In the last few years a popular surrogate which is taking a kicking is Flames of War. There's always detractors about how the rules are the spawns of the devil, and promoters will laude it as the rules set the saved historical gaming. It is in one of these long exchanged I first heard about Metal Storm WW2 (MSWW2) rules.

The author is squarely on the FoW detractor camp. He touted it as a more historical set of rules which promotes real live tactics better than the 40k-ized world of FoW. The rules are based on Metal Storm Modern which is a distant offspring of Peter Pigs' AK-47 which garnered a lot of positive word of mouth. Given that I now have matching armies of FoW which can be readily used for MSWW2, and that the rules are available in PDF format for ~ $16 US, I sprang for a copy.

The rules are definitely in the old school of "by wargamers, for wargamers". It's got very rudimentary graphics and no game concept illustrations at all (pictures are eye candy variety). It's not going to compete against FoW in getting the new converts, but will be (maybe?) acceptable for old farts like me who are used to "a good set of rules wrapped in not so good physical packaging".

FORCE ORGANIZATION
The scale of the game is the same as FoW: Each player command around a company strength force, with maneuver element being a platoon, and combat is conducted between individual stands (each being a squard or section for infantry, or an individual vehicle). interactions of the stands reminded me of DBx school of rules (with more explanation later). There are no army lists to tell you what's in a force so newbies will be lost. The formula for calculating point cost for a unit is given but a lot of "interpretation" needs to happen on the part of the gamers so definitely not for someone who's new to the period.

Treatment of hardware is very "broadbrush" and impressionistic, for example all armor defense are characterized into a few categories with some examples given (i.e. a Tiger has a D10 for armor, a Sherman a D8) . If you have some exotic vehicle you need to make your own mind up on where it fits into the continuum. If you are the type of treadheads who cares about the armor difference between a long barreled PzIII and a early short barreled version, you will be disappointed. The author cares more about troops quality than hardware.

DESIGN PHILOSOPHY
The author stated that the rules emphasis is on troop quality more so than hardware, so your quality decides how well you shoot, how much penalty you take due to hardship, and how long you will stick around the battlefield when bad things starts to happen. Hardware might give you a modifier of somekind but is definitely not the deciding factor. I am not going to go into the "historicity" of this decision, but from a pure gameplay point of view it simplified on a lot of nuts and bolts consideration of playing a ww2 game like FoW (where number of machine guns on a tank and their rate of fire is important), and one can get into a game much quicker, and think about the game probably more appropriate of the intended scale (after all if you are a company commander, you think about "sending in your heavy armor reserve", you don't worry about whether your tank can maximize number of machine gun tubes firing this turn).

TURN SEQUENCE
Turn sequence is what I call The Sword and the Flame sequence, where you use a deck of regular cards, and when you flip one color, side A get to move one unit of its choosing, and if another color, side B gets to move a unit of his choosing. Cards are not tied to a particular unit so planning is a little less restrictive.

Once a unit is activated he gets to do either one or two actions depending on what it is. Very straightforward and clean. Movement is also very Sword and Flame like: roll a number of dice and move that amount of distance in inches, modified by quality and terrain.

One change is that a unit can be in overwatch mode for the turn (decided before the cards are shuffled). In this case a overwatch unit may fire BETWEEN card draws (instead of the more obvious "you get to fire anytime during an opponent's move") I am still trying to puzzle this out to see if I like this, since theoretically speaking if you can't see a enemy unit in the end of a card draw, you can't fire at it, and on the next card draw he can activate and then hit you on close combat before you can shoot back even if you are on overwatch. In out test game we used overwatch fire sparingly but didn't seem to make a big difference.

COMBAT
Combat reminded me of a combination of Piquet and DBA. Any attack (regardless of fire, melee, vs inf or armor) always rolls two dice, defender always rolls one die. if attacker beat the defender on both, it's dead. If only beat it on one, then it's gone to ground (pinned, or for armor vehicle it's "threatened"). Very straight forward and clean.

Modifiers and quality comes into play through the quality of the dice you throw. So if you have an 88 firing? you'll get some big dice (D12 & D12), and if you have something crappy maybe you only get D4 & D6. The same principle applies to the defense (see my example earlier on tank types). Any modifiers (there are only a handful so easily remembered after a few turns) are applied as dies up or die down (a la Piquet). This may cause some strangeness for those who's not used to handling different die types (i.e. D8 with a -1 modifier becomes a D6) . This is definitely a broadbrush threatment akin to DBA combat results, but it "feels" right for the level of game the author intended. Of course every die regardless of type has a "1" on it, and a bad roll could mean that your King Tiger gets taken out by a anti tank rifle. But if the explanation of (it's a critical hit that happened to went into the vision slit) causes you problem, this might not be the rules for you.

Gone to Ground is more likely than killed outright, and this means the stand is pinned (can not move or fire, can still melee with a negative modifier). one can either spend action during an activation to remove GTG status, or it'll get reduced by one level at end of turn. It's possible then to inflict multiple GTG result to keep troops down which is a pretty historical tactic.

MORALE
The game doesn't use a tradition morale test, but instead uses a Mission Resolve (purportedly from AK-47, though not having played it I am not sure). The theory being that on a modern battlefield adverse events causes cumulative stress (i.e. losing stands, seeing friendly unit dying, etc.), once stress builds up to a certain level the unit will just quit the field. In game terms this means that unit are called upon to make Mission Resolve tests on certain events. If they misses nothing happens, but on the third miss they are just GONE (we call it the three strikes rule). This means there are some record keeping, but it's not onerous. I think it works, but will need to reflect upon it a bit more to see if this is superior to the more traditional "roll to pass or you are pinned/shaken/routed followed by rallying" mechanism.

OMISSIONS
There's a very explicit omission stated by the author: based on his research there are very few instance of infantry close assaulting tanks without AT weapon (in the rules that means weapon with explicit AT capability like ATR or bazooka, there are no stats for molotov cocktail or improv weapons), so in the design close assault vs vehicle (and conversely vehicle overrunning infantry) is simply forbidden. In our game we have no situation where things might be weird, but I can see in a city fight for instance the tank can just rumble forth into infantry infested narrow streets (assuming that inf have no ATG hiding about) without any worries. I don't have enough historical data to see if this is realistic or not, but since every other set of rules in gaming history have rules to support infantry passing a morale check and then jump on tank to assault it with bare fists I thought I'd mention this (and if this really is a problem, the rules structure are flexible enough that to bolt on a rule of your own devise would not be hard).

+ fast moving, can do a largish game much quicker than FoW or other alternatives.
+ Historical tactics works.
+ works well with FoW forces out there.
+ Exact basing not important.
? Lack of close combat vs tank might create weird situations (did not surface in our playtest).
? Overwatch fire did not work as expected, not sure if it works or not.
- If you want detailed differences between troop types and tank specs, this ain't gonna float your boat.
- If you want nationality differences you ain't gonna get it here (one country's "Veteran" behaves very much like another countries' "veteran".

1. Disposable Hero: Set of Mass Skirmish rules (my term given to rules that are 1:1, but smallest maneuver unit is a section or a squad). Very straight forward and gives pretty realistic results, what I call "workman-like" in that it's got all the basics, but nothing too innovative. Will be used as a baseline for us to compare all other Mass Skirmish rules against.

We played two games so far, one a 25mm game with Ge vs Ru, about 1 platoon a side plus one vehicle ea. and a second game of German attack into Arnhem using Freddy's collection of 20mm stuff. We found that attacking into a city is hard business and makes a long and attritional game. A village will be the largest I'll do from now on.

2. I Ain't Been Shot Mum using our 15mm FoW army. I call it a Company level ww2 RPG game, where a game master is really de rigure. It's got a high chaos factor, and a lot of anxiety and excitement since units are hidden and move on "blinds" until they are revealed. In principal I have resistance against rules that uses hidden forces (i painted all those nice figures damn it I want to see them on the table!) It's fun enough that it'll probably get an occasional outing when we are in a RPG mood, but won't make it as our "default" set.

3. NUTS! - First time I tried this weeks ago I didn't like it, main reason being that the rules are badly organized and I was lost trying to read through it. THis time Chris did more prep and we played 2 games in about 2 hours (living up to the Two Hour Wargames label twice over!) and I enjoyed it much more. It's at a lower scale of individual level game, so running 1~2 squad per player is about the limit. THe game feels like WW2 small unit action, with minimal level of DRM and charts. Highly chaotic. In both of our games once a side "dominated" the battle field (i.e. have firelane setup before the other bloke can get into position), the game is pretty much over in that if you pop up into an established firelane you are pretty much hosed. THis fits in well with my understanding of WW2 battles. Will get occasional outing (I say occasional since I prefer more toys on the table, so "mass skirmish" or Company level is probably my preferred level of game), but this being so innovative and so atmospheric that I'll definitely play it again. I just hope the rules could be better organized and some key concepts better explained (there's also a lot of wristage, since a 1 on 1 firefight can literally take forever).

Next up: Metal Storm WW2 (company level game) and Battlefield Evolution WW2...

I am also constantly being bombarded by images from friend's Rapid Fire! games (Freddy has TONS of 20mm built for Arnhem), as well as lot of web site eye candies show casing cool looking 28mm or 20mm figures. Recently with the play of Disposable Heros rules at Historicon, upcoming release of Battlefield Evolution: World at War, and Rules of Engagement out of the UK, my eyes are firmly on the ww2 skirmish scale.

I want a set of rules that's on a simpler end (roll buck of D6 school of gaming is fine by me when it comes to skirmish level ww2). Now the question is with my Skirmish scale (20mm or 1/48), what do I want to do?

20mm PRO/CON
+ They are cheaper
+ I already have some Eastern Front figs and vehicles and wouldn't be hard to expand on them.
+ Lots of pre-painted cheap vehicle to be had
- Lack of "awesome quality" figures (AB is the standard setter, but they don't really have Russians. Their best range is UK/Commonwealth but I don't want to duplicate Freddies' collection). Fantassin comes close so I'll be doing some more research on them.
- Lack of terrain. ALl my buildings are for 12mm/15mm or 25/28mm. Trees & roads is not a problem, but I'll need to startup on HO scale buildings.

1/48
+ I have some figs and tank already
- There's less out there for vehicles.
- They cost more per figure
- The size seems to vary more. My Corgi 1/50 is about a head taller than my Tamiya 1/48, which are close enough to 28mm metals out there.

Current thought is that I can do BOTH scales, but carefully segregate them by period so I do not dup the figures. One obvious setup will be:

1/48 or 28mm scale: Late War Western Front, US Infantry vs Ge Infantry. Future expansion in this area can be Br Paras vs SS. All of these can share 1/48 or 1/50 vehicles.

20mm: Eastern Front with some different Ge variant (maybe Fallshirmjager?) vs Russians of all kinds.

Stilling thinking hard on this...

A brief note re 15mm: I got out of that scene a while back (sold all my 15mm Italian War, Han Chinese, etc.) mainly for lack of good rules and the fact that the 15mm figures just don't look that good. That has changed with Xyston, since they have the modern 25mm quality, carefully shrunken to a 15mm (more like 18mm) frame. They look great painted up using my block paint/magic dip painting style. Some pictures will be up shortly after my move is complete.

Another reason I went with 15mm is that the local scene for Ancients is almost exclusively 15mm (many are jazzed by FoG and are dusting up their old Ancient army, or building new ones, the local store even started carring Xyston inventory). I am forseeing 2008 as the year of the Ancients*

One problem with 15mm is that other than Xyston, not many others comes close to that standard (the new comer Splintered Light Miniatures comes close). I will probably go gaga if anyone ever comes out with Xyston quality figs for the Crusades period.

*I am also catching the ww2 bug, see next post....

FOG is published by Osprey books who's known to put out attractive and concise books on military history subjects. The first thing one would notice about FoG is its physical quality: It comes in a nicely printed hardback book, with nice thick quality pages and full color treatment (in fact it's better quality paper than their Osprey books). There are pages full of illustrations cribbed from their books, pictures of miniatures (somewhat uneven in quality), and some VERY nice full color diagrams which explains the various rules situations. If you are the type that gets seduced by eye candy in rules, FoG can't be beat.

FoG attempts to be tournament friendly and yet be "historically accurate". It claims to achieve that by eliminating "cheese" and to provide rules that encourages historical behavior of the troops. It also claimed to be more "playable" and easier to understand than its predecessors (the DBx family, since the author Richard Bodley Scott was a co-author of DBx. It all sounded like lofty goals, and combined with eye candy, I decided to bite (I actually joined the Playtest Team.

DESCRIPTION OF THE RULES
My first impression upon reading through the rules is that they try to be "more historical" than WRG/DBx, and yet is trying to make sure that the rules doesn't become a tool of the rules lawyers. Whether it's tournament rules lawyering free or not will take time (those guys need time to find all the cheese), but the rules seems to reward historical bahavior of the troops.

The was touted to be "simple" and "newbie friendly". On that front I think it's less successful. If the author wants to compare favorably with rules like Flames of War in drawing in people who have never played historicals before, then I think he did not do a good job. While easy to read for anyone who has to decipher Barkerese, if you are used to a more "conversational" style of rules like GW or FoW, its pages of DRM will likely cause some confusion.

MECHANICS
It's a IGO-UGO system, with a traditional move, shoot, melee setup. SOme of the exceptions to that:
1) Some of the phases are simultaneous, mainly the shooting phase (both players shoot during both player's bound), and the Joint Action Phase (where both side gets to handle routers, rally, and move commanders).
2) There's an IMPACT phase. In this phase the acting player declares all charges, and carries them out. Any melee resulting from the charge is resolved then and there, before shooting or other melee (more on this later).
3) There's a Interception Charge, where none phasing player may preempt a charge if the a charging unit is charging into a "Zone of Influence" of a unit capable of interception. This gives some thought for the player to think about holding a reserve and things like covering one's flank.

IMPACT VS MELEE
The rules try to emphasize the difference between a charge combat (i.e. where great benefit are given to troops types like impact foot (Romans, Gauls) and knights), and melee combat (if both side survives a charge, then qualities such as staying power, overlap, weight of numbers begin to matter more). It's a good model to strive for and one gets a distinct flavor thinking about the difference between the 2 styles of combat. In our first playthrough though I found that combat is very attritional, in that usually there are no quick kill/routs, and one have to work on lowering the morale of the enemy through multiple turns (one has to get an enemy from steady to disrupted, then if they fail cohesion check again they go to Fragmented, then the last stage is broken/rout).

In my mind the charge type of combat should have a possibility of having the loser of a charge gets carried away by the victorious charger, and if both side made that, then it goes into a slow grudge match of attritional warfare. Instead although mathematically targets are more likely to lose cohesion check if they paint more stuff, we found that you get similar results (just with a different batch of modifiers). Ideally the charge combat should be much more dicey (no pun intended) affair then a grindout melee.

Combat is a clever combination of "list of modifiers a la WRG", and the WAB's handful of dice approach. Basically both side goes down the charge to figure out what their Point of Adventage count is (then that result will modify what kinda of "to hit" on handful of dice will be). For example if no one has an advantage we both need 4's on a D6 to score a hit. If I have one up on POA then I need 4's to hit you, but you need a 5's or more to hit me.

Quality of the troops are expressed as re rolls. So if you are superior in quality, you get to re-roll any 1's on a D6. I think it's a simple way to handle different troop quality.

MISSILE FIRE
Rolling for missile hit is the same process as that of melee (A good thing). Shooting is definitely de-emphasized. One need to inflict at least 1 hit for every 3 figures in the target in order to cause a cohesion check. Thus one need large body of shooters with lots of dice in order to even get a chance to do some damage. Not sure if this is realistic (at least when it comes to medieval time when missiles plays a larger role IMO), but for the Ancient period is probably spot on.

CONCLUSION
There are many positives about the rules
+ Awesome physical presentation.
+ Easier to read than the competition (WRG, DBx, Warrior).
+ Clear and concise on the most part.
+ Award historical tactics.
+ Simplified army list/army building encourages historical armies, not min/max super troops.
+ A clever bland of "list of DRM" and "Bucket of dice" systems of combat
+ Distinction between impact and melee combat
+ Likely to generate interest in reviving the ancient scene whether you like the rules or not.

Some negatives:
- Still NOT an "easy" set of rules
- Not really newbie friendly as advertised
- Need lots of troops to have a quality game ("Lots" defined as DBM/WRG sized)
- There are still some geometry involved (though probably less abusive than DBx).
- Game time could be long (could just be us learning the rules, will certain revise upon further playing).

Some neutral observations:
* One of the rule's stated goal is to have rules written to discourage rule lawyering and cheese. Jury is still out on that one.
* In effective missiles might unrealistically penalize "shooty" armies like the English HYW or Mongols. (no prove, will play with my Mongols to see how it works).

1) Real World: has been a blur the last few month: I have a new job starting the beginning of Nov, Linda has a new position within her company, the house remodeling drags on (suppose to finish before thanksgiving '07, and now at end of February it is still not done), Somewhere in there I was also serving in the local grand jury. this explains a bit about the lack of update...

2) "new" periods: Due to influence from friend's kids, I got into 40k .."Uncle Milton, oh wise-one, please show us how to do this miniature gaming thing...". I bought the Space Marine megabox in late October, and by the new year I finished painting the entire box! (Probably a speed record for me). They still haven't seen any action yet as the kids are more into the modeling/painting aspect than playing, oh well...

4) The latest craze is Field of Glory: We tried the rules out last night and a writeup will be coming shortly. Its release has triggered the ancient gamer in me, so will be taking a look at some competitor rulesets (Armati 2, Tactica 2, Ancient Warfare, and Crusader are all waiting their turn on the table).

The blog also contains a lot of behind the scene entries which is fascinating...

1. In 25/28mm or larger- I can no longer comfortably see in that scale anymore. So other than completing troops in 12/15mm that I already have, anything brand new which I start have to be a larger scale.

2. Something small-ish- i.e. My dream of re-starting on my 25mm Napoleonics again should be squashed quickly.

Taken the conclusion of "some conflict set in the inter war years", one can list the more interesting wars which happened and see what we have:

a. Poncho Villa/Mexican revolution (One can use Mexicans that can easily be used in Western games and Maximillian games, there are US troops, armor cars, etc.)
b. Rif War (FFL, Riffian Bandits, Abd El Krim, Armor cars, planes)
c. WW1 Middle East- Beduin tribesmen, camels, primitive tanks/armor cars, British, turks, German advisors. Omar Sharif & Anthony Quinn. Can extend to various British desert campaign against the natives.
d. North West Frontier- I can reuse my Afghan figures w/o change. Need new WW1 era or inter war era Brits & Indians. Armor Cars.
e. Back of Beyond (not really a historical period but rather a genre defined by a figure line)- this covers Russian Civil War, Chinese Warlord conflicts, and the cross section of both of these plus one can have Western Interventionist Expeditionary forces which means you can pretty mush have games using anyone (US, Chinese Warlord, Brit, French , Russians (white & Red) along with whacky things like Czechs & Poles. archeologists and dinosaurs are also accepted.

After looking at this, one sees that d & e are closely linked, and can easily be grouped into one.

Now back to high level requirements:

4. Availability of nice figures.

At this point the choices are clear: Back of Beyond [BoB](with figures from Copplestone & Brigade) should give me a wide range of actions. So IF I am to start on new projects (not saying that I am, being the budget conscious miser that I am), I'll start to build my Bob armies....

Setting the Scene
The stars have aligned this year which allows me my 3rd ever East Coast convention trip: Wife is off overseas with the girlfriends, and I have airline miles to burn. So I took up Freddy’s offer as a roommate at the Host in Lancaster. Historicon, Here I come!

I have been good lately with my resolutions. I sold off a bunch of unplayed boardgames which financed my small foray into 1/48 Tamiya figures and a few Walmat 1/48 Pz IV tanks. Other than that I am content with all the “active” projects that I have (i.e. 25mm Ancients, 12mm WW2, 25mm Colonials, and some 15mm Flames of War on the side). I have a very small want list when arriving at Historicon (mainly rules) with no prospect of accidentally starting major projects. Life is good (and safe).

My first game is to check out the “Disposable Heros” set of WW2 skirmish rules (those 1/48 Tamiya figures aren’t gonna play themselves you know..) I signed up with the North Lancaster gaming club (where the author of the rules hangs out) table in the main Distelfink ballroom. They have a set table in the room which they kept for the entire 4 days, on which they played all the Disposable Heros period variants they have.
The game I personally sit on is based on the Price of Glory rule book which covers the WW1 and RCW period. The mechanics are almost identical to the DH original that I felt I got a pretty good overview of the rules.
The philosophy emphasized by the DH school simplicity. All dierolls are on a D10 with a few modifiers. Roll under to hit, roll under again to kill. If a unit receives fire it must roll D10 < morale to pass. If fails then receives pin marker(s). Officer can roll vs morale to remove pin markers. Turn sequence is alternating sides, when one side moves each command (player) on that side activates a single unit. One can put unit into overwatch mode thus to give defensive fire during opponents move.
Vehicle fire is slightly more involved, in that when vehicle fires it needs to first “acquire” target before a hit can be attempted. Once hit one must roll penetration vs armor in order to have a possibility of hitting something interesting (i..e tracks, killing crew, disabling weapons, etc.)
Melee is VERY bloody. When two groups meet in melee (and none of them runs away, voluntarily or involuntarily), melee happens to the death (i.e. keep rolling for kills until one side standing). It makes for a fast game.
All these mechanisms are not new, they are all concepts we have seen a hundred times before. Yet the rules are appealing in that “old school” feel. Mechanism are very clean and seems complete (i.e. most facets of the period and all the support weapons seems to be covered). So while it won’t win the innovation award, it appeals on the simple, fast, and easy to setup criteria. On those basis it could might well become the default ww2 skrimish rules in the Soong household.
As an aside, I did a quick scan to compare the number of ww2 skirmish games based on rulesets. DH (and its siblings) are by far the most numerous in this years Historicon roster of games. This might be due to the local connection, but it could well be a trend to come. (for those interested, after DH there are a handful of Battleground game, maybe one or two Arc of Fire game, followed by lot of homebrew sets. There are no Rapid Fire! In sight)

The Flames of War Phenom
I did not put FoW into the skirmish category in my survey above. If I were to compare ONE most played ruleset in the entire Hcon I would say FoW would be the winner (with DBA/M and Warrior a close second due to the tournament games). They have their own room (a new area of the hotel since my last visit) where all the tournament games as well as none tourney setups are located.
One immediate difference between the FoW tournament scene and other more familiar Ancient section lies in the quality of the terrain. Whereas in the Ancient area there are full of army blankets, green felts, or even bare table, in the FoW room there are stunning setups of Stalingrad factory, North Afrika escarpments, and one awesome looking Arnhem Bridgehead table used in a scenario game (when I took the picture the SS Assault into the town has just been halted by the Red Devil and the bridge is littered with wrecks). If this is the FoW tourney scene then it’s already many step above in the presentation area. Throughout the week there is also a large Burma scenario and a big Kasserine game which all have nice terrains. The only downside is that tournaments always ensures that one comes out with some squirrelly matchups. The stunning Stalingrad factory table had a Brit vs Russian game going on when I was there, sigh…
The same FoW craze is still going strong on the showfloor and in the fleamarket. There are plenty of well painted FoW armies all over the place. 15mm continues to be the dominate scale in WW2 in the convention (BTW, for our British readers: there are exactly ONE games in 20mm throughout the 4 days, and I was looking pretty hard. There are many 15mm games using all rule sets, mainly 25mm for skirmish, and some microarmor game here and there. There are even a handful of games using 1/32 scale large figs, but no HO scale on the game table other than the one Pacific Island assault game in the showroom.)

Poor Bloody Infantry
The Peter Pig guys are doing short 1 hr demo throughout the show on their WW2 ruleset. An excellent venue for me to get an idea of the rules. Previous attempt to read through PBI 2 failed the comprehension test, so I figure that with a new edition of the rules and a chance to play with the designer himself warrants a 2nd chance for these rules.
In contrast to Disposable Heros (rearranging familiar bits into a well made comprehensive whole), PBI is the opposite (a lot of none familiar concept with novel presentations). As in many Peter Pig games, it’s a tactical game that contains a lot of operational and strategic elements that acts as a “pre-game” which affects what game you’ll be playing. This is one element of the rules that attracted me although in our short demo we did not get a chance to go through that. Instead we just concentrated on the meat & potato of onboard move/fire.
The game is played on a 8x8 square grid. Units are platoons and each platoon consisits of about 9 bases of Infantry. Being a grid based game exact base size aren’t that important, so I can see sucking in some local FoW players to try the game with their existing armies.
The turns are IGO-UGO, and when one person gets to go he rolls to activate a square (roll 1D6 > distance to the target square and it activates). After it activates then it gets a D6 worth of pips. One can then spend the pips on a variety of activities such as movment & fire. Thus if I have 6 pips I can move 4 pips (4 squares in the open), and then shoot with 2 pips.
For shooting each pips would give 1D6 for a rifle stand (double for MG stands). So if my 3 rifle stands spends 2 pips firing, then I roll 6xD6, looking for a “6” for potential kills.
As a bit of design elegance which speeds up play, all modifiers is applied to the subsequent saving throw so that the initial roll to hit is never encumbered with charts and modifiers. Once a hit is scored a variety of reason could then modify the saving throw. We all found out the hardway that to kill a target hiding in cover requires a HUGE amount of dice rolling (6 on D6 to hit, and anything but a 1 on the saving throw will save the target). There is also rules for suppression but for the sake of simplicity we didn’t get to use that.
There are also rules for fire backs, opportunity fire, close combat, rally. All in all it’s simple, clean, and requires thinking ahead (in almost a boardgame-y kinda way). I was happy with the demo that right afterwards I went to the dealers area and bought the rules. For me the pluses are:
1. Simple game that could be played in an evening
2. Innovative pregame that results in interesting situation (probably could be stolen for some linked scenario campaign in a pain-free way).
3. Low level of troop count required so can get into it easily.
4. Could use any basing scheme so easier to entire local FoW players to give it a try.

Some potential negatives are:
1. Pregame setup might generate some degenerate setup that’s not so interesting to game.
2. High wristage for dice rolling (a typical fire action involves rolling to hit, rolling to save, roll if defender fire back, if so roll to hit, roll to kill).

I Ain’t Been Shot Mum
I bought the 1st edition of the game 3 years ago (and all the expansions) on the strength of its accolade on the net. I couldn’t make it through the reading since it’s in that loosy-goosy English styles of rules writing that I find incomprehensible (though I am not a rules lawyer when I play, I always think about the edge cases when I read through rules, and IABSM 1st edition gave me a headache).
The failing must be me, not the rules, so a convention setting is the perfect place to me to find out (in a less painful way) to find out what the rules was all about.
To keep a long story short, a convention setting with a total of 7 players is not the best showcase for these rules. The turn sequence pride itself on injecting chaos into a game (which normally is a good thing), but IASBM has a very sequenced model so that when your card comes up, a SINGLE player gets to move ALL his units while the rest of the players stand around and watch. In a club game or 1on1 this is probably fine but in a convention game this is NOT the kind of game that does well (since most games I play/host have at least 6 players, it means IASBM is not for me either).
There are some basics which are kinda cool: A unit gets 4 “dice” a turn that it can use it for actions. He can use 2 dice for movement (roll 2D6 and move that amount of pips in inches), and then fire with the other 2 dice (roll 2D6 on the combat chart, and more dice on the chart usually means more decisive results). I can see trying this again in a small group setting, but probably not a set which will see much action in the Soong house.

Other WW2
There is a 2 day extravaganza of Assault on Tobruk using the new Command Decision IV rules, run by Frank Chadwick the author himself. I am always wary of participating in these 30 player experience during a con setting so I did not signup, but dud loiter around to see how the rules work.
After 2 days of sporadic observations, I am still in the dark about the core mechanisms. All I know is that it involves giving orders to units (there are many order cubes/chits litering the battlefield), and rolling dice against charts with tables on them. Giving that the rules are ~$50 a pop and about at least ½ inches thick, I decided that this is not really my thing so I striked that one off my purchase list.
Many supposedly high profile WW2 rules never made an appearance (no Blitzkrieg Commander, no GHQ Microarmor, no Rapid Fire). There is an entire rom devoted to Mein Panzer but it’s kinda out of the way so I did not check it out. Then again there are games that was completely unexpected but was popular. One was the number of 1/32 games that proliferated thoughout the 3 days. This mostly due to the availability of the prepainted 21 Century Toys on the market. They are tempting, but ultimately they are just a little too big for me…

Col. Glantz Lecture
Although I have been a history nut all my life, I’ve never got into what I call the “hardcore” info side of thing. By that I mean things like OB, troop movement, etc. I know people who get a kick out of studying troop placement, digging up obscure OB, etc. I just never got interested in all that, instead more into the “story” aspect of history.
When I heard that Col. David Glantz (WW2 Eastern Front expert) is giving a lecture, I am kinda ambivalent about going. On the one hand I know he’s done some great work in studying the Russian archive to dig up hitherto unknown material, but I’ve suspected (based on reviews of his work) that his stuff tend toward the “hardcore” side of things, and his lecture might be boring as a result.

Boy was I completely wrong!

He is a very dynamic speaker, clear and to the point, presenting hardcore info in easy to digest form. There are also Interesting tidbits and anecdotes throughout so there’s never a dull moment. The topic of the talk is “Fall Blau”, and he covers the initial drive on to S’grad and ends with the Soviet breakthrough. It is part of his Forgotten Battle series (apparently a lot of the initial battles are little documented).
The talk is fascinating because on the projector is detailed maps showing troop locations in 2 day increment(!) One can really see what’s where, who’s doing what, and more importantly, why things happened the way they did. I imaging that if I were to read these on paper (w/o the maps) it’ll be dry indeed, but the annotated maps made everything clear to me.
Col. Glantz mentioned as an aside that publishers hate to publish maps, and many of his previous work all suffered for it (not because the maps aren’t available, he always turns in tons of the stuff but publisher only publish a fraction of them). Aa result he’s now selling a lot of the maps himself, and anyone interested can use the maps to follow the action in the books.
His enthusiasm for the material is truly contagious, one can’t help but get caught up in the gigantic struggle that he’s describing. The lecture overran the schedule by about an hour and it’s past midnight because we call it quits. This lecture is probably the highlight of my Hcon experience, so if you have any interest in WW2 and will be at a convention where Col. Glantz will be giving this talk (I think he’ll be at Origin this year), do yourself a favor and go to the lecture.

Napoleonic Field of Battle (or the fastest rout I have ever experienced)
Being that the people I regularly game with are in the PIQUET inner circle, every convention will see at least one big game with the PK crowd (usually a Nappy game using some amazingly painted figures). This time we are using the (relatively) newly released Field of Battle supplement in the PK extended family. It is more streamlined and eliminated a lot of the complaints leveled against traditional PK (impetus swing has largely been eliminated, and the actual mechanics of moving and firing are also more elegant).
This game sees the French vs an Allied contingent of Russians, Wurttembergers, Bavarians, and Austrians[?] It’s a line them up and have at it affair. Ken & I shared control the Bavarians and the overall commander is Peter (who also ran the Wurttembergers).
What follows is got to be the fastest rout in the Nappy game I have ever witnessed. The French basically aimed their strike force right at the Wurttembergers, and just concentrated the attack in one sector. Although we did not suffer impetus swing, our card turn is abysmal. Coupled by the generous French movement roll (during a movement card, a dieroll against the quality of the moving troops dictates the movement allowance. If rolled well a cav unit can move up to 3 move segment (~36”) which translates to a grand charge that caught the defender off guard). In this case it happened, and the Wuettembergers quickly capitulated and left a big hole for Ken and I to plug.
Ken’s infantry formed square which staved off [temporarily] the French cavalry while I readied my cavalry for a death and glory charge to stem the tide. Before that can happen the Allied side lost all the morale chips and the army lost its will and retreated away. The entire game lasted only about 2 hours. Even though we lost we had a good time, and what happened could be rationalized into a proper historical framework. I will try to run a FoB game using my 15mm Nappy figures one of these days (although I’ll need some house rules since I have single stand figures based for Grand Armee).

Final Thought
I have been pretty good this time, not walking away with brand new armies when the show is over. There were moments of weakness after some of the better games I played in (i.e. I was think about Copplestone Back of Beyond after the Price of Glory game, and then again after witnessing Pat’s excellent paintjob and the terrain in the Field of Battle game, I ALMOST started to plan a 25mm Nappy army using Perry 1815 French), but in each instance the voice of reason rescued me from the madness. I’ve onlu bought 2 prepainted 1/144 Hummel to complete a missing unit of mine, plus a single pack of Perry Sudan figure (Dervish mounted commander). The rest are rules (PBI and Disposable Heros). Pocketbook has been preserved and life is good.

Now this is NOT a well known set of rules in these part of the world. I heard about it through a mention in TMP which tout it as "fast play WW2 using a hex grid". Further inquiry showed that it is supported through the 1/144 Yahoo group, and the author expressly designed the rules to be used with 1/144 (close to 10/12mm scale) figures. Since I have my massive horde of 1/144 armor force AND I am looking for a fast play set of rules, I decide to take the plunge and order the rules.

I did mention earlier that the rules are very complete. The organization is pretty good, and while some rules are scattered all over (i.e. there is a handy reference sheet, but a list of saving throw circumstances are not present. Instead one has to hunt through the rules to locate each and everyone in different places). A bit annoying, but tolerable.

RULES MECHANICS
If I have to describe the rules with one word, I would use the word "subtle". One get a lot of WW2 tactics and effects (at least how I interpret them) with minimal amount of rules. If you like a lot of chrome and national characteristics, this set of rules is NOT for you.

Each turn each HQ unit (the key action driver of the game) rolls a initiative die, and then the HQ will then take their turn in the order rolled. (i.e. Ge commander A rolls a 6, Ru commander rolls a 4, and Ge Commander B rolls a one, the play order if GeA, Ru, Ge B)
The the HQ's turn is up (an Activation Phase) the player activates units by rolling a command dieroll. Usually you have to roll a D6 and beat the distance in hexes between the HQ and the unit in question, so if your unit is three hexes away, you need to roll a 3 or higher on a D6 in order to active it to do something, else it is DONE for the turn. If a HQ blows his roll then he is done for the turn UNLESS he has "rerolls" left. (Normal HQ has 1 reroll per turn, better quality troops will have more). The mechanics is somewhat similar to Warmaster/Blitzkrieg Commander but with less extreme results (since you cannot push the same unit more than once, and the reroll gives you some buffer in recovering from disaster. The feel of chaos is definitely there (might not appeal to the perfect plan type of player).

Units are platoons, usually represented by 3 stands. Units normally moves 1~2 hexes a turn, but can "march" move which gains more distance but then the unit is "spent" (called "idle" in the rules) and can not do stuff next turn. Stacking is normally 1 unit a hex, but a non-infantry unit can stack with an infantry unit (also HQ can stack with one other unit).

When a unit is activated it can fire, move+fire, march (gain extra distance), assault, or get put into Overwatch mode so it can fire SNAP-FIRE during opponent's activation.

All fire (including assult which is just firing at 1 hex range) is performed the same way: A unit rules a number of D6 depending on troop type and number of stands remaining, then hit on certain number (usually 5~6). Normally there are no saving throws other than unit in dig in position or HQ getting fired at. Otherwise a hit = 1 stand removed. Quite decisive (which we all liked. We thought that the hits system in Blitzkrieg Commander is too attritional and too slow moving. Here unit evaporates if exposed to effective enemy fire for too long.

Normally a hit result in the death of a stand, one exception is if armor is hit. Armor unit must face a hex face, and then it has a frontal armor value (front 3 hexes) and rear armor value (the rest). If a hit from a weapon that has a penetration number hits a armored target, then an addition D20 is rolled, and by default a 10 or less will result in a kill, and that number is modified by the difference between the penetration num and the armor num (e.g. if I have a PN value of 10 and you have a armor val of 4, then I kill on 14 or less on a D20). Pretty simple really.

One other aspect I really liked is how "attachments" (like support weapons and transports are treated). In games like Flames of War one has to build ALL THE TRANSPORTS that's used for a unit (where most of the time it's sent to the rear so it's not on the map anyway). In Ambush Blitz transports are used as "markers". So if an infantry unit of three bases is a mechanized infantry, one add a halftrack stand to indicate that it can move faster and has a limited armor save against small armes fire. It is not a "stand" which can be used to take casualties. I like this quite a bit (since I hate painting trucks) so one can only have a handful of transport models in order to play the game.
Support Weapons are slightly different in that they really ARE a separate stand when attached to an infantry unit. So if a HMG is attached to an inf platoon than that platoon now fires like a 4 stand unit. Pretty straight forward.

GAME PLAY
I choose one of the smaller scenario from the book (one set in Barbarossa, where the Germans need to attack and occupy Russian held objectives). Germans have overwhelming number, but Ru have infantry in ambush, plus on turn three the dreaded KV-1 (the heaviest Ge tanks are PzII) makes its appearance. I didn't have to worry about indirect fire or things like fortifications and such, just Infantry, support weapons (only a few), and tanks. A good learning scenario for us where none of the players have tried the rules before.

I was game mastering full time in order to ensure an enjoyable experience for the other 5 players (2 on Ge side and 3 on the Ru side. Since there are really only one Ru command in the game, it's ran by a committee).

It took me about 30 min to explain the rules to a point when people are ready to push troops. Concepts are easy to grasp: position your HQ so you can maximize your activation, how to have support fire into enemy position before you advance, how to setup snap-fire (defensive fire) in the face of incoming enemy, etc. Everything flows smoothly and the rules are clean.

IMPRESSION
I like a lot of the little touches (subtle effects): there's a ZOC that affects enemy drill roll, and upon entering an enemy ZOC you are committing to an assault, which means you have to pass a drill roll in order to initiate the combat. The management of ZOC and defensive fire is what set this apart from simpler fare such as Memoir'44.
We played about 8 turns in 2 1/2 hours of play (and this involves frequent rules lookup for some of the more unusual stuff like ambush and air to ground attack). We all agreed that once we are more familiar with the rules it can move much faster (or players can command more troops, people are already talking about Kursk...)

The author made a big deal about this game is designed specifically for 1/144. But since it's based on a hex grid, one can really use whatever scale you want (prob works fine for 1/285 or 15mm). Might look funny having a 25mm tank having a max shooting distance of 6 hexes, but it does not really affect play.

One thing you will NOT get is quirky national characteristics which happens in many WW2 rules. An infantry squad is an infantry squad, and the only difference between a Russian one and a German one in our scenario is that the Ru have a crappier inherent anti-tank value of 0 instead of the German with a value of 1. The only other difference is in the armor and penetration value of the tanks/guns. One area the rule does allow for some differentiation is the HQ quality (better commands can have more command rerolls), but that did not apply in the scenario we played.

FINAL THOUGHT
What sold me on these rules is that:
1. Playing on a hex grid speed up large games since one doesn't have to waste time checking distances. This may not appeal to everyone but for large games hex is fine by me.
2. I like transport models used as markers only.
3. I like the D6 based quick combat mechanism.
4. I like the simple command and control & inclusion of defensive fire.

Most of the other players all commented that they liked this better than Blitzkrieg Commander. Two of us are FoW players as well and in my mind that is more of a mass-skirmish game, thus at a lower scale than AB! and not really a competitor, but for larger games (or multiplayer games) I would choose AB over FoW in a heartbeat. So until some other rules come along (I am fickle that way), this could be the one for large scale WW2 games...

Some potential negatives (depending on who you are), is that this is set higher than a skirmish game, so not for tread heads.

...until now, and from an unlikely source of Glenn Drover.

First I heard of Age of Empire III is when I saw it on the shelf of local store (Game Kastle). It has that Eagle game "look" to it, and then the credit was unmistakable that it's done by the same designer who did all the Eagle titles. I was never a fan of his design: from old Ameritrash like Risk clones (Attack, the American Civil War, etc.), to botched remakes (Conquest of Empire). There were signs of change when Age of Mythology was release after Purto Rico became a standard of "serious game". It is an evolution that is encouraging although that particular game did not pass the test of time.

MECHANICS
AoE3 uses a blend of many systems. You name it and it's probably there. Many mentioned that there are Caylus-like systems (don't know since I have not played that one), there are scoring from majority control, there are assigning your resources to different "stages" to perform different actions a la Aladdin's Dragon, etc.

Every turn each player gets 5 colonists (your basic worker bees). Each player then takes turn to assign these colonist one at a time to various "Event box", one can:
1. change the turn order (one have to actively spend workers to change the turn order)
2. go to the dock to get shipped out to the new world (there are limited berth on how many colonist total that can ship out per turn. Colonists can go to ANY area that has already been explored.)
3. grab one of 4 trading goods (building up sets of 3 or 4 identical trading goods is the only reliable way to make money turn over turn.)
4. bid on a merchant ship- (A merchant ship is a reusable wild card in calculating sets of trade goods).
5. Get in line to buy a capital building- (These are like the buildings in Puerto Rico
6. Setup discovery party- (these guys goes off to the new world to explore undiscovered regions, which grants a one time $ & VP. It also opens up the area for future colonists).
7. train specialists- (One can upgrade a regular colonist into specialists who can perform better in one of the many tasks. So a soldier can get you additional $ upon discovery as well as gives you muscle to fight a war, and a Merchant is better at bidding for a merchant ship and it also give you $5 if it moves to the new world, etc.)
8. start a war- seldom used, but allows one to use his soldiers to reduce enemy presence in the new world. War is relatively limited both in frequency (in our game it's only used in scoring rounds, or if someone ran out of constructive things to do), as well as effect (one solder gets to kill one dude, done).

After all the players have assigned their colonist, each event box is then resolved in order. At the very end of the turn, income is collected and special capital building generated events are carried out. If this is turn 3, 6, or 10, then victory points from the new world regions is scored via a simple majority control scheme.

This is pretty much it. The mechanics and its interaction might sound pretty intricate, but after about a turn you get the hang of it, and is very elegant compare to many Euros like Puerto Rico.

GAMEPLAY
The goal of the game is to get VP, and the ways to get that is:
1. Majority control of regions in the new world during scoring round
2. Make discoveries
3. Some capital building gives you VP
4. Some (expensive age III) capital building gives you bonus VP for having something else (i.e. one building gives you 1VP for every 2 colonist in the new world, a big boost for someone going with a colonist heavy strategy).

Of all these ways to get VP, the most efficient is probably through majority control, since colonist generally do not go away once landed (other than through infrequent wars), so a colonist that landed in Age 1 can potentially score you three times.

The most inefficient way to get VP is probably through exploration, since you have to build up a large enough war party to over come likely native resistance, and at the end of the exploration, all the explores dies so they aren't really reused. One can get lucky since a few of the discovery tiles gives you HUGE amount of VP, but like roulette, not something you should build a strategy on.
The good thing about exploration is that the other roads to VP can get one locked out (i.e new world could've already been thoroughly dominated by your opponent, and you might not have enough $ to buy capital buildings), in such cases exploration can be the "default" cheap way to get some VP, and hope you get lucky. After all the onboard region have been explored, one can even explore "offboard" regions which in reality never really runs out (i.e. One can always go "discover" Japan for some quick gain in $ and VP. I am sure my Asian studies PC police would have a field day with this..)

The capital building is the tough one. These are the stuff that at simple glance is not REQUIRED to get VP, but by having a cache of them will give you bonus which can eventually build up. All the building are divided up according to age (first 3 turns are age 1, turn 4~6 are age 2, age 7~8 are age 3), with progressively more powerful bonuses accompanied by more expensive cost. Someone can do a thorough study of the cost/benefit ratio of each of the buildings, but the ones tied to your winning strat are must haves (i.e. if you are the king of trade goods, then you need the capital building that gets you 1VP per trade good). The cool building cost you a good $20, which is a hefty chunk of change that you need to save up for.

Money: The only real important use of $ is the acquisition of capital buildings, and the way to get money is:
1. Through sets of trade goods
2. sending merchants to the new world
3. small amount comes from bidding on turn order, and
4. some capital buildings themselves.

How to acquire money is a sub game that can consume a player, but one should be careful not to spend too much energy on it while neglecting the true worth of money: Acquire useful capital buildings.

THE FLOW
The game is quite long (about 2.5 hours for 4 players, and three of us have never played the game), but does not drag. There are always meaningful decisions to be made, and even if one's fallen behind on the power curve, one can always go exploring and pick up VP that way. The end of our game shows that the person who went for the "build missonary and then make babies like crazy in the new world" strategy won out big, but that being the most "efficient" way to victory, I can see that if more people put more emphasis on that facet of the game, it'll naturally balance out.
It is one of those "avoid the crowd" game (i.e. if everyone is following strategy X and therefore competing for the same stuff), so being a contrarian is a viable road to victory. It is also a game where one can relatively easily shift between strategies so one is not locked in by bad decisions made early on (one exception maybe that one have to make sure to save up $20 so one can get in on the age 3 capital building race, since those are game winners).
As I mentioned earlier, the game is heavily themed, and does not feel tacked on at all like other Euros. One begin the game with a steady flow of options, and an empty new world. One gradually build up economic infrastructure (the trade good aspect is probably the most abstract of all the subsystems), build up colonist for the new world, build up exploration party, etc. As the game goes on the new world gradually gets filled up, then you start to see jostling for position in the different colonies, and near the end game (or scoring rounds) war gets declared to curb opponent's influence in the new world. All feels very logical, while not a simulation, one FEELS that on an abstract level approximate running a colonial empire better than most of the competing games out there.

FINAL WORD
The best euro-type board game in the last two years. Strategic game play coupled with straight forward and elegant mechanism. Definitely one to stay in the fickle Soong household.

The Punic Wars- by Adrian Goldsworthy is a rare breed in history writing in that it's scholarly and yet written in a readable style. A lot of scholarly history is just too long and dry for my current mental state (as close to adult ADD as I've ever experienced), so presenting those info in readable form is a good thing. On the other hand, it's not "pop" history which tends to dumb down the material for layman. In any case, if you need just one book to get a reasonable understanding of the conflict (i.e. enough to get inspired so you can start your Punic War project in miniatures), this is it. (BTW Prof. Goldsworthy is a wargamer who had been sighted around the Ancient Military History Yahoo group.

Achtung Schweinehund!- by Harry Pearson is a strange and delightful book. It's only avail from the UK (I got it from a online vendor for about $25US including shipping). It's a very personal account of a boy's facination/obsession with wargaming and toy soldiers. It's filled with auther's boyhood life in the UK, with frequent digression into the funnier aspects of the hobby. There are many delightful tales of eccentrics (I use the term loosely, some have definitely crossed over into the "weird"). The book will appeal to historical wargamers (he hates fantasy BTW) of a certain age (born in the 60's). There are also a lot of stories about aspects of wargaming that I know nothing about (e.g. the french wargaming/toy soldier scene) which are informative. Before I started in on it I suspect that though an interesting tale, the UK-ness might not resonate, buy was I wrong! It looks like growing up in the late 60's in Taiwan isn't that far from growing up English if one is a military history nerd. Airfix kit that comes in a plastic bag and hung on a peg in the hobby store? Check. Little booklet with Battle of Britain rub-on sticker so one can recreate his own 2d "diorama"? Check. With the exception of the availablity of metal none WW2 themed figures, our childhood are remarkably similar.

Other told me that this kinda paint is using a liquid pigment instead of the normal powdery stuff. An additional benefit is that being liquid it won't separate from the solvent, so should stay "evenly mixed" even if it's sitting on the shelf. It's also implied that it won't dry out as much but that remains to be seen.

On the painting table now is 4 of the Fellowship figures from the original Fellowship of the Ring boxset (I am just painting the warlike folks, so just Gandolf, Gimli, Legolas, & Aragorn. Boromir has already been painted and hobbits are useless for puting together Legions of Middleearth games). I used the light grey color from the new set (called Astronomican Grey, don't ask me, perhaps some 40k player can enlighten me on what that means) to do Gandolf's beard...

Another comment, they smell like acrylic house paints (maybe the liquid pigment is something used in that medium?)

Lastly, WARNING! These guys drys very fast. I found out the hardway when I finished the color, wet my brush like I normally do (didn't thoroughly clean it), next thing I know the brushhead is caked up and turning plastic. I suspect these paints will be much harder on your brushes than normal stuff so be careful.

Off to vacation next week so likely no hobby update. Hopefully get the fellowship figures done before I leave...

Recently I am on a Ancient/Medieval kick again, so I went back through the boxes to look at these long neglected figures. The first thing I noticed is that since I started these armies so long ago, all my changes in painting style are reflected in the different units. You can clearly see the Ral Partha painted in "Duke's Stain painting method" (white prime, a stain of the main color, a wash of a darker shade of the same color, then high light), then next came the black primed unit (just one, since they look terrible), then there's the change to using ink stains following reading Ed Allen's inspirational painting article on his now defunct website. None of those are painted in my "current style" (really back to the 3 layer style, except with more inks used in the staining stage and the wash is invariably a FW Sepia Ink Wash, but I already have some unit lined up.

The current order of business is to:
1- Rebase all of these figures onto Warhammer Ancient style (that seems to be the stand in this part when it comes to 25/28 figs).
2- ANy touchup as needed (many of the older figures will benefit with a simple ink wash or even a DIP in a Minwax stain.
3- Terrain up the bases to my latest "Soong Standard bases". (a layer of Liquitex Stucco, liberally doused with fine+coarse ballast. Then the entire base is painted with Vallejo US Tan Earth, then dry brushg with 2 layers of successively lighter shade of US Tan Earth + Dark Sand. Finish with flocks of green static grass.
4- Replace all flags with my latest purchase from "The Flag Dude".

At that point I should have enough for some VERY large (I suspect 4000 pt+) per side battle using WAB (or some other ancient set that happens to strike my fancy at the time).

I promise to put up some in progress pictures in the near future...

Perry Sudan range Fuzzy Wuzzy with Standard,
originally uploaded by msoong.

Here's some opponent for the KRRC. This is the first time I used the "dip" method where I submerged the entire figure into a can of Minwax stain (dark walnut). The one mistake I made is that I did not "shake" off the excess, so there's a lot of pooling in the recessed areas. I picked a dark skinned figure on purpose since "too dark" from the walnut stain will be less noticeable. This picture is taken before the dullcoat went on so it's kinda shiny.

I also sprayed the figures with light brown after my white sprayed primer (trying to find ways to save time). I think that worked out ok.