Welcome to "Adventures in Lead", a blog dedicated to the hobby of miniature wargaming. The figures and terrain on this site are mainly for a campaign set in exotic "Indostan", a distant land bearing remarkable similarities to 18th century India during the Seven Years War. Bits and pieces from other projects may pop up here as well from time to time, including colonials, gladiators, pirates, dinosaur-hunting and even some RPG'ing.
The actual campaign journal and after action reports for the Indostan campaign can be found on their own blog - "Indostan: The Jewel in the Crown", the link to which is found by clicking the small image below-left.
If you do find anything remotely interesting on this blog please leave a comment, it's what keeps these sites going and their authors motivated - Thanks for looking.

Sunday, May 6, 2012

Force on Force - Rules Test Run

On Saturday I had the chance to test out Ambush Alley Games' Force on Force Modern Wargaming Rules. I have never had any real desire to do a modern conflict wargame, but Christian (from ... an inconvenience rightly considered) kindly asked if I'd be interested and I was more than happy to give it a go. Besides, Christian had a good selection of  miniatures and between us both we already had a lot of appropriate terrain. (Click the images to enlarge)
We got together at Christian's house and planned out the game. I was pretty much in the dark when it came to the rules and Christian had only played once,but I had heard very good things about FoF. We decided on an Asymmetric Engagement, that is some US soldiers Vs some Insurgents. Next came a fun part as we laid out the terrain and tried to make a good play area with some tactical choices. Christian provided the 2' by 2' board which was very nicely done. I was so surprised that the game worked in such a small area, considering our Indostan games are played on a 4' by 6' table, but I didn't really notice the tight confinement. Our table ended up looking like this:-

Table setup with Entry Zone and Hot Spots.
Another layout view.
The red numbered dots are "Hot Spots", basically spawn points for the Insurgents and the US Army symbol represented the "Entry Zone" for the US Fireteam. We cobbled together a very basic story that went something like, "A US patrol has been ordered to check a small village for the enemy." Pretty original - well we thought so.
The modern figures Christian has are from Eureka Miniatures and they are all very nice figures, full of details and character. He managed to convert one US soldier into a Medic and has done some basic head-swaps on the Insurgents. Unfortunately they aren't painted yet, but as this was a trial game that really didn't bother us (well much...). He would play the single US Fireteam and I'd have a go with the Insurgents. Christian quickly detailed the two forces by writing their stats down, with the US soldiers being a Troop Quality of D8 and the Insurgents D6.

The US Fireteam entering the village.
A slightly different angle and a peek at the heavily laden Medic conversion in the rear.
 An Asymmetric Operation will generally be Insurgent heavy and at this time we could only field about 15 figures, so we decided to tone down the Hot Spot table that generated the random forces. For some unknown reason we gave the Insurgents the first Initiative, but I believe I have since read that Irregular forces never have the Initiative.We pretty much blindly launched into the game from here and rolled for some Insurgents. In hind sight there probably should have been some already present somewhere on the board.

Two Insurgents appear on the building to West.
The Hot Spot table produced two Insurgent from "HS1" and I chose to keep them hidden, which meant little as the US soldiers quickly spotted them. Another roll on the Hot Spot table produced a substantial force that appeared where I wanted them to - in the large building to the North, directly in front of the US Fireteam.

An Insurgent leader and his henchmen appear - one has a SAW - Yeah!!
Dicing for the Initiative, I managed to win again and this is where all hell broke loose. We quickly found out that FoF is a game of "Reacting" to the actions of the other player and this process can get a little confusing. The US team manged to avoid being shot by either Insurgent group and made its way into the cover of the nearby low wall.
The Insurgents open fire on the US Fireteam.
The Americans move into the cover of the low wall.


I did not manage to field any more reinforcements for quite some time after that, we having ruled that there was a 50% chance more would show up each turn, which did prove problematic for the Insurgents. I did keep managing to win most Initiatives and I poured fire on the enemy. The Yanks managed to easily hold their own against this paltry force, and even when one of the Fireteam was wounded, Christian rolled a 6 on the First Aid Check and the wound proved totally superficial. The Insurgents on the other hand were outmatched and a number were seriously wounded. Ranged combat did flow quite well after a while and most of the simple modifiers were easily remembered, being a reduction or addition of whole dice, rather than pluses or minuses to die results.
Eventually I did roll more Insurgents which appeared at "HS1" again, adjacent to the US team. I had them pop out into the street to the North of "HS1", which promptly saw them mowed down by the Americans at optimal range. They were not all killed outright and some did manage to open fire on the enemy, but were ineffective even at this close range.

More Insurgents arrive, only to be mowed down by the Americans.
Even this close the Insurgents can't wound the Americans.
We next tried an example of a Close Assault that did not end well for the two Insurgents involved. They leaped the low wall screaming for blood and promptly got shot to pieces, leaving the Americans an opportunity to try and capture "HS1". Two of them climbed the ladder to the roof in an attempt to hunt down the remaining wounded Insurgents up there. They managed to kill the enemy, but did take a wound in the process. As luck would have it Christian rolled another 6 and the US soldier got straight back up, unharmed. We unfortunately had to call it quits at this stage, but with little in the way of a scenario the game could have gone on all night.

A Close Assault ends poorly for the Insurgents.
The last Insurgent at "HS1" is killed and a US soldier is brought down.
All in all I had a really good time and thoroughly enjoyed my FoF experience. We were both definitely under prepared when it came to knowing the rules and a great portion of the game was spent frantically shuffling through pages in an attempt to find the rule we were after. I can see the game flowing much more easier when we master Initiative and the Reaction orders, which make up a large part of the complexity of the rules. I look forward to another game soon and writing a less "static and technical" AAR.

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Cork Walls


They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.


In an attempt to break the wargaming drought I have began work on some more terrain for Indostan and have even had time to write this post on Anzac Day. I find working on terrain more easier than painting at the moment, because I can do little bits here in there as (my very limited) time permits and can generally put what ever I am doing down immediately, which can be a problem when painting.
I decided to work on some walls, tall enough to conceal a miniature and provide near total cover. I have quite a large collection of low walls, but the higher walls will allow for some different tactical choices our games are currently lacking. 
My usual go to material is foamboard, which I use for all my adobe buildings, a material I find very easy to use. For the stand alone walls though, I needed some studier stuff that was capable of standing upright. I haven't used cork tiles too much and have found it a little harder to cut at times, but it had the weight I needed for this project.
I cut a cork tile into strips then applied cardboard bricks to represent where adobe has fallen off the structure. I know the bricks can be scribed directly into foamboard, but not into cork. Besides I use this method on my adobe buildings all the time. 
A couple of the wall sections required actual "bricks" to be removed, so once I duplicated the bare bricks on both sides I scored the outline of the missing brickwork with a knife and finally tore out the offending cork with a small pair of pliers. To add some texture to the cork I gouged out chunks with a pair of side cutters, to give that shot up look.
I used foamboard offcuts (I never throw offcuts away) to act as supports for the wall and chose to place one in the center of both faces. This is all that is needed to support the walls and they are quite sturdy. I made eight such sections in a couple of hours total. Lastly I made a single archway section, much shorter than the wall pieces.
One very important aspect of my terrain creations is a piece's versatility. That is, how useful is the piece in my games. If I can use it across multiple periods then I'm onto a winner. Although pieces that are highly specialsed usually look really good, I will go generic over specific any day. I hope my walls could be equally useful in an ancients game to that of a modern one.
After making the walls I laid them out on the desk and threw up a few combinations to test their use. They will be ideal for what I want and will endeavor to give them a covering of plaster and a coat of paint ASAP. Now to make a few hundred or so more... Painted walls now HERE  (Click the images to enlarge)

A single basic wall section.

A foamboard building and Old Glory Pathan for scale.
 
A combination using seven of the wall sections...

...another and...

...one more.
A few more wall sections and I'll have a table looking just like this one!

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

The Legacy of Arrius Lurco - RPG Session 2

We have finally had a chance to play our second session of "The Legacy of Arrius Lurco", unfortunately minus a player. The brave investigators find themselves scouring the streets of Roma and Ostia in an attempt to track down the leads they have acquired. Can they possibly bully, slap, seduce and knuckle their way to the truth?
Please allow me to apologise, in no particular order, in advance to the following slighted parties:- women, small boys, the people of Greece, the people of France, students of Roman history, people with rough hands, Seal, Techno Vikings, Somalian pirates, Barry White and The Standard Indian Restaurant. Please accept our humble apologies, no offense was intended.
The recording is in a single downloadable file in MP3 format.
Please note you can click on the link to stream the audio or right click to save it locally. Enjoy.

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Pennants Update

Here is a belated post on the finished results of my lance pennants made form foil. These have been sitting finished on my desk from before Christmas, awaiting me to snap a few pics. They were all made from the thin foil described here, but are fairly robust and should survive the rigors of wargaming. All in all, pretty effective and relatively easy to do.  (Click the images to enlarge)










Thursday, March 22, 2012

The Legacy of Arrius Lurco - RPG Session 1

Well, it has been quite some time since I posted here, but with good reason. Just before Christmas I welcomed a new addition to the family and along with her joyous arrival was heralded a distinct lack of painting/wargaming time.
This intermission has had it's benefits though, namely allowing me to get back into something I haven't done for quite some time - roleplaying.
Since I first heard about the "Cthulhu Invictus" source-book I have been itching to try out a Cthulhu game set in ancient Rome. The kicker was the release of "The Legacy of Arrius Lurco" by Miskatonic River Press, a brilliantly written campaign set in Rome, Greece and Crete.
Inspired by some of the "actual play" audio games found on the web, we decided to record our session. A big thanks goes out to Christian of Intergalactic Games for providing the recordings and to Romina, his wife, for doing the intros for us.
And while not strictly speaking "adventures in lead", what follows are certainly adventures of a different type. For the lead purists out there, please excuse the brief deviation from the usual subject matter, which will proceed in good time.
Follow the links to download the audio in MP3 format.