Sons of Minos: Major Heroes

A pair of my epic heroes from the upcoming Sons of Minos army, based on the mythos that is the Minions of the Monster Master. Based on Andy's method of brevity, I'll try to keep these, and subsequent SoM posts, to somewhat of a verbal minimum.



Remember this guy from earlier? Something about that outstretched Crozius arm really bothered me so I hacked it off and used a Space Wolf Rune axe instead. I had to cut away the shaft below his hand and join two separate pieces to finish it off. I like how the angle is now in a 'presentation' mode too. I've still got mold lines to remove though.

Morag's Morass!

Demon dogs! Stuck in a foul wizard's quicksand!

I've been hard at work on my Sons of Minos. Almost too hard at work actually. The twenty tactical marines and four character models have so much stuff, so many accoutrements, that each footslogger has become a character model in their own right. This means when it comes to actually painting them, it won't be assembly-line style.

The above model (receiving his basing bath) looked very familiar to me after he was assembled so I thought I'd share here before I posted the rest of the troops. So keep your eyes peeled, I've got lots of marines en route, packed to the gills, err, multi-lungs.


Here's a sneak peak muster shot of all the troops to come...

Hordes Giveaway Winners!

A winner is you (again)! Hot on the heels of the 200th Blog Follower giveaway is the big Hordes poster giveaway. Well, "big" may not accurately describe it! Anyway, I was able to dig up some more Hordes goodness in the forms of three Skorne blister packs. So not only did someone get the poster, but there were three runner-ups!

Secret Weapon Backpacks

I recently picked up a great selection of backpacks from Secret Weapon Miniatures and thought I'd share them here. There's three types up for grabs; the small backpacks, large backpacks, and communications backpack. To boot, it would seem all of these packs on sale right now too!

Compared to some Imperial Guard packs

If you've got a miniature needing a backpack, this is the way to go. The ruggedness of the packs lends itself across multiple genres and could be pulled off anywhere from WWII, to modern, to futuristic. Here's one of the communication packs next to one of the outlandish Cadian comm packs.

They're all white metal and arrived with very little mold lines needing hardly any clean up at all. The larger backpack is my favorite by far, and the one I plan on using the most of. The smaller "daypacks" are pretty cool as well, and with a little knife work, the comm-pack could double regular, slimmer pack.

Here's a look at all of the packs


I used some to outfit my Sons of Minos Space Marines

As you can see, the packs hold their own even on beefy troops

I should mention that Secret Weapon has more than just backpacks. Their main forté lies in custom bases. You can see one of them here on my Storm Wardens Veteran. They also have other nifty bits like Roman-style crests for helmet conversions, weathering pigments, and cool basing materials to name just a few.

200th Follower Winner!

A winner is you! Not so long ago I was going on about the 750th post here at Mik's Minis and during that time, thanks to a last minute push, the blog also cleared two hundred followers. To celebrate both milestones I thought I'd give something away, it seemed like something fun to do, and I must say that it was!

But what? And to whom? And how? The what was really the hardest part, the to whom and how parts were actually incredibly simple. I simply rolled a d20 to come up with the name. I drew the line at the most recent (at the time) follower count, which was 206, and just rolled a d20 and selected from the last twenty people to have signed on.

The prize pack took a little more thought, and I had some great ideas, both large and small. In the end I went with more of a "prize pack" that contained all kinds of stuff that collectively represented what the blog here is all about. It didn't cover any cooking or gardening nuggets, but it includes some figs, some toys, some books...you know, the usual stuff around here. So without any more delay, here's the lowdown from your humble host. Enjoy!


Well there you have it, mucho congratulations to imredave over at the Forgotten Runes blog. It's a great roleplaying-centric blog and it's certainly worth checking out if you haven't done so already. Tell 'em Mik sent you, haha. As you can see, there's a nifty little cache of geek essentials heading their way as well and how appropriate was it all thanks to a die roll of a natural twenty! You know, I seem to get a lot nat20's on film!

Anyway, I hope this prize pack finds imredave well. If you're imredave, send me an email and we'll hash out all the fine print! My many thanks to everyone who has signed on board here, not just the last twenty, but all of you. I wish I could give out prize packs to all 206 of you. This was fun though, so I suspect I'll do something similar in the future, so until then!

On to the loot:

• New copy of Larry Niven's Ringworld
• Modern Military Uniforms hardback
• x10 Traveller 15mm sci-fi troops
• Grey Knight Brother-Captain Stern
• x2 classic Lego M-Tron minifigs

Blogger Follower Help?

I need a little help in the 'followers' department from whoever is proficient in Blogger. I've searched and come up with similar problems on forums, but none of the solutions seem to work for my particular problem.

My Blogger profile, the one you see over on the right, is Gyro. It's got all my personal info, the blogs I'm a part of, and my cool zombie-victim avatar pic. When I'm a follower of someone's blog, let's say my buddy Flounder's Imaginary Lives, you can see my little icon in his followers collection. In the blogroll from the Blogger dashboard I can see his updates whenever he posts stuff.

It used to be all I had to do was click 'follow' on someone's blog, my zombie-victim icon and name 'Gyro' show up, I click confirm or whatever, then the new blog is now in my blogroll, and Bob's your uncle. Now however, when I click follow on someone's blog I get nothing that comes up other than a 'follow' button. No 'Gyro', no zombie-victim avatar, nothing. Sometimes the avatar is blank and instead of 'Gyro' it just says 'Mik'. I do all kinds of stuff; log in as a different user, log in through a different service, but no matter what I do, zombie-victim avatar and the name 'Gyro' refuse to make an appearance.

Take the blog 4-Ones by Big Bad Garou. He started following my blog here, I checked out his blog and it looked cool, so I clicked follow on his. But no, I'm a grayed-out avatar pic, and when you click on it there is zero profile information like my own links or whatever.

The kicker is, the blogs I do follow in this "anonymous" manner, such as Frank's Gaming World, still show up in my blogroll with all the others signed up for originally by "Gyro". Technically I'm not missing any content from new blogs I join, but on the other hand, I don't want to follow all new blogs from here on anonymously either.

Has this happened to anyone? Any suggestions? Tips that work? Thanks...

Dauntless: The Lost Fleet Book 1

After having polished off a wonderful (albeit laborious) trilogy of books in the Song of Fire and Ice I felt I needed to go in a completely different direction for my next books.

Book one of Jack Campbell's Lost Fleet series proved to be just that. I find that by the time I roll around to reviewing books, someone out there has already done so, and more than likely bested me at it. So I try to just give my own impressions and leave the heavy-duty reviewing to the talking heads.

The official blurb: "The Alliance has been fighting the Syndic for a century-and losing badly. Now its fleet is crippled and stranded in enemy territory. Their only hope is Captain John "Black Jack" Geary, a man who's emerged from a century-long hibernation to find he has been heroically idealized beyond belief. Now, he must live up to his own legend."

The Lost Fleet was a great read, I picked it wanting to get into the familiar genre of military naval tradition turned slightly on its ear and put in deep space. By its very nature, military sci-fi was guaranteed as well. Plus, it turned out to be a surprisingly quick-read too, three sitting in total, so it was a page turner to boot.

Space combat and fleet tactics rule the action, and Campbell takes great care to provide enough detail to make it seem very plausible, while handling things in a non-PHD needed atmosphere. Things you don't really consider in space play big factors, like how fleets moving at appreciable fractions of light-speed have to compensate for communication time-lag as well as targetting and obtaining visuals. Actually, obtaining visuals is next to impossible; by the time you see an enemy fleet enter the system you happen to be in, the images are already hours old.

The character development was pretty flat, the only one you really get to know is the main character, "Black Jack Geary" himself. Mind you, he's almost enough to pull off the whole book on his own, but some other interesting characters would've been nice as well.

There are some pretty great space battles, like I mentioned, the details were excellent and the action wasn't muddled in physics. Geary's monumental task ahead of him is to get his beleaguered and undisciplined fleet back to home space, while being dogged the whole way by the bad guys. I'm assuming this task of his takes about six novels to complete. I also assume by the end of the sixth novel you've experienced enough near-light speed fleet battles to last three lifetimes. That's why I'm stopping here.

Dauntless was a quick read and a lot of fun. It gives you a naval-eyed view of space combat, and military structure while pulling off a good deal of depth, thought, and complexity without being inaccessible. It is what is it is though. This guy leading his broken fleet home, trying to win their trust and respect along the way. He wrestles with his Rip Van Winkle-ness too, trying to relate to what the fleet he knew a hundred years ago has become today.

You'll like it at least as much as I did. It'll get you wanting to play Battlefleet Gothic (free!), or in my case, Firestorm Armada at the very least. You may stick around for the rest of Black Jack's valor and fleet antics as well. I think I got a good enough glimpse however.

Routine Mission Is Anything But

In late February of 4821 there was a reported encounter on the remote and rocky moon Marchion within Gaea Prime space. A large Star Army station maintains orbit around Marchion and serves as a launching point for deploying troops to other systems. The dry moon moon has a tolerable atmosphere, but there is little to attract long term colonization. Even base ores and resources prove to be too cost prohibitive to harvest.

Marchion is home to two things, the first of which is an excellent training ground for Star Army maneuvers. The other is that the scattering of populated areas that do exist are far removed from the laws and regulations found closer in the system. If you want to disappear, Marchion may be the best place to go, it's as backwater as it gets.


For the Star Army team I rolled randomly for the REP levels. The rep stat helps determine how competent the individual is and more importantly how they react to situations. I got an interesting mix of both high and low, without anything in between. This must mean that a group of experienced soldiers are taking some rookies out for a jaunt around the block, err, moon. All are wearing Hard Body armor, three have laser rifles, the NCO has a laser carbine, and one trooper is equipped with a rapid-fire laser rifle (SAW).


The Nomads are a force out of the scenario book Under a Hishen Sky (which I no longer see available), and represent wastelanders for the most part. I used Basics as their core profile, Basics being stock humans. For the models I went to my Necromunda Ratskins, since they look the part. I equipped them exactly as the figs look, so it's a mix of assault rifles, pistols, shotguns, even a laser rifle. I equipped all but one figure in soft body armor, because their hides and skins look pretty tough. The last guy is basically nude, so no armor for him. As with the Star Army, I rolled randomly for everyone's rep levels here too.


My junkyard cars are for 15mm games, but I put them on here anyway to just kind of abstractly represent this arid, junked and abandoned moon. Even though the scale is way off, during the battle they just kind of blend in and you don't really notice. I gotta say, this is the one time I wish I had a terrain mat, a desert one would've been perfect!


There's a sat-comm tower here as a type of backwater, remote signaling station. Next to the array is a pair of Boutron-class generators, providing plenty of juice to the station to run autonomously for decades at a time. There's also a pretty crude fence around the dish, just to let chance wandering locals know they need to stay clear of it.

Below are pics I took during the battle as well as my notes. I broke down the notes I took during the game by turns, so I'll list these as bullet points. Had I thought about it, I would've typed these up as I went along instead of having to transcribe them now!

To pick the scenario I used the military encounters table and rolled up 'Raid'. The Star Army's objective is to get the enemy Nomads to surrender, if nothing else at least capture one or more of them and drive the rest off. The Nomads don't have a goal, they're just hanging out and don't even know the Star Army has detected them.

• Star Army enters area and splits into two teams trying to surround the unsuspecting Nomads.
• One trooper and the SAW gunner split right while the NCO takes the others troopers left.
• Starting table edge was rolled for randomly.

• I give the Nomads d6 turns to hang out around the sat-comm array before they get bored and move on the generators.
• I roll a '1', so they get bored pretty quickly!
• This means the Star Army isn't in ideal position before the Nomads are on the move, and that means the Star Army might get spotted.

• So far lines of sight are obscured by terrain and the Star Army is being pretty stealthy.
• The NCO leaves his two troopers at the barricade as he circles back, the Nomads moving early on changed the original plan.

• Leaving the SAW gunner on his own, the other trooper is ordered to join the NCO.
• They hug close to a hill for cover while moving up the middle.
• Two troopers are on the far left, crawling towards cover
• The SAW gunner holds the right flank behind the cover of debris.

• Nomads have now moved to the generators and begin milling about there.
• I had to keep an eye out for their facing, which could trigger in-sight checks on the Star Army, who still weren't quite in position.

• To randomly determine facing at the end of the Nomad's movement I was able to use my new 'cardinal direction' dice. A wrong roll here meant the Star Army would be seen.
• The Nomad leader, Chief Anikando, comes around the generator and makes an in-sight check on the Star Army NCO, passing it.
• He opens fire with his shotgun, but is too far away to be effective, still the Star Army NCO is forced to duck back since his laser carbine is technically 'outgunned' by the shotgun.
• As the NCO falls back, the next Star Army trooper becomes visible, so Anikando makes another in-sight check and passes it as well.
• Again he opens fire and again comes up short, but the booming report of the shotgun causes the trooper who was in the open to go to ground, prone.

• On the Star Army's next activation they move into position to advance upon the Nomads.
• One trooper on the far left flank hits a Nomad in cover from 20" out with his laser rifle, killing him instantly, drawing first blood.
  
• The rest of the troopers carefully use cover as they slowly tighten the noose and advance.
• The Star Army NCO calls out for the Nomad surrender but gets no response, things look to be going very well for the Star Army.
  

• The Nomad named Plantain has somehow acquired a scope for his assault rifle and has wedged himself between the hard cover of both generators, giving him an excellent sniping position.
• As the Star Army SAW gunner moves from one piece of cover to the next, he comes across Plantain's field of fire, and is nailed by the sniper, going down severely wounded and out of the fight.
• Another Nomad rounds the far side of the generator (the spot where the last Nomad was killed) and is immediately sighted-in by a Star Army trooper waiting in cover.
• The Star Army trooper fires at the Nomad, but misses.
• The Nomad passes his 'received fire' check, and snaps off a return shot with his assault rifle killing the Star Army trooper dead before the body even hits the ground.

• The NCO scrambles to the top of the hill and guns down the Nomad with his laser carbine.
• Next he orders the trooper in cover at the base of the hill to go to the wounded SAW gunner and retrieve the SAW.
• As this trooper does, the same Nomad with the scoped assault rifle, Plantain, takes him out with a head shot, killing him instantly.
• The Star Army NCO is now looking at three of his troopers down, two of which have flat-lined on his squad monitor.
• The NCO calls for the all-retreat to the remaining trooper.

• Two Nomads have been gunned down and killed, but three still remain.
• The Nomad leader has snuck around the left flank, hoping to come up behind the remaining troopers, or at least maneuver to a good crossfire position.
  
• The Nomad sniper named Plantain continues to do very well.
• The near-naked Nomad with the two pistols hasn't had an activation since the beginning of the game when he moved to the generators.

• Not wanting to leave anything behind for the Nomads to use, the NCO orders the last trooper to stop by his fallen comrade and remove the rifle and comm-gear.
• The NCO skids down the hill to do the same with the other dead trooper and hopes to drag the wounded SAW gunner to safety.

• Seeing an open target, Plantain moves from cover and around the generator.
• He zeroes in on the trooper grabbing equipment.
• The trooper is unable to make an in-sight check on Plantain because his back is turned to him.
• Plantain is once again successful as he hits the Star Army trooper no fewer than three times (I rolled two sixes and a five!) knocking the trooper to the ground, wounding him and putting him out of the fight.

• The NCO gets to the fallen SAW gunner, shoulders his own laser carbine and hoists the much larger weapon, he then gets ready to haul the wounded gunner to safety.
  
• I make an impromptu 'rep-check' for the NCO to see if he'll stick to his training and get off the board to go get reinforcements or if he'll stubbornly stay and fight to avenge his fallen troops, even if it means suicide.
• Meanwhile, the Nomad leader and Plantain both advance on the NCO's position.

• The NCO passes his rep check, he knows he has to get out of there.
• With two enemies bearing down on him, the NCO also knows he'll have to leave the wounded gunner behind.
  
• The Nomad leader steps from cover to blast the NCO, but the NCO makes his in-sight check and instead blasts the Nomad leader at point-blank range with the SAW.
• The Nomad leader's soft body armor is shredded, but it did its job as he is knocked to the ground unharmed.
• Keeping cover between himself and the sniper, the NCO makes a hasty retreat from the field, ending the conflict.
  

The battle is over and the Nomads mourn the loss of two of their own. They give them proper burials (after their gear has been removed of course). Their ranks are bolstered by many more Nomads across the wastes, however this victory was still costly.


Two wounded Star Army troopers make for some very nice negotiating power, but in reality I suspect these poor fellows are about to become dinner. The other two fallen troopers will be stripped of anything usable and dumped unceremoniously in a shallow grave. Although the NCO did make off with the SAW, the Nomads still picked up an impressive four suits of (slightly used) Hard Body armor as well as three laser rifles. Not only that, but they also have the comm-gear off the troopers which they can use to monitor communications of any future Star Army transmissions that make it down to the planet.

For the following turn within the campaign season I stacked the deck pretty high for another encounter hoping for some Star Army payback. Dice being dice however it didn't work out to the Star Army's favor and the encounter never transpired. I chalk this up to the Nomads being able to cover their tracks too well.

With a military installation in orbit, and a slaughtered squad on the ground, you can better believe there will be follow-up action. You can also bet it is not going to go well for the Nomads. At all. That however is a tale for another time and the galaxy is way too big to dwell on it, we have other battles to be fought elsewhere!


Here are the notes and bullet points I took during the battle. I must say, the reaction system never fails to impress me. This battle was supposed to be a cakewalk for the Star Army, but as you can see, it was as far from that as possible. It certainly made for a good story though, and a fun game, and those are the two things I was looking for!

Winter, 4821

I've got the first strategic campaign turn of my solo 5150 foray finished up and here are the results. There's usually a lot going on in a single campaign turn (which comprises an entire season), so any battles and what-not will get their due as a true bat-rep. To see who's going to war with whom, what morale rolls and all of that good stuff are I'm referring back to this original post. One season consists of three months, and each month is broken down into two halves, with each half potentially seeing action. At the very start of the campaign turn (season) you roll to see which empires are at war, and with whom.

Gone to War:

• Quar vs. Bugs, in Bug space. With the Bug territories encroaching on the system that holds both Quar planets, a pre-emptive plan is put into motion. A Quar strike force launches out in their astro-zeppelins on a suicide mission to head off the approach.
• Grath vs. Grath, intersystem conflict. Two minor warlords, both governors (and both brothers) start a brutal civil war that begins to draw in neighboring provinces. The nature of the conflict is incredibly trivial, having to do with a disagreement over a misunderstood etiquette protocol that occurred during a large stately dinner party.
• Drantakh vs. Zhuh-Zhuhs, in neutral space. Drantakh deep range scouts survey a potential habitable world, but stumble upon a Zhuh-Zhuh war fleet licking their wounds from a previous battle in what they thought was unoccupied space.
• All others at peace.

Turns:

• January (early): ER (Encounter Rating) 1. Result: Pass 0d6, no encounter.
• January (late): ER 1. Result: Pass 0d6, no encounter.
• February (early): ER2. Result: Pass 0d6, no encounter.
• February (late): ER2. Result: Pass 2d6, encounter. Star Army vs. Nomads. On a backwater moon reserved mostly for Star Army training and maneuvers, the Star Army encounter Nomads tampering with sat-comm equipment and move to intercept and apprehend. Before the Star Army troopers are fully in position the Nomads spot them and open fire. Things go from bad to worse for the Star Army, as their troopers are taken out left and right. The Star Army NCO manages to escape battlefield after grabbing a fallen trooper’s SAW. Two Star Army troopers are killed, two more are taken hostage. Two Nomads are killed in the battle as well.
• March (early): ER3. Result: Pass 1d6, with immediate re-roll, no encounter (but close). The surviving Star Army NCO gets whatever troops are on hand back in the field to try and track down the Nomads before the trail goes cold. After searching they find two fallen Star Army troopers in a shallow grave. No signs of the Nomads, or the hostages, anywhere.
• March (late): ER1. Result: Pass 0d6, no encounter. The trail goes completely cold as the Nomads disappear into the wastes with their two Star Army captives and loot; four suits of Hard Body armor, and three laser rifles.

End of Strategic Campaign Turn One

With the way strategic turns are set up, you are given a lot of options of when and where the action takes place and with whom. You could easily go with one of the wars currently taking place, or do what I did and go another route entirely. Of course it also depends on what figs you have on hand, but with so many races in the mix, I foresee a lot of proxying. It's also a great way to get inspired to paint something up quickly.

Being the first turn of the campaign (consisting of six "mini-turns") I kept the encounter ratings low so I could ease into things. From the turns that took place here you can see there actually was some action that took place anyway. I played this out as a full battle (which I'll post soon). All in all I don't have any complaints with how the system is working out. The only way to get to know the rulebook is to actually use it on a regular basis, so there is a learning curve at play. So far I've just been dealing with the 'military operations' part of the rulebook, but the ultimate goal for me is to get to the 'adventurers' section where you're using even fewer models per side but they're more like true named personalities with skills and can gain experience. It becomes kind of like a hybrid roleplaying and tabletop game.

Tantive IV Battle Map

In addition to the Hordes poster I'm giving away, look what else I found while cleaning out the downstairs closet this last weekend! This thing is absolutely massive, I've forgotten just how cool it really is (and no, it's not up for grabs, sorry). The digital file is long gone, this is all that's left so I think I can truly say it's a one of a kind.

For scale, my game table is eight feet long, so this map of Star Wars' iconic Corellian Corvette is, I'm guessing, ten feet long? Way back when, way way back in another lifetime I used to work at a retail office copy shop. A gaming buddy (who also worked there) and I used to make all kinds of these maps to be used with all kinds of miniatures and games. The bulk of them were for Heroclix, and we had some great battle maps; graveyards, subway stations, a Skrull spaceship, but those haven't turned up and I doubt they will now.

This map was the last one we made, we made it big...almost too big!

The command deck, each square equals one inch

Main corridor with escape pods

Aft corridor

Engineering

25mm figs checking out the accommodations

15mm figs hanging out near the engine core

28mm figs traversing a long corridor

Now that this map has resurfaced I just have to get some use out of it! As you see from the comparison shots, the scale will be right on for pretty much whatever we do. It would be fun to try some Space Hulk on a true hulk of course, but any kind of boarding action will do. I remember there being some star-ship rules in AE Bounty as well. Whatever we decide to do with it, you're sure to see more. I may have to get another table to add to the end of the regular one just to accommodate everything. Enjoy!

Hordes Poster Giveaway

The title says it all. I got the above 24x36 Hordes poster during a tournament years ago and it's been rolled up in a cardboard tube since then. Do you like Hordes and/or Warmachine? Big posters with fantasy armies duking it out? Just need something new for your game-room, store, or garage? Leave a comment below, I'll give it a couple of days to collect as many requests as possible. Then I'll pick the appropriate die, and roll off to see who gets it. I'll mail it to you wherever you live. Global, local, whatever. Enjoy!

750 Posts!

Huzzah, 750 posts done and in the bank! Yup, I'm just as surprised as the rest of you, I would use the 'humble acorn' analogy, but that would imply Mik's Minis here to be a "mighty oak". Nope, it's just me. Breaking down the numbers and the posts it looks like the lion's share is in the sci-fi category with 305 overall. Fantasy is coming in at a pretty distant second at 178 total posts. For the stalwart 40k fans out there, I've got 142 of those posts up, and finally there's 89 game reports to peruse...as of now!

I won't lie, I like nice even numbers and I knew this post was going to happen sometime this month. I was hoping my reader count would be at a nice, even 200 to boot. We're a few shy there, but so close! My only goal with reader count is that I'm giving however many readers I've got a good read and something fun to enjoy. To that end though, I'll whip up some kind of free giveaway to one of the next four readers to sign up as well as the last six who have already done so. So sign up, we'll all hit 200, and I'll roll a d10 to see who gets something wonderful and fabulous, err, at least free.

EDIT: Well scratch all of that, we're now at 202...and counting!

It would've been more of a stretch to hope for a quarter of a million page views by this time, though in the scheme of things, we were close there too! Looks like another 14,000 page views and we're there. I have no idea what this category means really, it just sounds fun, haha. There's nothing else to say on this one, you keep reading what I've written, and I'll keep writing it!

So I extend to y'all out there a hearty and heart-felt thanks for sticking around. I guarantee that I would've never made it this far without you. I'll try to make the next 750 posts as fun for you as the last 750 were for me! Enjoy!

Gut Check v1.3

All dressed up and nowhere to go! I waffled quite a bit on my "more sci-fi gaming in 15mm" vows last year, so I'm trying to rectify that this year. To start off with are the very-in-development rules called Gut Check!, emphasis on the exclamation!

I started following Spacejacker's blog, Tiny Solitary Soldiers because of his excellently painted 15mm troopers (still waiting on that basing tutorial). Then he started adding in some re-purposed Heroscape terrain as terrain, again excellently done.

Putting it all together Gut Check! was born, his home-brewed solo skirmish rules specifically for 15mm sci-fi. Which of course sounded right down my alley. I opened with, "all dressed up and nowhere to go" because as you can see from the top pic, I was SO close to trying out the rules! We've got a large RPG session inbound tonight so I had to clean off the table, all of it. Gut Check! was shelved...for now, but I snapped some pics anyway.


Gut Check! is a hex-based game, and you can easily use a dry-erase hex map or even oversized hex paper copied off at an office copy store. For me, I went with Heroscape tiles, very recently reclaimed I might add. These work great because, obviously, they're three dimensional (and come already painted if you don't have the time for a repaint). The above battlefield is about twice as big as recommended for an intro game, but I was wanting to put all of my tiles out there and see just how much I had and what I could do exactly. I was pleasantly surprised to be able to make it roughly square to boot.


ConFed Troopers (GZG Japanese Corporate) were to one of my squads. There's no points cost in Gut Check!, just statting your models with a 'common sense' method. Same thing goes for the weapons, of whihc a short sample list is already given.


My Mangalore Mercs, also from GZG, are fewer in number, but tout better toughness and deadlier guns (though shorter in range). I've got some more of these unpainted I should whip up, these are great looking figs.


Fresh off the factory floor, post sealant spray, is one of the sat-comm towers. This made for a very nice piece of 'flavor text' terrain on the hex map. Although there aren't any hexes on the base of it, it should be easy enough to approximate. It could make for an actual objective, or just some sci-fi goodness hanging out in the background.

So there you have it, Gut Check! of sorts, if nothing else think of this as a preview of things to come. Check out his site, download the rules, and I'm sure if you had any feedback, that'd be appreciated as well! But the 15mm gaming isn't done!

Another ruleset that I've got my eye on is Gruntz, which also seems made just for what I'm looking for. Here's the Gruntz blurb:

Grunts is a dedicated 15mm fast play wargame designed for skirmish level play with between 10 to 40 figures per side using combined arms. You can use miniatures from any 15mm SCI-FI manufacturer. It is based around a generic platoon level battle, not restricted to a set genre or background setting. Vehicle and artillery rules are included for a combined arms gaming experience with statistics provided for all manufacturers of 15mm sci-fi and modern figures.

Gruntz and Gut Check! aside I've also purchased the highly recommended Future War Commander rulebook, so my 15mm sci-fi gaming options are wide open, and I'm open to any other suggestions you may have!