Epic Photo Dump from Little Wars 2013
Little Wars took place the last weekend in April, and as in years past, the Chicago Skirmish Wargames crew was on hand to run a game. This year we elevated our ambitions a little bit by running Mech Attack, the fast-play sci-fi mech skirmish game, in 28mm. Mech Attack was written for much smaller scales, but we were feeling adventurous.
Karl put together a BattleTech-inspired scenario that saw two attackers -- each equipped with infantry, mechs and vehicles -- assaulting an urban area to seize the objectives.
Here are some timeline shots of us setting up the table. Our playing area measured about 7x6 feet.
And here's a shot of the game in progress. We had a full roster of players, including two father-and-son teams. And hats off to the kind gentleman who registered for our game and then willingly gave up his spot so that one of those father-and-son teams could have a seat a the table. We were very impressed by his chivalry.
The buildings were made from plastic stackable crates, and the roads were roofing shingles with yellow lines painted down the middle. The mechs were a variety of models from several manufacturers -- you can learn more about them in this post from Karl.
As the game unfolded, the various CSW guys who were running the game (Karl, Tim, Pat, Mike and Josh) quickly found that the players were picking up the game quite well and didn't need much in the way of guidance after the second turn. Consequently we began darting out to visit the various vendor booths and flea markets -- and no one managed to put together a coherent game report!
Suffice it to say that the defenders won, but just barely, by driving the attacking infantry out of
the objectives. Indeed, the game was teetering on the brink until the very last turn, which is the sign of a good game in my opinion. One of the attacking
players earned the "Best General" award for accruing the most victory points, primarily by
being absolutely deadly on the battlefield. We were lucky that resident CSW photographer Josh brought out all his fancy hardware to capture the action as the players fought for each block. Check out the action as viewed through Josh's lens...
the objectives. Indeed, the game was teetering on the brink until the very last turn, which is the sign of a good game in my opinion. One of the attacking
players earned the "Best General" award for accruing the most victory points, primarily by
being absolutely deadly on the battlefield. We were lucky that resident CSW photographer Josh brought out all his fancy hardware to capture the action as the players fought for each block. Check out the action as viewed through Josh's lens...
As you can see, it was a fun, visually awesome game full of tactics, firepower and luck. We agreed that Mech Attack in 28mm is quite a spectacle, and it wasn't that difficult to pull off on the tabletop. If you're in the Chicagoland area this summer, we'd like to host a redux of this scenario at Games Plus.
We had a great time at Little Wars and, predictably, we scored some great bargains from the flea market. Doubtless we'll have a post in the not-too-distant future about the various treasures we came away with!
As always, leave a comment if you have any questions about the game or any of the models you see in the photos. Big thanks once again to Josh for documenting the game so well -- more pics from the game are available on his website!
-- Patrick, Chicago Skirmish Wargames club member
Eddie Kataishi says:
Completely beside the point perhaps, but those are the best looking milk-crate buildings I've ever seen.
Sean says:
Looks like fun and the pictures are great. Josh seems to have a pretty nice rig if that's him in the black shirt.
Joshua Lopatin says:
That's me! I was shooting with an Olympus E-30, with a 50-200 f2.8-3.5 lens, and a Metz ringflash. I also had an Olympus EPL1 with a 9-18mm lens for the wide stuff. All images were shot in RAW, and edited in Adobe Lightroom.
pingback //: Mech Attack Battle Report from Little Wars | Chicago Skirmish Wargames
[…] month, the club put on a game of Mech Attack at the Little Wars convention in suburban Chicago. As with last year’s game, we again invited players to witness the spectacle of giant 28mm scale mechs stomping across the […]