Crossing The Rubicon Nostalgius Pt. 7 – Captain Tycho!

Happy holidays one and all! Wherever you are out in the blogosphere let me begin by wishing you good cheer this festive season, and may you all successfully dodge the Omicron variant…

This is going to be a short one because neither Jim or I have done a great deal of hobby stuff over the last couple of weeks as we’ve been making up for the misery of last year’s Christmas by doubling up on the drink and merriment for this year… that said, I have managed to get something done on my 1991 Blood Angels Tribute Act.

No Space Marine force is complete without a heroic leader – and I mean that literally, as the Codexes don’t allow it – and I’ve got one sorted for mine now. Here is Captain Tycho, 1991 style!

Mmm, shiny (cheers for the pics, Whittlesey!)

Now, here’s the one I cobbled together from what I had to hand:

I’m going to claim he looks vaguely festive, as he does look like an animated (and righteously furious) bauble… Goblin Green bases seem to do that.

It’s also increasingly obvious that I should have been painting these guys as Space Wolves as there are all sorts of wolfy trinkets hanging off him as well as other Marines… but I’m going to explain this away as the force having served alongside some Space Wolves and having been rewarded with some ornaments as a sign of good faith between these two. I also like the idea of a Space Vampire and a Space Viking slamming back some Space Brews in Space….

“Fething love you, Brother…. Hic”

Yellow is known for being a nightmare to do, so here’s my secret – cheat. White primer, preshade with thinned Vallejo Chestnut ink wash (this is quite handy as it helps outline what bit is where, which is useful when you’re as old and blind as I am) – and then just cheap yelow craft paint over the top. Chestnut ink wash and then mix some bone into the yellow to start to highlight up. I did some edge highlighting on the tops of the shin pads and some armour plates, but the clever stuff was drybrushed, I don’t have the eyes, skill or patience for anything more involved. Other than that I simply tried to follow the pattern on the 1991 original, doing the black with Vallejo German Grey washed with black ink and drybrush with a lighter grey.. For the bases I painted on PVA and dunked it in sand but in order to make it easier to paint I did this BEFORE priming.

Hoping to get him on the table pretty soon assuming Omicron doesn’t cause the downfall of human civilisation and the end of life as we know it… in the mean time, stay safe, healthy and thrifty and we wish you the Happiest of New Years!

I Am The God Of Hellfire, And I Bring You…

Hellfire!

See?

This is a ruleset I picked up in the dim and distant period of history known as my childhood and recently rediscovered during an attic clearance, along with it’s sister ruleset “Hell By Starlight” – both written by Jim Webster, both published by Wessex Games in the mid-90s, and both entirely “miniature agnostic” as the current term goes. I have a vague memory of mail ordering this aged 14 or so from Miniature Wargaming magazine – yeah, I got all the birds, me.

Reading through it, there were a few nice concepts so I invited Jim over, laid out the terrain cloth and Jim brought his DIY granny grating Star Wars armies to try things out and see what we could do with it. The scenario was simple, with Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker leading company sized forces of infantry with a couple of attached speeder scouts battling over control of the hill in the centre of the table.

Imperial stormtroopers form up on the left, Rebel Alliance to the right

Imperials deploy north west table corner, Vader to the fore

Rebels deploy southeast, trusting to the contours of the ground to conceal them – after all, only Imperial stormtroopers are this accurate.

The game plays basically IGO UGO, with adjustments via command points from the leaders. Each one generates D8 command points which can force each unit under their command to perform extra actions – all the D8s were at Jim’s so we used 2D6 to represent both Luke & Vader being Strong With The Force. These could do things like force extra movement actions, firing etc.

The first few rounds were mainly both sides advancing to contact using the terrain for cover, both Luke and Vader generating command points like crazy to frog march their troops along – meanwhile the scout speeders on each side zipped around the table trying to snipe at each other or any targets of opportunity.

Vader storms up the hill at the head of his stormtroopers.

While Vader powers up the hill, Luke sends his detachments left and right to try and envelope the enemy in a crossfire

Imperial fire kills Rebel HQ – fortunately Luke survives to take direct command of the Rebel Scum (TM)

The moment we’ve all been waiting for! Having secured the hilltop, Vader storms down the hill into the teeth of Rebel fire, shrugging off blaster hits that shred his Stormtrooper bodyguard – Luke Skywalker fearlessly dives into melee combat with his father… cue much Chipmunk voiced “I am your father…” “That’s not true… that’s impossible!”

With their HQ destroyed and Luke locked in combat with Vader, the Rebel assault stalls under fire – although they do manage to take down the last Imperial speeder

“Luke.. I know what you’re getting for Christmas..”

Imperial stormtroopers drive off another assault while Luke & Vader duel – “Luke, I know what you’re getting for Christmas…” “Why do you keep saying that?”

Stormtroopers gun down the last Rebels trying to mass for a final assault, and Luke falls! Vader powers down his light sabre, his work complete – “I felt your presents”

So there we go, a fun little game with a suitable cinematic ending. Hellfire has some fun concepts – the idea of your troops deteriorating as the battle continues, becoming more susceptible to poor morale is a neat one, although I think the way it’s executed in practice is a bit fiddly. The idea of HQ generating command points – well, you don’t need me to approve that, as GW have worked it into the current and last versions of 40k!

My only criticism is that it feels incomplete – obviously, the production values don’t really stand up viewed from 2021 perspective but given this is a 30 years old from the pre-internet era, you wouldn’t expect it to- but a few more specific examples of how certain mechanics work would be nice, a lot of the rules are very open to interpretation and you’re never sure if you’re doing things the way they’re supposed to be done.. that said, it was fun and that’s the end of it, really. However – we’re going to try refighting this using our own ruleset which we’re developing for large scale battles in the Apocalypse: Earth, Future Force Warrior and Hyperian Wars universes, and Hellfire has definitely given us some ideas to try there. So if you find a copy of this floating around Ebay, or just a car boot sale. it’s definitely worth picking up.

Respect to the author Jim Webster, in the unlikely event of him reading this, and we’ll be trying out his other set “Hell By Starlight” in a future post.
As always, stay safe and thrifty out there… the Omicron Variant is waiting like a microscopic Grinch to steal Christmas….

EDIT – thanks to Pete S/P for pointing me towards Jim’s own site here: https://jimssfnovelsandwargamerules.wordpress.com/

And that’s me off for some wine & cheese at a business meeting….