When Imagination Fails

EA Crusade Era Ship Photos Available

I posted photos of most of my EA Crusade era ships on Flickr here and here.  I also posted a photo of the sixteen Fleet Action scale Whitestars I painted.  I also completely changed my photos around.

Microarmor game: Israel vs. Syria

The local game club ran a Cold War Commander game last month.  It was Syria vs. Israel 1967 with modern equipment.  Due to a twist in the scenario, the points favored the Syrians who advanced on the Israelis in good order.  Syrian Taskforces 1&2 destroyed most of the Merkavas of Israeli Taskforce 2, while Taskforce 3 flanked the Israelis and routed their support elements without suffering a loss.  You can see pictures of the game on Flickr and as a slideshow.

It was my first time playing Cold War Commander.  CWC seemed to have far too many die rolls for too little effect.  Afterward, one group tried out a small engagement using GHQ's microarmor rules, while the other, including me, tried a smaller CWC game that we played to completion.  While I liked the order system of CWC, with a few mods, I still prefer Fistful of TOWS 2.

ACTA EA/ISA vs. Drakh Game

We had an ACTA EA/ISA vs Drakh Game at the local game shop.  Since there were two of us, we first ran a small game of two Earth Alliance Chronos Frigates vs. two Drakh Light Raiders.  It took about four or five turns, but we ended with each side with a ship running adrift without crews, the remaining Raider undamaged and the last Chronos ailing.  You can see a picture of the final state here.

For the second game, another joined us and we ran a game where a Drakh taskforce was running from an heavier EA taskforce.  We split the EA taskforce among two of us and I ran the Drakh.  Earth had:

• 1 Warlock Advanced Destroyer
• 1 Marathon Cruiser
• 1 Omega Destroyer
• 2 ISA Whitestars

The Drakh had:

• 1 Cruiser
• 1 Light Cruiser
• 2 Fast Destroyers
• 3 Light Raiders

The game began with the Drakh Cruiser and Light Cruiser attempting to high tail it out, while the Light Raiders and the Fast Destroyers turned to engage.  The Marathon bore the brunt of the Raider fire, but managed to weather it.  One of the Raiders went down, and another was heavily damaged.  The Whitestars and other EA ships closed as quickly as they could.

By the second turn, Cruiser and Light Cruiser slowed down to engage the Warlock.  The Raiders ended up out of range of the Marathon, but the Fast Destroyers engaged the Marathon and scored the first Reactor Explosed.  Still the Marathon persevered.  Between the Marathon, the Warlock and the Whitestars, the Destroyers and Raiders went down.  Each of the Fast Destroyers suffered Reactor Explosions and were soon running adrift without a crew, trophies for Earth.  One Raider remained, practically unharmed by the Aurora fighters attacking it.  The Omega was not able to engage any targets.

The game ended there.  The two Drakh cruisers were going to try to outrun the Earthers, but with two thirds of their force gone, their chances look slim.

Pictures of the game are up at Flickr and viewable as a slideshow.

EA Thunderbolts done

I glued my eight Earth Alliance Thunderbolts to their stands last night.  This proved to be more time consuming than I expected since the holes were too large for the mounting pin on the fighters and often the mount hole went straight through the stand.  This feature required that I hold the fighter until the glue set.  I tried two types of glue, but Crazy glue set faster so I used that even though the bottle kept sealing up.

Still, with the two Aurora Starfurys I did as well, that is enough fighters for the Drakh-EA/ISA game I will be running.  Hopefully, I'll finish the Auroras one evening soon.

Nearly done with Earth Alliance Ships

I am running an EA/ISA vs Drakh game soon.  While most of my Crusade era EA ships are done, I didn't have any of the fighters.  I am happy to say that I am nearly done with them.  I painted them up and sprayed them with dullcote.  Now I just need to glue them to their stands.  Thankfully, I was able to spray the EA capital ships with dullcote at the same time.

Dullcote does not appear to protect the miniatures as well as I had hoped.  I think I'll need to switch to a stronger clear varnish.

Preparing for a Game

I will be running an ACTA B5 game in about a week an a half so I needed to finish my EA ships since it will be Drakh-EA/ISA face off.  I put the Hyperion on hold to clear the flashing from, clean and prime some Aurora and Thunderbolt fighters.  These are the first fighters I have painted so it should be interesting.