Felonmarming is what a felonmarmer does.

Sunday, 8 April 2012

Bugs in the Reactor AAR

I ran the Bugs in the Reactor scenario from Tomorrow's War on Saturday. I controlled the small colonist security force, Rob was in charge of the Legionnaire Force and Euan was the Alien commander.

As the aliens were counted as Irregulars they seemed to have all the disadvantages of not ever being able to win initiative without the usual benefits so I added a reinforcement option to the scenario - at the end of every turn the aliens could reclaim 1D6 killed aliens and when enough had been reclaimed for a group of 5 they would come on from a random hot spot, there was one in each quarter of the table and one positioned by the alien commander numbered 1 to 5. The alien commander would roll to see which point the reinforcements would arrive, on a roll of 6 the commander could chose which point to enter the table from.

To account for most of the buildings being ruins we said an earthquake had just happened (caused by Bugs tunnelling under the reactor) and the legionnaires were on there way to rescue the colonists from the ruins when they got reports of something far worse occurring.

In addition a media team were present in the area and we would allocate extra points to either side for any action in that sides favour occurring within 6" of the team. At the end of the turn we would roll to see which side could move the media team.

If anyone wants the squad record cards they are here in Open Office format.

Table Setup
The West Side of the Battlefield
The East side of the Battlefield
The Security Force set up first within the residential area facing the reactor complex with two small teams and a converted tractor vehicle mounting a gauss machine gun. The aliens then set up in the reactor complex, lurking amongst the buildings and landscaping. Then the colonists were placed, 30 of them, in the residential area - the two sides taking turns to place each one.

Looking East along the main road
Building 1
Reactor Complex Car Park
Reactor Cooling Pond
Reactor Buildings
Farmland
The Culvert
The west end of the table
Building 1
Turn 1

The legionnaire force comes on table from the southern road and move up ignoring the cries for help from the citizens hiding in the farm buildings. The security forces fall back into Buildings 2 and 3 to escort the colonists hiding there to safety. The patrol vehicle goes on overwatch coving the approaches from the reactor.

The aliens burst across the road attacking the colonists outside of Building 1 (who flee), the colonists standing around waiting to be interviewed by the media team and towards the hill overlooking the road junction. The alien King (or Queen) rushed forward from behind the Power Plant building catching the security forces by surprise who fail to zap him(or her) with the patrol vehicles gauss cannon. The media team catch it all on camera giving the aliens a bonus victory point. The colonists in the open flee into the Wooded Park.


Turn 2

The legionnaires move up to Building 3 and the hill overlooking the road junctions where they engage the aliens crossing the road. The aliens in the open are engaged by a legionnaire fireteam outside of Building 3 killing 3 of the group, all recorded by the media team for a bonus point to the humans. Meanwhile one of the security teams leaves Building 3 with a bunch of the colonists. The other team is busy collecting the colonists from the two floors of Building 2.

The aliens burst into Building 1 and engaged the colonists hiding inside in close combat, the colonists managed to hold them off for a round of fighting before going down. The carnage was picked up by the media team giving the aliens another bonus victory point.

Turn 3

 The legionnaires fully occupy Building 3 and set up overwatch teams on the roof all the while fighting off alien attacks from across the road. The aliens manage to enter the building and overpower one of the fire teams. Meanwhile the legionnaire team on the hill manage to hold off repeated attacks from the road. The security team leave Building 2 with some more colonists, and lead them to the scared colonists milling about by the Wooded Park. Meanwhile the media team decide to go and investigate the munching sounds coming from Building 1.

Turn 4

The legionnaire manage to rescue their comrades in Building 3, killing the last alien inside the building before it could eat anyone else.  The security team move on to the Farm Buildings picking up more colonists while the patrol vehicle moves off to cover the first group of colonists heading for the starport.

The King and Queen aliens attempt to move from behind the Reactor to the hill adjacent to it, The King (or Queen) gets past without the overwatch team on the roof of Building 3 reacting, but the Queen (or King) following on gets caught in the open and killed. 

The aliens in Building 1 attempt to charge the journalists but fail, confused by their approach ("I see you're being eaten alive by these hideous aliens, tell me, how do you feel?"). The media team come to their senses eventually and move away into Building 2.


Turn 5

 The evacuation continues, Building 3 becoming a strongpoint covering the road junctions and the front of the reactor complex with multiple teams on overwatch on the roof. The aliens follow the media team to Building 2 and finally overcome their camera shyness and eat them. They also finish off the colonists hiding in the Wooded Park.

Turn 6

More attacks on Building 3 are halted by concentrated fire from the overwatch teams. The security team moves on from the Farm Buildings. There are escorting so many colonists now I make a ruling that they need to make a Troop Quality roll if they wish to move quicker than walking (which they then fail to make until the last turn).



Turn 7

One of the aliens attacking Building 3 seems unstoppable and managed to gain entrance killing one of the legionnaires before finally being defeated.

Turn 8

The rabble continues their slow progression across the table, the patrol vehicle taking up position on the hill overlooking the junction where it engages, with limited success, a group of alien reinforcements moving towards the culvert in an attempt to cut off the colonists retreat.

Turn 9

The colonists reach the stream and take their time crossing. The vehicle moves to cover the culvert. The aliens hiding in the culvert decide not to charge (luckily as the patrol vehicle cannot fire on the same turn it moved).
Turn 10

The legionnaires fall back from Building 3 closely pursued by the aliens. The patrol vehicle goes on overwatch covering the culvert and the colonists finally manage to get off table.

Turn 11

The legionnaires continue to fall back, pursued by the aliens who are now lacking conviction as they realise that most of their food source has got away.

Turn 12

One of the final actions as a legionnaire team holds off alien charges as they get trapped behind the alien forces as the rest of the detachment moves to the departure point.

Conclusion

The game was an overwhelming victory for the humans in terms of points with most of the colonists getting away along with the majority of the security and legionnaire forces.

The aliens were hampered by poor reinforcement rolls, both in the numbers arriving (although by the end of the game they had recovered most of their losses) and in the location they arrived. They also failed to charge a number of times against the odds.

The vehicle failed to make much of an impression in terms of casualties but may have put off the aliens from attacking.

I've got some issues with the rules - the reaction system works well, but the morale system doesn't seem to work particularly well. Also the rules suffer from being hard to read, not helped by me mis-remembering where on the page tables were as I flipped through the book over and over (I was remembering where the table was in the Force on Force rule book instead). The index too needs some work, every page where the subject is mentioned is listed along with the main one where the rules are - the main page reference should be emboldened to help find the rules you are looking for.

Wednesday, 4 April 2012

Bugs in the Reactor

Now I've got enough aliens, I've been getting ready to play the Bugs in the Reactor scenario in Tomorrow's War.

Here's the miniatures for the scenario all lined up quite in quite a friendly manner, blissfully unaware of the carnage yet to come.
The civilians who built their reactor on top of an alien burial ground. Although some of them carry weapons they will be ineffective in combat.

The Bugs. Justifiably upset with the colonists, they seek to gain their revenge by taking out a no win, no fee legal damages claim in the local courts. Failing a successful result they will resort to eating the colonists.

Eight groups of 5 aliens each, armed to the with teeth.








The King and Queen, not sure which is which. These are old Citidal miniatures.









The legionnaires. Three squads of bad ass trooper types. All they are missing is a nuke to take off and bomb the aliens with from orbit. Which is a shame as they are probably going to need one.










The local patrol force. Two fireteams of lightly armed victims. Plus their patrol vehicle.




While reading through the scenario I realised they needed a converted tractor type vehicle with tracks, which I didn't have. I was going to substitute a wheeled Old Crow APC when I also realised I had 4 sets of spare tracks that came with my Khurasan Heavy Tank which has the anti-grav modification... so a bit of work with plasticard, milliput, spare plastic model parts and one of the spare autocannons from a Khurasan DIMOG armoured suit (Khurasan do put a lot of spare parts in some their models) and I came up with this tracked monster future Bren Gun Carrier.


The vehicle is crewed with a spare half man (Khurasan again), and a crouching heavy machine gunner (Oddzial Osmy's New Vistula Legion).

I could do with a seated vehicle commander as it is supposed to have a crew of 3 but I may not have anything suitable. Have to paint 3 more patrol types also for when their vehicle gets eaten and they have to dismount



Next task, make up a few more road sections to cover the length and width of the 6' x 4' table. The colonists buildings may very well start out as ruins - building on alien burial grounds is terrible for subsidence.


Easter Bank Holiday Carnage Ahoy!!!






Monday, 2 April 2012

More New Stuff

Arriving almost simultaneously with my order from Khurasan was a couple of packs of Creatures from Pendraken.

These are nominally 10mm figures, but these are aliens, so what's a few millimetres here and there.

In the £12 pack you get 1 Queen (22mm high), 20 Medium creatures (15mm high for the more upright ones) and 10 Small creatures (about 8mm high) and a bunch of egg clusters and face huggers.

These photos are from some I've had and painted from quite some time ago, not the most recent packs.

Here is a bunch of small aliens menacing a pair of GZG's UNSC troopers. Also an open egg case and face hugger lurking ready to strike.




Here is a collection of the medium sized creatures, these are about the same size in height as the GZG 15mm UNSC figures.






"Maybe they don't show up on infra-red at all"

 "That's it man, game over man, game over!"









And finally the large aliens, these tower over the UNSC figures as they come forward with a terrifying "I'm a little teapot" pose.
 "What are we supposed to use, harsh language?"


 These are some of the new lot being painted up. I'm using a mix of red and black ink (3 to 1 ratio red to back) with a drop or two of flow enhancer painting over bare metal. I'm building up a lacquer effect with multiple layers and will probably stick in a layer or two of plain black ink wash to darken and pick out the details a bit. Then I'll pick out the odd bit of more fleshly like detail with dark red paint to get a contrast in shininess and maybe try a bit of slime modelling with acrylic gel. The only problem with the ink on bare metal is it's a bit fragile and prone to flaking off if you clumsily knock the entire lot on the floor while you take photos of them! I'll have to touch up the odd spot on some of these.

When these are done I'll have more than enough aliens to do the Bugs in the Reactor scenario in Tomorrow's War. Watch out Colonial Marines! Insert Aliens quote here!


Wednesday, 28 March 2012

New Stuff

I got some good stuff from Khurasan in the post recently, somewhat delayed in transit, and unfortunately short of Ursids (who must still be in hibernation for the winter). Here's some of the painted stuff, along with some of the Critical Mass stuff I got at WMMS.

War goes bang (and whoosh, and occasionally zap)














Critical Mass grav bikes pass in front of some prepainted ruins acquired at WMMS. Ruins occupied by Oddzial Osmy's New Vistula Legion.
...reverse angle showing the un-prepainted ruins got a WMMS.

And here's another one of the ruins, more Vistula Legion troops on the roof. Khurasan's "Darling Little" Infantry Support Robot with what I think are AA missile racks turret option.
Another shot of the "Darling Little", along with Khurasan's DIMOG Armour Suit.

Monday, 19 March 2012

Blast from the Past...

...of the Far Future

During a recent sorting out of my lead piles, I found some old GW Traveller figures.

They are about 30 years old, and show a lot of wear. They were painting in a mixture of artists acrylic and enamel as far as I can remember, but I've quickly redone the Vargr (in their originally painted colours) with a quick once over.

Anyway, here they are in all there ancient glory (speaking of ancients, spoiler alert - there's some Droyne about somewhere that I'll take some photos of when I re-find them), warts, flaking paint job and all.

Three spacesuited chaps, not too much wear and tear.
A bunch of Imperial types with Power Armour in the old clunky style wielding scary looking PGMP's and FGMP's. Looks like the enamel paints have protected them a bit.
 Woof, Woof, Grrrrrr. Vargr going about their business. These have had a quick brush up, replicating my weird idea of trouser colour back when I first painted them
 Some more space suited types showing their age.
These bikes have seen better days also.

Sunday, 18 March 2012

Grav Bikes

 Painted up three of my six grav/jet bikes I got at WMMS from Critical Mass Games.

I think they are going to become part of the  New Vistula Legion force.

Got some more of them on the way as well.
I feel the need...the need for motion blur.

Monday, 12 March 2012

WMMMMMMMMMS

Maybe too many M's in there? Anyway I went to the West Midlands Military Show on Sunday and picked up a bunch of stuff...

From Critical Mass Games some Grav Bikes, which will probably end up being part of the New Vistula Legion....







 


...and some combat scout walkers (dunno who'll get those), trial paint job as multicam...



...From Ainsty some flying bases in clear resin...












...a trial version of a non PPPS grav vehicle will be my next job, here's a precariously balanced preview...










 ..and two 15mm resin ruins from a bargain bin for the Harook to squabble over...
 .



Sunday, 26 February 2012

Grav Tank #2

Work in Progress photos for the next grav tank conversion. This time I'll try 4 wire supports with so called "invisible" No More Nails smoke sculpting.

Cleverly I've superglued the tank to the smoke supports before undercoating, so I'm going to have to wrap the supports and base in clingfilm before spraying.

The plan is for this to form the core of the smoke plume, painted a light purple colour similar to grav tank #1, and then after sealing it with matt varnish put a layer of clear Gel Denso acrylic transparant gel on to give some smoke like depth to it.



Monday, 20 February 2012

Grav Tank on Patrol


A grav tank providing armoured support to a Harook infantry patrol as they cross open ground.


 The grav tank vents steam from its fusion drive as it hovers over the ground.

This is where the idea for the flying base came from and this is where the modelling technique came from. Might try out some different painting techniques for the smoke, trying to light from the top with a bit of the purple coming through from inside, any advice on painting smoke is welcome.

Harook, as always, from Mad Robot Miniatures (can't reference them enough!).

Grav tank courtesy of the overly optimistic sales forecast for Tron diecast toys.

Saturday, 18 February 2012

Grav Tanks

Looks like the Harook have been mortgaging their future to buy the very latest in grav technology.

The grav tank, an unnamed class at the current time, mounts a heavy fusion gun in a remote turret, as well as two ball turret mounted auto cannons for anti-personnel use.

The grav tank is powered by a fusion reactor. The reactor is normally enclosed by armoured panels but the Harook like the pretty purple light it gives off and so frequently leave them off.


Here's the original version, a Tron diecast flying thingamajob.

The turret is slightly truncated steel warrior (plastic mecha/power armour job) gun, chosen mainly because I have more of them than any other bit and I've got 4 more of these Tron vehicles to convert. One of them may have to have a different gun unless I can find another one.

The ball turret mounted cannon are 6mm BB's cut in half with a short section of a toothpick glued to it.

The proud Harook squad accompanying the vehicle are from Mad Robot Miniatures.