Gorram's Side Quests

In issue 448 of Wargames Illustrated, Lisa Smedman wrote an article in praise of a Canadian indie game called Close Quarters Battle. Cinematic rather than simulation, modern combat with a solo mode, a couple of campaigns in the core rulebook and a small line of miniatures to go with it. Though it could easily be reskinned to any modern era conflict, the theme is the War on Drugs. I immediately placed an order and during the wait I consumed all the greatest cartel based media I could:

• Sicario and Sicario 2
• Scarface
• Three seasons of Narcos
• Power of the Dog trilogy by Don Winslow
• Season five of Archer (Vice)
• License to Kill
• Crocodile Dundee 2
• https://youtu.be/UdzxHnzgbOI?si=mgS3QzTBofWbLmRS

Five weeks later, a box landed in Scotland with goodies in it. The rulebook is a good girth and the majority of it is campaigns and scenarios. I got the mixed token bundle which are lovely acrylic things. There are coloured base mounts so you can see at a glance which level of operative each is but as I’ll be playing solo I didn’t bother buying them.

The models themselves are nice sculpts, not too much detail so they are quick to paint but characterful enough that they look great. They are Siocast which is unfortunate because there was pretty pronounced mould slippage on most of them and the clean up stage on 17 models took a long time. Once they were primed though, they were a delight to paint. I was originally going to base them to match the jungle terrain but decided that the mix was a bit over the top for the scale. Instead I went with Geek Gaming Scenics Scrublands base ready mix.

It was around this point that I went back on the website and ordered more models, I’m in. Next up will be the operatives.