Cybertank Monday

TMP folks have been great in suggesting HS Crucible Rules stats for my OGRE

Next up, a cybertank poached from the kids 'no longer played with box'.  a Kids toy version of the Terminator HK in something more like 15mm

Who knows, maybe the two of them will face off in a battle of the cybertanks

Combat Zone - New World City

FFL pour troops into New World City to exploit the gap driven by their Armour.  Commonwealth Marines dig in ready to defend their turf

Commonwealth Command Group, Comms drone and two Hector class Battle suits in support

 Commonwealth Marine platoon with organic gun drone suport

 The Commonwealth ad-hoc defense group

 FFL Command with gunspider support platoon

 MD-260 assault platoon

 FFL Assault group.  FFL platoon have MD-209s in organic support role

Objective: The FFL are trying to exit the table on the other side, or break the Commonwealth Marine defense line

 Commonwealth Marines dig in

 They occupy key blocking points to to the next road junctions

The thin green line

FFL prep behind cover of buildings

Observing for enemy movement

Robotics get in place

And break out, dashing for cover of the next building

 

Robots suppress Marines

  Gunspiders follow in support 

 

Gunspiders KO a support platform

Battlesuits dash forwards to counter the robots

Robots are heavily suppressed

FFL TU plus MD-209 robots move to support the advance

And pour highly effective fire into the Marines in the opposite building

In return, the Marines KO a FFL TU plus both MD-209s

MD-260s pour into a building to form a firebase

MD-260s score a KO on a marine TU, a gun platform

And suppress another Marine TU

In return the Marines KO most of the advancing MD-260s

Gunspiders prove deadly in reply

Hector Battlesuits move in

Hectors lay waste to MD-260s and Gunspiders

FFL advance to consolidate their firebase

FFL pour fire into Marines on the other flank

Remaining FFL dash forwards for cover

FFL mow down more Marines causing them to break and run

Battlesuits clan up Gunspiders, only the control team remains

MD-260s reinforce their firebase

And pour fire into Marines, KO-ing more TUs and causing a morale failure, the Marines are in full retreat

FFL control one flank, Marines platoons are in retreat.  Hector battlesuits are the only thing holding back a full advance

Commonwealth Marines are bloodied. Hectors provide cover fire while Marines fall back to the next layer prepared of positions

Result : A solid win for the FFL, the armour breakthrough has been succesfully exploited.  FFL have a firm base in New World City.

One of the reasons why I prefer the Crucible rules to Dirtside for large battle is that I think DS abstracts infantry too much.  I think the Crucible rules have enough depth that, although it is primarily an armoured combat game, even the infantry get some flavour and 'personality' with different weapons and fighting approaches.

After all, its fun to break out a bunch of infantry every now and then, especially as I have a couple of companies of them!

Next, time for something completely different...

Oh my gosh, I so totally have one of those...

I'm really enjoying seeing the old laserburn figs and vehicles being rereleased by the Ion Age/15mm.co.uk. Why? Well because I'm a bit of an old fart who got them back in the day.  There was then, and still is now, some really cool models with great character in that range.  So today when I saw they had a feature on their Jet Copter (its called Sabre now) with Imperial Guard crew conversion and I had an, oh my gosh moment and I realized I had one that I had forgotten about.  After a bit of a rumage in some boxes, hey presto, my jetcopter.

Back in the day this was my only air support craft, crew are Peter Pig AK47 something or other, helmets are from 1st generation GZG NAC figs, the chin gun is from a plastic GW tank (Land Radier, I think) and I have no idea where the flex ammo feed is from. 

Gunner side

 Pilot side

This is pretty old and the landing legs are quite soft, I probably got this some time in the 90's from TableTop.  It sat around for a while until I converted the crew.  Once it got crew it saw a lot of action supporting my NAC ground forces.  It got packed away several house moves ago and I forgot about it, indeed, I think I have another in the bits box still waiting for crew...

Battle for New World City

New World, another mercenary battle zone.  Government Loyalists hired Commonwealth forces (Early Lighting Div) to impose their will, while the Rebles hired The Free Foreign Legion (Div Legere).  New World City, the colony capitol is the last major battle ground, both mercenary corps are skirmishing to probe for weaknesses in defensive lines. This is one such skirmish.

Mercenary forces start at opposite corner of the city, they fight until one force breaks ( greater than 50% casualties from the whole force), the winner gets to exploit the breakthrough.

Commonwealth detachments (Early Lighting Div) - A mechanized recon group

 Commonwealth deploy to the North West

 Free Foreign Legion (Legere) - mixed recon group

 FFL deploy to the south east

 FFL enter the contested zone

 Street level view - all large vehicles do block LOS, armour can push them out of the way

 Commonwealth move in, turrets swivel to cover streets

 Command group led by heavy tanks

 Recce group speed forwards

 And score a nice hit on a tank destroyer, a main gun KO

 Ouch!

 Victory is short lived, using secondary systems the tank destroyer effectively KOs the recce tankette

 Light tanks move to intercept the Commonwealth advance

 MBTs prowl forwards

 And bump a light tank, but despite rolling terrible dice they do KO its main gun

 Infantry-laden APCs surge forwards to debus their troops

 Infantry pour into hard cover

 While hastily prepping buzzbombs

 FFL gain the upper hand, light tanks flank the Commonwealth MBTs

 And Kapow!  one main gun kill and three missile locks, its not looking good from here

Or here

 Recce tankettes rush to flank the FFL APCs

They fail spectacularly, no hits at all.  The same cannot be said for the FFL buzzbomb teams, 6 teams, 5 hits, 3 vehicle kills

 While the commonwealth medium tanks grind forwards

 With appalling activation rolls

A FFL tank-destroyer moves up to earn their combat pay

 And BOOM! KOs the commonwealth MBT

 Game over Man!  Commonwealth are down to less than 50% strength, so must retire

 The FFL move to exploit the breakthrough

A fast and fun slammers game.  The Commonwealth didn't do anything wrong, their dice were just terrible.  However, I only I rolled average dice for the FFL so tonight it just didn't go the Commonwealth's way.

Inspired my Mark Kinsey's GZG game layout I bought some of the dropzone commander cityscapes, now I can game cities which are larger than two-square feet.  The templates are pretty good and are double sided giving decent variety.  They are intended for 10mm, but I can live with the scale discrepancy.

What's next? Well I caved, I've finally given in and bought some super-tanks.   I'm tempted to play a super-tank vs. OGRE, I may have to play that one out in the garden though as I don't think the basement is big enough!