Empress Miniatures - .50 cal HMMWV

One of the items that I picked up at Historicon was a .50 cal Humvee for modern 28mm skirmish gaming. I already had a technical (with MMG) for the insurgents, so I thought I would add some mobile firepower for the ISAF forces.

The kit itself was fairly straightforward to assemble. There was some excess material on the inside of the tires that needed to be removed with a hobby knife, but other than that, there was very little flashing.

My biggest dilemma was where to put the .50 cal. Looking at the image provided on the box (visible in the background), I was thinking about mounting in the rear firing position. I had a couple reasons for wanting to do this - (1) most folks would probably mount it forward facing, so it would differentiate my model from others and (2) having recently watched Blackhawk Down (on the car ride home from Historicon mind you), I noticed that while making the drive to the crash site, the gunner was typically firing in the rear arc after having already passed the target. There was also a triangular shape in the driver/rear side of the cupola that seemed to be similar in shape and size to the base of the .50 cal mount, so I thought that would make for a good mounting point. After gluing it on (of course), I noticed that the hinges for the roof hatch were on the driver's side which meant that positioning the gun there would prohibit the swing of the hatch. This bothered me, so I popped of the gun mount and resorted to gluing it facing forward. Oh, the best laid plans...

How it compares

Here we can see the scale comparison between another Empress vehicle - the technical with SPG-9 - and my first technical - a Stan Johansen miniature. The Empress vehicles are listed as 1/50 scale models. The Stan Johansen model may be closer to 1/56 for 28mm. As you can see, they're pretty comparable and there shouldn't be any scale issues with them being on the table at the same time.

Summary

Overall, I'm pretty happy with the .50 cal HMMWV kit. A buddy of mine had picked up the weapon station HMMWV kit at Historicon as well and he was not happy with it. Perhaps it's the difference in kits or he was just unlucky. This kit was pretty smooth. It'll set you back a pretty penny, US$32 was what we paid at Historicon. There will certainly be cheaper options out there - perhaps even 1/43 scale die-cast if you plan ahead (settle on that scale for vehicles and be consistent). There was a die-cast model on Amazon recently for under US$15, but I don't think that would scale well at all with these figures. I've already made that mistake once before - bought a 1/48 scale plane and set it next to some 1/56 scale tanks - and plan to not repeat it

G&G Rating

Blackhawk down in Afghanistan - Quick demo AAR

After spending some time working on terrain and painting up a few hundred points of Insurgents and Marine Force Recon, the time had finally come to try out Flying Lead and its expansion Hearts & Minds. Unfortunately, an unpunctual horse farrier (yeah, I had to ask too) meant my gaming partner for the evening was not going to be able to make it.

 

I wanted to try the system out and perhaps walk through and find some of the gotchyas before we met up some time next week. Below is a brief AAR of a couple impulses:

 

Scenario:

I had recently picked up a 1/60 scale model of a Blackhawk helicopter, so I placed it in the center of the (roughly) 42"x42" table and figured I'd play this akin to the Top Secret scenario from Bolt Action, but in this case, the Marines were fighting their way to protect the downed pilots and the Insurgents would be looking to grab a hostage or two.

 

Setup:

The four Force Recon Marines would start on one table edge.

The Regional Leader and Tier 1 RPG gunner started in one building. The Local Leader and a Tier 2 Fighter started in the other building. And the three remaining insurgents started off-board. I would randomly determine which of two table edges they would come in on - if they passed their Quality check first.

 

Lists:

 

Photo Report:



 

Tier 1 Insurgent fires an RPG-7 at hillside and whiffs

 

After seeing an RPG whiz by, UGL Operator fires a 40 Mike-Mike at the building hitting it spot on.

 

PKM Gunner was just out of Short range, but was still Shaken. Tier 1 RPG gunner was not so fortunate...

 

Tier 1 RPG gunner was knocked down and Out of Action. PKM Gunner was later shot and also knocked Out of Action (represented here by two Bolt Action 'DOWN' dice)

 

Three Marine specialists overlooking the crash site. LMG gunner fires on the local Taliban leader in the building and takes him down (KIA).

 

Summary:

The action moves along nicely. Not too many modifiers to remember.

I do need some more trial time though. It's hard to tell after just a couple impulses, but it seems as though the special forces are just too easy to get 3 actions every time. The four of them are all Q3. But, with H&M adding personal comms to all of them, they all get their Leader's +1 to Q when they are within 2x Long range of him. This meant they were successful on anything but a '1'. But who knows, it could have been a whole different outcome if that RPG would have at least hit the dirt.