The Painted Thumb

One of my favorite ways to spend a lazy summer afternoon is by taking a quick trip to the local Half Price Books. I just never know what I might find there. On this most recent visit, I picked up a copy of Force on Force by Ambush Alley Games . It is a miniatures game designed to recreate modern era skirmish level battles from 1950's to the present. Typcial forces include, SAS commandos, Navy Seal Teams, Marine Recon, Spetznaz, Middle East Insurgents and so forth. I've only browsed through the rules so far but it appears to be promising.  The designer notes that the game puts an emphasis on the quality of the soldiers and not on the type of weaponry. This makes sense to me. I imagine any soldier from any modern army would be well trained and deadly at close range with just about any kind of slug throwing weapons in their possession.  Strangely, this game does not provide any army lists. There are no point systems to build an army. Everything is based on scenarios that de...

Wow! I've been playing lots of games from different rules systems lately.   It's been difficult trying to remember how each one is played.  There comes a time when it all seems like a blur! At last Tuesday's club night, we had a game of Ganesha's Flying Lead . It is the same rules for Song of Blades and Heroes but modified for a modern genre with firearms and explosives as the main weapons. My squad leader realizes the point man is down and so is the Medic! The flamethrower getting ready to fire up some Soviets I enjoyed this game!  The only drawback was the activation mechanics don't necessarily fit with the kind of figures I was playing. I was given two squads of 'near-future' professional soldiers (figures from the AT-43 game), which I would imagine, should have no trouble moving across an open battlefield and staying in formation. But, the rules require activation rolls to move each soldier and after a few failures, my squads were horribly sp...

This weekend, we finally arranged an actual game of Cold War Commander at Joe's place with Bob, Ian, and myself.  Joe's been trying to assemble some kind of late 20th century or modern combined arms battle using Micro Armor minis.  There was some significant discussion about which rules to use which lastest several weeks prior.  Ultimately, the group settled with the Cold War Commander rules and I think it was the right decision. We decided to start with a modest sized battle; Ian and I took a group of Soviets including a group of T-64s, one battalion of troops carried by some BMP-3s, some artillery pieces with forward observers, a Hind attack helicopter, HQ and extra CO.  Joe and Bob were the Americans with a bunch of M-1 Abrams and Bradley tanks. Most of the afternoon was spent reviewing the rules, but once we got started the game moved fairly quickly.  I advanced my T-64s and BMPs toward the center of the board.  We tried to activate the Hind and the...