BFG: Star Wars Campaign

Hey Folks,

The Space Table is Complete, Rebel Fleet finished and the Emperors Lap Dogs motley collection of mass produced and inferior ships amassed.

We are kicking off our BFG games with a campaign as the BFG campaign system is awesome.  Its slightly modded with the rules from this post on the Dakka Dakka forums by Cruentus.  We are battling over The Chiss Ascendancy.  This is an area of space just within the Unknown Region governed by the red eyed and blue skinned alien Chiss.  The Wookiepedia Article is here but they are famous for being the birthplace of Grand Admiral Thrawn from the Timothy Zhan series of books.

The premise for the campaign is entirely non-cannon but the idea is that the Rebel Alliance has dispatched a task force under the Mon Calamari Line Admiral Mari'Nara to attempt to sway the Chiss to the Rebellions cause.  Imperial Intelligence has detected this and a punitive expedition has been sent by the Empire (under a yet to be named Commander) to prevent this and "remind" the Chiss of the Empire's displeasure.

I lifted a map online and then modified it with Publisher.  Here is the Map after the 2nd Campaign Turn and the first battle:

In the First Campaign turn the Empire started at Naporar and moved towards Sposia, capturing the system.  The Rebels started at Rhigar and moved to the Capital system of Csilla on a peaceful diplomatic mission. 

In the Second Turn the Rebels heard of the Imperial task force at Sposia and decided to move to intercept them before they could stamp down on the peace loving Chiss.  The Imperials moved towards the Csilla intent on stamping on some Aliens and the Fleets met in deep space.

As you can see above (and I will blog the battle report soon) the Rebels didn't fair to well. Their commander lapsed into a n00b state and committed a tactical blunder or two.  The Rebels were forced to retreat back to their start point while the victorious Imperials moved on Csilla, capturing the system and started to persecute the aliens.

Campaign wise my Rebels lost their captured Escort Carrier, an Assault Frigate and some Nebulon B frigates while the Dreadnought was heavily damaged.  My one planet only had sufficient repair capacity to rebuild the 3 Nebulon B's.  The Dreadnought was so heavily damaged it had to sent out of the sector to be repaired so will miss the next game.  Alliance Command granted my appeal for reinforcements so a new Assault Frigate was added to my task force, but its crew are untrained so only LD 6.

The Imperials now have three planets, and while they lost an Enforcer light cruiser they have more then sufficient capacity to repair their crippled Dreadnought. Their Commander was promoted to Battle Group Commander for his increased Renown after his victory so now gets an extra re-roll.

So its time to make our next moves,  but word has reached us that Chiss Reactionaries are massing and perhaps a third player will enter the scene?

BFG: Star Wars Rebel Fleet Completed

Hey Folks,

Finished the Rebel Fleet :)

Unfortunately my "Matt" Varnish wasn't so Matt after all, and there is a bit of a shine on the models.  It also munted my careful panel highlighting and darkened the models somewhat :(  I have given them a bit of a dry brush but I will have to look for another varnish that's actually Matt, like Testors Dullcoat maybe.

Other then that, I think they came up ok;

The completed Rebel Fleet

Temporary bases look crap, but will soon be fixed

A screen of Escorts protects the Capital Ships

Mon Calamari MC80 (Wingless) Star Cruiser "Reef Home" - Counts as a Retaliator Class Grand Cruiser

Mon Calamari MC80 Liberty class Star Cruiser "Independence" - Counts as a Despoiler Class Battleship

Rear view of the Star Cruisers.  The panel lines are done with Mica pen then different panels are painted either tan/ a orange mix, stone gray or medium sea gray.



The Cruiser backbone of the Fleet: the Assault Frigates "Haven" and "Tyrants Bane" (Slaughter class) and the Old Republic Dreadnought "Indomitable" (Carnage class)



Captured Imperial Escort Carrier with prominent Rebel Symbol :)  In game terms its an Imperial Defiant Class light cruiser.

Escorts: Nebulon B and B2 (the ones with the split front "sails") Escort Frigates.  These count as Infidel class Raiders

The bottom Frigate is the Nebulon B2, a slightly improved version on the Nebulon B

Tiny Escorts: Corellian Corvettes.  These are actually the slightly larger "carrier" Corvette that could carry a starfighter squadron in the launch bays along the sides.  I chose these instead of actual Blockade Runners as the  Blockade Runner Corvettes were even smaller, and the Gunships even tinier. These count as Iconoclast Destroyers

Apparently one of these has Princess Leia on it according to my Son, a Subplot perhaps? :)

So all done and good to go for our Inaugural BFG Game tomorrow night.  I'm looking forward to seeing how they fair vs Jamie's Imperials.

We are going to run a Campaign straight of the bat I think so now all I need to do it make up a Star Wars-ey Sector Map.

Cheers
Jason

BFG: Star Wars Rebel Fleet Assembled

Hey Folks,

Just spent 3 hours after getting back from Club finishing assembling the Rebel Fleet.  The models are very, very nice but also bloody fragile and a bit fiddly.  Assembling the Nebulon B and especially the nebulon B2 Frigates has to rank up there with assembling Flames of War Katyushas!  I also made some temporary bases out of nails and card to get the fleet space worthy before I source some better bases.

But the end result is worth it, don't they look cool! :P  Note there is another Nebulon B and B2 frigate to come, but they are being bastards and wont stick together properly :(

Tomorrow its painting time. Now its sleepy time :)

Cheers
Jason

BFG: Star Wars Rebel Fleet has Arrived!

Hey Folks,

My Rebel Fleet has arrived! Yay!

From left to right: Mon Cal Star Cruisers, a BFG Cruiser for scale, Assault Frigates, Dreadnought escorts in the packets and the Imperial Escort Carrier at the end



Closer shot of the bigger ships.

 Unfortunately construction has slammed to a halt due to a lack of Super Glue :(

The models are slightly smaller then GW's BFG ships but as Jamie's are much the same with his Toy ISD's and Brigade Miniature ships all is good.  One thing was I am not really going to be able to use my captured Imperial Escort Carrier as a full sized Cruiser, so we are just going to house rule that I can run it as a Defiant class Light Cruiser.  This is an Imperial Navy ship, not a Chaos fleet vessel but its really quite crap, and we did "nick' it anyway!

Jonathan is keen for a game so hopefully I will have the fleet done by next week and I think Jamie is planning to get his fleet done quickly too.  Hopefully a BFG: Star Wars battle report will be up soon!

Cheers
Jason

Epic Armageddon: Completely off on another Tangent...

Hey Folks,

As I was rummaging round in my Bits Boxes for stuff for the BFG: Star Wars project I stumbled across a whole lot of plastic Epic 40k Orks an old mate of mine had given me.

Score I thought, I wonder how these work?  Que discussion on the South Island Wargaming Forums, some advice from the helpful local Epic fans and I was sold (again).  Turns out I have enough for a 2000pt army which is a bit small but should be an ok start.  My Wife just rolled her eyes when she saw I was onto yet another project...

Epic Armageddon is a Games Workshop Specialist game set in the Warhammer 40k setting.  It is a 6mm scale Grand Tactical combat game with masses of troops, tanks and even giant Titans: massive walking machines of death capable of destroying whole armies.  The game focuses more on objective based missions and the interactions between combined arms formations then wholesale slaughter so IMO its much better then its 28mm cousin!

Mark posted up a cool picture of a converted Mekboy Supa Stompa (sort of a 5 story tall Orky walker thing) so I thought I would try my had at one;

Mekboy Bork da Builda's prize kreation

 Its built entirely out of my bits box, mostly from bits and pieces left over from my old Warhammer 40k Ork army as well as a few bits harvested from an Epic Battlewagon and a plastic Stompa's head and gun.

Supa Killy Titan wreaking Buzz Saw

Arm and Shoulder mounted Soopagunz

 It probably needs a bit of gap filling and, the eternal bane of any ork scratch build, more rivets :(

Its all boring grey plastic now, but its a start!

The start of the Horde

The Supa Stompa and friends to give you and idea of scale: and this is a small War Machine!

Now I have seen this done before, but my Son has a really cool die cast Thunderbird 2 model - and he very kindly let me have it to turn into an Ork Landa (Orbital Dropship) as long as ownership remained joint!

FAB Gazgkhull: Thunder Orks are Go!

Its really too big, but too cool not to use!

I think I am going to chop the wings off and add some scale additions like gun turrets and rokkits and the like.

Its a start, and its keeping me occupied until my Star Wars Rebel Fleet turns up but should be fun.  I had alot of fun converting the Supa Stompa - I had forgotten how much I like converting Sci-fi vehicles.  I just don't get a chance with all the historical stuff I have been playing recently.

Cheers
Jason

BFG: Star Wars - Massive Haulage, Roids and Passing Gas Clouds?

Hey Folks,

In a final flurry of work I have finished off the Space Table and converted up some Merchant ships.

First up the complete table;


Completed Space Table

I have added individual stars to the table now as it seemed a bit "bland".  This was done with a BBQ skewer by just dipping it in white paint and dotting it on the board.  I also used the end for a few larger stars.

I also did up two "area terrain" style asteroid fields.  These are simply polystyrene covered in glue and then stuck to GW flying stands glued to holes drilled in the MDF base.

Looking towards the Gas Giant through an asteroid field

The other asteroid field.

 My Gas Fields.  These are made from the blue wool my wife gave me.  I just sprayed this with white and red spray paint and teased them out over steams glued into the MDF as per the roid fields.

Gas Field

 The first of my Merchant ships, docked at the Station.  The colour scheme was chosen by my wife and in hindsight I should have painted them different colours but oh well. They must all just be from the same line or something.  I chose to paint them quite "dirty" as I reckon Merchant ships wouldn't be spick and span!  These ships are from the Spartan Games range seen from my first BFG Star Wars post and converted slightly by sticking a BFG Plastic Imperial Cruiser on the front of them.

Taking on supplies

 I also got this massive ship, its the Tarakian Battleship turned upside down.  The cargo containers are various bits and pieces out of my bits box with most of them being 40k ammo containers.  I added the BFG Cruiser Bridge to the front of this one and it gives a good indication of the scale.  Its 15cm long, so much longer then Jamie's Imperial Star Destroyers.  We plan to use it for a Convoy Scenario, and there are even rules for it in the Rogue Trader PDF. It sucks :P

Big Ass Super Freighter

Dorsal View

Incoming Convoy

Longer view looking towards the Station

So all done and dusted, now I just need a fleet to fight Jamie with on it!

Cheers
Jason

BFG: Star Wars - New Space Table

Hey Folks,

Been busy working on this:

A new table for Jamie and I (and perhaps others) to play our BFG: Star Wars on.  Its 3mm MDF spray painted black mostly with red and white spray for the nebula/ star effects.  If you look at the closer shots below the single stars were achieved by just spraying the can from about half a meter above the board - large drops and a light mist hit the board.  Beats painting individual stars!

Now I also have made a Gas Giant and a small Volcanic Moon.  These are Polystyrene balls I got from Spotlight's Craft section ages ago (like 4 years) and they are a bit beat up so I might replace them.  The moon looks OK I think as its supposed to be craggy-ish but the Planet really needs to be smooth.  I did try painting them with PVA first but it didn't quite seal as well as I would have hoped.

Oh well on to the fun stuff: Space Stations.  Its been awhile since I have had a good conversion spree and I had a heap of fun making this;

 The reason to fight over this system - A small Station, Repair Dock and Refuelling Depot with guardian weapons platforms

 

 Close up of "Rouge VII" :)  It was supposed to be be "Rogue VII" which sounds way cooler but I brain farted and spelt it wrong lol.  Lets just say it used to be a Brothel...its also more Red then Orange, but my camera does strange things so calling it Rouge is not terribly inaccurate!  Its built from my bits box with some GW Tau vehicle bits, a GW Leman Russ tank turret (upside down) and a generous sprinkling of my left over BFG bits from when I had my old fleets.

Shot of a Weapons Orbital.  This is a GW Tau Drone stuck to the base of a GW Cities of Death terrain lamppost.  On behind it is the Fuel Depot made from more GW bits and a fuel depot construction kit I had left over bits from.

The Repair Dock.  Made from a plastic walkway section with BFG bits fro flavour and the sides of an model railway bridge.

And next to my Volcanic Moon the Hyperspace Comm's Relay station.  Lots of Tau bits so it looks quite high tech.

Next up I am going to make some area terrain style Asteroid and Gas Fields.  The roids will be the usually hunks of polystyrene dipped in sand but the gas fields will be a bit different.  My wife gave me a whole lot of bright blue wool she picked up at an Op Shop:

So I will see how this works out.

I had the Noble Armada Ships I was talking about earlier turn up today and the Battleship is freaking massive, its like 15cm+ long.  I'm going to turn it into a Super Freighter and the Cruisers (about 5cm long) into Merchant Freighters.  We can use them for scenarios or I can add them to my station for added flavour.  Hmm, I may have to make a Cargo Dock at some point!

Cant wait for my actual Fleet to turn up though, so I can put the table to use!

Cheers
Jason

BFG: Star Wars - New Fighter, Bomber and Attack Craft Counters

Hey Folks,

Quick post.  I was quiet at work today so did these up:

These are 20mm by 20mm, same as the BFG fighter icons (IIRC, and I hope I do!).  They are Icons I have ripped of the net and plugged into Publisher.  I then used the "fill effects" to plug in the star field background to varying degrees of success.  I have tried to stick with the same ratios as BFG with 5 craft to a  fighter squadron, 4 for bombers, and 3 for assault boats. I plan to stick them to black card stock and cut them out.

The Rebels get 16 Y-Wings for Bombers, 16 A-Wings as Fighters, 8 B-Wings as Assault Boats and 8 X-Wings as "Resilient" Fighters

The Imperials get 16 TIE Fighters, 16 TIE Bombers, 8 "Lambda" Class Assault Boats and 8 Tie Interceptors as "Resilient" Fighters.

Feel free to print the photo above (click on it for full size) for your own added Star Wars flavour counters.

Cheers
Jason

BFG: Star Wars Rebel Fleet Sorted!

Hey Folks,

I've sorted my valiant Rebel Alliance Fleet for our BFG: Star Wars Project.  Jamie is sorted as well it seems and now all we are waiting on is our toy ships to turn up (and on of the suppliers to email us with the shipping cost) before we can crack into some epic Star Wars action.

We were entirely too quiet at work today so I managed to format up the below Fleet Registry:

I found the BFG Excel file somewhere online and modified it to fit my idea of Star Wars.  Note that in the Registry I have renamed the weapons to make them more "Star Wars-ey" So;

• "Turbolasers" are shorter ranged (30cm) Weapons Batteries
• "Heavy Turbolasers" are long range Weapons Batteries
• "Ion Cannons" are Lances
• "Concussion Missiles" are Torpedo's

I have also renamed all the classes after much research on Wookiepedia but they correspond exactly to the actual Chaos ship classes I have substiuted in. In the end the fleet is;

• Mon Calamari MC80 "Liberty" Class Star Cruiser (Despoiler class Battleship)
• Mon Calamari MC80 Class Star Cruiser (Retaliator class Grand Cruiser)
• 2 * Assault Frigates (Slaughter class Cruisers)
• Republic Dreadnought (Carnage class Cruiser)
• Captured Imperial Escort Carrier (Devastation class Cruiser)
• 5 Nebulon-B Frigates (Infidel Raiders)
• 4 Corellian Corvettes (Iconoclast Destroyers)

Which works out to be around 1750pts.  Jamie will have two Star Destroyers (Emperor Battleships!) so I could find it pretty hard to fight my way through the swarms of TIE Fighters and TIE Bombers - Just as it should be!

Enthusiasm level is Super High. :)

Cheers
Jason

New Project: BFG Star Wars

Hey Folks,

As you may a have seen on Jamies blog we are getting into starship fleet battles using the Battle Fleet Gothic (BFG) rules.  As Jamie called dibs on the Brigade Games "I cant beleive its not a Republic Venator Class crusier"  I thought why not just play Star Wars: Clone Wars as our setting.

Jamie is running the Republic as the BFG Chaos Fleet list as it best suits the Republic ships while I will be running the Confederation of Independent Systems (CIS, but more commonly known as the "Separatist's") Fleet in an attempt to stop the obvious military oppression and aggression of the Republic under Chancellor Palpatine.

This decision had led to many hours trawling through the web looking at model ships to get something that fits the Separatist style.  While I was trawling I first hit upon the Spartan Games release: Firestorm Armada and was in particular taken with this:

Which I thought looked pretty cool, and seeing as Maelstrom had an Easter sale on and I had a bit of money back sitting in my account I promptly ordered a pack of Cruisers and a Battleship.  I was going to use them as Techno Union Bulwark Class ships as per my new favourite wiki: Wookiepedia

One thing I did find was that there is a MASSIVE amount of Starship models out there, and they are all (mostly) reasonably priced.  One problem was that alot of manufacturers didn't specify the actual sizes of the models so a bit of guessing, or an email to the manufacturer was in order.

I came across a couple of model lines I liked, but needed more info on so I emailed them.  I didn't really expect a reply but I was blown away with how quick, and how helpful these people were!  The first one I contacted was Todd from Ninja Magic re sizes and he was really helpful.  They make cool ships like this:

Which I thought looked pretty cool.

Now another line I came across was Cold Navy which has had its miniatures line taken over by Ravenstar (Chris is his name I think) who has his own Blog: http://ravenstarstudios.blogspot.com/ with lots of cool toys.  The ships are quite reasonably priced and he sent me a heap of photos too:

Very nice models, I like the Homeworld style look and they would be PERFECT for BFG, however, then I found this site: Odyssey Slipways Star Wars Ships and I was immediately sold!

We are going with the 1:10,000 scale ships.  From what I can gather its an old, old line gradually selling out and as Jamie and I looked at things gradually went out of stock. So we made a decision, funds were raised and I placed an order tonight for a large chunk of the remaining range that they had.

Basically we figured (roughly) out how the classes would align based on the models:

• 11+ cm long = Battleships: Bigger Imperial Star Destroyers and Mon Calamari Star Crusiers
• 9 to 11cm = Grand Cruisers/ Battle Crusiers: Smaller ISD's and Mon Cal SC's
• 6 to 9 cm = Cruisers: Small ISD's like the Interdictor, Dreadnoughts and Assault Frigates
• 4 -5 cm =Light Cruisers: Various lighter classes
• less then 4 cm = Escorts: Nebulon B Frigates, Corellian Gunships etc

Based on this we worked out Fleets.  The Imperials will be using the Imperial Navy (Battlefleet Obscura) list while the Rebels will be using the Chaos fleet list.  This seems to be the best mix of models to ships and what they should do.

I really, really cant wait for my ships to turn up!  This is going to be super fun :)

Cheers
Jason