State of the Nation - laying out 2015

State of the Nation

Presidents and prime ministers around the globe give state of the nation speeches at the beginning of the year. Here at Skirmish Sangin we thought we would borrow the concept and look back briefly over the last 12 months and to let all our loyal players know what’s happening in the next 12 months.

So the last 12 months have seen a great deal of growth in the Skirmish Sangin market. The year was book marked by the release of Sangin Despatches 2 and 3 and one of the key highlights was our trip to SALUTE which was a great deal of fun. Our Insurgents/Taliban figures were released.

Phalanx Consortium came on board as our US distributor  and that is a relationship that's gone from strength to strength.

Unfortunately we lost a great good person along the way. Stuart Griffin of Griffin Moulds (Sangin's Figure Manufacturer) and we would like to take this opportunity to pass on our deepest condolences to his family and colleagues.

So what will 2015 have to offer? 

Now we can’t reveal all as we have signed a number of non-disclosure agreements with companies but there is a core of projects that we can reveal, some of what is going on.

Now before I go in to detail can we just say a little about timelines. All of the team have full time, high-pressure jobs and while we indicate deadlines and do our best to work towards them, we are always deliberately vague simply to avoid disappointment.

Our projects tend to take a while to create and sometimes can be held up by even the most innocuous of things. 2014 had a few among them the birth of beautiful baby James to Chris and Rachel. Pneumonia and a serious knee operations for Colin and a PHD for Craig, all of these thing vied for our time.

We hope there are less this year but you never know. Anyway enough waffle what's happening.

First quarter 2015

The first of our Battle Books will be Maalintii Rangers (Day of the Rangers (Mog) - to those of us that don’t speak Somali). This book will concentrate on the battle made famous by the book and film Black Hawk Down. It will have additional rules, background info and ORBATS for everything from Street mobs and Somali gun man to the D-Boys and Rangers. A set of entertaining scenarios that focuses on various stages of the battle and ideas of how to model and paint the participants.

 IMAGE ABOVE - Rough Scamp of the cover

To support this we will also be releasing our first set of 28mm Americans, initially an 8 man Rangers squad, that’s ideal for Mog and more than usable for Iraq 1 and 2 and early Afghanistan as well as some more goodies we have in the pipeline. See the Ranger renders below.

We are also planning a running a Kickstarter to help us expand this figure line but we’ll let you know more about that nearer the time.

Also in this quarter you will see the release of the final 28mm Insurgent/Taliban so there will be more than enough to build a sizeable force.

ABOVE:  Some of the new Insurgent/Taliban figures

Second/third quarter 2015

This will see the release of our first fantasy game, currently called Outbreak – This is a zombie horror skirmish game. This will be launched at GENCON and a number of us are making the trip to Indianapolis to be part of the fun. So do come along and see us.

ABOVE: The almost final cover for Outbreak

We will also be at Historicon with plenty of Skirmish Sangin goodness (as part of our month long trip to the USA) so that will be another opportunity to chat if any of you are heading that way. We hope to have more than a few new goodies available at both events.

Third/fourth quarter 2015

Sangin Despatches no.3, yes number 3, we have so much useful stuff left over from SD2 that we plan to bring you another book to conclude Afghanistan.

Now anybody that has played Skirmish Sangin know the system can work for any conflict from ww2 onwards and this year we plan to use the system to venture further a field and expand both globally conflict wise and back through the ages to help our players use the system to play there favourite genres.

So that’s all the big picture stuff we can talk about and as you can see we haven't been lazing a round but also we are going to do our best to use this blog to bring you some great Skirmish Sangin Goodness.

It’s our plan that each month we will release you a free scenario for the remaining 11 months of 2015. We will also increase the number of articles and After Action Reports (AARs) to as many as possible. This will allow players to see the flexibility of the system and get some great new ideas for their gaming. We are kicking off our first free scenario in February with a look at the Australians and what they got up to in Afghanistan.

Obviously this is not all but its all for now. Do let us know what you would like to see in terms of ORBATS etc. and any game ideas and we’ll do our absolute best to bring them to you.

cheers

Colin

Insurgents Competition - Results!

Our competition celebrating the release of our first four Taliban (details on how to buy some here) ended last week, and after some time taken to collate all of the results, we have been left with no less than 8 entrants who will be sent a pack of our four brand new Taliban miniatures to add to their forces!

So these are the first four Taliban, painted by Craig. The next wave of Taliban will be available VERY soon (we will let you know, don't worry!), and they will be followed by yet another wave of Taliban after that. After all, what is a game in Afghanistan without some cracking good Taliban miniatures?

Below are just some of the awesome pictures that we were sent of Insurgents painted by people out there in the Sangin Community!

First up is two Empress Miniatures Taliban Motorcyclists, by Steve E. You have to admire the lovely blue and red bikes, such a good contrast to the more muted colours of the riders.

Spyros has sent some Empress Taliban, he has opted for an interesting combination of muted browns, punctuated with some brighter whites and blues. Like before, we have a cool blue motorcycle- Am I sensing a theme?

James of Scotland has sent through two close ups of some Empress Taliban. One rocking a splendid blue dishdash, which I am unashamedly going to copy for my Call to Arms Taliban.

"Can you hear me now? No I don't want to upgrade my long distance plan. All I want is some mortar support! Don't you dare put me on hold!"

Darren has sent through a picture of what can only be described as a horde of Empress Taliban! Those are some lovely browns and yellows on the cloth, Darren has done a cracking job on them!

Pat sent through not just pictures of his Taliban, but also a picture of them in a game! He assured me that the Taliban were completly victorious. Or maybe they weren't, but I choose to remember it as a glorious victory for the Taliban forces!

Check out those sweet sneakers on the sniper!

Matt H has sent through a miniature from Battlefield Evolution, from Mongoose Publishing. Now I can't seem to be able to find the miniatures anywhere (although, clearly I need to try harder). He has painted him up as a member of ISIS, although Matt has complained that he looks too "ninja", I think the black clothing works well!

Peter T went with a different manufacturer, option to bring Taliban from The Assault Group. Peter has done a great job with them, including the Osama figure! Operation Geronimo anyone?

And rounding out our winners this time is some cool 20mm Taliban from Underfire Miniatures, sent through to us by Carvel. Not only did we get cool pictures of the 20mm Taliban, but what Carvel did with the Renedra building is awesome too! I have been resisting 20mm, but Carvel is slowly breaking me down.....

A huge thanks to all those who sent us pictures, we always enjoying seeing what those in the Sangin Community are up to with their games. Don't forget that we are always looking for more content for our books and our blog, After Action Reports, articles, things you have painted, or even just to tell us how awesome we are, don't hesitate to drop us an email, we look forward to hearing from you!

Pooch

Insurgents Competition ending soon!

Entries have been rolling in for our Taliban competition, both in 20 and 28mm and from a variety of manufacturers.

We have been really impressed with what we have received, so keep them coming in!

You have until the end of the month to get your pictures in to us. All you need to do is to send us a picture of your painted insurgent models, then we will collate them all and then get them put up on the Skirmish Sangin blog. We will be choosing our winners at random too, so make sure you get your pictures to us!

All the details you need are here, so get your entries in!

Chris

Taliban available now, and a Competition!

Our gorgeous new Taliban Painted by Craig Watterson

We promised that our Taliban were not too far away, and they are ready NOW!

All you need to do is head to our good friend Empress Miniatures website or our own skirmishsangin.com, and pick yourself up a set (only available in the UK at present but soon to be available in the USA). They are also stocking our range of Kiwis/Auzzies, so you can pick yourself up some of them too!

To commemorate our first set of 4 Taliban, we thought it time for a competition...

SHOW US YOUR INSURGENTS!

We don't show enough pictures of painted Taliban miniatures on this blog, so with the release of our Taliban miniatures, it is time we corrected that!

What do you need to do?
Simple, send us a picture of a single figure, group or vehicle from your Taliban force- any manufacturer welcome! Once we have received the entries, we will collate them all and post pictures up on our blog of the entries. Winners will be chosen at random from our entrants, all of the winners will be sent a free set of our first four Taliban!

Where do I need to send the pictures?
You need to send them to me, chris@skirmishsangin.com

How long have I got?
Entries need to be received by the 31st July. Plenty of time to get something painted!

Now to tantalise you even more, below are the first of the next set wave of Taliban, these will soon to be in production.

And there are more than that on the way!

Get painting!

Pooch

Alex McE- Painting better Baddies- eventually!

Alex McE is back, this time with a whole lot of painted Insurgents. He has adopted a few bright colour schemes, a lovely deep red which he has used as the symbol for his band of fighters. Anyway, over to Alex....

Lesson: it takes a gentle reminder from Pooch and a quiet weekend for me to finally break radio silence. It’s not been a great few months in real world for me and a lot of things – notably my hobby time – haven’t been as productive as I would have liked.

That aside, this has taken too damn long! Without further ado – baddies!

Here’s my Warlord and his buddy with an RPG. Everyone knows RPG warheads are red right? (I have seen some in strange colours, so sure, why not red- Ed) The Warlord is rocking mirror shades, a red beret and an ANP uniform.

Next up are the support weapons. I totally dig the dude in the baseball cap with his RPG17. Football team emblem still to be done!

Then the grunts – these are the guys rocking good old fashioned assault rifles and who are just all style, all the time.

In the penultimate photo my favourites – the dudes in Type 99 Chinese Marine Camo. I’m super happy with these ones – more than any of the others and the guy in the bandana is just rocking his fashion choice. (It is just an odd looking colour palatte isn't it?- Ed)

Lastly, the one figure in this collection I really don’t like. But it’s okay, because if the nice people at Empress are going to sculpt you wearing a dorky tracksuit then I am pleased to oblige. Someone didn’t get the “best camouflage gear” memo:

In terms of the colour palettes – if anyone wants to know I’m happy to share. My crappy cellphone pics and pretend lightbox on top of the fridge don’t work that well when the ambient light in the house is as bad as it was on Sunday night

As far as the models go, they’re really nice. It’s an interesting combination of weapons and I love the little details – most are wearing webbing and they’re generally well posed. I’m not crazy on their faces but in this group of models, that’s not such an issue.

And now? I get stuck into the 17 conventional Taliban sitting on my painting table that are based and awaiting a day that isn’t freakishly cold and damp in my basement so I can prime them!

So the Insurgency is going well for you then Alex! I do love the brightness of the red, and how it contrasts with all the other more traditional dull military tones. That being said, the Chinese camo is just such an odd base colour, I can't quite get my head around it. And the tracksuit wearer, just screams Russian mafia from a Guy Ritchie film. At least you didn't give him a Pink Kappa tracksuit!

Armies of Afghanistan- Alex McE (Qud)

Who are you?
I’m also Alex! I’m probably the relative newcomer to Sangin here and I find myself working with Colin, Craig and Pooch as their proofreader. Most of this work seems to be deleting unnecessary punctuation and hunting out the devils in the details! Modern warfare is a relatively new experience for me, other than some 6mm, and I find Sangin a nice balance between detail and relaxed and enjoyable play.

What army you are playing?
Asking me to be involved in this project was always going to involve some kind of fairly insane scheme and I had set my heart on some Italians. I really love playing Italians (Doctors say it is terminal- Ed). Sadly, the only manufacturer of modern Italians isn’t likely to be able to produce any until early next year! So I went for a new plan. I’ve had a dozen Empress Insurgents that I picked up last year to play as Iranian Qud for a scenario that I was proofing as a possible entry for Despatches 1. That’ all I’ll say on that score! (I think we might put it up on the blog here, but Alex has to paint some Qud first- Ed)

I primed them but thanks to the humidity or temperature in my basement over the winter the primer cracked badly on almost every flat surface. Here they are at time of writing:



One of my chief goals in picking an army is that it has to be thematically interesting. I don’t care if it’s any good but it has to sound cool and it has to look cool. So I’m going to be using a list that the lads are working on at the moment for Al-Qaeda. The Insurgents will be Foreign Fighters brought in by a local al-Qaeda leader to stiffen the combat ability and resolve of his $10 Taliban troops. Visually I’m looking forward to breaking out every kind of camo I can muster the skill to paint and I’m hoping to be able to share my experiences translating some of the more outlandish schemes I can find for these Foreign Fighters.

What are you getting with your starting funds?
I’ll be picking up some of the lovely Empress Taliban to provide me with the core of the force as well as a sweet, sweet model to be my al-Qaeda leader.

Quick AAR

Craig and I got together last night to run through some of the new elements in the forthcoming Taliban ORBAT. I was running the Taliban and Craig was running his Spec Ops force. Unfortunately Pooch was out to play elsewhere, so it was just the two of us.

Our brief was 2000pts and turn up and play, we had no idea of scenario or terrain, we just new that we would have to build a team from the 2000pts.

Both of us wanted to push the envelope on the rules to see if we can break the forthcoming Taliban ORBAT rules and some of our experimenting with Spec Ops so we knew that we would make some odd choices.

Now when Craig and I game, which isn’t as often as I would like these days, we play the narrative to the max. So while we would mini-max the points the game would be played out “correctly” i.e. how we envisaged it when we wrote the rules.

So in creating my Taliban I chose to use the Al Qaeda Leader and have most of my team made up of foreign Nationals, this mean I had access to Body Armour. (These are all new rules not currently available so don’t start looking in the main rule book for them :-))

Now to try and break the mechanics I brought two of my characters the sniper upgrade and gave them RPG’s. Now that doesn’t sound like it makes a lot of sense but an RPG uses Rifle skill so increasing my Rifle skill means that suddenly my RPG gunners are much better shots. Is this cheating? No, is it mini-maxing? Hell yes. But its this kind of thing we know certain players will do so we have to try it.

Craig set up the terrain while I made us a brew and as you can see in the pics he is always sneaky in his terrain. He doesn’t give anybody an advantage, because at this point he doesn’t know which end of the table he is starting at. But its always interesting and its terrain you have to look at twice as he will some how manage to get stuff to block your line of sight, just when you don’t want it too.

Now I had no idea others than Spec Ops what Craig would bring but I made a few guesses. 

1.     There wouldn’t be many of them, Specs Ops cost a fortune. They would be skilled up the wazoo and all be Elites.

2.      He would have off-table snipers, as they are a bugbear of Craig’s so I know he will try and use them to beat me over the head with the fact he has never been keen on those rules. (For the record I am the same over snap fire, but we have known each other so long we are happy to wind each other up as we play.)

With this in mind I went for the mortar barrage, no one likes mortars and I tried to make it that I had enough people in my team who could call in the mortars in case as in previous games my “dicker” got hit early on.

So the game…

First question, do we use snap-fire? It's optional and you have to agree it before hand and before I realise what I have said I have agreed to it, am I mad. :-)

This was a foretaste of things to come and I can only ask, how did it go so horribly wrong? 

In this game I couldn’t roll a spot roll to save my or my Taliban’s life. I had my spotter with a body of 20, he was the first man on the board. I should have been able to win the game with just the spotter on the table but the man was blind, blind I tell you. So time for a new plan

I advance on a refused flank but got the jitters because of the Snap fire rules being in use so failed to use my RPG snipers at all, they never got a shot off, almost 400pts wasted, again because they couldn’t spot a thing. Does blindness run in the family here? To make matters worse Craig killed one of them with an AT4 talk about overkill.

His two off table snipers, only fired one shot, but hit my leader and killed him outright. Fortunately for me we forgot to roll the new Taliban Leader morale rules we are working on.

I made some good shots on one of his chaps but my damage rolls where so low and his armour saves so high that I was only scratch him. Then to make matters worse his Mortar barrage went into action before mine killing 4 of my men in the opening salvo and when you only have 11 guys that really hurts.

By now I have occupied the main building (see above) but was slowly being picked off by Craig “luckydice” constant firing and the writing was on the wall. Probably in lead there was that much coming my way. 

My barrage missed and moved almost off table and only caught one of his guys a glancing blow and again he saved it with his body armour. I just wasn’t catching a break.

Then his fast air came rumbling in causing Morale rolls for all the Taliban. Now finally I made good rolls, the Taliban managed to hold as his F18 Raptor came in firing chaff. The Taliban where “ Ohh look at the pretty lights” rather than the usual Gandalfian “Run you fools, run!”

So the game for me, was a long slow attrition. The Spec Ops almost didn’t move after the opening rounds and I played quite statically because of my fear of snap fire and in the end I was the only one to use it and guess what I missed. Oh those dice, how they hated me.

So the long and short of it was a big win for the Spec Ops.

But what about the story? Well Craig and I do a lot of our research by watching YouTube head cam videos that the troops put out and looking at this as a story it felt right. 

The Taliban started big but the sheer weight of combined forces forced us quickly on the back foot and then destroyed us as a force with one major hit of the mortars. After which the ISAF just rolled up the Taliban. We have seen this dozens of times in country.

So it’s back to the drawing board with the group. I think the nucleus is there but it needs refining and Craig… the smile on his face said it all… B’stard!

Great game and we had a hoot.

As its summer here in Gods Own (New Zealand/Aotearoa) we are all now on vacation until 13 January, so there won't be anything posted for a couple of weeks. 

So we would like to take this opportunity to wish our rules buying public seasons greetings and as the great Dave Allen used to say "and may your god go with you".

ADVANCED TO CONTACT

This AAR is a play through of one of the new scenarios that will feature in our next book Sangin Despatches.

The battlefield

Overview:

As part of a big push into the green zone, your platoon has been ordered to advance to contact. Your platoon is to follow the canal north isolating and arresting the enemy. If that is not possible they may use lethal force against the insurgents.

Over the Bowman (British radio system), another platoon has a 5-meter contact and chases off the Taliban after a serious firefight. The Taliban retreat and are heading away from the battle, unfortunately right into the path of an ISAF blocking force.

ISAF Briefing

This game can be played as two individual battles with separate sections or one large battle.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:

On a roll 1-5 on a 1d10 off-table snipers may be deployed.

USMC Patrol

The USMC Patrol is based on the platoon attributes shown previously. 1 and 2 Section are each assigned a blocking task with the reserve being as shown below.

Let Battle begin

This was a battle between Pooch and I, Pooch had brought his USMC and I was fielding the Taliban. My small group only had one heavy weapon and RPG and came on the board running only to slow down to a walk when they realised all was not as it seemed.

The US moved to secure the high ground (building roof tops) and act as a blocking force to stop me getting off the board.

 

On the left side of the board the Taliban ran through the cornfield, only stopping as they reached the hedge.

The marines continue to move men into position while still trying to spot the Taliban. The Taliban are easier to spot as they are running but initially the US are failing their rolls. This is looking good.

Finally the dice gods show their sympathy and the US  spotting works and they open fire.

First casualty inflicted by the USMC.  The damage roll a 10. A badly wounded man. The Taliban next to him is left to take a morale test (red counter) having seen the effects of the American fire.

A Taliban and US 203 gunnar exchange gunfire through the hedge. He is too close to use the UGL.

The Taliban hit the American but roll double 1’s for damage, a disaster. The return fire scratches one Taliban. More marines drawn onto the board by the sound of gunfire.

Although the US have blockers in the way, the Taliban have to make a decision, to try and exit the board to gain points or fire their RPG… after a brief discussion Abdul and Abrahim make the decision to run and I believe I have two easy victory points.... but Pooch, always a crafty fighter, declares snap fire from his blockers. The two of them roll to hit taking the -30% for snap fire in account  and miss. Two Taliban victory point for me as my guys exit the board.

Meanwhile in the middle of the table a brief hand-to-hand battle starts but after several combat phases there can only be one decision, the marines superior skills win out. Scratch one Tally.

The US continue to man the building heights taking fire but the medium cover and kneeling saves them time and time again.

The Taliban move on the left and try to outflank the Americans.

On the right hand side the Taliban twins (They both have BODY 14), dig in and begin to give the advancing Americans a whole lot of hurt.

The battle rages with one of the Americans is taking hit after hit from multiple Taliban (Remember my earlier article about massing fire on one man, we'll it only works if Pooch stops making his 1d10+4 armour saves). His guy is slightly wounded but keeps bring the fight back to the Taliban.

All of those red markers each one give -10% to his morale after the first one and he still makes the roll. I think Pooch has John Rambo on his side.

The fighting gets down to some serious hand-to-hand. Pooch will do anything to stop the Taliban getting off the board.

At this point I could see the writing is on the wall for the Taliban, I  have managed to kill several Americans but can't get through them to get my victory points, I mean men, off the board.

Eventually numbers overwhelmed  the Taliban with this chap surrendering. he is quickly in the plasticuffs and is lead away.

In conclusion

It was a tough fight that early on seemed to be going all the Taliban’s way but then the slower Americans started to appear and block the bolt holes. The US defence slowed the Taliban advance by shear weight of fire. Eventually the Americans managed to grind out a win.

It was at this point we remembered that Pooch had rolled at the start of the game and got an off-table sniper, guess that sniper was kind of busy and missed all the excitment.