Hotleading!

Hotlead 2017 is only two days away and while I'm still three years behind on posting pictures from past Hotleads, here's a scoop on my games for this year's convention.  I have two game sessions planned, one Friday night, one Sunday morning, and this is the first time I'm running games at Hotlead.

First up Friday is a set of scenarios using the Silent Death space fighter rules in the Star Wars: The Force Awakens setting.  The ship designs are in their own little universe here, not balanced with the classic period SW ship designs I've had done for years (just waiting for me to finish painting the bleeping ships).  

The ships themselves are Titanium Black Series prepainted "diecasts" (if diescast = largely plastic) plus a couple of Hot Wheels ones thrown in.  A Rogue One ship slipped in, as before the movie came out I just thought it was a background SW:TFA ship, as did The Ghost from one of the animated series.

Here's a group shot of most ships (more TIEs have been added since):

Below are the Hot Wheels additions after a wash to dirty them up and a starry paint job on their bases.  The Corellian Corvette is actually going to be used in the classic period, I have a newfangled type I bought off Shapeways ages ago that will work better as a modern incarnation of the Corvette - once I paint the thing up!  The Y-Wing is too big to fit in with my classic-era Y-Wings from Studio Bergstrom, so it's here for the first scenario I'll be running Friday - Last of the Red Hot Y-Wings.  The granddaughter of the one surviving Y-Wing pilot from the attack on the first Death Star escapes from the First Order with grandpa's ship (and her boyfriend in the back), and X-Wings and TIE/sf ships get to fight over her.

Next, a shot partway through a playtest game of the second scenario, Knives to a Gunfight, that I played with my 6yo nephew last month.  I learned a few things (even the new First Order TIEs need help against X-Wings) as my nephew cleaned my clock!

The third scenario Friday, if we have time to get to it, will see the Resistance trying to shoot down Kylo Ren's shuttle as he escapes a planet after another fruitless search for clues as to Luke Skywalker's whereabouts.  It's entitled Fly Kylo Fly!

Then Sunday I'm going to run some 4-player Song of Drums and Shakos Napoleonics skirmish scenarios.  Learning from KEGSCon, I'm just putting on two scenarios, upscaled variants of The Last Pig in Russia and Troubles with the Ladies of Spain.

I cut off the top of the playing area, but here's the 3'x3' version of The Last Pig in Russia:

And I gamed it out one last time as I was packing it up, using the "set everything up and pack it up straight away" approach to making sure I didn't forget anything.

I'm free to game Saturday, so I hope to get into a 6mm I Ain't Been Shot Mum game, maybe some ancients, and then I have a plethora of options Saturday night, including more ancients, samurai with rules I really want to try, and a game of The Pikeman's Lament, for which I already have a project planned and purchased!

I also hope to pick up some more 15mm 4Ground terrain and vehicles and bits and pieces for 20mm Chain of Command.