Monday, January 28, 2013

Why I like PDF rule Books!

If you follow my blog you will know I played a solo game this past weekend. I used the rule set form 15mm UK called USE ME 001 SciFi rules. These rules if you do not know about them are a simple set of fast play rules for Skirmish, Platoon, or Company level gaming. So during the game I ended up with a bunch of questions, and fired off my questions to a group a great guys involved with these rules. They all responed, answering all my questions, and also pointing out some of my questions are answered in their other titles.

Now 15mm UK started with 001 SciFi, but have created a number of other titles covering different game types. USE ME 002 = Fantasy, USE ME 003= WWII. USE ME 004= Modern, USE ME 005 ACW, USE ME 006= StarShip batles, USE ME 007 Post Apocalypse, USE ME 008= The Wild West, USE ME 009= Zombie Dawn, USE ME 010= Support pack, USE ME 011= CyberPunk, USE ME 013= Horror. Now each book has some extra rules in them, and you can mix and match rules from each book. So Most of what I need answers for were in the USE ME 007 book. I own the following in PDF USE ME 001, 002, 003, 004, 007, 010. In non PDF (printed booklet) I own USE ME 001, 002, 007, 009.

Now for the reason why I like the PDF rules.
I went through the PDF USE ME-007 and saw a large 4 page section on advanced rules. these rules cover things like Close combat specialty, Anti-Tank, and some 27 other rules. In the first book there were only 4 of these rules. So I can print both books, and thumb through them as needed during a game, but that is a pain. So I have taken the PDF (with out permissions) and altered the book, then printed it in a booklet style.

In this photo you will see the hard copy from 15mm UK (on the right), and my printed PDF booklet (on the left). The Printed one is a 8.5X11 letter paper folded in half, with the edges trimmed off to make it cleaner looking. You will also see how the original copy is quite warn from thumbing through it.

This next photo shows the printed PDF booklet opened to the page ware I have inserted the pages from USE ME 007.



Now to how I managed the pages.
If you have the full version of Adobe Acrobat (lots of money) this is very easy to do. If you do not have lots of money, you have to get a bit crafty with it. There are a number of Free PDF editors out there. Here is One CutePDF Editor. For me I have Linux Ubuntu at home and used a free tool called PDF Shuffler. Ether tool will allow you to extract pages, then insert pages in to PDF files. When extracting pages make sure you do not delete them from the original PDF. To prevent this I have placed a copy of both books in a working folder called Workbench. I open the book USE ME-007 found the pages I wanted extracted, for this job it was pages 10 through 13. I used the extract button, and saved them as a file in the Workbench folder. Now I close USE ME-007, and open USE ME-001. With 001 open I went to the page I wanted to be before the inserted pages, in this case it was page 12. I now went to the insert option of the PDF editor selected the extracted pages saved in the Workbench folder, and inserted them after page 12. Now I went through the book page by page to make sure it was they way I wanted it, then save it as a new PDF. I called the PDG USE_ME_001_007.PDF.


Now as for how I made the booklet.
Back in December I wrote up a how to on how to print, and make booklets.
December"s Posting.
This covers how to print, and then how to put it together. As we all know a normal stapler will not be able to reach the center of this booklet 5.5 inches in from the edge. So I have devised a method using the fact that the stapler will open so you can staple flat. Lay out the cover page, place on a cardboard box, and drive the staples through the pages. Flip and fold the staples, and booklet, trim the edges and you are done.



So I will be looking through the other booklets I have and seeing if there is any thing I should be adding to my play book.

If you feel this post violates any copy rights, or you have issue with me altering you copy righted material please let me know @ noelvh AT theorky DOT net and I will remove this post.

Noel



Saturday, January 26, 2013

Solo AAR.

Well the boy and I made it to 5 Guys, and all I can say is YUM! The we spent an hour and a half playing Skylander Giants. The boy went off to bed, and the game started. It has been a long time for me with out pushing lead, so I was very slow at getting the game going. All of the markers were not cut out so I had to do that as I needed them. I also had to review a few rules that did not make sense to me.

Note Spelling and gramor suck as I only had 4 hours of sleep and do not CARE...

The armies
The Corp army click for unit cards.
3 inf squdes, 1 power armor squad, 2 APC, 1 AFV, 1 Walker.
Objective get 50% of the army into the Orc deployment zone.
The Orc army click for unit cards.
Boss (hero) with 2 megarmored, 3 squads of boys, 5 bikes, 3 dreads.
Objective kill all the humes (do not let them in their DZ)

Ok I was not able to get great photos but here is what I did get.

Deployment
You can see I did not have much terrain in the photos above. The Orcs setup a wall to block their DZ. The Corp were set up to punch through the Orcs.
Turn One
The Orcs won In roll, and moved the Boss EL 4 to the rocks in the middle. Next EL 4 was the hole Corps army, and they all moved forward. The AFV went to the center, with the APC going to the flank, and the P-inf and walker taking the other flank. EL 3- Bikes and dreads move up. EL 2- right side boys move up, and the center boys hunker down.

Turn 2
The Orc win In roll, and the Boss hunkers down. EL 4-Corps, The right side moves up, and the center and left hold for fire. The Veh groups fail to do any damage, but the right side ends up with one Dread Struck, and one Winged. The Orcs move up, and put a hurt on the Corps walker by taking it out. The boys on the right also Strike the far right APC.

Turn 3
In this turn the bullets really start flying. In roll goes to the Corps this time. I also did not take many photos form this point on. Corps P-inf continues to punch the Dreads taking two out. AFV puts a Struck marker on a bike. The Right Inf squad move to the middle to work on the bikes, the the APC push to get shots, deploy their troops, and ending with a Winged, a Stuck, and a kill on the boys. The Orcs Move forward. The Bikes put a P-Inf out, but with auto repair he is back to Struck. The right flank puts a hurt on the other APC. At this point in the game the Orc have taken more damage, so I am not thinking they will make it to victory.


Turn 4
Here is when the Boss takes action, and jumps the first APC, and kills it. The Corps center Inf throw the grenades at the bike taking out 2, and hurting another. The P-Inf turn and also punch the bike finishing them off. From thins point one it was a blow for blow.

Turn 5
This turn really saw the hand to hand. The Corps P-Inf took on the boy, and killed them all. The P-Inf all used their auto repair, but ended up at only two left. The Boss and his to MAs moved over to the Corps Inf, and took them all out, with only one loss.

Trun 6
I ended the game on this turn, and I have to say it was a Orc win........... I felt during the early part of the game I thought the Orcs were not going to do well, but the gave as good as they got, but their HTH with the CC on all the units really helped. So the Orc really one this one by not allowing the Corps in their DZ. Now if I kept playing the Crops would have killed all the Orcs, but not have 50% to win the game.

Over all I had fun, I love the rules, but got confused by the heavy weapons for Inf (what good is it??). I also made a big mistake on the APC and made them light Veh, and they were taken out way to easily. All tanks should be heavy......

So the next round of this game, the Orcs will get reinforcements. 

Also I would like to play this with the Gruntz Rules, but I have to finish reading them, and creat the units.

USE ME questions I have?
1) What is a Inf Heavy weapon good for???? Only thing I can thing is range. Should have a 1" template VS inf.
1) Does a vehicle get a HTH attack.
3) Disembarking from a vehicle?

Friday, January 25, 2013

Solo Game tonight USE ME SciFi.

My wife and girl went in to the city to see a play, my boy as a wrestling meet in the am (in bed on time), so I have a night to my self.

I have two small armies I am going to put on a table tonight.

First problem. I my terrain for 15mm is no ware to be found....... I am afraid is got trashed at some point, and I forgot about it.

First fix. Foam cutter, and some white foam.

Second problem. My tan table cloth was eaten by mice.

Second fix. Diner table is light stained wood.

So I have a simple scenario for tonight. I call it Dry rock. It is a planet that was scouted for its minerals, only problem is most of the probes never made it back. The mining company is sending a force to take the planet. During the Drop two the the orbital transports get damaged, and are forced down far from the LZ. The hand full of squads must make it to the LZ, and link up. But there is a green beast sitting in wait for these troops.

I will have photos, and a AAR. But first me and the boy are going to Five Guys for burgers, fires (chips for you guys over the pond), and peanuts.

Noel  

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

New miniatures, and a painted vehicle.

I was over come by the urge to buy some new miniatures this month. Seeing two posts on the net is what made my choice on just what miniatures I was going to get. The first post was from 15mm UK, and this one showed the new range of Star Vikings Space Dwarfs (Squats). I had to have them!!!!! Also in that range was some Orc like figures, so I had to get them as well. The next post was related to 15mm head swaps, and who had the best heads. GZG was the leader in that post so off to GZG web store, and I got some heads and other stuff. I ended up getting a pack of each of the mercs, to packs of trikes, and two packs of the tracked trikes. All in all GZG stuff does not need any write up from me the stuff is top notch.

As to the 15mm UK miniatures, I have some thing to say. The Dwarfs are fantastic...... The other guys are a bit lacking. The Wusuq guys heads are just ok. One guy the leader is great but the others have a grill in front that looks just crapy. I must be honest it looks like the others were rushed to finish, and if the heads were better I would have nothing but great things to say. So I am looking at head swaps for them.
Any way here are some photos.




























As all way click to see a larger view of each photo. In the top you can see the heads, with the leader on the far left with a great head.

Next was a surprise for me. My brother is into models, and mostly like air plane, and ship models. This past fall he did not have any thing to work on so I gave him one of my Old Crow alien fighters to pint up. As he IS NOT a miniature painter he was not sure what to do. I told him to painted it how ever he wanted to. This past weekend he was over and brought it back, and to my surprise!


























He did a fantastic job, and one color scheme I would not have thought of. So do I give him the rest of them to paint????

Sunday, January 13, 2013

Back to painting

I have not painted in a while, and hit my bench yesterday. I have some GW plastic beastmen I have for SBH warband, and wanted to see how I do with 28mm stuff. I have not done a 28mm guy completely in a very long time, and I thought what the heck let me just see what happens. My first thought was just  paint the figure to be playable, and that will be good for me.

So I painted up a guy and I feel he is very good, and a great restart to me painting 28s again. Some of my challenges are I do use paint for miniatures, and my brushes are all for my 15mm guys. So I started out with a guy, took a photo with my trusty new Blackberry Bold (90% of all my miniature photos were taken with a Blackberry phone) and it sucked!!!!!! I spent a half hour trying to figure out my camera on the phone with no luck. So skip the progress photos. I got a good start, then off to my Son's first confession at church. Few hours later I was back at the bench, and I broke out my old canon camera, and her is the first shot.
Then I kept at the painting till it wad finished.
'

My next challenge was I just upgraded my laptop, and did not have all the software loaded on it. I have a Dell Lat D630 running PinGuy OS 12.10 beta (Linux). So I installed an old version of Picasa, and got the photos edited and uploaded.

Now I am off to son's first wrestling  match.

Noel