"Contact Front" rules

Picked up a copy of these new rules by CarlTitterington, published by Gods Eye Games . I got
 the pdf for speed of delivery and after browsing through it set up a game with my son. The rules are platoon level and designed for Afghanistan or similar theatres. Not your normal rules set out its designed round a military course and the rules are straightforward with some nice theatre touches such as the rules of engagement section, if the Taliban are on the table in line of sight but haven't opened fire you can't engage them ! Other rules for civilians and interpreters are also well handled. Lots of full rules reviews on the web so I'm not going to do that here, I thought I'd give a quick run through of the game we played and include some pics. to round off, if modern wargaming is your thing I'd definitely buy a copy of these rules. Dougie

Alex won initiative and picked the Ambush scenario for his British forces. His base force was a platoon command team and 2 sections of 2 fire teams each. On rolling for support he got an 8 and with the scenario additional support of +3 had 11 points to spend, he selected the following;

Infantry Section
Medic
Sniper Team
Arty Fire Controller
off table 105mm battery

My choice was an arms cache to protect and my base Taliban force of 2 Command teams, 2 fighter cells, a RPG team and a LMG team were supplemented with 2 additional LMG teams and a dicker.

Here's the table

 
View from the Taliban deployment zone

The arms cache

 The Brits deploy

The Taliban deploy

A "Dicker", very useful in the rules if your playing Taliban

It all kicks off

Not wanting to give away too many of the rules but if your playing Taliban, saunter around into position don't shoot at coalition forces until you're in a prime position. Open fire too early or without thinking and you're in a world of pain. Think tactically as an insurgent, IED.
A cracking system that will frustrate the coalition player, but of course that's what it should be doing. Great job by Carl Titterington looking forward to more army lists and scenarios!

28mm Chechen civilians

Chechen project nearing completion, here are some civilians.

The very last Chechen fighters!

The very last of my 28mm Chechen fighters, Empress figures.

Last Chechen figures

The last of my Chechen figures completed, all that I have left to do is finish my Grozny apartment block and a captured Tiny Terrain T62 😉. Onto the figures, all Tiny Terrain. Dougie

 A couple of snipers and a Chechen warlord

 AGS17 team

 Some prone fighters, 2 more snipers!

Casualties. 

28mm Grozny Destroyed Apartment block part 1

My gaming oppo has a lot of mdf destroyed city buildings that we've been using for our Chechen games, I wanted to try my had at scratch building a destroyed apartment block using blue craftfoam, I wanted it heavily destroyed with rubble but still usable as a gaming piece, so having all levels accessible for figures.
This is the sort of building I had in mind.

I did some rough sketches of what I wanted mainly to get the levels right, I standardised doors at 35mm x 20mm and windows at 20mm x 20mm. A level worked out at about 55mm high. I eventually decided on a 6 level block with the upper level slightly taller to allow for a walkaround area. The block ended up at 350mm high and to keep it manageable I kept the sides to 300mm and the endwall with the lift shaft/stairwell at 200mm. Once I was sorted I cut the basic structure out of blue craftfoam

The structure was glued and pinned using standard white glue.

 The floors added.

I made the base, again from 5mm craftfoam backed on 2mm mdf for strength, and carved in some cracked pavements. I considered the rubble question and obviously with the amount of destruction the building has had the rubble would be piled to the first or second storey, this would however make it very difficult to place figures so I decided to add some rubble to give an impression of the destruction but still make it accessible for figures. The rubble itself was a mixture of broken pollyfilla that had been poured into a tray to set then smashed and Woodland scenics talus.

  The whole building was then sprayed with Halfords grey primer, virtually a full can!!!

Next up in part  2 is the painting proper and some small amounts of detailing, I find it really easy to get carried away with details so I'm trying to keep this to a minimum. Hopefully!
Dougie

28mm Empress USMC Hue '68

First test figs from the cracking new range from Empress

28mm TTCombat Cargo Ship

This is the 28mm cargo ship from TTCombat, now appearing as the "JPO SAM" from Alliance Shipping out of Monrovia. Built straight from the pack with a little weathering.