“The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.”
– Leo Tolstoy
Today, Duncan and the rest of the Shoot & Scoot guys go through their latest brain child and 3 months of intensive hobby magic!
Preamble
Having finished the latest podcast looking at the new Fate of a Nation book covering the 6 Day and Yom Kippur Wars in the Middle East it’s fair to say that the Shoot & Scoot messaging group blew up. Day after day there were ideas pinging around – Fez and his 93 T34s, Lee and his ultra-elite Magrach 6s, Ben pinging around AMX-13 hordes and me… well I couldn’t shake the notion of IS3 in actual combat rather than parade duty. This went on for days until we finally decided we were going to do something about it… we were going to go retro!
Fate for Four Gamers
Growing up as we did in the 90s the iconic “grow a list” series was A Tale of Four Gamers in White Dwarf. For those who are new to this term (i.e. too young!), a Tale of Gamers is organised between a group of friends and the aim is to finish a project over an agreed amount of time. This meant there had to be rules… and consequences. A Fate of Four Gamers was born.
From this kernel of an idea, we’ve come up with the following rules – for those at home who would like to play along we’ll be doing regular progress reports on the blog and on the podcast so join in and let us know how you are progressing.
- The FoFG will run for 3 months
- Each month each participant MUST assemble and paint 33pts of their list. They may not paint more than this unless their units are unable to fit in the threshold.
- At the end of the 3 months, games will be played with the full 100pts lists (we allow the extra 1 pt in month 3!)– players are encouraged to play games with their painted 33pts and 66pts games but any penalties for not completing the painting assignments will only affect the larger games.
- Completed for the purposes of this challenge is fully painted and based ready to be played with on the tabletop.
- Should a player not meet the painting threshold then the number of points missed will be added to the Reserves in any game played with their 100pts. A running total will be kept for each player. For example, the standard 40% in reserves would be 40pts should a player have 14pts of missed painting objectives that would mean that they have to place 54 pts of their force in reserve. Late to be painted, late to arrive!
- The side (Egyptian or Israeli) with the lowest penalty points will pick the scenario for the first 90pts game. There will be 3 games – two 1-on-1 games and a Team 2-on-2 game the winner being the player who wins the most games (Draws to be decided on points killed. Everyone loves keeping track of kills right?)
So the forces drawn up are:
- Ben – Israeli (more ’67 than ’73)
- Fez – Egyptian (more ’67 than ’73)
- Lee – Israeli (more ’73 than ’67)
- Duncan – Egyptian (more ’73 than ’67)
Truth and consequences
What is life without a little risk – so what could four gamers put on the line?
Well… firstly all-important bragging rights! But that can only last so long so how about the loser (least number of wins and tiebreaker points killed) has there next army decided by the other 3? Well now – that is some serious stakes right there!
The possibilities for awfulness are endless!
So stay tuned to the Shoot & Scoot podcast and make sure to check out the Breakthrough Assault Blog to see some great looking Fate of a Nation armies and some ramblings about what we are taking and why and more importantly who will have the Army of Shame bestowed upon them.
Sounds interesting, look forward to it any AARs.