First Play: Midnight Death Race

Hello racing fans!

I was perusing the new offerings on Wargame Vault when I came across the title Midnight Death Race. It was free and the cover art grabbed my attention, so I ordered and downloaded the game. The description says it's a minimalist game and there really isn't a whole lot for rules; only 11 pages and many of those are mostly art. It's a game for putting your Hot Wheels and Matchbox cars onto your game table, or the floor, and racing them in a no holds barred death match. The game is described as gritty, dangerous street racing set in the '70s and recommends using cars that fit that aesthetic.

Each player choses a car, takes a d6 to keep track of what gear they're in, and fills out a character sheet. Depending on the type of car the player chooses to use, they have a certain number of points with which to buy driver perks and/or car upgrades (write these on the character sheet). Perks are driver attributes that give some kind of bonus during the game (for example, the perk Anxious lets the driver go first at the beginning of the race). Upgrades add defensive or offensive bonuses to vehicles, like a thrust-jumper, caltrops, or flamethrower. A player can also choose to add a flaw, limiting their driver in some way in exchange for more points to spend.

The game uses the Gaslands movement templates (you'll need two sets, I downloaded a free PDF from the Osprey Publishing website). On their turn, the player chooses a number of templates equal to their current gear, but the caveat is that the templates must be used in the order they are picked up and if you touch it, you take it. Lay them out and move the car along them to the end (reminds me of Wings of War/Glory). Collect hazard tokens for being involved in crashes or for pushing the limits of your car. Any turn a player begins with a hazard token requires a driving check to see if they complete their path as planned or lose control.

Gaslands looks so cool. However, from what I've seen of Gaslands (mostly people playing on YouTube), it has never really grabbed me. I think there's two main reasons I don't pull the trigger on that game that Midnight Death Race solves: 

1. Simplicity - it seems each player controls a team of vehicles in Gaslands and it's a bit daunting to me to want to modify six or so die-cast cars to prep for a two-player game (I've worked on three, only one is finished). MDR gives you one vehicle and there's not much for an arsenal available, so it feels okay to field an unmodified vehicle (none of the cars in the book art have guns and things sticking out of them). 

2. Physicality -  Gaslands seemed formulaic in its chaos. For example, if a player's car spins out, it seemed like there's a formula to it and they can sometimes plan it to gain an advantage. The chaos in MDR seems more authentic with the addition of actually letting the cars contact each other in a crash or a player being forced to manipulate their car in a way that they truly have limited control. For example, if a player fails a driving check and spins out, they flick their car at one of its quarters to actually spin it and then play it from where it comes to rest.

Anyway, after making templates from the downloaded PDFs, all I had to do was make a track on the kitchen table with some Jenga blocks and other terrain pieces and get the kids to choose their cars. In order to not overwhelm us, I told everyone to only choose from the perks list. We were playing within 15 minutes. We had a blast and a surprising come-from-behind win after the leader took a hard turn when he needed a hairpin and crashed into a wall.

Top center: The Jaguar that spent most of the game in the lead comes within millimeters of the Willy's Jeepster that found a chance to overtake it. Left side: You can see the polka-dot top of Toad from Mario Kart hugging the green divider wall. Toad was the underdog success story.

All the kids liked it and had a bunch of laughs. I'll definitely be introducing this game to my brothers next chance I get.

One note I should mention: when I ordered the rules from Wargame Vault, they were free, but it must have been a temporary promotion or something, because I looked again a week later and they were $5 (USD). Still not a bad price, though.

Note 2: The rules did not lay out how to decide turn order, so I chose order based on cars positions after every round, so leader first, then 2nd place car, and so on. Made sense to me and seemed to work well.

A quick showcase of the my holiday hobbying

I've got a couple of other posts in development, but I've had to put a pause on those ruminations. I've been trying to fix up our family vehicle to a condition that is acceptable for our oldest to take a driving test, fighting with getting a clothes dryer working (this one is now done), and to top it all off dealing with a toothache and root-canal and my wife's broken leg and a couple of sick kids. Yeah, what a start to the new year we've been having.

Back in December, or maybe early January (while school was still out) I did manage to paint these Pirates I bought at a thrift store. They are a set intended for playing the "Rum and Bones" miniatures skirmish game. The band is called the Skull Kickers, for those who are interested.

These were fun to paint. The characters are from some graphic novel and they have a specific look from those pages. I decided to go with the colour schemes on the box, or close to them.

I was also randomly gifted with a Gundam-type kit quite a few months ago. A friend received it in error from Temu and he wasn't going to build it so he offered it to me. I built it over the Holidays as well.

A "big, stompy robot."

And I played a little game of kind-of-Aeronef as a test of concept of ideas I started having about how I'd like to play a flying battleships game. Maybe more on this later, but here's a pic.

With the new firing and damage rules I put together, I made this a three-on-one, the one being this circular ship in the foreground. Despite her superior firepower entering the fray, she ended up with rudders crippled and, unable to steer, the other three ships slipped in behind to pour fire into her.

Don't Fear the Reaper Bones

Like all mini gamers/painters/collectors I have one of those grey piles of possibility (aka, pile of shame): unpainted minis waiting for paint to go on them. It has been reduced by 7 as of yesterday.

First up, one of two Reaper Bones minis I got from a bag of random minis I found at a thrift store. The package is labelled "Derro Leader". I don't know and haven't looked up if there's some kind of lore or universe that Reaper's models belong in, so I don't know what a Derro Leader is beyond this halfling or dwarf sized character I painted.

Derro Leader

With the beard shape and strange pike weapon, this guy looks like someone out of a kung-fu movie, so that's what I went with.

Moving on, it's this guy from the WizKids Mage Knight line:

I don't know what he's called nor do I think he was even on a base when I got him, so no clue what he's called. I just painted him up and stuck him back onto a clix dial that I filed all the paint off of.

Third up is something I didn't actually do much work on. Five zombies from the Blacklist Fantasy box. All painted by two of my daughters and on of my nieces, I just added a few touchups.

What a display of colour on those undead dream boats!

The shelf on the desk

This is all about the shelves I built about 4 months ago. Probably should have taken a picture before I filled up the shelves, but here it is in use. 

Again, all the wood I used was rescued from burn pile at the local dump. Most is 3/4" plywood. The outer frame and middle separator are 5 1/2" deep (the actual width of the 1 x 6 plank on the left-hand side) and held together with screws. I intentionally left enough room for my home-made cardboard spray booth to fit under. The three inner shelves on the right are 3 1/2" deep and are held in place with doweling and glue. The two inner shelves on the left are around 3" deep, maybe a bit more, and have a backing behind them (the rest of the shelves are open-backed). The tool holder on the bottom left is a 3/8" plywood and roughly 4" wide, installed at an angle with a parallel piece behind it to act as a stop for the ends of the tools so they don't end up behind the desk. Also left a bit of space under it to put things like small pliers, side cutters, rulers, etc. The unit is attached to the desk with some L-brackets left over from a different project. It's been very nice to have.

Looking at the picture, I can see at least 5 unfinished works in progress. Some of which have been in stasis for 5 and 6 months. That's how distracted I can be, though I'm hoping to work on things to be quicker at finishing.

One Hour Wargames: Surprise Attack

Since my last post, I felt driven to play something before too much time passed. While listening to a podcast, the speaker brought up One Hour Wargames, by Neil Thomas. They mentioned the thirty scenarios included in the latter portion of the book. I remembered reading the rules once and knew I shouldn't need a whole lot to get on the table. It sounded perfect for restarting after such a dead stretch. So I worked at getting enough of the table cleared off that I could play a quick. Got out the Junior General micro-scale American Civil War paper cutouts I built a couple years ago. Then I set up a play area before choosing a scenario.

Here is a fork in the road with some green splotches for forest stands, a few buildings, fenced areas, and a couple hills. The top right area is out of bounds as I realized I made more of a 3x4 foot board, maybe it's a lake or something.

With the terrain set up, I rolled a d100 to get a random scenario (1-30) and my first cast got me an 11: Surprise Attack. This scenario states that red controls a crossroads with two units and blue makes a surprise attack with six units. Red gets reinforcements at Turn 3 and Turn 9. Whoever is in control of the crossroads after 15 turns is the winner.

Each side gets 6 units. There is a set of tables in the book that one can roll on to get unit assignments. For the red team (Confederates), I got 4 infantry, 1 artillery, and 1 zouave. Blue (Union) got 3 infantry, 2 cavalry, and 1 zouave. I have no counters for zouaves, so I replaced them with cavalry.

So, trying to be a good general for red, I started the cannon on the hill by the intersection. I figured its range would allow them a shot or two before blue's infantry got into range. The red infantry I put between the road and a forest blob, in case I wanted to retreat them to cover.

Here come the blue troops. Also trying to be a good general for the blue team, I place the cavalry units off to the sides so they are positioned to get around the field obstructions and slower infantry; two on the west and one on the east.

Red artillery starts inflicting damage to the first line of blue infantry. The added distance for troops travelling on the road only allowed one unopposed shot from red. The red infantry slides over to the protection of the woods.

The lead blue infantry unit and the red cannon exchange shots while the following two blue lines try to get around them. The lead blue infantry also takes fire from the reds in the woods. 

The east blue cavalry come into range and start firing into the trees, not doing much damage, but one of the blue infantry gets into position to fire into the trees as well. 

Better rolls for blue see the cannon unit taken from the field, and the red unit in the trees eliminated as the first set of red reinforcements arrive. Blue only loses two stands.

The layout after turn 4. Two red infantry units are on the east side of the hill, but they are taking fire from the blue infantry to the north and cavalry in the south.

The first red reinforcements make a good fight of it until turn 9, when the rest come out from the west. However, they lose one full unit and they lose control of the intersection; the second unit retreating into the larger clump of woods to the southeast.

The layout at turn 12. Blue infantry on the hill and behind the fence to the north, as well as an almost destroyed infantry (1hp left) east of the hill. Blue cavalry in the road junction, behind a fence facing red infantry to the west and the other facing the reds in the trees. A greatly reduced red cavalry taking fire from the hill and in bad shape. I don't think red has a chance at this point to regain the junction in 3 turns, and I called the game a blue victory.

 Someone experienced with the book, One Hour Wargames, will know, the actual combat rules are quite simple. I go, you go turn order (blue always playing first in this scenario). Units may move or attack. Attacks always hit, roll for casualties (modifiers increase or decrease this number), 15 hp per unit.

I like that play and keeping track of hp is quick and easy (in this case I used a die to keep track of damage, removing a stand for every 5 hp lost). I like the very limited turns (move or shoot) since it reinforces the image that a unit has to move to a position, then ready itself to fire, taking time that an opposing unit already in position can take advantage of and fire upon them. This forces decisions like do I move to cover, giving up speed but saving hp, or get there fast and risk taking severe losses.

However, it still felt like something was missing in the end. I wonder if 15 hp per unit is too even. What about rolling for morale? But then I figure that casualties don't necessarily mean soldiers downed, but could also represent lost morale and the resulting fleeing from the field by affected troops. If this was a campaign, one could set up an aftermath generator to see how each unit was affected, otherwise what difference is it if the unit is removed because they were mowed down or ran away? So I guess that wasn't really my issue.

Maybe it's missing the ranking of units and assigning them with different hp values to represent variations in fighting strength/morale/staying power. I do like that kind of thing. There is a form of ranking in the attack roll modifiers assigned to some unit types, but I still think that while most units would likely perform similarly, there could be an accounting for some who might be of a reduced staying power, even at full strength.

Of course I also like the addition of command units, in so many other games, whose proximity to troops affects their ability to carry out orders and/or withstand hp(morale) loss, because it sounds like an aspect that would add some interesting twists to this game.

Well, I guess I can jus go with the knowledge that OHW has left me with some things to think about and that's a good thing, right? Will have to try another session soon.

Also, I should probably make up some zouave units to add a bit of variety to my forces.

Making a Comeback?

 A couple days ago, I posted something on a Facebook group I joined (Super Cheap Wargaming). It was some new ships I made for pre-dreadnaught era gaming and one of the other members asked for work-in-progress pictures. I did him one better and directed him to the post I made in this blog where I spelled it all out step-by-step. Then I got looking at some of my previous posts. I knew it had been a while since the last post, but was still kind of surprised to see that it's been over a year. Not only has it been a year since my last post, I think it's been even longer since the last time I had a game on my table.

Ack! My table. Which I never got around to cat-proofing and just let stuff pile up on over all that time. Well, we went on a three-week holiday in July (another story in and of itself involving a used RV, a suspension bridge, a moon snail, and getting pulled over by a state trooper at 2 in the morning) and when we got back, I found what I can only assume are pee stains on my table mat. Yaay... 

So I've started slowly organizing the stuff on the table. To help this endeavour, I built some shelves to sit on the back of my hobby desk and put up a larger shelf on the wall. All of it costing nothing as I used wood, reclaimed screws, and even shelf brackets found at the local dump.

While I may not have played on my table, I have played board games with family and friends and also stolen some moments here and there to paint or craft miniature related stuff. So, I think now I'll just perform a photo dump with captions.

The image that caused me to come back here.

A cheapo Halloween decoration spider. I beefed up the abdomen with layers of green stuff left over from other projects. Then I painted.

The motorhome being torn apart to get rid of the water damage.

Tyranid hatchlings(?). Then from Blacklist Fantasy: a dwarf druid, halfling bard, and an elf paladin

Some type of warrior from Wizkids Mage Knight miniatures. I removed some doo-dads from his helmet and armour before re-painting.

A church from Dave Graffam's line of paper models sitting atop the top shelf I made for the desk.

Blacklist Fantasy knolls. Because of how dark my wash ended up being, the photo doesn't show the slight variations I made to their skin colours. 

A cousin-in-law's son asked me to repaint his Plymouth Cuda. After the Trial and error that went into getting the last car I painted to look decent, I searched for a different thinning medium to dilute craft paint for use in an air brush and came across a guy who uses windshield washer fluid. It worked so much better!

An elf magic user from Blacklist Fantasy and above her in the blurry background, my hole board to hold paintbrushes and tiny files and whatever other slim-body tools I use.

If I did any more than what's pictured, I don't recall it and I don't have pictures of it anyway. Hoping to be able to take time enough for this wonderful hobby to post here more regularly again. Bye!

Mods and Painting

My first die-cast car mod 

Months before May, I was at my parents' place, looking through the old die-cast cars that served my siblings and I growing up. Picking up one of the first Hot Wheels cars that my younger brother received and noted all the scratches and the bent axles. I had been watching those videos on YouTube of people modifying their Hot Wheels cars. So naturally, I slipped the car in my pocket and took it home to do at least a repaint and present it to my brother, who's birthday is in May.

I took apart the car and stripped/scraped the paint off, sanding it with a very fine grit sand paper. Removed the axles. Took the axles and wheels from a Francesco car (from Cars 2) to do a wheel swap. The axles are too wide for a Hot Wheels, so I snipped them and stuck them into place with super glue and green stuff. Then I did it all over again, but using lengths of that plastic coating you sometimes find on paper clips to hold the clipped axels together and make them less prone to be de-glued and pushed through the green stuff lump. Painted the car with treated craft acrylics through my airbrush. had to repaint 4 times to get it looking half decent. Used a chrome pen on the parts I thought would be chromed in real life. Put it all together again and...

Not the greatest pic, but the only one I took before giving it to my brother.

The ongoing saga of me painting Blacklist Fantasy 1 minis

I painted the skeletons. I modified them a bunch as well, giving one a spear and a bow to another, clipping off some shoulder pad spikes, and shaving off a couple hoods. Made a pretty nice variety. Took a long time to get around to painting them.

The guys who kept their swords.

The guys who got other weapons.

And a Mage Knight mini

This guy was painted all black with a couple of grey and gold highlights, but it hid all the detail on the sculpt. He was also missing his left foot and clicky base when I got him. Stripped the paint. Molded a green stuff foot. Repaint and rebase (on the bottom half of a clicky base no less)...

One side...

...and the other.