Nerve Center

As work progressed on the massive Mechanicum vehicle, I noticed that the most elaborate work was needed on the smallest and least visible sections!

The Control Center was certainly chief among those concerns.  Not only did you have all the various panels and diodes, but there were two pilots and a rotating plasma cannon between them!

Getting all three of those to fit together was not very easy.  I lost track of how many time I had to reposition those two crew.  Placing them in the best position relative to the control panels meant leaving no room at all for the plasma cannon.  Since the two forward cannons rotated so easily, I felt like this one also had to be able to rotate.

This assembly holds the front tracks in place, and links them to the larger rear section.  It was not easy to get the brush down into some of these deep areas!

While the entire Mechanicum army that I painted was 'red', there was very little actual red in any of the mechs, vehicles, or troops!

The only red on this gigantic tank was the robes on the pilots and the cowlings of the track assemblies.

The smaller front section had the two part exposed interior, just like all the previous vehicles I had painted.

But wait, there's a LOT more!  This large piece had to carry three major pieces... the targeting mechanism, the control center, and a few pounds of resin ray gun. :-)

Oh, and it also had to attach to the front set of wheels!

Here's what it looked like with the control center attached.  

This 'hangs' off the back, which was a strange orientation.  One thing I began to discover with this vehicle is that it has minimal attachment points.  There's a lot of weight hanging on or sitting on tiny little pegs or openings.

When this is shipped, it is going in sections.  There's no way it could ever survive that trip.

I have one more post to show you of all the various pieces.  It will give you a peek at some of the methods I tried to use to get various effects on a somewhat clumsy to handle kit.

Stay tuned!

What could this be?

The next few posts will give you a peek at a massive project that has been under way for some time.  It's not exactly a step by step process, but a glimpse into the realm of the gargantuan.

You are seeing a handful of pieces from a huge Forgeworld Mechanicum vehicle, which I ingeniously labeled the "Ray Gun Tank".  Yes, not terribly creative.

This control center is just one tiny section, barely visible now that it is all assembled.

Some individual parts weigh over a pound... solid chunks of resin.

This is the targeting mechanism, and even this is several inches tall!  Everything that you are seeing at this point is in the shaded basecoat phase.

As usual, there are a few "pilots".

These are the smaller wheel assemblies, not kidding.  The rear wheels are even larger.  Each one comes in two pieces, as there is an exposed interior.

This view is a more finished version of the control center.  Future articles will have a little more action in them... just a tease for right now!

Hello... Operator?

I was really looking forward to seeing this chap join the emerging French Bolt Action army.

You've already seen the article on how he was based... now that base has some fun foliage on it too!

The foliage is from Gamer's Grass, one of four different colors available.  In this case, I used the darker summer shrubs.  I will also be using the lighter spring tufts as well.

These top views give you a good look at those shrubs, and how they look in combination with a few other types.

I'm still nervous about spending points on forward artillery observers and air strikes.  Something tells me that most of them will end up landing on me!!

Shrubs in no time!

Here's a wonderful new item from Gamer's Grass which we have just gotten a chance to use for the first time.  These shrubs are excellent, easy to use and very tough.  

For the moment, these are the various types, which can add instant foliage to any base.

The white shrubs are particularly nice, since they can be dual purpose winter flock or white flowers.

The spring and summer shrubs also work nicely with many other types of foliage, and even nicer when combined with regular grass tufts!

I had to try some out on recently completed figures, including the Reaper centaur figure that I did at Marcon.  I pulled off the shrub with the tool, so that I didn't smush the foliage, and it made a very easy contact point to glue it to the base as well.

I have already used some of these on my recently completed Bolt Action French, with some very fun results!!

Cathy combined the purple shrubs with the grass tufts on this piece:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/222116164461?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649

You can get these from Gamers Grass, along with all of the regular grass tufts as well!

http://www.gamersgrass.us/

Firing Line

Here's archer number four from the First Age Elf set.

And yes, he also has a different freehand pattern on the cloak.  Not massively different, but just enough to distinguish him from the others.

I also added the tufts of flowers to the base for another touch of individuality.

Spring Flowers

While we were at Marcon, we were joined by Sandra Garrity, sculptor of many figures that we have painted over the years.  We even got a chance to do a panel together, which was a lot of fun!

Sculptor and painter joining forces to give folks a taste of what it's like to work in miniatures.

During that panel, I was painting this classic figure from Reaper, utilizing the new webcam in order to project the image on a laptop screen so that people could watch in more detail as it was being painted.  This was an interesting new way of doing live demos!

Obviously it was a fun way to practice for the Google Hangouts as well.

There's also something added to the base which I will be showing off a bit more tomorrow, and that is the purple tufts.

It is one of several new types of foliage from Gamers Grass, and they are AMAZING!  Cathy has also used some on another Sandra sculpt, which you will see tomorrow.

She's also here:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/-/322106805585?

First Combat: A learning experience

A while back, we got to have our first experience playing a game of Bolt Action.  All of us are still learning the system, and the various aspects involved with it.

Terrain is still being made, armies are being worked on, so this test would have to be done with whatever we had at the time.  I picked out some Burn in Designs buildings that I felt could work as some kind of French or border village, and added the rails too.

The oil rig is also from Burn in Designs, and the sandbag sections are from Secret Weapon miniatures.

We have been assuming that line of sight blocking terrain is just as important in Bolt Action as it has been in Wild West Exodus, so that was my priority here.

Dan made the farmhouse in the corner, and the field sections that went with it.  We even have a few of the Bolt Action ruined buildings.  It would have been nice for there to be more, but a test is a test!

This was also the reason I scratch built those Laffly trucks!  I would get to see them at work as well.

We went with a 3 objective scenario, a clear attacker vs defender situation.  The farmhouse, rock formation and oil rig were the objectives.  The Germans would advance from one side and try to contest or take as many as possible.

I tried to create some open lanes where things could advance, but they proved to be pretty dangerous if they were not traversed in a hurry, and in great strength.  

Thanks to Dan's hard work, there are now a number of trees which can be placed in these kinds of open areas to make moving across the board at least a little easier!

Since we were still getting used to the game, we didn't realize that the board didn't have enough LOS blocking terrain to allow for that advance.  I suppose we could have compensated by giving the Germans an additional 250-500 points or something along those lines.

Also, to try and involve as many people at once, Roy and I split the point totals for the Allied side.

His Allied army is the U.S., so we had a strange combination of forces!  Again, this was more about figuring out the rules together, and see just what kind of terrain would work best.

I was very happy, however, that the truck fit on the rails exactly as it was supposed to!

Laffly vehicles have two sets of drive wheels that come down so that they can ride on rails.  We see those types of pickup trucks by us all the time, since there are numerous rail yards nearby.

I had an anti tank rifle and a medium howitzer in the ruined house.  These did a lot of hitting and pinning early on of the few deployed German artillery pieces, and ended up securing that flank very well.  The machine gun had to run for 3-4 turns just to get into a firing position.

Most of the game involved moving things around to see what might happen.  I decided to move the veteran unit with the officer right up to the cemetery, because they had anti tank grenades.  I wanted to see what those could do, and it was meant to draw fire away from the Laffly with the anti tank gun behind the rock formation.

The Germans came on a little at a time, which we realized can't happen in Bolt Action.  It's difficult to get everything going in force right away, because of the order dice mechanic.

While it's great to have the defender pull off of their dice first, having a somewhat even distribution is a nightmare for an advancing force.  Each unit you bring on comes under fire right away, collecting pins at best, getting blasted at worst.

The multi-layered defense was proving to be very nasty.  While Allied forces did take some losses, those were due more to aggressive moves to see what would happen, or not understanding how things worked... like anti tank grenades! :-)

There was no 'staging ground' for the Germans to gather their strength and then move out.  Had there even been one tree line or ridge, that might have been enough to let them come on that first turn and push one flank.

I wanted to move troops around, and not simply hide behind barricades the entire time.  My regular forces that I want to create are supposed to be more mobile, because the last thing I want is to have long distance shooting duels for 3 hours.

I think there was a forward artillery observer in the game too.  It mostly added pins to the Germans, and killed Allied troops when it went haywire and moved a few times.  With the way I roll, I would only have one of those if I knew I would be 30+ inches away from the enemy at all times! :-)

The best thing about this game was the opportunity to see how useful or useless things potentially could be.

I don't think we ever got to see close combat between troops, but we did get a good look at what happens when you are pinned to death!

To keep from being too static, both the French and American units advanced.  It was pretty clear that the objectives were in no danger, and it was the best chance to see how anti-tank stuff worked, the disadvantages of being in ambush, and more.

While the advantages to the ambush settings are obvious, the disadvantage was more subtle.  I think I would rather have as many dice in that darn bag as I can have!

We did do a small test a few weeks before this one... between that and all the Tabletop Battle episodes that I watched, I saw that you want a bazillion order dice in that bag.

The Puma kept blasting away at the unit which had taken cover behind the ruined tank (also from Secret Weapon), but they had to keep advancing towards the church.  This is where I learned that if I wanted to use the two MMG's on the Laffly, it had to have passengers!

In hindsight, I would have been far better off staying in the transport and shooting those guns.  However, we are all learning...

Yes, the tank assault was deadly.  Not for the Panzer, but for me.  I learned that anti tank grenades don't do very much if the vehicle is above 8 armor, and you are not hitting on the sides or rear (confusing it with another game system).  I was also mistaken in thinking that I could at least get a pin on it.

Of course, rolling like garbage for both the attacks and the damage roll did not help, but I probably would have done minor damage anyway.

Something like this has to be a last resort, not a plan!

We ended up calling things after a while, and spent more time analyzing various aspects of what we saw.  The terrain was already being worked on, and you will see that huge difference next time.  I am hoping that we can avoid pinning contests, where you have a ton of useless units sitting there on the board unable to pass morale checks.

I don't know if large or smaller units are the way to go.  While the bigger units won't be reduced to half so easily, taking more damage, they are harder to keep out of harm's way, and could end up being a pricey pinned unit!

From what I have seen, it might be better to go with inexperienced vehicles and save a few points, especially if they have MMG's on them.  They use the morale of the crew anyway.  However, Laffly's are not exactly armored behemoths, and you do have to use their morale to move.

We shall see!  Stay tuned for more action from Bolt Action!