Egyptian T-55 Company in 15mm

Egyptian T-55 company in 15mm - models from Battlefront

Before I got too much further back into Horus Heresy stuff, I wanted to finish off a project I had started back in the spring - completing Egyptian and Israeli forces for Battlefront's "Fate of a Nation" supplement.  I had painted quite a bit of stuff through the spring and summer for both sides, but true to my short-circuiting attention span, I eventually got distracted by other projects even with the finish line in sight!  This T-55 company was the last component I needed for the Egyptian force. I finished three T-55s in July, started on the rest of the company, but suddenly trailed off on to other things.

The T-55 - an inconic piece of Cold War era kit. A decent and modern MBT for the era of the Six Day War, they didn't get a chance to do too well in 1967 for the Egyptians, and the IDF destroyed a great number of them, and captured so many they refit them for IDF service!

I have the attention span of a gnat.  Anyway, while I did this other stuff, six T-55s were sitting on the painting table with a base coat of paint. After weeks of passing over them I finally snapped and finished them off this week.  So here is a completed T-55 company, nine tanks strong.

The tank with the open hatch will be used to represent the company commander

These painted relatively fast, but as I said in my previous post on these vehicles, the quality of the cast metal accessories is very, very disappointing. The cupola MGs, fenders, hatches, fuel tanks and crew were all very poor quality castings.  A great disappointment considering how much you pay for them.

Tactical numbers are from Battlefront; I don't know that the Egyptian army of 1967 was too rigorous when it came to turret numbers, but I think it adds a nice flourish to the vehicles

The main colour is GW's "Zandri Dust", pin-washed with GW's "Agrax Earthshade" wash and weathered liberally with some dark brown chipping and a bit of soot and dust coloured weather powder. The numerals are all decals from Battlefront.  And while their accessories seem to be taking a dive quality-wise, the decals are top-notch!

In Flames of War, the Egyptian companies essentially move as platoons...so this will be a horde of tanks...

This completes my initial Egyptian force for "Fate Of A Nation". In addition to these bad boys, I have a company of IS-3s, a company of mechanized infantry, and a pair of ZSU-57-2s.  It works out to something like just over 1000 points of stuff for the table.

We'll see how long they last on the table tonight!

Beer League Action (With Footdar!)

It`s fall, which means it`s time for another season of the Winnipeg 40K Beer League!

Mission 1: Secure footing
After making planet fall the Chaos forces must press their advantage and quickly strike to take hold of the defenders strong points along their outer defenses hopefully bringing their scattered army to bear before the defenders can react.

Objective: Emperor’s will

Secondary objectives: First Blood, Slay the Warlord, Line Breaker

Deployment: Pitched battle

Special rules: Night fight, reserves, mysterious objectives, scattered forces, Defenders, Attackers

Scattered forces: You may, but don’t have to, deploy your Warlord and any troops choices on the table, the rest of your army must go into ONGOING reserves unless they are put into normal reserves. Units that must enter normal reserves still have to enter normal reserves. Ongoing reserves will arrive by moving onto the table from your table edge on turn 1 and may not arrive by any other means. Other units in normal reserves may arrive as per the special rules of that unit (ie deep strike, outflank etc)

Defenders (Forces of Order): Units that take up a Heavy support choice gain Objective Secured.

Attackers (Forces of Chaos): Units that take up a fast attack choices gain Outflank, units that have Outflank gain Acute Senses.

***

This time I went in with a mixed all-foot Eldar force:

• Phoenix Lord Asurmen
• 8 x Dire Avengers
• 8 x Dire Avengers
• 5 x Swooping Hawks
• 5 x Warp Spiders
• 4 x Dark Reapers, Starshot Missiles, incl. Exarch with Fast Shot
• Wraithlord, with 2 x Flamers, Bright Lance, and Ghostglaive
• Aegis Defense Line with Icarus Lascannon

Total=997 Points

The Aegis Defense Line is a resin kit from Mr. Dandy. The model is really evocative of the Eldar, and it comes with anti-aircraft guns, too. I just swapped out the Eldar-y Quad-gun for a Pulse Laser from my bits box.

Graeme brought over an interesting Tyranid force:

• Hive Tyrant, with wings and Heavy Venom cannon (Warlord)
• Hive Tyrant, with wings and Stranglethorn cannon
• Harpy, with twin-linked Venom Cannon
• 3 x Warriors, with Deathspitters
• 13 x Termagaunts
• 13 x Termagaunts
• 10 x Hormaguants, with poison sacs
• 10 x Hormagaunts, with poison sacs
• 10 x Gargoyles

Three(!) flying monstrous creatures (including two, level-2 psykers) anchored this large force.

***

Graeme set up first, placing his lone objective in the water treatment plant near the centre of the table. He really wanted to get his forces stuck in! I countered by placing my objective deep in the southeast corner, with a line of sight to the enemy objective. I placed the Aegis Line there too, hoping to hold that objective against all comers.

The first few turns, Graeme basically ran or flew everything south towards the Eldar Defense Line, except for the Warriors and a squad of Termagaunts, who seized the central objective. For their part, the Eldar gunned down everything that got into range, losing the Dire Avengers to concentrated fire and the close combat attacks of one of the Hive Tyrants. The Hawks bounced around the Tyranid backfield, but were finally driven off by the Tyrant HQ. The last of the Spiders over-reached himself, teleporting straight into the Warp trying to get in range of the Tyrant HQ.

Below, Asurmen and his Dark Reaper retinue (with "Objective Secured"!) hold the line against the big bugs. The Hive Tyrant to the west had only one wound left, so Graeme retreated it from the Wraithlord.



Graeme played agressively, trying to get the Tyrant to cast a psychic power. Sadly, he rolled Perils of the Warp, and the tyrant killed itself!



At the end of the game, each side held an objective. Forces in each other's deployment zones were either killed or driven off. Early on, the Eldar had managed First Blood (those nasty, poisonous Hormagaunts had to go), so the final score was 4VPs to 3VPs for the Swordwind!



Result: Eldar Win

"Man of the Match" was Asurmen himself, who tanked countless shots directed against the Reapers.

For the last few years I have fielded very heavily mechanized Eldar forces ("Serpent Spam"). Since the spring I have been having fun running foot Eldar. You get a surprising number of models on the table, and it throws out a lot of firepower. Asurmen is great for tanking shiots, especially with his Warlord Power, which allows him to re-roll saving throws of "1" (note that he has a base save of 2+).

As Graeme said, "That's not annoying at all."

World Eaters Support Squad Finished

World Eaters Tactical Support Squad

 Here in the Canadian prairies we speak of summers being brief or short - and it looks like we are lowering the bar again in 2014.  After such a brief summer, the dread winter siege is already looming to the west. At least I made the most of my summer vacation at the end of August - and I even managed a bit of painting while I was away! Up first for show, I finished the World Eaters Tactical Support squad that I had started earlier in August.

Mark IV armour suits on these Marines

The figures are all 28mm Space Marines from Forge World - they are equipped with Mark IV power armour. All of these troops, with the exception of the officer, are armed with Volkite Calivers, exotic weapons of the Horus Heresy era.  I don't know if they will be much good in the game, but they sure look cool, and that's key.

Volkite Calivers...they look really eerie, very cool - excellent sculpts from Forge World

I was very rusty painting the models, or at least it felt that way.  I was probably distracted by being at the lake. In particular, it was tough to make the white armour look "right" - on some of them it looks a little streaky.  And I really struggled to apply the weathering consistently.

The embossed shoulder pads are great - and as I have said before, addictive

I want the Marines to look a bit worn, like they have seen action.  But with weathering I always struggle on the "less is more" test.  Not so bad when you go a bit overboard on tanks, but it was hit and miss on these guys, particularly with white armour.  Oh well - you have to practise to improve, right? Besides, as a group, it turned out OK.

For the Emperor...no, what? Sorry - I meant, for Horus!!

This squad brings my current World Eaters force to 39 troops - hardly apocalypse-worthy, and not quite ready for prime time.  They will need a dreadnought or two, and some vehicles.  I am going to add more infantry, at least one assault squad, I think, and maybe some more devastator-type troops.  In the interim, this might do OK for a Rogue Trader game at some point, just to get the minis "blooded" on the table.

Infinity - Panoceania test figures

Just a quick post with some test paint jobs on some figures...

Fresh back from GenCon and a family road trip at the end of Aug I was jonesing to paint something, having not touched a brush in about 4 weeks! Worse yet, several days of that time I got to see all the amazing work of the pro-painters at GenCon and got to pick up the brand new Infinity - Operation: Icestorm box set.  So, back in town and needing to do something, I pulled out some of the figures from the box this weekend to do some test colour schemes and paint jobs.

These are the Panoceania Fusiliers that come in the box, which are new upgraded sculpts from the old ones.

As with almost all Corvis Belli sculpts they are extremely clean (almost no mold lines) and fit together almost perfectly without cleaning or filing! 

Having had a chance to watch their studio painter and talk with him a bit at the show, I decided to give some of his airbrush techniques a try on the armor.  While it turned out OK, the shading is way too subtle the way I did it.  Turns out I was worried about being too dramatic and instead went to soft.  Oh well, I know better for next time. 

I am still pretty happy with how they turned out.  Other than potentially the Faces, which I need to bug Dave or Jim to give me some lessons on skin tone to clean them up.

Star Wars Battle Report - Escape from Cloud City!

A couple weeks ago I ran a game of Star Wars Miniature Battles using a scenario from the "Ultimate Missions" scenario book. The game was part of a campaign based on Cloud City from The Empire Strikes Back. In the game the Rebels (Leia, Chewbacca, R2-D2 and Lando) had to rescue Han Solo before Boba Fett could escape in Slave I, while Luke faced Darth Vader in personal combat in the freezing chamber.

I set up the terrain using some Death Star walls I had done up before, with random detritus and crates scattered about (these Force users have to have something to throw around at each other). I used doors from the excellent new Sedition Wars terrain set and a "Freeze Chamber" tile from the old GW Space Hulk game. Slave I was represented by the Revell model kit, along with a cool "Han in Carbonite" from the same kit. The figures are mostly SWMB prepaints, with Luke in Bespin Fatigues and Leia in Bespin Outfit painted by me - they're figures from the old "true 25mm" Grenadier/West End Games Star Wars range.

Luke and Darth swing their lightsabers around as an Imperial squad heads toward the real action.
 

Fett and his Bespin Guard flunkies push frozen Han towards the docked ship. Stormtroopers take aim at the Rebels just out of shot.

Slave I awaits, fuelled and ready to go.

Luke confronts Vader in the carbon freeze chamber.

Vader leaps across the chamber and attacks...

Meanwhile the fight is not going great for the Rebels. Leia's down and Fett's flunkies are halfway to the ship by now. The notoriously under-pointed Boba Fett takes the fight to the Rebels...

 

Back in the carbon freezing room, Vader has force-pushed Luke into the chamber. The scenario rules state that if there's a Rebel character in the freeze chamber and the only other characters in the room are Imperials, the Imperial activation can be used to "freeze" the Rebel character. "Too easy!" says Vader... as long as he activates on his next turn before Luke, the hapless farmboy will be a meat popsicle on his way to the Emperor faster than you can say "utini"!

But the farmboy has advanced further in his Jedi training than the Sith Lord suspected! Luke won the die roll for initiative and activated before Vader, using his last Force Point to Force Leap out of the chamber!

Sadly it was all in vain as the merciless Dark Lord of the Sith overpowered the nascent Jedi, defeating him handily.

Screaming for vengeance after the Princess was defeated, Chewie charges in on Fett...

...only to be shot down by the coldhearted bounty hunter!

Result: Imperial victory. The Rebels failed to free Solo and Luke was defeated by Vader. Even though Fett escaped with Solo, he didn't stop both the Rebels and Imperials from fulfilling their victory conditions, which was the only way the Fringe faction could win.

This was a fun game and very cinematic (especially the Luke vs Vader duel) but it wasn't really close in terms of victory. This is the fourth or fifth game we've played from the Ultimate Missions book and they've all seemed quite unbalanced - I wonder if they were playtested?? This game would've benefitted from one squad less for the Imperials and some different deployment. Admittedly the latter was kind of down to me as I set up "3D" terrain rather than use the supplied maps, but to me the aesthetic is pretty important. Anyway, we may play the next scenario (Rebel Escape/Luke vs Vader Part II) but if we do, I'll more carefully consider the opposing forces as well as the setup.

Through the Mud and the Blood - WW1 Canadians vs. Germans

Hello everyone, this is a bit late for an after action report, since the game was run when Curt was in town in July this summer.  However, after the game I got busy with work and then went on a 3 week road trip with the family.  Therefore, it's late by about a month.  The game was a lot of fun, so hopefully the report is worth the wait.

We used the excellent "Through the Mud and the Blood" rule set by Too Fat Lardies, which keeps putting out awesome rule sets that focus on the flavour and feel of an era rather than a competitive rule set. The game was based on a really interesting looking scenario that was published in one of the Lardies Winter specials that I have been meaning to try.  It uses some very interesting mechanics to track time, in the form of a "Tempus Fugit" deck that gets smaller each time you draw the one special card in it. It starts with 1 Tempus Fugit card and 4 blank cards.  Each time the TF card is drawn, one blank is removed.  When there is only the TF card left, the game ends.  A very interesting idea, and it worked quite well, running for roughly 10 fast turns before the TF card was drawn for the first time!  Once the deck started to thin out though, time really did fly!

 

The original scenario called for the Germans making an assault on a British position, however due to my collection of figures I reversed the roles, making the Canadians the aggressors.  They would have to come up a French country road and try to take a town that the Germans were trying to defend in a delaying action as the rest of their forces fell back to safety.  To win the Germans would need to dispatch twice as many Canadians compared to their own loses.  The Canadians however would capture 1/2 of any German unit that they were within 12" off at the end of the game.

Jim controlled the German force which consisted of an HMG squad, two rifle sections with 2 bombers each, and a level 3 Big Man.  They would start in the town on the hill along the right edge of the photo above.

The Canadians force consisted of 6 rifle sections and was controlled by Curt and Greg.  3 sections were from the 10th battalion and 3 from the 16th, so half in pants and half in kilts.  The Canadians also had both a level 3 and a level 2 big men to help coordinate the assault.  However, the Canadians would only start with 2 blinds on the table, with the potential to get 2 more on subsequent turns until everything was on the table.  They would also have 2 false blinds to help scout the area ahead of their main force (or potential mixed into the force to confuse the Germans).

 

The Canadians started out cautiously sending several blinds through the boccage and along the ridge line of the hill to try and reach the walled  yard along the treeline.  The Germans on the other side of the table felt that an aggressive defense was the best plan of slowing down the Canadians and advanced to the walls along the treeline and sent one blind forward along the road to the boccage and fields.

 

More Canadians arrive and start to make their way up the road.  The German blind can be seen to have moved even further into the fields, aggressive indeed!

 

Several turns into the game and the Germans revealed the forward blind as a devastating MG08 team, and worse yet they had worked their way forward to provide enfilade fire against the Canadian teams in the woods that had started to trade fire with the Germans behind the walls.

 

The Canadians reacted quickly to the new threat and moved up several blinds, and revealed one to take some shots at the MG08 team who was in the open from the new attackers!  Maybe the Germans had been over aggressive.

 Along the treeline things were heating up dramatically.  There were not 4 Canadian rifle sections facing off against 2 German rifle sections, the Germans had the better cover though and were defending.  Several rounds of fire were traded as the Canadians tried to inch closer to make an assault.  There were not many casualties on either side, but the shock was starting to add up.

 The German MG08 was extremely lucky to survive the opening volley from the Canadians and decided that discretion really was the better part of valour and retreated behind the boccage to setup for return fire the next turn.  With an open field between them, this flank was shaping up to be a stalemate unless someone got lucky on shooting.

The Canadians had finally setup their assault and were on their way in.

 

The Germans defended bravely, driving back the first wave of Canadians, but lost several men and were down to just 4 men on that flank as the second unit slammed into them.  Even with all the bonus dice for defending cover and the enemy movement, the assaulting Canadians got the best of them and overran the position.

In the end with only the MG08 section left on the table and the Canadians moving to envelope it on three sides, the Germans were forced to surrender.

Overall the game ran really well and kept flowing nicely.  The Tempus Fugit deck worked extremely well, even if it ran a bit more in favour of the Canadians by lasting so long early on.  Once a few blanks were gone though it started losing cards faster and at the end, there was only one blank card left.  If a blank or two had been drawn earlier, the Canadians may have run out of time to make the final assault and then the game would have been extremely tight on points to determine the victor.

It was another great game of Through the Mud and the Blood, I can't wait to host another!  I need to get back on track and paint up some more men though, my forces are only about 1/2 the size I want them to be.

World Eaters Tactical Support Troops

World Eaters Space Marines with "tactical support" weapons; I will add some groundwork once I finish painting the whole group

Well, it's been a while, but I am finally putting paint on some more Horus Heresy figures for Warhammer 40k (or "30k").  These are figures from Forge World, Space Marines wearing Mark IV power armour from the "World Eaters" Legion, one of the Legions that would turn against the Emperor and join with Horus' rebellion.

The officer has a "vexilla" - I thought they were stupid at first, but I really like how Byron's turned out so I thought I would do at least one officer with one

The "Tactical Support Squad" is a creature of the Legion army list, a troop choice of a supporting nature (although I haven't seen the latest cash grab-dex, so perhaps they changed this?).  Keeping with the grand style of the Space Marine legions, the squad is all armed with the same support weapon. This essentially creates an Imperial version of the Eldar Aspect Warriors, and this is a good thing for the Legion player.  Concentrating the weapons in this way manages to simultaneously match well with the fluff of the setting and what I imagine the "tactical approach" of a Space Marine Legion to be (overwhelming, singular application of brute firepower) while also allowing the Legion to fight on the table in a way that lines up perfectly with the min/max channelling effect created by the 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th edition of the 40k rules.

The embossed shoulder pads are a dangerous addiction - once you do one squad with them, you will want to do all squads with them...

The weapon options for these Tactical Support squads range from the classics - flamers, melta guns, plasma guns - to some specific Crusade-era/Heresy-era choices like "Volkite" weapons.  To catch some of the flavour from the period, I opted for the latter choice for this squad.

The armour is quite mucky (pigment powders) but I still needed to weather the shoulder plate markings a bit more

The good weapon smiths of Mars made Volkite weapons available from pistol-size all the way to super-heavy-tank size.  Other than the officer, the Marines are carrying Volkite Calivers, sort of on par with a plasma gun.  According to the fluff, Volkite weapons are a type of thermal ray weapon, once common among the early Legions but, as the Emperor's Crusade started to really take off and the ranks of the Space Marine Legions grew and grew, was replaced by the more available and easier-to-make bolt gun.

Volkite Calivers - a sort of plasma gun without the downside

The weapon has a special rule - "deflegrate". I was less taken by its game effect (which seems kind of scary yet redundant and therefore somewhat pointless) than by the word itself. Apparently "deflagration" is an actual thing - subsonic combustion through heat transfer, or something like that. So this is a horrifying weapon that I can totally imagine the Space Marine Legions rolling out to use on those who resist the Imperial Truth.

Plus the Forge World sculptors/designers did a great job on these guns - as they have with so much of their Horus Heresy stuff.  The weapon looks f**king cool and dangerous.  I love it for the looks-cool-factor.

I am doing a 10-man squad with these things, and I hope to finish the whole group by Friday.