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!

Down, Down into the Depths

So game 9 of our Mordheim campaign rolled around, and despite a few issues with access to terrain nearly cancelling the game we all turned up.

This scenario involved trying to gain entrance to evil necromancers dungeon, which was guarded by one of his minions, some skeletons and a bodyguard.  He was hiding behind a wall and the only way in was through a locked gate. The key to this gate was obtained in an earlier scenario, which I was fortunate enough to have won.  In addition to this the courtyard in front of the gate, which made up a large section of the board was being patrolled by 4 forest spirits, and large possessed tree, all of whom had been corrupted by the evil magic in the area.

The usual suspects were involved, although Rory had retired his warband so that he could control the forces of evil.   that left Dave and his Marienburgers, Andy and his Sisters of Sigmar, Ian with his Reiklanders and me with my Beastmen.

As I had won the last scenario I got to choose my deployment area while everyone else was random, and also got to deploy 12" in, rather than the usual 6".  I decided that this week I was going to concentrate on the scenario objective and deployed as close to the gate as possible.

Ready for the off.

I even managed to get the first turn of the game and made a dash for the gate, while everyone else was a bit more cautious, looking for good firing positions for their archers (not much of a consideration for me!). 

Two tree spirits advanced towards my position and in my turn I killed one with my Centigor, and the other with a spell from my warband leader.  

Andy advanced towards another tree spirit, while Ian got the short straw and the random movement of the large tree put it heading towards his warband. 

Holding the gate.

Sneaking!

Sisters trying to cut down a tree with Hammers.

Reiklanders try and avoid a big angry tree.

Mid game saw Dave sneak down the flank, taking the odd potshot as he went, Andy having a hard time against the large tree spirit and Andy getting stuck in to the one of the smaller tree spirits and Ian's warband.  I managed to tackle another tree spirit, while losing one warhound to an arrow from Dave's Marienburgers.

I managed to get the gate unlocked and at this point my Centigor decided to have a little to much to drink. I stalled a turn and then charged in, and between my chargers and managing to get another two(!) spells off made short work of the evil Nercomancers minions before being the first to exit the board into the underground vaults of the evil overlord.

Getting ready to charge.

Charge!

During this Ian had taken some casualties and was trying to advance towards the centre of the board, but eventually casualties were too much and he failed his rout test. Andy laid into all the evil forest spirits and managed to do a lot of damage, but eventually casualties mounted and he too failed his rout test, leaving Dave to try and mop up the remaining tree spirit on the board. He managed it eventually, but not before he had taken some pretty hefty casualties.

Sneaky Marienburgers

So victory for my Beastmen, and I only lost one warhound in the post game phase.  The others were not so lucky, with Andy suffering particularly heavy losses.  The final game of the campaign take place in the catacombs, and should be quite a different experience.

May Gallery

More Progress on my Chain of Command Germans.

THis tim it is infantry support that is completed.
A MAchine Gun team, Snipe and Mortar Spotter are now added to the mix.

In addition to this I have made some markers for general use.

I saw John use them a wee while ago and thought that they had lots of potential uses. I saw them on sale at the Pendraken stand at Carronade and decided to get some. I think I went a little bit to small and opted for the 5mm option, but I will see what happens when I get a a chance to use them.

Assault on Baincthun

Monday night saw the continuation of our Chain of Command campaign, "48 Hours in May". In the opening games of the campaign both Marco and myself as the Germans had broken through the French lines, commanded by Ian and Barry.  These early games were fairly bloodless and we decided to press out advantage and attack the town of Baincthun.

Marco kicked off the assault along the main road against Allan's French, as Ian has a new job offshore and was going to be away for a while.  He had a disastrous game and the German assault was soundly repulsed, with no French casualties, so there was a bit of pressure on my Platoon, who would be attacking along the dirt track that  ran into the village.

The view down the road into Baincthun

 I rolled a 7 for support and opted to give the sniper and a HMG team a try for this game, figuring that as armoured cars had featured heavily in the opening of the campaign that Barry would take some kind of Anti Tank options, which he duly did.

Looking at the board I decided that the only real option I had was to push down my right, as the left hand side of the board was looking rather empty.

My initial probes involved deploying one squad and the light mortar on my right and seeing what Barry would do to counter this.  He deployed two french squads against my right and put his anti tank gun in the centre.  At this point he also deployed his platoon commander, all by himself with no support.  I could not resist the temptation and in my phase deployed my sniper who managed to kill the unfortunate officer with his first shot of the game!  Barry was none to pleased with this and en exchange of fire ensued on my left, with my Germans coming off slightly worse, with four sixes resulting in four casualties to one French salvo. Not good.

Initial German probe.

 Emboldened by this success Barry started to advance on the German positions. He used one squad to give covering fire, while advancing with the other.  I decided that I would sit tight for now and deal with the advancing French, which I started to do.  I poured a lot of fire into them, and then deployed my Machine Gun and and additional squad into the centre. The additional squad was to provide suppressing fire onto the French that were in the ruined building, while the HMG team added their considerable firepower to those already firing at the advancing French. The German machine guns took their toll and I managed to Kill the junior officer, wipe out the machine gun section and then rout the remaining few rifle men.  In addition to this I had managed to wound and then kill another of Barry's junior officers, leaving him with a command problem and a Force Morale of 1!

He decided to call it a night at this point, having suffered 9 casualties and three dead officers. Thanks to the difference in Force Morals scores I was able to recover all my casualties and came through the game relatively unscathed.

French start to deploy onto the field.

Germans fall back under heavy fire.

The French retreat in disarray.

Another interesting and entertaining game, but in truth Barry had some very bad luck with officers getting killed, and I think my dice rolling was about average. One thing to be said is never advance over open ground into the teeth of German Machine Gun fire, as it was surely Barry's undoing on the night. Also never deploy officers on their own.  For myself this was my first time using the sniper and HMG team and one thing it did throw up was the additional strain on Command dice all these extra elements add.  I had an additional two units that both required 1's to activate, and I think I only managed to get my sniper to fire three times in the whole evening.  This can of course be mitigated by the canny use of senior officers but they are sometimes needed for other things.  Snipers and HMG teams are useful, but can tie you down to quite a static style of play, although the psychological effect of snipers is going to interesting.  

As we play more and more Chain of Command and each element of support is tried on the table there is a certain amount of paranoia about facing them. First was the off-table mortar barrage as they can be very devastating, then armoured cars became a bit of an issue but people are now adapting to them. Now we are onto exploring the snipers and additional firepower. I can't wait until I get to try a Flamethrower!  This is a good way of exploring the game and keeping everyone on their toes, as we widen the rage of support elements that we can potentially use in a game, so you have to think careful about potential strategies to counter them.  It all makes for a more interesting and balanced game, in my opinion.

As this was the first outing on the table of my own painted Germans I expected it to be a disaster, as the first outing for newly painted toys usually is, but this could not have gone much better to be honest.