything went smoothly making these, so I cut up only two squares, creating a total of four pieces. These smaller width pieces will enable me to give the board more variety and change up the look of it easier. I will likely make some more 6"x12" pieces here soon. They went very quickly and were a breeze to make. Once trimmed to size, I beveled the long edges as I did with the sides of the 12" square pieces. The beveled edges are placed against my gray floor tiles which I use as the concrete sidewalks. I think this join looks better than both the road and sidewalk tiles having a squared edged.

    The Blood Brotherhood checks out another of my burnt out, die cast vehicles

Once beveled, I painted the four edges with black craft paint. It is okay if a little brown cork shows through, as there are brownish spots on many asphalt roadways. Once dry, I paint the rest of the tile black with a wide brush. I let them dry again overnight, and then I do two dry brushes. First is dark gray and the second is light gray. Finally, I add white dotted line lane painting with a square brush. When I created my first tiles awhile back, I made a cardboard template to place on the tile so that I get the lines the same length and evenly spaced. I finished the cork pieces off with matte acrylic clear spray paint and they're done!

    This plastic SUV warped in an interesting way from the heat, but I had to paint on the blackening

On the vehicle front, I added four new models. The first one was a die cast sports car. I used wire cutters and pliers to reduce it to the metal hulk, trimming or ripping away all plastic pieces. The second vehicle was a plastic SUV. There wasn't much I could do with this one other than cut away the wheels. I then burnt these as I had done the previous burnt out wrecks. I was a little less crazy with the pyro and went for a more controlled burn with fewer cotton balls. The plastic SUV bent like it had been "T-boned," but did not char very well from the burning. The sports car looked good enough from the burning that I simply glued it to its base.

   Both of these trailers came with a pickup truck for $2.99 each from Menards

The SUV required more work. I mixed up thinned down acrylic black paint and brushed it across most of the SUV. I made sure to "erase" enough black with straight water to allow some of the original color to show through. The windows there wasn't much I could do about. So, I painted them solid black and hoped they "disappeared" to the eye. All in all, the SUV looks like a passable piece of scenery, but by no means is it one of the best I created in this series of burnt out wrecks.\

    One of the Green Dragons checks out this old and dirty Campervan for anything to scavenge

    On hindsight, I should have scraped up, damaged, or put graffiti on this black trailer

Burned Out Vehicles for Post-Apocalyptic Games

  A burned out wreck that I created by torching die-cast vehicles for my post-apocalyptic games

I decided my next terrain project for my post-Apocalyptic games would be to make some burnt-out, abandoned vehicles. I decided to use some die-cast cars available in retail stores such as CVS drug stores, Menards, etc. I figured that I wasn't the only person to ever decide to do this, so I went on my favorite online miniatures source, The Lead Adventure Forum. In their Workbench area, I asked for ideas on how to modify inexpensive die-cast vehicles to look burnt out. Much to my surprise, the suggestion was to burn them!

    Step 1: Use wire cutters and pliers to remove most of the plastic from the die-cast vehicle

Whaaat?? Play pyro and set it afire? Other posters confirmed this suggestion, so I set about this as methodically (and carefully) as I could. First, I used wire cutters and pliers to get rid of as much of the plastic portions as I could. This includes the tires, which would be one of the things that burnt off and melted. I wanted to leave pretty much just the metallic hulk. Next, I used 91% alcohol and swabbed the car and soak cotton balls to stuff inside the vehicles. I set it on fire and was surprised by the intensity of the fire. I wanted the metal portions to look burnt and the paint to peel or bubble. I adjusted the techniques a little, using less cotton ball material and toning down the heat and size of the flames.

    Stuffed with alcohol-soaked cotton balls, the trucks go up in flames pretty quickly!

Still, I was happy with how the burning of these die-cast vehicles simulated a burned-out wreck. One of the pickup trucks even split in half, with the metal connecting pieces melting. Others had the doors burnt off and falling to the stone pavers I was using as my surface. Once the vehicle looked good, I would either blow out the fire or douse it with some water to put out the flames. You have to be careful with water, though, as it may also wash away the soot that looks so good built up on the colored surfaces of the vehicles.

    The goal of the torching of the vehicle is to get some bending and bubbling of metal, and soot stains

Next, I took the hulks and based them up on textured plastic that I wanted to use to simulate the road surface. First, though, I sprayed the plastic with black spray paint. I set the vehicles on top of the plastic and noted where the metal touched the surface. I scratched away the paint in those places, exposing the raw plastic. I used two part epoxy to attach the bottom parts of the vehicles to the plastic surface. Once secured, I added Woodland Scenics ballast to the surface on top of Tacky glue. I wanted to represent a raised or melted asphalt effect. This was painted black and then dry brushed with a dark gray. I think it turned out okay, but felt it was too boring looking.

    I added some watered down black paint to supplement the soot stains and cover up any bare metal

I then added turf, brown tufts, and more fine blended gray ballast to give the road surface some detail and an interesting look. I also added some plaster bricks and washed them and the gray ballast with a black wash to dirty them up. All in all, I was happy with the look of the road surface around the vehicles. 

    The warping and contortion of the metal gives this a look you couldn't get from just painting it

I did have to go back in and put some black wash on parts of the vehicles that didn't get much soot. I also added some watered down black paint to other parts where the soot had been scratched, or where I felt there needed to be more of a burned look to it. In the end, I am happy with this experiment. I think in the long run, the soot and melted metal are the two things that make these burnt out wrecks look convincing. Interestingly, the soot will still rub off to the touch even after two coats of matte clearcoat spray. I really don't know what else to do, except remember to touch the models by their bases and not by the cars themselves.

    A freebie large truck becomes a great terrain pieces to break up sight lines on the post-apoc streets

I also had a long plastic truck that was given to me as a freebie by Diabolical Terrain. I thought it would make a great wreck, laying on its side. I placed some masking tap on portions of the decal before spraying it with acrylic black primer. Actually, before that, I had based it up with a styrene tube propping up one side. My thought was to paint it like an aluminum pole so it looked like it has slammed into a light pole, taken it down, and was now resting on it.

    I used a combination of masking off pieces of the decal on the truck and dry brushing & washing

After the black priming, I removed the masking tape. I also touched up the metallic pieces with various shades of metallic gray, pewter, and silver. Once I was happy with it, I did a heavy black wash. By no means is this the most amazing scatter piece for a post-apocalyptic table, but I think it looks okay. It will take up a decent amount of space the tabletop. Actually, that was the whole point of the burnt out vehicles. I wanted to break up the sight lines that areas of road will create on the table. Most skirmish games require cover to give players interesting decisions to make. Where do they move to? Where do they hole up?

    The Bucknuts investigate a burned out wreck, hoping to find something to salvage

I'm happy with my burnt out wrecks, and plan to create some more. I'll keep this page updated with new ideas or refinements I make on the techniques I used. I hope you like them, and stay tuned for more!

    This VW bug could probably have used more charring on portions of the blue painted surface

    Some colors show the soot stains better, like this tan colored pickup truck

Congo, Bloody Congo - Wars of Insurgency AAR from Cincycon 2023

    The Katangan Merc's armored personnel carriers roll along the road carrying vitally needed ammo

For Cincycon 2023, I wanted to play around some more with the number of "sides" in a six-player game. For many of my Wars of Insurgency games, I have done an "every man for himself" scenario with each player controlling their own faction with wildly different objectives. At Advance the Colors 2022 I ran a three side, 6-player South American game with Leftists, Narcos, and Paramilitaries. For the Cincycon scenario, I reduced this to two sides, but each of the three members would have different victory conditions and objectives. They wouldn't be shooting at their so-called allies, but they may different goals in mind. One of the advantages of this type of scenario is it will move much faster than every man for himself. All of Side A will be activating one of their units followed by all three players of the other side.

    For this 6-player game, I had two sides, but each faction had their own separate victory conditions

The "Congo, Bloody Congo" scenario was taken from the 1961 U.N. Operation Morthor, when ANC Congolese and U.N. troops attacked Katangan gendarmes, militia, and mercenaries to end the Katangan Secession crisis. This is all the operation that saw the more well known Siege of Jadotville. The mercenaries would appear in this one as one of three players on the Katangan side. They controlled three armored personnel carriers loaded with vitally-needed ammunition for their Katangan employers and allies. They would seek to move diagonally from one corner of the 6'x4' board to the opposite corner. The Katangan gendarmes awaited them at the destination corner. The road the APCs would take passed in front of a Katangan village, filled with militia who were much more concerned about protecting their homes and families than the fate of any white mercenaries!

    A player no-show put me in command of the local ANC, hurrying to get a shot at the APCs

Meanwhile, the ANC/UN side also had three players. The Belgian-trained paratroopers came in on the corner directly across the table from the mercs. Their goal was to simply to crush the rebellion, getting most of their VPs for killing enemy. The local garrison of the ANC (Congolese Army) was aiding them, but were upset with the central government. They felt starved of ammunition and equipment, and would dearly love to seize the APCs or their ammo. The UN was itching to take out the mercs (as they seemed to be historically). All point totals for the side were identical except for the mercs, who were given a supplement because they had to move from one corner to the far corner with lots of folks gunning for them with abundant RPGs on the table.

    Meanwhile, my ally, the Belgian-trained paratroopers, advance towards the Katangan village

The player controlling the Mercs had no qualms about shooting up the opposition. He immediately got into a firefight with the ANC, which deployed to his right. However, as soon as any of his APCs saw a long-range shot on the paratroopers, he was not shy about engaging them, either. Although this may seem somewhat unwise when you weren't really sure what each player's real objectives were, the Mercs had luck on their side. As it turned out, a LOT of luck. Their dice were consistently hot all night long. I ended up playing the ANC as I had a no-show player. My dice were the polar opposite and were ice cold, which also helped the Mercs.

    When one APC veered off the road, my ANC pounced and blazed away to little effect, unfortunately

The paratroopers and the opposing Katangan militia in the village were controlled by husband and wife players who delight at going to a convention and getting out their aggressions against each other. They blazed away at each other merrily all game. The militia ended up better off in the long run. They stayed hunkered down inside their huts and sniped at the paratroopers through windows and doors. Meanwhile, the paratroopers had to advance across the light cover of fields and medium cover of the bush. Whenever the heavy machine guns of the APCs opened up on them, they lost a couple troops. This turned the tide in the militia's favor in the long run. The paratroopers seemed unable to mount an effective enough assault to breach the village's thorn and wood fences.

    On my right, the Ghanaian UN contingent ran into pinning fire from the Katangan gendarmes

Meanwhile, the APCs progressed steadily across the table. The ANC fired shot after shot from their RPGs, but were unable to score a hit. The Congolese troopers did manage to slow whittle down the number of mercs, though. The machine gun required repeated re-manning in all three of the vehicles. Other shots picked off the crewmen riding in the open toppped APC, as well. However, the hope of stopping the vehicles seemed to be fading as the three APCs passed midpoint of the table. Perhaps this would not be the day the under-supplied garrison troops scored a bounty, after all.

    The Mercs' APCs begin to run the gauntlet, rolling incredible saves and dishing out stinging fire

On the right side of the battlefield, the Katangan gendarmes and the UN were locked in a long-range firefight. Each scored successes against their enemy, but casualties were relatively low. The harassment by the gendarmes kept the UN from effectively lining the road to take shots at the APCs as they came into view. The Katangan fire was keeping the UN pinned down in cover and unable to advance quickly to the roadside. Meanwhile, the UN's allies, the ANC troopers, were being worn down by the constant barrages from the mercenaries on board the APCs. The last ANC RPG gunner scored a minor hit on the trailing APC.

    Katangan gendarmes await the arrival of the APCs, providing effective covering fire against the UN

The ANC/UN's greatest moment followed that. A long-range RPG shot from the UN hit the slightly damaged APC. The player rolled maximum damage. The Merc player picked up his dice -- which had yet to really fail them significantly all night -- and whiffed all his saves. The APC went up with a flash of flame and rebounding explosion that echoed through the bush. When the Merc player rolled the saves for the men on board he failed all of those, too. We theorized that the RPG round ignited the stored ammunition, which caused a devastating secondary blast that killed everyone on board and destroyed the APC.

    Did I make the Mercs' force too strong? Or was their player just rolling too well?

The first two APCs had reached the cover of the Katangan force shortly afterwards. They gunned their engines and roared off-table to the cheers of the gendarmes. We decided to count up victory points at that stage. It would still be possible to rack up more VPs by killing enemy soldiers. However, the main action had occurred, and any losses would probably be relatively balanced on each side. Once totaled up, it was a resounding victory for the Katangans. Operation Morthor -- or at least this skirmish -- had failed to quell the secession crisis. The Katangan gendarmes had been resupplied and a victory gave them fresh heart to face down the central government. They would hope that the UN and ANC would deem their losses as unsustainable and would return to the negotiating table.

    One APC takes minor damage, but then suffers a catastrophic explosion from a UN RPG round

I was fairly satisfied with how the scenario went. All the players said they had a good time. I felt that perhaps I'd placed too much terrain on the table, which meant player forces were slower to engage. I also may have made the Mercs too powerful. Still, they suffered significant losses in men, so perhaps not. Their die rolls were incredible for most of the night. So, maybe they don't need to be cut down too much. I do think I need to do something to speed up the engagement between the paratroopers and the village militia. That was a little slow and static for what I like in a convention game. It certainly is a scenario that could use some tweaking and another running. Perhaps at Drums at the Rapids, this May? Stay tuned, and we shall see...

Throughout the game, the Katangan village militia remain hunkered inside their huts, sniping away

    Too many paratroopers died crossing the fields of millet -- both from the defending militia & APCs

    Katangan gendarmes cheer as the first APC rolls past their defenses, bringing much-needed ammo

Acheson Scatter Terrain for Post-Apoc & Modern Games

    Acheson Creations has always made quality, inexpensive terrain - here is some of the latest I painted

I continue to plow away on the terrain that I have purchased for my modern and post-apocalyptic games. My latest accomplishment is to paint up a number of pieces from Acheson Creations. Most were bought from the Miniature Building Authority booth at Cincycon 2023, but some have been sitting in my unpainted tubs for longer. They painted (and flocked) up very quickly, and I already have them tucked away in my downstairs closet displaying all my terrain on shelves.

My next post-apocalyptic game is planned to be on an urban battlefield, so I jumped these pieces to the front of the painting queue. I particular like the miscellaneous pieces which include tires, barrels, and a concrete slab. I grabbed four of them from MBA at Cincycon. I also picked out the stacks of tires, knowing how easy they'd be to get ready for the tabletop. My standard method is to run the pieces through the dishwasher on low heat. Next, I spray them with Krylon matte black. I follow that up with a 50/50 mix of acrylic black paint and water to ensure complete coverage. Then I dry brush it a dark gray, light gray, and so on. For the rims of the tires, I painted them with a metallic gray steel-colored paint. Finally, they receive a black wash and flocking and they're done!

I think these Acheson concrete pillars will look good for a bombed out or post-apocalyptic area  

I also liked these lone concrete pillars or pilings that look like they belong on a ruined city or post-apocalyptic tabletop. They received the identical treatment as the tires, above. Now that I see them in a photograph, I may have to create some piles of rubble to mix in amidst them. Or who knows? Maybe I already have something that will work for that -- I will have to check.

   The Bass Reeves, one of my post-apoc gangs, prowl through the rubbish looking for things of value

The final pieces are absolute trash. Well, two piles of garbage and a row of trash bins, that is! The trash piles are NOT Acheson. I'm not sure where I picked them up. My guess is that they were cast for me by my friend Tim Peaslee a couple years ago, and could very well be Hirst Arts or something similar. They took the most time to paint up due to having to put more than just black and gray in them. I could have spent even more time picking out details in the trash with other colors, but decided to keep it simpler. They are designed with a flat back and I believe meant to be shoved up against the wall of a building to show trash piled against it. The row of trash bins ARE Acheson Creations, and was the first time I found this casting in 28mm. I should probably buy more for my modern games, but hey! That gives me something to look for next time I see MBA or RRB Minis and More at a show!

All in all, these pieces should flesh out my tabletop more. I honestly believe it is the random "scatter" pieces that can make a game table seem to come to life. Acheson Creations makes some great pieces for that! If you see someone carrying them at a convention, you should pick some up!