What I've Been Up To

[Just Jack]

All,

Here’s what I’ve been up to during my (so far) baby-induced 4 1/2 month exile. As always, I can’t promise I’m back 100% (as a matter of fact, I can promise I’m not), but I can promise games are in my future (the table is already set up).

The big news is that I’ve been painting. A lot. And in a couple new scales. If you’re here you’re probably aware that I am pretty much exclusively a 10mm gamer. That’s not going away by any means, but apparently I’ve become a 6mm Modern gamer, in a big way. It started about six months ago, when I bought a small force of GHQ minis for some Soviet-Afghan gaming, with plans to move into more stuff beyond that.

The next thing I knew, I was drowning in 6mm Modern stuff (NATO and Warsaw Pact equipment), the vast majority of it from fellas at TMP’s Marketplace. I’ve also finished up/redone some 10mm Moderns, bought some 1/72 Vietnam plastics, and bought some 20mm WWII plastics.

About 2/3 of my 6mm stuff, the Warsaw Pact equipment.

I’ve painted up bunches of 6mm infantry.

10mm Russian/WarPac infantry.

10mm Modern USMC.

The table is set for a 6mm fight.

With hills UNDER the mat (I’m looking at you Panda, and Blue).

Please check the blog, where you’ll find a total of 56 photos, thoughts on upcoming campaigns, and what I see as an absolutely necessary rules change for Mr. Ivan Sorenson’s (AKA Weasel) otherwise fantastic rules, “No End in Sight.”

V/R,
Jack

[shelldrake]

You have been busy judging by the photos on your blog!

 

I had to laugh at your rule ideas for NEIS Platoon Sergeants. Spoken like a true NCO

[kyoteblue]

That all looks great !!! And if all goes as planned and the stars are right, my Lady and I will be getting a house the 20th of Nov. It has a 3 car garage that I have laid claim to, as my future Man Cave. Then I will be able to start making hills and buildings again.  Have a table set up and who knows buy a camera learn how to take fuzzy out of focus pictures of my troops. Good to almost have you back Jack !!!

[PaintingLittleSoldiers]

Very cool.

[Spurious]

Just Jack wrote:

apparently I’ve become a 6mm Modern gamer, in a big way.

It creeps up on you.

Well, not so much creeps as sneaks up whilst you’re pondering and whacks you on the back of the head and then suddenly you’re pondering owning an armour regiment at a 1:1 ratio.

Also it’s the nose that’s the key for the MiG23/27 ID, the 27 has a sloped one where as the 23 has a typical cone shape.

Looking forward to seeing more (and some AARs *nudge/wink* ), great stuff.

[kyoteblue]

Now if we could get War Panda to show back up here..

[Rod Robertson]

Just Jack:

Spurious is right. Micro-armour is addictive and dangerous to your financial health. In the late 1980’s and the early 1990’s I went mad and spent a fortune on Micro-armour. I have brigades of NATO kit and the equivalent of  Soviet Motor Rifle Division on  one to one scale. It is all stored away under my gaming table because all the gamers with whom I played moved or were transferred in the course of a few years in the late 1990’s. I keep searching for gamers in this genre but they are few and far between here in Quebec. But hope springs eternal and I content myself with ancients, WWIi Micro-armour and 15 mm WWII skirmish until one day I stumble upon gamers anew who want to play large-scale Cold War  battles. Recently I decided to take the plunge into modern skirmish. My first order of figures just arrived today from Flashpoint down-under. Iraqi insurgents and some Taliban fighters. More is on its way from Rebelminis and Flytrap Factory. This is going to be good!

Cheers and good work Just Jack.

Rod Robertson.

[Just Jack]

Shelldrake – Amen!  I’m waiting on that deviant Ivan to show up and defend himself, and his despicable (rules) discrimination.

Kyote – I’m selfish, so I’m expecting hills for me and a camera (and blog) for you.  I e-mailed Panda, he’s been busy with work (Shaun too, he commented on my blog), though he’s looking at participating in World Crossfire Day this month.

Doc – Thanks.

Spurious – First off, fantastic blog (though I couldn’t find the deal to let me join/follow)!  Regarding 6mm, consider me crept up on.  It grew out of a perfect storm of wanting to go ‘bigger’ (I’ve played so many games where ‘I’ was a Sergeant, a Lieutenant, or a Captain, I want to be a Colonel, or a General!) combined with access to large amounts of goodies for relatively cheap (TMP Marketplace).  I spent a lot of time on your blog last night, as well as Eli Arndt’s (‘Crisis in Alcovia’); you guys had me looking last night at 20mm Moderns (a lot of Elhiem stuff).  Can I really stand anymore???

So, 6mm for Company and above, 10mm for Platoon plus, and 20mm for SOF skirmish?  Kill me…  But I keep finding myself on the Syr Hobbs and Elhiem websites…  ~$12 gets 2 packs, do that for a few/six months and you’ve got some good skirmish forces.  But I’ll need a vehicle or two.  And a crashed helo…

Rod – You need to pack your stuff up and come down to Texas for a long weekend, I’ve got an 8′ x 6′ table ready to go 😉  Have you got a blog?  I’d love to see what you’ve got, and what you get into regarding modern skirmish.

 

V/R,
Jack

 

[Rod Robertson]

Just Jack:

Sorry, no blog. I’m too much of a Luddite for such high-falutin stuff. As to what I have got, IIRC:

1 x Soviet Tank Btn T-55.

1 x Soviet MRD tank Btn T- 64

1 x Soviet Tank Regiment T-62

1 x Soviet MRD Tank Regiment T-72

2 x Soviet MRD Tank Btns T-80

1 x Soviet MRD Mech. Regiment BMP-1

1 x Soviet MRD Mech. Regiment BTR-70/80

1 x Soviet MRD Mech. Regiment OT-64/BTR-60

1 x Soviet MRD Mech. Regiment BMP-2/MTLB

1 x Soviet Recce Btn.

4 x Soviet SP 122 mm How Btns.

2 x Soviet SP 152 mm How. Btns.

2 x Soviet GRAD Rocket Btns.

1 x FROG/SCUD Btn.

Scads of Soviet towed ATG and Towed Artilley

1 x PT-76 Amph. Tank Btn.

1 x  ASU-85 SPG Btn.

2 x Soviet Airmobile Mech. Btns BMD-1/BMD-2

All the Engineering and Bridging/Ferrying kit for a MRD.

All the SAM units for a Soviet MRD SA-6/SA-8

1 x US Mech. Inf. Brig. M-60/M-113

1 x US Mech. Inf. Brig. M1A1/M-2

1 x German Mech. Inf. Brig. Leopard 2/Marder

1 x Fench Mech. Inf. Brig. AMX-30/aMX-40/AMX-10P/VAB’s

1 x French ERC-90 Regt.

1 x French AMX-10RC Regt.

1 x Canadian Mech. Inf. Brig. Leopard 1A5/M-113

1 x Canadian Mech. Inf. Brig. Cougar/Grizzly

1 x British Mech. Inf. Brig. Chieftain/FV-432

1 x British Tank Brig. Challenger 1 and 2/MICV-80

1 x British Recce Regt. Scimitar family of vehicles.

Asst. USMC Btns LAV/M-60/LTVP-7

1 x Dutch Mech. Inf. Btn. YPR’s

1 x Yugoslavian Mech. Inf. Btn

Asst. Chinese and S. African Kit

Helicopters and Aircraft Galore.

Trucks – Oh so many trucks.

Strangely I have no infantry figures in 1/285 or 1/300 as we used printed platicard rectangles to represent infantry squads back in the day.

Cheers.

Rod Robertson

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Just Jack]

Rod,

What can I say, but wow…  I humbly submit to your will, Master.

But, it’s 2014, you need to get with the program and get a blog!  Trust me, I’m no technocrat, and I figured it out.  Go to Blogspot, make up a Google sign-in, then pick what color and font you want to use.  You’ll be posting pictures in 10 minutes.  I swear, it’s that easy, and if you somehow run into any problems, I can help walk you through it.

I need to get some French, as well as more helos and attack aircraft.

V/R,
Jack

[kyoteblue]

Oh and I’m chopped liver. No invite for me…..So if the stars are right and we get the house. Yall are invited to my Mancave.

[Just Jack]

Kyote,

You’re not chopped liver, you’re just a dirty 15mm gamer, and Rod and I were discussing 6mm, the choice of refined gamers everywhere 😉

And you need to 1) get a camera, and 2) get a blog.  I’ve yet to see a Sultanate of Ifat photograph, and you know what that means…  Yep, it didn’t happen.

And where the heck is Ivan?  I put a taunt in my blogpost just for him, and he disrespects me like this!!?? 😉

V/R,
Jack

[kyoteblue]

Now now, I may game 6mm if some one else buys and paints the figures….hint hint.  I may have to buy a new computer to figure out how to do a blog thingy..I know I’ll need a camera Oh and my Daughter to help me figure it all out. The Sultan of Ifat is not amused…..But I don’t think I’ll get much gaming in till after the move and all.

[Rod Robertson]

Just Jack:

Thanks for the encouragement about the blog, but I am a Luddite by choice, not by circumstance. Any free time I get (and there is precious little these days) I prefer to use painting minis or gaming. I depend on others in the club to post pics. Alas, none of them are interested in major Cold War battles so the wee tankies remain in gamers limbo for the now. However, when I get the 15mm modern skirmish done, I will start making reports about how that’s going. And who knows; if the club members take to modern skirmish, maybe I can use that as a gateway-drug to get them hooked on Micro-armour. “G-d damn the Pusherman”! That is my evil plan for indoctrinating innocents into the existential carnage of Cold War hot war. Moohaha!

Cheers.

Rod Robertson.

[Ivan Sorensen]

Hah, I missed your blog post, was too busy eyeing all the pictures.

With regards to the platoon sergeant rule, I must have left out an important piece of errata:

The rules as written apply only to marine platoon sergeants. The reason he becomes exhausted is because he has to wait for someone to explain the map to him (or was that the lieutenant rule?). 🙂

 

[kyoteblue]

Oh My…

[Spurious]

Just Jack wrote:

Spurious – First off, fantastic blog (though I couldn’t find the deal to let me join/follow)! Regarding 6mm, consider me crept up on. It grew out of a perfect storm of wanting to go ‘bigger’ (I’ve played so many games where ‘I’ was a Sergeant, a Lieutenant, or a Captain, I want to be a Colonel, or a General!) combined with access to large amounts of goodies for relatively cheap (TMP Marketplace). I spent a lot of time on your blog last night, as well as Eli Arndt’s (‘Crisis in Alcovia’); you guys had me looking last night at 20mm Moderns (a lot of Elhiem stuff). Can I really stand anymore???

Despite the blog running for more than a year now I’ve really not thought about how the following thing works. I put that down to my own method of blog-browsing to be to just bookmark them and try and remember to check them out every few days/weeks. I’ll have a look and see if there’s a button I need to add or something like that. As for 20mm moderns, they are super tempting, I got lucky with the Vietnam stuff as my group defaults to 28mm for almost everything. That so many vehicles can be had with little fuss in 1:72 and 1:76 to add on, well, it’s a little bit aggravating comparing that to the limited selection of ranges and noticeably differing scales for 28mm modern vehicles.

 

[shelldrake]

For blog-browsing I use ‘Feedly’ which is a free RSS reader. Just copy the home page of a blog and add it to Feedly and you have a daily newspaper on all of your favourite blogs.   Sorry for the thread hijack.

[Just Jack]

Kyote – Hurry up.

Rod – I understand about the Luddite bit, but I’ll tell you, it’s really been a motivating factor for me, and I’ve been gaming (minus the last few months) more than ever.

Ivan – You dirty @#$%!!!  First of all, Marine should be capitalized, and when YOU say it, write it, or even think it, it should be with fear and respect in your voice 😉  And yes, that’s an Lt joke, no such thing applies to NCOs.  And it’s time to call you out on something: I’m greatly appreciative of all your rules writing, but it just occurred to me that I’ve yet to see YOU mention a blog, and we’ve yet to see a battle report from YOU.  It’s past time, Sir, hop to it.  And it damned well better be inspiring 😉

Spurious – My order from Elhiem has been dispatched.  Good Lord, I can’t believe I just did that.  Regarding the blog, there really is a very simple button or widget you simply have to toggle on, then people can ‘follow’ your blog.  I just can’t recall where it’s at.  But yes, I’m now checking up on your blog.

Shelldrake – Thanks, I’ll have to look into that.

V/R,
Jack

[Ivan Sorensen]

Hah, my mish mash of terrain pieces would scare any sane person away 🙂

If you lot don’t mind some scifi or something silly, let me do something this weekend and I’ll stun you all with how badly a gaming table could look. It’ll make people no longer complain about your hills 😉

I have all these nice Rusks from Armies Army sitting and not getting any action so might be high time to correct that.

 

How do you knock out a marine?

[kyoteblue]

And Yes Marine should always be capitalized  much like U.S.M.C. should be.  But I can only go as fast as the buyers give Joyce the money for the farm. Then I will have a Blitzkrieg of activity moving and getting Joyce into the new house.  Then the blog(maybe) camera and game table set up at long last.  Oh and sure Ivan do a SciFi game and make us buy new toys !!! I’ve always wanted to do a War on Mars game( Oh and maybe get some All Quiet on the Martian Front stuff to go with my WW1 collection.) .  Look for strange goings on in Ifat soon.

[Ivan Sorensen]

Tell you what, I’ll see what the weirdest game I can put on is, and take pictures of that 🙂

[Just Jack]

Ivan,

I’m waiting to see those Pendraken Soviets and Germans.

V/R,
Jack

[Rod Robertson]

Just Jack:

Perhaps you can help me with a question I have about 15 mm ultramodern skirmish. I apologize for high-jacking your thread and promise to give it back to you in short order. Can you suggest a source which would clarify the kinds of transport US Infantry and US Marines would use in as a matter of course in Iraq? Would they (Marines) use Cougars or is that just US Army transport. Would Marines use LTVP’s as they did in the early part of the Iraq War II or other, more sensible vehicles, like Humvees and LAV APC’s? I am trying to sort out what would be sensible transport for Infantry and Marines which I should buy and I am very confused. Everything I read points to lots of ad-hoc solutions and no clear and cut rules. A reliable source other than 250+ page Marine Corps structural tomes would be great.

We now return to the regularly scheduled thread.

Cheers and thanks in advance for any help anyone can offer.

Rod Robertson

[Just Jack]

Rod,

I’m not sure how much help I can be.   I don’t really have any sources, I can only speak to what I know/saw  when I was in (I was USMC in Iraq in 2004).  On the off chance it helps, I’ll tell you what I know.

‘Regular’ infantry battalions all had HMMWVs; I can’t tell you how many exactly, but it was enough to conduct mounted patrolling operations in support of our counterinsurgency/stabilization operations, but not enough to move the whole battalion without using 7-tons.  The HMMWVs all had makeshift armor (except for the Weapons Company anti-armor team vehicles, which were hardbacks).  There was a track battalion (AAVs, not LVTPs), but the only time I saw them was towards the end of April in Fallujah, when we got four of them (three of them were subsequently knocked out).  ‘Regular’ infantry battalions wouldn’t have LAVs; there is a separate battalion called ‘LAR’ (Light Armored Reconnaissance) that has them, and they have their own grunts/scouts.

With regards to USMC using AAVs in OIF I, that was only a couple battalions, the Corps just doesn’t have that many tracks.  The rest were in unarmored HMMWVs and 5-tons (later replaced by 7-tons).  I don’t really know anything about MRAPs, that all happened after I got out.  I know the Army battalion we took over from was 82nd Airborne, and they were driving makeshift-armored HMMWVs like we had.  I was around Army Mech battalions a couple times and they were in Bradleys.

Hope that helps.

V/R,
Jack

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