Gorkamorka...?

Having ordered a free Games Workshop library/school activity pack for yet-theoretical work purposes, I've been reading up on 40K rules old and new, and thinking about how I can use what I've already got. The catch is that what I have painted is nothing but Fighting Tigers space marines. They catch the eye, but it's hard to fight blue-on-blue with them because they all look alike. I had an equally large Imperial Guard army, but it's almost all gone to my brother, who still actively builds and plays (mostly Chaos at the moment).

Then I remembered I had a decades-old box of loose Ork bitz in the closet.

An online friend sent me this ages ago when I still had a small Ork army. There are a handful of completed Orks, half-finished vehicles and a ton of sprues and loose pieces - not just from Orks, but Guard, Space Marines, Ogres, even a handful of Romans and what I think are 1/32nd Bren carrier crew:

What I've always liked about Orks in Warhammer 40K is customizability. You can create a looted vehicle by building it without looking at the instructions, because that's how Ork engineering works - hack, glue and weld until it looks vaguely like a vehicle. Games Workshop kits are sadly no longer mix-n-match. But the non-Ork pieces here can be tacked on (literally) to add weapons and equipment to the Orks.

They're also fairly easy to paint - spray black, drybrush brown and metal, pick out other colors for fun here and there. There is enough here for what would be a madcap build-paint-and-take event, but I also might try the old Gorkamorka game - basically Mad Max with orcs - which only requires a handful of figures and vehicles and has enough campaign mechanics to feel like an RPG into the bargain. If I can just find hard copies of the rulebooks rather than print a hundred-plus pages...

The other option is building and painting enough for a small army, and running battles against my Space Marines, most likely with 3rd-edition rules for simplicity. Let's see what we've got:

One 3rd-edition Warboss.

Three partly assembled metal Nobz, including one with a banner.

About a dozen Gnoblars (think small, unarmed goblins) - a couple broken off their bases - and a handful of metal 40K Gretchin.

Sixteen plastic Ork Boyz, in loose pieces. (No bases.)

Equipment for two plastic Tankbustas, a Nob, a heavy shoota, and four Burna Boyz.

Four small incomplete Ork vehicles (two traks, one buggy, one trukk).

Loose parts for two more vehicles (trukk and buggy) including parts for two Scorchas. (Think flame-thrower vehicles.)

A partly assembled Dreadnought walker.

The sorted Ork bitz.

Loose vehicle parts and metal figures.

This is enough for a "starter" Ork army or a couple Gorkamorka gangs (more if I throw in a couple "looted" Space Marine Rhino kits). If I ever get it built or painted, that is - but then that's what teen programming is for.

Tempting, tempting...

Reading of Recent Times

 Finished a couple volumes of military history recently:

Michael J. Neufeld's Von Braun: Dreamer of Space, Engineer of War is definitive.

Wernher von Braun's professional life can be divided into three stages - military engineer for Germany, military engineer for the US, and NASA. There are a few subdivisions, but these are the three that made him famous and controversial.

His childhood seems important, though. His family was upper-class - and not just the von. His father was in government, and the family rich enough that they were largely insulated from the hellish economy of post-WWI Germany. It feels like he was sheltered - going to prep schools, able to indulge hobbies. He was interested in rocketry from his teens, with antics and explosions akin to those in the film October Sky, about one of his admirers three decades later. He was hired by the Army almost immediately; interest in rocketry was high if only because it was a technology not banned by the Versailles Treaty.

His team's association with the Dora concentration camp didn't occur until fairly late in the war - it was only when the V2 rocket went into full production in 1943. But while he didn't have any direct involvement, Neufeld makes absolutely clear he was aware of the conditions in the camp. After his death, one member of his team was deported as the camp was uncovered by Western media, and it certainly looks like he could have suffered the same fate had he lived long enough. There are conflicting accounts, that von Braun acted both against and in support of prisoners, but Neufeld's conclusion is that he was too focused on rocketry to care so long as he was supported by the Nazi state in his interests. Although Tom Lehrer was unaware of the Dora camp, he was ultimately right about von Braun's laser-focus on what was most important to him - though he was perhaps, at least partially wrong to depict von Braun as a mercenary willing to work for anyone who would fund his projects. He chose the United States, after all.

But his title of Professor (an actual title in Germany, not a profession granted by a university) was given him by Hitler. This was downplayed for the rest of his life.

The next stage in von Braun's life was roughly 1946-1958, when he was employed by the US Army and the Redstone Arsenal in Alabama (which gave its name to America's first crewed rocket). Von Braun's team launched the first American satellite after a series of failures by the US Navy, and believed they could have achieved this before Sputnik. Neufeld's focus here, however, is how von Braun and his team adjusted to life in the US. Not only did he become an American citizen, he worked with magazines and Disney Studios to popularize space in his spare time and make money on the side. It's arguable that the mix of von Braun's enthusiasm and Chesley Bonestell's classic art were what ultimately captured the public imagination.

The apex of von Braun's life, and this biography, is the sixties, wherein he effectively headed the engineering side of the Mercury and Apollo programs (Gemini is given short shrift, and even the "lunar rendezvous" plan that drove its planning doesn't get much page time beyond von Braun's initial opposition). Here, both his most famous projects - the V2 and Saturn V - are linked by his vision and organizational drive. See, von Braun wasn't a genius, or really even much of an engineer. He was a planner and team leader - his expertise really lay in combining the efforts of a broad spectrum of people and juggling the needs of government, private enterprise, and a wide variety of sub-projects.

This is one of the things that, perhaps, makes him less of a villain?

The "German" team was maneuvered out in 1970. Von Braun's organizational skills extended to finding ways for the Redstone group to continue contributing despite a sharp downturn in funding, but ultimately he wasn't that enamored of the space shuttle and ended up at Fairchild, right about when they were designing the A-10 "Warthog." He died in 1977 after a couple bouts of cancer, leaving a wife and children who had all been born in the US. Only in the 1980s did the informal secrecy about the true consequences of the V2 project come out to tarnish his legacy.

I'm Jewish myself, and although there were no Jews at Dora, it was a part of the Holocaust at which tens of thousands died, building rockets that killed thousands of British and Belgian civilians. (Interestingly, there is no mention at all of RV Jones' "Wizard War," which involved using the XX counterspy system to feed incorrect impact locations back to Germany, thus causing most of the rockets to be aimed at less-populated areas.)

But this is also one of the things that fascinates me about military history, and has ever since I was a young girl fascinated with airplanes - especially warplanes. To a large extent, the history of aviation is the history of 20th-century warfare. Without the world wars, we would not have airliners, or a space program. The fascination of von Braun is the dichotomy of a man who spearheaded the creation of the first ICBM, but also the rocket that landed men on the Moon - and seems to have "treated those two impostors just the same."

No real gaming inspiration here (though I'm itching to play Kerbal Space Program again), but some food for thought. Highly recommended. I'll write about the Battle of Hue another time.

Terrain - card, resin and "found"

I've been procrastinating getting on with my next Minceheim game. Picked up a bit of new terrain this week, so I thought I'd show off my steadily increasing cover which may appear in the game.

Gobbo and dwarf face off in a wrecked building.

First off is a ready-painted resin ruined building which cost me just $15 at a store fairly close to work. (I also talked them into giving us some leftover comics for Free Comic Book Day.) It's sized for 28/25mm, which limits me to Games Workshop games and maybe RPGs - but I've actually ordered GW's Warhammer Alliance school/library club set for my branch in the optimistic hope I can get some games going - or at least have extra supplies for a paint-and-take program during summer. Hey, it's free to us professionals.

A giant spider clambers along the wall.

Youtube friend Steve Page recommended these paper "cross-walls"; they're made by Dave Graffam and are available to download on Wargame Vault. I realized pretty quickly that they needed reinforcement, so I sandwiched them over cardstock. The longer elements are difficult to glue down, as there's more chance for the angle being off or trapping air (note the wrinkles at lower left). Perhaps next time I'll try printing on cardstock, but they can also be reduced for my 18mm figures.

Here they are sandwiched and drying before assembly.
The bad fold is visible at the bottom.

Another reason to use heavier card.
They stick in place well on the carpet
texture, though.

I will definitely pick up more of Graffam's designs; these wall come in several colors and there are plenty of full-fledged buildings available too, both complete and ruined.

A mound of foliage.

The last bit is something I've had for a while but not used much. During our branch's ongoing reconstruction, I swiped some leftover green, brown and blue carpet offcuts. I needed a pair of proper shears rather than mere scissors to cut and shape them, but they work as the base of simple terrain features.

Low shrubbery shelters these dwarves
from a looming feline-daemon.

Other than a few of Peter Dennis' "cross-trees", the features would be empty but for a coworker's suggestion. I liberated a bagful of loose decorative paper used for filling Easter baskets. With small fishtank stones for borders, this will work for jungle terrain as well.

So that's what I've been doing instead of playing. These will see action soonish - I hope!

Escape from Minceheimikov

The raiders from last post have a ways to go through the mountain passes back to the safety of their tribal holdings.

The beacons have been lit, and opponents gather to trap the raiders who robbed Minceheimikov. The raiders still have four swordsmen, a horseman and a musketeer; against them are five unhappy locals, three with projectile weapons.

As suggested by the venerable Major General, I've "lengthened" the board using hill pieces to make a V-shaped road for the raiders to escape by. 

Then I realized I'd used the back of my rules sheet as the "board" and had to move and replace the pieces...

Several turns in, the raiders are mostly intact on the way to the other end of the pass. Though their leader is afoot now, having been knocked from his horse, the jezzailchi shot one of the enemy archers from the cliffs above. Unfortunately, this means he's straggling, and is shot down by another vengeful defender before he can reload. Shooting is more effective so far this game than last.

The raiders round the bend;
the archer at the point of the V
leaps down to attack with his spear.

Starting to get exciting.
The spearman at back tries
to stop a raider getting by,
one defender comes down from the hill,
and a raider climbs up to attack the musketeer.

Close combats are at first inconclusive, but the raider atop the hill is knocked off by the defender's shot and stunned! Then the lead raider is killed in close combat.

The fellow at back tries to 
escape the spearman, while
the rest form a wedge to break
through the defenders in their way.

Forgot to roll armor saves for much of the game, and also forgot the climbing rules - the raiders could have tried to take a short cut and hack down the pesky shooters on the way.

The spearman stuns and then kills his opponent, as the second defender climbs down. The three surviving raiders are about to be in the fight of their lives!

Two beleaguered raiders remain.

They head for the hills. Only
his shield keeps the straggler alive.

His companion shot down,
the last survivor limps towards
the finish.

But the enemy clambers after him.
He has a chance... but an arrow
cuts him down before he can jump
down into cover.

An exciting little game that came down to the wire for the last man. None will return home to the Afghan peaks to tell of the battle; only vengeful yells echo in the pass.

Thoughts:

• Shooting was huge in this game - I couldn't believe how many sixes I was rolling for wounds. In the previous game, I learned that it wasn't necessarily a "win button," but it sure was here. There were a few critical stunnings, too, particularly the leader who took two in the same turn, which I decided meant his horse was dead.
• Moves were slightly faster - I took a shortcut by using baselengths as the measure, which (with 15mm bases) meant 50% greater moves. But the game went faster this way, with less measuring.
• I didn't remember until late that the raiders could also climb the hills, which could have afforded a short-cut. Climbing in Minceheim effectively stuns the climber - they can't move for exhaustion for a turn afterward.
• I left out the 6+ "armor" save for quilted robes, which might have made a difference given how many sixes I rolled, but maybe not.

All in all, it makes me want to try again.

A teaser for next time.

The battle of Minceheimikov

In the mountain cold of January 2, 1723, a raiding party of Afghans pounces on a tiny village somewhere on the Oxus River.

With the start of the new year, I decided to try a couple rounds of Minceheim, because it ought to be easy to run quickly and on a small scale. Let's find out!

The invaders, armed with swords and a single jezzail...

Are met by a returning hunting party with bows and swords!

Everyone is assumed to be in light armor. The field is a sheet of paper with three biodegradeable plant pots for huts.

Turn 1: After three (!) tied initiative rolls, the locals go first, surprising the raiders in their ransacking. All units move forward, meaning no-one can attempt to shoot next turn. (They must spend a turn aiming.)

Turn 2: The Jezzailchi aims as his riding commander dashes forward, and two swordsmen move around the buildings. The locals duck into cover.

Turn 3: The locals activate first and move towards the raiders. A second archer moves into view as his companion aims.

The jezzailchi fires! His target is wounded and out of the fight, as the other raiders advance, their mounted leader urging on his mount. (Hits are automatic, but armor saves and an injury roll keep this from being a series of one-hit kills - as you'll see shortly.)

Turn 4: Luckily the locals activate first again, and the surviving archer aims his bow at the hastily reloading jezzailchi. The two local swordsmen gang up on the rider, but only one of them can reach. Will this be a one-sided fight? The local rolls a 3, but the rider rolls a 2 (+1 for parrying with his sword). A tie, and both figures recoil one centimeter.

Turn 5: This time, the raiders get first go, and the rider, assisted by a swordsman on foot, lunges into the hapless locals. The fights are inconclusive; one local loses his fight but is only pushed back one cm. The jezzailchi steadily aims at the archer he's been duelling with all game, and the other swordsmen dash towards their foes.

In response, the archer lets loose - but it glances off as the jezzailchi makes his 6+ armor save! The local swordsmen try to gang up on one of their opponents, but one doesn't quite have the move. The scores are tied, but the raider parried with sword and shield for +2, and the local is pushed back. Things aren't looking good for our villagers...

Turn 6: Raiders go first. Swordsmen charge, screaming wildly, towards the cool but beleaguered archer, and the two locals on the far side of the building take more charges. The melee is again inconclusive, and the locals are outnumbered...

Turn 7: The locals go first. Our heroic archer looses a shot point blank, but again it is only a glancing blow. One of the local swordsmen races to help, while his compatriot holds off the enemy - but the horseman thunders after him and pushes him further back. The jezzailchi has no target with his friends around the archer, so switches targets and aims between the buildings at the standing-off swordsmen.

Turn 8: The raiders go first, and the jezzailchi fires. His target is stunned! The horseman charges, but is held off. The stunned man is attacked, but his light armor (thick robes, rather) save him. In his turn, he has no action, while our archer takes a bead, hoping to go first next turn before the charging swordsman gets him. The third man manages to hold off the horseman another round.

Turn 9: Raiders go first again, managing to stun the downed man for another turn. Other combats inconclusive, whilst the Jezzailchi reloads. Ignoring his peril, the archer holds his ground and draws the string to his ear...

Turn 10: ... and stuns his opponent with a point-blank shot. Huzzah! The poor stunned villager is also put out of his misery. At this point, I think our desperate locals will slip away and leave the raiders to loot their find... but might they gather others to ambush the enemy on their way home?

A surprisingly exciting game. Shooting isn't quite as powerful as it looks, and close combat was often worryingly inconclusive (or maybe that was just my rolling). Only the active side attacks, unlike in Warhammer, and I kept rolling 1s and 2s on the wound chart, ties to hit, or beating the attacker's roll with a parry roll. In all of these the opposing figure is only driven back 1cm. So in the next turn, there were a lot of countercharges. Perhaps I would make horsemen a little more powerful, or provide a bonus for outnumbering. Though in the event, outnumbering sides could simply make multiple attacks.

The game went quickly, even with writing and photographing. I think I'll try again tomorrow as the angry villagers pursue the raiders thru the hills. They'll need reinforcements, but the raiders will have a wounded man to carry... All in all, a very nice simple ruleset. Would play again!