Godlike: TOG302 – After Action Report – Pic Heavy!

 

Right, this is going to be one long, epic post, with pictures and everything.

Here’s the set-up:

“With the formation of the Talent Operation Groups, Section 2 also formed a handful of TOGs specifically made up of flying Talents, hyperskilled pilots and aircrew, and certain specialized Talents whose abilities could support air operations. Given the numerical signifier “3″, two experimental “TOG Squadrons” were formed in late-1942; TOG301, to be deployed to the ETO under the command of the U.S. Army Air Corps, and TOG302, to be deployed to the PTO with the U.S. Navy. Potential candidates were held to the highest standards of both Talent and natural ability. Their aircraft were the latest models available, and included experimental designs created by Talent engineers.

“After 6 months of intense training, TOGs 301 and 302 were sent to their respective theaters. TOG301 participated in the 8th Air Force’s daylight bombing campaign over occupied France and Germany. TOG302 took part in Operation Cartwheel, the combined air and naval offensive against the Japanese stronghold at Rabaul.

“Their contribution to the war effort was significant with a combined total of over 150 enemy aircraft of all types destroyed and 19 enemy Talents killed. Both units suffered over 80% casualties.”

That was the intro to the pitch I sent the Crew last November (yes, it’s been that long). I worked on this game off and on for most of the year. Not all the time, a little here and a little there. Most of the time was probably spent on all the aircraft minis. But I love minis games as much as RPGs so no problem there. Then, as it all came together, I did the cat herding thing and pinned down a game date. The player lineup changed a few times, as it will when trying to wrangle in 6 people with busy schedules. But I managed to fill the seats. Finally, we assembled at EndGame last Saturday to play it out.

If anyone has specific question about the game I’ll be happy to answer them.

A little bit about the minis and some of the stuff in the pics though, before we start. The aircraft minis were 1/300 scale planes from makers like Raiden and Scotia’s Collectair line. You use them for air combat miniatures games like Check Your Six. Chris R. is a huge minis player and he helped me paint and base most of the planes. I did the Japanese planes and the U.S. XP-90 and Chris painted the American planes. The XP-72s are conversions of P-47s of course – Chris modeled the long noses with green stuff. The XP-90 is of course a German horten Ho229 and the J8M is an Me163.

Yes, these planes are out of place historically (this scenario is set at the end of 1943), but my rationale is, Godlike is a setting where Hyperbrain Talents design impossible things, so there you go. The raids on Rabaul were often low level attacks, with the bombers going in right on the deck at full speed – sounds exciting to me!

Some of the PCs in the game weren’t behind the controls of an aircraft, and for these guys, I used a 28mm U.S. Marine made by Reaper Miniatures, and two 1/48 scale pilots by model manufacturer Hasegawa. That big dragon? I got him at the dollar store!

The big map is an old National Geographic map of the Pacific, with very helpful inset maps that zoomed in on the various island chains, including New Britain, New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, where our game was set. For Rabaul and Simpson Harbor itself, I drew a map on a big piece of paper, dividing the area into smaller zones through which the planes could move and fight.

There were many great moments in the game! We led off with about an hour of play where the characters were off duty the night before the raid. Some were whooping it up in the 8-Ball, the Dobodura airbase’s ramshackle bar, drinking “500-pounders” (fermented coconut juice mixed with pineapple juice). After some really great character building scenes that established their relationships with each other, we got to the mission proper.

TOG302 flew as part of a raid on Rabaul, with the mission of intercepting any enemy Talents present. This they did. And there were some very cool (and unexpected!) moments – I truly never know what’s going to happen when the players bring the awesome to the table:

* Braniff teleporting down to blow up the radio tower at Junkyard Point was cool (as was his jumping around between ships in the harbor during the raid) – a real one-man army!

* Washburn’s crazy in-flight “modifications” to the XP-90. Great stuff Jacob!

* The climbing, twisting dogfight between the XP-90 and the J8M rocket plane. This was an incredible battle, with the two best Talent pilots, one American and one Japanese, flying a jet and a rocket plane respectively. They went into a steep climb out of the general furball, engaging in a vertical rolling scissors that took them up to 40, 000 feet. In the back seat, Washburn modified the XP-90 to fire a magnetic pulse with his Goldberg Science, while Wagner in the front seat held the XP-90 on the J8M’s tail. Finally, Wagner put a burst into the enemy Talent’s plane that shattered it into confetti. So awesome! I wish we’d gotten a picture of the two minis together!

* Keenan flying around smashing Zeroes to bits.

* Pozniki’s P-47, having already been hit a few times in the dogfighting, was gutted by flak. Although Chambers beat him to it, Pozniki elected to stay with his ship and tried to dive into Ryu. Unfortunately, Pozniki didn’t make it home.

* Col. Chambers used his Hyperskill (Bombing) to nail Ryu (the Japanese Talent who transformed into a dragon) with a ton of bombs. He got them in the pickle barrel all right! I mean, what is the damage for 2,000 pounds of high explosive bombs! Bye bye dragon! Unfortunately, Chambers was unable to pull out and the massive explosion destroyed Chambers and his B-25.- Way. To. Go!

And I will say, the players all brought their A-game and really made this a fun time! Thanks guys! You can be my wingmen any time!

OK, enough blather! Pics!!

Photos by Jack Y.

001 – The table set up for play. We’re on one of EndGame’s 4×6 minis tables (and we needed the space).

002 – The XP-72s are P-47s converted with some putty to make the big noses

003 – American aircraft! Er, yeah, that’s a German Horten Ho229 in U.S. Navy colors as the XP-90, but, shhhh…

004 – Japanese A6M Zeroes (green), Oscars (silver) and a J8M Shusui

005 – Plenty of meatballs!

006 – U.S. and Japanese forces

007 – Close up of the B-25 and the XP-90

008 – Close up of the J8M Shusui

009 – P-38

010 – J8M

011 – Chambers’ B-25J “Full House”. I leave it to you to imagine the buxom nose art!

013 – Character figures, right to left: Capt. Pozniki, Gunny Braniff, Lt. Yost and special guest (???)

014 – Gunny Braniff astride the Solomon Islands

015 – We are here (Hell)

016 – L to R: Jake (Gunny Braniff), PK (Cpt. Wagner), Chris R.(Col. Chambers)

017 – L to R: Jacob (Lt. Cdr. Washburn), Wayne (Cpt. Pozniki, Lt. Jones), Jack (Lt. Yost, Lt. Keenan)

018 – Mike (me), AKA The Antagonist (at least that’s what the Crew wrote on my little name card)

020 – Chris in the spirit of things with his “Tondelayo” B-25 cap. He did a great job as Col. Chambers.

021 – Character sheet, dice and aircraft record sheet

022 – Nat Geo map of the Pacific with a sheet of plastic over it to protect from yogurt bombs!

023 – Furball over Rabaul! Bandits 12 o’clock!

024 – How the hell do we get out of this mess alive?

025 – The Antagonist at work

026 – General MacArthur has returned?

027 – “I don’t know what it is, but it’s going down!” TOG302 engages the Japanese Talent, Ryu.

028 – Col. Chambers follows his bomb load to the target, and a fiery, but heroic end!

029 – XP-90 on the attack!

Airplanes!

I promised to get some pics of the Godlike aircraft minis up, so here they are. These are 1/300 scale white metal minis by a company called Raiden, and another outfit called Scotia.

Here are the ubiquitous Mitsubishi A6M Zeroes. You can see they’re two different sculpts, one by Scotia and the other by Raiden, but I don’t know which is which.

This is a Me163 Komet rocket plane, dressed up like a Japanese J8M Shusui. Yes, the Japanese were working on a copy based on the design and parts they got from Germany near the end of the war.

And this is a Horten Ho 229 jet powered flying wing, a German design, painted in U.S. Navy colors. Just what the hell am I planning?

Now, you more history minded individuals may have realized these aircraft never flew in the same place all together. But don’t worry about that because these are for a game where dudes can fly without an airplane.

And what in the world is this?

Godlike minis

I like painting minis and miniatures games about as much as I like roleplaying games. Which is to say, a lot! I like using minis in my RPGs too, if for nothing else than showing relative positions, or at the very least providing a visual component to the game.

So, I’ve been working on some miniatures for my upcoming Godlike game. I’ve used minis before for Godlike – several big battles in my D-Day campaign were played out on a full miniatures table with 15mm Flames of War minis. Like this:

So, I’ve painted up some character minis for the next Godlike game. The Marine on the left is by Reaper Miniatures. The pilots are 1/48 scale plastic models by Hasegawa.

Sarge front and back:

And the pilots, one Japanese, two American (actually, the pilot figure on the left is British – the set didn’t come with more than one American pilot – but we’ll pretend he’s a Yank for this one – apologies to my horrified British friends out there):

I painted a bunch of 1/300 scale planes too. I’ll get pics of those up later.