Bud's Blast Markers - (11/2/18) - Update:

November 2nd 2018 - Update:

Bud's Blast Markers - "NEW"  Blast Pack💥🔥 you get 1 large 1 medium and 2 small for $25 bucks!!! Great product at a great price, just MHO.

http://budsblastmarkers.com

 

Colonial Steam Launches

Colonial Steam Launches  - 28mm

Kaiser's Revenge Scenario action, Morocco 1903. German Marines landing in El Safir with fire support from the Gunboat "Angriff". The Envoy must be rescued and the Bashaw's Black Guard brought to justice. The honor of Germany is at stake!

The Marines are aboard steam launches built by Last Stand Dan made out of the cool long boats from the great folks at Firelock Games in their "Blood & Plunder" range. He made a new deck and added a custom made boiler. He also made a separate interchangeable deck with a mast to give this boat even more versatility. With the inserts this boat can be used as a steam launch, sail boat, or removed and used as a standard long boat / row boat. This is an excellent boat as is by itself as a long boat or landing boat from the 17th century to the early 20th century. Highly recommended!

Here's a couple more pics from the recent running of this scenario at the HMGS-South convention Hurrion held each year in Kissimmee / Orlando Florida. We used "The Sword And The Flame" for the land portions of the game and "Gunboat & Dhow!" our TSATF Variant for the naval portions of the game.  An AAR of this game will be forthcoming....

                               Steam Launches - Land in El Safir

           German Marines disembark while Moroccan gunners load canister! 

Below is an excerpt from Dan's site about the above steam launches and a pic of the kit before modifications.

One of the boat ideas I have been playing around for a long time was that of a Steam Launch.  A year ago when discussing the idea of a Launch, I met my new friends at Firelock Games ( https://www.firelockgames.com/product/longboat/) who make that great game of Blood and Plunder.  I found they made a very nice looking longboat which turned into what you will see here.  With a few conversions and some boiler creation help from Mr. Doug Wildfong, you will see my rendition of what I think is a very nice Colonial Steam launch.  I hope you like it.

Rules, Ships, Steam Launches, Ship's Fittings, Flags, Clubs, etc:

https://www.laststanddan.com/blogger

https://www.firelockgames.com/product/longboat/

http://www.hmgs-south.com/

http://www.sergeants3.com/

http://www.thevirtualarmchairgeneral.com/

http://tin-soldier.com/colonialwars.html

Cheers,

Sgt G

GUNBOAT & DHOW! Rules for River Combat

GUNBOAT & DHOW! 

Fast Play Rules for Conducting River Combat (A TSATF Variant)

1^st Edition Created by Dan Gurule with Co-Author Jeff Baumal

Last Stand Boatyard

www.laststanddan.com

Dan and I are keeping the flame burning, TSATF flame that is, lol. Well we've finally done it. The riverine battles supplement  discussed has finally been released! Below is the intended release blog post. I really do believe these rules work exceptionally well with the core TSATF and gives us a great option to play riverine battles and naval actions. And they are BIG FUN, just as Larry would've wanted it.

Gunboat and Dhow!The Sword and the Flame supplement for your riverine battles has been released.  The first edition of Gunboat and Dhow! written by Dan Gurule and Jeff Baumal was introduced and released at the HMGS-South Hurricon convention this last weekend.  This is the riverine set of rules that has been used in local club play at the Colorado Military Historians (https://cmhweb.org

Bud’s Blast Markers!

                                                  Bud’s Blast Markers! 

 World War II - exploding Panther tank and burning building in the background.

These things rock! You’ve got to see these blast markers on the table. I know we’ve all used cotton balls painted in various styles and shapes over the years, mounted on washers or unmounted, etc. Some of these are really awesome and many of you hobbyists are extremely talented. I love making terrain, building, kits, and painting figs, however, I just don’t have the time that I used to and some of my skills are lacking! When I see a cool product for a good price it’s hard to pass that up. 

                            Colonial period: Sudan 1880s - burning gunboat.

I’ve seen markers like these before, but these are the best markers that I have found for representing artillery rounds impacting or explosions. They are also great for representing a burning structure, vehicle, or vessel, and they really look cool on the table top. 

                              Colonial period - destroyed native gun and crew.

They can be used for ancients games all the way to ultra modern, and beyond. Bud makes 3 different sizes, single, double, and triple.  

Here's a picture from the HMGS-South's face book page. Burning Chinese houses during a 15mm TSATF Boxer Rebellion game, "55 Days at Peking" run by Ray Phillips, boy we had big fun. Ray did a great job, ran an awesome game, made amazing scratch built terrain, and great painted minis! The burning bldg markers are Bud's single size small Blast Marker. The report states:

American cow kicks over a lantern or that's the story they are telling. Americans burn their legation not to be out done by the French or the Germans, alcohol is to blame....

 He also has some with fiber optics and in different colors. I’m a standard meat and potatoes historical gamer but if I were a scifi or fantasy gamer I can see how these would be way cool for fantasy and scifi games for blast markers, chemical fires, spells, acid clouds, etc.

                                                      Scifi Air strike!

I recently met Bud and his son at one of our HMGS-South conventions in Orlando Florida. They are great guys and we had a blast gaming. Needless to say we all got and used Bud’s markers in our games. Look him up on FB or email him what you are looking for.

Kaiser's Revenge - Morocco 25 March 1903

                               Kaiser's Revenge - Morocco 25 March 1903

This is a follow up game based on the results of last game played in this scenario series.....

Kaiser's Revenge

The recovery of Kaiser William II's favorite nephew by the Bashaw's Black Guard has given the German government a black eye. Calls for revenge and invasion by Hun politicians has been quelled by the formation of an expedition to recover the envoy manned by Aryan troops alone. The failure of the last mission was attributed to the inclusion of subpar French troops.

Having captured the German envoy the Bashaw's Black Guard is taking him back to Tangiers. Intel from a sympathetic member of the Bashaw's court revealed their line of march to a German agent. The German expedition is intent on attacking the column at or near the the port vill of El Safir before it reaches Tangiers.

As the Aryan strike force approaches the port town in the German gunboat Angriff another vessel is spotted on the horizon steaming towards the city. It appears to be flying a French flag.....

The uneasy alliance of the German and French forces to rescue the German envoy Graf Manfred von Kreigsieber from the clutches of the Emir Ali-ben-Fulin Arown has collapsed with the Bashawa's success in capturing him from the pirates of Mogadir and his subsequent forced pilgrimage on the way to Tangiers (the results of the last game). 

                                What will happen next? That is up to you!

                         German and French Marines assaulting Mogadir!

This game will be run at Hurricon next month, an HMGS-South convention in Kissimmee / Orlando Florida, 29 September, 2018. There are still a couple of slots available for this game. If you miss out on this one there are at least 10 other great The Sword And The Flame rules based games as well as dozens of other outstanding games to join in on. We will use The Sword And The Flame standard 20th Anniversary Edition rules for the land actions and our preferred set of naval rules, Gunboat & Dhow that fit seamlessly with TSATF and are an exquisite compliment to an already outstanding rules set. G&D where designed and published by the indefatigable Last Stand Dan's Boatyard.

French civilian steamer with low draft pressed into armed service to compensate for the shallow water is coming under fire from approaching pirate vessels.

                                                       Mogadir, 
the modern Barbary Corsairs lair of Ali-ben-Fulin Arown, the site of the last battle.

                 German and French Marines embarking their landing crafts

Once the game is played I will post the scenario specifics. I'm reluctant to do so prior to the convention as I do not want to give too much away before the game is afoot.  

 Stan Johansen - 28mm French Colonial Sailors from his Boxer Rebellion Line

Convention Link: 
http://www.hmgs-south.com/

Last Stand Dan
http://laststanddan.blogspot.com/
https://www.laststanddan.com/

Stan Johansen - 28mm French Colonial Sailors from his Boxer Rebellion Line
http://www.stanjohansenminiatures.com/boxer.htm

The Sword And The Flame Link: 
http://www.sergeants3.com/

3rd Place - Historicon Painting Competition (2018)

3rd Place - Historicon Painting Competition (2018)

One of our own SMG members, my friend Devon Start has won 3rd Place in the Historicon 2018 Painting Competition for the category of Historical Group or War Machine. Congrats Devon, well done!!!!!!




He painted these beautiful 28mm Anglo Zulu War British infantry figures.

Here's a link to close up pics on his site:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10156463982288665.1073741866.523913664&type=1&l=6ede23b318

and then his blog is below. 

http://maddrdevo.blogspot.com/2018/07/third-place-at-historicon.html

First impressions: Rules Review - Blood & Plunder by Firelock Game

                         May 2018 SMG Club Game: Blood & Plunder

For our May 2018 club game we were lucky to have Mike from Firelock Games come to our Fort Lauderdale Florida club house (Das Krieg Haus) and run a large demo game of their Caribbean Pirates game system called Blood & Plunder. Mike is an awesome guy and their company sells great products. 

                                            Mike from Firelock Games

First impressions: Rules Review - Blood & Plunder by Firelock Game

Blood and Plunder is a set of 28mm miniature wargame rules set in the 17th century during the golden age of piracy. These rules are a glossy type set, beautifully produced, with great photos, and easy to understand. I like the card driven movement sequence system with command points to allow for extra actions and re-rolls. The slight nuances for the different troop types really provides the right feel for this period and creates unique tactical challenges for the players of the different nationalities and troop types. Each troop type has a different attack and defense value based on the national characteristics of the time, historical accounts, their armaments, and their level of drill and training. 

Some units can move more while some have special attacks, or better morale, etc. The unit cards contain the specifics particular to each nationality and troop type for movement and combat and are referenced throughout the game. Each unit of several figures is activated by a command/action card which denotes their number of actions it may take based on the unit's level of experience and in what order of play based on the card suite and number. A standard card deck can be used instead, but these are a lot more fun. In the larger game version which is what we tried each command of 2-3 units had one action card per turn with the overall commanders having their own card as well. 

                                                       Action Cards

As with most wargames the GM designs the scenario and the players pick sides. The GM gives the players and commanders of each side the action cards for their units or commands based on their nationality and troop type. If there is no GM The players choose their action cards from their action decks. 

Each turn begins with the drawing of a hand of the action/movement cards, each player throws out an action card from their current hand. These cards are then played against their opponent to try and get the advantage of either moving first or undertaking more actions. The players decide if they want to try and get the jump on the other player or try to make them go first to be able to react to their opponents.

The player with the higher number card goes first, ties are broken with a comparison of color, suite, number, etc. Once its confirmed who goes first the player consults their action card for the number of allowable actions and their unit cards to see if there are any special actions, movement, attacks, etc, that the unit can carry out this move. When done the opposing player does the same thing with the loosing card they threw and then the next movement cards are thrown against each other. This procedure is followed until all the cards from the players current hands are thrown and all the units / commands have executed their actions or chosen to hold, this ends the turn. The commanders pick another hand of cards from their action decks based on the number of commands or units they have and start another turn by throwing out a card against each other. This procedure is repeated until the game is over based on the scenario and objectives.

I like the combat system, it’s simple and fun. The units build up fatigue based on hits and after so many fatigue markers are accumulated the figs perish or fail a morale roll. I’m not a big fan of saving throws, however in a very small-scale skirmish game like this it has its merits. I really like the command points, they can be used to add an action, change the cards in your hand, or even a re-roll as desired. The number of command points are finite and represented by a miniature copy of an old coin, which is very cool indeed. 

                                            Status Marker Dice Set

This game system has some similarities to the “Congo” rules set in the use of the action and movement cards to determine the number of actions taken, who goes in which order, as well as the unit cards which contain special abilities or actions the units can take. The other similarity is the game scale with small units of 5 to 9 figures and their tight formations. 

                                             Unit with "Status Marker"

There are many products from this company which are specially produced for this game system and all of the accoutrements for the game is very well done and adds to the fun. There are ship turning gauges, movement cards, unit action cards, command coins, dice, markers to track all game effects, and a plethora of very detailed miniatures and amazing boats. The scale of the figures is quite large even by today's heroic 28mm standards, but are very well done. The boats are also excellent and can easily be used with any 25 to 30mm figures on the market today.

                                              Ship Movement Template

For our first game we concentrated mainly on the infantry actions so we only had one ship for our test game. I would really like to try another game with more of a naval contingent. For many years we’ve used the old “Limeys & Slimeys” rules for all of our naval and pirate actions, though we have used a supplement for “The Sword And The Flame” for pirate land actions in the past. Having said that I do like these rules and very much look forward to playing them again sometime soon. Check out their awesome website or FB page to see instruction videos, historical background, picture gallery, products, etc.

Here's the Blood & Plunder official website:

https://www.firelockgames.com/

Here's our local game store that carries the Blood & Plunder Products:
The Adventure Game Store - Davie Fl. (954) 580-9008
https://www.facebook.com/AdventureGameStore