Too much terrain

Friday, 30 May 2025

Indiana Jones and the lost Aquila: Part one

I came up with a new Indiana Jones Fistful of Lead campaign to play with my son.

The story so far:

In 25 BC a Roman legion of 10000 legionnairs under the command of Aelius Gallus was defeated in battle against the Kingdom of Sheba. During its retreat the legion's aquila was lost. Local tribesmen hid the aquila in a temple which was covered by sand during a violent sand storm and lost. The tribesmen did however make a map of the temple's location.

Fast forward to 1934: The Italian adventurer and fascist count Don Lardo has picked up the trail of the lost aquila in the no mans land between North Yemen and Saudi Arabia. By order of Mussolini himself he is sent to retrieve the aquila, so it can be used for propaganda purposes in the upcoming Italian invasion of Ethiopia.

However, Indiana Jones has acquired the map, indicating the location of the temple alledgely containing the lost aquila and has been asked to join a British expedition by his old friend Rupert Jenkins (British secret service) to find the aquila before Don Lardo does.

Part one: The Map

Indy, Rupert, Bertie and Sallah are staying at the house of one of Sallah's friends. While they are away to buy supplies for the trip to the deep desert, Don Lardo's men create a diversion to lure everybody away from the house so he and his men can search the house for the map.

My son chose to play the villains and positioned the marines and local henchmen around the house while Don Lardo and signore Cattiva went inside the house to search for the map.

I covered in on the enclosure openings with Indy, Rupert and Sallah while Bertie took up a sniper position on top of the rocks.

While Rupert and Marino Punto exchanged fire, signore Cattiva snuck out the back door and aimed his revolver at Sallah who was only armed with a shovel.

Fortunately Sallah's turn came first and he rushed Cattiva, whacking him with the shovel.

Meanwhile Bertie tried to keep to local henchmen off Sallah's back with supressive fire.

Alas! The henchmen attacked Sallah from behind and although Sallah managed to inflict some shock and a wound he was overwhelmed and put out of action.

During this fight, Don Lardo has found the map and runs from the house towards safety (leaving the table with the map wins the game).

To prevent Don Lardo's escape, Indy shoots him in the leg.

Rupert tries to take out marino Punto, but not only runs out of ammo, he also takes a wound from Punto's rifle fire.

Punto runs to Don Lardo and grabs the map.

Signore Cattiva has snuck around the building and is about to shoot Indy in the back when he is put out of action by accurate fire from Bertie.

Unable to hit or reach the running Punto, Indy uses his action to incapacitate marino Corsa with his whip.

Still out of ammo and hampered by his wound, Rupert tries to intercept Punto.

But Punto wins the round of close combat.

Both Indy and Don Lardo are now going after Punto.

Rupert makes his recovery roll and gets up once more. Unfortunately his revolver is still out of ammo...

Marino Punto is on the edge of the table and...

He gets the first turn, leaving the table with the map and securing a victory for the villains!

All is not lost yet. The villains still need to find the aquila. So stay tuned for Part 2!

Sunday, 18 May 2025

The Bordurian Incursion Part 3

The battle at the pass.

The Syldavians beat the Bordurians at Tor Volodokar and have driven them back to the border. Bolstered by reinforcements, the Bordurians turn and face the pursuing Syldavians at the pass between Syldavia and Borduria. But the Syldavians have also been reinforced.

The Syldavians enter from the right and received a group of skirmishers and 2 groups of line infantry as reinforcements. The Bordurians enter from the flanks and received also a group of skirmishers as reinforcements plus 2 groups of conscripts.

Light infantry of both parties has suffered losses in the previous games of this campaign.

The Syldavian wounded from previous games are guarding the deployment point.

Both parts of the Bordurian pincer are firing at the Syldavians.

While their conscripts are brought forward to form a line.

Syldavian line troops fire uncontrolled while their light infantry is taking casualties.

A Syldavian priest is brought forward to boost morale and remove shock, but with a 1 rolled for the number of shock tokens he removes, the effect is rather disappointing.

First one Syldavian light infantry group breaks.

Then another one breaks.

And while the Bordurian conscripts decimate the Syldavian skirmishers...

The Bordurian light infantry and Syldavian line infantry blast away at each other.

When the Syldavian line breaks it is all but over and the Syldavians have to withdraw.

The Brodurians have turned the tables on the Syldavians and even have a chance to win the campaign, if they can beat the Syldavians in the next 3 games.

Sunday, 2 March 2025

Post WW2 vehicles

In addition to the blogpage containing WW2 vehicles, I've decided to do the same for my collection of post WW2 (military vehicles). Starting with the ones I can easily retrieve from storage the list will expand over time.

I'll look and see if I have a suitably iconic post WW2 figure in my collection to include in the pictures for scale comparison, but for the first ones I'll stick with the Artizan WW2 British commando miniature based on a 25mm GW type (slotta)base.

Maybe the pictures are helpful when you can't take your own minature and hold it next to a vehicle you are considering to buy. All mentioned scales are claims by the manufacturer.

For more (civilian) vehicles and scale talk have a look at this blog