Product Review - GameCraft Miniatures (and Sixmillopolis Update)

Still being in lockdown I managed to make some decent progress over the weekend, including adding road markings (which involved a lot of masking tape and touching up) plus added the curbsides to a couple more tiles.

On Monday an order of additional buildings arrived from GameCraft Miniatures. This is a company I will certainly recommend. They have a great selection of model buildings and scenery in a range of scales. They use a range of materials, including laser-cut MDF, acrylic, resin, and mat-board. This is my second time ordering from GameCraft, with the first being some 15mm MDF buildings for use in Team Yankee.

In this order I had;

• 1 x Best Buy Electronics Store
• 1 x Airport Control Tower
• 2 x 7-11 Convenience Stores
• Various 1/285 GHQ moderns (for a future project I will likely blog about at a later date)

The Best Buy model was in two main sections. The main body of the store is an acrylic box. It comes in five pieces (4 wall sections plus the roof), all nicely tabbed so it can be easily glued together in seconds. The second section is the front facade. This is a single piece of solid resin, which just attaches to the body of the store. The raised detailing made it easy to paint up and get a good result. In the kit I received the resin front was slightly bowed, but I suspect once in place the glue will have enough strength to hold it flat against the store body.

Next we have two 7-11 convenience stores. These are single piece resin models, and just as with the Best Buy the store logo is cast into the front of the model. I'm going to paint one up as a 7-11, but the other I'm not sure yet. It's definitely going to have some gas pumps out front, and may end up being painted as a BP, Shell or something.

The last building I ordered was an Airport Control Tower. Like the Best Buy, this was a combination acrylic and resin kit. The acrylic pieces were all tabbed and fit together well, making it quick and easy to assemble. The top of the control tower itself is resin, but I'm probably not going to put this on the model. After placing this order I decided to hold off on adding an airport to the city. However without the top the model could fit in well as a number of other buildings - it would make a good city hall or courthouse, and I'm going to paint mine up as a high school.

So, steady progress being made. There is another batch of buildings on order from another company, mainly a whole bunch of single-story individual houses to create some suburbs. But once those arrive I'll start running out of space, so I'll need to get some more tiles. Home Depot is open for curbside pickup orders, so I'll have to give them a call and see if they can do some cut to size MDF for me.

A Literally Epic Game

 Latakia, Syria - Dec 22, 1989

As the diplomatic stuggles surrounding the Syrian-Israeli conflict continued, the UN monitoring force operating in northern Syria found itself under attack. Emboldened by the arrival of a Soviet taskforce, the Syrian regime launched an armoured assault that attempted to capture the port city of Latakia, a vital logistics hub for the UN troops. The UN security force in the city was extremely light, consisting primarily of infantry and light reconnaissance units. A joint Syrian-Soviet force consisting of two battalions of tanks hoped to overwhelm the defenders with little fighting. Unfortunately for the attackers, Western intelligence detected their preparations. Within hours an MEU (already on station off Damascus) was heading north, and a Fallschirmjager company was dropped to reinforce the defenses north of the city. While still badly outnumbered, the US and German defenders deployed to hold both the port and the outlying airfield.

This was the largest game of Epic: Moderns that I have played in, with 6000 points a side. The western defenders consisted of Pooch's USMC force and Jason's Bundeswehr (Germans), while the attacking force consisted of my Syrians and Andy's Soviets. Andy provided an absolutely stunning L-shaped table 6 feet along each edge. The port itself was on the inside corner of the L, the airfield on the outside corner. We deployed five objectives to represent the port/airfield and some approach points (bridges and roads). Pooch and Jason deployed half their force within 30cm of any of the objectives, with the rest coming in from reserve. Andy and I each had one end of the L, deploying anywhere up to 3 feet from our corner and up to 15cm into the board.

My Syrian force on the southern flank

Andy's Soviets can be seen deployed in the top left

The battle had become a race - could the attackers take the port before reinforcements arrived. The Syrian force coming from the south encountered heavy resistance (including a surprise attack by a marine M60 company rolling off the beach) and were forced to pull back and regroup behind a forest. On the northern side of the city the Soviets fared better, reaching the outskirts of the city with little damage.

An M1 platoon guarding the bridge	M60's roll in to save the outnumbered Abrams
LAR company deployed in the city itself	Soviet tanks on the northern edge of the city

The southern flank quickly bogged down. Although artillery strikes managed to hold off US armour, the Syrian tanks were not able to regroup quickly enough to support the assault. Infantry and recon units initially siezed the bridge into the city, but the defending LAR company was able to simply fall back to the next block. In the north Soviet tank companies shelled the fallschirmjager position; while the company bravely held their ground, they were quickly wiped out. However after this the Soviet attack too bogged down, unable to do more than minimal damage to the LAR company in the dense urban terrain.

With the attackers stalled just outside the city, the defending reinforcements started to arrive. A Bundeswehr infantry company arrived from the east to push Syrian infantry back from the southern approach, and an amphibious assault reinforced the northern flank, smashing a Soviet infantry company on it's way in. Seeing that taking the port would be a protracted struggle the Syrian-Soviet force withdrew.

An amphibious assault drives the Soviets back

The victory conditions we agreed on had two Blitz objectives (the port and airfield worth 2 points each) and 3 center objectives (a road and two bridges, worth 1 point each). At the end of the game Jason and Pooch had both Blitz's and two of the centers, Andy and I had the other center objective. So a victory to the West. The scenario gives the defender a bit of an advantage (since they start holding all the objectives) but the balance overall wasn't too bad - all forces suffered similar amounts of damage, and it was a really fun game to play.

Mobilizing the Syrian 3rd Division

I've been very slack on my painting lately. In particular my Epic Moderns army has been an embarassment. While everybody else has finished beautifully painted armies (or several!) my force has been only half painted through all our games. Over the last couple of days I have finally rolled up my sleeves and started painting again, and this morning I did a stocktake. Here's where I am right now;

Three tank companies, an infantry company, a mortar battery, an AA platoon, and a couple of MiGs. This comes to around 2500 points. I'm closer to my goal of 3000 than I thought, but there is still a lot of painting to be done.

My favourite unit is the army is probably my painted T-72 company. Although unfortunately it tends to die rather quickly (that's the nature of a game where most tanks have the MW rule) it has had a couple of good successes, and this is where I will usually attach my battalion commander.

The first infantry models I painted was my mortar battery. They came out quite well, but unfortunately the mortars are far too small - they're supposed to be 120mm, but they look more like ~60mm. I may look at getting some other 120mm mortar models, then mixing these guys in with my regular infantry.

The last painted unit in the army (apart from the aircraft and ZSU-23s I previously blogged about) is a tracked recon unit of 4 BMPs. Since I have ten BMPs and only 5 BTRs, for the moment the infantry company will be mounted in the BMPs. However my intent is to buy another pack of BTRs to transport the infantry, then use the BMP models to field two tracked recon platoons.

So that's about a 1000 points painted, another 1500 assembled and ready to paint. Now I have to decide what to do for the last 500. I have enough infantry models to assemble a second company. My current thinking is to buy enough BTRs to transport both infantry units, plus a battery of D-30 towed artillery.

The Battle of Al-Tanf

Last night we played our third game of Epic: Moderns. On one side would be Jason's Israeli and Pooch's American forces, and on the other would be my Syrians and Andy's Iraqis. Andy had set out a beautiful table for the game, a desert textured surface with gullies running diagonally across the board. We agree that the edges of these gullies would count as difficult terrain for vehicles. On the left was a small airbase, and in the right hand corner a few buildings showed the outskirts of a town.

Since Andy and I out-activated Jason and Pooch (we had 10 activations to their 8, and they had more aircraft) we were able to see where they deployed before putting our major units down. Their blitz objective was behind the buildings in the far right corner, guarded by an Armoured Cav company. Israeli tank companies deployed to the center and left flank, a dismounted infantry company was garrisoned on an objective near the airfield, and a platoon of M551's was hiding behind a hill in the center. Andy and I put a mortar battery and both our T-72 companies in the center near our blitz objective, a platoon of scouts behind a hill on the far right, and three companies of Type 69 tanks on the left.

Center of the Arab deployment

My Command T-72 Company

Sabra company on the left flank, at the end of the airfield runway

Merkava company in the center

The first activations didn't go well for us. The armoured cav charged foward and inflicted massive damage on my Command T-72 company. Thankfully Jason failed to retain the initiative with his Merkavas or the formation would have been broken. As it was they were supressed enough to be ineffective. On the left flank our mortar's succeeded in suppressing the ATGMs in the dismounted infantry, and the Sabra company decided 3 to 1 odds was a bit much and did not advance to engage Andy's Type 69's.

My Command T-72 company taking a lot of fire!

Both sides had been holding back their aircraft, but Jason and Pooch had run out of ground activations, so it was time for the Israeli airforce to show its stuff. Strikes by Jason's AH-1's and F-16's broke my command T-72 company... but then 3 MiG-29's screamed in and downed them all in a hail of missiles.

The Israeli Air Force arrives...

... followed by the Syrian Air Force and Iraqi Air Force.

During turn 2 things started to turn in favour of the Arab forces. In the center my remaining T-72 company managed to break Jason's Merkavas, and Andy's tanks wiped out the platoon of M551's. On the right the armoured cav found itself surrounded on three sides by armoured cars, Type 69's, and mechanised infantry. It wiped out what was left of my command T-72 company, but lost two M1 Abrams to crossfire. On the left the dismounted infantry were holding their objective, but two companies of Type 69 tanks had moved up to start shelling them. In the air the Zionists were doing better - Pooch's Tomcats (which had stood down last turn) destroyed two MiG-29's for the loss of one Tomcat.

My T-72's break the Merkava company, while Andy's Type 69's destroy the M551 platoon

Iraqi MiG-29 straffing the broken Merkava company

Turn 3 posed a challenge to Jason and Pooch. They just had too few units on the ground (one unbroken Sabra tank company, the armoured cav, and the dismounted infantry) to cover all the objectives. Pooch spread his armoured cav in a line between the blitz and center objectives. My remaining T-72 company swung left and broke the Sabra company, the dismounted infantry broke one of Andy's Type 69 units, and the remaining Tomcat downed the last MiG.

T-72's doubling across to support the left flank

The battlefield at the end of the game

At the end of turn 3 we checked victory conditions. Jason and Pooch had Break the Spirit (for destroying my command T-72 company), while Andy and I had Defend the Flag and They Shall Not Pass. Victory!

Epic: Moderns is working out brilliantly. The balance in the army lists we've written seems fairly good for first guesses, and is producing fun games with lots of carnage and lots of burning tanks.

Up in the Air

On Friday we had our second playtest of the Epic: Moderns army lists we've been writing. Adam and I  commanded the Syrian/Russian force on one side, while Pooch and Jason commanded the US/Israelis on the other. Pooch's battle report can be found here. But to sum up, Adam and I lost.

One of the contributing factors to our defeat was the capitalists achieving total air superiority early on. My MiG-29's were shot down in the first turn, and the ZSU-23's were suppressed all game. This was mostly down to bad tactics on my part, but a couple of poor dice rolls didn't help. A bit of post-game analysis has given me what I hope are better ways to use the MiGs/Shilkas. But there's nothing that can be done about the dice... or is there?

As every wargamer knows, the dice gods frown on using unfinished models. My MiGs had gone into battle undercoated and without AAMs attached. Of course they weren't going to roll well! This afternoon I sat down and painted them, along with the ZSUs. No camo on the ZSUs at this stage, but they are washed/highlighted. I figure the camo can be added at a later date.


Since aircraft were the theme of the afternoon I also finished some sci-fi fighters that have been sitting on my desk for a couple of months. These are Mechbuster fighters from Iron Wind, which I use as Thunderbolts to support my Epic Imperial Guard. I've done four of them, so enough for two flights.

Too Many Projects

About a month ago when I finished my Epic marines, I was left with no wargaming project and wondering what to do. Since then my spending reflex has exceeded my painting speed, and I now have four or five projects on the go.

First of course is the 6mm buildings from my last blog post. An initial burst of enthusiasm finished two buildings, then faded. But they remain a priority project, since they will greatly improve my terrain for Epic and 6mm modern games.

Next came some 28mm Hungarians. Some friends have been playing 28mm WWII for a while now (using the Force on Force rules system), and since you only need a reinforced squad or so, I decided to join in.

 
The models are actually Early War Germans (from Warlord Games 'Bolt Action' range), but the kit is close enough to what the Hungarians had throughout the war. Ideally I'd like to add a Nimrod to support these guys, but finding one in 28mm is somewhere between difficult and impossible. For the short-medium term, I'll probably get a 75mm infantry gun instead.

Continuing with the 28mm theme, I'm also wanting to finish and/or revisit a couple of 28mm sci-fi armies to use with Tomorrow's War. I played my second game of TW a couple of weeks ago, against Jamie. I've got quite a range of old 40K models, but the paint job on many needs touching up or improving.

Finally, we have the latest thing to grab my interest... 6mm moderns. Pooch started things off with his Desert Storm British. Since I've always been keen to find a good moderns game, I picked up some Soviet models from GHQ. The detail on the GHQ models is simply incredible, amazingly crisp and well-cast! My only complaint is that some of the gun barrels seem quite fragile, and I can see myself having to replace tank cannons with wire once they break off. So far I've finished painting half a company of T-72's and enough BTR-60's for a supporting infantry platoon.

Rules wise, we're looking at using Epic: Armaggedon, and are in the process of writing army lists at the moment. We have unit profiles for British, Syrian, and Israeli units sorted (to a beta-test stage anyway), so now it's the hard part of coming up with some points costs. This thread on the South Island Wargaming forums has made me aware of Minigeddon (a 1,000 pt version of Epic for quick games) and I'm thinking finishing a modern army for minigeddon could be a good place to start.