Wednesday 9 November 2011

Iron Ivan Games - Disposable Heroes: Point Blank Rules.


From the Iron Ivan Games website:
Point Blank is a brand new squad level skirmish system for 1:1 modern tactical firearm combat. Players are in charge of a squad or several fire teams and control the individual actions of their soldiers, weapon teams, vehicles or support weapons. The rules are focused on the tactical concepts of fire and maneuver, command and control, and morale as well as training and experience. Any period of modern firearms combat can be simulated, from The Great War all the way to today and beyond.
The Point Blank book contains everything you need to run games with infantry, artillery, and vehicles as well as rules for spotting and hiding, as well as night, weather, smoke, and fog. There are three major periods represented for the army lists in the book: WWII (which includes Germany, U.S., Soviet, British, French, and Polish. Vietnam (which includes U.S., ARVN, Australian, NVA, and VC. As well as modern forces for the Global War on Terror or any other modern hot spot (which includes U.S., British, Mujahideen, and Insurgent). Rounding out the book are three scenarios, each one concentrating on one of the periods covered in the book and focusing on a tactical concept. The missions include Combat Patrol, Ambush, and a VIP Snatch. There is lots more besides in this 94 page rulebook to keep players busy and gaming.
Players familiar with our other systems will find there is much familiar to allow them to get to grips with the rules quickly, yet there are some major differences that will keep them on their toes. New players will find the rules play very quickly, with a streamlined and heavily playtested engine built on 10 years of game design experience. The rules are focused on players making tactical decisions over game mechanic decisions. Machine guns can set up crossfires, vehicles have to decide when to load and fire...and each decision can mean the difference between victory or defeat. With the Command and Control, Activation and Action Point, and Training & Experience system, players will find it easy to master the mechanics of the game but will find that the rules allow for challenging tactical simulations. With the Morale and Training & Experience system players can simulate modern asymmetrical warfare, even when there are major disparities in two opposing forces.

Saturday 5 November 2011

Warlord Games Plastic Germans.

These Germans are from the warlord games/bolt action miniatures plastics set which were £18 for some 25 figures. Thing was I did not enjoy putting them together as they were broken down into lots of fiddly bits (unlike the Perry’s ACW plastics) and were problematic especially when trying to get them to hold the rifle properly. The rifle is cast separate from each of the two arms and the body, requiring some dextrous manipulation to get in the right position before the glue sets. Additionally I have found these to be quite fragile having broken a few weapons while making and painting them. To date I have no idea how well these will stand up to actual use but I suspect a few breakages will be inevitable, hopefully I will find the broken part and be able to stick in back on.


Once complete I do like the look of the figures, I just would have preferred metals rather than put in all this extra work as mostly it’s not the price but the time that is my limiting factor.

When painting them I used army painter for the first time. Painted a base coat, then army painter, then highlight or 1 or two levels depending on how it looked. I am not certain this helped speed things up enough to make it worthwhile doing again but overall I am quite happy with the results. I will probably use army painter again, perhaps on some darkest Africa stuff or when a poorly painted figure needs some rescuing. rather than resorting stripping and repainting. 

When carefully moving the figures to be photgraphed a captains pistol was broken which added to my concerns of robustness during gaming.