Falklands, IABSM3, Litko, and Art Cow

I have been a busy guy this last two weekends and during the week on working on a side project that started 9 months ago.  I finally got it done today…YEA! 

As you know, I am really pushing to get into gaming the land combat of the Falklands conflict this year.  Part of this includes choosing a rules set and getting what is needed to run a game.  My 20mm figures are mostly done that must have, but I am still missing a few figures mainly more Milan ATGM teams and Argentine .50cal HMG teams and got them on order from Liberation (Link).  I still have other odds and ends that I need to pick up like an Argentine shoulder launcher SAM, a Panhard 90mm Armored car, penguins, buildings, and terrain.  Luckily, the Panhard is available from S&S Models (Link), the penguins are back again from MJ Figures (Link), some buildings are available from Card Models by Tony (Link), so I need to do is convert a UK Blowpipe figure to look like an Argentine commando from Liberation (plan to use the figure with the beret so I should only have to modify the webbing) and get terrain done.

So, now for the rules, I plan to use Too Fat Lardies’ “I Ain’t Been Shot, Mum!” 3^rd edition for the company size battles.  In the 2004 Xmas Special from TFL is a supplement for IABSM2, but I also have the information on how to convert the IABSM2 to IASBM3 for Big Men, so no problem there.  

Since I will only have about a platoon “+” size force for both sides on a 1:1 scale, I will use 4-5 figures on a base to represent a section for the games.  I plan to leave my figures mounted on individual stands for skirmish games, so I am going to pick up some bases that have the round holes in them that I can place my figures in, like these from Litko (Link) or these (Link).

Also, I am picking up some more different type of tokens from Litko for the IABSM3 system.  I already have the following Litko's IABSM set (Link) so I am going to keep the tokens along those lines in design.  But for keeping track of “Kills” and “Shock” on individual sections and teams, I will be using a device from S&S that hold three 7mm six-sided dice and looks like a trench.  I plan to paint and flock it up so they will blend in on the board.  I will be using red dice to keep track of “Kills” and white dice for “Shock.”

Now, this is where Art Cow comes into play.  Too Fat Lardies games are a card driven game for sequence of play during a turn.  While I got my IABSM3 card deck with the IABSM3 bundle, I wanted a special Falklands card deck with pictures from the conflict.  Art Cow allows people to create various art projects with photographs and one of those projects is a 54 card playing deck.  So using that program, I designed two playing decks, one for the Argentine forces and the other for the British.  Both decks combined will have everything I need to play the Falklands scenarios from the TFL’s Seasonal Specials, 2004 Xmas and 2008 Xmas issues.  Since there were too many cards for one deck, but not enough to complete two decks, I added some extra cards.  Some of these cards, ‘Critical Wound’, ‘Medic’, and ‘Medical Evacuation’ are from the “Charlie Don’t Surf” Vietnam rules, but I think plays into the Falklands as well from what I have read.  I also added some sections and team cards which could be used for independent patrols.   

http://www.artscow.com/gallery/playing-cards/tfl-iabsm-falklands-cards-argentine-o46iru6o0378

http://www.artscow.com/gallery/playing-cards/tfl-iabsm-falklands-uk-cards-xwursu7uzvee

I can’t wait to get everything together and start gaming the Falklands soon, hopefully.

Cheers,

Joe