FfoL Galactic Heroes - Jawa Hunting

Andy and I had a great fun game of Star Wars Galactic Heroes recently. We are still using my 20mm Micromachines minis and (sadly still largely unpainted) terrain.

We came up with a quick scenario, both sides were hunting Jawas in a small Tatooine town. Perhaps one of them has a stolen power converter?  Maybe a certain Sith wanted to recreate his glory days on the pod-racing circuit?  Regardless of the reasons, victory would go to the side who had escorted the most Jawas off the board.

Both sides deploy, eying up the Jawas. The Imps are just off the shot, to the left of the sand dune 

Vader surges ahead, as does Luke. The rest of the troops lag somewhat behind. 

(We both made use of the extra action for our heroes on the relevant colour card).

The Rebel leader 'persuades' a Jawa to accompany him.

Behind the large building Luke has befriended one Jawa, and uses the power of The Force to bring another one to him off the roof of the building

The Rebel M25 (heavy blaster) wounds Lord Vader, then a sandstorm hits the area, preventing further shooting

The Sith Lord tries to use The Force against the Rebel M25, but his injury is too distracting. He ducks back into cover

The wounded Vader falls over, releasing the Jawa he had captured

The Stormtrooper's BlasTech DLT - 20 runs out of ammo, that Rebel M25 is safe for now

The Heavy Stormtrooper takes two wounds from the Rebel.  He is just able to crawl to safety where he reloads (I used a Joker to Reload, but this triggered anther sandstorm, if I'd used it earlier I'd have lost the Reload, but he wouldn't have been a target)

A Rebel wounds a Stormtrooper.  He hopes that Lord Vader will Heal him.  No such luck.  Meanwhile, another Stormtrooper captures a Jawa, and in the distance another Jawa is tempted by a Rebel

Stepping up to the Rebel trooper, Lord Vader slices him in half with his light sabre.  (Vader used the Queen of Hearts to remove his wound)

Vader charges his son, it ends badly for Luke

Vader moves to try and intercept more Rebels, but it's too late, the Rebels have taken the bulk of the Jawas to safety

The final tally. The Rebels have lost two men, including Luke, but have captured five Jawas, giving them the victory

This was a great fun game. We were pretty much making the scenario up as we went, for instance, deciding that a model with a captured Jawa would have to release it if wounded, and the Jawa would randomly scatter.  It didn't matter as we both had a lot of fun.  Vader cutting down Luke was very dramatic.  I rolled a 12 for Vader's melee roll, and given that he had a Light Sabre (a Deadly weapon), that was it for Luke, but he has the Nine Lives trait, allowing him to ignore his first Out of Action result and take a Wound instead.  
Sadly, Vader had another two actions, and rolled a natural 12 again, so it was off to the Bacta tanks for young Skywalker.

This was our second game with Heroes, and as before, we thought the rules worked very well.  I struggled to use any effective Force Powers with Vader, he routinely failed his Force Choke, and the few times that he was shot at and missed, he failed to deflect the shot back.  He was, however, a monster with his Light Sabre, attacking three times, and rolling a 12 each time.  Luke, on the other hand, used his Force Powers very intelligently to Grab a Jawa and bring it close.  Shame he fell to his father's blade.  I'm sure that he has simply lost another appendage and will be back, more bionic than before.

If there's any interest I'll post up the details of the scenario separately.

FfoL Galactic Heroes: A Family Quarrel

**WARNING** This post contains images of unpainted and unfinished terrain which some hobbyists may find distressing.  

There were only two of us for a recent Monday evening game, so we decided to play Fistful of Lead: Galactic Heroes. We used my 20mm Star Wars stuff and quickly came up with a storyline where Luke, aware that Vader *Spoilers* was his father, was trying to find one of his uncle's friends to discover more. Unfortunately Vader learnt about this and set a trap. Maybe not the best background, and it doesn't quite fit canon, but it worked for us.

We each had a crew of Leader, Specialist and three Regulars, plus the relevant Galactic Hero

This was the first time we'd tried using Heroes, how well would they work for Star Wars?

Brave Rebel heroes (or scum)

Imperial forces no doubt giving the residents a hard time 

Luke leads his Rebel crew in from the dunes, while Darth Vader and his Stormtroopers occupy the town 

The Rebels cautiously advance, trying to make the most of the cover.  The Imps are even more hesitant, Lord Vader directs them from atop one of the buildings.

Early Imperial shooting takes out one of the Rebels!

Luke uses the Force to heal his companion's wound 

Vader (near centre) uses The Force to shield himself and 'Force chokes' the recently healed rebel trooper 

Luke charges in to fight Vader. Vader is Shaken by his assault, then Luke cuts him down

Another great fun game, and an interesting experiment using two iconic characters.   Shooting was a bit lack-lustre on both sides, though the Imps got the first kill.  There were a couple of times the Rebs took wounds or were shaken, but I was able to use the relevant cards to remove these conditions, or have Luke use his Healing.  The only successful Rebel shooting was the PLX - 1 which took out two Stormtroopers with one rocket in the same turn as Luke's heroic charge against his father.

As we have seen before, the FfoL Galactic Heroes rules certainly work well for run-of-the-mill Star Wars style skirmishes, but how did they work with Luke, Vader and the Force? 

The Heroes rules essentially build another Leader. We added Psychic (Force) Powers as well (so one more Trait than strictly allowed, but we wanted really impressive heroes). The Psychic Powers did feel like the Force, and we saw them used to good effect. Luke Healed one of the Rebels and Vader used Force Choke on the same poor Reb. Vader also Shielded himself to dissuade the Rebels from shooting at him and goad Luke into fighting him. We didn't get any deflection of blaster bolts, largely because any firing against the heroes was from too far away; once we got closer, neither of us wanted to risk it.

The game was quickly put together, given more time I'd adjust the traits slightly, but they seemed to work fine.  Also, unpainted terrain.  This was some stuff I threw together last time we were playing, and it never got finished.  I should complete it, but I've been thinking about doing some 28mm stuff to use the greater variety of the old WotC pre-painted stuff.

MDF Generators in 20mm

A quick addendum to the previous post; here are a couple of the generators with two of my 20mm Star Wars minis.

I think they work just as well in this scale as in 10mm or 28mm.  Partly because there is nothing on the models themselves to indicate scale.  So that's a definite win for this terrain set.  I'll build the other set soon.

Chillcon 2022, and MDF Generators

I recently went to Chillcon in Sheffield. It's a great show, and it was good to see it back after several years absence.

I got Clash of Kings 2022 (Mantic's annual update and re-jig for King's of War, notable this year for the brand new army lists for Halflings and Riftforged, lightning themed orcs).  I'm certainly not looking for a new army at the moment (I've still got those Trident Realm minis to paint, for one thing) but it's always nice to see the game growing.

Otherwise I got little else apart from some MDF terrain from Blotz.  A pack of 28mm Generators and a 28mm Turbine/10mm Shield Generator.  I'm planning on using both sets for several games.  They will make great terrain/objectives in the 10mm Sci Fi games and also in Star Wars skirmishes.  They do rather resemble a certain Shield Generator on Hoth.  They may even look good on a Deadzone table or in a Firefight battle.

In the past I've been disappointed with some MDF terrain.  It can be a bit flat looking; blocky and lacking in depth and detail.  Well the generators certainly don't look flat.  They are simple to build (the instructions are on the website) and they've made the most of the materials to give a nice chunky piece that certainly doesn't look like sheet materials.

They've also been designed so that none of the little tabs left from where pieces attach to the frame are on surfaces that show.  They can easily be removed with a light sanding, but it's a nice touch all the same.

The finished generators 

147mm x 197mm of Generator goodness

I couldn't find my Gorilla Woodworking glue, but Strong Craft glue seems to have done the trick.  I used clips to hold the various sub-assemblies together while the glue dried, and I found that I could work on the fin section while the arch section was drying.  If I get another set I'll work on all four at once, indeed, I built the last two together, which saved a lot on drying time.

Painting wise I mostly copied the suggestion in the instructions, black undercoat, heavy drybrush of Vallejo Game Color Gunmetal Metal, followed by highlights of VGC Chainmail Silver.  I picked out details with, and painted the various 'power' bits with Vallejo Model Color Dark Prussian Blue highlighted with Vallejo Game Color Magic Blue and finally VGC Glacier Blue.  I added a little drybrush of a mix of the Magic blue and Glacier Blue around the vents to look like a glow from the power coils, or whatever they are.

The examples on the website have gold or bronze to accent the fins and other raised details, I chose red for this, simply VGC Red Gore with a highlight of VGC Blood Red and just a touch of VGC Fiery Orange.

I'm sure that many other colour schemes would look good; Hoth style white for instance, and I may get another pack and experiment.

Next to a 28mm Star Wars mini...

...and with some 10mm Sci Fi minis.

I think they work well for both scales, and, although I didn't have any to hand, I'm confident that the 20mm Star Wars minis will look good too.

Building and painting these was a pleasure, I recommend these for very useful Sci Fi scatter terrain.  Excellent value, and all round nice pieces of scenery.

EDIT; you can see these terrain pieces with some 20mm minis here.

Building Tatooine in 20mm Part 3

Last night I had another game of Star Wars Galactic Heroes. It was very much a last minute thing, but I was determined to have more terrain on the table.

I quickly cut some XPS blocks, and even had time to stick some half polystyrene balls onto one of them for domes, but there was an awful lot of pink on the table.

A lot of pink foam, which looks a pale buff or orange in the photo.  This is a much better amount of terrain than the last game.

Today I decided to work on one of them, since the dwarven stone cabin was drying prior to painting.  I've now got it to the stage of needing texture and 'greeblies', then painting.

The arches are cut on the Proxon using a Shifting Lands arch template.  I got one as a freebie when I ordered my Guider Pro. Very useful, though I still need some practice with them. 

Building front

Building back, looking at it I might replace the buttresses with thicker ones.

I'll probably put this away until I've finished the SITC - BH, but I certainly want to get those pink blocks turned into Tatooine terrain.

And then when I've got a box of 20mm terrain done, time to start on the 28mm stuff.

These ARE the Droids We Are Looking For

I got in a game of Fistful of Lead Galactic Heroes last night with my good mate Andy. It was his first game of FfoL, so we played the first game in the book.

We had great fun, and Andy coped very well with both a completely new set of rules and the legendary Imperial marksmanship (or lack of). 

I've played this scenario before with Bodvoc, and then we had the advantage of his terrain collection as well.  I added a Sandcrawler, the couple of bits of Combatzone scatter terrain I painted for May the Fourth, and some wooden blocks that could be storage crates. More scenery would have been better for this game, but we managed.

We also measured in centimetres, doubling the distances in inches, to reflect the smaller scale.  I printed off stat cards with the adjusted values, this seemed to work very well.

A desert planet a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away

Some of the Imps lurk behind an abandoned Sandcrawler

The Rebels advance towards a protocol droid

Imperial marksmanship is better than the rumours say...a rebel is wounded

The action hots up around the moisture vaporator

In the end it was a Rebel victory.  I took out the Stormtrooper specialist early on, but the Imps were remarkably good at shooting (for Stormtroopers), taking out two of my Rebels, and their officer slew a third in melee.  I managed to find the droid with the second half of the plans while loosing control of the first one.  By the end though, Rebel shooting put all the Imps out of action.

Great fun.  I'll add a couple of tweaks to the scenario for the future; use both jokers in the pack to get the droids moving more, (in this game they moved three times, the previous time I played it they only moved once).  Add +2 to subsequent attempts to find the correct droid, so it it less likely to be the last one searched.  This may make the game shorter, and (perhaps) be more about finding the droids and less about just shooting your way to victory.

I'll also print out definitions of the relevant traits to assist players, perhaps on a sheet with the stat cards for the crew.  I currently print out individual cards, these could all go on one sheet.

One of my stat cards

This all makes me want to build more Tatooine terrain and paint up more Star Wars minis.  I'm trying to stick to orcs for this month though, perhaps some Gamorreans?

Trying Fistful of Lead Galactic Heroes

Today I finally got in my first game of Galactic Heroes with good friend Bodvoc.

We used our 20mm Star Wars minis and combined our terrain. 

We've been wanting to try the rules for several months now, and have both been collecting and painting Star Wars minis and building terrain.  These are our 20mm minis, more about them here.

We played the first mission in the book and started the third, though we ran out of time on that one.

The village before the action.  Four droids wander around while the speeder waits impatiently in the top right corner.

As the action starts the Imps are able to reach most of the wandering droids before the Rebels do.

However, Rebel shooting proves superior and Stormtroopers drop.

Despite the Rebels having the upper hand in shooting (I think the Imps managed one hit all game) they hadn't got the droid with the second part of the plans.  A well fought draw.

For the second game we went for the third scenario.  Given that all our terrain is currently desert planet we went for this rather than a forest moon.  For the 'native levy' we used some Sandpeople, who as grunts were nowhere near as tough as I'd hoped they would be.

The Rebels advance with Nova bomb at the ready.

This game went badly for me pretty much from the start. I replaced the specialist with M 45 Repeating Ion Blaster (heavy blaster) with a PLEX (Rocket Launcher) which went out of ammo on the first shot.  I managed to leave my leader out in the open, and he was duly killed by the Imps showing remarkable marksmanship.  I then lost one of the troopers carrying the Nova Bomb, and to add insult to injury, the Imps killed two of the Sandpeople who appeared close to the generator, and they even got the specialist with his now useless PLEX.  Although we had to finish at the end of the third turn an Imperial victory was assured.

We both really enjoyed the rules and will certainly play more Galactic Heroes in the future (or should that be A Long Time Ago?).  We need to look more closely at the traits, both in assigning them and in remembering what they could do.  The first game seemed relatively bloodless, I gave the Imps Lousy Shot, which in conjunction with Inaccurate blasters meant they usually needed a 10 at long range.  This might have been a bit much, but certainly matched the traditional Imperial marksmanship.  I was a bit complacent in the second game, and paid for it by loosing three of my own troops plus two Sandpeople.

Of course we had bits where we were unsure, and I expect we made many mistakes, but we had a lot of fun, and that's what counts.

Does Combatzone Terrain Work for 20mm?

Yesterday I posted my first couple of Combatzone scatter terrain. This stuff is designed to be used in games of Star Wars Legion, a game which uses larger figures than the old WotC minis I'm using, so they are already on the large side.

Bodvoc asked in the comments if they'd work with our 20mm minis. It's not something I'd considered, but I thought it was worth looking at.

20mm Star Wars minis with Combatzone terrain

So there we go. Nothing inherently wrong with the crates, the barrel does look a bit on the large side but the pillar could be any size so that's fine.

I'm less keen on the Moisture Vaporator, though perhaps it's a larger industrial sized device?

The good thing is that the items are very 'Star Wars-y', I'm not quite happy with the scale, but I'd certainly put them on a table if I was short of terrain.

More relevant for me, I'll probably use them as inspiration for scatter terrain I build myself. I've already done some crates (with the grooves diagonal rather than straight, as in these examples), and I'll do more in the near future. 

Please leave a comment with your opinion below.

Small Scale Rebels for Fistful of Lead/Galactic Heroes

I painted some 20mm Imperials back in February, so I thought it was time to do some opposition for them.  I've managed to scour evilbay for some more of the 20mm Star Wars stuff, so I'm quite excited about this.

I should say that since I painted the Imps Merlin and I discussed how we are going to use the Star Wars minis we have.  We have decided to singly base the 20mm minis as well as the 28mm, this way we can use them for Galactic Heroes, but also for Bigger Battles, a version of Fistful of Lead with squads rather than individual minis.  We should have, between us, enough for some quite significant battles, which is what drew me to using this scale in the first place.  I'll rebase my Imps soon*.

I began with some of the heroes from the 'Classic Heroes' set, Luke, Han, the droids and Chewie.  The paint jobs on these varies, The droids are OK, Luke is pretty poor.  I'm not a big fan of the crouching poses either, but they'll do.  3PO had a wash with Army Painter Flesh Wash and his leg painted Vallejo Game Color Chainmail Silver, R2 simply had a couple of washes of VGC Grey Wash to bring out the panelling and make him look a bit less pristine.  The rest had a full repaint.  I don't think I've got Chewie quite red-brown enough, but I'm pleased with how Luke and Han came out.  I've also painted a Rebel Pilot.  As he is just standing, looking about and holding his helmet I thought he might do as an objective.

Brave heroes of the Rebellion

Then on to the troops.  I used a pack of nine Rebel Fleet Troopers, and added another Rebel Pilot o fill the rebels out to two crews of five. Each set of the infantry contains 9 minis in four poses.  The Rebel Fleet Troopers are all armed with Rebel Blasters, no heavy weapons among them, so I decided to convert a couple of minis.  I used various bits of plastic tubing and plasticard to make both the heavy blaster and the rocket launcher.  They are a bit crude and out of scale, but I think they'll do, at least until I get better plastic tubing.

Two crews of rebels

 

I painted them to match my 28mm Rebel Fleet Troopers and chose the chap holding his helmet to be a squad leader, so gave him a tan uniform.  This is possibly a bit too dark, next time I'll go lighter.

I think en-mass they look fine, and I'm glad to have two crews with plenty of options for heroes as well.  The droids are mostly likely going to be scenario specific objectives.

*I've rebased my Imps now, so here are all the 20mm Star Wars minis and terrain pieces I've finished to date.