Making wargamers; one at a time

The newest 'miniature' in our house arrived yesterday:

Wishful thinking I know, but I'm hoping that one day I'll have a wargaming club at home!

I'll be back to gaming blogging soon...

Hush, be very quiet, we're hunting miniatures

A quick FYI

The Ambush is v.v. quite right now as playing soldiers is on-hold due to the imminent arrival of a miniature... ...a mini-Me and Mrs.Ambush is due any time now. 

Making opponents one-by-one: No.1 son already likes Daddy's toys,  hopefully No.2 will too (at least until they discover video games).

Sometimes an ambush is just an ambush

On the surface Ryan's world is a peaceful place, lots of healthy outdoorsy-kind of activity.  underneath, however, its a different story (at least it is an a excuse to start a mercenary war...).

The Goverment has hired the Red-Banner Corps to exercise its will, the rebels and their banker-backers have hired Henry's Legion.  The Red-Banner corps is a mid-tech infantry-heavy unit (Hindi's) supported by defense platforms (towed powerguns) and heavy tanks (Zaporoskiye's Sabres), Henry's Legions are a mid-tech mostly mechanized infantry force (Waldheim Dragoons).

What's this, its not Ambush Alley, OK, I've got the tank-bug from re-reading too much Hammer's Slammers over Xmas.  I picked up an early version of the rules and liked them so...   ...read on

Scouts nose forward

 Quickly followed by an infantry company supported by heavy tanks

 View from tank hill, heavy tanks lurk on the reverse slope

 They don't have to wait long

 Infantry wait for the trap to spring

 These are Micropanzer's figs, he painted them too.

 Heavy tanks nose through the underbrush and BOOM! A crushing opening volley destroys both lead tanks

The GEV MICVs surge against the central infantry decimating them with effective fire, destroying a tribarrel platform in the process

 The infantry flub it in return, only knocking out one weapon turret

The support detachment moves up and kills more infantry, while not even scratching the heavy tanks on the hill

 New turn, MICV detachment surges forward and debusses most of its infantry

 Infantry and MICVs kill more TUs

 The heavy tanks respond, knocking out another tank

 Support detachment moves up and concentrates fire on the heavies, achieving one kill

As this is a mercenary war I played it like the books and call a ceasefire.  The Red-banner group is pretty cut-up with only one heavy tank and one weapons platform plus two partial infantry groups.  They cannot mount an effective ambush so they surrender.  A side effect is that they actually destroyed most of the Henry's Legion detachment's armour and prevented them from continuing their patrol, so in a way their mission was a partial success

Henry's Legion call in the Red-Cross and guard the remaining Red-Banner forces

Game over.  A fast, fun set of rules, they are easy to learn and relatively simple.  They readily handled a company a side during solo-play, a big bonus for me as these days its mostly solo play in whatever time I can cram.  I have a couple more forces in prep so watch out for more!

THEY are comming! RUN! - or not...

Sorry folks, pics got deleted off the camera before I could get them on the computer.

A quick summary.  The Garn ran rampant through the base until the remotes arrived, after losing a couple of casualties the Garn retired in good order.  AA really highlights asymettric warfare, if one side gets a strong upper hand it really can roll-up for the other side fast.

An interlude - Who ate all the Space Pies!

 

Huzzah! I just managed to get hold of a lot of painted Micropanzer SAS figs.  On a quick look-over I think they are better in 'the lead' than they appear in the unpainted photos.  They look like they are wearing segmented/sectioned overlapping armour.  They all have backpack powered weapons with conspicuous hoses.   They have some belt-kit with knife/pistol back-ups.  The helmeted troops are fully enclosed style helmets, I've only a few beret troops and that's OK as the beret is one of the weak spots, its more of a Russian beret than a british style.

A major plus is Micropanzer's painting. Its very neat, nicely highlighted/shaded and realistically camouflaged and toned yet still sci-fi, an excellent bonus!

And more good news, these figs have NOT eaten all the space pies...

Some comparisons:

Above Micropanzer leader vs Peter Pig FFL.  The figs are approx the same height and body-size, the MP fig is just more bulky with armour.  Next MP vs Old Crow

 

Again, same general height/bulk, the difference being the MP armoured suit.  This is good. Next one of the mainstays of my 15mm sci-fi forces - an old GZG NAC trooper

 

More good news, good compatibility with MP, with the difference mostly being the suit.  This is OK as my NAC are used as light infantry.  Next, I have a few of the new NAC troops from GZG

 

This illustrates one of my peeves of the 'new 15mm' sci-fi ranges, rampant scale creep.  While I do like the new NAC figs they are a head taller and much bulkier than the old figs.

 

A group shot, new NAC, old NAC (GZG), Peter Pig, Old Crow

Another group shot, MP, P.Pig, old GZG, new GZG.  The MP and new GZG are about the same size, but the MP fig is fully armoured while the new GZG has just been at the space pies..

OK, enough interlude back to the regular stuff.

THEY are comming! RUN!

A short teaser, no time to play today so I set up a game to try to play over the next couple of days.  I'm going to give Tomorrow's War a go.

Garn Raiders hit a small research outpost.  Goal, get into the command center (with dish), download data and escape.  Force: 2 Ganrn raider teams plus a 'DropBear' Robot group.  Humans three teams, 2x security, one scientific, one group of heavy mechs (normally on patrol around base, are rushing back to base to defend it - will arrive on turn TBD).

More later

Bugstomper!

Epsilon Ariadne IV, a dull colony world.  That is, it would be if it were not for the Phugs.  The Phugs are somehow linked to the rich underground seams of hydrocarbons, we just don't know how exactly.  This means that the poor folks of EA IV have to put up with the Phug menace for the sake of the mines that make them their living.

Normally each settlement has a redundant array of Phug deterrent barriers. Normally, a settlement doesn't have a Settlement supervisor willing to sell barrier components on the black market to clear his gambling debts.  What does it matter, the rains keep the Phugs away, except it hasn't rained for a month....

Set-up: The Phugs have destroyed the settlement and opened a series of tunnel entrances.  A Special Forces reaction force has arrived to mop up the Phugs and seal the tunnels.

Special rules:
SF, in powered armour (mv8", +3 save), +2 FP, Td10, MD10.  Two Gun Spider support platforms, TD8, A+1, +2FP, mv8", one autonomous UAV spotter (no hidden move), SF combat walker +3 A, +2 FP, Mv 8
Phug, worker D6 A+1, Warrior D8 A+2  10 burrows to start.  egs can seal by using reg with fire action when in contact with burrow.

SF objective: seal all bug holes, Phugs, kill 50% of SF

SF force enter the settlement

Which is swarming with Phugs

 Warriors

 Workers
SF advance into a bug ambush

The SF PA rips through the bugs like a buzzsaw and moves to seal the tunnel
The gun-spider advances to cover the rear of the PA team

 The gun-spider is chargers by Warriors

Betwen the gun-spider and the Combat Walker the Warirors are chopped apart, but

one Warrior gets through and knocks-out the gun-spider
On the Left flank things are much quieter, the Sf force advances rapidly

The rapidly-moving Sf pay for thier haste, Phugs swarm from the tunnel
On the right Phug reinfrocements flood the area

The advancing right flank pops a bug tunnel and closes on the Phugs, decimating them as they advance

The combat walker finished off the Warrior attacking the gun-spider (which goes off-line)

On the left the gun-spider advances to attack a Worker group

The Workers get the drop on the gun-spider, knocking it out.

The Left PA team easily deal with the Flanking Workers

More Phugs Mass ahead of the SF forces (who are now down by both Gun-spiders)

OH NOES! My camera batteries died, I only have a couple of old ones in spare so only limited photos from now..

...The PA advance on the Phug reinforcements, all Phugs wiped out.  No Phug reinforcements for two turns (TL 4) enable the SF to pop a bunch of bug-tunnels.  At this point its getting hard to get any Phug reinforcements on the table.  Game over - a hard-fought win for the SF team, all tunnels sealed.  Combat Engineers can now reestablish the anti-Phug grid.

The victorious SF team return to their transports at the edge of the settlement

Leaving many dead Phugs in thier wake

This game was an excuse to leave the terrain out and just dig out more, and different, figs to play with.   I tried to balance all the techno-kit with lots of Phugs, it kinda works.  However, PA is lethal, lots of FP and A save rolls make for a tough unit.  Yet again the drones went down fast, perhaps I need to make then hang back more (I envisage them as semi-disposable compared to human troops, even if KO;'d a drone would be repaired/scavenged for reuse).

It'll be interesting to see how this kind of light/tough force does against opponents who shoot back.