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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Open Ground

We finally managed to continue with our small Chain of Command campaign, "48 Hours in May."

The German assault on Bacthaun by Marco's platoon had been seen off in short order, and my platoon, flushed with success from their victory over Barry at the other end of the village.

Once again the Germans would be forced to advance over open ground to try and dislodge the French from a defended position. 

I rolled a ten for my support which gave me some nice options. The temptation was to just take a spotter for an off-table mortar barrage, as the French were probably just going to do their best to make a defensive position round the single building on the board.  I decided that would be a bit dull and took a few things that I had never tried before.  In the end I took a Flamethrower team, Off table artillery barrage and a Heavy Machine Gun team in a defensive position.   

Allan opted to take an off table mortar, a heavy machine gun and an anti tank rifle.

The patrol phase was fairly predictable, with the French ending up with all of their jump off points within the grounds of the fenced off building, with the Germans all being placed in the the corn fields that surrounded then French position.   The objective of this game was simple, break your opponents force morale. I got lucky and ended up with a Force Morale of nine, while Allan's was eight.

Early game saw me deploy two squads onto the table and my Heavy Machine Gun team. Is started a cautious advance with my squads while my Heavy Machine Gun waited to open fire on any French that deployed.   Allan had some terrible luck and failed most of his deployment rolls, as the French were obviously having a hard time restoring order after the initial artillery barrage.  When he did finally manage to deploy a machine gun section I promptly shot most of them with the rest fleeing the table. First blood to the Germans.

Unfortunately just as I was advancing out of the corn fields the turn ended, leaving Allan to deploy unopposed, which he started to do.  My advancing Germans started to take a lot of fire, but thankfully casualties were light mainly as a result of opting to take advantage of any cover.   In the meantime my Heavy Machine Gun, under the personal command of the Platoon Officer was making a real mess of the French that were using what little cover they could and the French casualties were starting to mount.   

Mid game saw one of my Junior Officers killed and then the French managed to call in their off table mortar support, pinning one of my advancing squads and doing a fair amount of damage as well. I tried to ignore it and kept up my storm of machine gun fire into the french position, killing a lot more men while also wounding the French Officer, and killing the mortar spotter as well.

The Germans advance cautiously.

Heavy Machine Gun deployed, under watchful eye of the Platoon Commander

More advancing.

Bloody Mortars.   French nicely bunched up though!

After the mortar was neutralised I brought on another squad on my left flank and the Flamethrower team.  My left flank started to advance again after stalling badly earlier in the game.  My second squad started to provide suppressive fire at the French position, allowing my rifle teams and Flame thrower teams to resume their advance over open ground.   In the end though they were not needed as in a flurry of bad luck Allan and a few more commanders shot and another section wiped out, which reduced his force morale to 0, leaving the Germans victorious.

Another good game slightly hampered by the fact that neither of us had looked at the rules in a month or so, and I could not find my copy of the rulebook as it is in a box ready for moving day.  The field was very open and there was not much in the way of fancy tactics going on.  This game was more about firepower than anything else, and the Germans definitely have the advantage there. 

In terms of the campaign this means that the Germans have managed to successfully complete all their first day objectives, albeit slightly later than originally planned.  My Platoon is pretty much intact at this point, with only one Junior Leader lost. Marco's platoon has taken a bit of a mauling and Pete's platoon has yet to see action.   The French are in a similar state.  Allan's platoon took a lot of casualties in last night game. Barry's French took s few casualties in our last encounter, but lost a lot of leaders, including the Platoon Commander. Ian's French are still relatively unscathed.

My Platoon is being given a rest for now and we are rotating Pete's platoon to the Front to assault Ian French position. I'm looking forward to see how that one plays out.  I think for the final game of the campaign we are planning to stage a three on three game using the Big Chain of Command rule from Too Fat Lardies. Looking forward to see how that one plays out.

I mentioned earlier on in the blog that I was moving house in a few weeks.  We are now well into the packing and anything not essential for day to day running of the house is getting packed up in preparation. Unfortunately this means most of my gaming stuff, with all of my rulebooks being the first casualty.  It has meant that the loft has had a good clear out, and I took this quick snapshot of all of my boxes of toy soldiers:

Small fry by a lot of wargamers standards but looks like a lot to me!  Not to much of it unpainted though which is nice.  Mainly lots more Lord of the Rings miniatures, Oldhammer stuff for 3rd edition WHFB and Rogue Trader Orks. They are projects for another year.

No games or updates for a few weeks in all likelyhood as I am going to be a bit busy in the coming weeks.

August Painting

Not much painting done in August.  Life has been busy with house selling, work and kids going back to school. Plus I have started playing Diablo3 again, as the v2 patch has actually turned it into quite a good game.

One thing I did manage was to get a gang painted for the club impending Necromunda campaign.  I am going to use the chaos cultists as a House Cawdor gang, as in the background they are supposed to be quite a bunch of fanatics, just my bunch are fanatical in the wrong way.  I could have used the chaos cultists rules but as I have never played Necromunda before I thought I would try and keep it simple.  The campaign has attracted quite a lot of interest and it looks like there are going to be a large number of players involved.

These are very hasty paint jobs and it really shows as there are lots of messy bits that could really do with getting tidied up, but they are good enough to hit the table for now....

Youths

Gangers

Heavy

Leader (with a strong left arm!)

No names are anything yet, but they did not turn out to bad in the end.

Stem the Tide

This week I managed to get another game of Epic in. That's two this year already, and its only August!  This time it was 3000points, with my mighty Imperial Guard vs a marauding warband of Orks.

We set up a fairly neutral table, and just played using the tournament scenario in the rulebook, as that is a pretty easy setup for a pick up game.

Table set up

Imperial Guard Forces

Ork Rabble

My force was a bit different today. I had decided not to field my usual tank company as it was very expensive which made it quite hard to get the best use of. Instead I swapped it out for a second mechanised company and a couple of Warhound Titans.  IN the end my army looked like this:

Supreme Commander with AA

Mechanised Company with AA

Infantry Company with Heavy Weapon Support

Artillery Platoon (rockets)

Rough Rider Platoon

Super Heavy Tank Platoon ( Shadowsword)

Sentinels

Sentinels

Warhound Titan

Warhound Titan

Hydra Battery

Thundrebolt Fighters.

Marks force consisted of (roughly):

Very Large Mechanised Ork Warband

Large warband of Big Guns

Large Speed freaks 

Large Gyrocopters warband

2 flights of Fighta Bombers

Stompa Mob

Stormboyz Mob.

For deployment Mark deployed fairly evenly across the board, and I concentrated my forces on the right, with my Infantry company occupying the town, with various support units deployed behind and a Warhound on my extreme right. My left Flank consisted of my two mechanised companies and the other Warhound Titan.

For the first turn I actually managed to get the initiative, and managed to drop an artillery barrage on to the ork speed freaks, making a hefty dent in their numbers.  Mark then spent several of his activations trying to advance his orks but rolled a large number of ones and his force ended up going nowhere. I managed to advance slightly (but not much) and inflict some damaged on Marks forces, but that large (flippin' massive) ork warband advancing up the centre was a bit of a worry.

Second turn saw more of the same. Mark was a bit more successful with his activation rolls this time but I think the damage was done by then. I managed to bring all three of my large formations of guard to bear on the Orks in the centre and broke them. I then tried to assault another Ork formation on my left by moving one mechanised company up and then assaulting with a titan so that the infantry can lend support. This backfired badly and the Titan was shot to pieces by the Ork counter assault. 

We never managed a turn three, as it was getting late and also the orks were starting to look a bit thin on the ground.  An excellent game where my opponents chances were scuppered from turn one by some lousy dice rolls, but he still cam out swinging, as every ork general should.

I really must try and get some more games of epic in. Perhaps go for three games in a single year!

August Gallery

Things have been pretty hectic of late.  Summer Holidays, selling our house and then attempting to buy a new one (estate agents are really not worth the money you pay them!) and some much needed professional development stuff for work (boring!) has severely limited painting time.  

When painting time is limited it tends to move towards larger projects that doesn't need a fine touch and can be done with a large brush.  In this case this has meant some more Dark Age buildings, some wattle fences and some dark age era livestock.  Its pretty dull stuff to paint, but all helps to set the scene, which is an important part of any game. 

Enough preamble:

I am undecided on the basing of the fences. As is they are very flexible but probably not very stable, but only an in-game test will be able to settle that for sure.

On another note yesterday was my annual trip to Edinburgh for the Claymore Wargames show.  I had both of the kids with me this time and only managed jusst over 2 hours before they started to get too unruly/bored and we had to leave.    From what I saw there was a few good games going on, with our clubs Indian Mutiny game looking rather nice. One thinsg I did notice was that there was a lot of Saga getting palyed in its various forms, both offical and homebrew.I did not really get the chance to browse very much or take any pictures but still managed to get a few things that I could easilly locate. My final shopping list ended up as:

Another batch of Kev Adams goblin sculpts (I only need to lay my hand on the crooked claw ones now!)

Some more narrow river sections from Last Valley

A quadrant terrain set from Mantic Games, for use in our upcoming Necromunda Campaign.

A copy of the third edition Warhammer Armies book.  I have been looking for this on e-bay for a while but it has always been too expensive. I dont know how much I will use it but it is a nice bit of nostalgia regardless. Now I can start looking for some of the 40k Rogue Trader books (especially the Ork ones!)

Not to bad, until I got home and remembered all things I meant to get and forgot/did not have time to rummage for:

Barbed Wire for use in Chain of Command

Emplacements for use in Chain of Command

Minefields to use ofr Chain of Command

Some decent paint brushes.

A restock of tufts. 

Look for some suitable models for use with In Her Majesties Name

Should have made a shopping list, or asked my eldest to remember as she has a fantastic memory and an eagle eye for spotting these sort of things........

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.