Flames of War: 'Nam - Viet Cong Local Forces Infantry Battalion

After almost four years of working on them off and on, this weekend I finally completed my Viet Cong Local Forces Infantry Battalion for Flames of War: 'Nam.

Since I started the force, the new 'Nam book was released which changed some options.  I custom created a sniper model that can't be used, and a few of the command stands are no longer needed. In all, with off-table artillery and Guerilla Booby Traps, I can assemble just over 50 points under the new rules.

I built the machine gun nests out of toothpicks and greenstuff, but most of the miniatures are a mix of Battlefront's miniatures and the Viet Minh offerings from Eureka Miniatures.  Although the Viet Minh miniatures are not ideal for this time period, I found that they sized better for the 15mm scale look I was going for, and they mix in with Battlefront's official miniatures well enough.

The Eureka miniatures are more based on the traditional pith helmet, and I wanted to go more with the look in this photo, as opposed to the conical leaf hat so predominately featured in Battlefront miniatures.

Looking forward to putting on some Creedence and getting in a game soon.  I'm also hoping to be able to leverage some of the miniatures for some 15mm Superhero gaming, perhaps in a time-travel capacity.

"Painting" 40K Poxwalkers with Sharpie Pens

As we have been playing Warhammer 40,000: Killteam, I have been attempting to speed paint a number of small forces to try out with the game.  Before this latest attempt, I painted a squad of three Chaos Marines with some Sharpies a little while ago.

One of my most recent attempts has been to paint some Poxwalkers, using Army Painter color primer and Sharpie pens.  After priming them green, (with a zenithal overprime of a lighter green primer), I used Sharpies before dipping them using Royal Walnut Satin Mixwax Polyshade.  I used normal acrylics to paint the the bases and added some flocked foliage to complete the models.  I used a silver Sharpie for the eyes which turned out looking great.

In all, they turned out alright, and the approach did save some time over painting them with acrylics.  Because the model are Nurgle, the dipping method definitely worked better than it would have on other types of models, where a more clean look is appropriate.

Blitz Bowl - Four Player Crossroads

I completed a custom four player "Crossroads" pitch for Blitz Bowl games before the holidays.  It was made from some felt from JOANN Fabrics and Crafts and a black Sharpie pen, (I tried to use a white fabric marker, but it went dry much too easily and had to switch to the Sharpie early on).

Over the holidays we played a few four-player games on it and have had a great time each time we have played.

The rules are a little different - the first team to score ten points wins....  You get five points for a touchdown and one point for causing an injury.  We use two balls at all times and the only rule we changed (in addition to no cards) is that if a player starts your turn prone, you can attempt to injure that player by using a Block action; if you roll a result that forces an armor roll, there is a -2 penalty to the armor roll. It is a benefit to crunchy teams....

In the center, we placed a single statue of Nuffle, which also throws out the balls at the start of the game (and whenever a touchdown is scored).

Our first game was Skaven vs. Chaos vs. Orcs vs. Dwarfs. The Skaven scored on the second turn (due to their 9 Move), but in the end the Chaos pulled off two touchdowns with some smash and grabs.  Scoring is hard, but if you are opportunistic, can happen fast, just like in the standard game.  All teams scored at least one TD, except for the Orcs, (they were too busy smashing, and rolled terribly most of the game).

For our second game, we played Elves vs. Orcs vs. Chaos vs. Goblins.  This game was fast - just 30 minutes. The Goblins won this time, and again, all teams but one scored at least one touchdown.

We are looking forward to additional games, and perhaps using some Warhammer Quest tiles to play a version of Dungeon Bowl using the Blitz Bowl mechanics.