Pilot's Log

Planning out a wargame army can be a lot of fun AND a lot of work. A while ago, I was inspired to create a non-historic force for Flames of War and other 15mm-scale wargames based on the amateur militia Billy Joe's Boys, from the spoof movie Suppose They Gave A War And Nobody Came?. It's a parody of a modern cavalry troop, yahoos riding in old jalopies with Army Surplus armaments.

Thanks to Gear Krieg, statting out the vehicles wasn't tough. Plus I'll use a few off-the-shelf pieces to keep my force "sanitary" for tournament play. But I was getting antsy about paint schemes, numbers of miniatures needed, and other details.

Then I decided to do a rethink from a graphical perspective. An old wargaming magazine called S&T ("Strategy & Tactics") bundled games into their issues by reducing the pieces to a map, a rules booklet and a sheet of punch-out cardboard counters called "chits". They're a simple design and would do double duty, as both labels for miniatures and a "cheat sheet".

So I came up with a blank:


Which I could color and overlay with numbers or military symbols. From there, I filled out one for my Billy Joe's Boys troop:


This set uses military symbols from the current NATO symbology system to describe 104 miniature pieces in the still-hypothetical troop. As my force is nearly all mounted in vehicles, I use the triple-circle icon on the lower center of the inner box to mean "mounted" in the majority of my chits.

Explained, one by one:
* Two command vehicles (Billy Joe Davis and his deputy)
* Eight Security teams
* Ten Carbine teams
* Ten Flamethrower teams (tho' these may be replaced by other weapons)
* Ten Heavy Machine Gun teams
* Ten Light Antitank Weapon teams
* Ten Medium Antitank Weapon teams
* Ten Heavy Antitank Weapon teams
* Three additional Carbine teams
* Four Mobile Observation Post teams
* Four Tank Destroyer vehicles
* Five Antiaircraft Gun vehicles
* Three Heavy Mortar teams
* Twelve Motorcycle Recon teams
* Three Ground Attack Airplanes

This total force is bigger and far more powerful than the troop in the old movie, but perfectly legal for Flames of War once it is arranged into platoons. That's why I call it a "Doomsday Roster"--it is the unit at its maximum level of organization and equipment.

An update to This Post, I found one of the vending machines in question. The toys are called Robotakons and they're under the "Amusement Factory" brand, which is one of the many holdings of CoinStar. There are eight pieces in the set, in assorted colors. I got myself one...a pod type walker with no weapons and a pair of jump jets on the backside. One of the legs is warped, so I'll have to glue it to a terrain base if I want to use it as a game piece. I think it would scale pretty well with Mechwarrior Dark Age, CAV, or Heavy Gear.

1) A conversion of the Gear Krieg mecha stats so the pieces can be played in Flames of War. I may post my findings here.

2) I've figured out how to create and print out DVD jacket inserts! Just did a set of four for a RL friend. He had transfered some anime he had from VHS to DVD. I may make some generic ones for my own uses. I found a company over the past week that has 5-in-1 packs, and I'll want a bunch of those.