Is that a guy in a Burkha?

Yep that is one of the rules that the Taliban in Force on Force can use. It simulates the Taliban being able to dress as civilians and make their escape off board without being targeted by the Coalition troops. To achieve this they must end their turn out of sight of any coalition forces including UAVs or air-support. Their following turn they can just be removed. AS I am thinking of a scenario where there is a POI (Person of Interest) to the coalition who needs to escape off the table I thought this was an appropriate figure. Both these figures are Britannia Miniatures which I really do enjoy painting.

These two are by MJ miniatures. They have cleaner lines and are less "characterful" at £2.50 for 5 they are slightly cheaper than Britannia and as they are nicely proportioned I am using them as the bulk of my Afghan Taliban. I wish they did a bigger range, but by using different colours I should "get away with it!" By that I mean people should not immediately say things like "those two must be brothers they look the same..." and similar inane comments. I know most players won't say things like that but if I can reduce the chance of them feeling that in some way the game was lessened then so much the better.

The last pic, (a little dark sorry). is of some figures I got on eBay. I was sold them as being "Liberation Miniatures" and I'll take the sellers word for it, but I was expecting them to be generally of better quality if they are. I am not going to labour the point and will use them, but overall I'm not impressed with them. However if this is the only thing I have to worry about my life must be pretty darn good.

I think it's clear looking at the three pictures that figure proportions and "scale creep" do exist in 20mm. It also confirms to me that my choice to use MJ Miniatures as the main figure supplier is justified. I will have to add some Britannia Miniatures as there are more options for figures, including civilians and as shown previously guys on motorbikes.

That's today's post. I'll Blog again on Sunday. All the best till them and thanks for reading this, Cheers Clint.

WIP

AS you can see it's all work in progress today. I know I know, we all want to see nice pics of painted figures, but there are times when I just don't get any figures finished enough to show. So Instead of unfinished figures here are the next two compounds for the Afghanistan game. These two are both the same size and one is farther along than the other. There is another started as well, but that is component form at the moment so maybe over the weekend, or beginning of next week. Anyway I have used exactly the same construction methods as last time. (which is grey board for the walls and mount board for the roofs.) I don't plan out the roof levels before I start. Let me be even more honest I just cut the base board, and get a uniform height for the compounds by using the thickest part of my steel "roofers" square. I make the rest up as I go along. So all the roofs and parapet depths are different (and doorways Opps... but they look close enough). I also don't plan the building arrangements either. I don't know, but I do suspect that The Afghan government has other things to worry about than town planning in out laying districts .Like I said I could be wrong

 and If I am I apologise. The last two pics are even less complete than the first two (figures to show scale only). This one will have either one or two further blocks on the left as you look at it, depending on what I feel loos correct at the time. I really do make it up as I go along. The next stage for these two (once the second one gets the left side done) is for me to fill any gaps with ready mixed wall filler. Just so it doesn't look so bodged and all the joints are less obvious. I am sure the paint will help a lot, but as WIP I am quite content. The last pic is them both together. I think on the board I will have a gap between them. If the gap is quite narrow  it

creates quite a game challenge and in real life an ambush possibility. It's not called Ambush Alley for no reason after all.All of which adds to the game. I have not been lax on the painting front either. I have a lot of things started, but as I had a chance to get on the table, construction took priority. With some luck I'll have some painted figures to share next time. Mostly still working on Taliban with a variety of weapons and posses. I have also joined the Ambush Alley Forum (at last) only done a couple of posts on there at the moment just really introducing myself. But we all know I'll start asking odd questions soon.... o idea what yet but something will pop into my head and I just will need it answering. The long term plan is to become a "Pointman" for them in 2013. But that all depends on how well Broadside goes from a game point of view.

Talking of Broadside we are definitely full now. 36 traders, 12 clubs and 24 games. Some of the traders, like crooked dice are putting on games, don't start to think each club is putting on two games. One trader I can think of (Pen and Sword... Cough...) is putting on two games. Reading between the lines I think this means Phil (commissioning editor for P+S) will have a couple of people down running the rules they have recently released. I can't criticise them, as they are helping to sponsor the show this year. Now that we are full we can only put clubs and traders on a reserve list. A bit different from last year when we were taking traders up to the last minute. (2 day before the show was the latest booking). It seems so much easier this time round, which does make me wonder what we've done wrong, there's always something and as long as you know there will be a problem (even if you can't guess what it will be) you can take some measures to solve it. At this stage if I have to guess what it will be I would say something to do with the Flea Market! Only time will Tell.

Anyway that's today's post. Another one on Friday. Thanks for looking and talk again soon, Clint

3 Musketeer Game and WIP compund

Two things today, firstly the club game I put on over the weekend. Due to the nature of the homebrew rules it would be pretty difficult to give a battle report as there's no movement restrictions and each figure is encouraged to take multiple "actions" in their turn. However as an overview,  there were 2 musketeers and 2 cardinals guard and Rochfort (who turned up part way through the game). So or me the highlights were in no particular order:

• Having an empty barrel placed over my characters head.
• Kev having 6 stun markers on his character all at the same time. (yes they all stack)
• Rochfort "Groping one of the female market traders.
• Stealing the Cardinals ring and throwing it across the tabletop, only to be plucked out of the air by one of his guards.
• Several jokes about the Cardinals ring!
• The amount of fruit,veg and pies that were thrown at each other, rather than trying to run each other through with sword and dagger.
• The fact that several players paid for the fruit,veg, pies etc..that they had used. Honest bunch arn't we!
• Relfie's guard having a snooze half way through the fight.

There were loads of other things that happened and it is remarkable how many 1's you can roll on a d20 or how many 4+ you can roll on a d6, when you need 1-3. Overall it worked, but not as well As I would have liked. I shall therefore make the following adjustments.

1. Start action on a d12 as opposed to a d20.
2. Reduce wounds from 5 to 3.
3. Change defence on the De Grassi fighting style to a dice increment in their favour as opposed to 2 dice and take the worse.
4. allow players to buy off three stuns in exchange for a wound.

I'll type those changes into the rules today.

Meanwhile back in Afghanistan I have a few work in progress (WIP) pics of the first compound I'm building for the Broadside game. It has a 3mm MDF base and the main walls are of 4mm "grey board" which has a slight "stucco" like texture which should translate quite well when it goes to paint. I hope to make 2 more "compounds" this week in the same materials. With luck this should be enough for the first 2x2' board, which should represent an agricultural village when combined with the other 3 planned boards.