Business as Usual

Last week I had asked Rory if he fancied a game and if so what he fancied.  He opted for a game of Urban Mammoth' Urban War rules, which we haven't played for a long time.  Sounded like a good idea to me so I dug all the stuff out of the loft and had a quick re-read of the rules.

During the week Dave was also looking for a game so I suggested that he join, for a tasty threesome.

I opted for my hugely unsuccessful Gladiators, Rory brought his Vasa and Dave selected the Viridians from the available troops.

My forces consisted of:

4 Secutor
2 Retiari
1 Decurian
2 Pit Beasts
1 Greater Pit Beast
1 Myrmillo
1 Exo Suit
1 Taurian Howitzer

Dave had:

4 Marines
1 Marine Sgt
2 Special Forces
1 Sniper
2 Shock Marines
1 HMG Team

Rory:

4 Peacekeepers
2 Archangels
2 Oni Battlesuits from the Triad List
1 Peacekeeper Sgt

The table was fairly crowded:

At the start of the game I split my force into two.  One consisting of the close combat specialists, who all headed towards Dave's forces, and the other with all my ranged firepower, which would try and hold Rory's VASA at arms length. My opening gambit was fairly successful with the Howitzer inflicting some early casualties on the VASA, and my close combat troops closing with Dave's Viridians.  Dave spent the first few turns trying to extricate his troops from his slightly awkward deployment, while Rory advanced towards my ranged contingent.

Mid game and things started to hot up.  The VASA troops moved up into firefight range of my Gladiators, while one of Rory's Archangels managed to take out Dave's sniper, just as he managed to get himself into a commanding firing position. I survived a round of firing from the Viridian Vanguard before my close combat troops got stuck in, but my close combat specialists did not manage to make much of an impact and casualties started to rise rapidly.  The VASA were quickly coming into range and I was started to get the worse end of the firefight with them as well.  

My casualties mounted quickly, especially when Dave managed to bring the rest of his troops to bear on my Gladiators, and my missile troops were quickly out shot by the VASA.  I reached my break point fairly quickly. I managed one parting shot though.  On my left flank I only had my greater Pit Beast remaining, and he was surrounded by 5 Viridian troops, all trying to finish it off in close combat. Unable to resist the temptation I landed a Howitzer shot on top of the Pit beast, inflicting a would on him and killing 4 out of the 5 Viridians fighting him.  As my force was broken I had to make a command check and with my leader dead I promptly failed, leaving Dave and Rory to fight it out, with both of them only one casualty away from breaking.  In the end Dave managed to get that crucial kill first, forcing Rory to make a command check, which he failed, leaving Dave the victor!

Pretty good going as it was only Dave's second game.

 An enjoyable game and a nice change from our usual. My Gladiators  performed much better than usual, which means to say that I actually inflicted some losses on my opponents.  An example of how bad they usually perform is shown by the fact that Rory was shocked that I brought a Howitzer to the game, especially after I pointed out that it had been present at our last few games, but had never actually managed to do anything. It excelled itself this time, inflicting the majority of the casualties caused by the Gladiators.   In the end though it was the usual with Urban war, and firepower won out above all else.  

I really enjoy Urban War, and like the setting that has developed since the days of Void 1.1, but find the game a little frustrating.  I don't think that the points values are quite right, especially for the close combat specialists. The close combat troops don't seem to hit that much harder than a lot of the basic troops, but are quite vulnerable to enemy fire. I can see why people bring things like Pit Beast hordes, as that is a much more accurate cost for a close combat specialist to me, and better reflects the difficulties faced by them.  My Gladiators have still not managed to win a game of Urban War, and to be honest I don't think they have ever even come close.  That could just be me of course but I feel that certain forces are not costed very well when put against each other, mainly the balance between the firepower forces (VASA, Viridian and Syntha) and the assault based forces (Gladiators, Junkers, Triads). Koralon I am still undecided about as they have some special rules to help them out.

Next week I am playing SAGA against Dave, but on Saturday I am off to Claymore in Edinburgh, no doubt to make some more pointless impulse purchases that I am never going to paint!

Mordheim Season 2, The Finale!

Gaming has been a bit thin on the ground lately. Summer Holidays and a couple of last minute cancellations put paid to most of my games for the last month or so, but game 10 of our Mordheim campaign finally came around.

This time we were underground, in the lair of the evil necromancer himself!  This game was a dungeon crawl, with each of us having to fight our way through the various minions in the dungeon, before confronting the final villain.

We were down to three players, as Dave could not make it.  I had my Beastmen, Andy his Sisters of Sigmar and Ian with his Reiklanders.  My warband was virtually unchanged, apart from a very late addition of a Minotaur.  Andy's Sisters were looking a bit thin on the ground, while Ian had taken light casualties in his last few games.

Deployment saw me in the far corner, with Andy in front of me, and Ian on the opposite corner of the board.

Early game saw Andy make a rush towards the necromancer, leaving a few Sisters to guard his rear, while Ian made a steady advance up the other side of the table.  I split of some of my warband to the centre of the board, as the corridors were proving to be a hindrance to my large warband, especially as the Minotaur kept blocking the passageways.  

I managed to make short work of the Andy's rearguard with a few lucky spells, and my Minotaur made short work of some of the evil denizens of the dungeon.  

Andy continued his advance towards the prize, while leaving his Elven mercenary as a rearguard. I mobbed the unfortunate elf and made short work of him. Meanwhile Andy had burst into the necromancers inner sanctum and given battle. Ian continued his rather sneaky advance up the other flank, polishing of a few evil denizens on the way. Caught between the Evil Lord and my Beastmen Andy gave a good account of himself but in typical fashion soon reached break point (set at 50% for the last game of the campaign). He promptly failed his break test and we were down to two.  

I made a crucial mistake here and split my force into three. I had my chief and shaman fighting the minions on the left flank, my Centigor and a warhound fighting the Necromancer while the rest of my warband turned to face Ian's Reiklanders.

In the ensuing fight casualties started to mount quickly, with my Centigor and the Shaman falling to the evil necromancer and his minions.  Ian and I traded blows, with Ian managing to pass a staggering amount of Step Aside tests.  Eventually Ian reached his break point but passed his first few break tests, which gave him enough time to push my casualties high enough to force me to start making break tests.  I had an unholy relic so automatically passed my first break test, hoping that Ian would finally fail his test. Alas he passed and it passed on to me.  I needed to roll 7 or under on two dice with a re-roll, and failed the first test. There was tension in the air as I took the re-roll, but it came up a nine!

My warband decided enough was enough and fled the field, leaving Ian to finish of the necromancer. Unfortunately he finally failed his break test and also fled the field!  At teh end of the campaign the victor turned out to be the evil Necromancer, Alex whose minions had defeated us (along with a healthy dose of infighting!) and escaped to fight another day.

A great end to a great campaign. No one person emerged the clear winner and in true B movie fashion the evil villain escaped to fight another day.  A them for another campaign perhaps?

Many thanks to Rory for running an excellent campaign. I had a great time.  

After some discussion we decided for a slight change of scenery for the next campaign and are heading of to Necromunda Hive for some Sci-fi action.

An Epic Encounter

This Monday I managed to get in a game of my favourite rules, Epic Armageddon.  I am a big fan of the 40k setting, but am not  a very big fan of the 40k game itself. I feel that Epic scale is a much better scale to reflect the bonkers way that people make war on each other in this setting.

Games of Epic have been a bit of a struggle lately. When it was originally republished I gave my Space Marines and my eldar away to other club members, as I was trying to stimulate some interest.  Both of the people I gave my toys to are very regular at the club these days, so I was two armies down for very little bonus.  

An old Uni pal Ric has been coming to the club occasionally and he asked if I fancied a game of Epic, which I immediately agreed to.

We agreed to play 2800points, with Ric using his Eldar and me using my Imperial Guard. Having not played for a couple of years (!) I opted for a fairly balanced force:

Supreme Commander leading a Mechanised Platoon

Infantry Company

Tank Company

Storm Troopers in Valkyries

Artillery Battery

Lightning Fighters

Shadowsword

Rough Riders Platoon

2 Sentinel Detachments

Ric force turned out to be very tank heavy (from memory):

Scout Detachment with attached War Walkers

Scout Detachment with attached Falcons

Engines of Vaul (2 Scorpion and a Storm Serpent)

Detachment of Night Spinners

5 Falcons carrying a detachment of Howling Banshees

Detachment of Guardians including some Wraithlords and an Avatar

Large Detachment of Fire Prisms

Detachment of Warp Spider Aspect Warriors.

The amount of Eldar tanks made me a bit worried, especially for the safety of my Tank Company.

Ric managed to get the first go and dropped a web spinner barrage on my garrisoning Infantry Company, killing a third of them with the first shot of the game.  In the first turn I managed to break a few of Ric's formations, but did not really inflict much permanent damage, while Ric gave my Tank Company a mauling, wiped out my Infantry Company by using the Storm Serpents webway portal as a mobile jump off point.  At the end of turn 1 Ric had managed to penetrate my right flank, while I had done something similar on my left. 

Turn two was more of the same, with me breaking a number of Eldar formation, while the Eldar gave my forces a mauling. The engines of Vaul managed to get almost to my baseline, reducing the tank company to a few remaining tanks in no time at all.  I managed to see of all the enemy units on my left flank and captured two objectives on Ric's side of the table with my Mechanised company, but alas Ric used his mobile webway portal again and assaulted my Shadowsword with his Warp Spiders, destroying my Super Heavy Tank and capturing my baseline objective.

There are a number of victory objectives in Epic, and at the end of turn three each side counts them up to see who is victorious. At the end of turn three we each had succeeded in 2 objectives which meant that we would have to play a fourth turn to decide who would be the winner.  After some consideration we decided to call it there as I was running out of troops and at best might hold on for a turn while Ric's remaining troops would probably wipe out my Tank Company, gaining him another victory objective so we decided that it was a clear victory for the Eldar.

A great game a very different from my usual games of Epic, which are usually against Marines or Orks.  I was totally thrown by the amount of tanks that Ric brought to the table, and that was ultimately my undoing.  Eldar are certainly a slippery opponent as well, with the ability to move large distances and still fire with great accuracy.  Still good fun and cause for some thinking about my approach to the game. Here's hoping to a lot more Epic in the near future.

June Gallery

So here are some photos of the latest models completed for Chain of Command.  In no particular order we have a set of combat engineers including a metal detector, flame thrower and some other troops doing stuff that I don't recognise. I have also put together and painted a Hanomag and a 221(?) from Warlord games.  Both were quite nice to put together, especially the Hanomag as it reminded me of the early Rhino from Games Workshop. 

All the infantry were from Crusader and are lovely miniatures, let down by some bloomin' awful casting. There were some terrible mould lines on these, some of which I have elected to just leave, rather than try and remove with a craft knife.

That pretty much concludes my Germans for the foreseeable future. There are still a few things that I would like to add, mainly a PAK40, PAK36 and and lelg38(?), and perhaps one of the lighter tanks.  

The only other thing that I really need is a Panzerschrek team, but I cannot find one that I like. Warlord do one but I really don't like the poses and Artizan do one but they are in camouflage so would not fit in with existing models. I am also after some of the other support choices that are available, including mine fields, barbed wire, tanks traps and emplacements. I will keep my eye out at Claymore as these are the kinds of things that could be added without too much effort.

Next up I am going back to the Dark Ages.  I have got a pile of livestock from Warbases to paint and base, some wattle fences from Renedra and I took advantage of the Grand Manner summer sale (25% off, great stuff) and bought another three small buildings, so plenty to keep me busy.

Looking for Loot

So this Monday Ian and I opted to have a game of Dux Britaniarum.  I have not played Dux B for a good while, and this would be Ian's first game. 

Ian opted to use his painted Celts as Scotti Raiders, and I took on the role of the stout British defenders.  This was going to be an interesting game as I did not know Ian had intended to use his Celts and so had done some revision of the main rulebook, but not of the Raiders supplement.

The table was set up as shown in the photo below, with the village that Ian was raiding set up in the top right of the table.

In the village raid scenario the raiders get a random number of turns of movement before the game starts proper. Ian was very unlucky and only managed 1 turn.  The British enter the table from a random position and my British defenders were to enter the table from behind the village buildings.

The Scotti force is slightly different from the Saxons, as they contain two units of cavalry, lots of skirmishers and a new troop type called raiders, who are quite hard to kill but very susceptible to shock

Early game saw Ian advancing as quickly as possible, while I tried to get my force moving through the village buildings.

I deployed my elites to the front, followed by a large group of Levies.  My Shock Cavalry went wide and occupied a hill on my right.   My missile troops snuck out to the left and took up a reasonably safe firing position standing on the far side of a pond.

I managed to get a few pot shots on Ian skirmish cavalry reducing their effectiveness.  In the centre I found myself boxed in slightly, as Ian's force and rather than get caught on the hop while trying to deploy my forces out of the village I opted to make a line across the entrance to the village with my better troops, with the Levy standing nervously at the back hoping that they don't actually have to fight anyone.  

This proved to be a mistake as when the Raiders attacked in the next turn when Ian attacked my front line of troops were thrown back due to shock, straight through the Levy behind them, inflicting a large amount of shock as well.  Ian's losses were minimal, with a small amount of shock and a few losses.  

The next few turns did not go very well for the British. My shock cavalry were caught napping and destroyed be the Noble Raider cavalry, and my line of Levy got a severe once over by a couple of units of Raiders, getting pushed back through the elites behind subjecting them to yet more shock.

At least this put my elites to the front again!

There were a few turns of consolidation, where Ian reorganised his troops and I frantically removed shock.  The second time the raiders had a go was not quite so successful as i played a number of Fate Cards, increasing the number of dice I rolled by quite a lot.  He got a bloody nose on his second attempt, with one unit routing from the table, and another taking a severe beating. Unfortunately fro me while I was fighting to the front a unit of skirmishers had sneaked round the side, entered the first building ans found the loot. They quickly moved on to the second building and started searching.  IN addition to this Ian's remaining two Nobel cavalry had got into the back of my terrified Levy and basically seen of the lot of them!

We ran out of time at this point, but basically Ian was well on the way to winning, with my force down to a couple of units and in no position to give pursuit when he eventually found the second batch of loot.

A great game and good fun. Just as well it wasn't a campaign game though as our casualties were high on both sides.

We went away and had a look through the rules and found a few things that were done wrong, especially around the cavalry and shock. Plus a few issues with command and control in the game itself.  

Anotherthing that we decided was that we prefer drawing chits at random than mucking about with a shuffled deck of cards.  I have some chits made up but could not use them as did not have the right ones for the new forces and extended troop types. I will need to get some new sets made up for future games.

I'm sure we will get it right next time!