Elysian Fields (of Fire)

Last Thursday Greg brought out his Valk-heavy 1500 point Elysian Drop Troop army out for a game against Hive Fleet Nostromo, my Alien-style Tyranids. It was simultaneously the first outing for Greg's gorgeous army and for my new-to-me "Stalingrad" resin terrain, this time standing in for the embattled Imperial planet Toxo IV.

Greg's Valkyries and especially his Vulture (Vendetta?) certainly brought the pain with twin-linked Punisher cannons (20 shots re-rolling misses?!?!) but we had similar luck with bringing on reinforcements... "what did we say? All at once. What did we do? One at a time." 

The game ended on Turn 5 as a draw as we both held our own objectives, uncontested. A couple more turns of play would have been interesting - I had an undamaged Trygon set to eat some Guardsmen while Greg still had some mobile troops in Valks flying around. But it was great to see his lads out and to use the new terrain. Regarding the latter, I'm all about cost amortization, so look for many battles to occur in the sump factories of Toxo IV, the ruins of Grozny, and the industrial area of New Putingrad, as well as in Stalingrad ;-)

"Just another bug hunt?" Aliens: 40K style.

Last week MikeF and I ran a game at Dallas' set in the Aliens universe. Mike had substantially completed several "Marine" figures from Gripping Beast that stand in exceptionally well for the characters from the movie Aliens. I re-based them, washed them with Deneb Mud (I should buy that stuff in gallon jugs) and touched them up a tiny bit. Mike re-based a bunch of "click game" Aliens figures for proper tabletop gaming.

I had also finished that old pewter(!) APC from Leading Edge. It can be seen in the photo below, with Conscript Frederick in the background.



For the game, we decided to set the scenario on a new planet colonized under the auspices of the Weyland-Yutani Corporation. Scientists from the Bio-weapons Division have made a breakthrough on site, but have then sent out an urgent S.O.S. A section of Colonial Marines was dropped in response. That initial section was ambushed by unknown xenomorphs, so the platoon's second section and their APC have been brought in to save their comrades' bacon. Barricades in the streets (from when the colonists futilely tried to put up a fight) limited the movement of vehicles.

For rules, we used Warhammer 40K, 5th ed. with one significant change - the firing phases have been swapped. This allowed the bugs to advance into charge range, with the chance to be stopped if the Marine firepower held up. So, the order of play was:

1. Bugs move
2. Marines shoot or run
   
3. Bugs assault
4. Marines move
5. Bugs run
6. Marines assault

The rules for the various factions follow.

Colonial Marines
A rifle squad consists of four Colonial Marines led by a rank lance corporal or above. Each squad may divide into two-man fire teams: the rifle team and gun team. The rifle team consists of a pair of riflemen assigned together on the 'buddy' system, each equipped with a M41A Pulse Rifle or a M240 Flame Unit. The gun team is made up of a rifleman with an M41 Pulse Rifle and a machine gunner carrying the automatic M56 Smart Gun. The squad leader may also carry a shotgun. Each squad has a member issued with a motion tracker.

Two or three squads, led by a sergeant or lieutenant riding in a M577 armoured personnel carrier, make up a section. Two sections make up a platoon. (In a drop operation, a UD-4L dropship is attached to each section from the aerospace company team.)

Colonial Marine: WS 3, BS 4, S 3, T 3, W 1, I 3, A 1, Ld 7, Save 4+
Platoon Sergeant: WS 3, BS 4, S 3, T 3, W 1, I 3, A 2, Ld 8, Save 4+

- Pulse Rifle: Range 24”, S4, AP5, Assault 2 or
--Underslung Grenade Launcher: Range 12”, S6, AP4, Assault 1
- Flame Unit: Range Template, S4, AP5, Assault 1
- Smart Gun: Range 24”, S5, AP4, Assault 4, Rending
- Shotgun: Range 12”, S3, AP-, Assault 2

M577A3 Armoured Personnel Carrier: Tank; BS 4; F 11, S 11, R 10; Capacity 13
- Particle Beam Cannon (turret): Range 36”, S7, AP2, Heavy 1, Blast, Twin-linked
- Gatling Gun (front sponson): Range 36”, S5, AP4, Heavy 3, Twin-linked

Weyland-Yutani Corporation (ウェイランド湯谷)
This conglomerate is involved in all aspects of space colonization and research. Its employees demonstrate a great willingness to sacrifice human life in the pursuit of profit.

Tech: WS 3, BS 3, S 3, T 3, W 1, I 3, A 1, Ld 7, Save -

Xenomorphs
Alien Warrior: WS 6, BS 0, S 4, T 4, W 1, I 6, A 2, Ld 10, Save 5+
- Rending attacks
- If defeated in close combat by a Marine, Marines in base contact with the dead bug(s) take an automatic S3 hit (acid splash)

One squad of Colonial Marines started in the northeast corner of the board, escorting the Weland-Yutani squint.



Their disabled Leading Edge APC can be seen on the bottom of the picture below, as Frederick, Indo and Greg look on. Conscripts Frederick, Indo, Dallas and Perry played the various Marine units. Greg, MikeF, and MikeA played bugs. I ran the charts. The balance of the Marines would come in from the south table edge, including two full squads, a platoon sergeant, and their APC.

For the Marine reinforcements, Frederick contributed his 1996-era Galoob Action Fleet APC - a great "toy" that includes a full interior, a movable and stowable turret, and an opening hatch. (Good luck if you can find one now for less than $200).



Below, a squad moves cautiously, under the cover of the APC's armour.



Aliens came on as "blip" counters, simulating the movement detected by the Marines' sensors. Once in line of site, the blips were turned over, revealing a number between 0 and 5 - this was the number of actual bugs present. Killed bugs just went back into the general reinforcement pool; the Marines could never actually kill all the bugs.

Caption for the photo below: "Surprise!"



The tech made it most of the way south, but the Marines got bogged down fighting bugs.



Below is a shot from the final moments of the first game, as bugs swarm over the now-destroyed APC and the platoon sergeant vainly tries to come to the aid of the last of his Marines, a lone smart-gunner.



The game went pretty fast, so we played the scenario again. We re-arranged how the bugs appeared, choosing three fixed spawning points in the middle of the east, north and west table edges. I stepped in for a Marine player who had to leave. The initial squad broke up, using their flamer dude to escort the W-Y tech geek. The other three died bravely covering their retreat south.



Below: "Eat flaming death, xeno scum!"



Below, MikeA and Brian watch the retreat of the Marines.



That flamer guy was awesome, toasting maybe a dozen xenomorphs during the course of the game, before finally falling to a concerted alien rush.



The Marines split all their squads up, with the teams being able to cover each other with firepower, and allowing some of the squad to avoid being locked in close combat if the bugs got too close and were able to assault.

This time around, several Marines and the techie survived the fight and exited the south table edge with the APC, barely one move ahead of the closest bugs. Again, a very close game.

Below, in a staged and shopped propaganda photo after the fight was over, the tech can be seen entering a waiting APC.



Sadly, the tech's ultimate fate was probably on a dissection table in a secret Wayland-Yutani lab. They had to be able to smuggle biological contraband off world somehow...

The games were faced paced and a lot of fun. It had much more of a skirmish feel than the usual 40K game, due to the limited number of figures on the table.

Ride of the Elysians

Tonight the Elysians will undertake their first full-blown 40k engagement in a 2000 point matchup against the evil Hive Fleet Nostromo.

The Elysians had a small test run in September of last year, but this will be their first game as an all-in detachment. While the standard fate of newly-painted models in their maiden game is well known, I am still pretty fired up to have these guys out for a run.

Let's mount up for Toxo IV, boys!

To mark the occasion, we will set the game in - where else? - good old Toxo IV! I'm sure the Elysians are not that excited to learn they will be deploying there, but orders are orders!

See everyone tonight.

Ri-co-la!

Over the weekend I finished off some more stuff to go with the ongoing Napoleonic project - some Austrian Jaegers, based individually as a skirmish unit. The models are from Foundry, and they are based on 25mm washers.

I love the Austrian Jaegers - with their high, folded mountain caps, stubby rifles, lacing for the powderhorns, french horns for the musicians, big-time mustaches etc. it's a bit like a Ricola commercial with guns.



The Jaegers, armed with rifles, fought as either skrimishers or formed units for the Austrians. For the scenario that has driven my original list of units for the Black Powder challenge, the roster calls for one skirmish unit, so I did the Jaegers that way to fit the bill.


I was also limited by my collection - you might notice how quite a few of the models in this unit are in a particular loading pose, biting off a charge. Well, that is courtesy of Foundry. I had two packs of Jaegers - one of command, and one of "loading/firing". These packs were from a long time ago, when Foundry had 12 figures in the pack (for less money too). Well, all 12 of the "loading/firing" figures turned out to be loading. Thanks Foundry.

The command pack had some alternative poses (including one more guy loading - ARGH!), but it gives some variety (at least one guy firing, two guys running, the officer, and the musician). Overall, I think there is just enough variety to break up the monotony of the dudes chewing on the rounds.

I do want to have a formed unit in the collection, as Jaeger battalions were often present in the advance-guard-type columns that I think will make for some great 25mm-scale Napoleonic scenarios. A formed unit would call for about 32 models, and with Foundry looking for $22.50 US per 8 figures (plus shipping), I will opt instead for some Alban miniatures. I have never painted Alban before, but they look pretty sharp, so watch the blog for more on these in the future.

Meanwhile, I have finally started Napoleonic cavalry. Up first is a Regiment of Austrian Dragoons - a beefy one with 24 castings. I've never painted Napoleonic cavalary in 25mm scale before, so it will be slow going until I get a bit more confidence with the horses, sadles, bridles etc. But the Austrian Dragoon uniform is very close to that of the infantry (helmet, yellow and black pom-pom or whatever on the top, white coat, coloured facings etc) so that should help me get some momentum.

And back to Napoleonics...

Well, it's been a while since I last added some stuff as part of my Napoleonic Challenge, but given that Curt C has fired up a Napoleonic spring thaw painting challenge, it was time to get back at it. My goal-list for this project still stood on the blog, and I finished off a pair of 6-pounder guns with crew this week.

The figures are all from Wargames Foundry.



As Curt notes in his blog, I absolutely hate painting artillery. Consistent with many of my views on the hobby, there is no rational reason for this. I just find the effort/reward ratio really low on the guns. While the Black Powder game still hews to what I call the "get-over-yourself-re:artillery" school of thinking and lets one gun and crew represent a battery, other new "grand manner" style rules we are looking at need several guns for a battery. Forty infantry models can represent a 500 man battalion, but to abstract 10 guns I need eight guns and crews? The amount of painting an modelling needed just to get a damn gun battery on the table is totally out of whack to my impatient pea-sized brain.



There are all sorts of "rules" reasons for having the big batteries which I'm sure are quite sound (the gun batteries actually took a lot of space on the battlefield, the other rule sets like Shako are too casual in letting units maneuver near them, it makes you as a player think a lot more about where to lay the guns etc.)I still can't stand it, but if we are going to blast Napoleon's lackies, I'll have to get over it and pile in several more pieces and crews! A fresh order for more figs is already going out today...

Meanwhile, to keep up some momentum, a skirmish unit of Jaegers is up next. These are Foundry as well. Here is a picture of the first "test" figures...

Ride above it all

Another bit from the Rogue Trader nostalgia retro pile - a jet-bike mounted Imperial Guard Lieutenant.



The Imperial jet-bike is a Rogue Trader favourite! I was pretty chuffed to acquire a couple of these things. The only downside is the rank of the officer - the Lieutenant is the lowest rung on the commissioned officer ladder of the Rogue Trader-era Imperial Guard. A pimped-out ride like this is much better suited to a Captain or, even better, the Imperial Commander - jetting around while the foot-sloggers march off to get gunned-down in the latest Imperial Guard offensive.



In terms of the strict technicalities, the Lieutenant needs to "always" have a command section with him. Of course, you could, in Rogue Trader, mount the whole lot on jet bikes (a medic, sergeant, standard carrier and a pair of guys with lascannons), but those figs are just not going to be around to acquire. So screw that - this Lieutentant will simply jet hover above his measly command section, if he uses one at all.

I do, however, have a Commissar with a jet-bike in the pending pile...so while this Lieutenant will be free of his command section, the local voice of the Emperor will be able to keep up with him no problem...

I, Robot

A few quick updates for today. First, in the continuing Rogue Trader buzz, I painted up an RT-era robot.




This model came in an OOP blister pack from E-bay, and it was cheap! OOOH!!! But when I got the blister, I saw why - the arms and body did not match. The body was a "Conqueror", and the arms were from some other model ("Cataphract" or something). Oh well. A robot is a robot. The Rogue Trader robot rules are a byzantine suck-fest regardless, so this thing will just end up counting as some kind of dreadnought in a game, and the technicalities of which arms it has won't matter.



The robot is armed with a bolter, a flamer and a melta-gun. That thing on its back might be a jump pack too.



Being an Imperial construct, it probably runs Windows XP. I would imagine the Adeptus Mechanicus geeks would also have built a wi-fi hotspot into it somewhere, so nearby officers can use their Ipads without have to pay cellular data overage and roaming charges to Imperial Telecom Services...