Eldar prove to be a Pain

The penultimate game of 2014 saw round three of the clubs Necromunda campaign, with me having choice of scenario due to my victory in round two.

Participants for round three were:

Rory and his Redemptionists
Dave and his Goliaths
Ian and his Eschers
John and his Craftworld Eldar
My Cawdor gang.

The table just before we started.

Stuck in the corner. I never managed to advance much further than this!

As the club forum is currently down we did not have access to the campaign ladder that Rory had put up, and a lot of the scenarios were unsuitable for a 5 way game so we opted to play a gang fight.

We rolled randomly for deployment and I ended up sandwiched in a corner with John Eldar to my right and Ian's Eschers to my left. There was very little cover as well.  John wont the roll off for first turn and advanced towards my corner, with me going after him.  The game started well for me as I managed to down one of his Eldar and take another one out of action, while elsewhere on the board Dave decided that a headlong rush was a good tactic and tried it on Ian, with mixed success.  Rory was a bit isolated in his part of the board and started to advance towards the Eldar and Ian's Escher.

Turn two saw a couple of Eldar Guardians poke their head round the corner of a building and put two of my gangers down, while I incinerated one with a Melta Gun for his trouble.  Elsewhere on the table there was an almighty gunfight happening between Ian and Dave, with Dave starting to come off slightly worse, while Rory exchanged fire with some Eldar scouts.

Turn three and John's guardians put down another two of my gangers, at which point I decided I was on a hiding to nothing.  I had moved my gang about 3 inched in total, with basically no where to move unless I go through the Eldar, two of which had managed to put nearly half of my gang down in two rounds of shooting.  I called it a day at that and retired, slightly miffed at the whole affair.

bloomin' Eldar...grumble grumble

Dave was next to go, thanks to casualties, leaving Rory and Ian to contest the spoils, which Ian eventually won when Rory decided enough was enough.

Another miserable experience being completely outgunned by the Eldar, although a consolation was that I managed to actually kill one outright. Eldar are unable to replace casualties easily so that is a bonus for the future campaign for everyone.  I also managed to get a boatload if experience for fighting against a much more powerful gang and some advances. My gang is now starting to look like it has a close combat bias and would certainly do well in Mordheim!  Unfortunately this is Necromunda so I am not sure how much use these advances are going to be.

One thing about Necromunda is the amount of time and effort that it takes to put the table together, with 4 people all putting terrain together and laying out barricades etc. It makes for a very collaborative experience!

In other news our Chain of Command has moved on, with my German Platoon getting ready to make the assault on the French defended Baincthun bridge, after the other Platoon commanders fluffed their assaults (if you want something done!).  Unfortunately the French commander decided to give ground and withdrew. This would give him time to recover some men to his depleted platoon. This means that the way is clear for the German assault on Mont Lambert, which we are planning on playing in the new year as a big Cain of Command game. We should have enough models as there are already three Germans Platoons available for this and while there are only two French Platoons the casualties on the French side have been quite heavy so there should be enough models on their side as well.  Looking to concluding a fun campaign and trying a big Chain of Command game.

Loot in the Underhive

Game 2 of our ongoing Necromunda campaign came around and we had four players turn up:

Me, with me Cawdor
Rory's Redemptionists
Douglas genestealer Cult
Andy's Van Saar.

Andy had already played his round two game but decided that he needed the practice and joined us for round two.  The scenario was the Scavenger Hunt, which meant we were fighting over a number of loot counters spread around the table.  

We had all brought some terrain with us and we tried out best to use every ounce of it, which meant the 4x4 table had a good amount of cover on it.

Rory tries to shoehorn one last peice of terrain onto the field!

Ready for the off.

We asked another member of the club to place the loot markers so that it was all above board. Unfortunately he placed 5 of the 6 counters on the other side of the table, which meant I was going to struggle.  There was one loot counter in my corner of the table and I had hopes that I could at least manage to grab that one.  Alas this was not to be as Douglas made use of his Vents territory to drop a ganger right on top of the loot counter on our side of the table.  Andy, who has vents and tunnels managed to grab three counters right from the off, whereas Rory managed to get one.  Not a good start.  

Things got worse when I decided to start taking out the Genestealer Cult and had my gang spring from cover ready to launch a destructive Alpha strike. Alas I missed with everything, leaving me slightly exposed and staring down the sights of a flamer.   Luckily the worst I got was two men downed, and I managed to get the rest of my gang to cover.  An exchange of fire ensued between me and Douglas, with Douglas coming of slightly worse. I even managed to down one cultist with a lucky pistol shot from a juve.

Taking Cover

On the other side of the table Andy and Rory were exchanging shots with a few casualties. Eventually Rory's gang broke as he suffered losses in hand to hand. I was now starting to get the better of Douglas and he decided to leave the table with the single loot counter that he had (despite my best attempts to take it from him).

In the end there was some confusion as to the victory conditions.  In the scenario if you manage to collect every loot counter on the board and return to you deployment zone then you win the game.  Andy assumed this meant the remaining loot counters, whereas I assumed the it meant all of them, including the ones already taken off the field by the other gangs. There was some discussion and in the end it was decided that Andy could abscond with his loot if he wanted, leaving my gang in possession of the field.

So a rather Pyrrhic victory, but in the end I was just happy to earn some income!  In the last game I had no gangers left who could work any territories so am a bit behind on income.  I did quite well out of it for experience though, with a few advances gained to build on the advances from the last game against the Eldar.  My gang is starting to take shape, with clear specialisations appearing in some of my gang members.

Next game in the campaign is in a few weeks. and my victory allows me to select the scenario so that should be fun.

Sodding Mortars

So another Monday at the club , and another game of my current set of rules Chain of Command.  This time John wanted to give them a bash and so we pitted his British Platoon against my Germans using the lists in the book.

We generated the Hold and Objective scenario and rolled randomly to see who would be the attacker. Fittingly for late war my Germans would defend this time.  John rolled a six for support, which left me with a measly three points.  He selected an observation team for an off table mortar (groan!) and an adjutant, while I took an additional senior commander and an adjutant. I figured in a game where my opponent would be able to lay down lots of smoke having good command and control would be vital so that I could keep my force fairly mobile.

View down the table from the German Table edge.

The German Strongpoint

The patrol phase was fairly neutral, with John gaining control of the crossroads in the middle of the table and me having my jump off points. 

When we began John got right to it and deployed a squad on my right, along with the mortar spotter and then deployed another squad on my left. I responded and deployed a squad against each one.

British left flank deployment.

German left flank strongpoint.

This resulted in a fairly static exchange of fire while John attempted to get his mortar barrage off.  He managed to do this a couple of times but being a jammy git he kept rolling triple sixes, ending the turn.  On my right flank I was starting to come of worst in the exchange of fire and decided to get out of the line of fire. On my left flank John's mortar barrage was finally called in.  To try and avoid being pinned I moved my senior officer back towards my objective. Unfortunately the mortar barrage overshot, missing me deployed squad completely but landing on my senior officer, killing him outright!  That'll teach him to abandon his men! 

Luckily the turn ended before John managed to move the barrage on to my men.  In the meantime he had deployed his third squad into the house in the centre of the board and was slowly advancing it down the centre.  My right had collapsed and the British were advancing. My left was still fairly secure though, but the British in the centre were going to cause a problem.  In the end I lucked out and managed to roll three sixes for my command dice. This ended the turn, removing another of John's mortar barrages and allowed me to deploy my last squad, catching one of Johns squads in the open.  I opened fire, and then for my repeat action I did it again.  This killed most of the squad, effectively neutralising them.    We decided to call it a night then as time was running short and there was not much left  to do, leaving us with an unfinished game, but looking increasing unlikely that there was anything that John could do to capture his objective.

Another interesting game, with me defending for once, and having a lot less toys to play with. This game was fairly static for me, with very little to do but hold my position and react to John's attacks.  German firepower carried the day in the end.  I just wish that I could have one game of Chain of Command where I didn't have to face an off table mortar. To be fair the last two games they mortar barrage has achieved nothing, but if John had saved his large amount of Chain of Command dice to keep his mortar barrages on the table at the end of the turns rather than using them to carry out interrupt actions things might have been different.

 

Next week is game two of out Necromunda campaign, and I am hoping that my gang can improve on its terrible opening game.

 

Targe 2014

This weekend I managed to sneak away from the usual family activities and attend the Targe wargames show in Kirriemuir.  The last few years of show attendance has pretty much always been accompanied by one or both of my children which has led to my show visits being pretty short.

This time I didn't bother and headed up the road myself. As is I had the luxury of staying as long as I liked I also entered a few things in the painting competition.  I have never had much success with painting comps but figured what the hell.

The show itself was the usual collection of tables. Our club put on a very nice Dark Ages game, with some Vikings raiding a Saxon village and the Saxons trying to defend themselves until the Norman cavalry came to the rescue. The usual suspects were there, Iron Brigade, Leuchars, etc etc and in general it was  a nice show and a very relaxing and rare day away from dealing with the kids.

It was nice to see a few diferent traders there as well. Crooked Dice were there and their stuff is always lovely to look at, as are the wares from Studio Miniatures. Dave Thomas was there as usual with his huge selection of Perry and Warlord products.

In terms of shopping I did not really have anything in mind so settled for picking up some barbed wire for Chain of Command and a few small cases from Figures in Comfort.

One standout game for me was a 6mm Epic 40k table is one of the smaller rooms.  Packed with terrain and tanks it made a very big change from the usual fare that you see at wargames shows.  I was chatting to the very nice chap at the table and he pointed out some laser cut buildings that he had made and that they were available at teh show.  I am always on the look out for new 6mm terrain so went and had a look.

I am not a huge fan of MDF laser cut terrain.  It works for some things like wild west buldings and sci fi terrain but can fall short for other periods like the Dark Ages.  The MDF just does not have the texture that is required for certain building materials.  Having said that we make extensive use of it our club as it can be bought pre-painted and can stand the rough handling and carelessness that is the lot of club owned terrain.  In this instance though 6mm highrise buildings are ideal for producing in 6mm and I bought one of each, at a fiver a pop.  

I am quite impressed with these and I think they will paint up very nicely.  I will keep an eye out for more appearing in this range in the future.

The other unexpected bonus to my enjoyable day was a prize in the painting competition. I managed to pick up first prize in the Sci-fi/Fantasy group in the painting competition, which I was very chuffed with.  All in our club did very well, with two 1st prizes and a couple of 3rds. So all in all an excellent day out.  

I was too busy enjoying my day away to remember to take any photos of the actual show itself though, so this is a rather bare blog post.

Catching Up

I havent managed to update on my games for a few weeks now so will cover the last couple of weeks in one blog post. Work and home life have been rather hectic.

Ill start with Monday just passed game.  Ian and I decided to have a game of X-Wing just before he headed back offshore for a few weeks.  I dont own any X-Wing stuff at all so was quite happy to let Ian come up with something to do on the night.

Ian had found an interesting scenario on the web that consisted of a rebel squadron tryign to shhiot down the shields on an Imperial Star Destroyer, so that an Ion Cannon can cripple it, allowing a local rebel convoy to evade capture.  Ian supplied two randomly selected fleets and we tossed a coin for sides. I ended up with the rebels, which consisted of the Millenium Falcon with Luke Skywalker, Wedge Antilles in an X-Wing, and another excellent X-Wing pilot whose name I cant remember.

Ian's Imperials consisted of 4 Tie Fighters and one Tie Advanced (the ship Darth Vader flew in the first one). We deployed on opposite ends of board and put the Star Destroyer in the middle.  I had to do either 25 points of damage to the Destroyer, or 12 points to the shield generator on the back of the ship.  

It turns out out that thanks to the distance and the special abilities of the pilots on my side I had pretty much done that before the IMperials got within firing range.  We reset and tried again, this time altering the deployment. The second time was no different and I again managed to down all of the shields before the Imperial Tie Fighters were in range.  We decided to have a cup of tea and think about the problem.

For our third attempt we decided that I would deploy my squadron, and then Ian could deploy his ships in reaction to that, as long as they stayed within short range of the destroyer.  This was a much more balanced game, with my squadron having to fly through the imperial defences. I managed to pull of a win, but only just.  The MIllenium Falcon and Wedge did not survive the engagement though.  A good evenigns entertainment playing a good game.  Made all the better for playing a narrative scenario rather than just duking it out in the middle of the table.

Going back to the Monday before I managed to have a absh at Lion Rampant, the new medieval rules from the same author as Dux Bellorum.  Andy and Dave had already tried the rules the previous week and had decided to make it a but more skirmishy by using one miniature to represent each unit and record the number of hits that you can take before the figure is eliminated. The scenario had Rory and me guarding a caravan of treasure and a few monks, while Andy and Dave were the evil bandits trying to steal it.

The main problem with Lion Rampant os that you have to test to move anything, and if you fail the test you turn immediately stops.  Rry and I are not the luckiets of fellows so quite quickly the two of us sat there in frustration as we kept failing to move out troops, while the wagon we were supposed to be guarding disapeared into the distance. 

I found this game to be extremely frustratin as it wasnt until the later stages of the game that I managed to actually get my troops to move, by which time Andy had pretty much run off with the loot.  There were some very odd things in these rules but the most annoying thing was the inability to move your troops. I am all for the fog of war and a bit of randomness but not to the point where moving a single unit of troops can be ragrded as a success. That is one of the reasons I gave up on Warmaster.  Games like Dux B do this much better, using a random order of activation and random move distances to better simulate the dificulty of controlling your troops in combat, but at least they will move and do something!

Targe on Saturday, but hopefully it will not be too expensive a day out, and then game two of our Necromunda campaign next Monday. Looking forward to it.

Fire and Manouever

Things are starting to get back to normal at home, sort of, ish.

Ian and I decided to have a game of Chain of Command this week. This would give Ian a chance to use his Americans,  as most of the games that he has played so far have been using the French in early war scenarios.

We rolled for a random scenario and got the delaying action.  In this one the defender has to prevent the attackers from catching a jump off point t one end of the table, with the game being played lengthwise down the long edges.  We also rolled a die to see who would be the attacker, with the Germans making the assault. I also rolled the maximum 10 for support.

The view up the board from the German edge.

I opted to take a pre game barrage, a heavy machine gun, a 2nd Senior officer and a flamethrower team.  Ian opted for an adjutant and a spotter for an off table mortar battery.

The Germans got to kick of the action, with a single squad deployed in the centre to test the American defences. I hoped that the pre game barrage would prevent the Americans from deploying properly, giving me the chance to get up into the central buildings before they managed to get a defensive position set up.  This did not exactly go to plan as Ian's first set of activation dice came up with three sixes, ending the turn and also my pre game barrage.

The start of the German deployment

The view up the table

Ian deployed one squad into the centre and another in a field on my left flank, setting up some very effective firing lines.

I started to advance up my right, and also sent a squad of riflemen up the centre, with the HMG team providing cover.  In a flurry of 6's Ian managed to get three phases in a row, and made a mess of my right flank advance, and inflicted some shock on the rifle squad advancing up the centre.

My advance was going wrong and I had not even fired a shot yet!

The one ray of sunshine in all this was that Ian had called in a mortar barrage, ended the turn before it had landed and when he tried to call it in a second time they were unavailable as they were busy elsewhere.  That was going to make things a bit easier.

In an effort to even things up I deployed my HMG team in the centre where it would have a good line of fire to cover my right flank and also deployed another full squad on my left, catching the Americans in the open and causing some casualties.  After assessing the situation Ian opted to withdraw from his forward position and regroup in the fields behind the ruined buildings.

Americans go to ground

Germans push up the left, while the right flounders.

Americans caught napping.

Annoyingly he left 4 men hiding in a building in the middle of the table, and with no clear line of sight and them sitting on over watch I was unsure about how to root them out.  In the end after a few phases of moving and reshuffling on both sides I obtained a Chain of Command die and used it to deploy the flamethrower in an ambush and roasted the lot of them.

This opened up the table for the advance but alas we had run out of time.  I was late turning up and we had not played the game for a while, which made it slow going.  At the end it was still anyones game and could have easily gone either way. Both forces were relatively intact, and the Americans were in a decent position, but there was also enough cover to let the Germans advance to within close range.

End of game German positions.

End of game American positions

This was an interesting game and a very different experience to my usual games of Chain of Command.  Usually my games are decided by a steady stream of firepower, withe Germans ability to lay down lot of fire with they Machine Guns being the deciding factor.  This game had a lot of manoeuvring and we spent a lot  of time staring at the boards and trying to work out what to do.  On my part I was trying to work out how to get through the American positions and force them to withdraw, while Ian to his credit as soon as he saw his position was compromises he withdrew to stop his force form being outflanked and outgunned. 

A very enjoyable game and very different form our usual fare.  I really enjoyed all the moving for position that went on in this and it made for a very interesting game.

Turf War

So with the house move out of the way I finally managed to make a return to the club for a much needed break from unpacking boxes and decorating.  Luckily my return conincided with the inaugural game of the clubs Necromunda campaign.  We have decided to do this for a change of scenery from our usual Mordheim, and it has generated a lot of interest, with 12 players signing up.

We had six in attendance last night:

Me with my Cawdor

Rory with his redemptionists

Dave with his Goliath

Ken with his Cawdor

Andy with his squats (although I dont know what gang he was actually using)

John with his Eldar (there's alway one!)

We set up two tables and decided that it might be a little bit more even if we went for four players on the big table and 2 on the smaller table, as during our Mordheim games whenever there was an uneven number of players one usually just hung about on the sidelines and waited to pick off whatever was left of the other two warbands after they had finished fighting each other. 

We rolled off to see who would end up where and I ended up on the small table paired off against John's Eldar.  In Necromunda each warband has a rating, which reflects its size, level of equipment and experience.  The higher the score, the better your warband.  My warband rating for this game was 900, and thanks to all the special rules John's Eldar had a rating of over 1900.  I was not hopeful.

We started the game and there was not much to see as there was a lot of terrain. On the right we closed to short range and started to exchange shots, while on my left I set some gang members on Overwatch to hopefully stop Johns advance.  The Eldar quickly started to outgun me and if it wasnt for my Heavy armed with a Heavy Flamer and my Gang Leader armed with a Melta Gun I would not have inflicted any casualties on the Eldar at all.  In the end the best I managed to do to him was put one of the Guardians out of action, while forcing a bottle test due to the number of models that I had downed.  For my trouble I ended up with 5 gange members taken out of action, mostly thanks to a late game charge by the Eldar Warlock and some close combat guardians.  

All in all a disastrous start to the campaign, but not entirely unexpected considering what I was facing.  I managed to come away with some minor wounds and no loot as only your Gangers could gather any and they were all back at base nursing their wounds after being taken out by the rampaging Eldar.  The only bright side to this whole affair was that the massive difference in gang ratings meant that I gained a large amount of extra experience just for facing the Eldar and so gained a lot of advances.

On the other table Dave's Gloiath horde managed to emerge victorious, with numbers proving to be as effective as ever.

THis was my forst taste of Necromunda and it is hard to tell what to make of it as my game was so skewed by the presence of the Eldar.

Next game is in a month or so and hopefully it will be a bit more balanced!

Big Table, which I never got to use.

My gang trying to identify their strange looking opponents.

Dave's victorious Gloiaths.

Ken's Cawdor

Andy's squats

My gang take cover from he Eldar firepower.

Heavy Stubber takes aim (he never hit anything all game!)

On overwatch

Rory's redemptionists (all painted!!!)

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