Kind of a return to StarGate

These magnificent sculpts were once part of the Eureka line until someone decided to rock the boat and claim, without credentials, that they were breaching copyright. Luckily Alan had a few that he claimed he would never paint and passed them on to me.

Here they are, showing the stages in a block paint, Army Painter (Wattyl Stain & Varnish) process. The final shot shows them with some highlighting on the white skirts and a metal dry brush. All that remains on the models is the base work, and this is a pretty standard job for me.

Enjoy

New toys for wargaming

Once a movie property has run its initial course, the toys end up in bargain basement stores. What can be $50 when it first comes out can be $10 or less six months later. The following come from Monsters versus Aliens, and also Astroboy (the floating eyes). Both had cute eyes, so I immediately saw the potential for a consistent theme army. I see these matching well with classic ‘Grey’ aliens – bug-eyed little devils that want our women. The big robot was around $5, I think. The little guys were $2.

All have been repainted. I am particularly proud of the eyes.

The mole comes from GI Joe. It’s just great for VSF, or any classic pulp themed game. I forget his price but it was less than $10.

This has been repainted as well, as the original had a clear canopy so you could see the (90mm) figure – no use to me. But at 28mm it looks like an impressive mole. It would fit Thunderbirds as well.

Less exciting, from a discovery point of view, is the Star Wars escape pod from DeAgostini. It is what it is. There was nothing else that I needed to do. But it is a perfectly scaled model of an escape pod, as the AT-43 guys show.

In the background are two aquarium decorations that I picked up as well. These were $20 each, which is still pretty cheap for war-game terrain. And they look just fine. As Second Son declared, ‘you could hide behind the columns, you could shoot between them. You could use your rocket pack and get on top. These are SO cool.’

Deep raid – SG1900, Anubis Gates scenario

Greg and I played a session last night using Flying Lead. Instead of our normal three game mini campaign, we only played a single leisurely session.

StarGate 1900 seems to be melding into the general heading of Anubis Gates: a setting that could be anywhere along a timeline from 1795 through to far future. SG1900 focuses in on the inter-war pulp period. This has been given somewhat of a boost following the success of the Little Wars 2010 meeting where Jurassic Reich was revealed. The range of figures, including an Anubis Gate due to go into production soon, attracted some good interest. It’s childish and silly, and refreshing to be involved with.

Our game last night involved a French team attacking a German outpost on an alien planet. The flora was hostile, giving off toxic spores – much to Greg’s displeasure later in the game. The Germans were guarding an alien artefact in a fortified compound. After a random selection, I played German and Greg the French who burst through the gate in two light trucks.

The initiative stayed strongly with the French as they roared into the base. The second truck was damaged by a grenade but managed to restart and as the French team dismantled and collected the vital parts (a Difficult Q check – using Flashing Steel rules), it appeared that the game was all but over.

But after a long string of disappointing rolls, the German defenders calmed down and made a series of brilliant long range aimed shots, shooting the driver of one truck, and then the next as his body was kicked out of the way. One French survivor fled through the gate, and the two trucks, surrounded by French bodies, revved futilely. – A piece of purple description, I know, but I beat Greg so seldom that I am chuffed.

As a post-script, Greg has just telephoned to tell me that we did not use the correct ranged results table. Implication: I did not win at all…

On the workbench 20100416

Here are my latest painting efforts. They are late and early war German WW1 infantry, predominantly by Renegade (there is an officer in there who’s origin I forget. But he’s been in my ‘to paint’ box for a long time).

These are destined for my StarGate 1900 campaign because they are not historically accurate. I made up the ‘colonial tan’ colour.

Lovely models: thank you Renegade.

StarGate 1900 scenario

We have another mini-campaign planned for the StarGate 1900 setting. To recap, we use Flying Lead rules by Ganesha Games supplemented by Mutants and Death Ray Guns. Our figures are all 28mm – the scale being fire-team sized skirmish. This time I will be playing the explorers, and Greg will be the defending ‘aliens’. As defender, Greg defined the three game scenarios that makes up the mini campaign. As follows:

Game 1
Civil Authorities (rival explorers) /  attack / few buildings, farm
SG2 have arrived at this apparently isolated bit of farming territory, searching for the underground facility that they have to destroy. 
 
Game 2
 Civil Authorities (passive civilians) / destroy / Incongrous facility
The SG2 team, having overcome local resistance and a rival party, find the underground laboratory and attempt to destroy it
 
Game 3
Military (rival explorers)  / avoid / Transport terminus
Having (hopefully) destroyed the laboratory, SG2 are escaping the planet via a terminus, where they encounter not only military, but the rival team encountered in Game 2

SG2 and StarGate complete

Here is SG2 finished, bar matt varnish. The figures are Renegade, and I used a simple field grey base and then dipped them in Wattyl Stain and Varnish (teak).

The StarGate is by WorldWorks.

Greg is working on the scenarios and I will publish these as soon as they are revealed.

As the mission becomes clearer

Greg has decided on the mission profile for the coming Flying Lead StarGate1900 mini-campaign.

I lknow, for example, that the final mission is penetration of a facility and setting explosives. With this in mind I am making a change to my SG2 team, bringing in Private Balivillas, demolitions expert.

Full mission profile to be posted soon.

Pvt. Balivillas
Points 75	Quality 4+	Combat 3
Special Rules	-Bolt Action Rifle, Chucker, Danger Sense, Elite, Specialist, Stealth

The Kaiser’s SG teams

Here is the start of some SG (StarGate 1900) teams. The figures are Renegade: a mixture of early and late war.

These will form 4 teams of eight men, two in Feldgrau, and two in a ‘colonial tan’ colour that I mixed myself. The Pickehaub and Stalhelm troops will be separated so that we have uniforms for ‘comfortable’ and ‘hostile’ alien terrains.

This is just the first coat, sprayed on. Next step is to paint the detail of belts, packs, flesh and weapons. Then I will dip them in Wattyl Stain and Varnish, and finally I will come back and give them a few highlights.

Even at this stage, I have to say that I love Renegade. They are chunky, oversized men – something that I have criticised in the past, not least from my friend Nic over at Eureka. But as age creeps up and my eyesight isn’t what it used to be, the large size and deep detail cutting really helps to make these personal figures.

On that last topic, I picked up some Eskimos (SG team for cold alien planets) and Arab Civilians from Eureka on the weekend. They are great figures and I cannot wait to get the brush on them.

StarGate 1900 – a miniatures wargame campaign system

Overview

StarGate 1900 is the general term for a slice of science fantasy broadly occurring between the turn of the 20^th century and the start of the Second World War. The technological sensibilities and military fashion is predominantly in the inter-war ‘pulp’ period.

To simplify travel between strange alien places, the notion of the StarGate is included, more or less exactly as it was depicted in the movie – though it has been exploited when found rather than languishing for decades. In addition, the space travel described in the Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers settings are also included (just because I love those spitzen-sparken rockets).

Specifically, StarGate 1900 plays on several themes, and while it currently has a science-fantasy backdrop, it pulls any and all of the following flavours:

• Gangsters and G-Men encounters
• Flash Gordon or Buck Rogers adventures (Rockets & Rayguns)
• Gentlemen space explorer adventures (Brass & Bakelite)
• “Back of Beyond” adventures
• Russian Revolution and Spanish Civil War adventures
• Tactical WWI scenarios
• Gunboat diplomacy colonial adventures
• “Call of Cthulhu” supernatural horror encounters
• Nazi weird science expeditions
• “Indiana Jones” adventures
• Anything that could appear in “StarGate” translated into this time period (with the great powers of Earth active in these explorations)
• And finally, preferably combinations of the above.

A StarGate 1900 wargame campaign is composed of three connected tabletop game sessions, expanded by role-playing sessions where necessary. A StarGate is generally present on the table in the beginning or end games, making it an origin or a destination. Sometimes there may be the gate in both end games to depict an ingress, penetration and egress mission.

Scale and Mechanics

Skirmish to squad scale encounters (8 to 15 figures per side) using 28mm (1:56, S Gauge) figures.

The primary rules set for the games is Flying Lead, by Ganesha Games, supplemented by Mutants and Death Ray Guns. To assist with out-of-game role-playing decisions, and to help develop scenarios, and – where needed – to expand on the unexpected within a game, the Mythic GameMaster Emulator by Word Mill Publishing.

A three game campaign is always fought on one side by a team of StarGate Explorers. These are professionals in the mould of the SG1 team, but displaced to the appropriate time period. They may even be alien explorers. Typically there will be around 6 figures in an Explorer team as they are trained professionals.

Opposing them are a variety of creatures and circumstances that are determined randomly. Depending on what type of alien citizen they are their numbers will range from 5, for alien-hunter Special Agents, to 15 for more for passive civilians.

Using the Flying lead points system, both sides should be around 600 points.

Another type of opponent is hostile terrain, and this is treated like a complex trap puzzle for the player controlling them.

Designing a campaign

1. Decide on the basic mission profile. These come in three basic flavours:

a)      Game 1: Enter via StarGate. Game 2: Travel while maintaining force. Game 3: Reach objective in alien territory and do mischief.

b)      Game 1: Start in alien territory and do mischief. Game 2: Travel while maintaining force. Game 3: Successfully evacuate via StarGate.

c)      Game 1: Enter via StarGate. Game 2: Do mischief at objective. Game 3: Successfully evacuate via StarGate.

2. Player 1 selects and equip an Explorer team. This team has to persist through the three campaign games. Their losses are carried forward.

3. Player 2 now takes one game at a time find the Primary opponents by rolling on the Opposition table. These are the main forces that the second side has at their disposal. Then find the Secondary opponents by rolling on the table. These are other forces that the second side can manipulate.

Note that Primary and Secondary opponents can be different for the three games. Only the Explorers need to have and maintain consistency between games.

Now that Player 2 knows the forces available he can design his ‘army’.

Use these tools to design the forces.

4. Taking one game at a time find Player 1’s main objective by rolling on the Action table.

5. For each game find the dominant terrain feature by rolling on the table.

6. Finally, using the Action and Dominant Terrain findings, think up a credible, reasonable, difficult but achievable objective for the Explorers. If you are having difficulty with this, use the Mythic Random Events table to come up with some seed words.

Victory conditions

As a campaign system, overall victory is given to the player who won two or more out of the three connected games.

For each game, use the victory points system described in Flying Lead. Award an additional 20 points to the Explorers if they achieved the objectives of the game, or 20 points to the ‘locals’ if they prevented this.

In addition, since we are basically talking about a bunch of aliens chrashing in and shooting up the locals, capturing explorers is a valid goal for the locals (eewwww… alien disections). Therefore, for every Explorer left on the field at the end of each game (dead or wounded), the local side gets 5 points. Not leaving your dead and wounded is a good thing to do for many reasons, not the least of which is that it prevents the creepy natives from carving up your former friends. So for every corpse or wounded character carried or assisted off the field, the Explorers are awarded 2 points.