Friday 26 July 2013

Train Of Thought #1

I've been incredibly slack this week; all my good intentions vis-a-vis rule writing have come to naught. I haven't been completely idle though. I have had an idea for an inter-war, re-armed too early, MB army but more of that later. My one wargames related success was making a loco-loco and some rails to run it on.

The body of the train is balsa and the train itself is off the Junior General site. Printed off the train, cut out and glued onto a block of balsa. The flat-car got the same treatment. The explosives boxes are balsa off-cuts painted red for danger. The wavy flag gives the impression of movement. In my mind at least.

As I said earlier I haven't written any rules for train movement so the orthogonally laid track may revert to right angles. In the photos below Los Federales have yet to spring any mines to derail the onrushing loco. Similarly the train crew's morale hasn't failed yet and even if they did abandon would the loco have enough power to crash home? Or would the loco fail an initiative/activation test? Or are initiative and activation immaterial to a loco at full tilt? So many questions for me to wrestle with over the weekend. While I'm doing that have a look at these staged-for-the press pictures:

Film Set

Don't worry, Pepe, it's only a model

La Maquina Loca

UATH!

2 comments:

  1. I love how you made the train!

    I'm still not sure of the best rules for them in SAEaE. I think some rules for trundling them around from A to B with troops on is OK, and how to shoot at them. But the Loco Loco is more of a one-off, special event kind of thing, and its use maybe best covered by a simple die roll of some kind. So you declare its use, and roll to see what happens. After all, there's not a lot of tactical subtlety to it, or decisions you can make once its set in motion.

    But I will see what you come up with. If it's good I will steal it :)

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    1. Thanks Al! I struggled with images off the web for a while and then, as desperation set in, inspiration hit me like a loco loco.

      Yes, I was coming to the conclusion that having trains trundling about might be useful in a derailment-battle scenario. But, as you say, the loco loco is only going to happen, at most, once in a game. So dice throws versus barriers, track mines and artillery are looking good.

      I've printed off the Sonora Flyer too........

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