Historicon 2012 AAR: Rescue on Venus by GASLIGHT

I arrived at Historicon Friday afternoon, and soon after getting there, began setting up my Friday evening GASLIGHT game, "Rescue on Venus".  This was a follow-up scenario to my Cold Wars "Lost Legion of Venus" game and featured an attempt by French Foreign Legion to rescue Victoria Hawkes from the grips of the evil Lizardmen.  Also, present for the first time in this game were my Venusian Amazons. They were trying to free their princess who was also a captive of the Lizardmen.

An overview of the table

  The game was a lot of fun, but unknown to me the Lizardmen and Venusian players had made a deal for the Venusians to not attack them and in exchange the Lizardmen would free their captive princess.  I did not realize this plan was in action until the game was several turns in, or I would of have allowed it, because it upset the play balance of the scenario, and the game ended with a  Lizardman victory.  In the future, I will have to add the "no alliances" rule to the scenario briefing.  Nonetheless everyone had a great time, and I look forward to running the game again at Cold Wars.

The Lizardmen's dinosaur makes quick work of the French Steam-Walker.

The brave French commander finds himself surrounded by lizards

The situation near the end of the game.

One of the things Buck Surdu and I brought this year was a new vinyl GASLIGHT banner Greg Priebe designed for us.  We're really pleased with how this turned out and look forward to displaying it over our games at future conventions.  We also hope to have a T-shirt and poster version available soon in our Zazzle shop.

Buck discusses the convention with Mike Horton, a GASLIGHT fan, who made the trip to the con from the Isle of Man. Our new banner can be seen on the wall behind them.

GASLIGHT at Origins 2012

This past weekend, Buck Surdu, Dave Wood, Greg Priebe, and I, traveled out to Columbus, Ohio for the Origins convention.  Out goal was to showcase our "G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T." and "Look,Sarge, No Charts" rules systems to a different set of gamers other than the regular folks we see at the local HMGS East conventions.
   Buck and I each ran two GASLIGHT games and two LSNC games, and Dave Wood ran three additional LSNC games.  The two GASLIGHT games I ran were a Fleet Battles by GASLIGHT scenario and a regular Basic GASLIGHT scenario.
  We arrived Thursday evening, and Friday morning I set up my first game which was my Fleet Battles by GASLIGHT scenario called "Hunt for the Valkyrie on Mars."  The back story for this scenario was that a large German aircraft carrier on Mars had been caught in a Martian storm and blown off course and badly damaged.  It was now lost in the middle of nowhere and crippled.  The German and British fleets were searching for her, the Brits wanting to destroy her, and the Germans wanting to save her.

The German Aircraft Carrier 'Valkyrie' launches two fighter groups in an attempt to fight off a pair of attacking British patrol ships.

A player moves his ships.

A view of the battle, as ships from both sides swarm around the Valkyrie.

Two players check the range for ship to ship firing

The fighter groups attack again.

In the end, the Valkyrie's engines failed her as she suffered a series of failed Sustain rolls, leaving her susceptible to torpedo attacks from the British.  She eventually took a critical hit, and broke apart and fell to the Martian surface.  All the players seemed to have  good time, and i really enjoyed GM-ing the game.

That evening I ran my "Lost Legion of Venus" GASLIGHT game.  This game has a French force consisting of Foreign Legion and regulars which is lost somewhere on Venus and has become surrounded by hordes of local Parrotmen and Lizardmen.  The French must survive the battle and beat off the attackers to win.

A view of the table near the start of the game.

The French form what the players dubbed the "French Question Mark" formation

The Lizardmen's pet dinosaur moves to attack a French Walker

A view of the French defensive perimeter.

The dinosaur attack on the walker damages it's gun barrel and the player controlling the walker coincidentally rolls to Shoot and jams the gun (a roll of 20). The dinosaur, however falls down (roll of 20 on a melee attack) and our heroine, Victoria Hawkes seizes the opportunity and rushes forward to attack the beast while he's down.

Meanwhile, at the other end of the French line, the second walker has succumb to a shot from one of the Parrotmen's big guns, and is destroyed. It's crew however survive and bail out of the wreck.

Another view of the table as a player measures their rifle range.

A brave Foreign Legion officer, his company destroyed, fights off two lizardmen and the Lizardman King.

The French defenders are slowly overwhelmed.

The game was declared a marginal Venusian victory at the end.  The French forces were shattered, and their walkers destroyed or disabled. Though surprisingly, Victoria Hawkes, usually a bullet magnet, survived!
  All the players seemed to have a good time, and really got into the spirit of the game.  For me, the great players and the way the battle unfolded, made it one of the best runnings of a GASLIGHT game I have had the pleasure to run.

The Lost Legion of Venus by GASLIGHT at Cold Wars

Friday night at Cold Wars in Lancaster, PA, I ran my GASLIGHT game called, "The Lost Legion of Venus:

F-265 - The Lost Legion of Venus by GASLIGHT
Fri. 7:00 PM, 4 hrs, 6 players
GM: Chris Palmer and HAWKS
Victorian Science Fiction 28mm, Rules: GASLIGHT
A French column on Venus in 1889 takes a wrong turn and finds
themselves hopelessly lost in the steamy Venusian jungle. Can
they find their way back to camp, or will they fall prey to the tribes
of wild Parrotmen who haunt the tangled shadows.
Children under 14 only with a playing adult.

As the game write-up indicates, this game started with a column of French Foreign Legion and regular line troops, supported by two steam-walkers and a machine gun, lost in the Venusian jungles, and surrounded by Parrotmen and Lizardmen.

The goal of the French was to survive and continue off the table. The objective of the Parrotmen/Lizardmen alliance was to eliminate these pink-skinned strangers. The Parrotmen and Lizardmen were supported by a dinosaur which surprisingly became an early casualty of the French firepower. You can see him lying dead on the right hand side of the photo above.

I limited the sight distance to 18 inches due to the thick jungle and gave the Parrotmen an extra +2 modifier when shot at to reflect their natural ability to move quickly and hide in the undergrowth. the Lizardmen all got Saves, even the rank and file (the 'Extras,' in game terms) to reflect their tough scaly skin.

The Venusians quickly moved, from three starting positions spread around the table's edge, to engage the strange trespassers .

The Parrotmen were also equipped with large caliber guns mounted on beasts. These guns were capable of doing damage to the iron-plated French steam-walkers.

The game was a close fought one, with the advantage see-sawing back and forth between the two sides.

The Parrotmen charged the French lines again and again. Victoria Hawkes and her friend DuLivre, were there to lend their superior marksmanship to the aid of the French

The game ended with a duel between the Lizardman King and Victoria. They traded blows for a few turns as the battle swirled around them.
Finally the Lizardman Kind got the upper hand, and Victoria fell motionless to the ground. The Lizardman King grabbed her limp body and dragged it away into the jungle. Was she dead ? Alive by unconscious? Do I sense a follow-up rescue scenario?

In the end both sides had taken a beating, but the French were declared the marginal victors since they still had both their steam-walkers functioning and capable for firing their weapons.

All the players had a great time, and the game was a blast for me to GM. I'm looking forward to the next installment!

Venusian Amazon Archers Complete

This week I completed the archer unit for my Venusian Amazon force. The infantry unit, cavalry unit, and archer unit are the total units I plan for this force at this point. I would like at some point to perhaps add a High Priestess and a Queen. All, in all I'm pleased with the outcome of this project so far, and I may do a regular human Amazon force at some point since the Wargames Factory Amazons were such an ease to work with.
I will have these figures in their box at Cold Wars and Origins during my GASLIGHT Venus game, (though they won't be on the table this time) if you want to stop by and see them in person. I am considering them for a game at Historicon.

First Sample Venusian Amazon Cavalrywomen Painted

In my previous blog entry I described how I had made a Venusian Amazon Cavalrywoman by using pieces from the Wargames Factory Roman Cavalry and Amazon Warrior sets, as well as mounts from a Games Workshop Lizardman Cavalry set. (See Feburry 21st, 2012 http://onemoregamingproject.blogspot.com/2012/02/first-attempt-at-venusian-amazon.html )
Well, I finally got around to painting the first two samples for this unit, and am pleased with the results.

I decided on a yellow/tan scheme for the lizard mounts, as green is already the color of the "bad guys" Parrotmen and Lizardmen; and red I felt was a little too bold for a naturally occurring animal color. And doing a blue for the mount would make it too similar to the rider.

Once again, like the Amazon infantry I did, I raided my stock of GW decals to decorate their shields.

I am finishing up the Venusian Amazon archers currently, and I will complete the rest of this unit after that. Look for more pictures in the days and weeks ahead. After Cold Wars, I hope to do my first game with my Amazon figures.

First Attempt at a Venusian Amazon Cavalrywoman

I made my first attempt at a Venusian Amazon Cavalrywoman today. I used components from the Wargames Factory Amazon Warrior, and Roman Cavalry sets, as well as a Games Workshop Cold One from a Lizardman Cavalry set.

First I cut the bodies of one of the Roman cavalrymen, and one of the Amazon warriors each in half, right above their respective belts. I then glued these together. The waist of the Amazon is a bit more slender than the Roman's. In the front, I think it will be less noticeable when painted, and in the back I built up the Amazon's backside a bit with Miliput to help fill the gap.

I then used a head and arms from the Amazon Warrior set and armed her with a sword and spear from the Roman set, and a shield from the Amazon set.

I tested the figure on an assembled Cold One lizard mount and found that the width of the lizard caused the rider to tilt backward a little more than I liked. So, after a bit of experimentation I found that if I cut down one of the saddles included in the Roman Cavalry set, and glued it on the lizard's back, it helped hold the rider in a more upright position.

I'm really looking forward to a chance to paint this one up, as well as make the other nine members of her unit.. Hopefully it will be warm enough this week to get out and do some spray priming.

First Unit of Venusian Amazons

I completed my first unit of Venusian Amazons this week. I decided to add an Amazon faction to my Venusian GASLIGHT games after the release of Wargames Factory's plastic Amazons set offered a cheap way to build such units. As the old saying goes, "Women are from Venus," so I thought a race of Amazons on that planet would be ideal. They will represent an ancient civilization that is on the decline ever since the wild Venusian parrotmen developed guns. Hopefully they will befriend the newly arrived French, and a strong alliance will develop.

The figures assembled quickly and easily. I gave them some swords from a couple freebie sprues of Wargames Factory ancients I had got at a convention. I primed them black, and decided to paint the skin tone light blue to give them a more alien look.

I also have a unit of archers which I will be painting next.

The flag is a photo of an Andorian cos-player that I used an 'oil painting' filter on in a graphics program to try and give it the look of a tapestry type flag. I then applied gold lettering and a gold border around the edge. It is meant to look like the banner of a queen or priestess.

The shield decals are from a couple leftover sheets of Games Workshop Space Marine decals I had.

Eureka "Corpse & Musket" Bridge For Use on Venus

At Historicon this past Summer I bought one of the sets from Eureka Miniatures' new Corpse & Musket Range that contained "Napoleon Blownaparte" and several zombified Revolutionary French soldiers, as well as a zombified Arcola bridge. (You can see this set in this TMP news item, http://theminiaturespage.com/news/504825/ I couldn't find it on the Eureka site.)
The bridge, which is all draped with vines, and growth, and slime, struck me as having potential to be (beyond a gateway for the dead) a nifty jungle terrain piece. I immediately saw potential use for it in both my Venusian project, and Buck's and my Frog Wars project.
The bridge comes in three pieces: a resin deck, and two metal rails. I encountered only a couple problems in assembly. First, some of the holes for the railings' pegs needed to be drilled out on the deck; and secondly, the bridge when assembled sits almost flush with the table top. This wouldn't work for me as I planned to use it with my Miniature World Maker latex rivers, which sit at least a quarter inch high on the table. To solve this problem I cut a pair of riverbank risers out of foamcore to glue to each end of the bridge allowing it to pass nicely over the river.
Once assembled, I sprayed the bridge with black primer. I then dry brushed the bridge decking and rails a mottled assortment of greys, tans, and grey-greens. Then I painted some of the larger vines with dark green. My next step was to pick out an assortment of green shades and working from darkest to lightest, I dryburshed them here and there where ever vegetation was sculpted into the bridge. Finally i picked out some details in the vegetation sculpting with reds and oranges to give some color interest. After that I glued the bridge to the two foamcore risers, and spackled the foamcore, sprinkling some sand on the wet spackle, to give it some texture and help blend it into the bridge. I painted the risers brown and then drybrushed a dirt path on them. Lastly I flocked the foamcore and glued on an assortment of plastic foliage.
The end result is shown below from four different angles. I have posed two Kroot/parrotmen on the bridge to give a sense of scale.

Moss Mounds On Clearance at Jo-Ann's

I was at my local Jo-Ann's craft & fabric store over the Labor Day weekend, and was pleasantly surprised to find these really neat "Moss Mounds" on clearance. There were two kinds; large ones that are approximately 7 inches in diameter by 6 inches in height, and were priced at $2.97 each, and smaller ones that were approximately 3 to 4 inches across that were priced at .50 cents each.
These will be very useful for my Venus project. I'm not sure if I want to leave them as is, or add some bits of foliage to them to give them a little visual interest. Perhaps I will use them as Parrotmen burial mounds and add a few small flowers to them. One of the downsides of them is that you cannot easily stand figures on them without them sliding off. So, adding some foliage might make some nice anchors to catch figure bases on, so as to help solve this problem.
They are shown with 25mm Kroot 'parrotman' for scale.