Rogue Spear

NSA intercepts have indicated that notorious arms dealer Yuri Orlov is taking delivery of weapons grade plutonium from Russian dissidents. Analysts fear that he is creating suitcase nuclear weapons and selling them onwards to noted terrorist leader al-Zawahiri.

Rainbow, the multinational counter-terrorism unit, has been dispatched to interdict both parties before the exchange can take place and recover the contraband material.

The campaign will comprise three or four scenarios and is inspired by Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six and the spin-off PC Games.

I'll be running this Force on Force mini campaign on the Saturday and Sunday of Leprecon (on from the 7th-9th March in Goldsmith Hall in Trinity College Dublin). Visit their site.

Project Build Winners

The polling booths for the 2013 Project Build closed yesterday over on The Guild.
This year my effort was pretty poor, but I have higher hopes for next year...

So, without further ado, the winners' podium!

Piers in 3rd place with his wide variety of World War 2 work. [on 20 votes]

An inspiring casualty station

And some nice little panzers in grey

All his tasks: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4

Panzerfaust200 in 2nd place with his combined task of German KG Wotan & the town of Neustadt (on 27 votes)

Kampfgruppe HQ

And the Neustadt church

All his tasks: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4

and in 1st place: Mausmann with his double-barrelled tasks of Moderns and World War 2 stuff (with 31 votes)

Some dinky BDRM-2s

All his modern tasks: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4

and some fantastic German infantry

All his WW2 tasks: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4

So congrats to the podium finishers.

My personal favourite would have been Chris S (just behind Piers on 17 votes)

World War 2 Soviets

Warsaw Pact

All his tasks.

Inspiring this Gazebo Hunter #5

I've always been interested in what inspires gamers to break new ground and start another project. This series of articles is a brief overview of things which caught my eye over the last few months - some have already prompted me to try something new, some may lurk in the long grass until their time has come. I hope that something here grabs your attention and calls you to action!

Blog
I know a lot of people enjoyed the X-Com series of PC games; Bloggity-Blog-Blog put together a great tabletop version. It just remains for me to put together some suitable alien figures which will scale well with my 20mm moderns and this is an eminently achievable project.

Miniatures
I’m always on the look-out to integrate civilian pieces on my wargaming table. Ground Zero Games have again delivered for the 15mm Sci-Fi fan with these robust civilian vehicles. Dropship Horizon did a review a while back with some pictures. 

I haven’t been bitten by the Dark Ages bug currently sweeping through wargaming circles. Gripping Beast’s box of 40 plastic warriors at a very reasonable price will surely make assembling your warband much easier.

Non-Fiction Book
I finally got around to reading the acclaimed Lions of Kandahar which details a daring Green Beret mission in Afghanistan where they led local Afghan troops against  large concentrations of Taliban.

If special forces gaming tickles your fancy, give the Classified book from Ambush Alley Games a look.

Role Playing Game 
Rather than recommend a fiction book this issue (because I can’t suggest you read yet another Joe Abercrombie book!) I'm going to suggest that you take a look at Apocalypse World, an indie RPG from D. Vincent Baker. This is the book that brought me out of role-playing retirement and back into a regular game night. Everyone in the group is inspired and energised by the rules and the setting. The GMing advice therein is amongst the best I’ve ever received.

Film/TV
I am severely behind the times on this one, but I got bitten by the Archer bug over the summer. This anachronistic spy comedy follows the extremely dangerous and self-obsessed Sterling Archer as he deals with his domineering boss (and mother), his equally competent colleague (and ex-girlfriend) and the dangerous game of global espionage. It’s a hoot!

I am waiting for someone to introduce me to 7TV, which looks like the perfect game to bring Archer to the gaming table.

Random Site

Last year I threw the spotlight on the Lead Adventure Forum’s league. This time around, now that the Guild’s Annual Build has closed, I thought you’d be interested in taking a look. Everyone undertakes a project with several discrete blocks of work. Plenty of 20mm WW2 and moderns, but there’s also some spaceships and 6mm Cold War to feast your eyes on.