Such a Beautiful Child

Torin Prime is a planet in the Outer Rim, colonized early in the 22nd century and location of the Torin Prime Civil War from 2106 to 2108.

History

In 2106, a group of terrorist rebels, called the J'har, openly opposed the United Americas' local government placed over the colonies on the planet. That same year the J'har attacked the capital, taking the planet and killing all governmental functionaries of the United Americas or otherwise incarcerating them in concentration camps. The United Americas Allied Command feared such actions would encourage rebellions in other colonies, and launched an invasion on Torin Prime to liberate the planet. The UAAC had the advantage as some UA loyalist remained on the planet and started rebelling against the J'har.

Both Dennis Parker and Arthur Dallas fought for the United Americas. Dallas served in United Americas Outer Rim Defense Fleet as a pilot on the UAS Leviathan (out of Liberty Echo) and received the Sunburst Medal of Honor. Parker was captured by J'har rebels during the conflict and imprisoned at Concentration Camp GR-161 on August 1, 2107. He escaped on February 21, 2108 during the liberation of Torin Prime by constructing an EEV out of scrap. Following the liberation, Dallas was promoted to Captain, and Parker received an honorable discharge and returned to Earth.

The United Americas Allied Command (UAAC) was the union of all the military organizations of the nations that were part of the United Americas, which included the United States Army and the United States Colonial Marine Corps. The UAAC led the United Americas Outer Rim Defense Fleet forces during the Torin Prime Civil War and maintained a close watch on the Three World Empire's political, economical and military movements.

Structure

Within the UAAC, the USCM was tasked with maintaining the collective security of all UA signatories and their recognized interstellar colonies within the frontiers of the Network. Operating in tandem with local forces, the USCM was often the first line of defense and the vanguard of any counterattack.

United Americas

The United Americas was a country formed by the merging of North, Central and South America into one socioeconomic block. Created in 2104, the United Americas largely emerged as a response to the formation and growth of the Three World Empire, which was at the time pioneering space exploration and extra-planetary colonization. Aside from its terrestrial presence, the UA also oversaw several extra-planetary colonies, including that of Olympia on Luna.

The United States of America position as a starfaring, colonizing power has ensured it a leading role in the structure of the United Americas, as evidence from the name of the United States Colonial Marine Corps. The USCM is fully integrated into the joint command structure of the United Americas Allied Command and forms the major striking element of the UA forces.

http://avp.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page

All background text is credited to the above website.  A long time ago I researched the background material in the world of the Alien, Aliens, movie franchise and came up with a notion of what a battle in that universe would look like and what the captain of the Nostromo would have done in his previous military career.  I don't remember the websites I used and I am pretty sure this isn't the one I used but a google search for some of the common mythos vocabulary produced much of the same material I do recall.

Seeing this game again after 12 years was delightful.  What I was presenting when I designed and built the collection of ships for this game, was a combination of a sky full of space ships, and the ability to build your own fleet that had a choice of weaponry.  I used to play a Steve Jackson game called WARPWAR and that had a lot to do with the design aspect of this game.  I kind of remember the Honor Harrington series also and the fact that there were a lot of ships in the big battles.   I also didn't want to get down to marking hull damage and individual turret shooting it was supposed to be on a much grander scale.  Each of the bases in the above photos is a fleet of starship cruisers, battleships, tugs, transports etc.  A set of three of these bases is coalesced into a command structure and is given a capital ship or "flag" ship for a player to control.

A unique aspect of this game was a technology tree or matrix of weaponry that you could build into your fleet to personalize the force and also for a fun event against an opponent as you were not supposed to know what the other player had decided to build onto their ships. (The black 1" chits are the weapon arrays.)

It was a resource acquisition game in one scenario but that was not all it could do.  This game's format had a lot of "legs" in that you could replay planetary bombardment games.  You could deep space deploy mechs.  You could have orbital mines defending the approach vectors to your planet.  I used the old push-pull campaign map for the Torin Prime War scenarios but there was a lot that this beautifully written game was capable of.

So I got to play it again after a long absence of  years of it just sitting on my shelf gathering dust.  My friend Ted hosted a game night in which  this game was tabled for our entertainment.  I had given the entire game to Ted.  All the ships, control sheets, background fluff, design notebook the whole shebang.  Ted had always commented that he liked the game and always mentioned that we should play it again as it was good.  Well like many things in this hobby there are too many games and not enough time so now this game will live on in Ted's collection.  Regrets? No.  It served it's purpose for me and I could make another copy in an afternoon.

Thanks for looking in.

Alien Day LV-426

Begin transmission:

The planet LV-426 Atmospheric processor was infested by xenomorphs.  United Americas Colonial Marine Taskforce Sulaco was detailed for a dcut cleaning excercise on planet.

The insertion team would be 1st platoon sqauds 1, 2, 3 (heavy weapons detail with two sentry guns.)

The xeno spawn sites were identified through scanner processing and the place was thick with bugs.  Each spawn site would have to be neutralized to keep the aliens back enough to reach the central control computer.

It was a slog fest of G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T.-ESQUE marine firepower and alien insurgence.

First contact with the xenos was aggressive and 1st squad began to take casualties.

The marine in contact would not survive the encounter from the flaming alien that burst through the wall of fire.

Wave attacks of aliens just keep pouring into the facility.

The atmospheric control center computer needed to be restarted and was in the thickest part of the hive nest.

The Secondhand Lion's wargame club had three members present this year for Alien day.

A massive playset collection was used for the event.

Proving terrain is wysiwyg!

Closing in on the objective.

The queens chamber guard bugs were a little more deliberate in their approach and attack.  But they showed their hand too soon and the final wave attack was shot down with withering fire from the marines.

Last wave attack.

Marines punch through for a win.

"Windows cannot shut down because you have open files.  Would you like to save this data before you restart?"

Thanks for looking in on the blog and Happy Alien Day April 26, 2018.

Dwarves in the Attic

The second Secondhand Lions Halloween game occurred this last Thursday.  Terry, an LDO (Lion's Den Original) has adopted the game Heroquest as an annual event for our gaming group.  Like all of us wargamers, Terry felt the desire and lure of building a 3D immersive environment for a dungeon crawl and so he tried his hand.

With a great sense of humor and no small respect for the task  Terry learned of all the variables a modeler will encounter in this  endeavor.

Secondhand Lions Present:

The Dungeon tied in to the last undead skeleton game where the leader of the Empire went impetuous and got himself killed.  And there is this book that if you can get it you will shore up the Empire's fight against the spawning undead - thingy.

Enter at your peril.

What we are looking at is foam core artfully covered in laser printed stone pattern paper.  

Truly a monumental building environment to explore and navigate and kill things.

Working doors that plug in to the door frame of the wall.  

 Top down 3D environment with accouterments from the original Heroquest board-game.  

 And odd bits of rpg gaming ephemera.

And then maths happened.

That's me.  The little dwarf thief exploring parts of the cavern where only I could fit.  The hallway dimensions were pretty cramped.

When we could no longer fit we went over the top.

And so we all had a good laugh about dwarves in the attic.

Using the plug doors we surfed over the map and carried on in stout gamer fashion.

We had a great laugh over the skeletons acting as the crew and soldiers from the movie Aliens.  "We've got life forms! 8 meters, 7 meters,6, 5, 4 - That can't be right that's inside the room..." You know the rest of the shtick.

And so we killed stuff.  Some of which was already dead.

And we explored rooms and got treasure.

I got a 300gp monkey statue.

We found the book described as our "target" treasure item.  There was some movie reference that I didn't get that was the clue to the ability to lift this off the table unharmed.  The elf ran off with the book leaving me puzzling over two of the three clues needed to solve this puzzle.

There was a keen-o hidden door behind the fireplace that we all did a fighting retreat through. 

The book of the dead Necromicon cliff note version - thingy.

Sweet surprise of the night was a splendid java stout as pictured above.  Wonderful beer that I will look for in my grown up candy store.

What was no surprise was the evening of camaraderie with the very best sort of friends.